Political Irony

Everyone has been focused on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, so of course the Republicans have taken this distraction as an opportunity to sneak in some things they wanted. Probably the most hypocritical example is a proposed new regulation that affects legal immigrants.

The new regulation will deny “green cards” (residency) to legal immigrants if they have received any kind of government assistance. The benefit programs that are targeted include food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, Medicare Part D (prescription drug subsidies), and housing assistance. So if any legal immigrant utilizes any of these programs, they will not be allowed to become permanent residents and will have to leave the US when their temporary visa expires.

For example, if someone from another country comes to the US on a student visa to attend a university, even if a company really wants to hire them they will have difficulty staying here if, even temporarily, they receive government assistance. For example, if they get in a serious accident and can’t afford our extremely expensive healthcare costs, they will have to choose between medical care and the possibility of becoming a resident in the future.

This will restrict children’s access to food and health care. In fact, it already has, as immigrants are already turning down government subsidies to help them buy staple foods and infant formula for fear that it will be used against them if they ever want to become a permanent legal resident.

Again, this will mainly target legal immigrants, because illegal immigrants are already barred from most federal benefits.

But the thing that is really insidious about this is that the new regulation allows permanent residency to be denied if the government anticipates that the the immigrant may utilize government benefits in the future. I can see where this will go, as Republicans deny residency for legal immigrants who are likely to vote against Republicans if they ever become US citizens. You know, the same way that they are making it harder for Democratic citizens to vote.

How hypocritical is this? Remember that Donald Trump is married to an illegal immigrant.

Taking the tip from Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump, Republicans have started attacking Christine Blasey Ford.

For example, they are posting photographs that they claim proves that Ford is a Democratic party operative. Except that the photographs they are posting of Ford with Bill Clinton and George Soros aren’t actually Ford. In fact, they don’t look anything like her. The one posing with Clinton is Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and with Soros is Lyudmyla Kozlovska. Maybe women all look alike to them.

Right-wing media is also claiming that Ford perjured herself in her testimony to the Senate committee. For example, InfoWars claims that Ford lied about being a psychologist because she is not licensed as a psychologist in California. They conveniently ignore the fact that only clinical psychologists (who treat patients) need a license. Ford is not a clinical psychologist but she has a Ph.D. in psychology and does research on psychology at a university, which obviously fully qualifies her as a psychologist. But I guess readers of InfoWars don’t know that.

Unfortunately, there is strong evidence that the Republican base is eating this crap up. Getting someone who has been credibly accused of attempted rape confirmed to the Supreme Court is actually increasing Republican enthusiasm in advance of the midterms.

We can only hope that there is a backlash against this.

© Jen Sorensen

When it is called a tariff.

Republicans claim to be against tax increases. They attack anyone who they believe wants to raise taxes. And yet, they have ignored Trump’s tax increases. What increases? Donald Trump has, by executive fiat, levied taxes of up to 50% on goods being imported into the US, with the most common tariffs being 25%.

How does this differ from a tax? I can’t think of any substantiative difference. If you buy anything from China or other foreign nations, you will pay what is basically a sales tax to the federal government. Can you imagine the uproar if the government levied a sales tax of 25% on mobile phones, televisions, washing machines, solar panels, and other goods? Well, they have basically done that, and are threatening to tax those things even more.

And here’s the really interesting point. Sales taxes (including tariffs) are mainly paid by the middle class. The 1% don’t need to buy more than one iPhone or one washing machine, the same as working Americans. Not only do Trump’s tariffs fall disproportionately on poor and middle class Americans, they would hurt working Americans by reducing GDP, and cutting full time jobs by around 80,000.

On the other hand, the majority of the Republican tax cut at the end of 2017 benefitted the richest Americans and large corporations. After the tax cut was enacted, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin claimed 90% of all working adults would see increases in their paychecks because of the cuts. But the it turned out to be that only 4.3% of workers saw a wage increase or even a one-time bonus because of the tax cut.

So the Republicans and Trump have given us a tax cut and a tax increase. Is anyone surprised that the tax cut went mainly to the rich, and the tax increase will be largely paid by working, middle-class Americans? Remember this the next time the Republicans claim to be against tax increases. They are against tax increases only for themselves.

What will happen to Brett Kavanaugh? If the Republicans ram the Supreme Court nomination of Kavanaugh down America’s throat, they are going to rile up Democrats (especially women) and probably lose additional seats during the midterms. But if they don’t, they will piss off their die-hard base, who might sit out the midterms in response. And hovering above all of this is the memory of how the Republicans blatantly stole the nomination of Merrick Garland from Obama and the Democrats.

© Pia Guerra

Sometimes the news just writes itself. On Friday, FEMA tweeted this message:

We have created a rumor control page for Hurricane #Florence that will be updated regularly. During disasters, it’s critical to avoid spreading false information. Always check with official sources before sharing. https://t.co/PAjGQZJ1Nt pic.twitter.com/z4L0r1YjAT

— FEMA (@fema) September 12, 2018

It was retweeted by Donald Trump. Yup, the same person who the day before tweeted that the official government numbers for the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico are fake news cooked up by the Democrats. A tweet that was immediately debunked and even had Republicans rolling their eyes in disbelief.

The response on Twitter was immediate, asking “Where is the rumor control page for @realDonaldTrump’s Twitter feed? During this disaster of the Trump administration, it is critical to avoid spreading false information.”

Other people suggested that the best way to avoid spreading false information would be to take Trump’s phone away.