An Old But Terrific Article About Our Senator Blunt and the NRA from The Star

I love it when the truth, the facts come out, especially on politicians who take money from organizations and who then put that organization and its preferences ahead of the American public, ahead of the nation.

Nowhere is this any more true than with our own Senator Roy Blunt and the money--the big money--he takes from the NRA, the National Rifle Association. Here's that article. It ran June 14, 2016:

Who's the top recipient of NRA donations 

anywhere in the country

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also ran it, same day:

Report: Blunt top NRA campaign donation 

recipient in Congress 

Another one just ran two days ago in Fortune Magazine:

NRA Contributions: How Much Politicians 

Like Roy Blunt Receive

Unfortunately for Senator Blunt, he is no longer the top recipient of funds and funding--money--from the NRA. This article in the New York Times, showing the latest of who takes in the most from them came out October 4 last year, after the Las Vegas slaughter:

The Congress Members Receiving the Most 

N.R.A. Funding

Don't get me wrong here. You needn't feel sorry for the good Senator Blunt, however. According to that same article, he did take in more than four and one half million dollars from the NRA alone. In all, he got a cool, whopping $4,551,146 just from the NRA.  Poor kid, he's fallen back to the number 3 position on how much he raked in from that greedy, selfish, self-serving organization. 

Links:

"The NRA has morphed... into a radical mouthpiece for its largest benefactors, the gun manufacturers."

The Cult of Guns in America

Bill Moyers: NRA 'Enabler Of Death' (VIDEO) 

What Kills Me About Republicans, This President and His Supporters

Think about this. I know I have and for a long time. I saw this as a Facebook post today then found it's original source as a tweet from one Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama staffer in the White House.

It is worth noting that the Russians believed that the best way to damage America was help elect Donald Trump.

I only wish Republicans and all Trump supporters could and would wrap their minds around this. How proud and happy can a person be if the Russians, of all people, wanted to make sure YOUR CANDIDATE wins the election?

From The New York Times:

"The indictment presented in astonishing detail a carefully planned, 3-year Russian scheme to incite political discord in the U.S., damage Hillary Clinton's campaign and promote Donald J. Trump.:

And the Washington Post:

Trump's Russia 'hoax' turns out to be real

"Trump’s own Justice Department has concluded otherwise. A 37-page federal indictment released Friday afternoon spells out in exhaustive detail a three-year Russian plot to disrupt America’s democracy and boost Trump’s campaign, dealing a fatal blow to one of the president’s favorite talking points."

You can find Dan Pfeiffer at Pod Save America and Crooked Media:

Pod Save America - Art19

Pod Save America Archives | Crooked Media

Additional link:

Pod Save America: 'it boys' of podcasting 

What We Need to do About and With Guns in America

Herewith, a short but necessary and intelligent list of just what we need to do about guns in our nation.

Ban the AR-15

It's not a coincidence.

And while we're at it, bring back the Assault Weapons Ban.

For starters.

Link:

The NRA Is Killing Us And Their Weapon Is The 2nd Amendment

Defend Gun Control With Facts

It's gotten so tiresome over the years, trying to discuss weapons in our nation and the damage they do to us all. The Right Wing and Republican Party and NRA and all their supporters insist nothing will work, nothing will help and, gosh, we have to support our Constitution and the oh so precious Second Amendment.

The fact is, the facts are, the facts need to be looked at and accepted.

So herewith, some of those facts.

America's unique gun violence problem, 

explained in 17 maps

--America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany

--America has 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but almost half of the civilian-owned guns around the world

--On average, there is more than one mass shooting for each day in America

--There have been more than 1,500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook

--States with more guns have more gun deaths

--It’s not just the US: Developed countries with more guns also have more gun deaths

--States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths

--Where there are more guns there is more homicide

--Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide

--Across states, more guns = more homicide

--More guns = more homicides of police

More:


We have to get over the emotionalism and empty opinions with facts.

Links, sources:

Harvard Injury Control Research Center 

Senator Blunt Rightly Takes a Well-Earned and Very Deserved Beating In the Media With This Latest Florida Slaughter of Innocents

So yet 17 more Americans, innocent Americans were, once again, slaughtered here in America.

Having what they thought was a normal, peaceful even, likely, beautiful day when a fellow American got and took an AR-15 automatic weapon---because they could---and gunned these people down.

It's beyond disgusting.

Now, rightfully, our own Missouri Senator Roy Blunt is taking a beating in media for his bought and paid for complicity in one more of these massacres in our country.

A writer for JImmy Kimmel, Bess Kalb, posted this yesterday on Twitter.

Bess Kalb‏Verified account @bessbell

This is not a political issue. This is not a Constitutional debate. This is a pandemic that's killing children. And it's perpetrated by hypocrites who preach a doctrine of "life" but take money from a profit-driven gun lobby. @RoyBlunt @SenatorBurr @SenThomTillis @SenCoryGardner

1:35 PM - 14 Feb 2018

• 3,601 Retweets
• 7,578 Likes
• 

The New York Times showed, last year, how our Senator was the third highest paid Republican Party Senator by and from the NRA. The New York Times published this article last October.

The Congress Members Receiving 

the Most N.R.A. Funding 

In it, one can read how Senator Blunt took in more than 4 million five hundred fifty one dollars from the NRA last year.

Imagine that.

Our Senator took in $4,551,146 from the NRA, from just one, single source.

What would be, what is, really, a person's or even a family's fortune, this one government representative took in from one organization.

It's obscene. 

I've said it probably a thousand times. It's why I created this group on Facebook.

Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System 
and Government

It made it into media clear across "the pond" to the UK. This came from the BBC.

Florida shooting: Senators singled out 

over gun lobby funds

This is where we are presently, as a nation.

America Is Averaging One School Shooting 

Every 60 Hours In 2018

Let's keep this in mind, too.

'This Happens Nowhere Else Other Than the United States of America'

We have to finally, at last, get things done about weapons in America. I propose the following, at minimum:

1)  Require background checks for ALL weapons purchases, coast to coast, for criminal history

2)  Require background checks for ALL weapons purchases, coast to coast, for mental stability and finally

3) Ban the purchase of all automatic weapons, including and especially the AR-15 and all like it, again, nationwide. 

These are not difficult things but they are important. If they save even one life, let alone more, they will have achieved their goals and what we so desperately need in our country. We need to bring back the Assault Weapons Ban.

The time for "thoughts and prayers" and inaction is over.

You hear that, Senator Blunt?

The days of putting money and the NRA before the people, before we Americans, needs to be over and soon as possible. 

As with our health care, we must put people and American lives ahead of profit and profits.

Links:

Sachs: Ban semiautomatic assault weapons and save lives 

Mass Shootings Are Getting Deadlier

No Mass Shootings in Australia in 20 Years: How Did They Do It?

Since 1968 More Americans killed by guns than in all U.S. Wars

WALL OF SHAME: The NRA Gave These 9 Senators Over $22 Million 

Kristof: How to Reduce Shootings

Survivor Calls for Action: ‘You Guys Are the Adults’

This we cannot allow:

As Nation Suffers 18th School Shooting in 45 Days, Trump Budget Would Slash Funding for Background Checks

American Exceptionalism

We are the only Western, industrialized nation where there are this many mass shootings and these numbers of innocent civilians killed.

We are the only Western, industrialized nation that ties health care to profit.

We are the only Western, industrialized nation that has not just some but lots of people declaring bankruptcy due to medical expenses. Medical expenses are, in fact, the number one cause of bankruptcies in the United States.

Both, profit over people. 

We put profit and profits before people.

Links:

17 killed in shooting at high school in Parkland, Florida

We're Averaging One School Shooting Every 60 Hours In 2018

Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of US Bankruptcies: Study

America Pays More For Internet, Gets Slower Speeds

Entertainment Overnight -- Valentine

With Sting and Chris Botti

Entertainment Overnight -- Valentine II

The Hard Reality of Transportation

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, there are far, far too many people on this planet for us all, humankind, to keep driving our own, individual cars to and from our destinations.

We need public transportation.

And we need it all over our cities and states and nations. We need it across the world.

We have to stop pretending it's--what?--the 1940's? and there aren't that many of us and we can continue this expensive, very polluting insanity.

As just one example, look at traffic in Los Angeles.






Keep in mind, too, this is daily. Sure, it's Los Angeles but it's not just them, not just that one city and again, it's not just a one day occurrence. It's repeated all through the year and in far too many cities across the globe.

It's getting worse, too.

It's Not Your Imagination, 

Los Angeles County is Getting More Crowded

Not only is it Los Angeles, but it's only growing worldwide. With more and more people in our cities, states and nations, across the globe, this only becomes more apparent and real and necessary.

Number of People in the World to Rise 

to 8 Billion by 2023, U.N. Says

This is crazy. This is no way to live.

Think about it. Los Angeles. San Diego. San Francisco. Houston, Dallas, Austin. Heck, traffic is so bad on the other side of the country, we just give up and call it the "Northeast corridor."

As usual, Germany and Europe are far ahead of us here in the US on this, too.

German cities to trial free public transport 

to cut pollution 

Not only is this a good idea, we need to take it steps further.

We will need to actually further tax cars so we can accomplish three big goals:

--Cut down on all that traffic

--Reduce the pollution and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

--And, yes, increase those of us on public transportation

Public transportation can no longer be only for the less affluent or even thought to be only for them.

We have to realize all the benefits we'd reap from this, too. We can't only think of it as what we would lose. Herewith, just some of those benefits.

--Again, less pollution

--Repeating, less traffic

--Cleaner air

--Less irritated asthma and respiratory ailments for hundreds of millions across the planet

--Less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so...

--Less increased global warming and

--Slower human-caused climate change

--Less time wasted sitting in traffic

--Maintaining public transportation is far less expensive than having to maintain all the more singular roads required to keep all this traffic going

We have to learn to live together, we have to learn to work together and yes, we all, all of us, need to learn to travel together. Lots of people across the world have done this.

Now, we all need to.

Links:

Public Transportation Benefits

Why Public Transit Is Important

Why We All Need Public Transportation

Why We Need Public Transportation, 

Not More Self-Driving Cars

10 reasons why you should use public transport 

Entertainment Overnight -- Happy Valentine's Day

Exactly How Bad Is This Republican President's and Congress' Plan for Spending?

After the Republican Party's Congress and President released their tax and spending plans, exactly how bad is it all?

Don't ask Democrats or the Left Wing or "libruls" for their opinion, oh no.

Let's go straight to the heart of the Right Wing:

Heritage Foundation: Republicans are 

“bankrupting the country” 

Yes sir. And it comes from this article:

Alarm bells are ringing on the federal debt

This is the author:

Thomas Binion is the director of Congressional and Executive Branch Relations at The Heritage Foundation.

For those who don't know---who, exactly, is the Heritage Foundation, you ask? Well, here you are:

The Heritage Foundation - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation

The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership.

Here, then, is what Mr. Binion has to say about this latest spending boondoggle by this Republican Congress:

The Bipartisan Budget Act is 652 pages long. The bill increases spending by $386 billion over two years and nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. It also suspends the debt ceiling until after the next election.

This is a massive and sweeping increase in federal spending. The increase in domestic spending is three times larger than even the increase requested by President Obama in his last budget.

Sure, those pesky Democrats insist this Republican tax plan shovels yet more money to the already-wealthy and corporations---their contributors---as well as taking money from programs that help the middle- and lower-classes (and it's factually true, by the way), but let's not rely on their input or opinion. Let's stick with Right Wingers and Republicans on this.

Even they think this is not just a bad plan but downright dangerous. 

Bankrupting, even.

But hey, Republicans are doing it so it must be okay?

Right?

Not done spending there, however. Mr. Trump also wants to have a parade, we can't forget that.

Trump's military parade could cost as much as $30 million

Link:

CBO: Senate tax plan would increase deficit 

by $1.4T over 10 years

Entertainment Overnight -- On This Administration

The Only Way We'll Stop Polluting the Planet

I've worked at a couple huge, national corporations and noticed a continuing, repeated thread running through them.

Corporations and all the employees that work for them throw away and waste a great deal of plastics and papers and cardboard and aluminum cans and glass.

Corporations, with all those people, create and then throw away all these materials.

And they do it daily. Weekly. Month after month. Year after year.

And they have no desire nor motivation to reduce the amount of waste and wastes and what ends up as pollution, landfill.  It's what gets us these results:

Plastic Garbage Patch Bigger 

Than Mexico Found in Pacific

'Plastic in All Sizes' Found Everywhere 

in Once Pristine European Arctic

Nasa animation shows how ‘garbage islands’ have taken over the seas in the last 35 years

Corporations are all about profit and profits, of course. Because of that, they're also about cutting costs. They're about cutting costs at all costs. Recycling requires commitment. It requires spending. Those are costs they don't want to assume or commit to.

So let's face it. The only way we, as a nation and planet, can get them to start recycling and at least reduce, if not end polluting will be for government and governments, state by state and nation by nation, to require them to do so, to start and keep recycling.

Think about the waste.

Think about how much paper and plastic alone each McDonald's restaurant throws out. Daily. Then think of the entire company.

AT&T

GE

Alcoa

Dupont

Bayer

The list goes on. Company after company. All over the nation, continent and world.

We must do this. We must require this. We have to call them out on this. They won't do it on their own.

An upside to all this, besides that we'll clean up our planet is that it will also create jobs. Those are two huge wins for humanity and the planet.

The thing is, it must come from us, from the people.

Links:

Just 100 companies responsible for 71% 

of global emissions, study

Just 90 companies caused two-thirds 

of man-made global warming

Just 90 companies are to blame for most climate change

The Toxic 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters 

in the United States

The Oceans Are Drowning In Plastic -- 

And No One's Paying Attention

And it's not just the oceans, of course.

Landfill photos from six cities that highlight 

the global waste problem

Landfills: Are we running out of room for our garbage?

This President and His Administration Don't Even Pretend for Whom They're Working

You have to hand it to this Republican President and his administration.

They don't even remotely  pretend to be working for the average, working Joe and Jane out here in America. They don't make any attempt of any kind to try to appear they're working for the middle- and/or lower- and working classes. I give you this article from none other than Rupert Murdoch's own very Right-Wing, business-friendly Wall Street Journal.

An End to Airline Red Tape—

Or Consumer Protection? 

This is just the beginning of the article:

Airlines want to nix a host of rules that attempt to keep them from mistreating customers. The Transportation Department is considering it.

The DOT has asked airlines to suggest changes or cuts to regulations, part of a broad initiative from President Trump, once an owner of a small airline, to reduce government red tape. It comes as DOT fines against airlines fell by half last year.


The rules matter because DOT is just about the only protection consumers have in U.S. air travel. If the airlines get what they want, the government would weaken the tarmac delay rule, which imposes hefty fines for stranding passengers on planes for long periods, and eliminate a requirement that they show the full price of a ticket when people shop.

Carriers also have asked DOT to scrap the 24-hour grace period for a full refund when buying a ticket—you would pay a change fee even if you realized right away you booked the wrong date or made a mistake in the passenger name. They want to eliminate a rule that requires them to honor tickets sold for “mistake fares,” and they are asking for flexibility from a requirement they provide “prompt” wheelchair service. They argue the term “prompt” is ambiguous and complain that providing wheelchair service at zero charge costs the industry $300 million annually and exceeds benefits.

They also want their own booking systems to be free from the DOT ban on display bias so they don’t have to disclose to consumers they exclude competitors’ flights, and they want to drop requirements to show on-time and cancellation data with flights.

It's insane.

It's obscene.

What little protections we have, that we've been able to gain, as customers and passengers on airlines and these people are working to take them away. They're actually asking the airlines what rules they don't like and what they want to have done away with.

This guy and his henchmen and women are working, fighting for the already-wealthy and corporations, folks, not you and I, not, again, the middle class. 

They just recently handed out huge, deficit-creating tax credits and deductions to and for the, again, already wealthy and corporations. Then they have Betsy DeVos working for the same wealthy people in our schools, against the working schlubs like you and I. And then there's Scott Pruitt at the EPA, eviscerating our clean air and water and soil rules.

Here's further proof, today, from The New York Times:

Administration Imposes Sweeping Limits on Federal Actions Against Companies

Not only are they doing it, they're all but throwing public parties to celebrate it all.

Why anyone but the wealthy votes Republican is beyond me.

Meanwhile, we've seen lots of predictions and projections of just where, exactly, his and the Republicans tax package will take us. They already are.

Trump's America will be saddled with debt – 

like his bankrupted hotels 

God help us, America.

Not that we deserve it.