What do you think about with current News and Opinions?

[guest1163268]

Something to understand what nurses think about re the Current News and their opinions!

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

21 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

‘Immense fraud’ creates immense task for Washington as it tries to tighten scrutiny of $6 trillion in emergency coronavirus spending

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/02/17/stimulus-aid-oversight-fraud/

So much corruption and incompetence in the previous administration...it will take years to untangle some of it. 

It only takes a 1 minute Google search to see the multiple measure Trump took to dismantle consumer protection measures adopted after 2008?  Flunky Nick Mulvaney took direction from his puppet master to dismantle as much as he could, as swiftly as he could.  Monitoring emergency coronavirus spending is a form of consumer protection and fraud protection so systems will have to be re-invented while some safety guardrails will have to be re-built.  These activities will cost us money...again, to protect the taxpayers.

44 minutes ago, subee said:

It only takes a 1 minute Google search to see the multiple measure Trump took to dismantle consumer protection measures adopted after 2008?  Flunky Nick Mulvaney took direction from his puppet master to dismantle as much as he could, as swiftly as he could.  Monitoring emergency coronavirus spending is a form of consumer protection and fraud protection so systems will have to be re-invented while some safety guardrails will have to be re-built.  These activities will cost us money...again, to protect the taxpayers.

Mick Mulvaney was representative of conservative politics in the era of Trump.  He worked hard to get in the way of protections against predatory student loan businesses...all while trying to turn the department of education into a worker training branch of the department of labor. 

Police begin arrests, escalate efforts to end Canada’s ‘Freedom Convoy’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/18/police-escalate-efforts-end-canadas-freedom-convoy/

It looks like right wing extremists are well organized and galvanized in Canada similarly to movement in the USA.

GOP lawmakers are pushing high-tech ‘fraud-proof’ ballots. A Texas company could be the only supplier.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/18/authentix-fraud-proof-ballots-finchem-arizona/

Republicans set to waste money on unnecessary technology to prevent imagined and fabricated fraud. You just can't make this up. 

Quote

The proposals face stiff battles before they can become law, but they demonstrate the potentially lucrative business opportunities created by suspicions that Donald Trump and his allies have spread about the security of elections. They also vividly illustrate how a loose network of die-hard Trump supporters is coordinating to push concerns about mass electoral fraud, including through conference calls that one participant said has included regular discussion of the nearly identically worded anti-counterfeit bills.

 

On 2/15/2022 at 12:03 PM, Beerman said:

Another instance in which we learn Trump was right.  This is a pretty big deal, but most Americans won't take much notice.

"Tech exec used access to White House computers to look for dirt on Trump, says special counsel"

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/tech-exec-used-access-white-house-computers-look-dirt-trump-says-speci-rcna16123

 

How the right embraced the false claim that Hillary Clinton ‘spied’ on President Donald Trump

Quote

Durham’s 13-page document was ostensibly about a conflict-of-interest issue regarding Sussmann’s counsel Lathan & Watkins. Durham in September charged Sussmann with lying to the FBI during a meeting in 2016. The indictment alleged that he told the FBI he was not acting on behalf of clients when in fact, the indictment said, he was secretly acting on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s political team and others. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have denied he ever said he had no clients.
But as part of the document, Durham listed “factual background” that included a series of new, but uncharged allegations. (We created a guide to the allegations earlier this week.)
Marcy Wheeler, a national security reporter who has written skeptically about the Durham probe, said she received a copy of the filing through PACER at 11:33 p.m. Eastern time on Friday. Within an hour, an anonymous Twitter account called “Whispers of Dementia” had tweeted about the filing but only focused on the conflict-of-interest issue.

Quote

Early Saturday morning, the gaggle of Durham followers on the right sprang into action and shaped the news coverage that followed.
Hans Mahncke, an Epoch Times reporter and host on Epoch TV, at 9:25 a.m. tweeted: “Holy moly! New Durham filing. Rodney Joffe and his buddies at Georgia Tech monitored Trump’s Internet traffic *while* he was President of the United States.”
His tweet included a screenshot from paragraph five of the filing that highlighted in red the phrase “Executive Office of the President of the United States.”
In many ways, this framing formed the core of the conservative news coverage that followed — a claim that Democrats had spied on Trump, even when he was president. But Durham’s filing, which is written in turgid and confusing prose, did not actually say that Trump’s Internet traffic had been monitored during his presidency.

We are getting an excellent education in how propaganda works and how to identify it in the era of Trump. 

Child poverty spiked by 41 percent in January after Biden benefit program expired, study finds

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/02/17/child-tax-credit-poverty/

Quote

The Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University said that the child poverty rate rose from 12 percent in December 2021 to 17 percent last month, an approximately 41 percent increase. The study found that an additional 3.7 million children are now in poverty relative to the end of December, with Black and Latino children seeing the biggest percentage point increases.
“The overall monthly child poverty rate rose sharply between December 2021 and January 2022,” the study found.

Quote

But the White House was unable to secure an extension of the program amid a disagreement over its broader economic proposal with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.VA.), who raised multiple objections to the child benefit and said it was discouraging parents from working. Virtually all Republicans have also opposed Biden’s expanded Child Tax Credit, and Washington has shifted away from pandemic spending as lawmakers seek to curb the worst inflationary spike in four decades.
The expiration of the program now threatens to undermine what White House officials had seen as a potential legacy achievement for the president. Instead, the number of children in poverty went from roughly 8.9 million in December 2021 to 12.6 million last month.
“They had a short-term victory in the fight against child poverty, and it’s quietly slipping away,” said Joshua McCabe, a social policy expert at the Niskanen Center, a right-leaning think tank.

The far right thinks about child poverty rates in terms of political capital and legacy, apparently. 

Susan Collins tries to ‘Trump proof’ the 2024 election — behind Trump’s back

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/18/susan-collins-trump-coup-electoral-count-act/

Quote

In short, this Collins moment represents something like a public break with the pro-insurrection wing of the GOP. It’s essentially a declaration that anti-insurrection Republicans must reform the ECA to put their votes where their mouths are.
That’s all good stuff. But we need to be sure that Collins and other Republicans who want reform are focused on the real threat, even if they don’t say so out loud.
That threat comes from Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). It’s also present in people such as David Perdue, the former senator mounting a Trump-backed Republican primary challenge to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who committed the heresy of refusing to help Trump steal the election.

It's important to remember that Brian Kemp engaged in purging thousands of voters from the Georgia voter rolls in advance of his election for his current office. 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

2 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Child poverty spiked by 41 percent in January after Biden benefit program expired, study finds

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/02/17/child-tax-credit-poverty/

The far right thinks about child poverty rates in terms of political capital and legacy, apparently. 

I sounds dramatic when you phrase it as a 41% increase.  But I also think we're seeing the gush of pandemic spending which can't be sustained leave the economy.  Also jobs are a bit more plentiful and parents should be in a better position to take care of their families.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

49 minutes ago, Tweety said:

I sounds dramatic when you phrase it as a 41% increase.  But I also think we're seeing the gush of pandemic spending which can't be sustained leave the economy.  Also jobs are a bit more plentiful and parents should be in a better position to take care of their families.

Sure, if they can get affordable, reliable childcare. 

Somehow there was enough pandemic spending for large corporations and megachurches, but we can't feed and house children. 

2 hours ago, Tweety said:

I sounds dramatic when you phrase it as a 41% increase.  But I also think we're seeing the gush of pandemic spending which can't be sustained leave the economy.  Also jobs are a bit more plentiful and parents should be in a better position to take care of their families.

Many Americans question why caring for the children of the nation is not a priority.

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

1 hour ago, Tweety said:

I sounds dramatic when you phrase it as a 41% increase.  But I also think we're seeing the gush of pandemic spending which can't be sustained leave the economy.  Also jobs are a bit more plentiful and parents should be in a better position to take care of their families.

How does spending money make it leave the economy?  About 1/3 of the trillion went to the already wealthy who aren't going to spend the money.  They already have more than they can spend and will just pocket it (as they did in 2008).  All that COVID aid included $366 billion for the wealthy [Video] (aol.com)  So the rest of us spend our money because we can't afford to pocket it.  That money generates taxes and those taxes go to the towns and states.  Meanwhile, the workers and the manufacturers of goods are making money.  Jobs are always plentiful when the person can afford to work for low wages but now we have family people working in fast food places and they can't live on the wages of teenagers.  But those are the folks that will be spending their money on diapers and whatever else it costs to raise a kid.  That's a big if with no childcare which seems to be a third rail for the Republicans.  They don't like certain forms of birth control, certainly despise abortion but gripe when they have to pay to raise, educate and sometimes imprison  these unwanted kids.  

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

2 hours ago, subee said:

How does spending money make it leave the economy?  About 1/3 of the trillion went to the already wealthy who aren't going to spend the money.  They already have more than they can spend and will just pocket it (as they did in 2008).  All that COVID aid included $366 billion for the wealthy [Video] (aol.com)  So the rest of us spend our money because we can't afford to pocket it.  That money generates taxes and those taxes go to the towns and states.  Meanwhile, the workers and the manufacturers of goods are making money.  Jobs are always plentiful when the person can afford to work for low wages but now we have family people working in fast food places and they can't live on the wages of teenagers.  But those are the folks that will be spending their money on diapers and whatever else it costs to raise a kid.  That's a big if with no childcare which seems to be a third rail for the Republicans.  They don't like certain forms of birth control, certainly despise abortion but gripe when they have to pay to raise, educate and sometimes imprison  these unwanted kids.  

You misunderstood me and went off on some tangents I wasn't addressing.  

What I said:   I also think we're seeing the gush of pandemic spending which can't be sustained leave the economy. 

What you interpreted:  How does spending money make it leave the economy?

So let me explain what I mean.  The government stimulated the economy, many people got checks (I got one but not the 2nd one), many of the unemployed got money on top of unemployment,  and they were able to spend some of that money to keep afloat.  

Now that kind of stimulus has stopped, people aren't getting checks and extra unemployment isn't around for people losing jobs.  That money has left the economy.  So my thinking is without that money in people's hands perhaps the poverty rate for children would rise.  Makes sense to me.

I am quite aware that for the most part government spending stimulates the economy.