Real Americans vs. fake Americans

It takes only two things to keep people in chains: The ignorance of the oppressed and the treachery of their leaders.
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There are differences between real Americans and fake Americans, and no, these differences do not involve flag waving, strutting in parades and boasting about American greatness.

Real Americans defend the underdog. Real Americans hate bullies. They have compassion for those less fortunate, understanding that “there but for the grace of God, go I.”

Real Americans offer a helping hand; fake Americans brandish a steel fist.

Fake Americans blame the victim (until they themselves are victimized, at which point they whine tearfully about the lack of help they receive).

Fake Americans would rather give tough love than real love.

When President Bush told Americans that waterboarding is necessary to protect us, and is not really torture, a shameful number agreed with him, though Bush did not volunteer to be waterboarded to prove his point. Bush was a fake American.

Bush shamed America, and thankfully, we no longer waterboard, but only because real Americans objected.

And now fake Americans are in charge, and cruelty is their method. A fake American will pardon a sadistic, law-breaking sheriff who enjoys arresting people because of their skin color — many of whom are innocent of any crime — and placing these human beings into horrifying conditions of starvation, heat, humidity, and close proximity to garbage for months at a time, while they await trial.

This “law and order” sheriff ignored a legal order by a judge. He is admired by many fake Americans who enjoy having mean-spirited bullies torture powerless human beings.

Given the choice between sadistic torturers born in America vs. undocumented human beings just trying to build a life for their children and themselves, who are the real Americans? Real Americans feel compassion for the bullied and nothing but disgust for the bullies.

Many people would be angry if they learned that the sheriff had tortured dogs, but are quite sanguine when they learned he tortures humans. They are not real Americans.

And then we have an entire political party that repeatedly produced health-care plans that would have denied care for 12 million – 20 million of our poorest, most vulnerable people.

The cruelty by fake Americans obscures the empathy of real Americans who are compassionate, charitable, and kind:

Trump signs directive banning transgender military recruits

President Donald Trump announced his intentions to ban transgender people from serving.

The presidential memorandum also bans the Department of Defense from providing medical treatment regimens for transgender individuals in the military.

A White House official insisted that Trump was not walking back his rhetoric from the 2016 campaign when he vowed to fight for LGBT Americans.

“The President is the President for all Americans, and during last year’s campaign he was the first GOP nominee to talk about LGBTQ issues at the GOP convention, but he also was critical of the Obama administration’s change in that longstanding DOD policy,” the official said.

“He’s going to continue to ensure that the rights of the LGBTQ community, as well as all Americans, is protected,” the official added. “This policy is based on a series of national security considerations.”

There are no national security considerations. These transgender people have volunteered to risk their lives to defend America, unlike Donald Trump, who invented a “heel spur,” to avoid his military duty..

The White House’s obvious double-talk fools no one, but it is sufficient to satisfy fake Americans who lack real American values.

Trump’s announcement took many in the military’s leadership — including the joint chiefs of staff — by surprise.

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military,” Trump said in a series of tweets.

“Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”

Trump’s July announcement was met with widespread rebuke by members of both parties and civil rights advocates, who argued that Trump’s decision reversed years of progress for LGBT rights and flew in the face of studies showing minimal impacts on the military.

A 2016 Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Defense Department concluded that letting transgender people serve openly would have a “minimal impact” on readiness and health care costs, largely because there are so few in the military’s 1.3 million-member force.

The study put the number of transgender people in the military at between 1,320 and 6,630.

The Rand study estimated the possibility of 30 to 140 new hormone treatments a year in the military, with 25 to 130 gender transition-related surgeries among active service members annually.

The cost could range from $2.4 million and $8.4 million a year, an amount that would represent an “exceedingly small proportion” of total health care expenditures, the study found.

Trump had lied.

There was no consultation with his generals. The military is not “burdened” by the small handful of transgender people. There are no “tremendous medical costs” in our $650 billion military. There is no “disruption.”

There only is leadership meanness to satisfy cruel backers.

Trump’s DACA decision looms

President Donald Trump continues to weigh phasing out a program —  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — that has protected young undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.

The President pledged on the campaign trail to end it immediately, then calling it a “very, very hard” choice in recent months and telling The Associated Press that recipients of DACA should “rest easy.”

Trump said, “I understand the situation very well. What I’d like to do is a comprehensive immigration plan. But our country and political forces are not ready yet.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, historically a longtime opponent of DACA, says the program has come up in multiple meetings in recent months.

Nearly 800,000 young, undocumented immigrants have benefited from DACA, which protects children from deportation and offers them the ability to work, study and participate in their communities without fear.

Many have known no other home. The children have met certain criteria, passed a background check and maintained a clean record.

In an ultimatum, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state attorneys general have asked the administration to rescind DACA or they will challenge it in an unfriendly court.

Four different proposals have been introduced in Congress to offer some permanent protections to the so-called “Dreamers” under the program, two bipartisan, one Republican and one Democratic.

Lacking normal human consciences, fake Americans are unconcerned about the terror and pain deporting 800,000 young, innocent people would cause. It is of no concern to the selfish and hard-hearted, who already live good lives.

But shamefully, there is one issue that may concern them: Money.

Trump’s DACA decision could cost thousands of jobs, study says 
Thousands of people are likely to lose their jobs if President Trump phases out an Obama-era policy that protects children from being deported.

Sunsetting DACA would have major ramifications for the nation’s economy.

As work authorizations provided by DACA expire, an average of 30,000 people will be out of work each month.

That would put significant pressure on employers to fill holes in their workforce.

Using the most conservative estimates, ending DACA would impose massive costs on employers — nearly $2 billion over two years,” said David Bier, a policy analyst with the libertarian Cato Institute.

Sad, isn’t it, that the strongest argument against cruelty is a monetary one? While fake Americans have no compunction about destroying the lives of millions of poor or powerless people, they could be swayed when they realize that employers might lose billions.

This is how far our once great, formerly admired America has fallen.  We have been soiled; we have been tarnished. Our pride has turned ironic.

We no longer are America the beautiful. We no longer are America the welcoming. We no longer are the God blessed America, the golden land opening arms to he stormed-tossed.

We no longer embrace the less fortunate. We blame them for being less fortunate.

We no longer are the world’s great moral leader, the people who helped save Europe from Hitler and China from Japan. Those Americans are disappearing.

Now, there seems to be no limit to our depths. Every day sees a new decline. We truly have become America the fake.

Do not even attempt to deny it. You know it is true.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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The single most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-less.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
2. FEDERALLY FUNDED MEDICARE — PARTS A, B & D, PLUS LONG TERM CARE — FOR EVERYONE (H.R. 676, Medicare for All )
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
5. SALARY FOR ATTENDING SCHOOL
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
6. ELIMINATE FEDERAL TAXES ON BUSINESS
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
8. TAX THE VERY RICH (THE “.1%) MORE, WITH HIGHER PROGRESSIVE TAX RATES ON ALL FORMS OF INCOME. (TROPHIC CASCADE)
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY