Well…I think you may be as disgusted and tired of Trump as I am so none of that today…instead, I want to comment on the announcement yesterday that the federal government will no long support the private, for profit prison system that has grown to gigantic proportions in the past 15 years or so. Now, most of these prisons are operated on the state level under the misguided premise that privatizing this responsibility of the state will save money…a mantra of repubs across this country that has been shown to be wrong everywhere it has been tried…but that is not the worst part of it…when the contracts are signed with these private prison corporations, there is a minimum amount of prisoners that are written into the contracts and if the city, county, or state don’t supply them, they have to pay a penalty…now, I may be a little dense at times, but it is pretty obvious that these types of contracts practically guarantee that every little infraction will be criminalized to ensure the quota is met….and the profit motive leads to substandard food, and just warehousing the prisoners since the private corporations have no interest in rehabilitation. Then there is the cost angle…it has never been shown that private prisons save any money to the public at all…but just enrich those who run them…an who invariably donate to repubs to get the laws passed that allow them. The same cost cutting was tried by the army in Iraq, buying private soldiers at 150K per when a real soldier was only about 50K with benefits. Again, the real goal was to line the pockets of the big donors, not to save any money…the saving just being a smokescreen to have private corporations bleed our tax dollars into their pockets. It is a small step, but it is at least a step…now, the same thing needs to happen at the state level and get rid of these bloodsuckers once and for all…geez…
All posts by James DeVol
August 18th
Well….I wonder how many people have problems with their phones like I did yesterday? Spent most of the day fooling around with it to try to get the damn “low memory” fault to stop and I finally found the reason…Yahoo mail was using almost half of the memory in the phone just for e-mail….so I uninstalled it and went with a much smaller program that does everything that Yahoo did but instead of 700 meg, it only takes about 30, so that left me room to get some of the apps that I have deleted over time back on the phone…see, we old people still can hack it…didn’t need any help from anyone…I was really curious last night if the car dreams were going to continue but they didn’t…I did have one with Jerry Seinfeld in it and snow, and sharks….as I said before, it’s really weird in here….just got back from the grocery store ans spent 50 bucks on nothing…again….no meat or anything big and still…50 bucks? Oh, well….it looks pretty nice out there so I am going to finish my coffee and then get on the bike…need to get more tomatoes on the bike ride…more later….
Oh, one last thing, Tom…Loctite!
A pivot in Trumpland?
Well…if you were waiting for a pivot in Trumpland to more of a normal campaign, you can just put that little thought away and forget about it with the latest “reorganization” that was announced today. The money laundering Putin buddy campaign manager, Manafort has been pushed aside…or into the background as they said…to be replace by the head of Breitbart….not sure if you know about Breitbart but it is one of those hate spewing, conspiracy pushing, right wing crazy websites that truly believe that Hillary actually killed people like a hit man…and now this guy is running old Donald’s campaign…it’s not as if ole Donald hasn’t had a close relationship with them in the past…he regularly spouts Breitbart talking points during his “speeches” so now it will just be easier to come straight from Breitbart to Trumps lips…with these moves, it appears that ole Donald has given up on any sanity in his campaign and has gone all conspiracy, all the time…after all, it worked during the primaries…but, in the primaries, all he had to appeal to were other crazy assed people like him, but now, there just aren’t enough crazies to carry the general election. Oh, one last thing on how delusional ole Donald is, his “minority outreach” speech last night was given in an almost all white suburb of Milwaukee where there were no minorities in sight…genius I say, just genius…sad…
August 17th
Well…I don’t know what the heck it is about car dreams but I had another one last night for the third straight night…last night had my 65 Galaxie in it and a family of ferrets that had taken up residence under it…and there were batteries and mud and lots of other stuff that is not quite clear right now…yep, it is kind of strange in my head right now…had a nice ride yesterday but rode through a flood that was almost up to my knees…a little deeper than I like and my shoes are still soaked this morning….not sure if I like the feel of that but the storms that were coming fell apart over the lake so no day off for me….I did make a small amount of cash yesterday so it looks like I have groceries for another week…but I do have to pay my car insurance today…ick…..have been up since really early with a text from T but feel quite good after being good for the past three days…going to continue that tonight since I like how I feel….got a bunch of stuff done yesterday with motivation from T so I don’t have much to do today….not even any cooking since I did that yesterday and today will be a leftover day….more later….
Aetna throws a tantrum…
Well…if you are anything like me, you are tired of the entitled asses that run corporations in this country who think that they should be able to do whatever they want without any oversight by anyone…the latest of these entitled corporations is Aetna insurance who, over the past few days have said they are pulling out of the ACA exchanges for some unclear reason that they won’t share with anyone…but it can’t be that it’s unprofitable with their profits up 38% in the past year and their market cap doubling since they joined the exchanges…nope the curious thing about this whole affair is that this action follows the refusal of the Justice department to approve another merger, citing the fact that the merger would create monopoly power for Aetna and allow them to control pricing in the healthcare market. So, in a tantrum that will hurt thousands of Americans, Aetna is trying to hurt the Obama administration and force them into approving the merger by causing pain for the exchanges…now, not sure how you feel about this, but I think that this action by Aetna just shows that they are already too powerful and if given the merger, the first thing they would do is use their new power to line the pockets of the 1%’ers at the expense of the rest of us. So, I applaud the justice department and the Obama administration for striking back for the little guy…and Aetna can just go to hell…geez…
No Trump dump today…
Well…I am tired of writing about the dumpster fire that is the Donald so I think I’ll just kind of noodle for a while about some of things I have seen or read about in the past few days…one of the really cool things was an article about a huge cat that was on the news today…28 pounds and 42 inches long, just a huge Maine Coon cat and I have never seen anything like it….rode the bike through a flood today and the water was up to just below my knees on the downstroke…not sure if my shoes will dry before tomorrow…it is really hard to pedal through water that deep…but it rained over 2 inches here overnight so I guess I should have expected it…it was nice that it was warm enough to tolerate it but had to put everything in the washer when I got back here since I was covered in mud…the bike didn’t squeak with all of the water in the swingarm so that was a plus….and I made a small amount of cash today so that was cool….didn’t get to any other work, though, and I can’t understand why I am so darn tired today other than I didn’t sleep at all last night….okay I do have some tings to do so I better get to it….
August 16th
Well…yesterday turned out to be a Monday and the quiet one I expected didn’t materialize…was in the car a large portion of the day but I made some cash so that was cool…didn’t get finished until after 3 and that started a little after 8…I did get the top repaired again but had to run the air as I was out and about waiting for the top repair to cure….I did find a cool little bottle on the trail two days ago that is perfect for the soap mixture that I need to keep the bike from squeaking….weird how that works out some times….I did have a dream that had the MX-6 in it last night and that one has been gone for over 4 years so that is a little strange…it is nice that the weather has changed a little and it is pretty cool right now…still waiting for a rain day to take off the bike since I have been on it every day for almost 4 months now….but, that won’t be today since I see blue skies coming….I do have a bunch of stuff to do around here today but that will have to wait until later…have some pork chops that need to be grilled today and then more Olympics….more later….
More from Russia with love….
Well…I wonder when ole Donnie Trump is going to have to register as an agent of a foreign state? After all, his campaign manager, who has worked for the Putin ally in Ukraine and other oligarchs with close ties to Putin is still on the payroll of those folks to the tune of almost 13 million dollars….and Trumps people did Putin’s bidding when softening language in the repub platform on the protection of the Ukraine….and now we have ole Donnie’s wife pallin around with Putins girlfriend in Russia….not to mention the billions he owes to Putin’s cronies since he couldn’t get any business loans from banks here after all his bankruptcies. So, would you expect someone with all of these shady connections to be able to “stand up” to the Russians as he says all the time? Nope, me either….I would expect that eastern Europe would be back under Russia’s thumb within months after ole Donnie got elected…thankfully, that won’t happen since he is cratering in the polls and it gets worse every time he opens his mouth…sad….
August 15th
Well…just can’t get going this morning and I’m sure I know what it is….and you probably do, too, so I won’t go into that now….had a great bike ride yesterday for two in a row and I’m not sure what is going on with that…no fatigue in the legs or any pain so I’ll take it and hope for another one today….didn’t get anything done yesterday and today looks like the same but I really don’t have a lot to do so I guess it’s a wash….I do have to remember to take the beach chair out of the trunk of the car today since it rattles some and I don’t need that…I am hoping for a little rain later…not sure why other than I like the way it sounds and smells….and there is soccer on later…it is cool that the premier league is back on…and Man U won over the weekend…but, I’m not sure how they are going to be this year and I know I don’t need another year of disappointment and them finishing 5th….more later….
Keep whining, Donnie…
Well…the thin-skinned idiot is at it again…okay, I know, I promised to not write about little Donnie Trump anymore but damn, when you have such a target rich environment, you just have to especially when I need to get two of these out every day…and really, it is fun to poke at this moron and his moronic campaign. The latest in this mess is ole Donnie’s attack on the media since he thinks they do nothing but lie…and boy, does he know about lying….his new bitch is that since the media reports on the stupid things he says and does, he is behind Hillary when he thinks he would be ahead by 20 points if they would just stop reporting. Yeah…don’t report on the stupid shit I say because that is a “rigged” media…just go and attack Hillary or Obama since he started the war in Afghanistan when he was a state senator…there has to be something there….just go look at it…or, Benghazi, or birth certificate….or, or, or….you get the gist of it…..his rallies are so biggly that he has to be ahead but it is the “rigged” polls that are wrong….oh, that’s another line from today…I am really kind of enjoying this idiot blowhard’s self-destruction….almost as interesting as the Olympics…sad….