Everybody's desperate, trying to make ends meet

David Dayen, "Great News: Wall Street Democrats Might Leave the Party: My fervent hope for many years could be coming true. [...] This is fantastic news. Anything that accelerates the split in the decades-long marriage between the alleged party of the people and Big Money should be celebrated. The transformation in policy that would ensue if Wall Street Democrats walk away from the party, freeing it from self-censorship and bad ideas, far outstrips whatever money they might raise for Democratic candidates."

Ryan Grim, "Why The House Democratic Caucus Was Able To Move So Rapidly Toward Impeachment"

It's only an occasional ray of sunshine, but every once in a while even a major network has a decent piece about Sanders. "Emotional town halls become centerpiece of Bernie Sanders' campaign: 'I'm a doctor, I've got a prescription and it's Medicare for All,' said one medical debt town hall attendee. 'We're leaving here today with another prescription in our pocket. That prescription is you, senator. Eighteen months from now, it's "Mr. President".'"

"Orrin Hatch: Joe Biden told me he 'didn't believe' Anita Hill during Clarence Thomas hearings: Former Vice President Joe Biden's handling of Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas is under new scrutiny, as a former Senate colleague and fellow Judiciary Committee member contradicted Biden's repeated recollections of his feelings at the time of those contentious hearings."

A Michael Brooks interview about good prospects in the upcoming Canadian election. Trudeau might just get kicked out for someone better.

The last presidential candidate to go to the all-female HBCU Bennett College was Shirley Chisholm. So it was a big deal when Bernie Sanders came with some friends to Greensboro.

David Dayen spent a lot of the last decade or so pointing out that presidents have enormous power and can do a lot to fix the system and help people. When a president doesn't do that, you have to conclude that they don't want to. But if they do, well, they can do a lot. "The Day One Agenda: Laws already on the books give a president great discretionary power for constructive change—without abusing executive authority." It's worth listening to Sam Seder's interview with David Dayen about this, and the reminder of why excusers who sneered at "the Green Lantern theory" were wrong.

Common Dreams, "MSNBC Pundit Who Accused Those Who Prefer Sanders to Warren of 'Sexism' Sparks Viral Outcry From #WomenforBernie: 'Not here to be vote shamed by the 1%. I am supporting the only candidate who will always put the needs of people first.' [...] Collectively, the argument from most Sanders supporters appears not be that they dislike Warren or her policies, but that they have come to believe that Sanders—largely based on his concept of political power and his lifelong commitment to a host of issues and values—is a truly unique and superior candidate overall." Embedded in the article is Katie Halper and Matt Taibbi's Useful Idiots podcast with guest Nathan Robinson, talking about Warren and Sanders, that's worth a listen.

RIP: Cherie Matrix-Holt, 1 April 1963-19 September 2019. longtime member of Feminists Against Censorship and member of the FAC publishing group, for which she edited Tales From the Clit: A Female Experience of Pornography, from metastatic small cell lung cancer. She was vibrant and inspiring and meant a lot to us all. She was my friend and I loved her. She complained of back pain and went to the doctor for relief, which lead to the discovery that cancer had been eating its way through her for a long time, and her death a few weeks later. I'm still reeling in shock.

RIP: Diplomat Joseph Wilson, who challenged lead-up to Iraq war, dies at 69: Diplomat Joseph Wilson, whose disagreements with the George W. Bush administration led to his then-wife Valerie Plame being outed as a CIA agent, died Friday, according to The New York Times."

Black Agenda Report, "Believe Absolutely Nothing the US Government and Media Say About...Anything [...] There was a time, not so long ago, when most Black Americans of all classes were highly skeptical of every word that emanated from the mouths of white folks in power in the United States. A substantial body of Black opinion believed nothing at all that appeared in the corporate media — which, back then, we simply called the 'white press.' It was a wise and healthy skepticism, learned over generations of enduring a constant stream of lies and slander against Black people from politicians and mass media of the two governing parties. These organs and mouthpieces of rich white people's power were no more to be trusted, as Malcolm X counseled, than 'foxes' (Democrats) and 'wolves' (Republicans). The logic of the collective Black domestic experience extended to international affairs, as well. We empathized with the 'colored' peoples of the world under attack by the U.S. government and media. If white politicians and press lied about us, we knew they were probably lying about their foreign non-white victims, as well. And we were right." So how did that change?

"Edward Snowden: Joe Biden Threatened Countries Not To Give Me Asylum: Edward Snowden revealed then-Vice President Joe Biden and then-Secretary of State John Kerry pressured countries that protect whistleblowers and asylum seekers to deny him entrance. In an interview with MSNBC's Brian Williams, Snowden said he applied for asylum to countries such as allies France and Germany but every time it got pulled."

"The Prospect Of An Elizabeth Warren Nomination Should Be Very Worrying [...] I understand that, if Sanders is the leftmost U.S. senator, and Warren the second leftmost, it seems nitpicky and fringe to disparage Warren. In fact, I've tried to refrain from criticizing Warren too much, because I think the difference between having either her or Sanders as the nominee and having someone else as the nominee is substantial, and if Sanders isn't it then by God it had better be Warren. Yet I think it is necessary for Sanders supporters to fight hard to make sure he is the nominee. Settling for Warren should be a last resort. "

Bernie Sanders has been promoting a wealth tax since at least 1972, so it was unsurprising — if also largely unheralded — when he tried to introduce one in 2014. Elizabeth Warren has recently introduced one, so it was even less surprising when Sanders refurbished the idea himself. My personal proposal is for a 200% tax on anything over $100 million, so I'm always happy when I see something like Luke Savage's "Abolish the Billionaire Class: Billionaires are the grotesque products of an exploitative, immoral economic system. We should get rid of them. [...] To state what should be obvious, these two facts are not unrelated. Vast concentrations of wealth in the hands of the few is both how and why there is so much poverty and insecurity among working and middle-class Americans, despite there being so much wealth overall. Thanks to their cumulative labor — in factories, schools, hospitals, care homes, restaurants, and throughout the economy — an immense amount of wealth is produced in a society like the United States, but much of it is expropriated by billionaires in the form of rents and capital income. No one earns a billion dollars, but hierarchical economic structures and a skewed political system ensure some nevertheless acquire it because of the property they own. A billion dollars, let alone the over $100 billion amassed by Jeff Bezos, is not a reward proportionate to someone's social contribution. It's institutionalized theft, plain and simple."

Also Luke Savage, "Liberalism in Theory and Practice: Contemporary liberals are temperamentally conservative — and what they want to conserve is a morally bankrupt political order. [...] No, that instinct owes much more to watching Barack Obama summon forth a tidal wave of popular goodwill, then proceed to invite the same old cadre of apparatchiks and financiers back into the White House to carry on business as usual despite the most punishing economic crisis since the Great Depression; to seeing the 'war on terror' become a permanent fixture of the global landscape long after its original architects had been booted from the halls of power, courtesy of supposedly enlightened humanitarians; to witnessing a potentially monumental hunger for change be sacrificed on the altar of managerialism and technocratic respectability. It comes from watching a smiling Nick Clegg stand next to David Cameron in the Rose Garden at Number 10 Downing Street before rubber-stamping a series of lacerating cuts to Britain's welfare state and betraying a generation of students in the process; to seeing the dexterity by which Canada's liberals gesture to the left then govern from the right; and from seeing the radical demands of global anti-austerity movements endlessly whittled down and regurgitated as neoliberal slam poetry to be recited at Davos by the hip young innovators du jour."

"Someone Should Do Something: After seeing the events of the past few days, in the light of the events of the days before those, in relation to the events that took place in the weeks, months, and years before that, I am strongly considering writing something that would address the question of whether Nancy Pelosi is bad at her job. If I did, I would argue that the House of Representatives, under Pelosi's leadership, has come to function as a necessary complement to the corruption and incompetence of President Donald Trump—that a lawless presidency can only achieve its fullest, ripest degree of lawlessness with the aid of a feckless opposition party, which the Democrats are eager to provide. My editor thinks that I should write this article. I understand that in a week when one of the president's most dedicated flunkies went before Congress to openly sneer at the idea that he should answer questions, making a show of obstructing what was supposed to be an investigation into obstruction of justice—a week now ending with reports, confirmed by the president's jabbering ghoul of a lawyer on television, that the president tried to force a foreign country to act against the Democrats' leading presidential candidate—there is good reason to feel that something needs to be written. It is certainly the sort of situation that someone could write about: the opposition party sitting on its hands and issuing vague statements of dismay while the entire constitutional order is revealed to be no match for the willingness of a president and his enablers to break the law.

"A strange Twitter glitch is censoring the left — and no one knows if it's a bug or a feature: Twitter is mum about a well-documented "bug" that seems to prevent verified accounts from getting ratioed." I keep another browser open that isn't logged into Twitter so I can read things that are blocked, and sure enough, I can read the WFP thread just fine there, but not in the browser where I'm logged in.

The WFP Thing: The Working Families Party's members voted to endorse Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly in 2016. Strangely, they altered their counting methodology this time and weighted leadership's votes (56) as 50% of the vote, and membership's votes (about 10,000 people) at 50% of the vote, and Warren won. And, also unusually, they have refused to release the vote tallies. Naturally, there have been a lot of complaints online, and naturally, there is a lot of the usual push-back about how it's all just a bunch of white BernieBros saying racist things. "White Terrorism", in fact! So far the examples given are of an Amerind calling them "Uncle Tom" and a black guy calling them "slave". Going deeper, Katie Halper interviewed Susan Kang, who "talks about quitting the Working Families Party over its endorsement of Elizabeth Warren over Bernie Sanders and its lack of transparency. Instead of paying WFP dues, she'll give her money to the Sanders campaign. Plus the differences between Sanders and Warren and the cynical accusation that criticism of WFP's endorsement is an attack on people of color."

"'Exactly What I've Hoped For': 100+ Education Leaders Voice Support for Sanders K-12 Plan: 'No president or presidential candidate has offered a proposal so bold and sweeping.' [...] Unveiled in May, the Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education calls for 'a transformative investment in our children, our teachers, and our schools, and a fundamental re-thinking of the unjust and inequitable funding of our public education system.'"

"Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Are Breeding in Brazil, Despite Biotech Firm's Assurances to the Contrary: An experimental trial to reduce the number of mosquitoes in a Brazilian town by releasing genetically modified mosquitoes has not gone as planned. Traces of the mutated insects have been detected in the natural population of mosquitoes, which was never supposed to happen. The deliberate release of 450,000 transgenic mosquitoes in Jacobina, Brazil has resulted in the unintended genetic contamination of the local population of mosquitoes, according to new research published last week in Scientific Reports. Going into the experimental trial, the British biotech company running the project, Oxitec, assured the public that this wouldn't happen. Consequently, the incident is raising concerns about the safety of this and similar experiments and our apparent inability to accurately predict the outcomes."

"Documents: Police Used Buttigieg Donors to Get Him to Fire Black Chief: Legal documents related to Pete Buttigieg's ousting of South Bend's first black police chief describe a plan by white police officers in 2011 to use Buttigieg's campaign donors to get him to remove the chief, Darryl Boykins, once Buttigieg became mayor. 'It is going to be a fun time when all white people are in charge,' one officer is quoted as saying in the documents, which describe secret police recordings. The previously undisclosed documents shed new light on the most controversial chapter of Buttigieg's South Bend political career. The documents describe a plan to use two Buttigieg donors — including his campaign chairman — to lobby Buttigieg on personnel changes at the South Bend Police Department (SBPD). Both donors deny having such discussions with Buttigieg."

"Surveillance Nation: How DEA Agents Search and Seize Property from Amtrak Passengers: As you listen to the panicked fear that the U.S. government will turn authoritarian under Trump, consider the following story about the DEA and drug surveillance on the Amtrak Southwest Chief, the long train between Chicago and Los Angeles."

Stephanie Kelton: The Public Purse

Anti-BernieBros

"Elizabeth Warren Is Thirty Years Too Late: Both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are political throwbacks. But whereas Warren wants to fix the policies that went astray in the Clinton era, Sanders wants to change the economic foundations of American life. [...] On the campaign trail, 'I believe in markets' has become a kind of mantra for Warren. 'I am a capitalist to my bones,' as she put it more explicitly last year. Her 2004 book even boasted that 'We haven't suggested a complete overhaul of the tax structure, and we haven't demanded that businesses cease and desist from ever closing another plant or firing another worker. Nor have we suggested that the United States should build a quasi-socialist safety net to rival the European model.' (At the time, a whopping 45.8 million Americans were without health insurance, a number roughly equivalent to the entire population of Spain.) And it's not clear her thinking has changed all that much since."

"The Untold Story: Joe Biden Pushed Ronald Reagan To Ramp Up Incarceration — Not The Other Way Around [...] The politics of race relations have been a central part of Biden's career, from his high-profile opposition to busing to his authoring of the 1994 Biden Crime Bill. When he talks about his criminal justice record on the campaign trail, he argues today that the focus on the '94 bill is unfair, because the real rise in mass incarceration happened at the state level and was long underway by then. Biden is correct that the surge began in the 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s, but a closer look at his role reveals that it was Biden who was among the principal and earliest movers of the policy agenda that would become the war on drugs and mass incarceration, and he did so in the face of initial reluctance from none other than President Ronald Reagan. Indeed, Reagan even vetoed a signature piece of Biden legislation, which he drafted with arch segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, to create a federal 'drug czar.'"

Matt Taibbi in 2005, "Inside the Horror Show That Is Congress [...] To understand the breadth of Bush's summer sweep, you had to watch the hand-fighting at close range. You had to watch opposition gambits die slow deaths in afternoon committee hearings, listen as members fell on their swords in exchange for favors and be there to see hordes of lobbyists rush in to reverse key votes at the last minute. All of these things I did — with the help of a tour guide. 'Nobody knows how this place is run,' says Rep. Bernie Sanders. 'If they did, they'd go nuts.'"

David Klion in The New Republic, "The Conscience of Bret Stephens: How one columnist's wild family history explains an increasingly isolated school of conservatism." I had no idea that Leon Trotsky once had an affair with Frida Kahlo. The things you learn....

Warren Zevon and Jackson Browne - Mohammed's Radio - Live 1976 (HD)

September, I'll remember

"6 winners and 3 losers from CNN's climate town hall: CNN's climate crisis town hall on Wednesday night was an unprecedented seven hours of discussion on climate change with 10 of the Democratic 2020 presidential contenders. It was also the most substantive discussion of climate change policies ever broadcast on primetime television. Each candidate was given a 40-minute segment, meaning they could provide long, nuanced answers to hard questions on the most far-reaching issue of our time. There was a lot that could have gone wrong, so it's remarkable so much went right. The town hall easily outshone the muddled discussion in the paltry half-hour or so devoted to climate change across eight hours of official Democratic debates."

Bloomberg, "Schumer Picks Senate Primary Favorites, Irking Progressives: Chuck Schumer's effort to unite Democrats behind well-funded, centrist Senate candidates has sparked a backlash from progressives who warn that the Democratic leader risks turning off voters they'll need to take back the chamber. Consolidating the party apparatus behind strong candidates early can help raise their profile -- and bring in millions of dollars in fundraising. But the strategy is angering local activists and competing primary hopefuls. The campaign committee associated with Senate leaders has already picked well-established candidates in key battleground states more than a year before the election, including Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, who's seeking to unseat Republican Susan Collins, and former Governor John Hickenlooper in Colorado targeting Republican Cory Gardner. Most of the favored Senate hopefuls don't back Medicare for All or the Green New Deal, and in many cases they have more progressive competition.

"Four states set to cancel 2020 GOP presidential primaries: report: Four states are preparing to cancel their 2020 Republican nominating contests over the weekend, Politico reported, citing three sources. The sources told the outlet that South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas Republicans are reportedly slated to scrap their primaries and caucuses, in a move that would demonstrate President Trump's effort to shore up control over the GOP at the state level. The report comes as Trump faces two long-shot primary challenges from former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. "

"California Bill Makes App-Based Companies Treat Workers as Employees: SACRAMENTO — California legislators approved a landmark bill on Tuesday that requires companies like Uber and Lyft to treat contract workers as employees, a move that could reshape the gig economy and that adds fuel to a yearslong debate over whether the nature of work has become too insecure."

"Private Equity Tries to Protect Another Profit Center: The fight in Congress heats up over surprise medical billing, another abuse of the public driven by the private equity industry. Surprise medical billing has quickly become a small but critical flashpoint in health care reform. Because doctors and hospitals negotiate separately with insurance companies over reimbursement rates, it's possible for a patient's insurance to cover hospital charges while failing to cover the fees of some doctors in the hospital who are 'out of network.' Patients who visit an emergency room (ER) or are admitted to an in-network hospital by an in-network doctor may find that some of the professionals who treat them are not covered by their insurance. That is because hospitals have outsourced ER, anesthesiology, radiology, or other specialized services to outside physician practices or staffing firms. Patients often find themselves on the hook for thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars in surprise medical bills.

Well, here's an article I never expected to see in the Telegraph: "Corbyn better than no-deal Brexit, say investment banks as anti-capitalist Labour wins unlikely new City fans: Jeremy Corbyn, the scourge of bankers and avowed opponent of capitalism, is winning support from unexpected new quarters: two of the biggest global banks operating in the City of London are warming to the Labour leader. Unlikely as it may seem, he is now seen as the lesser of two evils by analysts at Citibank and Deutsche Bank, respectively American and German titans of the financial system. 'Is Corbyn as bad as no-deal? Perhaps no longer,' said Christian Schulz at Citi."

"The Citgo conspiracy: Opposition figures accuse Guaidó officials of 'scam' to liquidate Venezuela's most prized international asset: Venezuela's opposition has long accused the Bolivarian government of corruption and mismanagement. But with Citgo on the verge of liquidation, Guaidó's officials are too incompetent — or too devious — to save it."

"BRICS was Created as a Tool of Attack, Says an Imprisoned Lula: Former Brazilian leader wishes emerging economies were closer; recalls Obama 'crashing' Copenhagen climate meeting, writes Pepe Escobar. In a wide-ranging, two-hour-plus, exclusive interview from a prison room in Curitiba in southern Brazil last week, former Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva re-emerged for the first time, after more than 500 days in jail, and sent a clear message to the world."

"ThinkProgress, a Top Progressive News Site, Has Shut Down: ThinkProgress, the influential news site that rose to prominence in the shadow of the Bush administration and helped define progressivism during the Obama years, is shutting down. The outlet, which served as an editorially independent project of the Democratic Party think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), will stop current operations on Friday and be converted into a site where CAP scholars can post." In other words, they fired all the unionized staff.

Pareen in The New Republic says, "ThinkProgress Was Always Doomed: Independent journalism fits uncomfortably with mainstream think tank politics. [...] ThinkProgress was not shuttered because it loses money. It certainly did lose money—political journalism is not exactly a cash cow!—but it was not a business of any kind: It was an arm of an extremely well-funded nonprofit think tank. If the Center for American Progress, as an institution, was interested in sponsoring journalism, CAP would've sponsored it. CAP isn't, and here we are."

Over at The Jacobin, Max Sawicky says, "Politics Is Not Arithmetic: UBI advocates have a habit of mistaking politics for arithmetic. Proving that a policy is mathematically possible isn't enough — and it can distract from more compelling left priorities."

Meanwhile, Ben Burgis says, "Socialism and the Self-Checkout Machine: A $1,000 a month check won't cut it, but there's a real democratic socialist response to automation that could make us all happier and give everyone more leisure time.

"This Alone Should Disqualify Pete Buttigieg" — The last thing we need is another Democrat who does the GOP's work for them by whining about fiscal "time bombs" and such.

"Why is the media gaslighting everyone about Joe Biden? After the Democratic primary debate on Thursday, top-shelf political journalists were quick to declare Joe Biden the winner by default. Biden turned in 'a solid but unspectacular showing' that was good enough 'for the former vice president to win the Democratic nomination and maybe even the White House,' wrote Stephen Collison at CNN. 'Joe Biden on Thursday delivered the kind of performance his supporters have been waiting for — combative when needed and in the thick of the action throughout,' wrote The Washington Post's Dan Balz. Biden 'fights off rivals,' wrote Katie Schubauer and Michael Mathes at AFP. 'Biden won, again,' wrote Jonathan Last at The Bulwark. I have only one question: Were these folks watching the same debate as I was? Because while nobody quite executed a Chris Christie-style suicide attack on Biden, his performance was still at-times gobsmacking evidence of a man whose mental acuity is fading by the day."

Deadspin was a bit less polite. "Joe Biden Is A Doddering Old Mummy With A Skull Full Of Dumpster Juice. [...] If you accept the basic and fairly uncontroversial proposition that 'President of the United States' is an important job with the power to influence many extremely vital functions of government, and that this job is best done by someone capable of at least steady if not genuinely nimble brainwork, then it doesn't even matter whether Biden's politics are bad; or whether he has shown himself over the years to be a weasel who uses a phony Regular Amtrak-Ridin' Uncle Joe routine to paper over shameless stoogery on behalf of various predatory industries; or whether his cretinous attitudes toward issues such as race, criminal justice, and the bodily autonomy of women were outdated over 40 years ago and have not substantially changed since then. He can't fucking think straight. He's a senile old man who has no business running a museum tour, much less the executive branch of the federal government."

Ryan Cooper in The Week, "Is Bernie Sanders right about medical bankruptcies? As funny as it is to watch so-called fact checkers beclown themselves in their palpable eagerness to expose the radical commie candidate, the specifics of this debate shouldn't lead us to miss the bleeding obvious. Whatever the accurate number is, we can be sure beyond question that medical debt is causing a great ocean of pointless misery — and Medicare-for-All would help a lot."

"Democracy Dies From Bad Fact-Checking: The Washington Post is feeding into Trump's agenda by turning fact-checking into an ideological weapon. [...] With these polemics-disguised-as-rebuttals, the Post is discrediting the entire journalistic genre of fact-checking. This is dangerous in a way that goes beyond any damage it does to Sanders as a presidential candidate. In truth, Sanders has little to worry about. The fact-checks are so ludicrous that they are unlikely to sway any voters. What they are more likely to do is feed into a pervasive distrust of the mainstream media, which is bad for democracy."

Luke Savage and Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs, "Support For Biden Is An Irresponsible Gamble With Our Future: There's nothing pragmatic or safe about a Biden nomination... [...] Even putting aside the inadequacy of his politics, Biden's inability to articulate a clear or legible Democratic message—even on his own terms—means that he cannot be put forward as a candidate against Donald Trump. The stakes are simply too high. [...] This magazine warned in February of 2016 that Trump had unique advantages against an 'establishment' candidate like Clinton, because he could run simultaneously to her right and to her left, criticizing her over her record on the Iraq War and Wall Street. Because these criticisms were accurate, they proved difficult to respond to. The same dangers apply to a Biden candidacy. Biden is not well-positioned to attack Trump on Trump's plutocratic agenda, given his own ties to the banking industry, which Trump will not hesitate to bring up. Nor will Biden be able to effectively criticize Trump's reckless foreign policy when he himself helped agitate for the single most reckless and deadly policy decision of the 21st century. Trump is excellent at preying on personal weaknesses (e.g., mocking Elizabeth Warren's silly ancestry claim) and will not hesitate to portray Biden as senile and out of touch. Unless Biden becomes far more energetic and cogent than he has thus far been, his responses will only confirm the charge."

Paul Rosenberg at Rolling Stone, "When establishment Democrats attack the 'hard left,' what are they really afraid of? [...] So why does anyone outside the right-wing media circus fall for this kind of propaganda, let alone actively promote it? We know why Fox News and the Republican establishment say this sort of nonsense. But why do establishment Democrats and MSNBC, the supposed 'Fox News of the left,' do the same? More importantly, what are they trying to hide? As I inquired above, what does the label hide in terms of policy? A livable wage and a livable planet are cornerstones — and popular ones at that. Higher tax rates (although still lower than Eisenhower's) are popular too."

In the Guardian, Bernie Sanders, "The media has become gossip, clickbait and punditry. This threatens democracy: Walter Cronkite once said that 'journalism is what we need to make democracy work.' He was absolutely right, which is why today's assault on journalism by Wall Street, billionaire businessmen, Silicon Valley and Donald Trump presents a crisis — and why we must take concrete action."

"The Quincy Institute opposes America's endless wars. Why should that be a scandal? When we decided to create a new foreign policy think tank, we never dreamed it would generate the wave of interest, curiosity and occasional vitriol that has ensued since we announced it. My colleagues and I founded the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft to promote — brace yourself — diplomatic engagement and military restraint. But since the news of our formation broke last month, the speculation about us has proved as revealing as anything we've done. Why, many asked, were George Soros's and Charles Koch's foundations teaming up as founding donors of the Quincy Institute?"

"The New American Homeless: Housing insecurity in the nation's richest cities is far worse than government statistics claim. [...] If the term 'working homeless' has not yet entered our national vocabulary, there is reason to expect that it soon will. Hidden within the world of homelessness has always been a subset of individuals, usually single parents, with jobs; what's different now is the sheer extent of this phenomenon. For a widening swath of the nearly seven million American workers living below the poverty line, a combination of skyrocketing rents, stagnant wages, and a lack of tenant protections has proved all but insurmountable. Theirs, increasingly, is the face of homelessness in the United States: people whose paychecks are no longer enough to keep a roof over their heads"

RIP: "Ric Ocasek, Cars Singer Who Fused Pop and New Wave, Dead at 75: Hall of Fame singer behind 'You Might Think,' 'My Best Friend's Girl' and 'Good Times Roll' found dead in New York." I like the cars, but they were in the air the summer I moved to England because of "Drive" at Band Aid, and later I loved them all over again when "You Might Think" was used as a recurring theme in BrainDead. I was surprised to learn when I saw his obit that he was older than I had thought. Good, solid, fun band.

At the top and bottom of the page for "From Obama Boys to Bernie Bros: The Creation of Twitter's Worst Attack Line," there's a podcast embedded called "The Candidates: Please, Whatever You Do, Don't Vote For Joe Biden" which I can't find a separate link for but is worth a listen.

"What Kind of Mayor Was Bernie Sanders? In his eight years as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders revitalized the economy and solidified support for progressive municipal policies. [...] Thanks to the enduring influence of the progressive climate that Sanders and his allies helped to create in Burlington, the city's largest housing development is now resident-owned, its largest supermarket is a consumer-owned cooperative, one of its largest private employers is worker-owned, and most of its people-oriented waterfront is publicly owned. Its publicly owned utility, the Burlington Electric Department, recently announced that Burlington is the first American city of any decent size to run entirely on renewable electricity."

This article is by Glenn Reynolds so of course it has to contain some right-wing bull about voter ID, but he's right about paper ballots. "Paper ballots are hack-proof. It's time to bring them back. [...] In some ways, paper and ink is a super technology. When you cast a vote on a voting machine, all that's recorded is who you voted for. But a paper ballot captures lots of other information: Ink color, handwriting, etc. If you have access to a voting machine that's connected to the Internet, you can change all the votes at once. To change a bunch of paper ballots takes physical access, and unless you're very careful the changed ballots will show evidence of tampering. Paper ballots aren't fraud-proof, of course, as a century of Chicago politics demonstrates, but they're beyond the reach of some guy sitting at a computer in a basement halfway around the world. And there are well-known steps to make Chicago-style fraud harder."

"Exactly Nobody Needed This: Chris Christie and Rahm Emanuel have three things in common: aggressively courting reputations for being assholes, showing their mugs on television, and their shared commitment to right-wing politics. Oh, and political careers that ended in complete humiliation and failure. Nobody should have to listen to either of them ever again, but that didn't stop ABC News from forcing them on us anyway."

"The Federalist Society Says It's Not an Advocacy Organization. These Documents Show Otherwise [...] Despite what appears to be an obvious political valence, the Federalist Society and its high-profile members have long insisted the nonprofit organization does not endorse any political party 'or engage in other forms of political advocacy,' as its website says. The society does not deny an ideology—it calls itself a 'group of conservatives and libertarians'—but it maintains that it is simply 'about ideas,' not legislation, politicians or policy positions. Federalist Society documents that one of us recently unearthed, however, make this position untenable going forward. The documents, made public here for the first time, show that the society not only has held explicit ideological goals since its infancy in the early 1980s, but sought to apply those ideological goals to legal policy and political issues through the group's roundtables, symposia and conferences."

Just for the record, I think the Tiptree Award should continue to be called "The Tiptree Award" and that what Alli Sheldon did was an act of courage and love, and I'm deeply offended by the whole conversation.

"How Bullwinkle Taught Kids Sophisticated Political Satire: 'Mr. Chairman, I am against all foreign aid, especially to places like Hawaii and Alaska,' says Senator Fussmussen from the floor of a cartoon Senate in 1962. In the visitors' gallery, Russian agents Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale are deciding whether to use their secret 'Goof Gas' gun to turn the Congress stupid, as they did to all the rocket scientists and professors in the last episode of 'Bullwinkle.' Another senator wants to raise taxes on everyone under the age of 67. He, of course, is 68. Yet a third stands up to demand, 'We've got to get the government out of government!' The Pottsylvanian spies decide their weapon is unnecessary: Congress is already ignorant, corrupt and feckless.

They say that Martin Hoare's coffin was bigger on the inside than on the outside.

How a Zildjian cymbal is made

Oh, yeah, I finally found "Hang On, Stevens", a bit late. I didn't remember what a mess the lyrics were, but it was fun at the time.

Push Trump off a cliff again.

Simon & Garfunkel live at Central Park, "April Come She Will"

A revolution is the solution

"FDIC approves Volcker revamp, in latest move to roll back bank rules: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board voted 3-1 Tuesday to give big banks more leeway to make risky short-term bets in financial markets by loosening a landmark but highly contentious regulation known as the Volcker rule. The FDIC and four other independent agencies have dropped their proposal to tie the rule to a strict accounting standard — a move that banks argued would have made it more burdensome by subjecting additional trades to heightened supervision. Instead, regulators will give banks the benefit of the doubt on a much wider range of trades, according to the text of the final rule." Regulators "will give banks the benefit of the doubt." Because they've really earned our trust.

David Dayen, "With the Volcker Rule Now Dead, Democrats Need to Bring Back Glass-Steagall: Trump's 'regulators' have allowed banks to play fast and loose with your deposits. It's time to make banks' speculation with your money flat-out illegal. In 2017, when Obamacare looked to be a vote or two away from oblivion, a popular argument in left circles went like this: The Rube Goldberg contraption that is the Affordable Care Act represented a compromise from the easier and cleaner way to do universal health care, and if Republicans and the medical industry couldn't even stomach that, the next time Democrats take power they might as well go to full single-payer. If Democrats are going to be called socialists either way, the left theorized, they should choose the best policy instead of a half measure in the faint hope of winning bipartisan support. Democrats now have another example of this in financial reform. Trump's regulators have finally eviscerated the compromise version of a structural separation between deposit-taking banks and trading institutions, known as the Volcker Rule. The financial sector could not allow even minor constraints on its practices of betting prodigious sums with other people's money. Well, fine. Then I guess when Democrats retain control they should just go back to the gold standard in this department, the firewall between commercial and investment banks passed in 1933 as the Glass-Steagall Act.

"Obama Repeatedly Tried to Get Biden Not to Run for President: The former president is reportedly worried Biden will 'embarrass himself.' [...] The most surprising part of the Times story though is how Obama has on multiple occasions tried to dissuade Biden from running for president. First, in 2016, Obama pressured Biden to sit out the race because he believed Hillary Clinton was the best shot at continuing his legacy. Even though that didn't pan out for Obama, he still tried to talk Biden out of running in 2020."

HILL TV EXCLUSIVE, Full Interview: Bernie Sanders sits down with Krystal Ball (28:55 video)

"Column: In shocking reversal, Big Business puts the shareholder value myth in the grave: Among the developments followers of business ethics may have thought they'd never see, the end of the shareholder value myth has to rank very high. Yet one of America's leading business lobbying groups just buried the myth. 'We share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders,' reads a statement issued Monday by the Business Roundtable and signed by 181 CEOs. (Emphasis in the original.) The statement mentions, in order, customers, employees, suppliers, communities and — dead last — shareholders. The corporate commitment to all these stakeholders may be largely rhetorical at the moment, but it's hard to overstate what a reversal the statement represents from the business community's preexisting viewpoint." But as David Dayen observed in his newsletter, "The Business Roundtable's statement that companies have obligations to more than shareholders is funny, considering that two months earlier they sent a comment to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking for a rule change to preserve 'long-term shareholder value.'

Matt Binder explains what the new domain name regime could mean, for independent sites (like this one) and other internet users, on Doomed. (The audio-only stream may be more useful and starts at the beginning of the show, unlike the video that starts over two minutes in.)

Since the usual suspects are dissing it, Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal.

Recommended video: "How Societies Turn Cruel - feat. Sargon of Akkad" (30 minutes)

What happened to America's unions? How the US Auto Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete w/ Joshua Murray - MR Live - 8/29/19

Someone updated Al Franken's "Hang On Stevens" idea for Justice Ginsberg, "Hang On Ruthie!."

I keep telling people that the candidate who is most like Trump is Biden.

Meagan Day, "Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Aren't Playing the Same Game: The Democratic Party establishment has shown itself time and again to be an enemy of left-wing policies. Despite her progressive plans, Elizabeth Warren is cozying up to those Democratic elites. Bernie Sanders welcomes their hatred. [...] The differences between Sanders and Warren on the one hand and Biden on the other are obvious. Biden has no idea what he wants the country to look like or why he's running for president. Warren and Sanders do. But the differences between Warren and Sanders continue to confuse many in the mainstream media, who repeatedly assert or imply that they're ideologically identical. They aren't. Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist and Warren calls herself a 'capitalist to my bones.' These aren't just labels. They're distinct approaches to the fundamental problems facing our society. A socialist tries to liberate the things people need to survive from the clutches of capitalist markets, which is why Sanders has taken the lead on Medicare for All, transforming it into the most popular working-class demand of the moment. A capitalist respects the superior wisdom of capitalist markets and tries to restore them to optimal functionality, which can help explain why Warren is so frustratingly noncommittal on Medicare for All. A socialist pursues decommodification through universal social programs that enshrine new social rights for all, which is why Sanders has proposed to eliminate every last penny of existing student debt. A capitalist of the liberal or progressive variety is seduced by means-testing, which is why Warren needlessly introduced eligibility requirements and caps into her student-debt forgiveness program.

"Another Nail in the Coffin' of Democracy and Journalism as US Newspaper Giants Gannett and GateHouse Announce $1.4 Billion Merger: 'Hundreds of communities and ultimately our democracy will pay the price for this deal. Less journalism and less deep-dive investigative reporting will only lead to less informed citizens.'

"Corporate Interests Use Voter Purges To Disenfranchise Citizens: The SCOTUS decision in Shelby County v Holder ruled that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional. Greg Palast talks about how what followed has been the expansion of the very issue that the VRA was implemented to curb."

Every now and then I find myself in a conversation with someone, usually a libertarian, who seems to have no idea how people and history ever happen. And I ask them, "And where does private property come from?" Nice little interview from Sammy pretty much explains why this is a useful question. "The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth & Inequality w/ Katharina Pistor - MR Live - 8/27/19"

"Memo to mainstream journalists: Can the phony outrage; Bernie is right about bias: Mainstream media is shocked at Sanders' suggestion that ownership influences coverage. I can tell you it's true. Mainstream journalists are having a ridiculous hissy fit over Sen. Bernie Sanders' suggestion that there may be a connection between the owner of a news outlet and the content or biases of that outlet's coverage. If Sanders had suggested that Rupert Murdoch's ownership of Fox News impacts its coverage, few would argue with him. But Sanders referred to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post — a corporate centrist outlet. And the senator, an Amazon critic, complained that the newspaper 'doesn't write particularly good articles about me.' [...] I worked in and around mainstream TV news for years, including at corporate centrist outlets CNN and MSNBC. Unlike at Fox News (where I'd also been a paid contributor), there's almost never a memo or direct order from top management to cover or not cover certain stories or viewpoints. But here's the sad reality: There doesn't have to be a memo from the owner to achieve the homogeneity of coverage at 'centrist' outlets that media watchdog groups like FAIR (which I founded) have documented in study after study over the decades. It happens because of groupthink. It happens because top editors and producers know — without being told — which issues and sources are off limits. No orders need be given, for example, for rank-and-file journalists to understand that the business of the corporate boss or top advertisers is off-limits, short of criminal indictments. No memo is needed to achieve the narrowness of perspective — selecting all the usual experts from all the usual think tanks to say all the usual things. Think Tom Friedman. Or Barry McCaffrey. Or Neera Tanden. Or any of the elite club members who've been proven to be absurdly wrong time and again about national or global affairs. [...] If you still want to believe there's no connection between corporate media ownership and content, join me in a mental exercise: Imagine how quickly heads would roll at the Post in the fantastical event that it somehow produced even three negative stories about owner Jeff Bezos in a few hours. (Needless to say, there's much to critically report about Bezos, including Amazon's tax avoidance, labor exploitation, taxpayer subsidies and CIA contracts.) [...] I said above that there's 'almost never a memo or order from top management' to newsroom journalists. In normal times, the media system works smoothly without top-down directives. But in times of crisis, such as during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq — when I was a senior producer of MSNBC's primetime Phil Donahue show — there may well be orders and memos. As the invasion neared, top management at MSNBC/NBC News ordered us to bias our panel discussions. If we booked one guest who was antiwar on Iraq, we needed two who were pro-war. If we booked two guests on the left, we needed three on the right. When a producer proposed booking Michael Moore, she was told that three right-wingers would be required for balance. (I thought about proposing Noam Chomsky as a guest, but our stage couldn't have accommodated the 28 right-wingers we might have needed for balance.) During that period, we were told by MSNBC brass that invasion opponent Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general, should not appear on the channel. Apparently, some sort of blacklist." And we all know what happened to Phil Donahue.

"For Bernie, The Washington Post's Hatred Is Pure The Post is apoplectic that Bernie would call out its bias. [...] Take a stalwart of the liberal establishment press, the Washington Post, for example. The Post seems to operate, similar to Cockburn, based on a principle of hatred for one's enemies. The problem, however, is that many of the Post's enemies would never have made Cockburn's enemies list: the Post's targets are all too often in the crosshairs not for being corrupt elites but principally for bucking the elite consensus."

ROT IN PERDITION: "After Life of Incalculable Harm, Billionaire Climate Denialist and Right-Wing Villain David Koch Dead at 79: 'Death is an escape hatch for David Koch while the rest of us are left scrambling for the emergency brake before we go over the cliff.'"
"David Koch's Monstrous Legacy [...] But Koch's largesse wasn't free. We are paying for it now, and have been paying for it for decades. Koch's legacy is a testament to the power of weaponized philanthropy. For Koch did not restrict himself to supporting artists and scientists. He, along with his brother Charles, who survives him, committed their vast family fortune to the construction of a powerful conservative network. We live in the world that he helped build, and it is on fire."

"Fidel Castro's crocodile attacks man at Stockholm crayfish party [...] Skansen's pair — named Castro and Hillary — came to Stockholm from Moscow Zoo in 1981, to whom they had been donated by a Russian cosmonaut who were given the animals as a gift by then Cuban President Fidel Castro in 1978. They have had 11 children since arriving at the Stockholm zoo."

"Disaster capitalism: the shocking doctrine Tories can't wait to unleash: The Tory right doesn't care about the damage Brexit will do. The prize is a free hand to exploit this mess and roll back the state for good. [...] Many thought that the near meltdown of the global financial system would prompt a comprehensive rethink of the principles underlying global capitalism. Instead, it was exploited to de-fund social welfare provision on a grand scale, prompting much of the anger wrongly vented against migrants during the referendum. What then about Brexit? The advocates of leaving the European Union have always claimed that it would be easy and, after a brief period of turmoil, positively productive. A vast chorus of experts disagreed. The decision to leave therefore delivered an enormous economic and political shock to England, Scotland, the EU and the global economy. Why is the government not doing everything possible to mitigate that shock? [...] As Andy Beckett pointed out in the Guardian on Friday, within minutes of the BBC declaring victory for Brexit, the free-market thinktank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) revealed the plan B that has otherwise remained hidden from view. 'The weakness of the Labour party and the resolution of the EU question have created a unique political opportunity to drive through a wide-ranging ... revolution on a scale similar to that of the 1980s ... This must include removing unnecessary regulatory burdens on businesses, such as those related to climate directives and investment fund[s].'"

Garbage, "Sex Is Not The Enemy"

Just nod if you can hear me

"Sanders Says If Israel Wants to Ban Members of Congress, It Should Not Receive Billions in US Military Aid: 'The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage.'" Even AIPAC condemned Benjy on this one. Imagine a president of the United States advising another country to insult our members of Congress!

Democratic Debate 2, in Detroit:
Night 1: Hickenlooper, Bullock, Buttigeig, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, Ryan, Sanders, Warren, Williamson, with commentary from The Majority Report crew. I was going to post night 2 but CNN apparently decided to cut off any of the feeds. I think there's universal agreement by anyone who isn't in the centrist bag that CNN's questioning was horrible and Jake Tapper might as well be on Fox.

"Progressive Democrats vote against BDS, Palestinian rights" — Really disappointed in Ro Khanna on this. (And so did my own Rep., Raskin.)

Joe Rogan did a full hour-long interview with Bernie Sanders. This is notable because more people watch Rogan's YouTube videos than watch the cable shows, and you're lucky to get a ten-minute interview full of all the wrong questions from those cable shows. Rogan actually did a good job of getting Sanders to talk in a little more depth about his plans and policies — and in front of an audience that is unlikely to see or hear them anywhere else. Of course, the only part the media is talking about is the joke about flying saucers.

Even Politifact had to admit that John Delaney is full of crap.

John Oliver explains the horror of Boris Johnson, PM.

"Leaked Draft of Executive Order to 'Censor the Internet' Sets Off Alarm Bells: Civil liberties groups are warning of a major threat to online freedoms and First Amendment rights if a leaked draft of a Trump administration edict—dubbed by critics as a 'Censor the Internet' executive order that would give powerful federal agencies far-reaching powers to pick and choose which kind of Internet material is and is not acceptable—is allowed to go into effect."

"Sanders Demands Drug and Insurance Industries Explain the Hundreds of Millions They Seem Willing to Spend to Defeat Medicare for All: 'You made a $100 billion in profits last year — how much are you going to be spending of that $100 billion to oppose Medicare for All? Is it $200 million? Is it $500 million? Is it a billion dollars in order to protect your profits?'"

"Nina Turner: There is "Something Wrong" With Dems Who Won't Support Medicare-For-All."

"Kamala Harris Releases Healthcare Plan Calling for Privatization of Medicare [...] Bernie Sanders's campaign quickly slammed Harris's plan, saying it is 'centered around privatizing Medicare, enriching insurance executives and introducing more corporate greed and profiteering into the Medicare system.' Bernie Sanders is calling for a single healthcare system, run by the government, that would essentially do away with private insurers."

"Democratic Voters Rank Bernie Sanders as 'Most Qualified' 2020 Candidate to Solve US Healthcare Crisis: 'Bernie Sanders's fight to guarantee healthcare to all Americans through a Medicare for All system is not only a moral necessity—polls show it is also the most compelling healthcare message to mobilize voters.' [...] That's according to a Morning Consult/Politico survey released Tuesday, which found that 25 percent of likely Democratic primary voters believe Sanders, a longstanding supporter of Medicare for All, has a better "understanding of the problems with the U.S. healthcare system" than his 2020 rivals."

Great interview on The Majority Report with an author who was inspired by Barbar Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, an important reminder not just that poverty is hard, but that low-waged work has gotten even worse and more soul-killing than it's been in living memory: On the Clock: How Low-Wage Work Drives America Insane w/ Emily Guendelsberger - MR Live - 8/6/19. (Link is direct to the interview but you can roll it back to watch the whole show.)

A little recommended reading, from Bloomberg, "Russiagate Is Deader Than Ever: A judge has ruled it was actually fine to publish material stolen by the Russian intelligence — even if the Trump campaign had done it The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Koeltl to dismiss the Democratic National Committee's lawsuit against Russia, the Trump campaign and others on Tuesday may look like something of an afterthought now that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, has failed to find evidence of a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump's team. It is, however, anything but anticlimactic: It contains some hard truths for those still hanging on to the Trump-Russia story." Obviously, the Ellsberg principle is correct, and it's nice to know there are still courts that recognize it.

"Golly, So Many Voter Purges After Supreme Court Declared Racism DOA! The Brennan Center for Justice, using data from the federal government, found that since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the number of Americans purged from voter rolls has increased to are you kidding me levels of 17 million people. Worse, states that had a history of discrimination against minority voters purged a greater percentage of voters in the last two years than in other parts of the country. Before that 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 required jurisdictions that had a history of voting discrimination to get clearance from the Justice Department before making any changes to voting procedures. But in Shelby, the Supremes decided racism was largely a thing of the past, so such "preclearance" was clearly not needed anymore, and actually was very unfair to places that used to use underhanded tactics to rig the vote. After all, Republicans all over the country were emailing each other pictures of the White House surrounded by watermelon patches, not just in the South! And yet, in a development that nobody wearing opaque goggles could have seen coming, it turns out that getting rid of preclearance resulted in a big rise in voter purges, and those purges somehow managed to be even worse in the places formerly covered by Section 5 of the VRA." I still say there should be a list of known voter-suppression tactics that no jurisdiction, regardless of their history, should be permitted to use.

Speaking of that, remember that some states require you to be registered well in advance of an election, so if you want to vote in the primaries, make sure you are registered now, and that no one has "accidentally" changed your registration or removed you from the rolls. Here's the primary schedule — mark your state primary in your calendar now.

Surprisingly, Bloomberg has a good interview with Stephanie Kelton answering the question, "How will we pay for it?"

The peacefulness of Buttigeig: "McKinsey and Company Is an Elitist Cult. Why Is Buttigieg Defending It? [...] In 1993, Fortune magazine put it this way: 'These fellows from McKinsey sincerely do believe they are better than everybody else. Like several less purposeful organizations—Mensa, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, the Banquet of the Golden Plate—McKinsey is elitist by design.' [...] [...] 'We are now living with the consequences of the world McKinsey created,' writes a former McKinsey consultant in an expose´ for Current Affairs. 'Market fundamentalism is the default mode for businesses and governments the world over.' [...] As McKinsey comes under heavier scrutiny for its role in the crimes of governments and powerful corporations, any 'progressive' who worked there and wants to be taken seriously should have a rather critical perspective. Buttigieg has shown no such reflection. Instead, he calls his time at McKinsey his most 'intellectually informing experience'; he left only because it 'could not furnish that deep level of purpose that I craved.' Buttigieg has said he didn't follow the story of McKinsey's OxyContin push. On McKinsey's Saudi and South African government ties, he said: 'I think you have a lot of smart, well-intentioned people who sometimes view the world in a very innocent way. I wrote my thesis on Graham Greene, who said that innocence is like a dumb leper that has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.'"

Matt Stoller, "Why Private Equity Should Not Exist [...] I'm going to explain what private equity is and why it is facing these attacks. I'll also go into a bit of history, how private equity, which used to be called the leveraged buy-out industry (LBO), was started by a Nixon administration official who oversaw the both the bankruptcy of New York City and the intellectual attack on antitrust in the 1970s. Finally I'll also discuss what it would mean to eliminate PE from our economy and politics. [...] So what is private equity? In one sense, it's a simple question to answer. A private equity fund is a large unregulated pool of money run by financiers who use that money to invest in and/or buy companies and restructure them. They seek to recoup gains through dividend pay-outs or later sales of the companies to strategic acquirers or back to the public markets through initial public offerings. But that doesn't capture the scale of the model. There are also private equity-like businesses who scour the landscape for companies, buy them, and then use extractive techniques such as price gouging or legalized forms of complex fraud to generate cash by moving debt and assets like real estate among shell companies. PE funds also lend money and act as brokers, and are morphing into investment bank-like institutions. Some of them are public companies. While the movement is couched in the language of business, using terms like strategy, business models returns of equity, innovation, and so forth, and proponents refer to it as an industry, private equity is not business. On a deeper level, private equity is the ultimate example of the collapse of the enlightenment concept of what ownership means. Ownership used to mean dominion over a resource, and responsibility for caretaking that resource. PE is a political movement whose goal is extend deep managerial controls from a small group of financiers over the producers in the economy. Private equity transforms corporations from institutions that house people and capital for the purpose of production into extractive institutions designed solely to shift cash to owners and leave the rest behind as trash. Like much of our political economy, the ideas behind it were developed in the 1970s and the actual implementation was operationalized during the Reagan era. [...] PE firms serve as transmitters of information across businesses, sort of disease vectors for price gouging and legal arbitrage. If a certain kind of price gouging strategy works in a pharmaceutical company, a private equity company can roll through the industry, buying up every possible candidate and quickly forcing the price gouging everywhere. In the defense sector, Transdigm serves this role, buying up aerospace spare parts makers with pricing power and jacking up prices, in effect spreading corrupt contracting arbitrage against the Pentagon much more rapidly than it would have spread otherwise."

"White-Collar Slowdown Forces Law Firms, Ex-Prosecutors to Adapt: The slowdowns in white-collar enforcement activity and litigation have coincided with diminished hiring demand from law firms, while some white-collar defense attorneys are shifting their practices to focus on other areas.

Pierce, "The Democratic Party May Finally Be Emerging From the Shadows of 1980: I occasionally talk about the most singularly dismal episode in my experience hanging around politicians and political events, and it is not the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, nor is it the events that occurred between the beginning of November, 2016 and the end January, 2017. It isn't even Betsy DeVos's confirmation hearing, although that's a real contender. No, the episode in question occurred in 1982, when I was just a young alternative journo, and I attended something called the Democratic Midterm Issues Convention. It was at that event that you could see what was coming for the next 30 years or so, and what you saw wasn't pretty.

"The American Medical Association Is Taking a More Aggressive Approach on Abortion Legislation: The American Medical Association is suing North Dakota to block two abortion-related laws, the latest signal the doctors' group is shifting to a more aggressive stance as the Donald Trump administration and state conservatives ratchet up efforts to eliminate legal abortion. The group, which represents all types of physicians in the U.S., has tended to stay on the sidelines of many controversial social issues, which, until recently, included abortion and contraception. Instead, it has focused on legislation affecting the practice and finances of large swaths of its membership. But, says AMA President Patrice Harris, the organization feels that, in light of new state laws in the U.S. that would force doctors who perform abortions to lie to patients—put 'physicians in a place where we are required by law to commit an ethical violation'—it has no choice but to take a stand. One of these laws, set to take effect Aug. 1, requires physicians in North Dakota to tell patients that medication abortions—a procedure involving two drugs taken at different times—can be reversed. The AMA said that is 'a patently false and unproven claim unsupported by scientific evidence.' North Dakota is one of several states to pass such a measure."

In the wake of Donald Trump's attack on Baltimore, Dave Ettlin takes you on his tour of the city, in "Defending Baltimore: The City Of My Birth Has Problems But Promise, Reflecting Urban America." I was sorry to learn that his old house on Calvert Street, Toad Hall, where I had many adventures, has been turned into apartments, "most of its original features stripped away."

Dave Langford reports in Ansible: Court Circular: The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (of 'Urban Spaceman' fame; see SFE entry) found their name had been trademarked by Anglo Atlantic Media Limited, which claimed ownership at the Intellectual Property Office website — no evidence required, just a £200 fee — and then sued them for using their established name. Directors of AAML include the band's former promoter Bob Carruthers. A fundraiser for the Bonzos' legal costs at www.crowdjustice.com/case/bonzodogbanned/ reached its £15,000 target on 26 July, but more would be welcome. [JD] The IPO has scheduled a hearing of the case for 5 September 2019."

Eskow, "What the Fight Over Means Testing Is Really About: What started as a tool to target need has spread into an ideology that runs the risk of puzzling the public and overcomplicating policy. [...] Sanders, who has thus far refrained from criticizing Warren, kept his remarks positive. But Omar's office contrasted Warren's proposal unfavorably with hers, calling it 'a complicated means-tested plan to keep out a doctor or lawyer who might be earning a good living.' 'Means-tested' is clearly used unflatteringly here, because it has become a pejorative shorthand to describe and dismiss a certain kind of Democratic politics. As the headline to a 2017 essay by The Week's Ryan Cooper put it, 'The road to hell is paved with means-testing.'" I actually think he understates the case, here. The simple fact is that when you throw a load of administrative crap at low-income people in need, you make it harder for them to receive the benefits you claim you want to give them. The more they need it, the more they get tripped up by red tape. It's easy for people of means to hire someone to navigate these obstacle courses for them, but it can be insurmountable for people who actually need those benefits the most.

Meet the Economist Behind the One Percent's Stealth Takeover of America: Nobel laureate James Buchanan is the intellectual linchpin of the Koch-funded attack on democratic institutions, argues Duke historian Nancy MacLean."

Down in Fulton, Georgia, the first #BlackLivesMatter organizer elected to public office in America has a rebirth. "Councilman khalid: Why I'm Still Sanders [...] In June, Vermont's Public Access Channel CCTV released the entire archives of 1980s TV show: Bernie Speaks. The City of Burlington cable access show was created in 1986 by then-Mayor Bernie Sanders to circumvent commercial media and promote his political agenda directly to constituents. Late-night host Trevor Noah featured a few funny clips from the show, exposing America to this forgotten trove of what he called 'Bernie gold'. I went online and began binge-watching episodes. I was looking for reasons to believe in Bernie again. I found them. I also found myself. It was Bernie's 2016 Presidential Campaign that inspired me to run for local office. Little did I know that since winning, I was still following in his footsteps. [...] Many of the same issues I discuss on khalidCaresTV — political education, equitable economic development, divesting in policing and investing in young people before they get into criminal trouble — I saw Bernie address on this 30-year-old TV show. As it turns out, the Blackest City in America is suffering the same problems as overwhelmingly-white, 1980s Burlington, Vermont. Civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King was right. We are tied together in a single garment of destiny.

"When Will Obama Stop Dividing Democrats by Attacking Obama's Record? An idea that has entered the political universe this week is that certain 2020 Democratic candidates are 'attacking' Barack Obama by employing certain campaign themes and proposing certain policies, a trend that purportedly came to a head during Tuesday and Wednesday's primary debates in Detroit. [...] Have 2020 presidential candidates begun engaging in suicidal attacks on Obama's legacy by suggesting ambitious universal care policies, critiquing free trade's effects on American workers, discussing the downsides of capitalism, and calling for a reduction in criminal prosecutions of undocumented immigrants? Not really. For one, if you look at the transcripts, you find that almost none of the candidates who've taken those positions actually criticized Obama during the debates; in fact, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Julián Castro only used the former president's name to praise him or to suggest that his example supported the cases their campaigns are making. More importantly, though, none of those individuals nor any other 2020 candidate is doing or proposing anything that departs significantly from the path that Obama himself set for the Democratic Party." TL;DR: Eric Holder is a disingenuous putz.

"Stephen Colbert Jumps The Shark With Cringey Bernie-Bezos Bit:" Bernie Sanders made the completely unremarkable statement that it's unsurprising that media owned by billionaires would not support a candidate who rails against billionaires, and for some reason, Colbert thought this was occasion to attack him. The Majority Report is dismayed. Meanwhile, The Washington Post's New Social Media Policy Forbids Disparaging Advertisers.

And speaking of that, there's now a Bernie substack, and it has "BERN NOTICE: What We Cannot Discuss: Pundits freak out over the suggestion that billionaire media tycoons don't like Bernie Sanders"

"Chase Bank Erases All Debt For Credit Card Customers In Canada: Imagine if that massive credit card bill in your name just magically disappeared. For Chase Bank credit card customers in Canada, that dream became a reality. 'I don't know why they're doing it,' Toronto airbrush artist Randal Thibodeau wrote on Twitter. 'Good news for me.'"

"We Need A Wizard Who Can Appeal To The Moderate Orc Voter: I may be just an ordinary orc, but I wasn't at all surprised when the Dark Lord Sauron became the leader of Mordor. A lot of my smart, liberal friends, though, reacted as if Middle-earth was coming to an end. Dwarves in the barroom of the Prancing Pony said it was the pride of the High Elves. Ravens twittering under the eaves of Mirkwood blamed the cunning of dragons. The Steward of Gondor, posting on FacePalantir, said it was because of Sauron's hatred for the heirs of Isildur. I'm here to tell you: it's the economy, stupid."

"A Bear Somehow Fell Onto A Moving Police Car, Then Things Got Really Weird"

"A Lost Album From John Coltrane, With Thanks To A French-Canadian Director [...] Now comes word of another new album by the classic John Coltrane Quartet, with McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. Blue World will be released on Impulse!/UMe on Sept. 27, and like Both Directions it offers an unexpected view on a pivotal period in the band's evolution. It was recorded at Van Gelder Studios on June 24, 1964 — a few weeks after the quartet put a finishing touch on the album Crescent — as the soundtrack to a Canadian art film. Because the date had gone unnoted in session recording logs, this music has occupied a blind spot for Trane-ologists, archivists and historians."

Mark Kernes reminds me that the complete run of the late Paul Krassner's The Realist is available online.

RIP: Martin Hoare (1952-2019) was well-known to anyone who loves Dave Langford, since they often seemed inseparable. (When Dave met me at Heathrow to pick me up for my TAFF trip, Martin was driving — and, having heard that I was interested in seeing interesting old pubs, pulled us up to a weird little thatched place as soon as the pubs opened. The place had such a low ceiling that I could reach up to lean on a ceiling beam.) (Graham Charnock posted the best photo of Martin I've seen.) More from Langford in Ansible.

RIP: Toni Morrison: Nobel Prize-winning author dies at 88: Her family confirmed 'with profound sadness' that Morrison had died 'following a short illness'. Author of 11 novels, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, having published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, in 1970. Her 1987 book Beloved told the story of a runaway female slave and was made into a film starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998. [...] Morrison once said: 'We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.'"

RIP: "Peter Fonda, celebrated actor known for Easy Rider, dies aged 79: Son of Henry Fonda and brother of Jane Fonda died after battling lung cancer, family says"

RIP: "Film-maker DA Pennebaker dies aged 94: The documentary-maker's work included Monterey Pop, Bob Dylan's Don't Look Back and Bowie's Ziggy Stardust concert film.

"Why They Hate Bernie: Remember the frenzied, paranoid style of right-wing anti-Clintonism? The lies, the conspiracy theories, the deeply personal disgust? Well, it's back — only this time it's migrated to the Democratic Party and its unhinged attacks on Bernie Sanders." I've actually remarked myself on the way a lot of it has the same features from the same sources of the Arkansas Project.

Liz's inside-outside game: "Elizabeth Warren Took On Obama Over Student Debt Forgiveness. How She Won Is Central To Her 2020 Campaign. [...] She did it by turning to what had become the core tool of her political life: a potent combination of grassroots activism, intense political pressure, and detailed analysis of consumer law. And she used that tool in part against her own party's administration, strengthening a political identity that cut against what was then the mainstream of American liberalism." And here's a little more from Dday.

This 1993 article from The American Prospect is a good reminder that all those left-wing losers of the Democrats' past were, in fact, not left-wing - and that it's always the right-wing Democrats who have the temper tantrums. "The Myth of the New Democrats [...] The notion that the Democratic Party is a captive of left-wing extremists is a familiar one to readers of the American press. It has been a staple of conservative Republican doctrine since 1932. In itself, this does not make the point incorrect, although it suggests that it is a bit musty. Reminiscent of the analysis that has been nurtured for decades in places such as the National Review, New Democrats have a tendency to argue at a level of abstract generalization that permits them to leap over some facts that would otherwise puncture their case. The first set of facts is historical. With the exception of McGovern in 1972, in five of the last six presidential campaigns, the Democratic candidates--Humphrey, Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis--ran as centrists. Humphrey was the establishment candidate against Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. Carter ran as a conservative southerner moderate on race. The centerpiece of Mondale's campaign (for which Galston served as chief issues adviser) was deficit reduction. And Dukakis ran as a technocrat who, until the last two weeks of his campaign, avoided attacking Ronald Reagan because he didn't want to sound too partisan. Even McGovern didn't run as a "tax and spend" Democrat; a central part of his platform was a proposal for a huge middle-class tax cut. Indeed, the Carter presidency--the failure of which still weighs heavily on the Democratic psyche--was the exemplar of the New Democrat spirit. The New Republic reports that when Al From talked with Carter about forming the DLC, the latter said: 'Boy, could I have used a DLC to back me up.' [...] Naureckas concludes that 'when the "pragmatists" lose badly with their centrist approach, they are repainted after the fact as radicals, so the strategy of tilting to the right can be tried again and again.'"

"After 48 Years, Democrats Still Haven't Gotten the Memo: Lewis Powell once drafted a how-to guide for maximizing political power. Only one party took his advice. Here's how Democrats can catch up."

Michael Moore at Common Dreams, "30 Years Ago: The Day the Middle Class Died: From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated. Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, 'When did this all end?', I say, 'It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981.' Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to 'go for it' -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves. And they've succeeded. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days." Moore overlooks a lot of what came before (like the 1973 HMO bill that made profiteering off of medical care legal), but make no mistake: The firing of the air traffic controllers was a very big deal. And it wouldn't have happened without the help of an unlikely culprit.

Never forget that when it came to reproductive rights, Barack Obama never missed a chance to spit in our eyes: "As of this writing, House Democrats passed a health care reform bill that would extend the principles of the Hyde Amendment to proposed overhaul of the health care system, and further block federal subsidies for private health insurance that covers abortion care. While President Obama reportedly opposed the move, he told Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News in July that there is a 'tradition' in Washington 'of not financing abortions as part of government funded health care.' [31]".

An oldie but a goodie, "One Chart About Income Inequality That Will Make Your Blood Boil"

I can't believe people are still throwing out the "Bernie Sanders has no accomplishments" meme. Bernie Sanders' Accomplishments.

Pink Floyd, "Comfortably Numb"