No problem. You haven’t hit the ground yet, so we won’t call it a “fall.” We’ll say it’s a step in the plan.
Today, Powell and his cronies debate whether to call where we are “a recession.” He’s worried about semantics as the economy tanks.
Please let me know if there is a more damaging, less effective way to fight inflation than what Powell now is doing.
Consider this: What action should the government take when there is a food shortage, causing food prices to rise?
Government price controls over food? Or,
Reduce federal benefits to the poor, so they will buy less food, thus curing the shortage. Also, reduce farm aid, so there will be even less food produced? Or,
Fund federal aid to farmers so they can produce more food and give people money so they can buy food?
Number 1 never works. It always leads to more shortages and a reduction in Research and Development, forcing even more shortages.
A classic example is rent controls, which reduce the number of new apartments and cause existing apartments to fall into neglect.
Yet politicians without knowledge of history or economics often turn to price controls.
Number 2 leads to recessions and depressions. Today, we have shortages of oil, food, housing, computer chips, and labor, and these shortages are causing prices to rise, what we call “inflation.” All those who are not rich starve.
Amazingly, the Federal Reserve has chosen solution #2. Raising interest rates makes many goods and services even less affordable, starving the poor and middle classes to cure inflation. Higher interest rates also make increased production more difficult, exacerbating shortages.
The federal government should provide aid to industries whose products are in short supply and to consumers so they can afford those products. Approach #3 is the only correct approach. Cure the shortages, and you cure the inflation.
Shortage of food: Federal aid to farmers. Education. Equipment. Insurance. Tax breaks.
Shortage of oil: Aid to drillers. Aid to electric car/truck makers. Support for R&D alternative energy
Shortage of labor: Eliminate FICA. Reduce tax rates on salaries. Provide Medicare for All.
Shortage of lumber: Aid growers. R&D for alternatives. Tax breaks for alternatives
Housing shortage: Aid home & apartment builders. Cut interest rates. Tax breaks for renters.
Powell: If she lives, I cured her. If she dies, I did everything I could.
Notice how curing inflation, i.e., fixing shortages, requires morefederal spending, not less.
Of course, the expenditures must be targeted toward eliminating the scarcities.
Powell’s interest rate increases only make reducing shortages more difficult.
Those higher rates impoverish consumers and hinder the ability of suppliers to produce.
Powell has found the ultimate way to increase shortages, worsen inflation, and cause a recession.
In effect, Powell is applying leeches to cure anemia.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:
Sometimes all you can do is shake your head at the desperate backward thinking of the gun-nuts.
Videos of the Uvalde school shooting showed scores of trained police milling in a hallway for over an hour while a gunner took his sweet time shooting children and teachers in a classroom.
The police not only were well-armed but had bullet-proof vests and shields, and the classroom door was unlocked.
They could have burst in at any time and taken the shooter down.
Were they afraid for their own lives? Did they fear they accidentally might shoot a child or a teacher? Did all their training go out the window when faced with the sudden reality of an armed killer?
Who knows?
But what is clear is that the shooter had a legal gun that never should have been legal, as that gun has no purpose other than to murder people.
In every classroom?
Unlike a pistol, a high-powered, semi-automatic rifle is not a self-defense weapon. It’s an attack weapon. It’s a mass murder weapon no better than a bomb.
A gun seller cannot determine who is a “good guy” or a “bad guy.”
Once you decide that guns should be widely available to everyone who wants one, you can’t separate the good from the bad.
So because of SCOTUS’s intentional misreading of the now-sacred 2nd Amendment, America has more gun deaths per capita than any nation.
You parents who have lost loved ones to gun violence — I feel your pain, but if you voted for right-wing gun-nuts, you have only yourselves to blame.
By what logic are military-style gun manufacturers immune from liability for the proper use of their product, which is to kill people?
The Constitution’s words “well-regulated” intentionally are ignored by the right-wing self-proclaimed SCOTUS textualists.
The Constitution’s unambiguous word “militia” intentionally is misrepresented by the right-wing, self-proclaimed SCOTUS originalists.
A dishonest right-wing Congress, despite massive evidence, cannot bring itself to criticize a corrupt Donald Trump and his gang of crazy miscreants.
Or better yet?
We also have a dishonest, right-wing SCOTUS that unconstitutionally applies the Pope’s abortion laws to the entire minority-Catholic nation. Meanwhile, they ignore the dishonesty of Clarence Thomas and his white-supremacist wife.
Because the entire right-wing — Congress, SCOTUS, FoxNews, and the Libertarians– has been corrupted, we are treated to upside-down articles like the following. It’s straight out of the book “1984” where illogic is the new logic, and lies are the new truth:
Only you can be relied upon to protect you and your loved ones. Ignore anybody who claims otherwise. J.D. TUCCILLE | 7.18.2022
If you really need further evidence of how foolish it is to surrender your right to protect yourself and defer to government employees who are supposed to assume that responsibility, the record of police non-response during the Uvalde mass murder should do the job.
Those who, in the future, continue to insist that we disarm ourselves and venerate government enforcers who are tasked to protect us should be unceremoniously kicked to the curb.
Get off your soapbox J.D. Tuccille. Don’t turn our children and their teachers into armed vigilantes.
No one “insists you disarm yourself.” But you want to arm 4th-grade children (!) and their teachers and not rely on “government employees” (i.e., the police and the courts) for protection. What could possibly go wrong?
We ask government employees, also known as “teachers,” to educate our children. Is that O.K., J.D.?
And please, let’s ignore facts. For instance, Chicago’s West and South side neighborhoods are loaded with “self-protection” guns and guess what, J.D. That’s where most of the gun killing is. Explain that if you can.
Admittedly, Tuccille is one of those dopey Libertarians (a former managing editor of Reason.com) who hate everything government (until they need help). Then they bleat for the government to protect them while complaining there aren’t enough police in the neighborhood.
But his article is astonishingly crazy, even for him.
J.D., if you are reading this post, here’s some information: Among those killed was 10-year-old Alexandra “Lexi” Rubio, the daughter of well-armed Uvalde County Sheriff Deputy FelixRubio.
He was on the scene but failed to protect his own daughter. So there goes the Libertarian logic about being armed to protect your family, or, J.D., are you claiming little Lexi herself should have been armed?
Or, J.D., what the hell are you saying? Should parents sit in every classroom with AR-15s at the ready?
“At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” finds a devastating report published July 17 by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting.
J.D., they had active shooter training and failed to act, so what makes you think the Uvalde’s sweet teachers, Mrs. Garcia and Mrs. Mireles, would have had the training and the courage to blast that shooter out of his shoes?
Is that your plan for the future? Arm Mrs. Garcias and Mrs. Mireles so they can get in a firefight with the intruder?
I can see the headline now: “Dozens of Kids Killed As Terrified Teacher Wildly Sprays Bullets At Student She Didn’t Recognize. ‘I Thought He Might Have A Gun.'”
“The first wave of responders to arrive included the chief of the school district police and the commander of the Uvalde Police Department SWAT team.
Or, J.D., perhaps we should give all the teachers, young and old, male or female, SWAT training. Wouldn’t you rather teachers spend their time training with guns than learning and teaching silly stuff like reading, writing, and arithmetic?
But the massive police presence, 376 officers in all, did not help address the unfolding chaos.
That makes obvious the reason for officials’ earlier foot-dragging; police conduct at Uvalde contradicts the stories authoritarians peddle about our relationship with the government.
Mostly left-wing politicians tell us that regular people should be deprived of firearms and even of the right to self-defense while the government exercises it for us.
Primarily right-wing politicians insist we should “back the blue” and venerate government-employed law enforcers who will protect us from threats so that we don’t have to do it ourselves.
These politicians nominally oppose one another, but they offer the same basic argument: We should trust the government and not take responsibility for our own safety.
The usual Libertarian extremist B.S. from J.D. He says, don’t trust the police; do it yourself. That is the “Wild West” Libertarian plan.
His generalization is disgusting. The Uvalde police we incompetent, so don’t trust any police, right?
Few left-wing politicians say people should be deprived of their protective firearms, though perhaps AR-15s, machine guns, rocket launchers, and hand grenades should not be considered “firearms” used for protection.
And then, as J.D. provides his twisted side of the story, read this side:
A scathing 77-page investigative report not only found the Uvalde police at fault during the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, but it also noted that school administrators “did not adequately prepare” for a potential shooter.”
The report was released on Sunday by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee. Investigators charged that school administrators adopted a “regrettable culture of noncompliance” with safety and security measures leading up to the shooting, placing partial blame at their feet.
This noncompliance “turned out to be fatal,” it asserted.
Administrators “tacitly condoned” unsafe practices, according to the report, because they knowingly violated or allowed others to violate rules that required doors to be closed and locked at the school.
“The west door to the west building was supposed to be continuously locked.
When the attacker approached on May 24, 2022, it was unlocked, and he was able to enter the building there,” the report stated.
Oops. Here are people who “tacitly condoned” unsafe practices, “knowingly violated or allowed others to violate rules,” and couldn’t even be bothered to lock a door, but J.D. Tuccille wants to give them all guns.
In their defense, they are teachers, not trained police officers, all of whom J.D. disses as mere “government employees.”
The top of their minds is teaching children, a job that is hard enough, especially these days with all the crazy politicians burning books and parents screaming about things they know not.
So to add armed protection to teachers’ already massive responsibilities would be just plain foolish. And keep in mind that teachers are government employees, whom J.D. despises.
Back to J.D.’s article:
Gun control? Back the blue? The people peddling those slogans have little to offer beyond empty promises and deserve nothing but contempt.
Only youcan be relied upon to protect you and your loved ones, and you should ignore anybody who claims otherwise.
So folks, forget about gun control which doesn’t work because it doesn’t exist. Thank you, Republicans.
The next time you see a crime being committed, don’t bother to call the police. The Libertarians offer you one of their best ideas. Call a teacher.
Or better yet, call a 4th grader.
Or, go after the criminal yourself with your guns a-blazin’.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:
BACKGROUND Being Monetarily Sovereign, the federal government (unlike state and local governments) can never run short of its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
Even if the federal government didn’t collect a penny in taxes, it could continue spending forever.
The sole excuse for federal taxes is that they help the government control the economy by taxing what it wishes to discourage and providing tax breaks for what it wishes to encourage.
That is why, for instance, homeownership receives tax advantages while renting receives none. The federal government wished to encourage homeownership.
Why then does the federal government tax salaries at the highest rate while giving tax breaks to almost every other form of income?
The rich own the government.
And why does the government collect the Medicare and Social Security taxes? Is the government trying to discourage salaries, Medicare, and Social Security?
No, the reason is simple. The federal government is bought, paid for, and owned by the rich, thanks to Supreme Court decisions that bribe money is a form of free speech.
And it is the rich who receive most of their income from non-salarysources.
Medicare/Social Security taxes are designed to fall least heavily on the rich. To distance themselves from the rest of us, the rich have forced the federal government to give them breaks on taxes.
The federal government neither needs nor uses tax dollars. It destroys tax dollars, which is why the following is a disgrace:
The wholly unnecessary, unneeded, unused Medicare Part B premium has more than tripled since 2000.
Medicare Part A is hospital insurance. It covers hospital stays and services provided by skilled nursing facilities along with home health care and hospice.
Medicare Part B is outpatient medical insurance. Part B coverage applies whenever you see your doctor, receive outpatient care, or obtain preventive care.
Medicare Part C, known as “Medicare Advantage,” provides coverage to seniors through private insurance companies, contracted by the federal government.
Medicare Part D provides prescription drug coverage.
And here is the more interesting information:
Monthly premiums for Part A are $0 for people who have worked long enough to qualify for Social Security benefits
If Medicare Part B charges rather substantial premiums — more than $2 thousand a year — and Medicare Part A is given free to people who supposedly “paid for” Social Security, who pays for Part A?
Answer: The federal government simply creates the dollars that pay for Part A.No taxes. No fake “trust fund.” No worries that it is becoming insolvent.
In that sense, Medicare Part A is like almost all other federal agencies: The Senate, the House of Representatives, the President and White House, the Supreme Court, the CIA, NFA, the military, etc. It simply is funded by federal money creation.
None of them levy dedicated taxes. None of them are burdened with a “trust fund.” The whole Medicare/Social Security taxes and trust fund performance is nothing but a charade.
The government takes money from you and destroys it.
Why?
The answer: To prevent you from asking for the kinds of tax benefits the rich routinely receive.How else do you believe a billionaire like Donald Trump paid no income taxes in 10 out of 15years beginning in 2000?
Think of it: You pay more taxes than did a billionaire. And when you ask for benefits, you are told the government can’t afford them. That is The Big Lie.
You were brought up to believe “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” and that everything must be paid for. While that’s true for state and local governments, and for businesses, and for you, it’s not true for the federal government.
The government can create infinite dollars by pressing computer keys. Federal deficit spending costs you nothing, not one penny in taxes.
All this came to mind yet again when I saw these articles:
The head of a Senate panel that oversees Medicare says the Biden administration should use its legal authority to cut back a hefty premium increase soon hitting millions of enrollees, as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers call for action amid worries over rising inflation.
Last month, Medicare announced one of the largest increases ever in its “Part B” monthly premium for outpatient care, nearly $22, from $148.50 currently to $170.10 starting in January.
The agency attributed roughly half the hike, about $11 a month, to the need for a contingency fund to cover Aduhelm, a new $56,000 Alzheimer’s drug from Biogen whose benefits have been widely questioned.
First: Medicare doesn’t need or use premiums. The federal government has the infinite ability to pay for Medicare, and as for those premiums, they are destroyed upon receipt by the Treasury.
That premium increase was wholly unnecessary. No matter what costs Medicare faces, the federal government simply pays them. Part A charges no premiums. Nether should Part B. (Or Part D for that matter.)
Second: The government can do whatever it wishes regarding Social Security and Medicare finances. It can increase premiums, cut premiums or do without premiums, altogether.
Third: The “trust funds” are not real trust funds and the so called “trustees” are not trustees. The whole system merely is bookkeeping line items showing how many dollars come in and how many go out. The federal government has total control over its books and can change those numbers at will.
Fourth: The government doesn’t need or use “contingency funds.” It creates ad hoc dollars every time it pays a bill. As previous Fed Chairmen have said:
Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”
Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”
Subsequently, the manufacturer of Aduhelm cut the price in half, reducing Medicare’s anticipated payments. You might thing the government would return the premium dollars it had overcharged.
“That has generated sizeable savings for Medicare. But those savings will not be passed along to Medicare Part B enrollees in the form of a premium reduction — at least not this year.”
Then, from a related article:
Two years ago, plenty of pundits were warning that the pandemic-induced economic plunge would blow huge holes in these two mammoth social insurance battleships.
But reports issued this month by the trustees of the two programs show that the strong economic rebound last year contributed to slight improvements in the health of both Social Security and Medicare. [As federal agencies, Social Security and Medicare are as “healthy” as the entire federal government.]
More people were working and paying Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA, taxes last year.
As a result, Social Security’s trustees forecast that the combined retirement and disability trust funds will be depleted in 2035—one year later than last year’s forecast.
The Medicare trustees report that the Hospital Insurance, or HI, trust fund will be emptied in 2028—two years later than forecast last year.
Let’s summarize:
The federal government has absolute control over the finances of Medicare and Social Security. It can add, subtract or transfer dollars at will
Neither the federal government nor any agency of our Monetarily Sovereign federal government can run short of its sovereign currency (the dollar) unless Congress and the President want that to happen. The government has infinite dollars.
Yet, the government unnecessarily takes growth dollars (FICA taxes) from the private sector (aka “the economy”), dollars it neither needs nor uses.
In fact, the government destroys those FICA dollars upon receipt.
Nevertheless, when faced with a possible cost hike, the goverment recently increased the amount of money it unnecessarily takes from the economy.
When the cost hike didn’t materialize, the government decided to keep the additional, unnecessary dollars it had taken from the economy rather than returning them.
At some time in the future, the government falsely will claim that one or both of the fake “trust funds” is running short of dollars, and will take even more dollars from the private sector to keep the fake “trust funds” from fake “insolvency.”
This chicanery makes the public believe federal financing is like personal financing, where spending relies on income. The belief prevents the public from demanding more benefits that the government easily could provide at the tap of a computer key.
The fundamental purpose of all this is to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest, which is the way the rich, who run America, become richer.
The private sector, i.e. the people of America, are being cheated by their own government. Unfortunately, even the people who pretend to protect us promulgate the Big Lie that federal taxes are necessary to fund federal spending.
For most Medicare enrollees, the premium is deducted from their Social Security checks.
Without further action, it would swallow up a significant chunk of seniors’ 5.9% cost of living increase. “Rather than assessing the current $21.60 per month … premium increase in full, I urge you to reduce the amount,” Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., wrote health secretary Xavier Becerra.
“Reduce” the amount? How about, “Eliminate the entire premium”? Is it possible that Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden doesn’t understand that federal taxes don’t fund federal spending?
Quote from Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.
No, it isn’t possible. Senators are in on the scheme.
A copy of the letter was provided to The Associated Press on Monday. There was no immediate response from the administration.
But Wyden wrote Becerra that as secretary of Health and Human Services, he has “broad authority” to determine the “appropriate contingency margin” to use in setting premiums.
If Wyden has “broad authority,” he should set the amount to be collected at $0. The Federal government would continue to fund Medicare as before.
Given that Medicare is still developing its formal policy for covering Aduhelm, Wyden said there is a clear rationale for collecting less up front at this particular time.
“It is possible that any near-term Medicare coverage for Aduhelm … could have a limited and narrow scope,” he wrote.
“Uncertainty” over the drug’s financial impact on Medicare appeared to be driving much of the calculation of the new premium, Wyden noted.
The drug will have no financial impact on Medicare. With or without paying for Aduhelm, the federal government still will have infinite dollars. Aduhelm will make no change in that.
Soon after Medicare announced the increase last month, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the administration to roll it back.
Sanders knows the truth. He had employed Professor Stephanie Kelton, a lady who understands Monetary Sovereignty, to be Chief Economist for the Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee and economic advisor to Bernie Sanders.
Wyden also said he had concerns and was exploring options.
And last week Democratic Senators Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island wrote President Joe Biden that “we must address this issue as quickly as possible.”
Some groups representing older people are anticipating a backlash from Medicare recipients if nothing is done.
The way to “address the issue” is to tell the American public that federal taxes do not fund federal spending.
Period.
———-//———-
[No rational person would take dollars from the economy and give them to a federal government that has the infinite ability to create dollars.]
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:
Do Donald Trump’s attempted coup and illegal efforts to stay in office remind you of how a dictatorship works?
Putin
Trump loves and admires dictators.Remember his ongoing love affair with Vladimir Putin and his comments about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
He described the Russian president as “very savvy.” “‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine—of Ukraine—Putin declares it as an independent.”
And there was his love affair with North Korea’s brutal dictator, Kim, the guy who killed his uncle with a cannon.
Kim
Trump said, “He’s a strong guy. A great negotiator.” “He’s got a very good personality, he’s funny, and he’s very, very smart, and he’s a very strategic kind of a guy.” Trump said he and Kim “got along very well” from “the beginning.”
As for China’s dictator, Xi, Trump said, “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great, and look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”
Trump said Libya would be better off if (dictator) Gaddafi were in charge right now.”
Gaddafi
To ruthless Philippine dictator Rodrigo Duterte, Trump said, “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem.”
Regarding Turkish dictator Erdogan, Trump said, “Frankly, he’s getting very high marks. He’s also been working with the United States.
“We have a great friendship, and the countries—I think we’re right now as close as we’ve ever been … a lot of that has to do with a personal relationship.”
Regarding Egyptian President Abdel, who instituted a coup (sound familiar?), “We agree on so many things.
I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President el-Sisi.
Duterte
He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.
We are very much behind Egypt and the people of Egypt.
The United States has, believe me, backing, and we have strong backing.”
In every case, Trump indicated his appreciation for a dictator’s approach to law and order, i.e., harsh, bloody crackdowns, which is why the attempted coup at Congress should be no surprise to anyone following him.
Erdogan
Then, there is Tucker Carlson, Fox’s #1 Trumper. He went to Hungary to suck up Victor Orban, the nation’s dictator, for life.
Carlson met with Orbán in Hungary for the interview and suggested that the US was less free than the European country, where Orbán has targeted his country’s media, judiciary, and political system.
Orbán has also implemented widely-condemned policies against migrants and the LGBTQ community.
Abdel
Then, Carlson continued his dictator appreciation tour:
Last year, Tucker Carlson traveled to Budapest to celebrate Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s aggressively illiberal and xenophobic prime minister, by filming a week of episodes that included “lessons” the United States could draw from his anti-democratic, immigration-restrictionist rule.
In a sit-down interview, Carlson nodded approvingly as Orbán railed against “post-Christian, post-national societies” and their “very risky” mixture of Muslim and Christian communities.
Orban
This week, Carlson visited another country undergoing an alarming democratic erosion and fawned over its far-right ruler: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
Broadcasting from both Rio de Janeiro and the capital, Brasília, Carlson has been urging his viewers to pay attention to what’s happening there.
Bolsonaro, who has been president of Brazil since 2019 and is an ally of former President Donald Trump, has weakened environmental protections, including the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and reallocating land pledged to indigenous tribes.
He has also spread conspiracies about COVID-19 vaccines.
Bolsonaro
Carlson’s goal with these field trips is to rehabilitate the images of reactionary leaders who have rightfully earned international scorn.
But by parachuting into Brazil without any apparent grasp of its politics and culture, Carlson ended up on a sort of confirmation-bias egg hunt: finding evidence everywhere that the real threats in global stability are coming from a liberal internationalist order.
Is it a coincidence that Trump engineered a coup attempt after praising dictators and Carlson is out there also praising dictators? Or is this just a normal outgrowth of Fox and the Republican party?
Think of a political party where almost none of the Senators and Representatives has the courage, political or physical, to say a bad word about the dear leader.
Does that sound like America or more like Russia, China, and North Korea?
Trump
And if the GOP has its way, that will be America. Already, the Republicans have installed six Supreme Court Justices who vote in tandem to restrict the poor’s voting and reproductive rights.
Already, the GOP has installed officials in each state who will do precisely as Trump tried to do in 2020: Create Presidential electors to the electoral college, who will vote for a Republican President, no matter what the popular vote may be in each state.
We are about three months away from a sudden awakening that voting doesn’t matter as much as loyalty to the GOP. We can see it already, where despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, a large segment of the population and virtually all Republicans claim that the election was stolen.
Each law was enacted by a Republican governor or by Republican-controlled legislatures voting to override Democratic governors’ vetoes.
These new laws include one that requires local election boards in Arkansas to refer election law violation complaints to the State Board of Election Commissioners — made up of five Republicans and just one Democrat— instead of their respective county clerks and local prosecutors
Another generally bars the executive and judicial branches in Kansas from modifying election law
Carlson
Arizona Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, can no longer represent the state in lawsuits defending its election code.That power now lies exclusively with the Republican attorney general — but only through Jan. 2, 2023, when Hobbs’ term ends.
In Kentucky, where the Republican secretary of state and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear were heralded for their bipartisan collaboration to give electors absentee and early voting options they’d never had before, state law now explicitly opposes such coordination during a state of emergency.
Beshear vetoed this bill, which curtails his office’s emergency powers, but the Republican-majority legislature voted to override him.
Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans have defended the law as “making it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” but Democrats, including Kemp’s 2018 opponent, Stacey Abrams, described it as “Jim Crow 2.0.”
The bottom line to all of the above:
Trump admires dictators so much he attempted a dictatorial coup to avoid being thrown out of office
Rather than condemning the coup, Trump’s followers supported the proven-false narrative that the election was stolen from him.
The GOP, having lost all sense of morality, slavishly supports Trump.
Because of America’s “minority rule” election system, the Republicans, despite having a minority of votes, managed to place people in positions of control over electoralvotes.
The Republicans also have placed a super-majority of right-wing ideologues into the Supreme Court.
We are now on track to having a fascist government that will restrict women’s rights, and the rights of non-Christian, non-white, and non-wealthy people who were not born in America.
That is the GOP goal. That is the religious right’s goal.
That is Trump’s goal.
And that is about to happen, with or without Trump himself.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
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#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 