"No, Joe Biden is not playing politics. He is addressing an intractable problem despite obstructionist behavior from Republicans. A lesser president would give up in defeat. Not Joe Biden. He is a great president and deserves to be re-elected."
I was going to say, "a lesser president like Felonious Trump" but stopped myself. There's nobody who could be less of a president. Seems to me that whenever Felonious Trump failed, which was almost all the time, it was always somebody else's fault, and he was the victim.
President Biden needs to remind everybody, repeatedly, that the reason he's doing this stuff thru executive action is because the Republicans refuse to do their damn jobs and live up to their oaths.
As to the debates, I still think it's 50/50 that Felonious Trump will show up.
He's the poster boy for lots of things: lying; bullying; disingenuity; willful ignorance; projection; narcissism; misogyny; gluttony; vindictiveness; and a whole bunch of other undesirable traits.
He's also a walking advertisement for birth control and termination of non-viable pregnancies. If I could go back in time, I'd go back 79 years and give Fred Trump a case of condoms.
I prefer we call him Felon Donald. I read he doesn’t like being called Donald, so that’s all I need to know.
Now my important message on Donald’s plans for rounding up 11 million for deportation and camps. How can you be sure you or someone you care about won’t be one of the people rounded up and who will you be able to appeal that a mistake was made?
Close your eyes and visualize how this will work. Banging on doors at night, stadiums turned into holding pens, enforcers coming to construction sites, mosques, churches, bbq’s, places where not English music is being played, weddings and birthday parties….. how would you go about it if you were assigned to go get us some illegal immigrants, which of your friends would you recruit to help you? Would you ask to see papers to make sure you didn’t make a mistake or would you just grab em while you can because there isn’t a downside if you made some mistakes out of enthusiasm for the project.
And while you were at it would you grab a few people you didn’t like and some who deserved some retribution?
My point is that it might sound good to some people that we clean house but they might regret it once the sweeping begins since no one will be safe. Purges of loyalists is also something autocrats are known for.
As a New Yorker I can say- we called him "The Donald" - starting in the 70's- how anyone ever took "The Donald" seriously still amazes amd horrifies this New Yorker.
I've called him lots of things, except since he proved himself unworthy shortly after his inauguration, "my president." I now prefer "Felonious Trump," as his part in the band, "& The MAGAlomaniacs."
Along with the dire picture you painted of the proposed purge, how will we backfill the roles those immigrants play in our workforce, or will we be content to do without?
The loss of workers will be a real problem (Joyce Vance wrote about it today with some details of the cost to the economy) and that as well as all the other economic problems from stopping immigration and throwing out folks need to be talked about.
I am of the belief that we don’t need to pick between the problems, but talk about them all. The Donald rapes, violence, frauds, scams, felonies, dementia, golf cheating, tariff wars, forced birth SCOTUS, treason, fascism, flatulence, diapers, tax breaks for the rich,…..and of course that WHEN MELANIA HAD A BABY DONALD HAD SEX WITH STORMY D. then paid her $135,000 and committed felonies to hide it from the voters. I think he has incredible instincts in what to say and do to help himself so if he so badly wanted to hide it, I know it is important to amplify and not be distracted by his complaining about being a victim of Biden witch hunts.
DK Brooklyn and others skewer the insane impracticality of Trump's plan to deport 11 million immigrants. Everyone who nods a MAGA cap in agreement to this idea should stop and think not just of the cruel injustice of it, but of its practical cost. It would tank the economy in a mindless expenditure, expand the police and "administrative state" that the Republicans claim to abhor and cost billions of dollars of federal money.
As of 2023, there were about 1.2 million individuals in state and federal prisons in the United States. To "process" 11 million immigrants, for even a short time, would require 9 times the capacity of the entire prison system. And who's going to build these stockades? Construction workers are in demand all over the country. What counties and states are going to want a facility of some 1,000 men and women and children in their neighborhood? Don't ask Palm Beach to do it? Or even West Palm Beach. A first floor Mar-A-Lago processing center might house 100 in tight quarters. If Trump wins, he will have other digs. And you would need 11,000 more sites to hold all the immigrants Trump wants to round up. Well, one might say, people would be processed and deported so we wouldn't need to house them for long. So are folks going to calmly wait in their apartments and houses to be rounded up? Maybe....You all get my point, Trump makes these outlandish proposals with no thought to their moral cost or even practical cost. And instead of attacking on these matters the news focuses on whether he is going to stay in Milwaukee or in Chicago during the Republican National Convention!! And should an intrepid reporter corner a Marco Rubio or J. D. Vance and ask them about this, they will get all serious and annoyed and defend Trump for "doing something" about the Border or they will smirk and tell us that such a "roundup" would not happen, in effect saying about their candidate, "Don't believe a word he says.". This is the kind of detail we need to see in the debate.
Worker shortages in Florida and Indiana -- and almost every other state to be sure -- are already impacting our economy. But as Robert Reich pointed out a year ago in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/there-is-no-us-labor-shortage-thats-a-myth?CMP=share_btn_url) there is ls less a worker shortage than a shortage of employers who are willing (or able) to pay workers a competitive wage with benefits while supporting child care and health insurance. Wealth inequality continues to rise in this country, and we are not bolstered by a national social safety net which countries like Sweden and Denmark and others enjoy, providing higher education and pre-school. Consider the $50 billion plus pay package Elon Musk "earned" recently. It's enough to make one crazy.
Or, there's the low budget method of simply calling on all loyal followers to nab every brown person they see and bus them to a border and force them across. No telling how much one can accomplish on enthusiasm alone; paid for by those who live on pittances but send $ to 45's campaign and fueled by the joy of hurting those they now see as their enemies. He's a lying blow hard but I wouldn't put it past him to encourage others to do his dirty work... again.
To help make that point, someone with access to the data should publish the numbers of migrants that *the Trump organization* employs, and then wave it in front of Trump and his supporters.
Bob; you got me thinking- I am fine with Felonious not showing up. Does that mean that Biden can still go on the stage and answer the same questions? (That is a serious ask)
Spectacle is what he's got going for him. One thing he accomplished was to retrain the press to better serve an often poorly educated, often intellectually lazy easily bored public where "better serve" is defined as entertain rather than inform.
As Bob Morgan said, "President Biden needs to remind everybody, repeatedly, that the reason he's doing this stuff thru executive action is because the Republicans refuse to do their damn jobs and live up to their oaths."
- President Biden has *not* been reminding people of this fact. He and his handlers have got to stop missing such easy opportunities.
I have maintained for quite a while that if it weren't for DOUBLE STANDARDS, the GOP would have NO standards whatsoever!!
Everything they do is to gin up the base, protect Trump from the consequences of his many criminal acts or to sow chaos to make Biden look bad. They have even twisted themselves up into pretzels trying to fit Hunter Biden's conviction into a cover-up for the "Biden crime family".
We must spread the word about the great job Biden is doing (esp. in light of the dysfunctional GOP controlled House) and warn people about how disastrous a second Trump administration would be.
I believe that everyone associated with the press except perhaps the AP, is used to using superlatives for everything they report. In this case, mostly negatives, but sometimes positives. From negative and scary and angering stories they get the most views. It is showing that the USA needs a different way to fund their media. In Germany all people living here get a monthly bill that covers good quality news. It costs around 18.36 € a month where I live. It is collective support for radio and television reporting. Most people trust it too, unlike in the USA, where support is more partisan for different television and radio news sources. Here is an American expat living in Germany comparing the two countries in terms of television news.
Print media is supported on its own though, and again we see oligarchs like the owner of Springer Verlag, leaning to the right. There are more left leaning publications like TAZ, and then the more conservative Die Welt. Here is a list of many of the most known German publications.
If we had more neutral ownership of press, like it works in Germany in the USA, then we would be more likely to see supportive coverage of Biden just because he is doing a good job. The press is hard pressed to find negative things about Biden so they just make shit up.
“Army veteran Eugene Vindman, who was a key player in the first impeachment of former President Trump, has won the Democratic nomination for the House seat representing Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, according to Decision Desk HQ.”
Thanks for the update, Jean. I peeled off after seeing he had a huge lead as early as 7:30 pm EDT. I am so happy for him. (Loved seeing his commercials with his family!) I'm in the 10th CD, which drew tons of candidates from both parties due to our rep, Jennifer Wexton, having to step down due to illness. I don't know who won yet from the Democratic party.
As for Tim Kaine's Senate seat, I'm hoping it won't be a nail-biter!
This week’s “winner” from the Media and Democracy Project.Note the immigration policy expert is from the conservative Cato Institute.:⬇️
RARE: Voters Get News Coverage on Accuracy of Border Narratives
This week was a little different. Independent, Tucson-based journalist Todd Miller interviewed an immigration policy expert in a piece headlined: “This Election Year’s Top Three False Border and Immigration Narratives.” Miller’s expert is David Bier, who works for the Koch-funded Cato Institute.
Miller asked Bier “what he thought were the top three false narratives proclaimed, promoted, and propagated during this year’s campaign season,” in the hopes that their conversation would “assist you in navigating your discussions about the border and immigration, discussions that will inevitably intensify during the next several months.” Bier shared that his top three false narratives were “(1) ‘Donald Trump had the most secure border in America’s history,’ (2) ‘Joe Biden opened America’s borders to illegal immigration,’ and (3) ‘Recent immigration is helping Democrats.’” It was an edifying, succinct piece.
Thanks for this link, Kathy. What a great analysis. Now we need to find a way to go beyond analysis and actually create accurate headlines. Pressuring newsrooms is one way. I write scathing letters to The Hill every day! https://thehill.com/contact/
I name the offending journalists (you can't write directly to them) and tell them what headline they should have written. I criticize their normalizing (and inconsistent) both-siderism. I point out when they only quote five Republicans and zero Democrats in some piece. Signing petitions like the one in your above link--an open letter to the country's newsrooms with guidelines about how NOT to normalize Trump's domestic terrorism--is another way. Let's do more letters to the editor--in praise of good work like the above, in criticism of the really very upsetting coverage we usually get. The guidelines from major media cited by the Media and Democracy Project in the above link, on how to be "nice" and "gentle" when talking about an armed attempt to overthrow our government, really shocked me.
I disagree with Eric Lin Doub, several comments above at the time of this edit (10:16AM eastern).
Too much immigration is big biz' way of keeping wages down.
In 1980, meat packers were mostly Black people, earning good middle class wages. By that decade's end, meat packers were mostly immigrants, earning barely above minimum wage, and toiling under atrocious conditions where "accidental" amputations were common.
The same phenomenon was happening in most of the low/no-skilled job categories, as well as in computer-related jobs, for which there are actually companies that bring foreign workers to take American jobs at lower wages. The following link describes a phenomenon that has been a lot more common than people realize, and which was widely covered in computer publications before the NYT FINALLY wrote about it.
The credit for the improving US economy should go mostly to President Biden for his enlightened policies that are designed, among other things, to stimulate the economy in a variety of ways.
You're the only one here who thinks this, David. My late wife's family were immigrants and all three sisters made contributions to the country in business, arts and education.
If an American is screwed out of a job because an employer uses cheap labor under the table, the employer is liable. The employer sanctions provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) prohibit employers from hiring, recruiting, or referring for a fee aliens known to be unauthorized to work in the United States.
One example: Donald Trump employed undocumented workers, at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey and elsewhere. To the best of my knowledge, the Trump Organization was not sanctioned.
@TC: I know you disagree with me, and I still think you're terrific. I'm not the only one here who thinks like this, although I'm sure mine's a minority opinion. But I am getting likes, and I've given some good evidence for why it's a problem.
In any case, my family, all but one immigrant grandfather, who have been in the country since around the mid-1800s, have made a slew of contributions, in politics (Philip Hornbein, for example, who ran the Colorado Democratic Party for most of the first half of the last century), in understanding the Soviet economy (my father), in better treatment of residents of old folks homes (Rose Dobrof--there have been articles in the NYT on what she's done, although the most recent one put her words in Danny Reingold's mouth instead of quoting her directly, and he heard her stories as a kid, as I did); in mountain climbing (google Tom Hornbein, or just know that there's a Hornbein Couloir on Everest, from his trek to the summit in 1963). And my paternal grandfather taught high school physics to a couple of people who won Nobel prizes.
But if immigrants make such great contributions--and of course many do--maybe they should be encouraged to stay in their own countries and fix them, and help make the whole world a better place.
But I would say that we should be improving our own oft shitty educational system. I lived in a mixed race section of DC for a decade, and I can tell you, a lot of kids there were throwaways, and I say that to denigrate the school, not the kids. I can remember one day, my next door neighbors' black grandchildren playing in front of the house. (The grandparents were an illiterate transmission rebuilder and a checker at one of the DC department stores, who'd come up from the Carolinas.) A white neighbor from the next street over came around the corner with her children--roughly the same age. As I looked at the two sets of kids, I could feel the difference in their futures, and it spooked me. It would be nice if no American children were left behind.
As President Kennedy said, the US is a nation of immigrants [except for Native Americans, who are ignored]. Everyone can trace their family roots to immigration at some time in history.
Foreign workers are not brought in to "take American jobs" in the software industry. They are brought in because there is a legitimate shortage of talent. They are also paid similar wages to US workers. Outsourcing is another issue, but even that will not put a US software engineer out of work.
Barrytre - You've stated as fact one side of a contentious issue. Many serious people, observing layoffs in technology industries, believe that lots of employers lay off employees as they approach age 40 or so. My office mate at GTE Laboratories once remarked that, when he evaluated potential employers, he looked at how many "gray hairs" he saw during his interviews.
Of course they are! Read the NYT article. And not that so much support for mass immigration has come from big biz GOPers, and Ronald Reagan!
There's a book, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck. It's a brilliant, easily digestible presentation that gives a succinct overview within the intro and first chapter of how from the early 1800s to the present, time after time, mass immigration has resulted in African Americans seeing their wages reduced, and losing jobs to immigrants during periods of high immigration (relative to America's population within each time period.
Footnoted quotes are from people ranging from Frederick Douglass (whose sons were downwardly mobile due to too much immigration) to eminent economic historians:
"Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert's macroeconomic history shows that between 1816 and 1856, the American Northeast was transformed from the "Jeffersonian ideal" to a society more typical of under-developed countries with marked income inequality and very low wages for laborers," to the detriment of both free Blacks and immigrants, due to mass immigration.
One of the beauties of the book is showing that this has happened repeatedly, making it much harder for proponents of mass immigration to argue that this is not what's maintaining the income and wealth gap in wealth between African Americans and Whites (Blacks have 6%(!!!) the wealth of Whites currently).
Author Roy Beck quotes Black leaders to the effect that mass immigration has always resulted in Black wages dropping, and African Americans losing jobs.
Beck notes that currently, there is an ethical choice being made by many on the left that impoverished denizens of low income countries are more deserving than the descendants of American Black slaves. I would guess that most people making this choice are ignorant of how TOO MUCH immigration has pushed Blacks back down after they'd made progress during periods of low immigration, such as the post Civil War era and the post WWII era (and a handful of other such eras).
Beck points out that mass immigration is harming the countries immigrants are leaving by enticing away those people who would be most likely to lead the changing of conditions in these home countries for the better.
Your points seemed like anti-immigrant rhetoric to me, and sure enough, a simple Google search showed Roy Beck's significant links to white supremacy - he is noted by both the SPLC and the anti-defamation league.
On a factual level, the current US business environment is geared towards short term profit at the expense of everything else. This means that companies have significant incentive to outsource or simply lay off experienced workers. This affects everyone. You try claim that immigration is a primary driver, but it isn't. And what Disney did in 2015 is not widespread.
I am reporting your post. Trying to pass off white supremacist authors as valid sources is not OK.
The SPLC is well known for making money off of smearing people as haters, and groups as hate groups, that aren't haters or hate groups. And any high school teacher will tell you not to trust Wikipedia.
The link you probably found to one John Tanton is kind of like the link that if I remember correctly was found during Obama's first campaign, to someone who'd been his preacher and who made some inflammatory statements (which Beck does not make). For all that commotion back in '08, Obama turned out to be pretty squeaky clean. Links, connections, BS. You probably could be linked to some nasty people, as I could probably be linked as well.
Roy Beck is not a white supremacist. From the NYT in 2011:
"Mr. Beck said the charges of bigotry were especially unfair and let a reporter hear a tape of his 1970 wedding ceremony, which included a song he wrote pledging to fight “race hate.” He deliberately lives in integrated neighborhoods, he said, and sent his children to integrated schools, including one in a mostly black housing project.
“What kind of racist does that?” he said. “They’ve never accused us of doing anything that’s racist or white nationalist. It’s only that Numbers U.S.A. ‘has ties’ ” to Dr. Tanton."
And, by the way, just to hopefully prevent you from making other assumptions about me, or what I have to say, I consider Biden to be the best president of my lifetime--which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. Every time I read of what Biden is doing, I feel the way I felt back in the summer of '75, riding my bicycle from Seattle to Boston, when I would get a strong tailwind.
And as a relatively left wing Democrat, I have friends with whom I disagree on immigration. We know we aren't going to change each other's minds, and Democracy works when politicians accept that they need to work together despite differing views on some subjects.
And, I learned a lot of the science that makes it clear to me that the US is overpopulated, and thus needs badly to stabilize its population, from a class I took with John Holdren, in 1975, at UC Berkeley. 33 years later, Holdren became Obama's Science Advisor.
The criticisms in the New Yorker were a hypocritical founder, dysfunctional management that resulted from it, and too much focus on extremists. There was nothing about the validity of their research, nor about smearing people or groups, which is really damning for Beck and his organization. And I didn't mention Wikipedia at all. And trying to reinforce your point by saying that everyone probably has links is comical, and thoroughly unconvincing.
It's great that you support Biden, but you're just plain wrong about immigration, and your views do not align with most on the left. And it's not the alignment that's the problem, it's the veiled racism. Even your appeal to the science of population is misguided - it's the total population that matters, not just 1 country.
I agree but the carpenters and the healthcare workers and the bus drivers of the world don’t see or understand any of this. The challenge is how to get the message down to the local “ Joe”.
"Progressives'" views on immigration take planning and policy out of consideration. Just admit anyone who gets over the border (southern border preferred above all)? That's a *policy*? It's past time for people to stop insisting on principles that are so broad and so emotional that they make it difficult to frame intelligent, consistent policies.
I largely accept the argument that immigration improves the US economy -- but it's an argument about the *long term*. In the current *short term*, our immigration non-policy has caused considerable dislocations. These dislocations are having nontrivial political ramifications, most of which seem to be hurtful to Democratic candidates (except, perhaps, in heavily Latino districts).
This is an election year: Democrats are hurting their party's prospects by loudly insisting on immigration policies that go far beyond most Americans' comfort zones.
I look forward to any comments from you, David, that demonstrate you actually read the Popular Information piece.
For example, here's one part:
A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals that contrary to conventional wisdom, the immigrant workforce in America benefits native-born workers. The study concluded that "immigrants raise wages and boost the employment of U.S.-born workers." This is especially true for native-born workers with less education. The study found that "immigration, thanks to native-immigrant complementarity and college skill content of immigrants, had a positive and significant effect between +1.7 to +2.6% on wages of less educated native workers, over the period 2000-2019 and no significant wage effect on college educated natives."
I've read carefully similar claims, and found them wanting--a number of years ago so I don't remember the details of what they were problematic. In its stead here's my review of the book in Amazon, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth.
I also did mention above how meat packers were virtually all Black in 1980, earning good middle class wages, and that by that decade's end meat packers were virtually all immigrants (though in some cases lower class whites) earning barely above minimum wage toiling under atrocious conditions--which I think refutes the notion that immigrants boost employment and wages of US workers. It's actually well known that bringing in immigrants, or hiring those already here, is Big Biz' way of pushing wages down.
The best of the immigration books
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2021
Verified Purchase
This book will probably do far more than any other book on immigration to convince doubters that mass immigration needs to end. It's a brilliant, easily digestible presentation that gives a succinct overview within the intro and first chapter of how from the early 1800s to the present, time after time, mass immigration has resulted in African Americans seeing their wages reduced, and losing jobs to immigrants during periods of high immigration (relative to America's population within each time period.
Footnoted quotes from people ranging from Frederick Douglass to eminent economic historians:
"Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert's macroeconomic history shows that between 1816 and 1856, the American Northeast was transformed from the "Jeffersonian ideal" to a society more typical of under-developed countries with marked income inequality and very low wages for laborers," to the detriment of both free Blacks and immigrants, due to mass immigration.
One of the beauties of the book is showing that this has happened repeatedly, making it much harder for proponents of mass immigration to argue that this is not what's maintaining the income and wealth gap in wealth between African Americans and Whites (Blacks have 6%(!!!) the wealth of Whites currently).
Author Roy Beck quotes Black leaders, from each of the multiple eras of mass immigration, starting with Frederick Douglass, on how mass immigration has always resulted in Black wages dropping, and African Americans losing jobs.
Beck notes that currently, there is an ethical choice being made by many on the left that impoverished denizens of low income countries are more deserving than the descendants of American Black slaves. I would guess that most people making this choice are ignorant of how TOO MUCH immigration has pushed Blacks back down after they'd made progress during periods of low immigration, such as the post Civil War era and the post WWII era (and a handful of other such eras).
That ethical choice may be helping the immigrants, but Beck points out that it is harming the countries they are leaving by enticing away those people who would be most likely to lead the changing of conditions in these home countries for the better.
I'm going to be giving a copy to my US Rep at the next town hall meeting, and dropping one off at my Senator's door (who lives within six miles of me), and giving copies to my high school. That's how effective I think this book will be.
Holzman, you made many points but none relating to the Popular Information piece. I don't think you read it. Another case of reading only the headline, making a snap judgment, and responding anyway.
Thanks for calling out Plouffe! What a fool to ignore the consistent remarkable work of a remarkable leader, as if he has to prove himself again to….whom? The mainstream media? That’s rich. Why don’t they get on board with the rest of us and give him his well deserved credit for saving this country from MAGA madness. NOW!! And if Trump can’t even agree to stay in Milwaukee for his own convention, what are the odds he will join the President at a humiliating debate??
Team, there were 1300 attendees on a zoom tonight with Postcards to Swing States. We are not alone. Yay! Keep the faith. Do the work. https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/
About the postcards....do you think this really helps get out the vote? I've been curious about doing this. Frankly, it's voter apathy that worries me the most. I'd appreciate your thoughts based on your experience. Tx!
They plan on sending 26 million postcards to Democrats this fall. Impressed with this group: https://www.turnoutpac.org/. (They also go door to door having conversations, which of course is best.) Here is their zoom on postcard effectiveness from February 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jSJQP5ypo8
I encourage you to watch the YouTube video of last night’s zoom with Postcards to Swing States. I missed the first part last night as I was on another zoom, so just watched it from the beginning. Such good, clear, encouraging, fact-based information. Here’s the link again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9YZuETZ3l4
I'm a child of an immigrant and still remember the great joy of the day when I was six years old and my dad came home from work a US citizen, having done his swearing-in ceremony in downtown Chicago during the workday. I barely understood what being a citizen meant, but I knew it was a big deal that I was born a citizen and now my dad was one. I will always root for the immigrants, no matter how they get here. And I haven't decided whether I can stomach watching a debate where Trump is on the stage. Maybe MSNBC will be doing that thing where the the team is doing live commentary about it but we don't actually have to watch it. I don't know ... there's always Netflix.
Well said, Robert. Let’s all say it together: “He is a great president and deserves to be re-elected.”
If you’ve been on the fence about a Biden tee, 500,000 spouses, all the Dreamers and Dems in Red/Purple states could use your visible support. All it takes is $30.
Every Robert Hubbell newsletter will make you even prouder to wear it.
Every HCR and Jessica Craven post makes it feel more urgent. Wearing it, you can feel the enthusiasm growing, the dread dissipating, the hope spreading.
The biggest surprise continues to be: 50 grocery runs in a Biden Tee — zero negative comments. In Florida.
I have 3 Biden tees and have yet to wear one to the grocery store in my blood red county in red Ohio but that is about to change.If you can wear one in Florida then by god I can wear one here.I will report on the results of this event soon.Fingers crossed for no negativity.
Good luck Victoria. I always have a plan in my head for the nasty remark that I always fear is around the corner. “Thanks for letting me know your thoughts.”
I’ve never had to use that one.
I hope Ohio shoppers welcome you with open arms. The “I like your shirt” whispers will feel lie conspiratorial glee of Dem neighbors who know. I’m a Michigander originally so I love to hear the blueness spreading through the Midwest.
It will depend on where in NC your friends are moving. I am very fortunate to live in a blue dot, Durham, and the vibe is positive here. Lots of thumbs up and smiles. A fellow shopper pulled me aside to tell me she and her husband met at a Biden campaign event years ago. The owner of a small independent art shop gave me her contact info so I could send her purchase info.
As I’ve said previously, I notice in myself a heightened awareness to be kind when I’m wearing my Biden merch. Also gives me courage to (kindly) ask young employees in aforementioned places if they’re sure they they’re registered to vote.
All In NC is doing AMAZING work in Mecklenburg County. Hope your friends will be able to check it out. As I understand it, they are working to rally the (plenty of) of Dems there who have not shown up to vote. Gerrymandering has done its job of discouraging voters. All In is fighting back hard!
I thank God every day for Joe Biden and even more so yesterday as he made his extraordinary humanitarian announcement. As I have written before, I am the adult child of a woman who was brought to America illegally when she was 2 years old. She lived her entire short life in fear of being deported, even though she was married to an American and had two American-born children. As Biden said during his talk, such immigrants live in the shadows and always with a fear just beneath the surface, as do their families. My mother, like so many of those immigrants standing with Biden yesterday, was a contributor to the fabric of America's society even while being denied the rights of citizenship. Throughout WWII my father served in Europe, but at home my mother drove Army supply trucks to support the war effort. If only she could have lived long enough to witness Biden's announcement yesterday! May God bless Joe Biden!
As a long-time Chicago resident, I can confidently say that we don’t want tfg here even for one single night. And as for his Trump-branded property downtown, I am not alone in looking forward to the day when the giant TRUMP across the front of it is removed. It’s an eyesore and an insult. I have Democratic family in Michigan who plan to come over here when the name is removed – – and it will be, someday – – and help us celebrate. I am confident that there will be a large, happy, cheering crowd looking on that day.
If contraception takes innocent lives, what do assault weapons with buttstocks do…? Hypocrisy thy name is republican…or more appropriately trump cultists.
Hey men, whether or not you are sexually active, every reproductive rights issue is an issue for you too. Don’t leave it to the women to fight for this on their own.
If you have sons or daughters this is important for them and you. If you don’t want more children in society that live in households that can’t afford to give them good care, if you care about how much government money is spent combating poverty, if you care about crime, this all matters to you. Of course if you care about women’s health and opportunities stopping forced births and reproductive rights matter to you.
Can it be any more obvious since women don’t become pregnant without men that men have to be just as interested in this issue as their daughters, wives, girl friends, and sex partners. Keep in mind that the fathers, however they became fathers will have legal, moral and financial responsibilities.
When Robert says: "Trump is undisciplined, ignorant, mercurial, and unable to think in a linear fashion." He is of course being kind. But the big mystery to me is: given his obvious failings and the fact that he is a thrice married, serial philandering, serial lying, multiple bankrupt, why oh why are the hard right evangelicals singing his praises and donning red hats and will pull the lever in November for someone who otherwise might have been seen as close to the anti-Christ?
There may be a shift occurring, however slight and spotty. Here's a deep-south hellfire-and-brimstone pastor fiercely denouncing Trump (it's a very motivating thing to watch, even though I understand nothing about the way evangelicals think): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20wlJUVe4cE
Read "The False White Gospel," by Jim Wallis, Georgetown University professor and Chair, to understand. His bona fides are exemplary, and he lays it out straight!
Based on George Lakoff analysis of language, when you say you’re not interested, what people hear is that you are interested. When you use the term playing politics, you are conceding to the false framing that politics is different from policy. I wish Biden speech writers understood this.
George Lakoff is a genius, albeit an evil one (works for wrong-headed right-wingers and does brilliant messaging for them.) We need to re-frame the issues to favor democracy, not chaos and Putinism. Thanks to some reader/commentator on this strand, I found out the Dems have a George Lakoff. His name is Billy Paul and he should be put in charge of Biden's communications team with absolute authority! Read about him here: https://gregolear.substack.com/p/the-opposite-of-chaos-is-community
I have to admit that I'm feeling a bit easier for my former students and their families after Pres Biden's executive order on citizenship for undocumented immigrants and their spouses. Seven or eight years ago one of my moms asked me to write a letter of support in her application for her green card; her eldest son, born here in CA along with all his siblings, was sponsoring her. A simple request, but I think of the trust she put in me and am still humbled and proud to have helped. It ain't politics - it's humanity and recognition thereof. And, yeah, with a tap of a button my tv machine went poof when David Plouffe started yammering.
Like that other "washed up dude desperately trying to remain relevant--" David Axelrod, former Obama staffer, who won't stop criticizing and sandbagging Pres. Biden. Gives me indigestion.
Christina - thanks for your comment. I was going to write the same about Axelrod. He was a Clinton critic too. Never liked him even in Obama years but that is another story!
I would raise Robert Hubbell's point: with five months to go to re-elect Pres. Biden to save our democracy--because this is not a normal election--we must stand shoulder to shoulder and fight the enemy together. Doing nerdy little factual analyses that focus on some nit-picking detail to salve and inflate their own egos--well, it's just not the time for it. Re-elect Joe Biden first. Then you can spend the next four years indulging your own opinions about why he shouldn't didn't couldn't whatever. Re-electing the president is Job 1. Pointing out things he did wrong is further down the list. They make it Job 1. That's wrong in June 2024. Timing!
Speaking of IVF, this, from Flo Health, Inc: “the percentage of all fertility treatment cycles involving LGBTQ+ people rose from just 1% in 2009 to 4% in 2019.”
Right Wing Media: Look, See! Those people increased their fertility shenanigans four hundred percent in just ten years!!
So lemme get this straight. The GOP wants to ban IVF for EVERYBODY because as few as 4-5% of participants are LGBTQ+?!?
You said all that needed to be said:
"No, Joe Biden is not playing politics. He is addressing an intractable problem despite obstructionist behavior from Republicans. A lesser president would give up in defeat. Not Joe Biden. He is a great president and deserves to be re-elected."
100% agree.
I was going to say, "a lesser president like Felonious Trump" but stopped myself. There's nobody who could be less of a president. Seems to me that whenever Felonious Trump failed, which was almost all the time, it was always somebody else's fault, and he was the victim.
President Biden needs to remind everybody, repeatedly, that the reason he's doing this stuff thru executive action is because the Republicans refuse to do their damn jobs and live up to their oaths.
As to the debates, I still think it's 50/50 that Felonious Trump will show up.
@ Bob Morgan. Every time the media mentions Trump and immigration, the predicate should be that Trump was the poster boy for employer sanctions, fined by DOL for using undocumented Polish workers on his job sites. https://time.com/5039109/donald-trump-undocumented-polish-trump-tower-bonwit-teller/
He still uses temporary visa workers on his properties to displace American workers.
He's the poster boy for lots of things: lying; bullying; disingenuity; willful ignorance; projection; narcissism; misogyny; gluttony; vindictiveness; and a whole bunch of other undesirable traits.
He's also a walking advertisement for birth control and termination of non-viable pregnancies. If I could go back in time, I'd go back 79 years and give Fred Trump a case of condoms.
A fact never reported.
It should be on billboards.
I prefer we call him Felon Donald. I read he doesn’t like being called Donald, so that’s all I need to know.
Now my important message on Donald’s plans for rounding up 11 million for deportation and camps. How can you be sure you or someone you care about won’t be one of the people rounded up and who will you be able to appeal that a mistake was made?
Close your eyes and visualize how this will work. Banging on doors at night, stadiums turned into holding pens, enforcers coming to construction sites, mosques, churches, bbq’s, places where not English music is being played, weddings and birthday parties….. how would you go about it if you were assigned to go get us some illegal immigrants, which of your friends would you recruit to help you? Would you ask to see papers to make sure you didn’t make a mistake or would you just grab em while you can because there isn’t a downside if you made some mistakes out of enthusiasm for the project.
And while you were at it would you grab a few people you didn’t like and some who deserved some retribution?
My point is that it might sound good to some people that we clean house but they might regret it once the sweeping begins since no one will be safe. Purges of loyalists is also something autocrats are known for.
As a New Yorker I can say- we called him "The Donald" - starting in the 70's- how anyone ever took "The Donald" seriously still amazes amd horrifies this New Yorker.
Right there with ya, girl! 🤗
I've called him lots of things, except since he proved himself unworthy shortly after his inauguration, "my president." I now prefer "Felonious Trump," as his part in the band, "& The MAGAlomaniacs."
Along with the dire picture you painted of the proposed purge, how will we backfill the roles those immigrants play in our workforce, or will we be content to do without?
The loss of workers will be a real problem (Joyce Vance wrote about it today with some details of the cost to the economy) and that as well as all the other economic problems from stopping immigration and throwing out folks need to be talked about.
I am of the belief that we don’t need to pick between the problems, but talk about them all. The Donald rapes, violence, frauds, scams, felonies, dementia, golf cheating, tariff wars, forced birth SCOTUS, treason, fascism, flatulence, diapers, tax breaks for the rich,…..and of course that WHEN MELANIA HAD A BABY DONALD HAD SEX WITH STORMY D. then paid her $135,000 and committed felonies to hide it from the voters. I think he has incredible instincts in what to say and do to help himself so if he so badly wanted to hide it, I know it is important to amplify and not be distracted by his complaining about being a victim of Biden witch hunts.
DK Brooklyn and others skewer the insane impracticality of Trump's plan to deport 11 million immigrants. Everyone who nods a MAGA cap in agreement to this idea should stop and think not just of the cruel injustice of it, but of its practical cost. It would tank the economy in a mindless expenditure, expand the police and "administrative state" that the Republicans claim to abhor and cost billions of dollars of federal money.
As of 2023, there were about 1.2 million individuals in state and federal prisons in the United States. To "process" 11 million immigrants, for even a short time, would require 9 times the capacity of the entire prison system. And who's going to build these stockades? Construction workers are in demand all over the country. What counties and states are going to want a facility of some 1,000 men and women and children in their neighborhood? Don't ask Palm Beach to do it? Or even West Palm Beach. A first floor Mar-A-Lago processing center might house 100 in tight quarters. If Trump wins, he will have other digs. And you would need 11,000 more sites to hold all the immigrants Trump wants to round up. Well, one might say, people would be processed and deported so we wouldn't need to house them for long. So are folks going to calmly wait in their apartments and houses to be rounded up? Maybe....You all get my point, Trump makes these outlandish proposals with no thought to their moral cost or even practical cost. And instead of attacking on these matters the news focuses on whether he is going to stay in Milwaukee or in Chicago during the Republican National Convention!! And should an intrepid reporter corner a Marco Rubio or J. D. Vance and ask them about this, they will get all serious and annoyed and defend Trump for "doing something" about the Border or they will smirk and tell us that such a "roundup" would not happen, in effect saying about their candidate, "Don't believe a word he says.". This is the kind of detail we need to see in the debate.
Worker shortages in Florida and Indiana -- and almost every other state to be sure -- are already impacting our economy. But as Robert Reich pointed out a year ago in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/there-is-no-us-labor-shortage-thats-a-myth?CMP=share_btn_url) there is ls less a worker shortage than a shortage of employers who are willing (or able) to pay workers a competitive wage with benefits while supporting child care and health insurance. Wealth inequality continues to rise in this country, and we are not bolstered by a national social safety net which countries like Sweden and Denmark and others enjoy, providing higher education and pre-school. Consider the $50 billion plus pay package Elon Musk "earned" recently. It's enough to make one crazy.
We are in agreement but I am focusing on those who think they do not need to worry because they are “legal”.
And I don’t want to hear from those who say it isn’t practical so let’s not take it seriously.
When the Nazis decided to solve the Jewish problem they figured out how to do it, with local auxiliary police and daily quotas of people to bring in.
I do not know, but have no doubt some non Jews got caught in the web. No one will be there to correct the mistakes.
Patrick E. White: You are being too logical!
Or, there's the low budget method of simply calling on all loyal followers to nab every brown person they see and bus them to a border and force them across. No telling how much one can accomplish on enthusiasm alone; paid for by those who live on pittances but send $ to 45's campaign and fueled by the joy of hurting those they now see as their enemies. He's a lying blow hard but I wouldn't put it past him to encourage others to do his dirty work... again.
To help make that point, someone with access to the data should publish the numbers of migrants that *the Trump organization* employs, and then wave it in front of Trump and his supporters.
Bob; you got me thinking- I am fine with Felonious not showing up. Does that mean that Biden can still go on the stage and answer the same questions? (That is a serious ask)
It would be nice if they'd turn it into a town hall - it might make up for the one CNN gave Felonious Trump that cost them my viewership.
If FT does show up, you can be sure he'll attack the format and test its limits. He'll make it into a spectacle somehow.
In such an event, Biden should immediately call Trump a crybaby. That would resonate.
Spectacle is what he's got going for him. One thing he accomplished was to retrain the press to better serve an often poorly educated, often intellectually lazy easily bored public where "better serve" is defined as entertain rather than inform.
As Bob Morgan said, "President Biden needs to remind everybody, repeatedly, that the reason he's doing this stuff thru executive action is because the Republicans refuse to do their damn jobs and live up to their oaths."
- President Biden has *not* been reminding people of this fact. He and his handlers have got to stop missing such easy opportunities.
I like seeing Biden wielding his own damn project 2025 hammer. LFG!
I have maintained for quite a while that if it weren't for DOUBLE STANDARDS, the GOP would have NO standards whatsoever!!
Everything they do is to gin up the base, protect Trump from the consequences of his many criminal acts or to sow chaos to make Biden look bad. They have even twisted themselves up into pretzels trying to fit Hunter Biden's conviction into a cover-up for the "Biden crime family".
We must spread the word about the great job Biden is doing (esp. in light of the dysfunctional GOP controlled House) and warn people about how disastrous a second Trump administration would be.
I believe that everyone associated with the press except perhaps the AP, is used to using superlatives for everything they report. In this case, mostly negatives, but sometimes positives. From negative and scary and angering stories they get the most views. It is showing that the USA needs a different way to fund their media. In Germany all people living here get a monthly bill that covers good quality news. It costs around 18.36 € a month where I live. It is collective support for radio and television reporting. Most people trust it too, unlike in the USA, where support is more partisan for different television and radio news sources. Here is an American expat living in Germany comparing the two countries in terms of television news.
https://youtu.be/KgCiEkoRI9w?si=fuwT17YwhDoh1LMp
Print media is supported on its own though, and again we see oligarchs like the owner of Springer Verlag, leaning to the right. There are more left leaning publications like TAZ, and then the more conservative Die Welt. Here is a list of many of the most known German publications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_Germany
If we had more neutral ownership of press, like it works in Germany in the USA, then we would be more likely to see supportive coverage of Biden just because he is doing a good job. The press is hard pressed to find negative things about Biden so they just make shit up.
From The Hill:
“Army veteran Eugene Vindman, who was a key player in the first impeachment of former President Trump, has won the Democratic nomination for the House seat representing Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, according to Decision Desk HQ.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4728516-eugene-vindman-virginia-donald-trump-abigail-spanberger/mlite/
I guess the $100 I donated to his fledgling campaign was well spent.
Thank you, Derek, for your contribution to his campaign. I contributed via emails from his brother, though not as generously as you.
Of their service to integrity, and of their fidelity and contribution to the American story, I cannot forget.
Thanks for the update, Jean. I peeled off after seeing he had a huge lead as early as 7:30 pm EDT. I am so happy for him. (Loved seeing his commercials with his family!) I'm in the 10th CD, which drew tons of candidates from both parties due to our rep, Jennifer Wexton, having to step down due to illness. I don't know who won yet from the Democratic party.
As for Tim Kaine's Senate seat, I'm hoping it won't be a nail-biter!
Estimable Senator Kaine vs "Podunk Virginia" Cao. We're working in Shenandoah Co to get every vote for Tim.
Yay, Shenandoah! Working here in Loudoun for the same.
He is a a true patriot
So many conflicts and controversies are based on false premises. Immigration is one, given that immigrants make America stronger.
Last month Popular Information published an excellent piece "Immigrants Are Saving the American Economy." As Robert likes to say: Tell a friend!
https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/immigrants-are-saving-the-american?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ktt63
This week’s “winner” from the Media and Democracy Project.Note the immigration policy expert is from the conservative Cato Institute.:⬇️
RARE: Voters Get News Coverage on Accuracy of Border Narratives
This week was a little different. Independent, Tucson-based journalist Todd Miller interviewed an immigration policy expert in a piece headlined: “This Election Year’s Top Three False Border and Immigration Narratives.” Miller’s expert is David Bier, who works for the Koch-funded Cato Institute.
Miller asked Bier “what he thought were the top three false narratives proclaimed, promoted, and propagated during this year’s campaign season,” in the hopes that their conversation would “assist you in navigating your discussions about the border and immigration, discussions that will inevitably intensify during the next several months.” Bier shared that his top three false narratives were “(1) ‘Donald Trump had the most secure border in America’s history,’ (2) ‘Joe Biden opened America’s borders to illegal immigration,’ and (3) ‘Recent immigration is helping Democrats.’” It was an edifying, succinct piece.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mediaanddemocracyproject/p/good-news-bad-news-june-18-2024?r=fqsxl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Thanks for this link, Kathy. What a great analysis. Now we need to find a way to go beyond analysis and actually create accurate headlines. Pressuring newsrooms is one way. I write scathing letters to The Hill every day! https://thehill.com/contact/
I name the offending journalists (you can't write directly to them) and tell them what headline they should have written. I criticize their normalizing (and inconsistent) both-siderism. I point out when they only quote five Republicans and zero Democrats in some piece. Signing petitions like the one in your above link--an open letter to the country's newsrooms with guidelines about how NOT to normalize Trump's domestic terrorism--is another way. Let's do more letters to the editor--in praise of good work like the above, in criticism of the really very upsetting coverage we usually get. The guidelines from major media cited by the Media and Democracy Project in the above link, on how to be "nice" and "gentle" when talking about an armed attempt to overthrow our government, really shocked me.
I had missed the letter link until you said this. It deserves to be boosted in some additional ways.
I disagree with Eric Lin Doub, several comments above at the time of this edit (10:16AM eastern).
Too much immigration is big biz' way of keeping wages down.
In 1980, meat packers were mostly Black people, earning good middle class wages. By that decade's end, meat packers were mostly immigrants, earning barely above minimum wage, and toiling under atrocious conditions where "accidental" amputations were common.
The same phenomenon was happening in most of the low/no-skilled job categories, as well as in computer-related jobs, for which there are actually companies that bring foreign workers to take American jobs at lower wages. The following link describes a phenomenon that has been a lot more common than people realize, and which was widely covered in computer publications before the NYT FINALLY wrote about it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html/.
The credit for the improving US economy should go mostly to President Biden for his enlightened policies that are designed, among other things, to stimulate the economy in a variety of ways.
You're the only one here who thinks this, David. My late wife's family were immigrants and all three sisters made contributions to the country in business, arts and education.
If an American is screwed out of a job because an employer uses cheap labor under the table, the employer is liable. The employer sanctions provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) prohibit employers from hiring, recruiting, or referring for a fee aliens known to be unauthorized to work in the United States.
One example: Donald Trump employed undocumented workers, at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey and elsewhere. To the best of my knowledge, the Trump Organization was not sanctioned.
That doesn't mean those employers are ever prosecuted. They're mostly not.
@TC: I know you disagree with me, and I still think you're terrific. I'm not the only one here who thinks like this, although I'm sure mine's a minority opinion. But I am getting likes, and I've given some good evidence for why it's a problem.
In any case, my family, all but one immigrant grandfather, who have been in the country since around the mid-1800s, have made a slew of contributions, in politics (Philip Hornbein, for example, who ran the Colorado Democratic Party for most of the first half of the last century), in understanding the Soviet economy (my father), in better treatment of residents of old folks homes (Rose Dobrof--there have been articles in the NYT on what she's done, although the most recent one put her words in Danny Reingold's mouth instead of quoting her directly, and he heard her stories as a kid, as I did); in mountain climbing (google Tom Hornbein, or just know that there's a Hornbein Couloir on Everest, from his trek to the summit in 1963). And my paternal grandfather taught high school physics to a couple of people who won Nobel prizes.
But if immigrants make such great contributions--and of course many do--maybe they should be encouraged to stay in their own countries and fix them, and help make the whole world a better place.
But I would say that we should be improving our own oft shitty educational system. I lived in a mixed race section of DC for a decade, and I can tell you, a lot of kids there were throwaways, and I say that to denigrate the school, not the kids. I can remember one day, my next door neighbors' black grandchildren playing in front of the house. (The grandparents were an illiterate transmission rebuilder and a checker at one of the DC department stores, who'd come up from the Carolinas.) A white neighbor from the next street over came around the corner with her children--roughly the same age. As I looked at the two sets of kids, I could feel the difference in their futures, and it spooked me. It would be nice if no American children were left behind.
As President Kennedy said, the US is a nation of immigrants [except for Native Americans, who are ignored]. Everyone can trace their family roots to immigration at some time in history.
Foreign workers are not brought in to "take American jobs" in the software industry. They are brought in because there is a legitimate shortage of talent. They are also paid similar wages to US workers. Outsourcing is another issue, but even that will not put a US software engineer out of work.
Barrytre - You've stated as fact one side of a contentious issue. Many serious people, observing layoffs in technology industries, believe that lots of employers lay off employees as they approach age 40 or so. My office mate at GTE Laboratories once remarked that, when he evaluated potential employers, he looked at how many "gray hairs" he saw during his interviews.
Of course they are! Read the NYT article. And not that so much support for mass immigration has come from big biz GOPers, and Ronald Reagan!
There's a book, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth, by Roy Beck. It's a brilliant, easily digestible presentation that gives a succinct overview within the intro and first chapter of how from the early 1800s to the present, time after time, mass immigration has resulted in African Americans seeing their wages reduced, and losing jobs to immigrants during periods of high immigration (relative to America's population within each time period.
Footnoted quotes are from people ranging from Frederick Douglass (whose sons were downwardly mobile due to too much immigration) to eminent economic historians:
"Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert's macroeconomic history shows that between 1816 and 1856, the American Northeast was transformed from the "Jeffersonian ideal" to a society more typical of under-developed countries with marked income inequality and very low wages for laborers," to the detriment of both free Blacks and immigrants, due to mass immigration.
One of the beauties of the book is showing that this has happened repeatedly, making it much harder for proponents of mass immigration to argue that this is not what's maintaining the income and wealth gap in wealth between African Americans and Whites (Blacks have 6%(!!!) the wealth of Whites currently).
Author Roy Beck quotes Black leaders to the effect that mass immigration has always resulted in Black wages dropping, and African Americans losing jobs.
Beck notes that currently, there is an ethical choice being made by many on the left that impoverished denizens of low income countries are more deserving than the descendants of American Black slaves. I would guess that most people making this choice are ignorant of how TOO MUCH immigration has pushed Blacks back down after they'd made progress during periods of low immigration, such as the post Civil War era and the post WWII era (and a handful of other such eras).
Beck points out that mass immigration is harming the countries immigrants are leaving by enticing away those people who would be most likely to lead the changing of conditions in these home countries for the better.
Your points seemed like anti-immigrant rhetoric to me, and sure enough, a simple Google search showed Roy Beck's significant links to white supremacy - he is noted by both the SPLC and the anti-defamation league.
On a factual level, the current US business environment is geared towards short term profit at the expense of everything else. This means that companies have significant incentive to outsource or simply lay off experienced workers. This affects everyone. You try claim that immigration is a primary driver, but it isn't. And what Disney did in 2015 is not widespread.
I am reporting your post. Trying to pass off white supremacist authors as valid sources is not OK.
The SPLC is well known for making money off of smearing people as haters, and groups as hate groups, that aren't haters or hate groups. And any high school teacher will tell you not to trust Wikipedia.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-reckoning-of-morris-dees-and-the-southern-poverty-law-center
The link you probably found to one John Tanton is kind of like the link that if I remember correctly was found during Obama's first campaign, to someone who'd been his preacher and who made some inflammatory statements (which Beck does not make). For all that commotion back in '08, Obama turned out to be pretty squeaky clean. Links, connections, BS. You probably could be linked to some nasty people, as I could probably be linked as well.
Roy Beck is not a white supremacist. From the NYT in 2011:
"Mr. Beck said the charges of bigotry were especially unfair and let a reporter hear a tape of his 1970 wedding ceremony, which included a song he wrote pledging to fight “race hate.” He deliberately lives in integrated neighborhoods, he said, and sent his children to integrated schools, including one in a mostly black housing project.
“What kind of racist does that?” he said. “They’ve never accused us of doing anything that’s racist or white nationalist. It’s only that Numbers U.S.A. ‘has ties’ ” to Dr. Tanton."
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/us/17immig.html
And, by the way, just to hopefully prevent you from making other assumptions about me, or what I have to say, I consider Biden to be the best president of my lifetime--which began the first summer of the Eisenhower Administration. Every time I read of what Biden is doing, I feel the way I felt back in the summer of '75, riding my bicycle from Seattle to Boston, when I would get a strong tailwind.
And as a relatively left wing Democrat, I have friends with whom I disagree on immigration. We know we aren't going to change each other's minds, and Democracy works when politicians accept that they need to work together despite differing views on some subjects.
And, I learned a lot of the science that makes it clear to me that the US is overpopulated, and thus needs badly to stabilize its population, from a class I took with John Holdren, in 1975, at UC Berkeley. 33 years later, Holdren became Obama's Science Advisor.
The criticisms in the New Yorker were a hypocritical founder, dysfunctional management that resulted from it, and too much focus on extremists. There was nothing about the validity of their research, nor about smearing people or groups, which is really damning for Beck and his organization. And I didn't mention Wikipedia at all. And trying to reinforce your point by saying that everyone probably has links is comical, and thoroughly unconvincing.
It's great that you support Biden, but you're just plain wrong about immigration, and your views do not align with most on the left. And it's not the alignment that's the problem, it's the veiled racism. Even your appeal to the science of population is misguided - it's the total population that matters, not just 1 country.
I agree but the carpenters and the healthcare workers and the bus drivers of the world don’t see or understand any of this. The challenge is how to get the message down to the local “ Joe”.
"Progressives'" views on immigration take planning and policy out of consideration. Just admit anyone who gets over the border (southern border preferred above all)? That's a *policy*? It's past time for people to stop insisting on principles that are so broad and so emotional that they make it difficult to frame intelligent, consistent policies.
I largely accept the argument that immigration improves the US economy -- but it's an argument about the *long term*. In the current *short term*, our immigration non-policy has caused considerable dislocations. These dislocations are having nontrivial political ramifications, most of which seem to be hurtful to Democratic candidates (except, perhaps, in heavily Latino districts).
This is an election year: Democrats are hurting their party's prospects by loudly insisting on immigration policies that go far beyond most Americans' comfort zones.
I look forward to any comments from you, David, that demonstrate you actually read the Popular Information piece.
For example, here's one part:
A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals that contrary to conventional wisdom, the immigrant workforce in America benefits native-born workers. The study concluded that "immigrants raise wages and boost the employment of U.S.-born workers." This is especially true for native-born workers with less education. The study found that "immigration, thanks to native-immigrant complementarity and college skill content of immigrants, had a positive and significant effect between +1.7 to +2.6% on wages of less educated native workers, over the period 2000-2019 and no significant wage effect on college educated natives."
I've read carefully similar claims, and found them wanting--a number of years ago so I don't remember the details of what they were problematic. In its stead here's my review of the book in Amazon, Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth.
I also did mention above how meat packers were virtually all Black in 1980, earning good middle class wages, and that by that decade's end meat packers were virtually all immigrants (though in some cases lower class whites) earning barely above minimum wage toiling under atrocious conditions--which I think refutes the notion that immigrants boost employment and wages of US workers. It's actually well known that bringing in immigrants, or hiring those already here, is Big Biz' way of pushing wages down.
The best of the immigration books
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2021
Verified Purchase
This book will probably do far more than any other book on immigration to convince doubters that mass immigration needs to end. It's a brilliant, easily digestible presentation that gives a succinct overview within the intro and first chapter of how from the early 1800s to the present, time after time, mass immigration has resulted in African Americans seeing their wages reduced, and losing jobs to immigrants during periods of high immigration (relative to America's population within each time period.
Footnoted quotes from people ranging from Frederick Douglass to eminent economic historians:
"Jeffrey Williamson and Peter Lindert's macroeconomic history shows that between 1816 and 1856, the American Northeast was transformed from the "Jeffersonian ideal" to a society more typical of under-developed countries with marked income inequality and very low wages for laborers," to the detriment of both free Blacks and immigrants, due to mass immigration.
One of the beauties of the book is showing that this has happened repeatedly, making it much harder for proponents of mass immigration to argue that this is not what's maintaining the income and wealth gap in wealth between African Americans and Whites (Blacks have 6%(!!!) the wealth of Whites currently).
Author Roy Beck quotes Black leaders, from each of the multiple eras of mass immigration, starting with Frederick Douglass, on how mass immigration has always resulted in Black wages dropping, and African Americans losing jobs.
Beck notes that currently, there is an ethical choice being made by many on the left that impoverished denizens of low income countries are more deserving than the descendants of American Black slaves. I would guess that most people making this choice are ignorant of how TOO MUCH immigration has pushed Blacks back down after they'd made progress during periods of low immigration, such as the post Civil War era and the post WWII era (and a handful of other such eras).
That ethical choice may be helping the immigrants, but Beck points out that it is harming the countries they are leaving by enticing away those people who would be most likely to lead the changing of conditions in these home countries for the better.
I'm going to be giving a copy to my US Rep at the next town hall meeting, and dropping one off at my Senator's door (who lives within six miles of me), and giving copies to my high school. That's how effective I think this book will be.
Thanks for this, Eric!
Marlene, please read my response to Eric if you haven't.
Holzman, you made many points but none relating to the Popular Information piece. I don't think you read it. Another case of reading only the headline, making a snap judgment, and responding anyway.
Thanks for calling out Plouffe! What a fool to ignore the consistent remarkable work of a remarkable leader, as if he has to prove himself again to….whom? The mainstream media? That’s rich. Why don’t they get on board with the rest of us and give him his well deserved credit for saving this country from MAGA madness. NOW!! And if Trump can’t even agree to stay in Milwaukee for his own convention, what are the odds he will join the President at a humiliating debate??
Headline the news media should be writing:
Speculation Rife that Trump Will Ditch Debate
Subhead: Fears Humiliation from Biden Attack
Anyone who pairs up with Kellyann Conway (Plouffe) is suspect in my mind.
Team, there were 1300 attendees on a zoom tonight with Postcards to Swing States. We are not alone. Yay! Keep the faith. Do the work. https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/
Just ordered 500 for Michigan!!
About the postcards....do you think this really helps get out the vote? I've been curious about doing this. Frankly, it's voter apathy that worries me the most. I'd appreciate your thoughts based on your experience. Tx!
They plan on sending 26 million postcards to Democrats this fall. Impressed with this group: https://www.turnoutpac.org/. (They also go door to door having conversations, which of course is best.) Here is their zoom on postcard effectiveness from February 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jSJQP5ypo8
I encourage you to watch the YouTube video of last night’s zoom with Postcards to Swing States. I missed the first part last night as I was on another zoom, so just watched it from the beginning. Such good, clear, encouraging, fact-based information. Here’s the link again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9YZuETZ3l4
Thank you!
💙💙💙 Treat yourself to some fun gel pens and enjoy the process. 💙💙💙
Join us! I write with various groups. I encourage others chime in with their thoughts about their experiences. 💙
I'm a child of an immigrant and still remember the great joy of the day when I was six years old and my dad came home from work a US citizen, having done his swearing-in ceremony in downtown Chicago during the workday. I barely understood what being a citizen meant, but I knew it was a big deal that I was born a citizen and now my dad was one. I will always root for the immigrants, no matter how they get here. And I haven't decided whether I can stomach watching a debate where Trump is on the stage. Maybe MSNBC will be doing that thing where the the team is doing live commentary about it but we don't actually have to watch it. I don't know ... there's always Netflix.
Well said, Robert. Let’s all say it together: “He is a great president and deserves to be re-elected.”
If you’ve been on the fence about a Biden tee, 500,000 spouses, all the Dreamers and Dems in Red/Purple states could use your visible support. All it takes is $30.
DemsMakeLifeBetter.org
BeantownStrong.org
👕🛒
Every Robert Hubbell newsletter will make you even prouder to wear it.
Every HCR and Jessica Craven post makes it feel more urgent. Wearing it, you can feel the enthusiasm growing, the dread dissipating, the hope spreading.
The biggest surprise continues to be: 50 grocery runs in a Biden Tee — zero negative comments. In Florida.
Spread the word. Share your Biden T-shirt story.
I have 3 Biden tees and have yet to wear one to the grocery store in my blood red county in red Ohio but that is about to change.If you can wear one in Florida then by god I can wear one here.I will report on the results of this event soon.Fingers crossed for no negativity.
Feeling the same in Arizona. Shawn, it's amazing how much comfort I get from your quantitative updates! Keep 'em coming. 50 runs! Thank you.
Good luck Victoria. I always have a plan in my head for the nasty remark that I always fear is around the corner. “Thanks for letting me know your thoughts.”
I’ve never had to use that one.
I hope Ohio shoppers welcome you with open arms. The “I like your shirt” whispers will feel lie conspiratorial glee of Dem neighbors who know. I’m a Michigander originally so I love to hear the blueness spreading through the Midwest.
I am wearing my"Dark Brandon" shirt first to test the waters.lol
May you see some smiles of affirmation and receive some covert whispers of support.
Power to you!!!
I wear mine whenever on a grocery run, a post office run, a library run. NC.
I confess, I don’t exactly run. 💙
Dear friends are moving to NC from FL this week. How’s the t-shirt vibe feeling there?
It will depend on where in NC your friends are moving. I am very fortunate to live in a blue dot, Durham, and the vibe is positive here. Lots of thumbs up and smiles. A fellow shopper pulled me aside to tell me she and her husband met at a Biden campaign event years ago. The owner of a small independent art shop gave me her contact info so I could send her purchase info.
As I’ve said previously, I notice in myself a heightened awareness to be kind when I’m wearing my Biden merch. Also gives me courage to (kindly) ask young employees in aforementioned places if they’re sure they they’re registered to vote.
Where in NC are they headed?
Charlotte, NC.
Thanks. Here’s a link: https://swingbluealliance.org/northcarolina/
All In NC is doing AMAZING work in Mecklenburg County. Hope your friends will be able to check it out. As I understand it, they are working to rally the (plenty of) of Dems there who have not shown up to vote. Gerrymandering has done its job of discouraging voters. All In is fighting back hard!
I thank God every day for Joe Biden and even more so yesterday as he made his extraordinary humanitarian announcement. As I have written before, I am the adult child of a woman who was brought to America illegally when she was 2 years old. She lived her entire short life in fear of being deported, even though she was married to an American and had two American-born children. As Biden said during his talk, such immigrants live in the shadows and always with a fear just beneath the surface, as do their families. My mother, like so many of those immigrants standing with Biden yesterday, was a contributor to the fabric of America's society even while being denied the rights of citizenship. Throughout WWII my father served in Europe, but at home my mother drove Army supply trucks to support the war effort. If only she could have lived long enough to witness Biden's announcement yesterday! May God bless Joe Biden!
As a long-time Chicago resident, I can confidently say that we don’t want tfg here even for one single night. And as for his Trump-branded property downtown, I am not alone in looking forward to the day when the giant TRUMP across the front of it is removed. It’s an eyesore and an insult. I have Democratic family in Michigan who plan to come over here when the name is removed – – and it will be, someday – – and help us celebrate. I am confident that there will be a large, happy, cheering crowd looking on that day.
If contraception takes innocent lives, what do assault weapons with buttstocks do…? Hypocrisy thy name is republican…or more appropriately trump cultists.
I think if you could shoot a fetus in vitro with a GUN, it would be ok with MAGA Republicans. It's just contraception that is evil.
Hey men, whether or not you are sexually active, every reproductive rights issue is an issue for you too. Don’t leave it to the women to fight for this on their own.
If you have sons or daughters this is important for them and you. If you don’t want more children in society that live in households that can’t afford to give them good care, if you care about how much government money is spent combating poverty, if you care about crime, this all matters to you. Of course if you care about women’s health and opportunities stopping forced births and reproductive rights matter to you.
Can it be any more obvious since women don’t become pregnant without men that men have to be just as interested in this issue as their daughters, wives, girl friends, and sex partners. Keep in mind that the fathers, however they became fathers will have legal, moral and financial responsibilities.
When Robert says: "Trump is undisciplined, ignorant, mercurial, and unable to think in a linear fashion." He is of course being kind. But the big mystery to me is: given his obvious failings and the fact that he is a thrice married, serial philandering, serial lying, multiple bankrupt, why oh why are the hard right evangelicals singing his praises and donning red hats and will pull the lever in November for someone who otherwise might have been seen as close to the anti-Christ?
There may be a shift occurring, however slight and spotty. Here's a deep-south hellfire-and-brimstone pastor fiercely denouncing Trump (it's a very motivating thing to watch, even though I understand nothing about the way evangelicals think): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20wlJUVe4cE
Speaking of deep South, hellfire+brimstone, I wonder how Mike Johnson contorts himself into being a Trump supporter.
Power and ego
So he sold his soul to ..... What a shame for him and his family.
He doe$ their bidding. Seems they prefer sexual abusers and rapists. See HCR for a refresher.
Yes. Appalling
Read "The False White Gospel," by Jim Wallis, Georgetown University professor and Chair, to understand. His bona fides are exemplary, and he lays it out straight!
Another recommendation: Tim Alberta’s book The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicalism in an Age of Extremism.
Here’s a review for anyone interested.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/02/kingdom-power-glory-review-tim-alberta-trump-evangelical
because pmurt is every Evangelical
Based on George Lakoff analysis of language, when you say you’re not interested, what people hear is that you are interested. When you use the term playing politics, you are conceding to the false framing that politics is different from policy. I wish Biden speech writers understood this.
George Lakoff is a genius, albeit an evil one (works for wrong-headed right-wingers and does brilliant messaging for them.) We need to re-frame the issues to favor democracy, not chaos and Putinism. Thanks to some reader/commentator on this strand, I found out the Dems have a George Lakoff. His name is Billy Paul and he should be put in charge of Biden's communications team with absolute authority! Read about him here: https://gregolear.substack.com/p/the-opposite-of-chaos-is-community
Thanks for the link! "...government-mandated pregnancy..." and how are ya gonna pay for it? Brilliant and quite logical.
I have to admit that I'm feeling a bit easier for my former students and their families after Pres Biden's executive order on citizenship for undocumented immigrants and their spouses. Seven or eight years ago one of my moms asked me to write a letter of support in her application for her green card; her eldest son, born here in CA along with all his siblings, was sponsoring her. A simple request, but I think of the trust she put in me and am still humbled and proud to have helped. It ain't politics - it's humanity and recognition thereof. And, yeah, with a tap of a button my tv machine went poof when David Plouffe started yammering.
Plouffe is another washed up dude desperately trying to remain relevant. So much so he’s doing a podcast with KellyAnne 🤮
Like that other "washed up dude desperately trying to remain relevant--" David Axelrod, former Obama staffer, who won't stop criticizing and sandbagging Pres. Biden. Gives me indigestion.
Add James Carville to your list
Christina - thanks for your comment. I was going to write the same about Axelrod. He was a Clinton critic too. Never liked him even in Obama years but that is another story!
I personally think that Axelrod and Carville usually make a lot of practical sense.
I would raise Robert Hubbell's point: with five months to go to re-elect Pres. Biden to save our democracy--because this is not a normal election--we must stand shoulder to shoulder and fight the enemy together. Doing nerdy little factual analyses that focus on some nit-picking detail to salve and inflate their own egos--well, it's just not the time for it. Re-elect Joe Biden first. Then you can spend the next four years indulging your own opinions about why he shouldn't didn't couldn't whatever. Re-electing the president is Job 1. Pointing out things he did wrong is further down the list. They make it Job 1. That's wrong in June 2024. Timing!
Or they can just go gently into the night with a shred of their dignities. But old, white, entitled, men.
Speaking of IVF, this, from Flo Health, Inc: “the percentage of all fertility treatment cycles involving LGBTQ+ people rose from just 1% in 2009 to 4% in 2019.”
Right Wing Media: Look, See! Those people increased their fertility shenanigans four hundred percent in just ten years!!
So lemme get this straight. The GOP wants to ban IVF for EVERYBODY because as few as 4-5% of participants are LGBTQ+?!?