I’m glad you are allright!

Wealth concentration at the very top now exceeds the peak of the Gilded Age pic.twitter.com/ElmqWUXp13

— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) July 6, 2021

This lines up very well with other estimates of wealth concentration based on different sources

E.g., the top 0.01% (= 18,000 families today) wealth share we estimate with E. Saez:

9% in 1913
Down to 2% in the late 1970s
More than 10% todayhttps://t.co/FmwI3bNhrS

— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) July 7, 2021

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/07/07/biden-china-climate-collapse-progressives-498588

As a new Cold War takes shape between the U.S. and China, progressives fear the result will be a dramatically warming planet.

Over 40 progressive groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden and lawmakers on Wednesday urging them to prioritize cooperation with China on climate change and curb its confrontational approach over issues like Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong and forced detention of Uyghur Muslims.

It’s the latest salvo in the months-long drama between progressive Democrats who say cooperation on climate change should take precedence over competition with China, and moderates who think the administration can do both things at once. As the Biden administration solidifies its China strategy, and as anti-China legislation moves through Congress, this intra-Democratic tussle could define the U.S.-China relationship for years to come.

The progressive organizations, including the Sunrise Movement and the Union of Concerned Scientists, “call on the Biden administration and all members of Congress to eschew the dominant antagonistic approach to U.S.-China relations and instead prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation with China to address the existential threat that is the climate crisis,” their letter reads. “Nothing less than the future of our planet depends on ending the new Cold War between the United States and China.”

“To combat the climate crisis and build a global economy that works for everyday working people — in the U.S. and China alike — we must shift from competition to cooperation,” the groups continued.

“Cooperation with China on climate doesn’t absolve China or the U.S.on human rights,” said Karen Orenstein, director of the climate and energy program at Friends of the Earth U.S. But those issues shouldn’t impact how strongly Washington tackles the global climate change problem in tandem with Beijing, she said. “The climate emergency requires cooperation.”

All in Republicanland.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/08/health/undervaccinated-clusters-covid-risk/index.html

A new data analysis identifies clusters of unvaccinated people, most of them in the southern United States, that are vulnerable to surges in Covid-19 cases and could become breeding grounds for even more deadly Covid-19 variants.

The analysis by researchers at Georgetown University identified 30 clusters of counties with low vaccination rates and significant population sizes. The five most significant of those clusters are sprawled across large swaths of the southeastern United States and a smaller portion in the Midwest.

The five clusters are largely in parts of eight states, starting in the east in Georgia and stretching west to Texas and north to southern Missouri. The clusters also include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and are made up of mostly smaller counties but also cities such as Montgomery, Alabama; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Amarillo, Texas.

Most of these states are currently seeing increases in Covid-19 cases.

“Parts of the country are just as vulnerable if not more vulnerable than they were in December, 2020,” said Shweta Bansal, an associate professor of biology at Georgetown University. Bansal heads up the US COVID-19 Vaccination Tracking project, which has been gathering data on the US vaccine rollout since it began in December.

Those vulnerable clusters put all of the United States — and to some extent, the world — at risk for going back to 2020, since high-transmission areas can become breeding grounds for Covid-19 variants that could go on to evade Covid-19 vaccines.

“These clusters of unvaccinated people are what is standing in the way of us putting this virus down permanently,” said Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst and professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

About one-third of Americans have not received even a single Covid-19 shot — and the Georgetown analysis shows that these people are not evenly spread around the United States.

Analyzing county vaccination data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments, the Georgetown researchers found 30 clusters of counties throughout the US that have low vaccination rates compared to the national average and also have significant population size.

The five most significant clusters together include more than 15 million people. Of those, only 27.9% are fully vaccinated — far lower than the national rate of 47.6%.

https://www.salon.com/2021/07/08/republicans-want-18-more-months-of-chaos–followed-by-the-end-of-democracy/

Today’s Republican Party is a fascist, criminal, sociopathic, anti-democratic, white supremacist, theocratic, plutocratic and cultlike organization. Its leaders (and followers) have repeatedly and publicly shown the world that they embrace such values and behavior.

In response, the Democratic Party, the mainstream news media and too many average Americans have responded to the Age of Trump and its horrors by trying to convince themselves that the Republican Party and larger right-wing movement are something other than what they have shown themselves to be.

And of course there is the fetish of “bipartisanship.” Under its sway, the Democratic Party’s leadership and too many among the mainstream news media and commentariat have convinced themselves that compromise with Republicans, no matter how radicalized and extremist they have become, is something virtuous in itself.

If the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, that truism is especially correct here. President Biden and the Democrats have attempted to work with an opposition that has at almost every moment shown itself to be an enemy of democracy, up to and including its support for Trump’s ongoing coup attempt and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

As I have previously written, “white identity politics and white rage are more important than pocketbook issues for many of today’s Republican voters.” The only meaningful way Biden and the Democrats can fight back must begin with “acknowledging that this crisis of democracy is existential” and acting accordingly:

This means not cooperating with the Republicans on any policies in the name of “bipartisanship.” Protecting American democracy should be the Democrats’ No. 1 priority. To work with Republicans is to legitimize them as responsible partners in government, when in reality today’s Republican Party is an extremist, anti-democratic and white supremacist criminal organization.

Today’s Republican Party is ultimately incapable of being a partner in responsible governance. It rejects basic principles of democracy and compromise towards a shared goal of serving the public good. Instead, the right-wing movement’s primary goals are chaos, obstruction and destruction, with the aim of delegitimizing the very idea of democracy itself — except as a meaningless term used to describe one-party Republican rule.

Republican leaders, officials and other spokespeople know this is the strategy and have repeatedly admitted to it. Leaked video footage of Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, saying precisely that is only the latest example. As reported by Common Dreams:

Newly leaked video footage of a recent event hosted by the right-wing group Patriot Voices shows Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas openly admitting that his party wants “18 more months of chaos and the inability to get stuff done” as President Joe Biden, a bipartisan group of senators, and congressional Democrats work to pass climate and infrastructure legislation.

“Honestly, right now, for the next 18 months, our job is to do everything we can to slow all of that down to get to December of 2022,” Roy says in the clip, referring to the month after that year’s midterm elections. Republicans need to flip just a handful of seats to take back the House and Senate.

“I don’t vote for anything in the House of Representatives right now,” Roy says in response to an audience member’s question about the sweeping infrastructure and safety-net package that Democrats are planning to pass unilaterally alongside a White House-backed bipartisan deal.

As Indivisible co-director Ezra Levin noted on Twitter, “Chip Roy got caught saying it out loud, but to be clear this has been [Mitch] McConnell’s plan all along.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/561976-fetterman-raises-over-25-million-in-second-quarter

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) raised more than $2.5 million for his Senate bid in the second quarter, his campaign announced Thursday morning.

Fetterman’s haul was fueled by over 91,300 donations and more than 31,100 first-time donors. The figure brings his total fundraising up to over $6.5 million since his campaign launch in February.

Ninety-nine percent of the donations were for under $200.

“I am so grateful that our movement is continuing to grow,” Fetterman said in a statement shared first with The Hill. “To have received over 231,000 individual contributions since we launched this campaign is truly humbling. Gisele and I are just overwhelmed with gratitude.”

Socialist but not DSA endorsed.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kristin-richardson-jordan-city-council/

A radical poet and educator’s come-from-behind victory over a machine politician complicates the narrative that New York Black moderates rejected a left agenda.

Kristin Richardson Jordan, the Black democratic socialist who just won the Democratic nomination for a New York City Council seat on a platform of “Radical Love,” can tell you the exact number of garbage cans—223—her Harlem district has lost in recent years. It’s that attention to detail—block by block, apartment by apartment, empty storefront by empty storefront—that helped Jordan shock the city, as well as incumbent Bill Perkins, a Harlem fixture who’s served in both the council and the state Senate. Perkins, 71, has been plagued by health issues for years and essentially ran no campaign. He lost to the 34-year-old poet, educator, and committed mutual aid activist by an estimated 100 votes, outside the margin that triggers a recount. (The count will be certified July 12.)

One of 14 candidates, Jordan finished about 500 votes behind Perkins when top picks were counted, but took the lead once the Board of Elections tallied voters’ “ranked choices”—an innovation that let voters choose up to five candidates in order of their preference. Richardson, who happily campaigned to be voters’ number two if they had another favorite, had the organizational chops to work the new, poorly understood system. As the district’s top fundraiser with by far the most visible ground game, she will face little if any Republican opposition in November. She is likely to join a majority-female City Council—women are expected to hold at least 26 of 51 seats next year—and become one of the first two out Black lesbians in the council’s history.

Of course, the big story out of New York this week is the mayoral nomination of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police officer and state senator widely considered a moderate, over progressive Maya Wiley and centrist technocrat Kathryn Garcia. (He’ll face Republican Curtis Sliwa, of Guardian Angels fame, in November.) Although progressives like Brad Lander and Jumaane Williams won their primaries for comptroller and public advocate, respectively, Democratic Socialists of America lost four of the six City Council races in which they endorsed. Meanwhile, Adams’s support for increased police funding and presence is widely considered a rebuke to the city’s progressive police reform movement.

But the story looks a little different in Harlem’s District 9, where half of all voters ranked Adams first for mayor, and then also ranked the dedicated police reformer and local Black Lives Matter activist—Jordan calls herself a police and prison “abolitionist,” over the “long term,” she says —first for City Council. She tried to explain that paradox over breakfast at Harlem Biscuit Company (she had “the Rosa,” an egg and cheese sandwich named for Rosa Parks, and I had a plain cheddar-chive biscuit) on Wednesday morning. But it was tough to talk with patrons and passersby greeting the third-generation Harlemite (her grandparents were married at the storied Abyssinian Baptist Church).

So we’re sitting here today, with Eric Adams as the Democratic nominee for mayor—a former cop, who’s supported increased police funding, he’s even talked about bringing back stop-and-frisk, but doing it right—like good stop-and-frisk?

It’s so bizarre! I was supporting Maya Wiley. That makes no sense to me, “good stop-and-frisk”—what is that?

How do you expect to work with him?

It’s going to depend on exactly what the issue is. There will definitely be tension because we have such different views. But here in District 9, 50 percent ranked Adams No. 1, and also ranked me No. 1. So they literally voted for both of us. I find it very odd. They voted for someone who’s been talking about bolstering the police budget, more cops, and has a background in policing—and they voted for someone who’s been an out abolitionist. I mean, they’re long-term views, but I actually believe in moving towards a world without cops. So they voted for both of us, and it’s bizarre.

You’re a DSA member—but you didn’t get the DSA endorsement.

I did not. It was a long, arduous battle, and in the end, they decided because of capacity they would only go with one race in Manhattan and the Bronx, and they decided to go with Adolfo Abreu in the Bronx, and he lost. I think it was a misstep on DSA’s part, and I don’t say it in a selfish way. An opportunity was really missed here. Harlem is a hotbed for Black socialists, and as someone who identifies as a Black socialist I’m going to keep advocating for my community—in terms of redistributing wealth to support those who need it most, those who’ve been most oppressed and fight for Black liberation at the same time. And I do think we could have used that support. Winning by 100 votes is great but it’s very scary. We could have used the help with phone banking, with texting. I’m very proud of the work we did, but I was really disappointed, as a member. And I’m still a member!