Last Call For Jeb's Waging War On The Poor

The media likes to portray Jeb Bush as a "moderate" Republican, but moderate Republicans can't win primaries.  Which is why Dubya The Revenge is going around South Carolina saying that America needs to get rid of the federal minimum wage. 

At an event in South Carolina on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was asked whether he thinks the country should raise the minimum wage or whether the wage should be left up to private companies. 

“We need to leave it to the private sector,” he responded. “I think state minimum wages are fine. The federal government shouldn’t be doing this.” He went on, “The federal government doing this will make it harder and harder for the first rung of the ladder to be reached, particularly for young people, particularly for people that have less education.”

But remember, Jebby is not like those Tea Party nutjobs. Not at all. He thinks there are people making minimum wage who are being paid too much money right now.   And remember, without a federal minimum wage, there are several states where people would be making less than $7.25 an hour: Alabama (no minimum), Georgia ($5.15 if there are more than six employees, none if fewer), Louisiana (no minimum), Tennessee (no minimum), Wyoming ($5.15)...

...and South Carolina, which has no minimum wage either.

Let that sink in for a minute.  Jeb Bush calling for the end of a federal minimum wage in a state with no minimum wage.  I don't think that's an accident, do you?

Magical Laffer Curve Fairies, And Other Economic Theories

House Republicans are gearing up for another round of massive austerity cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and eliminating Obamacare for 16 million plus people with their budget proposal.

Republicans say their plan would balance the federal budget and create a surplus by 2024. By contrast, they say, Obama’s proposed budget would generate more than $700 billion in annual deficits by that year. The GOP budget would save over $5 trillion over the next 10 years. 

Sure it will.  And I'm Genghis Khan.

The GOP plan would replace Medicaid expansion through State Flexibility Funds, which would put Medicaid coverage plans in the hands of state governments. It would leave in place some alternatives to traditional Medicaid expansion plans proposed by Republican governors in states like Indiana, where Gov. Mike Pence (R) won federal support for a program that is similar, but not identical, to expansion envisioned under the ACA. 

The budget repeals several parts of the Dodd-Frank legislation, including an end to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s authority to bail out creditors of institutions deemed too big to fail. It would require Congress to appropriate funding for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, which currently generates its revenue from the Federal Reserve. And it would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the semi-public lending institutions. 

The budget also curtails some programs implemented through the 2009 stimulus bill, which spent about $800 billion trying to drag the United States out of an economic recession. The bill proposes limiting Energy Department programs that have invested in emerging technologies by requiring the department leave application and commercialization of those technologies to the private sector. It also rescinds money that hasn’t yet been spent on green energy programs. 

Republicans said their bill would simplify the tax code through comprehensive reform, repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and lowering rates for both individuals and corporations. It would create a reserve fund to spur a new surface transportation bill that would keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent.

And on top of all those huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich?  $400 billion in additional Pentagon spending over ten years.  Yet somehow all this will balance the budget in ten years.
How does that work?  Magic, apparently.  But there's that mythical "patient-centered" replacement for Obamacare that Republicans have been promising since 2010, but still can't put into legislation.

If you thought previous shutdown fights were fun, this one will be a doozy.

The Real Racists Are Always Everyone But You

Despite the scathing Justice Department detailing the massive corruption and racism in Ferguson, Missouri's Police Department and municipal courts, Missouri GOP Lt.Gov. Peter Kinder knows who the real racists are: Eric Holder and President Obama.

“The whole blow up of this protest movement was based on the lie that never happened of ‘hands up don’t shoot,’” Peter Kinder, the Lt. governor told NewsMaxTV’s Steve Malzberg Show Monday. “But it’s bad enough the protestors were behaving that way but we have a right to expect more from the attorney general, the head of the Justice Department of the United States, and the president of the United States. And instead what we got too often from them was incitement of the mob, and, uh, encouraging disorder in Ferguson and distributing the peaceable going-about of our lives in the greater St. Louis region.”

Kinder added President Obama and Eric Holder “took one side” following the death of Michael Brown. Asked why, he said the Justice Department was “staffed with radical, hard-left radical, leftists lawyers.”

He called the Justice Department under Holder, “not like any Justice Department in American history” and “Eric Holder is unlike any previous attorney general.”

“Many of them have spent most of their careers defending Black Panthers and other violent radicals,” he added. ”

Kinder said “where reforms are needed they’re being made,” citing resignations of police officers and the Ferguson city manger.

Responding to a question he said, “there is more racism in the Justice Department than there is any, uh, yes, anywhere that I see in the St. Louis area.”

Because the black President and that black Attorney General have to know their goddamn place, you see.

Because racism didn't exist before January 20, 2009.  Neither did police brutality.

Because why can't you people just get over this whole being black thing, anyway? It's been 400 years already.

Because you know you're always starting trouble with the good white people of Missouri.

Because you people are always shooting cops, you savages.

Because you don't work hard and you make yourselves poor.

Because if you really wanted out of poverty, you'd get yourself out.

Because anyone who points out racism is the reeeeeeeeal racist.

Because I'm goddamn tired of the "because".

StupidiNews!

• Benjamin Netanyahu will remain Prime Minister after his Likud party took 29 seats in Israel's 120-seat parliament in yesterday's elections and is expected to form a far-right coalition.
• The US Secret Service says an envelope mailed to the White House tested "presumptive positive" for cyanide, no injuries reported so far.
• The US Presbyterian Church has come closer to approving same-sex marriage in the church's constitution, a move that could split the denomination.
• Protests of the European Central Bank's new headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany turned violent as cars were set on fire and protesters clashed with German police.
• Health care provider Premera Blue Cross says a cyber attack last May could have exposed the info of 11 million customers.