Thursday, April 25, 2024
Percentage Viewing Parties Favorably In Congress
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 21st and 23rd of a nationwide sample of 1,651 adults (including 1,470 registered voters). The margin of error was 3.3 points for adults and 3.2 points for registered voters.
Our Economy Is Unfair Because We Are Ruled By The Rich
Why do millions of Americans work full-time jobs for a wage that keeps them in poverty?
Why do working and middle class families struggle to keep up with inflation?
Why do over 50 major corporations make billions in profits, but pay no income taxes?
Why do the super-rich pay a smaller income tax rate than many middle class families?
Why are giant corporations allowed to control so much of the market that they can raise prices at will (regardless of already record-breaking profits)?
The answer to these, and other inequities, is really very simple? We are being ruled by the rich.
Most of the elected officials in Congress are millionaires (and a great many are multi-millionaires). They make the laws that govern our society. And as one would expect, millionaires make laws that benefit millionaires. And none-elected millionaires have the money to fund propaganda to support the laws made by elected millionaires.
This could be fixed, but it would be difficult. An overwhelming number of voters would have to demand that change. Anything less could be ignored by the ruling rich.
Anyone can run for Congress, but not anyone can afford to run for Congress. It takes a good deal of money to get a person known by the voting public, and more money to get their views know. And it takes money to be able to raise money. This puts a working or middle class person at a serious disadvantage, since a rich opponent can simply outspend them with their own money (or easily fund a money-raising campaign).
The answer is public funding of federal campaigns. All candidates should receive a certain amount of funding from the government to run, and no candidate should be allowed to spend more than that amount. And MAGA-donors or other outside groups should not be allowed to spend money campaigning for any candidate. This would put all candidate on an equal footing, and probably results in more working and middle class candidates being elected to Congress.
Also, the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court must be overturned. That decision said money was speech, and allowed the rich to have more speech than anyone else.
We must have fair elections before we can have a fair economy. That will not be easy to accomplish. It will only happen when the voters demand it, and will only vote for those who will reform our election funding laws and support Supreme Court nominees who will overturn Citizens United.
Until this happens, we are destined to be ruled by the rich - to the detriment of everyone else.
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Colleges Should Protect Free Speech And Academic Freedom
Here is Robert Reich's take on the situation (which I wholeheartedly agree with):
The most important thing I teach my students is to seek out people who disagree with them.
That’s because the essence of learning is testing one’s ideas, assumptions, and values. And what better place to test ideas, assumptions, and values than at a university?
Apparently, Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, does not share my view. Last week she prostrated herself before House Republicans, promising that she would discipline professors and students for protesting the ongoing slaughter in Gaza in which some 34,000 people have died, most of them women and children.
The following day she summoned the New York City Police Department to arrest more than 100 students who were engaging in a peaceful protest against it.
Can we be clear about a few things? Protesting this slaughter is not expressing antisemitism. It is not engaging in hate speech. It is not endangering Jewish students. It is doing what should be done on a college campus — taking a stand against a perceived wrong, at least provoking discussion and debate.
Education is all about provocation. Without being provoked — stirred, unsettled, goaded — even young minds can remain stuck in old tracks.
Israel’s war on Hamas is horrifying. The atrocities committed by both sides illustrate the capacities of human beings for inhumanity and show the vile consequences of hate. For these reasons, it presents an opportunity for students to reexamine their preconceptions and learn from one another.
If Columbia, Yale, or any other university now roiled by student protests were doing what it should be doing, it would be a hotbed of discussion and debate about the war. Disagreement would be welcome; demonstrations, accepted; argument, invited; differences, examined and probed.
The mission of a university is to coach students how to learn, not tell them what to think. It is to invite debate, not suppress it. Truth is a process and method — more verb than noun.
I love it when my students take issue with something that I or another student has said, starting with “I disagree!” and then explaining why. Disagreeing is not being disagreeable. Disagreement engenders thought and discussion. It challenges students to reconsider their positions and probe more deeply.
Which is why universities should encourage it. Why they should protect unpopular views. Why they should invite and welcome speakers with views that rile many students. To be riled up is to be attentive, open to new ideas.
And why peaceful demonstrations should be encouraged, not shut down. It is never appropriate to call in armed police to arrest peaceful student demonstrators.
Finally, it’s why universities should go out of their way to tolerate expression that may make some people uncomfortable. To tar all offensive speech “hate speech” and ban it removes a central pillar of education. Of course it’s offensive. It is designed to offend.
There is a limit, of course. Expression that targets specific students, “doxes” them, or otherwise aims to hurt them as individuals doesn’t invite learning. It is a form of intimidation. It should not be allowed.
I’m old enough, and have been a professor long enough, to have seen campuses explode in rage — at bigots like George Wallace when he ran for president, at the horrors of the Vietnam War, at university investments in South Africa, and at efforts to prevent free speech.
Some of these protests were loud. Some caused inconvenience. Some protesters took over university buildings. But most were not violent. Nor did they seek to harm or intimidate individual students.
Whenever university presidents have brought in the police, and students have been arrested and suspended, all learning has stopped.
Which brings me to the central role of university faculties in protecting free expression on campus.
This role is especially critical now, when the jobs of university presidents and trustees have degenerated mainly into fundraising — often from wealthy alumni who have their own myopic views about what sorts of speech should be allowed and what should be barred.
The faculty of Columbia University has every right — and, in my view a duty — to protect peaceful free expression at Columbia with a vote of no confidence in Shafik’s leadership, and seek to end her presidency.
The Columbia faculty along with those of Yale, NYU, and other campuses now engulfed in protests against what is occurring in Gaza should do everything in their power to use the resulting provocations, inconveniences, and discomforts as occasions for learning rather than repression.
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Polls Are Still Trending Toward Biden - Away From Trump
The charts above reflect the results of the latest Marist Poll -- done between April 16th and 18th of a nationwide sample of 1,047 registered voters. The margin of error is 3.6 points.
Note that when the full field is polled, Kennedy takes more support from Trump than from Biden.
Democrats Should Not Join MTG's Effort To Oust The Speaker
There is a small extremist element in the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives who seem to enjoy creating chaos and using trouble. Although far from a majority in the GOP caucus, they were able to oust their own Speaker. They were able to do that because the Republicans have only a slim majority in the House, and knowing that Democrats would naturally vote against a GOP Speaker, they only needed a few GOP votes.
The result was weeks of chaos as Republicans could not agree on who the new Speaker should be. They finally settled on right-winger Mike Johnson. The extremists thought Johnson would go along with them. For the most part, he did. But to avoid a government shutdown, he negotiated a deal with Democrats. Now he has negotiated with Democrats again - this time to provide aid to Ukraine.
The extremists, led by Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG), are not happy. They did not want Ukraine to get any new aid, and have been parroting Russian propaganda. Now MTG has filed a motion to vacate the Speakership, and is threatening to ask for a floor vote.
Democrats should not participate in this latest bit of crazy political theater.
I'm not saying the Democrats should vote for Speaker Johnson. He's not a good Speaker, and should not be celebrated for negotiating with Dems on a government shutdown avoidance or on aid to Ukraine. He was forced into doing both.
But Democrats shouldn't vote against him either. This is a Republican problem, and they should make the Republicans handle it.
Kicking the Speaker out would just result in more chaos, and it could be weeks before the House could do any business.
Democrats should just vote "present". If they do that, I expect most Republicans would vote against ousting the Speaker, and business could continue. It would also show the extremist wing of the GOP just how little power they actually have, and that would be good for both parties.
Monday, April 22, 2024
Biden Has A Big Lead Among Young Voters
The charts above are from the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics Poll -- done between March 14th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 2,010 18 to 29 year olds. The margin of error is 3.02 points.
We Should Welcome The Immigrants Trump Wants Us To Fear
Donald Trump (and his MAGA cohorts) want you to fear the immigrants coming to this country. They call them "illegal", even though most are legally presenting themselves at the border and asking for admittance. They want you to believe they are dangerous criminals, even though most are just desperate and honest people trying to make a better life for their families.
The truth is far different. There are many jobs that business is unable to fill in this country because Americans don't want those jobs. The immigrants would love to have those low-wage and sometimes dangerous jobs. And as the maps above show, there are many counties in this country with a shrinking population. Immigrants could stabilize those populations and bring a new vitality to those communities.
We actually need these new immigrants!
Consider this editorial from The Washington Post editorial board:
It would require smart policy and political will — neither of which is plentiful in Washington, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) idea of busing migrants to cause political pain in blue jurisdictions could, unwittingly, be put to valuable use: encouraging migrants to rekindle economic development in depopulating cities such as Buffalo, Akron or Detroit, which have struggled to keep up with the economic transformations of the past 30 years.
Adding people might not revive beleaguered towns that have lost their economic rationale, however. If people have moved out, it’s largely because the jobs have gone, too. Still, for legacy industrial cities on the edge of decline, arresting population loss is imperative to avoid entering a downward spiral.
There is a precedent: the refugee resettlement program. Troubled cities in Upstate New York, for instance, have benefited enormously from thousands of refugees who have settled in communities along the Erie Canal; so much so that cities have tried to lure them.
Depopulation is bad for economies. Housing prices tank, local tax revenue collapses, the labor force shrinks, businesses go bust or leave, schools close. “All problems get harder because of population loss,” notes John Lettieri of the Economic Innovation Group. “To a first approximation problems would ease with more people of working age.”
There would be upfront costs. Shuttered schools would need to be refurbished. Local services might be strained, at first. But migrants would provide not only labor — potentially useful for elderly residents, who need help with tasks such as cooking or shopping, left behind in these places.
Migrants would also add to local demand, lifting tax revenue. Many would open small businesses. Given an initial boost — perhaps with state funds, as well as migrants’ savings — they could help build a future for places that, today, don’t seem to have one. As Enrico Moretti of the University of California noted, “For a locality it might not be a bad bet.” And from migrants’ perspectives, legacy cities offer one critical advantage: cheap, available housing.
This is not how migration is playing out today, though. Asylum seekers tend to go to large urban centers with more jobs and populations of similar immigrants, not to sluggish cities in the heartland. They don’t enjoy the supports granted to refugees resettled by the government, which help defray their short-term costs and make them attractive to local jurisdictions. From New York to Denver, where so many migrants have arrived courtesy of Mr. Abbott, mayors tend to perceive them as a fiscal disaster.
Giovanni Peri, who studies the economic impacts of immigration at the University of California at Davis, suggests there might be a way around this challenge even without federal help, taking advantage of the nation’s hot labor market. A state government resettlement plan for asylum seekers might lure businesses into selected communities by guaranteeing a reliable pool of workers. Communities might compete to get into the program. The prospect of a secure job would provide a powerful incentive for the migrants themselves, without the need for federal subsidies distorting the geographical distribution of labor.
For anything like this to work, of course, asylum seekers would need certainty that they can stay and work. A city or a business is unlikely to bet on asylum seekers who a year from now might be found ineligible to remain and forced to leave the country or, most likely, into the undocumented labor force.
But the rewards are worth embracing the challenge. A more expeditious asylum process is necessary, in any event, to deal with a backlog in immigration courts that has mushroomed to 3 million cases. If politicians made even rudimentary changes to the system, and if more localities recognized the opportunity in front of them, all parties — border communities, struggling Rust Belt towns, big cities swamped with asylum seekers — could win.
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Huge Support For Background Checks On ALL Guns Sales
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between April 14th and 16th of a nationwide sample of 1,574 adults (including 1,358 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.2 points, and for registered voters is 3.1 points.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
There Is Strong Support For Marijuana Legalization
The charts above are from the YouGov Poll -- done between April 5th and 8th of a nationwide sample of 1,148 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.
Why Do Georgia Voters Support This Ridiculous Woman?
American voters have the right to send any person they want to serve in the House of Representatives. But I have to wonder why the voters in the 14th District of Georgia elected Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Her mission seems to be to cause trouble in the House. She was one of the people who kicked Speaker McCarthy (a fellow Republican) out of office, and she is threatening to do the same to Speaker Johnson (also a fellow Republican).
Why? Because he is going to bring a bill to provide more aid to Ukraine up for a vote. She opposes aid to Ukraine, and has ridiculously accused the Ukrainian government of being Nazis who are fighting against christianity. She supports authoritarian Putin's invasion of Ukraine's democracy.
To delay the aid to Ukraine bill, she has introduced three amendments to the bill. Here are those amendments:
WHY DOES SHE HATE DEMOCRACY? Do the voters of Georgia's 14th District also hate democracy and support the Russian dictator?
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