Category: International Situations

The Beacon Of Democracy

For decades the US has sold itself as the ‘beacon of democracy’ fighting the autocrats for a freer and democratic world…..promoting democracy as an export from our shores.

Well all that patriotic claptrap is just plain bullsh*t.

The US is npe selling weapons to the world’s autocrats…..

President Joe Biden claims that the United States is leading “democracies” in a fight against “autocracies” to establish a peaceful international order, but his administration approved weapons sales to nearly three-fifths of the world’s authoritarian countries in 2022.

That’s according to a new analysis conducted by Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler and published Thursday in The Intercept.

The U.S. has been the world’s largest arms dealer since the end of the Cold War. Data released in March showed that the U.S. accounted for 40% of global weapons exports from 2018 to 2022.

As Semler explained:

In general, these exports are funded through grants or sales. There are two pathways for the latter category: foreign military sales and direct commercial sales.

The U.S. government acts as an intermediary for FMS acquisitions: It buys the materiel from a company first and then delivers the goods to the foreign recipient. DCS acquisitions are more straightforward: They’re the result of an agreement between a U.S. company and a foreign government. Both categories of sales require the government’s approval.

Country-level data for last year’s DCS authorizations was released in late April through the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. FMS figures for fiscal year 2022 were released earlier this year through the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency. According to their data, a total of 142 countries and territories bought weapons from the U.S. in 2022, for a total of $85 billion in bilateral sales.

To determine how many of those governments were democratic and how many were autocratic, Semler relied on data from the Varieties of Democracy project at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, which uses a classification system called Regimes of the World.

“Of the 84 countries codified as autocracies under the Regimes of the World system in 2022, the United States sold weapons to at least 48, or 57%, of them,” Semler wrote. “The ‘at least’ qualifier is necessary because several factors frustrate the accurate tracking of U.S. weapons sales. The State Department’s report of commercial arms sales during the fiscal year makes prodigious use of ‘various’ in its recipients category; as a result, the specific recipients for nearly $11 billion in weapons sales are not disclosed.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-sells-weapons-to-majority-of-authoritarian-countries

So Biden’s chest thumping about “battle between democracies and autocracies” is so much bovine fecal matter.

It looks like playing both sides from the middle…..again cash always takes precedent over morality.

It’s always the lies.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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War Department Makes It Big!

I know some think I spend too much time writing about the War Department and its stranglehold on the Congress and budget…..maybe so but how else will readers learn what is being done with their money.  (Apparently too many could care less)

After weeks of negotiations the House and Biden come to a deal….the shit show went on and on…..and yet there is NO negotiations on the budget for the War Department. Why?

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans that was announced Sunday caps military spending at $886 billion for 2024, matching President Biden’s requested budget.

Republicans negotiating the debt ceiling deal only sought non-military spending cuts. The $886 billion cap for military spending represents about a 3.3% increase from 2023.

The White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) still need to get the debt ceiling agreement passed through Congress. Many hawkish Republicans will likely oppose the deal as they previously blasted Biden’s massive $886 billion request as “inadequate.”

Hawks in Congress have gotten their way over the past two years as they approved significantly more military spending than what President Biden requested for 2022 and 2023. For 2023, President Biden asked for $813 billion in military spending, but Congress added $45 billion, bringing the finalized National Defense Authorization Act to $858 billion.

A similar increase for 2024 could bring the NDAA close to $1 trillion. The US also authorizes other national security spending that is not included in the NDAA. According to analyst Winslow Wheeler, factoring in other types of expenditures on the national security state, including interest on debt and the Veteran Affairs budget, would bring the total defense budget for 2024 to around $1.5 trillion.

(antiwar.com)

Why is this framed as the price for freedom?

Why are poor and retired Americans having to foot the bill for the debt….war has added more to the debt than anything else and yet it is sacred and cannot be altered.

Why?

Then there is this Ukraine thing….

Dems are proving to be more pro war than the GOP (a scary thought)…..

Several members of the Democrat Party in Congress are urging the White House to provide Kiev with significantly more military support. One representative wants the Joe Biden administration to place “non-combatant observers” on the ground in Ukraine. 

Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) called for long-term investment in modernizing Ukraine’s military. He believes the upgraded weapons will turn the country into a “porcupine that can’t be swallowed.” 

One suggestion Crow made was sending non-combatant observers to the battlefield to learn “through direct observation and communication with Ukrainian forces.” Crow did not specify if the personnel would come from the CIA, Pentagon or another agency. However, deploying any Americans on the battlefield risks them being killed by Russian soldiers. 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CN), are backing a plan that would send ATACM missiles to Ukraine.

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/democrats-in-congress-demand-more-aggressive-ukraine-policy/

The blood money paid to Congress by the industry ensures that they continue to make war and make money….

The debt ceiling agreement reached between the White House and House Republicans places no constraints on spending on the war in Ukraine, a White House official told Bloomberg.

The $113 billion that has been authorized to spend on the war in Ukraine so far was passed as supplemental emergency funds, which is exempt from the spending caps that are part of the debt ceiling deal.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, funding “designated as an emergency requirement or for overseas contingency operations would not be constrained, and certain other funding would not be subject to the caps.” The deal suspends the nation’s debt limit through January 1, 2025.

Hawks in Congress are looking to use emergency spending to increase the $886 billion military budget that was agreed to as part of the deal. The emergency funds could go beyond Ukraine and might be used to send weapons to Taiwan or for other spending that hawks favor as part of their strategy against China.

(antiwar.com)

….all the while the poor and those in need will have to suffer to keep the war drums beating and profitable.

And as always I ask the same question….what does the US hope to gain from our massive investment in Ukraine?  (Not to worry it will go unanswered)

This whole debt thing is just goddamn pathetic.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Nightmare Scenario

This is a scary look at what would be the possibilities if for some unknown reason Donald the Orange wins in 2024 and a look at what this country can expect from his heavy handed BS.

Vox gives us a look at that ‘nightmare scenario’….

At Donald Trump’s CNN town hall on Wednesday, the former president took a series of policy positions that felt extreme even by contemporary Republican standards.

“In little over an hour, Donald J. Trump suggested the United States should default on its debts for the first time in history, injected doubt over the country’s commitment to defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, dangled pardons for most of the Capitol rioters convicted of crimes, and refused to say he would abide by the results of the next presidential election,” the New York Times wrote in a fair summary of the evening.

There is every reason to think that this kind of talk reflects what a second Trump administration would be like. As the Times notes, there has been a concerted behind-the-scenes effort in MAGA world to ensure that Trump will face fewer roadblocks in enacting his agenda in 2025 than he did in 2017 — starting with gutting the federal bureaucracy and replacing thousands of nonpartisan employees with Trumpists.

“These proposals have been incubating for more than two years within a network of well-funded and Trump-connected outside groups,” the Times reports.

In 2016, Trump put absolutely zero effort into preparing for the possibility that he might actually govern after the election. The result is that he took office with a staff heavily drawn from the ranks of the GOP establishment, some of whom worked to curb his most disruptive impulses.

This time around, we can expect no such discordance — meaning that we’re likely to get Trump unleashed from day one.

Moreover, experience with politicians like Trump abroad suggests that Trump’s agenda will be every bit as radical as the town hall suggests — with a focus on dismantling constraints on Trump’s authority and undermining the fairness of the political system.

(There is so much more to his agenda)

https://www.vox.com/2023/5/13/23708595/trump-second-term-cnn-town-hall

But keep in mind that there is another slug in the running, DeSantis…..and Scott and Christie and Pence is waiting in the wings…..please do into forget Haley….so far I see nothing to get excited about in the GOP.

It is early and so many things can change by next year…..keep reading and I will give you more take on the 2024 election.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Truth And Lies

That seems to be the way of things these days…..we have truth and we have lies and it is up to the individual to ascertain which is which…..and there in lies the problem…..thanx to social media and the media itself have blurred the lines…..

This first story was written in 2020…..but it still helps the understanding….

Many of us are familiar with the quotation, “Repeat a lie often enough and people will eventually come to believe it.”

Not ironically, the adage — often attributed to the infamous Nazi Joseph Goebbels — is true and has been validated by decades of research on what psychology calls the “illusory truth effect.” First described in a 1977 study by Temple University psychologist Dr. Lynn Hasher and her colleagues, the illusory truth effect occurs when repeating a statement increases the belief that it’s true even when the statement is actually false.[1]

Subsequent research has expanded what we know about the illusory truth effect. For example, the effect doesn’t only occur through repetition but can happen through any process that increases familiarity with a statement or the ease by which it’s processed by the brain (what psychologists in this context refer to as a statement’s “fluency”). For example, the perceived truth of written statements can be increased by presenting them in bold, high-contrast fonts[2] or when aphorisms are expressed as a rhyme.[3]

According to a 2010 meta-analytic review of the truth effect (which applies to both true and false statements),[4] while the perceived credibility of a statement’s source increases perceptions of truth as we might expect, the truth effect persists even when sources are thought to be unreliable and especially when the source of the statement is unclear. In other words, while we typically evaluate a statement’s truth based on the trustworthiness of the source, repeated exposure to both information and misinformation increases the sense that it’s true, regardless of the source’s credibility.

The illusory truth effect tends to be strongest when statements are related to a subject about which we believe ourselves to be knowledgeable,[5] and when statements are ambiguous such that they aren’t obviously true or false at first glance.[4] It can also occur with statements (and newspaper headlines) that are framed as questions (e.g. “Is President Obama a Muslim?”), something called the “innuendo effect.”[6]

View at Medium.com

Now this report on the mass media and its part at spreading the manure….

A recent case rightly illustrates the confounding way truth and lies spread in mass media. On June 15, 2017, The New York Post published this headline: “Breatharian Couple Survives on the Universe’s Energy Instead of Food.” Now, The New York Post is a big paper—the sixth largest, by circulation, in the United States—and it’s an old paper, established in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. But headlines like this show that even the mainstream media can sometimes stretch the truth, or just ignore it completely.

In skimming the New York Post article, it’s not just the headline, but the whole article is silly. And this was not an April Fool’s joke. The article says “Husband and wife Akahi Ricardo and Camila Castello believe that food and water aren’t necessary and humans can be sustained solely by the energy of the universe.” They’ve eaten, we’re told, just three times a week since 2008, and even then only a piece of fruit or vegetable broth. Furthermore, the couple didn’t eat a single thing for three years. Ms. Castello didn’t eat during her first pregnancy, either, because as she declared, “I knew my son would be nourished enough by my love.” 

For the record, people can’t survive without nourishment, and we are required to get our nourishment from food. These facts should not be controversial. But the New York Post article presented the story of this so-called Breatharian couple as fact. There wasn’t a word of skepticism, or an iota of fact-checking, or even a hint that this story wasn’t literally true.

Truth and Lies in Mass Media

On a side note….did the AP strike a deal with Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes…..you knew that eventually I was going to interject some history….

Even the Associated Press has its secrets.

A recent report, declassified by the AP itself, discloses information about the news outlet’s coverage of WWII, and the role that Nazi soldiers may have had in it. According to the internal report released Wednesday, the AP made a deal to exchange photos with Nazi soldiers. The photos were run in American newspapers, without crediting their origins. In turn, AP photos were used by Nazi soldiers for Nazi propaganda.

An investigation was open into the long-secret arrangement after German historian Harriet Scharnberg published an article in March of 2016 accusing the AP of Nazi cooperation. Scharnberg’s research pointed out that pictures supplied by the AP were being published in propaganda publications, such as “Der Untermensch” (The Subhuman). Scharnberg also stated that by submitting to “Schriftleitergesetz“ or editors law, the AP relinquished control of the content that they released to German publications. Therefore, the AP’s content fell under instruction not to print any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.”

https://www.salon.com/2017/05/11/the-associated-press-reveals-secret-propaganda-deal-with-nazis/

Media spreading manure goes back a ways…..

Who do you trust?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Debt Ceiling–In Case You Want To Know

A deal has been made between Biden and the House GOP….I would like for the people, my readers, that would like to know more beyond the god awful deal that was finally settled upon….

Here is the takeaways and the answers to most questions…..

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/key-questions-takeaways-debt-ceiling-deal/story

Personally this article is just the MSM trying to turn chicken manure into sirloin…..

If you do not like ABC then maybe this will be more favorable to your thinking…..

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whats-in-and-whats-out-of-the-debt-ceiling-deal-between-biden-and-mccarthy

I still do not see where the American people made out in this deal…..basically it is to protect the markets and give cover for their re-election……

An agreement has been reached, at least in principle, by President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on raising the nation’s debt limit, and now the final OK is in Congress’ hands. Both progressive Democrats and ultra-conservatives are already pushing back on the deal, and if Biden and McCarthy can’t convince members of their own parties to vote for it by a June 5 deadline, a default looms. Negotiators are scrambling to finalize the bill’s details, and the takes are starting to trickle in. Some thoughts on what this agreement could mean:

  • View on proposed spending cuts: Economists tell the New York Times they don’t think those “modest” cuts will seriously shake up a “well-positioned” economy that should be able to absorb them. “The most important impact is the stability that comes with having a deal,” Ben Harris, a former deputy Treasury secretary, tells the paper. “Markets can function knowing that we don’t have a cataclysmic debt ceiling crisis looming.”
  • A Balanced deal, but…: The editorial board at the Washington Post notes that both the GOP and Dems got “some of what they wanted,” and that “most Americans will probably approve” of the “sensible” basics of the deal. The panel argues, however, that the agreement sets a “dangerous precedent,” as “House Republicans have now used the debt limit twice to create a hostage-like situation that brings the nation close to an unthinkable default.” The board’s recommendation: “The debt limit itself needs to be scrapped,” as it “no longer makes any sense.”
  • “Wrinkles and curveballs”: Politico outlines the details that make “even more clear what kinds of trade-offs [Biden] and McCarthy had to accept in ways that are already angering members of the parties’ bases”—including a thumbs-up for an Appalachian gas pipeline promoted by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
  • Cautious optimism from investors: They note the debt deal could “boost overall appetite for risk” in the stock market, while also boosting some of the “unloved corners,” including cyclical stocks, defense stocks, and energy stocks, per Reuters. “The hope is that the approval of this tentative deal will help underpin the broader market and not just the handful of big tech names that have kept the market well in positive territory,” Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial, says.
  • Temporary relief? A second piece in Reuters takes the stance that any market relief that emerges out of the deal will only be a “short-lived sugar high.” The outlet notes that’s because once the agreement is struck, it’s believed the US Treasury will rapidly issue nearly $1.1 trillion in Treasury bills—a move that would “effectively suck a bunch of liquidity out of the marketplace” and create “an environment where markets are crash prone,” experts say.
  • “Fiscal hangover”: Investors.com similarly warns that “a fiscal hangover is just beginning,” and that “we’re about to get Fed quantitative tightening on steroids,” with a possible stock market dip and recession around the corner.
  • The art of compromise: Writing for CNN, Dean Obeidallah notes that making concessions is part of the game, and for fellow Democrats who don’t like the agreement, he has some advice. “There is an easy fix: Win back control of the House in 2024—while retaining the Senate and White House—and they can roll back any parts of the deal they find objectionable,” he writes.

Not to worry we will play this same game in a couple of years….just another way to do nothing while appearing to do something.

All this is just so much theater of the absurd…..and it is pathetic.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More On The Mini Dictator, DeSantis

I hope that everyone had a good holiday weekend but it is time to return to the surrealistic world of American politics.

Since he announced that he would seek the GOP nomination there has been a wealth of criticism about him as a candidate…..me included but not everyone thinks it is a big deal that so many have turned this story into….

An articled that appeared in the “National Review’….

Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 campaign Wednesday night and, as you may have heard, it did not go exceedingly well. “DeSaster” was trending as a hashtag after the glitchy announcement event on Twitter. Calling attention to the many, many headlines describing it “horrendous” or words to that effect, Elon Musk himself put a different spin on things: “I call it ‘massive attention,'” he tweeted. “Top story on Earth today.” So which is it: An embarrassing failure, or did Twitter essentially crash because of legit interest in the Florida governor’s campaign? “As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle,” writes Jim Geraghty at the National Review.

Geraghty finds the sentiment that this was an unprecedented political gaffe to be “spectacularly inaccurate,” one that “reflects an ignorance of recent American political history that is best explained by severe amnesia.” He argues that the rollout will be remembered as a minor blip as DeSantis’ campaign advances. “I still believe that the key moment in the 2024 GOP presidential primary will be the first time DeSantis and Donald Trump are on the same debate stage, and the first time DeSantis challenges Trump to his face, and how that exchange plays for the two men.” Until then, nobody should get too worked up. (Read the full op-ed.)

Overreaction?

Then explain the early days DeSantis raised millions…..

Ron DeSantis took a lot of grief over his glitchy campaign launch on Twitter. But the Florida governor now has $8.2 million worth of comebacks for his critics. That’s how much his campaign raised in the first 24 hours after the launch, an amount described variously as “massive” by Axios, “blockbuster” by Fox News, and “huge” by the New York Times. As the Times notes, it far outpaces former President Trump’s campaign, which reported raising $9.5 million in the first six weeks of his launch. Another notable contrast: When he became a candidate in 2019, Joe Biden raised $6.3 million in his first 24 hours.

In the view of Axios, the fundraising haul clearly cements DeSantis as the prime challenger to Trump. “$8.2 million in the first 24 hours,” tweeted DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin. “Our Great American Comeback!” So what about those Twitter glitches? Criticism and mockery may have been all over the media, but Politico took the pulse of Iowa residents who turned out late Wednesday night to hear another 2024 candidate, Sen. Tim Scott. The upshot is that most people couldn’t have cared less about the governor’s Twitter fiasco.

This scares me as he should every other thinking person.

Then I read a post about his Florida bill, HB 1285…that would create a state army (WTF?)…

Read the post for yourself….

DeSantis Signs Bill Creating $100 Million State Military

This smacks of Germany of the 1920s

If there are any Floridians reading please let us know it this is a true thing or some sort of satire….

But not to fret Donald the Orange is on the spot to give us a thrill…..

“HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, BUT ESPECIALLY TO THOSE WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE COUNTRY THEY LOVE, AND TO THOSE IN LINE OF A VERY DIFFERENT, BUT EQUALLY DANGEROUS FIRE, STOPPING THE THREATS OF THE TERRORISTS, MISFITS AND LUNATIC THUGS WHO ARE WORKING FEVERISHLY FROM WITHIN TO OVERTURN AND DESTROY OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY, WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN IN GREATER PERIL THAN IT IS RIGHT NOW,” Trump wrote. “WE MUST STOP THE COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS AND FASCIST “PIGS” AT EVERY TURN AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

And his loyal will believe this crap…..there should be nothing happy about remembering our war dead…..but that is just me.

Are you paying attention?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Deal For Our Time

Over the weekend the drama of the negotiations for the deal to handle the debt came to an end…..Biden, Dems and GOP have cut a deal…

President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have reached an agreement in principle to increase the nation’s borrowing authority and avoid a default. Negotiators are now racing to finalize the bill’s text. McCarthy said the House will vote on the legislation on Wednesday, giving the Senate time to consider it ahead of the June 5 deadline to avoid a default. While many details are unknown, both sides will be able to point to some victories, per the AP. Some details, based on what’s known so far:

  • Two years: The agreement would keep non-defense spending roughly flat in the 2024 fiscal year and increase it by 1% the following year, as well as provide for a two-year debt-limit increase—past the next presidential election in 2024. That’s according to a source familiar with the deal who provided details on the condition of anonymity.
  • Veterans: The agreement will fully fund medical care for veterans at the levels included in Biden’s proposed 2024 budget blueprint, including for a fund dedicated to veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances or environmental hazards. Biden sought $20.3 billion for the toxic exposure fund in his budget.
  • Work requirements: The agreement would expand some work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. The agreement would raise the age for existing work requirements from 49 to 54, similar to the Republican proposal, but those changes would expire in 2030. And the White House said it would at the same time reduce the number of vulnerable people at all ages who are subject to the requirements.
  • Energy projects: The deal puts in place changes in the the National Environmental Policy Act that will designate “a single lead agency” to develop environmental reviews, in hopes of streamlining the process.
  • Student debt: Republicans had sought to repeal Biden’s efforts to waive $10,000 to $20,000 in debt for nearly all borrowers who took out student loans. But the provision was a nonstarter for Democrats. The budget agreement keeps Biden’s student loan relief in place, though the Supreme Court will have the ultimate say on the matter.

No one will be happy with the plan….the markets ought to open higher come Tuesday…..so some will be happy….t least the VA got a small victory just in time for Memorial Day.

I had a problem with the role that the media played in the coverage of this issue…..there are a couple of ‘notions’….

“First, the notion that ‘modest cuts’ to spending are inconsequential.”

Second is the role of inflation,” Hauser continued, charging that the brewing potential deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “would be a catastrophe for government capacity, and coverage that ignores the role of inflation (hardly a low profile issue in 2023!) is wildly and indefensibly misguided.”

“Third, the notion that the president was trapped under the gun of McCarthy is ridiculous,” he added. “Because the debt ceiling is an unconstitutional, incoherent excuse for a law and because there is an active lawsuit from the National Association of Government Employees [NAGE], Biden’s status as a hostage merely reflects an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome.”

Given arguments that the president “has a wide number of ways out from the debt ceiling and no legal way to implement it,” Hauser asserted, “the media needs to quit deferring to the debt ceiling’s political theater and engage more with the essentially uncontroverted legal experts pointing out that it cannot be implemented in a constitutional manner.”

(commondreams.org)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Work Until You Die

That seems to be the answer dollar crisis that the GOP has for the crumbling retirement infrastructure….every time they control something in DC their first reaction is that workers need to retire later than last fiddled with…..

And it is that time again…..GOP is trying to push through another extension on your working ages…..

But is that truly the answer to the looming crisis?

Right-wing lawmakers’ preferred method for dealing with the United States’ looming retirement crisis—telling older workers to keep toiling until they’ve saved enough to stop—is “not a viable solution,” says a report published Wednesday.

“Millions of people are entering their retirement years with insufficient savings to cover basic expenses and medical bills,” the new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes. “In response, some policymakers have proposed that older Americans could delay retirement to increase their savings.”

But this ostensible fix “overlooks the large group of older Americans who work in difficult conditions—ranging from the physically demanding to the outright dangerous,” EPI points out. “If older Americans endure difficult conditions that often force earlier exits from the workplace, proposals to delay retirement make little sense.”

Rather than forcing aging employees to postpone retirement, lawmakers should implement full-employment macroeconomic policies to ensure that workers have “access to jobs that pay fair wages and provide solid benefits during their prime working years,” says the report, calling the latter approach “a more effective way to close the retirement savings gap.”

To make sure “older workers can afford to retire when they need to,” EPI also urges policymakers to bolster “support for workers with caregiving responsibilities, expand Social Security coverage and benefits,” and improve “conditions for all workers through collective bargaining, stronger labor standards, and more effective health and safety protections.”

Those who portray working longer as a legitimate solution for people who cannot afford to retire assume that “as workers age and gain more work experience, they are able to transition into jobs that are less physically demanding, less onerous, and less hazardous—making it possible to extend their working lives,” the report notes. But as it goes on to show, “many workers in fact see little or no improvement in working conditions as they age.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/working-longer-no-solution-to-us-retirement-crisis

Wait an see just what silliness the GOP has to offer to solve this problem….and believe me it will be silly.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is This How They Support Our Veterans?

I personally think that this country does not give enough support to our veterans…..especially those that suffer damage because of our moronic wars.

The GOP always plays hard to the veteran and lies to them every election and when they are elected they stab the vets in the back…..almost every time.

The GOP controlled House has done that exact thing while playing the debt game…..

When the new House majority passed its grab bag of government spending cuts last month, setting up an on-going game of chicken with the White House over any federal debt limit increase, they also directed their fire at essential services for military veterans, a constituency long courted by their own party. Included in the “Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023,” was a proposed 22% reduction in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Right-wing Republicans scrambled to provide political cover for themselves by insisting that “our budget cutting plan doesn’t harm veterans.” Instead, claimed Mike Bost, a former Marine from Illinois who now chairs the House Veterans Affairs Committee, his  conservative colleagues were just trying to force a long-overdue discussion of whether VA funding is “actually helping veterans.”

Fortunately, a VA patient, elected to Congress last year, took the House floor to accuse the Republican majority of passing a “B.S. plan” that’s “an absolute betrayal and a disgrace.” As former Navy Officer Chris Deluzio (D-PA) noted, House Republicans are “threatening to blow up our economy and to push us into default unless we agree to cuts to the VA and veterans, and to so much else.  There is not a single protection, not a single one for veterans in their bill. …Millions of veterans are going to be screwed by this plan.  They won’t get the care they’ve earned, and they will have to wait longer for benefits.”

Deluzio’s fiery speech generated much media attention and set the tone for other Democrats, like Joe Biden and California Congressman Mark Takano, who have weighed in, with similar criticism of GOP hypocrisy. Democratic Party consultants and strategists are, no doubt, already sketching out the kind of attack adds—focusing on Republican support for VA benefit cuts—that will be aired to help the White House woo the “vet vote” away from right-wing candidates next year, who need to be defeated for myriad reasons.

Amid Debt Ceiling Debate: VA Cuts Passed by House Give Corporate Dems Political Cover

How f*cked up is that?

We have a Pentagon play war around the world that gets almost unlimited funds and our vets will have to deal with a possible 22% cut in need funds.

And yet this betrayal will be forgotten by 2024 vote…..now that is what is f*cked up!

Our vets deserve so much more than they get….thank you for your service is just a feel good tagline….if you really want to ‘thank them’ then make damn sure they are looked after as they should be.

On an unrelated note:  DeSantis announced Thursday that he would seek the presidency and in the first 24 hrs he has raised $8.2 million….that should scare any rational person into start looking closely at the candidates.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The GOP Debt Plan

After a couple of weeks of no progress on the debt ceiling thing the GOP has come up with a plan (they always have a plan that does little to solve the problem…..as usual it will involve benefits for business and of course the inevitable tax cuts.

Here is a look at this ‘plan’…..

With the U.S. careening toward a default crisis that they manufactured, House Republicans are reportedly crafting a major tax cut package that would overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations while blowing a multitrillion-dollar hole in the federal deficit.

The fresh push for tax cuts, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), further shows that “this hostage crisis has never been about deficits for the GOP.”

“It has always been about wealth transfer—taking away food and healthcare from the poor and middle class to give away $3 trillion more in tax cuts to their rich friends,” Omar, the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tweeted Tuesday.

Politicoreported earlier this week that Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee hope to finish work on their emerging tax legislation by June 16, just over two weeks after the so-called “X-date”—the day on which the Treasury Department expects the federal government to run out of money to cover its obligations unless Congress raises the debt limit or President Joe Biden acts unilaterally.

“Key parts of the [tax cut] package… will likely include a full restoration of research and development deductions, full bonus depreciation, removing caps on business interest expensing, and a doubling of the $1.08 million limitation on the section 179 deduction (which, like bonus depreciation, allows a company to deduct an asset’s cost up-front),” Politico noted.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated last week that extending the individual provisions of the 2017 tax cuts—which are currently set to expire in 2025—would add $2.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. The original law made the cut to the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% permanent.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-tax-cuts-debt-limit

Let me ask you….if you have a debt problem would cutting your income help solve your problem?

GOP wants to cut the revenue that the country gets….but they want to keep spending on stupidity like wars…..I cannot see our debt ceiling problem being solved by these plans from the Right.

They keep doing this horrible plan so that they can attack social safety nets while giving a helping hand to those that need no help.

But these plans do keep the dollars rolling into their coffers….and that is what it is all about.

Pay attention!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”