May 22 2017

In case you don't know, Hilary won by over 3 million votes with only 54% of the electorate participating.

The draft dodger received only 25% of the eligible electorate.
Hilary, only slightly more.

Many of the 46% who stayed home would have been energized by a Bernie campaign and it would not have been close.

Its fair to say that the draft dodger was elected by a bitter angry poor working underclass crowd who never passed a civics class, but its fairer to say that the cake eater was elected by an apathetic crowd who stayed home.

Its also fair to say that the stay at homers were jaded by the two party system and had lost faith in government.
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There were scores of other would be voters who were never registered because of the deliberate hurdles placed in their way by a GOP that understood that any fair and robust accounting of the peoples will would spell DOOMSDAY for the Republican Party .

So they took strong anti democratic measures to mitigate registration in the ranks of likely Democratic voters.

Fake stories about illegals voting aroused memories of the Fake News campaign about WMD in Iraq and the the mushroom cloud that fascinated the numbed down crowd and made it so easy for GW to start the wars that nobody can stop and for tattoed tea drinking America to attack the free press enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution.

Shareholders in the defense corporations were very happy and they have been smiling ever since.

They tell us that a group of Saudis flew into the twin towers on 911, so we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and now the winner of the unpopular vote is sword dancing in Saudi Arabia and passing out billions to our attackers..

Do you ever feel like your winning when you re losing again?

MAY 21  2017

I see as a major issue here that most dues paying members in the IBEW are unable to grasp what Perry is laying down.

A violation of his rights are a violation of my rights, your rights, and every rank and file members rights.

It is a difficult concept unless you are educated to a high degree with the contents of the Constitution and its primacy over all other documents.

If you want to play union, you have to know and understand how the Union works and that would start with knowing, reading, and fully understanding the Constitution of the IBEW.

I apologize in advance to the scores that that may take offense, but

unless you have achieved this first simple step, you are not on the conversation level in a discussion like this.

To say "I AM A PROUD UNION MEMBER" is more than just a slogan.

Unless you understand beyond a basic level how the Union functions.you are most likely part of the problem.

Deliberate ignorance and/or avoidance of a full and comprehensive knowledge of the the IBEW Constitution, the Local Union Bylaws and the Local Agreement or Agreements is a disservice to the Union and may be one of the root causes of the decline in Union membership and relevance of collective bargaining in the North American economy.

May 20  2016

In Local 26, there is the Residential "R" program. It is a second tier work force that challenges the primacy of the JW in the workplace. Many other local unions have had the CW CE program.
For all practical purposes, the R program and the CWCE are one and the same. They do the same thing. They provide an abundant supply of cheap replaceable labor to the contractors and at the same time they are corrosive to the equality and solidarity that are the crucibles of collective bargaining.

We are not all working in Local 26 if you haven't noticed we have institutionalized chronic unemployment.
Local 26 has averaged about 800 JWs on the bench since the turn of the century.
The numbers may be a little better now, but it’s an election year. Do I have to break it down to you?
In the meantime, more and more of what work we have is being done by our low scale "R" Residential brothers. This is not trending well for the JW.
Some are enamored of the JW scale, especially the R worker who hopes to make it someday. But so many are called and oh so few are chosen.
As the R ranks swell, and the JW number decline, many R workers are chasing a fading dream. Every JW raise usually means less JWs working and more and more R workers. A grand strategy obscure to most that is working well for some but not the rank and file JW of Local 26
It could be a long hot summer for many.
If we want to take the concept, the ideology of collective bargaining seriously and make it work for all of us and not just some of us, we must not be distracted by the moment, one day, one job, one contractor, one member. It's not about that. It's about all of the jobs, all of the contractors all of the members, all of the time. We are all in this together. It's about a lifestyle, a career, a brotherhood. We need to see the big picture. If we don’t, we may be part of the problem.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE GENERAL WELFARE

Trump lost the popular vote by over 3 million, and that is with millions of votes going to 3^rd tier candidates  where voters would  likely have made Hilary their second choice.
About 42% of the electorate stayed home.   And there were millions of others who went unregistered.  Can we truly say we measured the peoples will in the last election?    We have a government, but do we have democracy?

He is president because both major parties control all of the electors in the Electoral College, and have perverted its original purpose.   We went to the polls on November 8 and had an election.  At the end of the day, Hilary had 3 million votes more than Trump.  She won that election.   Trump won the Electoral College vote, because Electors voted for him.  He who wins the Electoral College wins the election.  



Trumps base is loyal, no doubt, but they offer no accountability. A vigilant informed electorate is not necessarily a loyal electorate.    A vigilant informed electorate places the country, the constitution the promotion of the general welfare ahead of any party loyalties.
Loyalty is something you might expect from a lap dog, not a free and independent American citizen.
Loyalty for the sake of loyalty is counterproductive to “We the People” government where an involved and well informed electorate is vital.

Remember what Plato told us about this thousands of years ago!

  The loyalists tend to give a free reign and wax defensive when any contrary thought blips to the surface.
 Trump takes his support for granted, much like the local high school football team takes the cheerleaders for granted.   The cheerleaders rah rah rah for the team whether it is doing good or bad, good or evil, winning or losing.   
On the issue of Trump being a smart experienced leader, that may be an asset in the corporate world, but do we really elect leaders?  Or do we elect public servants?  We are not running a corporation here.   In fact, in an ideal world, government functions as a diametric opposition to the unregulated interests of predatory corporations.
To call a President a leader implies that we are followers, and not the free, independent thinking people that we tell ourselves and the world that we are.  
The Constitution is something we should all know about and nowhere does the Constitution say that the President is a leader.    I don’t think the word appears anywhere in the Constitution.
  It is an assumed title that has normalized itself over the years.
If We the People are forming a more perfect union, we are the leaders, we are the boss.  Ideally, we do not elect leaders with their own personal agenda or an agenda of a corporation that sent them there to do their bidding.  We elect public employees that work for all of us and not  a party. We elect stewards of the constitution, stewards of the peoples will.  Elected office should be to serve the people, not their own personal path to wealth.   But that’s just an ideology.  The reality is we have drifted so far to the right away from that.
Corporate influence rules the day.  What do they say about Fascism?

USED, ABUSED, MISTREATED AND DISCARDED:

THE JUST DESERTS OF A MAN WHO COULDNT KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT
Consider this. The Justice Department could have made a timely announcement concerning Clinton s malfeasance months earlier, but Bernie may have won the nomination.and he would have energized The electorate and destroyed Trump.

It is possible that Trump wanted to make sure Hilary stayed in, because he is the only one he could beat, but he lost anyway by more than 3 million votes.

Trump received only 28% of the eligible electorate.

Democratic voters were jaded by the DNC process and the quid pro quo appointment of Tim Kaine as VP and mostly stayed home.

42% of the electorate did not participate in 2016 and the world pays the price.

A significant number of would be voters were also unregistered due to voter suppression tactics engineered by the GOP that have proven quite successful.

The corporate coup d'etat continues as the oligarchs seize control of our institutions and promotion of the general welfare has been replaced by sacrifice at the altar of the quarterly dividend.

Trump found Comey to be useful as much as a condom is useful when your intention is to fuck something and like a used condom, Comey was disrespectfully discarded.

The electorate is angrier than ever as the collapse continues..

GOP congressmen feel the wrath everyday as they go into hiding in their own districts and the podia at the town halls remain empty.

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Not a True Believer 5-7 17

It has never been established under oath that Pence and Flynn ever had that conversation. We know Pence tells us that. He told us that on Meet The Press. It is not illegal or unusual for a politician to lie to the American people. Think about it! Why would they even have this conversation? If they did, why would Flynn lie to Pence? Most associated with Trump had know connections to Russia. It is not something they would likely lie about in closed circles.

Was the Pence appearance on Meet the Press just an attempt to sprinkle fairy dust on what seemed just a brush fire at the time? Does Pence really care about the truth? Is the cover story the truth, until it is proven otherwise?

It is an old show!. A fairy dust cover story! One news cycle and on to the next distraction. Works most of the time! When it doesnt, the opposition party seizes the day and turns it into a Federal Investigation...

 Some Observations

Medicare expansion is a plausible solution, but
 ObamaCare allows for expansion of Medicaid for low income people, but invariably, big red broke states do not exercise that option for fear of putting a feather in Obamas cap and make Democrats look good

The big red states would rather have their poor folk left to the ravages of the Insurance companies.
Expansion of Medicaid would be tantamount to expansion of Medicare.

There are levels of corruption in both parties, but if you want to lean left towards a more egalitarian society, the democrats are the best path in that direction. 

Over the years, voters have backed themselves into a corner here, as they abandoned the democrats in favor of ludicrous hyperbole involving gun control, walls,   smaller government.  Democrats, once the champions of the working classes had to lean right, just to stay on the radar.

To summarize, the misinformed voted their holster instead of their wallet, and for corporate welfare instead of the general welfare.

 Today, the dumbed down voters, enchanted by 15 second sound bites can’t afford to buy the ammo for the gun in the holster that they preferred to money in the wallet.
 Good thing,  as they are likely to continue shooting themselves in the foot, with live ammo, if only they could afford it.

Today, the second amendment is safe as ever, the only existential threat to it coming from the powerful lobbyists in the NRA whose sacred noble mission has warped into draining hundreds, if not, thousands of dollars for “weapons” from any  stupid  enough to believe that there is  a clear and present danger to them and their family as close at hand as the next guy in line at the local movie theater.

What suckers Americans have been there.
How much longer can the NRA continue to sell that lie before the people understand the con game that has bred such mistrust, contempt and fear in a gullible public.

The smaller government that they blindly vote for has not made them freer or more independent.   Good, tried and true government regulation has been replaced by draconian measures of corporations.

The general welfare cited in the preamble to the constitution has been kicked to the curb in favor of shareholders profits that only provide for the welfare of the few who have raped and ruined the environment and then run away to their exclusive retreats insulated and isolated from the social and environmental chaos that they leave in their wake.