American Politics

[Xpartan]

Great commentary! Well said! Totally agree!

The Repubs, have long given up on democracy and now it seems they've done the same for the rule-of-law. This was even more evident (and perhaps in many ways boosted such anti-democratic actions/behaviour), when Repubs give the Hungarian fascist dictator, Viktor Orban, a rousing standing ovation at CPAC, when he said:

"Play by you own rules...The only way to win is to refuse to accept the solutions and the path offered by others."

So in other words, f*k democracy, f*k the rule-of-law, f*k the bill-of-rights, f*k the USA constitution and f*k the left.

This is the perilous path Repubs are on...the road to FASCISM! (One might even argue they've been on this road for some time).

That's because they have. Newt Gingrich set the course 30 years ago, and they've never wavered ever since.

[EihTooms]

Exhibit #1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#text=Headquartered%20 in%20 the%20 Baltimore%20 suburb,40%25%20 of%20 American%20 households)%2 see.

Exhibit #2.

Talk Radio Is Turning Millions of Americans Into Conservatives.

The medium is at the heart of Trumpism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/o...-trumpism.html

So -- I don't know -- please?

The fact that as many as 2 in 1000 Americans have been bamboozled into the wildly false conclusion that "Republicans are better than Democrats at handling the economy" contrary to all data, current and historical records going back at least 100 years is proof positive somebody, or rather damn near everybody, in the Mainsteam Media is putting in a Herculean effort 24/7/365 to bamboozle the public into falling for such utter nonsense.

MSM need horrifically scary headlines and results to grab their customers' attention. "More jobs were created in the past 21 months than under all three of the previous Republican presidents" and "The deficit was just cut in half, the biggest decline in history" just doesn't do it for MSM nearly as well as, say, "Worst Recession and Job Losses in Decades"!

They can't resist it. They must go serious Bothsider and dismiss and denigrate "Democrats in Disarry"! And their remarkably positive accomplishments while elevating Repub nothingness and disastrous results come election time. Even if it goes against some member's of the media's political preference, as your links show isn't even the case very often.

It's all about the MSM's Bottom Line.

[EihTooms]

Still crowing daily with the same ole false dichotomy from your budget retirement haven (Thailand) I see. The 50's was a golden age for the working man and expansion of middle America, in spite of a few mild recessions, much of which related to the end of the Korean War. It was also an era of very high presidential approval ratings, balanced budgets, and new civil rights legislation. And you've never provided any satisfactory rebuttals to the historical facts and analysis from this historian.

https://millercenter.org/president/e...mestic-affairs

Thanks to typically pro Repub MSM, people might "remember" the 1950's as "Happy Days", their first television set, I Love Lucy, images of The Fonz and all that. And certainly a post WWII era is going to be welcomed.

But when it came time to choose, every major Labor Union endorsed Kennedy at the end of that decade (despite Jimmy Hoffa hating the Kennedys for their anti rackateering re labor campaigns in the 50's) and wanted nothing to do with the Triple Recession Eisenhower administration:

POLITICAL NOTES: Who's for Whom, Oct. 3, 1960
Monday, Oct. 03, 1960

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0, 33009,894933,00. Html.

The 1,250,000-member United Steelworkers of America and the 100,000-member International Chemical Workers Union, at separate conventions in Atlantic City, followed half a dozen other unions and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. general board in endorsing the Kennedy-Johnson ticket.

*The above URL is botched and might not take you to that time Report link. If not, just do a search on the title in bold or for "AFL-CIO endorsed Kennedy and not Nixon in 1960."

That was very likely because Eisenhower's jobs creation record was one of the worst of all time, rivalling that of GW Bush and Trump:

Jobs created during U.S. presidential terms

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs...idential_terms

So much for that "golden age for the working man" bit. God only knows how much worse Ike's record would been on that count had he not been convinced by others to trot out FDR's Interstate Highway construction plan that was sidelined to defeat Nazis and the Japanese.

Sorry. Yes, the 1957 Chevy was a hot car. Elvis was cool. And thanks to FDR / Dems' Unemployment Insurance legislation, many workers during the Eisenhower years could keep up with their car payments and buy that Loving You Elvis record.

But facts are facts.

[Spidy]

Yes, from a political perspective, it was the tax cut that nuked her. But from the perspective of the effect on the markets, the energy subsidies Truss proposed, 100 billion pounds over 2 years, were as important. The combined fiscal stimulus gave markets a scare, as it would have been likely to exacerbate inflation. And UK YoY CPI was already 10.1%. As a result, British interest rates went up and the value of the pound went down. ...

I get you et al. may see her tax cuts for the rich/energy subsidies as terrific, but the fact remains the Brits and the markets did not. They weren't buying into more right-wing "trickle-down" economics. The Brit Conservatives, may yet still get their chance, but for now, the Brits, said NO!

[Spidy]

It isn't bad enough that Mainstream Media help Repubs win elections by spinning attention away from the facts that Repubs have produced all of the major economic downturns of the past 100 years, none of the economic boom times, have likely by now wiped out more American private sector jobs than they created since the Repub Party was invented in 1858, always produce conditions that skyrocket the debt and deficit with virtually nothing of material value to show for it, have not produced one single meaningful and now revered legislation whenever they had total control of the White House and Both Houses of Congress to do so, are so Pro Crime almost all of the highest Crime rate states are Repub Red, now see their primary if not only goal is to overthrow American democracy by any means necessary, might as well defund, attack and kill as many cops as they can along the way and weaken democracies and Western Democratic Alliances around the world.

Now Mainsteam Media are trying to help Repubs win elections by trying to spin that the ultimate Big Government Repub goal of outlawing sex for pleasure and restricting sex for the purpose of procreation only is "mainstream" and what most Americans want:

Right-wing media call Democrats extreme on abortion while mainstream media suggest their positions are out of touch

https://www.mediamatters.org/

Great commentary! Well said! Totally agree!

The Repubs, have long given up on democracy and now it seems they've done the same for the rule-of-law. This was even more evident (and perhaps in many ways boosted such anti-democratic actions/behaviour), when Repubs give the Hungarian fascist dictator, Viktor Orban, a rousing standing ovation at CPAC, when he said:

"Play by you own rules...The only way to win is to refuse to accept the solutions and the path offered by others."

So in other words, f*k democracy, f*k the rule-of-law, f*k the bill-of-rights, f*k the USA constitution and f*k the left.

This is the perilous path Repubs are on...the road to FASCISM! (One might even argue they've been on this road for some time).

[Paulie97]

Yeah, but that didn't happen.

Biden was handed that 100 pounds of stuffed crap heading for 200 - 300 pounds of it if not more ASAP that had to be dealt with.

As did FDR, Clinton and Obama.

But not as Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush2 or Trump did.

See the difference there?

Still crowing daily with the same ole false dichotomy from your budget retirement haven (Thailand) I see. The 50's was a golden age for the working man and expansion of middle America, in spite of a few mild recessions, much of which related to the end of the Korean War. It was also an era of very high presidential approval ratings, balanced budgets, and new civil rights legislation. And you've never provided any satisfactory rebuttals to the historical facts and analysis from this historian.

https://millercenter.org/president/e...mestic-affairs

[Xpartan]

Big corporate mainstream and social media have a bias in favor of the Democratic Party. The only notable exceptions are Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, all controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

Exhibit #1.

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is . . . the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations (after Nexstar Media Group), owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (covering 40% of American households) . . . and is the largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Sinclair also owns four digital multicast networks (Comet, Charge!, Stadium, and ***), sports-oriented cable networks (Tennis Channel and Bally Sports Regional Networks), and a streaming service (Stirr). On June 2, 2021, it was announced that Sinclair is a Fortune 500 company, having annual revenues of $5.9 billion in 2020.

A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found that "stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market." The company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial content, including warnings about purported "fake news" in mainstream media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#text=Headquartered%20 in%20 the%20 Baltimore%20 suburb,40%25%20 of%20 American%20 households)%2 see.

Exhibit #2.

At least 15 million Americans every week tune into one of the top 15 talk radio programs. They are not monolithically conservative, but they are overwhelmingly so. A dozen of the top 15 shows feature conservative or libertarian hosts with devoted followings like Rush Limbaughs Dittoheads or Michael Savages Savage Nation and only one leans left.

Talk Radio Is Turning Millions of Americans Into Conservatives.

The medium is at the heart of Trumpism.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/o...-trumpism.html

So -- I don't know -- please?

[EihTooms]

Let's say a pack of Dem lies and classic Dem horrific economic decisions and stewardship nails your feet to the floor, straps your hands behind your back, shoves a funnel down your gullet and force feeds you 100 pounds of crap.

Yeah, I appreciate any way Sinema and Manchin and the Repubs were able to put a stop to that and pull 50 pounds of that Dem crap out of the system. Especially since there is no historic evidence that Dems would not have increased it to 200 - 300 pounds of crap by now had Manchin, Sinema, McConnell and his Repubs not come to the American Rescue.

Thanks again Mitch, Kyrsten, Joe M. , et al.

Yeah, but that didn't happen.

Biden was handed that 100 pounds of stuffed crap heading for 200 - 300 pounds of it if not more ASAP that had to be dealt with.

As did FDR, Clinton and Obama.

But not as Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush2 or Trump did.

See the difference there?

[EihTooms]

The Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. The majority of Americans didn't want that to happen. For many pro choice voters, this is THE most important political issue.

Donald Trump is still heavily involved in the political process, and incredibly he still has the wool pulled over the eyes of the majority of Republican voters.

Big corporate mainstream and social media have a bias in favor of the Democratic Party. The only notable exceptions are Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, all controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

Given the preceding I would have thought the Republicans would get blown out big time this November. But it's not turning out that way. The Republicans probably will win the House. The punters on predictit.org are giving the Republicans a 65% probability of controlling the Senate, and Real Clear Politics, based on adjusted polling data, is giving the Republicans the edge too.

The rest of America apparently is upset with the Democratic Party, and doesn't idolize its politicians as much as you do.

What would be the reason and evidence for your above highlighted opinion?

I don't idolize any politicians. I merely appreciate any pols who don't promote and produce the crap results we get whenever Repubs are in control and get their way. My god. Based on their repeated record of results for almost 100 years, who wouldn't other than fierce enemies of America?

[Tiny 12]

We currently spend $4 T per year on healthcare. That's an "all in" cost and covers everything that Medicare and Medicaid pay, everything every insurance company pays, everybody's out-of-pocket costs (meds, co-pays, etc.), everything that's donated, etc. So if single-payer costs less, then it is simply a matter of reallocating what we, as citizens, already pay.

FDR got us into this healthcare mess with his WWII policy which was probably OK for the time but it should have been scrapped as soon as the war was over.

BY the way, the US did just fine under Ike when the top income tax rate was 91%.

One other comment. I ran across this piece.

https://www.crfb.org/papers/choices-...g-medicare-all

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is left of center, and a go to source for Democratic politicians and staff. They've looked at options for financing Medicare for All. They came up with these options.

1. Impose a 32% payroll tax.

2. Establish a 25% income surtax on adjusted gross income.

3. Enact a 42% value added tax (VAT).

4. Require a mandatory public premium of $20,000 per household, or $32,000 if we fold Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP into the new system.

5. More than double all individual and corporate income tax rates.

6. Reduce non-health federal spending by 80%.

7. More than double the national debt to 203 percent of the economy.

8. Impose impossibly high taxes on high earners, corporations and the financial sector. ("Impossibly" is their word, not mine).

9. Enact a combination of approaches.

I think that "8", the tax on high earners, corporations and the financial sector, is the only solution that would be palatable to a majority of Democrat Senators and Congressmen. The CRFB piece estimates that raising the top two individual and pass-through rates to 70% would raise about $2 trillion out of the $30 trillion total ten year cost of Medicare for All. So that's a drop in the bucket. And even that is debatable. The piece by Reynolds that I linked to in my last post directed to you says that 20 out of 28 economists asked whether they thought "raising the top federal marginal rate on earned personal income to 70% would raise substantially more revenue without lowering economic activity" said "no".

To make this work, we've somehow got to get health care costs down, ideally while improving outcomes produced by the system. See this chart, which ranks health care costs as a % of GDP by country.

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/ran...ercent_of_gdp/

The USA Figure actually went up to 20% of GDP in 2020, and now is around 18%. In the table, the next highest developed country is Germany, at 11.7%.

The goals should be universal coverage at reasonable cost and with better outcomes than we have now. If we could go down to the Singapore level, 4.08% of GDP, or the Irish level of 6.7%, that would be very doable. Life expectancy is 84 years in Singapore and 83 years in Ireland, compared to 79 years in the USA. Unfortunately, like I said before, I don't believe the politicians in either party are going to make this happen. You've GOT to get the cost down, a lot, to fix the system.

[Tiny 12]

It isn't bad enough that Mainstream Media help Repubs win elections by spinning attention away from the facts that Repubs have produced all of the major economic downturns of the past 100 years, none of the economic boom times, have likely by now wiped out more American private sector jobs than they created since the Repub Party was invented in 1858, always produce conditions that skyrocket the debt and deficit with virtually nothing of material value to show for it, have not produced one single meaningful and now revered legislation whenever they had total control of the White House and Both Houses of Congress to do so, are so Pro Crime almost all of the highest Crime rate states are Repub Red, now see their primary if not only goal is to overthrow American democracy by any means necessary, might as well defund, attack and kill as many cops as they can along the way and weaken democracies and Western Democratic Alliances around the world.

Now Mainsteam Media are trying to help Repubs win elections by trying to spin that the ultimate Big Government Repub goal of outlawing sex for pleasure and restricting sex for the purpose of procreation only is "mainstream" and what most Americans want:

Right-wing media call Democrats extreme on abortion while mainstream media suggest their positions are out of touch

https://www.mediamatters.org/

The Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade. The majority of Americans didn't want that to happen. For many pro choice voters, this is THE most important political issue.

Donald Trump is still heavily involved in the political process, and incredibly he still has the wool pulled over the eyes of the majority of Republican voters.

Big corporate mainstream and social media have a bias in favor of the Democratic Party. The only notable exceptions are Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, all controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

Given the preceding I would have thought the Republicans would get blown out big time this November. But it's not turning out that way. The Republicans probably will win the House. The punters on predictit.org are giving the Republicans a 65% probability of controlling the Senate, and Real Clear Politics, based on adjusted polling data, is giving the Republicans the edge too.

The rest of America apparently is upset with the Democratic Party, and doesn't idolize its politicians as much as you do.

[Tiny 12]

Let's say a pack of Repub lies and classic Repub horrific economic decisions and stewardship nails your feet to the floor, straps your hands behind your back, shoves a funnel down your gullet and force feeds you 100 pounds of crap.

Yeah, I appreciate any way Biden and the Dems were able to put a stop to that and pull 50 pounds of that Repub crap out of the system. Especially since there is no historic evidence that Repubs would not have increased it to 200 - 300 pounds of crap by now had Biden and his Dems not come to the American Rescue.

Thanks again Joe, Nancy, et al.

Let's say a pack of Dem lies and classic Dem horrific economic decisions and stewardship nails your feet to the floor, straps your hands behind your back, shoves a funnel down your gullet and force feeds you 100 pounds of crap.

Yeah, I appreciate any way Sinema and Manchin and the Repubs were able to put a stop to that and pull 50 pounds of that Dem crap out of the system. Especially since there is no historic evidence that Dems would not have increased it to 200 - 300 pounds of crap by now had Manchin, Sinema, McConnell and his Repubs not come to the American Rescue.

Thanks again Mitch, Kyrsten, Joe M. , et al.

[EihTooms]

It isn't bad enough that Mainstream Media help Repubs win elections by spinning attention away from the facts that Repubs have produced all of the major economic downturns of the past 100 years, none of the economic boom times, have likely by now wiped out more American private sector jobs than they created since the Repub Party was invented in 1858, always produce conditions that skyrocket the debt and deficit with virtually nothing of material value to show for it, have not produced one single meaningful and now revered legislation whenever they had total control of the White House and Both Houses of Congress to do so, are so Pro Crime almost all of the highest Crime rate states are Repub Red, now see their primary if not only goal is to overthrow American democracy by any means necessary, might as well defund, attack and kill as many cops as they can along the way and weaken democracies and Western Democratic Alliances around the world.

Now Mainsteam Media are trying to help Repubs win elections by trying to spin that the ultimate Big Government Repub goal of outlawing sex for pleasure and restricting sex for the purpose of procreation only is "mainstream" and what most Americans want:

Right-wing media call Democrats extreme on abortion while mainstream media suggest their positions are out of touch

https://www.mediamatters.org/

Mainstream outlets suggest that Democrats are out of step with the publics views on abortion

- MSNBC host Joe Scarborough attempted to frame Sen. Lindsey Grahams (R-SC) proposed 15-week national abortion ban as a compromise. During his Morning Joe program, Scarborough asserted that such a ban was middle ground of the abortion debate and falsely claimed that 15 weeks is where most Americans are. In reality, just 39% of Americans expressed support for a 15-week national ban.

- Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist suggested polling shows that Democrats who support abortion without limits have an extreme position. According to Gallup, 35% of Americans support legal abortion under any circumstances. Geist also repeatedly asked White House senior adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms what abortion limits, if any, Biden supports.

- CNN contributor and former adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Scott Jennings dismissed claims that Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker paid for an abortion, averting attention to Sen. Raphael Warnocks abortion position. Jennings said, There are a lot of Republicans out there saying in a worst case scenario it is true, and Herschel Walker did pay for an abortion. You know what, Raphael Warnock wants to pay for all of them and up to the moment of birth. He accused Warnock of voting for unlimited abortion access and falsely claimed the Womens Health Protection Act absolutely had no limits on access to abortion, even though the act allows for post-viability restrictions except in cases of detrimental health risks to the pregnant person.

- During an interview with Manchin, Scarborough implied that Democrats couldnt pass a bill codifying Roe because they went far beyond simple protections. Scarborough asked Manchin, Why couldn't they (Democrats) just pass a simple bill that would codify Roe and keep it at that instead of going so far beyond that? Scarborough also asserted that more expansive abortion protections arent where America is.

- (and more)

[EihTooms]

Let's say you start eating like a pig and gain 100 pounds. Then you go on a diet and lose 50. Well then, by damn, you've lost 50 pounds! Even though you ended up 50 pounds heavier.

This is what Biden et al are bragging about. The deficit in fiscal 2021 according to your source was $2.776 trillion. That's 14% of GDP! Incredibly high considering the economy was on the mend from COVID. Why was it so high? Well, you can chalk a lot of it up to the $1. 9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in March, 2021 without a single Republican vote. And then there was the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Plan, which a minority of Republicans voted for.

So this year the deficit is down about $1.4 trillion, to $1.375 trillion. Amazing! The $1.375 trillion is still 6.5% of GDP. Except for periods around recessions and World War II, that's the worst we've had in at least the last 100 years. Thank you Democrats for your wise stewardship of our economy in 2022!

Biden and a Democratic Congress have been providing tons of fiscal stimulus during the highest inflationary period in the last 40 years. How much sense does that make?

And you can't blame it on the Republican tax cuts. Federal revenues are running around 19.6% of GDP, which is close to the highest ever.

This $1. 4 trillion deficit reduction is almost as laughable as Biden taking credit for lower gasoline prices, when his administration's policies have if anything pushed gas prices up. With one exception. Running down our Strategic Petroleum Reserve helped. But at what cost to our energy security?

Let's say a pack of Repub lies and classic Repub horrific economic decisions and stewardship nails your feet to the floor, straps your hands behind your back, shoves a funnel down your gullet and force feeds you 100 pounds of crap.

Yeah, I appreciate any way Biden and the Dems were able to put a stop to that and pull 50 pounds of that Repub crap out of the system. Especially since there is no historic evidence that Repubs would not have increased it to 200 - 300 pounds of crap by now had Biden and his Dems not come to the American Rescue.

Thanks again Joe, Nancy, et al.

[Tiny 12]

And this is after the phony "deficit hawks" Repub Party Icon Donald J. Trump increased the deficit by Hundreds of Billions of Dollars every single year of his failed so-called presidency with virtually nothing to show for it.

That was every year even before his historically disastrous economic decisions going back to at least 2018 contributed more to producing Trump's Pandemic and all of its horrific death, economic, global supply-chain and inflation results than any other person on the Planet.

Budget deficit cut in half for biggest drop ever amid Covid spending declines

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/21/us-b...ndroidappshare

LOL. Don't you just love that typically pro Repub Mainstream Media final comment there?

How about "The deficit would not have been jacked up by Trillions in the first place had the Repub former guy not worked so hard and lied so much to make sure he produced Trump's Pandemic and all of its death and economic destruction" instead?

Just to be more accurate and less pro Repub during this election time, I mean.

Let's say you start eating like a pig and gain 100 pounds. Then you go on a diet and lose 50. Well then, by damn, you've lost 50 pounds! Even though you ended up 50 pounds heavier.

This is what Biden et al are bragging about. The deficit in fiscal 2021 according to your source was $2.776 trillion. That's 14% of GDP! Incredibly high considering the economy was on the mend from COVID. Why was it so high? Well, you can chalk a lot of it up to the $1. 9 trillion American Rescue Plan, passed in March, 2021 without a single Republican vote. And then there was the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Plan, which a minority of Republicans voted for.

So this year the deficit is down about $1.4 trillion, to $1.375 trillion. Amazing! The $1.375 trillion is still 6.5% of GDP. Except for periods around recessions and World War II, that's the worst we've had in at least the last 100 years. Thank you Democrats for your wise stewardship of our economy in 2022!

Biden and a Democratic Congress have been providing tons of fiscal stimulus during the highest inflationary period in the last 40 years. How much sense does that make?

And you can't blame it on the Republican tax cuts. Federal revenues are running around 19.6% of GDP, which is close to the highest ever.

This $1. 4 trillion deficit reduction is almost as laughable as Biden taking credit for lower gasoline prices, when his administration's policies have if anything pushed gas prices up. With one exception. Running down our Strategic Petroleum Reserve helped. But at what cost to our energy security?