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apatzer Did it reach his desk? I see no evidence of it, so this is a non-issue. ================== 2. < Failed to support second stimulus> This inflationary measure should never have been proposed. "Once a people discovers that it can vote itself money, that will be the end of the republic." ======================= 3. <Hid economic analysis on ‘tip stealing’ rule Trump’s Department of Labor proposed a rule that would allow employers to pocket the tips of their employees as long as workers are paid the minimum wage. How does proposing a rule "hide" something? ===================== 4. <Blocked overtime for millions of workers > Changing the system for calculating something (overtime) does not "block" it. Misleading characterization. ==================== 5. < Denied workers a minimum wage increase > I view minimum wage laws as being an unconstitutional restriction on an employee's right to negotiate with an employer on an acceptable wage. If I am willing to work for less than the arbitrarily-established minimum wage, I should be permitted to do so. ===================== 6. <Excluded millions of workers from paid leave The Trump DOL issued a temporary rule exempting certain employers from the paid leave provisions in the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act.> More legislation to impose governmental mandates on employers over an over-rated illness. Why was the exemption only temporary? No explanation of the reason(s) is provided in the listing. ==================== 7. <Proposed lowering tipped workers earnings In December 2019, the Trump Labor Department proposed letting employers assign tipped employees more “side tasks” – tasks for which they do not receive tips, such as restocking and cleaning – while continuing to pay them the subminimum tipped-worker wage.> I suspect that we are not being told the whole story here. If this is the whole story, then I would agree that this seems unfair and unlawful. But take note, it was a proposal, not an Executive Order or directive, or law. Had it been implemented, I would hope that SCOTUS would have invalidated it, as they did with Joe Biden's giveaway of monies lent for college educations in the reasonable expectation of being paid back with interest. Loans made in good faith should be repaid by the lenders. =============================== 8. <Expanded rule to reduce overtime pay In November 2019, the Trump Labor Department proposed a rule making it easier for employers to use the “fluctuating workweek method” for calculating overtime pay. > As above, this was a proposal. It was never implemented. ================================ 9. <Allowed misclassification of gig workers In April 2019, Trump Administration stripped tens of thousands of workers of protections under the National Labor Relations Act by deciding that platform-based drivers for Uber and Lyft are not employees covered by the NLRA, setting a precedent that undermines employee status for other misclassified workers> Who has determined this to be "misclassification?" If it was such, why has it not been challenged? When I worked for the NYS DOL, we had guidelines to determine who was an employee and who was an independent contractor. Applying these rules (which evaluated the "degree of direction and control" by the employing to Uber and Lyft workers would have resulted in the determination that they were not employees but were, in truth, independent contractors. Hence, the action by the Trump administration did nothing more than determine the correct classification of the services rendered as defined by the already-existing federal guidelines. ========================= < 10. Pushed to lower farmworkers wages > Who was "pushed?" As I have stated above, the federal government should not be interfering in the rights of prospective employees to decide their wages by negotiating with employers. =========================== 11-13 all deal with conjectures about TCJA, but the conclusions offered are not supported by analysis. I was not able to find evidence of a single job that had moved overseas during the Biden administration, but I do not believe that his record is that pristine. The listing faults Pres. Trump for giving benefits to employers who fracture their operations, noting that this allows employers to move some operations overseas, but it offers no constructive alternatives. Should the legislation have excluded foreign outsourcing? It is notable that although the legislation was introduced in 2017, it was ultimately passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate and signed by Biden in 2023. ========================== 14. <Undermined job security for service workers In October 2019, Trump repealed Executive Order 13495, which required successor contractors to retain workers on federally funded service contracts for a set period of time. > Why should the federal government be required to retain contractors beyond the completion of their assigned task? Of course, it is possible that workers will slow down to extend the length of their tenure, but consider establishing a bonus if it is completed ahead of time. Remember how the Santa Monica Freeway was opened less than 3 months after the 1994 earthquake? Bonuses work! ===================== 15. <Allowed states to privatize employment services > Sounds like a good idea to me. The private sector works harder than government empoyees who have tenure and can't be fired for laziness. Believe me, I witnessed it first-hand when I worked for the NYS DOL. I had one particular worker who was so determined not to work that it required much more effort on my part to compel her to do her job than it was worth. This was a college-educated woman who claimed that she could not multiply 8 by 3 and did not know how to operate a calculator. Had we been a private company, I would have shown her the door. ==================== 16. <Undercut workers’ freedom to organize Trump Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch was the deciding vote on the already pro-business court’s disastrous Janus v. AFSCME decision imposing “right-to-work” conditions on all public employees. > Oh, horrors! Requiring government employees to work under conditions similar to those in effect in private industry! The calumny of it all! Pres. Trump should have appointed someone who was anti-business, like perhaps Leticia James! Someone that would reliably rule against the interests of the people that elected him. Like Joe Biden did with Ketanji-Brown, who doesn't know the difference between a man and a woman. ====================== 17. <Allowed overvaluation of U.S. dollar, hurting jobs> Is it your contention that the President is in charge of "allowing" or "preventing" the overvaluation of the US dollar? Really??? ======================= 18. Asked the Supreme Court to rule the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional. I applaud him for that. I wish I could have kept my doctor, kept my insurance plan as Obama had promised. I wish I could have continued paying the same premium for my wife's coverage instead of having it multiply by more than 400%. <Done nothing to make it easier for workers who lost employer-sponsored insurance due to the pandemic to slide into coverage under the ACA marketplace exchanges, even though an administrative fix to do so was easily available. > Health care should not be government's responsibility, nor should "making it easier" be a government responsibility. ======================= 19. <Failed to protect workers’ health > As in 18 above, this is not government's responsibility except in an emergency, and the scamdemic of Covid, engineered with Fauci's illegal gain-of-function funding, did not constitute an emergency, despite the hyping of it in the media. ================== 20. <Intimidated local health departments In April 2020, Trump issued an executive order that claimed to require the nation’s meat production plants to remain open. The executive order did not actually prevent public health departments from closing plants,....> So why did the local health departments not look at the wording of the law instead of deciding to be intimidated? So Trump is to blame for their ignorance? ============== 21. <Made it more dangerous to go to work Trump has killed OSHA safety standards and gutted its enforcement ability by reducing the number of safety and health inspectors to the lowest level in its 50-year history. There are so few inspectors now that it would take the agency 165 years to visit every U.S. workplace just once.> Having undergone logger training, I can attest that OSHA is one of the most feared agencies in the industry because of excessive rulings. Sure, safety is fine, but these days it is really overdone. A non-industry example is requiring kids to wear helmets to ride a freaking bicycle! Give me a break! If you're a worker in a dangerous occupation and don't trust yourself to observe reasonable safety precautions without Mommy watching over you, find another job! ================= 22. <Allowed young workers to perform unsafe tasks In September 2018, the Labor Department proposed a rule to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to independently operate power-driven patient lifts, putting these young workers at risk and endangering patients. > Since when is 18 a magical age for operating power-driven patient lifts? A competent 16-year old is better at it than an incompetent 18-year old. Competence should be the guideline, not age. Joe Biden should not be ruled ineligible due to his age. He should be ruled ineligible due to his dementia. Charles Grassley is older than Biden, but infinitely more sentient. Sen. KKK Byrd should have been ruled ineligible long before he actually died. ================= 23. I am going to skip this because having looked at the rule that it rescinded, I see only reporting requirements, not the "protection" that are cited in this objection. =================== 24. <Encouraged denying unemployment benefits The Trump Labor Department issued temporary guidance that encourages state unemployment insurance agencies to push employers to report workers who fail to return to work over concerns about coronavirus infection – so the workers can be disqualified from receiving further unemployment assistance, forcing them to put their and their families’ health at risk or risk poverty and hunger. >n If the government announces that the scamdemic is over, everyone should return to work. Unemployment insurance is intended to assist involuntarily unemployed workers TEMPORARILY with non-deferable living expenses, not to provide perpetual support for those who choose to remain unemployed. The government cannot be Mommy and Daddy for anyone who will not support himself/herself and/or his/her family. ================ 25. <Employers still will be required to maintain injury and illness records, but OSHA’s enforcement capabilities will be weakened.> This charge is false. Per www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com, "Employers still will be required to maintain injury and illness records, but OSHA’s enforcement capabilities will be weakened." ====================== 26. <Halted planning for future pandemics Trump administration officials halted implementation of an Obama-era rule requiring hospitals and nursing homes to adopt plans, provide staff training and stockpile equipment (respirators, masks, etc.) to protect health workers and patients from future outbreaks of airborne infectious diseases – yes, specifically like COVID-19.> No, this does not halt planning; it halts MANDATORY planning. Less government interference is a good thing. =================== That's it! I simply don't have the time to devote to answering all the non-issues raised in the cut-and-paste job. |
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gmforsythe |
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Borrowers In December 2019, the Trump Labor Department proposed letting employers assign tipped employees more “side tasks” – tasks for which they do not receive tips, such as restocking and cleaning – while continuing to pay them the subminimum tipped-worker wage.> I suspect that we are not being told the whole story here. If this is the whole story, then I would agree that this seems unfair and unlawful. But take note, it was a proposal, not an Executive Order or directive, or law. Had it been implemented, I would hope that SCOTUS would have invalidated it, as they did with Joe Biden's giveaway of monies lent for college educations in the reasonable expectation of being paid back with interest. Loans made in good faith should be repaid by the lenders.>> Depends on the loan. Student loans with no missed payments where the interest paid exceeds the principle should be paid by the lenders. Biden wrote off principle satisfied by interest payments for a great many borrowers. If you have paid back $120,000 on an $80,000 loan, and you still owe $65,000 a little loan forgiveness is just the thing to help you start saving for a new home—genuine economic stimulus. Not contributing to some fat cat sequestering assets in an offshore account. Betsy DeVos can buy all the yachts she wants, but in the backs of impoverished students? Maybe she could find a better source of income. |
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re: Borrowers I especially agree that we're probably seeing only a portion of the whole story. |
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jonheck 17-May-24, 02:03 |
gmforsythe |
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jonheck In any event, I would expect any who were atheists would have had reservations about signing a document that posited a divine being as foundational and worth dying for, which many of them did. |
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GMF 04:18 It was common practice in English at the time to capitalise some common nouns and sometimes adjectives. As time rolled on, this tended to be restricted to titles or proper nouns, with sometimes related adjectives also being capitalised ( e.g., 'British Crown') but the process took considerable time. James Cook's logs from 1768 show the following example of capitalising common nouns apparently randomly:- "The stone is sandy & very proper for build.g &c. after we had sufficiently examined this part we returnd to the Boat, & seeing some Smoke & Canoe[s] at another part we went thither in hopes of meeting with the people but they made off as we approached, there were 6 Canoos & 6 small fires nea[r] the shore & Muscels roasting upon them & a few Oysters laying near from this we conjectured that those had been just 6 people who had been out each in his Canoe flicking up the shell fish & come ashore to eat them where each had made his fire to dress them by, we tasted of their cheer & left them in return strings of beads &c." (I believe this convention is a hangover from German, which still capitalises common nouns.) But having said that, it is still possible to see a capitalised 'Creator' as being treated as a title rather than a common noun. I doubt any certainty could be attached either way without further evidence. A similar circumstance applies to phrases such as 'trusting in Almighty God...'. This does not mean that the speakers or signers all have a devout faith; it was at the time no more than a term that expressed the sincerity of what was to follow; a bit like someone today exclaiming "Ohmygod! I hope he's not hurt!" For example, both the Australian and American Constitutions call on God in their prologue, and then prohibit the establishment of a religion! Be wary of such colloquialisms when reading documents from another culture. |
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bob I agree that OMG is used without thought or respect for any greater being, and it really sticks in my craw when I hear it. i disagree that the phrase "trusting in Almighty God" was used with similar abandon. The founders were of diverse religions, but I do not believe that many of them were atheists. Consider the reasons for the original settlers coming to the "New World;" they sought to escape persecution for their religious beliefs. Consider also the statement of John Adams, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." |
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Gm Some definitely were. Or leaned that way. “Consider the reasons for the original settlers coming to the "New World;" they sought to escape persecution for their religious beliefs.” You don’t think atheists were persecuted for their religious beliefs???!!! “Consider also the statement of John Adams, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."” John Adams was devoutly Christian. More so thal almost all the other founders, so his statement is not surprising , but nit representative of the group m’s thinking |
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zorro Documentation please. Also "some" does not contradict "not many." =================== <You don’t think atheists were persecuted for their religious beliefs???!!! > Atheists had religious NON-beliefs, not religious beliefs. Documentation of atheists leaving because of "religious beliefs?" =================== <John Adams was devoutly Christian. More so thal almost all the other founders, so his statement is not surprising , but nit representative of the group m’s thinking> Did anyone refute the statement, indicating that "his statement ...[was] [not] representative of the group's thinking? (Silence shows consent,) |
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GM No thanks. Not playing. Believe what you like |
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zorro |
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dmaestro 17-May-24, 06:26 |
“If the founders had not made their stance on this “Christian nation” issue clear enough in the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, they certainly did in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli. Begun by George Washington, signed by John Adams and ratified unanimously by a Senate still half-filled with signers of the Constitution, this treaty announced firmly and flatly to the world that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Despite the founders’ intent, later generations of Americans began to assert that the country they created was indeed Christian.” www.cnn.com Christian Nationalism is neither Christian with respect to what Jesus actually taught, or Constitutional. It is a malevolent, oppressive politico-religious cult. Worrying about OMG? That’s Human nature. |
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GM From Wiki During the early modern period, the term "atheist" was used as an insult and applied to a broad range of people, including those who held opposing theological beliefs, as well as those who had committed suicide, immoral or self-indulgent people, and even opponents of the belief in witchcraft.[14][15][19] Atheistic beliefs were seen as threatening to order and society by philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas. Lawyer and scholar Thomas More said that religious tolerance should be extended to all except those who did not believe in a deity or the immortality of the soul.[17] John Locke, a founder of modern notions of religious liberty, argued that atheists (as well as Catholics and Muslims) should not be granted full citizenship rights.[17] During the Inquisition, several of those who were accused of atheism or blasphemy, or both, were tortured or executed. These included the priest Giulio Cesare Vanini who was strangled and burned in 1619 and the Polish nobleman Kazimierz Łyszczyński who was executed in Warsaw,[14][20][21] as well as Etienne Dolet, a Frenchman executed in 1546. Though heralded as atheist martyrs during the nineteenth century, recent scholars hold that the beliefs espoused by Dolet and Vanini are not atheistic in modern terms.[16][22][23] Baruch Spinoza was effectively excommunicated from the Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam for atheism, though he did not claim to be an atheist.[citation needed] |
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Religion For some reason atheism is a kiss of death for public office. In the 1700s only a few had a natural world view. For most, the universe was either of recent origin or had always existed, in either case a divine being tended to be required. Note a majority of our founding fathers were deists as opposed to specifically Christian. But regardless of the numbers, even atheists escaped religious persecution and thus sought to avoid instituting the same here. The Treaty of Tripoli expressly condemned the notion our nation was founded on the Christian faith. I’m unsure how wise it is to argue the religious persuasion of people from over two centuries ago upon a system of government we all agree is far better off NOT establishing religion as the founders expressly intended, as opposed to Frank’s desire for theocracy and Xtian nationalism. Even if they were all Mormon (which did not exist at that time) wouldn’t they all just be wrong? None of the were Seventh Day Adventists, whose roots date back to the Millerites of the 1830s. |
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dm |
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zorro Today's definition of the word is undoubtedly more restrictive. Deism is obviously not atheism, as you acknowledge. So we are back to Square One. Can you point to original settlers or founding fathers who did not believe in a divine being? |
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GM What’s your point? |
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dmaestro 17-May-24, 06:55 |
But “infidels” played a critical role. www.politico.com Christianity today is all over the map on dogma and has largely departed from what Jesus taught. We do not need the Christian cults revisionism or them having any power over us by asserting this was, is or should be a Christian Nation as they see it. God forbid such a dangerous threat. |
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zorro |
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dm |
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GM So what? What’s your point? |
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zorro |
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Lol You asked me earlier how I felt about Creator in the founding documents. I told you…. And you ignored me So most believed. So what? |
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Sad I keep forgetting how enthusiastically enamored GMF is with the activity of the murderous war criminal in destroying the nascent Ukrainian democracy. |
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dmaestro 17-May-24, 11:12 |
GM IMO it would be hell to live under the dictates of your type of organized faith based on some myth this should be a Christian nation not secular. Whatever your point here I dispute the premise. |
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Your Type |
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dmaestro 17-May-24, 11:19 |
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