Someone is spending big money on nasty ads against Washington’s Democratic state senators. Someone, or some group, really, really wants to flip the majority in that body. Making the same out-of-context and misleading claims about the members’ votes, the ads are nearly word for word, but with differing targets.
What’s their agenda? Ending mail-in voting? Outlawing drop boxes? They’re already “surveilling” them, despite proof they’re completely safe, everywhere. Criminalizing abortion? Deputizing citizens, thought police, to report people considering it? Maybe it’s banning sex education or teaching America’s full history. CRT, nonexistent in our schools, for sure. How about restricting access to birth control? Not here? In Republican-controlled states, it’s all on the table. Because it’s who they are.
Last week, the US House of Representatives voted on a bill addressing neo-Nazis in our military and police. Every Republican voted no. Nearly all of them voted against implementing an active shooter warning system. Why? To offset tax cuts for donors? It’s also who they are.
Because Democrats still have a majority in the House, both bills passed, but there can be no more stark demonstration of why America needs that majority to remain.
Those bills, which would have benefitted all Americans save for Nazis and murderers, plus one protecting abortion rights, also receiving zero R votes, will probably be blocked by Republican senators. To them, politics are zero-sum. If Republicans become the majority there, neo-Nazis, corporate polluters, the ultra-wealthy, and religious extremists will have cause to rejoice. No one else. It’s who they are.
They’re also people who claimed the story of a ten-year-old fourth-grader, pregnant by rape, forced to travel to another state for an abortion, was a lie. Or said she should be forced to give birth, despite being too small to do so “naturally.” On another bill, protecting the right to cross state lines for abortion care, all Rs voted no. Small government. Isn’t that who they are?
Picture a ten-year-old girl’s body at full term. Bullied in school. Think of her being wheeled into an OR, awake, crying, frightened, surrounded by masked strangers, put to sleep. Awakening scarred, literally and figuratively, forever. Can you imagine what her life would be like afterward? Forced-birth Republicans can’t. It’s not who they are.
When the rapist was arrested, Republican idols like Jim Jordan, Tucker Carlson, et awful, refused to apologize. Others went with the fact that the man is an illegal immigrant, as if that’s the story. D-list Foxer Jesse Waters claimed credit for the arrest, fantasizing that by calling the story a hoax he pressured law enforcement to do their job. Then he said the doctor who cared for the child, LEGALLY, should be charged as a criminal, siccing Indiana’s Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita on her.
Rokita obliged. With his party’s characteristic lack of empathy, he preached the Gospel according to Trump: “This is a horrible, horrible scene caused by Marxists and socialists and those in the White House who want lawlessness at the border… This girl was politicized—politicized for the gain of killing more babies.” “Politicized,” he said, politicizing. And lying. Mendacious hypocrisy is who they are.
What’s at stake if Republicans control the federal government is no mystery, as their just-released document makes clear. The “Blueprint to Save America,” 122 pages of heartlessness, summarized in Mother Jones, “…calls for significantly reducing the size of America’s social safety net, drastically limiting or outlawing abortion access nationwide, effectively throwing in the towel on combatting climate change, raising the age to receive full Social Security benefits, cracking down on transgender rights, and making it easier for Americans to carry concealed weapons.”
There’s more. The EPA would be gutted, funds for Medicaid and food stamps would be cut drastically; the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Labor Relations Board, entities that protect everyone but rich Republicans: gone. Corporations would be virtually unregulated. It’s who they are.
Famed economist J.K. Galbraith once wrote, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” Anyone who doubts Professor Galbraith’s words need only read that radical document. The entire manifesto is here.
And now, this: it’s an unworkable system that allows a single senator, a participant in and funded by the fossil fuel industry, to block desperately-needed climate legislation, and to prevent raising taxes on his owners to pay for it and other needed spending. Manchin. It’s who he is. Rendering him powerless is another reason to elect more Democrats to the Senate. Democratic voters must turn out like never before. For my grandchildren, I donate money to Democratic candidates around the county. Maybe it helps.
Capitalism requires a permanent underclass
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBY6sBEVXwI
So I have a question...
ReplyDeleteIf Biden is the lowest of approval ratings, and still beats Drumpf, then should a progressive who's young and charismatic and fit to be POTUS. They couldn't lose if they tried.
It's a 2 edged sword. If it's "anyone but Drumpf", then is that true or do we have exceptions from the left? Had the DNC machine got on board with Bernie he'd be POTUS.
Instead...They knew Bernie was kicking all their asses. If corporate Dems. were to have any chance. They'd have to close ranks and have an all out attack on Bernie.
And why do we get relics into powerful positions? See above.
The alt right base is the 60 and over crowd. The evangelicals. People with assets. And of course, good old fashioned racism.
The Boomer generation pulled up the ladder to the middle class. All their needs on credit. It'll get worse too as they age and need more and more medical care. Most did not put in enough taxes to actually pay for stuff. So they draw 3.5 X they put in on average. In other words. It takes the taxes of 3.5 younger folks to make the required cash and food payments. Medicaid and so on.
We have the debt. Nobody will do a single thing if Biden wins or Drumpf/and alt right candidate. It'll be austerity as usual. Retailers/employers have clawed back everyone's raise. Record profits all around is the result. So they make less than before in the aggregate.
Unions are popping up everywhere and retaliation is also everywhere. These people REALLY like their power and money and are willing to do ANYTHING to keep it.
I can't wait to be on death watch and Kamala is POTUS, Won't that be a hoot.
From a newsletter I subscribe to:
Deleteyou have to go all the way back to John Kennedy to find a president who did not have lower approval rating (at some point in their presidency) than Joe Biden’s lowest rating. To prove this for yourself, go to the Wikipedia article to the chart titled, “Historical Gallup polling comparison” and sort by the column “Lowest Approval Rating” in descending order.
Are Joe Biden’s approval ratings low? Yes. Is that a problem? Yes. Did Trump have a lower approval rating than Biden at some point in his presidency? Yes, as did Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, and Johnson. So, when you hear a reporter say that Biden’s approval ratings are at “historic lows,” they are repeating what they have read on Twitter—which is what passes for journalism in many quarters today.
I hear ya and that's the problem. Joe runs around saying 93% Dems. would vote for me again. Right, but again, it's anyone but Drumpf. So 93% is enough to swing the vote. Why is it not 100%? There's reasons like write ins and other candidates who are progressive. A ham sandwich can get 93%. Gerrymandering goes both ways. It just seems like only one party gets to make the maps.
DeleteI'll admit that Joe is terribly underrated. We'll see what happens when he announces a second term.