February 8, 2018

The Onion -- Kelly choreographing Trump's parade

NEWS IN BRIEF
‘It’s Step, Twist, Step, Dammit!’ Yells Leotard-Wearing, Cigarette-Smoking John Kelly While Choreographing Upcoming Military Parade

https://politics.theonion.com/it-s-step-twist-step-dammit-yells-leotard-wearing-1822815536

WASHINGTON—Wearing a leotard and chain-smoking as he pounded out the measures with his cane, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly screamed, “It’s step, twist, step, dammit!” at a group of Marines on Wednesday as they learned the choreography for President Trump’s upcoming military parade. “Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to tell you it’s step, twist, step, shuffle, lean-and-point, and point-and-roll?” a visibly furious Kelly said as he threw a chair across the military hangar, removed his scarf, and commanded the battalion to “just watch [him]” as he demonstrated the dance in front of a full-length mirror. “Again, do it again! We’ll stay here all night if we have to. Seriously, you call yourselves dancers? It’s like I’m working with a bunch of goddamn amateurs.” After exploding at a private first class whom he sent home for wearing the wrong boots, Kelly told everyone they were taking a “quick five,” and that when they returned, they had better do it right or he would be making some cuts.

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Go to the link to see the picture!

February 8, 2018

I get so tired of Trump giving the thumbs up sign

I'd like to tell him to shove it up his ass.

February 8, 2018

Rhode Island court decision says gov't has no obligation to honor it's promises

Could this affect Social Security down the line? A very troubling precedent.

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The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit gave us an interesting glimpse of the future last week when it ruled on an obscure case involving government pension obligations.

Ever since the mid-1990s, police officers and fire fighters in the town of Cranston, Rhode Island had been promised state pension benefits upon retirement.

But, facing critical budget shortfalls over the last several years that the Rhode Island government called “fiscal peril,” the state legislature voted to unilaterally reduce public employees’ pension benefits.

Even more, these cuts were retroactive, i.e. they didn’t just apply to new employees.

The changes were applied across the board; workers who had spent their entire careers being promised certain retirement benefits ended up having their pensions cut as well.

Even the court acknowledged that these changes “substantially reduced the value of public employee pensions provided by the Rhode Island system.”

So, naturally, a number of municipal employee unions sued.

And the case of Cranston’s police and fire fighter unions made it all the way to federal court.

The unions’ argument was that the government of Rhode Island was contractually bound to pay benefits– these benefits had been enshrined in long-standing state legislation, and they should be enforced just like any other contract.

The state government disagreed.

In their view, the legislature should be able to change laws, even retroactively, whenever it suits them.
Last week the First Circuit Court issued a final ruling and sided with the state of Rhode Island: the government has no obligation to honor its promises.

News like this will never make major headlines.

But here at Sovereign Man our team pays very close attention to these obscure court cases because they often set very dangerous precedents.

This one certainly does. Because Social Security is in even WORSE condition that the State of Rhode Island’s perilous pension system.

We talk about this a lot in our regular conversations.

According to the Board of Trustees for Social Security (which includes the US Treasury Secretary, the US Secretary for Health & Human Services, and the US Secretary of Labor), the Social Security trust funds “become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2034.”

Once again– that’s the Treasury Secretary of the United States saying that Social Security will run out of money in 16 years.

You’d think this would be shouted from the rooftops, especially given how long it takes to save for retirement.

Yet instead the news is ignored or flat-out rejected by people who simply want to believe either that it’s not a problem, or that the government has some magical solution.

The First Circuit just showed us what the solution is: cutting benefits.

And now the government has legal precedent to do so.

They can retroactively slash whatever benefit they want in their sole discretion regardless of what legislation exists, or what promises have been made in the past.

Let’s be smart about this: the clock is ticking. Sixteen years may seem like a lifetime away, but with respect to retirement, it’s nothing.

Securing a comfortable retirement takes decades of careful planning, and a lot of folks are going to have to catch up.

Fortunately there are a lot of options available, but you’re going to have to take deliberate action.

For example, you could set up a more robust structure to help you put away even more money for retirement and invest in safer, more lucrative assets that are outside the mainstream.

A number of our readers, for example, are safely earning double-digit returns in secured, asset-backed lending deals with their properly structured IRA and 401(k) vehicles.

Here are a couple of options to consider.

This problem is completely solvable. But you’re going to have to solve it for yourself. You can’t rely on the government to fix it.

The First Circuit Court affirmed last week without a doubt that government promises aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/retirement/an-obscure-court-decision-against-a-rhode-island-towns-police-officers-and-firefighters-could-be-a-warning-sign-for-social-security/ar-BBIQf5o?li=BBnb4R7&ocid=mailsignout

February 8, 2018

Don't Give Up on the International Space Station

An op-ed piece appearing in the New York Times, written by astronaut Mark Kelly (Gabby Giffords' brother-in-law)

I recently read his book "Endurance" and highly recommend it if this subject interests you.

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It’s not perfect and it’s not designed to last forever, but what the International Space Station offers humans and nations is remarkable: an important opportunity to collaborate on shared scientific goals, mostly free from politics and almost entirely free from the influences of our planet.

In the years since I left NASA, the space station has started to experience a surge in commercial activity. Two companies, SpaceX and Orbital ATK, now regularly deliver cargo to the station. Just this week, SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 Heavy, a rocket powerful enough to lift 141,000-pound payloads. And after a few years’ hiatus, crew members will once again leave American soil for space and make their way to the space station as soon as next year, courtesy of Boeing and SpaceX.

But all of this will come to a screeching halt (though you won’t hear the “screech” in the vacuum of space) if the Trump administration ends funding for the International Space Station program beyond 2024, a step it is considering. The reasons are unclear, though President Trump has said that he wants to prioritize human travel to the moon.

Over the past year, the United States abandoned its leadership position on the global stage in many ways. We stopped leading the effort to combat climate change. We stopped leading on trade and commerce, and raised questions about our continued commitment to multilateral organizations and military alliances. We stopped leading on human rights and the rule of law. If we fail to continue funding the International Space Station, America will sacrifice its rank as the global leader in space exploration and commercial space innovation.

NASA programs have benefited the people of our planet since the founding of the agency in 1958. Solar technology, miniaturized computer chips, CT scans and M.R.I.s are just a few examples of the technologies that were developed and delivered to the American consumer as a result of NASA’s innovation.

Other countries will undoubtedly fill the void left by American withdrawal — most notably China and Russia, countries we consider significant rivals. Not only would they reap the economic and political benefits of leading in space but they also could change the direction of the world’s collective space endeavors in a way inimical to American interests and values.

Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/opinion/international-space-station.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

February 7, 2018

Tonight's Vinyl Selection

Are You Experienced

Jimi Hendrix

Mind boggling guitar is what leaps out at you on this stunning debut album. A classic.

Includes "Foxy Lady", "Purple Haze," "Hey Joe" .....

February 7, 2018

Long Term vs. Short Term Memory

February 7, 2018

Did anyone watch "American Experience" on PBS last night?

About the "Gilded Age"? And did anyone see any parallels between then and now?

February 7, 2018

Kelly says Dreamers are "Too Lazy to Get off Their Asses" ...

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Tuesday said the Trump administration’s immigration proposal, which provides permanent legal protections for certain undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, is “beyond what anyone could have imagined” — even providing protections for those who were “too lazy to get off their asses” to register for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

During an impromptu gathering with reporters, Kelly said the president’s decision to provide provisions to give an earned pathway to citizenship to 1.8 million people was “beyond what anyone could have imagined, whether you’re on the right or the left,” according to the Washington Post congressional reporter Erica Werner. He explained that there are officially 690,000 DACA recipients, but that the president’s immigration plan was considered generous because it includes a broader number of “Dreamers,” or immigrants who came to the country as children.

Accounting for the large difference between the official DACA population statistic and the total number of Dreamers in the country, Kelly said it was likely that some people “were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses but they didn’t sign up,” according to both Werner’s report and Politico reporter Seung Min Kim.

https://thinkprogress.org/kelly-dreamers-lazy-daca-c644d2cb08c3/

*********** What a tone deaf, arrogant, racist!

February 6, 2018

I wish there was a way

That we could take out a full-page-ad in every newspaper in the world ...all on the same day....and denounce Trump as the ignorant, shameless, dangerous, cretin that he is, and tell the world that the majority of Americans are horrified by how he is destroying our country. And sign it, "The Majority of the American people.".

February 6, 2018

Tonight's Vinyl Selection

Santana

Santana

Santana's groundbreaking debut album like a pot boiling over full of rock, jazz, and Latin rhythms.