#Federal Unemployment Insurance

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #memes #gop #conservatives #republicans #libertarians be like #fuck libertarians #libertarians #lolbertarians #ayn rand #paul ryan #rep. Paul Ryan #taxation isn't theft #taxation is theft and other lies by lolbertarians #welfare programs #unemployment insurance #regulations #federal regulations #deregulate deez nutz #infrastructure reform #social security #medicare

[aroguexenolith]

If your employer fires you without cause you can file for unemployment benefits! Which probably most people know, but what people DON’T know is that former employees claiming unemployment benefits can make the employer have to pay higher taxes. Not like, a ton, but still—you get to hit back just a little bit.

#I’m a payroll person and not an HR person so this is most of what I know about unemployment claims #states do annual reviews of how much unemployment benefits had to be paid out to former employees of a company #and they use that to calculate the rate of unemployment insurance tax the employer has to pay #rates can be really low for responsible employers #but even when they’re super high it’s usually just like 6% of the first 12k of taxable wages #12k being a VERY general number #some states cap taxable wages for SUI at 7k (same as federal unemployment tax) #and OTHERS (looking at you Washington…always making trouble…) #some of them have taxable wage bases of over 60k #which is insane #it’s pretty much all western states with higher wage based #anyways this has been Payroll Tax with your favorite Rogue Xenolith

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Alberta Asks Conference On Unemployment Insurance,” Toronto Globe. March 12, 1930.  Page 5.  ---- (Canadian Press Despatch.) Edmonton, March 11. - The Legislature of Alberta is unanimously in favor of an interprovincial conference to consider the feasibility of a Dominion unemployment insurance scheme. A resolution introduced by Fred White, Leader of the Labor group, last night asked the Dominion Government to call such a conference in the near future. It was unopposed.

#edmonton #legislative assembly of alberta #provincial-federal relations #unemployment relief #unemployment insurance #alberta history #alberta politics #great depression in canada

[izooks]

Some of Joe Biden’s accomplishments:

**Domestic policy**

* **American Rescue Plan (2021)**: Provided $1.9 trillion in COVID-19 relief, including direct payments, enhanced unemployment benefits, and funding for vaccines and testing.

* **Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021)**: Allocated $1.2 trillion for infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, broadband, and clean energy initiatives.

* **Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (2022)**: Expanded background checks for gun purchases and provided funding for mental health services.

* **Child Tax Credit Expansion (2021-2022)**: Temporarily expanded the Child Tax Credit to provide up to $3,600 per child in monthly payments.

* **Affordable Care Act Expansion (2021)**: Made health insurance more affordable for low- and middle-income Americans by reducing premiums and expanding subsidies.

**Foreign Policy**

* **Withdrawal from Afghanistan (2021)**: Ended the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

* **Re-joining the Paris Agreement (2021)**: Re-committed the United States to global efforts to address climate change.

* **Strengthening Alliances with NATO and the EU (2021-present)**: Repaired relationships with key European allies after strained relations during the Trump administration.

* **Supporting Ukraine in the Ukraine-Russia War (2022-present)**: Provided military, humanitarian, and diplomatic support to Ukraine in its defense against Russia's invasion.

* **Nuclear Deal with Iran (2023)**: Revived negotiations with Iran on a comprehensive nuclear deal, aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

**Other Notable Accomplishments**

* **Appointing Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court (2022)**: Made history by being the first Black woman appointed to the nation's highest court.

* **Signing the Respect for Marriage Act (2022)**: Ensured federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages.

* **Establishing the Office of the National Cyber Director (2021)**: Coordinated federal efforts to combat cybersecurity threats.

* **Creating the COVID-19 National Preparedness Plan (2021)**: Developed a comprehensive strategy to respond to future pandemics.

* **Launching the Cancer Moonshot (2022)**: Re-energized the government's efforts to find a cure for cancer.

#gop #democrats #vote blue #republicans #vote biden #democracy #fuck trump #maga 🧠 = 🐶 💩

[beardedmrbean]

About half a million people in Finland will begin receiving smaller subsidies from the Social Insurance Institution (Kela) next week. The changes may reduce an individual jobseeker’s social support by up to 390 euros a month.

The reductions in unemployment benefits and housing allowances are part of the austerity measures implemented by the right-wing government led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo of the pro-business National Coalition Party (NCP).

As of Monday, 1 April, jobless benefit recipients will no longer receive extra benefits based on having children, and will now see a cut in unemployment payments corresponding to any paid work done while on the dole.

According to a Kela statement, “the child increases that Kela pays as a supplement to labour market subsidies, basic unemployment allowances and commuting and relocation allowances will be abolished” as will the 300-euro monthly “exempt amount” associated with unemployment benefits.

The latter refers to an exemption whereby an unemployment insurance recipient has been allowed to earn up to 300 euros per month without a loss of benefits. Earnings exceeding 300 euros have lowered unemployment insurance by 50 cents per euro.

From Monday, each earned euro will lower unemployment payments by 50 cents, up to a maximum reduction of 150 euros per month.

The cuts equally apply to earnings-related unemployment insurance as to labour market supports and basic daily allowances paid by Kela.

Until now, the unemployment insurance child benefit has been 130–240 euros per month, depending on the number of children. The child allowance will be removed completely.

About 100,000 people will be affected by the removal of child allowances. Meanwhile more than 74,000 people who received unemployment benefits also earned income from work last year. Some beneficiaries may be affected by both cuts.

Cuts particularly affect women

The cuts in the earnings-related allowance will hit women in particular, said Aki Villman, executive director of the Federation of Unemployment Funds in Finland (TYJ).

“The changes will have the greatest impact on parents who do part-time or gig work, who are most often women. Women receive child support more often than men, and are more likely to work part-time or intermittently than men,” he told Yle. According to Signe Jauhiainen, a senior researcher at Kela, women who receive unemployment benefits are also more likely to earn some wages at the same than men. Jauhiainen noted that the groups receiving earnings-related and labour market supports are different.

“There are three major groups of labour market support recipients: young people who don’t yet have a working career, people who have recently moved to Finland and those who have been unemployed for a long time. Doing part-time work is clearly less common among recipients of labour market support than among those receiving earnings-related support,” Jauhiainen explained.

Housing allowance will also be cut

Cuts in the general housing allowance will also take effect in April. In total, around half a million recipients of Kela housing and unemployment benefits will receive smaller payments than before.

About two-thirds of Kela's unemployment insurance recipients also receive housing allowances.

Jauhiainen said that income supports will partially compensate for the cuts in unemployment insurance and housing support.

“Around a third of Kela's unemployment insurance recipients already receive income support, so they will receive less unemployment insurance and housing benefit but more income support than before. As a result of the cuts, there may be new recipients of income support, in other words households that have previously managed without support,” Jauhiainen said.

Finland's main labour unions have cited cuts in social security among the reasons for their ongoing political strikes. They are aimed at pressuring the eight-month-old Orpo government into backtracking on its planned reforms in labour and social security policies. They argue that the reforms will broadly hurt women of working age.

#nunyas news #women most affected #owing to choices they've made #oof tho

[racefortheironthrone]

did african americans ever gain the benefits of the new deal or were they deliberately excluded by fdr or his administration?

The short version is "yes, but."

If you read the work of Ira Katznelson, Martha Biondi, Tom Sugrue, and others, the picture of the New Deal as it related to African-Americans is not one of comprehensive exclusion, but rather partial access on a discriminatory basis, depending on where you lived and where you worked.

The Faustian bargain that FDR made with the Dixiecrats was based on an either/or proposition that Dixiecrat legislators would vote for New Deal programs, but on the condition that they would either be jointly operated by state/local and the Federal government, or they would have occupational exclusions (chiefly agricultural and domestic workers). The objective was that either all-white Southern governments would be able to racially discriminate (as long as they could come up with a facially-neutral justification) or that the New Deal's national programs would exclude a supermajority of black people in the South, where sharecropping was the dominant occupation for black men and domestic service was the dominant occupation for black women, respectively. (IIRC, it was about 70% for both men and women.)

However, the intent wasn't to completely cut off black people from the New Deal - Southern governments desperately wanted Federal money to boost incomes and thus consumer spending without undermining their low-wage, low tax, low benefits political economy - but rather to ensure that black people's access to public benefits was under white control. So, for example, Southern governments did not want black workers to get access to Unemployment Insurance or Old Age Insurance, because those were entitlement programs where national eligibility and benefit standards would give people a due process right to social insurance. Instead, they wanted to funnel black workers into Aid to Dependent Children or Old Age Assistance (what we think of as "welfare"), where they could use the threat of arbitrary denial to keep black people compliant and achieve other policy objectives.

In addition to cutting people off benefits as punishment for violating the color line by trying to register to vote or hiring a lawyer or trying to buy land etc., Southern governments would routinely engage in a seasonal practice whereby ADC and OAA recipients would be kicked off the rolls when the cotton-planting and cotton-picking season came around in order to ensure a large and desperate workforce, and then re-added to the rolls to provide them with income during the winter months so that farmers didn't have to pay them a living wage.

You'll note that everything I've talked about above had to do with black people living in the South. The story was very different in the North, where black people could vote and largely worked in manufacturing and other occupations that were not excluded from New Deal programs (although black women did face a double burden, in that many of them still worked in domestic service). As a result, black workers were able to benefit from Unemployment Insurance, Old Age Insurance, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Wagner Act, et al. and dealt with governments that were less interested in systematically discriminating against them. Not uninterested - there's a long history of Welfare Departments using dehumanizing regulations to exert social control on black people - but it tended to be a subtler and more patchwork form of discrimination than under Jim Crow.

The one major exception to this was in the area of housing. One of the peculiar manifestations of American racism is that the South was largely uninterested in residential segregation and focused instead on political, economic, and social control, and that the North was the reverse. Whether it was through the red-lining of the Federal Housing Administration and HOLC or straightforward racial segregation in public housing constructed by the Federal Housing Authority, Northern governments and communities went to great (and oftentimes violent) lengths to ensure that white neighborhoods and black neighborhoods were kept separate.

But here again, the pattern was one of partial access on a discriminatory basis. Black residents of Northern cities could get apartments in public housing, but only in buildings designated as black-only that were located in poor black neighorhoods. Some black residents might be able to get a mortgage from a black-owned bank to buy a house in a segregated neighborhood, but because they were cut off from the FHA and thus from the GI Bill, most black workers couldn't afford the option of overpaying for lower quality houses and the ones who could generally did not generate much long-term equity because their property was considered less valuable.

So there you have it.

#new deal #history #u.s history #policy history #social policy #economic policy #historiography #historical analysis #history of race

[antidrumpfs]

Opinion-Joe Biden: We must keep marching toward Dr. King’s dream

From the Joe Biden Washington Post opinion piece August 27, 2023

Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of thousands of fellow Americans marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. In describing his dream for us all, Dr. King spoke of redeeming the “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir” derived from the very idea of America — we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While we’ve never fully lived up to that promise as a nation, we have never fully walked away from it, either. Each day of the Biden-Harris administration, we continue the march forward.

That includes a fundamental break with trickle-down economics that promised prosperity but failed America, especially Black Americans, over the past several decades. Trickle-down economics holds that taxes should be cut for the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations, that public investments in priorities such as education, infrastructure and health care should be shrunk, and good jobs shipped overseas. It has exacerbated inequality and systemic barriers that make it harder for Black Americans to start a business, own a home, send their children to school and retire with dignity.

Vice President Harris and I came into office determined to change the economic direction of the country and grow the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. Our plan — Bidenomics — is working. Because of the major laws and executive orders I’ve signed — from the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, my executive orders on racial equity and more — we’re advancing equity in everything we do making unprecedented investments in all of America, including for Black Americans.

Black unemployment fell to a historic low this spring and remains near that level.More Black small businesses are starting up than we’ve seen in over 25 years. More Black families have health insurance. We cut Black child poverty in half in my first year in office. We aredelivering clean water and high-speed internet to homes across America. We’re taking on Big Pharma to reduce prescription drug costs, such as making the cost of insulin for seniors $35 a month. We’re taking the most significant action on climate ever, which is reducing pollution and creating jobs for Black Americans in the clean energy future.

This administration will continue to prioritize increasing access to government contracting and lending. We awarded a record $69.9 billion in federal contracts to small, disadvantaged businesses in fiscal 2022. We’re taking on housing discrimination and increasing Black homeownership. To date, we’ve invested more than $7 billion in historically Black colleges and universities to prepare students for high-growth industries. We’ve approved more than $116 billion in student loan debt cancellation for 3.4 million Americans so that borrowers receive the relief they deserve. And a new student debt repayment plan is helping Black students and families cut in half their total lifetime payments per dollar borrowed. We’re doing all of this by making sure the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share, keeping my commitment that Americans earning less than $400,000 a year not pay a single penny more in federal taxes.

And to help guide these policies, I made it a priority to appoint Black leaders to my Cabinet, my staff, in the judiciary and to key positions in agencies such as the Federal Reserve to ensure policymakers represent the experiences of all Americans in the economy.

But we know government can’t do it alone. Private-sector leaders have rightly acted to ensure their companies are more reflective of America, often in response to their employees, their customers and their own consciences. Right now, the same guardians of trickle-down economics who attack our administration’s economic policies are also attacking the private sector and the views of the American people. A recent poll from the nonpartisan Black Economic Alliance Foundation shows overwhelming bipartisan support for promoting diversity as central to a company being more innovative and more profitable, and central to fulfilling the promise of our country for all Americans. Despite the attacks, we all must keep pushing to create a workforce that reflects America.

For generations, Black Americans haven’t always been fully included in our democracy or our economy, but by pure courage and heart, they have never given up pursuing the American Dream. We saw in Jacksonville, Fla., yet another community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus. We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin. On this day of remembrance, let us keep showing that racial equity isn’t just an aspiration. Let us reject the cramped view that America is a zero-sum game that holds that for one to succeed, another must fail. Let us remember America is big enough for everyone to do well and reach their God-given potential.

That’s how we redeem the promissory note of our nation.

#vote democratic #vote blue #votebluetosaveamerica #biden harris 2024

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Biden administration announced a series of measures Thursday to track down and punish fraudsters who scammed billions of taxpayer dollars that were supposed to provide relief to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden is pledging $1.6 billion to bolster law enforcement manpower and new programs that will be used to prosecute scammers, prevent fraud, and provide assistance to victims of identity theft.

“We want to not only capture them and get their funds, we want to send a signal to them that you can run, but you cannot hide,” said Gene Sperling, a Biden senior adviser who is overseeing the implementation of the COVID-relief plan.

THE LATEST

• The administration’s plans call for creating 10 Department of Justice “strike forces” that will include U.S. attorneys and other law enforcement officials to investigate COVID-relief fraud and help recover stolen tax dollars. The teams will target criminal syndicates and other major fraudsters. Three strike forces already are in place and have recovered millions of dollars in stolen relief funds, officials said.

• The administration also will propose increasing the statute of limitations to 10 years for fraud involving the pandemic Unemployment Insurance program, which has been hit especially hard by scammers.

• Some $300 million will be distributed to inspectors general at the Small Business Administration, the Department of Labor and the staff of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a government watchdog over pandemic spending. The money would be used to hire investigators and make sure they have the resources needed to pursue specialized cases of pandemic fraud.

• In his proposed budget to be released next week, Biden will offer a package of legislative reforms to prevent, detect and recover payments made improperly through the Unemployment Insurance program.

• Federal grants would be made to states to help modernize their information technology systems to enable them to respond more quickly to fraud, decrease erroneous payments and provide more efficient claims processing.

• New initiatives also would be put in place to identify victims of identity theft, including an early warning system to stop potentially fraudulent transactions before they occur and a one-stop shop to report identity crimes.

WHY IT MATTERS

The federal government distributed more than $5 trillion in pandemic relief under programs approved by Biden and former President Donald Trump. The money was distributed quickly, leading to an increase in fraud and other improper payments, such as those that shouldn’t have been made or were made in the wrong amount.

The Government Accountability Office reported last month that the extent of fraud in COVID-relief programs is not yet known but that the Unemployment Insurance program alone was believed to have made more than $60 billion in fraudulent payments.

From March 2020 to last January, at least 1,044 people pleaded guilty or were convicted of defrauding COVID relief programs, the GAO report said. Federal charges were pending against another 609 individuals or entities for attempting to defraud COVID-relief programs.

Also, the federal government gave $5.4 billion in COVID aid to small businesses with “questionable” Social Security numbers, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee reported in January. The watchdog identified nearly 70,000 questionable Social Security numbers used to obtain pandemic aid from two programs run by the Small Business Administration.

WHAT'S NEXT?

The Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee has opened an investigation into fraud in COVID-relief programs. The committee held its first hearing on the subject last month.

Sperling, however, said the administration’s anti-fraud package isn’t a direct response to the GOP investigations. Most of the proposals were being prepared before last November’s election, he said.

#us politics #news #usa today #2023 #president joe biden #biden administration #ppp loans #stimulus checks #pandemic response #covid relief #fraud #Gene Sperling #identity theft #Department of Justice #Unemployment Insurance #Small Business Administration #Department of Labor #Pandemic Response Accountability Committee #Government Accountability Office

[algeroth]

Take the housing market. Home sale prices have come off of their 2022 peak, but they're still 47% higher than they were in 2019, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. Even if you manage to find a deal, getting a loan is going to be costly. Thanks to the Federal Reserve's interest-rate hikes, mortgage rates are much higher than they were just a couple of years ago: somewhere around 7%, compared with just about 2.5% in 2021. Not only do these high rates weigh on prospective buyers, but anyone thinking of selling their home — hello, boomers — is likely to be turned off because their current mortgage rate is probably lower than a new one. With both buyers and sellers feeling the squeeze from higher mortgage rates, and with homebuilders unable to keep up, the inventory of available homes has collapsed. And as much as a lot of people would like to see a housing-market bubble burst, that's probably not in the cards.

The car market is in a similar situation. Vehicles are expensive. Loans are getting tougher to come by, and even if you manage to get credit, elevated interest rates are making financing costly. Car insurance is much more than it used to be, too. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' most recent consumer price index indicates the cost of car insurance is up by more than 20% over the past year.

When it comes to work, the vibe is static, too. Yes, the labor market is strong, but it's not a great time to go looking for a new job. Companies aren't laying people off en masse, but they're also not bringing employees on board quickly. Hiring has slowed significantly from where it was in 2021 and 2022. And, it's much lower than one would expect with the current unemployment rate.

"Employers are hiring as if there's a relatively weak labor market, not a strong one," said Matt Darling, a senior employment-policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, a center-right think tank.

The downshift in hiring has also tipped the balance of power back toward employers. While wages are still on the upswing, switching jobs may not come with as much of a pay bump as it did during the Great Resignation of 2021 and 2022. That may be fine for those who are happy in their jobs, which many people are, but it's not so great for those who are feeling a little antsy or underappreciated. And for those Americans who find themselves out of work and looking for a new gig, it's going to take a minute. Darling told me that for the unemployed, it takes about twice as long to get a job as it did before 2008. A job search that used to take 10 weeks at a similar unemployment rate now takes 20.

"That's obviously a huge source of dissatisfaction, because 20 weeks is a long time," Darling said. "What's that, five months to be looking for a job?"

What this all translates to is a scenario where some Americans feel trapped. They can put food on the table and fill up their gas tanks, albeit at a price they'd rather not be paying. But it's hard and expensive to move up the ladder in many meaningful ways. In a consumerist society that encourages people to want more and a culture that prizes itself on economic mobility, this level of stillness is uncomfortable. While it's still possible to get a better job or a new house, those things feel like they're off in some nebulous future, out of your control.

#economy #usa #mortage #labour market #bad vibes

[luckydiorxoxo]

US Rep. George Santos of New York faces charges of wire fraud, money laundering and lying to Congress and has been arrested!

George Santos is in custody in the federal courthouse. He was charged with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

George Santos has been charged in three schemes: First, a fraudulent political contribution solicitation scheme, in which prosecutors say Santos and a political consultant induced donors to give money to an LLC he controlled. He then used the money for personal expenses.

Second, an unemployment insurance fraud scheme: Prosecutors say that in June 2020, in the early COVID months, Santos applied for government assistance in New York, even though he was at the time employed by a Florida-based investment firm and drew an annual salary of $120,000.

Third, the indictment says George Santos misled the House about his finances. In 2020, he's accused of overstating one source of income while failing to disclose investment firm salary. In 2022, Santos is accused of including several falsehoods in his financial disclosure form.

Source @kylegriffin1 on Twitter

#george santos #congress #republicans

[absolute-immunities]

one sign of how much more careful Congress had become is how limited Justice Sutherland made his dissent—joined by Justice Van Devanter—in Steward Machine Co.

Justice Sutherland concedes the core elements of the Social Security Act’s unemployment insurance scheme—he even concedes that the Act isn’t coercive, unlike the Agricultural Adjustment Act he voted to strike down in Butler

Justice Sutherland only really objects to the intergovernmental delegation bit of the Act, along with the bits that make the State’s withdrawal of its deposits, for benefit payment or on the State’s withdrawal from the scheme, subject to the approval of the federal Board or the Secretary of the Treasury, respectively, under ambiguous grants of discretion—a perfectly fair objection!

but, like, if Justices Sutherland and Van Devanter thought Social Security Act unemployment insurance was basically fine ... then it's basically fine

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[The Daily Don] :: If GOP polling means anything, I guess being an inadequate sex pest is a feature not a flaw.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 10, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 11, 2023

This morning, federal prosecutors charged Representative George Santos (R-NY) with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives, and one count of stealing public funds. The charges are tied to his campaign fundraising and unemployment fraud; prosecutors say he received about $25,000 in unemployment insurance benefits during 2020 and 2021, during the worst of the pandemic, when he was, in fact, making about $120,000 a year.

Santos pleaded not guilty and was released on $500,000 bail and immediately began to fundraise off his arrest.

This is another embarrassment for the Republicans. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House, has championed Santos in ads as “the next generation of Republican leadership.” And today, while the House Republicans were in the midst of a press conference about their plan to crack down on unemployment fraud, news broke that one of their own has been charged with it. Ironically, Santos is a co-sponsor of the bill.

With the news about Santos this morning and the news last night of former president Trump’s liability for sexual abuse and defamation, the release this morning of a report from the House Judiciary Committee, led by Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), looked as if it was designed to be a distraction.

The report insisted that “that Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails were real”—by which the Republicans meant to say that the idea there was something incriminating on them was real—rather than possibly Russian disinformation, as a letter from former intelligence officials said when the story first broke. The report promised to prove that “senior intelligence community officials and the Biden campaign worked to mislead American voters.”

But the report was a bizarre effort. Despite the breathless allegations in it, the 65-page document seems to prove that the former intelligence officials who said the news story about the laptop had the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation effort believed what they were saying and went through the proper channels at the Central Intelligence Agency to clear their statement. The person who did appear to be trying to make a political statement was Trump’s loyalist director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe.

Journalist Marcy Wheeler carefully broke the report down piece by piece on Twitter (linked below if anyone’s interested), but she was one of the few media figures even to bother to mention it. Jordan is well known for crafting propaganda for right-wing media; perhaps that was his intention here.

A press conference the House Oversight Committee also held this morning got more attention than Jordan’s report, but it, too, was a fizzle. The committee announced the conference on Monday, May 8, when committee chair Representative James Comer (R-KY) promised supporters to unleash “judgment day” on the Biden White House. Republican members of the committee have made much of what they call “the Biden family’s influence peddling enterprise,” but today’s conference revealed nothing new: Biden’s son and brother and their associates worked with private companies that received about $10 million in investment from China and Romania. There is no evidence that those payments were illegal.

The “Biden family” is the term the right-wing Republicans are using to make it sound as if the president was part of the business dealings of his son Hunter and brother James, but they have turned up no evidence that President Joe Biden was part of their businesses or received any money in relation to them. Further, without evidence that the payments were illegal—and the Republicans have not charged that they were—they are relying on innuendo to smear the president.

The top Democrat on the committee, Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said that “there’s a lot of innuendo and a lot of gossip taking place and much of it is recycled from prior claims.”

When asked about the lack of evidence tying President Biden to corruption, Oversight Committee chair Representative James Comer (R-KY) said, “I don’t think anyone in America…would think that it’s just a coincidence that nine Biden family members have received money…. We believe that the president has been involved in this from the very beginning.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) was clearer. He told Fox News Channel personality Maria Bartiromo, "You have to infer what's happening here...you're not gonna get necessarily hard proof."

The headline on a New York Times story about the report was hardly what Comer had hoped. It read: “House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden.”

Indeed, in the Washington Post, Philip Bump wrote, “The wider House Oversight’s net, the more often it catches Trump.” He noted that the Biden family doesn’t, in fact, have a family business. But, of course, the Trump family does have a business, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) estimates that Trump’s businesses made as much as $160 million when he was president. That doesn’t include the money his children—who, unlike Hunter Biden, were members of the administration—raked in both during his term and afterward, like the $2 billion investment a Saudi fund overseen by Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman made in Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm shortly after he left the White House.

In more substantive news, data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that inflation is continuing to slow down. April marked the tenth month in a row of slower price increases for an annual pace slightly under 5%. Housing prices were the biggest contributor to that inflation.

Biden was in a Republican-held New York state district today, at SUNY Westchester Community College, to warn about the dangers of the Republican threats to crash the economy by refusing to lift the debt ceiling. He had won that district in 2020, and the Republican who took the seat there in 2022, Mike Lawler, won by less than a percentage point. Biden made it a point to distinguish, yet again, between extremist MAGA Republicans and reasonable Republicans, calling Lawler one of the latter.

As Jonathan Lemire, Lauren Egan, and Danielle Muoio Dunn wrote in Politico, it seems Biden is hoping to break the Republican phalanx against raising the debt ceiling by reaching out to Republicans whose reelection is in doubt, although Lawler said Biden told him he was not there to pressure him. The journalists noted that the White House recently called out the toll that McCarthy’s recent bill would take on the 18 congressional districts that Biden won and where Republicans were elected in 2022.

Today, Biden emphasized the enormous costs of the cuts the Republicans insist they require before they will permit a raising of the debt ceiling, including, Biden emphasized, 30,000 federal law enforcement officers: “11,000 FBI agents, 2,000 Border agents, DEA agents, and so on.”

He warned that the Republican plan will also cut veterans’ benefits and noted that the Republicans keep calling him a liar when he identifies cuts they are demanding. While the vagueness in their language enables them to insist they would not cut particular programs, Biden pointed out that the math doesn’t add up without huge cuts. Anything they intend to protect, they would have identified in writing. Until that happens, the necessary math says that we should assume everything is on the table.

If they don’t get those cuts, they say, they will crash the economy, costing 8 million Americans their jobs, according to Moody’s Analytics.

“This is a manufactured crisis,” Biden said. “And there’s no question about America’s ability to pay its bills. America has the strongest economy in the world, and we should be cutting spending and lowering the deficit without a needless crisis, in a responsible way.”

In contrast, former president Trump tonight pushed the country toward default, ignoring that his own massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations sent the deficit skyrocketing and that Congress raised the debt ceiling without conditions three times during his term to cover those shortfalls. “I say to the Republicans out there, Congressmen, Senators: if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default...Democrats will absolutely cave,” he said.

Trump was speaking at what CNN billed as a “Town Hall” in front of a crowd of Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, but the event quickly turned into a Trump rally. Trump played to the audience, which laughed at his attacks on E. Jean Carroll and cheered on the constant stream of lies that are by now a set performance. He steamrolled journalist Kaitlan Collins, who tried but could not counter his stream of lies.  When he finished, the audience gave him a standing ovation.

A CNN media personality told Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona, “It is so bad. I was cautiously optimistic despite the criticism. It is awful. It’s a Trump infomercial. We’re going to get crushed.” A senior Trump advisor told senior NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett Haake that the campaign team “is thrilled with how the night went.” The person called the event a “home run” and said “when the lefts melting down, we know it was a good day.”  

Maybe. But according to legal analyst Andrew Weissman, Trump’s embrace of the January 6 rioters and promise to pardon them if he’s reelected feeds a potential case against him. He made similarly revealing comments about his theft and retention of documents marked classified. It was that very kind of indiscretion that enabled Carroll’s lawyers to beat him in court.

More important, though, while Trump’s base will love his performance, watching his lies and cruelty while his supporters laugh and cheer him on will remind voters of exactly what they worked so hard to reject in 2020. A Biden campaign advisor told NBC News White House correspondent Mike Memoli: “Weeks worth of damning content in one hour….  It was quite efficient." It might turn out that, as journalist Ana Navarro-Cárdenas tweeted, “[Joe Biden] is the winner of tonight’s town-hall.”

As Biden tweeted after the performance: “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that?”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#The Daily Don #Jesse Duquette #Letters From an American #Heather Cox Richardson #Trump cult #CNN #TFG #Debt Ceiling #Santos

[beardedmrbean]

The federal indictment against Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., was unsealed Wednesday ahead of his first court appearance on federal charges. 

A 13-count indictment was made public Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging the congressman with seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

The indictment was returned Tuesday under seal by a federal grand jury sitting in Central Islip, New York. Santos was arrested Wednesday morning and will be arraigned in the afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York. He currently is being held at that federal courthouse. 

"This indictment seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations," U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. "Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself. He used political contributions to line his pockets, unlawfully applied for unemployment benefits that should have gone to New Yorkers who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and lied to the House of Representatives. My Office and our law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively root out corruption and self-dealing from our community’s public institutions and hold public officials accountable to the constituents who elected them."

‘SERIAL LIAR’ GOP REP'S RE-ELECTION BID SETS SOCIAL MEDIA ABLAZE: ‘FUNNIEST PRIMARIES’

Santos, who also goes by Anthony Devolder, unsuccessfully ran in 2020 to represent New York’s Third Congressional District but was victorious his second time around in 2022. He was sworn in on Jan. 7, 2023, a mere days after the New York Times exposed that Santos allegedly fabricated larges swathes of his resume, including that he had worked for two major Wall Street firms, graduated from Baruch College and had descended from a Holocaust survivor. The Times reported Santos was also facing pending fraud charges in his native Brazil. 

In January, the local Nassau County GOP demanded Santos resign, namely taking issue with the freshman congressman lying over his Jewish ancestry, but he refused. And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, hanging onto a narrow Republican majority, said Santos would be removed if a House Ethics probe revealed he violated campaign finance laws. 

"As a retired NYPD Detective, I am confident the justice system will fully reveal Congressman Santos' long history of deceit, and I once again call on this serial fraudster to resign from office," Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, a fellow Republican freshman congressman whose district borders Santos', said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

Asked by Fox News Wednesday about Santos' indictment, Rep. Marcus Molinaro, R-N.Y., remarked in the corridors of Capitol Hill, "I can't wait for him to be gone." 

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., expressed a similar sentiment off camera. 

The DOJ indictment alleges that at the height of the pandemic in 2020, Santos applied for and received unemployment benefits while he was earning an annual salary of $120,000 from a Florida investment firm and running for Congress in New York. He alleged received more than $24,000 in unemployment insurance benefits from the New York State Department of Labor. 

NY REPUBLICAN REP. GEORGE SANTOS TO RECUSE HIMSELF FROM COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS, SOURCES SAY

His alleged behavior continued during his second run for Congress when he is accused of pocketing tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and used that money laundered into his own bank accounts to pay down personal debts and buy designer clothing. Santos is also accused of lying on House financial disclosures about income and dividends earned through Devolder Organization LLC, based out of Florida, and unemployment benefits. 

House GOP leadership used their weekly press conference Wednesday to blast the Biden administration ahead of the expiration of Title 42 later this week but also responded to questions about Santos. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-L.A., noted that Santos no longer is serving on committees, saying that "in America, there is a presumption of innocence, but there are serious charges, and he’s going to have to go through the legal process." 

"But we’re going to continue to work to root out fraud. And there’s lots of it. We’re talking about tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud in many federal programs," Scalise continued. "We pointed this out. I mean they’re not even checking social security numbers. So you’ve got reports of people even in foreign countries getting taxpayer money for things that should only be available to Americans who are coming on hard times. Not to go to drug cartels or to people who want to just bill the system. And so I hope Democrats will support us in rooting out fraud, but they haven’t shown an interest in it so far." 

"As I’ve said from the very beginning on questions on this subject, this legal process is going to play itself out. Unfortunately, this is not the first time a member of Congress from either party has been indicted," Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said. "There are a set of rules. And as the Majority Leader stated, he voluntarily had stepped down from his committees. We are committed to making sure that we root out any fraud when it comes to unemployment pandemic assistance. And we’re working to have support from our conference. And it’s good policy, and we urge the Democrats to vote in support of it." 

Santos' court appearance is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET. 

#nunyas news #dumbass should have stepped down #when he had a chance

[racefortheironthrone]

Newsom's UI Veto Is a Sign of CA's Dysfunction on UI

Introduction:

While I'm not yet up to a full blogpost, I thought I'd chime in on social media to buttress a point that my colleague Erik Loomis made in regards to Gavin Newsom's veto of the Unemployment Insurance strike bill. While Erik is absolutely correct that Newsom's veto is a pretty nakedly anti-union move, (especially in the wake of a major entertainment industry strike in which management attempted to use the threat of eviction and foreclosure to break the union), I think the veto also reflects the dysfunction in the California Unemployment Insurance system.

California's UI System:

Back when I was a freelance policy analyst in grad school, I had the opportunity to write about a wide range of topics in social and economic policy - and it just so happened that one of those topics was unemployment insurance.

One of the problems with the U.S' social insurance system is that, because UI is a joint Federal-state program that's financed by state payroll taxes that are then forgiven against Federal taxation (or in the case of the pandemic or the Great Recession, Federal loans), there is a powerful incentive for states to under-tax and under-finance their UI systems and rely instead on the Federal backstop to keep the system ticking over.

For all of California's progressive reputation, it actually ranks towards the bottom of the national league tables when it comes to underfunding its UI system:

"Unemployment benefits in California are funded by a payroll tax on businesses, but the tax is so low and generates so little revenue that the state had to borrow $20 million from the federal government to provide benefits during the pandemic. In a veto message, Mr. Newsom said that $302 million in interest is due on the federal loan in September alone. “Now is not the time to increase costs or incur this sizable debt,” he said." (source)

To be fair, California is not absolutely terrible - it's not Texas or Mississippi or Alabama - and a lot of its current predicament has to do with how hard California was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, but even in good times, California taxes itself so lightly that it routinely owes the Federal government UI money. This creates another reason/excuse for the state government to not follow the California Labor Federation's lead and transform the UI system into something that can fight not just poverty but all forms of economic exploitation.

State Capacity:

Now, to my mind, this only makes it more imperative for the state to get its act together - and a big part of that is adopting labor's proposal for decoupling strikes and starvation through the UI system. As I see it, that goes hand in hand with raising minimum benefit levels, such that UI plus strike pay should allow people to live with dignity even during a long strike of 5-6 months duration, improved administration so that people don't have to wait three weeks to actually get their hands on their own money, and improved financing so that the system as a whole can actually work as an automatic stabilizer in economic crises.

To me, this is the essence of community unionism: we work to improve the lives of our members, and in so doing improve the lives of the entire community.

#u.s politics #california #california politics #gavin newsom #unemployment insurance #labor unions #trade unions #labor law #wga strike #sag aftra strike #social insurance

[historysisco]

On This Day in New York City History March 4, 1933: Teacher, Women's Rights advocate and New York City and State government servant Frances Perkins is appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to his cabinet as the Secretary of Labor. In achieving this post, Perkins becomes the first women to hold a Presidential Cabinet position and was the first woman to enter the presidential line of succession. Perkins is the longest serving Secretary of Labor, having held the position for 12 years.

Perkins was influential in the development and application of many New Deal policies dealing with social security, unemployment insurance, federal minimum wage, and federal child labor laws. Perkins also served on the United States Civil Service Commission under President Harry Truman. While on the Civil Service Commission, Perkins advocated for women to be hired as secretaries and stenographer based on their qualifications instead of their physical attractiveness which had been the norm.

Prior to her Washington appointment, Perkins worked with then NYS governors Al Smith and FDR in a variety of commissions where she successfully advocated for women's labor rights. Her stance on labor rights for women was highly influenced by the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire that led to death of 123 women and girls and 23 men. Her efforts led to the passing of a 1913 NYS bill that capped the amount of hours women and girls could work in a week at 54-hours.

After her career in government service came to an end in 1952, Perkins would write a memoir of her time in FDR's cabinet entitled "The Roosevelt I Knew." She would also teach at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University until her death in 1965, at age 85.

#FrancesPerkins #FirstFemaleCabinetMember #WomensHistory #WomensStudies #HERStory #WomensRights #CivilRightsHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #NewYorkHistory #NYHistory #NYCHistory #NYCPolitics #NYPolitics #History #Historia #Histoire #Geschichte #HistorySisco

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpXh6A_OhG9/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#Frances Perkins #First Female Cabinet Member #Women's History #Women's Studies #HERstory #Women's Rights #Civil Rights History #Women's History Month #New York History #NY History #NYC history #NYC Politics #NY Politics #History #Historia #Histoire #Geschichte #HistorySisco

[honestlytastygayasstrash]

what crimes did you commit

Abusive sexual contact

Advocating overthrow of government

Aggravated assault/battery

Aggravated identity theft

Aggravated sexual abuse

Aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft

Airplane hijacking

Anti racketeering

Antitrust

Armed robbery

Arson

Assassination

Assault with a deadly weapon

Assaulting or killing federal officer

Assisting or instigating escape

Attempt to commit murder/manslaughter

Bank burglary

Bankruptcy fraud/embezzlement

Bank larceny

Bank robbery

Blackmail

Bombing matters

Bond default

Breaking or entering carrier facilities

Bribery crimes

Certification of checks (fraud)

Child abuse

Child exploitation

Child pornography

Civil action to restrain harassment of a victim or witness

Coercion

Commodities price fixing

Computer crime

Concealing escaped prisoner

Concealing person from arrest

Concealment of assets

Conspiracy (in matters under FBI jurisdiction)

Conspiracy to impede or injure and officer

Contempt of court

Continuing criminal enterprise

Conveying false information

Copyright matters

Counterfeiting

Counterintelligence crimes

Credit/debit card fraud

Crime aboard aircraft

Crimes on government reservations

Crimes on Indian reservations

Criminal contempt of court

Criminal forfeiture

Criminal infringement of a copyright

Cyber crimes

Damage to religious property

Delivery to consignee

Demands against the US

Destruction of aircraft or motor vehicles used in foreign commerce

Destruction of an energy facility

Destruction of property to prevent seizure

Destruction of records in federal investigations and bankruptcy

Destruction of corporate audit records

Destruction of veterans memorials

Detention of armed vessel

Disclosure of confidential information

Domestic security

Domestic terrorism

Domestic violence

Drive by shooting

Drug abuse violations

Drug smuggling

Drug trafficking

DUI/DWI on federal trafficking

Economic espionage

Election law crimes

Embezzlement

Embezzlement against estate

Entering train to commit crime

Enlistment to serve against the US

Environmental scheme crimes

Escaping custody/escaped federal prisoners

Examiner performing other services

Exportation of drugs

Extortion

Failure to appear on felony offence

Failure to pay legal child support obligations

False bail

False pretences

False statements relating to healthcare matters

Falsely claiming citizenship

False declarations before grand jury or court

False entries in records of interstate carriers

False information and hoaxes

False statement to obtain unemployment compensation

Federal aviation act

Federal civil rights violations (hate crimes, police misconduct)

Female genital mutilation

Financial transactions with foreign government

First degree murder (472 victims)

Flight to avoid prosecution or giving testimony

Forced labour

Forcible rape 

Forgery

Fraud activity in connection with electronic mail

Fraud against government

Genocide

Hacking crimes

Harbouring terrorists

Harming animals used in law enforcement

Hate crime acts

Homicide

Hostage taking

Identity theft

Illegal possession of firearms

Immigration offences

Impersonator making arrest or search

Importation of drugs

Influencing juror by writing

Injuring officer

Insider trading crimes

Insurance fraud

Interference with operation of a satellite

International parental kidnapping

International terrorism

Interstate domestic violence

Interstate violation of protection order

Larceny

Lobbying with appropriated moneys

Mailing threatening communications 

Major fraud against the US

Manslaughter

Medical/health care fraud

Missile systems designed to destroy aircraft

Misuse of passport

Misuse of visas, permits, or other documents

Molestation