Tag: Reagan

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”

 

“We Need Another Reagan”

That was the title of an article I read……it is no secret that I think the slide of the GOP into the far Right stupidity began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980…..

I thought that I needed something to get my blood raging…..my opinion of Reagan is not positive in any way.

Seeing the title I just had to see what was all the hoopla……

The United States today is in a new Cold War with China, and our current administration gives every indication that it is not up to this challenge. China’s geopolitical threat cannot be wished away. At stake in this struggle is the future world order, which will either be a U.S.-led order or one led by the Chinese Communist Party. It is a time for strong, resilient, prudent, and perceptive American leadership. We need another Ronald Reagan.  

Forty years ago, beginning with his Westminster speech in London, President Reagan envisioned the collapse of the Soviet Union. The man who Democratic elder statesman Clark Clifford once called an “amiable dunce,” and who the mainstream press repeatedly ridiculed throughout his career as an unthinking extremist, had a better grasp of geopolitics than all of his Ivy League-educated critics. It is worth remembering this as we face-off against China in a new Cold War.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2022/01/23/reagan_envisions_collapse_of_soviet_union_813288.html

I was disappointed because I was expecting more….but then attacks on the USSR and demonizing poor Americans is all that Reagan and the GOP had in those days.

I disagree…Reagan was not a good president for the people….why?

Well let’s look at Ronald Reagan’s ‘accomplishments’…..

The boogey man of present day leftists, Reagan destroyed union power, furthered the power of the conservative right, cut social services to the bone, increased red-baiting, allowed thousands of people to die of AIDS, and helped create the blueprint for the current foreign policy of the United States. He famously fired 12,000 striking air traffic controllers, breaking their strike and their union. In addition, he increased the militancy and racial aspects of the War on Drugs, creating minimum sentencing for drug offenses, and choosing to make harsher penalties for “crack” cocaine than regular powder cocaine. He also refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic for years, and when he did, he suggested that children with AIDS could be kept out of schools. Despite being a monster, both Democrats and Republicans continue to hold him up as some sort of saint. The list of his crimes should be read out in schools instead of the Pledge of Allegiance.

So NO we do not need another Reagan…..because of Reagan and Clinton this country has suffered for 40+ years.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–01Aug19

We know just how racist this president can be…..right?

His picking on people of color…his naming countries as “Sh*t Holes”……etc etc….

I have said for years that the GOP was where racist go to appear mainstream….I have been called out and I still hold that position and Trump does nothing to change my mind….

Then I read about the “god” of the GOP Reagan and his use of a slur for blacks……..

A racist statement made by Ronald Reagan in October 1971 is now grabbing headlines thanks to a piece for the Atlantic written by Tim Naftali, and the words are explosive: “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan said in a phone call the then-California governor had with President Richard Nixon, who laughed. (You can hear it here.) Now a clinical associate professor of history at NYU, Naftali explains he was the Nixon Presidential Library’s first director, holding the post from 2007 to 2011, and he provides context for the call. The United Nations had, the day prior, voted to recognize China and boot Taiwan, a move that spurred joyous dancing from the Tanzanian delegation; the US was opposed to the move, and Reagan’s comment was made in reference to those who didn’t align with America.

Naftali explains that when the tape was released by the National Archives in 2000, Reagan’s words were excluded in an apparent move for privacy; his 2004 death negated the need for that, and Naftali last year requested a re-review of taped conversations involving Reagan. The full version was released two weeks ago. Naftali provides a deep and historical dive into what the line, and the conversations that ensued, signify. “Had the story stopped there, it would have been bad enough,” Naftali writes. “But what happened next showed the dynamic power of racism when it finds enablers.” He details how Nixon “used Reagan’s call as an excuse to adapt his language to make the same point to others,” first calling Secretary of State William Rogers to talk about Reagan’s distaste for the “cannibals” (Nixon’s word), which he described as a “typical” American reaction. (Read the full piece for much more.)

History has shown Nixon to be a racist and now the other GOPer is as well…..

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

 

Making America (History) Great Again–Part 33

The continuing series of American history…..a look at history of this country that few will read or believe….but like all things historical it is all about the illusion.

Maj. Sjursen is a historian with a good eye for American history in the vain of Howard Zinn…..

This part is about the so-called Reagan Revolution….not a time that I believe did anything for the nation but rather for the deep pockets of Wall Street.

This nation has not recovered from the screwing it took for the 8 years of Reagan…….

But before we get into the meat of this time and if my readers would like to get caught up…..

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10; Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15; Part 16; Part 17; Part 18; Part 19; Part 20; Part 21; Part 22; Part 23; Part 24; Part 25; Part 26; Part 27; Part 28; Part 29; Part 30; Part 31; Part 32.

It was no accident. Indeed, candidate Ronald Reagan knew exactly what he was doing. It was August 1980, at the height of presidential election fever. Visiting Mississippi, once a symbol of the solid Democratic South, Reagan chose the Neshoba County Fair for a key campaign speech. To beat incumbent President Jimmy Carter, he would have to turn the Deep South Republican. The fair was in the same county as Philadelphia, Miss., and only seven miles from that town, forever associated with the murder of three civil rights activists (one black and two white) just 16 years earlier. It was a bold move by Reagan. Stepping up for the occasion, he railed about big government and thundered in ever-so-coded language, “I believe in states’ rights.” In a state that still proudly flew the Confederate Battle Flag, no doubt the mostly white crowd of some 15,000 knew, and loved, the racial undertones of such a statement. The states’ rights mantra had long amounted to little more than a justification of racism by another name. The only right many states tended to focus on was their right to suppress black voting and maintain the segregation of public life.

American History for Truthdiggers: The Reagan Revolution

Trickle Down economics is still the preferred GOP method of solutions and in all these years it has solved not one problem….and the country still suffers from the lies of the GOP and Reagan.

Privatization Sucks!

In 1980 with the election of Reagan and the defeat of Carter a new way of running the government came into being…..privatization…..and since it has become the “thing” the country has lost bunches of cash paying these contractors to do the jobs that use to be handled by civil service employees.

When I left the Army I became a civil servant ( not a private contractor) doing the same job that I was doing in the military.

Most jobs in the Defense Department are cheaper with civilian employees as compared to contractors, according to an internal Pentagon report, though the cost comparisons differ based on location, pay grade and job function.

Civil service workers are most likely to be less expensive than contractors performing the same work in the Washington, D.C. region and in the Southeastern United States, the report compiled by the Office of the Secretary of Defense found. More than 75 percent of comparisons in the Southeast the Pentagon ran between government and contract workers showed a higher cost for the private sector, and the capital region was not far behind. Government Executive obtained the never-before reported on document through a Freedom of Information Act request.

https://www.govexec.com/management/2018/12/civilians-are-cheaper-contractors-most-defense-jobs-internal-report-finds/153656/

There has always been waste and fraud in the process of issuing contracts…but it seems to have gotten much worse after privatization…..

I believe that a whole new way of dealing with contractor needs implementing…..ear plugs that are not safe…the Pentagon needs to fine them the total cost of the contract and not allow the company to bid again for 5 years.

But does privatization really work?

According to privatization’s supporters, this shift from public to private management is so profound that it will produce a panoply of significant improvements: boosting the efficiency and quality of remaining government activities, reducing taxes, and shrinking the size of government. In the functions that are privatized, they argue, the profit-seeking behavior of new, private sector managers will undoubtedly lead to cost cutting and greater attention to customer satisfaction.

https://hbr.org/1991/11/does-privatization-serve-the-public-interest

But make up your own mind……https://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/pros-cons-privatizing-government-functions.html

As you may have guessed…I do not think the privatization has produced all the benefits that the Reagan bunch promised in the 1980s.

Just thinking out loud.

Ever Heard Of USIP?

USIP is a program that was passed during the Reagan years.

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent national institute, founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical, and essential for U.S. and global security. USIP pursues this vision on the ground in conflict zones, working with local partners to prevent conflicts from turning to bloodshed and to end it when they do. The Institute provides training, analysis, and other resources to people, organizations, and governments working to build peace.

Our generals will be the first to tell you it’s cheaper to prevent a war than fight one. Lawmakers should keep this in mind as they face an unusually complex budgetary environment this year.

As Congress navigates budget caps and a White House determined to slash spending, it also must consider the turmoil and violence rocking the world.

Source: Give a Reagan-era peace institute a chance | TheHill

I know our new president is all about fighting wars but we have only so much cash to do what he wants and now he purposes even more tax cuts meaning less money yet again.

Maybe if he or his advisors like Tillerson would spend a little time doing some research then they might find that the Reagan idea does have value.

Okay I know that I am not one of Reagan’s biggest fans but he did have some ideas that deserve another look see.

That is unless continuous war is the main goal of the Trump cabal.

And it is looking more and more like it is…..to the point that trump is trying to establish a new world order.

That Donald Trump is a grand disruptor when it comes to international affairs is now a commonplace observation in the establishment media. By snubbing NATO and withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, we’ve been told, President Trump is dismantling the liberal world order created by Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of World War II. “Present at the Destruction” is the way Foreign Affairs magazine, the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, put it on its latest cover. Similar headlines can be found on the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. But these prophecies of impending global disorder miss a crucial point: in his own quixotic way, Donald Trump is not only trying to obliterate the existing world order, but also attempting to lay the foundations for a new one, a world in which fossil-fuel powers will contend for supremacy with post-carbon, green-energy states.

Source: Is Trump launching a new world order? , by Michael T Klare (Le Monde diplomatique – English edition, June 2017)

Continuous war is looking more and more like the future for the US….that is unless someone steps up and takes a stand.

Will USIP survive in the Trump era?

Who Or What Killed The Middle Class?

The Middle Class has been disappearing for decades but what or who is to blame?

Easy answer….Reagan or better yet Reaganomics…..

It death spiral began with Reagan’s dash to slice taxes on the rich and it has continued ever since……

There’s nothing “normal” about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it’s a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation’s middle class.

Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens’ novels.

At the top there is a very small class of superrich. Below them, there is a slightly larger, but still very small, “middle” class of professionals and mercantilists – doctor, lawyers, shop-owners – who help keep things running for the superrich and supply the working poor with their needs. And at the very bottom there is the great mass of people – typically over 90 percent of the population – who make up the working poor. They have no wealth – in fact they’re typically in debt most of their lives – and can barely survive on what little money they make.

Source: Reaganomics killed America’s middle class – Salon.com

The Dems have taken up the mantle of the Middle Class and so far they have failed miserably……but yet they keep trying the same failed policies that they have come to champion…..and there is NO end in sight…..

The Democrats don’t have a “white working-class problem.” They have a “working-class problem,” which progressives have been reluctant to address honestly or boldly. The fact is that Democrats have lost support with all working-class voters across the electorate, including the Rising American Electorate of minorities, unmarried women, and millennials. This decline contributed mightily to the Democrats’ losses in the states and Congress and to the election of Donald Trump.

Source: The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem’ Is Worse Than We Think | Alternet

There is a slight chance that this situation can be reversed…..but the Dems are playing the same cards as they always play…..and they lose.

Sadly we are seeing the final days of the Middle Class….and few seem to care.

Round Up Those Muslims

It is Monday and I return to my normal posting schedule….who shall we piss off today?

I do so enjoy throwing a little history at those toads on the Right….a subject that they refuse to acknowledge….they are usually way too busy hating someone to even consider a historical perspective……

You would think that this post will be about the mindless dribble uttered by GOP nominee for president, Donald J. Trump, right?

As usual the nose picking ass scratching pinheads would be not only mistaken…… but dead wrong.

Mr. Trump is not regurgitating something new….oh no…..it was a plan back in the good old days of the GOP’s God like creature, Ronald Reagan…..

In the ’80s, fear of terror led the government to consider something far more extreme than Donald Trump’s ban.

In the early morning hours of January 26, 1987, federal agents across Los Angeles charged into the homes of seven men and one woman and led them away in handcuffs. More than 100 law enforcement officers—city, state and federal—were involved. “War on Terrorism Hits LA,” read the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.

The defendants were all pro-Palestinian activists, but it wasn’t clear what they’d been arrested for. Soon the government conceded it would not introduce criminal charges, instead seeking to deport the group by alleging material support to a communist organization—an ancient Red Scare statute that would soon be declared unconstitutional. The case quickly became a mess, and in the end, 20 years of legal wrangling would pass before a judge would call the case “an embarrassment to the rule of law.” But in the first days of the defense, the lawyers for the men who would become known as the LA Eight were turning over a greater puzzle: why their clients had been targeted in the first place.

Source: The Forgotten Government Plan to Round Up Muslims – POLITICO Magazine

To me it is humorous to listen to so-called “establishment” Repubs condemn Trump for what he has said about banning Muslims or deporting them….

This is NOTHING new for the GOP….and Trump’s proposal is pale in comparison to the Reagan plan…..

Amusing how soon the forget or should I say TRY to forget their stupidity of the past.  But maybe if we had taken Reagan’s plan to heart we would not be having all these problems today. (wink wink)

How The American Neoconservatives Destroyed Mankind’s Hopes For Peace

Yes, Irene, I am an anti-war person.  There is NOTHING that can be said that would make me believe that a peace cannot be found……no matter the situation.

The “realist” theory of international relations has done nothing to make the world a safer place or to prevent the deaths of Americans.  The neocons have lead the charge to more and more wars….Americans need to pull their heads out of their butts and take a good look at what is happening to the world we want to leave to our grandchildren.

There was a time when I thought that Reagan would be a good thing for the country…no I did not vote for him…..but he was traveling down a road that could have lead to a peaceful world……(you might want to mark this day because that will be the nicest thing I will ever say about Reagan)…….

When Ronald Reagan turned his back on the neoconservatives, fired them, and had some of them prosecuted, his administration was free of their evil influence, and President Reagan negotiated the end of the Cold War with Soviet President Gorbachev. The military/security complex, the CIA, and the neocons were very much against ending the Cold War as their budgets, power, and ideology were threatened by the prospect of peace between the two nuclear superpowers.

I know about this, because I was part of it. I helped Reagan create the economic base for bringing the threat of a new arms race to a failing Soviet economy in order to pressure the Soviets into agreement to end the Cold War, and I was appointed to a secret presidential committee with subpeona power over the CIA. The secret committee was authorized by President Reagan to evaluate the CIA’s claim that the Soviets would prevail in an arms race. The secret committee concluded that this was the CIA’s way of perpetuting the Cold War and the CIA’s importance.

Source: How The American Neoconservatives Destroyed Mankind’s Hopes For Peace

As the American people go to the polls in November they should keep in mind that the world is ablaze and the next president can either throw fuel on it or find a way to extinguish it…….which will be best for the country…..the people not the industries?

Apples To Oranges

The recent Republican debate made me think of Reagan, not so fondly but after all it was in his library in Simi Valley……let me elaborate……

Well, we all know what the media thinks about Obama and his handling of the economic crisis…..we know what the media thinks…..and the GOP and the Left wing of the Dems……we know that he is NOT doing enough for the jobs creation market…..we know all the socialists programs that are failing (sarcasm)…….but we know that I am not a big defender of the Prez because I feel he has not gone far enough……but I must break my pledge….

Here we go!  All the old farts in the media…..Stahl, Brokaw, Noonan, Dowd, etc, etc……you know the ones that have been around since Christ was a corporal…..anyway…..mot of these pundits like to compare Obama to Reagan;s first term…..they talk about his decisiveness, his humor, his mannerisms, etc….then they talk about Obama’s lack of leadership, indecisiveness, his lack of communication, etc….you have heard it all…..but every time I hear these overpaid (insert derogatory term) make this comparison I want to throw a brick at the tellie…..

It must be the “old fart syndrome”……..they think that because they covered Reagan in his hay day that some how gives them some sort of special insight into the presidency…….it does NOT!  It makes them look OLD and out of touch!

This is an extremely unfair comparison…..why?  Reagan did NOT have to deal with a 24/7 news cycle….he did not have to deal with the extreme partisanship…….he did not have to deal with lack of respect or lack of unity or the lack of civility…..and Reagan did NOT have to live with daily polling…….so it is moronic to compare Reagan and Obama.  Time for the media to grasp the reality that yesterday’s analysis does NOT and will Not fit in today’s 24/7 news cycle……

Comparing Apples To Oranges…….STOP IT!