United We Stand
Statistics taken from "America Is Less Polarized Than You Think," by Frances Moore Lappe at TheNation.com.
85% - Americans who want to overhaul campaign-finance laws.
67% - Americans who favor stricter gun-control laws.
69% - Americans who support capping green-house gas emissions.
62% -Americans who believe that upper-income individuals don't pay enough in taxes.
82% - Americans who are bothered -- either "some" or a "lot" -- that corporations aren't paying their fair share in taxes.
18% - Americans who trust the US government.
Immigration by the Numbers
700+ - Children separated from their parents at the US border since October (as of the middle of May).
550 - Children who, fearing deportation, skipped school in Morristown, Tennessee, after a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
70% - Income that a family loses, on average, within six months of a parent being detained or deported by ICE.
42% - Increase in ICE arrests in the first eight months of 2017, compared with the same period a year earlier. (Source: "The Nation," May 21, 2014).
Temperatures and Air Conditioning
122.4F - Temperature in southern Pakistan on April 30 -- the highest ever reliably recorded April temperature.
8% - Percentage of the 2.8 billion people living in the hottest parts of the world who own an air conditioner.
5.6B - Estimated number of air-conditioning units that will be in use by 2050, up from 1.6 billion today; these AC units wold use as much electricity as China does now.
2F - Approximate rise in overnight temperatures in may cities as AC units vent hot air outside of homes.
21% - Percentage of the global growth in electricity demand accounted for by fans and air conditioning. (Source: "The Nation," June 18/25, 2018).
Solar Jobs vs. Coal Jobs in the US (Includes part time and full time)
Solar - 349,725 --- Coal - 167,023.
Solar Jobs by country (Full-time equivalent)
China - 2.8 million --- US - 250,300 --- India - 181,200 --- Japan - 272,700 --- Other - 604,800.
Solar Installations, 2017 (In gigawatts)
China - 53.1 --- US - 10.6 --- India - 8.0 --- Japan - 7.1 --- Other - 19.0 (Sources: "2018 US Energy and Employment Report," International Renewable Energy Agency, GTM Research).
Unions Keep Inequality in Check
Fewer workers are unionized today - 30% in 1955 versus 11% in 2017. That's a problem because:
1 - Unions win higher wages for their workers - 10-20% more pay than nonunion workers over the past 80 years.
2 - People of color benefit most - In 1962, the income boost from union membership was nearly 5X larger for workers of color than white workers.
3 - So, more unions mean less inequality - If union membership had stayed at 1950s levels, the growth in income share of the top 10% would have been reduced 50%. (Source: Henry Farber, Dan Herbst, Ilyana Kiziemko, and Suresh Naidu, "Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century," May 2018).
A Matter of Birth and Death
In 1850, the infant mortality rate for black babies in the US was 57% higher than the rate for white babies. In 2015, it was 131% higher.
Preterm Birth Rate
White - 8.9% --- Black - 13.4% --- Hispanic - 9.1% --- All - 9.6%.
Maternal Mortality (Deaths per 100,000 live births)
White - 12.7 --- Black - 43.5 --- Other - 14.4.
The infant mortality rate among black mthers with advanced degrees is higher that that of white mothers with an eighth grade education or less. (Sources: Economic History Association, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Brookings Institution).
We're Not Safer Carrying Guns Around
Concealed-carry laws increase violent crime. 16.3 million have a permit for a concealed gun, a 256% increase since 2007.
Only 8 states give law enforcement discretion to deny applicants a concealed-carry permit.
In a state that passes a concealed-carry law, violent crime will be 13-15% higher after 10 years than it would be otherwise. (Sources: National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 23510, January 2018, GunsToCarry data, April 2018).
Race to the Bottom
The census has never been a perfect enumeration of the US population, but it has disproportionately undercounted minority groups, including African Americans and Hispanics (a category that was not included as an option on the census before 1980).
Whites were undercouted by between 3 and 4% in 1950; between 2 and 3% in 1960; and a little over 2% in 1970. Blacks were undercounted by between 7 and 8% for 1950, and between 6 and 7% for both 1960 and 1970.
Whites were undercounted by less than 1% for both 1980 and 1990, and overcounted by 1% or less for 2000 and 2010. Blacks were undercounted between 4 and 5% for both 1980 and 1990, and close to 2% in both 2000 and 2010. Hispanics were undercounted by between 5 and 6% in 1980, 5% in 1990, less than 1% in 2000, and between 1 and 2% in 2010.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Friday, June 1, 2018
A Look at GOP Gains Through Gerrymandering
In its April 16, 2018 issue, "The Nation" magazine presented some very troubling statistics on how democracy has been distorted by GOP gerrymandering. The redrawing of districts has been augmented by restrictions on voting that make voting more difficult for Democratic Party supporters. North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are particularly bad examples of subversion of democracy; however, this virus is found in other states in which Republicans control the legislative and executive branches of government.
In North Carolina, a wealthy businessman named Art Pope helped bankroll an assault on Democrats, which targeted 22 legislative seats and took 18, winning control of both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1870. This Republican-controlled legislature drew up a state electoral map with the express purpose of electing Republicans, culminated in 2016, with the GOP taking 10 of 13, or 77 percent of the House seats on the ballot, even though Republican candidates won just 53 percent of the vote statewide. The Republicans realized that they didn't need to win over a majority of Americans; they just needed to rig the game so that an ever smaller, older, and whiter pool of voters could consistently prevail.
Overall, in the 2010 election cycle, 22 state legislative chambers changed control -- all from Democratic to Republican. Nationwide, the GOP won 720 seats that year, counting special elections, to control 54 percent of the chambers -- more than they had since 1928.
In Wisconsin, Democrats went from a 50-45 edge in the State House of Representatives to a 38-60 deficit in 2010, and lost both the State Senate and the governorship. The GOP-gerrymandered maps drawn the following year meant that, while Republicans got less than half of Wisconsin's U.S. House votes in 2012, and while Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the state by seven points, Democrats wound up with only three of Wisconsin's eight U.S. House seats.
Looking next at Pennsylvania in the 2012 election cycle, a GOP-drawn electoral map resulted in Democratic candidates winning more than half of the state's votes in U.S. House elections and Obama winning reelection easily, Republicans took 13 of the 18 House seats being contested. Michigan saw much the same result in 2012, as although Obama carried the state by almost 10 points, and Senator Debbie Stabenow won reelection by more than 20, Republicans took 9 of the 14 U.S. House seats up for grabs.
Switching now to restrictions on voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 23 states passed new restrictions on voting after the GOP's state-house takeover in 2010: 13 have more restrictive voter-ID laws in place, including six with strict new photo-ID requirements; 11 have laws making it harder for citizens to register; six have cut back on early voting; and three have made it harder to restore voting rights for people with criminal convictions in their past. Of the 11 states with the highest black turnout in 2008, seven put new voting restrictions in place (although North Carolina's law was blocked by a federal court).
ADDENDUMS:
*The anti-labor laws in GOP-run states have diminished Democratic voter participation -- by design. Since 2012, six states -- Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- have passed new "right-to-work" laws that allow workers to benefit from union representation without having to pay union dues. Some of these same states, like Wisconsin, have also limited public-sector unions' bargaining power; in 2017, Iowa made that move when the GOP returned to power.
James Feigenbaum, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, and Vanessa Williamson of the Scholars Strategy Network, estimate that right-to-work laws decreased the seats held by Democrats in state legislatures by 5 to 11 percent.
*Perhaps the most reactionary new policies have come in the realm of abortion rights. In the years from 2011 and 2016, states passed as many abortion restrictions -- 288 -- as they had in the 15 years prior. In fact, the limits enacted in those six years amount to a full quarter of the abortion restrictions passed in the 43 years since "Roe v. Wade." According to the Guttmacher Institute, of the 10 states that adopted at least 10 new abortion restrictions in those years, which accounted for 60 percent of all new restrictive laws, all 10 were run by Republican governors with GOP statehouse majorities.
In North Carolina, a wealthy businessman named Art Pope helped bankroll an assault on Democrats, which targeted 22 legislative seats and took 18, winning control of both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since 1870. This Republican-controlled legislature drew up a state electoral map with the express purpose of electing Republicans, culminated in 2016, with the GOP taking 10 of 13, or 77 percent of the House seats on the ballot, even though Republican candidates won just 53 percent of the vote statewide. The Republicans realized that they didn't need to win over a majority of Americans; they just needed to rig the game so that an ever smaller, older, and whiter pool of voters could consistently prevail.
Overall, in the 2010 election cycle, 22 state legislative chambers changed control -- all from Democratic to Republican. Nationwide, the GOP won 720 seats that year, counting special elections, to control 54 percent of the chambers -- more than they had since 1928.
In Wisconsin, Democrats went from a 50-45 edge in the State House of Representatives to a 38-60 deficit in 2010, and lost both the State Senate and the governorship. The GOP-gerrymandered maps drawn the following year meant that, while Republicans got less than half of Wisconsin's U.S. House votes in 2012, and while Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the state by seven points, Democrats wound up with only three of Wisconsin's eight U.S. House seats.
Looking next at Pennsylvania in the 2012 election cycle, a GOP-drawn electoral map resulted in Democratic candidates winning more than half of the state's votes in U.S. House elections and Obama winning reelection easily, Republicans took 13 of the 18 House seats being contested. Michigan saw much the same result in 2012, as although Obama carried the state by almost 10 points, and Senator Debbie Stabenow won reelection by more than 20, Republicans took 9 of the 14 U.S. House seats up for grabs.
Switching now to restrictions on voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 23 states passed new restrictions on voting after the GOP's state-house takeover in 2010: 13 have more restrictive voter-ID laws in place, including six with strict new photo-ID requirements; 11 have laws making it harder for citizens to register; six have cut back on early voting; and three have made it harder to restore voting rights for people with criminal convictions in their past. Of the 11 states with the highest black turnout in 2008, seven put new voting restrictions in place (although North Carolina's law was blocked by a federal court).
ADDENDUMS:
*The anti-labor laws in GOP-run states have diminished Democratic voter participation -- by design. Since 2012, six states -- Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- have passed new "right-to-work" laws that allow workers to benefit from union representation without having to pay union dues. Some of these same states, like Wisconsin, have also limited public-sector unions' bargaining power; in 2017, Iowa made that move when the GOP returned to power.
James Feigenbaum, Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, and Vanessa Williamson of the Scholars Strategy Network, estimate that right-to-work laws decreased the seats held by Democrats in state legislatures by 5 to 11 percent.
*Perhaps the most reactionary new policies have come in the realm of abortion rights. In the years from 2011 and 2016, states passed as many abortion restrictions -- 288 -- as they had in the 15 years prior. In fact, the limits enacted in those six years amount to a full quarter of the abortion restrictions passed in the 43 years since "Roe v. Wade." According to the Guttmacher Institute, of the 10 states that adopted at least 10 new abortion restrictions in those years, which accounted for 60 percent of all new restrictive laws, all 10 were run by Republican governors with GOP statehouse majorities.
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