Latest news with #Trumpies
Telegraph
01-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The Republicans' fatal divisions are pushing America into debt disaster
Republicans in Washington are labouring to produce a budget bill for President Trump, but as the Senate vote passing the bill showed, they have narrow margins in Congress and there are no Democrats willing to cross the aisle. And the process is not over yet. Any small group of four or five Republican dissidents still has enormous power to derail the process. That means they have leverage to demand changes. Since politicians on Capitol Hill play that game all the time, this is not a surprise. But the challenge for the Republican leadership is that their party is now profoundly divided, bordering on ideologically incoherent. Some conservative Republicans believe in Reagan-style fiscal restraint, for instance. They want a smaller government and declining deficits. But this puts them at odds with Trump-style Republicans who are explicitly opposed to reforming entitlements and seemingly don't care about ever-increasing levels of red ink. This division has not killed the bill. At least not yet. But there are still potential stumbling blocks ahead. The House and Senate have different versions of the Big Beautiful Bill, so this means a conference committee will be needed to develop a unified version. Yet the compromises required to create that unified version may cause some Republicans to revolt. To make matters more interesting, the division between Reaganites and Trumpies is not the only relevant split. There are other blocs of Republican lawmakers who might throw sand in the gears. The SALT deduction – a few Republicans from high-tax states claim they won't vote for any bill unless there is a big increase in the federal deduction for state and local taxes. Most Republicans dislike that loophole since it subsidises wasteful spending in states like New York and California, so the unanswered question is whether an increase in the deduction gains votes from a small group of Republicans without losing votes from the rest of the party. Green-energy pork – Republicans unanimously voted against Joe Biden's preposterously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, a law that included all sorts of special subsidies for wind and solar energy. Unfortunately, now that those subsidies exist, the recipients have a big incentive to lobby in favour of keeping them. Many of those handouts go to projects in Republican states and districts, leading some Republicans to assert they will oppose the Big Beautiful Bill if the green-energy gravy train gets derailed. Once again, this creates a challenge for GOP leaders, since retaining too many of the subsidies may cause fiscal conservatives to withdraw support. Medicaid money laundering – America's main government-run health programme for poor people is supposed to be a joint responsibility for the central government and state governments. Over time, however, states have figured out how to shift ever-greater shares of the cost on to the federal taxpayers. One of the dodgiest tricks is for states to levy taxes on health providers, which triggers larger handouts from Washington. The health providers, such as hospitals, do not object to this scam since they get the additional federal money. Most Republicans want to end this farce, but a few GOP lawmakers want to curry favour with hospital lobbyists. The Republicans who want more spending for these three areas are not Reagan conservatives. For the most part, they also are not Trumpian populists. Instead, they are best described as old-fashioned transactional politicians. Their votes go to the highest bidder/biggest campaign contributors. But they also face pressure to conform with other Republicans. And they almost certainly want to extend the 2017 individual tax cuts (which will expire at the end of the year if the Big Beautiful Bill goes down in flames). Last, but not least, they don't want to get on Trump's bad side since it might mean a serious primary challenge during the next election cycle. So the bottom line is that the Republican leadership – and the White House – has the ability to twist arms. As such, the safest prediction is that all these conflicts and divisions somehow will be resolved and Trump will have a victory. But it may be a Pyrrhic Victory in that America is probably stumbling toward some sort of fiscal crisis. Simply stated, it is unsustainable to have the burden of government spending grow faster than the private sector for an extended period of time. Even if a crisis can be avoided, that type of fiscal irresponsibility eventually will mean higher taxes, ruinous debt, or inflation. Perhaps all three. Unless, by some miracle, there's a Javier Milei in America's future.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The tough fight to unionize Amazon
Organizers rally across from Garner's Amazon warehouse on Saturday February 8, 2025 -- two days prior to the start of a union election. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline) The number of U.S. workers belonging to a union fell to a record low of 9.8% this past year. Despite scattered victories like Starbucks unionization, the labor movement is a shadow of the brawny force it once was in American society. The recent vote at Amazon's giant RDU1 facility in Garner underscores the obstacles to resurrecting unionism. A grassroots worker-led group called Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE) fought successfully for a union election, but it lost the vote last month by an almost three-to-one. Just one of Amazon's more than 1,500 U.S. facilities, JFK8 on Staten Island, has voted to unionize – and the company still refuses to recognize those results. I had a first-hand view of the Garner election and its lessons for labor organizing. As an anthropologist studying Amazon, I worked in its warehouses for two years, loading trucks at RDU1. Witnessing the sweatshop conditions there led me to join CAUSE and its spunky yet failed fight to unionize the facility. At least in theory, the time is ripe for labor organizing. A recent poll shows seventy percent of Americans approve of labor unions, weary of corporate greed and drone jobs. Although unions will not solve everything, working people need the benefits they can bring more than ever. The titans of 21st century commerce like Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald's enforce brutal work rates through the so-called electronic whip of algorithmic management and the threat of firing. Old fashioned generosities like holiday bonuses and paid sick days have been cut to keep costs down. The big companies have made poverty pay the new norm. At RDU1, you make a few dollars more than cashiering at Dollar General cashiering or assembling Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, but the $18.50 hourly starting pay is less than half the $42.64 an hour that economists estimate as necessary for an adult with a child to get by in the greater Raleigh area. Some RDU1 workers sleep in their cars to save rent money — and this when Amazon cofounder Jeff Bezos banks a surreal $7.9 million an hour with his private jets, super yacht, and multiple mansions. Unionizing a gigantic 21st century warehouse with more than 4,000 workers is daunting. What economists call 'the churn' of high worker turnover complicates solidarity-building. So does the heterogeneity of the work force at a place like RDU1 between its hip-hop princes, queer young Latinas and tractor-cap Trumpies along with migrants from more than thirty countries. The job's grind makes mustering energy to raise labor's flag tough too. Despite the obstacles, CAUSE collected over 1,700 worker signatures to force the union election. But Amazon told organizers they could not hang flyers or hold informational meetings inside the warehouse, while firing three CAUSE leaders and calling the police to arrest volunteers handing out leaflets outside. The company blanketed the facility with vote no messaging on banners, posters, and video screens. From a hastily erected 'town hall' stage, managers seeded lies about CAUSE threatening deportation for migrant workers — and that a union victory would mean everyone losing their benefits. Over CAUSE objections, the election was held inside the warehouse under the surveillance of Amazon's video cameras, managers, 'union-avoidance' consultants, and security guards. It felt almost like some sham election in totalitarian North Korea. CAUSE has petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees union elections, to throw out the vote. The complaint cites the targeting of union activists with suspensions, random drug testing, and denying disability accommodations among sixteen different charges, although the Trump administration has signaled intentions to make the NLRB more company-friendly in its rulings. Even when a union wins certification, companies will stall and dodge to avoid good faith bargaining for a new contract. Starbucks has so far refused to meet barista demands halfway. Here in North Carolina, the Duke Graduate Student Union and REI workers have seen little progress in contract talks despite winning elections almost two years ago. Hopeful examples do exist of cooperation. By contrast to union-phobic Amazon and most other big retailers, many Costco stores are unionized, with the Teamsters. Most hourly employees there earn more than $30 an hour and yet the low worker turnover, strong productivity, and not needing to throw millions at union-busting saves the company money. Costco profits have steadily risen in recent years. Unionization can be a win-win for workers and owners. So long as many companies pay misery pay while treating workers like robots, the fight for unions will continue. At RDU1 after the election defeat, CAUSE president Ryan Brown vowed to keep organizing for as long as it takes. 'Hear me well,' Brown said. 'We're not going anywhere.'
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The 199 Things You Can't Say in the Trump Administration
In 1972, the comedian George Carlin identified seven words you couldn't say on television. These were: 'shit,' 'piss,' 'fuck,' 'cunt,' 'cocksucker,' 'motherfucker,' and 'tits.' Last Friday The New York Times identified 199 words and phrases you can't say in the Trump administration (197 in today's print edition). These include: 'biased,' 'climate science,' 'female,' 'women,' 'socioeconomic,' 'underprivileged,' and 'cultural heritage.' Obscenity sure ain't what it used to be. The Times' list of Trump's banned words, the paper said, is necessarily incomplete. It does not, for instance, include 'Enola Gay,' banned as part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's DEI purge for the hilarious reason that it included the offending word 'gay.' (The dropping of the first atom bomb has long been controversial, but never for being woke.) The Trump ban isn't absolute. Some words and phrases, the Times reported, are barred outright from the federal government's websites and government-funded school curricula, but others may be used with extreme discretion. Where encountered, this latter group is automatically flagged for review not only on government websites and in school curricula but also in grant proposals and contracts. As I understand it, when applying for a government grant it's OK to say, 'Give me some fuckin' money' but not OK to say, 'Give me some money to study trauma suffered by at-risk minorities,' because 'trauma,' 'at-risk,' and 'minorities' are on the forbidden list. Liberals are of course no strangers to playing Word Cop, and indeed in February 2021 the Times reported that the Biden administration nixed 'illegal alien' and required that the word 'tribal,' as applied to Native Americans, be spelled with a capital T. But these were mostly reversals of Trump policies that exiled phrases like 'undocumented immigrant' and 'climate change.' The phrase 'climate change' is now back on Trump's taboo list. With 'undocumented immigrant,' it's a bit more complicated. Both that phrase and 'illegal immigrant' can no longer be used because the word 'immigrant' is forbidden. Is that to encourage usage of the nasty pejorative 'illegals'? Also, Trumpies, despite their own manifest tribalism, may not say 'Tribal,' even with an unassuming lower-case t. Say goodbye to 'pregnant person,' a phrase the Biden administration favored as a nod to the transgender community. On similar grounds, LGBT and LGBTQ are now demoted to LGB. Regarding pregnancy, Trump's Word Cops created an interesting problem for themselves. 'Pregnant women' would be the logical substitute for 'pregnant person,' but with 'women' and 'females' both on the taboo list we're stuck calling them … 'pregnant ladies'? That's a strikingly inapt term to describe a 12-year-old rape victim who, because the Trump-appointed majority on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, couldn't get an abortion in the state of Mississippi, and consequently began seventh grade as a 13-year-old mother. The solution here may be the indescribably sad term 'pregnant preteen.' 'Men' is not on the taboo list, in deference to the political ascendency of the Manosphere. 'Men who have sex with men' is on the taboo list, even though we have persuasive evidence that at least some within this homophobic subculture are gay. 'Men who have sex with men' is a circumlocution for 'male homosexual,' which, happily, is not on the taboo list; neither is 'gay.' The Trumpies appear to tolerate gay culture somewhat, so long as it excludes transexuals. The terms 'equality' and 'inequality' are banned. May I remind our president that the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address both state that all men are created equal? Will Trump functionaries yank these foundational documents from the National Archives and Library of Congress? Variations on the word 'equal' appear seven times in the Constitution. To be on the safe side, perhaps Trump will remove all three to that john at Mar-a-Lago. Some of the words on the Times list are just baffling. The Trump administration won't let anybody say 'prostitute'? That sounds like a Biden holdover; the left is the only precinct I know where the word 'prostitute' is taboo. You're supposed to say 'sex worker,' but that's out because the Trump Word Cops put 'sex' on their taboo list. I guess they'll have to go back to 'courtesan' or 'tart.' Returning to the question of how a woke taboo became a Trump taboo: Perhaps what Trump intends to prevent is usage of the word 'prostitute' as a verb to describe the groveling behavior of Lindsey Graham, JD Vance, Mike Johnson, and so many other Republican politicians who once scorned Trump. Also, what's wrong with 'advocate'? That's a neutral term. Conservatives advocate things all the time! Is it because there's a gay magazine called The Advocate? The Advocate also happens to be the title of a play my late father wrote about the Sacco and Vanzetti case that ran for a week on Broadway in 1963. So yes, this is getting personal. In the same vein: I served in the late 1970s on the prose board of an undergraduate literary magazine called The Harvard Advocate, which (at least then) was apolitical to a fault. Maybe 'Harvard' set off a trip wire; it's not on the taboo list, but the Trump Justice Department hates the place and just put it under investigation for alleged antisemitism. Never mind that DOGE chief Elon Musk gave a Sieg Heil salute on inauguration night and that mimicking Musk's gesture (which Musk insisted was misinterpreted) became all the rage among the Trump faithful at last month's Conservative Political Action Conference. Physician, heal thyself. Another entirely neutral word the Trumpies have banned is 'institutional.' We all know Trump is determined to destroy every government institution he can get his hands on, but to forbid the word itself raises matters to a higher level of fanaticism. You also can't for some reason say 'MSM,' even though that term (which stands for 'mainstream media') is entirely pejorative. Reporters for CNN don't thrust out their chests to declare themselves representatives of the MSM. If Trump wants to ban a self-congratulatory term for the media, he should forbid 'fourth estate.' If you work in the Trump administration and want to get fired, post something online that includes the phrase 'gender diversity.' 'Diversity' is the single most banned word on the Trump taboo list, appearing no fewer than 10 times (15 if you add 'diverse'). 'Gender' places second, appearing nine times. And yes, the Trump administration specifically bans the phrase 'gender diversity.' Apparently, there is nothing Trump loathes now more than gender diversity. With that in mind, late Tuesday I searched the website of a government agency for 'gender diversity' and was delighted to find no fewer than 193 entries. I won't identify this agency because I don't want to get its employees in trouble. But it seems the anti-Trump resistance is alive and well in the belly of the beast. As Carlin might say, we must continue to explore every means possible to stop this motherfucker.
Bloomberg
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
America First Is Quickly Becoming America Alone
America First, as practiced by President Donald Trump in his second term, will instead — and probably sooner rather than later — amount to America Isolated or even America Hated. How such an outcome will Make America Great Again is beyond me, and should give Trumpies pause for reflection before it's too late. With respect to foreign policy, Trump campaigned on the promise that he would, through sheer 'strength,' be a peacemaker, settling wars such as Russia's against Ukraine within 24 hours and preventing new ones from breaking out. But since his re-election, and especially since his inauguration, Trump has adopted a new tone. It's one he's been accustomed to using in domestic affairs: that of bully.
