Did you see her crying?

So many evils can be traced back to Richard Nixon. "Did you know that before 1973 it was illegal in the US to profit off of health care. The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 passed by Nixon changed everything. In 1973, Nixon did a personal favor for his friend and campaign financier, Edgar Kaiser, then president and chairman of Kaiser-Permanente. Nixon signed into law, the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973, in which medical insurance agencies, hospitals, clinics and even doctors, could begin functioning as for-profit business entities instead of the service organizations they were intended to be. And which insurance company got the first taste of federal subsidies to implement HMOA73 ... *gasp* ... why, it was Kaiser-Permanente! What are the odds?" Now, if only we can explain why the so-called liberal champion of health care, Edward Kennedy, proposed this piece of crap.

I'm not going to post the details, but so far nearly half of the Our Revolution types have been winning primaries and elections. Considering the fact that most of them are running against establishment picks and incumbents, that's actually a pretty remarkable record.

"Even Libertarians Admit Medicare for All Would Save Trillions: A new study from a libertarian think tank admits that Medicare for All would save a whopping $2 trillion." Of course, the headline buried the lead on every story about this, but this Koch-funded study tried to make M4A sound more expensive than what we have now and still couldn't, despite underestimating the likely costs of continuing the way we are and the potential savings of the proposed program.

Bernie Sanders thanks the Koch brothers for accidentally showing that Medicare for All saves two trillion dollars.

RIP: Another guy I would have loved to vote for once, for president: "Ron Dellums, Forceful Liberal in Congress for 27 Years, Dies at 82. Ron Dellums, the son of a longshoreman who became one of America's best-known black congressmen, a California Democrat with a left-wing agenda that put civil rights and programs for people ahead of weapons systems and warfare, died early Monday at his home in Washington. He was 82."

RIP: Joel Silberman, activist, organizer, performer, and show biz mensch. We were hopeful when Joel's doctors said they thought they'd caught his pancreatic cancer early enough, but though he fought and continued to run workshops and keep on doing what he did right up to the end, he finally had to admit defeat and say farewell to us. I will always treasure the reports, clips, and musings he posted for his friends during that journey, and I was pleased to see a statement on Joel's passing from Rep. Barbara Lee.

"Should Republican Billionaires Be Picking Democratic Candidates The Way They Already Pick GOP Candidates? Let's start with some news: Last week, Fox News' James Rupert Murdoch, a British billionaire, put half a million dollars into one of Nancy Jacobson's shady No Labels SuperPACs that aims to fill Congress with candidates from the Republican Wing of the Democratic Party. Their current goal is a smear campaign against Alan Grayson. Most recently, Jacobson pulled off the same filth against Marie Newman in Illinois' 3rd District House primary, spending $931,600 to spread absolute lies against Newman while bolstering anti-Choice Blue Dog Dan Lipinski."

We're number one! "US the 'Worst Place in the World' to Give Birth: USA Today Investigation [...] "Deadly Deliveries," the result of a four-year investigation, references federal data showing that more than 50,000 women are 'severely injured' and roughly 700 die during childbirth each year. Perhaps even more staggering is that "half of these deaths could be prevented and half the injuries reduced or eliminated with better care," the investigation found."

On The Zero Hour, Richard J. Eskow interviewed David Dayen on Global Trade: With or Without Trump, It's Chaos.

Citations Needed podcast, "The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire - Bill Gates and Western Media" - the media is awfully kind to Bill Gates, even when his philanthropy does more harm than good.

Never in my life did I expect Devin Nunes to do what I've been waiting for Democrats to do for 18 years: "House Intel chair calls for ban on electronic voting systems: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) called for a ban on electronic voting systems in an interview that aired Thursday on Hill.TV's Rising. 'The one thing we've been warning about for many, many years on the Intelligence committee is about the electronic voting systems,' Nunes told Hill.TV's Buck Sexton, who sat with the lawmaker on Wednesday. 'Those are really dangerous in my opinion, and should not be used. In California — at least in the counties that I represent — they do not use an electronic system,' he continued. 'I think anybody that does that, and that's communicating over the web, it's going to be a challenge. So you have to make sure that you limit that as much as possible, and we need a paper trail so that you can go back in case you have to do a manual recount,' he said."

OK, this one makes no sense at all. I can't see millions of Trump voters saying, "Yes, make my car get fewer miles to the gallon! And since most states have stricter standards than the federal requirements already, and car-makers are having no trouble meeting those standards, who the hell is this for? "To Nix Obama Fuel Standard, WH Argues That Better Gas Mileage Is Dangerous."

Dismayingly, John Oliver seems to have fallen for the establishment story on Venezuela, but none of it is true. (We've already noticed media stories showing empty supermarket shelves - without mentioning that those shelves are not in Venezuela, but in the United States. We're also not told that the reason some popular products are not on the shelves at the moment is that the companies that sell those products are deliberately withholding them to try to give the appearance of food shortages - but, in fact, people are eating just fine. And that's just one little thing.)

It's official: @RepBarbaraLee is running for House Democratic Caucus chair. "There is nothing more important than returning bold Democratic leadership to Congress." But Howie wonders, "What Excuse Will They Use This Time To Keep Barbara Lee Out Of The House Democratic Leadership?"

"139 House Democrats Join GOP to Approve $717 Billion in Military Spending: 'How are they going to pay for this? Oh wait, that question only gets asked when it comes to social programs that benefit the working class.'"

Lee Fang and Nick Surgey, "Health Care Lobbyists Secretly Secure Democrats' Opposition To 'Medicare For All,' Internal Documents Show [...] The Healthcare Leadership Council has closely tracked what its lobbyists have described as the 'leftward movement' within the Democratic Party. In Hawaii and other states, the lobby group wanted to know if ideas popularized by Sen., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — such as aggressive proposals to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals and institute a single-payer health care system modeled on Medicare — were taking hold. The council, which spends over $5 million a year on industry advocacy and brings together chief executives of major health corporations, represents an array of health industries, including insurers, hospitals, drugmakers, medical device manufacturers, pharmacies, health product distributors, and information technology companies. The group's focus on competitive open seats around the country — like Hawaii's 1st Congressional District — is aimed at shaping the next generation of lawmakers' views on health care policy.

"Next 100 Days: In the Era of Trump, NYS is Out of Step and In the Crosshairs [...] 'By 2040, 70 percent of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states, which are also home to the overwhelming majority of the 30 largest cities in the country. By extension, 30 percent of Americans will live in the other 35 states. That means that the 70 percent of Americans get all of 30 Senators and 30 percent of Americans get 70 Senators,' Birdsell says." So, most people will be crammed together in a few states, and the minority will be in control of Congress, which means cities will have very little say in what goes on.

It's hard to tell whether Forbes is cheering or trying to horrify me with this story. "An Unlikely Group Of Billionaires And Politicians Has Created The Most Unbelievable Tax Break Ever [...] Too good to be true? 'The incentive needs to be powerful enough that it can unlock large amounts of capital, aggregate that capital into funds and force the funds to invest in distressed areas," says Parker, the original Facebook president whose think tank, the Economic Innovation Group, created the policy and helped press it into law. Instead of having government hand out pools of taxpayer dollars, you have savvy investors directing money into projects they think will succeed.' The heart of this new law: Opportunity Zones, or "O-zones,' low-income areas designated by each state. Investors will soon be able to plow recently realized capital gains into projects or companies based there, slowly erase the tax obligations on a portion of those gains and, more significantly, have those proceeds grow tax-free. There are almost no limits. No limits on how much you can put in, how much tax you can avoid and, for most of the country, the types of taxes you can avoid, whether federal, state or local. No limits on how long those proceeds compound tax-free. And precious few limits on what types of investments you can make." Right, instead of the government putting money into projects in poor communities, they give it to investors to... Wait, haven't we heard all this before?

Dday, "The Obamacare cover story: Spikes in insurance premiums on the Obamacare exchanges never gets foregrounded as a reason for the 2016 election outcome. Here are a few examples: 17 percent in Michigan. 43 percent in Iowa. 50 percent in Minnesota. It's an October surprise hard-wired into the electoral calendar, in one of the more abominable decisions in liberal history. And those premium rises may have soured people on the signature achievement of the Democratic era, and moved a few undecideds. But never mind that, because a shiny new narrative has been constructed that Donald Trump's sabotage of the exchanges, not their rickety structure to begin with, has set the table for Medicare for All."

Naomi Klein at The Intercept, "Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not 'Human Nature': THIS SUNDAY, THE entire New York Times Magazine will be composed of just one article on a single subject: the failure to confront the global climate crisis in the 1980s, a time when the science was settled and the politics seemed to align. Written by Nathaniel Rich, this work of history is filled with insider revelations about roads not taken that, on several occasions, made me swear out loud. And lest there be any doubt that the implications of these decisions will be etched in geologic time, Rich's words are punctuated with full-page aerial photographs by George Steinmetz that wrenchingly document the rapid unraveling of planetary systems, from the rushing water where Greenland ice used to be to massive algae blooms in China's third largest lake. The novella-length piece represents the kind of media commitment that the climate crisis has long deserved but almost never received. We have all heard the various excuses for why the small matter of despoiling our only home just doesn't cut it as an urgent news story: 'Climate change is too far off in the future'; 'It's inappropriate to talk about politics when people are losing their lives to hurricanes and fires'; 'Journalists follow the news, they don't make it — and politicians aren't talking about climate change'; and of course: 'Every time we try, it's a ratings killer.' None of the excuses can mask the dereliction of duty. It has always been possible for major media outlets to decide, all on their own, that planetary destabilization is a huge news story, very likely the most consequential of our time. They always had the capacity to harness the skills of their reporters and photographers to connect abstract science to lived extreme weather events. And if they did so consistently, it would lessen the need for journalists to get ahead of politics because the more informed the public is about both the threat and the tangible solutions, the more they push their elected representatives to take bold action. [...] That's also why it is so enraging that the piece is spectacularly wrong in its central thesis.

"What's This? A Genuinely Left Wing Panel on Cable TV?! Last night, MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes broadcast something that is almost unprecedented in our modern era: four left wing people on TV, speaking about politics. Whoa. The panel was made up of The Majority Report's Sam Seder, New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg, and The Intercept's Senior Politics Editor Briahna Gray. They were there to talk about conservative media's reaction to the surprise primary victory of New York City congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez." (Video included.)

Atrios: Is the idea (widespread, but wrong) that these are 'unskilled' jobs because they are often low paid and therefore you can just throw anyone into them. Almost all the job categories listed are stereotypically work for women, which is one reason they are so low paid, but aside from that I don't know why people think you can just throw anybody into 'early childhood education' or 'after-school care' or 'childcare' generally."

They sound like opportunist Republicans who just switched their R to a D for electoral advantage, but Third Way are now calling themselves "Opportunity Democrats", yet another tone-deaf phrase from people who have lost the plot. Sara Jones at The New Republic reports on their latest roll-out with, "There Is No Silent Centrist Majority: The base of the Democratic Party is much further to the left than moderates recognize." You can tell who you're hearing from by the fact that they regard people who want health care and living wage, a majority of Americans, as "far-left".

Really, you can't make this stuff up. "Undaunted Democratic Centrists Ready to Fight Trump and Bernie at Same Time [...] The new economic platform leans heavily on words like 'earn' and 'opportunity,' and away from demonizing tycoons — 'For most Americans, billionaires and millionaires are not next door, or part of their lived experience,' Cowan said in his opening speech. The policy backbone of the pitch includes an American Investment Bank designed to back 'Main Street, not Wall Street' entrepreneurs, a 'Boomer Corps' part-time national-service program for senior citizens whose earnings would be tax-free (on top of their Social Security), a massive state-driven apprenticeship system, and universal private retirement savings accounts funded by employers." They still think the "swing voters" are in the "middle of the road" and that's who they are pitching to. They have no clue that they lost the middle years ago. 'Everybody's got a camera on their phone. That never worked, but it really doesn't now: You can't just go and say one thing to one group and another to another group,' said Jason Kander, the former Missouri secretary of state who last month opted to run for Kansas City mayor rather than president, making the case onstage that you lose both the base and swing voters if you try to differentiate between them." Oh, and watch out for Mitch Landrieu, who they seem to like a lot.

"Centrism Is Dead: The left has already won the debate over which ideas should animate the Democratic Party."

"Judge's ruling invalidates FEC regulation allowing anonymous donations to 'dark money' groups: A U.S. District Court judge on Friday issued a ruling invalidating a Federal Election Commission regulation that has allowed donors to so-called dark-money groups to remain anonymous, the latest development in a years-long legal battle that could have major implications for campaign finance. Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled the FEC's current regulation of such groups, including 501(c) 4 non-profits, fails to uphold the standard Congress intended when it required the disclosure of politically related spending."

Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the U.K. What Comes Next? ECUADOR'S PRESIDENT Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been using a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the president's trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities. Moreno's itinerary also notably includes a trip to Madrid, where he will meet with Spanish officials still seething over Assange's denunciation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Spain's central government against protesters marching for Catalonian independence. Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked Assange from accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate with the outside world ever since. The primary factor in Ecuador's decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange's tweets about Catalonia. [...] The consequences of such an agreement depend in part on the concessions Ecuador extracts in exchange for withdrawing Assange's asylum. But as former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa told The Intercept in an interview in May, Moreno's government has returned Ecuador to a highly 'subservient' and 'submissive' posture toward western governments. It is thus highly unlikely that Moreno — who has shown himself willing to submit to threats and coercion from the U.K., Spain and the U.S. — will obtain a guarantee that the U.K. not extradite Assange to the U.S., where top Trump officials have vowed to prosecute Assange and destroy WikiLeaks."

"Bigfoot Porn Has Become A Major Controversy In A U.S. House Race. Seriously. A Virginia Republican who has been linked to white supremacists now faces accusations of liking Bigfoot erotica."

Is Trump about to lower drug prices? David Dayen at The American Prospect, "Trump Eliminates the Middleman: His administration takes aim at the heretofore legal kickbacks to prescription drug distributors — but leaves the drug companies themselves untouched. [...] The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration, both led by drug company veterans, have started with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the middlemen who negotiate prices with drug companies on behalf of health plans and reimburse pharmacies after sale. PBMs exploit an information advantage in this multi-sided market to skim as much as one in every five dollars out of every prescription drug purchase, harming pharmacies, health plans, and consumers alike."

And DDay at The Intercept, "The 'Mulvaney Discount': Trump'S Consumer Protection Czar Is Shrinking Fines For Law-Breaking Companies [...] After pausing enforcement work when Acting Director Mick Mulvaney took over, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been on a relative tear, announcing five civil settlements of cases begun under Mulvaney's predecessor, Richard Cordray. But in at least three of them, CFPB has explicitly reduced the fine handed down against corporate offenders to a fraction of the initial amount. The smaller fines mean softer punishment for violations of law and, in some cases, less restitution to victims of the misconduct."

Naturally, the "centrist" Dems are having trouble making themselves enthusiastic about supporting Ben Jealous in the Maryland election. The sticking point seems to be that he is insufficiently supportive of letting Amazon headquarter in the state - no doubt a wiser move than they're prepared to admit. This story, of course, appears in the newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos.

"Bernie Sanders And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Went To War With Partisanship In Kansas [...] Though the first of two rallies held Friday was ostensibly in support of James Thompson, a candidate for Kansas's 4th Congressional District, the gestalt of the day's remarks was something bigger than any one race. The speeches — particularly Sanders's — announced a unifying theme that felt too coherent to have been thrown together for a House primary or two. Individually, the remarks were compelling. Together, they comprised an unabashed declaration of post-partisan movement building — a rebuke to those in power who fetishize every identity-based division in order to diffuse the largest coalition in the country: the working class."

Dean Baker, "Trump's 'Victory' in Trade War: Like many economists I have been puzzled over the likely end game in the trade war that Donald Trump has initiated with most of our major trading partners. He has escalated his rhetoric and put together a large list of imports to be hit with tariffs. His demands are vague and continually shifting. This doesn't look like the way to win a trade war. But then I remembered we are talking about reality TV show host Donald Trump. Winning a trade war for this reality TV show star doesn't mean winning a trade war in the way that economists might envision. It's not a question of forcing concessions from trading partners that will improve our trade balance and the overall health of the economy. It's a question of being able to hold something up that allows Trump to declare victory. That doesn't require much."

Interesting interview on The Majority Report: The Fall of Wisconsin w/ Dan Kaufman - MR Live - 7/25/2018. A lot of us wondered about that.

Bernie Sanders takes on institutional racism and gets accused of not making the connection with institutional racism. That's not the headline of the article, which is where the accusation is actually made, but the first comment below the article is a great response.

I like the way it's framed in The New York Times, complete with a photo of Bernie at the top, "'Modern Day Debtors' Prisons': The time has come to end cash bail, a major factor in inequality in the court system. Despite releasing a comprehensive and remarkably radical criminal justice reform agenda in 2015, Senator Bernie Sanders was accused throughout his presidential campaign of being insufficiently concerned with the topic, and of habitually changing the subject to economics. The reality is that Mr. Sanders has the clearest insight into the connections between criminal justice issues and economic inequality of any major politician today. And nowhere, perhaps, are those connections more obvious than in the instance of cash bail."

Not sure whether I posted this article when it came out in 2009, but whenever I think about this stuff, I want to smack Bill Clinton and his little friends around the room. "How Congress Rushed a Bill that Helped Bring the Economy to Its Knees: n the waning days of the 106th Congress and the Clinton administration, Congress met in a lame-duck session to complete work on a variety of appropriations bills that were not passed prior to the 2000 election. There were other, unmet pet priorities of some lawmakers that were under consideration as well. One of those pet priorities was a 262-page deregulatory bill, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Tucked into a bloated 11,000 page conference report as a rider, with little consideration and no time for review, this bill would be viewed only eight years later as part of the failure of our political system abetting a financial storm that brought the world to its knees."

"The Elite Fixation With Russiagate: Does a broader public share this sense of crisis?" The public seems less concerned with Russia than with bread & butter issues, Trump is even being harsher toward Russia than Obama was, and no one meddles with our foreign policy like that great puppeteer, Bebe Netenyahu.

"Russiagate Covers Up Black Vote Theft: The corporate media and their friends in the Democratic Party are whipping up so much hatred and disinformation that it is almost impossible to discuss Russia or its president, Vladimir Putin. Putin is a multi-purpose villain. He is blamed for the vote theft conducted by white Americans against black people that resulted in the Donald Trump presidency. What is clear is that the Republicans stole the 2016 election for Donald Trump with a combination of voter suppression and outright theft directed against black people. Trump supposedly won the state of Michigan) by a 10,000 vote margin, but more than 75,000 votes cast in majority black cities Flint and Detroit went uncounted because of 'malfunctioning' voting machines. An additional 449,000 voters in that state were purged from the rolls through the infamous Crosscheck system."

Taibbi, "Taibbi: An Ode to the Feeble Corporate Apology: Some of America's biggest capitalist entities are begging for forgiveness on TV — while barely acknowledging their sins [...] There are times when corporate apologies are appropriate and can be taken at face value. After the Tylenol murders in the '80s, for instance, Johnson & Johnson created a new standard in introducing safety caps and the brand (rightfully) survived. That scandal wasn't the company's fault, but it did the right thing anyway. The three companies apologizing now are a little guiltier."

In Dissent, "The Right-Wing Firestorm That Rages On: A new documentary reveals how the right-wing attack on the national, grassroots anti-poverty group ACORN was a dress rehearsal for our current toxic political culture."

"The Big Tent Is Really No Tent: Why the Democrats' Old Guard Has to Get Out of the Way: It's time for the party to follow the people and back a set of progressive policies and candidates that put people first. 'The nearly complete defeat of the centrist, corporate Democrats over the last four decades should have made it obvious that the age of the DLC centrists has been coming to an end for some time."The Democratic Party's leadership would phrase it differently. Something like, 'Their go our people. We must stop them, or they will make us give up our triangulating centrism,' or more likely, '...they will make us give up our corporate campaign contributions.'"

Thomas Frank, "Can liberals please work out how to win back the working class? I'm taking a pause from journalism — while I'm gone, can someone please tell the Democrats that they need to stop betraying the movements that support them. [...] Still, as we are reminded at every turn, this flawed organization is the only weapon we have against the party of Trump. And as the president's blunders take a turn for the monumental and public alarm grows, the imperative of delivering a Democratic wave this fall grows ever more urgent. Make no mistake: it has got to happen. Democrats simply have to take one of the houses of Congress this fall and commence holding Trump accountable. Failure at this baseline mission is unthinkable; it will mean the Democratic party has no reason for being, even on its own compromised terms."

"America's heart of darkness [...] We're about there, I think — perhaps not every single one of us, perhaps not just yet, but the conditions are right and the summer is long. The entire 2016 episode has been, in some sense, an introspective journey into America's own innermost parts, with Donald Trump's victory prompting a nervous self-inventory of what we value, whether our institutions work and to what degree we ought to trust one another. The full contents of that inward odyssey have yet to unfold. But on the question of institutional functioning, the news is unequivocally grim. Like Marlow, even after this particular chapter has ended, we are likely to find ourselves changed by what we've seen."

"2008:Ten Years After the Crash, We Are Still Living in the World It Brutally Remade" — essays by Frank Rich, Sheila Bair (Former head of FDIC), Corey Robin,Robert Shiller,Matt Bruenig, Yves Smith, Boots Riley, Stephanie Kelton, and others, and some depressing statistics.

Here's Mark Ames talking about his experiences in Russia and giving his analysis of what's going on now. Boris Yeltsin in his five years in office dragged Russia into a war in which about 100,000 people were killed, and they lost. The average life expectancy of a Russian male plummeted from 68 years to 56 years. It had a death to birth ratio perhaps never seen in the 20th century, even during war times. People were just dying like flies everywhere. There was no state support, just pure banditry starting with Yeltsin at the top, all the way down. So he had actually — unlike Putin — say what you will about him — but I think even his enemies agree he is very popular. They might blame it on the propaganda, but he is popular. His ratings are still in the 80th percentile range, and he's always been popular. With Yeltsin you had to perform a miracle. This guy was absolutely hated and is still one of the probably two or three most hated Russians in modern history for what he did to the country. And so it was a tough job, and Clinton was also running for re-election that year [1996], and Clinton did not want to be known as the president who 'lost Russia' if Yeltsin's communist opponent won. [...] I didn't see the anger really explode until we bombed Kosovo in 1999. Then suddenly all these Russians turned against us, and it all kind of started make sense to them, but before then you had the most equal society where the privileged people had a somewhat nicer dacha or the really privileged ones maybe had a car, or the super, super privileged had a car and a driver, but no one was a billionaire, and there certainly weren't millions and millions of people starving in the streets or half starving in the streets. So you went from the world's most equal society to the world's most unequal society in a very short period of time. It was incredibly traumatic, and so Putin was brought in. When he first appeared there was this great relief, I think, for a lot of Russians because he was a guy who a) didn't drink, and b) seemed serious, and he seemed like somebody who was more seriously interested in not doing any more experiments on the country. The Russians kept saying, 'We don't want to be experimented on anymore,' and the American attitude was: 'OK we experimented on you, and you died on the operating table. Clearly it's your fault. We need a better patient than you.' Certainly by the end of the 1990s democracy was a bad word in Russia. It was just equated with stealing from everybody."

Richard Eskow, "While Democrats Chase Russians, Republicans Keep Rigging Elections: What does it tell us when leading Democrats are more upset about alleged Russian election-rigging than they are about proven Republican election-rigging? After all, American oligarchs like the Koch Brothers have no more right to undermine our democracy than Russian oligarchs do."

Jonathan Cohn reviews Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics [...] Fear City focuses on New York City's 1973 financial crisis, the result of which was a steep retrenchment of city government -- which no longer provided the robust public services that it had by mid-century. As Phillips-Fein observes, contrary to the neoliberal mantra of "there is no alternative," there were many alternatives at every step of the way leading to New York's near-bankruptcy. Many of the roots of the crisis were out of New York City's hands, instead the results of federal policies that incentivized out-migration into suburbia and state policies that hamstrung the city's ability to raise tax revenue."

"How American Economics is Ruining Your Life [...] It's almost impossible to overstate just how uniquely bad American life is — school shootings, medical bankruptcies, young people trying to crowdfund insulin, skyrocketing suicide rates, opioid epidemics, one year olds on trial. These things don't happen anywhere else in the world, really. Not even poor countries. And yet Americans live uniquely wretched and ruined lives not because the hand of fate fell — but largely because American economics destined them to. "

Sam Seder on The Majority Report, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity w/ Lilliana Mason - MR Live - 7/30/18

Bill Black Interview, The Truth About the 2008 Financial Meltdown and How it Contributed to Trump's Rise (Pt 1/2) and (Pt 2/2)

You know, it really does seem like Debbie Wasserman Schultz is bad for Florida. She's not bringing home the bacon for the state and she's even refusing to spend money the voters made available to clean up the local environment. You just might think she's corrupt.

"London erects 25-foot Jeff Goldblum statue to commemorate 'Jurassic Park's 25th anniversary: They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should build a 25-foot replica of Jeff Goldblum."

I can't remember if I've linked this before, but it just made me feel better so I'm linking it anyway: "Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk"

Face Vocal Band, "The Parting Glass"

"Boz Scaggs Processes The Past And Rebuilds For The Future [...] Out of the Blues includes covers of songs by Bobby "Blue" Bland, Jimmy Reed and Samuel "Magic Sam" Maghett, as well as a cover of Neil Young's "On the Beach." The Young song deals with loss and despair, which Scaggs faced directly when his house and all its contents burned in the Napa, Calif., wildfires last year. "It simply all is gone," he says. "It has you reaching for all sorts of answers and conclusions and ways to take it in.""

Steve Miller Band/Boz Scaggs, "Baby's Calling Me Home"

The only time I feel all right is by your side

Bernie Sanders held a CEOs vs Workers Town Hall. Donut Twitter* went insane with tweets to the effect of, "How dare he talk about unimportant stuff like this when Trump had a lousy press conference in Russia!"

"How to Survive America's Kill List: When a U.S. citizen heard he was on his own country's drone target list, he wasn't sure he believed it. After five near-misses, he does — and is suing the United States to contest his own execution." There's an irony here. This guy spent a couple of hours trying to explain that "democracy" in America has nothing to do with policy, that Americans have little or no input into what an administration might actually do, that a majority of Americans are not necessarily in favor of droning Muslim weddings. The person he was explaining it to was an Al Queda leader, and that "association" is very possibly why this American citizen is being targeted for murder by our government.

"Charges Dropped Against Remaining J20 Inauguration Day Protesters: Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against the 38 remaining defendants arrested and charged with rioting during the Disrupt J20 protests on Donald Trump's Inauguration Day. The dismissal brings an end to the nearly 18-month saga that saw 234 protesters threatened with as much as 60 years in prison for their alleged roles in the destruction of property on January 20, 2017."

"AT&T promised lower prices after Time Warner merger — it's raising them instead: AT&T is raising the base price of its DirecTV Now streaming service by $5 per month, despite promising in court that its acquisition of Time Warner Inc. would lower TV prices. [...] Just two months ago, AT&T said in a court filing that buying Time Warner would allow it to lower TV prices. The US Department of Justice tried to stop the merger, arguing that it would raise prices for consumers, but a federal judge sided with AT&T. The merger was completed on June 15. AT&T scoffed at the Justice Department's argument that the merger would raise prices. The telecomm giant wrote in its post-trial brief that the merger will 'enabl[e] AT&T and Time Warner to reduce consumer prices.'"

"Federal judge dismisses suit over literacy rights in Detroit: A federal judge has dismissed an unprecedented civil lawsuit filed on behalf of Detroit students fighting to establish literacy is a U.S. constitutional right. In the suit filed in 2016 through a California public interest law firm, the youths alleged the conditions of their schools are so poor and inadequate they had not received the best education and were denied access to literacy on account of their races, violating their rights under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. But attorneys for Gov. Rick Snyder and state education officials have said no fundamental right to literacy exists for Detroit schoolchildren. The lawyers had asked the judge to reject what they have called an 'attempt to destroy the American tradition of democratic control of schools.'" This is unpardonable, Rick Snyder should be arrested for fraud against taxpayers, and judges like this should be locked in a room and forced to read the Preamble over and over until they understand what "promote the general Welfare" means.

"U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials: A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother's milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes. Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations."

"Ethiopia and Eritrea declare war 'has come to an end': Leaders of Horn of Africa nations sign joint peace agreement, officially ending decades of diplomatic and armed strife."

Israel officially becomes a a racist, apartheid theocracy: "Israel Passes Controversial Jewish Nation-state Bill After Stormy Debate: 62 lawmakers vote in favor of the bill after a stormy debate ¦ Arab lawmakers tossed out after they tear bill in protest, call it 'apartheid law'."

"A $1 billion Gates Foundation-backed education initiative failed to help students, according to a new report — here's what happened: [...] The initiative, called the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching, didn't improve student graduation rates or schools' ability to retain effective teachers." What really happened is that two people who thought because they were rich they were also "smart" on issues they knew nothing about could just inject themselves and their money into a vital area and, as a result, helped to completely wreck our educational system. They were not educators and had no reason at all to think they knew more than experienced teachers knew, but they just jumped right in and gave the whole charter school movement the boost it needed to be saleable to people who were unwise enough to think that there is any better way to get good student outcomes than to have experienced teachers who are rewarded with a living wage and pension teaching those students. Experience, you see, is the best teacher.

"Ro Khanna Says He'Ll Rally Support For Barbara Lee If She Makes Bid For Democratic Leadership: REP. RO KHANNA plans to throw his full weight behind Barbara Lee, his fellow representative from California, if she makes a final decision to run for caucus chair, a leadership position being vacated by New York's Rep. Joe Crowley. "

"California Democratic Party Snubs Feinstein, Endorses de León in Senate Race: Longtime California Senator Dianne Feinstein lost the California Democratic Party's endorsement, in a stunning vote Saturday night at the party's executive board meeting in Oakland. Though the vote was expected to be close, state Senator Kevin de León rather easily crossed the 60 percent threshold necessary for endorsement."

"The Dialysis Industry Is Putting Profits Over Patients. A California Democratic Party Official Is Quietly Helping Them: EARLIER THIS WEEK, the California Democratic Party announced that it would no longer accept contributions from the private prison industry, and that it would donate the $160,000 it received from the top two prison operators — GEO Group and CoreCivic — to organizations that assist immigrants and ex-offenders. It was a heartening reversal of pay-to-play politics, made possible by an organized activist movement capitalizing on financial disclosure. But pay-to-play still has a role within the party. According to financial statements, party vice chair Alex Gallardo-Rooker received $30,000 in the first quarter of this year from opponents of a controversial ballot measure that would cap patient payments at outpatient dialysis facilities. She waited several weeks to make a written disclosure of this relationship, contravening the party bylaws. And critics claim that she continues to stay quiet about her role as a paid consultant, even while attempting to persuade party members to oppose the initiative. It's unclear whether Gallardo-Rooker continued receiving payments after March; second-quarter financial statements have not yet been released."

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Democratic Primary Opponent Will Remain on the Ballot Because of Some Bullshit [...] If you are wondering why in the fuck this is happening, you can thank New York's byzantine election laws and the stubbornness of bad men. As the New York Times explains, Crowley received the endorsement of the Working Families Party, a group of labor unions and activists that has also backed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's primary challenger, Cynthia Nixon. But after Ocasio-Cortez's primary win, Bill Lipton, the state director of the Working Families Party, reached out to Crowley's team and asked that he vacate the line. Crowley, however, declined. This means he'll remain on the ballot, which is certainly a curious decision to make!"

Pareen, "Haim Saban Is Bad For Democracy: Last month, twelve Democratic senators signed a letter from the office of Sen. Bernie Sanders to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asking the Trump administration 'to do more to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.' The letter was sent following a series of protests by Gazans that were met with overwhelming, deadly force by Israel, which has had Gaza under a punishing blockade for more than a decade. [...] In response, Haim Saban, a billionaire media mogul and longtime 'megadonor' to the Democratic Party, wrote a pissy email to each of those senators (sent to some of their personal addresses, probably just to make the point that he had their personal email addresses), listing, in syntax and tone typical of conservative chain emails, various reasons why Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, must never, ever be criticized. It doesn't even address the actual issues and concerns laid out in the letter to Pompeo; it is merely a collection of braindead talking points."

I'm not sure I can quite unpack all of this, but Marcy Wheeler is "Putting A Face (Mine) To The Risks Posed By GOP Games On Mueller Investigation [...] I'm making this public now because a David Ignatius report Thursday maps out an imminent deal with Russia and Israel that sounds like what was described to me within hours of the election. This deal appears to be the culmination of an effort that those involved in the Russian attack worked to implement within hours after the election." She talked with Sam Seder about this on The Majority Report.

Zaid Jilani at The Intercept, "Health Care Blunder Reveals Michigan Candidate For Governor's 'Progressive' Branding Is False Advertising." There are three people in this race — one who seems to be the genuine article, one who looks like a guy with too much money who is pandering as a "progressive", and one who is the corporate-backed establishment candidate (and is in the lead because the progressive vote is being split).

Libby Watson at Splinter, "Tim Geithner Is Living His Best Post-Obama Life by Running Scam to Bleed Poor People Dry: Sorry if you had anyone else winning in your Most Hideous Career After Leaving the Obama Administration bracket, because Tim Geithner just blew the competition out the water. The Washington Post has a detailed and devastating report, published Sunday evening, about the predatory lending activities of Mariner Finance, a company 'owned and managed by a $11.2 billion private equity fund controlled by Warburg Pincus,' of which Geithner is president. Cool job, Tim!"

Briahna Gray, also commenting on the Abrams-Evans race in Georgia, says, "Fetishizing 'Identity Politics' Could Cost Democrats In 2020 [...] IT'S NECESSARY, HERE, to define 'identity politics,' since a failure to do so is at the root of most of the controversy around the subject. Critics on the right generally define identity politics as any reference to racial, sexual, or gender identities, whether as calls to solidarity or a recognition of the particular harms those groups face because of their identities. This is wrong. But critics from the left don't generally question the political or cultural relevance of identities, or the extent to which they serve as important axes for political mobilization. Instead, the leftist critique condemns the 'weaponization' of identity — the cynical emphasis on personal identity over political beliefs in order to advance candidates whose interests are inapposite to the needs of the groups they're presumed to represent. See, for example, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders's claim that Democrats who 'support women's empowerment' but critique Gina Haspel's nomination for CIA director are 'hypocrite[s].' Or the idea that Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor who once criminalized truancy and oversaw the country's second largest non-federal prison population as the attorney general of California, is necessarily a good standard bearer for political justice reform."

"Why Did the Rhode Island Democratic Party Endorse an Alt-Right Supporter Over a Progressive Incumbent? Walsh has since been a progressive voice in the legislature and supports increasing the minimum wage and marijuana legalization. She also caused a stir in March when she said in a radio interview that there was an 'insane amount of drinking' among legislators at the statehouse. All this might go some way towards explaining why the state Democratic Party has endorsed her opponent in the upcoming primaries — a man who appears to have once been a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and alt-right figures."

"Patreon Is Suspending Adult Content Creators Because of Its Payment Partners: The subscription crowdfunding platform Patreon confirmed that they are increasing efforts to review content, due to payment processor pressure. [...] 'This is bigger than us & Patreon. It's a world wide crack down on freedom of expression, on women, on marginalised people, on sex and sex work, on non conventional forms of labour that counter the status quo: the domination of corporations and patriarchy. On dissent,' Ashley wrote. 'Just to be clear what is at stake, this is my whole income, my livelihood.'"

Alex Jones discovered the left's plans to start a second civil war on July 4th. Hilarity ensues.

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone, "We Need a Financial Transactions Tax Before It's Too Late: As the country sits atop a giant debt-bomb, measures are needed to rein in excess speculation"

Ryan Cooper in The Week, "How the capitalist class is strangling the American economy [...] Why the capitalist class does this is something of a mystery. Don't they love growth? Well, they do, but only under the right circumstances. They present themselves as concerned with growth, productivity, and output above all else, but it turns out they are in reality a lot more concerned with high profits and a politically quiescent working class. A big economic boom is fine, but a tight labor market requiring wage increases that come out of the capitalist share of the corporate surplus — or worse, workers confident that they can get another job organizing union drives — is horrifying to them. Our capitalist overlords think they deserve easy profits and beaten-down workers who will take crappy wages and bad benefits without a peep or protests, and mobilize politically to rig the economy to make that happen."

Also Ryan Cooper, "The new Republican Gilded Age [...] The basic idea is to reconfigure the American state to serve only the interests of business: forbidding as much regulation of industry as possible, and using violent state power to suppress the inevitable backlash from the rest of society. America once had much of its democratic nature cored out by rapacious capitalists. It could happen again."

"Yes, Normal Republican Elites Are a Threat to Democracy [...] In its mission to undermine popular government — so as to insulate the policy preferences of reactionary elites from majoritarian opinion — elected Republicans have received the indispensable aid of normal conservative jurists like Brett Kavanaugh. Over the past decade, the Roberts court has worked to systematically increase the influence that concentrated wealth can exert over American politics, while vetoing democratically enacted attempts to either constrain that influence, or else to buck the substantive preferences of the Republican donor class. The court's efforts on this front include abolishing virtually all restrictions on corporate spending in American elections; overturning an Arizona law that attempted to counter such spending by providing candidates with public funds; legalizing most forms of political bribery; and gutting anti-trust law. In sum: The modern Republican Party has demonstrated a commitment to suppressing voter participation; reducing the influence of majorities over electoral outcomes; and subordinating the policy preferences of its own constituents to those of reactionary elites. It has further demonstrated a willingness to achieve the latter end by lying to its own base about its intentions for public policy; obfuscating the policy-making process to limit public awareness of the government's activities; appointing activist judges who will veto democratically enacted legislation on dubious grounds; and stoking the most incendiary cultural divisions in American life.

"Democrats ignore the left at their peril. Midwesterners aren't scared of socialism — they're hungry for it. Some members of the Democratic establishment argue that bold, left-wing platforms can't win elections. They're wrong."

Hamilton Nolan at Splinter, "This Is Just the Beginning: Do you think that being asked to leave a restaurant, or having your meal interrupted, or being called by the public is bad? My fascism-enabling friends, this is only the beginning. One thing that people who wield great power often fail to viscerally understand is what it feels like to have power wielded against you. This imbalance is the source of many of the most monstrous decisions that get made by powerful people and institutions." I like this approach even though I disagree that they don't understand how it feels. I think they love knowing they can make you feel that way and you can't do anything about it. What they underestimate is that even in this society, you can still damage those people if you really come to believe you have nothing to lose.

From Tom Scocca at Gawker, an interesting essay On Smarm [...] But why are nastiness and snideness taken to be features of our age? One general point of agreement, in denunciations of snark, is that snark is reactive. It is a kind of response. Yet to what is it responding? Of what is it contemptuous? Stand against snark, and you are standing with everything decent. And who doesn't want to be decent? The snarkers don't, it seems. Or at least they (let's be honest: we) don't want to be decent on those terms."

Here's an interesting development: "'Tea Party Liberal' Promises To Bring A Blue Wave To West Virginia: Richard Ojeda joined the Army because he says it seemed like the most reasonable choice he had growing up; his alternative options, he says, were to 'dig coal' or 'sell dope.' So he chose the Army, where he spent more than two decades. But when he came home to Logan County, W.Va., he was stunned. "I come home from spending 24 years in the United States Army and I realize I got kids in my backyard that have it worse than the kids I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan," he shouts into the microphone during an interview."

My favorite 4th of July moment, of course, was Therese Okoumou climbing the base of the Statue of Liberty to demand that immigrant children be reuinted with their parents. The police, of course, "rescued" her with a choke-hold, but hey, that's freedom in America. I mean, she's black, whaddaya expect?

I reckon the best take came on The Michael Brooks Show when Matt Taibbi came in to talk about Centrism Isn't Sexy & Are Russian Spies Among Us?. But I don't know what all the "unprecedented" stuff is about - it's hardly as if we haven't seen this before.
Taibbi's article referred to in the show is here.)
Also on TMBS:
TMBS - 43 - How Not To Do Identity Politics ft. Asad Haider & Alyona Minkovski
TMBS - 47 - SCOTUS v. Democracy & What Beats Fascism ft. Harvey Kaye

On Majority Report:
The Kurds Anarchist Liberation Struggle w/ David Graeber - MR Live - 7/9/18
Our New Restoration Story w/ George Monbiot - MR Live - 7/3/18
Casual Friday w/ Nomiki Konst - MR Live - 6/29/18
How Jesse Helms Invented the Republican Party w/ Nick Martin - MR Live - 7/19/18

Putting this here as a reminder: Yvette Carnell - Breaking Brown

Seymour Hersh on who controls the news agenda around Donald Trump

RIP: "Ed Schultz, Former MSNBC Host, Dies at 64." I had my problems with this guy, but he didn't like being pushed into being partisan-no-matter-what, and I gotta respect that. Here's an interesting interview he did with a guy from The National Review in which he talks about how MSNBC wouldn't let him cover Bernie Sanders and why he prefers working for RT America.

It's always good to remember that Tim Geithner should take much responsibility as the architect of our current woes. He wrote an autobiographical book to "explain" how he, in indifferent student who grew up entirely ordinary just happened to become the hero of the 2007 financial crisis, and, as Matt Stoller noted, nothing about that story rings true. The Con-Artist Wing of the Democratic Party: The most consequential event of this young century has been the financial crisis. But is the party of Obama ready to come to terms with its own role in the disaster? [...] You see the same rhetorical tricks and traps as we move to Geithner's tenure as president of the New York Federal Reserve, which began in 2003. Much of the discussion of Geithner's book and his time in office is essentially a rehash of the strategies pursued during the bailouts. As with the hot money flows, Geithner pretends he was part of the solution, not the cause of the problem. But Geithner also played a huge role in the run-up of leverage in the financial system, a role he lies about when discussing his time at the Fed. Geithner served at the New York Fed until 2008, and this region was the center of the financial universe, the place where profits from the boom were husbanded and collected. The New York Fed regulated Citigroup, a massive systemic risk requiring multiple bailouts and obscure financial supporting arrangements. Thus, lying about his tolerance for this run-up in leverage, and about his distance from the financial industry, is critical in painting a later portrait of a cautious but savvy crisis manager." Countries that took Geithner's advice did poorly, and those who ignored it did just fine. And then Obama put him in charge of our economy.

David Dayen's "Inhuman Resources" at The Huffington Post is a harrowing tale of a decent guy on Wall Street who tried to help a colleague who was the victim of harassment and became one himself, but I'd personally like to slap whoever coded the page so that it flutters around when you page to the next section. I hate these sliding sections and giant illustrations all over the place. Someone should make it stop.

Mark Evanier has A Harlan Ellison story and promises more. By actual count, there are 8,448,329 anecdotes about Harlan Ellison, 7,609,224 of which are actually true. This is one that fits into both categories and it involves a man named Julius Schwartz who was an important editor for DC Comics and a semi-important figure in the science-fiction community. Julie and Harlan had an extremely close relationship that some would describe as "father-son." Some would also tell you that at times, Julie — though he was nineteen years older than Harlan — was in the "son" role. Most of the time though, Julie was the obstreperous adult and Harlan, the even-more-obstreperous child. Every Wednesday morning for a very long time, Julie (in the DC offices in New York) would phone Harlan (in his home in Southern California) and they'd talk about anything and everything. One day around 1971, the topic somehow ventured to the notion of Harlan, who had done very little writing for comic books, writing a Batman story. Julie Schwartz was the editor of Batman and Detective Comics at the time. Harlan did not want to do it with any sort of deadline but he said he would come up with something in the near future. "

Badass: Stagecoach Mary Fields: Up until her death in 1914 at the age of 82, Old West badass "Stagecoach" Mary Fields had a standing bet at her local saloon: Five bucks and a glass of whiskey said she could knock out any cowboy in Cascade, Montana with a single punch."

Um, "'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Series Reboot With Black Lead In Works From Monica Owusu-Breen & Joss Whedon." I have real problems with the idea of a black woman being named "Buffy".

It's amazing what you can find by accident on the intertubes. Here's Peter Tatchell and me on The James Whale Show talking about the gay age of consent back when we were trying to get it changed. (Our bit starts about halfway through.) Alas, they cut out some of my favorite lines.

"The Kinks to reunite after two decades apart" Ray Davies confirms that he's been working on a new album with Dave.

The Kinks, "All Day and All of the Night", live.

Not working just to survive

See, here's what happens: I start thinking I'd better hurry up and upload this latest post I'm working on, and if I can just get that last link on the primaries I can post, and then Sam Seder says Anthony Kennedy has just announced his retirement, and I'm, "Oh, no," and then I think, okay, just that one more, and then Roz sends me her latest poem and I see the first line and I'm, blinking at the screen and "What? Harlan died?" Okay, we all know there were troublesome things about him, though I have to say he was always nice to me, but I'd seen him be not so nice, too. I think Cory said it best for me about all that ambivalent feeling he provoked, but my eyes still got wet. He was a lot of things, and he stood up for civil rights and women's rights, and sometimes he wasn't the best person he could be, you bet - and as with everything else, he did that big and public, too. But you can check out Variety, Guardian, and I see File770 has a whole bunch more. Oh, and Mark Evanier, of course.

And then there was that shooting at the Capital Gazette, and as if I didn't feel shell-shocked enough, half the links I tried to grab tell me they are suddenly no longer available in Europe.

That Majority Report link has a lot of material about the NY primary before the sudden interruption by Kennedy's retirement announcement, including Joe Crowley's concession featuring his surprisingly good performance of "Born to Run". And Thursday's show was on SCOTUS Apocalypse & Organizing Post-Janus w/ Ian Millhiser & Jane McAlevey.

Most of the media seemed not to have heard of her before she won the primary, and gave her no coverage, but one exception was The Intercept, which, among other things, did this interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which gives you a good sense of the candidate. (At one point she tweeted some photos under her caption, "A girl has no name," with headlines from newspapers that announced Joe Crowley's loss to a "challenger" without even using her name. Joy Reid actually tweeted that she - and most of her colleagues - were having to do remedial study of who she was. And then the alt-center all ran to the media to explain why this win doesn't mean anything. Tammy Duckworth even claimed that AO-C was fine for the Bronx but her priorities couldn't win in the midwest - that'd be the same midwest that voted for Bernie but not for Hillary.)

While I was waiting for the polls to close, I read, "97%:Why Incumbents Are So Hard to Defeat, and What It Means That a Working Class Latina Candidate Might Just Do It to One of the Most Powerful Political Bosses in the Country: In my time working and volunteering for political campaigns, I learned why 97% of incumbent politicians won re-election in 2016. I want to go into this phenomenon, noting every advantage incumbent candidates have, at least the ones that I've noticed, to underscore how dramatic the odds that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing are, and how historic a win by her would be. The support she's gotten is already close to unheard of." In New York they make it especially hard, by the way - you have to come back to vote for your nominee for governor separately, in September, - so no coat-tails, either.

Later: She wiped the floor with him. "Rep. Joe Crowley, one of the top Democrats in the House of Representatives, lost his New York primary in a shocking upset on Tuesday night to community organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley, having fundraised nearly $3 million for the race in New York's 14th District, fell easily to a first-time candidate with a viral introduction video, a Democratic Socialists of America membership card, and a proudly leftist agenda. She ran on Medicare-for-all, a federal jobs guarantee, and getting tough on Wall Street. The race was called just before 10 pm for Ocasio-Cortez." Looks like 58%-42%. I'm going to bed, too sleepy to post.

Meanwhile, in another race we were watching, Emily Sirota won Colorado's 9th District, 54.29%-45.71, but I can't find a story to link to yet. Well, I saw some headlines that wouldn't let me in, so this is the best I can do.

Also, "Maryland could elect its first African-American governor this fall: Democrats nominated Ben Jealous in their primary on Tuesday. [...] Despite being a first-time political candidate, Jealous dominated a crowded fight for the Democratic nomination, triumphing over a wide range of political veterans including a former adviser to Hillary Clinton and a Maryland state senator. Polls had Jealous and Baker in close range of one another ahead of Tuesday's election."

* * * * *

Eric Levitz in New York Magazine, "In Hindsight, Democrats Really Mishandled That Merrick Garland Thing [...] But one can also sprinkle a scintilla of blame on whoever convinced the last Democratic administration to nominate a middle-aged, white male centrist to the Supreme Court — and to then argue for his confirmation on grounds of procedural norms, rather than ideological goals. [...] In hindsight, it's hard to argue that Democrats did everything in their power to increase the salience of such questions. For example, imagine if Barack Obama had nominated the first African-American woman to the Supreme Court — one who was young, and unabashedly progressive in her jurisprudence. When McConnell subsequently vetoed her appointment — and thereby nullified Obama's attempt to give a modicum of representation in the halls of high power to the Democratic Party's most loyal constituency — wouldn't it have been easier to mobilize the Democratic base in outrage, than it was to rally them behind Merrick Garland?"

"The Supreme Court may have just killed public unions: The case, Janus v. AFSCME, dealt with the fees that public unions can collect from non-members. In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that people who aren't union members but are represented by a public union cannot be forced to pay fees because fees violate their freedom of speech. Instead, union dues must be opt-in only."

"In 'Severe Blow' to Voting Rights, Supreme Court Preserves GOP Gerrymanders in Texas and North Carolina: In a victory for "GOP racial gerrymanders everywhere" and a significant loss for voting rights, the Supreme Court's conservative majority on Monday overturned a lower court ruling and revived electoral districts drawn by Texas Republicans that many experts say are blatantly designed to discriminate against minorities. Compounding what has already been a rough several days for activists and legal experts working to combat gerrymandering nationwide, the Supreme Court also decided to send a major North Carolina partisan gerrymandering case back to a lower court, leaving intact congressional maps that rights groups argue were drawn to discriminate against Democratic voters."

This should scare you: "Younger generations make up a majority of the electorate, but may not be a majority of voters this November [...] It's difficult to predict who will turn out to vote in the upcoming 2018 midterm. A reasonable scenario might be that eligible voters would turn out as they have, on average, in past midterm elections. Gen Xers and Millennials have consistently underperformed in terms of voter turnout in midterm elections, compared with Boomers when they were the same age. Millennials have had the opportunity to vote in four midterm elections (2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014). Among Millennials who were between the ages of 18 and 24 during these elections, 20% turned out to vote, on average. By comparison, 26% of Boomers in that same age range turned out to vote in midterm elections between 1978 and 1986."

"Democrats are losing the millennial vote and need to change message: Millennials are at best soft Democrats. Many got enthused and mobilized by Barack Obama in 2008 and largely hung around for Obama in 2012 and, even less, Clinton in 2016. But many seem to have had enough. And who could blame them? Clinton's campaign mainly targeted the illusive 'moderate Republican', the white, middle-aged middle class. And since her shock defeat, many prominent Democrats have pivoted towards the cliched 'Trump voter' as defined by the liberal media, ie a middle-aged to older white, working-class male."

* * * * *

Public Policy Polling says that voters like gun control and the DREAM Act, don't want to arm teachers in schools, and don't like the wall. And you'll never guess who the favorite against Trump in the next presidential election is so far... er, yes, you will.

Q35 If the candidates for President next time were Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and Republican
Donald Trump, who would you vote for?
Kirsten Gillibrand ..............42%
Donald Trump ....................40%
Not sure ........................18%

Q36 If the candidates for President next time were Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, who would you vote for?
Kamala Harris ...................43%
Donald Trump ....................39%
Not sure ........................18%

Q37 If the candidates for President next time were Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump, who would you vote for?
Bernie Sanders ..................55%
Donald Trump ....................39%
Not sure .........................6%

Q38 If the candidates for President next time were Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Republican Donald Trump, who would you vote for?
Elizabeth Warren ................51%
Donald Trump ...................40%
Not sure ........................9%

* * * * *

"Trump Administration Won't Say How A Random CBP Agent Would Know Of A Reporter's Personal Travel: The Justice Department says an apparent Customs and Border Protection agent identified as Jeffrey Rambo was not involved in its leak investigation. [...] In June 2017, Rambo, whose official role CBP also refuses to explain, contacted national security reporter Ali Watkins, identified himself as a government agent and implied that he could be a source, according to The Washington Post. But when they met, he grilled her about her work and her personal life, noting the dates and locations of international trips she took with James Wolfe, then the director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, whom she was dating. Rambo didn't give Watkins his name, but he mentioned that the Trump administration was aggressively investigating journalists and their sources. But Customs and Border Protection is not normally involved in investigations of national security leaks. The Justice Department, which handles such matters, says it didn't ask Rambo for help."

"MOVE Member Debbie Africa Released: Philadelphia — In the early morning of June 16, after nearly 40 years of unjust imprisonment by the state of Pennsylvania, political prisoner and MOVE 9 member Debbie Sims Africa was granted parole and released from the State Correctional Institution-Cambridge Springs. [...] This Aug. 8 marks the 40th anniversary of the all-out assault by thousands of police on the MOVE house in 1978. When the family still refused to leave their home, police launched an early morning raid, using thousands of rounds of munitions, water cannons and tear gas to destroy the compound and drive the family out. During the raid, Philadelphia Police Officer James P. Ramp was killed by a shot to the back of the head. All MOVE 9 members were convicted of third-degree murder and conspiracy, even though no evidence linked any of them to the shooting. In fact, by immediately razing the entire property, police destroyed any potential evidence that would have helped the MOVE 9 prove their innocence. Police made no efforts to preserve the crime scene or measure for ballistic angles."

Even The American Conservative seems to be to the left of the Democratic Party leadership. "The Conservative Case for Universal Healthcare: Don't tell anyone, but American conservatives will soon be embracing single-payer healthcare, or some other form of socialized healthcare. Yes, that's a bold claim given that a GOP-controlled Congress and President are poised to un-socialize a great deal of healthcare, and may even pull it off. But within five years, plenty of Republicans will be loudly supporting or quietly assenting to universal Medicare. And that's a good thing, because socializing healthcare is the only demonstrably effective way to control costs and cover everyone. It results in a healthier country and it saves a ton of money."

"Russiagate's 'Core Narrative' Has Always Lacked Actual Evidence: The unprecedented allegation that the Kremlin 'attacked America' and 'colluded' with its president in order to elect him is based on two documents devoid of facts or logic. [...] Intentionally or not — one former intelligence officer called it a 'deliberate misrepresentation' — the ICA, by using the term 'Community,' gave the impression that its findings were the consensus of all '17 US intelligence agencies,' even though it was signed by only three (the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA) and by the overseeing director of national intelligence, James Clapper. This canard was widely deployed by pro-Clinton media and by her campaign until The New York Times belatedly corrected it in June 2017. But even then, anti-Trump forces continue to deploy a deceptive formulation, insisting that the ICA narrative was 'a consensus of the intelligence community.' That was false on two counts. Clapper subsequently admitted he had personally selected for the ICA analysts from the three agencies, but we still do not know who. No doubt these were analysts who would conform to the 'core narrative' of Kremlin-Trump collusion, possibly even one or more of the FBI officials now exposed for their 'bias.' Second, on one crucial finding, the NSA had only 'moderate confidence,' not the 'high confidence' of the CIA and FBI. This has yet to be explained. Still more, the ICA provided almost no facts for its 'assessment.' Remarkably, even the Times, which has long been a leading promoter of the Russiagate narrative, noticed this immediately: 'What is missing,' one of its lead analysts wrote, is 'hard evidence to back up the agencies' claims.' Even more remarkable but little noticed, the ICA authors buried at the end this nullifying disclaimer about their 'assessment': 'Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.' What did that mean? Apparently, that after all the damning and ramifying allegations made in the report, the authors had no 'proof' that any of them were a 'fact.'"

"Here's Why the Hope of a 'Blue Wave' in November Is Dangerous to Democracy [...] Given the uphill climb for congressional representation that Democrats have in front of them (especially for the progressive subset of the party) it's clear that the midterms will largely be decided by the people who find a reason to vote. Pew Research shows Republicans generally have higher turnout than Democrats. Democrats might reconsider any 'we got this' conclusions or talk of blue waves. Overconfidence cost them in 2016, and for democracy's sake, they can't let themselves fall into the same trap."

The "Resistance" — or "The Assistance", as we call them — has decided they love them some Adam Schiff as one of their choice alternatives to the evil Bernie Sanders. He is frequently on the list of bright young Dems who should replace the old guard. A virulent Russia conspiracy theorist, there are reasons not to think he's a good choice. "Resistance leader? Not really. Democratic congressman Adam Schiff personifies the link between foreign policy hawks and deep-pocketed defense contractors."

Haaretz, "Israel Is Gunning for Its Gatekeepers" A bill that would in effect let cabinet members choose their ministries' legal advisers is part of the coalition's program to eliminate checks on its power. [...] The 'selection committee' would exist in name only, a way to whitewash the complete politicization of the position of ministry counsel. In the name of governability, Shaked seeks to eliminate the gatekeeper function of the legal adviser, protecting human and minority rights and fighting corruption and damage to proper public administration."

"After 2 Months of Unrest, Nicaragua Is at a Fateful Crossroads [...] How did it begin? Nicaragua has a backstory of violence: the revolutionary struggles of the 1970s against the repressive Somoza dictatorship, followed by the US-financed Contra war against the revolutionary Sandinista government in the 1980s (the US role in that war was condemned by the World Court in 1986 as a violation of international law). Electoral defeat for the Sandinistas in 1990 brought peace, but at the expense of 16 years of corrupt, neoliberal government that undid many of the gains of the revolution. Daniel Ortega's election win in 2006 led to a decade of renewed social investment. Poverty fell by almost half between 2005 and 2016, according to World Bank data, from 48 percent to 25 percent. Nicaragua won praise for its low crime rate, limited drug-related violence, and community-based policing. Nor could the private sector complain: Nicaragua's per-capita GDP increased by 38 percent — more than for any of its neighbors. [...] It seems clear that repression of the initial student demonstration was a grave error of judgment by the police. But there is growing evidence that subsequent events were manipulated so as to magnify discontent. For example, according to a reliable eyewitness, before the ransacking of a supermarket in Managua those doing it were seen to be given Sandinista T-shirts to wear. Burning of buildings is routinely ascribed to Sandinistas, even when it is party officials' houses that are destroyed, or in city streets under the opposition's control. Police in Managua apprehended a known criminal nicknamed 'The Viper' who confessed to plotting with the protesters to carry out armed attacks on shops and FSLN offices. Even the evidence against the police for the shooting at the opposition march on Mother's Day has been called into question, in an open letter to Amnesty International by a former prisoner of conscience. The fact that gunmen are working with the opposition was confirmed by the attempted assassination of Leonel Morales, a student leader who strongly criticized the protesters. On June 12 he was kidnapped, shot, and left for dead in a ditch, an incident at first ignored by the right-wing media, then ascribed to robbery."

REST IN PEACE: "Dick Leitsch, Whose 'Sip-In' Was a Gay Rights Milestone, Dies at 83: Dick Leitsch, who in 1966 led a pioneering act of civil disobedience to secure the right of gay patrons to be served in a licensed bar, helping to clear the way for gay bars to operate openly in New York State, died on Friday at a hospice center in Manhattan. He was 83."

ROT IN PERDITION: "A Lover Of Death Gets His Wish: Neocon Charles Krauthammer Dead At 68: Fox News contributor, Washington Post columnist and neoconservative thought leader Charles Krauthammer has died of cancer, and there is a mad media rush of establishment eulogies scrambling to canonize him as a great man in the eyes of the public before anyone can step back and take stock of what this man's legacy actually is. This is perfectly understandable, because if social consciousness cements into history what a wheelchair full of toxic human waste Krauthammer actually was, it will make things much more difficult for them to manufacture support for their neoconservative wars going forward."

Nathan J. Robinson says in Current Affairs, "There Is Still Only One Clear Way To Get Rid Of Trump: Let's be honest: running Bernie in 2020 is the best shot the Democrats have at beating Trump... [...] Needless to say, if your party contains a wildly popular politician, with an enthusiastic fan base of young activists, who is adept at speaking to the concerns of the 'Rust Belt' states that lost you the election the last time around, it would seem criminally foolish not to nominate that person as your presidential candidate."

Umair Haque, "Do Americans Understand They're Beginning to Commit The Legal Definition of Genocide? No, You Don't Know What Genocide (Really) Is. But You Should."

"When Both Men and Women Drop Out of the Labor Force, Why Do Economists Only Ask About Men? That's what New York Times readers were wondering when they saw Harvard Economics Professor Greg Mankiw's column, 'Why Aren't Men Working?' The piece notes the falloff in labor force participation among prime-age men (ages 25 to 54) for the last 70 years and throws out a few possible explanations. We'll get to the explanations in a moment, but the biggest problem with explaining the drop in labor force participation among men as a problem with men is that since 2000, there has been a drop in labor force participation among prime-age women also.

Interviewed at Truthout, Noam Chomsky on Fascism, Showmanship and Democrats' Hypocrisy in the Trump Era: "The coverage has been quite instructive, in part because of the efforts of the Democrats to outflank Trump from the right. Beyond that, the coverage across the spectrum illustrates quite well two distinct kinds of deceit: lying and not telling relevant truths. Each merits comment."

"Mr. Peabody and Sherman Travel WayBack to 1953 - A History of Iraq"

A couple of Majority Report episodes really worth listening to:
* American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism w/ Dr. Henry Giroux
* Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump w/ Asad Haider

Back in March, Ryan Grim wrote about What The Dan Lipinski-Marie Newman Democratic Primary In Illinois Means. A lot of things are going to go this way because the "centrists" have deep pockets, but sometimes you have to run more than once to win. And the more people know that Lipinski was one of only two Democrats to vote for the Hyde Amendment, the more his seat will be in jeopardy.

Margaret Kimberly in Black Agenda Report, "No Protest for Black People: Donald Trump is certainly a motivator for white liberals. That group was quiescent when other presidents committed human rights abuses and war crimes, but they spring into action when Trump does something they don't like. It is commendable that thousands of people converged on airports in 2017 to protect victims of the Trump travel ban against seven Muslim nations. Now the outrage over the official policy of immigrant family separation has produced another groundswell of protest. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices have been blockaded, ICE employees are outed online and presidential staff are chased from restaurants by angry people. To be clear, the anger is justified and the protest is necessary. But where is this level of outrage when black people are victimized by this system?"

Caitlin Johnstone, "I Paid To See A Movie About Singing. I Got Ninety Minutes Of Pentagon Propaganda."

The Batman dance

I know I was pretty preoccupied at the time, but I just can't imagine how I missed Stephen Colbert's Tolkien Mockingbird.

"Fictional Cops I Love, Ranked By How Guilty I, As An Anarchist, Feel For Loving Them" — I don't even recognize the first one, but I have no guilt about liking Foyle and Murdoch, and of course, it was the last one that made me post the link, 'cause I love him most of all.

Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke fab. I think I teared up a bit at the end there. Everyone looked so happy. It was fab!

Jessica Harper, "Special to Me"