GOP Reveals Only Person in America It Wants Ever to Retire
March 25: Social Security … Trump’s day in court(s) … Ronna McDaniel … Mifepristone …
I know, all the forces in the universe — the gravity of dark matter, quantum entanglement, all of it — are pulling me to focus on Ronna McDaniel and Donald Trump’s court shit today. And I will!
BUT…
I also feel the silent cries of those among you — and I know you’re there! — who seek salvation from the debased media focus on the trivial and speculative. And so, yes, we’ll do McDaniel and Trump but we will start with news that could actually make actual differences in the lives of millions of people. Because we’re The Fucking News.
GOP Reveals Only Person in America It Wants Ever to Retire
Republicans last week put out a budget plan that includes “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.”
How modest? So modest they didn’t even disclose how much they want to raise it. Which is, like, Victorian-era modest. But others have pitched hiking the retirement age from 67 to 69.
And even that’s not good enough for other party leaders — yes, I’m calling right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro a party leader…
“I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem,” Shapiro says, according to Yahoo Finance, which reports on the financial views of yahoos.
What virtually no one flagged about Shapiro’s remarks is the identity of the economic-policy analyst Shapiro cited as his source for advocating forced labor till death: Jesus! That’s right, you don’t get to retire because The Bible doesn’t say you do. Here’s Shapiro, courtesy of Media Matters:
“...human beings are really not made to, quote, unquote, retire in the way that we think of it: Like, sitting on a pool deck somewhere for 20 years. That's not what human beings are created for. From a Biblical perspective, you might say, ‘Thou shalt work six days a week, and on the seventh, thou shalt rest.’”
Jesus already gave you Sundays, fuckers, what the fuck else do you want? Twenty years sitting on a pool deck? Oh noes!
As Shapiro notes, Pres. Joe Biden, the most powerful champion of Social Security (for now), is a good example of what he’s talking about. “[I]t's insane that we haven't raised the retirement age in the United States. It's totally crazy. Joe Biden — if that were the case, Joe Biden should not be running for president. OK?”
That’s right, the only person in America that Republicans ever want to retire is Joe Biden: The one guy who never wants to.
The new GOP budget plan was put out by the House Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes 170 Republicans, a majority of House Republicans. The hike to the retirement age wouldn’t be phased in right away — because that would trigger a stampede of angry and easily spooked older voters.
The plan calls for reducing benefits for high-income earners, aka the last people standing between you and reduced benefits. Which also means that to qualify for your benefits you’ll now have to endure means testing, yet another byzantine government process designed to preserve the bipartisan premise that there is nothing that everyone can get from the government just by being a living human.
As the almost-excellently named Rep. John Larson (D-CT) said, “Because they know these cuts are unpopular with the American people, the [RSC] does not reveal how many years they would raise the age nor how they would ‘phase out’ other benefits.”
There are essentially two choices here:
Rich people can have less money and the rest of us can retire.
Rich people can have more money and the rest of us can keep working.
When you argue, as the RSC does, that the retirement age should “account for” improved mortality rates, what you’re saying is that all the benefits of improved quality of life — including improved quantity of life — should be reaped not by the humans doing the living, but by the companies and rich people exploiting that life.
To congressional Republicans’ credit — which they can start collecting when they’re 69 (which would be a decent joke if most of them weren’t well past 69) — not all of them are on board with raising the retirement age. Some of them understand that economic populism is the untouched secret weapon in the GOP arsenal, the one that could easily secure a generation of political control.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) responded to the GOP proposal by saying, “Republicans are so stupid.”
And, of course, D4FRFP1 Donald Trump — who’s still remaking the Republican Party in his pancaked image, does have an orange streak of economic populism. He’s opposed entitlement cuts, which is a big, overlooked part of his so-far unassailable popularity in his party.
But most congressional Republicans haven’t come around. Yet.
According to The Hill, the GOP’s Social Security rebels aren’t so much offended by the concept of making most of us work until we die. They just don’t like the politics of saying so now. In The Hill’s words, these Republicans say that “talking about delaying Social Security benefits in an election year is political malpractice and would give Democrats a golden opportunity.”
Which would be a greater likelihood if the Democratic Party writ large were inclined to take its golden opportunities. Imagine what a political winner it would be if Democrats were running not just on protecting Social Security…but on bringing the retirement age back down to 65?
“Vote for me and I’ll give you two years of your life back” even fits on an EV bumper sticker!
And if Democrats don’t figure out the political utility — and quality/quantity-of-life benefits! — in the next few months, there’s a decent chance Trump’s going to outflank them on the left.
Supreme Court to Hear Abortion-Pill Case Tuesday
The nine religious judges who make up the Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow over the legality of some distribution methods for mifepristone, the drug used for more than half the abortions in the United States.
By this summer, just in time for the elections, the court will decide whether the drug can be dispensed by non-doctors or sent through the mail.
The right-wing Christians behind the lawsuit argue that the FDA’s approvals for the drug and its various regulatory revisions over the years are in violation of a law that’s even older than Pres. Joe Biden. The Comstock Act forbids using the mail to distribute “obscene” material.
A common-sense reading of the law would interpret it as banning “obscene” material such as abortifacients, contraceptives, and Trump campaign fliers. But the courts over the years have interpreted Comstock as banning only the mailing of shit that’s already illegal on its own.
None of which matters to at least three or four of the Supreme Court judges, who have a whole crew of clerks standing by to help them cherry-pick precedent and/or make up facts to justify the conclusion they’ve already arrived at.
A Tale of Two Trump Hearings
D4FRFP Donald Trump has two important meetings in New York today, just like if he were a real businessman! Sadly for him, they’re both court hearings, just life if he were a real criminal.
One hearing is about Trump trying to avoid consequences for something he’s already been convicted of, and the other is Trump trying to delay being convicted for something else, which will mean he’ll have to avoid more consequences.
Let’s start with The 464-Million-Dollar Question. At one of his hearings today, Trump will try to argue for a delay or mitigation of his required payment of $464 million for defrauding lenders. New York State Attorney General Letitia James as of today can start seizing properties and assets if Trump can’t pay up or post a bond.
At today’s hearing, Trump will argue that the bond amount is unrealistically and unfairly high. But good news for Trump — he actually can afford to pay the fines, according to, well, himself.
In what appeared to be a fundraising post, Trump claimed, “I CURRENTLY HAVE ALMOST FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS IN CASH, A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF WHICH I INTENDED TO USE IN MY CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT.” That’s a pitch to get suckers to donate more money to make up for his legal woes — but it’s also an admission that he can afford the fines.
Which means at today’s hearing he can’t credibly argue hardship. Of course, “credibly” has never applied as a standard for what Trump can or can’t argue. But it does hand Judge Arthur Engoron prima facie cause to reject that argument.
Then there’s the Stormy Daniels hush-money case. Trump wants to delay the climax in this case (sex joke!) and will argue today that he needs more time to mount a case (at least four hours beforehand — sex joke!) because the Justice Department just dumped more than 100,000 pages of documents on both sides.
The documents are part of the discovery process and Trump today will argue that he needs more time to read the documents and also learn to read.
But, as Joyce Vance notes in her excellent Civil Discourse newsletter, only 270 documents have anything to do with this case. All of which means that this case could go to trial as soon as April 15, depending on the outcomes of today’s hearing.
The Ronna McDaniel Stuff
I want to make just a couple points about this.
NPR TV critic Eric Deggans made the point overnight, but I thought of it before I saw his Tweet, so I’m going ahead with my take on it. Reportedly, NBC’s retention of former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel as a contributor signaled corporate media pre-emptively shielding themselves for the possible election of D4FRFP Donald Trump.
Except, as occurred to both Deggans and me, McDaniel is a Trump enemy. Hiring her would only piss Trump off against NBC, not inoculate them. So maybe the whole thesis that corporate media expects a Trump victory is wrong, too?
But there’s a bigger point, I think, to be made about the McDaniel hiring. Hiring McDaniel wouldn’t make sense if you wanted to do journalism that was fact-based, substantive, and analytical. But if your bread and butter is horse-races and speculation, with zero use for a contributor’s smarts, prophetic accuracy, analytical insight, deep knowledge, or integrity, then McDaniel makes perfect sense.
Which is why other networks — reportedly including ABC and CNN — also talked with McDaniel about coming on board.
The reason so many people didn’t like NBC hiring McDaniel was because it made clear and obvious what she was there to do. Let’s look at what they said.
In the memo announcing McDaniel, NBC News Senior Vice President of Politics Carrie Budoff Brown said McDaniel “will support our leading coverage by providing an insider’s perspective on national politics and on the future of the Republican Party.”
Except, as Politico notes, McDaniel is the ultimate outsider in her own party. Trump tossed her, and the never-Trump wing resents her for kowtowing to Trump. McDaniel literally dropped “Romney” from her name.
But as of yesterday, we can now determine for ourselves whether McDaniel provided the “insider’s perspective” she was hired for. McDaniel appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday and, as Brown wrote, “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.”
Was there any evidence of that on Sunday?
In NBC’s own video of the interview, the headline is that McDaniel said there was “tension” between the RNC and Trump. WHO KNEW?!?
Other bombshell revelations:
McDaniel was pushed out of the RNC to let Trump run it. WHO KNEW?!?
Trump has the legal right to ask donors to pay his legal bills. WHO KNEW?!?
RNC chairs don’t always express their own opinions. WHO KNEW?!?
Then there were the searing insights:
People convicted of Jan. 6 crimes should serve their sentences. YA THINK?!?
McDaniel believes Pres. Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election legally. YA THINK?!?
Talk about moving the needle! Changing the discourse! Disrupting!
At the risk of ruining your breakfast, however, McDaniel did make at least one good point. She argued that if Democrats had had presidential-primary debates, they might not still be worrying about Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Which is true! And y’know who could’ve made that point a lot more effectively? Millions of people on the left.
In fairness, NBC could have — and still can! — get actual news out of McDaniel.
The one team that Trump’s loyalists kept intact at the RNC reportedly was the “election-integrity” [pause for laughter] team. Well, who are they? What was the hiring process like? Who was involved and/or vouched for them? What have they been doing? What ethical guidelines have they been given and/or observed?
Here’s another batch of questions NBC can still ask McDaniel on air:
Who’s funding Republicans?
Who are the dark-money donors?
What are they saying?
What do they want?
What are they willing to do to get it?!?
Here’s some more: Which Republican politicians secretly hate Trump? Which ones are too cowardly to stand up to him? What do they say in private?
Now, McDaniel might understandably decline to answer these questions to avoid betraying confidences. Which is exactly why she’s not of news value.
McDaniel’s value is in perpetuating the journalism that we have — and that some of the people screaming about McDaniel routinely watch and/or create: Pointless speculation about the future and essences and motives rather than substantive examination of policy and political power and the ways that policy and politics create the systems that define our lives.
And regardless of whether McDaniel stays or go, that kind of “journalism” will abide as long as people don’t insist on and support the alternatives. Which you can do right now by supporting The Fucking News!
TCB
Thanks again to Joe Sudbay for having me on SiriusXM on Friday when he sat in on The Dean Obeidallah Show. My son listened live (yay!) but SiriusXM subscribers can check it out on demand.
And tonight I’ll be on The Nicole Sandler Show for our weekly “The Fucking News” segment, which you can catch live here at around 5:30pm or check out after the fact.
Come say hi on Twitter or Facebook or Bluesky or Mastodon. And yes, I’m working on Instagram and Threads. Where do you think TFN should be? Let me know. And…
Go get ‘em, kids…!
D4FRFP = Disgraced, quadicted, fraudster, rapist, former President.