Month: May 2021

Closing Thought–18May21

Mississippi’s governor did what all cowards within the GOP does……he jumped on the BS that people are not working because they make too much on unemployment….

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves followed the lead of his Republican counterparts in Montana and South Carolina by announcing the state will refuse expanded federal unemployment benefits, costing unemployed Mississippians $300 a week in an effort to force them into low-wage jobs—despite a lot of data showing that Republican claims about the effects of the federal unemployment aid boost are simply false.

President Joe Biden pushed back on some of those claims in Monday remarks on the economy, saying “we don’t see much evidence” that people are staying home because of high unemployment benefits, and pointing out: “We still have 8 million fewer jobs than we did when the pandemic started.” At the same time, Biden emphasized that “anyone collecting unemployment who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment benefits.”

In Mississippi, businesses “report that they cannot get employees to return to work because they can earn more from combined federal and state unemployment benefits than their normal wages … These businesses are no longer suffering from a lack of demand due to COVID-19,” Mississippi state House Speaker Philip Gunn wrote in a letter to Reeves. “Rather, they are suffering from a labor shortage caused by unemployment benefits that exceed normal wage levels for productive work.”

Mississippi’s maximum unemployment benefit without the added $300 a week is $235, so the benefits that “exceed normal wage levels for productive work” end up at $13.38 an hour, just under the $13.43 an hour that the MIT Living Wage Calculator says is a living wage for one adult with no children in Mississippi.

Contrary to Republican claims that people are staying home because they don’t want to work, Ashton Pittman reports that Mississippi’s labor force participation rate is back to pre-pandemic levels. People are either working or looking for work, in other words. And nationally, the April jobs data suggests “the exact opposite” of the claim that people aren’t looking for work because they can get more money from unemployment benefits, as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently noted. That’s because the highest job growth has been in low-wage industries like hospitality and food service, where unemployment benefits can outstrip wages. 

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/11/2029937/-Mississippi-dives-into-the-Republican-push-to-blame-low-wage-workers-for-the-COVID-19-economy

This spin that people do not want to work because they are making too much with it is just plain BS.

It seems they want to blame people for the shitty work environment….the GOP is killing workers with their fixation on BS.

Enough Said!

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“lego ergo scribo”

 

What Happened To The GOP?

It is a question that many people are asking….well not everyone just the sane ones.

They lost the White House and the Senate and the House….you would think that after such defeats that they would take a hard look at their party and do what is needed to make some adjustments…..well you would be mistaken.

I mean the GOP of 1956 was an excellent party that cared about the people and the country….but since then it has slid into worthless jingoism.

And yet they cannot see this failure and do some rebranding….

Typically, after losing a presidential election, a political party will undertake an intense intra-party debate over why it didn’t win and how the party needs to change to take back the White House. Democrats did so after losing in 1988, 2000, 2004 and 2016. In fact, even after winning in 2020 — taking control of the White House and U.S. Senate and maintaining control in the U.S. House — Democrats are having an intra-party debate, trying to figure out why they didn’t win more House seats and struggled with Latino voters. Republicans, too, have had such debates, after losses in 1996, 2008 and 2012. 

But not this time.

Why The Republican Party Isn’t Rebranding After 2020

No rebranding…..just the same obstructionism that has plagued this nation for years…..and the esteemed leader of the Senate GOP will do nothing to change the slide of the GOP…..

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made clear what he hopes to do this term: obstruct President Joe Biden’s administration in the same way he obstructed then-President Barack Obama’s.

“One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration,” McConnell said at a press conference. “What we have in the United States Senate is total unity from Susan Collins to Ted Cruz in opposition to what the new Biden administration is trying to do to this country.” McConnell later caveated his comments slightly, noting: “I’m anxious on stopping the Biden agenda — depending on what it is.”

https://www.vox.com/2021/5/12/22421064/mcconnell-poll-bipartisanship

So Mitch is going to destroy the GOP….and no one asked…..why?

But nobody is asking the bigger question: “Why would a professional, lifelong politician and master tactician like Mitch McConnell make such a huge mistake?”

I believe the answer is that McConnell does not think he’s making a mistake. He thinks he’s right. He thinks he’s going to win.

I believe he has completely deluded himself. He has bought his own BS. And it won’t be the first time senior Republican leadership has done this and then destroyed the GOP in the process.

https://www.rawstory.com/mitch-mcconnell-is-about-to-destroy-the-gop/

Personally the sooner the idiots in the GOP destroy the party the better the country will be….then maybe the GOP will return to support of the country…..just like in 1956…..

Image

Now there is policies of a party that cares about this country and not serving as some sort of spoiler to any social progress.

Will the GOP ever find its way out of the fog it has created for itself?

Some say that there is a civil war within the GOP…..and the GOP lost.

House Republicans voted Rep. Liz Cheney out of her leadership position and replaced her with compliant quisling Rep. Elise Stefanik. On the same day, 100 current and former Republican officials wrote a letter threatening to form a third party, a move that The Washington Post described as vowing to begin a “civil war” within the party.

Still on the same day, at a House hearing in which former acting Sec. of Defense Christopher Miller testified to events on Jan. 6, Republican after Republican stepped up to not just ignore the attempted overthrow of democracy, but to embrace it. Republicans described the deadly assault on the Capitol as a “normal tourist visit” in which “peaceful patriots” were “hugging and kissing” the police. It was a description so out of touch with reality that, as CNN reports, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski declared that she was “offended.” 

All of this certainly gives the impression of a party awash with conflict. As one CNN analyst declared, this is what happens “when political parties implode.” But right across the virtual page, a second CNN editorial strikes a different note. There is no civil war within the party, Instead, Republicans are “in near-perfect lockstep with Trump” and “with the politics of Trumpism.”

And honestly, that’s the correct view. The war in the Republican Party is already over. And the Republican Party lost. 

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2021/5/15/2030616/-The-civil-war-in-the-Republican-Party-is-over-and-the-Republican-Party-lost

I think it can but it will take a hard look at the stupidity that has taken the party by the ‘nads and exorcise its demons (begin with Trump and his sycophants)

But that is years away….this is the new normal in politics…..stupidity over rational thought.

I weep for my country.

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Is Our Democracy In Danger?

There is so much chaos in this country these days.

Misinformation and lies are driving this chaos.

So to answer my own question….yes it is…and it is in deep danger.

From denial of science to the denial of elections to voter suppression and most of all this chaos can be laid at the feet of the GOP.

And all this chaos grows from the policies put forth by state GOPs……the obstruction and the denial of real policies that move the state forward they focus on cultural crap that has NO place in the legislatures of this country……stuff like bathrooms, abortions, who we can boycott or not….silly shit that has no business taking up the time of elected representatives.

I ask again….is our democracy in danger?

Research is showing that it IS in danger and GOP lead states are the cause….

Georgia passed a restrictive new voting law that, in effect, permits the Republican state legislature to put partisan operatives in charge of disqualifying ballots in Democratic-leaning precincts. The law is one of at least eight proposals from GOP lawmakers in state legislatures around the country for increasing partisan influence over electoral administration — and one of more than 360 state bills that would curtail voting rights in one way or another.

New political science research suggests this wave of attempts to restrict the franchise is not an anomaly: Republican control over state government is correlated with large and measurable declines in the health of a state’s democracy.

The paper, by University of Washington professor Jake Grumbach, constructs a quantitative measure of democratic health at the state level in the US. He looked at all 50 states between 2000 and 2018 to figure out why some states got more democratic over this period and others less. The conclusions were clear: The GOP is the problem.

“Results suggest a minimal role for all factors except Republican control of state government, which dramatically reduces states’ democratic performance during this period,” he writes.

https://www.vox.com/2021/4/5/22358325/study-republican-control-state-government-bad-for-democracy

These moronic politicians are harming the people of their states but they care less….and the saddest thing is that the residents of these states could care less….they cling to BS and misinformation instead of looking beyond their backyard and seeing the bigger picture.

But why is this happening?

The GOP has been completely taken over by the conspiracists…..

New York Times reporter Peter Baker told MSNBC that the one takeaway he had from his interview with former Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman (VA) was how hard it will be to extricate the Republican Party from the conspiracy-wing of the GOP.

Speaking to Yasmin Vossoughian on Sunday, Baker explained that Riggleman was endorsed by Donald Trump and the Freedom Caucus, but now he feels uncomfortable in his own party.

“I think, frankly, the tipping point shows how difficult it’s going to be for Republicans like Denver Riggleman to break through and that’s because he lost,” said Baker. “He was no longer going to have to face voters. Once he was unburdened by that, he was able to speak the truth more forcefully. He told me, and he’s an incredible credible source this, that he was in the private meetings, in the Republican conference meetings where he knew that he and about 70 percent of his colleagues generally believed that Trump was exaggerating, that Trump was hurting their party and that ultimately they had to go along with it in order to get re-elected.”

https://www.rawstory.com/republican-party-eradicate-conspiracy-theorists/

Let’s face it….the ‘good old boys’ network is petrified of change….and they will push anything that slows the winds of change…even wild untrue conspiracies.

So yes it is in danger….the GOP has learned a political lesson from Stalin….always have ‘your’ people in positions of power.

Be Smart!

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“lego ergo scribo”

Fighting against Apartheid

Fighting against Apartheid

I have been neglecting my primary interest of international situations with all the craziness happening in this country…..this is a re-blogt that explains a lot that is happening these days in the Middle East.

Before you read the post please read the following……https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/israel-palestine-sheikh-jarrah-jerusalem-update

200+ deaths versus 10….sounds more like punishment rather than self-defense.

Closing Thought–17May21

I have made my thoughts known on what the penalty should be for anyone one that entered the Capitol by force….that being jail time and a huge fine…not one or the other…. both.

More than 450 people have been charged with federal crimes since supporters of then-President Donald Trump violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden as president.

I have written about the ‘deals’ that will be offered to most of the people arrested…..

Insurrection Good News/Bad News

Over four months later, only two rioters have pleaded guilty in court.

The first of the insurrectionists has been charged…..

Capitol insurrection guilty pleas

Name Accepted charges Notes
Jared Adams Entering and remaining in a restricted building; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building; violent entry and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building  
Jon Schaffer Obstruction of an official proceeding; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon Guitarist for the heavy metal band, Iced Earth

https://www.insider.com/capitol-rioters-who-pleaded-guilty-updated-list-2021-5

I have offered my opinion on what should be done with these people awaiting trial…..can you say Gitmo?

Plus I want to see the trial of the leaders on TV and make a big deal out of their treachery as they did with the Chicago 7…..

In case you are unaware of the trial……https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-chicago-seven-go-on-trial

Treat these societal slugs as the parasite they truly are……

I will be watching this situation and posting on the slugs and their punishment.

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“lego ergo scribo”

Whose Big Idea Was It?

At least 37 states are attempting to suppress the vote in their states…..of course they use the security of the institution as a premise for the suppression.

But since it is a wildly popular in most states the next question logically would be ….whose idea was this suppression……where did it all originate……

A great question and now we know thanks to a leaked video…..

In a private meeting last month with big-money donors, the head of a top conservative group boasted that her outfit had crafted the new voter suppression law in Georgia and was doing the same with similar bills for Republican state legislators across the country. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” she said, “or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.”

The Georgia law had “eight key provisions that Heritage recommended,” Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told the foundation’s donors at an April 22 gathering in Tucson, in a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with Mother Jones. Those included policies severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes, preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters, making it easier for partisan workers to monitor the polls, preventing the collection of mail ballots, and restricting the ability of counties to accept donations from nonprofit groups seeking to aid in election administration.

All of these recommendations came straight from Heritage’s list of “best practices” drafted in February. With Heritage’s help, Anderson said, Georgia became “the example for the rest of the country.”

Leaked Video: Dark Money Group Brags About Writing GOP Voter Suppression Bills Across the Country

Watch the video!

I have been writing about the evils of Heritage for 30+ years….and now all can see just how much they hate democracy.

Do not be fooled by groups with cutsey names like “freedom” this or that….it is and has always been a con job….a con job that works well with the ignorant few.

Heritage is dangerous….and now their deceit has come to light…..

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“lego ergo scribo”

Can We ‘Move On’?

This is the desire of some when talking about the events of 06 January……especially those that either participated or helped fund the insurrection.

I especially like the statement by yet another moron in the GOP when he said that the insurrectionists were just a group of tourists visiting the Capital……

To that desire I say ‘bite me’.

They, insurrectionists, are traitors and anyone that defend this action is one as well.

No true American should never move on from this assault on our nation….would they have the country ‘move on’ from the events of 9/11?

A recent webinar of business PACs want to put this behind them and move ‘forward’…..

Following the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, dozens of corporations announced they were suspending PAC donations to the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election. Many more announced they were suspending all PAC activity. For the National Association of Business PACs (NABPAC), the trade association for corporate PACs, this is a problem. 

Emails, video, and other internal documents obtained by Popular Information reveal how NABPAC has been encouraging its membership, which includes more than 250 corporate PACs, to “move beyond” January 6 and resume their political contributions.

On March 2, NABPAC hosted a webinar called “Where Do We Go From Here.” The event featured Michael DuHaime, a prominent Republican operative and crisis communications consultant. During the event, DuHaime and others provided strategic and messaging advice about how to restart political donations — including donations to the 147 Republicans who voted not to certify the Electoral College results based on Trump’s lies. 

The event was attended by about 80 representatives of corporate PACs, including major companies like Delta, Dow, Altria, Northrup Grumman, New York Life, Lincoln Financial, and Boston Scientific. NABPAC board members include representatives from Microsoft, Kraft Heinz, Eli Lilly, Home Depot, and Cigna. 

https://popular.info/p/exclusive-how-corporate-pacs-are

These PACs funded Donald Trump and the fools inn the GOP that made this insurrection possible and now they want us to overlook that and go back to business as usual.

Why do I say that corporations are just as guilty as the insurrectionists?

There’s been a lot of talk lately about fascism, generally in the context of Republicans denying people their right to vote or Donald Trump sending an armed mob to murder five people at the U.S. Capitol to try to install him as America’s first strongman dictator.

Indeed, authoritarian governance is a major aspect of fascism. But there’s another piece to the puzzle, and it is playing out right now across America, and getting almost no coverage whatsoever.

It’s when giant corporations are able to control government and thus stop things like a national healthcare system, rational gun control laws, free college, or even the tiniest tax on carbon. When they’re able to push through “criminal justice reform” that makes it nearly impossible to prosecute corporate CEOs when their companies kill workers, consumers, or even poison entire communities.

It’s when they don’t do it through presenting strong and defendable ideas in the public realm and before Congress, but by pouring cash into the pockets of individual politicians and their parties.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/05/08/corporate-america-has-been-shoving-fascism-down-our-throats-decades

Move on?  Again to that I say….’bite me’!

We should never forgive or forget

But sadly money talks and they will spend what it takes to make the American people forget their part in the insurrection.

This blog will never forget….and I will keep writing about the traitors that were part of this assault….whether physically there or behind the scenes financing the events.

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“lego ergo scribo”

Do Something Now!

The Middle East is once again in the midst of another war in the making….Hamas is firing rockets into Israel and Israel retaliates….the continuing saga…..

The problem is that Israel is not punishing Hamas but rather the Palestinian people and now even news organizations…..

An Israeli airstrike on Saturday targeted and destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of the Associated Press and other media outlets. AP staffers and other tenants safely evacuated the building after the military telephoned a warning that the strike was imminent within an hour. Three heavy missiles struck the 12-story building, collapsing it in a giant cloud of dust. For 15 years, the AP’s top-floor office and roof terrace were a prime location for covering Israel’s conflicts with Gaza’s Hamas rulers, including wars in 2009 and 2014. The news agency’s camera offered 24-hour live shots as militants’ rockets arched toward Israel and Israeli airstrikes hammered the city and its surrounding area this week.

“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” said AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt. “We narrowly avoided a terrible loss of life.” The building also housed the offices of Qatari-run Al-Jazeera TV, as well as residential apartments. The Israeli military said Hamas was operating inside the building, a standard explanation, and it accused the militant group of using journalists as human shields. But it provided no evidence to back up the claims. Hours earlier, another Israeli air raid on a densely populated refugee camp killed at least 10 Palestinians from an extended family, mostly children, the deadliest single strike of the current conflict.

It was an accident?

Really?

All the sophisticated weaponry that the US sends to Israel and they cannot hit the targets they should……or maybe it was hitting the news media for their perceived slight in the reporting.

My feeling is that it was NO accident.

The US can stop all this chaos.

The US should suspend contracts with Israel until such time as they act in a civilized manner.

Time to hold the Arab nations up to the same pressure…..they could intervene and do the right thing…..such they also get massive aid from the US.

Time for the US to step up and make this stop and promote civility not armed response.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Mississippi Voters Mean Nothing!

I have said on numerous occasions that the vote means little to politicians anymore…..and Mississippi proves my point.

Recently there was an initiative that the Mississippi voter approved of the sale of medical marijuana…..a win right?

Maybe elsewhere but not in Mississippi…..

In a brutal loss for direct democracy in Mississippi, the state’s supreme court struck down a ballot amendment on Friday that legalized medical marijuana in the state. But the ruling didn’t stop there. Invoking a technical flaw in the law, the court invalidated the entire process for amending the state’s constitution by popular vote.

“The killing of our ballot initiative process means that Mississippi is, definitively, the state with the least democracy, the most restricted ballot access, and where voters’ voices matter least when it comes to the deciding our future,” said Ashton Pittman, a reporter at the Mississippi Free Press.

“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people of Mississippi,” read a statement from Medical Marijuana MS, which organized Initiative 65 that would legalize the use of the drug. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end.”

About 73 percent of voters supporter legalizing medical marijuana, according to Pittman.

At the heart of the court’s decision is a crucial flaw in the process that gives voters the power to amend the constitution by popular vote. According to the law, organizers for ballot measures have to collect signatures from the five different congressional districts in the state. But since the 2000 census, Mississippi dropped from having five districts to having only four.

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/mississippi-supreme-court/

This is what you get when party politics is a decider on judges.

I continue to be a critic of voting as it is today…..

The people’s will means NOTHING to partisan politicians.

If it happened in Mississippi then it can happen elsewhere……..beware!

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“lego ergo scribo”

Let’s Go Hunting

It is the weekend and I will be spending time doing stuff other than worrying about a nation that could care less.

In my younger days I was a hunter….mostly to help my family supplement meat for the table….when I went to the woods I would take three rounds….one in the rifle and two in my pocket….for I was taught to stalk and shoot only when you were sure of a kill…..

There are always stories of disasters committed by hunters….like shooting a family member or killing a farm animals by mistake….first how do you mistake a cow for a deer?

If you can’t then you do NOT belong in the woods with a gun.

This is where I pick up the meat of this post……

A hunter shot and seriously injured a hiker near St. Louis, Missouri, on Saturday, with police stating that the hunter mistook the man for a turkey. “It sounds like it was just a really bad accident,” a police spokesperson said, with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporting that it came on the second-to-last day of spring turkey hunting season. The Missouri Department of Conservation was running the hunt, and a sign near the entrance to the Lewis and Clark Trail warned that would be held until 1pm; the shooting occurred at 12:30pm, NBC News reports. Emergency responders had to use a utility vehicle to reach the unidentified hiker, who was airlifted to a nearby trauma center. He and the hunter remain unidentified.

The hunter was dressed in camouflage, and witnesses did not report whether the hiker was wearing bright colors. “It may have been an accident, but it is positively unforgivable that they allow people to hunt with firearms on Mother’s Day weekend on one of the most heavily traveled trails,” a local runner who uses the trail told the Post-Dispatch. “They need to mark that differently. There were families out there today with kids and dogs.”

This illustrates my point….this idiot does not belong in the woods armed with a gun….apparently he had NO idea what he was shooting….and he pulled the trigger anyway.

I cannot take my canine friend to the woods during hunting season for she is fawn color with a short tail with white on it….she looks like a white tail deer to morons.

Plus I do not trust many of the low IQ in-bred slugs with guns in our woods.

Another reason I do all my hunting at the nearest supermarket…..get all the meat I want without the mess….and most times it is a lot safer as well.

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“lego ergo scribo”