USA News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

This makes it all clear now. One of the best articles I've seen.

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigat ... -rhetoric/
Archive: https://archive.is/GTKqR

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... h-program/
https://archive.ph/Hd7k2

Republican governors in 15 states reject summer food money for kids
By Annie Gowen
January 10, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EST

Moving beyond efforts to block expansion of health care for the poor and disabled, Republican governors in 15 states are now rejecting a new, federally funded summer program to give food assistance to hungry children.

The governors have given varying reasons for refusing to take part, from the price tag to the fact that the final details of the plan have yet to be worked out. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) said she saw no need to add money to a program that helps food-insecure youths “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.” Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) said bluntly, “I don’t believe in welfare.”

In Oklahoma, for example, pandemic food relief money has been helping more than 350,000 children in need for the past four summers. Now that money has dried up with no statewide replacement on the way, and nonprofit assistance groups are scrambling to fill the gap.

Other states declining to participate are Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming. Four of these states — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Wyoming — are among the seven that have not fully extended Medicaid eligibility to low-income individuals.

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

'The Clock is Ticking': Mike Johnson is Caught Between a Shutdown and Being Fired as Speaker
January 12, 2024

Introduction:

(Alternet) When Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was confirmed as House speaker, the vote came down along party lines. No Republicans voted against Johnson, whose far-right Christian nationalist views and efforts to help former President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election results have been drawing a great deal of scrutiny from critics.

But as far to the right as Johnson is, that doesn't necessarily mean he is immune to the fate that former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) suffered when he was ousted as speaker in early October. No matter how much McCarthy attacked President Joe Biden and relentlessly defended Trump, he was never MAGA enough for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) —whose "motion to vacate" led to McCarthy's ouster.

Two articles — one published by the Daily Beast on January 12, the other by the conservative website The Bulwark on January 11 — describe Johnson's vulnerability as speaker and the fact that he is caught between a rock and a hard place. Johnson will be blamed if there is a federal government shutdown, but he risks being ousted as speaker if enough far-right House Republicans turn against him.

The Bulwark's Joe Perticone explains, "While the potential victim of the human sacrifice is different this time, the reasons for offering it are the same: Far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies are livid that compromises are a necessity of a functioning government and that their own uncompromising positions and policy proposals are not being given priority in the negotiations. Thanks to Republicans' waning majority, these tantrums are upstaging normal business. Something's got to give. That's why Speaker Mike Johnson is at risk of losing the gavel just three months into the job."

Perticone adds, "Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) made clear that all options for bringing Johnson to heel are under consideration, including a potential motion to vacate — the rule Republicans implemented when they took control of the chamber that allows a single member to prompt a vote to remove someone from the speakership."

Read more of the Alternet article here: https://www.alternet.org/mike-johnson- ... 66941418/

The Alternet article was based largely on news reports in the The Daily Beast and The Bulwark. Links to those articles are provided below:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fear-and ... ?ref=home

https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/speaker- ... ays-might

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

DEI opponents are using a 1866 Civil Rights law to challenge equity policies in the workplace

Source: AP

Updated 8:35 AM EST, January 14, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents of workplace diversity programs are increasingly banking on a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to challenge equity policies as well as funding to minority-owned businesses.

Section 1981 of the act was originally meant to protect formerly enslaved people — or Black people specifically — from economic exclusion. But now the American Alliance for Equal Rights — a group run by Edward Blum, the conservative activist who challenged affirmative action in higher education and won — is citing the section to go after a venture capital fund called the Fearless Fund, which invests in businesses owned by women of color. A federal appeals court temporarily blocked funding for Fearless Fund’s grant program as the case proceeds.

Conservative activists have brought lawsuits using the 1981 section against other companies and institutions, including insurance company Progressive and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The cases are being monitored carefully as the battle over racial considerations shift to the workplace following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions.

While the 1981 statute had been used well before the latest affirmative action ruling to prove reverse discrimination, Alphonso David, Fearless Fund’s legal counsel who serves as president & CEO of The Global Black Economic Forum, said that there’s a “coordinated use of Section 1981 now that we did not see before.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/dei-corporat ... 366248f646

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Yellen Says Current US Economic Growth 'Vindicates' Biden's COVID-19 Pandemic Stimulus Spending

Source: US News and World Report/AP

Jan. 17, 2024, at 6:29 a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing back against Republican criticism of the Democrats' big coronavirus pandemic response package and making an election-year pitch that the current state of the U.S. economy “vindicates” the steps taken in 2021 to “get our economy back on track.”

With falling inflation, unemployment at 3.7% and the U.S. apparently defying predictions of a recession, Yellen defended the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in remarks Wednesday at a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington.

The stimulus package, which was passed into law without a single GOP vote, is regularly cited by Republicans as the cause for two years of accelerating price spikes that hurt millions of American households.

“Many had argued that this rescue plan wasn’t needed. But I believe seeing where we are today vindicates the approach we took,” Yellen said. “President Biden and I believed that the most dangerous risk was in going too small."

Read more: https://www.usnews.com/news/business/ar ... s-spending

[firestar464]

Uncivil war: How Speaker Mike Johnson’s dream of bipartisan decency died in his hands

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigat ... tisanship/
https://archive.is/9N2ot

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Kentucky GOP's New Bill Decriminalizes Use of Deadly Force Against the Unhoused

Source: Truthout

Republican lawmakers in Kentucky introduced a bill last Tuesday that would criminalize homeless encampments and expand the state’s Stand Your Ground law to allow property owners to confront unhoused people with a gun. The bill, dubbed the “Safer Kentucky Act,” already has received more than 45 Republican co-sponsors and the Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police has committed to testify in support of the legislation when it has a committee hearing.

“I’m just ashamed that this bill even came into fruition and I’m asking people to call their legislators and say no,” Lexington council member Tayna Fogle of District 1 said.

The proposed legislation grants cities the authority to designate specific areas for unhoused individuals. If individuals are found outside of the designated area, residing in a tent, hut, temporary shelter, or vehicle with the intention to sleep, they may face misdemeanor charges, leading to a fine of $5,000 and a potential imprisonment of up to 90 days.

Read more: https://truthout.org/articles/kentucky- ... -unhoused/

[caltrek]

More on that:

The GOP is Moderating — and Coming Unhinged
January, 2024

Introduction:

(Vox) Last week, House Republicans once again struggled to meet the most basic obligation of a governing party as roughly half its members effectively voted to force a government shutdown.

This was only the latest chapter in Congress’s long, strange quest to pass a budget for 2024. Eight months ago, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy cut a deal with Joe Biden over this year’s spending bill. Before that agreement, McCarthy and his caucus had held the nation’s economic health hostage, threatening to force the United States into a debt default — a course of action that could trigger a global financial crisis — unless the Democratic president acquiesced to conservative policy goals.

Nevertheless, when Biden made it clear that he would not be coerced into repealing his own climate and student debt policies, McCarthy accepted a relatively ordinary fiscal compromise.

This cost McCarthy his job. In order to secure election as speaker in the first place, McCarthy had needed to appease the far-right flank of his party’s narrow House majority. He did this by, among other things, giving conservative hardliners the power to vote him out of his leadership position at any time. Still smarting over McCarthy’s traitorous openness to legislative compromise, the hardliners ousted the speaker in October.

The party’s new leader, Mike Johnson, himself extremely right-wing, is a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus. Unfortunately for his right-wing comrades, however, Johnson is also capable of understanding that his party does not control the White House or Senate and must therefore compromise with Democrats in order to pass legislation. Thus, earlier this month, Johnson reached a budget deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that closely resembled McCarthy’s agreement with Biden from last year. Yet Johnson’s House allies in the Freedom Caucus still feel entitled to dictate terms to Democrats, so they have denounced the new agreement for its excessive social spending and lack of anti-abortion provisions.

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/1/20 ... se-senate

caltrek's comment: This is why it is important to distinguish between conservatives and extreme reactionaries. Conservatives can be reasoned with and are not nihilistic in nature. Some reactionaries are very much of the "my way or the highway" approach and (metaphorically speaking) are willing to burn the place down if they don't get their way. That somebody disagrees on spending priorities for future spending does not make them stupid or a fascist. Especially when they are open to compromise on the subject at hand.

[weatheriscool]

Maybe at the federal level but look at the shit they're doing at the local and state level.
Book bans
Attacks on gay and trans right
Bathroom bans
Care bans

Pretty extreme. Hopefully they start moderating soon or we won't have any rights in most of this country.

[firestar464]

Those are more the insane reactionaries that caltrek is speaking of. IMO they hate the "conservatives" as well given that they see them as part of the "establishment/swamp"

[weatheriscool]

'It's cruel': Tennessee bill would make assisting a minor to get an abortion a felony

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Abortion is already illegal in Tennessee, but a lawmaker wants to take that a step further.

"As a Christ follower, my number one issue is life. It always has been, it always will be," said Rep. Jason Zachary, a Republican from Knox County.

He has a new bill that would make it a crime for an adult to assist a minor to go out of state to get an abortion, unless that adult is the mother's parent or guardian. Rep. Zachary says he wrote the bill after he was contacted by legal guardians of a pregnant child who ran into this exact issue.

"Their minor child that they were in guardianship of, had been taken by an adult to West Tennessee to facilitate an abortion. The minor called them from West Tennessee to let them know what’s going on," he explained. "So I’m literally on the phone with crying parents, crying guardians saying, what can we do, what can we do?"

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/its-c ... n-a-felony

[weatheriscool]

Florida House passes bill banning children under 16 from social media: 'Kids can't stay off the platforms'
Fox News
Elizabeth Pritchett
January 25, 2024 at 2:19 AM

The Florida House passed a bill Wednesday banning children under the age of 16 from creating accounts on social media platforms – even with parental approval – in efforts to keep children from growing up "hooked" on social media.

House Bill 1, which is sponsored by Republican Rep. Tyler Sirois, passed with a 106-13 bipartisan vote. Supporters argue that children are more exposed to bullying and sexual predators on social media, and use can lead to depression, suicide and addiction.

"They're taking advantage of kids growing up. That's their business model. And why do they do it? To keep them hooked ... with the dopamine hits that the platform gives our children with every autoplay, with every like, with every push notification," Sirois said toKids The Associated Press.

Though the bill doesn't explicitly name which platforms would be affected, it targets any social media platform that tracks user activity, allows users to upload material and interact with others, and uses addictive features. Apps used solely for private messaging between individuals would not be impacted.

more...
https://www.aol.com/news/florida-house- ... 15152.html

[weatheriscool]

Florida lawmakers want to let children work full-time hours - even on school nights

Story by Katie Hawkinson •
14h

A bill in Florida that would allow children to work full-time hours even on school nights has just passed another major hurdle.

House Bill 49, championed by Florida Republicans, would allow employers to schedule 16- and 17-year-olds between 6 am and 11 pm, even if the following day is a school day. Under the bill, employers could also schedule them to work more than 30 hours per week year-round. The bill also allows students who are “in a home education program” or enrolled in an approved virtual instructional program to work during school hours.

And on Tuesday, the Florida House Commerce Committee voted to advance the bill into the Florida House of Representatives. Ever since its introduction by Representative Linda Chaney, a Republican, state Democrats and labour policy experts have stood in stark opposition. Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat who opposes the bill, called it “extremely concerning.”

“Florida is home to a robust immigrant community and this bill could make their children vulnerable to corporate exploitation the same way they were in the 20th century,” Ms Eskamani said in a statement. “We have seen this pattern of exploitation before in the US and we should take steps to ensure it never happens again.”

More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/fl ... r-BB1hcPqM