Month: June 2022

Then There Is Texas (It’s Always Texas)

If there are states that keep making news….and little of it is good….the other state that shows its ass is Florida.

Take the platform coming out of Texas…..

Events at the Texas GOP conference the weekend of July 16–17 in Houston are all over the news. In addition to booing Senator John Cornyn over saying he wanted to make “sure that violent criminals and the mentally ill cannot buy firearms” and trying physically attack Senator Ted Cruz and House Representative Dan Crenshaw, the members of the party from across the state met to formalize an even-farther-right direction for the Texas GOP in the party platform.

For those who never participated in student government, Model UN or Model Arab League, a resolution is a formal declaration adopted by a committee. So, all resolutions that pass in a conference like this are then adopted by the Texas Republican Party as priorities until the next meeting. This is supposed to be something to hold members accountable, and the language offers a guide to writing real legislation. The full 40-page party platform document revealed 273 political “issues” that the Texas GOP hopes to address, and 2 formal resolutions.

Some of the biggest news came from the fact that, in formalizing their position on these issues, the members of the Texas GOP stated that life begins at fertilization and want to include Christianity teaching in schools, declare porn a “public health crisis,” abolish the Department of Education, and only recognize two biological sexes (despite the science on the contrary). They also rejected the fact that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election, via one of their two formal resolutions.

Texas GOP Platform Makes It Clear They Want To Go Back to the 1840s

And Texas is not alone with all this silliness….the GOP has embraced the Far Right agenda completely…..

Outright racism has long been a major plank of the Republican Party. But it appears that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and take away a constitutional right of millions of Americans—a move that will disproportionately affect Black and brown women—has emboldened GOP officials to drop whatever lingering apprehension they had about going full white supremacist and just go for it.

At a Saturday rally held by Donald Trump—i.e., a guy who kicked off his first bid for the White House by calling Mexicans rapists and criminals and whose entire brand is racism—Rep. Mary Miller said into the microphone: “President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday.” Then she clapped her hands as the audience cheered.

An old threat by the state is not going away…..

You may have seen headlines earlier this month about how the Republican Party of Texas, in its biennial convention with thousands of delegates from across the state, approved a new platform that declared homosexuality an “abnormal lifestyle choice” and said Joe Biden was “not legitimately elected” president. The Texas GOP platform is routinely viewed as a hodgepodge of far-right fantasies, and these planks do nothing to contradict that verdict.

But another plank deserves more attention than it has received, because presents a historic break—and points to the direction for the Trumpist right moving forward. With its new platform, the Texas Republican Party has formally endorsed a referendum on the state seceding from the United States.

The federal government, the platform claims, “has impaired our right of local self-government.” Given that Texas supposedly “retains the right to secede from the United States,” the “Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum” on secession. Nor would such a referendum be an abstract exercise. Instead, the Republican Party of Texas believes that such a referendum should be held next year, with the Texas legislature “pass[ing a] bill in its next session requiring a referendum in the 2023 general election.”

Previous Texas GOP platforms have gestured at secession, with the most recent iteration, in 2020, claiming the state’s right to secede if the United States ever stopped being “a constitutional republic.” The new platform, though, is qualitatively different, not only in its formal endorsement but for specifying a timeline for such a vote. Put another way: For the first time since 1861, an American state’s ruling party has formally endorsed a referendum on secession.

The party’s formal endorsement of a vote on removing Texas from the United States isn’t the party’s first historic lurch toward state fracture. Last year, an American legislator filed the first serious bill since the Civil War calling for a referendum on secession. Introduced­ by Kyle Biedermann, a Republican in the Texas House, the bill ended up stalling out in committee. But it also received a flood of support before it did, with a range of endorsements from a number of other Republicans in the Texas legislature. At least one state senator, Republican Lois Kolkhorst, came out in favor of a secession referendum, as did former Texas GOP Chairman Allen West.

Little matter, of course, that secession—including Texas’s proposed secession—remains illegal. (As Antonin Scalia, the late Supreme Court justice, once wrote, “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”) Little matter, likewise, that pushing for breaking up the United States stands antithetical to claims of patriotism, or of supporting “America First,” or of backing policies that would benefit things like the American economy or American national security. Such concerns appear almost archaic compared to the current state of the Trumpist right, which appears increasingly willing to burn down the country and unwind American democracy—as seen most spectacularly in this month’s hearings of the House Jan. 6th Committee—all in the name of seeking and seizing power.

Ironically, the only state in American history to hold a previous referendum on secession was Texas, in 1861. Where other states that eventually joined the Confederacy relied on state legislatures to proclaim their secession—and to subsequently join a treasonous movement dedicated to shattering the United States—Texas was the only state that held a statewide vote, in which a majority of Texan voters opted to join the Confederacy. It’s also true that, unlike most states, Texas was an independent nation prior to joining the United States, having declared independence from Mexico in 1836. (The Texan republic was hardly a bastion of democratic stability; in addition to existing as the most white-nationalist polity in North America, its survival depended, as President Andrew Jackson’s emissary observed, “more upon the weakness and imbecility of her enemy [Mexico] than upon her own strength.”) And Texan higher-ups routinely wink at secession as a potential outcome; in the late 2000s, former Governor Rick Perry floated the idea of secession, though he hardly endorsed the idea.

The past few years, though, have seen a qualitative shift in organized support for cracking Texas off from the United States. In part, that shift has been motivated by malign foreign elements, most especially out of Russia. In addition to Texas secessionists flying to Moscow multiple times throughout the 2010s, Russian trolls organized a pro-secession Facebook page that ended up more popular than the Texas Democrat and Texas Republican pages combined. The shift has also been motivated by the state’s changing demographics, with Texas Democrats pushing ever closer to finally winning statewide office for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Much of it, though, has to do with the broader realities of the Trumpist right, dedicated to the retention of power at all costs. With pro-Trump Republicans routinely outbidding one another in terms of far-right policies—from banning abortions at the national level to repealing church-state separation to falsifying elections outright—it’s no surprise that Trumpist legislators in Texas have begun turning toward secession as a potential policy outcome. And the Republican base seems happy to go along; as a group of academics at the Bright Line Watch found last year, fully half of Republicans in the former Confederacy (plus Oklahoma) support secession.

There’s still plenty of distance between the current condition of American politics and potential fracturing of the union. But the notions of secession and separation—led primarily by a Trumpist right that views any non-Trump victories as inherently illegitimate—can no longer be laughed at, or openly dismissed. If anything, it’s that failure of imagination that would make potential secession, and the devastation to follow, even likelier. Given the aftermath of the 2020 election, it’s within the realm of the possible that, should another Democratic candidate win in 2024, the Texas Republican Party will leap fully into the pro-secession fires, all in the name of servicing a base that refuses to recognize the presidential outcome.

Nor is it difficult to imagine the bloodshed that would result. Even if such a Trumpist movement never succeeds in actual territorial fragmentation, the internecine violence would cause shocking levels of bloodletting, all in the service of secession. One potential parallel would be the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a decades-long conflict in a similarly developed democracy (albeit one predicated on actual civil liberties violations). If an American equivalent emerges in the coming decades, and if the casualty rate of the Troubles serves as barometer, America would still see millions of casualties and hundreds of thousands of deaths, in a conflict potentially even more catastrophic than the Civil War.

And as the recent Jan. 6th hearings making clear, we’ve already had a taste of what those American Troubles would look like—and how secession, especially in places like Texas, interplays with such anti-democratic violence. After all, the Texas Republican legislator responsible for authoring last year’s secession referendum bill attended the Jan. 6th insurrection, claiming it was “the most amazing day.” And the pro-Trump insurrectionist photographed on the floor of the Senate Chamber holding zip-ties, Larry Brock, was clear about why he’d broken into the Capitol to target duly elected legislators. As Brock, who lives in Texas, wrote on Facebook before the insurrection, “Our vote was stolen. Time to secede.”

 
I am sick of their shit!
 
I say let the dumb bastards go….and make it impossible for the morons to ever return to the fold….lwe do NOT need this stupidity.
 
Thoughts?
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”
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A New Pro-Choice Plan?

After the disastrous ruling by the political hacks on our Supreme Court I made my thoughts known and have said that the battle was lost and it was time to formulate a new plan that would bring back a woman’s right to choose.

It seems that I was not alone in my thoughts……

An interesting mood is rippling through abortion advocacy circles right now: a sense of possibility. At first, you might not expect that. The Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade is a historic affront, with devastating implications for the health, safety, and autonomy of millions. And so you might expect that people working on the front lines—abortion providers and reproductive rights activists and community organizers and clinic defenders—would curl into a collective ball: We lost! You would be very wrong.

As Roe was spiraling around the judicial drain, all throughout June 2022, Cosmo’s reporting team connected with grassroots movement leaders in all 50 states to gather dispatches from the ground. Many of these leaders used words like “optimism” and “excitement” to describe what’s fueling their work in this moment. Some said they’re feeling more inspired, more energized than they have in years. And this isn’t just in regions where abortion remains legally protected. What emerged from these conversations was an impassioned consensus: Progress toward reproductive freedom and justice is still very much happening, thank you. Regardless of the courts. Regardless of the alt-right rhetoric. Regardless of the discriminatory barriers that have always been there—but maybe won’t be for much longer, if we come together and do this next part right.

It’s understandable if you’re scared or uncertain right now, wondering, What does the future hold? For a road map, look to what folks have been out here doing all along: dreaming up new systems that not only protect but also expand abortion access, rooted in love, solidarity, and community care. Systems that, in some cases, are already up and running. The more of us who engage, the stronger and more real it all becomes. Welcome. Here’s how we’ll build something better.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a40376943/abortion-activists-movement-after-roe/

If you are so inclined please read the answers for a new direction and join in if you are also concerned.

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More SCOTUS Thoughts

Our political hacks that we call SCOTUS are rolling our country down the road to ruin because of a political agenda not what is right.

A few thoughts for you to consider.

We now know what the courts think about the right to choice…..but there is more than just abortions that could be the problem…..

More than 73,000 babies were born in the U.S. by means of in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques in 2020, slightly more than 2 percent of all births that year. About 85 percent of children born as a result of IVF procedures in this country are born from thawed embryos. Since 1987, more than 1 million Americans started their lives as embryos created outside of their mother’s bodies. By one estimate, as many as 1.4 million embryos remain frozen at U.S. fertility clinics.

It is not clear what effect the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will have on would-be parents seeking to use IVF as a way to have children. The majority opinion states that abortion destroys “potential life” and what the Mississippi statute at issue in the case calls an “unborn human being.” It does not, however, mention IVF or other assisted reproduction techniques.

Infertility advocates and practitioners of fertility medicine are, nevertheless, concerned about the long-term implications of the Dobbs decision. In an article in Contemporary OB/GYN, Jared Robins and Sean Tipton, respectively the executive director and the chief policy and advocacy officer of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, argue that the Dobbs decision puts fertility care at “significant risk.” Under current practice, patients of IVF clinics generally choose to create numerous embryos for possible implantation. As fertility treatments proceed, embryos are often discarded when pre-implantation genetic diagnosis indicates significant inheritable maladies or after patients have completed their families.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs Decision Threatens Assisted Reproduction

Another ruling that could change everything and for a long time…..gerrymandering.

The Supreme Court handed down a brief order Tuesday evening that effectively reinstates racially gerrymandered congressional maps in the state of Louisiana, at least for the 2022 election.

Under these maps, Black voters will control just one of Louisiana’s six congressional seats, despite the fact that African Americans make up nearly a third of the state’s population. Thus, the Court’s decision in Ardoin v. Robinson means that Black people will have half as much congressional representation as they would enjoy under maps where Black voters have as much opportunity to elect their own preferred candidate as white people in Louisiana.

A federal trial court, applying longstanding Supreme Court precedents holding that the Voting Rights Act does not permit such racial gerrymanders, issued a preliminary injunction temporarily striking down the Louisiana maps and ordering the state legislature to draw new ones that include two Black-majority districts. Notably, a very conservative panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied the state’s request to stay the trial court’s decision — a sign that Louisiana’s maps were such a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act that even one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country could not find a good reason to disturb the trial court’s decision.

https://www.vox.com/23187117/supreme-court-louisiana-racial-gerrymander-ardoin-robinson-congressional-maps

Gerrymandering is not good for the country….at least with competitive districts makes our nation stronger….we are losing that capability…..

Competitive congressional districts have been steadily disappearing for decades. In the current redistricting cycle, six highly competitive districts in the House of Representatives were drawn out of existence. The Cook Political Report estimates that less than 8 percent of congressional districts will be competitive come November.

This is a problem. It’s not because competitive districts are a powerfully moderating force on our democracy — instead, the decline of competitive districts is a problem that reflects deeper causes of partisan polarization and leaves the overwhelming majority of Americans in places where their votes don’t matter, and where parties and candidates don’t need to work for anybody’s votes.

Governing in America requires compromise. But when over 90 percent of congressional districts lean toward one of the two major parties, that means most representatives have little incentive to compromise. In fact, representatives increasingly face strong pressures to be very partisan, which has made governing very difficult.

But perhaps more importantly, when there isn’t competition, citizens and parties have little reason to show up and vote. Instead it becomes the highly organized donors and activists who are engaged, while the rest of the district is ignored. It’s true that competitive districts might not produce especially moderate candidates, but they are important when it comes to engaging and informing citizens. And this participation has valuable spillover effects for communities, well beyond our elections. 

What We Lose When We Lose Competitive Congressional Districts

Gerrymandering is just politicians choosing their voters not the other way around.

Any opinions?

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News On Ukraine

I know the news from Ukraine is not that important right now to Americans….we are dealing with the collapse of our system…..but yet there are some things coming out of Ukraine that we Americans should be concerned over.

First the most important news…..once again the US president is sending more taxpayer cash to Ukraine….yes more!

President Biden authorized a new $450 million weapons package for Ukraine that includes more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), patrol boats, and tactical vehicles.

The Biden administration first sent HIMARS to Ukraine as part of a previous arms package that was announced on June 1, which represented a significant escalation in US military aid to Kyiv. Ukrainian officials said Thursday that they had received the first HIMARS delivery.

According to the Pentagon, the $450 million weapons package includes:

  • Four HIMARS
  • 36,000 rounds of 105 mm ammunition
  • 18 tactical vehicles to tow 155 mm artillery
  • 1,200 grenade launchers,
  • 2,000 machine guns,
  • 18 coastal and riverine patrol boats
  • Spare parts and other equipment.

The new bundle of weapons was funded by the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill that Biden signed into law back in May. The $450 million was authorized using presidential drawdown authority, which allows Biden to send weapons to Ukraine from the US military’s stockpiles.

Including the initial $13.6 billion aid bill for Ukraine, the US has authorized about $54 billion to spend on the war in Ukraine. The funds are meant to last through the 2022 fiscal year, which ends on September 30 for the federal government.

The majority of the funds are going toward military spending, whether through weapons packages for Ukraine or for the Pentagon to replenish its weapons stock and pay for troop deployments in Eastern Europe.

(antiwar.com)

I ask just what does the US get in return for all this cash?  I mean kindness is one thing but fool-hardiness is just stupid.

US is once again doing what it always does in these situations…..throw good money after bad!

It seems the mouth of Ukraine has a new strategy…insult those that are aiding his war…..

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appears to have launched a new strategy in his country’s war against Russia. Insult Kyiv’s closest supporters by calling them Russian pawns.

He penned an article in Foreign Affairs, what amounts to the venerable newsletter of the Blob, the internationalist establishment. The US and Europe are not doing enough for Ukraine in his opinion. Indeed, he believes that the allies, despite sanctioning Russia and providing weapons to his country, are effectively going over to the dark side.

Kuleba wrote: “calls for dangerous deals are getting louder. As fatigue grows and attention wanders, more and more Kremlin-leaning commentators are proposing to sell out Ukraine for the sake of peace and economic stability in their own countries. Although they may pose as pacifists or realists, they are better understood as enablers of Russian imperialism and war crimes.”

A student of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People Kuleba is not. Denouncing the very governments he expects to help is a dubious tactic. Telling them to ignore the interests of their own nations won’t work. That is a step too far even for Kyiv’s friends.

Kuleba’s frustration is understandable. His nation has been invaded, a crime and tragedy. The human and material costs are horrendous. Despite early setbacks, the Russian military retains significant advantages, such as artillery dominance, which has led to steady if slow gains in the east. And despite Kuleba’s optimistic assertion that Ukraine can win, Moscow can escalate through full mobilization and resort to WMDs, something Kyiv cannot match. So he wants more, ever more assistance from the US and Europe.

This is understandable, even expected. However, if Kuleba and his government are counting on Western aid to save Ukraine, they are likely to be disappointed. Although the invasion has dominated media attention and driven the allies to take unusually tough and swift action against Russia, the conflict is not their, and certainly not their people’s, top concern.

First, this is Ukraine’s war, not the West’s crusade. There have been many conflicts since World War II, and even the US, the most militaristic power since the end of the Cold War, has avoided participating in most of them. When intervening militarily, Washington has always set limits, eventually deciding, with good reason, that it should stop pouring good lives and resources after bad into them – Afghanistan and Vietnam most dramatically. No other country will care as much about the outcome in Ukraine as Ukraine.

Indeed, Kuleba admitted: “It is only natural that people and governments lose interest in conflicts as they drag on. It’s a process that has played out many times throughout history. The world stopped paying attention to the war in Libya after former leader Muammar al-Qaddafi was toppled from power, in 2011. It disengaged from Syria, Yemen, and other ongoing conflicts that once generated front-page news. And as I know well, the rest of the world lost interest in Ukraine after 2015, even as we continued to fight Russian forces for control over the eastern part of the country.” Everyone is more concerned about their families and friends, as well as their communities and nations, than about “the world.”

Second, Kyiv’s fight is not for Europe, the West, or any other country. Ukrainians are fighting for Ukraine. Kuleba claimed: “If we lose, there will not just be no more Ukraine; there will be no prosperity or security in Europe.” Yet no one in NATO, except perhaps the Baltic States, which would do little of the fighting – NATO always has stood for North America and the Others – has ever considered Ukraine to be a vital interest worth fighting for. The alliance failed to act on a succession of promises to induct Kyiv and did not directly intervene after Russia’s 2014 territorial seizures. Today allied governments are acting in the very ways that so upset Kuleba because they believe it is vital to avoid being dragged into the conflict.

Has Ukraine Adopted a New Strategy of Insulting the Allies?

It is not anything new!  Zelensky and his sycophants have been insulting and embarrassing the Allies from the beginning….a tactic that has proved very lucrative from the beginning….cash has flown into the country at an alarming rate.

How goes the war?

Not as well as the powers would have us believe…..

According to a report from CNN, White House officials are losing confidence that Ukraine will be able to retake all the territory Russia has captured since it invaded on February 24 as Russian forces continue to make gains in the eastern Donbas region.

Unnamed US officials told CNN that President Biden’s advisors have started debating if and how the US should start convincing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should change his definition of what “victory” will look like.

Zelensky has repeatedly stated that Ukraine’s goal is to drive Russia out of all territory it has captured since it invaded. He also has said he wants to expel Russian forces from Crimea, a territory Moscow has controlled since 2014.

But even as the US and NATO are sending more and more heavy weapons to Kyiv, the prospect of Ukraine being able to launch a sufficient counter-offensive does not seem realistic. Ukraine is taking heavy casualties, with officials admitting they are losing between 100 and 200 troops each day.

(antiwar.com)

Finally, it looks like NATO could get a few new members…..Turkey is dropping its objection……

Turkey agreed on Tuesday to lift its objection to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, paving the way for the two Nordic countries to begin their application process at this week’s NATO summit in Madrid.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto released a statement that said that he and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Madrid that were facilitated by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

The three leaders signed a joint memorandum that said Turkey would support the Nordic nations’ NATO bid at the upcoming summit. Niinisto said the memorandum outlined that Turkey, Finland, and Sweden agreed to “extend their full support against threats to each other’s security.”

Turkey initially objected to Sweden and Finland’s application due to their alleged ties to the PKK, a Kurdish militant group the US, the EU, and Turkey consider a terrorist organization. Erdogan also wanted the Nordic nations to lift export controls on weapons they placed on Turkey in response to a Turkish assault on northeast Syria in 2019.

(antiwar.com)

And the war continues….and taxpayer money is wasted….as usual.

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Answers To Inflation

As the country is in the grip of runaway inflation especially on gas and food all our politicians are scrambling to look for answers ahead of the upcoming elections….and there are many solutions none of which will do much for us mere mortals.

The GOP has some big ideas…..

House Republicans gathered this week for an off-site hearing denouncing the Biden administration’s economic and energy agenda, blaming the president for record-high inflation and gas prices while proposing solutions that largely focused on reining in government spending and expanding domestic energy manufacturing.

Led by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), members of Congress heard from a panel of witnesses including former Trump administration Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Club for Growth co-founder Stephen Moore at an event held Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation.

For an hour and a half, Republicans considered proposals ranging from dramatically cutting taxes and government spending, enacting work requirements for social welfare programs, and abolishing “renewable energy mandates” that restrict the production of oil and other fossil fuels.

Although some policy disagreements among them were evident, the event’s attendees were unified in their harsh criticisms of President Joe Biden, fixing the blame squarely on his administration for the country’s economic woes.

“With gasoline at $5 per gallon and inflation at nearly 9% year over year, we need to hold the Biden administration accountable,” Biggs argued. “With Democrats in charge of the House, Senate, and the White House, they are the ones who produced this problem.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/house-republicans-biden-inflation-gas-prices-heritage-biggs

As pertaining to a ‘gas holiday’….this seems to be popular with both parties….apparently the American voter is so stupid that paying $3 a gallon for gas will make them somehow comfortable….to me this is just a feel good solution that will do little to ease the economic pain of us peasants.

Bidenism in a nutshell: After blasting oil companies for price gouging, Biden announced a suspension of the federal gas tax for three months, a move which will do almost nothing to reduce prices at the pump but will almost certainly provide an even bigger boost to oil company profits.

The site fivethirtyeight.com takes a closer look at the idea of a gas holiday……

Earlier this week President Biden asked Congress to temporarily suspend collection of federal gas and diesel taxes for three months as a way to relieve pressure on Americans as national gas prices rise to $5 a gallon. If the price keeps going up, it could top highs not seen since the summer of 2008. High gas prices are also helping to drive overall inflation, which reached 8.6 percent as of May. 

It’s no surprise, then, that Biden is responding to pressure to do something — anything — about gas prices. As plenty of people have pointed out, the cost per gallon is displayed on giant signs everyone can see. Transportation and groceries are necessities that are purchased weekly or even daily, which means Americans feel these changes in a visible, visceral way. It also gets at why they’re so important politically, especially as surveys show that Americans are adjusting their budgets. 

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say they’ve altered their spending habits to save money because of inflation, according to a Morning Consult poll released this week. More than half, 53 percent, say they’ve changed their eating and drinking habits. Families are eating out less often, cutting back on meat and forgoing alcohol and organic produce.

A similar poll from last month found that middle-income households were spending slightly less on groceries overall and shifting to less expensive options, like store brands instead of name brands. (Higher-income families were just spending more.) 

A Gas Holiday Might Be Popular, But It’s Unlikely To Do Much To Lower Inflation

So far none of the solutions being offered by either party will do the trick at easing our economic pain…..at least that is my opinion.

There are answers but they would flying in the face of the oligarchs that have bought a Congress and that will NEVER happen in my lifetime…..the Congress gets paid too well to actually work for the people that send them to DC.

As I have stated inflation is eating away at the fiber of this country….its people…..and we should learn all we can about this deadly situation….

The focus of the US media and economists for the past several months has been increasingly on inflation.  In recent weeks, however, US policymakers awoke as well to the realization that inflation is chronic, firmly embedded, and growing threat to the immediate future of the US economy.

A qualitative ‘threshold of awareness’ was reached this past week when the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, accelerated its pace of rate hikes by 75 basis points—purportedly to bring the rate of price hikes under control. Whether the Fed can succeed in taming inflation and do so without precipitating a recession remains to be seen but is highly unlikely. Taming inflation without provoking a recession is thus the central economic question for the remainder of 2022.

Clearly some think this is possible—i.e. that further rate hikes will moderate the pace of inflation without driving the real economy into recession and result in what is called a ‘soft landing’. Clearly the Fed and the Biden administration believe that will happen. But a growing chorus of even mainstream economists and bank research departments don’t think so.  Almost daily new forecasts by global banks and analysts appear indicating recession is more than 50-50 likely—and arriving sooner in late 2022 than in 2023.

The Anatomy of Inflation

Hard answers are needed……weak responses will be the norm.

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“lego ergo scribo”

Thomas Makes My Case

I have written many times about how the SCOTUS has crapped on the spirit of their position……and Thomas is making it more likely something needs done.

Him and his wife have got politically involved on several occasions…..involved in stuff that he has had a hand in crafting law. And now he proves my point….the next attack is on ‘marriage equality’ and gay rights.

Here is Thomas’ latest….

Attached to the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday was a solo concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested he’d like to also reconsider cases involving contraception, same-sex marriage, and other private sexual conduct. The pundit consensus has since deemed the chances of the majority of the high court ruling against birth control and gay rights as pretty low, but in her latest op-ed for the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus puts out a red flag over dismissing that possibility. The rights protected in those other mentioned cases are said to fall—just as abortion was, until last week—under a privacy umbrella within the “substantive due process” protections of the 14th Amendment. Marcus concedes that no other justice joined Thomas in taking aim at those other cases, so she poses the question on everyone’s mind: “Should everyone calm down?”

Her answer: “Yes—and no.” She notes it’s true that contraception and same-sex marriage just doesn’t touch the same nerve as abortion does. But she also points out the majority opinion highlighted that, when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, there was no right to abortion recognized—and the same applies to those other cases, meaning the rights they protect could also be threatened in the future. “Thomas may be alone now, but who knows who will be willing to join him down the road?” Marcus writes, noting that what “starts as an extreme, outlier view can migrate into the conservative mainstream.” “When you pull on a thread, an entire garment can unravel,” she adds. “Thomas would like to see that happen, and he is tugging, hard, at the fabric of constitutional law. Who knows what will be left when he is done.”

Read her piece in its entirety here.

Thomas needs to recuse himself from any and all rulings that involve gay rights….he is biased and cannot not make a unbiased ruling.

If he cannot bring himself to recuse then I say impeach him and anyone else that shows a hatred for the Constitution.

But how could we impeach a sitting SCOTUS judge?

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who explains to Molly and listeners what it would take to impeach a Supreme Court Justice, why she believes the conservative justices lied under oath, and what states can do ASAP to protect women.

“It’s so strange because we all knew this was coming and it still feels like just being punched in the gut. It’s devastating. It’s outrageous. I am personally outraged for the fact that the Supreme Court is no longer seeing American women as full people,” Griswold tells Molly Jong-Fast. “I support looking into the impeachment of several of these justices.”

“This is a fabulous notion, but I mean, how would that even work?” asks Molly.

“Basically Congress can impeach and there has to be a basis to do so. They have to have committed some type of legal offense,” explains Griswold, noting that she believes there have been offenses committed by some of the conservative judges to warrant said impeachment.

She points to Clarence Thomas as the first example: “Justice Thomas, who is now saying that marriage equality, that birth control, that all these rights suddenly are at risk, should be impeached for his involvement in election-related cases. He has breached the public’s trust. His wife literally was involved in the attempted violent overthrow of the U.S. government.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-how-to-impeach-a-supreme-court-justice

I say impeach the bastards!

Then impose terms limits ion judges….no body should have a job for life.

I love the idea to hold the judges accountable for their words and deeds…..but I see a problem…the Congress does not work for the people of this country they are picked and employed by political hacks and any action against a judge would go through the Congress they will do nothing to protect the people only their asses.

Thomas and his 5 cohorts are nothing more than political hacks and none deserve the title ‘your honor’….

Any opinions on this this?

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Pentagon Does The Right Thing

In my opinion for the wrong reasons…..

The Pentagon has come out on the side of ‘reproductive rights’….(for now)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday that the Pentagon is working to ensure that members of the military, their families and its civilian employees will still have access to “reproductive health care” after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Why it matters: The Defense Department currently does not have a policy to accommodate service members or employees who are seeking an abortion but are stationed in a state that has outlawed abortion, Politico reports.

  • Federal law currently allows military medical facilities to provide abortions only in cases of rape, incest or if a woman’s life is in danger, while the military’s health program is allowed to cover abortions at private facilities for those same reasons only.

What they’re saying: “Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce and DOD families,” Austin said in a statement on Friday.

  • “I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force. The Department is examining this decision closely and evaluating our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law,” he added.

The big picture: The court’s decision may further strain the military’s recruitment efforts — already hampered by low employment and other factors — as potential recruits may fear being stationed in states that have banned abortions, according to Bloomberg.

  • Women make up around 20% of the military’s 1.3 million-member active-duty force, and 95% of them are of reproductive age, according to Stars and Stripes citing department statistics.

(axios.com)

Ain’t that some kind of special?

My thoughts is that this will be a recruiting tool…..I mean the Pentagon has a hard time doing anything about sexual assaults, rape and such, in the military why else would they be so concerned about reproductive rights?

Next this ought o make conservs lose their under productive little minds.  (Something that would give me hours of enjoyment)

But here is a thought for them….punish the Pentagon by slashing their budget by $250 billion and use the cash for infrastructure and social programs.

That is just my wishful thinking for that will never happen….the M-IC and its oligarchs will slip lots of cash to our Congress to soothe their troubled minds.

This is nothing more than a news trap….in other words bullsh*t.

Any thoughts of this little piece of theater?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

All That ‘Breaking News’

This draft was written before the mass shooting in Uvalde and now the SCOTUS ruling…it had to wait for the news to play out.  I apologize for the delay.

I have avoided the MSM since the invasion of Ukraine…..they are pro-war and anti-gun and they are trying to influence the country as best as they can….and their corporate masters continue to set the news….but many of us are disillusioned by the way the MSM handles the news.

A growing number of people are selectively avoiding important news stories such as the coronavirus pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the cost-of-living crisis, according to a report released on Tuesday.

While the majority of people surveyed consume news regularly, 38% said they often or sometimes avoid the news – up from 29% in 2017 – the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said in its annual Digital News Report. Around 36% – particularly those under 35 – say that the news lowers their mood.

Trust in news is also declining, and is lowest in the United States. On average, 42% of people said they trust most news most of the time; that figure has fallen in almost half the countries in the report and risen in seven.

“Large numbers of people see the media as subject to undue political influence, and only a small minority believe most news organisations put what’s best for society ahead of their own commercial interest,” wrote Reuters Institute Director Rasmus Kleis Nielsen in the report, which is based on an online survey of 93,432 people, conducted in 46 markets.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-06-14/more-people-are-avoiding-the-news-and-trusting-it-less-report-says

Then there is the manure of ‘breaking news’….

Since the conflict in Ukraine began I have been bitching about the use of the news tag of ‘breaking news’……CNN was the worse offender….it was breaking news for 12 hours, the same report time after time…..of course I have written about this….

Ukraine And The Media

The Reporting On Ukraine

Please read those and see what I am on about….

With the recent mass shooting this story got lost in the headlines….

If you’re a regular CNN viewer, you’re also intimately familiar with one of its most well-known chyrons: the bright-red “Breaking News” banner that seems to accompany a good number of its newscasts. No more, says new network chief Chris Licht, who’s now issued an edict on cutting down on the banner’s use. Axios reports that on Thursday, Licht, 50, informed staff there are now stricter parameters on when to use the “Breaking News” label; updated guidelines have been written by Sam Feist, the network’s DC bureau chief. “Breaking News” has to “mean something BIG is happening,” Licht wrote in a memo to employees. “We are truth-tellers, focused on informing, not alarming our viewers. … The tenor of our voice holistically has to reflect that.”

The reasoning behind the shift, which CNBC calls “the first significant programming alteration” Licht has made, ties to his desire to pull CNN back from a more progressive-leaning, sometimes sensationalist approach to one more focused on hard news. That return to traditional journalism is also said to be a top priority for David Zaslav, the CEO of CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery. The move is also intended to keep the “Breaking News” banner from become diluted by overuse. “It has become such a fixture on every channel and network that its impact has become lost on the audience,” Licht noted in his memo.

Licht, who took the helm of CNN in early May, was said to have held meetings with staff to try to suss out when and how the banner is employed, at which point he directed Feist to come up with an update on its usage for CNN’s stylebook. Licht noted he’s open to feedback and “tweaks” to the guidelines, but that “this is a great starting point.” He added in the memo: “We must be vital, relevant, and respected—and how we show up for our audiences, in every story, in every part of the country, and around the world, matters.” Deadline has his memo in its entirety.

Maybe someone was reading after all…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

All Those ‘Pro-Choice’ Protests

It is said that since the monumental decision by SCOTUS to basically end Roe v Wade the nation has been faced with massive protests (I will offer my opinion on these protests at the end of this post…. so please continue reading)

Over this past weekend protests erupted over the Supreme Court decision….

Thousands of people protesting the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade returned to the streets of dozens of cities on Saturday. Smaller crowds turned out in many places to celebrate the ruling, CNN reports, and the two sides sometimes got in each other’s faces to argue the issue. With some states already putting bans on abortion services in place, clinics canceled weekend appointments, sometimes for patients sitting in their waiting rooms, per the New York Times. Activists said a long struggle is just beginning—with one side trying to further increase abortion restrictions while the other concentrates on electing politicians in the November midterms who will work for abortion rights—despite the fact that they knew the ruling was imminent. “It’s like seeing the train coming toward you,” said Julia Kaluta, 24, at a demonstration in New York City. “And you finally get hit by it. And it still hurts more than you ever thought.”

Developments involved:

  • The ban: Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have already put a prohibition on providing abortions into effect.
  • The clinics: Providers in Arizona and Arkansas have begun turning away patients, per CNN. Little Rock Planned Parenthood canceled 60 to 100 appointments, said Dr. Janet Cathey. “There were patients who said they were in their car and on their way and asked us, ‘It will be OK, won’t it?'” Cathey said. “And we had to tell them, ‘No, we have to follow the law.'” She added: “Most patients were desperate or panicked.” Patients in some places rushed to book appointments in states where abortions are still legal, such as Illinois and Minnesota.
  • Official resistance: The Republican governors of Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Vermont said they’ll preserve abortion rights, despite the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Polls show them to be have among the highest approval ratings of any governors in the US, per the Washington Post, and all are in mostly Democratic states. Michigan’s attorney general said she won’t prosecute anybody for seeking an abortion, per WMMT.
  • Clashes: Police used tear gas on protesters outside the Arizona Capitol on Friday night. The protest mostly was peaceful, per the AP, and demonstrators called the police response an overreaction. Senate President Karen Fann, a Republican, issued a statement Saturday calling the protest a failed insurrection. In Iowa, a truck was driven into a crowd of abortion rights protesters crossing a street on Friday night in Cedar Rapids. “He tried to murder them,” a local journalist said. One woman was taken to a hospital. No arrests were made, per Yahoo News.
  • Voices: Both sides demonstrated at a clinic in Overland Park, Kan., near the Missouri line. Abortion became illegal in Missouri on Friday, and Kansas has a measure on the Aug. 2 ballot that would remove protections for abortion services, per the Times. “I fear for my child,” said Abbye Putterman, 36, who has a 12-year-old daughter. “I worry that she isn’t going to have choice.” Abortion rights opponents chanted and tried to keep women from going into the clinic. “We don’t believe in moral compromise,” said Valley Scharping, 26, “and we don’t want them to be guilty of murder.”

Okay my thoughts.

Protests are a good way to make the government understand what the people think….sadly these mean little.

The disaster has been done and is becoming law….protesting against it will do little to change the outcome.

This is what we get when there is NO long game….when we react instead of act.

Finally–the will of the people means nothing.  We do not have the cash for the Congress or the White House for them to actually care.  If we cannot bribe our politician then we get nothing from their tenure but policies that effect us and not them.

Protests are good and do not stop yelling….but also realize that it accomplishes little other than a feel good rush.

Find a new plan.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Does Guns (Again)

It is that time when the Supreme Court hands down its judgements again…this is the latest to be handed down….

The Supreme Court handed advocates for gun rights a major victory on Thursday with a ruling expected to make it easier for people to carry concealed handguns:

  • Decision: The court struck down a New York law requiring that people who want to carry concealed weapons must show a “proper cause” for doing so, reports the New York Times. The 6-3 decision split along the court’s conservative and liberal lines.
  • Majority: The court’s conservative justices declared that New York’s law was so restrictive that it violated the Constitution. “The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,” wrote Clarence Thomas, per the Washington Post. His opinion declared that the state’s law violated that principle.
  • Dissent: “Many States have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds,” wrote Stephen Breyer. “The Court today severely burdens States’ efforts to do so.”
  • Precedent: The ruling will have consequences beyond New York, notes the AP. For example, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have “proper cause” laws similar to New York’s, and those will likely be challenged, too. The AP estimates that a quarter of the US population currently lives in states expected to be affected by the ruling.
  • Background: New York’s law has been on the books for more than a century, notes the Post. Two men, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, sued, saying it made it “virtually impossible for the ordinary law-abiding citizen to obtain a license,” per the Times. The court agreed.

Ain’t it grand?

I am sorry but this has nothing to do with personal safety, in my mind, this is just another masculine thing….letting some to feel like a ‘big man’ because that are a tottin’.

There comes a time for sanity but when it comes to the sacred gun sanity leaves the room for paranoia and silliness……since the Court is not positive in the eyes of the population.

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Americans’ confidence in the country’s top court has fallen to a record law, according to the latest Gallup poll. The pollsters say just 25% of Americans have “quite a lot” or a “great deal” of confidence in the court, down 11 points from a year ago. It’s the lowest number in polling going back to 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, when confidence was at 45%. The previous low was in 2014, when confidence in the court was at 30%. The highest figure over the last 49 years was 56%, recorded in 1985 and 1988.

Gallup says the poll was carried out from June 1 to 20, weeks after the leak of the draft decision on abortion rights. With a conservative supermajority in place, pollsters say only 13% of Democrats have high confidence in the top court, CNN reports. Confidence among independent voters has dived from 40% to 25% year-on-year, according to Gallup, while among Republicans, it has edged up from 37% to 39%. In a poll taken in 2020, before Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as then-President Donald Trump’s third SCOTUS pick, the figure for Republicans was 53%. Gallup says confidence in the court among Republicans hit a record low of 26% in 2010.

Biden signs ‘landmark’ gun deal…..

  • The bill would make the local juvenile records of people age 18 to 20 available during required federal background checks when they attempt to buy guns. Those examinations, currently limited to three days, would last up to a maximum of 10 days to give federal and local officials time to search records.
  • People convicted of domestic abuse who are current or former romantic partners of the victim would be prohibited from acquiring firearms, closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”
  • There would be money to help states enforce red flag laws.
  • The measure expands the use of background checks by rewriting the definition of the federally licensed gun dealers required to conduct them. Penalties for gun trafficking are strengthened, billions of dollars are provided for behavioral health clinics and school mental health programs, and there’s money for school safety initiatives, though not for personnel to use a “dangerous weapon.”

The big tagline for this bill is “it will save lives”……tell me where.

Your thoughts will be appreciated.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”