White Americans Largest Recipient Group of Medicare and Food-Stamps...

Wonkblog - White America’s racial resentment is the real impetus for welfare cuts, study says.

The study, conducted by researchers at two California universities and published Wednesday in the journal Social Forces, finds that opposition to welfare programs has grown among white Americans since 2008, even when controlling for political views and socioeconomic status.

White Americans are more likely to favor welfare cuts when they believe that their status is threatened and that minorities are the main beneficiaries of safety net programs, the study says.

The findings suggest that political efforts to cut welfare programs are driven less by conservative principles than by racial anxiety, the authors conclude. T hat also hurts white Americans who make up the largest share of Medicaid and food-stamp recipients.

President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have proposed deep cuts to both programs (emphasis mine). 

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The demographics of welfare recipients in three federal programs. (Sources: Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services, Kaiser Family Foundation)

White Americans called for deeper cuts to welfare programs after viewing charts that showed they would become a racial minority within 50 years. They also opposed welfare programs more when they were told that people of color benefit most from them.

“We find evidence that these shifts [in sentiment against welfare programs] are specifically directed at programs people see as benefiting minorities instead of whites,” she added.

Wetts isn’t ruling out the possibility that alternate factors could also be at play, of course. Some researchers have found that people embrace more conservative politics during periods of rapid social change -- not necessarily because they fear their racial status is threatened, but because they fear change is happening too fast. Others have argued the connection between white Americans’ racial resentment and their politics has been exaggerated.

But there's a growing body of evidence to suggest that white Americans who fear a loss of racial status are driving major shifts in policy and politics. A major study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April concluded that President Donald Trump was voted into office by people anxious about rising racial diversity and globalization.

Sometimes it is admidtedly difficult to understand the mentality of White Americans. This study points out the reality that fear is a strong social motivator . Ignorance can be as well.

More below the fold.

America's Narcissist In Cheif...

Ain't that the truth America?!!? Those who don't vote get what they deserve.

And now? America suffers the indignity.



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Need We Say Anything Else?...

Current home of the worlds greatest jester.

h/t Progressive Eruptions

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Is Power Shifting Away From the Democratic Establisment?...

I ran across an intresting article discussing the shifting power currents within the democratic party. The author highlights the power shift away from the Democratic  party establisment to its grassroots to that which occurred in the Republican party following the election of President Obama.

The article is insightful as well as well written. It certainly will give more progressive minded democrats (and even liberal independents) a reason to smile, AND, hopefully work that much harder to effect the needed changes in the democratic party that will ultimately result in flipping Congress in 2018 and defeating Trump in 2020.

Article intro below.

In 2010, enraged grassroots conservatives launched an insurgency against the Republican establishment. The Tea Party movement ran a series of primary challengers accusing Republicans of being insufficiently oppositional to President Obama. 

Their insurgency was wildly successful. Within four years, they had picked off a sitting senator and the Majority Leader of the House, making it impossible for Republican politicians to break with their base for fear of losing a primary. The establishment lost control, and an ideological movement now controlled the direction of the party. This grassroots outrage, underwritten by big donors, unchecked by any moderating party apparatus, set the stage for Trump’s unvarnished racism and his assault on the rule of law.

In 2018, as Democrats are confronting the stupefying threats of the Trump administration, the Democratic Party establishment is bracing for a similar reckoning from its own grassroots. The resistance has pushed Democrats towards much sterner opposition to Trump, and the organized left is larger than at any point since the Great Depression. The voters of the Democratic Party are more dissatisfied with the corporate lawyers and former prosecutors who make up the party’s leadership than at any point in the past two decades.

But a Tea Party of the Left has been much slower to materialize than the conservative uprising of the right. As primary election season ramps up, the left’s record has been decidedly mixed.

Two weeks ago, pundits were quick to declare the establishment firmly in control of the Democratic Party. Progressive challenger Paula Jean Swearington was crushed by conservative Democrat Senator Joe Manchin in West Virginia. Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whose longshot 2004 presidential campaign prefigured, in certain ways, the agenda of today’s Democratic insurgents, lost badly to former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray in the race for the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio. According to the Washington Post, the Democratic establishment is “alive and well, thriving after big wins,” and the party’s left “fell short as better-funded candidates easily won their primaries.

Last Tuesday, the media narrative turned again. The Washington Post now declared: “The far left is winning the Democratic civil war.” Kara Eastman, a liberal social worker who built her campaign around “Medicare for All,” scored a shocking upset in a Nebraska House primary against a former Congressman backed by the party establishment. Socialist candidates won four primaries for the state legislature in Pennsylvania, taking down two conservative incumbents in the process. Progressives also scored victories in two congressional primaries and the Lt. Governor’s race in Pennsylvania, and the Idaho governor’s race.

So is the establishment in control? Or is the left winning the civil war?

The truth is the establishment is still in control of the party, but their grip on power is weaker than it’s ever been. They’re still in power, but they do not convince. There is an ideological movement afoot in the Democratic Party that’s winning converts in the base, but it doesn’t yet have the political power to consistently win primaries and take control of the party.

Democratic voters, especially the millennials who are an increasingly important part of the base, are overwhelmingly looking for a new direction. The market-based, means-tested, Wall Street-funded neoliberal approach that Democrats have proffered from the Reagan era through Obama is no longer enough for the base of the Democratic Party. Democratic voters across the country overwhelmingly support an agenda calling for government guarantees of basic economic rights: a job, housing, healthcare, education, and a decent income for all.

Despite a wave of candidates entering into competitive primaries to build on the successes of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, and the rise of new groups like Justice Democrats and Our Revolution to support them, it remains true that left candidates have had limited success in primaries. (Disclaimer: I previously worked at Justice Democrats, and currently do some work with Our Revolution.) If Democratic voters truly want more a progressive and confrontational party, why haven’t left populist candidates won that many competitive races?

Ultimately, the left is underrepresented in politics for the same reason women, people of color, and working class people are under-represented: We have a 18th century political system that was designed to protect the power of the (overwhelmingly white and male) wealthy, owning class, and mostly still does. It’s not a question of what people want—it’s about what money can buy.

Continue reading article at SPLINTER.

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There Was a Time When Republicans Had Something To Offer...

Then

And Now

Can the Republican party regain the respect it once had?

If so, how? If not, why not?

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Wisdom is Often Ignored...

What Say You? And Why...

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Former Trump SOS Speaking the Truth...

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had the following words for the graduating class of cadets at the Virginia Military Institute. While not naming Trump or his administration specifically by name there can be little doubt but what his thinly veiled words where aimed in Trump's direction.

Free from being responsible to and having to support the boss he likely held little real respect for, he can now do the most good for America and her people by speaking openly and honestly about issues that go to the heart of who we are as a nation. We hope Mr. Tillerson and others intimately familiar with Trump and his administration will began to speak more openly and honestly to the American people about the very real internal threat America is facing from its current POTUS.

"When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America."

If our leaders seek to conceal the truth and we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then as an American people we are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.

If we do not as Americans confront the crisis of ethics and integrity in our society and among our leaders in both private and public sector, and regrettably at times even the nonprofit sector, then American democracy as we know it is entering its twilight years.

Never lose sight of your most valuable asset, the most valuable asset you possess: your personal integrity. This can be a very mean-spirited town. But you don't have to choose to participate in that."

SOURCE

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Intelligence, Decency, Honesty, and Integrity Followed By A Dishonest and Ignorant Moron

As the white supremacists cheer. Their only problem is their kind is a dying breed. Hopefully soon to be as extinct as the dinasaurs they represent in human form.

tRump Proving HIS america Can Not Be Trusted...

Trump is a Republican and we're happy to let Republicans own him.

Cartoon by Actor and Comedian, Jim Carrey

h/t: Progressive Eruptions , be sure to click on Progressive Eruptions to read the article.

The False Meme and Ignorance of the GOP and Trumpians...

Yes, black votes do matter. And, contrary to GOP beliefs black folks have their own minds. It's the people running conservative think tanks these days and the GOP SHEEPLE that apparently do not.

Fairness is a Subjective Determination...

President Trump, claiming he would love to talk to Mueller has sais the questioning must b "fair" far him to do so. Stating his attorneys have advised him to not speak with Mueller he also said he would override their advise if he could find a way to insure the questioning was "fair".

REUTERS - .S. President Donald Trump said on Friday shifted his position over possible talks with U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying his lawyers have advised him against any talks but that he would submit to questioning if it was "fair."

Trump has repeatedly said he wanted to talk to Mueller, a fellow Republican investigating alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign.

"I would love to speak. I would love to. Nobody wants to speak more than me ... because we've done nothing wrong," Trump told reporters outside the White House on his way to the NRA Convention in Dallas. "But I have to find a way to be treated fairly."
"If I thought it was fair, I would override my lawyer," he added.

Of course Trump's statement is really saying that he is willing to talk with Mueller if the questions are softball tosses and lead to the conclusion of the investigation with judgment exactly as Trump desires. In other words Trump is not so much concerned with "fairness" as he is with coming out as clean as a whistle. regardless whether it is the truth or not.

Trump also defended Rudy Giuliani, who he recently hired to represent him in the matter. The former federal prosecutor, however, raised a number of questions about Trump's actions and motivations in a series of media interviews this week.

On Thursday, Giuliani said he wanted limits for any Trump interview with Mueller.

"He started yesterday. He'll get his facts straight. He's a great guy," Trump told reporters. One of Trump's lawyers announced Giuliani's addition to the team on April 19.

Ghouliani is a perfect addition to the Trump team. Obviously inept these days with the tendency to shoot from the hip. But he is a loyal Trumpian who will work hard at being Trump's chump.

The president also repeated his assertion that there was no collusion by his team and that the federal probe led by Mueller was a "witch hunt." Russia has also denied any interference, despite the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies.

Giuliani's "learning the subject matter. ... He knows this is a witch hunt. That's what he knows," Trump added.

Trump continuing to obsessively repeat no collusion and witch-hunt does not make either so. It is the job of Mueller to get to the bottom of all the allegations. As a man of integrity this is what he will do. All Americans, regardless of political affiliation or economic status ought to hope he does. The continuation f our democratic republic depends on it.