Category Archives: Politics

What I’m Reading, April 4, 2014

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By Djembayz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsIf You Criticize Wealthy Donors, You’re Basically Hitler, David Weigel, Slate, April 3, 2014

The Charles Koch standard is problematic if you think (like I think) that campaign donations should be uncapped but totally disclosed. That, according to the donors (though not McCutcheon himself), leads to character assassination. Donors have a First Amendment right to give money, but their opponents flout that right when they criticize them. Why? That’s an excellent question.

Self-Regulation Means No Regulation: Five Lessons We Should Have Learned from Agent Orange, PR Newswire, April 2, 2014

Economic crises. Foodborne disease outbreaks. Oil and chemical spills. According to Peter Sills, each is the natural result of the widespread demonization of a tool our government should wield more often. Regulation.

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Many politicians and industries push for self-regulation, and Sills says that might actually work in a perfect world. But in the real world, he insists, it won’t—and here are five reasons why:

If a hard, unpleasant task is optional, then most companies won’t do it (especially if it will cost them money). Consider Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ refusal to change the label requirements on Phenergan even though it knew the method suggested could lead to infection and amputation. Wyeth finally made the change after being sued by a patient who had lost most of her arm.

“Sometimes, for the safety of the public, it is necessary for the government to force companies into performing unpleasant tasks,” says Sills.

Photo credit: By Djembayz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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What I’m Reading, April 3, 2014

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Chris Piascik (chrispiascik.com) [CC BY-ND 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/)], via FlickrSorry, Folks, Rich People Actually Don’t ‘Create The Jobs’, Henry Blodget, Business Insider, November 29, 2013

Entrepreneurs and investors like me actually don’t create the jobs — not sustainable ones, anyway.

Yes, we can create jobs temporarily, by starting companies and funding losses for a while. And, yes, we are a necessary part of the economy’s job-creation engine. But to suggest that we alone are responsible for the jobs that sustain the other 300 million Americans is the height of self-importance and delusion.

So, if rich people do not create the jobs, what does?

A healthy economic ecosystem — one in which most participants (especially the middle class) have plenty of money to spend.

The Bitters Tears of the American Christian Supermajority, Chase Madar, Al-Jazeera America, March 30, 2014 Continue reading →

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What to Do Post-McCutcheon

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"Corporate PAC Campaign Contributions Have Tripled Over the Last Two Decades" by citizens4taxjustice [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via FlickrI haven’t read the actual McCutcheon opinion yet (if ever). To be honest , the minutiae of campaign-finance law makes my head hurt, mostly because of the system’s artificial and inane complexity. To be more honest, I have generally always accepted that campaigns with more money tend to win, but I’ve never really understood the mechanics of why. Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns & Money offers a bit of post-McCutcheon tough love that, I think, nails the real problem:

My thought on the McCutcheon case’s importance is as follows. Liberals need to quit whining about the money. I’m not saying the case isn’t a big deal. It is. But I am saying that the plutocrats have always had far more money than working people and they’ve always used it to control politics the best they can.

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The problem today is that progressives believe the ballot box is where change is made, when in fact it is where change is consolidated. Organize on the ground to demand the change desired and the money can be overcome. But if you think a social movement is buying ad time on television or the right kind of media messaging, that’s a game that progressives are never going to win.

(Emphasis added)

How do political campaigns spend money? That’s actually a serious, non-rhetorical question. I know they pay for massive amounts of advertising, along with all the expenses of running a campaign. For the purposes of discussing how money influences politics, the advertising seems like the pertinent issue. Continue reading →

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The Thing About Privatization

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I often hear that the private sector can handle things better than government, with the implication being that government rarely, if ever, gets anything right. Here’s the rub, as I see it: The process of privatization requires handing over public functions, sometimes including the outright sale of public property, to the private sector. This process is necessarily performed by the government.

Why are people so sure, if government generally screws things up, that they won’t also screw up privatization? Why should I trust a company that our incompetent, ineffective, inefficient government selected to take care of things? Isn’t the mere fact that the government thought they were up to the job evidence that they are not up to the job at all?

Repeat this argument as necessary until libertarian heads explode.

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What I’m Reading, April 2, 2014

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By Saffron Blaze (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsConservatives to women: Lean back, Dana Milbank, Washington Post, March 31, 2014

The conservative minds of the Heritage Foundation have found a way for Republicans to shrink the gender gap: They need to persuade more women to get their MRS degrees.

The advocacy group held a gathering of women of the right Monday afternoon to mark the final day of Women’s History Month — and the consensus was that women ought to go back in history. If Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s mantra is “lean in,” these women were proposing that women lean back: get married, take care of kids and let men earn the wages.

Paul Ryan’s April Fool’s joke, Steve Benen, MSNBC, April 1, 2014

Unlike most years, there’s no real point to the House and Senate Budget Committees presenting budget blueprints this year. Federal spending levels for this fiscal year and the next were already established in an agreement that was approved months ago.

But House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) today unveiled a 99-page document (pdf) anyway, not because he had to but because he wanted to. This is a political exercise, intended to make an election-year point. That’s not intended as criticism, per se – political exercises in election years are hardly outrageous – but it’s important to realize this is more of a Republican fantasy. There’s no pretense that this will actually become the nation’s budget.

Obamacare: Will The Haters Ever Stop Hating?, The Economist, April 1, 2014

Before it will be judged a historic success, Obamacare has more hurdles to clear (Charles Ornstein lays out a few). But the catastrophic-failure scenario envisioned by the ACA’s critics, in which low enrollment composed of disproportionately sick people leads to premium hikes and an adverse-selection “death spiral”, now seems unlikely (though it isn’t entirely out of the question, as our health-care correspondent writes). The solid enrollment is all the more striking given that Republican states have largely rejected the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid, and many Republicans and well-funded conservative groups (like the one that brought me that irritating ad) have fought implementation tooth and nail. Indeed, surging enrollment has spooked a number of Republicans into claiming that the registration numbers aren’t real.

Photo credit: By Saffron Blaze (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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What I’m Reading, March 31, 2014

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We’re not Envious, we’re Disappointed: US Firms Stash $2 Trillion in Tax Havens, Costing us Billions, Juan Cole, Informed Comment, March 30, 2014

“The politics of envy are the wrong politics in America,” Wall Street shill and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers proclaimed to Politico. “The better politics are the politics of inclusion where everyone shares in economic growth.”

There it is — the sound of the other shoe dropping. Because the second half of the argument goes that instead of being jealous, we all should be working in harmony together to create jobs and opportunity. Problem is, the deeply rich talk about building the economy but do almost nothing about it. There’s a lot of take and a lot of keep, but not much giving back.

An Actually Weak President, BooMan, Booman Tribune, March 29, 2014

It seems one of the lasting features of the Bush administration is that people simply don’t think that Bush was calling the shots and, as a result, they are inclined to give him a pass on the decisions he made.

That’s a mistake.

If he and his subordinates were held responsible for what they did, we wouldn’t have to listen to his subordinates mouthing off about how weak the current president is.

You’ll know that the current president is as weak as Bush when students line up to protest former vice-president Joe Biden and completely ignore Obama.

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Put Your Fiscal Responsibility Where Your Mouth Is

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If Republicans like Chris Christie really believe so strongly in fiscal responsibility that they’re willing to make such difficult sacrifices (of other people’s pensions), they should really just go all in and forego their own salaries and benefits entirely. What better way could there be to signal support for the “job creators” than to work for free?

I don’t know how much money that would save (which could be passed on through tax cuts to the direct benefit of Cayman Islands bankers), but it would make a bold statement, and that’s all this is really about, anyway.

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What I’m Reading, March 24, 2014

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Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Big Bang (with sunglasses)

Via imgflip.com

Neil deGrasse Tyson Squashes Creationist Argument Against Science on National TV, Dan Arel, AlterNet, March 17, 2014

Watching the Christian Right, especially the creationist wing, struggle to counter “Cosmos” each week is like watching a frightened, cornered animal that knows it is about to die. What else could explain the weekly grasping at straws, and the unremitting blasting of social media links meant to reel their following back in as their eyes are opened to the scientific method’s greatness.

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Creationism’s days are numbered. “Cosmos” frightens the conservatives more than anything has in a very long time. Every day their numbers grow smaller and their grasp on America becomes weaker.

The time is now for a scientifically literate America to return, for scientific innovations to flow out of our borders and spread around the world. We can no longer take a backseat to the world of science and must return once again to the driver’s seat.

Terrifying Precedent: Woman to Be Tried for Murder for Giving Birth to Stillborn When She Was 16, Nina Martin, ProPublica, March 19, 2014

The case intersects a number of divisive and difficult issues — the criminal justice system’s often disproportionate treatment of poor people of color, especially in drug prosecutions; the backlash to Roe v. Wade and the conservative push to establish “personhood” for fetuses as part of a broad-based strategy to weaken abortion laws. A wild card in the case — Mississippi’s history of using sometimes dubious forensic evidence to win criminal convictions over many years — could end up playing a central role.

Ignoring Fox News’ Racism is Good for Democrats but Bad for the Country, Isaac Chotiner, The New Republic, January 27, 2014

Fox still has, as far as cable news is concerned, a giant audience among all Americans—especially Republicans, conservatives, and influential businessmen and businesswomen. It still has major power within the Republican Party. To say that Fox’s bigotry should just be discounted is therefore odd. I am sure Rich has spent some time watching Fox News, so he must be aware of how toxic it is. Putting aside its top-down class warfare, segment after segment is meant to scare its white audience into believing that African Americans, or Muslims, are out to get them. This is not some random nut on Twitter: no, this is real bigotry transmitted to a large audience, and it must be combatted.

Michelle Alexander: White Men Get Rich from Legal Pot, Black Men Stay in Prison, April M. Short, AlterNet, March 16, 2014

Alexander said she is “thrilled” that Colorado and Washington have legalized pot and that Washington D.C. decriminalized possession of small amounts earlier this month. But she said she’s noticed “warning signs” of a troubling trend emerging in the pot legalization movement: Whites—men in particular—are the face of the movement, and the emerging pot industry.

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Alexander said for 40 years poor communities of color have experienced the wrath of the war on drugs.

“Black men and boys” have been the target of the war on drugs’ racist policies—stopped, frisked and disturbed—“often before they’re old enough to vote,” she said. Those youths are arrested most often for nonviolent first offenses that would go ignored in middle-class white neighborhoods.

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What I’m Reading, March 21, 2014

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By United States Department of Energy [Public domain], via Wikimedia CommonsMicronesians Continue To Seek Justice On The 60th Anniversary Of The Castle Bravo Nuclear Test, Michelle Broader Van Dyke, BuzzFeed, February 28, 2014

The U.S. conducted at least 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. The nuclear test conducted at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, Operation Castle Bravo, remains the largest test ever conducted by the U.S. and yielded 15 megatons, almost 1,000 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Bravo vaporized two surrounding islets and sent a plume of highly radioactive debris floating over the lagoon and into the open water. Atolls downwind of Bikini, including Rongelap and Utirik, hadn’t been informed of the tests but were showered with dangerously radioactive ash, which residents believed was snow — something they had never seen.

In the years following the test, people who were exposed burned from the radiation, became nauseous, developed thyroid problems, had loss of blood cells, and women who were pregnant miscarried. And decades after the bombings, the health problems persist with unusually high rates of birth defects and cancer among Micronesians.

Keurig Will Use DRM In New Coffee Maker To Lock Out Refill Market, Karl Bode, TechDirt, March 3, 2014

The single coffee cup craze has been rolling now for several years in both the United States and Canada, with Keurig, Tassimo, and Nespresso all battling it out to lock down the market. In order to protect their dominant market share, Keurig makers Green Mountain Coffee Roasters has been on a bit of an aggressive tear of late. As with computer printers, getting the device in the home is simply a gateway to where the real money is: refills. But Keurig has faced the “problem” in recent years of third-party pod refills that often retail for 5-25% less than what Keurig charges. As people look to cut costs, there has also been a growing market for reusable pods that generally run anywhere from five to fifteen dollars.

Continue reading →

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What I’m Reading, March 20, 2014

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A Brief History of Mold-A-Rama, Rob Lammie, Mental Floss, March 18, 2014

Long before 3D printing was a thing, kids of all ages were plunking quarters into Mold-A-Rama vending machines to get plastic sculptures made right before their eyes. Let’s take a look back at the history of these mid-century manufacturing marvels.

GOP Plutocrat Ken Langone And New Dem Wall Street Shill Jim Himes Are Waging Class War Against American Families, Down With Tyranny!, March 18, 2014

Langone’s siren song, while extreme and filled with the class warfare hatred the entitled rich feel towards working families, isn’t just a Republican song. When it comes to serving the interests of great wealth, conservative Democrats– particularly Blue Dogs and New Dems– are no better than garden variety Republicans.

Two Reasons That Explain Why We’re All Obsessed with Game of Thrones, Charlie Jane Anders, io9, March 18, 2014

Why is Game of Thrones such a huge cultural phenomenon, among all other fantasy series? It comes down to two huge cultural trends, that are rooted in our widespread anxieties about life in the 21st century.

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Game of Thrones captures the real anxiety at the root of our apocalyptic fascination — the sense that disaster is coming closer at an almost imperceptible rate, and we can never really know when it will arrive. We all sense that our unsustainable economic system will collapse, and/or our biosphere will no longer support so many humans, but we don’t know if the crunch will come next week or in 50 years.

And the endless wars and scheming show how short-sighted people can overlook a looming disaster, due to political infighting and stupidity. You wonder why they don’t look over their shoulder and see the ice zombies creeping closer — until you realize that their denial is nothing compared to our own.

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When we’re not consuming futuristic dystopias and world-breaking disasters, we’re obsessing about a somewhat idealized past in which men were men and women were women, and everybody Knew Their Place. Often, these visions of the past include a soupcon of social change, a hint that the Times They Were a-Changin’, and the seeds of today’s world were already in place.

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Game of Thrones is like the perfect idealized-but-awful past. Especially in the television version, everybody looks beautiful and has perfect teeth, but almost everybody takes a turn of being that peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who shouts, “I’m being oppressed!”

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