Government
A TRIP TO CAPITOL HILL
Last week I traveled to Washington D.C. with my fellow union retirees in AFSCME. We had a wonderful week of camaraderie and learning to craft our own message to take to our representatives regarding the Social Security Fairness Act (S. 597 / H.R. 82).
H.R. 82 would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) that deprive more than 2.5 million public employees of Social Security benefits they have earned.
How the Government Pension Offset (GPO) Works – Social Security pays benefits to the spouse of retired and disabled ...
THE TOTALLY AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY
In 2014, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, with the approval of then Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, orchestrated the violent coup that overthrew the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, because Yanukovych wanted to keep Ukraine neutral, out of NATO, and on friendly terms with Russia.
The following 5-minute video is the intercepted phone call between Nuland and Pyatt as they plan and choose the people to replace Yanukovych after he is overthrown. Nuland...
THE VOICE OF SANITY, OF WISDOM, OF PEACE
Veterans For Peace is a global organization of military veterans and allies dedicated to building a culture of peace. For their recent 2023 annual convention they chose as their keynote speakers Clare Daly and Jeffrey Sachs. Daly, is an Irish citizen and a member of the European Union Parliament. Sachs is a globally respected professor of economics at Columbia University. Both are courageous voices of sanity, of wisdom, of peace.
Please, take the time to watch and listen to the keynote talks of Daly and Sachs. The growing threats of nuclear war and global warming have ...
Nullifying Democracy in Wisconsin
Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In a record turnout, she received 1.2 million votes and won by 11%. But before she could hear a single case, Republicans were threatening to impeach her.
This outrageous call for impeachment is a blatant effort to nullify the election. If Republicans can overturn the election of Justice Protasiewicz, democracy is dead in Wisconsin. Who will be next? What outrageous maneuver to maintain their ill-gotten power and control will be next?
In America when ...
Stop the Impeachment of Justice Janet Protasiewicz Petition
The POWRS Group has a call for others to use this petition as a means to act.
This attack on democracy must be stopped. Citizens of every political persuasion must contact their Assembly representative and demand an end to these politically motivated impeachment threats. Please sign the petition in the link below, "Stop the Impeachment of Justice Janet Protasiewicz"
Our goal is to reach at least 1,000 signatures and we need more support. You can read more and sign the petition here:
https://chng.it/8ZNjCyKhvw
The Wisconsin Assembly Should Be Ashamed
This is a submission from Protect Our Wisconsin Retirement Security (POWRS). We are a volunteer, statewide group of retired teachers and public employees working (since Gov. Walker) to protect the state public retirement system, Social Security, Medicare, and advocate for better retirement options for all Wisconsin workers.
We are not a partisan group and this topic is outside our normal mission, but this attack on the integrity of our elections demands action.
Subject: Impeachment of Justice Janet Protasiewicz
To: The Republican members of ...
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF OFFENSE
With almost unanimous bipartisan support, the U.S. Congress now spends nearly a trillion dollars a year – repeat that – a trillion dollars a year, on the Department of Defense. If one includes the Department of Homeland Security and the care of disabled veterans, it is actually more than a trillion. This represents the lion’s portion of the U.S. discretionary budget.
What this “defense” budget means in real terms is that all of the physical resources, all of the knowledge, all of the science and engineering, all of the development, all of the jobs, that ...
News Items You May Have Missed
Citizens United at 13
This year marks the thirteenth anniversary of Citizens United. This decision by the U.S. Supreme Court ended a century of restrictions on donations to political candidates. It allowed, corporations, other groups, and individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections. The only limitation was they couldn't coordinate directly with a candidate's campaign. The result was an avalanche of $4.5 billion dollars in the decade following the 2010 decision to buy elections. Most of this money was donated by a few super wealthy individuals....
THE COMMUNITY CHURCH OF BOSTON
On June 10, 1963, President John Kennedy gave the commencement speech at the American University in Washington D.C. Titled “A Strategy of Peace,” it is considered one of the greatest speeches in modern history. It was given after Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had, through negotiations, resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis, and not long before Kennedy was assassinated.
The Community Church of Boston, in conjunction with the JFK Peace Speech Committee, has been doing a series of videos centering around Kennedy’s speech and how it applies to international ...
Ignoring the Lessons of Past Mistakes
Wars are a sink hole for tax dollars. This is well known and one would think Congress would take steps to prevent waste, fraud and corruption with spending on Ukraine. But this is not the case. In July, Senate Democrats blocked creating an inspector general to oversee spending for the war in Ukraine.
Congress has so far authorized $113 billion in spending for Ukraine. John Sopko, the former Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, says “If that much money is coming in, you know some of it is going to be stolen...” Even more of it is going to be wasted ...