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Climate Change Causes Islands to Disappear

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Climate Change Causes Islands to Disappear

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Climate change causes islands to disappear | 60 Minutes Australia

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Introduction to Rousseau: The Social Contract

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Introduction to Rousseau: The Social Contract

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How do we live in a society? What sacrifices do we make to achieve what gains?

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Introduction to Rousseau: The Social Contract

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Liberals and Conservatives even vacation differently

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Liberals and Conservatives even vacation differently

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WASHINGTON - With July 4th in the rearview mirror, we are officially into the season of summer getaways and escapes, but as with so many things, it may be hard to avoid partisan divide that defines the nation's politics. Data from MRI-Simmons show how deeply the red/blue split runs through the culture, right down to how we vacation.

Start with that most basic measure: whether or not you can leave the country for your trip. The data show that people who self-identify as politically liberal are more likely to hold a valid passport than those who call themselves conservative, according to Simmons National Consumer Study, Winter 2019. (Courtesy of MRI-Simmons).

More than half of all liberals, 57 percent, say they have a valid passport, while slightly less than half of conservatives, 48 percent, say the same thing. That's a fairly noticeable 9-point gap and it fits with other findings in the survey.

For instance, liberals are more likely than conservatives to visit a foreign country when they vacation and more likely to travel by plane when they hit the road.

But beyond the question of who is able to leave the country on vacation, there are noteworthy red/blue differences in what we like to do when we're on a break.

Those of the liberal persuasion are more likely than conservatives to want to go to the beach to relax, by about 8 points. And they are more likely to favor fine dining, by about 9 points. Conservatives, meanwhile, show a somewhat smaller edge in their preference for fishing and playing golf.

To be clear there are probably a lot of factors driving these differences. Liberals in the survey are more likely to have college degrees and slightly more likely to have household incomes above $100,000. Those who identify as liberal also tend to be younger in the data. Those factors could definitely play a role in where and how we vacation.

But regardless of the underlying reasons, the data speak to the fundamental differences in the United States in 2019 between people who identify with either end of the political spectrum. In other words, those deep dissimilarities lay at the root of a lot of the tribalism that has come to define American politics and that has led to liberals and conservatives living in different realities.

To get a sense of how those differences play out, consider two well-known tourist destinations: Park County, Wyoming, the ski area on the eastern edge of Yellowstone Park, and Branson, Missouri, the family-friendly tourist hub in the Ozarks.

Park draws heavily from big cities, all of which voted Democratic in the 2016 presidential race and many of which are far enough away where air travel is the most likely means of transportation.

The list for Branson features smaller communities, many located close by and several of which voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.

That's not to say there aren't conservatives who visit Park or liberals that visit Branson. Clearly, there are. There is still some political cross-pollination in 2019 America when we take a break from our lives.

But the data show how the nation's political divides have woven themselves into the fabric of our lives, even in ways you probably don't consider. And, if nothing else, the numbers here might be an argument for breaking out of your usual routines this summer.

The nation's political tribalism is already baked deeply into where and how we live. The data also suggest that tribalism follows us out onto the road.

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Worlds apart: Liberals and Conservatives even vacation differently

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WASHINGTON - With July 4th in the rearview mirror, we are officially into the season of summer getaways and escapes, but as with so many things, it may be hard to avoid partisan divide that defines the nation's politics. Data from MRI-Simmons show how deeply the red/blue split runs through the culture, right down to how we vacation.

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Proposed Rule Could Evict 55,000 Children From Subsidized Housing

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Proposed Rule Could Evict 55,000 Children From Subsidized Housing

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Tens of thousands of poor children - all of them American citizens or legal residents - could lose their housing under a new rule proposed Friday by the Trump administration.

The rule is intended to prevent people who are in the country illegally from receiving federal housing aid, which the administration argues should go to help only legal residents or citizens.

But the proposal targets 25,000 families that now receive such aid because they are of "mixed" status, which means that at least one member of the family is undocumented while the others are citizens or legal residents. These families now pay higher rents to account for their mixed status.

Under the new rule, those families would lose all of their housing aid, such as vouchers and public housing.

An impact analysis by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which proposed the rule, acknowledges that the change could have a devastating impact. It says that 108,000 people would be affected. About 70% of them are citizens or legal residents and three-quarters of those - 55,000 - are children.

Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, called the proposal cruel. "The cruelty of it is really breathtaking and it would do real harm to kids and to families and for what?" Yentel notes that HUD's unusually frank analysis concludes that there would be few benefits from the change for other low-income families waiting for aid.

The analysis, prepared by career staff, says the agency assumes that some of the affected families would split up because the ineligible family member would be asked to leave so the rest of the family could still receive aid. But it says most of the families would likely move out of their subsidized homes.

"HUD expects that fear of the family being separated would lead to prompt evacuation by most mixed households, whether that fear is justified," says the agency.

It admits that not all families would leave freely. The agency estimates it would have to spend between 3 million and 4 million dollars on eviction costs, "for those households that required more rigorous enforcement of the regulation."

The proposed rule change is one of several the Trump administration has made that targets immigrants and restricts public assistance of all kinds. Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called the proposal "as mean-spirited and irrational as the Trump Administration's other anti-immigrant policy positions."

But HUD Secretary Ben Carson portrayed the proposed change as a way to help low-income Americans who are in need of housing assistance. "Our nation faces affordable housing challenges and hundreds of thousands of citizens are waiting for many years on waitlists to get housing assistance," he tweeted last month.

Housing advocates doubt that families now waiting for aid would benefit. And the HUD analysis seem to back that up. It notes that mixed families generally get lower subsidies and would likely be replaced with families who need higher subsidies. "The average income of a mixed household is $18,000," the analysis says, "and the average income of a nonmixed household is $14,000; the difference is $4,000. On average, the subsidy would increase by 30 percent of the decline in household income, or $1,200."

HUD estimates that this would cost the government as much as $227 million a year, money that Congress would need to appropriate, which the agency says is unlikely.

Instead, it predicts a reduction in housing assistance overall.

"Another, and perhaps the likeliest scenario, would be that HUD would have to reduce the quantity and quality of assisted housing in response to higher costs," says the agency. For public housing, that would likely "have an impact on the quality of service, e.g., maintenance of the units and possibly deterioration of the units that could lead to vacancy."

The agency says that in some cases, the proposed rule could lead to more homelessness. "Temporary homelessness could arise for a household, if they are unable to find alternative housing, for example in tight housing markets," says HUD. The cost of that homelessness is estimated to be from $20,000 to $50,000 a year, per individual.

The analysis raises the possibility of alternative rule changes that could ease the impact on poor families. One would be to grandfather all the current mixed families receiving aid and only apply the rule going forward. Another possibility would be to apply the rule only to households in which the leaseholder is undocumented. HUD says this "would likely limit the adverse impact of the transition on eligible children."

The administration is accepting public comment on the proposed rule until July 9.

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Proposed Rule Could Evict 55,000 Children From Subsidized Housing

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Tens of thousands of poor children - all of them American citizens or legal residents - could lose their housing under a new rule proposed Friday by the Trump administration. The rule is intended to prevent people who are in the country illegally from receiving federal housing aid, which the administration argues should go to help only legal residents or citizens.

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Deported U.S. Veterans Feel Abandoned By The Country They Defended

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Deported U.S. Veterans Feel Abandoned By The Country They Defended

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Miguel Pérez Jr. locked himself in a hotel room for an entire weekend in one of the most dangerous cities along the border between the United States and Mexico.

A Mexican native, Pérez, 41, grew up in Chicago. He enlisted in the military and served two tours in Afghanistan. When he returned home, he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

Those struggles led to a drug-related conviction that landed him in state prison for seven years. While there, he received treatment for his condition, both therapy and medication. But that conviction also triggered deportation proceedings. After a year in an immigrant detention center, Pérez was deported to Matamoros, Mexico.

In that hotel room, as he waited for his friend to pick him up and take him to Tijuana, Pérez began to feel the weight of his new reality.

Pérez held his documents and two days worth of medication close to him. He was alone and overcome with anxiety, as he tried to figure out a way to live in a country he'd left when he was a boy.

"That night, I don't really think I slept either. And ... it was a big room, and I spent all night in one corner fixing my paperwork, separating everything. And then you hear gunshots down the street right outside," Pérez said.

While veterans with service-related injuries have access to medical care, since his deportation Pérez has struggled to find mental health professionals and medication.

He suffered a traumatic brain injury from combat. He's battled depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts for years. But living alone and thousands of miles away from his family in Chicago, suicide has felt like a solution for Pérez. Last year, on two occasions, he attempted to take his own life.

"I think it was when I was just feeling really, really bad. And ... I just started shaking and sweating. And I couldn't really do anything," Pérez said. "That's when it first happened and I was just like ... maybe I'd be better off dead."

Pérez is among hundreds of veterans who have been deported in recent years. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report revealed that an estimated 92 veterans were deported from 2013 to 2018. But the numbers are far higher, according to groups of deported veterans.

The GAO report also found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement "did not consistently follow its policies involving veterans who were placed in removal proceedings."

Those policies include considering a veteran's military service during removal proceedings. But Nicole Alberico, an ICE spokeswoman, said Pérez's military service was taken into consideration when he was deported.

"Any action taken by ICE that may result in the removal of an individual with military service must be authorized by the senior leadership in the field office following an evaluation by local counsel," Alberico said in a written statement. "Still, applicable law requires ICE to mandatorily detain and process for removal individuals who have been convicted of aggravated felonies."

The U.S. Army declined to comment. A spokesperson said they don't comment on specific cases.

Once deported, these veterans have been forced to organize and to help each other. Many say they've been forced to live in exile without medical care for the injuries they sustained in war. They've been deported to countries that feel foreign to them. It's been decades since they've lived there, and some don't even know the language.

"The main way we've been able to cope is by covering for each other and looking out for each other. There's really nothing else we can do here," said Hector López, director of United Deported Veterans, which has 40 members.

They are also united by their shared sense of longing for the United States, the country they served.

"Regardless of where we're born, we all feel like this is not our home. This is not our country," said Joaquin "Jack" Aviles, co-director of Deported Veterans Support House in Tijuana. "Our ties are so strong. And our commitment to our country is stronger than where you were born. We don't belong to the country we were deported to." The support house, known by many deported veterans as "the bunker," has tracked at least 400 deported veterans since it opened in 2014, said Aviles.

In all, about 40 deported veterans live in Tijuana. Another 24 deported veterans started a support house in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, right across the bridge from El Paso, Texas. Another three deported veterans live in central Mexico. And veterans have also been deported to other parts of the world, including India, Costa Rica, the Philippines and Kenya.

WBEZ interviewed more than a dozen deported veterans currently living in Tijuana, Mexico; India; and Kenya. They shared similar stories. They came to the U.S. as children with their families and as legal permanent residents. As adults, they enrolled in the military with the promise of expedited citizenship, which never happened. After serving, they got in trouble with the law. It's a common story for veterans returning home from battle. However, unlike citizen veterans who run afoul of the law, legal permanent residents can be deported, if they're convicted of certain felonies.

They also have one thing in common: they want to return to the country they served or, at the very least, they want to receive access to medical care from the U.S. government.

Rudy Melson with Consultants For America's Veterans has connected dozens of deported veterans with benefits. Melson says deported veterans have few options for healthcare outside the U.S., and it's harming the most vulnerable.

"Many veterans are totally heavily depressed using substances to cope with their depression. Most may have not been given service connection for depression or PTSD or both. And so they are utilizing substances, drugs and what have you ... as a way to cope with service-related mental health issues," he said. "And as a result of that, we are looking at veterans becoming sicker, more likely to become suicidal because they are not receiving any care -- or the care that they're receiving is not care that has been acknowledged or vetted as care that they would receive in the United States."

These are some of their stories:

Felipe de Jesús Pérez is a quiet 36-year-old veteran of the Iraq war. He avoids eye contact when he speaks. He's been deported from California twice, once in 2014 following a domestic violence felony and again in 2018. De Jesús Pérez said he wasn't aggressive before he went to war. "I never got in trouble before," he said.

De Jesús Pérez said he couldn't understand why he was so different when he came back from war.

He feels betrayed by the country he loves, the country he defended, and the country that deported him despite his military service.

"I joined after 9/11 because of what I saw. I loved the country. I did. They didn't consider anything I did for the country. I got out of the Marines honorably, decorated, went to war and everything. Just to throw me out like that?" he asked.

De Jesús Pérez said he was diagnosed with PTSD and that he's self-medicating with marijuana. There are limited medical and mental health care options for deported veterans. And that makes him feel like the country he loves doesn't care about him.

"I'm a veteran. You're just going to kick us out? To me it's like, how dare you? I felt used. You're good enough to send you to war, but now you're all messed up, let's get rid of you," he said.

Edwin Salgado, 37, is also a veteran of the Iraq war and now lives in Ensenada, Mexico, about 60 miles south of Tijuana. Salgado was deported in 2016 from Orange County, California following a drug and weapons conviction. He was honorably discharged, but Salgado found "normal life" difficult. After his divorce, Salgado started using drugs. And since he was having a hard time finding work, he started selling them.

"I felt a little better when I was using," he said. "It mostly helped me not to think."

When Salgado was in the Marines, he tried to become a U.S. citizen. But he wasn't able to finish the process because he was deployed.

Salgado is trying to view his deportation in a positive way. He describes it as a fresh start.

"I'm not trying to go back," he said. "I would like access to medical treatment at the VA."

Jiji Kurian, 43, was deported to India in 2012. And while he's made a new life for himself there, he wants to return home to Kankakee, Illinois, where he grew up.

"I feel lost here," Kurian said. "I'm married, and I have kids. That's it. I have no friends. I have no social life. I can't talk to anyone. Everything that I had before I don't have. I can't get used to how they do things here."

Kurian moved to Illinois with his parents when he was nine years old. He joined the national guard after high school. After serving in the military for six years, he became addicted to cocaine.That's when he started getting arrested. After multiple felonies ranging from drug possession to distributing cocaine, Kurian was deported.

When he got to India, his father helped him get stable. Since he didn't speak the language well and didn't know anyone, his father suggested getting married.

"Here in India, they have arranged marriages. They do it really weird here. They put an ad in the newspaper. I didn't want to do that, but after a while I was like ok," Kurian said. "I went and met some girls that I could marry. Finally, I found one, and I got married."

Kurian said it took eight months to find his wife. He's started a new life, but he still doesn't make enough money in India. He relies on his parents, who live in Kankakee and are both in their 70s.

"I think the reason they haven't retired is because they have to help me," Kurian said.

Joaquin "Jack" Aviles, 43, was brought to California as a baby. He joined the Marines after high school. Aviles was ordered deported in 2001 following a firearm possession felony, but he didn't understand what that meant.

"I wasn't conscious of what it meant to be deported," Aviles said.

At 25, Aviles was deported to Mexico, a country he didn't know. He spent the rest of his 20s trying to get back home.

"I tried to cross, and I served a two-year federal prison sentence for attempting to enter," he said. "Since I hadn't lived [in Mexico], I didn't really speak the language. I attempted to re-enter [the U.S.] again because that's my home. That's my country. "

He was arrested and sentenced to another three years in federal prison for trying to enter the country illegally. By that point, he decided to stop trying to cross the border and to try and find a way to live in Mexico.

"The only thing I'm grateful for is that the Marines did teach me a lot, especially skills to survive," he said.

He used those skills to learn Spanish, find a wife and a job to support her and their children. He also started advocating for deported veterans living in the bunker.

Alex Murillo, 40,served in the Gulf War, code named Operation Shield and Operation Desert Storm. When he got back, it was hard to adjust to civilian life.

"It's a similar story for a lot of veterans. Whether it's alcoholism, or pills or whatever. It's a self-medication issue that a lot of veterans have. And I was one of those veterans," Murillo said. "The problems I had, mostly, were life problems. I wasn't able to get myself together after the military. I had a problem with alcohol abuse. Now, it's PTSD. But I didn't know about that stuff until I was diagnosed."

After serving three years in federal prison following a marijuana conviction, he was deported in 2012. Murillo said noncitizen veterans should be treated like other veterans.

"When a veteran gets in trouble and does his time, the veteran gets to go home to their family. We don't. Why don't we get to go home?" he said. "We're that same veteran that served. We're the same veteran that was willing to die and put everything on the line for flag and country."

When he was deported, Murillo was forced to leave his four children in Phoenix. His two girls were ages eight and four. His two boys were ages 12 and 10. His absence deeply impacted his sons. They both became addicted to opioids, Murillo said. Last year, his sons went missing. From his apartment just outside of Tijuana, Murillo looked for ways to search for his boys.

"It's hard to be a parent over the phone. I tried, but it's not the same as being there with them, helping them," he said. "They've suffered because of my absence. That weighs on me."

Murillo spent months looking for them. He finally found them, and they are now living with him in Mexico.

"My kids are going to grow up angry at the system that did this to them," he said. "I'm one of the few that joins the military. I have PTSD like so many other soldiers. I am a victim of the war on drugs because I was incarcerated for cannabis for three years. I am a victim of mass incarceration. And now my kids are addicted to fentanyl."

Hector López, 55,moved to California's Central Valley when he was a toddler. He joined the military in 1982. He was convicted of several marijuana charges. He was deported in 2006. He's fighting to go back to California with his family.

"I haven't seen my kids in 12 years. I have grandchildren I haven't met," López said.

His father and sister died after he was deported, López said. "I didn't get to say goodbye to them."

He says he's hopeful his marijuana convictions will be expunged now that marijuana is legal in California.

"I'm an American down to the core," López said. "Apple pie, baseball, football, basketball, you name it. I don't like flan, and I don't like soccer."

Mario Rangel, 56, served in the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division. He's been stuck living outside Tijuana since 2008. He is a naturalized citizen but can't prove it. Rangel said he became a citizen at a military base in South Carolina. He lost his naturalization documents and several attempts to recover his military file have failed, Rangel said.

His covert work in the military might be the reason why he hasn't been able to get proof he was naturalized, Rangel said.

"I didn't know what I was getting into. That's the whole Oliver North thing that happened and the Contra hearings. So I don't know if that has anything to do with my records," he said.

Rangel was only able to get his medical records. He said he was shot while serving in Colombia.

"Basically what we were doing ... we were getting areas that had cocaine that were manufacturing cocaine. And we would raid those. I didn't understand why we were packaging this shit. Why aren't we burning it?" Rangel said. "But I found out later about Oliver North and all that stuff. That they were selling arms for drugs."

José Velasco, 74, was deported a year ago. The Vietnam War veteran was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Velasco said the charges were dropped, but he was still deported.

Velasco tried fighting the deportation until he ran out of money paying for lawyers. He sold his limousine business and moved to Tijuana.

The deportation has left him feeling devastated and betrayed on many levels.

"Have you ever seen a 70-year-old cry? Well, I did," he said.
María Inés Zamudio is a reporter for WBEZ's Race, Class and Communities desk. Follow her .
Velasco said he was told by military personnel that he was a U.S. citizen. That was a lie. And he doesn't understand why he was deported since he was never convicted of a crime. He spent all of his savings to fight his deportation case, and he doesn't know what else to do. Still, he remains committed to getting back to the U.S.

"I will go back. Because that's my country. I'm more American than the average American. At least I served," he said. "I'm Mexican by birth. By heart, I'm an American citizen."

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Deported U.S. Veterans Feel Abandoned By The Country They Defended

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Miguel Pérez Jr. locked himself in a hotel room for an entire weekend in one of the most dangerous cities along the border between the United States and Mexico. A Mexican native, Pérez, 41, grew up in Chicago. He enlisted in the military and served two tours in Afghanistan.

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Africa Produces 75% of Cocoa But Gets 2% of $100b Chocolate Market Revenue | Ghana Business News

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Africa Produces 75% of Cocoa But Gets 2% of $100b Chocolate Market Revenue | Ghana Business News

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For centuries, the economies of African countries have been made dependent on advanced economies, and despite the enormous amount of natural resources in Africa, over 500 million citizens continue to live in poverty.

A case in point is the cocoa and chocolate industries. Even though Africa produces 75 per cent of all the cocoa in the world, the continent gets only 2 per cent of the $100 billion revenue from the chocolate industry.

It is not any different with the mining sector either.

Jean Noel Francois, the Acting Director, Department of Trade and Industry at the African Union (AU) Commission said at the second conference of African Ministers responsible for mineral resources and development December 12, 2011 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, that even though Africa's mineral resources are fuelling growth and development in many industrialised and emerging economies of the world, Africa still remains poor, under-developed and dependent on donor assistance for national budget support.

See Also

He further reiterated the fact that Africa consumes very little of its own mineral resources and exports most of it as raw materials, "with little or no local value addition and beneficiation."

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Africa Produces 75% of Cocoa But Gets 2% of $100b Chocolate Market Revenue | Ghana Business News

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For centuries, the economies of African countries have been made dependent on advanced economies, and despite the enormous amount of natural resources in Africa, over 500 million citizens continue to live in poverty. A case in point is the cocoa and chocolate industries. Even though Africa produces 75 per cent of all the cocoa in...

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Why Judging People for Buying Unhealthy Food Is Classist

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Why Judging People for Buying Unhealthy Food Is Classist

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As a nation, we're slowly realizing that whole, fresh foods are good for you and that cooking at home can save you money and provide you with better nutrition.

Overall, this is a great trend. It's becoming easier and more common to get fresh food, whole foods, local foods, and organic foods.

Unfortunately, though, this shift in culture has also begun to produce a toxic byproduct: better-than-thou attitudes and judgments about low-income people's decisions about food.
"Why do they waste their money on junk food?" "Why doesn't she cook for her children?" "Ugh, look, he's buying his toddler a Happy Meal."
Many of us have thought things like this or heard other people say things like this. We are very concerned with how poor people (or people we assume are poor) spend money on food.

The truth is, though, we rarely have all the facts when we judge these people. Let's change that.

Why Lower-Income People Don't Buy Fresh, Whole Food

Simply put, fast food is frequently more cost-effective for low-income people.

Elaine Livas, who runs Project SHARE, a food pantry in Carlisle, PA, says that "low-income families might know milk is better for their kids, but when it comes to filling a hungry stomach, a cheaper high-calorie option can look pretty good."

Furthermore, low-income people may not have storage for fresh food or appropriate or adequate facilities to prepare it.

Brooke McLay wrote about taking a homeless woman shopping and the food choices she made. The woman, Tori*, a mom of two young girls, explained "I'm in Crisis Housing, so no lock or key for our stuff. Everything we own is in the wagon; it has to go everywhere with us or it gets stolen."

Getting to grocery stores, even, can be a challenge. Many low-income workers have more than one job or work a job with hours that make getting to a grocery store when it's open impossible. Without a car, low-income families rely on buses, which may not serve the areas they live or may be unreliable.

Sometimes grocery shopping itself is simply indecipherable. People living in poverty may have not had access to nutrition or grocery shopping education.

If you lack food literacy, or general literacy, grocery shopping can seem like an insurmountable task. Especially if you need to make price comparisons or read the ingredients on packaged food, low literacy is a serious barrier.

We don't even make nutrition information easily accessible to educated people, let alone people who have been denied educational opportunities.

And low-income people know they're getting judged for their choices.

Tori clearly wants to make sure McLay knows about the obstacles she faces when buying food for her girls: "Here's the thing," she explained. "We can't have anything perishable in the shelter. So, the girls never get enough fruits or vegetables. We don't have a stove or a fridge. I don't want you to think I'm buying bad things. I just don't have a way to keep the good things. "

Why What We're Doing Isn't Helping

Even organizations designed to help frequently get it wrong. I worked for an anti-hunger organization whose pricing was so out of touch that I - while employed by them - was unable to afford to make their recipes regularly.

In fact, I decided to do a challenge where I ate only their recipes for a week. These recipes were marketed to low-income families as cost effective ways to eat healthier. A week's worth of groceries (for two people) for this challenge cost $150. My partner and I had previously been spending about $25 a week because that's what we could afford.

Furthermore, the recipes required a blender, freezer space, and so on - items that people without stable housing or who can't afford kitchen gadgets wouldn't be able to access.

It's very comforting to think we'll be able to solve America's nutrition crisis by building more grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods and educating low-income families on how to cook healthy, nutritious meals.

But the unfortunate truth is that more grocery stores and nutrition education (while helpful to some people) doesn't address the larger problem - which is that eating is expensive.

According to the Population Reference Bureau, the number of low-income families is increasing. The report defines low-income working families as "those earning less than twice the federal poverty line."

In 2011, the low-income threshold for a family of four with two children was $45,622. If you estimate rent at $1000/month, which is quite low for a family of four, that leaves about $33,000 for health care, transportation costs, clothing, and groceries for four people. That's $687.50 per person per month for every single expense except rent.

Let's do some more math.

Bartlett Pears are among the cheapest fruit nationally. The USDA lists them at $1.55 a pound at the time I'm writing this article. There are about three pears to a pound, so if you wanted to buy your two kids an pear for each day of the week, you would spend $7.23 just on an afternoon snack for your kids. And let's keep in mind that pears are relatively low-calorie, which means they aren't very filling.

Seven bucks doesn't seem like much to someone with a middle class salary, but when you're working with a weekly budget of under $700 per week for everything you need, including car repairs, gas money, winter clothing for constantly growing children, toilet paper, laundry detergent, electric bills... $7.23 starts to look pretty hefty for a snack that won't even satisfy.

"I look at this list and can't help but wonder how she's supposed to do it. If $11 of apples equals two snacks, but $3 in Ramen will feed her entire family for dinner, how can she possibly pick apples with her limited food stamp budget?"McClay wonders."And how will she ever afford to fill half of every mealtime plate with fruits and veggies, the amount recommended by the same government that issued her food stamps?"

It's a good question.

The US government heavily subsidizes some foods, such as corn and soybeans. The result is that processed foods that are heavy in these ingredients end up being cheaper than fresh produce, which is not as heavily subsidized, if it is at all.
There is a serious disconnect between what we should be eating to stay healthy, and what the economic reality is.
What We Can Do to Help

Anti-hunger organizations who offer cooking, shopping, and nutrition information are helping. Food pantries are helping, and community gardens are helping.

But none of these are permanent measures. They are all band-aids over a much deeper wound.

Food policy in this country heavily favors nutritionally lacking food. To really address the cause of widespread hunger and food-related diseases, we need better policy.

The Food Trust is on the right track. They're tackling hunger and lack of access to healthy food on a variety of fronts. They are advocating for the national Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a partnership between the US Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, and Health to encourage fresh food retail development across the country. They're educating policymakers on the SNAP-Ed program.

Best of all, they're convening a regional Farm Bill working group to advocate for the Greater Philadelphia region - a crucial step in fixing the broken agricultural system that rewards quantity and not quality.

PolicyLink (a national research and action institute dedicated to advancing economic and social equity) and The Reinvestment Fund (an institution that finances neighborhood revitalization projects) are also throwing their weight behind policy change.

If you want to help, read up on the farm bill. Support politicians who stand up to the powerful agricultural lobby to try to chip away at the monopoly unhealthy food hold on our market.

Donate to organizations like those mentioned above - not just organizations that feed people, but organizations who are trying to level the playing field. The goal is for food banks to be for emergencies, not a way of life.
*Name has been changed. Wiley Reading is a Contributing Writer at Everyday Feminism. Wiley is a New Jersey-born artist, writer, environmentalist, and social justice advocate located in Burlington, VT. He works as a community health worker for the Greater Burlington YMCA, and writes for Disrupting Dinner Parties, a small collective feminist blog. In his free time, Wiley draws bugs and old buildings, loves every show on the Food Network, makes creative (read: pulled from the recycling) toys for his bunnies, and tipsily reminds every person in every bar that New Jersey is the best state. Follow him on Twitter @wreadinggo.

Filed Under: Tagged With: Articles, Class Posts

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Why Judging People for Buying Unhealthy Food Is Classist

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US society is very concerned with how poor people (or people we assume are poor) spend money on food. The truth is, though, we rarely have all the facts when we judge people. This writer breaks down the classism behind these judgements and shows us how we can do better.

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3 million senior citizens in the US are still paying off their student loans

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3 million senior citizens in the US are still paying off their student loans

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3.5 Million Older Americans Have Over $125 Billion in Student Loans

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NCLC and New America Foundation Identify Policy Solutions to Reduce the Impact of Student Debt on Older Adults

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Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind

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Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind

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In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_FXq-I_t3WrH1t_UN_6SJbZE6kbwaZb-/view?usp=sharing

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Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind (Published 2019)

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In three decades of advocating for prison abolition, the activist and scholar has helped transform how people think about criminal justice.

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Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong

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Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong

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The MIT economist Peter Temin argues that economic inequality results in two distinct classes. And only one of them has any power.

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The MIT economist Peter Temin argues that economic inequality results in two distinct classes. And only one of them has any power.

A lot of factors have contributed to American inequality: slavery, economic policy, technological change, the power of lobbying, globalization, and so on. In their wake, what's left?

That's the question at the heart of a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin, an economist from MIT. Temin argues that, following decades of growing inequality, America is now left with what is more or less a two-class system: one small, predominantly white upper class that wields a disproportionate share of money, power, and political influence; and a much larger, minority-heavy (but still mostly white) lower class that is all too frequently subject to the first group's whims.

Temin identifies two types of workers in what he calls "the dual economy." The first are skilled, tech-savvy workers and managers with college degrees and high salaries who are concentrated heavily in fields such as finance, technology, and electronics-hence his labeling it the "FTE sector." They make up about 20 percent of the roughly 320 million people who live in America. The other group comprises the low-skilled workers, which he simply calls the "low-wage sector."

Temin then divides workers into groups that can trace their family line in the U.S. back to before 1970 (when productivity growth began to outpace wage growth) and groups that immigrated later, and notes that race plays a pretty big role in how both groups fare in the American economy. "In the group that has been here longer, white Americans dominate both the FTE sector and the low-wage sector, while African Americans are located almost entirely in the low-wage sector," he writes. "In the group of recent immigrants, Asians predominantly entered the FTE sector, while Latino immigrants joined African Americans in the low-wage sector."

After divvying up workers like this (and perhaps he does so with too broad of strokes), Temin explains why there are such stark divisions between them. He focuses on how the construction of class and race, and racial prejudice, have created a system that keeps members of the lower classes precisely where they are. He writes that the upper class of FTE workers, who make up just one-fifth of the population, has strategically pushed for policies-such as relatively low minimum wages and business-friendly deregulation-to bolster the economic success of some groups and not others, largely along racial lines. "The choices made in the United States include keeping the low-wage sector quiet by mass incarceration, housing segregation and disenfranchisement," Temin writes.

And how is one to move up from the lower group to the higher one? Education is key, Temin writes, but notes that this means plotting, starting in early childhood, a successful path to, and through, college. That's a 16-year (or longer) plan that, as Temin compellingly observes, can be easily upended. For minorities especially, this means contending with the racially fraught trends Temin identifies earlier in his book, such as mass incarceration and institutional disinvestment in students, for example. Many cities, which house a disproportionate percentage of the black (and increasingly, Latino) population, lack adequate funding for schools. And decrepit infrastructure and lackluster public transit can make it difficult for residents to get out of their communities to places with better educational or work opportunities. Temin argues that these impediments exist by design.

Despite the bleak portrait that he paints, he doesn't believe that the U.S. necessarily has to be like this. He offers five proposals that he says might help the country return to more equal footing. Some are fairly clear levers that many before him have recommending pulling: expanding access to and improving public education (particularly early education), repairing infrastructure, investing less in programs like prisons that oppress poor minorities, and increasing funding for those that can help build social capital and increase economic mobility. But other suggestions of his are more ambitious and involve fundamentally changing the cultural beliefs that have been reinforced over generations. Temin advocates doing away with the belief that private agencies can act in the interest of all citizens in the way that public entities can, and should. His final recommendation is to address systemic racism by reviving the spirit of the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s and 1970s, when civil-rights legislation helped to desegregate schools and give black Americans more political and economic power.

Temin notes that not all of these things need to be accomplished in order for America to reverse the increasingly divided path it's on. But at the moment, implementing even one of these recommendations would prove a tall order.

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spirit of the second reconstruction of the 1960s

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Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong

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The MIT economist Peter Temin argues that economic inequality results in two distinct classes. And only one of them has any power.

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Disabled people don’t need so many fancy new gadgets. We just need more ramps.

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Disabled people don’t need so many fancy new gadgets. We just need more ramps.

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Technology isn’t always the answer.

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This story is part of a group of stories called

First-person essays and interviews with unique perspectives on complicated issues.

It feels like every few months, the media becomes infatuated with a new piece of flashy technology peddled to solve a purported disability-related problem.

This is how we get things like "signing gloves" that purport to translate American Sign Language ( they do not), expensive portable GPS units for blind people, or high-concept decoder rings that allow blind people to read non-Braille texts. The most recent is a stair-climbing wheelchair, which actually isn't a new concept.

Typically, the technology is pitched as inspirational, showing us how the presumed tragedy of disability can be ameliorated with something invented by someone who is not disabled. Design students in particular are frequent offenders, like the students who needlessly reinvented the beach wheelchair (did you know that some state beaches have free/low-cost beach wheelchair rentals?) and the tech industry.

Nondisabled people excitedly circulate the new gadget, hailing it as a win for accessibility. Disabled people, meanwhile, roll their eyes at what disability advocate and design strategist Liz Jackson terms a " disability dongle": "A well intended elegant, yet useless solution to a problem we never knew we had." Rose Eveleth writes for the Outline that they're commonly little more than public relations exercises, designed to spur interest in a company and provide it with a goodwill boost - some of them never actually make it to production.

Stair-climbing wheelchairs are an excellent example of the overlapping problems with disability dongles; people with mobility impairments know that there's a problem (stairs), and they've repeatedly articulated solutions. But those solutions are not new gadgets.

The problem here isn't that most wheelchair users find stairs challenging. Rather, it's that most built environments rely heavily on stairs, and that while elevators and ramps both exist, many designers choose not to use them.

New gadgets can be unsafe and expensive

There is an inherently segregational nature to new access-oriented technologies like this. It insists on underscoring difference with extremely costly equipment rather than thinking about how to reframe the built environment in a way that welcomes everyone. Anybody can use a ramp, whether they're disabled or not, such as pushing a stroller or lugging a heavy suitcase. The idea that we should instead prioritize fancy equipment instead is absurd.

Such equipment doesn't just have an isolating effect. It's also entirely possible that it is not practical, safe, or functional. Some disability dongles come with high stakes involving people's mobility and health. Numerous wheelchair users commented that this device requires manual dexterity and core strength that some do not have, while others expressed fear at the thought of actually using such a device, demonstrated without straps or tie-downs. Anyone who has witnessed or personally experienced a particularly enthusiastic Hora at a Jewish wedding is well aware of how terrifying it can be to be lifted aloft in a chair with no safety equipment.

It's not just impractical and unsafe. It's also wildly expensive. Breakthrough technology can cost more than a midrange car and most insurers do not cover it. Insurers, including private companies and Medicare/Medicaid, make durable medical equipment (DME) coverage determinations on the basis of demonstrated need, and they are notoriously choosy.

A powerchair without stair-climbing capacity - which must be custom-fit to the user and replaced every three to seven years - can cost $30,000 at a relatively basic configuration, and insurance companies are sometimes reluctant to cover the full cost even when someone has a demonstrated mobility need. A recent story making the rounds revolved around a student who bought an electric chair for his friend, but it glossed over the fact that his friend's insurance company should have provided him with an appropriate and well-fitted chair to meet his needs.

Some technologies offer a costly and flashy solution to a problem that is already being resolved, or that can be addressed with generic options for much less. Many blind people, for example, already use their phones to assist with navigation - they don't need a separate piece of technology. People could learn American Sign Language to communicate with members of the deaf community. Advanced bionics look amazing and do nifty things, but many people with limb differences are perfectly happy with their existing limbs.

Disability dongles put the onus on disabled people

Disability dongles are not substitutes for access; instead, they are another barrier to full equity and inclusion. Members of the public view disability as a tragedy and a personal problem, so individualized tech "fixes" are appealing but ignore the larger issue: Why is everyone afraid of the big bad wheelchair?

Most frustrating is that disability dongles put the burden on the end user - the disabled person - rather than the people creating inaccessible conditions. The Americans with Disabilities Act has created a clear mandate for accessibility with guidance for same since 1990: We don't need new laws or regulations for access and inclusion, we just need to enforce the ones we have.

Look to the horrific mess that is New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority for an example; disabled people are fighting tooth and nail for access in the decaying, heavily criticized subway system, one where newly renovated platforms lack elevators because officials say it's "too expensive," which a judge just ruled that is a clear ADA violation.

But making built environments accessible from the start is not always as expensive as many people think it is. Yes, retrofits to comply with the nearly 30-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act can get costly - but there are tax incentives and grants to help pay for them.

And disabled people are already developing accessible technologies that help with individual access needs; another story making the rounds covers LEGO braille bricks, presented as an amazing tactile learning tool for blind and low vision people. The only problem? Tack-Tiles, a similar invention, were developed by a father in collaboration with his blind son in the 1980s and remain prohibitively expensive because they were extremely difficult to take to production - LEGO could have invested in existing technology and lifted up work done by the disability community, rather than reinventing the wheel.

We're already building, adapting, and hacking the technology; nondisabled people just need to get out of the way.

s.e. smith is a Northern California-based journalist and writer who has appeared in publications like the Guardian, Bitch Magazine, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Rewire.News, in addition to anthologies including The Feminist Utopia Project and (Don't) Call Me Crazy.

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

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Disabled people don't need so many fancy new gadgets. We just need more ramps.

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First-person essays and interviews with unique perspectives on complicated issues. It feels like every few months, the media becomes infatuated with a new piece of flashy technology peddled to solve a purported disability-related problem.

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This man was just trying to find a way to get rid of weeds on his ranch when he stumbled upon a powerful climate change solution.

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What Do People Get Wrong About Being Deaf?

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What Do People Get Wrong About Being Deaf?

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What does it mean to be Deaf? First of all, not everyone sees it as a disability.

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‘Climate apartheid’: Rich people to buy their way out of environmental crisis while poor suffer, warns UN

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‘Climate apartheid’: Rich people to buy their way out of environmental crisis while poor suffer, warns UN

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Millions forced to choose between starvation and migration under 'best-case' scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100

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Wealthy communities will be able to buy their way out of the unfolding climate crisis while the poorest will suffer most, a UN report has found.

Even under the unrealistic "best-case" scenario of 1.5C of warming by 2100, many millions of people will have to choose between starvation and migration, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned.

He predicted a split between those able to mitigate the worst effects of the warming planet and those with no means to avoid it, calling it a "climate apartheid".

And he said the fallout from our rapidly warming climate would have dire implications for human rights and democracy.

"What was once considered catastrophic warming now seems like a best-case scenario," Mr Alston said.

"While people in poverty are responsible for just a fraction of global emissions, they will bear the brunt of climate change, and have the least capacity to protect themselves.

"We risk a 'climate apartheid' scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.

"Climate change is, among other things, an unconscionable assault on the poor."

He cited vulnerable New Yorkers being stranded without power or healthcare when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, while "the Goldman Sachs headquarters was protected by tens of thousands of its own sandbags and power from its generator".

The poorest half of the world's population - 3.5 billion people - is responsible for just 10 per cent of carbon emissions, while the richest 10 per cent are responsible for around half of greenhouse gases.

And a person in the wealthiest 1 per cent uses 175 times more carbon than one in the bottom 10 per cent, an Oxfam report from 2015 found.

There have been some positive developments, with renewable energy prices falling, coal becoming uncompetitive, emissions declining in 49 countries, and 7,000 cities, 245 regions, and 6,000 companies committing to climate mitigation.

However, despite ending its reliance on coal, China - the world's biggest polluter - is still exporting coal-fired power plants and is failing to crack down on its own methane emissions.

Meanwhile Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro plans to open up the Amazon rainforest for mining, end demarcation of indigenous lands, and weaken environmental protection.

Donald Trump has blamed other nations for the crisis despite the US being the world's second biggest polluter.

"China, India, Russia, many other nations, they have not very good air, not very good water, and the sense of pollution. If you go to certain cities ... you can't even breathe, and now that air is going up ... They don't do the responsibility," he said in an interview earlier in June.

Mr Alston also criticised the "patently inadequate" steps taken by UN human rights bodies to address the climate crisis, saying the "incremental" progress was "entirely disproportionate to the urgency and magnitude of the threat".

"Ticking boxes will not save humanity or the planet from impending disaster," he concluded.

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un special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights

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'Climate apartheid': Rich people will buy their way out of the environmental crisis while the poor suffer, UN warns

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Wealthy communities will be able to buy their way out of the unfolding climate crisis while the poorest will suffer most, a UN report has found.

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Is Congress rigged in favour of the rich?

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Is Congress rigged in favour of the rich?

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American politicians often rail against the undue influence of the rich. Bernie Sanders, a left-wing senator from Vermont, has decried a political system that allows billionaires to "elect the candidates of their choice". On the campaign trail in 2016 Donald Trump claimed that the system is "rigged" in favour of big business. Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, kicked off her 2020 presidential campaign in February by swearing to combat a system that "props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else".

A new paper by Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips of Columbia University, and Adam Zelizer of the University of Chicago, suggests that the wealthy hold considerably less sway than is often assumed. Using data on 49 Senate votes on economic, social, and foreign-policy issues between 2001 and 2015, as well as on national survey data from polling firms such as Gallup and Pew, the authors analysed how often senators voted in line with the opinions of the rich and poor-defined as voters in the richest and poorest income quintiles in their state. They found that the rich get what they want from their senators about 60% of the time, whereas the poor receive their desired policy 55% of the time. When these two groups are on opposing sides of an issue, the rich get what they want 63% of the time. The middle class fare similarly when pitted against the rich.

That is unfair, yes, but not itself proof of a "rigged" game. For partisanship matters far more than the interests of affluent voters. According to the authors, when rich and poor voters oppose each other on a given issue, Democratic senators side with the rich 35% of the time and Republicans do so 86% of the time (see chart). Since legislators often follow the party line, it is little wonder that Congress is viewed as biased towards the rich when Republicans hold a majority. "Affluent influence that results from partisan influence may be worrisome," the authors conclude, "but it is not the same as living in an oligarchy."

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Is Congress rigged in favour of the rich?

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American politicians often rail against the undue influence of the rich. Bernie Sanders, a left-wing senator from Vermont, has decried a political system that allows billionaires to "elect the candidates of their choice". On the campaign trail in 2016 Donald Trump claimed that the system is "rigged" in favour of big business.

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Convicted felons ending up homeless due to criminal background policies at apartments

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Convicted felons ending up homeless due to criminal background policies at apartments

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Convicted felons ending up homeless due to criminal background policies at apartments

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People in Palm Beach County are homeless for many different reasons, but one reason that some may not realize leads to homelessness is having a criminal record. Wednesday, the Lord's Place which takes in many homeless people including those with criminal backgrounds celebrated upgrades to their facilities.

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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast

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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast

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It's hard to think of an issue that you would less like your company to be associated with than modern slavery. Yet last November Nestlé, the world's largest foodmaker and one of the most recognisable household brands, went public with the news it had found forced labour in its supply chains in Thailand and that its customers were buying products tainted with the blood and sweat of poor, unpaid and abused migrant workers.

By independently disclosing that Nestlé customers had unwittingly bought products contaminated by the very worst labour abuses, the company said it was moving into a new era of self-policing of its own supply chains. A year-long investigation by the company confirmed media reports that the seafood industry in Thailand is riddled with forced labour and human trafficking and that slave labour was involved in the production of its Fancy Feast catfood brand.

Nestlé also made sure to make it clear that no other company sourcing seafood from Thailand, the world's third-largest seafood exporter, could have avoided being exposed to the same risks.

"As we've said consistently, forced labour and human rights abuses have no place in our supply chain," said Magdi Batato, Nestlé's executive vice-president in charge of operations, in a written statement. "Nestlé believes that by working with suppliers we can make a positive difference to the sourcing of ingredients."

Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK
The disclosure was considered by many to be ground-breaking. Nick Grono, the chief executive of NGO the Freedom Fund, which has invested heavily in anti-trafficking initiatives in Thailand, believes Nestlé's admission could be a considerable force in shifting the parameters of what can be expected of businesses when it comes to supply chain accountability.

"Nestlé's decision to conduct this investigation is to be applauded," he says. "If you've got one of the biggest brands in the world proactively coming out and admitting that they have found slavery in their business operations, then it's potentially a huge game-changer and could lead to real and sustained change in how supply chains are managed."

The research (pdf) for Nestlé's report was conducted by US corporate accountability business Verité, which works closely with organisations trying to help improve their supply chain transparency.

Last year Verité was involved in another exercise in self-disclosure by outdoor clothing company Patagonia, which announced that it had discovered several points in its supply chain in Taiwan where forced labour and unethical recruitment practices were flourishing.

Verite's chief executive, Dan Viederman, said: "In the last six months Verité has been involved in two high-profile disclosures from major brands and one of the most important lessons for us to recognise is that in neither case did the companies suffer greatly in terms of being associated with these labour conditions. Instead, they received some credit [for] being bold enough to be associated with this."

"I really hope that the recent examples help mobilise companies to be bolder and investigate more deeply because soon the reputational damage in not doing so could be considerable"

For Viederman, the biggest issue is working out how to manage the disclosures into actual change for vulnerable people trapped at the bottom of global commodity chains.

The UK's new slavery laws explained: what do they mean for business?
Cleaning up the supply chain

There is also a growing legal imperative for many large multinationals to start seriously engaging with labour abuses in their business operations. Legislation in both the US and the UK requires larger companies to publish annual reports on their efforts to keep their businesses slavery-free.

The success of the 2010 California Transparency in Supply Chains Act has been patchy but it has spawned a series of civil litigation suits, with consumers or workers using the legislation to launch legal actions against companies they accuse of making misleading public statements on their anti-slavery efforts.

Nestlé is one of the companies facing legal action in the US. Last week the company, along with Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, failed in its bid to get the US Supreme Court to throw out a lawsuit seeking to hold them liable for the alleged use of child slaves in cocoa farming in the Ivory Coast.

This puts the company in the unfortunate position of disclosing slavery in one part of its operations, while at the same time fighting through the courts to fend off accusations that it exists in another - more profitable - part of its business.

Andrew Wallis, chief executive of Unseen UK, an anti-trafficking charity advocating for more supply chain accountability, said: "For me there is a big issue with one part of Nestlé saying, 'OK we have been dragged along with everyone else to face the issue of slavery in Thailand and so let's take the initiative and do something about it', and at the same time fighting tooth and nail through the courts to avoid charges of child slavery in its core operations in the Ivory Coast."

By the time Nestlé owned up to slavery in the Thai seafood industry it was accepted knowledge

Andrew Wallis

He argues that Nestlé's self-reporting could also be seen as a tactic to head off or deflate other pending civil litigation suits.

"It's easy to own up to something that has already been uncovered," he says. "By the time Nestlé owned up to slavery in the Thai seafood industry it was accepted knowledge. It'll be a brave new world when companies are actually doing the real investigation to probe into part of their supply chains that have remained outside the public domain.

"We need to move into a space where we say, 'We're all guilty; let's get past that to a place where we can properly address the problem' - and I don't think we're there yet."

Topics Sign up for the Guardian sustainable business newsletter to receive more stories like this in your inbox.

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Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast

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It's hard to think of an issue that you would less like your company to be associated with than modern slavery. Yet last November Nestlé, the world's largest foodmaker and one of the most recognisable household brands, went public with the news it had found forced labour in its supply chains in Thailand and that its customers were buying products tainted with the blood and sweat of poor, unpaid and abused migrant workers.

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The Guajajara tribe of Northern Brazil have formed a militia to protect the Amazon rainforest from deforestation. This is the fight for the Amazon. In northeast Brazil the Caru indigenous reserve is an island of primary rainforest floating amongst deforestation that creeps towards the Amazon river basin. This is the home to the Guajajara Indians. The Guajajara Jared have formed a militia calling themselves the Guardians of the Forest. Lead by Claudio Guajajara, they prepare themselves for their latest mission to protect their ancestral lands from illegal logging, drug plantations and mining. In the last 40 years the Brazilian Amazon has lost more than 18 per cent of its rainforest to logging and agribusiness, putting the guardians on the frontline. Every time they go out on patrol they head into uncertain dangers. This sign was shot up two weeks before we arrived. And it is here the Guardians seem convinced they're gonna find what they came for. So this is what they found here. All kinds of stuff, that's a starter cord for chainsaw. This is for roughly measuring the size of timber, the bowl of the tree. Various tools, speak for themselves, chain saw. All the evidence points to illegal logging. The bowl, the trunk of this tree and we're being told by our guides, this one's about 150 years old. The customer the other side of the river will have instructed the illegal loggers to come in and cut it to specific lengths. And one other thought here, the Jatoba tree absorbs more CO2 than any other tree on the planet. It's a double agony for the Guardians. Of course they hate wasting this cut timber but it's impossible to move and use it. Deterrence is the only consolation. In a bittersweet irony the chain saws confiscated from illegal loggers are turned on the felled-forest giants. Amazonian trees are the single most effective form of carbon capture on the planet. Converting a quarter of all global carbon emissions each year but 60 per cent of these trees are within the Brazilian border and vulnerable to Bolsonaro's proposed programme of deforestation. And it looks like things are going his way. Brazilian government's records show a 25 per cent increase in deforestation. That's equivalent to two football pitches of rainforest disappearing every minute. If it continues at this rate more carbon will be released into the atmosphere than the US and China's annual emissions combined. Understandably the Guajajara feel their way of life is under attack. This is Marceline Guajajara, a tribal leader and one of the warriors of the forest a group of Guajajara women who spread the message about indigenous land rights and conservation. They're fearless but understand that using violence against illegal land-grabbers would lead to their annihilation. This is a cache of poachers trip-wire triggered guns that were recently seized on the Caru reserve. Deforestation doesn't just accelerate global warming it devastates the habitat of Amazonian wildlife which makes up 10 per cent of all biodiversity on the planet. So too does illegal poaching on land and on water, something the Guardians are all too familiar with. They obviously know that they shouldn't be here. There's not supposed to be fishing on this bank. So one site of Claudio and his platoon as it were, seems to have scared them off. The Guardians take the fish to feed their families and hand back the basket as a gesture of goodwill. This non-violent approach to policing is at the heart of their success. Upstream we see even here what we see everywhere, it seems, the creeping global effluent of plastic pollution threatening even this remote river system. And the horror only gets worse. Here right alongside their territory, a section of deforestation. Trees slashed and burned. Another stretch of the Amazon destroyed with the President's blessing, he says to the financial benefit of the nation. 30 per cent in the Brazilian Amazon is in theory protected but all too often that is just words and paper. Adding insult to the injury of rising levels of deforestation in July 2019 the EU signed a new agriculture deal with the Mercosur countries of South America. Further incentivizing the destruction of the Amazon. It is now not just Claudio's way of life that is under threat. We all need these trees to stay in the ground. If we want a chance of surviving the irreversible impacts of global warming.

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The Guajajara tribe of Northern Brazil have formed a militia to protect the Amazon rainforest from deforestation. This is the fight for the Amazon. In northeast Brazil the Caru indigenous reserve is an island of primary rainforest floating amongst deforestation that creeps towards the Amazon river basin.

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The fight for the Amazon
"We are warriors, we have blood in our veins, we are not going to give up on this fight." This tribe in Brazil is fighting back against rampant deforestation of the Amazon rainforest under President Jair Bolsonaro.
Posted by Uncovered on Thursday, July 25, 2019

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This GIF shows how often members of congress reached across the aisle in the past compared with today. 

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This GIF shows how often members of congress reached across the aisle in the past compared with today. 

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I’m Not The Radical Left, I’m The Humane Middle

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I’m Not The Radical Left, I’m The Humane Middle

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Apparently, I've been radicalized and I wasn't aware. Certain people call me the "radical Left" all the time. I never considered myself radical before.
I just thought I was normal, ordinary, usual.
I thought equity was important to everyone.
I imagined America was filled with people who took that Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness stuff seriously-for all people.
I thought the Golden Rule was actually mainstream. Recently I took an inventory of my positions, screening for the extremism:
I believe in full LGBTQ rights.
I believe we should protect the planet.
I believe everyone deserves healthcare.
I believe all religions are equally valid.
I believe the world is bigger than America.
I believe to be "pro-life," means to treasure all of it.
I believe whiteness isn't superior and it is not the baseline of humanity.
I believe we are all one interdependent community.
I believe people and places are made better by diversity.
I believe people shouldn't be forced to abide by anyone else's religion.
I believe non-American human beings have as much value as American ones.
I believe generosity is greater than greed, compassion better than contempt, and kindness superior to derision.
I believe there is enough in this world for everyone: enough food, enough money, enough room, enough care-if we unleash our creativity and unclench our fists.

I'm not sure how these ideas became radical, though it seems to have happened in the last few years.
I grew up being taught they were just part of being a decent human being.
I grew up believing that loving my neighbor as myself, meant that I actually worked for their welfare as much as my own.
I was taught that caring for the least in the world, was the measure of my devotion to God.
I thought that inalienable rights of other people were supposed to be a priority as a decent participant in the world.
I don't think I'm alone. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most people reside here in this place alongside me: the desire for compassion and diversity and equality and justice; that these things aren't fringe ideologies or extremist positions-but simply the best way to be human. I think most people want more humanity, not less. I think the vast middle is exhausted by the cruelty of these days. That these aspirations seem radical to some people, is probably an alarm that they've moved so far into the extremes of their fortified ideological bunkers and been so poisoned by the propaganda, that normal now seems excessive, that equality now seems oppressive, that goodness feels reckless. Maybe the problem is, these people are so filled with fear for those who are different, so conditioned to be at war with the world, so indoctrinated into a white nationalistic religion of malice-that they've lost sight of what being a human being looks like anymore. I am pretty sure that I don't represent the "radical Left," but the vast, disparate, compassionate, humane Middle; people who are not threatened by someone else's presence, who do not see another person's gain as their loss, who don't worship a Caucasian, American god.
I suppose humanity feels radical to inhumane people. In that case, I'll gladly be here in my extremism.

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I'm Not The Radical Left, I'm The Humane Middle

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Apparently, I've been radicalized and I wasn't aware. Certain people call me the "radical Left" all the time. I never considered myself radical before. I just thought I was normal, ordinary, usual. I thought equity was important to everyone. I imagined America was filled with people who took that Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness...

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People who can’t afford rent are living in their cars, and cities aren’t sure what to do about them

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People who can’t afford rent are living in their cars, and cities aren’t sure what to do about them

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An increase in the number of the “vehicular homeless” gives governments a dilemma: Should they provide safe spaces for car living or enact policies to discourage the practice? While they ponder, faith groups have stepped in.

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SALT LAKE CITY - When Micki Denis first moved to Seattle, she tried to find a studio apartment she could afford - nothing fancy, just a warm room for sleeping and a small kitchen so she could have her son over for dinner. Instead, the mother of five and grandmother of 14 is sleeping in her car, a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser.

She is not alone. Each night, Denis shares a parking lot outside a Methodist church with as many as 50 cars, vans and trucks, some housing entire families. In the morning, kids spill out and go into the church to get ready for school.

But Denis - the 64-year-old cousin of U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and sister of a Nevada state senator - wakes up each day in disbelief that this is her life now.

She lived in nice homes for decades, until her divorce in 2003. From 2005-07, she served a mission in Florida and El Salvador for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Just last summer, she traveled around Europe.

Coming from Utah, where despite rising rental costs Denis could live on a variety of part-time jobs - like being an interpreter for a school district and a cafeteria cashier at her church's Salt Lake Temple - she was shocked by the Seattle-area housing market.

She found a part-time job to supplement a pension and Social Security, but it's not enough. "I thought I could get something for about $700, a nice studio, but I can't. I don't know what's going on here," Denis said.

What's going on is that low- to moderate-income Americans who don't own their own homes are being hammered by skyrocketing rents, stagnant wages and a shortage of affordable housing. Applicants for subsidized housing face years on a waiting list. Those in need of emergency shelter find beds are often full while people sleep in the streets.

No state has an adequate supply of affordable rental housing, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which recently released a report that examined the increasing gap between wages and rent.

The coalition found that rental costs are rising faster than wages, and that, on average, a worker earning the federal minimum wage would have to work 103 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment. In some communities, it's worse than that. In King County, where Denis now lives, a worker needs an income of more than $62,000 to afford a one-bedroom apartment, compared to $46,548 for all of Washington state, the report said.

This has driven Denis and thousands of other Americans to live in their vehicles, many of them from vulnerable groups like children and seniors. This solves one problem but creates others - like where to park at night and how to maintain hygiene. Cities and municipalities where they stay face unsavory choices. Should they accommodate the "vehicular homeless" with relaxed laws and safe parking lots, or try to legislate them away?

California is considering legislation that would require its largest cities to provide parking for people living in their vehicles. But in the meantime, faith groups and nonprofits are stepping up to help, even when neighbors say "not on my street."

'Completely unaffordable'
As darkness envelops the parking lot at Lake Washington United Methodist Church in Kirkland, Washington, a suburb of Seattle, Denis prepares for another cold evening near Crissy Norton, a mother of three who has two vehicles in which to house her family.

Norton, who is 26, is here at the church's "safe lot" with her common-law husband, Matt, and their girls, who are 6, 3 and 1. They sleep in two vehicles: a Honda they own and a Ford F-150 truck they borrowed from a friend. They also have a Volkswagen Jetta that doesn't run, but is good for storing clothes, blankets and toys.

The family's troubles began when Matt lost his job just before Christmas in 2017. "We struggled for a year to pay rent with odd jobs, but finding him one was tough. Last Christmas, we finally couldn't do it and got evicted. We stayed with some friends in the winter, but come summer, we had to leave, and since then, it has been truck living," Crissy Norton said.

The family's struggles, however, have been a little easier thanks to a ministry of Lake Washington United Methodist Church, a 200-member congregation that decided in 2011 to put its often-empty parking lot to good use.

The church established a "Safe Parking" zone where people can sleep in their vehicles without fear of being harassed, interrogated or ordered to move. Volunteers come to the church early in the morning so school-aged children can come inside and get ready for school, and again in the evening, so "guests" can use bathroom facilities and the church's kitchen and phone. The guests also have access to a refrigerator and Wi-Fi. They are welcome to join church activities but don't have to do so.

Karina O'Malley, a church member and volunteer who oversees the program, said the church started small, with six parking spaces, but as the program has grown, they've had up to 50 vehicles parked overnight. The demand exists, she says, because rent prices in the county are "completely unaffordable."

Moreover, the gap between wages and rent is expected to worsen in the coming years, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

"The median-wage worker in eight of the nation's 10 largest occupations, including retail salespersons, fast food workers, personal care aides, customer service representatives, and office clerks, do not earn enough to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home," the coalition's report says, adding, "The number of low-wage jobs is expected to grow significantly in the next 10 years."

This means that many people like Denis, despite having a steady income and a job, either can't afford to rent a place, or if they could, would have nothing left over for utilities and food.

And sleeping in a car is more appealing to some people than going to a homeless shelter. Some are uncomfortable with the stigma; others don't want to abide by a shelter's schedule or prefer the privacy of their car.

Moreover, deciding to live in a car provides people with few options a sense of autonomy.

"There's a tiny minority who say I'm choosing to live in my car because that's the only solution that works for me at this point. But most of these folks are desperately trying to get back into housing," O'Malley, at Lake Washington UMC, said. "Folks don't have a lot of great options, but there's a sense of dignity that comes with saying what you're doing is your choice."
A painful secret
Denis, a native of Cuba who came to the U.S. with her parents when she was 5, had no experience renting for most of her life. From age 18 through 50, she had always lived in homes that she owned. Her five children, ages 33 to 45, are well off enough to help, but Denis doesn't want to impose, which is why she hasn't told them where she's living been living since the middle of July. She said she figures she'll need help when she is in her 70s or older and doesn't want to tap that reservoir of goodwill while she's still healthy and able to work.

"I haven't asked my children for help. I haven't told a soul," she said, adding that even her brother, a Nevada state senator and former LDS bishop, doesn't know. "I want to fix this problem on my own," she said, her voice breaking.

Denis traveled Europe cheaply between April and October of last year, staying in hostels and LDS temple housing, and so when she returned to the U.S. for a grandchild's baptism, she thought she could live equally well here while maintaining her mobility. But that hasn't been the case, at least not in the Pacific Northwest.

"Even if I pay $1,100 (in rent), that leaves me with hardly anything for gas, for food, for insurance. And the housing that I could afford is in places that aren't nice. I can't do that. I'm safer here," she said.

Denis is working as a cashier, so she has a place to go during the day. She has a membership at the YMCA, where she goes to swim, do yoga and shower, and she also spends time at the local library. At night, she stretches out on a foam mattress in the back of her Toyota and covers herself with a down comforter.

Since she's a half-inch shy of 5 feet tall, sleeping in the car isn't so bad, Denis said, except for when she needs to go to the bathroom at night. The church provides port-a-potties, but she doesn't like to leave her car at night, especially now that it's cold. (When it's 32 degrees or colder, the church lets people sleep inside, but it hasn't gotten that cold yet this fall.)

That said, she knows she has it better than some of her parking-lot neighbors. "There are women here who never leave their car," she said.
What cities can do
At the other end of the spectrum is Bob Wells, founder of the Cheap RV Living website and its corresponding YouTube channel, which has 339,000 subscribers.

Wells, the author of " How to Live in a Car, Van or RV," promotes what he calls "nomadic tribalism in a car, van or RV," and his followers include people trying to get out of debt and those who embrace a minimalist lifestyle.

Because Wells is so well-known, he's been approached by some government officials about how cities and towns can best address the challenges presented by vehicle dwellers, the most pressing of which is where they can park and where they can dispose of waste.

He urges cities to build a cooperative relationship with vehicle dwellers, provide parking and portable restroom facilities, and even a place where people can go to get temporary work. Such things would produce big results for a little money. "They're going to have happier residents, and they're not going to be dumping their tanks or sleeping outside people's homes."

But some cities are doubling down on enforcement to try to get the car dwellers to go elsewhere.

In July, police in Fort Collins, Colorado, issued tow notices and tickets to more than two dozen people camping in their cars, the Coloradoan reported. And San Diego has enacted a new " vehicle habitation ordinance " that prohibits people from sleeping in their cars near residences and schools. At the same time, however, the city has expanded a Safe Parking Program that it operates in conjunction with Jewish Family Service of San Diego.

Pamela C. Twiss, a professor at California University of Pennsylvania and co-author of "The Homelessness Industry, a Critique of U.S. Social Policy," said she applauds cities and faith groups that are expanding safe parking.

"A car is obviously not a suitable home, but using a car for sheer survival shouldn't be criminalized," Twiss said. "People have to have ways to survive, and we don't have enough shelter spaces for those who need emergency shelter."

She also noted that there is a multiyear waiting list for subsidized housing in much of the the U.S. "We're only serving about one-quarter of those who are eligible on an income-basis," which means that three-quarters of people who qualify for government assistance won't get it, Twiss said.

And there aren't enough emergency shelters, either. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates that there are 286,203 emergency shelter beds available for the 553,000 people who need them.
'Not a solution'
Teresa Smith, founder and CEO of a San Diego nonprofit that helps the homeless, said groups that offer safe parking often are approached by people who are living in their cars happily but need a place to park for a few days.

"I can't tell you how many calls we get from people who want to urban camp," she said.

Smith's organization, Dreams for Change, runs two safe-parking lots with a capacity of 30 to 35 vehicles, but they're always full, and there's a waiting list, so they can only accept people with the most urgent need, she said.

Also, Dreams for Change only accepts people who are actively looking for housing. "This is not a lifestyle for them; it's a transition, and their goal is to move back into housing."

Conversely, at Lake Washington United Methodist, the safe-parking lot is open to people to anyone living in a vehicle, whether or not they're looking for housing. Crissy Norton, the mother of three, has been actively searching and just found out last week that she and her husband have qualified for traditional shelter. She hopes to be in apartment with her children within a few weeks.

Denis, however, remains uncertain of her plans. Unwilling to ask her family for help and reluctant to move from Seattle, she believes her car is her only option right now. Hers is a situation that an increasing number of seniors are facing, said Smith at Dreams for Change.

Smith said that 15-20% of the people living in their cars on Dreams for Change lots are 58 and older, and 20% are families with kids. And while most safe parking programs are on the West Coast, she said she has been contacted by people in North Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Colorado about how they can start similar programs there.

"It's clearly not just a California issue. The problem is growing, very much so," Smith said, adding that safe-parking lots are "not a solution, by any means."

"But they're at least something that helps."

And Denis and Norton said it's been good to be surrounded by other people in the same situation, and they've made friends there. In fact, for other people contemplating turning their car into a residence, Norton says it's critically important to have a community of support.

"Don't do it alone," she said. "Make friends. Never, ever let yourself be alone."

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People who can't afford rent are living in their cars, and cities aren't sure what to do about them

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SALT LAKE CITY - When Micki Denis first moved to Seattle, she tried to find a studio apartment she could afford - nothing fancy, just a warm room for sleeping and a small kitchen so she could have her son over for dinner.

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The Public School Calendar Forces Me To Choose Between Academic Success or My Jewish Faith

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The Public School Calendar Forces Me To Choose Between Academic Success or My Jewish Faith

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In this op-ed, high school junior Michael Pincus explains the impact of the Christian calendar on the academic pursuits of non-Christian students.

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In 2014, I made the difficult and overwhelming decision to switch from the private Jewish day academy where I'd spent six years to attend middle school at a public magnet program. I dropped the khaki shorts, polos, and traditional "kippah" head covering for the unfamiliar world of graphic tees and Abercrombie jeans.

At first, my transition was easy. There was no initial culture shock - I made friends, did well in my classes, and quickly grew accustomed to the busier, more diverse environment of public school. It wasn't until late September, a month into school, that I was hit with the cold reality of how difficult my life was about to become.

Each fall, Jewish people are faced with back-to-back religious observances, starting with Rosh Hashanah and lasting through Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah. When I had attended the Arthur I. Meyer Jewish Academy, I was given breaks for all the Jewish holidays, fasts, and religious observances, allowing me to spend time with my family or in our synagogue. In public school, however, I had to report to class on day two of Rosh Hashanah, on Erev (the eve of) Yom Kippur, during the entire weeklong holiday of Sukkot, and on Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. My family traditions were disrupted, and my religious obligations were stifled. (The A.W. Dreyfoos School did not immediately return Teen Vogue's requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County School District told Teen Vogue that local schools close annually in observance of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, and sent a link to the policy outlining that students are allowed to take excused absences for religious reasons and make up missed work "without adverse effects.")

Students of other minority religions and cultures encounter the same obstacles. Muslim students sit in class during the entire fasting month of Ramadan as well as Eid; Hindu students miss out on Diwali festivities; and most public schools do not offer time off for students who participate in significant cultural celebrations like the Chinese New Year. The only group of American students that receives real time off for their observances are Christians, who in some districts receive two full weeks off for the two day holiday of Christmas.

People have asked me, "But doesn't Hanukkah occur during winter break too?" The answer is only sometimes, since Jews follow a lunisolar calendar that doesn't always line up with the Gregorian calendar. Besides, Hanukkah is not even one of the Jewish high holidays; on the hierarchy from most to least holy, it ranks pretty low. It's just the holiday that Christians assume to be most momentous, because, well, it falls around the same season.

Of course, non-Christian students could just take the day off from school when necessary, right? Many schools would mark these practices as excused absences, after all. In middle school, this worked for me fine, so I kept my mouth shut. But now, in a high school system that pressures students to unrealistically stack four or more AP or college-level courses, try dual enrollment or take online classes, and participate in countless extracurriculars, excused absences only go so far. Missing class can be a major setback, and getting back on track isn't as simple as turning in a late assignment. So I find myself sacrificing the traditions my ancestors have kept for thousands of years to keep up with my workload.

The root of the problem is Christian-centrism. America was founded by Christians and has always created institutions that disproportionately benefit the majority religious group. It's no surprise that our school breaks are unfairly centered around Christian traditions while neglecting the equally important holidays of other faiths and cultures. My struggles won't end when I graduate high school, as it's possible I will face the same issue in college and in future jobs.

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The Public School Calendar Is Unfairly Centered Around Christian Traditions

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In 2014, I made the difficult and overwhelming decision to switch from the private Jewish day academy where I'd spent six years to attend middle school at a public magnet program. I dropped the khaki shorts, polos, and traditional "kippah" head covering for the unfamiliar world of graphic tees and Abercrombie jeans.

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70% of people in local jails are not convicted of any crime

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70% of people in local jails are not convicted of any crime

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Data Source: For information about the data visit the data section of the report. (Graph: Peter Wagner & Bernadette Rabuy, 2017)

This graph originally appeared in Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2017.

Pie chart showing the number of people locked up on a given day in the United States in jails, by convicted and not convicted status, and by the underlying offense, using the newest data available in March 2017. (We've also updated this graph for 2018.)

The "not convicted" population in American jails is larger than most other countries' total incarceration populations.

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70% of people in local jails are not convicted of any crime

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Data Source: For information about the data visit the data section of the report. (Graph: Peter Wagner & Bernadette Rabuy, 2017) This graph originally appeared in Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2017.

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Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Dell sued over child-mined cobalt from Africa

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Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Dell sued over child-mined cobalt from Africa

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Some of the biggest technology firms in the United States have been accused in a lawsuit of complicity in the death and maiming of hundreds, if not thousands of African children who mine cobalt, a mineral vital to the production of the lithium-ion batteries in everything from smartphones to electric cars. The defendants named in the suit are Apple, Google parent company Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla.

The lawsuit was filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. by the non-profit organization International Rights Advocates, on behalf of 13 anonymous plaintiffs from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The complaint accuses the tech giants of "knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in Democratic Republic of Congo ('DRC') to mine cobalt."

The suit demands a trial by jury for the plaintiffs, who include maimed child miners and the families of others killed in the cobalt mines.

Human rights Lawyer Terry Collingsworth of International Rights Advocates told CBS News that his organization " traced the supply chain back from the mine where the children were either killed or maimed and have traced it back up to these companies."

The lawsuit calls for the companies to take responsibility for child miners in their supply chains, and change the way they source the metal.

Research by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated that in 2012 there were about 40,000 children working in the DRC mines. More than half of the world's supply of cobalt comes from the DRC, and 20 percent of that is mined by hand, according to Darton Commodities Ltd., a London-based research company that specializes in cobalt.

Widespread reporting about the horrific conditions for children in DRC's cobalt mines has increased pressure on these companies for several years. But the lawsuit filed on Sunday, which was first reported by The Guardian, is the first legal action brought against the American companies.

Dell Technologies told CBS News in a statement that it's committed to "the responsible sourcing of minerals." The company denied it ever "knowingly sourced operations using any form of involuntary labor, fraudulent recruiting practices or child labor," and that it works with suppliers to manage sourcing programs responsibly. The company added that it is currently investigating the allegations, and that it has informed the Responsible Minerals Initiative as part of their grievance mechanism.

Apple told CBS News the company has "led the industry by establishing the strictest standards for our suppliers and are constantly working to raise the bar for ourselves, and the industry." The company added that since 2016, it has published a full list of cobalt refiners every year, all of which participate in third-party audits. "If a refiner is unable or unwilling to meet our standards, they will be removed from our supply chain," Apple said, adding that it removed six cobalt refiners in 2019.

A Google spokesperson called child labor and endangerment "unacceptable" in a statement to CBS News, and said the company's supplier code of conduct "strictly prohibits" it. "We are committed to sourcing all materials ethically and eliminating child mining in global supply chains," the spokesperson said. "As an active member of the Responsible Minerals Initiative, we work alongside our suppliers, other companies, and industry groups to drive efforts in and beyond the DRC."

The other defendants named in the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last year, CBS News correspondent Debora Patta traveled to the DRC. She and her team saw first-hand how gruelling and dangerous it is to extract cobalt from the ground - and they saw children doing it.

CBS News witnessed children barely 10 years old lugging heavy sacks of cobalt to be washed in rivers. Even those too young to work, including dust-covered infants clinging to their mothers and playing on the dirty ground, spent much of the day breathing in toxic fumes, Patta found.

Officials in DRC denied there was child labor, but for the CBS News crew, it was plain to see. Whenever a camera or security person or policeman appeared, the children were chased away. Our sources in the DRC say conditions for the children have not improved since we visited the country.

On that visit, the CBS News team met Ziki Swaze, an 11-year-old orphan who worked in the mines who dreamed of going to school. "CBS This Morning" viewers were so moved by Ziki's plight that they connected with the Good Shepherd International Foundation. Enough money was raised to send not only Ziki, but also his three siblings, Ruth, Emerson and Simitri, to school.

"I would see the other kids going to school and I would look at them," Ziki said, "but today I feel the happiness they feel and I am now like them."

Last year, CBS News asked a wide range of companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and Dell, whether child-mined cobalt was being used in their products. All of the firms acknowledged problems with the supply chain, but said they required their suppliers to follow responsible sourcing guidelines.

CBS News' investigation showed, however, how complicated it is to trace child-mined cobalt in the global supply chain. Patta and her team followed the mineral as it left the mines, piled high on every mode of transport available. The unlabeled sacks were mixed up even as they left the mines, making it impossible to know who had mined the mineral inside.

The child-mined cobalt was brought to a large market where it was bought by a Chinese company for extremely low prices.

CBS News wanted to see whether there was any attempt to check at the market whether the cobalt had been mined by children, so Patta's team went back later, with a hidden camera. When they offered to sell a truckload of cobalt, nobody asked who mined the mineral, only what the quality was.

The lawsuit filed by International Rights Advocates (IRAdvocates) on Sunday claims the children on behalf of whom the plaintiffs have sued worked illegally at DRC mines owned by British company Glencore and others. The filing says cobalt from the Glencore mines is sold to a metal and mineral trading firm in Belgium called Umicore, which sells refined cobalt to the named defendant corporations in the U.S. The court document said children were also working at mines owned by Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, which supplies at least three of the named corporations.

In a statement to The Guardian, the British company Glencore said it "does not tolerate any form of child, forced, or compulsory labor."

IRAdvocates notes the claims by Apple and other firms of efforts to ensure their cobalt comes only from sustainable, legal sources, but says those efforts are insufficient, in part because they can rely on reporting from within the local mining communities.

"Until they are forced to do better, Apple and the other companies are relying on largely illiterate, desperately poor, and exceedingly vulnerable people to figure out Apple's complaint mechanism and report supply chain violations when they certainly cannot afford personal computers or iPhones and they do not have internet or cell phone access to connect to the outside world within the context of a violent regime that does not tolerate dissent and an unregulated industry that could retaliate with impunity against any whistleblowers," the court filing states.
Editor's note: This story was updated at 5:14 p.m. to include a response from Google.

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Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Dell sued over child-mined cobalt from Africa

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Some of the biggest technology firms in the United States have been accused in a lawsuit of complicity in the death and maiming of hundreds, if not thousands of African children who mine cobalt, a mineral vital to the production of the lithium-ion batteries in everything from smartphones to electric cars.

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THERE ARE 46 MILLION SLAVES IN THE WORLD — HERE'S WHERE THEY'RE FOUND

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THERE ARE 46 MILLION SLAVES IN THE WORLD — HERE'S WHERE THEY'RE FOUND

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Slavery is still alive and well around the world, with around 46 million people being forcibly exploited every day, according to a global watchdog group.

"It's true that Americans have a hard time imagining slavery that isn't like an Alabama plantation, but remember that slavery has been around since the very beginning of human history, in many many forms," Global Slavery Index co-author and professor of contemporary slavery Kevin Bales said this week in a Reddit AMA. "It never stopped, even when it was made illegal, in the U.S. or anywhere else."

The Global Slavery Index estimates the prevalence of slavery based on more than 50,000 interviews in 53 different languages. If there's one positive takeaway from the study, it's that the relative number of people in slavery is at an all-time low. Yet perhaps most shocking is the simple fact that there are 46 million slaves in the world, generating $150 billion in criminal profits.

Bales tells Inverse that the definition of slavery is pretty simple: "It's always about one person completely controlling another person - and using violence to maintain control - with the ultimate aim of exploitation in some way." Slavery includes not only forced labor but also human trafficking, many sex workers, and various kinds of exploitative relationships.

Some kinds of slavery are found in developed countries, even the U.S., which has an estimated 58,000 slaves. But other countries are much worse, with 58 percent of all slaves living in only five countries. We highlight the worst offenders, and what it's like there, below.

1. India - 18,354,700 Slaves

Despite tremendous economic growth in recent years, India struggles to manage a swelling population of over 1.3 billion people competing for scarce resources. The 18 million slaves in India - a staggeringly large number by all accounts - come almost entirely from the lowest parts of India's caste system. "Groups of people are systematically denied access to just about everything," Bales explained to Inverse. "There are a lot of people that live below the caste line who can't drink out of water fountains or even go to school."

In particular, collateral debt bondage - described as inherited slavery - is nothing short of an epidemic, especially among the classes of people who have no rights to begin with. People are born into servitude for a supposed debt that is several generations old in some cases; it's like being forced into slavery because your great-grandfather owed too much money to someone.

2. China - 3,388,400 Slaves

The disparity in work available to rural and urban populations consistently leads to surges of migrant workers, who are statistically susceptible to becoming victims of human trafficking. The index explains that as many as 58 million "'left behind children'" are abandoned by migrant parent workers, and, though estimates vary wildly, many of those children are subjected to forced begging, illegal adoption, and even sex slavery.

According to Bales, even more rampant than the migrant worker crisis is the overlap of China's prison and factory systems, which accounts for a significant portion of its slave labor, as prisoners are thrust into the system without due process.

"Falun Gong, for instance, is targeted," Bales says. "In many cases, there might not even be an arrest record." And sentences last decades, not months.

3. Pakistan - 2,134,900 Slaves

Bonded servitude still runs rampant in Pakistan today, and the government does little to enforce the Bonded Labor Act it passed in 1992 that abolished indentured service and the peshgi system, a term that roughly means bonded money that's used to describe the advance loan given to bonded laborers before their service. In some cases, even children are virtually sold off in this fashion.

4. Bangladesh - 1,531,300 Slaves

Poverty, natural disasters, and widespread corruption make the social climate of Bangladesh dangerous for modern slavery. Though forced marriage is a significant problem there, the vast majority of its estimated slaves are forced into hard labor in areas like drug production or farming.

Data behind forced marriages is especially startling: According to Human Rights Watch, 29 percent of girls under 15 are married along with 2 percent of girls under the age of 11. All in all, these forced marriages make up an estimated 20 percent of the people enslaved in Bangladesh, and 25 percent are forced into prostitution.

5. Uzbekistan - 1,236,600 Slaves

Among all modern nations, Uzbekistan has the second-highest percentage of its population enslaved, at almost 4 percent. Many of its citizens are forced into state-sanctioned manual labor on an annual basis for cotton harvest. Uzbekistan is the world's sixth largest producer of cotton.

6. North Korea - 1,100,000 Slaves

No doubt due in large part to it being a communist dictatorship, North Korea has the single highest percentage of slaves in its population at about 4.4 percent. North Korea remains very secretive, but evidence suggests the existence of government-sanctioned forced labor, particularly in prison labor camps. Meanwhile, the women of North Korea are often compelled into forced marriages or commercial sexual exploitation in neighboring countries. An important distinction is that a larger number of North Korea's population is deliberately enslaved by the state. As such, in an international ranking of each nation's governmental response to slavery, North Korea was the single worst offender.

7. Russia - 1,048,500 Slaves

8. Nigeria - 875,500 Slaves

9. Democratic Republic of Congo - 873,100 Slaves

10. Indonesia - 736,100 Slaves

11. Egypt - 572,900 Slaves

12. Myanmar - 515,100 Slaves

13. Iran - 495,300 Slaves

14. Turkey - 480,300 Slaves

15. Sudan - 454,700 Slaves

16. Thailand - 425,500 Slaves

17. Ethiopia - 425,500 Slaves

18. Iraq - 403,800 Slaves

19. Philippines - 401,000 Slaves

20. Mexico - 376,800 Slaves

71. Ecuador - 65,300 Slaves

72. United States - 57,700 Slaves

In proportion to the U.S. population, this number is much lower than most countries on the list, yet it's shocking still. In his AMA, Bales pointed to slavery in "agriculture, forced commercial sexual exploitation, domestics who are enslaved, and on and on." When commenters pointed to America's extremely high prison population, he said that prisoners didn't count as slaves in the study but that America's prison system "could be edging rapidly into a form of state enslavement."

73. Central African Republic - 55,400 Slaves

Here's a map showing the density of slavery in countries worldwide, with darker-shaded nations having the highest percentage of slaves within the populations.

For more in-depth information, visit the Global Slavery Index.

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Slavery is still alive and well around the world, with around 46 million people being forcibly exploited every day, according to a global watchdog group.

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An innocent man pleaded guilty to a drug charge to get out of jail. It's more common than you think.

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An innocent man pleaded guilty to a drug charge to get out of jail. It's more common than you think.

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The defendant told a judge that the white substance he was caught with was powdered milk, but he pleaded guilty anyway to get out of jail.

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An Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine last week had his conviction dismissed days later after lab results determined the white substance he was arrested for having was not drugs.

It was in fact powdered milk he had gotten from a food pantry, he told a judge.

Cody Gregg, 26, pleaded guilty to trafficking drugs on Oct. 8 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, Oklahoma County court documents show.

Oklahoma City Police officers had tried to stop him for a "traffic violation" in August while he was riding a bike, but he fled, police Capt. Larry Withrow told NBC News.

When they caught up with him, they discovered he had a plastic baggy full of "a large amount of white powder substance" in a coffee can in his backpack, along with a scale.

One of the officers field tested the substance, and it tested positive for cocaine, Withrow said. An initial police report said Gregg was in possession of 45.91 grams of cocaine, The Oklahoman reported.

Gregg, who had previously faced drug charges, was booked at the Oklahoma County Jail on Aug. 22 and held on $50,000 bond, court records show.

But lab tests done on the substance nearly two months later determined that it was not an illegal drug, Withrow and the court records said.

Gregg then requested to have his plea withdrawn, which Judge Mark McCormick granted Thursday in the "best interest of justice after negative lab reports," the records said.

He told the judge that the powder in question was powdered milk he had gotten from a food pantry, according to The Oklahoman. He said he had pleaded guilty so he could get out of the Oklahoma County Jail after spending weeks there for a crime he didn't commit.

Gregg's public defender did not respond to an interview request. The Oklahoma County District Attorney's office, the prosecutor on the case and the Oklahoma City Police Department also did not respond to requests for comment.

Jason Lollman, a public defender in Tulsa, told NBC News that he's accustomed to clients pleading guilty - even if they're not - to get out of jail because otherwise they're "forced to sit in and wait" before and during their trial.

"The cash bail system, posting cash bail, is a problem," Lollman said. "If they can't afford an attorney, they're not going to be able to post bond to get out."

There have often been "times where I've actively talked a client out of taking a plea bargain," Lollman said. But "if the client wants to take that plea, I really can't stand in the way of it."

"Sometimes it's like we, the attorneys, have more stamina than the clients do," he added. "But that's because we're on the outside and they're in jail."

Specifically, Lollman's colleagues have relayed to him that the Oklahoma City Jail, where Gregg was held, is a "generally awful jail."

"It's not a great place to be," he said.

The Oklahoma County Jail has, for decades, had problems, including leaking walls, plumbing issues and mold, according to The Oklahoman. The newspaper reports that in the past five years, an inmate has died there about every six weeks, on average. At least six inmates have died there this year.

Requests for comment from the Oklahoma County Jail and Oklahoma County were not returned.

Guilty plea deals don't just get defendants out of jail while they await trial; they also often ensure shorter sentences or probation.

"Innocent defendants who plead guilty almost always get lighter sentences than those who are convicted at trial - that's why they plead guilty," according to a report from the National Registry of Exonerations.

And " innocent defendants who plead guilty have an exceptionally hard time convincing anybody of their innocence," making exonerations for these defendants more unlikely.

Just about a third of the 151 known exonerations in 2018 came after guilty pleas, according to a 2019 report from the National Registry of Exonerations.

And in drug cases, once a defendant pleads guilty, a future drug test that could clear their record is rare.

This becomes a problem when field drug tests, which ProPublica says are "far from reliable" and prone to false positives, are depended on to make an arrest. Lab tests that are more accurate and could lead to an exoneration are frequently delayed because of backlog.

"The field testing of possible drugs by officers is a presumptive test only, and is simply one part of the totality of the circumstances that can lead an officer to believe that enough probable cause exists to legally effect an arrest" Withrow echoed. "The tests performed by our drug lab are clearly more sophisticated and obviously more time consuming than a simple field test."

Field drug tests are particularly detrimental to black people, who are 12 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of drug possession than white people, according to a 2017 report from the National Registry of Exonerations.

Many of the exonerations in the U.S. came out of one county in Texas, Harris County. The county in 2014 started actively running drug tests on post-guilty plea, post-conviction cases to tackle its backlog.

"Of course hundreds of thousands of additional defendants plead guilty every year to avoid pre-trial detention in non-drug cases," the National Registry of Exonerations says. If Harris County's practice "were done across the country, we would no doubt learn of thousands of unknown false drug convictions."

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Man carrying powdered milk pleads guilty to cocaine charge just to get out of jail

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An Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine last week had his conviction dismissed days later after lab results determined the white substance he was arrested for having was not drugs. It was in fact powdered milk he had gotten from a food pantry, he told a judge.

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‘I have a job but I’m homeless’ – the working poor who can’t afford to rent

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‘I have a job but I’m homeless’ – the working poor who can’t afford to rent

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One in every 200 people in Britain is homeless - sleeping on the streets or stuck in temporary accommodation, including hostels and B&Bs, according to analysis from housing charity Shelter. But it might surprise you to know that despite not having a secure home, a small but significant proportion of people experiencing homelessness are in paid employment.

Getting a job is often presented as a solution to getting people off the streets. Indeed, former prime minister Theresa May, in a speech about tackling homelessness, said:

Dealing with homelessness...is about more than just accommodation...the key thing is ensuring people can be in work and can be earning and not find themselves in that situation.

But work does not always offer a route out of poverty - and many people who are in work continue to face housing insecurity. Indeed, recent analysis from the housing charity Shelter found that 55% of families in temporary accommodation are in work. And that this rise in "working homelessness" is being driven by a combination of expensive private rents, the ongoing freeze on housing benefit and a chronic lack of social housing.

Priced out

Our new research uncovers the experiences of 18 working people who were homeless, or at risk of homelessness in Wales.

We found that people lost their homes for a variety of reasons. These included eviction, relationship breakdowns and the ending of short-term tenancy agreements. They then struggled to afford the high upfront costs of starting a new tenancy - with deposits and letting-agency fees. And being on low incomes, the people we spoke to were excluded from private rental properties. One of the people in our study explains more:

We looked at various different properties, but they were all way out of budget for what we would have been entitled to on [Housing Benefit], well with my wages...If you're a family on a low income...there's not a lot in the private sector out here to work with.

Even where they could afford properties, many were discriminated against by landlords who would not accept tenants receiving Housing Benefit:

Every time I phoned a letting agent they would just turn me away straightaway...they turn around and say, 'Actually you're not able to have this property because you'll be on Housing Benefit.'...[even though] I'm working part-time".

Limited options

Interviewees spoke about how they found staying in work while facing homelessness very challenging. One participant talked about struggling to be presentable, with nowhere to wash his clothes:

I was getting back, well, home to the field, stinking, smelling of rubbish [and] I've got...nowhere to wash my clothes.

Being in work could also limit people's housing options, as finding affordable accommodation within travelling distance of their workplace was challenging:

We were offered temporary housing but they didn't have anything [close enough to where I work]...I work in a care home where I do late shifts...I also work in a local pub and sometimes I don't finish until 1:00am...I can't be walking to a couple of villages across and I can't afford taxis.

Another person we spoke to explained how suitable accommodation wasn't always an option:

When you're working in a professional place and you've got to wear a shirt and tie to work with shoes and look ironed and pressed I don't really want to [stay in a hostel]...I don't even know if the shoes are still going to be there in the morning.

Read more: Ken Loach's new film on the gig economy tells exactly the same story as our research

No support

Many participants felt they were on their own. And without other options, some alternated between sleeping rough, sofa-surfing, and sleeping in cars and caravans. Others moved into unsuitable accommodation:

We've actually found a house, even though I don't think it's suitable. It's got no central heating in it and it's got damp in it, my son's got asthma.

One participant got into debt to access accommodation. While this got rid of the immediate threat of homelessness, they were now in a property they couldn't afford:

It feels like I'm squatting in this flat...I'm constantly fighting the battles of my overdraft...I'm housed but financially I'm not in a good place...[but] I was in a situation where I didn't have any options.

As our research highlights, being in employment isn't a straightforward solution to homelessness. And if the UK is serious about ending homelessness then broader issues, such as low pay, insecure work and a lack of affordable housing need to be tackled. Without these changes, the problem is set to get worse.

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'I have a job but I'm homeless' - the working poor who can't afford to rent

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One in every 200 people in Britain is homeless - sleeping on the streets or stuck in temporary accommodation, including hostels and B&Bs, according to analysis from housing charity Shelter. But it might surprise you to know that despite not having a secure home, a small but significant proportion of people experiencing homelessness are in paid employment.

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Millennials support socialism because they want to make America great — but for everyone

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Millennials support socialism because they want to make America great — but for everyone

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The next generation of socialists believes that the intolerable cannot be tolerated. And if you believe that, you just might be a socialist yourself.

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The word "socialism" is becoming more and more mainstream. When Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his 2016 presidential bid, only a fringe few dared to use the label. To call yourself a socialist was supposedly a political death sentence. Now, in part thanks to Sanders, many are wearing "socialism" as a badge of pride. Dozens of socialist candidates have won seats all over the country, including two members of Congress, and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America has exploded. According to a 2019 YouGov poll, 70 percent of millennials now say they would vote for a socialist.

But what is socialism? How do you know whether you're a socialist? Could you be one already without knowing it?

But what is socialism? How do you know whether you're a socialist? Could you be one already without knowing it?

In fact, it can be difficult to answer the question of what precisely socialism is, because socialists themselves disagree over it. That's not surprising; Democrats disagree over what it means to be a Democrat, too. It's an abstract term that describes a diverse population with a lot of conflicting ideas. One popular perception, repeated by Republican Sen. Rand Paul in "The Case Against Socialism," is that socialism is about "government control of the means of production." But that's pretty clearly wrong: historically, many socialists considered themselves outright anarchists, who wanted to get rid of government altogether.

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A better definition, at least as far as the economic dimension of socialism, is the concept of "worker control." What socialists have disliked is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small number of people. What they have demanded is that ordinary working people get their fair share of the wealth. Some socialists have believed strongly in the power of government, others have believed that worker cooperatives or syndicates could give workers their share. Matt Bruenig of the socialist People's Policy Project has proposed a large "social wealth fund" that would distribute returns on public assets to the people as a whole, while Bernie Sanders ( now running for president again) has put forth a plan to give employees seats on company boards and give ordinary workers guaranteed shares of stock.

The specifics vary, but what all socialists have in common is a dislike for the class system, where some people work incredibly hard all their lives and end up with nothing, while other people get to make money in their sleep just by owning things. Socialists think that if you work for a company, you ought to reap rewards when it succeeds, and you ought to have a say in how it's run.

But there's more to it than that. In my book, " Why You Should Be A Socialist," I argue that what socialists have in common is a sense of "solidarity" with people at the bottom, no matter who they are. As the famous socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs said 100 years ago, "while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

That commitment may seem radical: who wants to be of the criminal element? But socialists think in terms of universals: we think everyone deserves healthcare and housing, not just the people who prove themselves morally worthy. Sanders was criticized when he said that inmates should be able to vote. But that was an admirably socialist thing to say: some rights should not have exceptions.

A lot of socialists' day-to-day focus, then, is not on restructuring who owns the "means of production," but on looking at the lives of people at the bottom and figuring out how to make them better. And we have this commitment because of solidarity: you want the same things for everyone else that you have for yourself. That's what Sanders was talking about when he ended a speech this fall by saying:

Are you willing to fight for that person who you don't even know as much as you're willing to fight for yourself? ... Are you willing to fight for young people drowning in student debt, even if you are not? Are you willing to fight to ensure that every American has health care as a human right, even if you have good health care? Are you willing to fight for frightened immigrant neighbors, even if you are native born?

The "even if you are not" part is what's important for socialists. Anyone can pursue their own self-interest, and there are good arguments for, say, joining a union based on what it will do for you personally. But socialism means rejecting the idea, pushed by people like Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand, that being primarily concerned with one's own self-interest is acceptable.

Millennials are sometimes criticized for not knowing what socialism means. But I think we have a pretty clear sentiment in mind: We all look at the migrants trapped in President Donald Trump's squalid jails, the homeless people sleeping at the foot of luxury towers, the people trying to pay their medical bills on GoFundMe, and we are horrified. Our mindset is quite simply that the intolerable cannot be tolerated. And if you believe that, you just might be a socialist yourself.

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Opinion | Why you might already be a socialist

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The word "socialism" is becoming more and more mainstream. When Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his 2016 presidential bid, only a fringe few dared to use the label. To call yourself a socialist was supposedly a political death sentence. Now, in part thanks to Sanders, many are wearing "socialism" as a badge of pride.

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Hate crime laws don’t censor you, they let people like me live free from abuse

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Hate crime laws don’t censor you, they let people like me live free from abuse

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I've always been a campaigner, ever since I was a child. It sounds like an utter cliché but it's in my DNA.

It's a duty to create a world where people like myself can thrive, without fear or anxiety - giving a voice back to the voiceless. Now I want to ensure that anyone with a visible difference like me can lead the lives they want without suffering abuse or prejudice.

I was born with a genetic condition called Neurofibromatosis Type 1, which is characterised by the growth of non-cancerous tumours called fibromas that grow on nerve endings. These can occur anywhere on the human body - in my case they are on my face, affecting both symmetry and function.

I've had experiences where I've been called an 'ugly c**t' or told I should have been 'euthanised at birth' online.

I've been verbally and physically attacked in pubs and on public transport and gangs of youths with camera phones are less than friendly towards me. On one occasion the abuse was so offensive that I was compelled to report it to the police as a hate crime.

What do we actually mean when we talk about 'hate' crime, though?

I know some people may roll their eyes, sigh, mutter the words 'snowflake' and instantly disengage - but, please, stay with me on this.

Hate crime occurs when somebody is the target for hostility or abuse because of their race, religion or, in the case of a disfigurement, it comes under disability. It may be verbal or physical abuse, damage to property - the key is that it's hostility based on a certain protected characteristic like disability.

New research out from the charity Changing Faces shows that one in four people with a visible difference, such as a mark, scar or condition that affects their appearance, have experienced a hate crime. Yet the majority didn't go on to report it. Imagine if the same was true of burglary victims - I'm sure we'd find that very odd.

I'm acutely aware that justice doesn't need a modifier and that not every bad thing that happens to me is a hate crime, being abused because of how you look is not okay.

I'm fortunate that, having presented documentaries on this very topic, I can both recognise it when it happens and also know the most effective ways of reporting - I had an incident once go all the way to the CPS.

Unfortunately due to lack of evidence - or, in my opinion, not enough understanding as to what disability hate crime is within the criminal justice system - we were unable to action the case any further.

The reason people don't report are multi-faceted. People might not know or be confident that it's a hate crime, some may just have the residual acceptance that this abuse is normal (it isn't) and they may have no faith in the system.

Either way, reporting is key. It's also important to note that it's not just a person who's the target of the abuse that can report a hate crime but any witnesses as well.

If something feels wrong or hateful then it probably is wrong. If you are unsure, let the experts decide; I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an expert, so we need to place it in the hands of those who are.

And while one incident of abuse alone may not meet the criteria of a hate crime, at least it will have been recorded by the police and if that abuse continues it may then become a criminal offence.

While I'm acutely aware that justice doesn't need a modifier and that not every bad thing that happens to me is a hate crime, being abused because of how you look is not - and will never be - okay.

This is about dignity and accountability. When it comes to the online world, how we behave and who we are digitally are one and the same thing and our actions in this space have real impact and consequences for people.

Do people really think it's okay to tell my good friend Rory to go hang himself because he was born with a facial birthmark and shared a picture of himself online?

Whilst I am at a point now of being almost bulletproof, hearing the stories of others is still a soul wound. This kind of abuse can destroy people's worlds - the sound of the phone ringing can send panic through their hearts; they don't leave the house. I identify with those emotions, the sadness and the hurt, because I've felt them.

I'd urge everyone to support Changing Faces' Visible Hate campaign by signing up and sharing the resources on how to report hate, as well as our campaign video.

We aren't censoring freedom of speech, just holding people to account. I, and thousands of others who have a visible difference, have the right to live our lives without the fear of ridicule or abuse. It's that simple.
Changing Faces is the UK's leading charity for anyone with a scar, mark of condition that makes them look different. If you need some advice or support please get in touch at changingfaces.org.uk or call 0300 012 0275.
MORE: Hate crimes jump by 10% in one year across England and Wales

MORE: Trans hate crimes jump by 81% in a year with 300% rise in Yorkshire

MORE: Now trolls are turning on disabled people as hate crime jumps by a third

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Hate crime law doesn't censor you, it lets people like me live free of abuse

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I've always been a campaigner, ever since I was a child. It sounds like an utter cliché but it's in my DNA. It's a duty to create a world where people like myself can thrive, without fear or anxiety - giving a voice back to the voiceless.

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Watch: News Anchor Shows Americans Real Size of Wealth Gap—Using American Pie

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Watch: News Anchor Shows Americans Real Size of Wealth Gap—Using American Pie

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A four minute video that aired on CBS Friday morning was praised for using slices of real pie to show the huge wealth gap in the U.S.-surprising passers-by who joined anchor Tony Dokoupil at a table set up at a mall in West Nyack, New York.

"Give this video four minutes and let's start the revolution," tweeted actor Matthew Lillard.

In the video, Dokoupil asks passers-by to divvy a pie sliced into ten pieces onto plates for quintiles of the U.S. based on income, top 20%, next 20%, etc.

Even the most cynical participant didn't come close to the real amount-nine pieces for the top 20% of Americans and the bill for the lowest 20%.

"This is a really clever way to make data accessible!" said Washington Post video journalist Sarah Parnass.

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Later in the segment, Dokoupil asks people at a yacht fair what they think of policies from 2020 Democratic presidential nomination hopefuls Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that would narrow the wealth gap.

Unsurprisingly, yacht owners were unenthusiastic about the idea of a wealth tax or other redistributive policies.

"It would be a total disaster," private equity manager John Sheffield told Dokoupil.

The video, said journalist Justin Kanew, makes clear the stakes in the 2020 presidential election and beyond.

"You're either with the yacht guys, or the people," said Kanew.

Watch the full report:

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Watch: News Anchor Shows Americans Real Size of Wealth Gap-Using American Pie

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A four minute video that aired on CBS Friday morning was praised for using slices of real pie to show the huge wealth gap in the U.S.-surprising passers-by who joined anchor Tony Dokoupil at a table set up at a mall in West Nyack, New York.

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Disabled Homeless Woman Literally Sleeps on the Streets of New York City.

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Disabled Homeless Woman Literally Sleeps on the Streets of New York City.

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Brenda is 60 years-old, she worked for 35 years, she is a college graduate, and she sleeps on the sidewalk of New York City.

I was a little shocked when Brenda told me she sleeps right here on the streets of New York City. With all the people walking by and the noise, I cannot imagine finding comfort enough to close my eyes. But for Brenda, that's where she feels safe.

When Brenda lived in San Diego, she was entering a bus, and the driver didn't see her got on. When the driver moved the door to take off, Brenda was knocked to the ground. Then when the driver pulled away, her leg slammed into the steel door.

Brenda was seriously injured. An ambulance took her to the hospital, but the accident was not reported with the proper protocol. Brenda then started legal proceedings and filed a lawsuit. The lawyer that was recommended to her wasn't honest, and the case never went anywhere. The judge dismissed the case and told Brenda she has every right to sue, but she would have to start all over again.

Brenda now receives $720 a month from Social Security, and that's not even close to enough to afford a place to stay.

At 9:26 I ask Brenda what she would want people to know about homelessness. She shares about how people are judgmental even about her wearing lipstick. Whenever I post a video with a woman that is trying to take care of herself by wearing makeup, lots of people freak out. They have a hard time understanding that homeless women still have the self-worth and decency to look presentable.

Most people that are experiencing homelessness do not look homeless. There is little to no education focused on teaching the general public the true realities of homelessness so people hold on to a lot of misconceptions.

Invisible People

We imagine a world where everyone has a place to call home. Until then, we strive to be the most trusted source for homelessness news, education and advocacy.

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Disabled Homeless Woman Literally Sleeps on the Streets of New York City

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Brenda is 60 years-old, she worked for 35 years, she is a college graduate, and she sleeps on the sidewalk of New York City. I was a little shocked when Brenda told me she sleeps right here on the streets ... Continue reading →

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Stealing Small Amounts Of Food When In Desperate Need Is Not A Crime, Rules Italy's Highest Court

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Stealing Small Amounts Of Food When In Desperate Need Is Not A Crime, Rules Italy's Highest Court

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“A small theft because of hunger is in no way comparable to an act of delinquency, because the need to feed justifies the fact.”

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Stealing is not a crime, ruled Italy's highest court this week -- when small amounts of food are taken in desperate need.

The ruling was in the case a homeless man named Roman Ostriakov, who in 2011 was caught stealing a sausage and some cheese from a Genoa supermarket.

Ostriakov had hidden the goods, worth about $4.50, under his jacket as he paid for breadsticks. He was arrested after a customer informed the store's security of the theft; and in 2013, he was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail.

This week, however, the Supreme Court of Cassation overturned Ostriakov's theft conviction, ruling that stealing small amounts of food to stave off hunger is not a crime. The case has drawn comparisons to the story of Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables."

"The condition of the defendant, and the circumstances in which the seizure of merchandise took place, prove that he took possession of that small amount of food in the face of an immediate and essential need for nourishment, acting therefore in a state of necessity," said the court, according CNN.

Some in Italy have praised the judges' ruling as an act of humanity -- one that's especially meaningful at a time when many in the country are threatened with poverty.

"In recent years the economic crisis has increased dramatically the number of citizens, especially the elderly, forced to steal in supermarkets to be able to make ends meet," said Carlo Rienzi, president of consumer rights group Codacons, according to The Guardian.

"The supreme court has established a sacrosanct principle: a small theft because of hunger is in no way comparable to an act of delinquency, because the need to feed justifies the fact," he added.

According to an op-ed in Corriere Della Sera, the number of poor in Italy grows by an estimated 615 people every day.

"[It's] unthinkable that the law should not take note of reality," it read.

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Stealing Small Amounts Of Food When In Desperate Need Is Not A Crime, Rules Italy's Highest Court

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Stealing is not a crime, ruled Italy's highest court this week -- when small amounts of food are taken in desperate need. The ruling was in the case a homeless man named Roman Ostriakov, who in 2011 was caught stealing a sausage and some cheese from a Genoa supermarket.

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How to make an innocent client plead guilty

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How to make an innocent client plead guilty

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Jeffrey D. Stein is a public defender in Washington, D.C.

The conversation almost always begins in jail. Sitting with your client in the visitation room, you start preparing them for the most important decision the person has ever made. Though the case is just a few days old, the prosecution has already extended a plea offer that will expire within the week. And, because local laws might require detention for certain charges at the prosecutor's request, or because criminal justice systems punish those unable to pay bail, your client will have to make that decision while sitting in a cage.

Your client is desperate, stripped of freedom and isolated from family. Such circumstances make those accused of crimes more likely to claim responsibility, even for crimes they did not commit. A 2016 paper analyzing more than 420,000 cases determined that those who gained pretrial release were 15.6 percentage points less likely to be found guilty. Not surprisingly, prosecutors commonly condition plea offers on postponing hearings where defendants may challenge their arrests and request release.

In what little time exists before the plea expires, you dispatch your overworked investigator to identify, find and interview witnesses. In federal and in many local courts, the prosecution is not obligated to reveal its witnesses before trial. You and your investigator do your best to assess whether the case rests on unreliable eyewitnesses, faulty assumptions or witnesses with reasons to fabricate an account, which you cannot fully explore because - remember - the prosecution has not even disclosed who they are.

Why not ask your client for leads? That might work if the person were guilty. Innocent clients are generally the least helpful, because they often cannot tell you what they don't know.

You lay out options for your client. You could go to trial, but that might mean waiting in jail for months, if not years, before a jury hears the case.

The idealist in you - the one who enrolled in law school to "change the system" and to fight for justice on behalf of those who need it most - hopes your client will proclaim a decision to go to trial. But a wary voice in the back of your head reminds you of the risk and life-altering consequences of losing.

You think back to a man who once visited your office for help getting the record of his sole conviction sealed. Before the conviction, he had a job, a girlfriend and a newborn daughter. Then he lost a drug case in which a pistol was found nearby. At sentencing, the judge acknowledged the inappropriateness of the five-year mandatory minimum and even asked the prosecution to consider dismissing the charge that carried the mandatory time. It didn't. When he eventually got out, you couldn't even help him seal his record so he could move forward with his life because, in your jurisdiction, felonies can never be sealed.

The other option, you explain to your client, is to accept the plea offer. In some cases, the sentencing difference between accepting a plea and losing at trial can be a matter of decades. It's no wonder 95 percent of all defendants accept plea offers. Or that, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, 15 percent of all exonerees - people convicted of crimes later proved to be innocent - originally pleaded guilty. That share rises to 49 percent for people exonerated of manslaughter and 66 percent for those exonerated of drug crimes.

You tell your client that they would probably win at trial, but if they lose, they will go to prison. The plea promises some meaningful benefit: getting out of jail sooner, avoiding deportation, not losing a job, seeing a daughter before her next birthday. But your client would have to accept responsibility for a crime they may not have committed.

The final stage happens in court. Your client has signed the paperwork admitting to something you believe in your gut they did not do. Maybe they acted in self-defense. Maybe they were standing near the actual perpetrator and were presumed guilty by association because of the color of their skin. Maybe they were the victim of an honest misidentification.

The judge turns to you and asks, "Does either counsel know of any reason that I should not accept the defendant's guilty plea?" You hesitate. You want to shout: "Yes, your honor! This plea is the product of an extortive system of devastating mandatory minimums and lopsided access to evidence. My client faced an impossible choice and is just trying to avoid losing his life to prison."

But you stand by your client's decision, which was made based on experiences and emotions only they can know. You reply: "No, your honor."

The marshals lead your shackled client to a cage behind the courtroom. And the judge moves on to the next case.

Our criminal justice system is not a 'joke.' Yet.

Jeff Sessions has endorsed an unconstitutional fine on the poor.

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Opinion | How to make an innocent client plead guilty

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Jeffrey D. Stein is a public defender in Washington, D.C. The conversation almost always begins in jail. Sitting with your client in the visitation room, you start preparing them for the most important decision the person has ever made.

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Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

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Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

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Shock shutdown - THE TRUTH

The company formerly known as Cambridge Analytica shocked the media today when it announced an immediate shutdown and liquidation of its business.

That "shutdown," however, may be short-lived as official documents indicate those behind the controversial analytics company will be launching as a new firm with a less-toxic brand.

The surprise announcement came on Wednesday evening, when the UK-based Cambridge Anal., and its parent organization SCL Elections, stated it would enter insolvency proceedings and disband immediately.

$0.75 - about how much Cambridge Analytica paid per voter in bid to micro-target their minds, internal docs reveal

The announcement came after Cambridge Anal. found itself at the center of a political firestorm when a former staffer blew the whistle on a data-harvesting campaign that had covertly collected the personal information on more than 87 million Facebook users.

These records were used to target particular voters with ads and social media posts in hope of influencing their decisions at the ballot box. Whether or not these persuasion tactics actually worked is up for debate, but an attempt was at least made with info sneakily swiped from people's profiles via a quiz app. The biz denies any wrongdoing.

"Over the past several months, Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and, despite the company's efforts to correct the record, has been vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas," the biz said in its blame-shifting sign-off.

"Despite Cambridge Analytica's unwavering confidence that its employees have acted ethically and lawfully, which view is now fully supported by [Queen's Counsel Julian] Malins' report, the siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company's customers and suppliers."

The organization say it will honor all employee severance, notice, and redundancy obligations as the lights go out. It added:

The company is immediately ceasing all operations and the boards have applied to appoint insolvency practitioners Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP to act as the independent administrator for Cambridge Analytica.

Additionally, parallel bankruptcy proceedings will soon be commenced on behalf of Cambridge Analytica LLC and certain of the company's US affiliates in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Though Cambridge Analytica said it is pulling the plug in the US and UK, there is already some indication that the outfit - which has a non-trivial organizational structure - is more or less just going to rebrand under a different banner.

The UK's official registrar of businesses and organizations, Companies House, lists an active company called Emerdata Limited, headquartered at the same offices as SCL Elections and run by much of the same management and investors as Cambridge Analytica. It even describes itself as a "data processing, hosting and related activities" organization.

For instance, Dr Alexander Taylor was appointed a director of Emerdata on March 28. That's Cambridge Analytica's acting CEO and data wizard Dr Alexander Taylor. Julian Wheatland is an Emerdata director who is also a director within the SCL network of organizations.

Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer are directors of Emerdata, and are the daughters of ultra-wealthy businessman Robert Mercer who created and bankrolled Cambridge Analytica. Billionaire Bob has given tens of millions of dollars to rightwing political efforts. Jennifer and Rebekah also had a hand in Cambridge Anal.

Emerdata was founded in mid-2017, but has been rather active since Cambridge Analytica hit the headlines earlier this year, including official filings as recent as yesterday.

So, it seems the shutdown may be less a business catastrophe than a marketing exercise. ®

Sponsored: Minds Mastering Machines - Call for papers now open

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Cambridge Analytica dismantled for good? Nope: It just changed its name to Emerdata

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The company formerly known as Cambridge Analytica shocked the media today when it announced an immediate shutdown and liquidation of its business. That "shutdown," however, may be short-lived as official documents indicate those behind the controversial analytics company will be launching as a new firm with a less-toxic brand.

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Pro-Choice And Pro-Life Supporters Search For Common Ground

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ABORTION IS MURDER - Your Argument Is Wrong

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ABORTION IS MURDER - Your Argument Is Wrong

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ABORTION IS MURDER - Your Argument Is Wrong

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Ben Shapiro Destroys The Abortion Argument

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Ben Shapiro Destroys The Abortion Argument

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Ben Shapiro DEBATES Dave Rubin On Abortion! (Best of Ben Shapiro)

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Animal research for human experimentation

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Please check your email for instructions on resetting your password. If you do not receive an email within 10 minutes, your email address may not be registered, and you may need to create a new Wiley Online Library account.

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a “political turn” in the discourse of animal rights

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21 Abortion Restrictions Have Already Been Enacted in 2019

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In just the first four months of 2019, 21 abortion restrictions have been enacted across the country.

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Andrew Lelling, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, speaks about charges against a judge and a former court officer for allegedly helping an immigrant evade immigration officials on March 12. | Steven Senne, File/AP Photo

The Justice Department filed criminal charges Thursday against a Massachusetts judge and a former court officer for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest.

According to a 19-page indictment, Judge Shelley Joseph obstructed justice when she allowed an alleged undocumented immigrant to depart through the rear exit of a courthouse and evade arrest. Wesley MacGregor, the former court officer who allegedly escorted the immigrant to a back door, also faces charges.

Story Continued Below

President Donald Trump has hammered "sanctuary" jurisdictions for protecting undocumented immigrants and limiting cooperation with federal enforcement. Under his watch, elected officials in several states have complained that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have stepped up arrests in federal courthouses.

ICE issued guidance in January 2018 that said courthouse arrests reduce risk to officers because suspects must go through security before they enter a courthouse building. It's unclear whether Joseph's immigration views played a role in her alleged act, but her courtroom is situated in Newton, which has been a sanctuary city since 2017.

By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling - seemingly anticipating backlash for the indictment - defended the decision in a related announcement today.

"We cannot pick and choose the federal laws we follow," he said, "or use our personal views to justify violating the law."

Maura Healey, the state's Democratic attorney general, blasted the charges as a "politically motivated attack" and a "misuse of prosecutorial resources" in a written statement.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court suspended Joseph without pay following the announcement, according to a related order.

The Boston Globe first reported in December that Joseph was the subject of a grand jury investigation over the alleged obstruction of justice.

This article tagged under:

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DOJ charges judge with helping undocumented immigrant evade arrest

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The Justice Department filed criminal charges Thursday against a Massachusetts judge and a former court officer for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest. According to a 19-page indictment, Judge Shelley Joseph obstructed justice when she allowed an alleged undocumented immigrant to depart through the rear exit of a courthouse and evade arrest.

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In Rural Tennessee, a Big ICE Raid Makes Some Conservative Voters Rethink Trump’s Immigration Agenda

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When a small town loses 100 people in just a few hours, kids come home to find their parents missing. Producer Lilly Sullivan talks to people trying to make sense of where they went and if they'll come back. (21 minutes)

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The Sudden Departure - This American Life

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When a small town loses 100 people in just a few hours, kids come home to find their parents missing. Producer Lilly Sullivan talks to people trying to make sense of where they went and if they'll come back. (21 minutes)

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An agent carried the 3-year-old child out of the cornfield where he was found. Credit Credit Customs and Border Protection

[ Read the latest edition of Crossing the Border, a limited-run newsletter about life where the United States and Mexico meet. Sign up here to receive the next issue in your inbox.]

MCALLEN, Tex. - The 3-year-old boy was alone, and crying.

Early on Tuesday morning, Border Patrol agents at the Fort Brown station in South Texas found the boy in a cornfield. He had his name and a phone number written on his shoes. Agents said the boy was abandoned by smugglers, who fled back toward Mexico when the Border Patrol approached.

The lone child crossing the border was not an anomaly - more than 8,900 unaccompanied children were apprehended by the Border Patrol in March, nearly twice the number seen in October.

Many were teenagers, but for years, children younger than 12 have been among those making the journey across America's southern border without their parents or other relatives, often traveling with groups of strangers. Theirs is a harrowing, complex and dislocating saga, as children as young as 3, 4 or 5 are passed from migrant group to migrant group for days, often eventually abandoned in the deserts of Arizona or in the brush of South Texas.

Like the boy found near Brownsville, Tex., this week, the children generally have phone numbers of relatives in the United States written on their clothes or on slips of paper they carry in their pockets.

"These cases can be heartbreaking, because of how small the children are and because they are often very confused and scared by the entire ordeal," said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, which provides legal services to unaccompanied children.

How children end up on their own in the chaotic environment of the southwest border often follows a familiar pattern. Parents flee poverty and violence in countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. They leave one or more of their children behind with relatives. Later, after settling in the United States, the parents send for the children they left behind, and those children make the journey with a relative or with strangers. After crossing the border, the children are often abandoned by smugglers and other migrants who believe the children will be rescued by the Border Patrol.

It is a tremendous gamble: Agents have, over the years, saved children's lives in these situations.

One evening in June at the Arizona border, Border Patrol agents discovered a 6-year-old boy on a border road at a time when the temperature was more than 100 degrees. The abandoned boy was from Costa Rica, and told the agents that his uncle had dropped him off and had told him that the Border Patrol would pick him up. The boy said he was on his way to see his mother in the United States.

In July, agents in the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector came upon an 8-year-old boy, alone, by a river road. Agents were only able to learn his name and his age as they took him in for processing - he spoke only a regional dialect they did not understand.

The number of unaccompanied children crossing the southwest border in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2018, is on track to reach the peak achieved in the 2014 fiscal year, when more than 68,500 migrant children were intercepted. In the first half of the current fiscal year, agents apprehended 35,898 unaccompanied children, compared with 50,036 during the entire 2018 fiscal year.

"I've been in the Border Patrol going on 24 years," said John R. Morris, the acting deputy chief patrol agent in the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector, which includes the Fort Brown station. "In my early days, a child would never be abandoned."

Now, the phenomenon is "on the increase" as children are left to the care of smugglers who see them as "cargo," he said. "We just recently had a 2-year-old girl who was literally left at the riverbank with her name and a phone number written on a T-shirt - a 2-year-old girl."

Those who work along the border say the unaccompanied children traveling without parents or relatives are sometimes even as young as infants. In recent weeks, several infants were being held at the Border Patrol's Centralized Processing Center in McAllen, Tex. - all of them had crossed the border without their families, were apprehended as part of larger migrant groups and were expected to join relatives already living in the United States.

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The boy watched "Paw Patrol" at a Border Patrol office.

Credit Customs and Border Protection

"We've seen that plenty of times," said Jorge Gonzalez, the patrol agent in charge of the Border Patrol's Brownsville Station and a 19-year veteran of the agency. "It's a child that doesn't belong to really, truly, anybody within the group, and they're to get turned over to their parents that have already made their way into the United States."

In one case, a 2-year-old girl was found with a group of migrants in November just north of the border near Campo, Calif. She was not related to anyone in the group, and was strapped to the chest of a 17-year-old boy in a makeshift cloth baby carrier.

The girl had been traveling with her mother, but the mother became tired and asked if one of the other migrants could carry her daughter. The 17-year-old boy agreed. But the group of migrants later separated, and the boy was unable to locate the girl's mother. When he crossed into the United States with the girl still strapped to his chest, he had still not located the mother, according to the Border Patrol. After he and the girl were apprehended, the girl was placed in custody as officials worked on reuniting her with her mother.

In the case of the 3-year-old boy found on Tuesday in the cornfield, federal officials were working on reuniting the boy with his family. Pictures released on Twitter by the Border Patrol's parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, show the boy sitting at a desk in a Border Patrol office, watching "Paw Patrol" on an official's computer. The boy is from Mexico, but he does not speak well enough to communicate.

After the agents discovered him in the cornfield, he was transported to a hospital, found to be in good condition and released back to the Border Patrol.

At the Fort Brown station, the agents' attempts to contact the child's family were unsuccessful. One agent bought the boy some clothing before he was transferred to the Border Patrol's main processing center in McAllen. He remained there on Wednesday, being cared for by contracted child-care workers assigned to the center, officials said.

Theoretically, the boy, because laws pertaining to Mexicans allow for swifter deportations, could be quickly sent home. However, since he is very young and was found alone, this is unlikely to happen: American authorities cannot easily ascertain whether the child has a fear of returning to his home country or was a victim of trafficking.

Children who arrive in the country alone pose a number of challenges to federal officials and to the agencies and contractors responsible for caring for them while they are detained. When children are too young to talk, basic communication is difficult. Many of these children can act out or withdraw, out of confusion and frustration with their situation.

"We have run into kids who are so young they can't express what they want," said Anthony Enriquez, director of the unaccompanied minors program at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York, which represents more than 700 unaccompanied minors who are in the process of being deported. "When you get into situations when you have a child who isn't verbal yet and doesn't have the capacity to comprehend the situation and make an informed decision, we have an ethical dilemma."

Many of the families who send for their children appear not to understand, or they ignore, the dangers of the treacherous journey they are forcing the children to take, said some of those who work with migrant families. Boys and girls alike are at risk of being sexually exploited and abused by smugglers, of becoming seriously ill, or of dying from heat, cold or dehydration in the harsh, vast terrain on the southwest border. It is unknown how many cases of very young children traveling alone end in tragedy.

In 2014, a 12-year-old girl left Ecuador to reunite with her parents in the Bronx. She never made it. The girl - Noemi Álvarez Quillay - was sexually assaulted by smugglers at the border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Days later, on March 11, 2014, still in Mexico, Noemi committed suicide by hanging herself from a shower curtain rod. A joint investigation that included United States law enforcement agencies led to the indictment in Mexico of more than 40 people involved in smuggling and assaulting Noemi and other women and children.

Mr. Gonzalez, the lead agent at the Brownsville station, recalled an incident about a year ago, when he worked at another South Texas station in rural Starr County. Agents discovered a boy who was 3 or 4 years old. He had a phone number for his aunt that he carried on a piece of paper.

"He was by one of the river landings, and he was actually caught with a group of aliens, but nobody said, 'I brought him,'" Mr. Gonzalez said, adding, "Truthfully, there's only one way he crossed, and that was with that group. But at that point, nobody wanted to take any kind of ownership of that situation."

The agents contacted the boy's aunt, and then the aunt put the boy's mother in touch with the authorities. Both women were living in the United States.

"I think desperation is definitely part of it," Mr. Gonzalez said. "I guess the situations that they currently reside in kind of dictate the manner in which they'll try anything to get their family home again. I think that's just the human condition. Everybody wants to be with their family, and they're willing to do whatever it takes to do that."

Manny Fernandez reported from McAllen, Tex., and Miriam Jordan from Los Angeles.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: A 'Heartbreaking' Scene At the Border: A Toddler Found Wandering Alone. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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3-Year-Old Found Alone at Border Is One of Many 'Heartbreaking' Migrant Cases

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Read the latest edition of Crossing the Border , a limited-run newsletter about life where the United States and Mexico meet. Sign up here to receive the next issue in your inbox.] MCALLEN, Tex. - The 3-year-old boy was alone, and crying.

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Florida House passes bill mandating ex-felons pay criminal fees before they can vote

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Opponents say the bill is a blow to the state's effort to restore voting rights up to 1.4 million people with felony convictions.

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Will SeaWorlds larger whale pools quell blackfish backlash?

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Tidal waves of criticism pummeling SeaWorld show few signs of receding, despite steps by the company to improve its whales' habitat following the release of a damning documentary.

'Blackfish,' a 2013 film, questions the park's practices in capturing the whales and investigates the 2010 killing of a trainer by a whale named Tilikum by suggesting that their confinement leads them to lash out. Since the film's premiere, attendance at SeaWorld has fallen and its stock has dropped by more than a fifth, with its Standard & Poor's credit rating plunging.

The company now says that "media attention" is to blame for the weak earnings, a reversal from previous claims that the movie did not affect its business. CEO Jim Atchison announced last week that the company would build a new 10 million-gallon whale tank in 2018, doubling the size of its old pool.

Labeled the "Blue World Project," the new tank will include a "fast water current," which simulates the ocean by allowing the whales to swim against the tide. "It's going to be a new thing in the environment. I expect to see a whole lot of play. That's the most exciting thing about this," a company spokesperson told FOX 5 in San Diego. "We work tirelessly day-in and day-out, to care for these animals, and that's all our team is focused on right now."

Will larger tanks help resolve the uncertainty on killer whales living in captivity?

Movie director Gabriela Cowperthwaite says that because the company plans to invest several hundred million dollars on the project, "the new pool size is designed to accommodate more captive whales and more forcible breeding."

When a reporter posed that exact question, the company's CEO didn't respond, reported Bloomberg. Ms. Cowperthwaite added on Friday:

"Sea World has announced it is going to expand internationally. So basically it is going to be needing more whales. So I think people in the know are sort of saying, it's very clear that these bigger pools are going to be filled with more whales."

Her documentary has shined outsized media attention on the challenges of raising whales in captivity, dampening interest in visiting the park.

Thirteen months since its premiere, social media continues to call for a boycott of the park, animal rights activists protest at the entrance, and musicians have canceled planned performances. On top of the bad press, 26-year corporate partner Southwest Airlines terminated its sponsorship due to public concern for the killer whales' living conditions.

What are some of the issues with capturing and raising killer whales?

'Blackfish' says that killer whales who live in captivity are more likely to suffer from disease, enjoy shorter lifespans, and suffer emotional trauma from being separated from their families.

Animal rights groups also object to the process by which SeaWorld captures the whales, imprisons them outside of their natural habitat, and forces them to perform tricks.

According to an Al Jazeera report on the whales:

In 1983, a male orca was captured in the North Atlantic. At two years of age, he was already 11.5 feet long. His captors named him Tilikum. A number of Tilikum's trainers speak candidly in Blackfish about his miserable life at Sealand in Victoria, Canada. When he was just four years old, he was 16-feet-long and weighed 4,000 pounds. Former Sealand trainers said Tilikum and two other orcas were locked in a 20-by-30 foot dark metal container for two-thirds of their lives. There was no stimulation, they were mostly immobile for 14 hours a day, and the trainers punished and deprived them of food in order to make them perform tricks.

The physical trauma, coupled with the emotional distress of being taken from his family and home, took a major toll on Tilikum, pushing the animal to aggression.

In 1991, Tilikum killed trainer Keltie Byrne. On February 24, 2010, Tilikum brutally attacked and killed veteran SeaWorld Orlando whale trainer Dawn Brancheau.

Despite the bad press and lower stock price, the park's operators are still profitable. Private equity firm Blackstone Group owns the three SeaWorlds in Orlando, Fla., San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, Calif., and since purchasing the parks in 2009, the group "is reeling in the profits from its aquarium theme park," reported the Wall Street Journal.

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Will SeaWorld's larger whale pools quell 'Blackfish' backlash?

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Tidal waves of criticism pummeling SeaWorld show few signs of receding, despite steps by the company to improve its whales' habitat following the release of a damning documentary. 'Blackfish,' a 2013 film, questions the park's practices in capturing the whales and investigates the 2010 killing of a trainer by a whale named Tilikum by suggesting that their confinement leads them to lash out.

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What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

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Evicted by Matthew Desmond review - what if the problem of poverty is that it's profitable to other people?

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'There is an enormous amount of pain and poverty in this rich land,' argues American sociologist Desmond in this brilliant book about housing and the lives of eight families in Milwaukee

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Amazon job applicants: What do you think of $15/hr?

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Amazon job applicants: What do you think of $15/hr?

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International Amazon Workers Voice. 4K likes. The International Amazon Workers Voice is the center for int'l opposition to Amazon's dictatorship. Join the opposition and share with your coworkers.

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Post by AmazonWorkersVoice.

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In February Nike launched its "Equality" campaign, professing its commitment to diversity and inclusion. On July 29, students and workers held a Global Day of Action in 25 cities across 12 countries to tell Nike: we're not buying it.

Workers in garment factories producing Nike apparel say the company's up to its old tricks, by barring independent inspectors and cutting production from unionized plants. Members of garment worker unions and allies demonstrated in India, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Spain, and eight other countries.

In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, members of the SITRASTAR union led a demonstration outside their factory and the neighboring Nike store. According to union leader Waldin Reyes, 350 union members had lost their jobs the month before when Nike pulled production from their factory. Reyes led chants of, "If there is no peace for us, let there be no peace for them."

In the U.S., students channeled that spirit as they demonstrated at Nike stores in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Portland, Houston, Chicago, and more. Actions included store blockades, the classic "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Nike" action, where students strip to their underwear, and spirited pickets.

Demonstrators had three demands: that Nike restore production in the STAR factory in Honduras, that it fix labor violations at the Hansae factory in Vietnam, and that it commit to access to its supplier factories by independent inspectors. This last demand is at the heart of a campaign launched by United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) in 2015.

LET THE MONITORS IN

That campaign began almost two years ago in response to a strike at the Hansae factory, which produces apparel for U.S. colleges.

The Worker Rights Consortium, the independent monitoring organization, requested access to Hansae to inspect working conditions. Since the WRC's founding in 2000, Nike had not questioned its access to supplier factories. The WRC's very first inspection was of a Nike subcontractor in Mexico, and Nike representatives had even driven WRC investigators to factories on occasion. This time, though, Nike refused to let WRC inspectors in.

This decision by the world's largest sportswear brand shocked students, garment worker unions, and advocates in the international anti-sweatshop movement. When Nike then went on to deny the WRC access to any of its 690 supplier factories, activists feared the undoing of one of their strongest tools for accountability and transparency in the garment industry.

The WRC is the world's only independent labor rights monitoring agency and accepts no funds from corporations or unions. Thanks to years of campaigning by students, more than 190 colleges have designated the WRC as their monitor for working conditions in the factories that produce their apparel. Access for WRC monitors has become a priority for these schools, as their only means to know the conditions under which their apparel is produced.

Together with partner garment worker unions in Central America, Sri Lanka, India, Cambodia, and other countries, USAS called for solidarity and action. USAS locals on more than 30 U.S. campuses led campaigns to pressure their universities to cut their multi-million-dollar contracts with the brand unless Nike committed to allowing WRC access. After months of campaigning and negotiation, Nike granted the WRC conditional access to Hansae, and in December 2016, the WRC released its report on conditions there.

SEVERE CONDITIONS UNCOVERED

The conditions discovered were some of the most severe in the WRC's history of inspections: mass faintings, illegally high temperatures, wage theft, forced overtime, and the systematic firing of pregnant women. Nike's own inspectors had been regularly auditing Hansae for over a decade and had reported no labor violations in that time. Given Nike's self-reports of no violations, activists argue that this case shows the WRC is the only source they can trust for uncompromised reporting of health and safety violations, union-busting, and other abuses.

One Hansae worker, who spoke with a USAS representative soon after the report, recounted workers' experience with inspectors. "When Nike came to the factory, we had to keep our heads down and say only nice things about Hansae," the worker said. "We were told over and over that if we said bad things about the factory, we would be fired." According to that same worker, the WRC's eventual access to the factory was "our chance for people to know what it was like to work [at Hansae]...and do something to change it."

Reaction to the report was immediate. Two days later, USAS-affiliated students at Georgetown University launched a 36-hour occupation of the university president's suite to demand that Georgetown end its licensing agreement with Nike unless the corporation guaranteed full WRC access to its factories. Georgetown agreed and let its agreement expire later that month when Nike would not meet the condition.

Student pressure had already led Rutgers University to end its $150 million sponsorship deal a few months earlier. Then in March of this year, the entire University of California system strengthened its policy so that all licensees were required to give the kind of unfettered access to monitors that Nike was denying. Soon after, Cornell University and Northeastern University ended their license agreements, costing Nike what USAS estimates to be well over $45 million in potential revenue and royalties.

UNION-BUSTING IN HONDURAS

As the academic year ended with the fight over contracts raging on campuses across the country, USAS learned of yet another alarming action. Nike had pulled production from the STAR factory, a union plant producing collegiate apparel in El Progreso, Honduras. USAS's International Campaigns Coordinator, Angeles Solis, describes Nike's action as classic "cutting and running": brands shifting production from union to non-union factories in response to worker organizing. More than 350 union members lost their jobs.

Reyes, the leader in the Honduran workers' union, talked with USAS activists on a nationwide conference call soon afterwards. "We have generated Nike's wealth for over 10 years," Reyes told the students. "It will take more than the union to face management, it will take more than our country to face our government, it will take transnational solidarity to take on Nike."

For many students, the Global Day of Action offered a chance to learn the potential of organizing and direct action. Georgetown sophomore Taylor Davis helped organize a picket outside Nike's D.C. store, her first time organizing such an action. Davis said of Georgetown and other universities, "as institutions with such great power and influence, it should be an obligation of theirs to lead by example."

Nike responded to the Global Day of Action by asserting it never had and never would cooperate with the WRC, despite its long history of permitting WRC access to Nike factories.

Now activists are looking toward September 1, when a licensing agreement between Nike and the University of Washington will expire if the issue is left unresolved. According to Solis, USAS is energized from the Global Day of Action and ready to keep fighting.

"Nike thought they would get away with cutting and running while students were away for their summer," said Solis. "Nike is attempting to turn back the clock on over 20 years of fundamental labor rights. The country's largest student-labor organization is committed to ensuring that doesn't happen."
Kory Stuer is a member of United Students Against Sweatshops Local 9 at Georgetown University.

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With Nike Up to Old Tricks, Students and Workers Launch Global Protests

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In February Nike launched its "Equality" campaign, professing its commitment to diversity and inclusion. On July 29, students and workers held a Global Day of Action in 25 cities across 12 countries to tell Nike: we're not buying it.

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Yoni Appelbaum: The Mueller report is an impeachment referral
The question I feared inevitably opened the interview: "How do you feel about Donald Trump?" I could not honestly say I admired him. While working on Senator Marco Rubio's primary campaign, I had watched Trump throw schoolyard nicknames at him. I gave the only honest answer I could: "I admire the advisers he's chosen, like Larry Kudlow and David Malpass, and I admire his choice of VP." That did the trick. I got the impression they'd heard that one before. I was one of the first 16 members of Trump's transition team, as deputy director of economic policy.

In time, my work for the transition became awkward. I disagreed with Trump's rhetoric on immigration and trade. I also had strong concerns about his policies in my area of financial regulation. The hostility to Russian sanctions from the policy team, particularly from those members picked by Paul Manafort, was even more unsettling.

I wasn't very good at hiding my distaste. We parted ways in October amicably; I wasn't the right fit. I wished many of my friends who worked on the transition well, and I respected their decision to stay on after Trump won. A few of them even arranged offers for policy jobs in the White House, which I nearly accepted but ultimately turned down, as I knew I'd be no better fit there than I had been on the transition.

I never considered joining the Never Trump Republican efforts. Their criticisms of President Trump's lack of character and unfitness for office were spot-on, of course, but they didn't seem very pragmatic. There was no avoiding the fact that he'd won, and like many others, I felt the focus should be on guiding his policy decisions in a constructive direction. The man whom I most admire in that regard is McGahn, Trump's first White House counsel, who guided the president toward some amazing nominees for regulatory agencies and the judiciary.
Yoni Appelbaum: Impeach Donald Trump
I wanted to share my experience transitioning from Trump team member to pragmatist about Trump to advocate for his impeachment, because I think many other Republicans are starting a similar transition. Politics is a team sport, and if you actively work within a political party, there is some expectation that you will follow orders and rally behind the leader, even when you disagree. There is a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty and pragmatism into something more sinister, a blind devotion that serves to enable criminal conduct.

The Mueller report was that tipping point for me, and it should be for Republican and independent voters, and for Republicans in Congress. In the face of a Department of Justice policy that prohibited him from indicting a sitting president, Mueller drafted what any reasonable reader would see as a referral to Congress to commence impeachment hearings.

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deputy director of economic policy.in time

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separate instances of obstruction of justice

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I Was a Trump Transition Staffer, and I've Seen Enough. It's Time for Impeachment.

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Yoni Appelbaum: The Mueller report is an impeachment referral The question I feared inevitably opened the interview: "How do you feel about Donald Trump?" I could not honestly say I admired him. While working on Senator Marco Rubio's primary campaign, I had watched Trump throw schoolyard nicknames at him.

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Both sides? Explain your nuanced approach.

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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would decide whether a federal law prohibits employers from discriminating against gay and transgender workers.

The law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbids employment discrimination based on sex. The question for the justices is whether that language bars discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status.

Most federal appeals courts have interpreted the law to exclude sexual orientation discrimination. But two of them, in New York and Chicago, recently issued decisions ruling that discrimination against gay men and lesbians is a form of sex discrimination.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case from New York, Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, No. 17-1623, along with one from Georgia that came to the opposite conclusion, Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, No. 17-1618.

The New York case was brought by a sky-diving instructor who said he was fired because he was gay. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit concluded that "sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination."

The Georgia case was brought by a child welfare services coordinator who said he was fired for being gay. The 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, ruled against him in a short, unsigned opinion that cited a 1979 decision that had ruled that "discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII."

The justices also agreed to decide the separate question of whether Title VII bars discrimination against transgender people. The case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, No. 18-107, concerns Aimee Stephens, who was fired from a Michigan funeral home after she announced that she was a transgender woman and would start working in women's clothing.

She sued and won in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati. Discrimination against transgender people, the court ruled, was barred by Title VII.

"It is analytically impossible to fire an employee based on that employee's status as a transgender person without being motivated, at least in part, by the employee's sex," the court said, adding, "Discrimination 'because of sex' inherently includes discrimination against employees because of a change in their sex."

There is a second issue in Ms. Stephens's case, one that could allow her to win however the Supreme Court might rule on whether Title VII applies to discrimination against transgender people. In 1989, the court said discrimination against workers because they did not conform to gender stereotypes was a form of sex discrimination.

The Sixth Circuit ruled for Ms. Stephens on that ground, too, saying she had been fired "for wishing to appear or behave in a manner that contradicts the funeral home's perception of how she should behave or appear based on her sex."

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that Title VII bars discrimination against gay and transgender people. In recent briefs, the Trump administration has taken the opposite position.

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Supreme Court to Decide Whether Bias Law Covers Gay and Transgender Workers

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WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would decide whether a federal law prohibits employers from discriminating against gay and transgender workers. The law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbids employment discrimination based on sex.

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How Democrats and Republicans switched beliefs

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How Democrats and Republicans switched beliefs

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James A. Haught says Teddy Roosevelt was the last Republican liberal, and was shifting by the time his Democratic nephew-in-law, FDR, pushed the New Deal through.

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Strangely, over a century, America's two major political parties gradually reversed identities, like the magnetic poles of Planet Earth switching direction.

When the Republican Party was formed in 1856, it was fiercely liberal, opposing the expansion of slavery, calling for more spending on public education, seeking more open immigration and the like. Compassionate Abraham Lincoln suited the new party's progressive agenda.

In that era, Democrats were conservatives, partly dominated by the slave-holding South. Those old-style Democrats generally opposed any government action to create jobs or help underdogs.

Through the latter half of the 19th century, the pattern of Republicans as liberals, Democrats as conservatives, generally held true. In 1888, the GOP elected President Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) on a liberal platform seeking more social services.

Then in 1896, a reversal began when Democrats nominated populist firebrand William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), "the Great Commoner."

"He was the first liberal to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination," political scholar Rich Rubino wrote. "This represented a radical departure from the conservative roots of the Democratic Party."

Meanwhile, the GOP began shifting to conservative. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) - a vice president who took the top office after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901 - was a Republican liberal who supported a "Square Deal" for working families. He broke up monopolistic trusts of rich corporations. He championed pure food and drugs. He created national parks and forests for the enjoyment of everyone. He won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end war between Russia and Japan.

After leaving office, Roosevelt felt that his successor, William Howard Taft (1857-1930), was leading America too far to the right. So T.R. challenged Taft for the GOP nomination in 1912, and lost. In rebellion, Roosevelt gathered his liberal delegates and formed the Progressive Party, with a bold platform bordering on socialism.

The new-formed party called for universal medical care under a National Health Service. It sought government pensions for retirees, plus compensation for the jobless and disabled. It demanded an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage for women. It sought a constitutional amendment to allow a federal income tax. It supported voting by women, more freedom for workers to organize and strike, inheritance tax on rich estates, worker's compensation for on-the-job injuries, and many other left-wing goals.

The Progressive platform attacked big-money influence in politics, vowing "to destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics."

Roosevelt was a fiery orator and writer, saying: "I believe that there should be a very much heavier progressive tax on very large incomes, a tax which should increase in a very marked fashion for the gigantic incomes."

While Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee in 1912, a crazed assassin, John Schrank - who claimed that the ghost of William McKinley asked him to avenge McKinley's death by killing Roosevelt - shot the Progressive candidate in the chest. The bullet was partly deflected by Roosevelt's 50-page speech and his steel eyeglasses case, but wounded him nonetheless. Bleeding, he continued to orate unfazed.

Later, when reporters asked if the wounding would deter his campaign, Roosevelt replied that he was "fit as a bull moose." Thereafter, his party was dubbed the Bull Moose Party.

Progressives won about one-fourth of the 1912 popular vote, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) attained the presidency. In 1916, Roosevelt declined the Progressive nomination, and the liberal party he created soon disintegrated.

In a sense, Teddy Roosevelt was the last major Republican liberal. Ensuing decades saw the GOP grow steadily more conservative, and Democrats acquire the liberal mantle. When the Great Depression struck, the "New Deal" of Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), Theodore's nephew-in-law, achieved landmark progressive reforms.

In the 1960s, the "Great Society" of Democrat Lyndon Johnson (1908- 1973) vastly expanded the public safety net and gave legal equality to African-Americans - driving racist Dixie out of the Democratic Party, into the GOP.

Then Republican President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) mobilized the "religious right" of white evangelicals for his party. Later, extreme white conservatives calling themselves "tea party" militants emerged in the GOP.

All this outlines America's political flipflop - how the liberal Republican Party turned conservative, and the conservative Democratic Party turned liberal. It was a fascinating transition.

James A. Haught is editor emeritus of West Virginia's largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail. His column is distributed by the Tribune News Service. He can be reached by email at haughtwvgazettemail.com.

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How Democrats and Republicans switched beliefs [Opinion]

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Strangely, over a century, America's two major political parties gradually reversed identities, like the magnetic poles of Planet Earth switching direction. When the Republican Party was formed in 1856, it was fiercely liberal, opposing the expansion of slavery, calling for more spending on public education, seeking more open immigration and the like.

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Barack Obama Answers The Burning Question: Is America Going to Be Ok?

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Barack Obama Answers The Burning Question: Is America Going to Be Ok?

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Barack Obama has an answer to the question on everyone's mind: Is America going to be ok?

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Post by NowThisOpinions.

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The Mayor of San Juan Has a Message for Donald Trump: This Isn't About You

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The Mayor of San Juan Has a Message for Donald Trump: This Isn't About You

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The mayor of San Juan to President Trump: This isn't about you, it's about the 3,000 people who died after Hurricane Maria

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Post by NowThisOpinions.

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Poverty: This historian says he has found the solution to poverty

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Poverty: This historian says he has found the solution to poverty

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This historian says he has found the solution to poverty

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Post by ATTNVideo.

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See Liberal Facebook and Conservative Facebook, Side by Side

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See Liberal Facebook and Conservative Facebook, Side by Side

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Here's a time-tested way to defeat authoritarianism, and we may need to use it sooner than we think.

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Post by actdottv.

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I’m Documenting Myself Slowly Dying From A Rare Disease To Show Why Euthanasia Should Be Legalized

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I’m Documenting Myself Slowly Dying From A Rare Disease To Show Why Euthanasia Should Be Legalized

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My partner and I have been documenting daily life with a terminal illness through Instagram without the filters and mushy inspo-porn. I'm brutally honest and open with my photos, revealing aspects of a disabled person's life that you don't often hear about.

I'm Holly Warland, a 27-year-old woman from Australia and I have a rare disease called Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. LGMD involves the gradual deterioration of all my muscles from the chin down leaving me predominantly bed bound, reliant on care and basically living with a death sentence.

I was diagnosed at 11 but led a mostly typical life with great support from family and friends. I worked hard getting my Bachelors and Honours in Psychology and had planned my life around my doctorate; I wanted to be Dr. Warland by 25. I was halfway through my Ph.D. in neuroscience when I noticed my physical strength diminishing.

In 2016 I had to pull out of my Ph.D. studies as well as give up my beloved teaching job at my university. Every day I began waking up to waves of nausea, a racing pulse, sore muscles, hyperventilation, and uncontrollable shaking. My life was thrown into chaos. As my condition worsened, I found a real lack of true representation of severe disability. It seemed like every social media personality with a disability fell into the category of 'inspirational.' Worse still, the fitness blogs posting inspo-porn memes of amputees with captions like 'GET AFTER IT!' and 'WHAT'S YOUR EXCUSE?' Gross.

I couldn't relate to that strong woman bullcrap, so my partner Luke (who is also my full-time carer and a part-time photo/videographer) and I decided to take some photos of my naked body and post them online so people could see the whole real story a disability has on the human body. The response I got was encouraging (and relatively non-creepy) and spurred me to share some more of the intimate parts of disabled life.

Most of the photos come with a backstory or a musing on an issue from my crippled point of view. Luke catches me at my best and worst; from fancy dinners to vomiting in the shower, nothing is sugar-coated. I've reached thousands of people around the world and have been given the opportunity to advocate for issues close to my heart.

What started as a way for a bored, bed bound cripple to vent her frustrations and clear the air on a few topics has turned into a window for those who may never encounter a deadly disease in the wild.

More info: Instagram

I wanted to show more of this darker and more honest side to disability, so my partner and I have been documenting my daily life

I have a rare condition called Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy. It involves the gradual deterioration of all my muscles from the chin down leaving me predominantly bed bound and reliant on care.

I figure if people are going to stare at me, make them laugh. I've always tackled things with humor and a sprinkling of pessimism. I know that doesn't sound healthy, but it's impossible to feel positive and 'inspirational' when you have a degenerative condition with no cure in sight. Things are literally only going to get worse. I wanted to show more of this darker and more honest side to disability.

Luke: a partner, a carer, a cat-wrangler. I'm convinced some philanthropist is paying him millions to make my final years the happiest they can be

This is Luke; my photographer, partner, carer, kitty dad, and an all-around incredible human.

He's the one behind the scenes of every one of these pictures. He never leaves my side, regardless of my mental or physical condition.

I'm convinced some philanthropist is paying him millions to make my final years the happiest they can be. There is no other explanation because just look at him. He's gorgeous, loves cats, and gives great massages.

I love him with all my brain.

I used to be unstoppable. I was halfway through my neuroscience Ph.D. specializing in ASD children's ability to read facial expressions when my MD exacerbated

Giving a speech at a conference, pre-bodily breakdown.

I'm not humble about my achievements because I feel proud of the obstacles I overcame to achieve what I did

Presenting my Honors thesis (also pre-BB).

I'd present at conferences about my research, be on science panels, teach at my university, and write academic articles.

Now it's gone. But I've realized I stressed my whole life over a piece of paper. I went straight from high school onto seven years of university. I worked my crippled arse off, and now I have no future to use my skills.

It's hard to let go of your entire life plan but also oddly satisfying.

This photo was taken a few months before everything went downhill

I felt happy and healthy and had the strength to do fun things like go out to dinner or concerts.

As well as dealing with physical problems, I also had to come to terms with my loss of autonomy. I can't be spontaneous anymore; everything has to be planned. People have to work around me and how my body has decided to feel on any given day.

I used to be well enough for a weekly walk

Now, it's been long 4 years of hospital visits

My condition is so rare that when I tell the doctors what's wrong with me, I'm often left with blank stares. It's not the doctor's fault; I just feel like every time I am there for treatment. I'm also a mini sideshow for medical students.

This is one of many hospital visits. But due to the freezing temperatures, they keep hospitals in I'm better off at home self-medicating. I can't make my own body heat so you can cover me in blankets, but I won't warm up without an external heat source.

Life in bed is not a dream come true

As aforementioned, I'm basically bed bound. I can get up periodically to go to the toilet or have a shower but it takes a lot of energy, and I'm often left gasping for breath. I know living in bed might sound like a dream to some but think about how bored you get after a week at home with the flu and just pretend that's forever.

When I'm not trying to manage my pain or other physical maladies I'm watching TV, snoozing, or reading. Because of all the medication, I'm on; it's very difficult for me to concentrate so I can't even keep myself busy with writing or working online. I feel my once alert and task orientated brain is turning to mush.

Even showers can be tiring, but at least no one can see your tears

A shower for me is simultaneously heart racing and relaxing. I sit in a specialized chair and with my right hand can direct the water. It makes my heart race because I'm sitting up using strength to hold my back and neck up. Luckily the glass acts as a head and shoulder rest. But the hot water also relaxes my muscles, so it's not an entirely negative experience.

This has nothing to do with nudity by the way. Luke caught me having a shower rest and figured it'd show another glimpse into the experience that is being Holly with the MD.

At the doctor's; my second home

I had to have a difficult conversation with my doctor about how I'm petrified of becoming addicted to painkillers but need to increase my dosage due to my dip in strength and mobility now. I shed a few tears, and he calmly explained that because of my condition, I was only going to get worse and there's no possible treatment, so I am kind of allowed to become addicted because there's essentially nothing to lose. Of course, he said it more professionally; he wasn't advocating pill addiction!

Tonight I'll go to bed and congratulate myself for making it through the day. I can't spiral

Pale, sweaty, and mid-vomit: a daily occurrence.

This day was quite sh*t if I'm going to be eloquent. This pic is mid dry heaving. Then 5 minutes later I'll get the chills. It's bloody miserable, but I feel so grateful to have such amazing medicine available and that Luke was with me through every part. He literally sat and read a book next to me while I went through the motions.

Every time I get sick like this, it makes me appreciate 'normal' days. I try my hardest not to let this affect me mentally. I can't spiral.

I have had to come to terms with the fact that I will never get better and that I have to just get through each day

I like to think the expression on my face sums up how fed up I felt that particularly bad day.

We see a lot of pictures of sick people battling acquired diseases like cancer, but most of these afflictions either kill you or you 'recover,' so although the suffering may be great, it's relatively quick.

We're all brought up to believe in hope, and that life will improve, it's hard to be in a position where that's unachievable.

I'm angry at you. I'm jealous. I want your sh*tty life. Because you have a life. It's hard to cry with tubes up your nose

Today I was just angry. Furious that able-bodied, well people complain about things in their lives. If you have a working body and mind, you can CHANGE things. So many people take their autonomy and body for granted. I can't muster up sympathy for someone who doesn't try. Who holes themselves up inside. You need to help yourself. Stop whining and be proactive. Lonely? Join a group that engages in your favorite hobbies. Unhealthy/overweight? Change your habits. Feeling down? Go for a walk in the sun.

I'm not trying to simplify depression or real problems, but YOU CAN CHANGE. I can't. I'm stuck. I'm pissed off. My body dictates my day/life. I'm not inspirational when I tell you to get off the couch and stop feeling sorry for yourself. I'm angry at you. I'm jealous. I want your sh*tty life. Because you have a life.

I'm old enough to vote, drink, drive a car, and have a baby, so why can't I control when I have a nice peaceful passing?

I have been given the opportunity to advocate for issues close to my heart. One of these issues is the legalization of Voluntary Assisted Dying in my state. The unfortunate reality for me is that this condition will eventually make life unbearable for me and I want a safe and reliant option to end my life when I am ready. I never thought this was an issue I would become so passionate about, but when I stopped to think about it, it's my only humane option. I could wait until I die naturally, but that might be decades of more pain and suffering.

I work with a group called Dying with Dignity Queensland to convince and work with politicians to pass fair and merciful voluntary assisted dying laws.

Not all frowns and clouds

I'm a self-proclaimed crazy cat woman. They are the perfect companions for someone stuck in bed all day

I have two cats: Ragnar (featured) and Whiskey. They are the perfect companions that provide great entertainment and love.

Everyone knows how much I adore cats and all my birthday and Christmas gifts are usually cat themed. If I could work in an office, I'd be the lady with cat pictures and figurines everywhere.

Luke always cheers me up - even when I've had my blood drained, my pee stolen, and deadly x-rays blasted on my internal organs

Puns make life fun.

Still a little fighting spirit left!

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I'm Documenting Myself Slowly Dying From A Rare Disease To Show Why Euthanasia Should Be Legalized

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My partner and I have been documenting daily life with a disability through Instagram without the filters and mushy inspo-porn. I'm brutally honest and open with my photos, revealing aspects of disabled life that you don't often hear about. I'm Holly Warland, a 27-year-old woman from Australia and I have a rare condition called Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy.

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This is the Best Explanation of Gerrymandering You Will Ever See

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This is the Best Explanation of Gerrymandering You Will Ever See

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Gerrymandering -- drawing political boundaries to give your party a numeric advantage over an opposing party -- is a difficult process to explain. If you find the notion confusing, check out the chart above -- adapted from one posted to Reddit this weekend -- and wonder no more.

Suppose we have a very tiny state of fifty people. Thirty of them belong to the Blue Party, and 20 belong to the Red Party. And just our luck, they all live in a nice even grid with the Blues on one side of the state and the Reds on the other.

Now, let's say we need to divide this state into five districts. Each district will send one representative to the House to represent the people. Ideally, we want the representation to be proportional: if 60 percent of our residents are Blue and 40 percent are Red, those five seats should be divvied up the same way.

Fortunately, because our citizens live in a neatly ordered grid, it's easy to draw five lengthy districts -- two for the Reds , and three for the Blues. Voila! Perfectly proportional representation, just as the Founders intended. That's grid 1 above, "perfect representation."

Now, let's say instead that the Blue Party controls the state government, and they get to decide how the lines are drawn. Rather than draw districts vertically they draw them horizontally, so that in each district there are six Blues and four Reds. You can see that in grid 2 above, "compact but unfair."

With a comfortable Blue majority in this state, each district elects a blue candidate to the House. The Blues win 5 seats and the Reds don't get a single one. Oh well! All's fair in love and politics.

In the real world, the results of this latter scenario are similar to what we see in New York, though there are no good examples of where a majority party gives itself a clean-sweep. In 2012, Democrats received 66 percent of the popular House vote. But they won 21 out of 27 House seats, or three more than you'd expect from the popular vote alone. And from a purely geometric standpoint, New York's congressional districts aren't terribly irregular -- at least not compared to other states.

Finally, what if the Red Party controls the state government? The Reds know they're at a numeric disadvantage. But with some creative boundary drawing -- the type you see in grid 3, "neither compact nor fair" -- they can slice the Blue population up such that they only get a majority in two districts. So despite making up 40 percent of the population, the Reds win 60 percent of the seats. Not bad!

In the real world, this is similar to what we see in Pennsylvania. In 2012, Democrats won 51 percent of the popular House vote. But the only won 5 out of 18 House seats -- fewer than one third. This was because when Pennsylvania Republicans redrew the state's Congressional districts, they made highly irregular districts that look like the one below, PA-7, one of the most geographically irregular districts in the nation.

Now, this exercise is of course a huge simplification. In the real world people don't live in neatly-ordered grids sorted by political party. But for real-world politicians looking to give themselves an advantage at redistricting time, the process is exactly the same, as are the results for the parties that gerrymander successfully.

The easiest way to solve this issue, of course, would be to take the redistricting process out of human hands entirely. There is already software capable of doing just that -- good luck getting any politicians to agree to it, though.

The process of redrawing district lines to give an advantage to one party over another is called "gerrymandering." Here's how it works. (Video: Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

More on gerrymandering:
Update: An earlier version of this post used California as an example of a majority party giving itself a bigger majority through redistricting. California's districts are drawn by an independent commission, not by the parties. This computer programmer solved gerrymandering in his spare time "
America's most gerrymandered congressional districts "
What 60 years of political gerrymandering looks like "
One easy way to end gerrymandering: Stop letting politicians draw their own districts "
Note: The chart above was adapted from one posted to Reddit this weekend. Credit to redditor N8theGr8 for finding the original image. He couldn't track down the original creator using a reverse image search, and neither could I. If you made the original chart, drop me a line so I can give you credit! UPDATE: The original creator reached out -- his name is Stephen Nass, and he posted the original chart on Facebook on Feb. 21.

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This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see

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By simplifying gerrymandering we see how problematic it really is.

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Slavery Still Exists and Our Purchases Are Why

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Slavery Still Exists and Our Purchases Are Why

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Did you know that right now over 100 million children are being forced to work in manual labor jobs, often for more than 60 hours a week? On November 27, tune in to SoulPancake's YouTube channel to...

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Post by soulpancakepresents.

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Do you really know where the products you buy come from? Do you really know who pays the price, so your products can be sold to you as cheaply as possible?

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Do you really know where the products you buy come from? Do you really know who pays the price, so your products can be sold to you as cheaply as possible?

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“THEY SAY WE’RE WHITE SUPREMACISTS”: INSIDE THE STRANGE WORLD OF CONSERVATIVE COLLEGE WOMEN

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“THEY SAY WE’RE WHITE SUPREMACISTS”: INSIDE THE STRANGE WORLD OF CONSERVATIVE COLLEGE WOMEN

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Young Republican women are aggrieved, outnumbered, defiant. And they aren’t going to apologize for loving the guy in the White House.

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The College Republicans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were having a cookout, which they had advertised on their Facebook page with a picture of Ronald Reagan grilling hot dogs. It was a sweltering evening in August, a week after protesters toppled the bronze statue of a Confederate soldier on their campus known as Silent Sam, and a month before Christine Blasey Ford testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Brett Kavanaugh had attacked her at a high-school party in the 80s. There were about 60 students gathered in an out-of-the-way courtyard off red-brick Connor Hall, all of them white, and most of them conspicuously polite boys ("Would you like a Cherry Coke, ma'am?" one asked). The girls, only about a dozen, looked like college girls everywhere today, in T-shirts and tank tops, shorts and leggings. Except that they were not like college girls everywhere, most of whom lean to the left and vote Democratic, or tell pollsters they plan to.

"They say we're white supremacists, racist, misogynistic, and we have internalized misogyny," said Cammie McMahan, 19, the College Republicans' secretary, who wore a G.O.P. T-shirt, and a frown. I'd asked her and her friend Caitlyn McKinney, 19, what it was like being a conservative woman on their overwhelmingly liberal campus. "Name-calling is the first place they go," said Caitlyn, who has that lilting North Carolina accent that makes everything sound gentle, even when it's not. "They say they want to be all intersectional and everything," said Cammie, "except when it's us."

Ever since 52 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump, Republican women, now all but synonymous with "white women," have become the subject of a protracted howl of outrage from more liberal circles. "'White Women' Becomes a Disparaging Term," fretted the National Review in October, in a column complaining of the "vitriolic condemnation" of Republican women by mainstream media outlets. "Half of white women continue to vote Republican. What's wrong with them?" asked The Guardian in November, days after the midterm elections, which saw only a slight movement away from the Republican Party by white women, despite two years of Donald Trump's attacks on women, people of color, people who are transgender, and virtually anyone who doesn't look like a backup singer for Lawrence Welk. But most mystifying of all, perhaps, is the block of young white women who continue to support the president and his party when the majority of their peers have reacted with revulsion. I went to U.N.C. to talk to some of these young women who align themselves with Trump, and to find out how it feels to be among the most despised women in America.

"It's really hard to date here," said Gabby Derosier, 19, a sporty, dark-haired girl who was sitting at a wrought-iron patio table eating a hamburger. "Liberal guys match with me a lot on Tinder because they like to argue. I put it right in my profile that I'm a conservative woman. But then they kind of want me to be like the guy in the relationship and . . ." She made a face. "I like a man to be a man-like a lumberjack. Liberal guys are really feminine."

Along the darkened path leading out of the cookout, as I was leaving, another young woman stopped to say hello; I told her that I was there, too, to find out why some young women still pledge their loyalty to Trump even with the accusations of sexual assault against him. And she told me she had been raped her freshman year. "He took advantage of a naïve freshman. He expected sex and I didn't know that would be expected. So Republican women know about Me Too," she said. "But please don't say my name. I have to be so careful with applying to law school."

"Being a conservative woman in college is like being a part of 'Fight Club,'" wrote Maggie Horzempa, 21, in a column in the Washington Examiner in June. "And what's the first rule of Fight Club?" she told me, low, sitting out of earshot of other students at U.N.C.'s brightly lit Stone & Leaf bookstore café. "You don't talk about being a conservative."

Maggie, who is white and blonde, and has the face of the girl on the cover of an edition of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, is the chairwoman of U.N.C.'s College Republicans and the president of the campus chapter of the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW), a national organization dedicated to fostering conservatism among women on college campuses (43 chapters, including Harvard and Princeton). In August, she appeared on Fox News, wearing a Republican-red jacket, to discuss the felling of Silent Sam. "One thing that we cannot condone is the mob rule that took place," she said in her soft-spoken way, part Ivanka Trump and part Tracy Flick. She decried the "vocal minority" that had "allowed anarchy to rule on our campus."

Maggie's politics had elicited some controversy at her school. "I was called a bitch for carrying a Trump poster across campus," she told me, sharing that she had voted for the president in 2016. "I was at a mixer where a very intoxicated girl came up to me and said, 'I hear you're a Trump supporter' and almost hit me. I was told I was a 'disgrace to womanhood' because I wouldn't sign a petition for reproductive rights, because I don't believe in reproductive rights for women." She had so much friction with someone in her dorm who objected to her views, she said, that she had to move into a single room.

Her mother, a divorced stay-at-home mom in Jacksonville, North Carolina, had wanted her to transfer schools, but Maggie said the attacks on her beliefs only deepened her commitment to conservatism. While she'd started out as a music major-her first two years at U.N.C. she played the cello in the symphony orchestra-she was now majoring in political science and philosophy and planned to go to law school, with the hope of one day "entering the political sphere." On her Facebook page she had posted a picture of herself with an avuncular-looking Karl Rove at a campus event. "He was so nice," she said, beaming. "He told us to just keep doing campus politics and that would be a good way to meet people."

She grew up in a Republican household. "When I was little," she said, "I would sit with my grandfather on Saturday mornings and we would watch Fox News and he would say, 'Never trust anybody that trusts a Clinton,' and I still remember that." So when Donald Trump came along with his chants of "Lock her up," this resonated with her, as did Trump's financial success. "He made very smart business decisions," Maggie said, "and you would hope that he would hone in on these skills to build up this country."

She didn't believe Trump was a racist, she said: "I think [his racist comments are] a mix of what he actually feels and political theater. Being a businessman, I think, he knows how to sell something, so he's trying to create this brand, because he knows if he keeps saying these things, people will keep watching and wondering what is he going to do next and that will intrigue some to vote for him." Someone like her.

As a young woman who did describe herself as a feminist, I asked, didn't she find Trump's steady stream of sexist comments troubling? "Some could argue that Bill Clinton was just as bad," Maggie said evenly. "Some could say this type of sexism goes back as far as the Kennedys and their sexualization of women."

Maggie admitted, however, that like other Republican women she had developed "mixed feelings." "I have shifted my focus from Donald Trump to Ivanka. I read her book Women Who Work twice, and I look at her as a role model. She juggles a lot and yet remains true to traditional feminine values." And what would "traditional feminine values" be? "She has a strong sense of self and family and doesn't feel the need to apologize for who she is," Maggie said. "Even though I did not have a traditional family myself, I still believe in the traditional family and the benefits it brings to society."

Maggie's father, a Marine Corps officer, had moved out of their family home on New Year's Eve when she was six and her little sister was four. "My mom looked in the closet and all his stuff was just gone," she said. She rarely saw him after that. "But honestly," Maggie said, "I could not imagine my life with a dad. My mom is a great mom, she's the best. People like to say, 'You must be a conservative because your father's a conservative'; well, I was raised by my mother," whose own father had been a sergeant in the air force, "so that refutes that myth."

At a protest that took place on the sloping lawn at the entrance to the university a few days later, I asked U.N.C. students, "What do you think of when I say 'conservative women'?" "Ignorant," "confused," "dependent," "narrow-minded," "calling the cops on innocent black kids," "brainwashed," were some of their answers.

Around 250 students, professors, and people in the community had gathered to demonstrate against the neo-Confederates who had come from surrounding towns to stand vigil beside the empty pedestal of Silent Sam. The statue was donated to the school by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and erected in 1913 with a speech by a prominent local Klan supporter who bragged that, "100 yards from where the statue stood," he had "horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds."

The students chanted: "Nazis, go home!" and "Cops and the Klan go hand in hand!" The self-described "preservationists," a few dozen of them, stared stoically into the night, one of them waving an oversize Confederate flag. Students posted their videos to social media and danced in a drum circle with glow sticks. And then, as the cops tried to escort the neo-Confederates back off the campus, things seemed about to turn violent. Students swarmed the procession, pushing, shouting, giving the neo-Confederates the finger; cops blew their whistles, pushing back with their bikes. The stench of pepper spray filled the air. Students went reeling, coughing.

"I don't think Donald Trump is racist," said Caitlyn McKinney, one night in September over dinner at the Top of the Hill, a Chapel Hill restaurant with a view of the mountains. "He's just making himself a consumable product," said Cammie McMahan. Like Maggie, Cammie and Caitlyn said they believed the president's stoking of race hatred was just politics-a kind of "branding."

And didn't that bother them? I asked. "Morally, I don't stand with him," said Cammie. "He's not moral," said Caitlyn. "But what he represents for the Republican Party, I strongly support," Cammie said. "He was against the Establishment, against having to do the bidding of special interests. He got people off their feet to care-because we were just on a downhill spiral!"

"We were!" said Caitlyn.

To their minds, the Obama years, with their economic recovery, passage of health-care reform, and the ending of the war in Iraq, among other wins for the Democratic president, had been a disaster. Originally a Ted Cruz fan, Caitlyn said that when Trump won the Republican presidential primary, "I started listening and I just liked what he said. He doesn't care what people think about him. Like, he'll tell it straight. And our jobs are coming back, the economy's growing. When he says he'll do something, he gets it done." Although both of them were too young to vote for Trump in 2016, they said they will in 2020 if he runs for re-election. "I would say I'm a big Trump fan," Cammie said, grinning. "I have TRUMP 2020 stickers. I have a WOMEN FOR TRUMP T-shirt my parents got me when they went to Trump Tower."

Both young women said their political views had brought them the derision of their fellow students. "I can't wear my College Republicans T-shirt to class because I will get dirty looks," Cammie said. "I can't have a political sticker on my laptop because if somebody sees it in the library they're gonna say something to me." When they were attacked for their conservatism by students in class, their professors, they claimed, never rose to their defense. "They agree with them!" said Cammie.

They both came from conservative families. Caitlyn, a nursing major from Durham, was one of five children and had gone to a Christian school. Her mother, who worked in a law firm, and her father, who renovated houses, were still married. "My dad brings me a biscuit from Sunrise Biscuit every Sunday morning when he comes to pick me up for church," Caitlyn said, smiling. Cammie grew up in Moyock, North Carolina; her father had retired from the navy after 30 years of service and now worked as a safety-training officer, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom. Cammie was a bio major and planned to go to pharmacy school. Both young women felt empowered, they said, to work toward their goals with no restrictions or obstacles because of their gender.

"I have never felt oppressed in my life because I'm a woman," said Caitlyn. "I feel oppressed at this campus because I'm a conservative," said Cammie.

While Cammie conceded that sexism did indeed exist, she said she didn't see it as an "overall trend. It happens more on an individual basis now," and therefore, she said, "there's no need for feminism in our modern society. We've reached a point where everyone is fairly equal among the sexes. Like, of course I would have been a feminist in the 1920s and 30s, but in 2018 I have never had any limitations set on me because I was a woman. If anything, I think there's a slight bias to try to give women opportunities."

Over discussions of the wage gap, the unequal number of women in management positions, and other indications of systemic sexism, the young women were ready with conservative talking points as counter-arguments. But the main issue on which they diverged from the majority of their peers was abortion. "I am strictly pro-life and I'm never gonna change," said Cammie. "I believe life begins at conception."

"Yes, so do I," Caitlyn said. "Like, 'Thou shall not commit murder.' When you get an abortion, you're breaking one of the Ten Commandments."

And what about in the case of rape? I asked.

"It's not that baby's fault that it happened," Caitlyn said. "When I hear about people who have abortions, it kind of upsets me 'cause it's just an inconvenience to them to have that baby, right? And, like, incest accounts for only a small portion of cases."

Cammie looked thoughtful. "I think Plan B is morally permissible because conception can occur anytime in the six days after sex. So I think it's O.K. And Plan B is, like, perfectly accessible-you can get it at Walmart and Target. If I was raped, I would do that."

But Cammie and Caitlyn also felt they were not in a position to judge any woman who decided to have an abortion. Cammie said her parents wouldn't allow her to date as long as she was in school, and Caitlyn said she was saving herself for marriage. They were virgins, they said, which made them the target of another sort of mockery among their peers. "I've been forced to take 'the purity test,'" Cammie said, referring to an infamous online questionnaire that originated at Rice University, a favorite among college kids wanting to rate their levels of debauchery.

She'd briefly had a Tinder account, she said-"my profile picture was me and Caitlyn in our SOCIALISM SUCKS T-shirts"-but she got rid of it "because it was just for hookups."

"I don't know how it's liberating for women to let men see them as just another hookup," Caitlyn said, dismayed. "I want someone to actually think I'm special and love me."

On September 27, Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee transfixed the nation. In the reams of op-eds, think pieces, and tweets that flowed in the days after Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, many complained about the complicity of white women in maintaining white male power. "These women are gender traitors, to borrow a term from the dystopian TV series 'The Handmaid's Tale,'" Alexis Grenell wrote in The New York Times, referring to the female senators who had voted for Kavanaugh's confirmation. Thousands of people tweeted a quote from Rebecca Traister's timely book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger: "White women, who enjoy proximal power from their association with white men, have often served as the white patriarchy's most eager foot soldiers."

Traister's analysis harkens back to the work of Andrea Dworkin, the radical feminist scholar who died in 2005. In her 1983 book, Right-Wing Women, Dworkin explored how the conservative movement in the United States had succeeded in enlisting women in preserving male authority; but Dworkin went further. "A woman acquiesces to male authority in order to gain some protection from male violence," she wrote. "Women know, but must not acknowledge, that resisting male control or confronting male betrayal will lead to rape, battery, destitution, ostracization or exile."

On an October night at the Hops Burger Bar in Chapel Hill, Gabby Derosier was telling me how the conservative response to the Kavanaugh hearings had made her wonder about the attitudes of the men in her life toward sexual assault.

"I have wondered," she said, "if I came to them with something like this, would they believe me?"

Like family members? I asked.

"Just, like, a lot of the men who are close to me," Gabby said, grimacing. "I have wondered about it. And I don't want to have to question that."

Gabby called herself a libertarian. She was a member of Turning Point USA, the conservative student organization founded by Charlie Kirk, the incendiary 25-year-old right-wing activist. Raised in Raleigh, she identified as a Latina; her mother, a C.P.A., had come to the United States from Cuba as a child. Her father was a consulting physician for a pharmaceutical company and a "hard-core atheist," Gabby said. Both of her parents were Republicans. She was a political-science major and a member of a sorority.

"I feel like there's this unanimous sentiment among older male conservatives-I mean like 50 and above," Gabby said, "and even among older women conservatives as well, of, like, 'just don't put yourself in these situations [where a sexual assault could occur], you can avoid it.' It bothers me that there are some social things that they just want me to accept, like, 'a guy will just be a guy'-but like, no. As conservatives we acknowledge gender differences more than liberals do, but that shouldn't mean we excuse behavior that is within a man's control and which women can't always control . . . Like, where is the line we can all agree that someone should not cross?"

The problem with how the Republicans had dealt with the Kavanaugh hearings, Gabby said, was that they didn't think through how it would look to a conservative young woman like her. "I think because the left was so focused on the sexual assault, the Republicans felt like they had to push hard on the whole 'defend the boys,' 'defend due process' thing. But, like, I already agree that due process is important," she said, "and I don't want anyone to get their lives taken away because of something that wasn't true-I'm on that side. But I also know that rapes happen on this campus all the time, and lots of girls don't even feel like they can report them because of how no one's going to believe them or help them for lack of 'evidence' or whatever." She had written a paper for a writing class, she said, on how "campuses don't do anything in terms of rape culture except for these totally ineffective webinars when you're a freshman."

Gabby seemed to be trying to work it all out. She said she wanted to believe that she " didn't have to question conservative men's views on sexual assault. If you listen to Ben Shapiro [the conservative political commentator] or Dennis Prager [the conservative syndicated radio talk-show host], although they're very much for sticking up for men, they have the moral compass of the right.. . . As much as they're about 'protect the sons,' they're thinking about their daughters and their wives and their sisters, too-they are. I just wish that they would say that more often than they do."

So did she think that Kavanaugh should have been confirmed? "I think he should have just stepped down," said Gabby.

Over the course of my conversations with conservative women at U.N.C., a second one, who also did not want to be named, told me about a sexual assault. She said that it happened her freshman year, her first night at the school. "Was I 'assaulted,' 'raped'?" she said. "I'm not really sure. I just know that something happened."

She drank too much that night, she said, "I should have known my limits." A young man followed her out of a party, she said, saying he wanted to help her since she was "stumbling drunk"; "I'm pretty sure he was sober." The next thing she knew, she woke up with him asleep beside her, both of them naked. "I don't remember taking off my clothes," she said, "and I don't remember consenting to anything." However, "he told people we had sex. He told people and he acted like it was something I did willingly. But what could I say? What proof did I have of anything?"

She had never confronted him about it, because, she said, "I was afraid it would just make things worse." And so the reaction from conservatives to Christine Blasey Ford didn't surprise her "at all," she said. "I was just surprised that she came forward."

"There are rape kits available at the campus health services at U.N.C.," said Caitlyn, over lunch at Top of the Hill, where we had returned in October to talk again. I'd asked her and Cammie what they thought about the problem of campus rape. "The university gives you tons of information about what to do if this happens to you," said Caitlyn.

It was a few days after Brett Kavanaugh had been confirmed, and Cammie and Caitlyn said they were pleased with the decision. They believed Christine Blasey Ford was assaulted by someone, they said, just not by Kavanaugh (this was also the central conservative talking point).

Still, they said, certain things about Ford's story had made them skeptical, including the timing of the accusation. "And, this seems really bad to say," said Cammie, "but at the end of the day, even if it did happen, there was no penetration-it's not rape."

It was not as if she had never been sexually assaulted herself, Cammie said. "I went to Las Vegas with my mom for my Sweet Sixteen and I was walking next to a moving sidewalk and this strange guy totally reached out and grabbed my boob. I mean, it shouldn't happen-but I'm not gonna obsess over it."

Over the weeks that I had been talking to them, they had told me about times they had been catcalled and sexually harassed online; they were coming of age at a time when such things seemed so routine they didn't bat an eye. A certain fraternity on their campus was notorious for its "basement," they said, a place where "they take girls down there and roofie them, rape them, run a train." And yet they weren't worried about the cultural implications of the Kavanaugh case for themselves, they said, but for young men. "I'm scared for all the conservative guys I know," Cammie said. "Heaven forbid you ever have an opportunity in life and it's just ruined because someone has a different political agenda than you."

"And the idea that women should be believed unconditionally is sexist," she went on. "It's putting us in victimhood, saying people should just believe us because we're victims of this great big patriarchy that runs our lives. Oh my God, the people walking around in The Handmaid's Tale costumes!" She paused for an eye-roll. "Give me strength."

Once again, their views had gotten them into trouble with their fellow students. On a Facebook page, a boy had re-posted a tweet which said: "Christine Blasey Ford is a UNC grad. Let's replace Silent Sam with a statue of her." When Cammie and Caitlyn added comments to the thread, questioning Ford's story and voicing their support of Kavanaugh, they were jumped on. A female student responded, "Imagine hating other women so much to have an opinion like that."

"They don't want to hear our opinions at all," said Caitlyn. "The most depressed I have ever been is at this campus," said Cammie.

In the second week of October, Maggie appeared on a panel entitled "Gender & Politics: A Carolina Seminar" at U.N.C.'s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. It was set to take place in a large conference room with about 100 chairs facing a dais. There was a poster on the wall with a picture of a Black Panther wearing a "Free the Panther" button.

Maggie arrived an hour early, dressed in heels and her Republican-red blazer. She was the only student appearing on the panel-which she had been invited to join after complaining to one of the organizers of the event that there were no conservative women slated to speak-and she seemed a bit nervous. "I'm a conservative student and it's going to be all these liberal adult women in local politics," she said worriedly.

After a while, the room filled up with adults and students, mostly young women with ponytails and long straight hair, in T-shirts and shorts and leggings. Maggie sat on the dais next to the other panelists-three white women, one African-American woman, and one Latina woman-looking wide-eyed as they spoke movingly of the roadblocks they had encountered along the way in their political careers, including sexism and racism.

When it was Maggie's turn to talk about her roadblocks, she said: "People find out I'm a conservative and they assume they know me and what I stand for.. . . I have been considered to be less of a woman because I'm a conservative." The moderator, Gloria Thomas, director of the Carolina Women's Center, asked her what had attracted her to politics. Maggie said, "I feel God was calling me."

A shuffling sound arose in the room. Some of the students began to whisper, titter. Verla Insko, the Democratic whip for the North Carolina General Assembly, seemed to come to Maggie's defense, turning to her and saying, "I'm glad to have you here." Insko told the young people in the crowd, "You have to learn to talk across the aisle to people that have different opinions, to listen to what they say and be willing to engage in debate." Some in the audience gave begrudging nods.

And then, in the discussion that followed, a young woman directed a question to Maggie. "What do you think about having Silent Sam on our campus?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Silent Sam was taken down unlawfully," Maggie said in her tidy way, "so my understanding is that he has to be put back up lawfully."

The crowd began to hiss. If they had been persuaded to listen to her for a moment, now she had lost them. One by one, the other women panelists told the crowd that they supported the removal of Silent Sam, that he was a symbol of white supremacy. Maggie stared straight ahead, resolute, blinking.

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"They Say We're White Supremacists": Inside the Strange World of Conservative College Women

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The College Republicans at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were having a cookout, which they had advertised on their Facebook page with a picture of Ronald Reagan grilling hot dogs.

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Universal Basic Universal basic income costs far less than you think

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Universal Basic Universal basic income costs far less than you think

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Want to get rid of poverty, lessen inequality and provide financial stability in a world of precarious work? Well, why not simply give everyone enough money to ensure basic sustenance?

This is the deceptively simple solution proposed by advocates of universal basic income ( UBI.) Just transfer enough money to everyone, every month, to guarantee a basic livelihood. The policy is universal and unconditional (you get it no matter who you are or what you do.)

This means no bulky bureaucracy to administer the program, or onerous reporting requirements on the poor. Nor do you have to wait to file paperwork to benefit: whether you lose your job, decide to strike out on a new career path, or take time away from work to care for a family member, the money is already there.

But the UBI movement has a major problem: both critics and even many supporters don't understand how much the program would really cost. To calculate the cost, most people just multiply the size of the monthly income (say, $1,000) by the population (it's universal, after all) and-voilà-a number that seems impossibly expensive.

But this is not how much UBI costs. The real cost-the amount of money that actually needs to be taken from someone and redistributed to someone else-is just a small fraction of these estimates.

The key to understanding the real cost of UBI is understanding the difference between the gross (or upfront) and net (or real) cost. Here's a simple example: imagine a room with 15 people who want to set up a UBI for the room of $2 per person. The upfront cost of the policy would be $30. The ten richest people in the room are asked to contribute $3 each towards funding it. After they each put in $3, raising the total $30 needed, every person in the room gets their $2 universal basic income. But because the ten richest people in the room contributed $3, and then got $2 back as the UBI, their real, net contribution is in fact $1 each. So the real cost of the UBI is $10.

Estimates that just multiply the size of the UBI by the population of a country do the equivalent of claiming that the cost of UBI in the room above is a whopping $30. But the real cost in this scenario-the money redistributed from the wealthy-is only $10.

The billionaire's dilemma

It's important to understand who will be gaining money through a UBI and who will be contributing to it. The common mistake is to double count the net contributors. Yes, they get a UBI, but in contributing to the UBI pot they first return their UBI, and then throw in some money on top of that. So it's incorrect to count them when calculating the true UBI cost.

This is a fundamental point that often gets missed: those that are taxed to pay for the UBI will get some of that cost back-by getting their UBI. You can also think about it in reverse: while the UBI goes to everyone, the rich in effect give it back in the first chunk of taxes they pay, so you don't need to count their UBI in cost estimates.

This also resolves UBI's "billionaire's dilemma"-why give someone like Bill Gates a basic income? The answer is that Gates would simply return that UBI through his taxes-and help pay for others. But if Gates becomes suddenly destitute, the UBI will still be showing up for him to use every month. And since his tax bill will drop, he'll become a net beneficiary rather than contributor.

True costs

Any UBI estimate that just multiplies the size of the UBI by the population is a red flag that the cost has been over-inflated. A true cost estimate will always discuss who the net beneficiaries will be, who the net contributors will be, and the rate at which we gradually switch people over from being beneficiaries to being contributors as they get richer (this is sometimes called the claw-back rate, the withdrawal rate or the marginal tax rate-which is not an overall tax, but simply the rate at which people start to return their UBI to the communal pot as they earn more.)

Cost estimates that consider the difference between upfront and real cost are a fraction of inflated gross cost estimates. For instance, economist and philosopher Karl Widerquist has shown that to fund a UBI of $12,000 per adult and $6,000 per child every year (while keeping all other spending the same) the US would have to raise an additional $539 billion a year-less than 3% of its GDP. This is a small fraction of the figures that get thrown around of over $3 trillion (the gross cost of this policy.) Karl's simplified scheme has people slowly start contributing back their UBI in taxes to the common pot as they earn, with net beneficiaries being anyone individually earning less than $24,000 a year.

This point still holds if you're raising money for UBI from other sources than income or wealth taxes. If you use a corporate or data tax, or a natural resource or carbon tax to finance a UBI, you are still redistributing money that would otherwise ultimately be profits that go to Google shareholders or BP executives. And you're taking less away from them than you would think-because they too get a UBI. So the money they end up losing through the new tax is offset by the UBI they receive. The same holds if you're paying for a UBI by reshuffling your budget.

Some people get confused and question whether UBI is really universal if only a portion of the population actually ends up with extra income, while another portion pays for it. But any policy that is universal yet redistributory works this way. Public transit, roads and schools are all universal benefits, but some people pay a lot for their funding through their taxes, while others enjoy them for free or at a lower cost.

In light of the huge benefits available from a UBI, it's a waste of time to argue over wildly inflated cost estimates. The numbers are out there-we can pay for a basic income.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Universal basic income costs far less than you think

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Want to get rid of poverty, lessen inequality and provide financial stability in a world of precarious work? Well, why not simply give everyone enough money to ensure basic sustenance? This is the deceptively simple solution proposed by advocates of universal basic income ( UBI.)

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Child care now literally costs more than college in at least 30 states.

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Post by attn.

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Elizabeth Warren releases sweeping student debt cancellation and free college plan

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Elizabeth Warren releases sweeping student debt cancellation and free college plan

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S. Tran

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elizabeth warren releases sweeping student debt cancellation and free college plan - cnnpolitics

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Warren releases sweeping student debt cancellation and free college plan

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday proposed eliminating the student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans and making all public colleges tuition-free, staking out an ambitious stance on one of the central policy debates of the 2020 Democratic primary.

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'We're all passengers in a billionaire hijacking' says the critic who has the world's richest people buzzing

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'We're all passengers in a billionaire hijacking' says the critic who has the world's richest people buzzing

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Anand Giridharadas is an author and professor whose book "Winners Take All" is a scathing critique of the way elites treat philanthropy.

He said Western elites have cloaked themselves in "changing the world" to protect their interests and reduce the efficacy of democratic change.

He's critical of Davos, corporate proclamations of solving societal problems, and Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg as presidential candidates.

The only way destabilizing inequality can be meaningfully addressed in the United States needs to come from public policy, he said, with increased taxes on the wealthiest of prime importance.

This article is part of Business Insider's ongoing series on Better Capitalism.

By 2015, Anand Giridharadas felt that the world he was inhabiting was built on a charade.

As an Aspen Institute fellow for five years and a former McKinsey analyst, he lived and worked among a collection of elites who believed their exchange of ideas, philanthropy, and so-called conscious capitalism could "save the world." But it began to feel like "MarketWorld," a term he coined for the bubble where it's accepted that the private sector can fix anything with enough money.

He decided he would be transparent with the rest of the Aspen crowd, and gave a speech where he declared that, "we may not always be the leaders we think we are," which brought a mixture of praise and outrage.

Giridharadas has written for the New York Times and taught journalism at New York University, and late last year, he published his book " Winners Take All." It's a thorough, nuanced takedown of MarketWorld that declares companies should work to do less harm, but that systemic changes must come from policy changes. Giridharadas's thesis is therefore not only a cultural critique but a political one, with a progressive lens.

The book is currently in a second wave of popularity in the wake of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting at Davos, Switzerland, where it came up in conversation, and with the official start of the 2020 presidential race.

Giridharadas spoke with Business Insider about Davos, the idea of "better capitalism," why he's so avidly against Howard Schultz and Michael Bloomberg as presidential candidates, and why he wants Americans to take back their country from billionaires.
The following transcript was edited for length and clarity.
Richard Feloni: What does Davos stand for in your view? Do you have any particular thoughts on this year's, specifically?

Anand Giridharadas: I think Davos is a family reunion for the plutocrats that broke the modern West. I've never been to it, so I'm a cultural critic looking from a distance, but it seems to me to be a gathering of people who think that they are changing the world when they are exactly what needs changing. A gathering of people who use the idea of making a difference as a kind of lubricant in the engine of making a killing, of people who promote generosity as a cheap substitute for justice.

And what was so great about Davos this year is that the mask slipped. Normally, they're able to go there and pull off their Bono impact investing, ESG something, give-one-get-one something, social impact, social this, social that - anything but actual social justice. And it works. And this time, in great measure because there has been this rising chorus of critics - I'm one out of many. Way more prominently, you have AOC [ Alexandria Ocasio Cortez] out there, Elizabeth Warren out there, staking really bold positions about how to actually change the world, how to actually fight structural inequality. And a lot of these guys, when actually pushed about those specific proposals -I don't know if you saw the Gates and Blair clips about me...

Feloni: Good plugs for your book!

Giridharadas: Kind of amazing. It became clear that changing the world isn't quite what it seems, and that changing the world is actually a way for them to - I don't want to use the word "cock block," which I feel isn't appropriate for Business Insider, but there's no other equivalent word ...

What became clear when they shot down AOC's proposals or when they insinuate I'm a communist or laugh off my critique, "change the world" has become a way for them to shoot down and remove from serious consideration ideas that would threaten their power of privilege. And so then what Davos is becomes clearer, which is that it is a way of getting together, using the world's problems as a convening mechanism, to form a cartel against real change.

The genius thing that these people understand, that maybe prior generations of plutocrats didn't, is you don't fight public pressure for people-friendly change by shooting mine workers and busting unions in the light of day. They do that secretly. But what you actually do is you fight back by claiming to be one of those people. You claim to be a revolutionary yourself. You claim to be fighting for the people yourself. And your relatively modest do-gooding provides your credibility that pays for itself many, many times over.

Companies shouldn't be small governments

Feloni: You have people like Larry Fink from BlackRock saying how every company needs to align around a purpose beyond profits. What executives will often tell me is, look, whether it's customers or potential employees, this is what they want. How do you see social initiatives coming from companies that actually do something good, even if they're done cynically?

Giridharadas: I want to resist getting into motivation because when you say what kind of place is it coming from, like in their hearts, first of all, I don't know. My guess is the Toms shoes guy is not trying to make as much money as possible and distract us from something, and that he thinks he has found a way to help people in the best way that he knows how. My guess is when Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan operates in some of the same communities that Toms shoes has made something in, they're coming from a very different motivation set.

But what I'm arguing is it doesn't really matter because what both represent is an effort to solve necessarily public problems privately, and therefore, what both represent is an attempt to reclassify problems. And if you think back historically to problems like in the early part of the 20th century, a lot of kids, instead of being in school, worked in factories. Obviously that is now illegal, and I think most people would agree that was progress. I don't think you could have solved that issue by having some factory owners be more conscious capitalists. You either as a society allow children to work instead of be invested with knowledge or you don't. That is a necessarily public choice.

Similarly, when you think about racial segregation, I think you and I would agree it would be weird if your approach to segregation in the 1940s in Alabama was to say, "Well, let's create some points of light. Let's create some white-owned restaurants that don't mind having black people, and we'll celebrate that, and we'll give them a certification, and we'll put them on magazines and on change-the-world lists. Let's celebrate the good." I think that would actually rub you and me the wrong way. I mean, on the surface, what's wrong with that? But it feels like a weird response to a problem that is necessarily systemic.

It's like saying, "OK, well, let's have better healthcare companies that compete against Oxycontin and are more responsible in how they prescribe." Again, I think you and I would agree that that's just not going to work given the kind of problem the opioid crisis is, given the dynamics of addiction, the ways in which pharma companies have political power, the way the whole doctor-sales rep process is so rigged. Having just better, nicer, conscious capitalism to compete against the others, it's just not going to work.

Feloni: I'm thinking of a conversation I had with Jay Coen Gilbert, and he's one of the cofounders, of B Lab - I know you spoke with Andrew [Kassoy, another B Lab cofounder] - and something I learned is Coen Gilbert does see what he's doing as trying to create momentum that leads to governments taking action. That's whether it was individual states passing benefit corporation legislation or Elizabeth Warren citing them in her essay where she announced drafting the Accountable Capitalism Act, which would extend and enact a lot of what Coen Gilbert wants on a federal level.
Read more: The United States is undergoing a second Gilded Age, and it shows the same struggle has defined America for 150 years
So even if we can agree that these are problems that need to be solved publicly, if you have someone like Coen Gilbert with B Lab or you have someone in a position of power in a corporation, what are they supposed to do when the field is already set up in a way that's basically the second Gilded Age and corporations are stronger than democracy at this point?

Giridharadas: I think the B Corp example is fascinating, and I think that Elizabeth Warren proposal next to it is a great development. The B Lab thing on its own is part of this feeling that's very influential in our time, which is, as Andrew Kassoy explained to me in the book, "making good easier." A lot of CSR, corporate social responsibility, impact this and that, it's all about let's create more mechanisms and modalities and even just social praise for companies to get more approval when they do good. And I think that's great and I think there's a powerful demonstration effect, but I think again, what you need in the moment that we happen to be in, it behooves us just as much if not more on making it harder to do something bad. It seems to me that making 5,000 or 10,000, or even 20,000 companies do good, better, or certify themselves as doing better, pales in comparison to the effect that you'd have making it illegal to ruin the climate, making it illegal to employ people in ways that drive them into hunger when they work 40-hour weeks.

Feloni: Is there a way, though, that you could see an initiative in the private sphere as a positive development if it even brings an issue into the conversation, so that public action can then take place?

Giridharadas: I think what has happened with B Lab is actually the ideal case that I advocate for, which is a small, private experiment not remaining private, but they have fought to change laws at the state level, to first just making it possible to be good and then Elizabeth Warren can take that and run with it. This is exactly what I would hope would happen. I actually wish that more things would follow that model of something that where you really start with something that's private that filters into public policy.

Feloni: I went to Detroit and did a profile on Dan Gilbert, and it to me is an extreme example of where the country is right now. He's invested over $5 billion into the city, which is just, it's pretty crazy how a billionaire has that much influence over a major American city. But what also happened at that point was that you had years of both the state and city governments completely failing the people. What does that say to you about the US, in a situation where the public sector failed a city and then a billionaire becomes the main source of capital flowing in?

Giridharadas: Let me answer it this way. Look, I think private giving can be incubation for public action. There can be a case for private philanthropy in a place where public systems aren't working; however, those things should be directed towards strengthening public capacity. Whereas, in New Orleans, you ended up with the lack of public capacity and a surplus of philanthropy created a system where there's only charter schools now, there's no public schools in the whole city. That's not a great model. A model where you start privately, like where [Andrew] Carnegie built libraries privately in order to turn them into public libraries and create a habit of public libraries around this country, and on a scale that not even he could have afforded. Those are two very different approaches.

Don't elect another billionaire

Feloni: I saw your commentary on Schultz running. And I mean whether it's Howard Schultz or potentially Bloomberg down the line, why are you so passionately against them?

Giridharadas: Bloomberg suggested that Warren's wealth tax may be unconstitutional and then it's basically Venezuela. I just want to say these old billionaire, encrusted oligarchs are really showing their terror. I really feel like I am winning the conversation, and AOC is winning this conversation, and Elizabeth Warren is winning this conversation, and Edgar Villanueva, who wrote " Decolonizing Wealth," is winning this conversation, and thousands of people who are talking about this in different ways. And these guys are terrified.

When you hear old white guy billionaires telling you a wealth tax is Venezuelan, or Howard Schultz saying twice in 24 hours that two ideas emerging from offices of women of color in Congress are un-American, these are billionaires who understand that the politics have changed America.

For the first time in my lifetime, we're talking about whether billionaires should be able to be here, and I think my message to these guys is, you are free to go. Taxes, all these policies that we're talking about, these policies are just the rules of the road of a society. We can set whatever rules we want consistent with the law in the Constitution. And then everybody has a free choice about whether these laws and everything else this country offers as a package works for them or not. And if you don't like the tax rates, you're allowed to go. If you think it's confiscatory to have a 3% wealth tax, you're absolutely free to go.

I'm willing to play poker with any of these billionaires because I think they're all bluffing. I don't think any of them are going to leave. I don't think any of them will leave. Mike Bloomberg's going to move to Singapore? America's an extraordinary country. I'm here for the long haul and I suspect that Mike Bloomberg's here for the long haul too.

So we might as well actually rebuild this country using a tiny fraction of those resources that those people have been lucky enough to get because we have, all together, built an extraordinary country. And these guys are, honestly, asking, begging, to be overthrown and they need to wake up to the moment they're in.

These ideas should only be scary to a few

Feloni: What would the ideal system in America look like to you, including the role of corporations? Is this idea of "better capitalism" we have even a valid goal to you?

Giridharadas: If we did some of the things that I'm talking about, America would become what most people imagine it is. It wouldn't become some alien thing that we don't recognize. It would actually become the country we think we live in but don't. It would become a place where, to a somewhat greater extent, people ended up where they did based on their effort, not their circumstances of birth. It would end up a place where it's actually easier to run companies because you don't have to pay people's health care, and navigate all this crazy stuff around scheduling people because you just won't be allowed to do that to begin with. In the America that I'm talking about, we would have women and African Americans and others who historically have been shut out of power actually share in the nation's power, decision making, and wealth. In the America that I'm talking about, we'd go from leading the planet off a cliff to leading the planet away from that cliff.

The kind of change I'm talking about sounds scary to people, but it should only really sound scary to a very few people, who have been profiting from an unfair system. They are scared that people now realize that America actually doesn't have to be run for billionaires' benefit. What is actually un-American, to use Howard Schultz's term, is an America run for the few. That's not the promise on which this country was founded.

Feloni: So it's a billionaire co-opting of the American dream?

Giridharadas: I think we're all passengers in a billionaire hijacking. We were all drugged on the plane, and these guys are now terrified in the cockpit because they're realizing that in the back there we just woke up.

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'We're all passengers in a billionaire hijacking' says the critic who has the world's richest people buzzing

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Anand Giridharadas is an author and professor whose book "Winners Take All" is a scathing critique of the way elites treat philanthropy. He said Western elites have cloaked themselves in "changing the world" to protect their interests and reduce the efficacy of democratic change.

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Unchecked nationalism can lead us towards fascism. Here are some ways to tackle this rising global trend. Via act.tv

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Post by sogoodnow.

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'Operation Divide the Left': Analysis Shows 2020 Online Disinformation Campaign Already Well Underway

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'Operation Divide the Left': Analysis Shows 2020 Online Disinformation Campaign Already Well Underway

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As the pool of candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president continues to grow, so does a "sustained and ongoing" push to spread lies about them on social media-with one key aim being to sow division among progressive voters-according to an alarming Politico report published Wednesday.

Citing analyses by and conversations with data scientists and digital campaign strategists, the outlet reported:

Researchers and others interviewed for this story say they cannot conclusively point to the actors behind the coordinated activity. It's unclear if they are rogue hackers, political activists or, as some contend, foreign state actors such as Russia, since it bears the hallmarks of past foreign attacks. One of the objectives of the activity, they say, is to divide the left by making the Democratic presidential primary as chaotic and toxic as possible.

Research by the pro-democracy tech firm Guardians.ai found that Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as well as former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas)-who has not formally announced his candidacy for president-appear to be the top targets.

"As it relates to information warfare in the 2020 cycle, we're not on the verge of it-we're already in the third inning."
-Brett Horvath, Guardians.ai

"It looks like the 2020 presidential primary is going to be the next battleground to divide and confuse Americans," warned Guardians.ai co-founder Brett Horvath. "As it relates to information warfare in the 2020 cycle, we're not on the verge of it-we're already in the third inning."

The firm's research revealed that over a recent month-long period, a small group of suspicious Twitter accounts generated much of the conversation about those four candidates on the platform-commentary that was amplified by a larger collection of accounts.

From the analysis, Horvath told Politico, "we can conclusively state that a large group of suspicious accounts that were active in one of the largest influence operations of the 2018 cycle is now engaged in sustained and ongoing activity for the 2020 cycle."

Politico also pointed to research by Storyful researcher Kelly Jones, who tracked "spikes in misinformation activity over social media platforms and online comment boards," particularly "fringe" sites such as 4Chan and 8Chan, in the days following candidates' 2020 announcements.

Jones examined online activity in the three days after Harris, Warren, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) confirmed they are running for president. As Democratic candidates launch campaigns, she told Politico, "there is a call to action on these fringe sites. The field is going to be so crowded that they say 'OK: Operation Divide the Left.'"

An unnamed "high-ranking official" from the Sanders campaign expressed "serious concerns" about the consequences of misinformation on social media from domestic and foreign actors, telling Politico that this is a "type of political cyber warfare that's clearly having an impact on the democratic process."

Sanders, who announced his candidacy on Tuesday, also has publicly acknowledged concerns about misinformation. In a wide-ranging interview with CBS News, the senator noted that "there's a lot of misinformation that's going around" about Medicare for All (10:00):

Politico's report comes amid mounting concerns about not only how social media platforms-and particularly, the misinformation circulated on them-influence political elections, but also how major techonology companies can combat election interference without unfairly censoring real users or media outlets.

Social media giants have taken some steps to try to curb political interference and misinformation. In a post published late last month, Facebook noted its "massive investments to help protect the integrity of elections" over the past two years and detailed "the additional ways we are working to strengthen our platform ahead of elections in 2019."

Twitter also publicly outlined its efforts last month after publishing data on possible foreign operations in October. While declining to comment on the Guardian.ai analysis, a Twitter spokesperson told Politico that "our investigations are global and ongoing," and "we'll share more information if and when it's available."

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'Operation Divide the Left': Analysis Shows 2020 Online Disinformation Campaign Already Well Underway

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As the pool of candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president continues to grow, so does a "sustained and ongoing" push to spread lies about them on social media-with one key aim being to sow division among progressive voters-according to an alarming Politico report published Wednesday.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr Explains How Big Pharma Completely Owns Congress

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr Explains How Big Pharma Completely Owns Congress

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Those of you who have been involved in the past in the battle to protect our children from poorly made vaccines or toxic chemicals in our food or in our water know the power of these industries and how they've undermined every institution in our democracy that is supposed to protect little children from powerful, greedy corporations. Even the pharmaceutical companies have been able to purchase congress. They're the largest lobbying entity in Washington D.C.. They have more lobbyists in Washington D.C. than there are congressman and senators combined. They give twice to congress what the next largest lobbying entity is, which is oil and gas... Imagine the power they exercise over both republicans and democrats. They've captured them (our regulatory agencies) and turned them into sock puppets. They've compromised the press... and they destroy the publications that publish real science. (Robert F. Kennedy Jr, from the video below)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Children's Health Defence (a worthy cause if you're looking for one to donate to) has been fighting against big corporations that have taken over and undermined American government health regulatory agencies for a number of years. One of the most recent examples is when Robert F. Kennedy Jr represented Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper who successfully brought forward a lawsuit alleging glyphosate caused his cancer. That's right, he won!

There are currently thousands of cases pending against Monsanto, which is only one of multiple powerful companies influencing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And to think, these are the agencies providing us with 'science' in order to get the food, medications, and other products produced by these big corporations to be deemed safe. Not only that, but these agencies are providing educational resources to medical schools, which Big Pharma has completely taken over as well.

It's truly unbelievable that, in this day and age, education has turned into brainwashing. Science is corrupted, altered, changed, ignored, and swept under the rug just because it threatens the interests of a few powerful people and the corporations they hide behind.

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine." Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ) ( source)

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's pesticide Round Up, is a perfect example, as science has been showing for decades how incredibly harmful it is for human health and the environment, yet it's approved as 'safe' for use in the western world. It's no mystery why glyphosate is illegal in the majority of countries around the world. The same goes for genetically modified foods, which is what Round Up was designed to be used on. Years ago, a lawsuit forced the FDA to divulge its files on genetically engineered foods.

"As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals - and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science. They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that GMOs were safe." - Jane Goodall

You can read more about that here. You can also read more about the connection between GMOs and cancer as well as hundreds of scientists supporting the link here. Just like glyphosate, dozens of countries have cited health and environmental hazards for keeping GMOs out of their country.

In addition, Monsanto colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stifle cancer research and any connections to their products. The European Union actually just approved the use of glyphosate, and their approval was found to be based on plagiarized science from Monsanto.

The corruption is never-ending when it comes to the link between corporations and government agencies. In fact, only a few years ago, more than a dozen scientists from within the CDC put out an anonymous public statement detailing the influence corporations have on government policies. They were referred to as the Spider Papers.

Dr. William Thompson is a longtime CDC scientist who has published some of the most commonly cited pro-vaccine studies, some of which claim that there is absolutely no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He pointed to a specific study that he co-authored in 2004 for the CDC, which claimed that "the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not cause autism or any particular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder." This study is often cited when trying to justify the use of this vaccine, despite the fact that he later stated they deleted important findings from that study. He said that "it's the lowest point in my career that I went along with that paper and uh, I went along with this, we didn't report significant findings... I'm completely ashamed of what I did, I have great shame now that I was complicit and went along with this. I have been a part of the problem." ( source)

Anxious to get this information out, Thompson sent various documents to Congressman Bill Posey, who addressed the congress, reading a statement that he had received from Dr. Thompson:

Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the [CDC] co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the [MMR vaccine] study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. ( source)

As you can see, there are no shortage of examples that highlight the collusion between corporations and government regulatory agencies.

The Takeaway

This information might come as a shock for some, and to those of you who are just waking up to this kind of thing, it's really nothing to be scared about. This is simply important information to be aware of. Once you are aware, you can make more informed decisions and better choices in your own life. After all, who are the main resources for these big, misleading corporations? Us. We are the ones who use and support their products and keep the money flowing into their pockets. Without us, they are nothing, which is why awareness is so important.

Sure, there are mass brainwashing campaigns by these companies in an attempt to convince us that their propaganda is real, but more people are becoming aware and it's spreading across the globe. This can't go on forever, and compared to a couple of decades ago, so many more people were unaware. We've come a long way, and that's a very positive thing.

Those of us who make a habit of challenging our current worldviews in order to uncover deeper truths and expand our understanding of reality, will have probably come to realize by now that much of the 'skepticism' out there that is supposedly founded in 'science' is nothing more than the preservation of the mainstream perception that is constantly being promoted by our hidden authorities and their minions.

It is likely that every one of us has encountered frustration in dealing with the 'I'll believe it when I see it' type of skeptic among family and friends. Some hold it as a badge of honor that they refuse to be 'fooled' by suggestions that the world is not exactly as it seems, or that there is anything substantial going on behind the scenes, as long as the mainstream media continues to ridicule it and use labels like 'unproven pseudo-science' or 'debunked conspiracy theory.'

Now, this is not to dispute that some skepticism is healthy. Not at all. One should not believe everything one hears indiscriminately, and all claims should be evaluated based evidence, coherence, logic, and common sense. When skepticism is in balance with an open mind, it helps us develop discernment, and enables us to build and expand a coherent worldview that begins to incorporate and make sense of more and more of the subtle mysteries the universe has to offer.

However, an extreme brand of skepticism that is not open to possibility until it becomes self-evident is damaging to human inquiry and the flourishing of new ideas. Joe Martino and I discussed this skepticism in our latest episode of 'The Collective Evolution Show' on CETV, and went on to examine how this philosophical position is at the heart of the censorship efforts of mainstream media and the now co-opted social media giants, indiscriminately labeling ideas and analyses of world events outside of the mainstream perception as 'fake news' and characterizing it as 'dangerous' and something the public must be protected from.

Below is a clip from that episode exploring how dogmatic skepticism is holding us back. Become a member on CETV to watch the full episode of The Collective Evolution Show.

In the full episode, we go on to discuss specifically how Wikipedia has become one of the latest information sources to fall under the control of the mainstream authority. We talk about how instead of being 'the people's encyclopedia' and being open to all ideas, it has adopted the very strict skepticism of the mainstream. Among other things, it systematically denigrates those scientists, researchers and medical professionals that promote alternative modalities to Western medicine.

Scientific Materialism

Some will say 'I'm a scientist. And therefore I'm a skeptic.' In some ways, this makes sense-a real scientist does not come to any conclusions unless the evidence in their experiments bears them out. However, it often represents someone who is not open to possibility, and will not seriously consider anything that is not proven and established, meaning what they have 'seen' with their own eyes.

When this type of person says (usually informally) that they are a 'scientist,' what they really mean is that they ascribe to scientific materialism, a philosophical position founded on the belief that only the material world, the world perceived by our senses, is what is real. We don't even need to get into the fact that quantum physics has long demonstrated that this position is no longer tenable in the real world, and that non-material forces are exerting influence on the world all the time.

In a banned TedX talk entitled 'The Science Delusion,' biologist Rupert Sheldrake performs a brilliant dissection of scientific materialism and all the questionable assumptions it is founded on, and is clear to distinguish between real 'science,' which is exploration and experimentation designed to expand knowledge, and the philosophical dogma of scientific materialism which, in mainstream discourse, is considered 'science.' No wonder it was banned. Watch this one, it is well worth your time.

Now it must be said, anybody refuting scientific materialism is pulling the rug out from most of the skepticism used by mainstream forces to control the narrative. And so, as you might expect, whenever the mainstream media has the opportunity to comment on who Rupert Sheldrake is or the value of his work, they are not likely to be very complimentary.

Wikipedia On Sheldrake

In an article entitled ' Wikipedia's Assault on Scientific Progress: The Case of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake,' Gary Null makes a very persuasive case not only that Wikipedia attempts to marginalize Rupert Sheldrake as a 'pseudoscientist,' but they exhibit a draconian control over the editorial content of Sheldrake's Wikipedia page, quite against their own stated policies.

Sheldrake's original Wikipedia biography, created in October 2002, was limited to two sentences and a link to his personal website: "Rupert Sheldrake (1942-) is a British biologist and author of several books. In his 1981 book A New Science of Life he put forward the hypothesis of formative causation which basically suggests that memory is inherent in nature."

That's it! Today, his biography has grown to 9 major headings and 12 subheadings. Instead of identifying him as a biologist - only noting this title in the past-tense - the article falsely identifies Sheldrake as a "parapsychologist" in the lead paragraph. Although he conducts experiments in telepathy, he approaches the topic from a biological viewpoint, in keeping with his scientific training. Reviewing the many thousands of edits made to his biography during the past 16 years is a lesson in how brutal and vicious the Wiki wars spawned by Skeptics can become.

Sheldrake's Wikipedia "Talk" page begins with the warnings:

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them.

The Arbitration Committee has authorized uninvolved administrators to impose discretionary sanctions on users who edit pages related to pseudoscience and fringe science, including this article.

Here we observe Wikipedia's own Committee showcasing flagrant bias in identifying Sheldrake's scientific research as "pseudoscience."

Wikipedia's Violation Of Its Non-Profit Status

The concept of Wikipedia, the people's encyclopedia, a resource for the open sharing of wisdom and knowledge, where respect for opposing points of view was maintained, is what made Wikipedia popular and trusted to begin with. However, the potential profits that would be possible from this trust and Wikipedia's popularity seems to have become too tempting for its owners and of course Big Business to resist.

This letter written to the IRS by Neal S. Greenfield, lawyer for Dr. Gary Null, in which he explicitly details the ways in which Wikipedia has blatantly violated their 501 (c)(3) non-profit status, as well as their own stated values and objectives, will certainly help you to see Wikipedia in a different way than what it pretends to be.

Of note in the summary on page 1 is the contention that 'Wikipedia has selectively permitted pay-to-play editing and institutional conflicts of interest, particularly where generous donors are concerned.' It's nothing we haven't seen before. We are coming to realize that our entire economic and political systems are founded on the corrupt influence of the powerful and wealthy. The maintenance of their power is founded on keeping people ignorant, which is the brute impact of scientific materialism and the skepticism that follows from it.

The Takeaway

Every day there seems to be new information out about another previously trusted source of information that has shown itself to be unworthy of trust. But rather than rue the destruction of the naive innocence of humanity, we should bless these revelations as stepping-stones to achieving a higher discernment. Certainly, the majority of humanity, when released from these corrupting influences, will be able to be trusted to act in a way that is ultimately for the benefit of all. This higher discernment will allow us as a collective to separate the wheat from the chaff, and create a world where truth, transparency and the open exchange of ideas will be supported.

Billions of animals are raised and killed for slaughter every single year, and that's in America alone. There is nothing humane about our food industry. It's quite clear that the majority of animals are tortured, live in extreme fear, anxiety and depression, and constantly have their kids and other family members ripped away from them. Take cows, for example. These majestic, compassionate, empathetic and brilliant beings are basically raped so we can drink their milk.

They are forcefully inseminated, which is odd given the fact that casein, the protein found within the milk of a cow, has been found to increase our risk of cancer and even accelerate the growth rate of cancer . Furthermore, the milk from a cow creates a condition within the body called metabolic acidosis, and as a result the body compensates by leeching calcium from the bones. How ironic is that?

When the cow gives birth, the babies do not get the milk because that's reserved for humans and big profit. The babies are separated from their mothers and then are either immediately killed or raised for slaughter. This is extremely inhumane, and it represents one of the most heartbreaking genocides in human history. It makes no sense to drink the milk of a cow because it's meant for cows.

In fact, humans are the only animal that drink the milk of another animal, and we are the only animal to drink milk after weaning. Furthermore, we previously didn't have the ability to digest the milk of a cow, that's an ability our bodies eventually developed, given the fact that the milk of a cow is so unnatural to the human body. It makes sense that 65 percent of the planet has some form of lactose intolerance. In some regions of the world it's an astonishing 90 percent. It makes no sense at all, and it's quite clear that the big food companies are behind this and have marketed milk as 'healthy' simply for the purposes of profit.

The main purpose of this article is to emphasize that all of this is happening because of us. Granted, things have drastically changed over the past decade, and are continuing to change. The profits of the dairy and meat industries are steadily declining, and this is as a result of people waking up to what's really going on with regards to how these animals are treated as well as the health consequences of human beings over-consuming animal products.

One other thing that seems to be happening is an increase in global compassion. It's always strange to ask how any human being can be involved in this process. We are talking about living, sentient, emotional, intelligent beings being subjected to extreme pain. How can anybody on the planet be okay with someone else going through such things? The reality is that there are individuals who oppose these industries, and there are those who deem the lives of other animals as insignificant.

As I said, people are changing, but some people just don't realize this. Jay and Katja Wilde are the latest examples o f how change is spreading.

Pictured above, the 61-year-old farmers just couldn't take the guilt anymore after spending many years as beef farmers. They recently decided to give their entire herd to an animal sanctuary. It's interesting because he's been a vegetarian for thirty years, yet at the same time this was his occupation, and through it he discovered that each individual cow had their own unique personality. They are loving, caring, intelligent and affectionate animals.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, he said:

"I've long felt there was a very strong conflict of interest between not eating meat and producing cattle for meat," he says. "The problem is that when you inherit a farm, it feels like a duty to keep its life continuing into the future. That also means looking after animals, really getting to know them. But then I felt that sending them off was betraying them. I needed to do something differently. Whether they are stubborn, shy, friendly, they're all different. These traits can pass down generations, too. You can match sons and daughters to their mothers."

He emphasized how his profession made him much more "acutely aware of taking them to their place of death." A death that Jay felt sure the cows were fully aware of. "It's hard to know exactly what they know, but logic suggests everything about that final journey must be terrifying," he said.

Jay and his wife Katja have now converted their beef farm into an organic vegan one, becoming the first farmers in the UK who are believed to have taken such action.

"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as now they look upon the murder of humans." - Leonardo Da Vinci

Below is great, heart-warming video.

The Takeaway

Eating meat isn't healthy. It's well-established in scientific literature that a meat-free diet, when done correctly, offers tremendous health benefits. Plant-based eating is not only nutritionally sufficient, but helps you avoid chronic illness as well. You can read more information regarding that in the articles linked below.

What we are doing today, raising and slaughtering billions of animals, is not only destroying our health, it's destroying our environment as well. More importantly, compassion, care, empathy and love must return to our planet, and the food industry is where we need to start showing these qualities that have somehow been made to lay dormant within us. If one suffers, we all suffer.

Related Articles:
9 Things That Happen When You Stop Eating Meat Internal Medicine Physician Shares What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Eating Meat Studies Show What Happens To Your Heart When You Go Vegan or Vegetarian Disturbing Aerial Photos Show What Killing Billions of Animals for Meat is Doing To The Environment Warning: Graphic Images That The Egg Industry Does Not Want You To See New Study Shows What Vegan Diets Do For Heart Health, Endurance Athletes & Sports Performance Scientist: Milk From Cows Has "The Most Relevant Carcinogen Ever Identified" & "Turns on Cancer" Scientist Explains How Cow's Milk Leeches Calcium From Your Bones & Makes Them Weaker

It's amazing how much money is scraped off of each paycheque, and how much money multiple small and big businesses pay. We are told that it's necessary, that this is the money going towards various programs that are responsible for building our schools, employing people for necessary services and infrastructure, among many other things. It's truly amazing how much money governments rake in from taxes.

It's an astronomical amount that makes it hard to see how all of the money is allocated to services that are in the people's favour, instead of the possibility of it going into the pockets of certain politicians and elitists, among other places. Yet we are heavily taxed, and reasons for taxation are constantly brought up and justified, almost as if to imply that there really is no other way of changing things and doing things differently here on planet Earth. Our potential is huge, yet we are convinced that money and taxation are our only ways to operate.

Sure, some of our taxes are going toward various needs and services we deem necessary, but how much off of our paycheques is really required for this? Judging by the amount of money that has been poured into black budget programs, it doesn't seem like much is needed at all, and this is because trillions upon trillions of our tax dollars are actually going towards projects that the public has absolutely no idea about.

These projects are known as 'black budget programs,' which include Special Access Programs (SAPs). Within these we have unacknowledged and waived SAPs. These programs do not exist publicly, but they do indeed exist. They are better known as 'deep black programs.' A 1997 US Senate report described them as "so sensitive that they are exempt from standard reporting requirements to the Congress."

Not many people have investigated the black budget world, but The Washington Post revealed that the "black-budget" documents indicate that a staggering 52.6 billion dollars was set aside for operations in fiscal year 2013.( source) More recent investigations, however, reveal a lot more than that. The topic was discussed in 2010 by Washington Post journalists Dana Priest and William Arkin. Their investigation lasted approximately two years and concluded that America's classified world has:

Become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work. ( source)

Recently, Arkin quite NBC/MSNBC and went public outing them as completely fake government run agencies. You can read more about that here. Here is another article we published that has links within it to documents showing the close relationship between mainstream media, academia, and the CIA.

The most recent investigation was conducted by economist and Michigan State professor Mark Skidmore, alongside some of his graduate students as well as Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development. They discovered trillions of unaccounted for dollars missing from the Department of Housing & Urban Development as well as the Department of Defense. For their research, the team used several government websites and made inquiries to multiple U.S. agencies. Much of the time they received no response and the Office of the Inspector General even disabled links to all key documents that revealed unsupported spending, according to the team.

Given the Army's $122 billion budget, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times spending authorized by Congress. Typically, such adjustments in public budgets are only a small fraction of authorized spending... Skidmore thought Fitts had made a mistake. "Maybe she meant $6.5 billion and not $6.5 trillion," he said. "So I found the report myself and sure enough it was $6.5 trillion." - Michigan State News.

They went on to find documents indicating a total of $20 trillion worth of undocumented adjustments made from 1998 t0 2015. Our tax dollars are going directly into these black budget programs, which often cost far more than our roads and services. If this information was made transparent and public for discovery and use, it would leap all of humanity into the stars and into new discovery and exploration. The implications would be huge, and it would force us to ask more questions.

Here's a great quote from Paul Hellyer.

It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects which both congress and the commander in chief know nothing about. (source)

What's even more interesting is that Fitts has been quite outspoken about a secret space program and where this missing money is actually going. She explains how enormous amounts of resources were handed over to covert operations to develop a security system of finance. This then created the CIA and a select group of people who were in charge of UFO technology. "By the time JFK came into office ready to challenge this shadow government and make space program the centrepiece of his administration, the civil war between the Deep State and the public state was in full force." ( source)

Interesting to say the least.

Deeper Black Budget Discussion On CETV

CETV is a platform we created in order to combat censorship and demonetization we have been facing over the past few years. On episode 4 of The Collective Evolution Show on CETV, we discussed the Black Budget in much deeper detail. Below is a clip exploring the validity behind missing money from the black budget and special access programs, explaining where the money is going and what exactly it's being used to do.

You can become a member of CETV, get access to the full show and many others, and support conscious media here.

The Takeaway

The takeaway here is to really question what's going on with our tax dollars. Whose pockets is the majority of money going into, and for what purpose? What are we really paying for? Secret space programs? Deep underground and under ocean military bases? Have we just been made to believe that the way we are taxed is absolutely necessary? What is really going on here and how come nobody is questioning it?

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr Explains How Big Pharma Completely Owns Congress

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Those of you who have been involved in the past in the battle to protect our children from poorly made vaccines or toxic chemicals in our food or in our water know the power of these industries and how they've undermined every institution in our democracy that is supposed to protect little children from powerful, [...]

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's tweet about workers being paid 'less than the value they create' is essentially a restatement of Marx's Labour Theory of Value — here's why that's interesting

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's tweet about workers being paid 'less than the value they create' is essentially a restatement of Marx's Labour Theory of Value — here's why that's interesting

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Last month, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, "Workers are often paid far less than the value they create."

That is essentially a restatement of Karl Marx's Labour Theory of Value, which suggests that economies run into trouble when workers can't afford to buy the products they're making.

Investment-bank analysts at Citi, HSBC, and Macquarie are worrying over the same issue.

There are so few rich people and so many people sharing a declining portion of wealth that the next recession might actually be exacerbated by the inequality that low pay has created, these analysts argued.

You can't successfully run an economy based on the spending power of a tiny number of rich people.

Late last month, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a criticism of Ivanka Trump, who had said she is against the idea of a guaranteed minimum wage because she doesn't "think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something."

"People want to work for what they get," Trump said. "So I think this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want."

Ocasio-Cortez responded: "A living wage isn't a gift, it's a right. Workers are often paid far less than the value they create."

That caught my eye because it is essentially a restatement of Karl Marx's Labour Theory of Value, and it's not often you see that discussed in the mainstream media.
Read more: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just revived a classic argument by conservative economist Milton Friedman about who pays for pollution.
If all workers are paid less than the value they create, then there will never be enough workers to buy the things they make

Before Marx, the "value" of any product was regarded as pretty much the same as its price in the marketplace. It's how much you would pay to avoid making the product yourself, according to Adam Smith (1723-1790). The reason you might spend $100 on a pair of shoes is that even though $100 is quite expensive, it's a lot easier than making a pair of shoes by hand, yourself, Smith said.

Marx (1818-1883), who was a big fan of Smith, was more interested in how products acquire value as they come into existence. A cow doesn't slaughter itself and magically transform into a pair of leather shoes - that happens only because workers apply labor to the cow's corpse, turning its skin into leather and then sewing that leather into shoes. Only after labor has been applied do shoes have any value. It's the labor that creates the value, not just the fact that the shoes can be traded for cash.

If you accept that, then it becomes immediately obvious that what Ocasio-Cortez said is correct. Workers in a shoe factory are paid far less than the value they create. They have to be. If 100% of the money from shoe sales was paid directly to the workers, then the factory would go out of business - there would be no money left to pay for electricity, and there would be no profits to invest in more efficient shoe-making machines to help the factory compete in the future.

But that raises a contradiction: If all workers are paid less than the value they create, then there will never be enough workers to buy the things they make.

Let's say our shoe factory has one worker who each day makes five pairs of shoes, which sell for $100 each. The factory makes $500 a day in sales. The worker's wage is $10 an hour for a 10-hour day. So the worker is paid $100 a day. The worker can afford to buy only one pair of shoes, even though they have made five.

At first this doesn't feel like a problem, because, obviously, there are billions of people on the planet who need shoes - the factory can sell those other four pairs to someone, somewhere. What concerned Marx was that ultimately every single worker on the planet, in every office and factory, is paid less than the value of the goods they create. It is not possible for all the goods being produced to be bought by all the workers making them. Additionally, there is almost always a reserve army of unemployed people who can't afford to buy anything, exacerbating the problem.

The tendency is for the system to collapse, Marx believed

The tendency is for the system to collapse and for recessions to destroy shoe factories whose customers are too poor, or not numerous enough, to buy all the shoes, Marx believed. This collapse can be staved off, he argued, if the shoe factory goes to great lengths - for instance, by investing in new technology allowing that shoe worker to double their productivity and make 10 pairs of shoes a day, or maybe the same number of shoes at a lower price.

But the collapse is only pushed into the future. New technology will also be acquired by all the competing shoe factories, squeezing profits - and squeezing some factories out of business. And if the factory buys shoe-making machines instead of hiring new workers, it still faces the problem of producing more shoes than can be bought by the workers making them.

By an amazing coincidence, Ocasio-Cortez also tweeted a chart of workers' pay increases compared with their productivity increases to make the point that even when labor becomes more valuable, it does not share the rewards:

It is impossible for capitalists to pay workers the full value of their labor without going bankrupt

That is a vast oversimplification of Marx's analysis, but you get the gist.

Marx thought capitalism was inherently unstable precisely because workers are not paid the full value of their labor, and precisely because it is impossible for capitalists to pay them the full value without going bankrupt. It's one of the internal contradictions that capitalism cannot resolve.

Of course, not all profits are invested in new equipment. Factory owners take a slice for themselves, and it tends to be a much bigger slice than the workers get. There are reasons for this, of course. It was the capitalists' money that brought the factory into existence, and the inevitable collapse can be avoided if the profits are diverted into a new venture, like a hat factory, that might create new jobs (for workers who can then buy shoes).

Whatever they do, the bosses get richer than the workers. Now you have two sets of people, both doing the same thing (making shoes), but being paid wildly unequal sums for doing so.

Which is another way of saying that "workers are often paid far less than the value they create," as Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

AOC and the investment banks are on the same side of the debate

She isn't alone in worrying about what workers are paid. Over the past few years, a surprising number of investment-bank analysts at Citi, HSBC, and Macquarie have published research finding that inequality and low pay may lead to recessions, or at the very least hold back economic growth (which, ironically, even makes the rich poorer).

These people are not Marxists, obviously (though, like Marx, they are economists). But also like Marx, they are concerned that inequality in the US and the West is becoming so extreme that ordinary people won't have enough money to keep the economy going.

The charts in this story all show the same thing: The share of national income going to the top 1% of earners is increasing, while the share of income going to the bottom 50% of people is declining. The rich are getting richer. And the rest of us are sharing an ever-smaller slice of the pie. The bottom 50% of people in the US and Europe now share just 13% of national income.

What if we run out of rich people?

The top 0.1% own close to 20% of all household wealth in the US, according to a paper by Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

This is a problem, the investment-bank people say, because there aren't enough people with money to keep capitalism ticking over.

"Income inequality is cited as another factor in the stagnation process as a few wealthy individuals cannot drive an economy by themselves," the Citi analysts Tobias M. Levkovich and Lorraine M. Schmitt told their clients in 2015.

Two analysts at Macquarie, Viktor Shvets and Perry Yeung, said something similar last year. They cited work by Moritz Kuhn and Moritz Schularick published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and by Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, which said:

The bottom 25% of households had a negative net worth (i.e., they are in debt).

The population between 25% and 50% owned only 2% of national wealth.

The share of the "middle class" between 25% and 75% had dropped to about 8% from 15% in 1989.

The top 10% controlled about 77% of national wealth.

Over time, the top 1% increased its share to about 40% in 2013 from 27% in 1989.

"In other words, wealth has not just accrued to the top 10%, but it went almost entirely to the top 1%," they told clients. "The middle-class creation in 1950s-70s has clearly been replaced by a middle-class compression over the last three decades, certainly since late 1980s."

If the West goes into recession, the fortunes of the rich might make it worse

Janet Henry, an economist at HSBC, told clients in 2018 that the accumulation of wealth by a tiny minority might actually hold the economy back.

"Income inequality suppresses consumption given the lower marginal propensity to consume of higher earners and can be negative for growth if the savings of higher earners do not push up productive investment spending but get parked in property or government bonds," she wrote.

"Income inequality, which often goes hand in hand with a lack of social mobility, also creates disparities in life expectancy, education, skills levels and labour mobility that will impact on future productivity and growth potential," she added. "This has implications for government revenues and their ability to fund public services and future liabilities. Given the huge structural factors - from demographics to technology - that are contributing to the growing income polarisation, it is not something that will miraculously dissipate on the back of one or two years of robust growth."

Worse, if the West goes into recession, then the fortunes of the rich will make it worse, she said, because the poor don't have enough money to withstand it.

"The depth of any downturn, when it finally happens, could be amplified by this income and debt distribution," she told clients in a note late last year.

In other words, the richest 1% might buy a lot of shoes, but they cannot possibly buy enough to keep all the shoemakers employed. You need workers with enough money to buy shoes too. And that means - as Ocasio-Cortez tweeted last month, and as investment bankers have been worrying about since the 2008 financial crisis, and as Marx wrote 200 years ago - that it is very important to consider what workers are paid in relation to the value they create.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's tweet about workers being paid 'less than the value they create' is essentially a restatement of Marx's Labour Theory of Value - here's why that's interesting

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Last month, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, "Workers are often paid far less than the value they create." That is essentially a restatement of Karl Marx's Labour Theory of Value, which suggests that economies run into trouble when workers can't afford to buy the products they're making.

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Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World

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Alabama Has the Worst Poverty in the Developed World

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Updated | A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.

"I think it's very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees. I'd have to say that I haven't seen this," Philip Alston, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Connor Sheets of AL.com earlier this week as they toured a community in Butler County where "raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits."

The tour through Alabama's rural communities is part of a two-week investigation by the U.N. on poverty and human rights abuses in the United States. So far, U.N. investigators have visited cities and towns in California and Alabama, and will soon travel to Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.
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Of particular concern to Alston are specific poverty-related issues that have surfaced across the country in recent years, such as an outbreak of hookworm in Alabama in 2017-a disease typically found in nations with substandard sanitary conditions in South Asia and Subsaharan Africa.

The U.N. investigation aims to study the effects of systemic poverty in a prosperous nation like the United States.
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According to the Census Bureau, nearly 41 million people in the U.S. live in poverty. That's second-highest rate of poverty among rich countries, as measured by the percentage of people earning less than half the national median income, according to Quartz.

These income and wealth disparities affect minorities the most. Black, Hispanic, and Native American children, for example, are two to three times more likely to live in poverty than white kids, according to a study using Census data by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Economic inequality and racial discrimination have also been linked with civil rights abuses, particularly in Alabama and other states across the South. Furthermore, police shootings of unarmed black men and women are of deep concern to the U.N.
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Alston, who also serves as a law professor at New York University, said in a statement announcing the start of the U.N. investigation that poverty in the U.S. has been overlooked for too long.

"Some might ask why a U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights would visit a country as rich as the United States," Alston said. "But despite great wealth in the U.S., there also exists great poverty and inequality."

Alston also pointed out that the U.S. "has been very keen" on other countries being investigated by the U.N. for civil and human rights issues.

"Now, it's the turn to look at what's going on in the U.S.," Alston said. "There are pretty extreme levels of poverty in the United States given the wealth of the country. And that does have significant human rights implications."

Despite these concerns, the Republican Party, which controls all three branches of the federal government, is on course to pass a tax bill before the end of the year that will increase the federal deficit by $1 trillion in 10 years--costs that the GOP says will be offset by reducing an already-weakened social safety net.
This article removes an extraneous reference to President Trump.​ This article was first written by Newsweek More from Newsweek
For Alston, these political decisions are at the root of systemic poverty in the U.S.

"The idea of human rights is that people have basic dignity and that it's the role of the government - yes, the government! - to ensure that no one falls below the decent level," he said. "Civilized society doesn't say for people to go and make it on your own and if you can't, bad luck."

"Politicians who say, 'there's nothing I can do about that' are simply wrong," Alston told WKMS 91.3 FM, a public radio station in Ohio near one of the other sites under investigation by the U.N.

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Alabama Has The Worst Poverty In The Developed World, U.N. Official Says

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Updated | A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world. The tour through Alabama's rural communities is part of a two-week

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The Moral Center of Meritocracy Collapses

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The Moral Center of Meritocracy Collapses

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College-admissions policies are going to take a lot of heat in the next few days, and they will deserve it. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this scandal, like so many others, is firmly rooted in rising inequality and the class system that has come with it.

According to the story that Americans usually tell ourselves, inequality is a game played by flashy celebrities, tech bros, and other freaks of nature. The coverage of this fast-breaking scandal, true to form, has focused with laserlike imprecision on the two of the 33 defendants who happen to be semi-famous Hollywood stars.

But rising inequality has also produced a large upper-middle class- the 9.9 percent -and it is made up of some much more ordinary characters: business executives, bankers, lawyers, physicians, dentists, and real-estate developers, more or less in that order. Nice people. People with good families, good degrees, living in good neighborhoods. People who have learned how to use all those good things as weapons in the struggle to preserve privilege.

Now take a look at the list of defendants. It consists of business executives, bankers, one lawyer, several real-estate developers, a physician, a dentist, and, yes, the pair of desperate Hollywood stars. The entertainment angle here isn't that a few corporate types succumbed to Hollywood values. It's that even starlets aren't free from the grip of the culture of meritocracy.
Alexandra Robbins: Kids are the victims of the elite-college obsession
Probably the least surprising thing about this case is the neighborhood setting. Go to your nearest geographic database and look for the neighborhoods with the highest median home prices, the best-rated public schools (for the little people), and the highest number of advanced degrees per capita. Yep, they're right there in the affidavit: Mill Valley, Atherton, La Jolla, and Newport Beach in California, and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Now let's talk family values. "The parents are the prime movers of this fraud," says Andrew E. Lelling, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts. It is touching, and sad, that many of the defendants appear to have taken great care to make sure their children did not learn about the efforts to cheat on their behalf. But it's also deeply twisted. "Son, I love you, but you're too stupid to know what I have to do for you"-is that the message?

Family life itself has become part of the battleground of the classes. There are two kinds of families in America now, down from an infinity or so. There are the "good" families that mostly have two parents and invest huge amounts of their own money and time, and of their nanny's time, in the cultivation of their offspring. And then there are the families that have been stuck into the bottom 90 percent of the economic pile.

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The Moral Center of Meritocracy Collapses

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College-admissions policies are going to take a lot of heat in the next few days, and they will deserve it. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this scandal, like so many others, is firmly rooted in rising inequality and the class system that has come with it.

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By Irene Sanchez

The scandal Operation Varsity Blues has many talking about corruption in higher education recently, but it exposes something many of us already knew was there. The unchecked privilege reserved for the wealthy of this country is nothing new. There are front doors many of them walk through such as getting added points on their child's applications due to being legacy admits or their parents and/or family members making donations that basically purchase a spot for their child. These are all deemed as "acceptable". This is not acceptable though.

These practices to gain admission colleges/universities are nothing new, but what is shocking is the extent the rich will go to protect more often than not the privilege that tells them that as rich (mostly) white they are entitled to even lie and cheat to to get whatever it is they want. Many arent shocked by the extent to which the the rich have often got away with other more "legitimate" scandals in education such as legacy admissions, private schools, and segregation, but when it comes to photoshopping their child's face to show off their supposed altheticism, well people aren't standing for that. There's more we shouldn't be standing for though.

The higher education system in the U.S. caters to the rich white elite and this scandal is further proof of the lengths upon which the rich will go to protect their standing in society. Their children are treated as reflections of them. Their children can mess up and are taught nothing that money and privilege can't fix, even grades, test scores, sometimes other criminal behavior. If that isn't enough they can now be made into award winning athletes worthy of sports scholarships.

The general US population has been forced to believe in the Myth of Meritocracy by these same elite higher education institutions and those who uphold them, but we must remember their origins. We have to remember the origins of these institutions and how they are tiered for a reason. Education is seen as a great equalizer and foundational to this so-called democracy, but how can any of this be democratic when the system is inherently racist and unequal to begin with?

Over my lunch break yesterday, a student asked me why don't these students just go to community college and transfer? She laughed and I did too knowing full well which colleges and universities were made for what purpose and for who they were meant to serve. It made me upset that for many of my students and when I think back to myself, we aren't allowed to dream or even imagine more than going to a community college. Some of the students I teach doubt they can even get to a community college, yes they're open access, yes they're cheaper, yes there is financial aid for many students, but it takes more than that to navigate. I know because it took me five years to get out of one.

There was a point when the rich and elite saw more community college students transferring, and they increasingly made their admissions harder, some now hardly accepting transfer students at all. Many studies have now shown that community college students when they transfer will actually out perform students who entered as freshmen. I can't offer you a specific explanation on why that is so, but I can tell you, as a student of color, to have the world doubting you, especially if you're coming from a place where no one thought you'd make it, well it's a long climb and constantly feeling like you have to prove yourself.

Proving yourself, many of us have stories, where we were assumed to be affirmative action admits, even if affirmative action wasn't allowed like in California, 2005, I was visiting an family member and her white friend from high school was present. My aunt (who married one of my dads brothers) was proud I transferred to UC Santa Cruz and told her friend. Her friend looked at me in disgust and said oh you only got in because of your last name and went on and on about her son was a veteran and couldn't get in hardly anywhere. Somehow it became my fault (given her son didn't even apply to UCSC).

Now fast forward and there's many stories I have on the road to a Ph.D. Sometimes that doubt deeming my presence illegitimate was cast on me by members of my own community for simply being in the same position as them. A Ph.D. Student? She's not academic enough? Someone must have made a mistake...Even after getting a Ph.D. I walk through a world daily where my credentials are suspect as is my intelligence and my entire being as a high school teacher. Even though I have a Ph.D. this whole year another teacher has rambled how I'm unqualified.

Then something like this happens. Does it confirm what many of us knew? Perhaps, but it also points to the fact that we already know the system wasn't made for us.

Meritocracy is a myth. I think deep down, the rich white elite in this country know this, but they fight to keep this myth of Meritocracy alive to legitimize their wealth and maintain power over the rest of us. They do it through shaming the poor/working class for not working "hard enough" to improve their conditions, when they're the ones who created and maintain them.

We don't win by upholding the same ideas they've used to oppress us.

It's time we reject them completely.

Published by Irene Sanchez

Xicana. Mama. Public Scholar. Poet. Writer. Ph.D. www.irenesanchezphd.com Support: paypal.me/xicanaphd View all posts by Irene Sanchez

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The Myth of Meritocracy By Irene Sanchez The scandal Operation Varsity Blues has many talking about corruption in higher education recently, but it exposes something many of us already knew was there. The unchecked privilege reserved for the wealthy of this country is nothing new. There are front doors many of them walk through such...

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Permantently Disabled Idaho Woman Sues Faith Healer Parents.

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Permantently Disabled Idaho Woman Sues Faith Healer Parents.

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Mariah Walton is 20-years-old and permanently disabled. She has pulmonary hypertension and has to carry an oxygen tank in order to breathe. There have been times where there had to be screws in her bones to anchor in her breathing device. A heart and lung transplant may soon be in her future.

Things didn't have to be this way. When she was an infant, a small defect in her heart could have easily been treated before the damage was irreversible. The problem was that her fundamentalist Mormon parents didn't believe in doctors.

Living off the grid in Idaho in a fundamentalist Mormon sect isn't ideal if you're in need of urgent medical care. But having parents who refuse to seek out that care is an unimaginable nightmare. According to The Guar dian, as Mariah's condition worsened, her parents would prescribe her a steady regimen of prayer and "alternative medicine." When she finally left home two years ago, she didn't have a social security number or a birth certificate.

"Yes, I would like to see my parents prosecuted," Mariah told The Guardian. "They deserve it... And it might stop others."

Had they been in neighboring Oregon, her parents could have been booked for medical neglect. In Mariah's case, as in scores of others of instances of [preventable] death among children in Idaho since the 1970s, laws exempt dogmatic faith healers from prosecution, and she and her sister recently took part in a panel discussion with lawmakers at the state capitol about the issue. Idaho is one of only six states that offer a faith-based shield for felony crimes such as manslaughter.

Some of those enjoying legal protection are fringe Mormon families like Mariah's, many of whom live in the state's north. But a large number of children have died in southern Idaho, near Boise, in families belonging to a reclusive, Pentecostal faith-healing sect called the Followers of Christ.

Idaho Republicans, who've enjoyed a long-standing majority in the state house, don't seem interested in reforming laws that protect such practices, arguing that "religious freedoms" must be protected through exemptions. When Democratic legislator John Gannon proposed reforms of which he "never thought would really be that controversial," the chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, Lee Heider, "refused to even grant it a hearing, effectively killing it."

"Republicans didn't feel the need to change the laws. We believe in the first amendment to the constitution. I don't think that states have a right to interfere in religions," Heider said.

When pressed by The Guardian on the fact that children are dying because of these religious exemptions, Heider made this odd comparison:

"Are we going to stop Methodists from reading the New Testament? Are we going to stop Catholics receiving the sacraments? That's what these people believe in. They spoke to me and pointed to a tremendous number of examples where Christ healed people in the New Testament."

From The Guardian:

While Idaho legislators stonewall, children in faith-healing communities continue to suffer.

According to coroners' reports, in Canyon County alone just in the past decade at least 10 children in the Followers of Christ church have died. These include 15-year-old Arrian Granden, who died in 2012 after contracting food poisoning. She vomited so much that her esophagus ruptured. Untreated, she bled to death.

The other deaths are mostly infants who died during at-home births or soon after from treatable complications, simple infections or pneumonia.

There's still hope. Bruce Wingate at Protect Idaho Kids is coordinating a new campaign called "Let Them Live"to pressure lawmakers to take action, and John Gannon plans to reintroduce his bill next year.

"It's not going to go away," Gannon said. "Dead children don't care about the First Amendment."
Featured image: screen grab/ABC News

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Permanantly disabled Idaho woman wants her faith-healing parents prosecuted

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Mariah Walton is 20-years-old and permanently disabled. She has pulmonary hypertension and has to carry an oxygen tank in order to breathe. There have been times where there had to be screws in her bones to anchor in her breathing device. A heart and lung transplant may soon be in her future.

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In the months before the 2018 U.S. Midterm Elections, President Donald Trump and sympathetic media organizations began alerting the public about an incoming "migrant caravan" of thousands. Despite the way that sounds, there actually was a caravan with real endangered and impoverished people in it, as real as the threats against them. There have been caravans of varying size and constitution since, and declining conditions in Central and South America suggest there will be more.

Origins

The first widely reported caravan of the Trump era departed from Tapachula, Mexico in March of 2018, and Hondurans composed a large percentage of the group as they do migrants to the United States in general. Since a 2009 coup d'état resulting in the removal and exile of former president Manuel Zelaya, Honduras has undergone a fraught period of extreme poverty due to an aggressively pro-corporate administration.

As the nation's resources are stripped for profit, violence has become rampant in much of Honduras. From 2013 to 2016, the city of San Pedro Sula was considered the murder capital of the world, averaging 3 homicides per day with a population of roughly 700,000. The second largest city in the country, in October of 2018 it acted as a meeting place where hundreds of locals joined with migrants from Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala before departing for the U.S.

These countries too, are producing large numbers of refugees due to oppressive governments and deadly conflicts inside their borders. In a three. month span in Nicaragua, 300 citizens were killed and thousands exiled in aggressive actions targeting protesters of President Daniel Ortega. Over 100,000 Nicaraguan families have fled and are living in Costa Rica, alone.

The Trip

Under no circumstances will a walking journey of a thousand miles or more be easy, or safe, but the general lack of resources Central and South American migrants suffer from creates a unique and perilous situation. While there is zero evidence of leprosy being carried by the caravans, as a Fox News contributor suggested, there are issues with treating and containing the disease.

Respiratory illnesses like bronchitis are common due to the close proximity to others, diminished nutrition, and sleeping outdoors. Similarly, pests like lice are pervasive and pose a bigger problem in any indoor shelters the migrants may be lucky enough to use. The Mexican Red Cross and religious organizations provide considerable help with injuries and illness, but mostly in large centers like Mexico City.

Food, water, and necessities like diapers are scarce, if only because everything the migrants possess is something they must carry. Shoes are a particularly difficult resource to manage. Many of the travelers at least begin their trip wearing sandals or similarly thin and less-than-protective footwear, and health workers along the way treat a great many foot injuries. As migrants near the U.S. border and specifically, reach Tijuana, there are an increasing number of shelters and material assistance being made available by UNICEF and other humanitarian charity groups.

Reception

Clearly, President Donald Trump and a significant contingent of Americans see these migrants as a threat or at least a grave inconvenience. In the last year, the Department of Homeland Security(the federal department presiding over border issues), has altered its policy to force even legal asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico for the length of the process.

Migrants are now being turned away or detained for crossing in places that were traditionally considered appropriate for seeking asylum. DHS Secretary Nielsen's recent dismissal and its aftermath have exposed the Trump Administration's desire for more aggressive action to deal with the migrants piling up outside the border. Among them, re-instituting the horrific policy of family separation, and some less tragic but equally unconventional methods.

As of April 16th, 2019, another caravan of hundreds has departed San Pedro Sula, prepared to trek 2,500 miles to the United States.
© 2019; Matt Warrener. All Rights Reserved

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In the months before the 2018 U.S. Midterm Elections, President Donald Trump and sympathetic media organizations began alerting the public about an incoming "migrant caravan" of thousands. Despite the way that sounds, there actually was a caravan with real endangered and impoverished people in it, as real as the threats against them.

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March 15, 2022 is Equal Pay Day, which reflects how many extra days women had to work to make as much as men did in 2021.

The gender wage gap persists, and women make 83 cents for every dollar a man makes.

These charts show the gap in pay varies widely based on location, race, and several other factors.

Equal Pay Day reflects how many extra days women have to work to earn what men did in the previous year. This year's Equal Pay Day falls on March 15.

Over half a century after the US passed the Equal Pay Act, American women still face a substantial gender wage gap across the spectrum.

Overall, women who were full-time, year-round employees made 83 cents for every dollar men made in 2020, based on median earning data from the Census Current Population Survey. That means women are paid about 17% less than men.

But as the National Women's Law Center pointed out in a new fact sheet about the pay gap, the pandemic's impact on employment especially affected people earning low pay. For instance, the leisure and hospitality sector, a low-paying industry made up of restaurants and hotels, faced a wave of pandemic-related business closures and drop in demand for these services.

"Because the women who remained in the labor force and worked full time for all of 2020 often had higher earnings than their counterparts who lost their jobs, 2020's data gives the appearance of closing wage gaps for some groups of women compared to 2019," the National Women's Law Center's Jasmine Tucker wrote in the fact sheet.

Rose Khattar, associate director of rapid response and analysis at the Center for American Progress, previously told Insider in an email that unpaid hours in caregiving and occupational segregation are reasons behind the pay gap between men and women.

There are other potential explanations.

"There are a multitude of factors that may contribute to earnings differences between women and men: age, number of hours worked, presence of children, and education," Megan Wisniewski of the Census Bureau wrote in a post. "The types of jobs women and men hold, and the earnings difference among these occupations also contribute to gaps in overall earnings."

The following charts highlight the pay gap between men and women in the US.

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These 8 charts show the glaring gap between men's and women's salaries in the US

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March 15 is Equal Pay Day, representing the extra days into a new year that a typical woman needs to work to make what a man made the previous year.

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A s zero tolerance went into effect, federal courtrooms along the border were beset by an atmosphere of chaos and desperation, dozens of attorneys, judges and advocates told the Guardian.

C uando la tolerancia cero entró en vigencia, las salas de justicia federal a lo largo de la frontera se convirtieron en atmósferas de caos y desesperación, decenas de abogados, jueces y defensores dijeron al Guardian.

"La gente entró en pánico," recordó Carlos Quiñónez, un abogado defensor en El Paso, Texas. "Nunca había visto tanta gente."

"Fue un shock para todos," dijo Daniela Chisolm, otra abogada de El Paso. "Tenías 75 personas en cadenas: niñas de 18 años de Guatemala, hombres de 70 años de Honduras ... El primer día, tuve 15 clientes, y a nueve de ellos les habían quitado sus niños."

Los abogados defensores hablaron de un aumento "exponencial" en el número de casos que se les asignaban, lo que dificultaba aún más la ansiedad de sus clientes después de perder a sus hijos. "Pasé mucho tiempo teniendo que re-enfocar a mis clientes," dijo Quiñonez. "Estaban enfocados en dónde estaban sus hijos."

Si bien los defensores públicos federales generalmente representan a personas ​​indigentes acusadas ​​de crímenes graves, la tarea de representar los miles de casos de delitos menores de entrada ilegal corresponde muchas veces a abogados de la defensa privada como Quiñónez y Chisolm, cuyas tarifas son pagadas por el gobierno. Pierce, el abogado defensor de Las Cruces, dijo que llegó a considerar esos pagos como "pago de la sangre". "Nos pagan para hacer esto, pero no es realmente para lo que nos inscribimos," dijo. "Quieres defender a las personas en los casos criminales, no porque alguien haya cruzado la frontera en busca de trabajo."

Maxine Dobro, una abogada defensora en San Diego, fue una de los varios abogados defensores que expresó su indignación por lo que llamó "una decisión equivocada por parte de una administración equivocada: la recolección masiva de peces pequeños se convertirá en una de las horas más oscuras de nuestra nación".

"Los tiburones escapan nadando y los peces pequeños son procesados," agregó. De hecho, un análisis realizado por Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse encontró que entre marzo y junio de 2018, los juicios penales del fiscal federal de delitos no migratorios bajaron en los cinco distritos fronterizos, tanto en porcentaje del total de los juicios penales como en términos absolutos.

Algunos abogados defensores, incluido José Troche, un abogado de El Paso que representó a 11 clientes en nuestra muestra, apoyaron la tolerancia cero. "Mire, los represento, pero algunos de estos padres necesitan ser procesados ​​por poner en peligro las vidas de niños," dijo Troche. "Trajeron a estos niños a través de México, a través de esa pocilga, y los tiraron aquí." En cuanto a los niños mismos: "Los centros son el lugar más seguro en el que han estado estos niños," dijo.

Mientras los abogados defensores luchaban para representar a los miles de migrantes recién criminalizados, los fiscales federales tenían sus propios desafíos. En al menos 15 casos, las denuncias penales que acusaban a los migrantes de ingresar ilegalmente incluían errores obvios que sugerían que quien los había completado no había llenado bien el formato preparado.

Ananias B, un migrante de Honduras, fue acusado de ingresar al país al "vadear el río Grande cerca al, #LUGAR DE ENTRADA#". Ángel A, de El Salvador, fue acusado de un delito que "sucedió el #FECHA DE ENTRADA#". Tal vez lo más grave es que acusaron a siete migrantes en Arizona en función de denuncias que incluían la frase: "Los agentes observaron al Acusado #HACIENDO QUE? ELIJA UNO Y BORRE EL RESTO# ", seguido de una lista de comportamientos aparentemente comunes.

El Guardian hizo numerosos intentos de contactar a los fiscales federales responsables de procesar los casos en nuestra muestra. Ninguno aceptó hablar oficialmente o extraoficialmente.

Cosme López, un portavoz de la oficina del fiscal de los Estados Unidos en Arizona, dijo por correo electrónico que una de las denuncias incompletas había sido archivada con Pacer "debido a un error aparente en el proceso de carga". López dijo que se usó una "copia en papel" en la corte "que incluía toda la información necesaria". López se negó a proporcionar una copia de esta copia impresa, y tampoco respondió a las preguntas sobre el error de carga ni explicó cómo el documento en Pacer llegó a ser firmado por un juez.

Un juez federal que ha manejado casos de tolerancia cero y que habló con el Guardian bajo condición de anonimato dijo que las denuncias incompletas sin duda representaban un "trabajo de mala calidad", pero agregó que no "le atribuiría ningún motivo siniestro".

Comparó el sistema de justicia penal con una boa constrictor, la cual puede abrir su boca cada vez más y más para tragar un número creciente de acusados, pero no puede aumentar su capacidad para digerir esos casos. "Históricamente, el gobierno pone muchos recursos en la boca de las autoridades policiales o de inmigración, pero los recursos judiciales para abordar ese grupo de nuevos casos no se incrementan de manera correspondiente," dijo.

Ese juez, como otros que hablaron con el Guardian, describió un aumento dramático en delitos menores en su corte. William P Johnson, el juez encargado del distrito de los Estados Unidos en Nuevo México, compartió con el Guardian una carta que había enviado solicitando autorización para cubrir un puesto vacante de juez magistrado en la que resaltó el "aumento drástico" de 1,100% en casos de entrada ilegal de delitos menores de 2017 a 2018.

Dentro de las páginas de los más de 6,000 documentos judiciales examinados por el Guardian, hay una notable omisión: el hecho de que muchos migrantes viajaban con niños en el momento de sus arrestos se registró en sólo 10 de los 3,121 casos que examinamos.

José G es uno de esos 10. Cuando se presentó ante el tribunal el 14 de mayo, cinco días después de su detención por parte de la Patrulla Fronteriza, la denuncia penal contra él incluía una referencia a su hijo. El hecho de que su hijo estaba en los Estados Unidos, y para entonces se encontraba en un refugio para niños migrantes en El Paso, no se mencionó en la moción de la fiscalía que le pedía a un juez que considerara a José para riesgo de fuga y lo detuviera sin fianza - una solicitud que el juez en el caso otorgó.

José pasó dos meses en la cárcel del condado de El Paso antes de que el caso en su contra simplemente fuera abandonado. La moción de la fiscalía para que se descartara el caso solo dice que "el gobierno no desea enjuiciar el caso en este momento". José fue trasladado a un centro de detención de migrantes para iniciar el proceso separado del tribunal de inmigración. No aprobó la entrevista de "miedo creíble" que le habría permitido buscar asilo.

Aún no se ha reunido con Marco.

"People were panicking," recalled Carlos Quinonez, a defense attorney in El Paso, Texas. "I've never seen so many people."

"It was a shock for everyone," said Daniela Chisolm, another El Paso attorney. "You had 75 people in chains: 18-year-old girls from Guatemala, 70-year-old men from Honduras ... The first day, I had 15 clients, and nine of them had children taken from them."

Defense attorneys spoke of an "exponential" increase in the number of cases they were assigned, made all the more challenging by their clients' anxiety after losing their children. "I spent a lot of time having to refocus my clients," said Quinonez. "They were focused on where their kids were."

While federal public defenders usually represent indigent defendants charged with felonies, the task of representing the thousands of misdemeanor illegal entry cases often fell to private defense attorneys like Quinonez and Chisolm, whose fees the government pays. Pierce, the Las Cruces defense attorney, said he came to consider those payments "blood money". "We get paid to do this, but it's not really what we signed up for," he said. "You want to defend people in a criminal case, not because someone crossed the border looking for work."

Maxine Dobro, a defense attorney in San Diego, was one of several defense attorneys to express disgust with what she called "a misguided decision by a misguided administration: the mass scooping up of minnows will go down as one of the darkest hours of our nation."

"The sharks swim away and the minnows are prosecuted," she added. Indeed, an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse found that between March 2018 and June 2018, federal prosecutions of non-immigration crimes fell in the five border districts, both as a percentage of total prosecutions and in absolute terms.

Some defense attorneys, including Jose Troche, an El Paso attorney who represented 11 clients in our sample, were supportive of zero tolerance. "Look, I represent them, but some of these parents need to be prosecuted for child endangerment," Troche said. "They brought these kids through Mexico, through that pigsty, and dumped them here." As for the children themselves: "The centers are the safest place these kids have ever been," he said.

While defense attorneys were struggling to represent the thousands of newly criminalized migrants, federal prosecutors had challenges of their own. In at least 15 cases, the criminal complaints charging migrants with illegal entry included obvious errors suggesting that whoever had filled them out had failed to complete a prepared template.

Ananias B, a migrant from Honduras, was charged with entering the country by "wading the Rio Grande River near, #PLACE OF ENTRY#". Angel A, from El Salvador, was charged with a crime that "took place on #DATE OF ENTRY#". Perhaps most egregiously, seven migrants in Arizona were charged based on complaints that included the phrase, "Agents observed the Defendant #DOING WHAT? PICK ONE DELETE THE REST#", followed by a list of apparently common behaviors.

The Guardian made numerous attempts to contact the federal prosecutors responsible for prosecuting the cases in our sample. None agreed to speak either on or off the record.

Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the US attorney's office in Arizona, said by email that one of the incomplete complaints had been filed with Pacer "due to an apparent error in the uploading process". Lopez said that a "hard copy" was used in court "that included all the necessary information." Lopez declined to provide a copy of this hard copy, and neither responded to questions regarding the uploading error nor explained how the document in Pacer came to be signed by a judge.

One federal magistrate judge who has handled zero tolerance cases and who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity said that the incomplete complaints certainly represented "shoddy work", but added that he would not "ascribe to it any sinister motives".

The mass scooping up of minnows will go down as one of the darkest hours of our nation Maxine Dobro, defense attorney

He compared the criminal justice system to a boa constrictor that can open its mouth wider and wider to swallow increasing numbers of defendants, but cannot increase its capacity to digest those cases. "Historically, the government puts lots of resources into the law enforcement mouth, but the judicial resources to address that lump of new cases don't get increased correspondingly," he said.

That judge, like others who spoke with the Guardian, described a dramatic increase in misdemeanor and petty offenses in his courtroom. William P Johnson, the chief US district judge of New Mexico, shared with the Guardian a letter he had sent seeking authorization to fill a vacant magistrate judge position in which he highlighted the "drastic increase" of 1,100% in misdemeanor illegal entry cases from 2017 to 2018.

Within the pages of the more than 6,000 court documents the Guardian examined there is a striking omission: the fact that many migrants were travelling with children at the time of their arrests was recorded in only 10 of the 3,121 cases we examined.

José G is one of those 10. When he appeared in court on 14 May, five days after his apprehension by Border Patrol, the criminal complaint against him included a reference to his child. The fact that his son was in the US, and by then was being kept in a shelter for migrant children in El Paso, was not referenced in the prosecution's motion asking a judge to deem José a flight risk and detain him without bond - a request that the judge in the case granted.

José spent two months in the El Paso county jail before the case against him was simply dropped. The prosecution's motion for the case to be dismissed states only that "the government does not wish to prosecute at this time". José was moved to an immigration detention center to start the separate process of immigration court. He did not pass the "credible fear" interview that would have allowed him to seek asylum.

He is yet to be reunited with Marco.

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3,121 desperate journeys: exposing a week of chaos under Trump's zero tolerance

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A s zero tolerance went into effect, federal courtrooms along the border were beset by an atmosphere of chaos and desperation, dozens of attorneys, judges and advocates told the Guardian. C uando la tolerancia cero entró en vigencia, las salas de justicia federal a lo largo de la frontera se convirtieron en atmósferas de caos y desesperación, decenas de abogados, jueces y defensores dijeron al Guardian.

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Child marriage, drug addiction, incarceration. Inside the stories of ordinary folks in the throes of life's toughest challenges.

Terrence McCoy, Washington Post reporter who covers social issues across the country. Winner of the 2019 Meyer "Mike" Berger Award for his "outstanding human interest reporting" following his "richly drawn portrait of Americans in vexing political and social issues of our day." Author of " The Playground." (@terrence_mccoy)

Laura Calderwood, whose daughter, Mollie Tibbetts, was murdered by an undocumented immigrant in 2018.

Washington Post: " Trump used her slain daughter to rail against illegal immigration. She chose a different path." - "The letters began immediately. Dozens at first, then hundreds, each day bringing more: from a Texas man telling her this was why we needed to build the wall. From a New York television producer asking for an interview. From an elderly woman despairing 'this divided America in which we now live.' Nearly every day since her daughter's body was found, she had opened the mailbox, then sat and read them, because that was her routine, that was how she tried to make sense of something so senseless. But now the mailbox was empty for the first time, and she had a new routine.

"Laura Calderwood, whose daughter, Mollie Tibbetts, 20, was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant and left to rot in a cornfield this past summer, closed the mailbox, walked up the steps to her house and turned on the stove. It was getting on toward 6, and she needed to get dinner going. The boys would be hungry."

Washington Post: " 'I don't know how you got this way'" - "What Kam was doing, and what he wasn't, had come to dominate so much in their lives. He was two years out of high school now, and he didn't have a job, or a car, or a place of his own, or much money beyond what his mother gave him - nothing at all to occupy his time except a computer that had carried him to the most extreme parts of the Internet, and to beliefs that no one in his family could understand. In the year since the 2016 presidential election, Kam had gone from supporting white supremacists, to joining a neo-Nazi group, to shouting 'white lives matter' at a rally, to standing beside Richard Spencer outside the White House, to increasingly tense conversations with his mother and grandmother, both of whom were beginning to fear that what they had once thought was just a phase was quickly becoming his life.

"How did this happen?

"Where did these ideas come from?

"Could he still be saved?"

Washington Post: " 'This is not me'" - "Before 10 a.m. on another cold Thursday, Monica Diaz stirred in her tent, filled with dread. It had been two weeks since the last cleanup, and city workers would again be here soon, with their dumpster truck and police cars, to clear out the encampment. Every morning was awful, but these were the worst of all, when Monica, who'd otherwise be resting before work, was forced to confront publicly what she did her best to hide: that she's homeless. That she lives in a tent. That she just turned 40, and that this is somehow her life.

"'You ready?' Monica asked her husband, after a sleepless night at the base of Union Station, near CNN's Washington bureau, where the noise never stopped and they'd huddled together with their dog, Sassy, against the cold.

"'Somewhat,' said Pete Etheridge, 31, sighing.

"They looked around their tent, which not only held the sum total of their world but also reflected a way of life that has, over the past decade, fundamentally changed the face of American homelessness. As housing costs climb ever higher in booming urban areas, the significant growth in tent encampments nationwide has become one of the most visible signs of the nation's failure to alleviate widening inequality. In Orange County, Calif., more than 700 people were cleared out of a tent city along the Santa Ana River last year after thousands signed a petition and Anaheim declared a state of emergency. Seattle, meanwhile, has allowed some tent cities to operate as de facto communities - long-term, regulated, even with phone numbers and addresses. And in the District, the number of encampment cleanups has surged, according to city data, rising from 29 in 2015 to 100 in 2018."

Washington Post: " 'We're human beings!' the homeless woman yelled. 'Acknowledge us!' Then people did - in a way she didn't expect." - "The city didn't seem to be doing enough. Neither were the nonprofit groups. But maybe she - as nothing more than another human who cared - could accomplish what they couldn't. Maybe she could get this couple out of a tent where they'd lived for more than two years, at the base of Union Station, and into housing.

"When The Washington Post published a profile Friday of Monica Diaz, a fast-food restaurant employee simultaneously navigating the homeless and working worlds, Howard University law student Gabriela Sevilla immediately got to work.

"She organized efforts to assist Diaz and her husband, Pete Etheridge, launching a GoFundMe campaign that started out small - but rapidly grew - and committing hours every day to getting them off the streets. Within a week, the fund raised more than $22,000, and the couple that Sevilla set out to help are on the verge of housing, either through a city program or by finding an apartment on their own."
Madeleine D'Angelo produced this hour for broadcast.

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Homelessness, Addiction, Immigration: On The Pressing Social Issues For All Americans

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Child marriage, drug addiction, incarceration. Inside the stories of ordinary folks in the throes of life's toughest challenges. Terrence McCoy, Washington Post reporter who covers social issues across the country. Winner of the 2019 Meyer "Mike" Berger Award for his "outstanding human interest reporting" following his "richly drawn portrait of Americans in vexing political and social issues of our day."

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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/what-should-america-do-about-syria-and-isis

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What should the U.S. do about our approximately 2,000 troops in Syria? Withdraw? Stay? We've heard conflicting ideas from President Trump and some of his top advisers about what should happen.

The president said in a video posted on Twitter Dec. 19 - titled "After historic victories against ISIS, it's time to bring our great young people home!" - that the ISIS terrorist group has been defeated. "Our boys, our young women, our men, they're all coming back and they're coming back now," he said.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress criticized the withdrawal as premature, warning that with U.S. troops gone, ISIS terrorists could regroup and gain strength to become a more powerful force in Syria.
FOX NEWS POLL: MOST VOTERS SAY ISIS NOT DEFEATED IN SYRIA
Defense Secretary James Mattis and Brett McGurk - the U.S. envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS - resigned after the president's withdrawal announcement.

The New York Times reported that it had obtained an email McGurk wrote to colleagues stating that "the recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy articulated to us" and "left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered."

National Security Adviser John Bolton then told reporters in Israel on Jan. 6 that U.S. troops won't leave Syria until ISIS is defeated and Kurdish troops allied with the U.S. are protected from attacks by Turkey. He said there was no timetable for the withdrawal.

President Trump then said that "we won't be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone" and that "we are pulling back in Syria. We're going to be removing our troops. I never said we're doing it that quickly:"

Now that President Trump has signed a bill to temporarily reopen the government, perhaps we should expect some bipartisan consensus not only on immigration reform and border security but on countering ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS is unquestionably far weaker than it once was and controls far less territory. But it has not disappeared or ceased operations.

Tragically, on Jan. 16 ISIS terrorists in Syria killed two U.S. service members and two U.S. civilians in a suicide attack in Manbij. We are honoring and mourning our fallen heroes as we have so many times since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Now is a propitious time to debate the efficacy of forward-deploying U.S. military in the Middle East.

In a speech to the American University in Cairo earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined three pillars of the Trump Doctrine for the Middle East: countering Iran and radical Islamic extremism; demanding more from regional partners; and reducing the U.S. military footprint.

Syria is where the administration's policy will be judged.

The U.S. troops in Syria have been enormously effective. They have trained and equipped the Syrian Democratic Forces, which have taken the fight to ISIS and decimated its ranks.

U.S. troops also deterred Turkey from attacking the Syrian Democratic Forces, the bulk of whom are Kurds. Turkey considers the group an offshoot of a Kurdish group that has been outlawed as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

The Turkish Ministry of Defense is reportedly planning an offensive against the Kurdish forces in Syria. That would cause tactical fratricide among our allies and create breathing space for ISIS to turn into an insurgency and potentially reconstitute itself.

At its zenith, ISIS subjugated roughly 7 million people and controlled oilfields, smuggling routes, arms and military hardware in Syria and Iraq. The group attracted significant numbers of foreign extremists to live and fight in its "caliphate."

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who sent the first ISIS terrorist attackers to Europe in 2014, has not yet been captured. But with the loss of almost all the territory it controlled, ISIS propaganda has decreased considerably as has the flow of foreign jihadists into Syria and Iraq.

Our Middle East intelligence and policy experts will be on the hook to assess whether ISIS's ability to recruit followers will be significantly eroded with the loss of its geographic space even if ISIS is transformed into a "virtual caliphate."

American forces will also need to plan for targeting the remaining estimated 20,000 to 30,000 ISIS fighters in the Iraq-Syria battlespace.

Emphasizing that "when the U.S. retreats, chaos follows," Pompeo used his Cairo speech to highlight lessons learned from the Obama administration's precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. That withdrawal helped create the conditions for the massive growth and spread of ISIS in the region.

After removing U.S. combat troops from Iraq in 2011, President Obama was forced to send them back in 2014 to fight ISIS. The U.S. currently has about 5,200 troops in Iraq, where ISIS stages occasional attacks. President Trump said in December he has no plans to reduce U.S. troop strength there.

Iranian proxies in Iraq are trying to induce the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that nation to strengthen Iran's effort to secure pre-eminent influence in Iraq.

In his Cairo speech, Pompeo declared the U.S. would be a faithful ally, but one that would ask our regional partners to take primary responsibility for their own security.

The U.S. is protected by two great oceans and enjoys good relations with our neighbors to the south and north. Over the years, many Americans have strongly desired to avoid becoming entangled in world affairs - especially where U.S. troops could be called into battle.

But the world is more interconnected today, including through cyberspace, than at any time in history. Our enemies can reach us in spite of our geographic separation from other parts of the world provided by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

U.S. efforts at nation-building in other countries have been extraordinarily costly to us - both in the billions of dollars we have spent and more importantly in lost American lives.

Still, despite all the sacrifices of Americans and deaths of members of the U.S. military and civilians, we have been unable to prevent the growth of disaffected people in failed states who are vulnerable to extremists' exploitation.

Al Qaeda is still a threat. Its leader - Ayman al-Zawahiri - is still committed to his declaration of jihad against the U.S.

Even if the local authorities are unable to eliminate the underlying causes of terrorism we must be careful about outsourcing our national security.

The late Charles Krauthammer articulated a strategy of "forward defense" where we confront our enemies "over there" rather than allow them to plan and execute attacks on our homeland from ungoverned space in failed states. Krauthammer believed we should only risk spilling American blood and treasure when there was "strategic necessity."

There would be no need to focus on nation-building. All we needed to do was enable and leverage our partners to eliminate threats before they reach our shores.

To our brave patriots serving in harm's way, mission success has meant no attack on the U.S. homeland.

Right now we need a bipartisan assessment of the terrorist threats to our national security that emanates from Syria and Iraq.

Key questions include: How has the ISIS threat decreased since its loss of geographic space? Is ISIS in a position to reconstitute itself? Is the U.S. the indispensable ally, without whom our Kurdish and Turkish allies will turn on each other in lieu of keeping up the fight against ISIS remnants?
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With this information in hand, we can consider whether our forward deployed U.S. military and intelligence personnel should withdraw from Syria and if so, under what timetable.

President Trump has consistently argued for bringing the troops out of harm's way in overseas combat zones and home to their families. We just need to be sure they are not needed over there, so that ISIS terrorists do not target our citizens over here.

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What should America do about Syria and ISIS?

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What should the U.S. do about our approximately 2,000 troops in Syria? Withdraw? Stay? We've heard conflicting ideas from President Trump and some of his top advisers about what should happen. The president said in a video posted on Twitter Dec. 19 - titled "After historic victories against ISIS, it's time to bring our great young people home!"

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Cocoa-nomics: Why chocolate really doesn't grow on trees

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cocoa-nomics: why chocolate really doesn't grow on trees - cnn

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Cocoa-nomics: Why chocolate really doesn't grow on trees - CNN

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"So tell me," an old school friend asked, "if the demand for chocolate is so high, why are cocoa farmers so poor?"

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Women who shell cashew nuts for as little as £2 a day are regularly left with agonising acid burns while trying to meet British demands for the snack, a new report has found.

As vegetarian and vegan diets increase in the UK - whether for health, environmental or animal rights reasons - shoppers are said to be hoovering up nuts, eating 17,000 tonnes in 2016, a huge 35 per cent increase compared to 2012.

But according to the Daily Mail, there is a human cost to producing the millions of cashews needed, which are predominantly shelled by hand in India, Brazil, Mozambique and Vietnam.

Journalist Emily Clark visited a cashew nut processor in southern India where shellers reported painful injuries caused by cardol and anacardic acids that lie between the two layers of hard shell on a cashew nut.

Some 500,000 people work in India's cashew nut industry - nearly all women - who are paid as little as £2 a day for the arduous labour with no contracts, no guarantee of steady income and no pension or holiday pay.

Many of the women were not given gloves and those that were chose not to wear them as it slowed their work down - they are paid by volume.

One nut sheller, Pushpa Gandhi, 30, told the newspaper she is covered in scars from her work shelling cashews but makes just 200 rupees a day, or £2.15.

'Today when we go home and wash, we will see the boils on our skin. It takes about a week for them to heal. But as the old ones heal, new ones keep coming,' she said.

The charity Traidcraft Exchange blames the poor working conditions on European buyers - including UK supermarkets - they claim 'aggressively push down prices', forcing cashew companies to hire cheap labour.

Nurse Uma Jayamurthi told the paper she was seeing increasing numbers of patients in the past year who have chopped off the top of a finger.

Around 40 per cent of patients at the centre have cashew-related injuries. 'The main reason people come here is when the cashew acid goes under their nails and it gets infected,' says Uma.

But she adds they only come when the pain is 'unbearable', because of the cost.

The cashew boom in recent years is being put down to changing diets in the west.

In April 2018, a comparethemarket.com survey found that the number of vegans in the UK had risen to a whopping 3.5 million.

The Vegan Society reports a much lower figure of 600,000, which is far less significant, but still represents a four-fold rise in four years.

As well a protein-rich snack, many dairy-free 'cheeses' loved by vegans are typically made using cashews, as well as creamy sauces used in pasta dishes, Emily said.

But it's not as simple as boycotting the nut altogether, as the millions of cashew workers around the world rely on keeping their jobs.

Instead calls have been made to supermarkets to review their supply chains and make sure workers are being paid a fair wage.

All major UK supermarkets, including Sainsbury's, Asda and Tesco, have voluntarily signed up to the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) to ensure safe and hygienic working conditions, no child labour, living wages and regular employment is guaranteed to suppliers around the world.

But Fiona Gooch, of Traidcraft Exchange, says producers 'are under too much [price] pressure' to comply with the agreements.

She says finance experts should cross-check wage slips with a sample of workers, and supermarkets should send health and safety teams to inspect factories.

The British Retail Consortium said supermarkets have 'robust safety and welfare standards' to support suppliers and 'are conscious of the problems that exist in parts of India's cashew industry'.

British companies will only work with suppliers who provide decent working conditions, a spokesman said.

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Women in India pay the price for cashew nut demand as vegan diets rise

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Women who shell cashew nuts for as little as £2 a day are regularly left with agonising acid burns while trying to meet British demands for the snack, a new report has found.

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The National Rifle Association is opposing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act over provisions designed to keep domestic abusers from having access to firearms.

The pro-gun group told HuffPost it will issue a "key vote" alert against VAWA, which warns members of Congress that their vote on the legislation will be scored and included in their NRA rating.

According to a report by the National Journal, some Republicans reportedly wanted the NRA to take a stand so they could have political cover to vote against it.

On March 7, a bill to reauthorize and expand VAWA, a landmark domestic violence law, was introduced in the House. The law expired in late December during the partial government shutdown, but was extended just a few more weeks after a short-term spending deal reopened the government.

On top of making improvements in services for victims of domestic and sexual violence, the reauthorization bill aims to tighten gun laws for domestic abusers.

Under federal law, individuals convicted of domestic violence offenses against their spouses or family members are already barred from owning firearms. But the law does not apply to individuals who abuse their dating partners. The VAWA reauthorization bill would fix that, closing the so-called "boyfriend loophole."

It would also prohibit individuals convicted of misdemeanor stalking offenses ― which experts believe can be a predictor of future violence ― from owning or purchasing firearms.

The NRA has not weighed in on VAWA reauthorizations in past years, NRA spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen told HuffPost. But the organization is coming out against the bill this time because it expands the list of misdemeanor convictions that result in permanent firearm prohibitions, she said.

(Under federal law, people convicted of felonies automatically lose the privilege of possessing firearms in most cases.)

"The fact that Nancy Pelosi and her minions of anti-gun zealots insist on adding a gun-control poison pill to an otherwise good bill is just another example of the shameful politics Americans hate and why they have such a negative view of politicians," she said.

The reauthorization bill also includes a provision that would make it illegal for individuals subject to temporary protective orders to own a firearm. Currently, under federal law, only abusers subject to permanent protective orders ― which are granted after a full court hearing where the accused individual can state his case ― lose the right to own or buy a gun.

For years, domestic violence advocates have been working to expand the ban to temporary protective orders, which are often issued "ex parte," meaning that only the person who is making the allegations needs to be present at the hearing.

Advocates say that victims are in the most danger right when they file for a protective order, and need to be protected during this volatile time.

The NRA opposes this provision because it lacks due process protections, Mortensen said. But advocates disagree, noting that individuals still get a hearing, scheduled soon after the emergency order, at which they can contest the evidence against them.

Domestic violence is more likely to turn deadly with a gun in the mix. According to one study, domestic violence victims are 5 times more likely to be killed if their abuser has access to a gun. In the U.S., a woman is killed by an intimate partner with a gun every 16 hours.

Q: Can a Red Flag law really stop mass shootings?
A: In the shootings at Parkland, Aurora, & Santa Barbara, family or law enforcement saw warning signs or even took steps to intervene. But the killers still legally possessed guns. A Red Flag law might have changed that. pic.twitter.com/TXze7qq9Um
- Everytown (@Everytown) March 17, 2019

It is unclear what effect the NRA's position on VAWA will have on its chances of passage. But the group's decision to issue a key-vote alert may encourage some Republican lawmakers to oppose it, so that their NRA rating ― which voters may use to decide whether to support them ― does not fall.

The NRA has long been a powerful force in U.S. politics, though there are signs its influence is waning. Last year, the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, led to a push for stronger gun laws and a student-led movement that in November helped elect Democrats who favor gun control.

"You can't reduce violence against American women without also reducing gun violence," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, in a statement. "Lawmakers must pass the Violence Against Women Act, which will make it harder for abusers to get armed and easier for law enforcement to protect victims."

Absolutely outrageous. https://t.co/OEWcoJKqky
- Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) March 27, 2019

Earlier this month, House Republicans also tried ― and failed ― to repeal a major VAWA provision that helps tribes respond to violence against Native American women by non-Native men on tribal land. The House Judiciary Committee ultimately rejected an amendment from Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) to repeal the provision. Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the provision respects tribes' "inherent sovereign authority" on their own lands to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Native abusers.

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The NRA Comes Out Against The Violence Against Women Act

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The National Rifle Association is opposing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act over provisions designed to keep domestic abusers from having access to firearms. The pro-gun group told HuffPost it will issue a "key vote" alert against VAWA, which warns members of Congress that their vote on the legislation will be scored and included in their NRA rating.