Baitball Blogger
Baitball Blogger's JournalIs the pattern clear enough to start suing the right-wing nuts for inciting violence on
innocent people? I mean, how more clear can it be? It's like the early days when drunk drivers got away with killing people with their cars. So many got away with next to nothing. MADD arrived, the laws changed and the number of incidents just dropped.
So, why can't we have a massive campaign to stop people from killing for hate? And it should begin with getting people off platforms where they can incite others to violence.
Ha! Trump's America First program is being blamed for the baby food shortage.
His trade agreement created shortages because his deal prevents us from importing it from other countries. Our shortage was caused by a recall of Similac due to a defective product. And now Trump's deal has kept us from backfilling the shortfall from Canada, for example, who has a surplus of the baby food.
Editing to add that we all know why Trump didn't write in a stopgap measure to account for shortfalls in supplies. It's because Republicans don't believe in safety nets. LOL!
Major Rant: I'm sure someone mentioned this before, but imbalances in US income is creating
oligarchs in this country. As I see them, they're people who have the money and power to influence political decisions in this country without having to actually run for office. No wonder the young are disillusioned. Especially during this time when climate change needs our attention, and the young are sensing the futility of their situation. Now, more than ever, we need to come up with a plan that we can all agree on. If nothing else, let's come together for the sake of the young, so they can inherit a better world than the Republicans are setting them up to get stuck with.
Of course, exchanging ideas on how we're going to do it, I have no idea. I can just share observations that should make a difference.
For starters, we should agree that any policy that increases the wealth gap is putting this country in a precarious situation. I have said it in another thread when I was talking about socialism. The fear of socialism was the issue that won South Florida for the Republicans. (i.e. Don't vote for the socialist!) They exploited it with great skill. But they looked at it from the usual point of view. They saw it from the point of the stingy taxpayer.
Here's the other pov: Socialism was an idea that came about because of the huge income disparity between the very poor and the very wealthy. On top of that, the poor were in the largest percentage of the population. We'll say, 90% compared to the top 10%. So, the one quick conclusion is that Socialism occurred as an attempt to alleviate suffering.
No argument here that it was not successful when used as the only governmental relief policy/program. But that's a subject for another day. What I do want to point out is our dilemma. And that is, that income disparity eventually destabilizes a society. You can either try to alleviate the problem, or create chaos so that people can't focus on productive fixes.
People, like De Santis, have chosen to create chaos in order to distract us and obstruct the change that can improve everyone's lives. And his reasons are very simple: As long as people like him have access to cheap labor, their worlds continue at a high level of enjoyment. Cheap labor and cheap products. THAT's their real objective. And meanwhile, our country continues to get destabilized because of income inequality.
America is going to be a continual challenge for Republicans. People are getting smarter about their personal value. We can thank Covid for that. Republicans are finally forced to see that hourly wages are too low, and people have decided it wasn't worth dying over.
I know the next step is for Democrats to organize the workers, but here is the most puzzling thing about living in America. Everyone on DU knows how to fix this problem: Raise wages and provide a good health plan to the workers. But Republicans do everything they can to stop it, for one simple reason: They want access to cheap labor. It's the only way they can live in the reckless manner they have grown accustom to.
And here goes my rant as I begin a little comparative study from the experience I gathered from living in Panama. Back in the 60s-70s, most of the Panamanians still had few means to good, steady income. The US presence in the Canal Zone was helping to change that by providing a civil service and military market that had disposable income. Living side by side was an education. We Americans would drive in and off the base, each time riding along a military fence that separated the two countries. I lived in an area where you had to drive past the poorest section of Panama to get to our schools. It was a place we called Hollywood. An inside joke, which, doesn't seem so funny any more.
The poor lived in hovels made out of a patchwork of discarded trash. Pieces of zinc were valued, as was wood. But too many had walls made out of cardboard. These homes were simple one bedroom contraptions no bigger than many people's bedrooms in America. And they were built on stilts to keep the houses protected from the creek that ran through Hollywood, which would flood during the rainy season.
The water in the creek was always an opaque clay color. For drinking water someone from the family would walk across a pathway made of boards, which looked like a flimsy catwalk, to get to a potable faucet. One faucet for a community of about 75. Oh! And I remember some would repurpose kerosene cans to collect the water!
In the dry season, they would organize games on the flat area that ran up to the military fence that separated us. I saw all of this as I grew up, and for the most part, the repetition desensitized us. It was our reality. They lived in poverty on the other side of the fence. We would watch seconds of their games as our bus drove past them. They were always busy. Either playing soccer with a ball with loose threads, stick ball, or flying small kites made out of Christmas wrapping paper, string and thin stems from palm leaves. (I know, because my uncle made one for me.) Oh, and the tails were always long, made out of ripped cloth bits. It was quite a vibrant community.
But now that I'm older, I see something that I never considered before. This kind of destitution must have served a purpose, or there would have been more action, more resources to fix the social problems. And now I think that it comes down to the cost of labor. In Panama, it was incredibly cheap. And paying people pennies for their labor, does improve your own standard of living.
I did see one major change from one generation of my relatives to the other. When I was very young, my Tias and Tios were people who knew how to actually do things with their hands. Many times my Tios would join in with the laborers and lead the projects. My Tias knew everything about maintaining a ranch AND still had careers in the community. Feminists in their actions, but ultra-conservative in every other way.
The next generation, my generation, I saw a drastic change. Most of the people my age that I have had a chance to really get to know, believe manual labor is for the uneducated. If you mention gardening or building things with your hands they respond, "I get someone else to do that for me." And it's a thing of pride to them. I just have to say, it's a good thing we have youtube videos, because eventually they're going to have to learn to do something.
But, going back to the cost of labor, there was one thing in my father's generation that was an illumination about the relationship between the rich and the poor. It involved the concept of cash tips. My parent's generation never understood the concept. My Tios and Tias, especially. They would feed their workers lunch and offer drinks, and they would fill grocery bags with canned food and used clothes when the workers were ready to go home, but tipping? Nope.
One day my father and my uncle had to kill some time for an appointment. They decided to get their shoes shined by a young lad who was on the street. It was a 15 cent shoe shine. My dad gave the kid a quarter and told him to keep the change. My uncle gave him a quarter and asked for his dime back. My dad asked him why he didn't just give him the whole quarter and my uncle responded, "No, porque se acostumbren." No Because they'll expect it. (Or, they'll get accustom to it.)
See, this is how I think Republicans respond to the labor force. They talk up tip inducements, but the reality is, their employers do everything they can to get workers to work for nothing. The situation becomes so bad that the workers walk, leave; and all Republicans can do is call them lazy. But this pattern is creating an inequity in our country that can lead to the very destabilization that has occurred in third world countries.
I just wish people who are dealing with income issues would just get smart enough to realize which party is reality based, and actually on their side. And stop helping Republicans degrade everyone around them, because, disparaging people may feel like you have it all together, but we see it as a desperate attempt to deflect from the fact that the Republicans have no new ideas, except to stir up support to throw everyone else off the lifeboat. Eventually, they'll get to you.
I think we can see what comes next for Republicans. They're deep in a hostile take-over of this country. Or, at least trying to. So the next time they cry, "Socialist!" it's because they don't want you to see what they're really up to,
We know we're not all equal, because our votes are not being counted equally.
Because of gerrymandering and the electorate college most of us already are worth less than one full American. This country uses a devious way to dilute our power, even before we walk into the voting booth.
So, I was wondering, is there a map somewhere that has calculated the fraction of human being that we each stand for? You know there has to be such a map, because the clever reactionary right has been using these math hiccups for quite a while. They know exactly how many more people we have to bring to the polls, to offset their lesser number of votes. It's such a game that it is beginning to make sense that they would intentionally go out to populate the States where the electorate college gives them an edge.
The election in 2000 exposed another kind of flaw, when it was known that areas of Florida that were populated heavily with Democrats used machines with a higher rate of spoiled ballots. Thus, the Florida Democrats missed a huge opportunity to "find votes" by not upgrading the machines. I think that situation still stands.
Wouldn't it be, ha-ha, funny if we became competitive in 2024 if the Fl. Democrats did nothing else but upgrade those machines?
Does it cost money? How much does it cost us when we lose?
So, anyway, I think someone needs to put up that map, because I want to buy a shirt that shows how much of my real worth has been taken from me as an American. I love this country enough to wear that shirt, even though its a sad statement about the false promises that define this time period in America. But, by wearing that shirt, it lets other people know that I know that we live under an unfair system and that, I'm someone that wants that to change for the better for the next generation.
Why don't we just face the truth. Conservative Anglo-Americans are so terrified
of the power-shift in this country because of the changing demographics. They fear fair elections, because the math is not on their side. So they're now cheating and double-downing, forcing their agendas down our throats, because they don't plan on letting up on their crooked methods.
For example, we sit here knowing that it's just a matter of time to reverse Alito's weak case, but that is only going to happen if we can stop them from stealing our elections. And that's the point. Everything about what they do will be an effort to hold onto power, illegitimately.
So, assume they're all complicit in running an illegitimate process in the Court, the courts, the Congress, their churches and their governorships. Wherever you see Republicans, expect the worst.
We must never assume they have the integrity to perform any government job without supervision. So we never let up demanding an honest process, but always check their work. Do not take their word for anything. Their word means nothing. Conservative anglo-Americans are in a free-fall and they're going down in the ugliest manner.
What the Florida Democrats are doing wrong.
Reposted from the Florida group.
I know there are progressives in Florida who are as frustrated as I am. Because we can't find new blood that can bridge all the differences in Florida, we keep defaulting to the past. Well, I can't address how to capture all the different kind of voters, but I do have this to add, regarding the loss of the South Florida vote:
I once took a class titled, People of the Carribean and latin American culture. (Or something along those lines.) What the Anglo-oriented, old boy Florida Dems needed to do, and failed to do, was to reach out to academics like the teacher who taught that class, and ask them a simple question: Do you believe that the socialism that occurred in Latin America, can happen here? They will tell you no because the socio-political factors are different. And they will tell you no because the main reason that socialism got out of hand in Latin America was because there was a 10-90 split in resources. Ten percent of the people (Really, more like 1%) had all the wealth and resources, and everyone else was dirt poor. No middle class, like we have here. Just dirt poor.
So, when a military-minded socialist would show up it was easy to capture the support of the people because they were destitute and desperate. I mean, third world desperate. Not what we have in America. Toppling over the wealthy families, who were in the minority, was not difficult. It didn't take much. And, yes, the countries were disrupted quickly; and yes, those that made it through have a nasty story to tell.
That is not likely to happen here in America. We have a middle class. Though I don't know for how long because Republican policies are taking us closer to a 1% - 99% split. And because we have first world views on what constitutes poverty. Because of that, we might get toppled over in a similar, but not the same manner. And De Santis is representing that take over.
The old guard Florida Dems need help and as a voter, I am giving permission to anyone outside this State with ideas to come in and tell them that their time is over and they need to start listening. They can start by getting more latino and latina representation in their party.
There are still pitfalls to worry about, even with their help. Latin Americans who enjoyed that top 10% wealth in their countries know the benefit of living in a country where everyone is hungry and poor. They get cheap labor, which allows them to hold onto more of their money and status. THOSE people will tend to be Republicans.
I always find it galling that Anglo, conservative Americans don't fully understand the world they're pushing us towards. By interfering with education and creating financial hardship on people, they are driving us closer to the very situation that everyone wants to avoid. They really don't see the world they're creating by keeping the hourly wage low, for example. They see themselves always in that top 10%, and if they find themselves struggling, it is always someone else's fault. Never do they look inward to see how they're adding to the equation.
What Republicans won't tell you aloud, but it's their Achille's Heel.
It's this: They don't like other people's children. Specifically, they don't want to spend a penny of their money on the public services and infra-structure required to raise a new generation of children. And local red governments don't want young adults in their cities, either, because of the fear in the rise of juvenile crime.
The only ones who want to build public schools are the good buddy developers who will receive federal and state money to make it worth their time. It's about the government money. It always is to Republicans. So, in Florida we watch helplessly as public school teachers and public school programs get throttled. It's constant harassment attacking them with mean-spirited Republican-style regulation. It's obvious that the goal is to end public school, so Tallahassee politicians can send tax dollars to private religious schools. They're on a destroy mission and aren't thinking of the countless number of young children raised in struggling homes, who will drop out of school, because they can't learn in a hostile school environment.
And, the best for last. That pesky juvenile crime rate that is associated with the young. That's a real boogey man in the suburbs. There is nothing worse to a Republican white suburban woman, than the fear of a young black person traipsing in the neighborhood, day or night. It's such a fear in the suburbs that the young can be zoned out of white islands, like they did in my City and like they did in the Villages. Forced to accept high density housing, my City found a work around by zoning the buildings for Seniors only. On another part of the City there is affordable high density homes built across from a new school that advertises itself as a "classical Christian school." When it was first approved in the nineties (or maybe early century), the word was that the housing was meant for families that would attend the private school. Can they even do that legally? Look to the Supreme Court for guidance on that one.
In sum, Republicans haven't thought this one out. I was a child of the sixties. I remember we were here in great numbers, and the one thing conservative parents could count on, was that we did not respect their way of life. They were hypocrites, hokey. In a world with social media, there will be no limit to the shit we're going to hear about what goes on in their religious households.
This is a preventable disaster and someone should bring it to their attention. Right now they're too busy laughing it up because they think we have to accept the word of the five liars on the Supreme Court. I say we keep hitting them with the cost expectation for their decision. The Congress has to justify the costs for the programs they bring to the floor, so why doesn't someone do the cost analysis for Alito's folly, so we all get to know what we're getting into.
I still can't get it out of my head that Clarence Thomas said that stare decisis doesn't matter.
You know what? I think he and Ginni were the leakers of the Alito document and Clarence is now doubling-down by marginalizing the importance of the Supreme Court's long tradition. This is the kind of bullshit strategy that sovereigntist are known for. He is just as bad as they are, though I believe the source of his problem is his wife.
The man lives with a woman who is involved with extreme right-wing radical troublemakers and activists. She has rubbed off on him and radicalized him. Look at the trail of evidence: He was the lone dissenting vote when the Supreme Court voted to allow text messages connected to January 6th investigation to be released to the plaintiff in the case. Included in those messages were texts from Ginni Thomas that implicated her involvement further. It was a case where he should have recused himself.
Red flags everywhere. My money is on Clarence and Ginni Thomas.
I honestly believe we have pro-insurrectionists on the Court and we should all be in shock.
Don't you all miss the years when he wouldn't say a word?
Why I think the conservative judges screwed up their moment.
The desire to flip Supreme Court decisions was in the works as early as the nineties. I know, because I was taking Legal Study classes at the turn of the century and one of the teachers exposed her political leanings one day by pointing out that some of the decisions on the books were not unanimous decisions. She made it clear that because of this, cases could eventually be flipped. But, of course, it was going to be a slow process because of stare decisis. Stare decisis, you see was the one thing that kept the Supreme Court's estimable position in the eyes of the country.
At the same time we were also studying Anthony Scalia's decisions and we learned about his strict constructionist, or stict textualist way of interpreting the law. It seemed so hokey. To me, he came across as an outlier. If the Left made a mistake, it was not challenging his method when it had the chance. It seemed to fail in reasoning, and indeed, some of the stupid conclusions that he spearheaded, like providing way too much protection for police with their stop and frisks and the like, were the very cause of racial unrest and protests. In simple terms, the world that Scalia tried to provide for conservatives was unsustainable. It was so grossly unfair that we all came together when Black Americans took a stand. Slowly, changes are being made to the police force to address the overreaches that the Scalia court tried to create.
Now we're dealing with another conservative overreach with Alito and the four other justices who are trying to end Roe v. Wade. You see, no matter what happens next, this Alito case will be temporary because of how this all came together. They jumped the gun. Not only did they defy precedent, but their legal standing is weak. And for that we should thank the leaker for giving us time to see these flaws.
In the end, if twenty years ago it was said that cases that did not carry unanimous opinions were vulnerable to change in the future, what does that tell you about this court case that was decided by five conservative judges, most who were appointed by presidents who did not win by popular vote and all, who lied in their Senate confirmations when it came down to their support for precedent regarding Roe v. Wade?
We should continue to lead with our outrage, but do not despair. The Alito case will not stand the test of time, because it is garbage in, garbage out.
How Florida loses lawsuits. A cautionary tale.
Anyone who has read my journal knows that I was living in a Central Florida city when a huge land scandal took place in the nineties. Because of what I learned from researching public records, I got a sneak preview of the future. I read how the elected officials gave special access to a local Rotary Club, and even required the City Manager to get a membership, so he could have weekly contact with the elevated, known locals in our community. I saw how this kind of access would affect the small private development I lived in, because our small community was suddenly populated by Rotary Club members from that particular franchise.
It was quite an education. What I learned was that Florida's way of networking between public agencies and select private individuals and organizations, has been eroding the rights of the many for quite a while. These backwater channels create a segregation of power that pushes the public out of decision-making; and it has taken us to where we are today, dealing with an autocratic governor. The steps that gave us De Santis has a history.
So, I'll try to get to the main points to make this short, or as short as possible. Back in the nineties there was a huge effort to dismantle land development regulations. It was mostly pushed by sovereigntists and/or libertarians. But where the talk from sovereigntist ends and ordinary crass Republicans begins is a blurry line. And that line disappeared when community leaders in my city began to look around for a way to stop a developer from building in the PUD they lived in. That's when they began to listen to a sovereigntist lawyer/ex-judge/ex-city attorney, who tried to convince the homeowners that the only way to get control of their PUD, was to walk away from it. Just like that. As if that's how easy it is to vacate a legal contract.
At the time, there was a move in this state to abolish the Dept. of Community Affairs. (DCA). It was a move supported by Republicans. That would mean, put an end to the State's oversight agency that ensured that cities followed good practices with growth management. That was a time where irony and hypocrisy became a daily staple around here. All those toxic leaders, many who were retired officers, talking tough about being anti-government regulation and in the next minute they were running to City Hall when their backyards flooded after heavy rains. It was like the dopes couldn't put two and two together.
Back to their fight with the developer. I'll cut to the chase. The deveoper sued the City and its attorneys, but his lawsuit was chockful of names to lay the groundwork to prove that a conspiracy stretched into the community. The City's first move was to hire an attorney from a law firm that was a political heavy-weight in the county and known to lean Republican. About four months later the lawyer would share the results of the legal research. She determined that the City's strongest position was that the developer had not yet filed the necessary paperwork. In other words, he could not proceed with his developments because of a process that was outlined in the PUD, as well as two other regulatory land laws. They all required special City and/or State applications and permits, as well as other time-consuming paperwork.
So, the much awaited legal opinion heard in this city, where talk of deregulation was king, was that their best bet to stop the developer from building his properties was outlined in regulatory documents.
I swear, I barely made it through the nineties with my sanity intact.
The developer was a lawyer himself. He deposed many people and could prove many things; like he claimed that he didn't find any local developer who was required to follow any of the procedures that the City now required him to do. But, that wasn't even his strongest card.
IMO, he could have leveled this city if he had followed through with a two-step legal lawsuit, that would have concluded with a jury trial. But he stopped after the first lawsuit when the judged ruled in his favor based on estoppel. Which meant that the City was stopped from preventing him from building his developments.
To explain that that judgement, one thing needs to be explained. Basically, the developer had sued the City two or three previous times before and from those early lawsuits, he had won a settlement or two and was allowed to build single family homes instead of the condominiums that were marked on the original PUD. Frankly, I believe it was more than a fair arrangement. But like I said earlier, I got a sneak preview of the future. I saw how easy it was to inflame all this toxic masculinity, along with their female counterparts, and when they're intoxicated with their own anger, there is no room for reason or logic.
But, why it all comes up now is because of what is happening between De Santis and Disney. You see, how estoppel was determined was based on one line from one of those earlier settlement agreements, which were, in fact, contracts. In one of those contracts it is clearly stated that if the developer had to file paperwork, the city would do it. Let that sink in. The City Attorney had to know that line was in that contract/settlement agreement, and yet allowed the emotional circus parade to proceed. They do this kind of nonsense all the time.
And I suspect that in the paperwork that hatched Reedy Creek, I bet there is something similar to give Disney some kind of assurance, that if they have full control of the district, sovereignty in fact, that it's some kind of vested right that the Republican State Congress can't touch and they know it.
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Seminole County, Florida
Member since: Sun Mar 18, 2012, 10:16 PM
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