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" in a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers estimated that in the 16 months after the Texas ban, 26,313 rape-related pregnancies occurred in the state. " 26,313 rapes that resulted in pregnancies? Out of how many rapes total? In 16 months? Really? The song says "Mommas, don't let your boys grow to be cowboys..." It needs another verse that says, "...and don't let your girls go to Texas." Shameful statistic. Shameful to consider this civilized. Shame.

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This statistic shocked me, too. As my Republican mentor taught me in 1982, "Ideology breeds idiocy." She was right. To think that President F.D. Roosevelt stated that the aim of the New Deal was to experiment. If a policy worked, keep going with it. If it did not, try something else. The attitude among the right-wingnuts seems to be our policy is the only right one and you are going to like it. It will succeed and you are going to believe it AND you are going to thank us for showing you the way. There is a whole world of democracies out there experimenting; we can at least try to apply their successful policies.

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There are tricky ethical considerations for social experiments, but "Reaganomics" which was always a con on it's face, seems to have made the very, very rich, very much richer, and most everyone else poorer or treading water. It's had more than sufficient time to prove otherwise, and abjectly failed. That Biden has explored other options, with encouraging results, should be big news.

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A rising tide lifts all yachts.

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Excellent comment James. I went looking for an article about yachts replacing jets as the status symbol of the billionaire class that I saw in the last couple of years and I came up empty.

The poster children for this new yacht envy are Jeff Bezos who took delivery of his $500 million yacht in 2023 and Nancy Walton Laurie's $300 million yacht also delivered in 2023.

And then there are the $100 million plus yachts confiscated by the Russian oligarchs many of which are the envy of billionaires around the world.

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And how many yachts did Ms Devos have?

"Head of eduction" under Truemp?

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18 was the number that sticks in my head. "Very Rich Betsy DeVos Has 10 Boats, Two Helicopters, A Yacht Scheduler And A Lavish Lifestyle You Can't Afford" was the title of a Newsweek article in 2017.

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Let’s not forget Ralph de la Torre of Steward Health Care, the greedy group that has run Massachusetts hospitals into the ground. He has two.

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What amazes me is that many of those super yachts have chase yachts that house the supplies and extra toys that don't fit on the living quarters yachts - things like jet skies, mini submarines, a car for transportation ashore and speedboats. Mind boggling.

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Sick, actually. No one needs so much stuff…

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Yachts are the first bubble the billionaires are getting to live some place safe. Far away from the misery their businesses have caused. Years ago when I heard there were American citizens who were billionaires, I thought why on earth would an American need to be that wealthy? We have freedom, safety, good schools, libraries...everything one needs. Then it occurred to me that with the environment going to hell, they would want to live in a protected bubble....their own security forces, clean air and water, and no problems from the miserable masses.

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I just can't bring myself to Like this very sad but true statement!

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Reagan famously said: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” James was correctly stating what really happened

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JFK. Not Reagan. Consistent with Keynes and Galbreath....trickle up.

Register Democrats to raise all boats.

https://www.fieldteam6.org/

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Reagan said it, but he was talking about the Santa Barbara Yacht Club Marina. And he stole the line from JFK, who was talking about fed funded local infrastructure.

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Well, my yacht is a 35 year old, 17-foot sailboat. And the rising tide does fit it.

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Bezos' boat was controversial because Bezos wanted to temporarily tear down a large historic bridge to get the behemoth yacht out of the boatyard. Residents of Rotterdam threatened to pelt the ship with eggs if authorities agreed to the plan. The ship was eventually towed out incomplete. So that's different.

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I think it's good to have the knowledge and statements in those articles. Not being a gazillionaire, can't cut down on the carbon footprint of my super yacht. But I can be more aware of my own, realizing that in comparison to someone living in the global south, I am a gazillionaire with a larger carbon footprint than they have. I can vote and I can tell the politicians that represent me or that want my vote in an election, that I know their environmental record of voting and it affects how I vote. That's democracy. My carbon footprint is a drop in the bucket but many drops can have a cumulative effect. Don't let the magnitude of the effects of global warming discourage you. That is what the unrepentant captains of industry want.

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#PublicHealthHaiku

Rising tide lifts yachts

Enhanced sailing for the rich

Ebb tide for 99%.

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Ha Ha! Refer to Moscow Yacht Club burns...

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I love that. I wish I had said it. And you can be sure that I will

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Me, too! 😈

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I wish I had too. See above. :-)

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The tide of Reaganomics anyway. The dinghies get swamped or becalmed.

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And that's assuming you even have a dinghy. Reaganomics and its increasingly virulent mutations swamped, stove in, or simply stole the dinghies of a great many of our fellow citizens. See "bootstraps"/boots.

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A lot of folks are treading water.

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And dingies, spelling? James?

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Dinghies. Singular dinghy.

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Thank you! Lowell Boat Shop, in my hometown of Amesbury MA, still makes dinghies out of wood!

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So many things should be "big news." Instead, we have the spectacle of the msm focusing almost entirely on President Biden's age, no matter what accomplishments come from his administration.

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poll handling isnt so subtle either.

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Indeed, it is infuriating. Anybody figured out their end-game?? Fascism better for TV ratings?

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George H. W. Bush nailed it when he said Reaganomics was "voodoo economics."

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Thing is, tax rate reductions and deregulation didn't do so well under Clinton and Obama, tho there was a belated effort to regulate financial institutions following 2008.

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Brooksley Born was silenced for telling truth to power, and Elizabeth Warren did her job so well she was sent packing, and yet she persisted.

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The Laffer Curve theory has been proved to be wrong. The "voodoo economics," i.e., supply-side economics, doesn't work while demand-side economics does. When the large corps and wealthy were handed a $2.0 trillion tax break in 2017 it did nothing to stimulate the economy; however, if Biden had been successful in eliminating the $1.6 trillion student debt of 40 million Americans, the economy would have boomed, an example of demand-side economics. Why does it work? Because, when people have money they spend it. And what then happens? The economy takes off. Its Common Sense 101. The wealthy, with $2.0 trillion in their pockets, aren't going to produce anything if there is no one to buy the product or service.

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I think it's closer to "Vampire Economics". The stats back it up.

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Taxation rates for the more financially enabled need to be restored. USA back in the 50s did great economically, long before trickle-down. Trickle is likely the key word.

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Raising taxation rates on income will bring in zero tax dollars from the wealthiest, They report -0- income, 97% of nothing is still nothing. We need a wealth tax if they are to pay their fair share

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I'm not so sure of that, Fay. Most comes from "the top".... whatever exemptions are available to them. Won't disagree about a wealth tax to cut down on inheritance wealth going to future generations.

Who pays what to the IRS

The typical taxpayer pays about $14,000 each year in federal income taxes, excluding Social Security and other payroll taxes. Thanks to tax credits and other benefits, the bottom half of U.S. households have an effective tax bill of $667 each year.

Top 1% $653,730 Top 5% $187,468 Top 10% $108,251 Top 25% $50,963

Top 50% $27,891 Bottom 50% $667

All Taxpayers $14,279

Average Income Taxes Paid

Chart: Aimee Picchi Source: Tax Foundation, IRS 2021 data

In short the bottom 50$ pay overall about 3% in total income taxes.

Of course, it's a different story when social security, unemployment taxes are considered.

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Of course, if you express numbers in terms of absolute dollars it looks different than if you express numbers in terms of per cent of absolute income. And, the ability to "harvest" realized gain and convert it to loss, or to choose investments that keep the tax at 15 per cent on schedule D, are not things available to the less well off.

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Do you know what percent of income and wealthy is owned by the top 50 percent vs. the bottom 50 percent? I'd imagine it tracks pretty closely with the amount of income taxes paid.

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Law must acknowledge realities to be just. Too many laws are fictions that serve narrow interests at public expense, due in large part to de facto bribery, but also passivity. At least in theory, reality testing is fairly empirical when someone is accused of a major breach of the law, but other than often uncommon "common sense" and a robust, socially oriented fourth and fifth estate, there seems to be few official procedures to evaluate how law is actually working. The GAO for one, but its role seems minor.

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Frank, you misspelled "tinkle"

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LOL!!!! Almost lost my soup, Ally!!

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Indeed, Frank, trickle is the key word.....as in practically nothing and it would turn snow yellow.

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We tried trickle down in the Gilded Age, but it was a ripoff then just as now. In between was an episode of increasing sanity; but those who would be kings never really give up.

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Like Ned said, FDR experimented and built on what worked, and dropping what didn't work. He also said "You have to make me do it." To me, that meant I'm on your side but we need a lot more public support.

Consider the situations FDR, Obama, and Biden had to face. I remember the "Yes We Can" that helped get Obama elected, and my almost immediate concern that, though we could, it was going to take an awful lot more participation to actually accomplish what we thought we could. Of course Mitch McConnell's immediate response was to start doing everything he could to make Obama a one term President (sort of like I imagine FDR's Southern Democratic legislators wanted to do), and was able to substantially cripple much of the progress even in the first half term, before the shellacking in the mid term.

The ACA was barely passed (and limited). It would not have passed if Nancy Pelosi hadn't defeated the attempt to stop it by getting the House to avoid making any changes, which would have allowed it to go back to the Senate (for sort of capture and kill action), with Scott Brown now in the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy's death.

See https://jacobin.com/2022/01/joe-biden-fdr-roosevelt-comparison-new-deal

"...So, to me, the term “New Deal” refers to a period in which there was not merely terrible trials and tribulations and big government initiatives to address them but also a helluva lot of democratic ferment and radicalism from the bottom up — which, crucially, FDR himself welcomed, if not actually desired, for it empowered him against capital and conservatives.

Luke Savage

Roosevelt wielded big congressional majorities and won landslide victories in the electoral college thanks to an expansive coalition that spanned black voters, organized labor, southern Dixiecrats, urban political machines, and many other groups.

Even so, he faced considerable opposition and was forced into plenty of compromises. Can you describe the resistance that Roosevelt and the New Deal faced during the 1930s? What was the nature and scale of the opposition?

Harvey J. Kaye

The first thing to remember is that, although he had a Democratic majority from the outset, that majority included Southern Democrats — Jim Crow white supremacists — who, as much as they were eager to get New Deal dollars flowing into their states (Southern legislators have always been very happy for federal dollars to pour into their states), did not want those dollars to underwrite programs that would in any way subvert segregation and improve black lives. And they were a powerful cohort..."

Too me, long story short, yes we (the public), can if we participate en masse.

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J L....should be big news, but isn't. Local media still harping on inflation and the state's largest newspaper determined to nail every D they can. Plus they have had three articles on looking up the pensions of public workers. Hey....see what they get in Washington County. And last night the local news had a story on an east coast guy dressed like someone in the west who has taken a story about a small dairy farm here in Oregon and made it into a story about how the government is trying to destroy small farms. Already our pork guy, a person likely to buy this kind of bs mentioned it. He gave us some freeze dried tomatoes to try, but he can't sell them at the market. Well, that's not destroying his small farm. He can sell all the meat he raises which also includes beef and chicken as well as eggs.

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Which is precisely what Benjamin Franklin meant when he responded to 'what kind of government have you given us' with "A Republic, if you can keep it" A democratically run Representative Republic is at once, the fairest and best system of governing a large group of people and at the same time the most difficult. A functioning Representative Republic requires the constituency to keep relatively close track of what laws are passed and how they will affect we, the common people. Without the majority of voters understanding and watching their government it can fall into what we have today, an oligarchy.

In the 1980's Reagan won both the popular and electoral college vote in each of his two elections. I voted for Carter and Mondale respectively. Reagan as we know pulled the wool over the majority's eyes with his supply side, trickle down theories (which weren't His ideas but he was coached how to present - and he was a better actor the the trumpster albeit a B grade has-been.

We the people, calmly sat by and let it pass. We are as responsible for the mess we're in today as we were then. Too many voters don't bother reviewing the platforms and understanding what they really mean. If we truly want the form of Government we've had for 248 years we'd better educate our upcoming generations and do our best to enlighten the current electorate.

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Keep in mind that most rightwing zealots are "absolutists". They don't believe in experimenting. Instead, they're certain that what they call Conservatism is innately correct and it cannot fail - it can only BE failed by inept or weak implementors.

Given that, if a plan of theirs (say, Reagan's Voodoo economics) fails to work, the only proper response is to double down and somehow implement it harder!

That's their plan for every one of their policies.

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I've been wading through Project 2025. It is littered with criticism for Biden's and Obama's economic policies and praise for the few tweaks whiny convicted felon Donald Trump made during his four years of do nothing economics.

I have to admit there are a few good ideas, which is typical of right wing ideology, but overall their goal is to make the Federal government a unitary executive entity where the President has the power to enact change without Congress's approval or the court's ability to nullify. Very scary stuff.

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The idea of a unitary executive I find so stupid on its face I can’t understand anyone’s support for it. Give one man all the power and you get—what? Better governance? I don’t think so.

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I shall try to do the same and will be interested to hear more of your thoughts. I found the small bit I looked at yesterday so wildly distorted in its language and assumptions that I found it hard to continue. False premises lead to false conclusions, however sound the logic.

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Check out Democracy Forward's People's Guide to Project 2025:

https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025

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Thanks for the link, Gary. This is good stuff.

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They believe in the perfection of their thoughts.

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That is known as "tweaking." Or, "spinning" by another name. Gotta love Reaganettes

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Yes, we in the US should look to other democracies and see what works. But we are too arrogant to do so. We'd have to change our system, after all!

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Sadly, I think, not even just arrogant. I'd say just totally isolated and ignorant for the most part. We may be too big to fail, but who will save us?

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Patrice, I just read in Heather's letter today, one of the most arrogant, isolating, and ignorant statements that I've ever heard in the span of my 76 years of life on this earth.

Gov. Abbott "said there was no need to make an exception for rape, because Texas was going to 'eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas.'"

Oh my!! Really ???

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When Gov Abbott said that, I thought to myself, WTF, we've go to vote this man out of office. He doesn't live in reality! That is such an ignorant & out of touch statement! SMH

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"Out-of-touch" statements are so prevalent with Trump and his Republican minions.Trump has been living in "unreality" all his life, and it's most frightening to see that his supporters are right there in "unreality" with him.

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Abbot and cronies are so ignorant and subverted by misinformation, they gooble up nonsense in trade for more power! Stop these monsters! Vote blue.

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Amen!

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Abbott is the boil on the butt of humanity, an angry little man who loves to punch down. I want him out of office so badly . . .

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There are a lot of Republican boils these days.

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Punching down starts at the top of their compost heap.

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He made that statement when Dobbs was decided. There has been little change (I think, both numbers are 26K numbers) between pre and post Dobbs in rapes resulting in pregnancy; numbers are hard to track because unlike other states, both reported (to law enforcement, and what woman in her fragile state is going to want to talk to a Texas lawman) and unreported are considered for statistical analysis.

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The Texas lawman would probably ask the rape victim or incest victim -- How were you dressed? -- meaning it's you're fault your 40 year old uncle rape you when you were dressed like every other woman.

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I guess he meant they would be moving from the streets into the bedroom or maybe alleys? /S

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Good point!!

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Maybe NATO needs to expand its mandate beyond military action?!? And also defend democracy. Well, probably not NATO, but what organization?

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This is what Project 2025 is all about -- totally changing our system giving the President absolute power. Of course, no democracy works this way does it?

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Oligarchy. Capitalism without regulation or gurdrails, like football without rules ir refs.

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No, no, no.....Rules are for you guys, not us. Ya gotta play by the rules. We don't.

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I think it was a combination of American propaganda telling us how great this country is (while it declined underneath us for almost half a century) and carefully edited educational system which didn’t compare other countries democracies to our own.

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No system is perfect but I believe a parliamentarian form of government has more checks and balances than our presidential system. And we still have the electoral college because…why? National elections should be run by a set of uniform national rules. And we should study the judiciary systems of other countries. Non-partisan court plans, term limits, mandatory retirement ages and expansion of SCOTUS should be considered. But we have a written Constitution which I was brought up to believe was the holy grail and made the U.S. such a beacon on the hill. What it has turned into is a document that can be interpreted by five people in agreement any way they want. We the American people are just a bouncing ball going back and forth between the two sides. And we are 50 individual states with 50 set of rules. We are not much different than the EU at this time - common currency and free movement between states - but even that is in peril with some state governments threatening to track women who cross state lines for abortions.

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Agreed. If America didn't think of it first, it has no value.

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Politicians who insist on repeatedly calling for and/or implementing types of legislation that have been proven to make things worse may be

A. Sadistic

B. Bullying

C. Fantasy prone

D. In denial

E. Dishonest

F. Ideological

G. All of the above

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And Mike Pence's claim that the Dobbs decision had made the U.S. "a more compassionate nation" is a load of B.S. Tell that to the thousands of women who are raped and get pregnant. Tell that to the women forced to carry a nonviable fetus to term.

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Or turned away when presenting at the ER with a medical emergency and the docs refuse to treat because it is criminal conduct to do so.

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HADLEY DUVAL of Owensboro KY was repeatedly raped by her step father. The story Hadley told was painfully understood by KY Voters. Hadley elected a new & responsive KY Governor.

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AKA 'sociopathic".

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The American Dystopian Society is at hand. The Perfect Storm comes up in the West to be sweep into a Whirling Wind of Despair as the Megaphones blast the Sheep to Slaughter. Reality designed by Artificial Intelligence as Social Media Clowns dance the new Circus Shuffle and it will keep you Entertained just long enough for the New Bull dressed as Matt Dillon at High Noon and Pow Pow Your Dead as the Audience Claps. And now it’s time for bed Goodnight as a New Dawn breaks.

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The kicker is that it is almost impossible to do away with a program that does not work, no matter which party is in power. Programs, successful or not, create their own constituencies, to which Congress must listen.

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Programs that don't "work" die a quiet death, and better means are found, at least in the sciences, and in the social sciences. In basic research, whether medical, economic or cultural.

Your comment pertains to programs where "constituents" are wealthy enough to feed the levers of power. ie the commercialization of MediCare by DeLoitte et al, or The Military Industrial Complex where billion dollar planes can't fly.

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Government programs may be hard to kill because of career civil servants regulating themselves into job-security. The trick is not lay people off but to re-deploy them and use that as an incentive to kill of ineffective programs.

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You are correct, of course. I was thinking exclusively of government programs

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I was also talking about government programs, which are based in research in the humanities and sciences, vs those which are created by industry lobbyists, which are Very good at creating "their own constituencies."

I have worked in government supported medical research and the programs that didn't work were no longer funded. The government can be just as efficient as the market place.

For instance, MediCare is the most efficient, cost effective health care delivery in the US, and has been for years. The problems it is having now are due to the intrusion of "Advantage" programs, which simply give corporate health care a foot in the door to grasp for profit while providing Worse service.

I believe in the possibility of positive government programs, which do not "create constituencies" but simply serve constituents. Such as Unemployment, SNAP, or Social Security.

Not sure how you think such programs "create" constituencies, but as someone who has benefited from them (and long paid into them), I disagree. They are much needed fall back and leg up in an otherwise unforgiving society, not a fat pension as your "creation theory" seems to imply.

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I learned about the "Advantage" Medicare health plan the hard way.

The one I had last year, to get the best price, I had to choose a doctor in a specific network. The problem was, that the only doctors in their network were over an hour away! And if I was out of town and needed a doctor, it was also difficult to fit into their eligibility parameters. This year, I went with straight Medicare and purchased a supplemental policy I can use anywhere Medicare is accepted. The only advantage these "Advantage" plan have, are for the Advantage companies themselves!

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Aye, Patrice, just talk to the Brits who "privatized" waste water clean-up and management under the Thatcher regime and are now literally swimming in their own sh_t!

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Advantage programs may give healthcare a foot in the door, but I have one and couldn’t be happier.

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Certainly those who have found a way to profit from a defective program will commonly fight to protect and/or extend it if it is rewarding for them, and people for whom the program is actually detrimental will often defend it if they are deeply adapted to it. The scientific method attempts to make a centerpiece of accountability and ongoing reevaluation, but that is not so common in other walks of life. Ascribing sentience to an insufficiently developed cluster of cells is not supported by outcomes of the scientific method, yet many reject such evidence. The rehabilitation rate of those in custody of our criminal justice system in poor, yet reform is fiercely resisted, despite progress demonstrated by the approaches of some other counties. Those who propose return to a mythical past that never was (exemplified by the John Wayne (even his name is fantasy, as he was born Marion Robert Morrison) character that was celluloid only, yet the name has been bestowed on public edifices and an ultra right wing relative of mine revered (the character) as a saint. .

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More broadly, I think any organized effort that people invest their trust and/or money in fights to grow and survive. Even something that is pretty much an just an algorithm, like a computer virus, or for that matter, a physical virus has means to grow and survive, so we need to be mindful of what we create.

The social influence and financial power gained by those who control an organization tends to reward efforts to increase that control,; and if unchecked, power tends to corrupt. Name a variety of social organization, government, labor unions, academia, churches, businesses, even marriages, in which there are no examples of corrupt and/or bullying abuses of power?

Our form of democracy is supposed to limit abuses of power by disturbing it widely as shares (universal shares and the vote) and defining agreed upon boundaries of behavior by a social contract, collective consent of the governed, and other checks and balances. Power tends to corrupt as imbalances of power manage to grow.

"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people." - John Adams

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Governor of Texas Paul Abbott's promise to eliminate rape in Texas was utterly preposterous to begin with. Texas and other Republican states all to often have among the worst poverty, violence, crime and educational records in the country.

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Greg Abbott is an evil person....I'm a Texan and there are so many of us who abhor him and are fighting to defeat him.

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The very best to you in that endeavor!

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THANK YOU

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