#administrative disbursements

[qqueenofhades]

Hi! This question has been noodling in my head for a few weeks, and I’ve been really curious to hear your opinion. I’ve appreciated your very thoughtful commentary on the ways the online left in particular have hurt the real and concerted efforts that have been made to navigate through the Gaza war in support of Palestine. I’ve seen a lot of outrage online about Biden bypassing congress in order to make another emergency weapons sale to Israel, which does indeed read as counter to helping to the Palestinians facing endless and indiscriminate violence. I understand that you might not want to answer this ask, because the work that you already do in your life offline and the work that you do here on tumblr to respond to and explain these issues is exhausting enough. Thanks so much for your time and your thoughtful contributions! It’s always really helped me remember to slow down and think critically about the media I consume.

Because you have asked this thoughtfully and in good faith, I will return the favor and give you a careful and extensive answer to the best of my ability. However, obligatory top-of-post disclaimer that I will disable reblogs at the first hint of any wankery in the notes and I will not answer any follow-ups or secondary asks at this time (unless I decide to do so, but I engage with this topic sparingly, judiciously, and only in small doses, so don't count on it).

First, let me say that the moment, I disagree with substantial portions of how Biden is handling the two main foreign-policy crises (Ukraine and Gaza). In regard to Ukraine, I think he's backed off, taken his foot off the gas, and otherwise given Republicans ammunition to keep delaying or watering down a new aid bill, is refusing to disburse military aid packages from the $4 billion of funding remaining that was previously approved by Congress, hasn't sent long-range ATACMS and other critical military hardware that might bring the war to an end sooner, and is not (as of the moment, though recent reporting suggests this might change) pushing hard enough for frozen Russian assets to be transferred to Ukraine for military and/or humanitarian financial assistance. However, I am also aware (unlike, it seems, much of the left-leaning internet) that I am basing these judgments only on my personal impressions, on what is reported (or not reported) in the media (which has plenty of its own problems) and otherwise what is formed in my role as an ordinary American citizen without any kind of special, classified, high-level, or government access. I know nothing more than any of you, and I also know that a lot of what goes on behind closed doors does not appear on Political Twitter and/or the Washington Post or the Guardian or Daily Kos or whatever other aggregate sources of information I or any left-leaning person typically consumes. So it's highly possible (and this is my cautious academic instinct speaking) that I do not, in fact, have a full picture of events. There are also contributing factors that Biden cannot simply handwave aside, even if he did, say, dip back into the $4 billion pot in the meantime. Congress will need to pass a new funding bill for Ukraine aid and the MAGA Republicans have been enthusiastically blocking it to the point where Putin's cronies on Russian state TV praise them effusively for it. We all know about the Republicans and Russia's mutual love affair. So.

The same goes for Gaza, and even more because we have already had reporting about how the Biden administration is walking a behind-the-scenes tightrope in a number of seemingly impossible tasks: keeping the war from spreading to a larger theater, pressuring Netanyahu to dial down, y'know, the rampant genocide (when Netanyahu notoriously doesn't like Biden, was very close with Trump, and would be happy to keep the war going in order to boost Trump's chances of being re-elected and save Netanyahu himself from his own criminal prosecutions), and pursuing a complex policy toward the state of Israel that does not follow the antisemitic Western Online Left's fever dream of "Israel suddenly disappears overnight and falls into the ocean and all Jews die or disappear." We have had multiple credibly sourced reports about this. Blinken is back in the Middle East right now trying to keep the war from spreading. The US under Biden has criticized Israel's essentially empty policy document for post-war Gaza as not being remotely feasible (because it's so vague) and gone so far as to voice support for a two-state solution with Palestinian self-determination (which is itself quite radically different from previous administrations). However, they have also vetoed UN ceasefire resolutions and other essentially meaningless political theater (the UN as a whole has been ruthlessly exposed in the last few years for being completely useless) that are easy to gin up outrage about, and that's what the internet focuses on, rather than any of the other complicated actions taking place.

All of this is to say that no, in fact, I don't blindly support everything the Biden administration is doing in regard to either Ukraine or Israel right now, but I actually have a sense of real-world perspective about it and understand that there are certain immutable realities that we are working with and which will not be erased by some absolute jackasses yelling at Biden in a historically black church at the commemoration of an anti-black terrorist attack. Likewise, as I've said it before and I'll say it again, and as plenty of other people have noticed and pointed out, the Western left is using this as an orgy of pseudo-revolutionary fervor that focuses on using Hamas as a proxy for their own fantasies of violent uprising against their own governments. Because while yes, anti-zionism and antisemitism are two distinct things and represent different aims and goals, it's become more or less irrelevant in allegedly pro-Palestine Western leftist spaces. It's just increasingly rabid, accelerationist, and nihilistic antisemitism all the time, or the obvious usage of "Zionist" to mean "Jew." It's not good. There is no concept of actual restorative justice for Palestinians or other people, such as Ukrainians, Syrians, Uyghurs, Taiwanese, etc, either undergoing genocide or facing the threat of it, because Western leftists have latched onto this cause solely as a stick to beat the Democratic Party with and have no actual moral interest or concern in stopping genocide elsewhere in the world or repudiating it as a method overall. They just want the state of Israel (which they characterize as a "proxy state for white western colonialism" despite the many, many things historically, religiously, and politically wrong with that statement, because it means it now Contains the Right Buzzwords to Oppose It) to be destroyed altogether in the name of "opposing colonialism," but it really seems to be all about opposing Jews. Hmm.

Simply put, Biden is not ever going to pursue a policy of "let's totally abandon Israel tomorrow, never sell it any weapons or allow it to defend its own civilians, and agree that Hamas is actually a good representation or advocate for the Palestinian people" in the way a number of Western Online Leftists seem to think he should do. There is still the fact that Israeli civilians do exist and that Hamas has continued to launch missiles at them daily, inconvenient as that fact might be for the Hamas fanboys (and fangirls) who now populate much of what passes for Western leftist discourse spaces. (Either that or they don't care, because in their view, Israeli civilians are fully acceptable collateral damage by virtue of simply living in Israel in the first place, which -- yikes. Fucking yikes. That is all.) The number of people professing to be lifelong leftists who are Just Shocked at all the antisemitism, or thinking that any and all antisemitism is just artificially introduced into leftist spaces by bad-faith right-wing/Nazi psyops either has not spent any actual time around leftists, or (more likely) simply does not listen to what they openly say. The antisemitism is virulent, constant, and only getting worse. On the most basic level, regardless of the other difficulties around the founding of Israel as a state in 1948 and the fact that doing so on some of the most bitterly religiously, politically, ethnically, and culturally contested territory in the world for over two thousand years was always going to be a massive clusterfuck, the fact of its immediate post-Holocaust creation simply cannot be ignored the way many Online Leftists do. Israel exists because of the worst antisemitic mass murder in recorded history (and that's a high bar). That fact must be incorporated into any actual discussions about its right either to exist or to protect its own civilians. But this gets turned into "Israel exists only as a puppet state of white western colonialists" which is just bad on so, so many levels.

The collective Western Online Leftist feeling seems to be that Hamas are innocent and wronged freedom fighters who are begging for a ceasefire and the cruel Israelis aren't granting them one. This is not true. Hamas has rejected multiple ceasefire opportunities, and continued to launch missiles and retaliatory attacks, because they are terrorists and they do not want or represent any serious opportunity to negotiate in the framework of western liberal democracy. They are treated as helpless woobified blorbos by much of the Western leftist-leaning internet. They are not. In that case, Biden bypassing Congress to sell Israel weapons (which was just something like 100 million of artillery shells, which is not nothing but still not a huge systematic thing like, say, Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal) is not great. I do not support anything Israel is doing to Gaza. It is abhorrent. However, there are reasons for Biden to provide some limited amount of weapons to Israel without congressional approval that do not automatically and mindlessly equate to BIDEN SUPPORTS TOTAL GENOCIDE IN GAZA!!!!!!1 Especially when as I've said, the Online Leftists only care about stopping genocide when it fits their political self-righteousness, and absolutely not at all the rest of the time.

This is representative of the fact that Western Online Leftism has now completed its all-out descent into blind Noam Chomskyism. Chomsky has never met a "leftist" or "anti-Western" genocide he couldn't deny, excuse, or openly cheerlead (going all the way back to the 1970s and Pol Pot/the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and going up to the minute with Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine). Noam Chomsky is the leftist Henry Kissinger. His ethics and morals are equally abhorrent, he's just as willing to justify total genocide in the name of advancing his preferred political ideology, and while there were (justifiably) celebrations and gloating memes across Tumblr when Kissinger finally bit the dust, Chomsky's beliefs are replicated with slavish adoration in many other Tumblr spaces and spread in some form or another to the rest of the website, which now takes them as leftist gospel (and let's not even talk about Twitter). This represents my absolute frustration with the fact that Western Online Leftism has devolved to such a degraded, mindless, useless, and malevolent level that "cheerlead for any anti-western/Leftist TM terrorist group or state" is taken to be the be-all and end-all of their moral philosophy. Someone remarked that ISIS peaked too early; if they were still at the height of their powers today, they would have a legion of devoted white so-called progressive Twitter users shilling earnestly and angrily for them, and Christ, isn't that the fucking truth.

I know we live in a hard, frightening, complex, and difficult world, and it's hard to sort out what our moral responsibility and action should be at any given time, especially since the answer is always so frustratingly partial and incomplete. Nobody of basic good sense and decency wants to see Gaza leveled while the Israeli state continues to apply a number of violently cruel collective punishments even outside the actual daily bombing of civilians. But for the love of god, let's get rid of the idea that the continued mindless violence doesn't benefit Hamas (because it does; unsurprisingly, sympathy for their cause has soared in Gaza) as much as it does Israel, or that Hamas is some kind of benevolent peacemaker that is being thwarted by the cruel imperialist US/West. And going back to the incident that prompted you to send me this ask: white leftists have often and repeatedly demonstrated their withering disdain for black people, Democratic voters, "mainstream" Americans, and anyone else doesn't buy into the twisted tankie fantasy land where getting rid of Biden would somehow be a massive coup for social justice (by getting Trump, now openly announcing at every turn that he will be a dictator, back into office! Very praxis, much justice. Wow.)

In short: if you, a white person, stand up in Mother Emanuel AME -- one of the most sacred sites for Black churchgoers, who are indeed often heavily Democratic voters -- in the middle of a remembrance service for victims of white supremacist terrorism, after the Black pastor has asked you not to protest inside the church out of respect for the Black community coming together to relive its trauma -- just so you can heckle Biden and feel good about yourself, then Jesus Christ. You don't care about restorative justice for people of color, or literally any justice at all, much less "stopping genocide." You just want to use them as props for your Chomsky cosplay revolutionary fantasies and your sense of self-righteous superiority over literally everyone else, regardless of the real-world consequences. So I have no hesitation whatsoever in telling those people to get fucked. Often and repeatedly.

[mariacallous]

News that $6 billion worth of outstanding U.S. military aid to Ukraine could expire by the end of September if Congress doesn’t take urgent action is unsettling some in Kyiv, where the painful memory of a larger package delay that led to battlefield losses remains fresh.

Delivering the $6 billion in additional U.S. aid depends on Congress extending the Pentagon’s authority to send weapons from its stockpiles to Ukraine. It is part of a larger $61 billion package approved last April after a seven-month delay, despite being critical to helping Kyiv fight off Russia’s full-scale invasion.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has asked Congress to include the $6 billion, provided via the Presidential Drawdown Authority program (PDA), in any continuing resolution lawmakers may pass before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 to fund the federal government and — yet again — prevent a shutdown.

U.S. officials said they hope to have the authority extended for another year, but the Defense Department is looking into other options if that effort fails.

It’s unclear why the $6 billion in military aid was not provided earlier, given the urgent needs of Ukraine’s armed forces in repelling Russia’s full-scale invasion, nor what weaponry it could entail. Multiple government sources in Ukraine and the U.S. declined to discuss the issue in detail.

The $6 billion is part of the $61 billion package approved in April, a congressional advisor who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the aid told the Kyiv Independent.

The advisor added that the delay in disbursing it due to absorption capacity issues, domestic US stock constraints, and a “constant flexibility issue with each withdrawal” in a situation where the U.S. adapts to Ukraine’s needs.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry told the Kyiv Independent that the weapons and equipment for the full amount were not yet sent to Ukraine due to “the lack of the necessary weapons in the Pentagon's warehouses.”  The ministry didn’t specify which weapons were requested but assured that “there is no reason to believe that these $6 billion will ‘burn out.’"

“As far as sources in Congress tell me, the situation is under control, and the money won’t be lost – that’s the main thing,” David Arakhamia, head of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People faction in parliament, told the Kyiv Independent.

But the episode appears to be the latest in which Ukraine’s top Western ally is drip-feeding weaponry supplies to Ukraine, on purpose or due to a lack of urgency, in an existential war waged by Russia which Zelensky’s administration has described as “genocidal.”

Addressing the annual Yalta European Strategy forum held in Kyiv on Sept. 13-14, Biden’s national security chief Jake Sullivan spoke of plans to announce a significant assistance package for Ukraine by the end of this month.

Yet the sense of many in Kyiv, which is shared with some European allies, is that while the U.S. has stepped up military assistance sharply, it is still not providing sufficient amounts and fast enough to help Ukraine decisively win the war.

“It is crucial that all states, and especially those like the United States, implement our agreements really promptly,” Zelensky said in his Sept. 14 evening address to the nation.

“Every delay in military packages has its negative consequences at the front. Every truly timely, fast delivery has a positive impact. I briefed the Congressmen on the current situation and the prospects,” he added.

Zelensky, who is to meet with Biden later this month in the U.S. for talks on future assistance and lifting of restrictions on using Western missiles to strike Russian territory, expressed the same frustration one day earlier about promised but not yet delivered military weaponry from Western allies without directly mentioning the $6 billion U.S. aid.

As he addressed the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting in Kyiv, Zelensky said that it’s “really difficult to hear the same answer every time – ‘we are working on it.’”

He also said that the talks on equipping Ukrainian frontline brigades with the West’s help had been ongoing “for months,” with the same vague answer from some “leaders and states that have made responsible commitments” earlier.

“Frankly, we are still far from fully implementing what we have agreed on a long time ago,” Zelensky added.

Washington’s delay from late 2023 into this spring in passing a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine contributed to the deteriorating situation on the eastern Donbas frontline, where Russia’s grinding offensive made advances.

In almost seven months of political infighting in the U.S. before the aid was allocated, Ukraine lost some key territories, including the city of Avdiivka, and suffered significant damage to its energy infrastructure around the country due to the lack of air defense systems to counter Russian missile strikes.

The legislation was first opposed but later approved by Republican legislators loyal to Donald Trump, who seeks to return as president in a Nov. 5 election against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Sense of urgency often lost despite sky-high stakes

The risk of yet another delay in crucial assistance from Ukraine’s top Western ally comes as the country’s Armed Forces, outgunned and outmanned, continue to battle Russia’s full-scale invasion two and a half years into the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.

And as Zelensky continues to press the U.S. and other Western allies for permission to use their long-range missile for strikes into Russian territory.

“We have seen this pattern time and again — delays in the allocation of funding, delays in deployment, and delays in deliveries,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and former advisor to Zelensky’s administration, told the Kyiv Independent.

“The sense of urgency is often lost in the Western capitals, but this directly translates into lives lost and an unsafer world. Simply irresponsible," Mylovanov said.

The Biden administration and some European leaders have in the past years expressed fears that arming Ukraine too much — in essence, giving it enough weapons to win the war —  could provoke Russia to escalate and potentially use nuclear weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and others in his regime have made such threats. Repeating them recently, they said that the West would be at war with Russia if it allowed its long-range missiles to be used by Ukraine for strikes deep inside Russia.

Ukraine, which most recently seized a patch of Russian territory with the Kursk incursion, claims such threats are empty.

“Putin's threats do not work. Ukraine’s allies should not fall for them,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a Sept. 15 post on X, where he outlined how Russia has during the war repeatedly threatened escalation if Western allies armed Ukraine.

“Putin uses threats to weaken support for Ukraine. Instead, allies should boost it. Lift restrictions. Bolster Ukraine’s long-range strength, air shield, and economic and energy resilience. Fear and inaction only lead to deaths and crises. To restore peace, we need bravery, not fear,” Sybiha added.

Some influential members of both Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. Congress have called for the Biden administration to lift restrictions on using Western missiles on Russian territory and to further boost long-term military assistance to Ukraine.

They also wish to swiftly resolve the $6 billion aid issue.

“It is highly disappointing that nearly $6 billion of the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) remains untouched as we near the end of the fiscal year,” Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, told the Kyiv Independent.

“The administration must utilize all remaining PDA to provide Ukraine with the capabilities it needs to win this war — just as Congress intended when it provided this authority in the national security supplemental earlier this year,” McCaul added.

Democratic Congressman Jim Costa told the Kyiv Independent, "We are set to work this out," adding that there might be some friction on the new appropriations package, but the issue is a priority.

When asked about the matter by the Kyiv Independent, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor said he was assured by a senior Pentagon official “not to worry” — that the funds would not expire.

“Six billion dollars is serious money… And there are two people in the U.S. government (who know the details of this question) that I talk to all the time… One of them is Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary for defense for arming Ukraine,” Taylor said during an informal press briefing in Kyiv.

Cooper “knows the details of this $6 billion… and she said, ‘Bill, don’t worry.’ And for her to tell me that, I take it,” Taylor said without providing any further details.

‘Dangerous’ delays as rogue states weaponry flows into Russia

But Mylovanov said the pattern of delays and restrictions on the use of weaponry provided "is very dangerous and in fact irresponsible.”

“It was so difficult getting the ($61 billion) supplemental passed. And now there is this bureaucratic (and political?) process that jeopardizes $6 billion,” Mylovanov quipped.

He pointed to uninterrupted missile and other weaponry supplies to Russia from rogue states Iran and North Korea.

"Iran and North Korea don't appear to be constrained by delays, permissions, and bureaucracy when sending weapons to Russia. Nor are they constraining Russia in how it can use their weapons,” Mylovanov said.

The Pentagon is seeking an extension from Congress of PDA authorities beyond the end of the fiscal year, a spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent.

“The Department will continue to provide drawdown packages in the near future," the Pentagon’s statement said.

Publicly, the Pentagon gave similarly nebulous assurances.

“I have no doubt that we are going to use everything we can that's available to us to make sure that we are continuing to provide Ukraine what it needs both in the short term and the long term,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said during a press briefing on Sept. 5.

“We're in this fight with Ukraine for the long haul… So you're going to see us make use of those funds in any way possible.”

Despite Ukraine’s plea to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons to defend its cities, Singh said that it would have “very little strategic value”, since the U.S.-provided ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) couldn’t reach most of the Russian airfields located beyond its 300-kilometers range, according to Pentagon’s intelligence.

Meanwhile, President Zelensky said in his speech on Sept. 13 that without the ability to strike inside Russia, ATACAMS in Ukraine are “pointless.” He added that he discussed the matter with the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy who visited Kyiv recently.

“I hope that after our conversation, there simply cannot be any unanswered questions about why Ukraine needs sufficient long-range capability,” Zelensky said.

[militantinremission]

The Freedman's Bank Forum: The Art of Disenfranchisement

Kamala Harris has hit the Campaign Trail & named Gov. Tim Walz as her Running Mate, but she has yet to give a Press Conference or Mainstream Media Interview. She STILL hasn't offered any Policy Initiatives on her Campaign Website. This has lead some in The New Black Media to look at her Policy Offerings as VP. Sabrina Salvati of Sabby Sabs & Phil Scott of The Afrikan Diaspora Channel both looked at Kamala Harris' 2023 Speech at the Freedman's Bank Forum- for ideas of what a 'Harris- Walz Administration' may look like. In her Speech, Kamala gave a history of The Freedman's Bureau 'Freedman's Bank', Created in 1865. She spoke on why a Specific Bank for the Formerly Enslaved was necessary. She also talked about the Farms, Homes, & Businesses that Freedmen were able to purchase & build through Loans from Freedmen's Bank.

Unfortunately, 9Yrs after its inception, Freedman's Bank was Closed; due to mismanagement, & outright theft of Funds by Congressmen overseeing Bank Operations. Over 61,000 Depositors lost their Funds- estimated at over $3M (over $50M in today's Economy). Kamala sounded like she understood the plight of American Descendants Of Chattel Slavery & Our specific need for resources, but she shifted her narrative fairly quickly. She started by shifting a Black Specific Issue, to an 'All Lives Matter' Issue. Kamala transformed the necessity of a Freedman's Bank to jumpstart Reconstruction, into a need for EVERYONE to have access to (Freedmen) Resources. She starts by mentioning 'Minorities' & 'Marginalized Communities', but goes on to include Latinx, Native American, Asian, & Rural Communities in the Freedman's Bank Story.

Kamala went on to describe one of her Final Acts as a U.S. Senator. This was an Initiative that she helped to set up w/ the help of [Secretary of The Treasury] Janet Yellen, [Senators] Mark Warner, Chuck Schumer, & Corey Booker, plus Rep. Maxine Waters. The Initiative, was a plan to invest $12B in Community Institutions for 'Overlooked & Underserved Communities'... My 1st question is: How many of THOSE INSTITUTIONS are Owned & Operated by Indigenous Black Americans? I only know of ONE in My Community, & David Rockefeller has been invested in them for nearly 30Yrs... Harris says that currently, $8B has been disbursed to 162 'Community Lenders' Nationwide, & gave examples of how the Funds are being disbursed:

Native American Bank lent a Tribe $10M to fund an Opioid Addiction Treatment Facility on Tribal Lands in N. Dakota

Carver Bank, in Ga. loaned $500K to 'Black Owned Companies' to help them develop Low Income Housing

Hope Credit Union, in Ms. gave a $10K Loan to a 'Black & Woman Owned' Coffee Business to expand

Aid to Immigrant Communities, including some Asian Communities

Aid to 'Rural Communities'

Maybe it's just Me, but I find it curious how the Freedman's Bank Legacy is being 'repackaged'. Under Kamala Harris, a SPECIFIC INSTITUTION meant for American Descendants Of Chattel Slavery, is being usurped to advance EVERYONE; except the Blackfolk it was designed to help. The numbers don't lie. Native American Tribes get Billions a Year in 'Set Asides' & they don't pay Taxes, but Kamala thinks they should also collect $10M meant for Black American interests? Then she brags about Black Businesses that only received 5% of what Native Americans collected from a measure that was supposed to be for Blackfolk. Apparently, Kamala wasn't lying when she said that she wasn't going to do ANYTHING that would only benefit Black Americans.

Like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris talks to Black Audiences about Equity, but only offers Black Americans a small share of what Everyone Else gets. In 2022, The Biden-Harris Administration & Janet Yellen launched the Economic Opportunity Coalition, along w/ 20 Private Sector Leaders. The Goal was to provide & invest Billions in Capital to Community Lenders for 'Minority Owned Businesses'. To date, this Coalition has currently committed over $1.2B to Community Lenders in 'Minority & World Communities'. From what I saw, Puerto Rico & Guam represented 9 of the 13 Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs) awarded Funding. Of the 218 Organizations receiving Technical Awards, 56 were 'MDIs' & 38 were Organizations based in Puerto Rico. True to Form, the Biden- Harris Administration blurs the lines on what a 'Black Owned' Business is; Indigenous Blackfolk, Afro Caribbeans, & Afrikan Immigrants have been lumped into the 'Afrikan American' demographic. Is this Coalition keeping track of how many Freedmen (Male & Female) are receiving Awards?

Kamala's Speech at the 'Freedmen's Bank Forum' completely ignored the Descendants of the Freedmen Community, & Our History of adversity. Despite her disregard of Us, she says this Initiative was created to 'Realize the Vision of Freedmen's Bank'. I see This as a blatant Disenfranchisement of the Black Community that Freedmen's Bank was Chartered to serve. On top of her disingenuous empathy for Black Americans, She has the audacity to call this act of Economic Racism- 'Economic Justice'; & she does it w/ a straight face. I thank Sabrina Salvati & Phil Scott for uncovering this particular Policy Measure. Kamala Harris' lack of Policy on her Campaign Website tells Me that she doesn't want Us to know her Plan for the next 4Yrs. She has been called a Leftist & 'the most Progressive Senator in Congress', but her Policies are as Moderate as Joe Biden's.

I fully understand that the Economic Opportunity Coalition (EOC) isn't Freedmen's Bank. If it was presented as a Measure that stood on its own merit, I probably wouldn't have much to say about it. If we're being honest, it falls in line w/ many other Policies of the Biden-Harris Administration. The Fact that Kamala Harris used the Freedmen's Bank Forum to push this Measure, is mean spirited & an insult to Our Ancestors. There's a Legion of Blackfolk & Afrikan Americans trying to certify Kamala's 'Blackness', but she has yet to affirm their claim. She had a chance to refute Donald Trump's assertion, but only offered more rhetoric. The Truth is, SHE'S NOT BLACK! Kamala's Record shows that she spent her Professional Career disenfranchising Us. As District Attorney, she targeted Blackfolk for Arrest on petty Quality of Life Crimes. As Attorney General & as a U.S. Senator, Kamala supported decriminalization of Illegal Border Crossings & the surge of Illegal Immigrants into Black Communities throughout California.

The Black Population in San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, & Berkeley has dropped by 50% on her Watch. Kamala vacated over 1,000 Criminal Charges against OneWest Bank, George Soros, & Steve Mnuchin- for 'Foreclosure Violations' that cost Hundreds of Black Californians their Homes. Her action allowed Soros to sell OneWest for Billions, while Mnuchin moved on to become Secretary of The Treasury. At the Same Time, she kept Black Inmates imprisoned past their Release Date & denied others Parole; citing the need to maintain a Prison Labor Force (i.e. Convict Leasing). Black Women are siding w/ her, but Harris abandoned the Mitrice Richardson Case after winning her Senate Seat. Kamala also had a hand in stripping the Estate of Nina Simone away from her Surviving Family & awarding All Rights to Sony Music Entertainment. We're supposed to certify this Woman as 'Black', but she has a Legacy of Anti-Black (Aryan) behavior. Her latest act of disenfranchisement is actually Par for The Course.

Some question why Kamala Harris is getting so much heat from Black America. The Short Answer is- She rides on the Coattail of The Black Experience, but does NOTHING for Us Culturally, Socially, or Politically. What's her Black Agenda again? At This Point, We really can't blame her for being consistent. We need to look at the Blackfolk & Afrikan Americans trying to shame us into Falling in Line w/ her Agenda; whatever THAT is... We have House Cleaning to do.

[follow-up-news]

More than $200 billion may have been stolen from two large COVID-19 relief initiatives, according to new estimates from a federal watchdog investigating federally funded programs that helped small businesses survive the worst public health crisis in more than a hundred years. The numbers issued Tuesday by the U.S. Small Business Administration inspector general are much greater than the office’s previous projections and underscore how vulnerable the Paycheck Protection and COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs were to fraudsters, particularly during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. The inspector general’s report said “at least 17 percent of all COVID-EIDL and PPP funds were disbursed to potentially fraudulent actors.” The fraud estimate for the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan program is more than $136 billion, which represents 33 percent of the total money spent on that program, according to the report. The Paycheck Protection fraud estimate is $64 billion, the inspector general said.

[mynewshq]

Gov Makinde counters President Tinubu, says states didn’t receive N570bn

Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has denied a statement by President Bola Tinubu that the federal government gave N570 billion to all the States in the country. Makinde said this while addressing Nigerians in a broadcast during the #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests against hunger and hardship. President Bola Tinubu had said his administration had disbursed ₦570bn to the 36 states, Makinde in a newsletter shared on his X handle on Thursday, said the state was not in the know of such a grant. such a grant.How 'pregnant' passenger stole my car, made me unconscious - 43-yr-old man narrates experience0:01 / 1:07He said, “ “I responded to a question from a concerned citizen of Oyo State regarding the claim that the Federal Government ‘gave’ States over N570 billion as some kind of ‘hardship fund’ for citizens.“ Let me state categorically that this is yet another case of misrepresentation of facts. The said funds were part of the World Bank-assisted NG-CARES project—a Programme for Results intervention. “The World Bank facilitated an intervention to help States in Nigeria with COVID-19 Recovery. CARES means COVID-19 Action Recovery Economic Stimulus.“It was called the Programme for Results because States had to use their money in advance to implement the programme. “After the World Bank verified the amount spent by the State, it reimbursed the States through the platform provided at the Federal level. The Federal Government did not give any State money; they were simply the conduit through which the reimbursements were made to States for money already spent. “It is important to note that the World Bank fund is a loan to States, not a grant. So, States will need to repay this loan. Note also that NG-CARES, which we christened Oyo-CARES in our State, predates the present federal administration.” He further explained that the loan came in two tranches to states, saying Oyo State got ₦5.98 billion in the first tranche and ₦822 million in the second tranche. “So, in direct response to the message, the Federal Government did not give Oyo State any money. We were reimbursed funds (₦5.98 billion in the first instance and ₦822 million in the second instance). We invested in the three result areas of NG-CARES, which includes inputs distribution to smallholder farmers within our State. In fact, when the World Bank saw our model for the distribution of inputs preceded by biometric capturing of beneficiary farmers, they adopted it as the NG-CARES model,” governor Makinde added. Read the full article

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Image of Coit Tower painting of striking workers, taken while I was in San Francisco.]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 8, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 9, 2023

You all are in trouble, because I am home tonight from ten weeks on the road and am taking the night for myself, writing about one of the Very Cool Things I learned in my travels. I expect there will be more stories along these lines in the next several weeks.

Ninety years ago today, on Friday, December 8, 1933, in the first year of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration, the Advisory Committee to the Treasury on Fine Arts met for four hours in Washington, D.C., with museum directors from all over the country and leaders from the art world. For the past nine months, the administration had been building a “New Deal” for the American people, using the government to help ordinary Americans in the midst of the Great Depression. 

Together with the Democrats in Congress, the administration had launched the Civilian Conservation Corps that put young men to work planting trees, fighting fires, and maintaining wilderness trails. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration provided work and cash relief for unemployed workers; the Agricultural Adjustment Administration boosted farm prices by reducing agricultural surpluses, while the Farm Credit Act made it easier for farmers to borrow. The Civil Works Administration put more than 4 million unemployed Americans to work building 44,000 miles of new roads, 1,000 miles of new water mains, and building or improving 4,000 schools.

Now it was time to help artists. Inspired by the 1920s public art movement in Mexico in which young artists were paid to decorate public buildings, FDR’s former classmate George Biddle suggested to the president that artists could be hired to “paint murals depicting the social ideals of the new administration and contemporary life on the walls of public buildings.” 

This idea dovetailed with the goal of the administration to tap into the skills of ordinary Americans in rebuilding the country by making sure people had work. After all, FERA administrator Harry L. Hopkins said, artists needed “to eat just like other people.” He promised $1,039,000 to be disbursed by the Treasury “for the purpose of alleviating the distress of the American artists” while decorating public property with world-class art. 

At the Washington, D.C., meeting, the attendees discussed how to “carry…forward the world of encouraging the fine arts as a function of the Federal Government.” Their first speaker was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who “expressed her sympathy with the idea of the Government’s employing artists,” and all the other speakers followed suit. The following Monday, the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) opened its doors, and artists lined up outside government offices to apply. By Saturday, December 16, artists were receiving checks. When the project ended four months later, 3,749 artists had been on the payroll, producing more than 15,000 paintings, sculptures, and public murals. 

The pilot project for the PWAP was Coit Tower in San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill neighborhood, located in the city’s Pioneer Park. The 210-foot Art Deco tower of unpainted concrete had been completed and dedicated in honor of volunteer firefighters on October 8, 1933 (perhaps not coincidentally, the date of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871). When the building was finished, it had 3,691 square feet of blank concrete wall space. 

By January 1934, thanks to the PWAP, twenty-six San Francisco artists and nineteen of their assistants were transforming that blank space into frescoes and murals depicting California life. Several of the artists had worked in Mexico with muralist Diego Rivera as part of the socially conscious mural movement of 1920s Mexico and adopted his techniques, creating frescoes in which the colors became part of the wall as they dried. To keep the colors at Coit Tower uniform, one artist-assistant ground the color pigments for all the different frescoes. 

But while they admired Rivera’s art, the New Deal artists, for the most part, focused not on revolution, as he did, but on the possibilities of the country’s new approach to government. Roosevelt was backing artists, and they backed him, painting not about revolution but about restoring healthy social and economic conditions in the United States. 

By the time the PWAP got under way, the exciting artistic experiments of the early twentieth century that had brought Picasso’s cubism, for example, had begun to seem foreign and alienating, and artists had begun to turn toward representational art in a national style. The government’s requirement that the public art be about the “American scene” in American style for American people built on that shift. Artists in the PWAP painted either as “Regionalists,” who painted rural America, or “Social Realists,” who painted the cities. The Regionalists tended to celebrate the nation, while Social Realists—most of whom came from New York City—tended to critique it, but both groups found intelligence, power, and beauty in the ordinary people and the ordinary scenes they painted. 

Coit Tower showed San Francisco’s people: striking workers, farmers, cowboys, travelers reading newspapers, news stenographers, chauffeurs, a rich man being held up at gunpoint, car accidents. People of color and women were underrepresented but not entirely ignored in this celebration of the possibilities of American life under the administration's new policies (one mural had an oil can in a corner to illustrate the government oiling the machinery of the economy for the mechanics in the next panel).  

The murals in Coit Tower, and the PWAP that supported them, were such a roaring success that the federal government would shortly launch four more projects to fund artists (including writers), most famously under the Works Progress Administration that operated from 1935 to 1942. Although to a modern eye, many of the fine artists’ depictions of Indigenous Americans and racial and gender minorities are eye-poppingly racist, these colorful presentations of the lives and histories of ordinary Americans that decorated libraries, schools, courthouses, bathhouses, and post offices, honoring community and hard work—and, in the edgier paintings, jabbing at stockbrokers, bankers, and industrialists—celebrated a hopeful, new, progressive America. 

For many Americans, who had never had access to fine art and were astonished to see fine art in local buildings, the medium was its own message: they realized their neighbors had talent they had never imagined. 

President Joe Biden has deliberately echoed FDR’s policies of the New Deal in his economic program, promising to build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, even as Republicans have insisted the only way to build the economy is to concentrate wealth on the “supply side” by cutting taxes. Today, there was more evidence that Biden’s policies are paying off for ordinary Americans. The November jobs report showed the economy added almost 200,000 more jobs in November, making the total since Biden took office more than 14 million, while the unemployment rate has stayed below 4% for 22 months in a row and wage growth is strong.

As Harvard professor Jason Furman notes, the U.S. is now 2 million jobs and 2 million employed above the pre-pandemic projections of the Congressional Budget Office. Dan Shafer of The Recombobulation Area observed, “If these numbers were happening during a Republican presidency, the usual business community folks would be celebrating in the streets. But when there’s a D next to the president’s name, it’s tumbleweeds.” Today, on the Fox News Channel, personality Maria Bartiromo noted that “the economy is a lot stronger than anyone understands.” 

The president also echoed the New Deal’s promotion of internal improvements today when he announced an investment of $8.2 billion in new funding for ten major passenger rail projects across the country to deliver the nation’s first high-speed rail projects. High-speed rail between California and Nevada, serving more than 11 million people annually; Los Angeles and San Francisco; and the Eastern Corridor, will create tens of thousands of union jobs, build communities, and promote climate-friendly transportation options. 

In a speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, announcing the rail plan, Biden called out his predecessor, who “always talked about infrastructure week. Four years of infrastructure week, but it failed. He failed,” Biden said. “On my watch, instead of having infrastructure week, America is having infrastructure decade.” 

“Trump just talks the talk. We walk the walk,” he said. “Look. He likes to say America is a failing nation. Frankly, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I see shovels in the ground, cranes in the sky, people hard at work rebuilding America together.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[iguessitsjustme]

Deep Night Ep 7 Thoughts

Just gonna blow on through these last two episodes. I don’t have anything fun to say right now. My boss texted me saying he hopes I feel better tomorrow because [redacted] is buying us Chipotle for lunch. So there’s that. Anyway. On to Deep Night 7: Let’s Send This Cop Calling Bitch to Heaven:

I’m gonna be real honest. I haven’t posted my episode 6 thoughts yet. They’re so sparse I thought I’d just finish out the show and post all of my thoughts for the last three episodes at once.

This bitch is back? Girl in your sob story be sure to mention that you blackmailed a host into getting blackout drunk and also that you were reimbursed for your phone. Literally all you lost was your blackmail footage. I hope all of your straps on your strappy heels break. I hope all of your hems fray. I hope all of your mascara runs. You seem like the kind of person that would care about all of that. *y’all catch me in the bathroom holding her shampoo bottle and a suspicious looking liquid* don’t look at me I SWEAR it’s not permanent. Her hair will only be purple for like a day. I swear.

Oh no poor Wela. This bitch just outed him. There’s a reason she was told to stop filming. Also you wanted to stay with him all night? Girl he almost needed his stomach pumped. He would barely last five more minutes with you let alone the whole damn night. I think I’m actually gonna kill her what the fuck. I hope they all get their sweet, sweet revenge because I need to see it. I need to see it.

Not the lost scholarship! Listen. Listen here. I do not trust any scholarship that does not include the ability to work as one of the terms for disbursement. He’s getting paid to study? Great! How about his living expenses? He needs to eat. Does the scholarship help pay off debts? No because I’m betting there are strict rules surrounding what it can be disbursed for and I’m guessing all of them have to do with the pursuit of education in some way. Not paying off debts. (oh look this is kind of what I do for a living myself I have a lot of thoughts about scholarships okay)

Mr. DJ Man is named James! It has been almost the whole show but I finally learned his name.

Awwww Dai. I love you.

It actually hurt Seiji to tell Ken that Pan is his boyfriend. I think there is a solution here. It’s very simple. Trust me on this. Just trust me. Date…both of them. Two boyfriends! Everyone is happy! Including me! Yay poly! *serious and stern voice while I stare directly into your soul* give. me. poly. 

This is such a good moment. Such a small hope. Even when everything feels lost. Even when everything is crashing down. Even when it feels like your life is over in every conceivable way just one person saying “we can do it.”

Just one person still believing there is hope in the world. Just one person having faith is enough. They do not win as long as just one person believes they can do it. Just one person holding on to hope so fiercely can bring so many people up. “We can do it. You can do it. You are not alone.” Anyway I love Khem. Remember in the first episode when I was like “ehhh I don’t know about this guy and now I’m like Khem’s third biggest fan (right after Wela and his mom of course).

Okay *cracks knuckles* I will be watching how the school administration handles this very closely. I have a bunch of colleges on the shit list in my head. I don’t mind adding a fictional one. Why is the teacher the one in charge of this? Why is he talking about one student’s scholarship to another student? I know I know it’s fiction and I know the why but this is driving me crazy. Do you know how many times I have told people recently “I cannot discuss a student’s personal financial information with a third party” because it has been numerous times. And that’s less information than what Khem is getting! And I know they’re boyfriends and I know the point they’re making and I know all of that. It’s just…like I said. I do this for a living. My eye is twitching. If anyone familiar with the inner workings of Thai scholarships wants to tell me how realistic this is, I would appreciate it. I only got my US American perspective and it is causing me so much stress right now.

So Ken is in his sad, kicked puppy era. It makes me like him more? He just needed to soften up a bit and stop being such an ass. And honestly he did stop when he saw that Pan also genuinely cared for Seiji and he apologized for being an ass. Now the three of them kiss?

Khem suggesting poly. My man. I love him. I can’t believe there was ever a time I didn’t love him….wait it’s because he didn’t take the free cookies. I still can’t believe he would do that. But I guess he really just likes durian fries and red soda.

HAHAHSHFS;HIDG;ISHDGH WHY DID KHEM HAVE THAT PORN SO READY TO GO ON HIS PHONE AAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

Pan is so funny. Like he just realized that couples have sex lives last episode when seeing Khem and Wela going at it in the pool and now he’s having a fantasy threesome with Seiji and Ken and I love this man. I would like to order a full series of Pan. I don’t even care what it’s about. Just more of him.

Freya, I love you. But love has no age. Also lesbianism has no age. Be out and be proud girl! Imagine how happy everyone will be for you! Including Meiji (look at me learning a name. Aren’t y’all proud of me?)

I think it’s actually really important that Pan started considering poly on his own, outside of Seiji and Ken. Because if either of them introduce it to him then he will start to feel insecure about his role in the relationship. But if he feels like there’s something there before either of them have the chance to mention it, then he will see what they have has real and not as a way for the two of them to get together while he is also involved but on the sidelines. I am probably not explaining this well but I still think it’s important that Pan is thinking about this on his own.

Ope looks like it’s time for me to watch episode 8. I like the hopeful note that episode 7 ended on. Not a lot of penultimate episodes end on a hopeful note. Most of them go full drama. I like this this show is weaving the drama with hope and wholesomeness. This is how relationships should work. I am very excited and sad to almost be done with this show.

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up March 30-April 2, 2023

Under the cut:

A well-known Russian military blogger was killed in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday, officials said, in what appeared to be an audacious attack on a high-profile pro-Kremlin figure.

Six civilians were killed and eight wounded in Russian shelling of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine on Sunday morning, a senior Ukrainian official said.

Russian shelling killed at least two civilians in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region over the last 24 hours, the head of the region's military administration said in a Telegram post Saturday. The two people, including a 5-month-old baby, died in the town of Avdiivka as a result of Russian shelling overnight and into the morning, according to the regional leader, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

The International Monetary Fund board has approved a new 48-month extended arrangement of about $15.6 billion for Ukraine, the fund said in a statement Friday. The loan is part of a support package for Ukraine that totals $115 billion and allows for the immediate disbursement of around $2.7 billion.

A well-known Russian military blogger was killed in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday, officials said, in what appeared to be an audacious attack on a high-profile pro-Kremlin figure.

Vladlen Tatarsky died when a blast tore through the cafe where he was appearing as a guest of a pro-war group called Cyber Front Z. Authorities said they were treating the case as suspected murder.

Twenty-five other people were injured in the blast, 19 of whom were hospitalized, the city’s governor said. The Russian Ministry of Health said six people were in critical condition. Investigators were questioning everyone who was inside the cafe, state media reported. Photos of the scene showed extensive damage to the building in which the cafe was located.

Russia’s Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg said it had opened a murder investigation. Investigators and forensic specialists were on scene, the agency said, and that it was working to establish the circumstances surrounding the explosion. Russia’s Interior Ministry also confirmed Tatarsky was killed in the blast.

St. Petersburg’s prosecutor Viktor Melnik traveled to the scene to coordinate the actions of emergency services and law enforcement agencies, TASS reported.

Russian media reports suggested that Tatarsky may have been killed by a device hidden in a figurine presented to him by a woman before the blast. Russian state news media, citing law enforcement agencies and eyewitness accounts, said the woman was attending the event at which Tatarsky was speaking.

Ria Novosti quoted one witness as saying: “This woman sat at our table. I saw her from the back as she was turned away. When she gifted him the figurine, she went to sit in a different place by the window and forgot her phone at our table.”

The witness added: “The host at the stage took the figurine from the box and showcased it, Vladlen held it for a bit. They put it back and shortly after the explosion happened… I was running and my ears were blocked. There were many people with blood on them.”

The independent Telegram channel Astra Press quoted a witness as saying: “Everyone rushed to the exit when explosion happened. I myself saw the girl only until the moment of the explosion, when she gave a gift. She looked like an ordinary person.”

CNN is not able to independently verify the claims.

The blast occured during an event hosted by the “Cyber Front Z” movement, a pro-war Telegram society. “Dear friends and colleagues,” the group said in a post Sunday. “During our regular event in a cafe we rented, there was a terrorist attack. We took certain security measures, but, unfortunately, they were not enough. Our condolences to the families and friends of the victims.”

“Separate condolences to everyone who knew the wonderful war correspondent and our good friend Vladlen Tatarsky. Now we are cooperating with law enforcement agencies and we hope that all those responsible will be punished,” the post said.

-via CNN

~

Six civilians were killed and eight wounded in Russian shelling of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine on Sunday morning, a senior Ukrainian official said.

Kostiantynivka, home to about 70,000 people before the war, is just 20 km (12.5 miles) west of Bakhmut, the epicentre of fighting for at least eight months as Russian forces try to capture the city.

"Russians have carried out massive shelling of the town of Kostiantynivka," Andriy Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He said 16 apartment buildings, eight private houses, a kindergarten and an administrative building were damaged.

Yermak added photos showing the partial destruction of buildings and craters from explosions.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the photos or the number of casualties.

-via Reuters

~

Russian shelling killed at least two civilians in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region over the last 24 hours, the head of the region's military administration said in a Telegram post Saturday.

The two people, including a 5-month-old baby, died in the town of Avdiivka as a result of Russian shelling overnight and into the morning, according to the regional leader, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

One civilian was wounded in the town of Druzhkivka, Kyrylenko said. The shelling damaged two apartment buildings, a school and a bank.

The towns of Vuhledar and Novoukrainka also came under enemy fire, Kyrylenko said.

Some background: Avdiivka has come under almost non-stop fire, with up to 14 rockets hitting the town daily, according to Ukrainian officials.

"Someone dies every day," Donetsk region police, who are helping with evacuations, said Tuesday.

"The town is being wiped off the face of the earth," Vitalii Barabash, the head of the Avdiivka military administration, said late last month.

-via CNN

~

The International Monetary Fund board has approved a new 48-month extended arrangement of about $15.6 billion for Ukraine, the fund said in a statement Friday. The loan is part of a support package for Ukraine that totals $115 billion and allows for the immediate disbursement of around $2.7 billion.

"The overarching goals of the authorities’ program are to sustain economic and financial stability at a time of exceptionally high uncertainty, restore debt sustainability on a forward-looking basis in both a baseline and downside scenario, and promote reforms that support Ukraine’s recovery on the path toward EU accession in the post-war period," according to the statement. “The program, together with financing assurances from the G7, EU and other donors, is designed to solve Ukraine’s balance of payment problem and restore medium term external viability.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the IMF, including Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, for approving the loan to Kyiv.

“Together we support the [Ukrainian] economy. And we are moving forward to victory,” he said in a tweet.

IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath complimented Ukrainian authorities for their work managing the country’s finances despite the "devastating economic and social impact" of Russia's full-scale invasion.

“Activity contracted sharply last year, a large swathe of the country’s capital stock has been destroyed, and poverty is on the rise,” Gopinath said. “The authorities have nevertheless managed to maintain overall macroeconomic and financial stability, thanks to skillful policymaking and substantial external support.” Gopinath admitted the risks of the program were “exceptionally high,” but she said Ukraine’s track record was a mitigating factor.

“The authorities’ track record of undertaking ambitious policies when warranted, their readiness to undertake contingency measures, and the frequent reviews in the first phase of the program are risk mitigating factors,” she said. “The program has been appropriately designed to resolve Ukraine’s balance of payments problem and restore medium-term external viability in both a baseline and downside scenario.”

-via CNN

[thoughtlessarse]

Ten years ago, on April 25, 2014, state and local officials assembled at the water plant in Flint, Michigan to celebrate as Mayor Dayne Walling pushed the button that switched the city’s water source from treated Lake Huron water to the caustic and untreated water of the Flint River. The fact that the river water being pumped into the homes of 100,000 residents wasn’t properly treated was known only to an elite inner circle of officials. But shortly after the switch, the residents of Flint began protesting against the move. It was common knowledge that the river was rife with industrial waste. The bad taste, disturbing odor and abnormal color of residents’ tap water were the first indicators that something was wrong. Scientific studies proved, more than a year later, that Flint had dangerously high levels of lead in its water. One indicator was the fact that the number of children with alarmingly high levels of lead in their blood had doubled. The official response was to conceal and flat-out lie. The protests were answered with the claim that all health protocols were being followed and the water was safe to drink. It was a full 18 months before the city reverted back to its original water source. [...] No accountability, no justice The question, “How could this have happened?” remains to a significant extent unanswered to this day. The decisions leading to the catastrophic degradation of the city’s drinking water were the outcome of a conspiracy of officials, many of whom are known—most prominently then-Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, and then-state Treasurer Andy Dillon, a Democrat—and many who have yet to be identified. There is no mystery here, as no serious investigation of the lead poisoning of the largely working class city has been conducted, and none of the perpetrators has been prosecuted. Investigations launched at both the state and federal levels were cover-ups. In 2016, the Republican attorney general of Michigan, Bill Schuette, proclaimed that “the families of Flint will not be forgotten.” He continued, “We will provide the justice they deserve. And in Michigan, the system is not rigged.” Then, during the 2018-2019 transition to a Democratic state government, the attorney general’s office offered seven key defendants plea bargain deals that made them legally untouchable and prevented pursuit of the chain of command because of double jeopardy protections. The mantra of the incoming Democratic prosecution team was “justice delayed is not always justice denied.” Repeating ad nauseum that the Democratic administration of Governor Gretchen Whitmer would follow the evidence wherever it led, in November, 2023 it ignominiously announced the ending of all efforts to prosecute the officials who aided and abetted the poisoning of Flint’s water. A derisory settlement of $626 million for the people of Flint was awarded by a US district court in November 2021, after months of deliberations. To this day, not a single dollar has been disbursed to residents, while some $64 million has already been paid to various legal firms out of their approximately $200 million legal bill. Meanwhile, many impacted residents have died or left the state, having received nothing.

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[transcendaccounting]

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[mariacallous]

In the increasingly insular sphere of U.S. domestic politics, few analysts seem to be aware that it has been quite some time since the United States has done much to improve its reputation in the world.

To the contrary, European countries, whose esteem seems to matter most to Americans, have looked on with disquiet and alarm at the growing divisiveness and dysfunction in U.S. society and especially at the decay of the country’s political system since the 2016 election of Donald Trump, who on Thursday became the first former U.S. president to be convicted on criminal charges.

But it is in the wider world—particularly in the regions that get lumped together as the so-called global south or developing world—that Washington’s image has taken the biggest hit. This is why it’s particularly ironic that Trump, along with the politicians and media infrastructure that support him, have responded to the verdict and past court rulings with accusations that the United States has become a “Third World” country. In their upside-down logic, the fact that a man of such wealth, power, and privilege has to respond to criminal charges and face a jury of his peers is a sign of the country’s irremediable decline.

For that reason, it is worth trying to imagine how the ongoing spectacle of the United States in the era of Trump might appear to the global majority: the inhabitants of the non-rich world who live for the most part in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

To be clear, as large as Trump looms in U.S. politics, the country’s image problems are not a matter of Trump alone. Under the Biden administration, much of the world has watched aghast as the United States has assisted Israel in an offensive in Gaza that some highly reputable Jewish intellectuals think has crossed the threshold into genocide.

Supplying financial backing and weaponry to Israel throughout this crisis may not even be the most important form of U.S. support as Palestinians have edged into famine and Gaza’s women and children have been killed in horrendous numbers. Washington’s political support for Israel may be even more significant, as it has effectively blocked any United Nations action on this crisis with teeth and written off statements and gestures by the U.N. General Assembly, individual member states, and coalitions of countries that have criticized Israel or lodged legal complaints against it as unhelpful.

The corrosive effects of Washington’s approach to the Gaza crisis may have peaked in the last week or so, when the Biden administration denounced a decision by the top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek arrest warrants for three Hamas and two Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The United States, long the world’s loudest proponent of the rule of law, essentially declared the ICC to be irrelevant in this matter. Worse still, as members of Congress clamored for action against the ICC, Secretary of State Antony Blinken hinted that the administration might support sanctions against the court. This idea was soon quietly abandoned, but in terms of the United States’ reputation, the damage was already done.

What the global south likely took away from this was that the emperor has no clothes: Washington lectures others with scant inhibition about the preciousness of a so-called rules-based order but is ever more conspicuously unwilling to live by this order itself.

The United States has suffered additional reputational damage this century as China has become the global leader in lending and investment worldwide. Over the past 22 years, China has disbursed $1.34 trillion in international development finance, surpassing both the United States and the World Bank, which Washington traditionally leads. By 2021, China outpaced the United States in this kind of lending by $20 billion, according to AidData, a research lab at William & Mary. China has its own global image problems, which are linked in part to its hardening authoritarianism under President Xi Jinping, but data like this suggests the United States has largely relinquished the role its once enjoyed as a force for global development.

The greatest harm to Washington’s image, however, has accompanied Trump’s arrival on the national political scene. In 2015, Trump began his first campaign using utterly racist rhetoric about immigrants from nonwhite countries whom he blamed then and now for destroying the United States. Part of this involves his habitual use of slur and slander—claiming that Mexicans are rapists, for instance—but another aspect of his attack on immigrants is, if anything, even more disturbing. Trump’s language has frequently flirted with the idea that the United States is a white people’s country, that white people principally built it, and that changing the nation’s racial composition threatens at once white privilege and the future of a country built on that principle.

Trump doubled down on this anti-immigrant speech when he walked out of a Manhattan courtroom looking shocked over his conviction on Thursday and again at a press conference full of unhinged and unsupported claims on Friday, where he said that “millions and millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world, not just South America—from Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East—and they’re coming in from jails and prisons, and they’re coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums.”

As I write this column, I am putting the finishing touches on a book about how African countries won their independence from European rule in the 1950s and ’60s. One of the most striking features of that era was how hard the United States and the Soviet Union competed with each other to shine in the eyes of the many new countries that were coming into creation. Americans have forgotten how intense this struggle was. A triumphalist distortion of how the country understands this part of its past, which dates at least to the late Cold War, imagines that Washington was always incomparably superior and bound to triumph in its rivalry with Moscow. In fact, up until the late 1960s, the most widely used U.S. economics textbook of its time—Economics by Paul A. Samuelson—projected that the Soviet Union would surpass U.S. production per head well before 2000.

Under the pressure of the Cold War, competition with the Soviet Union took many forms, not all of them involving weapons systems or economic performance. Washington felt impelled to address social injustices such as long-standing racial inequality and formal segregation, lest Moscow make hay from them too easily in the so-called Third World. In a different sphere of competition, U.S. ambitions to send rockets into space were only partially about trying to match and eventually outdo the Soviets in this specialized arena of technological prowess; they were also a way to tout the relative virtues of the U.S. system.

It is in this context that I often think about Washington’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it might be perceived in the routinely denigrated Third World. To be sure, the United States was a leader in the production of breakthrough vaccine technologies, but the shabbiness and disarray of its health care system contributed to death on a staggering scale. In Canada, right next door, the death rate per capita from COVID-19 was roughly one-third of that in the wealthier United States. Trump, of course, led the country in the crucial first year of the pandemic, during which time he alternately downplayed its threat, blamed others for its spread, derided scientists, promoted fake treatments such as ivermectin and the injection of bleach, and was slow in mounting a global distribution of vaccines.

Importantly, in encouraging an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump engaged in the very kind of activity that pro-democracy discourse in the United States has long lectured against in the so-called Third World. Accepting defeat at the polls and the peaceful alternation of power are hallmark principles of democratic life, but Trump and his most fanatic supporters have become some of the most flagrant and persistent objectors to this bedrock notion in the world today.

There are many countries in the Caribbean and Africa that are immeasurably poorer than the United States in dry statistical terms but that handle elections much more democratically than Trump and his backers. Ghana, for example, has experienced multiple nail-biter elections, including those in which incumbent parties have lost power, with nary an insurrection or any other major unrest. After this week’s elections in South Africa, the long-ruling African National Congress looks set to lose its parliamentary majority with hardly a whimper.

Trump, by contrast, denounces every charge against him as a hoax and an injustice. Since the verdict, he has complained unconvincingly that the court system in New York was rigged against him, even as his lawyers were notably unable to persuade even the juror who listed Trump’s own Truth Social platform as his leading source of news to vote against a single one of the 34 charges against him. Meanwhile, Trump clamors for changes to the country’s laws that would make it virtually impossible to charge him with any crime past or future. This reflects a desire for power almost beyond checks—a unified Reich, one might say, to employ an ominous phrase that Trump recently used in a social media post.

The Third World has never deserved the sort of blanket calumny that Trump and his most avid apologists cast toward it. But if the United States is hurtling toward the kind of dictatorship and lawlessness they lazily ascribe to less developed parts of the world, they hold most of the blame.

[keystonetaxsolutions]

Tax bank products for tax preparers

Maximizing Tax Season Efficiency: Power Of Bank Products For Tax Professionals

Bank products for tax professionals are a game-changer when it comes to enhancing efficiency during the tax season. These innovative financial tools offer a range of benefits that can significantly streamline the tax preparation process.

In this blog post, we'll delve into the advantages of using bank products as a tax professional, exploring how they can revolutionize your workflow and benefit both you and your clients.

Streamlined Refund Disbursement

One of the most significant advantages of utilizing bank products is the streamlined refund disbursement process they offer. With traditional tax return methods, clients often had to wait for paper checks to arrive in the mail, causing delays and frustration.

Tax bank products for tax preparers allow setting up direct deposit options for their clients, ensuring that refunds are delivered swiftly and securely. This not only minimizes the wait time for clients but also reduces the administrative burden on tax professionals.

Reduced Upfront Costs for Clients

Bank products can also have a positive impact on your client's financial experience. Traditional tax preparation methods sometimes require clients to pay their tax preparation fees upfront, which could be a significant financial burden, especially for those with tight budgets. Bank products offer an alternative by allowing clients to have their tax preparation fees deducted from their refund.

It can make your services more accessible to a broader range of clients, increasing your client base and ultimately boosting your revenue.

Enhanced Accuracy and Compliance

Accuracy is paramount in tax preparation, as even a minor error can lead to serious consequences for both tax professionals and their clients. Bank products often include advanced software that helps minimize errors and ensures compliance with tax regulations. These tools can flag potential mistakes, such as mismatched Social Security numbers or missing forms, helping you catch and rectify issues before submitting the return. This not only saves time but also builds trust with your clients, who will appreciate your attention to detail.

Efficient Tracking and Reporting

Managing a high volume of tax returns can be challenging, especially without the right tools. Bank products often come with integrated tracking and reporting features that allow tax professionals to monitor the status of their clients' returns in real time. It eliminates the need for time-consuming follow-up calls and emails, as both you and your clients can access up-to-date information regarding refunds and payments at any time. This level of transparency enhances the client experience and streamlines your workflow.

Faster Turnaround Time

The traditional tax return process often involved waiting for various parties to process checks, leading to longer turnaround times. Bank products expedite this process by enabling electronic filing and direct deposit of refunds. As a result, you can provide your clients with a faster turnaround time, which is especially valuable during the peak tax season when everyone is eager to receive their refunds promptly.

Building Stronger Client Relationships

When you use Refund Advantage tax bank products, you are not only optimizing your operational efficiency but also laying the foundation for stronger and more enduring client relationships. These bank products offer a unique opportunity to enhance your client interactions and demonstrate your commitment to their financial well-being.

In conclusion:

Bank products for tax professionals offer a variety of benefits that can significantly improve efficiency and client satisfaction during the tax season.

At Keystone Tax Solutions, we understand that every tax professional's needs are unique. That's why we offer a range of bank product options, like refund advantage, Refund, EPS, Santa Barbara Tax Bank Products as our partners.

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[longwindedbore]

To Curry Favor with Trump’s Base

The GOP failed to challenge Trump’s lies and corruption for over a year of campaigning. Nor for four long years of his Administration

To curry favor with his base.

Supported the demagogue still after he tried to have their leadership lynched in a riot.

To curry favor with his base.

Refused to vote for impeachment while he held power after January 6th as he desperately looked for any excuse to declare martial law.

Because impeaching him wouldn’t curry favor with his base.

Supported him for these last two years after he stole US nuclear secrets and kept them in an unsecured building frequented by *guests* from a dozen countries.

Because failing to be silent would not curry favor with his base.

Well, that base as elected a group of Trumpanzee wannabes who are sh*tting figuratively in Congress the way Trump’s base did in actuality two years ago.

Who’s fault is that?

Not to worry. At some point in a few weeks when the Corporations need Congress to act they will payoff seven or eight GOP Representatives to declare themselves ‘Independents’ and vote with the Dems to elect a Speaker.

The Indies won’t get re-elected; they’ll become lobbyists for the corporations and make the big bucks.

Similar to what happened in 2017 when the Koch family -publicly - told then Speaker Paul Ryan that he and his Congressional GOP majority weren’t getting another penny of *donations*the Rich got their $2trillion tax cut.

The Rich got their tax cut. Paul Ryan got $500K in his unaudited *Leadership Fund*. But retired before disbursing any funds and became a lobbyist.

In unrelated news the National Debt increased by $2 trillion.

USA! USA! USA! 🎶Land of the Scam and Home of the Fleeced 🎶

[parttimereporter]

Every new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, so without a speaker to oversee adoption of those rules, none will technically exist.

Without an approved House Rules package by the end of business on January 13, committees also won’t be able to pay staff, according to a letter sent last week by the committee in charge of administrative matters, which was first reported by Politico and obtained by CNN.

The same memo warned that student loan payments for committee staff wouldn’t be disbursed if a rules package isn’t adopted by mid-January.

However, per precedents of the chamber, the pay period for members-elect still starts on January 3, even if the first session of Congress begins after that date, as long as their credentials have been filed with the House clerk.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Bolsonaro Signals More Social Spending Ahead of Brazil Runoff

President Jair Bolsonaro is turning to promises of more social spending in a bid to improve his standing amid low-income Brazilians ahead of a Oct. 30 runoff against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, who had a stronger performance than most pollsters anticipated in the first round of voting, announced his government will pay an extra 600 real ($116.58) stipend for women benefiting from his social program in 2023 if he is elected for another four-year term. That extra spending would cost public coffers at least 6 billion reais a year, according to estimates from the economic team. 

His administration also front-loaded disbursements of gas vouchers and monthly cash payments, which are usually paid out at the end of the month, to early October. It included 500,000 families in Bolsonaro’s flagship Auxilio Brasil program, and added another 200,000 in the gas voucher program. 

Continue reading.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 6, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

The Supreme Court was in the news this morning, as Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica explained that for more than twenty years Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has enjoyed the hospitality and funding of Dallas real estate magnate and major Republican donor Harlan Crow. Thomas and his wife Ginni, who was closely involved in challenging the 2020 presidential election, have taken trips in private jets and gone on vacations with Crow worth as much as $500,000.

Thomas did not disclose any of these valuable gifts. Indeed, in a documentary funded in part by Crow, Thomas presented himself as a regular guy. “I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it,” he said. “I come from regular stock, and I prefer that—I prefer being around that.”

After the story dropped, David G. Savage of the Los Angeles Times recalled that his newspaper had disclosed the close connections between Thomas and Crow in 2004, noting, for example, that Crow had given Thomas a $19,000 Bible that had belonged to the famous formerly enslaved abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass and a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln. After their story appeared, it seems that Thomas did not stop accepting expensive gifts and travel from the wealthy mogul, but instead stopped disclosing them.

In Crow’s company, Thomas rubbed elbows with his host’s other guests, including senior business executives, major Republican donors, and leaders of right-wing think tanks. Crow has worked hard to move the judiciary and the legal system to the right, and at one of the properties where Thomas vacations, there is a painting of him in conversation with a number of figures, including Leonard Leo, the leader of the Federalist Society who has orchestrated the court’s hard-right turn. Leo is now overseeing Marble Freedom Trust, established to disburse funds from a $1.6 billion bequest to manipulate elections in favor of Republicans.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted: “Important for news media to not simply label this guy as a ‘[Republican] mega donor’. It’s so much worse. Crow has many interests before the Supreme Court. His groups file petitions before the court. It’s the clearest, most brazen violation of judicial ethics you can imagine.”

In Congress today, House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) issued a subpoena in its investigation of the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office after that office indicted former president Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records on Tuesday. Bragg explained: “The trail of money & lies exposes a pattern that, the People allege, violates one of New York’s basic & fundamental business laws.”

Although Jordan himself refused to respond to a subpoena issued by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, he is demanding that Mark Pomerantz, a former county special assistant district attorney who investigated Trump’s finances, show up to testify.

Pomerantz resigned from his role in the investigation out of frustration that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg was not then moving forward with an indictment. The wording of Jordan’s letter indicates he is hoping to use Pomerantz’s words critical of Trump to argue that the district attorney’s office was biased against the former president.

General counsel for the Manhattan district attorney’s office Leslie Dubeck previously rejected the demands of Jordan, House Committee on House Administration chair Bryan Steil (R-WI), and  House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chair James Comer (R-KY) for testimony and documents from Bragg, warning them that their attacks on Bragg and his office were “unlawful political interference.”

Dubeck pointed out: “our Office is legally constrained in how it publicly discusses pending criminal proceedings,… as you well know.” She called their interference “unnecessary and unjustified” and reminded the men that Congress has no jurisdiction over individual criminal investigations. Nor does it have jurisdiction over state investigations. “The Committees’ attempted interference with an ongoing state criminal investigation—and now prosecution—is an unprecedented and illegitimate incursion on New York’s sovereign interests,” she wrote.

Now Jordan is trying a different approach. Bragg responded: “The House [Republicans continue] to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing New York criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation. Repeated efforts to weaken state and local law enforcement actions are an abuse of power and will not deter us from our duty to uphold the law.”

In the Tennessee statehouse this afternoon, Republican legislators led by House of Representatives speaker Cameron Sexton voted to expel Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two young Black lawmakers who had led young protesters in chants from the floor of the house chamber in favor of gun safety legislation after house Republicans refused to allow debate on such a measure.

The Republicans charged that the three representatives had broken house rules and had engaged in “disorderly behavior” and “knowingly and intentionally” brought “dishonor to the House of Representatives.” The body avoided expelling Gloria Johnson, the white woman who chanted with Jones and Pearson, by one vote. Although the debate showed that a Republican had also broken house rules by recording a video that was then misleadingly edited and shown, that representative was not charged.

The three Democratic representatives joined protesters to call for gun safety legislation after six people, including three 9-year-olds, were killed in yet another school shooting. The Republicans have focused on cultural issues and have opposed taking up gun safety legislation. Indeed, they have worked to loosen gun laws; on the same day as the recent school shooting, a federal judge cleared the way for the Tennessee legislature to lower the age for permitless carry in the state from 21 to 18. Republican governor Bill Lee signed the permitless carry bill for 21 and up in 2021 at a Beretta gun manufacturing plant.

Today, young protesters in the statehouse defended the Tennessee Three, as they have become known, saying: “You ban books, you ban drag—kids are still in body bags!” After the votes to expel, the chants changed to “F*ck you, fascists!”

Republicans in the Tennessee legislature could act as they did because they have a supermajority thanks to their redistricting of the state after the 2020 census. In that redistricting they cracked Democratic-leaning Nashville, dividing it among three districts in which they overwhelmed Democratic voters with Republicans from the suburbs. A new state law has now required Nashville to cut its city council in half. Meanwhile, laws prohibiting people with a past felony conviction from voting cut more than 470,000 people from the voter rolls.

This lock on power has given Tennessee Republicans the ability to do as they please. Today it pleased them to expel two young Black legislators who were trying to force the Republicans to do something about the epidemic of gun violence that is killing their constituents.

The Supreme Court, Congress, and the Tennessee statehouse. What would you say if you saw today’s news coming from another country?

Before he left the chamber, Representative Justin Pearson told his suddenly former colleagues how he saw it.

“You are seeking to expel District 86’s representation from this house, in a country that was built on a protest. IN A COUNTRY THAT WAS BUILT ON A PROTEST. You who celebrate July 4, 1776, pop fireworks and eat hotdogs. You say to protest is wrong because you spoke out of turn, because you spoke up for people who are marginalized. You spoke up for children who won’t ever be able to speak again; you spoke up for parents who don’t want to live in fear; you spoke up for Larry Thorn, who was murdered by gun violence; you spoke up for people that we don’t want to care about. In a country built on people who speak out of turn, who spoke out of turn, who fought out of turn to build a nation.

“I come from a long line of people who have resisted.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON