I got sunshine

Read this scary thread from @ArshyMann. (And, while on the one hand, I've been acutely aware, and most women at least sense, that this kind of projection exists and is dangerous to us, I admit I never would have predicted it as a proud identity.) "For the past little while, I've been working on a piece about Toronto's relationship to the alt-right, especially the "manosphere." Unfortunately that research has become relevant. I'm going to share as much as I can here for people who may not be familiar with these movements."

"Portland Burgerville workers approve federally recognized union: Workers at a Burgerville in Southeast Portland overwhelmingly approved the formation of a federally-recognized union, making them the first to do so since a fast-food labor fight erupted nationally five years ago."

"Electronics-recycling innovator is going to prison for trying to extend computers' lives: A Southern California man who built a sizable business out of recycling electronic waste is headed to federal prison for 15 months after a federal appeals court in Miami rejected his claim that the "restore discs" he made to extend computers' lives had no financial value, instead ruling that he had infringed on Microsoft Corp. to the tune of $700,000." This is basically corporate prosecution of a private citizen to prevent him from helping people save a bit of money.

"Barcelona Forces Banks to Turn Repossessed Homes Into Affordable Housing: To address a housing shortage, Spain's second city says bank-owned properties can no longer sit empty." This is a great idea and American cities should be doing the same.

"USA Today: Nearly Two Thirds of Americans Have Given Up On Political Parties: (IVN) Many Americans will be staying out of the voting booth for the 2018 elections, disillusioned by the promises of politicians and convinced that the political system is irreparably corrupt."

David Dayen says, "Whether America Can Afford A Job Guarantee Program Is Not Up For Debate: SEN. BERNIE SANDERS'S endorsement of a guaranteed job for anyone who wants one, joining previous supporters such as Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker, reinvigorated a debate that has been roiling within economics Twitter and academic circles for a long time. Those more partial to a universal basic income untethered to work clash with job guarantee supporters from the left; those who see the job guarantee as a dangerous slip into socialism attack from the right. And mainstream Democrats not running for the presidency don't really want to talk about it. Those fresh to the debate, meanwhile, instinctively ask what feels like an intuitive question: How on earth can we pay for that? But if we're going to have an honest debate about whether the government should be spending hundreds of billions of dollars so that people can obtain jobs, we should acknowledge that the government already does. Officials at the local, state, and federal levels push enormous amounts of money toward this stated purpose — they just channel it through corporations, in the form of special tax breaks and 'economic development' subsidies. It's not clear that businesses actually use all that money to create jobs, rather than just enjoying the subsidies and tax cuts for themselves, so if the true purpose really is to create work for people, the new jobs guarantee debate offers a much simpler — and probably much cheaper — approach to the same end."

It would be nice to believe they would do this stuff if they ever got back in control of Congress: "Kirsten Gillibrand Unveils A Public Option For Banking: The idea would provide a low-cost alternative to payday loans -- and it might just save the Postal Service, too." It would also be nice to think the Dems would get rid of that stupid requirement to fund all Post Office pensions 75 years in advance, which is the very thing we have to save the Post Office from.

"Speaker Ryan Firing Chaplain Conroy Is True Attack on Religious Liberty: Fr. Patrick J. Conroy, a Jesuit priest who served as Chaplain to the US House of Representatives, has been fired by Speaker Paul Ryan. Though the Speaker declined to justify his action, Fr. Conroy told the New York Times that Ryan had admonished him after a public prayer for the poor, 'Padre, you just got to stay out of politics.' As clergy who, like Fr. Conroy, have taken vows to preach the Word of God, we do not see how you can read the Bible and stay out of politics. Isaiah 10 speaks directly to lawmakers: 'Woe unto you who legislate evil and rob the poor, making widows and orphans your prey.' Jeremiah received a Word from the Lord in chapter 22, saying, 'God down to the palace of the king and declare, 'Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.' These are not only the public priorities of the Hebrew prophets. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says he will judge nations — not individuals — by asking, 'When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was thirsty, did you give me something to drink?' The epistle of James makes clear that God opposes anyone who prevents workers from receiving a living wage..."

David Dayen, "Ryan's Hope [...] Nobody deserved to go out in shame more than Ryan did; I'm sad it didn't come when he lost his Speaker's gavel or, worse, when he lost his seat. (I don't buy that "see I'm popular!" poll he released showing him up 21 points on Randy Bryce, but even if it were true, a 55% re-elect for a 20-year Congressman and national leader isn't that good). He deserved to go out the way Thomas Foley did in 1994, after he was targeted by Newt Gingrich and doomed to defeat in his eastern Washington district. Ryan was a con man and a liar armed with terrible, unpopular ideas that he somehow grifted the national media into thinking were responsible. His budgets were innumerate, hiding the class warfare and mass suffering they would have caused with phony numbers. His philosophy was bankrupt, hated by those who actually divined its intentions. His concern for anyone who couldn't buy him a $350 bottle of wine was fake, and his great dream in live was to take away their safety net as they crashed to Earth. And he was actually a bad politician, swinging his home state and even his home district further away from Republicans when he became the vice presidential nominee. But make no mistake: Ryan won. His sensibilities matched the pain demands of the Washington Post editorial board, who joined his call to starve the poor. And while he didn't reach his cherished goals of crushing Social Security and Medicare, he did force a Democratic administration into the smallest percentage of public investment since the Eisenhower era. He did deliver one of the most imbalanced, gimmicky, gift-style tax cuts to corporate America in history. He did preserve most of the last giant tax cut, which was more larded on the rich. Because Washington can be amoral and stupid, Paul Ryan was seen as its one-eyed king, its boy wonder. And the inequality statistics don't lie as to his success. We'll spend the next generation burying the Ryan era." .

Alex Pareene, "If We Had a Liberal Media We Wouldn't Have Had a Paul Ryan [...] The sheer admiration the political press has shown for him since then can't even be explained by something like his popularity — he is deeply unpopular, almost entirely because his ideas are deeply unpopular, and that is in spite of a years-long campaign by our liberal media to launder those ideas. If longtime Washington journalists treat plans to literally end Medicare, among the most popular programs in the history of American governance, as not just 'serious' but arguably necessary, by what possible definition can the elite media be said to be 'liberal'?"

David Dayen, "The Art of the Let Me Back in That Deal: The thing about lacking any core beliefs is that it's liberating. Donald Trump, who spent the entire presidential campaign calling the Trans-Pacific Partnership the worst trade deal ever written, now is openly musing about re-joining it. The flip-flop is rooted in desperation. Trump has managed to figure out that China's retaliatory tariffs slam farm states, and he's digging up any policy he can find to keep them happy, including going back to New Deal-era farm supports! Trump as FDR! Like I said, liberating. TPP is part of that mix, not only as an alleged opening of new markets (which it isn't, as the U.S. already has bilateral agreements with countries representing the overwhelming majority of TPP economies) but as another provocation to China, as a pretext to get them to bargain.It's also true that the TPP agreed to by the other eleven nations is substantially different than the one negotiated by President Obama, particularly on intellectual property for pharmaceuticals. That's good news for the global poor who won't be held up by multinationals for life-saving medications, but bad news for the multinationals who urged the U.S. to sign TPP. Those nations aren't interested in re-opening that can of worms, even as Trump conditioned re-entry on a "substantially better" deal. Of course, none of this is going to happen. The tariffs and this TPP play are all fodder for some negotiated settlement with China. I'm not sure that'll come about either. But Trump's not a very good bluffer. And he's betrayed the workers he incited with TPP opposition in the process. All in a day's work."

Oh, look, here's Steny Hoyer on video trying to elbow a progressive candidate out of the primaries to clear the road for another corporate hustler of Hoyer's choosing.
* And here's Lee Fang's story on the background of the candidates and the maneuvering in the DCCC.

Ryan Grim, "National Democrats created a competitive primary in New York, infuriating the local party. Another case where the DCCC tries to overrule the grassroots by recruiting a loser to run against their candidate. "In Syracuse, New York, a heavily Democratic city, things didn't go quite as well. The party's nominee for mayor, Juanita Perez Williams, lost in a landslide to an independent candidate, even managing to lose her own neighborhood by two to one. In some lines of work, a failure so complete might earn somebody a demotion, a period of probation, or a rethinking of whether the career path and the skillset are a perfect marriage. But this is Democratic Party politics, where consequences are for the people, not the politicians. And so, the performance earned her an invitation to the headquarters of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, touching off another intraparty saga that would go on to pit the national party against grassroots activists. Within just a few days of the loss, Perez Williams was in Washington, D.C., sitting down with top-tier Democratic operatives who saw, in her failed campaign, the makings of a promising 2018 congressional candidate."

Uh oh, it's the Judean People's Front versus the People's Judean Front versus the People's Front of Judea... Benjamin Studebaker, "The Left is Not a Church [...] You know how the religious right became a big deal in the United States? It stopped acting like a bunch of churches. It stopped caring whether you were Catholic or Protestant, whether you were Evangelical or Mainline. It stopped caring if you were Mormon. It even stopped caring if you went to church. All the religious right cares about is whether your policies work for them and whether you have a realistic strategy for implementing those policies. If you're anti-abortion you can have three wives, cheat on all of them constantly, never go to church, and brag about abusing women. You can be Donald Trump. It doesn't matter. The religious right sees itself as trying to save millions of people from being brutally murdered by their own mothers. It will subordinate all petty theological disputes to the overarching goal of putting a stop to the killing. They are relentless. They take their goals seriously."

Ryan Grim at The Intercept, "Democrat claimed independent status in election filings, but records show he was a Republican [...] Butner was recruited to run in California's 50th Congressional District by the Democratic leaders, yet his progressive opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, has won the endorsement of the state Democratic Party and the bulk of the activist groups in the district." He has a remarkably spotty voting record, but it's all Republican. "Elsewhere around the country, the Democrat leadership's zeal for veterans to run for office has led them to back other former Republicans. In Texas's 21st Congressional District, Joseph Kopser was previously registered as a Republican, having grown up in a conservative family. In Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, the party's chosen candidate, Elaine Luria, voted for her own Republican opponent not once, but twice. Gil Cisneros, a candidate in California's 39th District, is a Navy veteran and former Republican who had registered as a Democrat in 2015, after three years as an independent. He was named on Wednesday to the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program, tantamount to an endorsement. Butner came under fire earlier in the campaign for insisted that military service should be a prerequisite for a run for Congress."

David Dayen and Ryan Grim, "Democratic Party-Backed Candidate Leaves Groggy Voicemail Warning For Opponent: 'I'm Gonna Go Negative On You': WHEN KAREN THORBURN checked messages on her home answering machine on a Wednesday evening in early April, one of them was not like the others. It was a groggy-sounding voice, leaving a short but to-the-point message for her husband, Andy, who is running for Congress in California's 39th District. 'Hi Andy. It's Gil Cisneros. I'm gonna go negative on you,' the man said, before going silent for an awkward four seconds and hanging up. [...] The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently named Cisneros to the list of candidates it's supporting in races around the country. He is running to replace incumbent Republican Ed Royce, who is retiring. The crowded district was recently featured in a New York Times article about the party's interventions in California primaries, which the DCCC laments have been forced upon it by events outside its control. But a closer look at the district finds a mess very much of the party's own making."

Conor Lynch at Salon, "Bernie Sanders criticizes Democrats, they flip out (again): Has politics become team sports? Sanders' comments about Democratic failures aren't even controversial. But for some partisans, he's the enemy [...] It is not so much the message but the messenger that infuriates them. It's also true, however, that the idea Sanders represents — namely, that principles should come before party, and that politics should not be treated like a team sport — is anathema to these committed partisans. [...] Another interesting finding in Mason's research is that those who identify as 'conservative' demonstrate 'significantly less issue-based constraint.' As she notes, this is consistent with the research of Christopher Ellis and James Stimson, who find that 'American conservatives tend to be relatively left-leaning in their issue-based preferences, while liberals also hold left-leaning attitudes.' In other words, so-called conservatives are even more likely to be driven by group identity than liberals, even though they might actually agree with liberal or progressive positions on many issues. It's no wonder, then, that Sanders, who talks about the issues and offers progressive solutions that are popular with the broader public, while avoiding overheated partisan, has appeal not just to liberals and young people in blue states but to many voters in traditionally Red states. Though identity-based ideology has grown more pervasive over the past few decades, there is still a strong underlying desire for issue-based candidates."

"The Democratic Party is paying millions for Hillary Clinton's email list, FEC documents show: HEADING INTO THE 2018 midterms, with Democrats hoping to take back the House of Representatives and even make a run at the Senate, the party has spent more than $2 million worth of campaign resources on payments to Hillary Clinton's new group, Onward Together, according to Federal Election Commission filings and interviews with people familiar with the payments. The Democratic National Committee is paying $1.65 million for access to the email list, voter data, and software produced by Hillary for America during the 2016 presidential campaign, Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for the DNC, told The Intercept. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has paid more than $700,000 to rent the same email list. Clinton is legally entitled to rent her list to the party, rather than hand it over as a gift, but in 2015, Barack Obama gave his email list, valued at $1,942,640, to the DNC as an in-kind contribution. In 2013 and 2014, OFA had similarly made in-kind contributions exceeding $3.4 million for uses of the list that cycle." Of course, the party is even more cash-strapped than it was back then. Irritatingly, the Clintonites spent months bashing Bernie Sanders for not handing over his email list for free.

The Pied Piper strikes again. "Dems Meddle In WV To Boost Ex-Con Coal Baron In GOP Senate Primary: National Democrats have been not-so-quietly hoping that controversial ex-con and coal baron Don Blankenship wins the West Virginia GOP Senate primary in a few weeks, seeing him as by far the easiest opponent for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Now, they're stepping up to try to make that happen."

Why commercial medicine is a bad idea: "Goldman Sachs Analysts Question Whether Curing Patients Is Good for Business." These guys talk about infectious diseases being spread by carriers like it's a good thing.

"Why we can always afford a war: Patricia Pino and Christian Reilly discuss Government 'debt' and explain why politicians never ask 'how are you going to pay for it?' when it comes to war."

Robert Fisk at the Independent: "The search for truth in the rubble of Douma — and one doctor's doubts over the chemical attack: [...] As Dr Assim Rahaibani announces this extraordinary conclusion, it is worth observing that he is by his own admission not an eyewitness himself and, as he speaks good English, he refers twice to the jihadi gunmen of Jaish el-Islam [the Army of Islam] in Douma as 'terrorists' — the regime's word for their enemies, and a term used by many people across Syria. Am I hearing this right? Which version of events are we to believe?"

"American media wrong on Syria coverage" — Mark Crispin Miller makes the point that while people assume that Russia Today is propaganda, Americans don't understand that the same is true of the "free press" in the United States.

And that goes for Britain as well, where in true MSNBC fashion, the narrative of the elites is the only one that matters at the Guardian, who aren't interested when a seasoned and accomplished war reporter actually goes to Douma and tries to make sense of events, only to be dismissed like an unfounded rumor, in favor of people whose "expertise" is based on not being there and being pro-regime change.

"Eyeless in Gaza: Write down: I, Uri Avnery, soldier number 44410 of the Israel army, hereby dissociate myself from the army sharpshooters who murder unarmed demonstrators along the Gaza Strip, and from their commanders, who give them the orders, up to the commander in chief."

Poor beleaguered Andrew Cuomo is at war with the evil teachers' union. "Andrew Cuomo rips teacher unions as selfish 'industry' more interested in members' rights than student needs: A passionate Gov. Cuomo upped his war with the teacher unions on Thursday, charging that they represent themselves — not the students." It's funny how much he sounds like a Republican. I hope Cynthia Nixon wipes the floor with him She already has the Working Families Party endorsement (won with 91% of the committee vote). I never thought I'd be endorsing a candidate named "Nixon", but jeez she's good! Look at this: "Cynthia Nixon Puts Legalizing Marijuana Front and Center of Campaign: Cynthia Nixon on Wednesday made legalizing recreational marijuana the first policy plank of her campaign for governor, framing it as a necessary step toward reducing racial inequities in the criminal justice system — and, in doing so, bringing to the forefront an issue that may help her make inroads into Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's robust support among black voters. [...] In a brief homemade video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Ms. Nixon, seated in her living room, speaking over a faint but steady hum of background noise, said 80 percent of New Yorkers arrested in connection with marijuana use were black or Latino, despite roughly equal rates of use among white people and communities of color. [...] The simple truth is, for white people, the use of marijuana has effectively been legal for a long time. Isn't it time we legalize it for everybody else?"

Cuomo also hasn't been that kind to immigrants, but at least he knows he's in a fight this time around, and he's making everyone laugh with his attempts to cash in on other people's identities. "Andrew Cuomo Keeps Calling Himself 'Undocumented,' Which, Hmmm [...] During a union rally last Wednesday, Cuomo proclaimed that he was 'raised by poor immigrants from South Jamaica.' (South Jamaica is a neighborhood in Queens. His father, Mario Cuomo, was born in New York, and his mother, Matilda Cuomo, was also born in New York.) A day later, the governor said in the same vein, 'I'm an Italian-American, I came from poor Italian-Americans who came here. You know what they called Italian-Americans back in the day? They called them wops. You know what wop stood for? Without papers. I'm undocumented. You want to deport an undocumented person, start with me, because I'm an undocumented person.'" Well, no, it didn't, and he isn't, and his farther was the Governor of New York.

Meanwhile in Florida, unbelievably, "Patrick Murphy And David Jolly Want To Insert Third Way Into The Florida Governor's Race" - just what everyone wants, a "bipartisan" ticket with an "ex"-Republican and a real Republican, the ultimate DINO/RINO punch. God help us all.

"Health Insurers Spend $158K to Make Sure 'Blue Wave' Is Against Medicare for All: Tweet In the current cycle, big health insurers have quietly donated more than $150,000 to Democrats opposed to Medicare for All legislation."

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo, "What else have they gotten wrong?" - This is really about what the GOP and libertarians and "centrists" have gotten wrong about regulations and business, but the interesting thing is that, "This month, Washington Monthly looked at a libertarian economist Alex Tabarrok of George Mason University's Mercatus Center. Tabarrok went looking for the effects of federal regulation on "economic dynamism" expecting to find support for the conservative dogma that government regulation harms the economy. He found none. What is remarkable is he published the paper anyway."

Branko Marcetic at Jacobin, "The Two Faces of Kamala Harris: Kamala Harris has matched every one of her progressive achievements with conservative ones." At first I was thinking, "Hm, maybe she's better than she seems...." And then I read further.

Teodrose Fikre, "I Don't Give a Damn about the First (Insert Identity Here) CEO or President: Do you know what literally repulses me these days? Hearing about the first so and so to get accepted into the exclusive club of the aristocracy. Frankly, I don't give a damn about the latest first black president or first woman CEO. Who cares! I don't know how we have arrived at this notion where we measure the wellness of humanity not based on the well being of the least of the citizenry who suffer in silence but based on the accumulation of the wealthiest among us. This annoyance of mine got revved up to full blown peeve two days ago when I heard a report of how Kamala Harris has a chance to become the first black woman president."

Valerie Tarico at AlterNet, "Here's Why Some Progressives Are Tearing Each Other Apart: Progressives are telling two different stories about the world we live in and the future we are trying to create. In important ways, they clash."

Smári McCarthy, "Universal coverage is good economics: Healthcare costs less and performs better when societies pull together. Unfortunately, Icelandic conservatives want American inefficiencies."

Democracy in Exile: The Rise of the Defense Intellectual w/ Daniel Bessner — Really interesting interview by Michael Brooks on The Majority Report looking at the history of how what started as a noble goal in the wake of the Nazi horror developed into the antidemocratic force for evil that the foreign policy community is today.

Reminders still always needed: "How the Koch brothers helped dismantle the Democratic Party: For over 20 years I have reported on the mostly unnoted role played by the Democratic Leadership Council dismantling the Democratic Party, disconnecting it from its New Deal and Great Society past and turning it into Republican Lite. [...] Such a partnership — between something called the Democratic Leadership Council and the Koch Brothers — goes a long way to explaining why our last two Democratic presidents have been so disloyal to their party's traditions. And why Obama is pushing something as atrocious and anti-American as the secret TPP agreement. Bipartisanship may be gone on Capitol Hill, but it's still flourishing in the checks that are written for politicians."

Here's a worthy project: putting data in the hands of advocates. "Democratic party leaders believe that Americans are more conservative than they actually are, and believe that supporting progressive candidates will hurt them electorally." But the data doesn't support this belief, and apparently if legislators see that their constituents support progressive policies, they are more likely to move toward those policies. And here's the article that sums it up, from Sean McElwee at Vice, "If Democrats Listened to Their Voters, They'd Be Moving Left: The Democratic base overwhelmingly supports progressive positions. It's time for the party to pay attention."

Jeff Spross in The Week, "Bernie Sanders has conquered the Democratic Party: Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 was not universally welcomed, to put it mildly. His basic argument was that Democrats could assemble a cross-ethnic and cross-class coalition by offering big universal public programs like Medicare-for-all and free college tuition. But large portions of the party dismissed him as an interloper, a naive radical, or even just another entitled white male. Which makes developments since the 2016 election rather interesting: Quietly but steadily, the Democratic Party is admitting that Sanders was right."

Damon Linker, "Why can't liberals accept the truth about Hillary's 2016 failure? [...] I have no idea if Sanders would have fared better against Trump than Clinton did. But I do know that Clinton was the worst possible person to answer the angry accusations of a populist insurgency from either the protectionist right or the socialist left. She was too much a contented representative and beneficiary of the very political and economic establishments against which Trump directed his fire. She was the Davos candidate, the woman who defied the advice of her handlers to accept six-figure speaking fees from investment banks at events where she wooed rooms full of potential donors by dreaming of a world of open borders - a world in which the last remaining businesses to pay a decent wage in the Rust Belt would be given the green light to flee in pursuit of ever-higher profits. To counter that Trump-the-corrupt-real-estate-mogul is just as much a member of the nation's economic elite misses the political point entirely. A populist defines himself by those he attacks, and Trump attacked those in power. Who did Clinton attack? The "deplorable" voters who were tempted to vote for Trump - and she did it, of course, at a big-ticket fundraiser, before a room full of wealthy liberal donors." (I didn't think this article answered the question in the title, though.)

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink talks a good game about corporations taking account of their effect on the community, but actions speak louder, and some say "BlackRock Wields Its Big Stick Like a Wet Noodle on C.E.O. Pay."

Umair Haque, "Why We're Underestimating American Collapse: The Strange New Pathologies of the World's First Rich Failed State" — I have to take issue with the idea that it's the "first rich failed state". All those places in the Bible that God smote were pretty big deals with lots of wealth concentrated at the top, and they failed, too.

Corey Pein, "'Like Selling Crack to Children': A Peek Inside the Silicon Valley Grift Machine: Without rampant, unchecked fraud, I came to realize, the entire digital media business would collapse."
* Pein discussed this on The Michael Brooks Show

Now even Bloomberg is talking about it. "U.S. Jobs Guarantee Held Out as Path to True 'Full Employment'." Well, that's just true. I wonder why it's catching on.

Speaking of that, the neoliberals have been remarkably successful at convincing some people that the New Deal was nothing but a racist gift to white people and did nothing for black America. This would be false even if not a single penny of it went directly to any black people, since it brought a lot of money into the real economy at the lowest levels, which benefited everyone - but it's also not true that New Deal money only went directly into white people's hands. There is absolutely no question that, yes, some important parts of the New Deal blocked help for black Americans (and don't even get me started on red-lining), but even if you leave aside the fact that the programs we still have were since expanded to include them, there was also the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
* I also found this amusingly prescient prediction of the future from 1967 at the History site.

Hmmm, who's leading in the latest presidential poll? No surprises. (Details here in this .pdf.)

The Onion, "Fuming Rachel Maddow Spends Entire Show Just Pointing Wildly At Picture Of Putin"

"It's The Hubble Space Telescope's Birthday. Enjoy Amazing Images Of The Lagoon Nebula"

"This Incredible Vintage Film Shows a Trip Through New York City in 1911"

Have some fun loop animations.

The Temptations My Girl Original Video Recording 1964