Month: February 2021

Closing Thought–25Feb21

The Supreme Court is supposed to be the referee in our political system…..unbiased opinions based on the facts and the Constitution……so when a justice helps propagate a lie then the whole system is in danger.

What am I talking about?

Something that a long standing SCOTUS associate said recently…..

While it may not have been a complete surprise that Clarence Thomas dissented from his more liberal colleagues in a Supreme Court election case on Monday, what is causing some head whips is his apparently firm support for former President Trump’s debunked claims of election fraud. The case the high court declined to hear came out of Pennsylvania, where Republicans challenged an extension to the deadline for mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. Thomas, along with Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, disagreed with their colleagues’ decision to turn the case away, with Thomas arguing that even though the number of affected mail-in ballots wouldn’t have turned the election in Trump’s favor, the Supreme Court still should have addressed the underlying legal questions in case future votes see a narrower gap. His reasoning, however, as laid out in a 11-page dissent, relied partly on baseless fraud claims pushed by Trump and his allies, reports USA Today.

Thomas’ argument, which mentions “fraud” 10 times, per CNN: that even though rampant fraud wasn’t evident in the Pennsylvania case, mail-in ballots are especially vulnerable, and “an election free from strong evidence of systemic fraud is not alone sufficient for election confidence.” He also quoted a New York Times article calling fraud risk “vastly more prevalent” for mail-in ballots than during in-person voting—the same article said “fraud in voting by mail is far less common than innocent errors”—and mentioned “the high degree of subjective judgment” in tallying ballots. Alito and Gorsuch’s dissent didn’t bring up fraud. Per Slate, voter fraud with mail-in ballots is “vanishingly rare.” CNN notes that Thomas’ wife, Virginia Thomas, has also pushed the fraud narrative. Prominent Democrats are pushing back, and a UC-Irvine election law expert suggests Thomas shouldn’t even have addressed it, telling USA Today it’s an issue “wholly divorced from the actual legal question in the case.”

There has been NO evidence of widespread voter fraud and yet Thomas helps spread a lie…..does not bode well for the independence of the Supreme Court.

The Court has become too partisan to be a true “referee’ in the working of the government and nation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Minimum Wage Debate

The biggest debate since the new president too his throne in the ivory tower is that of a raise in the minimum age to $15…..Arkansas’ senator wants to scale it back to $10 per hour….but in Arkansas the minimum wage is $11….so is he trying to back peddle the wage for all including those in his home state of Arkansas.

There are some spineless Democrats that will not go along with people earning a decent wage…..

Senate Democrats are facing internal divisions over efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, which could result in the proposal being watered down or jettisoned from the coronavirus relief bill.

The wage hike is part of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief proposal, and it has the support of powerful progressives in both chambers and members of leadership.

But because of the 50-50 Senate split, proponents need to win over every Senate Democrat. That’s setting up a fight over the wage increase as they craft the final version of the relief package.

“I support the increase in the federal minimum wage to the $15 level. I think it’s way overdue that we change it. And I think it would be a good thing to do. There may be other members, even on the Democratic side, who have some concerns about it,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/537464-minimum-wage-push-sparks-democratic-divisions

The whole minimum wage debate is fake….that simple…..

Capitalism’s “conservative” defenders yet again oppose raising the minimum wage. They fought raising it in the past much as they tried to prevent the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) that first mandated a U.S. minimum wage. The major argument opponents have used is this: setting or raising a minimum wage threatens small employers. They may collapse or else fire employees; either way, jobs are lost. What is conveniently assumed here is a necessary contradiction between minimum wages and small business jobs. That assumption enables opponents to claim that not setting a legal minimum wage, like not raising it, saves jobs. The system thus presents very poorly paid workers with this choice: low wages or no wages.

“Liberals” in the United States have mostly accepted the assumption of that contradiction, the necessity of that final choice. However, they try to demonstrate that the social gains from a higher minimum wage would exceed the social losses from the reduced employment they admit. Their idea, in effect, is that a higher minimum wage would increase demand for goods and services. Any workers fired because of the minimum wage would be rehired elsewhere to meet the rising demand. Countless empirical studies by conservatives and liberals yield, as usual, correspondingly conflicting conclusions.

The Fake Debate Over a Minimum Wage

With conservs like the Dem Manchin the raise could be in jeopardy…..so if this coward gets his way is there a Plan B to combat the corporate stoolies like Manchin?

The budget tool that Democrats are using to steer Biden’s plan through Congress without GOP support, known as reconciliation, is laden with thorny restrictions waiting to ensnare the $15 minimum wage boost they’ve added to the next tranche of coronavirus relief. The wage increase is also running into strong headwinds from two influential Senate Democratic centrists, Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who are both resistant to enacting the sweeping policy change through the powerful budget process.

The White House and Democratic leaders have been waiting to see how the Senate’s parliamentarian, its official adviser on procedural matters, opines on the wage increase. Both Democrats and Republicans are expected to meet with the parliamentarian on Wednesday to argue their case. Her ruling could follow soon after the arguments.

In the meantime, Democrats are already weighing several options to try to save the wage hike from fully imploding and make it more palatable for moderates in their own party — from whom congressional leaders need lockstep support in order to muscle the Covid-19 aid package through the Senate with a simple majority vote before unemployment benefits expire for millions of Americans in mid-March.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/22/democrats-minimum-wage-increase-plan-470860

I do not believe that a compromise should be had…..go big and demand people get a living wage….something the Dems have been promising for decades and never come through with a plan.

Now is the time!

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“lego ergo scribo”

Afghanistan–The Future

This post is about the future of US troops in the country…

Trump admin reached an agreement with the Taleban about the removal of US troops from the country…..but that may be put on hold with the new admin that wants to keep troops involved in the country for the present.

A new report that was ordered by the Trump admin tells a disturbing tale…..

When a report comes out of Washington that has been co-authored by a who’s who group of, among others, former Secretaries of Defense, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ambassadors, and U.S. Senators, it’s a good bet the results are solid. Unfortunately, in the case of the recently released Afghan Study Group’s report to Congress, this stable full of eminent members produced a policy paper that, if followed, would replicate the previous 20 years of costly, failed war – and cement that failure well into the future.

The congressionally mandated study group was formed in April 2020 with the charge to, “consider the implications of [President Trump’s February 2020] peace settlement, or the failure to reach a settlement, on U.S. policy, resources, and commitments in Afghanistan” and then make policy recommendations for Congress and the new Administration.

That is an appropriate charter, and those areas of study are factors Congress and the White House need to consider. Regrettably, however, the commission was filled with many of the very architects of America’s failed Afghan policies of the past two decades.

Their “new” recommendations look disturbingly similar to the policies that produced so much failure over the past two decades. Fortunately, there are superior, logic-based alternatives available to the Biden Administration for implementation.

Afghan Study Group’s New Report Would Guarantee Failure

Biden will have a decision to finally make…..and there seems to be only three options for him….

According to a report from Vox, President Biden has been presented with three options for how to either end the war in Afghanistan or prolong it. The Biden administration is currently reviewing the US-Taliban peace deal that was signed last year, which set May 1st as a deadline for a US withdrawal.

The first option is for President Biden to adhere to the deadline and withdraw the remaining 2,500 troops from Afghanistan by May 1st. The second option is to seek an extension of the deadline through negotiations with the Taliban. The third option is to scrap the deal and remain in Afghanistan indefinitely.

The report said the Biden administration will likely choose option two, citing unnamed US officials and experts that spoke with Vox. But it’s not clear if the Taliban has any interest in negotiating a deadline extension, as the group has been appealing to the US to withdraw.

The idea of an extension is to remain in the country while the Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government reach a deal to end fighting. But there’s no telling how long this could take or if an agreement could ever be reached.

Since the US-Taliban deal was signed, the Taliban has not attacked US or NATO forces, and no US troops died in combat in Afghanistan for an entire year, a first since the war started. But that will all change if the US stays in Afghanistan without the consent of the Taliban. It will mean an escalation of the almost 20-year war.

US officials also told Vox that the administration’s review of the US-Taliban deal is almost done, and an announcement is expected soon.

(antiwar.com)

But the rhetoric says that the US is going to be in Afghanistan until the weapons makers find a backbone and put needs of country above profit…..and that will not happen in my lifetime.

In case you doubt my words…..

Earlier this month, a study group established by Congress recommended that President Joe Biden extend the May 1 deadline for withdrawing troops from America’s longest war. It’s a strategy that many experts say runs the risk of abrogating the U.S.-Taliban agreement and potentially setting back the potential peace process in Afghanistan — or even dooming it to failure.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a striking similarity in the backgrounds of the individuals involved in these critical recommendations, which are likely to influence whether Biden maintains a “conditions based” U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan. Two of the group’s three co-chairs and nine of the group’s 12 plenary members, comprised of what the group refers to as “members,” have current or recent financial ties to major defense contractors, an industry that soaks up more than half of the $740 billion defense budget, and stands to gain from protracted U.S. military involvement overseas.

There was more diversity in views and financial interests among the 26 “senior advisers” that the group consulted. At least three of these advisers have warned publicly that the suggested troop withdrawal extension may pose significant risks. But the study group’s plenary is deeply intertwined with the military industrial base, with nearly $4 million the group’s co-chairs and plenary have received in compensation for their work on the boards of defense contractors.

Weapons biz bankrolls experts pushing to extend Afghan War

Oh goody!  A multi-generational war!

We are looking at another 20 years of this conflict if things do not change…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing thought–24Feb21

Warning:  This post may be offensive to some because of the language I use.

By now everyone that has access to the news knows that Tiger Woods has had another car accident.

But if you were otherwise diverted….

Tiger Woods had to be “extricated from the wreck” with the “jaws of life” after a serious car crash in California Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office says. The injured golfer was hospitalized after the “single-vehicle rollover collision” on the border of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes around 7am local time, the sheriff’s office tweeted. The 45-year-old’s agent tells TMZ that Woods sustained multiple leg injuries and is in surgery. Police say Woods was the only person in the SUV, CNBC reports.

Jesus Christ!

How much mundane bullshit must we endure?

The news this morning was all about Woods for the first 20 minutes I was subjected to information that I care nothing about.

I am sorry that he was in an accident and was badly injured and I hope he can recover….but that is all that concerns me about his situation.

I heard one reporter refer to Woods as an “American hero”…..just what has he done to be labeled as such?

Because he got millions of idiots to spend thousands of dollars on equipment so they can go for a walk…just what about his life makes him a ‘hero’?

The foundations of this country are being tested and challenged and yet the top story is some mindless bullshit about a car wreck.

I refuse to live my life idolizing some random athlete….there are more important situations that need our attention….and yet here we are….worshiping the ground some millionaire athlete treads upon.

I refuse to sink to this level of mindless personality worship.

Again if I offended anyone….all I can say is that you were warned.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Tanden In Trouble

Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Budget and Management, Neera Tanden, is in trouble…..it seems that she had a few mean spirited Tweets that the GOP and couple of GOP wannabes in the Dem side did not appreciate…..but what did she write?

Glad you asked.

In November, GOP Sen. John Cornyn said there was “zero chance” that Neera Tanden, President Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget, would be confirmed. He may have been right. Moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Mitt Romney said Monday that they would oppose Tanden, Politico reports. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Friday that he will vote against her confirmation, meaning the nomination will fail if she can’t get at least one Republican vote. All three senators cited Tanden’s history of mean tweets, one of which described Collins as “the worst,” reports the Guardian.

Manchin said he believed Tanden’s “overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship” between Congress and the office, which has a major role in overseeing agency budgets. Collins said Tanden’s decision to delete more than 1,000 tweets after the election “raises concerns about her commitment to transparency,” while a Romney spokesperson said it would be “hard to return to comity and respect with a nominee who has issued a thousand mean tweets.” Tanden is now likely to be the first Biden nominee to fail, though the White House is standing by her. “Looking ahead to the committee votes this week and continuing to work toward her confirmation,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted Monday.

Really?

After four years of constant mean Tweets by a president and this is what they want to use to disqualify her from the post?  And yet they championed many of the mean Tweets by Donald the Orange.

Seriously?

There is so much more that should disqualify her….

Tanden positions: – Cut SS, Medicare & Medicaid – Deny Palestinian human rights – Opposes $15/hr min. wage – Supports wars to steal resources from developing nations

I believe that those would disqualify her….but I am not a partisan hack…..so real life means more than some silly social media BS.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Insurrection Hearing

Day One

We all have our opinions on what happened on 06 January 2021 with the breach of the police line around the Capitol and protesters entered into the building and began their hours of terror.

Senators on Tuesday began trying to unravel why Capitol rioters were able to advance as far as they did on Jan. 6. On the hot seat for testimony: Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, former House sergeant-at-arms Paul Irving, former Senate sergeant-at-arms Michael Stenger, and acting DC Police Chief Robert Contee. The first three resigned under pressure after the riot. Some highlights:

  • FBI warning: The day before the riot, the FBI’s field office in Norfolk, Va., issued a warning that said extremists were calling for violence on Jan. 6 and heading to DC “ready for war,” reports the Hill. However, of the four security officials, only Contee actually saw the warning, per the Washington Post.
  • Didn’t advance: “I actually just in the last 24 hours was informed by the department that we actually had received that report,” Sund said. Underlings at the Capitol Police saw it, but it never got to Sund. Nor did the House and Senate sergeant-at-arms see it.
  • No phone call: Contee, the DC metro police chief, did see the FBI warning in the form of an email, but he said it was “raw information” and not “wholly vetted.” He added that he believes a genuine warning of that nature would “warrant a phone call or something.”
  • National Guard: As the AP sees it, a “remarkable breach” emerged between Sund and Irving (the former House sergeant-at-arms) about calling in the National Guard. For one thing, Sund says he made a request at 1:09pm, but Irving (one of Sund’s superiors) says he didn’t receive such a request until after 2pm.
  • Guard, II: Irving also denied the allegation that he resisted calling in the Guard because it would look bad. “I was not concerned about appearance whatsoever,” he said. But in his prepared testimony, Sund said Irving shot down a request for troops in a Jan. 4 meeting. Irving “stated that he was concerned about the ‘optics’ of having National Guard present and didn’t feel that the intelligence supported it,” Sund said.
  • Reluctance: Contee, meanwhile, said he was “surprised” and “stunned” at what he termed the Army’s reluctance to send in the National Guard as the riot was unfolding, per the Hill. He told senators that he was on a call with Sund, Army representatives, and DC officials, and that Sund was “literally pleading” for troops, per the Post. “I have officers literally fighting for their lives,” said Contee, but the talk “seemed like an exercise to check the boxes” instead of one focused on taking action. “I was stunned at the response from Department of the Army,” said Contee, per the New York Times. Guard troops did not arrive at the Capitol until 5:40pm.
  • Failures across the board. Sund said the arrival of the mob was like nothing he’d seen in his 30 years of policing and argued that the riot was the result of failures across the board, not just by the Capitol Police, the AP reports. “No single civilian law enforcement agency— and certainly not the USCP—is trained and equipped to repel, without significant military or other law enforcement assistance, an insurrection of thousands of armed, violent, and coordinated individuals focused on breaching a building at all costs,” he said.

Questions were asked….some wanted to know who, what and why this happened….and others wanted to know why the national guard was still in and around DC…..

The Repubs looked like clowns during the testimony….they were checking their phones, twirling pens and looking bored….even those that helped incite the insurrection looked like they were thinking of Cancun.

The Repubs were a bunch of redundant slugs!

Then the tensions were broken by the car crash of Tiger Wood (I am sorry but that had nothing to do with the drama of the day)

On to Day Two…..

Watch This Blog!

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“lego ergo scribo”

“We Have Your Back”

That is basically what Biden admin has assured the crown prince of Saudi Arabia…..

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday and reaffirmed the US military’s commitment to the “defense” of Saudi Arabia.

…

Despite Washington’s efforts to end the war in Yemen, the US military presence in Saudi Arabia seems set to continue. The Trump administration sent troops to Saudi Arabia in 2019, the first time US forces were deployed to the country since 2003. Now, the US is looking to establish new bases in western Saudi Arabia. The idea is that western areas are not in the range of Iran’s ballistic missiles.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, discussed these western locations on Thursday, although he downplayed the idea that they would be permanent bases. “We are not looking for new bases. I want to be clear on that,” he said. “What we would like to do, without shutting down these [current] bases … is to have the ability to go to other bases to operate in a period of heightened risk.”

(antiwar.com)

Seriously……we have their back?

I mean WTF?

How much technology have we given/sold to KSA?  How much training have we given them?

Billions of dollars and we still have to protect them?

Let me see now…..the defense industry makes billions and our forces still have to protect them from ‘meanies’ in the neighborhood….ain’t capitalism great?

All the countries like KSA and Israel…get away with murder (both literally and physically) and yet we have to “protect” their adventurism…..

Why?

Apparently the weapons industry has all the power over our foreign policy.

Again….why?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–23Feb21

As the pandemic rages we hear horror stories from every angle…..the cases, the deaths, the job losses, etc……but there is one aspect of life now here in the US that gets very little airtime or ink…..the situation of homelessness.

AS more and more people are losing a job….they are resulting into extreme living conditions….

For months, Nicholas Atencio and his girlfriend, Heather Surovik, spent nearly every minute of their lives together in a 2000 Cadillac Escalade.

After Atencio, 33, lost his job as a plumber in May, he and Surovik, 36, delivered for Grubhub by day and at night curled up with their puppy on an air bed in the back of their car parked in a lot in Longmont, Colorado, dreaming of being reunited under one roof with Surovik’s teenage son who was living with his grandmother.

“I’m a mom, so I want to fix everything and make it better,” Surovik said. “It’s hard when you don’t have the means to do that when you can’t do anything because you don’t have anything.”

Americans are being driven into their vehicles by COVID-19 pandemic-fueled woes. And their ranks are likely to grow as the government safety net frays and evictions and foreclosures rise.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/02/12/covid-unemployment-layoffs-foreclosure-eviction-homeless-car-rv/6713901002/

It is time that the government address homelessness in all phases…..ignoring the problem has not solved it.

Americans do not want to know about this situation…..for it flies in the face of all the propaganda that they are bombarded with every day.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Why Is There No Accountability?

This goes back many many years….ever wondered why when police kill someone they seldom pay for their action? (Yes I know not all the shootings are for no reason so cool your goddamn jets and read the post)

981: the number of people in the US shot and killed by police in 2020.

That is right….about 2% of all police killings come with a penalty for their action….

Ever wonder why? (I ask again)

In the US, police almost never face serious criminal charges for an on-duty shooting or killing.

Since 2005, 126 police officers have been arrested for murder or manslaughter due to an on-duty shooting, according to data from Philip Matthew Stinson, a criminal justice expert at Bowling Green State University who has been tracking the data for years. That amounts to fewer than eight prosecutions a year.

About 1,000 fatal police shootings are reported each year in the US — so the arrest rate is around 1 percent, never higher than 2 percent. Some, perhaps most, shootings are justified. But the number of police officers prosecuted “seems extremely low to me,” Stinson told me. “In my opinion, it’s got to be that more of the fatal shootings are unjustified.”

Of those 126 officers, just 44 were convicted (with 31 cases still pending). Many of those convictions came on lesser charges: Just seven officers have been convicted of murder in police shootings since 2005, with their prison sentences ranging from 81 months to life. The remaining 37 were convicted on charges ranging from manslaughter to official misconduct, in some cases serving no prison time.

After the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, as the Black Lives Matter movement grew more prominent, there was an uptick in prosecutions: From 2005 to 2014, about five police officers were prosecuted a year. Starting with 2015, the average is up to roughly 13 a year — meaning cops are now prosecuted in less than 2 percent of fatal shootings, up from less than 1 percent. And convictions have increased from fewer than three a year before 2015 to more than three since 2015.

But that’s still a tiny fraction of fatal police shootings. “It’s very low,” Stinson said. As for the increase in prosecution numbers: “I don’t see systemic change.”

https://www.vox.com/21497089/police-prosecutions-black-lives-matter-breonna-taylor-george-floyd

Sadly this will never cease for the people we elect do not care about the justice they preach…..

There are ideas to improve things (not that they will ever be enacted)…..https://lobotero.com/2020/06/08/8-point-plan-to-end-police-brutality/

Every American should be appalled at the amount of police violence that goes unchecked….but that would not fir the pathetic narrative they want us to believe.

There is a bill in Congress that would make all allegations public…..

State, local, and federal governments have spent billions of dollars over the past decade settling police misconduct cases, which include everything from deadly shootings to neglect. For example, the Louisville Police Department paid out $12 million to the family of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in her home in March.

But most settlements don’t make the news and law enforcement agencies are not uniformly required to make that information publicly available.

As a result, taxpayers in many localities are left to their own devices to ascertain how much of their money goes towards police settlements, and to what degree state and local government budgets are impacted by the payments is unclear. Also often obscured are important details about the people involved — what happens to the officers who commit misconduct, particularly when cases don’t receive national attention, and who the people affected by negative police action are.

https://www.vox.com/22174400/cost-police-misconduct-act-beyer-allegations-settlements-public

Let’s get behind this bill to make accountability mean something.

Be Smart!

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”