#Rep. Cori Bush

[ivygorgon]

An open letter to the U.S. Congress

👮Pass the The End Solitary Confinement Act!

719 so far! Help us get to 1,000 signers!

Last week, U.S. Senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Peter Welch introduced the End Solitary Confinement Act, companion legislation to HR 4972 introduced in the House of Representatives by Missouri Rep. Cori Bush in July. This bill would end solitary confinement in all federal custody and incentivize states and localities to do the same. The End Solitary Confinement Act is a product of years of advocacy and activism from campaigns across the country led by people who have survived solitary and had loved ones inside, and draws from the best policy components of enacted and pending legislation. Specifically, the End Solitary Confinement Act does four key things: End all forms of solitary confinement, ensure that all alternatives to solitary are *actual* alternatives, enhance due process protections, and create oversight and enforcement mechanisms. Over 175 organizations nationwide have already endorsed the End Solitary Confinement Act and I hope you will as well. Solitary confinement is torture. We must end this barbaric practice. Thanks.

▶ Created on December 11, 2023 by Jess Craven

📱 Text SIGN PECNCK to 50409

🤯 Liked it? Text FOLLOW JESSCRAVEN101 to 50409

[bisexualalienss]

minnesota don’t forget we have primary elections tomorrow!!!! if you live in ilhan omar’s district specifically, you need to vote!!!! she’s facing a tough primary

[afloweroutofstone]

St. Louis: Vote for Cori Bush on August 6!

Anyone living in Missouri's 1st district— encompassing much of the St. Louis area— should be sure to vote for Cori Bush in the Democratic primary on August 6th. You can check if you're in her district using this tool and this map.

Bush is one of the five most progressive members of congress currently in office. She is also the congresswoman who introduced the ceasefire resolution for Palestine. For that reason, the Israel lobby has spent $7.5 million trying to defeat her this year, hoping to crush any support for Palestine within the US congress.

Ensuring that Rep. Bush wins re-election is vital in the fight for Palestinian rights, universal healthcare, reproductive justice, affordable housing, criminal justice reform, the Green New Deal, and more.

Polls will be open from 6am to 7pm on August 6th, 2024. Bring a government-issued ID with you to your polling location. All absentee and mail-in ballots need to be returned by the same date, so be sure to get them in early if you're voting that way.

In the meanwhile, you can also sign up to phonebank for Bush here.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

DAY OF ACTION: Today – Wednesday, October 16 – marks the one-year anniversary of the introduction of the Ceasefire Now Resolution by Reps. Cori Bush, Delia Ramirez, and Summer Lee. For a year the US has failed to secure a ceasefire in Gaza because it continues to supply Israel with billions of dollars in weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians. Tell your Senators: It is beyond time for the US to use our immense leverage to stop this bloodshed.

In November the Senate will hold the first-ever vote in Congress to block weapons to Israel. Join thousands around the country in demanding your Senators stop these weapons to Israel: jvp.org/stopweapons

[pintadorartist]

Musk and House Republicans are still pushing KOSA

The bill is still being pushed at the end of the year. We need to keep up the pressure to stop KOSA from passing.

This is more pressing with FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson (whose agenda has been revealed to be very transphobic) being selected as Trump's nominee for Chairman of the FTC. If KOSA passes, this will give him and the Trump administration the power to attack online platforms that "harm children," making it harder to share progressive content and organize online.

So this week, keep making calls, emailing, and faxing your Representatives and these House leaders as well.

In addition to your House reps, call the House Leaders, especially the Republican leaders since they’re majority leaders:

Republican:

⭐Steve Scalise

        (202) 225-3015

Fax 202-226-0386

⭐Mike Johnson

        (202) 225-2777

fax: (202) 225-8039

Democrat:

⭐Hakeem Jeffries

            (202) 225-5936

Ayanna Pressley

(202) 225-5111

Ilhan Omar

(202) 225-4755

Jamaal Bowman

(202) 225-2464

Cori Bush 

(202) 225-2406

Call tools:

FFTF:

Fax:

Find your rep:

Here are scripts to use for the calls:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

I am urging you not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills and to keep it from passing. With Trump ascending into office, this bill will give the FTC power to control speech online. FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson just came out with an agenda that will focus on going after online platforms for displaying LGBT content. With KOSA, this would only give them and republican attorney generals even more power to remove any content they deem “harmful”, which we know is an excuse to censor everything they don’t like. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we do not want this. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. 

The rewritten bill is still very dangerous, and giving any more power to Donald Trump to silence people he deems his “enemies” is a horrible move. With people like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk supporting KOSA, this is enough of a sign to not push it forward. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. The updated language threatens encryption. How is this protecting children’s privacy?  KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION: (pretend you’re GOP)

I am urging you VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. Even with the rewritten language, this is still a dangerous bill that will harm children and censor pro-life content on the internet. Even with the new language, this bill still gives state Attorney Generals power to censor any content they don’t like. This bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans, why else do you think Democrats are pushing it so hard? Why else would Biden and Kamala Harris support it?

Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship to everyone. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third-party companies, which would put them in further danger. This also exposes everyone else. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. It censors our freedom of speech. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

——————————————————————————

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-Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fight For The Future (@fightfortheftr)

-Bsky:

-Twitter:

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-Tumblr:

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

Please call and/or email your Congressperson now and ask them to join in the House Resolution to call for a de-escalation and ceasefire in Palestine.

(pdf of the Resolution)

This resolution was written by Rep. Cori Bush (MO-01), and is co-led by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Andre Carson (IN-07) Summer Lee (PA-12), and Delia Remirez (IL-03). (If these people are your Reps, call or email to thank them!!)

This is what I said in my voicemail:

My name is [name]. I live in [city], zip code [xxxxx]. I'm calling to ask the Congressman to join Representatives Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib in their House Resolution calling for a de-escalation and ceasefire in Palestine.

Find contact info for your Congressperson here:

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Or call the Capital Switchboard at 202-224-3121 to be connected to their office.

We must never be silent in the face of genocide, especially one carried out with our tax dollars!

Text of the Resolution:

RESOLUTION

Calling for an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.

Whereas all human life is precious, and the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law;

Whereas, between October 7 and October 16, 2023, armed violence has claimed the lives of over 2,700 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis, including Americans, and wounded thousands more;

Whereas hundreds of thousands of lives are at imminent risk if a cease-fire is not achieved and humanitarian aid is not delivered without delay; and

Whereas the Federal Government holds immense diplomatic power to save Israeli and Palestinian lives: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) urges the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate deescalation and a cease-fire to urgently end the current violence; and

(2) calls upon the Biden administration to promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Corey Walker

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has received an onslaught of criticism from anti-Israel progressives over her decision to vote in favor of a resolution “condemning the rise of global antisemitism.” On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez supported House Resolution 1449, which affirms the State Department-endorsed “global guidelines for countering antisemitism.” The resolution passed the House by a 388-21 margin.  Ocasio-Cortez, who commonly goes by the nickname “AOC,” voted opposite three fellow members of the so-called “Squad” — a cohort of progressive Democrats with left-wing positions on issues ranging from foreign policy to economics. Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — all stalwart anti-Israel voices in Congress — voted against the resolution, along with a handful of Republicans. In the face of progressive backlash, Ocasio-Cortez took to Bluesky, a social media website, to explain her decision to vote in favor of the resolution. She implored her followers to “read the text of this bill” and emphasized that it is not “an IHRA bill.” The left-wing congresswoman clarified that she would “NEVER vote for codifying IHRA.” She added that a “subclause references a separate [State Department] guideline which noncomittally references IHRA” and that it is “nonbinding.” The congresswoman minimized the bill as a right-wing attempt “to get the left infighting.”

AOC doesn't hate Jews enough to please her followers.

[jackmedwn]

The General on X: "BREAKING: Former Rep. Cori Bush’s husband has been indicted for wire fraud, accused of falsifying applications to obtain COVID relief funds. https://t.co/xzXYnlbRbd" / X

Not the squad!

[phoenixyfriend]

Calls for Action, Call Your Reps: 2/21/24

This is USA-specific, as that is the place I live and know.

Find your elected officials.

There are no bills scheduled to be on the floor on the House or Senate this week, though that may change. The chambers are using this time to debate and negotiate changes to the bills that were passed in the other chamber last week.

Suggested verbiage and strategies for calling your elected officials.

Both House and Senate:

Reinstate funding for UNRWA. While the claims made by Israel that employees of the relief agency were involved in Oct. 7th are troubling, THEY are not well supported, and western officials did not do their duty in investigating the claims before cutting funding. This arm of the UN is currently providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to the 2.3 million displaced peoples of Gaza. It is especially disturbing and concerning that the many children of Gaza, who are already suffering due to this conflict, are now having this support revoked. Many sources are also claiming that the evidence is flimsy at best.

UNICEF is reporting that children are dying of hunger in Gaza, as of today (2/21/24).

Urge both Senate and House to refrain from funding Israel, or to at least put some strings on it. The IDF cannot be given funding without some regulations on what they can do with it. They have proven that they are unwilling to take steps to protect civilians.

Sanctions must also be placed on Israel for its continued impediment of aid intended for Gazans, including aid from the US.

Urge for the US to stop vetoing ceasefire demands in the UN. No, the suggested replacement written by the US is not an excuse.

FOR THE SENATE: Urge your senator to put their support behind Bernie Sanders and his motion to restrict funding to Israel until a humanitarian review of the IDF’s actions in Gaza has been completed. Cite it as Senate Resolution 504 if your Senator is right-wing enough to react negatively to the mention of Sanders by name. NOTE: This resolution was TABLED by the Senate on 1/16, but it is being brought back in as conditions continue to escalate.

Passed in the House last week, so bother your senators about it, is H.R. 3016: IGO Anti-Boycott Act. Vote Nay. This appears to be intended to force US companies to do business with US allies instead of participating in boycotts. This appears, to me, to be an attack on movements like BDS. To Dem Reps, argue that this refuses the right of peaceful protest to US citizens. To Republican Reps, argue that this is a dangerous government overreach and that it is not the right of the government to force US citizens to purchase products and materials from specific foreign partners.

Not related to Gaza: It looks like they're gearing up for another push at KOSA. The canned email responses I'm getting are really proud of being FOR KOSA, which is... bad. VOTE NAY.

FOR THE HOUSE: Urge your representative to put their support behind Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s petition for the US government to recognize the IDF’s actions in Gaza as ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and put a stop to it. ALTERNATELY: recommend that they support House Resolution 786, introduced by Rep. Cori Bush, Calling for an immediate deescalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.

If you wish to support my political blogging, I am accepting donations on ko-fi.

[re-dracula]

US friends - now is an important time to apply pressure to our reps in congress and demand an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid entry into Gaza. This website has scripts and templates that make it especially easy. More info under the cut.

Over 2 million Palestinian people trapped in Gaza are living through genocide in real time as Israel bombs, starves, and displaces them. From Gaza to Jenin, we've witnessed Israel's massacres of Palestinians again and again. We've watched U.S. politicians and media ignore, minimize, and sometimes even sanction Israel's killings, while dehumanizing Palestinian people.

Stop the killing! Israel's massacres of Palestinian people are funded into existence by our U.S. tax dollars, with a blank check for $3.8+ billion to the Israeli military every year.

Your solidarity is vital. Call out the U.S. government's complicity. Demand an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid entry into Gaza. Urge your representatives to support the Ceasefire Now resolution led by Reps. Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib.

[readingsquotes]

"Ten years ago this August, a white police officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. What happened on Canfield Drive that day sparked a nationwide movement to save Black lives, end police brutality, and make safety a reality for all people. As a registered nurse, pastor, and local activist, I spent over 400 days protesting alongside thousands of my fellow community members.

I will never forget the brutality we faced in response to our calls for humanity. Police used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, noise munitions, batons, shields, fists, and boots against us. The Missouri National Guard called us “enemy forces.” Our government labeled us “Black identity extremists.” Many politicians condemned us. Those of us on the front lines were traumatized, but we knew that time would prove we were on the right side of history — and it did. Time will prove the same for the students currently protesting across the country.

....

None of what protesters in Ferguson and at Columbia University have experienced is new — it’s happened hundreds of times throughout our history. It happened in Boston in 1770, when protesters supported independence from British rule. It happened in Pennsylvania in 1897, when mine workers demanded labor rights. It happened in Virginia in 1917, when protesters demanded equal rights for women. It happened in Selma in 1965, when protesters demanded civil rights for Black people. It happened in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere in 1968, when protesters demanded an end to the Vietnam War. And it happened in Washington, DC, and in communities all across our country in 2020, when protesters demanded an end to police brutality.

Behind every attempt to silence a protester is an idea that those in power don’t want people to hear, yet protest movements have been remarkably successful throughout our history. The women’s suffrage movement led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment despite opposition from those in power. The same is true of the Civil Rights movement, which culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the youth-led nationwide protests that led to the end of the Vietnam War, and South African apartheid.

...During the Ferguson protests, a group of Palestinians visited us and taught us how to protect ourselves against tear gas. That moment opened my eyes to the connection between state-sanctioned violence at home and abroad.

..It’s time our government responded to popular social movements with an ear, instead of a boot.

[mariacallous]

lmao @ someone on my dashboard upset that Cori Bush lost. Ok even if you want to put her antisemitism aside, which is a big freaking thing to put aside, this is the same weirdo lady who claimed to catch a baby like a football and that she helped heal a random lady's tumors just through the power of prayer.

https://nbcmontana.com/news/nation-world/squad-member-claimed-womans-tumors-disappeared-when-she-touched-them-rep-cori-bush-d-mo-democrat-missouri-congress-politics-pbs-firing-line-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-r-ga

The woman is a weirdo and the left can try putting forth serious candidates for a change if they don't want to be successfully primaried

She's just made so many bad and weird political choices and she almost always doubles-down, like I'm not going to be that sympathetic for her losing her primary.

[girlactionfigure]

The 44 House members who voted to provide cover for Jew haters:

 Reps. Becca Balint (D-VT)

Don Beyer (D-VA)

Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR)

Jamaal Bowman (D-NY)

Cori Bush (D-MO)

Andre Carson (D-IN)

Greg Casar (D-TX)

Judy Chu (D-CA)

Yvette Clarke (D-NY)

Danny Davis (D-IL)

Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)

Debbie Dingell (D-MI)

Veronica Escobar (D-TX)

Valerie Foushee (D-NC)

Maxwell Frost (D-FL)

Chuy Garcia (D-TX)

Robert Garcia (D-CA)

Al Green (D-TX)

Jared Huffman (D-CA)

Jonathan Jackson (D-IL)

Sara Jacobs (D-CA)

Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)

Hank Johnson (D-GA)

Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA)

Barbara Lee (D-CA)

Summer Lee (D-PA)

Jim McGovern (D-MA)

Gwen Moore (D-WI)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

Chellie Pingree (D-ME)

Mark Pocan (D-WI)

Katie Porter (D-CA)

Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)

Delia Ramirez (D-IL)

Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)

Rahsida Tlaib (D-MI)

Jill Tokuda (D-HI)

Lauren Underwood (D-IL)

Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)

Maxine Waters (D-CA) 

Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ)

[pintadorartist]

Final Push for KOSA

Keep up the pressure, the Republicans are pushing for this bill and we need to push back harder.

Fax, call, and email your house rep and tell them not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills:

In addition to your House reps, call the House Leaders, especially the Republican leaders since they're majority leaders:

Republican:

⭐Steve Scalise

        (202) 225-3015

Fax 202-226-0386

⭐Mike Johnson

        (202) 225-2777

fax: (202) 225-8039

Democrat:

⭐Hakeem Jeffries

            (202) 225-5936

Ayanna Pressley

(202) 225-5111

Ilhan Omar

(202) 225-4755

Jamaal Bowman

(202) 225-2464

Cori Bush 

(202) 225-2406

Here are scripts to use for the calls:

DEMOCRATIC VERSION:

I am urging you not to include KOSA in any end of year spending bills and to keep it from passing. With Trump ascending into office, this bill will give the FTC power to control speech online. FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson just came out with an agenda that will focus on going after online platforms for displaying LGBT content. With KOSA, this would only give them and republican attorney generals even more power to remove any content they deem “harmful”, which we know is an excuse to censor everything they don’t like. Suicide rates will skyrocket for marginalized youth with this bill restricting content.

200 human rights and LGBT organizations total came out in an open letter opposing it. The ACLU is against it. Hundreds of thousands of Gen Z are against it. We know the harms of social media, and we do not want this. Major news have reported that this bill actively harms kids. 

The rewritten bill is still very dangerous, and giving any more power to Donald Trump to silence people he deems his “enemies” is a horrible move. With people like Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk supporting KOSA, this is enough of a sign to not push it forward. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third party companies. The updated language threatens encryption. How is this protecting children’s privacy?  KOSA actively harms kids. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

REPUBLICAN VERSION: (pretend you’re GOP)

I am urging you VOTE NO on KOSA, the Kid’s Online Safety Act. Even with the rewritten language, this is still a dangerous bill that will harm children and censor pro-life content on the internet. Even with the new language, this bill still gives state Attorney Generals power to censor any content they don’t like. This bill would be weaponized by unelected bureaucrats to censor Americans, why else do you think Democrats are pushing it so hard? Why else would Biden and Kamala Harris support it?

Many news organizations have reported that this bill actively harms kids by exposing their private data to strangers under the guise of protecting them. We need to hold Big Tech accountable, but KOSA is not the solution.

The bill let any state attorney general and the FTC to sue any website for “harmful” content. Do we really want blue state lawyers deciding what can and can’t be allowed online? Big Tech is already censoring us. That’s why they support KOSA. This is massive government overreach. We need a bill that actually protects children by creating better security measures instead of bringing about more censorship to everyone. 

Multiple experts agree this bill pushes age verification, even with the new language. KOSA hands more private data of children to third-party companies, which would put them in further danger. This also exposes everyone else. How is this protecting children’s privacy? What parent would want their child’s private data in the hands of strangers like this? KOSA is actively putting kids in danger. It censors our freedom of speech. Do NOT support this bill. Thank you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also ask to share this around to get more people involved.

I also ask that if you have a reddit account you share and upvote these Reddit posts:

TUmblr as well:

[mightyflamethrower]

Two strange phenomena now characterize the political landscape.

One, opposition to the Trump administration’s initiatives has reached a near-unprecedented fever pitch.

The frenzy is manifested in strange ways. At the bottom end, there is an epidemic of street terrorism, including the keying of Teslas, bullying their owners, firebombing dealerships, or vandalizing charging stations.

All that is mostly the logical but dirty reification of those in the media and the Democrats who brand Elon Musk as a foreign-born counterfeit citizen and a disloyal un-American foreigner, thus deserving to be “taken down,” in the words of Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Or is he to be ostracized as an “ass-h*le” in the invective of Sen. Mark Kelly and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz? The latter cheered a downturn in Tesla stock prices, contrary to the interests of his own state’s public portfolio.

Sometimes, the impotent Democrat Congress issues kickboxing/ninja videos of its feistier female representatives. At other moments, senators race to the bottom, echoing each other’s pottymouth expressions of “sh*t.”

Rep. Al Green could neither disrupt nor end Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress by shaking his cane and screaming epithets. Nor, as he damned Trump on the floor of the Senate for 25 hours in a filibuster to nowhere, could Sen. Cory Booker offer a single word that might offer his supposedly better way to address crushing debt and deficits.

Two, there is a second common denominator to all this frenzy and fury: there is so far no alternate agenda on trade deficits, budget deficits, and debt.

That is, no one on the left—or, for that matter, the libertarian right or the now inert Republican establishment—can outline an alternate pathway to Trump’s remedies for America’s dire problems. Just as the left used to worship Tesla’s breakthrough EV cars and now tries to destroy them, so too it once lectured the country on the merits of tariff-enforced symmetrical trade—until Donald Trump made that his signature issue.

So in lieu of serious counter-proposals, we get from the left vulgarity, the smash-mouth of Rep. Crockett, and street terror against fellow Americans. All this inanity is the natural bookend to the prior four years of lawfare, the efforts to remove Trump from state ballots, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and two assassination attempts.

Most of the organs of Wall Street, the free-market think tanks, and the few liberation university economics departments likewise issue virulent denunciations of tariffs, of even massive DOGE cuts in the federal workforce and budget, and, strangely, of the deportation of Tren de Arugula, a terrorist-designated violent foreign gang whose members entered and now reside illegally in the United States.

So why does the left not simply claim that its prior support of tariffs was wrongheaded? (See the now-ancient denunciations by Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders of Bush-era “free trade,” deindustrialization, globalization, and lost jobs.) Now, the left supports… what exactly? Mini-tariffs? No tariffs? Reciprocal tariffs?

Absent is concern about the ticking time bomb of $3 billion in interest payments on the debt per day, in addition to the monstrous $37 trillion in debt itself. Did Cory Booker spend a single minute of his 25-hour address to outline ways to reduce our 125% debt to annual GDP?

Per year, the interest cost on the debt is larger than the defense budget; does AOC ever note that? The current Biden vestigial budget is nominally $1.7 trillion in the red. Is there a Democrat agenda to head us toward balanced budgets?

So, what does the left propose as its financial remedies?

Is it to raise taxes on those who should “pay their fair share?” That is, do they want the top rates to rise from 37% to 40%, 45%, 50%, so that their own constituent “affluent” in blue states like high-tax California, Illinois, and New York should properly and deservedly pay the IRS 50% to 60% of their earnings in income tax alone?

Does the tax-and-spend left prefer instead a value-added tax or some sort of federal sales tax? Or do they think current levels of spending are just fine?

Is there really no waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal budget, but instead too few federal workers?

Or are they modern monetary theorists, who believe money is but a construct, one that the government can do with in whatever manner it wishes? Thus, debt is simply remedied by printing more of the construct, or finding ways to expropriate private wealth, or inflating our way out of debt?

But again, please tell us how the left has a superior agenda to Trump’s that will get us more quickly and efficiently to a balanced budget, if not a reduced national debt.

Or is debt itself not supposed to be a problem? Does the left believe interest rates are the real crux? As in the recent past, if interest rates are no more than the rate of inflation, then essentially, the government can borrow all it wants at zero interest—and literally did so at times over the last half century. Is that their remedy?

Can the Republican establishment help out and pause a moment from their napalming of the Trump initiatives? Can it issue briefs that outline how to take us to either a balanced budget and reduced debt or convince us that debt in all manifestations is no big deal?

Then we turn to trade deficit. Again, there is utter silence about solutions from most critics. No counter-proposals, no alternate agenda, just fury and hysteria—or denials that deficits and debt are a problem at all.

So, does the left or right believe that 50 years of continuous trade deficits do not matter? Who cares if we are running a near $1 trillion annual outflow in the gap between what we export and import?

Please make the argument that the real losers are the recent economies of India, China, or Mexico, which supposedly foolishly tax imports and yet demand tariff-free exports, all to run up surpluses. Are they suicidal and we, the masters of trade deficits, the real geniuses?

Does it matter that almost all of the proposed Trump tariffs are in some way responsive? In that sense, they are calibrated on autopilot, leaving the proverbial ball in the court of those with high tariffs and huge surpluses to set new shared reciprocal rates.

So, if it was wrong for Trump to level reciprocal tariffs, was it right for others to initiate asymmetrical tariffs on us?

Is it more logical to damn those who object to $1 trillion in annual trade deficits rather than those whose tariffs resulted in their warped surpluses?

Or is it wiser to blame the victim? The U.S. deserves its trade deficit because it is too affluent, too naïve to object, or too profligate to be saved?

Or is the argument one of the Sermon on the Mount: we must turn the other cheek as we have for a half century? Or, as an affluent sort of good Samaritan, can we afford to stay forbearing and take the hit for the global team?

The final problem with the notion of Trump as the 80-day destroyer of America is not just the poverty of economic counterproposals from the left or right. It is also the complete news blackout of what Trump has already accomplished in 10 weeks.

Does anyone notice that, almost overnight, America’s southern border is now magically secure, with virtually no illegal immigration—and without the much-ballyhooed need for “comprehensive immigration reform?”

How did we go from 10,000 illegal aliens a day to near zero? What was so bad about identifying hundreds of billions of budgetary dollars in fraud and waste in a mere two months?

Why are we now talking about ways to end the Ukraine war rather than boasting “as long as it takes” to feed the new Stalingrad?

Why are the Houthis now being abandoned by the Iranians, who, in a matter of weeks, no longer seem to be the feared bully of the Middle East? Were not their terrorist tentacles just months ago considered unstoppable and sacrosanct?

Was it wrong finally and dramatically to reflect the wishes of 80 percent of the American people, who do not want biological males to overturn a half-century’s worth of hard work to obtain parity for women’s sports?

We, as a nation, need to calm down.

Either acknowledge, however reluctantly, the good that has already been done in the first ten weeks. Or, if one feels the border should be open, or the war should be accelerated in Ukraine, or the campuses were just fine until 2025, or women just need to get over losing to transgendered men, then just say so.

Or if one believes huge trade and budget deficits and unsustainable national debt are no big deal, then argue just that.

Or, if the rub is that Trump is addressing these existential and long-neglected crises in the wrong way, then please present alternate plans for quicker and better resolutions or better messaging.

Should he limit tariffs only to those nations with deficits and asymmetrical tariffs? Should he speak more quietly and mention more frequently that he was moved to act only by a half-century of neglect? Could he emphasize more that the $3-4 trillion in promised foreign investment will ignite job growth within a year?

But if there is no alternate agenda, no constructive criticism, then why would anyone listen to those who either helped to get us into this mess or have no clue about its solutions?

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill on Wednesday that aims to block terrorists who participated in Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023, attack from entering the United States.

The No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act, which Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) introduced last year and which passed the House 422-2—with Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) dissenting—bars migrants who “carried out, participated in, planned, financed, afforded material support to or otherwise facilitated in any way the attacks perpetrated by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, from being admitted to the United States.”

It also prohibits “any such individual from being eligible for any immigration benefits,” the senators stated.

“Since January 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has released nearly 100 dangerous individuals on the terrorist watchlist into the country, as well as illegal immigrants from U.S. adversaries like Iran,” Blackburn stated. “This common-sense, bipartisan bill would ensure that no migrant tied to Hamas and the horrific terrorist attack on Oct. 7 is allowed to enter our country or receive immigration benefits on the taxpayer dime.”

Rosen stated that “no one who participated in Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack should be allowed to enter the United States.”

“That’s why I’m helping introduce bipartisan legislation to prohibit Hamas terrorists from being eligible to receive immigration benefits,” she added. “I’ll always work across the aisle to keep our nation safe.”