American Politics IV: 1400 Reasons Why(A Stimulus Serial)

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Matt Gaetz situation is that he is straight.

And that’s surprising because....?

[Bear Stearns]

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Matt Gaetz situation is that he is straight.

And that’s surprising because....?

Being unmarried man who is very meticulous about his hair and makeup was the first clue.

Oh and "adopting" a 19 year old Cuban male and having him live with him. Yeah, it's probably that one.

[Autumn Wind]

Matt Gaetz reminds me of a palette swapped Anthony Weiner.

He’s a (relatively) young congressman who quickly made a name for himself as a hard hitting partisan warrior, only to wind up mired in a series of sex scandals, which, while furtively denied at the beginning, will slowly evaporate any support from either side of the aisle, ultimately leading to a ignominious end of his political career.

[Kowani]

Schumer leads the push to legalize marijuana at the federal level

The bill that Schumer is drafting with Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden of Oregon and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is still being written. Though they avoided the term legalization when announcing their plan, it is expected to remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances and tax and regulate it on the federal level while leaving states able to enforce their own laws regarding the drug.
Their proposal goes beyond decriminalization, which President Joe Biden voiced support for during his campaign, and may be a stretch for some Senate Democrats. But it taps into building public sentiment for legalization and moves by states to change marijuana laws, including Schumer’s home state.

[Shrillland]

Florida Senate considering bill that would impose restrictions on the use of drop boxes and distribution of food and water near polling places

[Vassenor]

Florida Senate considering bill that would impose restrictions on the use of drop boxes and distribution of food and water near polling places

Remember, letting people drink water is how you get voter fraud.

[Farnhamia]

Florida Senate considering bill that would impose restrictions on the use of drop boxes and distribution of food and water near polling places

Remember, letting people drink water is how you get voter fraud.

It is! Why do you think bars are closed on Election Day? Unscrupulous Democrats, knowing they can't win votes with their socialist policies, used to entice prospective voters into those dens of iniquity, get them soused and then lead them to the polls, where those poor inebriated voters would vote for whomever they were instructed. This is ... every schoolchild knows this! We have documented proof that last November people were approached by similar sleazy individuals who would offer snacks and water but only after the voter in line promised to vote for Biden! We must protect our elections! Think of the children! Do you want them served up at Biden's second inaugural? *runs off screaming*

[Page]

And that’s surprising because....?

Being unmarried man who is very meticulous about his hair and makeup was the first clue.

Oh and "adopting" a 19 year old Cuban male and having him live with him. Yeah, it's probably that one.

I have to say the fact that you wouldn't consider that he's maybe bi irritates me.

Granted, I do not want a piece of shit sexual predator representing the bi community anyway, I sincerely hope he is not bi, but I wish we could be past the point where when someone's romantic or sex life is exposed everyone goes to "oh, he's straight/gay, I always thought he was gay/straight.

Again, I don't want Gaetz to be bi, I just want bi people to stop being unicorns that are scarcely thought of.

[Ifreann]

Florida Senate considering bill that would impose restrictions on the use of drop boxes and distribution of food and water near polling places

Remember, letting people drink water is how you get voter fraud.

100% of voter fraud is committed by people who drink water.

[North Washington Republic]

We'll need at least $4 trillion and higher to completely repair America's infrastructure. And probably an even bigger amount to fight climate change.

Spending on infrastructure, I believe, will offset whatever costs that are generated from corporate tax hikes. More jobs, more economic activities, a double win!

Republicans don't seem too keen on increasing taxes, especially corporate, and especially are wary of the price tag. They'll fight this until the end though what will probably throw the plan in jeopardy is Manchin.

Yes, Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to spending money, I will admit that. However, with the recent $1.9 trillion COVID bill, which was overall a good bill, I think that asking to spend another $2 trillion bill is too much, too soon. It is impossible to pass and raising cooperate taxes that much while we are still in a recession isn’t good for the job market.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Republicans don't seem too keen on increasing taxes, especially corporate, and especially are wary of the price tag. They'll fight this until the end though what will probably throw the plan in jeopardy is Manchin.

Yes, Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to spending money, I will admit that. However, with the recent $1.9 trillion COVID bill, which was overall a good bill, I think that asking to spend another $2 trillion bill is too much, too soon. It is impossible to pass and raising cooperate taxes that much while we are still in a recession isn’t good for the job market.

If Biden raised the corporate tax to 28% it'd be still lower than what it was during the last Obama years. You can go thank 45 for that.

[North Washington Republic]

Remember, letting people drink water is how you get voter fraud.

100% of voter fraud is committed by people who drink water.

In all seriousness, these bills are to discourage people from voting. These go so far as in discouraging them from staying in-line.

[Joohan]

Yes, Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to spending money, I will admit that. However, with the recent $1.9 trillion COVID bill, which was overall a good bill, I think that asking to spend another $2 trillion bill is too much, too soon. It is impossible to pass and raising cooperate taxes that much while we are still in a recession isn’t good for the job market.

If Biden raised the corporate tax to 28% it'd be still lower than what it was during the last Obama years. You can go thank 45 for that.

If Biden penalized companies for leaving the United States, and raised tariffs upon imported goods, that would force corporation to stay domestic, and in turn force them to cooperate with labor unions - thus allowing the average American worker to receive a wage equitable to their actual productivity, giving them more disposable income, and lessening the burden of any further stimulus packages.

But hey, why fight the invisible hand, that's communism...

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

If Biden raised the corporate tax to 28% it'd be still lower than what it was during the last Obama years. You can go thank 45 for that.

If Biden penalized companies for leaving the United States, and raised tariffs upon imported goods, that would force corporation to stay domestic, and in turn force them to cooperate with labor unions - thus allowing the average American worker to receive a wage equitable to their actual productivity, giving them more disposable income, and lessening the burden of any further stimulus packages.

But hey, why fight the invisible hand, that's communism...

I mean yes. We already know neoliberalism is a curse upon any nation that adopts its thesis's.

[The Black Forrest]

If Biden raised the corporate tax to 28% it'd be still lower than what it was during the last Obama years. You can go thank 45 for that.

If Biden penalized companies for leaving the United States, and raised tariffs upon imported goods, that would force corporation to stay domestic, and in turn force them to cooperate with labor unions - thus allowing the average American worker to receive a wage equitable to their actual productivity, giving them more disposable income, and lessening the burden of any further stimulus packages.

But hey, why fight the invisible hand, that's communism...

Oh yea. The ex-presidents billionaire bailout plan was obscene. I read an article where you could take enough money from the 600ish billionaires and give everybody in the country a $3000 check and the billionaires would still have a ton of money more then before the bailout.

[Kowani]

Meanwhile, at the border…

The startling images have appeared in one news report after another: children packed into overcrowded, unsafe Border Patrol facilities because there was nowhere else to put them. As of March 30, over 5,000 children were being held in Border Patrol custody, including more than 600 in each of two units in Donna, Texas, that were supposed to hold no more than 32 apiece under COVID-19 protocols.

But as the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services scrambles to open “emergency” temporary facilities at military bases, work camps and convention centers to house up to 15,000 additional children, it’s cutting corners on health and safety standards, which raises new concerns about its ability to protect children, according to congressional sources and legal observers. And even its permanent shelter network includes some facilities whose grants were renewed this year despite a record of complaints about the physical or sexual abuse of children. “There may be no good choices,” Mark Greenberg, a former head of the Administration for Children and Families (which oversees the unaccompanied-children program) at the HHS, told ProPublica. “Everything has to be weighed against the alternative. And the alternative is the backups at Customs and Border Protection. And recognizing how bad that is, it means that people have to make unpalatable decisions.”

According to internal government statistics and interviews with former officials, legal observers, advocates and congressional staff, those decisions came weeks or months after the first warning signs late last year that the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern U.S. border was rapidly increasing, forcing a scramble to set up facilities in a matter of days. No safety standards are in place at the new facilities — unlike controversial “influx” facilities used in the past. One new site in Midland, Texas, was briefly closed to new arrivals after the state warned that its water wasn’t drinkable. That site and others have been staffed with volunteers who may not have passed background checks and speak no Spanish. One potential site — a NASA research center in Moffett, California — was scuttled after local protesters pointed out it was near a known Superfund site with high levels of toxic chemicals.

While previous influx sites have been criticized by Democrats in Congress and immigration advocates for sometimes falling short of state standards for licensed facilities, HHS has generally agreed to hold operators to those standards, said attorney Leecia Welch of the National Center for Youth Law. But it hasn’t committed to that now. Nor has HHS offered any other standards it plans to hold the facilities to. In a statement provided to ProPublica, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “We are seeing progress, but it takes time. In the meantime, the CBP workforce has done heroic work under difficult circumstances to protect these children.” HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

It’s “the Wild West,” Welch said, reflecting a view shared by other advocates and congressional staff monitoring the children’s care.

Meanwhile, the federal government has tried to revive its COVID-19-battered network of permanent residential facilities. In January, it quietly renewed three-year grants to several state-licensed providers that previously faced complaints of physical or sexual abuse of children. The facilities have defended their care without denying the allegations.

One grant went to a Texas facility that children were removed from in 2018 amid allegations that staffers were drugging them, and that had previously fired a staff member for placing a child in a chokehold in 2019. Two organizations that have faced repeated allegations of sexual abuse also had their grants renewed: a foster-care provider in New York accused of placing children with abusers, and a shelter in Pennsylvania where children accused the staff of abuse. The New York organization told ProPublica, “The safety of the youth in our care is of the utmost importance to us and has always been,” and it stressed that both staff and potential fosterers go through “extensive background checks.” Neither of the other facilities responded to requests for comment.

By federal law, children are to be held no longer than 72 hours in Border Patrol custody before they are transferred to HHS housing, except in emergency situations. As of March 30, however, over 2,000 children being held at the main Border Patrol facility in Donna had been there for more than 72 hours, according to reporters.

In recent years, Border Patrol facilities for children have lacked toothbrushes or medical supplies, and the fact that Border Patrol agents aren’t trained to deal with children raises risks that a child will become ill or even die in U.S. custody. This has convinced many officials working in the system that deals with unaccompanied migrant children (including some within Customs and Border Protection) that releasing kids into any HHS care is better than leaving them in Border Patrol custody. HHS normally places children in a network of shelters while their relatives in the U.S. are identified and vetted (a process that, during the pandemic, has typically taken at least a month). When needed, HHS has also opened influx centers that can be set up in weeks and do not require state licensing. Now, with the assistance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, HHS is opening new “emergency intake sites” in a matter of days, including two in convention centers in Dallas and San Diego.

HHS also relies on a network of state-licensed shelters, which are required to self-report violations found by state regulators to the federal government. A 2020 Government Accountability Office report found that HHS offered unclear instructions on how such violations should be reported. One grantee, which was cited by state auditors 70 times in two years for violations at three facilities, mentioned none of those violations in its reports to HHS.

A review by the Texas Impact Foundation, an advocacy organization, found that shelters in the state were cited for 68 violations involving physical abuse or unnecessary restraint of a child. In two cases, children were placed in chokeholds by staff members attempting to restrain them. (In both cases, the staffers responsible were fired.)

In an incident at a shelter near Houston in 2019, a child reported being held in a chokehold for over two minutes. The facility operator (initially operating under the name Daystar Residential Centers) closed in 2011 after a string of abuse allegations, only to reform under the name Shiloh Treatment Centers a few years later. In 2018, the facility was accused in a legal filing of sedating children with antipsychotic drugs. In response, a federal judge ordered the removal of all children who weren’t considered at risk of harming themselves or others. (The shelter did not respond to a ProPublica request for comment.)

Shiloh was among the 23 facilities awarded new three-year contracts on Jan. 1, receiving two grants totalling $2.6 million. The facility has held only a few children during the pandemic, and Welch said it’s possible that conditions have improved. At her last monitoring visit, she said, she heard none of the horror stories that children had told her in the past. But as the GAO report noted, HHS doesn’t explicitly look at past performance when evaluating grant renewals.

The HHS housing crunch has been badly exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Children’s shelters, like other kinds of congregate housing, are under severe capacity restrictions that reduce available bed space.

The HHS shelter population was growing last fall, even before a federal judge ruled in November that the Trump administration had to take unaccompanied migrant children in, rather than expelling most of them from the U.S. immediately under a March public-health order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From Oct. 31 to Nov. 30, the number of children in HHS custody rose from about 2,000 to about 3,000. In mid-December, with about 3,500 kids in custody, HHS officials said in a briefing that shelters near the U.S.-Mexico border were already at 67% of their capacity limits under COVID-19. But HHS took no action to add capacity until Jan. 15, when it sent a message to other government agencies asking them to scout locations for potential influx sites.

Former DHS officials said that HHS has long resisted taking emergency measures, straining the agency’s relationship with Border Patrol. During a similar crunch in 2019, one former DHS official told ProPublica that HHS “refused to acknowledge the operational challenges” that were leading children to be marooned in Border Patrol custody for days, out of a belief that “immigration was kind of a third rail.”

“It’s no coincidence that in each of the surges since 2014, FEMA — the emergency-management arm of DHS — has had to step in,” another former DHS official said. “When the [HHS] system is overwhelmed by the number of intakes, they don’t have the FEMA-like capacity to think improvisationally, to rush resources, or to modify processes, and they become the bottleneck.”

On March 5, the CDC waived the COVID-19 capacity caps for migrant child shelters so HHS could take more children out of Border Patrol facilities. The Biden administration is now working with states to allow shelters to house more children while complying with state licensing requirements. But shelters are struggling to hire staff, as many qualified professionals still fear working in congregate housing because new coronavirus variants are spreading. HHS recently informed Congress that it has upped its incentive pay to help recruiting, but it’s unclear if that will be enough.

A senior administration official acknowledged in March that the number of beds being made available would at best be a few hundred a week — far too few compared to the number of children arriving. When the Biden administration announced it was reopening the influx care facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas, in February, immigration advocates and some Democrats condemned it as another way to keep “kids in cages.” Meanwhile, the other influx facility opened by the Trump administration in 2019, at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Miami, was held in reserve. At present, it appears it won’t be reopened; Axios reported that Biden himself stepped in to veto the possibility.

But HHS policy requires influx facilities to “comply, to the greatest extent possible, with State child welfare laws and regulations (such as mandatory reporting of abuse), as well as State and local building, fire, health and safety code.” There are no such commitments in place for emergency facilities, according to Welch and congressional staff. It’s still not clear who will operate the facilities after the initial setup is completed, or whether HHS will require them to provide support services to children, such as mental health counseling or legal assistance.

[Vassenor]

If Biden penalized companies for leaving the United States, and raised tariffs upon imported goods, that would force corporation to stay domestic, and in turn force them to cooperate with labor unions - thus allowing the average American worker to receive a wage equitable to their actual productivity, giving them more disposable income, and lessening the burden of any further stimulus packages.

But hey, why fight the invisible hand, that's communism...

Oh yea. The ex-presidents billionaire bailout plan was obscene. I read an article where you could take enough money from the 600ish billionaires and give everybody in the country a $3000 check and the billionaires would still have a ton of money more then before the bailout.

Or that you could take enough cash from them to end homelessness completely without reducing the number of billionaires.

[Bear Stearns]

Being unmarried man who is very meticulous about his hair and makeup was the first clue.

Oh and "adopting" a 19 year old Cuban male and having him live with him. Yeah, it's probably that one.

I have to say the fact that you wouldn't consider that he's maybe bi irritates me.

Granted, I do not want a piece of shit sexual predator representing the bi community anyway, I sincerely hope he is not bi, but I wish we could be past the point where when someone's romantic or sex life is exposed everyone goes to "oh, he's straight/gay, I always thought he was gay/straight.

Again, I don't want Gaetz to be bi, I just want bi people to stop being unicorns that are scarcely thought of.

The fact of the matter nobody currently or ever will care.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

I have to say the fact that you wouldn't consider that he's maybe bi irritates me.

Granted, I do not want a piece of shit sexual predator representing the bi community anyway, I sincerely hope he is not bi, but I wish we could be past the point where when someone's romantic or sex life is exposed everyone goes to "oh, he's straight/gay, I always thought he was gay/straight.

Again, I don't want Gaetz to be bi, I just want bi people to stop being unicorns that are scarcely thought of.

The fact of the matter nobody currently or ever will care.

You seemed to care enough about his sexuality to comment on it.

[Bear Stearns]

The fact of the matter nobody currently or ever will care.

You seemed to care enough about his sexuality to comment on it.

Well it's the only thing in this situation that surprised me.

[San Lumen]

https://journalstar.com/news/state-and- ... 7676e.html

Senator Deb Fischer announces she will not run for Governor of Nebraska next year.

[Kowani]

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announces he will not be running again in 2022

[Rio Cana]

The American Empire goes to Mozambique to help fight...ISIS?

American Special Forces soldiers began training Mozambican troops this week as part of an effort to repel a spreading insurgency in northeastern Mozambique that American officials say is linked to the Islamic State. The insurgency, near some of the world’s biggest gas reserves, has killed at least 2,000 civilians and displaced another 670,000.

The American program is modest in size and scope: a dozen Army Green Berets are to train Mozambican marines for the next two months. But it signals the entry of the United States military into a counterinsurgency effort that has been aided so far mainly by South African mercenaries, who have faced accusations of human rights abuses.

The war in Mozambique is part of an alarming expansion of insurgencies believed to have ties to the Islamic State in several parts of Africa. In the past year, militants have captured swaths of territory in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, including a port on the Indian Ocean, and beheaded hundreds of civilians, according to human rights groups.

“I don’t think anyone saw this coming,” Col. Richard Schmidt, the deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Forces in Africa, said in a telephone interview from Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. “For this to crop up so quickly is concerning.”

Last week the United States formally designated the group, known locally as Al-Sunna wa Jama’a, as a global terrorist entity and imposed sanctions on its leader, named by American officials as Abu Yasir Hassan.The insurgency in Mozambique includes some fighters from Tanzania, but most come from the local area, a place of deep poverty and endemic corruption. The main Islamic State publications have not mentioned operations in Mozambique since last fall.

Some experts worry that the American designation of the group as tied to the Islamic State could hamper future efforts to end the insurgency through negotiation.

“There are concerns that this designation could complicate the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Cabo Delgado, and possible dialogue with insurgents there,” said Dino Mahtani, deputy director of the Africa program at the International Crisis Group, who recently visited Mozambique.Still, the ferocity of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique, has taken American military officers, diplomats and counterterrorism officials by surprise.

A group that numbered perhaps a couple of dozen fighters in 2017 has grown to as many as 800 fighters, with the ability to carry out strikes in neighboring Tanzania, where analysts believe the group is tied to smuggling and criminal networks that provide weapons and other equipment.

Mozambican counterinsurgency efforts have been hampered by divisions between the country’s military and its powerful police, so it has turned to private soldiers for help.

In 2019, an estimated 160 contractors from Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military company, flew into Cabo Delgado. But they quickly withdrew after at least seven Wagner personnel were killed by insurgents, American officials say.

Then Mozambique turned to mercenaries from South Africa, specifically the Dyck Advisory Group, which have come equipped with small helicopters armed with side guns.

But Amnesty International recently accused the mercenaries of possible war crimes, including killings of civilians. More broadly, their effectiveness against the insurgents has been limited.

John T. Godfrey, the State Department’s acting coordinator for counterterrorism, told reporters last week the United States was “concerned” by the presence of private contractors who have “not demonstrably helped” to win the battle against the Islamic State.“It’s frankly a feature of the landscape in Cabo Delgado that complicates rather than helps efforts to address the terror threat there,” Mr. Godfrey said.

A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the military training program, which will focus on basic soldiering skills, could lead to more ambitious American help for Mozambique’s military including combat casualty care, planning and logistics.

The United States is also looking to step up intelligence assistance for Mozambique, the official said.

Last week, the State Department also imposed sanctions on a reported ISIS arm in the Democratic Republic of Congo and its leader, Seka Musa Baluku. Islamist insurgents affiliated with the Islamic State are also active in Libya, Mali, Niger and other parts of West Africa.

Regional experts, though, say some of those groups may be using the Islamic State name to sow fear and attract funds, while prosecuting conflicts that are essentially local in nature.

“They may be cloaked in the black flag,” said Mr. Mahtani, the Crisis Group analyst. “But what is motivating them to kill? It could be global jihad, but it could also be local conflicts and grievances.”

After the attack on civilians and tourists the other day, Portugal will be sending 60 troops to train Mozambique troops.

This on the attack - https://www.france24.com/en/africa/2021 ... dist-siege

This on Portugal sending troops - https://www.france24.com/en/africa/2021 ... insurgents

[Kowani]

Alabama state lawmakers stopped a bill that would lift the state’s ban on yoga in K-12 schools due to concerns that yoga promotes Hindu practices

Conservatives groups opposed the measure in a public hearing, saying yoga is a religious practice and promotes Hinduism, The Associated Press reported.

The state’s Senate Judiciary Committee voted not to advance the bill but will bring the measure back for another vote in the committee when more members are there to vote.

The bill, which allows schools to authorize yoga, passed the state House in March in a 73-25 vote. The bill provides strict rules for schools to teach yoga, saying the practice would need to be limited “exclusively to poses, exercises and stretching techniques.”

The name of the poses in yoga would have to be “exclusively English descriptive names” and “chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, and 11 namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited.”

[Necroghastia]

Alabama state lawmakers stopped a bill that would lift the state’s ban on yoga in K-12 schools due to concerns that yoga promotes Hindu practices

Conservatives groups opposed the measure in a public hearing, saying yoga is a religious practice and promotes Hinduism, The Associated Press reported.

The state’s Senate Judiciary Committee voted not to advance the bill but will bring the measure back for another vote in the committee when more members are there to vote.

The bill, which allows schools to authorize yoga, passed the state House in March in a 73-25 vote. The bill provides strict rules for schools to teach yoga, saying the practice would need to be limited “exclusively to poses, exercises and stretching techniques.”

The name of the poses in yoga would have to be “exclusively English descriptive names” and “chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, and 11 namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited.”

...I wasn't even aware we had a ban on yoga in k12. God DAMN how stupid can we get.