by Robert Tishkevich | Apr 2, 2023 | Politics
The NY Trump Indictment
I’m writing this article on April 2nd so I have to start with a caveat, we don’t yet have all the facts. At this point in time, the indictment is sealed, so some of what I’m going to write below is speculation. My conclusions are based upon common sense, press reports, comments from former federal prosecutor and NYC D.A. Mark Pomerantz, and the fact that we know Trump is a thug and a criminal, who has no respect for the rule of law.
As we know, the press tends to focus on issues which they believe their audience is interested. How many Americans are interested in the nuances of corporate fraud law in New York? Therefore, we should not be surprised to learn that every press report focuses primarily on the Stormy Daniels hush money payments made by Trump’s attorney. They believe that will get the attention of their readers.
Right-Wing propaganda experts are trying to spin this indictment as the Stormy Daniels hush money incident, as in a case solely about a campaign financing violation. They are arguing that is not worth indicting a former president.
Hello! The Grand Jury in this case deliberated for at least 6 months! If this was primarily about hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the Grand Jury could have made a decision about her case in 6 hours.
What does the time span tell us? It tells us this is a very complex, complicated case about felony corporate fraud law violations. That’s why this grand jury has been listening to evidence for more than 6 months. For me, that validates the press reports which indicate Trump has been charged with 30 or more counts of Corporate Fraud in NYC. It would probably take months to explain the nuances of corporate fraud laws to members of a Grand Jury.
That brings us to former D.A. Mark Pomerantz, who played a major role as a federal prosecutor in the conviction of Mafia kingpin John Gotti.
Pomerantz worked with former NYC District Attorney Vance, who retired and was replaced by Bragg. Pomerantz believed the team had overwhelming evidence of corporate fraud, which merited filing numerous felony charges against Trump. But the newly elected district attorney, Alvin Bragg, wasn’t ready to proceed with an indictment, so Pomerantz and another senior attorney resigned. Their departures were headline news across America. Pomerantz wrote in his resignation letter that failing to bring a case of criminal fraud charges against Trump, was a grave failure of justice.
Listen to what he said about Trump and the investigation.
- Pomerantz compares Trump to John Gotti, a mob boss who used every trick to avoid culpability and maintain one degree of deniability, while building a massive criminal enterprise.
- Here is one example, illustrating how the Trump business operates. The Trump organization valued a Manhattan property at $527 million in one document for a bank loan. They then reported the value of that same property to the tax authorities as $16 million.
- The above example of fraud is for only one property. Can you imagine the level of crime when all the Trump properties are accounted for?
- Pomerantz argued there was so much evidence of financial fraud reference numerous felonies committed by Trump and his organization, that he should have been indicted 2 or 3 years ago.
Critical Point of this Article
If one believes Pomerantz, and I do, the right-wing propaganda experts have it backwards. Trump isn’t being prosecuted, as they claim, for political reasons. In reality, he actually received the benefit of a double standard in his favor, because he was Donald Trump, former President. In other words, Pomerantz argues that if it was anyone other than Trump, there is so much evidence of fraud, he would have been indicted a long time ago.
Republican Party Reaction
I thought the Republican Party took pride in being referred to as the party of Law & Order. Why does a political party, which allegedly respects Law & Order, attack the District Attorney, who enforces the law, and defends the criminal who committed numerous felonies? Members of Congress said they plan to investigate and go after the NYC District Attorney. Wow! If this was a plot in a Hollywood movie, you would probably think about walking out of the theater, because it is such a stupid movie.
Trump’s Other Major Legal Problems
I’m sure you know Trump may be indicted in Georgia for interfering with the 2020 Presidential election in that state. We don’t know for sure, but it appears as if another indictment is inevitable.
Federal Case against Trump
In my opinion, this is the big one. Trump stole hundreds of Top Secret / Classified documents and stored them in his private residence for 19 months. Who knows what he did with those documents? Did he sell them to China or Vladimir?
Please be aware of yet another double standard in favor of Trump. If a CIA employee stole hundreds of Top Secret Classified documents, they would have been arrested before the week was over. So far, nothing has happened to Trump. You get the idea, politics is protecting Trump, it is not the reason for pending indictments against him.
Unfortunately, in Trump World, many believe the FBI planted those documents in his Mara a Lago home. They also ignore the fact that Trump was given multiple opportunities to return the stolen documents, but refused to do such. If Trump would have complied with those requests, there would have been no need for an FBI raid on his private home.
So far, we’ve heard very little about the DOJ investigation, but I would be very surprised if serious charges aren’t filed. Of course, the horrible mishandling of Top Secret / Classified documents by President Biden, is seriously impacting the federal case against Trump.
by Robert Tishkevich | Mar 6, 2023 | Politics
RED STATES versus BLUE STATES
Right-wing propaganda experts repeatedly try to portray the Blue states as failed ones, and the red states as the best ones. Of course, that Is not supported by the facts. For the most part, Blue states generally have the best jobs, the best schools, the best amenities, the best hospitals and medical care, the highest levels of income, and pay the most taxes. In other words, they are financially independent.
In sharp contrast with Blue states, many RED states have the lowest levels of education and many of them depend on the federal government for welfare.
I downloaded a list of the 20 states with the highest levels of education and the 20 states with the lowest levels of education. It’s very obvious that uneducated people, who do not engage in independent research and who watch Fox 24/7, are helpless victims of propaganda. But the people who live in the Blue states, read far more often, engage in independent research, and I’m guessing, do a lot more thinking.
The Fox Propaganda Network is incredibly popular in the RED states. In fact, it’s an addiction in those states. I’m guessing Fox isn’t as popular in the BLUE states, which generally have a much higher level of education. It’s a lot more than just education. Fox and their viewers are always talking about the high level of crime in Blue states, but once again, they are not supported by the facts. Remember, facts and research are not part of their world. I also listed the 15 most dangerous states, per FBI statistics, most of them are RED states.
If you are interested, the safest state in America is New Jersey.
Before you check out the research I downloaded, I want you to know what Fox viewers and Trump supporters will say when they are presented with the facts and research below. They will call it “FAKE NEWS”.
Top 20 states with highest levels of education.
- Massachusetts
- Maryland
- Connecticut
- Vermont
- Colorado
- New Jersey
- Virginia
- New Hampshire
- Minnesota
- Utah
- Washington
- Rhode Island
- Delaware
- New York
- Oregon
- Illinois
- Hawaii
- Maine
- Montana
- Wisconsin
Top 20 states with lowest levels of education
- Iowa
- Georgia
33 Missouri
- Ohio
- South Dakota
- Iowa
- Arizona
- Indiana
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- New Mexico
- Nevada
- Kentucky
- Oklahoma
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- West Virginia
The top 10 states which depend on the Federal Government for Welfare.
- Alaska
- Mississippi
- Kentucky
- West Virginia
- Montana
- New Mexico
- Arizona
- Louisiana
- Indiana
- Alabama
The 15 most Dangerous States in America, per FBI statistics
- Louisiana
- Arkansas
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- Alaska
- Missouri
- Michigan
- Colorado
- South Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Texas
- Montana
- Nevada
- South Dakota
- Kansas
by Robert Tishkevich | Feb 5, 2023 | Health, Politics
Ignore Fox Propaganda, Do Your Own Research on Obamacare
Today, intelligent people are used to non-stop propaganda and lies coming out of right-wing media. The volume and nature of their lies are literally mind boggling. Unfortunately, millions of low IQ, Fox/Trump supporters incredibly believe virtually everything they’re told. Today, Trump World is buried under so much propaganda, it’s become an alternate reality where facts, the truth, and/or proof, are totally irrelevant. However, if you will recall, this kind of propaganda and non-stop lying started to become commonplace when Obama was President. Back in 2010, when Obamacare became the law, we saw the precursor of right-wing propaganda on a mass scale.
Do you remember the lies perpetrated by right-wing media, who didn’t want Obama to receive any credit for this major bill, which transformed how healthcare is administered in America?
- It’s a government takeover of healthcare.
- You won’t be able to keep your doctor.
- Death Panels!
- Healthcare costs are rising because of Obamacare.
- etc.
I’m sure some of you will remember the national surveys administered after the law was passed. If you recall, when asked if you approve of the “Affordable Care Act”, something like 59% of Americans were in favor of it. However, when the same exact survey went out, but instead described the law as “Obamacare”, the percentage of Americans who said they were in favor of the law, dropped to something like 47%. I think this is a good example, which illustrates how powerful propaganda can be.
During the Trump Administration, Republicans tried everything under the sun to destroy Obamacare and failed. One of the reasons they failed, despite promises from Trump every two weeks, for a fabulous new healthcare program, they literally had no alternative plan. As Trump said, I didn’t realize healthcare was so complicated.
As of early 2023, approximately 35 million Americans get their critical healthcare via Obamacare, the program Trump and the Republican Party tried to destroy. Man, this is a lifesaver for a huge number of Americans. What would they do if Obamacare didn’t exist?
I’m going to talk more about the law, but I want to pause for a brief story about a woman I met in early 2013. She was an accountant for a small company which had only 7 employees. This very small company could not afford to provide health insurance, so she was living without coverage. I asked her why she was taking such a huge chance on having her life destroyed by one unexpected, major health crisis. She told me that she wanted to get health insurance, but she couldn’t afford the exorbitant cost for one individual. I told her about Obamacare, she researched it, and several weeks later, she had a very good health insurance plan, which cost about $145 per month.
Before I get into the huge benefits of the law and how it changed healthcare in America, I want to point out that all insurance companies, such as Blue Cross and Aetna, who participate in the plan, are private companies. These companies go on the 50-state healthcare exchanges and compete with other private companies for the business of American consumers. That is the free market at its best. This is not a government takeover of healthcare.
There are other benefits from the law, but I’m going to highlight only what I believe are the big ones.
Thanks to the law,
- You can no longer be turned down for health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. It’s estimated that 35-40% of Americans have pre-existing conditions.
- If you’re self-employed, you can now buy quality health insurance.
- If you lose your job, the unemployed can buy quality health insurance.
- Women can no longer be charged more than men for their health insurance premiums.
- Medicaid was expanded.
- Preventive care is free to the patient.
- Your policy can no longer be terminated because you are using up the benefits. For example, before Obamacare, if you got cancer and your treatments were very expensive, after a certain point, the insurance company could legally terminate your policy. However, under the Affordable Care Act, you cannot be denied coverage for any reason, other than your failure to pay the premiums or fraud. This is called a guarantee issue.
Wow! That is an incredible list of enhancements to how healthcare is administered in America. Remember, before Obamacare became the law, around 35-40% of Americans could be turned down because they have a pre-existing condition. Women could be charged more than men. Really? Yes!
Before the law was passed, if you got cancer and your medical costs skyrocketed, insurance companies could literally drop you. And I love the fact the preventive care is now free. That means your annual physical doesn’t cost you one penny! This component of the law should motivate millions to sign up for an annual physical, where they can discover health issues while they’re minor ones, before they become dangerous and expensive to treat.
I don’t want to imply that Obamacare is perfect. It still has several flaws which need to be corrected. But overall, it’s the best thing which happened to healthcare in our lifetime. And don’t let anyone hit you with a bogus argument about subsidies. Everyone in America, who has employee sponsored healthcare, is being subsidized by the federal government.
by Robert Tishkevich | Jan 10, 2023 | Politics
Why Is Trump World Attacking the Covid-19 Vaccine?
If you haven’t noticed, right wing propaganda experts recently crafted an array of attacks directed at the safety and effectiveness of our Covid-19 vaccine. They are claiming the vaccine is ineffective and/or dangerous. Florida governor Ron DeSantis, actually started an investigation of the vaccine. Yes, you read that correctly, he’s investigating the vaccine.
Why are they doing this? In order to understand their motivation, you must understand two concepts. They are:
- Trump supporters make up the largest cult since Hitler took power in Germany during the 1930s.
- The primary roles of cult members.
In a cult,
- Facts, Proof, Science, and Logic are totally irrelevant.
- The Supreme Leader is always right.
- Nobody is allowed to criticize or disagree with the Supreme Leader.
- If anything good happens, they give credit to their leader.
- If anything bad happens, it’s never the fault or responsibility of their Supreme Leader. They always make up excuses and/or find a scapegoat to blame for whatever went wrong.
- The primary job of cult members is to protect and defend their Supreme Leader.
When Trump was President, over a quarter million of his supporters, probably many more, died as a result of Covid-19. Most of them died for two reasons.
- They refused to wear masks
- They refused to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
Since cult members can never hold their leader accountable or responsible for anything negative, they must now create an array of excuses or reasons which will absolve Trump of all blame or responsibility for so many deaths.
In this case, the new argument is, Trump was right when he refused to direct his supporters to wear masks and follow the science, by getting vaccinated. He was right because the vaccine was ineffective and/or dangerous. You are almost certainly going to come across these bogus allegations in the near future.
Let’s start with the claim the vaccine is dangerous. Here’s the response from the CDC on this allegation.
MYTH: The ingredients in COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous.
- FACT: Nearly all the ingredients in Covid-19 vaccines are the same ingredients found in many foods, fats, sugars, and salts.
- Exact vaccine ingredients vary by manufacturer. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines also contain messenger RNA (mRNA) and the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine contains a harmless version of a virus unrelated to the virus that causes COVID-19.
- The Novavax COVID-19 vaccine includes harmless pieces (proteins) of the virus that causes COVID-19; they are pieces of what is often called the “spike protein.” These give instructions to cells in your body to create an immune response. This response helps protect you from getting sick with COVID-19 in the future. After the body produces an immune response, it discards all the vaccine ingredients just as it would discard any information that cells no longer need. This process is a part of normal body functioning.
- COVID-19 vaccines do NOT contain ingredients like preservatives, tissues (like aborted fetal cells), antibiotics, food proteins, medicines, latex, or metals
Next, let’s move onto the claim the vaccine is ineffective or doesn’t work.
Red and Blue states had a similar death rate during the winters of 2020 and 2021. “However, in the summer of 2021, after vaccines because widely available, the Republican death rate rose to nearly double that of Democrats, and this gap widened further in the winter of 2021.
The death rates in blue states, where covid-19 vaccination rates are much higher, significantly declined after vaccines were made available.
In order to understand the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine, you should understand the following. Before the Covid-19 vaccine became available, the death rate in both Blue and Red states was almost identical. However, that changed big time after the drug companies had their vaccines approved by the FDA.
If you have any doubts, please research the death rates in red states versus blue states. Depending upon what studies you find, the death rate ranged from somewhere between 50-75% higher in RED states, versus BLUE states. You don’t need to know anything else to understand how critical the Covid-19 vaccine was in saving lives.
Check this out: The five states with the highest per capita death rates are all RED states: Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Here’s some additional information from other studies. As of August 2022, the risk of dying from COVID-19 among unvaccinated adults, compared with adults who received only a primary series of vaccinations, was 9 times higher for adults aged 65–79 years and 4 times higher for adults aged greater than 80 years.
A similar pattern was observed among younger adult age groups in August 2022. Compared with adults who received a primary series in the same age group, the risk of dying from COVID-19 among unvaccinated adults was 3 times higher for adults aged 18–29 years, 5 times higher for adults aged 30–49 years, and 6 times higher for adults aged 50–64 years.
Additional booster doses provide added protection.
In August 2022, adults greater than 50 years with at least 2 booster doses had 3 times lower risk of dying from COVID-19 than adults of the same age with one booster dose.
Despite the above CDC statistics, it became a badge of honor in Trump World to mock the disease and the Covid vaccine. In addition, there were bogus conspiracy theories about the vaccine. It’s very hard to comprehend, but many Trump supporters actually believe one or more of these conspiracy theories. Here are some of the Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories.
- The government is using the vaccine to imbed a computer chip in your body, so they can track you.
- The vaccine doesn’t work
- The vaccine rewrites your DNA
- The vaccine makes you magnetic
- The vaccine makes you infertile
- The vaccine will make you gay
It’s important to understand that cult members will obey all directives from their Supreme Leader. Therefore, when he was President, if Trump had repeatedly told his supporters to wear masks and get vaccinated, they would have obeyed him. That would have probably saved close to a quarter million lives, maybe more.
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