Jan 22
2024
Monday Morning Read
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Nikki Haley, who a couple of weeks ago, failed to mention slavery as a cause of the Civil War, put her foot in her mouth again last week, declaring “America has never been a racist country.”
I guess forcing four million people live in slavery doesn’t constitute as racist.
The Washington Post tore her argument to shreds by citing public opinion polls from the 1940s and 1960s. A majority of whites said they should get preference for jobs over Blacks and should have a right to keep them from living in their neighborhoods. A Black man dating their daughter? No way.
Some may say those attitudes have changed, and to some degree they have. But racism is still present in our society – and in our community, as evidenced by one of the worst rates of residential segregation in the country.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has her own difficulty with the truth. At a recent interview with the editorial board of The Buffalo News, she declared that delaying and revising the planned covering of a portion of the Kensington Expressway would push the cost from slightly under $1 billion to $20 billion to $50 billion. She made the numbers up, as her spokesman reluctantly conceded when later challenged by The News.
The Brown administration and the city’s police union have agreed on a new contract that provides cops with pay raises but keeps in place a system that handcuffs the commissioners from discipling officers accused of misconduct. Rod Watson wonders why the mayor and Common Council have turned a blind eye to the department’s many problems and what became of all the energy surrounding police reform in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.
Alden Global Capital, arguably the worst newspaper chain in the country, has sold the Baltimore Sun to the head of the nation’s worst television chain. As you can imagine, things are not off to a good start. Meanwhile, billionaires are finding that newspapers are a tough way to make money.
Buy your tickets now for our Feb. 7 labor event
Two tales of corporate greed: Chalk up half of our post-pandemic inflation to profiteering, and the reasons why prescription drugs cost so much more in the United States than elsewhere.
The new big thing in policing involves integrating public and private forms of surveillance. Real-Time Crime Centers, as they’re called, can help police solve crime – and assist authorities invade the privacy of citizens.
Forget about yachts and mansions. Owning a professional sports team is the new status symbol for the uber-rich. GQ explains how the game is played.
Wanna move near Karl Marx? It’s gonna cost ya.
