Don't let it slip away

This complete rainbow was photographed at 30,000 feet by Lloyd J. Ferraro.

"The 'Private Sector' Is Government 'Contracting Out' Its Functions: 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. 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. EVERY decision about society's resources, economy and future is made by government, one way or another. Period. Every. Single. One. 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."

"Why Is Larry Summers So Obsessed With Tech Bros? The former Treasury secretary’s business partnerships may have influenced his early calls to bail out Silicon Valley Bank. 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."

"Senate Did NOT Just Unanimously Pass a Bill Requiring Declassification of 'All of the Information' Regarding the Origins of Covid: 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. 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. [...] 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."

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 the attempt is ugly: 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." And it's even worse than it sounds. More on this at Slate.

The party of free speech warriors strikes again. "Florida bill would require bloggers to register before writing about DeSantis: 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."

Hm, this is curious. "Top Ohio Republican, Ex-House Speaker Larry Householder, Was Convicted Of Taking A $60 Million Bribe — But No One Was Charged With Bribing Him: 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."

"The Checkered Past of the Contractor Monitoring the Air in East Palestine: CTEH has been cited by lawmakers for 'releasing findings defending the corporate interests that employ them.' 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. [...] 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."

"Leaked audio reveals US rail workers were told to skip inspections as Ohio crash prompts scrutiny to industry: 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 [...] 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."

"Centrist Democratic PAC's Sole Funder Is A Republican Megadonor: The Moderate PAC, created to go after progressive primary challengers, received all its money from one source: Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass. 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."

Conservatives — well, some of them — seem to be admitting that some regulations are necessary. The Rude Pundit reports.

"Steak Dinners, Sales Reps and Risky Procedures: Inside the Big Business of Clogged Arteries [...] 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. [...] 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."

"To NYT's Peter Baker, Acknowledging Trans People's Existence Is 'Activism,' Openly Advocating for Perpetual U.S. Occupation of Afghanistan Isn't: What is and isn't 'activism' depends entirely on how conservative the activism is. 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."

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. Josh Marshall did some digging: "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.' [...] 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."

"The False Promise of Term Limits:Limiting lawmakers' time in office only exacerbates the problems with our government. [...] 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. [...] 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."

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. "Permanent Daylight Saving Time Bill Just Made Clock Change More Annoying." 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.

"Sir Terry Pratchett: Short stories to be published after being found by fans: A collection of 20 recently rediscovered short stories by late fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett is to be published later this year. 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."

RIP: "Richard Belzer, Extraordinarily Smart-Ass as a Comic and a TV Cop, Dies at 78: 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." I loved him as Munch, but I admit it wasn't enough to make me watch Law & Order. Here's a bunch of nostalgic photos.

"Helen Reddy, 'I Am Woman' Singer and Activist, Dead at 78: 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." I admit, I was never crazy about the song, but I know it was important to a lot of people.

"Comparing Health Outcomes of Privileged US Citizens With Those of Average Residents of Other Developed Countries [...] 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."

"This all-but-forgotten con man sold America on 'fake it till you make it' [...] 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."

Seymour Hersh, 1972, "The Massacre at My Lai: A mass killing and its coverup."

"Forty years of Monster Raving Loony wannabe MPs [...] Recently, the party announced that, once in government, it would give atheism charitable status because it is a 'non-prophet organisation'."

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 the terror reign of the raging left-wing on college campuses, back in the days when my blog had more writing and less copy-pasting.

"Psychic Chicken of Seattle: Deep into the lower floors of Pike Place, find a date with fowl fate. "

Interactive Map Shows Which Indigenous Lands You Are Living On

The Righteous Brothers, "You've Lost That Loving Feeling"

And hope that my dreams will come true

Seth Meyers had the best coverage of the State of the Union address (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 The Majority Report's live coverage.

If Biden has put an end to this kind of thing, that would be great. "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."

"Mississippi Republicans pass bill to create separate, unelected court in majority-Black city: Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, calls proposed law 'some of the most oppressive legislation in our city's history'. 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."

"This State Wants to Make Every Week a 4-Day Work Week: Well, guess we're all moving to Maryland. 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. "

"The Crackdown on Cop City Protesters Is So Brutal Because of the Movement's Success: One protester was killed by police, 20 were charged under a 'domestic terror' law, and Georgia's governor gave himself broad 'emergency' powers. 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."

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 train derailment nearby. Many people have been worried about this kind of thing at least partly because of the understaffing of railroad workers and also deregulation. Weirdly, when Ohio's governor, Mike DeWine, gave a press conference, a journalist was arrested for covering it. "Governor DeWine apologized for the incident and said he did not authorize Lambert's arrest, according to NewsNation." 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 press conference?)

Sy Hersh, "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline: The New York Times called it a 'mystery,' but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now [...] 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."

You remember Larry Niven's story in Dangerous Visions, "The Jigsaw Man"? Well... "Mass. Prisoners Could Choose Between Freedom And Their Organs: A new bill would allow prisoners to get time off their sentence if they donate their organs or bone marrow. 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." What's amazing is that the guy who proposed this really doesn't seem to recognize the nightmare he's inviting.

Here we go again.... "[Consortium News] Editor Named on Secret 'Disinfo' List: 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.' 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.

Tom Sullivan wonders if there's a connection between mass killers and killer cops, in "Unthinkable violence [...] 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?"

In early January, Harvard created a bit of a scandal when it denied a research fellowship 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 was someone with that history, a lot of people made noise and Harvard reversed their position later in the month. Happy as he was about that, he also quite rightly had some concerns: "'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?'"

"THE WORST THING WE READ THIS WEEK: Why Is the New York Times So Obsessed With Trans Kids?: A question to ask. At length. [...] 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?" Via Atrios, who says it's an important piece and you should read the whole thing. I concur. And so does The Onion.

And speaking of Atrios, He also gave us a heads-up on Adam Johnson's "Washington Post Editorial on the Tyre Nichols Murder Shows Liberal Reformers Are All Out of Ideas—Even Fake Ones", 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. "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 [...] 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. " And that article points to "What would have saved Tyre Nichols' life?: All of the reforms that liberals suggest will save Black lives were present in Tyre's death. So what works?" in the Guardian. "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." Because what's in the park is a lot of expensive nonsense that never reduces crime or murders by cops.

"Joseph Stiglitz: tax high earners at 70% to tackle widening inequality: Nobel prize-winning economist calls for new top rate of income tax and 2-3% wealth tax on fortunes [...] '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."

"A Pitched Battle on Corporate Power: 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. 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.'"

Bruce Schneier has another book out, and Cory Doctorow has reviewed A HACKER'S MIND: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back: "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: power." And outside of its usual paywall, The New York Times also has a review: "'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."

RIP: "Burt Bacharach, master of pop songwriting, dies aged 94: Singer and performer, who wrote "Walk on By" and "World Needs Now Is Love", died at home in Los Angeles of natural causes. [...] In all, he scored 73 Top 40 hits in the US and 52 in the UK." And "24 Hours From Tulsa" and probably my favorite, "Anyone Who Had A Heart", too.

RIP: "Cindy Williams, a role model for working class girls and Shirley of Laverne & Shirley, at 75. "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."

RIP: "Raquel Welch: a strong and powerful personality with a rarely-tapped gift for comedy," at 82. "Welch was a colossal celebrity in the 1970s, whose combination of physical strength and drollery made her a force to be reckoned with. And this is a good gallery of photos of her (with some interesting people!), though, alas, none from Bedazzled.

"Ask Larry Summers About Crypto Now: 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." The Revolving Door project doesn't care if one crypto bro defrauded another, but "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."

"Tewkesbury starling murmuration captured on camera"

Dominic Thomas writes, "Tracy Chapman singing 'Fast Car' 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."

I can't seem to stop playing the Chronophoto game. It's pretty simple, you just guess when the picture was taken. See how you do.

The Beatles - Morecambe and Wise Show 1963 (colorized).

You can not do that, it breaks all the rules

"'Soul', Feathers, Wings, Angel, Gold Leaf, Sky, White, Gray, (2021)" by Valeriya Avtukhova is from the Silver Color Paintings selection.

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 ... "Biden Risks Legacy by Choosing Zients as Chief of Staff: As a businessman, Jeffrey Zients embodied much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch ought to be cracking down on. '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."'" 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?

"SCOTUS's First Decision of the Term Is a Unanimous Blow to Disabled Veterans: 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." This is bizarre, and means they unanimously ignored a rule that even Scalia treated seriously.

Weird. Lee Fang says, "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." And that's truly weird, because that column is "Why conservatives should embrace labor unions to reduce economic inequality."

Stiglitz, "Milton Friedman Set Us Up for a 21st Century Version of Fascism: In 2023, market fundamentalism is fostering authoritarianism — in the United States and abroad. [...] 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." I saw this article and my first thought was, "Why does Nobel laureate Stiglitz have to be published in In These Times (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?"

"Government Spending and its Discontents" — 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 Atrios (who had a bit more to say) and highly recommended.

Oliver Willis, "Nobody Cares About The Deficit, And Democrats Should Shut Up About It: Spend What Is Needed To Make Lives Better [...] 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." And, like Dick Cheney said, they don't matter. We can afford to spend on our people.

Ken Klippenstein, "The 5 Creepiest Moments at Davos: The real Davos conspiracy is hiding in plain sight. 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."

This would almost be funny if these people were actually just the cartoons they act like. "Rebranding rift guts Blue Dog Dem ranks: 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. 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." 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.

Best news I've heard in a while: "Inside The Slow Implosion Of The Democratic Party's Vaunted Campaign Tech Firm: Loyal Democrats say layoffs at NGP VAN and EveryAction by the company's new private equity owners could hobble the party." Except not really, because they are awful and have been hobbling the party all by themselves for years.

Wendell Potter is here to remind you, "Here is the Truth: Medicare Advantage Is Neither Medicare Nor an Advantage: Medicare Advantage is a money-making scam. I should know. I helped to sell it. 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."

"New study reveals rampant conflicts of interest at think tanks: The report focuses heavily on how the nuclear industry influences institutional output in its favor and works to censor its critics. '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."

"John Fogerty regains ownership of Creedence Clearwater Revival catalogue after 50-year battle: 'This is something I thought would never be a possibility,'said Fogerty. 'After 50 years, I am finally reunited with my songs.'" So, his nightmare is apparently ended. (It's a nightmare in which the CIA stole $5 million from Creedence Clearwater Revival to bust commies, according to Robert Skvarla's pay-walled article in Creem.)

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. "Right-Wingers Like Steven Crowder Need Billionaire Funders Because Their Ideas Are So Bad: 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." And the funny thing is, that blows rather a big hole in the right-wing claim that employment contracts are always, by definition, fair.

RIP: Legendary rock guitarist Jeff Beck dies aged 78: Beck rose to fame with the Yardbirds before fronting the Jeff Beck Group and making forays into the jazz-fusion sound he pioneered. [...] 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. I loved to listen to this guy. I thought Truth 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.

RIP: "David Crosby, Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash Co-Founder, Dies at 81," 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 Brian Wilson's tweet. And here he is with CSNY and "Wooden Ships."

RIP: Victor Navasky (1932–2023), longtime editor and publisher of The Nation, at 90. He's memorialized by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, John Nichols, and Jeet Heer at the magazine.

I've mostly been leaving the story of Musk's antics to Atrios, 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, "Extremely Hardcore: 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." 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.)

Joan McCarter, "The New York Times is bad for America [...] 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."

"The Partisan Ghost In The Media Machine: Media outlets no longer consider government malfeasance newsworthy if reporting on it might offend audiences' partisan loyalties. 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."

I meant to post this in November but I forgot so here it is now, "Are we institutionalized yet? The newspapers have finally, timidly spoken up for Julian Assange. 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. [...] 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."

"It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election: 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. [...] 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."

"To Save Our Democracy, We Must Transcend Bill Clinton's Legacy: 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."

"What Happened At Southwest Airlines Is What Is Happening To Every American Company: 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!!! "

"Ticketmaster's Dark History: A 40-year saga of kickbacks, threats, political maneuvering, and the humiliation of Pearl Jam. 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."

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 How Much You Need To Live Comfortably in 50 Major US Cities." The entries are all variations on this:
"Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Median income: $53,936
• Income needed if you're a homeowner: $81,526.74
• Income needed if you're a renter: $65,446.74
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."

David Crosby, "Triad" — original studio take.

Twelfthnight

Another installment in my continuing effort to make the season start at Advent and last through Twelfthnight, so here's the traditional Christmas links:
* Mark Evanier's wonderful Mel Tormé story, and here's the man himself in duet with Judy Garland.
* Joshua Held's Christmas card, with a little help from Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters.
* Brian Brink's tour-de-force performance of "The Carol of the Bells"
* "Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime."
* Ron Tiner's one-page cartoon version of A Christmas Carol

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.

There really couldn't be a clearer example of what privatization is for than this: "Huntsville Public Library (TX) Privatized After Pride Display: 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."

Silence From Media as Twitter Suspends Palestinian Journalist: 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. 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." So, no censorship there, then.

Good: "The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act: 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."

"NEWS: State Officials Warned Buttigieg About Airline Mess" Before the holiday travel nightmare, attorneys general begged the Transportation Secretary and Congress to crack down. 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. [...] 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.'" But it didn't, and McKinsey Pete used none of his powers to try to change that.

There was hope, as you'll see below, but the latest on this story is pretty depressing: "Democrats Frittered Away the Lame-Duck Session: A lackadaisical approach led to failure for numerous bipartisan bills, and kept alive Republican goals to take the debt limit hostage in 2023. [...] 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."

"Schumer Freezes Antitrust Bills After Big Tech Lobbyists Bundled Millions: Apple, Amazon, and others are spending record sums to fight off antitrust laws while pouring money into the Democrats' campaign arms. 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."

"Wall Street Wins Again on Retirement Savings: 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. 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."

"Get Antitrust Legislation Done, Chuck Schumer: 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? 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. [...] 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"

"Gary Gensler Got It Right: 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."

"A Day of Constitutional Reckoning Approaches: Section 2 of the 14th Amendment was designed to strip congressional districts from states that disenfranchise voters. It's never been implemented. 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."

"RUNNING A RACKET: The Scorched-Earth Legal Strategy Corporations Are Using to Silence Their Critics: [...] 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. [...] 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."

"New York passed the nation's first right-to-repair law. Pleasing tech lobbyists, Governor Kathy Hochul hasn't signed it: 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. [...] 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."

The Financial Times has a good piece on how "Britain's winter of discontent is the inevitable result of austerity", but since it's mostly paywalled, it's worth checking out John Burn-Murdoch's thread 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.)

John Oliver did a great segment on the copaganda against bail reform - worth watching!

REST IN POWER: "Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023): 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." There's no way I can explain what a superstar she was to us when Walk to the End of the World came out, how much fun she was to talk to, the energy that came off of her.

RIP: "John Bird: Actor and comedian dies aged 86 [...] '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." Bird & Fortune, or The Two Johns, 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 discussing planning for the war in Iraq, and here Washington Diplomat George Parr discusses George Bush and foreign policy and stuff. And here, George Parr, investment banker, makes the usual excuses.

RIP: "Stuart Margolin, The Rockford Files Co-Star and TV Director, Dies at 82." 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.

KNIGHTED: "King Knights Queen, Arise Sir Brian May: Queen guitarist Brian May has been knighted by King Charles III and is now Sir Brian May. 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."

Ratzinger croaked, too, but hell with that.

Free Movie: "Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman: "Greg Palast and his investigations team bust the most brazen, racist attack on voting rights yet—engineered by Georgia's Brian Kemp."

"30 Years of Broadband Bait-&-Switch Campaigns Created the Digital Divide: Every Government Broadband Agency is Negligent for the Failure to Investigate and Clawback, Get Back the Money. 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."

John Solomon, so grain of salt and all that, but, "How Comey intervened to kill WikiLeaks' immunity deal: 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. [...] 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."

"Anti-trans activists are using 'mirror propaganda'. Here's how to spot it: People claiming to be 'silenced' are being featured in national mainstream media platforms. There's a word for that. 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." My, this all seems so familiar.

"A Big Lie is Breaking Education: [...] 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."

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 "The Roman Catholic Church and reproductive health: 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.* 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."

From 2016 in Harper's, "Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs: 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.

Kurt Vonnegut, 2005, "Elites Are Clueless, and so on [...] 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."

The Royal Mint is commemorating The Rolling Stones.