Janet Yellin is not alone.

August 3, 2022
By David Lawder

Washington - Five former U.S. Treasury secretaries (click here) - four Democrats and one Republican -- on Wednesday voiced support for a proposed $430 billion drugs, energy and tax bill, saying that it would reduce costs for middle-class families.

The statement from former secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Jacob Lew, Tim Geithner and Henry Paulson echo a letter sent by current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to congressional leaders on Tuesday that the bill would not raise taxes for Americans earning less than $400,000....

There is no excuse for Republicans to avoid this bill. They are opposing the improvement in the USA Middle Class' financial status and why? What have they got against the Middle Class getting ahead?

Oh, I see. The Republicans want to lie about the benefits of the bill so they can place blame on Democrats. It seems as though the Democrats have a real winner in this bill to help the Middle Class financially. Those are the largest number of Americans in this country. They have the most children of any economic class in the USA.

Are the Republicans having fun dissing Democrats while lying about every bit of it? Because the Middle Class is not laughing while the country is still not recovered from a global pandemic and a fight for democracy in Ukraine. So, what gives? Lies? Lies are the best option for Republicans in any election? Lies in elections only lead to lies all the time once elected. Americans need to live with the truth to protect their democracy and their economy.

August 3, 2022

Republicans see inflation (click here), taxes and immigration as Democratic weak spots worth attacking, and two opposition senators as prime targets, in the upcoming battle over an economic package the Democrats want to push through the Senate.

The measure embodies some of the top environment, energy, health care and tax policy aspirations that President Joe Biden and party leaders want to enact as voters start tuning in to this fall's congressional elections. The GOP would like to derail or weaken the measure, or at least force Democrats to take votes that would be painful to defend in reelection campaigns....

Skirting sanctions

August 3, 2022

The El-Hamra (click here) terminal has six tanks that can hold 1.5 million barrels of crude oil. It also makes it possible to mix Russian and Egyptian.

Russia appears to have found a new means of getting its oil to market (click here) with western sanctions looming for Moscow.

A cargo of about 700,000 barrels of Russian oil was delivered to Egypt’s El Hamra oil terminal on its Mediterranean coast early on July 24. A few hours later, another vessel collected a consignment from the port — which may have included some or all of the Russian barrels — according to vessel-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg.

The unusual move makes the cargo’s ultimate destination harder to track, adding to a trend of Russian oil shipments becoming increasingly obscured since European buyers began to shun them following the nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

El Hamra, operated by Egypt’s Western Desert Operating Petroleum Co., has six storage tanks, able to hold 1.5m bbl of crude, and a single buoy mooring facility for loading and unloading. The terminal was built to handle crude produced in Egypt’s western desert, creating possibilities to blend the Russian barrels with local volumes.

The owner of the El Hamra terminal did not respond to multiple attempts to contact it by phone....

...Transit Route

Egypt is already being used by Russia as a transit route for fuel oil. It’s unclear if El Hamra is a one-off, or will become a more commonly used port for Russian oil flows.

Previously, tankers carrying Russian crude have conducted ship-to-ship cargo transfers off the Spanish north African city of Ceuta and, more recently, in the mid-Atlantic. That’s an unusual location for such a tricky operation that’s normally carried out in sheltered near-shore locations.

Another crude cargo transfer appears to have taken place off Johor, near Singapore, in June. The area has already become a location for transshipping cargoes of Iranian crude heading to China.

August 4, 2022

By Smith

...The El Hamra terminal, (click here) operated by the Egyptian company Western Desert Operating Petroleum Co., has six storage tanks with a total capacity of 1.5 million barrels of crude oil, and a single loading and unloading dock. The infrastructure is designed to store and move crude oil produced in Egypt's western desert, and the oil it receives from Russia can therefore be blended with local oil....

Supposedly Russia has admitted to the use of this route to circumvent the sanctions. If Russia's purpose is to circumvent sanctions, then Egypt also knows it is conducting illegal operations with Russia.

August 3, 2022

By Eamonn Sheridan

Bloomberg reporting that Moscow (click here) has for the first time ever used Egypt’s El Hamra oil terminal on its Mediterranean coast.

• 700k bbls of oil offloaded on July 24
• Another vessel collected a consignment from the port just a few hours later
• Experts say the highly unusual move makes the cargo’s ultimate destination much harder to track, adding to a trend whereby Russian oil shipments are becoming increasingly obscured since European and western buyers began to shun them following the nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

I am so glad he brought this up.

Several times in speeches made by President Joe Biden, Social Security and Medicare was brought up regarding a five year review. I am certain every dismissed those comments as inconsequential. They are very important statements.

I strongly believe the extremists want to end these programs and/or alter them dramatically. They will attempt to do so at first opportunity and they just might have a perfect storm to do so.

Social Security and Medicare is the baseline of the USA economy. It would through the entire economy into a tail spin if these programs were altered or terminated or reduced as promised to working Americans. The entire issue is ideology and belongs nowhere in American political discourse, except, to remind everyone how too many conservatives and extremists in office presents a danger to all of us.

August 3, 2022
By Amy B. Wang

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) (click here) has suggested that Social Security and Medicare be eliminated as federal entitlement programs, and that they should instead become programs approved by Congress on an annual basis as discretionary spending.

Those who work in the United States pay Social Security and Medicare taxes that go into federal trust funds. Upon retirement, based on a person’s lifetime earnings and other factors, a retiree is eligible to receive monthly Social Security payments. Similarly, Medicare is the federal health insurance program that kicks in for people 65 and older, or for others who have disabilities.

In an interview that aired Tuesday on “The Regular Joe Show” podcast, Johnson, who is seeking a third term in the Senate, lamented that the Social Security and Medicare programs automatically grant benefits to those who meet the qualifications — that is, to those who had been paying into the system over their working life....

Social Security Review 2021-2023 (click here)

Your Social Security Statement (Statement) (click here) is available to view online by opening a my Social Security account. It is useful for people of all ages who want to learn about their future Social Security benefits and current earnings history.

Republican vs Christian Nationalist Party

The Christian Nationalist Party in the USA is real. It has hidden among the ranks of the Republican Party for decades with identification of White Supremacists/Nationalists, so it is not a movement. It has never been a movement, it has always been a consistent racist entity, especially at voting time. In the past political observers would all it “the silly season” and it normally would occur with regularity at the end of the campaign, within the last two weeks before the vote.

I also believe Trump can easily be traced back to this entity with his father’s policies in renting and the overt presence of this entity in marches and meetings over the decades. Whether the Trumps marched in those parades or not doesn’t matter because the parades bolstered everyone who carried the beliefs, there overt or not.

So, accepting the presence of this entity within the Republican Party is proof that it’s rise to power with Trump’s birther rantings and his multi-campaign influence, ie: pizza with Palin, it is time to define Republicans vs. Christian Nationalist Party.

It would be wise for the Republican Party to cast off from the Christian Nationalists, conduct separate primaries and run their own candidates. Granted it would be splitting traditionalist Republicans and reducing their ranks, but, was the Tea Party or the Freedom Caucus ever voting with Republicans anyway. 

See, the Christian Nationalists eagerly voted with Trump, but, the Republicans did so reluctantly. The Republicans have the money and accepting a smaller delegation initially only leaves room for it to grow and reestablish it’s legitimacy.

The Christian Nationalist Party are insurgents with criminal intent. It is time that the extremist Christian Nationalists be identified for the criminal element they are and allow Republicans to have a clean break from it’s insurgent criminal element once and for all.