Another Lie from Senator Mike Lee

This is a letter/email sent to me from the office of Senator Mike Lee-R Utah.

January 27, 2017"to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life." --Abraham Lincoln Chairman's Note: The Opportunity to Defund Planned Parenthood“Life is winning in America,” declared Vice President Mike Pence today as he spoke to the countless thousands of Americans assembled on the national mall for the annual March for Life. Vice President Pence’s presence at the rally was itself evidence of the momentum behind the pro-life movement in America. Today marked the March for Life’s 44th consecutive year, but it was the first time that a government official as high ranking as the Vice President attended in person to speak to the crowd. This timing of the Vice President’s attendance was fitting, as it comes on the heels of President Trump’s momentous decision earlier in the week to reinstate the “Mexico City Policy,” which prevents American taxpayers from financing international organizations that perform or promote abortions abroad. Established in 1984 by President Reagan, the Mexico City Policy was revoked by President Obama and then, in one of this first major actions after taking the oath of office, restored by President Trump. To account for the shifting landscape of today’s global health and foreign-aid environment, President Trump’s executive order also modernized the Mexico City Policy to ensure that it applies to other U.S. foreign-aid funding sources beyond simply the USAID family-planning account. But despite these successes and reasons for optimism, there is still more work to do. Life may be winning in America, but it has not yet won. And it won’t ever win so long as the United States Congress permits a dime of taxpayer money to flow to the abortion giant Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood doesn't just lead the abortion business in America – it performed nearly one million abortions between 2011 and 2013 – but abortions lead Planned Parenthood. Of the “pregnancy services” offered by the organization, 94 percent are abortions, according to their 2013-2014 annual report, while prenatal care and adoption referrals account for only 5 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively."Planned Parenthood doesn't just lead the abortion business in America – it performed nearly one million abortions between 2011 and 2013 – but abortions lead Planned Parenthood."And what does this horrifying business model earn Planned Parenthood from the federal government? More than $520 million every year in taxpayer-funded subsidies. This is indefensible and it must stop. Luckily, Congress will have an opportunity in the next several weeks to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and transfer its subsidies to other women’s and community health clinics. When the House and Senate vote to repeal Obamacare, as Republican leaders from both chambers have committed to do, we can attach a provision that would eliminate all taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. The privileged status of the Obamacare repeal measure, which requires only 51 votes to pass the Senate, presents a unique opportunity for Congress, once and for all, to revoke Planned Parenthood’s lavish government subsidies, which have long been a stain on our nation’s great history. With today’s March for Life as our inspiration, I can think of no better reason for Congress to move swiftly and boldly to repeal Obamacare as soon as possible.

I took the libery of underlining a specific part of this letter that reads, I repeat, "Of the “pregnancy services” offered by the organization, 94 percent are abortions, according to their 2013-2014 annual report, while prenatal care and adoption referrals account for only 5 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively."

Here is a copy of the  2013-2014 annual report published by Planned Parenthood.

 STI/STD Testing & Treatment STI Tests, Women and Men 3,727,359 

Genital Warts (HPV) Treatments 38,612

 HIV Tests, Women and Men 704,079

 Other Treatments 547 4,470,597

 Contraception Reversible Contraception Clients, Women 2,131,865

 Emergency Contraception Kits 1,440,495

 Female Sterilization Procedures 822

 Vasectomy Clients 4,166 3,577,348

 Cancer Screening and Prevention Pap Tests 378,692

 HPV Vaccinations 34,739

 Breast Exams/Breast Care 487,029

 Colposcopy Procedures 32,334

 LEEP Procedures 2,095

 Cryotherapy Procedures 684 

 Other Women’s Health Services Pregnancy Tests 1,128,783

 Prenatal Services 18,684

 Abortion Services Abortion Procedures 327,653

 Other Services Family Practice Services, Women and Men 65,464

 Adoption Referrals to Other Agencies 1,880

 Urinary Tract Infections Treatments 47,264

 Other Procedures, Women and Men 17,187 

 Total services 10,590,433

Page 18 of the Anual Report 

Tell me where "94 percent are abortions"? ...

...of total services, abortions are 3%

Pregnancy services isn't even listed on Planned Parenthood's docket, so Mike Lee is just picking whatever he feels like from the list of data and grouping it together via language to infer that they are an evil organization that 94% of what they do is abortions. 

How about this, then, liars are people who purposely distort facts to mislead people. Senators are expected to never lie, swear on a bible, and on their very life serve the truth and nothing but the truth. Yet, here we find Senator Lee lying. Lee is a liar and is not doing what we expect as a politician and should be forced to resign from office.--See how I did that? I grouped liars with people who purposely distort facts to mislead people, then I correlated that with what we expect from the leaders of our country. He doesnt' fit the bill and we should defund him. Plain and simple. 

How being 1% works with trickle down policy

Saw a meme that went like this:

Daughter to Mother:

"how does trickle down policy work?"

"First, the 1% get all of the money"

"and then what?"

"That's it"

lol This is clearly wrong. First, the 1% -starts- with 99% of the money, then they continue making money and paying low wages and issuing 'favors' instead of exchanging money and then through capitalism they weasel out another 0.9999 %

Then, the government steps in and says, let's give consumers free money to spend wherever they choose! And those consumers spend the money at big businesses where the 1% get another .000099999% of the cumulative monies.

Long story short, it's not that trickle down is bad, it's that big businesses are allowed to pay disproportionate wages (128:1 manager to employee wage ratio? give me a break) and when they spend money to grow, they award the contracts to their cronies who skim the top 80% off in profit and the bottom 20% they write off as "expenses" on their taxes and therefore don't have to pay taxes on it, and those companies they hired 'trickle down' and say, well 30% of our profits from this are expenses, and they had to hire another company that claims 40% is expenses, then 50% then 60% then 70% then 80%, then when you get to the bottom trickle down level(s) that claims they actually took a loss on the job, you find out that the big company from the beginning actually owns a majority, controlling share of the little company and the biggest company comes around at tax time and says : We have 80 different little companies that actually took a loss this year for a total of -$900M Which we would like to apply to this years taxes. We made $1B net profit, so all in all our company only made $100M this year. But then you look at their Net Worth, and you realize: They started at $6.4B at the start of the year and now they're worth $7.3B. And so they pay a corporate tax of 35% of 100M which is $35M and the price of their shares go up 15% which if they started at $125 is now $143 ($18.75 per share) and the 1% who own those shares own 99% of all 10M share so the owners of the company--that same 1%-- gained $185M in their investment accounts. So their personal net total is something like $6.25B at this point

And oh, the best part about it is that they didn't have to do anything to make that money. Nothing. From day 1 to today. All they did was sink some money into the business to buy 70% of the company back when the shares were only $30/share ($210M--which is just about 1 years profit today). And the way they were able to acquire those shares wasn't with their own money initially--they set up a mutual fund which legally accepted hard working american's 401K contributions and invested them into a select group of stocks for which they were trying to acquire. Being the broker of these stocks, they took a $5 fee each time anyone bought or sold stocks--which was 25x or more per year per person because the contributions were made off of every paycheck of these people ($125/person/year). And after doing this for 5 years for 500K people, they accumulated the necessary $210M and they "reinvested" the money into their own company (a mutual fund) by 'buying' (actually the correct term is 'selling,' because the mutual fund is selling these shares off to a private party [those 1%] on the market) out the specific shares of said original company and reserving them for themselves specifically so that they could perform a company takeover.

They basically used everyone else's money in a long-game plan to gather these shares under the umbrella of different mutual funds, and then when the time was right they bought out the shares for themselves using the fees they accumulated from brokering the mutual fund.

After a short period of time, those shares grew from $30 to $125 and then onward to $143 and everyone praises them for being these genius investors and the government doesn't really tax them yet--they can't tax them until the profits are 'realized' (i.e. cashed out) because they keep claiming them as reinvested capital gains each year when they buy stocks and other investments until they need to cash them out to live off of. But conveniently the company offers them a dividend so they never really need to cash out because they own enough shares that they can live off of the dividends, buy nice things, and other people do all the work for them and get paid less.

They pay brokers and investors to run the mutual funds and collect the fees. They pay CEOs to run the company and make them money. And then all of those people pay to put their money back into the stock market for their long-term investment (retirement) plans and that's where their money goes. Meanwhile, these 1% collect money from the investment plans (AGAIN) and when they aren't making enough money they blame the CEOs who have to cut jobs of hard working americans. Those hard working americans have to cash out or borrow against their 401K and have to pay the fees to the mutual funds to do so and thereby the 1% get money yet again!

Then, they avoid paying taxes by buying up the debts of homes that are going to foreclose, they let them foreclose rather than accepting short sell offers, and then the government pays them 60% of the value of the home through FHA insurance--plus they get to keep the home, which still has intrinsic value. They write 100% of the value of the home off on their taxes--which is how they have 80 different lending companies that listed a net Loss on their taxes--and then they wait for the next year to roll the insurance profits over or they "reinvest" again and buy up more homes that are about to default (C grade or lower loans that the normal bank doesn't want to hold onto). Then, they wait a few months and they start to sell the homes 1 by one that they already foreclosed on and collected the mortgage insurance on, and they sell them at auction for 50-80% below market and they claim the extra 20-50% on their taxes as losses under a fun field that says if you are forced to sell something below it's market value you can list it as a form of depreciation and write it off on your taxes. --If you've done your math right, YES these people are making 130% to 190% of the price they paid for the home. so a $200K home brings them up to $380K in profits. ($180K is net profit).

And they don't have to do a thing for that money because they have paid other people 1/128th of their profits to do it for them (which in the home example is $1400 to collect the money and put it up for auction--a very simple task)

The unfortunate side of all of this is that it is the byproduct of whatever form of capitalism exists in america. Capitalism is the private ownership of property capable of being exchanged. Stocks held at the mutual funds are property. Real estate is property. Debts are a form of property. Money is property. Because it benefits people to reinvest their money by not having to pay taxes on their property, they reinvest. The government sees this as a good thing, because by reinvesting they create more jobs(some attorney gets paid $1400 for every home he puts up for public auction), so they are willing to postpone collecting taxes if it means more jobs are created.

Capitalists have learned though, that they can double dip on profits with tricks like collecting fees on the exchange of property (Buy or sell something, pay a fee--buy a stock, pay a fee. Sell that stock, pay a fee. Buy a home, pay a fee, sell a home, pay a fee[they're even looking for ways that they can create their own currency so that when you use their currency, you pay a fee, when you buy into their currency, you pay a fee, but thankfully all of those methods get blocked by the government eventually--at least after all of the choice profits are already made]). They can also capitalize on your misfortune, such as seizing your home out from under you when you fail to pay your mortgage--no, you don't get reimbersed for the money you already put into it, they don't buy out the equity of your home--you aren't paid anything for this, they just take it based on the terms you agreed to when you took out a loan.

Worse, even still, is that it isn't going away. Ever. Whether you apply a trickle down policy or not is irrelevant--but they don't want you to know that. The 1% already won at this game. They already have all of the property that they need and even if the rules changed tomorrow and they suddenly couldn't 'reinvest' to avoid taxes, or if laws were created that stopped them from capitalizing on certain things--well, then they'll stop...and they'll take their property and say FU to politicians and people, and they'll live off of it for ages and ages and the other 99% would be lucky to receive table scraps from them. It's too late.--Even in the worst case scenario where there is a total government takeover, the only thing that MIGHT change is WHO the 1% are. The money is already accumulated folks. You can't change that. If someone took control of the government, they would seize control of the 1%'s wealth and then the story would continue, only be worse.

SO...I've educated you on the whole matter and now you have to make a decision:

Would you rather the 1% continue what they are doing and allow other people to try to do what the 1% do but on a much smaller scale? or would you rather they took their money and left and we got the table scraps and the economy--all life as we know it--shut down? Or, and I shudder to even list this as an option: would you rather someone else came in and took over and changed all life as we know it and seized the 1%'s wealth?

100 hours

I live
100 hours
Each night
Waiting
For that sun to rise--
--The moment that it sets.

I can't sleep
I can't eat
I shake
I feel pain
But I know the end is far off

Like a twitch in code
that keeps repeating
because of some error
I'm broken
so I keep repeating
and I can't get passed that one line
The endstop

I want to sleep
to escape
but I can't sleep
and it haunts me
all night
until dawn
when I finally sleep
those demons can't catch me

But when I wake
I have less time
to do what needs to be done
And somehow I get it all done
in less time
Somehow
And then the sun sets...

What I want to do with my life

I'm still trying to put into words what I want to get out of life....It's a good thing I have longevitous genes and a lack of health problems in my family line because I think I'll need to live to be 100 to figure it out for certain.

Along the way to where I am now, I think I have figured out a few things that I definitely want to do with my life and they are:

1. I want to teach people to Love. Really love from deep within and to connect with one another, to feel connected to friends, family and community. I desperately want to devote my life to this cause, though the sheer size of this feat is overwhelming and thus far I've only taken it one day at a time.
2. I want to teach people that we are all human. When I made the realization that everything that the whole world was telling me about itself was just a facade used to hide what really goes on, I came to a few hard conclusions about human beings. I learned that nearly everyone who exists does not operate on what they want, they operate on what they don't want. Only a few select people go after what they want, the rest run away from what they don't want or run towards things that they think will bring them closer to what they want only to realize that it isn't what they want. Nearly Everyone is doing this. They work towards retirement because they are too scared to do those things today. They work for an employer because they are too scared to work for themselves. They go to church and pray because they are too scared to go out in the world and solve their own problems on their own. They waste so many hours each day worry about what they have no control over and hoping things will happen that they have no control over. Yet, as pathetic as all of this sounds, they have the potential to change their mindset and work for things that they really want--not things that they think they want, like money or fame or power, but the love of others, peaceful moments of rest, exciting moments of work, entertaining wholesome moments with friends, and compassionate acts for others.
   The very few people I have found who are able to focus on these important things are the ones who are happiest with their lives, most content, and most optimistic about the future--even often with the worst things happening to them. And I want to teach people about this and how we are all equal. When you throw out the things that don't matter, you realize that people who are wealthy are running from the same things that people who are poor are. You realize that talented artists are only talented because they put the time in--and had the time to put in--not because they are so very different but because they are devoted. You realize that everyone who is better than you is no different from you regardless of where they were born, what their skin color is, what their likes and dislikes are--none of that is relevant. What's relevant is that we are all capable of having those simple things that we really deep down want, but because we are human we get sidetracked from them and go after things that aren't what we want even though they may appear to lead to what we want. 
3. I want to live independently. I want to be free. I don't care about money if it means I have to be tied down to using money, I don't want to work for someone else if it means I can't walk away at any time. I want to maintain my ability to choose, so that when I choose, I am fully committed. 

I hope to add to this list some day, but I think that's a pretty extensive list and will keep me occupited for many many years .

Yet another thing that bogs society down...

People really don't know how to love, do they?

Is that because they don't know what love is, or is it because they don't know how to give it?

Love is simple. Here, try this formula:

Mutual respect + quality time together + care and concern for their well being + follow through on commitments + taking risk and making an investment in them + forgiveness = Love.

❤️

The more you can respect people, the more they will feel loved. If you couple that with quality time together, they'll feel loved. When you worry about their well being, they'll feel like you love them. When you make commitments to them and then you follow through on this commitments, they'll feel it. When you put yourself on the line for them, they'll feel it. When you have no other motivations and yet you still forgive them, they'll feel it. And the more of these inputs you can give to other people, the more they will feel loved. 

But perhaps that's not good enough for most people and they want to know what love is, not how to love. 

Love is so simple it can be summed up to a single sentence:

Love is desiring a bright, successful future for another to the point of going out of the way to assist them in creating that future.

Still not enough? 

Why complicate love? Love doesn't need to become an amalgamation of many things. Love is at the very root of all of those things that people think are love and yet over complicate it. 

Yes, love is desirable; in fact, love is the most desirable thing in the universe. Love is what everyone returns to when they need to regain solid grounding in their life. Love can overcome any human will or desire. Love even has the ability to matter more than individual existence--Yes, people die from love and for the sake of love. 

We all want love, especially those people who have hardened and built up walls and pretend that love is irrelevant in their life. 

It is holiday season and I think it's time that we as a human race devote ourselves to loving more.

Love everyone, but especially love the people who are important to you. They need to feel loved now more than ever. They need it desperately because they need more examples to live by. If not for the rest of your life, please just love until the end of the year. Reach out to people and love mankind enough to long for a better future for humanity.

I love you. Thank you for listening, you're a good person.

Capitalism and the Minimum Wage Revisted

I know I posted an article a while back that was PRO raising the minimum wage, but I think enough time has passed for me to revisit that idea. --Actually, at teh moment I can't find where my article went, so maybe I started to write it and changed my mind. The gist of that argument was that if we raised the minimum wage now, there would be a temporary period where the market needs to catch up. During that time period people would be able to catch up on their expenses and hopefully cut down expenses for when the market caught up to the new wage. --I didn't at the time think that it was a long-term solution, but it could potentally solve some short-term problems that drag down the long-term.

One drawback I imediately saw to the article was the timing of it, so that might be why I deleted it and never posted it: The economy has improved. Not only statistically, but I can see a lot of things that are different now that make me optimistic about getting a job if ever I need one. When I was young (in 2007) and couldn't find a job that would pay the bills, I complained. But now that I'm older and more stabilized, I realize that I can live on so much less (we're talking $300/mo + rent). I realize that rent is relative, because right now I cost-share my rent between 2 other people and 1/3rd comes down to about $450. It's an awesome setup, close to the freeway and downtown shopping, low crime, great area all around, but I also realize if I Wanted more I would have to pay more...like if I didn't want 2 roommates I could get a place for 2x as much ($900 would cover a 1 bed 1 bath dog friendly place I bet). Either way, 900 + 300 or 450+300 = 750 - 1200 ---I don't like putting this out there to the world, but in order to make a point I guess I have to get a little personal now and again. 1200/mo divided by 4 weeks a month 40 hours a week comes down to $7.50/ hour, which is close to the minimum wage.
Of course, I'm not working at the minimum wage, nor am I working 40 hours a week, because I've managed to streamline my processes and become efficient in making money. I work maybe 20 hours a week if that and often debate if I should be looking for more work or not when I'm comfortable and happy and the funny thing is that maybe 16 hours of that is spent at a low paying job that I could easily replace but choose not to because I like it there. My stress level is at an all time low when it comes to my financial concerns, and that is what makes me think that the economy is good again--well, that and the fact that I have several job offers on the table right now, all of which pay more than $7.50/hr (haha)

Even still, there is some hubub about raising the minimum wage going around, and I think I need to revisit my original PRO stance for it. Aside from it not being the right time to raise the minimum wage, I think we need to consider that the problem is not with the minimum wage. The problem is with the rising inflating dollar. --Our cost of living has risen due to changes to western culture (the need to have a cell phone now for example), and the rising cost of rent and other expenses.

Rent has been rising for what I see as two reasons: market demand, and capitalization. When the demand for rental units rose from 2007 and people opted not to own their own homes or could not afford to, capitalists swooped in and bought up the rental market and started renting it out. In other words, if you survived 2007 you decided to invest in real estate rentals because of the assumption that everyone will need to rent at some point in time. Rentals charge more than houses do because of the cost + profit model of pricing (you buy an investment, you want to make money, so you charge what it cost you [i.e. your mortgage or the lack of money you suddenly have] plus you tack on some profit.) Automatically, if you are renting, you are paying the mortgage of another plus some, so if you could afford to get the mortgage yourself, you would be cutting back expenses. That's how capitalism works: you pay the loan on the equipment to produce the goods, plus some for profit.
The other reason rentals are so high is the variablilty of these capitalists--some are paying more on the mortgage and if you have a better loan, you are essentially more efficently making money, so why not charge the same price as your competitor who has a comparable rental and net more profit?


Rent is maybe the biggest expense of everyone when it comes to cost of living. In other words, if you can lower the cost of rent, the cost of living with definitely go down. So instead of raising the minimum wage, wouldn't another alternative be to lower the cost of rent? Maybe the federal government could offer refinancing options to landlords who meet a certain criteria, part of which includes the agreement to lower rent for X years?

More on this later....

**************************88888

What a Dime Piece wants

Imagine, for a moment, that you have lots of money, that you were born with good looks, honed charm, and lots of friends. 

Now, still imagining, what more would you want in life?

General consensus would say that you "want what you can't have," but that isn't true with most people in that situation--or at least not entirely true. 

When most people find wealth, they turn to things that comfort them: drugs, pet projects, even prostitutes. Some people take up gambling because it makes them feel in control, others take up investments and figurative roles as head of X or Y because then they can feel like they are a part of something. Furthermore, the extremely wealthy preoccupy their lives with "cheap company"; they buy friendships and they even buy sex, usually coupled with other things like drugs and parties. --But what can you learn from this?

When a person suddenly has supposed unlimited power due to the things they possess (money, fame, good looks, etc) they don't really change much. They still go after their root passions and seek to fulfill their needs just like less powerful people do--or even how they did before amassing such power. They still try to get over boredom, but they do it in a different way. They still seek respect, a sense of belonging, or responsibility for life; even if they don't realize that these are the things they are striving for. 

The next time you see someone who, in your mind, is a perfect 10, just remember that they are a person too. Whatever could you provide them that they don't already have? Why should they be with you? What sets you above the rest?

--These are just people! They still want excitement; they still want companionship. They want to be happy, and respected, and loved. 

If you had what they have, would any of those things mean anything to you? Would money mean anything to you if you had an unlimited supply? Would beauty mean anything to you if you were full of natural beauty? If you had a lot of charm and charisma, would you really care about being around charismatic people? No. No No NO. You would not. You would be looking for that one person who has what you're really looking for.

One great mystery of life is that people really do want what they don't already have. Nothing you do can change that for them. People who obsess over being beautiful only do so because they are not naturally beautiful. If you try to show them you too are endowed with great looks, you will only make them jealous, insecure, or weak. This is because you will put on a facade that you somehow have what they do not have and their comparison to you will only make them feel disgusting inside. 

The true thing that someone who is perfect wants, deep down, are the things that anybody wants: peace, happiness, safety, respect, and most importantly, Love. Show people that you are fully capable of loving them and they will give up their money, their fame, their beauty, their whatever they have, because, isn't that what we all really want?