Cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid food stamps and other welfare programs
May 24, 2017 15:06:01 #
Ricko wrote:
Quest Girl-MIC-Military industrial Complex- Trump... (show quote)
I like Einstein's quote that "the difference between genius and stupidity it that genius knows it has limits."
May 24, 2017 15:26:53 #
The Republic Has Fallen: The Deep State’s Plot to Take Over America Has Succeeded [SHORT]
John W. Whitehead
Rutherford Institute
May 24, 2017
No doubt about it.
The coup d’etat has been successful.
The Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military industrial complex—has taken over.
The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad.
When in doubt, follow the money trail.
It always points the way.
Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and made to dance to the tune of the Deep State.
Enter Donald Trump, the candidate who swore to drain the swamp in Washington DC.
Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the Deep State to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic.
Just recently, for instance, Trump agreed to sell Saudi Arabia more than $110 billion in military weapons.
Meanwhile, Trump—purportedly in an effort to balance the budget in 10 years—wants to slash government funding for programs for the poor, ranging from health care and food stamps to student loans and disability payments.
The military doesn’t have to worry about tightening its belt, however. No, the military’s budget—with its trillion dollar wars, its $125 billion in administrative waste, and its contractor-driven price gouging that hits the American taxpayer where it hurts the most—will continue to grow, thanks to Trump.
This is how you keep the Deep State in power.
The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, the military will get more militaristic, America’s endless wars will get more endless, and the prospect of peace will grow ever dimmer.
As for the terrorists, they will keep on being played for pawns as long as Saudi Arabia remains their breeding ground and America remains the source of their weapons, training and know-how.
Follow the money. It always points the way.
As Bertram Gross noted in Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, “evil now wears a friendlier face than ever before in American history.”
Writing in 1980, Gross predicted a future in which he saw:
…a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion…
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.
The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished.
It will not be revived or restored without a true revolution of values and a people’s rebellion the likes of which we may not see for a very long time.
America is a profitable business interest for a very select few, and war—wars waged abroad against shadowy enemies and wars waged at home against the American people—has become the Deep State’s primary means of income.
After all, war is big business.
In order to maintain a profit margin, one would either have to find new enemies abroad or focus on fighting a war at home, against the American people, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with today.
Wars waged abroad to the tune of trillions of dollars since 9/11.
Military equipment sold to foreign enemies.
Local police transformed into a standing army in the American homeland through millions of dollars’ worth of grants to local police agencies for military weapons, vehicles, training and assistance.
The public acclimated to the sights and sounds of martial law through urban training exercises and domestic military training drills timed and formulated to coincide with or portend actual crises.
The citizenry taught to fear and distrust each other and to welcome the trappings of the police state.
Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion on its hands. Instead, the American people have been given the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.
“We the people” are in hot water now.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.
From Clinton to Bush, then Obama and now Trump, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.
The republic has fallen to fascism with a smile.
Elections will not save us.
Learn the treacherous lessons of 2008 and 2016: presidential elections have made a mockery of our constitutional system of government, suggesting that our votes can make a difference when, in fact, they merely serve to maintain the status quo.
Don’t delay.
Start now—in your own communities, in your schools, at your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust, police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t listen to their constituents, and a system of government that grows more tyrannical by the day.
If you wait until 2020 to rescue our republic from the clutches of the Deep State, it will be too late.
John W. Whitehead
Rutherford Institute
May 24, 2017
No doubt about it.
The coup d’etat has been successful.
The Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military industrial complex—has taken over.
The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad.
When in doubt, follow the money trail.
It always points the way.
Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and made to dance to the tune of the Deep State.
Enter Donald Trump, the candidate who swore to drain the swamp in Washington DC.
Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the Deep State to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic.
Just recently, for instance, Trump agreed to sell Saudi Arabia more than $110 billion in military weapons.
Meanwhile, Trump—purportedly in an effort to balance the budget in 10 years—wants to slash government funding for programs for the poor, ranging from health care and food stamps to student loans and disability payments.
The military doesn’t have to worry about tightening its belt, however. No, the military’s budget—with its trillion dollar wars, its $125 billion in administrative waste, and its contractor-driven price gouging that hits the American taxpayer where it hurts the most—will continue to grow, thanks to Trump.
This is how you keep the Deep State in power.
The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, the military will get more militaristic, America’s endless wars will get more endless, and the prospect of peace will grow ever dimmer.
As for the terrorists, they will keep on being played for pawns as long as Saudi Arabia remains their breeding ground and America remains the source of their weapons, training and know-how.
Follow the money. It always points the way.
As Bertram Gross noted in Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, “evil now wears a friendlier face than ever before in American history.”
Writing in 1980, Gross predicted a future in which he saw:
…a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion…
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.
The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished.
It will not be revived or restored without a true revolution of values and a people’s rebellion the likes of which we may not see for a very long time.
America is a profitable business interest for a very select few, and war—wars waged abroad against shadowy enemies and wars waged at home against the American people—has become the Deep State’s primary means of income.
After all, war is big business.
In order to maintain a profit margin, one would either have to find new enemies abroad or focus on fighting a war at home, against the American people, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with today.
Wars waged abroad to the tune of trillions of dollars since 9/11.
Military equipment sold to foreign enemies.
Local police transformed into a standing army in the American homeland through millions of dollars’ worth of grants to local police agencies for military weapons, vehicles, training and assistance.
The public acclimated to the sights and sounds of martial law through urban training exercises and domestic military training drills timed and formulated to coincide with or portend actual crises.
The citizenry taught to fear and distrust each other and to welcome the trappings of the police state.
Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion on its hands. Instead, the American people have been given the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.
“We the people” are in hot water now.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.
From Clinton to Bush, then Obama and now Trump, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.
The republic has fallen to fascism with a smile.
Elections will not save us.
Learn the treacherous lessons of 2008 and 2016: presidential elections have made a mockery of our constitutional system of government, suggesting that our votes can make a difference when, in fact, they merely serve to maintain the status quo.
Don’t delay.
Start now—in your own communities, in your schools, at your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust, police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t listen to their constituents, and a system of government that grows more tyrannical by the day.
If you wait until 2020 to rescue our republic from the clutches of the Deep State, it will be too late.
May 24, 2017 22:55:49 #
Iamdjchrys
Loc: Decatur, Texas
jim keris wrote:
Only social security disability which is being abused anyway
Excuse me. I am on SSDI. I am not abusing the system.
I am on SSDI as the result of a vicious assault by a psychotic who nearly beat me to death over a period of many hours, and then left me in the middle of a road to die. I will not go into the unspeakable, perverse ways that he assaulted me physically and mentally.
I was taken by a passing car to the nearest ER, which saved my life. I was oxygen deprived because most of my red blood cells were dead in the bruising. It took several units of compressed hemoglobin to bring the count back to normal. The police and hospital took multiple photos; I am a 5'4 white woman, and I looked like an obese black woman with all of the swelling. My face, neck and chest were pure black, one giant bruise. I couldn't see at all for 3 days, and was limited to blurry color and movement vision for a few days after that.
This was 17 years ago. I am not "over it". I have PTSD. Even with medication, I have horrific nightmares, and absolutely dread the couple of times a month that I have to leave the house. Being alone in the house when my roommate has things to do isn't much better.
As I said, I am on SSDI. This was granted at a hearing with Social Security. I have Medicare and a Medicare Advantage Plan that makes my medication and periodic doctor visits affordable. I am no longer able to work and, at 61, would hardly find a working wage if I could. I don't abuse the system. It has saved me.
May 24, 2017 23:28:09 #
Iamdjchrys
Loc: Decatur, Texas
jim keris wrote:
Only social security disability which is being abused anyway
I am on SSDI. I can assure you that this is not an abuse of the system. I cannot, of course, speak for anyone else.
I was the victim of a brutal assault 17 years ago, a beating that lasted for hours, including rape with a rifle as he told me in horrific detail what would happen when he pulled the trigger. Thankfully, he didnt. Instead he left me in the middle of the road to die.
A couple took me to ER, where photos were taken. There was no white in my skin from my face to my torso. I looked like an obese black woman. I was totally blind for the first three days, then all I could see was blurry color for a few more. My husband didn't recogize me that first day. It took 4-5 units of compressed hemoglobin to replace the dead red blood cells.
The ER doctor told me that I wouldn't have lived more than 2 hours from the time I was admitted without treatment.
I have severe PTSD. I doubt that I will sleep tonight, after telling my story and bringing all this up from where I try to keep it encased. My sleep patterns are erratic. Even with medication, the dreams are sometimes horrific. I dread the 2-3 times a month that I have to leave the house for necessities. I'm very jittery being alone in the house when my roommate goes out and about his business. I've taken up crochet, which has been helping.
I worked hard, from my first job at 17 as a veterinary assistant, most of my adult life. I did a lot of different jobs over the years, culminating in my life as an executive in the television business. I left there to raise my two young daughters, and my husband began to support the family. So it's not like I was some kind of flake. The assault came as I was preparing to re-enter the workforce.
Anyway, here I am on SSDI. This is my story.
May 24, 2017 23:33:44 #
Iamdjchrys
Loc: Decatur, Texas
Glaucon wrote:
It is "us" people who really need the programs and deserve them and not those "other" people who just want free stuff like Medicare and Social Security. Me=good, they =bad.
Social Security and Medicare aren't free stuff, you have to work at least 10 years to get them.
May 24, 2017 23:40:24 #
Iamdjchrys
Loc: Decatur, Texas
QuestGirl wrote:
SSI is federal welfare. You can't have more than $2,000 (single) to your name. You can own one home and a car. You must mean Social Security Retirement. It is their $$$, they paid into the SSA system.
Also, there is a "cap". Once income reaches that "cap" any earnings above that "cap" is not FICA taxed. I think it's south of $200,000. Also, congress salaries just started paying FICA tax in the 1980's. Go figure.
Also, there is a "cap". Once income reaches that "cap" any earnings above that "cap" is not FICA taxed. I think it's south of $200,000. Also, congress salaries just started paying FICA tax in the 1980's. Go figure.
Back when I was in the working world, the FICA cap was around $80,000
May 25, 2017 00:35:21 #
Iamdjchrys wrote:
Social Security and Medicare aren't free stuff, you have to work at least 10 years to get them.
Not so. Medicare and SS and food stamps are paid for with tax money as are all other safety net programs. Where did you think the money came from?
May 25, 2017 00:36:58 #
May 25, 2017 00:43:29 #
Holdenbeach4u wrote:
All the Federal programs get abused one way or another ! Some of US people need these programs but others it's just a " Free Ride " for them ! Why worked I can get everything from the Federal Government !
It depends if you want to settle for crumbs of if you have a desire for a decent standard of living
May 25, 2017 00:50:11 #
fidelis wrote:
Would be interesting to find out how many millionaires are drawing ssi and medicare. I know of at least twenty retirees that brag about just signing their checks over to their grandchildren so they can have fun.
Thousands of millionaires many who live in cities draw farm subsidies off of land from hundred s of thousands to over one million
May 25, 2017 01:10:12 #
Ricko wrote:
Quest Girl-MIC-Military industrial Complex- Trump... (show quote)
Most of that stuff is right wing myths. I know of a Journey man electrician who tried for years to support a wife a two kids on a single non union income they lived in poverty the whole time and would have been worse that poverty if his mom hadn't spent a lot of his inheritance helping them out bigly. At age 40 he got laid off and went months with only un -employment ins.
Luckily he applied for a job with the county water dept. and from 68 applicants got the job with a raise after 12 months to union journeyman pay good health ins, vacation pay and a pension plan the first in his life. So no one is buying lobster with SNAP. This fellow when he was fully employed had to rely now and then on food banks for food assistance. That crap is a fallacy that Conservatives have been emailing around the web for years it is disgusting the level of stupidity of people who believe the free market BS and how great it is
May 25, 2017 01:34:54 #
Iamdjchrys
Loc: Decatur, Texas
Glaucon wrote:
Not so. Medicare and SS and food stamps are paid for with tax money as are all other safety net programs. Where did you think the money came from?
I think you are confusing Social Security with SSI. SSI is a government welfare program. Social Security is paid through FICA payroll deductions, and one has to be paid "on the books" for at least 10 years ti receive SS benefits.
You also seem to be confusing Medicare, which is deducted from Social Security benefits monthly, to Medicaid, which is a government health care program.
I hope this clears things up for you.
May 25, 2017 01:36:55 #
QuestGirl
Loc: Jayhawk Country
Glaucon wrote:
Not so. Medicare and SS and food stamps are paid for with tax money as are all other safety net programs. Where did you think the money came from?
If you were to look on your paycheck you will see FICA. This is your SSA fund. There is also a special "tax" for MediCare deducted but I can not recall the acronym.
Beyond that, the argument for exactly where these funds go once in the governments coffers is moot.
SSI is federal welfare. Those recipients receive MedicAid. As I understand it, if the SSDI does not match the SSI threshold of $733/M (in my state), then SSI kicks in the difference. I am speculating here, though, relative to my math assumptions.
May 25, 2017 01:47:15 #
Iamdjchrys
Loc: Decatur, Texas
fidelis wrote:
Would be interesting to find out how many millionaires are drawing ssi and medicare. I know of at least twenty retirees that brag about just signing their checks over to their grandchildren so they can have fun.
You're thinking of SS (Social Security) not SSI (welfare).
May 25, 2017 02:08:01 #
QuestGirl
Loc: Jayhawk Country
Iamdjchrys wrote:
Back when I was in the working world, the FICA cap was around $80,000
I read the figures a while ago and want to say around $130,000, now that I've thought a little harder.
I knew years ago that congress paid no FICA tax, or MediCare tax. One day I had a discussion with a friend about this stating my claim. I looked it up later and learned Congress started paying FICA in the 1980's. Must have been a Reagan thing. Not sure on the MediCare tax given they have their own platinum health insurance, so probably not.
I do not believe those on SSDI today will be "cut". I imagine there will however, be a "freeze" on new approvals. The massive "get your disability today" campaign has come to a screeching halt. I truly believe many sucked into this campaign are receiving SSI, too young to receive SSDI. They probably signed up those sitting in our "for profit" prisons too. A life of crime for smoking marijuana gets you disabled.
I recently listened to a YT proporting the government giving the herded citizens $10,000 per year, and that's it...our future BEFORE PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!
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