More reasons why we the people need to vote Blue this November…
The last week provided another reason why moderates, liberals, progressives and so-called snowflakes need to come out strong and make sure Trump does not win in November and that Congress is controlled by the Democrats by retaining the majority in the Senate and by winning the majority in the House.
The Ten Commandments and Louisiana law…
Louisiana’s GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a bill that requires a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” be displayed prominently in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.
In a statement about the new law Landry said, “If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses.”
Advocates of the law say the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance and that in the language of U.S. law, the Ten Commandments are “foundational documents of our state and national government.”
In what I consider to be a correct and reasonable and very obvious move various people have already come forth questioning the constitutionality of the law and a fair amount of those critics have said they will challenge it in court.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation issued a joint statement that said that the law prevents students from getting an equal education and will keep children who have different beliefs from feeling safe at school… specifically the united groups said, “Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate.”
As a point of information and reference…
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
The Supremes found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.
As simply as I can say it…
So does this bullshit by these lame assed Louisiana Republicans who are trying to force feed their christianity down the throats of the state’s educators and the children they are trying to provide a worthwhile education.
My fear though is that with how the Supreme Court is presently overloaded with conservative minded justices and in particular three who were appointed by Trump that maybe this Court won’t see eye to eye with what the Court decided in 1980 about displaying religious documents such as the Ten Commandments in America’s public school classrooms.
Hopefully we the people vote with common sense and some sort of a semblance of sanity in November and make sure Trump and his cronies do not have a snowballs chance in hell in turning our country into a theocracy.
Do members of Congress need a pay raise?
It’s been 15 years since members of the House and Senate allowed their federally mandated cost-of-living adjustment (often referred to as COLA) to take effect. Since then, their pay has been set at $174,000.
With the way the cost of every damn thing in this country has rocketed skyward given the rapid inflation of the last three years and the soaring cost of living in Washington that $174,000 has lost a significant amount of its buying power
Not that $174,000 is exactly chump change.
In a political odd-couple moment, Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a far-right member who often clashes with Democrats, kicked off the salary debate by declaring the move to block a COLA raise as unconstitutional. Clyde wants the pay raises to happen unless there is an actual bill that is voted on by the full Congress, as was the intent of a 1989 law that set up the process for paying members of Congress and the federal judiciary.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), the third longest-serving member of the House, jumped up to say that it might be the first time he had ever agreed with Clyde on something.
The two lawmakers did not force a vote on the matter, as it was likely to fail, but the murmurs in the room indicated that just about every other Representative were in agreement the basic gist of their points.
Now…
A recent report by Issue One, a nonpartisan group trying to make Congress function better, said that a “living wage” is something that provides “minimum subsistence.” That level in Washington was a little more than $42,000 in 2020 and almost $49,000 last year.
174 grand is way beyond just a minimum subsistence amount of money and is quite a bit more than the overwhelming majority of the we the people make today or could possibly earn in the future. Still… according to Issue One, by the end of 2023, 228 congressional aides made more than $200,000 a year, with another 555 making between $180,000 and $200,000.
Meaning that about 1 in 10 aides now make more money than rank-and-file members of Congress.
But…
These government electees are pulling down a nice six figure salary and they don’t even put in a full year of work and the grunt work for the legislation that gets proposed is done by their aides. And as far as getting any real work accomplished and passing proposals into laws that benefit we the people the… fuhgeddaboudit… not when the Republicans are squabbling like little kids and for the most part stalemating any meaningful laws the Biden administration tries to get made into law.
Actual work done? Lately? Hardly.
And if we are having a real and honest discussion about their job performance… if these worked in the private sector, HR would fire a whole slew of them for not accomplishing anything of any substance and for being total incompetents at their purported jobs.
But…
I’m not totally against providing a pay increase to Congress, but first things must come first…
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009.
Give those people a raise. They work much harder than anybody in Congress and would gladly (and comfortably) live on the $174,000 a year that these lawmakers get now.
Let Congress fix the federal minimum wage, increasing it to reflect inflation since the last time it was raised, and indexing it to inflation, so they don’t let it languish for decades as they have currently done.
Once Congress accomplishes that then maybe the discussion about COLA’s for congressional members, perhaps tied to the annual rate of increase in Social Security payments year over year, can begin.
Another thousand words…
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