The democrats have
almost run the table when it comes to this budget plan that was voted out today
by congress. It’s a major victory for
our side. We dodged several
bullets. There will be no twenty percent
cut in disability Social Security payments come next September. In fact this budget funds the next debt
ceiling through March of 2017 and seems to fund everything till then. The issue won’t be used as a political
football next year. There will be no
scheduled Medicare Part B premium hikes next year. The government will be selling oil reserves.
The Republicans wanted that part. If you
are suspected of fraud on Social Security payments it will be harder to defend
your case in court and get back your impounded payments. Doctors will get a two percent cut in
payments on Medicare. But overall it’s a
major victor and John Boehner handed this victory to the democrats simply by
allowing them to even VOTE on this provision because the democrats would be
passing a lot of house bills if they were ever submitted to a vote. Meanwhile Shawn Hannity is not quite sure
that Mc Carthy is far right enough. But
the right wing must be fit to be tied knowing John Boehner’s parting “gift” to
them being this major spending bill which was voted out today. Again- - the democrats dodged a bullet today.
You know Dr Ben Carson
has been rising in the polls. Now he’s
not only ahead of Trump in Iowa he’s ahead of Trump nationwide and Trump’s
numbers have actually fallen in a major way.
To have Ben Carson as President would be frightening. I think he’s some kind of a sociopath. Of course they all want to increase the
military and invade four or five Mideast nations at once, and also cut federal
taxes in a draconian way- - not just around the edges. But they also want to bring the deficit to
zero- - immediately. Dr Ben Carson has
pledged that he will not sign any federal budget that isn’t a balanced budget
and of course Shawn Hannity agreed with him.
Can you imagine the draconian cuts that would have to be made in the
social safety net for this to occur. We’d
see what are disparagingly knows as “entitlement programs” as we know it
decimated. Literally tens of millions of
people could be thrown into poverty overnight.
He has referred to the Affordable Care Act as “as bad as slavery”. I’ve wondered why people have taken to
calling him “Mister Stabby”. That’s
because he almost stabbed someone at age fourteen but got his belt buckle
instead, all over some argument. Carson
admits to coming after people with “rocks, hammers, and baseball bats”. But according to Shawn Hannity his mother sat
him down and took away his TV and radio privileges and Ben knuckled down and
studied hard and became the brilliant surgeon he is today. I can’t figure out why the chant a year ago
was “Run, Ben, Run”. Who is this “they”
who wants this mentally unstable blithering idiot as President? Yes, he’s more dangerous than Trump. But what will happen at the debate tomorrow
night? Will he bolster his poll numbers,
or he could just slip on a banana peel.
I
had previously concluded that the Shawn Hannity show wasn’t worth listening too
and now my belief in that is bolstered because nothing but lies spewed out of
Hannity’s mouth today. They’re never
ending. Hannity has said that the Clinton
surpluses ended with the last year Newt Gingrich was in power. That’s not true. Gingrich was kicked out of the chairmanship
in January of 1999 because “He made everything into a crisis”. He was rejected by his own party. But it was in the fall of 2000 that Al Gore
campaigned on a lock box fur the newfound surplus. The republicans argued that ‘This is money
the government stole from the people and they need to give it back”. So much for facts. Hannity also told the lie that the lowest
Obama deficit is still higher than any President Bush deficit. The truth is that the final year of the Bush deficit
was just as high as Obama, and that the deficit since then has been reduced by
a trillion dollars and stands now at 430 Billion or something, and they’re no
reason why next year’s can’t continue to be reduced further. Hannity also said that the national debt was
19 going on 20 trillion. Last year about
this time Hannity was saying it was 17 trillion. We didn’t run up a two or three trillion
dollar deficit in one year. Someone is
lying. There is the FOX news lie called
the “Ferguson effect” where police do work slowdowns because now that we are
racially conscious and have all these body cameras police are “afraid to do
their job” and the crime rate has gone up in a major way in the past year. I am informed this is a bold faced lie. FOX news of course lies about global warming
and in fact her a guest who said that a new ice age is coming. They also cling to the story that the warmest
earth year was eighteen years ago. The
truth is the earth is getting hotter all tie time and the polar ice sheet is
breaking up, like defective concrete and when the whole thing goes there will
be hell to pay. This upcoming election
is really a make or break one for the democrats because the Supreme Court hangs
in the balance. If the republicans get
control of the executive and elect more than forty or so right wing nut jobs in
congress we are all done for. Already
these forty or fifty people largely control what congress votes out.
Persistently low oil prices are putting a lot of pressure on the dividend policies of oil and gas producers. The Wall Street Journal reported that four oil majors – BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron – have a combined cash flow deficit of $20 billion for the first half of 2015. In other words, these big players are not earning enough revenues to cover expenditures, share buybacks, and dividends. With such a large cash flow deficit, something has to give. All four are focusing on slashing spending in order to preserve their promises to shareholders, with dividends especially seen as untouchable. However, it could take several years to bring spending into alignment so that cash flows breakeven. The problem for these companies is that they were also cash flow negative even when oil prices were above $100 per barrel in the years preceding the bust in 2014. Over the past decade, costs at all of these companies have all been heading in the wrong direction – higher spending on new projects, dividend payouts, and share buybacks have all driven costs dramatically higher. The WSJ notes that Chevron’s dividend bill doubled since 2004, for example, and its capital spending increased by six fold. Higher oil prices over that timeframe allowed for this cost inflation, but the oil majors were still cash flow negative. Now that oil prices have crashed, the deficit has ballooned, forcing painful cuts to payroll and spending for new oil projects.
We had tomato soup for
lunch followed by a patty melt with fried onions on it, improving it. We had wedge cut potatoes and watermelon for
dessert. I’ll save the Shawn Hannity
remarks for later. On the soap opera
they had surprise batchelor and batchelorette parties. Aden got drunk guzzling up a storm and then
rambling. First Bo and Patch have a
strong gas leak to contend with when they were loostening some pipes. They were fixing that and they discovered
part of the walls were crumbly and could be gotten through. There was talk about a secret passageway
out. I did not see all the episode
because I was shaving part of the time and out looking for cigarettes. Richard told me they had already called A
through M to line up for money draw. In
a later scene Bo and Patch are ready to board an airplane and the pilot has
been mugged or something. They called “all
residents” just before a quarter till two.
At five till two I left off watching DL and went down to get in
line. However I was surprised that the
office was locked. First it was just the
screen that was locked and then the door was closed. David and others came by wanting to get
paid. Glen hadn’t gotten paid yet. Larry gave me a cigarette. A bit later on Mario gave me a long short and
I was talking on the west benches with Glen and we both went down the hall. Manuel was in the office talking to
Jennifer. When Manuel was done Jennifer
told me to come around the regular way.
There were two ahead of me in line.
Jennifer agreed I had $9.65 or something even deducting the
haircut. I hadn’t brought the Humanna letter
this time. But Jennifer says she
received a bill or two she hadn’t opened yet and would not be paying me this
week. I was bummed. I turned on the Norman Goldman show and he
stressed that democrats are on the two yard line just ready to punch the ball
in for a score. He says “Democrats have
never been more unified as a party”.
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