monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

blatham wrote:

Some labor secretary, this boy.

Quote:

At first, Andrew F. Puzder’s California story sounds like one of the state’s sunny dreams come true: Midwestern lawyer stumbles into burger business, nurses storied chain back to health, wins industry plaudits and record profits.

But Mr. Puzder became an outspoken critic of his adopted state because of its vigorous workplace regulations. The mandatory rest breaks required by California made no sense, he felt, leaving restaurants understaffed when a rush of customers came in. His company paid millions of dollars to settle class-action lawsuits that accused it of cheating workers.

He spoke out against labor laws intended to benefit hourly workers like the ones who serve shakes and mop floors at Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, the chains he runs.

“California has gone really from being this golden state, the state of opportunity, to being a kind of nanny state,” he said in 2009. “You can’t be a capitalist in this state.”

NYT
Yeah. Capitalism is dead in California. You just never see it there anymore. It's Karl Marx top to bottom.

Apparently, what this jerk means by "capitalism" is the totally-unfettered-by-government-regulations definition.

The key ugliness here (aside from the guy's greed and selfishness) is the presumption and ideology that "freedom" is to be found only where income-generating operations have over-arching control of government along with its laws and regulations.

But unions are instruments of freedom. They allow employees to organize and fight for their freedom from conditions of servitude.

Similarly, Ben Carson refers to persons as "human capital". If persons are not fueling the engine of capitalism in a manner that allows the capitalist "owners" to gain the most profit, then they are part of the "load". In other words, "we the people" are slaves and any laws or regulations designed to make our lives better must be overturned or rewritten for the benefit of the owners.

The very poor, the old, and the sick are a part of that unacceptable load. The working poor should be thankful to be employed and should not dare to ask for work breaks or better wages because, without labor protections laws, there would exist a large supply of poor people to replace disgruntled workers.

AN ACT TO PREVENT ALL PERSONS FROM TEACHING SLAVES TO READ OR WRITE, THE USE OF FIGURES EXCEPTED

Whereas the teaching of slaves to read and write, has a tendency to excite dis-satisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion, to the manifest injury of the citizens of this State:

Therefore,

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That any free person, who shall hereafter teach, or attempt to teach, any slave within the State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any books or pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in this State having jurisdiction thereof, and upon conviction, shall, at the discretion of the court, if a white man or woman, be fined not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than two hundred dollars, or imprisoned; and if a free person of color, shall be fined, imprisoned, or whipped, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty nine lashes, nor less than twenty lashes.

II. Be it further enacted, That if any slave shall hereafter teach, or attempt to teach, any other slave to read or write, the use of figures excepted, he or she may be carried before any justice of the peace, and on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to receive thirty nine lashes on his or her bare back.

III. Be it further enacted, That the judges of the Superior Courts and the justices of the County Courts shall give this act in charge to the grand juries of their respective counties.


Source: "Act Passed by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina at the Session of 1830—1831" (Raleigh: 1831).

Fearing that black literacy would prove a threat to the slave system -- which relied on slaves' dependence on masters -- whites in many colonies instituted laws forbidding slaves to learn to read or write and making it a crime for others to teach them.


Excerpt from South Carolina Act of 1740

Whereas, the having slaves taught to write, or suffering them to be employed in writing, may be attended with great inconveniences; Be it enacted, that all and every person and persons whatsoever, who shall hereafter teach or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe, in any manner of writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write, every such person or persons shall, for every such offense, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds, current money.

Excerpt from Virginia Revised Code of 1819

That all meetings or assemblages of slaves, or free negroes or mulattoes mixing and associating with such slaves at any meeting-house or houses, &c., in the night; or at any SCHOOL OR SCHOOLS for teaching them READING OR WRITING, either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and considered an UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY; and any justice of a county, &c., wherein such assemblage shall be, either from his own knowledge or the information of others, of such unlawful assemblage, &c., may issue his warrant, directed to any sworn officer or officers, authorizing him or them to enter the house or houses where such unlawful assemblages, &c., may be, for the purpose of apprehending or dispersing such slaves, and to inflict corporal punishment on the offender or offenders, at the discretion of any justice of the peace, not exceeding twenty lashes.

How do you know who is doing it?

Instead you complain. Why?

Re: Walter Hinteler (Post 6344718)
I feel the need to apologize to Germany and to the world for Trump. Hopefully he is just allowed to mouth off and is kept reigned in by cabinet picks who seemed to have disagreed with him a lot.

I would like to add that "education reform" in the form of defunding public education, privatization, and school vouchers is not reform at all.

It's a program designed to dumb-down the "human capital" of this nation.

Trump’s goal is “to get insurance for everybody through marketplace solutions

Republican strategist Monica Crowley, who was slated to join President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team, announced Monday that she no longer intended to be a part the incoming administration. She was recently the subject of a plagiarism scandal reported on by CNN and Politico involving her PhD thesis and subsequent book.

“After much reflection I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities and will not be taking a position in the incoming
administration,”

"Any attempt to discredit Monica is nothing more than a politically motivated attack that seeks to distract from the real issues facing this country," a transition spokesperson told the network at the time.

It is possible that Trump will produce some good consequences here and there but if so, I'm guessing it will be a rare occurrence. 10 to 1 he will, for example, later clarify that he meant or said, "insurance available for all".

We'll see.

"Obama's ideas on health care were first offered as general outlines then grew into specific legislation over the course of his presidency. Yet Obama never adjusted his rhetoric to give people a more accurate sense of the law's real-world repercussions, even as fact-checkers flagged his statements as exaggerated at best.

We need the public option. I shouldn't be forced to pay a private company thousands of dollars every year when that money could fund a viable public option.

We need the public option.

Propaganda device #1 - Repeat the Lie

Quote:

Glenn Kessler ‏@GlennKesslerWP 17h17 hours ago
Priebus today: "This man won in an electoral landslide." We have noted before this is false. Rank is 46 out of 58.

One of the most alarming aspects of the rise of Trump is (or should have been) his embrace of the Orwellian lie. This also cannot be normalized with a comforting “all politicians lie.” Of course they do. Lying is not telling the truth, or shaping a version of events with the intent to deceive. These things happen. Jimmy Carter promised he would “never lie to us.” Great. Nixon told so many lies it’s amazing he could keep track of them. But we are not talking about garden variety lying here — we are talking about the totalitarian lie: lies told, repeatedly, loudly and insistently, in direct confrontation with the indisputable truth. Lies purposefully designed to undermine the very capacity to make truth claims. Orwell was right to warn of this. But here we are.

Having spent three-quarters of a century fretting about enemies abroad, we have never fully processed a lesson of history: that great civilizations almost invariably collapse from within.

We are in the hands of an ignorant, amoral, petulant authoritarian who has been handed the keys to the most powerful office on the country, and the world.