Republicans Hate America 25: Ben S. Shaprio says 'Work will set you Free'

 I can not stress enough how much Republicans HATE You.  Republicans hate Americans with a visceral passion.  And they get perverse pleasure at getting the people they hate to vote for them.

And no this isn't another leftist screed about how white people vote against their interests.  White people, especially poor and working class (the only workers the Corporate Media acknowledges) get exactly what they want from Republicans in office;  bad faith morality, racism, religious hypocrisy, and non-stop attacks on oppressed and powerless people.

If you think this post title is in bad taste Shapiro
defends rabid racist Jew-hater Elon Musk and 
argues for the extermination of the Palestinian people

However, every so often, a Republican will make it clear they intend to fuck over the working class by stealing social security and white people get indignant and upset... not at the Republicans mind you but, at Democrats, for instance when President Biden points out the Republicans absolutely intend to cut and swindle people out of the Social Security.

Back in 2010, Republican John Boehner, the soon to be Speaker of the House after leftists got mad Barack Obama didn't turn the United States into Plato's Utopian Republic, proposed eliminating Obamacare, raising the Retirement Age to 70 and making drastic cuts to the slender America social safety net.  Americans still voted in the Tea Party Extremists.

So, it's little surprise that Republicans continue their quest to impoverish Americans and ensure no one can every retire.  Here's Harvard educated elitist Ben SShapiro plainly stating American workers should not get to retire EVER but should work up until the day they die.

No one in the United States should be retiring at 65 years old. Frankly, I think retirement itself is a stupid idea unless you have some sort of health problem.  And let's be real about this - it's insane that we haven't raised the retirement age in the United States. It's totally crazy. Everybody that I know who is -- who is elderly, who has retired, is dead within five years. And if you talk to people who are elderly and they lose their purpose in life by losing their job and they stop working, things go to hell in a handbasket real quick.  It's totally insane that you believe that you should be able to work from the time that you are essentially 20 to the time that you are 65 -- which is a 45 year period -- pay in, and then you'll receive Social Security benefits sufficient to support you and your family, you and your wife or whatever, for, like, another 20 years. That's crazy talk. That is not fiscally sustainable.

Ben posits that workers should consider they must work from 20-85.  Life Expectancy for men in America is 73, for women is 79...  the reason Americans die within 5 years of retirement is because they’ve worked themselves into the grave.

 Perhaps Ben is considering how his leisurely life will play out and expects to make it to 85.  Must be because he's not doing anything anyone in the world would consider "work".  Remember Ben counts sitting on his ass talking about Barbie for 2 hours, or complaining about rap music, or demanding Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) send him pictures of her feet as "work".  This pampered dilettante has never done a day's labor in his life, has never had a real job, never served in the military, never helped his community, never put a shovel in the dirt, or hammered a nail into a board.  But, like all rightwingers he feels absolutely qualified to lecture others about things he has no experience and no knowledge about and he always has.

Ben Shapiro is a man of leisure who has taken his Elite Education and coddled upbringing and used it to advance murderous illiberal and authoritarian Republican governments for 20 years.  He argued anyone protesting the Iraq War should be tried for sedition and treason under the Espionage Act.

If you protest this War I have no intention of fighting you should be arrested! 

I'm certain my Reactionary police officer co-workers believe people shouldn't retire at 65 even though some can retire at 50 and even the Tier 2 pensioners can retire at 55.  I Got Mine, Fuck You remains an animating principle of rightwing politics. 

But, Shapiro is far from the first rightwing influencer to argue you don't get to retire peasant, you work until you drop.  Racist Rush Limpballs made this argument years ago,

No, you're not supposed to retire when you're 55. You sound to me like you are totally capable of still working. People are retiring now at 50 and 55 and so forth when they are still capable of working. According to the tables at 55, you've got 22 years left... ~ Racist Limbaugh, [Crooks and Liars]

Infamous Twitter Troll Catturd2, claims he came to his conservatism by listening to Limbaugh daily while working.  Catturd2 has turned in his work pants for rightwing trolling finding it much more lucrative to tweet and be paid by Elon Musk.

Republicans hate You.  They hate an America in which people can possibly find relaxation and enjoyment instead of dropping dead on the job.  Republicans don't believe in the American Dream.  They don't believe in the American people.  Republicans hate America.

President Joe Biden believes in America.  He believes in giving the American people freedom and a chance to live.  This is why Republicans hate Him.  The choice is simple;  Joe Biden and the American Dream or Traitor Trump and jack-booted Fascist Dictatorship.

Lazy Millenials, unreciprocated work ethic, and the right-wing race-to-the-bottom

Listening to Mighty House on WCPT-820 Saturday morning, the discussion turned to how the millenials entering the workforce expect a good job and benefits to be handed to them and are unwilling to pay their dues. Callers and Hosts lamented the lazy, entitled attitude of the younger generation.

This feeling about how the modern American worker is unwilling to do the menial tasks, or expects to much, or doesn't work hard enough is nothing new. Plato expressed dismay at how the young greeks weren't as industrious or studious as the young egyptians.

But, why should any American Worker exhibit unquestioning loyalty to Corporations? Why should a young worker bust his ass, put in his dues with the expectation of reward after achieving a level of seniority? Why would any worker give his time and life over to an American Company? Long ago Employers and Companies broke their end of the deal. Over the last 45 years, "American" Companies have turned their backs on the American Worker and actively sought to undermine the standard of living for every American.

Over at Fortune, Gene Marks tells employers what to do with a long-time, loyal, hard-working, dedicated, 20-year employee; Fire his Ass! Why You're Not a Jerk for Firing a Longtime Employee

So why should millenials or any American Worker break their backs, work overtime, miss holidays, weekends, family get-togethers, when it is incontrovertible that companies will dump that worker, raid their 401k, and off-shore their job as soon as a "Free Trade Deal" allows them too?

This false nostalgia and back-in-my-day bullshit of how American workers used to have can-do spirit and were willing to work-your-way-up-the-ladder should go the way of the private union. When Labor had a more equal footing with business in the mid-20th century, after bloody battles in the 19th and the efforts of America's Greatest President FDR, workers knew their sacrifice and hard work meant they would be rewarded. But, since then the Republican Party allowed itself to become the lapdog guardians of the 1% and began to crush Labor laws and protections.

Before his ousting for being insufficiently orthodox, Republican Eric Cantor was leading the effort by Republicans to ensure Companies could work employees hundreds of overtime hours and then never pay them for that work. Fortunately, that scheme failed and under Obama's NLRB and Department of Labor, other Conservative machinations, like Wage Theft and classifying hourly employees as management, have been severely punished.

This is why Republicans are furious with President Obama. For years the right-wing efforts to get Americans used to less benefits, lower pay, longer hours, and less employment security, while abolishing Unions and worker's rights had been progressing nicely under the direction of the Republican Party. And here comes Obama, ensuring employees get paid for overtime, expanding SSI coverage, increasing wages, and undercutting the right-wing dream of reducing the American worker to mercenary status pitting their time against any other worker in the world in a worldwide race to the bottom.

Who does Sean Hannity think he's hurting when he threatens to quit working?

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. - Adam Smith, Of Taxes, Wealth of Nations (pg. 498)

Please, proceed Sean. By all means, Go Galt. Go... Leave...

Sean Hannity recently conducted an interview with Nice Polite Republican Lincoln Chafee after the Democratic Debate. During the interview, Hannity and Chafee spared over raising taxes. As the back-and-forth continued about taxes Hannity, in a petulant fit, fished around in his pants, took out a wad of cash, and threw it in the air exclaiming, "Hang on. Hang on. I’ll give it to the government, hand it over. Why should I work?"

It's the last rhetorical question by Hannity that caught my attention. Exactly, what "work" does Sean Hannity do that's so indespensible? Does Sean believe that if he was to Shrug and Go Galt his radio show and tv hour would be replaced with naught but static? That no one else can do what he does?

Sean Hannity is One in a Million, by which I mean there are a million other conservatives eager to step into his spot as a loud-mouthed, know-nothing, conservative blowhard.

I don't judge a person's worth by their working utility, that's Hannity's and a Right-Wing metric. But, by his own standard Sean Hannity is worthless.

Ah, but to the Vulture Capitalists who employ him, Sean Hannity is a jewel, a rare treasure. You see Sean Hannity is paid vast sums of money to convince poor conservatives to support policies which demonstrably hurt them and the rest of the 99%. Sean Hannity is the Mouth of Sauron for the Plutocracy. His "work" is to pass on the Idealogy of the Wealthy and get the poor to accept it.

As Paulo Freire noted in Pedagogy of the Oppressed,

The dominant elites, on the other hand, can - and do -think without the people - although they do not permit themselves the luxury of failing to think about the people in order to know them better and thus dominant them more efficiently. Consequently, any apparent dialogue or communication between the elites and the masses is really the depositing of "communiques," whose contents are intended to exercise a domesticating influence. (pg. 112)

When Sean Hannity speaks or when erstwhile Catholic Brian Kilmeade attacks the Pope and says the Pope "should go home" because "he's in the wrong country" and declares "America is Capitalist", or when Stuart Varney with his affected RP accent declares "the Poor lack a richness of spirit" they and every other right-wing loudmouth is passing along the agenda of the Rich.

None, of the Faux News talkers or Conservative Internet bloggers could survive actually working real jobs, it's why they are so rabid in their defense of Capitalism. Without being paid to "catapult the propaganda" the Right-Wing Internet fart bubble would burst and those conservatives paid handsomely to sit on their expansive derrieres and expound on the beauty of Capitalism, would starve because, without food stamps, none of them could earn enough doing actual labor to eat.

Governor Bruce Rauner's continuing Quest to Impoverish Illinois, Crush Unions, Raise Taxes on the Poor, and Lower Taxes on the Rich

Well I've got a little somethin'
Guaranteed to ease your mind
It's called Snake Oil y'all
It's been around for a long, long time - Snake Oil, Copperhead Road Steve Earle (1988)

Illinois Governor Pharaoh Bruce Rauner was handed an Executive set-back last Friday the 13th when his hand-picked Comptroller Leslie Munger, based on advice from Attorney General Lisa Madigan's Office, ruled Pharaoh Rauner's Imperial Order on Union Dues was not legal.

So, Pharaoh Rauner, in his goal to Impoverish Illinois, simply ignored the ruling of Comptroller Munger and ordered State Agencies to withhold "Fair Share" fees from Unions in escrow accounts. The escrow accounts, in and of themselves are also illegal under Illinois Law but, who cares we've got an Plutocrat here who wants to screw workers and Unions over!

Rauner is constrained by the 1947 Taft-Hartley act which allowed for the creation of Right-to-Work For Less Laws but, specifically enumerated only in States or Territories. Bruce Rauner will never get Right-to-Work For Less passed in the Illinois Legislature so he's trying to set up a Supreme Court fight going by allowing local municipalities break their local Unions themselves.

Rauner is a despicable thief and Vandal Capitalist, therefore he will never be dissuaded from his Quest to crush the power of workers and impoverish regular Illinois citizens.

What's clear is Bruce Rauner wants to impose Austerity on Illinois and make Illinois "favorable" for Business. The details of Rauner's New Budget are still shrouded in secrecy but will be revealed in his Budget Speech on 02/18/15. He gave a closed-door preview to House Speaker Mike Madigan today.

Madigan didn't pull any punches on the so-called "tough medicine" Rauner is peddling,

"I said 10 days ago, I don’t think you can cut your way out of the problem. I think you need some additional revenue, and that’ll be my position tomorrow."

Rauner isn't peddling "tough medicine" but the typical Republican Brew; Snake Oil. 

It's indisputable Rauner's New Illinois Budget will include; Higher Taxes on the Poor, Lower Taxes on the Rich, Taxes on Pensions, new taxes on services, food and medications and dramatic reductions to Social Services for those most in need.

So... Get Ready for Republican Governance, Illinois. Get Ready for Economic Zones in which Corporations pay less than 1/100th of 1% in Taxes while your taxes go up.  Get Ready for Austerity. Get Ready for Pharaoh Rauner's Right-Wing Snake Oil.

Governor Bruce Rauner says it's time to Break Illinois

In his State of the State Address, Bruce Rauner laid out his vision for Illinois Workers; Wage Slavery and Corporate Bondage.

"It is make or break time for the Land of Lincoln," Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner.

As always Rauner was short on specifics, he nonetheless let the Public Employee and Private Sector workers in Illinois know that he'll not stand for them making so much money.

Rauner declared his intent to destroy Unions (both Public and Private) and Public Sector Bargaining and he'll do so by whatever means available. Bruce Rauner issued an Executive Order declaring "Fair Share" employees Union dues should be held in a Trust until he can get his "Employee Empowerment Zones" established.

Rauner's Employee Empowerment Zones are the newest attempt to undercut Unions by allowing local muncipalities to create Right-to-Work Zones without the State of Illinois passing the necessary legislation.

Right-to-Work laws are best known as Right-to-Work for Less. Once passed these laws transfer all bargaining power to Business, which immediately enact cuts to pay and benefits.

Rauner claims these Orwellian-titled Empowerment Zones are needed because of the broken economic situation in Illinois. Of course, it was Bruce Rauner and his Hedge Fund Wealth Manager buddies who broke Illinois Public employees pensions.

By Rauner's own estimate 2/3rds of the funds for his Hedge Fund Firm GTCR were supplied by Public Pensions. In Illinois, GTCR "mismanaged" money for the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System (TRS) and the Illinois State Board of Investment, the state's largest and third-largest, respectively. Additionally, GTCR had access to state and municipal pension plans from the San Francisco City and County Employees' Retirement System to the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board.

For this "work" GTCR, takes 20% or more plus consultation and management fees. Rauner got his compensation no matter what the funds he "managed" did.

So, it's not surprising that Illinois and other Public Pensions began to go into insolvency once Rauner and other Vandal Capitalists got their hands on the funds. In fiscal year 2009, TRS lost $4.4 Billion (22% of its' value) in 2008 TRS lost 5% of it's value because of the Management of their Portfolios by Rauner-types.

Rauner made his fortune through "coin-clipping" he and his Vandal Capitalists clipped points off of Worker's Pensions to make their fortunes. Additionally, in keeping with his Transfer of Wealth Upwards, Rauner wants to lower taxes on the Rich and Corporations and expand sales taxes because those taxes hit the Working Class the hardest.

Rauner and his aides know exactly what Employee Empowerment Zones, his Reverse Robin Hood Tax Rates and Theft of Pensions will do to Illinois during interviews with the Chicago Tribune; how to improve the state's business climate as companies move out of state in search of a cheaper workforce.

So yes, Rauner wants to bring jobs here, the kind of jobs where you work 40 hours a week for wages which barely get you over the poverty line, with no prospects of being able to retire and no pension, working until the day you die.

Reclaiming Democratic Values, Championing the Working Class and Making America Great

Most liberals have convinced themselves the disastrous Right-Wing Tea Party policies and outright appeals to hatred and bigtory would send the American Voter fleeing away from the Republicans.

Coupling this with the inevitable march of demographics, Liberals have been blissfully congratulating themselves on their Future Ascendancy and electoral dominance.

But, the belief in Demographic Destiny is a pipe dream. In much the same way Karl Rove spoke of Republican 100-year Reich, the Democratic Party has exuded smug Hubris that all they need do is exist in order to win Elections. As Tim Donovan at Suffolk Resolves wrote, There is no Demographic Destiny.

So, despite Democratic Congressional Candidates winning more votes in 2012, in the aggregate, and the overwhelming support for Center-Left referendums in 2014, Liberals and Democrats are faced with Republican control of the US Senate and Republican dominance of the US House, State Legislatures and Governorships.

But, besides their Hubris and the cashing-in on future voters the Democratic Party's downfall also stems from the free reign the gave to the Republicans to woo the working class white male.

Now, why would the faux populism of the Republican Party appeal to working class white men? There never has been a more implacable foe of the Working Class than the Modern Republican Party.

One of the key beliefs, which I have believed as well, was that Republicans had duped Working Class Whites into voting against their Own Economic Interests. But, is that true? But, is that how the Working Class White Man and Woman sees it? The answer is obviously not.

The perception by the White Working Class is they have been betrayed by the Democratic Party and the new Platform focus on gays, blacks and women.

There is a lot of hindsight going. The PPACA (Obamacare) legislation was beneficial to white people (no caps on lifetime coverage, no pre-existing conditions, for instance) but, because the Conservative Internet Fart Bubble was allowed to frame the rhetoric as Death Panels and welfare for black people, Working Class whites don't see the Democratic Party as their Party or even their ally anymore.

While the Republicans are committed to eliminating the Social Safety net and reducing the vast majority of Americans to Wage Slavery and Corporate Bondage, the white working class sees itself ostracized, shunned and abandoned by the Democratic Party.

It's not true but, as always perception is truth. So, while it's impossible to not see that Republicans are fanatically determined to destroy the Progressive Gains of the 20th century, Working Class people are focused on the now and the immediate future.

Long-term unemployment, millions of foreclosures, crippling personal debts and bankruptcies, the evaporation of savings and retirement accounts, and the crumbling of the country;s infrastructure are taking place as billions in taxpayer subsidies, obscene profits, bonuses and compensation are doled out to the corporate overlords. - Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class, pg.181

Since 2007, after George W(orst President Ever) Bush and the Republican Party crashed the economy the Democratic Party had an opportunity to pivot towards Economic Populism and reclaim the Will of the American People.

But, the Democrats have been caught by the trap laid by the Plutocracy. Unless you are a Senator like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren it's hard to ignore that Money = Campaign = Victory.

Occupy Wall Street offered the Democratic Party another chance to pick up the mantle of Champion of the Working Class. Which is why Plutocracy moved so quickly to undermine and destroy it.

So, the Democrats did not offer any help to people struggling to pay bills, keep their house, take care of aging parents, raise kids, work longer hours and pick up extra jobs. And the White Working Class was forced to choose the least-worst candidate and they are increasingly choosing Republicans.

There is a way to reclaim the white working class and win elections, while also inhabiting the moral high ground and providing the American Voter a government they know is looking out and seeking to protect them.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren are the strong voices promoting Left-Wing Economic Populism. They are devoted to helping the Working Class, safeguarding the Social Safety Net and restoring the American Dream.

Senator Warren has said she is not running for President but, Bernie Sanders has stated if enough Americans, if enough of the 99%, are willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with him he will take on the Koch Brothers and the 1%.

Again there is no Demographic Destiny. If We, the People stand together we can reclaim the Democratic Values which made this Nation Great in the 20th Century.

But, We must act because as Tim Donovan wrote at Suffolk Resolves,

Whichever party first grabs the mantle of economic populism will earn the support of a rising generation fed up with the politics of the moment, a generation wholly unsympathetic to the broken, ineffectual Reagan consensus that’s still so dominant today.

Bruce Rauner's crimes make him a Quintessential Republican, as the Illinois Governor's Race heats up

Republicans Dan Rutherford and Kirk Dillard have alleged that the latest revelations about GTCR Nursing Home negligence make the Billionaire Bruce Rauner unfit to be the Republican Candidate for Governor in Illinois.

Quite the contrary, Bruce Rauner's willingness to kick old people to the curb and swipe their savings are in direct accordance with established Republican Orthodoxy.

Conservatives and Republicans love criminals; especially as their Governors. Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell are just the latest caught abusing their office for personal gain or vendetta.

Now, Bruce Rauner is a special case. Here in Illinois, the Plutocracy sees a chance to install one of their henchmen in the Governor's Mansion in Springfield.

His career reads much like Mitt Romney's in that he used accounting gimmicks and vulture capitalism to make money. Rauner's firm has been managing the largest Illinois Public Pensions since the 1990's consequently we now have unfunded pension crisis as Rauner has been steadily swindling the Pensions.

When the Nursing Home Industry came within sights of Vulture Capitalists in the late 1990's and early 00's, Bruce Rauner's GTCR firm saw another spigot of taxpayer funds they could pilfer. Which, just like with public pensions, is exactly what Bruce Rauner and his Wealth Management Fund did. They stole millions of Medicaid Dollars marked for Nursing Home Care and provided worse services.

From 1999 to 2003, GTCR and THI began acquiring nursing homes with funding from GECC, Ventas and other lenders. THI became one of the nation’s largest health care operators with more than 220 facilities and more than a billion in revenue at that time. 

When Medicare money for residents’ rent flowed into the THI account, GECC and Ventas took their share before monies were available to cover payroll, supplies, utilities, etc. for the hundreds of nursing homes, according to evidence presented at trial. Insider operators and former employees began suing GTCR/THI over poor management, as did nursing home residents and their families because of what was described as abysmal care.

Rauner's firm then engaged in active negligence, in order to run their 200+ facilities into insolvency because who cares what happens to the senile old people families can't afford to look after because they were working two jobs each to try and stay afloat during the Ultra-Reactionary Piss Down Your Back Reaganomics era?

Republicans are not in Government to help people, unless you mean Romney People (i.e. Corporations) they are in Government to ensure that wealth is transferred upwards and regular Americans are shackled into Corporate Bondage.

There's nothing fresh, innovative or helpful for Illinois residents coming from Republicans. Illinois has seen their Republicans on the federal level defend taxpayer welfare going to Oil Companies while they also vote to eliminate the Clean Air and Water Act, so those self-same Companies can then dump petcoke or other toxic byproducts into Lake Michigan or where ever they please.

Now, after these latest despicable revelations about the thieving Bruce Rauner came back to the forefront of the Illinois Governor's Race, Dan Rutherford has suddenly found himself in trouble from allegations made by a former attorney who worked for Bruce Rauner.

Rutherford announced — during a hastily called news conference — that a treasurer's office employee who has made "allegations of misconduct" against him was being represented by an attorney who had been on Rauner's payroll. Rutherford said the attorney demanded $300,000 on the employee's behalf to "walk away and keep it under wraps."

Dan Rutherford has also said the issue involves "allegations of personal misconduct" which was looked into by an internal Illinois Treasury Department investigation. The general counsel for the treasurer's office Neil Olson, said outside counsel and a consultant firm had been retained for an independent probe because the treasurer is the accused.

I haven't and won't speculate about what the allegations against Dan Rutherford are because going through people's underwear drawers looking for smut and sniffing crotches is a Republican tradition.

As for Kirk Dillard, I've had personal contact with the man during a fundraising dinner for a State Representative Sandy Pihos. I suppose I could set the scene but the gist is when a person with juice,a DuPage County Judge, walked nearby Dillard pivoted his big belly away and turned a cold shoulder towards myself and someone else who had been asking him difficult questions regarding the Pension crisis.

No matter what Republican wins the nomination for Governor in Illinois we are going to be faced with the prospect of a rapacious servant of the Rich who will be an implacable foe to the Working Man and will use the Awesome Power of Government to transfer as much wealth as possible into the coffers of the Vulture Capitalist Class.