Today Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) proposed giving at least $3000 annually per child to American families. This suggestion is coming from a man who, when he ran as the Republican candidate for president in 2012, famously echoed what was then Republican orthodoxy. He was caught on tape saying that “there are 47 percent of the people who… are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.”
The DoJ is already "swinging the hammer." The Seditionists are being it hit with multiple serious (20-year sentence) felonies, the Proud Boys and Three Percenters are getting conspiracy charges and may get "terrorist enhancements" in their charges. And a conspiracy to commit sedition case is being built that could go big enough to net the Big Kahuna himself.
Yes, we can hope that Mitt Romney has found his courage... and Ben Sasse has found his dictionary... but neither has demonstrated the fire in the belly needed at the GOP... and neither has mentioned JOE KNOWS US, and the Black women that have saved this nation from four more years of Trump Hell.
Sadly, the glorious brave party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party that makes us think of George Wallace, Mussolini, Hitler, Jim Crow, Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, lynching, KKK, Orval Faubus, Talmadge, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Bill Barr and Donald Barr, Ruby Ridge, Waco, McVeigh, the Civil War, 1964, 1898, 1918, failure of Reconstruction, George Floyd and hundreds more... and, yes, thank God: Joe Knows Us, and Majority Whip James Clyburn... and the Black women that came from the kitchens of South Carolina and delivered us from four more years of hell.... but we have not hit bottom, not yet. The worst is yet to come... and this has me worried. COVID-19 is ravaging the world, mutations are challenging remedy, and the GOP is stalling as Rome burns.
This is not about monetization, not yet, but that will come... as the long end of the bond market finally and inevitably responds to the destruction of the FED and its growing portfolio of debt instruments of every type. Our nation is in deep trouble... the racial has not healed from the Civil War, and do not let anyone say otherwise... we have merely papered intolerance over... we have the destruction of the smallest living things, courtesy farmers and pharmaceuticals, plastics, and greed... we have the threat of nuclear war... we have kleptocracy growing from Moscow to Manila, Brasilia to Venezuela, China to Moscow, Hungary, Poland and Turkey, where the trouble in Istanbul is just now heating up... as MBS and his buddies are negotiating their way from a law suit that will honor the man they killed in Istanbul, and another suit follows.. that will have us all forgetting the first... in all this, Biden turned 78, and he found a sun lamp... and Trump is said to be quivering and increasingly white, as his distance from the barber at 1600 becomes more of an issue... and his fear of what Albany will bring increases... with a Black lady there warming up. I cannot wait.
It appears we Democrats voted for the right person at the right time to be POTUS. President Biden is not wasting time shooting his mouth off about the "other side" as Trump endlessly would do. But, doing the "work of the people". In time even everyday Republicans will benefit from his focus and energy as well as Democrats. In other words all Americans. Good for Joe!
Thank you Heather. I appreciate your unbiased unraveling of yesterday's news.
Ironically I was discussing the Romney quote you cited just the other day with a friend. My opinion of Romney has been to never trust him as he is a selective self preservationist.
I have a new founded "likeness " for Senator Ben Sasse. It is refreshing to see that doing the right thing isn't a buried trait. John Katko is a local for me and he was one the Republicans voting against Marjorie Taylor Greene. He was also one of the Republicans that voted for the 2nd Impeachment of Trump. He may be growing a conscious. We'll see.
As I watch President Biden push ahead, I seem to be getting the same response from my Republican friends. Too many EO's, baseless claims or grasping at straws as I like to call it and their distain for the Economic package that, come hell or high water will pass. For the latter, I ask them who will they be donating their $1,400.00 to? I suggest that their local Food Bank would appreciate that money or most any non profit that can't have fundraising events do to the pandemic. For some reason, they all become silent at my suggestions. 🤔
How did we get here? An echo of Heather’s discussions of Lincoln and Reconstruction was outlined tonight.
Matthew Dowd, on MSNBC, made the connection between the failure of Reconstruction after the Civil War, through all of the horrors and violence in the United States. His theory, since we never directly dealt with this issue after the Civil War, there are too many people in our Country who do not believe that all men and women are created equal.
A couple of things: 1) If the future of the Republican Party is people like Ben Sasse, then the two-party system does have a future. I don't agree with him on much, but he gets major points from me in his willingness to stand up against the Trumplicans (though THAT said, where was he for most of the past four years?). 2) I am genuinely torn about the vote to remove the despicable Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignment. One one hand, she clearly belongs on NO committees, especially one dealing with education! On the other, the precedent set by this vote is not a good one, and if/when the Republicans retake the House, they will certainly respond "in kind". I almost think that it might have been better for the Democrats to leave her on the committee. That way, she can't cry about being a martyr, and they could run against the Republicans (and her insane comments/views) in 2022 by saying "Hey, look, this is who THEY put on a committee! Do you REALLY want her in charge of anything?" I'm probably in the minority in this, but it is something that has been running through my mind..........
Romney’s support for $ for children sounds like social engineering to encourage conforming to conservative (and possibly Morman) values. Have kids, get money. My guess would be the more Republicans get their hooks into this one, the more it morphs into - get more money (or tax breaks) for being married (oh, wait, we already have this!) ...then, eventually... can only get the money if in a marriage between one man and one woman. Maybe I’m just being cynical and paranoid this morning ...I’m torn between thinking Romney is a good guy and thinking he is lulling us into thinking he is a good guy so he can put super conservative ideas in place. I totally support the idea of govt support for children myself - but hope it doesn’t come with social engineering strings attached.
McCarthy is the poster-boy for an ignorant, opportunistic, power-hungry politician. The man is really dumb as a box of hair and seems to regularly suffer from quite remarkable attacks of convenient amnesia. Case in point, what this AP article (linked below) notes about his sudden lapse of memory a couple of days ago when speaking about QAnon. First he mangled the name—most likely intentionally—and said he wasn’t sure if he was saying it right, and then in the next sentence said “I don’t even know what it is.” Uh-huh…well, then AP reminds us what he said right after the DNC in August:
“McCarthy knew enough about QAnon to denounce it in a politically expedient moment after the Democratic National Convention in August.
“In a Fox News interview then, McCarthy was asked if he was worried about candidates with fringe or racist views who, like Greene, had won Republican primaries. He held up the Republican Party as the model for how to deal with such outliers.
“’Let me be very clear,’ he said. ‘There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party. I do not support it.’ [Isn’t it funny how he pronounced it right THEN?]
“McCarthy accused Democrats of indulging members who are anti-Semitic and said: ‘I think the Democrats should take a lesson from the Republicans and stand up to those things that are un-American and are wrong.’ [Their perennial argument…”BUT WHAT ABOUT…??”]
“Moreover, he said, ‘When a member of the Republican Party says something that we believe is not about the party of Lincoln, we remove them from committee.’”
Isn’t THAT rich??? He needs to be reminded, for starters, that at no time has any Democrat EVER openly threatened violence upon another sitting member of Congress.
Then I ran across an excellent comment from a Mr. Brokaw in yesterday’s NYT that I wanted to quote because it is so excellent. It is on the moniker the Republican party gave itself as being the party of “personal responsibility”. Well, consider:
“See, ‘personal responsibility’ is only applied to poor people, when Republicans want to justify not doing anything to help them.
“‘Personal responsibility’ is only applied to minorities when Republicans want to justify different prison sentences and criminal charging actions.
"’Personal responsibility’ only to indebted students, when Republicans want to prevent them from discharging crippling debts with bankruptcy, not to businesses like the NRA trying to dodge legal penalties and lawsuits.
"’Personal responsibility’ only applies to individuals, the less wealthy the more personally responsible... and not to corporations, no matter how much claim is made otherwise that ‘corporations are people too’.
“And, of course, ‘personal responsibility’ doesn't apply at all to Republican politicians, who are never responsible for -anything- they say, no matter how crazy, unfounded, or outright false. It's important to understand just exactly what ‘personal responsibility’ means to Republican politicians... because it sure doesn't mean what the rest of the world thinks it should.”
While Romney might seem like a reasonable voice for the Republican Party, in reality he's a Republican wolf in sheep's clothing.
Romney is made from the same cloth as trump. The difference - Romney is well educated, has some scruples (when needed) and he surrounds himself with really smart people to carry out his plans in stealth mode. It was always stealth mode, so no one would know "who did it".
Romney made his money - a lot of money, as a vulture capitalist with a dirty trick.
Romney - Bain business plan was do a hostel take over of a healthy company with borrowed money. Then take out huge bank loans that they used to pay themselves (Romney - Bain) hundreds of million of dollars in bonuses / dividends. Then they walked away, leaving the once healthy company they took over, in dire straits and on the hook to repay that huge bank loan.
Romney - Bain did these hostel take overs at Toys R Us, KB Toys, Culligan, Del Monte, Hertz, Dollar General, the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, Ampad, department-store chains Bealls Brothers and Palais Royal and more, at the expense of thousands of jobs. They pocketed more than a half billion dollars, that was claimed as capital gains, paying just 15% in federal income tax.
I'm very familiar with the take over of Culligan - I worked at Culligan for 20 years, it was a healthy company, the employees were well taken care of with benefits, pay, outings and more. Then, suddenly and sadly I watched it all disappear, as Romney-Bain shipped the manufacturing jobs to China. Romney-Bain walked away with over $800M in cash. They even tried to cheat the employees out of their severance pay!! I was let go the Monday after Thanksgiving. I enjoyed the holidays, and then hit the ground running in January. By the first week of February, I went on four interviews and received two offers at 40% increase in pay.
Romney might seem like a good guy, but beware; he's a Republican in sheep's clothing.
This Rollingstone article is a fantastic overview on Romney and his business dealings and well worth the read. It makes trumps operation look like a five and dime store run by a bunch of clowns (which they are.)
"...Republican leadership purged from the party any lawmakers who embraced traditional Republicanism, demanding absolutely loyalty to the idea of cutting taxes and government to free up individual enterprise."
Sure, it sounds good. Who doesn't want lower taxes? Who doesn't want unnecessary constraints on growing you business? Problem is, it's short sighted, and it is most appealing to those with their future ahead or those who already got theirs. Furthermore, I don't think most people go about their day thinking the government's got me by the collar and won't let go.
Who fights the wars? Who helps rebuild after natural disasters? Who builds and maintains the roads and airports that allow us to be a mobile society? The pursuit of profit has no conscience. Totally unfettered free markets will follow the money. Government may also not have a conscience, but it has an obligation to offer and deliver certain services to everyone (in theory). Find someone with a problem, and they usually have expectations that "government" can help in some way.
Paul Ryan's father died and the family received government assistance. What made him want to destroy the social safety net? "Everyone will benefit" from Trump's tax cuts, but how many know that the tax rate for all but the wealthiest starts going up in 2021 for the next 5-7 years? Take away social security from a red state worker. Deny medical benefits to a middle class retiree. Think they'll applaud you? It's all focused on the assumption that only one's money earning years count and even then it's geared to those at the top of the pyramid
I'm more troubled about the fact that a political party seizes on a notion and pushes that without consideration of what constituents want or need.
We must also recall comments made by Mitt Romney about Trump during the primary in 2016. He called him a fake and a con man and someone who would bring the country to its knees.
What truly brings that speech in historical context is when Romney quoted John Adams: “Remember, democracy never lasts long; it soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Biden has thus far acted on this real possibility by bringing the country back in line with the world. We can only pray that there will be follow through.
Romney, a true big picture thinker, understands the perils, both economic and political, which face our country today. As opposed to Trump's declarations that "everything will disappear, like a miracle," Romney gets that we're in the midst of a major triage event and that it's far from being over. One in seven American families lack the food to feed their families. And Republicans, who ballooned the deficit by 50% during the Trump administration, still want to hold back the purse strings. It's despicable.
It is a testament to Romney's evolution that he is offering true assistance, both to families and the economy to see us through this dark period. And one suspects that he, being a major player in the halls of power, grasps how bad things really are and how horrific they could become.
Did I read correctly that original Conservativism actually preferred a more FDR-like method of taking care of citizens? If so, I assume racism and sexism were behind the shift towards a “starvation” government to make sure Black & POC citizens didn’t rise up from White money and women didn’t become too independent of men.
Thank you Heather. Today’s letter was such a breath of fresh air. It is beginning to feel possible to trust once more in our country and democracy. Under the chaos of the past 4 years I was certain we were losing our Democracy for fascism. Mitt Romney speaking out is significant as is Ben Sasse. It is important to recognize this because without Republicans breaking from the hold of Trump it would be much more difficult to move towards Democracy and sanity. Look what Liz Cheney went through for her vote. She is brave. We saw what happened when people spoke out during Trump’s presidency. It is too bad the House Republicans were unable to remove Greene from her leadership roles. Hopefully as leaders of our country they will realize their words matter and have impact on the country and our institutions. We just bore witness to what the President’s words on January 6 th reaped.
Note that this part of the U.S. Code explicitly includes using the Presidential seal on "stationery"(per your question about Trump's letter to the Screen Actors Guild.)
U.S. Code Title 18 PART I CHAPTER 33 § 713
"(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both."
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Hear that? It's the Moral Universe's long Arc bending ever closer toward Justice.
The DoJ is already "swinging the hammer." The Seditionists are being it hit with multiple serious (20-year sentence) felonies, the Proud Boys and Three Percenters are getting conspiracy charges and may get "terrorist enhancements" in their charges. And a conspiracy to commit sedition case is being built that could go big enough to net the Big Kahuna himself.
https://www.rawstory.com/texas-capitol-insurrection/?utm_source=push_notifications
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/grand-jury-indictments-capitol-insurrectionists_n_6019b743c5b668b8db3c8499
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/02/04/doj-moves-towards-parallel-conspiracy-threads-on-the-oath-keepers-and-proud-boys/
Yes, we can hope that Mitt Romney has found his courage... and Ben Sasse has found his dictionary... but neither has demonstrated the fire in the belly needed at the GOP... and neither has mentioned JOE KNOWS US, and the Black women that have saved this nation from four more years of Trump Hell.
Sadly, the glorious brave party of Abraham Lincoln has become the party that makes us think of George Wallace, Mussolini, Hitler, Jim Crow, Rudy Giuliani, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, lynching, KKK, Orval Faubus, Talmadge, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Bill Barr and Donald Barr, Ruby Ridge, Waco, McVeigh, the Civil War, 1964, 1898, 1918, failure of Reconstruction, George Floyd and hundreds more... and, yes, thank God: Joe Knows Us, and Majority Whip James Clyburn... and the Black women that came from the kitchens of South Carolina and delivered us from four more years of hell.... but we have not hit bottom, not yet. The worst is yet to come... and this has me worried. COVID-19 is ravaging the world, mutations are challenging remedy, and the GOP is stalling as Rome burns.
This is not about monetization, not yet, but that will come... as the long end of the bond market finally and inevitably responds to the destruction of the FED and its growing portfolio of debt instruments of every type. Our nation is in deep trouble... the racial has not healed from the Civil War, and do not let anyone say otherwise... we have merely papered intolerance over... we have the destruction of the smallest living things, courtesy farmers and pharmaceuticals, plastics, and greed... we have the threat of nuclear war... we have kleptocracy growing from Moscow to Manila, Brasilia to Venezuela, China to Moscow, Hungary, Poland and Turkey, where the trouble in Istanbul is just now heating up... as MBS and his buddies are negotiating their way from a law suit that will honor the man they killed in Istanbul, and another suit follows.. that will have us all forgetting the first... in all this, Biden turned 78, and he found a sun lamp... and Trump is said to be quivering and increasingly white, as his distance from the barber at 1600 becomes more of an issue... and his fear of what Albany will bring increases... with a Black lady there warming up. I cannot wait.
It appears we Democrats voted for the right person at the right time to be POTUS. President Biden is not wasting time shooting his mouth off about the "other side" as Trump endlessly would do. But, doing the "work of the people". In time even everyday Republicans will benefit from his focus and energy as well as Democrats. In other words all Americans. Good for Joe!
Thank you Heather. I appreciate your unbiased unraveling of yesterday's news.
Ironically I was discussing the Romney quote you cited just the other day with a friend. My opinion of Romney has been to never trust him as he is a selective self preservationist.
I have a new founded "likeness " for Senator Ben Sasse. It is refreshing to see that doing the right thing isn't a buried trait. John Katko is a local for me and he was one the Republicans voting against Marjorie Taylor Greene. He was also one of the Republicans that voted for the 2nd Impeachment of Trump. He may be growing a conscious. We'll see.
As I watch President Biden push ahead, I seem to be getting the same response from my Republican friends. Too many EO's, baseless claims or grasping at straws as I like to call it and their distain for the Economic package that, come hell or high water will pass. For the latter, I ask them who will they be donating their $1,400.00 to? I suggest that their local Food Bank would appreciate that money or most any non profit that can't have fundraising events do to the pandemic. For some reason, they all become silent at my suggestions. 🤔
Be safe, be well.
How did we get here? An echo of Heather’s discussions of Lincoln and Reconstruction was outlined tonight.
Matthew Dowd, on MSNBC, made the connection between the failure of Reconstruction after the Civil War, through all of the horrors and violence in the United States. His theory, since we never directly dealt with this issue after the Civil War, there are too many people in our Country who do not believe that all men and women are created equal.
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/matthew-dowd-holding-rep-greene-accountable-should-be-a-layup-100484677896
A couple of things: 1) If the future of the Republican Party is people like Ben Sasse, then the two-party system does have a future. I don't agree with him on much, but he gets major points from me in his willingness to stand up against the Trumplicans (though THAT said, where was he for most of the past four years?). 2) I am genuinely torn about the vote to remove the despicable Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignment. One one hand, she clearly belongs on NO committees, especially one dealing with education! On the other, the precedent set by this vote is not a good one, and if/when the Republicans retake the House, they will certainly respond "in kind". I almost think that it might have been better for the Democrats to leave her on the committee. That way, she can't cry about being a martyr, and they could run against the Republicans (and her insane comments/views) in 2022 by saying "Hey, look, this is who THEY put on a committee! Do you REALLY want her in charge of anything?" I'm probably in the minority in this, but it is something that has been running through my mind..........
Romney’s support for $ for children sounds like social engineering to encourage conforming to conservative (and possibly Morman) values. Have kids, get money. My guess would be the more Republicans get their hooks into this one, the more it morphs into - get more money (or tax breaks) for being married (oh, wait, we already have this!) ...then, eventually... can only get the money if in a marriage between one man and one woman. Maybe I’m just being cynical and paranoid this morning ...I’m torn between thinking Romney is a good guy and thinking he is lulling us into thinking he is a good guy so he can put super conservative ideas in place. I totally support the idea of govt support for children myself - but hope it doesn’t come with social engineering strings attached.
McCarthy is the poster-boy for an ignorant, opportunistic, power-hungry politician. The man is really dumb as a box of hair and seems to regularly suffer from quite remarkable attacks of convenient amnesia. Case in point, what this AP article (linked below) notes about his sudden lapse of memory a couple of days ago when speaking about QAnon. First he mangled the name—most likely intentionally—and said he wasn’t sure if he was saying it right, and then in the next sentence said “I don’t even know what it is.” Uh-huh…well, then AP reminds us what he said right after the DNC in August:
“McCarthy knew enough about QAnon to denounce it in a politically expedient moment after the Democratic National Convention in August.
“In a Fox News interview then, McCarthy was asked if he was worried about candidates with fringe or racist views who, like Greene, had won Republican primaries. He held up the Republican Party as the model for how to deal with such outliers.
“’Let me be very clear,’ he said. ‘There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party. I do not support it.’ [Isn’t it funny how he pronounced it right THEN?]
“McCarthy accused Democrats of indulging members who are anti-Semitic and said: ‘I think the Democrats should take a lesson from the Republicans and stand up to those things that are un-American and are wrong.’ [Their perennial argument…”BUT WHAT ABOUT…??”]
“Moreover, he said, ‘When a member of the Republican Party says something that we believe is not about the party of Lincoln, we remove them from committee.’”
Isn’t THAT rich??? He needs to be reminded, for starters, that at no time has any Democrat EVER openly threatened violence upon another sitting member of Congress.
https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-las-vegas-mass-shooting-817d5bd7ce01a92408082cdba1ce5881?fbclid=IwAR0BCVKyxDYPWInyrZxJtEZktE_fsp-LHdDHDVXbVH0-Wvws23AvGTryauQ
Then I ran across an excellent comment from a Mr. Brokaw in yesterday’s NYT that I wanted to quote because it is so excellent. It is on the moniker the Republican party gave itself as being the party of “personal responsibility”. Well, consider:
“See, ‘personal responsibility’ is only applied to poor people, when Republicans want to justify not doing anything to help them.
“‘Personal responsibility’ is only applied to minorities when Republicans want to justify different prison sentences and criminal charging actions.
"’Personal responsibility’ only to indebted students, when Republicans want to prevent them from discharging crippling debts with bankruptcy, not to businesses like the NRA trying to dodge legal penalties and lawsuits.
"’Personal responsibility’ only applies to individuals, the less wealthy the more personally responsible... and not to corporations, no matter how much claim is made otherwise that ‘corporations are people too’.
“And, of course, ‘personal responsibility’ doesn't apply at all to Republican politicians, who are never responsible for -anything- they say, no matter how crazy, unfounded, or outright false. It's important to understand just exactly what ‘personal responsibility’ means to Republican politicians... because it sure doesn't mean what the rest of the world thinks it should.”
Romney looking good on the left wing of his party. At least one GOP senator will vote to convict, Again.
He is not the third senator from Massachusetts, but sometimes he plays one on TV.
While Romney might seem like a reasonable voice for the Republican Party, in reality he's a Republican wolf in sheep's clothing.
Romney is made from the same cloth as trump. The difference - Romney is well educated, has some scruples (when needed) and he surrounds himself with really smart people to carry out his plans in stealth mode. It was always stealth mode, so no one would know "who did it".
Romney made his money - a lot of money, as a vulture capitalist with a dirty trick.
Romney - Bain business plan was do a hostel take over of a healthy company with borrowed money. Then take out huge bank loans that they used to pay themselves (Romney - Bain) hundreds of million of dollars in bonuses / dividends. Then they walked away, leaving the once healthy company they took over, in dire straits and on the hook to repay that huge bank loan.
Romney - Bain did these hostel take overs at Toys R Us, KB Toys, Culligan, Del Monte, Hertz, Dollar General, the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, Ampad, department-store chains Bealls Brothers and Palais Royal and more, at the expense of thousands of jobs. They pocketed more than a half billion dollars, that was claimed as capital gains, paying just 15% in federal income tax.
I'm very familiar with the take over of Culligan - I worked at Culligan for 20 years, it was a healthy company, the employees were well taken care of with benefits, pay, outings and more. Then, suddenly and sadly I watched it all disappear, as Romney-Bain shipped the manufacturing jobs to China. Romney-Bain walked away with over $800M in cash. They even tried to cheat the employees out of their severance pay!! I was let go the Monday after Thanksgiving. I enjoyed the holidays, and then hit the ground running in January. By the first week of February, I went on four interviews and received two offers at 40% increase in pay.
Romney might seem like a good guy, but beware; he's a Republican in sheep's clothing.
This Rollingstone article is a fantastic overview on Romney and his business dealings and well worth the read. It makes trumps operation look like a five and dime store run by a bunch of clowns (which they are.)
.
https://www.rollingstone.com/.../greed-and-debt-the-true.../
.
These articles look at some of the specific hostile take overs...
https://www.forbes.com/.../did-vampire-capitalists.../...
https://www.newyorker.com/.../the-real-scandal-of-romney...
https://www.theatlantic.com/.../toys-r-us.../561758/
https://nypost.com/.../bain-capital-has-now-plunged-two.../
"...Republican leadership purged from the party any lawmakers who embraced traditional Republicanism, demanding absolutely loyalty to the idea of cutting taxes and government to free up individual enterprise."
Sure, it sounds good. Who doesn't want lower taxes? Who doesn't want unnecessary constraints on growing you business? Problem is, it's short sighted, and it is most appealing to those with their future ahead or those who already got theirs. Furthermore, I don't think most people go about their day thinking the government's got me by the collar and won't let go.
Who fights the wars? Who helps rebuild after natural disasters? Who builds and maintains the roads and airports that allow us to be a mobile society? The pursuit of profit has no conscience. Totally unfettered free markets will follow the money. Government may also not have a conscience, but it has an obligation to offer and deliver certain services to everyone (in theory). Find someone with a problem, and they usually have expectations that "government" can help in some way.
Paul Ryan's father died and the family received government assistance. What made him want to destroy the social safety net? "Everyone will benefit" from Trump's tax cuts, but how many know that the tax rate for all but the wealthiest starts going up in 2021 for the next 5-7 years? Take away social security from a red state worker. Deny medical benefits to a middle class retiree. Think they'll applaud you? It's all focused on the assumption that only one's money earning years count and even then it's geared to those at the top of the pyramid
I'm more troubled about the fact that a political party seizes on a notion and pushes that without consideration of what constituents want or need.
We must also recall comments made by Mitt Romney about Trump during the primary in 2016. He called him a fake and a con man and someone who would bring the country to its knees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/us/politics/mitt-romney-speech.html
What truly brings that speech in historical context is when Romney quoted John Adams: “Remember, democracy never lasts long; it soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Biden has thus far acted on this real possibility by bringing the country back in line with the world. We can only pray that there will be follow through.
Romney, a true big picture thinker, understands the perils, both economic and political, which face our country today. As opposed to Trump's declarations that "everything will disappear, like a miracle," Romney gets that we're in the midst of a major triage event and that it's far from being over. One in seven American families lack the food to feed their families. And Republicans, who ballooned the deficit by 50% during the Trump administration, still want to hold back the purse strings. It's despicable.
It is a testament to Romney's evolution that he is offering true assistance, both to families and the economy to see us through this dark period. And one suspects that he, being a major player in the halls of power, grasps how bad things really are and how horrific they could become.
Did I read correctly that original Conservativism actually preferred a more FDR-like method of taking care of citizens? If so, I assume racism and sexism were behind the shift towards a “starvation” government to make sure Black & POC citizens didn’t rise up from White money and women didn’t become too independent of men.
Thank you Heather. Today’s letter was such a breath of fresh air. It is beginning to feel possible to trust once more in our country and democracy. Under the chaos of the past 4 years I was certain we were losing our Democracy for fascism. Mitt Romney speaking out is significant as is Ben Sasse. It is important to recognize this because without Republicans breaking from the hold of Trump it would be much more difficult to move towards Democracy and sanity. Look what Liz Cheney went through for her vote. She is brave. We saw what happened when people spoke out during Trump’s presidency. It is too bad the House Republicans were unable to remove Greene from her leadership roles. Hopefully as leaders of our country they will realize their words matter and have impact on the country and our institutions. We just bore witness to what the President’s words on January 6 th reaped.
Note that this part of the U.S. Code explicitly includes using the Presidential seal on "stationery"(per your question about Trump's letter to the Screen Actors Guild.)
U.S. Code Title 18 PART I CHAPTER 33 § 713
"(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both."
Source:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/713