I hope he does not pull any punches
One step forward, and two steps back…
WTF
The Biden administration chose to reward corruption at the highest level of government by renominating Jerome H. Powell to Chair of the Federal Reserve Board. Next week, the U.S. Senate wants to rush a vote to bless corruption and confirm Powell in that powerful role. But reinstalling Powell as Fed Chair, after he presided over and is directly implicated in the biggest government official stock trading scandal ever , will be a permanent stain on American history — a national disgrace from which our country and its real economy will never recover.
Fed Chair Powell — who is supposed to serve in the public interest and avoid even the appearance of conflicts — traded millions in personal stocks and bonds while obstructing required public disclosures about those trades for years. Yet, the information that has slipped out is damning. It shows Powell made trades DURING the restricted blackout period for pivotal Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings. This is a shocking revelation and constitutes grave and inexcusable misconduct by a high-ranking U.S. government official.
Moreover, Powell directed policy decisions that directly advantaged his personal bond holdings despite longstanding federal conflicts of interest law, 18 U.S.C. § 208. And then he apparently told a brazen lie about it to the press by suggesting the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) said his holdings posed no conflict. FOIA requests confirm that OGE provided no such guidance in writing.
And, to put this into perspective, the military budgets per year. Major public spending bills like the PPP, Build Back Better, etc. are 10 year plans. So when the military budget is $770B, that’s the same as a $7.7 Trillion spending bill when on the same time scale as the $2T Build Back Better. Apples to apples, the expenditures that are too much for Mansema, much less the GQP, are dwarfed by military spending.
Are the Republicans literally not responsible for anything?
I didn’t get anything like that from the cited article.
It points out a critical failure of the Democratic strategists: choosing to appeal to a small, basically already-locked-up segment of the voting public, ignoring a larger demographic that could easily win them elections. Bernie pretty much proved that looking after the interests of the working class can garner an incredible amount of support… but the party at large refuses to follow or learn from his example, and I think that’s worthy of criticism.
I absolutely blame Republicans for what they’ve done and what they continue to do. I do not want them in office, not even for dogcatcher. Because we’re essentially locked into a two-party system, we must rely on the Democrats to effectively compete against them. When they fall down on the job, as I feel they are doing with this strategy, it’s fair to call them out on it, because it hurts us all far too much if they lose.
Meh… I think they very much ignore dynamics that pushed the Democratic economic policies as well as the very real culture wars aspect of the GOP to push the white working class to the right. That, IMO, is the real crux of the problem. The Democrats have certainly trended right on economic issues, but that was chasing those very same voters who had already left them.
I don’t know… I’m just sort of done with how the Democrats are treated as the real problem, when in reality, the GOP has done a lot of damage via the culture wars that gave space to the neo-liberal agenda in both parties. Think about the way that further left candidates (Gary Hart) were hounded out of the process by the culture wars and that was coming from the right and the centrist trying to keep up with the right. I don’t think the media were particularly helpful in constantly focusing on the white middle class and working class to the exclusion of everyone else as a class.
YMMV, of course, but that’s how I see it.
That’s a fair, nuanced take. I respect it, and as always, I respect you and your comments!
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Oh Yeah! Well, I respect YOU and YOUR comments…
I agree with Mindy on this one the entire study is deeply flawed by trying to hem this modern period to 1990 on. A lot of political discourse around Trumpism tried to frame the Democrats as the result of the Clintons or NAFTA and tends to cut Raegan and Nixon out of the history of politics, especially around the working class - and doubly so when trying to make a point about ignoring social issues in favor of economic ones. And while it’s true that is a practical solution to move forward with, the justification based on the history is whitewashing the hell out of things.
Almost every single president in the post Civil Rights era successfully entered into politics using the racial resentment of white people to win enough votes to enter office regardless of political affiliation. To try and simply brush aside such deep scars in the country with selective data and as general cynicism towards humanity because of a hard life is, frankly, insulting.
Crosspost from Fuck Today where more reports of lead pipes are in the news:
This should be the highest priority, as these lead pipes are poisoning kids right now. I understand that bridges and other infrastructure is at risk, but all our kids should come first.
They’re learning from past GOP/GQP reaction to anything that mentions race. The use of other criteria makes it more difficult for them to complain or sue to prevent programs from moving forward.
