Our visible public sytem of govt, is three separate branches of govt supposedly balancing each other. The reality, is that this system disappeared decades ago, replaced by the influence and greed and dominance of multi-national gigantic US corporations. They got too big for their pants starting post WW-II, and have grown too large to be controlled by laws, fines, sentences. They continue to buy the influence of Congress(most members of whom enter poor and leave rich) to change the anti-trust laws and overseas operating laws, and tax laws, to the point where our system is now completely broken. The last US Senator to attempt to investigate and corral this corrupt rise of the multi-nationals, was Idaho Senator Frank Church, wait for it, FIFTY years ago. He chose the Church Committee, as authorized and assigned by Sen. Mansfield, over running for the presidency. Our military budget has been out of control ever since, and is out of all size to our actual needs. It's larger than the next 25 or so military budgets in the world combined, most of whom are our allies. The CIA has never been controlled by any administration, its budget remains secret, never-scrutinized, and has been that way since inception in 1947, against all the rules of internal controls and federal Fraud, Waste, and Abuse laws.

 Right now we live in the United Corporations of America. Congress exists only to keep the facade of a representative republic going. Voting results do not matter. JFK was the last president allowed to think and operate on his own, and for that, and his brother's relentless attacks on the Mob that put him in the WH, he was killed by the conservatives in govt in cahoots with the Mob. Remember he wanted nuclear dis-armament, withdrawal from Vietnam, and for all of us to share this single planet. Not one single president since, has been allowed to do his own thinking and decision-making. The strings are now always pulled by their Corporate Masters, who absolutely own Congress, whether we like to think this, or not. 

Sen. Church sensed the direction we were headed in and brought the CIA and the FBI onto the Senate carpet to answer his many questions. In so doing, for months, Sen Church made many Senate enemies, the Old Guard who liked the way things were.  Sen Church was known for his battle against our developing into the imperialistic military war engine we have become. He, and this country, founded on such lofty principles, lost this battle.

We are a militaristic imperialistic country run by billionaires, and we are fading. 

 Based upon all the nonsense over the years, I suggest we change the rules for running for President in this country.

Must be under age 70 at the start of any term

Must provide ten years of tax returns when first filing to run as a candidate.

Must have held elected political office of any type at any level at some point in their life. Appointment jobs don't qualify.

Upon being elected, no relative of any level of any branch of the family tree would be eligible for the presidency for at 35 years.

Presidential term shall be six years. One term per lifetime.

No one remotely connected to the family tree may hold any federal position while family head is occupying WH.

All stocks and all investments and ownerships of any and all businesses must be put into a "business cooler" for term of office, thus ensuring no benefit of any type can ever be gained then, or in the future, from winning the Presidency.

Any current federal, state, or county officeholder must resign current position in full, with no hope of re-instatement, before filing to run for the Presidency.

 Inflation is leveling off, mortgage rates have dropped slightly, gas prices continue to drop steadily, more people have returned to work post-pandemic, the stock market had a great month, Congress has passed a few bills to benefit the entire country, and we aren't at war anywhere I know of. No Chinese citizens/spies have wandered into the WH or Biden's Delaware estate. No former prisoners of war have been denigrated and ridiculed. No one in Biden's admin. has openly stated women should be grabbed in their crotch. No one in Biden's admin. is recommending that scientists look into the possibility of injecting bleach to treat Covid Round Two, Monkeypox, or the Flu. Positive steps have been taken to battle climate change. Mr Biden has zero control over that wacko Putin, whose war has inflamed the international economy just when it was starting to recover from the Pandemic. Ports are busier than ever, freight trains are rolling full, truck drivers are in huge demand, wages have increased, car sales are ticking back up, more alleged crooks from the Trump admin. are being found and investigated, subpoenaed, indicted, charged, invited to testify. Untold numbers of boxes of highly classified material have been recovered making our nation that much safer. Recovered from a former sitting yahoo of a moronic President, btw. Yeah, I think Biden has done a great job as caretaker of the Office, to restore sanity, stability, integrity to the Office, and calmed our relations with leaders of other countries.

 Good time today, to draft a letter to my elected reps at state and national level on this gun madness.

I'm thinking these thoughts at random, after a post-Uvalde massacre that has included:

8 human beings shot in Texas,

6 in TN,

minimum 3 in Chicago,

8 in Atlanta,

8 in Oklahoma at a Memorial Day event,

3 more in the third h.s. grad party shooting in Atlanta in the past week,

while a 2nd grader brought a loaded handgun to his classroom in Sacramento,

and a ten year old has been arrested for threatening to shoot up a school in Lee County Fl,

and a one year old was shot and killed in a Pittsburgh drive-by at 2:40 pm yesterday, a Sunday. Broad daylight. All of these SINCE Uvalde. smh.

Darn right the kids are watching us adults. Always have, always will.

Raise gun purchase age to 25, after a background check that includes documented interviews with former teachers, neighbors, acquaintances, employers. Yes, this will mean your child won't be able to find a bb gun under the Christmas tree. Think toys...

No more mentally ill teenagers using someone's credit card, which apparently wasn't checked for authorized use to begin with, to be able to walk out with long guns AND ammo. Apparently the seller had zero curiousity about this. Age of 21 is too low. If the seller didn't check the credit card, he should be held co-responsible.

Any legal guardian/adult who fails to secure their weapon goes to jail minimum 30 days, job be damned. If anyone was hurt with their weapon, they become co-defendants automatically.

No limit to the numbers of guns any person or household may have, of course.

LIMIT what is available retail, gun shows, private sales, etc. We START, by banning the public availability of any weapon originally designed, intended, and used by military and law enforcement.

No more TAC-9s, M-50s, M-60s, AR-15s, M-16s;

no more handguns that hold more than nine bullets;

no public availability of clips holding multiple bullets; (Texas murdered had SEVEN 30-round clips with him; Rep Gifford's attacker had a 33-round clip.)

The Las Vegas hotel room killer carried an arsenal of long guns into a crowded hotel without bags going through any kind of a security check, and fired away from 32nd floor or whatever. Had he had NO access to long guns whatsoever, that slaughter doesn't happen.

Annual tax due on each weapon owned. Just like your vehicle, your home, your income. Money to the inevitable victim fund, which will be hard to keep filled.

If corporations can create baby food shortage, then we can create an ammo shortage as well. Why not?

Term limits for House and Senate, state and federal level. Three terms seems about right. Those currently in power regardless of party simply do not want to lose their jobs and the power and perks that go with it. Since voters keep returning numbskulls to office, it's time to establish term/life limits.

When done at the federal level, you are lifetime ineligible for lower-level govt svc of any kind. Period. For the Presidency, one lifetiime six year term. No more FDR's; no more spectre of Trumps hovering over us all. A one-generation gap for office holders, and no spousal succession. If your parent was President, you can forget it.

No more citizen tax dollars for billionares to build playpen arenas for millionaire spoiled athletes. Most cities are examples. Latest is Buffalo, currently talking about a Billion-dollar stadium.

If money from whatever source is available for that crap, then it's available for the security of every school no matter its affiliation, in every state. Locked doors and see-thru purses and banning backpacks and lockers aren't enough. CCTV, metal detectors, sole entrance/exit are all basic needs, common sense, and affordable.

None of the above should offend the NRA, whose tiring mantra continues to be don't take away our precious guns.

Well, how about we don't let anyone take away any more of our children?

 As a nation, we let the 2nd Amendment get away from us. We let people rationalize a law meant for single-shot rifles used by militia formed to defend their homes from the British Army, to be evolve into the authorized/encouraged use of every weapon every produced, sans tanks/fight jets. If it can fire a projectile, it's our right to not only own it, but carry it, and use it, publicly.

How did we get here?
The NRA and its lobbying efforts, combined with spineless US Representatives too easily bought, are a factor. Broad senseless personal interpretation of 2A is a factor.
---------------
"BY GREG PRICE ON 3/27/18 AT 12:16 PM EDT: oung activists calling for more gun control legislation should be more ambitious in their nationwide effort and focus on repealing the Second Amendment, according to retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

In an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times, Stevens praised the students and young people who rallied in Washington and around the country over the weekend as part of the March for Our Lives. The demonstration was sparked by the shooting last month at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 people, including 14 students, dead.

Stevens wrote that he had "rarely" seen such a wide scope of "civic engagement" from young people in his lifetime and encouraged their efforts to go even further. "That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms," Stevens wrote. "But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment." But the Supreme Court has generally been skeptical of measures to rein in gun rights." [ end copy and paste. ]

What we're up against: " A 2015 tweet by Texas Governor Greg Abbott calling on Texans to buy more guns has resurfaced online in the aftermath of the deadly mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde on Tuesday.

Abbott, a Republican who's served as governor of Texas since 2015, was commenting on a Houston Chronicle article that said requests to buy guns had topped one million for year in the state. He wrote on Twitter that he was "embarrassed" by the fact that Texas wasn't the number one state in the nation for new gun purchases.

"Let's pick up the pace Texans." he wrote, tagging gun rights advocacy group the National Rifle Association of America (NRA)."

This would be the same governor issuing pious statements post-shooting, the same gov scheduled to address the NRA annual convention in Houston this weekend, along with fellow idiot Sen. Cruz.

Columbine shocked us. Sandy Hook numbed us into dis-belief. Buffalo and Lagunas Ca shootings ten days ago angered us. And here we sit, all these years later, with a too-long list of school massacres and mass shootings on record, untold heartbreak, mourning all over again. When we have over 400m guns in America, what do we think is going to happen? When a computer program is allowed to be developed that makes guns, what do we expect? When we allow weapons and ammo specifically designed for military and law enforcement to be sold retail, what do we expect? We have more than enough gun laws, ostensibly. What we also have is a public demanding the right to carry anything produced, and a representative body frozen and afraid to act.

This, will continue to happen, until we stop it. If you haven't written your rep, you're part of the problem. If you believe guns don't kill people, people do, you're part of the problem. If you think citizens should be able to buy, carry, and use anything produced, you're part of the problem. It's way past time to re-write 2a for the 21st century, and stop letting an 18th century sentence control us, and kill us, and divide us. Enough already.

 While you might expect the entire economy to suffer under heightened inflation, corporations reported some of the biggest profits on record in 2021, when the inflation rate reached the highest it's been in nearly 40 years.

Our understanding of how economics works suggests that if corporations are paying more for materials thanks to a pandemic-ravaged global supply chain, their profits should be smaller. Instead, corporations are using inflation panic as a cover to raise prices and increase their profits even more.

According to analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, nearly 54% of the recent inflationary price hikes that Americans are paying have gone toward corporate profits. And people have started to notice: In February, a poll from Data for Progress showed that 63% of respondents have come to the conclusion that "large corporations are taking advantage of the pandemic to raise prices unfairly on consumers and increase profits."

Leaders like Senator Elizabeth Warren and California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna have zeroed in particularly on the oil and gas industry as an especially egregious example of corporate price-gouging. Congressman Khanna recently joined the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast to discuss the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, a piece of legislation he helped introduce in March, which would address that disparity between gas prices and gas company profits.

Around the country, Americans are paying record-high prices at the gas pump, and Big Oil is raking in the profits. And even though ExxonMobil lost $3.4 billion in the first quarter of the year after ceasing operations in Russia in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the corporation still doubled its first-quarter profits from last year, to $5.5 billion. Chevron, which in its recent quarterly report claimed to suffer less of an economic impact from the Russian invasion than its peers, is making its highest profits in at least a decade.

Under the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, large oil companies (those that import or produce more than 300,000 barrels of oil per day) will pay a 50% per-barrel tax on the difference between the current selling price and the average pre-pandemic price of oil — so essentially, a tax on their markups. By averaging the price-per-barrel between the years of 2015 and 2019, the tax would kick in for every penny over $66 per barrel. (At the time of this writing, oil stands at $110 per barrel.)

The 300,000-barrel threshold directly targets the biggest multinational oil producers — Exxon Mobil, BP, and the other handful of firms that have raked in tens of billions of dollars this year — leaving small domestic oil companies, which produce about 70% of the nation's oil, exempt from the tax.

Revenue collected from the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax would then be directed back to lower- and middle-class Americans in the form of a quarterly tax rebate check. Khanna estimated that if Big Oil companies sold their product at $100 per barrel, the revenue raised would work out to a $300 quarterly check to every American household earning less than $150,000.

"There are a lot of middle class and working class folks who are hurting, and for whom a couple hundred bucks a month would make a big, big difference," Khanna said.

There's also a precedent for this type of tax on major oil companies. In April 1980, the Carter Administration enacted the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax, which created an excise tax on domestic oil production and pulled in $80 billion in gross revenue before it was repealed in 1988.

The legislation cosponsored by Khanna differs from the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax in several important ways. While the revenue from the new proposed tax would provide for rebate checks, the 1980 legislation allocated revenue for tax reductions, low-income assistance programs, and transportation projects.

Perhaps most importantly, the new legislation doesn't only apply to domestically produced oil like the 1980 tax did, which some critics say penalized domestic oil producers and enriched international oil companies. The Congressional Research Service in 2011 found that a plan (like Khanna's) that was tied directly to the profits of the largest companies in the world would create "less economic distortion" than the 1980's tax "without reducing domestic oil supplies."

The new Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax legislation has been criticized by the usual antitax organizations, but could prove popular among ordinary Americans, with one poll showing that 87% of likely voters favor "a crackdown on price gouging by oil companies."

That disgust at Big Oil makes sense to Khanna. "I think that what's offensive here is that Big Oil is making money while everyone else in America is willing to sacrifice to stand with the Ukrainians," he said.

When everyone pays a higher price in order to support Ukrainian freedom, Americans are willing to carry that burden. But when Big Oil overcompensates for their losses by raking in hefty profits at the expense of the rest of the country paying more at the gas pump, populist solutions, like the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax, gain support.

-----------------------------------

In other words, we're all being raped for no reason other than profit. Welcome once again to the United Corporations of America. Too big to be punished, have their tentacles in all the right places.

 Signs of the Times

A thirty-second Super Bowl commercial cost sponsors $6.5m. Each. Imagine if 90% of that was donated to various charitable organizations, such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Relief programs, etc. We have lost our way in the United Corporations of America, formerly the USA.