Immigrant medical staff in a rural American hospital
Credit: Getty

Fueled by white nationalist arguments and a need to placate a racist base, Donald Trump and his team have repeatedly pushed for sharp new restrictions on legal immigration to this country.

Add America’s already-strained healthcare systems to the list of potential crises-in-waiting if Trump’s advisers get their way. Because immigrants make up a very significant portion of our healthcare workers.

The study finds more than one-fourth of direct care workers and 30.3 percent of nursing home housekeeping and maintenance workers are immigrants, underscoring their key role as the U.S. population ages. They make up 18.2 percent of the total health-care workforce at more than 3 million people.

What’s the plan to replace those workers? There isn’t one. It’ll just (waving hands) be fine, somehow. Luckily it’s not bloody likely Trump will get his way on harsh limits to legal immigration; when Republicans held the House and Senate both, they conspicuously ignored the White House’s most radical demands. But that doesn’t mean he won’t ramp up […]

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A Christian publisher isn’t backing down from criticism over its vacation Bible school curriculum that asks students to role play as slaves and teaches that African people are “wild.”

The Group company published the learning materials called “Roar” this year, taking students on an “epic African adventure” — but many church leaders who’ve used it say the curriculum is filled with racial and cultural stereotypes, reported the Friend Atheist blog.

They complained about a role-playing exercise where some students pretended to be “hopeless” slaves while one of them played a “mean Egyptian guard” who unspooled a litany of demeaning comments to teach how “unfair” life was for the enslaved Israelites.

Students are also shown video of Maasai warriors jumping up and down, and are asked to imitate them so “their feet make the sound of a crazy stampede,” and they learn to produce clicks with their tongues to imitate African dialects.

The curriculum contains misspellings and refers to Africa as a country.

“You’ve been able to see some of the people in Africa and the amazingly wild things they do!” the material […]

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Democratic Washington state governor Jay Inslee

Nothing about the Democratic National Committee’s approach to organizing debates featuring the several dozen contenders for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination inspires confidence. But something about the party’s approach should inspire fury.

The DNC is refusing to organize a debate on climate change, and it is clinging to rules that could effectively block candidates from participating in independent debates on the issue.

This is morally wrong and practically foolish.

Most of the candidates acknowledge that, as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders says, climate change represents “an existential crisis that impacts not just you and me and our generation but our kids and our grandchildren, and we must accept the moral responsibility of leaving these kids, future generations, a planet that is healthy and habitable.” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren says, “When it comes to climate change, our very existence is at stake. But Washington refuses to lift a finger without permission from the fossil fuel companies. That’s dangerous and it’s wrong!” Washington Governor Jay Inslee has staked his nomination bid on […]

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Villagers on the island of Abaiang had to relocate their village, Tebunginako, because of rising seas and erosion.
Credit: Justin Mcmanus/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty

Anote Tong can remember when Tebunginako, on the central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, was a thriving village.

But beginning in the 1970s, the tide started inching closer to the houses in the village. Over the years, as strong winds whipped up monster waves and climate change caused sea levels to rise, water inundated the island, overwhelming a seawall that had been built to protect the community.

Barely anything remains of the village today.

“It’s no longer there,” Tong said. “What we do have is a church sitting in the middle of the sea when the tide comes in.”

Tong served as president of Kiribati, a country made up of 32 atolls, from 2003 to 2016. Over that time, he watched as erosion damaged food crops, seawater flooded freshwater ponds and residents were forced to retreat.

He has become outspoken in describing the “existential threat from […]

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