Time For Another Russian Revolution?

Who's the richest person on earth? It's not a spoiler to say it's a ruthless crook, right? How's this for a spoiler-- the runner-ups, according to Forbes? Jack Ma ($39 billion), Mukesh Ambani ($40.1 billion), Ma Huateng ($45.3 billion), Alice Walton ($46 billion), Rob Walton ($46.2 billion), Jim Walton ($46.4 billion), Sergey Brin ($47.5 billion), Larry Page ($48.8 billion), Michael Bloomberg, currently up at Bohemian Grove bragging that he's running for president ($50 billion), Larry Ellison ($58.5 billion), David Koch ($60 billion), Charlies Koch ($60 billion), Carlos Slim ($67.1 billion), Amancio Ortega ($70 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($71 billion), Bernard Arnault ($72 billion), Warren Buffett ($84 billion), Bill Gates ($90 billion)... and, according to Forbes, number uno is Jeff Bezos ($112 billion). OK, but where are the "royal" families that own countries? And where's the Russian mafia that pillaged the collapsing Soviet Union? Modest about reporting their loot. Leonid Blavatnik, who bought Warner Bros Music to launder Russian money claims to be worth a mere $20.8 billion. Alexexy Kordashov, a steel oligarch, claims he's worth about the same as Blavatnik. Vladamir Potanin, who stole a lot of everything says he's worth about the same as the other two criminals. But what about... ssshhhhh. Well, it's a secret, but "everybody" knows Putin is the richest person on earth (i.e., the man who stole the most). Fortune asserted last year that Putin is worth more than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos combined-- something like $200 billion. No wonder Trump, who aspires to be on these lists, licks Putin's ass.

Putin was born in Leningrad (once again, St. Petersburg) in 1952, son of a naval conscript (a submariner) and a factory worker. He studied law, graduated in 1975 and then worked as a KGB officer for 16 years, first in counter intelligence and then spying on foreigners. You've heard of kompromat, right? That was his thing. He says he was a Lieutenant Colonel when he retired in 1991, just as the coup d'état against Mikhail Gorbachev began. Putin was clear that it was anti-Communist which he saw as a dead end. In 1996 he moved to Moscow. In 1998 Boris Yeltsin first appointed him head of the FSB, the new KGB, and then Prime Minister. A year later he gently pushed Boris Yeltsin aside and took over the presidency, immediately dropping corruption charges that Yeltsin and his family were certainly guilt of. So when did Putin have the time to accumulate more wealth than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos combined?

And how? After the Soviet Union collapsed it dawned on everyone-- including Wall Street-- that the government owned virtually everything-- and certainly everything big. The decades of accumulated state wealth was quickly privatized-- by a criminal gang: Vladimir Putin and his ruthless cronies, although mostly Vladimir Putin. Oligarchy? Kleptocracy? Plutocracy? Kakistocracy? All that and more... and everything that Trump longs for.

Forbes had a funny headline yesterday: Russian Commies Try Staging A Comeback. Well, not exactly... but just what a Forbes headline writer would get a woody over. You heard about how Putin is trying to redistribute the wealth of Russia even further upward by raising the retirement age, right. People-- poor people-- have been flipping out all during July. It doesn't really have that much to do with the Communist Party, a Putin house pet... it's pretty organic.

If there is one thing you can bet the house on, it's the fact that people will take to the streets if you change the rules of retirement. A politician or a party that messes with social security is destined to lose popularity.

Over the weekend, the Russian Communist Party staged their anti-pension reform protest, something that has been in the works since the celebratory grand finale of the FIFA World Cup on July 15. The no. 2 party in Russia filed their paperwork for an organized street rally, keeping the rules in mind, and got a few thousand people to show up.

They had help from Vladimir Putin's new Public Enemy No. 1, Alexei Navalny, who got his followers out with ease. "A trillion in savings will come from pension reform, but guess where that trillion in savings will go?" he told his followers on social media. "Yes, you guessed right." Navalny thinks the money will be squandered and used by the ruling United Russia party to pad their pockets.

He's probably right. Russian GDP has fallen by over $1 trillion between 2013 and 2016, more than any of its BRICS counterparts.

Navaly ended up in jail last night following another day of protests. He has since been released.

"Pension reform should come as no surpise," says Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's Prime Minister.  "We are approaching this just now because conditions have been met for life expectancy within the framework of the 80+ program," he said, about the official policy to care for aging Russians.

While Navalny was the rockstar of the protest, as always, it was the old Communist Party that took this movement as their own. Or at least wants to. The public is largely against pension reform. The new changes would mainly increase the retirement age. The Communist Party is the biggest party in Russia after United Russia, led by Putin. And if they can galvanize support from people who hate the "R" word-- reform-- they might be able to become a real opposition when Putin fatique sets in.

That's silly... but perfect for Forbes-- and for Putin. A recent poll shows that 90% of Russians oppose the "reform" and an online petition opposing it attracted 3 million signatures. 6,000 people showed up for the rally on Sunday, where people opposing the raising of the retiring age held signs saying "stop stealing our future," not "workers of the world unite" nor "no war but class war," "capitalism kills," "socialism or barbasism" (let alone "the only church that enlightens us is the church that burns"). What Putin wants to do is raise the retirement age, to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women, even though Putin promised to never raise the retirement age while he was campaigning for president.

Because the stolen wealth of the oligarchs-- including Putin, of course, is untaxed, there is a strain on public finance and the oligarch-owned government says it can't afford the pensions. Sound familiar? Putin, sounding very Republican: "The moment will come relatively soon when the number of workers will equal the number of retirees and will then continue to decline. And then either the pension system will burst or the budget of the reserve fund used to finance the deficit in the pension system will blow up." No chance of taxing the stolen trillions?

Your Rights And Quality Of Life When Republicans Rule: It’s Republican World! 2015 In Review-- Chapter Nine

-by Noah

As the old saying goes, elections do have consequences. One need only compare two side by side states, Minnesota, rebounding under Democratic Governor Mark Dayton’s administration, and, Wisconsin, being run into the ground by the Koch brothers-backed Governor Scott Walker, who runs Wisconsin as if it was Bolivia or Uganda.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin is, by far, not the only state whose citizens are at risk under Republican rule. Here’s a quick look at just a few of the 33 states that have a Republican governor and a matching state legislature. Next time you’re thinking about not voting, you might want to reconsider.

1. Kentucky- Kentucky’s new governor, Mark Bevin, is filled with Christmas spirit, Republican style. Just elected in November, in a low turnout election, Bevin is already in office and, just in time for Christmas, has lowered the minimum wage for state employees and contract workers by $3.00 an hour. Bevin has stated that he would like to get rid of the minimum wage concept altogether.

Gov. Bevin, implementing a typical Republican election strategy, has also already revoked voting rights for 140,000 Kentucky citizens who are non-violent felons. Why would a Republican governor do this? As always, with his party, it’s all down to race and/or economic status. The victims of this disenfranchisement are disproportionately poor and/or African American. In Kentucky, one in five African Americans is now without voting rights due to Bevin’s action.

That's the new guv and Kim Davis and her hubbie. And behind the hubbie? Satan has someone from Texas observing

Bevin is also a classic Republican homophobe. He has taken up Kim Davis’s suggestion that a clerk’s name not be included on marriage licenses, a move that would presumably make things easier and more comfortable for clerks who oppose marriage equality.

How has Bevin managed to do this all so quickly? By executive order, of course! You know, that method Republicans are always whining and bitching about every time President Obama signs an executive order. Kentuckians can now expect Bevin to go after their healthcare in short order. After all, Kentucky had one of the most successful implementations of Obamacare in the country. What self-respecting Republican would want that?

2. Indiana- Wednesday, I wrote about the Republican sport of gay bashing. I included a mention of Indiana’s extremely homophobic governor, Mike Pence. Pence and his state's Republicans, once again, threw their bigotry in the face of American citizens. A former Hate Radio host, Mike Pence made his hate and bigotry into law by signing a so-called Religious Liberty law which is designed as a means to discriminate against LGBT people in Indiana. It’s a “we reserve the right to refuse service” to gays, blacks, whomever you dislike law. Doesn’t Indian sound like a swell place?

Pence signed his law behind closed doors, surrounded by anti-gay spokescretins, including one who is a gay conversion guy, and one who believes that homosexuality leads to sex with animals, yet Pence claims his bill has nothing to do with gays.

We shouldn’t be all that surprised about Indiana. When the KKK was at its height, Indiana may have been the state where the KKK was at its strongest. It’s in the state’s DNA. Back in the 1920s, even the governor and the majority of the state legislature were KKK members or, at the least, under their control. Back then, Indiana politics was so insane that Grand Dragon D. C. Stevenson basically ran the state and had hopes of himself one day moving into the White House. Those hopes were dashed after he abducted and murdered Madge Oberholtzer on the night of Republican Governor Edward Jackson’s inauguration. Jackson pardoned Stephenson, of course. These things do happen. Once again, Indiana has a right wing extremist for a governor. How far will he try to go?

3. Arkansas- Not to be outdone by Indiana, Arkansas passed a “Religious Freedom” bill very similar to Indiana’s. Shall we now expect republican-run states to start looking into the possibility of having anti-gay laws like England had until the late 1960s. In England, even being a homosexual was a crime until the relatively recent date of 1967. Being gay was criminalized. If you were found out, you lost your job, you went to prison, you might have been forced into “hormone therapy”, or worse. Now that’s a republican dream if there ever was one. People like the politicians behind these laws wish it so. Republican voters vote for them.

4. Missouri- In Missouri, it’s not just about racism and/or homophobia. Add anti-Semitism to the fetid mix of Republican state politics. In Missouri, John Hancock, leader of the state Republican party, is still the choice of Missouri Republicans to run their party after a year of insanity that got so bad that Tom Schweich, a prime GOP candidate for governor, and Spence Jackson, a member of his staff, both killed themselves. According to one of the deceased and at least one sworn affidavit, party leader Hancock went after Schweich because he was Jewish. According to an affidavit signed by David Humphreys, a top party donor, Hancock said that:

“…being Jewish is a negative attribute to Tom Schweich’s gubernatorial race”

And you thought the events in Ferguson were the only story in Missouri!

5. Kansas- Republicans love to call President Obama a dictator. In Kansas, they have Governor Sam Brownback. Brownback has not only bankrupted his state with his ideologically-driven Republican policies, he has now signed a law, passed by the Kansas Republican-controlled legislature that states that the Kansas courts must rule how he decrees or he will defund and therefore disband the court. It’ll be interesting when people in Kansas start to wake up, if they do, and wonder why state roads are impassable and their kid’s schools are literally falling apart.

Perhaps, we should now expect a new Kansas law designed to change the state’s name to Chile.

6. Montana- The future? Stay tuned! Montana currently has Democratic Governor Steve Bullock but his term ends in 2016 and many Republicans are already excited about the possible candidacy of businessman Greg Gianforte. Gianforte supports the usual “Let Them Eat Cake” things that Republicans cherish and he is already pushing a new item on the Republican wish list: no retirement! That’s right. Forget the usual republican attacks on Social Security Gianforte is against the concept of retirement altogether! Using the common republican tactic of twisting the Bible for political purposes, Gianfronte spoke at Montana Bible College saying:

“Nowhere does it say ‘Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach. It doesn’t say that anywhere.”

Gianforte continued with his party’s work ‘til you drop meme:

“The example I think is Noah. How old was Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn’t like, cashing Social Security checks. He wasn’t hanging out. He was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not Biblical.”

Does this mean we can expect 550 more years of Republican wisdom from this typical, bible thumping assclown? I’m surprised he isn’t already in those wacky Republican debates that have been making such fine television lately.

Rich GOP psychopath, Greg Gianforte, interprets the Bible to mean no more retirement crap for the middle class