[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
In the upper echelons of the Trump administration, hawkish voices on Iran predominate—most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. But as tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated over the last few weeks, there’s been another, far different voice in the president’s ear: that of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
A source familiar with the conversations told The Daily Beast that, in recent weeks, the Fox News host has privately advised Trump against taking military action against Iran. And a senior administration official said that during the president’s recent conversations with the Fox primetime host, Carlson has bashed the more “hawkish members” of his administration.
While some Fox News hosts have argued that a conflict with Iran would be justified, Carlson has consistently criticized U.S. military intervention abroad, particularly in the Middle East. In recent weeks, he has questioned whether war with Iran would be “in anyone’s interest.” Last month, he publicly chided Bolton, saying he was intentionally escalating tensions, and that a potential conflict would “be like Christmas, Thanksgiving, his birthday wrapped into one.”
A black parolee arrested for raping and bashing a white woman on the roof of his Bronx apartment building allegedly told a witness that she “deserved” the brutal attack because of slavery, according to court papers.
“She was a white girl. She deserved it because us minorities have been through slavery,” Temar Bishop, 23, allegedly said to someone who witnessed the bloodied 20-year-old woman after the assaults, according to a criminal complaint.
“This is what they used to do to us. This is what they did to us during slavery. They used to beat us and whip us.”
Temar Bishop, 23, was arrested by authorities on Friday in Virginia on a slew of charges connected to the early morning June 1 assault, which officials have deemed a hate crime, according to authorities.
The 20-year-old met Bishop — who was on parole after serving just over a year behind bars for robbery — around 5 a.m. and joined him on the rooftop of the public housing building on Alexander Avenue near East 137th Street in Mott Haven, police said.
Bishop allegedly punched her repeatedly before raping her, then continued his assault — kicking and punching her in the head and body until she fell unconscious, cops said.
He then fled, but returned with the unnamed witness — who saw the woman “laying on the roof landing with blood covering her face” — and then allegedly made the remarks about slavery, court documents say.
The woman was treated at an area hospital for several injuries, including a broken nose and broken teeth. She was also “vomiting blood,” the complaint states.
Police sources previously told The Post a Special Victims Division investigator described the attack as “one of the worst he’s ever seen.”
Bishop was charged with two counts of predatory sexual assault, attempted murder, rape, two counts of assault, sexual abuse, assault and a hate crime.
He was arraigned in Bronx court on Saturday, where he was ordered held without bail, a spokeswoman for the Bronx District attorney’s office said.
FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2017 file photo, pedestrians pass the storefront of Gibson’s Food Mart & Bakery in Oberlin, Ohio. A jury has awarded $11 million to a father and son who claimed Ohio’s Oberlin College and an administrator hurt their business and libeled them during a dispute that triggered protests and allegations of racism following a shoplifting incident.
(AP Photo/Dake Kang, File)
Oberlin College Racial Dispute
Market awarded $44M in racism dispute with Oberlin College
CLEVELAND (AP) — Owners of a market in a famously liberal town were awarded $44 million in damages this week in their lawsuit claiming Oberlin College hurt their business and libeled them in a case some observers said embodied racial hypersensitivity and political correctness run amok.
A jury in Lorain County awarded David Gibson, son Allyn Gibson and Gibson’s Bakery, of Oberlin, $33 million in punitive damages Thursday. That comes on top of an award a day earlier of $11 million in compensatory damages.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you have spoken,” Oberlin College attorney Rachelle Zidar told the jury Thursday before the larger award was announced, according to the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram . “You have sent a profound message. We have heard you. Believe me when I say, ‘Colleges across the country have heard you.’”
Oberlin College spokesman Scott Wargo declined to comment after the award was announced.
Problems between the Gibsons, their once-beloved bakery and the college began in November 2016 after Allyn Gibson, who is white, confronted a black Oberlin student who had shoplifted wine. Two other black students joined in and assaulted Gibson, police said.
The day after the arrests, hundreds of students protested outside the bakery . Members of Oberlin College’s student senate published a resolution saying Gibson’s had “a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment.”
When news of the protests spread online, bikers and counterprotesters soon converged on the town to jeer students and make purchases from Gibson’s. Conservatives derided the students on social media as coddled “snowflakes” with a mob mentality, while students attacked the store as a symbol of systemic racism.
The Gibsons sued Oberlin and the dean of students in November 2017, accusing faculty members of encouraging the protests. The lawsuit said college tour guides informed prospective students that Gibson’s is racist.
The Gibsons said the protests devastated their business and forced them to lay off workers. They said they haven’t paid themselves or other family members since the protests.
The three black students later pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and read statements in court that said Allyn Gibson’s actions weren’t racially motivated.
The school initially stopped doing business with Gibson’s, later resumed the relationship and ended it again when the Gibsons filed their lawsuit.
Oberlin has long been a bastion of liberalism. During the 1830s, it became one of the first colleges to admit blacks and women. During the 1850s, it became a stop on the Underground Railroad.
Today, about 15% of Oberlin’s 8,300 residents are black.
More recently, news articles quoted students decrying the school dining hall’s sushi and Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches as cultural appropriation.
The Gibsons’ attorneys said the college, which charges $70,000 a year for tuition and room and board, has an $887 million endowment and can easily afford to pay the family what they are owed.
Oberlin’s tree-lined campus is roughly 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of downtown Cleveland.
Home ownership has been called “the quintessential American dream.” Yet today less than 65% of American homes are owner occupied, and more than 50% of the equity in those homes is owned by the banks. Compare China, where, despite facing one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world, a whopping 90% of families can afford to own their homes.
Over the last decade, American wages have stagnated and U.S. productivity has consistently been outpaced by China’s. The U.S. government has responded by engaging in a trade war and imposing stiff tariffs in order to penalize China for what the White House deems unfair trade practices. China’s industries are said to be propped up by the state and to have significantly lower labor costs, allowing them to dump cheap products on the U.S. market, causing prices to fall and forcing U.S. companies out of business. The message to middle America is that Chinese labor costs are low because their workers are being exploited in slave-like conditions at poverty-level wages.
But if that’s true, how is it that the great majority of Chinese families own homes?
Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute; author of twelve books including “Web of Debt” and “The Public Bank Solution.”
… 90% of families in the country own their home, giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other liens. On top of this, north of 20% of urban households own more than one home.
Due to their communist legacy, what they get for their money is not actually ownership in perpetuity but a long-term leasehold, and the quality of the construction may be poor. But the question posed here is, how can Chinese families afford the price tag for these homes, in a country where the average income is only one-seventh that in the United States?
The Misleading Disparity Between U.S. and Chinese Incomes
Some commentators explain the phenomenon by pointing to cultural differences. The Chinese are inveterate savers, with household savings rates that are more than double those in the U.S.; and they devote as much as 74% of their money to housing. Under China’s earlier one-child policy, many families had only one heir, who tended to be male; and home ownership was a requirement to score a wife. Families would therefore pool their resources to make sure their sole heir was equipped for the competition. Homes would be purchased either with large down payments or without financing at all. Financing through banks at compound interest rates doubles the cost of a typical mortgage, so sidestepping the banks cuts the cost of housing in half.
Those factors alone, however, cannot explain the difference in home ownership rates between the two countries. The average middle-class U.S. family could not afford to buy a home outright for their oldest heir even if they did pool their money. Americans would be savers if they could, but they have other bills to pay. And therein lies a major difference between Chinese and American family wealth: In China, the cost of living is significantly lower. The Chinese government subsidizes not only its industries but its families—with educational, medical and transportation subsidies.
According to a 2017 HSBC fact sheet, 70% of Chinese millennials (ages 19 to 36) already own their own homes. American young people cannot afford to buy homes because they are saddled with student debt, a millstone that now averages $37,000 per student and will be carried an average of 20 years before it is paid off. A recent survey found that 80% of American workers are living paycheck to paycheck. Another found that 60% of U.S. millennials could not come up with $500 to cover their tax bills.
In China, by contrast, student debt is virtually nonexistent. Heavy government subsidies have made higher education cheap enough that students can work their way through college with a part-time job. Health care is also subsidized by the government, with a state-run health insurance program similar to Canada’s. The program doesn’t cover everything, but medical costs are still substantially lower than in the U.S. Public transportation, too, is quite affordable in China, and it is fast, efficient and ubiquitous.
Temar Bishop
Michael Levine-Clark / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
