Politico Buzz: Recent Episodes
Rene Hinojosa
The focus of my show is US politics & issues, some topics are more in-depth than others but all are produced with you in mind. Follow me on my YouTube channel for the latest uploads. Thanks for listening and enjoy! Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rene-hinojosa5/support
The U.S. congressional committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol has sought via hearings this month to build a case that then-President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat amounted to illegal conduct.
The question in our minds, those that want to see trump charged by the DOJ is: If criminal charges are brought, what would they be?
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The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign, and possibly Trump himself, tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.
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So, Desantis claims that publishers use math textbooks to indoctrinate elementary school students with "race essentialism," which is how right-wing activists characterize CRT. I know it sounds crazy but this is the world that Republicans want us to live in now, a world field with paranoia and xenophobia.
However, there was one big problem with Ronnys' claim: It was completely and unequivocally false. It was false because no reviewer of Florida math textbooks for elementary school students found any instances of CRT. The truth is that each of the reviewers explicitly stated that they did not find any instances of CRT.
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A political science professor & MSNBC contributor, Dr. Jason Johnson, referred to the GOP as” a dime storefront for a terrorist organization called MAGA.” There are numerous examples that, to a degree, does corroborate his conviction of the GOP and I will discuss that later on in the episode.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene went off the rails again this week, apparently, she was triggered after learning that three Republican senators signaled support to confirm President Joe Biden's nominee to the Supreme Court, calling all three Republicans "pro-pedophile” suggesting that Romney, Collins, and Murkowski's recent votes make them pedophile-aligned.
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Ever since Trump lost the presidential election, he and his republican supporters have sought ways exact revenge for the loss. Trump had concocted the idea that the elections were rigged because he couldn't fathom losing and thereby joining the shortlist of a first-term President like John Adams, John Tyler & Andrew Johnson. So, instead of conceding with a modicum of decorum, he emboldened his cult followers that they should find out just how rigged the elections were in places like Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, etc. because it was inconceivable that he lost the election to Joe Biden.
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Truth Social was conceived for conservatives as a Trump-approved alternative to Twitter, free of censorship & "cancel culture," but with the added "benefit" of Donald Trump actively participating on the platform. However, since its launch on 20 February, the platform has been derided by tech critics & a source of frustration for conservatives who were placed on long waitlists before they were allowed access. But, very recently the company has suffered a shakeup that could impact further development & delays of the app altogether.
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If you recall some months back, I covered the Arizona Audit perhaps twice, I will try to post the link at the top to that video. This entire nonsense about alleged fraud in our elections was sowed in North Carolina in part by the efforts of Lin Wood and his team of criminal confidants, and Maricopa County, Arizona would be the first place that would subject the credibility of our secured elections process, to all sorts of conspiracy theories that turned out to be completely false: the bamboo fibers in 40K ballots that were smuggled out of China to votes being switched by hacking the software, etc, etc.
These were all the reasons given as to why it would be necessary to initiate an audit, as crazy as it sounds. Essentially, this fascination with election fraud spread to other states, including Wisconsin - which caught the same virus as did Arizona.
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So, we're all aware of the news in which the Washington Post's Bob Woodward & Robert Costa reported that the White House did not log any calls from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on Jan 6th — a 7-hour and 37-minute gap — or conceivably, someone in the Trump administration went in later and deleted the record.
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A group of voters in Georgia is seeking to block U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's eligibility to seek reelection, arguing that she helped facilitate the Capitol riot.
Greene issued a statement to the Associated Press and said she has “never encouraged political violence and never will.” She also said she is being targeted by the group because she is “effective and will not bow to the D.C. machine.”
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We've just learned that former President Trump has filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, and the grievances against Mrs. Clinton are already being criticized as plain garbage by legal experts. If you take a look at the first page of the court filing, not only does he sue Hillary but also the DNC, John Podesta, James Comey, and a host of other recognizable and non-recognizable names. Including some corporate entities and apparently, some John Doe’s, a total of 10 John Does in fact.
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Newt Gingerich appears on Fox News…spews nonsensical, purely anecdotal based diatribes about Biden & Kamala Harris
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Just when you thought voter fraud has worn out its welcome mat, a new group is stepping into a more conspicuous role in the voter fraud world.
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John Bolton appeared on Newsmax and things didn't go well from the start, as the host did not expect for Bolton to criticize Trump so badly.
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Discussions are underway at the Arizona Senate about possibly censuring Sen. Wendy Rogers over her recent inflammatory comments and her speech over the weekend, according to the chamber’s second-ranking Republican.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene says racism has ended in this country but is now back via education public schools.
If racism has indeed ended, why did Democrats find it necessary to try and pass a Voting Rights Act? Why did Republicans oppose it, and why did they pass voter suppression bills instead?
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Ted Cruz manages to criticize Mexican President and it didn't go well for him.
The exchange came Cruz claimed earlier this week there was “deepening civil unrest in Mexico and the breakdown there of civil society, the breakdown of the rule of law.” Cruz was referring to recent killings of journalists and politicians in Mexico.
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Newt Gingerich wants to jail the January 6th Committee if Republicans take back the House.
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Across the country, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory internet is manifesting itself into knocks at the door. Individual election deniers and grassroots groups - canvassing for election fraud in states lost or even won by former president Donald Trump in 2020: New Hampshire, Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Utah, and Nebraska. Despite 60-plus court losses and countless official audits and recounts confirming the 2020 election results, many of Trump’s supporters are still so convinced of his lies that they’ve turned to this kind of vigilantism.
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Recently, the House passed the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on November 5, and it’s expected to be signed into law by President Joe Biden. The bill will provide about $550 billion for a vast range of projects — everything from replacing lead water pipes and repairing roads and bridges, to building a national network of electric car charging stations and providing broadband internet access to Americans who don't have it.
First of all, let's ask the question: What Is Infrastructure anyway?
How much of all the things that are called infrastructure need to be fixed or upgraded, and why is it so maddingly difficult for politicians from both political parties to agree upon how to get it done?
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When we hear the names of the following Republican figures, I won’t categorize them as politicians because up until now, I see little evidence of any worthwhile efforts at writing legislation that behalf their constituents as a whole - I am talking about Republicans such as Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Matt Gaetz, and a few others.
I am increasingly becoming more convinced that Trumpists did not campaign to win their respective offices then come to D.C. to work for their constituents; However, I am more convinced they became members of Congress simply for no other reason than to be members of Congress.
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Glenn Youngkin won the race to be Virginia’s Republican governor, he won the race on a somewhat sketchy platform, extremely light on actual policy positions, all lumped into something he termed “The Game Plan” on his website. It can best be described as leaning into various culture war issues and toeing a delicate line, attempting to appeal to both Virginia’s deep-red, Trump-loving GOP base and suburban centrists.
However, there are some tangible policy issues, Youngkin’s positions appear somewhat unclear — and a mixed bag.
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Today’s show is about a very distressing accusation coming from a Republican Senate candidate over the weekend that Michael Flynn - Head of the Department of Dirty Tricks - if there ever was one - the retired general and former national security adviser no less, was seeking damaging information on certain elected officials in a number of states. The apparent goal in this scheme was to blackmail them into supporting conspiratorial election audits meant to reinforce Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and to reinstall Trump as president.
Everett Stern, is a businessman who owns a private intelligence firm called Tactical Rabbit - he is running for the open U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania and he was the individual who held a press conference on Saturday to share his purported findings, and later tweeted out a link to the video of his remarks which is titled, "Everett Stern Releases New Evidence of Ongoing Domestic Terror Threat Links to General Michael T. Flynn."
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Normally, I don’t make it a part of my day to tune in to Fox News because I expect to hear hosts and correspondents exchange diatribes mostly on unhinged, next-level crazy conspiracy theories. It’s cringeworthy when I do and today I will talk about Fox News host Harris Faulkner, who was interviewing Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
The conversation stems from Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memo which directed the Justice Department agencies to hold meetings nationwide because of the constant criminal threats against school board personnel all across the country. From Washington state to Georgia, strong feelings about COVID-19 policies have driven most of the debate, but in some places, disagreements over schools’ policies on race, history, and equality have been just as vehement.
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Earlier today Adam Schiff voiced concerns about not only Marjorie Taylor Greene and some individuals in the Republican Party may be mentally ill. Now before we right dive in and analyze this further, for some time, many of us on the Left and perhaps those sane enough on the Right, have wondered what is going on within the Republican Party, particularly its elected members.
Certainly, Adam Schiff isn’t the first person from within the left or the right to notice that there is an unmistakable level of insanity being demonstrated by some members of the Republican Party.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Politico Buzz Show, I have a story for you today. This story was reported on just a few days ago in some of the various media outlets, although, with not too much fanfare probably because it falls into the category of amateur sleuthing, a story that proposes to report hard facts about the 2020 Presidential election that will blow everything wide open.
There is a Trump-loving Republican Sheriff from Wisconsin who is at the center of this mess by the name of Christopher Schmaling. He announced on Wednesday that he plans to present yet more of "proof of state-wide election law violations'' at a news conference on Thursday.
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Being held in contempt of Congress didn't stop “Sloppy” Steve Bannon from making an appearance at the Adams County GOP's annual dinner Thursday night. “Sloppy” Steve Bannon is refusing to comply with a subpoena from the nine-member House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
The House of Representatives has voted to recommend criminal contempt of Congress charges against Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House official who thus far has refused to honor a subpoena to give evidence before the House committee investigating the 6 January Capitol insurrection.
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It seems that every other hardcore conspiracy theorist and crazy right-wing politician can’t spread enough toxic and vehement lies or propaganda these days. Breitbart, NewsMax, OANN, and Fox aren't giving these people enough airtime, and social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube are censoring their posts, so the next best thing is to create one’s own social media platform from which to do so.
Everyone, from former Trump adviser Jason Miller, who is essentially a Nazi in a suit, started GETTR, another Twitter-like conservative platform; and not to be left behind, MyPillow CEO and former crack addict, Mike Lindell, started a site in April called Frank, and now another psychopath has joined in on this crazed obsession: yes, Donald Trump.
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Welcome to another episode of the Politico Buzz Show, I am your host Rene Hinojosa. Today we are going to talk about US Representative Jim Jordan. Over the course of the past year, Jordan, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has engaged in a systematic effort to cast doubt on the integrity of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. He was also behind the efforts to create an image in the minds of Trump supporters of Jan. 6 as the “ultimate date of significance” in his own words. He was also one of a number of individuals who spearheaded the effort to oppose certification of the election in Congress and thus far has continued to promote the “Big Lie” even after the events on Jan. 6 and subsequent FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warnings that this conspiracy is propelling domestic violent extremists.
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The death of Colin Powell is the subject of today's conversation, his death sparked some controversy, not only because it involves the Coronavirus but also because it has stirred a reimagination of the Republican Party a “what if scenario” so to speak, well explore that in more detail later on in this podcast.
First, it didn’t take long for Fox News to turn the death of former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell into a justification to cast doubt on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines; just the sort of reporting which Fox News is known for these days. Powell had the underlying health conditions doctors have been warning us about when pressing everyone to get vaccinated to protect the immunocompromised.
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It seems that we as Americans have noticed a change in some of our politicians in terms of their behavior and lack of a filter, it’s particularly evident when it is displayed on social media and news outlets. I'm referring to mostly Republicans here, as in Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gaetz, Cawthorn, Boebert, Johnson, Cruz, the list is long but you get the gist of what I’m saying. This is a new norm that we've come to expect from elected Republican officials, a level of crazy not seen in decades. Just when one elected Republican is implicated in something deemed to be reprehensible one week another one pops immediately thereafter, raising the bar on crazy.
Well, in keeping with that Republican tradition, we faced and survived an attempted coup fomented by Donald Trump and his Republican co-conspirators, and now it appears another situation resembling a mini coup was underway courtesy of Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin.
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An astounding number of Americans have come to the conclusion that President Biden is an illegitimate President of the United States and want to see Trump back in the office, even if it takes actionable violence on their part to see that happen.
In order for us to find out why this sentiment exists we need to go back to January 6th, after which a systematic analysis of the complete set of individuals arrested by the FBI and Washington DC police for offenses related to the storming of the US Capitol, it revealed that they weren’t your typical extremists, and why they became motivated and driven to become insurrectionists.
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Thank you for joining me, in today’s episode I will take a look at the issue of abortion which once again has made national news.
If you’ve been following the news recently, you’ve heard that the GOP in Texas has decided to ramp up their assault on women’s rights to choose and passed new legislation which effectively bans abortion at six weeks and lets anyone file a lawsuit to enforce the law. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has signed a piece of anti-abortion legislation that effectively bans the abortion procedure at six weeks, which, oddly enough, is before many aren’t even aware that they are pregnant, and allows anyone to enforce the ban through lawsuits.
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Welcome back listeners and viewers, the time consuming hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2020 vote has confirmed that President Joe Biden indeed won the 2016 Presidential election, and it further solidifies that the election was not “stolen” from former President Donald Trump as he claimed at every turn.
Are we not surprised? Were any of us expecting to find that 40 thousand or so ballots were laced with bamboo fibers imported from China, and somehow smuggled in and mixed in with the genuine ballots?
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While the Delta variant is running its course all over the USA, particularly in places like Florida, Louisiana, and even here in Texas, where the cases of infected and the number of deaths is at an unprecedented all-time high, members of the GOP seemed to have launched a campaign of their own to derail all efforts to convince Americans to take the vaccines.
In places like Florida, you've got DeSantis proselytizing against the vaccines, and instead is pushing Regeneron treatment centers, while Congressman Rand Paul is still touting ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as the drugs Americans should be taking and not the vaccines. Paul has politicized this situation so much that he has stated that ivermectin was an effective COVID-19 treatment but medical professionals are letting hatred of Trump override their duty to research further efficacy of these treatments.
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The State of Florida has been the subject of much controversy lately, mostly because of the misguided actions, or should I say the lack of inaction on the part of Governor Ron Desantis to commit to any effort that ensures the well being and health of the citizens he serves, are addressed.
Sure, we one say that the number of hospitalizations of Covid infected is up all over the country but the numbers in Florida are staggering in comparison to everywhere else. This can be attributed to government overreach in which it is illegal to wear a face mask in the school setting, for both children and educators. The concern here is that the Delta variant is affecting more school-age children and some have died from the infection. We can also attribute the number of infected and now hospitalized because of antipathy towards getting vaccinated.
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Texas is right behind Florida in terms of covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths attributed to either Covid19 or the new variant, Delta. Gov. Greg Abbott announced new initiatives on Monday to fight the coronavirus pandemic as it rages again in Texas, including asking hospitals to again put off certain elective surgical procedures to free up available space for COVID-19 patients. Additionally, he also announced that he will have staffing agencies look for out-of-state medical personnel to help Texas hospitals deal with a surge in COVID cases. Sadly none of his initiatives have taken into consideration the effectiveness of the simplest protective measure one can do, as an educator and student, to lessen the chances of getting infected. Which is to wear a mask in the school environment without the risk of running afoul of the law as crazy as it sounds!
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The Arizona Vote Recount isn’t going well for members of the Republican Party, particularly, for those individuals that are at the center of that auditing fiasco. As some of you may well know, Senate Republican from Arizona Senate President Karen Fann is the person who saw fit to sanction this audit, and in her infinite wisdom decided that a company owned by Doug Logan, called CyberNinjas, would be awarded one of the contracts to perform the audit. This despite the fact that this company had no prior experience in conducting any sort of election audits.
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Mike Lindell is a high profile figure associated with spawning various conspiracy theories relating to the Presidential election in which Joe Biden won. Lindell has stated that he had financially backed a project that purportedly looked into the election and that the team he hired had turned up evidence that hackers in which from China had infiltrated the Arizona election via it’s network routers; he further asserts that data packets captured from these routers have revealed that such activity had in fact taken place and therefore Biden is not the legitimate President he wildly claims.
QAnon followers are growing restless — and could resort to violence, similarly as the Capitol Rioters, DHS officials have warned — as MyPillow founder Mike Lindell continues to push back a timeline for his conspiracy theory about former president Donald Trump's reinstatement to office.
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Tourism is important to just about every town in America, it helps drive and sustain economies during tough times, and like every other place, Washington DC depends on tourists to fill its hotels, its restaurants, shops and create jobs for workers. In Washington, DC, pre-COVID-19, the nation’s capital welcomed some 24.6 million total visitors, with 22.8 million domestic visitors, and 1.8 million overseas visitors and supported 78,266 jobs across all sectors in Washington, DC, Tourism also generated $8.2 billion in visitor spending and $896 million in local tax revenue to the District.
Unfortunately, the type of tourists I will be referring to in this episode are of a different ilk. I'm talking about the sort of tourists that visited the US Capitol building on January 6th, the so-called “peaceful patriots” who were there supposedly as normal tourist visitors.
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Over the weekend, Devin Nunes appeared on Fox News and was asked to express his remarks in regards to President Biden’s recent performance on CNN’s town hall event. What should've been a well formulated and grounded interview quickly devolved into something entirely conspiratorial, so conspiratorial in fact that I quickly doubted Nune’s mental state and cognitive ability given his level of education. Let’s also note that it has become very commonplace for Fox News to host far right Republicans and correspondents, namely to disparage President Biden and Democrats almost on a daily basis. Most often this is based on contrived nonsense, and in this particular interview Nunes delivered more distorted views to add to the Fox machine of constant propaganda.
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The Border Wall continues to be a political football both at the National & State level, intertwined into an all too familiar Republican strategy which is to: invent a crisis, foment fear instead of debate, and followed by blaming Democrats for the nonexistent problem.
If you remember, and many of you haven’t forgotten I’m sure, one of Trump's central political platforms during his campaign for office was the need to continue construction of the Border Wall. Laughingly, one of his reasons for stumping for the Border Wall was because, and I’m paraphrasing here “Mexico wasn’t sending us their best, they were sending us their criminals and rapists, and some he presumed were good people.” Rather than presenting any clearcut and researched reasons for building the wall, he relied or essentially, invented a strawman, drawing on purely anecdotal reasons, where he hoped it would clinch the Presidency.
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Not a week goes by that Republican Representative from the state Colorado, Lauren Boebert, is quoted as saying something truly unfounded or just bordering on stupid. I, just like many of my listeners, are left completely speechless at anything that Borbert says or posts on Twitter week after week because of the pattern of weirdness associated with her.
This week, Boebert asked a question during a House Budget Committee hearing. I'll preface this by stating that in what alternate reality do her thoughts emanate from? Frankly, I’m puzzled.
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The so-called election audit in Maricopa County, Arizona, which began on April 23, nearly six months after President Joe Biden won Arizona by nearly 10,500 votes and Maricopa County by over 45,100 votes, has been mired in controversy from the very beginning and has evolved into something more sinister.
One of the concerns raised from the onset is who is going to pay for this audit? Would the burden of the cost fall on the taxpayers once again?
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This piece of legislation was derived as a response to two crises facing our country: the ongoing attack on democracy — reflected in the assault on the Capitol on January 6 and of course the subsequent flood of vote suppression bills enacted across the country — both affect racial justice in this country. The For the People Act is based on the notion that the best way to defend democracy is to strengthen democracy. If this piece of legislation is enacted, it would end up being the most significant voting rights and democracy reform in more than half a century.
The “For the People Act” was conceived to ensure that those voting rights are expanded and not diminished, and that accessibility to the ballot box for all eligible Americans remains intact. Here’s what we know of what this act will do for us all.
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We have Mitch McConnell admonishing corporations that inserted themselves in the affairs of the state, but then he changes his course completely, where he reaffirms to corporations that their actions are fine, provided they read the bills before reacting. with Americans to not forego mitigation measures.
As we begin to make sense of this, a question we should ask ourselves again: Are corporations’ people? The U.S. Supreme Court says they are, at least for some purposes. It should be noted that in the past 21 years, the high court has dramatically expanded corporate rights in all manner of ways.
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On Tuesday February the 18 thousands of fast-food workers will walk out of their jobs in hopes that their actions will help push thru a minimum wage raise of $15 dollars that essentially benefits millions of workers in general.
This will not be the first time that fast food workers have chosen to coalesce and strike for better wages, in fact fast food workers participated in a very effective similar effort about 9 years ago. That particular strike sparked other similar efforts all across America and in many countries, where workers sought similar wage raises.
Why is it at this time, necessary to increase the minimum wage again to $15.00 an hour?
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Texas Greg Governor Abbott announced on Tuesday March the 2nd that he signed an executive order which effectively opens all businesses on March 10th, to operate at 100% capacity, and that masks will no longer be required to be worn in public places as well.
So, what this means is that all sporting events, concerts, restaurants, etc. can operate freely with no restrictions: gone will be social distancing requirements, no limits on capacity and also no masks are necessary.
Furthermore, Abbott says that no one will be jailed for not following mask orders and impose fines on people for failing to wear masks. Additionally, businesses would not be penalized for not mandating that customers or employees wear masks.
That being said, Spring Break is just around the corner, the pandemic is not over and we have multiple new strains that have appeared in the country that are far more contagious. It is time to brace yourselves folks!
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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic scientists raced to produce a vaccine so that Americans would be protected from getting infected with the virus.
Initially, we did not have a clear understanding of the virus and the mechanisms as to how it spread. But throughout that whole process we soon found out that handwashing and the use of masks would be a critical component that helped contain the virus before a vaccine would be developed, and subsequently rushed to the masses. Within a short amount of time, the public made a mad rush to purchase whatever masks and hand sanitizers they could find, triggering so much demand that it even impacted availability of PPE for frontline health care professionals.
The topic of this episode is to shed light on the efforts it took to nearly eradicate polio and that eventually the nation pulled together to achieve herd immunity. There was a visible, concerted community and business driven effort then and even now there are a number of businesses that chose to continue to require social distancing and masks
Moreover, sometimes, it becomes necessary turn back the pages of history to remind us that pandemics, such the coronavirus, were not the first global infectious agents that have ravaged entire populations. People responded to each and every pandemic or epidemic, which became lessons learned, sadly we seemed to have forgotten just that.
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The phrase, “Stop the Steal” first emanated back to the 2016 election and was attributed, and popularized, by none other than Trump confidant and convicted felon, Roger Stone.
We know that the Stop the Steal movement mobilized people to act and many did so by showing up to ballot counting sites brandishing protest signs and some interfered with the voting counting process, and many harass and threatened elected officials.
A question then arises, is there a connection between the Stop the Steal movement and the insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6th?
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The protests ignited by the killing of George Floyd, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown have put a spotlight on the legal doctrine of qualified immunity. While qualified immunity is not at issue in the prosecution of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin and the three other former officers who face criminal charges stemming from Floyd’s death, it is one of many structural factors that make it difficult to hold police officers accountable for wrongdoing.
Some key questions have arisen in light of the current national conversation.
But before we address that, is there some kind of existing statute which prevents one from suing the police? Well, yes there is.
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Recently, a music celebrity whom some of you may already be familiar with, Ted Nugent, otherwise known as the Motor City Madman, he hails from Michigan, hence the nickname, is the latest victim to post a video in which he announced that he was diagnosed and hospitalized with Covid-19. Besides that, Nugent is infamously known for pushing all sorts of negative propaganda in regards to Covid-19 and also the vaccines.
Nugent, when he is not on the road putting on concerts, is very active on social media promoting his views on the subject of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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This is breaking news, it appears that New York prosecutors have initiated an investigation into the financial dealings of Donald Trump. Specifically, a financial probe will examine properties related to loans made by subsidiaries of New York City-based real estate investment trust Ladder Capital Corp owned by Trump.
All of the loans under this criminal probe emanated from subsidiaries of Ladder Capital Corp., a New York City-based real-estate investment trust, and were made directly to Trump. Since 2012, Ladder Capital has lent Trump more than $280 million for the four Manhattan buildings, according to property records.
Clearly, whatever financial relationships Trump established with the City of New York appear not to be in earnest.
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There have been various hit pieces of poorly conceived efforts at journalism emanating from the right wing media – some were written to target President Joe Biden and others aimed specifically at Vice President Kamala Harris. Bear in mind that these efforts are anything but authentic pieces journalism and in fact have backfired rather embarrassingly.
At the moment, I say this because there are plenty of other right wing leaning media outlets that will no doubt publish some ill-conceived story that will target some Democrat any time now, there are two media outlets that have had to deal with the consequences of publishing stories without doing their due diligence.
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If you recall, back in February, which wasn’t that long ago, when Liz Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican from Wyoming, came very close to losing her leadership position after a tense meeting with fellow GOP leaders, she beat back a conservative-led push to oust her as conference chair for voting to impeach Donald Trump.
This effort by Trump loyalists to punish Cheney, the highest-ranking woman in GOP leadership, had been boiling for what seemed weeks and it eventually came to head during a very heated, closed-door meeting that went on for more than four hours as several dozen members either defended or condemned her. But in the end, the overwhelming majority of House Republicans voted on a secret ballot to keep Cheney in power: 145 Republicans voted against the resolution calling on her to step down, while just 61 voted for it. After the meeting, the top three GOP leaders held a brief news conference and put on a united front.
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The Republican Party’s nationwide efforts to significantly reduce states’ vote-by-mail processes has just made its legislative debut in the state of Florida. On March 10, Florida lawmakers had advanced the bill titled SB-90 under the auspices of the title “Election Administration,” they too decided to follow Georgia’s lead in chipping away at voting rights.
Of all the days that this bill could have been introduced by the Senators in the GOP-led chamber, they chose Monday, April the 26th, to pass S.B. 90 by a vote of 23-17, which is Confederate Memorial Day. The Florida House, which is also led by the GOP, is expected to pass a similar bill later this week, despite concerns from Democrats and voting rights activists that the legislation is part of a nationwide Republican effort to restrict the constitutional right to vote.
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Accused insurrectionist Sen. Josh Hawley is all in on the minimum wage scheme and introduces an alternative to the Democrats’ proposal that would use federal dollars to increase low-earning workers’ income.
Hawley is breaking with the mainstream GOP views in suggesting that he believes the federal minimum wage is too low, which is a first –to my knowledge -coming from a Republican.
Overall, his proposal would amount to a three-year program that would increase worker wages in 2021, funded by the taxpayers rather than employers.
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Mike Pompeo, just like his boss, Donald Trump, resorted to Tweets whenever it suited him but for the most part, most of his Tweets have been self-congratulatory, bordering on self-aggrandizement, perhaps an indication that he has Presidential aspirations in the future.
In this episode we gloss over Pompeo’s achievements or accomplishments when he served his term as Trump’s US Secretary of State & Chief Political Advisor. Sadly, Pompeo won’t be adding that much to his resume during his tenure with the Trump administration.
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The death of George Floyd has galvanized much of America to move forward towards police reform. The idea of defunding police, once previously viewed as radical, is now a reality in some parts of the country while other places are following suit.
The murders of George Floyd, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, and countless other Black and Brown people at the hands of police are not anomalies. They are evidence of a racist system that disproportionately targets people of color for violence, imprisonment, and death. Such high profile cases, coupled with statistics and polls, have solidified this movement.
Different from abolishing and starting a new, defunding police highlights fiscal responsibility, advocates for a market-driven approach to taxpayer money, and has some potential benefits that will reduce police violence and crime.
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I want to talk about this exchange that occurred between Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Congressman from Ohio, Jim Jordan, regarding the present pandemic restrictions. It is disturbing for a variety of reasons of which I will expound on that.
This congressional hearing on the pandemic turned personal as you saw Rep. Jim Jordan loudly attacks Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease doctor, Jordan asks when will Americans be able to stop taking public health precautions like wearing masks and refrain from physical distancing.
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The Keystone XL Pipeline is a massive project, first proposed by an energy infrastructure company, TransCanada, back in 2008. It is a pipeline designed to transport the dirtiest fossil fuel to the market very fast, and increase capacity to process some 168 million barrels of crude oil from Canada’s boreal forest. Essentially, this massive project would be able to precisely transport 338,000 barrels of nasty Alberta tar sands oil daily to other refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
In this episode, I interview Rebekah Hinojosa, member of “Another Gulf is Possible Collaborative.” Rebekah gives us some insight into the more negative aspects of this project and how it affects communities and the environment in general.
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After the American Rescue Plan proposed by President Biden on Thu., Jan. 14, 2021, to facilitate the United States’ recovery from the devastating economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the next step is to implement the Build Back Better plan.
Biden’s plan is to make historic investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, innovation, research, and development, as well as clean energy; investments in a caregiving economy and skills and training needed by workers to be able to compete and win in the global economy of the coming years.
Biden’s plan sounds interesting in theory but how will it stack up when pitted against the eventual shift towards serious automation in the coming years?
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