👍🏼CIVIC ACTION ATTACKS THE NATIVISTS’ BIG LIE: “The truth is life is not a zero-sum game. A growing body of evidence actually shows that inclusion isn’t just compatible witheconomic growth — it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Thomas Malthus was wrong about economics, but he would be delighted with the GOP’s dishonest “beggar thy neighbor” policies!”
Creative Commons 4.0

If you’ve taken Econ 101, you were probably taught that the economy is a zero-sum game. If I win, another economic actor has to lose. One group’s gains mean another’s losses. The issue with that theory? It’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous: Nationalist leaders around the world have played on voters’ fears by threatening that the economic progress of immigrants and minorities will result in losses for everyone else.

The truth is, life isn’t a zero-sum game. A growing body of evidence actually shows that inclusion isn’t just compatible with economic growth – it’s absolutely necessary.

On this week’s episode of Nick Hanauer’s podcast Pitchfork Economics, JP Julien discusses a report that he co-wrote as a leader of global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s Institute for Black Economic Mobility. This think tank isn’t in the business of getting accolades from progressive circles – or conservative ones – it’s focused on the cold, hard data. Here’s what Julien told us about economic inclusion:

When more people can fully participate in the economy, we all win

Julien says that when people from all races and backgrounds are able to participate as workers, entrepreneurs, and consumers, the economy is stronger and more resilient. There’s already plenty of evidence for this theory: Between 1960 and 2010, 40% of GDP growth can be directly tied to women and people of color joining the labor force. “The data speaks quite clearly that the more we get people to participate, the better outcomes we produce,” Julien says.

Economic discrimination hurts all of us

There’s a staggering price tag on economic discrimination against people of color and women in America. In his paper, Julien found that eliminating wealth disparities between Black and white households and Hispanic and white households could add $2 to $3 trillion of incremental annual GDP to the U.S. economy. And if more women join the workforce over the coming years, we could add $2.1 trillion in GDP by 2025.

These gains aren’t zero-sum numbers; they don’t come at the expense of the economic value of white men – those numbers are in addition to that growth. That means America’s missing out on at least $5 trillion of economic activity because whole demographics have been shut out of the economy.

Corporations that focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion outperform their peers

From the end of last year to this May, we’ve seen Fortune 1000 companies spend $66 billion in racial equity commitments. That’s because of a growing consensus among Fortune 1000 companies that being good corporate citizens actually creates economic opportunities. In his research, Julien found that corporations with more diverse boards and diverse leadership teams actually outperform their peers. It’s becoming impossible to ignore: DEI policies lead to a better and more profitable workplace.

For centuries, our economy has been constructed around exclusionary policies that shut out women and people of color – and this is discrimination is taking a toll on everyday Americans and our country’s economic growth. We can all win by increasing inclusion in the economic playing field – but we’re going to need all hands on deck to tear down this unfair economic system, and that means we need your help right now.

We’ve created an urgent poll to show support for win-win policies that allow everyone to participate in our economic system. We need 5,000 people to answer this one question before 11:59 p.m. tonight, and we’re counting on you to cast your vote tonight. Tell us now:

Does economic inclusion lead to greater economic growth?

Thank you,

Paul

YES

*********************

“For centuries, our economy has been constructed around exclusionary policies that shut out women and people of color – and this discrimination is taking a toll on everyday Americans and our country’s economic growth.”

Couldn’t help thinking of these words as I listened to insurrectionist/traitor “Cancun Ted” Cruz pontificate about why it’s OK to exploit farmworker labor and mischaracterize a long-overdue and well-earned legal status as “amnesty” in responding to Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) during a hearing yesterday on helping farm workers.

Despite the noxious, racist, White Nationalist bogus rhetoric of Cruz, Gov. Gregg Abbott, and other GOP political hacks from the Lone Star State, Texas and its economy would indeed be in dire straits without the economic and cultural contributions of migrants, both documented and undocumented. So would the rest of us without the essential services, productivity, and societal contributions of immigrants of all types. Indeed, without immigrants of all types, Native Americans would be the only inhabitants of America.

We need immigration laws and policies built on truth and optimism about the future, not the “beggar thy neighbor” White Nationalist myths of the nativist restrictionists!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-23-21

💸PHILANTHROPY — SOME BILLIONAIRES DONATE BILLIONS TO PROMOTE SOCIAL JUSTICE, WHILE OTHERS BLAST THEMSELVES INTO SPACE!🚀

MacKenzie Scott
Philanthropist & Author
Official USG Photo from 2016 Naturalization Ceremony
Public Realm

Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair

Bess Levin in the Levin Report:

On Tuesday, for the third time in less than a year, Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, announced that she had given more than a billion dollars to charity. This time, it was $2.74 billion to 286 different organizations, including ones focused racial justice. That brings her charitable giving since divorcing Bezos in 2019 to more than $8 billion, with much of it coming in the last 12 months, including $4.2 billion in grants announced last December. In a Medium post published this morning, Scott wrote that she and her new husband, Dan Jewett, as well as “a constellation of researchers and administrators and advisors,” are “attempting to give away a fortune that was enabled by systems in need of change,” and that they are “governed by a humbling belief that it would be better if disproportionate wealth were not concentrated in a small number of hands.” She didn’t add, “like those of my cheapskate ex-husband, Jeff,” though it’s hard to believe she wasn’t thinking it!

Even if Scott was not, few people will be able to look at the huge amounts of money she has been giving away and not think about the fact that Bezos, the literal richest man in the world, has distributed what philanthropic experts define as “diddly-squat” as a proportion of his wealth, preferring instead to focus on launching himself into space. In 2018, amidst substantiated reports that Amazon employees relieve themselves in bottles or forego bathroom breaks for fear “of being disciplined for idling and losing their jobs as a result,” and data revealing that nearly one third of Amazon’s Arizona employees were relying on food stamps, Bezos said in an interview that he couldn’t for the life of him think of a way to spend his vast fortune outside of funding his for-profit rocket-ship company, Blue Origin. (“The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel,” he told Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner. “That is basically it.… I am currently liquidating about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin. And I plan to continue to do that for a long time. Because you’re right, you’re not going to spend it on a second dinner out.”) A month after that, Amazon was instrumental in killing a proposed $275-per-employee tax for large Seattle–based businesses that would have helped alleviate the city’s serious homeless problem caused by companies like Amazon.

Over the years, Bezos has said things about charitable giving like, “Our core business activities are probably the most important thing we do to contribute, as well as our employment in the area,” and, “I’m convinced that in many cases, for-profit models improve the world more than philanthropy models, if they can be made to work.” In 2010 he donated $100,000 to help vanquish an initiative to impose a state income tax on Washington’s wealthiest residents, per The Seattle Times. “There’s almost nothing I could have predicted with more precision than that Jeff would hate the idea,” early Amazon investor Nick Hanauer, a backer of the initiative, told the outlet.

Speaking of taxes, Amazon, of course, pays very little of them, having avoided federal income taxes in numerous years. Meanwhile, Bezos himself was recently featured in ProPublica for paying nothing in federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011, and paying a “true tax rate” of 0.98% between 2014 and 2018. He also applied for and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children in 2011, when he was worth roughly $18 billion, ProPublica reported.

Only being human, Bezos apparently doesn’t like it when people start wondering why he doesn’t give away more of his $195.2 billion fortune. After The New York Times insinuated a few years ago that he was a cheap prick, Bezos announced that he would donate $2 billion to philanthropic ventures, which at the time represented a tiny fraction of his net worth (now, it’s much less). Last year, he pledge significantly more through the Bezos Earth Fund, though as Recode noted in February:

…the fact is that we don’t even know where that $10 billion sits. Is the money actually placed in a charitable vehicle like a foundation, a donor-advised fund, or a limited liability company? Or is it more of a rhetorical pledge, similar to Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s commitment in 2015 to set aside 99 percent of their money to philanthropy.… We don’t know. Bezos’s representatives have consistently declined to share information on the Earth Fund’s structure.

Next month, Bezos will (temporarily) leave earth, after adding $65 billion to his net worth during the pandemic.

******************

Read the rest of the always entertaining Levin Report at this link:

https://mailchi.mp/a7ec07e7054e/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-5103878?e=adce5e3390

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-16-21

ECONOMICS: REICH RIPS BOGUS BURRITO BIG-TIME BS 💩 BY GOP: “I challenge one Republican lawmaker to live on $15,000 a year.”

Robert Reich writes in The Guardian:

House Republicans are blaming Democrats for the rise in Chipotle burrito prices.

America’s richest men pay $0 in income tax. This is wealth supremacy | Robert Reich

You heard me right. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) issued a statement on Wednesday claiming that Chipotle’s recent decision to raise prices on their burritos and other menu products by about 4% was caused by Democrats.

“Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill,” said an NRCC spokesman, Mike Berg.

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It seems Republicans have finally found an issue to run on in the 2022 midterm elections. Apparently Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head weren’t gaining enough traction.

The GOP’s tortured logic is that the unemployment benefits in the American Rescue Plan have caused workers to stay home rather than seek employment, resulting in labor shortages that have forced employers like Chipotle to increase wages, which has required them to raise their prices.

Hence, Chipotle’s more expensive burrito.

This isn’t just loony economics. It’s dangerously loony economics because it might be believed, leading to all sorts of stupid public policies.

Start with the notion that $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits is keeping Americans from working.

Since fewer than 30% of jobless workers qualify for state unemployment benefits, the claim is that legions of workers have chosen to become couch potatoes and collect $15,000 a year rather than get a job.

Republicans have found an issue to run on. Apparently Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head weren’t gaining enough traction

I challenge one Republican lawmaker to live on $15,000 a year.

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In fact, evidence suggests that workers who are holding back from re-entering the job market don’t have childcare or are still concerned about their health during the pandemic.

Besides, if employers want additional workers, they can do what they necessarily do for anything they want more of but can’t obtain at its current price – pay more.

It’s called capitalism. Republicans should bone up on it.

When Chipotle wanted to attract more workers, it raised its average wage to $15 an hour. That comes to around $30,000 a year per worker – still too little to live on but double the federal unemployment benefit.

Oh, and there’s no reason to suppose this wage hike forced Chipotle to raise the prices of its burrito. The company had other options.

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Chipotle’s executives are among the best paid in America. Its chief executive, Brian Niccol, raked in $38m last year – which happens to be 2,898 times more than the typical Chipotle employee. All Chipotle’s top executives got whopping pay increases.

So it would have been possible for Chipotle to avoid raising its burrito prices by – dare I say? – paying its executives less. But Chipotle decided otherwise.

I’m not going to second-guess Chipotle’s business decision – nor should the NRCC.

. . . .

*********************

Read the full article at the link. As Reich cogently points out, the GOP’s false claim to be the “party of working people” is totally outrageous!

PWS

06-14-21

MAINE’S BRIGHT FUTURE IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY DEPENDS ON ROBUST IMMIGRATION & WELCOMING ATTITUDES! — Professor Joseph W. McDonnell Writes In The Portland Press Gazette

News Day in Maine — Let’s Hope That A New Day Is Dawning , Fueled by Immigrants, For Maine & America After 4 Years of Unrelenting Darkness. The Biden Administration Must Help By Re-establishing Our Legal Asylum Program!

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/05/12/maine-voices-new-u-s-intelligence-report-suggests-how-maine-can-address-global-trends-2/

Maine Voices: New U.S. intelligence report suggests how Maine can address global trends

We’re in a good position to improve the lives of people without college degrees, to welcome foreigners to a democratic society and to diversify our workforce.

. . . .

The Global Trends report provides analysis but not policy solutions. Maine could assist by demonstrating that democracy can work here by taking steps to bridge the ideological divide and reduce political polarization. Maine can become a welcoming state for immigrants by easing their entry into the workforce to replace our retiring baby boomers.

Maine can also develop public-private partnerships to teach workforce skills that raise incomes and improve the quality of life for those without a college degree. Finally, Maine can exercise soft power by welcoming foreigners as tourists and recruiting students from China to our high schools and universities, offering an opportunity to experience a democratic society with both its flaws and freedoms, and to forge friendships between the two contested countries.

Joseph W. McDonnell is a professor of public policy and management at the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine

********************

You can read Professor McDonnell’s article (along with a couple of comments that show exactly why our hope for the future has to be in immigrants — not that the commenters probably weren’t immigrants of some sort at some point in our history).

B/T/W Congresswoman Omar (D-MN) is a naturalized U.S. citizen — an example of someone who not only immigrated, survived racial and religious bigotry and bullying in school, graduated from college, established a successful career as an educator and civic advocate, and further had the courage and commitment (which most native-born Americans, including me, do not) to successfully seek elective office and work through the system to make America a better place for all, regardless of whether or not one agrees with all of her views.

The vast majority of immigrants of any status “learn the language” (many better than some native-born U.S. citizens) and become at least bi-lingual if not tri-lingual, a skill set that few native-born Americans achieve.

Of course, in an intentionally diverse society, important Government documents should be printed in languages that individuals are most comfortable with. You might have become proficient in French in college, but if involved in a legal dispute in France, most of us would need and expect an English translation to be sure we understood and, in turn, were understood.

I knew enough German to study in Germany during college. I was comfortable going down to the local watering spot and ordering “bauernbrat mit kraut und bier.” But, if I had been involved in a legal proceeding, I wouldn’t have dared to proceed in German.

Also, although undoubtedly some students and foreign workers are exploited by the American system, overall they make huge contributions to both education and our workforce. As an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law, my classes are continually enriched by the presence of foreign students and scholars, many of whom are willing to share their own immigration stories and to enlighten us on the culture and legal system they experienced.

Also, if we have learned anything during the pandemic, it is how very dependent we are on our immigrant and ethnic communities, regardless of “status,” for essential workers. The “exploitation” is an “American home grown problem,” not one caused by immigrants! As a society, we need to stop “shooting the messenger!”

Where we spend much of our summers, Boothbay Harbor in the “Mid-Coast Region of Maine,” the tourism, hospitality, recreational, and resort industries that power this town are highly dependent on talented foreign workers. Their upbeat attitudes, eagerness to learn and contribute, and fascinating multiculturalism is one of the primary factors that comes bursting out in town and throughout this area, making this one of the best summer tourist locations in America. (Obviously, it’s “world famous,” since these folks seek to come here from literally around the world.)

I remember commenting several summers ago about the amazing refugee assistance and appreciation programs generated by the local religious community here in Boothbay Harbor, as well as the impressive social justice awareness and activism of some of the talented local artists who performed at a fundraiser for refugees and asylum seekers. http://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/07/15/the-new-due-process-army-is-alive-and-well-in-boothbay-harbor-singer-songwriter-john-schindler-friends-inspire-uplift-with-benefit-concert-for-maines-immigrant-legal-advocacy-pr/

Our “next-door neighbors,” here on beautiful Linekin Bay, Larry and Janey Anderson, were long time year around residents of Maine before retiring to “warmer climes” near their family (and us) in Northern Virginia. They were very involved with the African refugee community in Southern Maine, calling me several times for advice on how to get legal help on asylum cases. I well remember on occasions hearing the rhythm of a “drum circle” in which Larry participated with his refugee friends coming from the Anderson cabin.

It actually made me feel good about the lives I had been able to save and the positive progressive legal changes, precedents, and attitudes that I was able to help, at least in some modest way, forge over a 40+ year career in immigration and human rights, most of it with the U.S. Government.

Of course, I was fortunate enough to have retired in 2016, before the institutionalized White Nationalist, racist, misogynistic, xenophobia of the Trump regime arrived. Unfortunately, they undid some of the hard work that many of us had done to improve the system, further due process, and insure fairness and humane treatment for foreign nationals under U.S. laws.

However, the lives we were able to save (yesterday’s post about my Arlington Immigration Court/Round Table colleague Judge Joan Churchill and our joint NDPA colleague Deb Sanders is an example) have remained saved! “A life saved, is a life saved,” as I always say! https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/05/12/ndpa-all-star-debi-sanders-round-table-judge-ret-joan-churchill-featured-in-story-of-inspiring-immigrant-sumera-haque-her-family-from-george-bushs-recent-book-out-of-many-one/

The folks we welcomed under the law, their families, and their descendants continue to make America great despite all the destructive actions and false, misleading hate rhetoric promoted by Tump and his party.

Now, it’s up to the “new generation” of the NDPA to seize the baton and lead the fight to assist migrants of all types in creating a new and better day for Maine, America, and the world! I actually just had inspiring conversations this week with “two of the best out there” in the private/NGO sectors who are competing for positions at EOIR to help return due process, efficiency, practicality, and humanity to a disgracefully dysfunctional and unfair system. These are the folks who are “inspiring a new day for America.” They have already got Professor McDonnell’s message and are working to make it a reality!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-13-21

🇺🇸🗽🙂PSA: DIANE HARRISON: “Still Connected: How Immigrants Can Support Family and Community Back Home”

Dianne Harrison, Health PSA

Still Connected: How Immigrants Can Support Family and Community Back Home

The decision to move to a new nation is complex and emotionally charged. People who do make the decision to emigrate often wish to maintain as much support and connection as possible to reduce the grief of being away from loved ones. Immigrants have many options for staying in touch and supporting their communities and families back home.

Many immigrants struggle with the transition to a new country. Blogs such as Immigration Courtside offer compelling opinion pieces on creating fair immigrant policy. This type of advocacy can influence political change to improve the lives of immigrants. Staying connected and supporting the community and family back home can make a significant difference in the quality of life for immigrants. People who wish to share resources with folks at home can benefit from tips on how to stay in touch and provide varying types of support.

Types of Support to Offer

Support can mean different things to different people. A common way immigrants support family and community back home is through financial assistance. Wages and access to money can vary widely, depending on the area of the world you live in. Often, people emigrate to the United States to have access to greater opportunities for work and income; the money sent home can bring loved ones out of poverty.

Immigrants in the US who wish to assist loved ones back home financially can do so with secure money transfers. If you have relatives in the Philippines, for example, you can send money safely, reliably, and quickly with little to no fees using a remittance service like Remitly. You’ll have greater peace of mind, knowing that the funds you send will arrive without interference from hackers or scammers.

Some immigrants may wish to ship supplies and gifts to loved ones back home as a means of support. Items like first aid kits, non-perishable food staples, and clothing can be shipped easily and safely, while other items are restricted or have limitations. Couriers like Parcel Monkey allow for low-cost shipping all over the world.

If you know of community projects back home that could benefit from support, consider starting a GoFundMe for the project on social media. The act of promoting this cause can also serve to educate American friends of your home country and foster a greater understanding of your heritage and culture. Financial gifts and other goods can be a terrific help to people back home, but just as important are emotional support and connection.

Offering Emotional Support

In addition to normal daily stressors that loved ones face back home, families and friends of people who have emigrated often experience grief and emotional pain related to the departure. We tend to relegate grief as a response to the death of a loved one, but grief can also manifest from the loss of family or friends in our daily lives. It is important for immigrants to maintain contact with loved ones back home to ease the burden and to have meaningful conversations.

Besides sharing big news and events, share the daily details that bring your loved ones a little closer to you. Talk about a favorite meal you’ve tried in the US or share popular songs of your area through YouTube. Use Teleparty to watch Netflix together. Check in with loved ones about their lives back home, including their daily routines and how they are feeling. Try to stay in touch as often as possible, using several means of contact.

Ways to Stay in Touch

Thanks to technological advances, there are many great ways to stay in touch with loved ones back home. Schedule weekly phone calls or video chats to stay caught up in the lives of loved ones, as well as texting and using social media to stay involved. Celebrate home holidays from a distance and introduce new friends to the folks back home through video gatherings. The greater the variety of contact, the better. There are many apps like Zoom or Facebook Messenger that make contact over the miles so much easier and more affordable than ever before.

Being apart does not have to be painful with the evolution of communication apps and features. Immigrants can show love and support for people back home by staying in touch, being involved, and sending financial assistance and packages.

Image credit: Pixabay.com

I’m Diane Harrison, a former librarian of 15 years turned non-profit marketing guru. Although I’m no longer a librarian and have switched career gears completely, I’ve combined my passion for helping others as well as my writing and researching skills to gather helpful health information.

****************

Thanks, Dianne, for reaching out to our immigrant neighbors during these difficult times!

PWS

03-19-21

🛡🗽PROTECTING THE WORKERS WHO PROTECT US: Immigrants, Documented & Undocumented, Are The Core Of Our “Essential Workforce” That Has Carried Us Through The Pandemic — We Should Help Those Who Have Helped Us!

https://apple.news/A2LsyASukRaOXDQDOABC9cA

Jeremy Robbins writes in The Hill:

Before the inauguration, President Biden pledged a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. Then, hours after he entered the Oval Office, he introduced an immigration bill, The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which aims to put millions of undocumented immigrants on a pathway to citizenship. At first glance, these initiatives seem unrelated; in fact, they are deeply connected. Combining them is the best way to help us battle the COVID-19 pandemic and recover from the recession. Here’s why.

In the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States and the world over learned a lesson about who was truly essential to the economy: the home health aides and nurses who care for the sick, the grocery and delivery workers who keep our stores and kitchens stocked, and the workers at our farms and food processing plants who keep our food supply chain from collapsing. These and so many other overlooked jobs — classified as “essential and critical” by the Department of Homeland Security — hold our society together, protect us, and make our economy work.

Large numbers of these essential workers are also undocumented immigrants. Over 78 percent of immigrants without legal status work in these fields, according to a report by UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. They’re not just risking their lives to keep American citizens safe and help rebuild our economy, but they do so without legal protections and under the constant fear of deportation. That’s inhumane. But it’s also dangerous for Americans. With hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients surpassing 52,000, Congress must follow the lead of countries like France and give these essential workers a fast track to the citizenship they deserve.

It’s no secret that immigrants are helping to keep us all afloat. Despite being just 13 percent of the population, immigrants make up 37 percent of all home health aides and almost one third of all physicians and psychiatrists. With a very real threat of meat and poultry shortages at the beginning of the pandemic, immigrants filled more than a third of the tough food processing jobs and nearly half of all farm jobs picking our fruits and vegetables. And as parents across the country are placed in the impossible situation of balancing full-time work and parenting during a pandemic, once again immigrants help shoulder the burden, making up more than 20 percent of all childcare workers in day care centers.

And yet, despite all of this, our federal government acted as though we didn’t need these workers. As the pandemic raged, millions of immigrants were explicitly left out of the CARES Act relief efforts, as were millions of their U.S. born children and spouses who were penalized for having an unauthorized immigrant in the family. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration sought to shut the border to immigrant workers and students, all but stopped processing citizenship applications and ended asylum for people fleeing horrific violence. It also fought unsuccessfully all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to end protections for Dreamers, tens of thousands of whom are essential health care workers.

So what would an effective federal response look like?

. . . .

***************

Read the rest of Jeremy’s article at the link for his ideas on how to join immigration reform with economic expansion.

Makes sense to me!

PWS

02-28-21

🤮🦹🏿‍♀️🤡OUT OF CRUZ CONTROL!

$IMG_3738.jpg$

****************************

No electricity, no heat, no water? The obvious solution, a few days in warm, sunny Cancun.

How come a “developing country” has these basics, but Texas doesn’t?

Thanks to Debi Sanders for passing this along!

PWS

02-19-21

GETTING BEYOND THE RACIST MYTH OF THE “ZERO SUM GAME ECONOMY” — Heather C. McGhee @ NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/opinion/race-economy-inequality-civil-rights.html

Ms. McGhee is the author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” from which this essay is adapted.

Over a two-decade career in the white-collar think tank world, I’ve continually wondered: Why can’t we have nice things?

By “we,” I mean America at-large. As for “nice things,” I don’t picture self-driving cars, hovercraft backpacks or laundry that does itself. Instead, I mean the basic aspects of a high-functioning society: well-funded schools, reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty, or a comprehensive public health system equipped to handle pandemics — things that equally developed but less wealthy nations seem to have.

In 2010, eight years into my time as an economic policy wonk at Demos, a progressive policy research group, budget deficits were on the rise. The Great Recession had decimated tax revenue, requiring more public spending to restart the economy.

But both the Tea Party and many in President Barack Obama’s inner circle were calling for a “grand bargain” to shrink the size of government by capping future public outlays and slashing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Despite the still-fragile recovery and evidence that corporations were already paring back retirement benefits and ratcheting down real wages, the idea gained steam.

On a call with a group of all-white economist colleagues, we discussed how to advise leaders in Washington against this disastrous retrenchment. I cleared my throat and asked: “So where should we make the point that all these programs were created without concern for their cost when the goal was to build a white middle class, and they paid for themselves in economic growth? Now these guys are trying to fundamentally renege on the deal for a future middle class that would be majority people of color?”

Nobody answered. I checked to see if I was muted.

Finally, one of the economists breached the awkward silence. “Well, sure, Heather. We know that — and you know that — but let’s not lead with our chin here,” he said. “We are trying to be persuasive.”

The sad truth is that he was probably right. Soon, the Tea Party movement, harnessing the language of fiscal responsibility and the subtext of white grievance, would shut down the federal government, win across-the-board cuts to public programs and essentially halt the legislative function of the federal government for the next six years. The result: A jobless recovery followed by a slow, unequal economic expansion that hurt Americans of all backgrounds.

The anti-government stinginess of traditional conservatism, along with the fear of losing social status held by many white people, now broadly associated with Trumpism, have long been connected. Both have sapped American society’s strength for generations, causing a majority of white Americans to rally behind the draining of public resources and investments. Those very investments would provide white Americans — the largest group of the impoverished and uninsured — greater security, too: A new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study calculated that in 2019, the country’s output would have been $2.6 trillion greater if the gap between white men and everyone else were closed. And a 2020 report from analysts at Citigroup calculated that if America had adopted policies to close the Black-white economic gap 20 years ago, U.S. G.D.P would be an estimated $16 trillion higher.

. . . .

I’ll never forget Bridget, a white woman I met in Kansas City who had worked in fast food for over a decade. When a co-worker at Wendy’s first approached her about joining a local Fight for $15 group pushing for a livable minimum wage, she was skeptical. “I didn’t think that things in my life would ever change,” she told me. “They weren’t going to give $15 to a fast food worker. That was just insane to me.”

But Bridget attended the first organizing meeting anyway. And when a Latina woman rose and described her life — three children in a two-bedroom apartment with bad plumbing, the feeling of being “trapped in a life where she didn’t have any opportunity to do anything better” — Bridget, also a mother of three, said she was struck by how “I was really able to see myself in her.”

“I had been fed this whole line of, ‘These immigrant workers are coming over here and stealing our jobs — not paying taxes, committing crimes and causing problems,’” Bridget admitted. “You know, us against them.”

Soon after she began organizing, the cross-racial movement had won a convert. “In order for all of us to come up, it’s not a matter of me coming up and them staying down,” she said. “It’s the matter of: In order for me to come up, they have to come up too. Because honestly, as long as we’re divided, we’re conquered.”

*******************

Read the complete article at the link.

Inability to think beyond racist myths and false narratives is holding America back from realizing our full potential.

“Dividing and conquering” is the strategy of the modern GOP. If one could get behind the racist stereotypes and white resentment, rural America probably has far more in common with hard-working undocumented immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos than with elitist GOP politicos and corporate moguls — certainly more than with the notoriously lazy, dull, corrupt grifter Trump! But, the key seems to be to promote minority rule by sowing hate and distrust, thereby preventing the common good of the majority from prevailing.

While much of the “beggar thy neighbor” fear mongering comes right out of the current GOP playbook, Dems, including many in the Obama Administration, have also been guilty, as Heather points out. Just read some the alarmist stuff being put out by former Obama economic honcho Larry Summers.

And, contrary to White Nationalist myths about “job stealing,” much of American economic growth and innovation can be traced directly to immigrants, both documented and undocumented.

PWS

02-15-21

POLITICS: AS GOP GOES “ALL IN” ON WHITE SUPREMACY, BIDEN MOVES FORWARD TO SOLVE AMERICA’S PRESSING PROBLEMS — “This political void is allowing Biden and the Democrats, who control the White House and both houses of Congress, to respond boldly to the largest social and economic crisis since the Great Depression,” says Robert Reich!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/14/trump-impeachment-biden-american-rescue-plan-robert-reich?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

While most of official Washington has been focused on the Senate impeachment trial, another part of Washington is preparing the most far-ranging changes in American social policy in a generation.

The Capitol attack film was brutal. That’s why it must be watched | Francine Prose

Congress is moving ahead with Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which expands healthcare and unemployment benefits and contains one of the most ambitious efforts to reduce child poverty since the New Deal. Right behind it is Biden’s plan for infrastructure and jobs.

The juxtaposition of Trump’s impeachment trial and Biden’s ambitious plans is no coincidence.

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Trump has left Republicans badly fractured and on the defensive. The party is imploding. Since the Capitol attack on 6 January, growing numbers of voters have deserted it. State and county committees are becoming wackier by the day. Big business no longer has a home in the crackpot GOP.

This political void is allowing Biden and the Democrats, who control the White House and both houses of Congress, to respond boldly to the largest social and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Tens of millions are hurting. A record number of American children are impoverished

Importantly, they are now free to disregard conservative canards that have hobbled America’s ability to respond to public needs ever since Ronald Reagan convinced the nation big government was the problem.

The first is the supposed omnipresent danger of inflation and the accompanying worry that public spending can easily overheat the economy.

Rubbish. Inflation hasn’t reared its head in years, not even during the roaring job market of 2018 and 2019. “Overheating” may no longer even be a problem for globalized, high-tech economies whose goods and services are so easily replaceable.

Biden’s ambitious plans are worth the small risk, in any event. If you hadn’t noticed, the American economy is becoming more unequal by the day. Bringing it to a boil may be the only way to lift the wages of the bottom half. The hope is that record low interest rates and vast public spending generate enough demand that employers will need to raise wages to find the workers they need.

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A few Democratic economists who should know better are sounding the false alarm about inflation, but Biden is wisely ignoring them. So should Democrats in Congress.

. . . .

****************

Read the full article at the link.

Seems like what Democrats need to do here is follow President Biden’s lead and “keep their eyes on the ball.”

The minority of “non-Trumpist” Republicans, on the other hand, are going to have to decide where they fit in a party without values that has effectively “disowned” them in its embrace of racism, violence, insurrection, conspiracy theories, and corruption.

PWS

02-14-21

🇺🇸🗽👍🏼😎MAKING AMERICA BETTER, FINALLY: “Mr. Biden has laid out an immigration program that would genuinely put America first.” (WashPost) — No Wonder GOP Anti-American White Nationalists Like Tom Cotton Are Apoplectic & Spouting Their Racist, White Elitist Nonsense!

🇺🇸🗽⚖️

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bidens-bold-immigration-plan-would-really-put-america-first/2021/01/21/4efa3f42-5a98-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html

From WashPost:

Opinion by the Editorial Board

January 21 at 1:57 PM ET

PRESIDENT BIDEN has served notice that his ambitious immigration plan is in the first rank of his priorities. Some of his program will be immediately implementable; some may get bogged down in Congress, where many Republicans will regard it as an occasion to brandish the word “amnesty,” red meat for their bases. No matter. Mr. Biden’s plan is in keeping with the United States’ best traditions. It responds to the challenge of population stagnation. It would reverse his predecessor’s extravagantly cruel policies. And it is now clear that when it comes to immigration, Mr. Biden is all in.

That courageous stance was not necessarily expected or politically expedient. Unity was the new president’s campaign theme and inaugural touchstone, yet few issues are as divisive as immigration. His evident readiness to tap his modest reserves of political capital for a slugfest on immigration is a signal that the United States has returned to its roots as a beacon for refugees and a humanitarian role model among nations.

The plan is also smart. The U.S. population growth rate in the just-ended decade was the lowest since the first national census in 1790, according to the Brookings Institution — lower even than during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The number of Americans below the age of 18 actually shrank in the 2010s, by more than 1 million.

That stagnation, the product of an aging population and historically low fertility rates, cannot be reversed by immigration alone. But it will certainly be exacerbated, and has been in the past four years, by a policy hostile to newcomers. In President Donald Trump’s penultimate year in office, annual net immigration fell below 600,000, the lowest level in decades; it was more than 1 million in the final years of the Obama presidency.

What’s more, by proposing an eight-year path to citizenship for most of the nation’s 11 million unauthorized migrants — the centerpiece of his plan — Mr. Biden is attempting to align law and reality. By 2029, when they would be eligible for citizenship, most will have been in the United States for more than a quarter-century. At least 4 million are essential workers in construction, food processing, groceries, restaurants, agriculture and transportation — doing jobs critical to practically every American.

Mr. Biden is moving quickly where he can — fully reinstating the Obama-era program providing work permits and deportation protection for “dreamers,” young migrants brought to this country by their parents; rescinding Mr. Trump’s 2017 travel ban from majority-Muslim countries; halting construction of the southern border wall; and reining in the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies. He has also signaled he will increase annual refugee admissions, which Mr. Trump poleaxed, and scrap a Trump administration rule that denies green cards to immigrants deemed likely to use public benefits such as food stamps.

Other measures will require congressional action. Under legislation Mr. Biden is sending to Congress, green cards conferring legal permanent residency would be granted to dreamers as well as to immigrants from strife- and disaster-wracked nations who have been here for years.

The president is also pushing tougher border security — in recognition that the new administration is not inviting a wave of new migrants, still less amid a pandemic — though not as a precondition for his immigration reforms. His more impactful, long-term strategy to dissuade new waves of illegal immigrants is a concerted aid effort to boost economies and contain crime in Central America.

Mr. Biden has laid out an immigration program that would genuinely put America first.

*****************

The GOP White Nationalists/Nativists/White Supremacists are shaking in their cowardly boots. Why?

Because in a diverse meritocracy with equal justice for all and government in the true national interest they would lose their corrupt advantages and disproportionate power over the lives and the future of the majority of Americans who don’t share their repulsive, racist views and did not support their traitor insurrectionist Fuhrer in his attempt to undermine democracy, disenfranchise voters (targeting disproportionately legitimate voters of color for disenfranchisement, while shrugging off the actions, antics, and influence of “magamoron” Q-Anon crazies, conspiracy theorists, and other fringe haters that he and his party relied upon to maintain power), and take over our government by force!

Four things that the GOP fears above all else: 1) democracy, 2) accountability, 3) equality, 4) truth!

🇺🇸⚖️🗽👍🏼Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-22-21

🇺🇸LOOKING FORWARD TO JAN 20: How The Biden Administration Can Reach Out To Rural America & Bring Our Nation Back Together! — Rural & Urban Areas Need Each Other To Maximize Growth & Prosper In The Future!

https://www.pressherald.com/2020/12/30/commentary-how-to-make-federal-policy-work-for-maine-and-other-rural-places/

Rob Riley in the Portland (ME) Press Herald:

. . . .

President-elect Joe Biden, who pledged to serve all Americans, can respond boldly to address the needs of large swaths of rural America where people feel left behind. In the first 100 days of his administration, he can prove that he wants to see real change and will act to secure broader prosperity.

Drawing on more than 20 years of working in communities across four rural states, we see actionable, specific opportunities for Biden to make federal policy work for rural places. Here’s what we recommend:

• Engage in genuine conversations in rural places about the role of the federal government. The pandemic aside, fundamental economic changes, limited career pathways and crumbling (or non-existent) infrastructure plague many rural places. These challenges require public-private partnerships, directed by local needs and leadership. Many of the federal programs designed to address the underlying issues in rural places fail because they were designed for the rural reality of 1960, not of today. Let’s get current, understand why programs aren’t working and make them better.

• Elevate rural to the level it deserves in the president’s Cabinet. Rural places are currently served through a web of programs spread across numerous federal agencies. One might think this approach would help address policy deficiencies, but in fact, when everyone is in charge, no one is. The Biden administration can send a strong message that it means business by putting someone clearly in charge of its rural agenda and creating a new Department of Rural Development dedicated to improving, centralizing, and deploying the support and services necessary for rural people and places to thrive.

• Invest in doing economic development differently in rural places. Federal employees work diligently on their mission, providing grants and other services to constituents as directed by statute. And yet, the available tools for solving complicated, systemic and immediate issues are limited. To do economic development differently – and better – we need to eliminate programs that have limited utility, expand others that focus on building capacity in rural places, increase the flexible application of federal dollars and move the measurement of economic development outcomes beyond one-dimensional (and fleeting) metrics like job creation.

• Focus on and communicate about rural-urban connections rather than the divide. Rural places don’t benefit from being talked about as a monolith, a backwater or fly-over country. Rather, we as a nation need to raise up narratives and policies that recognize differences in rural places across the country, and that celebrate and support the natural, community, and economic assets that define those communities and their relationship to nearby urban areas. The stereotype of the American dream is changing. We now have a tapestry of rural, suburban and urban, and an opportunity to focus on collective prosperity rather than competition, exclusion and negative trade-offs.

The first hundred days will show how the Biden presidency will serve all Americans. Yes, there is a pandemic raging, but the widening gulf between rural and urban, rich and poor, red and blue requires a new tone, a new path and new solutions. Let’s get to it.

Rob Riley is president of the Northern Forest Center, a regional innovation and investment partner that creates rural vibrancy across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. The center co-founded the national Rural Development Innovation Group with the Aspen Institute and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities.

**************************

Read Rob’s full article at the link.

These are great, and timely ideas. They also present an outstanding opportunity to use the power of immigration to make our country a better place for everyone.

Immigrant entrepreneurs, small businesspeople, and investors can pool their ideas, skills, and resources with rural communities. Innovative rural Americans can help redesign and tailor methods that have worked in other countries for the American situation.

Immigrants with experience in agriculture and product marketing can help alleviate some of the labor shortages in rural areas.

Immigrants with tech skills can partner with rural Americans to help insure that, rather than sometimes being left behind, rural areas are on the cutting edge of accessible, high speed, state of the art technology that will integrate many educational and commercial activities with those now centered in “urban hubs.” (For example, why couldn’t a high tech area in rural America where land and housing are cheaper and a skilled (or highly motivated and trainable) workforce is eager for work be just as effective as Crystal City, VA as the next big tech hub?)

Immigrants with health service backgrounds can assist even more rural communities in insuring that first-class healthcare (and the jobs and economic opportunities it creates) is available everywhere in America.

My experience is that immigrants of all types, like rural Americans, highly value education, particularly for future generations. Innovative educational programs can be developed to meet the common needs of immigrant and rural communities.

There are just a few of the opportunities that come to mind. Obviously, I’m not a labor economist. But, I’m sure that if immigrant advocates concentrate on ways to actively engage and integrate immigrants into solving problems and improving the quality of life in rural and small-town America there are many other great opportunities for success out there just waiting to be tapped.

Immigrants have always been “part of the solution” rather than “part of the problem” in America. After four years of counterproductive unrestrained bigotry, false narratives, and hate-driven lies, its time for “truth, justice, and the American way” to come to the forefront again.

🇺🇸⚖️🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-02-21

🤮GRIFTER GOLFS⛳️, TWEETS 🐥WAY THROUGH CHRISTMAS DAY, AS AMERICANS CONTINUE TO SUFFER🤮, DIE⚰️, DESPAIR😰 UNDER HIS CRUEL, STUPID, CORRUPT MISRULE🏴‍☠️!

Trump Clown — Donald J. Trump
Famous American Clown
(Officially titled “Ass Clown”)
Artist: Scott Scheidly
Orlando, FL
Reproduced by permission

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=76ac9ea9-44ee-42d2-8687-9a29216e9507

AP reports:

. . . .

The bipartisan compromise was considered a done deal and won sweeping approval in the House and Senate after the White House assured GOP leaders that Trump supported it.

If he refuses to sign the deal, which is attached to a $1.4-trillion government funding bill, it will force a federal government shutdown, in addition to delaying aid checks and halting unemployment benefits and eviction protections in the most dire stretch of the pandemic.

“Made many calls and had meetings at Trump International in Palm Beach, Florida. Why would politicians not want to give people $2000, rather than only $600?” he tweeted after leaving the golf course Friday afternoon. “It wasn’t their fault, it was China. Give our people the money!”

Trump’s attack on the bill has been seen, at least in part, as punishment for what he considers insufficient backing by congressional Republicans for his push to overturn the Nov. 3 election results with unfounded claims of fraud.

*************

Read the full article at the link.

Of course it’s not about China; it’s about the worst President in history and his totally worthless party of sycophants, bigots, and anti-American “situational skinflints.”

Plenty of public funding for tax breaks, unneeded walls, environmental destruction, and abusive “law enforcement.” Not so much for American workers, small businesses, essential workers, teachers, civil servants, and others struggling to survive during the crisis unnecessarily deepened by the “malicious incompetence” of the “Evil Clown Prez”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ and his anti-democracy party.

BTW, is Lindsay “Scumbag” Graham 🤮going for the title of “third worst human on the public dole” — right behind the “ECP”🤡🦹🏿‍♂️ & the Grauleiter☠️?

26 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy🏴‍☠️!

PWS

12-26-20

👹🎃HALLOWEEN HORROR 🏴‍☠️☠️🤮⚰️👎🏻REICHSREPORT: GRUPPENFUHRER MILLER REVEALS “REICHSPLAN” FOR EXTERMINATION OF IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, REFUGE BY EXECUTIVE DECREE! — “The Final Solution??” — Parents, Protect Your Kids, Families, & Your Country From This Grotesque Un-American Monster!

Attribution: Stephen Miller Monster by Peter Kuper, PoliticalCartoons.com

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-adviser-stephen-miller-reveals-aggressive-second-term-immigration-agenda-n1245407

Sahil Kapur reports for NBC News:

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump‘s senior adviser Stephen Miller has fleshed out plans to rev up Trump’s restrictive immigration agenda if he wins re-election next week, offering a stark contrast to the platform of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

In a 30-minute phone interview Thursday with NBC News, Miller outlined four major priorities: limiting asylum grants, punishing and outlawing so-called sanctuary cities, expanding the so-called travel ban with tougher screening for visa applicants and slapping new limits on work visas.

The objective, he said, is “raising and enhancing the standard for entry” to the United States.

Some of the plans would require legislation. Others could be achieved through executive action, which the Trump administration has relied on heavily in the absence of a major immigration bill.

Examining Trump’s immigration campaign promises four years later

AUG. 25, 202005:51Some of the plans would require legislation. Others could be achieved through executive action, which the Trump administration has relied on heavily in the absence of a major immigration bill.

“In many cases, fixing these problems and restoring some semblance of sanity to our immigration programs does involve regulatory reform,” Miller said. “Congress has delegated a lot of authority. … And that underscores the depth of the choice facing the American people.”

Miller, who serves in a dual role as an adviser in the White House and to Trump’s re-election campaign, stressed that he was speaking about second-term priorities only in his capacity as campaign adviser.

Immigration has been overshadowed by surging coronavirus case numbers and an economy shattered by a nearly yearlong pandemic, but it was central to Trump’s rise to power in the Republican Party, and Miller has been a driving force for the administration’s often controversial policies to crack down on illegal migration and erect hurdles for aspiring legal immigrants.

Miller has spearheaded an immigration policy that critics describe as cruel, racist and antithetical to American values as a nation of immigrants. He scoffs at those claims, insisting that his only priority is to protect the safety and wages of Americans.

And he said he intends to stay on to see the agenda through in a second term if Trump is re-elected.

In the near term, Miller wouldn’t commit to lifting the freeze on new green cards and visas that’s set to expire at the end of the year, saying it would be “entirely contingent” on governmental analysis that factors in the state of the job market.

Asked whether he would support reinstating the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that led to families’ being separated, Miller said the Trump administration is “100 percent committed to a policy of family unity,” but he described the policy as one that would keep families together in immigration detention by changing what is known as the Flores settlement agreement.

Over the past year, the administration has sought to amend the Flores agreement, which says children can’t be held over 20 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. If it succeeds, immigrant families could be detained indefinitely as they await their day in immigration court.

Keep asylum down

On Trump’s watch, asylum grants have plummeted. Miller wants to keep it that way. He said a second-term Trump administration would seek to expand “burden-sharing” deals with Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador that cut off pathways to the U.S. for asylum-seekers.

“The president would like to expand that to include the rest of the world,” Miller said. “And so if you create safe third partners in other continents and other countries and regions, then you have the ability to share the burden of asylum-seekers on a global basis.”

. . . .

***************

Read the complete report at the link.

Kids in cages, refugees returned to torture and death, ethnic communities terrorized, lives destroyed, an economy and a society (make no mistake about it, immigrants will be essential to America’s recovery, future prosperity, and competitiveness) in tatters, tens of millions wasted on unnecessary and counterproductive Gulags, walls, and cruel enforcement while the Gruppenfuherer and his fellow human rights criminals remain at large and and an existential threat to our nation and our world!

To state the obvious, this has little or nothing to do with protecting American workers. Trump has shown that he couldn’t care less about the health, safety, and welfare of American workers (or frankly anybody except himself) except at election time. Immigration and immigrants create jobs and economic prosperity for America.

Also, even Miller couldn’t possibly believe that the Democratic House will pass any part of this racist manifesto. Truth is, Trump failed to pass any meaningful immigration legislation in four years, even when the GOP controlled all the political branches! In fact, Miller’s nativist legislative game-plan “poisoned the well” and was soundly defeated in both Houses of Congress! So, he intends to use Executive misrule, bureaucratic corruption, and a fascism-enabling, racially tone-deaf GOP Supremes’ majority to rule without Congress (as has been the case for the last four years.)

But make no mistake: the real “Reichsplan” here is directed at further institutionalizing racism, spreading hate, and targeting Americans of color. That’s what the regime’s “Dred Scottification” is really about. Reducing or eliminating YOUR Constitutional rights! Immigrants are the “usual suspects.” But, by no means will they be the only victims of Gruppenfuhrer Miller’s White Nationalist, racist, hate extravaganza.

As reported at the link above, The Biden-Harris campaign immediately and forcefully condemned the Gruppenfuhrer’s plans for “ethnic cleansing:”

“We are going to win this election so that people like Stephen Miller don’t get the chance to write more xenophobic policies that dishonor our American values,” Molina said. “Unlike Trump, Vice President Biden knows that immigrants make America stronger and helped build this country.”

America is immigration! It’s our past, present, and future! When we deny those truths, we deny ourselves and betray our own humanity!

Get out the vote for Joe, Kamala, and the Dems! Top to bottom of the ballot! Our lives and the future of American Democracy depend on it! Don’t let Gruppenfuhrer Miller and his neo-Nazi agenda, the GOP’s dark vision of the future, destroy our democracy! Vote the party of corruption, hate, and neo-fascism out!

Don’t let the Monster win!👹

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-30-20

🇺🇸🗽⚖️🆘NY TIMES WITH THE TRUTH: A VOTE FOR TRUMP IS A VOTE AGAINST AMERICA! — The Worst President In History, Not To Mention That Beyond Being Totally Incompetent & Unqualified, A Truly Horrible Human Being With NO Redeeming Values!

Darth Vader — D. Vader
Minister of Justice
Banana Republic of Trump

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.

Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.

The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.

Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose.

. . . .

************

Read the rest of the editorial here:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/16/opinion/donald-trump-worst-president.html

Amen! Take back our country! 🇺🇸 We can’t survive another four years of the maliciously incompetent, racist kakistocracy🏴‍☠️!

PWS

10-17-20

🇺🇸🗽POLITICS: RISING SUPERSTAR,🌟FORMER BIA ATTORNEY HILLARY SCHOLTEN IN HIGH-PROFILE RACE TO “FLIP” MICH 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT TO DEMS — Listen To My Friend Hillary Share Her Vision For A Better America On “Morning Joe!”

Here’s the link:

https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/three-congressional-races-that-could-help-sway-the-election-93822021698

****************

Go Hillary!!!👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🗽🗽🗽🗽🗽🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸😎😎😎😎😎

Hillary is an amazing example of how the younger generation of the NDPA is courageously fighting for leadership positions that will change America for the better at all levels! The NDPA has been dominant in courtroom advocacy, scholarship, and clinical teaching. We now need to “take it beyond the courtrooms, classrooms, law journals, and op-ed pages!”

It’s time for the NDPA to make our shared vision of due process, fundamental fairness, and equal justice for all a reality! Take the fight for social justice and America’s heart, soul, and future to the judicial benches, legislatures, and public offices — from the municipalities, to the states, to the highest levels of our Federal System — and beyond to leadership on the world stage!

Thanks, Hillary, 🥇🏆 for taking the lead!

Due Process Forever!⚖️🗽🇺🇸🧑🏽‍⚖️

PWS

10-15-20

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

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26 days and counting to the end of the kakistocracy🏴‍☠️!

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Don’t let the Monster win!👹

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