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North Carolina NAAP Denounces Anti-Gay Legislation

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2016 //
17

A statement by the North Carolina NAACP:

 

The North Carolina NAACP Stands Against the Hypocrisy and Immorality of the NC General Assembly Made Clear By the Passage of HB2

 
The constitutional rights of North Carolinians to equal protection under the law in the state and federal constitutions are under attack.

 

An estimated 7 people die preventable deaths daily in North Carolina, including veterans, healthcare workers and other working poor people, because the NC General Assembly did not pass Medicaid Expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

 

Tens of thousands of voters have been disenfranchised or burdened by voter suppression laws and the inconsistent implementation of them across the state.

 

Hundreds of thousands of working poor North Carolinians are locked into poverty by a minimum wage that doesn’t allow them to feed their families and care for their loved ones.

 

Despite our cries for justice and mercy, the NC General Assembly has never called a Special Session to accept Medicaid Expansion. They have never called a Special Session to undue the voter suppression laws. They have never called a Special Session to pass a minimum wage increase and restore the Earned Income Tax Credit.

 

North Carolinians face real threats to our constitutional rights and lives. Instead of addressing these real needs, the NC General Assembly, under the extreme leadership of Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger, called a Special Session to overturn non-discrimination protections across the state in House Bill 2. Now the Governor had signed the worst anti gay bill in the country.

 

House Bill 2 passed and signed prevents local governments from passing ANY nondiscrimination policy that provides protections for lesbian, gay, and transgender people. HB 2 also gives Raleigh lawmakers unprecedented control over local governments by pre-empting local employment ordinances governing wages, benefits, employee protections and leave policies.

 

The North Carolina NAACP and the Forward Together Moral Movement demand equal protection under the law for all. Any bill that undermines the constitutional right of one group hurts us all. HB 2 is extreme and immoral.

Categories Inequality, Injustice, North Carolina

New York Times: 158 Families Contributed Half the Money Raised for 2016 Campaign

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2015 //
99

The New York Times reported in the Sunday paper that 158 families accounted for half of the money contributed to candidates for President in 2016.

Guess we can’t talk about the 1% anymore. Someone, quick, do the math: What % is 158 families as compared to the total number of families in the U.S.? I would do it myself but I don’t have time to google the total number of families. 138 of those families are funding Republicans, 20 are funding Democrats.

So if 158 families basically are the funding base of American presidential politics, are we a democracy? an autocracy? an oligarchy?

They are overwhelmingly white, rich, older and male, in a nation that is being remade by the young, by women, and by black and brown voters. Across a sprawling country, they reside in an archipelago of wealth, exclusive neighborhoods dotting a handful of cities and towns. And in an economy that has minted billionaires in a dizzying array of industries, most made their fortunes in just two: finance and energy.

Now they are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago.

These donors’ fortunes reflect the shifting composition of the country’s economic elite. Relatively few work in the traditional ranks of corporate America, or hail from dynasties of inherited wealth. Most built their own businesses, parlaying talent and an appetite for risk into huge wealth: They founded hedge funds in New York, bought up undervalued oil leases in Texas, made blockbusters in Hollywood. More than a dozen of the elite donors were born outside the United States, immigrating from countries like Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Pakistan, India and Israel.

But regardless of industry, the families investing the most in presidential politics overwhelmingly lean right, contributing tens of millions of dollars to support Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations; cut taxes on income, capital gains and inheritances; and shrink entitlement programs.

In other words, they are using their contributions to elect officials who will protect their wealth from taxation and who will “shrink entitlement programs,” the programs that benefit other Americans.

Categories Inequality, Politics
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