Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

I was thinking back to a time when white people could purchase people of color to be slaves. That has always been a sticking point for me.....how do you feel about slavery?

Manchin ‘very reluctant’ on electric cars in ominous sign for Biden’s climate fight

Have you not seen The Thick of it?

If you spend any time watching Tucker Carlson or following the rhetoric of popular far-right voices, such as Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and many, many others, you’ll see a consistent theme—they’ll find what they call “the narrative” (another word for the perceived conventional wisdom in the media or in the political establishment) and simply argue the opposite.

I heard an interview this morning with Florida's Senator Rick Scott. It's seven minutes of ignorance – the guy can't even articulate the point of his proposals. McConnell has already said that they won't make it into the Republican platform.

(...)

The third story that has flown under the radar is that the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Florida senator Rick Scott, has provided a blueprint for what the Republicans will do if they get a majority in the next election. In “An 11-point plan to rescue America,” produced by the group responsible for electing Republican senators, Scott promised that the Republicans “will protect, defend, and promote the American Family at all costs.” The plan continues: “The nuclear family is crucial to civilization, it is God’s design for humanity, and it must be protected and celebrated. To say otherwise is to deny science. The fanatical left seeks to devalue and redefine the traditional family, as they undermine parents and attempt to replace them with government programs. We will not allow Socialism to place the needs of the state ahead of the family.”

The plan promises that children will say the Pledge of Allegiance and “learn that America is a great country,” they will not learn critical race theory, and discussion of race will be banned from American society. The country will build former president Trump’s border wall and name it after him.

To protect the family, the Republican plan calls for destroying the business regulation, social safety net, federal promotion of infrastructure, and protection of civil rights that Americans have embraced since the 1930s and handing power over to the wealthy. It promises to “grow America’s economy, starve Washington’s economy, and stop socialism,” by which Republicans mean not international socialism in which the government owns the means of production—factories—for that is not on the table in the U.S. Instead, they mean a system in which voters can create a government that regulates business and uses tax dollars to provide services for all Americans.

Republicans, the plan says, will dramatically increase taxes on Americans earning less than $100,000, raising $1 trillion over ten years, although since they will also cut the Internal Revenue Service by 50%, the government might be hard pressed to collect those taxes. Since “government should not be doing anything that the private sector can do better and cheaper,” they will make sure all laws expire after five years, ending them with the idea that Congress will simply repass good laws. They would end Social Security (which, by the way, protects children as well as the elderly and disabled), Medicare, Medicaid, and so on. They will sell off all “non-essential” government assets, buildings, and land (are national parks essential?) and cut funding to states “other than disaster relief.”

This plan is “easily the most radical document put forward by a member of the leadership of a major political party in modern times,” Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote.

“Americans deserve to know what we will do,” Scott said in his introduction to the plan.

Indeed, we do.