Ya Know What, Jim? Yesterday Pissed Me Off

Jim Geraghty's dismissive post about Trump supporters being idiots and fools was snot. Pure and simple mucus that belongs wadded up in a piece of tissue at the bottom of a garbage can. And he's just the latest in a long procession of people who think and have written and said the same kinds of things.

What's infuriating is that none of these people have got the first foggiest clue about why so many people are backing Donald Trump.

Thinking about it here, on the receiving end, I got mad yesterday. Really mad because until he and his pinhead friends know what I and what people like me have lived for these past twelve years, he has no right in the world to dismiss us. Until he and the others understand how disenfranchised and disrespected millions of us feel, he would do really well to just shut the fuck up.

Sorry - I'm trying not to do that anymore because I have a bigger vocabulary than that, but that says precisely what I want to say.

Just. Shut. Up. And here's why:

I do not, I never have and I never will draw six or seven figures a year in salary. I make an honest wage, but it is a just-barely-scraping-the-sides-of-the-barrel and enough-to-barely-make-ends-meet wage. And it's not because I'm not good or smart or talented or skilled. It's because it's the best I can find in this economy.

I will never sit down in some fancy Washington or New York restaurant and scarf a portion of a $100, $200 or $1,000 dinner. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't afford it. I can't even save up for it because I don't have two pennies to scrape together at the end of a month - it all goes to pay my expenses.

I drive a twelve year old Ford station wagon with almost 150,000 on the odometer. I will make that car last just as long as I possibly can, not because I like it but because I cannot afford $200 or $300 or $500 a month in lease expenses. I can't afford to spend $8,000 or $10,000 or more on a 'new' used car, either.

I never have and I never will drive a Mercedes Benz or a BMW or anything other than a basic form of transportation. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. I can't afford it.

I am not quite sixty years old. I have worked since I graduated from high school in 1975. Aside being mainly unemployed for sixteen months, the longest time I haven't worked was the two years I took off to stay home with my daughter, before I had to go back to work to support the family.

If I did manual labor, I'm the kind of person who would have honorable calluses on my hands. I don't have calluses, but I do get up at 4:45 every morning and leave my house by 7:00 every morning and don't get home until 6:30 every night. I have taken one day off in the past year - for the birth of my grandson.

I am, and others like me are, the backbone of this country and its economy. Unlike the pointy airhead pundits who make a living writing drivel about what goes on inside Washington.

I, and others like me, work to help produce goods and services that have meaning.

At the end of the day - who cares about opinion? What does that do for anyone? I can't eat it or drive it or wear it - so why should people who produce nothing but hot air on a computer screen think they can disrespect me and others like me who actually produce things that have real meaning?

And we are the majority who are supporting Trump.

So now, Jim, given those things, given our honest labor that pays an honest day's wages, who the hell are you to call me and others like me idiots and fools?

And I'll take it further - you don't get it, okay. Here is why I'm supporting Trump:

In the late 1990's and through 2001, our family was solid middle class. We had a mortgage on a nice house in a nice neighborhood and were doing okay financially. I had a job that paid enough that my husband could stay home and day-trade, taking care of our daughter.

We decided to sell the house we were living in - it was really too big for a family of three, so we bought another house. We used the equity we had built up over the years and bought a slightly more expensive home - not bigger, not better, just more money because prices had gone up. The mortgage on our new house was manageable.

We were just like millions of other middle class Americans. Things were fine through 2005. By then, I had been at my job for ten years. I was earning enough that I could support my husband and our daughter. We could even save a little every month.

Then, in 2006, we started seeing signs the economy was changing. The day-trading had already gone by the wayside - I was the sole support of our family and I was getting nervous.

The company I had been with had its first layoffs in its fifty year history. In the course of twenty minutes, six people were gone. The survivors, me included, took pay cuts or cuts in our hours to keep things going. Gradually it got better and then 2007 hit.

The housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed in on itself.

The millions of bad loans that Congress, George Bush and Hank Paulson, driven by the Federal Reserve and the banking industry had palmed off on people who never should have qualified for loans came home to roost. No one was repaying the balloons on the loans they had taken out in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 after the banking laws were repealed by Congress. Together these characters, along with Newt Gingrich and Billy-Jeff and others in Washington had destroyed the fiduciary responsibility of the banks to protect their depositors' money.

The Washington insiders, the Federal Reserve and Wall Street had colluded together to create a devastating housing bubble. Those people who should never, ever, ever have received loans had received loans - often for the full value of the property they were buying. No job? No problem! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were there to provide the money needed - just ignore the fact that those institutions were, at the bottom line, publicly funded by other homeowners and workers like me.

In 2007 we elected a first term Senator from Illinois. This man had never run a company. He had never managed a company. He had never, to the best of anyone's knowledge, ever balanced a checkbook - but he was elected to the office of the President.

Immediately, he started blaming Bush for everything that was wrong - and that has not changed eight years later. He did nothing, materially, to change things, to make them better. He didn't consult with business people to figure out what they needed to make their companies stronger and more vibrant. He didn't do his job and work with Congress to re-institute Glass-Steagall and put in place laws that would hold the banks and investment companies accountable.

No! He bailed them out. He took whatever was left of our hard-earned money and handed it over to the too-big-to-fails that had created this mess - paying no attention whatsoever to the devastation that was taking place in the real world outside of Washington and New York. Oh, sure, he gave it lip service - but lip service doesn't keep a roof over a families head. It doesn't put clothes on their back, shoes on their feet and food on their table.

The economy continued to fall apart through 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 - more layoffs, unemployment soared, companies by the hundreds of thousands down-sized or just closed their doors. There were no new jobs for the people unemployed by the malfeasance of George Bush, Hank Paulson, Congress and the continuation of bad policy by the new administration.

But who cares! Let's get Obamacare going - never mind that it will destroy whatever small companies might be left in America. Who cares about the employers of millions of people or the millions of people who will lose their jobs because of the onerous requirements? I don't because it's my legacy!

Never mind that start to finish the vast majority of the American people screamed that we didn't want it - but it was shoved down our throats anyway - to the detriment of families and businesses and the medical care providers.

The company I worked for had more wage freezes and layoffs - 2008, 2010 and 2012. In the last, I was caught up. Eight people - almost the last of the non-partners / owners - were included in that layoff. I had been there for seventeen years. Some had been there more than twenty and twenty-five years. They had been looking forward to retiring in a few years and... wham! Unemployment, the potential of losing their homes, evisceration of their 401ks.

In eight years since that first term Senator took office, this economy hasn't even begun to recover. Regardless of what anyone inside Washington and the nattering class says - this economy has not recovered.

Unemployment, if you dig through the piles of manure the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the government cover it with every month, is horrible.

Do you realize that under current employment counting rules if a professional who is on unemployment works just one hour - just sixty minutes - in a week and is paid just $20 - the BLS counts him or her as employed for that week?

If someone works as a temporary employee - at one-half or one-quarter of their former wage - for just an hour in a week, they are counted as 'employed'.

How does that work? Come on! That's not a sustainable wage. That won't buy lunch in a lot of places in this country, so how can those people be called 'employed'? Yet they are.

For me, after losing my job in 2012, it took me more than two months to find even a $14 hour temporary job - less than half of what I had been earning, with no benefits - for two days.

And that wasn't because I wasn't trying. The day after I was told I no longer had a job, I put together my resume. I called the employment agencies - seven of them - and made appointments. That week after losing my job, I was in front of agency people, selling them on my skills, yet it took two months for me to find even a $14 per hour job.

I did well there. I did well enough there that that company specifically asked for me when they needed coverage the next several times. I had the same thing happen with other employers so by November, I was working fairly regularly.

Then I got lucky - so I thought. I got an offer - but they were going through an internal restructuring so it would 'be a few weeks' but I shouldn't accept any temp work because 'they might need' me right away. Eight weeks went by with me supporting my family on $11.50 per hour unemployment while waiting for this job that paid almost what I had been making at my last job. To me, given the economy, it was a good wait.

Finally, in January 2013 I started work and I worked until... sequestration. March 2013 began the government intervention that cost millions of government and government contractors their jobs - me included.

May 1st saw me back on unemployment, back to knocking on doors, calling the temporary agencies two and three times a week, spending hours every week cruising Monster and Craig's List and Indeed and company websites searching for anything that would pay even a little more than the unemployment benefits I was receiving.

In the meantime, the siding on our house began to rot - we couldn't afford to paint or fix it. Our bedroom window broke - we can't afford to replace it. The roof is on its last legs - not quite leaking but it will be in a year or two or three.

In October 2014 I became a criminal thanks to my federal government. Obamacare kicked in but I make too much to qualify for subsidies and too little to afford almost $900 per month in premiums plus the $6,000 deductible for my husband and me. This year, in my taxes, I "get" to pay a penalty for being uninsured. 

For nearly three years I lay awake at night, worrying - how am I going to pay the bills? Will I be able to keep this job or will I be let go? Will I ever find another job? How are we going to make it?

Now I have a job - it's a regular job but I am making thirty percent less than I made just four years ago. I still cannot afford those insurance premiums. I am still a criminal. I cannot afford to save. I cannot afford even basic repairs to my house. The value on the biggest asset that I own that is finally starting to look like it might go back to where we bought it twelve years ago but at this point, the only way I might realize that potential is if I throw about $60,000 that I no longer can afford into it for the repairs that have gone wanting for so long - $30,000 for new siding, $20,000 for a new roof, new paint and new carpet.

In the years since I lost my job in 2012 we have gone, as so many others have gone in this past decade, from comfortable middle class to barely making it. Even now, because I don't earn enough to be comfortable, we unplug appliances when we're not using them. We have taken light bulbs out of fixtures to save money. We don't run the heat until the house gets below sixty degrees. We don't run the air conditioner unless it's over 100 degrees outside. We don't drive unless we absolutely have to, because we can't afford it, even though gas is now at a reasonable price.

Before this mess began in 2006 / 2007, we could go out to dinner occasionally. Nothing big, nothing expensive, but we could. Now we can't. I honestly cannot remember the last time we ate out - and that last time was Jack In The Box. Not because we wanted to, but because it was all we could afford.

So before these erudite airheads tell me that I'm an "idiot" for voting for someone outside the norm, they should sit down and talk to people like me. They should walk the walk of a life like mine before opining on how "wrong" I am.

I am voting for Donald Trump because the same-old, same-old of Washington politicians and a one term Senator have not been good for me, for people like me, or for this country. I am desperate to try something - anything new and another one term Senator is not an option.

So take my advice, Jim - and pass the word to your buds: just shut up until you know what you're talking about.

Best~
Philippa

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The Washington Elites Haven't Got A Clue

The asphyxiated pinheads in the bodies of Rich Lowry & Co., George Will, Bill Kristol, Erick Erickson et al. need to do at least a little fact finding before they thrust a stake in the ground and tie themselves to it. They've done this again and again by declaring that 'Donald Trump is not a conservative'.

Every week when he appears on Fox News Sunday, George Will pounds that drum - and today, he made it abundantly clear that he is a pinhead without the courage of his convictions.

When Chris Wallace asked in a round-about way if Will would vote for the Republican nominee even if it is Trump, Will said he would. Yet just a second before he said that nominating Trump at the convention would destroy the party.

Pick one side or the other George. Don't try to navigate the middle because there is no middle to find. This is a straight up-or-down, either-or choice. It is either another party cog - interchangeable with any other bought and paid for party cog and the 'R' or the 'D' after their name makes zero difference in the end - or an outsider who is speaking up for a lot of regular Americans.

In the past months - since expanding his political message beyond The Wall - Trump has talked about fair trade, getting deals in place between the US and our trading partners that work equally well for both parties. Well guess what - this is not a new position for him. He was saying the exact same thing twenty-seven years ago:

This doesn't sound like a 'liberal' to me. And don't take my take on it. How about Mary Alice Williams, a CNN political pundit at the 1988 RNC Convention who specifically said that Donald Trump is 'conservative'. A couple of minutes later, during this interview, Larry King described him as a 'Rockefeller Republican'.

So what is this lie being spread by the money men and their shills? (Yes, Rich and Bill and Erick and George, I am calling you and your talking pinhead buddies shills.)

The lie is being spread by the asphyxiated pinheads because Donald Trump scares the hell out of the Establishment.

If he does even half of what he says he'll do, that's going to strip power from the powerful and divert a whole lot of money away from Washington.

Programs sent back to the states where they belong will affect Energy and Education, Housing and Healthcare and that is as it should be. The Citizens of this country should wield the power over our own lives. We should not be the subjects of the politicians and lobbyists, the money men and their shills. We should not be satisfied with having them dictate to us how we should live our lives.

That is the movement behind Donald Trump. The idea that there is more, or that there should be more for those of us who are willing to work for it.

After all, just like millions of other Americans, I get up every morning and head out to work. I drive two hours per day to and from my job. I work my tail off when I'm there, and I haven't had a pay increase in years.

Instead, when I was laid off in 2012, in five minutes I went from making $30 per hour before benefits plus four weeks of paid time off, fully paid health and dental care - to living on $11.50 per hour in unemployment benefits. For five months after the watershed day of being told I was being let go after seventeen years, I took whatever temporary jobs came my way. Most paid just $14 and $15 an hour - and I counted myself lucky to get those because the competition for those jobs was so stiff.

Here I am four years later and, after working as a temporary employee for fifteen months, I was hired. I'm making 27% per hour less than I made before, with no employer paid healthcare and only two weeks of vacation. My life isn't better now than it was four years ago and my story is not at all unusual. I count myself lucky for finding a job - one for which I drive nearly eighty miles per day which costs me a lot of money in gas and wear and tear on my car.

I have been watching Trump since the fall. At first I wasn't thinking about who I would vote for. I just knew I wouldn't be voting for Hilliary. But listening to his message about illegal immigration and the wall, I began to pay attention. I began to feel hope - just a little - that this man might be the one to turn this country around.

This is why I like Donald Trump - what he's saying and what I think he'll do. I have hope when I listen to his message. It's hope that I haven't felt in more than two decades.

If American workers have good jobs with good companies that pay decent wages, we will all benefit.

If American workers aren't competing against low-wage illegals for jobs, if the wages go up for American workers, we all benefit. We'll have a stronger economy with more disposable income. If I had any disposable income - which I do not have at this time since every penny I bring home with me is allocated to paying my bills - I could go out for dinner occasionally. I could afford to buy new clothes occasionally. Maybe I could even afford a vacation - something I haven't had in nearly twenty years.

Yes, there are still a lot of brain-dead ninnies out here in the hinterlands. There are plenty of sheeple who like having things given to them. Sheeple who are willing to sit on their butts in some shabby little apartment because it's free or cheap instead of looking up and wanting more. But there are a lot of us who do want something more than we have, more than the government is willing to give to us.

That is what I want and what I think Trump can help be work for. Cruz won't. Cruz will be 100% interchangeable with Hilliary because he is owned by the lobbyists just as Hilliary is owned. Look for yourself. Here is what Ted has done - and look at the amount that has come from 'Super PACs and Others' - almost half of his money has come from lobbyists and special interests:

 Yet here is what Trump has done:

Only 7% has been raised from 'Super PACs and Other Groups' - and those other groups are not lobbying groups.

Based on this, which of these candidates do you suppose is beholden to the special interests?

Even Hilliary hasn't raised as much from the Super PACs and lobbyists as Cruz has:

What does that say about Cruz's independence if he's elected?

As far as the trade deals The Donald has been talking about for nearly thirty years, his position is one that sounds like a pretty good position to take. After all, why should two parties in a deal have two different standards to meet? Shouldn't both have the same standards and requirements? Shouldn't both reap the same benefits? If not, if one party has an advantage over the other, gains extra benefits at the expense of the other party, how is that fair? Shouldn't America's politicians who have responsibility for making these deals try to strike the very best deal for us? They haven't. Not once and that is neither fair nor right.

That is what Trump is saying he wants for America and that is what I want for America.


So George and Bill and Rich and Erick - get over it. You don't run us. You don't own us, and neither do the money class who own you to the last hair on your head. We are not listening to you any more because what you're telling us is good for us, isn't and we're waking up to that little fact.

Other than that, I hope your day is wonderful.

Best~
Philippa

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Brainiacs in a Vacuum

That's what they sound like if you read the bitching, moaning and whining about Donald Trump from the so-called 'pundits' in Washington about the current election cycle.

Bill Kristol hates him. George Will hates him. Erick Erickson hates him. And the list goes on - boring in its sameness.

These people say to the rest of us 'we are the Conservatives and you should listen to us.'

I want to know, 'who died and appointed you God?'

These people say 'Donald Trump is not a Conservative because...' Pick your reason (it's all crap by the way).

I demand to know, 'who died and appointed you sole arbiter of what makes a Conservative'?

Is it any wonder the American people are disgusted with Washington?

These 'insiders', and others like them who have written for the National Review, the Weekly Standard and all of the other inside the Washington Beltway political rags, are so brain dead that they don't see the writing on the wall. They have sucked all of the oxygen out of their rarefied little enclave. They are in the last stages of intellectual asphyxiation and don't even recognize the symptoms.

Symptom 1: Iowa. Even Ted Cruz talking about eliminating corn subsidies and the ethanol mandate won the state. Republicans had higher voter turn-out there than the Democrats (180,000 to 171,109, respectively). Cruz was first and Trump was a solid second.

Symptom 2: New Hampshire. Donald Trump blew out the "palatable" candidates - Kasich, Rubio and Bush.

Symptom 3: South Carolina. Donald Trump won forty-four of forty-six counties. The "homeboy" Jeb! got next to zero support despite being the "Establishment" darling and the one candidate these inside the beltway Zombies thought was going to win everything.

Symptom 4: Entrance polling from Nevada. The electoral - the sheeple - are pissed off, fed up, disgusted, angry, you name it. They cast their ballots yesterday and Trump walked away with a twenty point lead over the second place finisher, Marco Rubio.

We, the American people, are shouting at the Washington Zombies: we do not want you to tell us who we should vote for. We are not children. We can and do think for ourselves and we do not want politics as usual.

So now, what do you suppose these brainiacs are saying? They want a third party. They won't support the Republican nominee chosen by the People.

What does this say about them, about their character, their belief in the Founding Principles and Documents - the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights they have purported to support and hold dear all these years? How about:






That, right there is what it says. They are empty suits. They have no honesty. They have no integrity. They have no values. They have no character. They have and they are nothing.

If they don't get their way, if they don't agree with what the citizens of this country want in place of what we're told to want, they act like spoiled babies. They'll pick up their marbles and go elsewhere.

Well, I've got news for them. They don't drive this country as much as they like to think they do. Neither does the donor class of which they are fringe members.

We the People is far more than just words on a piece of parchment. It is an idea and an ideal, and it is coming home to roost.

We the People are fed up - utterly and completely - with the crap and nonsense flowing out of Washington. We have put up with it for thirty years, since Ronald Reagan, and we are done.

We the People did not want Obamacare - but it was shoved down our unwilling throats by the Washington Elites and by Congress. This is payback.

We the People do not like the lies and cover-ups and constant scandals that flow through Washington DC like a river of sewage. This is payback.

Although we're supposed to be 'tired' of hearing about Benghazi, I can tell you I'm not. I don't think many others in this country are, either. I think we know precisely what was done.

Hilliary Clinton and her boss got in over their heads with Libya. When the shit hit the fan they didn't have the first clue what to do and didn't have the brains God gave a chicken to figure it out. They left people to die even though there were others there in country, on the ground and willing to risk it all to save those in the embassy.

When it was all over, with four men dead and others badly wounded, they circulated through the morning shows and pumped up a lie about a stupid video. For days they passed that around, hoping we the people would be just as stupid as they are. But we weren't. We demanded answers so Congress held hearings. In those, the left stonewalled and whitewashed and covered up, just as they always do and the right caved, just as it always does.

Nothing happened, and that pisses me and a lot of other people off. This is payback.

Now we've got the e-mail server mess. Most of the country is paying attention, praying for an indictment or at least a series of subpoenas to move the investigation forward, but it's being stonewalled again.

Trump has said that he will go after Hilliary big time if he's elected. This is payback.

What is going to be sweet music to me and to others who think like me is Trump going after Hilliary. He will be unrelenting, and she will go down in flames because it will all come out.

Comey will wait. Honestly, I think that is why the FBI seems to be dragging its feet. They have enough to pin her to the wall for the rest of her life. I know they do - just based on what's been talked about in the media. But he won't request an indictment. Not yet, because if no crime has been named, if Hilliary doesn't stand formally accused of anything, Obie-One has no grounds for a pardon. She'll be vulnerable - a sitting duck and it is going to be a beautiful day in America when that lights up.

So Bill and Erick and George and all the rest, get over yourselves. You are not at all important or even that interesting out here.

Have a lovely day out in the hinterlands - it's where the real people live.

Best~
Philippa

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