Day: April 17, 2024

GOP And The Workers

It always amazes me just how strong Repubs can be with the workers….and yet the GOP goes out of its way to screw the worker as often as possible.

Since about 1960 the GOP has been on a vendetta against the working class….and it just keeps getting worse.

It is 2024 and yet the workers have to put up with policies from the 1920s…..

But not to worry the GOP has plans for the working class….

Recently, you may have noticed that the hot weather is getting ever hotter. Every year the United States swelters under warmer temperatures and longer periods of sustained heat. In fact, each of the last nine months — May 2023 through February 2024 — set a world record for heat. As I’m writing this, March still has a couple of days to go, but likely as not, it, too, will set a record.

Such heat poses increasing health hazards for many groups: the old, the very young, those of us who don’t have access to air conditioning. One group, however, is at particular risk: people whose jobs require lengthy exposure to heat. Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that about 40 workers died of heat exposure between 2011 and 2021, although, as CNN reports, that’s probably a significant undercount. In February 2024, responding to this growing threat, a coalition of 10 state attorneys general petitioned the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to implement “a nationwide extreme heat emergency standard” to protect workers from the kinds of dangers that last year killed, among others, construction workers, farm workers, factory workers, and at least one employee who was laboring in an unairconditioned area of a warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee.

Facing the threat of overweening government interference from OSHA or state regulators, two brave Republican-run state governments have stepped in to protect employers from just such dangerous oversight. Florida and Texas have both passed laws prohibiting localities from mandating protections like rest breaks for, or even having to provide drinking water to, workers in extreme heat situations. Seriously, Florida and Texas have made it illegal for local cities to protect their workers from the direct effects of climate change. Apparently, being “woke” includes an absurd desire not to see workers die of heat exhaustion.

And those state laws are very much in keeping with the plans that the national right-wing has for workers, should the wholly-owned Trump subsidiary that is today’s Republican Party take control of the federal government this November.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/11/republicans-have-plans-for-working-people/

This is only a couple of states but I look for it to appear in most Red States in the next 4 years or so.

If you work hard for a living why on earth would you vote for this band of thugs?

Just wondering.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is The Speaker Playing With Fire?

The Speaker of the House is trying to work a deal where Ukraine can get their hush money (stop the bitching and moaning)….but his efforts are making him a target for the band of idiots that like disrupting Congress by going to war with the Speaker.

Johnson is playing with fire…..

It’s a sign of how complicated the politics of Congress are at the moment: House Speaker Mike Johnson will try to pass four different bills this week designed to send billions in aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan—all while trying to keep his job as speaker.

  • The four bills: Johnson will introduce separate bills on aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, aid to Taiwan, and a fourth one that contains a range of measures favored by the GOP such as banning TikTok, reports the Washington Post. One main goal of this “convoluted” strategy is to decouple the Ukraine and Israel components.
  • The challenges: There are many. First, Johnson “would need near-unanimous support from his own conference” even to bring the package to the floor, and it’s “far from certain” he has that, per Politico. If he clears that hurdle, success hinges “on a complicated mix of bipartisan coalitions that support different pieces, given resistance among hard-right Republicans to Ukraine funding and among left-wing Democrats to unfettered aid to Israel,” per the New York Times.
  • His speakership: Marjorie Taylor Greene has threatened to trigger a vote on ousting Johnson if he moves ahead with Ukraine aid, and she called this new plan “another wrong direction” for Johnson, reports CBS News. In response, Johnson said: “I don’t spend my time worrying about motions to vacate.” In making the case for the aid, he said: “We have terrorists and tyrants and terrible leaders around the world like Putin and Xi and in Iran, and they’re watching to see if America will stand up for its allies and our interests around the globe—and we will.” Ukraine, for example, has said it is quickly running out of military supplies, per the Post.
  • Deeper dive: All in all, this is a “gigantic gamble” by Johnson, as laid out in a detailed analysis at Punchbowl News. The plan has the potential to “blow up in his face,” reads the piece. “If the vote count starts to flag or hardliners rise up in opposition, there might be a movement to force Johnson to back away from this plan. Yet for Johnson, this scheme is the best of a lot of bad options.”

He is making few friends in the Freedom Caucus, the very ones that lead the charge to get rid of McCarthy…..and one more has joined the call….

Marjorie Taylor Greene is no longer the only Republican ready to remove Mike Johnson as House speaker. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said Tuesday he was on board, reports Politico. In fact, Massie asked Johnson to resign in a closed-door GOP session, and Johnson refused, per the Hill. Last month, Greene filed a “motion to vacate” the speaker’s post, though she hasn’t said when she might trigger an actual vote. She and others in the House Freedom Caucus accuse Johnson of working too closely with Democrats on several policy issues, and his decision to call a vote on aid to Ukraine further angered them.

Johnson: “I am not resigning and it is in my view an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply trying to do our job,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting, per the Wall Street Journal.

  • Massie: “The motion is going to get called, OK? Does anybody doubt that?” Massie told reporters. “And then he’s gonna lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy. And I have told him this in private, like weeks ago.” Massie reportedly told Johnson in the meeting, “You’re not going to be speaker much longer,” and Axios says many attendees booed his remarks.
  • Democrats: Should Greene call a vote, Johnson would almost certainly need the backing of Democrats to remain in his post, and some have said in recent weeks they would protect him if he brings Ukraine aid up for a vote, per the Hill.

As if the House could not get more dysfunctional these idiots have to waste even more time and energy.

Is this in the best interest of the nation?

I say no!

What say you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”