ancianita
ancianita's Journal639 Billionaires In America Won't Tell You: 2020 Is The Oligarch-Minigarch Year
1.Everything will get more expensive under MF45 and his GOP billionaires. That's what they want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_the_number_of_billionaires
Take Florida, for example.
52 billionaires -- some on Billionaire Row in Palm Beach -- in Florida will make sure MF45 wins.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-bz-forbes-billionaires-south-florida-20170320-story.html
Florida's top five list:
Thomas Peterffy -- #22 in Forbes, lives in Palm Beach; a Hungarian, self-made; owns the biggest digital brokering firm out of Chicago; the source of ads against "creeping socialism
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Peterffy
David Tepper -- Pittsburgh/Jersey origins, lives in Miami; owns SC Panthers and Appaloosa Hedge fund; coarse, Big Trump Guy who rubs a set of brass balls on his desk whenever he's trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tepper
Micky Arison -- Israeli born, lives in Bal Harbour (Miami Beach), owns Miami Heat, prz of Carnival Cruise Lines, US Sugar Charitable Trust; big donator to Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micky_Arison
Shahid Khan-- Pakistani born, lives in Naples, owns Jacksonville Jaguars (NFL), Fulham F.C. of the English Football League Championship, and professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW), Muslim Repub who loves Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahid_Khan
Charles Johnson -- Jersey, lives in Palm Beach; owns Franklin-Templeton, top partner of SF Giants; donates heavily to Tea Party and Repubs across the country, particularly to keep the South red
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_B._Johnson
Seven more...
-- Dirk Ziff N. Palm Beach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Edward_Ziff
-- Robert Rich, Jr. Islamorada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Rich_Jr.
-- Reinhold Schmieding, Naples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Schmieding
-- J. Christopher Reyes, Hobe Sound & Jude Reyes, Palm Beach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Christopher_Reyes
-- Russ Weiner, Delray Beach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Weiner
-- Dick Schulz (Best Buy founder) Bonita Springs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_M._Schulze
2.
Billionaires are bad for America. Not at all because they made money making products and services. That's fine.
There's financial investment, and there's human investment. Even philanthropic billionaires concentrate on the former at the expense of the latter. Billionaires now contribute to the loss of HUMAN economic growth in this country.
What we are experiencing is the slow rollout of a shit hole country with infrastructure -- 40% un- and underemployed Americans, uncomplaining, keeping-up-appearances people, working two non-living wage jobs. That's what a tax haven looks like.
Corporate control of government -- fascism -- exists even in the progressive states that see the exodus of youth, because these states are just too expensive to live in. Youth are fleeing CA, NY, IL and Delaware, the tax haven capital of our tax haven country. (One example link) https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-population-migration-census-demographics-immigration/
America is almost officially a corporate campus. You don't get a democratically run economy on a corporate campus. On the campus we have so far, they even gauge our voting tendencies in more digital realms than social media (one example link). https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/06/this-new-app-lets-you-express-your-feelings-with-video-memes-not-gifs/
3.
Billionaires are bad for America because they espouse win-lose economics AND corporate personhood OVER the Founders' constitutional personhood for humans' governance.
We can have democracy, or we can have billionaires. But we can't have both. (Of course country size matters.)
Most of us know this but don't want to believe it.
In class war terms, is it that we can't convince ourselves that class war surrounds the current impeachment war?
Can we convince our working class and Republican friends that their interests and billionaires' interests have nothing in common?
That everything their billionaires and senators have told them is wrong?
That we can't face that billionaires are making this country into a foreign business-friendly campus?
If we can't, is it because of billionaire propaganda?
Or that we cannot bring ourselves to fight them back?
Because they don't fight fair?
Because they see themselves as beyond and above the law?
Because money is speech?
Because ideas cannot beat money anymore?
My son, a non-profit IT/Maker business owner, lives in New Mexico, a dependably solid blue state. He says MF45 will win in 2020, and only Bernie can beat him there in the primaries. (Neither he nor I are Bernie fans.)
If my son's right about NM, the country's second poorest state; and I'm right about FL, one of the country's richest ...
4.
How does the Democratic Party win in 2020?
The last ten years of the "Club of 2,153":
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/geography-worlds-50-top-billionaires/
Merry Christmas Outtakes from the Obamas
To DU With Christmas Love 
And happier memories in the New Year
Putin and Trump's HyperNormalization -- Backstory from Documentarian Adam Curtis
Adam Curtis is best known for his All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace(2011). Curtis' unique historical connections re-shape our perspectives on modern problems, and can inform us about whether our politics does or does not address them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
This shorter segment from his 2016 documentary, HyperNormalisation, looks at how Trump and Putin have used their wealth and power to confuse the masses by obstructing any view of their operations, and fabricating similar narratives to explain what collective people see.
Perception management corporations are all over the planet.
These politics of reality are recent, insurgent forms of power. They have taken hold of Eurasian and Western societies, led by confidence men who say "truth is not truth," wearing down science, research and journalism.
We The People politics must be informed by these shapeshifters' efforts to beat whole nations into helplessness to know what's real and what's fake.
If you're interested in the above, the longer version of HyperNormalisation is below. I highly recommend viewing any of his documentaries, but especially the two posted here.
The Good News -- Please Add Yours
While 2020 could be the ugliest, we can bear it because of the good news:
1. Nancy Pelosi
2. Rule of Law
3. Impeachment
4. 34 House Republicans and 4 Senate Republicans have already announced their retirements or left office, a sign that the GOP is not optimistic about taking back power.
“It means that they know they’re gonna lose,” Pelosi declared. “And if you win, you’re going to serve in the minority under a Democratic president. You may want to spend more time with your family.”
5. Democrats have flipped governorships in Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, Kentucky
6. Christianity Today
7. Voters can turn over the Senate to a Democratic majority (no electoral college interference). Then the all-Democratic Congress will be hard for any other Branch to cheat or beat.
8. There is NO constitution timeline on a Senate trial, so the next Congress can actually remove 45 no matter how he wins 2020. Once removed, he can and will be indicted.
9. The removed 45 will face at least 10 FBI-SDNY indictments that are more a threat to him today than impeachment and removal. The indictments are what keep him desperate to stay in office while serving as #1 Russian asset.
10. Land doesn't vote. People vote.
There is no bad news. Just distraction, propaganda platforms, drama, social media.
EDIT: 11. Adam Schiff
Before the House Impeachment, Steny Hoyer Elegantly Buries All GOP Arguments
Excerpts
Democrats rejected that process emphatically in three specific votes. In December of 2017, Democrats overwhelmingly voted against pursuing articles of impeachment, including the Speaker and myself. We did so again in 2018, with over sixty percent of Democrats rejecting that path. Again, in July 2019, just days before the infamous July 25 telephone call, we did the same, with sixty percent of Democrats voting not to proceed...
“On December 4, the Judiciary Committee heard the testimony of Constitutional law experts who weighed in on these points. One of them, Professor Noah Feldman, cautioned: ‘If we cannot impeach a president who abuses his office for personal advantage, we no longer live in a democracy. We live in a monarchy, or we live under a dictatorship.’
“The votes we are about to take concern the rule of law and our democracy itself. Let us not forget the words of the philosopher John Locke, so influential to the Founders of our republic. He warned: ‘Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.’ ...
“All of us feel a sense of loyalty to party. It’s what makes our two-party system function. It’s what helps hold presidents and majorities accountable. But party loyalty must have its limits. And as evidence of the President’s impeachable offenses has mounted, it has become increasingly clear that the limits of partisanship have been reached and passed.
“Now, Democrats and Republicans together face a test before our constituents, our countrymen, and our Creator...
To do less betrays our oath and that of our Founders, who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Let us neither turn away from the evidence, which is so clear, nor from our good conscience, which compels us to do what in our hearts we know to be right. Let us not allow the rule of law to end or for tyranny to find its toehold.
"With our votes today, we can ‘bear true faith and allegiance’ to the vision of our Founders. And we can show future generations what it truly means to be ‘Americans first.’”
https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-steny-hoyer-speech-on-trump-impeachment-20191219-iak6h2v5kjhrzegf56dmj664qy-story.html
Dear Speaker Pelosi: Please Wait Until The GOP Senate Officially Un-Shams Its Trial Plan
Give Americans time to let this historical moment be Real. Important. Meaningful.
Your caution at this point is appreciated.
Before the House Impeachment Vote, Adam Schiff Eloquently Makes The Case For Impeachment
"Many of my colleagues appear to have made their choice to protect the president ... as long as it is in the service of their party and their power. And I believe they will rue the day that they did."
Dear Speaker Pelosi: Do NOT Expose the Impeachment Case to a Sham Trial In The Senate
For all the work of Robert Mueller and his investigation team;
For all the work of Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler and their investigative teams;
For all the honor, courage and patriotism shown by America's ambassadors and career foreign service personnel;
For the honor, courage and patriotism and high risk to the whistleblower and his/her family;
For Americans who have demonstrated;
For the sake of the Constitution --
Do not send the House vote to the Senate.
Don't play into Moscow Mitch's hands -- keep investigating.
Don't allow the Rudy dossier and fabricated "new" defense to hit the Senate.
Don't allow a Senate kangaroo court.
Save the senators from breaking their oaths.
Use The People's House to defend against Putin's Fifth Column.
Don't allow Republican-Putin lies to exploit the 1st Amendment in 2020.
Make. The. Senate. Face. The. People. Next. November.
Wait until the next president and vice president are sworn in, and then send the House vote to the Senate.
Or not. If Democrats win, no vote ever need be taken. Let the ongoing investigations give him his "due process" of being put in prison.
No matter how flawed this might be made to sound, no matter how loud the pro-Russian jackals howl...
(On bended knee) Please, Speaker Pelosi -- for the love of God and Country, do NOT send the vote to the Senate for its intended, well announced sham trial in January, 2020.
Answer to the Question: What Will The Anti-Brexit Brits Do Now?
The Real Reason 45 Wants That TIME Magazine Cover
When minority rule is the standard, any media are liable to be labeled "biased," "propaganda," "enemies."
Even @real Trump knows that TIME reflects the real "bias" of America.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: New England, The South, Midwest
Home country: USA
Current location: Sarasota
Member since: Sat Mar 5, 2011, 12:32 PM
Number of posts: 36,023