January 29, 2024

Part of Judd Legum's "the second insurrection"

https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/the-second-insurrection?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=l44r

I receive his newsletter in my email and this is part of today's:


//snip

The new confederacy
The radical and dangerous legal theories being advanced by Texas previously provoked a Civil War and have been broadly rejected for more than a century. So, one might expect Texas to get little support from other states. That is not the case.

On January 25, the Republican Governors Association released a letter — signed by 25 Republican governors — "supporting Texas' constitutional right to self-defense." The governors write that they "stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border." They also explicitly endorsed compact theory, which was used to justify secession. "The authors of the U.S. Constitution made clear that in times like this, states have a right of self-defense, under Article 4, Section 4 and Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution," the governors write. "Because the Biden Administration has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states, Texas has every legal justification to protect the sovereignty of our states and our nation." The letter was signed by every Republican governor except Phil Scott (R-VT).

Former President Donald Trump is also supporting Abbott. Trump called on "all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals."

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), and numerous members of Congress have also aligned themselves with Abbott. Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) said Texas should tell the Supreme Court to "go to hell." Roy was so proud of this remark, he made a special graphic for his social media accounts.

//snip

There's a disgusting picture in it that I wouldn't copy.

March 8, 2023

If I see or hear another...

GQP senator pushing back against tucker carlson, I'm going to throw my shoe at the TV. None of them have a leg to stand on, since they've been on the side of the insurrectionists to begin with.

January 31, 2023

The biggest story you've never heard about today's federal debt

The biggest story you've never heard about today's federal debt
America's wealthy used to pay taxes to support the nation. Now, they lend it money and collect interest from the rest of us

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-biggest-story-youve-never-heard?publication_id=365422&isFreemail=true

//snip//

The biggest recipients of these interest payments are not foreigners but wealthy Americans who park their savings in treasury bonds held by mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, banks, insurance companies, personal trusts, and estates.

Hence the half-century switch: The wealthy used to pay higher taxes to the government. Now the government pays the wealthy interest on their loans to finance a swelling debt that’s been caused largely by lower taxes on the wealthy.

This means that a growing portion of your taxes are going to the wealthy in the form of interest payments, rather than paying for government services everyone needs.

So, the real problem isn’t America’s growing federal budget deficit. It’s the decline in tax revenue from America’s wealthy combined with growing interest payments to them.

Both are worsening America’s already horrific inequalities of income and wealth.

What should be done? Reduce the debt by raising taxes on the wealthy.

This back story needs to be told. Please spread the word.

January 21, 2023

I don't usually share stuff like this but...

I have been living with a heavy heart for months and need to say something. Today would have been our 44th wedding anniversary but my beautiful wife was suddenly taken away from me three months ago and I am very sad and miss her very much. My children, grandchildren and friends are wonderful and are helping me everyday, but the pain of losing her is sometimes overwhelming, and today is one of those days. Anyway, thank you for letting me get that off my chest, it helps to talk about her every now and then.

January 13, 2023

Rightwing group pours millions in 'dark money' into US voter suppression bid

Rightwing group pours millions in ‘dark money’ into US voter suppression bid
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/13/heritage-foundation-voter-suppression-lobbying-election-action-plan

/snip

Part of Heritage Action’s two-year strategy is to promote what it calls “model election laws”, focusing initially on eight battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin. In a private meeting with donors in Tucson, Arizona, in 2021, the group’s executive director, Jessica Anderson, boasted about the role Heritage Action had played in pressing Republican-controlled legislatures to impose strict restrictions on voting, including limits on mail-in voting and early voting days.

In a video of that meeting obtained by Documented, Anderson told the donors that the group acted “quickly and quietly”, bragging that “honestly nobody noticed” their behind-the-scenes influence. Heritage Action staff have registered to lobby in at least two dozen states.

The laser-like focus on key swing states like Georgia appears to have had an impact. The New York Times found that one-third of the 68 voting bills filed in Georgia in 2021 contained policy measures and language that aligned closely with proposals from Heritage Action.

The group has publicly claimed that it had a hand in advancing 11 voting bills in at least eight states in 2021, though in some cases legislation was passed in only one chamber or went on to be vetoed by the state’s governor.

Heritage Foundation, under the auspices of its elections supremo Hans von Spakovsky, curates an “election fraud database”. It claims to expose the errors, omissions and mistakes made by election officials, but it presents incomplete and misleading information and underscores how exceptionally rare fraud is within the US system.

Its records stretch back 40 years, a period in which billions of votes have been cast. Yet the database records only 1,402 “proven instances of voter fraud” – a “molecular fraction” of votes cast nationwide according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

/snip

January 3, 2023

The crazy Q cult and the media

Watching the circus that is going on in the House, as the clowns of the Q cult can't even elect a speaker, is a sickening sight. What's even worse is that the media is doing their best to try to normalize this hot mess like they always do. We are in for a rough two years with this gang of insurrectionists controlling this chamber of Congress, and the bothsiderism of the press will not help.

October 20, 2022

"of the same party"

To any doubters out there, this should make it crystal clear that there are no "good republicans", and that includes all those who the press constantly tell us saved democracy on January 6, 2021. When it comes down to it, they are all traitors to their oaths and our country, who will use any means necessary in order to to shove their toxic ideology down the throats of the majority of Americans, who aren't members of the same party as them.

https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1582916499479859201

October 11, 2022

Marchant has said that he wants to eliminate same-day voting, mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes

This Is What Happens When Election Deniers Let Their Freak Flag Fly
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/opinion/election-deniers-trump-midterms.html

//snip//

On Saturday, for example, the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada, Jim Marchant, told a crowd at a rally for Trump and the statewide Republican ticket that his victory — Marchant’s victory, that is — would help put Trump back into the White House.

//snip//

Marchant, as he noted in his rally speech, leads a coalition of 2020 election-denying America First candidates for governor and secretary of state. It’s a who’s who of MAGA Republicans, including Kari Lake and Mark Finchem of Arizona, Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Kristina Karamo of Michigan.

If elected, any one of these candidates could, at a minimum, create chaos in vote casting and vote counting and the certification of election results. Marchant, for example, has said that he wants to eliminate same-day voting, mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes. He also wants to dump machine ballot tabulation and move to hand counts, which are time-consuming, expensive and much less accurate.

That’s the point, of course. The problem for election-denying candidates is that ordinarily the process is too straightforward and the results are too clear. Confusion sows doubt, and doubt gives these Republicans the pretext they need to claim fraud and seize control of the allocation of electoral votes.

//snip//

July 14, 2022

House Republicans offer the White House an enticing new target

House Republicans offer the White House an enticing new target
Most voters probably don't know about the Republican Study Committee's budget plan. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wants to change that.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/house-republicans-offer-white-house-enticing-new-target-rcna38225


It’s not unusual for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to offer public criticism of Republican ideas, but yesterday, President Joe Biden’s chief spokesperson targeted a specific proposal that hasn’t generated a lot of attention.

“The Republican Study Committee, which includes most House Republicans, endorses cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits,” Jean-Pierre said in a tweet.

For much of the public, which is probably unfamiliar with the Republican Study Committee, the missive may not have had much of an impact, but the press secretary’s point warrants some additional attention

snip//


It's difficult to summarize a 122-page plan, but these House Republicans made little effort to curtail their ambitions. If the Republican Study Committee’s plan were implemented, Social Security and Medicare would be partially privatized, food stamps would be slashed, Head Start would be phased out, Medicaid funding would be decimated, the Affordable Care Act would be weakened, labor unions would be undermined, the EPA would be gutted, abortion would be banned, birthright citizenship would be eliminated, Donald Trump’s border wall would be funded, and even the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would see its doors permanently closed.

snip//

The House Budget Committee’s Democratic chairman, Kentucky’s John Yarmuth told Mother Jones that the document reflects how a GOP-led House would govern. “The new members [Republicans] get if they unseat our members and take our open seats are going to be even more conservative than the people who put this together,” Yarmuth argued. “I think this would be exactly the blueprint that they would try to adopt.

snip//

June 24, 2022

This decision today is the fault of...

all the people who stayed home or voted third party in 2016 because they didn't like Hillary for whatever stupid reason they could think of. Of course James Comey and the Russian collusion also played a huge role in in the illegitimate outcome of that election, but the purity tests were a big factor in creating our current mess. Don't forget that the losers of the popular vote and senators who represent a minority of the population are the ones who installed the right wing majority on this court. And if anybody thinks that they will stop with this horrendous decision they haven't been paying attention for the past fifty years. All the rights and freedoms that were fought for and earned since the '50s and '60s are now on the chopping block in the near future unless we expand the court and align it with the vast majority of Americans.