State of the Union Speech is About the Nation-Not Congress

Poor Man Survival

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State of the Union Speech is About the Nation-Not Congress

One year after various Democratic politicians boycotted the presidential inauguration, there is a growing list of members now pledging to boycott President Trump’s State of the Union address. As with the boycott of the inauguration, this protest misses the point of the State of the Union and, more importantly, the role played by members of Congress. To put it simply, it is not about him or them. It is about us.

Besides the inauguration, the State of the Union is the only occasion in which members of all three branches gather together in a formal joint event. It is a demonstration of civility and comity between the branches. It has become a symbol of a unified government where a president speaks to the body of representatives for the American people.

Fewer people are watching the addresses, which have declined from a 44.3 rating during the Clinton presidency to 19 or 20 for recent addresses. (Notably, Trump was responsible for a sharp increase to 28.7 in his Feb. 28 address.)

Rep.”Mad” Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), a vile anti-Trumper, had declared that she will boycott the address and asked, “Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar?”  She promised to deliver a rebuttal on BET network. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) says that she will not attend because “President Trump’s address will be full of innuendo, empty promises, and lies.” It is tempting to dismiss this content with the observation that, if we removed “innuendo, empty promises, and lies” from the congressional record, we would be left on some days with little more than a transcript the length of a haiku poem.

Yet, these statements reveal a troubling and fundamental miscomprehension of the role of members. First and foremost, it is not about these members as individuals. They represent hundreds of thousands of citizens, including some who support and others who oppose the president. As representatives, they are expected to attend these events to represent those citizens. They do not have to rejoice, but they have to represent.

Second, the view of a given president is not the material question for a member. Members have gathered out of respect for the office, not the officeholder. They gathered to hear Richard Nixon despite his criminal allegations. Indeed, Waters appeared to listen to Clinton, who not only lied under oath, but was impeached for doing so.

Third, if members begin to engage in protests or boycotts of the State of the Union, we will lose the little decorum that we have retained in these increasingly poisonous, petty political times. If attendance is treated as an endorsement of presidential policies, more and more seats will be left vacant as partisan voters demand boycotts.  In which case, few would show up to any Democratic politician speaker.

Indeed, Democrat Kennedy III delivered a rebuttal which was full of hot air and hypocracy which talked about restoring the wages of the American working class –something Pres. Trump has already started doing while Democrats under Obama did just the opposite with their massive anti-business regulation which is typical of limousine liberals.

What is most concerning is the view of boycotting members that there is no longer any value in listening to the president. Waters added, “I don’t appreciate him and I wouldn’t waste my time sitting in that house listening to what he has to say. He does not deserve my attention.” Rep. John Lewis(D-Ga.) has said, “I cannot, in all good conscious, be in a room with what he has said about so many Americans. I just cannot do it.”

When we are deeply divided, the value of coming together for these events is more, not less, important. With our politicians unable to pass a budget to fund our government beyond the first week of February, this is the worse time for members to stomp off in a kindergarten fit.  Democrats need re-read their history books especially those about Washington, Jefferson and Franklin and the art of compromise and start thinking about what is good for the whole of the country, not just special interests.

 

Yours for surviving the Deep State,

Bruce, the Poor Man

 

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How to Survive the War on the Middle Class

14 of the best reports I’ve assembled on protecting your freedom…Here is the download link. http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU

These are some of the least expensive businesses you can start
(AOL): "Starting a business can be intimidating. Developing the right idea, dealing with the financials and getting the business up and running successfully add up to more than a standard full-time gig. Simply knowing how to start a business is just the beginning. Fortunately there are plenty of small businesses you can start that won't break the bank. The key is to find a business you can start with your current skills and scale without a lot of initial investment."

6 Businesses You Can Start for Under $1,000 Starting a business doesn’t have to cost a fortune or require lots of debt. In fact, here are six businesses you can start for under $1,000.

 

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A Final Note…

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Improve your brain

Battling brain fog?  Chlorophyll doesn’t just make plants green, it also switches on enzymes that help your liver quickly break down and excrete fatigue-triggering toxins, according to recent British research.  No wonder tiredness and brain fog are often the first signs that your liver needs a chlorophyll boost.  Get it by eating at least four daily cups of green vegetables such as peas, broccoli, spinach and/or kale.  UCLA researchers say fuzzy thinking and fatigue can be reversed in as little as 10 days.

>>Find more ways to improve your brain here [we’ve now included an instant download link at a cheaper price too]:

 

You Have a 16-Cylinder Brain-Learn How to Use it & Re-Awaken the Genius Inside You!

 

I know everyone is short on time in this hectic world so I’ve kept this PDF short and to the point with links to expert how-to articles and guides including:

 

·         How to Increase Your Intelligence

·         6 Step Brain Exercise Steve Jobs Used to Boost Creativity

·         6 Simple Habits to Boost Your Intelligence

·         The Best Vitamins to Increase Brain Function

·         How a Harvard Brain Specialist Keeps Her Brain Healthy

·         A Review of the Top 10 Brain [Limitless] Pills

·         How to Protect Your Cognitive Function

 

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/You-Have-a-16-Cylinder-Brain-Learn-How-to-Use-it-Re-Awaken-the-Genius-Inside/423194447

 

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Americans are unprepared for the next recession...

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

Americans are unprepared for the next recession...

 

 According to a 2015 Federal Reserve survey, one-third of Americans reported they couldn't cover their expenses for three months if they lost their income. That's even if they used their retirement accounts as a lifesaver.

Part of that could be the result of consumer debt now approaching its 2008 levels, when it reached its all-time peak. Plus, debt is growing fast. Americans added $460 billion in debt this year alone, the largest increase in 10 years.

But financially sound Americans are not immune from a recession either, especially those with retirement investments and 401(k) accounts. After all, recessions do the most damage to the stock market.

 

Though our economy has seen its share of recessions, one of the most damaging downturns in history was none other than the fairly recent Great Recession that lasted from 2007 to 2009. During that time, the housing and financial markets collapsed, and countless workers lost their savings, jobs, and even their homes. The Great Recession was so bad that a large number of Americans have yet to fully recover even to this date.

Given the number of current workers who lived through that ordeal, you'd think more folks would be taking steps to protect themselves from a recurrence. But a recent study by GOBankingRates shows just how unprepared for a recession the majority of us are.

Cartels, state-corporate governance. Structurally, large banks and corporations have aggregated wealth and political power to the degree that they can enforce cartels and quasi-monopolies with a combination of market heft and regulatory capture (a complicit state enforces monopoly under the guise of consumer protection or other cover). The owners/managers of the cartels skim enormous profits while providing poor-quality products and services to consumers who have little choice in a rigged market.

 

The Pie Is Shrinking So Much The 99% Are Beginning To Starve

How much longer until the pitchforks come out?

by Charles Hugh Smith

Social movements arise to solve problems of inequality, injustice, exploitation and oppression. In other words, they are solutions to society-wide problems plaguing the many but not the few (i.e. the elites at the top of the wealth-power pyramid).

The basic assumption of social movements is that Utopia is within reach, if only the sources of the problems can be identified and remedied.  Since inequality, injustice, exploitation and oppression arise from the asymmetry of power between the few (the financial and political elites) and the many, the solution is a reduction of the asymmetry; that is a tectonic realignment of the social structure that shifts some power—economic and/or political—from the few to the many.

In some instances, the power asymmetry is between ethnic or gender classes, or economic classes (for example, labor and the owners of capital).

Social movements are characterized by profound conflict because the beneficiaries of the power asymmetry resist the demands for a fairer share of the power and privileges, while those who’ve held the short end of the stick have tired of the asymmetry and refuse to back down.

Two dynamics assist a social, political and economic resolution that transfers power from those with too much power to those with too little power: 1) the engines of the economy have shifted productive capacity definitively in favor of those demanding their fair share of power, and 2) the elites recognize that their resistance to power-sharing invites a less predictable and thus far more dangerous open conflict with forces that have much less to lose and much more to gain.

In other words, ceding 40% of their wealth-power still conserves 60%, while stubborn resistance might trigger a revolution that takes 100% of their wealth-power.

History provides numerous examples of these dynamics.  Once the primary sources of wealth-generation shifted from elite feudal landowners to merchants and industrialists, the wealth (and thus the political power) of the landed elites declined. As the industrialists hired vast numbers of laborers drawn from small farms and workshops, this mass industrialized labor became the source of the wealth generation; after decades of conflict, this labor class gained a significant share of the wealth and political power.

The civil rights and women’s liberation movements realigned the political and economic power of minorities and females more in line with their productive output, reducing the asymmetries of ethnic and gender privileges.

In broad-brush, progressive social movements seek to broaden opportunities and level the playing field by reducing the asymmetric privileges of dominant classes defined by power and privilege.  The core mechanism of this transition is the recognition and granting of universal human rights: the right to vote, the right to equal opportunity, and rights to economic security, i.e. entitlements that are extended universally to all citizens for education, healthcare, old-age pensions and income security.

Again in broad-brush, these movements have largely been categorized as politically Left, though many institutions deemed conservative (for example, various churches) have often provided bedrock support for progressive movements.

Social movements which seek to limit the excesses of state power tend to be categorized as conservative or politically Right, as they seek to realign the asymmetry of power held by the state in favor of the individual, family and the traditional social order.

The Expanding Pie Fueled Expanding Entitlements

Writer Ugo Bardi recently drew another distinction between Left and Right social movements: “Traditionally, the Left has emphasized rights while the Right has emphasized duties.”

As rights manifested as economic entitlements rather than political (civil liberty) entitlements, rights accrue economic costs. As Bardi observes: “Having rights is nicer than having duties, but the problem is that human rights have a cost and that this cost was paid, so far, by fossil fuels. Now that fossil fuels are on their way out, who's going to pay?”

I would argue that the cost was also paid by higher productivity enabled by the technological, financial and social innovations of the Third Industrial Revolution, roughly speaking the interconnected advances of the second half of the 20^th century.

These advances can be characterized as expanding the economic pie; that is, generating more energy, credit, technological tools, opportunities, security and capital (which includes financial, infrastructural, intellectual and social capital) for all to share in a socio-political-financial allocation broad enough to make everyone feel like they were making some forward progress.

This long-term, secular expansion of the pie naturally generated more demands for additional entitlements and rights, as the economy could clearly support the extra costs of allocating additional wealth and resources to the many.  From the point of view of the few (the elites), their own wealth continued expanding, so there was little resistance to expanding retirement, education and healthcare entitlements.

But in the 21^st century, the expansion of the pie stagnated, and for many, it reversed. Adjusted for real-world inflation many households have seen their net incomes and wealth decline in the past decade.

Despite the endless media rah-rah about “growth” and “recovery,” it is self-evident to anyone who bothers to look beneath the surface of this facile PR that the pie is now shrinking. This dynamic is increasing inequality rather than reducing it.

Part 1: The Pie Is Shrinking So Much The 99% Are Beginning To Starve, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

 

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Yours for smarter living,

Bruce ‘the Poor Man’

 

 

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Happy Data Privacy Day!

Arguably as exciting as Halloween or Christmas, January 28th, was Data Privacy Day. A creation of the National Cyber Security Alliance, a consortium that includes ADP, Cisco, Google, Visa, and a lot of other groups that make money with your private data, it's a good reminder to shore up your digital privacy. PCMag can help. First, set up two-factor authentication on the services that support it. Next, hit your social networking accounts and perform privacy checks. If you want to go the extra mile, sign up for a VPN service. If all of this is too much, just delete your accounts from the internet entirely. Sometimes, it's only the way to be sure.

 

Report: Dutch Spies Watched Russians Hack the DNC

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Forcing a National Biometric ID Card on Every Citizen-No Vote, No Citizen Discussion

Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…

www.poormansurvivor.net

ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

For almost 250 years, America has been a beacon of freedom in the darkness of tyranny.

But like many Americans, I’m worried that our country is on the brink.

Considering our $20 TRILLION national debt, the growing surveillance state, and the destruction of our civil liberties, I don’t think that’s an overstatement.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote about the British and King George:

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance,”  our own ‘King George Bush, created the Dept. of Homeland Security and similarly has sent out swarms of armed agents [even the Social Security Agency maintains armed agents] into our land.  The United States has more armed agents than any other nation in the world and Bush’s so-called un-Patriot Act gutted our Bill of Rights and destroyed privacy in America.  In the eyes of many, especially returning veterans who fought to protect those rights, he is nothing but a traitor.

 

Earlier this month, Rep. Bob Goodlatte [R-VA-6] introduced H.R.4760 – Securing America’s Future Act of 2018, a sweeping bill that entails everything from Education and the Workforce to Homeland Security to the military. Also, tucked away in this 400-page behemoth of a bill are the details of a new biometric National ID card that could soon be required for everyone.

Not surprisingly, there is almost no media coverage on this legislation.

H.R. 4760 establishes a mandatory National Identification system that requires all Americans to carry a government-approved ID containing “biometric features.” Without this card, according to the legislation, you will not be able to work in this country.

The legislation was drafted under the auspices of providing a legislative solution for the current beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

However, as Ron Paul points out, “this bill would give DACA recipients a 3-year renewable legal status while forcing a biometric National ID card on virtually everyone else.”

“That’s right — the statists want to control you,” said Paul.

Naturally, this bill is wholeheartedly supported by the anti-immigration sect and has gained 70 co-sponsors already in only a few days. As with most police state-promoting legislation, fear of illegal immigration is being pushed to garner such support. However, as Ron Paul points out, the bill won’t just target illegals—it targets everyone—and it will use your most private information to track you.

“Under the statists’ National ID scheme, you’d be forced to carry around your National ID card, tied to this massive database, chockfull of biometric identifiers like fingerprints and retina scans,” Paul noted. “Without this ID, you won’t be able to legally hold a job — or likely even open a bank account or even board a plane!”

§  Allow federal bureaucrats to include biometric identification information on the card, potentially even including fingerprints, retinal scans, or scans of veins on the back of hands, which could easily be used as a tracking device;

§  Be required for all U.S. workers regardless of place of birth, making it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn’t obtain an ID card;

§  Require all employers to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government. Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government would know — and you can bet its only a matter of time until “ID scans” will be required to make even routine purchases, as well.

The control freaks in the US government have been trying for years to pass a National ID card law and it has been successfully resisted every time. This time, however, it appears that the Republicans—who used to be vocally opposed to such measures—are now fully onboard likely because of the bill’s anti-immigration language.

As Paul points out,

For years now, statists in BOTH parties have been fighting to RAM their radical National ID-database scheme into law.

In fact, this scheme was a key portion of the infamous failed “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” bills BOTH parties tried to ram through during the Obama administration.

Now, using the momentum behind Trump’s tough talk on immigration and border security, I’m afraid the statists believe the best way to finally enact their National ID scheme is by promoting their bill on Capitol Hill as a “DACA fix” while they sell it to the GOP base as a border “security” measure.

Of course, that’s nothing more than a buzzword meant to trick Americans from all over the country into thinking that Congress is going to seal our southern border.

But in reality, it means something far different.

The “security” members of BOTH parties in the U.S. House want doesn’t target any U.S. border. Instead, it’s meant to create an all-out police state within them.

The truth is, this is exactly the type of battle that often decides whether a country remains free or continues sliding toward tyranny.

Paul’s Campaign for Liberty is planning a massive crusade against this tyrannical legislation in the form of billboards, commercials, and other advertising. He’s even started a petition to let your representative know how you feel about them ushering in a new level of despotism and control. You can sign this petition here.

Please share this article with your friends and family so we can stop the tyrants in their path.

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."

Since 1999 Big Brother has spied on us using a variety of schemes and lies and has been attempting to force a national ID down our collective throats even prior to any attacks by terrorists in their ongoing efforts to exert even more control over us…it has always been the goal of the Deep State and it was envisioned for us in the book 1984 by George Orwell.

Courtesy of The Free Thought Project,  www.CampaignForLiberty.org

Related Stories:

Evidence Against Deep State Is Piling Up: MASSIVE Scandal At The FBI

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Sidenote:  The media, both offline and online [especially the Huffington Post, Newsweek, Verizon owned media] continue to paint Trump and his family in the most negative terms possible using even trivial TMZ-style content to needle the sitting president with innuendo and juvenile nonsense which they never used against Obama.  It is all a part of the concerted effort of the Deep State’s effort to smear and unseat Trump and it doesn’t take much effort to see their unskilled efforts…

 

Yours for surviving the Deep State,

Bruce, the Poor Man

 

 

Take advantage of these free materials…

 

How to Survive the War on the Middle Class

14 of the best reports I’ve assembled on protecting your freedom…Here is the download link. http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU

Best Auto Insurance Companies of 2018

Our ratings of the best auto insurance companies based on price,  customer service, financial strength, and other criteria.  See how your insurance stacks up.

 

Sticking With a Frugal Lifestyle
These tips can help you live frugally month after month.

 

A 12-Month Plan to Revitalize Your Finances

This year, take your finances to the next level with this month-by-month plan to revitalize your finances. Follow this plan, and you’ll improve your finances and be in a better place by next year.

 

Related posts:

1.      6 Easy Ways To Make Money For Prepping

2.      The Survival Tool Burden – A Big Prepping Problem

3. Things You Can Do To Be More Self-Sufficient
4. Small Scale Self-Sufficiency
5. Top 10 Tips For Urban Homesteading

 

A Final Note…

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.

 

Improve your brain

We all know that with age comes some cognitive decline, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Studies show that keeping your brain active with things like puzzles can increase its longevity and promote strong cognitive function. That means you should keep doing the puzzles and riddles you see on this site!

>>Find more ways to improve your brain here [we’ve now included an instant download link at a cheaper price]:

 

You Have a 16-Cylinder Brain-Learn How to Use it & Re-Awaken the Genius Inside You!

 

I know everyone is short on time in this hectic world so I’ve kept this PDF short and to the point with links to expert how-to articles and guides including:

 

·         How to Increase Your Intelligence

·         6 Step Brain Exercise Steve Jobs Used to Boost Creativity

·         6 Simple Habits to Boost Your Intelligence

·         The Best Vitamins to Increase Brain Function

·         How a Harvard Brain Specialist Keeps Her Brain Healthy

·         A Review of the Top 10 Brain [Limitless] Pills

·         How to Protect Your Cognitive Function

 

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/You-Have-a-16-Cylinder-Brain-Learn-How-to-Use-it-Re-Awaken-the-Genius-Inside/423194447

 

Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…

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A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production