“Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on Thursday became one of the highest-profile elected Democrats to go public with her concerns about the centrist group No Labels’ third-party presidential bid,” Politico reports.
Said Pelosi: “No Labels is perilous to our democracy. I hesitate to say No Labels because they do have labels. They’re called no taxes for the rich. No child tax credit for children. They’re called let’s undo the Affordable Care Act.”
She added: “When they jeopardize the reelection of Joe Biden as president of the United States, I can no longer remain silent on that.”
Let me add that the recent candidacy of Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips also has an air of dead fish left on the lake shore. It smells like some very rich people trolled for a money hungry politician and caught one. Hopefully the Minnesota press will dig out who owns Phillips these days.
“No Labels” and RFK, jr. and Cornell West and Dean Phillips are playing a game that MAGAs can really get behind. I hope selling out their country is worth it to them. We need a Rod Serling “Twilight Zone” to explain the consequences of their actions. (“Imagine if you will ………”)
Just think – in a couple of months Iowa’s MAGAs will lay the first brick in building the campaign for America’s first felon president and the end of whatever was left of a society based on laws. Take a bow, Iowa MAGAs
‘Tis that Sunday when the sun has moved some direction in the middle of the night and we will all go to bed around 4:30 when the sun chariot leaves the sky early.
However, Today is the birthday of a person we should all know but hardly anyone does. A fellow named John Peter Zenger. What did he do that we should know him? Well, pull up a chair and spend about ten minutes learning something few Americans are familiar with.
Freedom of the press is still a contentious issue in this country, One SCOTUS justice, Clarence Thomas, would love to just rip it out of the constitution. And who knows, maybe he can’t rip it out, but he can lessen its effect.
Well, Lordy, there was a bunch going on this week. Let’s start with the reappearance of a name from the past:
A) What former governor of Maryland and former presidential nominee was introduced as the nominee to head the Social Security Administration this week?
B) Two MAGA candidates for president dropped from the race. Can you name both of them?
C) What Minnesota congress member launched a primary challenge to President Biden last week?
D) Many more disturbing facts continue to seep out about new House Speaker Mike Johnson including that neither Johnson nor his spouse have what normal place to stash their money?
E) Big Ten fans and college basketball fans mark the passing of what legendary college basketball coach this week?
F) Iowa’s governor Kim Reynolds joined 14 other MAGA governors to write a letter to the Biden administration to complain about new administration rules concerning what industry last week?
G) The Senate Judiciary Committee announced they would subpoena what two major figures who have been associated with paying off Supreme Court Justices?
H) The Trump fraud damage hearings will continue next week in NYC with who as witnesses FOR the Trump side Monday and Tuesday?
I) In California a man was awarded $332 million because of cancer he claimed was caused by what Monsanto product?
J) It was a short World Series. Who won in how many games?
K) In Indiana, AG Todd Rokita was issued a public reprimand for his comments against a doctor who did what for a 10 year old girl from Ohio?
L) Speaking of Ohio, citizens of Ohio will be voting Tuesday on a constitutional amendment to protect what in Ohio?
M) This Wednesday what group will be gathering together once again to talk some politics?
N) What MAGA presidential candidate seemed lost in the ozone once again Sunday when he couldn’t remember where he was?
O) A 14 year old boy from Annandale, Virginia won ‘America’s Best Young Scientist’ award for his creation of what product?
P) Bing, bing, bing! The UAW settled quickly with the big 3 automakers last week. What other major auto maker with plants in the US announced big wages for its workers despite not having union representation?
Q) Wall Street celebrated as new jobs reports came in under what expected number of new jobs for October?
R) Republicans in the US Senate rose up against the military promotions hold that what Senator has had on the US military since February?
S) With the help of 31 Democratic votes what scurrilous MAGA House member escaped expulsion from the US House last week?
T) Finally in rich people screwing us over news, what once extremely rich person was found guilty of fraud on all counts Thursday and may be facing 120 years in the slammer?
Ginni Thomas Says Mike Johnson’s Wife Seems a Little Crazy. – Andy Borowitz
Representative Zach Nunn makes claims about Social Security, Medicare that don’t add up
Des Moines, Iowa — Representative Zach Nunn took to social media recently to peddle dishonest claims that he protects Social Security and Medicare and would “ensure no politician plays games” with the programs. The truth is, Nunn took multiple votes that would undermine access to these critical programs. He even introduced legislation that would lead to massive cuts to these programs, making it harder for seniors to access the benefits they earned.
More than 661,000 Iowans are enrolled in Medicare benefits, while 677,000 Iowans receive Social Security benefits, and Iowans need leaders who work to protect these benefits, not threaten to take them away.
“Zach Nunn can run from the truth, but he can’t hide from his record,” said Matt Sinovic, executive director of Progress Iowa. “Rep. Nunn continues to ignore the needs of Iowans. Instead he voted for extreme measures that would harm working people and seniors. Those aren’t Iowa values. Iowans need Congress to protect and expand the benefits they’ve paid into and earned. Their hard work demands better than dishonest claims from the Congressman.”
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Fairness for Iowa is a statewide grassroots campaign to uplift the stories of hard-working Iowans. We know that when the middle class does well, all of us do well — which is why we’re fighting on behalf of working Americans and holding corporations, wealthy executives, and the politicians who enable them accountable. Our coalition includes Iowa Citizen Action Network, Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, AFSCME Council 61, Health Care for America Now, Lower Drug Prices Now Iowa, Iowa Main Streets and Country Roads, and Progress Iowa.
Comment:
Representative Nunn is hardly the only one. The whole Iowa delegation shares his distorted views that Social Security and Medicare are huge drains on our government. What Nunn and others are only concerned about is that the morbidly wealthy who now pay little in taxes may have to pay a few more dollars in taxes to keep these programs viable.
One of the best moves that would help make Medicare viable would be to end Medicare Advantage.
One thing that would keep Social Security viable would be to end the cap on income that can be taxed for Social Security. I believe it is now capped at $160,000/ year. Of course that would also necessitate having a way to honestly calculate income for America’s wealthiest citizens.
Remember “Medicare Advantage” is neither “Medicare” nor is there any “Advantage.” It should be a crime that private insurance companies are allowed to use the term “Medicare” which conveys some form of approval or oversight by the US government for these plans. There is no oversight or approval. It is a private insurance scam that is draining the Medicare system of funds while shorting customers on service.
Now doctors and hospitals are withdrawing from using these plans because the plans refuse to pay for services. Real Medicare does pay and it pays on time. Note also that if you have one of these private policies you MUST use doctors and hospitals in network or you have no coverage.
Unfortunately, once you get “Medicare Advantage” moving to real Medicare is not so easy. I do not have any prescription for getting out of the Advantage system. If it were me I would call the government Medicare system and see what can be done. Remember insurance agents are there to sell you insurance which is what Medicare Advantage is.
These private insurance Advantage plans are also having a big effect on rural hospitals. As explained here in an analysis from NPR, the private Advantage plans create real problems for rural hospitals:
Kelly Adams is the CEO of Mesa View Regional Hospital, another rural hospital in Nevada. He says he applauds Battle Mountain’s Bleak for keeping Medicare Advantage plans out of his hospital “as long as he has.”
Mesa View, which is a little more than an hour’s drive east of Las Vegas, has a high percentage of patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.
“Am I going to say I’m not going to take care of 40% of our patients at the hospital or the clinic?” Adams says, adding that it would be a “tough deal” to be forced to reject patients because they didn’t have traditional Medicare.
Mesa View has 21 Medicare Advantage contracts with multiple insurance companies. Adams says he has trouble getting the plans to pay for care the hospital has provided. They are either “slow pay or no pay,” he said.
With slow pay or no pay, eventually hospitals – especially smaller hospitals – will have to shut down.
As with many of the problems facing life in the USA here days, the privatized Advantage programs are a creation of the Republican (now MAGA) party’s penchant for putting private company profits above fixing the problem. Taking care of billionaires is much more important to MAGAs than taking care of the average citizen.
Keep that in mind when you vote next year.
Wednesday Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds along with a group of MAGA governors sent a letter to the White House protesting a new rule for nursing homes to have a registered nurse on staff 24 hours a day. Also in the new rules were requirements that ensure residents a minimum number of hours of daily care.
While the governors claim that they were protesting overreach by the federal government, I would submit that once again the MAGA politicians were much more concerned about keeping profits high and costs low for yet one more piece of America’s horribly splintered privatized healthcare system.
Brother, does America’s healthcare system need a complete overhaul with service to the citizen as its core focus.
I have found that ex-Republicans are worth listening to because they – unlike liberals myself included – totally get how Republicans “think” because they used to be in the club. Adam Kinzinger was a guest on Colbert and they are discussing the Colorado case happening now to determine whether the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” can be used to prevent Donald Trump from appearing on Colorado’s presidential election ballot due to the small matter of Trump being an insurrectionist.
I’ve been watching the courtroom drama as much as I can this week. You can stream the trial on C-SPAN and I would definitely recommend. The full playlist is here starting at day 1 up to day 4; not sure if they’re going into Day 5. I jumped in at Day 2 here where the testimony was about communication patterns fascist leaders use to tell their followers what to do. I’m no lawyer but it seemed like the petitioners were making a pretty good case. It’s engrossing and a free education on more than just Section 3 of the 14th amendment. Plus, I find it calming during these crazy times to watch defenders of democracy at work.
Pharmaggedon: Massive walkout by non-union workers.
“Pharmacy workers, largely from CVS and Walgreens, are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore…they’ve had enough. Pharma protests, non-union but organized, have been happening across the country, seeking relief from under-staffing and asking for paychecks they can actually LIVE on.”
Here at CMD, we’ve been exposing the insidious right-wing and corporate pay-to-play activities of ALEC for more than a decade.
Now, we’re asking for your help.
Time and again, ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) has aligned itself with right-wing extremists and a legislative agenda that harms our democracy, our environment, and our rights.
Whether it’s pushing legislation for the tobacco industry and gun manufacturers, promoting the American Petroleum Institute’s climate denial plan, demonizing sustainable and inclusive business practices, supporting voter suppression, or backing abortion bans, ALEC’s radical positions are out of line with the American public – and even with many of its corporate members.
That’s why CMD and other environmental, social justice, and democracy groups are calling on corporations that claim to respect the environment, civil rights, reproductive freedom, and fair elections to quit ALEC.
Thanks to pressure from people like you, more than 100 major corporations have dumped ALEC since we launched ALEC Exposed in 2011 — including Google, Coca-Cola, and AT&T — but many more keep funding its harmful operations.
More than 60,000 people have already signed the petition, and your voice makes a difference!
The livestock industry is heavily consolidated. Just four companies control a disproportionate 67% of the pork, 73% of the beef and 54% of the chicken markets. Rural America pays a heavy price for the multinational corporate takeover of livestock farming.
ART CULLEN, Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of The Storm Lake Times, headlines a compelling panel of experts, farmers, and neighbors to take a hard look at how livestock consolidation impacts rural America. The JFAN Annual Meeting, “Bigger is Not Better: Rural Communities In the Wake of Livestock Consolidation.”
Cullen will be joined by DR. CHRIS JONES, water quality expert and author of The Swine Republic; independent hog farmer CHRIS PETERSEN; and family farmer and attorney SONJA EAYRS, all offering a variety of perspectives on how livestock consolidation hollows out rural communities.
Speakers will kick off the meeting with presentations, but the bulk of the evening will consist of a substantial audience question and answer session.
Reporting on Iowa issues for over 38 years, Cullen has directly witnessed how livestock consolidation impacts the state. He’ll share an insider’s view on its effects in both his home town of Storm Lake and throughout Iowa. Cullen’s writings include the environmental, economic, and political consequences of livestock consolidation for The Storm Lake Times as well as for national and international publications including The Washington Post and The Guardian.
Dr. Jones is well known for his experience in monitoring Iowa’s water quality. He will lay out how the growth of factory farms and its accompanying corn/soy monocropping system degrades Iowa’s waterways. Dr. Jones will also candidly cover how Iowa’s legislature is affected by powerful agribusiness influences.
Independent hog farmers have been hard hit – 92% have gone out of business over the last 50 years. But independent Berkshire hog farmer Chris Petersen from Clear Lake, Iowa is holding on. Petersen will talk about how consolidation has influenced his family farm business and those of other independent family farmers and how the social structure of rural Iowa has changed.
Consolidation also impacts neighbors in rural communities. Family farmer and attorney Sonja Eayrs watched 12 CAFOs encroach upon her family’s 760 acre farm over the past 30 years. She will speak about her experiences fighting CAFOs in Dodge County, Minnesota, located 30 miles north of Iowa, and how they have affected her farm, her family, and her community.
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
ART CULLEN is the editor and co-owner of The Storm Lake Times, a family owned, independent newspaper in northwest Iowa that he co-founded in 1990. In 2015, the Des Moines Water Works sued three counties for funneling high levels of nitrate into its drinking water. Cullen let loose a series of 10 hard-hitting editorials, uncovering and challenging the dark money from corporate agriculture that funded the counties’ legal defense. It won him the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 2017. He’s the author of Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from a Heartland Newspaper.
DR. CHRIS JONES is a retired Research Engineer formerly at the IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering at the University of Iowa. For eight years he managed the Iowa Water Quality Information System, a program of 66 water sensors throughout the state reporting nitrate levels in real time. Dr. Jones’ University of Iowa blog became the basis of his popular book, The Swine Republic. In it, Dr. Jones covers the science, politics, culture, and economics of Iowa’s agriculture system, linking Iowa’s deteriorated waterways to the state’s legislated agricultural practices. His new blog can be found at Substack.com/@riverraccoon.
CHRIS PETERSEN is a lifelong independent and traditional family farmer in Clear Lake, Iowa raising antibiotic-free Berkshire hogs on a humane, small-scale farm. He manages a herd of 50 sows, selling piglets to other small-scale Berkshire farmers and raising some to finishing weight that he sells through direct marketing. Petersen’s farm barely survived the 1980’s farm crisis which drove many small-scale farmers out of business. He’s a past president and current board member of the Iowa Farmers Union, a co-founder of the Iowa Alliance for Responsible Agriculture, a member of various national groups, and a fierce advocate for family farmers.
SONJA TROM EAYRS is a farmer’s daughter, rural advocate and attorney. Her family has been on the front lines fighting industrial agriculture for 30 years. Encircled by 12 hog CAFOs within a 3-mile radius of the Trom family farm, Eayrs and her family know and understand firsthand the damage sustained to rural America by large multinational corporations. She has worked and written extensively on threats to the environment, public health, and corporate consolidation due to industrial agriculture. Eayrs, her family members, and other local citizens founded Dodge County Concerned Citizens, a grassroots organization determined to fight corporate factory farms.
Questions from audience participants are welcome and encouraged.
He’s not just using vague rhetoric either. He has proposed literally trillions of dollars of cuts to these programs. Not just proposed, but “vigorously championed” budget resolutions proposing trillions in cuts to these programs. All of Iowa’s representatives in congress voted for him to be speaker. This is not an acceptable situation. If you are a Democrat or no-party voter in Iowa you essentially have no one representing your interests or point of view in congress.
Fortunately, there is good news. Representatives Miller-Meeks, Hinson and Feenstra all have Democratic opponents, giving voters a huge opportunity to remove these MAGA extremist Republicans from office.
As it stands right now, Iowans have NO Democratic representation in either DC or Des Moines. All four congressmen and women are Republicans. Republicans also control the Iowa senate, the house and the governor’s office. I heard from a reliable source that one of these Republican representatives actually told high school students at a town hall event that because Republicans are in the majority they did not have to listen to anything they said. This is appalling.
As state auditor Rob Sand has said many times, he is the only statewide Democrat left standing and they are trying to attack his office and the courts as we speak.
At the time of this posting we have not heard if there will be a challenger to Zach Nunn’s seat in IA-03 but we hope to hear something soon.
Please support these candidates. We cannot afford to let the party of the January 6 insurrection, that wants to take down the social safety net, continue to have their way unchallenged.
Thom Hartmann explains MAGA two Santa Clause Theory. Hartmann explains how MAGAs cut taxes for the rich hoping to force Democrats to “shoot their own Santa Clause” or that is cut their social programs – especially Social Security and Medicare. (9:36)
America now has a Speaker of the House who has a target on programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. As explained in Thom Hartmann’s brilliant video above Speaker Mike Johnson blames the debt on the Democrats social programs.
What is never talked about and what MAGA politicians refuse to even acknowledge is that the basic generator of our debt and deficit is tax cuts for the rich. MAGAs, including Iowa’s poorly informed and puppet like delegation of Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra, will refuse to talk about raising taxes. The conversation is only around cutting services and programs for those who will be most greatly affected by such cuts.
Corporate media who are among the greatest recipients of the Tax Cut Santa Clause and the millionaires and billionaires who run these corporations and also big recipients of the Tax Cut Santa Clause have spent decades steering American opinion to believe that tax cuts for the exceptionally wealthy are good and a pittance for the poor is really bad. That is the gospel that most people will regurgitate when asked simply because they have been brainwashed by the media.
Last week, the Treasury Department released a report that released new figures related to the 2023 budget that showed a troubling drop in the nation’s tax revenue compared to GDP. In an analysis that I wish I could post verbatim, Common Dreams reporter Jon Queally analyzes the report and shows how tax cuts for the wealthy drive the debt and deficit while the pittance for the poor and Social Security gets the blame.
While much of the reporting on the Treasury figures painted a picture of various and overlapping dynamics to explain the surge in the deficit—including higher payments on debt due to interest rates, tax filing waivers related to extreme weather events, the impact of a student loan forgiveness program that was later rescinded, or a dip in capital gains receipts—progressive tax experts say none of those complexities should act to shield what’s at the heart of a budget that brings in less than it spends: tax giveaways to the rich.
{snip}
“The point I want to make again and again and again is that, relative to the last time CBO was projecting stable debt/GDP, spending is down, not up,” Kogan said in a tweet Friday night. “It’s lower revenue that’s 100% responsible for the change in debt projections. If you take away nothing else, leave with this point.”
{snip}
On Friday, the office of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) cited those same numbers in a press release responding to the Treasury’s new report.
“Tax giveaways for the wealthy are continuing to starve the federal government of needed revenue: those passed by former Presidents Trump and Bush have added $10 trillion to the debt and account for 57 percent of the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio since 2001,” read the statement. “If not for those tax cuts, U.S. debt would be declining as a share of the economy.”
Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, said the dip in federal revenue and growth in the overall deficit both have the same primary cause: GOP fealty to the wealthy individuals and powerful corporations that bankroll their campaigns.
“In their blind loyalty to their mega-donors, Republicans’ fixation on giant tax cuts for billionaires has created a revenue problem that is driving up our national debt,” Whitehouse said Friday night. “Even as federal spending fell over the last year relative to the size of the economy, the deficit increased because Republicans have rigged the tax code so that big corporations and the wealthy can avoid paying their fair share.”
While this is a pipe dream on my account it would be so wonderful to have reporters calling MAGA politicians on their claims that social programs are driving the country into debt and deficit and force those MAGA politicians to directly answer for what the real drivers of debt and deficit are: tax cuts for the extreme wealthy.
Plus I would so love to see those same reporters box MAGA politicians into answering what they intend to do about those excessive tax cuts and how they would heal the problems such huge gaps in wealth and income have done to our country.
A boy can dream, can’t he? When the election comes around next year I will be looking for candidates who face our economic problems with the reality based view that tax cuts for the rich are the real culprit of problems.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
Now we vote them out.
IA-04
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