Category: Money, Class, and Poverty,

Cork Wine Bar sues Trump hotel over unfair competition – CBS News

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

The plaintiffs also allege that Mr. Trump, his family and White House staffers have continued to promote the hotel, citing, for example, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s comments at news conferences praising the hotel and the president’s own favorable remarks about the hotel in his meetings with elected officials. 

Gross and Pitts are asking that the hotel be closed for the duration of Mr. Trump’s presidency or they ask that Mr. Trump resign.

Cork Wine Bar sues Trump hotel over unfair competition – CBS News

Hit the cheetos where it hurts, in the wallet.

Unsweetened: Mexico cancels sugar export permits to U.S. because there’s no one to negotiate with 

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

Staff positions across the U.S. government remain unfilled. This has created a difficult situation for Mexican officials who have sought to resolve a legal issue with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

As of March 1, Trump had filled barely half of the positions for which he is in charge of staffing

Unsweetened: Mexico cancels sugar export permits to U.S. because there’s no one to negotiate with – Salon.com

Incompetent morons with absolutely zero desire to perform the job they begged and bullied the people of the United States for.

Laziness isn’t why people are poor. And iPhones aren’t why they lack health care.

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

Laziness isn’t why people are poor. And iPhones aren’t why they lack health care. – The Washington Post

Since the invention of the mythic welfare queen in the 1960s, this has been the story we most reliably tell about why people are poor. …Never mind low wages or lack of jobs, the poor quality of too many schools. …Never mind the fact that the largest group of poor people in the United States are children. Never mind the grim reality that most American adults who are poor are not poor from lack of effort but despite it.
…To believe that poverty is a result of immorality or irresponsibility helps people believe it can’t happen to them. …Poverty in the United States is common, and according to the Census Bureau, over a three-year period, about one-third of all U.S. residents slip below the poverty line at least once for two months or more.

…This stubborn insistence that people could have more money or more health care if only they wanted them more absolves the government of having to intervene and use its power on their behalf. In this way of thinking, reducing access to subsidized health insurance isn’t cruel, it’s responsible, a form of tough love in which people are forced to make good choices instead of bad ones. This is both patronizing and, of course, a gross misreading of the actual outcome of laws like these.

…There’s one final problem with these kinds of arguments, and that is the implication that we should be worried by the possibility of poor people buying the occasional steak, lottery ticket or, yes, even an iPhone. Set aside the fact that a better cut of meat may be more nutritious than a meal Chaffetz would approve of, or the fact that a smartphone may be your only access to email, job notices, benefit applications, school work and so on. Why do we begrudge people struggling to get by the occasional indulgence? Why do we so little value pleasure and joy? Why do we insist that if you are poor, you should also be miserable? Why do we require penitence?

…Chaffetz, Ryan and their compatriots offer us tough love without the love, made possible through their willful ignorance of (or utter disregard for) what life is actually like for so many Americans who do their very best against great odds and still, nonetheless, have little to show for it. Sometimes not even an iPhone.

Laziness isn’t why people are poor. And iPhones aren’t why they lack health care. – The Washington Post

Yup.

Mem Fox, Australian author, gets apology after being wrongfully detained at LA airport 

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

Mem Fox says she doubts she will visit the US again after she was wrongly detained by immigration officials.

Mem Fox, Australian author, gets apology after being wrongfully detained at LA airport – Donald Trump’s America – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

She got an apology and only spent two hours in detention because she is rich, famous, and white.

Congresswoman Grace Meng’s Menstrual Equity Bill to Make Tampons Accessible

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

An op-ed by Congresswoman Grace Meng.

Congresswoman Grace Meng’s Menstrual Equity Bill to Make Tampons Accessible

Wow. The fact that some women could have this problem never occurred to me. I’m not sure how any society could call itself civilized when half its members are in danger of being subjected to this type of humiliation.

Good on you, Congresswoman Meng, good on you.

Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense

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

Barely a month into the Trump presidency, the unusually elaborate lifestyle of America’s new first family is straining the Secret Service and security officials, stirring financial and logistical concerns in several local communities, and costing far beyond what has been typical for past presidents — a price tag that, based on past assessments of presidential travel and security costs, could balloon into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a four-year term.

…Trump’s three Mar-a-Lago trips since the inauguration have probably cost the federal treasury about $10 million, based on figures used in an October government report analyzing White House travel, including money for Coast Guard units to patrol the exposed shoreline and other military, security and staffing expenses associated with moving the apparatus of the presidency.

…In New York, the city is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower, according to police officials’ estimates, an amount that could reach $183 million a year.

This month, The Post reported that Secret Service and U.S. Embassy staffers paid nearly $100,000 in hotel-room bills to support Eric Trump’s trip to promote a Trump-brand condo tower in Uruguay.

…For Trump, the costs come with an additional perk: Some of the money flows into his own pocket. While Trump has removed himself from managing his company, he has refused to divest his ownership, meaning that he benefits from corporate successes such as government contracts.

…Trump’s frequent travel belies his repeated criticism of Obama as a “habitual vacationer” enjoying taxpayer-funded golf getaways. It also comes after his own promises: He told the Hill newspaper in 2015, “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.”

…Trump’s frequent travel belies his repeated criticism of Obama as a “habitual vacationer” enjoying taxpayer-funded golf getaways. It also comes after his own promises: He told the Hill newspaper in 2015, “I would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done.”

Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense

hmmm

Mar-a-Lago Neighbors Discover Costs of Trump’s Visits 

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

■ $200,000 in lost fuel sales at a large local airport in a single four-day visit this month.
■ 75 no-shows at a new restaurant in just one night.
■ $60,000 a day to pay overtime to sheriff’s deputies who guard the many closed roads, a tab that is about $1.5 million over all since the election.
■ 250 private flights grounded every day.

A month into his presidency, Mr. Trump arrived at Mar-a-Lago, his private club here, for a third weekend in a row this Presidents’ Day weekend. For the locals, that’s at least three days of clogged roads and strict security protocols that hurt local businesses and frustrate residents.

 

hmmm

Trump’s inherited ‘mess’ hard to find in economic data

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

To hear President Donald Trump tell it, you’d think the U.S. was in the worst shape since the Great Depression.

“It’s a mess. At home and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. You see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country. Going to Mexico and other places. Low pay, low wages.”

…When it comes to the U.S economy, though, that “mess” isn’t borne out by most measures.

Trump’s inherited ‘mess’ hard to find in economic data

hmmmm

Elizabeth Warren breaks down the biggest Trump scandal you haven’t heard about

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

What Donald Trump wants to do is fire one of the most important financial cops and then say to the American people, you keep walking down this dark alley and, you know, what happens is what happens,” Warren revealed.

The cop in question is Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray. Cordray’s term ends in July 2018, but Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is encouraging Trump to “immediately fire” the director.“

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which didn’t even exist before the financial crisis [prevents Americans from being] cheated on mortgages and credit cards and] the things that ultimately blew up our economy,” Warren explained.

The CFPD was created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform act and specifically helped combat home mortgage scams. Now that Trump wants to scrap the legislation, Republicans such as Rep. Hensarling along with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska say Cordray must go.

Elizabeth Warren breaks down the biggest Trump scandal you haven’t heard about

hmmmm

Tishaura Jones slams Post editorial board while declining interview 

On By peanutgallerynhIn Local Interest,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

You complained that “decades of sustained, abject neglect by city leaders have allowed a bombed-out graffiti-covered, war-zone image to prevail.” You said you were afraid to walk your dog at night and you called for a plan to “address blight and abate the graffiti that’s killing our city.”

You just moved here. It isn’t your city, yet. And graffiti is not what’s killing it.

What is killing our city is poverty. Since you’re new and you live in a great neighborhood, you probably don’t know that the poverty rate doubled during Mayor Francis G. Slay’s 16-year tenure.

What is killing our region is a systemic racism that pervades almost every public and private institution, including your newspaper, and makes it nearly impossible for either North St. Louis or the parts of South St. Louis where African Americans live to get better or safer or healthier or better-educated.

….But what the editorial board and certain other reporters have done is nothing short of thinly veiled racism and preference for the status quo past. Something this city has had enough of.

I think there might be enough city voters who are with me and are ready to vote for that change in March and April. After we do that, you and your dog will be safer. And maybe you will consider hiring an African-American editorial writer. 

Tishaura Jones slams Post editorial board while declining interview | Local News | stlamerican.com

hmmmm

Trump blasts Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka’s clothing line 

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Nordstrom announced Feb. 5 that they would stop carrying Ivanka Trump’s label due to its performance.

Trump blasts Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka’s clothing line – POLITICO

Fuck Ivanka and fuck the businesses of Trump’s entire family. Seriously, did they not understand what they were getting into it? Fuck all of them. Except the young developmentally delayed kid, because that’s much mean.

California Republicans ask Trump administration to block bullet train funding

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

California’s House Republicans have asked the Trump administration to block a pending federal grant that will ultimately support the state’s high speed rail project until an audit of the project’s finances is completed.

California Republicans ask Trump administration to block bullet train funding

hmmmm

5 important stories you may have missed during last week’s news deluge NewsHour

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Europe,, Media and Culture,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Pacific Basin,, Religion,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

In honor of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s five Super Bowl wins, here are five stories that ought to get more attention.

1. Worst fighting in years flares up in Ukraine
2. An inquiry into child abuse allegations in Australia’s Catholic Church leads to “tragic” statistics
3. The world’s most endangered marine mammal is going extinct
4. Taiwan one step closer to legalizing same-sex marriage
5. FCC’s latest move complicates efforts to lessen the digital divide

5 important stories you may have missed during last week’s news deluge | PBS NewsHour

hmmmmm

 

Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 in hotel bills 

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

Secret Service and embassy staffers provided security for the “VIP visit” to a coastal resort town.

Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 in hotel bills – The Washington Post

Fuck that. Those useless little mooches better start paying their own way. It does not serve the interests of the country at all to pay for their security. It is a courtesy extended by the American people, one which -if this is how these spoiled self-absorbed shitheads are going to roll- one which should be rescinded immediately.

If little Eric can’t afford his own security then he really can’t afford to make the trip in the first place. Loser.