Conversations with Melchizedek – Colossal Changes coming to Political Systems

After his brief trip to the UK, NATO, and a summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, President Trump has once again left the politicians and political activists aghast at his words and actions.  In fact, if you listen to news accounts you might think he just started Armageddon, the final battle before the Apocalypse and the End Times.  Amazing to what lengths the media is prepared to go to destroy Trump.

As for the professional political crybabies on television, they are screaming demons and one should take the time to ask why.  What is it about our corrupt, archaic, political system and institutions that is so precious to the radical left and radical right they will do anything to stop Trump?

Melchizedek says we are entering a three-year period of “colossal changes coming to political systems.”  I say it is about time.  The radical liberals and conservatives, the Democrat and Republican parties, the hysterical Trump haters and the so-called news media are the puppets and pawns of a much darker force than Donald Trump.

Have we forgotten that America is the boldest and grandest experiment in the history of mankind?  We are the only major nation on earth in which 95% of our population are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.

Truly we are the only true melting pot in the world where people of any race, religion, ethnic background, political persuasion or culture are all guaranteed the same rights, protection, and equal opportunity.

By our very nature, promise and Constitution we are protected from dominance by any one philosophy, culture or movement because individual freedom and equal opportunity are the bedrock of our existence.

Since we are the only true melting pot our Republic is built on a foundation of respect for differences and compromise for accommodation for all.  The people reaffirm this right in elections every two and four years.

When special interests demand one ideology be dominant in our land, whether it be liberal or conservative, Democrat inspired or Republican, and when people attempt to usurp the power of the people by imposing a single philosophy on others it is doomed and results in polarization and eventually fails.

Today we have lost the ability to communicate.  Hatred and fear have overridden all possibility for compromise and progress.  Without compromise there can be no progress.  When that happens, and it has happened many times in our short history, the Constitution provides a mechanism for the people to save our government from special interests and unfair laws.

Once again, we face the same dilemma.  People are concerned with control and dominance, not fairness and justice.  Those advocates of control and their supporters have no place in a house built on compromise, individual rights, and guaranteed equality for all.

When our Fourth Estate, the news media, lose their sense of objectivity as it has and starts trying to promote one side of a policy over another the media no longer functions as a watchdog for the people, all the people, but as an advocate for special interests.  One wonders if maybe biased media should be required to register as a special interest lobbyist to show their true colors.

In the past presidents have always worked with Congress, majority and minority parties, toward compromise in order to solve problems.  That ended in the Obama years.  Unfortunately, he had neither the foresight nor experience to forge political alliances and preserve this presidential function.

When leaders want to impose their agenda on the people, rather than carry out the agenda of those who elected them, they are doomed to failure in a Constitutional Republic designed to prevent dominance by any one person, group or party.

Any crisis America faces will be solved when the people decide what is needed and they use the ballot to force change on the system.  Once again, we have reached the crisis stage, and once again only the people can say what America must do.

The shocking victory of Trump in the GOP primary, the only non-politician among political giants, was the first sign of a major political overhaul of our system.  His subsequence election victory over the overwhelming favorite Hillary Clinton was the people’s stunning reaffirmation that enough was enough, our political house must be disassembled and rebuilt in order to return to a Constitutional Republic as envisioned by our Founding Fathers.

                    

Unfortunately, it seems memories are short in our nation’s capital.  Both the news people and politicians seem to be suffering from hysterical amnesia.  They are no longer twisting the media spin to their benefit but are living the lies they manufacture to justify their hate-filled rants.

As the news media paraded an endless stream of intelligence officials and national security “experts” to trash Trump before the cameras yesterday, I noted the incredible hypocrisy of the anti-Trump legions.  Just a decade ago the same people were trashing Presidents Bush and Obama because of the massive and illegal actions by the very same intelligence agencies, including many of the current TV stars being interviewed from those agencies, for the greatest invasion of privacy in history and trampling over of our individual rights.

Not only was every American citizen a victim of the insidious “Big Brother” action, so were the heads of state of every major nation in the world including our closest allies.  Their private phone lines were illegally taped and monitored by US intelligence agencies.  How quickly we forget the truth.

Yesterday’s villains are today's heroes, at least in the minds of the news media and misguided followers who actually believe their brand of nonsense.  Never have I seen so many people so hysterically embrace hatred, bias, distortion and misdirection with such passion, possibly since the time of the persecution and murder of Jesus of Nazareth, and that job was botched up as well.

By now, after almost eighteen months of the Trump presidency and with all the power and resources of the intelligence agencies, the Justice Department, the news media, the Democratic and Republican parties, and their friends and benefactors who control much of our wealth, their relentless effort to throw out Trump has failed miserably.

No politician in our history has been under a more massive and coordinated attack for such a sustained period of time yet Trump continues his own relentless campaign to clean up the mess we call government.

Why, because he is not a politician.  He is an outsider who happened to succeed without the help of big bankers, big corporations, political parties and Wall Street.  Trump was not bought and paid for like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.

Funny, all three became multi-millionaires because they were president or nominated to be president.  Trump did not need a government job and power to make millions, he earned it before he ever ran for public office.

Make no mistake, Trump is far from an endearing president but perhaps he is just what was needed to reign in the power of government, stop the corruption at all levels of government, reform laws and regulations not in the public interest, and to realign our position in the world.

No professional politician stood a chance of bringing about such badly needed reform.  There was no accountability in government nor responsibility for the actions of the government.  The financial predators and sharks controlled the money for campaigns and leveraged it to buy off enough elected officials to maintain a system that was rotten to the core, not just in America, but around the world.

Yet people, the voters, understood, at least the vast majority of people who were not part of the partisan political cesspool.  This did not happen overnight.  Way back in 1972 Ross Perot, a businessman and Independent, got 20% of the presidential vote costing George Bush his re-election and thrusting Bill Clinton to the presidency with barely 41% of the registered vote.

By the time Barack Obama was first elected in 2008 nearly 50% of all eligible voters refused to even register to vote, such was their disgust with politicians.  When Obama was re-elected in 2012 it was the first time less than 50% of eligible voters participated in an election.  In truth, only about 25% of eligible voters voted Obama president.  Still it got worse.  By the end of Obama’s presidency in 2016 for the first time in our history there were more registered Independents than either Democrats or Republicans.

One need only ask Bernie Sanders how honest the political system was when he faced Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary campaign.  Secret deals between Obama and Clinton were made to bankrupt the Democratic National Committee (DNC), then allow the Clinton campaign to secretly bail out the DNC while giving Hillary control of the actions and resources of the DNC.  She was in a tightly contested primary battle with Sanders when this took place.  Bernie never had a chance to win the primary because the DNC Super Delegates were already secretly pledged to Hillary.

By the way, in light of the current media hype about how Putin said he wanted Trump to win against Hillary, you might have noticed what the media forgot to ask.  Why did the media not ask if he wanted Hillary to win?  Putin and Hillary were mortal enemies ever since she was Obama’s Secretary of State and used her office to condemn him and place sanctions on Russia.  Trump was not even a viable candidate at the time Hillary was hacked and Trump was given no chance to win anything.

When Trump stunned the world and won the primary there was no other choice for Putin but to hope Trump won, against all odds.  Make no mistake, no one’s hands were clean during this election campaign.  Trump knew nothing of the political process and showed it.  Still, he was the last one standing and the only non-political outsider available to the people.

No one gave him a chance to win right up to election day when all the media predicted a solid Hillary victory.  No one, that is, except me when I predicted a Trump victory several weeks before the election and posted it in the Huffington Post as a Huffington Post Contributor.

My conclusion was based on a multi-decade trend of increasing distrust of all politicians from both parties born out by the polls.  In addition, I watched the increasing flight of Democrats and Republican voters switch to the Independent registration.

Trump’s victory had nothing to do with Russia or Russian collusion.  It had everything to do with voter frustration over partisan politics in Washington, D.C., the cozy relationship between professional politicians and financiers, and institutional corruption.

Today, the losers from both ends of the political spectrum, Democrats hating Trump and Republicans afraid of Trump, sense the death knell of their quest to deny Trump his presidency.  As do the losers in the media who are in danger of losing all their anonymous sources of classified government information.

Trump is no saint, but he certainly is an agent of change who was given a chance to fix what the politicians could not fix.  He was also given a chance by the American voters to show us what he can do to clean up the mess.  His opponents are fueled by blind hatred of the outsider.  They ignore the Constitution and will of the people.  In truth they are the protectors of the status quo.

To succeed they ignore their own religious beliefs and the teachings of Jesus and embrace a very dark and toxic attitude.  They will fail.  Trump will easily win re-election in 2020 and may finally get the chance to show us what he can do.

At that point we can give a great big sign of relief in knowing our Constitution is intact, it worked as expected, and once again the People have spoken.

CPT Predictions Ten Years Ago - 2008 Presidential Election coverage - Taking Back America – This is My Country!

This is the third installment in a series of ten-year old articles from the Coltons Point Times, a time before Barack Obama was elected President, when he and Hillary were engaged in a titanic battle for the future of the Democratic party and the nation.  How little seems to have changed since then. 


April 1, 2008

Yes it is time for change!

If the people of America want to get control of their country now is the time but it can only happen if they take responsibility for what happens in their country. You see, people seem to have forgotten the rest of the story when it comes to our Bill of Rights. When they published the full title of the Amendments to the Constitution the editors left out part of the title. It should have read the Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

There is no better generation to fix that problem than the battle tested, Cold War conditioned, oil shortage hardened Baby Boomers who are the only generation of the past century to understand the price of freedom and the dangers of democracy. I think every person who cares and wants things better should wear a tee shirt and paste bumper stickers that proclaim, “This is My Country!”
We can start by telling the politicians who want to be president that we the people will tell them what we need and what to do. Last time I checked they work for us. So the true Agenda for Change will be presented in this series of articles on Taking Back America. The pollsters, political advisors and advertising agencies that put words or sound bytes into the mouths of politicians have it all wrong. They are the very people who got us into this mess.

No we need to give government back to the people, give God back to the government and give meaning back to our Declaration and Constitution. We need to provide what people need, stop promoting what we don’t need, and start seeing government act like our friend and protector rather than a front for greed and power hungry individuals or corporations.

America must be wealthy, not the rulers who try and run or own America. Don’t you think those who claim to know have victimized us for long enough? We want a nation where housing laws protect the homeowners not the mortgage and financial institutions. We want banking laws that protect the citizens not the credit card companies, debt collectors, lawyers and hidden fees.

Our government licenses telephone companies, television and radio stations, banks, mortgage companies, investment banks, doctors and stock brokers among many others, while we regulate the stock market, commodity market (including the price of oil and food), energy companies, interstate commerce, foreign aid and practically every other aspect of our lives. Do you feel protected?

We spend more money protecting oil producing nations, arms dealers, drug companies, banks and investment houses than we do protecting people and that has simply got to change. Look at the cost, $500 billion and 4,000 American lives in Iraq to protect the Arab nations from Arab terrorists, or is it the Arab oil producers from disruption? What do we get? Record oil prices, no effort by OPEC to increase production and lower prices, and the scorn of the world.

Or how about our Afghanistan experience? We spend billions to chase the terrorists out of Afghanistan into hiding in Pakistan, a nation where we spend billions more to protect the military and government that gives the terrorists safe haven. We have no viable foreign policy, we just support the arms dealers of the world who make sure there is always civil unrest, genocide and demigods running amok where we can spend billions more defending people. If America stopped financing war directly and indirectly do you think the arms dealers would spend their own money to cause wars?

Back in the good old USA we have more than enough wars of our own to fight against the destruction of our immune systems by the pharmaceutical companies, the addictions imposed on us by television, video games, hospitals and doctors, the health care industry, the wellness industry, the physical education industry, and all those who think the only way to good health is through the pocketbook.

Then there are the phone companies, banks and credit card companies with their incredible hidden fees and confusing billings, insurance companies that increase rates for reasons having nothing to do with their insurance coverage, the media whose message is always influenced by the advertising dollars it might generate, and the government who works for everyone but the people it is supposed to represent.



Oh it is time for change all right, and the change we need must be cataclysmic to do any good. All the shadowy figures that profit from our difficulties, steal from our treasury and attempt to influence our minds and destroy our wills are counting on us being too weak, too self-centered and too preoccupied to bring about change but I say they are wrong. Once again the bad guys have underestimated the power of freedom and the will of the people.

Proudly display your sign This is My Country and then do what they don’t expect, show you care. Help establish the Agenda for Change that we need, not the one politicians say we need. Start out by making a concerted effort to send a message to the oil profiteers by joining in a national effort to stay at home from Memorial Day until the Fourth of July, Independence Day, and reduce oil and gas consumption as much as possible.

Spend weekends with your family, seeing what you missed in your community, state and surrounding areas. Enjoy the local festivals and events. Turn off television and limit your time on the Internet and we can start to get back our nation. Asking you to save money does not sound like too much to ask. Please share this article with anyone and everyone you can by directing them to: http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

What are the targets for change?

1. Money Mongers of the Financial Institutions

Who are these people and what threat do they represent? Well, the intricate web of interlocking ownership, access to media, control of pricing in stocks, currency, commodities and bonds, and insulation from scrutiny probably make this the single most powerful force on Earth, capable of controlling governments and destroying opposition without ever getting their own hands dirty. You see they are invisible to the general public.

Financial institutions control the world simply put and they do not serve the world in the process, as serving is not a good return on investment. They set up mutual funds to consolidate investment power and get government to create more sources of funds and turn them over to the financiers to manage such as pension funds, 401K funds, IRAs and many others.

They create financial “experts” to tell us what is happening to our investment markets and how to invest what money we do control completely ignoring the conflicts of interest when the greatest beneficiaries of the advice are the market makers, the very financial institutions whose experts are giving supposedly objective market advice.

What does that mean? The media takes the advice of industry experts and tells us the price of oil is going up because of the potential for a hurricane in the gulf that may or may not disrupt supply lines and drilling operations. A suicide bombing in Iraq shows that the crude oil supply from that country is not stable so a shortage of future oil may result if a bombing of the oil pipelines is successful. Cold weather in American means there will be a shortage of heating oil no matter that there are sufficient inventories already in the country. So the price of oil goes up, and up and up.

Who benefits? The owners of the crude oil, the companies that pay them for the crude, the banks that finance the companies, the stockholders that own shares of the companies, the IRAs, 401Ks, pension funds and mutual funds that pump money into the companies, the companies selling and buying their stocks, or the companies setting market prices? Guess what, all of them could be part of the financial institutions benefiting from the market manipulations caused by the speculative reports on the industry by the media.

So why does the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission let them do this? The FTC and SEC are supposed to be our government watchdogs protecting the public from unscrupulous financial manipulators. For two years the same financial sector was behind the unethical, immoral and often-illegal manipulation of the sub-prime mortgage markets as well which nearly sent the USA into recession and certainly left millions of homeowners in foreclosure. Where were the federal regulators?

2. Mortgage Lenders – Vampires of the Golden Dream

Even though mortgage lenders can be owned, controlled or manipulated by the financial sector and banking institutions they are often set up independently until they finish preying on an unsuspecting public, having got caught using questionable practices (sub-prime loans for example), using heavy handed tactics, misleading consumers and initiating mortgage foreclosures.

When this happens the lenders now approaching bankruptcy get bought out by the financial and banking sectors that are seeking to acquire real estate property at far below the loan value. So losses are written off, property is acquired far below the loan value, new mortgages are written to resell or refinance the property, a few million people lose their homes due to foreclosures, and the financial institutions now have a new division with secure assets and credit worthy clients.

Of course we then lose sight of the fact illegal mortgages and unethical selling practices caused the bail out cycle to take place. Or that mortgage lenders, sales people, lawyers and credit rating firms were all players in this billion-dollar scam. That closing fees, collection fees and late fees have made someone millions of dollars at the expense of the hapless homeowners.

Finally even the government backed mortgage programs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (what great names for federal backed mortgage players), not to mention the long list of programs such as VA, Indian, Rural, Low Income and other federal mortgage and housing programs must be ever more vigilant to root out corruption, contract fixing, slipshod construction and repair work, inefficient heating and utilities and other problems that beset our federal and state housing efforts.

3. Credit Card Industry Standards, Fees and Collection Methods

Now this is an area of regulatory meltdown and benign neglect involving federal and state agencies ranging from the FTC to Congress, from the SEC to Justice Department. There is a body of law at both the state and federal levels that regulates these practices but no one seems to pay attention.

The issuance of credit cards through the mail and Internet and the proliferation of offers from credit card companies are astounding. The never-ending changes in interest rates charged, the justification for such changes, the explanation of such practices and the downright deception in consumer information is appalling and predatory.

Fees change constantly for ATM charges, handling, processing, vendor, fraud, security, and any other excuse to stick it to the consumer. Credit rating companies feed information to credit card companies and collection companies making the whole business of debt collection a financial windfall to lawyers, collection agencies, process servers and even the courts. Lies regarding the rights of the cardholder are overwhelming to most people, threatening to them and their credit, and fraught with heavy-handed tactics.

Simply stated there is no protection for people from getting the cards, understanding the changing fees, and especially getting caught in the late payment and collection process. Debts are written off yet collection efforts go full steam. When debts should be forgiven efforts are still made to scare the consumers into making payments. If we allow a credit card company to write off the bad debt, then why is the collection industry pursuing the poor consumer with no money? Why are the bad debts written off years before the debt is forgiven to the consumer?

4. Health Care Industry Cost, Insurance and Unnecessary Treatment

Just look at the facts and there is no doubt this system is broken. In 2006 we spent $2.1 trillion on health care, over $7,026 for every person in the USA, and it took over 16% of our Gross Domestic Product. That is 4.3 times more money than we spent on defense. The cost of health care increases at more than double the inflation rate annually.

At 16% of GDP we have the highest health care costs of any developed nation with the next highest being Switzerland 10.9%, Germany 10.7%, Canada 9.7% and France 9.5%. Americans spent one third more on health care than any of these nations, and while 50 million Americans do not have health insurance all of the citizens in the other nations mentioned receive health care. At our current pace we will be spending $4 trillion on health care in just 7 years, by 2015.

With the war in Iraq one might expect the cost of health care for veterans to be substantial as treatment in the war zone is far improved from earlier wars and for every death of a soldier there are 9 wounded soldiers that return home. Yet the cost of veteran’s health care drops to $5,000 per person, $2,000 less per year than civilians.

What is causing these statistical aberrations? Are we much sicker than citizens of the other nations? Is there a greater medical risk to civilians in America than our soldiers in Iraq? Why are 50 million Americans uninsured when all of the citizens of other nations receive health care?

According to the latest statistics employer paid health insurance premiums in the USA were $11,500 for families and about $4,200 for individuals. That means annual health insurance premiums account for a substantial portion of health care costs. Something is very wrong with the system.

So what is the average educational debt for new doctors coming into the market? According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the average educational debt of indebted graduates of the class of 2006 (including pre-med borrowing) is $130,571. The average debt of graduating medical students increased in 2006 by 8.5 percent over the previous year. 72 percent of graduates have debt of at least $100,000. 86.6 percent of graduating medical students carry outstanding loans. 40.2 percent of 2006 graduates have non-educational debt, averaging $16,689. Source: AAMC 2006 Graduation Questionnaires.

So how much do they make when they graduate? Cardiologists were the most sought-after specialists last year, fetching salaries ranging from $234,000 to $525,000 and averaging $320,000 a year, according to surveys. Close behind cardiologists are radiologists and orthopedic surgeons. Now why do we loan med students the money when bank financing would be readily available in light of their low risk?

5. Pharmaceutical Industry Proliferation of Prescription Drugs

This can be short and sweet. In 2002 we spent $162 billion on prescription drugs and in 2006 we spent $217 billion on prescription drugs. One out of every five Americans takes 5 or more prescriptions per day. All Americans average 2.9 prescriptions per day. Our senior citizens, who are increasing very rapidly with the aging of the Baby Boomers, averaged $559 for prescriptions in 1992, $1,205 for prescriptions in 2000, and $1,912 in 2005 with spending expected to reach $2,805 in 2010.

Every day it seems the health authorities announce yet another prescription drug that does not work, or whose long-term effects are determined to be more dangerous than expected. Yet every day it seems there are new prescriptions for new diseases. We live longer but spend far more. Kids are over-prescribed with Ritalin and other drugs. They are addicted to drugs they don’t even take raiding medicine cabinets for the new drug culture.

6. FDA (Food and Drug Administration) Drug Approval Process

If drug prices in America have been rising almost five times as fast as inflation then the FDA must assume some of the responsibility as they are the regulatory agency charged with overseeing the over-the-counter and prescription drugs so abundant in our society.

The FDA new drug approval process with layers of clinical animal and human trials is the most costly, most lengthy and often most bizarre in terms of protocols and criteria for approval in the world. It is a process designed for the benefit of wealthy pharmaceutical companies, not for the small and independent research companies and laboratories.

Major pharmaceutical firms have managed to negotiate with FDA for new drug approval even if the drug extends the life expectancy of the patient by just 30 days. Yet when these products are sold to the public no one seems to mention they might only be good for 30 days at a cost of thousands of dollars

Things have gotten so ridiculous in the approval process that television ads for the drug Celebrex contain so many warnings of side effects and drug interactions that the ad actually states “the FDA says the benefits may outweigh the risks” when taking it. Are they crazy? It might be safe to take it?

Human trials approved by FDA require a protocol where half of the patients are given a placebo rather than the drug so results taking the drug can be measured against a control group not taking the drug. Not a bad practice unless the drug is experimental and the disease is going to kill the patient.

For example, stage 3 cancer patients have weeks or months to live. At stage 3 any normal and extremely expensive treatment like chemo, radiation or surgery has already failed. When they are offered a chance to participate in an experiment that might save their life and the option is certain death you might think they would jump at the chance, but that is not the case.

Why would they sign up when only half the people will even receive the treatment, with the other half getting meaningless placebos? If they are in the half that gets the candy and not the drug they die. If they get the drug there is a chance they might live. When you are facing death there should not be a 50-50 chance you won’t get the treatment.

Other problems with the industry include their price gouging, opposition to generic drugs selling for much less, opposition to foreign drugs also selling for much less, payments to doctors for prescribing their drugs, and unsubstantiated claims regarding over-the-counter drugs like cough syrup which has been proven to do no good.

7. Agriculture – Food Testing, Ingredients and Source

You go to the grocery store, check the fresh meat, see something that looks nice and red and fresh and buy it. Or maybe you buy the chicken to fry up for dinner. Then again you might buy pet food for your favorite dog or cat. Now did anyone tell you fresh meat like beef should not be red? Did they tell you color dyes and carbon monoxide are used to give the cuts of meat that color and they are injected in the butcher shop?

Did they tell you the chicken was raised in a hen house and pumped with hormones, steroids and God knows what else to fatten it up for the slaughter? Did they tell you about everything you just bought included rendered animal parts?

Did they mention rendering plants use raw product including thousands of dead dogs and cats; heads and hooves from cattle, sheep, pigs and horses; whole skunks; rats and raccoons? Did they mention the millions of maggots swarming over the carcasses? Did they tell you the carcasses would be ground up and cooked to create batches of yellow grease, meal and bone meal, and that the meat and bone meal would be used as a source of protein and other nutrients in poultry, swine and pet foods?

That the animal fat is used as an “energy source” and millions of tons will be trucked to poultry ranches, cattle feed-lots, dairy and hog farms, fish-feed plants and pet-food manufacturers where it is mixed with other ingredients to feed the billions of animals that meat-eating humans, in turn, will eat.

When you look at the ingredient label and it says the meat included protein it sounds good but is that protein from the rendered carcasses and what are the health consequences of eating a standard diet of rendered byproduct? The deadly Mad Cow disease was caused by feeding rendered products to cattle.

8. Campaign Reform – Empty Promises and Empty Wallets

For the first time in our history the presidential campaign alone in 2008 is expected to cost over one billion dollars. Now that is a whole lot of money being spent to win a job that pays $400,000 a year and only lasts four years. One billion dollars spent to make $1,600,000. If that is the result of capitalism then we might have a problem.

Campaign reform has been talked about more and acted upon less than any other issue facing congress and the president. Political advertising costs are criminal. Some campaigns spend more money raising money than they do getting elected. Special interest groups give to candidates, give more to national political parties, more to state political parties and then spend money themselves to influence elections.

Over $1 billion will be spent running for president and that can be changed if the president and congress have the guts. Paid ads can be stopped, special interest funding can be stopped, and a logical schedule for primaries can be held. Candidates can receive free media time since all the airways are government regulated. Voter registration can be increased.

There are about 226 million people eligible to vote in the USA and about 142 million are registered to vote. In 2004 about 121 million did vote for president. That means about 53% of the eligible voters participated in the last presidential election, a pretty weak total for the citadel of democracy in the world. That needs to be fixed. Require automatic voter registration with social security cards or drivers licenses if need be but get people back involved in the process. We can’t make people vote but we can make sure they have the opportunity to vote.

9. Immigration Reform – The Slumbering Social Issue of the Day

So far the candidates have done a masterful job of avoiding the issue of Immigration reform although before the campaign heated up they had a variety of ideas to offer. Now it seems the ideas have been taken off the table in hopes no one noticed they flip flopped on an issue.

There are a few areas of agreement. For one everyone agrees we need to strengthen border security on both the Canadian and Mexican borders. We also acknowledge that there are millions of Mexican workers illegally in the USA gainfully employed at jobs typically not wanted by Americans. What to do about them is a huge problem.

Since there is widespread opposition to any kind of amnesty program allowing them to remain without consequence perhaps a better alternative would be to allow those illegal immigrants and their families to remain with a permanent work visa if they are gainfully employed and have paid taxes in the United States.

They are here and they pay our income and sales taxes. They have cars and drivers licenses. They are making a substantial contribution to Social Security even though they cannot draw benefits. What amnesty are we giving them? If we throw them out don’t we owe them back their income, sales and social security payments? I say they have paid enough already for a permanent visa and they should be welcomed if they complete our citizenship requirements.

If the illegal immigrants that are gainfully employed and contributing to our tax and social security system are granted permanent work visas, overnight we will reduce the border security issues saving substantial money and improving relations between our two countries. This will free up resources to pursue the criminal elements from foreign countries that come illegally for far more sinister reasons.

Not only do millions of illegal immigrants pay taxes and provide services we would not otherwise have but they are also victims to hordes of unscrupulous people involved in car sales and repair, medical treatment, legal assistance, and many other areas because they have no way to protect themselves. They cannot go to law enforcement agencies for help, as they would be prosecuted. The simple act of granting well-earned permanent work visas would stop predators from taking advantage of their status.

For more go to: http://www.coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/

CPT Predictions Ten Years Ago - The People's Agenda for Change - Part 1

Over ten years ago I wrote the following article pointing out what was wrong in America.  At the time Hillary was leading Obama in the polls for the 2008 Presidential election.  Little has changed since.  Part 2 follows this story.  What do you think?

January 24, 2008

“WE THE PEOPLE!”

Part 1 – What’s Missing in the Campaign?

There is an old saying in politics, probably first stated by Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Ben Franklin or Mark Twain, that goes, “progress is nice, but change is its motivator.” Well change is certainly the motivator in this years presidential campaign marathon. Every candidate from both parties as well as the independents are shouting they are the person of change to lead America into the next debacle, or is it decade?

It does not matter if those very candidates have spent 20-30 years building the same institutional bureaucracies that are the targets of the change mongers; they still claim to be the poster boy or girl for change in America. Good for them. Even the most ardent of anti-change personalities can come to an epiphany and suddenly, and quite dramatically see the light.

Just ask Scrooge from Dickens Christmas Carol or St. Paul after his roadside encounter with the angel. If a tight-fisted miser and a bigoted tax collector can become celebrated heroes then a few well-worn politicians can probably do the same. So I give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of intent. But so far I give them a failing grade in terms of action.

I mean if you are going to be the poster boy or girl for anything don’t you think we should be told what your agenda for change might entail? Substance for change is in short supply in a campaign already inundated in political blabber, name calling and nonsense.

There is an opportunity for a quantum leap in American politics this election whether it is the election of the first Black American, the first Woman, the first mayor (actually two chances for the first mayor), the first Mormon, the first POW, the first rock guitar player (and second native of Hope, Arkansas), the first former first lady, and even the first person with $400 hair cuts.

However, when it comes to substance in their agendas for change not a single politician has come forward first. Change is a really big deal if the candidates are not blatant hypocrites so where is the wealth of new ideas, new programs, new directions, and new policies that are inherent in any agenda for change? Missing in action I guess.

That said, we are going to save them a fortune in research and inject something foreign to most campaigns called common sense by giving them the agenda for change so sorely lacking in their current rhetoric. We are going to give them a mission for change, an agenda for change, and a justification for change so desperately needed by the public.

First, look at the substantial achievements in bringing about change associated with our presidents of the 20th century. There were not many I am sorry to say. But they did include Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, Ronald Reagan and his New Federalism, and, well, hummmm, I guess that is about it.

I can’t seem to rationalize the Clinton Capers or Bush Bushwhacking the English Language as major changes although they did result in comic relief for the masses. John Kennedy would have joined the list of three had he lived long enough but none of his agenda for change was implemented during his lifetime. So there you have it, just three presidents in the last 100 years makes the A list.

Roosevelt’s New Deal pulled us out of the devastating grasp of the great depression with a social agenda never before seen in the USA. Johnson moved us further into the liberal world with his Great Society that implemented the Civil Rights laws and introduced a bevy of social programs. Reagan then brought the pendulum back to the conservative view with his New Federalism anti-big government and anti-Soviet Union agenda. The presidents were astonishingly successful in their agenda for change.

Now comes the current crop of wanna be presidents shouting “change” in every speech and sound bite, well at least when they aren’t shouting at each other, but somehow not offering us any ideas for the change they hold so dearly. So we are going to help them succeed. This series will identify the mission, agenda, Ten Commandments and policy changes needed to bring about the changes most needed by Joe Six Pack and the average American.

Part 2 in this series will focus on the targets for change, those institutional bureaucracies whether in government, the non-profit or corporate worlds that have outlived their usefulness or are in need of dramatic change to contribute to our society and world. Part 3 will identify the ways to fix these targets if they can be fixed or replace them if needed to insure that the first and only agenda in America is “We The People”.

Huffington Post article predicts Trump election October 19, 2016, three weeks before election day.

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HuffPost Contributor predicts Trump election 21 days before history was made while HuffPost predicts 98% chance of Hillary victory.

The following article appeared in the Huffington Post from a Contributor, myself, which positioned the HuffPost to be right about the shocking, stunning and demoralizing 2016 election result.  At the same time a Trump election was predicted, the HuffPost was running the first of two polling articles claiming after "9.8 million computer simulations" Hillary Clinton had a 98% chance of winning.  The second time this claim of a Hillary victory was posted was on November 8, election day, in the HuffPost.

Here is what appeared in the Huffington Post October 19, 2016, three weeks before the electrifying Trump victory, a series of News Bulletins for the upcoming election night coverage.

Jim Putnam, Contributor

Publisher Coltons Point Times

Into the Future - Presidential Election Results November 8 and 9, 2016

10/19/2016 05:49 pm ET

·          

Into the Future - Presidential Election Results November 8 and 9, 2016

News Bulletin!

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

November 8, 2016 - 10:00 pm EST

Polls Close in East - Hillary Declared Winner

The polls just closed in the East while remaining open in the Midwest and West, but the mainstream media has already declared Hillary Clinton the 45th and first female in our nation’s history President.

Based on the results of Exit Polls throughout the country, most media declared Hillary the decisive winner. The Exit Polls are interviews with actual voters leaving the voting booths.

Unlike other political polls of which there are many, only one presidential Exit Poll exists and is taken. Since the poll is owned by a coalition of the major television networks, and it is not released in it’s entirety to the public, there is no way to validate or verify the results.

In spite of the tremendous media bias against Donald Trump and media devotion to Hillary Clinton, it still seems a bit odd the networks declared her the winner with just below 5% of the national vote cast and counted.

Over 50% of the public still has time to get out and vote. One might suspect there is media collusion in trying to discourage possible Trump supporters in these states to give up and not vote for Trump.

———————————————

News Bulletin!

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

November 9, 2016 - 1:00 am EST

Historic Hillary Victory a Tidal Wave claim Pundits

The polls have now closed in the continental United States as the nation and world await the results of the presidential election. So far just 22% of the popular vote has been reported.

Early absentee voting tallies indicate a record number of Americans cast their ballots before election day. Political pundits say it is another great sign for a Hillary landslide. “Banner headlines” in the major newspapers early editions, along with a never ending stream of “braking news” bulletins on television networks rejoice in the Clinton victory over Donald Trump, as projected by the media.

No results are official until certified by the election boards in each state. None have been certified yet and the national tracking map indicates no electoral votes have been awarded.

————————————————

News Bulletin!

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

November 9, 2016 - 5:00 am EST

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

The national media continues to tout the Exit Polls and a Hillary landslide but the release of actual vote totals is at an excruciatingly slow pace by the states.

Those votes reported to the media indicate a much closer race than the Exit Poll blowout projection. No pattern is emerging in voting other than a near dead heat in national vote total while the seven key swing states remain too close to predict at this time.

Could it be the national news media Exit Poll is wrong? Early indications suggest if the TV networks actually reported the results received in Exit interviews, the voters were giving misleading answers to the media.

Perhaps voters believe they have a right to keep silent when it comes to elections, an exercise of their right to privacy.

At the same time, there are reports of much higher new voter totals than expected, and the turnout among Independents and Republicans is up significantly.

————————————————

News Bulletin!

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

November 9, 2016 - 10:00 am EST

Clinton Landslide fails to Materialize - Exit Polls Wrong - but How Wrong?

A haunting silence has overcome the nation as Americans wake up and go to work expecting to hear from our new President Hillary Clinton. Instead, there is a heightened sense of anxiety on the part of those prematurely declaring Clinton the victor.

After late night calls for a Clinton victory celebration, her failure to pull away in the electoral count has stunned and silenced her Establishment friends.

While all seven key swing states hang perilously in the balance, the leader in popular votes swings wildly from Clinton to Trump and back like a pendulum on steroids.

Perhaps the Populist Revolution did not fade away as predicted by the Establishment and their news media. Maybe the election has nothing to do with Donald Trump but is a referendum on Clinton and the Establishment.

If proven true, it will be the greatest upset in election history far surpassing the Truman - Dewey race in 1948.

—————————————-

News Bulletin!

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

November 9, 2016 - 6:00 pm EST

Populist Momentum Carries Trump to 270 electoral votes as America’s Version of the UK Brexit Vote Stuns the World

http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/2016/10/into-future-presidential-election.html

Here are stories from the Huffington Post, Reuters, nd Time Magazine at the same time covering the election status. 

FORECAST

PRESIDENT

SENATE

By Natalie Jackson and Adam Hooper
Additional design by Alissa Scheller

PUBLISHED MONDAY, OCT. 3, 2016 12:56 P.M. EDT

UPDATED TUESDAY, NOV. 8, 2016, 12:43 A.M. EST

CLINTON  98.0%

TRUMP  1.7%

In the event of a tie, the newly elected House of Representatives will elect the president, and the newly elected Senate will elect the vice president.

Possible Electoral Vote Counts

When you vote, you don’t elect the president: You tell your state’s electoral-college electors how to vote. In most states, all electors vote with the state’s popular opinion. If 51 percent of voters in California choose Hillary Clinton, all 55 of California’s electors will vote for Clinton — and none will vote for Donald Trump.

(Historically, a few so-called faithless electors have voted against popular opinion. They never changed the outcome of an election, so we don’t model them.)

We simulated a Nov. 8 election 10 million times using our state-by-state averages. In 9.8 million simulations, Hillary Clinton ended up with at least 270 electoral votes. Therefore, we say Clinton has a 98.0 percent chance of becoming president.

Election Day

November 8, 2016

POLITICS 

11/08/2016 08:22 am ET

HUFFPOLLSTER: It’s Finally Election Day, And Things Look Good For Democrats

Go vote, and then read on for poll-based projections and a look back at 2016.

By Natalie Jackson, Ariel Edwards-Levy, and Janie Velencia

·          

HuffPost’s poll-based forecasts give Hillary Clinton the win and the Democrats a narrow Senate majority. Many Americans are going to be unhappy regardless of the outcome. And we take a look back at the campaign. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, November 8, 2016.

POLL-BASED PROJECTIONS GIVE CLINTON THE WIN - HuffPollster: “The HuffPost presidential forecast model gives Democrat Hillary Clinton a 98.2 percent chance of winning the presidency. Republican Donald Trump has essentially no path to an Electoral College victory. Clinton’s win will be substantial, but not overwhelming. The model projects that she’ll garner 323 electoral votes to Trump’s 215. For all of 2016’s craziness, that projection actually follows a fairly traditional electoral map…. Florida, Nevada and North Carolina have leaned toward Clinton in the polling averages. The forecast in recent weeks, along with the strength of early voting numbers, makes it seem very likely that these will stay with her….  [Ohio is] the closest [state], according to the HuffPost forecast model. Trump leads by just 1 point, and the polling trend has moved toward the GOP in the last few weeks. The HuffPost model gives Trump about a 70 percent chance of winning the state. In the event that Clinton’s ground game stimulates turnout and pulls Ohio in her direction ― which is not out of the question ― she’ll get 341 electoral votes.” [HuffPost]   

#POLITICS

OCTOBER 15, 2016 / 1:55 PM

Clinton heavily favored to win Electoral College: poll

Maurice Tamman

·          

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a brutal week for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton maintained a substantial projected advantage in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the U.S. presidency, according to the latest results from the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday.

If the election were held this week, the project estimates that Clinton’s odds of securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency at more than 95 percent, and by a margin of 118 Electoral College votes. It is the second week in a row that the project has estimated her odds so high.

Donald Trump Continues to Dip in Polls as Hillary Clinton Firms Her Lead

By MAHITA GAJANAN 

October 16, 2016

Hillary Clinton is ahead of Donald Trump by 11 points, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, which comes a little more than three weeks before the presidential election.

Conducted after the second presidential debate, the NBC News/WSJ poll finds Clinton leading Trump among likely voters 48% to 37%. Trump’s support in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll remained roughly the same since controversy exploded over Trump’s treatment of women. The two candidates remain close in that poll, with Clinton polling at 47% to Trump’s 43% because of partisan preferences.

Susan Sarandom on Hillary Clinton and Life from The Guardian

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The G2 interview

Susan Sarandon: ‘I thought Hillary was very dangerous. If she'd won, we'd be at war’

Once the bete noire of the right, now the actor finds herself even more hated by the left for refusing to support Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. She talks about Hollywood sexism, female empowerment and playing Bette Davis

by Emma Brockes

Susan Sarandon at 71 is bright-eyed and airy, and perhaps shyer than she can publicly seem. When I walk into the room – a private members’ club in downtown New York, where she sits with a small dog at her feet – she doesn’t say hello or make eye-contact, giving what I suspect is a false impression of rudeness. It may also be that she is uncertain of her reception. For a long time Sarandon was despised by the right, her protests against the Vietnam war and US aggression in Nicaragua and Iraq making her the kind of target that, for progressives, is an affirmation of sorts. Her latest unpopularity, by contrast, comes exclusively from the left and is much tougher on Sarandon. “I’m not attacked from the right at all,” she will tell me. Instead, she is accused of not checking her white privilege, of throwing away her vote on a third-party candidate (the Green party nominee, Jill Stein) during the US presidential election, and of recklessly espousing a political cause that let Trump in through the backdoor. Liberals in the US, it seems, can summon more hatred for Sarandon right now than they can for Paul Ryan.

Most infuriating of all, to her critics, is that she won’t admit her error. Sarandon’s very physiognomy suggests defiance; she looks indignant even at rest. She also looks a lot like Bette Davis, so much so that Davis herself, in her dotage, approached Sarandon to play her. That project never happened, but in the new eight-part Ryan Murphy series Feud: Bette and Joan, about the battle for Hollywood supremacy between Davis and Joan Crawford, Sarandon gets her chance. The two leads are terrific: Jessica Lange, by turns monstrous and pathetic as Crawford; Sarandon steelier, smarter, less obviously vulnerable. She sees a lot of similarities between herself and Davis. “We’re both east coast,” she says. “I didn’t consider myself a star; I was a character actor from the very beginning and not really sold as pretty, which is probably what’s allowed me to survive as long as I have. I have this broader phase.”

Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford in Feud: Bette and Joan. Photograph: FX

Sarandon is working well beyond the age at which women in Hollywood’s golden era could expect to carry on – “besides playing witches and bitches,” she says. The interesting thing about Feud is that it tells an unavoidably feminist story about two women who would have abhorred that particular term. A few years ago, Sarandon herself said: “I think of myself as a humanist because I think it’s less alienating to people who think of feminism as being a load of strident bitches.”

“And then suddenly it became OK to say feminist,” she says now. “That’s been very recent. There was a period when that wasn’t really happening. So now there’s been an opportunity to include men as allies. And I have to say, I remember going to the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment] march where there were 100,000 women and we were going around talking to senators for this vote and I got on the elevator, and the women were like: ‘We’re going to show them what the fuck we want.’ And I kept saying: ‘Calm down, that’s not the way we’re going to get things done.’”

You thought it was counterproductive to be that angry? “It was counterproductive, clearly. But that image of the shrill woman became the definition of a feminist for a long time. And women had a right to be angry, and to feel empowered. But that was just one glimpse of a fairly emotional and strident definition, and there was a period when young women didn’t want that label.”

And now? “It’s come back, and it’s gotten warped, especially with the election, where if you’re a woman you have to support Hillary Clinton.”

Now, of course, no one in Sarandon’s industry would get caught dead having a flaky opinion on sexism in Hollywood. Still, the actor is cautious. One gets the feeling that the Harvey Weinstein business simply isn’t very interesting to Sarandon, that there are other causes – the Keystone pipeline, fracking, oil and gas money in politics – that she considers more urgent. She is no apologist for the Weinsteins of this world, but she can, at times, sound positively libertarian about where the responsibilities of the women involved lie.

Sarandon listens to Bernie Sanders campaigning in Iowa, Jan 2016. Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP

“There are a lot of people who did say no,” she says. “I think the big question here is that if Harvey Weinstein exposed himself to you when you were on a yacht in Cannes and you told everybody – this is Angie Everhart’s story – and everyone said: ‘Well, that’s just Harvey’ and it wasn’t a big deal – those are the people who are perpetuating it, too. Now, I’m sure there’s a lot of men who were much smoother at seducing than-” she bursts out laughing – “James Toback and Harvey Weinstein, who a lot of women felt very flattered to be sleeping with, even if they didn’t get the job. There’s just a culture, starting in the 60s and 70s, where there was a certain amount of liberation that made it possible for those things to happen without even seeing yourself as a victim.”

One of the questions currently being asked is whether what Sarandon describes – the inability of many women even to conceptualise themselves as victims – is a function of “liberation” or internalised misogynistic denial. For Sarandon’s part, nothing post-Weinstein has made her reassess her own past. “Certainly, I experienced both having people come on to me and being told that I wasn’t interesting enough to get a part, or sexual enough, once they found out I was married,” she says. She also admits she was lucky; that, unlike many of the women coming forward today, Sarandon’s resolve was never put to the test. “In my case, I just said no, in many clumsy, stupid ways, but the people didn’t push on. They didn’t show up in my room. They didn’t corner me, or batter me, or get on top of me. It was an invitation: ‘Yeah, why don’t you spend the night now that you’re here in the middle of nowhere on location?’ And I said: ‘No, I gotta get back to my room.’ But I didn’t feel super offended, because it wasn’t a thing that became super difficult.”

There were other hard things. “I remember another really famous actress saying to me: ‘Well, don’t have children because that’ll really change the parts that you’ll be available for. And you won’t work past 40 anyway.’ And a lot of that has changed. And a lot of women are assessing how they feel; were they victimised or did they feel that it was their own choice?”

There is no question, she believes, that there are more choices today and that this is slowly correcting the imbalance of power. “More and more women are able to greenlight their own projects. My last few films have had women directors – they’re not the big blockbusters, but I’m not sure those big blockbusters are very interesting to direct. But there is definitely more power in the hands of women than there was – the Reese Witherspoons, who are getting books, putting together projects, telling women’s stories. I think that’s where the difference is. The culture itself is ... it’s a tricky thing because you are selling yourself using sex, and your looks, for the most part. And I think that when you have these men in positions of power, they assume that [sex] goes along with it. And until you get women to have an economic power base – I mean, look at Brit Marling’s article [in the Atlantic], where she talks about being able to walk out of an uncomfortable situation with Harvey even though she hated herself for going in the first place, because she knew she could write and produce and direct. So when people see themselves as having their own power base, it becomes imaginable that you could turn somebody down and still survive.”

With Geena Davis in Thelma And Louise, 1991. Photograph: c.MGM/Everett/REX

It is often overlooked that in 2001, Sarandon supported Hillary Clinton’s run for the Senate. There are photos of them posing chummily together, grinning. Then Clinton voted for the war in Iraq and it all went downhill. During the last election, Sarandon supported Bernie Sanders, then wouldn’t support Clinton after she won the nomination, and now all the moderates hate her, to the extent, she says, that she had to change her phone number because people she identifies as Hillary trolls sent her threatening messages. “I got from Hillary people ‘I hope your crotch is grabbed’, ‘I hope you’re raped’. Misogynistic attacks. Recently, I said ‘I stand with Dreamers’ [children brought illegally to the US, whose path to legal citizenship – an Obama-era provision – Trump has threatened to revoke] and that started another wave.”

Wait, from the right?

“No, from the left! ‘How dare you! You who are responsible for this!’”

I ask if she’s aware that Katha Pollitt recently called her an idiot in the New York Review of Books and she looks momentarily taken aback. “I’m flattered,” she says. These people are furious with you, I say.

“Well, that’s why we’re going to lose again if we depend on the DNC [the Democratic National Committee]. Because the amount of denial ... I mean it’s very flattering to think that I, on my own, cost the election. That my little voice was the deciding factor.”

Is it upsetting to be attacked?

“It’s upsetting to me more from the point of view of thinking they haven’t learned. I don’t need to be vindicated.”

But it’s upsetting that they’re still feeding the same misinformation to people. When Obama got the nomination, 25% of [Hillary’s] people didn’t vote for him. 

Only 12% of Bernie’s people didn’t vote for her.”

But she didn’t advocate voting for Hillary! Come on.

“Hmm?”

Didn’t she advocate voting for Jill Stein?

“I didn’t advocate people voting for anything. I said get your information, I’m going to vote for change, because I was hoping that Stein was going to get whatever percentage she needed – but I knew she wasn’t going to make the difference in the election.”

Sarandon with Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Witches of Eastwick, 1987. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/WARNER BROS

Does she have any sympathy with the critique that casting a protest vote is the luxury of those insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency? “It wasn’t a protest vote. Following Bernie wasn’t a protest.” Voting for Jill Stein was, by any definition, a protest vote. “Well, I knew that New York was going to go [for Hillary]. It was probably the easiest place to vote for Stein. Bringing attention to working-class issues is not a luxury. People are really hurting; that’s how this guy got in. What we should be discussing is not the election, but how we got to the point where Trump was the answer.” (We should also, she says, inching towards the space where the extreme right meets the left, be discussing how “you can’t judge by the mainstream media what’s going on in the country. How did we lose all our journalists and media?”)

Has she lost friends over all this? “No. My friends have a right to their opinions. It’s disappointing but that’s their business. It’s like in the lead-up to Vietnam, and then later they say: ‘You were right.’ Or strangely, some of my gay friends were like: ‘Oh, I just feel bad for [Clinton]. And I said: ‘She’s not authentic. She’s been terrible to gay people for the longest time. She’s an opportunist.’ And then I’m like: ‘OK, let’s not talk about it any more.’”

Still, I think while there was vast political error on both sides, the inability of Sarandon and her ilk to embrace the lesser of two evils permitted the greater of the two evils to rise. And yet I like Sarandon. It takes real courage to go against the mob. Her inconsistencies are a little wild, but in the age of social-media enforced conformity, I have never met anyone so uninterested in toeing the line.

Did she really say that Hillary was more dangerous than Trump?

“Not exactly, but I don’t mind that quote,” she says. “I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother. Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice.”

It seems absurd to argue that healthcare, childcare, taxation for the non-rich wouldn’t be better now under President Clinton, and that’s before we get to the threat of deportation hanging over millions of immigrants. “She would’ve done it the way Obama did it,” says Sarandon, “which was sneakily. He deported more people than have been deported now. How he got the Nobel peace prize I don’t know. I think it was very important to have a black family in the White House and I think some of the stuff he did was good. He tried really hard about healthcare. But he didn’t go all the way because of big pharma.”

It’s tempting to read some of Sarandon’s fervour as a reaction against her own family’s Republicanism – during the Bush years, her now 94-year old-mother was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly, and encouraged to speculate on where she went wrong with her daughter. (Sarandon’s mother would probably have voted for Trump, she says, but “I don’t think she got out to vote.” She smiles. “We didn’t facilitate that.”)

All of which makes the actor’s position on feminism more puzzling. Sarandon is close to her three children – Eva Amurri, whom she had with the Italian film-maker Franco Amurri, and Miles and Jack, her two sons with her former partner of 23 years, Tim Robbins, with whom she is reportedly on good terms. It was her daughter, Eva, who as a teenager didn’t like the word feminism, says Sarandon, because “it seemed redundant to have to say you were a feminist”.

But it wasn’t.

“No, but she grew up in a house where she had a mother who earned her own money and was powerful and she’s in a progressive city, with other progressive kids – she wasn’t even exposed to the more Republican part of Manhattan. So she was in a progressive bubble. I think the secret is maybe now we have to just say no one is going to fix it for you. It’s up to you to fix it. You have the strength. You shouldn’t turn to be validated by anyone, male or female. You carry your power within you, and if you surround yourself with people who respect you, that will happen, be they male or female.” It is a strange statement from someone who believes that structural inequality requires political solutions. Earlier, she makes the point that Clinton’s refusal to back the $15 minimum wage, “tells you she’s not a feminist, when 50% of the households in America are headed by women.” Clinton espoused a $12 minimum wage, with scope to raise it to $15 in metropolitan centres, but that’s not the point. The point is self-validation doesn’t pay the rent.)

After the interview, we leave the club and walk towards the subway. “What was her name?” she says. “In the magazine?”

“Katha Pollitt,” I say. We part at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sarandon disappears up the street, dog under one arm, hat pulled low, assistant at her elbow. “Will I get a load more hatred when this article comes out?” she shouts, looking back over her shoulder.

“Probably,” I say. I have a hunch she can take it.

Feud: Bette and Joan starts on BBC Two on Saturday 16 December at 9pm. The full series will be available on BBC iPlayer from 10.45pm that evening. 

• This article was amended on 27 November 2017. Jill Stein was the Green party presidential nominee, not an independent.

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/26/susan-sarandon-i-thought-hillary-was-very-dangerous-if-shed-won-wed-be-at-war