Resist

 

I hope this is true

 

The way to a better future may be starting

New Mexico could become the second state to implement a statewide universal basic income program.

The city of Santa Fe is testing out universal basic income, or guaranteed monthly payments, for 100 parents under the age of 30 who attend Santa Fe Community College. They'll get $400 monthly payments, also known as a "stability stipend," for a year, and if that local pilot program goes well, lawmakers are considering moving forward with a similar statewide proposal.

[...]

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber, who testified at the hearing, expressed support for guaranteed monthly payments, saying that they are "exactly what we need to break the cycle of poverty."

[...]

A growing number of cities are testing out universal basic income for targeted groups of residents. For example, upstate New York is testing out a one year program giving 100 residents $500 monthly payments for a year, with Chicago, Boston, St. Paul and others having implemented similar programs.

Last month, California approved the nation's first statewide guaranteed income program, giving up to $1,000 monthly checks prioritized to pregnant people and those aging out of the foster care system.

  Business Insider

The percentage of American families with kids who report not having enough to eat fell dramatically after the first child tax credit payments were distributed last month, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The government’s finding shows that the monthly payments are having a major and immediate impact on millions of households, potentially bolstering President Joe Biden’s push to extend the tax credit past the end of this year, when it is set to expire.

[...]

Before the first tranche of tax credit payments hit bank accounts in mid-July, about 11 percent of households with children reported that they sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the past week. After the money went out, the rate dropped to just over 8 percent — a decrease of nearly 24 percent — and the lowest rate recorded since the beginning of the pandemic.

  Politico

Covid-10 response

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Never forget: The Great Boston Molasses Disaster

source

Gates cancels his Boston trip

Former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday afternoon that he and his wife believe it's "not prudent" for them to take their four children on a trip to Boston, after feeling threatened by an online commenter who invoked the Russian mafia.

[...]

One Globe reader posted two comments referencing possible violence against Gates in response to an online Boston Globe story published February 26 and titled "Following guilty plea in Mueller probe, Rick Gates plans to visit Boston." The comments suggested Russians living in Boston could be angry with Gates, if Mueller targeted them in his probe.

  CNN

Hmmmmmm. I wonder why Russian mafiosos in Boston would think Mueller would target them after talking to Gates.

Mission Accomplished, Boston

LOL LOL LOL

Dear god. He's like any addict. Off and on the wagon over and over and over.

An hour after his heartfelt post, somebody called him up and said, "Get your ass back on that twitter machine and say something good about the antifa."  At least, that's what I imagine.

He's like a smart person. An academic. LOL.

Of course, he didn't delete the "heel" tweet, so maybe that's exactly what he means.

Tweeting scared again.  Icahn dumped him.  And Bannon isn't in the thunder room.

What a maroon.

If the Fake News doesn't praise him for these fake Dr. Jekyll tweets, though, he'll be back to Mr. Hyde.

Awesome work, Boston.

How'd That Boston "Free Speech" White Supremacist Rally Go?

Only a handful of rally-goers, some wearing red "Make America Great Again" Trump caps, appeared to navigate their way through waves of marchers pouring into the Boston Common area, where the "Boston Free Speech" was planned.

Some media reports said only two dozen people actually attended the rally that had sparked the counter protest in the first place.

[...]

At 1:30 p.m., about 90 minutes after the rally had been set to begin, the Boston Police Department tweeted that the "Free Speech" rally was "officially over" and the demonstrators had left the Common.

By noon, Boston police said at least 15,000 counterprotesters were peacefully marching toward the park where the rally area was blocked off by a ring of metal barriers.

Thousands more descended on the area over the next hour.

[...]

One video posted by Boston.com showed a man in a tee-shirt and wearing a red "Make America Great Again" Trump cap was surrounded by protesters and immobilized for several minutes until the crowd dissolved.

TV cameras showed a group of boisterous counterprotesters on the Common chasing a man with a Trump campaign banner and cap, shouting and swearing at him. But other counterprotesters intervened and helped the man safely over a fence into the area where the conservative rally was to be staged.

  MSN

So, it went well, then.

I wonder if the other eight or nine rallies scheduled this weekend went as well.

Fifteen thousand.

Maybe much bigger.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

500 Years of Distortion Fixed in Boston

When Boston public schools introduced a new standard map of the world this week, some young students’ felt their jaws drop. In an instant, their view of the world had changed.

The USA was small. Europe too had suddenly shrunk. Africa and South America appeared narrower but also much larger than usual. And what had happened to Alaska?

[...]

It is an “equal-area” map, distorting the shape of countries as a two-dimensional visualization of a three-dimensional globe but accurately scaling surface areas.

[...]

Individual schools in the US have used the Peters maps, Scott said, adding: “We believe we are the first public school district in the US to do this.”

[...]

“This is the start of a three-year effort to decolonize the curriculum in our public schools,” said Colin Rose, assistant superintendent of opportunity and achievement gaps for Boston public schools.

The district has 125 schools and 57,000 students, 86% of whom are non-white, with the largest groups being Latino and black. After changing the maps, Rose said, educators plan to look at other subjects and shift away from presenting white history as the dominant perspective.

[...]

 The decision, he said, was made internally and not put to public consultation.

  Guardian

Expect Westboro Baptists in your neighborhood.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

I should like to see an atlas based not on land mass, but on military funding. We'll be giants.

Coincidence or Psychic Phenomenon?

Mason Wells, 19, was injured with Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20, fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when two bombs exploded in Zaventem airport on Tuesday morning.

[...]

Wells “has burns to his hands and legs and some to his face,” Lloyd Coleman told the paper. “Most of the damage is around his foot and ankle. A heel took the most damage, and the doctors are repairing it, but the family doesn’t know how bad the injury is.”

[...]

In a strange twist of fate Wells, from Utah, had a similarly close call three years ago while in Boston accompanying his mother who was running the marathon.

[...]

NBC News, quoting Wells’s family, said he was also in Paris, although in a different part of the city, in November when the French capital was rocked by a series of attacks.

“This is his third terrorist attack,” his father Chad Wells told ABC News.

  Guardian

I'm not sure you want to admit that. Especially in those words. Expect a visit from the feds.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Je Suis Charlie, Boston?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Boston Bombing

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused in Boston Marathon bombing, who was found hiding in a boat days after the blasts, left a handwritten message describing the attack as retribution for US wars in Muslim countries, an American news channel has reported.

The CBS News report on Thursday cited anonymous sources and said that Tsarnaev used a pen to write the message on an interior wall of the boat, where police found him bleeding from gunshot wounds four days after the April 15 bombing.

The note summed up with the idea that "when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims," CBS News reported.

  alJazeera

Do you wonder why they are just now giving us this information? Surely that boat was searched immediately upon the boy’s capture.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Dial Back the Crazy

The liberal Boston Globe Editorial Page denounced [...] Boston Mayor Thomas Menino['s declaration to prevent Chick-Fil-A from doing business in that city] and wrote: “which part of the First Amendment does Menino not understand? A business owner’s political or religious beliefs should not be a test for the worthiness of his or her application for a business license. . . . History will render judgment on the views of Chick-fil-A executives. City Hall doesn’t have to.”

That’s so basic that it’s just astounding that anyone, let alone Mayors of big cities, need to be told this. Then again, the reason the prohibition was put in the First Amendment — and the reason it’s so often violated — is precisely because every petty tyrant, by definition, has the temptation to abuse his power to punish those with views he dislikes.
  Glenn Greenwald

Another petty tyrant following Menino? Rahm Emanuel of Chicago.

”The anti-gay views openly espoused by the president of a fast food chain specializing in chicken sandwiches have run afoul of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a local alderman, who are determined to block Chick-fil-A from expanding in Chicago. “

Perhaps Rahm Emanuel is motivated by beneficent ends, or maybe he’s motivated by political considerations and a love of his own power, but either way, abusing his power to punish views he dislikes is at least as offensive as — and definitely more dangerous than — the targeted views themselves.

[...]

I’m happy to observe that most liberal commentators opining on this topic are condemning Emanuel, and for exactly the right reasons; see, e.g., Kevin Drum, Adam Serwer, Scott Lemieux, Digby, Richard Kim, John Cole, and Atrios. The true test of a belief in free speech is whether you defend that right not when views you like are being punished — then it’s easy to object — but when views you intensely dislike are being punished.

[...]

UPDATE: The uproar over all of this today seems to have produced some positive movement. In Boston, Mayor Menino now acknowledges that his planned actions would violate the rights of the restaurant chain, and thus “backed away from a threat to actively block the fast-food chain from setting up shop in the city,” saying: “I make mistakes all the time. That’s a Menino-ism.”