Robert Ariail for November 05, 2022

It’s make or break for America on Tuesday, I’m betting you break it even though I hate that you will.

republicans already have the vote counted and certified, and, for the ones they know they are going to lose, they already have the insurrectionists loading ammo in the cars.

There no way the GOP would have left the blocks under the car, they never give a regular person anything.

That’s exactly how they are doing it this time. Distract an easily influenced population with a global problem while they take away democracy at the national level. Once it’s gone, it’ll be harder than ever to get it back again.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/02/wisconsin-republican-gubernatorial-candidate-tim-michels

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a41843910/wisconsin-republicans-tim-michel-never-lose-another-election/

https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-will-never-lose-wisconsin-tim-michels-tony-evers2022-11

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/wisconsin-republicans-humbly-suggest-win-171200312.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/01/will-wisconsins-republicans-make-voting-meaningless-or-just-difficult

Funny how they can’t help saying the quiet part out loud. It’s like some cartoon villain monologuing.

The Qpublican tactic: “SHIELDS UP, DEFLECTORS ON FULL!!! LOOK!!! LOOK!!! Over there!! SOMETHING SHINY!!! Look!! LOOK!!! Pay NO attention to your freedom and rights being taken away, just LOOK!!! LOOK!!! OVER THERE!!!”

This cartoon is too, too much! To me, it’s saying that we’re screwed either way!

Detailing democracy is their favourite pastime

I hope the electorate gets this point that Repubs will rob them blind while they worry about gasoline prices. Looking at the Dems I can’t see why they won’t be promoting the Stay-The-Course political mantra. The economy is improving and will be better over time. Should the Repubs take control of congress, the economy will have reached improvement from Dem control earlier, but the Repubs will take the credit. So, now is not the time to change course, especially with the failed twickle down economics of the Repubs.

The writing on the wall.

Turning over the country to the christian Taliban led Republicans makes conservatives feel smart for some reason.

I remember back during the Bush administration, Robert supported all things republican. Glad to see reality sink in, even if it is too late.

That treasonous lies were/are not seen as such by so many is proof that democracy can be used against itself when these treasonous lies are equated with truth through misapplication/misinterpretation of the first amendment.

Ask yourself, what has the GOP ever done for you and your family?

Tax cuts? Great! You got another $23.17 to bring home a month, and people like trump and Elon got millions.

Healthcare? They try to get rid of Medicare, raise drug prices, raise the eligibility for Medicaid and are trying to gut Obama care.

Women’s rights? They have taken away women’s rights over their own bodies.

The GOP does not help people; they make you afraid and then take away your rights.

If you want to shut down social security, give me every cent I paid. It is MY money not yours. Mind you I don’t want it shut down.

Someone mentioned the use of diesel fuel…

Regarding the the use of gas or diesel …

“Distillate fuel can be used as either fuel oil or diesel fuel. The figures indicate that gasoline is still the most popular transportation fuel in the U.S., as consumption of this fuel is almost three-fold higher than fuel oil and diesel consumption.”

By the way: https://www.yahoo.com/news/homeland-security-admits-tried-manufacture-114500599.html

Hard to get a full tank when the car is leaning like that as well.

Every two years since 1980 – the Republicans are coming for your Social Security and Medicare. It was a lie in 1980 and still is today.

Thanks to Ariail for citing the GOP’s ‘Agenda!’

The deliberate, willful ignorance of Republican voters regarding the basic social support structures of our society is shameful. Many of these Republican voters RELY on these programs, or will one day rely on them, and yet they vote for people who have loudly and proudly dedicated themselves to destroying those programs.

Stupid.

there are 65 million americans on social security.let’s see what happens when these entitled politicians try to take that away from us “entitled” recipients who have paid into the fund since forever!!!

yep the wheels are coming off, fell sorry for the young generations that will be living under one party rule for the rest of there life.

Our economic crisis isn’t inflation, it’s corporate greed and the GOP will only make that worse

Corporate greed is at a 70-year high and oil companies are buying back stock, not lowering prices

By Sen. Bernie Sanders

As we enter the final week of the midterm election, voters are expressing deep concern about the state of the economy and inflation. They should.

Today, we live in an economy in which the billionaires are getting much richer while working families fall further behind. Unbelievably, while 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, we now have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of our country – with three multi-billionaires owning more wealth than the bottom half of Americans. While employers squeeze workers and their unions for cuts to health care and other benefits, the CEOs of major corporations now make nearly 400 times more than their average employees – the largest employer-worker gap in our history.

During this campaign, my Republican colleagues talk a lot about inflation, and they are right to do so. Over the last year, Americans have become sick and tired of paying outrageously high prices for food, gas, health care, prescription drugs, housing and other necessities.

Unfortunately, most Republicans completely ignore the underlying causes of inflation and the few “solutions” they do offer would make a bad situation even worse.

Yes. During this political season it is easy to blame President Joe Biden and Democrats for inflation. But that’s just not accurate.

Let’s be clear. Inflation is not unique to America. It is an international crisis. In the European Union, inflation is nearly 11 percent. In Germany, it is 11.6 percent. In the United Kingdom it is 10.1 percent. In Ireland, it’s 9.6 percent. In America, it’s 8.2 percent, much too high, but lower than it is throughout much of Europe.

The truth is that inflation is, to a significant extent, caused by the ongoing global pandemic, the break in international supply chains and the horrific war in Ukraine. But there is another major reason for inflation that too few people talk about. And that is the unprecedented level of corporate greed that we are now seeing.

According to a recent study, nearly 54 percent of the rise in inflation is directly attributable to the astronomical increase in corporate profit margins. In America today, while the working class struggles to put food on the table, fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes, corporate profits are at a 70-year high.

If you want to know why you are paying $4, $5, $6 for a gallon of gas, you should know that the profits of ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Shell skyrocketed by 169 percent so far this year to $125 billion. These four huge oil companies are spending over $73 billion not to reduce gas prices at the pump but to buy back their own stock and increase dividends to their wealthy stockholders.

If you are wondering why you are paying 43 percent more for an airline ticket this year, you should know that profits are up 186 percent at American Airlines and 99 percent at United Airlines in the third quarter to nearly $1.5 billion. Yes. These are the same companies that received taxpayer assistance of more than $20 billion during the pandemic while cutting 6,400 jobs.

If you are wondering why global food prices skyrocketed by over 33 percent last year and are expected to go up another 23 percent this year, you should know that billionaires in the global food and agri-business industry became $382 billion richer during the pandemic.

If you are wondering why we continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, you should know that Pfizer has increased its profits by 42 percent so far this year to $26.4 billion.

Even though inflation is an international problem, my Republican colleagues want to blame rising prices on Democratic spending – especially the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021. Well, before you accept that argument, I urge you to remember where we were at that terrible and painful moment in American history.

As the worst pandemic in modern history raged across the country, over 3,000 Americans were dying from COVID-19 every single day and millions, including many with inadequate health insurance, were getting sick. Doctors and nurses lacked adequate personal protective equipment and many hospitals, flooded with COVID-19 patients, were on the verge of collapse.

Further, as a result of the pandemic, in early 2021 the United States was suffering its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Twenty-four million Americans were unemployed, under-employed or had given up looking for work. Hunger in America was at its highest level in decades. Millions of Americans were in danger of being evicted from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses all over the country were on the verge of going bankrupt.

As the chairman of the Budget Committee, I apologize to no one for helping to pass this bill in the Senate – without one Republican vote. At a time of an unprecedented health and economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the American Rescue Plan did exactly what a democratic government in a civilized society is supposed to do: respond to the needs of people living in fear and desperation.

I apologize to no one that we provided every working class American and their children with a $1,400 direct payment to get them through the economic crisis they were experiencing.

I apologize to no one that we extended unemployment benefits and provided an extra $300 a week to Americans who had lost their jobs.

I apologize to no one that we expanded the Child Tax Credit that provided $300 a month per child to working families so that parents could raise their kids with a modicum of security.

I apologize to no one that we prevented hospitals from closing their doors during the pandemic, fed the hungry, prevented evictions and foreclosures and made sure every American could receive a COVID-19 vaccine for free.

While Republicans continue to criticize the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that helped struggling working class families in a time of economic desperation, it is fair to ask what they are proposing to do if they gain control over the House and the Senate? And here’s the answer.

Almost all of them, from Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on down, want to provide billionaires a tax break worth up to $1.75 trillion by completely repealing the estate tax.

The estate tax only applies to the wealthiest of the wealthy, the top one-tenth of one percent of American families who inherit over $25 million. In other words, 99.9% of Americans would not benefit at all from the repeal of the estate tax.

If the estate tax was repealed, Elon Musk’s family would receive a tax break of up to $80 billion alone. Now, I don’t know who Musk’s kids are and I have nothing against them. I wish them well. But they don’t deserve a tax break of up to $83 billion.

How would Republicans pay for this $1.75 trillion tax break to billionaires? They would pay for it by making massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This year, the 158-member Republican Study Committee in the House proposed cutting Medicare by $2.8 trillion and Social Security by $729 billion. An increasing number of Republicans have even threatened to default on our nation’s debt unless they are able to enact cuts to Social Security and Medicare. How absurd is that?

No. You don’t reduce inflation by giving tax breaks to billionaires and cutting benefits for the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor.

You combat inflation by taking on corporate greed and passing a windfall profits tax. You combat inflation by taking on the power of the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the giant food companies and lowering the outrageously high costs of healthcare, prescription drugs, gas and groceries.

As the longest serving Independent in congressional history, I’m not going to tell you that Democrats are perfect. Far from it. In a Senate evenly divided 50-50, there are at least two Democrats who have made it clear that they are more interested in protecting corporate interests than the needs of working-class families. That has got to change.

Right now, more than any time in modern history, we need a Congress that has the courage to take on the wealthy campaign contributors, super-PACs, and lobbyists who work overtime in protecting the interests of billionaires and corporate interests. And that is precisely what Democrats must do if they expand their majority in the House and the Senate.

Thank god for people line Mr Ariail, without them I would not know what I believe

The only ones stealing from us are the dumocrats

If you don’t vote Democrat, you’re a racist.