Still Plenty Of Material For Snarky Snippets

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

After the 2020 election, when Joe Biden won the presidency, I wondered if I would have to retire my ‘snarky snippets’ posts, for surely there wouldn’t be much to snark about.  I was delusional … it seems that there will always be something to set off the snarkometer!

snarky-3

Say WHAT???

I was incensed yesterday when I heard that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, asked about who was to blame for the terrorist attacks on the Capitol on January 6th, said …

“I also think everybody across this country has some responsibility.”

Say WHAT???

Oh no, sir, you are dead wrong in that!  The fools who participated are to blame, and the bigger fool who incited them is to blame.  You Republican members of Congress who stood silently by for the last four years, allowing Donald Trump to believe that he could get by with literally anything, including inciting a riot must share the blame.  But, the majority of people in this country have not one iota of blame in this fiasco!

Beau of the Fifth Column, always the voice of reason, gives us his take on Mr. McCarthy’s words and I fully agree with him.

A man without a conscience

Another one of the Republican Party’s bigger fools (so many to choose from) is Rand Paul.  Earlier this week, I told you about Paul’s insidious remark that President Biden, in his inauguration speech, had said that all Republicans were white supremacists. Biden neither said nor implied any such thing, but apparently Paul and some of his cohorts are determined to twist and manipulate Biden’s words so that they have something to bitch about.

Well, that apparently wasn’t enough for Mr. Paul, for now he is criticizing the long-overdue and much-needed plan to raise the federal minimum wage rate incrementally to $15 per hour by 2025.  Criticizing is one thing, but in order to support his critique, Mr. Paul found it necessary to tell a few big lies.

“But also raising the minimum wage to $15, I think, will also — the government estimates are close to 4 million people will lose their jobs. Particularly hurt among this are minorities and black teenagers, particularly with high unemployment.”

“So raising our taxes will cause corporations to flee, but if you mandate what the wages are, if you mandate a minimum wage of $15, it’s not like everybody gets $15. The people who still have a job get $15, but many people will become unemployed. In fact, government statistics say almost 4 million people will lose their jobs if you mandate a $15 an hour job minimum wage.”

Well, Mr. Paul, the truth is that according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, the 4 million jobs was the highest possible, but at the low end of the analysis was that zero jobs would be lost.  Frankly, I don’t see a company making money hand-over-fist shutting down just because they have to spend a bit more to pay their employees.  Mr. Paul’s own base salary of $174,000 per year breaks down to $85.29 per hour! 

H.R. 582, also known as the Raise the Wage Act, was passed by the House in July 2019, with only three republicans voting for it, and then it died in the Senate without even being considered. It would incrementally raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 — where it has been set since 2009 — to $15 by 2025.

Let’s be very clear here … the objections by Mr. Paul and other republicans are lodged only because their big-money corporate donors are against anything that would cut into their profits.  Rand Paul is owned, lock stock & barrel, by corporations such as Koch Industries and others.  He doesn’t speak for We the People, he speaks only on behalf of wealthy corporations and CEOs.  Anything that would reduce their profit by so much as a lousy dollar is going to be fought by the republicans who are slaves to the wealthiest 1% of the people in this nation.

toon-minimum-wageThink about this … the person who is paid minimum wage earns a full-time annual salary of $14,790.  Could you live on that?  Hell, my rent alone comes to $14,640 per year, and I live in a lower-income area!  If I earned minimum wage, it would leave me $150 to pay utilities, car payment, fuel, insurance, and buy food for a full year.  C’mon, Mr. Paul – get real!  Think about the rest of the people in this country, not just your wealthy donors.  Better yet, how ‘bout you just step down from Congress … go home to Kentucky and live happily ever after on your $2.58 million net worth and let those who have both a brain and a conscience govern the nation.

If companies who are making millions of dollars in profit, yet paying almost no taxes, cannot even pay a living wage to their employees, then they do not deserve to be in business.  It is my hope that President Biden and the members of both chambers of Congress will take their hands out of the till long enough to do the right thing for the people of this nation and pass the $15 an hour minimum wage bill.  If they don’t, then perhaps it’s time for a nationwide strike.

21 thoughts on “Still Plenty Of Material For Snarky Snippets”

  1. I, too, am glad that no member of Congress was killed or even injured, but they seem to have put that behind them now, and it’s back to the business of obstructing and criticizing. Sigh. Wasn’t it Rand Paul who was attacked by a neighbor a few years ago? Hmmmm … perhaps I’m beginning to understand why! No, Biden did not say any such thing, and Rand Paul knows it, my friend Jerry knows it, the world knows that he neither said nor implied that all Trumpeters are white supremacists, but the lie continues to spread. This is NOT the way to accomplish that ‘unity’ they’re all talking about!

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Jill, a couple of thoughts.

    It is nice that Kevin McCarthy survived the former president siccing his attack dogs on Congress, after lying to the folks, inviting them to DC, revving them up and sending them to the Capitol.

    It is nice Rand Paul survived the same attack to hold an opinion. What bothers me most is Paul pretending to be offended saying what Biden did not say, that people who voted for Trump are white supremacists. Biden did not say that and Paul knows that.

    Keith

    Liked by 3 people

    • Hey, Keith, did you stop to think he is actually telling them to be white supremacists by saying Biden said they already are. It is Trump’s favourite tactic, lie until it becomes real–to people who want it to be real. This is why Trump almost won a second election when he should have lost in a landslide. And why the Capitol fiasco took place, because Trump convinced his MAGAts that he had actually won the election save for the cheating Democrats. Trump taught his followers that lying makes for a false truth. McCarthy and Paul are just carrying on the new tradition. Lie. Someone will believe you. That someone is almost half of America!

      Liked by 2 people

      • RG, I cannot argue with your assertions. I am trying to speak matter of fact as we move forward, stating the obvious. My current post is a letter to the editor where say it is nice to see good governance where truth is not a victim. It need not belabored, just stated as a given like the former president did with lies.

        My nephew’s girlfriend offered a terrific pushback on a fan of the former president. She had made a postive statement about how the first two families will try to unite us. The responder made a derogatory statement, to which she simply replied – the hate train left the station yesterday. Keith

        Liked by 2 people

        • Sounds good, from a liberal point-of-view. I can see the MAGAts complaining they are not being taken seriously. But in truth, MAGAts say nothing that needs to be taken seriously. They don’t even take their own lives seriously.

          Liked by 2 people

  4. You know, Jill, I am with you 100% on the minimum wage issue, but there is a downside to it. Big business is not going to capitulate to a minimum wage withoutraising their own profit margins! As well, the corporate elite will raise their own salaries and perqs by a close to equal rate. This can only show up as higher prices for consumers. The little people still lose!
    How to prevent that, start by putting a cap on price increases within a business year. Then put a cap of a maximum profit rate for businesses, and also on administration salaries as a percentage of pre-salary profits. Tie everything together, along with a set minimum wage, and finally you might start to reduce the income inequality gap.
    It was announced that by noon, Jan. 6, 2021, top CEOs in America had already earned more in 2021 than the average worker will earn in all of 2021. Two and 1/2 business days to earn someone else’# yearly salary. THAT is so wrong on so many, many different levels that it is inhumane. Something needs to be done. You might notice this time I am not suggesting what rates and percentages might be, I am not an economist or chartered accountant. I don’t have enough info. But I do know something must be done! More money is going into corporate salaries and profits than is coming out, and more money is going out from the average wage-earner’s pockets than is coming in. Tricle down economics? Reversing Niagara Falls is more like it!

    Liked by 4 people

    • Ahhhh … but see, they cannot simply raise their prices to the consumer to replace their diminished profit, for there is a certain level beyond which the consumer will stop buying their product. Right now, prices have increased in many (most) areas due to the pandemic, and I think we’ve nearly reached that ‘saturation’ point, so if they raise their prices, they will, in essence, be shooting themselves in the foot. Don’t need a written ‘cap’ on prices, for the market will determine maximum price.

      Yes, the income disparity in this country is far beyond unconscionable, yet even some who struggle to survive have argued with me that the wealthy ‘earned’ their wealth and should be allowed to keep it all. First, they ‘earned’ it on the backs of those who are kept at or below the poverty level by their poor wages. Second … why the hell should anybody have a billion dollars? What is the purpose? An ego trip … bragging rights … while other people put their children to bed hungry at night. In this sense, I am very much a socialist, for I do not believe anybody deserves to have millions sitting in offshore accounts or investment portfolios when that money could be helping people live a better life, put food on the table, or take their children to the doctor when they’re sick. Frankly, I think that for the most part, capitalism is a terrible system. But, my opinion and $5 will buy you a cuppa at Starbucks.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Unfortunately, Jill, you are still believing that bull crap about the market determining maximum price. That was written in a time when consumerism was new, and under? control. Consumerism has since gone wild. We have been taught to need things that we only used to just want. Big business has taught us that the higher the price, the better the quality! You get what you pay for!
        Keeping up with the Joneses is now nyah nyah nyah nah nyah nyah nyah nah hah hah I got more than you!
        People who cannot afford the best now get the barely usable. Which disintegrates faster and faster, and needs to be replaced more and more often.
        And now there is the credit card hoax. No has to live within their means anymore. Buy what you want when you want it and spend the rest of your life paying for it. It’s just a new way of owing your life to the company store which Tennessee Ernie Ford sang about in the fifties, except then people still knew they had to fight the system, now they go along with it because it is the easy way out.
        And if anyone thinks declaring bankruptcy is helping you avoid paying your bills, think again, someone else is paying for what you can’t, and you are paying for what someone else cannot afford.
        This is what uncontrolled capitalism is doing to the world economy. No debt is ever forgiven, it is just given to someone else in the manner of 20% or higher interest rates. We pay. We pay. And we pay some more. Twenty years ago a good friend of mine who had spent a lifetime denying himself things he had to save for to buy went through a sea change when his son said to him, “Dad, why wait? Buy it on credit when you want it. Use it now. So what if you die with your credit card maxed out. At least you enjoyed yourself.” He maxed out his credit card, and when the piper called, he lost his business (he owned a mechanic shop which he had paid for in full, then used as collateral when he bought all his desires), he lost his wife (who had begged him not to go hog wild), and then he committed suicide (because he ended up with less than nothing). His son just smiled, and said, “It was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?” and went on a month long vacation to Hawaii to grieve. Baby boomer dies, Gen Xer celebrates. This is what credit cards have done to us.
        Okay, I’m getting long winded again, but I want to show you that uncontrolled capitalism will always win out. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer. America has been brainwashed to believe in capitalism, and fear socialism or communism. You said, “In this sense, I am very much a socialist,” but are you really, if you still believe the capitalist lies that “the
        market will determine maximise price”. You are fooling yourself, and capitalist countries all around the world are fooling themselves. The 1% are controlling the 99%, and that needs to be reversed. If you must have capitalism, you best control it, because it cannot and will not control itself. Of course storing money where is just sits and makes more money is an ego trip, one that only the 1% can afford to entertain.
        Read Das Kapital again, Jill. Don’t look at Marx’s solutions, just look at his understanding and foresight of what would become of capitalism. He understood then what is happening right now, his predictions are almost spot on! Except, he warned the wealthy of what could happen, and they made sure his revolution will never take place.
        But something has to take place. And for now, with everyone believing in democracy once again, if democracy does not Control Capitalism, it will only get worse. Surely Trump has taught you that.

        Like

  5. To the Queen of Snark : “Always wear an internal crown and have a queendom mindset. A queen is a leader and a role model.” – Janna Cachola. The thought had previously occurred to me that mayhaps you were considering placing your crown on the shelf a bit prematurely. Though the vitriol from the remaining GOP trumpist hangovers may lower the amount of venom required in your snark, you may rest assured that the fight for what’s right is far from over. The Queen of Snark is still needed…your reign is far from over! Snark On! Thank-you! P.S. David is quite right!!

    Liked by 3 people

    • As always, you boost my spirits when they most need boosting! Thank you so much for your continued confidence in my snarkability! Yes, it would appear that the snark will be continuing indefinitely! If I ever become famous for it, I suppose I shall owe a debt to a large number of Republicans, eh? Thanks dear friend! ❤

      Like

  6. I just hope these representatives involved suffer consequences. Also, what is being done about these guys getting money (millions) from Putin & his oligarchs? Much of which is funneled thru there NRA.
    Why do we, anti-war protesters, get hounded, spied on, arrested & killed while the real seditionists get treated like patriots?!
    I swear I will be very angry if Biden gives in to these guys. It’s time for a new country. One where the US citizen is number 1 and we stop spending money bombing other countries!
    Sherrie

    Liked by 2 people

    • I hope so too, but don’t hold your breath on that. I suspect not many will suffer even censure for their lack of responsibility, their actions and inactions. Why, you ask? Because our government is in the pockets of big business and therefore they put profit over people every time.

      Like

  7. I’M TOTALLY AGAINST RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $15 BY 2025. I think maybe it should be $15 NOW and $20 by 2025. Perhaps by then not just a living wage but the opportunity to save a bit, get a mortgage, go on a holiday. Expenses the CEO’/s never have to worry about, earning enough to pay cash for an extra home every year if they want or maybe investing in some out of town, lower-income, but rent over-priced area to make even more money. Time to pay people their worth in which case, Rand Paul and quite a few politicians owe a rebate back to the Government.
    Cwtch

    Liked by 5 people

    • Agreed. I didn’t realize until I read it closely that it was an incremental increase to top out at $15 by 2025. It should be immediate, with annual cost of living increases at the very least. I also agree that Rand Paul and many others owe us a rebate, for they damn sure haven’t been doing what they took an oath to do.
      Cwtch

      Liked by 2 people

Comments are closed.