Reagan’s ‘Trickle Down’ Tax-Cuts-for-the-Wealthy Policy Is Still Ruining the Economy – in 5 Charts

It wasn’t a “trickle,” it was a gusher, and the money went up to the wealthy, not down to the middle and working classes.

George H.W. Bush called it “Voodoo Economics” when he was running against Reagan in 1980 – before he drank the Kool-Aid and became Reagan’s vice president. Well, they’re still doing that voodoo they do. Trump, McConnell and company passed yet another tax cut for their wealthy donors and corporate sponsors in 2017. And they’ll do it again if the control the White and the Congress after 2024. Count on it.

Reagan's "trickle down" economics policy is still ruining the economy

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It’s the Economy’s Great, Stupid!


An estimated 166,000 Americans filed initial unemployment claims last week, down nearly 5,000 claims from the previous week and better than analyst projections of 200,000. It is the lowest figure since November 1968 (and the second-lowest since weekly reporting began in January 1967). Continuing claims rose slightly by 17,000 to 1.52 million, coming two years after the number of claims reached an all-time high of 6.1 million in April 2020.

The decline shows employers are limiting layoffs in a tight labor market. Roughly 1.8 job openings are available for every unemployed worker; the unemployment rate stood at 3.6% in March, just above the prepandemic level of 3.5%. Nearly 4.4 million workers left their jobs in February, a number that has held steady as employers try to fill job openings.

The figure represents the third consecutive week that new claims fell below 200,000.

Republicans Are Just Projecting Their Party’s Proven Pedophilia Onto Opponents

The Daily Beast has an interesting article on the recent trend of Republicans calling anyone who disagrees with them a “pedo” or “groomer,” implying that if you disagree on policy it’s because you’re a pervert. Well, it takes on to know one, as they say, and according to the Beast, there’s lots of pedos and groomers in the GOP closet.

The list is not long, but it’s undeniable: Dennis Hastert, Mark Foley, Judge Roy Moore and Rep. Jim Jordan’s failure to report abuse when he was a wrestling coach at Ohio State University.

Maybe Republicans know something we don’t, have something up their sleeve we can’t see, or have nothing else to say. It was clear that the party had dispensed with any coherent ideology on which to run when they declined to even put forward a platform in 2016.

Meanwhile Rep. Marjoie Taylor Greene—notorious before she even took office for her QAnon sympathies—is screaming that anyone who votes for the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is “pro-pedophile,” including three Republicans.

Republicans are projecting so loudly, no one can hear anything else they’re saying. They’re widely expected to win big in the midterm elections, but if they stick with this crackpot strategy, they’re going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Have at it.

DeSantis’ ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law Foundation Story Found to Be a Lie

If only facts mattered.

CNN: “Facts First: DeSantis’ account of what happened in Leon County is not quite what a limited number of records that have been made public show, and the governor has continued to repeat the story even after those records were made public late last year. CNN obtained emails that show Littlejohn wrote the school in 2020 and notified a teacher that her child wanted to change pronouns. Contrary to the governor’s portrayal of the story, Littlejohn also wrote that she would not stop her child from using preferred pronouns or name of choice at school. Littlejohn references these emails in her lawsuit against the school and they were reported by the Tallahassee Democrat in November.”

Found: U.S. Government’s Fake Newscast for 1986 Nuclear Training Session


Gizmodo has uncovered a fake news broadcast created for Mighty Derringer, a large-scale Department of Energy nuclear terrorism training session held in Indianapolis in 1986. It’s pretty good and, yes, pretty scary.

In December of 1986, the Pentagon, the CIA, FBI, the Department of Energy, and just about every other federal agency you can think of came together in Indianapolis for an enormous training exercise code-named Mighty Derringer. The plan was to simulate a nuclear terrorist incident and explore how every agency would react and whether they would cooperate. To enhance the verisimilitude of the war games, the U.S. government went so far as to record a fake news broadcast about a nuclear bomb exploding in Indianapolis.

Watch it here.

New Website Collects MAGA-GOPers’ Praise of Putin


I know it is tiresome, listening to Comrade Tucker Carlson and his ilk suggesting that we choose Russia over Ukraine, Putin over Zelkenskyy. But for your convenience, the Republican Accountability Project collects them as they are uttered and preserves them for all to read.

Here’s how they describe what they do:

Only 5 percent of Republicans support Russia over Ukraine, but the MAGA wing of the GOP has continually sided with Putin and against Ukraine.

Current and former elected officials, candidates for office, and media figures who are popular with the MAGA base have a history of pro-Russia comments. Now, they have decided that they should disparage Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy despite Russia’s invasion. Some of them have walked back their comments once they saw Putin’s war machine target innocent people, but many still see Russia as an ally.

We’ve collected their quotes below to make sure they can never forget where they stood.

GOPers Taking Credit for Things They Voted AGAINST


It has long been the practice of Republican lawmakers to take credit for local benefits of bills they voted against. Politico shares these examples of Republican lawmakers taking credit for projects in the government spending bill even though they all voted against it:

  • Claudia Tenney (R-NY): She lists eight projects that she “secured” while noting: “While I could not support this portion of the bill, I am pleased that the bill includes several Community Funding Projects I advocated for to benefit our local communities.”
  • Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA): The Louisiana conservative lists four projects that will get funding “specifically requested and secured” by the congressman. “Despite my objections to the bill in its totality, we worked closely with the House Appropriations Committee to secure funding for several important Louisiana projects.”
  • Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-NY): He lists seven community projects while noting he opposed the overall legislation due to “partisan policies that erode the Second Amendment and grow domestic spending.”
  • Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA): He touts $14 million going to eight projects for his district in a press release. “Passage of this bill is the culmination of more than a year of working with stakeholders in our communities to identify and secure federal support for their critical needs.”
  • Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-NC: Zelenskyy Is a ‘Thug’

    WRAL-Raleigh: “U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina told supporters he thought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a ‘thug’—a comment that runs counter to the overwhelming share of Republicans with a favorable view of the leader fending off a military invasion from Russia.

    “‘Remember that Zelenskyy is a thug,’ Cawthorn said in a video obtained by WRAL. ‘Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.’…

    “On Thursday afternoon, one hour after WRAL reported the comments, Cawthorn appeared to walk back his remarks, saying on Twitter that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions are ‘disgusting.’

    “‘I am praying for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people,’ he added.”