THE NEXT GENERATION OF
HUCKSTERS: HILLARY, BILLARY AND
TRUMPER
The US elections and the criminalization of American politics
3 June 2016
With the US primary campaigns drawing to a close, the two parties of the US ruling elite, Democrats and Republicans, are preparing to nominate candidates who may be subject to criminal indictment between now and the general election.The Republicans have as their presumptive nominee Donald
Trump, a man who made his billions through various scams and
insider dealings. US newspapers have been filled this week with
details of the fraudulent methods he employed to enhance his
fortune. Court documents in the lawsuit joined by numerous former
students at Trump University allege that the supposed training in
real estate provided by the school was a fiction.
It was a fraud on two levels. At an enormous price, up to $35,000 for the “Gold Elite” program, students were told little more than “buy low” and “sell high.” As many as 5,000 students paid a total of $40 million for the worthless instructions, most of which could be obtained, according to press accounts, through a simple Internet search.
As for the claim that Trump would be personally involved in sharing his supposed real estate expertise, with instructors who “are handpicked by me,” the documents show that Trump played no role in the “education” program except allowing his name and face to be used to promote the venture, and then cashing the checks—his cut of loot was at least $5 million.
New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman, appearing on two television interview programs Thursday morning, said, “We have laws against running an illegal, unlicensed university. This never was a university. The fraud started with the name of the organization.” He added, “It was really a fraud from beginning to end.”
While Trump U. accounts for only a small fraction of the real estate mogul’s personal wealth, the methods used were representative of his “business model” as a whole, and for that matter, of his presidential campaign, which has been focused largely on appealing to increasingly desperate sections of workers and the lower middle class, offering Trump’s billionaire persona as the solution to deepening economic afflictions.
There is something extraordinary in the fact that one of the principal parties of the ruling class is preparing to choose an individual like Trump as its presidential candidate. Despite the initial hypocritical criticisms of his vulgar and racist pronouncements, nearly all Republican Party leaders have now reconciled themselves with Trump, culminating in Thursday’s statement by House Speaker Paul Ryan that he will support his candidacy.
This can only explained in relation to broader social tendencies that
have produced an immense degradation of American politics.
Trump personifies the descent of corporate America into every
more brazen methods of speculation, swindling and outright theft,
which culminated in the economic crash of 2008. Over the past 40
years, the operations of the American ruling class have taken on an
ever more parasitic character, with a mass of financial operations
covering over a long-term industrial decline.
On the Democratic Party side, Hillary Clinton is currently under
investigation for conducting all her government communications
while Secretary of State on a private email server, an arrangement
clearly intended to keep her correspondence under her control,
regardless of the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
Later this summer she is expected to be interviewed by the FBI,
which could lead to criminal charges over the mishandling of
classified materials or perjury.
Clinton represents a more polished version of the same social
processes that have created Trump. Bill and Hillary Clinton have
accumulated a personal fortune topping $150 million by serving as
speechmakers to corporate audiences, backed by their
“fundraising” work at the Clinton Foundation, which connects
corporate donors and charitable organizations in return for lucrative
fees.
The foundation has become the center of a web of international
influence-peddling that keeps the Clintons in front of their real
constituency, the world’s billionaires, making them fabulously
wealthy in the process.
Clinton is also more directly associated with the crimes of the state and the military-intelligence apparatus. The criminalization of the American financial aristocracy has found its reflection in foreign policy—in the casting aside of all legality and the adoption of torture, assassination and “preemptive war” as principal means for asserting the interests of the ruling class abroad.
It is significant that as the viability of her candidacy is being called into question as a result of the continued successes of her rival, Bernie Sanders, Clinton decided to focus a major speech in San Diego California on a critique of Trump’s foreign policy views. Clinton made her pitch to the military, based on the argument that she, and not Trump (or Sanders, or some other candidate) would be the most effective “commander-in-chief” of US imperialism.
Clinton focused her speech on the decision by President Obama and his top military and foreign policy advisers, including Clinton herself, to authorize the Navy Seal Team 6 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. She made no reference to the foreign policy debacle with which she is most closely identified, the US-NATO bombing of Libya, although it “accomplished” the same end. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was murdered in his home town of Sirte by US-backed rebels, an event that Clinton celebrated at the time with the infamous wisecrack, “We came, we saw, he died,” touching off gales of laughter among her claque of traveling aides.
Trump and Clinton are both products of the same process: the criminalization of the American ruling elite, as the methods of the mafia have come to predominate in both the operations of Wall Street and the practice of imperialist “statecraft.”
Patrick Martin
"The incompetent Presidency of Barack Obama has critically
damaged our country, but the havoc was supposed to end and
recovery to begin in January 2017. Now it seems that the
ordeal will continue for at least another four years, since the
probable Republican and Democrat nominees are both unfit to
serve as our president. The America we have known and seek
to restore may not survive this additional adversity."
Warnings of slump in US economy
By Nick Beams
28 May 2016
Despite an upward revision in the Commerce Department’s estimate for first-quarter economic growth, the US economy continues to show signs of a far-reaching stagnation. The Commerce Department said Thursday that US gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of .8 percent, up from its earlier estimate of .5 percent.Even though the upward revision was lower than expected, and pointed to a growth rate almost indistinguishable from stagnation, the result prompted media comments that the American economy appears to be “picking up speed” and the economic situation was “better than had been thought.”
Regardless of such proclamations, key indicators point to deepening trends toward economic stagnation in both the short and long term.
On Wednesday, technology company Microsoft announced 1,850 job cuts in its smartphone division, then on Thursday retailer Sears reported a loss of $471 million, after revenue fell by over 8 percent.
Next month will mark the seventh anniversary of the period of economic expansion that began with the official end of the recession in 2009—the fourth-longest recovery since the end of World War 2. But it is the slowest post-recession expansion in the post-war period.
The main factor is the fall in business investment, the key driver of economic growth in the capitalist economy.
“Spending on some of the building blocks of business—such as machines, computers and steel—is slipping,” an article in the Wall Street Journal noted. “Such expenditures are an important ingredient in improving employee productivity, workers’ wages and corporate profits. A lack of investment risks trapping the economy in a low-growth mode.”
The Commerce Department reported that orders for non-defence capital goods, excluding aircraft, an indicator of business investment, fell by 0.8 percent in April, bringing the total decline since April 2014 to almost 12 percent.
Well-known economic forecaster Diane Swonk told the Wall Street Journal it was “disturbing that businesses’ cash flow has improved dramatically and they have access to cheap debt, but they’ve deployed that on dividends and buybacks instead of investing in the future.”
Earlier this week, a report by Moody’s pointed out that US non-financial corporations were sitting on a cash stockpile of $1.7 trillion, almost one-third of it held by five major hi-tech US companies, a significant statistic given that these firms are regarded as a major driving force of the US economy.
The lack of business investment in the real economy, as opposed to financial speculation, finds expression in productivity data.
In a speech on Thursday, reviewing trends in the US economy, Jerome Powell, a Federal Reserve Board governor, noted that labour productivity in the US had increased by only 0.5 percent a year since 2010, the slowest five-year growth rate since World War 2 and about one quarter of the average post-war rate. He noted that this was a trend that extended across the world economy.
The productivity slowdown is expected to continue, with the Conference Board, a major US economic think tank, warning that it could go negative this year for the first time in more than three decades.
According to Powell, estimates of the long-run potential growth of the US economy have dropped from 3 percent prior to the financial crisis to 2 percent “with much of the decline a function of slower productivity growth.”
A key factor in holding back productivity in recent years, he said, was the meagre growth in the business sector’s capital stock, consistent with “the weak recovery in demand.” But other longer-term factors may also be at work. Powell pointed that the so-called total factor productivity (TFP) growth, regarded as a measure of the impact of technological innovation, was also falling.
“A broad decline in the dynamism in our economy may also be contributing to lower TFP. There is strong evidence that the slowdown in TFP growth in the United States preceded the financial crisis, particularly in sectors that produce or use information technologies,” he said.
In other words, there is a basic dysfunction in the workings of the American economy in which the cycle of business investment in the expectation of higher profits leads to higher productivity, economic expansion, resulting in further investment, has broken down.
Other economists, most notably former Clinton treasury secretary Larry Summers, have pointed to the development of secular stagnation—a situation which characterised the decade of the 1930s—in which the supply of savings continually outstrips the demand for investment, because of diminished profit expectations, leading to low growth, falling productivity and even outright contraction.
While not directly referring to this phenomenon, Powell alluded to it, posing the question: “What if the pessimists are right and productivity growth remains low for another decade, or indefinitely? The consequences would include lower potential growth and relatively lower living standards. Our longer-term fiscal challenges would be significantly greater.”
The long-term slowdown in the US economy is both contributing to the ongoing stagnation in the global economy and is in turn impacted by it. But there is no relief in sight from this quarter and no prospect at all of coordinated action by the major economic powers to stimulate global demand. In fact, the G7 summit meeting, which concluded on Friday, revealed that the divisions among them are widening.
The summit communiqué noted that since the last meeting of the group in April 2015 “downside risks to the global economic outlook have increased” and that “weak demand and unaddressed structural problems are key factors weighing on actual and potential growth.” There were also “potential shocks” of a noneconomic origin—a reference to the increasingly tense geopolitical situation.
But while it noted that risks had increased, the G7 moved further away from trying to combat them.
The G7 communiqué stated that global growth “is our urgent priority” but then laid out a meaningless set of words to cover over the differences between the participants.
“Taking into account country-specific circumstances,” the communiqué stated, “we commit to strengthening our economic policy responses…and to employ a more forceful and more balanced policy mix, in order to achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth pattern.”
The communiqué allows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to claim that he secured some movement on his demand for global stimulus measures while enabling Germany and the UK, the main opponents, to point to the reference to “country-specific circumstances” in order to continue their austerity agendas.
It was, as the Financial Times noted, another example of the work of G7 resolution drafters who are “masters at the art of creating apparent agreement where none exists.”
As the summit was taking place, new data from Japan pointed to the global deflationary trends that have increasingly gripped its economy. The consumer price index for April fell by 0.3 percent in the year to April, following a decline of 0.1 percent in March with indications from preliminary forecasts that it will show an even larger decline next month.
Falling prices will put increased pressure on the Bank of Japan to further ease monetary policy and may even lead to direct intervention by government authorities in currency markets to lower the value of the yen in an effort to boost the economy, despite warnings from the US against such action and a declaration in the G7 communiqué that countries should not engage in competitive currency devaluations.
Trump, Sanders win primary contests in Indiana
Sanders is committed to supporting the Democratic Party and its near-certain nominee Hillary Clinton, a lackey of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.
Trump, Sanders win primary contests in Indiana
By Patrick Martin
4 May 2016
Billionaire Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the Republican and Democratic primaries in Indiana Tuesday.The Trump victory was particularly significant, since it effectively clinches the Republican nomination for a fascistic candidate who has campaigned on a program of racist attacks on immigrants and Muslims, extreme nationalism and militarism, including supporting torture and mass killing of civilians.
Trump won 53 percent of the Republican primary vote compared to 37 percent for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another extreme right-wing militarist, and 8 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. The Manhattan real estate mogul was expected to win at least 51 of the 57 delegates at stake in the primary.
Cruz, now trailing Trump by nearly 500 delegates, announced he was suspending his campaign, effectively conceding the nomination, although he did not mention either Trump or the Republican Party in his remarks.
His withdrawal statement was an extreme right-wing diatribe, as Cruz declared China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to be mortal threats to the United States, and denounced the Democratic Party for its supposed “path of creeping socialism that incentivizes apathy.”
Kasich remains in the race, but has won no primaries outside of his home state and only a handful of delegates.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus declared on Twitter that Trump should be considered the presumptive Republican nominee and that the party should now unite behind his candidacy. The trickle of Republican Party officials and officeholders backing Trump is now expected to become a flood.
In the Democratic primary, Sanders won 53 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for Clinton. The result does little to cut into Clinton’s lead of more than 300 among elected delegates, since proportional representation gave Sanders only a 43-40 edge among delegates chosen in Indiana.
Clinton leads among unelected superdelegates—mainly party officials and office-holders—by 520 to 39, bringing her total support to more than 2,200 delegates after Indiana, compared to 1,400 for Sanders. A total of 2,382 are required for nomination.
Voter turnout was little more than half as large as in the last contested Democratic primary in Indiana, in 2008, which was won narrowly by Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Some 1.2 million voted in that primary, while less than 700,000 voted this year.
Exit polls showed the results in Indiana closely resembling those in neighboring Michigan, which Sanders won March 8, to the shock of both the Clinton campaign and media pundits and pollsters, who had predicted a Clinton victory. There was little polling in Indiana but Clinton had been favored in media predictions.
Sanders won voters in the 18-29 age bracket by 74-26 percent, as well as voters aged 30 to 44, by 64-36 percent. He won nonwhite voters under 45 by the same margin, 53-47, as his statewide victory.
People under 45 comprised 47 percent of those voting in the Democratic primary, the highest proportion for any state this year (Michigan had been the highest, with 45 percent). Sanders also won union voters by 54 to 46 percent, slightly better than his statewide margin.
The key factor in the outcome was that Indiana is an open primary, with independents allowed to choose a Democratic Party ballot and vote. Clinton actually won registered Democrats by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, but Sanders carried independents by 72 to 28 percent, giving him the overall victory.
Sanders addressed a campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky before the final result in Indiana was known, then spoke to the media afterwards about his victory there. He indicated that his campaign would continue through contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon, in all of which he is favored, right up to the final big primary day June 7, with contests in California, New Jersey and several smaller states.
“I’ll tell you what is extremely exciting for me, and that is that in primary after primary, caucus after caucus, we end up winning the vote of people 45 years of age and younger,” Sanders said. “And that is important because it tells me that ideas that we are fighting for are the ideas for the future of America and the future of the Democratic Party.”
This comment underscores the central function of the Sanders campaign. While he has won the support of large numbers of young people and workers with his claims to be a “democratic socialist” and to oppose the domination of American society by “millionaires and billionaires,” Sanders is committed to supporting the Democratic Party and its near-certain nominee Hillary Clinton, a lackey of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.
The result of the Indiana primary does little to alter the likely contours of the November election, in which the two corporate-controlled parties will present to the American people the two most unpopular candidates in recent US history. Polls have shown 65 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, with more than 50 percent actively fearing a Trump presidency, while some 56 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton.
Trump has vilified immigrants, minorities and women, and personifies the arrogance and ignorance of the US financial oligarchy. Clinton has a record of four decades of political service to that oligarchy, and is implicated in all the crimes of Obama’s first term, when she was Secretary of State, including wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.
THE CLINTON'S GRAFT AND CORRUPTION THAT WOULD MAKE A THIRD-WORLD DICTATOR SALAVATE
$$$$$$$$$$$
“The Clintons function as kind of a political Mafia,”
May 2, 2016
Heads up: Major analysis of Clinton Foundation scandals coming
Charles Ortel is a respected Wall Street analyst who has been poring over the publicly available records of the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and he promises a blockbuster set of revelations:
I will soon start posting new, in-depth, detailed reports explaining what I have found in the public record concerning the Clinton Foundation. In the latest document, I provide information concerning some of the new avenues we shall start exploring in coming days. (snip)
When you read my forthcoming reports, and when you check for yourself, you will see that the Clinton Foundation still operates far outside laws that regulate all charities, and particularly those that work internationally, from a U.S. base. (snip)
Most tax-exempt organizations play by strict rules--the Clinton Foundation should not continue to be the flagrant example that it has been for almost 20 years.Serous people I know take Ortel quite seriously and respect his ability to ferret out inconsistencies, omissions, errors, and violations of law. In a series of reports, he’s already uncovered quite a lot.
Please join me in trying to force Clinton Foundation trustees to do their jobs, and to obey the law, or suffer the consequences.
In an open letter, he offers a preview of what is to come.
Starting almost 20 years ago in 1997, the Clinton Foundation spread its activities from Little Rock, Arkansas to all U.S. states and to numerous foreign countries without taking legally required steps to function and solicit as a duly constituted public charity.This sounds to me like laying the predicate for wire and mail fraud charges.
Though trustees have been required to make truthful and complete disclosures where the Clinton Foundation operates, ongoing review shows clearly that the opposite has been the case.
Reports to state, federal, and foreign government authorities are incomplete, contradictory, false, and materially misleading--in coming days, I will present extensive new analysis explaining these defects in ways I hope the general public and experts will all readily grasp.
With materially defective and misleading disclosures in the public domain, Clinton Foundation trustees and their agents nevertheless solicited contributions continually using the world wide web, telephones, and the mail.
Since 1997, Clinton Foundation trustees have never obtained independent certified financial audits of their worldwide activities, consistently and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.There is a lot more, including examples. Read the whole thing. And keep the name Charles Ortel in mind as you scan the headlines.
So, the truth is no outsider actually knows how much money was sent towards the Clinton Foundation, how much money landed in the books and records of the Clinton Foundation, and how much money sent from the Clinton Foundation actually reached intended purposes. (snip)
Public filings for the Clinton Foundation may, in the end, serve one useful function--upon close review, the record from 1997 to present will be seen to define the opposite of “full, fair, and complete” disclosure, and serve as a cautionary tale to trustees who wish to operate diversified, international public charities from a U.S. base.
Major categories of infraction identified so far exceed 40, each of which will be treated in separate Exhibits, and in appropriate depth.
Hat tip: Clarice Feldman
WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY - HILLARY SUCKS IN THE BRIBES!
here:
A new documentary film based on Peter Schweizer’s bestselling book “Clinton Cash” is premiering next month during the Cannes Film Festival. Watch the trailer above. The following is the press release about the film.
***
A Film Based on the Book the New York Times Called “The Most Feared Book of a Presidential Cycle” to Premiere at Cannes
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich (published May 2015 by HarperCollins) dominated headlines for months as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall St. Journal and others confirmed the book’s investigative revelations of foreign donors and companies funneling tens of millions of dollars to Hillary and Bill Clinton. As Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig wrote in the Washington Post, “On any fair reading, the pattern of behavior that Schweizer has charged is corruption.”
Schweizer is editor-at-large of Breitbart News. The author of four New York Times bestsellers, including Clinton Cash, and Throw Them All Out, Schweizer’s investigative reporting has been covered by virtually every major U.S. media outlet, including: 60 Minutes, The New York Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, CNN, Forbes, Newsweek, Fox News, Politico, MSNBC, myriad others.
Clinton Cash investigates how Bill and Hillary Clinton went from being “dead broke” after leaving the White House to amassing a net worth of over $150 million, with $2 billion in donations to their foundation, wealth accumulated during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Sec. of State through lucrative speaking fees and contracts paid for by foreign companies and Clinton Foundation donors.
Clinton Cash has been lauded by top progressives for its exposure of crony capitalism and self-enrichment. Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University Earth Institute Director, called it “compelling reading on how Bill and Hillary have mixed personal wealth, power, and influence peddling.” Daily Beast columnist Eleanor Clift calls Schweizer “an equal-opportunity investigator, snaring Republicans as well as Democrats.” And Demos Senior Fellow Nomi Prins says Clinton Cash “provides a damning portrait of elite and circumspect power and influence.”
The film was directed by M. A. Taylor.
Peter Schweizer, who says of the film, “Cronyism and self-enrichment are a bipartisan affair, and Hillary and Bill Clinton have perfected them on a global scale,” will be in Cannes.
Also attending is Stephen K. Bannon, writer and producer of Clinton Cash. Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker, is the Executive Chairman of Breitbart News and was dubbed by Bloomberg as “the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America.”
Bannon says, “This film must be seen by every liberal, progressive, and independent voter in America, and the world, to fully realize the degree to which the Clinton’s are nothing more than high class grifters”
Dan Fleuette, producer of Clinton Cash, Occupy Unmasked, and Los Abandonados, will also be at the festival.
Global sales are being represented by Mark Holdom of ARC Entertainment.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2016/05/poverty-has-become-more-concentrated.html
Amnesty..... it's all about keeping wages DEPRSSED!
UNDER BANKSTER-OWNED BARACK OBAMA, TWO-THIRDS OF ALL JOBS WENT TO FOREIGN BORN, BOTH LEGAL AND ILLEGAL.
Poverty has become more concentrated under Obama
May 23, 2016
THE REAL TRAGEDY BREWING IS THAT
OBAMA, MEXICO AND LA RAZA
HILLARIA HAVE 40 MILLION LOOTING
MEXICANS EAGER TO VOTE CLINTON
FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS, NO
E-VERIFY, NO ENFORCEMENT AND
BILLIONS MORE IN WELFARE TO
ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS!
"The incompetent Presidency of Barack Obama has critically
damaged our country, but the havoc was supposed to end and
recovery to begin in January 2017. Now it seems that the
ordeal will continue for at least another four years, since the
probable Republican and Democrat nominees are both unfit to
serve as our president. The America we have known and seek
to restore may not survive this additional adversity."
How the Electoral College Can Save America
The incompetent Presidency of Barack Obama has critically damaged our country, but the havoc was supposed to end and recovery to begin in January 2017. Now it seems that the ordeal will continue for at least another four years, since the probable Republican and Democrat nominees are both unfit to serve as our president. The America we have known and seek to restore may not survive this additional adversity.
A majority of the delegates to the Republican convention could change the rules to let them nominate somebody other than Donald Trump, but they are unlikely to find the necessary fortitude. The Electoral College (E.C.) will then be our last chance to elect somebody with the breadth of knowledge, the depth of understanding, and the fundamental integrity so obviously missing in both Trump and Clinton.
A majority of the delegates to the Republican convention could change the rules to let them nominate somebody other than Donald Trump, but they are unlikely to find the necessary fortitude. The Electoral College (E.C.) will then be our last chance to elect somebody with the breadth of knowledge, the depth of understanding, and the fundamental integrity so obviously missing in both Trump and Clinton.
While working on the Constitution, James Madison expressed great concern about what he called (in Federalist #10 in 1787) "the mischiefs of faction," which he feared could destroy the Union. He would regard the present rubber-stamp character of both the Republican and Democrat conventions (and, indeed, the structure of the parties themselves) as prime examples of this evil. The solution he proposed was genuine representative democracy, in which the people would elect serious, thoughtful mediators who would filter out partisan follies. The specific purpose of the E.C. was to protect the presidency if the passions of the moment led the people to vote for some populist charlatan or unprincipled demagogue. We need it now, since the electorate is apparently willing to accept anybody, no matter how crass, who does not seem a Washington insider.
Each state appoints as many electors to the E.C. as the number of its congressional representatives and senators. The 23rd Amendment gave three to the District of Columbia, so the total is 538. In almost all states, the electors are nominally bound to whichever candidate won the popular vote in their state, but the clear constitutional intent is that they should vote in the E.C. for the person they think best qualified.
The E.C. votes will be counted in a joint session of the new Congress on January 6, 2017. If one candidate receives a majority (i.e., 270), he or she will become the president. If not, the House of Representatives will immediately choose among the top three by a ballot with one vote per state, as required by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.
Since it is probable that the House will remain under Republican control, electors from Democrat states are unlikely to vote for anybody but their party's nominee. The first objective is thus to ensure that Clinton does not win in enough states to give her 270 votes in the E.C. If she does, the game will be over, and we will just have to hunker down and try to survive four more years of Democrat mismanagement – and decades, perhaps, of unconstitutional partisan legislation from the SCOTUS bench.
The next objective must be to appoint some E.C. electors from Republican states who will refuse to vote for Trump. If the general election is close, a few such electors may be enough to deny him the majority.
1. An Independent Candidate.
We have been told repeatedly that a third candidate would only increase the odds that Clinton will win the election. While this is probably true in most states, there are a few strongly conservative ones where it is not.
A careful analysis is needed to decide which state races offer a good chance of defeating Trump without a serious risk of a Clinton win. The results of the primaries, as reported by Real Clear Politics, suggest that the most promising states are Idaho, Utah, Kansas, and Texas, in all of which Cruz won the Republican vote. Table 1 shows the percentages of the total vote (Republican plus Democrat) won by (1) Clinton and Sanders together, (2) Trump, (3) Cruz, and (4) Rubio and Kasich together.
In order to provide a rough preliminary estimate of the probable results of three-way general-election contests in these states, it is assumed here that the turnout would be similar to that in the primaries, that Clinton would take all the Democrat votes, and that Trump and Cruz would split the votes that went to Rubio and Kasich. The column entitled "Margin" gives the percentages of the people who voted for Rubio or Kasich in the primaries who would have to vote for Cruz in order for him to beat both Clinton and Trump. While nothing is certain, all of these states seem like gambles worth taking for the sake of our future.
Among themselves, these four states contribute 54 electors to the E.C. If all of them voted for the third candidate, Trump could not win if Clinton received more than 215 votes.
Given adequate financial resources, an independent candidate would not require any overt support from the GOP, although many party leaders who are dismayed by Trump might offer at least tacit encouragement. Enough coordination is needed to ensure that only one credible independent is on the ballot in each selected competitive state, but it is not essential that it be the same individual in all of them. While Senator Cruz's performance in the primaries suggests that he would be a good choice, defeating Trump requires a dispassionate assessment of his prospects in a 12th Amendment ballot in the House. Other possibilities include Marco Rubio, Rick Perry (who might do well in Texas), or Condoleezza Rice (if she would accept the role), but not establishment figures such as Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.
2. Uncommitted Electors
Very few E.C. electors have ever exercised any independent judgment in casting their votes, but this does not mean that they cannot or should not. Some states have laws or party rules requiring conformity, but the theoretical penalties for disobedience are derisory (usually fines up to a few thousand dollars) compared to the cost and importance of presidential campaigns. Most constitutional authorities agree that electors are free agents and that any attempt to penalize their decisions would fail in the courts. In any case, 21 states make no attempt to control the votes of their electors.
If electors decided for themselves how to vote, they would of course face angry accusations that they were disenfranchising the electorate, but in fact they would be fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities. If such behavior is unprecedented, so is the rise of Donald Trump. Unusual problems demand unusual remedies.
Electors from many states Trump wins may recognize that he is a very poor choice for president. Moreover, some of the state committees that choose the electors might deliberately select individuals who are (openly or covertly) opposed to him. Encouraging electors to vote as their consciences dictate is another way to help save the nation.
3. The Ballot in the House
In the 114th Congress, Republicans are a majority in the House delegations from 33 states, and it is probable but not certain that they will retain enough control in the 115th to determine who will become president. Some House Republicans will be Trump loyalists, and some who do not understand their constitutional role as responsible representatives might believe, incorrectly, that they must vote for him if he wins the Republican popular vote. Persuading the House to select a person who had received few votes in either the E.C. or the general election requires (1) a candidate who would obviously make a much better president than Trump or Clinton, (2) a strong campaign aimed at electing principled conservative Republicans to House seats rather than Trumpians, and (3) somebody who has or could develop good relations with newly elected and returning House members.
We can and we must make this happen.
Phil Chapman is a retired geophysicist and concerned Republican who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was once a NASA astronaut and is still involved in space-related research.
THE AMERICAN THINKER
Each state appoints as many electors to the E.C. as the number of its congressional representatives and senators. The 23rd Amendment gave three to the District of Columbia, so the total is 538. In almost all states, the electors are nominally bound to whichever candidate won the popular vote in their state, but the clear constitutional intent is that they should vote in the E.C. for the person they think best qualified.
The E.C. votes will be counted in a joint session of the new Congress on January 6, 2017. If one candidate receives a majority (i.e., 270), he or she will become the president. If not, the House of Representatives will immediately choose among the top three by a ballot with one vote per state, as required by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.
Since it is probable that the House will remain under Republican control, electors from Democrat states are unlikely to vote for anybody but their party's nominee. The first objective is thus to ensure that Clinton does not win in enough states to give her 270 votes in the E.C. If she does, the game will be over, and we will just have to hunker down and try to survive four more years of Democrat mismanagement – and decades, perhaps, of unconstitutional partisan legislation from the SCOTUS bench.
The next objective must be to appoint some E.C. electors from Republican states who will refuse to vote for Trump. If the general election is close, a few such electors may be enough to deny him the majority.
1. An Independent Candidate.
We have been told repeatedly that a third candidate would only increase the odds that Clinton will win the election. While this is probably true in most states, there are a few strongly conservative ones where it is not.
A careful analysis is needed to decide which state races offer a good chance of defeating Trump without a serious risk of a Clinton win. The results of the primaries, as reported by Real Clear Politics, suggest that the most promising states are Idaho, Utah, Kansas, and Texas, in all of which Cruz won the Republican vote. Table 1 shows the percentages of the total vote (Republican plus Democrat) won by (1) Clinton and Sanders together, (2) Trump, (3) Cruz, and (4) Rubio and Kasich together.
Table 1: Vote Shares in the Primaries
E.C. Votes | Clinton + Sanders | Trump | Cruz | Rubio + Kasich | Margin | |
Idaho | 4 | 9.9% | 26.1% | 42.2% | 21.7% | 14% |
Utah | 6 | 30.3% | 9.8% | 48.2% | 11.7% | 0% |
Kansas | 6 | 35.1% | 15.3% | 31.6% | 18.0% | 20% |
Texas | 38 | 35.0% | 18.8% | 30.8% | 15.5% | 27% |
In order to provide a rough preliminary estimate of the probable results of three-way general-election contests in these states, it is assumed here that the turnout would be similar to that in the primaries, that Clinton would take all the Democrat votes, and that Trump and Cruz would split the votes that went to Rubio and Kasich. The column entitled "Margin" gives the percentages of the people who voted for Rubio or Kasich in the primaries who would have to vote for Cruz in order for him to beat both Clinton and Trump. While nothing is certain, all of these states seem like gambles worth taking for the sake of our future.
Among themselves, these four states contribute 54 electors to the E.C. If all of them voted for the third candidate, Trump could not win if Clinton received more than 215 votes.
Given adequate financial resources, an independent candidate would not require any overt support from the GOP, although many party leaders who are dismayed by Trump might offer at least tacit encouragement. Enough coordination is needed to ensure that only one credible independent is on the ballot in each selected competitive state, but it is not essential that it be the same individual in all of them. While Senator Cruz's performance in the primaries suggests that he would be a good choice, defeating Trump requires a dispassionate assessment of his prospects in a 12th Amendment ballot in the House. Other possibilities include Marco Rubio, Rick Perry (who might do well in Texas), or Condoleezza Rice (if she would accept the role), but not establishment figures such as Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.
2. Uncommitted Electors
Very few E.C. electors have ever exercised any independent judgment in casting their votes, but this does not mean that they cannot or should not. Some states have laws or party rules requiring conformity, but the theoretical penalties for disobedience are derisory (usually fines up to a few thousand dollars) compared to the cost and importance of presidential campaigns. Most constitutional authorities agree that electors are free agents and that any attempt to penalize their decisions would fail in the courts. In any case, 21 states make no attempt to control the votes of their electors.
If electors decided for themselves how to vote, they would of course face angry accusations that they were disenfranchising the electorate, but in fact they would be fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities. If such behavior is unprecedented, so is the rise of Donald Trump. Unusual problems demand unusual remedies.
Electors from many states Trump wins may recognize that he is a very poor choice for president. Moreover, some of the state committees that choose the electors might deliberately select individuals who are (openly or covertly) opposed to him. Encouraging electors to vote as their consciences dictate is another way to help save the nation.
3. The Ballot in the House
In the 114th Congress, Republicans are a majority in the House delegations from 33 states, and it is probable but not certain that they will retain enough control in the 115th to determine who will become president. Some House Republicans will be Trump loyalists, and some who do not understand their constitutional role as responsible representatives might believe, incorrectly, that they must vote for him if he wins the Republican popular vote. Persuading the House to select a person who had received few votes in either the E.C. or the general election requires (1) a candidate who would obviously make a much better president than Trump or Clinton, (2) a strong campaign aimed at electing principled conservative Republicans to House seats rather than Trumpians, and (3) somebody who has or could develop good relations with newly elected and returning House members.
We can and we must make this happen.
Phil Chapman is a retired geophysicist and concerned Republican who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was once a NASA astronaut and is still involved in space-related research.
THE AMERICAN THINKER
The incompetent Presidency of Barack Obama has critically damaged our country, but the havoc was supposed to end and recovery to begin in January 2017. Now it seems that the ordeal will continue for at least another four years, since the probab...
Poverty has become more concentrated under Obama
By Nancy Hanover
Under the Obama administration, more Americans have found themselves consigned to economic ghettos, living in neighborhoods where more than 40 percent subsist below the poverty level. Millions more now live in “high poverty” districts of 20-40 percent poverty, according to recently released report by the Brookings Institution.
All in all, more than half of the nation’s poor are now concentrated in these high-poverty neighborhoods. This means that on top of the difficult daily struggle to make ends meet, they face a raft of additional crushing barriers because of where they live.
The Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program report, “Concentrated poverty continues to grow post recession,” is authored by Elizabeth Kneebone and Natalie Holmes and scrutinizes this unprecedented shift in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown.
The report, based on an analysis of US census tracts, shows that concentrations of poverty have grown under the Obama administration in all geography types: large metropolitan areas, small cities and rural areas. In fact, the number of poor people living in concentrated poverty in suburbs grew nearly twice as fast as in cities, putting paid to the myth of affluence or even stability in America’s suburbs.
The growth of social and economic distress within large parts of the US is demonstrated by the statistics. Pockets of high poverty exist in virtually every part of the country, including adjacent to the nation’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Since 2000, according to the report, the total number of poor people living in high-poverty neighborhoods has doubled to 14 million Americans. This is five million more than prior to the Great Recession.
Referring to the “double burden” facing the poor when they live in high-poverty neighborhoods, Kneebone and Holmes say, “Residents of poor neighborhoods face higher crime rates and exhibit poorer physical and mental health outcomes. They tend to go to poor-performing neighborhood schools with higher dropout rates. Their job-seeking networks tend to be weaker and they face higher levels of financial insecurity.”
These effects are clearly discernible once a neighborhood’s poverty rate exceeds 20 percent, the report explains. During the study period, between 2005-09 and 2010-14, the number of such high poverty neighborhoods grew by more than 4,300.
The palpable effects of the auto industry restructuring, with the Obama administration’s stipulation of a 50 percent cut in wages for new autoworkers, is demonstrated in the growth of poverty in the sprawling auto-dominated Detroit region. Out of metro Detroiters living in poverty, 58 percent now reside in suburban districts, according to a survey by Oakland County Lighthouse.
A recent and similar demographic study by the Century Foundation states that the six-county region has the highest concentration of poverty among the top 25 metro areas in the US by population. This represents 32 percent of the poor living in concentrated tracts.
There has been a staggering growth of poor neighborhoods in and around Detroit, Kneebone told the Detroit Free Press, adding that the number “grew almost fivefold between 2000 and 2010-14.” Detroit now has an official poverty rate of 39 percent, the highest in the US among cities with more than 300,000 residents.
“Sadly this report reinforces what we have been seeing year after year in Detroit and across Michigan.” Gilda Jacobs, of the Michigan League for Public Policy told the World Socialist Web Site. “Poverty is too high, and where people—especially kids—live has a direct and significant impact on their economic standing, health and other outcomes.”
Eight metro areas now show concentrated poverty over 30 percent: Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin (30.1 percent); Memphis, Tennessee (31.1 percent); Bakersfield, California (31.7 percent); Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan (32 percent); Syracuse, New York (32.4 percent); Toledo, Ohio (34.9 percent); Fresno, California (43.8 percent); and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas (52.3 percent).
As the WSWS has previously reported, all job growth over the last decade has been “temp” or contingency employment, traditionally the lowest wage levels of any job and paying no benefits. This loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs has impacted communities throughout the US. Concentrated poverty in suburbs has jumped 2.4 points in the wake of the recession, to a record high of 7.1 percent.
“This is what Detroit kids and other low-income children are dealing with every day, and what they have to try to overcome in improving their futures. These living and learning conditions are all connected, and harm kids’ development and learning, their academic outcomes and their future job prospects. It is called toxic stress when kids are under constant strain. This study reiterates that so many factors affecting poverty are external and environmental, making them nearly impossible to defeat alone,” she stressed.
A series of studies [including George Galster’s “The Mechanism(s) of Neighborhood Effects Theory, Evidence, and Policy Implications” and others] have documented how poor neighborhoods undermine even the most determined individual efforts to escape poverty.
Taken together, these studies demonstrate how the escalating growth of poverty concentration exacts an ever-higher toll on American society, affecting many aspects of life and particularly destroying the potential of the next generation.
*Education. High-poverty neighborhoods exert “downward pressure” on school quality. Data from the Stanford Data Archive has recently shown a staggering effect upon child learning capacities of attending impoverished school districts. Utilizing 215 million state accountability test scores, the study showed that “Children in districts with the highest concentrations of poverty score an average of more than four grade levels below children in the richest districts [emphasis added].”
*Violence. Exposure to violence has reached epidemic proportions for low-income youth, particularly among minorities. Parental stress over neighborhood violence is a substantial factor motivating families to move—when they can—from high-poverty neighborhoods, compounded by fears of negative peer influences upon their children. Youth and adults who have been exposed to violence as witnesses or victims suffer increased stress and documented declines in mental health.
*Toxic exposures. Poor areas are chronically associated with higher concentrations of air-, water- and soil-borne pollutants. Lead poisoning is most often associated with older housing stock. Researchers have demonstrated that depression, asthma, diabetes and heart ailments are correlated with living in high-poverty neighborhoods. Additionally, individuals in poor neighborhoods often receive inferior health care and reduced government services.
* Other effects of physical decay . The inability to exercise outdoors is a known factor in the rise of obesity, especially among children. High levels of noise pollution produce stress, and prolonged exposure to run-down surroundings can lead to hopelessness.
*The poor pay more. Prices in poor neighborhoods are notoriously higher and the goods of poorer quality than those in better-off areas. Food and health-care “deserts” are common. The costs of home and car insurance are usually substantially higher.
*Lack of social cohesion. Disorder and lack of social cohesion are associated with both crime and mental distress. Children who live without a cohesive neighborhood network are more likely to have behavioral problems and have lower verbal skills. Those in areas of concentrated poverty are typically more isolated within their households and have fewer educated or employed friends and neighbors. Low levels of employment in distressed neighborhoods also destroy the informal networks crucial for workers to find good jobs.
Trump, Sanders win primary contests in Indiana
Sanders is committed to supporting the Democratic Party and its near-certain nominee Hillary Clinton, a lackey of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.
By Patrick Martin
Billionaire Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the Republican and Democratic primaries in Indiana Tuesday.
The Trump victory was particularly significant, since it effectively clinches the Republican nomination for a fascistic candidate who has campaigned on a program of racist attacks on immigrants and Muslims, extreme nationalism and militarism, including supporting torture and mass killing of civilians.
Trump won 53 percent of the Republican primary vote compared to 37 percent for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another extreme right-wing militarist, and 8 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. The Manhattan real estate mogul was expected to win at least 51 of the 57 delegates at stake in the primary.
Cruz, now trailing Trump by nearly 500 delegates, announced he was suspending his campaign, effectively conceding the nomination, although he did not mention either Trump or the Republican Party in his remarks.
His withdrawal statement was an extreme right-wing diatribe, as Cruz declared China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to be mortal threats to the United States, and denounced the Democratic Party for its supposed “path of creeping socialism that incentivizes apathy.”
Kasich remains in the race, but has won no primaries outside of his home state and only a handful of delegates.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus declared on Twitter that Trump should be considered the presumptive Republican nominee and that the party should now unite behind his candidacy. The trickle of Republican Party officials and officeholders backing Trump is now expected to become a flood.
In the Democratic primary, Sanders won 53 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for Clinton. The result does little to cut into Clinton’s lead of more than 300 among elected delegates, since proportional representation gave Sanders only a 43-40 edge among delegates chosen in Indiana.
Clinton leads among unelected superdelegates—mainly party officials and office-holders—by 520 to 39, bringing her total support to more than 2,200 delegates after Indiana, compared to 1,400 for Sanders. A total of 2,382 are required for nomination.
Voter turnout was little more than half as large as in the last contested Democratic primary in Indiana, in 2008, which was won narrowly by Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Some 1.2 million voted in that primary, while less than 700,000 voted this year.
Exit polls showed the results in Indiana closely resembling those in neighboring Michigan, which Sanders won March 8, to the shock of both the Clinton campaign and media pundits and pollsters, who had predicted a Clinton victory. There was little polling in Indiana but Clinton had been favored in media predictions.
Sanders won voters in the 18-29 age bracket by 74-26 percent, as well as voters aged 30 to 44, by 64-36 percent. He won nonwhite voters under 45 by the same margin, 53-47, as his statewide victory.
People under 45 comprised 47 percent of those voting in the Democratic primary, the highest proportion for any state this year (Michigan had been the highest, with 45 percent). Sanders also won union voters by 54 to 46 percent, slightly better than his statewide margin.
The key factor in the outcome was that Indiana is an open primary, with independents allowed to choose a Democratic Party ballot and vote. Clinton actually won registered Democrats by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, but Sanders carried independents by 72 to 28 percent, giving him the overall victory.
Sanders addressed a campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky before the final result in Indiana was known, then spoke to the media afterwards about his victory there. He indicated that his campaign would continue through contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon, in all of which he is favored, right up to the final big primary day June 7, with contests in California, New Jersey and several smaller states.
“I’ll tell you what is extremely exciting for me, and that is that in primary after primary, caucus after caucus, we end up winning the vote of people 45 years of age and younger,” Sanders said. “And that is important because it tells me that ideas that we are fighting for are the ideas for the future of America and the future of the Democratic Party.”
This comment underscores the central function of the Sanders campaign. While he has won the support of large numbers of young people and workers with his claims to be a “democratic socialist” and to oppose the domination of American society by “millionaires and billionaires,” Sanders is committed to supporting the Democratic Party and its near-certain nominee Hillary Clinton, a lackey of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.
The result of the Indiana primary does little to alter the likely contours of the November election, in which the two corporate-controlled parties will present to the American people the two most unpopular candidates in recent US history. Polls have shown 65 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, with more than 50 percent actively fearing a Trump presidency, while some 56 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton.
Trump has vilified immigrants, minorities and women, and personifies the arrogance and ignorance of the US financial oligarchy. Clinton has a record of four decades of political service to that oligarchy, and is implicated in all the crimes of Obama’s first term, when she was Secretary of State, including wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Poverty has become more concentrated under Obama
Poverty has become more concentrated under Obama
By Nancy Hanover
2 May 2016
Under the Obama administration, more Americans have found themselves consigned to economic ghettos, living in neighborhoods where more than 40 percent subsist below the poverty level. Millions more now live in “high poverty” districts of 20-40 percent poverty, according to recently released report by the Brookings Institution.All in all, more than half of the nation’s poor are now concentrated in these high-poverty neighborhoods. This means that on top of the difficult daily struggle to make ends meet, they face a raft of additional crushing barriers because of where they live.
The Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program report, “Concentrated poverty continues to grow post recession,” is authored by Elizabeth Kneebone and Natalie Holmes and scrutinizes this unprecedented shift in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown.
The report, based on an analysis of US census tracts, shows that concentrations of poverty have grown under the Obama administration in all geography types: large metropolitan areas, small cities and rural areas. In fact, the number of poor people living in concentrated poverty in suburbs grew nearly twice as fast as in cities, putting paid to the myth of affluence or even stability in America’s suburbs.
The growth of social and economic distress within large parts of the US is demonstrated by the statistics. Pockets of high poverty exist in virtually every part of the country, including adjacent to the nation’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Since 2000, according to the report, the total number of poor people living in high-poverty neighborhoods has doubled to 14 million Americans. This is five million more than prior to the Great Recession.
Referring to the “double burden” facing the poor when they live in high-poverty neighborhoods, Kneebone and Holmes say, “Residents of poor neighborhoods face higher crime rates and exhibit poorer physical and mental health outcomes. They tend to go to poor-performing neighborhood schools with higher dropout rates. Their job-seeking networks tend to be weaker and they face higher levels of financial insecurity.”
These effects are clearly discernible once a neighborhood’s poverty rate exceeds 20 percent, the report explains. During the study period, between 2005-09 and 2010-14, the number of such high poverty neighborhoods grew by more than 4,300.
Across many demographics: City and suburb, black and white
Suburbs accounted for one-third of the newly high-poverty neighborhoods, a higher share than cities, rural or small metro areas. The share of poor black and Hispanic suburban residents climbed by 10 percent while poor white residents climbed by eight percent, almost as much.The palpable effects of the auto industry restructuring, with the Obama administration’s stipulation of a 50 percent cut in wages for new autoworkers, is demonstrated in the growth of poverty in the sprawling auto-dominated Detroit region. Out of metro Detroiters living in poverty, 58 percent now reside in suburban districts, according to a survey by Oakland County Lighthouse.
A recent and similar demographic study by the Century Foundation states that the six-county region has the highest concentration of poverty among the top 25 metro areas in the US by population. This represents 32 percent of the poor living in concentrated tracts.
There has been a staggering growth of poor neighborhoods in and around Detroit, Kneebone told the Detroit Free Press, adding that the number “grew almost fivefold between 2000 and 2010-14.” Detroit now has an official poverty rate of 39 percent, the highest in the US among cities with more than 300,000 residents.
“Sadly this report reinforces what we have been seeing year after year in Detroit and across Michigan.” Gilda Jacobs, of the Michigan League for Public Policy told the World Socialist Web Site. “Poverty is too high, and where people—especially kids—live has a direct and significant impact on their economic standing, health and other outcomes.”
From the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt
Detroit, however, is just the most concentrated expression of the national trend. “Among the nation’s largest metro areas, two-thirds (67 percent) saw concentrated poverty grow between 2005-09 and 2010-14,” the Brookings study found. The authors note that some of the “largest upticks included a number of Sun Belt metro areas hit hard by the collapse of the housing market—like Fresno, Bakersfield and Stockton in California and Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona—and older industrial areas in the Midwest and northeast—like Indianapolis, Buffalo, and Syracuse.”Eight metro areas now show concentrated poverty over 30 percent: Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin (30.1 percent); Memphis, Tennessee (31.1 percent); Bakersfield, California (31.7 percent); Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan (32 percent); Syracuse, New York (32.4 percent); Toledo, Ohio (34.9 percent); Fresno, California (43.8 percent); and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas (52.3 percent).
As the WSWS has previously reported, all job growth over the last decade has been “temp” or contingency employment, traditionally the lowest wage levels of any job and paying no benefits. This loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs has impacted communities throughout the US. Concentrated poverty in suburbs has jumped 2.4 points in the wake of the recession, to a record high of 7.1 percent.
What is the “double burden” of concentrated poverty?
In her remarks to the WSWS, Gilda Jacobs elaborated on the double burden of concentrated poverty: “So many detrimental factors come with living in high-poverty neighborhoods. There are no viable jobs, public transportation, childcare, or grocery stores. Crime rates are high, there’s blight and abandoned buildings, and the health risks of lead exposure and asthma. Even Detroit’s public schools are unhealthy and even dangerous.“This is what Detroit kids and other low-income children are dealing with every day, and what they have to try to overcome in improving their futures. These living and learning conditions are all connected, and harm kids’ development and learning, their academic outcomes and their future job prospects. It is called toxic stress when kids are under constant strain. This study reiterates that so many factors affecting poverty are external and environmental, making them nearly impossible to defeat alone,” she stressed.
A series of studies [including George Galster’s “The Mechanism(s) of Neighborhood Effects Theory, Evidence, and Policy Implications” and others] have documented how poor neighborhoods undermine even the most determined individual efforts to escape poverty.
Taken together, these studies demonstrate how the escalating growth of poverty concentration exacts an ever-higher toll on American society, affecting many aspects of life and particularly destroying the potential of the next generation.
*Education. High-poverty neighborhoods exert “downward pressure” on school quality. Data from the Stanford Data Archive has recently shown a staggering effect upon child learning capacities of attending impoverished school districts. Utilizing 215 million state accountability test scores, the study showed that “Children in districts with the highest concentrations of poverty score an average of more than four grade levels below children in the richest districts [emphasis added].”
*Violence. Exposure to violence has reached epidemic proportions for low-income youth, particularly among minorities. Parental stress over neighborhood violence is a substantial factor motivating families to move—when they can—from high-poverty neighborhoods, compounded by fears of negative peer influences upon their children. Youth and adults who have been exposed to violence as witnesses or victims suffer increased stress and documented declines in mental health.
*Toxic exposures. Poor areas are chronically associated with higher concentrations of air-, water- and soil-borne pollutants. Lead poisoning is most often associated with older housing stock. Researchers have demonstrated that depression, asthma, diabetes and heart ailments are correlated with living in high-poverty neighborhoods. Additionally, individuals in poor neighborhoods often receive inferior health care and reduced government services.
* Other effects of physical decay . The inability to exercise outdoors is a known factor in the rise of obesity, especially among children. High levels of noise pollution produce stress, and prolonged exposure to run-down surroundings can lead to hopelessness.
*The poor pay more. Prices in poor neighborhoods are notoriously higher and the goods of poorer quality than those in better-off areas. Food and health-care “deserts” are common. The costs of home and car insurance are usually substantially higher.
*Lack of social cohesion. Disorder and lack of social cohesion are associated with both crime and mental distress. Children who live without a cohesive neighborhood network are more likely to have behavioral problems and have lower verbal skills. Those in areas of concentrated poverty are typically more isolated within their households and have fewer educated or employed friends and neighbors. Low levels of employment in distressed neighborhoods also destroy the informal networks crucial for workers to find good jobs.
Trump, Sanders win primary contests in Indiana
Sanders is committed to supporting the Democratic Party and its near-certain nominee Hillary Clinton, a lackey of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.
Trump, Sanders win primary contests in Indiana
By Patrick Martin
4 May 2016
Billionaire Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the Republican and Democratic primaries in Indiana Tuesday.The Trump victory was particularly significant, since it effectively clinches the Republican nomination for a fascistic candidate who has campaigned on a program of racist attacks on immigrants and Muslims, extreme nationalism and militarism, including supporting torture and mass killing of civilians.
Trump won 53 percent of the Republican primary vote compared to 37 percent for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another extreme right-wing militarist, and 8 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich. The Manhattan real estate mogul was expected to win at least 51 of the 57 delegates at stake in the primary.
Cruz, now trailing Trump by nearly 500 delegates, announced he was suspending his campaign, effectively conceding the nomination, although he did not mention either Trump or the Republican Party in his remarks.
His withdrawal statement was an extreme right-wing diatribe, as Cruz declared China, Russia, North Korea and Iran to be mortal threats to the United States, and denounced the Democratic Party for its supposed “path of creeping socialism that incentivizes apathy.”
Kasich remains in the race, but has won no primaries outside of his home state and only a handful of delegates.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus declared on Twitter that Trump should be considered the presumptive Republican nominee and that the party should now unite behind his candidacy. The trickle of Republican Party officials and officeholders backing Trump is now expected to become a flood.
In the Democratic primary, Sanders won 53 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for Clinton. The result does little to cut into Clinton’s lead of more than 300 among elected delegates, since proportional representation gave Sanders only a 43-40 edge among delegates chosen in Indiana.
Clinton leads among unelected superdelegates—mainly party officials and office-holders—by 520 to 39, bringing her total support to more than 2,200 delegates after Indiana, compared to 1,400 for Sanders. A total of 2,382 are required for nomination.
Voter turnout was little more than half as large as in the last contested Democratic primary in Indiana, in 2008, which was won narrowly by Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. Some 1.2 million voted in that primary, while less than 700,000 voted this year.
Exit polls showed the results in Indiana closely resembling those in neighboring Michigan, which Sanders won March 8, to the shock of both the Clinton campaign and media pundits and pollsters, who had predicted a Clinton victory. There was little polling in Indiana but Clinton had been favored in media predictions.
Sanders won voters in the 18-29 age bracket by 74-26 percent, as well as voters aged 30 to 44, by 64-36 percent. He won nonwhite voters under 45 by the same margin, 53-47, as his statewide victory.
People under 45 comprised 47 percent of those voting in the Democratic primary, the highest proportion for any state this year (Michigan had been the highest, with 45 percent). Sanders also won union voters by 54 to 46 percent, slightly better than his statewide margin.
The key factor in the outcome was that Indiana is an open primary, with independents allowed to choose a Democratic Party ballot and vote. Clinton actually won registered Democrats by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, but Sanders carried independents by 72 to 28 percent, giving him the overall victory.
Sanders addressed a campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky before the final result in Indiana was known, then spoke to the media afterwards about his victory there. He indicated that his campaign would continue through contests in West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon, in all of which he is favored, right up to the final big primary day June 7, with contests in California, New Jersey and several smaller states.
“I’ll tell you what is extremely exciting for me, and that is that in primary after primary, caucus after caucus, we end up winning the vote of people 45 years of age and younger,” Sanders said. “And that is important because it tells me that ideas that we are fighting for are the ideas for the future of America and the future of the Democratic Party.”
This comment underscores the central function of the Sanders campaign. While he has won the support of large numbers of young people and workers with his claims to be a “democratic socialist” and to oppose the domination of American society by “millionaires and billionaires,” Sanders is committed to supporting the Democratic Party and its near-certain nominee Hillary Clinton, a lackey of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.
The result of the Indiana primary does little to alter the likely contours of the November election, in which the two corporate-controlled parties will present to the American people the two most unpopular candidates in recent US history. Polls have shown 65 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, with more than 50 percent actively fearing a Trump presidency, while some 56 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Clinton.
Trump has vilified immigrants, minorities and women, and personifies the arrogance and ignorance of the US financial oligarchy. Clinton has a record of four decades of political service to that oligarchy, and is implicated in all the crimes of Obama’s first term, when she was Secretary of State, including wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan.
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