'It's a joke': Trump appointee Ramaswamy's economic plan blasted by MSNBC/CNBC expert

Tom Boggioni

RAW ST0RY
December 5, 2024 

Steve Ratner on MSNBC (MSNBC screenshot

Reacting to Vivek Ramaswamy glibly claiming it will be "good for many of the [government employee] individuals when they make a transition from government service back to the private sector," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and "Morning Joe" regular Steve Ratner thoroughly dismantled the Donald Trump advisor's economic plans for the country.

Newly installed into Trump's proposed Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), the tech entrepreneur, along with co-chair Elon Musk, have been making broad claims of eliminating trillions in government expenses without providing much in the way of messy details

On Thursday morning, host Scarborough introduced the clip of Ramaswamy speaking and, after admitting he is in favor of government cutbacks, bluntly said of the Trump's appointees proposals, "This is a scam."

"Steve, let's cut straight to this," Scarborough said to his guest. "I know you're going to go through these charts, but his is something that you want to hear these two guys talking about: how they are going to cut $2 trillion from the budget."

"It's a joke," he pronounced before adding, "And it's a joke because this is something you and I have been obsessed about for very long time, the national debt, getting the deficit under control. Just looking at your first chart here, people need to understand, Social Security and Medicare make up about 50 percent of what the government spends. You add defense and veterans benefits, that's another 20 percent, you are up to 70 percent. You then add debt, and how much it costs to service that debt, that's another 10 percent."

"So Steve, before they even start talking about cutting these so-called federal employees that are bankrupting us, the United States government has already spent 80 percent of its budget on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, vets, defense and interest on the debt," he added.

"I love some of these other numbers," he joked. "Again, forgive me for killing Hamlet in the first act here: let's cut law enforcement, that's 1 percent of the budget., but let's cut sciences and medical research, we spend too much on that they may be saving 1 percent of the budget.

"Transportation, those barrel projects is going to bankrupt us, it's only 2% of the budget," he jokingly exclaimed. "Again, I will actually let you explain this far better than I am right now, but this is a scam unless they are going to slash Social Security and Medicare and Veterans Affairs. They are never going to get the $2 trillion so they need to just stop pretending."

 

Ramaswamy hopes firing federal workers will be 'good' for them: report

Erik De La Garza

December 4, 2024 
RAW STORY

Vivek Ramaswamy at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference. 

 Billionaire tech entrepreneur turned Donald Trump loyalist Vivek Ramaswamy is already making it known what he thinks needs to be done to improve the federal workforce even before the proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” has formed.

Ramaswamy – who along with fellow billionaire Elon Musk was tapped to lead the new agency known as “DOGE” – hopes to significantly slash federal personnel. But he said Wednesday that he hopes those cuts will be "good for many of the individuals who make a transition from government service back to the private sector,” Axios reported.

The comments came during a discussion at the Aspen Security Forum with Axios’ Mike Allen, where the failed presidential candidate said that the reduction in federal workers is not "really about saving costs," but tackling what he views as an "overgrown federal government that is doing things that were never supposed to be done by the federal government in the first place,” according to the publication.

In his remarks, Ramaswamy told Axios he believes that the “productivity” of the U.S. economy will improve once the workforce is cut "because I don't believe that the highest and best use of any of those talented people is what they're doing in the federal government today."

He added that because downsizing the workforce isn’t about cost-cutting, DOGE will have “a lot of latitude” to handle federal employees and their families "in a respectful way, in a way that doesn't leave them in a lurch, it might even be by private sector standards, generous in transitioning."

But, however rosy a picture Ramaswamy paints, “federal workers are unlikely to thank Ramaswamy for recommending they lose their jobs,” Axios noted.

CRT SHOULD BE

'Just not taught': Republicans get pushback as they attack critical race theory in House

Shauneen Miranda, 

States Newsroom
December 5, 2024 9

Children in a classroom (Shutterstock)

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers railed against what they called “woke” curriculum in schools during a Wednesday hearing in a U.S. House education panel, the latest example of culture wars rocking public education policy.

The hearing brought “critical race theory” to the forefront. The academic framework focuses on the social construction of race and has drawn strong Republican opposition in states across the country.

Though critical race theory is used in college and graduate-level programs, GOP members on the U.S. House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education said the framework is also being taught in K-12 schools.

The federal government has no role in K-12 curriculum, which is set by states and districts across the country, leaving the House panel without any authority to legislate the matter.

Subcommittee Chairman Aaron Bean pointed to negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on educational outcomes and asked why schools “taught race-inspired ideology” instead of focusing on bouncing back from the pandemic-era setbacks.

The Florida Republican added that critical race theory is “now reshaping how young people interpret their identity, and it’s changing how they see themselves, each other, in our country.”


Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat who was a public school history teacher for 15 years, said there was never any reference to critical race theory during all of her training and studies in education.

“I never had any professional development that separated me by race and taught this because it is just not taught or discussed at the K-12 level, so not really sure why it’s a part of this hearing today — it is a legal theory taught in law school,” the Connecticut Democrat said.

Ian Rowe, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, pointed to “specific practices undergirded by the ideology driving critical race theory.”


Rowe, who is also a senior visiting fellow at the nonprofit Woodson Center, offered examples, such as learning exercises where children are in a line and a teacher says: “Take two steps forward if you’re white, take three steps backward if you’re Black.”

He did not specify where this occurred.

Civics knowledge lacking

Bean brought in panelists from organizations and initiatives he said were built to “emphasize the importance of civics, understanding America’s founding principles and promoting a free exchange of ideas.”

Civics has become a hot-button issue within education culture wars, and the 2024 Republican Party platform called for promoting “love of country” through “authentic civics education.”

Jed Atkins, who serves as dean and director of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Civic Life and Leadership, said civic knowledge “is lacking among our college students, the majority of whom lack elementary knowledge of our democratic institutions.”

Atkins said the school “ensures that the serious work of educating citizens to live and thrive in our pluralistic democracy will get done.”
Funding bigger concern, Dems say

Ranking member Suzanne Bonamici, who echoed Hayes in saying critical race theory is not a K-12 issue, directed the focus of the hearing to school infrastructure.

The Oregon Democrat touted legislation introduced last year by Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking Democrat of the full House education panel, and New Jersey Democratic Rep. Donald Norcross, that would spend billions of dollars on schools’ physical and digital infrastructure.

Bonamici said school infrastructure “is not just about walls and ceilings of school buildings” but also “the entire environment in which our children learn.”

“Right now, far too many of these environments are unsafe, outdated and desperately in need of repair,” she said.

W.E.B. Du Bois | American Experience | Official Site

PBS

https://www.pbs.org › wgbh › features › garvey-du-bois

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century, was an editor, historian, sociologist, novelist, ...

American Socialist, January 1956

If Debs could have returned to life for his Centennial, he would have found much progress towards socialism, but a grim battle still ahead, especially in his native land.

If Eugene Debs Returned

A Speech by W.E.B. Du Bois

IN the year 1920 when 919,000 American voters wanted Eugene Debs to be president of the United States, the socialist platform on which he ran demanded in general terms that eventually the ownership of the means of production be transferred from private to public control. The steps toward this end were not altogether agreed upon. But Debs demanded the supreme power of the workers ‘as the one class that can and will bring permanent peace to the world.’ He declared that then ‘we shall transfer the title deeds of the railroads, the telegraph lines, the mines, mills and great industries to the people in their collective capacity; we shall take possession of all these social utilities in the name of the people. We shall then have industrial democracy. We shall be a free nation whose government is of and by and for the people.’

If tonight Mr. Debs should saunter back to celebrate with us this his one-hundredth birthday, he would feel considerable gratification at the progress of his cause in 35 years. Capital is still mainly in private hands but not entirely. Increasing public control of capital is the rule in the United States while over most of the world public ownership is rapidly increasing. In our country public regulation of utilities, including railroads, water power and communications, has increased. We direct private business in numerous instances; we tax wealth in new ways, we defend the right of labor to organize and we pay out $1,500 million a year in social insurance. This is not yet socialism, but it is far from the uncontested rule of wealth.

EUGENE Debs, however, being an astute man and a logical thinker, would not be inclined to spend his birthday in celebrating the triumph of socialism in the United States. He would, on the contrary, see clearly that this nation, despite its advances toward socialism, is spending more money utterly to destroy socialism than it spends on education, health and general social uplift together.

He would realize with distress that advance toward the objects of socialism does not necessarily mean that the socialist state is at hand. Socialism includes planned production and distribution of wealth. But a completely socialistic result depends on who does the planning and for what ends. A state socialism planned by the rich for their own survival is quite possible, but it is far from the state where the rule rests in the hands of those who produce wealth and services and whose aim is the welfare of the mass of the people.

If Mr. Debs, during his absence from this earthly scene, has followed events of which we are too painfully aware, he will know that not all that is called socialism is socialistic in the sense that he used to understand it. He will know of Hitler’s National Socialism, which, indeed, built a magnificent system of roads and excellent public housing, controlled finance and wages, owned railroads, telegraphs and telephones and yet was not socialism as Debs envisioned it. He would note that widespread socialist methods in Britain, France, Holland and Belgium have not prevented these nations from exploiting labor in Europe, Asia, Africa and America and that their own laboring classes have been willing to base their increased wage and higher standard of living on the poverty, ignorance and disease of most of the working people of the world. This again can hardly be called socialism, and Debs would know that socialistic methods in the United States have succeeded in staving off financial collapse and may continue to do this for a considerable time, but that this social effort is for and by Big Business and financial monopoly and not for the farm and the shop. It bribes organized labor with high wages built on war industry and by this very act threatens the welfare of the mass of the people of the world.

The matter which would, I think, bother Eugene Debs most in the present scene would be the failure of democracy to change all this. If he arrived in time to look in on the polling places during our recent election, he would have seen with dismay that most Americans who have the right to vote do not make any effort to use it. It is unusual for a majority of voters to attend elections, not to mention the millions legally disfranchised by color and poverty.

NOW, the socialism of Eugene Debs was founded on the democratic state in which the law of the land was to be determined by the will of the people. If and when this prerequisite of the socialist state failed, I am sure that Mr. Debs, like Charlie Chaplin, would not think of returning to America, even for this celebration.

If then, Mr. Debs is nonplussed by the apathy of voters, he would learn in any barroom, barbershop or prayer-meeting, or even in the subway, that the reason lay in the fact that Americans have had no chance lately to vote on the matters in which they have the greatest interest. We have not had a chance to vote on peace or war, and will not next year, if we must choose between Eisenhower and Stevenson, or Nixon and Harriman. We have never voted on universal military service. We never voted to spend more than half our income on war; we never voted to make war in Korea. We never voted to beg, borrow or steal one hundred military bases all over the world to overthrow communism.

Why then should we vote if we cannot vote on matters which seem of greatest importance to us?

Mr. Debs’ reaction would be: If this be true, then it is our own fault that we have not talked to the people. He would say: Tell them the truth! Publish books and pamphlets; agitate! And then if Eugene Debs, forgetting that he is dead, should attempt to hire a hall, or stage a mass meeting on Union Square, or get time on radio or television, or get a book on the shelves of the Public Library, he would find himself guilty of subversion, proven a Communist quite unnecessarily by Budenz, Bentley and Philbrick, Inc., and since the courts have almost said that all Communists are criminals set to bring on violent revolution, Debs would soon be back in the very jail where imprisonment had already killed him.

BUT naturally, before Debs started on this impossible effort, we his friends and admirers would have coached him on the facts of life as we know them in this our America of today. It is not only true that Johnnie does not learn to read, but even if he could read he would have difficulty in reading the truth; that the vast monopolies which collect news from all over the world omit what they do not want known, distort what they submit and often deliberately lie about the rest.

‘But,’ I imagine Debs saying, waxing a bit hysterical, ‘why do not people insist on knowing the facts?’ Our only answer would be that since we have become a nation of the rich, run by the rich for the rich (a statement which Mr. Stevenson says he did not originate but merely quoted) the voters do not and cannot know that their best interests are not paramount aims of government; that as their education deteriorates during this the most illiterate government we have endured since Jackson, as their news becomes tainted, suppressed and slanted, it is Increasingly difficult for science and good will to usher in the state where the welfare of the mass of the people is the aim of government, where capital is owned by the people, where private profit is never the sole object of industry and where exploitation of labor is always a crime. We are no longer a democracy free to think, hut a frightened people scared of the socialism and communism which we dare not know nor study. We are threatened by mounting crime and facing jails full not only of criminals but increasingly of honest men whose fault is that they believe in the socialism for which Debs gave his life.

In the midst of this losing of our moral and intellectual integrity we are permitting almost unchallenged a concentrated power of industry and commerce and a monopoly of wealth and natural resources which is not only a threat to the United States but so great a threat to the world that the world with increasing unanimity is resenting it and organizing to oppose it. However, we could assure Mr. Debs that at times public opinion bursts the bonds of organized politics and wealth-control, and screams. We would for instance today be in the midst of a third and fatal world war if Nixon and Knowland had not been stopped in their tracks by an extraordinary avalanche of letters which made even the dumbest politicians in Washington realize that the nation wanted peace even if they got no chance to vote for it.

But this, Debs would say correctly, is not enough. It may come after some outrageous occurrence. However, for the long run and the continuing education of the people, Debs must learn that few reputable publishers today will take any book that deviates from respectable lines of thought as laid down by the National Association of Manufacturers; that no reputable book store will carry hooks advocating or not attacking communism; that public libraries will neither buy nor place hooks of which the FBI does not approve, and that none of our leading literary journals would mention a book by Debs himself should it appear today with a Heavenly imprint. Debs would learn with distress that the tendency apparent in his day of the readers of newspapers and magazines refusing to pay for the full cost of what they read has today sunk to the place where they expect to have their news and literature furnished them free and with pictures and gifts by the purveyors of tobacco, neckties and toothpaste.

IF Debs were still able to listen, he would learn that our representatives in Congress and legislature, our scientists, our preachers, teachers and students are afraid to think or talk lest they starve or disgrace their families and friends. Thus our basic culture patterns are vitiated.

To which Debs would reply: Those who believe in truth and know from slavery, poverty and crime what falsehood can do, must if possible save the truth from burial. Such action is not mere alms-giving, it is a great crusade Without unpaid crusaders and unknighted chivalry we plunge back into new Dark Ages, where ‘Guys and Dolls’ regale us with a crap game in a sewer.

And so Eugene Debs, returning with both sorrow and relief to the blessed peace of Heaven or the genial warmth of Hell (this depending on whether one reads the Timer or the Worker) will, I imagine, after a season of rest and reflection, look carefully about and say:

‘What really I fear for America is not merely loss of freedom, degeneration of schools, failure of the free press or failure of democracy. These, reason in time will combat. Rather I fear the threat of insanity; the loss of ability to reason. You’d hardly believe this, he’d say, but intelligent Americans cannot today see the direct connection between war, murder, lying, stealing, and juvenile crime. Their leaders actually propose to gain peace by war, to stop poverty by making the rich richer and to prevent force and violence by preparing force and violence on a scale of which the world never before dreamed anywhere at any time.

‘And furthermore, (this you will never believe, but I swear it’s true)’ says Debs, ‘the man who succeeded me as leader of Socialism in the United States and ran on the Socialist ticket for president five times, is today the most bitter and hysterical enemy of the only governments or earth which approach complete socialism. Brethren, I firmly believe that what my country needs today above all else is more and better insane asylums strategically placed.’

---

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Secret Service director confirms 'autonomous robot' being used to protect Trump

David Edwards
December 5, 2024 

RAW STORY

House task force/screen grab

Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe testified that an "autonomous robot" was being used to protect President-elect Donald Trump.

Rowe made the remarks Thursday during a hearing with a House task force investigating the attempted assassinations of Trump.

The Secret Service director said his agency had worked with the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate to utilize the new capabilities

"What I'm trying to do is put the secret back in the Secret Service, but there's been media coverage of this, so I'll talk about it," Rowe said. "Right now at Mar-a-Lago, we've started using a sensor array, an autonomous robot that's out there walking the seawall right now."

"Those are the types of technologies that have been out there, that have been in DOD world for years," he added. "The use of the autonomous canines down there right now is just one example of that."

In November, the robot dog was first spotted patrolling at Mar-a-Lago.

Watch the video below or click here.

IMPERIALIST LOOT

Greeks still skeptical Britain will return Parthenon Marbles

Agence France-Presse
December 5, 2024 

The Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, at the British Museum in London (Daniel LEAL/AFP)

"Positive" talks between Greece and the British Museum over the Parthenon Marbles have rekindled hope that the ancient friezes could be on their way back to Athens after more than two centuries.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Downing Street on Tuesday just as the British Museum confirmed it had been holding "constructive" negotiations with Athens.

The next day museum chairman George Osborne said the London institution was exploring an "arrangement where at some point some of the sculptures" could be sent to Athens in return for Greece lending the museum "some of its treasures".

But Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni cautioned Thursday that an agreement still "requires time and work".

She told Skai radio that the two sides had "broken the ice" and that negotiations were going on in a "positive climate".

"It is positive that the (Labour) government does not have the negativity of prior governments," Mendoni said.

She insisted that the "natural place" to display the marbles was the Acropolis Museum, built for the purpose below the ancient temple in 2009.

- 'They are Greek property' -

Outside the Acropolis Museum, 15-year-old high school pupil Thodoris said he was sceptical that an agreement will be reached.


"I'm not sure it will happen for real." And he was absolutely against having to offer Britain something in return. "We shouldn't have to give anything back -- they are Greek property," he said.

"(Mitsotakis) is not going to manage, I believe they will not return," said a man running a kiosk nearby, who declined to give his name.

"With the bunch we have (running Greece), let's just hope we don't lose the marbles we already have," he jibed.


Known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles, the 2,500-year-old sculptures adorned the Parthenon temple built at the pinnacle of ancient Athens's power in honor of the city's patron goddess, Athena.

It was partially destroyed during a Venetian bombardment in 1687, and in the early 1800s workmen took friezes from the monument on the orders of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Scottish nobleman Thomas Bruce, known as Lord Elgin.

Elgin sold the marbles to the British government, which in 1817 passed them on to the British Museum where they remain one of its most prized treasures.


But support in Britain for a return of the marbles has been growing.

A YouGov poll on Monday found that 53 percent of respondents said the British Museum should return the sculptures, with 24 percent opposed.

- 'They stole them' -


"They should (give them back) but I don't think they will... they will fight to keep them," said Sandra Hernandez, who was visiting the Acropolis Museum from Spain.

The marbles "belong to Greece... they stole them, they have the responsibility to give them back," said 24-year-old Korean visitor Yungu Lee, who is studying in Britain.

Nearly two million people visited the Acropolis Museum last year, up a third on 2022.


Fragments of the Parthenon are also in the Louvre in Paris and in museums in Copenhagen, Munich, Vienna and Wurzburg.

But with moral pressure building, private citizens and institutions have in recent years been giving fragments back.

In March 2023, the Vatican Museums returned three pieces of the Parthenon's frieze, metopes decorative band and pediments.

The heads of a youth, a bearded man and a horse were reunited with the sculptures on display at the Acropolis Museum.


A year earlier, the Antonino Salinas Museum in Palermo sent Greece another Parthenon marble fragment.

Athens subsequently reached a legal agreement with the Sicilian regional government to make the return permanent.

© Agence France-Presse

SOUNDS QUALIFIED

Trump picks avid poker player and auctioneer to head IRS

Erik De La Garza
December 4, 2024 

RAW STORY

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday selected former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO), an auctioneer and ardent poker player, to be the country’s next IRS commissioner.

The pick was announced Wednesday on Trump’s Truth Social platform as he continues the rollout of his second-term administration picks. Earlier in the day, he selected billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman for NASA chief and later announced Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) as his choice to lead the Small Business Administration.

“Billy brings 32 years of experience running his own businesses in Real Estate and, as one of the premier Auctioneers in the Country,” Trump wrote. “He then served 12 years in Congress, because he ‘felt it was important for his constituents to have a Representative who has signed the front of a check!’

Since leaving Congress, Long has participated in numerous poker championships, including the World Poker Tour, and other professionally sanctioned games such as the Southern Poker Championship. He also lost the 2022 Republican Senate primary after the seat became vacant when Sen. Roy Blunt announced he would not seek reelection.

According to Trump, Long went on to work as a business and tax advisor "helping Small Businesses navigate the complexities of complying with the IRS Rules and Regulations."

“I have known Billy since 2011 - He is an extremely hard worker, and respected by all, especially by those who know him in Congress,” the president-elect said. “Taxpayers and the wonderful employees of the IRS will love having Billy at the helm. He is the consummate ‘people person,’ well respected on both sides of the aisle.”

He added: “Congratulations Billy!”

Trump pick to lead IRS signals 'open season for tax cheats'

Julia Conley, 

Common Dreams
December 5, 2024

Billy Long on Facebook

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to run the Internal Revenue Service, former Rep. Billy Long, didn't serve on the House committee tasked with writing tax policy during his six terms in office, and his lack of relevant experience is likely "exactly what Trump was looking for," according to one economic justice advocate.

Progressive lawmakers joined advocates on Wednesday in denouncing Trump's selection of Long, who since leaving office in 2023 has promoted a tax credit that's been riddled with fraud and who spent his time in the House pushing to abolish the very agency he's been chosen to run.

As a Republican congressman from Missouri, Long repeatedly sponsored legislation to dismantle the IRS, which under President Joe Biden has recovered at least $1 billion from wealthy people who previously evaded taxes.

He also co-sponsored legislation to repeal all estate taxes, which are overwhelmingly paid by the wealthiest households, but "said almost nothing on the floor regarding taxes, the IRS, and taxation during his 12 years in Congress," said John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News.

Long's limited experience with tax policy "ought to set off alarm bells," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who pointed to "vastly improved taxpayer service" under the leadership of IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, who Biden chose to replace Trump's nominee from his first term, Charles Rettig, after Rettig served his full term.

Werfel has "set up a tremendous direct-file system, and begun badly needed crackdowns on ultra-wealthy tax cheats who rip off law-abiding Americans," said Wyden. "If Trump fires Mr. Werfel, it won't be to improve on his work; it'll be to install somebody Trump can control as he meddles with the IRS."

The appointment is likely to commence an "open season for tax cheats," said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative.

"If he's confirmed, taxpayers can expect longer wait times for customer service, a more complicated process to file taxes, and free rein for the rich and powerful to continue rigging the system at the expense of everyone else."

Since leaving office, Long has promoted the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC), a pandemic-era credit that was intended to incentivize employers to continue paying workers during the economic shutdown when the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States.

He has worked to help businesses claim the credit from the IRS, but fraudulent and improper claims have so permeated the program that the IRS stopped processing new claims temporarily. The U.S. House passed a bill to entirely halt ERTC claims, but it has been stalled in the Senate.

"These ERTC mills that have popped up over the last few years are essentially fraud on an industrial scale, conning small businesses and ripping off American taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars," said Wyden. "I'm going to have a lot of questions about Mr. Long's role in this business, first and foremost why the American people ought to trust somebody involved with a fraud-ridden industry to run an agency that's tasked with rooting out fraud."

Wyden also pointed out that Long has not been named in a "typical nomination like you'd see after every presidential election." Werfel's term was set to go until November 2027, and the IRS typically operates as a nonpartisan agency.

"Replacing Commissioner Werfel with over three years remaining in his term is a terrible mistake," said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). "He has done an excellent job rebuilding the IRS, boosting customer service, and enhancing enforcement aimed at wealthy tax evaders. Removing him will clearly signal Trump's intention to make the agency less responsive to the American people, while giving a green light to wealthy tax cheats to evade their fair share of the tax burden."

"Trump's nominee has clearly stated that he wants to abolish the IRS," added Beyer. "The change Trump proposes in IRS leadership would be a gift to tax cheats and a blow to anyone who believes it is important to rein in deficits."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) added that Trump's nomination of Long signals "the weaponization of the tax agency."

"If he's confirmed," she said, "taxpayers can expect longer wait times for customer service, a more complicated process to file taxes, and free rein for the rich and powerful to continue rigging the system at the expense of everyone else."

'Alarm bells': Senator warns Trump's IRS pick is 'bad news'

Daniel Hampton
December 4, 2024 

RAW STORY


A Democratic senator blasted a new nomination for the Trump administration, railing that he has no relevant experience — and if confirmed people can expect "longer wait times for customer service."

Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that former Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) was nominated to serve as the commissioner of the IRS.

"Billy brings 32 years of experience running his own businesses in Real Estate and, as one of the premier Auctioneers in the Country. He then served 12 years in Congress, because he 'felt it was important for his constituents to have a Representative who has signed the front of a check!'"

Trump added: "Since leaving Congress, Billy has worked as a Business and Tax advisor, helping Small Businesses navigate the complexities of complying with the IRS Rules and Regulations. I have known Billy since 2011 - He is an extremely hard worker, and respected by all, especially by those who know him in Congress. Taxpayers and the wonderful employees of the IRS will love having Billy at the helm. He is the consummate “people person,” well respected on both sides of the aisle."

Since leaving Congress, Long has participated in numerous poker championships, including the World Poker Tour, and other professionally sanctioned games such as the Southern Poker Championship. He also lost the 2022 Republican Senate primary after the seat became vacant when Sen. Roy Blunt announced he would not seek reelection.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) laid into the nomination, writing on X: "Billy Long’s nomination is bad news for middle-class taxpayers and a win for ultra-wealthy tax cheats."

"If he’s confirmed, you can expect longer wait times for customer service, a more complicated process to file taxes, and free rein for the rich to rig the system at our expense," she wrote.

In a separate post, Warren continued attacking Long.

"Long has zero relevant experience for this critical management role and this pick — along with the unprecedented firing of the current commissioner — should set off alarm bells about the weaponization of the tax agency," she warned.

Outside US Supreme Court, religious protesters mostly rally in favor of transgender rights

(RNS) — ‘As a trans person myself, I know that I’m just as much an image of God as a cisgender, heterosexual person of whatever color, race and creed,’ said the Rev. M.E. Eccles, a trans Episcopal priest.

A group supporting transgender rights demonstrates outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wed., Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)

Jack Jenkins
December 4, 2024

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Religious supporters and opponents of transgender rights rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday (Dec. 4), giving voice to opposing theologies as justices heard oral arguments on whether states can ban certain gender-affirming care for young people.

The protests took the form of dueling rallies separated by barricades, with demonstrators who support transgender rights — including a number of Jewish and mainline Protestant religious leaders and activists — outnumbering their opponents outside the court by a significant margin.

Across the street in front of the United Methodist Building, demonstrators representing organizations such as the National Council of Jewish Women, Keshet and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs huddled together holding signs that read “God loves trans kids” and “trans Jews belong here.”

“What brings me here today is my love of trans people and my love of folks being able to live into their potential and be conduits for holiness into the world, and therefore build a world where everyone can thrive,” Rabbi Becky Silverstein, a trans rabbi, said.

Standing next to Silverstein was Rabba Rori Picker Neiss, who works with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and is the parent of a transgender child. She said her family left Missouri after the state passed laws banning the same kind of gender-affirming treatments being debated in front of the Supreme Court.

“We are deeply invested in what it means for people to be able to have access to health care,” Neiss said. “I say that on a personal level, and then, also, as a faith community, what it means for people to recognize their entire selves and the beauty of the ways in which they’ve been created — and make their own choices.”

(Left – Right) Rabba Rori Picker Neiss of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Darcy Hirsh, Director of Government Relations & Advocacy at National Council of Jewish Women; Rabbi Becky Silverstein; and Idit Klein, Executive Director of Keshet outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wed., Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)

Closer to the boundary between the groups stood several members of the group Interfaith Alliance, as well as the Rev. M.E. Eccles, a trans Episcopal priest who wore a shirt that read “this is what a trans priest looks like.”

“The Christian faith is about being authentically yourself and loving your neighbor as yourself, to allow people to be who they authentically are, and knowing that we’re all made in the image of God,” he said. “God doesn’t make mistakes. As a trans person myself, I know that I’m just as much an image of God as a cisgender, heterosexual person of whatever color, race and creed.”

He added: “It does no harm to allow people to seek out the care that they need, and it does not take away anyone’s rights to allow civil rights to exist for everybody.”

Their presence pointed to an increasingly visible faith-rooted support for transgender rights. In late November, Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, preached a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral in support of Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, the first openly gay transgender person elected to Congress.

“I couldn’t admire her more as a human and as a child of God,” Robinson said of McBride, herself an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Tennessee state Rep. Chris Todd at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wed., Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)

Even so, Tennessee state Rep. Chris Todd, who co-sponsored the House version of the Tennessee law being debated before the court, cited his own faith as he spoke before the crowd gathered to oppose transgender rights on Wednesday. He cited Proverbs as he implored justices to “stand on the Word of God” and use “biologically accurate terms and pronouns when addressing attorneys” — a reference to Chase Strangio, an attorney for the ACLU, who became the first transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

“God created man in his own image, male and female, he created — now that’s in Genesis,” Todd said, before adding that, “it’s time now for America to turn to blessing God. That is our call today: Protect children and bless God, who made them in his image.”

In a separate interview with RNS, Todd, who describes himself as a born-again Christian and a Baptist, said efforts to enshrine transgender rights were “a rebellion against God more than anything else.” He said he was proud of laws in Tennessee and elsewhere barring gender affirming medical treatments for minors, insisting they protect children from “life altering surgeries that are not necessary.”

Todd’s theology echoed remarks made by House Speaker Mike Johnson in November, when he told reporters “A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And a man cannot become a woman” before adding, “That’s what Scripture teaches.”

Asked about faith leaders who argue Scripture affirms transgender identities, Todd replied, “I don’t know how you would twist Scripture around to come up with that idea — it’s not possible.”

A group opposing transgender rights demonstrates outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wed., Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)

Standing near the back of the crowd wearing a rainbow stole, the Rev. Debbie Layman, a pastor of a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, disagreed.

“Our understanding has grown and deepened in terms of what it means to be human, and I believe our understanding of God should grow and deepen as well,” Layman said. “And I, as a person of faith, can understand that God’s love keeps getting broader, and I can’t just put it into a binary box.”

Eccles felt similarly, arguing Hebrew references to Adam and Eve in Genesis were better understood as God having created “a human and then another human, which have then become what we consider male and female.”

“To my knowledge, there’s nothing in Scripture about specifically creating genders number one and number two — God has never told us a gender,” Eccles said.

The Rev. M.E. Eccles at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wed., Dec. 4, 2024, in Washington. (RNS photo/Jack Jenkins)

But the theological debate may not have been relevant to the demonstrators who came to protest against gender transition treatments for young people — a less visibly religious group than those protesting in favor of trans rights. Many told RNS they did not claim a religious affiliation, including Laura Haynes, who identified as an atheist Democrat from California.

“I believe there is a civil right to outgrow your distress before you make permanent decisions about your body,” she said.

But even if justices rule to uphold Tennessee’s law, which court watchers expect will be the case, Eccles said churches and religious institutions should stand ready to protect transgender Americans of all ages.

“They need to be sanctuaries,” he said. “They need to be safe places that accept and love people for who they are, to protect them when they can protect them. Let’s be honest: Religion, organized religion, has hurt a lot of people, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community. We need to repent and atone for that, and we also need to move forward and be a place of safety and love.”

Far-right influencer at SCOTUS calls for 'trans ideology' to be 'erased from the Earth'

Image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr.

David Badash

December 04, 2024

As justices on the U.S. Supreme Court were hearing arguments in the Biden administration’s challenge to a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming treatment for transgender minors, far-right influencer, anti-LGBTQ commentator and activist, and Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh was outside the Court attacking what he calls “trans ideology” — and calling for it to be “entirely erased from the earth.”

Walsh did not explain what he meant by “trans ideology,” but the LGBTQ organization GLAAD has an explainer on so-called “gender ideology.”

“Employed by prominent anti-LGBTQ accounts and similar to the trope ‘transgenderism,’ ‘gender ideology’ is a malicious rhetorical construct that falsely asserts that LGBTQ — notably trans — people are an ideological movement rather than an intrinsic identity,” GLAAD writes.

On Wednesday, Walsh declared, “Children have a right to be protected from all of those people over there who want to harm them and damage them and destroy them, and they will be.

He appeared to be referring to the transgender allies and activists outside the Supreme Court.

“They are gonna lose,” he proclaimed. “They are losing right now. We are not going to let them harm our children. This case is just the beginning of the fight. It is not the end. We are not gonna rest until every child is protected, until trans ideology is entirely erased from the earth. That’s what we’re fighting for, and we will not stop until we achieve it. So to the trans activists over there who are claiming, this is all about the rights of children, I say again: yes, you’re right, it is. They have a right to be protected, from you.”

Walsh also said outside the Court, “There’s no such thing as a ‘trans kid.’ That doesn’t exist. Those kids are not trans. They are confused, and their confusion has been exploited by quacks and abusers. They are abuse victims. They are not trans kids.”


Walsh has called for parents who are supportive of their transgender children to be “thrown in prison.”

Citing the ADL, GLAAD also notes, “’proponents of the phrase often use it to oppose school curricula that feature and/or celebrate LGBTQ+ history or experiences, falsely claiming that such materials promote the sexualization of minors and/or coerce children into identifying as members of the LGBTQ+ community.’ The Southern Poverty Law Center adds: ‘Anti-LGBTQ+ groups often employ the term to claim any kind of positive affirmation of trans young people is a nefarious method of creating or recruiting new trans kids.’ On Twitter/X, for example, far-right outlet The Daily Wire widely promoted a speech by anti-trans commentator Matt Walsh, who said in April 2023, ‘I truly see the fight against gender ideology as the last stand for Western civilization.’ Other extremist 

accounts have used the phrase as a dog whistle to spread animus against trans people. 

That same month, Gays Against Groomers posted across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X: ‘Gender ideology must be completely abolished and destroyed.'”

“It seems to me that it’s something where we are extraordinary [sic] bereft of expertise,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, CNN reported.

“Why isn’t it best to leave it to the democratic process?” Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked.

But liberal Justice Elena Kagan disagreed.

“It’s a dodge to say that this is not based on sex,” Kagan said. “The medical purpose is utterly and entirely about sex.”

The Associated Press also reported the Supreme Court “seemed likely to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

GOP 'sociopaths' live among us — and it's 'contagious': neuroscientist

Seth D. Norrholm
December 5, 2024 

U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) walks at Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 14, 2024. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

Sociopaths, a term often used to describe those living with antisocial personality disorder, who operate within their daily lives without a “conscience,” can be characterized as acting without feelings of guilt, remorse, or shame coupled with a tendency to reject the concept of responsibility.

Antisocial people will intentionally make others angry or upset and use harsh and cruel indifference as they manipulate or attack others.

Clinically speaking, there is no defined difference between a sociopath and a psychopath although some have drawn this line at acting with low moral conscience (sociopath) and no moral conscience (psychopath) or having no regard for someone else’s rights or feelings (sociopath) and taking pleasure in robbing another of their rights, freedom, or well-being (psychopath).

My colleagues and I have discussed psychopathy in the previous president elsewhere as an example. Recognizing these nuanced differences exist, I will use the term sociopath and sociopathy here for brevity’s sake.

There appear to be at least three forms of this public political/governmental sociopathy present today. The first are those individuals for whom sociopathic tendencies are deep-seated and a core feature of who they are – the former and incoming president being a prime example. A second form includes the scores of Republicans and right-wingers who have decided to play the role or act sociopathic for their own personal gain. This includes hard-line MAGA members such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Kari Lake and Matt Gaetz, who decided to infect themselves with contagious sociopathy.

Look at the case of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis whose impressive on-paper resume includes graduation from Yale University (where he served as captain of the baseball team) and Harvard law school (with honors), distinguished service in the United States Navy including a legal role with Seal Team One and a deployment to Iraq. On paper, he is highly accomplished and embodied what we as Americans tend to hold in high regard … until he acquired contagious sociopathy.

Coincident with his departure from active military service and rise to Congress and the Florida governorship, he apparently chose to include antisocial tendencies in his political and public persona. He believes in unregulated gun ownership (despite brutal killings in his state’s own schools), he attacks the rights of women with his restrictive abortion laws, he suppresses legislation that would support the LBGTQ+ community, and he seeks to diminish the plight of historically maltreated groups (such as African Americans) with his attempts to bury the past.

In another high-profile example, the U.S. Supreme Court was constitutionally designed as a third arm of our democratic republic that was supposed to serve independently from the other Branches in an apolitical manner … now its majority is infested with contagious sociopathy. In just the last year (and weeks), they sociopathically overturned Roe v. Wade and severely undercut women’s healthcare rights, ruled in favor of discrimination, and ruled against students struggling under the mountain of student debt…all while facing accusations of improper gifts, hypocrisy, and politicization … in other words, with contagious sociopathy.


The third group with contagious sociopathy are the passive enablers of widespread acts of manipulation and cruelty ranging from long-serving, establishment leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) all the way to the throngs of people clad in Confederate flags and MAGA idolatry whose inaction and permissiveness serves as a large-scale petri dish by which contagious sociopathy can flourish. It cannot go without mentioning that the processes of cultism are at play here as well.

It should be noted that the term I have been using – contagious sociopathy – is not mutually exclusive from what we have been observing with the perversion of Christian thought to suit sociopathic behaviors and the rise of fascism in the U.S. (Ruth Ben-Ghiat has written extensively on the latter). In addition, and in no way trying to simplify or underestimate the factors underlying American racism, the racist platforms of the far right and GOP, have provided a type of currency by which contagious sociopathy can spread – many have argued that the ascension of Donald Trump allowed closeted racists to become public racists. Racism includes the antisocial tendencies of demeaning, manipulating, and harming others without remorse as a key feature.

One cannot talk about contagious sociopathy without considering righteousness – a term describing the phenomenon by which malicious acts – including harming and killing others – are justified as long as the bad actor can consider the ‘victims’ to be an enemy. This is a bedrock of the Trump and MAGA attacks on the Left and any that criticize or oppose them.

I have written and said it before and I will do so again: The contagious spread of sociopathy has provided us with potential and actual leaders who embody the worst that humanity has to offer according to moral, legal, religious/spiritual, and societal norms…and they continue to run on this platform.

About the author: Seth D. Norrholm, PhD (Threads: neuropsychophd) is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Dr. Norrholm has spent 20 years studying trauma-, stressor-, anxiety-, depressive-, and substance use-related disorders and has published over 120 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters. The primary objective of his work is to develop “bench-to-bedside” clinical research methods to inform therapeutic interventions for fear and anxiety-related disorders and how they relate to human factors such as personality, genetics, and environmental influences. Dr. Norrholm has been featured on NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, Politico.com, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, USA Today, WebMD, The Atlantic, The History Channel, Scientific American, Salon.com, The Huffington Post, and Yahoo.com.

Neuroscience explains how right-wingers' brains work differently

US Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) takes a phone call at the Hyatt Regency hotel during a meeting with House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC, U.S. on November 13, 2024. ALLISON ROBBERT/Pool via REUTERS

Alex Henderson

December 04, 2024

ALTERNET

In the United States, liberals and conservatives have been having heated debates for generations. But the country has been especially divided in recent years.

Following President-elect Donald Trump's narrow victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, many MAGA Republicans are delighted that he will be returning to the White House on January 20, 2025. Democrats and Never Trump conservatives, however, view Trump's incoming second administration as a full-blown threat to democracy and are slamming some of his nominees — including Kash Patel for FBI director and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary — as flat out dangerous.

Trump's supporters and detractors, many political experts have said, live in separate worlds.

But the divisions between the left and the right did not start with Trump and his MAGA movement. And research highlighted in 2020 offers insights on why Republicans and Democrats can process information so differently.

In an article published by Scientific American, journalist Lydia Denworth delved into "political neuroscience."

Hannah Nam of Stony Brook University told Scientific American, "Brain structure and function provide more objective measures than many types of survey responses. Participants may be induced to be more honest when they think that scientists have a 'window' into their brains…. Neurobiological features could be used as a predictor of political outcomes — just not in a deterministic way."

Denworth noted that the differences between conservatives and liberals were on full display when the National Review's William F. Buckly famously debated liberal author Gore Vidal back in 1968.

The journalist pointed out, however, that conservatives and liberals aren't necessarily black-and-white in their thinking, and that both can have nuance.

"To study how we process political information in a 2017 paper, political psychologist Ingrid Haas of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her colleagues created hypothetical candidates from both major parties and assigned each candidate a set of policy statements on issues such as school prayer, Medicare and defense spending," Denworth explained. "Most statements were what you would expect: Republicans, for instance, usually favor increasing defense spending, and Democrats generally support expanding Medicare. But some statements were surprising, such as a conservative expressing a pro-choice position or a liberal arguing for invading Iran."

Denworth added, "Haas put 58 people with diverse political views in a brain scanner. On each trial, participants were asked whether it was good or bad that a candidate held a position on a particular issue and not whether they personally agreed or disagreed with it."