Why Bernie is going after Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
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The showdown between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Starbucks chief Howard Schultz will come to a head next week.
That’s when the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will vote on whether to subpoena Schultz’s testimony and authorize an investigation into the company’s labor law violations.
The Wednesday vote comes on the heels of a major legal decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that Starbucks was affecting its workers’ organizing efforts through “egregious and widespread misconduct” that violated their legal rights.
“While Howard Schultz is a multi-billionaire who runs a very profitable multi-national corporation, he must understand that he and his company are not above the law,” Sanders, who chairs the HELP committee, said in a statement announcing the March 8 subpoena vote.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Schultz has given us no choice, but to subpoena him. A multi-billion dollar corporation like Starbucks cannot continue to break federal labor law with impunity. The time has come to hold Starbucks and Mr. Schultz accountable,” Sanders wrote.
The HELP committee has 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans. An aide for Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine — a Democrat on the committee — told The Hill they were “not sure” that the vote would fall along party lines.
A Starbucks spokesman said last week that, “this is a disappointing development, but we will continue our dialogue with Chairman Sanders’s staff and are optimistic that we’ll come to an appropriate resolution. Our response to the Chairman’s initial request still stands.”
In lieu of Schultz, the company said it would offer AJ Jones II, executive vice president and chief communications officer for Starbucks, to testify before the committee.
Jones was the policy director for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the former House Democratic whip.
Why Sanders wants Schultz to testify
More than 280 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since the December 2021 Buffalo vote, according to Starbucks Workers United. In that time, Starbucks has fired nearly 200 union organizers.
The NLRB has filed more than 75 complaints against Starbucks alleging unlawful intimidation and retaliation against union organizers.
But it’s not just the company’s labor practices that are of interest to Sanders.
It’s also the role in shaping them and enforcing them played by Schultz himself — a CEO who was once reported to be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s pick to serve as Labor secretary if she had won the 2016 presidential election.
Sanders called attention to the personal nature of Schultz’s role in Starbucks labor policy in a Thursday letter to the company, referring to the NLRB decision that Starbucks had committed “hundreds” of labor violations.
The senator cited a November 2021 meeting in Buffalo led by Schultz, who had not yet returned as the company’s CEO following a 2018 retirement, with all area Starbucks workers.
“These workers were forced to attend this meeting while every Buffalo-area store was closed to listen to Mr. Schultz one month prior to union elections that were held in the area. This meeting makes clear the enormous power and influence Mr. Schultz has over labor policy at Starbucks,” Sanders wrote.
Starbucks is under fire for labor violations
In perhaps the most significant ruling to date, NLRB administrative law judge Michael Rosas on Wednesday found that Starbucks engaged in numerous labor law violations during its union-busting campaign in Buffalo, displaying “egregious and widespread misconduct demonstrating a general disregard for the employees’ fundamental rights.”
Rosas ordered Starbucks to rehire and give back pay to seven Buffalo-area workers who were fired amid organizing efforts. As part of the ruling, Starbucks would have to post a notice in its stores promising that the company won’t surveil or threaten workers aiming to form a union.
Rosas ordered also Schultz to personally read the notice to the Buffalo Starbucks workers.
Starbucks union organizers described the company’s counter-organizing efforts as a form of “psychological warfare.”
Starbucks’s pressure on employees caused physical symptoms
“It was incredibly intense,” Jaz Brisack, an organizer who worked for Starbucks from 2020 to 2022 and now works for the Workers United union in New York, told The Hill in an interview.
“The anti-union campaign is designed as psychological warfare. It’s designed to make people feel like they’re unhinged or insane for trying to do this and trying to stand up,” Brisack said.
“There’s a lot of anxiety in captive-audience meetings and one-on-ones in going into that kind of power dynamic with the boss,” she said.
Brisack mentioned a colleague who was “literally getting notifications on her Apple Watch that her heart rate was dangerously high and that she needed to not be in that kind of stressful situation, which is exactly what the campaign is designed to do.”
Tyler Hoffman, a former shift supervisor and organizer at Starbucks in Richmond, Va., told The Hill in an interview that managers had accused him of getting paid to organize.
“It got so bad, the distrust of me that I was receiving an extra paycheck, it got to the point where I had to show them bank statements to prove that I wasn’t being paid. I was like, ‘I only have $30 in my account and I live in a 400-square-foot apartment with my partner.’ If I was getting two paychecks, this just wouldn’t be the case,” he said.
Michelle Eisen, a barista at the Buffalo, N.Y., Elmwood Starbucks location, helps out the local Starbucks Workers United, employees of a local Starbucks, as they gather at a local union hall to cast votes to unionize or not, Feb. 16, 2022, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Starbucks claims it’s a model employer
Starbucks argued in a February letter to Sanders that the company “has been and continues to be a model employer,” citing its offering of health care, mental health care, tuition reimbursement, company equity and retirement accounts, among other benefits.
According to jobs website Indeed.com, coffee-preparers at Starbucks make $16.59 per hour in New York, where a statewide minimum wage of $15 per hour was enacted as part of the state’s 2016 budget.
Indeed puts the average hourly wage at $11.68 in Arkansas and at $10.94 in Mississippi.
The company also defended its record on labor issues, saying it “has been extensively engaged in good faith bargaining at more than 200 locations where the results of a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election have been certified.”
Starbucks has said unions are a threat to its business
The company has officially told the government that unions present a major threat to its business model.
“If a significant portion of our employees were to become unionized, our labor costs could increase and our business could be negatively affected by other requirements and expectations that could increase our costs, change our employee culture, decrease our flexibility and disrupt our business,” Starbucks wrote in its 2021 year-end filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Our business could be adversely impacted by increases in labor costs, including wages and benefits, which, in a retail business such as ours, are two of our most significant costs,” the company said.
Starbucks added, “our responses to any union organizing efforts could negatively impact how our brand is perceived and have adverse effects on our business, including on our financial results.”
Democrats are boosting union power
President Biden’s administration has prioritized beefing up the NLRB to boost organizing efforts.
On his first day in office, Biden fired anti-labor Trump appointee Peter Robb from the top NLRB post, drawing outrage from business groups and praise from unions.
The NLRB now has a pro-union majority board and is led by Jennifer Abruzzo, a former labor leader at the Communications Workers of America who is seeking to ban captive audience meetings and other union-busting tactics Starbucks has been accused of using.
If Schultz is made to appear, it could be another win for the U.S. labor movement, which has withered in recent decades but has seen a resurgence in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic as the cost of living has risen and the unemployment rate has fallen to a 54-year low.
The number of American workers on strike increased by 52 percent in 2022, with more than 120,000 workers going on strike and 26 major work stoppages in effect that year.
The Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations tracks more detailed data on strikes and puts the number higher.
Democrats secured $25 million in new funding for the NLRB in the most recent omnibus spending bill, the board’s first funding bump in nearly a decade. The NLRB said that it needed more money to handle a 53 percent increase in union election petitions in 2022.
Is this Schultz yoyo going to pull the usual craporate insult and ignore the subpoena? Eversince Raygun these clowns and other chief executives ignore subpoenas, break laws, act like they’re kings and worse, and get away with it. Of course, they’re getting more and more brazen. Why not? Any of them seen the inside of an actual jail/prison yet? Nope.
Laura
I had forgotten that Hillary wanted to make Schultz her Labor Secretary. That perfectly encapsulates what a horror she is.
“Starbucks has said unions are a threat to its business” A threat to giving up free labor and profits. I mean really!!! Do you think the people that buy thier product really care at this point if they pay 20-30 cents more for thier specialty coffee. I simple marketing note on every cup of 🥤 would simply say in order to provide our barista’s better wages and benefits we had to adjust our pricing. Their going make gi-normous profits anaway. but why not take the industry lead…
"I do not believe that that the United States should be providing funds that end up being used to extend & expand settlements…that debate is going to be joined. It is already beginning," Democratic Senator @PeterWelch tells me on my @MSNBC show tonight:pic.twitter.com/OwMTdx7JyA
Read an interesting Intercept article that pointed out that Netanyaboob and his FRight fascist/religious allies were playing right into the hands of the BDS movement. A lot of foreign funders are taking their monies out of Israel cos of the political threat. Kinda ironic when you think about it.
T and R x 2, jcb!! 🙂 I’m posting a link to a very well-written and thought-provoking NYT guest essay. The subject? Climate change. As my fellow Birdies know, I have access to this news source on line. We are also getting the Sunday print edition again. I’ve always enjoyed their Arts sections and the environmental stuff. The publisher and editors have kept up the high quality, even though their political stuff usually leaves a lot to be desired. Anywho, enjoy. 🙂 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/opinion/climate-change-early-spring.html
We had a print subscription to the Sunday edition years ago. Then Hi-Tech Hubby got a daily subscription on-line which he’s kept up with. He also had a WAPO one but got disgusted after Bezos bought it and cancelled it. Now, we get the Sunday NYT print again, too. About the only news stuff I read is NC, the American Prospect, TPW, and sections of the Gray Lady. 🙂
Writing in @TheProspect, @MaxMoranHi from the @revolvingdoorDC breaks down "Efficient Credit," explaining how Eberly's stated views should disqualify her from sitting on the Fed board, especially as we teeter on the brink of a deep financial crisis:https://t.co/pMxbHY4shq 18/
— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 6, 2023
The Israeli government has identified boycott, divestment, and sanctions of the Jewish state over its treatment of Palestinians as a top threat to the country. Today, right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be the BDS movement’s greatest ally. https://t.co/3UcvDIx2Dq
Weird how the Biden policy of zero consequences for last week's Israeli settler pogrom didn't prevent another Israeli settler pogrom. https://t.co/4X02p6Ok6e
That’s the Intercept article I read. I constantly slam American political stupidity, but the Israelis topped us by electing this piece of trash 3 times!💩
Millennials aren’t angry because they’re coddled. They’re angry because they know we live in a society of unprecedented wealth and capacity but are being held back from a better world by a minority of billionaires.https://t.co/EOm5uiGOzl
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a case that could impact more than 1.5 million people in Illinois with student debt. At issue is the legal standing of President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program, which would cancel up to $20,000 in debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year.
Before the program got held up in court in November, Illinois residents applied in droves.
According to newly released data from the federal education department, the three congressional districts with the highest response rates in the nation were in Illinois. More than 70% of eligible borrowers in the 5th, 6th, and 8th Congressional districts, all located in the Chicago area, applied for or automatically qualified for debt relief.
The stakes for the outcome of the Supreme Court case are high for these borrowers, especially for those who are Black and, according to research, carry the heaviest student debt burden.
A report from the Education Data Initiative showed that Black college graduates owe an average $25,000 more in student loan debt than white college graduates. If the court upholds the federal debt relief program, borrowers who were eligible for Pell grants, designated for students with the greatest financial need, would receive $20,000 in loan cancellation. Non-Pell grant eligible students can receive up to $10,000 in loan relief.
Brittani Williams, a higher education researcher with the Education Trust, a Washington D.C.- based advocacy group, said Black borrowers are disproportionately impacted by student debt because of the lack of generational wealth in their communities resulting from systemic racism.
“If we had the wealth to pay for college, I don’t think that we would have borrowed the money in such great numbers,” Williams said. “People have to borrow, to persist in the [hopes] of upward economic mobility.”
Williams said oftentimes for Black borrowers, including herself, pursuing higher education offers the best chance at a better quality of life for themselves and their families.
“As an undergraduate student, a student loan borrower, a Pell Grant recipient identifying as a first generation student, from a single parent home — this degree was not just for me,” Williams said. “I’m the oldest sibling and so this degree was for me, and my siblings. And while I worked three and four jobs at a time, I sent money back home to my siblings.”
Unfortunately, she said, student debt often gets in the way of upward economic mobility, even for those who complete their degrees and perhaps earn higher salaries. Loan and interest payments make it harder for borrowers to save or even cover basic needs, especially as economic conditions have increased the cost of food, rent and child care.
Critics of the debt relief program say that it is too expensive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the price tag to be about $400 billion. Others believe degree earners do not need to have their debts relieved. Still others view debt forgiveness as a band-aid on a broken system.
Williams said it is just one small but meaningful piece of the college affordability puzzle.
“When you add that aspect of student loan debt, you could imagine the toll that it would take on someone’s mental health,” said Williams. “For those borrowers who get that relief, who also have other competing, very critical priorities, this could be just a huge thing.”
Just another example of what America excells at “GREED” They dont care about damage our greed at all costs of our current economic system. remember when Americans cant afford food, thats when the riots begin and with every passing year we get closer to that scenario
The governor of Illinois isn’t opposed to Biden’s plan at all. Illinois has been working on expanding monetary assistance grants to potential students. MAP has been around before Pritzker arrived in Springfield, but they tended to be for the most poor and if I recall, they also had to have a certain GPA. I’m glad to see the expansion as more flexible. Pell Grants are not enough.
I presume, however, that not all IL students who applied for student debt relief necessarily went to public universities within the state.
How about cutting a chunk of the parasitic MICC budget? I got my graduate degree on fed loans and paid every cent back. It helped me establish credit, too. I support debt forhgiveness. My late mother was born into white poverty. Education was a sacred commandment to her. 🙂
Productive morning with Senator Fetterman at Walter Reed discussing the rail safety legislation, Farm Bill and other Senate business. John is well on his way to recovery and wanted me to say how grateful he is for all the well wishes. He’s laser focused on PA & will be back soon. pic.twitter.com/143uAhoQRx
Big John knows he has access to the best healthcare in this country now. He’s taking advantage and getting his med problems fixed. He is also doing his job as a public servant representing his fellow Pennsylvanians. As a long-suffering Floridian, I envy PA, sigh…..
Georgia police Sunday arbitrarily arrested 35 citizens at a festival opposing the Cop City police training complex. Several were hit with bogus "domestic terrorism" charges in one of the worst abuses of US police power in decades.
As much of the world grapples with high inflation, debt and devalued currencies, economist @JosephEStiglitz says U.S. monetary policy is making things worse for many countries. Raising interest rates is "not the right policy for addressing the inflation that we face," he says. pic.twitter.com/ySzEEzKI7G
Ahhh The Fed currupt to the core. They want 2 million layofffs to tone down the economy and then the GQP can complain that to many Americans are on unemployment and assisted living.. Some economic system we have…
Turkey’s often divided opposition parties have come together to choose a single candidate to face President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May’s election.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu leads the main secular opposition party, the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Polls suggest a tight race in a country highly polarised after two decades of Mr Erdogan’s authoritarian rule.
Economic crisis and errors during last month’s earthquake may make him more vulnerable than in previous elections.
A huge crowd of supporters cheered Mr Kilicdaroglu, a former civil servant, as he was chosen by an opposition alliance known as the Table of Six.
Their agreement had been thrown into doubt when one of the six parties involved, the nationalist Good Party of Meral Aksener, complained he lacked popular appeal.
Ms Aksener favoured the mayors of either Istanbul or Ankara but a compromise was eventually agreed that would see both men appointed vice presidents.
“Our table is the table of peace,” said Mr Kilicdaroglu, a soft-spoken 74 year old. “Our only goal is to take the country to days of prosperity, peace and joy.”
He offers a radically different vision in both substance and style to President Erdogan’s fiery, charismatic approach and promised his supporters that he would govern Turkey through consensus and consultation.
He also said he would return the country to a parliamentary system. Mr Erdogan oversaw a transition to a presidential system in 2018, gaining sweeping powers.
The CHP was created by modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and is the country’s oldest political party, though it has been out of power centrally since the 1990s.
However, Mr Kilicdaroglu has broadened its appeal by embracing minority groups and has formed alliances with right-wing parties.
He has also shown himself willing to challenge Mr Erdogan, a leader who has become increasingly intolerant of criticism.
In February’s earthquake, in which more than 45,000 people were killed in south-eastern Turkey, Mr Kilicdaroglu led attacks on the government, which he said had allowed corruption and poor building standards.
Authoritarian is just a slick way of saying totalitarian. Problem is the age of these rulers. Kilicdaroglu is in his early 70s. I’m sure ole Erdogan is no youngster. No surprise about those earthquakes being a tipping point either.
What people who haven’t experienced a real urban lifestyle generally don’t get is how easy life is. Running errands is a snap; because you walk most places, you don’t worry about traffic jams or parking spaces.
You might think that the price of this convenience is coping with constant noise and teeming crowds of strangers. But while the main north-south thoroughfares — in my case Broadway, Amsterdam and Columbus — are fairly noisy and have a lot of both vehicle and foot traffic, the side streets are much quieter than you probably imagine.
What about crime? There’s a widespread perception that New York is a dangerous place. In his speech Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Donald Trump asserted that “killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen, right in Manhattan.” Yet the reality is that New York is one of the safest places in America. No doubt, New Yorkers themselves were greatly upset by a surge in the crime rate during the pandemic, but this surge may be ebbing, with murders in particular down to their lowest level since 2019.
And the safety proved in statistics is also the lived experience in many areas of the city where New Yorkers don’t act as if they’re terrified of crime. A couple of nights ago I walked home from an event at 12:30 a.m.; there were people out and about, and no sense of menace.
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Am I proselytizing? Well, yes. Most Americans — even those who have visited New York but seen little beyond the crowds in Times Square — have a distorted sense of what urban life can be like. But very few promoters of the 15-minute city would advocate imposing that lifestyle on the population at large. It’s more a matter of making it possible for people to live that way if they choose. Which is where the culture wars and conspiracy theories come in.
Modern politics being what it is, alas, it’s also a concept that has been caught up in the culture wars and become the subject of wild conspiracy theories. And as usual the people who yell loudest about “freedom” are actually the ones who want to practice coercion, preventing other Americans from living in ways they disapprove of.
Before I get to the politics, a few words about what living in a 15-minute city, and New York in general, is actually like.
I’ve noted before that there’s an unwritten rule in American politics that it’s OK for politicians to disparage big cities and their residents in a way that would be considered unforgivable if anyone did the same for rural areas. Trump’s false claims about crime weren’t that unusual. There seems to be a widespread sense that only people living a car-centered lifestyle, or a pickup truck-centered lifestyle, are real Americans.
And this in turn feeds into conspiracy theorizing. Making walkable cities possible requires both loosening and tightening restrictions on urban development: Localities would have to allow more construction of multifamily housing and multistory buildings, while restricting car traffic in certain areas.
Remarkably, the right manages to view both looser and tighter regulation as leftist plots.
The big budget document currently popular among House Republicans takes time out to support local bans on multifamily housing, contending the bans help preserve our “beautiful suburbs.” (These days even dry fiscal documents sound like Trump speeches.)
As for traffic restrictions, at least some people on the right have managed to convince themselves that they’re a plot to lock people into their neighborhoods, not allowed to leave. Slightly less crazy commentators, like the pop philosopher Jordan Peterson, call traffic restrictions a plan by “tyrannical bureaucrats” to dictate where you’re allowed to drive.
For what it’s worth, there are in fact many places everyone agrees you shouldn’t be allowed to drive — for example, across planted farmland — because doing so would impose costs on other people. The costs you impose on others by driving into an urban area and thereby making congestion worse are every bit as real, but somehow placing limits on urban driving is tyranny.
But of course none of this is about rational argument.
Now, I don’t know how many Americans would choose the walkable-city lifestyle if it were widely available, but surely many more than are living it now. Unfortunately, urban planning — for cities are always planned, one way or another — is yet another casualty of the politics of grievance and paranoia.
I live in an urban downtown area, and have for over 40 years. Of course, I’ve always wanted to leave cos of political reasons. The positives echo this read. I’m a lifelong walker and I can do it all over the place. I don’t do it at night cos of my age. Basic common sense. 🙂
From me: North Carolina is expanding Medicaid. Eli Lilly is cutting insulin prices. In both cases, the quiet catalyst was actually the American Rescue Plan, the unfairly maligned law whose most obscure pieces are helping millions of people.https://t.co/92NwXMJpFN
A Medcaid rebate cap lifted in the ARP meant that Lilly would have *paid Medicaid $150* for each vial of Humalog. Lilly cut the price to avoid that outcome.https://t.co/92NwXMJpFN
IL’s former governor would have likely refused to expand Medicaid. In contrast, Pritzker used almost every FED dollar to benefit citizens in the state. It’s called American Rescue for a good reason (unlike the Inflation Reduction Act) as Pritzker and the other 19 Dem guv’s used to it to close gaps in state budgets, including expanding health care access. I think though Pritzker favors Medicare Advantage, whereas I do not.
Well, FL isn’t really helped. The Tallahassee goon squad is why we have not taken advantage of offers like increased Medicaid Aid, Mass Transit aid, etc. I don’t have diabetes, but if that federal price control on insulin goes into full effect; and is enforced(!), that will be a big one here.
Quite amusing to see where Jones (Starbucks Communications Officer) worked previously—but definitely not surprising.
https://thehill.com/business/3883061-heres-why-bernie-sanders-is-going-after-starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz/amp/
https://jacobin.com/2023/03/starbucks-unionization-white-collar-workers-nlrb-bernie-sanders-howard-schultz
Jacobin wouldn’t let me copy anything so you can go the the site and read the article.
Is this Schultz yoyo going to pull the usual craporate insult and ignore the subpoena? Eversince Raygun these clowns and other chief executives ignore subpoenas, break laws, act like they’re kings and worse, and get away with it. Of course, they’re getting more and more brazen. Why not? Any of them seen the inside of an actual jail/prison yet? Nope.
I had forgotten that Hillary wanted to make Schultz her Labor Secretary. That perfectly encapsulates what a horror she is.
Effin’ campaign contributor.
“Starbucks has said unions are a threat to its business” A threat to giving up free labor and profits. I mean really!!! Do you think the people that buy thier product really care at this point if they pay 20-30 cents more for thier specialty coffee. I simple marketing note on every cup of 🥤 would simply say in order to provide our barista’s better wages and benefits we had to adjust our pricing. Their going make gi-normous profits anaway. but why not take the industry lead…
Read an interesting Intercept article that pointed out that Netanyaboob and his FRight fascist/religious allies were playing right into the hands of the BDS movement. A lot of foreign funders are taking their monies out of Israel cos of the political threat. Kinda ironic when you think about it.
T and R x 2, jcb!! 🙂 I’m posting a link to a very well-written and thought-provoking NYT guest essay. The subject? Climate change. As my fellow Birdies know, I have access to this news source on line. We are also getting the Sunday print edition again. I’ve always enjoyed their Arts sections and the environmental stuff. The publisher and editors have kept up the high quality, even though their political stuff usually leaves a lot to be desired. Anywho, enjoy. 🙂 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/opinion/climate-change-early-spring.html
I wasn’t aware you had access to NYT. Good to know!
We had a print subscription to the Sunday edition years ago. Then Hi-Tech Hubby got a daily subscription on-line which he’s kept up with. He also had a WAPO one but got disgusted after Bezos bought it and cancelled it. Now, we get the Sunday NYT print again, too. About the only news stuff I read is NC, the American Prospect, TPW, and sections of the Gray Lady. 🙂
Because the US has had the proverbial finger in that pie since 1917. Even more so since Israel was offically a nation in 1948
That’s the Intercept article I read. I constantly slam American political stupidity, but the Israelis topped us by electing this piece of trash 3 times!💩
We have about 20% of morons that really believe that cult 45 2.0 needs to happen. More than likely that still more than the population of Israel
They are also acutely aware of climate crisis. Their generation didn’t cause it; they were born into it!
And will suffer the consequences of the Greed rules the day policy that the craprate empires bought with their political $$$$$$
Illinois leads nation in applications for student debt relief
Just another example of what America excells at “GREED” They dont care about damage our greed at all costs of our current economic system. remember when Americans cant afford food, thats when the riots begin and with every passing year we get closer to that scenario
The governor of Illinois isn’t opposed to Biden’s plan at all. Illinois has been working on expanding monetary assistance grants to potential students. MAP has been around before Pritzker arrived in Springfield, but they tended to be for the most poor and if I recall, they also had to have a certain GPA. I’m glad to see the expansion as more flexible. Pell Grants are not enough.
I presume, however, that not all IL students who applied for student debt relief necessarily went to public universities within the state.
Pritzker sounds like he’s not just smart; he’s shrewd.
Almost.
I would like to ask him the question Bill Maher asked Bernie on Real Time last Friday: are you for equity or equality?
Me, too.👍
Good Question!!
How about cutting a chunk of the parasitic MICC budget? I got my graduate degree on fed loans and paid every cent back. It helped me establish credit, too. I support debt forhgiveness. My late mother was born into white poverty. Education was a sacred commandment to her. 🙂
Big John knows he has access to the best healthcare in this country now. He’s taking advantage and getting his med problems fixed. He is also doing his job as a public servant representing his fellow Pennsylvanians. As a long-suffering Floridian, I envy PA, sigh…..
You bet this contagion is growing. The young folk figure what do they have to lose at this point?
We’ll see, but Matt Stoller seems to believe this will occur.
Stoller does know craporate monopoly. 🙂
Thought-provoking, jcb. 🙂
Thought more craperations would instruct their congresscritters to get behind this as thar be profits thier
Ahhh The Fed currupt to the core. They want 2 million layofffs to tone down the economy and then the GQP can complain that to many Americans are on unemployment and assisted living.. Some economic system we have…
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64867467
Authoritarian is just a slick way of saying totalitarian. Problem is the age of these rulers. Kilicdaroglu is in his early 70s. I’m sure ole Erdogan is no youngster. No surprise about those earthquakes being a tipping point either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/opinion/city-walkability-culture-wars-conspiracy-theories.html
I live in an urban downtown area, and have for over 40 years. Of course, I’ve always wanted to leave cos of political reasons. The positives echo this read. I’m a lifelong walker and I can do it all over the place. I don’t do it at night cos of my age. Basic common sense. 🙂
IL’s former governor would have likely refused to expand Medicaid. In contrast, Pritzker used almost every FED dollar to benefit citizens in the state. It’s called American Rescue for a good reason (unlike the Inflation Reduction Act) as Pritzker and the other 19 Dem guv’s used to it to close gaps in state budgets, including expanding health care access. I think though Pritzker favors Medicare Advantage, whereas I do not.
Well, FL isn’t really helped. The Tallahassee goon squad is why we have not taken advantage of offers like increased Medicaid Aid, Mass Transit aid, etc. I don’t have diabetes, but if that federal price control on insulin goes into full effect; and is enforced(!), that will be a big one here.