Continuing GOP Fuckery

They never let up.

"Conservatives" have been gunning for Social Security for close to 90 years now. And it's the classic ploy - they refuse to do anything that might fix it, and in fact do things like drive up the debt and deficit so they can use "fiscal responsibility" as an excuse to kill off anything the government's involved with that doesn't put money in their pockets.

They won't say it, but we're right back to where they want to turn trillions of our retirement dollars over to their buddies on Wall Street so they can take some nice fat commission checks to the bank, and issue "Medicare vouchers" in order to make their other buddies in the Healthcare Insurance business wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus.

Remember, Republicans want the government limited to just 3 basic tasks:

1. Defend business interests overseas
2. Keep the rabble in line here in USAmerica Inc
3. Settle contract disputes

Everything else is to be "privatized". (ie: converted to a coin-operated system)

Senate Finance chief rips GOP's 'backroom scheme' to cut Social Security

The chair of the Senate Finance Committee said legislation advanced Thursday by the GOP-controlled House Budget Committee is a "backroom scheme" to cut Social Security and Medicare outside of the regular political process, a warning that came as Republicans signaled their intention to attach the bill to a must-pass government funding measure.

"Republicans in Congress know their plans to gut Americans' Social Security and Medicare benefits are deeply unpopular, so they are resorting to schemes that short-circuit the legislative process, rushing through cuts to Americans' earned benefits," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said of the Fiscal Commission Act, which passed out of the House Budget Committee in a largely party-line vote.

Wyden argued Thursday that "the term fiscal commission' is the ultimate Washington buzzword, and it translates to trading away Americans' earned benefits in a secretive, closed-door process."

"Instead of trying to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid," Wyden added, "Republicans should work with Democrats to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share, which would go a long way towards securing Social Security and Medicare long into the future."

If passed, the Fiscal Commission Act would establish a bipartisan, bicameral, 16-member panel consisting of both lawmakers and individuals from the private sector, all chosen by congressional leaders.

The commission would be tasked with crafting and voting on policy recommendations for Social Security, Medicare, and other trust fund programs. If approved by the commission, the recommendations would receive expedited consideration in both the House and Senate, with no amendments to the final document allowed.

Social Security defenders have long warned that the GOP-led push for a fiscal commission is a ploy to slash the New Deal program, which helps keep tens of millions of seniors and children above the poverty line every year.

During Thursday's budget committee hearing, Republican members did nothing to assuage concerns about their intentions, voting down a proposed amendment from Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) that said the fiscal commission "shall propose recommendations to strengthen and secure Social Security" by "protecting Social Security benefits" and requiring the wealthy to contribute more to the program.

Republican committee members also rejected Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's (D-Texas) amendment stating that the fiscal commission "shall propose recommendations to strengthen and secure Medicare" by "protecting the traditional Medicare program" and extending its solvency by "requiring taxpayers with incomes above $400,000 to contribute more" and closing a loophole that allows rich business owners to avoid Medicare taxes.

"This bill should be opposed by any member of Congress who cares about Social Security, Medicare, and their constituents who depend on them."

At a press conference following Thursday's hearing, House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — a longtime supporter of deep Social Security and Medicare cuts — is "100% committed to this commission" and hopes to tie it to government funding legislation.

"Probably that's its best chance of success, but I also think it's most germane to attach it to our final funding bill."

The Fiscal Commission Act has some support in the Senate. In a joint statement on Thursday, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) — both of whom declined to run for reelection this year — applauded the budget committee for "advancing this commonsense legislation."

"We also appreciate Speaker Johnson's continued support for this effort," added the senators, who are leading a companion bill in the upper chamber. "Taking immediate, corrective action to reverse this catastrophic financial demise of our own making will help ensure that our children and grandchildren are not burdened by our poor fiscal choices."

But the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) stressed Thursday that "Social Security and Medicare Part A are fully self-funded and do not contribute to the debt."

"The biggest drivers of the debt are 'tax expenditures' — giveaways to the wealthy and large corporations like the Trump/GOP tax cuts of 2017 that Republicans insist be extended," the group noted. According to a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress, debt as a percentage of the U.S. economy would be on the decline if the Bush and Trump tax cuts were never passed.

Max Richtman, NCPSSM's president and CEO, said in a statement that the fiscal commission push is "designed to give individual members of Congress political cover for cutting Americans' earned benefits."

"Any changes to Social Security and Medicare should go through regular order and not be relegated to a commission unaccountable to the public and rushed through the Congress," he added. "This bill should be opposed by any member of Congress who cares about Social Security, Medicare, and their constituents who depend on them."

I Been Tellin' Ya, Dammit

This - like most other "conservative" projects - is all about privatization. 

• Fund the campaigns for wingnut school board candidates
• Cut School budgets
• Complain about "underperforming schools"
• Make sure you use negative terms like "government schools" and name your efforts to kill public schools things like "Kids First" or "Parents Matter" or something that sounds right, but is actually a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing kinda shit 
• In the meantime, steal wages and push down on the benefits so regular people have less opportunity - and far fewer resources available - to fight for their interests

REVEALED: Confidential documents describe secret effort to elect lawmakers for school privatization

Confidential documents reveal that a group of school privatization groups actually work together to use their resources to try to buy seats in the Tennessee legislature.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Confidential documents reveal that a group of school privatization groups, each claiming to be separate entities with separate agendas, actually work together to try to buy seats in the Tennessee legislature for candidates who are willing to vote against traditional public schools.

The documents, leaked to NewsChannel 5 Investigates, show how those groups — working as part of what they call the "Tennessee Coalition for Students" — sometimes try to convince voters that politicians who support traditional public schools are just bad people.

"You're creating an oligarchy of people who influence your policy," said J.C. Bowman, a self-described conservative who serves as executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee.

"We're getting the best government that money can buy, and they are buying it."

Case in point: a seat in the state House bought and paid for in 2022 by special interests.

Running for the House in 2022, Maryville realtor Bryan Richey had no fancy ads of his own, and he spent a measly $15,000 in the Republican primary.

But Richey had opinions that appealed to school privatization groups.

"In my personal opinion on school choice, we have taxpayer dollars that are there to educate students. I don't care what arena - whether it's private school, public school, home school," Richey told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

As a result, a group of powerful forces who want to privatize Tennessee schools got together and decided Richey would be a good investment.

Tennesseans for Putting Students First mailer in support of Bryan Richey
"My understanding is that there was quite a bit of money came in from outside the state," said former Rep. Bob Ramsey, R-Maryville.

During the Republican primary, Ramsey found himself under a well-financed attack by the independent groups supporting Richey.

One Facebook ad from school privatization forces told voters, "Bob Ramsey voted to raise your gas tax 30 percent."

Online and by mail, those groups began to demonize the incumbent representative who had always supported traditional public schools.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Ramsey: "At some point did you realize that you might be in trouble?"

"Yes," Ramsey said.

"When the mailers just would not quit coming and they were so offensive and fictitious and cruel, really, just plain cruel, I knew it was going to be a rather blood bath on my end."

When the reports were in, Richey got $52,038 in help from Make Liberty Win, a dark money group with ties to billionaire Charles Koch.

The Tennessee Federation for Children spent $38,439 to help Richey, who got another $30,044 in ad spending from Team Kid PAC and $15,484 from Tennesseans for Putting Students First.

Altogether, that's $136,005 — nine times as much as Richey spent himself.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Richey: "I was trying to figure out how these seemingly independent groups decided that you were their guy."

"I have no clue," the newly elected representative insisted.

But the confidential documents obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates show how those seemingly independent groups work together to elect lawmakers who will vote their way.

We showed our stash of documents, some from campaigns in 2016, to Tennessee Education Association lobbyist Jim Wrye.

"So this was the presentation they were using?" Wrye asked. "Phil, what I wouldn't have done to have this right then and there."

We asked Wrye: "Is it widely known that these groups are working together?"

"Well, it's kind of blatantly obvious," Wrye said.

Again, we pressed. "But they don't admit it?"

"No, certainly not," the TEA lobbyist agreed.

Among the documents were ones drafted for the 2016 legislative races and submitted to a foundation controlled by the billionaire Walton family of Walmart fame, asking for funding for their "Tennessee Coalition for Students."

That coalition included the groups Tennesseans for Student Success, StudentsFirst (now known as TennesseeCAN), Stand for Children and the American Federation for Children.

Among the coalition's goals: "the defeat of at least four anti-education reform incumbents" — with a total proposed budget of $3.7 million dollars.

"I knew they were working together, but I'm surprised at how much political money that they are spending in our campaigns," J.C. Bowman said.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates showed Bowman a strategy document where the groups describe plans to use their big money in "key races ... where the opportunity exists to shape the balance of power in the Legislature."

As a litmus test, the groups would only support politicians who support privately operated charter schools, state interventions to take over traditional public schools and private choice — in other words, school vouchers to send tax dollars to private schools.

We asked Bowman: "Should the public know if the Walton family is trying to pick legislators in Tennessee?"

"Absolutely," he insisted.

"Like NASCAR, we joke about it that NASCAR has the little signs of all the sponsors they have. Politicians are going to need to wear the same thing."

In the case of then Nashville state Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, the document notes: "We must protect this seat."

It was an effort viewed to be worth an investment of $563,807.

In the case of then Senate Education Chair Delores Gresham, R-Somerville, "This is a seat that we must all protect."

The investment there: $307,097.

And while the groups cited then Rep. Eddie Smith, R-Knoxville, as a "reliable vote" on most issues, their main concern was keeping his Democratic opponent, Gloria Johnson, out of office.

Johnson read the document's summary of why she was viewed as a threat: "She would create almost incalculable problems because of her effectiveness."

"I've never been so proud in my life," the Knoxville Democrat said with a laugh.

Ironically, two years earlier, the same groups sent out a mailer branding her "one of the least effective legislators in the state House."

"Everything thing they do is built on, is a house of lies," Johnson said. "They win elections by lying about their opponents and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Republican Bob Ramsey said he believes he was targeted in 2022 because of his support for traditional public schools.

"I trust our education system implicitly. I am a product of it, my children were products of it," he said.

One of the groups attacked him for supporting a Republican plan to increase gas taxes to pay for roads.

Then after his defeat, they put out a news release touting the outcome as a sign that their education agenda was winning.

"They ran on everything other than education," Jim Wrye observed.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked the TEA lobbyist, "So why do they not run on those issues?"

"Simple, I mean, the candidates would lose every time," Wrye said.

With Bryan Richey, the money invested proved to be a good bet.

This year, he helped defeat a Republican-sponsored bill to protect successful school districts from having those privately operated charter schools forced on them by the state.

He also tried to expand school vouchers to fund private schools statewide — a platform he received thanks to those school privatization groups that wrote the checks to get him elected.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates reached out to the groups involved in the coalition.

None would go on camera, and they did not respond to a number of specific questions posed by email.

Still, in separate statements, they did not deny that they do have this arrangement nor that they are working together to try to flip even more seats to their side in next year's elections.

Ryan Cantrell, vice president of government relations for the American Federation for Children, said in a statement:

"As you may know, coalitions of all types regularly come together to support public policy issues on which they agree. We are proud to work on our shared cause alongside allies, all of whom may have various focuses and positions but agree that parents should be empowered with more choice in education. We comply with every applicable law in our work and will continue working to advance school choice, which polls consistently show is a top issue for voters in both parties."

Sky Arnold, communications director for Tennesseans for Student Success, said in a statement:

"Tennesseans for Student Success is dedicated to a vision of providing and ensuring access to a high-quality public education for all students and we support leaders who have demonstrated a commitment to that vision. Decisions about how to engage are made by TSS, and where appropriate, communicated to individuals or organizations with shared priorities following the guidelines and regulations established by state and/or federal campaign laws. We are strictly focused on ensuring that all students, regardless of income or zip code, have access to an effective, high-quality public education."

Arnold insisted that the group "has never advocated for any form of private school choice," although he did not deny that the group works with the coalition to elect lawmakers who are willing to back school vouchers.

TennesseeCAN did not respond to NewsChannel 5's inquiry.

On Banning Books

The Kennedy family reads controversial books while waiting
for a board meeting of the Hamilton East Public Library
Noblesville IN 08-24-2023

(these people are about to be labeled "outlaw" because

they refuse to let a buncha pinch-faced, blue-nosed, puritan biddies

tell them what the can and can't read in a public school)

And BTW, this move against books is another aspect of the "conservative" effort to kill public education. If I can make you believe the schools are so thoroughly fucked up that your kids are being damaged, then it's going to be easier for me to convince you to privatize the system, and let me sell the whole thing to my brother-in-law, who, by some odd coincidence, has recently developed a burning desire to teach children what I think they should know.

Oy

Everything You Need to Know About the Right-Wing War on Books

Here’s your guide to the heroes and villains—plus a list of the 50 most banned books.

Citizens have led fiery campaigns against books they deem objectionable since before America’s founding. As early as the 1650s, Massachusetts Bay colonists banned and burned William Pynchon’s pamphlet “The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption” because it allegedly failed to adhere to Calvinist beliefs. Book bans were common in the South in the run-up to the Civil War, and nationwide during the McCarthy era.

But in the last few years, something changed. More people began writing complaints and demonstrating at meetings. They grew far more vocal. And they started to rally around the same texts, slamming them as “pornographic” or for supposedly preaching “critical race theory.” Since 2021, book banning—specifically, blocking access to books in schools and libraries—has become an organized movement, one backed by a powerful network of politicians, advocacy groups, and conservative donors.

More books are being challenged—for possible restriction or removal from libraries and curricula—than have been in decades. In the first half of the 2022–23 school year, PEN America, the free speech organization, tracked nearly 1,500 book bans nationwide, affecting 874 unique titles. Books centering on people of color and LGBTQ+ characters have been disproportionately targeted. In some GOP-controlled states, legislation has led to the widespread removal from schools of books with references to sex and sexuality, as well as race and racism.

The first week of October is the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, and to mark the occasion, The New Republic will launch a Bookmobile Tour to distribute texts conservatives have decided children simply should not read.

CENSORSHIP CHIEFS

Ron DeSantis

Under Governor DeSantis, Florida became the first of many red states to enact laws making it easier for parents to challenge books in school libraries that they believe are pornographic, deal improperly with race, or can otherwise be considered inappropriate. DeSantis was applauded by a Moms for Liberty (see below) founder for “blazing a trail” on school book bans.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Governor Huckabee Sanders signed a law imposing criminal penalties on Arkansas librarians who knowingly provide “harmful” materials to minors—though a federal judge has temporarily blocked sections of the law, calling them too vague. In January, Sanders also signed an executive order to prohibit “indoctrination” and “critical race theory” in schools.

Greg Abbott

The Texas governor signed a law banning sexually explicit books from schools. The law requires vendors to rate books as “sexually relevant” or “sexually explicit” to determine if they require parental approval or full removal. During the 2021–22 school year, Texas districts banned more books than those in any other state.

Moms for Liberty

Founded in 2021, Moms for Liberty has rapidly expanded into a national organization with almost 300 chapters. Its strategy is to take over school boards and label dissenting teachers, librarians, and parents “groomers.” The organization has also endorsed legislation in line with its goals like “Don’t Say Gay,” the notorious Florida law hamstringing discussions of sexuality in many classrooms. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Moms for Liberty an extremist group.

READING REBELS

Suzette Baker

In March 2022, Baker was fired as head librarian of the Kingsland Branch Library in Llano County, Texas, for “insubordination” and “failure to follow instructions,” which she said included her refusal to take down a display of banned books. Among the titles that have attracted the ire of local officials: Between the World and Me, the Ta-Nehisi Coates book that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

Debbie Chavez

Chavez quit her school librarian job in Round Rock, Texas, after a parent met with her to discuss Lawn Boy—a novel that includes a romance between two boys—and secretly recorded the conversation, sharing excerpts on Facebook. Critics claimed she was “grooming” kids and called for her firing. “It was so horrific to see that my words were being used as a rallying cry for the book censors,” she told The New York Times.

Summer Boismier

Boismier, an English teacher at Norman High School in Oklahoma, shared with her students a Q.R. code to Books UnBanned, a program of New York’s Brooklyn Public Library that offers access to books that have been banned or challenged. She received a torrent of abuse and later resigned, claiming there was no way for her to do her job amid passage of a new law limiting instruction related to race and gender.

Anonymous Utah parent

In a protest of legislation making it easier to remove “pornographic or indecent” content, a Utah parent filed a complaint with an eight-page list of objectionable passages from the Bible—successfully forcing a district to remove the text from elementary and middle schools. The decision was quickly reversed.

50 MOST BANNED BOOKS

(Books are listed in descending order by frequency of bans in schools nationwide.)

Gender Queer: A Memoir
by Maia Kobabe

All Boys Aren’t Blue
by George M. Johnson

Out of Darkness
by Ashley Hope Pérez

A Lake Travis, Texas, parent got a book purged from her school’s library after googling “cornhole,” a word that appears in Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez, explaining at a school board meeting what she’d learned: “Cornhole is a sexual slang vulgarism” and “means to have anal sex.”

The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison

Lawn Boy
by Jonathan Evison

The Hate U Give
by Angie Thomas

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
by Jesse Andrews

Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher

Crank
by Ellen Hopkins

The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini

l8r, g8r
by Lauren Myracle

This Book Is Gay
by Juno Dawson

Melissa
by Alex Gino

Looking for Alaska
by John Green

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out
by Susan Kuklin

Beloved
by Toni Morrison

A Fairfax County, Virginia, parent tried and failed to get Toni Morrison’s Beloved banned for allegedly being rife with explicit material. Still, the aggrieved citizen went on to star in a Glenn Youngkin campaign ad as he successfully ran for governor in 2021.

This One Summer
by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

Drama: A Graphic Novel
by Raina Telgemeier

Flamer
by Mike Curato

Jack of Hearts (and other parts)
by L.C. Rosen

The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel

The Breakaways
by Cathy G. Johnson

Nineteen Minutes
by Jodi Picoult

All American Boys
by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky

Tricks
by Ellen Hopkins

More Happy Than Not
by Adam Silvera

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer

It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health
by Robie Harris

Monday’s Not Coming
by Tiffany D. Jackson

A Court of Mist and Fury
by Sarah J. Maas

Sold
by Patricia McCormick

The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives
by Dashka Slater

Dear Martin
by Nic Stone

Speak
by Laurie Halse Anderson

Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen
by Jazz Jennings

Almost Perfect
by Brian Katcher

Real Live Boyfriends: yes. boyfriends, plural. if my life weren’t complicated, I wouldn’t be Ruby Oliver
by E. Lockhart

The Truth About Alice
by Jennifer Mathieu

Lucky
by Alice Sebold

Killing Mr. Griffin
by Lois Duncan

We Are the Ants
by Shaun David Hutchinson

I Am Jazz
by Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel

How to Be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi

Two Boys Kissing
by David Levithan

The Infinite Moment of Us
by Lauren Myracle

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

Seven white school board members voted unanimously in Pickens County, South Carolina, to remove Stamped from libraries and classrooms. It traces the history of racism in the United States, but parents complained that it “promote[s] socialism” and “demonstrates radical Marxism infecting our schools and our culture.”

And Tango Makes Three
by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

Source: PEN America data from 2021–22 school year

MORE RIDICULOUS STORIES

Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation

An illustrated adaptation of The Diary of a Young Girl was banned from a high school library in Florida because, critics bizarrely claimed, it minimized the Holocaust and—perhaps more important—captured a young girl’s thoughts about other female bodies. A county chapter chair of the far-right group Moms for Liberty led the charge for removal over its “sexually explicit” material.

Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The director of a Florida police union targeted this book about a Black boy killed by police. “Our members feel that this book is propaganda that pushes an inaccurate and absurd stereotype of police officers in America,” he wrote. Further use of the book was paused in a classroom in Broward County.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

A Leander, Texas, parent went after Machado’s surreal memoir about domestic abuse, brandishing a sex toy at a school board meeting while decrying portions of the book detailing a lesbian relationship. “This is what we’re asking our children to read,” the parent said, taking out a pink dildo. The book was ultimately removed from school libraries in the district.

Maus by Art Spiegelman

In January 2022, a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to ban this Pulitzer-winning graphic novel from its eighth grade curriculum. The book depicts Holocaust victims as mice and Nazis as cats. One board member took offense at illustrations of naked mice in the book. “All the way through this literature we expose these kids to nakedness, we expose them to vulgarity.… If I was trying to indoctrinate somebody’s kids, this is how I would do it,” he said.

Today's Brian

Stupid GOP policies are about to create a metric fuck ton of "welfare babies", and we're supposed to believe that Republicans are having a Scrooge-On-Christmas-Morning moment, so now they'll open up the government coffers and fund the necessary infrastructure to provide support for all the newly minted poor and brown people they love so much.

Fat fucking chance.

It's another lie. When I listen closely, I hear the coded "cha-ching" language of privatization and the move to funnel public funds into sectarian enterprises.

We didn't raise enough of a stink about GW Bush's "Faith-Based Initiatives" bullshit, and this year, SCOTUS has further paved the way by allowing tax dollars to be paid out to religious schools.

Carson v. Makin

Brian Tyler Cohen

Oops

On that whole commercial spaceflight thing: 

First, yes, it's just cool as fuck, and I love me some nerds no matter what, but let's just say we've got a ways to go yet - and I don't think I'll be scrambling for a ticket.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but notice how the government nerds are flying helicopters on Mars, and the privateers keep blowing their shit up.

Cold AF

The plains states - a full dozen of them - the middle third of this country has been stomped on by a storm and near-polar temperatures, and funnily enough, Texas is the only one reporting the kind of monumental problems that catch the fancy of the news cycle for a solid 72 hours.

Partly because they're just not used to that level of horrendous weather down there, and partly - mostly IMO - because the radical right decided to go all "fuck it, I can do what I want", and ignored the warnings from the Climate Science folks, and the warnings from the designers and engineers that the gear they were counting on for all that grandiose energy independence would crap out if it wasn't "winterized" properly - and gee, guess what happened.

The people in charge - ie: Republicans - decided low price was more important than the safety and wellbeing of the people paying the bills.

Of course, "low price" is coded political language which translates to serve two basic purposes

1. profit for the big shareholders
2. rationale for continuing the shitty anti-people policies that Republicans have been peddling for decades

Anyway, not even my enjoyment of watching Ted Cruz take it in the shorts because of his little jaunt down Mexico way can make this massive failure anything but bitter when we see the real cost being tallied.

And of course, it's not just Texas, and it's not just dumbass Republicans.

WaPo:

A boy who fell through ice, a woman who lost power: 47 deaths tied to winter storms — and counting

The cold has killed the young and the old. It has claimed lives from southern Texas to northern Ohio. And authorities expect the toll to rise in the coming days, with frigid weather lingering, hundreds of thousands without electricity and millions without clean water.

The two major winter storms that have plunged most of the United States into an Arctic chill have killed at least 47 people since Sunday, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. More than half of them — 30 — lived in Texas, where persistent power outages have exposed residents to bitter temperatures.

The Post’s data includes deaths confirmed or suspected to be linked to the weather and its attendant hardships, and the true number is undoubtedly higher than what is known so far. Some first responders worry about what they’ll find in their next week’s worth of wellness checks.

In Taylor County, Tex., Sheriff Ricky Bishop said his officers have been checking on residents for days, delivering food and water and following up with them later to make sure they’re all right. Already, they’ve found three people dead.

“There’s definitely that possibility that over the next week or two we could find some more that we don’t know about right now,” Bishop said.

The identities of most victims still aren’t known. Authorities have confirmed the ages of fewer than half, but of those, 18 were 50 or older and five were 85 and older. Seven states have at least one confirmed death.

Where the weather is coldest, some have resorted to risky, last-ditch attempts to keep warm, using gas grills indoors or running cars inside closed garages. At least five people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a news conference this week, tallying hundreds of 911 calls about gas poisoning. “This carbon monoxide poisoning is a disaster within a disaster.”

Others seem to have frozen to death. At least 17 people died of hypothermia or “exposure to the cold.” Some of them were among society’s most vulnerable.

Early Thursday, a man was found lifeless in a parking lot north of Houston. He was wearing a jacket with no shirt beneath, authorities said. He had no shoes and no socks.

About 350 miles northwest, in Abilene, another person was found dead whom the local fire chief described as “a transient” who had been sleeping outside.

Even those with shelter succumbed.

In rural eastern Kentucky, two elderly women from Ashland — a city of 20,000 on the banks of the Ohio River — died in 48 hours, both of hypothermia. One woman, age 77, lost power in her home, Boyd County Coroner Mark Hammond said. Her family, blocked by ice and felled trees, couldn’t reach her and couldn’t contact her. She was found on Wednesday.

Still others have died in cold weather accidents — in cars and on foot.

In Louisiana, a 77-year-old man in Calcasieu Parish, where Lake Charles is located, slipped, fell into a pool and drowned. And in Lafayette Parish, a 50-year-old man died after slipping on ice and slamming his head on the ground.

A 10-year-old boy died in Shelby County, Tenn., after falling through ice into a pond with his 6-year-old sister, who is in critical condition. When authorities arrived at the scene, it was just 14 degrees.

That boy is one of three known victims under the age of 12. Another, identified by Univision as Cristian Piñeda, was 11. His mother had just managed to get Cristian from Honduras to Texas so the two could live together, she told the outlet. With no electricity, she tried to cover him with blankets as best she could.

It was 12 degrees when Cristian’s mother put him to bed Monday night. He never woke up.

We'll always have bad weather, and we'll always see people die because of that weather. The point here is that we have to be better at assessing the risk, and being as prepared as possible, so we can mitigate that risk.

But mostly, we have to be better at holding politicians and their benefactors accountable when they fuck up like this.

Private profit and socialized risk and externalized cost. That shit has to stop.

Today's Tweet

Small privatized government at its finest.

They are just letting houses burn. No water,...Houston, tx. pic.twitter.com/fGXW6QmU5g

— ♥Kathy♥Lucky Charms 🇺🇸🇵🇷🇩🇪🇮🇪❤❤❤ (@LuckieKathy) February 18, 2021

Privatizers Gone Wild

The best political maneuvers are the ones that stand a fair chance of accomplishing something positive for your agenda no matter the outcome.

So here we go - 45*'s attempts to manufacture a little dust-up with Amazon and USPS are intended (I think) to further dismantle good government while bashing Unions, and lining the pockets of Congress Critters and their Cronies.

WaPo:

Trump issued an executive order forming an administration task force, to be chaired by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and directed it to evaluate the Postal Service’s finances and operations. The order also directs the task force to issue a report outlining proposed changes within 120 days.

The order states that the Postal Service has incurred $65 billion of cumulative losses since the Great Recession ended in 2009 and that it must make changes so that it operates under “a sustainable business model.”

Trump’s order stipulates that “the steep decline in First-Class Mail volume, coupled with legal mandates that compel the USPS to incur substantial and inflexible costs, have resulted in a structural deficit where revenues are no longer sufficient to fund the pension liabilities and retiree health obligations owed to current employees.”
The libertarians in Congress can't stand thinking anything the government does might actually succeed or do something good for people without turning a profit for some Rent-Seeking Crony. And since a lot of them believe it's all good and proper for them to behave like Coin-Operated Politicians, they'll do what UPS or FedX tell them to do.

So 45* gets to bash WaPo (he thinks) by voicing his deep concern for the solvency of USPS, in order to fuck over Jeff Bezos, while ordering an audit of USPS, partly to punish them for being all Government-y and shit, and to make sure they're not involved in any dirty dealing because, well, you know how those union people are, and besides that, we need to make sure that the tax money that USPS doesn't get  is being spent wisely and blah blah blah, and what the fuck is anybody even talking about!?!

45* throws all the shit up in the air, which is intended to keep everybody busy while he does whatever he wants us not to be able to see because of all the shit in the air.

The Union Busters and Privatizers go right along with him because in confusion there is opportunity.

And the kicker is that USPS is not really part of the federal government. They own a monopoly on the use of your mailbox, and that's really about it.

But "conservatives" like to build it into a very useful Straw Man and score big political points at the expense of people just trying to do job for us - which of course has become what the GOP is pretty much all about.

It Comes As No Surprise

One big fuckin' lie after another.

Mother Board:

“On express orders from the previous White House, the FCC scrapped the tried-and-true, light touch regulation of the Internet and replaced it with heavy-handed micromanagement,” Pai said Thursday prior to voting to repeal the regulations.

But internal FCC documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request show that the independent, nonpartisan FCC Office of Inspector General—acting on orders from Congressional Republicans—investigated the claim that Obama interfered with the FCC’s net neutrality process and found it was nonsense. This Republican narrative of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the internet, then, was wholly refuted by an independent investigation and its findings were not made public prior to Thursday’s vote.
They just make shit up. And it doesn't matter because by the time anybody can countervail that lie, it's made its way into the bloodstream and there's a whole new lie (or an entire set of new lies) to deal with today anyway.

Whooda Thunk It

Jeremy Scahill can be a bit of a sensationalist, but he's always been careful to back up his reporting with solid evidence.

That said, remember that people lie; and sometimes they lie for good reasons; and sometimes good reporters - and good government - get fooled.

The Nation:

Former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company’s owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” and that Prince’s companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life.”

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting “illegal” or “unlawful” weapons into the country on Prince’s private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

We're in a very odd place right now. I'm not saying Erik Prince isn't the smarmy TheoCon asshole zealot he appears to be - I think he is.

I'm saying there are at least 4 probables here.

1. This is an effort to discredit Blackwater because somebody's pushing back against Prince's continuing efforts to privatize US Military and Intel functions
2. It could be a Counter-Ops False Flag thing where Blackwater funds an attack on itself, hoping to stir up lots of negativity, only to have it revealed that they didn't do the evil deed, which reverses the negative and gets lots of good sympathetic PR for them
3. Opportunists looking for a payday
4. Blackwater's guilty as fuck, and this is the only way we can think of to take them down that doesn't leave "the good guys" open to similar charges.

The oddness of this place has grown out of the "conservative" War On Facts that has intensified over the last 25 years to the point that we're in this weird deadlock because a boatload of us are stuck in a state of Radical Skepticism.

If you don't like the way it's going, just deny the facts. And if pressed, you can always pull an alternative "reality" straight outa your ass.

And yeah - it's all pretty fucked up, but that's not an excuse to do nothing.

Today's GIF

FCC spokes-critter answers the public outcry:

Daddy State Illustrated

WeDon'tFuckin'Care 4.0 crapped out last night, partly because John McCain was conveniently unavailable for the scheduled vote, which made it easier for other Repubs to get their balls temporarily outa hock and acknowledge that the folks back home are close to being in open revolt.

But we ain't done, kids.

Why does McConnell now say he intends to go through with a stripped down version that does nothing but kill healthcare coverage, replacing it with (maybe) something else down the road? 

Daddy State rule 3:

Every warning about impending disaster, is a statement of intent.

They warned us that Obamacare is failing (or has failed), which is ridiculous knowing the Repubs have been working very hard to pour sugar in the gas tank for 7 years.

Imagine how well the thing would be working if the GOP would just listen to their constituents and help out a little.

Anyway, 45* all but said it straight out - when people really feel the pain, they'll come running to Daddy, begging him to do whatever it takes to make it stop hurting.

That's how the Daddy State works.

1. Create the disaster (or do nothing to prevent it)
2. Exploit the disaster

It Gets Worse

As if the fuckery of cult45* isn't bad enough - and I've mentioned this shit before - we have to keep one good eye on what the Congress Weasels are up to that we don't get to see very well because the 45*/Russia thing is such a very useful smoke screen.

Fuck up healthcare coverage
Fuck up the water and the air and the food
And make prescription medications too expensive for most anybody not living 3000% over the fucking poverty line
And
And
And
And privatize the fuck outa everything that moves or doesn't move; or might evolve into a moving thing sometime down the road (not that any of the dumbass rubes will even guess what that "evolving" thing might mean because they keep electing Coin-Operated Politicians who think Betsy DeVos is the new Moritmer Fucking Adler) - and by the way, let's create a Futures Market so somebody can own every-goddamned-thing there is or ever will be. 

And let's not forget Net Neutrality.

Trae Crowder:

Privatization Scam

Sec'y Reich explains:

The Trump administration is planning to privatize public assets such as airports, bridges, and highway rest stops. Here's why it's a scam: pic.twitter.com/Jn5DlYqnAF

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) May 25, 2017

Welcome Back, My Friends

...to the show that never ends.

The Nation:

The University of Chicago Stigler Center’s three-day conference asked: “Does America Have a Concentration Problem?” A sufficient response to this could be “go outside.” Virtually every major sector in our economy has been whittled down to a few major players. Two companies produce nearly all of America’s toothpaste. One, Luxottica, produces nearly all the sunglasses. There are four cable and Internet providers, who have divvied up the country and rarely compete. There are four major airlines. There are four major commercial banks. There are four major Internet platforms—Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google—controlling your information flow, your data, and your virtual life.

These markets are shrinking further, thanks to a continuing wave of mergers. Bayer is buying Monsanto to control a significant section of the agricultural seed market. AT&T and Time Warner’s combination would tie a content distributor to a content provider. The Walgreens–Rite Aid deal would narrow major chain pharmacies down to two (three if you’re generous and include Walmart). Platform monopolies like Google are buying a firm a week; it’s become a large part of their research-and-development strategy to acquire ideas and market share simultaneously.

And the slide backwards to the 18th century continues.

BTW: Try not to think too hard about the striking similarities between what's happening here right now and what started to happen a few years after the USSR fell apart - in about 1991-92, when Poppy Bush sent his old pal Bob Strauss to teach the Russkies how to retool their economy according to Freddy and Milty's Unfettered Free Market Capitalism.

This mess didn't get all fucked up yesterday and it won't get unfucked by tomorrow.

hat tip = J Gorman

It Gets Worse

The Daddy State approacheth.

“A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequila.” 

--Mitch Ratcliffe

Quincy Larson at Free Code Camp:

Soon every mistake you’ve ever made online will not only be available to your internet service provider (ISP) — it will be available to any corporation or foreign government who wants to see those mistakes.

Thanks to last week’s US Senate decision (update March 28: and today’s House decision), ISPs can sell your entire web browsing history to literally anyone without your permission. The only rules that prevented this are all being repealed, and won’t be reinstated any time soon (it would take an act of congress).

ISPs can also sell any information they want from your online activity and mobile app usage — financial information, medical information, your children’s information, your social security number — even the contents of your emails.

They can even sell your geolocation information. That’s right, ISPs can take your exact physical location from minute to minute and sell it to a third party.

You might be wondering: who benefits from repealing these protections? Other than those four monopoly ISPs that control America’s “last mile” of internet cables and cell towers?

No one. No one else benefits in any way. Our privacy — and our nation’s security — have been diminished, just so a few mega-corporations can make a little extra cash.

I'll take exception to that last bit - about how nobody benefits in any way.  My basic skepticism (ie: my cynical - tho' perfectly justifiable - paranoia) is waving flags like it's laundry day at Redneck Central Headquarters.

This looks a whole lot like standard Political Duplicity - privacy snoops disguised as profiteers to give the illusion of separation from Officialdom, so nobody in government is accountable to voters for the inevitable fuckery.

And the bonus is that the ISP cartel can peddle our information to Da Gubmint (aka: the Lunker Customer everybody's always gunnin' for, so you know it'll happen), which will confer upon us the supreme privilege of paying them to fuck us over - again.

Cronies get richer

Congress Critters get re-elected

We get fucked

'Twas ever thus with the Radical Right, and ever thus 'twill be.

Anyway, privacy is pretty much the whole banana in a free state, and there seems to an even fuckier fuckery afoot.

Roe v Wade is based on the concept of a Consitutional Right To Privacy. If this ISP thing stands up to challenge in the courts, kiss that one good-bye. And then it's really open season on everybody's rights across the board.

Now, I realize I'm pretty close to the Slippery Slope Fallacy, but these things happen step-by-step, so I'm just trying to follow it out to the logical extreme. And it's not like we haven't seen some of this shit already. The bullshit SCOTUS ruling on Voting Rights comes to mind.

So how's that Gorsuch appointment looking now?

About Today's Trump Thing

Just by way of introduction, here's a bit from TPM: 

Call it a match made in right-wing heaven.

Donald Trump’s hiring of Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon on Wednesday to be his campaign CEO marks the consummation of a months-long courtship with the conservative news and commentary site, which, under Bannon’s leadership, became Trump’s strongest media ally. Bannon will step down from his role at Breitbart to work with Trump, according to the campaign.

Trump sidelining Paul Manafort, who injected the campaign with a dose of seasoned professionalism, in favor of Bannon, once called the “most dangerous political operative in America,” also shows the real estate mogul firmly embracing the right-wing, establishment-hating fever swamps that fueled his candidacy since the beginning.

While the late Andrew Breitbart perhaps prophetically warned that Trump isn’t a conservative, his news site's love affair with the New York real estate mogul started years before Trump was a candidate. The site feverishly covered Trump’s relentless self-promotion and zest for stirring up speculation he might run for office.

So, I'm thinking this isn't some kind of "shakeup of a troubled campaign".  It's a corporate merger.

Trump needs an Information Division, and it turns out Fox isn't available - and Fox is pretty much old-hat now anyway - so Breitbart fits pretty well.

This seems like it's simply the latest development in the story of Trump Campaign Inc, and maybe we just got a new clue as to where all the campaign's money has been going - since it's obviously not getting spent on field operations or advertising. 

Sure would love to get a peek at the details of that artful little deal.

Today In Y'all Qaeda Land

Here's a pretty good look at the latest Wingnut Clusterfuck going on in Oregon, from Al Jazeera:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2016/01/oregon-standoff-160111172301780.html

hat tip = FB friend DR

Yes, it's Al Jazeera.  And yes, it's biased.  And yes, we have to get used to the fact that nobody's really doing good journalism anymore, so we have to be able to sort thru the shit on our own.

And here's a related bit from Raw Story:

The Bundys have voiced support for a variety of right-wing fringe ideas, particularly the “posse comitatus” notion that no legitimate governments exist above the county level, and they believe in no higher law authority than the county sheriff.

However, posse members have embedded an implicit threat in their belief system.

If the sheriff violates his oath of office, as determined by the right-wing extremists themselves, “he shall be removed by the posse to the most populated intersection of streets in the township and at high noon be hung by the neck, the body remaining until sundown as an example to those who would subvert the law.”

The main point here is that there's not a dime's worth of difference between what these jagoffs are doing in places like Oregon and what their counterpart jagoffs are doing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jagoff is as jagoff does, Forrest.

Dots

Once is an anomaly:

I think every LEO needs a complete BG check by FBI, just as a person working in top secrete field, eliminate threats https://t.co/EY9h6HCex7

— Mickey Cox (@TheRightImageLV) January 2, 2016

Twice is a coincidence:

Entiire Florida police department busted for laundering millions for international drug cartels https://t.co/I1zGsr1r9d

— margaret stuart md (@marstu67) January 2, 2016

Just waiting for that third occurrence to confirm the trend.

We became allergic to the basics of paying for the things a healthy civilization needs - Education, Infrastructure, Healthcare, Science, Justice.  We decided making rich people richer was more important than looking out for everybody as best we can.  So it forced public servants to look for ways of stretching their budgets.  Some of that is a good thing, but most of it turns out to be a very bad thing when the people looking for creative ways to augment their budgets are the ones who carry badges and guns and who have our tacit blessing to treat people extremely badly as long as it's "those other people" catching the shit and not us.

So - when somebody says "Police Department", think "Sheriff".  And when they say [insert your town's name here], think "Nottingham".

And BTW - not to blow up the analogy or anything, but fuck Robin Hood; where's Frank Serpico when ya need him?