Citizens Bank: questionable behavior
When we moved into our current house, we had to replace the whole HVAC system at a cost of $8,100 from On Time Plumbing. We had the option to finance it, so we took up that option. It was financed through Wisetack, but the loan came from Citizens Bank, and I discovered some questionable behavior.
I made my monthly payment of $179.77 on Saturday, two days before the due date, knowing it would be taken on Monday or Tuesday. But on Sunday, I got two texts and two emails from Citizens Bank saying my payment was due. I thought maybe I didn’t click submit, which I had done before on another account. I checked the Citizens Bank website and clicked on View Activity, and no pending payments were showing.
I assumed I had not submitted the payment, so I made a payment. Upon making this payment, I saw that 2 payments were pending, so I did submit a payment the day before. However, there is no way to see pending payments on their website unless you make a payment, which is somewhat questionable.
I thought, “No problem. I’ll just call and get the second payment stopped,” which I did. They could see that two payments were pending; however, the representative told me that she could not cancel the payments; I would have to wait for them to clear before they could refund the payment. I want to be clear that I have not requested a refund of the second payment, but I find it unbelievable that they cannot stop a payment immediately after it is submitted. Every other loan or card allows me to stop payments online.
I explained the problem with not being able to see pending payments until another payment is submitted on the website to the representative, and she said she is noting it down. I do not believe it will go any further than a note in their CMS. I will be amazed if a website function to see pending payments appears.
In my opinion, the reminder email system should be directly linked to the payment system. Do not send reminder emails if a payment is pending; it’s not rocket science. Get your shizzle together, Citizens.
bowthery.com — another ‘suspected’ scam website!
Sadly, like many of these scam website posts, my wife was seemingly scammed by bowthery.com. My wife explains, excuse the vagueness, that she saw a short on YouTube purporting to be a reduced-cost Lane Bryant products. She visited the website, bowthery.com, and found many things she liked, and the total came to just $43 for 54 (fifty-four) items. She asked me if she could make the purchase, and as she said it was from Lane Bryant, I assumed she was on lanebryant.com, so I said yes.
I should have known it was a scam because of the low price. I even commented, “Is Lane Bryant going out of business?” continuing, “These sound like fire sale prices”, still thinking my wife was on lanebryant.com. This morning, my wife quips, “I hope I didn’t get scammed.” Looking at the confirmation email, my heart sank as I just knew she had been scammed. I Googled the Bowthery name, and several scam detector websites appeared near the top of the page, which is usually never a good sign.
I visited bowthery.com from the link in the email confirmation, which looked like a generic template-based e-commerce website. If you simply visit bowthery.com without clicking the post/email link, it gives you a different site from the link in the YouTube Short. Scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the contact us link revealed a simple sentence: “E-mail Us: contactus@bowthery.com. We are here to help. Your satisfaction is our goal.”; no phone number, no physical address, not even a PO Box. While the about us link states, “bowthery is a professional online fashion clothing boutique. At bowthery.com, we drop a great quantity of new products a week, so you always have the latest looks for less. And they are offered at incredible prices. Everything that do the clothing, the outfits, the shoes is to helping women everywhere feel confident, stylish, and comfortable.” — a literal copy and paste of their website text.
The return policy is highly restrictive. You cannot return anything, as everything is “on-sale,” and on-sale items cannot be returned, according to their policy, although I suspect there will be nothing to return!
The Whois record for bowthery.com reveals that it was registered just a couple of months ago, 2/20/2025, with registrant information redacted for privacy. scam-detector.com claims that the owner is Liang Zhu, based in Guangdong, China, but I cannot confirm this is accurate information.
They have not even taken the payment yet, almost 24 hours later, but everything I have read makes me uncomfortable enough that I will have my wife cancel her card, as they have her card details, full address, full name, and email address. I don’t want to see money disappear from our bank account beyond the $43. I can accept losing that money, but who knows what they will do with that information in the future?
I could be completely wrong, and all the items arrive at my door within the 3—5 days claimed, but all the evidence suggests otherwise. The shipping cost alone would be more than the value of the entire order.
Tariffication! A tumultuous time in world financial markets
On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump announced “Liberation Day,” where he levied a base 10% tariff on the world, including the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are solely inhabited by penguins. Additional “reciprocal” tariffs have been imposed on some countries, including Vietnam (46%), the EU (20%), China (34%), and Japan (24%). However, Trump’s idea of reciprocity is based on faulty data; he bases his “discount” tariffs on the trade deficit, not the tariff rate imposed by other nations.
This sent the stock markets plummeting, wiping out trillions of dollars worth of value, including people’s 401 (k) retirement investment accounts. As everyone who has a working brain, and is not drinking the orange Kool-Aid, expected, China and the EU imposed their own retaliatory tariffs on US goods. Good ol’ thin-skinned Trump upped the tariff percentage, and currently, tariffs on China are up to a ridiculous 145%, after China imposed a 125% tariff on US imports, matching Trump’s tariff on Chinese imports.
Trump still asserts that China will pay for the tariffs, not Americans. I’ve got shocking news; he’s lying to you. Tariffs are paid by the importer of the product, which is passed on to the consumer. An importer might be able to absorb a small tariff, but 145% is not possible. So, do y’all want to be paying $2,000+ for your iPhone? Not that it will happen, as Trump has now carved out smartphones and computers from the tariffs on China, I wonder how much big tech CEOs have greased Trump’s palm to make this happen?
On the subject of backtracking, all tariffs outside the base 10% and China have been paused for 90 days. This, in my opinion is because someone whispered in Trump’s ear that not only the stock market is crashing, but also the US bond market is crashing as countries cash in their US bonds, indicating that the world has low faith in the stability of the US financial markets, and/or its current administration.
The effects of this have not even hit consumers yet, and when it does, his base, outside the hardcore Trump Felators, will believe what he says despite all the evidence indicating otherwise, will be PISSED! One of Trump’s core campaign promises was to reduce the cost of living on DAY 1, we’re 3 months in and still waiting. These tariffs are going to do the exact opposite; those cheap TVs that Americans like so much won’t be so cheap anymore, and those high-end TVs will be only for Trump and his rich buddies. This will affect more than tech; even those “American-made” products likely contain parts sourced from China, so expect the price of these products to rise as well. The fallout from these tariffs will be wide-ranging.
Furthermore, Trump is suspected of insider trading and manipulating the markets. The accusation is that he created tariffs to cause the markets to decline, allowing himself and his wealthy buddies to buy stock cheaply before announcing the tariff pause, which inevitably made the markets rally. None of this matters as the US Supreme Court has ruled that whatever a president does in office is immune.
I don’t claim to be a financial expert, but blanket tariffs, even ones on an island of penguins, are not the way forward. Strategic tariffs, such as the 25% tariff on cars, make sense to incentivize car companies to return to manufacturing their cars in the US. However, blanket tariffs on China without any plan to build factories in the US to replace those in China is not a good strategy. This really isn’t rocket surgery.
How I became a sex offender for 90 minutes!
Yesterday, my wife, Erin, and I visited East High School in Wichita to attend an IEP/504 plan meeting for my daughter, Alya. Upon signing in, you have to show your driver’s license, which they scan, and I’m sure they keep it on record, although we never consented; if they do, whatever, we have nothing to hide.
When the person at the front desk scanned my driver’s license, she told us, “You have to be escorted through the building.” It took me a few moments to understand what she said, and I responded with, “I, specifically, have to be escorted?”. She said that I had come up on a “list,” which means a sex offender register, and I thought, what the actual fuck? I think I’d remember being convicted of a sex crime!
Of course, Erin and I disputed this allegation, and the front desk person gave me a person to call. But, in the meantime, we had a meeting to attend, so I accepted being escorted through the building. We have our meeting, and Alya is doing reasonably well in her Freshman year of high school. Flippantly, I said to the people in the meeting, do I have to be escorted out, and what they said shocked me. I was told, “It’s after school hours, so I don’t need to be escorted.” this made zero sense; as we walked out, we passed several dozen students; if I were a sex offender, I would be free to do as I wish, apparently.
Side thought: maybe all school visitors should be escorted through the building, not all sex offenders have been caught and convicted. Everyone is a law-abiding citizen until they are not, as we often hear after every school shooting when questions are asked about how the person got the gun…
But, I digress, I got home and called the number provided, which was for USD259 Safety and Environmental Services, and I spoke to a lady there, and she apologized to me, as it was a mix-up. There happened to be another person on the ‘list” with the same birthdate and name as me, and that’s all the information they use to flag a match. According to the lady, it was a training issue, there were further steps the front desk person had to take to confirm that the match was correct, which were not taken.
It was a shock to hear that I was on a sex offenders ‘list”, but I understand they have to take precautions, and I support this as I have a 15-year-old daughter who attends Wichita Schools. I feel that USD259 needs to better train its staff; this could have been a bad situation; not everyone would have been so passive when being perceived as a sex offender in a public place where anyone could overhear.
Gaza: Endgame — Ethnic Cleansing!
It seems we have come to the end game of the Gaza conflict with Israel, and its ethnic cleansing. President Donald Trump said he planned for the US to take over Gaza and relocate Palestinians to neighboring countries with a view of long-term US ownership over Gaza, and will not rule out sending troops to Gaza to achieve this objective as a gift to Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli extreme right.
The actions of Hamas on October 7, as horrific as it was, do not excuse the actions of Israel, supported by former US President Joe Biden. There are now over 60,000 people dead in Gaza, if we include the missing, presumed dead, or 45,000 confirmed dead. Whatever number you believe, it is unconscionable.
Trump, in a press conference alongside Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, said he wants to “take over the Gaza Strip” and create the “Riviera of the Middle East,” wanting surrounding countries, notably Egypt and Jordan, to take in the up to 1.8 million refugees and provide for them. Meanwhile, the US can develop the waterfront property, likely involving the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, using the office of the President to further enrich himself and his family members, corruption at its finest.
And when asked who he envisioned living in Gaza, he said, “the world’s people. I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place.” Trump was asked for clarification on whether Palestinians would be allowed back, and he responded, “And they’ll live there. Palestinians also. Palestinians will live there, many people will live there.” — I’m not convinced by Trump’s words of reassurance.
Force relocation is against international law under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention and is considered a crime against humanity. But Trump and his special buddy, Netanyahu, have made it clear that they have little regard for laws, international or domestic, so that won’t stop them from trying to remove Palestinians from Gaza. The Trump admin is trying to manipulate the situation with statements questioning why Palestinians would want to stay and that they have no alternative but to leave because of the devastation in the Gaza strip, hoping to trigger the one exception of displacement for safety reasons, but this could only be temporary, not long term, and most definitely not permanently.
The reality is that the ICC and the ICJ are toothless. The ICC has an arrest warrant out for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet, Netanyahu has traveled to the US several times and even taunted the United Nations, labeling them antisemitic, along with anyone else who disagrees with Israel’s actions, so I guess that I must be antisemitic too. There are even Jewish people that have been labeled as antisemitic, one Senator Bernie Sanders. Calling out Israel does not make a person antisemitic.
We can now stop the debate about this being ethnic cleansing; it’s now crystal clear what Netanyahu wanted, October 7 is just an excuse; this was always a basic land grab, and now Trump wants to get in on the action. So, now what? Will Trump send troops into Gaza to forcibly remove Palestinians, and where would they go? Egypt doesn’t want to take them in, and Jordan doesn’t want to take them in. Maybe the US should take in the 1.8 million Palestinians, build houses for them, and financially support them? That’ll sit well with the MAGA crowd, who famously love immigrants, especially those brown skinned ones.
WPBakery, great plugin, but cash grabbing developers
Back in 2020, I was working with a property with its own website, which I took over management of as part of my employer’s service. After my initial login, I discovered that the website designer who created the website had used a plugin called WPBakery, and after exploring it, I really liked what it had to offer.
I love the plugin so much that I recommended that my employer buy a multi-website license for it to use for future projects. Despite what I will be describing, I still love the plugin’s functionality.
When you purchase a license, or multiple licenses, from the time of purchase, you get a year of ‘support’, which I have never used because, in my view, it’s a plugin that does not need support as it just works.
It was bought as a one-time purchase, with support being an optional extra for those who want it. But the developer behind it is now really seeking to modify the agreement to be a subscription without absolutely denying updates, which would be against the terms of the original lifetime license many purchased.
I claim this because, despite the original set of lifetime licenses being well out of the support period, I could still get regular updates through the WordPress admin area until a recent update, version 8.01. After updating to this version, when I try to update through WordPress, I get a message saying, “Automatically updates for the plugin are available to the clients with a valid support period – you can renew it here. To update manually, visit our customer center to download the latest version.”
I have purchased 6 licenses, and every time I want the latest version, I have to download it from their website and manually upload it via FTP to each of the six websites, which is highly time-consuming. If this is the case, as I have already purchased 6 licenses, have a login, and can download the latest version, why do I need to buy another license? Besides removing the nag screen in the WordPress admin about purchasing a license, the software is fully functional, aside from some AI features I have never used.
Companies have to make money to survive, but this is not the way; modifying the license after purchase just pisses people off, hence why I am writing this blog. Although WPBakery has effectively implemented a soft subscription with a workaround, updates were available through WP admin for years outside the support period; this change happened in the past month. The developer hopes that the inconvenience factor will make website owners pay another $49 per year per domain for support just to simply hit update in the WordPress admin area, and in reality, many probably will; I am not one of those people.
I’m not against a company changing the product for new purchases, as long as the change in terms and conditions is made clear upfront. Based on this information, future purchasers can decide whether to buy, and the free market will determine its fate. However, I object to changing the product features after the customer has already purchased an unlimited license. Technically, it’s still unlimited, but how many will go through all that effort for incremental updates, which are mostly bug fixes, to the software?
Drivers education in Kansas
Now that I have children who are able to drive or will be eligible to drive soon, I am truly questioning the value of driver’s education in the State of Kansas. My son is now 20 and has a driver’s license, but despite having his license for over a year, he is in no way ready to actually drive on his own.
He attended driver education at Yost Driving School in Wichita and completed the course, which consisted of eight hours of in-class tuition, a written test, and six hours of driving. If the instructor believes the student is competent, the student will be given a piece of paper, which the student takes to the DMV, and et voila, here’s your driver’s license. In my mind, this is nowhere near enough tuition to drive for many people and nowhere near enough time for my son to be safe on the road by himself.
My son is autistic, not to say all autistic drivers are a liability, however, a year after my son got his license, he still has not driven by himself, needing either myself or my wife alongside him as he does not believe that he is safe to drive without a more experienced driver alongside him. Believing that he is likely to make a mistake that could cause a wreck, this is somewhat true; on a few occasions, we had to tell him to stop as he was about to make a bad mistake. This might just be a lack of confidence, but should he be allowed to drive alone? The Kansas DMV says yes, as they allowed him to drive 13 months ago.
My biggest issue with Yost, or maybe Kansas drivers ed in general is that all my son’s on-the-road driving lessons were between 6 and 8am on Saturday, which, in my view, is not an accurate evaluation of a person’s driving ability. To judge someone’s competence, the lessons must be while traffic is on the road for the student to navigate, which is not the case on surface streets at dawn on the weekend.
Hypothetically, if he were driving by himself, and he got in a wreck due to his lack of confidence or ability to drive, and he kills someone, whose fault is it, Yost, the DMV, or my son? This level of driver’s education and the ease of getting a license certainly explains a lot about the piss poor standard of driving in the state. “You’ve done the bare minimum, off you go into the world of driving and cause carnage.”
Thankfully, my son realizes he is not confident in driving alone, but other drivers who believe they are qualified to drive might be driving alone, causing wrecks because they don’t have enough competence or experience. I think the standards for driver education need to be improved. More hours with an instructor and then sitting a test with a DMV examiner are needed to ensure that a person is competent.
Based on my experience, the test itself needs to be more thorough. My US driving test consisted of about 5—7 minutes in the car, backing out of a parking space, right out of the parking lot, two more rights, four left turns, and finally, another left into the parking lot, pulling into the same space I had vacated. My reaction, after being told I passed, was, “Is that it?” I was shocked at how easy the driving test was.
The bottom line is that a one-size-fits-all driving education system is asking for trouble. One student might be competent to drive in six hours, while another might need much more tuition before being prepared to drive alone. This is why I believe a stringent, much harder-than-my-experience test by a state examiner, not an instructor with a profit motive, is needed to determine whether someone is ready to drive.
The great TikTok publicity stunt
The TikTok ban kicked in on January 19, 2025, and it was removed from app stores across the United States. Users were greeted with a “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now” message with two options: learn more or close the app, going on to say, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please Stay Tuned.”
Less than 24 hours later, TikTok was available again with the message “Welcome Back! Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!” In my opinion, this is a coordinated effort between the Trump administration and TikTok to try to create support from the youth, making him out to be the guy who saved TikTok, painting the Democrats as the bad guys, despite bipartisan agreement in Congress, and being upheld by the conservative super majority SCOTUS.
Let’s be clear: TikTok did not have to close down the service, and people with the app installed could still use it until an update was required. It was TikTok themselves who decided to stop people from using the app, pushing the notification above to its 170 million US users. This was not a legal requirement, and it looks like it could have backfired, as many users uninstalled the app, thinking it was banned.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline for TikTok to be sold by 75 days on inauguration day, touting a 50/50 US/Chinese owned solution, which might not satisfy the law, as Bytedance has to divest from TikTok’s US operations. However, several days have passed, and TikTok is still unavailable for download or updating on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. I guess they believe that an act of Congress and a US Supreme Court ruling ‘trumps’ an executive order.
Trump may instruct his Justice Department not to enforce the ban, but companies like Google and Apple could still face penalties later if they allow the app back in their stores. Despite non-enforcement, TikTok will still be illegal, as the law was passed by Congress and signed into law by former President Biden.
Also, let’s not forget that Donald Trump started this whole thought process in 2020 during his first term, going as far as signing an executive order banning TikTok in the United States. He wanted to ban TikTok for the same reason Congress passed legislation in 2024: Chinese owned TikTok is a national security risk.
I personally don’t have a dog in the fight. I have never used TikTok and will never use it. However, I do not like the idea that any country’s government can force the sale of a business because it does not like the nationality of the current ownership in order for it to continue operating in said country.
Sandy Hook: 12 years on, and nothing has changed!
Yesterday marked the 12th anniversary of the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT, that ended the lives of 26 people, including 20 children under the age of 7, and despite the initial outrage, nothing has changed in the past dozen years. There have literally been dozens more mass school shootings since Sandy Hook, and all we get from our Congresspeople are thoughts and prayers. Sadly, we forget all too soon after one of these mass shootings until the next one, and we feel the rage once more; it has just become normal; kids being gunned down in school should never be normal.
When Sandy Hook happened, I had been in the US for just 4 years, and it was the first mass school shooting I remember, maybe because it was an elementary school, and I had two kids of elementary school age. I thought, watching the coverage, that surely our Congresspeople would be forced into taking action and creating meaningful gun regulation, but no, thoughts and prayers are all that were offered.
And why would these politicians not want to do anything to protect our kids? Well, the answer is simple, the gun lobby has deep pockets to buy as many politicians as they need to continue to sell assault rifles, which are used in the vast majority of mass shootings, in schools or otherwise. Citing the 2nd amendment, ”The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Leaving out the “Well-regulated militia, which is necessary for the security of a free state.” Gun advocates will always cite the Supreme Court, which basically separates the two statements with the OR operator. In contrast, Anti-gun people, myself included, believe that the prefatory and operative clauses are written as one declaration. In modern terms, I think this refers to the US Military, or state military, commonly known as the National Guard. So, any Tom, Dick, or Harry does not have an absolute right to possess a firearm.
Whether you are pro-gun or anti-gun, I’m pretty sure that the intention of the founders was not to have our children gunned down in a place of education using close to military-grade weapons. Even if you believe an individual has the right to bear arms, that does not mean that this right is unlimited and cannot be regulated, for example, by banning individuals from owning assault weapons, which is what the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation is pushing for. In fact, such a ban was passed in 1994 under the Bill Clinton administration but was allowed to expire in 2004 under the George W Bush administration.
Because of the way that the US allows our congresspeople to be legally bribed, big money interests, including the gun manufacturers, have captured Congress; even if every American signed the Sandy Hook Promise petition, nothing would change. The only way to force change is to make politicians on the state and federal levels fear being voted out and actually represent their constituents, but the reality is that the people are not willing to hold their elected officials accountable, so what incentive do politicians have to follow the will of the people, not just on this issue, but a multitude of issues faced by everyday Americans.
The solution is not to have more guns; it’s a myth that having a good guy with a gun will prevent school shootings; the reality is that only 1.2% of all active shooter situations were ended by an armed bystander. In Uvalde, there were literally dozens of “good guys with a gun” outside the school while 21 teachers and students were murdered. Also, 75% of teachers do not wish to be armed and do not believe that firearms have a place in schools. Mental health is a prominent issue, and given that anyone could have undiagnosed mental health issues, including teachers and school resource officers, heaven forbid we hire veterans, especially those who saw combat and have returned to the United States with PTSD.
The only thing that hasn’t been blamed is the sheer number of guns in the US, estimated to be over 500 million in a country of 345 million people. Mental health is commonly used as a scapegoat by politicians to deflect from the real problem of the US swimming in firearms, that’s 1.5 guns per person. And it is just to deflect, look over there, nothing to see here, as little is done to address the mental health epidemic.
Yesterday on the 12th anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, outgoing President Joe Biden called on Congress to act on gun reform legislation. Talk is cheap; in his 4 years as president, he has never done anything other than offer words; he is bought by the same monied interests as Congress. As President, he has the ultimate bully pulpit but has done little except offer words when a shooting happens and has quickly moved on after the news cycle ends and people return to their lives, no longer paying attention.
Politically, I’m not as far left as I thought!
This afternoon, I read the following Bluesky post by John Iadarola of The Young Turks, who I generally agree with, but on this occasion, I vehemently disagree with him. The point is that it reminded me that in recent years, I have realized that I am center left, not firmly entrenched on the left, as I had previously thought. I realized this during the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primary elections, listening to some of Bernie Sanders’ ideas of what he’d like to do if he became president, which he ultimately failed to do.
Income over $1 billion should be taxed at 100%.
This is not remotely controversial, nor extreme.
— John Iadarola (@johniadarola.bsky.social) December 6, 2024 at 7:24 PM
First, I will address John’s skeet. I believe we need a complete overhaul of the US tax system, eliminating the tax loopholes that the wealthy take advantage of and ending tax breaks and subsidies to multi-billion dollar corporations. I want a fair and equitable system where everyone pays their share. Obviously, we have to consider the super low income, with a lower tax rate, but for most people, have a flat tax rate that everyone pays, so the more you earn, the more you contribute to the system. I don’t believe we should punish people for doing better for themselves, earning millions or even billions of dollars annually. Although John didn’t say this, I understand it will be a marginal tax, not 100% of the entire $1 billion.
One of Bernie Sanders‘ proposals I disagree with is a wealth tax. This wealth tax would tax people on their existing wealth, that has already been earned. Under Sanders’ plan, the logic is to tax a person’s wealth annually until it falls under the government’s arbitrary threshold, starting at $32 million.
Another proposal that Sanders had was free college for all. I believe that college must be accessible to all, but a means-tested system should exist. If you come from a wealthy family, why should taxpayers 100% subsidize your education? The linked page above covers student loan cancellation. First, I think we need to stop the predatory loan system. Then, if a person has already paid 125% of the original loan amount, I believe that should be forgiven; a 25% return on the loan amount is more than generous.
Don’t get me wrong; I liked a lot of Bernie’s messaging over the years, but some of what he proposed went too far into socialism. Most people believe that the wealthy and corporations need to pay more taxes to fund social programs, and we can do that without going to extremes. There has to be a good balance between capitalism and socialism. Other countries have found that balance; why can’t the US?
I have even heard people on the left claim that housing is a human right and should be free. This is absolutely absurd; yes, we need to find a solution to ever-increasing housing costs, maybe a socialized housing program where the government builds housing to rent to qualified people instead of relying on the private sector for housing, asking owners/landlords to lower their rentals’ prices. If the price is genuinely too high, the free market will dictate prices, as units will remain unleased, forcing a price drop.
US healthcare clearly needs a massive overhaul. The recent murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the lack of empathy from the masses have proven how angry the citizenry is with the current profit-driven healthcare system. The US needs socialized healthcare, where everyone pays into the system via taxation. The system is already in place for those aged 65+; it’s called Medicare, and most pay into it every paycheck, but may never see the benefit should they not make it to 65 years old.
Bernie Sanders pushed the idea of expanding Medicare to cover everyone during his presidential election campaigns and continues to do so today. Most countries have a socialized healthcare system. In my home country, the UK, we call it the NHS (National Health Service), and it is not perfect, but no one will ever walk out with a bill, unlike the US, where medical treatment can be financially ruinous.
For any of this to happen, we need to ditch Citizens United, which allows corporations and the wealthy to funnel billions of dollars into our political system. Congresspeople will say that the money does not affect how they vote, and I call bullshit. The wealthy don’t give vast amounts of cash to politicians out of the goodness of their hearts; it’s an investment, and they want a return on that investment.
Money in politics has created massive inequality in the US, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle or working class. Until this changes, nothing will ever change because, except for a few Congresspeople, our elected officials are not looking out for the interests of the average American.
I wonder how these Congresspeople get reelected term after term when most constituents know their interests are not being represented. Is it simply a case of xASSHOLEx Congressperson hating the same things as them, for example, women’s rights, non-Caucasians, the LGBTQ community, and undocumented immigrants. But, whatever the reason, they are 100% voting against their own interests.
The Republicans like to brand the Democrats as socialists or communists, and the extreme left certainly does seem to want this sort of system; I do not. I think a hybrid capitalist-socialist system is the best for everyone and can work well. I used to believe I was further left, but where the left is at the moment, I definitely consider myself to be center-left, and an independent, not aligning with any party’s ethos.
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