Editorial

Rico's friend from the old days in California, Don Monkerud (now retired from printing), forwards this:

Politics continues to befuddle and challenge the most astute, as well as the most simple-minded, American. Meanwhile, in Wales, a town is challenging the central government over taxes. Fifty small businesses in a town of two thousand are protesting unequal taxation, where small business owners pay higher taxes than multi-national corporations. For example, Google pays $6200 in taxes, compared to the average tax payer’s $7800 a year. Some two dozen small towns declared themselves Fair Tax Towns to protest such unfairness. In America, small business owners identify with huge corporations and billionaires because they too are “business owners”. Of course, they can be crushed easily by the corporations at any moment, and small towns give huge tax breaks to national businesses and fast food outlets. No fairness here.
Meanwhile, in Alabama, the conservative-dominated state government denies poor working people wage increases, by preventing an increase in the minimum wage. Alabama sets no wage laws, so workers rely upon the national minimum $7.25 an hour. The last raise was six years ago, and prices have increased eight percent since then. Fast food joints employ the most low-wage workers (four million), and the conservative National Restaurant Owners Association spends millions lobbying for wages as low as $2.13 for tipped workers. Despite a record seven hundred billion dollars in sales in 2015, twenty percent of restaurant workers live in poverty, and forty percent of their children rely on free public school lunches. Taxpayers spend up ten billion dollars a year to support these workers, while conservatives call for cutting taxes for the rich, but predict the loss of minimum wage job losses if they are raised.
Meanwhile, the National Governors Association is alarmed at the increase in deaths caused by painkillers and are devising treatment protocols to reduce their use. With a quarter billion painkiller prescriptions a year, the death toll from overuse since 1999 increased fourfold for white people. Recall for a moment when cocaine hit black communities: Nixon declared a War on Drugs. Reagan promoted a Just Say No policy. No-knock warrants, increased police forces, and mandatory incarceration quickly followed. Prison populations increased eight hundred percent. Suspiciously, cocaine appeared just as the Black Power movement began to expand in black communities. Substantial evidence indicates CIA involvement in cocaine importation. No such response today. These are white people dying, addicted to painkillers, so treat them with kid gloves.
Meanwhile, in the presidential primaries, a billionaire becomes the front-runner among GOP presidential nominees. The remaining candidates fight over who is the best at stifling government and preventing legislation, now touted as being conservative. And Bushworld is dead. Brother Jeb gave up after resurrecting his brother from a comatose retirement. Jeb embraced George W and WMD, his neo-con invasion trolls, and brought his mom along to help out. She didn’t help much because, she’s disgusted with both boys and said the world doesn’t need another Bush.
The crank continues to turn as conservatives push their ideals, such as coal to solve global warming, more guns as an answer to violence, and another war to solve problems in the Middle East. Don’t forget that jobs and prosperity will follow after we deport eleven million Mexicans and cut taxes for the rich. Other ideas include turning colleges into job training facilities by banning liberal arts programs, eliminating the Federal Reserve, imposing a new Social Security plan to invest in bull markets, and making the Bible the official guide for the government. Meanwhile, conservatives proclaim their religious faith and promoted programs they favor despite the absence of any evidence to show that they work.

Rico says he's got a pretty good Rant going there...