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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Iowa's starvation strategy

I don’t really buy that “the cruelty is the point.” I’m a materialist. Money talks, bullshit walks. When billionaires fund unimaginably cruel policies, I think the cruelty is a tactic, a way to get the turkeys to vote for Christmas. After all, policies that grow the fortune of the 1% at the expense of the rest of us have a natural 99% disapproval rating.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/19/whats-wrong-with-iowa/#replicable-cruelty

So when some monstrous new law or policy comes down the pike, it’s best understood as a way of getting frightened, angry — and often hateful — people to vote for policies that will actively harm them, by claiming that they will harm others — brown and Black people, women, queers, and the “undeserving” poor.

Pro-oligarch policies don’t win democratic support — but policies that inflict harm a ginned-up group of enemies might. Oligarchs need frightened, hateful people to vote for policies that will secure and expand the power of the rich. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the strategy. The point isn’t cruelty, it’s power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/25/roe-v-wade-v-abortion/#no-i-in-uterus

But that doesn’t change the fact that the policies are cruel indeed. Take Iowa, whose billionaire-backed far-right legislature is on a tear, a killing spree that includes active collaboration with rapists, through a law that denies abortion care to survivors of rape and forces them to bear and care for their rapists’ babies:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/politics/iowa-kamala-harris-abortion.html

The forced birth movement is part of the wider far-right tactic of standing up for imaginary children (e.g. “the unborn,” fictional victims of Hollywood pedo cabals), and utterly abandons real children: poor kids who can’t afford school lunches, kids in cages, kids victimized by youth pastors, kids forced into child labor, etc.

So Iowa isn’t just a forced birth state, it’s a state where children are now to be starved, literally. The state legislature has just authorized an $18m project to kick people off of SNAP (aka food stamps). 270,000 people in Iowa rely on SNAP: elderly people, disabled people, and parents who can’t feed their kids.

Writing in the Washington Post, Kyle Swenson profiles some of these Iowans, like an elderly woman who visited Lisa Spitler’s food pantry for help and said that state officials had told her that she was only eligible for $23/month in assistance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/04/16/iowa-snap-restrictions-food-stamps/

That’s because Iowa governor KimReynolds signed a bill cutting the additional SNAP aid — federally funded, and free to the state taxpayers of Iowa — that had been made available during the lockdown. Since then, food pantries have been left to paper over the cracks in the system, as Iowans begin to starve.

Before the pandemic, Spitler’s food pantry saw 30 new families a month. Now it’s 100 — and growing. Many of these families have been kicked off of SNAP because they failed to complete useless and confusing paperwork, or did so but missed the short deadlines now imposed by the state. For example, people with permanent disabilities and elderly people who no longer work must continuously file new paperwork confirming that their income hasn’t changed. Their income never changes.

SNAP recipients often work, borrow from relations, and visit food pantries, and still can’t make ends meet, like Amy Cunningham, a 31 year old mother of four in Charlton. She works at a Subway, has tapped her relatives for all they can afford, and relies on her $594/month in SNAP to keep her kids from going hungry. She missed her notice of an annual review and was kicked off the program. Getting kicked off took an instant. Getting reinstated took a starving eternity.

Iowa has a budget surplus of $1.91B. This doesn’t stop ghouls like Iowa House speaker Pat Grassley (a born-rich nepobaby whose grandpa is Senator Chuck Grassley) from claiming that the cuts were a necessity: “[SNAP is] growing within the budget, and are putting pressure on us being able to fund other priorities.”

Grassley’s caucus passed legislation on Jan 30 to kick people off of SNAP if their combined assets, including their work vehicle, total to more than $15,000. SNAP recipients will be subject to invasive means-testing and verification, which will raise the cost of administering SNAP from $2.2m to $18m. Anyone who gets flagged by the system has 10 days to respond or they’ll be kicked off of SNAP.

The state GOP justifies this by claiming that SNAP has an “error rate” of 11.81%. But that “error rate” includes people who were kicked off SNAP erroneously, a circumstance that is much more common than fraud, which is almost nonexistent in SNAP programs. Iowa’s error rate is in line with the national average.

Iowa’s pro-starvation law was authored by a conservative dark-money “think tank” based in Florida: the Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying arm of Foundation For Government Accountability, run by Tarren Bragdon, a Maine politician with a knack for getting money from the Koch Network and the DeVos family for projects that punish, humiliate and kill marginalized people. The Iowa bill mirrors provisions passed in Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin and elsewhere — and goes beyond them.

The law was wildly unpopular, but it passed anyway. It’s part of the GOP’s push for massive increases in government spending and bureaucracy — but only when those increases go to punishing poor people, policing poor people, jailing poor people, and spying on poor people. It’s truly amazing that the “party of small government” would increase bureaucratic spending to administer SNAP by 800% — and do it with a straight face.

In his essay “The Utopia of Rules,” David Graeber (Rest in Power) described this pathology: just a couple decades ago, the right told us that our biggest threat was Soviet expansion, which would end the “American way of life” and replace it with a dismal world where you spent endless hours filling in pointless forms, endured hunger and substandard housing, and shopped at identical stores that all carried the same goods:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-of-rules-on-technology-stupidity-and-the-secret-joys-of-bureaucracy/

A society that can’t feed, house and educate its residents is a failed state. America’s inability to do politics without giving corporations a fat and undeserved share is immiserating an ever-larger share of its people. Federally, SNAP is under huge stress, thanks to the “public-private partnership” at the root of a badly needed “digital overhaul” of the program.

Writing for The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein describes how the USDA changed SNAP rules to let people pay with SNAP for groceries ordered online, as a way to deal with the growing problem of food deserts in poor and rural communities:

https://prospect.org/health/2023-04-19-retail-surveils-food-stamp-users/

It’s a good idea — in theory. But it was sabotaged from the start: first, the proposed rule was altered to ban paying for delivery costs with SNAP, meaning that anyone who ordered food online would have to use scarce cash reserves to pay delivery fees. Then, the USDA declined to negotiate discounts on behalf of the 40 million SNAP users. Finally, the SNAP ecommerce rules don’t include any privacy protections, which will be a bonanza for shadowy data-brokers, who’ll mine SNAP recipients’ data to create marketing lists for scammers, predatory lenders, and other bottom-feeder:

https://www.democraticmedia.org/sites/default/files/field/public-files/2020/cdd_snap_report_ff.pdf

The GOP’s best weapon in this war is statistical illiteracy. While racist, sexist and queerphobic policies mean that marginalized people are more likely than white people to be poor, America’s large population of white people — including elderly white people who are the immovable core of the GOP base — means that policies that target poor people inevitably inflict vast harms on the GOP’s most devoted followers.

Getting these turkeys to vote for Christmas is a sound investment for the ultra-rich, who claim a larger share of the American pie every year. The rich may or may not be racist, or sexist, or queerphobic — some of them surely are — but the reason they pour money into campaigns to stoke divisions among working people isn’t because they get off on hatred. The hatred is a tactic. The cruelty is a tactic. The strategic goal is wealth and power.

Tomorrow (Apr 21), I’m speaking in Chicago at the Stigler Center’s Antitrust and Competition Conference. This weekend (Apr 22/23), I’m at the LA Times Festival of Books.

[Image ID: The Iowa state-house. On the right side of the steps is an engraved drawing of Oliver Twist, holding out his porridge bowl. On the left side is the cook, denying him an extra portion. Peeking out from behind the dome is a business-man in a suit with a dollar-sign-emblazoned money-bag for a head.]

Image: Iqkotze (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iowa_State_Capitol_April_2010.jpg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

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rejectingrepublicans · 8 months

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One of them died before the pandemic.

#koch network #political cartoon #republican hypocrisy #republican family values #republican assholes

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kp777 · 11 months

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#2024 presidential election #republicans #americans for prosperity #koch network

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ourquietman · 7 months

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New Poem: Ken Burns at Bohemian Grove

well, why shouldn’t I go there

because old (mostly white) boys still run the world

and I make long TV shows

about old (mostly white) boys

with occasional girls in support

and, no, don’t ask me about Jann Wenner

#ken burns #poetry #clarence thomas #koch brothers #koch network #bohemian grove

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gwydionmisha · 10 months

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#Koch Network #Donald Trump #Americans for Prosperity Action #Election 2024 #News

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tomorrowusa · 5 months

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Nikki Haley intentionally contorts her positions in order to keep voters from knowing where she really stands.

Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman in the New York Times had a good column about Haley this week.

So it seems worth looking at what Haley stands for. From a political point of view, one answer might be: nothing. A recent Times profile described her as having “an ability to calibrate her message to the moment.” A less euphemistic way to put this is that she seems willing to say whatever might work to her political advantage. “Flip-flopping” doesn’t really convey the sheer cynicism with which she has shifted her rhetoric and changed her positions on everything from abortion rights to immigration to whether it’s OK to try overturning a national election. And anyone hoping that she would govern as a moderate if she should somehow make it to the White House is surely delusional. Haley has never really shown a willingness to stand up to Republican extremists — and at this point the whole G.O.P. has been taken over by extremists.

We pointed out about 10 days ago that Haley is just as anti-abortion as the other GOP candidates. As president, she would appoint justices to the US Supreme Court just like the Republican justices who struck down Roe v. Wade.

She is consistently with the radical right when it comes to economics and income equality.

Haley has shown some consistency on issues of economic and fiscal policy. And what you should know is that her positions on these issues are pretty far to the right. In particular, she seems exceptionally explicit, even among would-be Republican nominees, in calling for an increase in the age at which Americans become eligible for Social Security — a bad idea that seems to be experiencing a revival.

Do you wish to end up having to support your parents because President Haley got a Republican Congress to raise the retirement age to 70?

Republicans say there's a funding gap when it comes to Social Security. But instead of raising the disproportionately low taxes paid by their billionaire donors, they want to slash benefits.

[T]he system would need additional revenue to continue paying scheduled benefits in full. But the extra revenue required would be smaller than you probably think. The most recent long-term projections from the Congressional Budget Office show Social Security outlays rising to 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2053 from 5.1 percent this year, not exactly an earth-shattering increase. [ ... ] Anyone who says, as Haley does, that the retirement age should rise in line with increasing life expectancy is being oblivious, perhaps willfully, to the grim inequality of modern America. Until Covid struck, average life expectancy at 65, the relevant number, was indeed rising. But these gains were concentrated among Americans with relatively high incomes. Less affluent Americans — those who depend most on Social Security — have seen little rise in life expectancy, and in some cases actual declines.

Not only would Haley not raise taxes on her billionaire buddies, she would cut them even further.

Haley, of course, wants to cut income taxes. My guess is that none of this will be relevant, that Trump will be the nominee. But if he stumbles, I would beg political reporters not to focus on Haley’s personal affect, which can seem moderate, but rather on her policies. On social issues and the fate of democracy, she appears to be a pure weather vane, turning with the political winds. On fiscal and economic policy, she’s a hard-right advocate of tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the working class.

The libertarian extremist Koch network has endorsed Nikki Haley. That's further proof that she's no moderate.

Koch family-backed PAC endorses Nikki Haley for president

Nikki Haley, a onetime member of the Trump administration, is little more than a more socially acceptable version of Trump. That does not make her moderate. She is to the right of George W. Bush who appointed Samuel Alito, the architect of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision which killed Roe v. Wade, to the Supreme Court.

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As Tara Setmayer indicated in that video, just saying that somebody is better than Trump is a very low bar. A snake could walk over that bar.

Don't confuse what Paul Krugman calls Nikki Haley's "personal effect" with her actual far right views. We're voting for a President, not Ms. Personality.

#nikki haley #nikki haley is no moderate #tax breaks for the filthy rich #social security #income inequality #the koch network #libertarian extremists #donald trump #nikki haley helped normalize donald trump #roe v. wade #reproductive freedom #abortion #tara setmayer #paul krugman #katie phang #gop presidential nomination #election 2024

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dontmean2bepoliticalbut · 2 years

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n0thingiscool · 2 years

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Above is a list of corporations who actively donated to overturning Roe v. Wade...

#roe v wade #right wing #evil #america #home depot #kentucky fried chicken #pizza hut #taco bell #1800contacts #mikes hard lemonade #tyson foods #tyson foods inc #cigna #jp morgan #continental tire #dish network #gopuff #walmart #koch brothers

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republicansaredomesticterrorists · 2 months

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Tell everyone about Project 2025. This isn’t getting enough attention. TV News barely mentioned it and too few read the news online or in print. Let everyone know what’s in store for them if Trump and the Republicans return to power. Koch, Walton, and the oligarchs fund the Heritage Foundation and all the right wing legislation we protest. Boycott their businesses.

#heritage foundation #Koch network #Walton family #project 2025 #republican assholes #traitor trump #crooked donald #republican values #republican family values #maga morons #resist

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socialjusticeinamerica · 2 months

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Pay attention, these Koch and Walton funded groups are behind everything we resist.

#Koch network #oligarchs #cato institute #federalist society #illegitimate SCOTUS #Heritage Foundation #ALEC #republican assholes #never trump #traitor trump #crooked donald #Republican fascists #astroturf agents = fake grassroots campaigns

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thebestestwinner · 10 months

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See pinned post for the full bracket!

#best best adapted screenplay tournament #best adapted screenplay #oscars #academy awards #casablanca #philip g. epstein #julius j. epstein #howard koch #joan alison #murray burnett #the social network #aaron sorkin #ben mezrich #poll #bracket tournament #polls #brackets

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porterdavis · 7 months

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His corruption is even worse than suspected.

#hey hey ho ho clarence thomas got to go

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kp777 · 7 months

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By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Sept. 22, 2023

Hours before ProPublica revealed new details about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' relationship with the Koch network, a group of Democratic senators filed a brief on Thursday warning that Koch-backed entities are closely involved in an upcoming case that could further gut the federal government's regulatory power—and enhance the strength of the conservative-dominated high court.

The case in question is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which stems from a New Jersey-based fishing company's challenge to a law requiring certain fishing boats to carry federal compliance monitors to enforce regulations.

Loper Bright Enterprises specifically objected to an interpretation of federal law by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which said the Magnuson-Stevens Act allows the agency to require industry to pay the costs of the monitors.

The dispute over an obscure federal statute has since exploded into a matter of great interest to industry groups and environmentalists, with the latter warning that if the Supreme Court sides with the plaintiffs, it will be much more difficult for federal agencies to implement climate regulations.

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) echoed that concern and spotlighted the attention the case has attracted from right-wing and corporate-funded groups.

"This case is the product of a decades-long effort by pro-corporate interests to eviscerate the federal government's regulatory apparatus, to the detriment of the American people," the lawmakers wrote, noting that a number of groups connected to the Koch network and other powerful right-wing organizations have submitted briefs in support of the plaintiffs in Loper v. Raimondo.

"For example, amici The Buckeye Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Landmark Legal Foundation, Mountain States Legal Foundation, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, New Civil Liberties Alliance, and Pacific Legal Foundation have all received hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of dollars from Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund—two donor-advised funds that allow ultra-wealthy interests to direct funding anonymously."

"The Buckeye Institute, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, New Civil Liberties Alliance, and Pacific Legal Foundation have also received substantial funding from the Koch family foundations—another top-ten funder for the climate change counter-movement," the senators added.

"The court should proceed cautiously before contributing to their sought-for degradation of our American regulatory system."

At the center of Loper v. Raimondo is the so-called Chevron doctrine, a decades-old administrative law principle that says courts should defer to a federal agency's "reasonable" interpretation of a statute when the law's language is ambiguous.

The plaintiffs in the case and their corporate-backed supporters have called on the Supreme Court to either weaken the Chevron doctrine or overrule it entirely.

In its amicus brief in the case, the Cato Institute—which was co-founded by billionaire oil tycoon Charles Koch—declares that the Chevron doctrine is "unconstitutional and ahistorical" and has "wreaked havoc in the lower courts upon people and businesses."

The Democratic senators counter in their brief that the Chevron doctrine has been critical in "allowing Congress to rely on agency capacity and subject-matter expertise to help carry out Congress' broad policy objectives."

"Administrative regulations reined in dangerous industry activities," the senators added, "and our society became safer and more prosperous."

A ruling that effectively casts the principle aside, the lawmakers argued, "would not just conflict with Congress' well-established policymaking desires; it would erode the separation of powers by shifting policymaking power from Congress and the executive to the unaccountable judiciary."

The brief was submitted a day before ProPublicareported that Thomas, one of the justices poised to rule on Loper v. Raimondo, has attended at least two donor events for the Koch network during his time on the Supreme Court.

ProPublica noted that Thomas used to support the Chevron doctrine but has changed his position in recent years amid a growing corporate onslaught against the regulatory principle.

The Democratic senators stressed in their brief that "the assault in this case on the regulatory system is not an isolated effort."

"For years, regulated interests have funded a full-scale campaign to delegitimize and dismantle federal regulations,” the lawmakers wrote. "The court should proceed cautiously before contributing to their sought-for degradation of our American regulatory system."

#u.s. supreme court #Loper v. Raimondo #federal regulatory agencies #koch network #right wing politics #republicans #federal government

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