#trump exclusionary policies

[alwaysbewoke]

[mariacallous]

Like so many of us, I was dispirited to wake up a few weeks ago to learn that Donald Trump will be back in the White House. This time he was aided by the world’s richest man and professional spaceship-crasher, Elon Musk. Among the many charming aspects of their partnership is a fondness for some highly unsavoury views on genetics. Trump is an enthusiastic advocate of “racehorse theory”, which he shares with white supremacists; the belief that he is personally superior and that this is rooted in his “good genes”. It’s a vapid idea, but it directly informs his toxic views on immigration, where he argues the country needs to be shielded from the “bad genes”of outsiders.

Meanwhile, Musk has his own equally baffling take on genetics, infused with a characteristic messiah complex. Like some of his fellow tech moguls, he is determined to “save humanity” by producing as many offspring as possible, convinced that our future depends on it. This might all be laughable were it not for the fact that Trump and Musk now wield more power than they ever have before. The shared thread running through their rhetoric is genetic determinism: the idea that who you are, and what you can achieve, is all down to your DNA. Nothing else matters.

The problem is that genetic determinism, with its odd fixation on the “master molecule”, is annoyingly pervasive. When James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA in 1953, they hailed it as the “secret of life”. In 2000, President Bill Clinton declared that sequencing the human genome was like learning “the language in which God created life”. Of course, science always carries the potential to be this thrilling; I don’t want to kill anyone’s science buzz. But I worry that in all the excitement, we can forget that DNA does not define us.

This language has leaked far outside the world of science, to marketing that raves about cars “with adventure in their DNA”, or a discussion of a football club’s “DNA” – it has become a synonym for everything from “characteristics” to “values”. The ubiquity of rhetoric that conflates DNA and identity risks propping up some insidious ideas. This is the language Musk and Trump thrive on, making exclusionary policies look like rational decisions grounded in science. Because, if genes are everything, why bother with policies aimed at tackling inequality? Why waste time and resources addressing social problems when we’re all just products of our genetic code?

In debates surrounding genetics and social policy, it is easy for the language of genetic determinism to lure you into an ill-advised “nature v nurture” debate. You know this debate: maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s the pervasive conditions of social inequality? But this debate misses the bigger picture entirely: it should not be seen as a binary choice. The truth is, humans are born with genes that require a good environment to thrive. It’s not either/or, but a complex interaction between the two that determines who someone becomes. We have a nature that requires nurture. Good science accounts for this complexity, rather than reducing it to a simplistic binary.

Along with making it harder to argue for progressive social policies, genetic determinism also has a long history of being used to justify violence, particularly by the far right. In 2022, a gunman in Buffalo, New York, cited genetics as part of his rationale for a racially motivated mass shooting. The gunman took various scientific ideas, most notably from genetics, but also environmentalism, and blended these with white supremacist conspiracies such as the “great replacement theory”.

The prospect that real-world violence might once again emerge from a warped interpretation of genetic science isn’t just a theoretical concern; it’s a dangerous reality. So how do we stop genetics from being weaponised? It’s not just about calling out dodgy interpretations of the science: in some ways, that’s the easy part. The harder question involves emotions. Why are people – often driven by anger or fear – liable to co-opt genetics to justify their reactionary political ideologies?

In trying to answer this question, one important thing to note is that science is not just a selection of facts, but also a form of culture. As such, it is subject to “cultural poaching”, as the sociologist Michel de Certeau put it – an unauthorised borrowing and re-contextualising of ideas. Take “survival of the fittest”, for example. When Charles Darwin and other evolutionary scientists used that phrase, they had a specific idea of what they meant by “fittest”, and were referring to how well-adapted an organism is to its environment. But in wider culture, the idea has taken on a life of its own, whereby “fittest” is just a synonym for “best”, or “strongest” – the phrase is often deployed to give bigoted ideas a scientific veneer.

There is evidence that some on the far right are tracking particular academic fields and broadcasting flawed interpretations of scholarly research papers as soon as they are available. Rightly wary of this kind of activity, some scientists are now publishing journal articles discussing how to stop genetics being co-opted by extremists, while science ethics organisations such as Cera provide resources to the same end.

With figures such as Trump and Musk wielding huge power, and the “alt-right” keyboard warriors helping them spread disinformation, genetic science has been forced to the frontline. As uncomfortable as it might be, it is more urgent than ever for people working in the field to ask: “How might my work be poached, and what can I do to stop it?”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Aja Romero at Vox:

With mere days left on the 2024 political campaign trail, you might have noticed the Trump camp has increasingly turned to scapegoating familiar targets, including immigrants, the press, and women. It has also increasingly doubled down on attacks on trans people.

A recent report by ABC News revealed that nearly a third of recent campaign funds — or $21 million, per ABC’s report — for television advertising has been spent on transphobic messaging from the Trump campaign and various conservative political groups. The independent journalist collective the Bulwark pushed the total even higher, to $40 million poured into transphobic advertising within the last five weeks. The ads, paid for by the Trump campaign, use a litany of transphobic coding, including photoshopping Kamala Harris to appear as though she’s posing beside a nonbinary person in a mustache and a dress, despite plenty of evidence that this strategy is a turn-off for voters. “Kamala even supports letting biological men compete against our girls in their sports,” one ad declares. All three ads attack Harris for supporting gender-affirmative care for trans prisoners, including surgery where medically necessary. “Kamala is for they/them,” each ad concludes. “President Trump is for you.”

Given that trans people make up barely half of 1 percent of the US adult population and that trans-related issues are low on the priority list of most voters, many might find it baffling that Trump has focused so much of his attention on singling out trans people. Indeed, two different media research groups, the left-leaning Data for Progress and video marketing firm Ground Media, working in partnership with GLAAD, each released studies last week finding that the ads had no real impact on voter decision-making and instead alienated many viewers, even among Republicans, who felt they were “mean-spirited.” So then why do them? Well, there’s “winning” in terms of appealing to voters, and then there’s “winning” in terms of determining the conversation. Keeping the focus on trans people — Harris’s actual policy proposals do almost nothing to advance the status of trans citizens — fires up a certain base and crowds out other discussion.

[...]

In other words, these ads help to reinforce the idea of a common enemy. They are continuing — which is to say winning, in a very real sense — the larger ongoing culture war against queer and trans people. The willingness of Trump and his supporters to invest in these ads arguably indicates that even if Harris wins the election, marginalized communities in red states will still be under threat from Trump supporters and from growing legal restrictions on those regions. But trans people aren’t isolated targets. They are scapegoats in the historical sense — canaries in the coal mine for the growing march of fascism in the US. That puts all of us in danger. Trump centering transphobia in his campaign strategy is not new. It’s the culmination of a decade-long conservative political strategy of weaponizing anti-trans messaging to undermine and reverse what was a broad cultural shift toward LGBTQ equality.

[...]

As the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage took effect, conservative groups turned away from targeting queer people to instead target trans people in a “divide and conquer” strategy, as a conservative organizer named Meg Kilgannon summarized in a 2017 Family Research Council panel: “For all of its recent success, the LGBT alliance is actually fragile,” she told the assembly. “If you separate the T from the alphabet soup, we’ll have more success.”

To do this, conservatives joined forces with unlikely allies, including “trans-exclusionary radical feminists,” to drum up antagonistic sentiments against trans people. Right-wingers spread alarmism, rolling out dozens of anti-trans bathroom laws across the nation, then using them to introduce other transphobic ideas into local conservative platforms, all of them coming straight out of the moral panic playbook. These tactics didn’t directly address the sociocultural progress that trans people were making; instead, they cultivated a new wave of unfounded fear and alarmism about trans people themselves.

And the propaganda has only gotten more effective over time. Where transphobic bathroom bills mostly failed a decade ago, they’re now coming back into fashion; last week, Odessa, Texas, passed a bathroom bill that offers a $10,000 bounty paid to anyone who spies a trans person using the “wrong” bathroom.

The core elements we see used to attack and oppress trans people in the US in 2024 aren’t really about trans people; we’ve seen these same fearmongering tropes weaponized against numerous marginalized groups throughout history. They serve a greater political purpose — not just to demonize one specific group of people but to reinforce an in-group mentality that can then be deployed against all enemies. These attacks are a political cudgel.

Donald Trump’s anti-Kamala Harris ads bashing trans people are all about demonizing trans people.

[allegraforchrist]

Hi, my (middle) name is Allegra, and it means jovial and lively- as the Italian musical term “Allegro”.

♡ I’m 18

♡ female

♡ favorite verses is Lamentations 3:25-27.

♡ Favorite colors are pink, red, black and white.

♡ BLESS and FREE ISRAEL 🇮🇱

♡ God bless America! 🇺🇸

This is my blog, and I’m very excited to be on here and share God’s gospel and the teachings of Jesus Christ.

I want to make a note that, if you do not like my blog, you can ignore it and scroll on. There’s no need to be hateful or aggressive.

My blog is a non-judgemental, safe space for all Christians, youth and older, tall or shorter, all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, all persons and those who are newer followers of Christ.

My blogs purpose is not to:

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🌸 A lot of what I post about comes from personal struggles with my sexuality, my connection to the Church, my mental health, religious affliction, and all ways that Jesus saved me. I don’t identify as bisexual or use they/them pronouns anymore, as my identity is in Christ, and I’m a woman of God. However, that doesn’t mean my page is welcome to homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia; or xenophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, or hate toward other Christian denominations. Nor will I tolerate allegations of hatefulness towards other communities.

🪖 Edit: I don’t politically identify as conservative, liberal nor democratic. My politics are biblical-based. I do say I support MAGA and Trump’s party based on their policies, not their personality. I’m also open to the failures and weaknesses of every political party, MAGA included. However, my blog is not a space to discuss wokeness, MAGA support, MAGA hate, and any political rhetoric. I don’t support hate, or virtue-signaling. If such is commented under my posts, I will give one warning. Done again, I will block you. Because I will not be guilted, or threatened nor tolerate political violence or discrimination against myself, or demographics of voting people.

🤍 Lastly, I do not aimed to be liked or respected by the masses, as I live for the approval and wisdom of God. If you don’t like that, please, as much as any opinion is valued, keep your condescension to yourself. Christian or not, there are boundaries I have.

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Thank you so much.

Jesus loves you!!!

[altamont498]

Welcome!

Welcome to my Tumblr blog. My name is Red, my pronouns are he/him and this is where I like to put all sorts of nonsense.

Do not interact 🚫:

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[eton75]

The Revival of South African Apartheid in the United States by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel

In recent years, the influence of tech magnates Elon Musk and Peter Thiel on American politics has sparked discussions about the resurgence of ideologies reminiscent of South Africa’s apartheid era. Both Musk and Thiel spent formative years in South Africa during apartheid, a period marked by institutionalized racial segregation and economic disparity. Their subsequent political and business endeavors in the United States have led some to draw parallels between their actions and the oppressive systems they witnessed in their youth.

Background

Elon Musk, born in Pretoria in 1971, and Peter Thiel, who spent part of his childhood in South Africa and Namibia, were exposed to the stark inequalities of apartheid. Musk left South Africa at 17, partly to avoid mandatory military service under the apartheid regime. Thiel’s family was involved in uranium mining, a sector intertwined with the apartheid government’s ambitions. These early experiences have been scrutinized for their potential impact on their later worldviews and business practices.

Political Engagement

Both Musk and Thiel have become prominent figures in American politics, notably aligning with conservative movements. Thiel, a self-described conservative libertarian, has been a significant supporter of Donald Trump, contributing to his campaigns and endorsing his policies. Musk, initially known for his technological ventures, has also shown support for Trump, including substantial financial contributions to his campaigns. Their involvement has raised concerns about the infusion of authoritarian and anti-democratic ideologies into the American political landscape.

Corporate Practices

Critics argue that Musk and Thiel’s corporate strategies reflect a disregard for regulatory frameworks and a preference for hierarchical, top-down management styles. Musk’s tenure at companies like Tesla and SpaceX has been marked by allegations of labor violations and a hostile stance toward unions. Thiel’s ventures, including PayPal and Palantir, have faced scrutiny over privacy concerns and collaboration with government surveillance programs. These practices are seen by some as echoing the exploitative labor systems and authoritarian governance characteristic of apartheid-era South Africa.

Cultural and Social Influence

Beyond politics and business, Musk and Thiel have been influential in shaping cultural and social narratives. Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has been criticized for fostering an environment where hate speech and misinformation proliferate. Thiel’s funding of media outlets and think tanks has promoted conservative ideologies, including opposition to multiculturalism and affirmative action. These actions contribute to a societal climate that some perceive as regressive and exclusionary.

Conclusion

The involvement of Elon Musk and Peter Thiel in American politics, business, and culture has ignited debates about the resurgence of ideologies akin to those of apartheid-era South Africa. Their backgrounds and current actions raise critical questions about the influence of powerful individuals on democratic institutions and social progress. As their impact continues to unfold, it is essential to scrutinize the implications of their contributions to the fabric of American society.

#ElonMusk #PeterThiel #Apartheid #AmericanPolitics #TechIndustry #SocialJustice #CorporateEthics #Democracy

[erebusvincent]

In sum, Harris and Trump are offering mostly terrible housing policies. Their main virtue is the difficulty of implementing them.

There are, in fact, steps the federal government can take to ease housing shortages. Most restrictions on new housing are enacted by state and local governments, which limits the potential of federal intervention. But Congress could enact legislation requiring state and local governments that receive federal economic development grants to enact "YIMBY" legislation loosening zoning rules. Perhaps a stronger version of the YIMBY Act proposed by Republican Senator Todd Young and Democratic Rep. Derek Kilmer (their version could be a useful start, but does not have enough teeth). Those who object to such legislation on grounds of protecting local autonomy should recall that YIMBYism is actually the ultimate localism.

The federal Justice Department could also support litigation aimed at persuading courts to rule that exclusionary zoning violates the Takings Clause (which it does!). Such litigation could do much to break down barriers to new housing construction. Federal government support wouldn't guarantee victory. But it could help by giving the argument instant additional credibility with judges.

Finally, the feds could help pursuing the opposite of Trump's immigration policies, and instead make legal migration easier. That would increase the construction workforce, and make housing construction cheaper and faster.

Sadly, neither major-party candidate is proposing to do any of these things. Instead, they mostly sell claptrap that is likely to make the housing crisis even worse.

[sa7abnews]

Will Kamala Harris win back Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan?

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/11/will-kamala-harris-win-back-arab-and-muslim-voters-in-michigan/

Will Kamala Harris win back Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan?

Dearborn, Michigan – Can a community in continuous grief put their faith in a new ticket that hasn’t offered a fundamental change in its support for Israel’s war on Gaza?

This is the question many voters in the US with ties to the region are grappling with as they look towards the presidential election in November.

“We have been approached by both parties. They are trying to see what our community is looking for. Basically, they’re trying to see how they can get our votes. They’re trying to take advantage of the situation,” Alaa Hussein Ali, an urgent care doctor who works near Dearborn, tells The New Arab, as both campaigns make their way through America’s swing states this week.

Ali, who grew up in Gaza and who has lost more than a hundred family members from Israeli airstrikes in the past 10 months, is one of many voters who will not commit to a presidential candidate until he gets reassurance that US policy towards Israel will change drastically.

In 2020, he voted for Joe Biden, enthusiastically bringing his family with him to the polls, after four years of Donald Trump’s exclusionary rhetoric and policies against Muslims. 

Nearly four years later, as someone who had never been particularly politically minded, he found himself compelled to join the Abandon Biden movement and uncommitted voters who saw this as their best way to put pressure on the US administration. 

With Biden now out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris and her new running mate Tim Walz have injected new energy into a party that had been falling in the polls to the point that their loss seemed inevitable until less than a month ago.

Pro-Palestinian activists: Canaries in the coal mine for Biden?

Joe Biden’s age-related decline was arguably the main reason for him dropping out of the race. However, not far behind that were months of protests led by pro-Palestinian activists, joined by Jewish allies and other communities, youths, labour unions, and LGBTQ+ groups, against the US administration’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians since October.

Though many from the Democratic Party establishment raised concerns over the possibility that these activists could derail the race for Biden, those advocating for his replacement argued that the party needed a stronger candidate. 

The same went for the vice presidential pick, with many activists pushing for the running mate to be Minnesota Governor Tim Walz over Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who was involved in a sexual harassment cover-up at his office and who has spoken disparagingly of Palestinians on multiple occasions.

In both cases, many activists are feeling vindicated, given the sharp rise in popularity of the new ticket, particularly in the prized Rustbelt, where voters understand the heavy weight of their votes.

“We feel like we were one of the major factors in Biden leaving [the presidential race]. I think we were also a factor in compelling Harris to not choose Shapiro for VP, with his positions on Israel and the protesters,” Imad Hamad, executive director of the Dearborn-based American Human Rights Council, told The New Arab.

The importance of southeastern Michigan

The area of southeastern Michigan, including the Arab cultural hub of Dearborn, has long been an important stop on the campaign trail. It is home to the “big three” automakers, a quintessentially American industry that has allowed generations of families to earn high wages through manual labour.

With the decline of the auto industry and for many the American dream in the 1970s, reaching a reckoning with the 2008 financial crisis, many fled the Rustbelt cities for the suburbs and in some cases left the region entirely in search of better opportunities.

During that period, the Rustbelt saw an overall steady decline in its population. Meanwhile, historic Arab and Muslim communities in the area saw steady growth, propelled by unrest in the Middle East. With their steady migration, they were able to bring life to multiple post-industrial towns that might otherwise have faced much harder times.

Though many became pillars of their communities, it wasn’t until less than a decade ago that the community would see prominent political representation. In 2021, the Arab-majority cities of Dearborn and Hamtramck saw their first Arab mayors elected. 

For years, Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan, particularly new immigrants, were among the lowest-turnout voters in the US. That changed significantly around six years ago when grassroots organising culminated in the election of Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian Muslim woman voted to the US Congress, who has described herself as a proud daughter of the United Auto Workers.

Ever since her 2018 election, her presence on the ticket has driven up voter turnout in state and national elections, helping Biden win back the state for Democrats in 2020. 

This year is different. After 10 months of daily Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, it is unclear what voters will do. What is clear is that there is a strong craving for authentic candidates who will listen to them.

Losing trust in a detached political system

For Ali, who has three medical clinics near Dearborn, it is difficult to regain trust in a system that has played a key role in killing and wounding more than a hundred members of his family.

Ali left Gaza City as a young man to pursue a career in medicine. He arrived in the US in 2001 shortly after 9/11, a time of rampant hate crime and mass government surveillance, primarily of Muslims. However, he says this is the most difficult period he has experienced in the US. 

“I lost my brother. He didn’t even make it to his thirties, and he left a pregnant wife and three very young children. I’ve lost 17 immediate cousins. And I’ve lost 110 members of my extended family. But we always say alhamdulila, thank God for everything,” he tells TNA at his clinic.

Speaking with TNA later on the phone, he shared that his family has been displaced nine times, his cousin’s son had recently died under the rubble, and they were having trouble accessing basic medicine.

Since October, when Israel’s assault on Gaza began, he and others in the community have been trying to reach the Biden administration to urge him not to support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We told him we are proud American citizens and we care about this country, and the way you’re leading this country is leading it to catastrophe,” he recalls of his attempts to appeal to the Biden administration prior to him dropping out of the race. By that time, he and many others in the community were determined to make him a one-term president.

“The Arab and Muslim communities here feel that they’re insignificant,” he says, expressing a similar sentiment as many others who have felt despair in the Rustbelt, though for very different reasons. 

Though white, rural working-class Americans have a reputation for racism, something Ali acknowledges he has sometimes had to get past when first meeting them, once they get acquainted, he has found kindness and empathy.

“Most of my patients are Trump supporters. And I’ve always worn this since the beginning of the war,” he says, pointing to a Palestinian bracelet on his wrist. “My patients see that, and they’re sympathetic and supportive. It’s just the geographic location they’re in. They’re the nicest people ever. Almost every day I get gifts from them.”

He has found the political establishment, by contrast, to be divisive, pitting regular people against one another by exploiting their perceived differences. 

A new day for American democracy?

Even with new names on the Democratic ticket, many could find it difficult to get on board with a presidential candidate who is part of the current administration, though many others seem to be willing to give the new Democratic ticket a chance. 

This week, as Harris and Walz make their way through key swing states, including Michigan, Arab and Muslim community leaders reached out to meet with them (in addition to the general community outreach both campaigns have already initiated). They are still awaiting a response. It is a marked shift from their refusal to meet with Biden following the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

On Tuesday, Michigan held its congressional primary, with Tlaib winning as the only uncontested candidate, while other races on the ballot were also predictable. Voter turnout this week was understandably low, making it difficult to predict what will happen in November.

Regardless of the reason for the low turnout, Hamad, who always encourages political participation, is sympathetic. 

“I think people who boycotted are exhausted. They really believe that participation is not going to lead to any change. I talked to so many people who did not participate, including family members. They said: Why should I bother?” he says. 

“Before, people would give excuses for not voting. This time, they say it bluntly. They say they don’t trust the system anymore. They say don’t trust democracy. The direction is known. Regardless of who you vote for, the outcome is the same,” he says he was told by those who stayed home from the polls

James Zogby, a veteran pollster and president of the Arab American Institute, while sympathetic to those who are frustrated with the system, is urging them to be politically engaged. 

“This is the time for deeper engagement, not boycott or anger. That doesn’t make you more empowered. We’ve struggled for years to make Arabs more heard, not to disempower themselves. We don’t have the luxury of being angry and only venting anger. That’s not going to help us advance the cause,” he tells TNA.

“The political process is broke, there’s no question about it,” he says. ” But given the sorry state of affairs in the region, we need more – not less – engagement.”

Brooke Anderson is The New Arab’s correspondent in Washington DC, covering US and international politics, business, and culture.

Follow her on Twitter: @Brookethenews

[dertaglichedan]

German Publisher Stops All Printing of JD Vance’s Book Hillbilly Elegy

JD Vance is a marked man. After accepting the nomination for vice president, Vance has been the subject of endless media attacks. Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris even questioned his “loyalty” to the country despite his serving as a Marine in the Iraq War. Yet, one of the most chilling attacks came from Germany where the publishing house Ullstein Buchverlage has stopped printing the sold-out German translation of Hillbilly Elegy, his 2016 autobiography.

As we have discussed previously in this country, it is the modern left’s equivalent of book burning. After all, why burn books when you can simply prevent their being printed under blacklisting campaigns?

In this country, we have seen the left successfully force book bans for writers and even justices who espouse opposing viewpoints.  We have seen actual calls for book burning recently (here and here).

Ullstein is facing a high demand for Vance’s best-selling book Hillbilly Elegy, but has refused to print more copies due to his political viewpoints (unrelated to the book).

First published in 2016 and made into a movie in 2020, the book returned to the top position on The New York Times‘ bestseller list after Trump chose Vance as his running mate.

HarperCollins is rushing to print more books to meet the demand.

Some in the United States are already balking at the selling of any book by Vance. Seven Stories Press wrote, “Seven Stories Press is extremely thrilled to have never published JD Vance.”

Ullstein published the German translation of Hillbilly Elegy in 2017 and held the rights to reprints.

The company cited Vance’s allegiance with Trump and his politics as the reason in a statement to German media:

“At the time of its publication, the book made a valuable contribution to understanding the drifting apart of US society…In the meantime, he is officially acting alongside him and advocating an aggressively demagogic, exclusionary policy.”

German author Gerd Buurmann posted a mocking response that we should be happy that Ullstein had just thrown Vance’s book out of its catalogue and not into the fire – a reference to the notorious Nazi book burnings of the 1930s.

Other Germans have raised the same objections and referenced the painful history of book bans and burnings in Germany under the Nazis.

German readers want to read the book, which Ullstein acknowledged is one of the most influential works of this generation. However, because the company disagrees with his political viewpoints, it moved to block others from reading the book.

[knuckle]

actual analysis of this by legal experts shows that biden valued an exclusionary lengthy administrative application process to weed out the people he thought really deserved it when he could have just blanket forgiven everyone. the federal government knows who pell grant recipients are. student loan forgiveness was hotly debated in the supreme court, with coney barrett and kavanaugh even questioning the plaintiff's standing.

if biden had forgiven student loans in a single order instead of announcing the opening of an application process that would qualify people months later, this would not have happened. reinstating debt vs. preventing its forgiveness is much harder and more unpopular both legally and socially. biden then just rolled over and decided not to try any workarounds or reworded policies, e.g. like trump did with the muslim ban etc. that may very well have worked-- he did not do any of this because he is a simpering coward uncommitted to us

joe biden's campaign emailed me asking for money as if I've forgotten this old bitch still owes every american the $600 that he lied about.

[leviathangourmet]

A new think tank report shows how liberal New York suburbs use restrictive zoning laws to drive up housing prices and prevent poor minorities from moving into their neighborhoods.

The Century Foundation released a study about zoning laws and educational opportunities in Scarsdale and Port Chester, liberal suburban areas in Westchester County, New York, located north of New York City. The study compares zoning laws, demographics and public school performance in the neighboring towns as a case study for how liberal suburbs prevent low-income people and racial minorities from moving in.

“Today, among the most important government policies and practices driving segregation include (1) decisions about where to place public housing; and (2) flagrant income discrimination through exclusionary zoning (which disproportionately hurts people of color),” the study reads.

Scarsdale has a median household income of $250,000 and its population is 71.2% white, with 90.7% of adults having attained a bachelor’s degree or more of education, according to data from New York University’s (NYU) Furman Center. Port Chester has an $88,093 median income and its population is 64.2% Hispanic, with 31.1% of adults attaining at least a bachelor’s degree.

Public schools in Scarsdale have higher expenditures per pupil, lower student-to-teacher ratios and more experienced teachers. Students in Scarsdale schools graduate in four years at a higher rate and perform better in English and math than students in Port Chester.

The study explains how Scarsdale fought public housing developments and uses single family zoning to restrict development. As a result, minorities and poor Americans are unable to move to Scarsdale, despite the town’s liberal leanings. In contrast, Port Chester allows for multi-family homes to be built on its land.

“In addition to discriminatory government judgements about where to place public housing, zoning has been a prime driver of residential segregation. Government-sponsored zoning restrictions that forbid multifamily housing, or even single-family homes on modest-sized plots of land, are pervasive in American communities,” the study asserts.

“Recent growth in Scarsdale and Port Chester reflect their very different zoning regimes. In Port Chester, 41 percent of units (24 of 58 units) authorized to be built between 2014 and 2021 were for multifamily housing. In Scarsdale, none (0 of 218 units) were for multifamily homes. Although real estate developers typically make more money building multifamily housing than single-family homes in wealthy areas, Scarsdale essentially forbids it,” the study adds.

Scarsdale’s median single family housing price is $1.65 million and all of its new units from 2014-21 were single family homes. Port Chester’s median single-family housing price is $592,242 and 59% of its new units were built for single families. A majority of Port Chester’s housing is occupied by renters and its population density is much higher than Scarsdale, according to NYU Furman Center data.

Scarsdale and Port Chester are located in New York’s 16th Congressional district, represented by Democratic New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, an outspoken progressive with ties to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). President Joe Biden won Westchester County in the 2020 presidential election, with 67% of the vote.

Left-wing policy analyst Richard Kahlenberg used the study’s results to describe how liberal suburbs “have their own border wall” in an article for the Atlantic, a liberal magazine.

“One can safely presume that few Scarsdale residents are ardent backers of Trump’s wall on the Mexican border. But many of them support a less visible kind of wall, erected by zoning regulations that ban multifamily housing and keep non-wealthy people, many of them people of color, out of their community.”

[mariacallous]

In 2014, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice jointly released guidance to public schools on how to avoid racial discrimination in the administration of school discipline. The Obama-era school discipline guidelines were motivated in part by large and persistent racial disparities in suspensions (see Figure 1), as well as a vast body of research linking exclusionary school discipline to deleterious downstream effects.

The 2014 guidelines stressed that racial disparities in discipline rates, in and of themselves, could constitute evidence of unlawful discrimination. The 2014 guidance was rescinded by the Trump administration in 2018, though the Biden administration has signaled that revised guidance on avoiding racially discriminatory school discipline may be forthcoming. If future guidelines are anything like the Obama-era guidance, administrators and educators might soon be asking themselves how they can work to reduce racial discipline disparities. 

What does research suggest is the best approach? 

Unfortunately, the answer to that question isn’t straightforward. Some interventions have shown promise in reducing the use of exclusionary discipline practices overall. However, few have succeeded in reducing large racial disparities in discipline. (For a more comprehensive discussion on this point, see recent research reviews by Welsh and Little and Cruz, Firestone, and Rodl.) 

Here, I draw on two decades of school discipline research to summarize what we’ve learned about how to reduce racial discipline disparities. It is important to note that school discipline reforms often aim to meet multiple goals (e.g., reducing the use of exclusionary discipline overall, reducing racially disparate outcomes, and improving school climate), and can have intended and unintended consequences for a school community. For clarity and brevity, I focus this discussion specifically on whether interventions reduce racial disparities in school discipline outcomes by lowering discipline rates for students of color. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris Lehmann at The Nation:

The first pages of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership invoke the Beltway axiom that “personnel is policy.” If that’s the case, readers should pay especially close attention to the handiwork of Russell Vought. Vought served as Donald Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the critical nexus of policy execution and agency performance in the executive branch. He has also served, by some accounts, as the lead administrator of the Project 2025 initiative, overseeing 1,000 employees in 30 separate task groups under its aegis. He also contributed a central chapter to Project 2025’s blueprint for a second Trump administration, bearing the deceptively anodyne title “Executive Office of the President of the United States.” In it, Vought lays out the case for unleashing untrammeled executive power from the maw of a “sprawling federal bureaucracy” that, contrary to the intent of the Constitution, “is carrying out its own policy plans and preferences—or, worse yet, the policy plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country.”

Vought proposes to curb the excesses of this dangerous administrative elite by expanding the prerogatives of presidential authority in every facet of the federal government’s operations. Right-wing power-mongers have long expounded the theory of a “unitary executive” as the most durable, efficient, and potent way to achieve a policy agenda that remains deeply unpopular with the American electorate, yet Vought seeks to transform that theory into a comic book plot arc, with a S.H.I.E.L.D.–style rescue mission to redeem a republic besieged by sinister bureaucratic scheming and administrative power grabs at every turn. “The overall situation is constitutionally dire, unsustainably expensive, and in urgent need of repair,” he writes. “Nothing less than the survival of self-governance in America is at stake.”

In this dark vision of a looming administrative coup, the president becomes the Nick Fury savior figure: a master accruer of power devoted at the same time to its wide dispersion among the satellite communities of superheroes practicing an elevated MAGA-sanctioned lifestyle in conditions of stoic watchfulness. The president must be a figure of unparalleled ingenuity to carry out this ambitious agenda of national deliverance: “Success in meeting that challenge will require a rare combination of boldness and self-denial: boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states.” (If you think, as Vought clearly does, that Donald Trump is the duly anointed avatar of this brand of benevolent spiritualized federalism, then I have a warehouse full of MAGA-branded Bibles to sell you.) Since at least the heyday of Ronald Reagan, the American right has been steeped in the strongman vision of the presidency as a maximum lawgiver of patriotic virtue. [...]

For adherents of actual democratic self-governance, Vought’s administrative theory of maximum executive power is plenty unnerving on its own. But an even fuller picture of the sort of substantive policy agendas that it would serve emerges in the theocratic mission of the think tank Vought launched after his tour at the OMB, the Center for Renewing America. This group is a partner in Project 2025, but it’s also a policy shop positioned firmly in the vanguard of the Christian nationalist movement, fiercely dedicated to shoring up a militant right-wing culture-war agenda and based on the lie that the United States was founded as an exclusionary, Christian nation. “Our mission is to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending…where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities,” the CRA’s website announces.

If you’re curious to learn more about what the CRA’s vision of “healthy communities” might be, you can toggle over to a series of policy “primers” on the subject that advance a wide range of righteous crusades for a unitary executive to undertake. “Palestinian Culture is Prohibitive for Assimilation,” one such entry boldly asserts. “Yes, America’s Institutions Are Grooming Your Children,” another QAnon-adjacent offering proclaims. If that doesn’t have you sufficiently alarmed, check out “School Systems Are Corrupting Children with Pornography” or “Biden’s Woke War on Police.” There’s a rich mosaic of election-denial content under the deeply misleading heading of “Election Integrity,” while the designations “Medical Tyranny” and “Woke and Weaponized” speak—or rather shout—quite unmistakably for themselves. The overarching mood is less that of a colloquy of policy wonks than Steve Bannon podcasting on a meth binge.

Project 2025 is a blueprint for theocracy and Christian nationalism, and Russ Vought is there to see it become fruition if Trump is elected again.

See Also:

The Nation: June 2024 Issue

[did42069]

If you're a conservative or business person then your care is on how the economy isn't getting enough of a push to be competitive internationally business wise. If you're a young person say 35 and under you should like this budget as most of the programs will make life better for the long haul but we're in a moment where everything is in flux. Internationally we're in a precious position, Trump is probably going to be President again in the USA, he's already said a lot of things (things that reek of fascism but for this purpose) former - President Trump want's to reintroduce tariffs to international products amongst his exclusionary border tactics... For us it's a very expensive problem to have, the chaos that Mr.Trump brings is half the reason someone like Polieve is as popular as he is. Unfortunately most of PP's policy's, the few that we know of, would be bad for Canadian's in the long run. Polieve uses the same playbook as Mr.Trump in many ways, early Trump, the one that came down the escalator... That's PP to me at the moment. He says things that are preposterous to really take seriously, he's a Hypocrite but he is following Trump's early campaign strategy, it was popular because he played on the divisions and legit troubles that have plagued US society for years. PP's strategy is similar in that he's always manufactured troubles on-top of the real troubles that Canadian society deals with. His policies have never left Canadian society for the betterment but he's used the conservative approach to Canadian politics to stay strong in the Senate. Unfortunately most people will follow him because of Sheep mentality.

I keep seeing article titles complaining about the new Canadian budget being useless, is this just big rich folk crying over being taxed more or is there something genuinely wrong with it? Does anyone know?

~~~~

[socialistexan]

I'll make a deal with terfs, if y'all can name one (1) piece of actual legislation or policy that specifically has women and/or LGB people lose their rights which are supported and/or written by trans rights groups (or even "libfem" groups), I'll not completely dismiss y'all right off hand.

You can't use any far right sources (ie inforwars, daily caller, breitbart, Newsmax, Daily Mail, ect) or sources that don't have direct reporting that can be independently verified.

Because I can name multiple times when trans exclusionary feminist groups worked directly with conservatives (including the Trump administration), christian fundimentalist theocrats, and outright fascists to oppose trans rights. Is there any factual basis for what y'all are spouting, literally anything, about trans people taking away women's rights or lgb rights? (Hint there isn't)

[enthusiasticmusicalquotes]

let’s take out the trash in the new decade.

please unfollow me if you:

are a neo nazi / white supremacist

are a trans exclusionary radical feminist (terf) 

are a trump / boris supporter 

support ICE / harsh U.S. immigration policies 

support the NRA / don’t want gun control laws 

support politicians who specifically try to make lives harder for poor people, homeless people, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, schoolchildren, college students, single parents, disabled people, mentally ill people, women, etc.

hate / discriminate against LGBTQIA+ individuals, people of color, people of other religions, plus-size people, women, etc.

have ever assaulted someone in any way or support someone who has

i want this blog to be a safe space for people who can’t find one in real life. so if you qualify as even just one of the above, kindly fuck yourself gently with a chainsaw and unfollow me. xoxoxox happy new year