Wednesday, January 31, 2024

A Political Party Without Virtue


 

It's Not Trump Vs. Establishment - Trump Is The Establishment


The talking heads on cable news keep talking about how Trump and his MAGA base are fighting against the establishment of the Republican Party. But where is this so-called "establishment"?

The Republican Primary started with over a dozen candidates vying with Trump for the party's presidential nomination. After one one state (Iowa) had made their choice known, every candidate but one (Nikki Haley) had dropped out of the race. And while she wanted the nomination, she was also a follower of Trump's right-wing MAGA beliefs. There is no non-MAGA candidate running for the nomination anymore.

And while it looked for a while that their might be a bipartisan fix for the border, all it took was Trump saying he didn't want the bill to pass to effectively kill it.

Both the base and congressional Republicans continue to accept (and declare their belief) that the 2020 election was won by Trump -- and he was cheated out of a second term. The very few Republicans (like Liz Cheney) who dared to tell the truth have been kicked out of the party.

And while Trump clearly tried to instigate an insurrection on January 6th of 2021, no current Republican will admit that today. In fact, most of them (taking their cue from Trump) are now referring to the January 6th criminals as "hostages".

At their 2020 convention, Republicans didn't even bother to write a party platform. They simply noted that they supported whatever Donald Trump wanted to do. And they are likely to do the same at their 2024 convention. when they renominate a man with 91 pending criminal indictments.

There is no "establishment" vying with Trump for control of the Republican Party. Donald Trump (and his MAGA minions) ARE THE ESTABLISHMENT! And they have been for quite a while now. 

Immunity For Doing Nothing Wrong?

Political Cartoon is by Dave Whamond at Cagle.com.
 

Trump's Big Lies About The Border And Immigration


Donald Trump thinks his best chance to be re-elected is to frighten voters about the border and immigration. He demanded that congressional Republicans kill a bipartisan Senate bill that would fix the border crisis to keep the issue for his campaign. But while the border does need some help, Trump is not telling the truth about it. Instead, he's telling a series of lies -- designed to frighten voters.

Robert Reich gives us the biggest lies Trump is telling about the border and immigration:

Here are Trump’s biggest lies, followed by the truth.


Trump claims Biden doesn’t want to stem illegal immigration and has created an “open border.”


Rubbish. Since he took office, Biden has consistently asked for additional funding for border control.

Republicans have just as consistently refused. They’ve voted to cut Customs and Border Protection funding in spending bills and blocked passage of Biden’s $106 billion national security supplemental that includes border funding


Trump blames the drug crisis on illegal immigration.


Bull. While large amounts of fentanyl and other deadly drugs have been flowing into the United States from Mexico, 90 percent arrives through official ports of entrynot via immigrants illegally crossing the border. Research by the conservative Cato Institute found that more than 86 percent of the people convicted of trafficking fentanyl across the border in 2021 were U.S. citizens.


Trump claims that undocumented immigrants are terrorists.


Baloney. America’s southern border has not been an entry point for terrorists. For almost a half-century, no American has been killed or injured in a terrorist attack in the United States that involved someone who crossed the border illegally.


Trump says undocumented immigrants are stealing American jobs.


Nonsense. Evidence shows immigrants are not taking jobs that American workers want. The surge across the border is not increasing unemployment. Far from it: Unemployment has been below 4 percent for roughly two years, far lower than the long-term average rate of 5.71 percent. It’s now 3.7 percent.


Trump claims undocumented immigrants are responsible for more crime in America.


More BS. In fact, a 2020 study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, cited by the Department of Justice, showed that undocumented immigrants have “substantially” lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants. Despite the recent surge in illegal immigration, America’s homicide rate has fallen nearly 13 percent since 2022 — the largest decrease on record. Local law enforcement agencies are also reporting drops in violent crime.

New Fan

Political Cartoon is by Rick McKee at Counterpoint.com.
 

Donald Trump Is A SCAB!


 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Famine In Gaza


 

Republicans Overwhelmingly Want Trump As Their Candidate

 

The chart is from an Economist / YouGov Poll done between January 14th and 16th of a nationwide sample of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents. (no moe given)

She Has Them Now

Political Cartoon is by Gary Huck at huckkonopackicartoons.com.
 

Abbott Defies U.S. Supreme Court - Denies Feds Border Access


Texas Governor Greg Abbott has decided to play politics with the situation at the Texas border. He has ordered the Texas National Guard and state troopers to take over a park in Eagle Pass, and put up razor wire to stop immigrants. This has already resulted in the deaths of 3 immigrants (two of them children) as they denied Border Patrol entrance so they could try to save the people.

The Supreme Court has ruled that Texas must allow the Border Patrol to access the border and remove the razor wire. Abbott has refused, and continues to order the installation of the razor wire. He also continues to allow Border Patrol officers access to the border.

This amounts to sedition. No state has the right to ignore federal law or Supreme Court decisions about that law. Sadly, the Constitution doesn't mean much to today's Republican Party. Many Republicans in Washington have encouraged Abbott to continue his actions. And 25 Republicans governors have signed a statement backing Abbott's shameful, dangerous, and illegal actions.

The crazy part of this mess is that a bipartisan Senate bill could reach the Senate floor this week -- a bill that would solve the crisis at the border. But House Republicans, at the behest of Donald Trump, are saying they will refuse to pass the bill. It seems that Republicans want the border crisis to continue so they can keep playing politics with the issue.

Here is a list of the Republican governors supporting Abbott's illegal defiance of the Supreme Court:

  • Governor Kay Ivey, Alabama
  • Governor Mike Dunleavy, Alaska
  • Governor Sarah Sanders, Arkansas
  • Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida
  • Governor Brian Kemp, Georgia
  • Governor Brad Little, Idaho
  • Governor Eric Holcomb, Indiana
  • Governor Kim Reynolds, Iowa
  • Governor Jeff Landry, Louisiana
  • Governor Tate Reeves, Mississippi
  • Governor Mike Parson, Missouri
  • Governor Greg Gianforte, Montana
  • Governor Jim Pillen, Nebraska
  • Governor Joe Lombardo, Nevada
  • Governor Chris Sununu, New Hampshire
  • Governor Doug Burgum, North Dakota
  • Governor Mike DeWine, Ohio
  • Governor Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma
  • Governor Henry McMaster, South Carolina
  • Governor Kristi Noem, South Dakota
  • Governor Bill Lee, Tennessee
  • Governor Spencer Cox, Utah
  • Governor Glenn Youngkin, Virginia
  • Governor Jim Justice, West Virginia
  • Governor Mark Gordon, Wyoming

Ketchup Needs A Lawyer

Political Cartoon is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.
 

Haley's Taunting Of Trump Keeps The Race Interesting


 

Monday, January 29, 2024

The U.S. Economy Is Outperforming Those Of Other Nations

 

Mandated Free Medical Exams Are NOT Free For Many!


The Affordable Care Act mandated free annual medical checkups. But medical crooks are finding many ways around that, and too many Americans are receiving large bills for those "free" exams. The following is part of an expose by The Washington Post about this:

When Kristy Uddin, 49, went in for her annual mammogram in Washington state last year, she assumed she would not incur a bill because the test is one of the many preventive measures guaranteed to be free to patients under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The ACA’s provision made medical and economic sense, encouraging Americans to use screening tools that could nip medical problems in the bud and keep patients healthy.

So when a bill for $236 arrived, Uddin — an occupational therapist familiar with the health-care industry’s workings — complained to her insurer and the hospital. She even requested an independent review.

“I’m like, ‘Tell me why am I getting this bill?’ ” Uddin recalled in an interview. The unsatisfying explanation: The mammogram itself was covered, per the ACA’s rules, but the fee for the equipment and the facility was not. . . .

The ACA’s designers might have assumed that they had spelled out with sufficient clarity that millions of Americans would no longer have to pay for certain types of preventive care, including mammograms, colonoscopies and recommended vaccines, in addition to doctor visits to screen for disease. But the law’s authors didn’t reckon with America’s ever-creative medical billing juggernaut.

Over the past several years, the medical industry has eroded the ACA’s guarantees, finding ways to bill patients in gray zones of the law. Patients going in for preventive care, expecting that it will be fully covered by insurance, are being blindsided by bills, big and small.

The problem comes down to deciding exactly what components of a medical encounter are covered by the ACA guarantee. For example, when do conversations between doctor and patient during an annual visit for preventive services veer into the treatment sphere? What screenings are needed for a patient’s annual visit?

A healthy 30-year-old visiting a primary-care provider might get a few basic blood tests, while a 50-year-old who is overweight would merit additional screening for Type 2 diabetes.

Making matters more confusing, the annual checkup itself is guaranteed to be “no cost” for women and people age 65 and older, but the guarantee doesn’t apply for men in the 18-64 age range — though many preventive services that require a medical visit (such as checks of blood pressure or cholesterol and screens for substance abuse) are covered.

No wonder what’s covered under the umbrella of prevention can look very different to medical providers (trying to be thorough) and billers (intent on squeezing more dollars out of every medical encounter) than it does to insurers (who profit from narrower definitions).

For patients, the gray zone has become a billing minefield. . . .

Unfortunately, there is no federal enforcement mechanism to catch individual billing abuses. And agencies’ remedies are weak — simply directing insurers to reprocess claims or notifying patients they can resubmit them. . . .

And while each bill might be relatively small compared with the stunning $10,000 hospital bills that have become all too familiar in the United States, the sorry consequences are manifold. Patients pay bills they do not owe, depriving them of cash they could use elsewhere. If they can’t pay, those bills might end up with debt-collection agencies and, ultimately, harm their credit score.

Perhaps most disturbing: These unexpected bills might discourage people from seeking preventive screenings that could be lifesaving, which is why the ACA deemed them “essential health benefits” that should be free.

Stealing His Shtick

Political Cartoon is by Tim Campbell at Counterpoint.com.
 

Has North Korea Already Decided To Go To War?


 

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Apartheid Or Ethnic Cleansing?


 

Trump Plays Politics With The Border Crisis


Republican and Democratic senators are very close to agreeing on a bill that could fix the border crisis, or at least give President Biden some tools to control the border -- and the President has said he would use those tools.

As a Liberal Democrat, I think what we really need is a full immigration bill. But I recognize that the border is currently a mess, and something must be done to restore order there. The negotiated compromise would probably do that.

The compromise gave Republicans most of what they wanted, and one would think it should easily pass with huge Republican support. But after whining about the border situation for months now, a lot of Republicans (especially in the House) are saying they will not support the Senate's compromise bill.

Why would they do that? Don't they want a stable and safe situation at the border? It turns out that for them politics is more important than the border crisis. 

Donald Trump has come out against the border deal. He told the congressional GOP that they should oppose the deal because it is not "perfect". Few bills passing Congress are perfect, but most actually improve what they are meant to improve. And that is the problem for Trump.

Trump's main campaign issue has been the border crisis, and he's afraid the compromise solution will actually fix the mess at the border. He would no longer be able to claim (untruthfully) Biden's is doing nothing to fix it. And he thinks his campaign would suffer.

It tells us a lot about Trump. He thinks his own shaky situation is more important than solving the nation's problems. 

I think he's making a big political mistake this time. If the problem at the border continues because this bill is not passed, then he must take the blame for that. It's no longer a winning issue for him.

Another Ketchup Disaster At Mar-A-Lago

Political Cartoon is by Ed Hall at Artizans.com.
 

Trump Loses Again - Must Pay $83.3 Million!

 

Saturday, January 27, 2024

That Is All Preposterous


 

Second Only To Trump, Musk Is A Danger To Democracy


From former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

On January 10, Elon Musk responded to a post about the recent influx of undocumented immigrants into America with a baldfaced lie. He claimed, on his platform X (formerly Twitter), that “illegals are not prevented from voting in federal elections.”


Rubbish. In fact, U.S. law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections — under threats of jail time and deportation. Which explains why instances of illegal voting by noncitizens are extremely rare.


A few days earlier — echoing the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that Trump and Tucker Carlson have been pushing — Musk suggested that Biden and the Democrats are lax on immigration because “they are importing voters.”


Again, utter baloney. There’s no evidence of it. 


And on January 8, Musk wrote that voters in the United States “don’t need government issued ID to vote and you can mail in your ballot. This is insane.” 


More rubbish. Most states require voters to produce some form of identification at polls. States that do not at least require signatures, affidavits, or birth dates. In addition, federal law requires all voters to verify their identity when they register.


These lies mimic Trump’s lies, but Musk has 170 million followers on X. 


Musk runs X and can manipulate its algorithm to give him millions more and reduce the influence of anyone he dislikes or disagrees with. 


He can and does disregard X’s policy barring posts that mislead about voting eligibility laws, “including identification or citizenship requirements.”


Musk doesn’t have to answer to anyone. He owns X. He bought it in a hostile takeover for more than $44 billion. 


He is the richest person in the world. 


And he is utterly unaccountable. 


X’s elections integrity team won’t stop him, because he’s the CEO. 


X’s shareholders can’t stop him, because he owns the majority of shares.

 

Consumers can’t stop him, because X has a monopoly on short-form communications due to “network effects” (with 556 million active monthly users, no other platform comes close). 


Advertisers can’t stop him, because with $232 billion of wealth, he can subsidize X forever. 


Lawmakers can’t stop him, because his wealth and ownership of X give him enough political power to prevent any incursion on his freedom to mislead Americans. 


Musk is living proof for why huge concentrations of wealth are dangerous to democracy. 


Trump may be the clearest present threat to American democracy, but Musk comes a close second.

Not A Touchdown

Political Cartoon is by Christopher Weyant in The Boston Globe.
 

The Economy Is Booming But Most Aren't Feeling It


By almost any measure used to gauge the economy, it is booming. Gross Domestic Product in the last two quarters was 4.9% and 3.3% (very healthy numbers). The stock market is setting new records. Inflation is coming down. Unemployment remains low.

So, why do Americans keep saying the economy is bad? Part of it is the MAGA cult, who wouldn't admit the economy under a Democratic president was good no matter how good the numbers were. But that is not the biggest reason. The biggest reason is that the good economy is not reaching most workers. Their lives are not being made better.

They see the numbers. They see the massive corporate profits. And they see the rich getting richer every day. But they don't see their own economic position getting better. 

Note the quote above from the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. A record 22.4 million households are now paying more than 30% (the recommended amount) for their rent, and a massive 12.1 million are paying more than half of their income for it. When you are forced to spend too much for rent, it makes everything else harder.

And it's not just rent. Groceries, childcare, and nearly everything else has gone up. This might not be so bad if workers had seen significant increases in their pay, but that has not happened. While the rich and corporations get richer, most workers are struggling just to keep up with inflation (and many are falling behind).

It's natural to blame the party in power for this. But that should not be the case right now. While the Democrats hold the White House and split the Senate, the Republicans control the House and are able to block nearly every effort by the president to make the lives of workers better.

Republicans cling to their economic belief that making corporations more profitable and the richer richer (and cutting taxes for both) is the key to a better life for everyone. That has not worked. It just created the current situation that is hurting most Americans.

There is a solution, but not one Republicans want to consider. 

First, the minimum wage must be raised to a livable wage. This will not only help the poor, but also put upward pressure on all wages.

Second, it should be made easier for workers to form and join labor unions. It's the only way workers can have the power to negotiate for decent pay and safe working conditions.

Third, we need to help workers with child care costs. Too often, most of a low-wage workers earning go just to pay this cost. No worker should have to pay more than 7% of their income for child care.

President Biden has tried to address all three of these, but he was blocked by Republicans (and a couple of corporate-owned Democratic senators - Manchin and Sinema). 

It's good to have a booming economy, but it's even better if all can benefit from that boom. That won't happen until the Republicans are voted out of power.

In One Word

Political Cartoon is by Randall Enos at Cagle.com.
 

The Most Productive President In Half A Century