#ben Cardin

[mysharona1987]

#free palestine #palestine #israel #democrats #republicans #politics #usa #war crimes #liberals #woc #poc #new yorker #ben Cardin #Biden

[vyorei]

#free gaza #free palestine #gaza strip #irish solidarity with palestine #palestine #gaza #news on gaza #al jazeera #boycott israel #israel #chuck schumer #ben cardin #USA

[horn-stumps]

Democratic Senator for Maryland Ben Cardin says Israel's brutal response to the October 7th Hamas attack, which has killed over 10,000 Palestinians, over 60% of which being women and children, is "normal".

His indifference is disgusting and a disgrace to anyone who votes a blue ticket. Maryland users, make sure this man knows his heinous choice to be on the wrong side of history will not be forgotten when he is up for re-election in 2024.

The New Yorker, November 22, 2023

#israel #palestine #maryland #gaza #ben cardin

[gwydionmisha]

#Ben Cardin #Sex in the Capitol #News

[lucascw]

Ben Cardin

#Ben Cardin

[alanshemper]

#ben cardin #democrats #us foreign policy

[twiststreet]

!!!

#isaac chotiner #ben cardin #the democrats

[grudnick]

P1100739a by Skatole Grudnick Via Flickr: A campaign event in Hagerstown. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., left, and Rep. David Trone, D-Md, right, both are good gents. A novelty seeing Dems this far west. Western Maryland & Eastern Shore are GOP strong holds.

#Ben Cardin #United States House of Representatives #United States #Senator #Maryland #Democrat #Election #event #photoop #David Trone #Hagerstown #Washington County #flickr

[india-times]

Lawmakers say new Iran nuclear deal unlikely

 Senators in both parties briefed recently by senior Biden administration officials on negotiations with Iran say they doubt Tehran will agree to any new deal to limit its development of nuclear weapons.  

Lawmakers say the administration has an offer on the table, but that Iran is showing little willingness to reestablish the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which placed significant restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.  

Former President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the 2015 deal, which was one of former President Obama’s biggest foreign policy accomplishments.  

Biden officials said in January that they were on the cusp of restoring the agreement but cautioned at the time that it would be up to Tehran to accept it.  

Four months later, Iran still hasn’t shown any serious interest in accepting the offer from the United States and its European allies, which means one of President Biden’s top foreign policy priorities remains in limbo.   

“I’m not optimistic there will be such a deal. The administration believes that strategically it makes sense to keep the offer on the table, but I don’t see the pathway forward. That’s my own view,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) told The Hill.  

Menendez said accepting a new accord is a divisive proposition within Iran’s political establishment, which is making it difficult to revive the agreement.  

“I think there’s conflict inside Iran, so there’s no clear pathway forward,” he said.  

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “You just don’t know what the Iranians are thinking.” 

“My guess is, at this stage, that it is unclear whether the Iranians want a deal or not. There’s some disagreements within Iran itself,” he said. “The U.S. has put forward a proposal. The ball is really in the Iranians’ court.”

A senior Republican senator on the Foreign Relations panel who attended the administration’s briefing Wednesday on the talks said the prospects of a deal are “not encouraging.” 

And Sen. James Risch (Idaho), the senior Republican on Foreign Relations, said he didn’t know what was happening in the talks when they started but has now been brought up to date. 

“I do know where the negotiations stand and they should’ve been over. They promised us it was going to end in February if there wasn’t a deal,” he said, referring to what some senators thought was an assurance by administration officials not to let the talks drag on without buy-in from Iran.  

Several senators said there are signs that Iran doesn’t want to cooperate with Western allies by allowing oversight of its nuclear program.

Iran earlier this month turned off two surveillance cameras used by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor one of its nuclear facilities. 

The United States, Britain, Germany and France submitted a draft resolution to the U.N. earlier this month criticizing Iran for not explaining why trace amounts of uranium were found at undeclared nuclear sites.  

One senator who requested anonymity to discuss the negotiations said Iran is making “an unreasonable demand” of the administration by asking it to waive the designation of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization as part of any new nuclear deal. 

“The odds of them getting a deal without relinquishing on that is tiny,” the lawmaker said of Iran’s demand.  

The Biden administration has so far refused the request.  

The senator also cited the shutoff of U.N. monitoring cameras as troublesome.  

“The administration has publicly said they’re still willing to negotiate to a JCPOA 2.0, but the actions taken by the Iranian regime make that harder and harder every day,” the lawmaker said. “I do not think a deal is imminent.”  

Some foreign policy experts think Iran is less desperate for sanctions relief than it was during the Obama administration because it’s collecting substantial revenue through oil exports.  

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said last month that his country’s oil exports have doubled since August.  

Iran’s central bank reported in February that it had made $18.6 billion in oil sales during the first half of the Persian year, even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent embargo of Russian oil exports sent prices soaring.  

Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in foreign policy and defense policy, said “the problem is the ball’s in Iran’s court.”  

She said the administration has “given up a ton” in concessions to get Iran to agree to a new plan but so far without success.  

“The Iranians haven’t shown any sign of shifting,” she said. “They’re exporting vast amounts of oil at this moment.” 

“Plus they’re doing illicit business with the Russians, and that’s earning them some money,” she added. “From their perspective, the geopolitical circumstances are going to be advantageous to Iran and to their entire notion of a resistance economy. They’re going to be part of this network with China and Russia that will be able to do business together.”  

The United States last month announced it would place sanctions on an oil smuggling network supported by senior Russian government officials and ones in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.

Read more : https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3528366-lawmakers-say-new-iran-nuclear-deal-unlikely/

#BARACK OBAMA #BEN CARDIN #BOB MENENDEZ #DONALD TRUMP #IRAN #IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL #IRAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM #IRAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS #JCPOA #JOE BIDEN #JOINT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OF ACTION

[kabukiaku]

sooo I got inspired by dyemooch and Derrick's artwork of Babymetal. And I decided to try out Copia and Terzo in Derrick J Wyatt's style! Sorta paying a little homage to him, since his work is a huge inspo to me. Still can't get over how he's come across my work and has even allowed me to color his sketches ;__; 🖤

For those who don't know, Derrick J Wyatt was art director/involved for shows like Ben 10 Omniverse, Transformers Animated, Teen Titans, and Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated to name a few.

#my art #the band ghost #ghost band #cardinal copia #terzo #papa emeritus iii #terzo fanart #derrick j wyatt #ben 10 omniverse #hex ben 10 #ben 10 hex #hex #digital art

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

On Thursday, the Social Security Administration announced its largest cost of living adjustment for beneficiaries in four decades, an inflation-driven raise of 8.7% that will take effect in January 2023. That increase matches the average annual COLA from 1975 through 1982, an era of recessions and high inflation. Annual Social Security raises declined after that year. From 1996 through 2021, they averaged 2.3%, and were zero in some years. The 2021 raise was substantially higher: 5.9%.

The new increase in benefits will be pricey. On the other hand, the cost to taxpayers of the entire Social Security program pales in comparison with the cost of federal subsidies for rich Americans enrolled in private or supplemental retirement plans, such as individual retirement accounts (IRAs). According to Federal Reserve data from 2019, only 31% of households from the poorest half of the wealth spectrum contributed to such a plan, while 91% of households in the top wealth decile did.

This suggests that low-wealth retirees rely heavily or exclusively on Social Security, but all US workers get to collect benefits starting at age 62. As of last month, nearly 66 million Americans, rich and poor alike, were getting monthly checks. Most are retirees, but there are also spouses, disabled workers, survivors of deceased workers, and dependent children. The largest and best-compensated group, the retired workers, averaged $1,674 a month, or about $20,000 per year.

The SSA now pays out about $1.2 trillion a year in benefits all told, but those outlays are largely funded by payroll taxes paid by workers who will later reap the benefits. In 2021, the price tag of the entire program—benefits plus administrative costs—totaled $1.14 trillion, of which $1.09 trillion was covered by payroll taxes, income taxes on benefits, and interest. In other words, the federal Social Security subsidy was only about $50 billion.

Compare that with subsidies for private plans and IRAs, which cost the government nearly eight times as much—about $380 billion a year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. And unlike Social Security subsidies, these subsidies skew heavily toward the highest earners.

There’s a reason I noted the year 1996 above. Before then, as I point out in this earlier exposé about America’s retirement system, private retirement accounts were strictly regulated and not heavily subsidized. Starting that year, federal lawmakers—led by then Reps. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), began introducing bipartisan retirement “reform” packages that pumped more and more federal dollars into bolstering private retirement savings, mainly to the benefit of high-income workers and Wall Street.

University of Virginia law professor Michael Doran, who dug deep into the subject for a January 2022 paper titled, “The Great American Retirement Fraud,” suggested that lawmakers, rather than helping rich Americans shuffle even more of their money into tax-­deferred or tax-exempt retirement funds, could instead pass laws to benefit Americans who actually need help in retirement. That might include simply beefing up Social Security, he wrote.

Instead, yet another bill that benefits wealthy savers sailed through Congress. And Republican Rick Scott released a set of aspirations for his own party—an 11-point “Plan for America,” of which one provision would let all federal laws “sunset” every five years—including laws governing Social Security and Medicare.

#us politics #news #mother jones #social security administration #social security cuts #social security #social security works #individual retirement accounts #federal reserve #cost of living adjustment #Joint Committee on Taxation #Rep. Rob Portman #rep. Ben Cardin #Michael Doran #The Great American Retirement Fraud #sen. rick scott #Plan for America #2022

[zackcollins]

First Baseman Solidarity Cuddles || STL vs PIT || 10/04/22 || For: @pitchburgh​

#pirates lb #the way ben just absolutely turned into a fucking puddle of goo is so cute #im not blaming him tho #i would also turn into a fucking puddle of goo if albert pujols hugged me like that #but ben deserves it #all of the pirates do with the rough season theyve had #anyways #enjoy this yall!! #ben gamel #albert pujols #pittsburgh pirates #st louis cardinals #baseball #mlb #major league baseball #mlb regular season 2022 #not hockey #r.t. makes gifs #r.t. posts gifs #baseball gifs #sports gifs #gifs #r.t. talks #babygirl shark tooth #this boy is r.t.s type #r.t. interacts with friends #raise the jolly roger tag

[parttimesarah]

Double GIFs from some of my favorite sketches in Horrible Histories Season 4

#mind you I have TONS of favorite sketches #such a good season #but I LOVE the bumbling knights #and Jim as an investigative journalist #and Ben as a hot Cardinal #and Jim as a Brando Godfather pope #horrible histories #horrible histories gifs #jim howick #mat baynton #mathew baynton #ben willbond #larry rickard #laurence rickard #the six idiots #six idiots #them there #i made these

[ibikus]

somehow ended up making some skrunkly sketches of the Cardinal

#i haven’t properly drawn in a long time ok #this is not representative of anything #only the result of my immense brainrot #insert ben wyatt meme 'could a depressed person do THIS?' #ghost fanart #copia fanart #cardinal copia #cardinal copia fanart #the band ghost #the band ghost fanart #fanart #copia sketch #digital artwork #my art #my post

[cardinalmecha]

I’m surprised there’s never been a Ben 10/Pokemon Crossover

The Pokedex could be replaced with the Omnidex and you have to scan the aliens instead of using Pokeballs, you could even have Mega Evolution with the Ultimate Alien forms

Big Chill could be Ghost or Ice/Bug

Four Arms obviously Fighting Type

Ghostfreak Ghost/Dark type

Wildvine Grass Type

SpiderMonkey Bug/Normal Type

Goop Psychic/Poison Type

Heatblast Fire Type

Upgrade Steel/Electric Type

and Alien X could be the Legendary lol

#Ben 10 #Pokemon #Cardinal Chirps

[realnielsbohr]

lays on ground i miss blaseball every day of my life

#working boys voice fall cant come soon enough #i get baseball notifs on my phone and every time i see it im like fucke.....just like blaseball.... #btw i am a cardinals fan thats my connection to real baseball #ben talks