Tax cuts as a route to cutting Social Security

Pseudo-religions – GOP right wing – are alike in deluding themselves that they are caring folks and not vultures feeding on those with less buying power than them.

Systemic Disorder

Conservatives are fond of saying that if you give a man a fish you can feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish you can feed him for a lifetime. This is supposed to tell us that social benefits, such as government programs, are bad for people. A much better example of conservative thought would be to say if I put a fence at the entrance to the pier and don’t let anyone else have access to the water, I can have all the fish for myself.

Let those peasants starve! Such a privatization of fish isn’t distant from the actual mechanics of class warfare as it is practiced, unfortunately.

Take the latest salvo in the ongoing class warfare, United States edition, the coming assault on Social Security. Curious as to why the Republican Party’s mania for balanced budgets suddenly vanished? I mean, besides the…

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Fewer family visas approved as Trump toughens vetting of immigrants: Reuters review

Fool on the hill is the chief threat to national security… NEW YORK (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is ramping up calls on the U.S. Congress to stop legal immigrants from sponsoring extended family members who want to move to the United States, saying so-called “chain migration” poses a threat to national security.

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Israel banned call to prayer in Ibrahimi Mosque hundreds of times in 2017

racism runs deep

PNN/ Hebron/
The Israeli occupation authorities banned the Muslim call to prayer in Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron hundreds of times last year, the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Endowments revealed on Monday. At least 645 occasions were documented when the call was banned, with 53 occasions in December alone.

“This is a violation of Muslims’ freedom to practice their faith,” the ministry pointed out, “as well as a violation of an Islamic holy site.”

Religious Endowment Minister Yousef Idrees warned of the dangers of the increasing Israeli violations against the religious and heritage sites in the Palestinian city of Hebron. “Such measures,” he added, “are intended to take control of Palestinian and Islamic property and pave the way for illegal Israeli settlers to carry out their aggression against the city and its inhabitants.” Israel claims that the call to prayer “annoys” the Jewish settlers.

Muslims have to go through an exhaustive search and series of military checkpoints in order to enter Al-Ibrahimi Mosque for prayers. Commentators point out that this is ironic, given that it was a Jewish settler who entered the mosque in February 1994 and shot 29 Palestinian Muslims while they were at prayer.

“He used his Israeli army-issue rifle to carry out these murders,” explained MEMO’s Ibrahim Hewitt. “After this, the Israelis divided the mosque between Muslims and Jews. Settlers have access to the whole building during Jewish holidays.” The world is silent about such injustice, he added.

Source: Quds Press International News Agency

Translated by: Middle East Monitor

In collaboration with the Palestinian Media Forum

Matter: In the Bones of a Buried Child, Signs of a Massive Human Migration to the Americas

The desire to confirm long held beliefs of one route migration to Americas leads to delusion that two bodies confirms theory. Never mind histories tha tell of many routes and earlier migration than some scientists want to believe or investigate. Genetic analysis of an 11,500-year-old skeleton discovered in Alaska suggests that North America was settled by a previously unknown people who originated in Siberia.

Jeremy Hunt defends decision to postpone non-urgent NHS surgery

Fool on the hill

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Health secretary apologises to people whose operations have been cancelled but says approach is planned and methodical

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has defended plans to postpone non-urgent surgery until the end of the month, amid growing criticism of the government’s response to the NHS winter crisis.

Hunt said the decision was made to allow “a planned, methodical, thoughtful” approach. He also apologised to patients who had faced upheaval, saying: “It’s absolutely not what I want.”

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Category 4 “Economic Hurricane” Hits Puerto Rico

Economic racism against Puerto Rica again!

It’s been over 100 days since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, and now in the midst of disaster relief efforts, the island is confronted by the impact of the new tax bill passed by the GOP last month. Congressmember Nydia Velazquez calls it an “economic hurricane” because it screws over a slowly recovering Puerto Rico. 

The bill taxes 12.5% on any income created by patents and licenses from foreign companies outside of the United States. Even though Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and its residents are U.S. citizens, Puerto Rico is often treated as a foreign territory when it is convenient for the U.S. – and the tax bill is no exception.

Now companies in Puerto Rico are confronted with a decision to begin paying this tax or move their business elsewhere. Given multinational corporations’ general aversion to paying taxes, and the fact that Puerto Rico’s infrastructure was decimated in the hurricane, it’s likely that the island will lose thousands of jobs, throwing the population into even deeper poverty. Without medical supply manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, two of the largest employers on the island,  over 200,000 Puerto Ricans will become unemployed, increasing the 10.6% unemployment rate, which already is more than double the U.S. average.

Even before Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico was grappling with a $70 billion debt, and Puerto Ricans were leaving the island to seek employment and shelter elsewhere. Gretchen Velez, who was a college student and had never left Puerto Rico prior to the hurricane, is now one of 22 new workers at Dakota Provisions and earns $10 an hour deboning turkey in frigid South Dakota. Many low-wage factories in the U.S. are recruiting on the island, covering the cost of flights until workers can pay them back from their low-salary jobs. U.S.- based companies are capitalizing on the urgency of unemployment while Puerto Rican lives are in the hands of the U.S. government.

As feminists and activists, we know that increased unemployment and poverty exacerbated by climate disasters disproportionately impacts women. Before Hurricane Maria, 43.5% of Puerto Ricans were living in poverty. In Puerto Rico, as in many Latin American and Caribbean countries, low-income women are often employed in low-wage caregiving positions through the informal economy, without benefits or workers’ protections. Now dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane and the impending impact of the tax bill, migration to the island is likely to become increasingly feminized as women make up an even larger proportion of migrants seeking jobs on the mainland.

Puerto Ricans deserve more than what the U.S. government and corporate America is providing them. This economic impasse means that Puerto Ricans will likely continue relocating as climate refugees to the U.S. mainland, accepting low-wage jobs and poor living conditions and leaving the Puerto Rican economy to fall to pieces. Congress claims there will be a comprehensive relief package introduced in 2018, but given how slow recovery efforts have been, I am doubtful that full recovery will happen soon.

Header image credit: Ricardo Arduengo/ AFP / Getty Images

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