With Facebook in trouble for allowing people to exclude potential renters based on race, redlining has been in the news lately. So, I thought it would be good to remind everyone of what redlining is and of ow it was critical to the federal government’s efforts to segregate America.
Kyle Swenson’s Good Kids, Bad City is one of those books I read knowing it will infuriate me. I read it because I can’t think about this kind of injustice and racism enough. As a lawyer, I want so badly to respect the law. As someone who has learned enough to realize people enforcing, prosecuting, and judging the law as well as the law itself are too often not worth respecting, I can’t stop being disappointed. Far too often the “justice system” is really the injustice system. Way more often than many white people want to admit the reason the “justice system” becomes the injustice system is the color of the defendant’s skin.
Even though I write largely about American domestic policy, I think a lot about foreign policy. Those who follow my blog know I have lately been reading a lot about America’s terrible history in Latin America. Facing that terrible history and thinking about Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and more, has led me to feel confident in sharing what I hope is a new, interesting foreign policy idea.
Since I’m not a politician in practice or mindset, I’m not going to mislead. The truth is I have no idea of all the consequences of what I’m proposing. Nor can I guarantee some of the possible consequences wouldn’t result in outcomes I would hate. Still, I’m proposing this idea because we need something different. We need something that gets us closer to living up to our founding ideals. We need something that rejects exceptionalism and imperialism in favor of respect and openness. We need an approach to other nations that understands foreign policy based on military might and massive amounts of cash, especially when that might and cash was too often created by exploitation and is too often used to exploit–is wrong. We need the humility to admit we don’t have all the answers. We need the confidence to acknowledge we have much to learn from others. And, we need the character to stick to our principals when immediate results challenge our idea that we know best.
If our ideas are the best, we shouldn’t be afraid to work with those who think differently. If our ideals really are the most just, we shouldn’t be afraid of ideals we don’t support. If our system of government really is the envy of the world, we shouldn’t have to force people to adopt it.
Now that Trump has declared a national emergency at the border with Mexico, I thought we should discuss national emergencies. I will briefly describe the National Emergencies Act and its key provisions.
It has been a long time since I’ve written a nerdy post. So, I needed to exercise that need.
Capital Gains taxes aren’t a sexy topic by any means; however, understanding a little about capital gains taxes will help you understand how rigged the system is in favor of wealthy. It’s things, like capitals gains taxes, that have caused me to be as progressive as I have become.
I need to make one thing clear: no one’s health insurance is in immediate jeopardy. Still, the Affordable Care Act is now facing its biggest threat. The possibility that 20 million insured Americans will lose their coverage is now real. There is a chance those with preexisting conditions will no longer have the opportunity to purchase coverage. Children under the age of 26 currently getting insurance from their parents’s policy could soon be uninsured.
This version of news updates has stories about another heartbreaking, senseless shooting, a border patrol agent being acquitted in the shooting of a teenage boy in Mexico, and Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions.
Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic addresses the history of atheists in America. As an atheist, I have a personal interest in this subject, but I think this book is worth a read for anyone interested in history, law, politics, and/or religion.
PBS’s documentary Dark Money is a must watch. It’s not at all up lifting. It’s incredibly educational and informative. If you want to understand how corporations are buying our elections and politicians, you need to watch Dark Money.
The verdict for this episode is: Brett Kavanaugh is a liar.
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