Last Call For The Darkest History, Rhyming

Looks like Brazil is getting its own version of January 6th today on the 8th.

Thousands of radical backers of Brazil’s far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro breached and vandalized the presidential office building, congress and the Supreme Court on Sunday, and sought to enter other halls of power, in scenes that hauntingly evoked the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump.

The attack came a week after the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in a runoff election in October.

Images on Globo TV showed protesters roaming the halls and standing near smashed glass cases in the Planalto Palace, the office of the president. Thousands of others wearing the national soccer shirt — now a symbol of the far right — and waving the Brazilian flag milled about the massive square outside in a part of the Brasilia capital that is similar to Washington’s National Mall.

“This absurd attempt to impose the will by force will not prevail,” Lula’s justice minister Flavio Dino tweeted shortly after the invasion began around 2:30 p.m. local time. “The Government of the Federal District claims that there will be reinforcements. And the forces at our disposal are at work. I’m at the headquarters of the Ministry of Justice.”

The incident captured the uncanny parallels between Bolsonaro and his political lodestar, Trump, and came after months in which pundits have feared a Jan. 6 style copycat action here.

In a manner similar to Trump, Bolsonaro has fueled discontent among his base since his loss to the newly-inaugurated leftist, stepping down while refusing to officially concede.

Thousands of Bolsonaristas have camped out at military headquarters across Latin America’s largest country, demanding military intervention to reinstate Bolsonaro, who last week flew to Florida instead of attending a ceremony in the capital of Brasilia where outgoing presidents traditionally hand over the sash of power.

Military police officers attempted to stop the demonstrators with tear gas and other weapons but appeared far outnumbered. The group is inside the Palácio do Planalto, the official building where the president works.

The Congress and Supreme Court are both in recess, so lawmakers and judges are not there.

Lula was not in Brasília today, as he was in a São Paulo countryside. He had planned to return to Brasília by the end of afternoon.

 

The good news is that President Lula de Silva, Brazil's Congress, and Brazil's Supreme Court are not in the capital of Brasilia today. That's also the bad news. Bolsonaro has fled to Orlando to avoid prosecution and needs to be kindly returned. Meanwhile, Lula has called in the national army to deal with the protesters.

We'll see where this goes, but this is a scary moment for South America's largest democracy...and it echoes too closely our own failures in dealing with our own "Bolsonaristas" like, you know, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who have been trying to foment this kind of terrorism in Brazil for months now, and it looks like they have succeeded.

The Circus Of The Damned, Con't

After an astonishing display of abject failure that took fifteen votes and the shedding of all power, dignity, and self-respect to win, the question isn't "Will Kevin McCarthy still be Speaker of the House in January 2025?" but "How soon will McCarthy be ousted?"

 

As far as we know, the “motion to vacate” has never successfully ousted a speaker, even though it’s been in existence for 200 years.

That may change this year.

In December, we reported that even McCarthy’s allies privately agreed that his time as speaker would be limited. Since then, he’s effectively ensured that will be the case by restoring the motion to vacate, enabling a single unhappy member to trigger a vote to oust him. McCarthy can only lose four votes; conservatives can show him the door any time they want.

We saw this week how difficult it was for McCarthy to muster enough votes to get the gavel — and that was after years of trying to win over his detractors. Now, he’ll have to do the even more difficult job of governing: passing spending bills, dealing with the debt ceiling — and yes, unfortunately for him, negotiating with Democrats, which will jeopardize his standing on the right.

How long will he last? Rep. DAVE JOYCE cracked a funny line with elements of truth in it during a 2 a.m. CNN interview just after McCarthy won the gavel. Asked how long it would take for conservatives to use the “motion to vacate,” the Ohio Republican replied: “Tomorrow?”

We think McCarthy will probably have a few months. But the fiscal deadlines looming this year — spending bills and a debt ceiling increase, with shutdowns and even a national default possible — mean that his hourglass is already starting to run out of time.

This morning, on CNN’s “State of the Union,” conservativeRep. CHIP ROY (R-Texas) was asked whether he’d trigger the motion to vacate if Republicans go for a clean debt ceiling increase. “I’m not going to play the what-if games on how we’re going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the agreement,” Roy said. “But we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement.” 

 

In other words, the moment  McCarthy fails to deliver on one of a thousands promises that he cannot deliver on, he's done.

 

And I think that moment is going to come sooner rather than later, as soon as the January 6th terrorists in the House GOP caucus decide they want to collapse the country's economy in an effort to try to collapse the federal government.

 

Buckle up.

Sunday Long Read: The Streets Of L.A.

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes from the award-winning team at California non-profit news outlet Capital & Main, where Ethan Ward gives us the hard truth of trying to find a place to live in Los Angeles even when you make $24 an hour and would have a fairly decent life anywhere else.

 

Beneath a glaring porch light over her grandmother’s driveway, Sarah Fay is on her smartphone, searching once again for a place to sleep for the night.

As is often the case when she needs a place and has not already burned through the last of her monthly income, the 28-year-old scrolls through Priceline.com in search of a bed and four walls.

Sarah could lie down on a makeshift bed surrounded by storage boxes and bowls to feed two dogs in her grandmother’s uninsulated two-car garage — and sometimes she does. But that means lying feet away from her 64-year-old mother Karon Fay, who has been sleeping there for more than a dozen years. Sarah’s grandmother says that her granddaughter has always been welcome to stay in the cluttered garage, but the situation is more complicated. Sarah’s cigarette-smoking mom, who wrestles with breathing problems — as her oxygen mask makes clear — already lives in there. Karon also tries to manage her diagnosed bipolar disorder, but that doesn’t always go so well, her daughter suggests.

Sarah has tried for the past four years to find an apartment — her last steady residence was her college dormitory. When Sarah needs to get away from her mother and the rest of her life on the periphery of her grandmother’s one-story ranch home in Culver City, California, she splurges on a motel. When she doesn’t have the money, she gets more resourceful. She will sleep in her 2018 black Ford SUV, which she is still paying off. When it is not too cold, she pitches a green pop-up tent on the beach in Playa Del Rey. But most nights, Sarah closes her eyes in the garage next to her mother — and hopes for the best.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines “homeless” through four categories. Sarah does not fit the most dire category of “Literally Homeless,” which is generally those who live in public places or shelters. She likely could fall into the next tier, “Imminent Risk of Homelessness,” typically someone who will “imminently lose their primary nighttime residence” and lacks the resources to get permanent housing. At minimum, she is “housing insecure,” a description for people, experts say, who double or triple up in overcrowded apartments or who move frequently. The term also applies to people without a lease or a contract that grants them legal rights to live somewhere and have no space of their own. Their desperate state may be dressed up as couch surfing, or the sort of measures that Sarah takes, but it is a form of homelessness nonetheless.

Sarah does not use that term to describe her circumstances. She says, “I would say I’m housing insecure.”

When many people refer to “the homeless,” they may be talking about people settling in tents, underpasses or cars, but such people are a fraction of the many like Sarah without a stable place to live.

In Los Angeles County alone, nearly 70,000 people experience homelessness on any given night, according to the 2022 point-in-time count. By contrast, a September 2021 report from the Mayor’s Office of City Homelessness Initiatives estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of people like Sarah wrestling with housing insecurity in the city. (Nationally, there are well over half a million unhoused people, and millions more who are at risk of joining them.)

“The image in most people’s minds when it comes to homelessness in California is the chronic person living in a tent on a sidewalk,” explains Ned Resnikoff, policy director for California YIMBY and the author of a new report on ending homelessness. “That’s a significant and growing portion of the homeless population in California, but when you’re talking about the typical experience, it is usually not chronic, but the more intermittent form, like one housing situation to another.

That’s crucial to keep in mind for Mayor Karen Bass, who pledged to “drastically reduce homelessness” and “end street encampments” in Los Angeles. On her very first day in office in mid-December, the mayor declared a state of emergency to respond to the housing crisis. The City Council approved it the following day.

To really put a dent in visible homelessness, Bass will need to galvanize a wide array of resources to produce structures to house people on the streets. She will also need to stabilize the situation for people who sometimes still have a private place to sleep.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority calculated in 2020 that a network of supports were helping an average of 207 people out of homelessness each day in the city, but that the overall situation was worsening with 227 new people losing their housing.

The housing crisis in Los Angeles is based on some fairly simple principles. There is far more demand for affordable housing than there is supply, so prices have soared in recent years, and few renters’ incomes have come close to keeping up. The result, according to a February 2022 report, is that renters in Los Angeles County are the second most “cost-burdened” in the nation, and rents grew about 20% in a year.

A recent analysis by the personal finance site SmartAsset shows that three in every 10 renters in Los Angeles pay more than half of their income for housing. Sarah, who works full time, would have to become one of them to afford a simple market-rate studio apartment.

Personal finance experts generally consider people who spend more than 30% of their income on housing to be prone to accumulate debt. People who spend more than half of their income on rent tend to be extremely vulnerable to a single bad event — the loss of a job, a breakup, car trouble, a broken arm or falling out with a housemate — that can force them out of where they live. In extreme cases, they can slide straight onto the streets.

But many more end up trapped, like Sarah, in an in-between world, relying when they can on loved ones who have their own problems.

 

A new class of the demimonde, the "intermittently housed". America is in trouble, folks. It has been for most of my life, Something's got to change very soon or it's going to shatter.

Last Call For Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is sending out a message that higher education will no longer continue in the state, as he is currently engineering a complete takeover of New College of Florida to serve as a loud warning as to what's coming to a state college campus near you.

Gov. Ron DeSantis began the process Friday of transforming Sarasota's New College of Florida into a more conservative institution, appointing six new board members, including conservative activist Christopher Rufo, a dean at conservative Hillsdale College and a senior fellow at The Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank.

"It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida's classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the south," Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said in a statement.

The shakeup of the 13-member board is certain to create major tensions at New College, an institution that started as a progressive private school before becoming the state's liberal arts honors college. The small school's student body and faculty have a reputation for leaning left politically.

Turning New College into a Florida version of Hillsdale would amount to flipping it upside down, a wholesale reinvention akin to a hostile takeover, and one that many current students and faculty are likely to resist.

DeSantis aides blasted the school Friday and said an overhaul is needed.

"Unfortunately, like so many colleges and universities in America, this institution has been completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning," said DeSantis Communications Director Taryn Fenske.

Rufo is known for his activism on transgender and racial issues, making him a leader in the new wave of conservative culture wars. He joined DeSantis when the governor signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, which is derided by critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

Rufo said in a series of Twitter posts Friday that public universities have "been corrupted by woke nihilism" and he is "ready to transform higher education from within." He said he plans to recruit new faculty to New College to "create an institution where academics can thrive, without self-censorship."

“My ambition is to help the new board majority transform New College into a classical liberal arts institution. We are recapturing higher education.” Rufo said.

Rufo recently applauded DeSantis on Twitter for requesting information on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory at all Florida colleges and universities.

"Gov. DeSantis is going to lay siege to university 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' programs," Rufo wrote.

Among Rufo's goals for New College that he laid out in a tweet: Restructuring the administration, developing "a new core curriculum," eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion policies and restructuring academic departments.

 

Now, DeSantis isn't about to mess with a big name football school, at least not yet. But a small liberal arts honors college like New College is the perfect target to turn into Liberty University lite. The Supreme Court will make it much easier late this year when they eliminate diversity from public and private colleges and universities, and DeSantis will use New College as his testing grounds for destroying public universities nationwide should he be elected in 2024 or 2028.

 

This is all part of the plan.

Welcome To Gunmerica, Con't

Police and FBI in New Mexico are trying to determine if a series of shootings at offices and homes of five New Mexico Democrats over the last month are related. Nobody has been injured so far, but officials are worried that may not remain the case.

Federal and local authorities in New Mexico are investigating whether several shootings since early December at the offices or homes of five elected Democratic leaders were connected and possibly politically motivated, officials said.

No one was injured in the shootings in Albuquerque involving three residences, a workplace and a campaign office associated with a pair of county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general. Three of the shootings took place in December and two this month, the latest of which was on Thursday, the authorities said.

The Albuquerque police chief, Harold Medina, said at a news conference on Thursday that there could be a pattern to the shootings, possibly tied to political affiliation.

“On the surface, that is one of the things that, as a law enforcement agency, we are looking at and is a concern to us,” Chief Medina said.

He said the authorities were still processing evidence and had no one in custody. The department did not announce the shootings earlier, he said, because it was not clear in December whether there might be a pattern.

Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said the authorities were concerned that the shootings might have been targeted and were “possibly politically motivated.”

“This is a high priority for us,” Mr. Keller said at the news conference.

The F.B.I. in Albuquerque is assisting with the investigation, an agency official said at the news conference. The state police were also involved, officials said.

The Albuquerque Police Department provided a timeline of the shootings on Thursday. It said the police had been called that morning to the law office where State Senator Moe Maestas works after gunshots were heard in the area. Three shots were fired at 11:41 a.m., but there was no damage to the building, the police said.

On Tuesday, at least eight shots were fired at the home of State Senator Linda Lopez, the police said.

On Dec. 11, the department said, “more than a dozen gunshot impacts” were found at the house of Debbie O’Malley, a Bernalillo County commissioner who left office at the end of the month because she was limited to two terms.

On Dec. 4, eight rounds were fired at the home of Adriann Barboa, also a Bernalillo County commissioner, the police said.

The police said in a statement late Thursday that they were also examining whether shots that were fired in December at the former campaign office of Raul Torrez, who had just been elected New Mexico’s attorney general, were part of the pattern.

Mr. Torrez moved out of the office after the November election. On the morning of Dec. 10, the Police Department’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system identified several gunshots in the area of the building that the authorities now think “may be tied to the string of shootings involving elected officials,” the police statement said.

“These shootings are serious crimes, regardless of whether anyone was injured,” Mr. Keller, the mayor, said on Twitter on Thursday, referring to the Albuquerque investigation.

While the authorities have not definitively tied the gunfire to politics or ideology, the investigation reflects national concern over threats and intimidation against lawmakers, public officials and, in some cases, their family members.

 

At some point, bullets are going to start hitting people, and even if nobody is physically hurt, everyone will be looking over their shoulder. That's how domestic terrorism works, folks.

This is a terrorist attack, as sure as the sun on New Mexico's flag rises.

It Only Took Fifteen Times

Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker f the House on the fifteenth ballot, late after midnight last night, and has surrendered so much of his power that he may not survive the month in the office.

 

The vote capped a historically dysfunctional week in which members — who were not even allowed to be sworn in before choosing a speaker — sat through vote after vote with the world watching. McCarthy was the first party leader in a century whose race even went past the first ballot.

He'd fumbled a previous bid for speaker in 2015 before it came to a vote and some of his initial backers openly questioned whether it was possible for him to succeed this week given the strength of his opposition.

But McCarthy’s victory also came at a steep price: In exchange for the rebels’ support, he agreed to various concessions (the details of which are still not fully known) that would give conservatives more power to set the agenda, block legislation they dislike, and quickly call a vote to remove McCarthy if he pushes back.

With at least four members still in the “Never Kevin” camp, and the possibility of the majority shrinking through resignations or acts of God, he'll remain a vote or two away from the brink at all times.

He will have to manage expectations and deliver results in high-stakes battles over issues like spending, reauthorizing the farm bill, and, most especially, raising the debt ceiling. One wrong move could lead to a shutdown, financial crisis, or his ouster as speaker, none of which are mutually exclusive.

But for now, the Congress can adopt rules, set up committees, hold hearings, and begin to at least outwardly resemble a normal functioning institution. That's a victory no one should take for granted anymore.

 

The good news is that McCarthy's position is so precarious that it's bound to fail. The bad news is once the Freedom Caucus nutjobs get everything they want from McCarthy as far as committees and assignments go, he's 100% disposable. 

But the real damage will be the rules he's agreed to in the House: No bill can increase spending over five or ten year timeframes, the House Ethics committee has to have a public complaint period, the return of the Holman Rule, which would allow specific punitive government salary cuts or entire program eliminations, and will almost certainly allow the House to default on the national debt, crashing the economy.

And yes, the big one is the Coronavirus Pandemic subcommittee, which is going to be months of stupid people having hearings from "medical professionals" about horse dewormer.

Get ready. These idiots broke the House, and they're going to break the country.

Last Call For Ohio Takes Your Vote

The Ohio GOP's first order of business: permanently disenfranchising Black voters in the state's largest urban counties with photo ID requirements and by limiting all counties to one early voting drop box.

 

Gov. Mike DeWine signed a major overhaul of state election laws on Friday that will require voters to present a photo ID at the polls.

Under the new law, voters must present a photo ID when they cast their ballot in person, although the ID doesn't need to have their current address on it. Qualifying IDs include an Ohio driver's license, state ID, U.S. passport, passport card, military ID or interim identification issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

Voters could previously use alternative forms of identification at the polls, such as utility bills or bank statements.

As part of the new rules, any Ohioans 17 and older will be eligible to receive a free state ID card. Ohio licenses and ID cards must also note if the person is not a U.S. citizen.

The law also:

• Requires completed mail-in ballots to arrive within four days of Election Day, instead of 10.
• Requires voters who want to vote by mail to submit an application at least seven days before Election Day, instead of three.
• Permits only one ballot drop box per county that's installed at the county board of elections office.
• Eliminates in-person voting the Monday before Election Day and reallocates those hours to another time.
• Gives provisional voters until four days after the election to provide missing information to election officials, instead of seven days.
• Give boards of elections until eight days after the election to determine whether provisional ballots can be counted.
• Eliminates most special elections in August unless the county, municipality or school district is under a fiscal emergency.
• Prohibits curbside voting, unless the voter has a disability and is unable to enter their polling place.
• Allows all 17-year-olds to serve as election officials, not just high school seniors.

 

Nearly every one of these measures is designed to make it more difficult for voters in large, urban counties like Hamilton and Cuyahoga to vote, particularly if they are not able to vote in person, or unable to spend a day at the DMV getting a state ID. The citizenship requirement is also there to scare off Hispanic voters.  

Ohio remains one of the most lawless states in the nation when it comes to the GOP ignoring state supreme court rulings and vote suppression tactics, and there's zero reason to believe things will improve in the state at all.

A Big Nasty Wedge Salad

One of the biggest reasons that Republicans are ruthlessly trying to destroy LGBTQ+ folks and trans folks in particular is because it's successfully being used as a wedge issue to try to crack the Obama coalition apart, and Black voters in particular.

 

Republicans and Democrats in the United States differ widely in their views on gender identity and transgender issues. But there are notable differences among Democrats, too, especially by race and ethnicity.

Overall, 60% of U.S. adults say that whether someone is a man or woman is determined by their sex at birth, while 38% say someone can be a man or woman even if that is different from their sex at birth, according to a May 2022 Pew Research Center survey. Most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (86%) say someone’s gender is determined by sex at birth, while a majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners (61%) say someone’s gender can differ from their sex at birth.

But Democrats’ views differ widely by race and ethnicity. Around two-thirds of Black Democrats (66%) say that whether someone is a man or woman is determined by their sex at birth. By contrast, 72% of White Democrats, 61% of Asian Democrats and 54% of Hispanic Democrats say that someone can be a man or woman even if that is different from their sex at birth. On this question, Black Democrats’ views are closer to those of Republicans than to the views of other Democrats.

 

And the differences are also pretty stark when it comes to trans kids as well.

Among Democratic K-12 parents, views again differ by race and ethnicity. Majorities of Black and Hispanic Democratic parents either prefer that their K-12 children learn that sex at birth determines whether someone is a boy or girl – or say that their children should not learn about this subject at school at all. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of White Democratic K-12 parents (64%) prefer that their children learn at school that someone can be a boy or girl even if that differs from their sex at birth. (There were not enough Asian American Democratic K-12 parents in the September 2022 survey to analyze separately.)

What explains Black Democrats’ differences with other Democrats on questions related to gender identity and transgender people?

Black Democrats are generally more likely than other Democrats to describe their political views as moderate and less likely to describe their views as liberal. Black Democrats have also differed from other Democrats on certain social issues, including whether the legalization of same-sex marriage has been good for society. They tend to be more religious than other Democrats as well – and more likely to say religion influences their views on gender identity, according to the Center’s May 2022 survey.

Around four-in-ten Black Democrats (37%) say their religious views have a great deal or fair amount of influence on their views about whether someone’s gender can differ from their sex at birth. Fewer White (11%), Hispanic (21%) and Asian Democrats (22%) say the same. White Democrats, by comparison, are more likely than Democrats in all other major racial and ethnic groups to say their views on gender identity are influenced a great deal or fair amount by knowing someone who is transgender. White Democrats are also more likely than most other Democrats to say their views are influenced a great deal or fair amount by what they’ve learned from science.

 

So yes, the gap between Black and white Democrats on trans issues is pretty big, and Republicans are more than happy to keep pounding on that in order to try to break off Black support.  Ron DeSantis in particular is using this tactic to great success in Florida against both Black and Hispanic Dems.

This is something Democrats are going to have to deal with, or we're going to continue to bleed support from both communities.

And yes, I've known trans friends for decades now, they are awesome, they are wonderful, and they are very much under assault on a daily basis.

The Big Bluegrass Breakdown

Kentucky Republicans, in a position where they can pass anything they want with a supermajority and override any veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, are set to turn the commonwealth into the poorest state in the nation.

 

The top priority bill of the Kentucky General Assembly's Republican supermajority, which would lower the state's individual income tax rate to 4% beginning in 2024, passed through the state House Thursday.

House Bill 1, which would also codify an automatic reduction of the tax rate from 5% to 4.5% for Jan. 1 of this year, was passed out of the chamber on a near party-line vote of 79-19, advancing the GOP supermajority's long-term plan to eventually eliminate Kentucky's income tax.

The tax cut bill passed through the House budget committee earlier that morning, with Republicans touting it as a way to put more money back into the pockets of taxpayers and spur future economic and population growth.

"It's putting more money back (to) the hard-working Kentuckians across the commonwealth," said Rep. Brandon Reed, R-Hodgenville, the lead sponsor of the bill and budget committee vice chair. "They'll be able to spend their money like they see fit, they'll be able to pay down debt, they'll be able to save for their families and spend accordingly."

All four Democrats on the budget committee voted against HB 1, arguing it would deprive the state's General Fund of more than $1 billion in tax revenue annually from the previous 5% rate, while largely benefiting the wealthiest in the state.

"This particular piece of legislation hurts lower-income Kentuckians and helps the wealthier, higher-income Kentuckians," said Rep. Ruth Ann Palumbo, D-Lexington. "It is not sustainable. Future legislators will have to raise taxes and we are not being fiscally responsible."

The tax cut bill is a product of Republicans' landmark House Bill 8 that passed in the 2022 session, which seeks to trigger automatic reductions of .5% to the individual income tax rate each year — so long as two budget conditions are met — until the income tax is eliminated.

Those HB 8 conditions are that the budget reserve trust fund (often called rainy day fund) is at least 10% of tax revenue for the previous fiscal year, and those same receipts exceed spending by at least the amount of revenue that would be lost by cutting the tax rate a full percentage point.

While the reduction of the tax rate from 5% to 4.5% beginning this year was automatic due to those conditions being met, HB 1 codifies that change, while also approving the further reduction to 4% beginning Jan. 1, 2024.

A fiscal note for HB 1 estimated it would reduce state tax revenue by $316 million through just the first half of 2024.

Pam Thomas with left-leaning think tank Kentucky Center for Economic Policy told the committee a 4% tax rate would result in state revenues dropping by roughly $1.2 billion annually from what they would be at 5% — more than what the state appropriates for its entire higher education system.

Noting the income tax reduction under the bill would be permanent, Thomas said the sales tax may have to be raised in the future if the economy hits a downturn and the state doesn't have enough revenue to meet critical obligations, disproportionately hurting lower-income people.

However, Rep. Jason Petrie, the Republican chair of the budget committee, dismissed those fears, saying Democratic critics have warned of pending increases to the sales tax rate since the legislature cut individual and corporate income tax rates from 6% to 5% in 2018, which hasn't happened.

"The rate of the sales tax remains the same," Petrie said. "We have every intent of continuing with that same sales tax rate."

Under House Bill 8, dozens of services previously exempt from a sales tax lost that exemption, though the estimated revenue from those moves was roughly $100 million — far from making up for revenue lost from the income tax cut.

 

The goal of course is to eliminate the state's income tax completely in a decade, leaving the state dependent on double digit sales taxes on goods and services, while also cutting as much as they can from schools, roads, social programs and basic government services.   The state's budget surplus will vanish, and the wealthiest Kentuckians will get tens of thousands of dollars.

Without income tax, the state's general fund will collapse, or have to be replaced with billions in additional sales tax, which is exactly what's going to come in the years ahead.

Last Call For Biden Working It Out

The Biden Administration is making a move to put an end to non-compete contracts, which could benefit workers by hundreds of billions in pay raises in the years ahead.

 

In a far-reaching move that could raise wages and increase competition among businesses, the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday unveiled a rule that would block companies from limiting their employees’ ability to work for a rival.

The proposed rule would ban provisions of labor contracts known as noncompete agreements, which prevent workers from leaving for a competitor or starting a competing business for months or years after their employment, often within a certain geographic area. The agreements have applied to workers as varied as sandwich makers, hair stylists, doctors and software engineers.

Studies show that noncompetes, which appear to directly affect roughly 20 percent to 45 percent of private-sector U.S. workers, hold down pay because job switching is one of the more reliable ways of securing a raise. Many economists believe they help explain why pay for middle-income workers has stagnated in recent decades.

Other studies show that noncompetes protect established companies from start-ups, reducing competition within industries. The arrangements may also harm productivity by making it hard for companies to hire workers who best fit their needs.

The F.T.C. proposal is the latest in a series of aggressive and sometimes unorthodox moves to rein in the power of large companies under the agency’s chair, Lina Khan.

“Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand,” Ms. Khan said in a statement announcing the proposal. “By ending this practice, the F.T.C.’s proposed rule would promote greater dynamism, innovation and healthy competition.”

The public will be allowed to submit comments on the proposal for 60 days, at which point the agency will move to make it final. An F.T.C. document said the rule would take effect 180 days after the final version is published, but experts said that it could face legal challenges.

 

Expect this to be tied up in courts well into 2024, when Republicans hope there will be a new FTC chair and a new President. Expect significant resistance to this from business groups and especially Silicon Valley as well.

 

As much as this needs to happen, I predict that the new rules will never take effect.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Federal law enforcement agencies have upped the reward for information on the January 5th DC pipe bomber to a cool half-million.

 

The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department are now offering $500,000 for information leading to an arrest of the person who placed pipe bombs near the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC, the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot, the FBI announced Wednesday.

The announcement represents a sharp increase in the amount of money the government is willing to pay for information in the investigation: the monetary reward had previously stood at $100,000 prior to Wednesday, up from the $50,000 the bureau initially offered in the wake of the riot.

The increased amount comes days before the two-year anniversary of the insurrection. Little information has been released about the investigation since the pipe bombs, which were viable but never detonated, were discovered.

“With the significantly increased reward, we urge those who may have previously hesitated to contact us – or who may not have realized they had important information – to review the information on our website and come forward with anything relevant,” said David Sundberg, the assistant director in charge of the FBI field office in DC, in a statement.

“Despite the unprecedented volume of data review involved in this case, the FBI and our partners continue to work relentlessly to bring the perpetrator of these dangerous attempted attacks to justice,” Sundberg added.

The statement said that investigators have “conducted around 1,000 interviews, visited more than 1,200 residences and businesses, collected more than 39,000 videos, and assessed nearly 500 tips” about the pipe bomber.

The bombs were discovered within minutes of each other around 1 p.m. ET on January 6, just around the time that a mob of angry supporters of then-President Donald Trump descended on the building after a nearby rally with the president, according to an account the acting chief of the US Capitol gave to lawmakers in January and the FBI poster.

According to the FBI, the individual placed the two pipe bombs between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on January 5, 2021.

Security footage released by the FBI shows the person was carrying a backpack in their hand and wearing a face mask, gray hooded sweatshirt and black and light grey Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers with a yellow logo.

 

Two years ago to the day that these devices were planted, and we're still no closer to a suspect. Whoever did this knew what was coming on January 6th. If it was one of the Proud Boys or the other terrorists who came into DC for the Capital insurrection attempt, they would have talked by now.

It was somebody higher up, already in DC at the time. We know how several Republicans in Congress assisted the insurrection, but of course won't be touched in any investigations. I think the most likely scenario is that these bombs were set by someone connected to one of them.

But that's just me.

Seems that after two years, we'd have someone if they weren't being protected for some reason.

We'll see.

Mississippi Burning, Con't

Texas and Florida may be in the news more when it comes to Republican-run state governments, but in the end, there's no better example of what Republicans want to accomplish with governance than the state of Mississippi and reducing its infrastructure to rubble in order to privatize and profitize as much of basic services as possible in one of the poorest states in the nation. 

This goes for schools, it goes for roads, it goes for voting, it goes for water in the capital city of Jackson, and it sure as hell goes for the state's failing health care system, facing financial collapse, especially for majority Black counties and cities.

Mississippi’s healthcare crisis is worsening and an overhaul of the state’s “current system of care is unmistakably essential,” a leading medical group warned hours before the State Legislature was set to begin its 2023 session at noon Monday.

“The lack of access to healthcare for many Mississippians is currently a crisis, not a new crisis, but one that has been fermenting — and is getting worse,” the Mississippi State Medical Association said in a press release this morning. “As hospitals close across Mississippi, access to life-saving medical care becomes a real threat to all Mississippi. While the debate rages on as to why our hospitals are closing, the immediate crisis progressively engulfs us.”

Across the state, several hospitals have closed or cut services in recent months. During a hearing with lawmakers in November, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney warned that 38 of Mississippi’s rural hospitals, or about 54%, could close. Mississippi is already the poorest state with some of the worst health outcomes, including during the pandemic.

“That is a situation that is intolerable from an economic standpoint — to lose 54% of our hospitals in the state — much less from an access to care perspective,” PBS reported Edney saying in November.

For years, health-care professionals, including those at MSMA, have said that the State’s refusal to expand Medicaid to more working Mississippians has contributed significantly to hospital closures. Medicaid expansion was part of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, giving states funds to expand Medicaid access to people who make too much money for traditional Medicaid, but who do not earn enough to afford private insurance and are not eligible for ACA subsidies.

“Again, the healthcare crisis Mississippi now faces has been foreseeable for years and was indeed predicted,” MSMA said in its statement. “The fact is, there is a sizable gap that exists for working Mississippians who cannot afford private insurance, yet whose income is too much to qualify for Mississippi Medicaid. When these individuals need healthcare, hospitals are required to treat them regardless of their inability to pay. And because these individuals are uninsured, the hospital is not compensated for necessary care. Such an economical strain on hospitals is not one that even the most successful private business could not endure.”

Republicans don't want hospitals that work. They want sick, broken people who are forced into serfdom or worse, in communities that are sick and broken, so they can blame the Black, Native, and Latino people in those communities and write them off. They don't want them to be alive, because they're going to vote Democratic, and if they are dead and dying, Republicans will continue to always win and always be in power so they can continue to get rich. 

They don't want government to help the poor, the disenfranchised, the minority, the struggling. They want those parts of government permanently dismantled. They need a permanent underclass to exploit, and that means refusing to fund the parts of government that provide help to those who need it the most, because Republicans figure those people are the least productive to exploit and the most likely to vote against them for trying to exploit them anyway.

Since 2013, Mississippi’s Republican leaders have rejected more than $10 billion from the federal government that could have been used to expand Medicaid, even with the federal government offering to pay between 90% and 100% of the cost.

As it sought a buyer last year, the struggling Singing River Health System in Jackson County said the lack of Medicaid expansion was a primary driver of its financial troubles and those of other hospitals that “provide significant care for underinsured and uninsured populations.” Singing River employs about 3,500 people across three hospitals and three-dozen clinics.

Gov. Tate Reeves has long opposed expanding Medicaid, dating back to his time leading the Mississippi Senate as lieutenant governor when he dismissed it as “Obamacare expansion.” The current Republican lieutenant governor, Delbert Hosemann, has expressed interest in expanding Medicaid, but Reeves and GOP leaders in the Mississippi House have continued to oppose the idea.

Mississippi is one of just a dozen states that have declined to expand Medicaid. Despite representing less than a quarter of the country, states that refused to expand Medicaid accounted for 74% of all rural hospital closures between 2010 and 2021, an American Hospital Association report found last year.

No health care, no schools, no roads, no water, all misery to exploit. That's what they want. Survival for those who can maybe struggle hard enough to maybe afford to see a doctor, the rest worked so hard that they die young and never see a dime in Social Security or Medicare and never qualify for any other government programs because they "make too much money." 

States keeping their subjects poor, uneducated, and too tired to do anything about it.

The Republican way.

Last Call For The Circus Of The Damned, Con't

GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy was the biggest loser on Tuesday, unable to secure enough of his own caucus to reach the 218 mark for electing a House Speaker, and in fact he was nowhere close, with a good 20 defectors.

It only got worse for him today.

The House voted Wednesday to adjourn for the second time of the day — as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said he wanted more time to negotiate after six rounds of voting on the speakership resulted in deadlock. It will resume at 12 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Driving the news: “I think it's probably best to let people work through some more. I don't think a vote tonight does any difference but votes in the future will," McCarthy said before the second vote to adjourn.He lost three speaker election bids on Tuesday and three more on Wednesday.

Why it matters: It's the first time since 1923 that the speaker vote has required multiple ballots and it's unclear when — or how — lawmakers will eventually break the deadlock.

The latest: The California Republican's latest defeats came hours after former President Trump urged Republicans to back him — and with his colleagues voting instead for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) multiple times.20 Republicans voted for Donalds during each round Wednesday. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who voted for McCarthy three times on Tuesday, voted present Wednesday.

Republicans started looking for other options this afternoon. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) — who backed McCarthy over six ballots — told CNN: "He either needs to make a deal to bring the 19 or 20 over, or he needs to step aside and give somebody a chance to do that." Other Republicans are waiting in the wings as they struggle with this same calculus, GOP lawmakers and aides tell Axios.

It's abundantly clear that McCarthy won't get enough GOP votes to be Speaker. It's unclear if there's an Republican who actually can.

Enter the Democrats.  

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on Wednesday said “preliminary talks” had begun with Democrats about supporting a “consensus candidate” for Speaker.

Bacon told CNN, however, he wanted to hold back on the details of the conversations so as to not get ahead of the negotiations.

“There are preliminary talks, but we don’t want to go too fast on this because that then hijacks what Kevin is trying to do, and we want to support Kevin, he’s worked hard to get this,” Bacon said.

Kevin's already sold his soul to Trump.  But maybe, just maybe, there's someone on the GOP side willing to cut a real deal with the Dems and blindside McCarthy, the holdouts, and a lot of the circus clowns to boot.

I'm not saying it'll happen. I'm not saying there's anyone on the GOP side I'd trust to make this happen.

What I'm saying is Kevin McCarthy won't be Speaker. 

We're back at it tomorrow...

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Right-wing domestic terrorists continue to call for violent sedition in order to take control of the country, this time in Colorado.

 

A far-right conservative leader known for his gun shop’s reality TV show is warning that “it’s almost time to switch from ballots to bullets.”

Rich Wyatt, president of Jefferson County’s Mountain Republicans Club, made the suggestion of coming political violence on a December 28 episode of the conservative podcast, The Chuck and Julie Show.

“It’s almost time to switch from ballots to bullets. Because that’s what wins the hearts and minds,” Wyatt said. “And there’s no arguing with a bullet. You can argue about ballots, but you can’t argue with bullets.”

When reached by phone on Tuesday, Wyatt declined to say who specifically would be targeted by the political violence. Wyatt also declined to say whether he plans to participate in political violence. As a convicted felon, Wyatt is prohibited from possessing firearms and ammunition.

Wyatt declined to answer questions via phone or email.

“I’d be happy to come on your show,” Wyatt said. “But if you’re afraid to do that, that’d be fine with me.”

Wyatt, of Evergreen, is best known for the Discovery Channel show “American Guns,” which featured his Wheat Ridge gun shop, Gunsmoke, from 2011 to 2012.

In 2018, Wyatt was convicted and sentenced to 78 months in federal prison plus three years of supervised release for conspiracy to deal in firearms without a license and tax fraud. Wyatt appealed the conviction and was given one year in prison and one year of supervised release. His supervised release ended in June 2021.

Wyatt was ordered to forfeit nearly 500 firearms at sentencing.

Wyatt unsuccessfully appealed to former President Donald Trump for a pardon in December 2020, which would have restored Wyatt’s firearms rights.

 

We have convicted Republican felons calling for armed sedition, openly.

 

The failure to put multiple Republicans in prison after January 6th continues to be a threat to the nation's stability, and the longer it takes to do that, the more chance there is of a major domestic terrorism even larger than January 6th. 

Like A Troubled Bridge Over Waters, Con't

President Biden will be in town today to kick off the new year and to remind everyone why he was elected as he visits the Brent Spence Bridge, with work funded by his historic infrastructure bill beginning later this year to replace the nearly 70-year old structure. 

 

President Joe Biden is visiting northern Kentucky on Wednesday to tout spending more than $1 billion in federal grants to improve congestion on the aging Brent Spence Bridge.

The bridge links Covington and downtown Cincinnati over the Ohio River along Interstate 75, one of the busiest trucking routes in America.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced last week it would award $1.635 billion for the construction of a companion bridge to help unclog bridge traffic by separating truck traffic from local vehicles. This is from an infrastructure law Congress passed in late 2021 to help repair or rebuild 10 of the most economically significant bridges in the country.

“The grant to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will fund improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge, which is currently the second worst truck bottleneck in the nation and carries more than $400 billion in freight per year over the Ohio River,” reads a news release Wednesday from DOT.

The project also will improve “delays in the movement of freight that currently raise costs for American families.”

President Biden is expected to fly into Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport around 11:25 a.m.

Expect traffic delays on I-275 and I-71/75, as well as streets around the Brent Spence Bridge in Covington.

The president will hold a news conference near the bridge around lunchtime, making a rare joint appearance with Senate Republican Majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Other elected officials plan to attend, adding to the bipartisan mix of the event: Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, former Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.

I'll of course be following the project over the next couple of years. Remember, proposing that the companion bridge be built with toll money is what cost Matt Bevin reelection. Keeping the bridge toll-free might get Beshear another term.