tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55988838941408933892024-03-14T06:15:27.786+00:00Avedon's Sideshow"My motto as I live and learn is: dig and be dug in return." -- Langston HughesAvedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.comBlogger397125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-29430450371929725752024-03-08T03:56:00.009+00:002024-03-08T22:39:58.032+00:00I can bring whole cities to ruin<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBLbnQHlGRISUq05lGk8io4wkWVBeY0ZGozpZoW2-Cybp0gQhalZLfHYvjgDpAItkxIkGQiO3lvF8HTvL-Qua6mggu3EQP7p2oVNaplNmoYiYPsggpOCxkusYlUSd3s3RevyqNY_j0ueUCUV0hDN0QgEiwLgcW-eSdh22FTSTcjU2i3bxAyaP3Sdun/s320/Roses%20and%20Strawberries.jpg" width=342 height=342 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Roses and Strawberries">"<a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/sergey-sovkov/en/artworks/9292234/roses-and-strawberries">Roses and Strawberries</a>" by Sergey Sovkov is from <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/en/art-gallery/collections/nevena-bojinovic/460714/rose-period?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=BlueRose%20period%20EN&utm_medium=email&page=1">the Rose Period collection</a>.
<p>Oops! I bounced my computer on the kitchen tiles and lost February! My data seems to be okay, but having to get a new computer made recovery pricey, and I do have a PayPal button on the sidebar, but if there's someone who deserves it more (<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/">Common Dreams</a> sounds like they're balancing on a knife-edge at the moment), I'll survive without it.
<p>And I would have posted a few days ago but EMTs insisted on getting me to the hospital for a scan of my foot and leg so I had a complicated few days of tests and dope and lots of sleep there before they pronounced me "fine", which was a surprise to us all.
<p>Meanwhile, right-wing war-monger and big-time beneficiary of AIPAC largess Adam Schiff ruined it for us by beating Barbara Lee and Katie Porter in the California Senate Primary. This means he will be running against Republican Steve Garvey for the DiFi's old Senate seat. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/06/adam-schiff-california">How did he do it?</a> "<font color=maroon>The primary broke records as the most expensive Senate race in California. Schiff's campaign is widely seen as having engineered Garvey's strong primary performance by spending millions of dollars to air ads attacking Garvey, the former first baseman for the LA Dodgers and an inexperienced Republican candidate, thus elevating his name recognition among Republican voters in a way the Garvey campaign itself was not able to afford. Schiff's strategy appeared to be effective at boxing out his two Democratic progressive competitors. Neither Porter nor Lee are expected to return to Congress next year, after choosing to compete in the Senate race rather than run for re-election in their House districts.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/01/pennsylvania-supreme-court-dobbs-sam-alito-abortion.html">A State Supreme Court Just Issued the Most Devastating Rebuke of Dobbs Yet</a> [...] <font color=maroon>This week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court responded to that conclusion: no. On Monday, the court issued a landmark opinion declaring that abortion restrictions do amount to sex-based discrimination and therefore are 'presumptively unconstitutional' under the state constitution's equal rights amendment. The majority vehemently rejected Dobbs' history-only analysis, noting that, until recently, 'those interpreting the law' saw women 'as not only having fewer legal rights than men but also as lesser human beings by design.' Justice David Wecht went even further: In an extraordinary concurrence, the justice recounted the historical use of abortion bans to repress women, condemned Alito's error-ridden analysis, and repudiated the 'antiquated and misogynistic notion that a woman has no say over what happens to her own body.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/new-york-times-intercept-hamas-rape/">The Nixonian <em>New York Times</em> Stonewalls on a Discredited Article About Hamas and Rape</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The newspaper of record botches an important story about sexual violence on October 7.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>On December 28, 2023, the Times published a major investigative report headlined ''Screams Without Words': How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.' Written by veteran foreign correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman along with two younger freelancers, Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella, the article dealt with one of the most painful stories to emerge from the Hamas massacre of October 7, the allegations of widespread rape. Based on more than 150 interviews, the article contended that the Hamas systematically used rape as a weapon of war. The question of rapes on October 7 had been simmering since the Hamas attack, gaining increasing urgency by November, when the Israeli government made it a centerpiece (along with unverified reports about beheaded babies) in its case for war. While leading pro-Israel advocates emphasized accounts of rape that they insisted amounted to a systematic campaign deliberately organized by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, some pro-Palestinian commentators took a more skeptical stance, noting the lack of forensic evidence to cast doubt on the narrative of a systematic campaign of sexual violence. The danger of the skeptical stance, sometimes played out in polemics, is that it sometimes seemed to shift over to the suggestion that all the testimonies of rape were mere 'stories' without evidentiary basis. 'Screams Without Words' initially seemed like a searing and irreproachable indictment that settled this debate. But doubts soon emerged about the article, both on account of the unacknowledged biases of the reporters (in particular Anat Schwartz) and also the shaky nature of the evidence presented. Key sources for the article had a history of false claims. The family of one allegedly raped murder victim spoke out against the article, claiming it presented an impossible story. A fierce internal debate emerged inside the Times itself as reporters not part of the original team found it difficult to verify many of the claims of the article. The reporting behind the Times article has been questioned both by the Times podcast The Daily and The Intercept.</font>" But instead of investigating how they'd made such a mess, they decided to investigate staff who'd "leaked" the fact that many Times staffers were outraged at the bias and unsubstantiated nature of the claims of the authors.
<p>From <em>In These Times</em>, "<a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/adl-israel-palestine-antisemitism-right-wing">The ADL Wants to Conflate Critiques of Israel with Antisemitism. That Won't Make Jews Safer.</a> <font color=maroon><em>As conservative pundits mainstream antisemitic tropes, the ADL is instead focused on silencing expressions of Palestinian solidarity.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The truly dangerous rise in American antisemitism since October 7 has nothing to do with activists calling for a ceasefire, or chanting 'from the river to the sea' or arguing (in concurrence with dozens of scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies) that Israel is engaged in genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza. The serious threat here, which the ADL under Greenblatt continually deemphasizes, is the proliferation of antisemitic ideology coming from the U.S. Right, where influential figures are rapidly normalizing racist, misogynistic, antisemitic and otherwise bigoted ideas long considered taboo in mainstream political discourse.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/world/2024-02-21-neglected-history-state-of-israel/">The Neglected History of the State of Israel</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Revisionist faction of Zionism that ended up triumphing adhered to literal fascist doctrines and traditions.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>One of Chotiner's best interviews ran this past November. A leader of the militant West Bank settlement movement told him that Jews have a sacred duty to occupy all the land between 'the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest,' that nothing west of the Jordan River was ever 'Arab place or property,' and that no Arabs, even citizens, should have civil rights in Israel. Stunning stuff, and extremely valuable to have on the record, especially given the settler movement's close ties to Benjamin Netanyahu's government. I praise Chotiner, however, as a bridge to a separate point: Even the most learned and thoughtful observers of Israel and Palestine miss a basic historic foundation of the crisis.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>In 1928, a prominent Revisionist named Abba Ahimeir published a series of articles entitled 'From the Diary of a Fascist.' They refer to the founder of their movement, Ze'ev Jabotinsky (his adopted first name is Hebrew for 'wolf'), as 'il duce.' In 1935, his comrade Hen Merhavia wrote that Revisionists were doing what Mussolini did: 'establish a nucleus of an exemplary life of morality and purity. Like us, the Italian fascists look back to their historical heritage. We seek to return to the kingdom of the House of David; they want to return to the glory of the Roman Empire.' They even opened a maritime academy in Italy, under Mussolini's sponsorship, for the navy they hoped to build in their new Israeli state. '[T]he views and the political and social inclinations of the Revisionists,' an Italian magazine reported, 'are absolutely in accordance with the fascist doctrine … as our students they will bring the Italian and fascist culture to Palestine.'</font>"
<p>From 2021, a story few seem to have heard, "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/16/how-did-it-happen-that-israels-jews-and-arabs-rose-up-against-each-other">How did it happen that Israel's Jews and Arabs rose up against each other?</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The endless rocket attacks no longer shock, but the divisions that have come violently to the surface in Israeli towns have horrified the country</em>.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>But the deterioration of the political status of Palestinians in Israel hangs heavily over social and economic problems. Over the last decade, Israel has passed laws targeting Palestinian citizens' rights, culminating in the 2018 'nation state' law, elevating Jews to a superior status in Israel. Anti-Arab rhetoric from rightwing politicians has crossed the line to incitement.</font>" Like so much else, the claim that Arabs in Israel live as equals is a sham. For a deeper dive, it's worth watching "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE0yhgf7Vno">The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine</a>." You might also want to read a little about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet">Plan Dalet</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.racket.news/p/wmd-part-ii-cia-cooked-the-intelligence">WMD, Part II: CIA "Cooked The Intelligence" To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Russia didn't fear Hillary Clinton. 'It was a relationship they were comfortable with,' some CIA analysts believed, but intelligence was suppressed. On the fall of the last great Russiagate myth</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Russia didn't fear Hillary Clinton. 'It was a relationship they were comfortable with,' some CIA analysts believed, but intelligence was suppressed. On the fall of the last great Russiagate myth</font>"
<p>Radley Balko on "<a href="https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-retconning-of-george-floyd">The retconning of George Floyd</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Bari Weiss's Free Press is the latest outlet to tout a conspiratorial documentary alleging that Derek Chauvin was wrongly convicted. It's all nonsense.</em> For a few precious days after the death of George Floyd, there was at least a clear consensus across the political spectrum — there was near-unanimity that what Darnella Frazier captured on her cell phone was a crime. An outrage. A thing to be denounced. As Floyd lay handcuffed on his stomach, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's back for nine minutes as Floyd became unresponsive, then went limp, then died. Even the most vocal police supporters condemned Chauvin's actions, though with obligatory disclaimers that Chauvin was a rogue, aberrant bad apple, and that no one should judge all law enforcement officers by his actions. The consensus wouldn't last. As protests heated up around the country, far-right pundits began to break away. They pointed to Floyd's criminal record, the violence at some of the protests, and the allegedly radical positions of the organizers. Dennis Prager, the radio host and founder of a fake university, marveled to his audience how 'decent' MPD officers had been to Floyd.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/03/the-prestige-author-christopher-priest-dies-aged-80/"><em>The Prestige</em> author <b>Christopher Priest</b> dies aged 80</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Internationally acclaimed novelist died from cancer on Friday after being diagnosed with small-cell carcinoma last summer</em></font>" (I saw the <em>Telegraph</em> story first so I could post it here right away, but now I see that his close friend and colleague John Clute got the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/04/christopher-priest-obituary"><em>Guardian</em> obit</a>.) Chris also did a great fanzine called <em>Deadloss</em> and later wrote <em>The Last Deadloss Visions</em> about Harlan Ellison's failure to produce the promised third in the <em>Dangerous Visions</em> series in a timely fashion. He also had a long-time friendship and collaborations with Dave Langford in both sf and their private enterprises. There's so much I could say about Chris, but what I'll tell you is that one time he drove us home and sat on our couch and told us about the time he went up to Liverpool and discovered an as-yet unknown rock band called The Beatles and George insulted his suit, and we made him write that story down and we built a whole one-shot fanzine around it. That fanzine was called <a href="https://fanac.org/fanzines/1980s_One_Shots/1980s01.pdf"><em>Chuch</em></a>, and you can go there now and read Chris' story, "Thank You, Girls."
<p>RIP: <a href="https://www.bsfa.co.uk/Brian-Stableford"><b>Brian Stableford</b> 1948-2024</a>, British SF author of 80 novels and a lot of other things. He was one of those people who Dave Langford alerted me to early as one of the Good Guys, and he was. My heart really goes out to Dave, losing such close, long-time friends at once.
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwXTEleDG4fve39EaKwANwjOpjG4Y128zfXVkDFFEbJ_z9l6f7sGmhLotLTuMDTGFmNLUZGQkpFPa-shIMnnX6Jf2R5AxYhtfAUW_3ZoIvGE-rCX_II9JvrsWtxIsumL1TcyUPwl-UXVxugh0OORaTRn6-u_ppveTRFCxd_ifYFOXRYLSUg0IURNcE/s652/Gregor,%20Avedon,%20Charlie%20by%20Steve%20Miller.jpg" width=426 height=342 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Gregor, Avedon, Charlie by Steve Miller">
RIP: <a href="https://fandompulse.com/2024/02/21/r-i-p-baen-books-liaden-universe-author-steve-miller-1950-2024/">Liaden Universe Co-Author <b>Steve Miller</b>. (1950-2024)</a>. I really liked this guy back in the BaltiWash days, and I was really happy to hear he'd married Sharon Lee and they were writing together up in Maine. I'd always meant to look at their stuff but I never saw it on shelves locally, and then a chance remark from a friend made me put them on my wishlist. It didn't take me long to realize I wanted all of the Liaden novels, they ring all my chimes. I stayed in contact with Steve, and got to know Sharon better, on Facebook, and was right chuffed about it all. I'm sorry to say I took no photos of him but one day shortly after a party at his place, he presented me with this photo of me being leered at by two guys, which had amused him. So here's a nice old shot of his sofa and me being thin, once upon a time. But there's a nice pic of him and Sharon on that obit page.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/hinton-battle-dead-tony-winner-the-wiz-actor-1235811408/"><b>Hinton Battle</b></a>, Three-Time Tony Winner and Original <em>The Wiz,</em> Actor, Dies at 67</a>: <font color=maroon>Hinton Battle, the Tony-winning performer who originated the role of The Scarecrow in Broadway's The Wiz, has died. He was 67. The actor died Tuesday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles following a lengthy illness.</font>" But of course, we loved him as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xh8duZ1-j0">dancing demon</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/justice/2024-01-31-moral-bankruptcy/">Moral Bankruptcy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The constitutional grant of a second chance for the destitute has become an enabler of reverse wealth redistribution. One wild case in Houston tells the story.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>THE NATION'S BANKRUPTCY CODE, the constitutionally enshrined system by which Americans are theoretically afforded the chance to discharge unmanageable debts, has over the past decade or two quietly metamorphosed into a vast enabler of reverse wealth redistribution. Corporations have exploited the tremendous privileges of bankruptcy protection to abrogate union contracts, cram down unilateral wage and benefit cuts, eject lawsuits filed by customers and community members killed by toxic products and manufacturing processes, back out of funding pensions and zero out the savings accounts of workers they pressured into investing in company stock as a condition of keeping their jobs, settle wrongful death claims for less than a penny on the dollar, evade responsibility for cleaning up after oil spills or refinery explosions or poisoning groundwater with benzene, and, of course, discharge debt incurred in the process of defrauding vulnerable students into taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans they are practically barred by law from discharging in bankruptcy themselves.</font>"
<p>Kuttner presents the depressing news of "<a href="https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-02-23-return-of-tony-blair/">The Return of Tony Blair</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The former prime minister has all but taken over the Labour Party and pushed it to the right. Didn't Tony Blair, nicknamed Tory Blur, do enough damage last time?</em> When Bill Clinton was the U.S. president and Tony Blair was the British prime minister, they were soulmates. They brought us neoliberalism. Both Clinton's New Democrats and Blair's New Labour turned away from progressivism and working families in favor of globalist corporate financial elites. Neoliberal deregulation of finance in turn produced the economic collapse in 2008. The failure of the center-left party to maximize the moment, contain capital, and rebuild a pro-worker economy led to the defection of working-class voters and ultimately to Trump in the U.S. and Brexit in the U.K. At home, Joe Biden has at last broken with Democratic neoliberalism. In Britain, the Conservative Party has lurched from blunder to blunder and from failed leader to failed leader, setting up a return to Labour. The Labour Party, under Keir Starmer, is the odds-on favorite to win the next general election, which could be as early as May or as late as next January. But Starmer, rather than rebuilding a progressive party, has virtually outsourced his entire program to Tony Blair. Based on its recent pronouncements, a Starmer government, if anything, would be worse than Blair's.</font>"
<p>This article is good, but it doesn't get to the heart of the matter, which is that the publisher in question shows no interest in presenting the unvarnished facts he so claims he wants the public to have so we can make up our own minds. You might get one rigorously researched article with nothing-but-the-facts on a particular issue, but when you have half a dozen articles that are clearly propaganda for one side full of widely-debunked nonsense as their foundation, you just might suspect a bias is in effect. And why do you print dozens of articles on an issue hardly anyone cares about when they don't even carry any illumination, let alone when they are full of holes? And, you know, everyone already knows Biden is old, why harp on it constantly? Even in an environment where <em>The Times</em> was rooting for Biden, you'd get the occasional reference to his age, but you really don't need to mention it that often — more often than Trump's visible dementia is mentioned. It's like that. "<a href="https://presswatchers.org/2024/03/why-is-new-york-times-campaign-coverage-so-bad-because-thats-what-the-publisher-wants/">Why is New York Times campaign coverage so bad? Because that's what the publisher wants.</a>"
<p>Ryan Cooper learned about "<a href="https://prospect.org/world/best-tax-system-on-earth-faroe-islands/">The Best Tax System on Earth</a>: <font color=maroon><em>What America and the world can learn from the Faroe Islands</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The Faroes have a tax system that is unique even among their Nordic neighbors, and probably the best in the world. Its operating principles are centralization, efficiency, and simplicity. It's not the most riveting subject for a travel holiday, I'll readily admit. But it's beautiful in its own way—and it makes a major difference in the lives of every Faroese person, from the lowest worker to the owners of the biggest businesses. It's hard to imagine fully implementing such a system in the United States, but we still might learn from their example.</font>"
<p>Dave Johnson in 2013, "<a href="https://ourfuture.org/20130408/the-1983-strategy-behind-todays-social-security-attacks">The 1983 Strategy Behind Today's Social Security Attacks</a>: <font color=maroon>Suppose you're in a bar and you overhear a couple of guys in the next booth talking about a plan to steal from people's houses. As you eavesdrop the plan unfolds: one will come to the front door pretending to be from the gas company warning the homeowner about a gas leak down the street. While he distracts the homeowner at the front door, the other one will sneak in the back door and take stuff. So the next day the doorbell rings, and there's a guy saying he is from the gas company. He says he wants to talk a while to warn you about a gas leak down the street... This is what is happening with this constant drumbeat of attacks on Social Security. The attack on Social Security never goes away, it only escalates. As we go into this next round of attacks -- this time it is even coming from the President* -- it is more than useful to understand the background of this campaign against the program.</font>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-18766200536978871302024-01-28T22:50:00.006+00:002024-01-28T23:11:31.313+00:00It's a wind that lingers long enough to be fed<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgoljxn0JEFA1F2fo2LP_zm00gWlHwyTvHgmaEtukyzWsdX3Nw8gOTMABZyFRVKD02l1UgwnZpI_zxgNoN2xd5i7s2AGkbqybfe-B-rsSOvuhhJ8bm4i5dSzjaFN3fM2SH6-rrJUw4VP29RH5ohEfGLfblGROtOtD1WKokGQvjhZ09Dp8QPl5GZhO_/s1428/Ice%20outside%20my%20window%20Libby%20Spencer.jpg" width=320 height=302 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Ice outside my window, by Libby Spencer">"Ice outside my window," by Libby Spencer.
<p>"<a href="https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01/international-court-of-justice-rules-forcefully-against-israel-in-landmark-genocide-ruling-including-restricting-military-action.html">International Court of Justice Rules Forcefully Against Israel in Landmark Genocide Ruling, Including Restricting Military Action</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Of critical importance, and a huge smackdown to Israel, is the Court came as close as it reasonably could to calling for a ceasefire in ruling for the provisional measure (which it devised itself) for Israel to cease military action against Palestinians as members of a protected group under the Genocide Convention.1 I had opined that the Court could not call for a ceasefire since it could not bind Hamas to comply. It would not be sound or shrewd to give Israel an easy pretext for defying the court by saying that a one-sided ceasefire would leave it defenseless. But impressively, the court went as far as it could, and way way further than I expected, in constraining Israel military operations against the Palestinian population.</font>" The fact that it didn't demand a ceasefire in specific isn't interesting, since to comply with the order they'd still have to stop doing what they're doing.
<p>"<a href="https://hellgatenyc.com/the-nypd-spent-150-million-to-catch-farebeaters-who-cost-the-mta-104000">The NYPD Spent $150 Million to Catch Farebeaters Who Cost the MTA $104,000</a>: <font color=maroon>Overtime pay for cops in New York's subway system increased from $4 million in 2022 to $155 million over the same period in 2023, according to an analysis by Gothamist. If that sounds like an excessive amount of money to be spending on cops who are famously mostly on their phones or GETTING STURDY, that's probably because you don't believe in public safety. For your information, that extra $151 million in overtime spending, a nearly 4,000 percent cost increase and the result of adding 1,000 additional cops to patrol the subway system, bought us a whopping two percent decrease in 'major' crime, amounting to a total of 48 fewer serious crimes like murder, rape, and robbery. The number of assaults on the subway, on the other hand, actually went up, raising the question of whether that decrease can even be attributed to the increased police presence underground.</font>" <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/12/cop-budgets.html">Atrios</a> remarked on Christmas that, "<font color=maroon>A whole range of people - from centrist 'good government' types to libertarians to 'fiscal conservatives' - are just completely silent on absurd cop budgets.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/press-act-unanimously-passes-the-house-now-on-to-the-senate,247727">PRESS Act unanimously passes the House. Now on to the Senate!</a> <font color=maroon>Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) applauds the House of Representatives for unanimously passing the PRESS Act, a bipartisan federal reporter's shield law that would protect journalists from being forced to name their sources in federal court and would stop the federal government from spying on journalists through their technology providers. The PRESS Act is the strongest federal shield bill that Congress has ever proposed. It's vigorously supported by major media outlets and civil society organizations.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/economy/baltimore-sun-david-smith-sinclair-owner-F77S3D47ORD7LNEPZ7PJCXSLWM/">New Baltimore Sun owner insults staff in meeting, says paper should mimic Fox45</a>: <font color=maroon>In a tense, three-hour meeting with staff Tuesday afternoon, new Baltimore Sun owner David Smith told employees he has only read the paper four times in the past few months, insulted the quality of their journalism and encouraged them to emulate a TV station owned by his broadcasting company. Smith, whose acquisition of the paper from the investment firm Alden Global Capital was announced publicly Monday evening, told staff he had not read newspapers for decades, according to several people who attended the meeting but were not authorized to speak publicly.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Smith, who is the executive chairman of Sinclair Inc., which operates more than 200 television stations nationwide, told New York Magazine in 2018 he considered print media “so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble.” Asked Tuesday during the meeting whether he stood by those comments now that he owns one of the most storied titles in American journalism, Smith said yes. Asked if he felt that way about the contents of his newspaper, Smith said “in many ways, yes,” according to people at the meeting. The Baltimore Sun won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. Smith is a major political player in the region, having donated heavily to campaigns. He recruited candidates to run against Mayor Brandon Scott and funded ballot initiatives that altered the city charter.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Smith's company owns the local station Fox45, and he praised its Project Baltimore, which focuses on the shortcomings of Baltimore City schools, as an example Sun reporters should follow.</font>" Of course he does! "<a href="https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/politics-power/sinclair-david-smith-baltimore-school-lawsuit-PTMW6DWUMJBAFKYFWAAETFBZRA/">Sinclair exec, Sun owner David Smith behind lawsuit against Baltimore schools</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Fox45 says reporters didn't know owner is financing high-profile suit and station will add disclosure to stories</em>. New Baltimore Sun owner and Sinclair Broadcast Group Executive Chairman David Smith has been quietly involved in a lawsuit accusing Baltimore City Public Schools of defrauding taxpayers, documents show.</font>" This man is one of the great public menaces of our time.
<p>"<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/solar-panels-save-teachers-raise">A School Bought Solar Panels And Saved Enough To Give All Its Teachers Raises</a>: <font color=maroon><em>'The Sun Is Going To Be Shining Anyway, So Why Not Cash In On That?'</em> A rural school district in Batesville, Arkansas generated enough solar energy to give every teacher a raise, CBS News reports. Salaries were only averaging around $45,000 at the Batesville School District, with many teachers leaving as a result. It was also proving difficult to attract new teachers to the town of just 10,000 people. But then the school district, which included a high school and five other education centers, turned an unused field into a solar energy farm back in 2017. It also covered the front of the high school in 1,500 panels. After installing the solar array and investing in other new energy infrastructure, Climatewire reports that the district turned a $250,000 annual budget deficit into a $1.8 million surplus — enough, according to CBS, to give every teacher a raise of up to $15,000.</font>"
<p>Rick Perlstein is writing a new series for <em>The American Prospect</em> from the three-legged torture device of American politics, "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-03-you-are-entering-the-infernal-triangle/">You Are Entering the Infernal Triangle: Authoritarian Republicans, ineffectual Democrats, and a clueless media</a>."
<br>• "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-10-first-they-came-for-harvard/">First They Came for Harvard</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The right's long and all-too-unanswered war on liberal institutions claims a big one.</em></font>"
<br>• "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-17-metaphors-journalists-live-by-part-i/">Metaphors Journalists Live By (Part I)</a>: <font color=maroon><em>One of the reasons political journalism is so ill-equipped for this moment in America is because of its stubborn adherence to outdated frames.</em></font>"
<br>• "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-18-metaphors-journalists-live-by-part-ii/">Metaphors Journalists Live By (Part II)</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The conclusion of our story of the bad things that can happen when journalists refuse to criticize themselves</em></font>"
<br>• "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2024-01-24-american-fascism-john-ganz/">American Fascism</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Author and scholar John Ganz on how Europe's interwar period informs the present</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/congress-brett-mcgurk-biden-middle-east_n_65a98154e4b041f1ce65448b">Democratic Lawmakers Plan Push To Get Controversial Biden Adviser Out Of Office</a>: <font color=maroon><em>House Democrats have drafted a letter seeking the resignation of White House aide Brett McGurk, whose Middle East policies are seen as worsening the Gaza crisis.</em></font>" (You might want to deep-dive this guy a little more <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/biden-national-security-adviser-brett-mcgurk-israel-palestine_n_656936c0e4b07b937ff4287f">here</a>.)
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/australian-journalist-fired">'Disturbing': Australian Journalist Fired After Push by Pro-Israel Lobbyists</a> [...] <font color=maroon>The Herald reported Tuesday that "dozens of leaked messages from a WhatsApp group called Lawyers for Israel show how members of the group repeatedly wrote to the ABC demanding Lattouf be sacked, and threatened legal action if she was not." One Lawyers for Israel member called Lattouf's lawyer, who is Jewish, a traitor.</font>"
<p>In <a href="https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1745173927083516253?s=20">this thread</a> on the Boeing scandal, Matt Stoller points out that the right-wing deflection to DEI is a red herring from "<font color=maroon>1998 fights between white guys - finance vs engineering.</font>" He cites "<a href="https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075">this note from 21 years ago from a group of Boeing engineers predicting the crisis we're in. It's a function of the McDonnell Douglas merger, not race.</a>" Matt also <a href="https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/1745176609911631875?s=20">says</a>, "<font color=maroon>I don't like DEI, because it's what a civil rights movement looks like when no one has any rights except through identity grievance and that's a very bad thing. But it's extremely obvious that DEI is used by the right to avoid looking at problems implicating their establishment.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/cfpb-overdraft-fees">With Overdraft Fee Crackdown, 'CFPB Is Doing What It Was Designed to Do'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The CFPB is proposing clear, enforceable rules that will reduce overdraft fees and save Americans billions, closing another lucrative regulatory loophole banks use to prey on consumers,' said one advocate.</em></font>"
<p>At long last, Tom Tomorrow has joined forces with <em>The American Prospect</em>, who will now be carrying <a href="https://prospect.org/power/2024-01-16-this-modern-world/"><em>This Modern World</em></a>.
<p>RIP: <a href="https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/EDDA-Anika-Christmas-Bodycon/25491784"><b>Glynis Johns</b>, Mary Poppins star and 'Send in the Clowns' singer, dies aged 100</a>"— Sondheim actually wrote the song for her, and she was also the <a href="https://x.com/rickburin/status/1743029444069978242?s=20">best mermaid ever</a>. Lotta good photos <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/photos/galleries/2024/jan/04/glynis-johns-1923-2024/">here</a>.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/mary-weiss-dead/"><b>Mary Weiss</b>, lead singer with '60s girl group the Shangri-Las, died on Jan. 19 at the age of 75.</a> <font color=maroon>Confirming the singer's death, Miriam Linna of Weiss' label Norton Records said: 'Mary was an icon, a hero, a heroine, to both young men and women of my generation and of all generations.' Formed in 1963, the quartet is remembered for their first Top 5 single, 'Remember (Walking in the Sand)' and its follow-up, the classic death disc '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P7ksqtDCy4">Leader of the Pack</a>,' both released in 1964.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://variety.com/2024/music/obituaries-people-news/melanie-dead-brand-new-key-singer-woodstock-1235886892/"><b>Melanie</b>, Singer Who Performed at Woodstock and Topped Charts With 'Brand New Key,' Dies at 76</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The singer, who wrote '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ52lk9wjZI">Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)</a>' based on her experience at Woodstock, had been at work this month on a covers album.</em></font>" Good, she did what she loved right up to the end.
<p>At <em>Informed Comment</em>, a review of Avi Shlaim's <a href="https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/memoirs-arab-jew.html"><em>Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew</em></a> [...] <font color=maroon>After the Nakba that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948 and the new state's victory against the Arab armies, the climate for Jews in Iraq significantly worsened. The defeat of the Iraqi army in Palestine was a deep humiliation for a nation that expected an easy military success. It was in this context, Shlaim remarks, that 'the distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down.'[2] Ella Shoat, who has researched the history of Arab Jews and provided feedback to Shlaim for his book, captures another side of the same problem when she writes that 'as the Palestinians were experiencing the Nakba, Arab Jews woke up to a new world order that could not accommodate their simultaneous Jewishness and Arabness.'</font>"
<p>One thing that really spooked me was hearing Israelis talk about what they had been taught about Palestinians. The level of propaganda is astonishing. Israelis claim that "Palestinians teach their children hate," but what Israeli children are taught is horrific - not just about Palestinians, but about everyone. I'd seen hints of this before, but Nurit Peled-Elhanan, the Israeli professor who studies and writes about education, still managed to shock me. It's worth your time to listen to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrxTpo36h_4">this video about how racist the Israeli educational system is</a> — and how it traumatizes Israeli children from an early age. She also says Palestinians can't educate children to hate Jews because Israel controls all their educational processes and materials.
<p>This is a good, solid piece of writing by Jeremy Scahill that I opened in December but it got lost in the deluge: "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/12/11/israel-hamas-war-civilians-biden/">This Is Not a War Against Hamas</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The notion that the war would end if Hamas was overthrown or surrenders is as ahistorical as it is false.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Israel has imposed, by lethal force, a rule that Palestinians have no legitimate rights of any form of resistance. When they have organized nonviolent demonstrations, they have been attacked and killed. That was the case in 2018-2019 when Israeli forces opened fire on unarmed protesters during the Great March of Return, killing 223 and wounding more than 8,000 others. Israeli snipers later boasted about shooting dozens of protesters in the knee during the weekly Friday demonstrations. When Palestinians fight back against apartheid soldiers, they are killed or sent into military tribunals. Children who throw rocks at tanks or soldiers are labeled terrorists and subjected to abuse and violations of basic rights — that is, if they are not summarily shot dead. Palestinians live their lives stripped of any context or any recourse to address the grave injustices imposed on them.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-media-ignoring-evidence-actions-7-october">Why is the media ignoring evidence of Israel's own actions on 7 October?</a>" has a too-long introductory section, but the meat of the story is that Hamas planned a commando raid on military installations that became chaos because a festival had been moved into the area and now a large number of civilians were thrown into the mix. The question is how many of the dead civilians were actually killed by Hamas, because the evidence is that a significant proportion of those deaths were caused by the IDF.
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/new-york-times-genocide-lemkin">What the New York Times Gets Wrong About Lemkin's Work on Genocide</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Words matter, but the paper of record has ignored our letter of clarification about historical misrepresentation and the important role of the Armenian genocide in the thinking of the man who coined the term.</em></font>"
<p>Doctorow with a deep-dive on how Apple gets away with its evils, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones">The Cult of Mac</a>: <font color=maroon>Apple's most valuable intangible asset isn't its patents or copyrights – it's an army of people who believe that using products from a $2.89 trillion multinational makes them members of an oppressed religious minority whose identity is coterminal with the interests of Apple's shareholders.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>These regulators couch their enforcement action in terms of defending an open market, but the benefits to app makers is only incidental. The real beneficiaries of an open app world is Apple customers. After all, it's Apple customers who bear the 30% app tax when it's priced into the apps they buy and the things they buy in those apps. It's Apple customers who lose access to apps that can't be viably offered because the app tax makes them money-losing propositions. It's Apple customers who lose out on the ability to get apps that Apple decides are unsuitable for inclusion in its App Store. That's where the Cult Of Mac steps in to cape for the $3 trillion behemoth. The minority of Apple customers for whom their brand loyalty is a form of religious devotion insist that 'no Apple customer wants these things.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/institutional-covid-denial-has-killed">Institutional COVID denial has killed public health as we knew it. Prepare to lose several centuries of progress.</a> <font color=maroon><em>Public health cannot be individualized. Abandoning collective approaches to disease mitigation is a recipe for disaster.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/millionaires-tax-extreme-wealth">Millionaires and Billionaires to Davos Elites: 'We Must Be Taxed More'</a>; <font color=maroon><em>'Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it's time," said Abigail Disney. "The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously.'ms</em> Survey results released Tuesday as corporate CEOs, top government officials, and other global elites gathered in Davos, Switzerland show that nearly three-quarters of millionaires in G20 countries support higher taxes on extreme wealth, which they view as an increasingly dire threat to democracy. The poll was conducted by the London-based firm Survation on behalf of the Patriotic Millionaires, an advocacy group that campaigns for a more progressive tax system. The survey, which polled over 2,300 millionaires in G20 nations, found that 74% 'support higher taxes on wealth to help address the cost-of-living crisis and improve public services.'</font>" It's not clear to me that other billionaires are on the bandwagon, but quit a few millionaires are.
<p>Dan Froomkin, "<a href="https://presswatchers.org/2024/01/my-proposed-additions-to-the-new-york-times-style-guide-to-improve-its-political-coverage/">My proposed additions to the New York Times style guide to improve its political coverage</a>: <font color=maroon>The New York Times repeatedly abuses the English language in its political reporting. I decided it needs some additions to its style guide. Here are my initial suggestions.</font>" You are invited to add your suggestions.
<p>From the Roosevelt Institute, "<a href="https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2024/01/16/topline-economic-indicators-miss-struggling-communities/">How Topline Economic Indicators—like Low Unemployment—Miss Struggling Communities</a>: <font color=maroon>Current macroeconomic indicators and labor market statistics paint a picture of a resilient economy underpinned by a robust labor market. The United States has enjoyed historically low unemployment rates, bottoming out at a mere 3.4 percent in January and April 2023. Unemployment remained relatively low throughout 2022 and 2023 despite a gradual upward trend, standing at a still-respectable 3.7 percent in December. When one turns attention to the state level, however, it becomes clear that the labor market is fragmented. Some of the nation's most populated states are reaping minimal or no benefits from the tightness of the national labor market. Instead, these populous states, such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, and Nevada, are contending with escalating unemployment rates that surpass pre-pandemic levels.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits">How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A vaccine against tuberculosis, the world's deadliest infectious disease, has never been closer to reality, with the potential to save millions of lives. But its development slowed after its corporate owner focused on more profitable vaccines.</em></font>"
<p>Keanu Reeves gives the one true answer to the question, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TMs_PE7CXE">What do you think happens when we die?</a>"
<p>Nazz, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi9R7jRS0rc">Under the Ice</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-6339975293240416412023-12-28T00:12:00.004+00:002023-12-29T23:31:36.964+00:00Peace on Earth<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS47I0l0Jt6frkXmGgWZ8ubtqCLvIBjgaallMoIUNeS7Wm8Vna0c5ntstD2ytICBTexIFkidoWmfQaQLt0UaiiznIlsyUtXV_JDb4D8JOscB60b-z3Ur7pP9yBShogg5TIZkDNVVNlO9uSa3vDCT5l4OfSjqIXg_eXMjepWNpvbPE1Y7c1a-lDl-QN/s542/xmasfireplace.gif" width=320 height=248 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="xmas trees\xmasfireplace.gif">
<p>And here we are with the traditional Christmas links:
<br>• Mark Evanier's wonderful <a href="http://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col245/">Mel Tormé story</a>, and here's the man himself in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaEedtRHklg&feature=youtu.be">duet with Judy Garland</a>.
<br>• <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc5eJc5SHA">Joshua Held's Christmas card</a>, with a little help from Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters. (And I've been charmed to see that most new covers of the song are using this arrangement, so thanks for that, Joshua!)
<br>• Brian Brink's tour-de-force performance of "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8zHmwoTtKc">The Carol of the Bells</a>"
<br>• "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5M9UTlDb10">Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime</a>."
<br>• Ron Tiner's one-page cartoon version of <a href="http://news.ansible.co.uk/images/scrooge1.gif"><em>A Christmas Carol</em></a>
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-12-12-jury-finds-google-monopolist/">Jury Finds That Google Is a Monopolist</a> [...] <font color=maroon>A jury in Northern California, after deliberating for just a few hours, found Google guilty of anti-competitive practices in the app market for Android phones. The suit was not brought by the FTC, but by Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite. Epic argued that Google forced app developers to use its Play Store for distribution, leveraging this power to charge fees on in-app purchases of up to 30 percent. When Epic tried to encourage users to pay them directly for their games instead, Google and Apple kicked them out of their respective app stores. A separate case against Apple resulted in a mostly negative verdict for Epic, but it's still on appeal. It says something that this jury (which maybe wasn't composed of New York magazine readers) rather quickly agreed that Google was exercising monopoly power, when the judges in the Apple case tied themselves in knots denying it.</font>"
<p>The American Economic Liberties Project has a nice rundown of more good news on that front in "<a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/morgans-monopoly-digest-december-2023-12-8/#">Morgan's Monopoly Digest – December 2023</a>".
<p>"<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2023/12/19/donald-trump-colorado-ballot-case-supreme-court-14th-amendment/">Colorado Supreme Court bars Donald Trump from the state's ballot in 2024, ruling he's disqualified by Jan. 6 actions</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Legal challenge, which alleges Trump engaged in insurrection, is likely headed to U.S. Supreme Court.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>'We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three (of the 14th Amendment), it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,' the court's majority opinion says. 'Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump's name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.'</font>"
<p><em>The Lever</em>'s "<a href="https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-southwest-to-pay-up-for-holiday-meltdown/">You Love To See It</a>" list for the week links to some hopeful stories: "<font color=maroon>Good things are happening! Southwest gets fined for its 2022 holiday meltdown, and the EPA could institute a ban on the chemical that burned in the East Palestine derailment disaster. What's more, the Biden administration will stop most commercial logging in old-growth forests, and federal regulators demand that Starbucks reopen stores it closed after workers started organizing.</font>"
<p>Atrios sees something funny about "<a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/12/cop-budgets.html">Cop Budgets</a>: <font color=maroon>A whole range of people - from centrist "good government" types to libertarians to "fiscal conservatives - are just completely silent on absurd cop budgets. Even if one buys into the "law and order nonsense, spending this kind of money on cop overtime to catch a few fare evaders is not a good use of tax money!</font>" He quotes from an article that says, "<font color=maroon>NYPD overtime pay for extra officers in the subway went from $4 million in 2022 to $155 million this year, according to city records obtained by Gothamist.</font>" And he continues, "<font color=maroon>Almost all they did was arrest and ticket fare evaders. For some reason arresting people for skipping a subway fare makes sense to people while no one would consider doing so for the identical crime of not feeding a parking meter.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-18-microsoft-musk-question-of-unions/">Microsoft, Musk, and the Question of Unions</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Suddenly, a leading American corporation appears to be OK with the idea of collective bargaining. Hint: It's not Tesla.</em> Last week, Microsoft announced that it wouldn't oppose efforts by any of its roughly 100,000 employees to form or join a union. In other parts of the world, there'd be nothing earthshaking about such an announcement; it's actually common practice in Europe and elsewhere. In these United States, however, it makes Microsoft 'a unicorn' among its peers, as one union official put it. The last major American corporation to pledge it would let its employees decide whether to unionize free from corporate opposition was—well, I can't think of one, though I've been on this beat for roughly 45 years.</font>" Musk, on the other hand, is keeping to form.
<p>"<a href="https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-maduro-saab-detained-americans-biden-d7148a34dd009d5bab3d5f50c28ed93e">US, Venezuela swap prisoners: Maduro ally for 10 Americans, plus fugitive contractor 'Fat Leonard'</a>" — or, as <a href="https://x.com/anyaparampil/status/1737514494111207465?s=20">Anya Parampil</a> put it, "<font color=maroon>The US swapped Alex Saab—a Venezuelan diplomat whom US authorities quite literally kidnapped in June 2020—for two ex Green Berets who participated in a failed plot to kill Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-musk-steering-suspension/">Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective</a>: <font color=maroon>Wheels falling off cars at speed. Suspensions collapsing on brand-new vehicles. Axles breaking under acceleration. Tens of thousands of customers told Tesla about a host of part failures on low-mileage cars. The automaker sought to blame drivers for vehicle 'abuse,' but Tesla documents show it had tracked the chronic 'flaws' and 'failures' for years.</font>"
<p>I really didn't expect this from him, or from any Senator from Connecticut, but, "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2023-12-04-sen-chris-murphy-democrats-neoliberalism/">Sen. Chris Murphy: 'This Party Has Not Made a Firm Break From Neoliberalism'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Connecticut's junior senator launches a new interview series focused on monopoly power, part of his quest to understand American unhappiness.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>To Murphy, the issue of corporate concentration runs deeper than just consumer pricing and equitable growth. It strikes at the core of why Americans feel powerless about the fate of the country. People have a palpable, though not always articulable, sense that the most crucial decisions governing their daily lives are now being made far away from their communities in corporate boardrooms, rather than by elected officials in the halls of government or by extension themselves. Many of the country's morbid symptoms, in Murphy's estimations, trace back to this friction between the public and their corporate overlords.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/27/tom-smothers-dead-brothers-show?ref=upstract.com"><b>Tom Smothers</b> of sibling comedy duo the Smothers Brothers dies at age 86</a>: <font color=maroon>Tom Smothers, half of the comedy group the Smothers Brothers, has died at the age of 86. Smothers was described as 'not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life', but as 'a one-of-a-kind creative partner', according to a statement by his brother Dick Smothers on Wednesday shared by the National Comedy Center. Dick also shared that Tom, who died after a battle with cancer, was at home with his family when he died.</font>" We knew they were going to get kicked off the air because they criticized the war, and they were our heroes. Tommy Smothers played guitar on "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftE8vr0WNus">Give Peace A Chance</a>" and he said, "It's hard for me to stay silent when I keep hearing that peace is only attainable through war."
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://deadline.com/2023/12/andre-braugher-dead-homicide-life-on-the-street-brooklyn-nine-nine-actor-1235665513/"><b>André Braugher</b> Dies: Star Of <em>Homicide: Life On The Street</em>, <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine</em> & Other Series And Films Was 61</a> [...] <font color=maroon>While Braugher peppered his résumé with comedies, many will remember him for his ferocious portrayal of Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC drama <em>Homicide: Life on the Street</em>. Put him in 'the box,' sweating out and outsmarting crime suspects in the interrogation room, and you were looking at a weekly dose of tour de force acting, as good as it got on television during that time. He won an Emmy for that show he starred in from 1992-98. His wife, Ami Brabson, recurred as Pembleton's wife on <em>Homicide</em>.</font>" He was a magnificent actor who brought intensity to the screen, and also could be downright hilarious.
<p>RIP: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/19/dale-spender-obituary"><b>Dale Spender</b>, 80</a>: "<font color=maroon>Dale Spender, who has died aged 80 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was the author of the internationally acclaimed Man Made Language (1980), in which she argued that language is highly gendered and both reflects and perpetuates a male worldview. The book was an instant classic and is considered by scholars and feminists to be highly relevant today. As well as an accomplished author, Spender was a feminist activist, researcher, broadcaster and teacher in her native Australia and during a period of some 15 years in London. She edited more than 30 books and was involved in founding a number of publishing imprints, series and journals – most notably, in 1983, Pandora Press, a feminist imprint of Routledge, where she was editor-at-large.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/12/16/cuba-obama-biden-trump-policy/">In a Major Snub to Obama, Biden Is Sticking With Trump When It Comes to Cuba Policy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>One of Obama's most significant foreign policy achievements was his move toward normalizing relations with Cuba. Trump and Biden have torn that up.</em></font>" This was one of the few things Obama did that I actually approved of, and it broke my heart when Trump undid it, but you really can't justify this administration failing to get back to the Obama policy.
<p>"<a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/anti-palestinian-racism-is-inherent-to-zionism-and-youre-not-allowed-to-talk-about-it/">Anti-Palestinian racism is inherent to Zionism and you're not allowed to talk about it</a> [...] <font color=maroon>In his article, Charles Blow seems perplexed that anti-Zionists will not give a straight yes or no answer to the question, 'Does Israel have a right to exist?' The problem with the question is the subtext— what is it actually asking? Is it asking if you support a state that places the rights of Jews over the rights of Palestinians? Is it asking whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state by way of ethnic cleansing? If you can only have a Jewish state by expelling Palestinians, and you endorse that notion either openly or tacitly, then that is clearly racism, yet you are not supposed to say it. So the question here seems to be asked in bad faith.</font>"
<p>Cory Doctorow reviews "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo">Nathan J. Robinson's <em>Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments</em></a>: <font color=maroon>In "Responding to the Right: Brief Replies to 25 Conservative Arguments," Current Affairs founder Nathan J. Robinson addresses himself in a serious, thoughtful way to the arguments advanced by right-wing figures, even when those arguments aren't themselves very serious</font>"
<p>If you're looking for a Substack you should probably subscribe to, <a href="https://seymourhersh.substack.com/">Sy Hersh</a> has one where he's still writing about what's going on around Israel, and also had a few things to say about Kissinger.
<p>Lisa Tuttle rounds up "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/15/the-best-recent-science-fiction-fantasy-and-horror-reviews-roundup">The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – reviews roundup</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Reformatory</em> by Tananarive Due; <em>The Lost Cause</em> by Cory Doctorow; <em>Him</em> by Geoff Ryman; <em>Audition</em> by Pip Adam</font>"
<p>I missed this last year but it's nice to go back and enjoy "<a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2022/12/rating-jonathan-turleys-wildest-thirstiest-most-embarrassing-bids-for-attention-in-2022/">Rating Jonathan Turley's Wildest, Thirstiest, Most Embarrassing Bids For Attention In 2022</a>." I can vaguely remember when he just seemed like a normal guy.
<p>I can't believe I didn't know about this ad before: "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVoDnGVkWCA">Leonard Nimoy vs. Zachary Quinto - The Challenge</a>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-67764480">It's a Wonderful Life: How a festive classic helps a Glasgow cinema thrive</a>: <font color=maroon>It is a much loved festive film - and for one cinema <em>It's a Wonderful Life</em> is the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. The 1946 classic, which stars James Stewart as a put-upon everyman considering suicide one snowy Christmas Eve, is such a fixture at the Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) that it has been the venue's biggest earner for 12 of the last 15 years. Much like Stewart's character George Bailey, the impact of the film has far-reaching consequences, as it raises funds that support the GFT's remit to spotlight independent and alternative cinema.</font>"
<p>Someone sent me this link for "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9WWz95ripA">a new Swedish Christmas carol</a>."
<p>Maybe I can replace my now lost ancient midi of "Carol of the Bells" with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apd5Xv2k41U">Jamie Dupuis's version on harp guitar</a>.
<p>John Lennon, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ-RzocalTk">So This Is Christmas, War Is Over</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-79254549084090699382023-12-11T03:29:00.005+00:002023-12-13T00:49:24.003+00:00I'm convinced that I'd wind up burning, too<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkj46WYdB_N9z5bO44ga4I6l_Sz7YFs2sjK54gNkn2h_ihpBcEnSm5CwPPG5eLhyphenhyphenY_LVdgnEJNTQuVN3bQNepSEYKFUdUKDWmfW6dheQqL6hMtKlpsj30YqcnkH6ixOjFnACKXKQcCO2LKM8d7Z1GZbOgV_5ZdlEcFxqicg2pKB_5eiG2b0CE8Ibb-/s1600/advent2023.gif" width=320 height=126 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Advent2023">
It's that time of year again, so let's start things off with Daveed Diggs and "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbxyZAduGvY">Puppy for Hanukkah</a>"! And, of course, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8zHmwoTtKc">Carol of the Bells</a>" (which was not originally written for Christmas, or even for winter, but now it means December to me). The ancient midi I've been posting for years at Advent finally succumbed to linkrot, so we'll just dive right into to the smashing Brian Brink version.
<p>Remember back when MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's show (their highest-rated show!) because they didn't like him opposing the invasion of Iraq? Well, right on time, they've <a href="https://presswatchers.org/2023/11/msnbc-cancels-mehdi-hasan-a-truth-teller-in-a-time-of-crisis/">canceled Mehdi Hasan</a>: "<font color=maroon>No high-profile journalist has been more assertive about Palestinian rights than Mehdi Hasan, and MNSBC punished him on Thursday by taking away the TV shows he hosted on the network and on NBC's streaming service. Does this mean that standing up for Palestinians is a death sentence in the mainstream media – even at MSNBC? Hasan is also hands-down the best interviewer in American news right now. He confronts and enlightens. He should be on TV every night.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/12/03/netanyahu-thin-gaza-population/">Netanyahu's Goal for Gaza: 'Thin' Population 'to a Minimum'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The White House requested billions to support refugee resettlement from Ukraine and Gaza in October.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tasked his top adviser, Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs, with designing plans to 'thin' the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip 'to a minimum,' according to a bombshell new report in an Israeli newspaper founded by the late Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson. The outlet, Israel Hayom, is considered to be something of an official organ for Netanyahu. It reported that the plan has two main elements: The first would use the pressure of the war and humanitarian crisis to persuade Egypt to allow refugees to flow to other Arab countries, and the second would open up sea routes so that Israel 'allows a mass escape to European and African countries.' Dermer, who is originally from Miami, is a Netanyahu confidante and was previously Israeli ambassador to the United States, and enjoys close relations with many members of Congress.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Israel Today and other Israeli media are also reporting on a plan being pushed with Congress that would condition aid to Arab nations on their willingness to accept Palestinian refugees. The plan even proposes specific numbers of refugees for each country: Egypt would take one million Palestinians, half a million would go to Turkey, and a quarter million each would go to Yemen and Iraq. The reporting relies heavily on the passive voice, declining to say who put the proposal together: 'The proposal was shown to key figures in the House and Senate from both parties. Longtime lawmaker, Rep. Joe Wilson, has even expressed open support for it while others who were privy to the details of the text have so far kept a low profile, saying that publicly coming out in favor of the program could derail it.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Back on October 20, in a little-noticed message to Congress, the White House asked for $3.495 billion that would be used for refugees from both Ukraine and Gaza, referencing 'potential needs of Gazans fleeing to neighboring countries.' 'This crisis could well result in displacement across border and higher regional humanitarian needs, and funding may be used to meet evolving programming requirements outside of Gaza,' the letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget reads. The letter came two days after Jordan and Egypt warned they would not open their borders to a mass exodus of Palestinians, arguing that past history shows they would never be able to return.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/06/norman-lear-dies-us-tv-sitcom-writer"><b>Norman Lear</b>, celebrated US TV writer and producer, dies aged 101</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Lear entered the zeitgeist in the 70s, with the production of television sitcoms such as All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons and Good Times.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/06/denny-laine-obituary"><b>Denny Laine</b></a>, co-founder of The Moody Blues and member of Wings, of lung disease at 79. He won my heart with his rendition of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2L3UzM_FfE">Go Now</a>".
<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTohBLIpmQNLVkjMlLawqDJSwkjXCVNK0I-fe5z60wskZb0W9k_zOJd_roiUKwdJqkG9ZoBjML7s8AVC0w4Cs6VSFDjsEzFhvVbJd6YltLMpUxuE191CLqL7ouhzda_Y1H37OJJlCR6tIH_S4dT5PkD2NAC-mes9npasRvwT2Z24tXwpz6l3tLtTxL/s320/kissingerhuffpo.jpg" width= height= align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="KissingerHuffPo"><p>ROT IN PERDIITION: I can't pick which headline I like better,
<br>• "<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/"><b>Henry Kissinger</b>, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The infamy of Nixon's foreign-policy architect sits, eternally, beside that of history's worst mass murderers. A deeper shame attaches to the country that celebrates him</em></font>," from Spencer Ackerman in <em>Rolling Stone</em>, or
<br>• "<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/henry-kissinger-dies_n_6376933ae4b0afce046cb44f"><b>Henry Kissinger</b>, America's Most Notorious War Criminal, Dies At 100</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The titan of American foreign policy was complicit in millions of deaths — and never showed remorse for his decisions</em></font>," at <em>HuffPo</em>. Within an hour or so of the announcement of Kissinger's death, the entire front page of <em>HuffPo</em> was...accurate.
<p>And, I don't know how well the Palestinians would have liked the idea, but once upon a time, "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/11/30/henry-kissinger-israel-egypt-soviet-union/">On Top of Everything Else, Henry Kissinger Prevented Peace in the Middle East</a>: <font color=maroon>Let's not forget that Kissinger's crimes included the deaths of thousands of Arabs and Israelis.</font>" Not so much because he loved Israel but because he couldn't stand any idea that involved cooperating with the USSR.
<p>It's about time: "<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/12/clarence-thomas-benefactors-subpoena-welcome.html">Clarence Thomas' Benefactors Finally Face the Music</a> [...] <font color=maroon>This is not an abstract project: No fewer than four cases the court is to decide in this term alone could dramatically advance this agenda, including a case that would allow the justices to rewrite regulations that affect our air, water, labor practices, consumer finance, and a host of other questions. Known as the Chevron doctrine, the legal principle at issue in one of these cases has been the subject of years of criticism orchestrated by Leo and Crow. And Justice Thomas, who defended the doctrine in a 2005 opinion, has since become its primary critic on the court following years of unofficial and undisclosed gifts by these benefactors. He also failed (again) to disclose his participation in exclusive fundraisers and gatherings where the reversal of the Chevron doctrine was often a topic of discussion. For any official to accept undisclosed gifts of the magnitude reported this year would warrant a Senate investigation. The fact that these gifts came from people engaged in a covert effort to shape the court, its power, and its opinions makes an investigation into how these gifts may have influenced the justices all the more urgent.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>For any official to accept undisclosed gifts of the magnitude reported this year would warrant a Senate investigation. The fact that these gifts came from people engaged in a covert effort to shape the court, its power, and its opinions makes an investigation into how these gifts may have influenced the justices all the more urgent.</font>" Seriously, Leonard Leo and his gang deserve to be in jail for bribery, and Thomas and Roberts for accepting bribes.
<p>I watched this 18:35 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoOnsZASaqA">interview with Ted Cruz</a> and wanted to slap him <em>so hard</em>. I mean, sure, you have to know anyone who utters the phrase "cultural Marxism" with a straight face is a nitwit, but the more he talks, the more you wonder just how wrong it's possible for someone to be. (And no, Ted, "Never again" isn't just about Jews, it's about <em>everyone</em>.)
<p>Doctorow: "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/">'If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing'</a> [...] <font color=maroon>20 years ago, Chris Anderson told me that it was unrealistic to expect tech companies to refuse demands for DRM from the entertainment companies whose media they hoped to play. My argument – then and now – was that any tech company that sells you a gadget that can have its features revoked is defrauding you. You're paying for x, y and z – and if they are contractually required to remove x and y on demand, they are selling you something that you can't rely on, without making that clear to you. But it's worse than that. When a tech company designs a device for remote, irreversible, nonconsensual downgrades, they invite both external and internal parties to demand those downgrades. Like Pavel Chekov says, a phaser on the bridge in Act I is going to go off by Act III. Selling a product that can be remotely, irreversibly, nonconsensually downgraded inevitably results in the worst person at the product-planning meeting proposing to do so. The fact that there are no penalties for doing so makes it impossible for the better people in that meeting to win the ensuing argument, leading to the moral injury of seeing a product you care about reduced to a pile of shit</font>."
<p>Greedflation Watch: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/23/john-rust-rose-acre-farms-egg-price-fixing-senate?ref=am-quickie.ghost.io">Republican Senate candidate's family egg company caught in price-fixing plot</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Several food giants claimed that Rose Acre Farms – which John Rust chaired until recently – unlawfully fixed the prices of eggs</em></font>" Something might actually be done about that one since the complaint came from the industry.
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-06-federal-agencies-employer-debt-traps/">Federal Agencies Can Disable Employer Debt TRAPs
</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Advocacy groups offer a road map for how agencies can use existing authority to ban contracts that force workers to pay employers if they leave their job.</em> Nearly two dozen advocacy groups are urging the Biden administration to ban the spreading practice of 'stay-or-pay' contracts, which force workers to compensate employers, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars, if they leave their job before a set time period. The New York Times Magazine recently reported on these provisions, an innovation of the private equity industry that can require workers to pay 'liquidated damages' for on-the-job training or use of equipment, or unspecified damages resulting from the cost of recruiting a replacement, or even 'lost profits' from a worker's departure. Seven detailed memos sent to federal agencies and the White House over the past two months and released this week argue that these provisions operate as 'de facto non-compete agreements' that lock workers into jobs and prevent them from speaking out about wages or working conditions. The contracts, the memos assert, violate numerous federal statutes that both protect workers from exploitation and more broadly protect health and safety. Therefore, federal agencies can use existing authorities to eliminate them from the workplace.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaU6tI2pb3M">Here's What Ethical AI Really Means</a>" is about a lot more than AI, because AI is just all the existing systems and biases and existing effects sucked in and spat out.
<p>"<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/28/world/steve-aurora-lights-scn/index.html">These magnificent purple and green lights aren't auroras. This is Steve</a>."
<p>"<a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2023-11-29/wildlife-photographer-of-the-year-25-photos-on-peoples-choice-shortlist">Sleeping polar bear and illuminated jellyfish in running for Wildlife Photographer of the Year prize</a>"
<p>"<a href="https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/11/27/charges-dismissed-against-wyoming-ranchers-for-bleaching-penises-onto-cows/">Charges Dismissed Against Wyoming Ranchers For Bleaching Penises Onto Cows</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A Crook County, Wyoming, judge has dismissed property destruction charges against a pair of ranchers accused of bleaching penis shapes and other markings on their neighbor's cows.</em></font>"
<p>Paul Williams, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6rzVVwvlLU">The Hell Of It</a>"Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-45878285754972736752023-11-27T21:14:00.003+00:002023-11-28T22:24:22.279+00:00There'll be no sad tomorrow<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfK54QoviHSNaXNlG91e_lBj4VOos-tkcjf1OTu2oPzveojWSkmDGVb_50C6ai0gTndmoMgFhox_fBazGFRyoA32DknPWwmZZRg7XjSd4-_DY9ZBFxkjB6EQiSad4Zc2g6wRoMEyciu5U8f5bXsulARH2B8KdvuM1JuwcDvlE-OC_r4g6RsQJbmjle/s960/Autumn%20house.jpg" width=320 height=480 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Autumn bridge">
<p>As always, I am grateful to those of you who have stayed with <em>The Sideshow</em>, especially those who have helped out and try to engage. I know it's a shadow of it's former self, but I still feel a need to document the atrocities, and I'm really glad you're here with me.
<p>Democrats did pretty well out of the first Tuesday in November, and it's pretty clear why: "<a href="https://boltsmag.org/election-night-2023-state-governments-abortion-rights-democratic-wins-kentucky-virginia/">Abortion Rights Power Democratic Wins in Kentucky and Virginia</a>." Ohio voted abortion rights into the state constitution easily, Kentucky re-elected its Democratic governor by a wider margin than last time, and Glenn Younkin, who wasn't on the ballot but campaigned hard for voters to give him an anti-abortion legislature got slapped in the face by keeping Virginia's state Senate in Democratic hands and flipping the state House to them as well. (And <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/11/not-bad-day.html">Atrios</a>: "<font color=maroon>Reporters and pundits are convinced that voters are with Republicans on abortion, but in these Ohio diners they aren't so sure.</font>" Atrios has been particularly happy about how the obviously-wrong pundits who declared Younkin the face of the future after he beat a pathetic Terry McAuliffe to the seat are being shown up, especially after <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/11/hunky-pta-dad.html">Youngkin went all Culture Warrior against the transgender candidate</a>, who won her race, too.)
<p>"<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/4287215-reporters-without-borders-israel-hamas-gaza-journalist-deaths-international-criminal-court-investigation/">Media group calls for investigation into deaths of 34 journalists in Israel-Hamas war</a>: <font color=maroon>Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling for an investigation into the deaths of 34 journalists in the Israel-Hamas war.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The complaint also includes allegations citing 'the deliberate, total or partial, destruction of the premises of more than 50 media outlets in Gaza' since Israel declared war on Hamas following the militant group's deadly attacks on the country Oct. 7. This is the third complaint RSF has filed alleging war crimes against Palestinian journalists in Gaza since 2018, according to The Associated Press.</font>"
<p>Doctorow, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/">Biden wants to ban ripoff 'financial advisors'</a>: <font color=maroon>Once, American workers had "defined benefits pensions," where their employers promised to pay them a certain amount every year from their retirement to their death. Jimmy Carter swapped that out for 401(k)s, "market" pensions where you have to guess which stocks will be valuable or starve in your old age. The initial 401(k) rollout had all kinds of pot-sweeteners that made them seem like a good deal, like heavy employer matching that doubled or even tripled the value of every dollar you put into the market for your retirement. But over the years, as Reaganomics took hold and workers' power ebbed away, all these goodies were clawed back. In the end, the market-based pension makes you the sucker at the poker table, flushing your savings into a rigged casino that is firmly tilted in favor of finance barons and other eminently guillotineable plutocrats.</font>"
<p>Doctorow on the murder of <em>Jezebel</em> and the news in general, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/">'Brand safety' killed Jezebel</a> [...] <font color=maroon>This aversion to reality has been present among corporate decisionmakers since the earliest days, but the consolidation of power among large firms – ad-tech firms, online platforms, and 'brands' themselves – makes corporate realityphobia much easier to turn into, well, reality, giving advertisers the fine-grained power to put Jezebel and every site like it out of business. As Koebler and Maiberg's headline so aptly puts it, 'Advertisers Don't Want Sites Like Jezebel to Exist.' The reason to deplore Nazis on Twitter is because they are Nazis, not because their content isn't brand-safe. The short-term wins progressives gain by legitimizing a corporate veto over what we see online are vastly overshadowed by the most important consequence of brand safety: the mass extinction of reality-based reporting. Reality isn't brand safe. If you're in the reality based community, brand safety should be your sworn enemy, even if they help you temporarily get a couple of Nazis kicked off Twitter.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-orders-citi-to-pay-25-9-million-for-intentional-illegal-discrimination-against-armenian-americans/">CFPB Orders Citi to Pay $25.9 Million for Intentional, Illegal Discrimination Against Armenian Americans</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Citi hid discrimination by giving consumers false reasons for credit denials</em></font>. [...] <font color=maroon>When Citi denied credit applications because of applicants' perceived Armenian national origin, Citi employees lied about the specific reasons for the adverse actions. At one point, a Citi employee explained it had been a while since they had denied an application because of a consumer's Armenian surname, and wanted a suggestion on how to cover up the discrimination. The response was to decline the credit card application due to suspected credit abuse, which essentially blamed the applicant for the denial.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://boltsmag.org/michigan-automatic-voter-registration-prison/">Michigan Law Would Be First to Automatically Register People to Vote As They Leave Prison</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The legislature passed a bill last week that would expand automatic voter registration in a number of other ways, and likely add many new Michiganders to voter rolls.</em></font>" Michiganders are legally eligible to vote when they leave prison, but most of them don't even know. This new law would include notification that they are registered and that they can unregister if they want to.
<p>"<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-gaza-propaganda-biden/">Israel's Ludicrous Propaganda Wins Over the Only Audience That Counts</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Why make an effort to be credible if you're going to be uncritically echoed by the White House and Western press?</em></font>" No one believes Israel's laughable propaganda anymore, because it's really that bad and even their own people end up having to admit it's not true. And yet, Joe Biden seems to fall for it every time.
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/biden-again-pretends-to-be-powerless-this-time-about-gaza/">Biden Again Pretends To Be Powerless — This Time About Gaza</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The White House is using major U.S. news outlets to pretend it can't rein in Israel — but the claims don't add up.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>In a recent book on Biden, The Last Politician, writer Franklin Foer details how Biden put an end to Israel's bombing of Gaza in 2021 with one phone call. After Netanyahu 'struggled to justify his request [for more bombing] because he couldn't point to fresh targets that needed striking,' Biden said, according to Foer, 'Hey, man, we're out of runway here. It's over.' And then, Foer continued, 'like that, it was. By the time the call ended, Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to a cease-fire that the Egyptians would broker.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/27/business/crime-spree-retailers-are-actually-overstating-the-extent-of-theft-report-says/index.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">Chains are using theft to mask other issues, report says</a>: <font color=maroon>
Retailers say theft is exploding, and some data from retailers along with numerous videos of violent store robberies and looting seem to support the claim. But some retail analysts and researchers, bolstered by local crime statistics, say stores may be over-stating the extent and impact of theft. Why? It's a useful deflection, camouflaging weak demand, mismanagement and other issues denting business right now. And it forces lawmakers to respond</font>"
<p>Why is it always Republicans? "<a href="https://apnews.com/article/iowa-ballot-box-stuffing-18432099d65be5e95aa5e5cd83b589e1?ref=am-quickie.ghost.io">Iowa official's wife convicted of 52 counts of voter fraud in ballot-stuffing scheme</a>: <font color=maroon>SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — The wife of a northwestern Iowa county supervisor was convicted Tuesday of a scheme to stuff the ballot box in her husband's unsuccessful race for a Republican nomination to run for Congress in 2020.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/louis-dejoy-postal-service-agenda">The Public Has a Right to Know Every Detail of Louis DeJoy's Destructive Agenda</a>: <font color=maroon>In a time of historic distrust in government, the United States Postal Service has accomplished something extraordinary: it remains a universally beloved federal agency. Second only to the Parks Service in public favorability (a jaw-dropping 77% approval rating, per Gallup), USPS is arguably also the most frequently-interacted-with component of the federal government: packages and letters are delivered to Americans' mailboxes six days per week. But these warm feelings – already under threat by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's continued destructive leadership – could quickly chill if the Postal Board of Governors has its way.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-11-14-tesla-swedish-workers-unions/">At Tesla, Swedish Workers Can Do What American Workers Can't</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In support of striking mechanics, dockworkers there are no longer unloading Teslas. Such solidarity isn't legal here.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Tesla has no factories in Sweden, but it does employ around 120 mechanics to tune up and fix their cars. The union of such workers, IF Metall, has been trying for years to get Tesla to the bargaining table, as is the norm in Sweden, where roughly 90 percent of the workforce is represented by unions. The very idea is anathema, of course, to Elon Musk, who believes such matters at the company, and perhaps in the world at large, are best left to Elon Musk. After Musk responded with a flat No to recognize the union, the mechanics walked off the job on October 27 and remain on strike. What followed illustrates nicely what it means when a nation has solidaristic values reinforced by solidaristic laws. A few days into the strike, the union of Swedish dockworkers announced it would no longer unload Teslas at the nation's ports. (The Teslas sold in Sweden are shipped in from German and U.S. Tesla factories.) Then, the painters' union joined in and vowed that its members would no longer do paint jobs on any Teslas in need of a touch-up. Now, the Communications Employees vows not to make deliveries to Tesla's offices if Tesla doesn't recognize its mechanics union by November 20.</font>" Americans can't do that, thanks to Taft-Hartley.
<p>"<a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/11/take-trump-seriously-when-he-vows-to-build-the-camps">Take Trump Seriously When He Vows To Build The Camps</a>: <font color=maroon>Trump is openly planning to build a vast network of internment facilities, while railing against 'internal threats' and calling his enemies 'vermin' and vowing to 'root them out.' The warning signs of fascism have never been more obvious or alarming.</font>"<p>
<p>"<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/176648/whats-causing-airline-close-calls">What's Causing Those Airline Close Calls?</a> <font color=maroon><em>Reports of near-miss incidents at airports are growing more frequent—as the passenger experience itself becomes ever more unpleasant. Decades after deregulation, is the system at a breaking point?</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://nancyebailey.com/2023/11/20/41-ways-a-big-lie-continues-to-haunt-americas-public-schools/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=socialnetwork">41 Ways a Big Lie Continues to Haunt America's Public Schools</a>: <font color=maroon>Forty years ago, Americans learned of A Nation at Risk, the troubling and mostly bogus report by the Reagan administration claiming public schools and teachers failed to produce students who were capable American workers. Berliner's and Biddle's The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools disproved the report, but it still haunts us today like a never-ending loop Americans can't jump off of. Here's how.</font>"
<p>The Road to theocracy:
<br>• "<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/mike-johnson-christian-nationalist-appeal-to-heaven-flag-1234873851/">The Key to Mike Johnson's Christian Extremism Hangs Outside His Office</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The newly elected House speaker has ties to the far-right New Apostolic Reformation — which is hell-bent on turning America into a religious state</em></font>"
<br>• "<a href="https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/mike-johnson-polite-extremist">Mike Johnson, Polite Extremist</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The new speaker of the House has deep ties to proponents of the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement that helped fuel the January 6th insurrection.</em></font>"
<br>• "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/11/12/cracks-on-the-road-to-christian-dominion-is-the-shadowy-city-elders-group-collapsing/">Cracks on the road to Christian Dominion: Is the shadowy "City Elders" group collapsing?</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Oklahoma-based "City Elders" group talks big about political takeover. How much of that is smoke and mirrors?</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/environment/2023-11-20-larry-summers-inflation-prediction-climate-change/">How Larry Summers's Bad Predictions Hurt the Planet</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The clean-energy transition is faltering because of unexpectedly high interest rates, which Summers's demands to slow down the economy helped usher in.</em> It is definitely amusing to see Larry Summers flail away at recalibrating his opinions in real time. For years, in full public view, Summers insisted that high public spending was 'the least responsible economic policy in 40 years,' and that the only way to keep the economy safe from crushing inflation was to increase unemployment significantly. With last week's report on the Consumer Price Index, we have essentially returned to Federal Reserve benchmarks on inflation on a trend basis. And this was done without a meaningful rise in unemployment; while the headline rate has skipped up half a percentage point from 3.4 to 3.9 percent, most of that is due to higher labor force participation, and it's certainly nowhere near what Summers claimed was vital. As a result, Summers has attempted to erase history. He now says that 'transitory factors' like supply bottlenecks were pushing up inflation, and now that they have eased, inflation is coming down. I appreciate Summers's obvious study of the Prospect's special issue on supply chains, but this is manifestly not what he was saying as recently as a few months ago. His entire public commentary was set up in opposition to anyone who would raise the possibility of 'transitory factors' and supply chain crunches as the source of inflation.</font>"
<p>Ian Welsh, "<a href="https://www.ianwelsh.net/how-to-reduce-inflation-and-create-a-good-economy/">How To Reduce Inflation And Create A Good Economy</a>: <font color=maroon>Right now we have central banks attempting to control inflation by crushing wages. But wage-push demand isn't the primary driver of inflation, it is corporate profit taking (increasing prices much faster than their costs) and some genuine supply bottlenecks. This cannot be fixed by central banks except by smashing ordinary people flat, and in certain senses not even then, since it will lead to long term maldistribution of resources which will lead to real economic problems in the future: problems not based on distribution or finance, but on lack of physical ability to create what we need. If we want to fix this we have to make it so that those who control economic decision making can only do well if the population as a whole does well. That means politicians who want to help the population (not 90% of European or American pols) and corporate leaders who need the population to do well.</font>"
<p>In CJR, "<a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/election-politics-front-pages.php">Warped Front Pages</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Researchers examine the self-serving fiction of 'objective' political news</em></font>" — and find out that our Newspapers of Record still haven't learned that their bias is showing.
<p>"<a href="https://lpeproject.org/blog/palestinian-freedom-antisemitism-accusations-and-civil-rights-law/">Palestinian Freedom, Antisemitism Accusations, And Civil Rights Law</a> [...] <font color=maroon>The logic, of course, is that Palestinian freedom in the land 'from the river to the sea' is fundamentally incompatible with sovereignty over that land by an Israeli state constitutively committed to being specifically and exclusively a Jewish state (as opposed to a binational one).</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/project-2025-liberal-donors/?utm_campaign=SproutSocial&utm_content=thenation&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter">Why 'Liberal' Donors Love Giving Money to the Extreme Right</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Many purportedly progressive plutocrats turn reactionary on Israel and labor.</em> If Donald Trump wins back the presidency in 2024, his second term in office will be much more authoritarian than anything he was able to achieve in his first go-round. Yet some very wealthy donors who style themselves as progressives are helping to fund Trumpian schemes to remake the government along autocratic lines.</font>
<p><em>The Onion</em>, "<a href="https://www.theonion.com/concerning-new-study-finds-nation-s-poverty-growing-fas-1850990391">Concerning New Study Finds Nation's Poverty Growing Faster Than Officials Can Build Prisons
</a>"
<p>Charlie Stross, "<a href="https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html">We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus</a> [...] <font color=maroon>And rather than giving the usual cheerleader talk making predictions about technology and society, I'd like to explain why I—and other SF authors—are terrible guides to the future. Which wouldn't matter, except a whole bunch of billionaires are in the headlines right now because they pay too much attention to people like me. Because we invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale and they took it at face value and decided to implement it for real.</font>" And their version of those ideas is weirder than anything you've imagined.
<p>Rob Hansen's got a book out on how science fiction fans have impacted the real world, <a href="https://taff.org.uk/ebooks.php?x=BeyondFan"><em>Beyond Fandom: Fans, Culture & Politics in the 20th Century</em></a>
<p>This year's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfLtAdSgWPQ">Children in Need <em>Doctor Who Special</em></a> is about 5:08 long.
<p>"<a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/best-beatles-songs-ranked.html">All 214 Beatles Songs, Ranked From Worst to Best</a>: <font color=maroon><em>We had to count them all.</em></font>" I disagreed strongly with some of his choices from the very first, but it's still some good writing and some interesting insights from someone who seems to know and love The Beatles.
<p>The Beatles, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTsbYbN8VVI">There's A Place</a>"Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-74753838036858370572023-10-31T07:38:00.006+00:002023-11-01T09:38:11.900+00:00Somebody lookin' over his shoulder at me<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-iJOBv7bLE4ok2oBGs0i3F7BHuZY1tDK66ua2BpE2D-0cdzjDRNZJaZxv-HbFIa9fEQoMelvpST4zxsPeWSBSd4bShHXjSc0UUgGKVWaylD-1lWGXOtvxfxg4mhzitDAGFvEBPahE4XQ0UoL8kOqW7znhgJUPdjWy3-w4W1ks0D3L5zQqcFWPVEjW/s320/Moonwbloodsky.jpg" width= height= align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="MoonwBloodSky">
<p>Well, the House Republicans finally <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mike-johnson-house-speaker-republican-nominee-what-know-rcna122114">picked a majority leader</a>, probably because a lot of them really didn't know who he was so there weren't enough people who hated him yet, so now we have an open opponent of separation of church and state running the chamber. Mike Johnson is a product of <a href="https://politicalresearch.org/2018/01/19/a-manual-to-restore-a-christian-nation-that-never-was">The Family Research Council</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://eskow.substack.com/p/260-911s-in-gaza-and-other-paint">260 "9/11s" in Gaza — and Other Paint-by-Numbers Horrors</a>: <font color=maroon>If a picture's worth a thousand words, how many numbers would it take to paint the picture of Israel's US-backed bombing of Gaza? President Biden used nightmare-as-arithmetic rhetoric when he discussed the Hamas massacre. 'For a nation the size of Israel,' he said, 'it was like fifteen 9/11s.' That's true, proportionally speaking, and it's ghastly. More than 30 Israeli children were killed on October 7. Their murders alone are the equivalent of roughly 1,000 US deaths on 9/11. Dozens of children are in captivity and their safe return should be a top priority. But what about Palestine? How many 9/11s has it experienced since October 7 — and in the decades before? What other losses has it endured? Let's review the tragic numbers, then summarize President Biden's proposed spending package (preview: it's shamefully inadequate) before pivoting to US public opinion and politics.</font>"
<p>Data For Progress: "<a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2023/10/19/voters-agree-the-us-should-call-for-a-ceasefire-and-de-escalation-of-violence-in-gaza">Voters across party lines agree that the US should call for a ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza</a>." 56% of Republicans, 57% of independents, 80% of Democrats, and 66% of all voters say so. As usual, Congress is <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/two-thirds-of-american-voters-want-us-to-call-for-a-ceasefire-in-gaza/">somewhere else</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-advances-innovative-direct-file-project-for-2024-tax-season-free-irs-run-pilot-option-projected-to-be-available-for-eligible-taxpayers-in-13-states">IRS advances innovative Direct File project for 2024 tax season; free IRS-run pilot option projected to be available for eligible taxpayers in 13 states</a>. Getting rid of the H&R Block grift would be a big relief.
<p>"<a href="https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/633875/janeese-lewis-george-wants-to-support-local-news-with-government-funding-voters-would-decide-who-gets-the-money/">Janeese Lewis George Wants to Support Local News With Government Funding. Voters Would Decide Who Gets the Money.</a> <font color=maroon><em>Lewis George is backing a first-of-its-kind program to prop up local media outlets of all sizes.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Lewis George introduced the Local News Funding Act Monday, which, if passed, will set aside 0.1 percent of the city's budget each year (about $11.5 million based on the current spending plan) to help prop up locally focused outlets. According to a copy of the legislation provided to Loose Lips, the bill would empower residents to decide how that funding is allocated by letting them award 'news coupons' to organizations they support.</font>"
<p>Dylan Saba, "<a href="https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-surge-in-suppression/">A Surge in Suppression: It's never been this bad</a>: <font color=maroon><em>This piece was originally commissioned by an editor at The Guardian, who asked me to write about the wave of retaliation and censorship of political expression in solidarity with Palestinians that we've seen in the past two weeks. Amid my work as an attorney on some of the resulting cases, I carved out some time to write the following. Minutes before it was supposed to be published, the head of the opinion desk wrote me an email that they were unable to run the piece. When I called her for an explanation she had none, and blamed an unnamed higher-up. That a piece on censorship would get killed in this way—without explanation, but plainly in the interest of political suppression—is, beyond the irony of the matter, a grave indictment of the media response to this critical moment in history.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/10/wealth-inequality-us-demographics-survey-of-consumer-finances/">Wealth Inequality Permeates US Society, No Matter How You Slice It</a>: <font color=maroon><em>New data on wealth distribution in the US confirms what we already knew: within all major demographic groups, whether by age, race, or education, wealth is concentrated at the top. The US is a deeply unequal society.</em></font>" A reminder that all the various demographic wealth gaps are at the top, not the bottom.
<p>A review by DDay, "<a href="https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-10-27-lies-my-corporation-told-me-hanauer-walsh-cohen-review/">Lies My Corporation Told Me</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A new book lays out 150 years of corporate stooges making bogus arguments.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The book is called Corporate Bullsh*t, written by anti-privatization advocate Donald Cohen, journalist Joan Walsh, and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer. Together, they slot the rebuttals that corporate mouthpieces, lobbyists, and their allies in government and media make to virtually every government and social program, from the abolition of slavery to the increase in the minimum wage.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Going all the way back to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, corporate mouthpieces have argued that any attempt to protect workers or boost their wages will destroy jobs.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/richard-roundtree-dead-shaft-1235626813/"><b>Richard Roundtree</b>, Suave Star of <em>Shaft</em> Dies at 81</a>. [...] <font color=maroon>Roundtree died at his home in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer, his manager, Patrick McMinn, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 and had a double mastectomy. 'Breast cancer is not gender specific,' he said four years later. 'And men have this cavalier attitude about health issues. I got such positive feedback because I spoke out about it, and it's been quite a number of years now. I'm a survivor.'</font>" The character who made him a star was also cool: "<font color=maroon>'When a friend of his — a white homosexual bartender — gives him a rather hopeful caress, Shaft is not threatened, only amused. He has no identity problems, so he can afford to be cheerful under circumstances that would send a lesser hero into the kind of personality crisis that in a movie usually ends in a gunfight, or, at the least, a barroom brawl.'</font>" People may complain about "blaxpoitation movies", but I don't think they understand what a ground-breaker Roundtree was as Shaft. (Although, I admit, watching those opening credits cracks me right up.)
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/matthew-perry-dead-friends-drowning-b2437818.html">Friends star <b>Matthew Perry</b> dead aged 54</a>," drowned, apparently in a jacuzzi. He was the only reason I had to watch <em>Friends</em>, at least for the first season. Then someone decided to dumb him down and it was no fun for me anymore.
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/health/2023-10-18-nih-how-to-become-billionaire-program/">The NIH's 'How to Become a Billionaire' Program</a>: <font color=maroon><em>An obscure company affiliated with a former NIH employee is offered the exclusive license for a government-funded cancer drug.</em> As the Senate holds confirmation hearings today for a new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the agency quietly filed a proposal last month to grant an exclusive patent for a cancer drug, potentially worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, to an obscure company staffed by one of its former employees. Exclusive patents are typically given to companies so they can raise investment capital for the long process of bringing a drug to market. But in this case, the NIH invented and manufactured the treatment in question, and is sponsoring the clinical trials. An exclusive patent transfers all the benefit of a drug discovery from the government to an individual company. In this case, the ultimate beneficiary would be a former researcher who worked on the technology while in the government. 'I'm sure this is a fine fellow, but why give former employee a monopoly?' said James Love of Knowledge Ecology International, which tracks drug patent issues. 'He's going to have generational wealth if it succeeds. At no risk to him, because the trial is funded.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/larry-summers-and-the-crypto-con/">Larry Summers And The Crypto Con</a>: <font color=maroon>This morning, my colleagues Julian Scoffield and Henry Burke have a piece out in The American Prospect about Larry Summers and the ever growing but little known ties he has to an array of shady financial companies. The latest development is that Digital Currency Group (DCG), a firm that Summers advised for years, and its subsidiary Genesis Global Trading now face prosecution from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the New York Attorney General for fraud. Oh, and the Department of Justice has been investigating since earlier this year. It's getting hard to keep track!</font>" It would be so gratifying to see Larry Summers behind bars.
<p>"<a href="https://thebaffler.com/latest/pity-the-landlord-dulik">Pity the Landlord</a>" <font color=maroon><em>Is the 'mom-and-pop' landlord a myth?</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Eccles's widespread media presence is no accident. In 2019, he became one of the public faces of Responsible Rent Reform—a faux-grassroots group backed by the Rent Stabilization Association (RSA), the largest landlord organization in the state—which has set about weaponizing the stories of a dozen 'mom-and-pop' landlords to undermine rent regulations. Eccles, in other words, is not an everyman plucked by the papers by chance; for years, he has been part of a landlord lobby that has become increasingly organized in response to tenant protections passed by the New York State legislature in 2019 and to the economic precarity of the pandemic. His social justice-inflected grievances are the bleeding edge of a revanchist development in New York housing debates: landlords, especially the smaller ones, have begun repurposing the identitarian language of systemic oppression in a relentless public campaign against rent regulation and eviction protections.</font>" A lot of money and a lot of spin has gone into trying to prevent protections for tenants all over the country, but racecraft has become a standard trick.
<p>"<a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-curious-case-britain-forgotten-2017-election">UK Labour party: The curious case of Britain's forgotten 2017 election</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Corbyn polled just a few hundred thousand fewer votes than Blair in 1997's landslide and still has higher approval ratings than Starmer. His erasure from UK political memory is telling</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Following Labour's disastrous defeat in the May 2021 Hartlepool byelection, shadow cabinet member Steve Reed declared that the problem remained Corbyn - who had stood down more than a year before - and that Labour hadn't 'changed enough' from the party that voters 'comprehensively rejected in 2019'. But Labour under Corbyn had won Hartlepool in both 2017 and 2019 - in 2017 with almost twice the share of the vote the party gained at the byelection in 2021.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://wehco.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/news/documents/2023/10/19/Sanders_Executive_Order_10.19.23.pdf">America needs a bigger, better bureaucracy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>They're from the government, and they really are here to help.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>I believe that the U.S. suffers from a distinct lack of state capacity. We've outsourced many of our core government functions to nonprofits and consultants, resulting in cost bloat and the waste of taxpayer money. We've farmed out environmental regulation to the courts and to private citizens, resulting in paralysis for industry and infrastructure alike. And we've left ourselves critically vulnerable to threats like pandemics and — most importantly — war. It's time for us to bring back the bureaucrats.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/10/16/surveillance-state-big-tech/">Why Big Tech, Cops, and Spies Were Made for One Another</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The American surveillance state is a public-private partnership.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>From experience, I can tell you that Silicon Valley techies are pretty sanguine about commercial surveillance: 'Why should I care if Google wants to show me better ads?' But they are much less cool about government spying: 'The NSA? Those are the losers who weren't smart enough to get an interview at Google.' And likewise from experience, I can tell you that government employees and contractors are pretty cool with state surveillance: 'Why would I worry about the NSA spying on me? I already gave the Office of Personnel Management a comprehensive dossier of all possible kompromat in my past when I got my security clearance.' But they are far less cool with commercial surveillance: 'Google? Those creeps would sell their mothers for a nickel. To the Chinese.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/08/musk-thiel-zuckerberg-andreessen-alternate-autocratic-reality">How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs—Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality</a>: <font color=maroon>Four very powerful billionaires—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreessen—are creating a world where 'nothing is true and all is spectacle.' If we are to inquire how we got to a place of radical income inequality, post-truth reality, and the looming potential for a second American Civil War, we need look no further than these four—'the biggest wallets,' to paraphrase historian Timothy Snyder, 'paying for the most blinding lights.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://reason.com/2023/09/10/the-pirate-preservationists/">The Pirate Preservationists</a>" — There's a great deal of cultural history we can only access because someone ignored the rules.
<p>I don't actually remember Tom Baker as the villain in the Sinbad movie and I didn't recognize him from <a href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmE0NmQ3NjctMGMwOC00MjFhLWJiNmEtNjNiZWJlNDc0OTJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE4MDg3NTIz._V1_.jpg">this picture</a>.
<p>Al Kooper and Steve Stills, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWkMMXgQohc">Season of the Witch</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-17522472288124606802023-10-16T03:33:00.005+01:002023-11-07T22:41:58.455+00:00Look, yeah, but don't touch<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha1W9RFvJBQuM4UIVMeqYhICkXX9XkFSINBGbZzYSWZ6AVFqJoaiFElZyyFPFFX41dLQrD8xrP_uPbBM6WORxVOQGMjz48NYPDkWRBRNBB9ENa85h8owLAGtd2NyYJcqxxqxPmPfTTXVWLCLFgLeHTLkP7ezI812mpzOCWz5cNY-ax6EWBhbpAnndl/s320/Halloween%20House%203.jpg" width=310 height=384 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Halloween House3">
<p>Sy Hersh, "<a href="https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/netanyahu-is-finished">'Netanyahu Is Finished'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Bibi doctrine—his belief that he could control Hamas—compromised Israeli security and has now begat a bloody war</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The most important thing I needed to understand, the Israeli insider told me, is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 'is finished. He is a walking dead man. He will stay in office only until the shooting stops . . . maybe another month or two.' He served as prime minister from 1996 until 1999 and again, as leader of the right-wing Likud Party, from 2009 to 2021, returning for a third stint in late 2022. 'Bibi was always opposed to the 1993 Oslo Accords,' the insider said, which initially gave the Palestinian Authority nominal control over both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. When he returned to office in 2009, the insider said, 'Bibi chose to support Hamas' as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority, 'and gave them money and established them in Gaza.' An arrangement was made with Qatar, which began sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Hamas leadership with Israeli approval. The insider told me that 'Bibi was convinced that he would have more control over Hamas with the Qatari money—let them occasionally fire rockets into southern Israel and have access to jobs inside Israel—than he would with the Palestinian Authority. He took that risk.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/10/israel-palestine-violence-hamas-airstrikes-gaza-oppression/">The Violence in Palestine and Israel Is the Tragic Fruit of Brutal Oppression</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The tragic scenes unfolding in Palestine and Israel are a chilling reminder of the horrors that occupation creates — and the urgency of dismantling Israel's blockades and apartheid system.</em></font>" For months now we have been seeing increasingly brutal attacks on Palestinians, with settler mobs burning villages and killing civilians with no intervention from anywhere, and yet the media treats a retaliatory strike from Hamas as "unprovoked".
<p><em>The Times of Israel</em>, "<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/">For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it's blown up in our faces</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The premier's policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from</em>. For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/landmark-technologys-two-decade-patent-assault-e-commerce-finally-over">Is Landmark Technology's Two-Decade Patent Assault On E-Commerce Finally Over?</a>: <font color=maroon>Landmark Technology's U.S. Patent No. 7,010,508, and its predecessor, are very likely two of the most-abused patents in U.S. history. These patents, under two different owners, have been used to threaten thousands of small businesses since 2001.</font>" Someone finally took these patent trolls to court and after two years of litigation said no, you can't claim a patent for just doing ordinary stuff all computers routinely do.
<p>Howie Klein on "<a href="https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/what-the-senate-appointment-tells-us-about-laphonza-butler-and-presidential-wanna-be-gavin-newsom">What The Senate Appointment Tells Us About Laphonza Butler AND Presidential Wanna Be Gavin Newsom</a>: <font color=maroon>Another mediocre corporatist appointment from Gavin Newsom shouldn't surprise anyone. Even after he came out with his cringe-worthy statement about appointing a Black woman, he certainly was never going to appoint a progressive icon like Barbara Lee. So he made up a plausible excuse about not appointing anyone running in 2024 (ie, Barbara Lee). Like with all of his appointments, he wanted someone from the corporate-friendly wing of the Democratic Party. So what do we know about Maryland resident Laphonza Butler?</font>" We know that her "liberal" credentials aren't what they might seem to people who don't know about how EMILY's List has turned into a corrupt money-making machine that pushes conservative women over progressive candidates, and that she's one of the reasons why Uber and Lyft drivers still don't have the rights they need. And that's just how Newsome wants it. And something curious happened last month, too: "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/10/04/laphonza-butler-kamala-harris-emilys-list/">Laphonza Butler's Emily's List Spends Millions On Kamala Harris While Laying Off Grassroots Staff</a>."
<p>"<a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/starbucks-illegally-kept-pay-benefits-raise-from-union-workers?context=search&index=0">Starbucks Illegally Kept Wages, Benefits From Union Workers</a>: <font color=maroon>Starbucks Corp. broke federal labor law when it boosted wages and benefits only for workers in non-unionized stores across the US last year, a National Labor Relations Board judge held. Thursday's decision from Administrative Law Judge Mara-Louise Anzalone marks the first nationwide ruling against the coffee giant amid its resistance to a unionization wave that began two years ago. Starbucks violated the National Labor Relations Act in August 2022 by lifting wages to at least $15 an hour and providing benefits such as credit card tipping, increased training, and faster sick time accrual to all stores that weren't unionized, the judge said.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/09/trump-desantis-republicans-dismantle-deep-state/675378/?gift=Q6t2rABpJiIM4StyjC4H8xX4OIIxsc3b8QQGTuwyGGU&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social">The Open Plot to Dismantle the Federal Government</a> [...] <font color=maroon>As he runs again for a second term, Trump is vowing to 'dismantle the deep state' and ensure that the government he would inherit aligns with his vision for the country. Unlike during his 2016 campaign, however, Trump and his supporters on the right—including several former high-ranking members of his administration—have developed detailed proposals for executing this plan. Immediately upon his inauguration in January 2025, they would seek to convert thousands of career employees into appointees fireable at will by the president. They would assert full White House control over agencies, including the Department of Justice, that for decades have operated as either fully or partially independent government departments.</font>" And people who claim to oppose "crony capitalism" didn't even gasp.
<p>"<a href="https://www.offmessage.net/p/the-democrats-lost-september">The Democrats Lost September</a>: <font color=maroon><em>You guys awake?</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>I'll return to the Democrats in a moment, but for my money the most revealing development of all had nothing to do with Trump, or the Democratic Party. Instead it was how Republicans reacted to the discovery that Menendez appears to be on the take from foreign interests who've plied him with cash and gold bouillon. On almost any other timeline, Republicans would've tried to make not just Menendez but every Democrat in Washington call to mind sleazy machine pols whose pockets jingle and spill over as they walk because they're stuffed with bribes. But not on this timeline. Not on the timeline where the GOP has closed ranks around a growing list of crooks, including George Santos and Clarence Thomas, with Trump at the center. The Republican Party has spent years preemptively sanctifying all of its internal corruption, dismissing all evidence as the product of frame-up jobs and media fabrication, because their fealty to Trump is not compatible with upholding the rule of law or accountability for lower-ranking members. And so with the party fully at war with the Justice Department and the old standards of ethical leadership, they can't now claim to say the feds have the goods in this instance, and that Menendez must thus relinquish public office. They've thus found themselves actively defending Menendez and discouraging Democrats from pressuring him to retire.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/power/2023-10-03-lawsuit-highlights-why-meat-overpriced/">Lawsuit Highlights Why Meat Has Been Overpriced for 40 Years</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Agri Stats lets meat processors coordinate their pricing. The Justice Department finally decided to go after what it calls collusion.</em>The federal lawsuit filed last week against Amazon, which was so hopelessly redacted we don't quite know what's in it yet, could ultimately have the biggest impact of any antitrust action we've seen in the Biden administration. By the same token, the currently active trials against Google for exclusionary dealing, against Sam Bankman-Fried for crypto fraud, and against Donald Trump for massively overstating the value of his real estate holdings are all interesting in their own way. But a separate case from the Department of Justice against an agricultural analyst service called Agri Stats is perhaps the most emblematic of the old patterns of corporate America, and the new aggressiveness of this wave of antitrust enforcement. Agri Stats, as described in the complaint, is essentially a work-around for explicit collusion by meat processors. The company delivers weekly reports based on proprietary data given to them by meat processors, which have so much granular detail that everyone in the industry knows precisely what everyone else is doing, including the prices they're offering. This allows for specific coordination that raises prices for everyone purchasing meat, while boosting profits for the processor middlemen.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/26/organized-retail-crime-and-theft-not-increasing-much-nrf-study-finds.html">Retail theft isn't actually increasing much, major industry study finds</a>: <font color=maroon>Retail theft has caught the attention of the masses in recent years, from startling smash-and-grab videos during the depths of the Covid pandemic to corporate earnings calls where retailers like Target
and Foot Locker are discussing losses from organized retail crime more than they ever have. But the effect of theft on retailers' bottom lines is about the same as it has been for years, according to the latest data released Tuesday in the widely used industry survey conducted by the National Retail Federation.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/10/11/best-schools-students-pentagon-military">The Pentagon runs the top performing school system in the U.S.</a>" Why? They're well-funded, economically (and every other way) integrated, teachers are well-paid, and all the students are housed. It's worth remembering that the average American student scores overall went down as the middle-class shrank.
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/10/08/fbi-fentanyl-wmd-attack/">The U.S. Government is preparing for a fentanyl WMD attack</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Joe Biden didn't make a WMD designation, but federal agencies acted anyway — kicking off a panic among police.</em></font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2238893/the-isley-brothers-rudolph-isley-dead-at-84/news/">The Isley Brothers' <b>Rudolph Isley</b> Dead At 84</a>" — Their hits made a surprisingly long percentage of the soundtrack of my life. Here they are in 1959 doing the original version of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEjLFpU2pJ4">Shout</a>", which they wrote.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.indiewire.com/news/obituary/piper-laurie-dead-1234916783/"><b>Piper Laurie</b>, Oscar-Nominated <em>Carrie</em> and <em>The Hustler</em> Star, Dead at 91</a>: <font color=maroon>Laurie's seven-decade film and television career also included memorable roles in <em>Twin Peaks</em> and <em>Children of a Lesser God.</em></font>" As a sex education advocate, I have invoked Carrie's mother often. But there was a whole lot more to this wonderful actress. And you might like the story of her <a href="https://x.com/MarkAschParody/status/1713296448077312468?s=20">encounter with Ronald Reagan</a>. And here she is as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGdhLcA3bio">Mom on <em>Will & Grace</em></a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-10-04/homelessness-drugs-addiction-encampments-substance-abuse-unhoused-police">People think drug use causes homelessness. It's usually the other way around</a>: <font color=maroon>For those who did use drugs in the last six months, 40% of people started using — more than 3 times a week —after becoming homeless. Thirty-one percent of those individuals reported using methamphetamine and 11% used nonprescription opioids more than three times per week. Those who spent most of their nights unsheltered in a non-vehicle (sleeping outside, in tents, in places not meant for human habitation) and individuals who were homeless for more than a year had higher proportions of methamphetamine and opioid use.</font>" The meth is for staying awake so you can guard your stuff.
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/05/science-neoliberal-model-innovation-publications-quantifying-wage-labor">The Neoliberal Model Is Destroying Innovation in Science</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Over the past few decades, scientists have been making fewer and fewer innovative breakthroughs. The blame lies with academia's increasingly competitive, metrics-driven model, which discourages creativity and risk-taking.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://bookriot.com/sex-ed-books-protect-kids/">Sex Ed Books Don't 'Groom' Kids And Teens. They Protect Them</a>. [...] <font color=maroon>At an event, a librarian shared with Harris that <em>It's Perfectly Normal</em> kept disappearing from the shelves. She replaced it several times, but it kept happening, and it was beyond their budget to keep doing so. Then, one day, they all came back in a backpack with a note: 'I took this book because I thought no child or teenager should read it. Then my 14-year-old niece got pregnant, and now I realize that children do need books like this.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/federal-judiciary-biden-court-appointments/675336/">What I Most Regret About My Decades of Legal Activism</a>: <font color=maroon><em>By focusing on civil liberties but ignoring economic issues, liberals like me got defeated on both.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Given my background, the reversal of Roe last year felt like a crushing blow. But as I reflect on my career in the law, my greatest regrets lie elsewhere. The progressive advances of mid-20th-century America weren't, after all, only about civil rights and social justice. Equally important was the political-economic arrangement established during and after the World War II era. It featured a powerful regulatory state, aggressive antitrust enforcement, and strong labor unions. These policies kept corporate power in check and helped drive the fastest, most widely shared advance in living standards in American history.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>In a 2003 antitrust case, for example, all of the liberals joined an opinion by Antonin Scalia that declared, 'The mere possession of monopoly power, and the concomitant charging of monopoly prices, is not only not unlawful; it is an important element of the free-market system.' In 2017, Breyer wrote the majority opinion in a case upholding the right of debt-collection companies to go after people for money they no longer owed. The same year, Sonia Sotomayor wrote an opinion that limited the Securities and Exchange Commission's power to force those found guilty of securities fraud to give up their stolen gains. Liberal judges have issued opinions like these while simultaneously championing progressive positions on issues such as abortion and voting rights. By delivering measurable wins to business-side conservatives, they have helped fuel an engine designed precisely to unravel the civil rights they held so dear. The more the courts favor big business, the more powerful big business becomes, and the more powerful big business becomes, the more financial support it can lend to the right-wing legal movement.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-one-media-conspiracy-theory-thats">The One Media Conspiracy Theory That's True</a>: <font color=maroon><em>It's kind of impressive how long cable news has been openly corrupt.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>There are, to be sure, segments of the American media that are riven with devastating flaws. But like most conspiracy theories, the real conspiracies aren't secrets. They're the things we already know. The 'elite media'—the NYT, the New Yorker, the Washington Post—is, in fact, a schmoozy high class backwater riddled with people who got their jobs because they were roommates with the right person at Yale. They come by their elitism honestly. They are products made by and for people whose entire lives have been defined by their ability to ascend America's cultural ladder. This is their biggest failing, and the cause of their worst blind spots, which are significant. These types of publications also navigate the demands of access journalism with varying levels of success, always in danger of becoming too cozy with the other elite power centers they are covering. At the same time, these are big institutions that employ more good reporters than any other institutions in this country and have the resources to produce a quantity of useful journalism that nowhere else does. They are flawed, they are elitist, and they are vital. All of these things are true. When they fuck up, we all yell at them, and if the yelling gets loud enough they sometimes make a change. None of this is shadowy or concealed. Have the brightest writer at your Oklahoma community newspaper try to get a job at the New Yorker. They can't! Ta-da! Elitism! It ain't hard to sniff out.</font>" But when the cable news anchors are connected political operatives or relatives of powerful politicians, that's not just your standard elitism, that's a cesspool.
<p>Cory Doctorow reviews a book, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen">Brian Merchant's <em>Blood In the Machine</em></a>: <font color=maroon>In <em>Blood In the Machine</em>, Brian Merchant delivers the definitive history of the Luddites, and the clearest analysis of the automator's playbook, where 'entrepreneurs'' lawless extraction from workers is called 'innovation' and 'inevitable'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2021/07/james-carville-centrist-politics-television">James Carville Has Never Stopped Being Wrong</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Like an aged one-hit wonder, James Carville has made a career of playing his favorite tune over and over: a warmed-over centrist jeremiad against the Left that has proved to be as wrong as it is stale.</em></font>"
<p>How <a href="https://lithub.com/read-a-1957-review-of-ayn-rands-excruciatingly-awful-atlas-shrugged/">Whittaker Chambers reviewed <em>Atlas Shrugged</em></a>: "<font color=maroon>Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.openculture.com/2019/04/alan-lomaxs-massive-music-archive-is-online.html">Alan Lomax's Massive Music Archive Is Online: Features 17,000 Historic Blues & Folk Recordings</a>: <font color=maroon>A huge treasure trove of songs and interviews recorded by the legendary folklorist Alan Lomax from the 1940s into the 1990s have been digitized and made available online for free listening. The Association for Cultural Equity, a nonprofit organization founded by Lomax in the 1980s, has posted <a href="https://archive.culturalequity.org/collections/field-work">some 17,000 recordings</a>.</font>
<p>I clicked on this link somewhere and didn't hate it. The Killers, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSYh3VzARk4"><em>Hot Fuss</em></a>
<p>The Isley Brothers, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1DDgNCLD84">Who's That Lady?</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-87504221338354108442023-09-30T23:27:00.007+01:002023-10-03T11:15:06.540+01:00And all fell before the bull<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOfZkiiXutnr7SfIwU8xlllRWdXgtMoIlLp-zpBk5Vz8LYfLzJicsdJYyzPYGcHVrmA_02VyCctgsEkc2Ac6rtccM9AhZOkiJQQXz_3fQp_d-LCkJgn0DuMyPvct3CaZ2yRxZKmk8-jnwN4BYGgKkhkBrt1Gz-MSksewjl7MGUQ6fSejP0qPjiI97c/s320/The%20Office%20At%20Night.jpg" width=430 height=641 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="The Office At Night">Thanks to Jay Sheckley, who brought this to our attention: "<font color=maroon><a href="https://www.phil-lockwood.com/paintings/latestTown/office.htm">THE OFFICE AT NIGHT</a> is a 2012 acrylic cityscape by living UK artist Phil Lockwood. Every window shows a different Edward Hopper painting.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/09/clarence-thomas-chevron-ethics-kochs.html">Clarence Thomas' Latest Pay-to-Play Scandal Finally Connects All the Dots</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Mark Joseph Stern: The ProPublica piece identifies two different phenomena. The first is Bohemian Grove, which is where the Kochs developed this relationship with Clarence Thomas over the years. And then, out of that relationship, came Thomas' attendance at donor summits with the Kochs, where donors are promised that if they pay a bunch of money—hundreds of thousands of dollars—they will be able to attend this super exclusive event where Clarence Thomas speaks. And these events include luxury travel on private jets for Thomas. It's clearly a fundraiser. These events and flights should have been disclosed, and they weren't. That doesn't exactly build up trust for Justice Thomas. And it doesn't encourage faith that his jurisprudence is rooted exclusively in his own views of the Constitution and the law. Thomas loves to say he's not evolving, right? He loves to say he's steady as a rock. But there's one area where that has really not applied, which is this issue of Chevron deference—deferring to administrative agencies and their reasonable interpretations of ambiguous federal laws. For years, Thomas was a strong supporter of Chevron deference and even wrote a major decision expanding it. But after he was cultivated by the Kochs and became their close friend, he drifted away from Chevron, ultimately renounced and repudiated Chevron deference and is now on the brink of issuing or joining a decision that will overturn Chevron deference this coming term, in a case that is partly funded and supported by the Koch network.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/09/17/pakistan-ukraine-arms-imf/">U.S. Helped Pakistan Get IMF Bailout With Secret Arms Deal For Ukraine, Leaked Documents Reveal</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The U.S.-brokered loan let Pakistan's military postpone elections, deepen a brutal crackdown, and jail former Prime Minister Imran Khan.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan's 'aggressively neutral' stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised 'all would be forgiven' if he were removed.</font>"
<p>I opposed the DMCA when it was proposed, and I still think it needs to be overturned and replaced with something that serves the public instead. Cory Doctorow: "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently">Apple fucked us on right to repair (again)</a>: <font color=maroon>Right to repair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than Apple, a company whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage electronics repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of e-waste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>But it can't be the end. When Bill Clinton signed DMCA 1201 into law 25 years ago, he loaded a gun and put it on the nation's mantelpiece and now it's Act III and we're all getting sprayed with bullets. Everything from ovens to insulin pumps, thermostats to lightbulbs, has used DMCA 1201 to limit repair, modification and improvement. Congress needs to rid us of this scourge, to let us bring back all the benefits of interoperability. I explain how this all came to be – and what we should do about it – in my new Verso Books title, <em>The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation</em>.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/david-mccallum-dead-ncis-man-from-uncle-1235598793/"><b>David McCallum</b>, Star of <em>The Man From U.N.C.L.E.</em> and <em>NCIS</em>, Dies at 90</a>." We all loved Illya, didn't we?
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/29/dianne-feinstein-career-san-francisco-mayor-aids-senate"><b>Diane Feinstein</b> at 90</a>. All I'm saying is that Newsome should appoint either Barbara Lee or Katie Porter and not Adam Schiff.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/terry-kirkman-the-association-dead/"><b>Terry Kirkman</b>, Co-Founder of the Association, Dead at 83</a>: <font color=maroon>Terry Kirkman, founding member of the '60s folk-rock group the Association, has died at the age of 83. The singer's family confirmed his passing to the Los Angeles Times, noting his death was due to congestive heart failure following a long illness.</font>" Most people never knew he'd worked with Frank Zappa, David Crosby, and Cass Elliot before they all went on to other things. He was an extraordinary songwriter and I'm always left a little breathless at the unusual beauty of "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCfKvuh_uq8">Cherish</a>".
<p>"<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/175335/crypto-ceo-appeal-sam-bankman-fried">The Ludicrous, Depressing Appeal of the Crypto Guy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>How Sam Bankman-Fried and other unscrupulous CEOs managed to swindle so many people.</em> In his monumental history Debt: The First 5,000 Years, the anthropologist David Graeber accused economists of inventing 'imaginary villages' as the settings for their just-so stories about the ancient origins of financial exchange. Five thousand years later, it is hard not to apply the same phrase to the strange world of cryptocurrency, a skein of imaginary communities and exchanges that claimed to be reinventing trade and commerce from first principles even as, in reality, they reinvented forms of fraud and exploitation that are almost as old as money itself. Money, Groucho Marx supposedly observed, can't buy happiness, but it does let you choose your own form of misery. And fake money? All the more so.</font> [...] <font color=maroon> It occurred to shockingly few people that the guys at the top made all that money not because they were smart, not because they were good, but because they were thieves.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-story-of-morris-ernst-who-defeated-americas-obscenity-laws">Beyond obscenity</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A century after the trial against 'Ulysses', we must revisit the civil liberties arguments of its defender, Morris Ernst</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The fact that Ulysses was still banned in the US a full decade after its publication struck denizens of the literary world as absurd. Malcolm Cowley, editor of The New Republic, captured the exasperation when he wrote that 'James Joyce's position in literature is almost as important as that of Einstein in science. Preventing American authors from reading him is about as stupid as it would be to place an embargo on the theory of relativity.' But freeing Joyce's masterwork from the clutches of the censors would require prodigious effort, legal aplomb, and federal judges willing to hear the book's defenders.</font>"
<p><a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates">Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates</a> (Top Marginal Rate)
<p>The Association, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jah4eqzYjvQ">Requiem for the Masses</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-18105586321605995822023-09-21T03:18:00.005+01:002023-09-21T23:24:54.980+01:00But I found out you were puttin' me on<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyL4H-qHJquoC3GDcw81RH4MwBU8yd3pRFm7JZF5gpgBGF9AnVcxeiq9sVL31lbS1_hg4V6VYID00oKaU4dT-wTxYnVOqSa-qu3wMNprrSyRpfblrGd0N0d8JT82Y6Mzuax0CHsCgPS4mmYPif70PV4HaBElQI9RgHiAAmgFzjiaxHW-8EX8HpslGz/s320/Blue%20supermoon,%20Michael%20Kurman.jpg" width=357 height=477 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Blue supermoon">It's the blue supermoon, which he said I should credit "from your Baltimore friend Mike," which I object to on the grounds that I have more than one of those, so he allowed as how I could admit he's Mike Kurman.
<p>It astonishes me to say so, but there are some things the Biden administration is doing that I would like to see continue and I'll really really hate seeing Republicans replace the people who are doing them. "<a href="https://prospect.org/labor/2023-08-28-bidens-nlrb-brings-workers-rights-back/">Biden's NLRB Brings Workers' Rights Back From the Dead</a>: <font color=maroon>Last Friday, the National Labor Relations Board released its most important ruling in many decades. In a party-line decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, the Board ruled that when a majority of a company's employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith into bargaining. The Cemex decision was preceded by another, one day earlier, in which the Board, also along party lines, set out rules for representation elections which required them to be held promptly after the Board had been asked to conduct them, curtailing employers' ability to delay them, often indefinitely. Taken together, this one-two punch effectively makes union organizing possible again, after decades in which unpunished employer illegality was the most decisive factor in reducing the nation's rate of private-sector unionization from roughly 35 percent to the bare 6 percent at which it stands today.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/15/eighth-circuit-says-cops-can-come-with-probable-cause-for-an-arrest-after-theyve-already-arrested-someone/">Eighth Circuit Says Cops Can Come With Probable Cause For An Arrest AFTER They've Already Arrested Someone</a>: <font color=maroon>Well, this is a bit of a doozy. This case — via the Institute for Justice — involves a possible First Amendment violation but somehow ends with a judicial blessing of cops who make things up after the fact to justify an arrest that has already taken place.</font>" A guy was walking down the road and a cop stopped him and demanded he identify himself. Since the cop had no right to do so without probable cause, he refused. So the cop arrested him. Then he gets him to the station and finds out he can't charge him with "failure to identify" so he asks around for something to get him on. They let him go after a couple of hours but he sued, and it turns out that there's actually a law, never enforced, against walking on that side of the road. But there's case law saying that if the law isn't normally enforced, it doesn't excuse the arrest from being retaliatory rather than probable cause. But the court just waved it away.
<p>Google is working hard to avoid the mistake Bill Gates made and they're trying to <a href="https://prospect.org/justice/2023-09-07-google-protect-monopoly-cover-of-darkness/">stay off your TV screen</a>, but <em>The American Prospect</em> is covering the show. "<a href="https://prospect.org/justice/2023-09-13-justice-department-google-flexed-muscle-monopolist/">Justice Department Says Google 'Flexed Its Muscle' as a Monopolist</a>: <font color=maroon><em>On day one of the historic monopolization trial, the government put Google's chief economist on the stand to show that the company valued default status on browsers and devices.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Despite the stakes of the trial, the remainder of the legal proceeding will take place in a near-total blackout, since requests for public audio have been denied by Judge Amit Mehta and even in-person attendants are restricted from digital access inside the courtroom. For nearly two decades, Google has served as the 'on-ramp' and gatekeeper of the digital world through its dominance of search engine functions, which is the target of this case. The government has unveiled a separate case against Google for its rollup of the digital advertising market. Though related, that case relies on distinct evidentiary claims, some of which will feature prominently in the current trial. To win a Sherman Act monopolization case given the prevailing understanding of the law by most courts, the government not only has to prove that Google's market share qualifies it as a monopoly, but also show that it's used this dominant position to harm competition. That's the task ahead for the DOJ Antitrust Division's team, led by attorney Kenneth Dintzer, who also served on the Microsoft case, the last major tech antitrust case from the late 1990s.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a42709368/5th-circuit-court-conservatives/">The 5th Circuit Is the Blown Fuse of American Jurisprudence</a>: <font color=maroon><em>According to one of its own, 'the Good Ship Fifth Circuit is afire.'</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>If you want to fast-track a truly terrible idea to the carefully engineered conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the best way to do it is to file it in Texas. If your case fails there, take it down to the 5th Circuit for some CPR. Once there, your chances to prevail are fairly good. This forces the other side to throw itself on the tender mercies of the Alito Court. Even some of the 5th Circuit's veteran conservative judges can hear the whistle of that railroad.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-09-02/california-bail-reform-safety-judges">As judges, we've made thousands of bail decisions. Here's the truth about detention and public safety</a>: <font color=maroon>Often when judges determine that a person accused of a crime can safely be released from jail and return to court when directed, they face criticism for 'letting the accused out' by reducing monetary bail or 'allowing' the accused to bail at all. This lack of understanding around the bail process undermines the public's trust in the rule of law. As retired and current California trial court judges with more than 90 years of collective experience, we have presided over and made thousands of difficult release decisions. While each of our state's 58 county superior courts may be at a different point on their path toward a safer, fairer and evidence-based pretrial justice process, the California Constitution makes clear that detention is to be the limited exception, not the rule. And studies of this approach to date have reinforced that it promotes, rather than undermines, public safety.</font>"
<p>Clarence Thomas claimed gun restrictions weren't around before the 20th Century. "<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/08/moms-demand-action-gun-research-clarence-thomas.html">The Volunteer Moms Poring Over Archives to Prove Clarence Thomas Wrong</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Over and over again, Birch and Karabian found the same thing: strict limits on the use and possession of firearms, dating back at least to the 1850s, that belie Bruen's vision of a 19th-century Wild West where the right to bear arms was almost never infringed on. The regulations uncovered were consistent as to weapons and across cities throughout Orange County, one of the more conservative counties in the state. 'Many of these limitations were enacted shortly after cities were incorporated as part of their very first batch of laws,' Karabian said.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://bylinetimes.com/2022/03/30/laura-kuenssberg-bbc-political-editor-was-a-catastrophic-systemic-failure/">Laura Kuenssberg's Time as BBC Political Editor has been a Catastrophic, Systemic Failure</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Thanks to managers at the BBC, the outgoing Kuenssberg repeated lies rather than challenging them, says former BBC journalist Patrick Howse</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>What they got was a journalist with access to the upper reaches of the Government, with a determination to get on air and tell everyone the whispers that she had heard from ministers, advisors and officials – before Sky or ITN.
What the BBC needed was someone who could take a step back, away from the scrum, and tell audiences when they were being lied to. That was something neither the BBC nor Kuenssberg has ever come to terms with.</font>"
<p>Amazing piece by Cory Doctorow on the vicious wage-theft artists are suffering, triggered by one artist's reaction when "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/15/fairy-use-tales/#sampling-license">Bill Willingham puts his graphic novel series "Fables" into the public domain</a>." As a long-time fan of <em>Fables</em>, the graphic jumped out at me from his <a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/15/fairy-use-tales/#sampling-license">lenghty Xitter thread</a>, but these reminders of how the heads of Disney and Warner really belong on jail stir my blood. But it's all part of a bigger story, too, of organized chaos: "<font color=maroon>For usury, the chaos is a feature, not a bug. Their corporate strategists take the position that any ambiguity should be automatically resolved in their favor, with the burden of proof on accused debtors, not the debt collectors. The scumbags who lost your deed and stole your house say that it's up to you to prove that you own it. And since you've just been rendered homeless, you don't even have a house to secure a loan you might use to pay a lawyer to go to court.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The chaos, in other words, is a feature and not a bug. It provides cover for contract-violating conduct, up to and including wage-theft. Remember when Disney/Marvel stole money from beloved science fiction giant Alan Dean Foster, whose original Star Wars novelization was hugely influential on George Lucas, who changed the movie to match Foster's ideas? Disney claimed that when it acquired Lucasfilm, it only acquired its assets, but not its liabilities. That meant that while it continued to hold Foster's license to publish his novel, they were not bound by an obligation to pay Foster for this license, since that liability was retained by the (now defunct) original company</font>"
<p>Pareene, "<a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/160481/neal-katyal-depravity-big-law">Neal Katyal and the Depravity of Big Law</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Democratic lawyer's sickening defense of corporate immunity in a Supreme Court case reveals a growing moral rot in the legal community.</em> The United States has a political class that mistakes its professional norms for ethics. Mainstream political journalists mindlessly grant anonymity to professional liars. Elected officials put collegiality and institutional procedure over the needs and interests of their constituents. And as for lawyers, they have refined this tendency into what amounts to a religion of self-justification. The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution establishes that every American has the right to “the Assistance of Counsel” if they are prosecuted for a crime. This was a pointed rejection of English common law, which barred felony defendants from hiring counsel to represent them. Over time, the Assistance of Counsel clause came to mean that everyone prosecuted for a crime had the right to competent and effective representation, even if they could not afford it. From that right, the American legal community developed a core tenet: Everyone deserves representation. But once the American legal community invented corporate law and the large firm, it continued developing that tenet until it became so divorced from notions of liberty or equality under the law that it now works as a kind of force field preventing lawyers from facing any social or professional repercussions for their actions on behalf of their clients. <em>Everyone has a right to counsel, and every lawyer has a right to earn a buck</em>.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>He is about as close as you could come to the embodiment of Big Law's connection to the institutional Democratic Party. And last week he argued that because the corporation that supplied Zyklon B to the Nazis for use in their extermination camps was not indicted at Nuremberg, Nestle and Cargill should not be held liable for their use of child slave labor. In his argument before the court, Katyal espoused a view of corporate immunity so expansive that even the conservative judges seemed skeptical. If you took him at his word, he was effectively asking the Supreme Court to make it impossible for any foreigner to sue any company for any harm done to them, up to and including kidnapping and enslavement.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>To defend an accused murderer or rapist in a criminal trial is a straightforward endorsement of the idea of the presumption of innocence, not an endorsement of murder or rape. That's the act enshrined in our Bill of Rights. To make a career out of defending and expanding corporate power at the expense of employee and consumer power, on the other hand, is simply to endorse those things.</font>"
<p>Scott Hechinger <a href="https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1703882705732272311">recommends</a>: "<font color=maroon>Extraordinary work again from @TeenVogue -- the best justice journalism outlet in the country. On the day that cash bail is finally eliminated in Illinois, they release a critical explainer on '<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-copaganda-works">Copaganda</a>.'</font>"
<p>I feel bad for Naomi Klein, who people keep confusing with Naomi Wolf. An <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/26/naomi-klein-naomi-wolf-conspiracy-theories">excerpt from her book</a>, <em>Doppleganger</em>, appears in the <em>Guardian</em>, talking about how she eventually became obsessed with that confusion as Wolf veered radically to the right and people kept attacking Klein for things Wolf had said, but even more the confusion of <em>how</em> her first-name twin, once a highly-regarded and successful feminist author, had ended up sitting beside Steve Bannon railing against Covid masking.
<p>"<a href="https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/10/chris-hedges-the-pedagogy-of-power/">Chris Hedges: The Pedagogy of Power</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The ruling classes always work to keep the powerless from understanding how power functions. This assault has been aided by a cultural left determined to banish 'dead white male' philosophers.</em></font>"
<p>David Klion's review of Martin Peretz's memoir, "<a href="https://thebaffler.com/latest/everybody-hates-marty-klion">Everybody Hates Marty</a>," is really far too kind, and therefore unsatisfying, but that probably owes a lot to the fact that he mostly just reviewed the book rather than reviewing the legacy of Martin Peretz, who helped destroy the world.
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/18/samantha-geimer-roman-polanski-unlawful-sex-email">Samantha Geimer on Roman Polanski: 'We email a little bit'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In 1977, the film director had 'unlawful sex' with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, an event that has overshadowed their lives ever since. So why would he get in touch with her now?</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>As the victim of a sex crime, she isn't unusual in saying that the experience of going to court and the attendant publicity was more painful than the incident itself. The difference, of course, is that Geimer has never been allowed to forget it. 'When I see his name, it's always followed by 'convicted' or '13 year old'.' She smiles strenuously. 'And that's always me.'</font>"
<p>Political Research Associates has updated their <a href="https://politicalresearch.org/glossary">Glossary of right-wing terms</a>.
<p><em>"The church bell chimed 'til it rang 29 times / For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald."</em> "<a href="https://eu.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/brian-mccollum/2023/05/02/gordon-lightfoot-mariners-church-detroit-bells/70175392007/">At 3 p.m. Tuesday, the bell at Mariners' Church rang out again — now chiming 30 times to honor those perished sailors along with the artist who famously memorialized them in song.</a>"
<p>"<a href="https://tylervigen.com/the-mystery-of-the-bloomfield-bridge">The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Why is this bridge here?</em></font>"
<p>Tourist destination: <a href="https://blogoklahoma.us/place/796/cleveland/james-garner-statue">James Garner statue</a>, Norman, OK.
<p>Gene Clarke, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXVvBdpNcVc">Feel A Whole Lot Better</a>" (1985 version from <em>Firebyrd</em>)
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-43265707099612993982023-08-31T05:40:00.004+01:002023-08-31T05:46:55.531+01:00She's just mad about me<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwCbmCnrZ9NKtcpGnDzSr4IRbV7jZPw2quPU8_eFjN-Mkvod_Yaqf4CCosN-kxrubQtyeabQhHGlAQr0tbcvIBpXHR5AD-a1CCuSD_oHvtClE7zAnwFPjsvzbQf2pi3cvux7Y2V5Rswz9daqcatx58SwSvwTVGwq4UH4d6fIaj895KaBp_L2AjkGe/s960/Chinese%20yellow.jpg" width=329 height=474 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Chinese yellow">
<p>I had this weird little computer disaster that freaked me out and no one seems to understand how it happened, so I lost some work on this post and also some time trying to get my mojo back, so I'm just gonna post what I have here and hope it all works normally this time.
<p>Doctorow, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/launderers-enforcers-bagmen/#procurers">How the kleptocrats and oligarchs hunt civil society groups to the ends of the Earth</a>: <font color=maroon>It's a great time to be an oligarch! If you have accumulated a great fortune and wish to put whatever great crime lies behind it behind you, there is an army of fixers, lickspittles, thugs, reputation-launderers, procurers, henchmen, and other enablers who have turnkey solutions for laundering your reputation and keeping the unwashed from building a guillotine outside the gates of your compound.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen">SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules</a>: <font color=maroon>It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby against our own survival</font>."
<p>Dean Baker, "<a href="https://cepr.net/it-was-never-about-free-trade-can-we-stop-the-stupid-charade-already/">It Was Never About 'Free Trade,' Can We Stop the Stupid Charade Already?</a> <font color=maroon>Over the last four decades administrations of both political parties have pushed trade deals that were designed to redistribute income upward. These deals were routinely referred to as 'free trade' deals, implying that they were about eliminating barriers to trade. This was clearly not true. The trade agreements did remove barriers to trade in manufactured goods, thereby putting downward pressure on the wages of manufacturing workers and workers without college degrees more generally. However, they did little or nothing to remove barriers in highly paid professional services, such as those provided by doctors and dentists. And, they increased some barriers, most notably government-granted patent and copyright monopolies. This mix of barrier reductions and barrier increases had the unambiguous effect of shifting income from ordinary workers to highly educated workers. Stronger patent and copyright protections make people like Bill Gates and workers in the biotech industry rich, they don't put money in the pockets of retail clerks, truck drivers, and custodians. In fact, patents and copyrights take money out of their pockets since they make them pay more for drugs, medical equipment, software and thousands of other items, thereby reducing their real wages.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://wheresyoured.at/p/negative-space">Remote work wasn't a problem when Jason Fried wrote about it in 2010</a>, <font color=maroon>but the second that interest rates no longer benefited venture capital it became something that had 'fooled smart people' and had to be reigned in.</font>" And bosses apparently don't get to feel as bossy, and owners feel like workers have too much power, and they just don't like it and they want to make people come back to the office for no reason.
<p>Jon Schwarz, "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/08/04/big-myth-book-free-market-oreskes-conway/">The Big Myth About 'Free' Markets That Justified History's Greatest Heist</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A recent book details how the top 10 percent stole $47 trillion via intellectual warfare.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Finally, there's the historical fact that no country has ever gone communist gradually, starting with minimum wage laws and ending up with gulags. Rather, it happened in various fell swoops in places with glaring injustices and vicious capitalistic inequality, and even then generally has required contemporary wars.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The book is an incredible work of scholarship, and every page has at least one sparkling, fascinating fact. Adam Smith's 1776 book <em>The Wealth of Nations</em> is now seen as the key text proving the virtues (economic and political) of unregulated capitalism. This is not true at all: Smith argues that bank regulation is crucial; that workers should unionize; that businesspeople have often 'deceived and oppressed' the public; and that any political proposal they make should be viewed with the utmost suspicion. George Stigler, a prominent economist at the University of Chicago and colleague of Milton Friedman, produced an edition of 'The Wealth of Nations' that dealt with Smith's inconvenient views by quietly excising many of them.</font>" And that explains something that has baffled me for decades — how did all these kids grow up thinking that Smith was a voice for monetarism? They clearly think they've read him, but they missed all the good parts!
<p>There's always a thread somewhere about how Bernie and AOC are sellouts, so it's interesting to see two articles showing up saying otherwise. From Charlie Heller in <em>The Nation</em>, "<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/aoc-dsa-elected-victory/">A Longtime Political Organizer in AOC's District Says She's the Real Deal</a>: <font color=maroon><em>She has used her skills to win concrete, historic political victories.</em></font>" And Branko Marcetic in <em>Jacobin</em>, "<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-the-squad-left-criticism-policy-accomplishments">AOC and the Squad's List of Left-Wing Accomplishments Is Quite Long</a>: <font color=maroon><em>As with any elected official, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad should be criticized when needed. But left-wing vitriol is unwarranted: it ignores the Squad's many progressive accomplishments and their legislation's aid to activist campaigns.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/gender-criticism-versus-gender-abolition-on-three-recent-books-about-gender/">Gender Criticism Versus Gender Abolition: On Three Recent Books About Gender</a>" — I think there's a large extent to which when I read any article about the transgender wars, I'm really looking for a clue as to how it <em>happened</em> that at a time when the entire world seems to be collapsing, this subject suddenly and inexplicably became of paramount importance to so many people who must surely have better things to focus on. Grace Lavery doesn't seem to know, either, but at least she sees the problem.
<p>Donovan, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfaNi3WrTC0">Mellow Yellow</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-1287529683624173352023-08-14T05:47:00.005+01:002023-08-17T03:10:36.665+01:00I would tear this building down<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTo5Xxcsq4HBFXjVHMREb_EnCiJScsOOXf3GjmmtIMwvWY5CI2XZS8DSvfOr9_KXBcKv0mxnuG6y7XVjO8GqKdSK-tHPOMoU503oEEKlLKb7uCnW6UjJRit21vatjXJxnPnjzZZS668v62-CNkBYW1ioJKPSH1kFr--AYhYlaU6W_JmpDae1in9FBE/s623/mirror%20lake.jpg" width=364 height=273 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Mirror Lake">New Smyrna Beach
<p>Florida wants to teach children that slavery was more like an apprenticeship program where you learned skills you could use for your personal benefit later on. A lot of assumptions go with that, such as that you had no such skills before you were kidnapped from Africa, and that you might eventually be freed to use those skills for yourself. But my favorite part of this story is that they hired "rigorous scholars" to sell that story to the public, and they released a "rigorously" researched list of supposed slaves who supposedly went on to use their slavery-learned skills in later life. The list of <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1682764410224357377.html">people who supposedly fit this bill</a> is almost howlingly funny. Half of them were never slaves, and those who were, by and large, did not make their living carrying on their occupations from slavery. My favorite example was the (white, free) sister of the president of the United States. I can understand how they might have made this mistake since most people have never met a white person named "Washington".
<p>"<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/patrick-braxton-black-man-says-he-was-elected-mayor-of-newbern-alabama/">Black man who says he was elected mayor of Alabama town alleges that White leaders are keeping him from position</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Patrick Braxton, 57, is one of several plaintiffs named in Braxton et al v. Stokes et al. The other plaintiffs — James Ballard, Barbara Patrick, Janice Quarles and Wanda Scott — are people that Braxton hoped to name to the city council of Newbern after he was elected to office in 2020. However, Braxton said that the "minority White residents of (Newbern), long accustomed to exercising total control over the government, refused to accept this outcome." Haywood Stokes III, the acting mayor of Neweurn, instead allegedly worked with acting town council members to hold a special election where he was re-appointed to the mayoral seat and keeping Braxton from taking office and carrying out mayoral duties. </font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.meidastouch.com/news/ohio-voters-reject-ballot-intiative">Ohio Voters Reject Republican Efforts to Restrict Ballot Initiatives</a>: <font color=maroon>By an overwhelming margin, Ohio voters tonight rejected attempts by Republicans to restrict ballot initiatives for citizens to bypass legislative majorities. The initiative, known as Issue 1, was supported by pro-life groups seeking to limit the ability of pro-choice advocates to guarantee reproductive rights in Ohio state constitution in the upcoming November elections. Republicans hatched up Issue 1 in an attempt to make the November vote more difficult to reach the threshold needed for reproductive rights to be enshrined in the state constitution. Currently, changes to the constitution in Ohio require a simple majority of 50% + 1. And thanks to high turnout and a fired-up base of pro-choice voters, that's where it will remain.</font>" That's great, but they still have to win it in November.
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/07/alito-supreme-court-feud-sotomayor-kagan-jackson.html">Samuel Alito Just Took an Indefensible Jab at the Progressive Justices</a>" is educational on how Alito is dishonest and wrong, but it's also illuminating in the ways those "progressive" justices disagree with each other which are not always all that progressive. Hm.
<p>Dan Froomkin, "<a href="https://presswatchers.org/2023/07/our-so-called-liberal-media-covers-up-the-rights-racism-and-growing-homophobia/">Our so-called liberal media covers up the right's racism and growing homophobia</a>: <font color=maroon>Political reporters at our leading news organizations routinely put a thumb on the scale in favor of the far right – both by failing to call out its racist and increasingly homophobic nature, and by adopting right-wing frames in reporting current events.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/health/2023-07-29-shock-treatment-emergency-room/">Shock Treatment in the Emergency Room</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Lehman-like collapse of a(nother) private equity–owned ER operator has physicians calling louder than ever for a strike.
</em></font>" There really needs to be a way to arrest these people.
<p>"<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/">Police are not primarily crime fighters, according to the data</a>: <font color=maroon>(Reuters) - A new report adds to a growing line of research showing that police departments don't solve serious or violent crimes with any regularity, and in fact, spend very little time on crime control, in contrast to popular narratives.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>More notably, researchers analyzed the data to show how officers spend their time, and the patterns that emerge tell a striking story about how policing actually works. Those results, too, comport with existing research showing that U.S. police spend much of their time conducting racially biased stops and searches of minority drivers, often without reasonable suspicion, rather than 'fighting crime.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>In Riverside, about 83% of deputies' time spent on officer-initiated stops went toward traffic violations, and just 7% on stops based on reasonable suspicion. Moreover, most of the stops are pointless, other than inconveniencing citizens, or worse – 'a routine practice of pretextual stops,' researchers wrote. Roughly three out of every four hours that Sacramento sheriff's officers spent investigating traffic violations were for stops that ended in warnings, or no action, for example.</font>
<p>A good analogy for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/19/rishi-sunak-rip-off-degree-courses-education-crackdown">Rishi Sunak's education policy</a>: "<font color=maroon>The UK has some of the world's leading toll bridges. But a minority of toll bridges fail to deliver good outcomes for their drivers. Figures show that nearly three in 10 drivers have still not reached their destination within an hour of crossing a toll bridge. The government will crack down on these rip-off toll bridges, reducing the number of drivers they can carry.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/11/police-stage-chilling-raid-on-marion-county-newspaper-seizing-computers-records-and-cellphones/">Police stage 'chilling' raid on Marion County newspaper, seizing computers, records and cellphones</a>: <font color=maroon>MARION — In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper's reporters, and the publisher's home. Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: 'Mind your own business or we're going to step on you.' The city's entire five-officer police force and two sheriff's deputies took 'everything we have,' Meyer said, and it wasn't clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night. The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner's lack of a driver's license and conviction for drunken driving. Meyer said he had never heard of police raiding a newspaper office during his 20 years at the Milwaukee Journal or 26 years teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.</font>" Apparently, it was too much for co-owner Joan Meyer, who <a href="https://www.marionrecord.com/direct/updated_illegal_raids_contribute_to_death_of_newspaper_co_owner+5447raid+555044415445443a20496c6c6567616c20726169647320636f6e7472696275746520746f206465617468206f66206e657773706170657220636f2d6f776e6572">died in the wake of the raid</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/03/spain-inflation-lower-bank-england-interest-rates">Why is Spain's inflation so much lower than the UK's? Because it stood up to business</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The reliance on Bank of England rate rises alone can't go on. In other countries, rent caps and excess profit taxes are working</em> The government seems to be claiming that it's winning the fight against inflation. But we are not out of the woods yet. Inflation currently is still far too high and the Bank of England has today increased rates again to 5.25% and lowered its growth forecast. But it doesn't have to be like this. The case of Spain is a great counter-example. Its inflation has just fallen to the 2% target. How is it that it has already achieved this important milestone? The reason is more forceful management of the economy – the Spanish government took quicker, more concerted action than ours did. Spain capped energy prices by more than the UK, lowered the cost of public transport, taxed excess profits and put in place limits on how much landlords can raise rents. While also coming with costs, this kept inflation from spreading more widely and more persistently than elsewhere.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/singer-sinead-oconnor-dies-aged-56-irish-times-2023-07-26/">Irish singer <b>Sinead O'Connor</b> dies aged 56</a>: <font color=maroon>DUBLIN, July 26 (Reuters) - Sinead O'Connor, the Irish singer known for her stirring voice, 1990 chart topping hit "<a href="https://youtu.be/0-EF60neguk">Nothing Compares 2 U</a>" and outspoken views, has died at the age of 56, Irish media quoted her family as saying on Wednesday. Brash and direct - her shaved head, pained expression, and shapeless wardrobe a direct challenge to popular culture's long-prevailing notions of femininity and sexuality – O'Connor irrevocably changed the image of women in music.</font>" I thought what she did was brave, but I was frankly astonished at the virulence of the reaction. Child abuse in the church was no secret, it seems to be "exposed" every ten years and nothing ever happens to stop it. Some photos <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/photos/galleries/2023/jul/26/sinead-oconnor-1966-2023/">here</a>, including one with Kristofferson.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/27/randy-meisner-the-eagles-dies"><b>Randy Meisner</b>, a founding member of the Eagles, dies aged 77</a>." He backed up Ricky Nelson, Linda Rondstadt, and was an original member of Poco (the only time I ever saw him play was one of Poco's very first appearances, when they were brand-new), and then the Eagles.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robbie-robertson-the-band-obituary-1234803234/"><b>Robbie Robertson</b>, Master Storyteller Who Led the Band, Dead at 80</a>." Saw this fine live version of "<a href="https://twitter.com/danbayens/status/1689368742524829696?s=20">The Weight</a>" from the movie posted to the hellsite formerly known as Twitter. Still a song that amazes me, utterly timeless, like you'd heard it before you ever heard it. I like that the "Biblical" references aren't Biblical at all, but for a different religion altogether, pulling into Nazareth, Tennessee, home of Martin Guitars.
<p>David Dayen on "<a href="https://prospect.org/health/2023-08-01-patient-zero-tom-scully/">Patient Zero</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Tom Scully is as responsible as anyone for the way health care in America works today.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>I've watched and listened to virtually every scrap of tape of Scully over the last 35 years, and I conducted a long interview with him in June. I think his beliefs are sincere. He thinks government price-setting doesn't work, and that empowering private insurers that put their own money at risk leads to better and more efficient care. He believes poor people should be covered generously, but all other patients exposed to cost to reduce overutilization. And he wants the best hospitals and nursing homes and clinics to be paid more than the worst, to force advances in quality.</font>" The entire August issue of <em>The American Prospect</em> is dedicated to <a href="https://prospect.org/health/businessofhealthcare">The Business of Health Care</a>, and you can read all about why these parasites should all be RICO'd.
<p>Doctorow, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca">America's largest hospital chain has an algorithmic death panel</a>: <font color=maroon>It's not that conservatives aren't sometimes right – it's that even when they're right, they're highly selective about it. Take the hoary chestnut that 'incentives matter,' trotted out to deny humane benefits to poor people on the grounds that 'free money' makes people 'workshy.' There's a whole body of conservative economic orthodoxy, Public Choice Theory, that concerns itself with the motives of callow, easily corrupted regulators, legislators and civil servants, and how they might be tempted to distort markets. But the same people who obsess over our fallible public institutions are convinced that private institutions will never yield to temptation, because the fear of competition keeps temptation at bay. It's this belief that leads the right to embrace monopolies as 'efficient': 'A company's dominance is evidence of its quality. Customers flock to it, and competitors fail to lure them away, therefore monopolies are the public's best friend.' But this only makes sense if you don't understand how monopolies can prevent competitors.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Regulatory capture isn't automatic: it's what you get when companies are bigger than governments.</font>"
<p>You probably don't need to have it pointed out to you that no one who argues for means-testing is arguing in good faith (unless they <em>really</em> don't know what they're talking about, in which case maybe you can send them to this article), but aside from means-testing being expensive, it adds a whole bunch of red tape for everyone so let's just skip it. Universal programs are <em>good</em>, and we're supposed to already have a means test anyway called "progressive taxation". That' right, the people who aren't poor enough to "deserve" it for free are already paying for it anyway. "<a href="https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2023/03/20/the-case-for-free-school-lunch/">The Case for Free School Lunch</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Hiving off a tiny part of the public school bundle and charging a means-tested fee for it is extremely stupid.</em></font>" Like I said, you probably don't need to be told this, but I find it gratifying every time someone says it.
<p>"<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gyyk/neoliberalism-has-poisoned-our-minds-study-finds">Neoliberalism Has Poisoned Our Minds, Study Finds</a>: <font color=maroon><em>'Institutions can promote well-being and solidarity, or they can encourage competition, individualism, and hierarchy.'</em> The dominance of neoliberalism is turning societies against income equality. At least, that's according to a study published Tuesday in Perspectives on Psychological Science. A team of researchers at New York University and the American University of Beirut performed an analysis of roughly 20 years of data on from more than 160 countries and found that the dominance of neoliberalism across social and economic institutions has ingrained a widespread acceptance of income inequality across our value systems in turn.</font>"
<p>Amazon is beyond hope by now, but "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/27/enshittification-resistance/">Podcasts are hearteningly enshittification resistant</a>: <font color=maroon>In the enshittification cycle, a platform lures in users by giving them a good deal at first, then it lures in business customers (advertisers, sellers, performers) by shifting the surplus from users to them; finally, it takes all the surplus for itself, turning the whole thing into a pile of shit.
</font>"
<p>There is always more Doctorow than I can post, but this is (a) great and (b) another infuriating example of what they pull and even get away with. "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping">Fighting junk fees is "woke"</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Every merchant you patronize has to charge more – or reduce quality, or both – in order to pay this Danegeld to two of the largest, most profitable companies in the world. Visa/Mastercard have hiked their fees by 40 percent since the pandemic's start. Forty. Fucking. Percent. Tell me again how greedflation isn't real? A bipartisan legislative coalition, led by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) have proposed the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA), which will force competition into credit-card routing, putting pressure on the Visa/Mastercard duopoly...This should be a no-brainer, but plute spin-doctors have plenty of no-brains to fill up with culture war bullshit. Writing in The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein unpacks an astroturf campaign to save the endangered swipe fee from woke competition advocates...Now, this campaign isn't particularly sophisticated. It goes like this: Target is a big business that runs a lot of transactions through Visa/Mastercard, so it stands to benefit from competition in payment routing. And Target did a mean woke by selling Pride merch, which makes them groomers. So by fighting swipe fees, Congress is giving woke groomers a government bailout!</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/29/antiracism-diversity-training-liberal-antiracists-vocabulary-direct-action">There are two kinds of antiracism. Only one works, and it has nothing to do with 'diversity training'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>While liberal antiracists argue over vocabulary, radicals take direct action – which is the only way to change the system</em>. In news that ought to please antiracist campaigners everywhere, just recently everybody seems to be talking about antiracism. Chief executives such as Larry Fink of BlackRock, one of the most powerful financial companies in the world, call for 'systemic' racism to be addressed. Books on teaching antiracism to children become bestsellers. Conservatives dismiss all this as 'woke' – preachy, elitist and unneeded – but they can't seem to stop talking about it. But all the time, both sides in the debate mistakenly assume there is only one kind of antiracism. They fail to distinguish between two quite different antiracist traditions: one liberal, the other radical.</font>"
<p>Just a little reminder that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-government-deficits-fund-private-savings-113964">criticisms of MMT are wrong</a>. MMT is just a description of what is, not a prescription for how to use it. But it makes it clear that <em>how to use it</em> is a choice to be made without the false constraints imposed by pretending it doesn't exist.
<p>From 2020, "<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/06/its-time-to-change-the-way-the-media-reports-on-protests-here-are-some-ideas/">It's time to change the way the media reports on protests. Here are some ideas.</a> <font color=maroon><em>'People kept sharing these videos that were coming up and it was unambiguous what was going on. We weren't looking at a stream of videos of violence erupting or clashes breaking out. We were looking at cops, attacking people.'</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>A 2010 study that analyzed 40 years of protest coverage in five major newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, found that the papers depicted protests — even peaceful ones — as nuisances rather than as necessary functions of democracy.</font>"
<p>I probably won't see the Barbie movie, but <a href="https://youtu.be/8zIf0XvoL9Y">this teaser</a> impressed me and it's not hard to figure out why Ben Shapiro was so upset.
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/shouldhaveanima/status/1690287463951118336?s=20">Baby octopus</a>
<p>"<a href="https://ultimateclassicrock.com/dead-and-company-final-show/">Dead and Company Play Final Show: Videos and Set List</a>"
<p>Peter, Paul, & Mary, "<a href="https://youtu.be/bscHm5hBdQo">If I Had My Way</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-29961181302233796012023-07-17T08:11:00.004+01:002023-07-17T08:34:41.317+01:00Nothing can change my mind<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvTSWgDWgPNJFsx5X75MFtvCyNHlT0ew7a81qMEldt_HmYf4-a2Vv_2PjD5K3W2TOKxB5fsQdY2Chw5c-MW6IfC96iVLu4oWcYoTSjUw1X5wWC0abe-yhBtgCOFiHnWAxWFCpsqnHCoJI8NwJx69ZFaAk0itIF8n07BsKdPO3bMIh3JyyFPXzAlwdV/s950/lavender.gif" width=320 height=320 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Lavender">Have a look at the <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/en/art-gallery/collections/nevena-bojinovic/451705/lavender-paintings?utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Provence%20EN&utm_medium=email&page=2">Lavender</a> collection.
<p>SUPREME COURT FINDS IN FAVOR OF FRAUDSTERS. Or so it seems to me. Lorie Smith (or at least her legal team) falsely claimed that a gay man had written to her asking her to design a wedding website for his upcoming nuptials. <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/303-creative-supreme-court-case-mystery/">Which had not happened</a>. But Lorie said that complying with the state's anti-discrimination laws would force her to "express" support for gay marriage, which she opposed. The right-wing operatives on the Supreme Court, however, were not dissuaded by the improbability of a gay couple not being able to find a gay-friendly web designer and wanting to give Lorie their custom, and <a href="https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/06/the-narrow-way-parts-4-6">said it would violate her free speech</a> to have to provide her services to gay couples. Corey Robin has some interesting words to say on the confusion between <a href="https://coreyrobin.com/2023/07/01/markets-and-speech-where-does-the-public-reside/">the public and markets</a> as regards this decision.
<p>The far-right had a problem with establishing standing on the student loan cancellation case since, obviously, no one would actually be harmed by the policy. They finally found a loan-servicer who the state claimed would lose money, but it turned out <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/john-roberts-supreme-court-kills-student-debt-relief.html">they'd actually <em>make money</em></a> on the deal, so obviously they had no standing. (I want to interject here that for many years we have been used to the court denying standing to people who very clearly <em>did</em> have standing in cases where they were directly threatened or had already been harmed, so this is yet another stark example of the right-wing's tendency to grab — or discard — any argument or fact in order, however speciously, to come to their desired conclusion.) Somehow, though, they decided they had standing anyway. But they had another problem, which is that they didn't actually have much law to base their decision on, so Roberts ended up citing a political statement from Nancy Pelosi falsely claiming that the president had no power to forgive student loans. Obviously, this had been a statement based on the desires of her donors and not the law, but the law clearly does give the president the ability to cancel student debt (under several different provisions from Congress), so he had to settle for Nancy instead.
<p>Biden follows in the footsteps of Obama and Trump and brings the same old war criminal to the White House. They just can't quit Death Squad Elliot. "<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kissinger-elliott-abrams-war-crimes/">Henry Kissinger, Elliott Abrams, and the Rot of American Foreign Policy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Our bipartisan elite is always willing to forgive war crimes by its made men.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>But there is one group of shadowy miscreants that do operate under a code of omertà designed to ensure that almost all misdeeds will be forgiven, forgotten, and shielded from punishment: the American foreign policy establishment. Once you're an accredited member of the cozy club of Washington policy warlords, you need never worry about having to face the consequences of your actions. Perhaps the only major exceptions to this rule are those who break the code of silence and let the public in on the dirty deeds of the ruling class—as the late Daniel Ellsberg did with the release of the Pentagon Papers. For that unpardonable crime, the price is ostracism and threats of jail.</font>"
<p>"<a href="http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Fifty/4/127/778">FBI hired social media surveillance firm that labeled black lives matter organizers 'threat actors'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A new Senate report calls out the FBI for lying to Congress about its social media monitoring, pointing out the FBI's hiring of ZeroFox.</em> THE FBI'S PRIMARY tool for monitoring social media threats is the same contractor that labeled peaceful Black Lives Matter protest leaders DeRay McKesson and Johnetta Elzie as 'threat actors' requiring 'continuous monitoring' in 2015. The contractor, ZeroFox, identified McKesson and Elzie as posing a 'high severity' physical threat, despite including no evidence that McKesson or Elzie were suspected of criminal activity. 'It's been almost a decade since the referenced 2015 incident and in that time we have invested heavily in fine-tuning our collections, analysis and labeling of alerts,' Lexie Gunther, a spokesperson for ZeroFox, told The Intercept, 'including the addition of a fully managed service that ensures human analysis of every alert that comes through the ZeroFox Platform to ensure we are only alerting customers to legitimate threats and are labeling those threats appropriately.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-07-07-death-of-an-economic-theory/">Death of an Economic Theory</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The notion that public investment crowds out private spending has taken a beating lately.</em> The remarkable changes in manufacturing construction over the past year, since the passage of two key Biden administration industrial-policy laws, is rapidly putting to rest a concept that has been embedded into the old understanding of the economy. The concept is called 'crowd-out,' and it asserts that increases in government involvement in a business sector lead to reductions in private spending in that sector.</font>" It's astonishing that anyone even got away with inventing this theory. We have always had plenty of evidence that government investment creates the private sector's successes.
<p>"<a href="https://fair.org/home/wsj-attacks-antitrust-champion-lina-khan-every-11-days-since-ftc-appointment/">WSJ Attacks Antitrust Champion Lina Khan Every 11 Days Since FTC Appointment</a> [...] <font color=maroon>For example, after the FTC decided to block the merger between medical distributor company Illumina and medical testing company Grail, a Journal op-ed declared (4/27/23): 'Lina Khan Blocks Cancer Cures.' Grail does not in fact cure cancer, nor would blocking the merger bar its technology from the market. The FTC challenged it on the grounds that since Grail's technology requires Illumina's systems to function, the merger could prevent similar technologies under development from competing.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/oecd-australia-tax-havens">OECD Pushed Australia to Drop Plan Aimed at Showing Where Corporations Pay Taxes</a>: <font color=maroon><em>'What little credibility the OECD had is now in tatters,' said one campaigner. 'The OECD makes promises about ending global tax abuse but was evidently doing everything it could behind closed doors to protect tax abusers.'</em> The Financial Times confirmed Friday that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development lobbied Australia to weaken a law that would have compelled about 2,500 highly profitable multinational corporations to reveal where they pay taxes, eliciting outrage from tax justice advocates. Citing two unnamed people familiar with the discussions, FT reported that the Paris-based club of wealthy nations 'pressured Australia's ruling Labor government to drop a crucial part of a new finance bill that would have required some multinationals to publicly disclose their country-by-country tax bills.' According to the newspaper, 'The OECD, which has driven efforts to force the world's largest companies to pay their fair share of tax, believed the bill would have undermined its own efforts to make multinationals' affairs less opaque.' Campaigners were incredulous given that the legislation the OECD enfeebled 'would have delivered the biggest transparency breakthrough to date on the taxes of multinational corporations,' as the Tax Justice Network put it.</font>
<p>"<a href="https://www.carlbeijer.com/p/how-independent-media-has-tightened">How "independent media" has tightened the noose on journalists</a>: <font color=maroon><em>By replacing employees with contractors and salaries with selective "profit sharing", capital has increased its control over the media.</em> Over the last 24 hours, two stories emerged in the news that shed some crucial light on the shadowy world of 'independent' Silicon Valley media. First, in the Washington Post, Taylor Lorentz reported that Twitter has begun rolling out payments to people who use the site. Most posters on Twitter have been well aware of this since users have been loudly bragging about their payments over the past day, but they have also noticed a catch: only some people are getting the money. And so far, Lorentz reports, 'the influencers who have publicly revealed that they're part of the program are prominent figures on the right.' Meanwhile, in The Nation, Jacob Silverman wrote about the ties of YouTube competitor Rumble to the hard right. In a somewhat tangential passage, however, he notes a detail of their operations that hasn't been reported on in the past: Rumble reserves the right to cap compensation to site users at $1000. It doesn't have to, but it can.</font>
<p>"<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/opinion/half-the-police-force-quit-crime-dropped.html">Half the Police Force Quit. Crime Dropped</a>: [...] <font color=maroon>'We enjoy prosperity and security in this community,' said Shep Harris, the mayor since 2012. 'But that has come at a cost. I think it took incidents like the murder of George Floyd to help us see that more clearly.' The residents of the strongly left-leaning town decided change was necessary. One step was eliminating those racial covenants. Another was changing the Police Department, which had a reputation for mistreating people of color. The first hire was Officer Alice White, the force's first high-ranking Black woman. The second was Virgil Green, the town's first Black police chief. 'When I started, Black folks I'd speak to in Minneapolis seemed surprised that I'd been hired,' Chief Green said when I spoke with him recently. 'They told me they and most people they knew avoided driving through Golden Valley.' Members of the overwhelmingly white police force responded to both hires by quitting — in droves.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>'I haven't been on the job long enough to make any significant changes,' Chief Green said. 'Yet we're losing officers left and right. It's hard not to think that they just don't want to work under a Black supervisor.' The interesting thing is that according to Chief Green, despite the reduction in staff, crime — already low — has gone down in Golden Valley. The town plans to staff the department back up, just not right away. 'I've heard that the police union is cautioning officers from coming to work here,' Mr. Harris said. 'But that's OK. We want to take the time to hire officers who share our vision and are excited to work toward our goals.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>When New York's officers engaged in an announced slowdown in policing in late 2014 and early 2015, civilian complaints of major crime in the city dropped. And despite significant staffing shortages at law enforcement agencies around the country, if trends continue, 2023 will have the largest percentage drop in homicides in U.S. history. It's true that such a drop would come after a two-year surge, but the fact that it would also occur after a significant reduction in law enforcement personnel suggests the surge may have been due more to the pandemic and its effects than depolicing.</font>" All right, yes, this one little town isn't really proof that reducing police necessarily reduces crime, but that's not the only evidence.
<p>It's just as big a problem in Australia as in the US — don't trust a company that pretends to be socially or environmentally conscious if they wear it on their face but <a href="https://twitter.com/GrayConnolly/status/1677502131744669696?s=20">still treat employees like dirt</a>. Instead of giving employers points for waving a rainbow flag or having race-awareness class requirements, just put them in jail when they steal the wages of employees.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/28/lowell-weicker-connecticut-watergate-senator-governor-00104119"><b>Lowell P. Weicker Jr.</b>, maverick senator during Watergate, dies at 92</a>: <font color=maroon><em>He served three terms in the U.S. Senate and one term as Connecticut's governor.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>'More and more, events were making it clear that the Nixon White House was a cauldron of corruption,' Weicker wrote. 'And even as disclosures kept coming, more and more national leaders were acting as though nothing especially unusual had happened.'</font>" Weicker was a liberal Republican, but the Republicans found a conservative Democrat to back to get him out of office: Joe Lieberman.
<p>RIP: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jun/30/alan-arkin-obituary/"><b>Alan Arkin</b> at 89</a>: <font color=maroon>Alan Arkin, who has died aged 89, was a star at the beginning of his career and a beloved character actor until the end. Though best known for comedies, most notably Catch-22 (1970) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), lightness was not necessarily his forte; even at his funniest, he exuded gravitas.</font>" I admit, I've had my complaints about the movie of <em>Catch-22</em>, but Alan Arkin wasn't one of them - even before I'd heard of him, his was the face I saw when I first read the book. <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/photos/galleries/2023/jun/30/alan-arkin-1934-2023/">Here's a bunch of photos of him</a>.
<p>Stoller and Dayen in <em>The American Prospect</em>, "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2023-06-27-moving-past-neoliberalism-policy-project/">Moving Past Neoliberalism Is a Policy Project</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In order to test whether improving people's lives can convince them to support Democrats, you have to, well, improve people's lives.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>We aren't political consultants, and we aren't going to tell anyone how to win elections. But our political theory, nicknamed 'deliverism,' is that Democrats, when in government, need to not only say popular things, but actually deliver good economic outcomes for voters. They did not do this for many years, and neither did the GOP, which is why Trump blasted through both party establishments. Deliverism is linked to the death of neoliberalism, because it's an argument that Democrats could reverse their toxic image in many parts of the country by reversing policy choices on subjects like NAFTA, deregulation, and banking consolidation, which have helped hollow out the middle class for decades.</font>"
<p>A lovely tribute from Robert Borosage, "<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/jesse-jackson-is-keeping-hope-alive/">Jesse Jackson Is Keeping Hope Alive</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Veterans of his remarkable insurgent 1988 campaign gather to pay tribute.</em> 'I did not start with the money, the ads, the polling or the endorsements. I started with a message and a mission.' As the now-grizzled veterans of Jesse Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign gather in Chicago this weekend to pay tribute to their ailing leader, Jackson's words summarize well the historic insurgency he led 35 years ago.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>In 1988, Jackson was aiming higher. Standing with working people at the 'point of challenge,' he walked picket lines, stood with family farmers facing foreclosure, reached out to progressive peace, women's, gay and lesbian and environmental activists. He would stun the mainstream political world when they saw white workers and farmers not only give Jackson a hearing but also begin to vote for him in ever-greater numbers. The mission, in Jackson's words, was to build a 'progressive rainbow coalition—across ancient boundaries of race, religion, region, and sex,' moving millions of Americans from 'racial battlegrounds to economic common ground and on to moral higher ground.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://coreyrobin.com/2023/07/04/we-are-all-totalitarians-now/">We are all totalitarians now</a>: <font color=maroon>If you listen to the talking heads on MSNBC or read more sophisticated academic treatments of the topic, you'll find a frequent claim that mainstream Republican leaders who are not Trump—people like McConnell or McCarthy—are cowards or careerists. Unlike the Greenes and Gaetzes of the party, goes the argument, these men are not ideologically opposed to democracy. They're just insufficiently committed to democracy. That's the problem.</font>"
<p>Jackie DeShannon, "<a href="https://youtu.be/FSvUr5x68o8">Breakaway</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-22964233913022870322023-06-30T23:45:00.007+01:002023-07-02T03:46:28.514+01:00Outside, I'm masquerading<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccDEmfScJu9nTjYiOGMVgin_wLBW6FVdPDZiJ-H8J_ha3OChjH-eS1WnVz-NkT4QKFMeMVjgSVM0aUNHT3olzHZ3Zqv_F1BCQ49CGsUSgpj3pr292Css901dvCiRS3qxNps8HN2SiNoiFmiLx-qvH2OqyiCAVOP7ETGQ-gug889t4lIN2Hv1zl1eP/s1730/Oz%20LITTLE%20COVE%20NOOSA%20%282022%29Painting%20by%20Helen%20Mitra..jpg" width=318 height=425 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Oz LITTLE COVE NOOSA (2022)Painting by Helen Mitra."><a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/helenmitra/it/artworks/16004956/little-cove-noosa">Little Cove Noosa (2022) Painting by Helen Mitra</a>, from a feature on <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/en/magazine/5-art-history/australian-art-kangaroos-landscapes-and-contemporary-artists/333403">contemporary Australian art</a>.
<p>So, the Supremes struck down Affirmative Acton and Student Debt Relief and I can't even respond yet.
<p>"<a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-06-20/homeless-crisis-housing-californians-older-seniors-study">The truth about our homelessness crisis: As Californians age, they are priced out</a>: <font color=maroon>Public policy and common perception have long tied the road to homelessness with mental illness and drug addiction. But a new study out Tuesday — the largest and most comprehensive investigation of California's homeless population in decades — found another cause is propelling much of the crisis on our streets: the precarious poverty of the working poor, especially Black and brown seniors. 'These are old people losing housing,' Dr. Margot Kushel told me. She's the lead investigator on the study from UCSF's Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, done at the request of state health officials. 'They basically were ticking along very poor, and sometime after the age of 50 something happened,' Kushel said. That something — divorce, a loved one dying, an illness, even a cutback in hours on the job — sparked a downward spiral and their lives 'just blew up,' as Kushel puts it. Kushel and her team found that nearly half of single adults living on our streets are over the age of 50. And 7% of all homeless adults, single or in families, are over 65. And 41% of those older, single Californians had never been homeless — not one day in their lives — before the age of 50.</font>
<p>Stoller, "<a href="https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/lina-khan-fires-a-crooked-ceo">Lina Khan Fires a Crooked CEO</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The FTC blocked a genomics technology merger, leading to the firing of a CEO. The deal involved Bill Gates, Barack Obama, China and Jeff Bezos. And corporate America is in shock.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>More than any other possible penalty, the prospect for CEOs that they could lose their job is going to change corporate behavior. Here's the front page story in the Wall Street Journal on deSouza, noting that behavior across corporate America is changing.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>And this brings me to Microsoft, which is pursuing a somewhat irrational acquisition of game giant Activision, a bank shot attempt to monopolize gaming. The merger is on the rocks, because Great Britain ruled that it's illegal, and the combination is also being challenged by the FTC. And yet Microsoft won't relent. A few weeks ago, in an essay called Corporate Temper Tantrums, I noted that there's an open question about whether large corporations or democratic governments set the rules for our societies. Microsoft is the key example. Its threat to combine operations with Activision, despite the British government calling the transaction illegal, looks completely crazy, akin to civil disobedience by a Fortune 500 firm. There's no reason for it, since the firm has a great path ahead embedding AI in its products. Gaming is a sideshow. Why would the firm destroy its political reputation with this scorched earth campaign?</font>"
<p>At Thread Ap from Radley Balko, "<a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1669749466352562183.html">DOJ just released the report from its two-year investigation of the Minneapolis police department.</a> [...] <font color=maroon>'Sit on the ground. I'm gonna mace ya.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Casually pepper spraying some folks who were concerned about a suicidal friend.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Pulling a black teen out of a car and threatening to taser him for . . . not wearing a seatbelt.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Can't argue with this logic. A supervisor found that some MPD cops' use of force must have been reasonable because if it wasn't reasonable force, they wouldn't have used it.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Read the incident, and then how the complaint was handled. The investigator was the same supervisor on the scene who failed to find any wrongdoing at the time. He then didn't bother interviewing witnesses or the complainant before clearing the cops.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Flashbanging a group of protesters -- just for fun.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Casually pepper spraying journalists for no reason at all.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>You know you have a problem when a federal court won't even grant officers qualified immunity, but your official investigation finds no violation of policy.</font>" The details just leave you gaping. How <em>do</em> you reform that?
<p>The interesting thing wasn't the unsurprising news that Alito is just as corrupt as the rest of them so much as the odd (and unconvincing) response to the article he hadn't even read. "<a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a44283317/samuel-alito-fishing-trip-billionaire/">Samuel Alito Is the Latest Supreme Justice Exposed for Living Like an Oil Sheikh</a>: <font color=maroon><em>I know a lifetime gig is a license for a permanent big-money Mardi Gras, but, really, a private jet to Alaska?</em> A Little before midnight last night, the good people at ProPublica called in an air strike on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and the rubble is still bouncing. (Interestingly, the Justice wrote a pre-emptive rebuttal on Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, which is something all innocent people do.)</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/06/rfk-jr-medicare-for-all-israel-palestine-centrist-democrat/">Populist? RFK Jr Doesn't Even Support Medicare for All.</a> <font color=maroon><em>Many commentators see the eccentric Robert F. Kennedy Jr as an 'antiestablishment' alternative to Biden. But he doesn't even support single-payer health care, the brightest line dividing the centrist Democratic Party from its base.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>All of this creates an opening for a primary challenger. Ted Kennedy's nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has stepped in to fill that niche. He's not the only Democrat running against Biden — Marianne Williamson is too — but in most polls I've seen, Kennedy is well ahead of her. And it's not hard to see why he might emerge as Biden's most prominent challenger. On the one hand, he comes from a lineage of Democratic Party royalty. On the other hand, he's an edgy antiestablishment 'populist.' Or at least that's how he's been widely portrayed — both by commentators who are repulsed by Kennedy's proclivity for anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and by those who find his criticisms of the Biden administration compelling. But the populism label is false advertising. On key issues from Israel/Palestine to Medicare for All, RFK Jr's politics are a thousand miles away from his branding.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/29/1178279383/for-black-drivers-a-police-officers-first-45-words-are-a-portent-of-whats-to-com?utm_source=pocket-newtab">For Black drivers, a police officer's first 45 words are a portent of what's to come</a>: <font color=maroon>When a police officer stops a Black driver, the first 45 words said by that officer hold important clues about how their encounter is likely to go. Car stops that result in a search, handcuffing, or arrest are nearly three times more likely to begin with the police officer issuing a command, such as 'Keep your hands on the wheel' or 'Turn the car off.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/06/texas-hb-2127-republican-party-minority-rule-workers-rights-democracy">Texas's 'Death Star Bill' Is an Attack on Workers and Democracy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The newly passed HB 2127 is yet another attempt by the GOP-controlled state legislature to impose minority rule over the state of Texas. It's the working class that will pay the price — and the working class that must organize to fight back.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>HB 2127, labeled the 'Death Star Bill' by the Texas AFL-CIO, will go into effect on September 1. The bill will block cities and local governments from passing regulations on issues like labor protections, housing, and health care. Effectively, it will bar local governments in Texas from governing, hampering democracy in the state.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/06/15/fbi-abortion-domestic-terrorism/">The FBI Is Hunting A New Domestic Terror Threat: Abortion Rights Activists</a>: <font color=maroon><em>After GOP pressure, FBI abortion 'terrorism' investigations increased tenfold, government data shows.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The FBI's abortion-related terrorism investigations jumped from three cases in the fiscal year 2021 to 28 in 2022, a higher increase than any other category listed, according to an audit published by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General on June 6. The number of abortion-related cases in 2022 far exceeds that of all previous years included in the audit, going back to 2017. In the same time frame, FBI investigations into 'racially or ethnically motivated extremists' decreased from 215 to 169; investigations into 'anti-government / anti-authority' declined even more sharply, from 812 to 240. In fact, the only other category to see an increase in cases was 'animal rights / environmental,' which underwent a modest increase from seven to nine cases.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>'There is a long history of deadly anti-abortion violence in this country,' German said. 'The FBI should not devote counterterrorism resources to vandalism cases that don't threaten human life out of some flawed notion of parity.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rachel-hunt-north-carolina-twitter-video-abortion_n_648b4257e4b0756ff8631dec">Twitter Halts Promotion Of Campaign Video Due To 'Abortion Advocacy'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>'The mention of abortion advocacy is the issue here,' a Twitter employee told North Carolina candidate Rachel Hunt, according to emails HuffPost reviewed.</em> Twitter blocked a Democrat's campaign video from being promoted on its platform because it expressed support for abortion rights, according to email conversations obtained by HuffPost. The video, created by North Carolina state Sen. Rachel Hunt (D) for her campaign for lieutenant governor, centers on abortion rights in North Carolina and the fall of Roe v. Wade. Hunt says in the video that she's running for lieutenant governor to combat anti-choice Republicans who recently passed a 12-week abortion ban in the state.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>'Ah yes, the mention of abortion advocacy is the issue here,' a Twitter employee told Hunt's campaign Wednesday in an email reviewed by HuffPost. The employee said the company may have 'some good news to share on that front' in the next week or so, seemingly suggesting it may change its standards and practices on content discussing abortion rights. 'For now, though, you still won't be able to message around that topic,' the employee added.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/assault-charges-dropped-against-dan-price-former-gravity-payments-ceo/">Assault charge dropped against Dan Price, former Gravity Payments CEO
</a>" — I haven't known how to react to this whole story but if the claims made about Price are no better than what came up in this case, I have to wonder if any of this is more than smears.
<p>REST IN POWER: <b>Debi Sundahl</b>, former stripper, original publisher of the iconic <em>On Our Backs</em>, sex educator, and founder of Vitale video, of cancer, at 69. Susie Bright's announcement and tribute is now at her blog, "<a href="https://susiebright.ink/p/in-memory-debi-sundahl">In memory: Debi Sundahl</a>". There are some nice photos and stories.
<p>"<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas-marriage-love-story.html">Ginni and Clarence</a>: <font color=maroon>A Love Story How they saved one another, raged against their enemies, and brought the American experiment to the brink.</font>" A lot of people are curious about that marriage. And since he's been in the headlines a lot recently, Chapo Traphouse did an interview with Corey Robin about what he learned when writing his book <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/738-they-smile-6-84138447"><em>The Enigma of Clarence Thomas</em></a>.
<p>"<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/10/teneo/">The Right accuses their critics of the conspiracy they themselves engage in</a>" — Like, for example, the nefarious billionaire story.
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2021/04/obamanauts-jay-carney-amazon-liberals-evil">The Obamanauts Are Rebranding as Evil</a>: <font color=maroon><em>It's not just Jay Carney, the former Obama spokesman who now leads capital's side of the class war at Amazon. A whole cohort of Obamanauts — those bright, young idealists who wanted to change the world — have positioned themselves in roles in the private sector where they can most effectively be part of the problem.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>When it comes to Obama administration alumni taking lucrative gigs in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, this list is by no means exhaustive (this is to say nothing of Obama himself, who's made an absolute killing giving speeches to corporate clients). Even for hardened cynics of the political class, the shift from 2008's rousing message of 'Change we can believe in' to cashing in at corporate America has been so nakedly unsubtle it's sometimes defied belief. When that message failed to actualize itself between 2008 and 2016, a common refrain from some Democrats held that some combination of events and political constraints had doused the progressive ambition burning in the Obama administration's fiery liberal soul. Since departing the White House, countless alumni have had more freedom than most to take up professional opportunities of their own choosing — and the choices many of them made strongly suggest otherwise.</font>" Pretty sure that "fiery liberal soul" was never there to begin with.
<p>Zach Carter in <em>The New Yorker</em>, "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/persons-of-interest/what-if-were-thinking-about-inflation-all-wrong">What if We're Thinking About Inflation All Wrong?</a> <font color=maroon><em>Isabella Weber's heterodox ideas about government price controls are transforming policy in the United States and across Europe.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Instead, without warning, her career began to implode. Just before New Year's Eve, while Weber was on the bunny slopes, a short article on inflation that she'd written for the Guardian inexplicably went viral. A business-school professor called it 'the worst' take of the year. Random Bitcoin guys called her 'stupid.' The Nobel laureate Paul Krugman called her 'truly stupid.' Conservatives at Fox News, Commentary, and National Review piled on, declaring Weber's idea 'perverse,' 'fundamentally unsound,' and 'certainly wrong.'</font>" What had she done that was so "stupid"? She'd proposed the same restraint on inflation that had worked in World War II: Price controls. Via <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/06/lines-go-straight-up.html">Atrios</a>, who had more to say about that.
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/06/from-the-new-deal-to-the-war-on-schools-book-review-public-education-inequality/">Public Schools Have Been Made to Answer for Capitalism's Crimes</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Unwilling to disrupt the economic system that created mass inequality, liberals invested schools with magical powers to fix a broken society. When public schools failed to clean up capitalism's mess, they ended up on the chopping block.</em></font>"
<p>If you needed a reason for millions of people to hate "liberals", always remember that Thomas Friedman was represented to people as a "liberal" media voice. And, as David C. Korten's review of Friedman's 1999 book <em>The Lexis and the Olive Tree</em> makes clear, Friedman was a monster. "<a href="https://ratical.org/co-globalize/capitalists.html">We Are the Capitalists. You Will Be Assimilated. Resistance Is Futile.</a> [...] <font color=maroon>If the author of The Lexus and the Olive Tree were not Thomas L. Friedman, the book could, with cause, be dismissed as simply another elitist corporate puff piece extolling the virtues of deregulation and the elimination of economic borders in the idolatrous pursuit of money. Friedman, however, has often been on the side of progressives, especially in his writing on Israel. His current book has its use, not because it offers any new insights into globalization -- it does not -- but rather because it reveals so much of the mindset of those self-proclaimed liberals and "new" Democrats who, like Friedman, have uncritically embraced economic rule by currency speculators and mega-corporations as the inevitable and beneficial future of humankind.</font>"
<p>And, just by coincidence (and not a result of me cleverly digging up an old article on Friedman's monstrous book), Cory Doctorow recently wrote that "<a href="https://doctorow.medium.com/there-is-always-an-alternative-e55fd414d1fd">There Is Always An Alternative</a>."
<p>"<a href="https://www.startribune.com/anti-monopoly-mankato-landfill-board-game-history/600279625/?refresh=true">Why thousands of board games are buried beneath Mankato</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Anti-Monopoly alternative to America's most successful board game took off in the 1970s. But a gaming giant with Minnesota ties sought its destruction.</em> Somewhere beneath southern Minnesota lie the remnants of about 40,000 board games once created and sold as an antiestablishment alternative to mega-selling Monopoly. Manufactured in Mankato, the game Anti-Monopoly found success in the mid-1970s amid America's rampant inflation and institutional distrust. Then, much like in Monopoly, the ownership class quashed the competition.</font>"
<p>Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "<a href="https://youtu.be/BCwkZrj2VT4">Tracks of My Tears</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-44320849122726183412023-06-17T01:27:00.003+01:002023-06-17T05:27:38.690+01:00And one thin dime won't even shine your shoes<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMzZShEa1IQU1k6_bjBXSqAgS1wwOqarY7wDRVSLODNy_I2zgm08wMHFDVGsMEoTzWrOXo5R7HvUSGhiLNZqz0e-o8wfMvxOObmgm8qjXW9arP5-zXYhChCVGLkVwWmngzhn9w_YiZzTnKNSvb6QOdXCHRNcG6VA2S4S-Z_hjXMa4dLBdWiqMgKA/s320/AMAZONIE%202%20%282020%29%20by%20Magali%20Angot%20%28Mangot%29.jpg" width= height= align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="AMAZONIE 2 (2020) by Magali Angot (Mangot)">"<a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/magali-angot-mangot/en/artworks/16834084/amazonie-2">Amazonie 2 (2020)</a>" by Magali Angot (Mangot) is from a surprisingly fun collection on <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/en/art-gallery/collections/nevena-bojinovic/448087/parrot-paintings?&utm_source=brevo&utm_campaign=Parrots%20EN&utm_medium=email">parrots</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/supreme-court-glacier-northwest-unions-strike.html">The Supreme Court Has a New Bold Lone Dissenter</a>: <font color=maroon>This is a case about the federal right to organize your workplace through a union, which is protected by the National Labor Relations Act, or NLRA. This law was a cornerstone of the New Deal; before that point in history, unions were basically treated as illicit conspiracies out to undermine law-abiding businesses. The NLRA said: We're going start treating unions like lawful enterprises that protect workers' vested rights. One way it does that is by preempting state-level suits against a union for helping to organize a workplace. That's really important because otherwise, employers could destroy a union by slapping it with ruinous civil suits for negligence and trespassing and whatever, even though it's engaging in federally protected activity. The fundamental principle in this case is that the Supreme Court has said the NLRA kicks in, and state law is ousted, whenever unions engage in collective action that is arguably protected. The key word is 'arguably'—it doesn't have to be certain. And that's an important buffer because the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces the NLRA, has to step in and investigate whenever charges are filed, then decide whether fines and penalties are necessary.</font>" And that's where the Supremes stuck their nose in.
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/05/31/cop-city-bail-fund-protest-raid-atlanta/">Atlanta Police Arrest Organizers Of Bail Fund For Cop City Protesters</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Part of a brutal crackdown on dissent against the police training facility, the SWAT raid and charges against the protest bail fund are unprecedented.</em> ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, a heavily armed Atlanta Police Department SWAT team raided a house in Atlanta and arrested three of its residents. Their crime? Organizing legal support and bail funds for protesters and activists who have faced indiscriminate arrest and overreaching charges in the struggle to stop the construction of a vast police training facility — dubbed Cop City — atop a forest in Atlanta. In a joint operation with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or GBI, Atlanta cops charged Marlon Scott Kautz, Adele Maclean, and Savannah Patterson — all board members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund — with 'money laundering' and 'charity fraud.' The arrests are an unprecedented attack on bail funds and legal support organizations, a long-standing facet of social justice movements, according to Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center. 'This is the first bail fund to be attacked in this way,' Regan, whose organization has worked to ensure legal support for people resisting Cop City, told me. 'And there is absolutely not a scintilla of fact or evidence that anything illegal has ever transpired with regard to Atlanta fundraising for bail support.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>A more detailed arrest warrant for Patterson notes that the alleged 'money laundering' charge relates to reimbursements made from the nonprofit to Patterson's personal PayPal account for minor expenses including 'gasoline, forest clean-up, totes, covid rapid tests, media, yard signs and other miscellaneous expenses.' Targeting the organizers with a militarized SWAT raid based on such expenditures only clarifies the desperation of law enforcement agencies in going after the movement.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://nysfocus.com/2023/06/06/doccs-prison-blocks-journalism-artists-creative-work">A New Prison Policy Blocks Incarcerated Journalists and Artists From Publishing Their Work</a>: <font color=maroon><em>New York prisons may have effectively banned journalism behind bars.</em> JOHN J. LENNON HAS built an unlikely career. As a journalist writing from within the prisons he covers, he has spent the last decade offering a rare inside perspective into politics, health, and recreation behind bars. His most recent feature, in The New York Times, illustrated how rising housing prices leave those released from prison with few options to avoid homelessness. He's landed a book deal and a contributing editor position with Esquire. 'Writing has changed my life,' he told New York Focus in a phone call from Sullivan Correctional Facility. 'I've been able to grapple on the page with a lot of things.' He also mentors others who've found solace writing while imprisoned. But the agency that runs New York's prisons is set to block Lennon and countless other incarcerated writers, artists, and poets from getting their work outside prison walls. Last month, the agency quietly handed down new rules severely curtailing what incarcerated writers and artists can publish — and forbidding them from getting paid for it.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/08/high-court-denies-assange-right-to-appeal-putting-him-perilously-close-to-extradition/">High Court Denies Assange Right to Appeal Putting Him Perilously Close to Extradition</a>: <font color=maroon>A single judge on the High Court of England and Wales has rejected imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange's nearly year-old request to appeal the British decision to extradite him to the United States to stand trial on espionage and computer intrusion charges. Assange's legal team has one last recourse in the U.K. and has five days to request a hearing before the court.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/06/texas-migrants-flight-marthas-vineyard-charges-sheriff">Texas sheriff files criminal case over DeSantis flights to Martha's Vineyard</a>: <font color=maroon>A Texas sheriff's office has recommended criminal charges over flights that the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, arranged to deport 49 South American migrants from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard, in Massachusetts, last year. In a statement on Monday, the Bexar county sheriff's office said it had filed a criminal case with the local district attorney over the flight. The Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, has previously said the migrants were 'lured under false pretenses' into traveling to Martha's Vineyard, a wealthy liberal town. The recommendation comes after the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, threatened DeSantis with kidnapping charges on Monday, after Florida flew a group of people seeking asylum to Sacramento. It was the second time in four days Florida had used taxpayer money to fly asylum seekers to California. 'The charge filed is unlawful restraint and several accounts were filed, both misdemeanor and felony,' the Bexar county sheriff's office said in a statement provided to KSAT News.</font>"
<p>My favorite thing about the story of the tsouris that got stirred up when the Dodgers invited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to be their guests is that actual Catholic nuns <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisDStedman/status/1661470751705415682?s=20">stood up for them</a> because they visit the sick, clothe the naked, and feed the poor, which is just what nuns are supposed to do. "<a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2023-05-22/dodgers-apologize-invite-sisters-perpetual-indulgence-pride-night">Dodgers apologize and invite Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to Pride Night</a>: <font color=maroon>Less than a week after removing the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their lineup, the Dodgers on Monday re-invited the organization to Pride Night amid backlash from LGBTQ+ and civil rights groups as well as local politicians and even Dodgers employees.</font>"
<p>Impeached Republican "<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/texas-ag-says-trump-wouldve-lost-state-if-it-hadnt-blocked-mail-ballots-applications-being-1597909">Texas AG Says Trump Would've 'Lost' State If It Hadn't Blocked Mail-in Ballots Applications Being Sent Out</a>: <font color=maroon>Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said former President Donald Trump would have lost in Texas in the 2020 election if his office had not successfully blocked counties from mailing out applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters. Harris County, home to the city of Houston, wanted to mail out applications for mail-in ballots to its approximately 2.4 million registered voters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the conservative Texas Supreme Court blocked the county from doing so after it faced litigation from Paxton's office.</font>"
<p>I always wondered when these people would finally notice the contradiction here. "<a href="https://reason.com/2023/05/08/texas-house-overwhelmingly-approves-restrictions-on-no-knock-warrants/">Texas House Overwhelmingly Approves Restrictions on No-Knock Warrants</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Conservatives who support the bill recognize the conflict between unannounced home invasions and the Second Amendment.</em> The Texas House of Representatives last week overwhelmingly approved a bill that would sharply restrict the use of no-knock search warrants, which the state Senate is now considering. Both chambers are controlled by Republicans, and the bipartisan support for the bill suggests that many conservatives recognize the potentially lethal hazards of routinely allowing police to enter people's homes without warning. That practice pits law enforcement priorities against the right to armed self-defense in the home, which the Supreme Court has recognized as the "core" of the Second Amendment.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>"No-knock warrants are really dangerous," Wu told Houston Public Media. "They're just a bad policy. There's no reason that you can't announce that it's the police coming into your door in the middle of the night." He said Texas conservatives "understand that you don't really have a right to defend your home if you don't know who is coming in."</font>" All the more so when the warrants themselves are frequently of questionable provenance and the teams that execute them do so recklessly.
<p>"<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/nypd-kawaski-trawick-killing-investigation-questions">Video Showed an Officer Trying to Stop His Partner From Killing a Man. Now We Know Police Investigators Never Even Asked About the Footage.</a> <font color=maroon>We obtained the NYPD's full investigation into the killing of Kawaski Trawick, including documents and audio of interviews with the officers. The records provide a rare window into how exactly a police department examines its own after a shooting.</font>" Let's just say there was a little discrepancy between what the video showed and what the police said happened, and the "investigation" didn't even investigate it.
<p>YouGov poll less interesting than it could have been: "<a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/health/articles-reports/2023/05/11/women-describe-experiences-menstrual-periods">American women describe their experiences with menstrual periods</a>"
<p>REST IN PEACE: "<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cynthia-weil-songwriter-righteous-brothers-dolly-parton-dead-1234746422/"><b>Cynthia Weil</b>, Storied Songwriter With Decades of Hits, Dead at 82</a>: <font color=maroon>Cynthia Weil, the celebrated songwriter who helped craft timeless hits like the Righteous Brothers' '<a href="https://youtu.be/uOnYY9Mw2Fg">You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'</a>,' the Animals' '<a href="https://youtu.be/Q3mgapAcVdU">We Gotta Get Out of This Place</a>,' and Chaka Khan's '<a href="https://youtu.be/DtZmi1HVZ6o">Through the Fire</a>,' died Thursday, June 1. She was 82.</font>" Wrote some Gene Pitney and Motown hits I loved, as well, and my old favorite from <em>Wild in the Streets</em>, too, "<a href="https://youtu.be/pEqWCH_4srU">The Shape of Things to Come</a>".
<p>REST IN PEACE: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/14/john-romita-sr-spider-man-artist-and-co-creator-of-wolverine-dead-at-93"><b>John Romita Sr</b>, Spider-Man artist and co-creator of Wolverine, dead at 93</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Romita died of natural causes in his sleep. His son, John Romita Jr, also a successful graphic novelist, confirmed the death in a Twitter post on Tuesday night.</font>"
<p>REST IN POWER: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/16/daniel-ellsberg-pentagon-papers-whistleblower-dies"><b>Daniel Ellsberg</b>, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, dies aged 92</a> [...] <font color=maroon>In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Saying he had been given three to six months to live, he said he had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy and had been assured of hospice care. 'I am not in any physical pain,' he wrote, adding: 'My cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my favourite foods!' On Friday, the family said Ellsberg 'was not in pain' when he died. He spent his final months eating 'hot chocolate, croissants, cake, poppyseed bagels and lox' and enjoying 'several viewings of his all-time favourite [movie], Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', the family statement added.</font>" I like knowing that. Right up to the end he was speaking up for whistleblowers who have been treated like criminals by our modern "leaders". He was a real hero. Also, <em>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</em> is my favorite porn film.
<p>REST IN POWER: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/jun/15/glenda-jackson-oscar-winner-and-former-labour-mp-dies-aged-87"><b>Glenda Jackson, fearless actor and politician, dies aged 87</b></a> [...] <font color=maroon>Jackson bestrode the narrow worlds of stage and screen like a colossus over six decades. Though such a Shakespearean tribute would undoubtedly have had the famously curmudgeonly actor reaching for her familiar catchphrase: 'Oh, come on. Good God, no,' nothing less will do for a star who emerged from a 23-year career break to play King Lear at the age of 82. Not only did she win an Evening Standard theatre award for that performance, but she brought the audience to its feet by playing up to her ferocious reputation with an attack on the awards' sponsor. For decades, the newspaper had scorned her as an actor, opposed her as an MP, she said, 'so I'm left thinking what did I do wrong?'</font>"
<p>ROT IN PERDITION: "<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/06/left-out-of-pat-robertsons-obits-his-crazy-antisemitic-conspiracy-theory/">Left Out of <b>Pat Robertson</b>'s Obits: His Crazy, Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The right-wing Christian broadcaster was a bigoted loon—and the GOP embraced him.
</em> On Thursday, Pat Robertson, the television preacher and founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, died at the age of 93. The obituaries duly noted that he transformed Christian fundamentalism into a potent political force with the Christian Coalition that he founded in 1990 and that became an influential component of the Republican Party. They also included an array of outrageous and absurd remarks he had made over the years. He blamed natural disasters on feminists and LGBTQ people. He called Black Lives Matter activists anti-Christian. He said a devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti occurred because Haitians had made a 'pact with the devil' to win their freedom from France. He prayed for the deaths of liberal Supreme Court justices. He insisted the 9/11 attacks happened because liberals, feminists, and gay rights advocates had angered God. He claimed Kenyans could get AIDS via towels. He insisted Christians were more patriotic than non-Christians. He purported to have prayed away a hurricane from striking Virginia Beach. (The storm hit elsewhere.) Yet left out of the accounts of Robertson's life was a basic fact: He was an antisemitic conspiracy theory nutter.</font>"
<p>ROT IN PERDITION: "<a href="https://twitter.com/LumpyLouish/status/1669054819816841250?s=20">A farewell to <b>James G. Watt</b>, environmental vandal and proto-Trumpian</a>: <font color=maroon>Last week was so chock full o' news, what with the Trump indictment and the deaths of religious right-winger Pat Robertson and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, that I'm concerned that another significant passing has received far less attention than it deserved. That's the death of James G. Watt at 85, which occurred on May 27 but was announced by his family last Thursday. Most leading newspapers granted Watt an obituary, proper for someone who was Ronald Reagan's Interior secretary for just under three years. The New York Times called him 'polarizing,' the Washington Post 'combative,' this newspaper 'sharp-tongued and pro-development.' Did those adjectives do justice to Watt, however? I think not. They focused on his actions while in office from 1981 to 1983. What they missed, however, is his legacy as a Republican ideologue on environmental policy.</font>" We were all horrified when he was appointed, but my sister-in-law worked at Interior and they were all crying.
<p><a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/06/reactionary-centrism.html">Atrios</a> provides a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/06/anti-woke-centrism-cnn-chris-licht-atlantic-profile/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjI0Mjk2MTMiLCJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNjg2MDI0MDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNjg3MzE5OTk5LCJpYXQiOjE2ODYwMjQwMDAsImp0aSI6IjNlMGUyOWY2LTlmNmYtNDM5My04OTdiLWY5YTkyYWUwYTYxOSIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9ucy8yMDIzLzA2LzA2L2FudGktd29rZS1jZW50cmlzbS1jbm4tY2hyaXMtbGljaHQtYXRsYW50aWMtcHJvZmlsZS8ifQ.EX6kNZGs2YwLHXD01sd9cR6HUuMt6Su4_rFui8Yw4uM">guest link</a> to a surprisingly good opinion piece by Perry Bacon, Jr. in the WaPo in the wake of Chris Licht stepping down at CNN. "<font color=maroon>After the firestorm created by the Atlantic article, Licht is now stepping down from his post. But all of the harsh criticism is a bit unfair to Licht. In particular, his skepticism of left-wing causes, and his view that people who don't agree with the left are constantly attacked and shamed, isn't some outlier stance. These ideas are regularly expressed in many of the nation's most prominent news outlets. If you spend a lot of time talking to White men in Democratic politics, as I do, you have to nod along as comments like Licht's are made, even if you don't agree with them, to signal that you are a reasonable person worth talking to. Licht's comments embody an anti-woke centrism that is increasingly prominent in American media and politics today, particularly among powerful White men who live on the coasts and don't identify as Republicans or conservatives. It's deeply flawed, and it's pushing some important U.S. institutions to make bad decisions.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>'Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned,' the New York Times declared in the first sentence of a March 2022 editorial. In reality, there has never been a right to voice your opinion without the possibility of being shamed or shunned (terms without precise meanings) — and there shouldn't be. Shaming and shunning people are free expression, too. What I suspect this editorial was actually calling for is for self-described Democrats and liberals to be able to express more conservative views (such as skepticism about transgender rights) but without being attacked in the way that conservatives often are for such views (being called bigots).</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.themarysue.com/this-l-a-bus-shelter-managed-to-offend-literally-everyone/">This L.A. Bus Shelter Managed to Offend Literally Everyone</a>." This is what happens when hurting the homeless becomes more of a priority than creating things that serve the purposes they were supposed to be created for. Those nice benches that were meant for people — tired people, or old people — to be able to rest while visiting a park, shopping, or waiting for the bus, have been made so uncomfortable that no one can actually rest on them anymore. And now they've found a way to eliminate any protection from rain or sun. A work of genius.
<p>"<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/economist-southern-white-migration-racism/">How Reading The Economist Helped Me to Stop Worrying About White Supremacy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A recent viral sensation identifies the migration of poor whites as the cause of the problem—letting the rest of us off the hook!</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>If an Economist article that went viral recently is any indication, neither revelation made a dent in the conventional wisdom about who's behind white supremacy in America. The article, by Elliott Morris, citing a research paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, claims that you can use math to prove that 21st-century reactionary politics come from poor whites who left the South looking for jobs a century ago. It's not hard to see why this piece got traction. It absolves lots of white people of any responsibility for white supremacy. It's just truthy enough to become the kind of 'everyone knows' canonical narrative that informs political strategies for a generation. But the math proving that racism comes from one specific class of people turns out to be fatally flawed! And it gets worse. By obscuring how white supremacy actually works, and perpetuating mistaken ideas of why it persists and spreads, this study can make it harder to fight. That leaves us all worse off. It's the political equivalent of junk food.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/opinion/supreme-court-john-roberts-contempt.html?unlocked_article_code=vszDpuQuDfNXLXPbxmt6Gmpf7pON00k9TyyreB9iqW5gR4DX3X86yATY-ZCSzKv9yYBA5mgsVgEuz9sekUOPKF1nZizliPNJ_h0uYzWIDT9VH2rbvNfOsBlDJuCHRBbRKcdyOvEsprWNPzYN8uiBlO7qTSMoJisBLdnH8bGc5hR0v039JmK113VAX23XRSEQfX6In3tv641mIHgFUf1ll6tfmGCgejgp6yn_5_heA7P3S8BFIUOyef3Q5itTuTkxTPdOK53bHFHBh9E39wh25SthLPI8sSXCf3Zaoj9gtUmzGYZM1QziNOhMvOJWS95lGj2tMKJPKCGPrKaGBRwXN24JLwNjIDCg3p-iZRKC&smid=url-share">The First Name of a Supreme Court Justice Is Not Justice</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Over roughly the past 15 years, the justices have seized for themselves more and more of the national governing agenda, overriding other decision makers with startling frequency. And they have done so in language that drips with contempt for other governing institutions and in a way that elevates the judicial role above all others. The result has been a judicial power grab.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Recognizing the justices' ideological project also points to the beginning of the solution. We ought to begin talking about the justices the way we talk about other political actors — recognizing that their first name is not Justice and that they, like other politicians, should be identified by their party. We should stop talking about another branch's potential defiance of a judicial opinion as an attack on 'the rule of law' and instead understand it as an attack on rule by judges, one that may (or may not) be a justified response to some act of judicial governance. And those other branches should be more willing — as they have at other moments in American history — to use the tools at their disposal, including cutting the judiciary's funding, to put the courts in their place. In recent years, the judiciary has shown little but contempt for other governing institutions. It has earned a little contempt in return.</font>"
<p>So, it turns out that instead of threatening people, you can get people to show up in court <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abb6591">by communicating with them</a>: "<font color=maroon>Criminal justice policy in the United States focuses on increasing negative consequences to deter undesired behavior. However, defendants often appear relatively insensitive to these changes in the severity of consequences. Fishbane et al. considered a different policy lever: improving the communication of information necessary to adhere to desired behavior (see the Perspective by Kohler-Hausmann). They found that redesigning a criminal summons form to highlight critical information and providing text message reminders increased the likelihood that defendants would show up to their appointed court date, thus eliminating a substantial percentage of arrest warrants for failing to appear in court. In follow-up experiments, the authors found that laypeople, but not experts, believe that such failures to appear are relatively intentional, and this belief reduces their support for interventions aimed at increasing awareness rather than punishment. These findings have implications for policies aimed at improving criminal justice outcomes.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farbenizers">Pluralistic: The long lineage of private equity's looting</a>: <font color=maroon>Fans of the Sopranos will remember the 'bust out' as a mob tactic in which a business is taken over, loaded up with debt, and driven into the ground, wrecking the lives of the business's workers, customers and suppliers. When the mafia does this, we call it a bust out; when Wall Street does it, we call it 'private equity.'</font>" Cory Doctorow explains how vulture capitalists are destroying everything people need.
<p>And here's Robert Kuttner's 2018 story, "<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/vulture-capitalism-killed-sears/">It Was Vulture Capitalism that Killed Sears</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Don't blame Amazon or the internet. The culprit was a predatory hedge fund.</em> If you've been following the impending bankruptcy of America's iconic retailer, as covered by print, broadcast, and digital media, you've probably encountered lots of nostalgia, and sad clucking about how dinosaurs like Sears can't compete in the age of Amazon and specialty retail. But most of the coverage has failed to stress the deeper story. Namely, Sears is a prime example of how hedge funds and private-equity companies take over retailers, encumber them with debt in order to pay themselves massive windfall profits, and then leave the retailer without adequate operating capital to compete.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.essence.com/news/crime-police-propaganda/">Black People Care About Crime, But We Don't Need Police Propaganda</a>: <font color=maroon><em>With Mass Shootings And Gun Violence Permeating The News, It's Clear We Need Public Safety Solutions. But More Cops Aren't The Answer.</em> Everyone wants to live in a society free from crime, Black people included. We're just not usually able to comfortably express that without America treating it as an endorsement of our own criminalization and mass incarceration. When mention is made of the Black community's collective concern about crime, it is rarely to address our material needs or alleviate the causes of crime, but instead offered to dismiss calls for progressive reform in lieu of continuing to invest in 'tough on crime' initiatives.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/41085924">What is a 'Riot'?</a> <font color=maroon>For weeks, I was puzzled by the radical disconnect between what was being reflected back to us by the national media -- and even our friends and relatives in distant parts of the country -- and what Portland residents like me, who live downtown, knew to be the truth. The national media were repeatedly saying Portlanders were 'rioting,' that the downtown was overrun by 'antifa and Marxist terrorists,' filled with burning buildings and looting . . . but we saw nothing of that, especially those of us who live closest to the epicenter. Nervous friends from out of town repeated that police are saying the activity in the streets are 'riots.' Nobody's rioting, we responded, and we're not afraid to go downtown. It finally dawned on me that the Portland Police Bureau's use of the term 'riot' was a technical matter -- a legal one -- which had very little to do with the phenomenon American citizens have been accustomed to seeing reported on the national news as riots.</font>"
<p>In 2014, the late Robert Parry wrote about the coup in Ukraine and the bizarre way the media was covering it. He was no stranger to the way the press corp can twist the narrative, but he felt that something new and even more sinister had been added, an ingredient we have become used to seeing today. "<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2023/01/27/robert-parry-ukraine-through-the-us-looking-glass/">Ukraine, Through the US Looking Glass</a> [...] <font color=maroon>But the U.S. press has played down his role because his neo-Nazism conflicts with Official Washington's narrative that the neo-Nazis played little or no role in the 'revolution.' References to neo-Nazis in the 'interim government' are dismissed as 'Russian propaganda.'</font>"
<p>For the record, almost everyone takes one look at me and thinks I'm Jewish. Sometimes this is really obvious (like that guy who went out of his way to show me the swastika tats on his knuckles), and sometimes it's a more subtle reservedness that only goes away when the listener somehow learns that my ethnicity is something else, but by and large, people just assume I'm Jewish. So I would tend to notice if there was a lot of antisemitism going on around me, and I will say for the record that on the few occasions I have met Ken Livingstone, or the many occasions on which I have socialized or worked with Ken-supporting Labourites and Corbyn-supporting Labourites, I never experienced any from them. And actual Jews who have spent considerably more time around Labour Party people <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/labour-antisemitism-geoffrey-bindman-political-manipulation">say much the same</a>: "<font color=maroon>Bindman has had an equally long history in the Labour Party, as a councillor, deputy leader of Camden council and chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers. He has acted for a number of leading figures in the party, although not Corbyn. 'I have had close involvement with the Labour Party for many years, and I can say that I've never really experienced antisemitism among fellow Labour Party members or in Labour meetings.' He is not alone in this judgement. The idea of any Jew being antisemitic is, in his words, 'pretty hard to swallow'. Bindman does not deny that antisemitism exists in the party, as it does everywhere, but he agrees with Corbyn's assessment in response to the EHCR report that the problem of antisemitism had been exaggerated - an assessment that got the MP expelled from the parliamentary Labour Party. 'He thought the problem had been exaggerated in the Labour Party. He did not say that antisemitism itself was not highly important, but he said there was not as much of it as had been suggested and he is absolutely right about that. 'You can look at all the statistics and studies that have been made. If you look at the facts you can't justify what Keir has said or done unless he's using it as a pretext. A political strategy. That's all I can say.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/05/childrens-enjoyment-of-writing-has-fallen-to-crisis-point">Children's enjoyment of writing has fallen to 'crisis point', research finds</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Only one in three UK children now enjoy writing in their free time – including text messages – with those on free school meals most likely to do so.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>'Every year since 2010, the National Literacy Trust has consistently found that children on free school meals are more likely to engage with writing in their free time than their better-off peers,' said the report. 'This trend has remained steady in the face of a global pandemic and an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis that has forced up the price of consumer goods and services at the fastest rate in four decades. This highlights the potential for writing for pleasure to play a vital role in the lives of disadvantaged children and young people.'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://boingboing.net/2023/06/02/idle-rich-baffled-by-poor-peoples-distaste-for-dangerous-low-paying-jobs.html">Idle rich baffled by poor people's distaste for dangerous, low-paying jobs</a>: <font color=maroon>People who don't have to work have complained for centuries that other people don't like doing poorly paid, dangerous, dull work, the kind that makes the lives of the affluent comfortable and convenient. This collection of quotes, dating back to 1894, all say the same thing — "Nobody wants to work anymore" — as if there was a time when people relished shoveling shit for the upper class.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-a-british-biscuit">So What Is a British Biscuit Really?</a> <font color=maroon><em>And why does it need to 'snap'?</em></font>" The origins of the British "biscuit" from a French term for what Americans call "hard-tack" seem almost mysterious, and help explain why they are equally mystified by what we call "cookies", "crackers", and "biscuits".
<p>"<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/colins-barn">Colin's Barn</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Colin Stokes 'got a bit carried away' and built a castle that looks like something out of Tolkien.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The Hobbit House, also known as Colin's Barn, in Chedglow, England, has been abandoned since Stokes moved away in 2000 to avoid the noise of a forest marble quarry opening up nearby. He never finished his project, which he had started 1989 using rocks and stones from around his property, and concrete to hold them together.</font>" There are a few neat photos.
<p>The Drifters, "<a href="https://youtu.be/yPYRtjxYEH8">On Broadway</a>" (Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil)Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-83861414768825226752023-05-30T04:52:00.008+01:002023-05-30T06:07:36.084+01:00But only now my love has grown<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg0gKAdbmBYRqfUAv0IqSvRCMm2WS0NoR36giGDYybk63ObryEjCumH14cEzCjzTXxkzJcKSqAuyhp2opoP61x9ngJF2l7xKM12wpGo1aZFcq1t_rNH5bkQ7dRLrzkSXWQJ_-ok6wmPQRX1JvSwmwILrbRrpiesOlDehYRMlFy5og_xPJQ1z9z0A/s320/Claude%20Monet%27s%20gardens%20in%20Giverny,%20France.jpg" width=270 height=425 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, France">Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, France
<p>Reminder: One day Richard Nixon decided he didn't want to pay for programs Congress passed that he didn't like. So Congress passed <a href="https://democrats-budget.house.gov/resources/reports/impoundment-control-act-1974-what-it-why-does-it-matter">The Impoundment Control Act 1974</a>. This law mandates that the president <em>must</em> pay for anything Congress has authorized. And that means that Biden has to ignore the so-called "debt limit".
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/samuel-alito-wetlands-opinion-lost-brett-kavanaugh.html">Samuel Alito's Assault on Wetlands Is So Indefensible That He Lost Brett Kavanaugh</a>: <font color=maroon>On Thursday, the Supreme Court dealt a devastating blow to the nation's wetlands by rewriting a statute the court does not like to mean something it does not mean. The court's decision in Sackett v. EPA is one of the its most egregious betrayals of textualism in memory. Put simply: The Clean Water Act protects wetlands that are 'adjacent' to larger bodies of water. Five justices, however, do not think the federal government should be able to stop landowners from destroying wetlands on their property. To close this gap between what the majority wants and what the statute says, the majority crossed through the word 'adjacent' and replaced it with a new test that's designed to give landowners maximum latitude to fill in, build upon, or otherwise obliterate some of the most valuable ecosystems on earth.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>If you want to feel really cynical about the Supreme Court—if you want to see how a majority has an infinite number of tools at its disposal to override the words that Congress wrote and instead enshrine a conservative agenda into law—read Alito's opinion in Sackett. Honestly, it's like he's barely even trying. Alito's response to Kavanaugh and Kagan consists of one short paragraph that boils down to four words: Their opinions 'cannot be taken seriously.' Alito relied almost entirely on policy arguments, peppering them with legalese to create the impression of an actual legal opinion. It doesn't work, but who cares? The court has anointed itself the final arbiter of every controversy in the land, and if it thinks the Clean Water Act goes too far, then, well, it's the court's sacred duty to rewrite it. As Kagan put it ruefully: 'That is not how I think our government should work,' because 'it is not how the Constitution thinks our government should work.' Sadly, this is how our Supreme Court now works.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://ballsandstrikes.org/newsletter/john-roberts-legal-journalism-tell-the-whole-story/">What the Supreme Court Does Matters More Than What It Says</a>: <font color=maroon><em>It's impossible to tell the story of the Supreme Court's voting rights cases without mentioning that John Roberts is opposed to voting rights.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>This is the basic, quick-and-dirty outline you're likely to read in any coverage of Milligan. But to tell the full story, I think, you have to go back in time—to the early days of the Reagan administration, when a rising conservative legal movement star by the name of John Roberts took a job in the new president's Department of Justice. One especially important part of Roberts's portfolio was advocating for narrow interpretations of the Voting Rights Act: Violations of Section 2 of that law, he wrote, should not be 'too easy to prove, since they provide a basis for the most intrusive interference imaginable by federal courts into state and local processes.' Colleagues remembered him as a 'zealot' who harbored 'fundamental suspicions' about the VRA's utility.</font>"
<p>Slowly, slowly, they're starting to admit that what drove the price-inflation was greed. "<a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-05-10/column-these-are-the-companies-whose-thirst-for-profits-drove-inflation-higher">These companies cynically used global crises to juice profits — and brought us inflation</a>: <font color=maroon>Throughout all the debate in the last year over what has caused higher prices and how to remedy them, one term hasn't received the attention it deserves, given how well it explains the trend: 'Greedflation.' The term defines as what happens when businesses raise prices higher and faster than is needed to cover increases in their costs. We've reported before that soaring corporate profits have contributed more to inflation than the Federal Reserve Board's preferred targets, wages and consumer demand. Two recent papers, however, measure their impact and identify some of the leading culprits by name.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/bombshell-report-student-debt-relief">Bombshell Report Exposes Key Argument Against Student Debt Relief as 'Categorically False'</a> [...] <font color=maroon>With debt relief for tens of millions of people hanging in the balance, the GOP state officials who brought the case told Supreme Court justices in late February that they have legal standing to challenge the Biden administration's student debt cancellation plan because if it took effect, it would "cut MOHELA's operating revenue by 40%." MOHELA is Missouri's state-created higher education loan authority, and the supposed financial harms it would suffer under the student debt cancellation plan are critical to the right-wing officials' case. If the Republican plaintiffs can't prove that MOHELA—which is not itself a plaintiff in Biden v. Nebraska—would suffer concrete harm from student debt cancellation, their case falls apart. According to the new report by the Roosevelt Institute and the Debt Collective, not only would MOHELA not be harmed by the Biden administration's student debt relief plan—it would actually see its direct loan revenue rise if the plan is enacted.</font>"
<p>Even the conservative Brookings Institute has been saying for over a year that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/why-congress-needs-to-abolish-the-debt-limit-testimony-before-the-house-budget-committee/">Congress should abolish the debt limit</a>: <font color=maroon>
<br>"I would like to make three points today.
<br>1. The debt ceiling does not serve any useful purpose. It has not imposed any fiscal discipline on Congress.
<br>2. We don't know what would happen to interest rates and the standing of the U.S. if Congress someday failed to raise the debt ceiling, but we do know the effects would be negative. This is not a risk we should take.
<br>3. Our country faces a lot of long-term economic challenges— high levels of inequality and limited economic mobility, slow productivity growth, climate change, high health care costs, and an unsustainable trajectory for the federal debt. We should address those directly. Bickering over the debt ceiling is a waste of time and energy, creates unnecessary uncertainty, threatens the benefits of issuing the world's safest asset and undermines public confidence in our political institutions.</font>"
<p>A note, for comparison: The only other country in the world that has a debt ceiling is Denmark, a nation of six million people with a national debt in 2022 of around 323 billion Danish Kroner. Their debt ceiling is DKK 2 trillion, so reaching the debt ceiling is extremely unlikely any time soon. Unlike America, they have not set a debt ceiling they might — and <em>will</em> — bump up against within the fiscal year. The rest of the countries don't even bother having a debt ceiling because why on earth would you do that?
<p>The trouble with minting the coin is not that it's a "gimmick", but that it would work. "<a href="https://seeingtheforest.com/why-minting-the-coin-is-a-threat-to-the-established-order/">Why Minting the Coin Is A Threat To The Established Order</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Minting platinum coins with a face value of $1 trillion and depositing them with the Federal Reserve is Constitutional and solves the problem. But it brings up questions that shake the foundations of neoliberalism. If we can 'mint coins' to pay bondholders, why can't we mint coins to do things that people want and need? Instead of just relying on private capital (the rich) to make investment decisions and get things done in our economy? So Biden can do the right thing and just … pay our bills. But then the neoliberal order breaks down. If We (through Congress) can decide to … you name it, then why are we depending on 'the investor class' (capital) and 'market solutions' etc to decide where to invest, allocate resources, do the planning and everything else?</font>"
<p><a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/05/the-real-winner-florida-governor-ron.html">Atrios</a> wonders why the media talks like DeSantis is the most important governor in America when we have many more impressive governors - and states. He links to Ryan Cooper's article about <a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2023-05-22-new-minnesota-vikings/">Tim Walz and Minnesota</a>, who do things like this: "<font color=maroon>Probably the most significant law passed during the session was a giant expansion of labor rights. As Max Nesterak explains at Minnesota Reformer, the measure mandates paid sick days for nearly all workers, which will accrue at the rate of one hour per 30 hours worked up to a maximum of 48 hours; forbids noncompete agreements in labor contracts; establishes a sectoral bargaining system for nursing homes; allows teachers to negotiate class sizes; and bans 'captive audience' meetings where employers force their workers to listen to anti-union propaganda. It also sets up new protections for meatpackers, construction workers, and Amazon employees. And a separate bill passed on Sunday guarantees a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers.</font>" (Oh, but wait, he bottled on one of them: "<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/minnesota-governor-vetos-gig-worker-bill-following-warning-from-uber/ar-AA1bHDin">Minnesota governor vetos gig worker bill following warning from Uber</a>.")
<p>When a Minneapolis county took a little old lady's home to pay off a $2,300 tax bill she couldn't pay, they sold the place but did not return the profit to her. So she went to the Supreme Court, and <a href="https://www.startribune.com/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-94-year-old-woman-who-got-nothing-when-county-took-her-condo/600277692/">she won</a>. That's good, but I'm bringing it up because the same people who defend "states rights" have been using the seizure of her condo and theft of the full value of it to "government", by which they mean <em>federal</em> government. They've been treating it as indistinguishable from federal income taxes and any other federal "overreach". They are also the same people who say they want to decentralize power because the federal government is so corrupt and local governments are more answerable (they are not, they are more like local fiefdoms). But here we have a classic example of a <em>local government</em> acting dishonorably and an arm of the federal government being able to undo the injustice.
<p>Ryan Grim alerts us that <a href="https://badnews.substack.com/p/the-criminal-case-against-henry-kissinger?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1711&post_id=123588101&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email">The criminal case against Henry Kissinger just managed to get stronger somehow</a>, with the arrival of Nick Turse's "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors/">Blood On His Hands</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Survivors of Kissinger's Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 has been well documented, but its architect, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who will turn 100 on Saturday, bears responsibility for more violence than has been previously reported. An investigation by The Intercept provides evidence of previously unreported attacks that killed or wounded hundreds of Cambodian civilians during Kissinger's tenure in the White House. When questioned about his culpability for these deaths, Kissinger responded with sarcasm and refused to provide answers.</font>"
<p>If you want to know what's happening with Ken Paxton, thank Christopher Hooks for coming closer than I've seen in a long time to the Molly Ivins treatment. "<a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/ken-paxton-impeachment-texas-house/">The Texas Legislature Finally Comes for Ken Paxton</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Texas attorney general has spent nearly eight years—and won two elections—under indictment. So why a vote to impeach now?</em> At the start of this week, the Texas Legislature was sliding toward the conclusion of yet another underwhelming, but basically normal, session. Lawmakers had wasted a lot of time and effort, and soon they would go home. But the calm was illusory. By the end of the week, everything was in flames: blood was sloshing down the Capitol's marble halls like the building was the Overlook Hotel. Attorney General Ken Paxton called House Speaker Dade Phelan a drunk, urging him to resign and 'get the help he needs'; later that afternoon, a House committee announced it had been investigating Paxton for months. The Texas House met Saturday, and after about four hours of debate, voted to impeach Paxton. To paraphrase Mao: everything under the dome is in chaos; the situation is excellent. There's been a lot of news coverage of the events of the last week. But this being Texas, it's all underlaid by decades of lore, animosities, and seemingly unaccountable behavior. So if you're trying to get in on the fun, here's a primer.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/05/american-capitalism-breadlines-market-freedom-food-banks/">American Capitalism Has Produced Its Most Remarkable Innovation Yet: Breadlines</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Soviet Russia's food shortages were frequently held up as proof of the Communist system's failure to provide for its citizens. But here in hyper-capitalist America, tens of millions of people are going hungry.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The breadline has long been a potent symbol, but it's also one that, for mainstream media and political institutions, can only manifest beyond America's borders. When they happen in other countries, food shortages are framed as evidence of precapitalist backwardness. The American system, by contrast, is one of such relentless dynamism and efficiency that, while individual people might experience problems or hardships — hunger, poverty, unemployment — they are precluded from being an indictment of the model itself.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/24/tina-turner-legendary-rocknroll-singer-dies-aged-83"><b>Tina Turner</b>: legendary rock'n'roll singer dies aged 83</a>: <font color=maroon>Tina Turner, the pioneering rock'n'roll star who became a pop behemoth in the 1980s, has died aged age of 83 after a long illness. She had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017. Turner affirmed and amplified Black women's formative stake in rock'n'roll, defining that era of music to the extent that Mick Jagger admitted to taking inspiration from her high-kicking, energetic live performances for his stage persona. </font>" Turner's biggest UK hit didn't get much play in the US, with the result that Phil Spector took out a full-page ad in <em>Billboard</em> thanking the UK for buying "River Deep, Mountain High", which he considered his masterwork. Nevertheless, Turner's light shone in the US as well, and she became the first female performer <em>and</em> the first black performer to appear on the cover of <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-pictures/tina-turner-rolling-stone-covers-916255/"><em>Rolling Stone</em></a>.
<p>Dahlia Lithwick, "<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/supreme-court-coverage-problems-journalists.html">Imagine if the Press Covered the Supreme Court Like Congress</a>: <font color=maroon><em>You can't, can you?</em> You can write that the Supreme Court is delegitimizing itself only so many times before you've made yourself ridiculous. If the high court is not in fact behaving in a fashion that makes its decisions respected, the real question is: Why are we all zealously watching and reporting on its decisions as though they are immutable legal truths? Why are we scientifically analyzing every case that comes down as if it holds value? The obvious answer is that these decisions have real consequences—something the past year has shown us far too graphically. But if the Supreme Court is no longer functioning as a real 'court,' why are we mostly still treating its output as if it were simply the 'law'? In some sense, the answer is that the Supreme Court's power and prominence is mediated by the journalists that report on the institution, and we as journalists rely on the court for legitimacy and prominence in return. Someone has to translate legalese to the public. But the way journalists report on the institution—mostly by explaining the 'law'—has set incredibly circumscribed boundaries around how the court's political activities are viewed. The Supreme Court press corps has been largely institutionalized to treat anything the court produces as the law, and to push everything else—matters of judicial conduct, how justices are chosen and seated, ethical lapses—off to be handled by the political press. That ephemera is commentary; the cases remain the real story.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>It was, at the time, a stinging rebuke to read Margolick conclude that 'no other reporters are as passive as Supreme Court reporters.' Whether the problem was passivity or just a very narrow definition of the job is one thing. But he was emphatically correct to suggest that the long-standing tradition of covering the cases rather than the justices meant that, with few exceptions, there have not been a lot of folks in the SCOTUS press corps on the Clarence/Ginni Thomas beat; almost nobody on the Dobbs-leak beat; and, aside from routinely reporting the fact of plummeting polling numbers, few court insiders on the 'legitimacy' beat. With the notable exception of Politico's Josh Gerstein, who co-reported the Dobbs leak last year, virtually all the scoops about Clarence Thomas' ethical breaches, Leonard Leo's golden spigot, the 'rich donor to Supreme Court Historical Society' pipeline, Ginni Thomas' election disruption efforts, and the catastrophic leak investigation all came from enterprising investigative reporters, political reporters, and 'outsiders' at Politico, ProPublica, and the New York Times. The court's shadow-docket beat was largely invented by legal academics. It speaks volumes about the way the court has been covered that only in the past year have some legacy news outlets hung out 'Help Wanted' ads seeking reporters to cover the court as though it's an actual branch of government and not the oracle at Delphi.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2023-05-16-economists-hate-rent-control/">Economists Hate Rent Control. Here's Why They're Wrong</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Half of Americans, namely homeowners, already have rent control. It's time to expand it to everyone.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>There's just one problem: This neoliberal conventional wisdom is wrong. As recent empirical work has shown, the neoclassical account's core assumptions—one, that rent control restricts the supply of new housing; and two, that it misallocates existing housing, thereby causing an irrecoverable collective loss—fail to hold when it comes to the real world.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/26/us-free-lighthouses-gps">US to give away free lighthouses as GPS makes them unnecessary</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Program aims to preserve the properties, most of which are more than a century old, to anyone willing to preserve them</em></font>."
<p><a href="https://conspiracychart.com/">The Conspiracy Chart</a> —I had no idea there was a theory that Stevie Wonder is not blind.
<p>A few cool pix of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-65745708">Sun halos, arcs and upside-down rainbows seen across England</a>
<p>The Ike & Tina Turner Revue, "<a href="https://youtu.be/yJRt5bl4Yrw">River Deep Mountain High</a>", 1969
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-72322055930785777582023-05-21T02:02:00.005+01:002023-05-21T18:43:25.842+01:00You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRQpeVxTBD7DcLGwjrqAlWS60Fv2__z2cpZO867QT3DbvLIZrXiik2Eqo4lj4bS4_6KrY_oMPBULxmYLI-uGBHRjYImuNKPe22r9TJT99fZXrmPKEA--U2qgqPLiKKzM-atPeR0qVhowdCfbC5Lqh2GgC-sBZmTBKBGAS-_3uvHjaeCt6S68ryUA/s960/Aurora%20Suomi,%20Finland%20JUUSO%20H%C3%84M%C3%84L%C3%84INEN.jpg" width=384 height=480 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Aurora Suomi, Finland">This photo of the aurora in Suomi, Finland is from <a href="https://www.juusohd.com/about">Juuso Hamalainen</a>. (There are some other pretty auroras and other things in his gallery.)
<p>Just making a note that no one is more responsible for the disaster we have now than these people, none of whom were baby-boomers: Lewis Powell b.1907, Ronald Reagan b.1911, Milton Friedman b.1912, Margaret Thatcher b.1925, Paul Ryan b.1970, and a passel of <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/10/gen-x-politics-explained-republicans.html">Gen Xers</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://jezebel.com/sam-alito-says-criticism-of-supreme-court-is-unfair-pr-1850388904">Sam Alito Says Criticism of Supreme Court Is 'Unfair': 'Practically Nobody Is Defending Us'</a>: <font color=maroon>Justice Samuel Alito would like everyone to know that in the wake of the Supreme Court revoking 50 years of abortion rights and then being plagued by corruption scandal after corruption scandal, our criticism of him and his institution is very much hurting his feelings.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>And as story after story come out about just how corrupt, unethical, and frankly, bought the people are who are deciding things like what we can do with our bodies and who gets voting rights in this country, Alito is complaining that they are the victims in all this, because someone leaked his draft opinion in Dobbs a month early and people protested.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Nevermind that Alito himself was reportedly the one who leaked the Hobby Lobby birth control decision to donors in 2014, before calling the leak a 'grave betrayal' and blaming it on some 'angry left-wing law clerk.' The call, sir, appears to be coming from inside the house. And now, amid all this, Alito and Republicans insist that it's 'the Left' that trying to 'de-legitimize' the Supreme Court</font>" He's not just a whiner, he is like OJ Simpson talking about finding the guy who really did it.
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/chevron-doctrine">US Supreme Court Puts Chevron Doctrine 'Squarely In the Crosshairs'</a>: <font color=maroon><em>One legal expert said that overturning the nearly 40-year precedent 'would lead to far more judicial power grabs.</em> The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a challenge to a nearly 40-year administrative law precedent under which judges defer to federal agencies' interpretation of ambiguous statutes—a case that legal experts warn could result in judicial power grabs and the gutting of environmental and other regulations. The Supreme Court said it will take up Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a case in which fishing companies are seeking to strike down the Chevron doctrine, named after the landmark 1984 Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling that conservatives have long sought to overturn. The case is one of the most cited precedents in administrative law. The Chevron doctrine involves a two-step process in which a court first determines whether Congress expressed its intent in legislation, and if so, whether or not that intent is ambiguous.</font>"
<p>Democrats appear to have been angry that <em>The Lever</em> reported this, so though I was tempted to say, "They're not even hiding it, now," it appears they thought they were hiding it and that no one would catch them. "<a href="https://www.levernews.com/pelosi-gets-hospital-lobbyists-award-after-blocking-reforms/">Pelosi Gets Hospital Lobbyists' Award After Blocking Reforms</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The American Hospital Association feted the former House speaker for 'advancing health care' following her years-long effort to obstruct Medicare for All.
</em> A top lobbying group for hospitals on Monday gave Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) an award for 'her incredible efforts in advancing health care,' after the former House Speaker spent the past four years fulfilling the industry's top legislative priority: blocking consideration of Medicare for All or any other major reforms to the insurance-based health care system.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>While The Lever was blocked from attending AHA's awards ceremony, the conference featured several prominent representatives of corporate media.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/business/2023/04/texas-power-grid-senate-plan-gas-fossil-fuels-renewables.html">Farewell Transmission</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Texas' plan to fix its power grid is a disaster.</em> Ever since brutal winter storms blacked out much of Texas and killed hundreds of residents in February 2021, the state's government has constantly talked a big game about bolstering its grid and shielding Texans from future disasters. There is shockingly little to show for it. On April 6, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced that the Texas Senate, with 'a strong bipartisan majority,' had passed a 'power grid reform package' of bills purportedly intended to 'make sure that Texans have reliable power under any circumstance.' Featuring nine pieces of legislation and a joint resolution, the package appears impressive at a glance; there are new rules governing energy costs, power-transmission incentives, and protection against grid attacks. State senators from both parties are happy to declare that the new laws—now awaiting final amendment and approval in the Texas House of Representatives—will beef up the state's electricity markets and ensure reliability for consumers, a talking point echoed in media coverage. Yet a keener analysis of the Senate bills reveals that they hardly do anything to keep the grid running—and, in their current form, would actually make Texans' power woes even worse. Should they pass, the result wouldn't just be an ill-equipped Texas grid, but an even weaker electrical system than the one that failed two years ago.</font>"
<p>When the union at <em>The New York Times</em> asks for better options, "<a href="https://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/dowds-newsroom-nostalgia-is-management-propaganda/">Dowd's Newsroom Nostalgia Is Management Propaganda</a>: <font color=maroon><em>New York Times</em> columnist Maureen Dowd (4/29/23) has painted a picture of the newsroom that time forgot. Her remembrance of a frenetic, vibrant newsroom where sin united professionals, and the cubs learned from the veterans on the beat, matches the great depictions of newsrooms like <em>The Wire</em>'s <em>Baltimore Sun</em> or the <em>New York Post</em> in Pete Hamill's <em>A Drinking Life.</em></font>" I worked in that <em>Baltimore Sun</em> newsroom, and it's been gone for a long time. It changed a lot when A.S. Bell sold it to Tribune Newspapers, a very different animal from the old newspapers of yore. For that matter, so has commuting, and I don't blame anyone who wants to avoid it. (Not that it was great back in the day when I had to drive an hour to get to work in evening rush hour and then back again at 1:00 in the morning, but today city traffic is a lot worse than it once was.) Rents inside big cities make it hard to imagine cub reporters finding a place to live close to <em>The New York Times</em>.
<p>Back in the first days of May, <em>The American Prospect</em> was saying, "<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-04-x-date-debt-ceiling-janet-yellen/">How to Solve the Debt Ceiling Standoff? Sue Janet Yellen</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A bondholder could simply allege that America failing to pay off its debts is unconstitutional. There's a good argument for that.</em></font>" And lo and behold, "<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/debt-limit-lawsuit-nage_n_645a4cace4b03e16f19ea708">The National Association of Government Employees says the debt limit is unconstitutional and that it would furlough federal workers</a> [...] <font color=maroon>The situation is fundamentally unconstitutional, the lawsuit argues, because it gives the president 'the unchecked discretion to cancel or curtail the operations of government approved by Congress without the approval of Congress.'</font>" But this is all <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-10-twelve-years-most-responsible-guy-debt-ceiling/">Barack Obama's fault</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/heres-the-real-goal-of-supreme-court-corruption/">Here's The Real Goal Of Supreme Court Corruption</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The prospect of luxury gifts and outside cash is designed to halt the historical trend of GOP appointees becoming more liberal.</em> Amid all the revelations of corruption at the Supreme Court, one glib social-media defense of the conservative justices has been about ideology. As the (ridiculous) argument goes, these scandals aren't actually scandals because the gifts and cash that flowed from right-wing billionaires and conservative activist Leonard Leo's dark money network don't actually influence the justices. Why? Because the justices were already conservative and were always going to vote the way they voted on cases of interest to their paymasters. But that analysis misses how corruption works on a systemic level. As the Founders noted, judges are given lifetime appointments for the explicit purpose of preserving an 'independent spirit' that allows them to change their views without fear of consequences. And in fact, data suggests that in the past, many conservative justices have become more liberal as they age. In light of that, the money and gifts flowing to conservative justices can be seen not merely as cheap influence-peddling schemes to secure specific rulings in individual cases. It can also be seen as a grand plan to deter the ideological freedom that lifetime appointments afford.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>From Earl Warren to William Brennan to John Paul Stevens to David Souter, the Republican Supreme Court appointees who ended up becoming liberals haunt the psyche of the right's judicial activists. It is this dynamic that conservative puppet masters most want to prevent, because it has not been an anomaly. In 2015, FiveThirtyEight parsed the data and quantified a big trend in its headline: 'Supreme Court Justices Get More Liberal As They Get Older.'</font>" There's even a <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/roeder-scoutusaging.png?w=1220">handy chart</a>. For that matter, it turns out Clarance Thomas even <a href="https://www.levernews.com/clarence-thomas-reversed-position-after-gifts-and-family-payments/">reversed himself</a> on the <em>Chevron doctrine</em> after his wife got some money from promoters of his new "opinion".
<p>"<a href="https://foreverwars.ghost.io/daniel-penny-good-samaritan/">A Strangler in a Strange Land</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Daniel Penny killed Jordan Neely with his bare hands on video, but every institution in New York seems to be on Penny's side. Why?</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>My unscientific sense, though, is that a worryingly large part of the general population—not even corrupt or prejudiced officials, but civilians who hold no office or public authority—feels emboldened by the way real, credentialed, powerful authority has begun to ostentatiously defer to murderers. Institutions, both the press and the government, are always more plastic than we think they are; they will bend so that they may countenance every kind of evil so long as they can do so in a way that reinforces their positions. Increasingly, these institutions, from the Times to the Journal to New York City's elected officials, have become comfortable holding up callous, public murder—of leftist protesters, of homeless people, of prisoners of war—as excusable, not just on the basis of unfortunate extenuating circumstances, but in the name of a kind of hateful reverse morality. Personally, I find myself too often tempted to meet this kind of crazed violence with equally passionate resistance; to go out looking for the fight that is constantly being threatened. But that's not what I've been told to do by a figure no less central to my religious practice as a Christian than Christ. The job is not to administer the beatings, it's to tend to the beaten.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://johnganz.substack.com/p/with-malice-aforethought">With Malice Aforethought</a> [...] <font color=maroon>But what has been deeply disturbing is the public reaction to Neely's death. What people are essentially saying is 'this man's life was worthless' and, as a result of his criminal record, 'he had it coming.' If this was murder, and I strongly suspect it to be, Neely's past actions and character are immaterial. Penny could not have known of them. Murder is murder. The person does not have to be nice or good or socially useful for it to be murder. The state charges people with murder even when they are not loved, forgotten, dangerous, or hated. The only reason to parade Neely's past in public is justify, excuse, of even celebrate his killing. And plenty of people seem to want to do just that.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.columnblog.com/p/our-media-is-fueling-rising-vigilantism">Our Media Is Fueling Vigilantism Against Homeless People</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Years of dehumanization and associating the unhoused with criminality help create conditions of violence.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>In a society with such stark inequality, and so many scrambling to keep their heads above water, dehumanizing those at the very bottom of our social ladder—who couldn't 'make it'—isn't just inevitable, it's necessary. The specter of homelessness and destitution is how the bottom rung of wage labor is disciplined and kept in line. A moral ecosystem emerges to support this necessity, one based on the manifestly goofy idea that we currently live in a plentiful welfare state and everyone who is currently unhoused is so because of a moral failing, or a lack of sufficient arresting and caging, rather than a deficit of social welfare and care. Obviously, they must all want to be poor, or are not well enough to get better and are better left dying on the streets, or being thrown into a cage and given up on. Cruelty is baked into our puritan culture, reinforced daily by our media's love of everything from Perseverance Porn to the aforementioned Welfare Queen tropes. This all creates a media environment where people increasingly see unhoused people having a mental health episode as deserving of a summary death sentence.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-immunity-supreme-court.html?unlocked_article_code=Ne-IiqSW5HdRPygRTXP-e6jn_G4axrJNQR_6XKBb1Z6jpZiAMc4b2DMRWTcqZPtVssuIul_vgSWyELcFSlETM1PNixuahXQB3TpBbCu3qtGjOKOsJJ5z5V7L2oNaL4Zxph2ry17bH-3EpcBnCZxjD23NkQFZgWWXCcGvUzwTNmAg1igUu1u85xD8e4Um5SgY4TGtJ5deRgfvRrEL7uQA9OHqluraGvZE4ZVPP8qBrN9lFiMmlLqMiwonMmv2eiS1aHu4KeAk5U8eST5wKn00gaNbh01IDiPIbH7q2n_EgjEunfOG4uppnkGoDBW9ZzkXUmpxRdmdzCMQpna_ZBXWBdOG1T1vhl0uODSutnth&smid=url-share&fbclid=IwAR1Jl30JiDvcuhYL39nz8aXqmtvTTVFoT4FuBXLxIQ4rJiQ2cEkHZHYAm20">16 Crucial Words That Went Missing From a Landmark Civil Rights Law</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The phrase, seemingly deleted in error, undermines the basis for qualified immunity, the legal shield that protects police officers from suits for misconduct.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The original version of the law, the one that was enacted in 1871, said state officials who subject 'any person within the jurisdiction of the United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall, <em>any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage of the state to the contrary notwithstanding</em>, be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.' The words in italics, for reasons lost to history, were omitted from the first compilation of federal laws in 1874, which was prepared by a government official called 'the reviser of the federal statutes.'</font>" The law review article this is based on is "<a href="https://www.californialawreview.org/print/qualified-immunitys-flawed-foundation/">Qualified Immunity's Flawed Foundation</a>."
<p>"<a href="https://presswatchers.org/2023/05/washington-post-is-furtively-sitting-on-a-secret-trove-of-discord-leaks/">Washington Post is furtively sitting on a secret trove of Discord leaks</a> [...] <font color=maroon>News organizations who find themselves in legal possession of top secrets, as the Post currently has, have the right and the obligation to publish news that has been hidden from the public but is in the public interest, especially when it exposes government misconduct. But when a news organization has exclusive access to secrets that are effectively still secret, they also have an obligation to publish them judiciously and maintain the secrecy of those that deserve it. Several recent articles in the Post have arguably been published simply because they could, rather than out of the public interest, raising journalistic concerns. And some intelligence officials are growing increasingly queasy about the Post's apparent indifference to releasing information that has never been seen in the wild and could very well impact intelligence collection going forward.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/15/court-suppresses-breathalyzer-results-in-27000-dui-cases-after-years-of-being-jerked-around-by-the-state-crime-lab/">Court Suppresses Breathalyzer Results In 27,000 DUI Cases After Years Of Being Jerked Around By The State Crime Lab</a>: <font color=maroon>For more than a decade, the Massachusetts State Police crime lab hid information from judges, prosecutors, and criminal defendants. This is nothing unusual for this state and its crime labs. The words 'Massachusetts,' 'crime lab,' and 'scandal' have gone hand-in-hand for years. [Heads up, I will be using 'state' to refer to the Massachusetts government in this post. I'm fully aware it refers to itself as a 'commonwealth,' but come on: the state's name is already too much typing.] Drug labs staffed by technicians willing to either falsify results (rather than actually perform tests) or turn seized drugs into their own personal use stash have resulted in courts tossing nearly 30,000 drug convictions. Losing this many (unearned) wins must have hurt, but apparently state law enforcement has a taste for pain.</font>"
<p><em>The Onion</em> is absolutely <em>arch</em>: "<a href="https://www.theonion.com/democrats-demand-recount-after-insisting-they-lost-race-1850450621">Democrats Demand Recount After Insisting They Lost Race For Mayor Of Jacksonville</a>"
<p>This might be too hard to read. "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/florida-abortion-law-deborah-dorbert/">The short life of Baby Milo</a>: <font color=maroon>Nobody expected Baby Milo to live for long. He arrived in the world with no kidneys, underdeveloped lungs and a life expectancy of between 20 minutes and a couple of hours. He lived for 99 minutes.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.avclub.com/r-i-p-gordon-lightfoot-folk-music-legend-1850393856"><b>Gordon Lightfoot</b>, folk music legend</a>," at 84. "<font color=maroon>Often considered one of the greatest Canadian songwriters of all time, Lightfoot's contribution to the folk music revolution of the 1960s is reflected by the artists that recorded his songs. Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and The Replacements have all recorded covers of his music. Best known for the hits 'Carefree Highway,' 'If You Could Read My Mind,' and the no. 1 hit 'Sundown,' Lightfoot continued touring and releasing albums for the next 60 years.</font>" None of those are the songs I first learned, but we all had "<a href="https://youtu.be/WRdo5XjEj0w">For Lovin' Me</a>" and a few others in our repertoires. Everybody knew Lightfoot and everybody played Lightfoot. You still hear people doing "<a href="https://youtu.be/9vST6hVRj2A">The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald</a>", but I never played that one.
<p>A must-read that covers a lot of ground succinctly, Cory Doctorow being absolutely clear about how when they stopped doing it our way and started doing it their way, <a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/" title="Rent control works">they screwed everything up</a>: "<font color=maroon>David Roth memorably described the job of neoliberal economists as finding "new ways to say 'actually, your boss is right.'" Not just your boss: for decades, economists have formed a bulwark against seemingly obvious responses to the most painful parts of our daily lives, from wages to education to health to shelter</font> [...] <font color=maroon>These answers make sense to everyone except neoliberal economists and people in their thrall. Rather than doing the thing we want, neoliberal economists insist we must unleash "markets" to solve the problems, by "creating incentives." That may sound like a recipe for a small state, but in practice, "creating incentives" often involves building huge bureaucracies to "keep the incentives aligned" (that is, to prevent private firms from ripping off public agencies).</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/04/tucker-carlson-imperialist-china-hawk">Tucker Carlson Isn't an Anti-Imperialist — He's a Rabid China Hawk</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Tucker Carlson can't be credited for dissenting against US war fever when he spent years on his Fox News show stoking major tensions with China.</em></font>"
<p><em>Teen Vogue</em> is much more reliable on "criminal justice" than <em>The New York Times</em>. For example, instead of interviewing cops and prosecutors, they interviewed Alex Karakatsanis on <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/alec-karakatsanis-copaganda-policing">Copaganda, Punishment, and Policing in the United States</a>: "<font color=maroon>This is one thing [authorities do very well. They're really only talking about certain violations of the law that are committed by poor people. What they're not talking about are the many other crimes that are committed every single day, whether it's polluting water, whether it's air pollution, which kills [more than] 100,000 people in the US every single year… When they talk about property crime, they're not talking about wage theft, which costs $50 billion a year. When companies steal money from their workers it's not even dealt with in the criminal system. It's not talked about as a crime, for the most part. They're not talking about tax evasion, which costs [the US] about a trillion dollars a year. These are the crimes that are committed by wealthy people, people with power… And then I think there's an even more basic point, which is that people who have power and influence in our society get to define what a crime is… You can make it a crime to have an abortion. You can make it a crime to have an abortion pill sent to you in the mail… The idea of violent crime is very different from the idea of harm. So, those other types of harm in our society, whether it's sexual harassment at work or racial discrimination in home lending, [are often not actually] criminalized by the law.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/health/government-provided-child-care-world-war-2-we-need-it-again/">The Government Provided Child Care in World War II. We Need It Again.</a> <font color=maroon><em>Women worked then, women work now. It's time for national child care—permanently.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Enter one of my heroes: Congresswoman Mary T. Norton of New Jersey, known as 'Battling Mary.' Battling Mary was a trailblazer, a woman of many firsts, who led the way on child care during the war. She was the first woman elected as a Democrat to serve in the House of Representatives. She became the first Democratic woman to chair a House legislative committee when she was elected chairperson of the Committee on the District of Columbia, serving as the city's de facto mayor. By the end of her career, she had chaired four House committees. Norton spent her career fighting on behalf of working families and succeeded in getting major New Deal labor legislation passed. Her efforts as Labor Committee chair helped ensure the passage of 1938's Fair Labor Standards Act, which created the federal minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek, and strict standards for child labor. And during the war, Norton created a national child care system that transformed women's participation in the workplace.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/vivek-ramaswarmy-wants-to-take-away-the-vote-from-americans-under-25-but-he-d-still-let-women-vote">Vivek Ramaswarmy Wants To Take Away The Vote From Americans Under 25… But He'd Still Let Women Vote</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Ramaswampy Is Running For Vice President.</em></font>"
<p>Right-wingers assure me that Portland burned down to the ground in riots and is nothing but a hollowed-out shell full of violence. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/54533712">People who live there say otherwise</a>.
<p>I think I may have posted "<a href="https://youtu.be/uYNzqgU7na4">Why are British place names so hard to pronounce?</a>" before, but just in case, I'm posting it anyway.
<p>RJ Eskow has been ill, so he learned to make a video in bed. And I love it! "<a href="https://eskow.substack.com/p/downtown-boys-i-recorded-this-song">Downtown Boys: I recorded this song in 1977</a>."
<p>Gordon Lightfoot, "<a href="https://youtu.be/B34qwRrkSvQ">The Early Morning Rain</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-49118792470174922332023-04-26T05:09:00.005+01:002023-04-27T06:44:09.062+01:00Did you have to traumatize my kids?<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVKj9niQmL_tFjNfaMBNSlikwbc3ErPEX-7YyvrDuYd7jlKVQ9yyIzE-DT-TxKtW2MjyvKlI36Ivmvhn9BNGY_xe4Bj40lm3I-yKf6c59o-ye-1mOdDKGGzcAdpTM8CcXlydMCL0E25Jhp3t2bX7B7yX7Q_lkwNrnHAUEXu0e0rGQmRLYMT4LYsw/s320/SPRING%20WATERFALL%20ON%20THE%20RIVER%20KASPA%20%282018%29.jpg" width=253 height=425 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Spring Waterfall On The River Kaspa (2018)"><a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/nina-belanova/en/artworks/8772337/spring-waterfall-on-the-river-kaspa">Spring Waterfall On The River Kaspa</a> is an oil painting by <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/nina-belanova/en?view=grid">Nina Belanova</a>.
<p>The <a href="https://prospect.org/topics/apr-2023-issue/">April issue of <em>The American Prospect</em></a> is about "<a href="https://prospect.org/models">How economic policy models dominate D.C.—and put invisible shackles on what ideas lawmakers offer to govern our lives—despite often being biased, incomplete, and inaccurate</a>." Rakeen Mabud and David Dayen introduce with "<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-03-hidden-in-plain-sight/">Hidden in Plain Sight</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The distorting power of macroeconomic policy models</em></font>." That's followed up by Joseph Stiglitz with "<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-04-03-how-models-get-economy-wrong/">How Models Get the Economy Wrong</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Seemingly complex and sophisticated econometric modeling often fails to take into account common sense and observable reality.</em></font>" And I'm looking forward to reading "<a href="https://twitter.com/VirginRadioUK/status/1646780326545350656?s=20">The Beltway's Favorite Bogus Budget Model</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Penn Wharton Budget Model, bankrolled by finance moguls, is out to grow its power in Washington.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>In other words, Penn Wharton consciously and deliberately attempts to set the terms of debate, mainly through heightening fears about deficits, so that any public spending is viewed unfavorably. This helps push policy in a particular direction, one that aligns with the political and financial elites who support and fund the project.</font>"
<p>Also at TAP, Harold Meyerson on Newsom doing something good that they all should do: "<a href="https://prospect.org/health/2023-03-27-california-drugmaking-insulin/">California Goes In for Drugmaking</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The state will make and distribute insulin at cost. That should be a model for every other state.</em></font>" But <em>The Lever</em> is looking at Newsom from another angle, "<a href="https://www.levernews.com/californias-crypto-champion/">California's Crypto Champion</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed crypto regulations and spearheaded industry spin pieces for the benefit of his friends and donors in Big Tech.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/21/abortion-pill-ruling-latest-news-supreme-court-decision">US supreme court blocks ruling limiting access to abortion pill</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Federal judge in Texas ruled in early April to suspend FDA-approved mifepristone used in more than half of abortions in US</em>. The supreme court decided on Friday to block a lower court ruling placing significant restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone. The decision came in the most pivotal abortion rights case to make its way through the courts since Roe v Wade was overturned last year. More than half of abortions in the US are completed using pills. The case was brought by a conservative Christian legal group arguing the Federal Drug Administration improperly approved mifepristone more than 23 years ago. The Biden administration vigorously defended the FDA against the charge, emphasizing its rigorous safety reviews of the drug and the potential for regulatory chaos if plaintiffs and judges not versed in scientific and medical arguments begin to undermine the agency's decision-making.</font>" Alito and Thomas dissenting.
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/04/11/mifepristone-abortion-fda-matthew-kacsmaryk/">Texas Judge Cosplaying As Medical Expert Has Consequences Beyond The Abortion Pill</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The FDA has the power to ignore the mifepristone ruling, legal experts say. But only the courts can cure its dangerous implications.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>In fact, Kacsmaryk's ruling in the mifepristone case, known as Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has a lot in common with the Dobbs opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito: It ignores science, wholly reimagines facts, and cites less-than-credible sources to arrive at a preordained destination.</font>"
<p>The latest leaker wasn't intending to be a whistleblower, he was just showing off. But <a href="https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/on-the-take-or-asleep-at-the-switch#details">the story should still be in what he leaked</a>: <font color=maroon>The intelligence agencies responsible for crafting public lies have been shamed and embarrassed by the exposure of their duplicity in any number of arenas. But the damage to their reputations in no way undermines the national security of We the People of the United States. In fact, it advances the incomparable value of 'an alert and knowledgeable citizenry,' which President Eisenhower described as critical to 'compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>While the teen who came to know Texeira distinguishes him from whistleblowers like Snowden & Ellsberg based on their respective motivations, the constitutional functions they have each played (informing the public despite the machinations of bureaucrats) is remarkably similar. In any case, focusing on the leaker—rather than what he revealed—is a classic tactic of intelligence agencies responding to embarrassing leaks.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://fair.org/home/trumps-idling-plane-got-more-tv-coverage-than-biden-cutting-healthcare-for-15-million/">Trump's Idling Plane Got More TV Coverage Than Biden Cutting Healthcare for 15 Million</a>: <font color=maroon>Last spring, the Biden administration and a Democratic House approved a policy that would kick 15 million people off of Medicaid. States are now set to begin dropping people from the rolls, reversing the record-low uninsured rate reached early last year. But if you were watching TV news, you might have missed it.</font>"
<p>Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, "<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/clarence-thomas-broke-the-law-harlan-crow.html">Clarence Thomas Broke the Law and It Isn't Even Close</a>: <font color=maroon><em>It probably won't matter. But it should.</em> ProPublica's scrupulously reported new piece on Justice Clarence Thomas' decadeslong luxury travel on the dime of a single GOP megadonor will probably not shock you at all. Sure, the dollar amounts spent are astronomical, and of course the justice failed to report any of it, and of course the megadonor insists that he and Thomas are dear old friends, so of course the superyacht and the flights on the Bombardier Global 5000 jet and the resorts are all perfectly benign. So while the details are shocking, the pattern here is hardly a new one. This is a longstanding ethics loophole that has been exploited by parties with political interests in cases before the court to curry favor in exchange for astonishing junkets and perks. It is allowed to happen.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Before the outrage dries up, however, it is worth zeroing in on two aspects of the ProPublica report that do have lasting legal implications. First, the same people who benefited from the lax status quo continue to fight against any meaningful reforms that might curb the justices' gravy train. Second, the rules governing Thomas' conduct over these years, while terribly insufficient, actually did require him to disclose at least some of these extravagant gifts. The fact that he ignored the rules anyway illustrates just how difficult it will be to force the justices to obey the law: Without the strong threat of enforcement, a putative public servant like Thomas will thumb his nose at the law.</font>" And it sure looks like Crow has been bribing public officials.
<p>Within hours of Pro Publica releasing their report, a whole lot of right-wing weirdos rose up to defend the lovely Mr. Crow. This in itself should have raised concerns, and <em>The Lever</em> was on the case. "<a href="https://www.levernews.com/the-paid-pundits-defending-clarence-thomas-and-his-billionaire-benefactor/">The Paid Pundits Defending Clarence Thomas And His Billionaire Benefactor</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Right-wing pundits rushed to defend Harlan Crow's gifts to Clarence Thomas and his Nazi memorabilia collection — without disclosing their ties to the mega-donor.</em></font>"
<p>Andrew Cockburn in <em>Harper's</em>, "<a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/alternative-facts-how-the-media-failed-julian-assange/">Alternative Facts: How the media failed Julian Assange</a> [...] <font color=maroon>That Assange's former collaborators have rallied to his defense and, by extension, their own, is an entirely welcome development, spurred in large part by advocacy from James Goodale, the former chief counsel of the New York Times who, half a century ago, masterminded the paper's legal victory in the Pentagon Papers case—establishing the right of the press to publish classified information, a right now threatened by Assange's prosecution. (Goodale also wrote about Assange for this magazine before his arrest.) But Assange has been the object of vindictive government attention for many years, even before being threatened with lifetime incarceration in a U.S. supermax dungeon. Why has it taken so long for the mainstream media to take a stand?</font>" (Cockburn is a little sloppy in this one and does not make clear that no woman ever accused Assange of sexual assault.)
<p>"<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims?ref=am-quickie.ghost.io">How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Internal documents and former company executives reveal how Cigna doctors reject patients' claims without opening their files. 'We literally click and submit,' one former company doctor said.</em></font>"
<p><a href="https://mailchi.mp/freedom.press/unconstitutional-restrict-act-censors-far-more-than-tiktok?">Freedom of the Press Foundation's newsletter</a> points to some interesting stories, including the insane attempts to censor TikTock, the irony of having the US complain of persecuting a journalist in Russia while the US continues its persecution of Assange, and "the growing conservative backlash against the Florida bill, favored by Governor Ron DeSantis, to help the rich and powerful bankrupt their critics with litigation." And other things.
<p>"<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/two-thirds-american-voters-support-decriminalizing-all-drugs-poll-1599645">Two-Thirds of American Voters Support Decriminalizing All Drugs: Poll</a>: <font color=maroon>Two-thirds of American voters now support decriminalizing all drugs, while 83 percent believe that the "war on drugs" has failed, according to a new poll. A 66 percent majority were in favor of "eliminating criminal penalties for drug possession and reinvesting drug enforcement resources into treatment and addiction services," according to the poll released Wednesday by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Support for decriminalization differed depending on political affiliation. While 85 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Independents favored decriminalization, only 40 percent of Republicans agreed. Politics appeared to make little difference when respondents were asked whether they believed the war on drugs was a failure, with 83 percent of Democrats, 85 percent of Independents and 82 percent of Republicans saying it had failed. Only 12 percent of all respondents believed that it had been a success. Majorities of each group were in favor of ending the so-called war, including 77 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of Independents and 51 percent of Republicans.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jezebel.com/montana-republicans-vote-to-stop-their-first-trans-coll-1850363427">Montana Republicans Vote to Stop Their First Trans Colleague from Speaking, Ever</a>: <font color=maroon>Montana's Republican-controlled legislature is punishing the state's first trans representative for speaking out about proposed anti-trans legislation by refusing to recognize her to speak on any bills moving forward. On Thursday, State Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D) pointed out she wasn't being called on at all during a debate about defining sex in state law as not including trans people.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://gothamist.com/news/researchers-say-supporting-a-few-thousand-repeat-offenders-could-be-the-key-to-reducing-crime-in-nyc">Researchers say supporting a few thousand repeat offenders could be the key to reducing crime in NYC</a>: <font color=maroon>Criminal justice officials and researchers analyzing arrest data have identified a small group of repeat criminal defendants who, if properly monitored and supported with social services, may present an opportunity to reduce street crime in New York City.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/minnesota-keith-ellison-juvenile-murder/">Behind Keith Ellison's Tough-On-Crime Turn</a>: <font color=maroon>The Minnesota attorney general took over a murder case from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a fellow reformer. She accused him of playing politics.<em>The Minnesota attorney general took over a murder case from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a fellow reformer. She accused him of playing politics.</em> PROGRESSIVES REJOICED LAST year when Democrat Keith Ellison won a tight reelection race for Minnesota attorney general against a police-backed opponent who attacked him as being 'soft on crime.' In the same election cycle, Ellison's ally Mary Moriarty won election as Hennepin County attorney, installing a reform-minded prosecutor in Minneapolis about three years after the city's police murdered George Floyd. Moriarty, previously the chief public defender for Hennepin County, took office in January and implemented reforms with a focus on correcting failures in the juvenile justice system. Now, three months into their terms, Ellison and Moriarty are no longer on the same side of the reform platform they once shared.</font>"
<p>This is stupid, "kink" is a word that has meanings that aren't even remotely "sensitive". "<a href="https://slate.com/technology/2023/03/kinks-twitter-dave-davies-interview-content-moderation-censorship.html">The Kinks' Dave Davies says Twitter is suppressing his band's content—and he knows why.</a>" And if you could say it on the radio in the '60s, you should be able to type it on Twitter now.
<p>You can read Jeff Gerth's "<a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php">The press versus the president</a>" in CJR and you can read the <em>Vox</em> rebuttal <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/15/23588121/trump-russia-cjr-jeff-gerth-russiagate">here</a>. I haven't finished reading them but so far (and somewhat to my surprise, given his track record), Gerth's account seems to track pretty closely with what I remember, and I'm not sure Prokop's defense does the same. But both admit the Russiagate story went off the rails in a lot of the reporting.
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/04/20/richard-glossip-oklahoma-court-execution/">Oklahoma Court: We Want Richard Glossip Dead And Evidence Be Damned</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In a stunning rebuke to the state's attorney general, the appeals court refused to vacate Glossip's conviction, clearing the way for his execution.</em> TWO WEEKS AFTER Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate Richard Glossip's conviction, the court rejected Drummond's request, clearing the way for Glossip's execution on May 18. 'This court has thoroughly examined Glossip's case from the initial direct appeal to this date,' the court's five justices wrote. 'Glossip has exhausted every avenue and we have found no legal or factual ground which would require relief in this case.' The court's move is a rebuke not only to the attorney general, who ordered a review of Glossip's case earlier this year, but also to dozens of conservative Oklahoma legislators who have been fighting to stop Glossip's execution over fears the state would kill an innocent man. The independent counsel who reviewed the case concluded that Glossip should receive a new trial — and that pushing for his execution did not 'serve the interests of justice.' Glossip was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Barry Van Treese inside a seedy Best Budget Inn that Van Treese owned on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. No physical evidence linked Glossip, the motel's live-in manager, to the crime. Instead, the case against him was built almost exclusively on the testimony of a 19-year-old maintenance man named Justin Sneed, who admitted to bludgeoning Van Treese to death but said it was all Glossip's idea. In exchange for testifying against Glossip, Sneed avoided the death penalty and was sentenced to life without parole. Glossip has always insisted on his innocence, and, over the last decade, evidence that he was wrongly convicted has steadily mounted.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/radical-films-pulled-tolpuddle-martyrs">Radical films pulled from Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival</a>: <font color=maroon>A PROGRAMME of radical films planned for the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival in July has been cancelled because festival organisers would not allow the showing of a film about the persecution of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. The film, Oh Jeremy Corbyn — The Big Lie, has been shown at more than 100 cinemas and other venues in Britain. It was one of a programme of radical films due to be shown at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival on the weekend of July 14, 15 and 16. The film's producer, Norman Thomas, said South West region TUC, which organises the festival, claimed to have received threats of 'severe disruption' if the film is screened and has decided it should not be shown. As a result of the decision, organisers of the film screenings have called off the whole programme on principle. Mr Thomas dismissed the threat of disruption as 'utter nonsense' and said it was 'just an excuse for blatant censorship' by South West TUC. He said: 'The film simply provides a view of the Labour Party that the festival organisers don't want shown.</font>"
<p><a href="https://ballot-access.org/">Ballot Access</a> is a handy site for news about voting rights and laws. It's important to know what little tricks your state is trying to play on you, as well as any progress voting rights advocates have managed to move.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.cbr.com/rachel-pollack-doom-patrol-obituary/"><b>Rachel Pollack</b>, Trailblazing Doom Patrol Writer, Dies at 77</a>. Michael Swanwick calls her "<a href="https://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-woman-who-proved-ursula-k-le-guin.html">The Woman Who Proved Ursula K. Le Guin Wrong</a>." David Barnett quotes Roz and Neil for his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/08/rachel-pollack-trans-activist-and-comic-book-writer-dies-aged-77">obit in the <em>Guardian</em></a>. And <a href="https://susiebright.substack.com/p/rachel-pollack-rest-in-power">Susie Bright remembers</a>. So do I, though I didn't know her quite so well. But she spoke to me like we were old friends, at conventions, even when I first met her, and made me feel a part of her world, so though I didn't see her often, I felt that. I enjoyed her work, too. I even had the refrigerator magnet for <em>Unquenchable Fire</em> in my kitchen the moment I got it home.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/apr/13/fashion-designer-dame-mary-quant-dies">Fashion designer Dame <b>Mary Quant</b> dies aged 93</a>." Nothing to say here, but once upon a time I wore some scandalously short dresses, and I guess she's why.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65328507"><b>Barry Humphries</b>: Dame Edna Everage comedian dies at 89</a>." He could be pretty sharp. And he was a perfect sin in the original <em>Bedazzled</em>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/25/harry-belafonte-singer-dies-actor-singer-activist"><b>Harry Belafonte</b>, singer, actor and tireless activist, dies aged 96</a>," of congestive heart failure. "<font color=maroon>Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor and civil rights activist who broke down racial barriers, has died aged 96. As well as performing global hits such as Day-O (The Banana Boat Song), winning a Tony award for acting and appearing in numerous feature films, Belafonte spent his life fighting for a variety of causes. He bankrolled numerous 1960s initiatives to bring civil rights to Black Americans; campaigned against poverty, apartheid and Aids in Africa; and supported leftwing political figures such as Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.</font>"
<p>RIP: I can't believe I missed it last December, but <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-rascals-drummer-dino-danelli-has-died-aged-78-3368871"><b>Dino Dinelli</b> of the (Young) Rascals died at 78</a>. He was a great drummer in a great band, and this is my excuse to post video of them again. <a href="https://youtu.be/80kGv-rZbRE">This tribute video</a> has some nice surprises on it, but I've always got time to listen to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me3Fkc_QxuA&list=PLdl7lj9IwWtEgK_EcTCvAnKF2XUeLNNLs">those tracks I've always loved</a>.
<p>I highly recommend More Perfect Union's excellent little (ten-minute) video history of one of the most evil men of 20th century America, <a href="https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1646917480785354752?s=20">Jack Welch</a>.
<p>Republicans claim voter fraud is a big issue, so why are they pulling out of ERIC, a program that helps clean voter rolls and detect double-voting? "<a href="https://www.votebeat.org/2023/4/11/23679463/eric-electronic-registration-information-center-gateway-pundit-voter-fraud">These state officials praised ERIC for years before suddenly pulling out of the program</a>: <font color=maroon><em>How politics and misinformation overshadow their stated reasons for leaving the voter roll coalition that helps prevent voter fraud.</em></font>" Some legislators say they "have concerns", but often don't even say what they are. But a closer reading of the history suggests that what may be bothering some of them is that ERIC finds eligible voters and gets them registered.
<p>"<a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/04/progressives-arent-hurting-the-democratic-party-in-fact-theyre-the-only-thing-saving-it">Progressives Aren't Hurting the Democratic Party—In Fact, They're The Only Thing Saving It</a>: <font color=maroon><em>New York is not just a case study in the winnability of leftist ideas. It is also ground zero for the left to try to leverage its power to extract concessions before supporting moderate Democrats.</em> At 11:30 p.m. on the night of November 8, 2022, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul took the stage at her packed election-night watch party to declare victory. The excited crowd chanted her name. Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' blared over the PA system. Confetti spewed on stage. The word 'WINNER' appeared in giant bold letters behind her. All seemed well. And, truth be told, the moment was briefly relieving: Lee Zeldin, a hardline MAGA Republican, posed an astonishingly credible threat to Democrats' control of Albany, with Kathy Hochul's double-digit lead having collapsed in the months prior to the general election. One poll even showed Zeldin with a one-point lead over Hochul.</font>" Lucky for her, the left rode in to her rescue. But in other parts of the state, nothing could save "centrists" from their own arrogance, and that helped cost the Democrats the US House of Representatives.
<p>"<a href="https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/extreme-wealth-accumulation-is-a-serious-problem-and-should-be-dealt-with-in-a-serious-manner">Extreme Wealth Accumulation Is A Serious Problem And Should Be Dealt With In A Serious Manner</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Government subsidies and policies are in great part responsible for these vast fortunes. Even today, modern day robber baron Elon Musk has collected close to $5 billion in subsidies and tax breaks from the U.S. government— over $2 billion for Tesla and closer to $3 billion for SpaceX.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/04/20/the-high-cost-of-being-poor-matthew-desmond/">The High Cost of Being Poor</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The American government gives the most help to those who need it least. This is the true nature of our welfare state.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The irony is that while politicians and pundits fume about long-term welfare addiction among the poor, members of the protected classes have grown increasingly dependent on their welfare programs. If you count all benefits offered, America's welfare state (as a share of its gross domestic product) is the second biggest in the world, after France's. But that's true only if you include things like government-subsidized retirement benefits provided by employers, student loans and 529 college savings plans, child tax credits, and homeowner subsidies: benefits disproportionately flowing to Americans well above the poverty line. If you put aside these tax breaks and judge the United States solely by the share of its GDP allocated to programs directed at low-income citizens, then our investment in poverty reduction is much smaller than that of other rich nations. The American welfare state is lopsided.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/04/trickle-down-economics-arthur-laffer-wealth-inequality-ronald-reagan-margaret-thatcher">Trickle-Down Economics Has Always Been a Scam</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Despite being proven wrong time and again, trickle-down economics keeps limping forward, resurrected by governments to justify tax cuts for the rich with false promises of prosperity for all.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>At a cursory glance, it appeared Laffer had been right: cutting taxes coincided with an increase in federal receipts from $599 billion to $991 billion between 1981 and 1989. But the tax cuts had also been accompanied by a huge increase in government spending. By 1990 the budget deficit had nearly tripled, and government debt as a proportion of GDP increased from 31 percent to 50 percent by the time Reagan left office. During the same period, median real wages dropped by 0.6 percent and income inequality in the United States, measured by the Gini coefficient (where is 0 is complete equality and 1 complete inequality), increased from 0.37 to 0.43 — a trend that has continued ever since.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>2020 paper published by researchers at the London School of Economics entitled 'The Economic Consequences of Major Tax Cuts for the Rich' looked at UK and US data from the 1980s and found that tax cuts for the rich had no statistical effect on economic growth. Another report, from the IMF of all places, found that 'a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth,' and that a more effective strategy was to increase the income share of the bottom 20 percent (a 'trickle-up' approach). The impact of tax cuts for the rich is clear.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/dark-parties-unveiling-nonparty-communities-in-american-political-campaigns/9576CD955EE490DD6555439FC1E34E71#article">Dark Parties: Unveiling Nonparty Communities in American Political Campaigns</a>: <font color=maroon>Abstract: Since 2010, independent expenditures have grown as a source of spending in American elections. A large and growing portion comes from 'dark money' groups—political nonprofits whose terms of incorporation allow them to partially obscure their sources of income. I develop a new dataset of about 2,350,000 tax documents released by the IRS and use it to test a new theory of political spending. I posit that pathways for anonymous giving allowed interest groups to form new networks and create new pathways for money into candidate races apart from established political parties. Akin to networked party organizations discovered by other scholars, these dark money networks channel money from central hubs to peripheral electioneering groups. I further show that accounting for these dark money networks makes previously peripheral nodes more important to the larger network and diminishes the primacy of party affiliated organizations in funneling money into candidate races.</font>"
<p>Tom Sullivan says, "<a href="https://digbysblog.net/2015/02/07/theyre-comin-ta-git-ya-by-bloggersrus/">They're comin' ta git ya</a>" — that is, the "Small Government" villains who want to take power away from the people, and therefore from "the left".
<p>Cory Doctorow, "<a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men">Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in wage-stealing Skinner boxes</a>: <font color=maroon>Enshittification is the process by which digital platforms devour themselves: first they dangle goodies in front of end users. Once users are locked in, the goodies are taken away and dangled before business customers who supply goods to the users. Once those business customers are stuck on the platform, the goodies are clawed away and showered on the platform's shareholders.</font>"
<p>It's so annoying when someone like Bill Maher, or someone who isn't even like Bill Maher, asks why black people never talk about doing something about "black on black crime". It's annoying because <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1650535025866158081.html">they're talking about it all the time</a>, but the media isn't listening.
<p>"<a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/12/east-london-for-the-people">East London for the People</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The divide between rich and poor in the London borough of Newham illustrates the grotesque inequalities of the city – but long-neglected residents are organising against corporate takeover.</em></font>"
<p>The FBI had successfully interrogated Abu Zubeydah by using traditional trust-building techniques. But then the crazies stepped in. Katherine Eban wrote about that in 2007, "<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/07/torture200707">Rorschach and Awe</a>: <font color=maroon><em>America's coercive interrogation methods were reverse-engineered by two C.I.A. psychologists who had spent their careers training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques. The spread of these tactics was fueled by a myth about a critical 'black site' operation.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>It was an extraordinary success story. But it was one that would evaporate with the arrival of the C.I.A's interrogation team. At the direction of an accompanying psychologist, the team planned to conduct a psychic demolition in which they'd get Zubaydah to reveal everything by severing his sense of personality and scaring him almost to death.</font>"
<p>Saving this link for myself, a clip I keep coming back to, from <em>Roseanne</em>, "<a href="https://youtu.be/Y7fKPjCHzQs">Doesn't Matter</a>."
<p>Reginald Pikedevant, "<a href="https://youtu.be/TFCuE5rHbPA">Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)</a>"
<p>All-female tribute band Zepparella doing a pretty close cover of "<a href="https://youtu.be/xH-_9cwdLug">When The Levee Breaks</a>"
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/23/ohio-police-sue-rapper-afroman">The cops sued Afroman</a> when he turned a police break-and-enter into a music video: "<a href="https://youtu.be/oponIfu5L3Y">Afroman - Will You Help Me Repair My Door (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)</a>".
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-79535680063504366912023-04-02T23:25:00.004+01:002023-04-02T23:32:04.232+01:00And in your death's mask face there are no signs which can be seen<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcXmXwEmjjiTALm07Ht8QGnAvYq9Aj0AMv6lpr5z5xLBTXbJud5mXlu5kwr-mMTqh7Ur-mEoYNC8eVGCVFKc_OjqNzHoi_c-r2Lw-CmSeGVge8tPPyIDY5ssqy5HLAjeAfZVXuuIYk8IYy7X6J6zl__6ZznS_04Aj1jzRMuqKidtkSu0H8YDv2A/s320/CherryBlossomsDC.jpg" width=320 height=212 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Cherry Blossoms in DC">
<p>Senator Elizabeth Warren rakes Fed Chair Jerome Powell over the coals <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2023.03.15%20Letter%20to%20Powell%20re%20SVB%20Failures.pdf">for ten pages</a>: "<font color=maroon>The banks' executives – who took too many risks, and failed to protect their customers – are the primary agents responsible for their failure. But the greed and incompetence of these officials was allowed to happen under your watch. It was allowed to happen because of Congress and President Trump's weakening of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act ('Dodd-Frank Act') that you supported.2 It was allowed to happen because of regulatory rollbacks that you initiated.3 And it was allowed to happen because of supervisory failures by officials that worked for you.4 This is an astonishing list of failures and you owe the public an explanation for your actions.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-03-22-nih-drug-prices-xtandi/">A Big Miss on Drug Prices</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Today on Tap: President Biden's NIH rejects a petition to seize the patent of an unaffordable prescription drug.</em></font>" The saving grace of the Bayh-Dole act — in theory — was supposed to be that if the drug companies failed to make drugs that had been developed with federal funding reasonably accessible to the public, the government could take back the patents so that they could be <em>made</em> accessible. But that clause has never been used, and apparently the administration doesn't think a price tag of $188,900 for a drug to treat a cancer that most men will get if they live long enough is out of their reach.
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1642568911177523203">Is Joe Biden going to appoint a corrupt judge</a>? "<font color=maroon>A few years ago, we uncovered that Landrum was running a modern day debtors' prison when she was a local judge. She was separating families from their children and parents, and jailing people in brutal conditions as a way of extorting cash payments. Landrum and other judges were illegally jailing poor people in NOLA if they couldn't pay court debts. They even created a 'Collections Department' inside the court to illegally collect debts! When our clients couldn't pay, they were caged. We sued them all. It gets worse. Judge Landrum and other judges took a cut of the profits to run their courts, creating an unconstitutional financial conflict of interest that destroyed whatever 'neutrality' they were supposed to have as judges. It gets worse.</font>" And that was only <em>after</em> she'd had a career demonstrating that she <a href="https://www.bigeasymagazine.com/2020/10/24/orleans-da-candidate-keva-landrum-has-history-of-ethical-misconduct/" title="Orleans DA Candidate Keva Landrum Has History of Ethical Misconduct">never should have reached the bench</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/03/bernie-sanders-howard-schultz-hearing-starbucks-union-busting">Bernie Sanders's Interrogation of Howard Schultz Made Democrats Pick a Side</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Bernie Sanders's grilling of Starbucks's union-busting billionaire Howard Schultz put a CEO in the hot seat on a national stage. It also forced Senate Democrats who might rather stay on the Democratic donor's good side to denounce his flagrantly illegal behavior.</em></font>"
<p>The well-to-do are ready to hollow out the rest of the country. "<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/backup-passports-secondary-citizenship_n_6414a627e4b0fef15243ec07">The American Elite Are Planning Their Escape — And It Starts With Paying For Passports</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Hundreds of Americans are willing to fork over six figures for citizenship in nations where they may have never set foot (just in case).</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Henley & Partners, the world's premier passport brokering company, said that in 2022, more Americans inquired about citizenship by investment — programs that allow people to pay for citizenship instead of gaining it by demonstrating their ties to a country — than in any previous year. Americans were also the leading nationality for submitting applications. 'Americans for the first time ever are becoming the number-one investors in these programs,' said Ezzedeen Soleiman, a managing partner at Latitude, a competitor to Henley & Partners. The world's citizenship-by-investment programs receive about 20,000 applications annually, but until recently, comparatively few applicants were American. The vast majority come from countries where there are limited job opportunities or a limited ability to travel without a visa — China, Russia, India, the Middle East and other parts of the Global South. U.S. passports, by contrast, can open almost any door.</font>" Naturally, these passports cost a bundle.
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/03/27/anti-palestinian-hate-social-media/">Anti-Palestinian Hate On Social Media Is Growing, Says A Facebook Partner</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Social media users in Israel are increasingly using platforms like Facebook and Instagram to launch hate speech at Palestinians.</em></font>" I've been running into some of this and it's clearly an orchestrated campaign. They have all their talking points and it's as adamant and unflinching as if it were organized by David Brock.
<p>"<a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2023-03-23/kansas-city-police-targeted-minority-neighborhoods-to-meet-illegal-ticket-quotas-lawsuit-says">Kansas City Police targeted minority neighborhoods to meet illegal ticket quotas, lawsuit says</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Kansas City Police leaders allegedly ordered officers to target minority neighborhoods to meet ticket quotas — telling them to be 'ready to kill everybody in the car' — and to only respond to calls for help in white neighborhoods. Edward Williams, a 44-year-old white KCPD officer and 21-year veteran of the force, filed a discrimination lawsuit in Jackson County Court this week including those and other allegations. Williams said he's faced retaliation because he's been a whistleblower, is disabled and is over 40. Williams's suit said that contrary to Missouri law, KCPD 'continuously and repeatedly' told officers that if they didn't meet their ticket quotas they would be kicked out of the traffic unit and sent to 'dogwatch,' an unpopular overnight shift typically worked by those with low seniority.</font>"
<p>John Ganz, "<a href="https://johnganz.substack.com/p/how-start?">How Start?</a>: <font color=maroon>One question that should be asked about any war: 'What did all those people die for?' The answer should come back simple and clear: 'They died to free the slaves,' or 'they died to rid Europe of fascism,' or 'they died defending their homes, or 'they died freeing their country from an invading occupier.' As the event recedes into the past, this reason should become more, not less, clear. What was perhaps ambiguous or complex to the actors in the moment should appear increasingly self-evident. But if the answer to that question comes back convoluted and equivocal, full of vague hopes, reasons of state, or stratagems about international relations, one can be pretty sure that war was fought for a bad reason or, even worse perhaps, no reason at all.</font>" The Bush administration never asked themselves whether war was necessary, but only how to get it started.
<p>Jon Schwarz, "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/03/29/iraq-war-atlantic-david-frum/">The Atlantic Celebrates 20th Anniversary Of Iraq War With Lavish Falsehoods About Iraq War</a>: <font color=maroon>THE U.S. MEDIA has recently been filled with retrospectives on the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. Most of these outlets eagerly helped the George W. Bush administration sell the war, publishing lavish falsehoods about how Iraq posed a terrible danger to the U.S. (It did not.) So you might hope that in the past two decades, the same publications have learned the most basic facts about Iraq — and would steer clear of publishing obvious and stupendous errors yet again. You would hope in vain.</font>"
<p>What happened in 2022? "<a href="https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/six-recent-studies-show-an-unexpected">Six Recent Studies Show an Unexpected Increase in Classical Music Listening</a>" <font color=maroon><em>Something has changed in the last 12-18 months, especially among younger listeners—but why?</em> Last year, I went viral with an article about the rising popularity of old music. But I focused on old rock songs. Many of these songs are 40 or 50 years old. And in the world of pop culture, that's like ancient history. But if you really want old music, you can dig back 200 or 300 years—or even more, if you want. But does anybody really do that?</font>" Apparently, yes. A lot.
<p>Despite the fact that <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2014/04/09/reagan-bush-ties-to-iran-hostage-crisis/">everyone already knew it</a>, it appears <em>The New York Times</em> has finally acknowledged that The October Surprise actually happened. Note I am linking to Robert Parry's story from 2014 in <em>Consortium News</em> rather than the NYT's recent story, because they just treated anyone who already acknowledged it as crackpots for decades, whereas Robert Parry created this vital website precisely because pursuing the story got him pretty much blacklisted from establishment media. I wish he could have lived to see it, but we lost him in 2018, to my chagrin. <em>Consortium News</em> is his legacy.
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/03/republicans-mitch-mcconnell-1980s-breaking-democracy.html">The Republican Plan to Make Voting Irrelevant</a>: <font color=maroon>The news brought to mind McConnell's exceptional instincts as a political calculator, and in particular his past cynical and perhaps prescient deliberations concerning his own health. In 2020, amid reports that McConnell had visited Johns Hopkins in Baltimore after concerning photos were published showing intense bruising on one of his hands, the Kentucky Republican began a campaign to pressure the GOP-controlled Kentucky Legislature to change that state's law to remove from the governor—who is a Democrat—the authority to select a candidate to fill the unexpired term of a departing U.S. senator. The ability of the governor to appoint a nominee to fill the unexpired term of a senator without restrictions is the law in 35 states. But McConnell urged, and the Kentucky Legislature took the step of changing that state's law—overriding the veto of the governor to do so—in a way that assured that Republicans would maintain control of McConnell's seat should it become vacant. This effort—to remove powers from elected representatives who are Democrats—has become the new method of disenfranchising voters and maintaining perpetual Republican political power.</font>" Now, remember, in this heavily gerrymandered state, it's already easy to put Republicans in control of the legislature, but the governorship is a state-wide office and that Democratic governor was elected by the majority, so this is <em>severely</em> anti-democratic as well as anti-Democratic. And this is just one example in a long list of ways Republicans are removing power from anyone who doesn't share their goals, so keep reading.
<p>"<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-gop-proposes-bill-to-allow-sec-of-state-to-overturn-election-results-in-states-largest-blue-county">Texas GOP Proposes Bill To Allow Sec Of State To Overturn Election Results In State's Largest Blue County</a>: <font color=maroon>Republican members of the Texas state legislature introduced a slate of bills Thursday designed to subvert election processes and curb voting rights in the state. One of them would even allow the Texas Secretary of State to overturn election results in the state's largest Democratic-leaning county, with very little rationale for doing so. On Thursday, Republican state senators introduced Senate Bill 1993, a bill targeting Harris County, a diverse region that includes Houston and is also the most populous county in Texas, to a Senate committee for debate. SB 1993 would grant Secretary of State Jane Nelson (R) the authority to order a new election in Harris County 'if the secretary has good cause to believe that at least two percent of the total number of polling places in the county did not receive supplemental ballots,' according to the bill text. Secretary Nelson would have the same authority granted to a district court. The bill would 'allow really low thresholds' for ordering a new election, Katya Ehresman, the voting rights program manager at Common Cause Texas, told TPM. 'Anything from a machine malfunction, which can necessarily be the fault of the county or of an election administrator getting stuck in traffic—which in Houston is incredibly likely—and having a delay in providing election results to the central count station,' she said. </font>" Which is pretty interesting since the Secretary of State is the person responsible for making sure elections are efficiently-run in the first place. Hm. "<font color=maroon>The bill was introduced alongside over a dozen other bills seeking to restrict voter access and overhaul the state's elections process. Senate Bill 260, for example, would allow the secretary to suspend election administrators without cause, and Senate Bill 1070 would enable Texas to withdraw from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan program that maintains voter rolls across state lines that has recently been targeted by far-right propaganda. State Republicans quietly introduced the bills in the State Affairs Committee on Thursday morning—without giving the mandatory 48-hour notice. 'Every part of today's hearing highlights the subversive attacks on elections in Texas,' Ehresman said, 'and (SB) 1993 is a part of that.'</font>"
<p>Good piece by Froomkin, "<a href="https://presswatchers.org/2021/03/departing-washington-post-editors-comment-on-listening-to-staff-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-the-current-generation-of-newsroom-leaders/">Departing Washington Post editor's comment on listening to staff is everything that's wrong with the current generation of newsroom leaders</a>: <font color=maroon>Marty Baron, who stepped down as Washington Post editor this week, has been hailed as a hero by journalists at his and other elite media organizations — showered with adulatory news stories and softball interviews. But one exchange in a Vanity Fair interview perfectly demonstrates why his departure is welcome, and overdue. At issue was what Baron had learned from confronting the powerful criticisms being raised by some staffers about hiring, coverage, and newsroom conventions that, as former Post reporter Wesley Lowery once put it, unquestioningly reflect the 'views and inclinations of whiteness.' Baron's response was clueless, condescending, and dismissive. It showed that he was only interested in performative listening – as appearing to have listened – rather than in listening itself. It showed how he considered staffers who challenged him as ignorant supplicants asking him to toss away core journalistic principles 'because of the sentiments of the moment,' which of course he would never do — rather than as peers who want the Post to actually live up to those principles.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://knock-la.com/save-kpfk-pacifica-radio/">Save KPFK and Pacifica Radio</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A hostile takeover attempt is aiming to destroy KPFK, on air since 1959.</em> Pacifica Radio, America's largest non-commercial progressive radio broadcaster, is facing a hostile takeover that threatens the existence of the Los Angeles station KPFK 90.7 FM and the entire network. Pacifica's National Board (PNB) was infiltrated by a politically motivated group and as a result has canceled mandatory elections, extended their own term limits, suspended multiple members of KPFK, and put the Los Angeles building up for sale — all without approval of their listener-members. The only thing that stands in the way of KPFK's imminent destruction is the Los Angeles local station board, which is fighting a bitter legal battle to save their station — and thereby the largest progressive media outlet in the US.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>For years, the intelligence community has sought to infiltrate Pacifica to bend it to its will. As all other TV and radio networks have been muzzled and moved increasingly toward uncritical middle-of-the-road infotainment, Pacifica has fought to stand its ground. The network functions with over 95% of its staff working for free, and its revenue amounts to about $11 million a year. Hundreds of people nationwide volunteer, all in the name of free speech and independence from censorship and corporate control. Republicans have always considered Pacifica as 'far too left.' To the corporate Democrats who hate criticism from the Left, Pacifica has long been a painful thorn in their side. The Berkeley-based advocacy group 'New Day,' with a large influx of Silicon Valley and Hollywood money, have made it their mission to either privatize the network, to turn it into a censored NPR, or to destroy it. In the past few years alone, New Day has been the cause of two failed Bylaw referendums and six lawsuits, costing the network over $400,000 in legal fees.</font>
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/25/police-england-wales-deleting-outcomes-misconduct-hearings">Police in England and Wales 'evading public scrutiny' by deleting misconduct outcomes from websites</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Observer investigation finds case of Met officer and serial rapist David Carrick among dozens removed from police websites.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>An analysis of misconduct trials at 43 forces found the vast majority were either failing to publicise cases, despite a legal obligation to do so, or deleting misconduct cases from their websites after 28 days. Misconduct hearings can relate to any reason an officer is fired from the job including cases related to sexual offences or domestic violence.</font>"
<p>You don't have to watch the video since there's a transcription beneath it, but you do have to marvel at <a href="https://youtu.be/fOaqOFhhuHo">Sarah Huckabee Sanders' idea of an inspirational speech</a> to young people.
<p>"<a href="https://crimereads.com/youve-probably-already-heard-but-monk-is-coming-back/">You've Probably Already Heard, But <em>Monk</em> Is Coming Back</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Yes, a <em>Monk</em> movie! It is to be called <em>Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie</em> and written by original series creator Andy Breckman. The release date is currently unknown, which is a blessing… and a curse.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/mar/17/lance-reddick-dies-john-wick-the-wire-actor"><b>Lance Reddick</b>, star of The Wire and John Wick, dies aged 60</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The actor whose credits also include sci-fi series Fringe and action thriller White House Down has died of natural causes.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Wendell Pierce, Reddick's co-star in the show paid tribute to him on Twitter. 'A man of great strength and grace,' he wrote. 'As talented a musician as he was an actor. The epitome of class. A sudden unexpected sharp painful grief for our artistic family. An unimaginable suffering for his personal family and loved ones. Godspeed my friend. You made your mark here. RIP '</font>" Well, damn, I really enjoyed that guy on screen a lot and this is a shock. He seemed to be in prime shape, too, so no one was ready for it. TMZ's obit has <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2023/03/17/the-wire-star-lance-reddick-dead-dies/">some good videos up</a>, including one from just a few days before he died, and some good clips of him as Charon.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/30/keith-reid-lyricist-for-procol-harum-dies-aged-76"><b>Keith Reid</b>, lyricist for Procol Harum, dies aged 76</a>," of cancer. What can I say? I loved this band, I loved their music, I loved his lyrics. And I loved to hear Gary Brooker sing them, and now they're both gone. "<a href="https://youtu.be/E12YAuAYjLQ">Shine On Brightly</a>."
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/environment/2023-03-09-government-assessing-toxic-exposures/">The Government Does a Bad Job Assessing Toxic Exposures</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The history of the captured federal agencies that reassure the public after chemical disasters should give East Palestine residents pause.</em></font>" Once everything got privatized, the war on science sped up because public health costs companies money.
<p>"<a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/01/28/how-the-capitol-police-enabled-the-jan-6-a-story-no-one-wants-to-touch/">How the Capitol Police enabled the Jan. 6 attack: A story no one wants to touch</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Was it cowardice, blindness, white privilege — or something worse? The House Jan. 6 committee didn't want to know</em>. The news media's continuing failure to explore why the U.S. Capitol was so scantily defended against an angry horde of white Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, has now been compounded by the House select committee's refusal to connect the most obvious dots or ask the most vital questions. It's true that there were countless law enforcement failures that day — indeed, far too many to be a coincidence. But the singular point of failure — the one thing that could have prevented all of it from happening — was that Capitol Police leaders brushed off ample warnings that an armed mob was headed their way.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/gideon-v-wainwright-supreme-court">Gideon v. Wainwright Was a Landmark Decision, But Women Invented the Idea of the Public Defender</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In this op-ed, a former public defender recognizes the crucial role women played in creating the role of the public defender.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>But March is also Women's History Month, and as a woman defender, every time Gideon's Day rolls around, my mind turns to our own forgotten history. When we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Gideon ruling this year — recognizing the right to counsel as having been conferred by Gideon's brave persistence and Justice Hugo Black's insight and resolve — we are erasing a far longer and richer legacy: the history of the women who invented the idea of the public defender.</font>
<p>"<a href="https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/mental-health-liberal-girls">Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest</a>: <font color=maroon>In May 2014, Greg Lukianoff invited me to lunch to talk about something he was seeing on college campuses that disturbed him. Greg is the president of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), and he has worked tirelessly since 2001 to defend the free speech rights of college students. That almost always meant pushing back against administrators who didn't want students to cause trouble, and who justified their suppression of speech with appeals to the emotional 'safety' of students—appeals that the students themselves didn't buy. But in late 2013, Greg began to encounter new cases in which students were pushing to ban speakers, punish people for ordinary speech, or implement policies that would chill free speech. These students arrived on campus in the fall of 2013 already accepting the idea that books, words, and ideas could hurt them. Why did so many students in 2013 believe this, when there was little sign of such beliefs in 2011?</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://archive.is/VFDq4">Why Kids Aren't Falling in Love With Reading</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Hint: It's not just the screens.</em> The ubiquity and allure of screens surely play a large part in this—most American children have smartphones by the age of 11—as does learning loss during the pandemic. But this isn't the whole story. A survey just before the pandemic by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the percentages of 9- and 13-year-olds who said they read daily for fun had dropped by double digits since 1984. I recently spoke with educators and librarians about this trend, and they gave many explanations, but one of the most compelling—and depressing—is rooted in how our education system teaches kids to relate to books.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-03-14-economy-could-not-exist-without-government/">The Economy Could Not Exist Without Government</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Silicon Valley Bank collapse exposes a reality that rich people would prefer to ignore.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>It was darkly amusing to see Silicon Valley's self-anointed masters of capitalism and apostles of libertarianism screaming for no-strings-attached government help after their own bank fell victim to a run sparked by venture capitalists themselves—particularly given that, as my colleague David Dayen writes, SVB itself was a major lobbying force behind the 2018 bank deregulation that allowed it to engage in more risky business. Less amusing were the all-caps tweets from prominent venture capitalists claiming that all regional banks would soon fail, in a clear attempt to spark a broader panic that would camouflage their desired bailout.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://medium.com/@_EthanGrey/the-message-of-the-republican-party-dont-tread-on-me-i-tread-on-you-936037958bce">The Message of the Republican Party: Don't Tread on Me. I Tread on You</a>." It's not hypocrisy, because, "<font color=maroon>When Republicans talk about valuing 'freedom', they're speaking of it in the sense that only people like them should ultimately possess it.</font>"
<p>Radley Balko, "<a href="https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/reader-mailbag-bias-in-journalism">Reader mailbag: Bias in journalism, criminal justice in pop culture, and how my own politics have changed</a>" — I offer this one mainly for his discussion of cop shows.
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-64891714">An American-style Wild West town hides in an alley in Edinburgh</a>.
<p>This year's Red Nose Day had a ten-minute "special" from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfwfFLcrXnw"><em>Ghosts</em></a> with a guest spot from Kylie. It was kinda cute.
<p>Read Pamela Sargent's classic short story "<a href="https://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2023/02/if-ever-i-should-leave-you.html">If Ever I Should Leave You</a>" — after first reading a little history of how she got <em>Women of Wonder</em> published.
<p>Procul Harum, "<a href="https://youtu.be/t-zti_qAHsA">Conquistador</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-4901109049397155722023-03-17T07:12:00.004+00:002023-04-27T22:45:44.482+01:00Don't let it slip away<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv_4YOXBRiUMjEp99zAzE_9avq_y2FWIyj65fPLqY086mfehXcEcfwewWn2kD3Ii6_UUTWajmSscqfzZ4Cu1xZuOK9lKwDP0ERUpSyiYZUeIB1jC0dBtLAOr9CKENVYPOcIICA92i2wTG6C8C2UGtsVxHdIM_am8TzKp9zfojZlFWmIokx5AweSQ/s320/Complete%20Rainbow.jpg" width=261 height=320 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Complete Rainbow">This <a href="https://hasanjasim.online/rainbow-at-30000-feet-pilots-photo-captures-rare-and-breathtaking-sight/">complete rainbow</a> was photographed at 30,000 feet by Lloyd J. Ferraro.
<p>"<a href="https://democracyandcommunity.org/2023/03/14/the-private-sector-is-government-contracting-out-its-functions/">The 'Private Sector' Is Government 'Contracting Out' Its Functions</a>: <font color=maroon>We live in a society, and getting things done for society is what government is for. Government is society's way to make decisions about society's resources, economy and future. Period. <em>Anyone who tells you you don't need government, or that government shouldn't do this or that, is actually just trying to BE the government, for their own benefit.</em> EVERY decision about society's resources, economy and future is made by government, one way or another. Period. <em>Every. Single. One.</em> Socialism, capitalism, communism, dictatorship, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, etc are just descriptions of how that decision-making is divided up. It's about who makes the decisions and who gets the benefits. All the 'ideological' battles are really just all about keeping the public from understanding that.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/larry-summers-tech-bros/">Why Is Larry Summers So Obsessed With Tech Bros?</a> <font color=maroon><em>The former Treasury secretary’s business partnerships may have influenced his early calls to bail out Silicon Valley Bank.</em> For the past two years, former Treasury secretary Larry Summers has begged, berated, and bullied federal policy-makers to suck as much wealth as possible, as fast as possible, out of the economy. He just never meant, you know, his wealth or his friends’ wealth. When Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which caters to venture capitalists and tech start-ups, collapsed last week, Summers rushed to protect his professional colleagues and fellow elites from the consequences of policies he’s pushed for. In Summers’s eyes, when tech moguls make obvious mistakes, it’s catastrophic for them to face consequences for their actions. But when workers want debt relief, sick days, or higher wages, they’re destroying the whole economy with their greed.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://husseini.substack.com/p/senate-did-not-just-unanimously-pass">Senate Did NOT Just Unanimously Pass a Bill Requiring Declassification of 'All of the Information' Regarding the Origins of Covid</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Contrary to the claims of Sen. Hawley and other sponsors, the legislation only instructs the DNI to release information relating to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. No examination of others.</em> Some senate Republicans are claiming they are putting forward legislation that will solve the Covid origins question but that's not what the legislation does. The sponsors of a bill that recently unanimously cleared the senate are claiming that the resolution would mandate that the federal government declassify all relevant information on Covid origins. This is completely inaccurate. The resolution would only have the Director of National Intelligence release documents relating to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but not information of other institutions, including US institutions, which might share culpability. Nor does it declassify DNI information relating to other possible causes of the pandemic.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>In addition, while Hawley's statements that if his bill was enacted, 'then we can get this thing done … let's show them what the government has. Let everybody see it for themselves, let everybody read it.' are misleading. This is because much information sought by the transparency group U.S. Right to Know and some media organizations is not classified but is being withheld.</font>"
<p>Joe Biden apparently thinks he can do anything to stop Republicans from claiming he and the Democrats are soft on crime. He can't. That will never happen. But <a href="https://us19.campaign-archive.com/?u=8855a23519ab892dfe2cd34f6&id=4df3e25849">the attempt is ugly</a>: "<font color=maroon>To be more specific, since Ron Klain's departure from the White House, the administration has undertaken what looks like a strategic rollout of unprincipled new policies and proposals that will neither reduce crime levels nor outflank Republicans on the issue, but that have generated some news stories about Biden trying to appear 'tough on crime.' The ideas include reviving Trump-era family detention policies along the southern border, imposing longer sentences on convicted criminals if they've been accused or even acquitted of other crimes, and using federal power to nullify the District of Columbia's, new criminal code, which wasn't actually 'soft on crime,' but did get portrayed as such by Fox News. Yes. This Fox News. That last one has thrown the party into disarray, when the alternative of not throwing his party into disarray, while doing the right thing, was right there for the taking.</font>" And it's even worse than it sounds. More on this <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/washington-dc-crime-reform-sentencing-fox-news.html" title="The Pundits Are Wrong About D.C.'s Crime Bill">at <em>Slate</em></a>.
<p>The party of free speech warriors strikes again. "<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3882068-florida-bill-would-require-bloggers-to-register-before-writing-about-desantis/">Florida bill would require bloggers to register before writing about DeSantis</a>: <font color=maroon>A bill proposed this week by a Republican state senator in Florida would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), his Cabinet officers and members of the Florida legislature to register with the state.</font>"
<p>Hm, this is curious. "<a href="https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/top-ohio-republican-ex-house-speaker-larry-householder-was-convicted-of-taking-a-60-million-bribe">Top Ohio Republican, Ex-House Speaker Larry Householder, Was Convicted Of Taking A $60 Million Bribe — But No One Was Charged With Bribing Him</a>: <font color=maroon>Usually, in the case of powerful politicians who take bribes, we see the bribers being charged with crimes while the bribees never get a second glance from law enforcement. The perfect example is the current FTX scandal, where over $100 million in stolen funds— paltry compared to the $8 billion that was stolen— went to powerful politicians from both corrupt political parties. Sam Bankman-Fried, the mastermind, faces life in prison, while not a single recipient of those millions of dollars who be bought has been so much as questioned by law enforcement! The opposite just happened in Ohio— where FirstEnergy executives bribed the state GOP but no one got in any trouble but a high level Republican scapegoat and one dumb lobbyist. None of the bribers have been charged... but today the bribee and the lobbyist were finally found guilty.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/environment/2023-03-03-cteh-contractor-air-monitoring-east-palestine/">The Checkered Past of the Contractor Monitoring the Air in East Palestine</a>: <font color=maroon><em>CTEH has been cited by lawmakers for 'releasing findings defending the corporate interests that employ them.'</em> A contractor for Norfolk Southern that is conducting air quality monitoring in East Palestine, Ohio, has a controversial history of what critics have described as inaccurate testing tilted toward the corporations that hire it. The company has been the subject of several lawsuits over its conduct, and members of Congress have warned corporations not to hire the firm in the past.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>In 2010, then-Reps. Lois Capps (D-CA) and Peter Welch (D-VT) wrote to BP CEO Tony Hayward, warning him not to use CTEH to monitor health exposures of workers cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon spill. 'CTEH has a history of being hired by companies accused of harming public health and releasing findings defending the corporate interests that employ them,' the lawmakers wrote. Welch is now serving in the U.S. Senate; his office did not return a request for comment.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/03/us-rail-workers-east-palestine-ohio-train-crash">Leaked audio reveals US rail workers were told to skip inspections as Ohio crash prompts scrutiny to industry</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Exclusive: employee says manager told her to stop marking cars for repair, as Ohio derailment brings hard look at industry's record of blocking safety rules</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>In late 2016, Stephanie Griffin, a former Union Pacific carman, went to her manager with concerns that she was getting pushback for tagging – or reporting for repair – railcars. Her manager told her it was OK to skip inspections. Griffin asked if the manager could put that in writing. 'That's weird,' said the manager. 'We have 56 other people who are not bad-ordering stuff out there. You're definitely not going to get in trouble for it.' Griffin said: 'He refused to bad-order [mark for repair] cars for bad wheel bearings. My boss took issue with it because it increased our dwell time. When that happened, corporate offices would start berating management to release the cars.' Dwell time refers to the time a train spends at a scheduled stop without moving. 'It's very obvious that management is not concerned with public safety, and only concerned with making their numbers look good,' Griffin said.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/01/25/jeff-yass-megadonor-moderate-pac/">Centrist Democratic PAC's Sole Funder Is A Republican Megadonor</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The Moderate PAC, created to go after progressive primary challengers, received all its money from one source: Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass.</em> A CADRE OF moderate Democrats and Republicans are joining together to revamp a political action committee to fight against progressive primary challengers to establishment Democrats. With President Joe Biden's former campaign manager as the PAC's only consultant and a defense contractor executive as its treasurer, the Moderate PAC — not to be confused with the older Moderate Democrats PAC — stands to be an exemplar of the Democratic Party's corporate-friendly, centrist wing. Its financial heft, though, comes from the other side of the aisle: So far, Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania, is virtually the only one putting money into the group.</font>"
<p>Conservatives — well, some of them — seem to be admitting that some regulations are necessary. <a href="https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/02/it-pisses-them-off-that-we-were-right.html">The Rude Pundit reports</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/medtronic-medical-device-kickbacks-lawsuit-kansas">Steak Dinners, Sales Reps and Risky Procedures: Inside the Big Business of Clogged Arteries</a> [...] <font color=maroon>The suit, filed in 2017 by a sales representative for a competing medical device firm, alleges an illegal kickback scheme between Medtronic and hospital employees. According to the complaint and documents released in the suit, between 2011 and 2018, VA health care workers received steakhouse dinners, Apple electronics and NASCAR tickets, and in turn, Medtronic secured a lucrative contract with the hospital. Meanwhile, the company's representatives allegedly 'groomed and trained' physicians at the facility, who then deployed the company's devices even when it was not medically indicated.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The hospital investigation found that amputations increased sixfold in the same time frame as the procedures in question, according to internal emails, but made no conclusion about whether those two things were connected. ProPublica reached out to the VA to ask whether any patients had been harmed.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://thecolumn.substack.com/p/to-nyts-peter-baker-acknowledging">To NYT's Peter Baker, Acknowledging Trans People's Existence Is 'Activism,' Openly Advocating for Perpetual U.S. Occupation of Afghanistan Isn't</a>: <font color=maroon><em>What is and isn't 'activism' depends entirely on how conservative the activism is.</em> The line between 'journalism' and 'activism' is a sacred, cherished one for elite reporters, just don't ever ask them to define what either of these concepts mean. It's more of a vibe, not a consistent set of principles they apply on a day-to-day basis.</font>"
<p>I've been seeing right-wing claims that Silicon Valley Bank failed because it was "woke", a formulation based on a right-wing think-tank's claim that it donated an astonishing amount of money to Black Lives Matter. In fact, it lists lots of corporate giving to BLM and apparently this money was given specifically to foment black violence. Like there is any reason in the world a bunch of money-men would do that. <a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-quick-look-at-the-lying-trumpist-liars-behind-that-database-on-corprate-giving-to-blm">Josh Marshall did some digging</a>: "<font color=maroon>The claims come from a database posted earlier this week by the Center for the American Way of Life, a project of the Claremont Institute. As Claremont put it in a Newsweek article introducing the database, 'Americans deserve to know who funded the BLM riots.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Perhaps I missed some citation in those 9 documents to back up the $73 million claim about SVB. But if I did it's almost certainly nowhere near that sum, and it almost certainly means 'BLM' in the sense of college scholarships for Black high schoolers, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or some program at the American Heart Association to reduce the incidence of heart disease among Black people. The vast majority of the organizations are highly mainstream and even corporate in their focus (supporting minority-owned small businesses, recruiting minority employees in STEM fields). The ones that aren't mainly focus on housing, closing gaps in medical care in minority communities and supporting STEM education and coding. In many cases, the cited documents include no information to support the purported dollar amounts at all. In some cases a claim about one corporation is backed up with a document about another corporation entirely. So there's a high degree of slapdash and incompetence involved. But the general message is that anything in any way connected to Black people in pretty much any way is 'BLM riots,' and explicitly supporting mayhem and violence.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/term-limits-exacerbate-all-the-problems-with-our-government.html">The False Promise of Term Limits</a>:<font color=maroon><em>Limiting lawmakers' time in office only exacerbates the problems with our government.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Yes, you may get fresh blood with term limits. But what you get with it is legislative amateurism, short-term stints in which lawmakers can't develop skills or expertise, and effective, public-spirited officials are forced out on the altar of the new and novel. Washington is already mired in dysfunction and marred by corruption and influence peddling. Term limits would make that worse, robbing Congress—and thus voters—of the ability to course correct, much less check the expansive power of the presidency.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>There are real problems in the structure of American democracy. The solution is to face and fix those problems head-on rather than lean on an assumed panacea that will hurt more than help, while robbing voters of their right to choose who they want to represent them, and for how long.</font>"
<p>Americans keep telling me that the US is going to scrap changing between Daylight Savings and Standard time this year, but I'm sorry to tell you that, no, that plan died on the vine. "<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/daylight-saving-time-bill-made-clock-change-more-annoying.html">Permanent Daylight Saving Time Bill Just Made Clock Change More Annoying</a>." Yeah, the Senate actually passed it last year, but it never even came to the floor in the House once the lobbyists got to them.
<p>"<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64789059">Sir Terry Pratchett: Short stories to be published after being found by fans</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A collection of 20 recently rediscovered short stories by late fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett is to be published later this year.</em> Sir Terry wrote the stories for a regional newspaper under the pseudonym Patrick Kearns in the 1970s and 80s. They had not previously been attributed to him, but have now been collected after a search by 'a few dedicated fans', publishers Penguin said.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/richard-belzer-dead-homicide-law-order-1235329813/"><b>Richard Belzer</b>, Extraordinarily Smart-Ass as a Comic and a TV Cop, Dies at 78</a>: <font color=maroon>The stand-up legend and 'Groove Tube' actor played Det. John Munch on 'Homicide: Life on the Street,' 'Law & Order: SVU' and eight other shows.</font>" I loved him as Munch, but I admit it wasn't enough to make me watch <em>Law & Order</em>. Here's a bunch of <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/photos/galleries/2023/feb/19/richard-belzer-1944-2023/#images-2">nostalgic photos</a>.
<p>"<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/helen-reddy-obituary-1068639/"><b>Helen Reddy</b>, 'I Am Woman' Singer and Activist, Dead at 78</a>: <font color=maroon>HELEN REDDY, THE Australian singer whose early Seventies song 'I Am Woman' has served as an empowering feminist anthem for several generations, died Tuesday at age 78. Her children, Traci Donat and Jordan Sommers, confirmed the news via her official Facebook page.</font>" I admit, I was never crazy about the song, but I know it was important to a lot of people.
<p>"<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2774561">Comparing Health Outcomes of Privileged US Citizens With Those of Average Residents of Other Developed Countries</a> [...] <font color=maroon> This study suggests that privileged White US citizens have better health outcomes than average US citizens for 6 health outcomes but often fare worse than the mean measure of health outcomes of 12 other developed countries. These findings imply that even if all US citizens experienced the same health outcomes enjoyed by privileged White US citizens, US health indicators would still lag behind those in many other countries.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/27/fake-it-phrase-american-con-man/">This all-but-forgotten con man sold America on 'fake it till you make it'</a> [...] <font color=maroon>When newly minted salespeople found it impossible to make a go of it, they were told to 'fake it until you make it,' by wearing expensive clothes and waving around $100 bills to lure in others, a disillusioned Oregon recruit testified in court in 1972. A few months later, another seller would tell a Florida courtroom that he, too, had been instructed to 'fake it till you make it.' When the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Turner's company, a judge cited the phrase as evidence of malfeasance.</font>"
<p>Seymour Hersh, 1972, "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1972/01/22/coverup">The Massacre at My Lai</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A mass killing and its coverup.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64708154">Forty years of Monster Raving Loony wannabe MPs</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Recently, the party announced that, once in government, it would give atheism charitable status because it is a 'non-prophet organisation'.</font>"
<p>I was just trying to find an old post I still can't find and stumbled on a completely unrelated old post from 2003 that I'd completely forgotten about but rather like, on <a href="http://sideshow.me.uk/sjun03.htm#161412">the terror reign of the raging left-wing on college campuses</a>, back in the days when my blog had more writing and less copy-pasting.
<p>"<a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/psychic-chicken-of-seattle">Psychic Chicken of Seattle</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Deep into the lower floors of Pike Place, find a date with fowl fate. </em></font>"
<p><a href="https://native-land.ca/">Interactive Map Shows Which Indigenous Lands You Are Living On</a>
<p>The Righteous Brothers, "<a href="https://youtu.be/uOnYY9Mw2Fg">You've Lost That Loving Feeling</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-15478987379615834092023-02-19T02:45:00.005+00:002023-02-20T20:05:36.039+00:00And hope that my dreams will come true<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9FrKaF2jJS1MtE28DKjKB0j24p7QxKN8iRTB6hWnsyDLwKpcw2Fe6ty3xgOCsrQL8SyJByEQTikE5h_NbkWKlhxlx6I7_WDTuSbtr7KMkfdDpyLQZnlmhakHpsh4U5BLzTBGB4YpFbiUbFALHBbOVozXelX2eCLFhrbNZ2RiFrih5cQa72I3rxw/s960/winterPinkTrees.jpg" width=281 height=390 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Winter Pink Trees">
<p>Seth Meyers had <a href="https://youtu.be/-E21OifvfeU">the best coverage of the State of the Union address</a> (in only 15 minutes) so you don't need me for that. Or if you are a junkie for this kind of thing, you could watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/97R-lOY3iUA?feature=share"><em>The Majority Report</em>'s live coverage</a>.
<p>If Biden has put an end to <a href="https://prospect.org/politics/2023-02-01-manchin-congress-deficit-super-committee/"title="Joe Manchin's Dumb Budget Idea Already Failed Before">this kind of thing</a>, that would be great. "<font color=maroon>To the extent they care about spending cuts, they've created no consensus about exactly what they want; half the caucus is demanding the slashing of Social Security and Medicare, while Speaker Kevin McCarthy has vowed not to touch them. When Rep. Greg Pence (R-IN), brother of the former vice president, was asked whether he would vote for the debt limit if a deal included every one of his priorities, he repeatedly said 'No!' There's simply no reasoning with people who just want to trash the country. The economy of 2023 is far stronger than that of 2011, though with inflation cooling markedly I see no reason for austerity. But as far as the politics, if Manchin thinks he can get a good ol' bipartisan agreement out of this opposition party, he's got another thing coming.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/08/jackson-mississippi-republicans-unelected-court-system?CMP=share_btn_tw">Mississippi Republicans pass bill to create separate, unelected court in majority-Black city</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, calls proposed law 'some of the most oppressive legislation in our city's history'</em>. The Republican-dominated Mississippi house of representatives has passed a bill to create a separate, unelected court system in the city of Jackson that would fall outside the purview of the city's voters, the majority of whom are Black. The bill, which local leaders have likened to apartheid-era laws and described as unconstitutional, would also expand a separate capitol police force, overseen by state authorities. The force would expand into all of the city's white-majority neighborhoods, according to Mississippi Today. Jackson's population is over 80% Black.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7mdw/4-day-work-week-maryland">This State Wants to Make Every Week a 4-Day Work Week</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Well, guess we're all moving to Maryland.</em> Americans are overworked. Workers in the U.S. report being more dissatisfied with their jobs than ever, Americans take fewer vacations and work longer hours than most Europeans, and health problems related to workplace stress kill thousands of us every year. But a group of lawmakers in Maryland want to encourage employers to give people in their state a three-day weekend in perpetuity, introducing a new bill 'promoting, incentivizing, and supporting the experimentation and study' of a four-day workweek in private companies and government agencies. The pilot program would run for a total of five years; if the legislation is signed into law, Maryland would become the first state to have an official policy encouraging the adoption of a four-day workweek. </font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/01/27/cop-city-atlanta-forest/">The Crackdown on Cop City Protesters Is So Brutal Because of the Movement's Success</a>: <font color=maroon><em>One protester was killed by police, 20 were charged under a 'domestic terror' law, and Georgia's governor gave himself broad 'emergency' powers.</em> THE MOVEMENT TO stop the construction of a $90 million police training center atop vast acres of Atlanta forest has been extraordinarily successful over the last year. With little national fanfare, Defend the Atlanta Forest/Stop Cop City activists nimbly deployed a range of tactics: encampments, tree-sits, peaceful protest marches, carefully targeted property damage, local community events, investigative research, and, at times, direct confrontation with police forces attempting to evict protesters from the forest. The proposed militarized training compound known as Cop City has thus far been held at bay.</font>"
<p>Residents of East Palestine, Ohio, were evacuated from their homes until buildings could be checked for toxic heavy gases (mustard gas) accumulating in the basements due to a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ohio-derailment-that-released-toxic-chemicals-raises-railroad-safety-questions">train derailment nearby</a>. Many people have been worried about this kind of thing at least partly because of the understaffing of railroad workers and also <a href="https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/" title="Rail Companies Blocked Safety Rules Before Ohio Derailment">deregulation</a>. Weirdly, when Ohio's governor, Mike DeWine, gave a press conference, <a href="https://cpj.org/2023/02/journalist-evan-lambert-arrested-charged-while-covering-ohio-train-derailment/">a journalist was arrested for covering it</a>. "<font color=maroon>Governor DeWine apologized for the incident and said he did not authorize Lambert's arrest, according to NewsNation.</font>" Does this mean that the Sheriff's Department took it on themselves to illegally arrest him? (I mean, who did they expect to turn up at a <em>press conference</em>?)
<p>Sy Hersh, "<a href="https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream">How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The New York Times called it a 'mystery,' but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning. Two of the pipelines, which were known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, called Nord Stream 2, had been built but were not yet operational. Now, with Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border and the bloodiest war in Europe since 1945 looming, President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to weaponize natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions. Asked for comment, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said in an email, 'This is false and complete fiction.' Tammy Thorp, a spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: 'This claim is completely and utterly false.' Biden's decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington's national security community about how to best achieve that goal. For much of that time, the issue was not whether to do the mission, but how to get it done with no overt clue as to who was responsible.</font>"
<p>You remember Larry Niven's story in <em>Dangerous Visions</em>, "The Jigsaw Man"? Well... "<a href="https://www.levernews.com/mass-prisoners-could-choose-between-freedom-and-their-organs/">Mass. Prisoners Could Choose Between Freedom And Their Organs</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A new bill would allow prisoners to get time off their sentence if they donate their organs or bone marrow.</em> Massachusetts Democrats have a bold new proposal for prisoners: donate your organs or bone marrow, and get as little as a couple of months off of your sentence. The legislation, which has attracted five cosponsors in the state House, raises major bioethical concerns for the 6,000-plus people currently held in the Bay State's prisons. In essence, the bill would ask prisoners which is more important to them: their freedom, or their organs and bone marrow.</font>" What's amazing is that the guy who proposed this really doesn't seem to recognize the nightmare he's inviting.
<p>Here we go again.... "<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2023/01/27/cn-editor-named-on-secret-disinfo-list/">[<em>Consortium News</em>] Editor Named on Secret 'Disinfo' List</a>: <font color=maroon><em>CN Editor Joe Lauria was one of 644 Twitter accounts that secretly formed part of Hamilton 68's fake 'dashboard' that wrongly influenced major media about alleged 'Russian influence.'</em> The editor of this website is part of a secret list created by the organization Hamilton 68 that was fed to major media and Congress to identify so-called 'Russian accounts' that were 'sowing discord' in the United States.</font>
<p>Tom Sullivan wonders if there's a connection between mass killers and killer cops, in "<a href="https://digbysblog.net/2023/01/28/unthinkable-violence/">Unthinkable violence</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Is it time to consider that people capable of such acts, too, 'are not monsters who appear out of thin air'? Like mass shooters, nearly all killer cops are men. Are they 'socially isolated from their families or their communities' by their training? Does police training instill a 'sense of alienation' that leads them to commit acts that 'defy humanity'? Is the sense of power that comes with carrying pepper spray, tasers, and guns what attracts some people to police work? Is it time to consider that police killings no longer be written off as 'inexplicable' episodes of 'unthinkable' violence?</font>"
<p>In early January, Harvard created a bit of a scandal when it <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/kenneth-roth-israel-apartheid-harvard">denied a research fellowship</a> at the Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy to Kenneth Roth, who had been the head of Human Rights Watch for 29 years. You can hardly imagine someone better qualified, but of course, HRW, like most human rights organizations, has been critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, so some people didn't like him. But since he <em>was</em> someone with that history, a lot of people made noise and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/roth-harvard-reversal">Harvard reversed their position</a> later in the month. Happy as he was about that, he also quite rightly had some concerns: "<font color=maroon>'Given my three decades leading Human Rights Watch, I was able to shine an intense spotlight on Dean Elmendorf's decision, but what about others?' he said. 'The problem of people penalized for criticizing Israel is not limited to me, and most scholars and students have no comparable capacity to mobilize public attention.' 'How is the Kennedy School, and Harvard,' he asked, 'going to ensure that this episode conveys a renewed commitment to academic freedom rather than just exceptional treatment for one well-known individual?'</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://popula.com/2023/01/29/the-worst-thing-we-read-this-week-why-is-the-new-york-times-so-obsessed-with-trans-kids/">THE WORST THING WE READ THIS WEEK: Why Is the New York Times So Obsessed With Trans Kids?</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A question to ask. At length.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>This is pretty obviously—and yet not obviously enough—a plain old-fashioned newspaper crusade. Month after month, story after story, the Times is pouring its attention and resources into the message that there is something seriously concerning about the way young people who identify as trans are receiving care. Like the premise that the Clintons had to have been guilty of something serious, or that Saddam Hussein must have had a weapons program worth invading Iraq over, the notion that trans youth present a looming problem is demonstrated to the reader by the sheer volume of coverage. If it's not a problem, why else would it be in the paper?</font>" Via <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/01/americas-worst-newspaper.html" title="America's Worst Newspaper">Atrios</a>, who says it's an important piece and you should read the whole thing. I concur. And so does <a href="https://www.theonion.com/it-is-journalism-s-sacred-duty-to-endanger-the-lives-of-1850126997" title="It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible"><em>The Onion</em></a>.
<p>And speaking of <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/01/americas-worst-editorial-board.html" title="America's Worst Editorial Board">Atrios</a>, He also gave us a heads-up on Adam Johnson's "<a href="https://thecolumn.substack.com/p/washington-post-editorial-on-the">Washington Post Editorial on the Tyre Nichols Murder Shows Liberal Reformers Are All Out of Ideas—Even Fake Ones</a>", which is a pretty clear-eyed look at the pretense of concern over killer police that always at best stops short of useful ideas and at worst advocates policies that would actually exacerbate the problem. "<font color=maroon>Wade through all 900 words and one is hard pressed to find any actual solutions on offer, except to 'modify the qualified immunity doctrine.' How exactly? It's not clear. The editorial then mentions the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act but doesn't support it, despite this being a lay up. Activists have roundly criticized it as an insulting, toothless half measure. But this isn't even something The Post can bother feigning support for to 'do something.' After acknowledging Memphis has already enacted many 'reforms,' they don't see this as an indictment on the reforms themselves, but as a good thing that somehow is independent from this latest police killing. Then they offer their actual solution—squishy 'cultural' changes</font> [...] <font color=maroon>This is the way the game of phony Liberal Concern is played. The Washington Post twice opposes a social solution that would meaningfully reduce police interactions (free fares on D.C. transit), supports a policy shift that would massively increase those police interactions (police fare enforcement) then feigns concern about the inevitable result of over policing: violent interactions stemming from police interactions. </font>" And that article points to "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/30/what-would-have-saved-tyre-nichols-life">What would have saved Tyre Nichols' life?</a>: <font color=maroon><em>All of the reforms that liberals suggest will save Black lives were present in Tyre's death. So what works?</em></font>" in the <em>Guardian</em>. "<font color=maroon>However disappointing, I completely understand that some people may earnestly believe in these sets of reforms because they want to believe that something, anything can happen to stop or at least reduce police killings right now. Others tout these reforms because they benefit from police protecting private property, threatening workers, enforcing racial hierarchies, surveilling civilians, and more. Politicians, especially. They line up the public to a theme park full of reforms and just promise us a different ride would be worth our time, energy, and effort. We have to get out of the park.</font>" Because what's in the park is a lot of expensive nonsense that never reduces crime <em>or</em> murders by cops.
<p>"<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/22/joseph-stiglitz-economist-income-tax-high-earners-70-per-cent-inequality">Joseph Stiglitz: tax high earners at 70% to tackle widening inequality</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Nobel prize-winning economist calls for new top rate of income tax and 2-3% wealth tax on fortunes</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>'People at the top might work a little bit less if you tax them more. But on the other hand, our society gains in having a more egalitarian, cohesive society,' the former World Bank chief economist, 79, told Oxfam's Equals podcast. Currently, the top rate of income tax in the UK is 45% on annual earnings above £150,000. In the US, the highest rate of tax is 37% on earnings above $539,901. Stiglitz said that while an increase in the top rate on income would help lead to a more equal society, introducing wealth taxes on the fortunes accumulated by the world's wealthiest over many generations would have an even bigger impact.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-01-25-pitched-battle-corporate-power/">A Pitched Battle on Corporate Power</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Biden's expansive executive order seeks to restore competition in the economy. It's been a long, slow road to get the whole government on board—but there are some formidable gains.</em> On July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed one of the most sweeping changes to domestic policy since FDR. It was not legislation: His signature climate and health law would take another year to gestate. This was a request that the government get into the business of fostering competition in the U.S. economy again. Flanked by Cabinet officials and agency heads, Biden condemned Robert Bork's pro-corporate legal revolution in the 1980s, which destroyed antitrust, leading to concentrated markets, raised prices, suppressed wages, stifled innovation, weakened growth, and robbing citizens of the liberty to pursue their talents. Competition policy, Biden said, 'is how we ensure that our economy isn't about people working for capitalism; it's about capitalism working for people.'</font>"
<p>Bruce Schneier has another book out, and Cory Doctorow has reviewed <a href="https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/06/trickster-makes-the-world/#power-play"><em>A HACKER'S MIND: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back</em></a>: "<font color=maroon>A Hacker's Mind is security expert Bruce Schneier's latest book, released today. For long-time readers of Schneier, the subject matter will be familiar, but this iteration of Schneier's core security literacy curriculum has an important new gloss: <em>power</em>.</font>" And outside of its usual paywall, <em>The New York Times</em> also has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/07/books/review/a-hackers-mind-bruce-schneier.html">a review</a>: "<font color=maroon>'A Hacker's Mind' reads like just such a briefing — fused with a manifesto about power and compliance. Hacking, Schneier argues, need not involve computers or even technology; a hack is merely 'an activity allowed by the system that subverts the goal or intent of the system.' Any system, from a slot machine to the U.S. tax code, can be hacked. Hairsplitting, workarounds, weaselly little shortcuts: These are all hacks, and if you've ever found yourself uttering phrases like 'technically legal' or 'gray area,' you might be a hacker. The odds increase with your net worth. While 'we conventionally think of hacking as something countercultural,' Schneier writes, 'it's more common for the wealthy to hack systems to their own advantage,' occupying 'a middle ground between cheating and innovation.' To steal a car by smashing its window and hot-wiring it would be merely criminal; a true hacker would coax the car's computer into unlocking itself.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/09/burt-bacharach-"><b>Burt Bacharach</b>, master of pop songwriting, dies aged 94</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Singer and performer, who wrote "<a href="https://youtu.be/p9M744rDd40">Walk on By</a>" and "<a href="https://youtu.be/XieZAjBTkr4">World Needs Now Is Love</a>", died at home in Los Angeles of natural causes</em></font>. [...] <font color=maroon>In all, he scored 73 Top 40 hits in the US and 52 in the UK.</font>" And "<a href="https://youtu.be/zugy2rkSM7g">24 Hours From Tulsa</a>" and probably my favorite, "<a href="https://youtu.be/ZUxn6JLwdDY">Anyone Who Had A Heart</a>", too.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2023/01/31/cindy-williams-a-role-model-for-working-class-girls/"><b>Cindy Williams</b>, a role model for working class girls</a> and Shirley of <em>Laverne & Shirley</em>, at 75. "<font color=maroon>Williams' character of Shirley, along with Laverne, got her own spinoff starting in 1976. By then, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" had been running for years, where Tyler played the associate producer of a television news show who happened to be a single woman. But Shirley was different from Moore; she was different from any woman on television at the time. She was unapologetically herself: a working class girl with big dreams.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/feb/15/raquel-welch-a-strong-and-powerful-personality-with-a-rarely-tapped-gift-for-comedy"><b>Raquel Welch</b>: a strong and powerful personality with a rarely-tapped gift for comedy</a>," at 82. "<font color=maroon><em>Welch was a colossal celebrity in the 1970s, whose combination of physical strength and drollery made her a force to be reckoned with</em></font>. And <a href="https://www.arkansasonline.com/photos/galleries/2023/feb/15/raquel-welch-1940-2023/">this is a good gallery of photos of her</a> (with some interesting people!), though, alas, none from <em>Bedazzled</em>.
<p>"<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2023/02/08/ask-larry-summers-about-crypto-now/">Ask Larry Summers About Crypto Now</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Considering how eagerly the financial press solicits the views of the former U.S. Treasury secretary, Jeff Hauser and Max Moran would like reporters to ask him about his involvement with a crumbling company.</em></font>" The Revolving Door project doesn't care if one crypto bro defrauded another, but "<font color=maroon>The Project does care about the individuals who are left as collateral damage. It also cares that Silbert, the architect of the alleged con, was advised by someone with whom the Winklevoss twins have an infamous history: namely, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. According to How Money Got Free, a book about the rise of Bitcoin, Silbert brought Summers on as an adviser to DCG in 2016 specifically to open doors on Wall Street and to foreign banks for Silbert and his company. At the time, Bitcoin was still widely (and rightly) seen as a gimmick at best and a scam at worst. But Summers' support for Bitcoin made DCG, and Bitcoin, appear more respectable to investors, journalists, academics and regulators.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-gloucestershire-64458219">Tewkesbury starling murmuration captured on camera</a>"
<p>Dominic Thomas writes, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teZsA_ci-7E&ab_channel=KolonelBriket">Tracy Chapman singing 'Fast Car'</a> <font color=maroon>at the concert to celebrate Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday, at Wembley in 1988. Stevie Wonder was supposed to play, but moments before he went on stage his crew realised that they had lost the hard disk with all his Synclavier samples, and he couldn't perform without it. Chapman had played a short, fairly unnoticed set a little earlier, on one of the side stages, and as the crowd was getting restless and she was so quick to set up, just her and a guitar, the organisers asked her to play a second set – and 60,000 people went from boos and catcalls to utter silence in a few moments. Apparently she sold ten times more albums in the next few weeks than her entire career before that. There's something about that performance, and that song. I watched the concert live in the Student Union at college, she silenced the room then, too, and it still gives me chills.</font>"
<p>I can't seem to stop playing the <a href="https://www.chronophoto.app/game.html">Chronophoto game</a>. It's pretty simple, you just guess when the picture was taken. See how you do.
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/WTDeg-DVE9o">The Beatles - Morecambe and Wise Show 1963 (colorized)</a>.
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-81223623447468268972023-01-28T04:55:00.004+00:002023-01-28T05:44:42.093+00:00You can not do that, it breaks all the rules<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji50t9bPvjtS96e069o7HkOnnNvIpIzg5lsw-2ffgZKxtz8Y0UuOJ8dv1pG3tg3qPwce-xYrj90mF_2jOy4ZfHV-9PXluCmLEAKKzT7qYhxPj4CTQZBrHVWLi6RY7cgJCvlad5OhuctD5qrn9xl5w1sAA3rDex92mUhtYuoyAIlepXfuS1-LIgXQ/s320/Valeriya%20Avtukhova.jpg" width=282 height=428 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Valeriya Avtukhova 'SOUL', FEATHERS, WINGS, ANGEL, GOLD LEAF, SKY, WHITE, GRAY, (2021)">"<a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/avtuhova-valeriya/artworks/14857886/soul-feathers-wings-angel-gold-leaf-sky-white-gray">'Soul', Feathers, Wings, Angel, Gold Leaf, Sky, White, Gray, (2021)</a>" by Valeriya Avtukhova is from the <a href="https://www.artmajeur.com/en/art-gallery/collections/nevena-bojinovic/416989/silver-paintings">Silver Color Paintings</a> selection.
<p>Worst news of the month has to be that Ron Klain, who was the best thing in the White House, is leaving and will apparently be replaced by ... "<a href="https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/biden-risks-legacy-by-choosing-zients-as-chief-of-staff/">Biden Risks Legacy by Choosing Zients as Chief of Staff</a>: <font color=maroon><em>As a businessman, Jeffrey Zients embodied much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch ought to be cracking down on.</em> 'The Biden Administration has been at its best when it has been on the attack against corporate excesses that wide majorities of Americans find abhorrent.' 'Americans are appalled by profiteering in healthcare — Jeff Zients has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare.' 'Americans are aghast at how social media companies have built monopolies and violated privacy laws — Zients served on the Board of Directors of Facebook as it was defending itself against growing attacks from both political parties.' 'And as Daniel Boguslaw and Max Moran of the Revolving Door Project wrote in The American Prospect last April, "Over the span of two decades, the health care companies that Zients controlled, invested in, and helped oversee were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud."'</font>" When we hear that these guys have been paying lots and lots of fines, that means they've been breaking the law as part of their business method. Shouldn't they be RICO'd instead of installed in the White House?
<p>"<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/scotus-s-first-decision-of-the-term-is-a-unanimous-blow-to-disabled-veterans/ar-AA16Hsjy">SCOTUS's First Decision of the Term Is a Unanimous Blow to Disabled Veterans</a>: <font color=maroon>After an unusual delay, the Supreme Court finally issued its first opinion of the term on Monday: a unanimous decision in Arellano v. McDonough siding against disabled veterans who seek compensation for disabilities related to their service. Justice Amy Coney Barrett's opinion for the court denied these veterans (and their survivors) the ability to obtain benefits retroactively if they filed a late claim—even if the delay occurred because of their disability, or some other factor beyond their control. It's a painful blow to military members who were injured while serving their country, and a puzzling one: At oral arguments, the justices sounded divided, yet all three liberals lined up behind Barrett's harsh opinion. Maybe they genuinely believed that Congress intended to impose an exceedingly stringent deadline on disabled veterans. Or perhaps the three-justice minority is so outnumbered that it has decided to pick its battles, and Arellano was not worth the fight.</font>" This is bizarre, and means they <em>unanimously</em> ignored a rule that even Scalia treated seriously.
<p>Weird. Lee Fang <a href="https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1618729636082651137?s=20&t=Ec_zzX2KmftSvj7gFQz5Lw">says</a>, "<font color=maroon>The author of this column Wells King was just hired as a senior advisor to newly elected Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH). In the world of GOP staff, that's a new development.</font>" And that's truly weird, because that column is "<a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/24/why-conservatives-should-champion-unions-reduce-inequality/5851484002/">Why conservatives should embrace labor unions to reduce economic inequality.</a>"
<p>Stiglitz, "<a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/milton-friedman-inflation-federal-reseve-ukraine-russia-brazil-neoliberalism">Milton Friedman Set Us Up for a 21st Century Version of Fascism</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In 2023, market fundamentalism is fostering authoritarianism — in the United States and abroad.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Monetary tightening also could lead to a global slowdown. In fact, that outcome is highly anticipated, and some commentators, having convinced themselves that combating inflation requires economic pain, have been effectively cheering on the recession. The quicker and deeper, the better, they argue. They seem not to have considered that the cure may be worse than the disease.</font>" I saw this article and my first thought was, "Why does Nobel laureate Stiglitz have to be published in <em>In These Times</em> (an actual left-media site that hardly anyone sees) when Larry Summers is in mass media all the time, even though he's always wrong?"
<p>"<a href="https://revolvingdoorproject.substack.com/p/government-spending-and-its-discontents">Government Spending and its Discontents</a>" — This is a brief and readable rundown of both the shortcomings of the omnibus bill and the Republicans' shenanigans on taxes (and what really is needed at the IRS). Via <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/01/the-little-things_0808550273.html">Atrios</a> (who had a bit more to say) and highly recommended.
<p>Oliver Willis, "<a href="https://oliverwillis.substack.com/p/nobody-cares-about-the-deficit-and">Nobody Cares About The Deficit, And Democrats Should Shut Up About It</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Spend What Is Needed To Make Lives Better</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>The vast majority of voters do not enter polling places with their accountant green shades on, giving either party merits or demerits for what they've done in regards to the deficit. Voters vote based on whether the government delivered on the priorities they care about on economic issues. Did the government stabilize the economy? Did it provide an environment for job creation? Did the government provide for the common defense so that commerce can continue to operate normally? Things like that. They don't care about the deficit. Even for that sliver of people who do intensely care about the deficit, their political impact is negligible. The fiscally conservative crank is never in a million years going to believe any Democrat is in line with them, no matter how much lip service people like Biden and Obama pay to them. In their minds, reinforced by right-wing media like Fox News, Democrats are always the caricature of the free spending liberal of Reagan lore, handing out tax dollars to Black welfare cheats without a care in the world. Deficit talk doesn't sway any votes.</font>" And, like Dick Cheney said, they don't matter. We can afford to spend on our people.
<p>Ken Klippenstein, "<a href="https://kenklippenstein.substack.com/p/the-5-creepiest-moments-at-davos">The 5 Creepiest Moments at Davos</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The real Davos conspiracy is hiding in plain sight</em>. No, Davos is not a secret plan to raise a stadium of babies in Matrix-style incubator pods, as some Twitter users supposed — prompting a fact check from Reuters. The real Davos conspiracy is hiding in plain sight and it's pretty much the kind of pro-business agenda you'd expect from a bunch of billionaire Fortune 500 CEOs, heads of state and central bankers meeting at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. A recent article on the World Economic Forum's website about 'the Davos Agenda' gives you the basic idea: 'We desperately need to disrupt our approach to retirement saving.' People are living longer, you see, so they'll 'want to work past mandatory retirement age…while others will need to work longer to remain financially resilient in later life.' In other words, grandma's going to have to go back to work.</font>"
<p>This would almost be funny if these people were actually just the cartoons they act like. "<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/24/democrats-departing-blue-dog-coalition-00079113">Rebranding rift guts Blue Dog Dem ranks</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Nearly half the members of the influential centrist coalition are letting themselves out after a failed push for a name change designed for a new era.</em> Congress' influential Blue Dog Coalition is getting chopped nearly in half after an internal blow-up over whether to rebrand the centrist Democratic group. Seven of the 15 members expected to join the Blue Dogs this year, including Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), are departing after a heated disagreement over a potential name change for the moderate bloc. For now that's left the Blue Dogs with seven, all male members — their smallest roster in nearly three decades of existence. One freshman member remains undecided. At the core of some of the breakaway Blue Dogs' demands was a rechristening as the Common Sense Coalition that, they argued, would have helped shed the group's reputation as a socially moderate, Southern 'boys' club.' Blue Dogs have long stood for fiscal responsibility and national security, issues with broad Democratic appeal, but some members felt the name had a negative connotation that kept their colleagues from joining. A majority of other members disagreed, saying they saw no reason to toss out a longstanding legacy.</font>" I love that, "the Common Sense Coalition" — like "the Problem Solvers Caucus," a group that's the opposite of what it claims. They're not "moderate", either, and nowhere near the real American political center.
<p>Best news I've heard in a while: "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/01/24/layoffs-democratic-party-ngp-van/">Inside The Slow Implosion Of The Democratic Party's Vaunted Campaign Tech Firm</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Loyal Democrats say layoffs at NGP VAN and EveryAction by the company's new private equity owners could hobble the party.</em></font>" Except not really, because they are awful and have been hobbling the party all by themselves for years.
<p>Wendell Potter is here to remind you, "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/is-medicare-advantage-a-scam">Here is the Truth: Medicare Advantage Is Neither Medicare Nor an Advantage</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Medicare Advantage is a money-making scam. I should know. I helped to sell it.</em> Right now, well-funded lobbyists from big health insurance companies are leading a campaign on Capitol Hill to get Members of Congress and Senators of both parties to sign on to a letter designed to put them on the record 'expressing strong support' for the scam that is Medicare Advantage.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/11/new-study-reveals-rampant-conflicts-of-interest-at-think-tanks/">New study reveals rampant conflicts of interest at think tanks</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The report focuses heavily on how the nuclear industry influences institutional output in its favor and works to censor its critics.</em> 'Scholars, media organizations, and members of the public should be sensitized to the conflicts of interest shaping foreign policy analysis generally and nuclear policy analysis specifically,'' is the conclusion of new academic research that documents how think tank funders are shaping the foreign policy debate.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/john-fogerty-regains-ownership-of-creedence-clearwater-revival-catalogue-after-50-year-battle-3380001">John Fogerty regains ownership of Creedence Clearwater Revival catalogue after 50-year battle</a>: <font color=maroon><em>'This is something I thought would never be a possibility,'said Fogerty. 'After 50 years, I am finally reunited with my songs.'</em></font>" So, his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/11/artsfeatures3">nightmare</a> is apparently ended. (It's a nightmare in which <a href="https://www.creem.com/fresh-creem/creedence-clearwater-revival-unfortunate-son">the CIA stole $5 million from Creedence Clearwater Revival to bust commies</a>, according to Robert Skvarla's pay-walled article in <em>Creem</em>.)
<p>Normally, I'm used to seeing small-bore lefty podcasters saying rude things about each other because they are small-bore lefty podcasters fighting over a very small piece of the pie. But things are a little different in right-wing media, where billionaires just shovel out money and see what sticks. They don't have pieces of the pie to fight over, they're all getting rich and they're all friends. They get rich by saying exactly what billionaires want you to hear. But then a funny thing happened. "<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/01/steven-crowder-billionaire-funds-media-anti-worker-employment-contracts">Right-Wingers Like Steven Crowder Need Billionaire Funders Because Their Ideas Are So Bad</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Right-wing demagogue Steven Crowder recently turned down a $50 million offer from Ben Shapiro's billionaire-funded media organization, calling it a 'slave contract.' If only these guys showed as much concern for the conditions of ordinary workers.</em></font>" And the funny thing is, that blows rather a big hole in the right-wing claim that employment contracts are always, by definition, fair.
<p>RIP: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jan/12/legendary-rock-guitarist-jeff-beck-dies-aged-78">Legendary rock guitarist <b>Jeff Beck</b> dies aged 78</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Beck rose to fame with the Yardbirds before fronting the Jeff Beck Group and making forays into the jazz-fusion sound he pioneered</em>.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Beck died on Tuesday after 'suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis', the representative confirmed. 'His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss,' they added.</font> I loved to listen to this guy. I thought <a href="https://youtu.be/-kaJIynR15s"><em>Truth</em></a> was a work of art. I saw The Jeff Beck Group at the Fillmore East and felt like I never had to see another concert as long as I lived because that was a perfect show. And he was working right up until he suddenly got sick and died. That's what makes it hurt - there was more in him.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/news/david-crosby-dead-dies-byrds-crosby-stills-nash-1235495467/"><b>David Crosby</b>, Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash Co-Founder, Dies at 81</a>," after long illness. He had a lovely voice and wrote some fine music and harmonized beautifully and there's nothing new I can say about him, but it makes me sad that he's gone. Here's <a href="https://twitter.com/BrianWilsonLive/status/1616202967530541070?s=20&t=eMwTlBUbsn3R8I9jYCcGZw">Brian Wilson's tweet</a>. And here he is with CSNY and "<a href="https://youtu.be/3Q3j-i7GLr0">Wooden Ships</a>."
<p>RIP: <a href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/victor-navasky/"><b>Victor Navasky</b> (1932–2023)</a>, longtime editor and publisher of <em>The Nation</em>, at 90. He's memorialized by <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/one-nation-under-victor/">Katrina Vanden Heuvel</a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/victor-navasky-campaign-manager/">John Nichols</a>, and <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/victor-navasky-cartooning/">Jeet Heer</a> at the magazine.
<p>I've mostly been leaving the story of Musk's antics to <a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2023/01/every-actions-act-of-creation.html">Atrios</a>, since he's been prescient on it long before I started to notice what a destructive clown he was, but he linked a story that is really worth reading for clarification, "<a href="https://www.theverge.com/23551060/elon-musk-twitter-takeover-layoffs-workplace-salute-emoji">Extremely Hardcore</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Twitter's staff spent years trying to protect the social media site against impulsive billionaires who wanted to use the reach of its platform for their own ends, and then one made himself the CEO.</em></font>" It's a neat blow-by-blow of how Musk acquired the company and ripped it apart. (If you haven't been following Atrios on the subject of Musk and his deliberate interference with the development of mass transit, you've missed a really big story.)
<p>Joan McCarter, "<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/20/2148287/-The-New-York-Times-is-bad-for-America">The New York Times is bad for America</a> [...] <font color=maroon>There really isn't anything that the GOP can do that the Times will condemn as extreme and un-American, including creating a constitutional crisis over the debt limit. Because that's what it ultimately is. The Constitution says, in a number of provisions, that the executive branch pays the nation's debts and maintains a functional government. It also says, 'The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.' Period.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/the-partisan-ghost-in-the-media-machine/">The Partisan Ghost In The Media Machine</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Media outlets no longer consider government malfeasance newsworthy if reporting on it might offend audiences' partisan loyalties.</em> Before liberals knew him as the butt of a Hamilton joke, John Adams once said: 'Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.' But as the Great Airline Meltdown of 2022 illustrated last week, today's media now routinely does that altering — by promoting or suppressing facts based on which party and which infantilized audience they serve. That is a problem not just for air travelers, but also for our entire democracy.</font>"
<p>I meant to post this in November but I forgot so here it is now, "<a href="https://johnamanullah.substack.com/p/are-we-institutionalized-yet">Are we institutionalized yet?</a> <font color=maroon><em>The newspapers have finally, timidly spoken up for Julian Assange.</em> Yesterday, the New York Times published their "huh?" inspiring piece called Major News Outlets Urge U.S. to Drop Its Charges Against Assange. Who better to write it than State Department apologist stenographer Charlie Savage.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Naturally, the Times article on Julian Assange fails to mention even the simplest of facts. That he was targeted by the US for publishing details of some of its many crimes against humanity, especially the Chelsea Manning revelations. That he has been imprisoned for over 10 years now, and don't tell me about his so called sanctuary in the Ecuadorian embassy. It's not considered asylum when governments bug your apartment, listen in on protected conversations with your legal counsel, and analyze the DNA in your children's diapers.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/01/hillary-clinton-russian-bots-2016-presidential-election-trump">It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A new study of Russia-based Twitter posts by New York University researchers buries the liberal canard that Russian bots played any significant role in swinging the 2016 election for Donald Trump.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>That the Russian government preferred Trump to Hillary Clinton and that Russia-connected actors engaged in digital skulduggery related to the election are not really in dispute. Much of the mainstream discussion around Russian bots, however, has been premised on unexamined assumptions about the scale and effectiveness of these efforts. Powerful states including the United States, after all, regularly engage in the likes of online propaganda and sock-puppeting campaigns. Whether they have a more than negligible impact on real world events, electoral and otherwise, is another question. It's notable, then, that a new analysis published by the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University finds no evidence whatsoever that Russia-based Twitter disinformation had any meaningful impact on voter behavior in 2016. In place of the terrifying bot army menace that's periodically been invoked, the researchers instead detail an enterprise with minimal reach or influence, and one overwhelmingly concentrated among partisan Republicans already inclined to vote for Trump.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/democracy-bill-clinton-s-legacy">To Save Our Democracy, We Must Transcend Bill Clinton's Legacy</a>: <font color=maroon><em>If Democrats are going to be successful in beating back the threat of right-wing nationalism ushered in by Trump, they have to move even more squarely toward the promise of economic security for all Americans that was once central to the party. Thirty years ago this month, Bill Clinton launched a presidency he claimed, in his inaugural address, would "reinvent America." Clinton was right: he did reinvent America, definitively shifting the Democratic Party away from a politics that saw economic security for American working people as the fundamental task of government, a path that had brought the party decades of political success. The disastrous consequences of that shift, limiting working Americans' expectations about how our political system can improve their lives, are with us to this day. To save our imperiled democracy, we must definitively transcend the political circumstances Clinton brought us.</em></font>"
<p>"<a href="https://seeingtheforest.com/what-happened-at-southwest-airlines-is-what-is-happening-to-every-american-company/">What Happened At Southwest Airlines Is What Is Happening To Every American Company</a>: <font color=maroon>All the incentives are for squeezing everything out of a company to get the appearance of profit THIS QUARTER to get the STOCK PRICE UP to get the EXECUTIVE QUARTERLY BONUS and it is all at the expense of everything else – the customers (obviously) , the suppliers, the employees, and the future of the companies. Our government is supposed to oversee the way companies operate. They operate under RULES set up by our government. Rather than get into the specifics of those rules, ask yourself if a government operating in the interests of the people of the country and the long-term good of the companies of the country would allow what we are seeing at SWA and so many other companies to continue? Of course not!!!</font> "
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/power/ticketmasters-dark-history/">Ticketmaster's Dark History</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A 40-year saga of kickbacks, threats, political maneuvering, and the humiliation of Pearl Jam</em>. Just over 28 years ago, Taylor Swift was a precocious Montessori preschooler growing up on a Pennsylvania Christmas tree farm, and Eddie Vedder was the Most Important Musician in America, Kurt Cobain having bequeathed to him the (unwanted) title with his suicide that spring. Bill Clinton himself called Vedder to the White House to ask him for help with 'messaging' around Cobain's death, and the rock star in turn confided in the president that he was having trouble with a rapacious corporation named Ticketmaster, which appeared to be operating an illegal monopoly. A few weeks later, the Clinton Justice Department invited Vedder's band Pearl Jam to be the star witness in an antitrust investigation inspired by the case. The band obliged. But no sooner had they agreed to participate in the probe than their lives began to resemble a kind of pop culture Book of Job, replete with biblical floods, mysterious plagues, possible burglaries, and crippling self-doubt. And 11 days after canceling a Ticketmaster-free 1995 summer tour due to 'pressures' they feared 'would ultimately destroy the band,' Pearl Jam's handlers at the Department of Justice issued an unusual two-sentence press release announcing the end of its investigation.</font>"
<p>I was trying to figure out what would be a reasonable "poverty line" since the one we have makes no sense, and I stumbled on a page that lists <a href="https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/economy/cost-to-live-comfortably-biggest-cities-us/">How Much You Need To Live Comfortably in 50 Major US Cities</a>." The entries are all variations on this:
<br>"<font color=maroon>Albuquerque, New Mexico
<br>• Median income: $53,936
<br>• Income needed if you're a homeowner: $81,526.74
<br>• Income needed if you're a renter: $65,446.74
<br>Albuquerque isn't going to top any salary comparison by city with the median earner pulling down almost $54,000, which is below the average salary in the U.S. But, with 'just' $16,080 separating a median earner who rents from the cost to live comfortably in Albuquerque, it's actually among the more affordable major cities in the country.</font>"
<p>David Crosby, "<a href="https://youtu.be/_aK2e9PjH3o">Triad</a>" — original studio take.Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-6280113220835284212023-01-06T01:55:00.006+00:002023-01-08T00:52:38.098+00:00Twelfthnight<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWeo-eizDMzxBS7RNP9SY95oMHbhTwhwGTuZVf0p6_GkGp4K2wvzmCttU873drCnJrkn85X1sGhKI7gjq2WV9aP54TqWtX9NmhIcwdvVv5_FUrlE6t9e50wZ6HwMxEZAJwbYbFW0VZhIy-LAjV1hoR6kdJ1gyZOhYIJ8GawDzyxlbm5oOwX1rcw/s320/xmas%20tree%20Wroclaw,%20Poland.jpg" width=332 height=453 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Wroclaw, Poland">
<p>Another installment in my continuing effort to make the season start at Advent and last through Twelfthnight, so here's the traditional Christmas links:
<br>* Mark Evanier's wonderful <a href="http://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col245/">Mel Tormé story</a>, and here's the man himself in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaEedtRHklg&feature=youtu.be">duet with Judy Garland</a>.
<br>* <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc5eJc5SHA">Joshua Held's Christmas card</a>, with a little help from Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters.
<br>* Brian Brink's tour-de-force performance of "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8zHmwoTtKc">The Carol of the Bells</a>"
<br>* "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5M9UTlDb10">Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime</a>."
<br>* Ron Tiner's one-page cartoon version of <a href="http://news.ansible.co.uk/images/scrooge1.gif"><em>A Christmas Carol</em></a>
<p>As I write this, the House still hasn't got a Speaker, and lots of people are enjoying the clown show. I'm not gonna wait to find out what happens. In the meantime, I hope everyone is prepared to remind anyone who will listen that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional.
<p>There really couldn't be a clearer example of what privatization is for than this: "<a href="https://bookriot.com/huntsville-public-library-privatization/">Huntsville Public Library (TX) Privatized After Pride Display</a>: <font color=maroon>The Huntsville Public Library (HPL) has been under fire since this summer, when a book display riled up city officials. Now, following the removal of two book displays at the public library, the city decided to privatize the library. Though officials claim the move to hire Library Services & Systems (LS&S) will reduce library operational costs over the next ten years, it comes on the heels of the city removing a Pride book display and a Banned Books Week display in September. City Manager Aron Kulhavy called for the displays to be taken down, temporarily closing the library. Following the removal of both displays, the library was told they could not create any additional displays, pending the city's review of policies and procedures about them. The City Librarian was also placed on leave. When asked why the displays were taken down, Kulhavy said it was to 'better respond to citizen concerns from all viewpoints.' In October, a library user identified additional suspicious behavior. A city police officer was behind the circulation desk reviewing books, reportedly taking one with him and approving the rest of the titles as ones that were okay to return to the collection. The library board has had no say in any of these decisions.</font>"
<p><a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/silence-from-media-as-twitter-suspends-palestinian-journalist">Silence From Media as Twitter Suspends Palestinian Journalist</a>: <font color=maroon><em>In yet another demonstration of anti-Palestinianism in the U.S. mainstream, there is no outcry over Twitter's arbitrary suspension of Said Arikat, longtime D.C. correspondent for Al-Quds newspaper.</em> It was big news when Elon Musk suspended the Twitter accounts of at least nine tech journalists last week (over alleged dox-ing) and then reinstated them this week after Twitter users demanded as much. But in yet another demonstration of anti-Palestinianism in the U.S. mainstream, there has been scarcely any attention given to the arbitrary suspension of Said Arikat, a fixture at the State Department briefings as the longtime Washington correspondent for Al-Quds newspaper, a Palestinian publication. Arikat said he woke up on December 3 to read a notice from Twitter that his account had been 'permanently suspended after careful review'. No reason was given; and despite the assurance that he could appeal the suspension if he thought the decision was wrong, Twitter has not responded to numerous letters Arikat has sent the media giant.</font>" So, no censorship there, then.
<p>Good: "<a href="https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/White%20Paper%20-%20Martha%20Wright-Reed%20J&R%20Communications%20Act.pdf">The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act</a>: <font color=maroon>The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act is technology-neutral, targeted legislation that addresses long-standing, bipartisan concerns regarding inmate communication rates at prisons and jails across the nation. Policymakers of all stripes acknowledge that the existing market has failed to produce adequate competition to protect inmates and detainees, their families, and law enforcement. The bill addresses this market failure ('localized monopolies') that limits competition at facilities.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/email/a8f3cc14-3a9d-4110-9bfd-cc96067bfe61/">NEWS: State Officials Warned Buttigieg About Airline Mess</a>" <font color=maroon><em>Before the holiday travel nightmare, attorneys general begged the Transportation Secretary and Congress to crack down.</em> Southwest Airlines stranding thousands of Americans during the holiday season is not some unexpected crisis nor the normal consequence of inclement weather — and federal officials are not powerless bystanders. Before the debacle, attorneys general from both parties were sounding alarms about regulators' lax oversight of the airline industry, imploring them and congressional lawmakers to crack down. The warnings came just before Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on national television insisting travel would improve by the holidays, and before Southwest executives — flush with cash from a government bailout — announced new dividend payouts to shareholders, while paying themselves millions of dollars.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Currently, Buttigieg and the Department of Transportation are the primary regulator over airlines thanks to a 44-year-old law preempting state consumer protection authority. Model legislation proposed by the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly think tank, and backed by consumer groups would empower citizens and state law enforcement officials to sue airlines that violate consumer protection laws. One week after the letter from state attorneys general, Buttigieg said on The Late Late Show With James Corden that airline travel 'is going to get better by the holidays.' He added that 'we're really pressing the airlines to deliver better service.'</font>" But it didn't, and McKinsey Pete used none of his powers to try to change that.
<p>There was hope, as you'll see below, but the latest on this story is pretty depressing: "<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/democrats-frittered-away-the-lame-duck-session/">Democrats Frittered Away the Lame-Duck Session</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A lackadaisical approach led to failure for numerous bipartisan bills, and kept alive Republican goals to take the debt limit hostage in 2023.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>As a last grab for policy under a Democratic congressional majority in President Biden's first term, this is frankly a very modest haul. While some last-second proposed deals for the omnibus were far-fetched, others were bipartisan enough that they could have found their way to the president's desk months ago. That all of them had to jockey for space in must-pass bills was symptomatic of the lackadaisical approach to the lame duck, a stark contrast to the last time Democrats had a lame-duck session before losing their congressional majority. And the real culprit in that is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who appears to have thought that the successes of August, when Congress advanced the Inflation Reduction Act, medical care for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits (the PACT Act), and semiconductor manufacturing subsidies (the CHIPS and Science Act), were enough to secure the Democratic majority's legacy. Though much more was available—like measures on press freedom, tech antitrust, criminal justice, Afghan refugees, and workplace fairness—there just wasn't much interest from Schumer.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://perfectunion.us/schumer-freezes-antitrust-bills-after-big-tech-lobbyists-bundled-millions/">Schumer Freezes Antitrust Bills After Big Tech Lobbyists Bundled Millions</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Apple, Amazon, and others are spending record sums to fight off antitrust laws while pouring money into the Democrats' campaign arms.</em> Several bills to curb the market power of the world's largest tech companies are being stalled to death by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after lobbyists for Amazon, Apple, and tech industry lobbying groups bundled millions in donations for the Democrats' campaign arms. Since last year, the Big Tech companies have been aggressively lobbying against the antitrust bills, which appear to have enough support to pass both the Senate and the House despite Schumer's resistance. Lobbying disclosure forms reveal that Apple and Amazon are on pace to spend more on federal lobbying this year than ever, and Meta likely is as well. All stated that they have lobbied on the antitrust bills more than any other.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/economy/wall-street-wins-again-on-retirement-savings/">Wall Street Wins Again on Retirement Savings</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A perk for the asset management industry found its way into the omnibus spending bill. Meanwhile, the savings of disabled Americans living in extreme poverty will continue to be strictly means-tested.</em> A bill package included in Congress's end-of-year omnibus legislation will allow the richest Americans to park more tax-shielded cash in private retirement funds, in a win for giant asset managers like Vanguard and Fidelity.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/get-antitrust-legislation-done-chuck">Get Antitrust Legislation Done, Chuck Schumer</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Antitrust legislation is now up to one man, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He promised a vote on antitrust legislation in May. Will he deliver?</em> In May of this year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made an important promise, and one that surprised both me and a lot of the people who care about anti-monopoly policy. He said he'd hold a vote on some or all of the antitrust legislation that Congress had been working on over the last three years, in the early summer. This promise was supposed to be the capstone to an important initiative in both the House and Senate.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>These bills have broad support and passed House and Senate committees. The White House supports them, and the last one actually passed the House with a bipartisan vote. Taken together, these bills would have a catalytic effect on competition and monopoly power. Since the Republicans are going to take over the House, and the GOP leadership has a demonstrated hostility to most antitrust legislation, passing these bills now is the last chance to actually get some of them done, at least for a few more years. The last remaining hurdle is getting the bills to pass the Senate floor. So Schumer's promise to hold a vote on antitrust bills back in May was a big deal. He was essentially saying to his caucus, and in particular to Klobuchar, 'I hear you care about antitrust, I will help you get it done.' The problem, however, is simple. Schumer just didn't hold the vote or dedicate the floor time. He kept delaying, changing his rationale, and just not doing what he promised. For the last week or so, the Senate has been spending its floor time on nominations, which is what you'd hold votes on if you wanted to kill antitrust legislation. Schumer was, as it turns out, not telling the truth when he said he would hold a vote</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/gary-gensler-got-it-right/">Gary Gensler Got It Right</a>: <font color=maroon>The emergence and acceptance of cryptocurrency is one of the most embarrassing recent indictments of broad swaths of American financial and political thinking. Despite Sam Bankman-Fried admitting the Ponzi-like nature of crypto on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast months before he was disgraced, important validators such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Jay Clayton currently serve or served as advisors to crypto firms, and the Brookings Institution held repeated conferences on the importance of what many called 'financial innovation.'[1] By contrast, the SEC and its current chair, Gary Gensler, took key actions to ensure that these speculative financial instruments did not spread to the rest of the financial system.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/justice/day-of-constitutional-reckoning-voting-rights/">A Day of Constitutional Reckoning Approaches</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Section 2 of the 14th Amendment was designed to strip congressional districts from states that disenfranchise voters. It's never been implemented.</em> We swear oaths on the Constitution. We are taught every word; indeed, every comma counts. This month, a special three-judge federal district court, and the Supreme Court eventually, will be asked to resurrect 135 words of the Constitution that have never been enforced, even though they were specifically intended to ensure all Americans could vote free of only the most minor government regulation. Though few even know of its existence, Section 2 of the 14th Amendment is perfectly clear. It provides that, if any state abridges the franchise of males over 21, 'except for participation in rebellion, or other crime,' that state loses the equivalent population numbers counted to determine representatives in Congress. Subsequent amendments to the Constitution erased the gender and age limitations, but the core meaning of Section 2 remains intact.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/12/16/corporate-rico-environmental-advocate/">RUNNING A RACKET: The Scorched-Earth Legal Strategy Corporations Are Using to Silence Their Critics</a>: <font color=maroon></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Victims suing multinational corporations for alleged crimes committed abroad face steep odds. Collingsworth has made a specialty of these uphill battles, devoting his career to holding companies accountable in American courts for human rights abuses overseas. In his struggle with Drummond, he collaborated with activist groups, spoke out in the media, and wrote letters to Drummond's business partners accusing the company of 'hiring, contracting with, and directing' the paramilitaries who committed the murders.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Collingsworth lost an initial trial in 2007, when a jury found there wasn't clear evidence tying the company to the crimes. Another of his lawsuits was dismissed for being too similar to the first. But Collingsworth continued to press his case, offering new witnesses with firsthand testimony implicating Drummond. Then, in March 2015, the case took a surprising turn. Drummond had returned fire in the legal fight with an unusual accusation. The company charged that Collingsworth — an advocate who recently brought a case before the U.S. Supreme Court — had led a 'multifaceted criminal campaign' to extort Drummond into paying a costly settlement. This campaign, Drummond alleged, was in fact a racketeering conspiracy as defined by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://boingboing.net/2022/12/19/new-york-passed-the-nations-first-right-to-repair-law-pleasing-tech-lobbyists-governor-kathy-hochul-hasnt-signed-it.html">New York passed the nation's first right-to-repair law. Pleasing tech lobbyists, Governor Kathy Hochul hasn't signed it</a>: <font color=maroon>New York's right-to-repair law, approved by the state's House and Senate, landed on Governor Kathy Hochul's desk weeks ago. She's not signing it, reports Ars Technica, to please tech lobbyists hired by firms such as Apple and Microsoft—and time is running out for her to do so. Her "pocket veto" of the law, which already exempts game consoles, garden equipment and other appliances, would effectively kill it stone dead: it would have to be redrafted from scratch no sooner than next year.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The consumer electronics industry is reportedly spending billions on this lobbying effort, which has already restricted New York's right-to-repair act to cellphones and other pocket gadgets. Right-to-repair is a clear example of something everyone wants—a right so presumptive and universally approved that it passes with overwhelming bipartisan support in an age of savage division and partisanship. But it's not happening, because the constituency that matters to Hochul has nothing to do with what everyone wants.</font>"
<p>The <em>Financial Times</em> has a good piece on how "<a href="https://enterprise-sharing.ft.com/error-pages/expired-link?contentId=b2154c20-c9d0-4209-9a47-95d114d31f2b">Britain's winter of discontent is the inevitable result of austerity</a>", but since it's mostly paywalled, it's worth checking out <a href="https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1606223985338875907?s=20&t=e3pozy2xNJ5xCMlKzNsy7Q">John Burn-Murdoch's thread</a> quoting from it and explaining the damage, with handy charts and graphs. The short version is that the Tories have massively underfunded the NHS and crippled it, but their massive cuts on other services have contributed to the health burdens on the system. (What's missing from this story is the huge expense and reduction in services resulting from privatization, which is even depriving people of water. Oh, and the fact that New Labour has contributed to it, too.)
<p>John Oliver did a great segment on the copaganda against <a href="https://youtu.be/xQLqIWbc9VM">bail reform</a> - worth watching!
<p>REST IN POWER: "<a href="https://locusmag.com/2023/01/suzy-mckee-charnas-1939-2023/"><b>Suzy McKee Charnas</b> (1939-2023)</a>: <font color=maroon>SF writer Suzy McKee Charnas, 83, died January 2, 2023. She was best known for her ambitious works that explored gender, sexuality, and feminist issues.</font>" There's no way I can explain what a superstar she was to us when <em>Walk to the End of the World</em> came out, how much fun she was to talk to, the energy that came off of her.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64108691"><b>John Bird</b>: Actor and comedian dies aged 86</a> [...] <font color=maroon>'He was so modest, for someone who so often played these characters who were so complacent and self-aggrandising,' Bremner told Radio 4's The World at One.</font>" Bird & Fortune, or <em>The Two Johns</em>, were one of my favorite things on TV. Every week, they took turns with one doing the interview and the other being George Parr, the latter usually being some horrible sociopathic banker or Tory Minister whose very existence should have been a scandal (and a route to prison). Here is George Parr <a href="https://youtu.be/nohGiQmOxlc">discussing planning for the war in Iraq</a>, and here <a href="https://youtu.be/5BiQGaE5j2k">Washington Diplomat George Parr</a> discusses George Bush and foreign policy and stuff. And here, George Parr, <a href="https://youtu.be/mzJmTCYmo9g">investment banker</a>, makes the usual excuses.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/stuart-margolin-dead-the-rockford-files-1235459928/"><b>Stuart Margolin</b>, <em>The Rockford Files</em> Co-Star and TV Director, Dies at 82</a>." He did a lot more things than most people realize, and even had genre credits, but of course to me he will always be Angel Martin.
<p>KNIGHTED: "<a href="https://www.noise11.com/news/king-knights-queen-arise-sir-brian-may-20221231">King Knights Queen, Arise Sir <b>Brian May</b></a>: <font color=maroon><em>Queen guitarist Brian May has been knighted by King Charles III and is now Sir Brian May.</em> May was a co-founder of the band Smile in 1968, later to become Queen in 1970 when Freddie Mercury joined the group. Queen released their self-titled debut album in 1973 and second and third albums 'Queen II' and 'Sheer Heart Attack' the following year, starting a succession of global hits with 'Killer Queen' and achieving their first number one 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in 1975. Brian May was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 and earned his PhD in Astrophysics in 2007. Dr Brian May was Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University from 2008 to 2013 and a collaborator with NASA for the New Horizons Pluto mission. He even has an asteroid named after him. 52665 brianmay was dedicated in 1998.</font>"
<p>Ratzinger croaked, too, but hell with that.
<p>Free Movie: "<a href="https://watch.showandtell.film/watch/vigilante-ga/"><em>Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman</em></a>: "<font color=maroon>Greg Palast and his investigations team bust the most brazen, racist attack on voting rights yet—engineered by Georgia's Brian Kemp.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://kushnickbruce.medium.com/30-years-of-broadband-bait-switch-campaigns-created-the-digital-divide-8d68f05f8c99">30 Years of Broadband Bait-&-Switch Campaigns Created the Digital Divide</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Every Government Broadband Agency is Negligent for the Failure to Investigate and Clawback, Get Back the Money.</em> Maybe someone should ask the 'Public' whether they think it's OK for the government to give out $100 billion in state and federal subsidies, when they — the FCC, the state broadband agencies, etc. can't even tell you how the Digital Divide was created in your state or how much money you, your family, business, etc. were charged for a fiber optic future you never got.</font>"
<p>John Solomon, so grain of salt and all that, but, "<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/394036-How-Comey-intervened-to-kill-Wikileaks-immunity-deal/">How Comey intervened to kill WikiLeaks' immunity deal</a>: <font color=maroon>One of the more devastating intelligence leaks in American history — the unmasking of the CIA's arsenal of cyber warfare weapons last year — has an untold prelude worthy of a spy novel.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>But an unexpected intervention by Comey — relayed through Warner — soured the negotiations, multiple sources tell me. Assange eventually unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/anti-trans-transphobia-gender-critical-mirror-propaganda/">Anti-trans activists are using 'mirror propaganda'. Here's how to spot it</a>: <font color=maroon><em>People claiming to be 'silenced' are being featured in national mainstream media platforms. There's a word for that.</em> The recent backlash against Graham Norton's entirely reasonable suggestion that the media talks to more trans people was more revealing than people think. He came dangerously close to exposing organised transphobia's core campaign strategy, something they don't want people talking about. In collaboration with mainstream media, its main strategy has been to liberally platform anti-trans narratives, hermetically exclude trans perspectives, and at the same time accuse trans people of 'silencing' transphobes. For example, a transphobic group holds a rally somewhere – maybe a couple of dozen transphobes in a draughty church hall. There's a protest outside. A journalist, with confected faux-indignation, then claims trans people are 'silencing' them.</font>" My, this all seems so familiar.
<p>"<a href="https://yellowscene.com/2022/12/31/a-big-lie-is-breaking-education/">A Big Lie is Breaking Education</a>: [...] <font color=maroon>It is widely believed that education in America is not going well. That belief is more propaganda than fact. The contemporary manifestation of that propaganda began with a 1983 report commissioned by the Reagan administration: A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. A Nation at Risk appeared to provide unassailable statistical proof that student achievement had dropped. The average scores the report cited were not fiction. Scores were indeed lower, at least by their calculations. But it didn't mean what the report concluded. The Sandia Report found seemingly contradictory facts: The average test scores of all American students had gone down, as A Nation at Risk claimed . . . but the average test scores of every sub-group (by class, race, and every other variable) of American students had gone up! How can that be? Enter Simpson's Paradox, an interesting statistical phenomenon.</font>"
<p>In my continuing efforts to remind people that the Opus Dei squad on the Supreme Court is actually a bunch of heretical crackpots, more history on "<a href="http://dirtyhippies.org/2022/10/12/the-roman-catholic-church-and-reproductive-health/">The Roman Catholic Church and reproductive health</a>: <font color=maroon>I wrote this in reaction to the growing control of health care by Catholic organizations (41% or more of facilities in Washington State), most recently the merger of Virginia Mason and CHI Franciscan. Access to birth control healthcare is increasingly limited. Inaccessible and illegal are indistinguishable. Kuttner on TAP reports that Oberlin college has outsourced the campus health service to a Catholic-owned provider. 40% of student visits were about sexual health. Many received birth control or emergency contraception.</font><a href="https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/reproductive-rights-crushed-at-oberlin/">*</a> <font color=maroon>I am firmly convinced that the Catholic Church's position on contraception and abortion is theologically unfounded and morally wrong, by their own accounting, as evidenced below.</font>"
<p>From 2016 in <em>Harper's</em>, "<a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/">Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs</a>: <font color=maroon>Nixon's invention of the war on drugs as a political tool was cynical, but every president since — Democrat and Republican alike — has found it equally useful for one reason or another. Meanwhile, the growing cost of the drug war is now impossible to ignore: billions of dollars wasted, bloodshed in Latin America and on the streets of our own cities, and millions of lives destroyed by draconian punishment that doesn't end at the prison gate; one of every eight black men has been disenfranchised because of a felony conviction.</font>
<p>Kurt Vonnegut, 2005, "<a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/elites-are-clueless-and-so-on">Elites Are Clueless, and so on</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Persuasive guessing has been at the core of leadership for so long – for all of human experience so far – that it is wholly unsurprising that most of the leaders of this planet, in spite of all the information that is suddenly ours, want the guessing to go on, because now it is their turn to guess and be listened to. Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they want standards, and it isn't the gold standard. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard.</font>"
<p><a href="https://www.royalmint.com/shop/limited-editions/music-legends/the-rolling-stones/">The Royal Mint is commemorating The Rolling Stones</a>.
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-803955264292078392022-12-15T00:46:00.005+00:002022-12-17T22:14:03.022+00:00You just gotta call on me
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDRwa4Kt3-l7Cw6MlCK9DzdO29OsmuYiwaMe1-a6hLKrusF0Xip__CuBPAY76JZnSnF1Iu2ZNCU5Ulkt0DTtxp1w1Mq28Xkcy6wWTRezf8HthJiRAxrSELSbli5f8Ty_SOny6od2Y1WlZlyBhT4Irx5Z5WWVgl8E96qRPjWktNgmWEIfWWPvm8Cw/s320/xmastree2tenor.gif" width=240 height=320 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="xmastree2tenor">
<p><a href="https://www.santagames.net/calendar/index.htm">Santa Games online Advent Calendar</a>. You can start from December first.
<p>"<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/rail-strike-why-the-railroads-wont-give-in-on-paid-leave-psr-precision-scheduled-railroading.html">Why America's Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave</a>: <font color=maroon>For months, the world's largest economy has been teetering on the brink of collapse because America's latter-day robber barons can't comprehend that workers sometimes get sick. Or so the behavior of major U.S. rail companies seems to suggest.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>Unlike nearly 80 percent of U.S. laborers, railroad employees are not currently guaranteed a single paid sick day. Rather, if such workers wish to recuperate from an illness or make time to see a doctor about a nagging complaint, they need to use vacation time, which must be requested days in advance. In other words, if a worker wants to take time off to recover from the flu, they need to notify their employer of this days before actually catching the virus. Given that workers' contracts do not include paid psychic benefits, this is a tall order.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>All of which invites the question: Why do these rail barons hate paid leave so much? Why would a company have no problem handing out 24 percent raises, $1,000 bonuses, and caps on health-care premiums but draw the line on providing a benefit as standard and ubiquitous throughout modern industry as paid sick days? The answer, in short, is 'P.S.R.' — or precision-scheduled railroading.</font>" More on that subject from Reich, "<a href="https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-one-thing-you-need-to-know-about">The one thing you need to know about the railroads</a>: <font color=maroon><em>It's not that a rail strike would be bad for the economy</em>.</font>"
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/06/us/warnock-walker-georgia-senate-runoff">Warnock beats Walker in Georgia, 51.4-48.6</a>, giving Dems a real 51st vote. For whatever that's worth.
<p>Oh, wait! "<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/sinema-arizona-senate-independent-00073216">Sinema switches to independent, shaking up the Senate</a> [...] <font color=maroon>In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator told POLITICO that she will not caucus with Republicans and suggested that she intends to vote the same way she has for four years in the Senate. 'Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,' she said.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.rawstory.com/substation/">Five power substations attacked in Pacific northwest similar to strike that caused outages in North Carolina</a>: <font color=maroon>The FBI is investigating at least five attacks on electricity substations in the Pacific northwest similar to one that caused widespread power outages in North Carolina. Representatives from Puget Sound Energy, the Cowlitz County Public Utility District and Bonneville Power Administration confirmed the attacks took place in November, although the FBI declined to confirm the investigations and it's not clear whether any of the damage resulted in service disruptions, reported the Seattle Times.</font>"
<p>From <em>The Toledo Blade</em>, "<a href="https://www.toledoblade.com/opinion/editorials/2022/11/11/editorial-debt-program-a-model/stories/20221111016">Debt program a model</a>: <font color=maroon>Toledo and Lucas County have combined to turn $1.6 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds into as much as $200 million of medical debt relief. In the process, our community has created a best practice that other cities and counties will be able to emulate for their own citizens. Toledo City Council voted Wednesday 7-5 to approve $800,000 in ARPA funds for the program with RIP Medical Debt, creators of the charity that buys bad debt from hospitals and discharges the liability.</font>"
<p>This could be good news: "<a href="https://dcist.com/story/22/12/01/dc-council-wants-to-make-metrobus-fares-free/">D.C. Council Wants To Make Metrobus Fares Free In The District, Expand Service Overnight</a>: <font color=maroon>The D.C. Council wants to make WMATA bus service fare-free in the District next year. If approved, D.C. would become one of the largest and most prominent cities in the country to make the bus free at the fare box.</font>"
<p>Helaine Olen in the WaPo, "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/30/medicare-advantage-seniors-health-care/">Medicare Advantage? More like Medicare Disadvantage</a>: <font color=maroon>When the annual enrollment period for Medicare ends on Dec. 7, analysts expect that, for the first time, more seniors will receive their 2023 health-care coverage from Medicare Advantage than the traditional program. That's not a good thing for either elderly Americans or federal coffers. And while seniors are well advised to approach these plans with caution, we should all be paying attention to what's going on. Medicare Advantage plans, which are private insurance plans for seniors paid for with federal dollars, originated as a government savings strategy, on the theory that the private sector could improve on government performance at a lower cost. But over the past two decades, it has become clear that Medicare Advantage does not result in improved care for less money. Instead, it will come as no surprise to Americans familiar with the health insurance industry that insurers found a way to turn it into yet another profit center, while putting bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of patients.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2207607/stax-records-founder-jim-stewart-dead-at-92/news/">Stax Records Founder <b>Jim Stewart</b> Dead At 92</a> [...] <font color=maroon>The early Satellite Records were not successful, but Stewart eventually borrowed money from his sister Estelle Axton, who mortgaged her home so that Stewart could buy an Ampex tape recorder. (The name Stax is a combination of Stewart and Axton's last names.) Stax Records moved into the former Capitol Theater in a Black neighborhood in South Memphis, and the label had its first success in 1960, when Memphis entertainer Rufus Thomas recorded 'Cause I Love You,' a duet with his teenage daughter Carla.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>After Chips Moman left Stax, the interracial instrumental group Booker T. & The MGs became the Stax house band, and the label had huge success with Southern soul artists like Otis Redding, the Bar-Kays, and Sam & Dave.</font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/30/fleetwood-macs-christine-mcvie-dies-at-age-79">Fleetwood Mac's <b>Christine McVie</b> dies at age 79</a>." All I have to say is that I saw them on the <em>Rumors</em> tour and they were spectacular.
<p>I meant to post this when it came out in October but I got distracted, but I still want to have the link for every idiot who tries to tell me a six week pregnancy has it's own heartbeat. No, it doesn't, there's no heart that early. "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/18/pregnancy-weeks-abortion-tissue">What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Sometimes, patients want to see the tissue after an abortion. 'They are stunned by what it actually looks like,' says Fleischman. 'That's when I realized how much the imagery on the internet and on placards – showing human-like qualities at this early stage of development – has really permeated the culture. People almost don't believe this is what comes out.'</font>" Pass it on.
<p>"<a href="https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/distracting-people-from-the-material">Distracting People from the Material Conditions of Our Society</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A New York Times Specialty</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>It's almost as if the epidemic of homelessness in the U.S. appeared out of nowhere for no reason. Houseless people must be taken as a given—we must manage their thefts of bicycles with handcuffs, armed bureaucrats, and cages, but we certainly can't ask why they do not have a place to live. Reporting like this carries water for the people in our society who own things, and it confuses multitudes of low-information readers who never develop a strong sense of the root causes of the solvable problems they keep reading about in the news every day. It also depoliticizes people by obfuscating the political and economic battles that actually determine the course of people's lives.</font>"
<p>Long read: "<a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ael-2020-0145/html?lang=en">The Contest on Corporate Purpose: Why Lynn Stout was Right and Milton Friedman was Wrong</a>: <font color=maroon>It is now 50 years since Milton Friedman set out his doctrine that 'The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.' This paper seeks to add fresh and compelling new evidence of why Lynn Stout was correct in her resolute critique of the thesis of shareholder primacy at the heart of the Friedman doctrine, and how this doctrine remains profoundly damaging to the corporations that continue to uphold this belief.</font>"
<p>So, I'm not sure who this is, but they've done pilot programs of <a href="https://www.4dayweek.com/">the four-day work week</a>, and say that, "<font color=maroon>63% of businesses found it easier to attract and retain talent with a 4 day week.</font>" And that, "<font color=maroon>78% of employees with 4 day weeks are happier and less stressed.</font>"
<p>Dean Baker, "<a href="https://cepr.net/omg-a-right-wing-jerk-can-buy-twitter-media-concentration-matters/?emci=ce833776-c771-ed11-819c-000d3a9eb474&emdi=2bf65930-ca71-ed11-819c-000d3a9eb474&ceid=4629216">OMG, a Right-Wing Jerk Can Buy Twitter! Media Concentration Matters</a>: <font color=maroon>It's more than a bit bizarre that until Elon Musk bought Twitter, most policy types apparently did not see a risk that huge platforms like Facebook and Twitter could be controlled by people with a clear political agenda. While just about everyone had some complaints about the moderation of these and other commonly used platforms, they clearly were not pushing Fox News-style nonsense. With Elon Musk in charge, that may no longer be true. Musk has indicated his fondness for racists and anti-Semites, and made it clear that they are welcome on his new toy. He also is apparently good with right-wing kooks making up stories about everything from Paul Pelosi to Covid vaccines. (Remember, with Section 230 protection, Musk cannot be sued for defaming individuals and companies by mass-marketing lies, only the originators face any legal liability.)</font>" Shortly after posting this, Baker's Twitter account was "permanently" shut down — only to be reopened a couple of hours later. I blame the bots.
<p>"<a href="https://grossman.arcdigital.media/p/another-hyped-hunter-biden-laptop">Another Hyped 'Hunter Biden Laptop' Reveal Flops</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi said the 'Twitter Files' would show a political scandal, but the information itself did the opposite</em></font>." I thought this was a fair assessment except that I have no idea how the word "hacked" is being used.
<p>From Diane Ravitch's education blog, "<a href="https://dianeravitch.net/2022/11/21/william-phillis-charters-are-a-step-backward-in-ohio/">William Phillis: Charters Are a Step Backward in Ohio</a>: <font color=maroon>William Phillis, former deputy state superintendent of education in Ohio, is appalled by the waste and corruption in the charter sector. The state constitution requires a common school system, and charter schools and vouchers violate the state constitution. Ohio has had some of the biggest financial scandals in charter world (think ECOT), yet the Republican legislature continues to demand more funding for charters and vouchers. In this post, he likens charters to the one-room schools that were closed down long ago. He also notes that half of the 600 charters authorized in Ohio have closed.</font>"
<p>Handy chart: "<a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates">Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates</a>"
<p>A nice piece of writing from Richard J. Eskow last year, "<a href="https://eskow.substack.com/p/american-ozymandias-part-1-the-obama">American Ozymandias: Part 1, The Obama Center in Chicago</a> [...] <font color=maroon>In Chicago, something that resembles a glass-and-stone temple is about to displace much of the local community, at an expected price tag of $1.6 billion. But the Obama Presidential Center isn't a temple. It's more like a tomb – not for the ex-president, but for the dreams and hopes of the millions who voted for him. The main building's vaguely sarcophagus-like shape is reminiscent of pharaonic burial sites, which were also built by their rulers as a tribute to their own greatness.</font>"
<p>From 2012 and still green: "<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2012/05/29/pope-paul-vis-error-on-birth-control/">Pope Paul VI's Error on Birth Control</a>: <font color=maroon>After conservative U.S. Catholic Bishops sued the Obama administration over its health-insurance requirement for contraceptives, many assumed the Bishops were upholding settled doctrine. But Catholic theologian Paul Surlis says Pope Paul VI incorrectly removed the issue from the Second Vatican Council in 1965.</font>"
<p>What caused the New York City bankruptcy crisis? Right-wingers say it was too much spending, but that doesn't explain a thing. "<a href="https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/a-crisis-without-keynes-the-1975-new-york-city-fiscal-crisis-revisited">A Crisis Without Keynes: the 1975 New York City Fiscal Crisis Revisited</a> [...] <font color=maroon>As we can see, city debt to revenue ratios were twice as high in the 1960s as they were in the 1970s. In 1966 when the city faced a much-overlooked fiscal crisis, deficits were on the order of $6 billion, when incoming revenue was about $3 billion. These numbers reveal not only the importance of deficits through much of the Keynesian period of the 1960s, but they also raise questions about the scale and significance of the 1975 fiscal crisis and the need for austerity.</font>" The short answer is that Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand caused the crisis.
<p>"<a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/11/china-mieville-a-spectre-haunting-hatred-capitalism-communist-manifesto">China Mieville on Why Capitalism Deserves Our Burning Hatred</a>: <font color=maroon><em>If you feel a burning hatred toward our unjust social order, writes China Mieville, don't run from it. Such hate for a system that immiserates vast swaths of humanity is just and necessary.</em></font>"
<p>Atrios (following a useful quote), "<a href="https://www.eschatonblog.com/2022/11/endless-demands-for-sister-souljah.html">Endless Demands For Sister Souljah Moments</a> [...] <font color=maroon>Your favorite centrists are always demanding that Democrats address the supposed "legitimate concerns" of voters. In this latest cycle it was "suburban moms concerned about trans athletes" or similar nonsense. And as is always the case, they go silent when you press them for details: what should they say, what policy should they support? Are you really asking them to demonize 15-year-old kids who want to play field hockey? Advocate for a national ban? Just some "feel your pain" speeches? WHAT????? Every cycle has an "other," and every cycle has the same group of centrists demanding Democrats somehow join in with the bashing, without specifying how, because that's what <s>they</s> "the voters" want.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/this-artist-is-giving-lesbian-couples-the-retro-pinup-treatment_l_63866c98e4b082d8e6d5e121">This Artist Is Giving Lesbian Couples The Retro, Pinup Treatment</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Jenifer Prince's dreamy illustrations put queer women front in center in comics and pulp illustrations.</em></font>"
<p><a href="https://www.arnuoc.com/products/pokemon-advent-calendar-the-one-with-24-little-doors">2022 Hayao Miyazaki Comics Advent Calendar -- The One With 24 Little Doors</a>
<br><a href="https://www.sandfordorchards.co.uk/product/advent-calendar/">Cider Advent Calendar</a>
<br><a href="https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/lego-marvel-super-heroes/93073-guardians-of-the-galaxy-advent-calendar-2022-lego-marvel-76231">Guardians of the Galaxy Advent Calendar 2022 LEGO Marvel 76231</a>
<br><a href="https://www.appledogs.co.uk/products/ore-christmas-advent-calendar">Crystal Ore Advent Calendar</a>
<p>The Beatles, "<a href="https://youtu.be/hrGMqvqUqmE">All I've Got To Do</a>" — Man, that guy's drumming!
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-51522644958996120892022-11-30T23:28:00.002+00:002022-12-01T01:39:35.939+00:00There's too much confusion<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghpisi1h94CMUZvWmr2jiJfGaKFKAjU8GXDNP1xCF3V7atdXOue2JZpsYSKO92JDIzSadDSsn2KSmZK6vq--SfvRdhytr7edfsSy8YSIGN3vJL2zqY__dRSZ8Plj7k15vLetG3xUJdf4cnT4F_C8OrmvLLhdmGe7QT0IAe23qgwfNV9CqAZ4EBLQ/s320/adventcandles.gif" width=341 height=373 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Advent Candles">
Yes, Advent has come, and time for Avedon's war against the right-wing War on Christmas. We sure can use some serious warmth and light and peace on Earth right now. Start with "<a href="http://www.rienzihills.com/ChristmasSing/carolofthebells.htm">Carol of the Bells</a>"!
<p>No Christmas for workers. Because this is just a great big FU to all workers, not just rail workers. Yes, the rail unions are under a different law than all other unions, but the message is clear. "<a href="https://www.salon.com/2022/11/30/biden-blasted-for-siding-with-billionaires-over-workers-on-rail-strike_partner/">Biden blasted for 'siding with billionaires' over workers on rail strike</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Biden warned that enforcing a deal rejected by rail unions could "reignite distrust" of Democrats among workers</em>. Advocacy groups joined rail workers and progressives in Congress on Tuesday in calling out President Joe Biden for encouraging legislative action that would avert a December strike and force through a contract with no paid sick leave.</font>"
<p>This comes infuriatingly late — if they'd sounded this way all along it might have made a real difference. "<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/11/28/because-publishing-not-crime-major-newspapers-push-us-drop-assange-charges">Because 'Publishing Is Not a Crime,' Major Newspapers Push US to Drop Assange Charges</a>: <font color=maroon><em>'This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America's First Amendment and the freedom of the press,' The Guardian, The New York Times, and other media outlets warned.</em> The five major media outlets that collaborated with WikiLeaks in 2010 to publish explosive stories based on confidential diplomatic cables from the U.S. State Department sent a letter Monday calling on the Biden administration to drop all charges against Julian Assange, who has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than three years in connection with his publication of classified documents.</font>"
<p>I have known her for nine years, and the whole time she's had leukemia, a disease with a five-year life-expectancy. I feel very lucky that she still seems to be maintaining — as long as she gets her drugs. She lives in Canada; she would almost certainly have died if she lived in the US. Today she told me about an article she'd written, and like me, she didn't know much about Mark Cuban, but she knew more than I did. "<a href="https://blood-cancer.com/living/cost-of-drugs">Cutting out the Middleman</a>: <font color=maroon>I'm not a big follower of The National Basketball Association, but when Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, told Forbes last year that the pricing for generic drugs was 'ridiculous' I stood up and took notice. You may remember Mark Cuban from the ABC reality series, Shark Tank. He also co-owns 2929 Entertainment, but his interests lie beyond basketball and reality shows. In an interview with Forbes Magazine, January 20, 2022, Cuban said that he wanted to 'show that capitalism can be compassionate' and he added Cost Plus Drugs to his line of investments.</font>" My friend's medication retails at $9,657 a month, but without the middle men it's $47 from Cost Plus. Other people have tried to do things like this but they get bought out by the big firms. Cuban, apparently, doesn't care about the money, he can afford to do this and he's doing it. If you or someone you know is despairing of paying for meds, see if Cost Plus has been able to get the generic yet at <a href="https://costplusdrugs.com/">their site</a>.
<p>Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Wendell Potter, "<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/how-medicare-advantage-scams-seniors-opinion-1759368">How Medicare Advantage Scams Seniors</a>: <font color=maroon>Where billions of dollars flow, deceptive actors follow. And nowhere does deception run deeper than how health insurers lure seniors into Medicare Advantage plans—only to leave many retirees struggling to cover their out-of-pocket requirements when their incomes are their lowest.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/why-is-aarp-boosting-medicare-privatization/">Why Is AARP Boosting Medicare Privatization?</a> <font color=maroon><em>The advocacy organization is welcoming the for-profit takeover of its members' national health insurance program — because it earns hundreds of millions as part of the deal.</em> Despite massive and systemic problems with for-profit Medicare plans denying care to seniors while costing the government more than $7 billion annually in excess fees, the leading advocacy group tasked with protecting older Americans is welcoming the privatization of the national health insurance program — while earning as much as $814 million annually from insurers advertising the plans. The state of affairs lays bare a conflict inside AARP, the major advocacy organization for Americans 50 and older, over how to approach the regulation of Medicare Advantage, the for-profit version of Medicare.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/do-you-know-what-dreck-is-the-house-democrats-are-about-to-elect-a-pile-of-it-to-lead-them">Do You Know What Dreck Is? The House Democrats Are About To Elect A Pile Of It To Lead Them</a> <font color=maroon>When asked, progressive Democrats in Congress have complained that there is no democratic process for electing the party's new leaders. No one admits they think that Hakeem Jeffries and Pete Aguilar are terrible or corrupt— which they are— but some have cautiously expressed a certain degree of discomfort about what kind of characters these two men essentially are. I did find one or two members who defended Hakeem, but not one— not even one member— who would defend Aguilar. Even the ones unaware of his coke addiction could find a single positive thing to say about him. (Ditto for the two criminal schlemiels running for DCCC chair, Tony Cardenas and Ami Bera.)</font>" Jeffries is so extreme right that he takes donations from Fox News' PAC, News Corp.
<p>Ryan Grim says an anonymous email about five years ago led to "one of the most bizarre stories I've ever reported on," and given recent events, he calls it back to our attention. "<a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/09/uae-qatar-oitaba-rowland-banque-havilland-world-cup/">Leaked Documents Expose Stunning Plan To Wage Financial War On Qatar — And Steal The World Cup</a>: <font color=maroon><em>A document marked 'strictly private and confidential' lays out a plan to manipulate markets and short Qatar.</em></font>"
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.chardandilminsternews.co.uk/news/national/23133531.carol-leigh-activist-coined-term-sex-work-dies-71/"><b>Carol Leigh</b>, activist who coined the term 'sex work', dies at 71</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Carol Leigh, a San Francisco activist credited with coining the term sex work and who sought for decades to improve conditions for prostitutes and others in the adult entertainment business, has died at the age of 71.</em> She died from cancer on Wednesday, Kate Marquez, the executor of her state said, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. A former prostitute, Ms Leigh devoted herself to campaigning on behalf of those in the 'sex work industry', a term she coined as the title for a panel discussion she attended at a feminist anti-pornography conference in 1978, according to an essay she wrote. 'Carol defined sex work as a labour issue, not a crime, not a sin,' Ms Marquez said. 'It is a job done by a million people in this country who are stigmatised and criminalised by working to support their families.'</font>"
<p>RIP: <b>Erik Arthur</b>, who opened <a href="http://fiawol.org.uk/FanStuff/THEN%20Archive/Fantasy%20Centre/FantasyCentre.htm">Fantasy Centre</a> in 1971 and kept it going for the best part of 40 years. It used to amuse us that he'd let an American paint the sign out front so for many of those years it was misspelled as "Fantasy Center" — but then I was surprised to come by one day to discover that after all that time, he'd finally replaced the sign with one that was spelled in British. I never went there much because it was a bit out of the way for us, but I ran into him a lot at conventions and pub meets and parties and always found him delightful. Click the link for pictures and a brief "interview" of the man himself.
<p>RIP: <a href="https://www.tor.com/2022/11/21/greg-bear-1951-2022/"><b>Greg Bear</b> 1951-2022</a>: "<font color=maroon>We are deeply saddened to report that award-winning author Greg Bear died this weekend at the age of 71. The author of more than 50 books and winner of five Nebula Awards, Bear was also a co-founder of San Diego Comic Con, an artist, and a person beloved in SFF circles for his warmth and kindness.</font>"
<p>Hm, I wonder if this will turn up on any crime shows, or whether crime writers who hear about it will just go, "No, that's too far-fetched even for us." "<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/911-call-analysis-jessica-logan-evidence">How Jessica Logan's Call for Help Became Evidence Against Her</a>" is the horrifying story about how a cop decided a woman had murdered her baby because her 911 call didn't fit his programmed idea of what a mother should say when she finds her child cold in his bed. And he decided that because someone made up the idea that repeating something or not spelling things out in exactly the right way is evidence of guilt and gives training courses on it, although there is absolutely no science to back it up and the real science can't find any evidence that it's true.
<p>"<a href="https://harvardlawreview.org/2022/11/the-imperial-supreme-court/">The Imperial Supreme Court</a>: <font color=maroon>The past few years have marked the emergence of the imperial Supreme Court. Armed with a new, nearly bulletproof majority, conservative Justices on the Court have embarked on a radical restructuring of American law across a range of fields and disciplines. Unlike previous shifts in the Court, this one isn't marked by debates over federal versus state power, or congressional versus judicial power, or judicial activism versus restraint. Nor is it marked by the triumph of one form of constitutional interpretation over another. On each of those axes, the Court's recent opinions point in radically different directions. The Court has taken significant, simultaneous steps to restrict the power of Congress, the administrative state, the states, and the lower federal courts. And it has done so using a variety of (often contradictory) interpretative methodologies. The common denominator across multiple opinions in the last two years is that they concentrate power in one place: the Supreme Court.</font>
<p><a href="https://streetartutopia.com/2021/08/15/when-street-art-meets-nature">When Street Art Meets Nature</a>
<p><a href="https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/">The Literature Clock</a>
<p>Neil Young, live, "<a href=https://youtu.be/1DBewzgXgYk"">All Along the Watchtower</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5598883894140893389.post-38801540412736281542022-11-20T04:04:00.003+00:002022-11-20T16:41:33.537+00:00But will it seem the same?<p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YoQx3zzOskfATQ_pxd_ivsrNguof8DpJkVrj-HTsnI1kp4e4kI6Cbs2vuE2-3dqnw45aarVAiYlx5lVrJlm-V-BtVbYWw3UFDYNf_ZGN3EOiJ78_djpjjHHqZH6LssHCXLJ7F8aFZfvjmNOoQWwbl4AYDLo8TXE1r1gSsrIPbH-Zy3dlY8ffjw/s1618/Autumn%20Tree%20Tunnel.jpg" width=360 height=539 align=left hspace=15 vspace=5 title="Autumn Tree Tunnel">The Mill Lane footpath seen in South Downs National Park, Halnaker near Chichester.
<p>Here's the <a href="https://electoral-vote.com/evp2022/Senate/Maps/Nov09.html">Electoral-Vote.com</a> map and details of the Senate races from Wednesday morning. We were back to the Dems needing Warnock to win a runoff. Against Herschel Walker, which, seriously, is just embarrassing. But then we won another one in Nevada, so the map looks like <a href="https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2022/Senate/Maps/Nov17.html">this</a>. Still waiting for the Warnock runoff for a true majority, but it makes less difference now that the Republicans managed to take the House, so nothing good is likely to come to the floor in the next Congress for the Dem Senate to fail to pass. (Not that I believe the Dems couldn't have come up with a third and fourth right-wing vote if we'd had two new Senators and kept the House....)
<p>Meanwhile, remember Sean Patrick Maloney, the head of the DCCC who screwed up the Democratic primaries by inserting himself into a district where another Democrat was already popular because he thought he wouldn't be as safe in some other seat? Well, he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-new-york-us-house-district-17.html">wasn't safe in that one, either</a>. Alex Sammon has the details, "<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/11/sean-patrick-maloney-new-york-red-wave-dccc-house.html">The Inside Story of Sean Patrick Maloney's Face Plant in New York</a>." That nasty little jackass managed to lose <em>two</em> seats in New York with his clever little plan.
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/house-democratic-leadership-race-hakeem-jeffries/">The House Democratic Leadership Race</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Do Democrats really want their next leader to be compromised and corporate?</em> Final results are still coming in; but if current patterns hold, it appears that Republicans could narrowly win control of the House by around five to ten seats. That is far from the red wave predicted by most pundits, who got caught in their own echo chamber. More on that in a moment.</font>" This means Pelosi will likely step down from leadership [Update: She <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63669581">did</a>], which means we are in danger of Hakeem Jeffries, corporate lackey, winning the leadership seat. This is the guy who teamed up with Josh Gottheimer to try to defeat progressive Dems. And in honor of that, Ryan Grim has posted an excerpt from his book, <em>We've Got People</em>, "<a href="https://badnews.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-making-of-nancy">The real story of the making of Nancy Pelosi</a>" — which just happens to contain the full section of the quote I typed up last time.
<p>James Kwak's morning-after musings, "<a href="https://jamesykwak.medium.com/democracy-takes-another-hit-94bab3b6335d">Democracy Takes Another Hit</a>: <font color=maroon>This morning, Democrats are feeling pretty good. We shouldn't be. With many races still too close to call, it appears that this year's elections were not quite the cataclysm for Democrats that they could have been. We have a decent chance of preserving a 50–50 tie in the Senate and will probably only lose about ten seats (and the majority) in the House. That, combined with weeks of lowering expectations, will help the party put a positive spin on what was really … a disturbing defeat.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The truth is that the Democratic Party has failed — failed to stand for anything that ordinary people care about and failed to deliver basic economic security. We are pretty good at arming Ukraine to fight against a brutal Russian invasion, pretty bad at helping the working- and middle-class people who were once the bedrock of our party.</font>" Face it, the only thing that saved us is that Republicans didn't offer any better.
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/eight-key-midterm-election-takeaways-the-progressive-electorate-has-spoken/">Eight Key Midterm Election Takeaways: The Progressive Electorate Has Spoken</a> [...] <font color=maroon>While voters this year declined to offer a stiff rebuke of the party in power, they indicated via ballot measures, exit polls, and large pre-election surveys that on key issues such as abortion rights, health care, higher minimum wages, workers' right to collectively bargain, and legalized cannabis, the electorate is more progressive than elected officials and corporate media pundits care to admit.</font>"
<p>Establishment Dems were all ready to blame the left for heavy losses in the mid-terms (and Jim Clyburn even got an early start), but since that didn't work out, "<a href="https://popula.com/2022/11/09/news-analysis-who-can-be-blamed-for-not-blowing-the-midterms/">NEWS ANALYSIS: Who Can Be Blamed for Not Blowing the Midterms?</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Democrats' recrimination plans go up in smoke</em>. The second-noblest midterm tradition is the widespread scapegoating after a sweeping and overdetermined loss. This year, sadly, slated right next to Doctor Oz in the Loser Category, are the would-be scapegoaters of the Democratic Party, forced to confront a night that was neither a full vindication of their preferred strategy nor a defeat humiliating enough to justify a full purge of their enemies. If the Democratic Party as a political entity averted a catastrophe this week, its scolds and gatekeepers really couldn't have drawn up a worse result. How do you trash 'activists' for a loss that didn't quite materialize after a solid year of preemptively blaming them for it? I imagine we'll soon see.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/reconciliation-available-to-end-debt-limit-hostage-taking/">Reconciliation Is Available to End Debt Limit Hostage-Taking</a>: <font color=maroon><em>With the GOP likely to take over the House, Democrats can use the lame duck to effectively eliminate the debt limit and the leverage Republicans would wield.</em></font>" They won't, though.
<p>A corrupt sheriff is after our Zelda! "<a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-04/sheriff-villanueva-corruption-investigation-kuehl">Inside L.A. County sheriff's dubious corruption probe of Sheila Kuehl, another watchdog</a>: <font color=maroon>Long before detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department showed up at Sheila Kuehl's house with a search warrant, it was clear this was no ordinary corruption investigation. The department had spent three years looking into an allegation that Kuehl, a county supervisor and one of Sheriff Alex Villanueva's harshest critics, had taken bribes from a friend in return for Metropolitan Transportation Authority contracts. The investigation fit a pattern. Since his election in 2018, Villanueva has fiercely resisted oversight by Kuehl, her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, and other watchdogs monitoring alleged wrongdoing in his department. Prosecutors had declined to file charges in the Kuehl case, telling sheriff's investigators last year that they lacked the evidence they would need at trial. Had the investigation ended there it might have been just a footnote in Villanueva's tumultuous tenure. But in the closing weeks of his run for a second term, deputies with guns and battering rams were dispatched to rummage through Kuehl's home in Santa Monica, her friend's house in Del Rey and four offices around downtown L.A.</font>"
<p>Oh, just what we needed, another "study" confirming the worst copaganda, which no amount of debunking will ever put to rest. "<a href="https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/a-warning-to-journalists-about-elite">A Warning to Journalists About Elite Academia</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Two Harvard professors propose the greatest expansion of the police bureaucracy in Western history.</em> Two Harvard professors recently published an article called 'The Injustice of Under-Policing in America' in the American Journal of Law and Equality. The Harvard professors call for 500,000 more armed cops, who will arrest 7.8 million more people per year.</font>" These guys claimed that the US has fewer cops per population than any other country, but their data "<font color=maroon>appears to exclude all federal policing agencies (e.g., border patrol, ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, capitol police, Park Police, military police, etc...), potentially many non-local state agencies, and ALL private police forces. One of the professors responded that they chose to use the number 697,195 from the UCR (an FBI reporting survey) even though they knew many local agencies weren't included. So, he admitted that the number may be much higher, like 900,000. (Note: Wikipedia, for example, says 900k based on a major police non-profit source). The professor then admitted privately over email that the U.S. census count is actually 1,227,788 police. That's 76% higher than the number they chose to use in their public article. What's the significance of this? Using this number, they admitted to me, would mean the U.S. truthfully has '1.1 times the median rate in rich countries.'</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The most alarming aspect of the article is it repeatedly ignores the costs of more police. I was dumbfounded reading it. The article presents the main cost of their proposal as 7.8 million more arrests. They call it the 'main downside,' and it is the only one they even mention. The professors then dismiss the costs of 7.8 million more people arrested as far outweighed by all the amazing benefits of police. Virtually every subpoint they make is flawed (including their failure to count millions of unrecorded police assaults or even mention that they are excluding them as a 'cost' of policing), but I want to highlight the big one: more arrests are not the only social cost of 500,000 more armed cops!</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://www.levernews.com/wall-street-strikes-back/">Wall Street Strikes Back</a>: <font color=maroon>While the financial industry once kept a low profile in elections, it's no secret which races it's banking on winning this election cycle. That's because big banks aren't shy about the fact that they're using multiple political groups to run misleading ads and donate millions on behalf of key Republican and Democratic candidates they believe will help them slash regulations and preserve predatory practices. The fact that buttoned-up bankers are intervening so shamelessly on behalf of election deniers and other right-wing demagogues might seem surprising — but the in-your-face approach is exactly the point.</font>"
<p>Here's a story I would have thought was everywhere as soon as it happened. You all know how, during the Bush administration, Congress passed an appalling requirement for the US Postal Service to pre-fund pensions 75 years in advance, thus creating the illusion that the USPS was a money-losing proposition so they could pretend it would do better in the hands of private entities. Of course, this was a lie, since the Post Office has always made a profit and could cover the real costs of operations and existing pension pay-outs easily. So people have spent 15 years trying to get rid of this stupid requirement, and when Congress <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-approves-50-billion-postal-service-relief-bill-2022-03-08/">passed a new law in March</a> and Biden <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-postal-service-plans-raise-prices-first-class-mail-2022-04-06/">signed it in April</a>, I would have thought a victory like that would have made more noise. But I just heard about it. I guess the only thing that's important is the clown show.
<p>RIP: "<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/robert-clary-dead-hogans-heroes-1235263555/"><b>Robert Clary</b>, Corporal LeBeau on 'Hogan's Heroes,' Dies at 96</a>: <font color=maroon><em>The French actor and singer spent 31 months in a concentration camp but said he had no reservations about starring in a TV comedy about the Nazis.</em></font> [...] <font color=maroon>Clary was the last surviving member of the show's original principal cast.</font>" LeBeau was one of my favorites.
<p>"<a href="https://badnews.substack.com/p/disinformation-policing-lab-safety">Disinformation policing, lab safety, public health – we're getting it all wrong</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Can we please not make this partisan?</em> The Intercept this week published two major investigations that seem at first blush unrelated, but a closer look shows the link between the two in a profoundly important way. One is a deep look at safety inside the labs that work with extremely dangerous pathogens. What our reporter Mara Hvistendahl has uncovered is disturbing</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The second story is an investigation by Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein into a sprawling new mandate that the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for itself: to police the spread of 'misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation' on the interwebs. The main targets of the truth police are, according to a draft version of a leaked DHS quadrennial report, 'the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.' The director of a DHS advisory committee, worried about how all this might look, reported Fang and Klippenstein, 'recommended the use of third-party information-sharing nonprofits as a 'clearing house for information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.'' And here we find the overlap. For some reasons that I vaguely understand, and for some others that I still can't fully comprehend, the conversation around the origin of the pandemic and the efficacy of the vaccines have both become coded along a left-right axis.</font>"
<p>"<a href="https://prospect.org/politics/republicans-have-symbiotic-relationship-with-crime/">Republicans Have a Symbiotic Relationship With Crime</a>: <font color=maroon><em>You can't whip up a hysterical meltdown about crime without lots of crime happening.</em> In the final stretch of the midterm campaign, right-wing media has turned to one of its most reliable propaganda tactics: crime panic. Ads where I live in Pennsylvania are putting the infamous Willie Horton strategy to shame; at the bar this week, I caught one that all but accused Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman of being an accomplice to murder.</font> [...] <font color=maroon>The striking thing about this messaging strategy is not just the undeniable opportunism—like the supposedly fearsome migrant caravan back in October 2018, it's a safe bet that Fox's crime focus will evaporate once the election is over—but also the perverse incentive thus created. Republicans have an objective political interest in increased crime because it allows them to incite a febrile backlash, and many of them are not at all subtle about it. By the same token, their favored policies of total legal impunity for police and making it ever-easier to buy guns will undoubtedly make crime worse, all else equal. In short, if you want more crime, vote Republican.</font>" In fact, conservative policies have always increased crime, which may be why the states where crime is worst are Republican-run states.
<p><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/">Truth Cops</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Leaked Documents Outline DHS's Plans to Police Disinformation</em> THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents — obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public documents — illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.</font>"
<p>I don't hold out much hope for a third party's success, especially in the current system, but is it possible to take over the Democratic Party? I don't feel optimistic about that, either. Here's one position on that: "<a href="https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-politicians-who-destroyed-our">The Politicians Who Destroyed Our Democracy Want Us to Vote for Them to Save It</a>: <font color=maroon><em>We should have walked out on the Democratic Party and mounted a serious opposition movement while we still had a chance.</em> The bipartisan project of dismantling our democracy, which took place over the last few decades on behalf of corporations and the rich, has left only the outward shell of democracy. The courts, legislative bodies, the executive branch and the media, including public broadcasting, are captive to corporate power. There is no institution left that can be considered authentically democratic. The corporate coup d'état is over. They won. We lost.</font>" It's hard to argue with any of that, but if we ever had a chance to simply walk away, that hasn't been helped by changes in law that make third parties even more difficult to field. And unlike most Americans, I've had the experience of living in a country with multiple parties and I can't honestly say they fare any better. The UK has multiple parties, and yet, Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives went on and on and on with only 40% of the vote. We even ended up with Boris Johnson, and then the bizarre autumn antics that led to today. European countries are all watching inroads, if not outright successes, by the right wing breaking through whatever sort of liberalism (social democracy or democratic socialism, however you like to define it) used to create stable governments. Neoliberalism opened the door wide, and the far right has been wriggling through or even marching right in. Today's so-called "centrist" governments seem more willing to sympathize with avowed fascists than with any kind of social democracy, let alone "the left".
<p>Kuttner, "<a href="https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/sam-bankman-fried-common-crook/">Sam Bankman-Fried: A Common Crook</a>: <font color=maroon><em>Today on TAP: With luck, his fall will take the whole crypto sector with him.</em> What has almost gotten lost in the Sam Bankman-Fried saga is that the former billionaire's scam was a fundamental violation of the securities laws—using customer funds to place his own bets. His personal control of both the exchange FTX, and his investment company, Alameda, and the comingling of their funds, puts Bankman-Fried right up there with Ponzi and Madoff as common crooks and outright felons.</font>" But it's always been obvious that crypto is a scam and we're just waiting to see if members of Congress will stop pretending it should be taken as anything more than a crooked game.
<p>Jeez, even ten years ago Second Life avatars looked better than <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63488059">what the Metaverse has to offer</a>.
<p>Jeff Beck - "<a href="https://youtu.be/-kaJIynR15s">Shapes of Things</a>"
Avedonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04702100335744054401noreply@blogger.com3