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”

Advertisement

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”

Those Blanket Approvals

A recent survey and the GOP numbers for support for this person is dwindling…..

Less than half of Republicans have confidence in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center that highlights the growing partisan divide over the war in Ukraine.

Only 44 percent of Republican respondents said they had confidence in Zelensky, while 71 percent of Democrats expressed support for the war-time leader — a 27 percent split between parties. 

The divide held when respondents were asked if they held favorable views of Ukraine in general, with 52 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats saying they had a positive opinion of the country.

The survey joins a long list of recent polls showing that the Republican base is increasingly skeptical of U.S. policy toward Ukraine. Notably, the growing partisan divide appears to have had little effect on the policy preferences of GOP leaders in Congress. 

While House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had signaled before the midterm elections that he would not support a “blank check” for Ukraine, he rolled back those remarks last week and pledged that the U.S. will continue its military assistance “as long as I am Speaker.”

But GOP presidential candidates have been more willing to express concerns about U.S. support for Kyiv. Former President Donald Trump said in January that the war was a “tragic waste of human life” and claimed that, if he was still in the White House, he would be able to rapidly negotiate an end to the conflict.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — Trump’s leading challenger — has also expressed cautious skepticism about the value of backing Ukraine to the hilt and appeared to call for a ceasefire in April.

Poll: Less than half of Republicans have confidence in Zelensky

But I do not think the Zelensky has much to worry about for the arms industry owns the Congress and while support may be less now the blood letting will continue.

Besides the American people have this lust for blood and guts war (the indoctrination has become complete)…

For various reasons, America’s ruling class has a great love of war, even as America’s non-ruling-classes have a general indifference to it, as long as its destructiveness is kept overseas and out of sight.

It’s strange indeed that we have such faith in war: such faith in destruction as being progressive. Americans are a hyper-aggressive and trigger-happy bunch, quick to anger, slow to think. Fear, anger, and pride make us a menace to various peoples on the receiving end of American firepower, yet somehow we see ourselves as reasonable peacemakers. Such a mass delusion can only be sustained through massive propaganda, a “victory culture” if you will, supported by all those Hollywood war movies, TV shows featuring SEALs and the like, military pageantry at sporting events, and so on.

William Astore on America’s Faith in War

Besides some disinformation will be passed on to help the support grow…..like always it is glowing and bullsh*t.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

15,000 And Counting

That is the total amount of books that have been pulled from the shelves of libraries in the first part of 2023.

GOP led states is rushing to ban books and limit the excess to us mere peons.

New laws imposed by right-wing state legislatures have been a driving force behind a rise in book bans since the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, a national free expression group reported Thursday.

PEN America’s new report, Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools, reveals that 874 unique titles were pulled from public school library shelves from July-December 2022, the result of 1,477 individual book bans.

That represents a 28% rise from the first half of 2022, and the group said the escalation is largely due to state-level “stringent policies that schools must abide by when reviewing existing library collections.”

The states that have banned the most books include Texas and Florida—where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed legislation to restrict teachers from discussing LGBTQ+ issues in classrooms and where some schools were directed to empty or cover bookshelves in order to comply with the new laws.

Just seven districts in Texas were behind 438 individual book bans and 13 school districts in Florida were responsible for 357 bans.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gop-book-bans-schools

I find this intolerable….I mean my mother never told me what I could read so why should the Nanny State GOP governments?

I mean she found my Playboy when I was 14 or 15….after looking through the pages she had one question….are those tits fir real?  Tossed the Playboy onto my bed and nothing more was ever said.

I had a very cool mother.

How far will these demented toads go?

I really do not want to find out…..do you?

All this makes me think of a term from the not so distant past….Nanny State (warning:  post will be forthcoming)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Reagan’s Assault On Social Security

No news dump for today…Still recovering from the eye injury….Sue has taken my PC and tablet away from me….but she left my phone for me to entertain myself….I hope to be back 100% on Monday….thanx for bearing with me while I get my eye back to normal….I will try to get caught up with my comments then.

As usual the GOP is attacking Social Security every time they have some small amount of power they want to screw the seniors of this country.

But where did all this hatred begin with?

To answer that question easily….it began with Reagan in the 1980s.

In 1983, just before signing legislation that cut Social Security benefits, then-President Ronald Reagan declared that “we’re entering an age when average Americans will live longer and live more productive lives.”

But Reagan’s assumption of ever-rising life expectancy in the U.S. turned out to be false, according to a new analysis, a fact with painful consequences for those who saw their Social Security benefits pared back thanks to the 1983 law’s gradual increase of the full retirement age—the age at which one is eligible for unreduced Social Security payments.

As Conor Smyth wrote Monday for the People’s Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, the Social Security Amendments of 1983 hiked the full retirement age “from 65 in 2000 to 67 at the end of 2022.”

“What this actually meant was not that the age at which people could retire and start drawing Social Security benefits changed—that remained at 62,” Smyth explained. “Instead, by raising what’s called the full retirement age (FRA) by two years, the law effectively cut benefit levels across the board, regardless of the age that any particular individual began claiming Social Security benefits. The result is that those retiring at 62 today face a 50% greater penalty for retiring before the change than they would have before 2000.”

The 1983 law was an outgrowth of a special presidential commission headed by Alan Greenspan, a right-wing economist who would go on to serve as chair of the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/reagan-social-security-cuts

This is a perpetual thing….if it is a GOP Congress then seniors benefits are in danger….which is amazing because the GOP’s greatest supporters are those that will suffer the most if they ever fulfill their wish of destroying the Social Security program.

Why is that?

Are these voters uninformed or just ignorant?

Why does anyone vote against their best interests?

Why?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Is Bombing Mexico The Answer?

Recently I wrote a post about Graham suggesting that the US should invade Mexico……

Read my post from a month ago…..

Let’s Invade Mexico (Again)

It seems that the whole party, not just one idiot member, is suggesting some sort of military action against parts of Mexico…

A growing number of prominent Republicans are rallying around the idea that to solve the fentanyl crisis, America must bomb it away.

In recent weeks, Donald Trump has discussed sending “special forces” and using “cyber warfare” to target cartel leaders if he’s reelected president and, per Rolling Stone, asked for “battle plans” to strike Mexico. Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill seeking authorization for the use of military force to “put us at war with the cartels.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said he is open to sending U.S. troops into Mexico to target drug lords even without that nation’s permission. And lawmakers in both chambers have filed legislation to label some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move supported by GOP presidential aspirants.

“We need to start thinking about these groups more like ISIS than we do the mafia,” Waltz, a former Green Beret, said in a short interview.

Not all Republican leaders are behind this approach. John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser who’s weighing his own presidential run, said unilateral military operations “are not going to solve the problem.” And House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas), for example, is “still evaluating” the AUMF proposal “but has concerns about the immigration implications and the bilateral relationship with Mexico,” per a Republican staff member on the panel.

But the eagerness of some Republicans to openly legislate or embrace the use of the military in Mexico suggests that the idea is taking firmer root inside the party. And it illustrates the ways in which frustration with immigration, drug overdose deaths and antipathy towards China are defining the GOP’s larger foreign policy.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/10/gop-bomb-mexico-fentanyl-00091132

Is this stupidity real the answer to the problem?

Why is the only answer for the GOP is always some sort of military action?

Apparently someone with deep pockets is telling them what should be done.

Personally I do not see this as an answer to the situation they are concerned about….it will lead to more problems than it solves.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

GOP–Where It All Began

There are many opinions running around the internet on the GOP….most of it is all about the party for the last 15 or so years…..but how many have nay damn idea where it all began and why?

That’s right….you are in for some knowledge….I know that is a bad word these days of idiots….there is no such things as bad knowledge just morons that cannot find the time to pull their heads of of their asses to learn something.

The year is 1854…..the place was Ripon, Wisconsin…..

Trying times spawn new forces. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 divided the country at the 36° 30′ parallel between the pro-slavery, agrarian South and anti-slavery, industrial North, creating an uneasy peace which lasted for three decades. This peace was shattered in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Settlers would decide if their state would be free or slave. Northern leaders such as Horace Greeley, Salmon Chase and Charles Sumner could not sit back and watch the flood of pro-slavery settlers cross the parallel. A new party was needed.

Where was the party born? Following the publication of the “Appeal of Independent Democrats” in major newspapers, spontaneous demonstrations occurred. In early 1854, the first proto-Republican Party meeting took place in Ripon, Wisconsin. On July 6, 1854 on the outskirts of Jackson, Michigan upwards of 10,000 people turned out for a mass meeting “Under the Oaks.” This led to the first organizing convention in Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856.

The gavel fell to open the party’s first nominating convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 1856, announcing the birth of the Republican Party as a unified political force.

The Republican Party name was christened in an editorial written by New York newspaper magnate Horace Greeley. Greeley printed in June 1854: “We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated ‘Whig,’ ‘Free Democrat’ or something else; though we think some simple name like ‘Republican’ would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.”

https://www.ushistory.org/gop/origins.htm

In the beginning the GOP was not all that bad….as late as 1956 their platform was something that even a hard Leftist like me could have supported.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The ‘Parents Rights’ Bill

The GOP is trying an end run on society.

They have introduced a bill in the House to ‘protect’ parent’s rights….a cutesy name that smacks of total control over our educational standards.

House Republicans on Friday narrowly passed legislation that would fulfill a campaign promise to give parents a role in what’s taught in public schools. It has little chance in the Democrat-run Senate, and critics say it will propel a far-right movement that has led to book bans, restrictions aimed at transgender students, and raucous school board meetings across the country, per the AP. GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who made the Parents Bill of Rights Act a priority during the early weeks of his tenure, said Republicans were “keeping our promise, our commitment to America, that parents will have a say in their kids’ education.” “At the end of the day, these are our children, not the government’s,” Republican Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana, who wrote the bill, said Thursday, per the Washington Post.

The bill would require schools to publish course studies and a list of books kept in libraries, as well as affirm parents’ ability to meet with educators, speak at school board meetings, and examine school budgets. It would also mandate that administrators at elementary and middle schools get an OK from parents before addressing a child by a different name, pronouns, or gender designation. The bill passed 213-208, with five Republicans—mostly members of the House Freedom Caucus—voting against it. The Hill names those five as Reps. Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Ken Buck, Matt Rosendale, and Mike Lawler. The first four objected on the basis of wanting the federal government to stay out of local schools’ business. Lawler, meanwhile, thought an amendment added by Rep. Lauren Boebert on transgender bathroom usage “went too far” and “unnecessarily targeted certain children.”

Advocates say the bill poses a threat to LGBTQ+ students by potentially forcing them to come out to their families, which can sometimes lead to abuse or abandonment, per the AP. “It’s part of a pattern of attempts we’re seeing where the right wing of the Republican Party is really trying to marginalize LGBTQ people,” says David Stacy, the government affairs director for Human Rights Campaign. Democrats are also opposed to the bill, noting that although they favor nurturing parents’ involvement in their children’s education, this bill has been designed to kowtow to a minority of parents who want to control and politicize classrooms, including via book bans in school libraries. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed that the bill would face a “dead end,” and that it was proof the House GOP has been taken over by “hard-right MAGA ideologues.”

The only good spot in this attempt to control everything is that he will probably stall and possibly die in the US Senate.

This is what we get when idiots vote.

On a side note….an Utah parent is fighting back in the book banning craze…..

Frustrated that titles like The Bluest Eye from Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison have been removed from schools as a result of Utah’s new book-banning law, one parent is pushing to have the Bible banned. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible … has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition,” the parent wrote in a request to the Davis County School District, which was obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune with names redacted. It cites Utah’s book-banning law, passed last year with backing from conservative parents groups, which blocks books containing “explicit sexual arousal, stimulation, masturbation, intercourse, sodomy or fondling” from classrooms and school libraries.

Among the books targeted by the groups is The Bluest Eye, in which a young girl suffers sexual abuse by her father. But “Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: the Bible,” reads the request, per Fox News. It lists the book’s topics of concern as “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide.” It also includes several Bible quotes, including one from Genesis 19:8 in which a father asks that men do “as you wish” to his virgin daughters. The request was submitted Dec. 11. A review process usually takes 60 days. However, a district rep tells the Tribune that the case has been delayed due to a backlog.

A school policy states religious books can’t be banned but may be subject to restrictions, per Fox. However, there’s debate about how this would mesh with the law. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk,” according to the request, which questions the targeting of texts by and about LGBTQ people and those of color in a school district that’s been “under investigation for being racist.” A 2021 Justice Department report found Davis had intentionally ignored “serious and widespread” racial harassment, per the Tribune. The district also settled a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union in 2012 after removing a book about a child with same-sex parents, KUTV reports.

This is a bit extreme but I also understand why they are doing it.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Far Right Demands

Let’s start the week with some outrageous Right wing demands.

These are the demands being made by House far righters, the Freedom Caucus, (love the name it is anything but about freedom)….

The debt ceiling debate is about to begin and these are the demands from the far right for that debate.

A cadre of far-right Republicans announced Friday that they may only vote to raise the debt ceiling if Congress agrees to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending, limit federal agencies’ future budgets, and abandon progressive elements of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Since Washington’s arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional borrowing limit was breached in January, the Treasury Department has implemented “extraordinary measures” enabling the U.S. government to meet its obligations for a few additional months. Unless the Biden administration takes unilateral action to disarm the debt ceiling, Congress has until sometime between July and September to increase or suspend the nation’s borrowing cap. If Republicans refuse to do so, the U.S. is poised to suffer a catastrophic default.

Led by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the House Freedom Caucus said Friday in a statement that its 45 members would “consider voting” to raise the debt limit if their colleagues in the House and Senate agree to:

  • Eliminate Biden’s $400 billion student debt cancellation plan;
  • Rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds;
  • Nix nearly $400 billion worth of clean energy investments approved in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA);
  • Repeal the IRA’s roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS);
  • Restore Clinton-era work requirements on welfare recipients;
  • Require congressional approval before any major federal regulations can take effect;
  • Cap future federal spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years; and
  • Find “every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer.”

This is the official release from the Caucus…

Image

I see lots that will effect the common voter and very little about actually decreasing the “reach” of government.

I love these ‘small government’ conservatives and their alt-right blowhards.

What crap!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”