I guess, surprising almost no one, “Democratic” U.S. Senator Joe Manchin has announced that he won’t run for another term, leaving his seat open and meaning it will quite possibly flip to the “R” side, adding to the already tough sledding the Dems will face in next year’s elections in that body in particular (and let’s not forget that the "Team D" has another problem with Menendez in New Jersey that they’d better figure out)...with that in mind, I bring you this clip from The Damage Report from October ’21 in which we learn about Manchin blocking Biden’s infrastructure bill because of clean energy investments...yes, a “skinny” version of the bill eventually passed (maybe “emaciated” is more precise?), but no thanks to Manchin (we also learn that Manchin has supported $9.1 trillion in military spending – no “offsets” required for that, huh? And yeah, the bit with Manchin arguing over discretionary spending onboard his yacht with the boat protestors is particularly "on the nose" for him...and when it comes to Manchin, I think this bears repeating)...
...and with the theme of what I would call neglected domestic spending in mind, Leeja Miller discusses the idea of universal basic income, or UBI for short (I didn’t know how far back the idea of UBI goes, to the 1700s, at least, with Sir Thomas More in England and Thomas Paine in this country...also didn’t know that MLK and the Black Panthers supported UBI as well...additionally, I didn’t know that “Tricky Dick” supported a negative income tax, which works in a similar manner as UBI – and the Earned Income Tax Credit was a move in this direction, but it wasn’t nearly enough...I knew a little about the annual dividend program in Alaska, but I learned more about it in this clip...I strongly suspected that none of the programs mentioned here had a damn thing to do with workforce participation but had EVERYTHING to do with the well being of the recipients of the dough, but it’s nice to get that confirmation...Manchin is mentioned at about 28:00 in this clip, but only because he blocked the expansion of the COVID child tax credit...figures...kind of wonky stuff, but important...and yeah, short-term up-front costs always trump long term positive benefits for sure for those who oppose this stuff; Thom Hartmann had some thoughts on UBI here...briefly NSFW/H)...
...and this More Perfect Union clip discusses what states could do to lower drug prices; creating boards to set ceilings for drug prices makes a hell of a lot of sense, and I was shocked to hear that the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR actually went along with that in Arkansas; clip focuses on the effort in Michigan (God, I wish those in Democratic alleged leadership would watch these clips, because they have a lot of good ideas on which to run campaigns)...
...and turning to Mango Mussolini, David Pakman tells us that, in the nightmarish scenario of #45 regaining power, he would want to us the military right away (good for Pakman to mention Posse Comitatus...and speaking of Thom Hartmann, a related item is here)...
...and David Shuster tells us that VA Repug guv Glenn Trumpkin is falling down on trying to restore voting rights to felons (with Adrienne Lawrence, who makes good points at the end, but to be honest, she lost me a bit when she started talking about housing reparations)...good for Shuster to mention Fairfax County, which definitely has a troubled racial history...and as noted previously, given last Tuesday’s electoral results, I don’t think we’ll be hearing about Trumpkin as a prez candidate for a little while...
...and returning a bit to the Rashida Tlaib censure BS from Wednesday, Mike Figueredo tells us that Debbie Wasserman Schultz recently said that those opposing her resolution of Israel’s support for invading Gaza last month “have no soul,” and OF COOOOUURRRSE she and that execrable toad Josh Gottheimer joined 20 other House Dem members to vote in favor of censuring Tlaib as previously noted (NSFW/H)...I know we’re going to need to re-elect every Dem politician that we can next year, but it sickens me that that means supporting characters like these 22 frauds (and to help Rashida Tlaib, click here)...
Update 1: When it comes to the Israel/Gaza carnage, I think there’s so much that we don’t know about what exactly led up to this, and with the understandable (to a point) outrage on both sides, I’m afraid it will get lost in all of the “fog of war” stuff (and yes, I know the loss of human life is paramount, and an accounting to the last person must be made on all sides, as much as possible, anyway).
I have a hard time believing any of the culprits in all of this, but I’m actually tempted to go along with Hezbollah (again, to a point) when they say that they didn’t see this coming. You can accuse me of being a conspiracy nut (never stopped me before :- ), but I have a sneaking suspicion that this leads back to Russia somehow. Putin won’t admit it, but he knows that he’s in a stalemate in Ukraine (as is Zelenskyy, unfortunately, especially with the weather getting worse), and staging an attack like this might just end up fracturing our support of Ukraine at the expense of jumping in on the side of Israel as we have. And that ALSO goes against world opinion pretty much and puts us in bed with “Bibi” more than usual (the Israeli PM, for my money, has always been a blundering idiot who ended up getting played by all sides...Putin is detestable of course, but you don’t rise through the KGB unless you figured out how to stage stuff like this). Also, the use of sympathetic media including online channels to box us in with Netanyahu (again, to overextend ourselves and making it harder to support Ukraine) is something Russia is good at and ties in nicely to a Putin objective.
Am I right, or am I full of it? We’ll see.
Update 2: "From the river to the sea" indeed (here and here...if somehow the hospital bombing link turns out to be wrong, I'll update this post - I'd like to believe it is, but I'm sure it isn't unfortunately).
...and in this clip, Brittany Page defends Housing First as an example of providing shelter for those who have other issues (such as chemical dependency) that need to be addressed and cites Houston as a success story...I’m a little unclear on what exactly the dustup with TYT is all about, but I think the video provides important information...I think Ana Kasparian is right in that this issue is complicated (I would focus on the role of private equity firms in pricing housing out of sight), but that doesn’t mean that we should throw up our hands over it either...if TYT wanted to be honest actors here, they would invite Page onto the show with Cenk and Ana to discuss this, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for that...
...and happy upcoming 70th birthday to Marshall Crenshaw.
(Also, posting may be iffy for the next week or so...don't know yet.)
No comments:
Post a Comment