The realities of living in the Palestinian territories
What a father’s journey to find his son after a bus crash tells us about life in the occupied West Bank.
Watch: Boats collide in South China Sea’s disputed waters
The Philippines armed forces said their video showed a Chinese vessel colliding with a Philippine ship.
Wow I forgot how very tiring it is to try to do this. I need a break. I started with non-political ones and then got into the darker side. But I reached my limit of how much my spirit along with my arthritic fingers could take. See to post each picture takes a bunch of click, moving the mouse around, then using the other hand to lower the page or paste, then repeat. Anyway enjoy. Hugs. Scottie
Eight out of ten of our poorest states are former states of the Confederacy. Less than a handful of the original Confederate states have been able to begin to rise. The ‘again’ was always impossible. Because, in the antebellum South, one percent of the population had all the wealth; most whites were little, if any, better off than slaves. —, politically unstable, economy dependent on the export of one or two products such as agricultural products, social classes divided by wealth that include a large, poor working class and a small ruling class (elite) made up of businessmen, planters, politicians, and the military that controls and exploits the country’s economy, — The antebellum South, the Dixie of song, had all the characteristics of what today is known as a banana republic.
Not much has changed. Today, these eight of the poorest are still undemocratic, still run by wealthy whites for the benefit of themselves at the expense of poor whites and blacks. As then, this social dominance is abetted, given license, by the US Constitution, the US Supreme Court, and religion. By a Constitution that was always wrong about states’ rights and democracy. By a Supreme Court that almost always looks to this past, seldom forward. By religion that has all too often been a handmaiden to power, to corruption. In these states, democracy is rarely, if ever, discussed in meaningful ways amongst the ruling whites; is often virtually precluded by gerrymandering.
For example, Today, 70% of Tennesseans want gun control, an issue the extremely gerrymandered state legislature refuses to address. A woman’s right to choose is another. The gerrymandering is much attributable to the fact that we have an unrepresentative US Supreme Court packed with conservative justices. This because Leonard Leo, Mitch McConnell, and the Federalist Society do not like democracy. Consequent this Supreme Court, many of these State Supreme Courts are gerrymanderingly unrepresentative; it is a veritable merry-go-round.
These characteristics of governance were long provincial the South. Not anymore. In the mid-1960s, white Southern Democrats, in power postbellum in the former Confederate states, feeling threatened, with good reason, by the Civil Rights Legislation of the mid-1960s, were looking for a new home. Around this same time, the Republican Party, facing extinction, was desperate for new blood (voters). White voters in the former Confederate states were theirs for the picking. Republicans called it their southern strategy.
The Party’s southern strategy, reeking of racism and desperation, turned out to be a complete sellout. By the 1980s, the two were one. Today, the former white Southern Democrats of the former Confederate states, with a few like-minded others in a few other states, have taken over the Republican Party. This takeover, they insist, gives them the right to pull the rest of us down into their world. Rather than them coming up, they insist that we come down.
Any doubts about our nation’s new status as a banana republic were erased by the 2016 election of Donald Trump. An election in which the original eight of the ten lowest played a significant role.
In the 1970s and 80s, while the Republican Party was busy morphing into its present stage, both parties were missing an extremely important inflection point. One of the most significant transitions ever was underway. To wit, the industrial age was ending, the digital beginning. All of the signs and all of the signals of this during these years were missed by our political leadership. This missing was one of the worst political failures, the greatest failure of leadership, in modern times. Instead of leading us forward, politicians pandered to the past and led the nation backward, downward toward the lowest common denominator.
It wasn’t so much that they missed the signal; it was why they did. They missed it because they weren’t even looking; couldn’t have cared less. They were only interested in getting (re)elected. In this time of great change, clueless politicians denigrated intellectuals, government, and change itself. Rather than provide leadership, the clueless politicians told the people that they, the people, knew best. From the Republican Party’s sell-out to the 2016 election of Donald Trump was a direct progression. One running directly through the Republican Party.
As a consequence of the sellout, those who had never known, never liked democracy would take over one of our two major political parties and; from this position, wreak havoc on the Nation’s democracy. In this most crucial time, rather than going forward, the Nation went backward. In 1994, Newt Gingrich launched the Contract with America. We went from ‘The idiots are coming’ to ‘Don’t bother they here’ in one generation. In 1995, with their invitation from Newt in hand, they came in droves to the 104th Congress. A disproportionate number of these new members were cultural warriors (bible thumpers, gun nuts, rednecks, etc.) with no interest in governance. They were all about the same cultural issues as those responsible for their states being banana republics. The Nation has not been itself since. Thanks, Newt. Thanks, Ronnie.
The racist, nihilist Tea Party movement of 2009 didn’t come out of nowhere. It was the result of the 2008 election of Barack Obama. Its members came from the banana republic states and their like. So, the House Freedom Caucus. Tyranny by minority had come to the House of Representatives.
On 3 October 2023, when asked about his vote against Kevin McCarthy for speaker, Representative Tim Burchett, (TN-02) said that he asked god to tell him what to do. Before god and everyone, the man admitted that he has no mind of his own, and doesn’t believe in thinking, in reason. What the hell is this man doing in Congress? Tim Burchett has no business in any elected office, anywhere. Boebert, Taylor-Greene, Gaetz, Comer, Massie, ….; there are dozens more Republicans like him in Congress.
On 18 October 2023, a group representing, at best: 10 percent of House Republicans, 5 percent of the total House, and 5 percent of the total populace came too close to getting Jim Jordan elected Speaker of the House. We came this close to a takeover of one branch of government by a very small, very radical group. It was an attempted coup by a minority that has been tyrannizing the United States since 2009. If they had been successful, as their first order of business, they would set about expunging Trump’s impeachments.
PS: Please, please stop sending cultural warriors to Congress. They’re killing us. We need people who can think; want to solve problems, to make government work.
You can not compromise with these people. They are on a mission from their god, and they don’t care who it hurts. Why do they do this, to make their god happy with them? Maybe they think if they deny rights to women, LGBTQIA, and black people then all the bad things they did will be forgiven? Hugs. Scottie
A patient looks at her ultrasound before proceeding with a medical abortion at Alamo Women’s Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S., August 23, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
Two Texas jurisdictions will consider measures this week to outlaw the act of transporting another person along their roads for an abortion, part of a strategy by conservative activists to further restrict abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Commissioners in Lubbock County are slated to vote on the proposal on Monday. A few hours north, the Amarillo City Council on Tuesday will weigh its own such law, which could lead to a future council or city-wide vote.
Lubbock and Amarillo are the biggest jurisdictions of the 10 places in Texas that have considered restrictions on abortion-related transportation since the June 2022 end of Roe, which had granted a nationwide right to abortion. Five cities and counties in the state have passed bans.
Lubbock and Amarillo are both traversed by major highways that connect Texas, which has one of the county’s most stringent abortion laws, to neighboring New Mexico, where abortion is legal.
Anti-abortion activists backing the proposals say they are meant to bolster Texas’ existing abortion ban, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who provides or “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.
Advocates of reproductive rights say the measures could deter people from seeking abortions or helping others get abortions, even though there is no clear way to enforce the bans. No violations have been reported in the five jurisdictions that have adopted them. Their reliance on citizen enforcement makes them difficult to challenge in court.
The greater impact of the ordinances so far appears to be how each side is using them to galvanize voters and pursue bigger political goals heading into an election year in which abortion remains a hot-button issue.
BOTH SIDES MOBILIZING
The campaign to ban abortion-related transit in Texas was started by Mark Lee Dickson, a Christian pastor who began pushing communities to outlaw abortion by declaring themselves “sanctuary cities for the unborn” in 2019.
Dickson travels widely to pitch his measures. He also mobilizes supporters to unseat local leaders who oppose the proposals, with the aim of electing officials who will also push other far-right policies.
He took that approach in Odessa’s city elections in 2022 after the council initially blocked one of his “sanctuary city for the unborn” proposals. Dickson responded by marshalling support for council candidates who pledged to approve it.
Once elected, the candidates he backed not only declared Odessa a “sanctuary city,” but also adopted the state’s first abortion transport ban and took other steps Dickson supported, such as rejecting state and federal COVID-19-related mandates.
“This isn’t over just when you address one issue,” Dickson said in an interview.
He plans to be at the meetings in Lubbock and Amarillo this week.
Lubbock County Commissioner Jason Corley said he was inspired to bring the transport ban to a vote on Monday after hearing Dickson promote it at Lubbock’s Constitutionalist Society. Corley, who has supported Dickson’s work for years, said he expected the measure to pass.
Not all backers of abortion restrictions support Dickson’s transport bans, however.
Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley said he supported Dickson’s “sanctuary city” movement, but is concerned that the transport bans rely on civil enforcement and do not clarify what local authorities are expected to do, potentially entangling the city in investigations brought by private actors.
The debates over the transport bans are spurring new shows of support for abortion access.
In Lubbock County, Kimberleigh Gonzalez is organizing a local Facebook group of 1,100 reproductive rights supporters to show their opposition to the measure at Monday’s meeting.
The group formed after Lubbock voters approved a “sanctuary city” ordinance backed by Dickson in May 2021. Each new attack on reproductive rights “brings us together a little more tightly,” Gonzalez said.
“Since 2021, I know a lot of people personally that are involved that weren’t before, and it just continues to grow and strengthen,” she said.
Abortion rights supporters, including four abortion funds in Texas, said they expected the transport bans to backfire on the anti-abortion movement by galvanizing political participation from abortion rights advocates in the lead-up to next year’s presidential election.
“We’re going to make sure that there are political and electoral consequences for this,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March activist organization.
Reporting by Julia Harte Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler
Recently on Jill’s blog we were talking about people who claim they speak for the majority when in fact they only speak for their bigoted hateful group. In the article Rowling claims that almost everyone agrees with her, even as famous people that she has worked withcondemned her words. Here is another quote from the article. Here Rowling used the common TERF argument that granting trans people rights somehow puts cis women in danger. In reality, trans folks are the ones in danger due to dangerous rhetoric like Rowling’s. The Williams Institute found that trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime. I find it ironic that people who actively stir up hate and anger at trans women claim to be victims, and that it is unfair when people push back on their message. Hugs. Scottie
Poor people can’t be expected to lead her movement.
Anti-trans author JK Rowling made a surprise appearance this week at the anti-trans FiLia Women’s Conference. It is thought to be the Harry Potter author’s first public appearance discussing her anti-trans views.
Rowling spoke alongside known TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) Julie Bindel on a panel about sexism and bullying. She said she felt her wealth gave her a duty to speak out against trans folks in the name of protecting women and girls.
School board candidate Derrick Wilburn has a plan for Colorado Springs, and it’s apparently very anti-LGBTQ+.
“I will always be able to feed my family,” Rowling reportedly stated.”I’ve looked around and realized that it has to be someone who can take the hit. And it has to be me. I can afford it.”
Rowling also claimed that “This has never been about trans rights.”
“This is about women’s rights and activists’ demands to dismantle those rights,” she said. “I have nothing but profound sympathy for trans women who have experienced male violence. I want trans people to be safe. I just don’t want women and girls to be any less safe.”
Here Rowling used the common TERF argument that granting trans people rights somehow puts cis women in danger. In reality, trans folks are the ones in danger due to dangerous rhetoric like Rowlings. The Williams Institute found that trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime.
FiLia reportedly left Rowling out of the program to avoid a trans rights protest outside the venue. The conference had already been temporarily canceled after trans activists, led by the group Glasgow Trans Rally, pressured the venue to do so, arguing in a statement that “dangerously transphobic” conferences like FiLia “legitimize debates around trans lives as an area of concern for women and pit trans rights against women’s rights,” as reported byThe Herald.
While the venue initially sided with the trans rights protestors, it reinstated the conference after FiLia threatened legal action. Nevertheless, about 70 protestors demonstrated outside the venue, chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, trans people are welcome here,” according toThe Scottish Sun.
Rowling posted a video on X of one of the protestors singing Lily Allen’s F**k You (Very Much), calling him a pr**k.
“Inside the venue: women from 35 different countries discuss their sex-based issues and concerns, including the harassment and intimidation they face from men,” Rowling said. “Outside the venue, this prick.”
Inside the venue: women from 35 different countries discuss their sex-based issues and concerns, including the harassment and intimidation they face from men.
She then criticized the protestor again in a follow-up post, writing, “To prove his point that the female fear of male harassment is groundless, he got up early to bellow ‘fuck you’ at a group of peacefully assembling women. Is he genuinely that thick? Or are we talking #TERFblackops?”
To the heartbreak of many of her fans, Rowling has long positioned herself as an enemy of the trans community.
Riley Gaines rose to fame not from her own athletic ability which was lacking but by claiming she was cheated out of a win by tieing for fifth place with a trans woman. Both of them got beaten for the first through fourth spots by other women. She owes her fame and living to being a virulent anti-trans activist, spreading hate and misinformation everywhere she can. She is held up as the wronged party because she tied with a trans woman for fifth place. The anti-trans activists use her to claim that trans women have an unfair advantage and harm women’s sports. But the facts show the opposite. Hugs. Scottie
Longtime fencer Liz Kocab said her continued participation in competitions is her “way of saying thanks to USA Fencing.”
Anti-trans activist Riley Gaines took a swipe at a 71-year-old trans athlete who just became an eight-time world fencing champion.
Liz Kocab recently won the women’s 70+ division in the Veteran Fencing World Championships and now claims victories in the 50s, 60s, and 70+ age categories. In a post-victory interview with USA Fencing, Kocab said her continued participation in competitions is her “way of saying thanks to USA Fencing.” With tears in her eyes, she said winning “never gets old” and is “always special.”
She is trying to make October 10 “Real Women’s Day” because transphobia is her whole personality now.
But Gaines decided to rain on the parade by insulting and misgendering Kocab on X, writing that “winning a title as a male in the women’s category doesn’t make you a champion. It makes you an entitled cheat.”
Gaines’s followers joined in the heckling in the responses, calling Gaines a hero and referring to Kocab as an “old conman,” a “weirdo cheat,” and a “coward,” among other insults.
Liz Kocab (male) wins his 8th Fencing World Championship title…in the women's category
Winning a title as a male in the women's category doesn't make you a champion. It makes you an entitled cheat. pic.twitter.com/9dRNRydtUE
USA Fencing adopted a trans-inclusive policy in 2022, allowing athletes to compete as their gender, with varied participation requirements depending on the age level.
At the time, USA Fencing CEO Phil Andrews declared unwavering support for trans fencers: “It is critical that we protect the rights of nonbinary and transgender athletes in fencing. Even as we plan to conduct more scientific research into the physiological effects of gender transition as they pertain specifically to the sport of fencing, we remain unanimously and steadfastly supportive of transgender athletes having their place in fencing. To be clear, even as this issue evolves, our support of transgender athletes will not waver.”
Gaines, on the other hand, has been crusading against the rights of trans athletes since she tied for fifth place with trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas in the women’s 200m freestyle final at the National Collegiate Athletics Association swimming and diving championships. She has claimed she was robbed of some sort of victory by having to share fifth place with a trans woman.
Most recently, Gaines celebrated her own created holiday, “Real Women’s Day,” which she established on October 10th since the Roman numerals for 10/10 are XX, symbolizing for Gaines that “real” women have XX chromosomes.
Speaking at Penn State that day, Gaines yelled to trans rights protestors: “What are you so scared of? The truth? Science? Common sense? Logic? Reasoning? I’d love to hear your argument here because what I’m here to talk about is men are men, women are women, and you cannot change your sex. It’s that simple.”
Really the best of her interviews I posted. She goes into detail on several time periods of the US. Hugs. Scottie
On Point host Meghna Chakrabarti moderated a conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson about her new book, “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.”
Following the phenomenal success of her newsletter “Letters from an American,” Richardson continues her mission to distill bleak headlines and wide swaths of America’s past into a coherent story. With her command of history and her calm, accessible prose, Richardson masterfully explains how our country got to where it is today and the steps we must take to preserve democracy.
I want to thank Ten Bears for the link. He often posts links to important information. This information needs to be spread far and wide. Hugs. Scottie
Here are a few quotes from the article.
“The point I want to make again and again and again is that, relative to the last time CBO was projecting stable debt/GDP, spending is down, not up,” Kogan said in a tweet Friday night. “It’s lower revenue that’s 100% responsible for the change in debt projections. If you take away nothing else, leave with this point.”
“Tax giveaways for the wealthy are continuing to starve the federal government of needed revenue: those passed by former Presidents Trump and Bush have added $10 trillion to the debt and account for 57 percent of the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio since 2001,” read the statement. “If not for those tax cuts, U.S. debt would be declining as a share of the economy.”
“Republicans racked up the national debt by giving tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, and now they want everyone else to pay for them.”
“Republicans racked up the national debt by giving tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, and now they want everyone else to pay for them,” Sen. Whitehouse said at the time. “It is one of life’s great enigmas that Republicans can keep a straight face while they simultaneously cite the deficit to extort massive spending cuts to critical programs and support a bill that would blow up deficits to extend trillions in tax cuts for the people who need them the least.”
President Donald Trump jokes with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.), Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) during an event celebrating the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on the South Lawn of the White House December 20, 2017 in Washington, DC.
(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“In their blind loyalty to their mega-donors, Republicans’ fixation on giant tax cuts for billionaires has created a revenue problem that is driving up our national debt,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in response to new Treasury Department figures.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday released new figures related to the 2023 budget that showed a troubling drop in the nation’s tax revenue compared to GDP—a measure which fell to 16.5% despite a growing economy—and an annual deficit increase that essentially doubled from the previous year.
“After record U.S. government spending in 2020 and 2021” due to programs related to the economic fallout from the Covid-19 crisis, the Washington Postreports, “the deficit dropped from close to $3 trillion to close to $1 trillion in 2022. But rather than continue to fall to its pre-pandemic levels, the deficit unexpectedly jumped this year to roughly $2 trillion.”
While much of the reporting on the Treasury figures painted a picture of various and overlapping dynamics to explain the surge in the deficit—including higher payments on debt due to interest rates, tax filing waivers related to extreme weather events, the impact of a student loan forgiveness program that was later rescinded, or a dip in capital gains receipts—progressive tax experts say none of those complexities should act to shield what’s at the heart of a budget that brings in less than it spends: tax giveaways to the rich.
Bobby Kogan, senior director for federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, has argued repeatedly that growing deficits in recent years have a clear and singular chief cause: Republican tax cuts that benefit mostly the wealthy and profitable corporations.
In response to the Treasury figures released Friday, Kogan said that “roughly 75%” of the surge in the deficit and the debt ratio, the amount of federal debt relative to the overall size of the economy, was due to revenue decreases resulting from GOP-approved tax cuts over recent decades. “Of the remaining 25%,” he said, “more than half” was higher interest payments on the debt related to Federal Reserve policy.
“We have a revenue problem, due to tax cuts,” said Kogan, pointing to the major tax laws enacted under the administrations of George W. Bush and Donald Trump. “The Bush and Trump tax cuts broke our modern tax structure. Revenue is significantly lower and no longer grows much with the economy.” And he offered this visualization about a growing debt ratio:
“The point I want to make again and again and again is that, relative to the last time CBO was projecting stable debt/GDP, spending is down, not up,” Kogan said in a tweet Friday night. “It’s lower revenue that’s 100% responsible for the change in debt projections. If you take away nothing else, leave with this point.”
Holy moly! Revenues fell to 16.5% of GDP last year. They're only that low after tax cuts or the Great Recession. No wonder there's a deficit.
Since 1962: 1965: after tax cuts 2003-04: after Bush tax cuts 2009-2012: after Great Recession 2018-2020: after Trump tax cuts
In his tweet, Kogan offered the following chart to show recent and projected levels of both federal revenue and spending relative to gross domestic product (GDP):
In a detailed analysis produced in March, Kogan explained that, “If not for the Bush tax cuts and their extensions—as well as the Trump tax cuts—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining. Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57 percent of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90 percent of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to COVID-19 and the Great Recession are excluded.”
On Friday, the office of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) cited those same numbers in a press release responding to the Treasury’s new report.
“Tax giveaways for the wealthy are continuing to starve the federal government of needed revenue: those passed by former Presidents Trump and Bush have added $10 trillion to the debt and account for 57 percent of the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio since 2001,” read the statement. “If not for those tax cuts, U.S. debt would be declining as a share of the economy.”
Trump tax cuts went overwhelmingly to the richest (and foreign investors), cost hundreds of billions each year, ballooned the deficit and gave $49,000 to each one percenter. Get the details here. #GOPDebatehttps://t.co/1u9K8Cfsv1
Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said the dip in federal revenue and growth in the overall deficit both have the same primary cause: GOP fealty to the wealthy individuals and powerful corporations that bankroll their campaigns.
“In their blind loyalty to their mega-donors, Republicans’ fixation on giant tax cuts for billionaires has created a revenue problem that is driving up our national debt,” Whitehouse said Friday night. “Even as federal spending fell over the last year relative to the size of the economy, the deficit increased because Republicans have rigged the tax code so that big corporations and the wealthy can avoid paying their fair share.”
Offering a solution, Whitehouse said, “Fixing our corrupted tax code and cracking down on wealthy tax cheats would help bring down the deficit. It would also ensure teachers and firefighters don’t pay higher tax rates than billionaires, level the playing field for small businesses, and promote a stronger economy for all.”
None of the latest figures—those showing that tax cuts have injured revenues and therefore spiked deficits and increased debt—should be a surprise.
In 2018, shortly after the Trump tax cuts were signed into law, a Congressional Budget Office (CBo) report predicted precisely this result: that revenues would plummet; annual deficits would grow; and not even the promise of economic growth made by Republicans to justify the giveaway would be enough to make up the difference in the budget.
“The CBO’s latest report exposes the scam behind the rosy rhetoric from Republicans that their tax bill would pay for itself,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and now Senate Majority Leader, said at the time.
“Republicans racked up the national debt by giving tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, and now they want everyone else to pay for them.”
In its 2018 report, the CBO predicted the deficit would rise to $804 billion by the end of that fiscal year. Now, for all the empty promises and howling from the GOP and their allied deficit hawks, the economic prescription they forced through Congress has resulted in an annual deficit of more than double that, all while demanding the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable pay the price by demanding key social programs—including food aid, education budgets, unemployment benefits, and housing assistance—be slashed.
Meanwhile, the GOP majority in the U.S. House—with or without a Speaker currently holding the gavel—still has plans to extend the Trump tax cuts if given half a chance. In May, a CBO analysis of that pending legislation found that such an extension would add an additional $3.5 trillion to the national debt.
“Republicans racked up the national debt by giving tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, and now they want everyone else to pay for them,” Sen. Whitehouse said at the time. “It is one of life’s great enigmas that Republicans can keep a straight face while they simultaneously cite the deficit to extort massive spending cuts to critical programs and support a bill that would blow up deficits to extend trillions in tax cuts for the people who need them the least.”
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JK Rowling in 2011Photo: Shutterstock
Riley GainesPhoto: Screenshot
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