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Mar 18Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

Recently, Robert suggested that people read Biden's Budget Proposal, and said that the introduction provided an impressive list of accomplishments. I have reviewed the budget introduction and offer this edited summary. I apologize if this is too long has to be broken up into two posts, and if the formatting makes it harder to read. It is a very impressive list. Keep in mind that Biden became President in the midst of a global pandemic and a reeling economy, and has had a starkly divided Congress.

AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN

Vaccinated the Nation

Delivered immediate economic relief to people who badly needed it

Sent funding to States and cities to keep key services going

INFRASTRUCTRE

46,000 new projects announced this far

Roads, bridges, railroads, ports, airports, public transit, water systems,

high-speed internet, and more

Supporting advanced manufacturing, by American workers.

RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Rebuild and boost resilience to extreme weather

Cleaner, more resilient and sustainable power grid

Biggest investment in rural electricity since the New Deal

Revitalizing fence-line communities that have shouldered the burden of harmful

pollution for generations

Lowering energy costs

Strengthening our energy security with clean energy breakthroughs

ADDITIONAL RESULTS:

$650 billion in private investment, building factories and moving production back to America, with American union workers

Manufacturing boom

Semiconductor boom

Electric-vehicle boom

Hundreds of thousands of union jobs

Strongest economy in the world

Creation of a record 15 million jobs

Unemployment under four percent for the longest stretch in over 50 years

Growth is strong

Wages are rising

Inflation is down by two-thirds, affecting key household items like gas and milk.

More Americans have health insurance than ever

[[[ALL THIS WHILE REDUCING THE DEFICIT BY $1 TRILLION]]]

CONSUMER SENTIMENT:

Consumer sentiment has surged more in recent months than any time in 30 years.

Sign of hope: 16 million new business applications

ADDITIONAL FEATURES:

Fiscally responsible investments

Fairer tax system – E.g., new minimum tax of 15 percent on the Nation’s largest corporations

Saved $160 billion by giving Medicare the authority to negotiate prescription drug prices and limit price increases (capped the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month, down from as much as $400)

Boosted funding to the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on wealthy and corporate tax cheats.

CURRENT BUDGE PROPOSAL:

Enable Medicare to negotiate prices of even more drugs and limiting other drug price increases - save another $200 billion

Reduce wasteful subsidies to Big Oil and other special interests

Minimum tax on billionaires (raise $500 billion in revenues)

Budgetary and legislative proposals will cut a total of $4 trillion over the next decade

Additional goals incorporated in the current budget

Further rein in Big Pharma

In 2025, no senior on Medicare will pay more than $2,000 a year in total out-of-pocket prescription drug costs, plus crack down on price gouging by requiring drugmakers that raise prices of certain drugs faster than inflation to pay a rebate back to Medicare.

Continue to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act (21 million enrolled Americans, who save $800 per year on premiums)

Lower costs for working families with proposals for housing, childcare, student loans

Housing

Working to lower costs and boost supply of housing nationwide

Middle-class first-time homebuyers receive a $5,000 annual mortgage relief credit for

two years

Expand rental assistance to hundreds of thousands of additional families, continuing

the largest expansion in 20 years

Ease America’s longstanding shortage of affordable housing, including by cutting red tape, so that more builders can get Federal financing to build more affordable housing. More families own homes today than before the pandemic; rents are easing; and a record 1.7 million housing units are under construction nationwide.

Childcare and education

1) Restores the Child Tax Credit expansion, which cut child poverty nearly in half in 2021

2) Guarantees the vast majority of families high-quality childcare for no more than $10 a day

3) Boosts pay for childcare workers

4) Universal free pre-school for all four million of America’s four-year-olds

5) Helps States expand tutoring, after-school, and summer programs; and boosts recruiting to ease teacher shortages

6) Cancellation of $138 billion in student debt thus far, for 4 million Americans, including more than 750,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters, social workers, and other public servants.

Management of the Southern Border

Emergency request for more funding issued In October [blocked by House Republicans – “We need to pass the Senate’s bipartisan border deal as well, which would make urgent additional investments to secure the border and help to fix our broken immigration system.”]

Current Budget renews that request: 1) 1,300 more Border Patrol agents; 2) 375 immigration judges; 3) 1,600 asylum officers; 4) Cutting-edge technology to help detect fentanyl.

Global leadership - Restoration of America’s leadership on the world stage

Rallying more than 50 nations to support Ukraine in the face of brutal Russian aggression

Strengthening and expanding NATO

Revitalizing our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific—including with Japan, South Korea, and Australia

Issued national security supplemental request for funds for Ukraine and Israel, land humanitarian aid and relief for Palestinians, in October 2023

Budget reiterates that request

Strengthened deterrence capacity in the Indo-Pacific

Maintain the best-trained, best-equipped military globally

Over 30 significant bipartisan bills to support veterans, signed thus far, including the PACT Act, the biggest-ever expansion of benefits for servicemembers exposed to toxic burn pits during their service

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How is this man still a candidate for the highest office in the land? He said, "Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a blood bath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a blood bath for the country.”

And the predictable GOP response..."you're taking it out of context." There is no context to declaring you have no regard for the law.

And add this lovely headline from our "friends" at the New York Times..

"How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation"

The Unites States is upside down and we must right the ship. GET THE VOTE OUT 2024!!

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When does it end? When does his ass get hauled off the stage? When is invoking a "bloodbath" enough evidence to throw him in the clink? How is threatening a society while meeting with a known dictator who later meets with the most arch right-wing policy group in our nation creating an alliance of resources not "seeking to overthrow our government"? It is said that the law intervenes when "your right to swing your arm fails to stops at my face". Has the nation not been slapped, punched, kicked, bully-whipped and had a match taken to the flammable forces of our society? How and when do liberal institutions fail? Follow the money.

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I was at a different postcarding party today (Sunday, 3/17), and I'd like to THANK YOU for calling out the importance of this effort. It's great to see the photo of the San Fernando Valley Indivisible group gathered together. While our group was smaller -- about 15 people altogether -- it's heartening to know that people ARE coming together across the country to reach out to others and remind them to vote. We were writing postcards today to Alabama voters, urging them vote for a pro-choice woman in a special election at the end of this month. We have to keep doing this for the next 7 months or so, but if we don it, we will win!

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The so-called "Christians" who support Trump, i.e., the FundieScum, wouldn't know an actual 'Christian principle" if you grabbed hold of it and slammed them in the ace with it repeatedly. Fundamentalists are not "christians" or "muslims", or "jews" or "hindus." They are all Fundeamentalists because Fundamentalism is its own religion - the opposite of every truth taught by the religions it masquerades as.

And so far as a "second insurrection" is concerned, this time it needs to be met with machine guns and the bodies left on the field as "encouragement to the others." Regardless of the outcome of the ballot count, Trump cannot be allowed into Washington, let alone the White House. If that civil war his more moronic supporters claim to want is to come, let it be for keeping him out. As many have noted, the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and we are not required to hand over the republic to those whose announced intention is to destroy it and say "you won, here it is."

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I agree with everything you’ve said today, Robert, with the exception that we need only convince Independents and non-MAGA-cult Republicans to vote for Biden— I believe we also have a major problem with the youth vote right now. Many of them are upset about Gaza and disillusioned with Biden’s response, leaving them feeling unheard. They do not get news from MSM sources, so they don’t necessarily understand the true threat Trump poses to them personally. They feel they’ve been told every election (which is, like, one or two they’ve actually participated in), that “this is a 5-alarm fire!”, so they don’t believe the threat is real.

Long winded way of saying, we MUST get the message— Biden’s, Snyder’s, yours, — to young voters!!

PS they all seem to trust & like Pete Buttigieg & AOC. They should be front & center in messaging!

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Until I read Today’s Edition I never read a single word about the speech Biden made to the Gridiron Club but the media was a flamed by the comments Trump made about “ a bloodbath”. It’s ironic that the media who attended the Gridiron Club event seemly ignored the message Biden delivered about their role and responsibility this election year. The reality we all must face is the courts , the outrageous and egregious comments made by Trump and the media are not going to defeat Trump and only we working hard in grassroots organizations recruiting our neighbors can defeat Trump. I am send excerpts from Biden’s speech to my local newspapers not to be published but to remind them of their responsibility and part in this election year.

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Thank you for another excellent piece, Robert. I was proud of the Biden campaign immediately denouncing Trump’s “speech” on Saturday. I posted their well-worded response in several liberal Facebook groups I participate in. The disturbing thing was how many of “our people” bought the out-of-context narrative hook, line, and sinker. One even went so far as to say he was ashamed of the Biden response and that the campaign needed to stop responding to Trump’s word salad as if had sinister meaning. Now, these were not trolls. These responses were in relatively small private groups; I know most of them personally, yet here they were buying the GOP line of “take him seriously but not literally.” I rarely confront allies of democracy for wrongheadedness, but I did yesterday repeatedly. There is room for all sorts of opinions in this coalition, but buying the bullshit is not among them. If you see this from people you know, call it out. It’s hard enough of a fight without our own people amplifying Trumpist lies.

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The grassroots groups are strong! If you’d like to join our group, Markers For Democracy, here’s info about our weekly Zooms, postcarding, etc. We meet multiple times a week to chat and to hear candidates and other speakers while we write postcards together. Feel free to join if you are not yet writing postcards or doing other forms of activism. We’ll help you get started! And if you just come listen and learn more about what is going on and about the wonderful Democratic candidates running throughout the country, that’s great too.

https://linktr.ee/markersfordemocracy?fbclid=PAAaZ1qM7KDe9tyT1nUxp0vn-DU-YWEEl7F3FpxZOotxdIFbpm4fgdVaElKek_aem_AQp-i_WEv8iZ0VzViarAKWr24GrUy6YroPHE7AxEFe6nLrvraVUbKITrg0YrZZzLi6s

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Wow, thank you, Robert, for this mostly good news!

A reader over at Heather's Letters from an American, Jason Anthony, posted his own substack where he explained how Project 2025, if enacted through Trump's election, would affect the U.S. efforts toward climate change. I found it very informative. Perhaps others here will, too.

https://jasonanthony.substack.com/p/over-the-cliff

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Mar 18Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

Maybe it's time to recognize the contributions of seniors. I say that because in every one of Robert's photos, there we are! Seniors know where we were and how much we stand to lose. While acknowledging the warts, imperfections and injustices, Americans of a certain age (on the whole) understand, I think, that what we had the good fortune to be born into must be protected and defended - especially from corruption within. Though seniors are often undervalued, we have the power, if we use it, to pull this country back from the brink.

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Thank-you,Robert, for another excellent and informative piece today.The progressive group that I belong to is having it’s fundraising event”Rocking The Vote” this coming weekend where 5 local bands who have donated their time will each perform a set.We have people who will register new voters,raffles , food and drink and a table shuffleboard tournament.We had this event last year and it was quite a success.It gives me hope that is is being done in a very red area in red Ohio.

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Robert, thank you for pointing out Timothy Snyder's 'The Strongman Fantasy' essay - a very ground level mapping out of the results of a dictatorship. As I went over it, found myself repeatedly thinking "Yes! This is what trump supporters (and 3rd party/stay at home voters) don't 'get' what will happen if he wins". But they won't and wouldn't probably believe it if it was read to them. Nonetheless, everyone supporting democracy should read/reference it.

One advantage Boomers have in this timeline is our parents and communities remembrance of the fallout and destruction from WW2 dictatorships. I believe our current situation is easily as perilous.

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Everyone should read Heather Cox Richardson today on Victor Orban’s underreported meeting with the Heritage Foundation this weekend. Orban did not meet with anyone from the Biden administration - only with those who seek the end of democracy! My question is what action should Biden take against this head of state who openly seeks the end of American democracy?

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Since I completely agree with Robert's sentiments, and HCR's writings, and Timothy Snyder's excellent and scary memo, what I don't comprehend is: how can people with college degrees (or not) and military service backgrounds (or not) think the USA will be a better place to live and bring up their children if Trump and his consilgieres at the Heritage Foundation prevail in November? Don't they get it? It'll be Germany in the 1930s all over again. It'll only further shift the nations' wealth to the top 1%. A Free Press will become a memory. Women will lose what autonomy they currently have. The stock market will crash and inflation will run rampant.

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When I was at Paris Island in 2002 to watch my son's graduation from boot camp, I picked up a bumper sticker that hangs in my home office. It says: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. We, the grassroots activists, have taken that to heart; and there are more of us every day. As long as we stick to the task, and refuse to be side-tracked or discouraged by the evil that emanates from the MAGA camp, good will prevail. The less time we spend agonizing over the lies, treachery and slander, the more time we will have to work for the values and principles that uphold democracy, and the sooner we will prevail in this significant battle for the soul of America.

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