Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

What a slap down!

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/california/story/2023-01-12/news-outlets-seek-access-to-evidence-in-paul-pelosi-attack

My vigil for evidence is no longer so lonely. Journalists are seemingly, at least momentarily, imitating journalists. 🇺🇸
________________
SAN FRANCISCO — A coalition of news organizations, including The Associated Press, filed a court motion in San Francisco seeking access to evidence against the man charged in last year’s attack on former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.

During a Dec. 14 preliminary hearing, the San Francisco district attorney’s office introduced audio and video evidence against David DePape, the man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi. But it has refused to release the evidence to the media.

Why do you want to taint evidence before a trial??

You do make a good point.

Why do you insist on secrecy around the facts of the case?

It's not a secret. It's an active Court case.

So it’s time again to do the “will we raise the debt ceiling or not” dance.

I understand that raising the US debt ceiling is necessary to pay for expenditures that have already occurred.

I understand that not raising it could cause chaos in our financial standing in the world.

But I don’t really get what the long-view reasoning is, behind raising the US credit limit into infinity. Is it like having a credit card that you never pay off, to keep your credit fluid?

The debt ceiling was raised 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush, five times under Barack Obama and three times under Trump.

The problem, as I see it, is that the major way of decreasing debt (or decreasing deficit)...is to RAISE taxes...not to cut spending. And there is not a Republican alive who will ever champion that. (There are very few Democrats who will either.)

Cutting spending is almost economic suicide. If the Pentagon, for instance, were to significantly spend a lot less...the damage to our economy would be enormous. It would be like having tens of millions of Americans just refusing to buy anything. You simply cannot take the amount of money a significant cut in military spending would need...out of the economy. It would destroy it.

So...increasing taxes is the primary way to go.

YES, increasing taxes takes money out of the hands of the people who will have less to spend...but that is more manageable than huge cuts to government spending. Cutting programs like the so-called "entitlement programs" also takes money out of the hands of the people...and will also cause them to have less to spend.

So...how to deal with the problem?

Beats the **** out of me. But significantly raising taxes (on everyone and every corporation) is going to have to be part of the solution. Small businesses (like the Trump corporations) are a major part of the problem. By artful manipulation, they do not pay their fair share.

I grok everything you said.
But I’m a little unclear about the point that cutting military spending would be just like if millions of citizens stopped buying stuff.

Military spending as it exists right now is logically indefensible. We keep buying systems and vehicles that we don’t even have practical uses for. Stuff that fit the way we fought wars a generation ago. And the “customers” are fat cat contractors. It’s a circular greased slide that pays off lobbyists, contractors and politicians.

Yes, if we shut down all the superfluous military manufacturing, it would put tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of workers out of a job. But I’ve seen breakdowns of our budget and spending that would still make significant cuts to the military a big boost to our overall economic health.

Leaving aside small/medium/large businesses and the very wealthiest taxpayers "artful/illegal manipulation" - they, by law, do not have to pay their fair share. If they did, this alone would balance everything. This was proven during the Clinton administration when he balanced the budget.

Of course, there were other elements involved; such as cutting defense and welfare spending. It is also questioned if this policy led to the "Great Recession"? Which pickle jar do you wish to stick your hand into?

Monitoring Biden

Tracking Biden from the left
Some significant, some incredibly hypocritical, and some trivial actions taken by Joe Biden. Unfortunately, no where near an exhaustive list.

https://bidentracking.substack.com/p/every-biden-disappointment-through

Foreign Policy

-Air Strikes in Syria

-Because of crippling US sanctions: 23 million of 39 million Afghans not having enough food to eat

-Killing 10 people in a drone strike in Afghanistan

-Approving a $650 million potential air-to-air missile deal for Saudi Arabia

-Biden signing a $768,000,000,000 defense budget for 2022, $37,000,000,000 more than last years budget.

-Choosing Rahm Emanuel as the US ambassador to Japan.

-Not sanctioning MBS

-Approving the sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel

-Reaffirming the United States’s opposition to an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories.

-The Biden administration opposing the resolution blocking weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.

-Spending more on Israel than climate change.

-Continuing to support the Saudi Blockade in Yemen

-Continuing the Trump Pentagon’s policy of embracing landmines.

-Continuing a Trump policy that boosted armed drone exports

-Continuing to support a coup in Venezuela

-Conditions in Guantanamo Bay being worse now than they were under Trump.

-Killing six children in a counterterrorism raid in Syria

-Bombing Somalia

-Biden proposing a $813,000,000,000 Pentagon budget for 2023, a $31,000,000,000 increase from 2022 budget.

-Biden proposing to spend 18 times more on the pentagon than on climate programs.

-Moving to split $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets between 9/11 victims’ families and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan

-Naming Michael Bloomberg as the new chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board

-Ordering air strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria

-Proposing sending the U.S. military to Haiti

-No longer ruling out using nuclear weapons to respond to non-nuclear threats, despite a campaign promise to do the opposite.

-Telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamín Netanyahu “my commitment to Israel is unshakeable".

-Conducting military strikes in Somalia

-Dropping threats to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for the oil-production cut

-Biden signing a $858,000,000,000 military budget for 2023.

Immigration

-Mass deportations of Haitians

-Using Title 42 to expel 1,800,000+ people

-Holding over 22,000 people in jails run by ICE. 7,000 more than what the Trump administration held when they left office.

-US deportations of children increasing by 30% in the first year of the Biden administration (Source in Spanish)

-Reopening previously closed “facilities” at the southern border

-Extending the Trump-era Title 42 program that expels people seeking asylum without due process.

-Continuing the Trump era "Remain in Mexico" policy and expanding it past the constraints of a court order.

-The DOJ pulling out of negotiations to financially compensate families separated by Trump admin.

-Arguing in federal court that migrant families separated at the border under the Trump administration don't deserve compensation.

-The Border Patrol horse unit

-Continuing to detain immigrants at a prison in Louisiana that’s been described by government investigators as having “a culture & conditions that can lead to abuse, mistreatment, & discrimination.”

-Considering "filling gaps" in the US-Mexico border wall.

-Kamala Harris to migrants: "Do not come. Do not come. We will enforce our laws and secure our border.”

-The number of undocumented immigrants in detention centers increasing by more than 50% since Biden took office

-Filling immigration courts with Trump hires

-The Biden administration and ICE still having no clear plan to provide vaccine access to the more than 22,100 detained people in ICE custody.

-Continuing to seize land for the border wall

-Joe Biden’s new budget boosting ICE funding by $18 million.

-Blocking media access to their border operations.

-Continuing to house immigrant children in inhumane conditions.

-Backing an effort to overturn a California law banning for-profit immigration detention centers,

-Asking for $8.1 billion for ICE in his 2023 budget proposal, a 13% increase from 2022 and higher than the highest amount Trump ever spent on ICE.

-Continuing the use of ICE’s 287(g) program despite campaign promises.

-Continuing to hold children in prison-like conditions at the southern border.

-Continuing to use, and defend in court, a Trump-era State Department rule that requires nearly all visa applicants to register their social media handles with the U.S. government.

-Authorizing completion of the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall in an open area in southern Arizona near Yuma.

-Expelling nearly 4,000 Haitians on 36 deportation flights in May — a significant increase over the previous three months.

-Expanding the use of Title 42 to send Venezuelans back to Mexico

-Considering holding Haitian migrants at Guantánamo Bay.

-Allowing Customs and Border Patrol agents to fire rubber bullets at migrants

-ICE holding 31,000 immigrants, the most since 2020

-Sending 277 deportation flights to Haiti, which deported 27,000 people, including children.

-Continuing family separation at the border

-Considering implementing Trump-era immigration law

-Appealing a court ruling that ended Title 42

-Enacting a Trump-era Asylum "transit ban"

-Expanding Title 42 for 5 more countries

Domestic Policy

-Only canceling student debt for those making $125,000 a year

-Cutting federal unemployment benefits to make unemployment numbers look better.

-The Biden administration approving 3,091 new drilling permits on public lands. He’s approving these permits at a higher rate (332 per month) than President Trump (300 per month).

-The Biden Administration asking the Supreme Court to rule that federal agents cannot be held accountable for retaliating against protected speech

-Naming Neera Tanden the White House staff secretary

-"Vigorously" defending an exemption to anti-LGBT discrimination laws for religious schools.

-Sending more military equipment to American neighborhoods than Trump did.

-Supporting a Supreme Court decision that blocked immigrants in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds from getting permanent residency if they entered illegally

-Continuing the Trump-era practice of labeling Black Lives Matter protesters as terrorists.

-Lying about a court decision, that despite initial claims, did not force the Biden admin to hold the largest-ever auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico’s history.

-Fully supporting states that cut supplemental UI benefits

-The DOJ urging SCOTUS to reinstate the death sentence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, despite President Joe Biden’s stated opposition to capital punishment per Reuters

-Allowing oil to continue to flow through the Dakota Access Pipeline

-Not ordering the Pentagon to recall the billions in military gear it loaned to police.

-Offering to keep 2017 Trump tax cuts intact in infrastructure counteroffer to the GOP

-Defending a huge Trump-era oil and gas project in the North Slope of Alaska despite President Biden’s pledge

-Defending excluding Puerto Ricans from disability payments

-Settling on a 25% corporate tax rate

-Auctioning off more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling companies

-Issuing 31 new drilling permits on federal land

-Their "National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism"

-Giving in to Republicans' demands on broadband infrastructure spending by reducing broadband spending by $35 billion.

-Nominating a lawyer who represented Exxon in a suit against the treasury department for a major treasury department role.

-Looking to extend a Trump-era policy that bolsters mandatory minimum drug sentences.

-A federal program that allows teens, 18 to 20, to drive big rigs in a test program designed to ease driver shortages.

-Continuing to fill top Pentagon positions with defense contractors

-Biden choosing not to take sides in the debate over whether Congress should prohibit members and their families from trading individual stocks while in office.

-Keeping Trump hires in the Department of Justice

-Urging the Supreme Court to let cops enter homes and seize guns without a warrant

-Not passing a promised $15 minimum wage

-Not passing a promised $2,000 stimulus to all individuals

-Not officially banning the death penalty

-Not legalizing marijuana

-Saying “We should all agree: The answer is not to Defund the police. The answer is to FUND the police” at the State of the Union.

-Resuming oil and gas drilling on federal lands

-Refusing to take any of the recommended pro-union actions by the White House Task Force on labor.

-Saying that he’s not looking to cancel more than $50,000 of student debt

-Looking to means test student debt relief

-Refusing to use his existing authority to lower insulin prices.

-The Biden Administration doubling down on their defense of a for-profit college giveaway made by Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

-Continuing to urge for the end of remote work.

-Taking a bankrupt cancer patient to court, days before she begins a series of surgeries that might leave her permanently disabled, to contest her claim that she cannot pay $96k in student loan debt.

-The Biden administration expanding its employee conduct guidelines to potentially deny security clearance to individuals who have invested in companies that are involved in the marijuana business.

-The White House Climate Policy office stalling climate initiatives by placing political considerations and relations with Congress ahead of climate action.

-Endorsing a plan to funnel significantly more Medicare money to insurance companies and further privatize Medicare.

-Reaffirming his decision to enact the highest Medicare premium hikes in history.

-Fighting to stop a federal lawsuit that would enshrine a constitutional right to a livable climate.

-Urging states and cities to use unspent money from last year’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief package to fund crime prevention programs and hire police officers.

-Not declaring a climate emergency

-Not backing off plans to nominate an anti-abortion attorney to a lifetime federal judgeship in Kentucky.

-Nominating a longtime advocate of Social Security privatization and benefit cuts to the board overseeing the Social Security system.

-Not canceling student debt of borrowers with privately held federal student loans, despite initially promising to during the original student debt cancellation announcement in August.

-Saying once again “I'm not going to change anything in any fundamental way.”

-Approving plans to build the nation’s largest oil export terminal off the Gulf Coast of Texas.

-Forcing rail workers to accept a labor contract that didn’t include sick days, and urging congress to not give them any

COVID

-CDC guidance shortening the quarantine time during positive COVID tests.

-The Biden administration rejecting the 10-page "Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge" plan.

-Banning travel to several South African countries for a month due to the Omicron COVID variant.

-Free COVID tests taking 7-12 days to ship.

-Only Americans who are privately insured being able to seek reimbursement for over-the-counter COVID tests they purchase.

-The Biden administration claiming they support a COVID vaccine patent waiver, but failing to take meaningful action to pass such a waiver.

-Allowing the COVID death toll to surpass 1,000,000 people

-Changing the CDC COVID spread maps to make it seem that COVID infections were slowing

-Failing to meet the administration’s commitment of donating 1.2 billion vaccine doses in 2022.

-Announcing that they will stop buying COVID vaccines, treatments, and tests as early as this fall

-Lying about the reason they ended the free COVID testing program

-Prematurely saying the Pandemic is over on 60 Minutes

-Saying nursing homes and hospitals no longer need to require universal masking

-Moving from daily to weekly COVID-19 surveillance data

-Retiring the CDC’s “Find Free Mask” program

-Dropping recommendations that shelters require indoor masking

Other

-Biden's DOJ continuing to defend Trump in the defamation case that accuses him of raping journalist E. Jean Carroll

-Building a second courtroom for war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay that excludes the public from the chamber.

-Granting Navient a two-year, $391M extension on its contract to collect federal student loans.

-Backing away from a promise of free college/university tuition for students for families making less than $125,000

-Using a helicopter rotor wash to try to clear out activists from an occupied Line 3 pump station north of Park Rapids.

-Dozens of young Biden White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use

-Jill Biden announcing an unveiling of a Nancy Reagan stamp on the first day of Pride Month.

-The DOJ arguing it would be “dangerous to trust regular marijuana users to exercise sound judgment” with guns.

-Federal law enforcement arresting 25% more people for cannabis-related crimes during 2021, compared to 2020.

-Biden deviating from CDC COVID Guidance following a positive COVID test, and then getting a rebound infection.

-Visiting Saudi Arabia in a push to lower oil prices.

-Failing to declassify a U.S. intelligence report on the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite a government panel recommending its release to the public.

-Saying Democrats wouldn’t be able to pass abortion-rights legislation just days after the midterms

-Protecting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from punishment for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

-Naming Joe Kennedy III as the U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs

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If the main item in any adjustments made to stop or lessen the budget deficit is reduced spending by the military...the adjustment would have to be massive...or it simply would not be worthwhile making it.

It is my opinion that any massive cut in military spending (or any government spending) would be a devastating blow to our economy. There is no way I can see for the private sector to make up for that spending loss.

I agree totally with your thoughts about "fat cat contractors"...but those "fat cat contractors" have lots of workers...and the pay for that sector is top notch.

I may be wrong...or I may be overstating the impact.

Anyway...that is not going to happen...not as long as one of our political parties is the GOP. I doubt the Democratic Party is too anxious to make such a move either. Net impact on the party advocating in that direction is negative.

The answer is in the politically unpopular...huge tax raises for everyone and every business.

I don't see that happening either.

Only thing I see is more and more deficits...leading to a greater and greater debt. National debt rose over $7 trillion dollars during Trump's four years. And he promised to slash it...right after building that wall and getting Mexico to pay for it.

By "welfare spending" I am assuming you mean what is euphemistically referred to as "entitlement programs."

I do not want to see them cut...I want to see them significantly expanded.

We can do it. Gotta modify our capitalistic system, though, and get the small, medium, large businesses and rich to pay much more.

I agree!!!!!

1. Social Security and Medicare (are not) welfare programs.

2. Social Security and Medicare are entitlement programs.

3. There is a (huge) difference in the definition of what is an entitlement program and what is a welfare program.

"euphemistically"

1. What Is a Welfare Program.

2. Definition and Examples of Welfare Programs.

3. How Do Welfare Programs Work.

4. Welfare vs. Entitlement (Examples of Entitlement programs)

5. Types of Welfare Programs.


https://www.thebalancemoney.com/welfare-programs-definition-and-list-3305759#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20has%20six%20major%20welfare%20programs,Earned%20Income%20Tax%20Credit%20%28EITC%29%206%20Housing%20assistance

While you have to prove eligibility to receive welfare program benefits, everyone can access entitlement programs if they have contributed to the program (often through payroll taxes).

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/welfare-programs-definition-and-list-3305759#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20has%20six%20major%20welfare%20programs,Earned%20Income%20Tax%20Credit%20%28EITC%29%206%20Housing%20assistance

I should have said this before, Real Music -----> "but, of course, you are absolutely right!"

Another thing I would like to add, most of Welfare and Entitlement spending is some of the best spending for the economy. The money is put back into the economy by spending, then a high percentage of that money is put back into the economy, then a high percentage of that money is put back into the economy, then a couple of more times - this is called "The Multiplier Effect".

The problem that happened in the Great Recession was lax lending standards that brought a lot of people into the housing market who shouldn't have been.

This plus a lot of other things caused the Recession. Fortunately, we 8 years of Obama!