Response to Shannon

Shannon's original post can be found here

As of earlier today, Trump canceled his press conference to discuss these allegations of conflicts interest. Trump representatives said that they will make a statement next month, but before he is inaugurated on January 20th. All the research that I've done has brought me to the same conclusion as you, that if Trump doesn't set up a real blind trust then we are dealing with a serious conflict of interest. Even if Trump does hand the business over to his children completely, you're right his name is still associated with the company and he'll still benefit from it in that right. As president, Trump will be responsible for filling positions of multiple agencies that will be investigating and managing his businesses. This article from The Guardian goes into more detail about this, it's alarming to say this least. Word is Trump is still working on filling his cabinet, but I think at this point the administration is spinning it's wheels until the electoral college comes through with a final decision. Our future administration has been under major fire over the past few days, holding a potentially controversial press conference is only going to add fuel to said fire.


Shannon's post: http://shannonadaway.blogspot.com/2016/12/business-owning-president.html
The Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/dec/01/donald-trump-business-interests-conflicts

Minimum Wage and Corporate America

In the past few years, many businesses have implemented self-serve kiosks in their stores. In many cases, these kiosks are faster and easier and make it easier for everyone to navigate through their day. If I can, I always choose self-checkout when I buy my groceries. I always check in on my phone at the airport, and then use the kiosk to check my bags. These conveniences are not exclusive to the consumer, companies love self-serve kiosks. Why? They don't have to pay employees.

Earlier this week McDonald's implemented self-serve order kiosks at some locations. McDonald's spokeswoman told Business Insider, "Similar to ordering from an app, the technology (any technology such as self-order kiosk, mobile phone, web ordering), offers additional service options, giving customers the ability to control the way they wish to experience and engage with McDonald’s."  While the sentiment behind this may be somewhat genuine, there’s no denying that having this technology will require less of McDonald’s Employees. With fewer employees, McDonald’s can afford to pay them all $15 an hour like many are requesting.

McDonald’s is the second largest employer in the world, right behind Wal-Mart, employing nearly 2 million people. One would think that a company that massive would be able to maintain it’s employee base while paying them the $15 an hour they deserve. Unfortunately, with the way McDonalds, and most companies like them are structured, that is not the case. Most McDonald’s franchises are individually owned, and the store itself on average brings home about 6 cents in profit at the end of the day. The profit margins just aren’t there for companies to pay people a better minimum wage.

That’s all well and good but people are still struggling. I personally work 3 jobs, and I can barely support myself on top of school. Youth unemployment is continuing to grow, averaging around 30%. This may not seem like a problem, but young people have debt, and eventually will need to grow up and get jobs and pay off that debt. Which is hard to do when you’re stuck in your situation. Most of the working class are single parents and young people, the base of our economy, and they are struggling. All economies have a working class, a group of people that work very hard and are treated poorly. Be them slaves or single moms, they always exist and they always get the shortest end of the stick.

While I don’t have the knowledge to really know what should be done here, I can say that people need to be paid a living wage. Anyone who works 40 hours a week shouldn’t be under the poverty line, yet so many are. I think the federal government should partially restructure the private sector, forcing large companies like Wal-Mart and McDonalds to stop lining their own pockets and start helping their franchises. I’ll leave the exact details to the big wigs. If a 20 year old at community college can see this issue and one possible solution, then God willing the people whose job it is to fix these thing coughing Congress! coughing will figure it out.

Inspiration Articles:

Business Insider 8/15

Forbes Magazine 4/16

Response to Karla

Original post: https://kdapolitics.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-did-u.html?showComment=1479438256227#c7644916187495850980

Karla, I really couldn't agree with you more. Trump's statements are appalling, but they speak to something greater than people's racism. I think people have been bottling up their hate since the civil rights movement, then all of the sudden a celebrity comes along and validates everything they’ve been thinking. The majority of Trump’s constituents are lower socio-economic white Americans, a population that in many ways only has their race to separate them from other minorities. Trump and his campaign, and now his administration, saw that opportunity and took hold of it tight. So yes, many of Trump’s supporters are bigots actively fighting POC, women, and members of the LGBT+ community. However, I would argue that the real more harrowing reality of Trump’s winning is that people are willing to tolerate racism and xenophobia rather than have Hillary in office. Acknowledging that some of their fellow voters are racist but distancing themselves from that hate is really harmful because it allows genuine xenophobic rascits to get away with feeling thw way they do. Any Republican official worth a damn is staying faaaar away from Trump’s cabinate, so all that’s left is racists like Steve Bannon.

An Immigration Take

As a middle-class white American, I often felt distance from the issues suffered by people of color. Growing up in a small majority Mexican town, I had seen families broken by discrimination and immigration, but I didn't truly sympathize until two years ago.

A dear friend of mine, we'll use the fake name Oscar, was traveling with his family to California. While driving through Arizona they were stopped by an immigration officer without probable cause. The officer harassed Oscar's father calling him a "wetback" and a "beaner." Oscar's father asked the officer not to insult him in front of his children, and the officer asked Oscar's father for his papers. Oscar's father is an undocumented citizen, he's lived in America for over 30 years with his wife, who is also undocumented. When Oscar's parents couldn't provide papers, his father was detained. Oscar's mother was not because one of Oscar's siblings is still a baby. Oscar hasn't seen his father in 2 years, he hasn't heard from him in 6 months. I knew Oscar's dad, he was a good man. He worked hard, he cared about his family. He always considered himself an American. Oscar's father was brought here as a boy, and never got legal documentation out of fear of what would happen to him and his family.

American immigration policy and xenophobia has created a fear of government among minorities and immigrants from all countries, not just Mexico. America, the land of immigrants and safe haven, is a lie with a giant green statue. Xenophobic, racist, discriminatory rhetoric has been spewing from American mouths for generations and is now a campaign spearheaded by our possible future president, Donald Trump.

Trump's words are more than just scary, they're more than just joke material for kids on Twitter and late night hosts. The hateful dialogue created by Trump validates the opinions of racist officers like the one who stopped Oscar's dad.

Now I know you might say that an undocumented man driving a minivan full of Mexican kids is suspicious; I would say that they drove through 2 states without being stopped, and even when they were the officer never explained why he pulled them over.

Are we about to enter an post-gender society?

No. Not at all. Both myself and Gloria Steinem believe that, she further explored this in this interview with NPR. Essentially she argues that, should Clinton win the election in November, it won't solve sexism. 

A woman in the Whitehouse doesn’t inherently mean much if she doesn’t represent the ideals of most American women; Steinem says that if Sarah Palin were president, it would most likely be detrimental to American women (if not women everywhere in my opinion.)

In the same vain a black man in the Whitehouse doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t represent the beliefs of black men. Throughout the article Steinem praises the Obama family and administration for their work forwarding black communities. I would argue the only thing Obama has done to help the average black citizen is win the presidency. While he has given plenty of speeches and acknowledged the public outcry of Black Americans around the country, he hasn’t passed the necessary legislation and made the efforts necessary to truly help Black Americans.

I agree with Steinem in that a representative has to represent their demographics beliefs, they have to be willing to put those beliefs into action. I have no doubt that Barack Obama sees the racial divide in our country as a genuine issue; that movements like Black Lives Matter are the modern Civil Rights Movement, he hasn’t put in the work in the past 8 years. Obama is a Black figurehead, while that isn’t a bad thing by any means, who cares about being in a position of power if you aren’t using that power to dismantle the social structures that keep YOUR people in social chains.

I worry, and I think Steinem does too, that Clinton will repeat this pattern. Being the Commander in Chief in many ways makes one the most powerful person in the world. Having minorities in that position is an amazing thing, but it doesn’t mean much if you don’t do the work that needs doing.

NPR: Steinem: For Feminism, A Clinton Win Would Be Helpful But 'Only One Step'

Moving Beyond the Two-Party System

In this New York Times piece, Howard Dean, former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate, writes about the issues he sees with a bipartisan America and one possible solution. A two party system creates a strict divide between Americans; politics has become Democrats versus Republicans, as opposed to two parties working together to represent different ideas of the people. In election years like this one, voters are faced with a choice that many views as choosing between the lesser of two evils. This stark divide has disincentivized many from voting in the election period. Speaking for myself, I plan on voting despite not adoring either candidate. However, I see the situation and have decided to vote with my conscious as best as I can, given the circumstances.

Dean discusses how many people are voting independent because they are unhappy with the main party choices of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. However one could argue that because the bipartisan system is so ingrained into our political culture, that voting outside of it is wasting your vote. In order to diminish this issue, Dean proposes we adopt ranked choice voting. Currently, we pick the candidate we like the most, easy peasy but not necessarily the best idea. Ranked choice voting would mean instead of choosing one candidate, voters would rank the candidates from most to least favorable. The candidate with the highest sum total would then go on to be elected. For example, say one wanted to vote for Clinton and there’s no way in hell they wanted to vote for Trump. They could rank Clinton highest, then Gary Johnson, then Jill Stein, and lastly Trump. Not only would Clinton get the most “points” but Trump would get the least; more importantly Johnson and Stein, who are favored over Trump in the situation, are also given a chance to be more competitive.

Some countries and states have already implemented ranked choice voting. Dean proposes, and I agree, that implementing ranked choice voting on a local and state level will show congress its value. Potentially in elections to come we won’t be faced with as polarizing a decision as we will be in November.

RE:  Howard Dean, How to Move Beyond the Two-Party System, The New York Times

Developments in Terrence Crutcher's Death

On Friday night, Tulsa officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terrence Crutcher. Despite video and helicopter footage, the exact circumstances are still up for debate. This article is her side of the story. Over the past few nights, there has been a lot of confusion as to what actually happened. In the original video, it looks like his car is broken down and he’s just walking around trying to fix it. In the video, you can hear two men discussing the situation and one says, “that looks like a bad dude too, could be on something.” Mind you at that point Crutcher was just walking around his car, with his hands up. As of about 3:30 pm today, Shelby has been charged with first-degree manslaughter. There is not much press or information about that ruling just yet. However I can automatically appreciate the quick decision, and that isn’t ending in another white officer on paid leave for killing another black man. Regardless of what happens, it’s interesting to see how Shelby and her lawyers paint the situation. 

I would argue that a gun should never be an officer's first line of defense. Crutcher was unarmed, a taser would have done the job. I’m aware of how biased I am, but her story seems very staged. I guess it wasn’t enough to convince a jury either. 

Here is a link to the video footage.

(there is visible blood, you see Crutcher fall down, and there are multiple visible guns and officers)