The continuous republican attack on programs that help people

[b.c.]

Which of course makes a lot of SENSE because 1) why should people need HELP, and 2) why should government HELP them??

What was it Judge J used to say to down-and-out litigants in her t.v. courtroom (I'm guessing, before someone told her that maybe she shouldn't say that anymore)?

"Collect cans," or something to that effect?

So yeah... programs that help PEOPLE. Who needs 'em?

House Republicans appear ready to go for broke with Social Security, Medicare cuts

 

[HUNGHUGE11X7]

Which of course makes a lot of SENSE because 1) why should people need HELP, and 2) why should government HELP them??

What was it Judge J used to say to down-and-out litigants in her t.v. courtroom (I'm guessing, before someone told her that maybe she shouldn't say that anymore)?

"Collect cans," or something to that effect?

So yeah... programs that help PEOPLE. Who needs 'em?

House Republicans appear ready to go for broke with Social Security, Medicare cuts

SS/Medicare cuts do not stand a chance in the Senate and I think they may die in the HOR, but if they do not and they attempt to try and pass something, DEMS will see a historic victory in Midterms this yr & they know this,
This political theatre is mainly bluster to appease the asshole wealthy donors like the KOCH trash.
The thing I find most amusing about all this is the programs like the Corporate Welfare giveaway, masquerading as a TAX CUT are actually hurting the people that supported Donald Dunce the MOST, showing unequivocally that Republicans do NOT vote in the Best Interest of themselves. I have ZERO sympathy for them, for them I am HAPPY to bake a cake and inscribe Fuck Trump & his supporters upon it.


HH

 

[b.c.]

Well I think their vote is actually based upon certain "interests" that supercedes (alt. spelling) their other interests, of which I'll write of (elsewhere) at a later date.

But yes, I've been writing of mean spirited legislation, mostly on the part of Republicans for some time now... legislation that hurts people - including the people they CLAIM to represent, while mostly benefiting the wealthy.

Some here think that's because of some animus I hold toward Trump, the GOP, conservatives, or the right, when in reality it has LITTLE to do with right or left, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat and MUCH to do with what I perceive as simply "doing the right thing."

As such, I see the struggle now going on in this country and, in a broader sense, the world, as (to put it in its SIMPLEST terms) nothing less than the age old struggle of good vs. evil. Or to put it in broader terms, ideas based upon compassion, humanity, empathy, and inclusion as opposed to malevolent ideology and policy making based upon something FAR less nobler.

And while there are often grey areas in between absolute "right" or "wrong," MOST things, I think, tend to settle on either one side or the other.

 

[AdamHenry]

This. This right here is the number one reason why I shy away from that party. They call themselves Christians but go out of their way to fuck over people who are down on their luck, disabled, or can't fight back. There's a special place in hell for people like that.

 

[b.c.]

This. This right here is the number one reason why I shy away from that party. They call themselves Christians but go out of their way to fuck over people who are down on their luck, disabled, or can't fight back. There's a special place in hell for people like that.

Well I believe there is. Funny thing is, they, these so-called Christians, DON'T.

 

[wallyj84]

The way American conservatives attack social programs is very interesting. They are very focussed on abuse and personal responsibility to the point of being ridiculous.

I've heard it said that this is due to race and Whites in America's inherent disgust at their money going to help Blacks. I think there is some truth to this argument.

 

[b.c.]

The way American conservatives attack social programs is very interesting. They are very focussed on abuse and personal responsibility to the point of being ridiculous.

I've heard it said that this is due to race and Whites in America's inherent disgust at their money going to help Blacks. I think there is some truth to this argument.

Their focus is on social programs because that ideology, which is in part based upon hatred for and the demonizing of the beneficiaries of such programs, is a mentality that has been LONG cultivated via the propaganda and rhetoric of the architects of what conservative ideology has COME to be, the Kochs, the Mercers, Fox News, Roger Ailes, Joseph Coors, the Heritage Foundation and their subsidiaries, associates and spinoffs (in all, what I refer to as the REAL "deep state").

By getting their constituency to focus on the beneficiaries of social programs (who, incidentally AREN'T ALL or even mostly black) Republicans can continue to engage in policy making and obstructionism that HURT the average American, while benefiting the WEALTHY, and get away with doing so.

Republicans, during Obama's presidency blocked extended unemployment benefits for Americans out of work, blocked job and assistance initiatives for veterans, opposed increases to the minimum wage, undermined collective bargaining and worker's rights, opposed equal pay initiatives for women, and in Republican controlled states, obstructed the Medicaid expansion that prevented millions from getting affordable health care.

In the meantime, and SINCE they passed enormous tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. The corporate tax breaks were funneled back into corporate coiffures. And what MINIMAL savings consumer's MIGHT have had from the latest GOP tax scam has been more than nullified by increases in cost of living, cost of fuel, interest charges, and rising health care and insurance costs because Trump and Republicans are deliberately destabilizing the market.

None of which matters to their bamboozled constituency because they've been convinced that all of their woes are because of beneficiaries of social programs (which translates in their minds as: black people, immigrants, and other minorities).

 

[b.c.]

A perfect example of what I speak of (above) is what is happening in my state. Louisiana, a "red" state, was so financially FUCKED by Republican governor (and presidential hopeful) Bobby (fkng) Jindal, that voters replaced him with a DEMOCRAT as governor, John Bel Edwards.

Well, currently Louisiana has to have yet another special session because of the refusal of REPUBLICANS in the state legislature to pass a budget that doesn't result in drastic cuts to programs including funding for a higher education program (TOPS) that MANY middle to lower income families DEPEND on to offset the costs of college.

A good compromise budget was arrived at by the state's senate, and one supported by the governor, that didn't slash money from these worthwhile programs. Well guess what happened?

How the Louisiana Legislature failed to pass a budget | NOLA.com

"State Rep. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, decided against bringing up a version of the budget supported by the Senate and Gov. John Bel Edwards for a vote in the House.

... there was at least one indication that most of the House might have supported Edwards and the Senate's budget plan if they had been given a chance to vote on it. Had the House members done so, a special session probably would not have been necessary."


That's right. A Republican state representative from Metairie (David Duke's old stomping grounds) and his accomplices did exactly what the GOP did numerous times in U.S. Congress. They OBSTRUCTED government by refusing to even allow a fucking VOTE on the measure.

After which this a----wipe in Congress, Senator Kennedy, said this:

Sen. Kennedy call for resignation of Gov. Edwards amid state's fiscal problems - WAFB 9 News Baton Rouge

In other words, according to this b-----------, Gov. Edwards should resign because Kennedy's Republican cronies in the state legislature refused to allow a vote.

 

[deleted15807]

The way American conservatives attack social programs is very interesting. They are very focussed on abuse and personal responsibility to the point of being ridiculous.

I've heard it said that this is due to race and Whites in America's inherent disgust at their money going to help Blacks. I think there is some truth to this argument.

ya think??

We have been here before — a raging epidemic of addiction that destroys lives, families and communities.

Who was on the front line in the 1990s, when the drug was crack and the addicts were mostly black? Drug czar William Bennett. His weapon was prosecution and prison.

Today, when the drugs are opioids and the addicts are mostly white? U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a doctor, is out there, telling the country, “We need to see addiction as a chronic disease and not a moral failing.”​

We scorned addicts when they were black. It is different now that they are white.

“We need more jails, more prisons, more courts and more prosecutors,” President Bush declared in 1989, when thousands of Americans were dying from drug overdoses or in bloody turf wars.
​

​

 

[b.c.]

Farmers in the midwest fell all over themselves getting to the polls to vote for Trump in the general election. Only now they're beginning to come to the realization that MAYBE they backed the wrong horse.

Kansas farmers fear Trump-China trade battle | The Wichita Eagle

Farmers fear disaster in trade fight, Trump's Secretary of Ag: "They just don't understand Trump"

"A month ago, in a meeting in Manhattan, Kansas, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue had a message for concerned farmers: they just didn’t understand Trump’s plan."


Maybe they don't. Then again, maybe they should've read the FINE PRINT of the party they TURNED OUT for.

It's right there, in the conservative handbook authored by the directors/manipulators of Republican POLICY MAKING...The Heritage Foundation:

MANDATE for Leadership Series, part III "Blueprint for a New Administration - Priorities for the President," page 5 - Department of Agriculture, Priorities for the President:

Call on Congress to Eliminate Farm Subsidies.


... foolish b-------------ds.

 

[b.c.]

View from the Left: In raw struggle between good and evil, Republicans side with pure evil

"The Trump administration is presently recycling the same playbook it used to strip Dreamers of their deportation protections... using it to rip children away from their parents. Here's their game:

Trump and his officials unilaterally start executing a policy that creates a desperate dilemma,

then they claim that a GOP-led Congress—that has proven almost totally incompetent at passing anything—must fix it legislatively,

and then they make extreme demands about the ... fix, rendering it DOA...

Finally, the White House and GOP lawmakers... ultimately blame Democrats for failing to fix the problem they created and failed to fix, even though they're running the entire government.

In the inaugural run of this farcical process, Trump used it to victimize people who were brought to the U.S. as minors by their parents, many of whom have never known any other country as their home.

This time around, they have dropped all pretense of having even an ounce of sympathy for the plight of people brought here through no fault of their own and decided simply to target the children themselves, rather than waiting for them to reach adolescence or adulthood."

 

[TexanStar]

Farmers in the midwest fell all over themselves getting to the polls to vote for Trump in the general election. Only now they're beginning to come to the realization that MAYBE they backed the wrong horse.

Kansas farmers fear Trump-China trade battle | The Wichita Eagle

Farmers fear disaster in trade fight, Trump's Secretary of Ag: "They just don't understand Trump"

"A month ago, in a meeting in Manhattan, Kansas, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue had a message for concerned farmers: they just didn’t understand Trump’s plan."


Maybe they don't. Then again, maybe they should've read the FINE PRINT of the party they TURNED OUT for.

It's right there, in the conservative handbook authored by the directors/manipulators of Republican POLICY MAKING...The Heritage Foundation:

MANDATE for Leadership Series, part III "Blueprint for a New Administration - Priorities for the President," page 5 - Department of Agriculture, Priorities for the President:

Call on Congress to Eliminate Farm Subsidies.


... foolish b-------------ds.

@sargon20 @keenobserver

B.C. has me on ignore, but since you guys both "liked" his post, does either of you want to defend our current implementation of farm subsidies?

I don't mean the concept of farm subsidies, I mean the way we have farm subsidies implemented right now (which is a government handout of taxpayer money to the wealthiest of corporate farms and landlords). Are there reasons you think that what we are doing right now is in any way beneficial to taxpayers or farmers?

 

[TexanStar]

@sargon20 @keenobserver

B.C. has me on ignore, but since you guys both "liked" his post, does either of you want to defend our current implementation of farm subsidies?

I don't mean the concept of farm subsidies, I mean the way we have farm subsidies implemented right now (which is a government handout of taxpayer money to the wealthiest of corporate farms and landlords). Are there reasons you think that what we are doing right now is in any way beneficial to taxpayers or farmers?

And if your opposition is more to the trade wars and that's why you liked it that's fine. B.C.'s just the one bringing farm subsidies into it.

 

[deleted15807]

@sargon20 @keenobserver

B.C. has me on ignore, but since you guys both "liked" his post, does either of you want to defend our current implementation of farm subsidies?

I don't mean the concept of farm subsidies, I mean the way we have farm subsidies implemented right now (which is a government handout of taxpayer money to the wealthiest of corporate farms and landlords). Are there reasons you think that what we are doing right now is in any way beneficial to taxpayers or farmers?

Actually it wasn't so much the subsidies I was liking rather Trump's base getting hit with Trump's policies.

Kansas farmers fear Trump-China trade battle | The Wichita Eagle
Farmers fear disaster in trade fight, Trump's Secretary of Ag: "They just don't understand Trump"​

 

[phonehome]

I do remember the irony when the self proclaimed leader of the "TEA Party caucus", Michelle Bachman was found out to be getting 100's of thousands of dollars per year of "farm subsidies" and other "because she owned a farm" related payments from the Federal government.

 

[TexanStar]

Actually it wasn't so much the subsidies I was liking rather Trump's base getting hit with Trump's policies.

Kansas farmers fear Trump-China trade battle | The Wichita Eagle
Farmers fear disaster in trade fight, Trump's Secretary of Ag: "They just don't understand Trump"​

Yeah, I had to reply back to myself. I focused on that one point about subsidies but he had other content in his post as well.

 

[keenobserver]

@sargon20 @keenobserver

B.C. has me on ignore, but since you guys both "liked" his post, does either of you want to defend our current implementation of farm subsidies?

I don't mean the concept of farm subsidies, I mean the way we have farm subsidies implemented right now (which is a government handout of taxpayer money to the wealthiest of corporate farms and landlords). Are there reasons you think that what we are doing right now is in any way beneficial to taxpayers or farmers?

I'm not defending how farm subsidies are distributed. It is not beneficial to farmers and tax payers as is, but I understand the reason they came into existence and would like to see the system reformed - not eliminated. I would no more trust a GOP administration to be able to reform anything, let alone agriculture without finding another way to fuck the taxpayers and the farmers. Until Congress can find ways to honestly solve problems instead of settle scores and steal I don't see a solution around the corner.

 

[TexanStar]

I'm not defending how farm subsidies are distributed. It is not beneficial to farmers and tax payers as is, but I understand the reason they came into existence and would like to see the system reformed - not eliminated. I would no more trust a GOP administration to be able to reform anything, let alone agriculture without finding another way to fuck the taxpayers and the farmers. Until Congress can find ways to honestly solve problems instead of settle scores and steal I don't see a solution around the corner.

I would be happy to see them reformed as well, but if given a choice of letting them expire -vs- continuing in their current form I would choose to let them expire (and then bring them back properly when there's some agreement).

The current ones are taxpayer theft.

 

[MisterVIP]

This. This right here is the number one reason why I shy away from that party. They call themselves Christians but go out of their way to fuck over people who are down on their luck, disabled, or can't fight back. There's a special place in hell for people like that.

So you think "Thou shall not steal unless there is a majority vote in congress" is fair?

 

[b.c.]

Actually it wasn't so much the subsidies I was liking rather Trump's base getting hit with Trump's policies.

Kansas farmers fear Trump-China trade battle | The Wichita Eagle
Farmers fear disaster in trade fight, Trump's Secretary of Ag: "They just don't understand Trump"​

I'm not defending how farm subsidies are distributed. It is not beneficial to farmers and tax payers as is, but I understand the reason they came into existence and would like to see the system reformed - not eliminated. I would no more trust a GOP administration to be able to reform anything, let alone agriculture without finding another way to fuck the taxpayers and the farmers. Until Congress can find ways to honestly solve problems instead of settle scores and steal I don't see a solution around the corner.

Judging from your responses, someone whose posts I can't see apparently offered some commentary re. farm subsidies.

But yes, @sargon20 my point is that, like much of what the GOP had opposed and obstructed during Obama's presidency, the GOP gets support from voters who don't know (or don't WANT to know) what the GOP really STAND for.

As for the way the subsidies have been distributed, that whole thing has always been a kind of quid pro quo arrangement in which the Food Stamp program is tied to, so that the GOP give the wealthiest farmers their "cut" while ignoring some 60% of those who need it most, and in turn Democrats get the funding for the Food Stamp program.

So certainly the method of distribution is in need of reform, but the language of the Heritage Foundation's document didn't read "Call on Congress to Reform the Distribution of Farm Subsidies." It read ELIMINATE.

They also would like to separate legislation for farm subsidies from the Food Stamp program altogether (currently called SNAP), the better to gut the latter, no doubt.

But hey, there's a LOT of things the manipulators at the Heritage Foundation would have eliminated, changed, revoked, etc. etc. source:

• Call on Congress to Eliminate Farm Subsidies.
• Call for Food Stamps and Agricultural Programs to Be Considered in Separate Legislation.
• Oppose Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food.
• Reduce Federal Role in School Meal Programs.
• Reform U.S. Antidumping Law [see? they can actually USE the word "reform"... though in THEIR case it means weakening it to the point that it isn't WORTH a damn]
• Measure Poverty More Accurately. The Secretary should instruct the Census Bureau to include the value of government benefits as income when measuring poverty. ['cause those poor folk ain't as poor as we think]
• Make Armed Forces Personnel Policy on the Basis of Military Readiness, Not a Social Agenda [riiiiiiiiiiiight.]
• Rescind Guidance Redefining Sex to Mean Gender Identity for Purposes of Title IX Compliance. As part of a government-wide clarification, the President should affirm that, for the purposes of federal law, “sex” refers to biological sex.
• End Funding for Common Core.
• Allow States to Make Title I Funding for Disadvantaged Students Portable. This would simplify the program’s current, needlessly complex formula, and, if a state chooses, would allow its $15 billion in funding to follow children to the schools or education options of their parents’ choice. [i.e. taxpayer dollars to support private schools]
• Eliminate Spending for Research, Development, and Commercialization in the Energy Sector.
• Phase Out Unnecessary Offices... eliminating spending on technological development in the energy sector... phasing out the offices of Fossil Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Electricity Deliverability and Reliable Energy, and Nuclear Energy.
• Develop a Plan to Empower Nuclear Waste Producers to Manage Their Own Nuclear Waste... transfer responsibility for nuclear waste management away from the federal government and to the private sector. ["Honey, what's that strange glow coming from the sewer?"]
• Revoke the Executive Order on Global Warming and Green Energy Mandates.
• Revoke the Executive Order on Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency.
• Completely Draw Down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
• Refrain from Developing New Energy Efficiency Standards for Appliances.
• Repeal Energy Conservation Standards.
• Repeal Obamacare.
• Removing regulatory and policy obstacles... in health insurance and care delivery. [Y'know, "obstacles" like that whole pre-existing condition thingy, minimum coverage standards, and that no ceiling stuff.]
• Lead the Way to Welfare Reform Across Means-Tested Programs. Requiring work for able-bodied adults, Improving the way poverty is measured [they mention it again, just in case you missed it the first time. See: ]

Open thread for night owls: Food stamp work requirement is GOP scheme to punish hungry Americans