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The GOP: Rich People Arguing Over How Much They Hate The Poor

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Even though it is sort of my job to do so, I have a really hard time sitting through these GOP debates. First of all, there are thousands of them. These people have shared the same stage so often that are now all eligible for Tony awards. After sixteen of these things, what topics could possibly remain unexplored? Their favorite Pizza toppings? Which is their favorite Kardashian sister? With thirteen or so debates left, we may be treated to arm wrestling matches between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, or a Rick Perry karaoke version of “My Heart Will Go On (Theme from Titanic)” before this is over.

Second, they aren’t “debates” so much as they are contests to see who can best slander Barack Obama. Debating usually involves people having divergent opinions on the issues. As policy nuance isn’t allowed in Republican politics, everything becomes a question of volume. “You hate the Health Care Bill? Well I REALLY hate it. Nobody hates sick people as much as I do.”

This is how you wind up with Newt Gingrich coming out in favor of putting poor children to work cleaning toilets for their institutional betters. To be fair, it’s possible that Newt would have done this anyway. Newt Gingrich is a pretty big asshole, so it’s hard to tell. Think I’m joking? Check it out this quote from the man himself:

It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid … You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. … Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.

Delightful. This idea has the virtue of being at the same time insulting, patronizing, and horrible on a level rare for even the likes of Newt Gingrich. The idea of making destitute ten-year old children work as janitors for the amusement of the wealthy is positively Dickensian. This is one of the reasons I look forward to the general election should Newt grab the nomniation. The commercials write themselves.

INT. Classroom – Day

(A young boy in coveralls pushes a broom down a hallway, probably in slow motion, while wealthy children laugh heartily and throw change at him. Audio of Newt’s asinine comments plays in the background.)

V/O (Cont.): Help Barack Obama put a stop to the Gingrich Education Plan. Tell Newt to leave the children alone.

See? It’s that easy.

The other thing about Newt’s idiotic statement is that it shows an almost perfect ignorance regarding how hard janitorial work actually is. That Newt assumes this work can be performed by children is wildly insulting to the many thousands of hard working and chronically underpaid janitorial professionals. His disrespect for working people shows a level of detachment and snobbery sufficient to brand Gingrich as the worst sort of privileged, arrogant aristocrat, oblivious to the lives the non-wealthy live.

 


When did Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty turn into a Republican war on the poor? $10,000 wagers are about half a step away from paying homeless people to fight each other.


 

Remember, before Newt Gingrich was a big shot political juggernaut, he was but a lowly Geography professor at the University of West Georgia. I expect he ran into a great deal of janitorial staff in his time there, and I can only imagine the condescension they must have endured from Professor Gingrich. The University of West Georgia, as it turns out, is looking for some help in the Custodial Services Department, and they have a very nice description of what janitorial work involves:

This person will work in academic buildings, administrative buildings and residence halls on a daily basis cleaning restrooms, offices, classrooms, gathering and disposing of trash and vacuuming. Duties and responsibilities include: maintaining the appearance of offices, classrooms, hallways, laboratories, lobbies, lounges, elevators, stairways and restrooms by dusting, vacuuming, sweeping and removal of trash; cleaning and polishing light fixtures, marble surfaces and trims; washing walls and woodwork, windows, door panels and sills; sweeping, vacuuming, dust mopping, wet mopping, scrubbing, stripping, restoring, buffing and waxing floors; restocking supply closets and restrooms; setting-up chairs, tables and other equipment in classrooms, meeting rooms, and public areas as required; performing other duties as assigned.

Does that sound like the sort of thing that a ten-year old could do? I’d like to see Newt hustle a few twelve-hour cleaning shifts, and then talk to me about how easy this work is. I know janitors don’t make much money, but it doesn’t make the jobs they do any less valuable or deserving of respect. Custodial staff actually work for a living, and they work extremely hard. Newt so easily demonstrates his contempt for the working class, probably because the last time he was part of it was during the Nixon administration. We can’t all be paid consultants for Freddie Mac, after all.

When did Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty turn into a Republican war on the poor? It’s sort of their theme this cycle. If it wasn’t Herman Cain telling poor people to blame themselves for their lack of employment and failure to be fabulously wealthy, it’s widespread conservative opposition to the Payroll Tax Cut, and cowardly obstruction regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Republicans have finally found a tax cut they don’t like, and by what I sure is complete coincidence, it happens to favor the working class.

You even have Mitt Romney throwing around ten thousand dollar wagers on stage during presidential debates. I wonder if he is aware that there are millions and millions of people in the country for whom an infusion of ten thousand dollars would save their homes, or get them out of crippling debt, or help resolve the horrific financial straights they’ve found themselves in ever since greedy wall street bankers destroyed the economy. The GOP has a name for these people. They call them, “The Help.”

The concept seems clear: Government should be just big enough to protect “Job Creators,” (i.e. Rich People) but not so big as to allow for the protecting of anyone else. How long do they expect people to fall for this? Do they think they can beat a path all the way to the White House on the “Let Them Eat Cake” platform?

Here is my advice to the GOP: Try to look a little less like those two old guys from Trading Places. It’s hard to work that “Man of the People” angle when you are lighting your cigars with $100 bills. Also, consider cutting back on the $10,000 wagers a little. It’s about half a step away from paying homeless people to fight each other.

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Benjamin Phillips is a Humor Writer, Web Developer, Civics Nerd, and all around crank that spends entirely too much time shouting with deep exasperation at the television, especially whenever cable news is on. He lives in St. Louis, MO and spends most of his time staring at various LCD screens, occasionally taking walks in the park whenever his boyfriend becomes sufficiently convinced that Benjamin is becoming a reclusive hermit person. He is available for children’s parties, provided that those children are entertained by hearing a complete windbag talk for two hours about the importance of science education, or worse yet, poorly researched anecdotes PROVING that James Buchanan was totally gay. If civilization were to collapse due to zombie hoards or nuclear holocaust, Benjamin would be among the first to die as he has no useful skills of any kind. The post-apocalyptic hellscape has no real need for homosexual computer programmers who can name all the presidents in order, as well as the actors who have played all eleven incarnations of Doctor Who.

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‘Someone’s Got to Run the Deportation Camps’: Prison Stocks Soar as Trump Agenda Unfolds

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Several private prison stocks have been skyrocketing since Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. Trump has vowed mass deportations, and his campaign spokesperson on Wednesday said “millions” would be deported on day one.

“One HUGE winner from Trump’s win: Private prison companies GEO Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc.,” observed Bloomberg News reporter Steven Dennis on Wednesday. “Their stocks, which could benefit from Trump’s plans for rounding up millions of immigrants, rocketed higher today 41% and 29% respectively.”

Thomson Reuters Foundation journalist Avi Asher-Schapiro also on Wednesday, posted the stock’s performance over the past five days, which shows it jumped over 26%. He writes: “Private prison giant Geo Group —which already has over a billion dollars in ICE contracts to manage immigration detention facilities—sees its stock soar on Trump’s win.”

Pointing to an earnings call transcript from August, he notes the company “also administers the ‘Intensive Supervision Appearance Program’ which is GPS monitoring of migrants.”

READ MORE: ‘Under Attack’: Newsom Preps to Protect California From Trump

“Now, it’s 175,000 people. If the GOP-backed House Bill becomes law, that could expand to 7 million.”

Ohio Capitol Journal Editor-in-Chief David DeWitt noted, “To deport 20 million people [a number Trump has claimed], they need to build massive camps – deportation, detention…camps where people are concentrated… to handle such massive numbers. Brokers are speculating a nice windfall for a private prison giant on the backs of millions of families being put in camps”

At Thompson Reuters’ Context, Asher-Schapiro co-wrote an article last week explaining how Geo has donated over a half-million dollars to support Trump’s re-election efforts.

“GEO Group’s political action committee moved early this year to donate a maximum $5,000 to the Trump campaign, in addition to a $500,000 donation from a GEO subsidiary to a pro-Trump group, according to an analysis from CREW’s [Robert] Maguire and Lauren White.”

CREW is the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

READ MORE: The List of Who Donald Trump Has ‘Pledged to Punish,’ According to One of His Targets

“The company also not only donated to his 2017 inauguration, but moved its annual corporate event to one of his properties, White said.”

“They have not only been fuelling Trump’s political aspirations, but they have been putting money directly in Trump’s pocket by using his businesses in a pretty conspicuous way,” White also said.

The Atlantic’s David Frum is a Never-Trump Republican who announced Wednesday he “De-registered as a Republican today.”

Responding to the chart of Geo Group’s stock skyrocketing, he remarked sardonically: “Someone’s got to run the deportation camps.”

On Wednesday, NBC News explored how Trump may execute his deportation plan, and highlight one of his recent quotes about immigrants: “We’re like a garbage can for the world.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Dire Implications’: Trump’s Possible Vaccine Ban Could Spark US, Global Health Crisis

 

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‘Under Attack’: Newsom Preps to Protect California From Trump

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California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is preparing on multiple fronts to protect his state from the impending Donald Trump presidency.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement, the LA Times reports. “California has faced this challenge before, and we know how to respond. We are prepared to fight in the courts, and we will do everything necessary to ensure Californians have the support and resources they need to thrive.”

“California is ready to fight,” Newsom added, via social media. “Whether it be our fundamental civil rights, reproductive freedom, or climate action — we refuse to turn back the clock and allow our values and laws to be attacked.”

The 57-year old with reported presidential aspirations has called the state legislature back into session to provide additional funding for litigation against the Trump administration.

READ MORE: Marco Rubio to State? Ken Paxton to DOJ? Trump Administration Contenders Emerge

“California anticipates that Trump could seek to limit access to abortion, dismantle environmental protections and withhold federal disaster response funding,” The Times adds, along with repealing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“The new special session provides an early look at the governor’s plan to wage an aggressive and highly visible campaign to shield California from the Trump White House.”

The governor sees the need “to increase legal funding to defend civil rights, climate change, access to abortion, disaster funding and other California policies from a conservative federal agenda before the inauguration in January.”

“Newsom’s preemptive strike signals the return of the hostile relationship between Democratic-controlled California and the Trump administration that was a hallmark of the Republican’s first term.”

RELATED: Day One: Trump Planning ‘Largest Mass Deportation Operation’

The governor’s additional preparations for the impending Trump presidency include having performed an analysis of Project 2025, the extremist playbook created by the far-right Heritage Foundation, and a review of the more than 100 lawsuits California filed against the first Trump administration.

Ezra Levin, who co-founded the progressive organization Indivisible in response to the first Trump presidency, commented on Newsom’s actions: “This is a good move and Dem leaders in trifecta states across the country should be taking similar action. If you’re a leader in this moment, go lead.”

READ MORE: The List of Who Donald Trump Has ‘Pledged to Punish,’ According to One of His Targets

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

 

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Marco Rubio to State? Ken Paxton to DOJ? Trump Administration Contenders Emerge

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Donald Trump in 2016 reportedly did not want to be president and did not expect to win the White House. He got off to a slow and rocky start forming his administration, including just days after the election was finally called, when he inflicted a “Stalinesque purge” of his transition team, delaying even further his government’s formation.

That is not expected to happen this time.

Trump has Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s extremist blueprint for presidential transition that entirely transforms the executive branch of the federal government into one built on a Christian nationalism foundation. Some Trump loyalists are now—post-Election Day—gleefully declaring it actually is his agenda, after a month of Trump and his campaign’s efforts to distance themselves from its toxicity. (On the left and right Project 2025 has a single-digit approval rating.)

RELATED: Day One: Trump Planning ‘Largest Mass Deportation Operation’

Trump has an abundance of MAGA allies rushing to be picked to serve in the second Trump administration, which will be needed since, as  The New Republic’s Greg Sargent reports, a Trump ally is already “hinting persecution of enemies,” and that the “purging of [government] will begin immediately.”

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who infamously vowed to never run for another office if he lost the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 (which he did, to Trump), only to rescind that promise and win re-election, is reportedly on Trump’s short list for Secretary of State. Rubio, frequently spoke at Trump rallies and wasted no time after the election, in talking about foreign policy, and especially ending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

“Texas is positioned better than any state to help Trump carry out his ambitious anti-immigration agenda, and some of its top politicians are using that to their advantage,” The Texas Tribune reports. “The state is home to an estimated 1.6 million undocumented persons — the second-most in the country after California. It is also led by Republican elected officials who are politically in lock-step with Trump.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a far-right Republican who took office in 2015, and was indicted under state criminal felony charges months later, appears to also have been under federal investigation at least as recently as May. After nearly a decade of delays, Paxton agreed to perform 100 hours of community service to avoid trial on state fraud charges.

Paxton also was central to the Republican attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election that Trump lost.

READ MORE: The List of Who Donald Trump Has ‘Pledged to Punish,’ According to One of His Targets

CBS affiliate KENS5 in Texas reports Thursday that Paxton’s “name has been floated for the U.S. Department of Justice, and if this happens, it could help Paxton in a legal and professional manner. He’s being investigated by the FBI for alleged corruption.”

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller “told reporters that he’s acknowledged the rumor that he may be asked to serve on the National Department of Agriculture under President-elect Trump,” KENS5 also reports.

As NCRM reported, Miller has called for the atomic bombing of “the Muslim world,” compared Syrian refugees to venomous rattlesnakes and threatened violence against people who say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Miller was also under investigation for using taxpayer funds to pay for personal out-of-state trips, including one to obtain a so-called “Jesus shot.”

Other names being floated for Trump’s administration, including at the Cabernet level include his former GOP presidential candidate opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum. Also, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, U.S. Senator Mike Lee, and Trump’s architect of child separation, Stephen Miller.

READ MORE: ‘Be the Guardrails of Democracy’: Liz Cheney and Other Never-Trumpers Suggest Path Forward

 

 

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