Author: TheGuardian

Senator Ron Jonson under fire for pushing tax changes that enriched himself and family interests

Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin who has led the Republican campaign in the Senate of making unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s son Hunter, is facing a host of questions about his own ethics, including whether he personally benefited from a change in tax law that he sought in 2017. A letter sent by Johnson to the Senate ethics committee in May has revealed the senator began the process of selling a company he partly owned in February 2018, just months after he insisted the Trump administration change a portion of the tax law in a way that ultimately...

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The boast of “greatest economy” continues to unravel as Wisconsin suffers from massive job losses

Coarse, cruel, chaotic. Donald Trump has been called a lot of things. Even some of his supporters have had a hard time embracing the darker aspects of his personality. Until recently they have, however, trusted the president on one one vital issue: the economy. But with about two weeks to go until the election, there are clear signs that Trump’s claims to have created the “greatest economy we’ve ever had in the history of our country” are unravelling. Perhaps nowhere is that more worrying for Trump than in Wisconsin. Losing Wisconsin ended Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances in 2016. Famously...

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Conditioned to Fear: How Whites can overcome the generations of hate that they have been taught

“I believe whites are not only “carefully taught” to hate, but they are also carefully conditioned to know the consequences if they don’t. The older that one is, the deeper this conditioning runs, and it’s based in part on a well-founded fear of physical harm.” – Kendra Hamilton, Blacks not only victims of racial discrimination The first song Krista Hinman learned to play on the piano was Dixie, the de facto battle hymn of the Confederate States of America. She learned the minstrel-song-turned-slavery-anthem growing up in Southaven, Mississippi, a predominantly white suburb of Memphis, Tennessee. “Everything I ever did...

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A wake-up call: Milwaukee activists warn Democrats not to take Black voters for granted

The pandemic forced Milwaukee’s 2020 Democratic National Convention to go virtual, but some feel the party abandons the Black communities that get them elected. As protesters outside Wauwatosa’s city hall shouted “wake up, wake up,” to energize the crowd, activist Charley Frazier remarked how just miles away, the Democratic national convention (DNC) had kicked off on what was The People’s Revolution’s 81st night of demonstrations. The coalition of organizers are made up of young activists challenging the current political system and trying to force systemic change. “This is the Milwaukee they don’t want you to see,” she said. “[It’s]...

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A Fatal Fallout: Experts worry that the next phase of COVID-19 crisis may be most dangerous yet

April marked the most dramatic and dangerous phase of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States. Deaths were increasing, bodies were piling up in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals in New York City, and ventilators and personal protective equipment were in desperately short supply. The economy was falling off the proverbial cliff, with unemployment soaring to 14.7%. Since then, supplies of medical and protective equipment have improved. Doctors are figuring out when to put patients on ventilators and when to take them off. We have recognized the importance of protecting vulnerable populations, including the elderly. The infected are now younger...

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The path from Jim Crow to Donald Trump and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

Heather Cox Richardson offers an eloquent history of the negation of the American idea, with clear lessons for the November election. Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America is not principally about that war. Instead, it is a broad sweep of American history on the theme of the struggle between democracy and oligarchy – between the vision that “all men are created equal” and the frequency with which power has accumulated in the hands of a few, who have then sought to thwart equality. What...

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