David Brooks/elitists think the economy is great for most. Republicans have no problem letting poverty kill their constituent to protect the rich. GOP caught on tape with a plan to stop college vote.
GOP wants to suppress the college vote.
Caught on tape: GOP stunts college vote.
We always knew that Republicans are more concerned about keeping the draconian pro-oligarchic policies that continue to make them unpopular. They are unable to win the popular vote in the country not because of demographics but because they have nothing to offer the poor and the middle class.
Their voter suppression techniques have always been visible. What was usually absent, except for a few slip-ups by some clueless Republicans, was a verbalized plan. Well, a Republican lawyer was caught on tape doing just that.
Common Dreams reported the following in an article titled “Audio Reveals Top GOP Lawyer’s 2024 Strategy: Make It Harder for College Students to Vote” that everyone must read,
A longtime Republican lawyer who aided former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election told GOP donors that the party should be working to roll back voting on college campuses and other initiatives aimed at expanding ballot access, according to audio obtained by progressive journalist Lauren Windsor.
“What are these college campus locations?” Cleta Mitchell, a top GOP attorney and fundraiser asked during a presentation at the Republican National Committee’s donor retreat in Nashville last weekend.
“What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed,” lamented Mitchell, an avid voter suppression campaigner who has represented Republican organizations, individual lawmakers, and right-wing groups such as the National Rifle Association.
According toThe Washington Post, which reviewed a copy of Mitchell’s Nashville presentation, the GOP attorney’s remarks “offered a window into a strategy that seems designed to reduce voter access and turnout among certain groups, including students and those who vote by mail, both of which tend to skew Democratic.”
“Mitchell focused on campus voting in five states—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin—all of which are home to enormous public universities with large in-state student populations,” the Post reported Thursday. “Mitchell also targeted the preregistration of students, an apparent reference to the practice in some states of allowing 17-year-olds to register ahead of their 18th birthdays so they can vote as soon as they are eligible.”
The Republican lawyer could not be clearer. The tipping point, even in the Red States, is coming. The only question is whether it will be in time to save them.
GOP’s ok with poverty killing you.
My friend Thom Hartmann nailed it in his new article titled, “The Republican Party of Death Content to Let Poverty Kill at Will,” which paints an evil picture that will not be realized. The Democratic President and Senate will ensure that. According to the article.
Kevin McCarthy has a keen new idea about what he thinks he can get out of Democrats in Congress in exchange for Republicans authorizing the government to pay the trillions in debt that Donald Trump racked up in his four years in office.
In exchange for lifting the so-called debt ceiling, McCarthy wants Biden and congressional Democrats to throw millions of families off food stamps (SNAP) and end even the possibility of any help to low-income young people unable to pay off student loans.
He claims this is because the federal government can’t afford to help out students or hungry Americans. Nonetheless, his caucus is also pushing a new $1.8 trillion cut to the already-hobbled estate tax, paid exclusively by “lucky sperm club” children of the morbidly rich when they inherit fortunes they didn’t lift a finger to create.
Ironically, this proposal came out the same week that The Journal of the American Medical Association published a new study finding that poverty is the fourth largest killer of Americans.
And by poverty, they’re not just talking about the profoundly poor or homeless: For the purposes of this study they defined poverty as everybody living on less than the 50% median of income in the nation.
The study was unambiguous, noting:
“Current poverty was associated with greater mortality than major causes, such as accidents, lower respiratory diseases, and stroke. In 2019, current poverty was also associated with greater mortality than many far more visible causes—10 times as many deaths as homicide, 4.7 times as many deaths as firearms, 3.9 times as many deaths as suicide, and 2.6 times as many deaths as drug overdose.”
The outlook for people who’ve spent at least the past 10 years living below the U.S. median income level is even more grim. The researchers refer to this as “cumulative poverty:”
“Cumulative poverty was associated with approximately 60% greater mortality than current poverty. Hence, cumulative poverty was associated with greater mortality than even obesity and dementia. Heart disease, cancer, and smoking were the only causes or risks with greater mortality than cumulative poverty.”
Concluding that “poverty should be considered a major risk factor for death in the U.S.,” the researchers noted that the situation is probably even worse than what they were able to easily measure:
“[O]ne limitation of this study is that our estimates may be conservative about the number of deaths associated with poverty.”
You’d think that discovering over a quarter-million Americans every year die from current poverty, and an additional 406,000 die every year from long-term or “cumulative” poverty, would move the GOP.
After all, they control the poorest states in the nation, so this hits their constituents harder than it does the electorate of Democratic politicians. This hits right smack in the middle of where Republican politicians live.
The draconian budget is worse than anyone could imagine. Among its evil deeds, it cuts funding for school lunches by 40%. Continues the process of privatizing Medicare Advantage, which has been proving detrimental to most. It refused to extend the Child Tax Credit. And those are the small headlines. The party that purports to be the family values party should best be called the family extinction party.
Elites: The economy’s great.
David Brooks wrote a new article that cauterizes the notion that he is deep within the stratosphere of elitism. The article titled “The Power Of Capitalism” sadly shows these guys have yet to visit Appalachia, the ghettos, and the barrios of America. His last paragraph was but a form of propaganda. We will discuss this in more detail on the program.
My point is not that American capitalism is perfect. My point is that there is a tension between economic dynamism and economic security. For reasons deeply rooted in our culture, the American brand of capitalism has always been tilted toward dynamism, with freer markets and smaller welfare states.
The Corporatocracy is aiming at our fighters.
From Common Dreams:
Sanders Blasts Corporations ‘Spending Millions’ to Defeat Worker Champion Julie Su, “This debate has everything to do with the fact that Julie Su is a champion of the working class who will stand up against the forces of corporate greed,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday used his opening remarks at Julie Su’s confirmation hearing to slam the corporate-led campaign against the labor secretary nominee, characterizing it as a desperate effort to tank a public official who is “prepared to take on powerful special interests and stand up for the needs of the working class of this country.”
“Let’s be honest. The debate over Ms. Su has nothing to do with her qualifications,” Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said during the panel’s hearing. “No one can tell us with a straight face that Ms. Su is unqualified for this position. She is exceptionally well qualified.”
“No. This debate has everything to do with the fact that Julie Su is a champion of the working class who will stand up against the forces of corporate greed,” Sanders continued. “Today, large multinational corporations are spending millions of dollars trying to defeat her nomination… And while many corporate interests oppose her, she is supported by every major labor organization in this country representing over 20 million workers, including the AFL-CIO, the United Mine Workers of America, the Teamsters, and the SEIU.”
Su’s confirmation hearing comes as her prospects of filling the secretary of labor position in a permanent capacity remain unclear because two Senate Democrats and one independent—Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)—have yet to say whether they support her nomination. Su is currently serving as acting labor secretary.
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