08/16/2021

 

Generational and Political Differences
– by David Matthews 2

On August 10^th, 2021, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his resignation, following a barrage of sexual assault and harassment allegations, culminating with a report from that state’s Attorney General office showing the governor engaged in a pattern of sexually harassing behavior, along with an executive system that covered it up.  His resignation will mark the first time that a Cuomo did not control the state of New York in a generation.

In his resignation announcement, Cuomo denied all the accusations made by him, but still admitted to some of the actions, saying that he was nothing more than a “victim” of social and cultural differences.  A victim in the supposed #MeToo crusade of outing and “cancelling” people who engaged in conduct that is no longer considered acceptable.

The outgoing governor also claimed that he could have fought the looming impeachment and won, but he decided to resign to “spare” the state the torment of a prolonged political battle.  Included in there, but not openly mentioned, would be the potential damage to the Democrats nationwide in having such a drawn-out battle.  With the 2022 mid-term election already going on, and with his party holding single-number leads nationwide, you know he would have been the poster diva for the nationalist Trump/Q Party.

Cuomo’s resignation speech was awash with contradictions.  He admitted to being “affectionate” but claimed to doing nothing wrong.  He claimed this was how things were “back in the day”.  It’s like saying you took money that you weren’t supposed to from a bank, but that you didn’t steal it, and that “everybody does it”.

Funny, because I’ve been doing commentary for over a quarter of a century now, and I remember the whole mess with then-President Bill Clinton and how sexual harassment was being defined in workplaces all around the country and how it was wrong.  You would think that someone like Cuomo, who was also around during that time, would realize that his own actions would be considered wrong as well.

And yet Cuomo did what Clinton refused to do.  He actually resigned.  Even with the evidence mounting and people across the country saying he should resign, Clinton forced the then-GOP to go through with the impeachment hearing and the impeachment and the trial, with all of the lurid details coming out and broadcast endlessly over the brand-new cable news channels like Fox News (back when they actually had news) and MSNBC.  Yes, Clinton prevailed.  He stayed in office to the end, but he didn’t do anyone any favors because of it.

This commentator commends outgoing Governor Cuomo for stepping down amidst all the damning information and evidence against him.  It’s not the only bad thing he’s done, though.  He still needs to account for the underreporting of nursing home deaths due to the initial COVID-19 breakout of 2020.  Thousands of elderly residents in nursing homes all through the state had died during that time but were not reported by the state.  Cuomo needs to answer to that, but it is unlikely he will.

Cuomo’s decision to resign is also something that separates the “old school” Democrats from the rest of the political group, and certainly from the fascistic and nationalistic Trump/Q Party.  He is willing step down when faced with evidence of sexual harassment.  Clinton and his wife were what they considered “New Democrats”.  They didn’t listen to the calls for resignation and they fought everything to the bitter end, banking on their political influence to keep their party’s members loyal to them, no matter the ultimate cost.  They put themselves above everyone else.

And that’s certainly true when it comes to the leader of the Trump/Q Party; a notorious narcissist who skirts accountability with lawyers and endless lawsuits.  As president, he was impeached not once, but twice, with one of those articles of impeachment concerning inciting a terrorist attack on the Capitol Building on January 6^th of this article’s year.

No, this political leader – and, make no mistake, he became one back in 2016 – was all about himself, and he wouldn’t step down no matter how horrid the accusations were against him.  He stymied the system, just like he’s always done before he ran for the highest office in the country.  Except that in 2017, he had the power of the government working for him.  He forced his own party, the party that he coopted and assimilated, into aiding and abetting his escape from accountability.  He’s still doing it today, even out of the White House.

Worse yet, his very presence in the White House encouraged others in his party to be like him.  To lie, to cheat, to steal, to engage in unethical behavior, knowing full well that they would never be held to account for it, just like their leader.  Gone were the days of doing things “for the good of the country” or “the sake of the nation”.  Now it’s just about them and what they want and what they can get away with... just like their leader.  Even his followers have been encouraged to engage in hostile conflict concerning this damnable global pandemic.  Violence is now acceptable... even against doctors and nurses and teachers.

Let’s get brutally honest here... Cuomo’s decision to resign instead of putting his state through a costly impeachment is a much-needed relief from today’s aggressive bully-thug politics.  While there is much to be said about “old school” politics, one of the rare good things about it is that those “old time” politicians knew better than to drag party, never mind the people they supposedly represent, through lengthy impeachments.  They would step down rather than go through with a process that would only hurt their party later on.  They had some modicum of respect and dignity for the position they hold.  That is what separates them from the “new” breed of opportunists that infest politics today.

Week of 08/09/2021

Hell Yes, Blame The Anti-Vaxxers And Anti-Maskers!
– by David Matthews 2

So... here we are in August of 2021, more than a year-and-a-half since the global pandemic started.  A pandemic that crashed the global economy, killed millions, sickened millions more, oh, and helped the loss of a certain narcissist from the White House.  We are also more than half-a-year into the first vaccines being rolled out in the United States.  Three different vaccines so far and more awaiting emergency authorization.

And yet we are back to where we were almost a year ago.

You know, we were doing great.  People were getting vaccinated quickly and eagerly.  There were discussions about which vaccine someone was getting and whether or not they could mix-and-match vaccines and talk about booster shots.  The pandemic restrictions and mask mandates were ending.  People were getting out again.  Business was booming again.

And then the vaccination count slowed and, in many cases, stopped.  The reason?  All of those people who were supposedly “vaccine-hesitant”, who didn’t want the vaccine, who refused to get vaccinated, and they didn’t want any limitations placed on them.  They don’t want to be told they had to get the vaccine in order to take a cruise or to work or to go to Disneyland.  That combined with a deadly variant of the COVID-19 virus sweeping the country is bringing back infections and hospitalizations and deaths up to where they were before and beyond.

Now we’re back to trying to get people to mask up again, even for the majority of us who took the vaccines.  Because this “Delta” variant is so strong that even vaccinated people can get “breakthrough” infections.  Doctors are even likening the contagious spread of this variant to chicken pox.

And yet the same people who refuse the vaccines, the same ones who refused the masks and social distancing previously, are throwing temper tantrums and doing everything they can to stop the mask mandates and stop any attempt to shut things down to try to stop the spread again.  It is as though they *want* us all to get sick and to die.

So now we are being told that we shouldn’t blame the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers for this new spread of the virus.  Don’t be angry with them.  Don’t vent your rage on them.  Try different tactics.  Try different arguments.  It’s not really “their” fault anyway.  They just don’t know any better.

I say to hell with that and to hell with them.

Let’s get brutally honest here... it is high time that these anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers be held to account for their actions, because this whole thing is on their heads. 

They *are* the reason why hospitals are getting overwhelmed again. 

They *are* the reason why deaths are rising again. 

They *are* the reason why even a small portion of the fully vaccinated are getting “breakthrough” infections, even if they’re not dying from it like the unvaccinated are.

They *are* the reason why the original COVID-19 virus managed to mutate into all of these different variants.

They *are* the reason why we are having to go back to mask mandates and social distancing. 

Many of these folks are the same people who refused to mask up and refused to social distance before the vaccines came out.  They didn’t want to be “inconvenienced”, so they threw temper tantrums and made-up phony excuses about having a “medical condition” like a certain narcissist and his “bone spurs”.  They consciously chose to listen to anti-vax propagandists on certain cable “news” and talk radio stations and from some bible-thumper who heard something from their brother’s half-sister’s best-friend’s cousin’s next-door-neighbor’s grandmother’s ex-husband’s retired heart doctor who read something on Facebook that was shared from Twitter that was linked to a bad parody site before it got taken down.  And they have the audacity to call that “doing the research”.

This is on them.  All of it.  The variants.  The new surge in hospitalizations.  The deaths.  The new infections.

This is on them.

Every man, woman, and child who is hospitalized and dies from COVID now is on the heads of every anti-vaccination and every anti-mask protester, along with their political champions like the various governors in Florida and Texas, and along with the media personalities on those notorious cable “news” and talk radio stations who have spread disinformation and out-and-out lies about the masks and vaccines.  Every single COVID hospitalization and death, even from their own, is on them.

The rest of us were doing what we needed to do.  We stayed home when we could.  We masked up when we had to go out.  We tried to maintain social distance when possible.  We cleaned, we sanitized, we dealt with the taped-off-chairs and the to-go-only orders.  We waited for the vaccines to come out and we took them when available. 

The loosening of restrictions and the ending of mask mandates?  That was for us.  That was our reward for doing what we needed to do for others this past year-plus.  It was in the hope that the rest of us, the so-called “hesitant”, would do the right thing and get vaccinated so we could all put this behind us once and for all. 

But they didn’t.  

Because a lot of them aren’t “hesitant” at all.  They are outright vaccine refusers and saboteurs.

So, yes, they deserve every bit of our anger and every ounce of our rage and every moment of frustration we could raise against them.  They need to be pilloried from every perch and post, condemned for the rising hospitalizations and deaths that did not have to happen but only because of them, and to face the consequences for their conscious decisions to make masks and vaccines a political matter instead of the life-or-death issue that it is.

And I know that it’s not just a problem in the United States.  I know that certain countries around the world have this same problem.  They too are having to deal with the idiots protesting about masks and vaccines. 

The difference is two-fold.  First, many around the world don’t have access to the vaccines as we do in the United States.  Every single American adult and teenager can get the vaccine right now.  We already paid for them.  In fact, we are wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on every vaccine that is wasted here because of vaccine refusers.  Second, because we *are* the United States of America.  We should be better than this!  We should be leading the way to being COVID-free nationwide!  But we aren’t.  And that is also directly because of those vaccine refusers and saboteurs. 

This pandemic is going to drag on for years, regardless of who is in office, regardless of which political party is in power.  It won’t matter how many vaccines get authorized, either under emergency or normal conditions, or how many we can purchase and make available for people.  The only way this pandemic will end will be if the rest of the people end their asinine selfish delusions and accept both the masks and the vaccines.  Until then, this is on them, and they need to know it and to own it.

Week of 08/02/2021

 

Why Is Screwing People Over Acceptable?
– by David Matthews 2

When coming up with this article, I initially wanted to ask “When” it become acceptable to screw people over as a matter of business.

However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that this has been going on for a really long time.  The phrases “pig in a poke” and “cat’s out of the bag” both came out of con games that screwed people over during the Dark Ages.  “By hook or by crook” makes reference to fraud and theft.  The French story “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” (“Dangerous Liaisons”), which was translated into several movies and even sequels, is all about screwing people over, some even quite literally.  The term “robber baron” came about because of the ruthless and exploitative behaviors of 19^th Century businessmen.

So the question really is... Why is the practice of screwing people over acceptable?  And especially why is it acceptable when it comes to business?

Take a look at the insurance industry.  The premise is that you pay a little and the insurance company covers you in the event something happens.  You pay life insurance so that money is paid out to your family if something happens to you.  You pay car insurance in the event you get into an accident.  You pay health insurance to help cover the costs of a sudden health problem.  You pay home or rental insurance if something happens to your home.

But something happened to that idea.  You keep paying, but the insurance doesn’t cover what it used to. 

Car insurance premiums keep going up for any number of reasons and what they cover goes down.  Car rental?  Oh how did that suddenly vanish from your policy?  We’ll put it back, but it’ll cost a little extra.  Where once you would get a discount for not being in an accident, that magically vanished.  You may be an excellent driver and have a clean driving record for years, but you’re still paying more and more every year because… profit.

Heath insurance doesn’t cover what it used to.  Now you’re expected to pay a portion upfront before they start covering the rest.  Yes, it’ll usually completely cover your doctor’s visit, unless your doctor finds something wrong.  Then you have to pay, because then it’s not “a preventative visit”. 

In fact, the whole healthcare system is a colossal scam.  If you go to the hospital, you’re dealing with multiple agencies in that same building.  The Emergency Room is a separate business.  So is the X-Ray department.  So are the labs that test your blood.  So are the doctors that treat you.  Even the doctor that shows up just to say “hi” but doesn’t do anything… that doctor is a separate agency.  Whatever medication they proscribe comes from a pharmacy that is also separate.  So instead of one bill, like you used to get, you now have to deal with several bills from all of those different groups, even though they all operate from that same hospital. 

And here’s the real kicker: not all of them may be covered by your insurance.  Your ER trip may be covered, but not the X-Ray department.  Your doctor may be covered, but that one that just stopped in to say “hi” would not be, and you have to pay full price for that “visit”.  The Pharmacy may be covered, but the specific drug may not be on their “approved” list and, gosh darn it, you should have asked for the generic, presuming you even had the option.

And your home/rental insurance… well, that’s great to have as long as nothing happens to your home.

The people in the mid-western United States found out the hard way about the perils of home insurance when a major hurricane barrels up from the Gulf Coast.  The homes along the coast that got destroyed by the storm surge were denied coverage because they didn’t cover “wind damage”.  And the homes further inland that also got hit by the same storm surge were denied coverage because they didn’t cover “flood damage”, even though that water came from the damaging winds.

The people in Florida that lost their homes because of the recent collapse of the Surfside Condominium are learning now that the coverage they’ve been paying for all those years will take years to be paid out, if at all.  Big Insurance is demanding a definitive cause of the collapse, and all the parties are pointing fingers at each other and nobody is accepting fault.  Then, once that’s done, the next fight will be over whether or not they’ll actually cover the damage.

And now the thing is to get people to pay for “supplemental” insurance, because the insurance you’ve been paying for in terms of health and home coverage isn’t enough anymore.  So you have to pay extra to cover your lost time from work, and you have to pay extra to cover your appliances, and let’s not forget insurance for your pets!

About the only kind of insurance that isn’t actively trying to screw people over is life insurance, although this commentator is certain that’ll come up at some point.

Cable and satellite companies would lure subscribers in with their channels, and then shuffle the channels into different “packages” that you have to pay extra for in order to see what you used to normally see with your subscription.  Ditto for Internet access.  Oh, you thought you were getting that “ultra-high speed”?  Nope, read the fine print where it says “up to”, and then to the part that says they can downgrade your access during what they deem to be “peak hours”.

You ever look at your cellphone bill at all of the different little expenses they keep adding on?  How about your bank with all the fees they keep adding?  Cripes, Wells Fargo got caught not once but twice screwing their own customers with multiple accounts and fees on top of fees.  Ever fly lately?  The price you pay for that airline ticket is not the full price you pay to get on that flight.

Screwjobs one and all.

So why is all of this acceptable?

You know, when I go to the grocery store, and I get a bunch of groceries and take them to the checkout lane, and the cashier rings it all up and puts it in the bag and loads it back into my cart, the amount I see on the register is the amount that I pay.  I’m not hit with a “checkout fee” or a “bagging fee” or a “plastic bag fee”.  I’m not expected to pay the cashier separately from the rest of the cost of the groceries.  I’m not given a “butcher’s fee” for selecting their ground meat package instead of a frozen tube from the freezer cases.  I don’t have someone telling me that I can’t have all four tomatoes that I paid for because of “peak shipping hours”, or my bank debit card being declined because the brand of toothpaste I want isn’t on their “acceptable product list”. And if I go to that little Starbucks shop inside the store and I pay for that $7 coffee, I expect to get that $7 coffee as soon as they make it, not after an “evaluation period” where they determine if I’m “worthy” of getting that large coffee or getting it in a little bathroom cup.

And you know what?  I think it’s safe to say that if that was going on, a lot of us wouldn’t be going to that grocery store at all.  We’d find some other alternative.

Too bad we can’t say the same with some of these other businesses.

So back to the question… why is it acceptable in business to screw your own customers?  Why is it that we the lowly people have to say “buyer beware” when that kind of fraudulent activity should be weeded out?

I’m sure many of these businesses are owned by or managed by people who claim to be religious, and the dominant religious groups all have some sort of rule that says “thou shall not lie”, “thou shall not steal”, and “thou shall not covet”.  But I have yet to see a business exemption for any of these rules.  That little passage that says “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” means the government, not businesses.  So how can any business community full of people who are supposedly religious validate screwing people over or allowing the practice of screwing people over?

And bear in mind that I am not talking about putting in regulations or some kind of legislation.  It’s already been done repeatedly and clearly those haven’t worked.  The business community have been busy making sure any such legislation or regulation or regulatory body is neutered.  No, I’m talking about this being weeded out from within the business community.

Let’s get brutally honest here… the business community, whether we are talking about utilities or finances or essential services, need to be the ones to end the practice of screwing people over as a matter of business.  They create standards of excellence for a whole range of other things involved with business operations.  This needs to be one of them.

Yes, the business community have a long and sordid history of screwing people over to make a buck or to expand their profit margins whenever they can.  But that doesn’t mean that they can’t do better.

No, screwing people over should not be acceptable.  Nor should it be standard business practice for any business.