JaxPolitix

Broken News

In a stunning display of muscular, applause sucking fantasies, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) announced that he is a candidate to become his party’s nominee for President of the United States.

He dutifully blamed President Biden for all problems, stopping just short of blaming Biden for mosquito bites. As significant, he claimed credit for everything that has gone well, including the things that most or all Republicans voted against, like the infrastructure projects they tried to kill, then went home and bragged to constituents about how they had brought home the bacon for them.

Cut the crap, Tim.

More Broken News

THIS PICTURE IS A FAKE

The May 22 AI generated picture of a FAKE bombing of the Pentagon (to the left) isn’t even a good fake, but it was good enough for Bloomberg News to pick it up. It went viral on Twitter and elsewhere and first responders had to show up before it was announced that this is a completely FAKE picture. There was no fire or harm done to the Pentagon or to any personnel.

The technology to produce fakes is only going to get better and we stand to be fooled so often that we’ll learn to distrust news reports, government – everything. That leaves us with this core question:

Who stands to benefit from the undermining of public trust?

.

Post your answer in the Comments section below.

Pig Troughs and Justice

We’re being played for chumps by industry and by political toadies who are in the pocket of Big Money. Here’s the key to what needs to be done for We The People.

Reverse the Citizens United decision – the one that reinforced the Boston v. Bellotti decision that legalized political bribery*. And while we’re at it, impeach Chief Justice John Roberts for

– lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee in his  confirmation hearing, saying that he believes in stare decisis (honoring past Supreme Court decisions, like Roe). Same for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito and Coney Barrett

– lying to that same committee, saying (or implying) that Roe is settled law. Same for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito and Coney Barrett – probably Thomas, too.

– and most egregiously, for causing the lawyers to return to the court following the CU decision on the case that was presented to the court. This time Roberts directed the attorneys to argue rights for corporations, something that was not in contest in the Citizens United case. That debasement of our system of justice and the Court’s decision on it gave corporations the same rights as people like you, including the right to give huge sums of black money to PACs that distort our election system in favor of rich guys.

In his dissent from this nefarious decision, Justice Souter said that in addressing an issue that was not raised by the litigants, “ . . . the majority changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.” Souter was right. This is a prime example of right wing manipulation of our laws and institutions for the purpose of destroying our democracy.

For all their wailing about spending, Republicans don’t want to touch programs that line the pockets of their big money donors. Instead, they want our poor and disadvantaged to carry the load. Here’s what that means.

McCarthy and his hollow-headed, far right extremists have figured out that the American people like Social Security and Medicare A LOT and that cutting those programs would be political suicide, so they want to cut other stuff instead, like veterans medical benefits and

” .  .  .  public health; food safety inspections; air traffic control operations; the administration of Medicare and Social Security; housing and other assistance for families with low incomes; education and job training; and scientific and medical research, to name just a few.” – Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

They want to cut everything that helps actual people.

Kevin McCarthy and his co-conspirators are trying to bring down the government of the United States in every way possible. Right now they are attempting extortion using the debt ceiling approval process to get budget concessions like those listed above. “After all,” they say, “spending is directly linked to our national debt.” That’s like saying that we can’t send a rocket to the moon because there’s that gravity thing on Earth. Moronic.

If Republicans were serious about wanting to trim spending they could have done so with their congressional majorities during the Trump or the George W. Bush years. In fact. with the support of his congresses, Dubya piled up more debt than all previous administrations combined. Don’t forget there were those two “off balance sheet” wars.

Both Dubya and Trump increased spending every year while cutting taxes for the ultra rich and thereby ballooning our national debt.

So, no, the Republicans aren’t serious about dealing with spending or debt. They just want to bludgeon Democrats by cutting programs that help people in order to prove how tough they are. They want to brag about their phantom fiscal responsibility and crash our government and our democracy so that they can take over in a fascist putsch. You know: fusing industry with government in a despotic rule over We the People.

Cut the crap, Republicans.

Because these industry representatives (meaning senators and representatives in the pockets of Big Money) will not cut the crap, we’ll have to dump them and replace them with people who will cut the crap. Repeal and replace is the phrase the Republicans like to use about Obamacare, so let’s use it for what We The People want – to repeal and replace these Republican industry toadies.

The replacements will be the same people who will create sensible gun safety legislation, will restore abortion rights, will refuse to abandon our most vulnerable, will honor and keep faith with our military .  .  . you know the list. It’s all the stuff that the vast majority of We The People want. We’ll only get it when we dump the bad guys who are doing the crap – delivering minority controlled tyranny – and replace them with those who will serve We The People.

BTWs

In case you were thinking Biden would get rolled by right wing extremist Republicans who want to hold our nation hostage, take a look at this, posted last Sunday.

And here’s a love tweet for Kevin McCarthy, who still hasn’t replied to my request for all those January 6 videos he sent to Tucker Carlson.

 Watch for Cut The Crap – Part two this Wednesday, May 24.

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* From Thom Hartmann:

“The following year Richard Nixon put [Justice Lewis] Powell on the Supreme Court, where he personally authored the 1978 Boston v. Bellotti decision that claimed corporations are persons with rights under the Bill of Rights and corporate money in politics wasn’t bribery or corruption (as it had been under the law since the founding of the republic) but merely an exercise of First Amendment-protected free speech. Money wasn’t money: it was speech.”

And that “speech” is way louder with orders of magnitude more money powering it. Citizens United took that farther and wider and has effectively silenced you.

Today is a good day to be the light.

______________________________

• Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
• Fire the bastards!
• The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

  

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