Wednesday, July 31st, 2019
Stephan: Like everything else Trump does, when you raise the hood on whatever used car he is selling, you see its a scam. Consider the support programs for farmers he set up as a result of the trade crisis he created with the China trade struggle.
It is always about making the rich richer, by milking the middle class and poor.
A field of ripe wheat ready for harvesting is seen in Corn, Oklahoma, U.S., June 12, 2019.
Credit: Reuters/Nick Oxford
WASHINGTON — More than half of the Trump administration’s $8.4 billion in trade aid payments to U.S. farmers through April was received by the top 10% of recipients, the country’s biggest and most successful farmers, a study by an advocacy group showed on Tuesday.
Highlighting an uneven distribution of the bailout, which was designed to help offset effects of the U.S.-China trade war, the Environmental Working Group said the top 1% of aid recipients received an average of more than $180,000 while the bottom 80% were paid less than $5,000 in aid.
The EWG, a Washington-based non-profit, said it obtained data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture through Freedom of Information Act requests for its research, the results of which could not be independently verified by Reuters.
The Trump administration last year began rolling out federal aid for farmers to compensate for lower farm good prices and lost sales after Washington’s trade dispute with China […]
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Wednesday, July 31st, 2019
Jeremy Stahl, Senior Editor - Slate
Stephan: Look at the picture of Chief of Law Enforcement Operations for Customs and Border Protection, Brian S. Hastings. Does he look like Mussolini to you, he sure does to me. A true fascist thug in uniform, and dim. This story like so many about this administration would be satire if it weren't true.
Customs and Border Protection official Brian Hastings speaks during a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 26.
Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty
One of the country’s top border officers cannot say whether a 3-year-old child might pose a “criminal or national security threat.” This was one of a number of astonishing takeaways from Thursday’s latest hearing into family separation.
The 3-year-old in question was Sofi, a little girl who was separated from her grandmotherafter they arrived at a port of entry in El Paso, Texas, last June seeking asylum. She was separated from her family for 47 days, until the Trump administration was forced to reunite them by court order. Chief of Law Enforcement Operations for Customs and Border Protection Brian S. Hastings still isn’t sure if she posed a threat, he told Rep. Ted Lieu during the Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday.
Ted Lieu: Sofi is not a criminal or a national security threat to the United States as a 3-year-old, […]
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Stephan: It is becoming clearer and clearer that we are not a happy country, and we are not a happy people. The World Happiness Report ranks 156 of the 195 countries of the world by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be, as measured by a spectrum of social outcomes.
The 2019 Report had this to say about the U.S., as reported by CNN. “Except for its 10th place ranking for income, the US doesn't rank in the top 10 on measures that make up a happy country.” Where do we rank? “12th place for generosity, 37th place for social support, 61st place for freedom and 42nd place for corruption.”
But most alarming the death rates of young and middle-aged Americans are rapidly climbing.
Among adults age 25 to 44, “all race and ethnicity groups experienced increases in death rates more recently,” the researchers wrote in their report, published Tuesday, which also found differences in life expectancy between white, black and Hispanic adults.
The researchers found that death rates for Hispanic, white and black adults age 25 to 44 all generally declined from 2000 through 2012 but then increased through 2017.
Between 2012 and 2017, death rates climbed 21% among white and black adults age 25 to 44, and 13% among Hispanic adults in that age group.
The new report did not analyze why the death rate could be rising among this age group, but Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the
American Public Health Association, who was not involved in the report, had some ideas.
Death rates appear to be rising among young and middle-age adults in the United States, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 
