Category: History
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson Hates Nearly All of Us
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/10/speaker-of-house-mike-johnson-hates.html
I want to thank Ten Bears for the link to this web site. I am going to do the non-WordPress version of follow on it. Here is the link from Ten bears’ page with the links. https://homelessonthehighdesert.com/2023/10/29/last-week-in-god-33/ Hugs. Scottie
Liquor laws in Louisiana are a clusterfuck. Because of a state supreme court decision decades ago, they are subject to the whims of a community vote whenever someone can get it on the ballot. So a town can allow alcohol sales in, say, restaurants for a while and then, whenever some opportunistic Christian dickflea gets enough people itching, they can vote to overturn the law and go back to being a dry town or county. Or, you know, parish, as they call counties in the state because Catholicism.
The decent-sized, if generally shitty, town of Minden in the generally shitty Webster Parish was dry in 2003. Minden is 30 miles from Shreveport, which is a decent-sized, if generally shitty, city. The economy of Minden was not doing great 20 years ago, so a group of business owners, with the support of the Chamber of Commerce, wanted to have another vote on allowing alcohol sales in restaurants, hoping that it would attract some chains to town or at least provide a new tax revenue stream. Minden had been dry since a vote in 1974, but after a contentious city council meeting in August 2003, it was decided that the restaurant alcohol sales law would be decided in a special election just a couple of months later.
The people against allowing alcohol sales were straight out of a 1980s movie about tight-ass evangelicals refusing to allow anyone to have fun. Their warnings were like the lyrics of The Music Man song “Ya Got Trouble.” According to one local columnist, “They expanded from simply claiming this was a back-door was to bring about bars and package sales to more extreme connections. They alleged this was an ‘end-around’ to bring sexually oriented businesses, such as strip clubs to Minden. They also pointed out it could be an attempt to bring legalized gambling into Minden.” Churches went into overdrive, with prayer services just to try to get their invisible sky wizard to intervene. They even had round-the-clock prayers just before the election date.
The anti-fun forces, led by five plaintiffs, tried to sue to stop the election, but they filed their lawsuit too late for it to be heard. Their lawyer was a Shreveport attorney who was making a name for himself as a supporter of nutzoid right-wing Christiand causes. And since you read the title of this piece, you already know that it was Mike Johnson, who is now Speaker of the House and second in line to the presidency. That’s right. Two decades ago, he was trying to stop alcohol sales in a town.
The voting occurred that November and over half the registered voters went out to the polls. That’s how much this meant in an off-year election. And, Lord have mercy, they voted 57-43% in favor of alcohol sales in restaurants in Minden. Johnson’s clients considered another lawsuit to question the elections results, but they decided against it, and Minden restaurants and now bars and, yes, casinos can serve alcohol. The nearest strip joint is still about 15 miles away, in the next parish over.
For years, Mike Johnson represented the shittiest fucking people in trying to halt others from having rights or enjoying life in a way that harmed no one. As a dick lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom (motto: “‘Freedom’ should probably be in quotation marks in our name”), Johnson was on the fucked up side of issue after issue in our bullshit culture war. He fought the city of New Orleans to stop it from offering domestic partnership benefits in the pre-Obergefell days. The law had been in place since 1999, and they sued in 2003 in a case they lost in 2005. He opposed the Obama abortion pill mandate, he sued in favor of various school prayer cases, and more. When it comes to abortion and LGBTQ rights, Johnson is the hardest of the hardcore opposing both. And when he was a state representative, in the panicked days before the Obergefell same-sex marriage decision in 2015, Johnson sponsored legislation that would allow businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples and, going back to his earlier case, would allow a business to deny benefits to same-sex couples because of “religious” reasons.
And perhaps it’s here that we need to pause for a moment and say that Mike Johnson loves God. His version of God, I mean, since, you know, God is made up. But he fuckin’ loves God as intensely and loudly as a newly-out Omaha lesbian loves pussy. He leans Christian dominionist, which is as weird and insidious as it sounds. He says that the United States is a “biblical republic,” whatever the fuck that means. He told Sean Hannity, “Someone asked me today in the media, they said people are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun? I said, Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview, that’s what I believe.” I wonder if that includes all the rules in Leviticus, but I don’t want to ask about beard-shaving regimen.
In his speech before being sworn in as Speaker of the House, he said, “I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night. I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a manner like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us, and I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time.”
I know they don’t give a shit what heathens like me think, but that shit sounds creepy as fuck. You’re telling me that your imaginary invisible sky wizard contorted all time and space and made everything in the universe move in such a way that you could become the leader of one house of the American Congress. That’s fucking insane because, see, first, you believe in an invisible sky wizard, and, even worse, you have no problem telling me what your invisible sky wizard is doing and saying, and, even worser, you demand that I follow what your invisible sky wizard says. You can say that there are lots of people who believe in your invisible sky wizard, but that doesn’t make it less creepy. In fact, it makes it way creepier.
While Johnson talks a lot about “consensus” and shit, he sure has spent his career, including trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, approaching every issue with the clear-eyed resolution of someone who just loves to make shit worse for everyone except those who also hate nearly all of us. It won’t be some god who ruins the nation. It’ll be a very weird man.
(Quick note about Minden, Louisiana: It sucks as a town. But, man, there are awesome soul food joints there.)
Gaza, explained
If you want to understand this conflict, if you want to see what real bigotry / racism is watch this video. There is no doubt who is in the wrong, who are the villains really are. Hugs. Scottie
On October 7, Hamas, a militant group based in the Gaza Strip, launched a deadly attack on Israel, killing over 1,400 Israelis and kidnapping over 200. In retaliation, Israeli airstrikes have killed, as of this video, over 6,400 Palestinians in Gaza, where Palestinians have lived for decades under an occupation and blockade.
Since 1967, Israel has imposed tight restrictions on travel and essential goods such as food, fuel, medicine, and water in its occupied territories. In 2007, those restrictions became even tighter in Gaza after Hamas seized power there. Since then, it has been nearly impossible for Palestinians to leave Gaza or to access an adequate supply of essential goods.
Today, the Gaza Strip, with a population of over 2 million Palestinians, is a victim of what many call “collective punishment” as Israel bombards its population, shuts off access to internet, power, food, water, and medicine, forces them to leave their homes, and prepares for a ground invasion.
This latest episode of Vox Atlas explains how the experience of Palestinians in Gaza got to this point, and what’s behind Israel’s occupation and its blockade of Gaza.
Cenk Uygur Unleashes Fury In Piers Morgan Appearance On Israel-Gaza
For those that don’t know, I dropped my TYT membership this summer. I found that Anna’s hard right turn and Cenk’s hate for Biden along with trying to destroy the Democratic Party became too much to take. But on this he is correct. Plus I love how David, who is the rational national, presents the facts in the video. Hugs. Scottie
When America Became a Banana Republic
Thanks to Ten Bears for the link. The site the post is on is https://angrybearblog.com/ 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.
Democracy Awakening: historian Heather Cox Richardson on the state of America
Really the best of her interviews I posted. She goes into detail on several time periods of the US. Hugs. Scottie
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.
$10 Trillion in Added US Debt Since 2001 Shows ‘Bush and Trump Tax Cuts Broke Our Modern Tax Structure’
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-bush-tax-cuts-fuel-growing-deficits
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.”
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.”
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.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Maria and Heather Cox Richardson Talk the State of Democracy and Why to Stay Hopeful Despite It All
Historian Heather Cox Richardson: GOP “Has Become an Extremist Faction” | Amanpour and Company
Originally aired on October 6, 2023
Israel-Hamas War: Piers Morgan vs Bassem Youssef On Palestine’s Treatment | The Full Interview
For those who want the full interview, here it is. The situation is heartbreaking. But it is important for people to know the facts, to know the history of this conflict. There is a wealthy nation state supported by the wealthiest nation on earth, wiping out a poor population with no military and stealing the land not set aside for them. How can this be justified in any way? He asks what is the going rate for Palestinian life? He is correct to ask. Hugs. Scottie
Piers Morgan Uncensored is joined by Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef and later on by co-founder of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boreing, for a heated and emotive debate on the historical treatment of Palestine during their conflict with Israel and whether Israel’s decision to bomb Gaza in an attempt to get rid of Hamas is justified and proportionate after the attacks on October 7th.
Bassem condemns the terrorist organisation Hamas and tries to explain that people have been desensitised to accept that civilians dying is an inevitability of war.
Piers then suggests he doesn’t know what the “proportionate response” to a terrorist attack of Hamas’s scale would be. Bassem responds by referencing a graph that shows the total amount of deaths in the conflict prior to the attacks and questions the Palestinian killings in the West Bank, which has never been occupied by Hamas fighters.
Bassem then mocks Ben Shapiro for his public stance on Israel defending themselves, questioning how an occupier can be defending themselves. Shapiro’s friend and colleague Jeremy is then invited by Piers to debate Bassem’s criticisms.
Scottie's Playtime 