Understanding the US - Again

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 13 Jun 2020 19:26

It may be a toss up between two religions for which religion is the most oppressive and violent when counting deaths from last 1400 years.

http://www.wicz.com/story/42242374/top- ... e-comments

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, a frequent guest on Fox News and ardent defender of President Donald Trump, was nominated to become the under secretary of defense for policy.

If confirmed by the Senate, Tata would become the third highest official in the Pentagon overseeing the Defense Department's policy shop, including its national security and defense strategy, nuclear deterrence and missile defense policy, and security cooperation plans and policies. The policy chief also closely advises the secretary of defense on national security and supports the Department of Defense's program and budget decisions.

In several tweets from 2018, Tata said that Islam was the "most oppressive violent religion I know of" and claimed Obama was a "terrorist leader" who did more to harm the US "and help Islamic countries than any president in history." Following the publication of this story, Tata deleted several of his tweets, screenshots of which were captured by CNN's KFile.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 13 Jun 2020 19:39

I wonder if Africans and African Americans study history about how many Africans were enslaved and traded by Islamic empires. Now they gotta watch out for tricks like renaming Islamic slave trading as Arabs slave trading. And tricks like not mentioning that there was competition in slavery where islamists enslaved millions of Hindus and sold them along with Africans.

10 Facts About The Arab Enslavement Of Black People Not Taught In Schools
https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/06/02 ... n-schools/

Miami imam: Christianity is the problem in America, Islam is the solution - JNS.org
(June 11, 2020 / MEMRI)
https://www.jns.org/miami-imam-christia ... -solution/
Imam Dr. Fadi Yousef Kablawi: “Christianity is responsible for the looting in America”; “Darwin called to exterminate dark skinned people he saw as half-humans”; “Muslims should not attend BLM protests.”

Miami-based imam Dr. Fadi Yousef Kablawi said during a recent sermon that he was saddened by Muslims participating in Black Lives Matter protests, because “every life matters,” and asserted that Christianity was the main problem in the West today.

Speaking on June 5 at the North Miami Islamic Center, Kablawi said that Christians believe that Jesus died for their sins and that as a result that they can commit crimes such as looting and repent for them later. “You tell me how such a religion will create good citizens,” he asked, before going on to state that the solution to America’s problems is Islam.

Later in the sermon, Kablawi said that according to Darwinism, the European race must “exterminate the savage race” of people with bigger lips and darker skin.

KL Dubey · Post by **KL Dubey** » 14 Jun 2020 00:04

Vayutuvan wrote:https://www.umass.edu/sbs/news/alumni/n ... e-movement

OK. She is from UMass at Amherst. Nice university, great campus, Berkeley like student body

The Five College consortium (including UMass Amherst and 4 private liberal arts colleges) has probably the highest geographical concentration of "liberals" in the USA....so there will always be a higher-than-average number of far-left "nature nuts" coming out from there.

That being said, UMass Amherst has an excellent sustainability and climate action plan among major universities in the US, with a goal for the university to achieve zero net carbon emissions and 100% renewable energy by 2030. This is serious stuff and not far-left activism/protests/demonstrations.

https://www.umass.edu/sustainability/cl ... ction-plan

(end of off-topic post)

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 14 Jun 2020 02:12

KL Dubey wrote: (end of off-topic post)

Dubey ji, understanding US Universities is not OT, IMHO. They are US universities after all.

ShyamSP · Post by **ShyamSP** » 14 Jun 2020 02:43

Vayutuvan wrote:
KL Dubey wrote: (end of off-topic post)
Dubey ji, understanding US Universities is not OT, IMHO. They are US universities after all.

Yes what Dubeyji said is what this topic is about.

These leftist and post-modernist identity wars were limited to Universities (UM-Amherst, UC-Berkely, etc.) After Obama, they came out to main-stream and what was limited to academic and university clubs we're seeing in Seattle. When the traditional Democrats die of age, these new people with ideological and technological sophistication take over the party, due to which many neo-rich elites/sponsors (Bezos for example) are very much interested and invested in them.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 14 Jun 2020 04:38

ShyamSP garu, you mean "what ~~Dubeyji~~ Vayutuvan ji said is what ..."?!!!

(not that I care to credit for every small thing

)

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 14 Jun 2020 10:39

KL Dubey wrote: That being said, UMass Amherst has an excellent sustainability and climate action plan among major universities in the US, with a goal for the university to achieve zero net carbon emissions and 100% renewable energy by 2030. This is serious stuff and not far-left activism/protests/demonstrations.

https://www.umass.edu/sustainability/cl ... ction-plan

(end of off-topic post)

That is irrelevant as their carbon footprint is very small and major universities, like UMass Amherst at 30K students, are still not an industry. They aren't making a profit (at least legally), instead they produce a lot of hot air which is already known to create retardation. Some place like Texas Tech with over 30K students in Lubbock, TX is already 100% renewable energy because west Texas has some of the largest concentrations of wind farms on earth (I think somewhere near 10GW).

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 14 Jun 2020 18:44

Black People in the US Were Enslaved Well into the 1960s

More than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, there were black people in the Deep South who had no idea they were free. These people were forced to work, violently tortured, and raped.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 14 Jun 2020 18:46

Rony wrote:

'They don't belong': calls grow to oust police from US labor movement

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 14 Jun 2020 18:49

Technically slavery isn't gone even till this day. One just gotta trace the money and vote banks. Whites that owned slaves still hold the disproportionate assets and opportunities.

The problem of colored slaves is very simple. They have turned themselves into a votebank of their former masters and haven't learnt to be transactional like them. For example, blacks are still following whiteman's religion and haven't come out of that slavery to go back to their roots. Slave masters realized that the present slavery system is going to collapse post WW2 and they simply moved on to the next one. In the present system, every decade there's some crisis and the wealth gets siphoned off back to the white masters.

The colored people also keep confusing themselves by not differentiating between racism and slavery.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 14 Jun 2020 19:02

Charles Q. Brown Jr. was nominated to Chief of Staff of the US Air Force in March by Trump. He is the first African-American to become chief of US air force. Here was some reflection he had on his experience getting there in light of current events.

KL Dubey · Post by **KL Dubey** » 14 Jun 2020 19:51

Mort Walker wrote:That is irrelevant as their carbon footprint is very small and major universities, like UMass Amherst at 30K students, are still not an industry. They are7n't making a profit (at least legally), instead they produce a lot of hot air which is already known to create retardation. Some place like Texas Tech with over 30K students in Lubbock, TX is already 100% renewable energy because west Texas has some of the largest concentrations of wind farms on earth (I think somewhere near 10GW).

Missing the forest for the trees. US universities have been research leaders. They are also becoming sustainabilty leaders in creating/demonstrating how organizations can achieve this....and create the demand for low/zero net carbon sustainability...including renewable energy which is only one piece of the puzzle. Whether you like it or not, this is coming and there is no point in denying it.

I am also glad that India is a leader in deploying these technologies even if we missed the bus in R&D. It is irrelevant whether we miss the 100 GW solar target by 2022. That, like $5 trillion nominal econony by 2024, is a typical Modi target...extremely ambitious but targeted at getting the momentum going. Even if we achieve 60 GW solar by 2022, that will be remarkable and create irreversible momentum.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 14 Jun 2020 20:05

The Real Economic Catastrophe Hasn’t Hit Yet. Just Wait For August.

On July 31, the $600 federal unemployment payments going to unemployed people every week will end, and there’s no sign they’ll be replaced with anything nearly as generous. In fact, many Republicans want to replace them with nothing at all — and there’s also little sign that another round of one-time stimulus checks will get mailed out. So income for tens of millions of households is likely to nose-dive in August.

That will coincide with evictions returning after being put on hold for months. This month, about one-third of renters were unable to pay their rent in full or at all, despite all the stimulus money. A federal law that bans evictions in any properties financed by federally backed mortgages — more than a quarter of all households, according to one estimate — expires on July 25, just a week before millions of people’s main economic lifeline is pulled away. Unless they are extended, statewide orders banning all evictions in places that have been hardest hit by the unemployment crisis will also expire around then: Florida’s on July 1, California’s on July 28, and New York’s on Aug. 20.

As millions of people experience a sudden collapse of their income at the very moment their landlords are allowed to start kicking them out, other bills will also come due. Payments on millions of paused student loans will begin again at the beginning of October; the more than 4 million homeowners who received a six-month pause on their mortgage after April’s mass layoffs will need to start making payments again at the end of October.

Few seriously expect the US economy to recover as fast as those bills come due; the federal government’s own projections expect unemployment will remain frighteningly high well into next year, even as people return to work as the lockdowns are lifted. Many companies will only rehire workers as quickly as consumer demand returns, and in labor-heavy industries, such as restaurants, entertainment, and travel, nobody expects things to go back to normal anytime soon.

And across the economy, big employers will use this moment as a kind of workforce reset button — a chance to rethink how many workers they really want, outsource some jobs, offshore others, and eliminate some entirely. By some estimates, more than 40% of all the job losses of the last few months could be permanent, not temporary.

You might have noticed a few major things — like, well, the coronavirus pandemic — missing from this equation. If we’re really lucky, we won’t experience a nasty second wave of infections in the fall and early winter, spurring new rounds of attempted lockdowns shortly after the economic plane crashes into the mountain — lockdowns that will once again disproportionately affect Black people and people with low incomes who can't safely work from home. Fingers crossed on that one.

And I didn’t mention the nationwide protest movement that shows no sign of slowing down, or the US election that will be overheating in the fall, involving a phenomenally unpopular and wildly divisive president whose passionate supporters tend to distrust the government.

These are all ingredients in what Adam Elkus memorably described recently as the “omni-crisis” that we’re currently stumbling our way through. “The omni-crisis has significantly enlarged the space of possible outcomes beyond that normally considered day-to-day by most Americans,” he wrote. “And it is not clear how many people in positions of influence and authority recognize this.”

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 14 Jun 2020 21:11

I wonder when educating about Islamic slave traders, all these organizations also bring up the fact that islamic empires were not only trading blacks as slaves.

Arabs still have caste system by law which treats Arabs and non Arabs separately and not just the blacks.

Black lives also matter in the Arab World - Atlantic Council
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/n ... rab-world/
A number of prominent Arab-American activists launched an initiative titled “Arabs for Black Lives” that featured a petition (signed by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, among many others) in which they promise to “take this moment of outrage and mourning to recommit to the imperative work we must do … to eradicate anti-Blackness and racism from anywhere it persists within the community.”

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 14 Jun 2020 21:25

#leftisfake

After justifying rioting and looting in the name of ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests, Leftists wish racist homophobe Communist leader Che Guevera a “happy birthday”

Che Guevera and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro believed homosexuality was a manifestation of bourgeois decadence and hence, 'counter-revolutionary'.
https://www.opindia.com/2020/06/che-gue ... homophobe/
For instance, Che Guevera once remarked, “The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese. And the two ancient races have now begun a hard life together, fraught with bickering and squabbles.”

The Communist leader had continued, “Discrimination and poverty unite them in the daily fight for survival but their different ways of approaching life separate them completely: The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meagre wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations.”

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 14 Jun 2020 21:47

Indian origin astronaut Raja Chari ready for NASA's Moon Mars Missions

Astronaut Raja Chari

Summary:
Raja Chari was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. He reported for duty in August 2017 and having completed the initial astronaut candidate training is now eligible for a mission assignment. The Iowa native graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1999 with bachelor’s degrees in Astronautical Engineering and Engineering Science. He continued on to earn a master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

Personal Data:
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chari was raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He is married to Holly Schaffter Chari, also a Cedar Falls native, and the couple has three children. His mother, Peggy Chari, lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Education:
Graduated from Columbus High School in Waterloo, Iowa. Earned a bachelor’s degree in Astronautical Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. Earned a master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Graduated from US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Experience:
At the time of his selection in June 2017, Chari was a Colonel select in the U.S. Air Force, serving as the Commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the Director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force. He has accumulated more than 2,000 hours of flight time in the F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18 including F-15E combat missions in Operation Iraqi Freedom and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula.

NASA Experience:
Chari reported for duty in August 2017 and completed two years of training as an Astronaut Candidate. He is currently awaiting flight assignment.

Awards/Honors:
Awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, an Iraq Campaign Medal, a Korean Defense Service Medal and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal. Named distinguished graduate from the US Air Force Academy, Undergraduate Pilot Training, and the F-15E Formal Training Unit.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 14 Jun 2020 22:39

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/4375 ... -the-1960s

More than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, there were black people in the Deep South who had no idea they were free. These people were forced to work, violently tortured, and raped.

Read every word of this, no other comment is necessary.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 14 Jun 2020 23:12

KL Dubey wrote: Missing the forest for the trees. US universities have been research leaders. They are also becoming sustainabilty leaders in creating/demonstrating how organizations can achieve this....and create the demand for low/zero net carbon sustainability...including renewable energy which is only one piece of the puzzle. Whether you like it or not, this is coming and there is no point in denying it.

In the US, universities become sustainability leaders by getting research grants into developing energy production (such as wind, solar, fission, fusion and yes even oil/gas production), energy storage systems such batteries and propulsion systems for surface and air transport. Not only that, but environmental science is tied to civil engineering, agricultural engineering, limnology, botany and microbiology. Not by academic institutions making proclamations about green new deal and pretending to create public policy. UMass Amherst does have a robust science and engineering depts., but leftist nitwits would have more credibility if they were in the sciences and engineering.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 15 Jun 2020 00:13

Rony wrote:Indian origin astronaut Raja Chari ready for NASA's Moon Mars Missions

Astronaut Raja Chari

There is no doubt Raja Chari is great pilot and shall make a great astronaut. I would also say that he probably appreciates where he came from, his culture, and family. The danger is though, as Rajiv Malhotra pointed out, is that there are quite a few digested Indians.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 15 Jun 2020 04:00

His father is Telugu from Hyderabad. His mother is White. He married a White. Another converted Bobby Jindal. Proud to be Indian but not Hindu. Also the glaring mistake his father did in not imparting Hindu identity to his children. Looks like he traded the Hindu religion/identity for Hindu name.

Raja Chari with his family

Bringing up two sons in America, the Charis were very conscious that Raja and his younger brother Krishna should benefit from their background but not have confused identities.

"It was a mix (of influences)," Raja recalls. "From a religious standpoint I was brought up Catholic. Much to my dad's credit, it didn't strike me that I was any different from anyone else. I think they did a great job of saying this is totally normal."

Raja's introduction to his Indian inheritance happened every few weeks when the family attended Cedar Falls-Waterloo's largish ("70 to 100 people") Indian gatherings.

An approaching festival was always an excuse for the Indian population to gather to hang out and have Indian food, where Raja first tasted Indian curries and such like.

It was also a chance for Sreenivas to catch up with his heritage and treat his homesickness.

"It was pretty impressive that they took the time to get everyone together and essentially have a bit of home away from home. It was a chance for him to reconnect with his friends and family. He had a pretty active -- almost like a double life -- living the American version through the day and then in the evening and weekends active with his Indian friends."

Sreenivas went on to work 32 years at John Deere before involving himself in a busy schedule of volunteer work after retirement.

As he was growing up, it took a while for Raja to realise that his father wasn't Catholic too. "He was Hindu. Never practiced it. Never baptised in church. He always went with us (to church). We always went as a family... My dad never got rid of his Hindu roots. I didn't realise, till I was older, that he wasn't Catholic and that the church we were growing up in, wasn't the church he grew up in."

Raja compliments his parents for providing the right mix of heritage to their sons while they were growing up although he wishes he knew some Hindi and doesn't think it is too late to learn.

"My parents had a view (to) blend Indian and American culture. Sometimes -- that's why it depends on who you meet -- some families when they come here really try very hard to not assimilate any American (influences) -- try to stay 100 per cent Indian. Some people try the opposite -- try to forget all their Indian roots, and say 'I am completely Americanised'. I am somewhere in between."

Says Peggy: "Being an American, I wasn't used to the Indian culture but tried to do many things to preserve the Indian side of his life. We started out by giving him an Indian and American name. We also gave him a middle name to preserve his heritage."

The Charis celebrated Diwali and Independence Day, as a family, she recalls and as more and more of the clan migrated to the US, there were (and are) big Chari gatherings.

Left to right: Raja, his wife Holly, his son, his brother Krishna.
And sitting on the sofa behind his mother Peggy and his father Sreenivas.

Left to right: Brother Krishna, mother Peggy, father Sreenivas, Raja, wife Holly.
Krishna lives in New Mexico and is a psychologist.

m_saini · Post by **m_saini** » 15 Jun 2020 10:19

China, Russia And Iran Mock U.S. Handling Of Protests: ‘I Have A Dream, But I Can’t Breathe’

The Trump administration has cracked down on widespread demonstrations over the death of George Floyd, and America’s chief geopolitical rivals—including China, Russia and Iran—have condemned the United States for its hypocrisy.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 15 Jun 2020 10:48

Sounds familiar.

CAIR Files Suit: Professor is 'Disapproving of Islam' [incl. Nicholas Damask]
https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/61 ... sapproving
The left and its Islamic supremacist allies are moving in for the kill in all sorts of ways these days, not least in attempting to stamp out the slightest dissent from their dogmas.
You probably didn't realize that it was illegal to condemn Islam in the United States. It clearly isn't illegal to condemn Christianity or Judaism; it happens all the time, and those who do this are celebrated by all the elite classes and glitterati. But condemning Islam, well! That's another matter altogether. Islamic law (Sharia) forbids criticism of Islam on pain of death, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been working for years at the United Nations to intimidate Western countries into adopting Sharia restrictions on speech in the guise of restrictions on "hate speech."

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 15 Jun 2020 13:42

Rony wrote:His father is Telugu from Hyderabad. His mother is White. He married a White. Another converted Bobby Jindal. Proud to be Indian but not Hindu. Also the glaring mistake his father did in not imparting Hindu identity to his children. Looks like he traded the Hindu religion/identity for Hindu name.

Very quick to make a sweeping gratuitous judgement aren't we "Rony" ?

Now tell me how this reads:

His father is a Muslim from Hyderabad. His mother is White. He married a White. Another converted Tarek Fatah (or some other name). Proud to be Indian but not Muslim. Also the glaring mistake his father did in not imparting Islamic identity to his children. Looks like he traded the Islam religion/identity for muslim name.

How would you react to the above?

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 15 Jun 2020 18:46

There is nothing wrong his father marrying a White women. But there is something wrong in the fact that he choose not to impart Hindu identity to his Children and instead allowed them to grow up as Christians in their mother's faith. This is not the first case i have seen. I met another older Trinidadian guy married to a Black Christian. He himself did not convert but his Children are brought up as Evangelical Christians. Hindus get shafted both ways. Hindu Women gets married to Christian. Children brought up as Christians. In this case, Hindu men gets married to Christian. Children brought up as Christians.

And why would i care had his father been a Muslim ?

KL Dubey · Post by **KL Dubey** » 15 Jun 2020 21:32

Mort Walker wrote:
KL Dubey wrote: Missing the forest for the trees. US universities have been research leaders. They are also becoming sustainabilty leaders in creating/demonstrating how organizations can achieve this....and create the demand for low/zero net carbon sustainability...including renewable energy which is only one piece of the puzzle. Whether you like it or not, this is coming and there is no point in denying it.
In the US, universities become sustainability leaders by getting research grants into developing energy production (such as wind, solar, fission, fusion and yes even oil/gas production), energy storage systems such batteries and propulsion systems for surface and air transport. Not only that, but environmental science is tied to civil engineering, agricultural engineering, limnology, botany and microbiology. Not by academic institutions making proclamations about green new deal and pretending to create public policy. UMass Amherst does have a robust science and engineering depts., but leftist nitwits would have more credibility if they were in the sciences and engineering.

Bhaisahab, that is what I am also saying.

Sustainability and renewable energy are moving forward mainly powered by science/engineering/technology, goremint support, business interests, and serious public policy initiatives.

Most of the universities that we associate with the "liberalist" gangs sitting in the arts/humanities/some social science department, also have other excellent departments and initiatives that are at the forefront of real work in sustainability. They are not homogeneous entities.

There are always going to be some "nature nuts" and publicity hounds like the whatshername being discussed in the thread, who want to be Greta Thunberg 2.0....however, these people are just hot air and should just be ignored. There is a long history of these nuts already in a whole bunch of NGOs, but these have all been confrontational in nature with no constructive input. As such they have had zero impact and things move on without these jokers.

Nobody is going to take them seriously, so why the eff should BRF. They are not the real face of the US, so don't waste time on them if you wanna "understand the US". The US is a formidable country which is not going to lose direction just because of these clowns, unlike China which is a paper tiger that cannot survive once their nefarious/questionable ways of working are blocked.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Jun 2020 01:36

KL Dubey wrote:
Mort Walker wrote:
In the US, universities become sustainability leaders by getting research grants into developing energy production (such as wind, solar, fission, fusion and yes even oil/gas production), energy storage systems such batteries and propulsion systems for surface and air transport. Not only that, but environmental science is tied to civil engineering, agricultural engineering, limnology, botany and microbiology. Not by academic institutions making proclamations about green new deal and pretending to create public policy. UMass Amherst does have a robust science and engineering depts., but leftist nitwits would have more credibility if they were in the sciences and engineering.
Bhaisahab, that is what I am also saying.

Sustainability and renewable energy are moving forward mainly powered by science/engineering/technology, goremint support, business interests, and serious public policy initiatives.

Most of the universities that we associate with the "liberalist" gangs sitting in the arts/humanities/some social science department, also have other excellent departments and initiatives that are at the forefront of real work in sustainability. They are not homogeneous entities.

Sustainability is driven by market forces. The process of converting matter to energy and coupling it to power generation efficiently is the goal. Government and public policy, aside from national security interests, are not the real drivers as those initiatives are bound to fail.

UMass doesn't have a petroleum engineering program. If fact very few of the east coast schools do. Penn State is the only big one in the east which does. A place like Texas Tech has done a whole-lot-a-good for sustainability by developing methods to use less water and energy to extract oil and gas. They've done more than the leftists on both the US coasts.

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 16 Jun 2020 09:59

America’s Social Unrest Is About to Get Much Worse, Congress Fears
Sam Brodey
The Daily BeastJune 15, 2020, 3:30 AM CDT

With uncharacteristic speed, Congress is responding to a historic moment on issues of race in America by crafting legislation to reform police forces—proposals aimed at changing the culture and conditions that have led to the repeated killings of unarmed black Americans at the hands of police.

But increasingly, lawmakers are concerned that Capitol Hill’s response to protesters’ demands for racial justice will be severely limited if it doesn’t include measures to address another powerful undercurrent of the nationwide protests: pervasive economic inequality that’s left black communities behind.

That long standing inequality has been put into an even starker light by the circumstances of George Floyd’s death—his killer, Derek Chauvin, stopped him over an allegedly fake $20 bill—and by the coronavirus outbreak, which has put low-wage workers of color on the front lines of the pandemic, ravaged minority-owned businesses, and sparked massive levels of unemployment in their communities.

Many of the economic relief measures that Congress approved in response to the outbreak—expanded unemployment insurance, a one-time economic stimulus, moratorium on rent payments in public housing—have lapsed or are set to lapse by the end of July.

Failing to address those, said Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), could be a powerful factor that sustains and intensifies protests around the country, as job opportunities stagnate and families face eviction from housing. Beyer, chairman of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, said policymakers have to understand that the protests ignited in an environment where “people are suffering greatly from the recession, the coronavirus, the general systemic sense that things are far from fair in the U.S.”

“If you look at coronavirus, all the strife in our streets right now over police brutality, the impact of the recession,” continued Beyer, “all are connected to the systemic racism that’s expressed in our economy.”

‘All of a Sudden It Blows Up’: Arkansas' COVID Problem Is Just Getting Started

The dual push to address both social and economic racial inequality presents Congress with a historic opportunity to enact sweeping legislative reform. But while Republicans, including Trump himself, seem inclined to tackle problems with policing, the appetite for action on economic measures doesn’t seem widespread at the moment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been slow to embrace even the notion that additional COVID-19 relief is necessary; and he’s been backed by close advisers to the president.

For those concerned about lingering social discord, that’s proved worrisome.

In a June 2 statement before the Senate Banking Committee, on which he is the top Democrat, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sought to connect the issues gripping the country: “Our job is to show victims of systemic racism at the hands of their own government that the same government will protect them from this pandemic—that we hear them, that we see them, that we are fighting for them,” said Brown. “And that their lives matter.”

Asked in an interview if a failure to further extend economic relief could impact protests, Brown said he didn’t want to predict anything. “What I will predict is, if we don’t move until July, the economic damage is going to broaden and deepen, and the hole to climb out of will be much harder to ascend,” he told The Daily Beast. “Everything that’s happening now makes it more urgent.”

Leading Democrats, like former presidential candidate and Obama Cabinet member Julián Castro, say all of these things are “inseparable.”

“So much of the frustration that people feel, I think, stems not only from the loss of life we’ve seen… This is a moment where those two frustrations have met,” Castro told The Daily Beast. “There may be more frustration, there may be more people that get out there,” if lawmakers don’t consider broader economic relief. “The question is, how does that turn into policy changes that make a difference for people?”

Bernie Sanders Goes Off on ‘Grotesque’ Republicans Over Coronavirus Stimulus Bill

House Democrats have already approved legislation that they believe provides at least part of the answer. That bill, dubbed the Heroes Act, was conceived as a successor to the $2.2 trillion CARES Act and prior COVID-19 relief bills, which provided each American with a one-time $1,200 stimulus check and enacted temporary relief measures like a $600 per-month boost to unemployment benefits, a moratorium on evictions in public housing, expansions in food stamps, and other initiatives designed to help the poorest Americans manage the coronavirus outbreak and its effect on the economy. The $3 trillion Heroes Act includes extensions of unemployment benefits from the end of July to January 2021, a more generous stimulus check for every household, $100 billion in rent assistance and some student loan forgiveness.

But that legislation was sold more as a statement of Democratic priorities on a future round of COVID relief and is dead on arrival in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Some Republicans, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), have pushed for more forceful government intervention to support workers during the pandemic, seeing a clear connection between economic and social strife currently gripping the country.

“I don’t think we can ignore the fact that this civil unrest is happening against the backdrop of 20 percent unemployment,” Hawley said in an interview, three days before the latest unemployment report was released. “You do have people who are peaceably assembling and who are saying that there needs to be some fundamental change. Part of that is, we have got to create more opportunities for meaningful work in our urban centers.”

Some Republicans and White House advisers have pointed to the newest employment figures as proof that Congress’ next steps for COVID-19 relief should be minimal, if taken at all. The government’s report for May indicated that unemployment rates fell to 13.3 percent—an extraordinarily high number, but less than the historically high, near-Great Depression level numbers that many economists had expected. That report, said White House economic adviser Stephen Moore, “takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of any phase four. We don’t need it now.”

But the 2.5 million jobs gained were spread unevenly across the economy. And the unemployment rate among black Americans actually increased over the month, now sitting at 16.8 percent. Experts caution that Congress will need to take action to address persistent unemployment in communities of color due to the economic challenges they face.

Unemployment rates for blacks approaching 17 percent, said Donna Pavetti, an analyst at the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, are “nothing to be celebrating about.”

“People are struggling,” she said. “You could have this confluence of high rates of unemployment, things shifted to give people less room to breathe, all happening simultaneously… Many of those discussions that weren’t framed around race before but are about race differences, that may become much more vivid and explicit in conversations going forward.”

That has some lawmakers, like Brown, hopeful that the confluence of a pandemic and racial strife could present an opportunity to address long standing systemic inequalities in the economy.

“This is the great revealer, coronavirus,” said Brown. “The only thing good to come out of the pandemic is that America recognizes this more and maybe, maybe, maybe we will finally have the political will to do something.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 16 Jun 2020 10:17

Mort Walker wrote:
KL Dubey wrote: That being said, UMass Amherst has an excellent sustainability and climate action plan among major universities in the US, with a goal for the university to achieve zero net carbon emissions and 100% renewable energy by 2030. This is serious stuff and not far-left activism/protests/demonstrations.

https://www.umass.edu/sustainability/cl ... ction-plan

(end of off-topic post)
That is irrelevant as their carbon footprint is very small and major universities, like UMass Amherst at 30K students, are still not an industry. They aren't making a profit (at least legally), instead they produce a lot of hot air which is already known to create retardation.

Heard exactly the opposite from a prof in stern scb.... According to him the top universities are an unmatched luxury brand with better margins than any known luxury product.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 16 Jun 2020 11:59

^^^Most public and private US universities offer premium services for those willing to pay.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 17 Jun 2020 05:45

Cain Marko wrote: Heard exactly the opposite from a prof in stern scb.... According to him the top universities are an unmatched luxury brand with better margins than any known luxury product.

Stern is at NYU, a very expensive private university. It is a business school to boot. They don't give out any scholarships for doing MBAs. Since their finance/FinEngg is top class, The Wall Street companies pay their star employees to do exec MBAs. Only fulltime PhDs will get tuition waiver and possibly some allowance for subsistence. It is very competitive to get in.

mappunni · Post by **mappunni** » 17 Jun 2020 11:30

Rahman, a Pakistani immigrant, works as an attorney at Bronx Legal Services, where she represents tenants facing evictions and lives with her elderly mother, for whom she cares. Mattis, who is black, was raised and now lives in East New York, where he is a member of his local community board and cares for three foster children, two of whom he is in the process of adopting.

Check this video out, the bail hearing for Urooj Rahman the naturalized American Pakistani attorney who was caught firebombing NYPD vehicle. Showing off her Pakistaniyat!

Two New York attorneys were arrested after firebombing a Police vehicle with a "molotov cocktail" made from a beer bottle. Prosecutors asked the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to overrule the lower courts and revoke the perps' bail.

g.sarkar · Post by **g.sarkar** » 17 Jun 2020 15:37

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/politics ... index.html
Pentagon warns China is exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to wage 'economic warfare' on the US
By Nicole Gaouette, Barbara Starr and Vivian Salama, CNN, June 16, 2020
Washington (CNN)Defense officials are increasingly concerned China is using the coronavirus crisis to gain stakes in strategically important businesses as the pandemic leaves struggling companies urgently in need of capital.
But even as the Defense Department works to improve supply security, procurement experts warn that the Pentagon may not have the visibility required to vet or help protect smaller companies down the chain. They say the job is only getting harder as the pandemic has broadened the definition of national security interests to include medical supplies. And they point to at least one Chinese-owned company that asked to bid on a Pentagon contract.
"We have to be very, very careful about the focused efforts some of our adversaries have to really undergo sort of economic warfare with us, which has been going on for some time," Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told reporters in April.
A defense official told CNN that "we are paying close attention to any indicators that China is leveraging Covid-19 to take advantage of a situation where defense companies need capital more than ever."
New definitions of national security
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States protects against hostile countries gaining ownership in companies that are strategically important to the US. And a 2006 law banned US military use of Chinese-made military equipment, according to Bill Greenwalt, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Pentagon official who specialized in procurement.
But the pandemic is changing the definition of national security concerns to include drugs, protective gear and medical supplies. "These are now national security needs and we probably should have been thinking about it a long time ago in terms of bio-warfare that we should have a trusted industrial base or a set of trusted allies -- the UK, or NATO allies or Japan or Korea -- who are trusted in that regard," Greenwalt said.
Chinese-owned firms dominate the market for protective gear and many drug components -- and they are already part of the Pentagon's medical supply chain. The Pentagon has awarded a contract for pandemic medical supplies to a company that then turned to a Chinese-owned subcontractor as one possible partner. The contract, part of an effort called Project Jump start, is meant to speed the public health response when a corona virus vaccine becomes available.
.....
Gautam

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 20 Jun 2020 09:37

This is a moment of reckoning on race for White Christians

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/19/us/white ... index.html

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 20 Jun 2020 18:46

Politico at work.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/1 ... eos-325579

The candidate, Marjorie Taylor Greene, suggested that Muslims do not belong in government; thinks black people “are held slaves to the Democratic Party”; called George Soros, a Jewish Democratic megadonor, a Nazi; and said she would feel “proud” to see a Confederate monument if she were black because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War.

Greene finished first in a primary for a deep-red, northwest Georgia seat last week by a nearly 2-to-1 margin over the second-place candidate. She is entering an August runoff as the favorite to secure the Republican nomination for a district where that is tantamount to winning the general election in November.

In recordings obtained by POLITICO, Greene described Islamic nations under Sharia law as places where men have sex with "little boys, little girls, multiple women" and "marry their sisters" and "their cousins." She suggested the 2018 midterms — which ushered in the most diverse class of House freshmen — was part of “an Islamic invasion of our government” and that “anyone that is a Muslim that believes in Sharia law does not belong in our government.”

"There is an Islamic invasion into our government offices right now,” Greene said. “You saw after midterm elections what we saw so many Muslims elected. I don’t know the exact number but there were quite a few.”

She said Muslims “are not being held back in any way” because the Constitution guarantees equality. “But what you people want,” she said, “is special treatment. You want to rise above us, and that’s what we’re against.”

And in another rant, she urged adherents of Sharia to stay in their own countries and leave the U.S. alone.

"If you want Islam and Sharia law, you stay over there in the Middle East," she said. "You stay there, and you go to Mecca and do all your thing. And, you know what, you can have a whole bunch of wives, or goats, or sheep, or whatever you want. You stay over there. But in America, see, we’ve made it this great, great country. We don’t want it messed up."

She also spends several minutes attacking Imtiaz Ahmad Mohammad, a candidatefor the Florida state House, because he is Muslim and an immigrant.

"So let me tell you something. This man is not born in America. He’s from Pakistan. OK?," she said, warning he was the only candidate who had filed for the seat, and that “his last name is Mohammad.”

She then attempted to recruit a challenger: "Anyone that lives in that district, you better sign your butt up and run against this guy,” she said. “Because we cannot let him win."

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 20 Jun 2020 19:03

Looks like wolves are still after Barsa. He must be impending something. He did wish on Ramadan.

https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/ ... sa-ramadan

Democratic Senators Call for USAID to Investigate Anti-LGBT, Anti-Muslim Comments by Appointees
https://www.propublica.org/article/demo ... appointees

ProPublica reported this month that Merritt Corrigan had recently taken up a prominent position at USAID. Corrigan has a history of online posts denouncing liberal democracy and feminism, and she has said the United States is in the clutches of a “homo-empire” pushing a “tyrannical LGBT agenda.”

And The Washington Post reported last month that Mark Kevin Lloyd, a Tea Party activist with a history of making and sharing anti-Islamic comments on his personal social media profiles, would be the agency’s new religious freedom adviser.

Last week, John Barsa, USAID’s acting administrator, defended Corrigan, Lloyd and another appointee with a history of anti-transgender comments, saying they were “committed to enacting the policies of President Donald J. Trump.”

The signatories included four members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ben Cardin, Tim Kaine, Cory Booker and Jeff Merkley, as well as Chris Van Hollen and Patrick Leahy, who sit on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing USAID. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand also signed the letter.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 20 Jun 2020 19:18

Now off to VOA.

Democratic Lawmakers ‘Outraged’ at New USAGM Chief’s Dismissals
https://www.voanews.com/press-freedom/d ... dismissals
WASHINGTON - Two U.S. lawmakers said Thursday they are “outraged” by the dismissals that Michael Pack, the new chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the agency that oversees Voice of America, has ordered.

Pack dismissed the heads of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Open Technology Fund.

Congresswoman Nita Lowey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, and Congressman Eliot L. Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, both Democrats, said in a joint statement, “That Mr. Pack took this drastic measure in his first week on the job is shocking, and we have deep concerns that he takes the helm of a critical agency with the intent to prioritize the Trump administration’s political whims over protecting and promoting independent reporting, which is a pillar of freedom and democracy.”

The Republican leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Michael McCaul, and Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn issued a joint statement saying they were troubled by the dismissal of Laura Cunningham, head of the Open Technology Fund, and its board of directors.

The statement said the Open Technology Fund “has funded the development of open-source, security-tested tools to help those living under authoritarian regimes or those living in vulnerable situations, such as in Hong Kong, to access the internet and to communicate freely with one another without the fear of reprisal.”

The Associated Press reported that Pack did not give specific reasons for each dismissal, only that he was acting consistent with his authority as the new USAGM CEO.

The top two officials at VOA, the director, Amanda Bennett, and deputy, Sandy Sugawara, resigned from their posts on Monday.

Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also criticized Pack’s actions, warning the moves could undermine USAGM’s independence.

In recent weeks, Trump has criticized VOA for its news coverage of China during the coronavirus crisis. When asked about the Pack nomination on May 15, Trump said, “Voice of America is run in a terrible manner. They’re not the Voice of America. They’re the opposite of the Voice of America.”

Pack, in his mid-60s, has held previous executive positions at U.S. government international and public media agencies. But in recent years, he told USAGM employees, he has run a private venture, Manifold Productions, that has produced 15 documentaries that have aired in the U.S. on the Public Broadcasting Service.

“These films were also my way of telling America’s story,” he said. “Although making documentaries is very satisfying work, I was eager to return to international broadcasting at this critical juncture in our history."

He said, “America’s adversaries have stepped up their propaganda and disinformation efforts. They are aggressively promoting their very different visions of the world.”

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 21 Jun 2020 16:53

Mosque to mosque march unifies Muslim, Black community in St. Louis
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... 106b2.html

ST. LOUIS — Muslim residents in the area gathered on Saturday to march from one mosque to another in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The march was organized by the Muslims of Greater St. Louis. Marilyn Aleem-Shamikh, one of the march's organizers, said various Muslim communities were planning individual protests here and there, and the group wanted to bring them all together.

Marissa Putnam, 27, and her sister, Teresa Adams, 53, both white, were out marching with the group. One of Putnam's friends helped organize the march. Both said they felt a push recently to educate themselves about racism.

Charles Bryson, director of the St. Louis Civil Rights Enforcement Agency, joined the march on Saturday, which began around 11 a.m. St. Louis Police rode in front and behind the group, blocking traffic when necessary.

Bryson said he invited Adil Imdad to be on the agency's board to make sure the Muslim community was represented. It's important that this movement, Bryson said, brings all groups together around a common cause.

darshan · Post by **darshan** » 21 Jun 2020 18:13

US President Donald Trump again blames China for coronavirus, terms it as ‘Kung Flu’
https://www.opindia.com/2020/06/donald- ... ronavirus/

Months after holding China responsible for the deadly outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic by calling it ‘China virus’, United States President Donald Trump has once again slammed the Communist country for inflicting the world with the pandemic, terming the disease as “Kung flu”.

Addressing his first election rally on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Donald Trump blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic which originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year. He has accused Beijing of suppressing the details of the contagion, that has killed over 450,000 people and infected more than 8.5 million people.

Speaking at the rally, the US President said that the COVID-19 is a disease and has more names than any disease in history.

“I can name – Kung flu. I can name 19 different versions of names. Many call it a virus, which it is. Many calls it a flu. What difference. I think we have 19 or 20 versions of the name,” Trump said.

Cyrano · Post by **Cyrano** » 23 Jun 2020 03:29

Sadly, Bolton confirms what I always thought about Trump. Its a hit or miss if India relies on him.

John Bolton just revealed Donald Trump's dirty little secret

Whether you like John Bolton or not, it's impossible to deny that he is someone who spent almost 18 months in very close proximity to President Donald Trump. And someone who was in meetings in which major decisions about national security and foreign policy were made.

Which is why these lines from Bolton -- from his interview with ABC's Martha Raddatz that ran Sunday -- regarding how Trump conducted the business of being president are so incredibly striking (bolding is mine):
"There really isn't any guiding principle -- that I was able to discern other than -- what's good for Donald Trump's reelection.
"Now, look, you can't take the politics out of politics. It plays a role in every aspect of decision making in the executive branch. But there's no coherent basis, no strategy, no philosophy. And decisions are made in a very scatter-shot fashion, especially in the potentially mortal field of national security policy. This is a danger for the republic."

What those lines confirm is something I've long believed: There is no secret plan that Trump is operating against. He isn't playing three-dimensional chess. He's playing zero-dimensional chess. He's just, well, doing stuff. And seeing what sticks. (There are myriad examples over his first three years in office that prove this out.)

Trump himself told us all this years ago in "The Art of the Deal" (aka his second favorite book ever behind only the Bible). He wrote:
"Most people are surprised by the way I work. I play it very loose. I don't carry a briefcase. I try not to schedule too many meetings. I leave my door open. You can't be imaginative or entrepreneurial if you've got too much structure. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops."

This who he is -- and always has been. He has no plan, not for the day, the week or the month. No broad strategy. He just acts or, more often, reacts. His belief system and what he cares about is deeply flexible. He can think one thing in the morning and another, opposite thing by lunch.

Which is fine -- if deeply unorthodox -- in the world of business! After all, Trump's name is on the company he ran. If he wanted to run it by whim and gut, well, that's his right! (While Trump has tremendous faith in his gut, the numerous bankruptcies littering his business life suggest he might do well to trust it less.)

It's much less fine when that approach is used to deal with national security and geopolitics. Because while the stakes for Trump's businesses are primarily financial, the stakes in the White House are often life and death. As Bolton told Raddatz: "This is a danger for the Republic." And we don't even need to take Bolton's word for the lack of rhyme or reason to Trump's approach to these critical areas. We can see it for ourselves.

One day Trump is calling North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un "little rocket man" and telling him that the American nuclear button is "bigger & more powerful...and my Button works!" Then, suddenly, Trump is meeting with Kim -- and stepping across the demilitarized zone into North Korea.

But, to what end? What was the goal of the meeting? What were the deliverables? Again, Bolton provides insight:
"I think he was so focused on the re-election that longer-term considerations fell by the wayside. So if he thought he could get a photo opportunity with Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone in Korea, or he thought he could get a meeting with the ayatollahs from Iran at the United Nations, that there was considerable emphasis on the photo opportunity and the press reaction to it and little or no focus on what such meetings did for the bargaining position of the United States, the strength that our allies saw or didn't see in our position, their confidence that we knew what we were doing. And I think it became very clear to foreign leaders -- that they were dealing with a president who just wasn't serious about many of these issues, to our detriment as a country."

Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin -- at which Trump infamously said that the Russian president had denied meddling in the 2016 election -- follows the same pattern. Trump, desperate for photo-ops in which he looks powerful and a great man of history, has no plan for why the meeting should be taking place or what specifically he needs to get out of it.

Because he is focused on himself, not the country. Because he has spent a lifetime just doing things to get attention and media coverage -- positive or negative didn't really matter. His life has been a series of seat-of-the-pants decisions guided by an unswerving and not altogether proven-out faith in himself and his judgment.

Which, again, fine if you are running a company with your name on it. Much less fine if you are the head of a country that, well, doesn't have your name on it. And when your quick-twitch decision-making has reverberations that will last long after you are president.

The most important thing Bolton's memoir reveals is that Trump doesn't grasp the difference between how he ran his businesses and how someone has to run a country. Making it up as you go along might be OK for the Trump empire. But it's potentially disastrous for the American experiment.

vimal · Post by **vimal** » 23 Jun 2020 03:36

Trump is down across pretty much all the states at this point against a weakling like Biden. It's amazing how a single Chini Virus has managed to destroy what was essentially an easy re-election for DT. Biden meanwhile just has to hide long enough in his basement to make it to the top post. What a lucky man but what an unlucky nation USA is.