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Typical privileged white male. Obviously he knows how to run Brazil better than the Brazilians. Heck, let's just go ahead and declare it a US colony.
(In all seriousness, though, the US's educational ratings in terms of student performance in math, science and reading are closer to Brazil than to Finland. People who live in glass palaces...)
New the House is really on a roll with very important laws to get passed:
senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced two Constitutional Amendments today on the opening day of the new Congress. The first would eliminate the Electoral College and provide for the direct election of the President and Vice President of the United States. The second would limit the presidential pardon power by prohibiting presidents from pardoning themselves, members of their families, members of their administrations and their campaign staff.
articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, filing them as his first order of business in the new, Democrat-controlled House of Representatives
and here for some logical and well thought-out arguments against the liberal mob:
In every presidential election, only one question matters: which candidate will get the 270 votes needed to win the Electoral College?
Our Founders so deeply feared a tyranny of the majority that they rejected the idea of a direct vote for President. That's why they created the Electoral College. For more than two centuries it has encouraged coalition building, given a voice to both big and small states, and discouraged voter fraud.
Unfortunately, there is now a well-financed, below-the-radar effort to do away with the Electoral College. It is called National Popular Vote or NPV, and it wants to do exactly what the Founders rejected: award the job of President to the person who gets the most votes nationally.
Even if you agree with this goal, it's hard to agree with their method. Rather than amend the Constitution, which they have no chance of doing, NPV plans an end run around it.
Here's what NPV does: it asks states to sign a contract to give their presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of the state's popular vote.
What does that mean in practice? It means that if NPV had been in place in 2004, for example, when George W. Bush won the national vote, California's electoral votes would have gone to Bush, even though John Kerry won that state by 1.2 million votes!
Can you imagine strongly Democratic California calmly awarding its electors to a Republican?
Another problem with NPV's plan is that it robs states of their sovereignty. A key benefit of the Electoral College system is that it decentralizes control over the election. Currently, a presidential election is really 51 separate elections: one in each state and one in D.C.
These 51 separate processes exist, side-by-side, in harmony. They do not -- and cannot -- interfere with each other.
California's election code applies only to California and determines that state's electors. So a vote cast in Texas can never change the identity of a California elector.
NPV would disrupt this careful balance. It would force all voters into one national election pool. Thus, a vote cast in Texas will always affect the outcome in California. And the existence of a different election code in Texas always has the potential to unfairly affect a voter in California.
Why?
Because state election codes can differ drastically. States have different rules about early voting, registering to vote, and qualifying for the ballot. They have different policies regarding felon voting. They have different triggers for recounts.
Each and every one of these differences is an opportunity for someone, somewhere to file a lawsuit claiming unfair treatment.
Why should a voter in New York get more or less time to early vote than a voter in Florida? Why should a hanging chad count in Florida, but not in Ohio? The list of possible complaints is endless.
And think of the opportunities for voter fraud if NPV is passed! Currently, an attempt to steal a presidential election requires phony ballots to appear or real ballots to disappear in the right state or combination of states, something that is very hard to anticipate. But with NPV, voter fraud anywhere can change the election results -- no need to figure out which states you must swing; just add or subtract the votes you need -- or don't want -- wherever you can most easily get away with it.
And finally, if NPV is adopted, and winning is only about getting the most votes, a candidate might concentrate all of his efforts in the biggest cities, or the biggest states. We could see the end of presidential candidates who care about the needs and concerns of people in smaller states or outside of big cities.
Here's why all of this is of so much concern: NPV is more than halfway to its goal.
NPV's contract will go into effect when states with a combined 270 electoral votes have signed. To date, NPV already has the support of 10 states plus D.C. Together, that's 165 electoral votes, leaving only 105 votes to go.
It is time to stop this attempt to undo the way American presidents are elected, which will in turn undo America. The people behind NPV think they are wiser than every generation of Americans that preceded them.
The TL;DR is that poor people who receive housing vouchers tend to choose to remain in poor neighborhoods, even though their vouchers would allow them to live in neighborhoods with better schools, more employment prospects (including unskilled and service jobs) and lower crime.
Or, put another way, it is poor people themselves who are choosing to perpetuate the cycle of poverty by depriving their children of better educational opportunities and safer neighborhoods.
(Mind you, this is the conclusion of the Washington Post, which Braineack believes to be a mouthpiece for the liberal agenda.)
Housing vouchers mostly move families into impoverished neighborhoods, even when better apartments exist elsewhere
By Tracy Jan
January 3 at 11:19 AMYour neighborhood determines the quality of your children’s schools and your access to jobs, transportation, even fresh food.
But a new study found that in nearly all 50 of America’s biggest metropolitan areas, low-income families using federal housing vouchers remain overly concentrated in impoverished, racially segregated neighborhoods with little opportunity — even with plenty of affordable apartments available in higher income neighborhoods.
The difference between where families with vouchers could be living and where they actually live has long-term consequences, said researchers with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council.
“It’s going to be a wake-up call for a lot of housing authorities that their programs are quite concentrated and don’t necessarily reflect where families want to live,” said Philip Tegeler, president and executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. “There are plenty of rental opportunities out there. It’s the job of housing authorities to help remove the barriers that are keeping families from accessing these neighborhoods and communities.”
Giving low-income families the option of living in wealthier neighborhoods with better schools and less crime leads to better outcomes. Their children are more likely to go to college and find better-paying jobs, other studies have shown. They are more likely to live in better neighborhoods as adults and less likely to become single parents.
But too few families with housing vouchers live in “high-opportunity” neighborhoods, as defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Researchers developed an index of opportunity using HUD measurements of school quality, poverty, labor market engagement, access to jobs, and access to public transit.
Overall, just 5 percent of metropolitan families using vouchers live in high-opportunity neighborhoods even though those areas account for 18 percent of all affordable rentals.
The opportunity gap is highest in San Francisco, San Jose, and Austin.
In San Francisco, 18 percent of voucher-assisted families live in high-opportunity neighborhoods, even though 46 percent of affordable apartments are located there.
In New York, the region with the most families using housing vouchers, only 7 percent live in neighborhoods considered to be high opportunity, even though 28 percent of affordable units are located in those communities.
And in Birmingham, Ala., fewer than 1 percent of families using housing vouchers live in those neighborhoods although 13 percent of affordable units are located there. Instead, 77 percent of impoverished Birmingham families use their housing vouchers in low-opportunity neighborhoods — far exceeding the 49 percent share of affordable rentals.
The study also shows black and Hispanic families with vouchers are more likely than other low-income minority renters to be segregated in minority neighborhoods — although most affordable units are located outside of heavily minority neighborhoods.
(Three of four households that qualify for federal rental assistance do not receive any aid because there is not enough money to meet everyone’s needs.)
The finding suggests local housing voucher programs may be exacerbating residential segregation, the researchers said, and undermining the aim of the 1968 Fair Housing Act to reduce racial segregation in local jurisdictions. In Milwaukee, Birmingham and New Orleans, more than 80 percent of minority households with children use vouchers to live in “minority-concentrated” areas.
“If voucher families appear to be even more segregated than similar renters of color, that signals that housing authorities need to be doing more to uphold their responsibility to the Fair Housing Act,” said Alicia Mazzara, a housing analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who co-authored the report with Brian Knudsen.
Multiple barriers keep families from moving to better neighborhoods, researchers said, including widely varying practices and policies of regional housing agencies such as how the value of vouchers are calculated.
Many low-income renters simply are not aware they could afford apartments elsewhere. Vacancy rates as well as current and historical patterns of segregation also contribute.
And landlords continue to discriminate against voucher holders, according to a recent HUD study. Communities where landlords are more likely to deny renting to voucher holders also tend to have tighter rental markets and less-generous payment standards for housing vouchers.
Tegeler said housing agencies should issue vouchers that reflect the rental prices in specific Zip codes, instead of averaging across an entire metropolitan area. Providing higher government subsidies for apartments in more expensive communities — and lower subsidies for units in poor neighborhoods — would help low-income families afford apartments in more affluent neighborhoods and encourage them to move to places with better education and job opportunities, he said.
Two dozen metro regions, including Atlanta, Charlotte, San Diego and Honolulu, are already required to do so under an Obama-era rule that went into force in January 2017. (A federal judge ordered HUD to implement the rule after HUD Secretary Ben Carson had tried to suspend it).
Federal law does not require landlords to accept housing vouchers, although some local jurisdictions do. Fair housing advocates are urging more municipalities and states to take similar measures.
Keep globalism funded again!The spending bills proposed by House Democrats to end the partial government shutdown offer no funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, but provide over $12 billion more in foreign aid than the Trump administration requested, according to a statement on Thursday from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
$12 billion more for “international affairs programs,” including $2.9 billion more “for economic and development assistance, including funding for the West Bank/Gaza, Syria, and Pakistan, where our foreign aid is either frozen or under review.”
$700 million more than requested for the United Nations, including restored funding for the United Nation’s Population Fund, which would undermine the administration’s Mexico City Policy that bars the use of taxpayer dollars for foreign organizations that “promote or perform abortions.”
Approximately $2 billion more than requested for the Environmental Protection Agency
$7.1 billion more than the administration requested for Housing and Urban Development programs
Student drug dealers spared jail as judge says he was impressed by the grammar in their text messages
Two young drug dealers were praised by a judge for the high standard of grammar in their text messages to customers.
Teenager Luke Rance bought cannabis in bulk and sold it to 21-year-old Brandon Kerrison for him to deal to people in Gower, South Wales, a court heard.
Judge David Hale, who sentenced the pair on Wednesday, noted that the "grammar and punctuation" used in their drug-dealing text messages was of a much better standard than usually seen.
Swansea Crown Court heard that officers were on foot patrol in the evening on December 17 last year in Pennard when they passed the village library.
Tom Scapens, prosecuting, said the officers entered the car park and could smell cannabis. Nearby they saw Rance and Kerrison.
Kerrison, who was smoking a cannabis cigarette, fled but returned a short time later while Rance stayed in the car park with the officers.
In the story regarding housing, "coupon" = "Section 8 voucher," yes? If so, that study also seems to ignore that most nicer places whether they be homes or apartments don't accept Section 8 money. And for good reason.
As for the House's spending bill. That's an obviously a blatant attempt to get the Senate to reject so they can say "See, they don't want to help X group."
True story: redlining causes gentrification. If low-income people cannot get mortgages because a neighborhood has been deemed "undesireable," then the only people moving into that neighborhood will be affluent individuals who can afford to purchase and remodel property without taking out a mortgage. Over time, this results in the population of a neighborhood shifting towards high-income, which in turn creates a larger and more stable tax base, as well as drawing in businesses to serve the more affluent residents. Once a certain threshold has been reached, then the poorer residents who had previously been complaining about the lack of jobs, the unsafe streets, the lack of access to things like grocery stores and banks, and the poor condition of housing, will instead complain that none of these problems exist any longer.
In the story regarding housing, "coupon" = "Section 8 voucher," yes? If so, that study also seems to ignore that most nicer places whether they be homes or apartments don't accept Section 8 money. And for good reason.
This has not been my experience.
Take when I lived in Carlsbad, for instance. Very upscale community, lots of money. In the apartment building where I lived, one of my neighbors (the lady with the very unruly children who was gone after a year) was a section 8.
I'm sure that this isn't the case everywhere, but in many locations (and almost universally in major cities), property owners are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of section 8 vouchers.
Take when I lived in Carlsbad, for instance. Very upscale community, lots of money. In the apartment building where I lived, one of my neighbors (the lady with the very unruly children who was gone after a year) was a section 8.
I'm sure that this isn't the case everywhere, but in many locations (and almost universally in major cities), property owners are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of section 8 vouchers.
Being required to take Section 8 is state-by-state vs federally mandated. Not sure of the laws here in Oklahoma. But, for example, the apartment that I lived in downtown when I first moved here, required you prove that you grossed 4x the rent per month. Since I hadn't started my new job when I put my deposit down, I had to send them a copy of my offer letter proving that I could indeed afford to live there.
My 2 year old BRZ was probably the most modest car in the parking garage.
A quick glance around looks like, in Oklahoma at least, because of income and rent caps, some properties aren't available (IE too expensive for the voucher), and rental companies can flat refuse Section 8 to begin with.
New member of Congress highlights how U.S. taxed top earners in the 1960s: ‘On your 10-millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60% or 70%’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is drawing attention Friday for suggesting that the wealthiest Americans ought to pay a tax rate of as high as 70% in order to fund a “Green New Deal.”
The new Democratic congresswoman from New York noted there is historical precedent for a high tax rate for the super wealthy, as she said the following:
“You look at our tax rates back in the 60s, and when you have a progressive tax rate system, your tax rate, let’s say, from $0 to $75,000 may be 10% or 15%, etc. But once you get to the tippy tops, on your 10-millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60% or 70%.”Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat
Her remarks came in an interview with Anderson Cooper for the CBS show “60 Minutes.”
have been released, ahead of a full broadcast on Sunday.
“That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more,” said the lawmaker, who also got attention this week thanks to a dance video from her college years that went viral.
After Cooper said Ocasio-Cortez’s agenda is “radical” compared to how politics is done now, the congresswoman embraced that word.
What's the point you're trying to convey there? You disagree because she's a vaguely-not-completely-white-woman? Or you like the current system that's been bastardized, allowing people like Mittens to pay 14% effective tax?
I'm assuming you're against whatever she's for, since that would follow the trend of things you post in this thread, but what's your stance, exactly?
What's the point you're trying to convey there? You disagree because she's a vaguely-not-completely-white-woman? Or you like the current system that's been bastardized, allowing people like Mittens to pay 14% effective tax?
I'm assuming you're against whatever she's for, since that would follow the trend of things you post in this thread, but what's your stance, exactly?
I'm pretty much against Socialists/Communists, whatever color they are. Marx/Stalin/Lenin were all white boyz, right? I'm still completely confused why race or ethnicity always seems to augur their way into these discussions.
I'm pretty much against Socialists/Communists, whatever color they are. Marx/Stalin/Lenin were all white boyz, right? I'm still completely confused why race or ethnicity always seems to augur their way into these discussions.
I'm completely confused how anything that doesn't line up with present-day Republican viewpoints is automatically Socialist/Communist, so i guess we're on the same page.
(Really i was just trying to goad Scott into actually posting something with substance rather than copy-pasting yet another article with none of his own thoughts attached, nothing more. I'm sure nobody here is actually racist/misogynist despite actively supporting people who most definitely are.)
I'm completely confused how anything that doesn't line up with present-day Republican viewpoints is automatically Socialist/Communist, so i guess we're on the same page.
(Really i was just trying to goad Scott into actually posting something with substance rather than copy-pasting yet another article with none of his own thoughts attached, nothing more. I'm sure nobody here is actually racist/misogynist despite actively supporting people who most definitely are.)
I've devolved into posting/debating using memes only, so Scott is actually doing better than me.
01-03-2019, 03:15 PM
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