Another Republican President, Another Recession.

Roger A. Shrubber said:

i could totally see this whole thing being thought up, financed, and organized by any member of the freedumb caucus...just the kind if underhanded dirty shit they excel at

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Fogdog said:

There is no doubt in my mind that it was.

I'm often wrong but I do so with conviction.

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Pwnstarqt said:

Two vile creatures feeding from opposite sides of the same trough. Dems on one side Republicans on the other both doing little more than paying lipservice to anything other than lining their own pockets and protecting the interests of those that keep them paid.
Just a for instance but Trump donated roughly $175,000 more to Dems than Republicans from 1989-2010. This is standard and how the rich keep things moving in their direction.

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Pwnstarqt said:

Two vile creatures feeding from opposite sides of the same trough. Dems on one side Republicans on the other both doing little more than paying lipservice to anything other than lining their own pockets and protecting the interests of those that keep them paid.
Just a for instance but Trump donated roughly $175,000 more to Dems than Republicans from 1989-2010. This is standard and how the rich keep things moving in their direction.

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Roger A. Shrubber said:

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trolls-bots-election-tampering

so, the question is...are you spreading this shit, or are you just one of the fools that believe it?

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hanimmal said:

Maybe 60 years ago man. But since then the Democrats have slowly been changing to represent as close to 100% of our nation as any political power in human history ever has.

Unfortunately since then though the Democrats have only had about 7 years to actually get much done and every single time they win the presidency the Republicans dump a recession on them so that they are forced to clean up the economy for the first couple years while getting trolled with astro-turf movements like the Tea Party, so that the Republicans can win back just enough power to shut down anything that it not what you say.

As for Trump's donations, the idiot was living in NY the entire time, makes sense he would be trying to buy as much good will with the people being elected there as possible.

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Pwnstarqt said:

Neither I'm just not fool enough to believe that either party has my best interest at their core

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Pwnstarqt said:

The donation portion you mention speaks exactly to my point. Being able to "buy good will" is the problem. The fact that a man like Trump can purchase political, "favor" if you will, is criminal. "You guys be sure and vote this way and the money keeps rolling in. The fact that that is how the parties function is at the root of the problem.

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cawolves said:

This aged bad lol. Welcome to the highest inflation since 40 years ago under a Democrat

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden came into office with a plan to fix inflation — just not the particular inflationary problem that the country now faces.

His belief is that a cluster of companies control too many industries, which reduces competition for both customers and workers. That leads to higher prices and lower wages in what the White House says is an average cost of $5,000 annually for U.S. families. Biden is now trying to remedy the situation with 72 distinct initiatives — everything from new rules for cell phone repairs to regulations on meatpacking to more merger reviews.

“The dynamics of the modern American economy — the increased consolidation and lack of competition — has distorted market incentives in important ways,” said Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council. “The president gave us the direction that he wanted us to come back and say what could we do to address this issue of consolidation across industries in a way that would be durable.”

But even administration officials acknowledge that the initiatives outlined by the president’s seven-month-old competition council aren’t designed to quickly stop the 7.5% inflation that’s frustrating Americans and damaging Biden’s popularity. Furthermore, business groups dispute the fundamental premise that competition has faded within the U.S. economy and they are prepared to challenge the administration’s new initiatives in court.

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“It will strangle economic growth,” said Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Ironically, what this will do is actually lead to more inflation.”

Part of Biden’s dilemma is that reorienting a bureaucracy to promote competition takes time, and voters want to see inflation — running at a 40-year peak— start dropping now. Voters feel the bite of inflation with every trip they make to the grocery store or the gas station, yet the president is traveling the country to discuss solutions such as competition and new infrastructure that predate the current predicament and would have a much more gradual impact.

America’s current inflation woes stem from the pandemic. Supply chains for computer chips, clothes, furniture and other goods are under stress. At the same time, consumer demand has surged after a historical amount of government aid flowed into the economy. Despite efforts to get the kinks out of the supply chain, price increases have stayed high in recent months instead of fading as many initial forecasts suggested. That has the Federal Reserve ready to increase interest rates to lower inflation.

In a January survey by the University of Chicago, two-thirds of leading economists said that the concentrated power of companies does not explain the current rash of inflation.

New York University economist Thomas Philippon has welcomed the administration’s approach — while allowing it would do little to bring down prices. As the author of the 2019 book, “The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets,” Philippon is the source of the administration’s statement that market concentration places a $5,000 drag on an average family.

What Philippon observed was that other nations had embraced a level of antitrust enforcement and competition that no longer exists in America, resulting in lower costs for cell phone service, internet and airline tickets in Europe relative to the U.S.

“As a way to fight current inflation, it is unlikely to have a big impact in the short term, but it can still be useful,” Philippon said. “I think of it more as a positive side effect of something that should be done in any case.”

The Biden administration contends that even if the lack of competition didn’t directly trigger the recent spike in prices, it has contributed to inflation. The White House Council of Economic Advisers blogged in July about how more sectors of the economy are effectively controlled by a smaller number of companies.

It cited studies that show how mergers led to higher prices for hospital services, health insurance, airline tickets and beer. It also documented a decline in government reviews of mergers and noted that the 2020 federal lawsuits against Google and, separately, Facebook were the first major monopolization cases in 22 years.

After the second meeting of the government-wide competition council in late January, the White House charted its progress. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed selling hearing aids over-the-counter, “lowering their cost from thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars,” according to a White House statement. The Federal Trade Commission will increase enforcement against restrictions that companies place on people repairing their own electronic devices. The Transportation Department figures it can cut prices of airline tickets in the New York City area by opening up 16 slots to a low-cost carrier at the airport in Newark, New Jersey.

For proof that more competition can lead to lower prices, administration officials cite the example of eyeglasses. Before 1979, people could only buy eyeglasses from doctors who wrote their prescriptions. The FTC then passed a rule that forced doctors to give out prescriptions, causing the average price of glasses to fall 30.4% to $178 (in 1979 dollars).

The issue does not break cleanly along partisan lines. Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota have sponsored a bill to limit companies from using non-compete agreements, which can keep workers from going to another employer for more money.

But many in the business sector dispute Biden’s core premise that the U.S. economy has become less competitive. They argue that mergers allow companies to operate more efficiently and the resulting gains in productivity benefit consumers.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says market concentration had waned by 2017 and it intends to challenge some of the administration’s regulatory actions in court.

Airlines for America, a trade association, says that consumers are better off under industry consolidation. In inflation-adjusted terms, it said, the average price of a roundtrip ticket has fallen nearly $100 since 2010 to $306 in 2020.

The Business Roundtable, a group representing CEOs, said that at a time of high inflation “more burdensome government regulations are not what the economy or Americans need.”

Despite the pandemic and inflation, companies have still found ways to achieve historic profits. Corporate profits after tax equaled 11.8% of the total U.S. economy in the second quarter of last year, the highest share on record going back to 1947. The Biden administration is arguing that government policy can ensure that more of that money goes to workers and customers.

The fact that the Biden administration is focused on corporate profits and structure could ultimately limit how much companies can charge and that could deter some inflation, said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute.

“It sends a message,” Lynn said. “Just having cops walking the beat, having cops out there, saying, ‘Hey, we’re watching. We’re looking. We’re going to be checking your profit levels. We’re going to be targeting those who seem to be really exploiting their monopoly power.’ That’s going to have an effect.”

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The Defense Department on Tuesday released a report that says mergers and consolidation among its contractors pose risks to the U.S. economy and national security.

Senior Biden administration officials previewed the report ahead of its release. The report lays out steps to block mergers that run contrary to Defense Department interests and reduce barriers to entry for new contractors. It also seeks to ensure that a company’s intellectual property protections are not anti-competitive.

The report calls on five sectors to develop plans for durable supply chains, a key concern as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted global supply chains for semiconductors and other goods in ways that created shortages and inflation. The sectors are: casting and forgings, missiles and munitions, energy storage and batteries, strategic and critical materials and microelectronics.

BUSINESS

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The report suggests that mergers have left national security beholden to private companies. There are only five aerospace and defense prime contractors, down from 51 in the 1990s. Just three sources account for 90% of U.S. missiles.

The consolidation can hurt taxpayers because contractors no longer feel competitive pressure to innovate to secure government business.

The report is part of a broader government effort under President Joe Biden to promote competition within the U.S. economy. The ultimate goal of an executive order and a competition council formed by Biden is to raise wages and lower prices.

Antitrust agencies already are taking steps to block mergers deemed harmful to the national interest. The Federal Trade Commission in January sued to stop Lockheed Martin Corp.’s $4.4 billion bid for Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, saying the result would be higher prices for missile components and less competition.

On Sunday, Lockheed Martin announced that it was no longer pursuing the acquisition because of the FTC’s actions.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Dousing a social media firestorm, the Biden administration said Wednesday that a grant program to counter harm from illicit drugs will not pay for safer pipes to smoke crack or meth.

The White House was put on the defensive as outrage from the political right, some of it with racial overtones, was cresting online.

“No federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House drug policy adviser Rahul Gupta said in a joint statement.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said separately it was never the intention to pay for drug pipes, and complained that any such impression was created by “inaccurate reporting.”

Monday was the deadline for service organizations and local governments to apply for a share of $30 million in federal money for “harm reduction” efforts to prevent disease, injury and other collateral trauma to people addicted to illicit drugs. Harm reduction, such as providing a space where drug users can inject and be monitored for overdoses, is a controversial idea.Critics see it as enabling drug use, but public health advocates say it’s a pragmatic approach to keep bad situations from getting worse.

HEALTH

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The original request for funding proposals from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration had listed “safe smoking kits/supplies” among the items that could be purchased with taxpayer money. They were among a dozen categories that included overdose prevention drugs, medication lockboxes, test kits for infectious diseases, and syringe disposal containers. The grant solicitation did not specifically mention pipes, although they can be a part of safe smoking kits.

Daniel Raymond, director of policy for the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, said only a few programs in the U.S. have handed out safe smoking kits.

“None of this was being done with federal funds,” Raymond said. “I feel very confident in saying that. I would have been aware if that were true.”

Nonetheless reports that the Biden administration was using federal dollars to pay for “crack pipes” took off. Some Republican senators piled on, castigating the administration.

Misleading claims about the HHS program dominated social media early Wednesday, many of them from conservative commentators and Republican politicians sharing memes and tweets that received tens of thousands of likes.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas tweeted: “Last week, Biden talked about being tough on crime. This week, the Biden Admin announced funds for crack pipe distribution to “advance racial equity.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee chimed in on Twitter Tuesday night to say, “End government-funded crack pipes.”

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida called the purported pipe distribution “insanity” in a video published on Twitter, which had 245,000 views by Wednesday afternoon. “The Biden administration is going to be sending crack pipes and meth pipes targeting minority communities in this country,” he said.

Some social media users even went as far as to say that Biden and other Democrats were going to give out crack pipes during Black History Month.

“Joe Biden is handing out crack pipes to help ‘racial equity’... during Black History Month,” Errol Webber, a Black Republican candidate for California’s 47th Congressional District, said on Twitter. “No I’m not joking. No I’m not lying. This is what he thinks of our community.”

HHS spokeswoman Sarah Lovenheim tweeted that such reports were “blatant misinformation,” and Wednesday at the White House briefing Psaki said paying for pipes was never part of the plan.

“They were never a part of the kit,” said Psaki. “It was inaccurate reporting and we wanted to put out information to make that clear.”

Late Wednesday, Rubio issued a press release saying, “I am glad the Biden administration acknowledges sending crack pipes to our nation’s addicts is a bad idea.”

Advocates of harm reduction feared the blow-up would hamper efforts to coax drug users out of the shadows.

Leo Beletsky, professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University School of Law, said he was disappointed by the White House response.

“This administration has said repeatedly they are making harm reduction one of their key priorities,” Beletsky said. “As soon as there’s a little right-wing echo chamber pushback against something that is quite sound and rooted in science, they backtrack. They put their tail between their legs and back pedal.”

But administration officials Becerra and Gupta said they continue to stand by “proven harm reduction strategies like providing naloxone, fentanyl test strips, and clean syringes.” HHS also pointed out that the harm reduction grants are required to conform to federal, state and local laws, and crack pipes are illegal in many jurisdictions.

Homemade pipes for smoking crack and methamphetamine may break easily or also release toxic fumes. Because of that, safer pipes may be one of the components of the kits.

But they also can and do include other supplies, such as alcohol wipes to clean hands or a pipe, or lip balm for cracked lips, Raymond said. Such give-away kits can be a way to start a conversation with drug users, perhaps pointing them toward change.

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https://www.cdc.gov/policy/hst/hi5/cleansyringes/index.html

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hanimmal said:

Well Manchin has finally drifted over into right wing troll category buddying up with the insurrectionist Republican 'little Marco' with the new propaganda narrative (pushed here a week ago by the new propaganda troll (that has been deleted) which he defended with some hate monger branding of 'CNN'. Weird coincidence. Totally not a paid troll right?) of 'crack pipes'!



Because who can't get behind a little hate of the 80's race baiting 'crack'. And now they are holding hostage government funding to get this done, threatening to shut down the government in 48 hours (no pay for millions of Americans is really not good for the economy or morale) if this doesn't get added to it. btw there is no plan to use government money to buy them. It is all just right wing propaganda.

https://apnews.com/article/business-health-jen-psaki-xavier-becerra-5faa62ff133830b6367f5869f644731d
View attachment 5087039


The only problem is that it is not just the nonexistent 'crack pipe' purchases that they are demanding. They are also demanding the new needle program get defunded.




This is really a shit idea for both public health and our economy. Not because people want or are pushing people to do drugs that use needles, but that without free clean needles there are far more disease outbreaks (like AIDS) that end up costing us all far more in hospital visit costs that we all end up having to pay in higher costs.

In just New York alone, it is saving thousands per person who is trading in dirty needles for clean ones.



This is bullshit that these two would play games with both our economy and public safety by threatening to shut down the economy for some political talking point to play up the race baiting and scare mongering red meat non issue.

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cannabineer said:

These people are dominionists in the wee hours of the night. Needle programs merely keep the morally broken from conveniently wiping themselves out. The right is effectively being boiled down to its twin cores of weaponized religion and white supremacy, and no longer working to conceal the fact.

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hanimmal said:

It would be one thing if they just came out and owned it. But these Republicans (+1 (or 2?) Democrats) hiding behind 'crack pipes' propaganda is just race baiting (while hurting our economy) dog whistling like cowards in order to 'own the libs' by forcing a government shutdown right as Russia is amping up a attack on a allied nation.

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cannabineer said:

These people are dominionists in the wee hours of the night. Needle programs merely keep the morally broken from conveniently wiping themselves out. The right is effectively being boiled down to its twin cores of weaponized religion and white supremacy, and no longer working to conceal the fact.

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cannabineer said:

I do not remember the GOP of my youth (pre-Reagan) being this focused on obstruction.
And Manchin puts me in mind of an old story about a wooden horse.

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Fogdog said:

their blatant, out in the open crimes concern me. It's as if they know they already won and no longer need to conceal what they are doing.

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A day before she was due to be evicted in November from her Atlanta home, Shanelle King heard that she had been awarded about $15,000 in rental assistance. She could breathe again.

But then the 43-year-old hairdresser got a letter last month from her landlord saying the company was canceling her lease in March —- seven months early — without any explanation.

“I’m really pissed about it. I thought I would be comfortable again back in my home,” said King, whose work dried up during the pandemic and who now worries about finding another apartment she can afford. “Here I am back up against the wall with no where to stay. I don’t know what I am going to do.”

Although the $46.5 billion Emergency Rental Assistance Program has paid out tens of billions of dollars to help avert an eviction crisis, some tenants, like King, who received help are finding themselves threatened with eviction again — sometimes days after getting federal help. Many are finding it nearly impossible to find another affordable place to live.

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“It is a Band-Aid. It was never envisioned as anything more than a Band-Aid,” Erin Willoughby, director of the Clayton Housing Legal Resource Center Atlanta, said of the program.

“It’s not solving the underlying problem, which is a lack of affordable housing. People are on the hook for rents they cannot afford to pay,” she said. “Simply finding something cheaper is not an option because there is not anything cheaper. People have to be housed somewhere.”

The National Housing Law Project, in a survey last fall of nearly 120 legal aid attorneys and civil rights advocates, found that 86% of respondents reported cases in which landlords either refused to take assistance or accepted the money and still moved to evict tenants. The survey also found a significant increase in cases of landlords lying in court to evict tenants and illegally locking them out.

“A number of issues could be described as issues related to landlord fraud ... and a set of problems I would describe as loopholes within the ... program that made it less effective to accomplish the goal,” said Natalie N. Maxwell, a senior attorney with the group.

National Apartment Association President and CEO Bob Pinnegar said the survey was not based on facts, adding that its members are doing everything they can to keep tenants in their homes, including lobbying to get rental assistance out faster.

“Skewed surveys aren’t reflective of the entire situation. By and large the rental housing industry has gone to great lengths to support residents, including when it comes to rental assistance and adherence to laws and regulations,” Pinnegar said in a statement.

Legal aid attorneys interviewed across the country confirmed they are seeing a steady increase in cases where tenants were approved for rental help and still faced eviction.

These include the mother of a newborn and two other children in Florida who received rental assistance but was ordered evicted after the landlord refused to take the money. Another Florida landlord lied in court that she hadn’t received the money in a bid to push through an eviction.

There have also been cases in Georgia and Texas where landlords who received assistance moved to end leases early, increased rents to unaffordable levels or found other reasons than nonpayment to evict someone, lawyers said.

“As it is right now, it doesn’t seem to be working as intended,” said Tori Tavormina, an eviction prevention specialist with Texas Housers. “It feels much more like it’s a program that is alleviating the pressure of the eviction crisis but not solving the underlying problems.”

District Court Judge Shera Grant, who handles housing cases in Birmingham, Alabama, said she and her fellow judges have seen an uptick in cases of landlords getting assistance and returning to court a few weeks later after a tenant has fallen behind on rent to seek an eviction. So far they have prevented them — though she expects a spike in these kinds of cases going forward.

“It’s incumbent on the judges to make sure we are paying close attention to our eviction cases and making sure that the landlord is not having their cake and eating it too,” she said. “By the same token, we are not forcing landlords to take the money. There are some unfortunate circumstances where the tenant has to be evicted.”

In the case of King, she believes her landlord was retaliating for earlier complaints about mold and water leaks in her three-bedroom house. The company King was dealing with, NDI Maxim, which manages property for owners, said it “was not at liberty to share details of tenants’ status nor their payment records.”

Other cases are complicated by the length of the pandemic and conflicting accounts of landlord and tenant. And they often leave both parties feeling shortchanged.

Despite his landlord getting more than $20,000 in rental assistance, Prince Beatty is facing imminent eviction from his three-bedroom house in East Point, Georgia.

After the money was approved, Beatty signed an agreement in court late last year to pay several thousand dollars more that he owed as a condition to remain housed. He went back to the county for additional assistance to cover the balance but says he was denied. Unable to find warehouse work during the pandemic, the 47-year-old Navy veteran still can’t pay rent and is now $12,000 behind, in part due to his rent increasing from $1,250-a-month to $2,000.

Beatty, who was told he would be evicted this month, said he wakes most mornings in a panic, wondering if this will be the day when marshals “come and disrespect my stuff and throw it in the street.”

His landlord, Monique Jones, said she tried to work with Beatty. But she said he violated the lease by subletting rooms to several other people and that the amount of rental assistance has not covered losses from months of unpaid rent that started before the pandemic.

“It was helpful but it did not address the underlying issue which is his nonpayment of rent,” she said of the rental assistance. “That still remains and that is rightfully why I am proceeding. If I have a tenant who will pay rent and abides by the lease, I would not attempt to evict.”

Limits with rental assistance often come down to some states and localities failing to follow Treasury Department guidance calling for policies requiring landlords delay evictions after getting money. Although the program prevents landlords from evicting during the period covered by rental assistance, the Treasury Department can only encourage states to adopt policies that ban evictions up to three months afterward.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition found only 29 states and localities in 2021 had adopted policies that prohibit landlords who participate in the rental assistance program from evicting tenants for a period ranging from 30 days to 12 months. Six states — Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina and West Virginia — passed regulations while several cities or counties in Texas and Maryland did.

Gene Sperling, who is charged with overseeing implementation of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, said there was no data to suggest landlords evicting tenants after getting assistance is a “pervasive issue” but that it was “completely unacceptable.”

While it’s “not against the letter of the act, it’s against the spirit of it,” he said.

The Coalition also said the program’s issues illustrate a larger problem.

“We are in the middle of a severe affordable housing crisis with gaping holes in our social safety net,” CEO Diane Yentel said. “We have a systemic power imbalance that favors landlords at the expense of low-income tenants. Emergency rental assistance and eviction moratoriums were a temporary patch to those holes.”

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