U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Josh Hawley is spending his time attacking Disney instead of voting "yes" on bills for our veterans who need life saving healthcare and also voting to cap insulin prices at $35 for all Americans including his own voters in Missouri. Once again, the GOP wants to start fake culture wars to appeal to the most radical segment of the GOP base instead of doing their jobs to actually help Americans including our veterans.       

Republican Josh Hawley seeks to punish Disney by stripping the company of extraordinary copyright protections



The Republican Party's war on The Walt Disney Company has expanded from Florida to Washington, DC as the party seeks to punish the iconic company for criticizing culture war battles instigated by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis.

"Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) joined other Republicans in Congress in shaking their fists at the Walt Disney Company for opposing Florida’s 'Don’t Say Gay' law prohibiting classroom discussion of sexual orientation. This week, Hawley introduced a bill to shorten the duration of federal copyright protection," the HuffPost reported Tuesday.

The law would narrowly apply to companies in the motion picture industry with market capitalization over $150 billion.

"Hawley acknowledged that Disney’s response to the Florida law inspired his legislation but stressed the bill did not solely target Disney — since a law punishing an individual entity could be unconstitutional," HuffPost reported. "Hawley cast his bill as part of his broader campaign against Big Tech and 'woke corporations'; it is also the latest bit of culture war grandstanding by Republicans after Disney said it opposed Florida’s ban on the classroom discussion of sex*al orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade."

Disney has repeatedly convinced Congress to extend copyright protection to prevent its characters from entering the public domain.

The controversial GOP bill signed by DeSantis has blocked the distribution of yearbooks at Lyman High School.

"Yearbooks at a central Florida high school won't be distributed until images of students holding rainbow flags and a 'love is love' sign while protesting the state's so-called 'Don't Say Gay' law can be covered up. District officials said they don't want anyone thinking that the school supported the students' walkout," CBS News reported Tuesday.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/josh-hawley-disney-copyright_n_627ac821e4b046ad0d82c098


Legal experts slam Josh Hawley's 'blatantly unconstitutional' anti-Disney bill

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on Tuesday introduced legislation designed to revoke many of the copyrights owned by Disney and other "woke" companies.

As reported by Variety, Hawley’s bill would constitute a major rewrite of U.S. copyright law, shortening by several decades the total term available to all copyright holders going forward. He also wants to retroactively limit Disney’s copyrights, effectively stripping the company of much of its intellectual property. That particular provision would face several legal obstacles.

“That is a blatantly unconstitutional taking of property without compensation,” said Prof. Paul Goldstein, an intellectual property expert at Stanford Law School.

In a press release Hawley said that Disney had benefited from “unnecessarily long copyright monopolies,” and that it is time to end “the age of Republican handouts to Big Business.”

“Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists,” said Hawley, who once clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts. “It’s time to take away Disney’s special privileges and open up a new era of creativity and innovation.”

Hawley’s move is another shot against the entertainment giant by conservatives. Last month Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that would strip Disney of its long-standing special tax status in the Orlando area.

"Restricting copyrights to 56 years would also likely draw opposition from every corner of the creative world — not just from Disney and other entertainment companies, but from authors, composers, songwriters, and many others," Variety reports.

Prof. Tyler Ochoa, an intellectual property expert at the Santa Clara University School of Law, also said that is likely unconstitutional.

“This has zero chance,” he said. “He’s showboating.”

https://www.rawstory.com/josh-hawley-disney/

[Rick Plant]

President Biden @POTUS

I happen to think it’s a good thing when American families have more money in their pockets at the end of the month.

But Republicans in Congress don’t seem to think so. Their plan is going to make working families poorer.

The bottom line is this: There are two paths, reflecting two very different sets of values.

My plan attacks inflation and grows our economy by:
 
- Lowering costs for working families
- Giving workers a well-deserved raise
- Reducing the deficit by historic levels
- Making big corporations and the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share

The ultra-MAGA plan put forward by Congressional Republicans will:

- Raise taxes on working families
- Lower the incomes of workers
- Threaten Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid
- Give big corporations and billionaires break after break

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1524131844463247360


President Biden’s plan to tackle inflation will help give working families a little more breathing room and ensure the wealthy pay their fair share. Congressional Republicans’ plan will raise taxes on middle class families and let billionaires off the hook.

[Rick Plant]

Rick Scott's 11-point nightmare is a revival of Mitt Romney's '47 percent of Americans pay no taxes' schtick



Florida Senator Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has released a plan which says, honestly and clearly, exactly what Republicans want to do to the poor.

It’s this plan that Joe Biden highlighted Tuesday in setting up a contrast between the Democratic agenda and the Republicans’.

“Republicans in Congress are so deeply committed to protecting big corporations and CEOs that they would rather see taxes on working American families and try to depress their wages than take on inflation, never mind the fact that many of these companies are recording record profit margins even as ... they raise prices,” he said.

Scott’s peers have not welcomed the plan. They have distanced themselves from his proposals. In doing so, they have demonstrated the extent to which Republican economic policies rely on hypocritical populism to cover for their assault on the disadvantaged.

Scott’s Plan to Rescue America, unveiled at the end of March, included a lot of rabid Republican nativism and conspiratorial bigotry.

It demands all students in public school be forced to recite the pledge of allegiance. It promises to double down on completing Trump’s failed border wall. It says Republicans will ban a debt increase — which would trigger default and precipitate a massive recession or worse.

Republican campaigns marinate in this kind of festering nonsensically symbolic stew of word and gesture. But Scott, who is worth north of $250 million, adds policies that deliberately target the least affluent.

Scott’s plan states that, “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.”

By his own account, therefore, Scott’s plan would raise taxes on more than half of Americans — most of whom pay no income tax because they don’t earn enough income on which to pay income tax. About 102 million individuals or married couples would owe under his plan.

In addition, Scott proposed that “all federal legislation sunsets in five years.” This would throw the government into chaos. More, it would eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Imagine a divided Congress passing such sweeping legislation quinquennially. You can’t.

Democrats criticized the plan quickly.

Republicans, meanwhile, disapproved or sidestepped.

Senate candidate Billy Long said he didn’t support Scott’s tax increases. Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks issued a statement denouncing tax increases. Senator Marco Rubio dodged the issue, saying he didn’t know whether he agreed with it.

In 2012, Republican candidate Mitt Romney suggested Americans who didn’t pay taxes were freeloading or were not invested in the system. There was a massive backlash. Since then Republicans have generally opposed all tax increases of any sort for everyone.

Trump in 2016 promised a big middle-class tax cut. He also promised to preserve entitlement programs — at least when he’s not, in typically incoherent Trump fashion, promising to cut them.

The Republicans can be trusted generally to say they are committed to reducing the burden on the working and middle class. But what they do is more in line with the goal of Rick Scott’s proposal– soak the poor.

Trump’s 2017 tax cut was a bonanza for the rich and a punch in the gut for the less affluent. The richest, earning at least $308,900, had their income tax cut, giving them a 3 percent boost in income.

The poorest saw a decrease in income of about 3 percent. That’s because it repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.

Similarly, Republicans almost uniformly opposed President Joe Biden’s Child Tax Credit program which provided hundreds of dollars in cash payments to poor families with children.

Thanks to GOP obstruction, the program ended in January.

When it did, child poverty spiked by 41 percent.

The Republicans and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin look more heartless as it becomes clear the conservative Supreme Court intends to shred abortion rights, allowing states to force women to give birth.

That should make clear that Republicans are keen to control women’s bodies, but lose interest once they’re born. Some Republicans have made vague noises about maybe providing some limited benefits for children, but these plans sound half-hearted at best.

The GOP is eager to shovel money into the wealthy’s deep pockets. They are just as eager to take money from those who need it most.

More, they love restricting, regulating and harassing the poor by denying them access to reproductive healthcare or any healthcare.

The Republicans and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin look more heartless as it becomes clear the conservative Supreme Court intends to shred abortion rights, allowing states to force women to give birth.

That should make clear that Republicans are keen to control women’s bodies, but lose interest once they’re born. Some Republicans have made vague noises about maybe providing some limited benefits for children, but these plans sound half-hearted at best.

The GOP is eager to shovel money into the wealthy’s deep pockets. They are just as eager to take money from those who need it most.

More, they love restricting, regulating and harassing the poor by denying them access to reproductive healthcare or any healthcare.

Romney accurately explained the Republican philosophy when he characterized the rich as “makers” and the poor as “takers.”

To Romney, bosses were virtuous wealth generators who deserved all the resources. Poor and working people, who actually did the labor that created the goods and services, were leeches to be brushed aside.

Open contempt for working people proved to be fairly unpopular. Republicans have instead embraced a pallid populism with which they blame the country’s economic woes on immigrants and mutter indistinctly about helping the middle class.

Scott’s plan gives the game away. It openly acknowledges the policies that Republicans don’t like to admit to their own voters.

Scott wants to take money from the poor triumphantly, rather than quietly letting their cash payments lapse. He wants to slice benefits with a flourish, rather than scuttling them in the fine print.

He says the less powerful are less worthy, rather than (or in addition to) using dog whistles and insinuations to encourage people to think that GOP hate is directed solely at immigrants, Black people, LGBT people — anyone but the GOP’s core constituency of white people.

Rick Scott’s plan advertises what voters can expect from Republicans. His party wants to harm working people and the less affluent.

When they’re out of office, they dream of it.

When they’re in office, they’ll deliver it.


Rick Scott: The Man With The Plan?

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Republican Glenn Youngkin facing backlash after adding religious language to diversity training



A new diversity training Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration enacted includes two references to a “creator,” religious language that struck several workers who saw it as inappropriate for inclusion in training material that’s mandatory for new state government employees.

The Youngkin administration created the “Working Together for Virginia” video as its own attempt to comply with a 2020 law requiring the state’s human resources agency to provide an online diversity and cultural competency training course for state employees.

The “creator” lines appear to be drawn from a portion of Youngkin’s inaugural speech that was repeated in a later executive order that reshaped the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the governor’s cabinet.

“Most of all, every one of us is made in the image of our creator,” the narrator in the training course says, quoting from Youngkin’s executive order. “Since the first settlers arrived a little more than 400 years ago, we have been an imperfect people on the course to a more perfect union. At times, we’ve truly failed to live up to our ideals, but we all want to do what is right and what is morally just, even if we fall short. What is seared in our heart by a loving, almighty creator is not a desire for power or conquest, not a love of self or personal advancement, rather it’s a belief that life is worth living when we serve a greater cause than self.”

Three state employees who spoke to the Virginia Mercury on the condition of anonymity to avoid job retaliation described being shocked to find religious themes in a training they were required to take.

“It was an instant, knee-jerk, gut reaction that this is wrong on any level,” said one self-described agnostic employee. “I’m working for the state. I didn’t choose to go work for the church down the street where I expect this.”

The fact the text appeared to come from an earlier Youngkin speech, the employee said, didn’t make a difference.

“It actually makes me even madder,” the worker said. “Because then it just seals the deal that this is just all his agenda being forced into government employee training.”

Youngkin is open about his Christian faith, and shortly after being sworn into office he led a public prayer for the state. Every session of the Virginia General Assembly begins with a prayer delivered by various faith leaders, and it’s not uncommon for Virginia politicians in both parties to publicly refer to their religious beliefs. The section of the Virginia Constitution on freedom of religion and separation of church and state begins: “That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.”

Rules for religion in the workplace are more complicated, with federal protections generally requiring employers to accommodate both religious and non-religious employees alike. The definition of harassment in Virginia’s employee handbook includes conduct that “shows hostility or aversion” on the basis of religion.

A second state employee who took the training said it left them feeling “equal parts angry and sad.”

“Politics plays a role in being state employees that are subject to political whims,” the second employee said. “But never before this have I seen any sort of overt religious bias injected into anything that’s aligned with the state.”

Macaulay Porter, a Youngkin spokesperson, said the new training “reinforces the governor’s commitment to diversity while adhering to the fundamentals of equality.” In a Tuesday email, she wrote that the administration developed the course in coordination with other state agencies and officials, including the Department of Human Resource Management, Secretary of Administration Lyn McDermid and Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay James.

Asked about the employee concerns over the religious references, Porter said the language was “derived from the Declaration of Independence and other documents from the United States’ founding fathers.”

“At this time, we have not received concerns from employees,” she added. “We welcome and appreciate any feedback as the aim of the training is to guide best practices for an inclusive workplace.”

The Virginia General Assembly first mandated diversity training for state employees in 2020, passing legislation that required an online module with specific information on race, ethnicity, gender, religion and other protected classes. The original training was developed under the state’s first-ever director of diversity, equity and inclusion appointed by former Gov. Ralph Northam.

Youngkin’s office has significantly revised the course along with adding religious references. Porter confirmed that the eight and half-minute video comprises the entirety of the administration’s current diversity training for state employees. The module now includes a message from Youngkin, as well as defining terms such as “diversity,” “equitable opportunity” and “inclusion.”

“We acknowledge that too many of our citizens have not received the equal opportunity they deserve and we recognize that diversity, when genuinely embraced, strengthens our commonwealth,” the narrator in the video says. There are also some references to specific goals, including aligning the demographics of agency staff with the demographics of Virginia as a whole.

A former official with the Northam administration who was familiar with the development process said the Northam-era module was developed in conjunction with the One Virginia plan, a framework released in 2021 that sought to “institutionalize” diversity within state agencies. The official, along with a state employee interviewed by the Mercury, said the first training was roughly an hour long, including a discussion component, and included specific sections on terms such as microaggressions and examples of ways to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Their descriptions were confirmed through a Freedom of Information Act request to the state’s Department of Human Resource Management. The agency on Wednesday provided multiple videos used in the original version of the training as well as the script, which encouraged employees to reflect on the materials and point out instances of inappropriate or insensitive behavior.

The state employee said the new course from the Youngkin administration completely removed the original training’s interactive elements with guidance on inclusive language and exercises intended to foster empathy among employees with diverse backgrounds. The lack of specificity — along with the religious overtones — left some staff feeling overlooked by the administration, the employee said.

“I’d say it’s pretty insensitive to some and actually offensive to others,” the worker added.

Another state employee, along with the former Northam official, expressed doubt that the revised training met the requirements of the 2020 law, which directed the course to include specific strategies on creating an inclusive and equitable culture and promoting diversity in recruitment and hiring.

“It sounds like we’re not meeting the actual statutory obligation, which is what our video was intended to do,” said the former official, who spoke under condition of anonymity to candidly discuss concerns over the changes. Del. Elizabeth Guzman, D-Prince William, also said the new course failed to meet the intent of the legislation, which she developed after working with a constituent who wanted to change the gender listed on their government-issued identification to match their identity.

Guzman said she ultimately had to escalate the request to the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, underscoring the need for inclusion training among lower-level employees.

“The governor talks about what he wants to accomplish, but he’s been on the job now for five months and we have yet to see what he’s trying to do specifically to diversify the workforce at the state level,” Guzman said. “And that’s something that’s under his control.”

Both she and the former official also shared concerns that the revised course — including the message from Youngkin — injected politics into a training that initially focused solely on workplace practices for state agencies and employees. The original material did not feature Northam or any of his political appointees, the former official said, with the hope that the module would “live beyond the administration.”

Revising much of Virginia’s former work on equity and inclusion initiatives has been a focal point of Youngkin’s term as governor. His first executive order banned “inherently divisive concepts,” including what he’s described as critical race theory, from public school classrooms. The order put an immediate end to some initiatives at the state’s Department of Education, including a push to revise statewide math curricula that factored in concerns over disproportionately lower test scores among Black, Hispanic and low-income students.

Less than two months after he took office, his administration repealed virtually every other equity-based policy within the department, including teaching resources intended to help educators address biases in the classroom. The move was part of a broader effort to remove the word “equity” from many government offices, including renaming the director of diversity, equity and inclusion — the new position created by Northam — as the director of diversity, opportunity and inclusion.

Proponents of the equity concept describe it as a more assertive approach to addressing racial disparities and systemic racism by realigning resources to ensure better outcomes for historically marginalized groups. Supporters argue that a focus on providing equal opportunities to everyone is insufficient given the historic treatment of many communities, including Black Americans, that’s put them at a continued disadvantage.

Youngkin and other conservative critics argue it encourages overly broad racial stereotypes and reorients public policy away from the idea that government action should be race-neutral. In his first executive order, the governor said that “divisive concepts,” including critical race theory, “instruct students to only view life through the lens of race and presumes that some students are consciously or unconsciously racist, sexist, or oppressive, and that other students are victims.”

In public appearances, Youngkin has expressed support for concepts such as diversity while skirting specific instances of current and historic racism or oppression. His inaugural address referenced a country with “chapters of great injustice” while encouraging Virginians to come together in the present.

“We are one Virginia,” he said, language incorporated into the state’s new diversity training. “We are all sailing in the same boat.”

The ACLU of Virginia said it was looking into the matter.

“The ACLU of Virginia is very concerned by the inclusion of religious indoctrination in a required training for state employees,” said Matt Callahan, a senior ACLU staff attorney. “The First Amendment guarantees the religious freedom of all individuals by ensuring the separation of church and state, including for Commonwealth employees.”

https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/05/11/youngkins-almighty-creator-rhetoric-in-new-diversity-training-offends-some-state-employees/

[Rick Plant]

Steve Schmidt Is Right: The Degeneration of the GOP Began Long Before Trump

Operatives with ties to “Putin’s oligarch” ran John McCain’s campaign.

John McCain labeled his 2008 presidential campaign the “Straight Talk Express.” But that was just a slogan. In reality, McCain’s campaign was a desperately disingenuous project that saw the candidate and a cabal of corrupt aides lie to reporters and the American people, foster false impressions of their rivals, give Sarah Palin a national platform, and set the stage for the degeneration of the Republican Party into the antidemocratic confederacy it has since become.

The GOP’s debasement has had a lot to do with Donald Trump, but it did not begin with the 45th president. It had deep roots that were entangled not only with unprincipled strategists on the domestic front but also with oligarchs who were aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And it continues to haunt the party, and the United States, at a moment when Putin’s military is waging a genocidal war against Ukraine.

That is the most important takeaway from the headline-grabbing pronouncements of McCain campaign aide turned “Never Trump” Republican Steve Schmidt, who is currently embattled in a Twitter war with the late senator’s self-dealing daughter, Meghan McCain.

Schmidt is one of the most ubiquitous public figures on the American political scene, and his many sharp comments over the years on various social media platforms and during MSNBC interviews have inspired criticism that he is driven by rancor over unsettled scores. But when I referenced that criticism in the previous version of this article and suggested that it is easy to get lost in the political minutiae, Schmidt pushed back, noting that, “I did not respond to any of this for 14 years, I carried the burden of John McCain’s recklessness.” He rejected my suggestion that some of his recent messaging could be characterized as gossip or personal infighting, and I think he’s right to make this point. But, nonetheless, the people who have not agreed with Schmidt, personally or politically, should pay attention to what he’s saying now.

Schmidt has gotten to the point that needs making when he recalled in a tweet on Saturday that during one of the many collapses of John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential bid, “[the] campaign imploded over the vicious infighting between Rick Davis and John Weaver. Weaver gave an ultimatum. No Manafort. No Davis. McCain chose Davis The fight was over Ukraine and Deripaska.”

Weaver was a senior adviser to McCain for a number of years, and an ally of Schmidt. Davis was the manager of McCain’s 2008 campaign, and a business partner of Paul Manafort. Yes, that Paul Manafort.

This salient detail provides insight into how the Grand Old Party became such a dangerous player, domestically and internationally. Manafort did not magically appear in 2016 as Donald Trump’s campaign chair at a point when the Republican platform was rewritten to remove language that called for providing weapons to Ukraine to fight Russia. Manafort joined the Trump team as a veteran Republican strategist who used his connections to expand the influence of Putin’s allies over a party that had historically been antagonistic to the Soviet Union and Russia. His manipulations would frame the narrative for the most compelling sections of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian influence on Trump’s campaign and presidency. But they began years earlier.

Manafort and Davis had worked as a team for years, leading twinned careers that took them to the top of the GOP’s political hierarchy. They engineered the takeover of the 1996 campaign of former Senate majority leader Bob Dole, for which Manafort served as convention manager and Davis served as deputy campaign manager. Famously inept when it came to the practical work of politics, Manafort and Davis managed the Dole campaign to a finish with just 40 percent of the national vote. The nominee, a World War II hero who seemed a natural for conservative Southern and border regions, lost Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia—states that have consistently voted Republican in every election since. But failure is rarely if ever punished in the upper echelons of American politics, and Manafort and Davis quickly got their hooks into another presidential contender: John McCain.

When McCain partnered with Davis, who would manage the Arizonan’s failed 2000 and 2008 presidential bids, he linked himself to a pair of operatives who for a number of years maintained a lucrative relationship with Russian billionaire named Oleg Deripaska. In an October 2008 piece for The Nation, Mark Ames and Ari Berman described Deripaska as “a Putin-blessed aluminum tycoon with an estimated $40 billion fortune” who “adhered to an unwritten understanding between Putin and the oligarchs: as long as they support the Kremlin, they can operate with impunity.”

As recently as March of this year, Deripaska was described by The Guardian as “Putin’s favorite” oligarch.

Davis and Manafort had no apparent qualms about putting McCain in the same room with Deripaska for what the oligarch described as an “intimate” 2006 dinner outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In January of 2008, when McCain was again bidding for the presidency, The Washington Post would report that “Rick Davis, who is now McCain’s campaign manager, helped set up the encounter between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in Switzerland during an international economic conference. At the time, Davis was working for a lobbying firm and seeking to do business with the billionaire.”

The Post noted that the work of Davis’s firm—known then as Davis Manafort—“put him on the opposite side of Eastern European politics from McCain, who has spoken out vigorously against what he sees as Putin’s attempts to subvert elections in former Soviet republics such as Ukraine.” It added that “Davis’ firm provided political advice to a pro-Russian party in Ukraine during the parliamentary elections of 2006. McCain, on the other hand, backed President Viktor Yushchenko, a Western-oriented reformer who led 2004’s Orange Revolution, which overturned what he and his allies considered an election stolen by the party helped by Davis’s firm.”

This is what Schmidt was referring to in his recent Twitter message to Meghan McCain, which featured a link to The Nation article and Schmidt’s comment, “Your Father tolerated his campaign chairman being in business and working for Putin through his association with Yanukovych.”

Schmidt added, “Yanukovych, as you probably have no idea, was Putin’s puppet in Ukraine. The story of American corruption in Ukraine starts here. It starts in John McCain’s operation, not Trump’s.”

That is a fact. And it matters a lot more than the sordid details of the lies the 2008 McCain campaign told about the senator’s affair with a telecommunications lobbyist—although that corruption ought not be forgotten. What needs to be understood is that, while Davis and Manafort eventually went their separate ways, the seeds of Putin’s influence within the Republican Party were planted long before Trump took over. Trump nurtured the seeds to fruition, with an assist from Manafort that led a 2020 report from the Republican-controlled US Senate Intelligence Committee to conclude that Manafort’s “high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services” created a circumstance during the Trump campaign and presidency that “represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”

Permanent fixtures in American politics, who leap from campaign to campaign, and who pick up extra cash by doing the bidding of foreign strongmen and oligarchs, are rarely held to account in the United States. This lack of accountability obscures the ways in which not just the electoral but the governing process too is corrupted.

While it is true that Manafort’s over-the-top machinations got him briefly jailed in 2019, he was pardoned by Trump in 2020. As for Davis, he parted company with Manafort after the 2008 campaign and joined a private equity firm. But he remains politically connected, as a trustee of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a group that says its mission is “advancing character-driven leadership in our own communities and around the world.” Davis’s biography on the institute’s website notes, “In 2000 and 2008, Davis served as Senator John McCain’s national campaign manager, leading all aspects of the campaign activity.”

All aspects.

That explains why Steve Schmidt now says, “The McCain Institute should immediately remove Rick Davis from the Board of Trustees which includes General David Petraeus. The presence of a man who advanced Putin’s agenda and made millions with Manafort, Deripaska and Victor Yanukovych has no business being involved in an Institute that exists to promote Democratic values while Ukrainians are being killed by the Russians Davis worked for. Moral obscenity doesn’t begin to describe it.”

Say what you will about Schmidt—as many of his former compatriots now attack him, and as some in the media mock him—but he has provided a true picture of the degeneracy of a Republican Party that began the process of surrendering its honor long before Donald Trump joined its ranks.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/steve-schmidt-john-mccain/

[Rick Plant]

Republicans in disarray.

Marge wasn't the only Republican attacking the $40 Billion aid package to Ukraine, fellow white nationalist Republicans Paul Gosar and Thomas Massie also did the same. These Putin worshippers in the GOP are outing themselves. Guess they are angry because they can't get Russian money flooding their campaigns like they used to.       

Marjorie Taylor Greene flips out on her GOP colleague after he praises the destruction of Russia’s military

On Wednesday, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) got into a public feud with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) after she attacked the idea that the U.S. has an obligation to defend Ukraine against Russian invasion.

The argument began after Crenshaw replied to a right-wing account attacking him for voting on the bipartisan $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, which among other things supplies weapons and economic assistance to the war-torn country, and funding to address global food shortages caused by the disruption of Ukraine's agriculture industry.

"Yeah, because Investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea. You should feel the same," Crenshaw told the critic.

Greene attacked Crenshaw for his response, accusing him of wanting Ukrainian lives to be "used and thrown away" for a "proxy war with Russia" — and suggesting none of this would help Americans.

"So you think we are funding a proxy war with Russia?" Greene tweeted. "You speak as if Ukrainian lives should be thrown away, as if they have no value. Just used and thrown away. For your proxy war? How does that help Americans? How does any of this help?"

Crenshaw was quick to respond, accusing her of spreading Russian propaganda. "Still going after that slot on Russia Today huh?" he tweeted.



Greene has consistently claimed that Ukrainian resistance against Russia is futile as a justification for opposing aid to Ukraine — even as Russia entered its Victory Day celebrations this week with virtually none of the strategic goals for the Ukraine invasion met.

This comes after some allies of former President Donald Trump have taken the opposite tack and claimed that President Joe Biden's requested assistance to Ukraine will not actually help them survive a war — which military experts have refuted.

https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657301678/

[Rick Plant]

You probably have heard there's a baby formula shortage due to the recall of popular formulas because they contained Cronobacter.

Republicans and the right wing media are viciously attacking President Biden for the shortage by claiming "it's his fault" which he obviously has no control over. But that doesn't stop the right from pushing lying propaganda by trying to score cheap political points based on nothing but lies.

The fact of the matter is, Abbott Management who manufactures the formulas for the popular brands tried to cut corners by refusing to repair dilapidated and failure-prone drying machines turning the plant into proverbial petri dishes for cronobacter, because they needed that $5.73 billion for stock buybacks. And somehow this is all "Biden's fault"? What a joke. Quit listening to Republicans and the right wing media because they are nothing but lying propagandists. They lie about non existent voter fraud, they lie for Trump, they lie about the baby formula, they lie about everything.

The FDA recalled the formulas and are doing an investigation on the matter. But here's documented information on previous 2019 audit for Abbott Management.       










FDA Takes Important Steps to Improve Supply of Infant and Specialty Formula Products

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is providing an update on its work to increase the availability of infant and specialty formula products. On Feb. 17, the agency warned consumers not to use certain powdered infant formula products from Abbott Nutrition’s Sturgis, Michigan facility, and Abbott initiated a voluntary recall of certain products. Since that time, the agency has been working with Abbott and other manufacturers to bring safe products to the U.S. market.

“We recognize that many consumers have been unable to access infant formula and critical medical foods they are accustomed to using and are frustrated by their inability to do so. We are doing everything in our power to ensure there is adequate product available where and when they need it,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. “Ensuring the availability of safe, sole-source nutrition products like infant formula is of the utmost importance to the FDA. Our teams have been working tirelessly to address and alleviate supply issues and will continue doing everything within our authority to ensure the production of safe infant formula products.”

Prior to the voluntary recall of several infant formula products produced at the Abbott Nutrition facility, the FDA was working to address supply chain issues associated with the pandemic including those impacting the infant formula industry. The FDA continues to take several significant actions to help increase the current supply of infant formula in the U.S. In fact, other infant formula manufacturers are meeting or exceeding capacity levels to meet current demand. Notably, more infant formula was purchased in the month of April than in the month prior to the recall.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-takes-important-steps-improve-supply-infant-and-specialty-formula-products


FDA Investigation of Cronobacter Infections: Powdered Infant Formula (February 2022)

Do not use recalled Similac, Alimentum, or EleCare powdered infant formulas produced at Abbott Nutrition’s Sturgis, MI, facility

https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/fda-investigation-cronobacter-infections-powdered-infant-formula-february-2022