Trump's Leaked Taxes and His Redefining of Poverty

Last night, the New York Times published a BIG SCOOP after somehow acquiring ten years of Donald Trump's tax documents: "Decade in the Red: Trump Tax Figures Show over $1 Billion in Business Losses."

Although access to the actual documents is new, the basic information is not. We already knew that Trump was a terrible businessman who took major losses for many years. Indeed, the fact that he was taking major losses has underwritten the speculation that he was engaged in international money laundering, as taking enormous businesses losses can signal precisely that.

As Olga Lautman notes: "These were the crucial years Trump was forming alliances with the Russian mafia. This covers the KGB-organized Soviet Union trip, a thief in law frequenting Trump's casinos, and many more interesting to say the least criminals in Trump Towers."

Naturally, this information did not get leaked by accident. There's almost certainly something worse in subsequent years, but Trump is hoping that most Americans won't understand the possibilities lurking beneath his huge losses and will merely laugh at what a "shitty businessman" he was, despite his relentless braggadocio to the contrary. And, of course, even a cursory glance at social media shows that most folks are happy to oblige.

As ever, there was a major policy report out last night, too, now thoroughly obscured by the Times' report. [Content Note: Video may autoplay at link.] Via Bloomberg: "Trump May Redefine Poverty, Cutting Americans from Welfare Rolls."

The Trump administration may alter the way it determines the national poverty threshold, putting Americans living on the margins at risk of losing access to welfare programs.

The possible move would involve changing how inflation is calculated in the "official poverty measure," the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a regulatory filing on Monday. ...The figure determines eligibility for a wide swath of federal, state, and non-profit programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.

By changing the index the government uses to calculate how much the cost of living rises or falls, the poverty level could rise at a slower rate.

In other words, Donald Trump wants to redefine poverty in a way that reduces people's access to welfare programs so that he can claim he's reducing poverty and saving taxpayer dollars.

There is a perfect, terrible juxtaposition between these two stories: The billionaire president who could take billions in business losses and still sit pretty in a gilded penthouse in the sky, who acquired the power he's now got through corrupt financial dealings with other democracy-hostile oligarchs, now exploits his office to harm people in poverty.

Malice is the agenda. That could not be more clear.

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This Is Class Warfare

One of the most common rhetorical fallacies in U.S. politics is that raising taxes on wealthy people to help fund social programs for people in need is "class warfare." That is not class warfare. That is a basic economic necessity to maintain anything resembling a functional capitalist society.

We hear an awful lot about how taxation of the wealthy constitutes "a war on the rich" and is part of a "wealth redistribution" scheme to give away rich folks' hard-earned money to layabouts who refuse to provide for themselves with an honest day's work.

That is a lie. It is also a perfect projection of the reality of conservative economic policy — which is entirely dedicated to giving working people as little compensation as possible and then taking even more in taxation, to subsidize and reward the lazy lifestyles of a class comprised of investors, heirs, and people who themselves might have worked very hard once upon a time but now spend their days guarding piles of gold coins like insatiable dragons.

"Class warfare" is economic policy that is designed to plunder wealth from the lower classes and redistribute it upwards to create ever higher concentrates among the already-wealthy.

The Republicans' tax plan is class warfare. It isn't going to help anyone but people who already have more than they could ever need and whose only objective is collecting even more.

Here are a few things to read about their execrable scam today:

Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: Why Are Republicans in Such a Rush to Pass Tax Reform? To Outrun the Truth. "[Republican Senators' priority is] jamming through their plutocratic, sloppy tax overhaul as quickly as possible. By 'as quickly as possible,' I mean as soon as this week, which would be a mere month after the first draft of the GOP tax bill was introduced in the House. For comparison, the last time such a major overhaul happened — during the Reagan administration — the process took more than two years. And it included dozens of hearings and consultations with voters, tax practitioners, and experts."

Paul Krugman at the New York Times: The Biggest Tax Scam in History. "The bill Republican leaders are trying to ram through this week without hearings, without time for even a basic analysis of its likely economic impact, is the biggest tax scam in history. It's such a big scam that it's not even clear who's being scammed — middle-class taxpayers, people who care about budget deficits, or both. One thing is clear, however: One way or another, the bill would hurt most Americans. The only big winners would be the wealthy — especially those who mainly collect income from their assets rather than working for a living — plus tax lawyers and accountants who would have a field day exploiting the many loopholes the legislation creates."

Caitlin Owens at Axios: Report: Tax Reform Might Not Produce That Much Growth. "The GOP tax bill will not produce enough economic growth to pay for itself, which will add to the federal deficit, according to a report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The report analyzes a series of estimates by both right- and left-leaning groups." #NoShit

Perry Bacon Jr. at FiveThirtyEight: 10 Senate Republicans Who Could Tank the Tax Bill. "The vote count in the Senate seems fairly simple at this point. Fourteen Republicans already voted for the legislation when it was considered by the Senate Finance Committee, and 28 other members have either praised the bill or not yet publicly indicated any kind of serious disagreement. That leaves 10 Republicans to watch, with Republicans needing to get support from at least eight of them."

Damian Paletta at the Washington Post: Trump Could Personally Benefit from Last-Minute Change to Senate Tax Bill.

Last-minute changes to the Senate tax bill could personally benefit [Donald] Trump, who has investment stakes in roughly 500 entities that could be affected by the planned adjustments.

Republicans are seriously considering expanding a new tax credit that these types of entities use to lower their taxable income in a way that benefits most people tied to these firms. Trump and other senior administration officials have been in personal contact with lawmakers about the changes.

The changes focus on "pass-through" entities, companies that direct income through the individual income tax code and not the corporate tax code. There are millions of these entities, and they are most often sole proprietorships, limited liability companies or partnerships. Trump's stakes in these entities include many large and small ventures, including the Trump Organization.

Trump's 2005 tax return showed that he had more than $109 million in income from businesses, partnerships, and pass-through entities, although he has not released updated figures, so the precise impact is not known.

Of course.

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Somebody Struck a Nerve!

An interesting scene at the Senate Finance Committee meeting during which the Republican's garbage tax plan was under discussion: Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown called out that the plan is just a giant piece of class warfare designed to redistribute wealth upwards, and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch was not happy about it.

Sherrod Brown really takes the fight to Orrin Hatch here. No Trumpian namecalling or low blows. Instead focusing on the GOP helping only the ultra-rich. Judging by how mad Hatch got, Brown hit a soft spot. pic.twitter.com/WxDFb8ipHB

— Adam Best (@adamcbest) November 17, 2017

SENATOR SHERROD BROWN: —Senator McCaskill and Senator Casey and Senator Stabenow and Senator Nelson are voting against a four thousand dollar raise that this tax cut is going to bestow on them. We know it's coming. We know you'll have way more money to promote that than we will have to defend it, but that's why the Wyden Amendment's so important. And I just think it would be nice, just tonight, before we go home, to just acknowledge, well, this tax cut really is not for the middle class; it's for the rich. And that whole thing about higher wages, well, it's a good selling point, but we know companies don't just give away higher wages. They don't just give away higher wages, just 'cause they have more money. Corporations are sitting on a lot of money now; they're sitting on a lot of profits now. I don't see wages going up. So, just spare us, spare us the bank shots, spare us the sarcasm and the satire—

[crosstalk]

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH: I'm gonna just say to ya that, ah, I come from the poor people. And I've been here working my whole stinking career for people who don't have a chance. And I really resent anybody saying that I'm just doing this for the rich. Give me a break! I think you guys overplay that all the time, and it gets old. And frankly ya oughta, ya oughta quit it!

BROWN: Mr. Chairman, the public believes it.

HATCH: [holds up his hand] Wait a minute, just — I'm not through!

BROWN: Okay.

HATCH: I get kinda sick and tired of it. True, it's a nice political play, but it's not true.

BROWN: Well, Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I get sick and tired of the richest people in this country getting richer and richer—

[crosstalk; calls to order]

HATCH: [bangs gavel] Listen! I've honored you by allowing you to spout off here. And what you said was not right! That's all I'm saying. I come from the lower middle class originally! We didn't have anything! So don't spew that stuff on me! I get a little tired of that crap. And let me just say something — if ya didn't, if we worked together [hits hand on table] we could pull this country out of every, every mess it's in! And we could do a lot of the things that you're talking about, too. And I think I've got a reputation of having worked together with Democrats!

BROWN: Let's start with CHIP.

HATCH: Not starting with CHIP. I did it — I've done it for years. I've got more bills —

BROWN: Start with CHIP today.

HATCH: I've got more bills passed than everybody on this committee put together! And they've been passed for the benefit of people in this country. Now all I can say is: I like you personally very much, but I'm telling ya, this bullcrap that you guys throw out here really gets old after awhile. To do it right at the end of this [hits hand on table] was just not right! And I just — it takes a lot to get me worked up like this!

A lot of the truth, apparently.

If Orrin Hatch doesn't like Democrats accusing Republicans of carrying water for the wealthy, then maybe he should consider not carrying water for the wealthy. Just a thought! https://t.co/kidIukH4tx

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 17, 2017

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Republicans Should Not Be in Charge of Healthcare Policy

[Content Note: Misogyny; classism.]

There are a lot of reasons Republicans should not be in charge of healthcare policy, like: Not believing that healthcare is a right; prioritizing corporate profits over people's health and very lives; not regarding abortion (and, in many cases, even contraception) as basic parts of healthcare. As but a few examples.

Over the past few days, Republican men in particular have been showing their asses on healthcare policy, demonstrating exactly why they cannot and should not be entrusted to decide healthcare policy for anyone.

First, there was Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, saying: "Americans have choices. And they've gotta make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they wanna go spend hundreds of dollars of that, maybe they should invest it in their own healthcare."

Then, there was Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, invoking that old chestnut about how everyone can get healthcare at emergency rooms. As though a federal law mandating emergency treatment is a solution for terminal disease. Or chronic illness. Or disability. Or preventative care.

Then, there was White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer refusing to answer how many people would be covered (or lose coverage) under the Republican healthcare proposal, and instead deflecting to commentary about access, as if how many people have (or don't have) health insurance isn't a key part of the access issue.

Then, there was Speaker Paul Ryan, the intellectual [sic] leader of the GOP, revealing he does not understand and/or does not care how insurance works at the most fundamental level.

Paul Ryan says insurance can't work if healthy must pay more to subsidize the sick. But this is exactly what happens in every employer plan.

— Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) March 9, 2017

Then, there was Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois demanding to know why men should have to pay for prenatal healthcare coverage.

WOW. The #GOP’s reason to object to insurance covering prenatal care? “Why should men pay for it?” Watch: #Trumpcare #ProtectOurCare pic.twitter.com/Q55nG1Un8j

— NARAL (@NARAL) March 9, 2017

Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania: I'd just like to say to our friend from Oklahoma: None of us think this bill is perfect. I've never heard a single Democrat say that this bill was perfect. We knew that it needed work, and we wanted for the last seven years to work with Republicans to try to improve this bill. You guys weren't very interested in that. I'm not sure what the gentleman is talking about when he talks about mandates. What mandate in the Obamacare bill does he take issue with? Certainly not with preexisting conditions, or caps on benefits, or letting your child stay on the policy to 26. So I'm curious, what is it we're mandating—

Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois: Will the gentleman yield?

Doyle: Yeah, sure.

Shimkus: What about men having to purchase prenatal care? [Doyle stutters in disbelief; murmurs throughout the chamber] I'm just— Is that not correct?

Doyle: Ah, ah, reclaiming my time!

Shimkus: Should they?!

Doyle: Reclaiming my time! There's no such thing as ala carte— [call for order] There's no such thing as ala carte insurance, John. You don't, you don't get a list and say, "Gimme that."

Shimkus: That's the point! That's the point! We want the consumer to be able to go to the insurance market and be able to negotiate on a plan—

Doyle: You tell— Reclaiming my time! [call for order] You tell me what insurance company will do that. There isn't a single insurance company in the world that does that, John. So you're talking about something that doesn't exist!

And then there was Rep. Roger Marshall of Kansas, who incredibly argued that poor people "just don't want health care and aren't going to take care of themselves."

In response to a question about Medicaid expansion, Marshall said:

"Just like Jesus said, 'The poor will always be with us,'" he said. "There is a group of people that just don't want health care and aren't going to take care of themselves."

Pressed on that point, Marshall shrugged.

"Just, like, homeless people. …I think just morally, spiritually, socially, [some people] just don't want health care," he said. "The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I'm not judging, I'm just saying socially that's where they are. So there's a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [into] the ER."

Echoes of Mitt Romney's 47 percent of people refuse to "take personal responsibility and care for their lives" comments. It was ignorant, indecent rubbish then, and it's ignorant, indecent rubbish now.

And finally, of course, there was Donald Trump, skipping out on promoting his party's healthcare proposal, and instead just tweeting: "Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!"

And in the sense that there's a chance it could end in a photo of him at a desk, signing a piece of garbage legislation, I suppose it could end in a picture. But given that it would be a picture of a cruel man signing people's death sentences, it would hardly be a beautiful one, as far as I'm concerned. Leave it to Trump to describe the endgame of this horror show in terms of optics, whether he meant so literally or figuratively.

I just don't know how much more evidence any person could need that the Republican Party is catastrophically unfit to be tasked with healthcare policy. They have zero credibility—and, more importantly, they have zero compassion.

Healthcare policy that does not center compassion is healthcare policy not worth consideration.

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Contaminated water.]

"You try to keep going like everything's okay. But…it's not okay. It's not so much that you're like just walking around in fear, but it's always in the back of your mind—what will happen to me in later years that may be a result of the drinking of this water?"—Angie Thornton-George, 48, a resident of Flint, Michigan, who, like many others in town, are "experiencing mental health issues caused by the ongoing water crisis, including stress, anxiety, and fear over what the future holds as they continue to rely on bottled water and filters more than two years after problems first surfaced with the drinking water. A widespread concern for residents throughout the lead-poisoned city is not knowing how they, or their children and grandchildren, may be impacted because of exposure to the contaminated water."

Nothing about this is okay. Nothing. And there are communities all over the country who are experiencing the same thing—or whose residents are unaware that they're slowly being poisoned, but will suffer the same effects all the same. The not knowing only delays the anxiety.

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The 47 Percent

[Content Note: Class warfare; wage stagnation; financial insecurity.]

This is a really great piece (minus some male-centric imagery) by Neal Gabler on the 47% of USians who are unable to come up with $400 in case of an emergency, and how this financial precariousness extends across many demographics.

It's a long but very good read.

I will note that the biographical story at its center is really more relatable for people who have had some amount of choice in their lives, and may not resonate with people who have been and remain in absolute poverty.

But certainly many parts of it will be meaningful to a whole lot of people.

It made me think, once again, about all the expenses people have now that previous generations didn't have: Computers, internet, cable, mobile phones, mobile phone plans... None of which are "luxuries." You need those things to survive. And they're expensive.

Wage stagnation isn't just about salaries not keeping up with the cost of housing and healthcare and education etc., but also about the fact that we just have more expenses than previous generations did.

Anyway. Read and discuss!

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News from Flint

[Content Note: Environmental racism; classism; water contamination. Video may autoplay at second link.]

Background on the Flint water crisis.

Today, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette will reportedly announce criminal charges "in connection with his ongoing investigation of the Flint drinking water crisis."

Officials believe the city got artificially low lead readings because they didn't test the homes most at risk — those with lead service lines or other features putting them at high risk for lead. Among those to be charged is a City of Flint official who signed a document saying the homes Flint used to test tap water under the federal Lead and Copper Rule all had lead service lines — a statement investigators allege was false.

Schuette is to announce felony and misdemeanor charges against at least two, and possibly as many as four people, according to two other sources familiar with the investigation. The investigation is ongoing and more charges are expected, sources said.

The charges, which will be brought against individuals connected with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the City of Flint, relate to the lead contamination of Flint's drinking water and not to the possible link between Flint River water and an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that is tied to the deaths of 12 people, one of the sources said.

Schuette, a Republican who is widely expected to run for governor in 2018, opened an investigation in January, tapping former Detroit FBI Director Andrew Arena and Royal Oak attorney Todd Flood to head the probe.

...A person familiar with the matter said that other parts of state and Flint city government remain under investigation.

There is much more at the link.

While I am genuinely glad that there is some attempt being made to hold accountable the people who orchestrated this vast harm against the people of Flint—especially children, the scope of the consequences for whom won't be fully known for years—real justice will only come with comprehensive lead remediation nationwide.

Lead in pipes and paint in old housing continue to be a present threat, especially to poor people. And truly meaningful accountability is making sure that what happened in Flint can never happen again, anywhere, through any means.

Lead remediation is costly and time-consuming. It will need federal management. For that reason, I desperately hope that whoever our next president is will make lead remediation a priority of her or his administration.

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"Simply put, this is environmental racism."

[Content Note: Racism; classism; environmental toxicity.]

Yesterday, at the National Action Network Convention in New York, Hillary Clinton "announced a new plan to fight for environmental and climate justice. While she didn't dive into details during the speech, which was given to a largely African-American crowd at a Midtown hotel, her campaign released a fact sheet outlining the specifics of how to reduce many of the environmental burdens often felt within low income communities of color."

That fact sheet, "Hillary Clinton's Plan to Fight for Environmental and Climate Justice," is remarkable for a number of reasons, not least of which because, after explaining how "the burdens of air pollution, water pollution, and toxic hazards are borne disproportionately by low-income communities and communities of color," it reads: "Simply put, this is environmental racism."

I honestly didn't expect I'd ever hear a presidential candidate say those words.

She also plainly notes: "And the impacts of climate change, from more severe storms to longer heat waves to rising sea levels, will disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities, which suffer the worst losses during extreme weather and have the fewest resources to prepare."

Her detailed plan includes these goals:

* Eliminate lead as a major public health threat within five years.

* Protect public health and safety by modernizing drinking and wastewater systems.

* Prosecute criminal and civil violations that expose communities to environmental harm and work with Congress to strengthen public health protections in our existing laws.

* Create new economic opportunity through brownfield clean-up and redevelopment.

* Reduce urban air pollution by investing in clean power and transportation.

* Broaden the clean energy economy, build career opportunities, and combat energy poverty by expanding solar and energy efficiency in low-income communities and communities of color.

* Protect communities from the impacts of climate change by investing in resilient infrastructure.

* Establish an Environmental and Climate Justice Task Force to make environmental and climate justice, including cumulative impacts, an integral part of federal decision-making.

There is so, so much more at the link.

I frankly just feel really grateful for this. It represents a serious commitment to environmental justice, and, in an election where whoever the eventual Democratic nominee is will face a Republican opponent who thinks the jury is still out on climate change and/or doesn't give a single fuck about entire communities being endangered by contaminated water, environmental pollutants, and climate change, I am relieved that there is someone serious running for the job who's determined to bring real sensitivity and real plans to the Oval office.

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History of a Smear

[Content Note: Classism; racism; misogyny.]

I've got a new essay up at Blue Nation Review, detailing the history of classism that underwrites many of the narratives that are used against Hillary Clinton:

We can trace a direct line back to the media's aggressive contempt for the "low-class" Clintons—with their fast food palates and Bill's hillbilly brother—as the genesis of the narratives being wielded against Hillary today.

It is understandable that, two decades and millions of dollars hence, people don't imagine that the Clintons could ever have been victimized by classism. Especially because they were never the country bumpkins the media perceived and purported them to be in the first place.

But it is a particular cruelty that, in an election where her chief primary opponent is ostensibly concerned with class warfare, media narratives born of the most rank classism are now being used to try to discredit her.

And it is a breathtaking deflection of responsibility that the media which created those narratives to keep her out of the establishment now regurgitate them without a trace of irony as they report on how she is emblematic of the establishment.

That they've now been thoroughly divorced from their classist origins does not make them any truer. The concealment abets the appearance of their legitimacy.

Click through to read the whole thing.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Congratulations to Senator Bernie Sanders for winning the Wyoming caucus! He is the first Jewish presidential candidate ever to do so! Wyoming has only 14 delegates, and Sanders and Hillary Clinton each walked away with 7 of them. Here's an explanation of how that happened, for anyone who's interested in how the process works.

I haven't been mentioning a lot of endorsements for Clinton and Sanders, for a number of reasons, but I think this one is newsworthy: "Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) endorsed Hillary Clinton on Sunday, after months of staying neutral in the presidential contest because of his post as the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform." It's notable (to me) not so much in that Cummings is endorsing Clinton over Sanders, but because he was the ranking Democrat on the Congressional Benghazi panel that questioned Clinton for 11 hours, and his endorsement ought to matter to people for whom that's an issue. (But probably won't!)

Whoooooooooooooops! "While plenty of New Yorkers say they'll cast their votes for native son Donald Trump in next week's Republican primary contest, two of Trump's own kids won't be among them. Trump confirmed in a Monday call-in to Fox News his children Ivanka, 34, and Eric, 32, never registered to vote in New York's closed primary." Sad trombone!

[Content Note: Class warfare] This is what class warfare looks like: "The Rich Live Longer Everywhere. For the Poor, Geography Matters." And, of course, it's not just geography, but the specific reasons that certain locations in the US are more conducive to supporting poor people's health (and which poor people).

[CN: Racism; class warfare] A report out of California details yet another example of how the (over)use and enforcement of municipal violations disproportionately affects people of color: "African Americans and Latinos in California are more likely than others to lose their driver's licenses because of unpaid tickets and then to be arrested for driving with suspended licenses, according to a report released Monday. The report, by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, examined U.S. Census Bureau data, records from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and information from 15 police and sheriff's departments in the state to document by race the impact of unpaid traffic fines. 'Individuals who cannot afford to pay an infraction citation are being arrested, jailed, and prosecuted, and are losing their licenses and their livelihoods,' the report said. 'The communities impacted by these policies are disproportionately communities of color.' Black drivers were found to be arrested at higher rates than whites for driving with licenses suspended because of unpaid tickets, the report said. The highest suspension rates in 2014 were found in poor neighborhoods with large percentages of black and Latino residents."

Again I will recommend [CN: video autoplays] this John Oliver segment on municipal violations if you haven't yet seen it. It does a really good job of explaining how municipal violations are (mis)used, are unequally enforced, and can ruin people's lives, just because they don't have the money to pay the original fine.

[CN: Misogyny; rape culture] Fucking hell THIS AGAIN: "Teenage girls at a New Zealand high school have reportedly been told to lower their skirts to knee level so as not to 'distract' male students and teachers. Around 40 students in year 11 at Henderson high school in Auckland were called to a meeting and told by deputy principal Cherith Telford that their skirts would need to be lowered to knee level, Newshub reports. Telford said the move was designed to 'keep our girls safe, stop boys from getting ideas, and create a good work environment for male staff.'" Insert my usual commentary about tasking girls with the responsibility to prevent sexual assault and about communicating to boys that they can't and needn't control themselves. And what the FUCK is going on with the "male staff" at that school? And why are we worried about girls "creating a good work environment" for them, instead of about them creating a safe educational environment for girls?!

[CN: Video may autoplay] Melissa McCarthy's new film The Boss, which I haven't seen, won the box office this weekend, beating Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice in its third weekend. That's pretty amazing! I think it's safe to say she's a genuine box office star, at this point.

Wow, this is such good news: "The world's count of wild tigers roaming forests from Russia to Vietnam has gone up for the first time in more than a century, with 3,890 counted by conservation groups and national governments in the latest global census, wildlife conservation groups said Monday. ...But while experts said the news was cause for celebration, they stopped short of saying the number of tigers itself was actually rising. In other words, it may just be that experts are aware of more tigers, thanks to better survey methods and more areas being surveyed." In either case, the point is, there are more tigers than we'd thought, though they are still critically endangered.

[CN: Animal cruelty] This is huge news! The USDA has proposed historic welfare standards for animals raised under the "organic" label: "The announcement marks the first, comprehensive set of regulations governing on-farm treatment of animals ever proposed by the federal government. ...The proposed rule would, for the first time, specify minimum indoor and outdoor space requirements for all species and prohibit certain physical alterations of animals. The ASPCA is in good company welcoming these momentous changes. We joined our voice with 13 consumer advocacy, health, environmental, and animal-protection organizations to demand stronger animal welfare regulations under the organic program; together with our friends at the Animal Welfare Institute and Farm Animal Concerns Trust, we amassed the support of over 60 farmers who believe that high animal welfare is a benchmark of organic production; we rallied more than 30 ASPCA veterinarians who urged USDA to release meaningful animal welfare standards; and we heard from a world-renowned animal welfare expert attesting to the importance of outdoor access. Today's proposed rule marks a major milestone in the legal protection of animals raised for food."

And finally! What an amazing idea: "The Westin Ottawa is known to guests as being very accommodating and dog-friendly, so its recent initiative comes as little surprise to many: A few months ago, they partnered with Ottawa Dog Rescue and turned the lobby into a foster home for shelter dogs until they are adopted." Love.

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GOOD GRIEF

[Content Note: Classism; Oppression Olympics.]

This might be the worst thing you read all day! The 1Percenters are SO SAD that nobody likes them, and they need therapy to process having to live with the burden of all that money.

"I shifted toward it naturally," [Clay Cockrell, a former Wall Street worker turned therapist] said of his becoming an expert in wealth therapy. "We are trained to have empathy, no judgment and so many of the uber wealthy – the 1% of the 1% – they feel that their problems are really not problems. But they are. A lot of therapists do not give enough weight to their issues."

Let me just pause here to say that there is a real dynamic, not dissimilar from survivor's' guilt, that lots of people experience about having something when there are so many people with nothing. One doesn't have to be part of the "uber wealthy" to have troubling feelings about global class disparities, or even the wealth inequity in our own communities.

This is a genuine struggle for lots of people with social awareness, even people of meager means, and we all have to find the best ways to navigate feelings that arise from knowing, even if we work hard for what we have, there are plenty of other people who also work hard and don't manage to survive or thrive, through some combination of privilege and luck. But that's not what we're talking about here.

Let loose the dogs of the Oppression Olympics!

"The Occupy Wall Street movement was a good one and had some important things to say about income inequality, but it singled out the 1% and painted them globally as something negative. It's an -ism," said Jamie Traeger-Muney, a wealth psychologist and founder of the Wealth Legacy Group. "I am not necessarily comparing it to what people of color have to go through, but ... it really is making value judgment about a particular group of people as a whole."

The media, she said, is partly to blame for making the rich "feel like they need to hide or feel ashamed."

..."You can come up with lot of words and sayings about inheritors, not one of them is positive: spoiled brat, born with a silver spoon in their mouth, trust fund babies, all these things," she said, adding that it's "easy to scapegoat the rich."

"Sometimes I am shocked by things that people say. If you substitute in the word Jewish or black, you would never say something like that. You'd never say – spoiled rotten or you would never refer to another group of people in the way that it seems perfectly normal to refer to wealth holders."

Oh, people never say anything antisemitic or racist anymore? GOOD TO KNOW.

And, apart from the fact that her contention about no one saying "something like that" about religious and/or ethnic groups anymore is absurd, it's also a mendacious conflation. Wealthy people are a privileged group, and the groups to whom this asshole is comparing them are marginalized groups. Just because someone makes a mean comment about a privileged group doesn't mean that group becomes marginalized. That ain't how it works.

Further: A person of color, for example, cannot choose to not be a person of color anymore, but a person with money can give it away and not be wealthy any longer with the swipe of a pen.

"Wealth can be a barrier to connecting with other people," confessed a spouse of a tech entrepreneur who made about $80m. "Not feeling you should share some of the stressors in your life ('Yeah, wouldn't I like to have your problems'), awkwardness re: who should pay at a restaurant."

To avoid such awkwardness, some Americans have taken to keeping their wealth secret. "We talk about it as stealth wealth. There are a lot of people that are hiding their wealth because they are concerned about negative judgment," said Traeger-Muney. If wealthy Americans talk about the unique challenges that come with their wealth, people often dismiss their experience.

"People say: 'Oh, poor you.' There is not a lot of sympathy there," she said. "[Wealth] is still one of our last taboos. Often, I use an analogy with my clients that coming out to people about their wealth is similar to coming out of the closet as gay. There's a feeling of being exposed and dealing with judgment."

Shut all the way up.

I've never been "uber wealthy," but I have friends who are independently wealthy, to whose problems about how money can create division among family and friends I have listened with compassion, and I have read enough along similar lines from people who have, for example, won the lottery or hit the professional jackpot, to understand that having lots of money can indeed be a source of friction. But not having any money can be a source of friction with family and friends, too. In fact, not having enough money for spending on social events—from dinner to birthday gifts to weekend holidays to weddings—can be a real source of angst for people who are struggling and whose loved ones misinterpret an inability to spend with an unwillingness to spend.

This isn't so much a "unique" problem as one that many people experience, from one side or the other—often both over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes from either side more than once, as many of us experience cycles of having and not having.

But naturally the precious special elites of the 1percent view this as a precious special problem that only they and people like them can understand.

Which maybe suggests the problem isn't having too much money, but too little empathy.

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Bread and Circuses and Hunger Games

[Content Note: Class warfare; exploitation; dehumanization.]

For your entertainment:

The BBC has defended a new TV reality show pitting unemployed and low-paid workers against each other for a cash prize, which has been accused of echoing film the Hunger Games, arguing it is a "serious social experiment".

The show, called Britain's Hardest Grafter, is seeking 25 of Britain's poorest workers with applications limited to those who earn or receive benefits totalling less than £15,500 a year.

The five-part BBC2 series will pit contestants against each other in a series of jobs and tasks with the "least effective workers" asked to leave until one is crowned champion.

The winner will receive a cash prize of about £15,500, the minimum annual wage for workers outside London.

...Twenty Twenty has posted advertisements calling for participants who are willing to "prove their worth" to "potentially walk away with a cash prize".

To prove their worth. As if people who are poor have no inherent worth.

Lest anyone on this side of the pond get too sanctimonious about this gross display of class warfare in Britain, CBS' new reality show The Briefcase premiered this week, in which "American families experiencing financial setbacks" are given a briefcase filled with $101,000, shown another family in similarly dire financial circumstances, and asked to decide "how much money to keep and how much to give the other people, or whether they want to keep it all for themselves; neither family knows both families have in fact received a briefcase, and that their counterparts are also deliberating over if and how to share the money."

In the two episodes CBS made available for review, the decision weighs incredibly heavily on all participants. One woman is so overcome that she vomits. Everyone talks about health insurance. Several people claim this is the hardest decision they've ever made. Many, many tears are shed.

...The Briefcase plays into this class anxiety by setting up the classic American pastime of figuring out in what ways these people are being poor wrong. The families visit each other's homes and look through each other's bills: For the participants, this is presumably meant to engender sympathy and greater commonality, but for viewers, this plays as, "let's examine what they eat, what they wear, how they get to work, where they live in the first place, and ignorantly identify those things we perceive to be not poor enough, not sufficiently humble."

America perceives poverty as a moral failure, which is why the participants on The Briefcase have to perform generosity to such an extreme degree. These people have to "prove" themselves as virtuous — to themselves, to one another, but in particular to a viewing audience at home — to show how unlike other poor people they are. We're not really poor, we just had a string of really bad luck, unlike those other people who are poor on purpose.

So, in addition to being aggressively indecent, exploitative, dehumanizing, contemptible garbage, it's also a huge prank.

Further exploiting people who are among the most exploited by our shitshow capitalist nightmare system for entertainment and calling it a social experiment, while profiting off of letting people gawk at poverty porn, is unfathomably, unjustifiably cruel.

Already, I've seen defenses of each show on the basis that the contestants are willing participants. And, yes, they are adult human beings exercising their own agency—but poverty undermines meaningful choice. Desperate people can be "willing participants" and also coerced by their circumstances to do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

To ignore that reality is the only way we can justify this shit as suitable entertainment. And if we are required to ignore one of the most fundamental truths about poverty to consume these shows, their content is hardly the enlightening social programming it purports to be.

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False, and Indecent, Advertising

[Content Note: Classism; fat hatred.]

Rowena Lindsay at the CSM: "Why did DirecTV pull its Rob Lowe commercials?"

It turns out that it's because they were accused of false advertising. Not for the reason they should have pulled the campaign (or never launched it in the first place): Because the entire campaign is a gross piece of classist garbage.

If you're not familiar with the ads, they feature famously good-looking, talented, and successful thin, straight, white, cis actor Rob Lowe and various alter-egos, like "Super Creepy Rob Lowe" and "Peaked in High School Rob Lowe," representing DirecTV (Rob Lowe) and cable (alter-ego Rob Lowe), with Rob Lowe touting the superiority of DirecTV and admonishing viewers: "Don't be like this me. Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV."

DirecTV is still trying to find a way to continue the campaign nonetheless: "Lowe may make an appearance in DirecTV commercials in the future, however, as the company was in the process of creating five new alter-ego characters for him, including 'total deadbeat' Rob Lowe, who gets surgery in a hotel room to save money."

Hahahaha he can't afford health insurance! Terrific!

*thatface*

The alter-egos are less than versions of Rob Lowe because they are poor, or fat, or balding, or underemployed, or awkward. Or because they're "creepy," which is definitely the same thing as being fat or bald. Ahem.

Qualities which are so hideous (AHEM) that comparing cable companies to them is one basis of the false advertising charge:

[The National Advertising Division, which is part of the Council of Better Business Bureaus and fact checks advertisements, suggested that DirecTV] discontinue the catchphrase "Don't be like this me. Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV" because it "conveyed a comparative and unsupported superiority message."

"Humor can be an effective and creative way for advertisers to highlight the differences between their products and their competitor's," the NAD said in a statement. However, "humor and hyperbole do not relieve an advertiser of the obligation to support messages that their advertisements might reasonably convey — especially if the advertising disparages a competitor's product."

Comcast isn't like a poor fat person! And it's outrageous to suggest that it is! Because everyone knows fat poor people are garbage! Basically.

The entire campaign relies on denigrating marginalized people: Even "Creepy Rob Lowe" is not merely "creepy" by virtue of his behavior, but also because he wears the look of a working-class biker.

Followed by a catchphrase that says don't be like them. Eww gross.

Cue the caterwauling about how I am oversensitive and shrill and Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington. Don't I get it that it's just a joke?

Sure. I get it. I get it big time.

Forgive me (or don't) if I still don't find the humor in calling marginalized people trash.

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This Is Class Warfare

[Content Note: Class warfare; choice policing; poverty.]

In yesterday's In the News, I linked a piece about several state proposals to limit the food choices of recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), i.e. food stamps.

Today, I read this piece about a proposal in Kansas which would limit how recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), i.e. welfare, are able to spend their government assistance:

If House Bill 2258 is signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback (R) this week, Kansas families receiving government assistance will no longer be able to use those funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go gambling or get tattoos on the state's dime.

Those are just a few of the restrictions contained within the measure that promises to tighten regulations on how poor families spend their government aid.

State Sen. Michael O'Donnell, a Wichita Republican who has advocated for the bill, said the legislation is designed to pressure those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to spend "more responsibly."

"We're trying to make sure those benefits are used the way they were intended," O'Donnell, vice chair of the state senate's standing committee on public health and welfare, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. "This is about prosperity. This is about having a great life."

Bullshit. BULLSHIT. If the TANF program was about "prosperity" and "having a great life," then the payments would be enough so that people could prosper and have a great life, in whatever way they define that for themselves. But, as it is, the payments are barely enough to ensure that the people reliant on them can fucking survive month to month, no less build up meaningful savings, a nest egg, a personal safety net.

The law prohibits recipients from spending any money at all "on body piercings, massages, spas, tobacco, nail salons, lingerie, arcades, cruise ships or visits to psychics" or at a "theme park, dog or horse racing facility, parimutuel facility, or sexually oriented business or any retail establishment which provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment, or in any business or retail establishment where minors under age 18 are not permitted."

So, if you don't have healthcare coverage for physical therapy, and treat aches and pains and misalignments by going to a private masseur, you're shit out of luck.

If you're addicted to tobacco or alcohol, you're shit out of luck.

If you want to take your kid to a theme park for their birthday, or an arcade, you're shit out of luck.

If you are getting married, and wanted to have a bachelor or bachelorette party at a club or a bar, you're shit out of luck.

Basically, if you thought that you were an adult human being with dignity who should get to spend your money however damn well you want to spend it, you're shit out of luck.

Further, the bill "limits TANF recipients from withdrawing more than $25 per day from ATMs." You know, to make sure they're "responsible." Never mind that even responsible people have emergencies, and sometimes need to spend more than $25 on one urgent purchase.

This is despicable. Just utterly infantilizing, dehumanizing shit.

The measure was passed by the Kansas House and Senate last week and is widely supported by Republicans, who control both legislative chambers, according to the AP.

Brownback is expected to sign the bill, according to reports, though spokeswoman Eileen Hawley said the governor plans to review the measure carefully. If the bill is signed, the AP noted, the law will take effect July 1.

"The governor believes strongly that employment is the most effective path out of poverty and he is supportive of work requirements that help people become self-sufficient," she said in a statement.

And, apparently, he is supportive of choice-policing garbage that Boostraps Bullshitters think will shame people into magically becoming wealthy.

Look, taxpayers' money being used for welfare is not the same as people giving money to charity, and they need to stop acting like it is. If you donate your money to a charitable organization, that organization has a charter which delineates how contributions will be spent and is thus answerable if they are misspent.

But when your tax dollars are disseminated to people in need of government assistance, you don't get any say in how that money is spent. At least, you shouldn't. Because their choices are none of your fucking business, and because respecting the right of adult humans to make decisions for themselves is both the decent thing to do and part of how adults, given the opportunity, do learn to prosper and become responsible.

And, for the record, when you've got no meaningful disposable income, treating yourself to pierced ears or a tattoo or a day at the spa or a night at a casino is hardly "irresponsible," when that little bit of indulgence, in lieu of a holiday people with more money can afford, is the only thing standing between you and total emotional collapse. So fuck this sanctimonious judgment.

I have nothing but undiluted contempt for anyone who would lay the blame for entrenched poverty at the feet of aid recipients, belligerently dismissing them as intrinsically unhelpable without legal constrictions on their spending, because they haven't demonstrated sufficient ability to overcome heaping fuckloads of privileged exploitation and institutional neglect to satisfy wealthy legislators' pithy, ignorant expectations.

This isn't about helping anyone. It's about punishing people for being poor.

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Pizza and Progressives

[Content Note: Classism; homophobia.]

So, one of the common responses I'm seeing—mostly on Twitter, although it came up in comments here, too—to the Indiana pizza place refusing service is: "Har har who even has pizza at a wedding?"

Poor people.

That's who has pizza at a wedding.

I mean, some people who have money to spend, but just want a casual wedding, have pizza at their wedding receptions, too.

But.

It's not unusual around here to see weddings, or funerals, catered by a pizza place. Pizza is all that many people can afford.

Weddings are often held in church basements, or the lodges of community organizations, or at VFW halls. Because that's also what people can afford.

Pizza, fried chicken, tacos, mostaccioli, giant trays of roast beef, potato salad, mixed greens. This is a pretty standard menu for lots of wedding receptions, funeral dinners, graduation open houses, church picnics, showers, retirements.

When people can't even afford pizza, we do pot-lucks. Everyone brings something, to celebrate.

That isn't unique to Indiana, of course. It's one of many places across the country where this is part of the culture.

By necessity.

This smug guffawing at the idea of catered pizza is just another indication that people don't understand and don't care about this state. This culture.

And it's many of the same people advocating withholding money from Hoosiers with a boycott who are then turning around and laughing at people who can't afford upscale catering.

Just stop. Please. Stop with the classist shit. It's so ugly.

Progressives should be ashamed of ourselves that the best we can do is laugh and point at poor people.

(And lest one imagine otherwise, plenty of the people whose celebrations I've attended with exactly that sort of catering are queer Hoosiers. This rhetorical buckshot is hitting the very people about whom they presume to care so much that they must boycott our state.)

I was told on social media that this rank classism is not intentional. It's "unwitting." What a neat word. What a useful word to elide what is, in actuality, cultivated ignorance against a "flyover" state not worthy of knowing.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Terrorism; death; abduction; misogyny] Today, a teenage girl with a bomb strapped to her blew up a crowded bus station in Damaturu, Nigeria, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 50 others. "No one claimed responsibility for the bombing in Potiskum but the main suspect is likely to be group Boko Haram... Witness Musa Ayuba, who was knocked over by the force of the blast, said the girl arrived at the Tashan Dan Borno bus station in a rickshaw and was trying to board a bus when she detonated the bomb." This is "the second such attack there this week. ...On Sunday, a girl with explosives strapped to her killed five people and wounded dozens outside a market in Potiskum." Both girls are being commonly being called "suicide bombers," which suggests consensual participation in the terrorist acts. But: "The use of female suicide bombers has become a common tactic of Boko Haram since last year as the group expanded territory and became stronger and more deadly." Also since they abducted hundreds of girls? I strongly suspect and fear and grieve that these girls are not willing volunteers in these missions.

[CN: Sexual harassment] Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has stepped down from his position, effective immediately, after a female colleague alleged that he sexually harassed her. "Last week, a 29-year-old researcher accused the 74-year-old Pachauri of making physical advances and sending lewd text messages and e-mails, according to a copy of the complaint and her lawyer." And get this shit: "It's 'understandable' that Pachauri resigned while he faces 'allegations against him in India. The allegations are unrelated to his post as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,' Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said by e-mail." Oh. They're unrelated. So it doesn't matter if the chair of an international science organization sexually harasses his colleagues, as long as he doesn't do it on that particular job? Cool.

[CN: Police brutality; torture] Spencer Ackerman continues his reporting on the "Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism": "The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site."

[CN: Misogynoir; racism; body policing] On the Oscar edition of Fashion Police, a show that should immediately be put into a cannon and fired directly into the sun, Giuliana Rancic made [video may autoplay] shitty, implicitly racist comments about Zendaya's locced hair. And Zendaya had plenty to say about that. Right on. (If you can't view/read the image, Bedhead has a transcript here.)

[CN: Anti-immigrant sentiment] After US District Judge Andrew Hanen "temporarily blocked" President Obama's executive action on immigration, the Justice Department vowed to appeal, and, yesterday, the Justice Department asked Judge Hanen to lift the temporary hold.

Meanwhile, a related showdown in Congress threatens to suspend funding for the Department of Homeland Security, because Republicans are not budging, even though Obama's above-referenced executive action which was the ostensible reason for their petulance has been put on hold. The editors of the Washington Post write: "Why not treat the policy issue as moot, which it is for the time being, and keep funds flowing? The answer, it seems, is that the fervor of Republican partisanship, especially in the House, is immune to logic beyond an insistence on victory at any cost—the cost in this case being the imminent shutdown of a critical chunk of the federal government." Yup.

[CN: Classism] Austin, Texas, is the most economically segregated city in America, based on research that combines "measures of segregation by income with ones tied to educational level and to the type of job a person has, and created an index of overall economic segregation in hundreds of U.S. metro areas." The researchers found: "People with higher educational credentials tend to cluster, especially in densely populated metro areas, and members of the 'creative class' tend to self-segregate into concentrated neighborhoods while people who work in service industries aren't able to do the same and end up scattered. Residential segregation is therefore driven primarily by the choices that wealthier, higher-earning people make about where it would be cool to live." Of course. Call it hipster segregation.

I guess it's only called "lying" when one of the hoi polloi does it: "Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald apologized today for mistakenly saying in a videotaped exchange with a homeless man that he had served in the special forces, though his service was entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division. 'Secretary McDonald has apologized for the misstatement and noted that he never intended to misrepresent his military service,' a White House officials told ABC News."

[CN: Animal endangerment] And finally! Tiny sweaters for tiny penguins! Which is the most adorable thing humans have ever had to do for animals because we are terrible and destroying their environment.

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Good News

[Content Note: Voter suppression; racism; classism; disablism.]

Courts have struck down voter ID laws in both Wisconsin and Texas:

The Supreme Court on Thursday evening stopped officials in Wisconsin from requiring voters there to provide photo identification before casting their ballots in the coming election.

Three of the court's more conservative members dissented, saying they would have allowed officials to require identification.

Around the same time, a federal trial court in Texas struck down that state's ID law, saying it put a disproportionate burden on minority voters.

The Wisconsin requirement, one of the strictest in the nation, is part of a state law enacted in 2011 but mostly blocked by various courts in the interim. A federal trial judge had blocked it, saying it would "deter or prevent a substantial number of the 300,000-plus registered voters who lack ID from voting" and would disproportionately affect black and Hispanic voters.

But the law was then provisionally reinstated by an appeals court, who cited Indiana's voter ID law, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2008. Ultimately, the Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin's law because they are trying to implement it too close to the election. Which means that Republicans in the state are likely to try again.

Thursday's ruling from Texas, issued after a two-week trial in Corpus Christi, found that the state's voter ID law "creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose," Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos wrote.

A spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office said it would immediately appeal "to avoid voter confusion in the upcoming election."

Ryan P. Haygood, a lawyer at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, welcomed the decision. "The evidence in this case," he said, "demonstrated that the law, like its poll-tax ancestor, imposes real costs and unjustified, disparate burdens on the voting rights of more than 600,000 registered Texas voters, a substantial percentage of whom are voters of color."

There is an abundance of evidence that voter ID laws disproportionately disenfranchise people of color, elderly people, people with disabilities, and/or people in poverty. It is no coincidence that many of these voters tend to lean Democratic, and that it's Republicans who are advocating for voter ID laws, despite vanishingly few incidences of voter fraud across the nation.

Republicans think people aren't entitled to vote.

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Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Classism; racism.]

"I just wish city officials would go after racism with the same manic intensity as they are going after blight."—Peter Hammer, professor of law and director of the Damon J Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University, on Detroit's $1 billion blight removal project, which is demolishing abandoned buildings "at a speed of at least 200 houses a week."

Hammer's not suggesting that there is not a need for policy that includes blight removal, but that blight removal alone is not the comprehensive solution the city needs: "Racism is what got us into this mess, yet there is nothing in this blight removal report that deals with issues of race, or segregation, or discrimination, or white flight, which is the absolute root cause of why we have the issues of abandoned buildings and blight in Detroit in the first place."

I highly recommend reading the entire piece. It's really worth your time.

[H/T to my pals Ellen and Kathryn.]

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Harassment; abuse] Following the gross harassment of Zelda Williams on Twitter, which prompted her to leave the social media site, Twitter has vowed to improve their policies. 1. I'll believe it when I see it. 2. I agree with my pal Andrea Grimes, who noted: "I am legit sorry that RW's daughter was harassed, but WoC in particular have been asking for this for AAAAGES." Case in point: Imani Gandy.

[CN: Violence; racism] Speaking of Imani, here she is being very smart (as always) and connecting what's happening in Ferguson to the movement for reproductive justice: "I'm going to say it again: police brutality—especially against pregnant women—is a #reprojustice issue. ...Black women are raising children and fearing that their children are going to be gunned down in the street. That affects their ability to parent freely." YES.

[CN: War] In Israel and Gaza: "Hamas and Israel have agreed five more days' truce to allow further talks after a tense final countdown to the end of the current 72-hour ceasefire on Wednesday night. ...Gamal Shobky, the Palestinian ambassador in Cairo, told the Guardian shortly before midnight there would be a five-day ceasefire to give more opportunity for negotiation. 'We are very close but there are still some things to resolve.'" Fingers crossed.

[CN: Violence; disablism] Eastsidekate pointed me to this story about the high levels of violence at the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, which prompted the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue "a citation against Brookdale in the Brownsville neighborhood for violating federal worker safety laws and failing to protect hospital employees." The whole time I was reading the article, I'm thinking, "Is this because ERs have become substitutes for mental healthcare facilities?" And then I come to the final line: "It's been a growing problem as emergency rooms have become a dumping ground for people with mental health issues." Welp.

[CN: Domestic violence] A new law in Louisiana will "grant an immediate divorce in domestic violence situations. New Orleans Senator JP Morrell says before today, even if you had tons of evidence that you were a victim of domestic violence, you'd still have to wait 6 months to a year before you get a divorce. 'That's obviously problematic because until that divorce is granted, the abuser still has all the rights of a spouse,' said Morrell. Morrell says now if someone has reasonable proof that they've been abused and can show that in court, they will be able to divorce the abuser right away." That is a very good law.

[CN: Racism; classism; carcerality] Also in Louisiana: New Orleans has instituted "a radical policy stating that a criminal record will no longer trigger an automatic rejection for public housing." Because people with criminal records (or in "some instances, just a record of arrest, even without charges") have historically been banned from public-housing assistance, it can be extremely difficult, to put it mildly, for people with criminal records to secure housing after their release. (Bootstraps!) But: "Under federal law, local public-housing authorities are empowered to create their own guidelines for admission [to section 8 HUD housing], provided they adhere to the Fair Housing Act of 1968." This is a critically important move by New Orleans.

Here is Jeff Bridges, being full-tilt Jeff Bridges: "I consider myself a lazy guy, but I do a bunch of stuff, and I'm so busy that in my downtime, I like to be with my wife, who I'm just madly in love with. We've been married 37 years, and it keeps getting better and better and more fun. I don't have too much time to jam with the rest of Hollywood." I love that guy.

And finally! A cat stuck up a tree for four days (!) gets rescued by the cunning use of a treat. Huzzah!

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Today in Rape Culture

[Content Note: Sexual violence; classism; white cis male privilege.]

Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden has sentenced Robert H. Richards IV, an heir to the du Pont fortune who is unemployed and lives off a trust fund, to probation for the rape of his three-year-old daughter because, she says, he "will not fare well" in prison.

Court records show that in Judge Jan Jurden's sentencing order for Robert H. Richards IV she considered unique circumstances when deciding his punishment for fourth-degree rape. Her observation that prison life would adversely affect Richards confused several criminal justice authorities in Delaware, who said that her view that treatment was a better idea than prison is typically used when sentencing drug addicts, not child rapists.

Jurden gave Richards, who had no previous criminal record, an eight-year prison term, but suspended all the prison time for probation.

"Defendant will not fare well in Level 5 [prison] setting," she wrote in her order.

...Kendall Marlowe, executive director of National Association for Counsel for Children, said that individuals who abuse youngsters deserve to be punished.

"Child protection laws are there to safeguard children, and adults who knowingly harm children should be punished," said Marlow. "Our prisons should be more rehabilitative environments, but the prison system's inadequacies are not a justification for letting a child molester off the hook."

Shades of the sentencing of Ethan Couch, the 16-year-old wealthy white Texas teenager who received probation after killing four people while drunk driving, because he suffers from "affluenza," i.e. being a privileged shit who's never held accountable for his actions.

As I said regarding that case, I agree that the worst way to deal with a lot of criminalized behavior is sending people into our terrible for-profit prison system, and I strongly believe that the US prison system needs major reforms, but "rich white cis male perpetrators get probation and therapy" does not constitute meaningful prison reform. Privileging the privileged merely entrenches existing inequities.

Further, this is a man who raped his own child. (Possibly both his children: He also stands accused of sexually abusing his infant son.) He is vanishingly less likely to benefit from treatment than a person convicted of just about any other crime.

This is what constitutes "justice" in the US: A rich white man gets probation for repeatedly raping his daughter, while a poor black woman is facing charges and prison time for leaving her children in a car for less than an hour while she went to a job interview in the hopes of providing for them.

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