-
Posts
6,416 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Posts posted by Joe Bauer
-
-
4 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:
Joe,
It's not that U.S. and global wealth is disappearing, per se, it's that it has been increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Thomas Piketty has documented this phenomenon in considerable detail, In Capitalism in the 21st Century, and subsequently.*
Since 1980, almost all of the marginal increase in U.S. wealth has gone to the wealthiest 1%.
Republican "trickle down" economic tax cuts since 1980 not only created our gargantuan national debt, they have played a major role in the gradual destruction of the American middle class.
No wonder Ben dislikes the "Donks." 🤥
*
EXACTLY.
-
2 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:
Each time I even hint at this here; I am the “conspiracy theorist.” We’re in a bear market and a half.
When the WEF said: “By 2030 you’ll own nothing and be happy about it.” Did anyone ponder the sequence of events that would need to take place to make that prediction a reality?
EXACTLY CHRIS.
-
Stock market already down hundreds again today? Lost almost 1200 yesterday?
Wow!
Someone showed me a chart yesterday showing how much stock value dozens of major American corporations have lost in the last 1 to 2 years.
I think of myself as fairly current event news savvy including economic.
However, I was "stunned" regarding seeing companies like Amazon, Netflix and so many others losing "hundreds of billions" of dollars in stock value during these last 24 months.
I think Apple lost more value just yesterday than major companies are worth in their entirety!
As much as the entire value of Toyota! Almost 200 billion!
This stock market boom /economy stress fact dichotomy is not being reported in the MSM in it's true reality at all.
I had to see these charts showing these massive stock value losses by the biggest corporations myself to see this.
This stock market boom since early 2021 has all seemed extremely illogical to me and especially in tandem with seeing the reality of unprecedented financial stress upon half our country's citizens since 2020.
Massive job and income loss.
Basic necessity cost inflation at public health crisis stress levels.
New car sales and so many other commodities dropping to record low levels.
It's like half the country is living month to month.
Home prices so high most have given up even thinking about being able to buy. Rents so high it takes two jobs just to pay these.
Point being, one hundred million plus Americans can't afford anything but the bare necessities anymore. No new cars. No vacations. Discount grocery and dollar stores have lines out the door. Clothes more and more being purchased at thrift stores. Cheapest gas here in Calif. is $6.50 a gallon?
Millions of young people struggling with student loan debt. Many holding off marriage and child births due to their inability to even make it themselves.
And yet, the stock market has been booming in point value during all this massive financial loss and societal stress with over half our citizens the last 2 1/2 years?
Nuts!
Wouldn't be surprised at all if the stock market drops another 5,000 or more points in the next 6 months. To reflect the true reality of financial stress upon 150 million Americans.
And this insanely high real estate value/rent cost hyper inflation madness should be next on the correction list as well.
Rents should not take entire two job take home checks to pay.
-
Gil, did the boy mention seeing these two cars and drivers driving "out from" or at least "away from" the church parking lot and away through through the entrance alley and just seconds after the shot?
Were there any other people visible in this area during the time the boy witnessed the two men there?
And did this " Jerry Pat Shelley" normally park his 50 Chevy in the church parking lot or the alley leading out from it?
Was there no other more convenient street or carport parking available to him and others residing in his apartment house?
And would there be any reason why Jerry Pat Shelley would need to go into the church parking lot, and then turn around to come back out via the alley? At 10 at night?
How did Lee Oswald get the rifle to Walker's residence discreetly using public bus transportation? Another "paper wrapped curtain rods" affair?
And same bringing it back to his apartment?
George DeMohrenschildt cracked a "joke" to Lee when his wife told him about discovering Oswald's rifle in the apartment closet.
Something to Oswald about him possibly taking a pot shot at Walker?
That comment by George DeMohrenschildt to Oswald right at that time is a mind blowing one imo.
The fact that G DeM would "instantly" connect Lee to the Walker shooting simply by seeing his rifle "shouts" G DeM's foreknowledge and suspicion that it was Lee who took that shot.
Obviously G DeM heard much from Oswald in their personal one-on-one talks that made him think it was Lee who did this.
George and Jeanie DeM high tailed it out of Dallas and even Texas soon after the rifle finding incident.
I can imagine their conversation when they got home from the Oswald's that evening.
Jeanne to George " Can you believe that guy?" Buying and keeping a rifle like that?"
"You asked him ( Lee ) if he may have taken a pot shot at Walker? Why would you say such a crazy thing like that? What do you know that made you say that?"
"If he did, that's it...we are getting as far away from that lunatic as we can and I mean right away!"
"We can't be seen as so closely associated with him and unfortunately Marina if that nut is ever picked up for that shooting."
G DeM to Jeanne " Relax, nobody is going to pick up Lee for that."
"But, maybe we should take a trip to Haiti right now anyway."
" maybe I can even swing some sort of oil deal with that "Poppa Doc" Duvalier character while we are there? And the help is super cheap there too."
Jeanne was the boss in that family.
-
On 5/17/2022 at 6:00 PM, Benjamin Cole said:
I am fine with aliens or time travel. I am not particularly religious.
But you know what? The UFO guys say they have "multi-sensor" verification of UFOs.
But then even the military has not a single, verifiable visual (ordinary camera, still or video) shot of a UFO. We get these murky infrared or radar images, which could be bogeys or gags.
Today, there are literally billions of webcams around the planet.
Nothing!
My own guess is there is plenty of intelligent life in the universe, but traveling faster than the speed of light is not possible. Which isolates Earth.
But UFOs are (admittedly) fun to read about....
I have seen thousands of pictures of UFOs. Hundreds if not more super clear imo.
With most being variations of saucer like shapes.
I will not blindly accept that they are "all" fake, photo shopped whatever.
And I don't think the number of real ones are as little as 5% either.
And don't forget the number of photos, film, and even cameras that have been confiscated by the government in some of the most profound cases.
Car radio and camera malfunction has been reported in cases of up close UAP sightings.
Makes sense if these crafts are powerful energy plants of electro-magnetic fields.
We know for a fact that microwaves and high voltage tension wires put out energy beyond their own content.
Another factor of open minded consideration that these objects are real and "are not ours or of this planet" are personal stories shared with me by people whom I trust 100% regards their honesty and integrity.
Just one:
A brother was an Air Force Air Policeman ( AP ) stationed at an airbase in Morocco in 1960 or 61?
One night while on base guard duty he and his fellow guards saw red circular shaped objects hovering over their base. He even shared that one of these red objects came down and hovered over some of their grounded aircraft.
This lower flying object slowly flew over our jets ( some armed with nuclear devices ) and then shot straight up and disappeared at such a fast speed it was hard to see it's trajectory.
The quote I will always remember him sharing about this story was " when we radioed our superiors to report these red objects" there was a long pause and then an officer told these AP's " we have nothing on radar, therefore YOU SEE NOTHING!"
"and don't write home about it!"
-
8 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:
Joe: Nixon, who had a relationship with the Alien Presence for two decades, told Robert Merritt in July 1972 that the year 2020 would be cataclysmic not only for America but for the whole world. So the Alien Presence might have initiated Covid-19 as part of its ultimate plan for full disclosure, which has to occur before climate change becomes an extinguish event for Planet Earth.
JUST TODAY NEW HEARINGS HELD IN CONGRESS REGARDS THE UFO/ET SUBJECT.
COINCIDENCE?
LUIS ELIZONDO IS THE PUBLIC SPOKESPERSON PART OF A GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED DISCLOSURE PROJECT IMO.
IF THIS IS THE REAL DEAL (OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT DISCOSURE) WE ARE ABOUT TO LEAVE ONE WORLD OF HUMAN EXISTENCE AND UNDERSTANDING...TO ENTER A NEW ONE.
THERE WILL BE TREASURED BELIEFS AND FAITHS LOST.
Many will long for the world of self-determination. As brutal and violent as it has been.
-
6 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:
Joe, a year ago 90% of those who consented to take shot only had one shot.
90%?
I would have thought that 60% had the first two like we did...and even the booster later. Again, like we did.
And BTW, I was so sick after the booster I couldn't believe it. Lasted for 3 or 4 days!
-
My two cents:
If this boy and his older teen age "Godfather?" heard the boom shot sound while they were involved working in the boy's bedroom, stopped doing this and even commented on the unusual sound, with the young boy then running out of his room and house to and across an open space ( even if just 10 or 12 feet ) to a fence between this boy's home and a church building and parking lot and then straddling a bicycle to lift himself high enough to get a clear view ... that would be plenty of time for either of the two running men to reach their cars and vrooom away as the boy claimed.
And here is a common sense question.
Why would one or maybe even two men be running to their cars in the church lot or Walker driveway ( or driving quickly away) like these two supposedly did, at all?
Running ( instead of walking - even quickly ) indicates some urgency on their part.
Motivated by what? An emergency phone call?
The men were clearly not connected to the church in anyway it appears. They weren't boy scouts or their fathers. They weren't regular neighbors or visiting acquaintances of Walker.
When you couple a booming shot sound loud enough to inspire the room working boy next door to drop what he was doing to see for himself what may have caused the boom along with two men running or at least driving away from the lot just after... something unusual obviously happened in that area just before the men got in their cars and drove away.
No less worthy of logical suspicion than Oswald's tale of simply running away and along some railway tracks and then burying his rifle there?
When Oswald retrieved his buried rifle he must have done so using a bus for transportation as he said he did to get to Walker's residence. Was it in a case when he boarded the bus to bring it back to his apartment where Marina and Jeannie DeMohrenschildt found it in the closet?
Or did he break it down and hide this in a big flasher type raincoat instead of his Eisenhower short cut jacket he normally wore?
-
Yes, dramatic license for sure ... but to what degree?
If L. Patrick Grey actually did what he is shown doing in this series he should have been imprisoned for years.
Seems more like the John Dean ( and Maureen Dean ) story than the Martha Mitchell one.
The rich man who was funding laundered money toward the dirty tricks campaign and who threw the totally decadent sex party ... who was this person in real life?
A devilish corrupt person but the kind of the deep pockets secret funds providing character Republicans loved back then?
In real life we have seen so many other super rich donors throwing big monies at the pols who did their bidding. I remember gambling empire wealthy Sheldon Addleson once giving Newt Gingrich 10 million a few years back...just so Gingrich would stay in the primary debates!
And now that the SCOTUS just okayed Ted "Cancun" Cruz's campaign monies scam where the pols can use left over donations for "debt payoffs? " the floodgates for this money laundering remains open.
Still amazed at the John Mitchell character as portrayed by Sean Penn.
Best film make up transformation achievement I can ever recall. I have to keep reminding myself that it's Sean Penn underneath that puffy/ugly John Mitchell face.
If they give awards for TV film series make up, this one is a no-brainer.
Also, someone pumped a lot of money into G. Gorden Liddy's re-invention into a highly paid radio talk show host. I am guessing he made 1/2 a mill a year or more for that gig.
Someone who owns radio production corporations made that happen for sure.
Same with Bill Bennett for awhile. Super wealthy right wing types. Setting up their right wing mouthpieces with cushy high income gigs like those.
-
12 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:
Excerpt from article in today's NY Times:
A virus that shows no signs of disappearing, variants that are adept at dodging the body’s defenses, and waves of infections two, maybe three times a year — this may be the future of Covid-19, some scientists now fear.
The central problem is that the coronavirus has become more adept at reinfecting people. Already, those infected with the first Omicron variant are reporting second infections with the newer versions of the variant — BA.2 or BA2.12.1 in the United States, or BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa.
Those people may go on to have third or fourth infections, even within this year, researchers said in interviews. And some small fraction may have symptoms that persist for months or years, a condition known as long Covid.
“It seems likely to me that that’s going to sort of be a long-term pattern,” said Juliet Pulliam, an epidemiologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Just in the last week one of my best friends called and said his entire family tested positive for Covid 19 and they were in quarantine for 7 days. They had all their shots up until a year ago.
Then yesterday my nephew called with the same news. I was with my nephew and his family for 2 days just 3 days ago.
Am taking a home test today.
It's everywhere and everyone is getting it.
Dear Gad!
Doug Caddy...I remember you mentioning in one of your past postings that Nixon told Robert ? ( or it was in some type of letter? Way back in the 1970's? ) that the 2020's were going to be ominously challenging to the entire world?
-
On 5/7/2022 at 9:24 AM, Douglas Caddy said:Robert Bennett succeeded Larry O'Brien in representing Howard Hughes' interests in Washington. Bennett became president of the Mullen Company in late 1971. Here is an excerpt from the July 10, 1973, "Memorandum for the Record by Martin Lukosie, a CIA employee: Subject - Meeting with Robert Foster Bennett and his Comments Concerning E. Howard Hunt, Douglas Caddy and the 'Watergate Five' incident....Mr. Bennett rather proudly related that he is responsible for the article 'Whispers About Colson' that appeared in the March 5 issue of Newsweek. Mr. Bennett does not believe the [Mullen] company will be bothered much by the news media which is concluding that 'the company is clean and has gotten a bum rap while the real culprits are scot free.' Mr. Bennett said also that he has been feeding stories to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post with the understanding that there will be not attribution to Bennett. Woodward is suitably grateful for the fine stories and by-lines which he gets and protects Bennett and the Mullen Company. Typical is the article 'Hunt Tried to Recruit Agent to Probe Senator Kennedy's Life' on page A16 of Saturday, February 10, 1973, Washington Post. Bennett mentioned the February 11, 1973 meeting between himself, [Robert]Mullen and [deleted], when he stated his opinion that the Ervin Committee investigating the Watergate incident would not involve the [Mullen] company. He said that, if necessary he would have his father, Senator Bennett of Utah, intercede with Senator Ervin. His conclusion is that he could handle the Ervin Committee if the Agency can handle Howard Hunt."[Note: Robert Bennett subsequently succeeded his father as the U.S. Senator from Utah.][Note: The CIA incorporated the Robert Mullen Company in 1959.]From our WFAA Newsfilm Collection: BillOReilly interviews former spy, Frank Sturgis, to discuss the CIA, Watergate, & the ...
-
This quote from Oswald to the press on Friday night sure didn't sound like Oswald was demanding only one lawyer and no one else.
16 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:Well, I was, uh, questioned by a judge [David L. Johnston, a justice of the peace]. However, I, uh, protested at that time that I was not allowed legal representation, uh, during that, uh, that, uh, very short and sweet hearing. Uh, I really don't know what this situation is about. Nobody has told me anything except that I am accused of, uh, of, uh, murdering a policeman. I know nothing more than that, and I do request, uh, someone to come forward, uh, to give me, uh, legal assistance.
Also, again I ask...when Captain Will Fritz yelled out to the press "THIS CASE IS CINCHED!" was he referring to the Tippitt murder case...or the JFK one?
And did Fritz yell this before Oswald was shot and killed by Jack Ruby?
-
23 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:
But you know what? These are not the guys who are a threat to America. They are the marginalized, the incompetent, the mentally unstable.
And the M$M has you thinking they were a threat. They were a gong show.
Kyle Rittenhouse.
Innocent, immature but Trump enamored violent video game playing teenager. Not a threat to America.
This harmless "kid" gets a high powered automatic rifle illegally, illegally transports this rifle across state lines to a publicized anti-Trump protest and then with the police not even saying anything to him while seeing him brandishing this combat weapon right in front of them in the most heated protest zone, this Trump inspired kid then thrust himself into a face-to-face confrontation with worked up protesters and then when two of these protesters did react toward the close up gun brandishing Rittenhouse, he blast away killing them.
And the murder committing kid ... WALKS! ???
And is sent on a national speaking and honoring tour as a "hero!"
But his deadly "illegal" actions and others like him and the honoring actions bestowed upon him by thousands of cheering Trump supporters are not a threat to our democracy?
Look, these "no threat" Capital building storming protestors who you are defending by downplaying their actions and mental capacities violently broke through police barrier lines, violently beat Capital building police trying to hold them back, violently smashed the windows and doors to rush into the inner building corridors and chambers, violently broke into offices and smashed and defaced things all while still assaulting officers and verbally threatening them and the hundreds of Congress persons right inside..."GET NANCY PELOSI" "HANG MIKE PENCE!" with many armed with make shift weapons, bear spray, etc.
And you dare try to downplay this huge, ravaging mob of violent Trump slogan and death threat shouting protesters as "no threat to America"???
That we should simply give them a slap on the wrist break as if they were immature teenagers just pulling off a prank?
The Capital Building assault was so violent (even resulting in deaths ) and terrorizing of all our Congress persons inside...the members and their staffs and the overwhelmed police will for sure have post traumatic stress from this the rest of their lives!
Almost all our trapped and attacked congress persons in that building truly thought they could be killed! And had to endure that once in a lifetime, life and death fearing terror ... for hours!
Trump wanted our military to shoot George Floyd protesters who weren't doing anything violent and 100 times less threatening than his supporting Jan 6th capital building attacking mob, which, again, resulted in actual deaths!
But no such shooting orders regards his own incited Trump slogan shouting followers mob when they much more violently attacked and injured Capital police and terrorized legislators inside the besieged Capital building for hours?
Instead, Trump watched with glee this massive violent attack "for hours" on TV? Never once doing or saying anything to call off his attack dog supporters? Even while his own family and closest associates were begging him to do so?
Espers said it plainly and clearly ( on FOX NEWS no less!) that Trump himself was and is a major threat to our entire democracy.
Downplaying Trump's worked up attack dog mob as simply mentally challenged child like morons ... is simply disgusting imo.
-
Julia Ann Mercer.
That is not my signature. And there was no woman present during my affidavit meeting.
Yet they were signed by a woman witness?
Will Fritz raising his fist to strike Buell Wesley Frazier and only holding back because of Frazier's warning to him..."If you hit me we's gonna have one hell of a fight!"
The Warren Commission deciding to conclude that career news journalist Seth Kantor was simply confused and mistaken in his sworn oath testimony recollection of running into and talking to Jack Ruby at Parkland hospital while JFK was being treated there.
Lee Bowers disappearing for several days and when reappearing he is missing a significant part of one finger?
Syliva Odio being accused of suffering hysteria caused delusional memory syndrome. Even though her sister was right there with Silvia during Silvia's Lee Oswald encounter claim and always backed it up 100%.
Deaf mute Ed Hoffman being dismissed and ignored regarding his claim of seeing two men behind the picket fence just seconds after JFK is shot with one throwing something to the other who then placed this object in a standing railroad company tool box?
-
3 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:
Oswald was arraigned for the murder of Tippit but not for the murder of
Kennedy, though he was charged with both murders.
So, when Captain Fritz yelled to the press crowd on Saturday..."this case is cinched!"
was he referring to the murder of Tippit...or the murder of JFK?
-
14 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:
Thank you, Joe and yes you make some good points about the threats they received on Oswald's life and the lack of security in spite of those threats.
Common sense tells us that if they were that worried about losing Oswald, there wouldn't have been anyone in that basement.
Just as there shouldn't have been anyone in the hallways as they were transferring him between rooms.
How could they be sure someone posing as a reporter or a police officer wasn't going to kill him ?
There should have been a conference room set up where the press would receive periodical updates from police.
No, IMO, they wanted him dead.
One of the points I make in that essay, and I feel is an important one, and that is that they arraigned Oswald WITHOUT any evidence against him for killing the President. I believe that came about because Ruby was supposed to kill Oswald on Friday night, at the "Midnight Press Conference", before Oswald was arraigned. But Ruby failed to do that, so they had no choice but to arraign Oswald without evidence.
Ruby confirmed that he planned to kill Oswald Friday night but he couldn't get close enough and was afraid that he'd hit a police officer.
So Sunday morning, they allowed Ruby into the building, waited for him to get in position and when he was, gave the "all clear" to move Oswald. This time, they made sure Ruby could get to him point blank and shoot him without hitting an officer.
At least, that's the way i see it.
Agree.
-
An extremely thorough, thought provoking and important summary.
After reading this well documented essay, how can anyone rationally conclude anything but your finding that Oswald was totally railroaded by the DPD?
And under any circumstances but this one, a family of a criminal "suspect" who is murdered while in the "protective" custody of the police ( and even right inside their own building) before a trial should have been able to sue the heck out of such an entity as the murder was the result of their extreme negligence in not only publicly announcing the time and place of Oswald's transfer but also the failure to screen and block a killer from entering a supposed "secure" DPD building basement transfer area.
Oswald was most probably "the most threatened criminal suspect in American history" and little old sleazy strip joint owner Jack Ruby claimed he just "walked right past" street entrance police guards and then down a ramp inside the DPD building basement, right as and right next to Oswald as he was paraded through.
Now THAT is "negligence beyond negligence" in Oswald's case. Even more outrageously so because of the mind blowing amount of violent threats against Oswald ( thousands! ) that the DPD had been notified of that entire weekend.
And also the ignoring of countless warnings and advice from their own ranks pleading with the highest Oswald security authorities to move Oswald at night and without public notice giving the exact time and place of his movement.
-
On 5/9/2022 at 7:26 AM, Greg Doudna said:
I can now see it as plausible and in character that Fritz could have slapped Michael, going that one only slight step beyond what happened with Frazier later that night, and Michael keeping it inside out of shame, then breaking down in sobs at the memory when telling Lifton thirty years later. I retract earlier disbelief thinking the slap could not be and Michael must have exaggerated. It is believable that it happened and I think it did happen.
Totally agree.
And think of the pressure on Michael Paine if he actually told the press about Fritz slapping him across the face during questioning in the middle of that whole tumultuous tornado of frantic news coverage emotions and suspicions everywhere.
Michael Paine also knew immediately that he and Ruth were under suspicion by Fritz and others, simply by their live-in association with Marina and Lee from time to time.
So, embarrassment, shame, fear, self-preservation all factored into MP's keeping his humiliating face slap by Fritz experience to himself for decades makes perfect sense.
Buell Frazier's recollection of Fritz raising a fist ( or at least a hand ) in a threatening manner to him, suggesting to Frazier that Fritz was about to plow him in the face, was an often repeated part of Frazier's public statements regarding his 11,22,1963 Dallas PD interrogation from the get go.
The only reason Fritz held back was because of Buell's warning to him ..."if you hit me, we's gonna have one hell of a fight!"
Which I believe Fritz instinctively knew country boy Frazier would carry out.
I don't need to read or hear anymore testimony besides Frazier's to totally believe Fritz did slap Michael Paine. And probably many other suspects in his interrogation career as well.
An unexpected slap in the face upon a man or woman by a person of authority in a heightened emotional and suspicion police interrogation situation ( and this one was unprecedented in this way ) would be an incredibly powerful "shock and humiliation" effect experience.
Illegal on the part of the police? Oh Gad ... blatantly! But with good ole boy Henry Wade as Dallas DA Fritz was never going to be called on this.
Probably the only reason Fritz didn't slap the hell out of Oswald during questioning was because with the FBI and who knows who always present during Oswald's interrogation, Fritz knew he couldn't get away with his personal intimidation, humiliation and shock interrogation actions MO.
Will "THIS CASE IS CINCHED!" Fritz.
Fritz's walking way ahead of Oswald in the police department building basement perp walk, looking as bewildered as an Alzheimer's patient and waving his arms to clear non-close others away from the incoming car and then not reacting at all to the ear-splitting loud Ruby gunshot blast always gave me a creepy suspicious feeling about him. As I am sure millions of others like me who also watched Jackie Kennedy avenging and protecting Jack Ruby whack Oswald on live national TV the morning of 11,24,1963.
-
On 5/5/2022 at 6:10 PM, Ron Bulman said:
Man, you've got that right Paul. My taxes go up another $1100 they will take 1/6 of my disposable income to pay without dipping into savings/retirement accounts. Combined with record electric bills in January/February $450/350 it gets me down. It's all about the billionaires and millionaires wanting more, more, more.
We've never had enough money to even make a down payment in our 40 years of marriage and my 70 years of living here on the Monterey Peninsula California Coast.
Now...garages are $500,000. Homes start at 1 million!
Old shacks! I kid you not!
We rent...and are barely making that!
When property values started exploding here in the 1990's and went into the outer space insanity levels from 2,000 and to even now, our county assessors couldn't increase assessment values fast enough to get their windfall 100's of millions in inflated value taxes.
County governments LOVE this real estate hyper inflation. It's been a financial income revenue source windfall gift from heaven for them.
When the Bush recession hit in 2007 property values dropped more than half throughout California in just one year.
Here on the Monterey Peninsula they maybe dropped 25% in that time.
It took five years but the property sales rates here came back to pre-Bush collapse levels and now 9 years later have doubled again.
What was so real and not even denied however...was how the County never lowered the assessment rate for property taxes all through the Bush collapse years!
They kept them at pre-2007 levels!
Home owners were furious! The county never really explained why they couldn't get new lowered assessments or came up with excuses about "their stalling" in that effort.
When new real estate sales prices explode higher however...BOOM! The county assessors are right on it.
But watch how they become possum minded turtles when sales amounts decrease.
Cities and counties here are as much "profit" minded money grubbing machines as any corporations in my life-time experience view.
They claim they are non-profit? Ha ... that's a shameless charade.
When they get huge increases in tax revenue...they simply throw almost all of it into salary and benefit raises for all their employees.
The bigger the salaries, the bigger the raises.
It's the pyramid thing.
In the 1980s or 90's all of our cities here came across a new gold mine tax revenue source. So sly but ingenious it was Mafiaesque in it's creation and implementation.
The person who first thought it up has been revered by all California city managers since as an icon of new income scheming genius.
It was called ..."The Hotel Room Tax!"
For 100 years people have been coming to this well known tourist spot of California - the Monterey Peninsula. Each city made a killing on these tourist coming here to spend their vacation monies on lodging, food, shopping you name it.
The city services like police, fire, maintenance did fine all that time. I've lived here since 1952. I know they did.
Their budgets weren't strained. Heck, parking meters alone were a new income source and that brought in millions over the years.
Then, out of the blue, someone somewhere came up with a new tax scheme. Place a city tax on hotel room payments ( to be paid up front by lodgers) ON TOP OF CITY BUSINESS INCOME TAXES already collected on yearly or quarterly hotel income revenues.
Their public relations campaign to lull the citizenry into okaying this new but nebulous tax was an exaggerated claim that all these tourists and their presence demands had brought their city police, fire and maintenance budgets to the breaking point.
Like all the police and firefighters here did was respond to these tourist needs 90% more than regular towns folk.
It was complete BS. Yet, the public and reluctantly, hotel owners eventually bought it.
Partly because it started off typically low. 1 to 3% Then they regularly started raising this 1 or 2 percentage points every few years.
You know what it is now? 12% or more!
You rent a hotel room here for $300 a night, and the cities here instantly collect $36! And we have between 10,000 and 15,000 hotel and motel rooms here! More than half the year, they are booked!
I read last year that the city of Monterey ALONE brings in $10 million or more yearly just from Hotel Motel room taxes!
And this is on top of retail sales taxes of 12 to 13%!
Building fees and permits are in the 10's of $ thousands range to boot!
And they ( cities and counties ) are still constantly putting out press releases that they don't bring in enough income to pay all their employee's salaries and benefits.
This "our budgets are strained" crying poor game is a built-in tax increase rationalizing one that never ends.
It's never enough.
My whole point here is how city and county governments here, and obviously in other areas of the U.S. like Texas, have turned into ravenous never enough tax increase money demanding vulture machines. Non-profit entities? Please.
This legalized ever higher taxes greed is rampant in much of America now. And imo one of the real reasons for the ever growing and stressful inflation and income divide between the wealthy and the rest of us.
Sorry for the long rant... but this is reality now folks.
-
Thanks for responding Doug C.
I just read your Gorden Liddy post above.
Fascinating stuff.
-
Doug, have you watched any of this new STARZ TV drama series "GASLIT?"
If so, any comments on how accurately or inaccurately G. Gordon Liddy, James McCord, Hunt, Dean and Mitchell are portrayed in the show?
How about the Watergate break-in itself.
One expects Hollywood character, dialogue and story line manipulation for dramatic effect.
Even so, I am just curious how close to the real characters and Watergate break-in story this series is depicting.
-
Watched the second episode of GASLIT last night.
Not sure what to say. Story line jumping kind of distracting.
Big ugly John Mitchell and Martha cuddling and french kissing on the dramatically beautiful Southern California sea view bluff one second, and the Watergate burglary team running around bungling their break in attempt with doors locks that wouldn't open, batteries left behind and a first night duty security guard noticing sloppily applied flaps of tape protruding from the same locked basement stairwell door jam ( twice ) which immediately inspired the security guard to call the DC police...which resulted in an embarrassing hide and seek "come out, come out where ever you are"...then "GOTCH YA" scene in the darkened DNC office rooms minutes later?
Well, at least we get to see Martha Mitchell very roughly kidnapped and injected with sedation drugs against her will next week.
-
7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:
Joe,
Ruth did like Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963/1964... after her initial bad impression of him. From her WC testimony:
Mrs. PAINE - I disliked him actively in the spring when I thought he just wanted to get rid of his wife and wasn't caring about her, wasn't concerned whether she would go to the doctor. I then found him much nicer, I thought, when I saw him next in New Orleans in late September, and this would be a perfectly good time to admit the rest of the pertinent part of this letter to my mother written October 14, because it shows something that I think should be part of the public record, and I am one of the few people who can give it, that presents Lee Oswald as a human person, a person really rather ordinary, not an ogre that was out to leave his wife, and be harsh and hostile to all that he knew.
But in this brief period during the times that he came out on weekends, I saw him as a person who cared for his wife and his child, tried to make himself helpful in my home, tried to make himself welcome although he really preferred to stay to himself.
He wasn't much to take up a conversation. This says, "Dear More [Mom?]," this is from Commission Exhibit No. 425, "Lee Oswald is looking for work in Dallas. Did my last letter say so? Probably not. He arrived a week and a half ago and has been looking for work since. It is a very depressing business for him, am sure. He spent last weekend and the one before with us here and was a happy addition to our expanded family. He played with Chris"--my 3-year-old, then 2-- "watched football on the TV, planed down the doors that wouldn't close, they had shifted and generally added a needed masculine flavor"----
Mr. JENNER - Wait a second.
Mrs. PAINE - [Quoting from the letter to her mother:] "From a poor first impression I have come to like him. We saw the doctor at Parkland Hospital last Friday and all seems very healthy," and this refers to Marina. "It appears that charges will be geared to their ability to pay."
Sandy.
These 1964 WC statements by Ruth Paine you quote expressing her softened and even more favorable feelings toward Lee Oswald during the times he would visit while Ruth had Marina and child under her roof seem quite hollow to me after hearing her say the things she said about Lee Oswald and her feelings toward him 22 years later in the "Trial Of Lee Harvey Oswald."
In this and under oath...she flat out stated to Lee's defending attorney Gerry Spence ..."No, I didn't like him ( Oswald ) very well." No caveats. Not one word regards the more favorable things you say she said about Lee in her WC testimony.
She was allowed to share more of her feelings and remembrances about Lee and she chose to go into the story of Lee using her typewriter without her knowledge and permission and how offended she was that he did this.
She also went into detail in expressing how upset she was when Lee started calling her at her home after he was arrested on 11,22,1963 and asking for her help in securing an attorney and also to talk to Marina ( who wasn't home ) and how "unattached" Lee seemed to be "about it all." No sympathetic take on Lee by Ruth at all in this remembrance.
Ruth even mentioned Lee being irritated that Marina wasn't home and Gerry Spence had to present the rationality of Lee's mental state to Ruth by saying..."don't you think that someone in Lee's circumstances, being arrested for murder and being beaten by the police...might be a little short and upset sounding as Lee was when he called your home and couldn't get in touch with his wife?"
Ruth just sat there and after a long pause "kind of" agreed with Spence.
If Ruth Paine sincerely meant all the favorable things she stated about Lee Oswald to the WC back in 1964...she sure didn't express those 22 years later in her sworn oath testimony to this court and jury.
-
Self deletion.
Does the WC mention the bullet in the top bar of the windshield?
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted · Edited by Joe Bauer
I've done some seriously curious reading of research ( admittedly layman limited and not a lot available ) on the provenance of the indentation and of related limo connected personnel testimony regarding it.
Our own esteemed JFK Limo expert forum member Ms. Pamela Brown is much more our go to researcher on this subject from what I remember.
From my own reading however, I have postulated that the indentation was "not" there before the shooting on 11,22,1963.
Agent Kellerman testified to the WC he didn't recall noticing/seeing the indentation before the shooting. And it was just inches above and in front of his eyes the entire motorcade.
Other WC interviewed limo connected personnel would not "commit" to seeing the indentation earlier than 11,22,1963 either.
The WC "was" curious about the indentation enough to ask a decent amount of questions regarding it.
My common sense take on the indentation was that with all the personnel involved in storing, securing, transporting, maintaining, cleaning, inspecting, preparing ( occasional bubble top installing and removal) and then finally driving JFK's limo...
How could the indentation "not" have been noticed before the shooting?
My simple man-on-the-street analogy of the indentation being missed or ignored has always been the following;
If my own car had a 1/4th to 1/2 inch deep hole dent ( with scrunched metal inches around this as well ) like the one in JFK's inner windshield frame I would have noticed it within one, or in the least, a few days of it happening.
It's a mean and obvious dent. I could not have missed seeing this. Every time I looked in my windshield rear view mirror ( which we all do dozens of times in our daily driving and the dent was mere inches next to it ) I would have thought ..."what in the He]] caused that?"
Now, with dozens of storing, maintaining, cleaning, transporting, security checking and bubble top preparing and then driving the limo responsible minded professionals constantly in and around JFK's limo at least when it was used ( which it was a lot right before Dallas ) how could the dent be missed?
If I was professionally responsible for JFK's limo and saw that dent, I would have immediately arranged for body shop pros to repair it... wouldn't you?
Also, could the Carcano bullet that crashed through JFK's skull twice ( entering them exiting ) still been intact enough to then hammer itself a quarter to half inch into hardened chrome like the dent shows?
If that JFK limo inner windshield frame indentation was made during the shooting that day, "Houston, we have a problem."
Even the entrance angle of the indentation is wrong. It looks to me like it came from an angle slightly to the right versus a straight on angle from JFK's exiting head wound at the time.