Day: July 17, 2023

Those Fiscal Responsible Republicans

You know who they are….they are the ones shouting loudly for spending cuts in social programs, environment programs, just about all programs with the exception of the Pentagon which gets more than it asks for in the budget.

This past ‘debt crisis’ deal found the poor being whacked on the pee pee….and yet these same ‘spend thrifts’ have a plan….

They think they deserve a pay raise…..

After taking the global economy hostage to secure painful cuts to aid programs and other federal spending, House Republicans are proposing a pay raise for themselves and other members of Congress for the coming fiscal year.

Roll Callreported Thursday that under spending legislation approved by the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee last month, members of Congress “would stand to receive a 4.6%, or $8,000, pay increase” in 2024. Most members of Congress currently make an annual salary of $174,000, putting them in the top 10% of U.S. earners.

“Lawmakers last received a cost-of-living increase in 2009,” the outlet noted, “but House Republicans left out the traditional language blocking a cost-of-living increase for members from this year’s Legislative Branch bill.”

The Republican-led push for a congressional pay increase comes just weeks after GOP leaders negotiated a debt ceiling agreement with President Joe Biden that imposes new work requirements on older recipients of federal food aid, a change that experts say is likely to strip benefits from around 750,000 low-income people.

Congressional Republicans are also pushing for even steeper cuts to federal spending than were agreed upon in the debt ceiling deal, threatening a government shutdown.

Meanwhile, the House GOP is working to pass legislation that would hand the top 1% of U.S. earners $28 billion in tax cuts next year.

(commondreams.org)

Seriously?

I bunch of lay abouts that work 3 days a week and about 5 months a year think they deserve a pay increase….if anything since they can get nothing done legislatively they owe the taxpayers a refund.

Can you believe these douche bags?

They want to cut benefits across the board for poor and low income workers and think that deserves a pay raise.

These assholes have some nerve!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Your Clusters Are Ready

Nope this is not my attempt to share some family secret cookie recipe….this post is about those lovely cluster bombs that the US has sent to Ukraine.

A Ukrainian general told CNN on Thursday that Ukraine has received a shipment of US cluster bombs, controversial munitions that have a devastating impact on civilians.

“We just got them, we haven’t used them yet, but they can radically change the situation on the battlefield,” Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said.

The Biden administration announced last week that it was sending Ukraine cluster munitions in the form of 155mm artillery shells as part of an $800 million weapons package.

It’s not clear how many have arrived in Ukraine so far, but Pentagon officials have said they will provide “hundreds of thousands” of rounds.

The cluster munitions are being provided using the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows President Biden to ship Ukraine weapons directly from US military stockpiles.

Cluster bombs scatter small submunitions over large areas, making them especially hazardous for civilians. Submunitions that don’t explode immediately on impact can kill or maim civilians for decades to come, as they have in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, where the US dropped hundreds of millions of bomblets during the Vietnam War.

Graphic on cluster munitions, designed to disperse or release tiny explosives, used in the Ukraine-Russia war.

Shortly after the beginning of the Ukraine excursion and Russia was using cluster ammo the Biden people called their use as a war crime….now that the US is supplying them is it still a war crime?

Now to my thinking this is an escalation of this conflict and I am not alone….

When certain lines are crossed, the nature of other things becomes clearer. Providing cluster bombs to the Ukrainian military is such a rubicon. The pretense that the NATO sponsored forces have some kind of moral high ground in their conflict with Moscow is fading quickly. Even retired Vermont senator Patrick Leahy together with current senator Jeff Merkley acknowledged as much in a recent opinion piece in the newspaper of the warfare state, the Washington Post.(7/8/2023). Neither of these men oppose the US involvement in the conflict, but providing a weapon banned by most governments in the world is too much for these humanitarian warmongers. Historically, the first cluster bomb in the United States was developed in the 1950s by Ralph M. Parsons Company. Its identity number was E86 and was originally developed to disperse chemical and biological agents among enemy populations during war. After chemical and biological warfare fell out of favor with those servants of Mars who plan wars, the concept was modified so that the bombs would explode in the air. The explosion releases hundreds of bomblets which fall to the ground, creating a sort of minefield. The primary type being sent to Ukraine is the Mk 20 Rockeye II, which is considered an anti-tank weapon but was used by the US military during the first US attack on Iraq on numerous types of targets. According to Globalsecurity.org, US Marines used the weapon extensively against armor, artillery, and personnel targets. The remainder were dropped by Air Force and Navy aircraft. (accessed 7/8/2023)

Let’s Be Clear, Cluster Bombs are an Escalation

These weapons are devastating to children and civilians….why?  They are shiny small objects that look like toys….

They look more like toys than weapons of death and maiming. Bright yellow, red or black, some resemble whiffle balls, others miniature windmills, robots and Transformers. They’re too tempting for any girl or boy to ignore, let alone kids from isolated villages in the hinterlands of a country where nearly three-quarters of the population live in grinding poverty. That country is Laos. And the illusory playthings are cluster bombs.

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186949348/us-cluster-munitions-civilian-casualties-laos

These ‘cute’ little trinkets can keep killing and maiming long after the war is over.

If the use by Russia is a war crime then the use by Ukraine is a war crime and the US is responsible.

Then Putin reminds everyone involved….

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Ukraine that its military is not the only one with cluster munitions. And should Ukraine use them against his nation during their war, Putin said, Russia “reserves the right to take reciprocal action.” The message was delivered in a Rossiya TV interview put on Telegram on Sunday, USA Today reports. Ukraine has just received a US shipment of cluster munitions but says it hasn’t used any yet, per CNN.

But that is the American way hypocritical to the bitter end.

This will not end well is my feeling….how about you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”