Yesterday, I got boosted – yippee! There was virtually no snow on the ground. but there was a lot of ice on the glass, and between the windows steaming up and my glasses steaming up, it was terrible. If they decide on another booster, or if they come up with a universal vaccine, I surely hope it is in the summer.
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Crooks and Liars – Colleyville’s Synagogue Hostage Crisis And White Supremacy
Quote – The fact that millions of Jews watch in horror, generational trauma triggered, the oldest bigotry still raging, as four innocent Jews are held captive by someone we recognize we’ll need to protect once it is over — even while it is going on — is a mind-f*ck of epic proportions. Click through. Every person in the United States needs to read this.
Huff Post Fringe – How Hatred Of Women Is Fueling The Far-Right
Quote – McLeod’s case is an example of the ties between misogyny and easy access to guns that Everytown for Gun Safety highlights in a new report this week, which was shared with HuffPost ahead of its publication. The group documents at least six high-profile misogyny-driven mass shootings in the U.S. since 2014, and the ways that guns and hatred of women have served as a unifying tie for many far-right groups online. Click through for more. We, at least we on the left, have figured out that pointing out that racism exists is not itself racist. But we don’t seem to have figured out that pointing out that misgyny exists is not itself misogynistic. Well, we need to. Because misgyny is even more prevalent than racism, has a much larger persentage of the marginalized who buy into it themselves, and will destroy the country if we try to elect a woman President before the nation is ready, even if she walks on water.
Medium – Restoring the Senate to Protect the Freedom to Vote {Op-Ed)
Quote – If the Senate cannot even begin to debate and vote on something as foundational as voting rights, we must reform Senate rules and restore the chamber to its rightful place as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”
Protecting the freedom to vote should not be a partisan issue. In 2006, for example, the Senate voted 98–0 to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. The Help America Vote Act passed 98–2 in the wake of the chaos of the 2000 election. One of its primary proponents was Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Click through for full letter. Nine former Senators have signed it, including Doug Jones (who sent it to me) and Mark Udall (IMO the best Senator Colorado has ever had – at least since I have lived here.)
Glenn Kirschner – Is Garland’s DOJ Investigating Trump and Company? Here Are Some Clues From Garland’s Past Work
Meidas Touch – How PLAYBOY saved Reporter Brian Karem’s Life on Jan 6!! |
politicsrus – Its Your Moment
MSNBC – Rep. Raskin: Jan. 6 Public Phase Will Hopefully Be Like Watergate Hearings (I didn’t realize how deeply good trouble ran in his family. That explains a lot.)
Really Americn – Republicans STEALING Americans Right To Vote
Rocky Mountain Mike – Pee All That You Can Pee
Beau – Let’s talk about Tucker, the lost and found, and the way it is….
Yesterday, I spent some time figuring out what to wear today. In this case, it’s not a matter of appearance. I’m getting my booster today, and I need to come up with clothing which will keep me warm enough in below freezing temperatiures (a high of 30 is predicted) yet still nake it easy to accesss my deltoid without indecency, while at the same time, protecting me as much as possible from airborne droplets. That is not something which is immediately obvious – or at least not to me. So thought is required.
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Letters from an American (Heather Cox Richardson) – Januaty 17, 2022
Quote – In this moment of struggle over voting rights in America, it is important to distinguish between voter fraud, which is vanishingly rare and has not affected the outcome of elections, and election fraud, which is coming to characterize a number of our important elections.
Voter fraud is about an individual breaking the law and is almost always caught. It is not a threat to democracy.
Election fraud means that people in power have rigged the system so that the will of the voters is overturned. When it happens, it threatens to destroy our nation. Click through for full letter. She puts some things together. (I would point out that by no means of them are proven to the point of being ready to go to court.) But she is no dummy. Her newletter is free to subscribe.
The 19th – Black women in Martin Luther King Jr.’s neighborhood will soon receive monthly cash payments
Quote – That work that In Her Hands will do in the coming two years will build on that established by other programs like Magnolia Mother’s Trust, the first privately-run guaranteed income program in the country. Launched in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2018, it gave 20 Black mothers $1,000 a month for a year, growing to cover 110 in its 2020-2021 year and another 100 in the most recent cohort, which will wrap up this March. All were living 200 percent below the federal poverty line and in subsidized housing. Most are working. Click through for details and information on the successes of previous programs. Republicans are committed to the idea that people won’t work unless they are reduced to bare subsistence level, and that then they will work for pennies. That may seem intuitive, but these programs demonstrate it isn’t reality.
Crooks and Liars – Crockett And Lake Are Poster Children For GOP Harassment And Extremism
Quote – (in a tweet from Patriot Takes) Kari Lake supporter Ethan Schmidt: “I just love harassing people, especially cancer patients because they’re weak and vulnerable and easy targets.” Kari Lake is running for Arizona Governor and appeared in one of Ethan’s videos. Lake refuses to denounce Ethan Schmidt. Click through for story. C&L republished this from “No More Mr. Nice Blog,” which I have provisionally added to the Blogroll. He does have other things to say. And he certainly has a point in this column.
Yesterday was pretty quiet, as can be expected of a holiday, I suppose.We look to be expecting snow on Wednesday and a little more Friday – I”ll expect it when I see it.
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Daily Kos (Kerry Eleveld) – Democrats’ Case Against GOP Extremism Gains Momentum
Quote – But the White House has made an overt shift from the behind the scenes inside game it worked for a solid year to a very public campaign against the saboteurs of our democracy. “I’ve been having these quiet conversations with the members of Congress for the last two months,” Biden said. “I’m tired of being quiet!” he added, pounding the lectern. Click through for story. I have said since before the election that Biden would come to this point. Yes, he’s a consensus builder. But he’s not stupid. He may have resisted, but he can see that sometimes you have to fight for the right, and this is one of those times.
Raw Story – ‘Smoking guns all around’: Conservative connects dots showing Trump ‘election fraud on a massive scale’
Quote – In his weekend wrap-up, conservative Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes makes the case that there is more than enough proof that Donald Trump and his inner circle made a provable attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election through fraud. Jumping right into it, Sykes pointed to a CNN report that stated, “…then-President Donald Trump’s allies sent fake certificates to the National Archives declaring that Trump won seven states that he actually lost,” which have also been labeled forgeries. Click through for more from the thread, which became a conversation. No new information here – the news is in who is saying it. But don’t expect the Qrazies to pay attention.
Common Dreams – Progressives Counter Cherry-Picked Quotes With MLK’s True Legacy
Quote – As the FBI, right-wing political figures, and others came under fire Monday for engaging in the annual trend of dishonoring Martin Luther King Jr. by sanitizing his beliefs, progressives in Congress worked to honor his legacy of fighting for a more just society…. {Per Ayanna Pres;ey. “T]he truth is Dr. King was a radical dreamer with a bold vision for revolutionary change. A disruptive movement builder seeking to upend an unjust status quo.” Click through. Anyone seeking real change must be radical about it – I don’t mean extremist – radical means “pretsining to the root.” Change which does not begin in and grow from the root may spring up quickly, but then will wither away, like the plants in the parable.
Yesterday, I worked on getting my meds together, which I should have done Saturday. But that’s why I keep extras around. So yesterday worked. I also did a little knottong. Broke a needle (which is one reason I like to own multiples of essentially the exact same needle.) In this case, I didn’t have a duplicate.so, after picking up dropped stitches as best I could, I decided my best bet was to finish with one size smaller, since I was in a decreasinf pattern, so I did – finished that project – ordered two new ones to replace the broken one. I have a second similar project, but I think I’ll wait until the broken one is replaced to finish it, since there’s no ruch. I checked the DOC website, which now says in-person visitation is now suspended until Fenruary 1. So I set a pop-up reminder to check again the end of the month. And, I found an animal rescue near me (specializing in cats) that I believe is the right place for me to do the #BettyWhiteChallenge today.
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AP News – US names intelligence official to counter election threats
Quote – The appointment comes amid stalled efforts to create a new intelligence center preventing foreign interference in American democracy. While experts and intelligence officials say the proposed Foreign Malign Influence Center is needed, a proposal to create the center is stalled amid disagreements over the center’s size and budget. Click through for story. I woud not want that job, but I’m uncommonly glad that someone is doing it.
The Hill – Who has the guts to resist authoritarian rule?
Quote – I asked the group a key question — why did they stay rather than trying to flee their country for the West? Their response was inspiring. They said that they always believed that the communist system would eventually fail and their country would be free though it took many years to happen. But stay they did. Most of us in the West thought these countries were gone to authoritarian communism forever. Click through. The Hill classifies this as an opinion piece, but I’d call it a history piece – written by some one who helped make that history.
Daily Kos (David Neiwert) – While FBI offers up flimsy reasons for being unprepared on Jan. 6, its record tells the real story
Quote – Jason Paladino at Grid recently examined all of the FBI’s rationales for its failure to adequately prepare for the siege against Congress, and concluded correctly that all of them fail the sniff test. The only reasonable conclusion—particularly as the evidence is assembled for public viewing—is that federal law enforcement’s cozy relationship with these right-wing extremists blinded them to the reality of the nature of the beast they thought they could use as an ally. Click through for details. I hope and pray this becomes so widely known that Kevin McCarthy cones to rue the day he said, “The real question is why were they so unprepared.”
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
When you live with unfettered capitalism, pretty much anything that happens which involves money will also make inequality worse. And inflation is no exception.Without further ado, here are the facts and figures.
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Inflation inequality: Poorest Americans are hit hardest by soaring prices on necessities
But behind the headline number that’s been widely reported is something that often gets overlooked: Inflation affects different households in different ways – and sometimes hurts those with the least, the most.
Inflation, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is designed to track the price increases in a typical U.S. household’s basket of goods. The problem is spending bundles differ across households. For example, a family in the lowest 20% of income typically spends around 15% of their budget on groceries – this is nearly 60% more than households in the top 20% of the income distribution, according to my calculations.
The widening inflation gap
On Jan. 12, 2022, the BLS released figures showing that inflation jumped by 7% in December from a year earlier – the fastest pace since 1982. To see how this varied across households, I used the bureau’s own price data and factored in the typical spending habits of different income groups.
I calculate that inflation is running at 7.2% for the lowest income households – higher than for any other group. For the highest income families, the rate of change was 6.6%.
The difference between the two income groups steadily increased throughout 2021, starting the year at just 0.16 percentage point but ending at 0.6 percentage point – near the highest it has been since 2010.
The reason for this widening rich-poor inflation gap, known by economists as inflation inequality, comes down to the typical spending habits of people in each income group.
In times of economic uncertainty and recession, most households tend to hold back on buying luxury goods. But by and large, people can’t cut down on necessities such as groceries and heating – although wealthier consumers are better placed to stock up on these necessities when prices are cheap.
This shift of spending away from luxury items like vacations and new cars, and toward necessities, pushes inflation up for poorer families more than richer ones. This is because lower-income households dedicate a higher percentage of their income on necessities.
My data shows that this inflation gap tends to be widest in times of recession or in the early stages of economic recovery. In the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the gap in inflation rates between the lowest and highest income groups was close to 1 percentage point – higher than it is now.
By contrast, in times of economic growth – for example, from 2012 to 2018 – the gap narrows. It even inverted at one point in 2016; the inflation rate for poorer Americans was almost a half-percentage point lower than that of richer Americans.
The main driver of the growing gap in 2021 was the increases in groceries and gas prices. This has made inflation run hotter for all households. But given the greater proportion of household income that poorer families dedicate to food and energy costs, it has affected them more.
Take out gas and grocery prices, then the inflation gap is reduced significantly.
Going forward, I expect the inflation gap will follow a similar pattern as we saw after the Great Recession – as economic recovery turns into continued expansion, inflation will be lower for low-income households than high-income households.
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================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, the vast differences in spending habits is also why a universal sales tax makes no sense. The poor spend every penny they earn, while the wealthy put much of their income into savings. So a universal sales tax translates to those who can best afford to pay taxes paying very little, while those who can least afford it are paying more than they can afford. So of course those who would impose a universal sales tax claim it is more fair, because “everyone pays the same rate.” No. They don’t. End of rant.
