This article was written by Timeshifter, and is in the public domain..
The filibuster and presidential veto should be short delays before 50% +1 votes. End veto power! See the filibuster section below: #Republican filibuster equals
26 Sep 2021: Do Americans Know What a Massive Ripoff American Life Really Is?
The forever drug war[]
Return to top. US Republican states. It's not just cannabis prohibition.
Nixon's racist drug war[]
Republican President Richard Nixon (in office January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974) initiated the militant racist tone of the forever drug war.
 The Republican Party has used its Drug War as a 50+ year distraction. All to serve the rich. See: Republican President Nixon's drug war against blacks and hippies. See Wikipedia: War on drugs. See Race, ethnicity, and drug war. See Wikipedia: Southern Strategy - Keeping poor whites and blacks fighting against each other, instead of the real enemy: rich Republican tax evaders. See Wikipedia: Nixon's Enemies List, of journalists, actors, union leaders, etc. who expose it all. A GOP playbook that has never ended, and played out yet again by billionaire Trump until he was dumped in 2020. |
This quote from Nixon aide John Ehrlichman (in 1994) is from an April 2016 Dan Baum article in Harper's Magazine: Legalize It All. How to win the war on drugs. Quote: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
See: CNN info. See article: Nixon's drug war against black people and hippies.
US Republican states[]
See Wikipedia: List of state parties of the Republican Party (United States).
See many US maps in article: Republican states. It's not just cannabis prohibition.
And: Cannabis war. Part of Republican war on poor. And: US Taliban Republicans. Their cannabis war. And: NRA drug war. US National Rifle Association. And: Happy alternatives to US Republican-led poverty, mass incarceration, food insecurity, debt, ill health, intense concentration of wealth, endless wars. And: USA. The state of the nation.
| Mostly in U.S. Republican states. |
| Percent of adults with overdue debt in collections. By county. See map. |
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| See Wikipedia: Firearm death rates in the United States by state. And CNN: States with weaker gun laws have higher rates of firearm related homicides and suicides, study finds. |
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| Wikipedia: List of U.S. states and territories by incarceration and correctional supervision rate. Map is for sentenced state prisoners only. No Federal or local jail inmates. See map. |
Republican minimum wages[]
Why do US Republican leaders hate Americans? Why won't they raise the US federal minimum wage above $7.25? 62% in US support a $15 federal minimum wage. Stop voting in Republicans if you don't want the low minimum wages found in Republican states.
| 7 Oct 2021: Reallocation effects of the minimum wage. "In January 2015, Germany introduced a uniform minimum wage of €8.50 [$10 an hour today]. ... boosted wages of low-wage workers, did not lower employment, and induced a reallocation toward more productive establishments." 11 Jan 2022: Minimum wage in Germany to be raised once again in 2022. |
| US minimum wage peaked in 1968 in inflation-adjusted dollars. $13.16 in 2022 dollars. [2]. See chart. |
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Cannabis is safer.[]
Return to top. See article: Cannabis is safer.
Vote out most US Republicans and their cannabis war.
16 Dec 2019: Majority Of Americans Support Marijuana Legalization, Two More New Polls Show. "Voters who supported President Trump in the 2016 election expressed greater opposition to the policy than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents as a whole."
| 2 May 2019: Time to Admit It: Trump Opposed Cannabis Legalization. He opposed 3 bills for veterans’ access to medical cannabis. |
23 Feb 2019: Trump Continued to Flip-Flop on Medical Marijuana.
See: Reagan's war on cannabis. And: Holy War on Drugs, Conservative-led global incarceration.
| Ronald Reagan, 1980 campaign speech: "Leading medical researchers are coming to the conclusion that marijuana, pot, grass whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States, and we haven't begun to find out all of the ill effects, but they are permanent ill effects. The loss of memory for example." |
Share link: Obama.
Obama correctly said that cannabis is safer than alcohol. See: Cannabis is safer. He also said marijuana should be treated more as a public health issue than a criminal one. And: Obama signals support for legalizing medical marijuana. [3]. See video.
USA. 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults are alcohol-related (disease, overdose, car crashes, falls, violence, etc). 87,798 per year, 2006 to 2010. [4][5][6][7][8]. See longer article: Cannabis is safer.
Imagine if Mitt Romney had been elected President in 2012 instead of Obama.
Obama on marijuana legalization. [9]. "My suspicion is that you’re gonna see other states start looking at this". The Washington Post. Jan. 22, 2015.
Above quote is from Sanjay Gupta interview of Obama on April 15, 2015. Interview aired on CNN on April 19, 2015. [10][11][12].
Obama administration asks Supreme Court to reject lawsuit filed by Republican governments in Oklahoma and Nebraska to stop legal marijuana in Colorado [13]. December 2015.
  Obama helped turn around the Reagan-Bush War on Pot, mandatory minimums, mass incarceration. See: US incarceration peaked in 2008. |
Holder's Legacy: Steering Away From the Drug War and Mass Incarceration. [14]. Attorney General Eric Holder (2009-2015) under President Obama. 25 Sep 2014.
Register and vote for cannabis.
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Return to top. Go to home page.
For info to continue below (if needed) click the "Full Site" link below. Or go to USA. The state of the nation.
Today's far-right Republicans[]
Return to top. US Republican states. It's not just cannabis prohibition. See also: Happy alternatives to US Republican-led poverty, mass incarceration, food insecurity, debt, ill health, intense concentration of wealth, endless wars.
News: Americans want universal healthcare and progressive taxation.
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11 Aug 2021: Billionaires worldwide gained $5.5 trillion during pandemic. [15]. Hunger. [16]. Wealth inequality at levels not seen since just before the Great Depression. Republican tax cuts for the rich. Record low inflation-adjusted US federal minimum wage. [17].
$70 billion to end pandemic[]
- 11 Aug 2021: Article. "The world’s 2,690 global billionaires saw their combined wealth rise from $8 trillion on March 20, 2020 to $13.5 trillion as of July 31, 2021, ... The cost of vaccinating the world’s adult population was calculated as follows: two doses at $7 per dose for 5 billion people, for a total of $70 billion."
- 12 Aug 2021: One-off emergency tax on billionaires’ pandemic windfalls could fund Covid-19 jabs for all and cash grant to all unemployed workers.
Mask mandates work[]
29 Aug 2021: CDC: An Unvaccinated Teacher Took Off Their Mask to Read Aloud. Half the Class Got COVID.
28 Aug 2021: Do face masks work? Here are 49 scientific studies that explain why they do.
Note the high death rates in the Republican south. At the source you can hover cursor over states to see stats: Map of cumulative COVID-19 death rates by US state. See also: Commons map.
GOP taxes screw middle class[]
Trump signed tax law that gave 83% of benefits to the top 1%.
| To Top. Or End. Or Articles. |
Republican filibuster equals[]
The evil history of the US Senate filibuster, or why the US no longer has simple majority rule. [18]. See Wikipedia: Filibuster.
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US voter suppression[]
20 Oct 2021: Senate Republicans use filibuster to again block sweeping voting rights bill.
Republicans have disenfranchised black, brown, and poor white people via "The New Jim Crow"; the drug war and mass incarceration. See: Holy War on Drugs, Conservative-led global incarceration.
High US taxes on poor[]
The forever war on the poor. Republican filibuster says to Americans: "Heads we win, tails you lose." Democracy? What democracy?
When Democrats have the majority, the Republican minority uses the filibuster to block higher taxes on the rich, and to block lower taxes on the middle class and poor. When Republicans have the majority they use budget reconciliation to use their simple majority to lower taxes on the rich, and increase user fees, sales taxes, and other regressive taxation to increase taxes on the poor and middle class.
This is the whole purpose of the US Republican Party. To serve the rich. Period.
Minimum wage workers crushed while serving the Republican low-tax-paying rich:
And on US middle class[]
Chart below. 2017 Republican tax and individual mandate repeal bill. Yellow is for an average increase in cost for people in those groups. Higher costs hitting more people each year. Up to incomes of $75,000.
| Republican tax bill hurts the poor more than originally thought, Congressional Budget Office finds. | "By 2019, Americans earning less than $30,000 a year would be worse off under the Senate bill, CBO found. By 2021, Americans earning $40,000 or less would be net losers, and by 2027, most people earning less than $75,000 a year would be worse off. On the flip side, millionaires and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 would be big beneficiaries". |
| 2 polls: Only 29% of Americans approve of Republican tax plan. 2. | |
High wealth inequality[]
See Wikipedia: List of countries by wealth per adult for more recent numbers. The average median wealth per adult for Canada ($125,688) is much higher than that of the USA ($79,274). US middle-class wealth has collapsed. [19]. See chart below. Median wealth is exactly in the middle. 50% of adults have more, and 50% have less. Wealth is all assets (money, stocks, property, etc.) minus all debts.
| Median wealth per adult. Credit Suisse. 2021 report. Country links are to Wikipedia articles. Click red column headers to sort. Link. |
per adult.
US dollars
Chart. USA. 1989-2018. Top 1% Up $21 Trillion. Bottom 50% Down $900 Billion. And:US middle class wealth collapsing. [20]. And: 5 Oct 2017: Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America (Updated). And: Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world. And see Wikipedia: Wealth in the United States.
Republicans started wars that wasted $8 trillion [21] on ground wars (some based on Bush/CIA lies about weapons of mass destruction). Instead of paying higher minimum wages. As Canada does. See: Wikipedia: List of minimum wages by country.
Low quality of life[]
Germany has a much lower murder rate than the USA. Also, Germany has better health indicators, and its healthcare cost per person is half US cost (all costs, public and private).
High household debt[]
Return to top. See Wikipedia: Household debt.
US household debt at all time high. Chart below is from the quarterly PDF. See Commons chart.
Total household debt. From 1st quarter 2003 through recent times.
Total Household Debt by Type:
- Click to enlarge. Timeline is by quarters.
High US medical debt[]
Return to top. See: Canadian single-payer universal healthcare versus US healthcare.
This doesn't happen in Canada, due to single-payer universal healthcare: US. 34 Devastating Stories About How People Are Still Crushed By Medical Debt. By Venessa Wong, Jan 17, 2019. BuzzFeed News.
High student loan debt[]
- Student Loan Debt by State. Map, table, and article.
- Student Loan Debt Statistics: 2022. U.S. student loan debt totals $1.75 trillion as of April 2022.
Public elementary and secondary school in the USA costs an average of $14,891 a year per student in taxes. The money spent between the ages of 16 to 18 could be set aside for 2 years of full-board-and-tuition college. Look at Scotland: Adult at age 16. Scotland. What can I do at my age? And: Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991. And: Wikipedia: Education in Scotland: "In 2014, research by the Office for National Statistics found that Scotland was the most highly educated country in Europe". See: Wikipedia: Age of majority (by country). Wikipedia: Voting age.
Punitive bankruptcy law[]
- No Fresh Start: Will States Let Debt Collectors Push Families Into Poverty In The Wake of a Pandemic? US map with state-by-state grades on the fairness of bankruptcy laws. "NCLC surveys the exemption laws of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Sadly, not one jurisdiction’s laws meet basic standards so that debtors can continue to work productively to support themselves and their families."
- Model Family Financial Protection Act. Including fairer bankruptcy and debt laws.
- Debt in America: An Interactive Map. 29% of all adults. 24% of whites. 39% of people of color. See the map there, and below. See the astonishing percentages of adults with debt in collection. By county. Especially in the South. The South has been greatly impoverished by low Republican minimum wages, lack of expanded Medicaid, unfair bankruptcy laws, massive evictions (past and upcoming).
Stagnant US wages[]
USA. Since 2001, labor’s share of national income has suffered a sustained decline. 11 Sep 2018.
- See above chart source. [22]. And source article.
Chart below: Top 10% of earners receive 50% of all income. When capital gains are included.
- Above graph source. And: Source 2.
| 10 Jul 2018: National (US) Pay Trends. "Since 2006, wages have risen 12.9 percent overall in the US. But when you factor in inflation, real wages' have actually fallen 9.3 percent. In other words, the income for a typical worker today buys them less than it did in 2006." |
2 Jul 2018: An Update for 2018: More Evidence That Half of Americans Are In or Near Poverty. Paul Buchheit. Common Dreams.
For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades. 7 Aug 2018. By Drew DeSilver. Pew Research Center. Chart below is from the article. Bottom of chart says: "Data for wages of production and non-supervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls."
Top line in timeline below is hourly wages adjusted for inflation. It is flat: Bottom of chart below says: "Data for wages of production and non-supervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls."
Racist law enforcement[]
Return to top. See: Race, ethnicity, and drug war.
The KKK owns law enforcement today in the Republican state of Florida.
27 July 2021: Inside a KKK murder plot: Grab him up, take him to the river. "Even though three current and former Florida prison guards were exposed as klansmen, the state’s Department of Corrections says it found no reason to investigate whether other white supremacists were employed in its prisons."
Poorly rated healthcare[]
6 Aug 2021: Stunning new report ranks US dead last in health care among richest countries—despite spending the most. "The U.S. also had the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy at age 60 compared with other countries. ... The poor performance is nothing new, as the U.S. has landed in last place in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has released since 2004."
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No universal healthcare[]
Google search: 26,000 Americans die each year from not having health insurance.
Single payer costs less[]
See Wikipedia: List of countries by total health expenditure per capita.
Portugal's drug decrim equals[]
50 drug overdose deaths yearly[]
Vs 100,000 yearly US deaths[]
There were around 80,400 US drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending December 31, 2024, at a rate of 220 deaths per day. 236 deaths per million US population. Only around 10 to 72 total deaths per year in Portugal, a country with universal healthcare, and where all drugs have been decriminalized since 2001. See: Youtube: Portugal’s Drug Laws: Decriminalisation in action. May 16, 2018 video from Australia's Special Broadcasting Service. No one has been arrested in Portugal for simple possession (under the limits) since 2001.
President Eisenhower. 1953:[]
His 91% top marginal tax rate[]
Equaled prosperity for more.[]
Eisenhower was not a socialist. He did not support state ownership of industries and businesses.
Eisenhower, an economically progressive Republican President, had a 91% top marginal income tax rate.. He participated in one of the greatest eras of economic prosperity-for-more in the US in the 1950s.
That era had lower overall taxes on the middle class.
| There was a higher average effective tax rate on the top 1 percent of US households in the 1950s. It was 42% when totaling federal, state, and local taxes. In 2014 it was 36.4%. See chart below. |
Chart below. See: Highest US marginal income tax rates over time.
- Above chart source. And: Source 2.
Chart below. Timeline of top US federal marginal tax rate.
Republican President Lincoln[]
Created first progressive[]
US federal income tax.[]
Progressive Capitalism[]
Is not Socialism, and[]
It is not state ownership.[]
Republican president Abraham Lincoln did not believe in state ownership of industries and businesses. So he was not a "socialist". Socialism was not well known at that time. See Wikipedia: Socialism.
| In the United States, the first progressive federal income tax was established by the Revenue Act of 1862. The act was signed into law by Lincoln. It replaced a flat tax. See Wikipedia: Progressive tax. |
Lincoln's economically progressive message below. What a contrast to today's far-right Republican leaders. From a message to the U.S. Congress, 3 December 1861:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
More sources: [23]. The full speech. See: Facebook image.
Thomas Paine on the poor[]
Thomas Paine statue below in Thetford, England. See: Paine Wikiquotes. Search for "poor" within those quotes. For example:
When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, then may the country boast of its constitution and its government.
Paine was nothing like today's Republican Party.
Overpopulation = Warming[]
Politicians need to incentivize more hempcrete construction [24][25][26], so that carbon dioxide levels go down. But that is not enough to stop global warming.
Overpopulation equals more global warming via less greenspace removing carbon dioxide.
- Side-by-side photos. Our underwater future: What sea level rise will look like around the globe. High tide could flood 800 million people by 2060s.
- Wikipedia: List of countries by population (United Nations). Shows population increase rates.
- Wikipedia: List of sovereign states and dependencies by total fertility rate.
Many clueless Republican leaders deny it all. They also block free birth control via universal healthcare. See Wikipedia: Single payer healthcare. It costs less per person and gets better results. See:
As countries prosper in a just and fair way their population stabilizes. See median wealth by country:
Migration has to be limited to within regions of several countries. Countries with low birth control can not dump their overpopulation on to the whole world. There must be multinational aid to fund birth control, not unlimited migration.
See crowded beach below and link:
Global warming. Roswell tech[]
And here on earth:
China’s BYD has a $16K “Tesla-killer,” as IEA finds EVs are an Oil Company-Killer.
See JPG file.
See JPG file.
Section link. Much UFO technology has been back engineered, and its carbon-free energy could end global warming. See Steven Greer (SG) documentary: The Lost Century: And How to Reclaim It. [27][28][29][30][31]. SG documentaries for free: Tubi & [32][33][34][35][36] [37][38][39][40] [41][42][43]. JustWatch: [44][45][46] [47][48][49]. More SG media: [50][51][52] [53][54][55]. SG video channels: [56][57][58][59][60]. SG witness testimonies: [61][62][63][64]. His National Press Club events: 2023. 2001. See drstevengreer.com site. [65]. SG interviews: [66][67][68][69] [70][71][72][73]. SG's Disclosure Project Intelligence Archive. [74][75]. More SG info: [76][77][78] [79][80][81][82]. See also the David Grusch, David Fravor, and Ryan Graves disclosures at July 26, 2023 House hearing about US possession of aliens, alien bodies, alien craft, and back engineering: [83][84][85][86] [87][88][89][90][91] [92][93][94][95] [96][97][98]. Disclosure Timeline and Diaries. See: The Battle for Disclosure. (2024). [99]. See "The Program" (2024). [100]. See History channel: [101][102][103] [104][105][106][107]. National Geographic: [108][109][110][111]. See: Bob Lazar and George Knapp. See Rendlesham Forest UFO witness interviews. [112]. See Whitley Strieber interview. Other documentaries: [113] (scroll down).
See the July 8, 1947 Roswell Daily Record below. Image info. Click image to enlarge. Full-size is readable. See full text of saucer article. [114]. U.S. Army officer Walter Haut issued the initial "flying disk" press release. His 2002 notarized affidavit said there were 2 crash sites, and that he had seen a craft, alien bodies, and handled wreckage material. (see page 14 of pdf). It was released in a 2007 book after his death in 2005. The 20 paragraph 2002 affidavit is also online here: [115] (page 14). [116][117][118][119][120]. 37 witnesses to the Roswell shape memory foil. [121][122][123] [124][125][126]. Page 54 of Jesse Marcel, Jr. book. Crumple it and it uncrumples without creases. Did not exist in 1947.
July 8, 1947. See JPG page with full text transcribed.
Walter Haut in 1947. See JPG file.
2002 affidavit is on pages 239-242 of the 2022 edition: Witness to Roswell, 75th Anniversary Edition: Unmasking the Government's Biggest Cover-up (more eyewitnesses). 36 pages previewed in Google Books. Click "preview" button and scroll down to pages 239-240. Search within the book. There is an inexpensive Kindle ebook. Moonwalker Dr. Edgar Mitchell wrote the foreword.
Haut's daughter, Julie Shuster, in 2002, 3 years before his death, "verbally discussed each and every sentence" of the affidavit with him. She said it was not a deathbed confession. See Sept 2007 MUFON UFO Journal. Issue 473. Page 15. And this article from Special Broadcasting Service. Archived. See Julie Shuster on IMDb.
Google search: Walter Haut 2002 Roswell affidavit. Articles about Haut:
30 June 2007: Roswell officer's amazing deathbed admission raises possibility that aliens DID visit. By Nick Pope. Same article also published here and here. Archived here and here.
5 June 2022: Roswell officer's deathbed confession about theory of alien cover up. By Declan Carey. Archived here.
14 May 2021: Ex-Army officer ADMITS he saw ‘alien the size of a 10-year-old child’ after famous Roswell UFO crash in incredible video. By Emma Parry. Archived here. This article has a short excerpt of the video.
May 2021: Roswell Officer Speaks From the Grave: Video Released, Confesses that Alien was "the size of a 10 year old". By Anthony Bragalia. Archived here. From article (emphasis added): "This video clip is part of a memoir video / oral history over two hours in length that covers many personal and professional aspects of Haut's life. The video was taken at the Roswell Museum in 2000 with friends Dennis Balthaser and Wendy Connors."
August 3, 2024: The Roswell UFO story still resonates around the world 77 years later. By John Purvis (CBS4). Archived here. Article is on the KDBC-TV website: cbs4local.com
There are many books uncovering many witnesses to the Roswell crafts, materials, and bodies. A snip from a book review of this book:
| What the Generals Said about Roswell: - "It was a cover story, the balloon part of it ... That was the story we were told to give to the public and the news people, and that was it." Brigadier General Thomas J. DuBose, USAF - "The [Roswell] craft was extraterrestrial, and at one time may have been at Wright-Patterson in an off-limits area." Brigadier General Harry N. Cordes, USAF - "I am almost completely convinced that the object that crashed near Roswell was composed of materials not common on earth." Major General Kenner F. Hertford, USA - "The stuff I saw, I've never seen anyplace else in my life … It was the strangest thing I ever saw." General William H. Blanchard, USAF - "They [the Air Force] knew that they had something new in their hands … The metal and material was unknown to anyone I talked to … A couple of guys thought it might be Russian, but the final consensus was that the pieces were from space." [i.e., extraterrestrial] Brigadier General Arthur E. Exon, USAF - "Stealth technology comes from the Roswell crash … I have been informed by higher officers at the Pentagon that there still exists a Top Secret UFO Project … That's where your Roswell file is." |
US federal minimum wage[]
Return to top. The minimum wage would be $12.74 in 2021 dollars if its real value had remained at the 1968 level.
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- There’s More Evidence That Raising the Minimum Wage Won’t Cost Jobs.
- The U.S. has one of the stingiest minimum wage policies of any wealthy nation. Washington Post.
- Wikipedia: List of countries by minimum wage.
- Wikipedia: Minimum wage in the United States.
- Wikipedia: List of US states by minimum wage.