Dumb as Shit

We have a president who doesn't know what "memorandum of understanding" means. And at FOX, a host criticizes Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

If you listen to what she has to say, she's saying: 'Don't have kids, because it's going to hurt our country'. So, if you don't believe in kids, and families and the flag, you're effectively admitting to civilizational suicide.

As if climate change isn't.

Media Failure

Paul Rosenberg warns that the fate of democracy hinges on fully understanding the damage being done by Dear Leader's ordinary lying, his bullshitting, and his gaslighting. He argues the political system has been too weak to cope with his reality-distorting techniques.

[F]ocusing on [von Clownstick's] lies misses the point almost as much as focusing on what he’s saying. His words should not be noted without comparing them to the truth. And his lies should not be noted without comparing them to what he’s trying to accomplish by telling them.

The systemic failure we’re now experiencing is why ideas like the Green New Deal, Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax, Medicare for All, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a 70 percent top marginal tax rate are suddenly surging in popularity — even among Republicans — and why they could well shape the Democratic primary campaign and America’s future. Unless, that is, [Fuckface's] firehose of mendacity triumphs once again, aided by the media’s hapless complicity, its incapacity to adapt and adequately report what’s going on.

Debt vs Savings

A Bankrate survey finds that 44 percent of U.S. households have greater emergency savings than credit card debt (58 percent last year).  29 percent have greater debt than savings (21 percent last year). Lillian Singh with Prosperity Now notes:

It’s not that more people are making poor financial decisions. It’s that wages have been stagnating, the cost of living is increasing and credit has gotten easier to obtain.

Global Wealth Inequality

A paper by Gabriel Zucman finds greater inequality both in the United States and globally.

[S]urveys and tax data show that [U.S.] wealth inequality has increased dramatically since the 1980s, with a top 1% wealth share around 40% in 2016 vs. 25–30% in the 1980s.

Evidence points towards a rise in global wealth concentration: for China, Europe, and the United States combined, the top 1% wealth share has increased from 28% in 1980 to 33% today, while the bottom 75% share hovered around 10%.

Fundamentally Broken

Cenk Uygur summarizes how Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could be a really "bad guy":  accept unlimited campaign funds from corporate PACs, use freedom of speech to pay off people not to share unsavory secrets, help write and vote on laws that favor corporate interests, and then invest in those interests for personal financial gain. And a president has even fewer ethical standards to meet than members of Congress.

Update (October 20, 2019):  Somehow the idea that the rich pay a lower tax rate than the working class seems bound up with the existence of vast legalized political corruption.

The wealthiest 400 families paid an average effective tax rate of 23% last year [the second year of the 2017 tax cut] ... while the bottom half of all American households paid an average rate of 24.2%.

The one dollar–one vote principle is implemented in four simple steps. First, corporations and wealthy donors legally invest billions of dollars in campaign contributions for their favored candidates. Second, the corporations and donors spend many billions of dollars more on lobbying the same politicians in Congress and the executive branch. Third, the politicians then pass the policies and approve the judicial and executive nominees favored by the corporations and wealthy donors—and also prevent the passage of popular policies that are not supported by the donors. Fourth, these policies lead to the transfer of trillions of dollars in wealth and income from working- and middle-class families to these corporations and wealthy individuals. The entire process is institutionalized in laws passed by Congress, implemented by the executive, and upheld by the courts—all geared to favor big business. The separation of governmental powers into three branches has become a fiction nullified by a veritable corporate coup d’état.

Disappearing Glaciers

A study by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development projects an unavoidable loss of glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains.

[E]ven if the most ambitious Paris climate accord goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century were met, more than a third of the region’s glaciers will be lost. If the global rise in temperature were 2 degrees Celsius, two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers will melt.

The glaciers feed into rivers that 1.9 billion people depend on for water.