There are lots of Americans who are long-term unemployed, under employed, and looking to change. These are people who neatly fall through the cracks of the official unemployment numbers. Foreign workers fill many low skilled, marginally paid positions. How about moving some of these people from New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, Fort Worth, and even rural communities into these jobs. If the infrastructure is there for immigrants, it should also be there for American workers. . The recruiting efforts aren't there though.
There are men and women who fall through the cracks and are stuck in places with no way out. Overall in the US, our problem is NOT a shortage of labor, it is positioning the less skilled labor where it is needed or training Americans to fill skilled jobs.
On the seasonal labor both in the resort business and in the agriculture business, how much of the actual pay is actually kept by the worker and how much is retained by the employer in room and board? The bottom line is the real cost of these employees is notably less than the cost of hiring US workers at the same stated wages.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Donald Trump
Boy do we have a candidate here.
Is he unpolished? Yes.
Is he lacking couth? Yes
Is he unqualified to President of the United States? Good question.
What are the qualifications to be President? First you have to look at BOTH realms of the presidency; Chief of Government and Chief of State.
Chief of State is how he represents our citizens on the world scene and to a lesser degree here at home. How well we he would meet and deal with foreign governments and how will he be a cheerleader and encourager to we here at home.
Obviously Mrs. Clinton has more experience here, but how many bridges has she (or her husband) burned or damaged along the way. Obviously in the very short run, she holds advantage here. With the exception of George H.W Bush, all of our recent presidents have had little or no foreign policy experience. Secretary Clinton does not seem really likeable. I am not sure she plays well in Berlin, Beirut, Beijing, or even Broad Street (London).
The worldview of Chief of State can be summed up in one way. How do we view Vladimir Putin? Putin is not the most savory of characters, we (in the US) would prefer someone else be the Russian President, but his persona / and personal life seem to mean little in the overall view of the world in relation to Mr. Putin. We have to ask if the unsavory persona of Mr. Trump is any worse.
How they play here at home is a different issue. Trump has blown every PC rule there is to be had. He could be the veiled reviled persona on Law and Order SVU. He is NOT a 21st Century gentleman. If that by itself is disqualifying then so be it. Myself I feel like he is a coarse, BUT we are in a society where the words he used are pretty common. I hear all of these folks saying this isn't locker room talk but it was 30 years ago. It wasn't every guy, but there were a handful who talked the same smack. Richard Pryor didn't come up with his comedy all by himself. It was refining and condensing all the stuff he had heard over the years. Trump likewise. Billy Bush said he "Played ALONG". Even if it were tasteless, it was not so offensive to him that he called Trump's hand or just stood awkwardly silently. The reason it isn't locker room talk today is because there are women in the locker rooms (like it or not.). I can assure you in an industrial building I have heard Lady in The House, Lady on Deck, or some other variant that meant watch what you were saying..IE clean it up. It wasn't because they needed to comb their hair or adjust their posture. Back when you had all male workplaces or gatherings, you heard this for some it was uncomfortable and we ignored it. Sometimes we said to stop it especially when directed against a particular woman. Others joined in the up roar and it often became a contest of whom could be the most unchaste. There are still people that are just as egregious in this in 2016 as in 1985.
Secretary Clinton on the other hand is not the most camera friendly person either. She either frowns or puts an insincere smile that looks forced and uncomfortable She has overlooked her husband's indiscretions as have many men and women since the beginning of time. Whether she chooses to overlook his shortcomings for his positives, or if she is just a chump you have to decide. Marriage is more than just sex. She has apparently chosen other aspects to focus on.
So which one makes a better world leader? The jury is out.
Next post on the Chief of Government.
Is he unpolished? Yes.
Is he lacking couth? Yes
Is he unqualified to President of the United States? Good question.
What are the qualifications to be President? First you have to look at BOTH realms of the presidency; Chief of Government and Chief of State.
Chief of State is how he represents our citizens on the world scene and to a lesser degree here at home. How well we he would meet and deal with foreign governments and how will he be a cheerleader and encourager to we here at home.
Obviously Mrs. Clinton has more experience here, but how many bridges has she (or her husband) burned or damaged along the way. Obviously in the very short run, she holds advantage here. With the exception of George H.W Bush, all of our recent presidents have had little or no foreign policy experience. Secretary Clinton does not seem really likeable. I am not sure she plays well in Berlin, Beirut, Beijing, or even Broad Street (London).
The worldview of Chief of State can be summed up in one way. How do we view Vladimir Putin? Putin is not the most savory of characters, we (in the US) would prefer someone else be the Russian President, but his persona / and personal life seem to mean little in the overall view of the world in relation to Mr. Putin. We have to ask if the unsavory persona of Mr. Trump is any worse.
How they play here at home is a different issue. Trump has blown every PC rule there is to be had. He could be the veiled reviled persona on Law and Order SVU. He is NOT a 21st Century gentleman. If that by itself is disqualifying then so be it. Myself I feel like he is a coarse, BUT we are in a society where the words he used are pretty common. I hear all of these folks saying this isn't locker room talk but it was 30 years ago. It wasn't every guy, but there were a handful who talked the same smack. Richard Pryor didn't come up with his comedy all by himself. It was refining and condensing all the stuff he had heard over the years. Trump likewise. Billy Bush said he "Played ALONG". Even if it were tasteless, it was not so offensive to him that he called Trump's hand or just stood awkwardly silently. The reason it isn't locker room talk today is because there are women in the locker rooms (like it or not.). I can assure you in an industrial building I have heard Lady in The House, Lady on Deck, or some other variant that meant watch what you were saying..IE clean it up. It wasn't because they needed to comb their hair or adjust their posture. Back when you had all male workplaces or gatherings, you heard this for some it was uncomfortable and we ignored it. Sometimes we said to stop it especially when directed against a particular woman. Others joined in the up roar and it often became a contest of whom could be the most unchaste. There are still people that are just as egregious in this in 2016 as in 1985.
Secretary Clinton on the other hand is not the most camera friendly person either. She either frowns or puts an insincere smile that looks forced and uncomfortable She has overlooked her husband's indiscretions as have many men and women since the beginning of time. Whether she chooses to overlook his shortcomings for his positives, or if she is just a chump you have to decide. Marriage is more than just sex. She has apparently chosen other aspects to focus on.
So which one makes a better world leader? The jury is out.
Next post on the Chief of Government.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Trumps win?
It has been a while. Nobody was reading, so I just quit.
Donald Trump. What kind of President do I think he will make? What is his experience level? The same as everybody else in the group that began the run last year EXCEPT perhaps Mrs Clinton. Who actually has ANY experience that is comparable to being president of the USA? Mrs Clinton MIGHT have had enough experience watching while her husband was president and the additional experience of being Secretary of State to say she understands the scope of the job, but being in congress certainly doesn't prepare one to actually be president. Being an attorney doesn't either. Even running a business falls short.
So really all we can do is try to get an idea of the candidates character, their ability to learn new things, and their ability to adapt on the fly. Here is the problem with that. Every candidate is an actor playing a very carefully scripted role. Some (such as Senator Rubio) are completely thrown when the script is compromised or thwarted. Others just resort to repeating the same stale rants over and over when they are knocked off message. Trump seems to do neither. He seems to ramble around and just says what is on his mind. This is really attractive to many. It signals that he is not part of the machine we call government. That he is independent and thinks for himself.
Independence is not generally well regarded in check the box politics. There are conservative Americans who vote Democratic almost solely based on their support of abortion rights. Likewise some are equally entrenched with the Republicans solely over the fight against abortion. So solely on these two issues, many decide on who they will vote with. The idea that I / we might agree with someone who does not check the proper box on the issue makes them unacceptable. So how did the Donald get through? He is kinda grey on more than one of the CONSERVATIVE boxes.
I guess the better answer is a movie: a Richard Pryor movie. Brewster's Millions. Where he launches a campaign for mayor of New York (never dreaming he could win.) So basically those who voted for Trump (and even to some extent Bernie Sanders) voted for "NONE OF THE ABOVE"
Donald Trump. What kind of President do I think he will make? What is his experience level? The same as everybody else in the group that began the run last year EXCEPT perhaps Mrs Clinton. Who actually has ANY experience that is comparable to being president of the USA? Mrs Clinton MIGHT have had enough experience watching while her husband was president and the additional experience of being Secretary of State to say she understands the scope of the job, but being in congress certainly doesn't prepare one to actually be president. Being an attorney doesn't either. Even running a business falls short.
So really all we can do is try to get an idea of the candidates character, their ability to learn new things, and their ability to adapt on the fly. Here is the problem with that. Every candidate is an actor playing a very carefully scripted role. Some (such as Senator Rubio) are completely thrown when the script is compromised or thwarted. Others just resort to repeating the same stale rants over and over when they are knocked off message. Trump seems to do neither. He seems to ramble around and just says what is on his mind. This is really attractive to many. It signals that he is not part of the machine we call government. That he is independent and thinks for himself.
Independence is not generally well regarded in check the box politics. There are conservative Americans who vote Democratic almost solely based on their support of abortion rights. Likewise some are equally entrenched with the Republicans solely over the fight against abortion. So solely on these two issues, many decide on who they will vote with. The idea that I / we might agree with someone who does not check the proper box on the issue makes them unacceptable. So how did the Donald get through? He is kinda grey on more than one of the CONSERVATIVE boxes.
I guess the better answer is a movie: a Richard Pryor movie. Brewster's Millions. Where he launches a campaign for mayor of New York (never dreaming he could win.) So basically those who voted for Trump (and even to some extent Bernie Sanders) voted for "NONE OF THE ABOVE"
Monday, November 4, 2013
The death penalty
I am a good ole boy from Texas. I'm for it. This said, as we apply it, is it really effective either as a deterrent or as a fiscal tool of government. There was a time, when those convicted of a capital crime were literally taken out back and hanged. Today it is at least five years after the crime when the execution is carried out. That is the at least when the convicted minimally opposes the punishment. On average, it is 14years after the conviction when the execution is handled.
What happens is there is no direct correlation between the crime and punishment. First there is the likelihood that they will NEVER be executed. Then there is the fact that a capital sentence has AUTOMATIC appeals. To the young, already criminally minded would-be murderers, it reads like this. I might be executed fifteen years or so from now. I might get killed on the street. Jail is generally considered a possibility. Everyone on the streets knows someone who has been to the joint. Usually murders have already been down that avenue.
Life without parole or visitors is less expensive, more punitive, and likely more corrective. Is it cruel? No more cruel than execution and absent the incessant appeals much more cost effective.
What happens is there is no direct correlation between the crime and punishment. First there is the likelihood that they will NEVER be executed. Then there is the fact that a capital sentence has AUTOMATIC appeals. To the young, already criminally minded would-be murderers, it reads like this. I might be executed fifteen years or so from now. I might get killed on the street. Jail is generally considered a possibility. Everyone on the streets knows someone who has been to the joint. Usually murders have already been down that avenue.
Life without parole or visitors is less expensive, more punitive, and likely more corrective. Is it cruel? No more cruel than execution and absent the incessant appeals much more cost effective.
My mother died on October 27th two years ago. On the night of the 29th, we had the visitation at the funeral
home. My wife, and younger two kids (ages 28 & 29) and I went to
eat with friends after the visitation. When we got home,one of my brothers, and his kids and some of their friends were having a
drunken party. I will talk about the living arrangements later in
the narrative. My niece was drunk and God knows what else from a
combination of Tequila and Xanax. a seventeen-year-old, his girlfriend
(age 16) and his friend (age 17) were drunk too. There
were probably 15 or so teens and adults outside and it would appear
that all of them were well on the way to plastered. Me and mine were
not in the mood to party and weren't. As far as that goes, I am not
one to drink to that level at all. My wife and our kids were in our bedroom with the door closed.
As we were coming in, the 22-year old niece asked if she and her husband could sleep in one of the rooms. one of my sons answered it was OK if she slept in "MY ROOM" just remember no dogs on the carpet. We had been in our bedroom for a couple of minutes and someone kicked the door in. It was the niece's husband. He grabbed one of my sons by the neck and attempted to crush his larynx. He then proceeded to crush his eyeglasses as he continued his assault. I had been laying across the bed. I stood up and he blacked my eye and split my brow open. All I had done was stand up. My other brother and some friends of his were in the living room and came and broke up the brouhaha. I did not see the end of it as the commotion had woke my dad up and I was trying to get him to back to bed. At some point after we were all separate, The nieces husband calmly told my wife that he would come in and slit our throats while we slept.
I get dad back to bed and am sitting in the living room , one of the friends was trying to stop my bleeding. The brother who was a parent to the niece bursts in the front door and is out of control. He comes running toward me still seated screaming (curses omitted) that this was not your house as long as "MY DADDY IS STILL ALIVE!" He is standing in my face screaming as I am retreating. As I am backed up against the wall, my son tries to get him off of me. My brother starts the fisticuffs. Someone from the group outside tackled me into the kitchen. The tackle injured my knee. I will be undergoing surgery to correct it in the next few weeks. After my son was out of my brothers grasp, the brother was bellowing threats about us ganging up on my niece's husband. I called 911 which incited him even more. He was between my group and the front door and my niece's husband was guarding the back door. My niece had sent my niece's husband to get (kill?) us because we suggested there were rules. When my niece's husband could not complete it, she told her dad (my brother)that we had ganged up on her husband and had taken over the house as our own. Someone finally corralled him and we were able to leave. We called the non-emergency TCSO # twice on the way to our other son's house in Mount Pleasant. At some point the officer called and told us "THAT he wasn't coming to arrest us." We were attacked and held by a bunch of drug fueled thugs and WE WEREN'T going to jail! We moved out the next day after the funeral.
Now the background and history: My wife and I had moved in with my parents to help. Mom was bad off, perhaps dying. Dad was at best old. They needed help staying in their house. My niece had moved out in about May. In June, I started to clean up and repair the house for us to move in. It looked like a house from the series HOARDERS. I spent thousands of dollars and over a month of full-time work getting it in order. Actually it was just half of the house. The half that My niece fouled.
My niece was FURIOUS with me over the repairs I did in "HER ROOM" (and to a lesser extent the whole house). You can ask anyone except her. From her room alone, 2+ dishwasher loads of dishes with caked, rotten, and mildewed food and beverage. Dog feces, putrid odor, TOXIC..... UNINHABITABLE. Trash and debris was 6 to 8" deep. The top drawer of the dresser had been converted to a gerbil habitat and never cleaned or even dumped. All of this in addition to THOUSANDS of spent cigarette butts in ashtrays, dishes, lying on the furniture, and just in the floor. The mattress had been turned over because it was soaked with blood. Looked like lambs had been slaughtered on it. The paint was scraped, missing, drywall was broken, and otherwise needed replacement. There were some childhood sayings and painted on memorabilia on the walls, but the overall condition of the room prohibited saving them. The ceiling was a yellow brown color from too many cigarettes and .... I bagged up five or six lawn and leaf bags of trash and bundled the rest of it in the carpet. The carpet was only five years old, but was soaked through with dog feces, dog urine, spilled food and beverage, and just general filth. I wasn't even able to save the carpet pad. The hall and living room were in similar condition. I did re-carpet all of the bedrooms on that side of the house, but the carpet in the others was about 20-years old. It took a whole 5-gallon can of oil based primer to cover the royal blue walls and smoke inundated ceiling in that one approximately 12 x 12 room and a closet. i finished the walls with a pastel green, brilliant white ceiling paint, a deep green trim paint, and appropriate window coverings.
Timeline:
1991: Mom and dad build a new house after the old one burned. Mom and Dad retire
1993: My Brother and his wife divorce My niece winds up in Mom & Dad's Custody.
1996: My wife gets sick. My wife and the kids move in in an emergency. I live in travel trailer. My brother stoned on meth hits my 12-year old and starts a fight with me. We call 911. My brother climbs a tree. He is not arrested or charged. My wife, three kids, and I live in a 8-28' Travel trailer for 7 months.
1996: My brother moves back in with girlfriend in tow. Both are methamphetamine addicts. It was rough.
2001: My brother moves out with girlfriend. They break up after a few months out of Mom and Dad's house.
2001-2004 : My brother back in with a revolving door of drug addict girlfriends.(My brother's room still was not half as bad as My niece's.)
2005: Dad buys My niece a new car
2006: My niece changes high schools because she is "embarrassed" by her dad's legacy. (not the "official" reason, I wonder now if it were even the REAL reason.)
2007:My niece goes to school at A&M Galveston. Car is so ragged out that she is not able to drive it home. Mechanically the car was sound, but the body and glass was beat to death. It was absolute abuse. At least once, I can verify that she did doughnuts in a cornfield. A boy she dated implied that this was normal for her. Car and Laptop were confiscated in a drug bust. She was initially charged with Manufacture with intent to distribute a controlled substance. She is adamant that she had a plea deal to lower that to a simple possession charge, but last I heard the computer still shows the felony. The car was released seemingly because it had insignificant worth and it was not My niece's in title. I don't know the rest of the story, but it was never driven after it got home and Mother WOULD NOT file an insurance claim. It was clearly totaled. Eventually it was repossessed.
2008: My niece met her husband and moved him in Mother and dad's house. At first she worked like a trooper. He never really ever worked. She went through jobs and had attendance issues and eventually could not find a job in or around Titus County. Somewhere in this general time frame, Mom and Dad's money problems collapsed on them. It appears they had been financing My niece's lifestyle and perhaps My brother's legal problems with credit cards for years. My more responsible brother and I began what wound up being ongoing support for the rest of Mom's life. He may have been ponying up for a longer time. My niece and her husband were back and forth between my parents' house and her mother's near Lufkin. They got married sometime about 2009
2010: Mom's medical problems begin in the fall. My niece and her husband are back and forth between Lufkin and my parents' house. During 2009 or 2010, my niece's husband had a disagreement with a guy and this guy supposedly pistol whipped him. The one thing I know is that this guy treated my dad well, helped him with things that went far beyond the shares he owed for dad allowing him to cultivate watermelons on dad's place. My guess is that this guy accused My niece and her husband of being leeches taking advantage of my parents. Then it was on.
2011: Mom's medical problems escalate. Money outlay for my brother and I increase. We are paying for prescriptions , but honestly, it is not a significant part of their shortfall. They have Cadillac prescription drug insurance and excellent co-insurance for the medical care. The reality is we were giving them money every month that far outstripped the total of their drug bills.
May 2011: My niece and her husband move back to Lufkin even though her mom has relocated to near Daingerfield. My niece's husband had a job and they are planning on staying. My wife and I had been looking for a place to move into in Titus County, but really weren't having luck. My wife took a job at Titus Regional. I wasn't working. After clear assurances that they WERE NOT coming back, I started the quest to move us in out there.
July 2011: We moved in. Not long after that, My niece calls in the late evening because her husband had been arrested in or around Angelina County. It appears that her husband had broke the other guy's arm and perhaps more. They finally let her husband out with no charges because the other guy feared pressing charges because he was afraid of being charged himself. Evidently this was one of their housemates. My niece came home and we relented and let her stay for a couple of days until they could find a new place down there. There were three new rules. Mom and dad supported us in them. No dogs on the carpet, No smoking in the house, and NO food in the bedrooms. She was so upset by the no dogs in the bedroom that she convinced mom and dad to let her bring the dog into their bedroom (which had generally been a no-no since the beginning) and she could sleep on the floor. She would smoke in the bathroom and think she got away with it.
My niece railed about the room. She hated that we had not left it as it was. She was argumentative about it. She was loud and obnoxious about it. She made veiled threats toward my Mother-in-law who now occupied the room. her husband stayed in Lufkin and actually continued to live with the people as before including the guy whose arm he broke. It appears that even after the fight that My niece was the one who was not welcome. If you crossed My niece and her husband was around, she would snap her fingers point and say his name sharply and he was to jump to. She never ever turned a light off. One evening mom was in the hospital in Tyler. My mother in law was in the Hospital in Mount Pleasant. Every light and all four televisions were on and NO ONE was home. One day I was there working on the computer. Twice she came out of the pantry room and left the light on. Twice I asked her politely to turn the light off as she closed the door. The third time, I wasn't so polite. She demanded of me to say please. I said no, I had asked politely enough (twice in less than an hour.) She sicked her husband on me. her husband came and demanded I be respectful to "HIS WIFE" I explained calmly why I had said what I said. He agreed that the lights never got turned off. Man she was miffed that he didn't kick my butt as she had demanded. This appears to be a recurring theme with her. She gets mad and had her husband do her dirty work.
October 27, 2011: Mother dies. My niece screams (an understatement) at all of us for watching the World Series. She is beside herself. Then when one of her friends calls and says she has had a baby she is giddy. What was good for the Ganders certainly was not applicable to the Goose.
October 28, 2011: My niece is on me all day. I wind up in the ER with my BP about thirty points above its normally high level.
October 29, 2011: Visitation and the war.
October 30, 2011 My wife kids and I sit on the third row at the funeral. We load our stuff into a U-haul.
October 31, 2011: we try to make sense of it. Everyone except My niece agrees we need to try to stay there with dad. My niece looses her cool and calls My wife "That Bitch" simply because she asks her hard questions. It is obvious that we cannot stay. Even if My wife and I could, Her mom was too fragile for us to take the chance that My niece might follow through on the veiled threats while we were not there.
WE WERE TERRIFIED. I slept at Dad's for most of the week with a shotgun beside my bed and the bedroom door and the window booby trapped. He had just lost my mom. Regardless of what I felt he didn't deserve for me to desert him. My wife stayed in town with our adult son. The next week was a travesty. My wife couldn't work. She quit to keep from getting fired. So it cost us our home. It cost us her job. We had to cash in on her 401(k)to afford to move. After that first week, I came over only after I called and assured there was no conflict. I really didn't come around much. I came over the first of December and paid his bills. I was surprised how much money was left after we had them paid. By the tenth, he had given every penny except the amount I had told him was going to be recovered by OPM for Mom's check after she died to either My brother or My niece. Giving is a relative term. My niece took the card and spent like it was her own money. A few days later she told her dad that I had failed to pay two bills. One was paid in full on a bill that was available online the day I paid them. The other one was not available yet and there was no money when it came out mid-month. (I had paid it out of my funds the previous month [IN NOVEMBER WHEN WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF MOVING].)
The first of January came. My niece had already spent a couple hundred dollars on Saturday before dad even knew that he had money. I went out to dads on New Year's afternoon to do the bills. My wife left me there on foot and left to run an errand for our son (who lived in Greenville). I was in the process of paying the bills when My niece and her friend came in. I asked My niece about one of the bills she had set up to pay herself (are you sure you have the money? I can pay it with dad's money) She became belligerent. She informed me she was leaving. Still seated, I said" One more thing... Don't tell someone I am not paying dad's bills right when I am." She got really belligerent. I admit. I did not take it well. She screamed at me that I was not going to tell her what she could and couldn't say in HER HOUSE (Emphasis HERS). I let loose. I said things about her that I had held my tongue previously about her personal life that I am not going to get into here. Suffice to say, she has baggage. If need be, I will enumerate it at a later time. She put her hand in my mouth to shut me up. I slapped at her and hit at worst a glancing blow. She said AND I QUOTE "YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL... MOTHERFUCKER!" I shoved her back out of my face. Yeah, I shoved her hard. I am going to jail for slapping at her and she can create me all the problems she has in the past six months and I cannot even get the sheriff's office to give the time of day when they beat us up, threaten us, and run us out of the county. Run me away from taking care of my dad...... Something is wrong with this picture.
She has taken all my parents have to offer. She rewarded herself by spending $75.00 on January 2nd at a tattoo shop in Pittsburg on Dad's card. She said it was a Bra. So either she got a piercing, a small tattoo, or a sexy lingerie item when she was so grievously injured the day before. That whole injury was drama. She got in her car drove away and came back ten minutes or so later and called the sheriffs office from the front yard. The whole idea of the ER visit may have been to get more Vicodin. Since mom was dead, the supply in the house was much tighter. The hospice complained that the Hydrocodone was going way too fast. I really don't think mom was taking anything near that much. Several times they had me search for bottles of it they could not find and they would mysteriously find it after My wife and i were in the other room discussing that My niece must have taken it. It never seemed like they actually found it, just more aptly tried to hide the fact it was gone.
I should have just let her have her way and walked away. It would be about the same as it is now. I haven't seen my dad since that day. I have called him once. It is just way too stressful. My brother is doing dad's bills. I actually enjoyed doing it. Trying to give back part of what he and mom did for us when My wife was her sickest. For him, it is a responsibility he will take because he has to. Not saying he begrudges it, but he doesn't enjoy getting to do it like I did. I am in counseling. The anger book says I am a 2 out of 5 on the anger scale. I may have anger issues on occasion. I wonder if anyone is a 1?
My niece's behavior is clearly elder abuse. While dad will be adamant that he "gave My niece the money" he as a rule never had a clue how much she spent or what she spent it on. I will agree that dad has never been hungry or had the lights cut off. He has had my brother or I pick up the slack after she uses up all he has on hand. He tells me it is better since January. Perhaps because she actually doesn't believe she has her bluff in on her uncle. I have rambled on. The bottom line is that I need this to go away. I have done everything I promised The judge Judge (I have not returned to Titus county, I drove through to get to Greenville once.)
The day I was arrested, my argument was the inequality of what happened to us and there was absolutely NOTHING done. In fact it was implied that it was our fault and we were lucky that we weren't going to jail. The only thing we were guilty of was telling a bunch of drug fueled drunks that there were rules and using a characterization of which room was which that they didn't like. We did defend ourselves when attacked. SO the TCSO never heard this story. We were not invited to share it. Fact of business it felt like "let it lie or you WILL go to jail". It was bad enough before my wife had a roll-over wreck. After that, I was beside myself.
I know this all sounds like a lot of excuses. To some extent it is. On the other hand, if you want to explore it ask her mother my other brother, perhaps even her own dad . The others at our house the night before the funeral. Ask the neighbors about the scorched earth My niece and her husband created. I was wrong to shove her, but I was not wrong to defend my dad from her abuse, exploitation, and neglect. Yeah, it made me angry when she said she could continue just as if nothing had happened and it made me even angrier when she was gonna send me to jail and I seemingly couldn't even get the time of day from the TCSO.
As we were coming in, the 22-year old niece asked if she and her husband could sleep in one of the rooms. one of my sons answered it was OK if she slept in "MY ROOM" just remember no dogs on the carpet. We had been in our bedroom for a couple of minutes and someone kicked the door in. It was the niece's husband. He grabbed one of my sons by the neck and attempted to crush his larynx. He then proceeded to crush his eyeglasses as he continued his assault. I had been laying across the bed. I stood up and he blacked my eye and split my brow open. All I had done was stand up. My other brother and some friends of his were in the living room and came and broke up the brouhaha. I did not see the end of it as the commotion had woke my dad up and I was trying to get him to back to bed. At some point after we were all separate, The nieces husband calmly told my wife that he would come in and slit our throats while we slept.
I get dad back to bed and am sitting in the living room , one of the friends was trying to stop my bleeding. The brother who was a parent to the niece bursts in the front door and is out of control. He comes running toward me still seated screaming (curses omitted) that this was not your house as long as "MY DADDY IS STILL ALIVE!" He is standing in my face screaming as I am retreating. As I am backed up against the wall, my son tries to get him off of me. My brother starts the fisticuffs. Someone from the group outside tackled me into the kitchen. The tackle injured my knee. I will be undergoing surgery to correct it in the next few weeks. After my son was out of my brothers grasp, the brother was bellowing threats about us ganging up on my niece's husband. I called 911 which incited him even more. He was between my group and the front door and my niece's husband was guarding the back door. My niece had sent my niece's husband to get (kill?) us because we suggested there were rules. When my niece's husband could not complete it, she told her dad (my brother)that we had ganged up on her husband and had taken over the house as our own. Someone finally corralled him and we were able to leave. We called the non-emergency TCSO # twice on the way to our other son's house in Mount Pleasant. At some point the officer called and told us "THAT he wasn't coming to arrest us." We were attacked and held by a bunch of drug fueled thugs and WE WEREN'T going to jail! We moved out the next day after the funeral.
Now the background and history: My wife and I had moved in with my parents to help. Mom was bad off, perhaps dying. Dad was at best old. They needed help staying in their house. My niece had moved out in about May. In June, I started to clean up and repair the house for us to move in. It looked like a house from the series HOARDERS. I spent thousands of dollars and over a month of full-time work getting it in order. Actually it was just half of the house. The half that My niece fouled.
My niece was FURIOUS with me over the repairs I did in "HER ROOM" (and to a lesser extent the whole house). You can ask anyone except her. From her room alone, 2+ dishwasher loads of dishes with caked, rotten, and mildewed food and beverage. Dog feces, putrid odor, TOXIC..... UNINHABITABLE. Trash and debris was 6 to 8" deep. The top drawer of the dresser had been converted to a gerbil habitat and never cleaned or even dumped. All of this in addition to THOUSANDS of spent cigarette butts in ashtrays, dishes, lying on the furniture, and just in the floor. The mattress had been turned over because it was soaked with blood. Looked like lambs had been slaughtered on it. The paint was scraped, missing, drywall was broken, and otherwise needed replacement. There were some childhood sayings and painted on memorabilia on the walls, but the overall condition of the room prohibited saving them. The ceiling was a yellow brown color from too many cigarettes and .... I bagged up five or six lawn and leaf bags of trash and bundled the rest of it in the carpet. The carpet was only five years old, but was soaked through with dog feces, dog urine, spilled food and beverage, and just general filth. I wasn't even able to save the carpet pad. The hall and living room were in similar condition. I did re-carpet all of the bedrooms on that side of the house, but the carpet in the others was about 20-years old. It took a whole 5-gallon can of oil based primer to cover the royal blue walls and smoke inundated ceiling in that one approximately 12 x 12 room and a closet. i finished the walls with a pastel green, brilliant white ceiling paint, a deep green trim paint, and appropriate window coverings.
Timeline:
1991: Mom and dad build a new house after the old one burned. Mom and Dad retire
1993: My Brother and his wife divorce My niece winds up in Mom & Dad's Custody.
1996: My wife gets sick. My wife and the kids move in in an emergency. I live in travel trailer. My brother stoned on meth hits my 12-year old and starts a fight with me. We call 911. My brother climbs a tree. He is not arrested or charged. My wife, three kids, and I live in a 8-28' Travel trailer for 7 months.
1996: My brother moves back in with girlfriend in tow. Both are methamphetamine addicts. It was rough.
2001: My brother moves out with girlfriend. They break up after a few months out of Mom and Dad's house.
2001-2004 : My brother back in with a revolving door of drug addict girlfriends.(My brother's room still was not half as bad as My niece's.)
2005: Dad buys My niece a new car
2006: My niece changes high schools because she is "embarrassed" by her dad's legacy. (not the "official" reason, I wonder now if it were even the REAL reason.)
2007:My niece goes to school at A&M Galveston. Car is so ragged out that she is not able to drive it home. Mechanically the car was sound, but the body and glass was beat to death. It was absolute abuse. At least once, I can verify that she did doughnuts in a cornfield. A boy she dated implied that this was normal for her. Car and Laptop were confiscated in a drug bust. She was initially charged with Manufacture with intent to distribute a controlled substance. She is adamant that she had a plea deal to lower that to a simple possession charge, but last I heard the computer still shows the felony. The car was released seemingly because it had insignificant worth and it was not My niece's in title. I don't know the rest of the story, but it was never driven after it got home and Mother WOULD NOT file an insurance claim. It was clearly totaled. Eventually it was repossessed.
2008: My niece met her husband and moved him in Mother and dad's house. At first she worked like a trooper. He never really ever worked. She went through jobs and had attendance issues and eventually could not find a job in or around Titus County. Somewhere in this general time frame, Mom and Dad's money problems collapsed on them. It appears they had been financing My niece's lifestyle and perhaps My brother's legal problems with credit cards for years. My more responsible brother and I began what wound up being ongoing support for the rest of Mom's life. He may have been ponying up for a longer time. My niece and her husband were back and forth between my parents' house and her mother's near Lufkin. They got married sometime about 2009
2010: Mom's medical problems begin in the fall. My niece and her husband are back and forth between Lufkin and my parents' house. During 2009 or 2010, my niece's husband had a disagreement with a guy and this guy supposedly pistol whipped him. The one thing I know is that this guy treated my dad well, helped him with things that went far beyond the shares he owed for dad allowing him to cultivate watermelons on dad's place. My guess is that this guy accused My niece and her husband of being leeches taking advantage of my parents. Then it was on.
2011: Mom's medical problems escalate. Money outlay for my brother and I increase. We are paying for prescriptions , but honestly, it is not a significant part of their shortfall. They have Cadillac prescription drug insurance and excellent co-insurance for the medical care. The reality is we were giving them money every month that far outstripped the total of their drug bills.
May 2011: My niece and her husband move back to Lufkin even though her mom has relocated to near Daingerfield. My niece's husband had a job and they are planning on staying. My wife and I had been looking for a place to move into in Titus County, but really weren't having luck. My wife took a job at Titus Regional. I wasn't working. After clear assurances that they WERE NOT coming back, I started the quest to move us in out there.
July 2011: We moved in. Not long after that, My niece calls in the late evening because her husband had been arrested in or around Angelina County. It appears that her husband had broke the other guy's arm and perhaps more. They finally let her husband out with no charges because the other guy feared pressing charges because he was afraid of being charged himself. Evidently this was one of their housemates. My niece came home and we relented and let her stay for a couple of days until they could find a new place down there. There were three new rules. Mom and dad supported us in them. No dogs on the carpet, No smoking in the house, and NO food in the bedrooms. She was so upset by the no dogs in the bedroom that she convinced mom and dad to let her bring the dog into their bedroom (which had generally been a no-no since the beginning) and she could sleep on the floor. She would smoke in the bathroom and think she got away with it.
My niece railed about the room. She hated that we had not left it as it was. She was argumentative about it. She was loud and obnoxious about it. She made veiled threats toward my Mother-in-law who now occupied the room. her husband stayed in Lufkin and actually continued to live with the people as before including the guy whose arm he broke. It appears that even after the fight that My niece was the one who was not welcome. If you crossed My niece and her husband was around, she would snap her fingers point and say his name sharply and he was to jump to. She never ever turned a light off. One evening mom was in the hospital in Tyler. My mother in law was in the Hospital in Mount Pleasant. Every light and all four televisions were on and NO ONE was home. One day I was there working on the computer. Twice she came out of the pantry room and left the light on. Twice I asked her politely to turn the light off as she closed the door. The third time, I wasn't so polite. She demanded of me to say please. I said no, I had asked politely enough (twice in less than an hour.) She sicked her husband on me. her husband came and demanded I be respectful to "HIS WIFE" I explained calmly why I had said what I said. He agreed that the lights never got turned off. Man she was miffed that he didn't kick my butt as she had demanded. This appears to be a recurring theme with her. She gets mad and had her husband do her dirty work.
October 27, 2011: Mother dies. My niece screams (an understatement) at all of us for watching the World Series. She is beside herself. Then when one of her friends calls and says she has had a baby she is giddy. What was good for the Ganders certainly was not applicable to the Goose.
October 28, 2011: My niece is on me all day. I wind up in the ER with my BP about thirty points above its normally high level.
October 29, 2011: Visitation and the war.
October 30, 2011 My wife kids and I sit on the third row at the funeral. We load our stuff into a U-haul.
October 31, 2011: we try to make sense of it. Everyone except My niece agrees we need to try to stay there with dad. My niece looses her cool and calls My wife "That Bitch" simply because she asks her hard questions. It is obvious that we cannot stay. Even if My wife and I could, Her mom was too fragile for us to take the chance that My niece might follow through on the veiled threats while we were not there.
WE WERE TERRIFIED. I slept at Dad's for most of the week with a shotgun beside my bed and the bedroom door and the window booby trapped. He had just lost my mom. Regardless of what I felt he didn't deserve for me to desert him. My wife stayed in town with our adult son. The next week was a travesty. My wife couldn't work. She quit to keep from getting fired. So it cost us our home. It cost us her job. We had to cash in on her 401(k)to afford to move. After that first week, I came over only after I called and assured there was no conflict. I really didn't come around much. I came over the first of December and paid his bills. I was surprised how much money was left after we had them paid. By the tenth, he had given every penny except the amount I had told him was going to be recovered by OPM for Mom's check after she died to either My brother or My niece. Giving is a relative term. My niece took the card and spent like it was her own money. A few days later she told her dad that I had failed to pay two bills. One was paid in full on a bill that was available online the day I paid them. The other one was not available yet and there was no money when it came out mid-month. (I had paid it out of my funds the previous month [IN NOVEMBER WHEN WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF MOVING].)
The first of January came. My niece had already spent a couple hundred dollars on Saturday before dad even knew that he had money. I went out to dads on New Year's afternoon to do the bills. My wife left me there on foot and left to run an errand for our son (who lived in Greenville). I was in the process of paying the bills when My niece and her friend came in. I asked My niece about one of the bills she had set up to pay herself (are you sure you have the money? I can pay it with dad's money) She became belligerent. She informed me she was leaving. Still seated, I said" One more thing... Don't tell someone I am not paying dad's bills right when I am." She got really belligerent. I admit. I did not take it well. She screamed at me that I was not going to tell her what she could and couldn't say in HER HOUSE (Emphasis HERS). I let loose. I said things about her that I had held my tongue previously about her personal life that I am not going to get into here. Suffice to say, she has baggage. If need be, I will enumerate it at a later time. She put her hand in my mouth to shut me up. I slapped at her and hit at worst a glancing blow. She said AND I QUOTE "YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL... MOTHERFUCKER!" I shoved her back out of my face. Yeah, I shoved her hard. I am going to jail for slapping at her and she can create me all the problems she has in the past six months and I cannot even get the sheriff's office to give the time of day when they beat us up, threaten us, and run us out of the county. Run me away from taking care of my dad...... Something is wrong with this picture.
She has taken all my parents have to offer. She rewarded herself by spending $75.00 on January 2nd at a tattoo shop in Pittsburg on Dad's card. She said it was a Bra. So either she got a piercing, a small tattoo, or a sexy lingerie item when she was so grievously injured the day before. That whole injury was drama. She got in her car drove away and came back ten minutes or so later and called the sheriffs office from the front yard. The whole idea of the ER visit may have been to get more Vicodin. Since mom was dead, the supply in the house was much tighter. The hospice complained that the Hydrocodone was going way too fast. I really don't think mom was taking anything near that much. Several times they had me search for bottles of it they could not find and they would mysteriously find it after My wife and i were in the other room discussing that My niece must have taken it. It never seemed like they actually found it, just more aptly tried to hide the fact it was gone.
I should have just let her have her way and walked away. It would be about the same as it is now. I haven't seen my dad since that day. I have called him once. It is just way too stressful. My brother is doing dad's bills. I actually enjoyed doing it. Trying to give back part of what he and mom did for us when My wife was her sickest. For him, it is a responsibility he will take because he has to. Not saying he begrudges it, but he doesn't enjoy getting to do it like I did. I am in counseling. The anger book says I am a 2 out of 5 on the anger scale. I may have anger issues on occasion. I wonder if anyone is a 1?
My niece's behavior is clearly elder abuse. While dad will be adamant that he "gave My niece the money" he as a rule never had a clue how much she spent or what she spent it on. I will agree that dad has never been hungry or had the lights cut off. He has had my brother or I pick up the slack after she uses up all he has on hand. He tells me it is better since January. Perhaps because she actually doesn't believe she has her bluff in on her uncle. I have rambled on. The bottom line is that I need this to go away. I have done everything I promised The judge Judge (I have not returned to Titus county, I drove through to get to Greenville once.)
The day I was arrested, my argument was the inequality of what happened to us and there was absolutely NOTHING done. In fact it was implied that it was our fault and we were lucky that we weren't going to jail. The only thing we were guilty of was telling a bunch of drug fueled drunks that there were rules and using a characterization of which room was which that they didn't like. We did defend ourselves when attacked. SO the TCSO never heard this story. We were not invited to share it. Fact of business it felt like "let it lie or you WILL go to jail". It was bad enough before my wife had a roll-over wreck. After that, I was beside myself.
I know this all sounds like a lot of excuses. To some extent it is. On the other hand, if you want to explore it ask her mother my other brother, perhaps even her own dad . The others at our house the night before the funeral. Ask the neighbors about the scorched earth My niece and her husband created. I was wrong to shove her, but I was not wrong to defend my dad from her abuse, exploitation, and neglect. Yeah, it made me angry when she said she could continue just as if nothing had happened and it made me even angrier when she was gonna send me to jail and I seemingly couldn't even get the time of day from the TCSO.
ObamaCare 101
I wrote a long and detailed thing about what Obamacare is and how it applies to people. The bottom line is it mainly is a way to give the working poor insurance without calling it Medicaid. They are still going to not pay the co-payments, not pay significantly for insurance, and use the emergency room when the providers cut them off for not paying copays.
Those with chronic illness and those who have recovered from major conditions may see a more affordable scenario, but for the group who pays the largest part of their expendable income on taxes, it will just amount to a new tax even if we call it an insurance premium.
Those with chronic illness and those who have recovered from major conditions may see a more affordable scenario, but for the group who pays the largest part of their expendable income on taxes, it will just amount to a new tax even if we call it an insurance premium.
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