Current Events – Page 13

January 16, 2017July 21, 2018

Let’s Get It Over With

This has been sitting in draft since July 2016. Now that this person has removed herself from my FB and I’ve purged all the haters, I’m posting this. Since Cheeto won the election, it’s even more important that people understand where I am. I am not giving passes. You voted for Trump? You are an asshole, period. And perhaps a bit mentally deficient. Don’t like that I think this? THEN MOVE ALONG. This attitude ain’t changing.

Nick says I shouldn’t post about our recent interaction with a Trump supporter in the wild. He’s probably right, but I gotta. This shit goes right into my disgust with where I grew up and I just can’t let it slide. I’m not one for giving passes to assholes and I guess I’m too old to start now.

I’ve posted a bunch of political crap on FB, like everyone else. It’s easy to repost or retweet stories on social media. I would think that anyone who even vaguely knows me would know that I am an Independent who gets ZERO representation in our two party system of government. Anyone who even vaguely knows me should also know that I don’t suffer fools and I’d rather be rid of you than put up with bullshit. Right? Right.

With that sorted, let us get into my post that will probably piss off some people who think they are immune to my short temper and aforementioned lack of fucks to give. Whatever. I’d rather OUT them and let them go their way than be friends with people who are so ignorant of the big wide world that they are afraid of anyone who is not JUST LIKE THEM. Furthermore, *I* am NOT like them, so what kind of shit do they think about ME? I got rid of my birthday twin because she felt “sorry” for me that I’m not a Turbo Christian like she is. I’m glad she told me. I don’t hate her, but we can’t be friends, and that’s fine. (I later find that OF COURSE, she is a Trump supporter. Big shock. Doubly glad I got rid of her.)

I am NOT like the people from E TN. Not even a little. We might be “friends” on FB, but we’re not friends IRL. I’d love to say that friendship doesn’t involve core values, but, sorry, it really does. You can’t be real friends with people who have different core values and being a racist with fascist leanings is FAR from my wheelhouse. Theocracy is also not in my wheelhouse. If that’s your groove, then we are not friends. It’s as simple as that.

First, I’d like to say that I’ve never been more grateful to live in a big city than I am right now. I’ve lived here in ATL longer than I was in Knoxville TN and it shows. It’s taken me decades to rid myself of the toxic attitudes of E TN and I’m glad to see them go. I can see CLEARLY how living in a small town, surrounded by people JUST LIKE YOU is a recipe for racism, religious fanaticism and warped attitudes about anyone who is NOT just like you.

I have lived in Dekalb County GA since 1988. As of the last census, Dekalb County is ~36% white and ~55% black with ~6% Asians and ~19% not speaking English at home. Compare that to Knox County TN: ~86% white, ~9% black with ~2% Asian and ~6% not speaking English at home. Or better, Anderson County TN: ~92% white, ~4% black with ~1.5% Asian and ~4% not speaking English at home. (Info about Knox & Anderson Counties TN and Dekalb County GA from census.gov.)

And these people in E TN are deathly afraid of anyone who is brown or wears a hijab. Why? Well, judging by the demographics, it’s because they never SEE anyone brown or in a hijab. But to hear them talk, you’d think that they were veritably SURROUNDED by these scary people. We were in a business meeting with an E TN person who thought it’d be a swell idea to bring up her love of Trump at the end of the meeting. WHY she thought that would be a great idea is beyond me. Up until that, the meeting had been pretty good. It was ruined in about 2 minutes. A couple of excerpts from my conversation with this sane, rich, white Christian woman from E TN who “passionately” supports Trump:

“We’ve got to get rid of the Muslims. They are out to get us [white Christians]!”
“Muslims are everywhere! They are ALL OVER Clinton [TN]!”
“If you give blacks an inch, well, you know who they’ll enslave!”
“Oh, E TN is SO full of blacks now! You wouldn’t believe it!”

ORLY? You are surrounded by blacks and Muslims, are ya? Sorry, but the demographics do NOT support your racist assertions (person lives in Anderson County, btw). And to top it off, this person said this OUT LOUD, in a public place!! In downtown ATLANTA. I was mortified. I’ve heard the same exact shit from my parents for years. When they can’t get something via their shitty insurance, it’s ALWAYS because the blacks are taking away all their benefits. ?? How does that even make sense?

Needless to say, I am very disappointed in this person, but sadly, not one bit surprised. I was expecting the E TN to come out eventually. It always does. I can do the job we were discussing, but unless she is willing to sign a contract with a hate speech clause, I don’t want to risk having to listen to hateful shit while I work with them. (NOPE, did not even discuss taking the gig.)

Some (Nick in particular) would say that I should cut them some slack – they just don’t understand because they live in a bubble!! Well, I say HELL NO to that. These people are just as capable of research and reading from various sources as anyone. These people have the goddam internet. They are educated and well to do. They CHOOSE to be racist, hateful people. THEY CHOOSE IT.

These people are living in a bubble of SAMENESS, for sure. They are surrounded by racists JUST LIKE THEM. All their friends listen to FOX News and Sean Hannity JUST LIKE THEM. All their friends attend a Christian church JUST LIKE THEM. It’s an echo chamber of hate, racism and fear of anyone who is not JUST LIKE THEM. The demographics bear this out.

THIS is why I hate E TN. It is majority white Christians who hate everyone who is not like them. I know only a handful of people who live there who are not Turbo Christians full of hate. I also love the hypocrisy of these hate mongers who openly shout how Christian they are, then turn around and spew racist bullshit in the same breath. The person I was talking to also noted that she didn’t “advertise” her Trump support. Gee, wonder why? Think it might OUT you as the racist douchebag that you are? (In a funny twist, she outed HERSELF on my FB feed before she slunk off and unfriended me. LOL)

I read a post by Jim Wright (Stonekettle.com) about how Trump has become the new litmus test for friends:

“And that’s what it’s come to in America. First thing. What do you think of that Trump guy? The answer to that question tells you everything you need to know about somebody and whether they’re worth bothering with.” – Jim Wright

Even the Trump supporter confirmed this during our conversation. She said “This election will break up families and friendships”. Yes it will, because with Trump, it’s all hate all the time and the rest of the world is NOT down with that. *I* am not down with that and I don’t want to be associated with people who ARE.

I know it’s just politics… But this time, I think it’s a lot more than “just” politics. This election is drawing lines between the Old Guard (white, rich, Christian men) and progressives who want change. I’m not a fan of Michael Moore, but this post is spot on: 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win. I do think Trump will win in November because there are a lot more people who live in small homogenous white towns and/or who are sick of the status quo than there are progressives who wanted Bernie but have to vote for Hillary.

And sadly, we now have Cheeto PEOTUS who will be Cheeto in Chief on Friday (Jan 20 2017). May the gods have mercy on our souls. The hillbillies won and it’s gonna be a shit show. As for me, I’m getting the popcorn ready. I do not participate in healthcare scams, so ACA doesn’t matter to me in the least. I will feel sorry for all the people who do rely on it – UNLESS they voted Trump, then I hope they suffer greatly. I plan to register as Muslim when that bullshit starts, too. You get what you vote for, motherfuckers.

December 6, 2016February 12, 2017

Taxes and Obamacare

So, last year, our expensive accountant had no idea how much we were fined for not doing Obamacare. We got about the same tax refund as the previous year, so we couldn’t tell, either. THIS year, I am doing a lot more research into the fines for Obamacare and the plans we are offered as well. And AGAIN, I see that Obamacare is ridiculous and 100% useless for anything. You might as well BURN the money.

Here is the Subsidy/Fine calculator:

As you can see, the fine indicated would be around $1500, or 2.5% of our income. OR it could be the flat rate fine of $695×2 = $1390, as the calculator below indicates. Who the fuck knows?

And here are the illustrious plans offered us:

Wow, only $7k deductible? WHAT A DEAL! LOL Or a measly $13,300 for the other. LOL The rates in bold are the “discounted” rates that reflect our “generous” subsidy of $235.55/mo. LOL What a fucking JOKE.

Keep in mind, that this year, with ALL my shit: surgery, travel, blood tests, one Dr follow up and meds, I have spent about $5400. If you add our AFLAC accident insurance**, which is about $165/qtr ($660/yr, less $60 wellness refund), that still brings us to only $6000 for this year. Even if you add in the biggest fine ($1500), it’s $7500yr, which is technically more than these shitty insurance plans, but keep in mind that you have to add the deductible, so the cheapest plan comes to $6590/yr PLUS $7000, which comes to $13,590 per year before you get ONE PENNY OF COVERAGE. So how in the blue fuck is Obamacare “affordable”? HOW?

Since the surgery was a one time deal, then without that $5000 my typical spending for healthcare is around $400/yr for both of us. That does not include dental ($400 for both, once/yr or around $700 for 2x/yr) or my eye dr ($130 1x year-ish). So my typical spending is what? Around a grand? I’ll take a grand out of pocket over paying out $6590/yr for literally nothing. Obamacare does not cover dental or eye anyway, so all the suckers that pay for it STILL have to pay for that. SUCKERS.

I still see people complaining about their shitty insurance and how it covers nothing, yet they run themselves into bankruptcy to continue paying Obamacare. WHY?? WHY WHY WHY? I just don’t get it. Unless you have a chronic illness that requires shit tons of non generic meds, then I see no reason to pay out thousands of dollars for “insurance” with a $7k DEDUCTIBLE and $14,300 cap! Which means it ain’t gonna pay, yo! I think Americans are fucking insane. Insane to put up with the ass fucking of insurance companies and insane to elect a fucking asshole who is going to make EVERYTHING privatized. You think healthcare sucks now? HA!! Just wait! All you fuckers on Medicaid/Medicare? Get your lube ready, cuz you’re taking it up the ass, my friends. UP. THE. ASS. The Obamacare subsidies will go away and everyone will end up with heinously pricey insurance with heinous deductibles and minuscule spending caps. You just think it’s bad now…

I will continue to hold onto my cash. If an accident occurs, we’ve got AFLAC. We are healthy and do not take Rx drugs. We’ve got credit and savings if we need it. I think that is a far more intelligent way to manage your money than hand it over to private insurance companies who give you LITERALLY NOTHING in return.

But, y’all keep on handing your money over to those private companies. I’ll be over here counting mine.

**Speaking of AFLAC, that shit rocks. You can’t get hospitalization unless it’s through your employer, which is a shame. I think if AFLAC would offer a stand alone hospitalization plan like the accident plan, they’d own the market. The accident plan has generous pay outs for various things like ER visits, etc. We figure if anything serious happens to us, it’ll be on the road or Nick cutting his dick off with a power tool. Either way, AFLAC’s got our back. We’ve had this plan for a decade. :)

November 9, 2016

Surprised? Nope. Just Disappointed.

I had a feeling this would happen. There are FAR more hillbillies in this country than we’d like to think there are. The stupid, homophobic, racist, misogynist masses have spoken.

I am ashamed to be an American.

I saw this on twitter, but I can’t verify the numbers. Feels right, though.

These are the official results from CNN. Notice that Clinton won the popular vote. The Electoral College once again interferes with our choice for President.

What else is there to say? Murica is full of horrible people. Until the old white people die off, this country will be a terrible place to live.

I’ve looked into The Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and Canada today. Ireland is pricey (1000 Euros to apply!), New Zealand always seems to want people, but it is REMOTE, and Canada seems like a good choice, but you must take the IELTS test first, which is to test your English (or French) abilities. The test costs $235 here in Atlanta, so again, not cheap. But worth it if we can gtfo of here. Actually, many countries require the IELTS, so you may as well take it. Once Nick’s job ends, we can leave. We’ve no kids to hold us back. I can find a home for the cat. It’s doable. NOT EASY, but doable.

I’ve seen this coming and I’ve wanted to live elsewhere for literally most of my life.

I didn’t want to believe that America was dominated by people like the E TN racists that I know. But it is. The hate spewed towards non-whites, non-straights and non-Christians here is right on par with sharia law in the Middle East. It’s the SAME ATTITUDES, just towards different people.

Germany did not start off with gas chambers. First, Hitler was elected and the fires of HATE were fanned…

Any of my friends who voted for Trump, you can now consider yourself NOT MY FRIEND. Your vote for HATE affects pretty much everyone we know AND US. We are NOT Christians. We are NOT straight. At least we are white, so we can fly under the HATE RADAR for a while. But our brown friends? Not so much. If you think that Trump represents a “better America”, then please just leave me alone. Just leave. I promise I won’t miss you.

I am truly heartbroken that my country has failed us. Again.

July 29, 2016

Whatever

I had a big ole post about our hair raising meeting with a rabid Trump supporter the other day. I had facts and figures, demographics and logic. I even included some of the hateful, horrible quotes from this Trump supporter. Great stuff!

It’s still sitting in drafts. Why? Because why bother, that’s why. I could dish up 10 pages of facts and figures and it would change nothing. I can tell you all about what this person said and it would do nothing to change their mind. And why call out ONE Trump follower, when I know for a fact there are several of my friends who hide their affiliation from me, thinking that I don’t know. Hypocrites!! I cannot stand a hypocrite.

I think Trump will win. Mainly because his followers (cultists) are “passionate” and they will vote. He brings together the rich white christians and the inbred hillbillies alike. He stokes the fears of these people to a fever pitch and they are POSITIVE that the brown people coming for them – especially those horrible Muslims. Ugh.

I am disgusted with this country. I am saddened that these people will get their way and we’ll have a racist, fascist moron in office. I feel that he’ll get in because Millennials won’t vote and voting for Hillary is just an act of defense, not of confidence in Hillary.

Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them [Millennials] is like suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. – M Moore

Getting people to go out and vote when they are not enthusiastic is nigh impossible. But those Trump assholes, oh yeah, THEY will hit the polls in droves, giggling with glee to elect a gibbering toad, just to “shake things up”. I’m not a fan of Michael Moore, but this post sounds about right: 5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win.

[…] and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. -M Moore

I’m afraid of the Supreme Court justices that will be put in place by this misogynistic asshole. The SCOTUS will be ruined for the REST OF OUR LIVES. Since Justices serve forever, the result of having a moron like Trump in office will be very, very long lived. Of course the drooling masses of Trump supporters don’t care about that. Most of them don’t even know what the SCOTUS does. Women’s rights and LGBT rights are particularly in peril. Trump supporters DGAF about either of those groups.

Even the Legislative branch is Majority Republican right now. We. Are. FUCKED. And I am afraid of the jackassery that could happen. Probably will happen.

The 2014 elections gave the Republicans control of the Senate (and control of both houses of Congress) for the first time since the 109th Congress. With 247 seats in the House of Representatives and 54 seats in the Senate, this Congress began with the largest Republican majority since the 71st Congress of 1929–1931. – Wikipedia

I really wish I could have confidence that HRC will win. Maybe it’ll happen. As Nick likes to say, “Hitler didn’t have to win”. I guess we’ll see. It’s going to be a LONG election season. Sigh.

So that’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version of my large, fact filled post that called out the racist Trump supporter in a very clear way, which served no purpose. ::shrug::

March 26, 2016May 22, 2016

Obamacare Penalty

This was a comment I posted to one of the Obamacare sites. Fuck Obamacare.

So we got a penalty this year. Although by all calculations we fell below the % formula. Even our CPA didn’t understand why we were penalized when the AGI x 8.05% income number was below the cost of a crappy Bronze plan. ?? A Bronze plan that costs $521/mo (supposedly after a subsidy? Maybe? Who knows? We never could determine how to figure or get a subsidy.) with $8k deductible! LOL On which planet is this a good plan?

Nick’s job is ENDING this year and we are putting every available penny into savings. We canNOT afford $521 for nothing. And it is for nothing. Our total medical expense last year (including dentist, eyes, etc.) was $1700. So we are supposed to pay out $6252 for useless insurance that covers NOTHING until we spend $8000 on top of that? Uh, NOPE.

I just did the subsidy calculator. No idea whether we could get one or not – it doesn’t really tell you one way or the other. I did the penalty calculator. It said our penalty was $1500… The actual penalty was $563, done by the CPA’s software, which was withheld from our tax return. Seems to me that NO ONE really knows what the fuck is going on. Our CPA said he had no idea what was going on, but the software said we had to pay the penalty. So we did. NO IDEA if we had to or not. That is beyond fucked up. On top of this drama? Our tax returns this year are almost exactly what they were last year. ?? Did we actually pay a penalty last year and the CPA didn’t know? Were we to get a bigger refund this year? Who the fuck knows?

I’m so upset that we were penalized and I can’t figure out why.

HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE? IT IS RIDICULOUS TO BE TAXED AND NOT BE ABLE TO DISCERN HOW THAT TAX WAS FIGURED. IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

WHEN WILL AMERICANS REALISE THAT INSURANCE IS THE PROBLEM NOT THE CURE?

No civilised country in the world is held hostage by insurance companies. NONE. Just the US. Abolish insurance and pay Drs, hospitals and all other health care workers DIRECTLY for their work. It’s that simple. Before insurance became our Lords and Masters, people would go to the Dr, pay for the visit, then go to the pharmacy and get their meds. Simple. Why is it heresy to want that back?

We are looking into leaving this country. We are nearing retirement and we don’t want to end up destitute like many have in our families. Going bankrupt to receive medical care is wrong. And even the care you get here sucks compared to other countries. Hell, CUBA has better care than we do. That is pathetic. Add to that the possibility of that horrible Trump being elected and it’s on the table that we will become EU citizens. This country has become an untenable MESS.