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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:45:03 GMT
I hate to keep bringing up the stupidity of Oklahoma Republican legislators, because their actions give all Oklahomans an undeserved black eye. (Most people here are good, decent people who just happen to vote dumb.) But, last week, one or two legislators introduced a bill to compel Oklahoma's two US senators and five congressmen to bring impeachment charges against President Obama, not over wages, but over the transgender bathroom issue. As was pointed out in the article, the bill if passed would be meaningless because state law doesn't take precedence over federal law for one, and for two, the transgender bathroom in schools issue doesn't meet the bar for treason and high crimes. Doesn't even come close. More realistically, the Oklahoma Republicans are just sick to death of the fact that other, more reasonable Republicans say it's time for the state to buy into the Affordable Care Act or the much hated Obamacare, a bitter pill decision even supported reluctantly by Governor Mary Fallin. With the state being $1.3 billion in debt thanks to Republicans gleefully cutting taxes and programs in the stupid belief that would spur the local economy, they have learned saving money doesn't always lead to an increase in the local economy. And if the people don't spend their money, the state has less money coming in via the state sales tax. And some Republicans are shockingly in favor of raising taxes to spur the economy! Unfortunately, that lesson isn't learned by all Oklahoma Republicans. Some want to continue down the same financially destructive road that put Oklahoma $1.3 billion in debt. On another Republican issue, Gov. Fallin vetoed an abortion bill that had it become law, would've among other things, penalized doctors and subjected them to prison time for performing abortions. She said that as written, the law was too vague and would be struck down by the courts. The legislature, particularly the legislator who introduced the bill wants to override Fallin's veto but I don't think he has the votes, so the veto will stand. And with the local elections coming up and a lot of people not especially happy with the legislature, I think they have to be concerned they may lose their seats. For some of the legislators, it will happen anyway as all state representatives are term limited to serving two terms and then they're out. That can't come a moment too soon.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:45:38 GMT
Oklahoma does seem to have its problems lol. It has probably been gerrymandered to death so no matter how many people vote it will always come up Republican as the winner. I don't know how people in this state can be damned gullible and dumb because voting Republican is really voting to cut your own throat and cutting off your arms and legs. They bought into the "welfare queen" belief that there are undeserved people receiving assistance who could go get a minimum wage job and not be a burden to the state. They don't understand that people who are receiving assistance from the state is someone's parents or grandparents, brother, sister, cousin, child, aunt or uncle - people who can't work because of an illness. They see someone walking, with a handicap placard in their car, and they think that person is not handicapped. Their idea of someone who is handicapped is that the person is totally incapacitated. If they're walking and breathing, they're not handicapped. Then, there is the matter of our roads and bridges, may of which need repaving or shoring up or replaced altogether. Road projects run into the millions and the state doesn't have money to fix each and every road and bridge. The most severe should be fixed as soon as possible but the Republicans always wring their hands about spending money and saying they don't have it. That will be their excuse when someone's family member is killed on a crumbling bridge. They also underpay teachers, which is incredible as Oklahoma is one of the lowest paying states in the country. What's especially galling is that six states boarder Oklahoma, which includes Arkansas, and Arkansas pays their teachers more than Oklahoma pays theirs. That's on starting pay. Oklahoma aspires to be Arkansas, which with starting teacher pay, they achieved it. Texas pays their starting teachers almost 1.5 times the amount Oklahoma pays. Oklahoma Republicans love to tout the "Oklahoma Standard," which they tout as Oklahoma taking care of its own. Well, they don't take care of anyone except the wealthy. But, even that's not working. Maybe it's time they went back to the drawing board and just stood there for a few years while they let more competent people run the government.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:46:13 GMT
REPUBLICANS JUST WON'T LET UP ON VOTER SUPPRESSION. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BET A RIGHT WING THINK TANK OR ORGANIZATION FUNDED BY THE KOCH'S IS BEHIND WRITING THIS LEGISLATION? IT IS INSANE BUT DON'T TAKE YOUR REGISTRATION FOR GRANTED. KEEP CHECKING YOUR STATUS RIGHT UP UNTIL ELECTION DAY. JEB BUSH THREW OVER 80 THOUSAND DEMOCRATS AND MINORITIES OFF THE FLORIDA VOTING ROLLS A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION MAKING IT CLOSE ENOUGH TO CONTEST AND GIVE IT TO HIS BROTHER. THE NEOCONS WERE THEN ABLE TO IMPLEMENT THEIR RIGHT WING AGENDA WITH HELP FROM THE FASCISTS ON THE SUPREME COURT.
Thousands of voters in limbo after Kansas demands proof they're American June 01, 2016
Hotel manager Stricker talks about the Kansas voter ID law in Wichita, Kansas
Hotel manager Tad Stricker, one of the plaintiffs in an ACLU suit against the voter ID law enacted by Kansas, talks about his problems registering to vote in Wichita, Kansas, U.S., May 11, 2016. REUTERS/Dave Kaup More
By John Whitesides
WICHITA, Kansas (Reuters) - After moving to Kansas, Tad Stricker visited a state motor vehicle office to perform what he thought was the routine task of getting a new driver's license and registering to vote.
It was a familiar procedure for Stricker, 37, who has moved from state to state frequently in his work as a hotel manager. He filled out a voter registration form and got his driver's license. He was not asked for more documents, he said.
So he was stunned when he tried to cast a ballot in November 2014 and was told he was not on the voter rolls. A month later, a letter from the state said why: His registration had been placed "in suspense" because he had failed to meet a state requirement he did not know about - proving he was an American.
Spurred by Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a national leader in pushing for anti-immigration and voting changes, more than 36,000 Kansas residents have joined Stricker in limbo since early 2013 under a state law that raises a new and higher barrier to voting in the United States: proof of citizenship.
While you must be a U.S. citizen to vote in American elections, most states allow those wishing to register to simply sign a statement affirming they are citizens and provide a driver’s license number, Social Security number, or other proof of residency.
A Reuters analysis of the Kansas suspense list shows the law disproportionately hits young voters, who often do not have ready access to the needed documents, as well as unaffiliated and Democratic voters in the Republican-controlled state.
"What a shock," said Stricker, who was born in Missouri and moved to Kansas with his wife from Illinois. "I was under the impression I had registered to vote, I had done everything I needed to. I just thought, 'This can't be happening.'"
While the law won't affect its status as a safe Republican state in November's presidential election, it thrusts Kansas into a national debate over voting restrictions that has accelerated since the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, a signature legislative achievement of the 1960s civil rights movement.
Kobach's involvement has raised the stakes in the fight against the Kansas law. Democrats and voting rights advocates say his influence with conservatives could help spread the concept to other states. His critics scored a victory on May 17 when a federal judge weakened the law. Kobach quickly appealed.
The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, and Stricker was a plaintiff in the case.
Photo identification laws and other voting measures have proliferated in recent years in Republican-held states, but "the one that gets me most nervous" is the proof of citizenship requirement in Kansas, said Pratt Wiley, director of voter expansion for the Democratic National Committee.
"What you will see is that what is learned in one state, or doesn't work in one state, there is a small adjustment and then it’s applied in a different state," Wiley said, calling Kansas "patient zero" in that process.
Kobach has gained a national reputation for pushing a series of voting and anti-immigration measures across the country, leading one Democratic congressman to dub him "the dark lord" of the anti-immigration movement - a label he wears proudly.
'MOVING THE BALL'
"I don't know if I would call it a badge of honor but it reflects that I'm moving the ball in what I think is the right direction," Kobach said in an interview in his Topeka office across from the state Capitol.
Three other states have adopted proof of citizenship laws championed by Kobach, although officials said two of them had not implemented them. Bills have been introduced in at least nine other states to create a similar law since 2012, although none have advanced very far, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The law Kobach spearheaded in Kansas requires registrants to prove their citizenship by providing one of a series of documents, including birth certificates and passports. They are placed on the suspense list if they can't.
Since late last year, those who did not complete the requirements for registration have been purged from the voter rolls after 90 days and had to begin the process over again.
About 14 percent of Kansans who tried to register between the law's onset in 2013 and late 2015 failed to meet the requirement and went on the suspense list, according to documents filed in a lawsuit challenging the requirement.
"It's created a system that is needlessly complex and very discouraging, particularly for young people," said Steve Lopes, head of the Johnson County Voting Coalition, which helps register voters. "Now people just say, 'Forget it, I'm not going to vote'."
Kobach rejects accusations the law is designed to suppress voter turnout, particularly among minority and low-income voters who tend to back Democrats. He says it is aimed at stopping what he describes as a rampant problem of non-citizens voting in U.S. elections - even though there is little evidence of the problem.
"Every time an alien votes, it cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen. That's real disenfranchisement, it's happening every election and it's happening in every state," Kobach said, estimating thousands of non-citizens are on voting rolls in big states with large immigrant populations.
Citing that threat, Kobach convinced the Kansas legislature in 2015 to give him the power to prosecute voter fraud. But he has won just four misdemeanor illegal voting convictions, mostly involving people who owned at least two properties and cast votes in both locations. None involved non-citizens voting, although Kobach said more complaints will be filed.
U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson, who issued a May 17 order that Kansas begin to register more than 18,000 voters kept off the rolls by the proof of citizenship law, noted Kansas could identify only three non-citizens who voted between 2003 and the onset of the law in 2013.
RISK OF DISENFRANCHISEMENT
"The court cannot find that the state's interest in preventing non-citizens from voting in Kansas outweighs the risk of disenfranchising thousands of qualified voters," she wrote.
Of the 16,775 people on a late-April suspense list obtained by Reuters, more than half were ages 17 through 21, and more than 60 percent were age 25 or under. They were clustered in the high-population areas of Wichita, Topeka and the Kansas City suburbs, and the college towns of Lawrence and Manhattan.
About 41 percent were unaffiliated, more than the approximately 30 percent of registered Kansas voters who are unaffiliated. About 35 percent of those on the list were Democrats, compared to 24 percent of registered voters. Twenty-three percent were Republicans, compared to 45 percent of registered voters, according to a Reuters analysis of the data.
Younger voters, who are more likely to register as unaffiliated or Democrats, have a harder time getting the documents needed and have less patience with what has become an unwieldy process, said Michael Smith, a professor at Emporia State University who has studied the Kansas suspense list.
Kobach said it was "natural" that young people were heavily represented on the suspense list because they are the majority of new registrants. He rejected criticism that a proof of citizenship requirement created a higher barrier for registrants.
"If you define a barrier to voting as just having to do something before you vote, every state has that barrier, virtually every state requires proof of address," he said.
In her court ruling, Robinson said the Kansas requirement conflicted with a federal law designed to make it easier to register while getting a driver's license. She ordered Kansas on June 14 to begin registering Stricker and other residents who had submitted voter applications through state motor vehicle offices but failed to provide proof of citizenship.
They will be able to vote in federal elections for the presidency and U.S. Congress.
But Robinson's ruling did not end the proof of citizenship requirement for Kansans who register by mail or at locations other than motor vehicle offices, and it left even those registering while getting a driver's license ineligible to vote for state and local offices.
For now, that has created a chaotic two-tier system where some Kansans can vote in state elections and some cannot, some need to provide proof of citizenship and others do not, and many county election officials are uncertain how to proceed.
"It's a complete mess," said Marge Ahrens, co-president of the nonpartisan Kansas League of Women Voters.
(Additional reporting by Grant Smith in New York; Editing by Jason Szep and Ross Colvin)
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:46:46 GMT
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEMAuthoritarianism: The political science that explains Trump
Published on May 20, 2016
The obscure research that predicted Donald Trump.
For more, read Amanda Taub's feature "The rise of American authoritarianism": www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/..., and her analysis of the consequences for the Republican Party: www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11431892...
Subscribe to our channel! goo.gl/0bsAjO
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out www.vox.com to get up to speed on everything from Kurdistan to the Kim Kardashian app.
Check out our full video catalog: goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Twitter: goo.gl/XFrZ5H Or on Facebook: goo.gl/U2g06o CONSERVATIVES WITHOUT CONSCIENCE
THE RIGHT-WING AUTHORITARIAN - Emergence of the Hitler Syndrome in the GOP
The Age of Authoritarianism (and How to Combat it)
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:47:43 GMT
Re. John Dean video--he would know more than most about authoritarians, given that he was the special counsel to one, and a witness to world-class lying.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:48:47 GMT
THIS IS NOT ATYPICAL BEHAVIOR FROM REPUBLICANS. IT IS ESPECIALLY TYPICAL OF RED STATE REPUBLICANS WHAT DISGUSTING SLUGS!HOW VERY CHRISTIAN 06.10.16 8:00 AM ETGOP Senator David Perdue Jokes About Praying for Obama’s DeathThe freshman senator from Georgia quoted scripture at a right-wing Christian confab to say the president's days should be short.
At a major event for conservative Christians this morning, a Republican senator joked about praying for President Obama’s “days to be short.”
Sen. David Perdue, a freshman senator from Georgia, opened his remarks at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference by encouraging attendees to pray for President Obama. But, he added in a joking tone, they need to pray for him in a very specific way: “We should pray for him like Psalms 109:8 says: Let his days be few, and let another have his office,” the senator said, smiling wryly.
The crowd chuckled and he moved on with his address.
The rest of that passage, which Perdue did not recite, reads, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.”
The psalm is a pointed, lengthy death wish for one of David’s enemies.
“Let the creditor seize all that he has, and let strangers plunder his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any to favor his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off, and in the generation following let their name be blotted out,” it continues.
Perdue’s joke drew immediate criticism. Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, tweeted, “Republican Senator David Perdue is praying for President Obama to die. This is why Trump is the GOP nominee.”
As the Washington Post’s Dave Weigel pointed out, conservatives have long invoked this verse in the yearning for an end to Obama’s days in office. A Christian Science Monitor report from November 16, 2009, detailed the popularity of bumper stickers that read simply, “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8.”
“It’s protected speech, but it’s clearly offensive,” the Anti-Defamation League’s Deborah Lauter said at the time.
The Road to Majority conference brings together top leaders in the social-conservative world, as well as prominent elected Republicans. Shortly after Perdue’s speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and top Trump adviser Sen. Jeff Sessions spoke. Donald Trump will keynote the event later today.
UPDATE: After publication, Perdue spokeswoman Caroline Vanvick gave this statement to Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur:
“Senator Perdue said we are called to pray for our country, for our leaders, and for our president. He in no way wishes harm towards our president and everyone in the room understood that. However, we should add the media to our prayer list because they are pushing a narrative to create controversy and that is exactly what the American people are tired of.”
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:49:28 GMT
Again, you can't expect anything from a pig (let alone a half-witted, religious fanatic freshman senator from Georgia) other than a grunt.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:50:04 GMT
Again, you can't expect anything from a pig (let alone a half-witted, religious fascist freshmen senator from Georgia) other than a grunt. Evidently this exact behavior has been going on for quite a while but it is the first time I recall the media printing it.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:50:41 GMT
Maybe congressman Allen is lobbying to be Trump's running mate: Homosexuals 'Worthy of Death' Bible Verse Read Before Key Vote - See more at: www.rollcall.com/news/politics/bible-verse-homosexuals-heard-house-gop-prior-vote
Gay rights advocates call on GOP leaders to condemn the reading House Republicans at a conference meeting heard a Bible verse that calls for death for homosexuals shortly before the chamber voted Thursday morning to reject a spending bill that included an amendment barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Whether the freshman member who gave the prayer intended to condemn members of the LGBT community has left Republicans and Democrats deeply divided. What's certain is that the Energy-Water appropriations bill that came to the floor later in the morning was defeated on a resounding 112-305 vote, with a majority of the GOP caucus in opposition. Georgia Rep. Rick W. Allen led the opening prayer by reading from Romans 1:18-32, and Revelations 22:18-19. An aide to Allen told CQ that Allen did not mention the upcoming vote on the Energy-Water spending bill or an amendment that would reinforce a presidential directive prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees. Gay rights advocates called on top Republicans to condemn the "vile and dangerous remarks" and censure Allen. "At a time when LGBT people face staggering rates of discrimination, harassment and violence, Representative Allen's comments spread hate that does real harm," Human Rights Campaign Senior Vice President said in a statement. Passages in the verses refer to homosexuality and the penalty for homosexual behavior. “And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet,” reads Romans 1:27, which Allen read, according to his office. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them,” read lines 28-32, which Allen also recited, according to his office. Many objections Democrats also helped sink the $37.4 billion Energy-Water bill, opposed to provisions that would have barred the purchase of heavy water from Iran and prohibited the federal government from reducing funding to the state of North Carolina for energy and water projects. Republican objections to the bill, which was drafted by their members and approved in a Republican-controlled committee by a voice vote, included the level of spending, as well as the inclusion of the Maloney nondiscrimination amendment. A #StopMaloney campaign on Twitter by conservative groups urged the defeat of the bill. The 130 Republicans voting against the bill was significantly higher than opposition last year to any of the six appropriations bills that passed the House floor. Last year, seven Republicans voted against the fiscal 2016 Energy-Water spending bill, four voted against the Military Construction-VA bill, five voted against the Defense spending bill, five voted against the Legislative Branch bill, 10 voted against the Commerce-Justice-Science bill and 31 voted against the Transportation-HUD bill. Maloney, who heard about the Republican conference prayer from another representative, said the prayer and the vote should tell Americans about the values Republicans hold. “To suggest that protecting people from being fired because of who they are means eternal damnation, then I think they are starting to show their true colors,” Maloney said. “I think we are living in a new world of Donald Trump and a Republican Party that is driving itself further and further away from common sense and further toward a radical approach to government,” he said. Maloney’s identical amendment to last week’s fiscal 2017 Military Construction-VA appropriations bill caused a scene on the House floor when the two-minute clock on the roll call vote struck zero. The provision could have passed with 217 votes, but Republicans held the vote open for about eight minutes to allow members to change their votes. Republicans denied accusations of arm-twisting. The amendment, which would have barred discrimination in federal contracting on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, ultimately failed by a vote of 212-213. “Everything we’ve done over the last week was a reaction to a Republican effort to write anti-gay discrimination into the defense [authorization] bill,” Maloney said, referring to a religious freedom provision to the defense authorization bill, which could affect executive orders from President Barack Obama that prevent LGBT discrimination. “All we are saying was the executive orders that created workplace fairness should not be rolled back.” When Maloney offered his amendment to the Energy-Water spending bill on Wednesday night, it was approved in a 223-195 vote. Republicans added “perfecting language” to the amendment with exemptions under the First and 14th amendments, as well as Article I of the Constitution. “A majority of the House agreed with me last night, including 43 Republicans, so in some ways that battle has been fought and won by the forces for equality,” Maloney said.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:51:23 GMT
Healthcare company announces plans to leave Kansas, eviscerates Gov. Sam Brownback in open letter Jeff Blackwood, the CEO of Pathfinder Health innovations, released a public letter stating their intentions to move the company out of the state of Kansas. Mr. Blackwood pulled no punches in his message to Governor Brownback and Kansas conservatives: “I can’t, in good conscience, continue to give our tax money to a government that actively works against the needs of its citizens; a state that is systematically targeting the citizens in most need, denying them critical care and reducing their cost of life as if they’re simply a tax burden that should be ignored.” – Jeff Blackwood, CEO of Pathfinder Health InnovationsWow! In the full text of the letter, Mr. Blackwood said they re-evaluated staying in Kansas when they outgrew their current space. After consideration, they just can’t stay: There are a lot of things that factor into this decision. For one, the company has outgrown our current space. There are no seats left, and we have new employees coming on every month. The state of Missouri is also helping us with some tax incentives, but these are minor considerations. More importantly, there’s a motivation of conscience that factors into it, too. It’s not so much that I’m moving the company to Missouri as I’m moving it away from Kansas. Emphasis added. He went on to note the absolute failure of conservative policies that are laughably advertised as means to attract new companies to the state: Kansas has become a test center of “trickle down” economics, espoused by economist Arthur Laffer during the Reagan years. Nowhere has there been as thorough an implementation of Laffer’s policy recommendations… and nowhere has there been as dramatic a failure of government.
Under Brownback’s direction, Kansas implemented an unprecedented tax cut in 2012, eliminating taxes for LLCs and professional firms (for full disclosure, PHI is a C Corporation) and making the largest cuts in the highest tax brackets. He shifted taxes to create a heavier burden on property and sales taxes, which typically represent a larger burden on lower income brackets. Brownback declared that this tax cut would be a “shot of adrenaline” for the Kansas economy, but the reality is that the tax cuts have had the opposite effect. Kansas lags neighboring states in job growth. For 11 of the last 12 months, Kansas has dramatically missed revenue targets, falling deeper in debt and facing another round of degraded bond ratings.
The worst part is that the burdens for the shortfalls rest on the shoulders of those who can least afford it – children and the developmentally disabled.
One of Brownback’s first actions was to close the Lawrence office for Kansas Social & Rehabilitation Services (SRS). This agency provided services for low-income children and the developmentally disabled, and access to the Lawrence office was critical for people in that community to receive services. Their only option was to try to figure out how to get transportation to the Topeka SRS office, thirty miles away. Not an easy task. The closure of the Lawrence office was supposed to save the state $400,000 per year.
At the same time, Brownback decided to pursue a personal vendetta against the Kansas Bioscience Authority, an organization created to spur the economic development of bioscience companies in Kansas. Brownback was convinced that funds were being misused, so he decided we needed to spend over $400,000 (conveniently, the same amount that could have kept the Lawrence SRS office open) on lawyers and auditors to pour over the KBA books. In the end, they found a total of $5,000 in misused funds, which the former KBA president repaid with a personal check. It all came down to priorities – pursue a personal vendetta at the expense of the disabled.
Blackwood went on to scorch Governor Brownback on state healthcare cutbacks and the ongoing destruction of previously excellent public school system that has been systemically dismantled under Republican care. I believe that it is the responsibility of business owners and people with some voice in society should speak up against these destructive policies. And I believe it is far past the time that Sam Brownback and his cronies admit the damage they’ve caused to the people of Kansas and resign in the shame they deserve.
Thank you, Mr. Blackwood. You can read his full letter at the Pathfinder Health Innovations blog. pathfinderhi.com/kansas-isnt-home-anymore/
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:51:59 GMT
ANOTHER IMPORTANT ARTICLE ON WHAT MAKES REPUBLICANS TICK (AND SICK) THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN INTERESTED IN GOVERNING. THEIR ONLY INTEREST IS HOW GOVERNMENT CAN BE USED TO ENRICH THE FEW AND THAT HAS BEEN THEIR GOAL.
What Republicans' Obstruction Costs ThemJune 22, 2016 2:00 PM EST By Jonathan Bernstein
For more than 20 years, Republican politicians have followed one overarching strategy: pursuing maximum opposition to the president when they don't control the White House.
While liberals may hate this obstruction, they agree with conservatives that it is successful and makes sense from a Republican point of view. Jonathan Chait describes it this way:
The link between the design failures of the presidential system itself and these failures is clear enough. The worse things go for the president, the better the chances for the opposition party to regain power. Cooperating would merely give the president bipartisan cover, making him more popular and benefiting his party as well. Republican leaders have openly acknowledged these incentives. In the Obama era, this has forced the Republican leadership to mount a scorched-earth opposition, demonizing the president as an alien socialist who threatens America’s way of life.
This Republican belief that compromise always helps the White House, at least when it comes to electoral politics, goes back further than the Obama years.2 It started in force with Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and the Republican reaction to Bill Clinton's election in 1993, and what they did in the year that followed was a model for how Republicans acted in 2009. The GOP's midterm victories in 1994, 2010 and 2014 seemed to validate it.
The problem is that we now know more about the supposed success of the never-compromise strategy. Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996, and wound up, perhaps in part because of the Republican decision to impeach him, as a more popular president over his eight years than Ronald Reagan was in the course of his two terms. Barack Obama was re-elected as well, and while he hasn’t been a particularly popular president, he’s currently a bit more popular than Reagan was in 1988. And people strongly dislike the Republican Party.
It’s possible the GOP's rejectionist strategy helped in the three midterm elections, but it’s far more likely those results just reflected the normal ebb and flow of elections. The president’s party usually does badly in midterms.
And, to be fair, first-term presidents usually get re-elected. I don’t think the Republican strategy in particular made Clinton or Obama more popular. For that matter, I don't see much evidence that it changed anything in either direction.
It isn't hard to find countervailing examples. President George H.W. Bush lost his re-election bid in 1992 despite having plenty of “bipartisan cover” for the 1990 bipartisan budget deal and Democratic support for his foreign-policy actions. His biggest domestic success, the Americans With Disabilities Act, also had bipartisan support. But none of that seemed to matter one way or another when the economy slumped.
Of course, no one expects an out-of-power party to go along with what its opponent in the White House proposes. At times, very strong opposition is normal.
But normal opposition includes at least the possibility, and sometimes the reality, of cutting deals giving both sides something. And it has never in the past precluded a certain amount of government business getting done.3 Normal opposition hasn’t produced extended government shutdowns or debt-limit crises.
It isn't just that extreme obstruction is bad for the nation. It's bad for Republican-aligned groups, too. By shunning compromise, Republicans fail to use the leverage they have to win policy victories for those groups. They also, by demanding total victory and then having to accept total defeat, encourage unrealistic expectations among their constituents.
One result is that some Republicans even believe there has been too much cooperation with the Obama administration. If only the government had been shut down longer in 2013; if only Republicans had refused to accept the budget deals they have agreed to; if only they had blocked every single judicial and executive branch appointment. Then, these Republicans reason, they would have won more individual battles, and Obama’s popularity would have really tanked.
That Republican faction may well use this as an excuse if Hillary Clinton is elected. In that event, everyone expects more of the same: House and Senate Republicans will do whatever they can to oppose whatever she proposes, on big and small issues, even if a compromise might be available and in both parties' interests.
But what if that strategy is based on a wrong assumption about how U.S. politics works? Then Republicans are accepting all the costs of obstruction for mostly (or even entirely) fictional benefits.
1.Chait’s item is an excellent response to a fascinating article in the Atlantic by Jonathan Rauch. Rauch attributes much of what’s wrong with U.S. politics to a plague of good-government purism, which has stripped the gears that allow the Madisonian machinery to work. Chait says, no, the problem is the Republican Party. They’re both right: Rauch’s general argument is good, but Chait is correct about the specifics. ↩
2.Yes, there have been exceptions, even during Obama’s presidency (such as Senate approval of an arms-reduction treaty with Russia, and cooperation on some trade deals). ↩
3.Two examples: Republicans have defeated (by filibuster if needed) routine “technical corrections” bills to clean up language in legislation such as the Affordable Care Act. And Republicans have routinely filibustered against (or, under Republican majorities, simply refused to consider) the confirmation of district court judges, even when Obama’s nominees are not controversial at all. ↩
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net
elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/republican-party-favorable-rating
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:52:27 GMT
Elizabeth Warren knocks it out of the f*cking park addressing Republicans for 7 years of obstruction By Leslie Salzillo Thursday Mar 10, 2016 · 12:14 PM USMST 2016/03/10 · 12:14
In one of her most incredible speeches ever, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren rebukes, shames, and lambasts Republicans, and their party, in front of the Senate on Wednesday. It’s so good, just a few excerpts wouldn’t do. Here is most of her speech in all its glory. There's a vacancy on the most important court in America and the message from Senate Republicans is crystal-clear: Forget the Constitution. It doesn't matter who President Obama nominates, because the Republicans will allow no votes on that nominee.
They will hold no hearings on that nominee. Their response to one of the most solemn and consequential tasks that our government performs, the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice, will be to pretend that that nominee and President Obama himself simply do not exist — cannot see them, cannot hear them.
Warren says, at the same time Republicans are pledging to block all Supreme Court nominees, they are also panicking because their party is on the verge of nominating one of two extremists for president. She says blocking the SCOTUS nominees and scattering to rid their party of extremist Republican candidates are quite similar issues:
If Republican senators want to stand up to extremists running for president, they can start right mail by standing up to extremists in the Senate. They can start by doing what they were elected to do right here in the Senate. They can start by doing their jobs.
The senator from Massachusetts reminds the Republicans that the Constitution states the U.S. president shall nominate judges, executive officials, and justices to the Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of the Senate. She says there is nothing in the Constitution that says, “except when that president is a Democrat,” but for seven years that is how Republicans in the Senate have acted. Warren says: Since the first day of the Obama presidency, Republican senators have vowed to extremists who reject his legitimacy and abused the rules of the Senate in an all-out effort to cripple his administration and to paralyze the federal courts.
She says senators took an oath to uphold the Constitution and if they don’t like the president’s nominees they can vote “no,” and take it up with the American people. Warren adds she hasn’t always agreed with President Obama’s picks in the past, but that’s how it is and you do your best to vote appropriately.
But are Republican extremists voting against individuals based on the good faith judgment about a specific person? No. They are blocking votes wholesale in order to keep those jobs vacant and undermine the government itself.
• For years Republicans have executed a strategy to delay a vote on confirming government officials across the board. In 2013, only one year under President Obama's second-term, Republican leaders flatly rejected his authority to confirm any judges, to fill any of the three open seats on the second highest courts in the country. And Democrats had to change the filibuster rules in order to move those nominees forward.
• Once Republicans took over the Senate in 2014, judicial nominations nearly ground to a halt. And it's not just judges. • For months after the president won re-election, Republicans held up his nominees to run the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency largely on the suspicion that those highly qualified individuals might actually help those agencies do their work. • For years Republicans held up nominees to the National Labor Relations Board, even Republican nominees, in order to cripple the ability of that 80-year-old agency to resolve disputes between workers and their bosses. • For years Republicans held up the president's choice to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, refusing to confirm anyone unless the president would agree to gut the agency. Republicans regularly hold up the confirmation of dozens of ambassadors, undermining our national security and our relationships with other nations. • Last year Republicans blocked confirmation of the attorney general, the highest law enforcement official in this country, blocked her for 166 days. That's longer than it took the Senate to consider the prior seven attorney generals combined. • For more than a year, the Republican chairman of the banking committee hasn't held a single vote on any of the 16 presidential nominees sitting on his desk — not even nominees who are critical to maintaining the financial stability of this country or the ones who are responsible for choking off the flow of money to ISIS.
Warren says the Senate Republican message couldn’t be more clear: No matter how much it damages the nation, undermines the courts or cripples the government: Senate Republicans do pretty much everything they can to avoid acknowledging the legitimacy of our democratically elected president.
Well, the game is over, Warren says, as she reminds Republicans that they are stuck with extremists who are on the verge of winning the Republican Party’s nomination. They are stuck with:
• Republican candidates are motivated by bigotry and resentment • Republican candidates unable to govern • Republican candidates reflecting the same extremism that has been nursed along for seven years right here in the United States Senate
In her classic style, Warren says, “Here’s the deal!” She says the extremists may not like it, but:
Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 by nine million votes. He won re-election in 2012 by five million votes. President Obama was elected the legitimate president seven years ago and he is the legitimate president right now. Senator Elizabeth Warren ends her speech with a phrase/hashtag that is resonating throughout social media — #DoYourJob.
So if it is true that some Republican senators are finally ready to stand up to the extremism that denies the legitimacy of this president and of the Constitution, I say to you:
• Do your job. Vote for a Supreme Court nominee. • Do your job. Vote on district court judges and circuit court judges. • Do your job. Vote on ambassadors. • Do your job. Vote on agency leaders in counterterrorism officials.
If you want to stop extremism in your party, you can start by showing the American people you respect the President of the United States and the Constitution enough to Do-your-job right here in the United States Senate. Elizabeth Warren is an amazing lawmaker and speaker. Oh, to have her as the POTUS one day, the possibilities would be endless.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:53:39 GMT
MSNBC Chuck Todd interviewed Princeton economist Alan S. Binder to his show the Daily Rundown a few weeks ago. They discussed a striking paper that he co-wrote with Princeton Economics Professor Mark W. Watson. The title of the paper is “Presidents and the Economy: A Forensic Investigation.” The paper is a very well researched paper that analyzed the performance of the country’s economy under different presidents. The paper came to a striking conclusion. The economy does substantially better under Democratic presidents than Republican presidents. This occurs irrespective of who controls Congress. Many already knew this. What these Princeton economists did was to quantify the results. They also attempted to play with different degrees of freedom within the dataset to find out why Democratic presidents did so much better. Professors’ conclusion squares poorly with the reality of presidents’ impact on economy. One must wonder if they simply wanted to ensure that their study would not be deemed as partisan given the corrosively partisan environment. The data on the economy is what it is. It is surprising that this paper did not receive massive publicity. Had the results of this research shown a Republican advantage on the economy, you can rest assured every news station and PAC would be covering it and advertising it ad nauseam.
Study: The economy has done better under Democratic presidents Updated by Brad Plumer on July 29, 2014, 10:20 a.m. ET @bradplumer brad@vox.com
For the past half-century, the US economy has consistently grown faster under Democratic presidents than under Republican ones. And in a new study, two economists ask whether there's a reason for that — or if it's all just a coincidence.
The numbers are pretty clear on this. Between 1947 and 2012, the US economy grew at an average real annual rate of 4.35 percent during Democratic administrations and just 2.54 percent during Republican ones.
And the gap persists even if you play around with the numbers a bit — say, by giving presidents less credit for the period immediately after taking office or by removing the extreme outlier years (like the financial crisis at the end of George W. Bush's second term) or by fiddling with the dating of recessions:
So what's going on? It's easy to tell stories about individual presidencies, but are there any broader patterns at work here? Perhaps Democratic policies are better for economic growth. Or, alternatively, perhaps Republican policies are actually superior — but they take a long while to have an impact, so Democrats end up benefitting.
'Democrats would like to attribute the gap to better macroeconomic policies, but the data do not support such a claim'
There's also a third possibility: Perhaps Democratic presidents have just had better economic luck. Policy might play some role, but less than most politicians like to think.
Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Watson tend to favor this third explanation — and they've assembled the evidence in their newly revised working paper, "Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Explanation." (It's an update of this previous paper on the topic.) The two authors are skeptical that differences in macroeconomic policies — taxes or spending or monetary policy — are a major reason for the overall gap in growth rates. "Democrats would no doubt like to attribute the large D-R growth gap to macroeconomic policy choices, but the data do not support such a claim," they argue. (Blinder worked as an adviser in the Clinton White House, Watson is an econometrician not affiliated with either party.)
Instead, they find, roughly half of the difference in growth rates can be chalked up to just three or four factors: Democratic presidents have historically been hurt less by oil shocks, and have benefited more from productivity booms, favorable international conditions, and possibly higher consumer confidence.
That's not all pure coincidence — the economists note that a president's foreign policy choices, for instance, can affect oil shocks. But they call a lot of it "luck." So here's an overview of their paper: 4 reasons the economy has done better under Democratic presidents
Blinder and Watson find that "slightly more than half" of the gap in economic growth rates under Democratic and Republican presidents comes down to four factors: Oil shocks and productivity booms are two major factors
1) Oil shocks have hit Republicans harder: The paper notes that Republican presidencies have seen more oil shocks — sharp rises in the price of crude oil that can put a crimp in consumer spending and restrain growth. Previous work by James Hamilton of the University of California, San Diego, has suggested that oil shocks can have a negative impact on growth. Based off these calculations, Blinder and Watson suggest that oil shocks could account for a big chunk (possibly around one-fifth to one-fourth) of the partisan gap in growth. It's worth noting, however, that oil shocks aren't totally independent of policy. The authors note that both invasions of Iraq by George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush helped push up the price of oil. Still, these shocks also aren't always within the president's control — the massive rise in oil prices during the second Bush administration was extremely harmful, but a lot of that was driven by demand growth in China, India, and Brazil.
2) Democrats benefit more from productivity booms: Historically, total factor productivity has grown faster under Democratic presidents than Republican ones. The numbers are particularly driven by a big boom in productivity under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, combined with a sharp slowdown during Ronald Reagan's first term and George W. Bush's second term. Here, too, the authors note that "government decisions can presumably influence productivity" — so this might well be partly dependent on policy. But it's hard to pinpoint specific factors here. How much credit does Bill Clinton deserve for the tech boom of the 1990s?
3) International growth might benefit Democrats: Another possibility is that Democrats happen to come to office when the rest of the global economy is booming. That might count as "luck." And there's some evidence that Democratic presidents do indeed benefit from stronger growth abroad during the terms. The problem is that this is a difficult factor to isolate — is the rest of the world helping US growth or is US growth pulling up the rest of the world? How much of this is dependent on oil prices? And so forth.
4) Consumer confidence: Consumer expectations about the future seem to be higher during the first year of Democratic presidential terms, the authors note. It's not clear whether this is a coincidence or not — but a big part of the difference in growth rates is due to a leap in consumer spending and business fixed investment during the first term of Democratic presidencies.
As mentioned, it can be difficult to tease out how much each of these factors matter — given that so many things are going on during this time period and there are different ways of measuring each of these factors. But the economists' calculations suggest that these four factors explain around half the gap.
And 6 factors that don't seem to matter as much Copies of the Obama Administration's proposed FY 2014 federal budget are on display before going on sale at the Government Printing Office Book Store April 10, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Blinder and Watson also consider — and reject — a bunch of other explanations for the difference in economic performance between Democratic and Republican presidents. These things can affect the economy, but there doesn't seem to be any broader identifiable pattern that would account for the partisan gap in growth:
If anything, monetary and fiscal policy have helped Republicans
1) Deficits and budget policy. Very broadly speaking, there hasn't been a massive difference in fiscal policies between the two parties since 1947. The structural federal budget deficit has been 1.5 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.2 percent under Republicans — which is "far from statistically significant," the authors write.
2) Military spending. The authors do find a big difference in military spending — real defense spending has grown 5.9 percent under Democratic presidents and just 0.8 percent under Republican ones. But they don't think this is enough to drive the historical difference in growth rates: "[O]n average, federal defense spending accounts for just 8% of GDP over the postwar period. It would be hard for a tail that small to wag such a big dog." (The one exception here is the big buildup in the Korean War — but even if you exclude that, the partisan growth gap remains large.)
3) Congress. Party control of Congress doesn't seem to have much impact on the economy one way or the other — or at least there are no obvious patterns here.
4) Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve chairmen appointed by Democrats tend to outperform Fed chiefs appointed by Republicans. But this doesn't necessarily benefit Democratic presidents. Indeed, the Fed, on average, tends to lower interest rates during Republican presidencies and hike them during Democratic ones. (This might simply be a function of the fact that the economy does better under Democrats, however.)
5) Inherited economies. The authors don't give much credence to the idea that Democratic presidents inherit stronger economies. In fact, the opposite may be true: "Democrats inherit growth rates of 1.9% from the final year of the previous term, while Republicans inherit a growth rate of 4.3% — a clear advantage to Republicans." Yet Democratic presidents have still done better, on average, in their first terms since 1947.
6) Global patterns. There doesn't seem to be any global pattern here. Canada shows the same partisan gap in growth rates as the United States, with the economy expanding faster under Liberal governments than during Conservative governments. But there's no partisan pattern found in the United Kingdom, France or Germany.
But the study still leaves plenty of questions
For one, the authors note that their four preferred factors — oil shocks, productivity growth, international conditions, and consumer expectations — still only explain about half the difference in growth rates.
The 4 preferred factors only explain half of the growth gap
"The rest remains, for now, a mystery of the still mostly-unexplored continent," Blinder and Watson write. "The word 'research,' taken literally, means search again. We invite other researchers to do so."
As noted above, it's also not clear how much policy can influence the factors they call "luck" — things like oil shocks or productivity growth or consumer expectations. Perhaps these are things that presidents can have a lot of influence over. Or perhaps these are factors they can only affect at the margins.
Figuring that out wouldn't just be worthwhile for purposes of bragging rights — it'd be useful to know if there are policies that really can produce such a consistent and large boost to economic growth.
Further reading: • You can read Blinder and Watson's paper here. Link is via Tyler Cowen.
• Separately, political scientist Larry Bartels has shown that income inequality tends to rise under Republican presidents and fall under Democratic presidents. Blinder and Watson cite this in their paper, though they don't look at whether this might affect the difference in growth rates.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:54:37 GMT
THE TITLE ALONE MERITED ITS INCLUSION HERERepublicans Had Another Banner Day of StupidWhat a 24 hours it was in our nation's capital. GETTY ALEX WONG BY CHARLES P. PIERCE JUL 7, 2016 As the sun sets on Thursday, and the kangaroo suits are sent to the cleaners to get them ready for the next 93 futile hearings into whatever's left of the e-mail thing besides the furrowed brows of the country's green rooms, we bid farewell to a very interesting day in Our Nation's Capital.
First of all, He, Trump came to town and met with those Republican legislators who weren't imaginative enough to come up with a decent excuse to be hiding under the couch. Things apparently did not go well with the senators. He, Trump threatened Jeff Flake's career, which is roughly akin to pulling an RPG launcher on an angry, but plucky, Pomerarian. Luckily for us all, He, Trump remains a dolt, which Flake politely pointed out.
Bring us into the octagon, Washington Post!
Trump said at the meeting that he has yet to attack Flake hard but threatened to begin doing so. Flake stood up to Trump by urging him to stop attacking Mexicans. Trump predicted that Flake would lose his reelection, at which point Flake informed Trump that he was not on the ballot this year, the sources said.
Get the freaking net. I'm not kidding.
But the main event took place over in the House of Representatives, where Congressman Jason Chaffetz, Republican from Utah, brought in FBI director James Comey because Chaffetz was "mystified" as to why Comey had come to the conclusions he did regarding Hillary Rodham Clinton's e-mails.
For four hours plus, Comey stood the committee on its collective ear. Yes, there was some real dumbassery involved in how HRC handled her home server. Yes, he would use the word reckless. Yes, he would even use the word dangerous. No, he would not be indicting her because dumbassery in an official capacity is not a criminal offense—which is a good thing, otherwise there would have been very few members of the House majority able to attend Thursday's hearings.
For their part, the Democrats played the whole thing for what it was: an exercise in political kabuki. They were fulsome in their praise of Comey, and they were unequivocal in their support. Some of them spent their allotted time arguing that the committee should have had better things to do, and others had a lot of fun comparing what the Republicans had said about Comey during his investigation to what they said about him after his press conference earlier this week.
Meanwhile, the Republicans were equally complimentary of Comey's service, but their praise usually ended with one of them intimating that Comey was a man of great integrity so they were puzzled as to how he could have gotten involved in a conspiracy involving both Clintons, Loretta Lynch, Vince Foster, Jim Guy Tucker and, as near as could be determined, George deMohrenschildt and John Wilkes Booth.
John Mica, Republican of Florida, was particularly batty on the subject—somehow, Mica worked Hamilton into his questioning—to the point where Comey got genuinely angry. From TBOTP:
"I hope what you'll tell the folks in the cafes is, look me in the eye, and listen to what I'm about to say. I did not coordinate that with anyone. The White House, the Department of Justice, nobody outside the FBI family had any idea what I was about to say. I say that under oath, I stand by that."
Why in the name of god they couldn't have just accepted the gift that Comey gave them on Tuesday is the best proof yet that modern conservatism has driven the GOP barking mad with no hope of recall.
There will be more hearings: Next week, Lynch is due for her chance to help another House committee look foolish. Elsewhere, Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, is proposing that He, Trump, the dolt, be the only one of the major candidates for president to get national security briefings. Chaffetz ended the hearings by quizzing Comey about what he knew about The Clinton Foundation, so you know that's coming down the Idiot Trail fairly soon.
Come back with me to the cool darkness of the cocktail lounge of the Mena Airport. It's going to be a rockin' happy hour.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 23, 2020 5:55:28 GMT
THIS IS BETTER SUITED IN THIS THREAD LOL
The far right is now playing a very prominent role in shaping the world and the objectives of the world controllers.
It is no coincidence that all over the west we are seeing a sharp rise in far right movements, and politics being driven by far right wing agendas.
It is also no coincidence that some alternative media operations like infowars are doing absolutely nothing to expose this agenda, and even worse are taking a major role in promoting it.
WHAT DO THE WORLD CONTROLLERS WANT ?
There are many speculations about this, and I think it is safe to assume that they want as much political and economic control over the globe as possible. Most people will agree with this. Many people however will disagree with WHO EXACTLY THESE CONTROLLERS ARE.
Whomever they are they certainly do not want worldwide solidarity and are meticulously focused on dividing the world population so they are always fighting amongst one another. They also want a large portion of people to willingly SUPPORT their agendas, which is precicely why they have agendas being promoted by the leaders of choice on both the right and left wings of the spectrum. So no matter which team you choose, you will ultimately be supporting a certain element of their overall agenda.
The right wing agenda is very often ignored. These are their objectives.
1. SCAPEGOAT THE STATE AND GOVERNMENT
For decades the radical right through groups like the John Birch Society, White Nationalist groups, Militia groups, Far right churches (The moral majority), Right wing think tanks have been building up the idea that THE STATE/GOVERNMENT is inherently evil/corrupt and that it needs to ultimately be taken down in order for FREEDOM and FREE MARKETS.
This entire ideology has been funded by some of the worlds biggest billionaires, most notably the Koch family, whose combined assets make them richer than anybody on the Forbes list.
The whole purpose of this is to promote AUSTERITY, DESTROY REGULATIONS FOR BIG BUSINESS AND BANKS, TAX RELIEF FOR BILLIONAIRES.
This flawed ideology does nothing but protect the oligarchs and focus on the much smaller problem of "corrupt government" WHICH IS CORRUPTED BY THE OLIGARCHS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
You will always hear the right and the far right talk about how corrupt government officials are but rarely do you hear them talk about oligarchs, big business, and bankers.
A far right political figure like Donald Trump will always talk about the corruption of Obama, Clinton, or whatever politician. The Clintons are worth over 100 million, Obama about 7 million. Does Trump talk about his friends like Carl Ichan, worth 17 billion ,or his pal Sheldon Adelson, worth 31 billion. Are we naively to believe that government is corrupt but the business world, where you need massive bank loans isn't ? GTFOH.
The far right will at times talk about "bankers" but it is always within the context of scapegoating Jews or making it all about some "left wing conspiracy" which is why they usually always talk about George Soros, who is both Jewish and a supposed "leftist".
The bankers are only talked about when they are financing some supposed "leftist conspiracy"
NO talk of the Koch brothers who of course basically finance the entire far right narrative and ideology.
The WHOLE PURPOSE IS TO THOROUGHLY DISCREDIT THE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT SO THAT PEOPLE WILL WILLINGLY PUSH FOR LESS REGULATION, MORE AUSTERITY, AND MORE TAX RELIEF FOR BILLIONAIRES ALL UNDER THE BANNER OF "SMALL GOVERNMENT" AND "FREEDOM" "FREE MARKETS"
This has been the goal of the oligarchs ever since FDR's "New Deal" policies which helped bring some level of prosperity to ordinary citizens. The far right like to hijack that success and claim it was "free markets" and "capitalism" which achieved this, but it was literally the opposite. It was the moderate socializing of the American government which brought about the middle class. They have also been actively trying to destroy the socialism in Europe through austerity measures.
The far right think tanks like Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Coucil for National Policy, Cato Institute, Hoover Institute have been leading this objective backed by their proxies in the "truth movement" the anti-government militias, government controlled churches, "patriot groups" etc. All a part of the radical right machinery.
It is also important to establish the idea that this government corruption is predominantly of "leftist" and "progressive" nature and this will bring us to the next agenda of the far right.
2. CREATE THE MYTH OF A LEFTIST CONSPIRACY
Along with discrediting the government institutions on behalf of the oligarchs the far right dupes need to now believe in a far leftist conspiracy which has taken over their respective countries.
This of course is an old tactic which was used with the Fascist movements of the 30's, primarily with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Ironically both fascist movements needed to use "leftist populism" and ideas of anti capitalism in order to create their mass movements.
It is generally agreed regardless of ones political affiliations that mass movements or leaders should be FOR THE PEOPLE and ANTI ELITIST, so of course Hitler played into this even though the very people he railed against were the ones financing his operation.
The far left conspiracy serves again to act as a SCAPEGOAT and to protect a greater evil, just like how the far right scapegoats government to protect the greater evil, the oligarchs. It serves ultimately as a piñata for all of the anger and indignation towards the elites. The angry masses who awaken to the crimes and manipulations of the "NWO" have something which to bear the brunt of their frustrations. Again the greater evil is off the hook for the distraction. This is precisely why so many in the "truth movement" or "alternative media" are there to guide the angry towards the so called "left or progressive conspiracy"
The destruction of the "left wing conspiracy/government" will pave way for the solution in the form of a Fascist dictatorship, which the right wing dupes will welcome as the saviour to their woes. This will also pave the way for Radical nationalism in the form of "American Exceptionalism" a form of Nazism. The backlash against the so called "leftist conspiracy" will be so great that this form of aggressive nationalism will be embraced.
For decades the idea that "leftists" "progressives" "communists" have taken over the government and media, banking etc. has been put into the minds of Western populations. These ideas again trace right back to think tanks and right wing organizations, pseudo grass movements all funded by billionaires. These were originally somewhat limited to fringe groups originally but are now a part of mainstream media and politics via outlets like Rupert Murdochs FOX NEWS.
Again this primarily began after FDR's New Deal reforms bringing elements of socialism to America. This for many of the far right conspiracy theorists was a beginning point, but we can also see that the Civil Rights movement was a major moment as well.
Minorities achieving "equal rights" became a threat to many far right groups and organizations. The John Birch Society was at the forefront of fighting Civil rights, defending Apartheid South Africa, and maintaining white privilege. It is no surprise that todays proxies of the JBS continue with the same race baiting and fear mongering. The far right has always tried to characterize "the left wing conspiracy" as ANTI WHITE. They still do today. They continuously project their deep seeded racism onto their political opponents, this is one of their main tactics. This is done in order to create division, but also to scare white people away from any ideas of socialism. To the far right socialism=anti white racism. This is the kind of absurdity they are dealing with. The KKK also tried to scare black people away from ideas of socialism, but with threats and murder.
As long as the idea that socialism/progressivism HATES WHITE PEOPLE, which again is totally absurd is out there in the public, then the far right is well on their way to suppressing socialism and "progressivism" in general. ronstadtfanaz Different Drummer ***** DEMOCRAT 44 minutes ago jhar26 likes this . Post by ronstadtfanaz on 44 minutes ago
Those are all points I and others here have been railing about for years. The latest budget submitted by Ratboy Ryan gives the bulk of the tax cuts once again to the wealthy. Trump's campaign released their proposed tax plan for the US and most of the cuts go to the wealthy.
Conservatism is a mental disease. Yes, they are born that way and can't or won't help themselves because they don't recognize their illness. And you cannot reason with them as their minds are incapable of critical thinking and common sense. It is a waste of time. The best thing to do is to KEEP THEM OUT OF POWER. They know how to steal elections. It is second nature to them. If they ever gain power again in the White House, especially a Trump or Bush like character we will be at war with the world. This time I doubt we can come out of it.
I am always amazed how the rightists accuse the Left of doing things that they are solely doing themselves.
THE 14 TRAITS OF THE RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST REPUBLICAN PARTY POLITICAL AGENDA:
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people?s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice?relentless propaganda and disinformation?were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite ?spontaneous? acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and ?terrorists.? Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.
5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.
6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes? excesses.
7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting ?national security,? and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite?s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the ?godless.? A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.
9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of ?have-not? citizens.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. ?Normal? and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or ?traitors? was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.
14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.
Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.
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