Erin Go Bragh

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/17/politics/dark-money-fga-ashcroft-invs/index.html “Emails show how a right-wing group steers GOP leaders on major policy issues” “The communications show that officials with the Foundation for Government Accountability suggested regulatory language to Ashcroft and even wrote an op-ed article that Ashcroft published in a national conservative magazine under his own name.”   “The emails not only reveal FGA’s influence over Ashcroft, they offer a snapshot of the group’s growing influence across the country, particularly in red states. And that influence can carry a high cost for workers and taxpayers.” “The “anti-woke” investment measures have cost states hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investment fees and can lead to smaller returns for public employee retirement plans. One study estimated a 2021 Texas law would cost taxpayers up to $500 million in higher interest rates just on bonds sold in the first eight months after the law passed. Another study calculated that the law cost local governments $270 million a year in added fees, resulting in an annual $668 million in lost economic activity and thousands of full-time jobs.” “FGA enjoys tax-exempt status as a charitable organization. It received more than $44 million from six conservative foundations tied to billionaire donors from 2013 through 2022, the most recent year for which tax records are available. Those foundations also have financed much of the push to tighten voting laws and spread election disinformation across the country since the 2020 election.”     The article gets worse.    “FGA’s lobbying group, The Opportunity Solutions Project, spearheads its efforts at the state level.” “One policy they’ve promoted with surprising success is in rolling back child labor laws. On its website, FGA dismisses protections put in place to protect teenage workers from night shifts, excessive hours or dangerous environments as undermining “parents’ rights.”    “…on The Daily Signal, a conservative news site run by The Heritage Foundation. FGA, as Bragdon described, was not fighting culture wars at the grassroots level – its work was more discreet. That low public profile has served the group well.”   “They are funded by very wealthy donors who are interested in perpetuating the culture war for their own benefit,” Shelton told… Read more »

Bill Cassidy’s Well-Intentioned but Misguided Social-Security Reform Cassidy on the morning show trying to pedal his Social Security tweak.   Nope.    “At first glance, Cassidy’s idea appears similar to President Bill Clinton’s proposal to invest part of the Social Security trust fund in stocks or President George W. Bush’s idea for personal retirement accounts that also could hold equities. Cassidy himself cites the Wisconsin Retirement System, the Canada Pension Plan, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund as similar examples.” “And yet, all of these differ in a fundamental way from Cassidy’s proposal: Their investments do not rely upon borrowed money. In each of these examples, money from taxes or employee contributions are invested in stocks or bonds. In later years, the funds receive the full balance of these investments, including the initial principal and all interest earned on them. In Cassidy’s plan, where the initial funds are borrowed, the federal government must repay the principal and interest at the government bond yield, with the remaining proceeds consisting only of the difference between the government bond interest and whatever return is gained on the fund’s risky investments.” “Put another way, Clinton, Bush, and the other plans Cassidy cites are engaged in an economic transaction: Instead of spending money today, we’re saving it.”   “None of that is happening in Cassidy’s borrow-to-invest plan. Instead — in a purely financial, rather than economic, transaction — Cassidy’s plan uses a roundabout method of extracting a larger share of future GDP to help pay for Social Security benefits. The federal government borrows today, using the money to purchase stocks that currently are held by Americans. Future taxpayers must repay those loans. And instead of flowing to Americans, the returns from those stocks now flow to the federal government, which by the end of 75 years would own roughly one-third of the U.S. stock market. As Wharton School economist Kent Smetters has shown, Cassidy’s approach is not meaningfully different from simply increasing the capital gains tax: When the stock market goes up, the federal government takes a slice of the gains. Everything else is simply window… Read more »

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/17/us/haiti-migrants-florida/index.html
“On Wednesday, DeSantis announced that he was sending additional personnel – including more than 130 soldiers – to the Keys, along with more than a dozen aircraft and boats, to stop what his office called the “possibility of invasion” by Haitian migrants. The deployment includes officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, and members of the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard.”
 
 
”Invasion” – people fleeing violence are not invaders…and it hasn’t happened yet.
 I’m sure RonDuh is at church, pretending to be a Christian, this morning. 

 
Orange Adolf’s Ohio rally and based on how it opened, “bloodbath” wasn’t referring to EV. It was a dog whistle.

By the way, this is how the guy who would love to bust auto unions lies to everyone.
 

Aw, that was the guy we bought virtual coffees for a few years back. 

My Iberian Peninsula people were because I had a great-grandparent who was Spanish (as well as French and Welsh), so one of her parents came from Spain.  It was the entire reason I took the test, because I don’t really know my mom’s family.