Trump proposes big cuts to health programs for poor, elderly and disabled – New York Daily News
Of course he does.
Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,
Texas migrant charity boss steps down amid questions over finances
A non-profit that detains thousands of migrant children on behalf of the Trump administration… …Southwest Key Programs announced on Monday that Juan Sanchez, who built a business empire that has boomed on the back of a hardline government policy, will retire.
…Federal prosecutors have been examining Southwest Key’s finances, according to reports in the New York Times, amid questions about whether the company misappropriated government funds.
The company has also been involved in allegations of sexual and physical abuse of minors in its custody.
Texas migrant charity boss steps down amid questions over finances | US news | The Guardian
hmmmm
A Crusade In The Philippines Takes On The Big Brands Behind Plastic Waste
With a growing economy and a swelling middle class, people are consuming at a torrid pace — electronic devices, packaged foods, fancy toiletries — goods either made of plastic or wrapped in it.
… In many places, informal cadres of waste pickers collect what they can sell to recyclers. But much of the plastic cannot be recycled. So no one collects it, and it drifts. Everywhere.
…The same problem besets them all — it’s not just too much plastic but it’s the stuff that can’t be recycled. There’s nowhere to put it, except in landfills, which are few, and from which plastic eventually migrates, by wind or water.
…Crispian Lao, who used to be in the plastics industry and [now, in a somewhat Orwellian twist,] is now head of the Philippine Alliance for Recycling and Materials Sustainability. The group represents …companies like Unilever, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and others that make and package consumer goods.
Lao praises the sachets for [being easily identifiable] in a market where counterfeit goods are common. “There’s also the health issue,” he says: Sachets don’t pose health risks to the consumers in places where water to wash reusable containers might be contaminated. [The peanut gallery imagines this is the argument against a system where the consumer could bring their own packaging for the goods they are buying? Because corporate savior?]
…[Research] showed that the biggest sources of plastic waste washing into the oceans are in Southeast and South Asia.
Fingers were pointed.
…People in the Philippines were angry — among them, Grate. It was blaming the victim, not the manufacturers.
…Talk of future recycling still puts the burden of cleanup on the consumer. “The problem,” Grate says, “is that most companies … feel their responsibility ends the moment they sell it. That’s one of the biggest injustices here.”
…As for the pledge [to sell all products in recyclable packaging by] 2025, no one knows how companies will do it and how much it will cost to set up a huge recycling system across the islands of the Philippines.
…The plan was to challenge companies. Says Hernandez: “If we cannot recycle it or compost this material, then you should not be producing them in the first place.”
…Grate and other local activists in the Philippines proposed a novel action, something no one had done before: brand audits.
These environmental groups did regular beach cleanups, which helped bring attention to the problem even if the beaches were covered with trash again a few months later. But now they wanted to compile a list of the brand logos emblazoned on the plastic trash and publicize them for all to see.
A Crusade In The Philippines Takes On The Big Brands Behind Plastic Waste : Goats and Soda : NPR
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Facebook under criminal investigation over data sharing deals
Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into Facebook’s data sharing deals with a number of large technology companies.
…Facebook had data-sharing arrangements with more than 150 companies, according to a December report in the New York Times. The deals helped Facebook gain more users, according to the report, and its partners were able to access user data without obtaining consent.
Facebook under criminal investigation over data sharing deals, says New York Times report – CNN
hmmm
Witty Women Are Less Likely to Get Promoted Than Men
The researchers report that male Sam’s perceived status was enhanced by humor, while female Sam’s was diminished. Humorous male Sam was evaluated more positively than serious male Sam on several indicators, including leadership potential. The opposite was true for humorous female Sam.
What’s behind these disparate results? Evans and his colleagues note that men are generally seen as rational and achievement-oriented. “These aspects of the male stereotype reinforce a positive interpretation of humor,” they write.
In contrast, “working women are stereotyped as having lower dedication to work, because of their association with family responsibilities,” they add. This makes colleagues and supervisors more inclined to view their use of humor in a negative light, signaling that women aren’t taking work sufficiently seriously.
Witty Women Are Less Likely to Get Promoted Than Men – Pacific Standard
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Donna Brazile’s Book
The former interim chair of the Democratic National Committee wrote that she searched for proof that the 2016 Democratic presidential primary was “rigged” for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and said, “By September 7… I had found my proof and it broke my heart.” Yet on Tuesday, Brazile appeared on CBS News, where she said the contest was fair. “I found no instances that the party rigged the process, and I wanted to make sure Bernie and his supporters understood that,” she said. The contradiction is so clear that even Chris Cillizza was able to spot it.
…Brazile wrote that she had occasionally threatened the Clinton campaign with removal when she felt disrespected, but it doesn’t sound as though she was ever really close to trying to do so after Clinton’s illness.
…The DNC had needed a $2 million loan, which the [HRC 2016] campaign had arranged.”
But Brazile is almost certainly mistaken about the loan. The DNC did have $2 million in debt on its books, but that loan dated to 2014—before the Clinton campaign existed, meaning the campaign couldn’t have arranged it. It was with the DNC’s usual bank. And despite Brazile’s statement that then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz hadn’t informed party officers like her, the loan was disclosed in FEC filings that Brazile (and anyone else) could view.
…By the time Brazile was named interim chair in July 2016, Clinton was already the de facto nominee, days away from formal nomination. It’s customary for the nominee to effectively control the party apparatus from that point.
…But more than anything else, the book has kicked off a battle over the question of whether the primary process was in fact rigged in Clinton’s favor. In particular, that debate has focused on some pretty arcane stuff—the joint-fundraising agreement that the Clinton campaign struck with the DNC in August 2015. While the details are somewhat confusing, the discussion crystallizes the differences between Clinton and Sanders neatly: one the unshakeable party woman, fiercely devoted to institutions and willing to bend the rules a little to get what she felt needed to be done done; the other an outsider, with no strong attachment to the party but a fierce [self-purported] sense of principle and propriety.
…The joint-fundraising agreements (or JFAs) were almost custom-tailored to produce a conflict.
…The JFAs serve to create another stream of revenue for the election. There’s a federal maximum amount that individuals can give to any candidate, but a major donor can also write a large check to the party, which can use the money to boost its candidates. Such agreements are standard, and while Brazile quoted a Politico piece that described the arrangement as “essentially … money laundering,” that’s a little misleading. On the one hand, they’re designed to allow donors to give extra money, and if, like Sanders, you’re a critic of the campaign-finance regime, you may feel that this is a bad idea. They are, however, legal.
The Clinton campaign signed its JFA in August 2015. …It has not been uncommon for candidates to sign JFAs during the primary.
…The party was in dire financial straits, saddled with debt from the 2012 campaign that President Obama had never bothered to retire, led by a chairwoman who was widely viewed as listless, and looking at fundraising that lagged behind expectations. The JFA with Clinton was a way to get a quick infusion of cash from a proven fundraiser.
…The DNC agreed to hire a communications director (the post had been vacant) within a couple weeks, choosing from two Clinton-campaign-selected options. The Clinton team also had input on senior staff in several departments it viewed as central to the general-election effort, and the Clinton team would “be consulted and have joint authority over strategic decisions over the staffing, budget, expenditures, and general election related communications, data, technology, analytics, and research.”
There’s no obvious way to reconcile neutrality with the provisions [unless other JFA’s historically included similar provisions or the opportunity to have similar input was offered to both candidates in the form of a JFA agreement.]
…In fact, Sanders did sign a JFA roughly two months later, at the start of November. Longabaugh …said Sanders didn’t want to sign, but was told that it was a condition of getting access to the DNC’s voter file.
…“The DNC came to our campaign and said, ‘We need help. We’re not prepared for the general election,’” [Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook] said. “The purpose of the DNC while a primary is going on is to hold Republican candidates accountable, and nobody was filling that post.”
But although Clinton was a loyal Democratic insider and wanted the party to be in good shape for the general election, her campaign wasn’t a charity. It wanted to get something in return for funneling millions toward the DNC, and given stories of DNC mismanagement …it wanted to ensure that the money went to things that would help Clinton in a general election.
What Donna Brazile’s New Book Really Reveals – The Atlantic
The peanut gallery thinks Donna Brazile is a impressive, smart woman.
…Which is part of reason we have always thought Brazile’s post-2016 conduct to be, well, bizarre. It almost begs for speculation as to what her underlying agenda and private thought process was.
***
Getting money and the influence it buys out of politics is certainly a laudable goal, albeit an aspiration one.
The peanut gallery recalls the union activist who has touts goal and thinks about all of the money it costs to organize and advocate for unions and union interests. Perhaps working on making the system of money’s influence in politics more open and fair would be a good step towards someday getting the influence of pay-to-play out of politics. Or, at the very least, a good strategy in the meantime.
Speaking of money in politics and ‘in the meantime,’ the peanut gallery finds itself more interested in framing the discussion of money in politics in terms of the current and existing system and how best to navigate it. It just seems to the peanut gallery that if we don’t work with what we have now, we have little chance of getting to a place where there might be an actual opportunity to get money out of politics. The peanut gallery is cynical that way.
Donald Trump must face defamation lawsuit filed by “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, court says
In 2017, the president called Zervos and other women accusing him of sexual harassment or sexual assault “liars.” It prompted Zervos to then file the suit.
Trump’s lawyers have said that because he is the president he’s immune from any prosecution, but the court didn’t agree.
…They cited the Supreme Court’s ruling of Clinton v. Jones, which decided the president could be sued in office relating to unofficial acts that have nothing to do with his role as president.
mmmhmmm
Trump Should Pay $5.6 Million Penalty Over Charity, N.Y. Says
President Donald Trump should pay a $5.6 million penalty on top of $2.8 million in restitution for spending money from his charitable foundation on business and political purposes, the New York attorney general told a judge in seeking a ruling without a trial.
Neither Trump nor his three eldest children, all of whom had senior roles at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, have provided evidence rebutting the state’s claims that they failed to meet as a board, oversee grant-making or implement policies to protect the charity’s funds from abuse.
Trump Should Pay $5.6 Million Penalty Over Charity, N.Y. Says – Bloomberg
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Think tank run by Bernie Sanders’ wife and son shuts down “for now” as Bernie Sanders pursues presidential bid
As a candidate in 2016, Sanders criticized Hillary Clinton over her family’s nonprofit, saying the foundation run by Clinton’s husband and daughter amounted to a back door for foreign leaders and others seeking to buy access and influence.
…[The Sanders Institute] has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars during its brief existence and has declined to disclose its donors.
….The lack of transparency and the family ties have drawn criticism from good-government advocates.
“For a politician who runs on fairness and socialist principles, this looks like the old political games,”
Sanders Institute shutting down amid criticism
Critics have said the think tank blurs lines between family, fundraising and campaigns.
The Vermont senator criticized Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign for her family’s nonprofit and is reportedly concerned he will be called hypocritical over the institute.
Sanders Institute shutting down amid criticism | TheHill
Huuuuuuuge hypocrite much?
Black Lawmakers to Block Legalized Marijuana in N.Y. if Their Communities Don’t Benefit
The lawmakers say that unless people of color are guaranteed a share of the potentially $3 billion industry, there may be no legalization this year. They want to be assured that some of that money will go toward job training programs, and that minority entrepreneurs will receive licenses to cultivate or sell the marijuana.
…They say one misstep, in particular, stands out: None of the 10 states or Washington ensured that minority communities would share in any economic windfall of legalization — missing out on an opportunity to redress years of having a disproportionate number of African-Americans arrested on marijuana charges.
…Critics say marijuana legalization has fostered an inequitable system in which wealthy, white investors often reap the profits of the fledgling industry.
In Colorado, black entrepreneurs said they were banned from winning licenses because of marijuana-related convictions. Black people make up just a handful of the thousands of cultivation or dispensary license holders there, and continue to be arrested on marijuana-related charges at almost three times the rate of white people.
In California, several cities introduced equity programs retroactively. Oakland now requires at least half of licenses to go to people with a cannabis-related conviction and who fell below an income threshold.
…Ms. Peoples-Stokes, a Democrat who represents a district that includes Buffalo. She has introduced her own bill, which directs half of all marijuana revenue to a community fund supporting job training, and prioritizes licenses for people from communities most affected by criminalization.
…That concern has made itself so clear that the New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association, worried that legislators might seek to shut them out of the new industry, sent a letter to Mr. Cuomo and legislative leaders on Monday promising to set up a $25 million “Cannabis Economic Opportunity Fund” to provide zero-interest loans to companies led by women and people of color.
…The City Council’s Progressive Caucus and the Black Latino and Asian Caucus recently introduced laws and resolutions calling for the city to have local control over home delivery and cultivation of marijuana, potentially allowing smaller businesses to share in the sales.
“Not arresting people is not good enough,” Donovan Richards, a city councilman from Queens, said. “Economic justice must be served.”
hmmmm
Trump inauguration took money from shell companies tied to foreigners
Donald Trump’s inauguration received tens of thousands of dollars from shell companies that masked the involvement of a foreign contributor or others with foreign ties.
The Guardian has identified the creators of three obscure firms that contributed money to Trump’s inaugural committee, which collected a record $107m as he entered the White House in 2017.
The three companies each gave $25,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund.
…One of the $25,000 donations to Trump’s inauguration was made through a Delaware shell company for a wealthy Indian financier based in London, who appears to not hold US citizenship or residency.
Another was made by a company formed in Georgia by a lobbyist with connections to the Taiwanese government. His wife said the firm was funded by Chinese investors. One of their daughters was later given an internship in Trump’s White House, which they said was unrelated to the donation.
…The contribution appears to have paid for two VIP tickets to Trump’s inauguration. He and his wife, Priya, attended the event in Washington and also enjoyed a “private breakfast” with Trump, according to an article in the UK’s Asian Lite newspaper, which was written by a veteran Indian reporter who knows the Vandrevalas.
…Sean’s wife, Joann, said in a brief telephone interview in late January that Sean created Jan Castle for three Chinese investors. Sean later denied his wife had said this. The company’s original filing to Georgia identified someone named Jianning He as its “organizer”, but gave only the same mailbox address as contact information.
Trump inauguration took money from shell companies tied to foreigners | World news | The Guardian
hmmmm
Typhus and Tuberculosis Are Spreading in Homeless Populations
Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus—a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals—in downtown streets.
…The diseases have flared as the nation’s homeless population has grown in the past two years.
…The diseases spread quickly and widely among people living outside or in shelters, helped along by sidewalks contaminated with human feces, crowded living conditions, weakened immune systems, and limited access to health care.
“The hygiene situation is just horrendous” for people living on the streets. …“It becomes just like a Third World environment, where their human feces contaminate the areas where they are eating and sleeping.”
…People living on the streets or in homeless shelters are vulnerable to such outbreaks because their weakened immune systems are worsened by stress, malnutrition, and sleep deprivation. Many also have mental illness and substance-abuse disorders, which can make it harder for them to stay healthy or get health care.
…Typhus is a bacterial infection that can cause a high fever, stomach pain, and chills but can be treated with antibiotics. Outbreaks are more common in overcrowded and trash-filled areas that attract rats.
…“It really is unconscionable,” says Bobby Watts, the CEO of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, a policy and advocacy organization. “These are all preventable diseases.”
Typhus and Tuberculosis Are Spreading in Homeless Populations – The Atlantic
Jeezus….
Janet Yellen says Trump doesn’t understand what the Federal Reserve does
Yellen said, “I doubt that he would even be able to say that the Fed’s goals are maximum employment and price stability.”
Mr. Trump’s comments demonstrate a “lack of understanding” about the Fed, she added.
…Asked whether she thought the president has a good grasp of economy, she said, “No, I do not.”
Janet Yellen says Trump doesn’t understand what the Federal Reserve does – CBS News
Heh, ouch.
How New Orleans Reduced Its Homeless Population By 90 Percent
The group put all its effort behind gathering a rent assistance fund.
…The team took a “Housing First” approach, which is “simply the idea that you accept people as they are,” whether they are sober or not.
“You just accept them as they are and you provide the housing first,” Kegel says. “Then, once they’re in their apartment, you immediately wrap all the services around them that they need to stay stable and live the highest quality life that they can live.”
…”It is costing the taxpayer a tremendous amount of money to leave people on the street. They’re constantly cycling in and out of jail on charges that wouldn’t even be relevant if they had an apartment, things like urinating in public, drinking in public, obstructing the sidewalk because they’re having to sleep on the sidewalk. Homeless offences, in other words, that are costing the taxpayers a lot of money to be putting them in jail and processing them through the criminal justice system. Their health is deteriorating while they’re out on the street. They’re being taken by ambulance to the emergency room constantly. Those are huge charges.”
…”This is permanent housing. How long the rent assistance lasts depends on what people need.”
How New Orleans Reduced Its Homeless Population By 90 Percent | Here & Now
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Why Self-Checkout Is and Has Always Been the Worst
In short, so as long as they allow the chain to justify reducing hours of its part-time employees, it’s probably worth it. “Supermarket retailers operate on extremely thin profit margins, so at the end of the day it can turn out that even after you tabulate all of these many downsides, there is a very small profit advantage that justifies their existence for retailers,” she says.
She also worries about the next wave of automated shopping—a la Amazon Go, which really might actually stand to “work” seamlessly—just at the cost of shoppers and workers subjecting themselves to corporate surveillance on a much wider scale. And going cashless, as Amazon Go mandates, disadvantages poorer customers who might not have credit cards or digital payment accounts. “So some of the clunkiness of automated checkout could, in theory, be solved with better technology,” Mateescu says, “but with so many tradeoffs it’s worth asking where it begins to be a solution in search of a problem.”
And that’s what this thoroughly shitty example of shitty automation boils down to. This is a service that was never intended to serve customers, but rather specifically (though clumsily) designed to cut or trim jobs—as such, it’s little surprise that it serves no one.
Why Self-Checkout Is and Has Always Been the Worst
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General Motors employees rally outside of Ohio plant on last day – New York Daily News
General Motors employees rally outside of Ohio plant on last day – New York Daily News
Thank God, Trump saved all those factory jobs.
Doh!
Movies starring women make more money than movies starring men
The top-grossing movies from 2014 to 2017 with women leads out-earned movies starring men across all budget levels.
,,,The research also found that films that passed the Bechdel test — a gender bias test that measures whether at least two female characters converse about something other than a man — earned more than films that failed it.
…“There’s a lot of conventional wisdom that woman led films make less money. But our data doesn’t support that,” Smith tells CNBC.
…The financial success of women-led films is significant, considering that women accounted for only a quarter of the solo protagonist roles in the top films of 2017 and only played around a third of the major characters.
Movies starring women make more money than movies starring men
hmmmm
When Brad Pitt Tried to Save New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward
When Brad Pitt Tried to Save New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward – Bloomberg
Sigh….
Construction can be a tough business. They were in over their heads.
….So many ways for well-intentioned folks to get it wrong.
America Stopped Building
I’m concerned there’s a mistaken understanding of U.S. economic dynamism. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Fox, MSNBC, all the networks — the Federal Reserve, too — all say the same thing: The job market is strong and the economy is growing. We’re in a recovery.
…But it is hard to square this with the fact that half of Americans are making less than they were 35 years ago in real terms. They have not received a raise in 35 years. Making things worse, the cost of housing, healthcare and education are exploding while paycheck sizes are frozen or even declining.
hmmmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 