Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,

Eric Trump funneled cancer charity money to his businesses, associates: report 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

…The Eric Trump Foundation paid the Trump family business hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last seven years for use of one of the organization’s golf courses, funds which he claimed were being donated nearly in full to the children’s cancer charity.

…Forbes reported that in 2011, costs for Eric Trump’s golf tournament fundraiser tripled because his father realized that the organization had not been charging for the event and there were no bills to prove it. The Foundation declined to provide Forbes with an itemized list of expenses for the tournament.

Charity experts told Forbes that the amount paid to the Trump Organization for a golf tournament fundraiser for St. Jude’s “defy any reasonable cost.”

The increased costs for the tournament coincided with changes to the Foundation’s board in 2010, when it changed from being made up of mostly Eric’s personal friends to those closely connected with the financial interests of the Trump Organization, according to Forbes.

…And as Forbes points out in its report, “Altruism as a business-development strategy isn’t necessarily illegal. But a situation in which outside donor money is redeployed away from the core mission in ways that seem to ultimately benefit the family that pays the majority of the board is — at best — an appearance problem.”

Eric Trump funneled cancer charity money to his businesses, associates: report – ABC News

Scum.

Bernie Sanders, Jon Ossoff, and Heath Mello: “Democrats” appear divided over Abortion and Populism 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

NARAL Pro-Choice America, an organization that endorsed Hillary Clinton in the presidential primary, harshly criticized the DNC for what it called the party’s “embrace” of “an anti-choice candidate.”

The statement followed a report in The Wall Street Journal that Mello once supported legislation “requiring women to look at ultrasound image of their fetus before receiving an abortion.” 

… Sanders also drew backlash from Democrats after he told the Journal that he doesn’t know if Jon Ossoff, a Democratic candidate hoping to flip a conservative congressional district in Georgia, is a progressive in an article published on Wednesday.

“I think that Bernie seems to have a rather extreme point of view, that if a candidate wants to do anything to create jobs, that he’s not a progressive,” Moreno added.

David Nir, the political director for Daily Kos, which has been instrumental in channeling grassroots support for Ossoff into an influx of small-donations, respond to Sanders’ comments on Twitter by saying: “Bernie Sanders isn’t helping—he’s hurting. He should either endorse Ossoff and raise money for him, or keep his silence.” Nir later added, “on second thought, Sanders shouldn’t endorse Ossoff. He should just remain silent and not hurt the efforts of those of us helping in #GA06.”

Source: Bernie Sanders, Jon Ossoff, and Heath Mello: Rifts over Abortion and Populism Divide Democrats – The Atlantic

Sanders is progressive, but only if you are a middle class or richer white male. If you’re not he’s a tone deaf dinosaur who will work against your well-being to assuage his own feelings of self-importance. There is no economic justice for women without reproductive empowerment. Bernie’s age and focus on seeing everything through the lens of his own gender and ethnicity betrays his real lack of support of women and their empowerment, economic or otherwise.

White House to dumb to realize budget included ‘egregious’ accounting error until after they had released the final draft. Doh!

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

A former US treasury secretary says it is the “most egregious” mistake he has seen in four decades.

…Mr Summers, also formerly chief economist of the World Bank, was one of the first to spot the apparent mistake.

“It appears to be the most egregious accounting error in a presidential budget in the nearly 40 years I have been tracking them,” he wrote on his blog.

He said the spending plan was “simply ludicrous”.

The budget forecasts about $2tr in extra federal revenue growth over the next 10 years, which it uses to pay for Mr Trump’s “biggest tax cut in history”.

But that very same $2tr is then used to reduce the budget deficit.

“My observation is that there appears to be a logical error of the kind that would justify failing a student in an introductory economics course,” Mr Summers wrote.

White House denies ‘egregious’ budget accounting error – BBC News

This White House is staffed by incompetent morons.

Chinese firm promises Trump approved green cards on behalf of Kushner company: report | TheHill

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, East Asia,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

A Chinese immigration firm is reportedly touting its work with the real estate company owned by the family of President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner to reassure clients that their U.S. visas will be approved.

…In Qiaowai’s case, it has boasted about its political connections and promised clients that Trump would make sure their visas get approved, according to the Times, which viewed text messages and emails the firm sent to clients.

…Kushner Companies’ representatives in China have touted the firm’s ties to Trump, and Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer came under fire earlier this month for allegedly using her brother’s role in the Trump administration to attract investors.

Chinese firm promises Trump approved green cards on behalf of Kushner company: report | TheHill

hmmmm

Dem unveils bill to make Trump refund travel costs 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Rep Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) is introducing the Stop Waste and Misuse by the President Act.

…The Stop Waste and Misuse by the President (SWAMP) Act states that Trump’s visits to his own properties “results in the American taxpayer effectively subsidizing the president’s businesses.”

The bill would mandate that Trump and other high-ranking officials receiving Secret Service protection pay back costs stemming from visits to properties they own.

Dem unveils bill to make Trump refund travel costs | TheHill

Heh, SWAMP act.

Fresh Food By Prescription: This Health Care Firm Is Trimming Costs — And Waistlines 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The rising prevalence and cost of Type 2 diabetes has doctors at Geisinger Health System turning to food as a form of medicine. They’re prescribing free, fresh food to low-income patients.

…Over the past year, he and about 180 patients with Type 2 diabetes have been participating in a pilot program aimed at getting them to change their diets and lose weight. They receive free groceries of healthy foods every week.

Shicowich has lost about 45 pounds, and he is now much more active.

The Geisinger Fresh Food Pharmacy is stocked with healthy pantry staples, like oatmeal and peanut butter, as well as fresh produce.

Each week, Shicowich and the other participants come to the food pharmacy. In its new incarnation, it looks more like a grocery, with neatly stocked shelves filled with healthy staples such as whole grain pasta and beans. The refrigerators are full of fresh produce, greens, low-fat dairy, lean meats and fish.

The participants meet one-on-one with a registered dietitian. They’re given recipes and hands-on instruction on how to prepare healthy meals. Then, they go home with a very different kind of prescription: five days’ worth of free, fresh food.

…Shicowich’s health has improved. His blood sugar and blood pressure have dropped so much that if he keeps on track, his doctors say they will reduce his medications.

…the costs associated with diabetes in the U.S. now exceed $240 billion a year.

Once you consider that price tag, Geisinger’s program can look like a bargain. Over the course of a year, the company will spend about $1,000 on each Fresh Food Pharmacy patient. All of the participants in the program are low-income, so the gift of the food eliminated a key obstacle to eating well.

…It’s still early days, and the team plans to fully analyze its first year of data. But here’s what it estimates so far: “A decrease in hemoglobin A1C of 1 point saves us [about] $8,000,” Feinberg says.

And many of the participants have seen a decline in hemoglobin A1C of about 3 points. “So that’s [about] $24,000 we’re saving in health care costs,” Feinberg says. “It’s a really good value.” Geisinger is now in the process of expanding the program to new locations within Pennsylvania.

Fresh Food By Prescription: This Health Care Firm Is Trimming Costs — And Waistlines : The Salt : NPR

cool.

Michelle Obama criticizes Trump school lunch decision – CBS News

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Education,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Former first lady says people should question motives behind Trump administration delaying federal rules aimed at healthier school lunches.

The school meal changes reflect suggestions from the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and companies that sell food to schools. The group often battled with the Obama administration, which phased in the healthier school meal rules starting in 2012.

Michelle Obama criticizes Trump school lunch decision – CBS News

Sigh…

Trump administration wants evidence of Haitian immigrants’ crimes so it can avoid providing humanitarian aid 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Caribbean,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is taking the unusual step of hunting for evidence of crimes committed by Haitian immigrants as it decides whether to allow them to continue participating in a humanitarian program that has shielded tens of thousands from deportation since an earthquake destroyed much of their country.

...The request for criminal data for an entire community is unorthodox. The law doesn’t specify it should be a consideration for Temporary Protected Status and the government has never said it would use criminal rates in deciding if a country’s citizens should be allowed to stay under this program. Introducing new criteria is likely to cause consternation among law-abiding Haitians who may feel they are being penalized for the wrongdoing of their compatriots.

Trump administration wants evidence of Haitian immigrants’ crimes – NY Daily News

Grrrrrrrrr

How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality

On By peanutgallerynhIn Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

While many Americans assume that most poor families live in subsidized housing, the opposite is true; nationwide, only one in four households that qualifies for rental assistance receives it. Most are like Diaz, struggling without government help in the private rental market, where housing costs claim larger and larger chunks of their income.

…The standard of “affordable” housing is that which costs roughly 30 percent or less of a family’s income. Because of rising housing costs and stagnant wages, slightly more than half of all poor renting families in the country spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs, and at least one in four spends more than 70 percent. Yet America’s national housing policy gives affluent homeowners large benefits; middle-class homeowners, smaller benefits; and most renters, who are disproportionately poor, nothing. It is difficult to think of another social policy that more successfully multiplies America’s inequality in such a sweeping fashion.

…But no one in his administration, and only a small (albeit growing) group of people in either party, is pushing to reform what may very well be the most regressive piece of social policy in America. Perhaps that’s because the mortgage-interest deduction overwhelmingly benefits the sorts of upper-middle-class voters who make up the donor base of both parties and who generally fail to acknowledge themselves to be beneficiaries of federal largess.
…Congress blocked many nonwhites, particularly African-Americans, from accessing [FDR’s] newly created ladders of opportunity. Farm work, housekeeping and other jobs disproportionately staffed by African-Americans were omitted from programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance. Local Veterans Affairs centers and other entities loyal to Jim Crow did their parts as well, systematically denying nonwhite veterans access to the G.I. Bill. If those veterans got past the V.A., they still had to contend with the banks, which denied loan applications in nonwhite neighborhoods because the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages there. From 1934 to 1968, the official F.H.A. policy of redlining made homeownership virtually impossible in black communities. “The consequences proved profound,” writes the historian Ira Katznelson in his perfectly titled book, “When Affirmative Action Was White.” “By 1984, when G.I. Bill mortgages had mainly matured, the median white household had a net worth of $39,135; the comparable figure for black households was only $3,397, or just 9 percent of white holdings. Most of this difference was accounted for by the absence of homeownership.”
Sigh…

FBI Investigates Alleged Bank Fraud By Jane Sanders 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Sanders stated in a 2010 loan application she had secured $2.6 million in promised donations to pay for the land purchase, which helped secure a $6.5 million loan from the People’s United Bank. Only $676,000 ever materialized over the next four years and the college defaulted on the loans, eventually going bankrupt in May 2016.

Carol Moore, who served as the final president of the college until its closure, told The DCNF the FBI contacted her as recently as a month ago regarding the allegations.

FBI Interviews Donors For Alleged Bank Fraud By Jane Sanders | The Daily Caller

Mere incompetence, as suggested by the school’s final president is far from ill intent or malfeasance. It is an interesting footnote though…

Low pay, high SF housing costs equal 1 homeless math teacher 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Etoria Cheeks teaches math at a public high school in San Francisco, explaining algebra and statistics to teenagers. In a shocking indication of just how bad San Francisco’s teacher housing situation is, Cheeks is homeless.  

…She was renting a room in a house in Daly City when she learned in December the house was in foreclosure, and she was evicted. With no family here, few friends and no savings because of a dispute over the security deposit, Cheeks had to scramble.

She put her belongings in storage and paid $30 to $50 a night for dorm beds in downtown hostels, moving around because they prohibit stays of more than 14 days. She looked at the below-market-rental lotteries run by the Mayor’s Office of Housing, but she made too much to qualify. She applied for apartments on Craigslist and other sites, but there was very little she could afford, and she kept striking out.

When her money ran low after two months in hostels, she was forced to sleep in a South of Market emergency homeless shelter called A Woman’s Place.

Low pay, high SF housing costs equal 1 homeless math teacher – San Francisco Chronicle

Sigh…

Bye bye, Bernie: He’s not fit to captain the Democratic ship if he can’t stop chasing the great white male

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

The Democratic Party is selling out women and all marginalized groups in favor of  [fiction]

Sanders is clear that he is not a Democrat — except when he needs to be one in order to run for president. 

…Economic populism and what are commonly erroneously and dismissively referred to as “social issues” — such as reproductive rights, immigration reform and civil rights for people of color, those who have disabilities, people of all faiths, LGBT people and women — are indivisible. Sanders routinely demonstrates his own lack of progressive values by dividing them.

There is no economic populism without abortion rights and civil rights. No one can have economic justice if he or she doesn’t have fundamental rights. Yet Sanders has made it plain that abortion rights are negotiable and brushes off [what he terms] “identity politics.” He consistently argues that his values — and his alone — should define what it is to be progressive. (Which can’t help but remind one of Donald Trump’s unilateral defining of terms.)

…The Democratic Party, which has a deeply progressive platform and whose candidate won the popular vote by 3 million and lost the Electoral College tally by only 77,000 votes in just three states, need not look for its soul. Its soul is right there in its platform and its voters, not in Sanders’ white-male dog-whistle rhetoric.

Bye bye, Bernie: He’s not fit to captain the Democratic ship if he can’t stop chasing the great white male – Salon.com

Mmmmhmmm.

 

 

And Jesus Said Unto Paul of Ryan …

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Religion,Leave a comment

Jesus turned to her and said: “Fear not. Because of your faith, you are now healed.”

Then spoke Pious Paul of Ryan: “But teacher, is that wise? When you cure her, she learns dependency. Then the poor won’t take care of themselves, knowing that you’ll always bail them out! You must teach them personal responsibility!”

The truth makes the best punchlines.

Under the GOP’s health plan, sexual assault could be considered a pre-existing condition

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Under the amendment, states would have the all-clear to waive the ban preventing insurance companies from denying coverage to patients based on pre-existing conditions. That means companies could also deny preventive health care services, like mammograms and gynecological exams, to these patients, which many sexual assault survivors in particular rely on following an attack.

In 2010, before the ACA became law, the Huffington Post reported the story of Christina Turner, a 45-year-old woman who was turned away by her insurance company because she’d been raped. 

After she was drugged and sexually assaulted, Turner was prescribed a month’s worth of prophylactic medication to prevent HIV infection, just in case. Though it turned out Turner hadn’t been infected with the virus, when a prospective insurer saw the prescription on her health record, the company said it wouldn’t cover her until — “in three or more years” — she proved she was still AIDS-free.

…Other conditions like postpartum depression, being a survivor of domestic violence or having gotten a C-section could also be considered pre-existing conditions.

“Most of the people who have C-sections identify as women, so that’s a shorthand for a gender discriminatory policy.” 

Under the GOP’s health plan, sexual assault could be considered a pre-existing condition

sigh….

Trump will “not to terminate NAFTA” 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Trump told the leaders of Canada and Mexico Wednesday he was not immediately planning to end the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact which he railed against as a candidate and as recently as last week declared was harmful to US workers.

…During his run for office last year, Trump made his disdain for NAFTA a central component of a populist message designed to engender support among working class Americans. He consistently cast the agreement — which was negotiated by President Bill Clinton, the husband of Trump’s presidential opponent Hillary Clinton — as a raw deal for the middle class.

…Nonpartisan congressional research found in 2015 that NAFTA isn’t responsible for an exodus of jobs south of the border, nor for a big jobs boom in the US. Researchers concluded the deal has had a minor impact on the US economy.

Still, about 14 million US jobs depend on trade with Mexico and Canada, according to the US Chamber of Commerce.

Trump agrees “not to terminate NAFTA at this time”, will negotiate – CNNPolitics.com

hmmmm