BarryLaverty

All of that was wrong. But, thanks for sharing.

I think the two couldn't spell CAT given the C and the T. That you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a boat. Full grown and half developed is very tragic, yet comical. Thanks for the chuckles!

RIF, Sparky. Try it, maybe. That was a very easy to see difference in what we said.

You think that this journalist is that guy????? Oh my gosh, you are goofy in your zeal!

And here you are, Savior of all White People saying that. Who drilled that anti DEI drivel into you? Who didn't pick you at kickball because you were White?

If you really believe that, you are much more delusional than I would have ever imagined. You are generally more clued in than that.

I KNOW I was, compared to many out there of different races and different socioeconomic backgrounds, even though my family would never be considered upper class.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/guess-where-marjorie-taylor-greene-205131841.html Right there in the story, Grampy! You not have your spectacles with you?

FACTS, as the kids say. I'm positive this will get attacked, but maybe that's okay. Some good insight about class struggle beyond the broader point. https://www.yahoo.com/news/white-author-calculated-just-much-161024604.html A White author calculated just how much racism has benefited her. Here’s what she found Harmeet Kaur, CNN Mon, April 22, 2024 at 11:10 AM CDT·13 min read 691 Exactly how much has racism benefited White Americans? Journalist and author Tracie McMillan did the math: The advantages she’s gotten over her life from being White, she estimates, amount to $371,934.30. To calculate that number, McMillan tallied those benefits and divided them into two categories: A family bonus, which includes money her parents spent on her college tuition, educational loans she got from her grandfather and an inheritance; and a social bonus, which includes jobs, apartments and access to credit she’s gotten throughout her life. Those resources and capital, she concludes, wouldn’t have been available to her if it weren’t for her race. In her new book, “The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America,” which publishes Tuesday, McMillan traces just how much of her family’s modest wealth can be attributed to policies and practices that have systematically hurt Black Americans. Through investigative research, interviews and personal recollections, McMillan examines how racism has shaped her life, as well as the lives of four other White, middle class families. “It was the one story about White people that I didn’t know,” she says. McMillan, who grew up in rural Michigan and now lives in New York, didn’t have a particularly privileged upbringing by most standards. As she details in the book, she grew up in an abusive household and an unfortunate accident left her mother unable to care for her. In college, McMillan juggled numerous jobs to support herself, and as a working journalist, she’s had her own brushes with poverty. Despite those hardships, McMillan says the financial advantages she’s experienced because of her race are undeniable. Her grandparents benefited from federal programs that largely excluded Black people, allowing them to build wealth that was then passed on to the next generation. That enabled her parents to help her pay to attend an elite university, which in turn opened doors to employment opportunities. But, as she writes in the book, those advantages also come with a cost — not just to Black Americans, but White people like her. CNN’s conversation with McMillan has been edited for length and clarity. What made you want to write this book? I work as a journalist and have gotten pretty good at understanding — at least structurally — how racism hits people who aren’t White. I started to feel that just listening to people who aren’t White talk about racism and how bad it was was not sufficient to fix the problem. In "The White Bonus," McMillan traces just how much of her family’s modest wealth can be attributed to discriminatory policies and practices. - From Tracie McMillan If we could fix racism just by having Black people tell us how bad it was, we would have fixed it by now. As a White American, I felt like I needed to take some responsibility for myself and understand how things were working on my end. What is the ‘White bonus’ you describe in the book, and how is it different from White privilege? The “White bonus” is an estimate of the money a White person gets or saves because of White supremacy, public policies or private practices. For me, this was a really humbling exercise. I’ve been on food stamps and had a stranger live in the bedroom of my one bedroom apartment to save rent through those periods. But at the end of the day, my family has spent about $146,000 to help me out since I left home. That’s money they’re not required to spend by the government. That’s extra money they have. As I dug into my family’s story, every time I started to peel back the layers, I thought, “Would grandpa have had the money if he wasn’t White?” Well, no. He became a banker around 1930 when across the whole United States, there were a quarter million bankers and only 80 of them were Black. Then he bought a house with a racial covenant (a clause in many 20th century property deeds that explicitly prohibited Black people from owning or occupying real estate). My grandpa on my other side of the family was a millwright. That’s a job that often was racially restrictive in practice for a long time. He got that job because he worked for his dad, who ran a welding business from his dad. (My great-grandfather) came up from the Ozarks in the early 1900’s and got a job in the foundry at a General Motors plant outside of Detroit. Foundries are historically a site of racial segregation because it’s the worst, most dangerous, poorly paid job in the factory, and Black workers were not allowed to get out of those departments. My great-grandfather was allowed to get out of that department, got some skills and training, and was able eventually to start a business and buy a house with a racial covenant. Workers at the American Car and Foundry in St. Louis, Missouri in 1956. - Charles Rotkin/Corbis Historical/Getty Images Both blue collar and white collar parts of my family were able to build enough wealth because they got that opportunity. Our life experiences are shaped by a number of factors, race being just one of them. Can we really measure just how much our race has helped or hurt us? All these are back of the envelope estimates. They are bare minimums. I don’t think there’s a way to have a definitive number, but I think there’s a way to have a meaningful number so that you can talk about this. As long as we sit here and say we could never measure that, we don’t get anywhere. We’re just having these conversations about privilege that are like trying to grab onto a ghost. At least if we’re talking about this in material terms, the argument is over the scale. When we talk about the advantages White people have had, we tend to think of people who are wealthy. Yet, the people you profile in the book aren’t extraordinarily well-off by many standards. Why did you focus your book on the White middle and working class? The focus on the middle class started as an accident. I wanted to go up and down the class ladder and study how White advantage works through narrative, and then put everything into context. Frankly, I just was not successful in finding broke White people or really wealthy White people who were willing to talk to me. But as the project moved forward, it just became really clear to me that the middle class is really the fulcrum for White advantage in the US. People in the middle class who were willing to talk to me understand how on the edge of falling into poverty they are. The middle class doesn’t have enough wealth to feel comfortable. They’re always trying to game out how they and their family stay taken care of, particularly in a society where we have allowed the safety net to be eviscerated. How did you understand race before “The White Bonus,” and how did writing the book change that? Before I wrote “The White Bonus,” I understood racism as something that hurts people who aren’t White. I understood racism hurts Black people, racism hurts immigrants, racism hurts brown people. I could cite incarceration rates, and I could tell you about police violence and all of these things. But I did not understand that racism was something that actually actively benefits me. It’s this thing that we all know, but that we pretend that we don’t. White people actually do kind of know this, but the whole trick of American public discourse is that we never say that it’s happening. Not even being able to articulate that that’s what’s happening just completely ruins our ability to accurately address it. Today, some White people in the US argue that they are being discriminated against by workplace diversity programs, affirmative action and other policies meant to address the legacy of racism. Given your reporting, do these feelings surprise you? I don’t think it reflects reality. I also think the way that we usually talk about race in this country makes that a really predictable response. Take the G.I. Bill (a post-World War II law that gave returning veterans free college, job training and other benefits). We created this benefit, that in practice, was only intended for White people. Maybe a few people of color were going to be able to access it and it was written as if it was colorblind, but everybody understood it was going to be implemented in a way that would benefit White people and nobody else. But we talk about benefits like that as if it is a natural right for an American to have. Veterans in 1945 receive books and notebooks — as well as tuition and other fees — under the GI Bill of Rights. Though the bill was neutral in its language, it often excluded Black servicemembers in practice. - Bettmann/Getty Images White people today do not understand — because this history has been hidden from them by previous generations — that somebody in their family got something because they were White. Historically, the US has been a lot more honest about the fact that they are denying things to people because they are Black. But the inverse of that is also true. If you’re denying something to one group of people because of their skin color, you’re also by default giving it to the other group. White people do not have tools for that. This is the sort of stuff that, if we were teaching accurate history, would be part of the US history curriculum and it’s not. The idea that White people are now victims of racism appears to be a key pillar of Donald Trump’s campaign. How might your book help White people see things differently? As somebody who grew up in a community that was decimated by a raft of trade policies and an economic shift, people act like the only reason blue collar workers are mad is racism. That’s not true. People are mad because they lost a path to the middle class that they could afford, and they’re given this story that it’s because of people who don’t look like them. So not only are they getting gaslit about their experience of losing this path to the middle class, but they’re seeing people suddenly talk with sympathy about the abuse that people of color have experienced. There’s a lot of White people that are resentful because they’ve had stuff taken away from them and then told that they never got it in the first place. “The White Bonus” is about coming up with another way to tell that story. If White people benefit from anti-Black racism, as you’ve documented in your book, will they ever have an incentive to change these systems? We usually talk right about racism = bad for people of color, or racism = good for White people. That’s one way to do it, but it’s also true that racism impoverishes our democracy and undercuts our social safety net. For most White people, unless you are Elon Musk, you or someone you love is going to need a social safety net. Maybe you are safe in your middle class position, but you’re going to know some young person that can’t afford higher education and ends up in a really bad spot. You’re going to know somebody who needs medical care they can’t afford, and they die because they can’t get it. That stuff happens all the time, and we act like it’s normal and it’s not. That hurts a lot of White people. When you start looking at racism not just as something that only gives or only takes but as something that does both things, then you can ask yourself if it’s worth being silent about it. I calculate $146,000 from my family that probably they had because of racism. I calculate $225,000 of money that I have had access to or equity I’ve gained probably because I was White. That’s almost $400,000. But I also lost my mother because we didn’t have public health care. And I had a really traumatic childhood because we didn’t have public health care. Most of that money from my family and most of those bonuses I’m talking about with housing, I wouldn’t need if we had affordable higher education. I wouldn’t need them if we had affordable housing for everybody. I think there are enough White people now who understand that this isn’t really working in our favor, but we don’t have language for it. In the book, you explore the assumptions we make in the US about who is “deserving.” As your reporting details, when White people have historically received government help, they are assumed to have deserved it. Meanwhile, Black and brown people often have to prove they deserve those same public benefits. What did you take away from that? I came out of writing “The White Bonus” really convinced that the idea of “deserving” is a farce. This idea of who deserves what is just about making sure that the people who already have something get to keep acquiring more, even when they don’t need it. It just lets people hoard power and money, and I don’t think that’s helpful for most Americans. We have enough resources that folks don’t need to be terrified of ending up without a house. I think it’s really easy to point at striving, middle class families and all the effort that they put into making sure their kids can go to college and this and that. But we’ve basically created the Hunger Games to get into the middle class, and it doesn’t have to be like that. When my grandparents got into the middle class, it was like stepping on an automatic sidewalk at the airport. My grandparents were not savvy financial investors. They weren’t moving money around. They weren’t gaming out return on IRAs for their five-year-old. They were just like, “Alright, I’m going to take care of my family. I’m going to get paid, I’m going to have a pension.” America was much more comfortable talking about that like a broad right when it was just White people that they thought were getting this. So this idea that some people deserve more than others when it comes to basic sustenance is silly. What do you hope readers will take away from this book? I hope that folks who have had to deal with families that fell down in supporting them in the way they would have liked can feel seen. I hope that readers who aren’t White feel seen, too — that somebody out there who’s White does see how this is happening. So much of the way that we look at race in this country is through this lens of oppression. That’s important, but if we don’t talk about the bonus, we’re not seeing things accurately. What I want is for people to work to end racism because I think it’s in all of our interests. It is great and important to show up to things like Black Lives Matter protests. But it’s also important to do the hard, daily work in your community — talking to your friends and neighbors and trying to shift people’s understandings so that we can all take care of each other.

You never fail to amaze me how you can effortlessly make off-hand prejudicial remarks! Good for you to stay consistent in your bigotries. Would it have meant more if it was written by Fred Mertz????

Select teams and private coaches have escalated the gaps in access and skill sets over the years, in my experience. Schools that excel in football and basketball can't compete too often in baseball with the schools that have those advantages in place.

So you DO approve of funding for Ukraine?

Nyet, comrade, nyet.

Nice fairy tale, comrade.

You're a fan of Russian aggression and as ex military, that's disappointing. Sigh.

So, Trump isn't demanding donations from those he supposedly is endorsing like a Mafia Don? Prove me wrong.

You just pointed out the blind stubbornness and ignorance that was pervasive in our country during that time, then you doubled down. You didn't teach me a thing. You just reinforced your obtuse and isolationist dimness.

Is this Lion with a 2nd account? Starting to get those same simpleton vibes.

Where did people like you share that kinda opinion when Germany was marching across Europe and after the Lost Ark?

Nice Pee Wee's Big Adventure response.

Find me ANYONE on either side who would set up such a grift, ever, in the history of our country. https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-turns-gop-protection-100006608.html Donald Trump turns the GOP into a protection racket — and demands Republican candidates pay up Amanda Marcotte Fri, April 19, 2024 at 5:00 AM CDT5 min read 372 Donald Trump; RNC logo Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images For someone who frequently proclaims his innocence, Donald Trump sure loves to act like a two-bit gangster. The perpetual defendant should be focused on staying out of prison and running for president as the first of his four criminal trials kicks off. Instead, he is still focused on his lifelong obsession with making money while avoiding honest work. And the latest marks for this elderly grifter are other Republican candidates running in state or local races. "[T]he Trump campaign is asking for down-ballot candidates who use his name, image and likeness in fundraising appeals to give at least 5 percent," Politico reported late Wednesday. The campaign's, uh, "outreach" took a nice shop you got there, shame if something would happen to ittone. "Any split that is higher than 5% will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations," read the letter sent to Republican fundraisers this week. One would think the "or else" was already implied by this language, but Trump's campaign committee clearly worries Republican politicians struggle to understand subtlety. So the threat was made explicit: "Any vendor whose clients ignore the guidelines mentioned above will be held responsible for their clients’ actions," including having the Trump campaign cut them off. It's been long established that Trump sees his supporters, first and foremost, as open wallets to pick. But his interest in separating fools from their money has escalated in recent months, as his legal fees and court judgments are mounting. Despite routinely declaring himself to be a "billionaire," Trump has done everything in his power to avoid paying what he owes. Instead, he's resorting to tricks of all sorts, including his longstanding favorite: Swindle some schmuck into paying it for him. Despite getting his nearly half-billion bond reduced to $175 million after losing his fraud case in New York, the money Trump allegedly secured is starting to smell quite fishy. Simply put, Attorney General Letitia James seems concernedthat the guy offering to secure the bond does not actually have the money to pay it. "Billionaire" Trump also seems to be digging through the metaphorical couch cushions to pay his lawyers. One reason President Joe Biden's war chest is much bigger than Trump's is because Trump donors are being directed to a PAC that pays his legal bills, not traditional campaign activities like ads and organizing. The Trump takeover of the Republican National Committee appears to be financially motivated, at least in part. As soon as Trump installed loyalist leaders, including his daughter-in-law, the RNC restructured its cash flow system so that Trump's legal bills get priority over traditional campaign expenses. Now, they're shaking down people running for state legislatures and comptroller offices, with the implication that saying no means Trump will publicly put that candidate on blast, derailing their career. Not that anyone should feel pity for these Republicans. They're copycats using Trump's most basic grift: Slapping his name all over your fundraising appeals, with the implicit promise to MAGA followers that sending them money will make liberals cry. Still, it is especially churlish of Trump to begrudge the little guys a piece of his hustle. Republicans had to give away whatever dignity they had left by praising Trump publicly, so of course they want a little payola in return. No doubt Trump thinks he's a super-genius for being able to con so many people, but really, it's the same thing over and over, from hawking Trump sneakers to tricking MAGA granny into becoming a recurring donor. It's a legal or semi-legal form of what the Security and Exchange Commission calls "affinity fraud": Where fraudsters target "members of identifiable groups" by being a member of that group or enlisting "respected community or religious leaders from within the group" to convince members "that a fraudulent investment is legitimate and worthwhile." A classic example would be people in a pyramid scheme targeting fellow members of their church. Multilevel marketing scams that spread through Facebook groups are another example. It is why so many hucksters sell survivalist kits, supplements and overpriced gold through right-wing media networks. It's how people end up spending $60 for a suspiciously lightweightTrump-branded "Bible," even though a real Bible with all the words in it is available for cheap or even free. Over the weekend, the Washington Post offered up a delicious slice of schadenfreude to liberal readers, in the form of interviews with Trump voters who bought stocks in Truth Social. Because of the affinity for Trump with some folks, the price of the stock, which was traded under his initials DJT, soared to many times what financial experts estimated it was worth. Then, as predicted, the price started to crater. The folks interviewed bought the stock at prices ranging from $65-$90 a share. Then it fell to the mid-twenties and now Biden's out there cracking jokes about it: "if Trump’s stock in the Truth Social, his company, drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his." Usually, when people make bad investments, they can chalk it up to poor information or a temporary lapse in judgment. But to admit this was foolish, for these folks, would cast doubts about what they've been doing with the past few years of their lives be remaining devoted to Trump worship. They've just put in too many pennies not to waste all their pounds. So instead they spin a face-saving story about how they're sure he's got an ace up his sleeve and the stock will bounce back. The down-ballot Republican candidates suddenly facing a Trump-imposed fee are in a similar situation. Having built their political identities around being Trump sycophants, they can't just back out now. That is why Trump feels free to shake them down. Turns out that betting your political career on someone who models himself after a mafioso is not a great long-term plan for security. I'm genuinely surprised the protection fees were set at a modest 5% minimum. It's likely just an opening gambit. If they pay that — and I'm sure many will be fearful enough to do so — watch for the fee to keep Trump from badmouthing them in public to rise.

I didn't think that 'conservatives' could hit bottom. I stand corrected.

Congress actually getting things done today. https://www.yahoo.com/news/house-brink-approving-ukraine-israel-045005904.html The House passes billions in aid for Ukraine and Israel after months of struggle STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO Updated Sat, April 20, 2024 at 1:04 PM CDT6 min read WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is pushing swiftly through a series of votes in a rare Saturday session to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies, Democrats and Republicans joining together after a grueling monthslong fight over renewed American support for repelling Russia's invasion. With overwhelming support, the House approved the Ukraine portion, a $61 billion aid package, in a strong showing of American backing as lawmakers race to deliver a fresh round of U.S. support to the war-torn ally. Some lawmakers cheered, waiving blue-and-yellow flags of Ukraine. The $26 billion package aiding Israel and providing humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza also easily cleared. Each segment of the aid package faced an up-or-down vote. A national security bill that includes a provision forcing sale of the popular platform TikTok was quickly approved, as was another supporting Indo-Pacific allies. The unusual process is allowing unique coalitions to form around the bills, pushing them forward. The whole package will go to the Senate, where passage in the coming days is nearly assured. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately. “The eyes of the world are upon us, and history will judge what we do here and now,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The weekend scene presented a striking display of congressional action after months of dysfunction and stalemate fueled by Republicans, who hold the majority but are deeply split over foreign aid, particularly for Ukraine as it fights Russia's invasion. Speaker Mike Johnson, putting his job on the line, is relying on Democratic support to ensure the military and humanitarian package is approved, and help flows to the U.S. allies. The morning opened with a somber and serious debate and unusual sense of purpose, Republican and Democratic leaders united to urge swift passage that would ensure the United States supports its allies and remains a leader on the world stage. The House's visitor galleries crowded with onlookers. “Sometimes when you are living history, as we are today, you don't understand the significance of the actions of the votes that we make on this House floor, of the effect that it will have down the road," said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This is a historic moment.” Passage through the House would clear away the biggest hurdle to Biden's funding request, first made in October as Ukraine's military supplies began to run low. The GOP-controlled House, skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine, struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance be tied to policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico order, only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines. Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker's office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. “The only thing that has kept terrorists and tyrants at bay is the perception of a strong America, that we would stand strong,” Johnson said this week. “This is a very important message that we are going to send the world." Opponents, particularly the hard-right Republicans from Johnson's majority, argued that the U.S. should focus on the home front, addressing domestic border security and the nation's rising debt load, and they warned against spending more money, which largely flows to American defense manufacturers, to produce weaponry used overseas. Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America's commitment to its allies. At stake has also been one of Biden's top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin's advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson's plan this week, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote. “We have a responsibility, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans to defend democracy wherever it is at risk,” the House Democratic leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, said during the debate. While aid for Ukraine will likely win a majority in both parties, a significant number of progressive Democrats are expected to vote against the bill aiding Israel as they demand an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians. At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics. Ukraine's defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a bulk of Republicans oppose further aid. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., offered an amendment to zero out the money, but it was rejected. At one point, Trump's opposition essentially doomed the bipartisan Senate proposal on border security. This past week, Trump also issued a social media post that questioned why European nations were not giving more money to Ukraine, though he spared Johnson from criticism and said Ukraine's survival was important. Still, the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills do not include border security measures. Johnson's hold on the speaker's gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Greene, supported a “motion to vacate" that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. Egged on by far-right personalities, she is also being joined by a growing number of lawmakers including Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside, and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. The speaker’s office has been working furiously to drum up support for the bill, as well as for Johnson, R-La. The package includes several Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States. Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the situation in recent weeks. Russia has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — which allow planes to drop them from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troopsand ammunition.

He didn't answer, yet. But as to your response, I happen to think that weakening Russia and stopping their aggression for democracy might balance out things. As Johnson said, their boots on the ground means our boots aren't needed. Was our involvement in WWII called for and the Marshall Plan? Should we have gotten $ for $ back?