Category Archives: Politics

A new legal consultant

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WASHINGTON (AP) — “Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.”

Who says the nation isn’t a plutocracy – or maybe a corporatocracy? Forget ‘one person, one vote’, let’s you and mariner and a couple of our friends pool together a few million to see if we can change tax laws.

Mariner read this comment from European sources: “The West is having a hard time dealing with a nation with a failing society that is supposed to be the leader of the democratic world and at the same time is the leader of the democratic world.”

But don’t worry readers; a new law firm is taking over control of our human disarray. The Congress wasn’t interested, state governments weren’t interested, the Supreme Court didn’t know things were in disarray and the President (previous and present) are incapable of handling the world’s woes.

Planet Earth has decided to take the case.

– – – –

Mariner feels obliged to report some good news given his reputation for doom and gloom.

Despite a terrible spring for gardening and mariner’s bout with influenza (not Covid), the gardens have taken it upon themselves to give a good display despite the abundance of weeds. Slowly, limited by lack of twenty-year-old energy, he is restoring order to the garden section by section.

Despite the woes of traveling in a world of convoluted airline scheduling and gas prices, the next few months will provide visits from seldom seen friends and relatives and a giant family gathering in Utah.

This post suggests at least one positive circumstance: The world is crashing around us but there is salvation in family unity and friendship.

Ancient Mariner

 

While we wait

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It definitely is a waiting game on several critical fronts. China has begun its pressure game with Taiwan; we can only wait to see what happens.

Neil Degrasse Tyson said if both polar ice caps melt completely, the ocean will rise to The Statue of Liberty’s elbow; we can only wait to see what happens.

The November elections clearly are jump ball at this point. All the polls mariner has read indicate a fog of insight; we can only wait to see what happens.

The Supreme Court has missed the ball on the Affordable Care Act and abortion. Is this the new direction for the Court? We can only wait to see what happens.

Across the nation police departments are understaffed from resignations and low pay. Crime is up in many states, including homicides; we can only wait to see what happens.

Finally, big corporations will have to pay a 15 percent income tax; will the republicans reverse this legislation in November? We can only wait to see what happens.

Afghanistan society has collapsed, having no economy and no social standards; we can only wait to see what happens.

The Ukrainians continue to fight as their nation becomes decimated by a needless bullet war; will the government and the economy survive as the war goes on? We can only wait to see what happens.

Mariner’s potato crop is nearing the end. Will there be an abundance of potatoes? We can only wait to see what happens.

Does the reader have a hobby?

Ancient Mariner

Know your government

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Mariner’s wife uncovered this actual test from 1954 on its original paper. Laying in the entire test as photographs would take many pages. Below is the top of the first page. The rest has been added as text.

Perhaps the reader could have a pen and paper ready to take the test on their own. There are approximately 100  questions; get 60 correct to pass by the skin of your teeth. Once in a while Kenny’s answers are inserted to help.

21.-29. Give the names of the Justices of the Supreme Court.

30.-51. Tell the provisions of each of the amendments to the Constitution.

30. First Amendment

31. Second Amendment

  1. Third Amendment – “Quartering of soldiers in time of peace.”

 

  1. Fourth Amendment

 

  1. Fifth Amendment

 

  1. Sixth Amendment

 

  1. Eighth Amendment

 

  1. Ninth Amendment

 

  1. Tenth Amendment

 

  1. Eleventh Amendment

 

  1. Twelfth Amendment

 

  1. Thirteenth Amendment

 

  1. Fourteenth Amendment

 

  1. Fifteenth Amendment

 

  1. Sixteenth Amendment

 

  1. Seventeenth Amendment

 

  1. Eighteenth Amendment

 

  1. Nineteenth Amendment

 

  1. Twentieth Amendment – “Right for women to vote.”

 

  1. Twenty-first Amendment

 

  1. Twenty-second Amendment

 

  1. What is the Bill of Rights?

 

  1. Who is the President of the United States?

 

  1. Who is the Vice President of the United States?

 

  1. What is an unwritten law?

 

  1. Two things necessary to any good government are

 

  1. The plan of government for the U.S. is [Constitution]

 

  1. A constitutional law is

 

  1. An unconstitutional law is

 

  1. A Law is declared unconstitutional by the

 

  1. The President chooses a cabinet in order to [help him in different fields]

 

  1. The Constitution grants all lawmaking powers to

 

64-65. The two houses of Congress are

 

  1. The Constitution established two houses of Congress because

 

  1. The number of Representatives from each state is determined by

 

  1. The Speaker of the House is determined by

 

The original document is missing 70 and 71.

 

  1. The Vice President does not have a vote in the House unless

 

  1. A President pro tempore is

 

  1. The life of each Congress lasts

 

  1. Congress convenes in regular session on (date)

 

  1. How often may the President call Congress into session

 

  1. The power to enforce laws is given to

 

  1. The President’s term of office is

 

  1. If a President dies, they are succeeded by

 

  1. The President must be a

 

  1. What is the minimum age for a President

 

  1. The oath of office is administered to the President by
  2. The President takes office on (date)

 

  1. The President can make treaties if

 

  1. The highest law of the land is

 

  1. The Supreme Court may annul laws if

 

  1. A quorum in Congress is

 

  1. A filibuster is

 

  1. The number of Supreme Court justices is

 

  1. A writ of habeas corpus is

 

  1. A bill of attainder is

 

  1. An ex post facto law is

 

  1. A reprieve is

 

  1. A pardon is

 

  1. Who regulates inter-state commerce

 

  1. What is naturalization

 

  1. What is piracy

 

  1. Does a dictator consider the welfare of the people

 

  1. Can a government function without the power to raise money

 

  1. Do wealth and power make a nation happy?

 

Does the reader get the sense that if the electorate learned this information in school social media may not have as free a swing at facts as it does?

Ancient Mariner

 

Private Equity

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Private equity investors are different from venture capitalists, who provide a cash infusion to small startups and hope they blossom into the next Facebook. Nor are they stock traders making split-second decisions to buy or sell shares in public companies. Rather, private equity funds aim to take control of a business for a relatively short time, restructure it and resell or liquidate the company at a profit.

It is mariner’s opinion that private equity firms are the most evil and destructive element of uncontrolled capitalism. The impact on local newspapers across the country has been in the news. Small newspapers are disappearing because of private equity take-overs.

It is a form of thievery. Mariner knows about four billionaires who bought a bank and immediately foreclosed on every mortgage – creating great financial hardship for homeowners. The billionaires either received immense amounts of cash when property owners could pay off their mortgages or took title to properties well below their market price. The event was a tragedy for mortgage holders and demonstrates the disregard of private equity for any form of moral behavior.

Propublica reports that private equity manages over six trillion dollars in the US economy. The Congress, of course, does not attempt to change the tax structure advantages.

An unexposed impact of private equity is the disregard for employees who are summarily laid off, fired, and whose retirement benefits are redirected to private equity.

Does the reader have a hobby?

Ancient Mariner

Noted situations

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Mariner hasn’t posted for the last few days. The reason is the break in the heat wave, allowing him to get out tending lawn and garden. Nevertheless, there are some situations that are significant to note. Each situation has been covered by news stations and websites but speak specifically to ‘our times they are changing faster’.

Taiwan – A nation with a lovely culture not blinded by dollar bills, firmly entrenched in local life and family yet, in 2005, the last time mariner checked, Taiwan was the seventh wealthiest nation in the world and is the world’s most productive source of Lithium batteries. Mariner had a contract in Taiwan for a while and is fond of that experience.

Alas, the future does not bode well for Taiwan. China believes, with much more heritage than Putin has, that Taiwan, an island 225 miles long and 110 miles from China mainland, is part of China.

It always had been China until the Qing Dynasty ceded it to Japan at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Japan held control until the Second World War. At the end of the war the island was assigned back to China but less than a year later the internal war led by the Communist party and Mao Tse-tung drove the Chinese government to relocate on Taiwan where it claimed still to be the real government of China.

Over the years the West has supported Taiwan; the nation has become a mix of resistance to Mainland China and a virtual western democracy. Militarily, Taiwan is willing to go to the mat with China if China decides to invade. Taiwan knows it will be decimated but its military strategy is not to defend the island but to throw everything into China, making it extremely expensive for China to try.

The United States, South Korea and Japan have a commitment to Taiwan but mariner cannot see a way out without a bullet war. Don’t forget, North Korea is less than a thousand miles to the north.

Beyoncé – She’s back. Why?

Ancient Mariner

Around the town square

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֎ It turns out there is a big war between oligarchs about what will be the primary energy source for the future: Lithium or Hydrogen. Mariner suggests the reader put their money on Hydrogen; there are ways to produce Hydrogen but Lithium, a mined resource, already is in short supply.

֎ On another national front, yesterday in a speech Donald laid out his perception of what changes should be made in the US government. This paragraph is from the Atlantic:

“Trump sketched out a vision that a new Republican Congress could enact sweeping new emergency powers for the next Republican president. The president would be empowered to disregard state jurisdiction over criminal law. The president would be allowed to push aside a “weak, foolish, and stupid governor,” and to fire “radical and racist prosecutors”—racist here meaning “anti-white.” The president could federalize state National Guards for law-enforcement duties, stop and frisk suspects for illegal weapons, and impose death sentences on drug dealers after expedited trials.”

֎ Venture capitalists and big data corporations are caught debating a peculiar form of ethics. It seems that there must be rules of behavior between corporations in order to make the metaverse work. To quote Derek Robertson of Politico, “That means that whatever the standards-setting process for the metaverse ends up looking like, it’ll have to be profitable for the deep-pocketed companies building it.” Who looks out for the minions that use it?

֎ Some insight from Axios:

The stakes: The benefits of knowing thy neighbor abound.

Lives saved: In well-connected neighborhoods, fewer lives are lost in tragedies, including natural disasters and mass shootings.

Happier aging: Older adults who know their neighbors report a far higher sense of psychological wellbeing.

Safer streets: Tight-knit neighborhoods have lower rates of gun violence.

Boosted wellbeing: People who know their neighbors are generally cheerier, healthier, and spend more time outside.

Ancient Mariner

The Electorate – AAPI

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The fastest growing population of voters is the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). A series of polls from different quarters suggest that, generally, this group leans toward the liberal democratic agenda. In the past two decades, Asian Americans also have become one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic groups in the United States.

Between 2010 and 2020, the Asian population in the United States grew by 39%, and their population is projected to pass 35 million by 2060. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were the third-fastest growing group, growing by 30% from 2010 to 2020. Their population is projected to pass 2 million by 2030.

Asian Americans respondents ranked health care (88%), jobs and the economy (86%), crime (85%), education (82%), gun control (73%) and the environment (75%) as “extremely important” or “very important” issues for deciding their votes in November. Voting rights and addressing racism were also important issues.

This explains why there is growing resistance and prejudice against AAPI from the grumbling conservatives and unenlightened bigots.

Things may get interesting: Today, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced a seven-figure investment in digital, print and radio advertising to woo AAPI voters.

– – – –

The Associated Press announced today that a new survey showed that 2 in 3 Americans say they favor term limits or a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices, according to a new poll that finds a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans saying they have “hardly any” confidence in the court.

There are only three branches of government: Congress is dysfunctional, the President is shackled by the Congress and the Supreme Court is wallowing in early 20th century interpretations of the Constitution.

Does the reader have a hobby?

Ancient Mariner

 

Privacy continues to dwindle

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Before we start, mariner has been asked about the accuracy and prejudice of his cluster of news sources. Anyone who knows mariner knows he is critical about everything – especially doctored facts. He has collected the best commentary, best fact checking and least biased reporting available. That being said, the two news sources below aren’t trying to change minds, just enlighten them.

Mariner owes it to his readers to reprint a Protocol (news agency) article that clearly demonstrates how large corporations can erase privacy even for the most personal aspects of one’s life. This issue also begs the question whether super giant corporations like Amazon should be allowed to be so large as to control what should be independent government oversight.

 

“Amazon announced yesterday that it’s buying its way into a huge slice of health care provision with the acquisition of One Medical for nearly $4 billion. It claims the deal will allow it to “reinvent” health care, and it’s raising some eyebrows.

One big concern with the deal: data. Health care companies hold a massive amount of information, especially in the age of telehealth. The deal gives Amazon new ways to glean data to help it build AI, Protocol Enterprise reporter Kate Kaye writes.

One Medical operates clinics throughout the U.S. and already has roughly 800,000 members enrolled for both in-person and virtual services. Amazon will have access to a treasure trove of valuable data for AI health products.

This means that talking with your doctor could be used to improve things like voice-enabled health apps or in-office ambient software.

This deal is also unlikely to face antitrust pushback despite its size, Protocol Policy editor Kate Cox told me.

Because Amazon doesn’t yet have a strong foothold in the health care industry, other than its work with Amazon Pharmacy, the deal will likely be viewed by regulators as “competition-neutral,” Kate said.

This reveals a flaw in current antitrust laws, allowing massive corporations to continue to grow their influence: Antitrust laws go after companies that are trying to grow in one particular sector, not “octopus” companies working on a little bit of everything.”

Join Amazon Prime! Cancer cured with Amazon products. Get Amazon health insurance discounts not based on averages but specifically targeted to your ailments except for existing conditions . . .

If Amazon doesn’t produce goosebumps, read this article by Axios that reveals Donald’s active pursuit to dismantle the FBI and IRS as part of a scheme to make America great again as a dictatorship, should he be re-elected. Winning aside, his advocates are deadly serious. See:

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-ed1e48cc-4d9d-4a23-b2b9-042504d7b0b6.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top

Ancient Mariner

The Future Economy

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A frequent subject on the blog is the shape of United States participation in globally-based economics. Often mentioned is the big three of the ‘Sumo’ league, US, China and India, who have economies large enough to lead massive supply chain agreements. But things already are changing – welcome a new member to the Sumo League: the G7. On June 26 the group of nations committed to a plan to spend $600 billion to invest in low and middle income nations over the next five years. Its title is “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)”

Quoting Wikipedia, “the Group of Seven (G7) is an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, the European Union is a ‘non-enumerated member’. . . As of 2020, the collective group accounts for over 50 percent of global net worth ($418 trillion), 32 to 46 percent of Global Domestic Product, and approximately 770 million people (10 percent) of the world’s population.”

Further good news is that the group is organized around the principles of liberal democracies.

G7 has not named its target nations but mariner hopes the nations include those in South and Central America. In any case, the monetary power of the group is incomparable even considering China and India.

Even though the PGII doesn’t address the Pacific Rim situation directly, this is great news and mariner wants the readers to know – this is a good news post!

Ancient Mariner

What does it feel like?

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What must it have felt like to societies that were at war before the invention of explosives and then experienced bullets, bombing and impersonal killing? Before explosives, war was very personal; brutal person-to-person engagement in violent and painful murder; war was an engagement of individuals – war could not be executed without individuals directly engaged with other individuals. Suddenly, many individuals could be killed without that personal, person-to-person engagement.

This is an example of ‘depersonalization’. War was no longer a personal experience, it became one person taking no risk but killing many unknown persons far away – whether the unknown individuals deserved it or not or even knew they were engaged in combat. Society must have felt an important moral commitment slip away – the individual was no longer morally responsible, rather, killing became a pluralistic, amoral experience.

What must it have felt like to societies that lived in relatively stable, locally governed communities where daily commerce was an engagement with familiar people, where the local economy was created by the community as a group of related individuals before the invention of the internal combustion engine that shifted commerce away from communal living, required massive interaction with non-community businesses and having to travel away from the local community on roads and rails? Afterward, communities were subject to economic forces outside the community and its familiar economic ethos of individual well being. This is depersonalization of economy – no longer a community-driven value system.

What must it have felt like to society when elections were strictly a regional phenomenon, where the elected officials were locally known and the issues were the voters’ concern focused on meat and potato issues before individual perspective was swamped by television which exposed individuals to unknown, pontificating, irrelevantly motivated hacks that had no concern for the power of the individual in democratic politics? This is depersonalization of democracy – a philosophy dependent on strength that comes from a bottom-up flow of authority.

What must it feel like to humans when growing up, assuming persona and responsibility and living life among other humans when the chemistry of inter-human behavior is disrupted by a handheld device that replaces human behavior with insidious instructions and influences, induces drug-like dependency and the sole motive is to deflect normal human behavior. Truly this is the depersonalization of human life.

Mariner has vowed to practice forgiveness and compassion, center his life in the society of his town, deny participation in top-down political activities that impose on local perspective and will never participate in the evils of uncontrolled, unmonitored behavioral modification.

In accordance with his Luddite attitude, mariner has completed his Christmas wish list for 2022: two ponies and a small, two-axle pony cart.

Ancient Mariner