I Was Slammed Into Virtual Voter Prison For Signing a Petition!

Prison cells in the closed San Quentin facility.*

 Yes. This is happening and to some decent and well meaning folks. Beware and understand it's easy for them to do it to you too.

Tuesday I showed up in the earlier parts of the afternoon at our local polling place as usual in a nearby park.  I went just before most get out of normal work hours to keep the lines down in the early evening for others. I had spent the rest of the day checking on the profiles of and recommendations of the o so opaque judicial elections.  And yes found the best information mostly at the LA Times website.  I didn't actually follow all their recomendations, but found valuable information there.

I showed my id at the entry table to let them know who to check off their list, so far so good. Then I was asked what party I was in. Democrat I proudly said.  A lot of white folk like me in my neighborhood are Republicans, but in all I think there's just as many Democratic voters around here and we're heading for a majority.

Then came the shock.  They couldn't find my name. But I always vote.  "I never miss a major election", I said. They searched diligently under different spellings and couldn't find it.  Then they looked on Independent list, then the Republican list as I rolled my eyes.

They found it. They informed me I was a Republican.

I'm older now and the emotions don't get control that easily, and I reminded myself that Hillary was going to win the state no matter what. I don't think my emotion even showed but it's possible it did because after I voted they gave me a number to call to report being switched without consent.

I was not able to vote for Hillary in the historic and important race for president , but luckily the rest of the races were under the state's top two bipartisan races or I would have been shut out of those as well.

Now Republicans are whining that our two Senate candidates for November are Democrats.

The Rs never got their people the news to vote for one person. And in fact I looked at all the candidates. They had nobodies running. Either their bigger names didn't want to be stomped into the dirt electorally by Kamila Harris or for whatever reason it was like the GOP was playing dodge ball in the middle of a Warriors/Cavaliers game. I mean couldn't they have even tried?  They aren't that much of a minority in the state. It's only been about 6 years since our last GOP governor. Okay it's true that's not enough time to forget that disaster.

I came home and searched online about people being unknowingly switched  to the GOP and sure enough it's being done and ground zero appears to be California with the largest number of complaints coming from Orange County and various other So Cali areas though some areas around San Francisco reporting the same scam happening.  It starts with a request that you sign a petition for a good sounding cause. But the petition in the copious printing of explanation just  quickly mentions you will be requesting a party affiliation change according to reports.

In my case I think I do remember a petition for some worthy change in government. At the bottom of the page (which was a strange method of doing a petition, one person one page instead of a table like structure) there was a check box for joining the GOP.

I was assured that I could ignore that if I didn't want to join the Republican party. But apparently after I signed and left, that box was checked.

This happened last fall, about the time it was becoming apparent that Hillary would be running for the Democratic nomination.  I think I was targeted specifically because I was a middle aged woman. The GOP wanted  to try to keep women  like me from voting in the Democrat and Independnt only races because you know middle aged woman genes. Give them credit. We are wise and yep I would have voted for her if I could have and lived all my voting years registered so I could help the best Democrats win primaries and elections.

It would be easy to profile me to block that vote.

I hope they catch that worm.  After all he had to have turned my name in to some authority. Someone in government could find out who he is.

And no I didn't vote for any of the Republicans.  It's a matter of pride and integrity. (LOL actually it was a matter of piss and repulsion) (It also helped to prove my point to the folks at the table that I was not a Republican, but I didn't think of that until I handed it over.) (I hoped it shamed the man wearing the NRA hat  while he helped voters just a little bit.  Yes, that is a political statement, dude and doesn't belong in a voting location on the head of one of the officials.)

* Picture (at link) used via CC by 2.0 thanks to Flicker user miss_millions who has no connection to this blog or blogger

Funniest Thing on the Internet Today. Affuent White Teen Burning Her Elizabeth Warren Shirt for #BernieSanders

Shell Beach (Just North of Pismo Beach) Sunset showing the beauty of the area not to mention the cool clean air that creates high house prices ( Used via Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0) Thanks to Flickr user Trish Hartman here
 

First of all as a young woman of the 70s my first reaction was "Really? Burning a T Shirt? Girl that's just not enough!" Try the bra, Sweetie, or aren't you old enough to wear one?" The tweet is here if it hasn't been deleted. It was sent out by a #BernieOrBust er account. I do not want to copy or transfer the tweet or picture without permission which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get). I did save a copy of the pictures to prove my validity if legally challenged.

The account hosting the pictures is called "Bernie Believer" @AmazingBernie and lists a home city as Pismo Beach. Ears pick up. As a Cali lady I knew that was interesting. And in fact looking at the demographics of various areas of Pismo Beach most of them have home values of $650k to $1m dollars. There are a few slices cheaper, but the home in that picture does not look like on of those homes, not in Central Coast California with it's clean air, open space, and moderate climate.

Also most of the Pismo Beach and nearby areas have very high percentages of white residents. A couple of slices have higher minority rates and low income levels, lower property values though not low enough that being in the working class is a very fun life. So basically the Twitter user probably lives in the servant and served community and isn't a servant.

I'm also guessing the Twitter user knows the young woman in the picture, and it might even be a family member. The kitchen and deck the young woman was in and on is very likely a part of a million dollar abode. I"m wondering if there are now burn marks on that fine and finely finished deck.

What I do know is that Pismo Beach is typical of an elitist city with poor people supplying cheap help to families of the people like the young woman in the picture.

The #BernieSanders fanatic that I know similarly lives in one of the most elite cities in our area. Her and her family's attachment to #Bernie is due to his promise to pay off student loans, that they generously took out for their daughters education and of course the fun very affluent college students think is their norm.

They may live in a million dollar abode, but paying back that loan is like slavery!

Who knew?

Nope going into peoples homes and cleaning their toilets, or living in a closet size room to be always at the beck and call, that's like slavery, Chuckles!

Also mowing their lawns, painting their homes, washing their cars for way too little pay to live decently and freely, sweeping up their restaurants and washing the dishes, and busing for tips. That's basically another version of slavery, and increasingly more and more of our working people are forced into those jobs as money continues to flow to the top like it did before the Great Depression.

As I have noted before #Bernie Sanders says he's a socialist, but his biggest promises would make wealthy families wealthier. He then gives vague promises to do "socialist stuff" for the rest of us. From experience I can tell you vague promises never get fulfilled. Increasingly also #Bernie looks more like promise socialist scam artist, someone who offers the working classes a great new world, but mostly uses his/her platform to enrich him or herself as desperate people throw money at their "savior".

 If you like Bernie, you can have him, but please don't be fooled about his Socialism. The man makes 6 figures a year working that scam. He doesn't need your money, too.

Hillary Clinton Exposed. Her Closest Associate Blows Her Cover.

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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Border Wall (HBO)

What's So Wrong About #BernieSanders 's Program To Pay Off Student Debt?

Poor starving post-graduate students want to know.

Source: Pew Research Center

In words: It will increase inequality in our nation, and "We've had quite enough of that Bushie game, thank you" (to misquote Barbara Bush).

But wait! This is important since inequality is the biggest drag on our society, yes it is.

Learn:

There are many reason why a student cannot get through college and the high cost is one of them. Those who get substantial student loans *Kaching!* do because of equity, often due to parental value in a home.

So what?

If you compute the percentage of the white community with home value with the value of their homes and contrast that with the value of minority students families and the value of their parents home, you will see a great disparity.  The chart above doesn't show how many are homeowners with substantial equity, but one can get a good idea from the disparity, how that will break down

In fact, millions of minority families lost their homes and the equity in them during the Great Recession less than a decade ago. Remember how the Bush administration and lenders were making a big push in the years before 2007-07 to get minorities into their own home with their own mortgages, only to come down like Katrina on them when they lost jobs during the collapse?

It's also true that minorities' incomes have not recovered as quickly from the effects of the recession and African American wealth gap was still unconscionably bad in 2013.

Yes, there are some programs now for low income students, but there are other problems with low income wannabe students.

Homes may be broken by poverty alone. The student isn't the only one who needs help. Parents my have trouble keeping a roof over their and their younger children's heads, may need the free child care an older son or daughter can offer.

The family may face homelessness which can cause a college age child to drop out to help provide a roof over the family's head. So even if a college is offering a dorm room and meals, that may not be enough and we can see from the charts above that the recession hit a much larger number of African American students families than the traditionally stable white families. HIspanics may have regained their net worth of  1/10th  of white families but that is hardly anything to cheer about.

And yes there are white families who through no fault of their children were unstable too, but the charts show that was much less likely than for "minorities".

Most student loans were based on home equity, something more likely and likely a better value for a white family than for Hispanic and African Americans.

So here comes Bernie singing his song of forgiveness for student loans. Who's he singing to, but mostly to white middle class families? If you didn't have equity, you're not included. It wasn't until my mother in law died leaving half her home to my adult daughters that they could get loans for further education. It allowed my middle daughter to pursue teaching credential through student loans.

They aren't and weren't wealthy, but if their loans are forgiven while hundreds of thousands of minority wannabe students who are now nearing their 30s with children and whatever careers they've patched together without the help of degrees and credentials get nothing that is a way to increase inequality.

High inequality is not good for families, for society, or even for the wealthy. It creates an unstable base as we saw during the Bush administration. The Supply Side Tax Cuts created high inequality and the entire economic structure nearly collapsed.

And though that collapse hurt minorities more than white stable families, everyone was hurt except I suspect the multi millionaires.

Yes, Bernie Sanders is playing the same game as George W Bush, throwing out ideas that will help affluent and mostly white families more than others.

History shows that's a dangerous game. Bernie Sanders is hoping no one has told you that. Oops, I just did.

Ask Veterans if Bernie Sanders is Better for America. His VA (In)action Shows How He'd MakeOver HealthCare.

Bernie Sanders is running hard for the Democratic nominations to the point of calling people in in states that have so far chosen Hillary Clinton "Red Staters, and therefore of no value to him and his wife. In fact their wording implies all states that will vote for Ms Clinton are damaged goods, "red staters" despite that fact that in California Hillary is running 15 percentage points above the Senator. That's just my state. I'll check more later. I know my state. We aren't easily fooled and haven't gone red since 1988's Reagan afterglow elected GHW Bush.

It's going to be a long nomination run so smacking at California may seem to be a good idea to Bernie now, but his nasty treatment of us isn't going to endear him to the "Left Coast". More importantly though Bernie Sanders has grandiose ideas of remaking Obama's signature achievement, the ACA. You'd think he could find a project for himself, but hey,, go with messing with what your predecessor did, because somehow that guy didn't gt it right. Bernie says he'll do it better. In fact, his plan was actually supposed to be a VA for all kind of deal, until it was revealed his Senate VA committee was ignoring huge problems with the VA to the point that it was killing Vets. Then Bernie sprang into action -- to change the meme of his universal health plan that would destroy the ACA to "Medicare for All"

Change the name and glory in the adulation as he and Jane ride in AF1 and the presidential limousine in the glory they so deserve. But Bernie had his chance with the VA and he failed apparent;ly because he wasn't sufficiently inspired to keep veterans safe. After all they aren't Senators or their children in general. The press will not make any but the barest hint of his complicity, but there is this one report. When you add it to other reports of Veterans dying, you can see what Senator Sanders really is: Someone who believes he was born to be at the top. We used to call them princes and kings....

Now we're hopefully more cynical.

Donald Trump's Great Wall. It's Been Done Before. How That Turned Out.

This Long and Mighty Wall, Manned By Fierce Troops, Didn't Keep the Mongols Out of China

So, Trump, how's that "wall" supposed to work again?

 (Attribution at bottom)

Donald Trump likes to point at immigrants and claim they are harming the US, and that's very questionable, But more importantly we have to ask if a wall however artfully crafted and strategically placed would do the job.

Do we have an example  of such a strategy used previously? What happened to it?

Well one of those examples is known as one of the Wonders of the World.  It required tremendous effort and the best technology for it's era an used top level expertise.

It's called the Great Wall of China.

Yes it isn't considered a major block these days, but when it was built improved upon, restored, strengthened and manned between the third century BC and the early part of the seventh century AD, it was a technological wonder meant to keep out raiders and invaders including their Mongolian neighbors.  Unfortunately, though, when the Mongols turned their eyes on the fertile lands South of the border, so to speak, that  great wall was of little use.  After taking the Southern lands they maintained it to protect merchants and travelers (according to History). That fact may show that the better rulers won, but their conquest showed that a large wall is probably not a good solution for border control no matter how mighty it is at the time of its founding and while being used and maintained.

Trump's wall may be technologically better at a massive cost to the US, but people scampering over the border is possibly more important than most people realize.  Just about every business relies on immigrant help (often illegal) for back end and sometimes front end work from manufacturing, to cleaning, mechanical expertise and labor and food preparation. not to mention field work in our agricultural areas.

I've met many a child of immigrants who were citizens able to work in the light who were and are more competent at it than most Americans. They often live lives like the rest of us in the working class, carefully, soberly, and with an eye on their children's future.

Where does Donald Trump think he's going to get the workforce to replace the massive immigration bounty we have?  I'm guessing he's thinking like his racist followers that the ghettos are just full of layabouts quite able to work and all they have to do is round them up.  That can be the only thing they're all thinking.

In fact most of the laid off, unemployed, non working folks are likely his followers who have a "bad back" gimpy leg, or whatever so all they can do all day is spam Twitter etc with the glorious attributes of white males and females. I've quietly followed many right wing trolls and watched them find each other and electronically hug and tell each other about their backs, legs, neck pains that keep themselves from working except er on the spam trails about sneaky immigrants and "lazy  (you know which ones) Americans".

Trumps "Great Wall of Hate" will solve nothing, prove nothing, do nothing but enrich possible donors, and upend our economy, while punishing those who've kept it going.


Picture at top of article used via Creative Commons License (CC by 2.0) thanks to May Wong maywong_photos at flickr.com

Apologies for poor fit of picture.  Blogspot has reduced the flexibility it used to have in picture placement by ignoring secondary sizing.  I will try to work with other elements later to make things fit better.

John Oliver: When Municipal Fines Go Bad

Many cities are funding their comfy salaries and stately buildings on the backs of poor people caught committing minor infractions by asking large fines, plus fees, plus even larger penalties when working class people, heck even middle class people can't pay the shake down charges. So glad he has dealt with this, but will it get buried in 1000s of other issues that bloggers, Twittervists, and news media, even comedians bring up every week. You only get a very small viewing size here unless your go for full screen, which I recommend.

Just a Quick Look Around Will Show Why Texas Is repeating It's Real Life Disaster Movie In the Face of Heavy Rains

The mind wanders to why Texas has repeated flooding problems and occasional massive flooding disasters.  After all, the storm moving through isn't Katrina and Texas isn't partially below sea level like areas of New Orleans.

I was wondering if anyone else noted that maybe this years tragedy didn't have to happen. Besides a damn breaking (yes, LA had a big dam break but that was the dark ages of 1963, surely dam construction has advanced quite a bit since..) drainage is certainly not what it should be.

But as reported by CityLab from The Atlantic a mainstream source, Texas won't spend the money to make their state safer.

Even after deadly floods in 1981.

Why doesn't Texas spend more to keep it's residents and citizens safe.

It basically collects taxes on the backs of the lowest earning workers. (Make no mistake that most non-citizen are contributing to the tax base.)  But higher earners are not carrying their fair share of taxation load.

This is freedom?  It's as if the pilgrims and pioneers took poor people from cities and hooked them unwillingly to pull their wagons.

It's a form of slavery in fact.

Now it's killing folks because poor people can never make up for what the wealthy who make money off the work of the less powerful, won't pay their fair share in taxes as long as they can buy off state legislators, and spam airwaves to maintain their lower tax privilege.

Next time your GOP neighbor talks about low taxes creating prosperity, ask him or her "for whom?" and "How can you enjoy any prosperity when your life is tossed upside down or even ended by poor infrastructure spending?"

Was The Pennsylvania Crash of #Amtrak188 Set Up? Projectiles Shot at It and Two Other Trains Using Tracks in Same Area Just Before Crash

It has been established that the front windshield of the train running the Amtrak 188 has the typical break pattern found when projected objects hit glass at great force.

But the news was released yesterday "two other trains were hit by projectiles along the same line" (1) in the minutes before the deadly derailment.

Someone was apparently deliberately hoping to disturb a train. 

Who would do such a thing.

Okay, I had my Ayn Rand period (lasted less than half a year) enticed by her strong female characters.

In Atlas Shrugged a major train tragedy caused (caution: snark ensuing) wonderful and dynamic female industrialist woman who at one time had been running the family railroad while pretending her brother was the miracle working boss to come down from a mountain hideaway where the "Atlasses" (really big rich and powerful industry runners had hidden to show the world we couldn't do without them) and reclaim her legacy.

So we do well to remember that railroad funding in the GOP controlled House was to be voted on the next day.  Was someone hoping that the GOP would wrench the railroads from the American people and hand it to the "makers" (or in reality the frakking oil extracting & money from the middle & working class mining great gods we have in their place today)?

I do not ask this question lightly.  I do it because the last thing the US media or investigators will do (Basil Fawlty is in my brain saying "Don't Mention the Guns!") is get to the bottom of the "projectiles" question.

Plus, there's the curious question of the right wing clown Chuck C Johnson getting a dump of info on what he claims is the Amtrak engineers' sexual inclination (complete with dick pics) and using it to say the man's lifestyle caused the the killer crash. No kidding.

Projectiles.  Now what throws a projectile with the speed and force that could at least leave a shatter pattern in a tough train window? Hmmm

Below is source for top link in this post.  It was inserted by the source.  I link to it above, but thought I should let this rest down here as well, though it has no right to interupt my words above in prime space.

(1) from: Read more: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/2-Trains-Hit-by-Projectiles-Minutes-Before-Amtrak-Derailment-SEPTA-303820821.html#ixzz3aK1XdZ76

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John Oliver: Last Week Tonight (March 7, 2015) on Racism Towards the People of US Territories

Yeah, it's a bit old, but important to remember. Basically I think current powerful parties fear what territory citizens might vote for. So the centuries old prejudicial game goes on.

Last Week Tonght (last week's) How Elected Judgeships May Skew Judicial Decisions: John Oliver's Hilarious Explanation

Bingo: We Can Stop Blaming California for the Anti-Vaxxer Movement in the Nation

Big Sur: California likes to export pictures of purple sage, green trees and sparkling blue water, not diseases and dangerous anti-vaccine philosophy. (Attribution at bottom)

After a month or more of us West Coast dwellers being punched around by the media over "California's elitist anti-vaxxer movement" screwing up the nation's "herd immunity", one Twitter poster (who does a lot of this kind of stuff on important subjects) published a list of where immunity in children was the lowest, and it wasn't California.  It was the Midwest and South.

I don't know about you, but most of what I hear about the MidWest and South about California is not a worshipful pledge to do everything California style.  Mostly it sounds like barely controlled cuss word replacements.  So telling people that all those anti-vaxxers in the MidWest and South are influenced by people they consider "hippies" doesn't fly.

I failed apparently to save the graphic on that, but found some info tonight from the CDC on vaccination levels in various states instead of lumping them into regions, but California isn't even mentioned.

Again the states mentioned as low vaccination spots are not places that people sit around and wonder how most to be "Californian".  They might throw you out of the house if you implied they did.

So this doesn't lump states into the regions of the chart I failed to save, but it's enlightening.

In 2013, wide geographic variation in vaccination coverage was observed among the states (Table 3). Coverage for ≥1 MMR dose ranged from 86.0% (Colorado, Ohio, and West Virginia) to 96.3% (New Hampshire). Coverage ranged from 74.3% (Arkansas) to 93.3% (Massachusetts) for ≥4 DTaP doses, from 44.8% (Vermont) to 88.0% (Kentucky) for HepB (birth dose), from 33.6% (Wyoming) to 72.1% (Connecticut) for ≥2 HepA doses, from 56.0% (Arkansas) to 84.4% (Rhode Island) for rotavirus, and from 57.1% (Arkansas) to 82.1% (Rhode Island) for the combined vaccine series.

Unknown to me is the demographics of the mentioned state. For instance I lower the measles immunization rate in California because I was born before they were given even at the age of 7, and like most in my day gained by future immunity the "natural way" because I had no choice.  I'd have taken the shots if I could. Compared to the disease, it's a holiday.


But the state most effectively keeping children from vaccinations is Poverty:

DTaP, PCV, and Hib coverage were 8 to 12 percentage points lower for children living below the poverty level compared with children living at or above the poverty level. Parents and caregivers of children living below poverty might face additional challenges in maintaining well-child visits and thus be more likely to fall behind on booster doses. Children living below poverty also had rotavirus coverage that was 13 percentage points lower than that of children living at or above the poverty level. The first dose of rotavirus vaccine should be given before age 14 weeks and 6 days, and the final dose should be given by 8 months (3). Children living below poverty might be more likely to miss these milestones and thus not able to start or complete the series. The Vaccines for Children program likely has been successful in reducing differences in vaccination coverage between children living at or above poverty level compared with those below the poverty level for these vaccines and in removing poverty differences for vaccines such as MMR and varicella (1). To further reduce disparities, clinician and system-based interventions should be targeted to communities with a high proportion of the population living below the poverty level. Interventions to improve parental knowledge about vaccines and to further facilitate access to vaccinations can also help to reduce disparities in coverage.

So, can we please give California a break, stop blaming it for lapses in vaccination, and GTF together to make sure that children have the transportation, and access to medical care including vaccinations they need and their parents even want, but can't find time or energy to get their children to the doctor after working 1-2 jobs and lacking help around the house.

And how about a nice pin saying "Because my parents love me they D'tapped me 2 (or 1 to 4 whatever) times!"

Hopefully someone can explain what that means before the cops show up at your door, but it might get some attention and let people know that vaccination is considered good, not evil by most families.

Picture at top clipped and used by permission CC by 2.0 thanks to flickr user Dawn Ellner aka flickr name *~Dawn~* who has no connection to this blog or blogger

Lower picture (stop sign) clipped and used via Creative Commons License Attribution CC by 2.0 thanks to Steve Johnson aka flickr name Steve A Johnson who has no connection to this blog or blogger.

Many flickr users have two names representing them on flickr.  I assume the reason is that they want to be known by their real name for future acknowledgement, fame, but flickr requires a unique name for search purposes.  I try to comply with using both names of those who have two such identifications.

Pre-term Birth Subtly Affects Memory Function. Why this is important in the Fight Against Racism

What if we held a cute pig race, but some of the racers had 10lb weights strapped to their hind legs. Would that be fair?

A recent study found that preterm births affect a person's memory functions.

“Our study provides evidence that prematurity can result in problems with a particular subprocess of recollection,” according to Kerstin H. Kipp, principal investigator of the research project when she was at the University of the Saarland (Kipp is now with the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart and the University of Ulm.)
“The specific modification in the memory network is so subtle that it could be overlooked because it doesn’t manifest itself in clear memory impairment. But memory deficits can appear in situations in which retrieving contextual information is essential,”

 So what does this mean when conservatives say that all children must be treated equally or we're biased against white people?

To keep this quick and simple, statistics show black children are more than 50%  likely to be born prematurely than whites and Asians and more likely than other ethnicities, though Native Americans are close. (Original source CDC)

Throwing all the kids in the pool to sink or swim is like organizing a deep end race between a shark baby, a whale baby, and a human baby.  It isn't fair.  Saying it's fair is a way to continue to encode racism.  Treating all children the same as conservatives want to pretend they do (though only small amounts of time are needed to discover natural advantages of more affluent communities) is a way to continue racism.

The study was on a form of memory that is not normally associated with "learning" in school. First of all was it the narrowness of subject (which scientists love to use to quell blow-back). Or will we learn later that it's at the core of learning instead of somewhere out in the wilderness? Scientists are always revising those kinds of findings.  Meanwhile there are children who need a good education.

And the info gleaned from the recent study and the CDC graphic show this starts at birth.

End of story, unless, of course, you are Bill O'Reilly or other right wing scammer promoting the continued ability of the richest to take from society at the expense of the poor (and paid to do so by the same wealthy folk).

In our real life we need to show the real statistics when confronted about treating all ethnicities alike "to be fair". Tell them that's incorrect until society fixes conditions that forces certain minorities, from birth, to fight against problems that harm their ability to learn.

Picture at top used via Creative Commons License (CC by 2.0) thanks to Flickr user krgjumper (only name identified by Flickr).

Did The Bush Administration Cause Widespread Distrust in Vaccines?

Americans used to feel they could trust their government to be working for them, not high end political donors. Where did that break down into a feeling that powerful people are only using Americans to enrich and further empower themselves and their big financial backers? Maybe somewhere in the harsh lands of Iraq and Afghanistan during a couple of wars in which our government abandoned our troops and our trust for war profiteering. (Attribution at bottom)


The reality of our recent past is that measles was declared eliminated in the US in the year 2000.

Of course,  more can come in from immigration and travel, but essentially the US had eliminated the threat.

So what happened?

Anti-vaccination has a history over 200 years long as a small interest and vague worry.  That may have been a good thing given the unsterile conditions of medicine of earlier centuries, but did the current US movement gain it's strength as people realized that their government could be producing huge lies that would harm even kill large number of citizens, to enrich and empower their friends and allies?

Until I can find the numbers by year of the anti-vaxxer movement, not just some outraged internet hack yelling at me, I believe that the Bush-Cheney (Cheney-Bush) administration did major damage to the faith that Americans have in people in important, informed, and powerful places to act in their best interests instead of the bank accounts of their own political and financial partners.

Neither the former president nor vice president seem to be harmed themselves from any of this.  Bush's brother is planning on carrying on the family tradition of inhabiting the White House, and Cheney's daughters look to be trying to get themselves into powerful positions, as well.

There is a song that we used to sing as kids (okay scouts) that ended with "We're all the broker's men".  Just place the Koch bros in the slot for "brokers" (and recognize that women are now considered part of the human race or "men" in most states) and you have the reality of most of the Republican party.

Whatever they say publicly, the Republicans greed for wealth and power may have literally killed kids, even without missiles, and guns by destroying the faith of Americans in their government to promote the common good.

I hope that people can regain their trust in government or at least their realization that they need the vaccinations for their children before great damage is done to more children.

And get those

Top picture of soldier used with permission via CC by 2.0 thanks to Flickr user DVIDSHUB who has no connection to this blog or blogger. Located here with further information including name of pictured soldier. Bottom picture used via CC by 2.0 thanks to Flickr user Blake Patterson (flickr name: blakespot) who is providing the arm and who has no connection to this blog or blogger see here.