Congratulations, your corruption is now recognized across the world

Brandi Buchman of Daily Kos discussed a report from Citigroup that assessed how much racism costs America. In 20 years $16 trillion was lost in the Gross Domestic Product due to racism. For comparison, in 2019 the GDP was $19.5 trillion. The $16 trillion was lost because people of color are paid less than white people and promoted less often. They have less disposable income. There is much less social mobility. Black men, potential wage earners, have a high risk of being killed by police. There is also violence against black women and gender non conforming people.

In an interview about the role racism plays in our economy, Dr. Froswa Booker-Drew, a consultant, author, and vice president of strategic affairs for the State Fair of Texas said: “People of color are limited from the opportunity to fully engage, create, and make an impact within organizations and corporations.” “Biased thinking along with systems that create obstacles limit people of color from showing up in the totality of who they are … Companies are not benefiting from the intellect, experience, and innovation when we do not allow access and availability to opportunities for involvement and leadership,” she said.

Black women have worked hard to be educated, yet are not widely promoted and are likely to stagnate in poverty. That leads to “learned helplessness” in which they’ve been conditioned to stop trying. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said the quiet part out loud:

Biden's policy will double the size of the IRS at the cost of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes. We should stabilize our nation's economy first.

That prompted Hunter of Kos to give a righteous rant.

What the House Republican is saying here is, of course, boosting IRS capabilities will "cost" the wealthiest tax dodgers in the country billions of dollars, and forcing rich tax cheats to pay what they owe will harm the economy so very much that we shouldn't even think about it until we've "stabilized" everything else first. You've heard of trickle-down economics? This is trickle-down tax fraud.

Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. It’s not supposed to. She’s simply tossing out scary sounding words at the Republican base. “At the cost of billions” implies it will cost the nation money rather than bring more in. And she implied the economy is not stable, though is actually is doing quite well – we’re so eager to buy stuff the ports are clogged. And blaming it all on “Biden’s policy” is a bonus.

You say going after tax cheats will "cost billions"—who ya aiming that statement at, representative? Because the only people who will see a "cost" when going after prolific tax fraud are the folks doing the actual crimes. Is that who you're going to bat for here? Did they send someone to your office to make that case? And you're saying American tax cheats are costing the rest of us so much money that making them actually pay it would threaten to destabilize the entire economy? Oh, do tell. That one's worth a floor speech. ... Please explain, representative. Give it your best shot.

At our last lunch together my friend and debate partner talked about how the bipartisan infrastructure bill, recently passed, is a great achievement for Biden. He didn’t want to hear any complaints about Biden from me. So I didn’t offer any, because that bill really is a great achievement for any president. So I’ll say my criticism of Biden here. That bill, as wonderful and helpful as it is, is not the highest priority in this country. Defending democracy is. Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics tweeted a scorecard of what Biden has not accomplished. Here is part of Shaub’s list: Hasn’t actively pushed back against the rising fascist threat. Hasn’t put the same effort into voting rights he put into roads & bridges. Hasn’t picked an attorney general who would hold corrupt authoritarian enablers accountable. Hasn’t kept shadow lobbyists out of the administration. Has let guards arrest people peacefully protesting for voting rights outside the White House. Has let corporations give his appointees massive gifts of stock options. Has resisted congressional oversight of his own party. Wimped out on reforming the Supreme Court. Appointed defense contractors to lead the Defense Department. Didn’t object when Joe Manchin gutted all the ethics provisions in the voting rights act. Didn’t get anything for his appeasement of the rising fascist movement. In Shaub’s opinion Biden has become a modern day Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister who kept appeasing Hitler. About those voting rights ... Hunter reported an analysis from the New York Times that show Republicans have gerrymandered enough states in this year’s redistricting to assure they take over the House next year. The Democrat majority in the House is so small that it would take only a few more gerrymandered districts for a win. Hunter wrote:

Elections aren't going to save us, because they're among the things being taken from us. Right now. As we speak.

Add to that threats made at school boards, attempts at burning books, and calls to nullify the last election. Which means Democrats and the Department of Justice have 12 months to uncover all the remaining details of the Capitol attack and convince the national press it matters. Because if the Republicans regain the House, the investigations will be terminated.

Every historic accounting of the Jan. 6 insurrection will conclude that it was the result of an intentional propaganda campaign bent on discrediting America's elections, and that the crowd was assembled that day in a genuine, if ill-designed, attempt to nullify one. Every historic accounting will note that it was accomplished with the willing assistance of the majority of Republican lawmakers. But if the news channels do not care, voters cannot be expected to, and the news channels emphatically do not care.

True journalism calls out corruption, propaganda, and those who undermine democracy. But many news media have aligned with the fascists. They put insurrectionists in front of their cameras and invite them back. If insurrection isn’t enough to push out members of Congress elections won’t do it either. In another post Hunter reported the International IDEA think tank, a global democracy watchdog, has demoted the United States to be a “backsliding” democracy. This is the same category as Hungary and Poland. One factor among many is a decline in civil liberties. The turning point is the nasty guy’s attack on the legitimacy of the 2020 election. The most concerning developments are “the increasing tendency to contest credible election results, the efforts to suppress participation (in elections), and the runaway polarisation.” Wrote Hunter:

Each of the guiding principles of fascism is now an intrinsic party belief and strategy. Trump may have burped them, but it was the Fox News talking heads and the virulently ambitious candidates of the party who wrote them out in complete sentences and scattered them to an angry, hungry base. Republicanism now uses hoaxes, and crafts hoaxes, as a primary tool of governance. Hoaxes are used to justify crackdowns on voting and other civil rights, to discredit elections not won by Republican candidates, to invoke images of "burned cities" and other imaginary violence in places not governed by Republicans, and in blaming invisible enemies ("antifa") for real violence caused by the party's own backers.

Republicans are obsessed with victimhood. They have named their enemies – immigrants, homosexuals, educators, and journalists. They have embraced redemptive violence as a necessary way to “return” the nation to the party’s ideals. These are all signs of fascism.

Congratulations, Republican Party. Your corruption is now recognized across the world as a danger to U.S. democracy—and to world democracy. You followed Trump from petty grift to insurrection and, even now, push farther.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed an article by Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post that wonders whether we have a shared vision of America. Are we a diverse, multicultural nation where all are equal or are we a white Christian nation?

Rubin's post was centered on evangelicalism and how its central organizing philosophy really comes to down to the promotion of one thing and one thing only: promoting white Christian identity. Principles like helping the needy and bringing comfort to those who are less fortunate aren't just secondary considerations, they no longer serve as central motivators that provide connective tissue for evangelicals. That’s why Donald Trump became their hero.

It wasn’t his personal life or his civic virtues that drew them. From Ruben’s article:

For these voters, government is a means of enforcing (they would say “preserving”) domination of Whites and Christianity as essential to America’s identity. That’s why they support politicians who demonize Black Lives Matter, demand that corporations meekly accept voter suppression, express outrage over a publisher’s decision about Dr. Seuss titles or fixate on saying “Merry Christmas.”

Eleveld added:

In a very real sense, all of our elections for the foreseeable future will be fundamentally driven by this battle over what America really stands for.

Abortion rights were before the Supreme Court today. I may have more about what happened during oral arguments after I’ve read reports. For now I’ll mention what I heard on Michigan Radio. Michigan banned abortion sometime in the 1930s. That law has not been enforceable since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, but is still there. If the Supremes overturn Wade then that law is again effective. Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills to overturn Michigan’s law. The legislature’s Republican leadership is saying nothing needs to be done, things are just fine. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, wrote:

CHEERS (because it's important) and JEERS (because it's still necessary) to World AIDS Day. This year marks 40 years since the first published scientific account of the virus that would decimate the gay community and spread to the straight community with equal viciousness. Today more than 38 million people around the world live with HIV or full-blown AIDS. A minimum of 36 million have died from it.