Kentucky is known for its bourbon, but whats often forgotten is the long history of black distillers in the state. Husband and wife Sean and Tia Edwards plan to put black-owned distilleries back on the map.

Growing up in Kentucky, Sean helped his uncle and grandfather bootleg alcohol by collecting and cleaning bottles on the weekends. He told the story at a gathering to announce the new distillery in remembrance of his uncle, who died a few months earlier.

I was always fascinated about the making of alcohol, he said to the crowd.

Sean registered Fresh Bourbon Distilling Co. in 2017 as a premier, African-American-owned Bourbon brand. The companys products are mashed, fermented, distilled, matured and later bottled entirely in Kentucky. For now, their recipes are being produced under a contract with Hartfield & Co. Distillery, in Paris, Ky.

For nearly three years, we have been diligently developing an authentic and unique Bourbon and spirits line. We chose not to buy Bourbon from someone else and just place our name on a bottle, Sean Edwards said in a release. We have been very intentional and deliberate in crafting our spirits from the mash bills up and also our Fresh Bourbon team, including in selecting our master distiller. We are excited to share with the world what we have created with the world.

The master distiller, whose name has not been announced, will reportedly be the first black master distiller in Kentucky after slavery.

Bourbon is a mainstay of Kentuckys economy, and I am thrilled to see this step toward greater inclusivity in this iconic industry, said Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear in the release. Creating opportunities for all Kentuckians is essential, and our administration aims to pave the way for progress. I sincerely thank Fresh Bourbon Distilling Co. for choosing to build its distillery in our state.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) approved a 10-year incentive agreement in December with Fresh Bourbon. In exchange for creating and maintaining 15 full-time jobs for Kentucky residents over 10 years with benefits and an hourly wage of $18, the company will receive up to $200,000 in tax incentives.

Customers can taste the spirits from the distillery planned for Lexington's Distillery District in late 2020.

Read more from the original source:

Meet the husband and wife team behind Kentucky's first black-owned distillery - The Hill

The government is in the dark about the scale of worker exploitation across the UK, Britains employment tsar has warned.

We are to a certain extent in the dark about the scale of these issues, Matthew Taylor said. We dont know enough about whats going on.

Speaking exclusively to Yahoo Finance UK, he said he hoped to launch one of the most far-reaching studies on the issue later this year. If it happens, it really will be a game-changer, he said.

Read more: Taylor warns EU migration curbs could fuel people smuggling

Taylor was appointed as the governments interim director of labour market enforcement last year, after carrying out the Taylor Review of the gig economy.

The role involves overseeing several UK agencies that enforce workers rights covering everything from minimum wage payment to modern slavery cases.

His comments come as the government confirmed on Tuesday it will continue naming and shaming employers who under-pay the minimum wage, though only for sums above 500.

While more data is needed, official research suggests workers are particularly at risk of exploitation in sectors such as agriculture, care, construction and car washes.

Taylor told Yahoo Finance UK he wants the government to do more to educate workers on their rights, rather than focusing mainly on punishing badly behaved employers.

The former adviser to ex-prime minister Tony Blair said employment rights were a job for society as a whole and hopes workers can be empowered to speak up when they see violations.

The comments come after research last month suggested hundreds of thousands of people were being paid below minimum wage. A study by the Resolution Foundation think tank said calculating the exact number was difficult if not impossible, but estimated it was more than 350,000 people.

Read more: High earners and wealthy face tax hikes in UK budget

In an interview in his government office in London last month, Taylor said he welcomed the research and admitted the government need to be more proactive in enforcing rights. The think tanks analysis of a single month suggested HMRC caught only 1,500 out of around 11,000 underpaying firms.

However, Taylor said many were unintentional, very small-scale breaches, such as employers failing to immediately increase pay when minimum wage rates rise.

People need to be aware thats not 11,000 bosses rubbing their hands going, How can I not pay poor people the minimum wage.

Enforcement has also improved and budgets increased, Taylor argued, saying an awful lot more firms would breach minimum wage law without HMRCs investigations. Employers were fined a record 17m ($22m) in 2018-19.

Taylor backed reforms to help workers know their rights. (PA)

Taylor noted government agencies look at an enormously wide spectrum of labour issues, from workers buying their own uniforms to forced labour by organised crime gangs.

The slightly depressing thing is some of these problems have been around for quite a long time, Taylor said.

The jobs tsar said he would welcome stronger penalties for companies that break the rules, and backed the revived naming-and-shaming scheme. However, he admitted current resources were not commensurate with the problem, but said they could be better used through wider reform.

Taylor, also chief executive of the RSA charity, backs current government plans to roll different enforcement teams into a new employment body. Its focus should be not just...catching bad people doing bad things, but also empowering workers and encouraging firms to do the right thing.

More government guidance could have an enormous impact, Taylor said. Officials should educate workers, firms, unions and trade bodies on common issues, such as pay entitlements for carers when traveling between jobs or security guards expected to arrive early for shifts.

Story continues

His approach appears to be gaining traction. The government vowed on Tuesday to make its online advice more accessible, provide thematic guidance and even visit new firms to educate them on minimum wage law.

From April, employers will also have to give contractors a statement of their rights on day one in a reform proposed by Taylor, encouraging workers to highlight issues themselves.

Taylor also welcomed a government advertising campaign to raise awareness over holiday pay, a major issue in the UK. About 1.8 million people do not receive holiday pay owed, and a recent survey found widespread confusion over the entitlements of temporary, shift, agency and zero-hour workers.

Non-payment of holidays should be seen as minimum wage infringement for the lowest-paid, Taylor said, allowing HMRCs 500-strong minimum wage enforcement team to tackle the issue.

Ultimately though, Taylor thinks public support and awareness is needed to successfully enforce workers rights.

Taylor pointed to the smoking ban, introduced in 2007 when he was part of Blairs government. The ban worked because everyone accepted the principle, Taylor said.

Similarly, employment rights are a job for society as a whole, not just for enforcement agencies.

I cant ever envisage a world where there are enough people to visit every single business every single year, he said.

Read the rest here:

Jobs tsar: Government 'in the dark' on exploitation at work - Yahoo Finance UK

May 9 marks the 220th anniversary of this great abolitionists birth. This article was originally published in Workers World on Sept. 14, 2006.

Many historians agree that the Civil War really started on a flat patch of land known as Bloody Kansas 150 years ago, in the spring, summer and on into the autumn of 1856.

A depiction of John Brown moments before execution, Dec. 2, 1859.

This area of land covering some 82,000 square miles now sits at the geographic center of the continental United States. It rarely gets national attention these days, and when it does its usually for reactionary developments, like the effort to ban evolution from the public schools science curriculum.

Yet this was once the hub of the most important political conflict of its day, indeed of all U.S. history: the struggle over slavery. This was where diametrically opposed forces abolitionists and pro-slavers clashed.

When 1856 began, the pro-slavery forces had looked to be ascendant. Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854. The law provided for popular sovereignty voting by white male landowners, that is to decide whether Kansas and Nebraska would be free or slave states. Kansas had since been the scene of a violent terror campaign, based across the border in Missouri.

Death squads, known as Border Ruffians, aimed to kill or drive out those who opposed the spread of slavery to Kansas, and to flood the territory with their own numbers. Jesse and Frank James, glorified as rebellious outlaws in the movies and folklore, were the most well-known of these ruffians.

The Border Ruffians hunted down and murdered African Americans who had escaped slavery and were heading north to Canada. They brazenly assassinated Underground Railway station operators and anti-slavery newspaper editors.

It had started to seem like a foregone conclusion that Kansas would enter the union as a slave state. Then John Brown arrived.

With a small, brave band of stalwarts, he took on the slave owners death squads in direct combat, and bested them. He revived and rallied the anti-slavery forces.

At the Battle of Osawatomie, on Aug. 30, 1856, his brilliant tactical maneuvers led to the defeat of a pro-slavery force of 300 soldiers by his group of under 20 and from then on he was affectionately known as Old Osawatomie by admirers around the country.

In Lawrence, Kanasas, in the first two weeks of September, he led the military defense of the state capital against a pro-slavery assault and ever after was respectfully called Captain Brown by those who fought alongside him.

But before Osawatomie, before Lawrence, John Brown had already become a legend. That happened at Pottawatomie Creek.

A daring raid

At Pottawatomie on the night of May 24-25, 1856, John Brown led an armed band in a lightning raid against an encampment where he knew hed find several of the worst of the Border Ruffians who were terrorizing the territory.

When Brown and company rode off, they left the dead bodies of five racist thugs. The criminals Brown and his band killed had been responsible for many assaults and murders; they were also known for capturing Native women and forcing them into prostitution and sexually assaulting Free State women.

Until Brown acted, the slavocracy had been waging an undeclared war with what seemed like impunity. And not just in the fields and towns of Kansas. On May 22, two days before Brown rode to Pottawatomie, Preston Brooks, a member of Congress from South Carolina, had strode onto the floor of the U.S. Senate and beaten anti-slavery Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death as retaliation for Sumners speech The Crime against Kansas.

After Pottawatomie, all this changed. The slaveocracy did not surrender it would take the Civil War for that. But from Pottawatomie word went out.

No longer would the racist death squads have free rein in Kansas. A new force, a force for freedom, was fighting back.

For years afterward, in fact to this very day, bourgeois historians have misrepresented what happened at Pottawatomie. It has been portrayed as an insane, isolated event, as a senseless, inexplicable act of violence and its perpetrator as a wild-eyed, crazed, fanatical maniac. The official bourgeois version removes the Pottawatomie raid from its historic context the bloody terrorist war the Border Ruffians were waging and omits the fact that the men Browns troops killed were racist murderers.

John Brown was no lunatic. He was a hero. By first frost in the fall of 1856, he had accomplished what six months earlier no one thought possible. The territory had been secured. Kansas would enter the union as a free state.

The victory came at a high personal cost for Brown. His son Frederick died at the Battle of Osawatomie. Another son, John Brown Jr., was captured by the pro-slavery forces and tortured horribly while held prisoner, which led to many years of illness and anguish.

Brown himself was now a wanted man. A price on his head, he went underground, leaving Kansas. He headed toward the Northeast.

There he would spend the next three years raising funds, recruiting troops, writing, speaking and planning. His goal was nothing less than to launch a guerrilla war, whose leadership would be taken up by African Americans, to end slavery and establish full freedom and equality for all.

On to Harpers Ferry

Before, during and after his time in Kansas, John Brown was keen to learn how to wage the kind of guerrilla warfare he believed would be necessary to destroy slavery. To whom did he look as his teachers?

To Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and other enslaved African American leaders of U.S. slave revolts; to the Seminole nation that had resisted domination by colonial settlers; to the Maroons of the South and of Jamaica and Surinam, escaped slaves who fought the settler states forces in daring raids from bases in the hills and mountains; and to Toussaint LOuverture, one of the great liberators of Haiti.

Most well-meaning whites, including abolitionists, were under the sway of racism to varying degrees. In contrast, Brown not only admired but sought to learn from and emulate Black and Native leaders. He was that free of the taint of racism.

In Kansas, Brown worked closely with a Native ally, Ottawa Jones, who sheltered, fed and helped arm Browns group at several points during the months of conflict. Although he himself was a fiercely devout Christian, Brown counted Jews and atheists among his troops.

For three years after leaving Kansas, Brown was based in North Elba, N.Y. [in upstate New York].There he established a cooperative farming community, the first ever where Black and white families lived and worked as equals.

Along with farming and guiding escaped slaves along an Underground Railroad route across the border to Canada, Brown would spend those three years preparing for the action he was determined would give rise to a generalized mass uprising by enslaved Black people. He would write a new constitution for the United States which first and foremost proclaimed race and sex equality.

He would travel to Canada and recruit several African Americans, including Osborne P. Anderson, who would fight alongside Brown at Harpers Ferry, Va. (now W.Va.), and live to write about it. He would meet often with the great organizer and orator, Frederick Douglass, and the two would become close friends. Douglass had escaped from slavery as a young man.

He would confer with the Moses of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, whom he always respectfully referred to as Gen. Tubman. Some believe that Tubman helped plan the raid on the U.S. Army arsenal at Harpers Ferry and would have taken part in it had she not fallen ill.

African-American freedom fighters Dangerfield Newby, Lewis S. Leary, John Browns sons Watson and Oliver, and six others of their number would die at Harpers Ferry in October 1859. Five would escape and survive. Seven, including John Brown, would be captured and hanged.

Gen. Robert E. Lee, who scant months later would lead the secessionist Confederate army, led the opposing force that captured John Brown at Harpers Ferry. John Wilkes Booth, who would assassinate President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, was among the troops guarding the scaffolding on the day they hanged John Brown.

On that day, Dec. 2, 1859, just before they led him from his cell to the gallows, this great soldier for human liberation would write, I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. Brown was buried in the majority Black cemetery in North Elba, a fitting tribute indeed.

In April 1861 the Civil War would begin.

See the original post here:

160 years since Bloody Kansas/The legacy of John Brown - Workers World

The Democratic primaries are in full swing. This years presidential contest will be the highest-stakes election for the Democratic party and American democracy in a long time. There has been much talk of deeply divided Democrats and fights for the soul of the Democratic party. But from the other side of the Atlantic it may be difficult to understand what the most important differences are among the Democratic candidates and their implications for the future of the left and democracy.

Normally, intra-party differences pivot around policy disputes. There are indeed policy differences between the progressives, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and the moderates, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Amy Klobucharbut on economic policy these are less than one might think. Indeed, on economic issues all the candidates favour policies further left, and closer to traditional European social-democratic policies, than any field of Democratic candidates in recent memory.

For example, with regard to health care, all the candidates support moving beyond the reforms introduced under Barack Obamas presidency towards universal coverage. Where they differ is on how to get there: Sanders and Warren favour a rapid transition to a single-payer, public (Medicare for all) system, while the moderates favour gradual change, beginning with the expansion of a public option (Medicare) to those lacking private insurance.

Similarly, all the candidates advocate higher taxes on the wealthy, fighting inequality, more business regulation, increased spending on social programmes and infrastructure, making college more affordable and devoting greater attention to environmental issues and climate change. As with health care, on these issues the candidates differ more on how they favour achieving these goals than on the goals themselves.

Policy differences between progressives and moderates appear more clearly with regard to non-economic issues, with the former calling for decriminalising border crossing, providing health care to illegal immigrants, abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, offering reparations for slavery, prioritising transgender rights and other policies far to the left of the American mainstream and even most Democratic voters.

These are not, however, normal times. More important and consequential, therefore, than the candidates policy differences are deeper disputes about how to win elections and what the future of the left should be.

On one side are those who believe the path to victory in 2020 lies in reaching out to independent voters and maybe even Republicans who support some of Donald Trumps policies as president but are disgusted by his corrupt and polarising behaviour. Supporters of this strategy point to extensive research showing that moderates outperform extremists and to the 2018 mid-term congressional elections, when the Democrats retook the House of Representatives by capturing wavering and previously Republican-leaning districts. From this perspective, some of Warrens and Sanders stances appear nothing short of insanity, since they are far to the left of even what many Democratic much less independent or Republican voters prefer.

Disputes about electability are closely tied to debates about the future of the Democratic party and these debates mirror those occurring on the European left as well.

In addition, many worry that Sanders past makes him unelectable. Although he and Warren do not differ much on policy, Warren is less rabble-rouser than wonky technocrat: she claims to have a plan to solve any problem a phrase so associated with her that her campaign sells T-shirts with that printed on it. In addition, before serving in Democratic administrations and as a Democratic senator, she was even a Republican. (In the European context Warren would easily fit in the social-democratic category: she has called herself a capitalist to her bones and presents the policies she favours as designed to save capitalism rather than bury it.)

Sanders, on the other hand, wasnt even a member of the Democratic party until he ran for president. His past is littered with positions with which Republicans will have a field day: his support for non-democratic but self-proclaimed socialists, such as Fidel Castro in Cuba and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, as well as the Iranian revolution; his honeymoon trip to the Soviet Union; his campaigning for the Socialist Workers party; his argument that (particularly low) wage labour is akin to slavery, and more.

Moreover, Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, rather than a social democrat, and is clearly sceptical of the possibility or even desirability of reforming capitalism views with which, despite the purported rise of interest in socialism among the young, most Americans do not agree. (In Europe, Sanders would probably find himself in the company of far-left figures such as Jean-Luc Mlenchon or Jeremy Corbyn.)

On the other side of the electability debate are those who believe the path to victory lies not in trying to attract independent and wavering voters but in mobilising the partys base. Supporters of this strategy point to research arguing that voters generally dont know much about policy and the intense polarisation of the American electorate, which makes them care even less. In this view, Democrats and Republicans are so committed to their own team technically, negative partisanship has become so strong that they will vote for any candidate their party puts up.

From this perspective, there are hardly any real independent or wavering voters, so any strategy based on trying to attract them is fundamentally flawed. Instead, the key to victory lies in getting as much of ones own team to the polls as possible. If this is true, then Sanders has advantages over Warren, since his passion, authenticity, values-driven politics and anti-establishment appeal is most likely to motivate disaffected and alienated Democrats to vote. (Reflecting this, Politico recently reported, for example, that the Sanders campaign was instructing volunteers to attack Warren by noting that the people who support her are highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what.)

Sanders does draw more support, than Warren for example, from young people and disaffected particularly male disaffected voters, who do indeed tend to vote less than other Democratic constituencies. Sanders also enjoys disproportionate support among committed far-left activists, who say they are less likely to vote for another Democrat if Sanders does not win the nomination. (Sanders, to be clear, has said he will support whoever wins it.)

Disputes about electability are closely tied to debates about the future of the Democratic party and these debates mirror those occurring on the European left as well.

On one side are those who believe the lefts path lies in countering right-wing populism with a left-wing version. Chantal Mouffe is probably this views most influential advocate but echoes of this strategy can be found in the approaches of left leaders like Corbyn and Mlenchon. In this view, the left needs to turn its back on its centrist, social-democratic past and recognise that the reigning political and economic order is corrupt and perhaps irredeemable.

Those in this camp believe that a mass of disaffected voters are waiting to flock to their revolution and view the lefts job as injecting passion back into politics, which will mobilise these voters as well as revitalise democracy. The best way to do this, in turn, is by openly acknowledging the antagonistic dimension of politics and that society is indeed divided into friends and foes with the real foes being not minorities and immigrants but rather the rich and the establishment.

How the Democratic primaries play out is thus set to have an immense impact not only on the 2020 elections but on the future of the left and democracy, in the US and beyond.

Although Sanders fits uneasily into the populist category, he does believe in the need for a political revolution and views the economic and political status quo, as well as the Democratic establishment, as more fundamentally flawed than do the other Democratic candidates. Moreover, many of his most vocal supporters revel in an aggressive and antagonistic approach to politics and view moderation and compromise as anathema. (This was also true in 2016, of course, when so-called Bernie Bros caused much hand-wringing. In these primaries a small but vocal subset of Sanders supporters have also engaged in persistent, nasty social-media attacks on other candidates and the Democratic party, which to be fair to Sanders he has not openly encouraged.)

On the other side lie those who believe the future of the left lies in a revitalised social-democratic approach to politics, which would focus on reforming the existing political and economic orders, rather than calling for a fundamental transformation of them. This approach is also comfortable with moderation and compromise and views polarisation and antagonistic, ideological politics as a threat to both the left and democracy.

Those in this camp recognise that swing voters are repelled by the ideological and divisive appeals which spur on the faithful. They believe that the lefts future and the health of democracy requires at least diminishing the antagonism of such voters, if not winning them over. The examples of countries such as Hungary and Turkey, where divisions among the opposition facilitated the ability of populist leaders to undermine democracy, may be worth considering in this regard.

In the United States these views about the left and democracy have led to a recent outpouring of fear among moderates and many members of the Democratic establishment about the possibility of a Sanders victory. If the lefts strategy consists of whipping up the already dissatisfied with harsh critiques of the status quo, which are not accompanied by viable plans for gaining power, implementing policies once in power and healing societal divisions, these concerned Democrats believe that not only is Trump likely to win but that faith in democracy is likely to erode further.

How the Democratic primaries play out is thus set to have an immense impact not only on the 2020 elections but on the future of the left and democracy, in the US and beyond.

This article is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal.

View original post here:

What's at stake in the Democratic primaries Democracy - IPS Journal

A smartphone with the Huawei and 5G network logo is seen on a PC motherboard in this illustration taken on Jan. 29, 2020.

DADO RUVIC/Reuters

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

Re Ottawa Should Ban Huawei From 5G: Military (Feb. 10): While pondering Huaweis role in forthcoming 5G networks, shouldnt the government cast the net of circumspection wider? Western companies, it seems to me, havent always been paragons of virtue when dealing with our digital information. Misuse and abuse should not be defined solely by geography or politics.

Eric LeGresley Ottawa

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Where is the dialogue on the potential health risks of new 5G technology? These networks use extremely high-frequency, never-used-before bandwidths in the electromagnetic spectrum, and we dont yet know the potential health effects.

In the 1950s, it was common for shoe stores to employ X-ray machines to show how well a shoe fit. It was fun to wiggle ones toes and see the bones dance. We learned that this was not wise, after the fact. We shouldnt make these mistakes again.

Governments and scientists should pursue further risk analyses before going down the 5G path.

Laurie Kochen Toronto

Re The Omar Khadr Saga Is A Testament To Canadian Principles Of Justice (Opinion, Feb. 8): Columnist Robyn Urback writes that Omar Khadrs story is an example of the principles of Canadian freedom and justice in action. I suggest it is another example of a justice system that too often puts the rights of criminals before those of victims.

When I read of violent criminals offered parole after serving only one-third of a sentence, only to reoffend, or alleged murderers released because rights to a speedy trial were violated, were the rights of victims really considered? I think the proper phrase might better be justice inaction.

John Donly Pickering, Ont.

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I have followed the Omar Khadr case for many years. To me, he has consistently displayed a peaceful, non-violent demeanour, both in and out of prison; expressed remorse for the tragic situation that occurred; shown compassion and concern for his captors and torturers, as well as a positive regard toward all with whom he interacts.

I am happy to hear that Mr. Khadr will deliver a keynote address at Dalhousie University, and I wish him well in all his future endeavours.

Jim Thompson Ramara, Ont.

Re Tracking Safety (Letters, Feb. 10): While Transport Minister Marc Garneaus 30-day slow-order for trains carrying dangerous goods is a welcome development, I believe it is a short-term Band-Aid response to deeper problems in Ottawas approach to regulating railway safety.

The Guernsey derailment and fire is the latest in a long string of precisely the kinds of accidents that Transport Canadas regulatory regime is supposed to prevent. There should be less emphasis on letting the railways regulate themselves, and a stronger focus on direct and effective oversight and enforcement by federal regulators.

Mark Winfield PhD, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University; Toronto

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Re Just How Bad Are The Jobs Numbers, Really? (Report on Business, Feb. 6): Every month, 56,000 households, or 110,000 Canadians, take part in the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS and three other data sources the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours; Employment Insurance Statistics; and the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey provide a comprehensive dashboard of labour information. Policy makers use this dashboard to make decisions that affect Canadians, from determining employment insurance rates to developing training and skills programs, and more. And with every LFS release, Statistics Canada provides data quality statements: Users should be careful in drawing trends from a single months data or relying exclusively on one instrument. This would be like driving a car using only one of the gauges on the dashboard.

We thank Canadians who participate in the LFS every month, our interviewers who work hard to ensure high response rates and quality, and our users who understand the value and proper use of the LFS.

Anil Arora Chief Statistician of Canada; Ottawa

Re The Liberals Want A Happiness Budget (Feb. 5): In my view, GDP economics are about maximizing how fast we can convert resources to money, using the cheapest possible labour, with no consideration to people or planet. The biggest challenge with GDP, however, seems not so much the metric itself, but rather its supremacy in the various processes that guide societys governance. Our addiction to its quantitative qualities has left us believing in what Greta Thunberg calls fairy tales of eternal economic growth. But what do we want to grow, if not happiness and well-being?

A successful economy could indeed be judged by a flat-lining GDP, accompanied by a much more desired increase in happiness and well-being, in whatever way a diverse society chooses to measure it. I see that places such as Bhutan, Scotland and New Zealand are already on their way.

As Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said: If we measure the wrong thing, we will do the wrong thing.

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Yannick Beaudoin Director General, Ontario and Northern Canada, David Suzuki Foundation; Toronto

Re Photo Project Curated By Kaepernick On Display At Toronto Festival (Feb. 5): As a black female Canadian, my wish for Black History Month in Canada is that we acknowledge the 200-plus years of slavery in Canada, and the Canadian civil-rights leaders who ended centuries-long segregation. Black History Month shouldnt just be about feeling good while listening to black musicians, or putting black artists on subway walls. We should educate more and strive to be truthful about the full scope of black history.

Since moving to the United States a few years ago, Ive noticed a stark difference in how Black History Month is celebrated and how black history, in general, is acknowledged. References to the African-American slave trade and U.S. civil-rights leaders are a consistent part of popular culture and education. But in Canada, I never saw references to either of those. I was never taught about the Canadian slave trade. I had to teach myself.

This year, I would ask that people take some time to learn about the African-Canadian slave trade that helped build the colonial empire we call Canada, and that important figures such as Hugh Burnett and Marisse Scott become commonplace, alongside names such as Viola Desmond, in the celebration of black history.

Sinead Bovell Brooklyn, N.Y.

Re Adding This Plant Compound To Your Diet Could Help Keep Alzheimers At Bay (Feb. 10): Dietitian Leslie Beck is my hero. She describes a study that has identified three flavonols critical to the prevention of Alzheimers disease. Two of these, myricetin and isorhamnetin, are found in wine. Great news cheers to that! And I forget what the third one is

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Vic Bornell Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

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Feb. 11: I was never taught about the Canadian slave trade. I had to teach myself. Readers respond to Black History Month, Omar Khadr, Huaweis 5G...

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

We were the first in our knowledge to use the term Blue Collar Boom to describe President Trumps record-setting economic recovery, on this very page.

Mr. Trumps record shows that he is making America great again, in part with the lowest unemployment since 1969, 50 years ago (during President Kennedys 1960s boom). That includes the lowest unemployment among African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans in American history. With the lowest unemployment rate for women in 70 years as well, Mr. Trump is leading the most inclusive recovery in American history.

Moreover, what Mr. Trump rightly called at Davos his blue-collar boom includes an all-time record in median family incomes at over $65,000. Indeed, rank-and-file workers have gotten the biggest pay raises in more than a decade, more than their bosses, with the bottom 25 percent of wage earners salaries rising 4.5 percent last year.

Employed Americans have reached new records nearly 150 million working people, with 1.85 million jobs added in 2019 (145,000 in December alone). Indeed, there are more unfilled job openings in America today than unemployed Americans. Since Mr. Trump was elected, more than 7 million jobs have been created, three-fourths of them going to women.

With such spectacular job and wage growth, 7.7 million fewer families are receiving food stamps than when Mr. Trump became president. Unemployment insurance claims are also the lowest in 50 years.

The stock market has also boomed since Mr. Trump was elected in 2016, with all three major stock indices recently setting all-time records, the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ.

This has resulted in part from the Trump/Republican tax reform passed in 2017, which Democratic presidential candidates are proposing to repeal. Say hello to renewed recession, and goodbye to your jobs and pay raises, if they get to make good on that, which would be the largest tax increase in American history.

Such a tax increase would also crash the stock market, reversing Mr. Trumps stock records. Say goodbye to your retirement savings as well.

Mr. Trumps deregulation, particularly regarding energy, has made America energy independent for the first time in 75 years. Under Mr. Trumps policies, America is now the worlds number one producer of oil and natural gas.

Mr. Trump has also recently won historic trade deals, signing phase one of the China trade deal. And Congress finally approved the USMCA between the United States, Mexico and Canada to replace NAFTA. Next, Mr. Trump will be on to phase II with China, and also a new trade deal with the EU. And with Great Britain and new Prime Minister Boris Johnson just having finalized Brexit, we will negotiate a new trade deal with the U.K.

Mr. Trump is also completing most of the southern border wall this year, with drastic reductions in illegal border crossings. The resulting decline in the supply of competing unskilled workers probably explains the sudden rise in wages for lower-income workers.

Additionally, the administration is straightening out the mess the federal government created by the Obama over-reach on the Waters of the United States regulation. Meanwhile, quietly and consistently, judicial appointments are restoring order to the much-neglected federal judiciary.

After Mr. Trumps celebratory State of the Union address Tuesday night, he was greeted on Wednesday with Senate acquittal on impeachment charges. House Democrats should have understood that their impeachment articles did not remotely reach the constitutional standard of treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors, as retired Harvard Law School professor and Democrat Alan Dershowitz explained. Funding went to Ukraine without any investigation of Hunter Biden after all. These are historical facts.

Indeed, the House impeachment articles do not even allege that Mr. Trump committed any crimes. Obstruction of Congress is not a crime, nor is abuse of power. As Mr. Dershowitz explained, maladministration or policy disagreements were explicitly rejected by the framers to justify removing a duly-elected president from office. Democrats are actually trying to shut down democracy, as Adam Schiff openly sought to rationalize.

Bottom line, 2020 is already shaping up to be a fundamental realignment election landslide, much like Ronald Reagans 1984 landslide over Walter Mondale, who ran promising to reverse Reagans historic tax cuts. Blue collar workers, once the backbone of the Democratic Party, now scorned by Democrats as deplorables, will gleefully switch to Republicans, proud to have them.

African-Americans will begin their realignment back to the Republicans as well, the party that literally fought in the Civil War to free African-Americans from slavery. Not to mention Jim Crow segregation, and the Ku Klux Klan, further Democratic depredations.

Indeed, Hispanics benefitting from jobs and soaring wages will also begin their realignment to Republican this year. Americans will look back to 2020 as the year that Mr. Trump finally brought Americans together, in the Republican Party.

Lewis K. Uhler is founder and chairman of the National Tax Limitation Committee and Foundation. Peter J. Ferrara is a senior policy adviser for the foundation and teaches economics at Kings College in New York.

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The Trump and Republican election realignment landslide in 2020 - Washington Times

Buying sustainable products is a challenge when synthetics are everywhere and packaging is plastic, but there is a growing business sector taking on the problem with success, writes Carol OCallaghan

In this day and age, who isnt making at least some effort to be environmentally conscious?

But beyond recycling and avoiding plastic packaging at the supermarket, finding necessities for the home which are eco-worthy can turn a shopping expedition into a chore rather than a pleasure.

Happily, among a growing sustainability sector are three Irish businesses thriving on their commitment to quality, the planet and a focus on sourcing materials ethically, while avoiding plastic at the same time.

White & Greens Peace silk pillowcase (79) from http://www.whiteandgreenhome.com

First up is White & Green run by Rebecca Winckworth, her mother, Sari, and sister, Danielle, in Co Wicklow. As Irelands only 100% organic Fairtrade bed linen brand, they make bed sheets and home accessories such as throws, towels and silk pillowcases.

We use only natural, organic processes which are healthier for the environment and our producers, Rebecca explains. It also creates softer, longer-lasting products. Our production ensures that everyone involved with us from farmers through to factory workers are paid a living wage, are treated well in the workplace and that there is never, ever any child labour nor slavery, something which is still commonplace today in the fashion and textiles industries.

Among the ranges the company sells, Rebecca says, Our two most popular items are our organic Peace silk pillowcase which is incredibly great for your skin and hair. It means you wont wake up with fuzzy hair or sleep lines anymore. It feels like a dream to sleep on. Our organic cotton Bed Bundle has four pillowcases, one duvet cover and one deep fitted sheet in the silkiest, softest sateen cotton at 258 for a double.

The Bed Bundle from White & Green (258) includes four pillowcases, one duvet cover and one deep fitted sheet in sateen cotton from http://www.whiteandgreenhome.com

Such worthy credentials have now been extended to their packaging systems and what Rebecca describes as guilt-free shopping.

Deliveries arrive on our customers doorstep in biodegradable bags or cardboard boxes only. Its a lovely shopping experience as our clients simply buy online with one click and their order arrives the next day in a totally sustainable way.

Starting the business before sustainability was even fashionable, Rebecca says, People questioned whether it was possible to be sustainable and offer high-quality products, and be affordable at the same time. Now, we have proven that it is possible with over 10,000 customers.

Pat Kane, owner of Reuzi in Dublins Foxrock, offers everything in one place she considers we need to live a minimal waste lifestyle.

We believe that it should be easy to make choices that positively benefit the planet, she explains, and that no matter who you are, where you come from, what you believe in, we can all take small yet meaningful steps to reduce our waste.

Reuzis essential oil diffuser by Kotanicals (89.99) from Reuzi.ie

Focusing on products to help us avoid single-use materials, Reuzi sells everything from bamboo toothbrushes, to wax alternatives to cling film, and runs an educational programme of talks and workshops to help schools and businesses understand sustainability while offering practical advice on how to get there.

With over 600 products to choose from, Pat picks out two favourites the affordable bamboo Spork (3.15) which is half spoon, half fork to keep in your bag and eliminate the need to use plastic cutlery while on the go. Another choice is the Way Cap reusable Nespresso capsule. It costs 38, she says. You can always have your favourite ground coffee instead of going with the single-use capsule.

Business partners Francie Duff and Sonia Reynolds also took the sustainability route when they set up shop to focus on Irish textiles including linens, wool and cashmere.

Stable's Irish linen napkins (20) from http://www.stableofireland.com

Called Stable of Ireland, it started as a successful pop-up shop four years ago and then established itself permanently in premises located on Grafton Street, selling scarves, blankets, cushions, throws and table linens.

Theres so much quality in this country, says Francie. We work with manufacturers using ethically sourced materials. Theyre all Irish dyed yarns made from natural fibres so theres no processing.

Customers can expect to find Irish linen handkerchiefs (12), napkins (20), and linen towels (40), countering a belief that this sort of quality can be excessively pricey.

The people who come into the shop are seeking out beautiful Irish products and are aware of environmentally sourced fibres, Francie says.

They are well educated about this so they are aware of the benefits of sustainable products. Its something were seeing across the age groups where their attitude is buy better, buy less.

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Growing business sector is taking on the challenge of supplying us with sustainable products - Irish Examiner