Tag: politicians

This Election Season, Beware of These False Promises

As elections approach, sweeping generalizations have a certain allure that often energizes the frustrated and captivates the hopeful. However, it’s essential that we as voters remember that things that seem too good to be true typically are. Here are a few warnings.

First, as far as our finances go, beware of politicians promising that they won’t touch Social Security and Medicare. In reality, they’ll have no choice. For one thing, if they keep this hollow promise, Social Security benefits will be cut across the board in 2033 by over 20 percent. According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, that’s a cut of between $12,000 and $17,000 annually for a traditional retired couple. Medicare faces the same predicament for a variety of reasons.

The only workaround from this reality, which has been known for decades, is for Democrats and Republicans to finally come together for serious reform. That will likely result in a reduction of benefits and an increase in taxes. As unpleasant as it will be, we’d better hope that politicians don’t take the cowardly path and resort to shoving the problem onto Uncle Sam’s proverbial credit card (by paying all benefits that exceed payroll-tax receipts out of general revenues).

As the Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl noted recently, “Social Security and Medicare are projected by the CBO to spend $156 trillion in benefits but collect only $87 trillion in payroll taxes and premiums. This $69 trillion cash shortfall will have to be financed by budget deficits, which will in turn be responsible for $47 trillion of interest costs on the national debt.” Who will lend the U.S. government $114 trillion, even at unprecedentedly high interest rates?

That’s a question voters should ask politicians who promise never to touch entitlement programs. Those who claim it’s an easy fix by taxing the rich should be immediately dismissed as unserious. The numbers don’t add up. Any other one-sided ideological answers to an accounting question won’t cut it, either.

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Five more Republican lawmakers surrender FTX money to U.S. Marshals Service

Money keeps pouring into the U.S. Marshals Service from federal political campaigns and committees who received funds from FTX, the now-defunct cryptocurrency company, according to a Raw Story analysis of federal campaign records.

Another five political campaigns sent $15,500 in campaign cash to the government agency best known for hunting down suspected criminals, adding to at least $160,000 collected from 30 federal political candidates and party committees, as Raw Story first reported.

The five new campaigns that gave up the money are fundraising entities for Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).

Stefanik is chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, the GOP’s fourth most powerful position in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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Macron Gives ‘Le Doigt’ To Free Speech: Protesters To Be Prosecuted For Flipping-Off French President

Five years ago, I wrote a column criticizing Democratic and Republican members of Congress who joined the media in gushing over an address from French President Emmanuel Macron as he called for European style censorship. Free speech has been in a virtual free fall in France for decades and Macron is a major voice in that movement.

This week, the French added another outrage to Macron’s legacy by promising to prosecute three citizens who protested the President by flipping him off at an event. The use of “Le Doigt” could now land them in “La Prison.”

The three will be prosecuted under France’s abusive criminal code that allows for the arrest of those who engage in speech that “affect the personal dignity or the respect owed to a public official.” It is a breathtaking denial of political speech and invites selective prosecution.

If convicted, they could face a fine of 15,000 euros and potentially up to one year in prison, according to La Chaîne Info. 

Macron has hit a record low in polling, but his government will now enforce respect for him through threats of incarceration.

France has been a leader in the rollback on free speech in the West with ever widening laws curtailing free speech. These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments against at least three people in a Paris bar. At his sentencing, Judge Anne Marie Sauteraud read out a list of the bad words used by Galliano to Geraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti, including using ‘dirty whore” in criticism.

In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French mother was prosecuted because her son went to school with a shirt reading “I am a bomb.”

A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.”

Yet, our leaders (and many in the media) were ecstatic when Macron came to the Congress and called for a joint war against “fake news,” declaring, “Democracy is about true choices and rational decisions. The corruption of information is an attempt to corrode the very spirit of our democracies.”

Nothing says Democracy like jailing those who do not show you respect.

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Video shows reinstated TN State Rep Justin Jones stopping cars and assaulting drivers in summer of 2020

Footage has been unearthed of disgraced Tennessee state representative Justin Jones stopping cars and assaulting drivers during summer protests outside of the state Capitol in 2020.

Jones had claimed at the time that the narrative that he was violent was false.

The footage proves otherwise.

“They will try to push a false narrative portraying me as “violent” as a way to deflect from their own actions. They will suggest that I am out of order. That is their strategy. However, I’m hopeful for the chance to present our evidence in a transparent manner.” Jones tweeted.

Local blog Scoop Nashville featured the violent footage in 2021, writing:

“In June of 2020, Justin Bautista-Jones, better known as ‘Brother Jones’ locally, was one of the publicly visible (often by design) protestors at the State Capitol. He received a lot of pushback from his own community after it was discovered he was often only making appearances when he knew there would be media coverage, and eventually had a falling out with one of the other most visible female members of the group.

“Throughout the entire time, he has faced over a dozen charges but always denied that he was violent – despite multiple assaults, assault on an officer, and reckless endangerment charges. In the newly obtained video, one of his assaults was captured, and presented to the Grand Jury – and he was indicted on two counts of reckless endangerment.”

On Monday afternoon, Jones, a Democrat who was expelled for leading an anti-gun protest into the storming of state Capitol last month, was reinstated to the House.

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Tennessee Democrat’s Transformation From College to Now Sparks Mockery on Social Media

Former Tennessee state Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson is facing criticism from conservatives for altering his voice and mannerisms while speaking publicly, which was made evident in unearthed footage from an election he took part in nearly a decade ago at Maine’s Bowdoin College.

A college campaign ad for Pearson’s successful bid for president of Bowdoin Student Government in 2016 showed a more casual Pearson who pushed for unity and understanding among his peers.

“I’m Justin J. Pearson, and I’m running for president of BSG,” Pearson said in the school campaign ad. “There are a few reasons why we’re running this campaign this year. One has to do with representation … How can we represent all voices in a conversation?”

Pearson said his efforts were meant to garner responses from both Democrats and Republicans on campus at the time.

“I wanna bring together different voices — dissenting voices, voices that may be more liberal or more conservative — in order that we can reach a point of, sort of, the radical middle,” he said in the campaign video.

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