Author: Gianni Franco

The Kim Dynasty has been in place in North Korea for over a hundred years and its power and reputation has slowly deteriorated, changing dramatically in the last fifty years. Originally a socialist regime that has now turned into a dictatorship, as typically happens with all socialist societies.

The Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is Kim Jong-Un. His father was Kim Jong-IL. Kim Jong-Un inherited the empire in December 2011 at the young age of 27, and now is 33 in 2017. To put the age into perspective, his father Kim Jong-IL did not gain power of North Korea until he was 52, in 1994. Kim Jong-IL was not the best father figure for his son Kim Jong-Un. While growing up Kim Jong-Un experienced his father’s severe treatment of the North Korean people, including famines, political uprisings, government repression, and assassinations. Perhaps Kim Jong-Un can’t be directly to blame since his family upbringing and environment instilled the prior mentioned ideals upon him.

During the Korean War (1950 – 1953) North Korea had the support of China, the Eastern Bloc, and the Soviet Union. Money, arms, and military were supplied to North Korea for the war and for the reconstruction after the war. A few months after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty (July 1961) was signed by the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. This treaty supported economic advancement as well as direct military support to any opposition.

The Soviet portion of the treaty has expired since the Soviet Union was disbanded in the 1990s but is still in effect on consultative basis. China’s portion of the treaty is still in place and expires in 2021. This means if there is any military action against North Korea; China must help defend North Korea from anyone including the United States. If they choose not to honor the treaty, then it will be a different story. I do believe that China will have to honor the treaty because if they do not they will lose face. Losing face on a governmental level will send a shockwave throughout the Chinese population potentially causing a civil uprising.

That being said, China has not turned a blind eye to North Korea’s current nuclear development and testing. China has enacted severe economic sanctions. They have closed the main foreign exchange bank, restricted all coal imports, and stopped investments into some of North Korea’s processing plants.

North Korea’s future looks dire to say the least. The best case scenario is that Kim Jong-Un will be able to work with all the world leaders leading to peace. I doubt that will be possible considering his past. The worst case scenario, which will probably become reality, is that an all-out war ensues between North Korea and the rest of the world. I use the term, world, loosely. I mean it signify support from the world but only involving the United States, Japan, and South Korea in the actual conflict. The latter scenario will cause a large loss of civilian life, probably not seen since Vietnam, which was about 600,000 lives. I do believe the loss of life will eclipse a million, especially if nuclear and chemical weapons are used. Kim Jong-Un has specifically stated that he is not afraid to go into a nuclear war with the United States or any other country.

To the West of North Korea is the Syrian issue. On April 7, 2017 Syria was bombed by the United States, albeit for good reason it violated International Law. Russia has adamantly stated that the attack should not have happened and will defend Syria against any further military action by the United States.

Russia’s argument may be valid if Bashar al-Assad is proven to not have purposefully launched a chemical attack against his people. There is speculation that al-Assad bombed an ISIL depot to stop further advancement of the terror group and that he had no knowledge of the hidden chemical weapons at the depot. If the prior statement is true, then the United States will be viewed as the violent aggressor. The same type of violent aggressor that invaded Iraq and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction were found.

In summary, China will need to defend North Korea militarily and Russia will defend Syria in the same manner. The two largest superpowers of the East have now been poised against the West. The Eastern Powers are now much wealthier and heavily armed than they have been in decades and do pose a legitimate threat. They all have full scale nuclear and chemical capabilities given to them by the United States and Europe. The possibility of a world war occurring has just increased to 70%. The United States and Europe (NATO) vs China, Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Chess can be a dangerous game.

President Trump issued an Executive Order on February 6^th to prevent the IRS from rejecting any tax returns that do not have line 61, on the 1040 form, checked. Prior to February 6^th, if you did not check line 61 then you were not able to file your Federal tax return.

What is line 61 on your 1040? Line 61 is labeled as Health Care: Individual Responsibility. You are telling the IRS if you had health insurance coverage in the prior year, either through your employer or through the Federal Exchange. You will receive a form from the insurer or your employer showing you had coverage. That form is called a 1095.

What are the penalties if you did have health insurance?

The fee is calculated 2 different ways – as a percentage of your household income, and per person. You will pay whichever is higher.

1. Percentage of income. It is 5% of taxable household income. Maximum Penalty: Total yearly premium for the national average price of a Bronze plan sold through the Marketplace
2. Per person. $695 per adult and $347.50 per child under 18. Maximum: $2,085

The Affordable Care Act was not repealed so the penalties still apply. The Executive Order does not waive the penalty in any manner. The President’s Executive Order only allows you to file the return and the IRS to process the return, without checking line 61 of the 1040 form. The IRS can and probably will contact you for proof of insurance in the near future. If you did not have insurance then the IRS will penalize you and collect the funds. If you do not send them the money, then they will take it from your future Federal Tax Return. The media has typically only reported that you do not have to check line 61 and has not reported about the tax consequences. Be very cautious and speak with your tax preparer.

Additional information can be found here:

https://taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/estimator/isrp/

https://www.healthcare.gov/fees/fee-for-not-being-covered/

I watched the show 3 times. Once when I was drunk. The next when I was buzzed. The last when I was sober. I can assure you that at whatever mental state you watch Jim Norton you will not be disappointed. Stoned, drunk, or sober you will laugh your ass off.

The opening song sets the tone for the whole special. “Wicked World”, by Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath 1970). Ozzy Osbourne sings, “The world today is such a wicked thing / Fighting going on between the human race.” The lyrics explain the Jim Norton comedy special as well as the state of modern day society. I do not believe Jim could have selected a better song or band for his special. I will admit I am partial to his music selection since I am an avid Black Sabbath fan since I was 12, nonetheless, the song fits perfectly.

Rewind a couple of minutes prior to the song and you have an impressive introduction from three A-listers. Jim is asking for some pre-stage encouragement and Ricky Gervais puts him in his place reminiscent of a one-sided roast battle. The next stop on Jim’s trek for encouragement is begging Louis CK for support at Louis’ door. In typical nonchalant Louis CK style, Louis slams the door shut on a pleading Jim. The final encounter is with Robert De Niro, who obliges Jim’s need for support that ends with a few face slaps and an ass spanking. You should be laughing by now and the above mentioned only happened in the first two minutes.

Jim’s humble down-to-earth persona is shown immediately to the audience and viewer. His $20 fake Yeezys perfectly match his plain gray shirt. His opening lines explain how he is not mainstream. He’s just an ordinary looking guy and no one can ever remember his name. Some have called him funny only because he is self-deprecating. I don’t see it that way. He is self-deprecating at times, but the reason why his comedy is so good is because it’s relatable to the audience. Jim’s personal situations have happened to us, individually, or someone we know at some point in time. The crowd interaction throughout the comedy special proves this point perfectly.

Jim made hilariously logical jokes about Charlie Sheen, Bill Cosby, Jared Fogle, and Caitlyn Jenner to name a few. You could do nothing but laugh and then think to yourself, ‘Wow! Jim is right.’ Jim’s timing is impeccable whether talking about mainstream stars, himself, or during the crowd interaction.

Jim did skip one thing that most other comics touch upon to get a laugh, which is politics. I have not read any reviews or articles that address this for Jim Norton. Even if you don’t like Jim’s comedy you should applaud him for this feat. He did not have to bring politics or his political ideals into his special to get a laugh. In my opinion if he did bring politics into the special it would have taken away from the comedy. Personally, I just stop paying attention during a show if an artist is trying to push their ideals on me. He brought pure unbiased comedy and brought it flawlessly. Jim Norton may not be a mainstream name currently but he will be in the foreseeable future.

The simplest and correct answer to the question is yes. President Trump did lose and lost horribly. The future does not look very bright for his term.

How bad was the loss, is the next question? As Donald Trump typically says, “Very bad. Very bad.” The Republicans failed to meet an objective and per the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, Obamacare will continue to be implemented for the foreseeable future. This means that the current situations regarding health insurance and healthcare may get worse. A 20% increase may become the norm as we move forward. The removal of the tax penalty mandate, box 61 on your 1040, will cause Obamacare to lose some of the money needed to fund the program that will cause premium increases.

Why do the rates keep going up? The reasons are actually very simple. The more the government regulates the health insurance sector the more the premiums increase. Currently, there is no freedom in healthcare. You buy a plan stipulated by government mandates and then hope to see a doctor that accepts that plan. If you do not have the money to buy a plan then you go to an emergency room and get serviced. The public pays into a health tax fund that pays for the people that go to an emergency room and do not have health insurance. Those that go to the emergency room can be billed but if they have no income they never have to pay. This law was instituted as part of the 1986 Omnibus Cobra Reconciliation Act. In 1986, most had health insurance so the point was to subsidize the few that did not have health insurance. Today, most do not have health insurance and the pool of money to subsidize the uninsured has dropped dramatically.

Medicaid. Another aspect of health insurance that is spiraling costs out of control is Medicaid and Medicare. The fraud associated with these plans is unreal. Total fraud for both plans in 2016 amounted to over $200 billion. Almost a quarter of a trillion dollars. This is one major reason that the programs need to more restrictive or removed. These statistics are provided by the Justice Dept and their fraud unit, Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

What’s a comparable scenario for choice? Let’s briefly talk about car insurance. You are required by State law to have car insurance. You buy car insurance across State lines and find the best deal. If you crash your car then you pay a deductible and then the insurance covers after the deductible. Interestingly enough, car insurance can cover a portion of your medical bill as well. Health insurance does not work that way. You can only buy policies from your State insurer and those benefits are mandated. If you are a 60 year old male you can only buy the same policy as the 23 year old male. Both policies offer maternity coverage even though neither can use that benefit. Health insurance should allow flexibility for someone to buy a policy that fits their needs from any insurer in the country.

What are the next steps? President Trump has lost as well as his fellow Republicans. They could have sold Trumpcare much better I suppose. They failed because they did not explain parts II & III fully to the public. The public felt that parts II & III were the same force fed changes that occurred with Obamacare. Obamacare stated the same things. Pass the bill now and we’ll decide later. Later we are at the same point, or worse, from prior to Obamacare. The future actually does not look so bright.

Lobbying. There are large donors who want to keep things status quo. Trump did not drain any swamp. He cannot drain the swamp. The swamp thrives with thousands of alligators and crocodiles with exaggerated kickbacks to insurers and lawmakers. Those kickbacks will never allow forward motion within the House, Senate, and Congress.

What are our options moving forward? The first is that House and Senate come together and fix the current healthcare law to make it more like a car insurance marketplace as described prior. The 2^nd option is that we move to a single payer option. If Republicans fail to fix the plan and lose the next election then single payer will become the new law. Single payer will completely change the health insurance landscape as will the potential Trumpcare Act.

How will it play out? I believe President Trump made to many promises and he cannot change the current health insurance law with all the mandates. Trump’s premise was accurate for positive change but it cannot happen. The kickback lobby policy will always trump President Trump. In President Trump’s prior world kickbacks were illegal. Within the government arena lobbyist kickbacks are legal, which destroys any of his premises.

If President Trump loses the next election then single payer will be the new insurance wiping out most brokers and agents. Trump’s option wipes out most agents and brokers as well but not to the extent of a single payer platform. I am not siding with the brokers or agents nor do I care. These are just an example of the changing landscape. I just want the best option for the population of the United States of America. I think the best option is to have free choice to buy what you want or need like car insurance, but that scenario has a very low probability of being implemented now. Call your local politician’s office to discuss your options and create change.

A question that probably means more in the present century than all past centuries. Ironically most people do not even use pens or pencils anymore to write and writing has become more important than in the past when pens and pencils were widely used. I still do write some of my longer pieces on paper but the shorter ones are usually done by computer. At the other end of the spectrum is the 140 character tweet that barely describes the article or idea and lends much of the reader to infer. In fact, the prior sentence is 141 characters showing how Twitter is so constrained. That being said, Facebook and blogs do seem to allow for a better communicative experience for the reader and writer.

The news organizations have failed us and that is evident in most print articles and television networks. I include all of television because it seems the reporting of the news has spread from news networks to talk shows to television shows. The problem is not that news is spread across many avenues but that the news is completely distorted by the time the news anchor or talk show host speaks. The information is either falsely reported or it is so politically skewed to one side or the other that the actual news is convoluted. News reporting is supposed to be same and not change as it is transmitted. Example original news: The dog stole a bone. News network: The carnivorous dog viciously attacked and bit the lone child and then stole a bleeding bone leaving no survivors.

Has the power of the pen died? I am a believer that it has not died as long as there are readers that believe in writing’s cause. Sift through all the written garbage and you will find gems that provide enlightenment. I certainly seek to accomplish that in every piece that I write, comment, and post.

I have been writing for over 20 years and have decided that the news or current events should be addressed in a concise manner without the need for political or monetary bias. I intend on writing consistent articles with only one goal and that is to enlighten the reader. The current article and newscasts do not typically enlighten their audience especially since the articles or posts are extremely biased. The articles will touch on a multitude of relatable societal topics and no topic is off limits. Comments, either negative or positive, are welcomed as well as sharing. You may submit articles for review and publication as well.

Today is St Patrick’s Day in America as well as other countries in the world. The celebration in each city will start with a parade and then develop into a binge drinking festival. Shots of Irish whiskey, glasses of green beer, and orange shamrock shirts will certainly fill all the bars and pubs throughout every city’s streets.

St Patrick was certainly not a drunken priest and the celebration of St Patrick’s Day was created to honor St Patrick and Christianity in Ireland. The Church decided to lift the Lenten restrictions to consume alcohol on this day and that is why drinking became so prevalent.

Whether you are religious or not you do have the ability to celebrate, drink, and eat today because you live in a free Democratic and Capitalistic society. When you live in a Socialistic society then those freedoms are removed.

Case in point is today in Venezuela. Socialism has reached an unnerving point in modern global society. While everyone celebrates today they must understand that in Venezuela they are arresting bakers for selling bread and pastries. A baker in Venezuela is only allowed to make French and white bread using the government controlled flour. Bakers have been accused of making additional items, such as pastries with government flour, and have been arrested and jailed. They have also been arrested for charging incorrect prices. There is a shortage of food, wheat, and medical supplies. Patients cannot be treated in the hospital and children cannot be fed. The government’s solution to mitigate product discrepancies is to arrest as many people as possible in any industry. That is not a solution but a repercussion of socialism.

The situations that continue to unfold in Venezuela are much disparate than ours in America or for that matter the rest of the world. The next time you think of attempting to vote for Socialist or Anarchist parties remember Venezuela. Remember that in a Socialist society you do not have any freedom. An individual does not have the ability to own a business nor has the ability to buy products not owned by the government. A Socialist government is tyrannical, removes freedom, creates deadly class divisions, and kills the economy and its people. Total freedom should be the only primary objective by all people! No government control!

This man, or as some refer to him as the devil, terrorized every village, city, and country he visited leaving a trail of dead bodies. He killed men, women, and children of all ages in the United States and Canada. His real name was Herman Webster Mudget, born May 16, 1861, in New Hampshire. Raised by a violent alcoholic father and bullied relentlessly by his classmates did nothing to detract from his future endeavors of death.

He became obsessed with skeletons and dissecting animals at an early age further feeding his desire to become a doctor. Dr Mudget graduated from the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery in 1884. After being accused of stealing cadavers and then placing life insurance on those bodies to collect the payouts he fled to New York. In those days death certificates were not filed as they are today so that allowed the doctor to file the claims on the dead and collect the money.

While in upstate New York he may have killed his first victim, a young boy. The boy hung out with the doctor a few times and then disappeared without a trace. Dr Mudget left New York quickly after the boy’s disappearance to make certain no investigation followed him. The next logical move was to Philadelphia since it was fairly close to New York in distance. The second victim died there and he too was a young boy. The doctor gave the child a poisonous medical cocktail deliberately. There were other deaths as well. This time he began the life insurance scam using living people instead of cadavers. He would kill them and collect the money since he was the beneficiary. When an investigation was opened for the murders and insurance scams he denied any involvement and fled to another city.

The city, Chicago, was much further west and almost guaranteed no further pursuit by authorities. While in Chicago he changed his name to Dr Henry Howard Holmes, known today as HH Holmes. Chicago is where Dr Holmes thrived. A more populous city allowed the doctor to use more people for his insurance murder scams. He began to make so much money that he built the three story Murder Castle located in the 600 block of West 63^rd Street where the Englewood Post Office is located today.

The Murder Castle consisted of death chambers and vaults where people were brought and then tortured and killed slowly. Some death chambers were filled with natural gas to suffocate people. Other chambers were sealed for natural suffocation and starvation. Once the bodies were removed by Dr Holmes he would strip their flesh and remove all their organs. The organs and bones were then sold to science offices and medical schools.

In 1894 the law finally caught up to Dr Holmes and he was arrested and eventually executed. The investigators found bones, hair, dried blood, jewelry, shoes, a dissection table, and human scratch marks on the insides of the chambers. Dr Holmes admitted to killing 27 people and was suspected to have killed as many as 200.

Do not fear. He may have been the first documented serial killer and certainly will not be the last. We see massacres and murders daily on the news. Just remember it is nothing new and it will never change. Hopefully the DiCaprio/Scorsese film will come out soon and shed more light on the infamous HH Holmes.

https://weather.com/news/trending/video/dramatic-snowstorm-crash-in-russia?pl=pl-editor-picks

https://weather.com/news/trending/video/abandoned-park-needs-to-be-great-again?pl=pl-editor-picks

This is one of the most interesting questions that can be asked by society today. The overwhelming response by most is cloudy at best. A couple of things are clear to everyone. Drugs are bad for you and can kill you. Drugs cause crime, most of it violent.

Is it the drug dealer or the drug law that is at fault for the lethal drug epidemic? The answer certainly depends on the person directly affected by the drug epidemic. The person who loses a friend or relative due to a drug overdose certainly always blames the drug dealer. Most of those people perhaps even wish the same death upon that drug dealer. That response is certainly understandable but at the same time may be exaggerated. You can’t physically kill all drug dealers and not expect new ones to replace them. You can’t blame the drug dealer either. If a product and consumer coexist then there will always be a supplier. The drug dealer is no different than the 1920’s alcohol peddler. We saw how well prohibition played out for the general public and the mafia. Thousands of people died because of badly produced alcohol and thousands died because of mafia/cartel violence.

The government and local law enforcement agencies have a completely opposite response and believe that the drug epidemic is being adequately controlled as to the best of their abilities. They arrest drug dealers and give them long federal or state jail sentences. The drug user is typically written off as a junkie and sent back out onto the streets to fend for him or herself. Law enforcement’s reasoning is fairly cut and dry because they have no emotionally vested interest in either the criminal or drug addict, only the crime.

The prior two scenarios show why the overwhelming response by most people is cloudy at best regarding the legalization of drugs. If you reread both sections the logical deduction can be made that all drugs should be legalized, just as alcohol was made legal. The legalization of drugs will eliminate drug related crime and remove contaminated drugs from the users. The funds saved from the eliminated crime can then be redirected to rehabilitate the addicts. No more cartels, no more drug related deaths and more options for life. Should illegal drugs be legal or illegal? The overwhelming response should a resounding YES from all of society.