All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[Kevinroc]

This is a good article that especially takes McConnel to task.



https://www.nybooks.com/articles/201...-of-democracy/

Both Mussolini and Hitler came to power in no small part because the fascist-conservative alliances on the right faced division and disarray on the left. The Catholic parties (Popolari in Italy, Zentrum in Germany), liberal moderates, Social Democrats, and Communists did not cooperate effectively in defense of democracy. In Germany this reached the absurd extreme of the Communists underestimating the Nazis as a transitory challenge while focusing on the Social Democrats—dubbed “red fascists”—as the true long-term threat to Communist triumph.

Ha ha ha...

[Tendrin]

Ha ha ha...

Remember, the important part is attacking Democrats for... *checks notes* classism in mocking Trump's fast food feast.

[Iron Maiden]

Fast food served cold I guess wouldn't bother some people but IMO the WH kitchen could have made the burgers and the chicken or whatever fresh on the spot. And instead of pre-packaged salads, a decent salad bar. I can't believe they even have the little plastic containers of condiments there on the table too. what a cheapskate. That stuff on the table they can get any day of the week and get it served fresh instead of sitting on a table for a while.

.....ah, just read an article about the dinner. Even a lot of the WH staff is on furlough so maybe there's no cooks in the kitchen!

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Look, I can't make this **** up at all.

I just heard about this on my local all-news radio station. Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

When you go to the white house you expect some class not to walk into a European Sketch Show of what America is like.

BINGO! But then, to expect class from a classless buffoon like Trump is highly unlikely. Talk about embarrassing!

====================

Protesters Flip Script On Trump At Farmers Convention: ‘Lock Him Up’

And Trump flips his script: He tells farmers he’s going to make it easier for some immigrants to come in to do field labor. “You need these people,” he says. Just like Trump made is easier for illegals to work at Mar-a-Lago?

**********

Trump Vows He’ll ‘Never Ever Back Down’ On Border Security

“When it comes to keeping the American people safe, I will never, ever back down,” Trump said, repeating his strong view that the wall is needed on both security and humanitarian grounds. He spoke to farmers attending a convention in New Orleans.

Well, what about keeping the American people safe from homegrown, WHITE madmen who are FAR more likely to launch bloodbaths than illegal immigrants? More proof this is all bullshit designed for the sole purpose of getting his ultimate vanity project built. Speaking of security....

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Ex-DOJ Counterintelligence Chief: Trump Is ‘A Clear And Present Danger’ To National Security

David Laufman called Trump’s actions “positively chilling.” That goes without saying, homeslice. Meanwhile....

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CNN’s Jake Tapper Details Astounding List Of Trump’s Troubling Connections To Russia

“If you were in the FBI, you think there might be something worth taking a look at there?” the CNN newsman asked. Damn straight I would!

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Rand Paul Heading To Canada, Land Of Universal Health Care, For Surgery

The Kentucky senator has called a similar health care system for Americans “slavery.” The hypocrisy is strong with Randy.

**********

[SUPERECWFAN1]

What makes it even more insanely comical is Trump is a certified billionaire and could have paid for chefs to treat the team to a good meal and everything. Instead he treated them to a a meal he wanted. Because as he claimed ; this is a meal I like and its American. Like yeah ...well you eat **** daily and your in White House. It doesn't meant if people visit they wanna eat **** food.

[Mecegirl]

What makes it even more insanely comical is Trump is a certified billionaire and could have paid for chefs to treat the team to a good meal and everything. Instead he treated them to a a meal he wanted. Because as he claimed ; this is a meal I like and its American. Like yeah ...well you eat **** daily and your in White House. It doesn't meant if people visit they wanna eat **** food.

HE HAS A HOTEL IN DC!!!

He already had foreign leaders, diplomats, and dignitaries staying at his hotel. He may as well bring the team over to his hotel and feed them there, damn.

[zinderel]

Rand Paul Heading To Canada, Land Of Universal Health Care, For Surgery

The Kentucky senator has called a similar health care system for Americans “slavery.” The hypocrisy is strong with Randy.

This...ugh. Dude denies the benefits he can get easily as a rich white man to everyone else, but somehow, he's gots 'principles' because he sometimes kind of weakly criticizes Trump's excesses. Can we stop pretending Rand Paul is anything less than another ethical wasteland on display from the Republican party?

How, I wonder, will defenders of Republican 'honor's try to spin this into a virtue instead of hypocrisy?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

What makes it even more insanely comical is Trump is a certified billionaire and could have paid for chefs to treat the team to a good meal and everything. Instead he treated them to a a meal he wanted. Because as he claimed ; this is a meal I like and its American. Like yeah ...well you eat **** daily and your in White House. It doesn't meant if people visit they wanna eat **** food.

WHAAAAAAAAAT? Trump? Employ his chefs to cook for mostly BLACK men? Are you serious? Get outta town, dude!

HE HAS A HOTEL IN DC!!!

He already had foreign leaders, diplomats, and dignitaries staying at his hotel. He may as well bring the team over to his hotel and feed them there, damn.

You can't tell me most of those players weren't wishing they were ANYWHERE but at that **** show. And since top level athletes are careful about what they eat and don't always indulge in junk food (if they indulge at all), they couldn't have been all too happy with that stupid spread.

[jetengine]

Note the dude taking a picture

[numberthirty]

Note the dude taking a picture

Can't.

All I can see is the kid in the blue suit with the empty plate that is rethinking every step that got him to a fast food spread at The White House.

[Tami]

HE HAS A HOTEL IN DC!!!

He already had foreign leaders, diplomats, and dignitaries staying at his hotel. He may as well bring the team over to his hotel and feed them there, damn.

If Trump really wanted to serve them Hamburgers, he could have had the WH chiefs cook them up fresh. Instead of serving boxed lunches. I'm not against hamburgers, and I'm not against supporting businesses, but come'on. How hard is it to buy a package of freshly ground hamburger meat and grill it in the kitchen? Not hard at all.

[Tami]

Trump is doing immense damage. He has a hidden helper.

Two new blockbuster scoops about President Trump’s relations with Russia — combined with fresh signs that Trump will drag out the government shutdown indefinitely — should renew our focus on the quiet but critical role that Mitch McConnell has played in enabling the damage that Trump is doing to the country on so many fronts.

As the shutdown drags into its fourth week, causing cascading impacts around the country, The Post reports that pressure is now likely to intensify on the Senate majority leader to allow votes on measures reopening the government. Three Senate Republicans have already called for a reopening, and as one GOP strategist puts it, a few more coming out “changes the calculus” for McConnell.

Meanwhile, thanks to new reporting over the weekend, the basic question of whether Trump has at pivotal moments acted in Russia’s interests, to the detriment of U.S. interests — is being thrust to the forefront with new urgency.

This should cause us to revisit the role that McConnell played during the campaign in preventing members of Congress from showing a united public front against Russian sabotage of the election.

[aja_christopher]

"Racial Wealth and Inequality Don't Just Plague Black and Latino Families"

Often, discussions about racial equity and economic inequality focus exclusively on Black and Latino communities. Even in this report,
we have focused thus far on Black and Latino families and not other racial groups. In part, the focus on Black and Latino groups can be
attributed to the fact that the economic insecurities facing these particular communities is much easier to see. However, the lack of
compelling data about other racial and ethnic minorities should not be treated as evidence that they do not face mounting economic
inequality. To the contrary, there are often significant gaps between their wealth and the wealth of their White counterparts.

When it comes to Asian American communities, their struggles with economic inequality are often overlooked due to prevailing
stereotypes and the oversimplification of economic data, which consolidates 21 million culturally diverse people16 from 48 countries,
each with different contexts of immigration and wealth, into a single group. This consolidation further perpetuates the “model
minority” myth of Asian households as being unequivocally better off than other communities of color.

Beyond serving as a wedge in conversations about race and economic mobility, aggregating economic data about Asian American
communities obscures clear social and economic differences within the Asian communities in the US, particularly when it comes to
wealth. To this point, recent research by the Center for American Progress has found that overall affluence and economic well-being
associated with Asian Americans is not shared across the entire community, and that in fact, many face serious wealth inequality
challenges.

When economic data for Asian Americans are disaggregated, wealth inequality is actually more significant among Asian
American households than compared to White households. For example, between 2010–2013, the top 10% of Asian Americans owned
$1.4 million in wealth, while the bottom 20% of Asian Americans owned about $9,300. By comparison, the top 10% of White households
owned $1.2 million, while the bottom 20% of White households owned a little more than $10,000. Overall, the richest Asian
Americans held 168 times more wealth than the poorest Asian Americans, while the richest White households owned 121 times more
wealth than the poorest White households.

Although median Asian American households are generally more affluent than the median White households, these disaggregated data
reveal both a greater concentration of Asian American households at the bottom, and a highly skewed average due to wealth
distributions at the top. For example, in addition to bringing further attention to the level of wealth inequality experienced within the
Asian American community itself, researchers at the Center for American Progress found that the poorest Asian Americans own far less
wealth than their White counterparts. Today, among households in the bottom half of the income distribution, White households
owned more than twice the wealth ($42,238) held by their Asian American peers ($18,270).

All of these data point to a significant wealth divide between White and Asian American households over the past 25 years that is often overlooked.

https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/upload...alth_FINAL.pdf

[aja_christopher]

(Cont'd)

"Not unlike Asian Americans, our collective focus on the social and economic issues facing Native Americans is also influenced in part by
availability of and methods for collecting economic data that shed light on these communities. However, when it comes to Native
American data, the issue for these communities is less often about how they are seen and more often about if they are seen. Whereas
aggregated economic data about Asian households are often skewed, Native American economic data are often outdated, difficult to
collect and/or insufficient to interpret reliably. In turn, the unique economic experiences of Native Americans are often overlooked,
even though these experiences tend to be comparable or worse than those of Black and Latino households.

While we do have access to a range of current data on income, including median household income ($38,530, 30% less than the than
the national median)21 and poverty rates (26.6%, roughly twice the national rate),22 when it comes to Native American net worth, scant
data are available to illustrate to the current state of wealth within these communities. In fact, when it comes to wealth, the most
recent data available for Native American communities are seventeen years old. In 2000, the last time Native American wealth was
systematically measured, the median net worth of Native households stood at just $5,700.23

Ultimately, the problematic nature of data on Asian American wealth and the dearth of data on Native American wealth complicate our
discussion of the racial wealth divide in three important ways.

First, and most obviously, these challenges mean we lack the data
needed to fully understand—and therefore design solutions to—the unique problems facing these communities. Second, and closely
related, insufficient, unreliable and aggregated data prevent us from seeing the full scope of the racial wealth divide and its inevitable
impact on the middle class if left untreated. Third and finally, in the absence of these data, we make generalizations about groups of
people that not only perpetuate problematic narratives, such as that of the “model minority,” but also fail to see the urgency with which
some of our neighbors are suffering the effects of decades or centuries of economic exclusion.

Hence, any solution to growing racial wealth inequality will demand that we also refine our abilities to collect and interpret data that shed light on the lived economic realities of these communities."

-----
"While some argue that this racial wealth divide stems from choices made by individuals and communities, the facts tell a different story.

Recent research shows that the racial wealth divide persists across all levels of educational attainment and family structures, seriously
diminishing the “personal choices” argument. Case in point? White high school dropouts own more wealth than Black and Latino college
graduates.

Furthermore, single-parent White households own more wealth than two-parent Black households.

Wealth is the buffer families need when faced with unexpected economic shocks like a lost job or a broken-down car. Wealth is also the
capital available to families to take advantage of economic opportunities, like buying a home, saving for college or investing in the stock
market. Ultimately, wealth can be the difference between a family maintaining and strengthening their economic status or flailing in
economic insecurity."

[aja_christopher]

Trump isn't the problem -- he's just a symptom of the problem.

-----
The Road to Zero Wealth: How the Racial Wealth Divide is Hollowing Out America's Middle Class"

In our 2016 report, The Ever-Growing Gap: Without Change, African American and Latino Families Won’t Match White Wealth for
Centuries, we showed that it if current trends continue, it will take 228 years for the average Black family to reach the level of wealth
White families own today. For the average Latino family, matching the wealth of White families will take 84 years.

In this report, we look at the racial wealth divide at the median over the next four and eight years, as well as to 2043, when the
country’s population is predicted to become majority non-white. We also look to wealth rather than income to reconsider what it
means to be middle class. In finding an ever-accelerating gap, we consider what it means for the American middle class and we explore
what policy interventions could reverse the trends we see today. We find that without a serious change in course, the country is
heading towards a racial and economic apartheid state.

• Earning a middle-class income does not guarantee middle-class economic security. White households in the middle-income quintile
(those earning $37,201-$61,328 annually) own nearly eight times as much wealth ($86,100) as middle-income Black earners
($11,000) and ten times as much wealth as middle-income Latino earners ($8,600). This disconnect in income earned and wealth
owned is visible across the entire income spectrum between these groups.

• If the middle class were to be defined by wealth rather than by income, Black and Latino families in the middle-income quintile
would need to earn 2-3 times as much as White families in order to enter the middle class. If we were to define the middle class in
terms of wealth, households would need to own between $68,000-$204,000 in wealth to qualify for the middle class. Under these
terms, only Black and Latino households in the highest income-quintile (those earning more than $104,509) would qualify for
middle-class status or higher, compared to White households in the top three income-quintiles who already own wealth in excess
of this threshold.

In fact, only Black and Latino households with an advanced degree have enough wealth to be considered middle-class,
whereas all White households with a high school diploma or higher would be considered middle class.

• Defining class in terms of wealth instead of income, roughly 70% of Black and Latino households would fall below the $68,000
threshold needed for middle-class status, whereas only about 40% of White households would fall below the middle class. In
contrast, roughly 13% of Black and Latino households could be considered to have “upper-wealth” (meaning they own at least
$204,000 in wealth), compared to 40% of White households.

• The accelerating decline in wealth over the past 30 years has left many Black and Latino families unable to reach the middle class.
Between 1983 and 2013, the wealth of median Black and Latino households decreased by 75% (from $6,800 to $1,700) and 50%
(from $4,000 to $2,000), respectively, while median White household wealth rose by 14% (from $102,200 to $116,800). If current
trends continue, by 2020 median Black and Latino households stand to lose nearly 18% and 12%, respectively, of the wealth they
held in 2013. In that same timeframe, median White household wealth would see an increase of 3%. Put differently, in just under
four years from now, median White households are projected to own 86 and 68 times more wealth than Black and Latino
households, respectively.

• By 2024, median Black and Latino households are projected to own 60-80% less wealth than they did in 1983. By then, the
continued rise in racial wealth inequality between median Black, Latino and White households is projected to lead White
households to own 99 and 75 times more wealth than their Black and Latino counterparts, respectively.

• If the racial wealth divide is left unaddressed and is not exacerbated further over the next eight years, median Black household
wealth is on a path to hit zero by 2053—about 10 years after it is projected that racial minorities will comprise the majority of the
nation’s population. Median Latino household wealth is projected to hit zero twenty years later, or by 2073.

In sharp contrast, median White household wealth would climb to $137,000 by 2053 and $147,000 by 2073..."

https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/upload...alth_FINAL.pdf