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Earlier this month, we highlighted apopcorn-worthy story of former DNC workers suing the Democratic Party -- ostensible champions of the little guy -- over sub-minimum wage salaries, and an alleged refusal to offer overtime pay. This story out of Californiamay be even richer. You may have heard that the stateparty'sannual convention was marred bydiscord and vulgarity, with national DNC Chairman Tom "F-Bomb"Perezgetting booedby delegates even before histerrible fundraising numbers came out. One of the most controversial moments of the tumultuous meeting was the narrow election of an establishment Democrat to chair the state party, beating a Bernie-style left-winger. The defeated candidate's supporters were furious, insisting that the outcome was highly suspicious, if not outright fraudulent. And one of theirspecificobjections was absolutely delicious:

People voting in a close election "without proper ID"? Perish the thought. Even California's beleaguered Republican Partycouldn't whiff on this one. Swing and a drive:

I, for one, am disgusted by California progressives' support for "voter suppression" methods such as requiring proper identification to ensure the integrity of an election. Their demandthat only eligible voters be permitted to cast ballots, according to established rules, is an outrage. And quite possibly racist, or something. Because as we've been told, voter frauddoesn't exist. It'sa myth. Conjuredout of thin air by the terrible Republicans. To combat afake problem. Or maybe, when the chips are down and the stakes matter to them, lefties realize that thevast majority of Americans who are in favor of voter ID laws support a common sense measure to safeguard electoral results. By the way, a primary source of acrimony at this week's convention wasfury from grassroots lefties over some elected Democrats'concerns about a proposedsingle-payer healthcare scheme:

Ah, but in case you missed it,there's ateeny tiny problem (among others)with their gloriouscause:

Read the original here:
Tee Hee: California Progressives Allege Voter Fraud in Democratic Party Election, Demand Voter ID - Townhall

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The proposal eliminates a number of programs with the rationale that the programs have been proven to be either ineffective or are duplicated in other areas.

The plan calls for a $1 billion increase for Title 1 for new Furthering Options for Children to Unlock Success (FOCUS) grants that would be awarded to school districts that enhance school choice opportunities.

The budget also seeks a $167 million increase for the Charter Schools Grants program to allow states to launch new charter schools or expand current ones.

Former U.S. Education Secretary under President Barack Obama, John B. King Jr.,said in an interview with establishment education media Education Week that Trumps budget is really an assault on the American Dream.

King criticized the Trump administrations elimination of the Professional Development and 21st Century programs, and the changes in the student loan forgiveness program.

The former secretary said the budget plan is an attack on the very resources students in high-needs communities need to be successful.

The heads of the nations largest teachers unions also weighed in on the proposed budget.

President Trumps budget proposal is manifestly cruel to kids, said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. It is catastrophic to the public schools our most vulnerable and at-risk students attend, while being a windfall for those who want to profit off of kids or make education a commodity rather than a great equalizer and an anchor of democracy.

Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president the National Education Association said Trumps plan is a wrecking ball aimed at our nations public schools.

Their reckless and irresponsible budget would smash the aspirations of students, crush their dreams, and make it difficult for them to go to college and get ahead, she added.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, however, said in a statement that the plan reflects a series of tough choices we have had to make when assessing the best use of taxpayer money.

It ensures funding for programs with proven results for students while taking a hard look at programs that sound nice but simply havent yielded the desired outcomes, she said.

Trumps budget plan would save over $1 billion by eliminating subsidized student loans, and an additional $859 million would be saved by ending student debt forgiveness for those who enter public service.

The administrations budget proposes to streamline student loan repayment by consolidating several income-driven repayment (IDR) plans into one single plan. IDR plans provide student borrowers with the option of making lower monthly payments according to other factors such as income and family size.

The single IDR plan would cap a borrowers monthly payment at 12.5 per- cent of discretionary income, the budget states. For undergraduate borrowers, any balance remaining after 15 years of repayment would be forgiven. For borrowers with any graduate debt, any balance remaining after 30 years of repayment would be forgiven.

The Trump budget would guarantee that all student borrowers who use the IDR pay an equitable share of their income.

The Obama administration allowed even more student borrowers to reduce their monthly student loan payments based on their income.

CNN Money reported in December of last year, however, that Obamas policy could result in twice the costs for the federal government, i.e., taxpayers, as expected:

The program loses money because some participants, over the life of their loans, will pay less than they would under a standard repayment plan.

Its difficult to predict how much the program will cost in the future. But theGovernment Accountability Officeestimates that loans issued between 2009 and 2016, originally projected to cost $25 billion, will cost $53 billion.

Its an expensive program thats bigger than anyone ever told us it would be, said Jason Delisle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

The GAO found that the government will lose $21 for every $100 in student loans issued to someone who takes advantage of an income-driven repayment plan.

According to Time, Natalia Abrams, executive director of advocacy organization Student Debt Crisis, said that over 550,000 borrowers are currently enrolled in the debt forgiveness program.

We need to make it easier for people to go to and pay for college, this budget does the exact opposite, Abrams said, although the Education Department said those students already in the loan forgiveness program would not be affected by the proposed changes.

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was initiated in 2007 with the hope that university graduates would respond to the incentive by accepting government jobs and teaching positions in remote rural areas. The program allows the student borrowers debt to be forgiven after 120 payments, or 10 years.

The Trump education budget also would save $1.2 billion by eliminating the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC), a program that allowed expansion of before- and after-school and summer school programs.

The Budget proposes eliminating the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program given performance data demonstrates that the program is not achieving its goals, and the program has low participant attendance rates, the administration states. Nearly 60 percent of students attended a 21st CCLC center for 30 days or fewer during the 2014-2015 school year.

The proposed education budget would end as well the International Education program, which is designed to improve American education in foreign languages and international studies.

Other Federal Agencies whose primary mission is national security implement similar programs and are better equipped to support the objective of these programs, the budget document states.

The Trump administrations full budget for education for FY 2018 would make some long-overdue cuts at the Department of Education, eyeing reductions in spending totaling $9.2 billion a 13.6 percent cut in the agencys current $68 billion annual budget, said Lindsey Burke, director of Heritages Center for Education Policy.

That type of reduction signals a serious commitment to reducing federal intervention in education a necessary condition to make space for a restoration of state and local control, she added.

See the original post:
Progressives: Trump Education Budget 'Wrecking Ball,' 'Assault on American Dream,' 'Cruel to Kids' - Breitbart News

When Andrea Flynn, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, started work a year ago on a report about the racial and gender barriers holding back women of color in the United States in conjunction with the Ms. Foundation it was a very different political landscape. Its not just that Donald Trump wasnt yet president, but the notion that identity politics was some sort of toxin destroying liberalism had not yet really taken root.

Trumps narrow electoral victories in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, however, spawned apopular new theory amongst the chin-scratching white male liberal set: That identity politics which putanti-racism and feminism at the center of progressive ideology have harmed progressivism and need to be abandoned in favor of a more identity-neutral message based only on economics, in order to appeal to white working-class voters.

In a widely shared New York Timespiece published shortly after Trumps election, Mark Lilla scolded Hillary Clinton for calling out explicitly to African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters at every stop, which he suggested made white men feel left out and resentful. He argued thatliberal discourse about race and gender was somehow preventing people from addressing such perennial questions as class, war, the economy and the common good and suggested that a healthy political framework isnot about difference, it is about commonality.

Lillas views took off in the progressive discourse, particularly among white men who will definitely flip out if you suggest they have self-interested reasons for wanting to minimize the attention given to increased diversity, particularly in progressive leadership. Theyre not claiming that racism and sexism dont exist, proponents will say, just that the ur-struggle that will solve all others is the struggle against capitalism. This recent Jacobin tweet is a good example:

Flynn and her team knew the report, titled Justice Doesnt Trickle Down and released Wednesday morning, had to address this controversy.

The focus [of the report] has always been on women of color, she explained on the phone, but we felt particularly in this political moment, it was really important to call out how some individuals are more vulnerable than others.

Yes, fixing current economic policies will move the needle a bit, she continued, but for women of color, social justice will not be an inevitable byproduct of economic progress.

Racism and sexism, like many other forms of discrimination, have been baked into our social and economic systems and will not simply fall away as a fairer economy emerges, the report reads, adding that the recent calls to abandon identity politics in favor of a race- and gender-neutral approach wouldsimply exacerbate race and gender inequities and injustices.

Anglique Roch, the vice presidentof external affairs for the Ms. Foundation, argued over the phone that acknowledging diversity and the different challenges different people face is ultimately the best way to create a stronger progressive movement.

It has always been true that if we help the least of us, it benefits all of us, she said, pointing out thatits hard to take full advantage of better economic opportunities when we are literally setting the start line for women and people of color so far back that theirmere existence is being criminalized.

If we dont look at the different policies and how theyre targeted, how will we ever get to equity, much less equality?Roch asked.

One major example covered in the report is health care.

Improving economic outcomes alone would not sufficiently address the myriad other rules contributing to the gendered and racialized disparities and inequities that have come to characterize the U.S. health system, Flynn writes.

Dr. Krystal Redman, whose work with SPARK Reproductive Justice Now is highlighted in the report, agreed.

Accessibility to coverage is important, Redman explained over the phone, but noted that racial and gendered barriers to care dont solely go away just because someone has coverage.

There are many providers who have their own ideas of how a patient should be treated based on how they present, Dr. Redman said.

As an example, Dr. Redmanargued that a black woman with four children who goes to the gynecologist is more likelyto get pushed into a long-acting form of contraception than a similarly situated white woman, who is more likely to have a chance to engage in dialogue with a doctor about whether or not she wants any more children.

Another huge example of the limits of an economic-only framework is the way that law enforcement treats white people differently than black and brown people.Just this week, Redman said, she had personal experience with that. Her husband,a dark-skinned black man, tall, dreads, everything like that, was pulled over, she said, because the cop said he was following too closely behind another vehicle.

We cant overcome those small heart-flashes of, Oh God, am I going to be safe?' when things like that happen, she said, and thats why we need to center race in the progressive movement.

Flynn agreed, noting that theres an economic angle to the way that people of color tend to be over-policed and funneled into the criminal justice system more than white people.

Even if people of color are able to have higher wages or better economic opportunities, Flynn argued, the fines and fees and experiences associated with the criminal justice system really serve as a wealth-stripping mechanism that is really sucking resources out of those communities.

In 2015, the Department of Justice highlighted this issue in its report on the police in Ferguson, Missouri. Law enforcement in the area clearly sawticketing black citizens for every little thing as a handy source of revenue. Accumulating wealth is hard when a white-run police force is treating your savings like apiggy bank.

ForRoch, the election of Trump and the formation of the resistance against him makes it even more important to put women of color and their experiences at the center of the progressive movement.

We have been fighting for freedom for several centuries now, she said, not without a note of humor.

The recent resurgence of the organized labor movement,Roch added, is one example of how the perspectives and insight gained byemphasizing identity politics and putting women of color in leadership roles can help progressives. Traditionally, labor has been seen as a movement of white men in manufacturing jobs, but these days, the movement is growing because of service workers who are disproportionately women of color. That changes the shape of the labor movement, but also makes it stronger and more forward-looking,Roch suggested.

The fight were fighting now, under the new administration, isnt new for these women, she added. They have been fighting in Mississippi, in Albuquerque and Miami and Tennessee and Kentucky, for years.

Roch believes in people coming together, but argues that simply wont work if they have to leave their identities and unique experiences behind them. Those experiences are what motivates us to be passionate, she said. The things that impact us are what motivate us to fight together.

Read this article:
Should progressives abandon identity politics? No new report suggests women of color should lead the movement - Salon

Whew! For once, one of my predictions was correct: Donald Trump had a great visit to Saudi Arabia. It was a great visit for him, it was a great visit for the Saudis and the other Arab Gulf states, andlast but not leastit was a great visit for magical, glowing orbs.

I want to spend a little time talking about one of the reasons why the trip went so well. Ill warn you: This is a somewhat taboo subject for progressive foreign-policy types. The subject, friends, is arms sales. Progressives dont like arms sales very much, but they need to pay attention to them, because theyre one big way Republicans are fighting forand winningthe votes of working-class Americans who have traditionally voted for Democrats.

While the president was in Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration announced $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabiawith an additional $240 billion committed over a 10-year period. If youve ever worked in government, you know this is what is called a deliverable, the clunky management-consultantese term for a tangible outcome of a visit or meeting. When Donald Trump is asked to justify his trip to Saudi Arabia, hell cite that $110 billion in arms sales.

There are a few interesting things about these sales. The first is that many of these sales were already in the works. The Obama administration spent eight years quietly selling a lot of arms to Saudi Arabia: When President Obama left office, for example, the United States still had $100 billion in the foreign military sales pipeline with Saudi Arabia and, in 2011, had inked what was previously the largest arms sale in U.S. history with the Kingdoma $29 billion deal to sell F-15s to the Saudis.

The 18 Independent Agencies Trump Wants to Eliminate

Obama-era sales to Saudi Arabia were in keeping with sales to other Gulf states: Both Qatar and the United Arab Emirates bought a tremendous amount of U.S. arms between 2009 and 2017. Qatar bought more U.S. arms than any other state in 2014 and, in the waning days of the Obama administration, announced that it would buy nearly $4 billion in Boeing-made F-15s in addition to $19 billion in commercial aircraft, also from Boeing.

Overall, the Arab Gulf states went on a spending spree during the Obama years, and most of the money was spent on American arms.

So why didnt you hear a lot about this from Democratic politicians during the 2016 election season? There are two main reasonsone strategic and one moral.

Strategically, not everyone is convinced that arming the Arab Gulf states to the teeth is a wise idea. Some worry that these arms might someday endanger Israels security, while others worry the Arab Gulf states might be encouraged to use their new toys on disastrous military interventions against Iran or Iranian proxies in, say, Yemen.

The quick and unsatisfying answer to these concerns is the global market. The Arab Gulf states have money, and that money will buy the weapons that are available. If U.S. arms are not for sale, fine: French, Chinese, or Russian arms will be. (And if you dont believe me, look at the way in which Gulf statesfrustrated by U.S. export controls on drone technologyare turning to the Chinese.) Selling U.S. arms to the Gulf states, by contrast, further ties them to U.S. interests by deepening cooperation and interoperability between the U.S. military and its Gulf partners. One of the reasons Qatar wanted to buy U.S. fighters to partially replace its French-made fleet, for example, was because they discovered how difficult it was for their existing fighter aircraft to fly with the U.S. air force as part of coalitions over Libya and Syria.

Arms sales also drive down the cost of our own weapons and thus the amount of money U.S. tax-payers have to spend on defense instead of other priorities like, say, the State Department, school lunches, or housing subsidies. Heres one example: Because the United States is buying fewer F-35s than originally planned and using more of its fourth generation fighters (F-15s, F-16s, etc.) in the skies over Iraq and Syria than previously anticipated, the Department of Defense will likely need to buy more of those fourth generation fighters in the coming years. The recent sales of F-15s to Qatar, F-18s to Kuwait, and F-16s to Bahrain will drive down the cost per plane for the Pentagon. Thats a good thingat least financially.

Morally, though, many progressives just grow ill at the idea of selling weapons abroad. Senator Chris Murphy, for exampleone of the more eloquent and consistent critics of U.S. arms sales in the Senate, even though his own state has a very robust defense industrial basesees nothing admirable about the idea of selling weapons to the Saudis that might be used in Yemen. Other progressives agree: Yes, they argue, we understand the demand of the market will be met by someone, but do we have to be complicit in providing the supply? In other countries, progressives have even taken to the courts in an effort to halt sales.

I have a lot of respect for these progressives and their values. I spent too much time in Sunday School as a kid to not feel a little uneasy about the business of selling weapons. And the angst many progressives feel about U.S. arms sales has been enough to keep many Democrats from talking up their successes in helping U.S. industry abroad. I wonder, though, if there isnt a real political cost to not doing so.

Boeing employs 157,000 peoplealmost all of them in the United States. 14,500 people work in Boeings facilities in Missouri, where the F-15 and F-18 are made, where Senator Claire McCaskill is up for reelection next year, and where Donald Trump trounced Hillary Clinton 56 to 38 percent in 2016. (Those 14,500 people do not include the many thousands of other Americans who make parts for the F-15 and F-18 elsewhere in America.)

Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, a huge winner in the recent arms deal with Saudi Arabia (despite ace businessman Jared Kushner negotiating the price down on behalf of the Saudis), employs an additional 97,000 workersagain, most of them in the United States. And Raytheon, another big winner last week, employs another 60,000 or so Americans.

Donald Trump obviously has no moral qualms about selling weapons to our partners and allies abroad. And so while Democrats leave points on the board with working-class voters by not talking about how much Democrats do to support U.S. industry, Republicans swoop in to take credit with assembly line workers for even those things that Obama approved and set in motion.

The way in which Trump brags about U.S. arms sales, of course, is in keeping with the strain of economic mercantilism that ran through his populist campaign message. That message worked with voters throughout the Midwest, helping to cost Clinton the election. So while progressives might have moral qualms about companies that sell weapons, the roughly 1.2 million American voters who work in the aerospace and defense sectortogether with the roughly 3.2 million Americans who support the sector indirectlysee little wrong with the sales that help ensure their livelihoods and provide a future for their children.

This might be another area in which progressive eliteswho have the kinds of education and skills that dont require them to seek work on the assembly lineare simply out of touch with the voters they need to win back control of the Congress and state assemblies, never mind the presidency. And politics aside, surely even the moral calculus of arms sales gets more complicated when you think about the millions of American mouths that are fed by mothers and fathers who work in the aerospace and defense sector.

Donald Trump, for his part, is speaking to those voters. And even as progressives fret about U.S. arms sales, they should also fret about what it will mean for the rest of their agenda when Republicans claim credit for protecting some of the last good assembly-line jobs in America.

Read more:
What Progressives Miss About Arms Sales - The Atlantic

A member of queer punk rock duo PWR BTTM was recently accused of sexual assault, news that has taken the music industry by surprise.On May 11 a person claiming to be part of Chicagos DIY scene and queer community wrote on Facebook that musician Ben Hopkins is a known sexual predator and perpetrator of multiple assaults. A band that was booked to tour with PWR BTTM tweeted they had been forewarned about Hopkins predatory behavior and Jezebel posted an anonymous interview with a woman who says she was sexually assaulted by the rock star.

The fallout was swift:PWR BTTM, which has recently garnered critical acclaim from The New York Times and just released a sophomore album, was dropped by their management as well as their label, which pulled the bands music from all streaming services.

The allegations have shocked fans, many of whom idolize PWR BTTM for being one of the few gender fluid role models in a heteronormative music industry. The band is part of the queercore movement, a small subculture of punk that eschews aggressive masculinity, and writes songs such asI Wanna Boi, and Sissy. The gender-neutral Hopkins, who wears thrift store dresses onstage and a face smeared with glittery makeup, has become a queer icon and thebands shows are known as safe spaces the musicians demand every venue have gender-neutral bathrooms, and in November gave audience members access to a back entrance when homophobic protestors showed up outside a concert.

But given the complexity of many sexual assault cases, these allegations should not be surprising. They should instead serve as an important reminder that abusers can also come in progressive packages.

Theres a societal tendency to think sexual violence predators fit one, misogynistic mold. That they are the type of people who anchor right-wing talk shows, leer at women on the street or brag about grabbing genitals. This limited definition makes the threat of sexual assault feel contained rather than omnipresent. The reality is that progressive politics dont preclude non-consensual sex.

When a queer person with enlightened gender values is accused of sexual assault it creates cognitive dissonance. Nobody expects a musician who champions safe spaces especially one who isnt a heterosexual man to face allegations of sexual assault. But you know what else we didnt expect? That Americas dads favorite pastime was allegedly drugging and raping women. There is no one-size-fits-all model of an abuser.

There are countless examples of people whose liberal values or artistic jobs have helped distract from their alleged criminal behavior. Bill Clinton, who signed the Violence Against Women Act, secured family leave, and lobbied for sexual orientation to be included in hate crime law, has been accused by three women of sexual misconduct and has infamously used his power to get sexual favors. Canadas Jian Ghomeshi used his high-profile status as a progressive radio host and renaissance man to allegedly sexually abuse 15 women (the court acquitted him of four charges). And lets not forget thelong list of celebrities, including Casey Affleck, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Nate Parker, whose artistic work is at seemingly odds with the accusations or charges of sexual violence against them. (To be fair, the problem isnt only with men. The female self-proclaimed feminist founder of Thinx underwear was recently accused of sexual harassment by current and former employees.)

We all likely know someone who waxes poetic about gender equality during the day and becomes a total creeper in dark bars. In the worst cases, perpetrators explicitly use their liberal ideals as bait. The term macktivistm refers to men who espouse progressive politics to lure in female victims. A Jezebel article describes one man who was fluent with womens issues such as body-image politics, female silencing and, most chillingly, consent, whom 20 women have accused of sexual assault and harassment.

Liberal values can also become a shield to help perpetrators defend themselves against allegations. Hopkins, who goes by the gender-neutral pronoun they, used progressive gender ideals to bolster their innocence in a statementreleasedThursday. Though they denied the allegations, they wrote: I am firmly committed to consent, to communication, and to mutual expression of sexual interest...I believe it is my responsibility to be accountable to this individuals perspective and to honor it accordingly. While theres no doubt PWR BTTMs values have improved the lives of many queer fans, these enlightened politics come across as hollow and manipulative when used to deny accusations of sexual assault.

While the PWR BTTM allegations will likely never be tried in court, they follow a well-known pattern: Theres a prominent figure within a community whose sexual abuse certain members claim is well-known.Eventually someone posts a blog or a tweet about the persons behavior, which seemingly permits others to share corroborative experiences. This phenomenon recently occurred with an editor who ended his public writing career after a womans blog post about his behavior led to multiple sexual assault accusations and with a music publicist who resigned after a woman tweeted an allegation of sexual harassment that prompted many other similar stories.

While these accusations are incredibly painful for PWR BTTM fans, they are a good reminder that sexual assault perpetrators dont fit into neat categories. Sometimes, they are the aggressive men who grab women at bars and yell sexist slurs. But they can also be queer role models who sing about progressive gender messages while covered in sparkles.

More here:
Progressives Can Be Sexual Predators, Too | HuffPost - HuffPost