Month: May 2021

GOP Economics

Since 1980 I have not thought the GOP had the best economic ideas to put this country on the path for progress….and since then all their economic solutions have actually done little to improve the lives of Americans unless they are in the wealthy class.

These days nothing has changed……here are some of the statements made that illustrate the GOP lackluster economic ideas and why.

First infrastructure……most specially our road systems….

… it’s up to Senate Republicans to try to demonstrate there’s some rationale for their GOP colleagues to be participating in this thing called government. It’s been ages since they’ve been called upon to proactively contribute to a policy-making process, in this case infrastructure, and thus far they’re not making much headway.

They’re “getting there,” says Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, of the process they’ve been working at for nearly a month. Back in mid-April they revealed just how incompetent they’ve become at governing, offering up a $568 billion counter to President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion proposal. It was a back-of-the-napkin scribble that offered a vague funding mechanism of taxes on electric car drivers and taking COVID-19 relief money away from states. It’s a reflection of just how inadequate that proposal was that senior Republicans are now inching up their spending limit. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went up to $800 billion just last week, and on Monday Sen. Lindsey Graham offered $900 billion, but they’re still fighting the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations to fund it.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/18/2031013/-While-rural-America-clamors-for-infrastructure-Republicans-obsess-over-keeping-corporate-taxes-low

Then there is the attempt to starve people into accepting crappy wages…..

Millions of jobless workers in Republican-led states across the U.S. are growing increasingly worried that they soon won’t be able to afford rent, medicine, and other basic necessities as GOP governors rush to cut off pandemic-related unemployment benefits, a widely condemned attack on struggling people that the Biden administration insists it is powerless to stop.

As of this writing, 22 Republican governors have moved to withdraw from a federal program that boosted regular unemployment checks by $300 per week to help jobless people weather the ongoing economic crisis.

Of those Republican-led states, 19 are also ending their participation in Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)—federal initiatives that provide an extension for people who have exhausted their state-level benefits and offer aid to gig workers and others who are typically ineligible.

To justify stripping a crucial lifeline from the jobless, the Republican leaders of Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, South Dakota, and other states have falsely claimed that the federal unemployment programs are so generous they are dissuading people from rejoining the workforce—a narrative that ignores a slew of other relevant factors, from the low wages on offer to lack of child care to health concerns.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/21/attempting-starve-people-back-work-anger-grows-gop-governors-cut-jobless-benefits

Their big idea is that if people get help then the economy will collapse…..according to Sen Ron Johnson of Wisconsin….

Senator Ron Johnson, are asking the poor to stay poor for the good of all America.

On Sunday, Johnson appeared on WKOW in Wisconsin to explain his support for a bill that would end the $300 enhanced unemployment benefits. While many conservatives have argued that these benefits are hurting employers who want to pay their employees less than the $16.75 an hour the unemployment benefits come out to, Johnson is taking the bold step of claiming that employers paying workers more in order to compete with said unemployment benefits, and workers demanding more money to work, is bad, because that will lead to inflation.

https://www.wonkette.com/ron-johnson-wants-people-to-work-for-less-money-than-they-need-to-live

Really?

Johnson has just stated what I wrote about over a decade ago…….https://lobotero.com/why-poverty/

I have written many times that GOP economics suck….and now with the stupid within the party their true colors are finally emerging.

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That “Iron Dome”

Opening—I apologize for the late responses to comments from yesterday but my granddaughter was graduating high school and the day was about her.

Again I apologize.

WE all have an opinion about the recent conflict in Gaza…we know that Hamas fired a multitude of rockets into Israel and we are told the their defense system, the Iron Dome, destroyed about 80% of those rockets.

The Iron Dome?

It is a mobile all-weather air defense system[8] developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries.[7] The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to 70 kilometres (43 mi) away and whose trajectory would take them to an Israeli populated area.

Manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries
Unit cost

$50 million per battery $40,000 per missile

The reason I gave you that boring background on the Iron Dome is because Biden has promised to send cash to replenish the rockets used…..

Under the current military assistance agreement with Israel, Washington will provide Israel with $38 billion in aid from the 2019 fiscal year to the 2029 fiscal year. Of that $38 billion, $5 billion is allocated for missile defense systems, including the Iron Dome.

Biden Promises to ‘Replenish’ Israel’s Iron Dome After Gaza Ceasefire Reached

Seriously?

After all the cash that flies into Israel from Washington and a system that they make and the taxpayer must pay them for using their own system…..why?

They already get about $3+ billion in aid and yet we still have to pay for their wars of destruction…..again…..why?

The US will replenish the missiles used in the latest conflict…..more waste of taxpayer money….time for this waste to end.

Here is an idea….since the threat of Iron Dome does not deter conflict…..why not give both sides the same weapons after a holding ceasefire….kinda of like the idea of “Mutual Assured Destruction”.

MAD was/is a holdover from the Cold War and was meant to mean nukes…..but it could be expanded….

For those scratching their heads….

Mutually Assured Destruction, or mutually assured deterrence (MAD), is a military theory that was developed to deter the use of nuclear weapons. The theory is based on the fact that nuclear weaponry is so devastating that no government wants to use them. Neither side will attack the other with their nuclear weapons because both sides are guaranteed to be totally destroyed in the conflict. No one will go to all-out nuclear war because no side can win and no side can survive.

To many, mutually assured destruction helped prevent the Cold War from turning hot; to others, it is the most ludicrous theory humanity ever put into full-scale practice. The name and acronym of MAD come from physicist and polymath John von Neumann, a key member of the Atomic Energy Commission and a man who helped the US develop nuclear devices. A game theorist, von Neumann is credited with developing the equilibrium strategy and named it as he saw fit.

https://www.thoughtco.com/mutually-assured-destruction-1221190

Why not?

I mean all other attempts to bring a cessation of hostilities in the Middle East have been dismal failures….why not try another approach?

Just A Thought.

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Closing Thought–26May21

We are bombarded with the problems we are having with China….in economics, protests, the South China Sea and Taiwan…..it is so pervasive that we let the Pentagon spend money like a drunken sailor to prevent China ascension.

And now we have space and China that we will throw money at in the near future….

Say what?

You may not know it but China has decided to launch their own version of the space station….it is called the Tiangong Space Station…..

There has been a development that the US fines disturbing…..the station has a large robotic arm….

China’s deployment of a powerful robotic arm attached to the core module of its has sparked concerns in the United States over its possible military applications.
Chinese scientists say the 10-metre-long device, which is capable of lifting objects weighing up to 20 tonnes and can move around on the outside of the station, will be used to grab incoming spacecraft as they approach and help them to dock.
While the concept is not new – China has launched several scavenger satellites fitted with robotic arms to gather and steer space debris so it burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere – not everyone in the US is convinced its purpose is wholly benign.
 
Now we have yet another worry with China.
 
Will they deploy this ‘arm’ to destroy American and international satellites?
 
We will need more money to meet this challenge no doubt….so the price tag rises yet again….more taxpayer money wasted on a ‘maybe’…….
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”

That Other ‘Pandemic’

No this is not a further saturation of Covid news…let’s be real….no one in Peoria gives a toss about Buffalo and their Covid response…..instead this is a post on another pandemic that gets NO press…..

A pandemic of sex assault in the military….and yes it is reaching pandemic portions…..

Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year-old Army specialist stationed at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, was killed, a scathing official review found that “there was a permissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment.”

But Fort Hood was no outlier. Wherever you find US military personnel, you find sexual misconduct – at recruiting stations, boot camp, and the acclaimed academic bastions of the armed forces – the US Military Academy at West Point, the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy at Annapolis; on bases in the United States and off them, too; in American cities and in foreign locales from Australia to the United Arab Emirates; in remote war zones and on ships at sea; among senior leadership and the against men and women, boys and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and straight people.

Formal reports of sexual assaults by US military personnel have steadily increased since 2006. But the available figures are known to be drastic undercounts. The Veterans Administration reports that 1 in 4 women in the armed forces experience military sexual trauma (MST) – sexual assault or repeated threats of sexual harassment by fellow service members, while a 2016 meta-analysis of 69 studies to determine the prevalence of the assault of service members by their peers concluded that 38.4% of female military personnel and veterans are survivors.

A Pandemic of Sexual Assault in the Military?

Basically the military leaders are doing little to get justice for those attacked and in most cases are part of a massive cover-up.

We do not condone this is a civil society then why do we ignore it when it happens in the military?

This is a problem that is in desperately need of attention and a sustainable solution.

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WTF Kevin?

All civility is gone in out Congress…..I point to the babbling bitch from Georgia, Taylor-Greene, she is that QAnon goofball that chases people she does not agree with around the Capitol shouting insults….her most recent attempt to make the news was her outlandish statement that equate the wearing of masks to the Holocaust….

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during an interview on a conservative podcast this week, compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to continue to require members of the House to wear masks on the chamber floor to steps the Nazis took to control the Jewish population during the Holocaust.

Greene, in a conversation with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody Real America’s Voice TV show “The Water Cooler,” attacked Pelosi and accused her of being a hypocrite for asking GOP members to prove they have all been vaccinated before allowing members to be in the House chamber without a mask.
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” Greene said. “And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”
 
(CNN)

Really?

I was under the impression that there was a ‘code of civility’ in the House.

Apparently under the leadership of Kevin McCarty there is NO code…..and where is Pelosi?

Kevin stepped up when Rep. King made so many racial inflammatory remarks and stripped him of his committee assignments….well to be honest Greene has been stripped as well….

The “Code” basically applies to debate on the floor of the House…..so apparently a Congressperson can act in any way when not part of a floor debate….did I get that part right?

Here is the article on this ‘civility’…..

CODE OF CIVILITY…….A healthy democracy respects the people’s right to debate issues with passion. A healthy democracy not only tolerates disagreement but welcomes it in order to refine ideas and create policies that benefit the greater good. The deterioration of civility across the country and within our community poses a threat to our democracy and our civic well-being. This deterioration: ●Compromises the integrity of a healthy, representative democracy ●Closes the door on depth of thought, reducing complex problems to harmful oversimplification●Deters potential leaders from running for office or serving in government ●Poisons the civic well and discourages citizens from engaging on pressing community issues●Casts the spotlight on poor behavior rather than shining a light on possible solutions ●Sets a poor example for our children We have crafted this Code of Civility as a promise to each other, and to the people and institutions we serve, that we will always strive to conduct our debates – whether in person, online, or in written communication –in ways that allow for the widest range of opinions on ideas and policies, yet also respect the dignity, integrity and rights of those with whom we might disagree. With our individual and collective commitment to this code, we welcome our elected colleagues, the press and the public to hold us accountable.

How the House Promotes Civility on the Floor: Taking a Look at Taking Words Down

So basically they want to promote civility on the floor and could care less just how a babbling buffoon says elsewhere.

Should not these “pillars” of our country act with some sort of decorum?

Apparently not if they are members of the GOP.

To Be Fair…….

While I was writing this draft it seems some lame condemnation has come from the GOP…..

After thinking about it for a few days, Republican congressional leaders have slammed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s likening of coronavirus rules to the Holocaust. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader did not hedge in their statements Tuesday. “Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling,” McCarthy said. “The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.” McConnell said Greene’s remarks that started over the weekend were “outrageous” and “reprehensible,” CNBC reports. Greene, a first-term lawmaker from Georgia, already lost her committee assignments for advocating conspiracy theories. McCarthy hasn’t taken steps against her for statements made since then, though he disavowed them.

Greene made her claims in Twitter posts criticizing businesses for having vaccine mandates or lifting mask rules only for those who are vaccinated, including a grocer’s requirement that vaccinated employees put a logo on their name tag. “Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star,” she posted Tuesday, per the New York Times. Greene has received other blowback. “Please educate yourself so that you can realize how absolutely wrong and inappropriate it is to compare proof of vaccination with the 6 million Jews who were exterminated by Nazis,” the Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted. Greene defended her comparison Tuesday, referring to attempts to “shame” noncompliant people.

I would like to be fair and post Greene’s response…..

Greene has attempted to defend her comments and claimed she wasn’t making a comparison to the Holocaust.

“I never compared it to the Holocaust, only the discrimination against Jews in early Nazi years. Stop feeding into the left wing media attacks on me. Everyone should be concerned about the squads support for terrorists and discrimination against unvaxxed people,” Greene stated.

As usual the defense had nothing to do with reality just an attack on Dems…..

I do not accept her defense.

That ‘condemnation’ is as wimpy as it gets….imagine what they, GOP, would be yelling if a Dem had made those lame ass comments.

If the GOP wins the majority in the House in 2022 then I feel this country is fucked (sorry for the vulgarity…but it was the best word to describe the situation)……and we should all weep for this country.

The media needs to stop giving this slug an platform for her hate…..she should never be in DC for she did not come to govern but to find an audience for her hateful rhetoric and audition for a place on FOX or OAN…..ignore the bitch!

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“lego ergo scribo”

A “Year Of Carnage”?

Closing Thought–25May21

So far this year there have been a wealth of fatal shootings all over the country…..far too many and yet nothing is being done to curb the trajectory of events.

Over this past weekend I read some disturbing news on gun violence…..12 mass shootings.

At least a dozen mass shootings took place over the weekend across the country, killing at least 11 people and injuring another 69. CNN combined its own stats with those from the Gun Violence Archive, as well as police and other media reports, and found the latest slew of mass shootings—defined by CNN as shootings that result in at least four people killed or wounded, not counting the shooter—took place in eight states between Friday night and Sunday: Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. The weekend fatalities included three dead at a bar in Youngstown, Ohio, where three were also injured; one dead and three injured at an apartment complex in Fort Wayne, Ind.; a 16-year-old girl killed and five other people injured in a park shooting in Columbus, Ohio; two dead and 12 injured at a house party in Cumberland County, NJ; a 14-year-old girl killed and 13 other people injured at an unauthorized concert in North Charleston, SC; one dead and eight wounded in downtown Minneapolis; and two dead and four injured in Jersey City, NJ.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls this weekend’s shootings part of a “year of carnage,” continuing a “staggering trend of mass shootings [that] have quickly rebounded to the forefront of American life” as the country starts to get COVID-19 under control. In fact, the pandemic’s lockdowns and other restrictions may be partly what’s behind the resurgence of mass shootings, says Hart Brown, senior VP of crisis management firm R3 Continuum. “The environment that was created by the pandemic … and the compounding stressors is really what’s driving much of the violence that we’re seeing right now,” he told Reuters earlier this month. Despite the reemergence of this type of gun violence, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April finds that gun policy remains a “deeply divisive” topic along partisan lines, with the majority of Democrats leaning toward stricter gun-safety laws, while Republicans are mostly balking at such measures.

Does anyone else find this news disturbing and should be unacceptable to the American people?

And yet we just shrug it off and go about yelling about mask wearing.

Does any else see just how pathetic this all is?

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The American Racial Divide

The racial divide in this country is wider than it has been in 60+ years….here are so may reasons but the rise of all this populist and nationalistic BS has made it a driving force in American society.

But why are we still fighting this battle?

There’s been a recent flurry of studies and analyses that take a deeper look at the results of the 2020 election. These examinations don’t contradict our early interpretation of the results from the days and weeks immediately following Election Day: The overwhelming majority of voters backed the candidate from the party that they normally lean toward, though then-President Trump did slightly better with voters of color and slightly worse with white voters than he did in 2016. But the new examinations and other data tell a nuanced story about the role of race in the 2020 contest.

American voters …  

  1. Remain deeply polarized based on ethnicity and racial identity; 
  2. Were less polarized by racial identity in 2020 compared to 2016; and 
  3. Are very polarized by attitudes about racial and cultural issues. 

American Politics Now Has Two Big Racial Divides

Look at the Civil Rights Act….it became law because business people wanted it because they were suffering from boycotts and protests…..so they got LBJ to enact a law….old white guys decided to do something to protect their holdings not because it was right but because it threatened their profits.

This divide will remain with us until there is such a time that color means nothing to us….and that is not in the cards in the rest of my life.

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Do You Spread Misinformation?

Boy is there a wealth of this sort of BS these days thanx to social media that gives every little plot legs to grow into a narrative.

I know it is difficult to separate truth from the manure….and how do you keep from help spread the fertilizer of discontent?

Well there is a way to know the difference….

Sorting through the vast amount of information created and shared online is challenging, even for the experts.

Just talking about this ever-shifting landscape is confusing, with terms like “misinformation,” “disinformation” and “hoax” getting mixed up with buzzwords like “fake news.”

https://theconversation.com/misinformation-disinformation-and-hoaxes-whats-the-difference-158491

I have written about this stuff before….for misinformation is just one tool of propaganda……these are good posts that can help you as well….

What Is Propaganda?

Propaganda 2.0

There is a technique to help you from being a spreader of misinformation…..

The problem of misinformation isn’t going away. Internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken some steps to curb its spread and say they are working on doing more. But no method yet introduced has been completely successful at removing all misleading content from social media. The best defense, then, is self-defense.

Misleading or outright false information – broadly called “misinformation” – can come from websites pretending to be news outlets, political propaganda or “pseudo-profound” reports that seem meaningful but are not. Disinformation is a type of misinformation that is deliberately generated to maliciously mislead people. Disinformation is intentionally shared, knowing it is false, but misinformation can be shared by people who don’t know it’s not true, especially because people often share links online without thinking.

Emerging psychology research has revealed some tactics that can help protect our society from misinformation. Here are seven strategies you can use to avoid being misled, and to prevent yourself – and others – from spreading inaccuracies

https://theconversation.com/7-ways-to-avoid-becoming-a-misinformation-superspreader-157099

These are simple steps that if taken can keep you from being a super spreader of manure.

But then you may ask just how was all this manure made possible?

Bad information isn’t new. Propagandists and scam artists have been selling their brand of proverbial snake oil for ages, all to bend people’s thinking to their goals. What’s different today is that the digital world flings information faster and farther than ever before.

Our brains can’t always keep up.

That’s because we often rely on quick estimates to figure out whether something is true. These shortcuts, called heuristics, are often based on very simple patterns (SN: 9/20/14, p. 24). For instance, most information we come across in our daily lives is true. So when forced to guess, we often err on the side of believing.

A few simple tricks make fake news stories stick in the brain

There is more than enough misinformation on social media…..do not become one of the liars that keep this country divided.

Don’t spread manure

Question everything!

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–24May21

Those that have been arrested for their part in the capitol insurrection and trying all avenues to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

Now some are claiming it was not their fault they just got caught up in the moment.

Christopher Grider said he came to Washington on Jan. 6 with no intention of rioting. But he got caught up in the mob of angry supporters of then-President Trump as they surged into the Capitol, breaking through police barriers and smashing through doors. It wasn’t his fault, he said, that he ended up inside the building with a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag around his neck as lawmakers ran for their lives, the AP reports. Grider, 39, is among at least a dozen Capitol riot defendants identified by the Associated Press who have claimed their presence in the building was a result of being caught up in the hysteria of the crowd or that they were pushed inside by sheer force. Judges typically don’t let defendants assert at trial that outside influences made them act as they did, but there’s some precedent for a version of the argument succeeding at trial.

Lawyers at the California trial of two Black men charged with attempted murder in the beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny during Los Angeles riots in 1992 were allowed to call psychiatry professor Armando Morales to testify that a pervasive mob mentality meant the men couldn’t have intended to harm anyone. Denny was pulled out of his truck and severely beaten after four white Los Angeles officers were acquitted of most charges in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King. One Jan. 6 rioter told investigators that walking up the Capitol steps was like “a funnel.” A second claimed he couldn’t pull back from the crowd, even though the FBI said video showed the man made no attempt to turn around. For some, blaming the mob is part of an attempt to restore reputations tarnished by their presence at an event of such infamy. Others may try to broach the issue at trial or at least during sentencing in bids for leniency.

What happened to the statement that “ignorance of the law is NO excuse”?

Then there are some of the insurrectionists that are not plea dealing….why?

They believe that Trump will come sweeping in and save their butts….

“There’ll be a complication for plea agreement negotiations,” MacFarlane said, citing the lawyer. “He says *some* defendants think Trump is going to swoop in and save them.”

(rawstory.com)

And how would Trump achieve this?  Since he can NO longer pardon those that worship the ground he walks upon.

They made an individual choice to join in….is that not what most of them are babbling…their individual rights?

Well they were an individual….they made a choice….it was them exercising their right….now pay for the choice.

Their should be NO leniency at all….make them pay for the ignorance and their stupidity.  Period!

I still say the ‘leaders’ (if you can call over-weight in-bred morons leaders) should have their trials televised…..so that the American people NEVER forget the treason these social slugs committed.

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