What childrenโs letters to Operation Santa reveal
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But that same year, the New York City branch of the USPS informally implemented โOperation Santa,โ an unusually whimsical government program that allowed Postal Service employees (and volunteers with the โSanta Claus Associationโ) to respond, as Santa, to the thousands of New York children attempting to contact St. Nick. Postmaster Frank Hitchcock would integrate the program in 1912 to include the entirety of the Post Office, making โOperation Santaโ an official government program. After 1940, the program allowed charitable organizations, private firms, and laypeople to โadoptโ the letters of kids living in poverty and fulfill their Christmas wishes. The film Miracle on 34th Street references the endeavor, and Johnny Carson made a habit of reading some of the letters on The Tonight Show. The program has grown to the point where it connected 13,000 children to donors, a total that may well be doubled in 2020. This year, the letters have been digitized, and if youโre interested in adopting a letter, you can go to the Operation Santa website and browse through the hopes and desires of thousands of children across the country.
But what these letters demonstrate, far better than any PSA or statistical model, is how violent American poverty truly is. They also provide a counterbalance to the ways childhood poverty is depicted in popular media, where poor kids often serve as a way for a protagonist to demonstrate their generosity, from Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol to the demented poverty porn of the holiday pop hit โChristmas Shoes.โ
Scrolling through the photocopied and slightly redacted lettersโinscribed with the chunky block letters unique to childrenโone is confronted with brief yet startling descriptions of desperate need:
Dear Santa, I want one thing. (sic) I been a good girl and I want to ask you if you please get me a power wheelchair. My wheelchair is very old and it does not want to work. I am very sad. Please Santa, bring me a power wheelchair. I donโt want nothing else.
โDear Santa … My wish is money for my (sic) perents. $100 dollars would help us a lot. They are having a rough time with the bills.โ
โDear Santa, how are you and your reindeer? It must be cool riding a sled in the sky…. this year for Christmas I would really like a couch that is also a bed. The reason I would like a couch with a bed is because I have a[n] apartment that only has one room. My parents sleep in the living room on the couch and they always wake up with back pain. My dad works a lot, so his back pain stresses him out.โ
Even prior to the pandemic, the United States lagged other developed nations in child poverty levels. More than one out of every five American children lives in poverty, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data. As the pandemic continues to exacerbate the underlying crisis of American poverty, 45 percent of all children now live in households that have recently struggled with routine expenses, according to a report out this month from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, or CBPP. Black and Latino households have been especially impacted by the economic starvation that the mishandling of this pandemic has wrought, and these populations were already disproportionately likely to grow up poor.
But itโs long been easy for most upper middle-class people to ignore poverty, especially child poverty. Americans like to think of themselves as generous people; we donโt want to imagine that there are little girls writing to Santa for a new wheelchair.
When the political scientist and activist Michael Harrington wrote The Other America, his seminal 1962 study of American poverty, he intentionally undercounted the amount of poor citizens because he thought his readership would not accept such astonishing numbers. He couldnโt even believe it himself: โI had all the statistics down on paper. I had proved to my satisfaction that there were around 50,000,000 poor in this country. Yet, I realized I did not believe my own figures. The poor existed in Government reports; they were percentages and numbers in long, close columns, but they were not part of my experience. I could prove that the other America existed, but I had never been there.โ
Operation Santa wasnโt intended as a means to expose people to the stark realities of material deprivation. But itโs unnerving to realize just how many of these letters there are. Each one represents a failure of the American system and a failure of the ideology that says that anyone who is poor has failed.
โWe donโt want to be responsible for them. A very wise historian, Michael Katz, wrote that โpoverty is the third rail of American politics.โ We donโt like to talk about poverty in America, and we donโt like to deal with it,โ Jeff Madrick, a veteran journalist and author of Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Childhood Poverty, told me.
โAnd Iโm including the Democrats here,โ Katz continued. โDemocrats hardly ever talked about child poverty until recently. And I include Hillary Clinton, in that she didnโt mention child poverty very much in her 2016 electoral campaign. The reason is not merely that they are insensitive, but they think itโs bad for electoral politics, because people donโt want to hear about it.โ
The irony is that childhood poverty is expensive. For all the bipartisan efforts to reduce cash payments to poor families and the constant hand-wringing about federal deficits, chronic child impoverishment costs the United States a trillion dollars, or 5 percent of our GDP, annually. Madrick explains that the human and economic cost manifests in a variety of ways: lower high school and college graduation rates, lower productivity at work, higher healthcare costs and incarceration rates, and rampant mental health problems caused by the stress and trauma of impoverishment.
Thanks to Operation Santa, Vicky, the girl who asked for a new power wheelchair, may be connected with a charitable organization that can help her. Many thousands of poor people will be helped in this way by holiday-season generosity. But the needs of impoverished children canโt be met by charity alone; the scale of poverty is too massive. Even the Gates Foundation, a titan in the private philanthropy world, admits this. In All the Money in the World, a 2008 look at the 1 percent, Patty Stonesifer, a former chief of the foundation, is quoted as saying,โOur giving is a drop in the bucket compared to the governmentโs responsibility.โ
The solutions to child poverty are not mysterious. Socialists, liberals, and leftists have long advocated for more generous benefits to families that would alleviate some of the financial burden many parents currently shoulder alone.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Friday night after spending part of the day with President Trump that the president is “more determined than ever” to stick by his demand for bigger stimulus payments for Americans than approved by Congress in a bill passed this week.
Graham’s remarks come as Trump and Congress are locked in a standoff over the size of payments to millions of Americans as part of the latest COVID-19 relief bill, after the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed legislation that Trump has criticized and not signed, putting it in limbo.
“After spending some time with President @realDonaldTrump today, I am convinced he is more determined than ever to increase stimulus payments to $2000 per person and challenge Section 230 big tech liability protection,” Graham tweeted on Friday night.
Trump tweeted Saturday to also reiterate his opposition to that bill.
President Trump on Saturday ramped up his criticism of Senate Republicans over their unwillingness to aid his efforts to overturn the election, pressing them to โfightโ before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn into office.
Trump called out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republicans, asserting they are doing “NOTHING” as Congress heads toward a vote early next month to certify the Electoral College results.
โIf a Democrat Presidential Candidate had an Election Rigged & Stolen, with proof of such acts at a level never seen before, the Democrat Senators would consider it an act of war, and fight to the death. Mitch & the Republicans do NOTHING, just want to let it pass. NO FIGHT!โ Trump tweeted.
The comment marked the latest broadside in Trumpโs attempt to get at least one GOP senator to back a challenge to the Electoral College results when Congress meets to certify them on Jan. 6.
Thus far, no Republicans in the upper chamber have definitively said they will back a challenge thatโs being pushed by several GOP members in the House, though Alabama Sen.-elect Tommy Tuberville (R) has suggested he may back the challenge.
Senate Republicans are hoping to avoid a bitter fight with the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue over the Electoral College results as Trump ramps up his pressure campaign to convince Tuberville to join his House allies.
โUltimately every senator will have to make their own decision about that but I think there will be people, yeah, reaching out him just to kind of find outโ what heโs going to do, Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said of Tubervilleโs intentions about the Electoral College tally.
โIโm hoping in the end that all senators will conclude that this election needs to be over with and itโs time to move on,โ Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, added.
Trump earlier in the week went after Thune while lashing out at Senate Republicans ahead of the January certification vote, suggesting that the top GOP senator would be primaried in two years.
โRepublicans in the Senate so quickly forget. Right now they would be down 8 seats without my backing them in the last Election,โ Trump tweeted. โRINO John Thune, โMitchโs boyโ, should just let it play out. South Dakota doesnโt like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!โ
As if the economy is in danger of being overheated. This asshole would have no problem with handing out much bigger checks to his Wall Street cronies. No Larry, itโs time to โrun for coverโ when you open your fโn mouth.
Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary who has reportedly advised President-elect Joe Biden, thinks $2,000 stimulus checks would be a “pretty serious mistake” that could overheat the US economy.
Congress approved a $2.3 trillion pandemic relief package containing $600 checks for struggling Americans on Monday. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump called for $2,000 checks instead, and he has refused to sign the bill. Democrats support these larger checks, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to hold a vote on them Monday.
Summers, who was treasury secretary at the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency and director of the National Economic Council at the start of Barack Obama’s administration, told Bloomberg it’d be better to have stimulus than not – but that promoting consumer spending through individual checks was the wrong way to keep the economy moving.
He said he was “not even sure I’m so enthusiastic about the $600 checks,” let alone $2,000 ones.
The bill “probably would pay out $200 billion to $250 billion a month for the next three months,” Summers said.
“The level of compensation is running about $30 billion a month below what we would have expected it would. GDP is running about 70 billion a month below what we would have expected it would … We have stimulus already, much more than filling out the hole,” he said.
“And given that lots of the hole is not from the fact that people don’t want to spend, but because they can’t spend – they can’t take a flight or go to a restaurant – I don’t necessarily think that the priority should be on promoting consumer spending beyond where we are now,” he said.
Handing $2,000 checks to Americans would be a “pretty serious mistake that would risk a temporary overheat,” he added.
Democrats appear united behind the idea of larger stimulus checks, and a Democratic attempt to advance them was blocked by House Republicans Thursday. Progressive Democrats, in particular, reacted positively to Trump saying the $600 checks were not enough.
“When you see the two extremes agreeing, you can almost be certain that something crazy is in the air,” Summers said, adding that when Sen. Bernie Sanders and Trump are aligned, it’s “time to run for cover.”
No, Larry, you effin’ moron, they won’t go to restaurants or on vacation. They will buy groceries and pay the damn rent/mortgage, car payment, etc. This isn’t about stimulating the economy, it’s about surviving. Of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?
So if Biden aligns with Republicans it’s wonderful, but if Bernie pushes for a larger payment for the people and Trump agrees, “it’s time to run for cover”?? Grrrrr
It took 11 grueling months for negotiators from Britain and the European Union to hammer out the terms of a post-Brexit trade deal. But in many respects, the deal is already four and a half years out of date.
The world has changed radically since June 2016, when a narrow majority of people in Britain voted to leave the European Union, tempted by an argument that the country would prosper by throwing off the bureaucratic shackles of Brussels.
In those days, the vision of an agile, independent Britain โ free to develop profitable, next-generation industries like artificial intelligence and cut its own trade deals with the United States, China and others โ was an alluring sales pitch. The buccaneers of Brexit promised to create a โGlobal Britain.โ
That was before the anti-immigrant and anti-globalist-fueled rise of President Trump and other populist leaders who erected barriers to trade and immigration and countries turned inward. It was before the coronavirus pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of far-flung supply chains, fueling calls to bring strategic industries back home and throwing globalism into retreat.
In the anxious dawn of 2021, buccaneers are out of fashion. The world is now dominated by three gargantuan economic blocs โ the United States, China and the European Union. Britain has finalized its divorce from one of them, leaving it isolated at a time when the path forward seems more perilous than it once did.
Boris Johnson always expected news of a deal to be greeted with jubilation. It was to be his moment of triumph after three decades of climbing to the summit of British politics by railing against Brussels. The rightwing press dutifully rallied. Even Nigel Farage declared: โThe war is over.โ
But with Britain in a state of crisis because of the governmentโs botched response to the pandemic, most people will react with relief or perhaps indifference. For all the triumphalist claims of the Brexiters, the sunny uplands they told us to expect are no more than another cold, dark, wet winterโs day. The 11th-hour antics means there will be little scrutiny of a trade deal that could shape Britainโs economic destiny for a generation.
As a means to lower expectations and add drama, Johnson continued to perpetuate the โno-dealโ hoax of his predecessor โ that it was so plausible that he would pursue such a ruinous outcome is no credit to him. The notion that some of the worldโs largest economies would go into meltdown over a few middle-aged men with outsized egos and puffed-up chests arguing about fish was always ludicrous. And embarrassing.
It is a sad indictment of our political and media class that so many played along. Brexit was always in part fuelled by the allure of destroying the present. The farce has been presented as a drama, when reversing more than 40 years of cooperation for peace and prosperity is truly a tragedy.
The Brexit deal itself is nothing but thin gruel. It will make it much harder for Britain to sell services to EU countries, where we were once advantaged. Britons will lose their right to freely travel, work and settle in other European countries. While there will be no tariffs or restrictions on the quantity of goods that can be sold, British exports will for the first time in decades face checks on their origins and compliance with EU regulations.
The government fought hard for regulatory autonomy that it imagines will allow Britain to achieve escape velocity from economic reality. It is a fantasy. Britainโs producers will need to meet EU regulations to sell into their most important export market, no matter what bureaucrats in Whitehall may say. A separate set of British regulations for companies to comply with harms rather than enhances our international competitiveness.
After nearly half a century of closer integration with the European economy, Britain is now locked into needlessly throwing up new barriers to trade with our closest neighbours. As the past few days has shown, the ports can quickly descend into chaos. Even if implementation of the deal is smooth โ a big if โ it will prove costly to the UK economy, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating it will knock more than 2% off growth and see inflation climb to 3.5%. That means fewer good jobs, lower incomes and higher prices.
The dual impact of the pandemic and Brexit has pushed business investment โ the engine of wealth creation โ down by 30% from its long-term trend. With the deal seeing Britain now outside the worldโs largest single market, it will make this country a less attractive place to invest. Britain has long been reliant on the โkindness of strangersโ. They will not look kindly on this deal. No serious economist would ever recommend trashing your trading arrangements with your biggest trade partner.
This outcome was a choice of Johnson and the Conservative government, not an inevitable consequence of the vote to leave in 2016. People voted not to terminate our economic cooperation but to put it on a new and different political basis, with sovereignty more explicitly and firmly rooted in Westminster rather than pooled in Brussels. Instead, Britain will have the same trading arrangements as far and distant countries.
Whatโs more, this deal will see the poorest communities across Britain hit hardest โ especially in the north and the Midlands, which are more reliant on manufacturing, set to be a significant loser. For all the talk of โnothing to loseโ, analysis by IPPR shows that a Brexit deal like this will cause the most harm to those least resilient to it. Why would Labour support such a poor result for Britain?
Convictions in politics matter. Had the 2016 referendum gone the other way, does anyone seriously imagine that Tory Brexiters would say they had to accept the result and march through the lobbies in favour of the latest EU treaty? Voting in favour of a shoddy deal will surely dampen the enthusiasm of many of Labourโs supporters, the vast majority of whom have always been rightly hostile to the hard-right Brexit project.
Failing to oppose the Tory Brexit deal will leave Labour mute for years to come as the damage unfolds, unable to prosecute its central argument to sack the Tories. Forecasters already expect that Britain will have one of the slowest recoveries from the Covid crisis precisely because the economy faces Brexit disruption at the same time. If Labour votes with the government, shadow ministers will have any critique answered with: โWell, you voted for the deal.โ Surely Labour wants to be able to argue that the Tories have bodged Brexit along with everything else โ which is why the electorate should sack them and put Labour into power.
A thumping majority for the Brexit deal would hand Johnson precisely the โresetโ moment that his rocky premiership so desperately needs. It would see the prime minister end a torrid year with endorsement not only of his deal but also the disgraceful tactics he employed to secure it. It will leave Johnson cock-a-hoop just as he is wallowing in failure over his handling of the pandemic.
This lousy deal is bad for Britain. That should be the only yardstick that matters. It is not complicated. Labour should oppose it.
Don midwest
Indigenous knowledge forced underground and attempted to be destroyed
An article by a woman who is an env humanity dept at Arizona State Univ (ASU) [where I got a PhD in math in 1973] is a group of people who I had never heard of until this morning with an article published on academia.edu — journal articles free to down load
Modernity was all powerful so could squash all those primitive people and their customs — nothing of value there — and besides they were occupying land and resources which were needed and were there for the taking …
These are among the many literature people who have spent years on indigenous work
From Flintwing Boyโs place in the night sky to the Navajo conceptionof Father Sky to Mother Earth, to the Mayan conception of Sea and Sky,recorded in the Popol Vuh (a corpus of mytho-historical-astronomical nar-ratives), Indigenous groups around the world see themselves as intimatelyrelated to the sun, moon, stars, earth, and water. In the Popol Vuh, the godsof the sea and sky make four attempts to create human beings. In one failedattempt, they create a being of mud that is washed away by the rain. Mayanelders suggest that this story is not a paraphrase of the Greek story of Pro-metheus or the biblical story of Adamโs creation from mud, but a โnegationof Adam,โ and probably a direct critique of the beliefs and practices forcedon Quichรฉan peoples by Spanish colonizers who did not believe the Mayato be human (Tedlock 1985, 263โ64, 270โ71). Joni Adamson has sug-gested the phrase โseeing instrument,โ long associated with the Popol Vuh, to describe cultural productions and humanities scholarship that draw ourattention to Indigenous โcosmovisionsโโconceptions of entangled humanrelations with more-than-human worlds (Adamson 2001, 145; Adamson2014). From ancient Indigenous story cycles and farmersโ almanacs to con-temporary novels, such narratives have long worked as an imaginative forcefor thinking about โthe origins and [ongoing evolutionary] transformationsof the world and its inhabitantsโ (Cruickshank 2005, 99)
This is the reason whyโwell ahead of the Paris Climate talks andinspired by โcosmovisionsโโmany representatives from the Global Southand myriad Indigenous groups convened in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2010for the โWorld Peopleโs Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.โ There they wrote a Universal Declaration on the Rightsof Mother Earth (UDRME, 2010). The working papers from this conference show the participantsโ intention to attribute to Indigenous peoples, nations, and organizations ancestral โcosmovisionsโโthousands of years in the makingโthat conceive of Earth as a โpersonโ or โliving being with whom [all persons] have an indivisible and interdependent relationshipโ(โWorld Peoplesโ Conferenceโ 2010, Common Objective 1). The Work-ing Group 7 on Indigenous Peoples decried โaggression toward MotherEarthโ as an assault on us,โ with the word โusโ clearly meant to convey all human groups (not just Indigenous) and all other โpersons,โ inclu-ding the โsoils, air, forests, rivers, [and] lakesโ (โFinal Conclusionsโ 2010,parag. 2).The UDRME notion of all living, mutually interdependent, entities asโpersonsโ that draw on ancient traditions is at the center of Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studiesโs focus on cosmovisions. Like Flintwing Boy and Coyote, and Father Sky and Mother Earth, the chapters of this volume reveal how many Indigenous cultural traditions throughout the world imbue their worlds with agential โpersons.โ โWhether human or animal inform or name, these characters [behave] like people, though many of theiractivities are depicted in a spatiotemporal framework of cosmic, rather than mundane, dimensionsโ (Adamson Clarke 1992, 45, note 11). When repre-sented in contemporary poetry, ๏ฌction, or ๏ฌlm, they work in a time-space continuum of past, present, and future, because, like Flintwing Boy, they simultaneously comment on the โrelicโ or ancient story, and the new genre(in this case, the short story), to help speculate about the present and the future in a rapidly changing contemporary world. Flintwing Boy, then, is a seeing instrument employed by Faustin to think about what he is seeing on the television, assess it, put it into the context of what the Acoma people have learned through time, and consider how this new information might be useful in the present and future
Recent news articles have all been talking about the massive Russian cyber-attack against the United States, but thatโs wrong on two accounts. It wasnโt a cyber-attack in international relations terms, it was espionage. And the victim wasnโt just the US, it was the entire world. But it was massive, and it is dangerous.
Espionage is internationally allowed in peacetime. The problem is that both espionage and cyber-attacks require the same computer and network intrusions, and the difference is only a few keystrokes. And since this Russian operation isnโt at all targeted, the entire world is at risk โ and not just from Russia. Many countries carry out these sorts of operations, none more extensively than the US. The solution is to prioritize security and defense over espionage and attack.
While this is a security failure of enormous proportions, it is not, as Senator Richard Durban said, โvirtually a declaration of war by Russia on the United Statesโ While President-elect Biden said he will make this a top priority, itโs unlikely that he will do much to retaliate.
The reason is that, by international norms, Russia did nothing wrong. This is the normal state of affairs. Countries spy on each other all the time. There are no rules or even norms, and itโs basically โbuyer bewareโ. The US regularly fails to retaliate against espionage operations โ such as Chinaโs hack of the Office of Personal Management (OPM) and previous Russian hacks โ because we do it, too. Speaking of the OPM hack, the then director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said: โYou have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did. If we had the opportunity to do that, I donโt think weโd hesitate for a minute.โ
We donโt, and Iโm sure NSA employees are grudgingly impressed with the SVR. The US has by far the most extensive and aggressive intelligence operation in the world. The NSAโs budget is the largest of any intelligence agency. It aggressively leverages the USโs position controlling most of the internet backbone and most of the major internet companies. Edward Snowden disclosed many targets of its efforts around 2014, which then included 193 countries, the World Bank, the IMF and the International Atomic Energy Agency. We are undoubtedly running an offensive operation on the scale of this SVR operation right now, and itโll probably never be made public. In 2016, President Obama boasted that we have โmore capacity than anybody both offensively and defensively.โ
He may have been too optimistic about our defensive capability. The US prioritizes and spends many times more on offense than on defensive cybersecurity. In recent years, the NSA has adopted a strategy of โpersistent engagementโ, sometimes called โdefending forwardโ. The idea is that instead of passively waiting for the enemy to attack our networks and infrastructure, we go on the offensive and disrupt attacks before they get to us. This strategy was credited with foiling a plot by the Russian Internet Research Agency to disrupt the 2018 elections.
But if persistent engagement is so effective, how could it have missed this massive SVR operation? It seems that pretty much the entire US government was unknowingly sending information back to Moscow. If we had been watching everything the Russians were doing, we would have seen some evidence of this. The Russiansโ success under the watchful eye of the NSA and US Cyber Command shows that this is a failed approach.
If anything, the USโs prioritization of offense over defense makes us less safe. In the interests of surveillance, the NSA has pushed for an insecure cellphone encryption standard and a backdoor in random number generators (important for secure encryption). The DoJ has never relented in its insistence that the worldโs popular encryption systems be made insecure through back doors โ another hot point where attack and defense are in conflict. In other words, we allow for insecure standards and systems, because we can use them to spy on others.
We need to adopt a defense-dominant strategy. As computers and the internet become increasingly essential to society, cyber-attacks are likely to be the precursor to actual war. We are simply too vulnerable when we prioritize offense, even if we have to give up the advantage of using those insecurities to spy on others.
haven’t checked it out yet, but afaik, Ben Norton is trustworthy.
The US military is clearly planning something with this strange activity in the largest US military base in the Middle East / West Asia, the al-Udeid base in Qatar.
This could be preparations for some kind of attack on Iran, with just two weeks before the end of the Trump admin. https://t.co/yKXwsLdC6Q
Turkish opposition TV station shuts after 26 days https://t.co/CGdf7abLZU Erdogan is a theocratic fascist & ethnoracist–no wonder he wants to get more comfy with Israel…common values!
India arrests 75 in Kashmir after local elections https://t.co/sMHRs7U14s Characteristic Modi response to losing an election; he'd do this in India as well, if he thought he'd get away with it. @tulsigabbard@cmkshama
The NHLโs superrich owners tried to shift the burden of their pandemic-related losses onto players. But the hockey playersโ union has successfully faced down their demands, setting an example that should ring out beyond the sports arenas. https://t.co/te1KbNp6Ag
while i am careful not to make Soros a bogeyman and tbh, i admire(d)(?) him, this grayzone reporting is interesting. explains why HRW is so awful.
Since its founding days, Human Rights Watch has functioned as a revolving door between the NGO sector and the US government.@HRW had its origins in a CIA-linked anti-Soviet lobby group, and is funded by billionaires who help US regime-change operations.https://t.co/UHAwAxmaoJpic.twitter.com/LcDYIS6DN0
What is Trump doing with his veto power? Many answers, all valid.
One answer is Trump is using his veto power to get attention and cause chaos.
That is the correct answer with the National Defense Act. Trump wants this to pass and it will because on Monday the Senate and House will vote to Override his veto. Mission accomplished. Trump got attention and the bill goes through. Win/Win.
The Covid Relief bill may be another matter entirely. Trump has not vetoed it. He hasn’t read it. So far, he has ignored it except to demand a $2000 check be sent to needy Americans. Grandstanding, to say the least, since he ignored the Relief negotiations since the first bill passed 9 months ago.
Here are the stakes:
If Trump vetoes the Relief Bill in the next few days, Congress can Override his veto. Problem solved.
If Trump signs the Relief Bill in the next few days, problem solved.
If Trump ignores the Relief Bill for 10 days, Sundays are not counted,and the current term of Congress runs out….then the Relief Bill dies.
The next Congress gets to try again .
My guess is that the Bill will be signed at the last possible second.
https://newrepublic.com/article/160701/operation-santa-christmas-horror-story-american-poverty
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/531687-graham-trump-more-determined-than-ever-to-get-bigger-stimulus
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1342807171130601473?s=20
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/531692-trump-criticizes-senate-republicans-over-election-results-vote-urges
Moved
As if the economy is in danger of being overheated. This asshole would have no problem with handing out much bigger checks to his Wall Street cronies. No Larry, itโs time to โrun for coverโ when you open your fโn mouth.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-ally-larry-summers-former-111529758.html
๐ค๐ค
No, Larry, you effin’ moron, they won’t go to restaurants or on vacation. They will buy groceries and pay the damn rent/mortgage, car payment, etc. This isn’t about stimulating the economy, it’s about surviving. Of course, you wouldn’t know about that, would you?
What a jerk!
So if Biden aligns with Republicans it’s wonderful, but if Bernie pushes for a larger payment for the people and Trump agrees, “it’s time to run for cover”?? Grrrrr
I wish Twit(ter) would be blown up linguistically.
Brexit will be a disaster for Britain
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/world/europe/brexit-deal-boris-johnson.html
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/24/at-long-last-we-have-a-brexit-deal-and-its-as-bad-as-you-thought
Indigenous knowledge forced underground and attempted to be destroyed
An article by a woman who is an env humanity dept at Arizona State Univ (ASU) [where I got a PhD in math in 1973] is a group of people who I had never heard of until this morning with an article published on academia.edu — journal articles free to down load
Modernity was all powerful so could squash all those primitive people and their customs — nothing of value there — and besides they were occupying land and resources which were needed and were there for the taking …
These are among the many literature people who have spent years on indigenous work
Introduction
Cosmovisions, Ecocriticism, andIndigenous Studies
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/23/cyber-attack-us-security-protocols
TIP JAR @jcitybone. Thank you!
Yes thank you @jcitybone!
And thank you to everyone here, including those who fly in for a chirp on occassion.
Love to you all!
ditto! lurkers, lovers, likers, etc. <3
haven’t checked it out yet, but afaik, Ben Norton is trustworthy.
He is a lot more reliable than most of the pundits in the MSM who are dependent on their corporate overlords.๐ค
AKA as R-lite here ๐
^^^^!
Today seems to be international day.
while i am careful not to make Soros a bogeyman and tbh, i admire(d)(?) him, this grayzone reporting is interesting. explains why HRW is so awful.
k. taking a break.:O)
What is Trump doing with his veto power? Many answers, all valid.
One answer is Trump is using his veto power to get attention and cause chaos.
That is the correct answer with the National Defense Act. Trump wants this to pass and it will because on Monday the Senate and House will vote to Override his veto. Mission accomplished. Trump got attention and the bill goes through. Win/Win.
The Covid Relief bill may be another matter entirely. Trump has not vetoed it. He hasn’t read it. So far, he has ignored it except to demand a $2000 check be sent to needy Americans. Grandstanding, to say the least, since he ignored the Relief negotiations since the first bill passed 9 months ago.
Here are the stakes:
If Trump vetoes the Relief Bill in the next few days, Congress can Override his veto. Problem solved.
If Trump signs the Relief Bill in the next few days, problem solved.
If Trump ignores the Relief Bill for 10 days, Sundays are not counted,and the current term of Congress runs out….then the Relief Bill dies.
The next Congress gets to try again .
My guess is that the Bill will be signed at the last possible second.