Republicans: continued

[Brian Peacock]

Because it makes us feel like we're involved in events - even if we have no control over how they play out?

[Sean Hayden]

How is attacking higher education supposed to work for these guys? It’s true that regardless of income people with at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely to lean democratic. But it’s also true that among the less educated only the upper middle and well off are more likely to lean republican.

I guess, maybe, you don’t have to worry about the vast majority of us. You really only need to destroy the opportunities of that small minority of highly effective well educated opponents. The rest of us could all be democrats and it wouldn’t matter, what are we going to do about it anyway?

—meh, it’s probably not that deep as the kids say. They just hate a liberal education.

[Brian Peacock]

I just don't think they like the idea of ideas competing with theirs.

[Svartalf]

I just don't think they like the idea of ideas competing with theirs.

they don't actually have ideas, you need a brain in working order for that.

[Tero]

The MAGA assassin

[Tero]

[L'Emmerdeur]

Against readily available evidence, Republicans have convinced a significant number of gullible Americans that they're the 'party of the working class.' It's a disgusting lie.

Missouri's Republican governor on Thursday signed legislation repealing the paid sick leave portion of a ballot measure that the state's voters approved with nearly 60% support in the 2024 election.

The short-lived provision, which will officially be repealed on August 28, required Missouri employers to provide workers with an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours of work. Businesses with 15 or more employees were required to provide up to 56 hours of earned paid sick time per year, and businesses with fewer than 15 employees were required to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick time.

...

The bill that Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed Thursday, known as H.B. 567, also restricts increases in the state's minimum wage. The voter-approved initiative called for raising the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2026 and indexing it to inflation thereafter. H.B. 567 eliminates the inflation adjustment.

...

"We the people collected signatures," wrote one commenter. "We voted. And we passed Prop A into law. Remember you work for us. How dare you reverse the voice of your people?! The people you took an oath to serve."

Missouri Jobs With Justice, which helped lead the campaign for the ballot measure, said in a statement that "with Governor Kehoe's decision to sign H.B. 567 into law, workers will again face increased economic insecurity when balancing being sick with maintaining their job."

The group noted that Kehoe's support for repealing paid sick leave came after he "recently called a special session to approve spending millions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize billionaire-owned stadiums." On Thursday, Kehoe also signed legislation slashing the state's capital gains tax.

"Simply put, Missouri workers and their families do not deserve to see their newly earned paid sick leave stripped away," said Missouri Jobs With Justice. "Not only is this a slap in the face to workers asking for an opportunity to earn paid sick leave, it’s an insult to over 57% of Missourians who voted for Proposition A in November."

Throughout the process of pushing H.B. 567 through the Legislature, Missouri Republicans openly voiced contempt for voters who supported the paid sick leave and minimum wage initiative. One GOP lawmaker, state Rep. Mitch Boggs, said, "Of course the people voted for it."

"It'd be like asking your teenager if he wanted a checkbook," said Boggs.

[source]

[Brian Peacock]

I'm constantly surprised how stories such as this -- and there are many -- don't lead to traditional conservative voters realising that their elected representatives are not working in their material interests or, more broadly, that people are being deliberately frightened or flattered, cajoled or bullied, misinformed or mislead (etc) into actually voting against their own interests.

There are many reasons for this oc, but around work, workers rights, and the wider conditions of employment, stories like this do seem to project a certain... and I don't say this lightly... master-slave ethos at play in the social-economic relationship between employers and employees. Perhaps that's just a feature more generally of boss/worker, or so-called "wage slave" attitudes to employment under whatever we're calling this version of capitalism - but the article above does throw it into stark relief. The electing public sent a very strong signal to their elected representatives that that current employment conditions and practices were not working for them, and yet those representatives didn't just ignore them, but affirmed in action and words that employees not only have little to no power to influence their life-conditions, but don't deserved to be listened to or to have their views respected. "We are the masters. You exist only by our will and whim, so be grateful for what little we deem appropriate to offer you. This is your lot in life, and while you're at it make sure you're suitably effusive in your thanks and praise for us."

[Tero]

It's not really material interests they have in mind. They somehow get by. They vote on things that seem trivial: trans women in women's rest rooms, gay marriage, abortion pills. Trump has also convinced them that white christian culture is under attack. By the brown people speaking the foreign languages.

[Sean Hayden]

I agree Tero. We also have an ignorance problem. The reality is many of us don’t know much about how the world works, which puts us at a significant disadvantage when trying to apply the leverage of our vote.

Instead of massive campaigns to get out the vote over the years maybe we should have spent that money educating the people about how things work.

It’s probably impossible now. Too many liars with access to our attention. Imagine a 10 year plan to build a baseline for a functioning democracy that harnessed the power of media to provide say a basic civics education.

From day one, video one, big money liars would undermine your efforts, and the absence of even a basic foundation would mean they’d be wildly successful. In fact, that’s where we are now. Except the government isn’t even pretending like it’s responsible for building us up, it’s actively deceiving us right along with the big money liars.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Kristi Noem is making a name for herself as outstanding among the miserable clowns Trump put in charge of US government departments. An achievement of sorts given the fierce competition.

She said that the atrocious response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the disastrous flood in Texas was a result of 'redeployment' of the agency, which she claims is necessary. As if that's anything but an admission that the Trumpist degradation of public service is producing terrible results. When somebody points out those terrible results, it's 'politicization' of the situation. Convenient, if you're a complete stooge.

'ICE Barbie Rages at Being Caught Failing Texas Flood Victims'

Homeland Security Kristi Noem whined over a The New York Times report finding thousands of victims couldn’t get through to FEMA as catastrophic flooding engulfed Central Texas.

A Times report found the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to answer “nearly two-thirds” of all distress calls from victims of the catastrophe, which has claimed the lives of at least 129 victims, with 160 still missing.

“It’s just false,” Noem said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. “It’s discouraging that during this time, when we have such a loss of life and so many people’s lives have turned upside down, that people are playing politics with this because the response time was immediate.”

...

FEMA had fired “hundreds of contractors at call centers” as a result of cost-cutting efforts that Noem has implemented as chief of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CNN reported that new rules requiring the secretary to sign off on contracts or grants exceeding $100,000 delayed the deployment of search and rescue crews.

“I’m not sure where it came from,” Noem told NBC. “The individuals who are giving you information out of FEMA, I’d love to have them put their names behind it because anonymous attacks to politicize the situation is completely wrong.”

Despite the criticism over FEMA’s lack of disaster preparedness, Noem renewed her fevered attacks against the country’s primary disaster relief agency. “The president recognises that FEMA should not exist in the way that it always has been,” she said. “It needs to be redeployed, in a new way, and that’s what we did during this response.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

Of course the oleaginous shitheel Senator Cruz has made his own contributions to the immiseration of Texas and America in general.

'Ted Cruz ensured Trump spending bill slashed weather forecasting funding'

The National Weather Service has faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas, triggering floods that caused the deaths and about $20bn in estimated economic damages. Late-night alerts about the dangerous floods were issued by the service but the timeliness of the response, and coordination with local emergency services, will be reviewed by officials.

But before his Grecian holiday, Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (Noaa) efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis.

Cruz inserted language into the Republicans’ “big beautiful” reconciliation bill, before its signing by Donald Trump on Friday, that eliminates a $150m fund to “accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public” around weather forecasting.

A further $50m in Noaa grants to study climate-related impacts on oceans, weather systems and coastal ecosystems was also removed. Cruz was contacted by the Guardian with questions about these cuts and his trip to Greece.

Environmental groups said the slashed funding was just the latest blow to federal agencies tasked with predicting and responding to disasters such as the Texas flood. More than 600 employees have exited the National Weather Service amid a Trump administration push to shrink the government workforce, leaving many offices short-staffed of meteorologists and other support workers.

About a fifth of all full-time workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), meanwhile, are also set to depart.

“Ted Cruz has spent years doing big oil’s bidding, gutting climate research, defunding Noaa, and weakening the very systems meant to warn and protect the public,’ said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Fossil Free Media.

“That’s made disasters like this weekend’s flood in Texas even more deadly. Now he’s doubling down, pushing through even more cuts in the so-called big beautiful bill. Texans are dead and grieving, and Cruz is protecting big oil instead of the people he’s supposed to represent. It’s disgraceful.”

Cruz, who has previously cast doubt over the scientific reality of the climate crisis, said that complaints about cuts to the National Weather Service are “partisan finger pointing”, although he conceded that people should have been evacuated earlier.

“Some are eager to point at the National Weather Service and saying that cuts there led to a lack of warning,” the Republican senator told reporters on Monday. “I think that’s contradicted by the facts and if you look at the facts in particular number one and these warnings went out hours before the flood became a true emergency.”

[Brian Peacock]

Of course the oleaginous shitheel Senator Cruz has made his own contributions to the immiseration of Texas and America in general.

We're locked into a truly vicious cycle. Enshitification immiserates, and immiseration enshitifies.