EASY COME EASY GO

The US Defense Budget which Donald Trump touts as important to the safety and defense of Americans is on the chopping block. And it’s going to hit home in Delaware. The culprit is Trumps border wall. 

A new  maintenance hanger for Dover Air Force Base may be sitting in the crosshairs of a 20-page list of military construction projects send from the Pentagon to Congress. 

The Pentagon’s list estimated the cost of the DAFB hangar construction to be around $39 million. 

In addition to the loss are the number of civilian jobs and payroll that would trickle into Delaware’s economy. 

Trump is considering pulling funds from military contraction projects in 42 states.

So, in order for Trump to get his 247 mile wall, he is willing to sacrifice the safety and security of the rest of Americans. 

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I COULD HAVE GONE TO YALE OR HARVARD

Marlon Brando after he threw a championship fight at the request of his brother said of throwing the fight, “I coulda been somebody.”

If my parents had money I could have attended Yale or Harvard and “been somebody.”

The recent college scandal of parents spending millions to have their kids entered in prestigious schools was alarming. What has become of our society?

JUSTICE FOR ALL OR JUST WHITE FOLKS AND WHITE COLLAR CRIMES

The scales of justice are supposed to be balanced for all, not any more. 

A lot of comparisons have been made lately between sentencing for criminal acts of white and non-whites.

It boils down to those who have and have nots. If you can afford high priced attorneys, you can escape being sentenced or given a shorter time. If you have to take the state’s prosecutors who are overworked, and don’t  have the time or in most cases the experience, you can expect the worst especially if you are non-white. 

Only one of the Wilmington Trust executives has been sentenced for their mismanagement of the once powerful bank in Delaware. Thousands lost millions of dollars. Paul Manafort the corrupt once Trump campaign manager, accused on many charges which could have given him many years in prison, has seen him sentenced in two courts for a total of less than 7 years in prison. 

Many  instances of police shooting blacks showing on video they were dead wrong, got off without a slap on the wrist. And you wonder why they kneel?

Yet a black teenager charged with a crime is headlined a THUG in the newspaper, while a white teen is headlined as a TEEN.

For the same crimes a black can be sentenced for 15 years or more; a white teen or white collar crime for much less. 

Where is justice?

 

ANOTHER TRUMP PROMISE BROKEN

TRUMP HAS OUTLINED A SIGNIFICANT SOCIAL security CUT IN HIS 2020 AS IF HIS MEDICARE CUT PROPOSALS WERE NOT ENOUGH FOR THE RETIREES. 

This man just can’t keep a campaign promise. Better healthcare for less, not touching Social Security or Medicare, more American Jobs, Mexico will pay for the border wall, etc. 

His proposed cuts to social programs, which go against Trump’s campaign promised in 2016 not to touch so-called entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. 

Contained within Trumps budget were calls for about $1.5 TRILLION in cults to Medicaid over the next 10 years, which would be achieved by moving payouts to flock grants, an $845 billion reduction to Medicare spending over tdhe next decade that targets a decrease in wasteful spending via lower prescription drug costs: and –surprise – a roughly $26 BILLION decrease in Social Security spending over tdhe next decade. 

I don’t know how you can take money from Social Security since it is not funded by the government. But leave it to Trump, anyway to screw the working man, he knows how.

TRUMP: MY SUPPORTERS ARE THE MOST GULLIBILE PEOPLE ON EARTH

As an entertainer Trump knows ratings and how to get them, being a former TV host.  Apparently he also knows how to con his voters, calling them “gullible”.

I have other words for his cult following, but his words are close enough. 

When I go down his list of campaign promises, and go down that same list of non accomplishments, disappointments, I just can’t understand his following. 

Just a few lies: The wall Mexico was going to build, he said it his voters repeated it. Now he wants to take funds from much needed programs, taxpayer paid to build his wall. 

Better healthcare at less pay. Obamacare remains the law of the land. He keeps trying to weaken the program hoping it will go away. He has offered no replacement; never had a plan. 

“No longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea”. As I write they are building new facilities to build more. 

Promised an “Infrastructure Week”, up to $1.5 trillion on refurbishing the nation’s infrastructure. 

Promised to drain the swamp of corruption. Perhaps the most corrupt administration in U.S. history, riddled with nepotism and teeming with swamp creatures. 

Cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations will create more jobs, higher pay. Corporations bought back their stock, and gave larger dividends to their stock holders. 

Maybe gullible is too kind a word to describe his followers. Maybe dumbest is a better word?

A BASEBALL PLAYER WORTH $350,000,000?

Not even the legendary baseball greats of my day; Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Stan The Man, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, or Ted Williams or even in today’s game, Brooks Robinson, Hank Arron, Jim Palmer would be worth the $350,000,000 thirteen year contract that Bryce Harper just signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. making him the highest player in baseball history, topping g the $300,000,000, 10 year contract signed by Manny formerly of the Orioles, and last year the L.A. Dodgers,  last week for 10 years.

The athletes of the past worked for much less and were better players. Before the leagues expansion when each league had 8 teams, the product was much better. Harper has hit less than .250 in two of his past three seasons.

When I was a kid, a player with that type of average was sent to the minors. And then the baseball they bated against was not as lively as ones used now. 

I remember when left handed putcher Bobby Shantz pitched for the Philadelphia A’s and won 22 games for the lowly A’s, and asked cheap owner Connie Mack for a $500 raise. Mack game him the money with a warning if he didn’t win 20 the following year he was going to take it back. Shantz won 19 games, and Mack took back the $500. 

Now the players have a no-cut contracts, and make more money than they deserve. 

You wonder how the owners can pay that kind of money with all the empty seats at the ball parks. TV and radio contracts bring in millions; the ball parks have sponsors who ;pay millions to have their corporate name on the stadium, and the taxpayers build their stadiums with additional perks from the city. 

2020 REPUBLICANS BATTLE CRY; FIGHT DEMOCRATS SOCIALISM

With the 2016 battle cry of “Stop Illegals, drugs, rapist, murders” from coming into the US drying up for lack of evidence, VP Pence has unveiled a new slogan, scare tactic; “Stop Socialism”, and for the less educated, this could work for Republican Trump and Co. in 2020.

Capitalism is defined as an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals of corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth. 

Defined: the trickle down effect originated during the Ronald Reagan administration and the Trump administration whereas for corporations and companies when making more money, they will spread their wealth among their workers, more pay, better working conditions, better benefits, paying more in taxes to benefit government programs designed to help the less fortunate through tax cuts.

How’s that working for you? The recent massive corporate Trump tax has yielded a minimum of GOOD MANUFACTURING JOBS, instead corporations are buying back their stocks, increasing stock dividends; not giving some of the wealth to their workers in the form of pay increased, good for those who have stock, not so good for the working class living paycheck to paycheck. 

Social programs are designed to meet needs of the American population. Federal and state programs include cash assistance, healthcare and medical provisions, food assistance, housing subsidies, energy and utilities subsidies, education and childcare assistance, and subsidies and assistance for other basic services. 

Private provisions from employers, either mandated by policy or voluntary, also provide similar social benefits. 

Defined: The trickle up effect. More money to the working class they more they spend, resulting in a growing economy. 

Actually both capitalism and socialism should work hand in hand if greedy industry would be willing to pay their share of taxes instead of putting that load on the working class. 

Unless you fall in the position of many working class people who work but still need government assistance you will never understand capitalism and will always feel, “If I can make it, others can, no help needed”>  Not everyone is as fortunate. 

Making voters believe socialism is a bad word may work. Just don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.