Stephan: Because he is a White supremacist racist to the bone, Trump does not understand that immigrants are essential to America's wellbeing. Neither he nor is factotum Stephen Miller have a clue, I don't think that, as a recent American economy study found immigrants and the children of immigrants founded 45 percent of U.S. Fortune 500 companies, Nor do they realize that rural hospitals are collapsing because they can not get the staff -- immigrant doctors and nurses -- that normally fill their ranks. I have five doctors, and not a one of them is a Caucasian. And farmers are going bankrupt because they cannot get the immigrant workers who harvest the food they feeds you and your family. America is a nation of immigrants; the Whites alone are not enough to make the economy work.
The immigrant medical personnel who keep you and your family healthy
America’s cities are facing a historic shortage of two vital resources: money and immigrants.
Why it matters: Cities drive American economic growth, and immigrants drive cities. The coronavirus pandemic has effectively stanched the main source of talent that municipal economies have long relied upon.
The big picture: As Axios’ Stef Kight reports, COVID-19 has slammed the door on highly skilled foreign workers — and the restrictions and bottlenecks may outlast the pandemic, especially if President Trump wins reelection. Economists warn that could slow the U.S. recovery and reduce competitiveness.
By the numbers: The U.S. issued more than 61,000 skilled visas in January. That number fell to just 494 in April and remained very low through July. Don’t expect the numbers to pick up meaningfully anytime soon.
New York alone has some 3.1 million immigrants, who fill 45% of the city’s jobs, according to the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs. But that population was declining even pre-pandemic. Tougher immigration restrictions caused a decline of 75,000 immigrant residents in 2018.
Stephan: Here is another aspect -- civic bonds -- that are being affected by sea rise.
Florida, Miami, Aerial view of beach restoration to fight climate change. Credit: Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty
As if COVID-19 had not affected states’ and municipalities’ finances adversely enough, numerous states and municipalities and investors in their bonds, also need to worry about the economic impact of rising sea levels. According to a Moody’s MCO-0.7% Investors Services report released yesterday afternoon, “More frequent and severe flooding from high tides and storm surges from major weather events threaten coastal economies, property values and critical infrastructure.” According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the last two decades, the Atlantic and Gulf coasts experiences anywhere from 100-150% increase in annual days of high-tide flooding.
Flooding during high tide will increase for decades to come. GRAPH BY MOODY’S INVESTORS SERVICES
Four Twenty Seven, a Moody’s affiliate that provides data and market intelligence related to physical climate and environmental, risks estimates that by 2040, increased sea level rise will significantly affect every coastal state, the […]
Stephan: These large gatherings of heavily armed White militias in public spaces have produced a complex of reactions. First, it has revealed that the police to a large percentage seem to support White militias. Second, the police seem to be afraid of these groups because they can shoot back. Third, they show just how close we are to Rightwing civil violence. Here is a report from Michigan.
Seven year old with her toy assault rifle, accompanied by her White militia father, on the plaza in front of the Michigan capitol. Credit: Dale Young
LANSING — Michigan militia members say they are trying to take their movement mainstream, fashioning themselves as a private security force willing to defend against protests over racial injustice and police brutality that have turned violent in some parts of the state and country.
Dozens of armed members from various militias, most of them white, descended on the Michigan Capitol Thursday, mingling with other fringe groups like Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boys at an annual Second Amendment rally. Their public show of force would have been rare two decades ago, when militias largely operated in secrecy after two men with ties to the early Michigan movement bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City.
“Militias are finally starting to realize that we have an important role in the public eye,” said Phil Robinson, a Barry County resident and co-founder of the Michigan Liberty Militia. “The time is not to hide in the shadows. The […]
Stephan: America is on a knife edge of civil violence made all the worse because Trump is urging the police to kill more people. There is no argument about this, the proof is all in his own words.
Discussing the recent police killing of a self-described anti-fascist suspected of fatally shooting a far-right activist in Portland, Oregon, President Donald Trump openly endorsed extrajudicial executions in a Fox News interview Saturday, declaring that “there has to be retribution.”
“I put out, ‘When are you going to go get him?’ And the U.S. Marshals went in to get him,” the president told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, referring to Michael Forest Reinoehl. “This guy was a violent criminal, and the U.S. Marshals killed him. And I’ll tell you something—that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.”
Trump’s comments came days after an ordained minister who lives in an apartment complex near where Reinoehl was shot and killed by members of a law enforcement task force earlier this month in Lacey, Washington said it was not at all clear that Reinoehl was armed when police gunned him down.Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
As the Washington Postreported, the witness alleges that “Reinoehl was clutching a cellphone and […]
Sam Stein Asawin Suebsaeng Sam Brodey Jackie Kucinich, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: Mitch McConnell is a man devoid of integrity. He is a true orc. Yet the people of Kentucky don't seem to care that he has no honor only a lust for power, and at this moment they look like they will vote him back into office for another term. Because he lacks integrity or honor he will, as he says, try to ram through another unqualified Republican to sit on the Supreme Court, and if he is successful we will all have to live with that court for decades.
Mitch MConnell, a man lacking in basic integrity
On Feb. 13, 2016, then-Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead in a ranch bedroom in Texas. It was 268 days before the November election and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was quick to quip that there would not be a replacement until the next president was chosen.
On Friday evening, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died of complications from cancer 46 days before the presidential election. But McConnell has already made it clear that he sees no reason to wait for voters to weigh in on who should pick her replacement. The Kentucky Republican declared just hours after the death was announced: “President Donald Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”
McConnell’s monomaniacal focus on filling the courts with young conservatives will be tested in the next few months by a variety of factors. But the main one will be whether four Senate Republicans will prove unwilling to go along with confirming a replacement for Ginsburg after their party […]
