Category: Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere, MLK jr

Stories of injustice and justice

Republi-cons cut taxes for billionaires and now need to cut Social Programs to pay for it

Reuters – Politics

 Reuters          September 17, 2018
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow speaks during a meeting of the Economic Club of New York in New York City, U.S., September 17, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A top economic adviser to President Donald Trump said on Monday he expects U.S. budget deficits of about 4 percent to 5 percent of the country’s economic output for the next one to two years, adding that there would likely be an effort in 2019 to cut spending on entitlement programs.

“We have to be tougher on spending,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said in remarks to the Economic Club of New York, adding that government spending was the reason for the wider budget deficits, not the Republican-led tax cuts activated this year.

Kudlow did not specify where future cuts would be made.

“We’re going to run deficits of about 4 to 5 percent of GDP for the next year or two, OK. I’d rather they were lower but it’s not a catastrophe,” Kudlow said. “Going down the road, of course we’d like to slim that down as much as possible and we’ll work at it.”

He stated that the biggest factor for revenue was economic growth rate. A quicker pace of growth will bring in more revenue, Kudlow said, and that President Donald Trump’s economic policies were aimed at boosting the U.S. growth rate.

Kudlow also said he did not expect the Congress would be able to make the Trump administration’s recent individual tax cuts permanent before the Nov. 6 midterm congressional elections.

“I don’t think it will get through the whole Congress” before the election, he said, but added that making the personal tax cuts permanent “is a good message” and disagreed with forecasts that they would further increase budget deficits.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York; additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; writing by Susan Heavey; editing by Tim Ahmann and G Crosse)

Watch This Millionaire Explain How Easy It is for the Rich to Exploit the System

 

Watch This Millionaire Explain How Easy It is for the Rich to Exploit the System

Watch This Millionaire Explain How Easy It is for the Rich to Exploit the System

This millionaire revealed his tax return to show just how much the GOP tax law favors the rich (via Patriotic Millionaires)

Posted by NowThis Opinions on Sunday, August 12, 2018

Every man should be worried!

Washington Post – Opinions

Every man should be worried. At least, I’m worried.

Have we changed since Anita Hill’s testimony? As Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces a sexual misconduct allegation, columnist Ruth Marcus asks, who’s responsible for the burden of proof? (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

By Alexandra Petri, Columnist           September 17, 2018 

“If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.”
— A lawyer close to the White House, speaking to Politico

Look, who among us?

If, apparently, a single alleged assault at a single party decades ago is to be frowned upon, then no man is safe, right?

What’s next? You can’t harass a colleague and serve on the Supreme Court? You can’t pick up high schoolers outside custody hearings and serve in the Senate? You can’t have a meat locker full of female femurs and expect to breeze through your confirmation as interior secretary?

How are we going to fill our offices if this is the new rule? I bet you will say I cannot shout at women as they pass on the street before dragging them to a concrete bunker and then still expect to become governor! What next? I’m supposed to make sure everyone I have sex with is willing?

This isn’t just my worry. This isn’t just something horrible I am now revealing about myself. This is an every-man problem.

If suddenly, as a country, we decide that violently attempting to assault someone is, like, bad, then that knocks out 98, maybe 99 percent of men, just going off the locker-room talk I’ve heard.

Look, which of us is 100 percent certain all his sexual encounters are consensual? That isn’t most people’s baseline, surely? You’re telling me I am supposed to encounter dozens, hundreds, thousands of women in my life, some drunk and some sober and some with really good legs and just … not assault any of them?

That sounds exhausting. A whole life of that would be excruciating. No, there ought to be some kind of punch card — say, if you treat 65 women with the respect and dignity you would accord any man, you are entitled to one freebie.

No. They are an unintelligible something else. They are to be put on pedestals, as John Kelly urges, or groped, as the president urges. They are impervious to cold, capable of wearing a bikini on the most frigid day to please us; they can run great distances in heels without discomfort; they were created for us from a rib and designed as our companion. If they have wants of their own, there is really no way of knowing. They say words people might say (You would be forgiven for thinking them people), but remember, they do not mean the words they say. If what they said was what they meant, then they have not wanted anything I have ever done to them!

It would just be too terrible if they were people. Then you could not harm them with impunity. Then if you made a mistake (Boys will be boys), you would have harmed a person. Then something else would be at stake in addition to your career, and that cannot be.

No, if this is the rule, no man is safe. Not the man who shouts at you as you walk down the sidewalk, or grabs you, or puts something in your drink. As all men do, I think.

If assault renders a man unfit to serve on the Supreme Court, then how are we to discern the Founders’ intent? I mean, Jefferson, hello? And what is going to become of the presidency? Who wants to live in that world?

Every man should be worried. If boys cannot be boys, then how can boys be men who rise to the highest offices in the land? If this stops being something you can get away with, then will anyone still be above the law?

Every man should be worried.

At least, I’m worried.

Alexandra Petri is a Washington Post columnist offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.”

Democratic Socialism

Bill Maher

September 15, 2018

The new campaign slogan for the Democratic Party should be: We’re Not Socialists – You’re Traitors

Scary Socialism

The new campaign slogan for the Democratic Party should be: We're Not Socialists – You're Traitors

Posted by Bill Maher on Friday, September 14, 2018

The Homelessness crisis in California

VICE News posted an episode of VICE News Tonight.

There is a shortage of affordable housing all across the country, but it’s especially bad in California, where more and more people are finding the only place they can afford to live is inside a car.

The Hidden Homelessness Crisis in California

There is a shortage of affordable housing all across the country, but it's especially bad in California, where more and more people are finding the only place they can afford to live is inside a car.

Posted by VICE News on Sunday, September 16, 2018

Democrats Call To Delay Kavanaugh Vote After His Accuser Goes Public

NPR – Politics

Democrats Call To Delay Kavanaugh Vote After His Accuser Goes Public

Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 6, 2018. Alex Wong/Getty Images

 

Top Senate Democrats said Sunday that the Senate should delay further action on confirming Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until newly revealed allegations of sexual assault from 35 years ago are investigated by the FBI.

The vote was scheduled for this week but Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for the delay shortly after The Washington Post published a story naming the woman who says that Kavanaugh tried to sexually assault her when they were both teenagers.

The woman, Christine Blasey Ford, spoke to the Post on the record and confirmed details that had previously been reported in other outlets, including The New Yorker.

Kavanaugh Denies Allegation Of Sexual Misconduct During High School

Ford said that one night in the 1980s, when she was in high school, a drunken Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, attempted to pull off her clothing and covered her mouth as she tried to scream. She was able to flee after Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge, jumped on them.

“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Ford told the Post. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

At first, she vowed to never speak of the incident, she said. But the trauma eventually drove her to seek therapy. She brought the incident up at a couples therapy session in 2012, she said.

“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” said Kavanaugh in a statement issued by the White House last week when the allegations began to surface.

But his words have not stemmed a wave of Democrats who are calling for his nomination to be delayed.

“I support Mrs. Ford’s decision to share her story, and now that she has, it is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation,” Feinstein said in a statement. “This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on Grassley to postpone the vote “until, at a very minimum, these serious and credible allegations are thoroughly investigated.” He added, “To railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court.”

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) echoed their messages on Twitter, saying, “The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to scrutinize SCOTUS nominees. A vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination must be delayed until there is a thorough investigation.”

On Friday, after the contents of the letter were first reported, an FBI official said the agency had not opened a criminal investigation.

A spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the allegations should have been brought up earlier. Their timing and nature “raises a lot of questions about Democrats’ tactics and motives to bring this to the rest of the committee’s attention only now rather than during these many steps along the way.”

During the judge’s hearing, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D.-Hawaii) asked Kavanaugh if he had ever made unwanted sexual advances, verbally or physically since becoming a legal adult. Kavanaugh replied “no” to her questions. The allegations made against Kavanaugh would have taken place while he was still a minor.

“It took a lot of courage for Christine Blasey Ford to come forward to share her story of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh,” Hirono said in a statement on Sunday. “This development is yet another reason not to rush Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.”

Before Ford broke her silence, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Sunday on Fox that Kavanaugh’s nomination process as an “intergalactic freak show” and that “I don’t know what our Democratic friends expect us to do” about the sexual assault allegation because of its secrecy. He predicted that every Republican would vote for Kavanaugh.

The Post reported that Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist and professor, contacted the paper in early July — after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his intention to retire and Kavanaugh was shortlisted as his potential replacement.

On the advice of civil rights lawyer Debra Katz, who specializes in sexual harassment cases, she even took a polygraph test which reportedly demonstrated that her allegations were accurate. There are also therapist’s notes which describe the incident.

She said, “Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation.”

Brett Kavanaugh Accuser Goes Public: ‘I Thought He Might Inadvertently Kill Me’

HuffPost

Brett Kavanaugh Accuser Goes Public: ‘I Thought He Might Inadvertently Kill Me’

Hayley Miller, HuffPost        September 16, 2018
The woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

The woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in a confidential letter to members of Congress has come forward to tell her story.

Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University in California, told The Washington Post that she had feared Kavanaugh “might inadvertently kill” her as he held her down and groped her while they were both high school students around 1982.

Ford alleges another teenager watched as a drunken Kavanaugh attempted to remove her clothing at a gathering outside Washington in suburban Maryland. She tried to scream, but Kavanaugh covered her mouth to silence her, she told the Post. She said she escaped after Kavanaugh’s friend entered the room and jumped on top of both of them.

“I think it derailed me substantially for four or five years,” Ford told the Post of the alleged assault. She described the incident as a “rape attempt” during a therapy session in 2012, according to her therapist’s notes obtained by the Post.

Kavanaugh, 53, has denied any wrongdoing.

“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” Kavanaugh said in a statement last week when news of the letter first surfaced. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

Ford had been requesting anonymity, but she decided to identify herself in the Post article published early Sunday afternoon.

Ford sent the letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) during the summer, after Kavanaugh was nominated for the high court vacancy by President Donald Trump, to share her concerns about him.

After weeks of media speculation, Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will decide whether to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate, confirmed the existence of the letter on Thursday. She also said she referred the matter to the FBI.

Ford told the Post she hadn’t wanted to identify herself publicly, but after details of her letter began to leak, she decided she wanted to be the one to tell her story.

The Judiciary Committee vote on Kavanaugh is scheduled for Thursday, but Feinstein said the panel should wait to vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation until the FBI has conducted its review into the matter.

“I support Mrs. Ford’s decision to share her story, and now that she has, it is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation,” Feinstein said in a statement Sunday. “This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee.”

Taylor Foy, a spokeswoman for Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), on Sunday termed “disturbing” the timing of “uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school.”

Foy said that if Feinstein and other committee Democrats “took this claim seriously, they should have brought it to the full committee’s attention much earlier.” She also called on Feinstein to release the letter she received from Ford in July “so that everyone can know what she’s known for weeks.”

Several other Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), on Sunday echoed Feinstein’s call for a delayed vote on Kavanaugh.

Grassley “must postpone the vote until, at a very minimum, these serious and credible allegations are thoroughly investigated,” Schumer said in a statement.

The White House reiterated its support for Kavanaugh, a federal appellate court judge, in the wake of the latest development.

“We are standing with Judge Kavanaugh’s denial,” White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in a statement to Fox News on Sunday.

This story has been updated with comment from Feinstein and Schumer. Igor Bobic contributed reporting.

The GOP Rode The Trump Train, And Now It’s Derailing

HuffPost

The GOP Rode The Trump Train, And Now It’s Derailing

Michelangelo Signorile, HuffPost        September 13, 2018
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) speaks with members of the press on Sept. 7, 2018 regarding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.Susan Collins must be freaking out.

The Republican senator from Maine, who positions herself as a pro-abortion rights moderate, signaled early support of Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. According to a HuffPost source, Collins allegedly green lit Trump’s nominee before the president even chose Kavanaugh, though she strenuously denies this. The senator now faces activists who have so far raised $1.3 million and counting via crowdfunding for any opponent to run against her in 2020.

A rattled Collins has resorted to calling this “bribery” in an “exclusive statement” to right-wing website Newsmax, which tells us exactly which audience she’s attempting to shore up and gain sympathy from.

This claim is just plain silly since no one is planning on actually paying her the money. She should look up Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission for a definition of bribery, a ruling handed down by several justices for whom she voted, and a ruling which she’s benefited from in the form of corporate donations.

Collins has also complained about “vulgar” phone calls to her office from people opposed to Kavanaugh, the least popular Supreme Court nominee in decades, who, in opinion polls, is doing slightly worse or even with the ill-fated Harriet Miers and Robert Bork. (Of course, for a definition of “vulgar,” Collins really should just look up “Donald Trump.”)

Perhaps Collins, who seems to have lived in that cocoon in which senators who’ve been in office for decades often find themselves, is suddenly realizing that we’re in a different time and that she’s sealed her fate. Who knows what Trump may have promised Collins or what she’s afraid he might do to her if she were now to go back on any assurances she may have given on Kavanaugh. Perhaps Collins is worried about a primary challenge from the right in 2020. I would be.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), meanwhile, is begging for help from the same GOP leaders he’s attacked in the past (like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whom Cruz called a “liar” a few years back) as he tries to fend off a serious challenge from Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke, who is galvanizing support across Texas and coming up even with Cruz in polls. It appears grassroots fundraising has slowed for Cruz and exploded for O’Rourke.

 Perhaps Collins is worried about a primary challenge from the right in 2020. I would be.

Ironically, Cruz is also turning to the same man who helped turn the GOP radioactive: Trump, who announced he’s heading to Texas to stump for Cruz next month. The same Cruz whom Trump called “Lyin’ Ted.” The same Trump whom Cruz called a “sniveling coward” and “serial philanderer.”

And now McConnell is openly fretting about losing Republican control of the Senate.

While the House has been in play for Democrats for months, their chances only grow by the day to take control of the chamber, as new polls show further momentum. But control of the Senate, seen as a long shot just weeks ago, is also now a realistic, less-daunting possibility. McConnell even told reporters this week, “I hope when the smoke clears, we’ll still have a majority.”

GOP leaders mused in the recent past about taking seats from Democrats in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan ― all states Trump won. But those efforts have largely evaporated. Now McConnell and GOP leaders are diverting precious time and money to states where McConnell sees a “knife fight in an alley” to retain or take seats: Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee, Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia and Florida.

Fighting to keep Senate seats in Texas and Tennessee was never in the GOP’s game plan (nor in anyone else’s wildest imagination).

Republicans can only blame themselves for this state of affairs. After first occasionally standing up to Trump post-election, they’ve completely thrown their lot in with him, fearful of their shrinking party’s Trump-loving base. (The GOP now represents only about one-fourth of voters, according to recent surveys, declining since the 2016 election.)

Now, Trump is all they’ve got. Their tax law, benefiting the wealthy and corporations, went nowhere in galvanizing voters for the midterms (many having likely seen it for the scam that it is). According to a recent Fox News poll, it’s now more unpopular (40 percent) than Obamacare (51 percent). Vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, always a desperate last resort, only hurt the GOP in Virginia’s 2017 gubernatorial and legislative races and in special elections across the country.

But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from deploying racist attacks this election season in full force. As Frank Sharry of the immigration group America’s Voice notes, we can expect “an ugly midterm election strategy: smear immigrants as criminals and attack Democrats for defending them.”

For McConnell and GOP Senate candidates, at least, the plan, from a while back, has been to grab onto Trump and back all of his ugly, racist rhetoric, hoping he’ll keep them afloat.

 Fighting to keep Senate seats in Texas and Tennessee was never in the GOP’s game plan (nor in anyone else’s wildest imagination).

But Trump’s approval is quite suddenly sinking into the mid-30s in a slew of new polls ― tanking among independents and in the Midwest ― while, in that same recent Fox News poll, special counsel Robert Mueller, leading the Russia investigation, has a soaring 59 percent approval rating.

There are now few states the GOP can send Trump ― who, on his own, is deciding where he wants to go anyway ― because even if he may help in a statewide race, he will hurt GOP House candidates in suburban districts in that same state who are running as far away from him as they can. As has been said many times, anything Trump touches, he destroys.

None of this, of course, is certain, underscoring why progressives must double down their energy. With voter suppression, possible Russian electorial interference and the usual GOP arsenal of dirty tricks, Republicans may be able to cling to power in both chambers. Gerrymandering has helped to rig the system, too.

And even if Republicans are hurt by embracing Trump, much of it is cold comfort for progressives and all who care about the future of America. Collins may pay a price in 2020 for voting to confirm Kavanaugh, but we’ll still be stuck with Kavanaugh and a radical shift of the Supreme Court for decades. The country will experience profound change, from the gutting of Roe v. Wade and threatening LGBTQ rights to an expansion of presidential power and further assaults on the environment.

A lot of the damage that Trump has caused unilaterally or with the help of the GOP Congress will be difficult or even impossible to undo, even if Democrats were to take both the Senate and the House, keep control of each chamber for several years, and even win the presidency in 2020.

But we must start somewhere at turning things around as we face the most devastating and harrowing political reality of our lifetimes. That’s only going to happen when the GOP hits rock bottom as progressive momentum surges. And it’s appearing that may happen this November.

Michelangelo Signorile is an editor-at-large for HuffPost.

The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy is helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms.

NowThis Politics
August 28, 2018

The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy has another layer: It’s helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms

Robert Reich on the GOP Tax Cuts for the Rich and the 2018 Midterms

The GOP tax cuts for the wealthy has another layer: It's helping them funnel that money into the 2018 midterms

Posted by NowThis Politics on Tuesday, August 28, 2018

What does Big Sugar have to do with Florida’s toxic water problems?

Everglades-Trust shared a video.

August 27, 2018

What Floridians are enduring is decades in the making. Agricultural runoff polluting the water and Big Sugar blocking its natural flow. Bianca Graulau with 10News in Tampa Bay does a remarkable job telling the story here.

What does Big Sugar have to do with Florida's red tide?

You've been hearing a lot about the toxic algae situation in Florida. But what's causing it? @Bianca Graulau explains.https://on.wtsp.com/2oddXNH

Posted by 10News WTSP on Sunday, August 26, 2018