“First of all, even if the process were to work as advertised, it would take a long time — probably decades. Even the most optimistic analyses suggest that there would be little effect on wages for the first few years, which means that for now what looks like a tax break for the wealthy is, in fact, a tax break for the wealthy.
Second, the story relies on a long chain of events with multiple weak links. For example, corporations with monopoly power won’t see lower taxes as a reason to invest more; they’ll just take the money. Meanwhile, there’s growing evidence that big employers are using their power to suppress wages; cutting their taxes won’t change that fact. So even in the long run we shouldn’t expect a lot of trickle-down.” - Paul Krugman, NYT
The Trump tax cuts are just being added to the Government credit card. Lowering tax revenue for the rich just creates a bigger deficit. Nothing trickles.
“First of all, even if the process were to work as advertised, it would take a long time — probably decades. Even the most optimistic analyses suggest that there would be little effect on wages for the first few years, which means that for now what looks like a tax break for the wealthy is, in fact, a tax break for the wealthy.
Second, the story relies on a long chain of events with multiple weak links. For example, corporations with monopoly power won’t see lower taxes as a reason to invest more; they’ll just take the money. Meanwhile, there’s growing evidence that big employers are using their power to suppress wages; cutting their taxes won’t change that fact. So even in the long run we shouldn’t expect a lot of trickle-down.” - Paul Krugman, NYT
The Trump tax cuts are just being added to the Government credit card. Lowering tax revenue for the rich just creates a bigger deficit. Nothing trickles.
âShut up and dribbleâ is the modern substitute for âshut up and pick cotton.â
If LeBron went around making pro Trump statements âwhatâs her nameâ would hold him up to her brain dead audience as a hero who speaks the truth. Funny, I donât ever remember her telling Curt Schilling to shut up and pitch.
The bigots see Trump as legitimizing their hatred. They now feel free to express their views triumphantly. Trump makes them feel vindicated and empowered. The depth and breadth of this hate and ignorance is shocking to me. We had become complacent thinking the racism monster was defeated, and marginalized. But, now it is back, and has become mainstream. Fox News is openly racist, nativist, and misogynist. I hope the reaction will be enough to defeat these bringers of death at the polls. I fear it will not be enough.
âWhatever her name is.â This is how LeBron James referred to Fox News host and professional bigot Laura Ingraham. The Ann Coulter mimeograph devoted an entire segment to disparaging LeBron Jamesâs intelligence and telling him to âshut up and dribble.â It is a tired routine that has been used to shut down outspoken black athletes for as long as there have been outspoken black athletes.
Ingraham was melting down on air like a certain particle of snow because James and fellow all-star Kevin Durant had criticized Donald Trump⌠for being Donald Trump. James in particular earned her ire for saying, â[Trump] really donât give a (expletive) about the peopleâŚ. While we cannot change what comes out of that manâs mouth, we can continue to alert the people that watch us, that listen to us, as this is not the way.â
Ingrahamâs goal was to provoke a response and create the kind of buzz that would provide more content for Fox News, content she could then feed into a racist inception loop of coverage about herself. Itâs a troll move, played out on a major cable-news network. My own theory has long been that the best possible response to these people is to starve them. For their species, the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Yet, in this case, I was very wrong. LeBron James did more than just respond. He provoked a tidal wave of support from his own personal Justice League in the world of sports.
It started when he said, âWe will definitely not shut up and dribble. I will definitely not do thatâŚ. She did the best thing to help me create more awarenessâŚ. I get to sit up here and talk about social injustice, equality [because] a woman on a certain network decided to tell me to shut up and dribble. So, thank you, whatever her name is. I donât even know her name.â
We quickly saw that LeBron would not be the lone voice to stand against Ingraham, not by a long shot. Durant called her âracistâ and âignorantâ. Dwyane Wade tweeted, âThey [used] to try and hide it.. now the president has given everyone the courage to live their truths.â
Fellow all-star Paul George said, âPeople just view us as athletes and basketball players. Weâre just a part of whatâs going on in this world and whatâs going on in this society just as much as anybody else. Weâre fathers, weâre sons, weâre brothers, weâve got family to look after. Weâre just connected as deeply in this as anybody else is, so for someone to go out and say, âStick to dribbling the basketball,â thatâs pretty ignorant. That just goes to show you where we are as a country right now.â
Players union Executive Director Michele Roberts said, âBetween LeBronâs 40 million followers and Kevin Durantâs 17 million followers on Twitter, Laura Ingraham has now introduced herself as intolerant and narrow-minded to 57 million people around the world. We stand with our players,â
Even Commissioner Adam Silver, unprovoked, started his âstate of the NBAâ press conference by speaking in support of politically vocal players against these kinds of attacks. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Faster than you can say, âRoger Ailes was a serial sexual predator who built Fox News on a foundation of lies,â #wewillnotshutupanddribble was trending worldwide.
What seems to have upset Ingraham the most is not the uniform charges of racism but the sentiment expressed by Charles Barkley, âLeBron James is LeBron James. Whoâs Laura Ingraham?â
The avalanche of response actually put Ingraham on the defensive, compelling her to both invite James onto her show and make the following back-pedaling statement: âThere was no racial intent in my remarksâfalse, defamatory charges of racism are a transparent attempt to immunize entertainment and sports elites from scrutiny and criticism.â
So now we have Laura Ingraham having to defend herself from charges of racism and her own obsolescence, and once again LeBron has proven many of our conventional assumptions to be simply wrong. When LeBron started, his goal of embodying a new template, âthe socially conscious mogul,â was something I didnât think was possible, simply because it had never been done. You either had to be a Muhammad Ali or a Michael Jordan: a man or a brand. LeBron has crushed that binary. Similarly, I never thought there was any advantage to feeding a troll, especially one as insipid as Laura Ingraham. But LeBron has created a different normal, where you can give other people confidence by stepping out, and marshaling a collective response in the face of an unrepentantly racist, demonstrably violent right-wing echo chamber. Laura Ingraham chose to read from a very old, very tired script in telling a black athlete to shut his mouth. She didnât expect LeBron James to adopt a new script in response, and we are all, in these tragic times, better for it.
when I was in architecture class, we didn’t ever have to consider diability in our plans, until I called the proff out on it (the ADA had just passed) and it was because a friend in high school had an accident and became parapelgic. I have seen complete strangers grab onto the handles of his chair and MOVE HIM without his consent, like a discarded shopping cart, and then jump back all surprised when he says loudly, what the hell are you doing?. His mouth and brain and perfectly intact, it’s his legs that can’t work.
Don’t be sorry! Please remember that you are like everyone else, just being more vulnerable right now. It’s like you’ve been exposed to a virus and you need your natural defenses reinforced. I’m real curious about the rally you mentioned. That says to me that you have extended yourself for others, and perhaps you could use a hand with it. ASK for it! Most likely someone is dying to be asked!
