The Fall

 Hopefully everybody’s having a good school year - those of you who are still working. There is a very strong feeling of massive change in the air. I’m not sure exactly what will happen, but I’m aware of the potentialities. The hate, from those who used to be rational people, is beyond understanding to me. The legacy media is keeping hatred stoked, red hot . By legacy media, I mean those channels/avenues of information that we used to watch when we were younger, with a few exceptions - Facebook, X (Twitter), etc. I haven’t watched them in about three years. I get most of my news from a few trusted sources, but occasionally I will watch CNN and Fox back to back; my favorite papers have always been the NY Times and the NY Post - but both are guilty of extreme political bias. It’s quite remarkable how one story could have two entirely different takeaways.  The takeaway for me is that they cannot be trusted, and they are in the business of manipulation, fabrication, and hyperbole. And of course, if the information is so strong, and so against the philosophy of that venue, it will just omit the entire news story. That is not what bothers me the most about the media. What bothers me most is when our government steps in and controls the narrative via the media. We have to stay grounded and think for ourselves . This will be helpful for the time we are about to go in. These are some of the potential threats I see on the horizon. Hopefully, I am very wrong.

Civil Unrest/ Domestic Terrorism/Civil War

Both candidates have their rabid followers. It isn’t difficult to conclude that there are certain people that want Trump out of the picture, by any means possible. Two assassination attempts and it’s all but forgotten a few days later. After listening to the candidates objectively , Trump should win handily. I think some on both sides of the aisle see this. I believe another misfit or (worse) highly trained person (foreign or domestic) may try to get him one more time as this conclusion sinks in. Then there is the high stress level Trump has to be experiencing - always looking over his shoulder. What I’m saying is that he could be out of the picture before the election via natural or unnatural means. What happens then? Would the election be called off? Perhaps. But I believe that if he is killed or found deceased - it will create a great danger and vacuum in our country. This will be especially true if the powers that be try to push Kamala in, without an election process. 

Natural Disasters 

Something is happening with the Earth. Of course, we know the Earth is getting warmer, but there are also some troubling signs in the form of potential problems via the sun. Sunspots, solar flares, solar storms can create all kinds of problems on the earth which can vary from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which can cause great devastation. (Don’t buy any coastal property.) If our country is in policial turmoil at the time and something like this happens, we are in real trouble. 

World War 3

Our politicians are heavily invested via stock investment in companies that they have been helping either directly or indirectly. Many of these companies are under the umbrella category of the military industrial complex. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Black Rock, Goldman Sachs and other companies, directly or indirectly, are supplying arms bought and paid for by the US to keep these forever wars going. As the US continues to escalate the weapon supply in the Ukraine and Israel, it’s just a matter of time before we are directly involved. All of this is about money - it has nothing to do about wanting to help the Ukraine or help Israel. There were ample opportunities for this administration to broker peace, but it made a deliberate choice not to do so. 

Financial Collapse 

The debt crisis that we are going into is beyond scary. A lot of people don’t understand what goes on concerning the unrestrained printing of money by our government. If something isn’t done quickly, our monetary system may collapse. What that means is digital currency and the potential for all our pensions, Social Security and savings to be greatly diminished. 

On a positive note, no matter what changes, we can be ourselves. Stay positive. 

https://youtu.be/Y_kmUG30t80?si=rWwbm-8UYhJlXSeb

https://youtu.be/l0zxgXgLlJo?si=qpCHWNS6p5ayNLnY

https://youtu.be/0Wq5xOvpeFc?si=JM8QDGNh0c5mf08D

https://youtu.be/E5juJfuOKi0?si=XthTDI-7yamcuHw8

https://nypost.com/2024/09/25/opinion/paul-pelosi-scores-again-with-visa-trade-ban-congress-stock-schemes-now-nancy/

The Art of Double Talk

 

I was perusing, The Chief , this morning and something caught my eye and ire. The Chief article, by Richard Khavkine, entitled ‘Mulgrew’s Resolution for Medicare Falls Short, Claims Critic’, in which Mulgrew is publicly touting what he claims to believe - here’s a snippet -

 “To counter what he implied was the avarice of profit-driven health care providers and the indifference of elected officials, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, last week proposed a resolution calling for federal legislation protecting Medicare and Social Security. Mulgrew’s resolution, among 17 presented and passed at the American Federation of Teachers convention in Houston, Texas, which he attended, notes that the two entitlement programs form a vital part of the nation’s core safety net, and for seniors in particular. It argues that they should not be burdened by uncertainty concerning the two programs given “a national healthcare crisis is affecting all workers.”  

This is yet another picture of Mulgrew in action or rather inaction. He does manage, rather well, to keep himself in the news and in the public eye. The story centered itself around him pushing a bill through the AFT to protect Medicare. It’s hard to fathom the nerve of this guy. He tries to screw everybody into Medicare Advantage and then when it looks like it’s not going to go through, he changes his course. Or so, it seems. In reality, he hasn’t changed a thing. As for protecting traditional Medicare, he is still in favor of putting each and every one of us in Medicare Advantage . He has said so himself on a recent radio show - there’s a link on my last blog post for a deep dive . So why all this BS? It is the art of double talk taken to near mastery. BS flying from both sides of his mouth. For the gullible Uft members, he is the protector of Medicare. For Mayor Adams he is his partner in pushing us all into Medicare Advantage - “Our version is better than Joe Namath’s! But I can’t prove I worked on it!” - (actual quotes from Mulgrew during that radio show). For the AFT he is a wonderful local union boss who is doing everything for his members. For Randi, he’s towing the line - as she’s like a possessed marionette on fire, besides herself in anticipation for a second shot as secretary of education under Kamala. For the public at large, he’s trying to protect Medicare for everyone. He stands for everything and everyone. In reality, he stands for nothing and no one. 

Here’s a little more from the article via The Chief -

 “But the union president has not fully backed off from the plan. That his partial turnabout came about a week after UFT Retired Teachers chapter elections that saw the pro-Mulgrew Unity slate soundly beaten by the Retiree Advocate slate, which had campaigned largely in opposition to the Medicare Advantage plan, led some to suggest that Mulgrew’s shift reflected more his desire to hold on to the union’s presidency than any sincere sentiment. Union elections are next year, although Mulgrew, who will be completing his fifth three-year term has not yet said whether he would seek a sixth. Whatever his motivation, though, Mulgrew’s stance did not allay criticism, and renewed calls for him to renounce to the city’s Medicare Advantage effort entirely.” 

(Remember to buy The Chief  and subscribe - a truly great paper. You will not get this from the Uft’s propaganda rag.)

Stay cool. 

Mulgrew in Conversation

 Yesterday, I listened to a wonderful radio show on WBAI called, ‘What’s going on - Labor Tuesday’ with Bob Henley. Mr. Henley has an excellent grasp of labor issues and has a background with ‘The Chief’ ( the Uft should have all teachers subscribed and thus shutter their ‘New York Teacher’ rag). During the show Henley interviewed Michael Mulgrew and they directly (and also indirectly) discussed the recent and distant UFT events centered around healthcare. I listened to it carefully several times, and I came away with several takeaways. I suppose the most important being that Mulgrew still supports Medicare Advantage. I certainly would not be surprised if it popped up again. He wants to move away from it now and move on with healthcare negotiations - as retirees have won this fight in the courts and in the election booth . 

 The other takeaway I got was a question - Does Mulgrew know his role and who he is working for? Branching out from that, I would also ask, ‘why is Mulgrew permitted to make unilateral, EXTREMELY important decisions in a so-called democratic union?’ He seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of his role. While I understand all roles have layers of responsibilities and goals, his (and Randi’s) have transcended many that could be held as reasonably acceptable. Many of the realms, that Mulgrew has ventured into, appear to be in order to curry favor with those who might help later on. It’s an abject plan. It’s like going up to an intimidating bunch of thugs on the street and giving them $10; thus hoping that it will keep them from robbery and assault. He obviously has some trauma left from his time with Bloomberg.  Upon seeing Bill de Blasio come in with a smile, he went from Silent Mike to Accommodating Mike - and gave freely to deBlasio in matters big and small. Mr. Henley referenced this in a non-confrontational manner (excellent interviewing). Here’s the link for the interview and a breakdown of it. The times are approximate (within a few seconds) and from the countdown clock’s time on the right side. I tried to be brief. The writing in brackets are secondary comments and thoughts. I urge you to listen to the program and make your own conclusions. This interview is important coming so close after Mulgrew’s letter. My statements and opinions here are filtered through my own lens as a retiree, human being and disaffected former ATR. There are underlying issues and inferences in almost all Mulgrew’s statements and in his omissions. My emphasis on them, or lack thereof, are what I found to be important and may be different to yours. Cheers.

https://www.wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=50526

Bob Henley 51:30 intro

50:30 Mulgrew - we were aggressive, always negotiating healthcare

49:50 Mulgrew - City has a big surplus ( !!!) and shortage of city workers including teachers ( both statements have huge implications!)

49:15 Mulgrew calls out city. We have to team up with the city to fight health care industry- not the workers (!!!)

49:05 Henley - Retirees get to vote?!

Mulgrew- (Doesn't explain why. Interesting because of his former history of catering to them and of them keeping him in office,)  Mulgrew is  astounded that we are unique! Double talk / changes convo towards strength of retirees 

46:00 interviewer remarks on the destructiveness of Michael Bloomberg and the appearance of deBlasio - Mulgrew agrees on the misery of Bloomy and miraculous advent of deBlasio. BDB wanted to change healthcare and asked Mulgrew to change it and there was no drama because benefits weren’t diminished and costs were saved. Interview asks for explanation. Mulgrew says costs were saved for the city(!) he rationalizes it, in that the money saved was money that would have to have been spent, but he doesn’t come out and say by who. (It’s the city, of course.) He mentions that the city uses zero sum accounting and that he saved the city money and DeBlasio saw that as well(!) OMB disliked and dislikes Mulgrew and his actions as they felt it was their job, not his. His rationalization was if they could’ve done it they should’ve done it, but he had to do it. (Why? this gets into his role; who he’s working for; is he a CPA or have UFT CPAs advising?)

41:57 - health stabilization fund $1 billion dollars? Mulgrew states it’s old and antiquated from the 80s. Several inferences. Hip and Ghi - one could get more expensive than the other. So what he wanted to do was get them to equalize so that the city wouldn’t have to pay more for one than the other. (Why? Isn’t that the city’s job?) He states deBlasio didn’t care as long as the city didn’t have to pay. After po- pooing the fund, he says the fund has to be protected to be kept safe(!).  Drug costs are the problem. 

39:32 - interviewer makes the remark that this has created the optics of two types of human beings - active members and retirees, which creates a problem in any labor movement. He basically states it seems to pit one group against the other in order to get premium free healthcare for one versus the other. 

39:21 Mulgrew doesn’t directly answer that comment, but talks about med advantage and the  UFTs version of Med Advantage- his is a better one than Joe Namath's. He says he can’t prove that he worked on this(!). But the city is the problem - “so now it’s time to move on from beating a dead horse on a road” (of course, I’m thinking the horse is the retiree and the road is the hospital ). 

37:20 Henley : Important presidential election - not seeing anything on healthcare, no discussion on fundamental problem of medicare advantage model which makes profit by denials and  is backed by the UFT (!)

Mulgrew states that he was involved in tailoring these Advantage plans to get the absolute best. More double and triple talk. Mulgrew still supports med advantage(!!! ) (WHY?!)

33:35 - Henley - so what’s the solution Mike?  a no cost healthcare that represents everyone? 

Mulgrew - Yes, working with AFT. Medicare is under attack and he and Randi are protecting it (!).

32:20 Henley : what about the nyc situation? 

Mulgrew- meetings are scheduled; we can do the work with a willing partner / UFT has pushed for hospital transparency (lol)

Randi Flies In 🧹

Randi is sitting at home, thinking about Mulgrew and vigorously chopping a small carrot for a salad, when she gets the call that Unity has lost the election! 

Randi: Well, well… Thanks for the info, babe - stay gorgeous and charter a plane for me immediately to New York City. 

Randi is met at the airport by Michael Mulgrew - looking completely terrified. 

Mulgrew: Randi, you look marvelous. You get younger with each passing day. How are you?

Randi: How do you think, you fu•king Putz?! I hand the reins over to you and ask you to do nothing - absolutely nothing without checking with me first and this is what you do?! Well, I’m gonna tell you how I’m doing. But first turn around and bend over. ( Mulgrew does as he’s told. She proceeds to land a hardy kick that would make any SuperBowl kicker proud.) Now I’m feeling much better in answer to your question. 

Mulgrew: You’ve got to help me, Randi!!  How can I fix this?

Randi: Don’t worry - I’m here now. Let’s get back to your office and you’re going to write a letter. A letter to assuage all the retirees that you have insulted, lied to and betrayed. You’ve got to make them feel like you’ve always been working in their best interests - but don’t make it too obvious. 

Mulgrew: Easily done! They believe everything I tell them. But Randi, Adams won’t like that - I’ve made assurances! 

Randi: The retirees have seen through you like an empty glass bottle. AND I don’t give a flying fu•k about your assurances - you write that letter and you get it out NOW!  

Dear ______, Today I'm writing to let you know that I have sent a letter to the chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, Harry Nespoli, to tell him that the UFT cannot continue to support the Medicare Advantage program. The city's losses in the courts and the needless anxiety created among retirees has made it clear to us that our support for this initiative cannot continue. Additionally, as the city has also delayed our current negotiations on in-service and pre-Medicare retiree health care for months, we no longer feel that it is in the interest of our members to be part of that process. For nine years, we have been able to achieve savings while maintaining high-quality, premium-free health care. But it's become abundantly clear over the past two years that the city is no longer interested in being a partner in this approach. Our process is no longer collaborative; it is now adversarial. This administration has proven to be more interested in cutting their costs than honestly working with us to provide high-quality health care to the workers of this city. You did not deserve the angst and fear you went through as we worked toward our goal of improving our health care in an increasingly difficult national landscape. I have heard your voices. And as we have all grown increasingly frustrated with this process, we will use our strength in the MLC to push for a new strategy moving forward. No matter what, we will always do the tough work of fighting for our goal — maintaining our benefits and keeping the high-quality, premium-free health care that all our members deserve — and we will do it together. Read the letter to the MLC https://files.uft.org/2023-2024/keep/mlc-letter-june-2024.pdf?j=1340332&sfmc_sub=32986946&l=222_HTML&u=25332008&mid=100022908&jb=7002&&contactid=0031U00000C7hjQQAR

Mulgrew’s Nightmares and Retirees’ Dreams

 

The unthinkable has happened - Mulgrew and his party of sycophants, also known as Unity, have lost a major election and all 300 seats.

Mulgrew sits in his inner sanctum on his throne at 52 Broadway. He is unshaven and looks like he hasn’t slept for sometime. The clock hits 11 AM and his staff slowly slither into their offices. 

Mulgrew : Leroy get in here! 

Leroy: Yes, Mike. everything OK? ( Lee seems a little nervous.)

Mulgrew: You dare ask me that question?! You know darn well that everything is not OK, that the unthinkable has happened and I don’t know how it happened! I want your take on it!

Leroy: Well, I believe that the retirees saw through your lies, fought back and won.

Mulgrew: (He lets out a bloodcurdling scream that is heard at the AFT headquarters in Washington,DC. The rest of his staff quickly and quietly close the outer doors of their offices and turn on Alexa to play their favorite show tunes.) How dare you! You know and I know, that is impossible! They are sheep and they cannot think for themselves! Now give me the real reason!

Leroy: ( Thinking quickly and creatively) Well, I hesitate to say this, but perhaps someone has put a curse on you. Of course, I can think of no one that doesn’t love you -so I’m at a loss to say who it could be.

Mulgrew: Interesting. Perhaps all I need to do is get a witch to take the curse off? 

Leroy: Well, there are rumors that Randi is flying in. 

Mulgrew: Please, don’t remind me… No, I don’t think anyone put a curse on me. This actually seems even more paranormal.

Leroy: Well, I hesitate to say this, but I did have a dream last night. And in it, I saw a smiling James Et —

Mulgrew: Stop! Don’t say his name! I had the same dream! 

Leroy: Well, he has won at last. Try to accept your defeat gracefully.

Biden Wants WW3

 President Biden is pushing for a war with Russia. From allowing our weapons to be directly targeted to the Russian nation, to stealing Russia’s frozen assets to be used against them, to a long term (10 year) deal with Zelinski guaranteeing our support, to weaponizing our currency and stopping peace negotiations -  he is provoking Russia in almost every possible way. What happens when one of the missiles, we have permitted the Ukraine to point at Russia, explodes and kills Russian civilians? The Russian warships outside Florida have a response waiting . The military industrial complex is rubbing its collective hands together in anticipation of World War III. Perhaps with a world war, Biden will be able to stop the November election. We need a Kennedy back in the Oval Office. 

Watch until the 9:10 mark (the rest is a commercial)https://youtu.be/ujEKs94uRTE?si=xQQyOyR6ho6lla3h

https://youtu.be/UN_81DW_-T4?si=XeuelPHUxp3x8vJD

https://youtu.be/QqBxoFC1twI?si=r1rP-OcLOCb4CZxP

https://youtu.be/yolCkHT1S_o?si=31SyDGCCps48wyvo

https://youtu.be/eKRlX8smCJ0?si=mrcI-t3BDatvATXp

Another Insult from President Biden

 

 

For all you retirees out there who lived through the Bloomberg regime, or as some like to put it, 12 years a slave - President Biden will award Bloomy a remarkable honor - The Medal Of Freedom. In honoring him, Biden issued a statement that Bloomberg transformed education in New York City. He certainly did, but not in the way that President Biden is referencing. If any of you were on the fence about who NOT to vote for - this is your sign. https://nypost.com/2024/05/03/us-news/biden-gives-medal-of-freedom-to-mike-bloomberg-3-others-presidential-aspirants/?utm_source=url_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons