Davin News Server

Democrat Senator Refuses To Leave All-White Private Beach Club Despite 
Championing Racial Justice

The Senator said he hoped the club would change but absolved himself of 
responsibility by saying it was not his place to challenge the club's rules.

He was just following orders.

Democratic US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has apologised for - but has not left 
- an elite private beach club that refuses to accept anyone who is not white.

GoLocal Providence, a local publication in Providence, Rhode Island, confronted 
Mr Whitehouse in 2017 about his membership at Bailey's Beach Club in Newport, 
which does not allow minorities into its ranks and is considered to be one of 
the most exclusive clubs in the US.

"I think it would be nice if they changed a little bit, but it's not my 
position," Mr Whitehouse told the outlet at the time.

The publication approached him again this year, asking if the club has made any 
progress on its regressive acceptance policies since that interview.

"I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I'm 
sorry it hasn't happened yet," Mr Whitehouse said.

Membership to a whites-only elite social club would generate criticism for any 
politician, but Mr Whitehouse's position as not only a Democrat but one who 
claims to champion progressive issues makes his patronage of the club even more 
infuriating for his critics.

Both Mr Whitehouse and his wife Sandra have been members at the club for 
decades. The exclusive organisation includes many prominent and wealthy 
individuals from Newport, Palm Beach and New York.

When Mr Whitehouse was confronted by the issue the day before Juneteenth, which 
was made a federal holiday this year, he said the club still needed to "work" 
through its acceptance issues, and justified his inclusion in the group by 
saying it was a "tradition".

"It's a long tradition in Rhode Island and there are many of them and I think 
we just need to work our way through the issues, thank you," Mr Whitehouse 
said.

Ms Whitehouse is reportedly at the facility during most days in the summer.

Despite his inclusion in the club, Mr Whitehouse has spoken out about systemic 
racism in the US. Following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and 
Breonna Taylor, the senator issued a statement of solidarity with the racial 
justice movement.

"We hear the voices of the peaceful protesters who have marched. We can and 
must do better to root out systemic racism in its many forms," he said.

The apparent contradiction between the senator's words and actions have earned 
him criticism from local progressive leaders.

In a 2017 GoLocal editorial, labour leader and activist Mike Araujo condemned 
the senator for his membership at the exclusionary club.

"I find Senator Whitehouse's position on his membership of the historically 
restricted Bailey's Beach Club deeply disappointing yet not surprising," he 
said. "Racism is the air we breathe in this country, there is no place, 
absolutely no place that can be named that was not the site of a forcible 
removal or slaughter of indigenous people, or the trade, whipping, and forced 
labor of Black people."

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Canada:

'Worst In The World': Here Are All The Rankings In Which Canada Is Now Last

Most Unaffordable Housing, Highest Cell phone Bills And Worst Rate of Acute 
Care Beds, To Name A Few

If you spend any time on social media, it's likely that you've seen this 
graphic compiled by columnist Stephen Lautens that assembles 11 international 
indices which feature Canada near the top spot. "Canada is broken? I don't 
think so. Neither does the world," reads a caption.

Next time someone rants on how about how "broken" Canada is; or how badly we 
are doing on the international stage... share some facts.

Numbers don't lie, Felicia.

https://archive.is/o/LnFRL/https://twitter.com/DIGuideBradley/status/1554545079
314010112

Naturally, it only tells a partial picture. While Canada may dominate abstract 
indices such as "quality of life" and "peace," there are plenty of far more 
empirical indicators in which we measurably rank as among the worst in the 
developed world.

There's plenty to like about Canada, but below is a not-at-all comprehensive 
list of all the ways in which we are indeed very broken.

WE HAVE THE MOST UNAFFORDABLE HOUSING IN THE OECD

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is essentially a 
club of the world's 38 most developed countries. And when these 38 are ranked 
against each other for housing unaffordability, Canada emerges as the clear 
champion. OECD analysts rank affordability by comparing average home prices to 
average incomes, and according to their latest quarterly rankings Canada was 
No. 1 for salaries that were most out of whack with the cost of a home.

Housing by price to income ratio for the second quarter of 2022. That's Canada 
on the extreme right.

https://archive.is/LnFRL/840da40d6fa3b7fef6fcccdfc1637d24e0786760.webp

WE HAVE THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE WIRELESS COSTS

Every year, the Finnish telecom analyst Rewheel ranks the world's most 
expensive countries for wireless services. And last year, Canada once again 
dominated. Across several metrics, Canada was found to be the most expensive 
place in the world for mobile data. Analysts found that it would cost the 
average Canadian the equivalent of at least 100 Euros to obtain a cell phone 
plan with at least 100 gigabytes of mobile data. Across much of the EU, that 
kind of cell phone plan could be had for less than 40 Euros.

https://archive.is/LnFRL/822bcfe750687b1ef6288ee7df5606fd15629289.webp

Canadian telecoms charge more than 10 times as much for 100 gigabytes of mobile 
data as companies in France or Ireland.

Canadian telecoms charge more than 10 times as much for 100 gigabytes of mobile 
data as companies in France or Ireland. Photo by Rewheel

WE HAVE THE LOWEST RATE OF ACUTE CARE BEDS AMONG PEER COUNTRIES

Canada's health system was particularly walloped by COVID-19 due to the simple 
fact that most of our hospitals are at the breaking point even in good times. 
Multiple times during the pandemic, provinces were forced into shutdown by 
rates of COVID that had barely been noticed in better-prepared countries. A 
ranking by the Canadian Institute for Health Information provides one clue as 
to why. When ranked against peer countries, Canada's rate of per-capita acute 
care beds was in last place, albeit tied with Sweden. Canada has two acute care 
beds for every 1,000 people, against 3.1 in France and six in Germany.

TWO OF THE PLANET'S "BUBBLIEST" REAL ESTATE MARKETS ARE IN CANADA

For at least 15 years now, Canada has been a regular contender on rankings of 
overheated housing markets. And the latest UBS index of world cities with 
"bubbly" real estate markets is no exception. In their 2021 index, Toronto was 
second only to Frankfurt in terms of bubble risk, while Vancouver ranked sixth. 
Aside from Germany, Canada was the only country that saw two of its cities in 
the top ten.

https://archive.is/LnFRL/1961e904e18e8cb533ff42c2eae7beb611827bd4.webp

Only two cities in the entire Western Hemisphere qualified as likely "bubble 
risks," and they're both in Canada.

Only two cities in the entire Western Hemisphere qualified as likely "bubble 
risks," and they're both in Canada. Photo by UBS Global Real Estate Bubble 
Index 2021

WE RACKED UP COVID DEBT FASTER THAN ANYONE ELSE

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in the most feverish global accumulation of debt 
in the history of human civilization. So it's rather remarkable that amidst 
this international monsoon of debt, Canada still managed to out-debt everyone 
else. Last year, analysts at Bloomberg tracked each country's rate of public 
and private debt accumulated during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. 
Canada came in with an overall debt burden equivalent to 352 per cent of GDP. 
While a handful of countries (Japan, France and Hong Kong) came out of the 
pandemic with higher overall debt burdens, Canada outranked all of them when it 
came to how quickly that debt had been accumulated.

Containers on rail cars waiting to be shipped east by rail at the Port of 
Vancouver Tuesday, June 21, 2022. Photo by (Photo by Jason Payne/ PNG)

https://archive.is/LnFRL/5b7e25218f55d343b998db94c6748b57312dafaf.webp

THE PORT OF VANCOUVER IS (ALMOST) THE MOST INEFFICIENT IN THE WORLD

Last year - just as the global supply chain crisis got going - the World Bank 
decided to rank the performance of the world's 370 major ports. Authors weighed 
factors such as how long the ports kept ships waiting, and how long crews took 
to unload a vessel. And when everything was added together, the Port of 
Vancouver ranked 368 out of 370. The only places with worse scores were the 
Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. And it's not like our other 
ports are much better. If Vancouver is too gummed up, you can always sail north 
to Prince Rupert, which ranks 339 out of 370.

https://archive.is/LnFRL/ac861be6fb2f37d1463e7670c232b5cd548d5395.webp

Take that, Los Angeles and Long Beach. Photo by World Bank Group


Queues at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Photo by Peter J. 
Thompson/National Post

https://archive.is/LnFRL/b32f7be38081069e5e696a0029996f6f3adaa760.webp

TORONTO PEARSON IS THE WORLD'S MOST-DELAYED AIRPORT

Flight delays are another category in which basically the entire world is 
feeling the pinch. And yet, Canada still managed to outdo all of them. Last 
month, CNN used data from the website FlightAware to figure out which airports 
were seeing the highest rates of flight delays. In the number one spot was 
Toronto Pearson, with 52 per cent of all flights out of the airport 
experiencing some kind of delay. And it was a commanding lead; the second-place 
finisher, Frankfurt, only managed to see 45.4 per cent of its flights delayed. 
Toronto was also a contender in flight cancellations; with 6.9 per cent of its 
scheduled flights never getting off the ground, it ranked fourth worst in the 
world.

WE'RE ONE OF THE WORLD'S WORST ECONOMIES FOR FOREIGN INVESTMENT

A 2020 study out of the University of Calgary tracked foreign investment flows 
into a cross-section of developed countries between 2015 and 2019. Virtually 
every country on the list saw a surge in foreign cash during that period; 
Ireland topped out the ranking thanks to its foreign investment climbing by 
more than 115 per cent. Only four countries actually saw a reduction in foreign 
investment: Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Canada. A report by the Business 
Council of Canada noticed the same trend. "Canada is the second-worst in the 
OECD on openness to foreign direct investment," it concluded.

https://archive.is/LnFRL/222c5fba154990485338650dcb55e413d85e080c.webp

WE DRIVE THE MOST FUEL-INEFFICIENT VEHICLES IN THE WORLD

In 2019, the International Energy Agency examined the fuel economy of the 
world's private car fleets. On almost every measure, Canada led the pack in 
driving unnecessarily huge, gas-guzzling vehicles. Per kilometre driven, the 
average Canadian burned more fuel and emitted more carbon dioxide than anyone 
else. Canadian cars were also the largest and (second only to the U.S.) the 
heaviest. While it would be convenient to blame this on Canada being a sparse, 
cold country with lots of heavy industry, our ranking was well beyond plenty of 
other countries where that was similarly the case.