@Mame,
The judge makes the call. I don't know all the intricacies, but that's who I'm thinking of.
I’ll say one last thing about the individual who was disagreed about.
I don’t know how to take a person seriously who:
1) puts himself forward as a selfless fighter for, and a defender of the oppressed
2) admits to habitually publicizing lists of all the “good he has done”
3) then gripes and laments because the world “doesn’t give him the respect he deserves”
Truly charitable work is supposed to be it’s own reward. The guy is a sponge for glory, aggrandizing himself and reaping profit from it.
**** him.
@snood,
I guess we all need to do a bit more reading and surfing. Since he's incidental to my life, it won't be me. You seem to have a handle on a lot more about this 'individual who was disagreed about". Maybe we haven't been reading/watching what you have. And no issues there - can't keep on top of everything/one.
@Mame,
Months back I mentioned King in a different thread. Snood responded with a dismissive "He's one of those loud mouthed progressives." I took that as a personal hit since I am proudly a loud mouthed progressive. In the weeks that followed I distanced myself from the man. Then I put him on ignore. I no longer read any of snood's posts. In the context of what I have experienced I suspect snood may be biased regarding King, since King is very much like Bernie in his beliefs.
@edgarblythe,
I'm sorry to hear that. I think snood has a lot of pertinent points to make, and from a perspective different from ours. What's wrong with just admitting you're a 'loud mouthed progressive' and just continue debating? You're a good guy, he's a good guy. Why not just agree to disagree on some points?
@Mame,
Snood is a good and honorable person. We just don't see eye to eye enough to have conversations.
@Mame,
I have always thought Edgar was a good and honorable man, as well. I agree with probably 90+ percent of his views. We have heated clashes about some stuff, but I personally wish him nothing but peace and good long life.
Michael Cavolina
A suggestion for Joe and the Dems, if you want to raise the bar and develop some serious voter attention, promise to remove Reagan's tax on Social Security. There isn't a family in this country that isn't either affected by the tax or will be soon.
Democrats Don’t Have a Functioning Senate Majority Now
February 1, 2022 at 7:02 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 84 Comments
https://politicalwire.com/2022/02/01/democrats-dont-have-a-functioning-senate-majority/
Punchbowl News: “The Senate is beginning to grapple with a new reality. With Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) in the hospital after a stroke, Democrats don’t have a functioning majority. They will be unable to move anything besides non-controversial bills and nominations. As we all know, there are very few of those these days.”
“The longer Luján is out, the more problematic his absence becomes. A lengthy recovery could impact President Joe Biden’s ability to confirm a new Supreme Court nominee. If Luján is sidelined for a long period of time, Biden may have to rethink who he nominates to the Supreme Court.”
The Hill: Lujan stroke jolts 50-50 Senate.
FavoriteSave to Favorites
Shaun King tonight:
$40 million.
I have to weigh in here.
$40,000,000.
I couldn’t believe it.
People gave this man $40 million after the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor and he wasn’t even HELPING THESE FAMILIES! Or any families.
For the past 8 years DeRay McKesson (@iamderay) has obsessed over my every move in the world.
Every few weeks somebody new tells me they hear this man talking bad about me somewhere & telling lies about the money I’ve raised for families.
🚨 NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE.
It’s projection. It’s smoke and mirrors.
While this man was claiming I stole hundreds of dollars, WHICH NEVER HAPPENED, and was demanding that I provide receipts, WHICH I DID, he’s out here with $40 million, firing his co-founders and refusing to help smaller organizations that needed help.
My God.
Here’s what’s crazy.
For the good of the movement, on 3 different occasions, I tried to make some kind of amends with this man. But he rebuked it.
On the night I got an award from Rihanna this man launched a public campaign against me just for pure meanness & shade. And started talking about accountability for me when I have a board and a whole host of people that hold me accountable. I don’t know of any civil rights leader more transparent and accountable than me.
Now it turns out that this man won’t release reports on $40 million.
Do you know how many people could’ve been helped with that???
Thank God ALL OF OUR REPORTS ARE PUBLIC @RealJustice & @GrassrootsLaw.
➡️We’ve funded 211 elections and civil rights battles.
➡️We’ve elected nearly 25 new DA’s that have exonerated HUNDREDS of innocent people.
➡️We’ve bought homes for formerly incarcerated men.
➡️We’ve paid for funerals.
➡️We’ve sent money to so many families and organizations that asked for our help.
➡️We’ve worked side by side with nearly 100 families impacted by police violence and racial injustice.
➡️ We’ve provided full time salaried jobs with benefits to 35 people.
And we did it with 5% of what people donated to this man.
Lawyer called me today and told me DeRay said he was “done helping and working with families.”
That says it all.
Disgusting. I wonder if DeRay will be held accountable. That’s an insane amount of money.
And I’ve watched the things Shaun has done. He has literally changed the world. The Arbery case would not have happened had it not been for the firestorm his relentless attention created. He’s a force for good in this world—and it appears that he’s been horribly lied about by an insecure little KHIVE liar DeRay McKesson, trying to distract from his own actual guilt.
At least all the Shaun hate makes some kind of sense now.
Warren Calls on Biden to End Trump-Era Plan Aimed at Privatizing Medicare
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday joined physicians and dozens of her House Democratic colleagues in urging the Biden administration to immediately halt Medicare Direct Contracting, a Trump-era pilot that could result in complete privatization of the cherished public healthcare program by decade’s end.
“It is completely baffling to me that the Biden administration wants to give the same bad actors in Medicare Advantage free rein in traditional Medicare,” Warren (D-Mass.) said during a hearing held by the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth.
“My view is that President Biden should not permit Medicare to be handed over to corporate profiteers,” Warren added. “Doing so is going to increase costs and put more strain on the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. The Biden administration should shut down the Direct Contracting model.”
https://truthout.org/articles/warren-calls-on-biden-to-end-trump-era-plan-aimed-at-privatizing-medicare/?fbclid=IwAR3l7lPFWUFG008jmOT_EcfwSYFzHilUYb-VqI9DLgbkS8iWE-m7SzCyPTY
I’ve really liked Warren’s rhetoric lately. Wish she could/would put some mustard on it.
@edgarblythe,
That's a beautiful photo, edgar. Thanks for sharing it.
First day of class, the law teacher walked in. The first thing he did was ask for the name of one sitting in the front row:
"What's your name?"
"My name is Nelson."
"Get out of my class and never come back!" he ordered him.
Nelson was confused. The teacher was heading towards him, he got up quickly, packed up his stuff and left the classroom.
Everyone was scared and outraged but no one was talking.
"Very Good! Let's get it started. What are laws for?" asked the teacher.
The students were still scared, but slowly they started answering the question.
"To have order in our society."
"No!"
"So that people pay for their actions."
"No! Does anyone know the answer to this question?"
"For justice to be done," spoke shy a young girl.
"Finally! Justice! But what is justice?"
Everyone was starting to get mad at the teacher's attitude. However, they kept answering.
"To protect the rights of the people."
"Okay. But still?"
"To differentiate good from bad, to reward those who do good."
"Okay, so answer this question: Did I act correctly when I kicked Nelson out of class?"
Everyone was silent, no one responded.
"I want an unanimous answer!"
"NO!" They answered with one voice.
"Could we say I committed an injustice?"
"Yes!"
"And why has nobody done anything about it? Why do we want laws and rules if we don’t have the will to practice them? Each of you is obliged to speak up when you witness an injustice. All of you. Don't ever stay quiet again!"
"Go and get Nelson. After all, he is the teacher, I'm from another period."
You know, when we don't stand up for our rights, dignity is lost, and dignity can't be negotiated.
.
.
--Doris Carrier
Prof Zenkus
@anthonyzenkus
·
Feb 1
The CA legislature, run by a super majority of Democrats, just killed a bill that would give healthcare to every adult and child in the state. There are no progressives in the Dem Party. Just a bunch of jerks living off the working class as they stick the knife into our backs.
Prof Zenkus
@anthonyzenkus
·
6m
Same thing in New York. Majority Dems, and they killed the Single Payer bill.
Robert Reich
28 mins ·
I’ve spent much of my professional life watching the Federal Reserve Board, because its decisions have a more direct effect on working peoples’ lives than almost any other institution. But most people don’t know what the Fed does or how it affects them. They should.
Fed policymakers are now set to raise interest rates at their March meeting and then continue raising them, in order to slow the economy. They believe this will reduce inflation. They fear that a labor shortage is pushing up wages, which in turn are pushing up prices, and that this wage-price spiral could get out of control.
It’s a huge mistake. Higher interest rates will harm millions of workers who will be involuntarily drafted into the inflation fight by losing jobs or long-overdue pay raises. There’s no “labor shortage” pushing up wages. There’s a shortage of good jobs paying adequate wages to support working families. Raising interest rates will only worsen this shortage.
There’s no “wage-price spiral,” either (even though Fed chief Jerome Powell has expressed concern about wage hikes pushing up prices). To the contrary, workers’ real wages have dropped because of inflation. Even though overall wages have climbed, they’ve failed to keep up with price increases – making most workers worse off in terms of the purchasing power of their dollars.
Wage-price spirals used to be a problem. Remember when John F. Kennedy “jawboned” steel executives and the United Steel Workers to keep a lid on wages and prices? But such spirals are no longer a problem. That’s because the typical worker today has little or no bargaining power.
Only 6 percent of private-sector workers are now unionized. A half-century ago, more than a third were. Today, corporations can increase output by outsourcing just about anything anywhere because capital is global. A half-century ago, corporations needing more output had to bargain with their own workers to get it.
These changes have shifted power from labor to capital — increasing the share of the economic pie going to profits and shrinking the share going to wages. This power shift ended wage-price spirals.
Slowing the economy won’t remedy either of the two real causes of today’s inflation – continuing worldwide bottlenecks in the supply of goods, and the ease with which big corporations (with record profits) are passing these costs to customers in higher prices.
Supply bottlenecks are all around us. (Just take a look at all the ships with billions of dollars of cargo idling outside the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, through which 40 percent of all U.S. seaborne imports flow.) Big corporations have no incentive to absorb the rising costs of such supplies. Even with profit margins at their highest level in 70 years, they have enough market power to pass these costs on to consumers — sometimes using inflation to justify even bigger price hikes. “A little bit of inflation is always good in our business,” the CEO of Kroger said last June. “What we are very good at is pricing,” the CEO of Colgate-Palmolive added in October.
In fact, the Fed’s plan to slow the economy is the opposite of what’s needed now or in the foreseeable future. COVID is still with us. Even in its wake, we’ll be dealing with its damaging consequences for years — everything from long-term COVID, to school children months or years behind.
The U.S. economy is still almost 4 million jobs short of where it was in February 2020 -- which means we’re probably 6 million short of where we’d be had the pandemic not hit. The jobs reports for December and January reveal continuing weakness.
Consumers are almost tapped out. Not only are real (inflation-adjusted) incomes down, but pandemic assistance has ended. Extra jobless benefits are gone. Child tax credits have expired. Rent moratoriums are over. Small wonder consumer spending fell 0.6 percent in December, the first decrease since last February.
Many people are understandably gloomy about the future. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey plummeted in January to its lowest level since late 2011, back when the economy was trying to recover from the global financial crisis. The Conference Board’s index of confidence also dropped in January.
Given all this, the last thing average working people need is for the Fed to raise interest rates and slow the economy further. The problem most people face isn’t inflation. It’s a lack of good jobs.
