I. Earmarks
According to Money Magazine, reporting on figures from the New York Fed, Americans' debt hit a new high of $13 trillion last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2008 by $280 billion. On a personal level, individual American debt averages $7,800, according to the U.S. Census.
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) counted 282 earmarks being added to spending bills in the fiscal 2019 budget, a 21.6% increase from fiscal 2018.
II. Fed's Job
[Trump] "We have people on the Fed that really weren't, you know, there's not my people," he complained, despite the fact that the people on the Fed are quite literally his people. As in, he formally nominated almost all of them. This isn't the first time Trump or his surrogates have argued that the Fed should ditch its legislative mandate in the service of helping the president manage trade, specifically by cutting rates. "For prices to remain stable in the long run, the public needs to genuinely believe that the central bank will be willing to do politically unpopular things." [1]
III. Renter's Revolt
The "Renter's Revolt" refers to activists in a "growing struggle against an acute housing crisis that threatens the economic survival of renters in every corner of the Empire State." [New York] "Roughly 90,000 people experience homelessness in New York State in any given day." "Approximately half of New York's 3.36 million tenant households are rent-burdened, meaning they spend 30 percent or more of their income on rent -- and these households exist in all corners of the state." [2]
"In 2016, 37 percent of home sales in the United States were made to absentee investors, including banks, hedge funds and private equity firms like Blackstone -- now the world's largest landlords." "In recent decades, landlords and developers have pressured lawmakers in Albany to poke the system full of loopholes, and as a result, the city has hemorrhaged more than 152,000 regulated units since 1993." "But strengthened rent protections are an essential element in their struggle to put an end to mass evictions, gentrification, and other social ills. They see such measures as a front-line defense against predatory landlords and profiteers, and a corrective to the power imbalance that so often characterizes the landlord-renter relationships." "At the same time, New York State has an unusually high concentration of renters -- nearly half its residents are tenants -- and it boasts a vibrant history of housing activism" "There are about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the New York metropolitan area, the vast majority of them in the city in buildings built before 1974."
IV. Gerrymandered States
"The Wisconsin GOP had passed a voter ID law, designed to depress Democratic participation, that took effect before the 2016 election. As a result, turnout in Milwaukee's black neighborhood dropped by more that 20 percent." Democrats won 53 percent of the statewide vote in 2018, but they took only 36 percent of the seats in the state legislature." [3]
"Nearly a decade later, Republicans still control very legislative chamber in heavily gerrymandered states like Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin."
Footnotes:
[1] Catherine Rampell, "Mr. Trump, the Fed's job isn't maximum stock values," The Albuquerque Journal, June 15, 2019.
[2] Jimmy Tobias, "Renters Revolt," The Nation, June 17/24, 2019.
[3] Ari Berman, "Map Quest," Mother Jones, July/August 2019.
Friday, June 28, 2019
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Venezuela's Unraveling
I. Venezuela's Unraveling
"Since Chavez's death in 2013, Maduro has presided over Venezuela's unraveling. Its economy collapsed as the price of crude oil fell; corruption and mismanagement made things worse. Hyperinflation, which is expected to reach ten million per cent this year, has left the currency worthless. Hunger and disease are epidemic." "More than ten per cent of Venezuela's population has fled." "Caracas was once [among] the world's most dangerous cities at the best of times; now it's felt to be apocalyptic." The state is effectively nonexistent in some high-population areas, "except for a few services instituted during the Chavez era: monthly food handouts, small allowances, and teams of Cuban doctors who provide primary health care." [1]
At a planning meeting on what to do about Venezuela, someone suggested: "Why don't we use the military?" Then-National Security Director McMasters replied: "Well, Mr. President, there are other options." The Trump administration invited the leaders of anti-Maduro factions to Washington for advice, and urged them to unite, apparently with little success. In 2017, the U.S. helped bring the regime and the opposition together in the Dominican Republic, but the talks quickly fell apart. "In Venezuela, Trump officials have occasionally offered incentives to officials who defected, but there has apparently been no budget for a wider effort to convert the military."
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said that "all options are on the table," but the rest of the region is alarmed by the prospect of a U.S. invasion." President Trump has warned Cuba that he would impose "a full and complete embargo," if it didn't withdraw support for Maduro. As several officials have pointed out, a military intervention would take months to organize; Southcom, the branch of the U.S. military that handles operations in Latin America, doesn't have enough troops to conduct an invasion.
II. Continental Shift
In elections to the European Parliament, the populists didn't do as well as many had feared they would. "In a number of countries, as it turned out, third or fourth parties -- such as the Green parties -- who at times defy the old, easy right-left categories, held them back." Green parties had been projected to have 69 of the 751 seats in the European Parliament -- an increase of 40 percent. [2]
"The Greens won twenty per cent of the vote in Germany, putting them in second place, behind Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union." In Great Britain, Labour, the main opposition party, got only 14 per cent. "The Liberal Democrats, who had been moribund, came in second,with twenty per cent -- largely, it seems, because they expressed clear opposition to Brexit, while Labour dodged."
III. "It [Iran] has substantial missile assets and considerable ability to attack American forces directly and through proxy forces throughout the Middle East and perhaps well beyond." "Trump has often moved from hawk to dove and from dove to hawk. Just look at his shifting stance on Syria and North Korea." "And given Trump's fundamental dishonesty and alarming ignorance, Americans should have zero assurance that their President or his Administration is accurately describing the nature of the Iranian threat." [3]
"But now is the time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority."
Footnotes:
[1] Jon Lee Anderson, "Our Man in Caracas," The New Yorker, June 10&17, 2019.
[2] Amy Davidson Sorkin, "Continental Shift," The New Yorker, June 10&17, 2019.
[3] David French, "Blundering Toward War," TIME, June 3-10, 2019.
"Since Chavez's death in 2013, Maduro has presided over Venezuela's unraveling. Its economy collapsed as the price of crude oil fell; corruption and mismanagement made things worse. Hyperinflation, which is expected to reach ten million per cent this year, has left the currency worthless. Hunger and disease are epidemic." "More than ten per cent of Venezuela's population has fled." "Caracas was once [among] the world's most dangerous cities at the best of times; now it's felt to be apocalyptic." The state is effectively nonexistent in some high-population areas, "except for a few services instituted during the Chavez era: monthly food handouts, small allowances, and teams of Cuban doctors who provide primary health care." [1]
At a planning meeting on what to do about Venezuela, someone suggested: "Why don't we use the military?" Then-National Security Director McMasters replied: "Well, Mr. President, there are other options." The Trump administration invited the leaders of anti-Maduro factions to Washington for advice, and urged them to unite, apparently with little success. In 2017, the U.S. helped bring the regime and the opposition together in the Dominican Republic, but the talks quickly fell apart. "In Venezuela, Trump officials have occasionally offered incentives to officials who defected, but there has apparently been no budget for a wider effort to convert the military."
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said that "all options are on the table," but the rest of the region is alarmed by the prospect of a U.S. invasion." President Trump has warned Cuba that he would impose "a full and complete embargo," if it didn't withdraw support for Maduro. As several officials have pointed out, a military intervention would take months to organize; Southcom, the branch of the U.S. military that handles operations in Latin America, doesn't have enough troops to conduct an invasion.
II. Continental Shift
In elections to the European Parliament, the populists didn't do as well as many had feared they would. "In a number of countries, as it turned out, third or fourth parties -- such as the Green parties -- who at times defy the old, easy right-left categories, held them back." Green parties had been projected to have 69 of the 751 seats in the European Parliament -- an increase of 40 percent. [2]
"The Greens won twenty per cent of the vote in Germany, putting them in second place, behind Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union." In Great Britain, Labour, the main opposition party, got only 14 per cent. "The Liberal Democrats, who had been moribund, came in second,with twenty per cent -- largely, it seems, because they expressed clear opposition to Brexit, while Labour dodged."
III. "It [Iran] has substantial missile assets and considerable ability to attack American forces directly and through proxy forces throughout the Middle East and perhaps well beyond." "Trump has often moved from hawk to dove and from dove to hawk. Just look at his shifting stance on Syria and North Korea." "And given Trump's fundamental dishonesty and alarming ignorance, Americans should have zero assurance that their President or his Administration is accurately describing the nature of the Iranian threat." [3]
"But now is the time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority."
Footnotes:
[1] Jon Lee Anderson, "Our Man in Caracas," The New Yorker, June 10&17, 2019.
[2] Amy Davidson Sorkin, "Continental Shift," The New Yorker, June 10&17, 2019.
[3] David French, "Blundering Toward War," TIME, June 3-10, 2019.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Living on Edge of Financial Disaster
I. Living on the Edge of Financial Disaster
On May 23, the Federal Reserve released its annual report on the nation's economic well being, which showed that despite a growing economy, millions of Americans still live on the edge of financial disaster.
39% -American adults who could not come up with $400 in an emergency.
17% - American adults who are unable to pay the current month's bills.
22% - Student-loan borrowers who attended for-profit college and are now behind on their payments, compared with 8 percent who attended public institutions.
24% - American adults who skipped medical treatment in 2018 because of its expense.
26% - American adults without any retirement savings. (Source: Edwin Aponte, "DC By the Numbers," The Nation, June 17/24, 2019).
II. Savings Under Single-Payer
In a letter to the June 3/10 issue of The Nation magazine, three physicians state the case for why single-payer would save doctors and hospitals vast amounts on billing, insurance paperwork, and other wasteful tasks.
"For instance, a recent Harvard Business School and Duke University study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" found that the average primary-care doctor at an efficient group practice sent $99,581 (and 243 hours) annually on billing. That's four times what Canadian doctors spend interacting with insurers."
"A similar calculus applies to hospitals. At a six-hospital system in Toronto, the equivalent of just 5.5 full-time employees handle all insurance billing and patient collections. A comparable hospital system in the US employs more than 200 people for those tasks."
"All told, single-payer could save doctors and hospitals about $225 billion annually on billing and bureaucratic costs (in addition to about $220 billion saved on insurance overhead and tens of billions more from streamlining the billing for nursing homes, home-care agencies, etc., and by lowering drug prices), offsetting the costs of providing first-dollar comprehensive coverage to everyone in the nation."
III. Lord of the Lies
"Overall, the president has repeated 21 false claims 20 or more times, and more than 300 false claims at least 3 times." (Source: Eric Alterman, "Lord of the Lies," The Nation, June 3/10, 2019).
The Mueller report documents at least 77 times where Trump's campaign staff, administration officials, family members, Republican backers and his associates lied or made false assertions to the public.
A Washington "Post" Fact Checker poll taken late last year found that fewer than 3 in 10 believe Trump's most common lies, and barely 1 in 6 believe anything close to all of them. 65% of Americans don't think Trump is being honest with the country.
Trump has said that he was "never a fan" of the Vietnam War, and further said: "I'll be honest with you, I thought it was a terrible war." He actually was an early supporter of the war, and turned against it only when many Americans had begun to turn against it.
On May 23, the Federal Reserve released its annual report on the nation's economic well being, which showed that despite a growing economy, millions of Americans still live on the edge of financial disaster.
39% -American adults who could not come up with $400 in an emergency.
17% - American adults who are unable to pay the current month's bills.
22% - Student-loan borrowers who attended for-profit college and are now behind on their payments, compared with 8 percent who attended public institutions.
24% - American adults who skipped medical treatment in 2018 because of its expense.
26% - American adults without any retirement savings. (Source: Edwin Aponte, "DC By the Numbers," The Nation, June 17/24, 2019).
II. Savings Under Single-Payer
In a letter to the June 3/10 issue of The Nation magazine, three physicians state the case for why single-payer would save doctors and hospitals vast amounts on billing, insurance paperwork, and other wasteful tasks.
"For instance, a recent Harvard Business School and Duke University study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" found that the average primary-care doctor at an efficient group practice sent $99,581 (and 243 hours) annually on billing. That's four times what Canadian doctors spend interacting with insurers."
"A similar calculus applies to hospitals. At a six-hospital system in Toronto, the equivalent of just 5.5 full-time employees handle all insurance billing and patient collections. A comparable hospital system in the US employs more than 200 people for those tasks."
"All told, single-payer could save doctors and hospitals about $225 billion annually on billing and bureaucratic costs (in addition to about $220 billion saved on insurance overhead and tens of billions more from streamlining the billing for nursing homes, home-care agencies, etc., and by lowering drug prices), offsetting the costs of providing first-dollar comprehensive coverage to everyone in the nation."
III. Lord of the Lies
"Overall, the president has repeated 21 false claims 20 or more times, and more than 300 false claims at least 3 times." (Source: Eric Alterman, "Lord of the Lies," The Nation, June 3/10, 2019).
The Mueller report documents at least 77 times where Trump's campaign staff, administration officials, family members, Republican backers and his associates lied or made false assertions to the public.
A Washington "Post" Fact Checker poll taken late last year found that fewer than 3 in 10 believe Trump's most common lies, and barely 1 in 6 believe anything close to all of them. 65% of Americans don't think Trump is being honest with the country.
Trump has said that he was "never a fan" of the Vietnam War, and further said: "I'll be honest with you, I thought it was a terrible war." He actually was an early supporter of the war, and turned against it only when many Americans had begun to turn against it.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Trump's Zigzagging Syria Policy
March 16, 2012 - We should have gotten more of the oil in Syria, and we should have gotten more of the oil in Iraq. Dumb leaders.
June 15, 2013 - We should stay the hell out of Syria, the "rebels" are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS? ZERO
August 30, 2013 - The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria -- big mistake if he does not!
September 5, 2013 - The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria, fix the U.S.A.
August 25, 2914 - We will now be helping Syria and Iran by attacking ISIS -- ironic, isn't it.
March 24, 2016 - Europe and the U.S. must immediately stop taking in people from Syria. This will be the destruction of civilization as we know it! So sad!
July 27, 2016 - Crooked Hillary Clinton wants to flood our country with Syrian immigrants that we know little or no thing about. The danger is massive. No!
April 8 2017 - Congratulations to our great military men and women for representing the United States,and the world, so well in the Syria attack.
April 11, 2017 - RT @foxnation: Grateful Syrians react To @real Donald Trump Strike: 'I'll Name My Son Donald' #SyrianStrikes
September 15, 2017 - We have made more progress in the last nine months against ISIS than the Obama Administration has made in 8 years. Must be proactive & nasty!
April 8, 2018 - Many dead, including women and children in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria... President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...
April 8, 2018 - If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line in The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!
April 11, 2018 - Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will becoming, nice and new and "smart!" You shouldn't be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!
December 19, 2018 - We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.
February 1, 2019 - Syria was loaded with ISIS until I came along. We will soon have destroyed 100% of the Caliphate, but will be watching hem closely. It is now time to start coming home and, after many years, spending our money wisely. Certain people must get smart! (Source: Dave Gilson, "Tweets and Retreats," Mother Jones, May/June 2019).
ADDENDUMS:
*The citizenship question may have been initiated by GOP redistricting strategist Thomas Hofeller.
*MSNBC has released a report showing that over the last few years, 8,400 immigrants were forced into solitary confinement.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
The 5G Competition
I. 5G Competition
The Chinese firm, Huawei, generated a mind-boggling $107 billion in revenue last year. On May 15, the Trump administration placed Huawei on the Commerce Department's Entity List, meaning that American companies require a special license to do business with it. [1]
"This tech cold war matters because it could slow or dramatically alter the rollout of a technology that is likely to define the future of the Internet for the next decade -- the 5G networks in which Huawei has all but cornered the market." "China's edge is disorienting for the U.S., which is used to dominate new technology and the economic growth that accompanies it." Professor Lim Jong-in of the School of Information Security at Korea University, warns that: "The 5G infrastructure will intertwine factories, power plants, airports, hospitals and government agencies." "Forty percent of the world's population uses telecoms that pass through Huawei equipment, according to the firm."
"The U.S. feud with Huawei risks bifurcating 5G's rollout into two distinct blocs -- nations that embrace Chinese 5G and those that reject it wholesale == hampering global connectivity and hurting the bottom line of companies forced to choose."
II. Wounded Knee's Heartbeat
For David Treuer, the author of "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee," Wounded Knee is at once a monument and a still-living space, a pivot in the history of Native Americans. The U.S cavalry killed at least 150 Native people, more than half of them women and children. The Dawes Act then came along and broke up tribal lands into individual tracts in order to divide and uproot Native communities -- a strategy that would continue for decades. "For the most part, the American legal system has not been a force for good in Native lives. It was and still is, a land base for 'white settlement.' " [2]
III. Destabilizing War With Iran
"With Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan already plagued by conflicts, a war with Iran would destabilize virtually all southwestern Asia, sending each of these ongoing wars into higher gear." This wide destabilization described by Bob Dreyfess was complemented by what a former U.S. intelligence official described to him as the Pentagon's classified plans for attacking Iran. There would be fully six to eight weeks of heavy bombing sorties and missile strikes, with many civilian deaths, including two weeks aimed at crippling Iran's air defense and command-and-control centers, followed by continuous and repeated strikes at more than four dozen Iranian facilities involved in nuclear and scientific research. [3]
Dreyfess condemns the unsuccessful try by Congress to end U.S. support for the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen, and he demands it must stand up to claim its authority over war and peace.
Footnotes:
[1] Charlie Campbell, "The Battle for 5G," TIME, June 3-10, 2019.
[2] E. Tammy Kim, "We're Still Here," The Nation, June 3/10, 2019.
[3] Bob Dreyfess, "Coalition of the Killing." The Nation, June 3/10, 2019.
[2]
The Chinese firm, Huawei, generated a mind-boggling $107 billion in revenue last year. On May 15, the Trump administration placed Huawei on the Commerce Department's Entity List, meaning that American companies require a special license to do business with it. [1]
"This tech cold war matters because it could slow or dramatically alter the rollout of a technology that is likely to define the future of the Internet for the next decade -- the 5G networks in which Huawei has all but cornered the market." "China's edge is disorienting for the U.S., which is used to dominate new technology and the economic growth that accompanies it." Professor Lim Jong-in of the School of Information Security at Korea University, warns that: "The 5G infrastructure will intertwine factories, power plants, airports, hospitals and government agencies." "Forty percent of the world's population uses telecoms that pass through Huawei equipment, according to the firm."
"The U.S. feud with Huawei risks bifurcating 5G's rollout into two distinct blocs -- nations that embrace Chinese 5G and those that reject it wholesale == hampering global connectivity and hurting the bottom line of companies forced to choose."
II. Wounded Knee's Heartbeat
For David Treuer, the author of "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee," Wounded Knee is at once a monument and a still-living space, a pivot in the history of Native Americans. The U.S cavalry killed at least 150 Native people, more than half of them women and children. The Dawes Act then came along and broke up tribal lands into individual tracts in order to divide and uproot Native communities -- a strategy that would continue for decades. "For the most part, the American legal system has not been a force for good in Native lives. It was and still is, a land base for 'white settlement.' " [2]
III. Destabilizing War With Iran
"With Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan already plagued by conflicts, a war with Iran would destabilize virtually all southwestern Asia, sending each of these ongoing wars into higher gear." This wide destabilization described by Bob Dreyfess was complemented by what a former U.S. intelligence official described to him as the Pentagon's classified plans for attacking Iran. There would be fully six to eight weeks of heavy bombing sorties and missile strikes, with many civilian deaths, including two weeks aimed at crippling Iran's air defense and command-and-control centers, followed by continuous and repeated strikes at more than four dozen Iranian facilities involved in nuclear and scientific research. [3]
Dreyfess condemns the unsuccessful try by Congress to end U.S. support for the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen, and he demands it must stand up to claim its authority over war and peace.
Footnotes:
[1] Charlie Campbell, "The Battle for 5G," TIME, June 3-10, 2019.
[2] E. Tammy Kim, "We're Still Here," The Nation, June 3/10, 2019.
[3] Bob Dreyfess, "Coalition of the Killing." The Nation, June 3/10, 2019.
[2]
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Selected Items From My Writer's Notebook
#"A category of emergency known as an Intentional Mass Casualty Event is now considered a public-health crisis." "In trauma care, the primary cause of preventable death is hemorrhage. External bleeding can always be controlled in an extremely [serious] wound, if it is addressed quickly enough: no one should bleed to death from an larm or a leg injury, even with the loss of a limb." (Source: Paige Williams, "Under the Gun," The New Yorker, April 8, 2019).
#A 2017 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that thirty-five percent of microplastics entering the oceans comes from synthetic textiles. Scientists around the world are becoming gravely concerned about these microplastics, which take decades to break down and are becoming increasingly present in our food cycle.
#"In the Iraq war, in which US forces killed many Iraqi civilians, intentionally or by mistake, compensation was rarely awarded to the families -- and when it has been, it has averaged about $4,000. By contrast, the total benefits paid to families of US troops killed in the war can exceed $800,000." (Source: Bruce Robbins, "The Politics of Life," The Nation, May 13, 2019).
#Michael Eric Dyson wants the concentration on black-on-black crime to be extended to include an examination of white cops killing black folks; and comparisons of white folks killed by whites to the number of Americans killed by terrorist acts. He points out there is a tremendous focus on political acts of terror committed on U.S. soil since 9/11, yet less than 100 people have been killed by such acts, while 11,208 people were killed by firearms in 2013 alone, and 21,175 died by suicide with a firearm. (Source: Michael Eric Dyson, "Tears We Cannot Stop," St. Martin's Press, p. 150, 2017).
"White folk are six times as likely to be murdered by a white person as they are to be taken out by a black 'thug.' " Dyson's most important comparison is that while 93 percent of blacks are killed by blacks, 84 percent of whites are killed by whites. (Source: Dyson, p. 148).
#GOP lawmakers are trying to explain away Trump's vow to not deal with the Democratic House until they stop all investigations of him, by saying that this will pass, his anger will subside, and he will withdraw his threat. If all fails, he "stable genius" will pull them through.
#The $16 billion being paid to farmers reflects Trump's penchant for claiming credit for making the government cut checks to save farmers after pursuing policies that have pushed them toward insolvency. Trump has suggested that the trade war could go on for a long time.
#Besides farmers, among those adversely affected by the imposition of tariffs is America's beer industry which has blamed tariffs for the loss of 40,000 jobs. Metal tariffs have boosted the cost of aluminum cans, leading to declines in investment, according to Bloomberg News. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has been given immense power to grant waivers to exempt companies, leading to the threats of investment discrimination.
#Gen. Craig Fuller, U.S. military commander for South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, says the crisis in Venezuela is boiling over and aggravating security concerns throughout the Western Hemisphere.
#The U.S.economy added just 75,000 jobs in May. The Labor Department also revised down March gains from 189,00 to 153,000, and April's gains from 264,000 to 224,000. The ADP National Employment report found that private payrolls increased by just 27,00 jobs in May.
#The Everytown for Gun Safety group analyzed nine years' worth of data on mass shootings, and discovered that in 54 percent of the cases the incident started with a angry person going after an intimate partner or relative.
#A 2017 report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that thirty-five percent of microplastics entering the oceans comes from synthetic textiles. Scientists around the world are becoming gravely concerned about these microplastics, which take decades to break down and are becoming increasingly present in our food cycle.
#"In the Iraq war, in which US forces killed many Iraqi civilians, intentionally or by mistake, compensation was rarely awarded to the families -- and when it has been, it has averaged about $4,000. By contrast, the total benefits paid to families of US troops killed in the war can exceed $800,000." (Source: Bruce Robbins, "The Politics of Life," The Nation, May 13, 2019).
#Michael Eric Dyson wants the concentration on black-on-black crime to be extended to include an examination of white cops killing black folks; and comparisons of white folks killed by whites to the number of Americans killed by terrorist acts. He points out there is a tremendous focus on political acts of terror committed on U.S. soil since 9/11, yet less than 100 people have been killed by such acts, while 11,208 people were killed by firearms in 2013 alone, and 21,175 died by suicide with a firearm. (Source: Michael Eric Dyson, "Tears We Cannot Stop," St. Martin's Press, p. 150, 2017).
"White folk are six times as likely to be murdered by a white person as they are to be taken out by a black 'thug.' " Dyson's most important comparison is that while 93 percent of blacks are killed by blacks, 84 percent of whites are killed by whites. (Source: Dyson, p. 148).
#GOP lawmakers are trying to explain away Trump's vow to not deal with the Democratic House until they stop all investigations of him, by saying that this will pass, his anger will subside, and he will withdraw his threat. If all fails, he "stable genius" will pull them through.
#The $16 billion being paid to farmers reflects Trump's penchant for claiming credit for making the government cut checks to save farmers after pursuing policies that have pushed them toward insolvency. Trump has suggested that the trade war could go on for a long time.
#Besides farmers, among those adversely affected by the imposition of tariffs is America's beer industry which has blamed tariffs for the loss of 40,000 jobs. Metal tariffs have boosted the cost of aluminum cans, leading to declines in investment, according to Bloomberg News. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has been given immense power to grant waivers to exempt companies, leading to the threats of investment discrimination.
#Gen. Craig Fuller, U.S. military commander for South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, says the crisis in Venezuela is boiling over and aggravating security concerns throughout the Western Hemisphere.
#The U.S.economy added just 75,000 jobs in May. The Labor Department also revised down March gains from 189,00 to 153,000, and April's gains from 264,000 to 224,000. The ADP National Employment report found that private payrolls increased by just 27,00 jobs in May.
#The Everytown for Gun Safety group analyzed nine years' worth of data on mass shootings, and discovered that in 54 percent of the cases the incident started with a angry person going after an intimate partner or relative.
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Michael Cohen as Fall Guy
Michael Cohen was at one time worth ninety million dollars on paper, primarily by being able to pick up taxi medallions at depressed prices. He and his father-in-law controlled some 300 of them. Thus, when President Trump requested the father-in-law be investigated as to how he got his money, Trump was likely engaging in witness tampering, as the father-in-law may have become a witness in any trial of his son-in-law.#
Cohen was the go-between connecting Trump and David Pecker, who from his position in American Media Inc. (A.M.I.), controlled what got published in "The National Enquirer." When Cohen got word that Karen McDougal was preparing to publish an account of her affair with Donald Trump, Cohen urged Pecker to buy the account and then bury it -- a practice, in the argot of tabloids, known as "catch and kill." Cohen and Pecker said that Trump would be liable for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars of A.M.I.'s payment to McDougal; however, Trump never paid anything to A.M.I. In any event, "The National Enquirer" never disclosed Trump's relationship with McDougal. The checks made out to McDougal were either signed by Louis Weisselberg, Trump's long-time financial specialist, Donald Trump Jr., or President Trump himself. [1]
The Mueller probe located a call made by President Trump to Michael Cohen, telling him to "hang in there" and "stay strong." Cohen told Jeffrey Toobin about his dealings with Costello and Giuliani, two of Trump's lawyers. "It meant that I was still in the circle, that I was being protected. I should stay on message, part of the team, and we're going to get through this, together as a group." Toobin concludes that: "The possible dangling of a Presidential pardon if Cohen stayed on the team was at the heart of Mueller's evidence." "Mueller wrote that 'it is important to view the president's pattern of conduct as a whole.That pattern sheds light on the nature of the President's acts and the inference that can be drawn about his intent. Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.' "
Toobin concludes that Trump's company and his campaign had paid approximately $1.5 million in Cohen's attorney's fees before the payments were ended.
Jeffrey Toobin's conclusion about Michael Cohen is that: "He embraced Trump so uncritically that he wound up committing crimes on his behalf." He adds that Trump has thus far "escaped the wreckage he leaves behind."
#In an interview with Fox News, Trump said that Cohen "should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that's the one that people want to look at because where does that money -- that's the money in the family."
Cohen was the go-between connecting Trump and David Pecker, who from his position in American Media Inc. (A.M.I.), controlled what got published in "The National Enquirer." When Cohen got word that Karen McDougal was preparing to publish an account of her affair with Donald Trump, Cohen urged Pecker to buy the account and then bury it -- a practice, in the argot of tabloids, known as "catch and kill." Cohen and Pecker said that Trump would be liable for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars of A.M.I.'s payment to McDougal; however, Trump never paid anything to A.M.I. In any event, "The National Enquirer" never disclosed Trump's relationship with McDougal. The checks made out to McDougal were either signed by Louis Weisselberg, Trump's long-time financial specialist, Donald Trump Jr., or President Trump himself. [1]
The Mueller probe located a call made by President Trump to Michael Cohen, telling him to "hang in there" and "stay strong." Cohen told Jeffrey Toobin about his dealings with Costello and Giuliani, two of Trump's lawyers. "It meant that I was still in the circle, that I was being protected. I should stay on message, part of the team, and we're going to get through this, together as a group." Toobin concludes that: "The possible dangling of a Presidential pardon if Cohen stayed on the team was at the heart of Mueller's evidence." "Mueller wrote that 'it is important to view the president's pattern of conduct as a whole.That pattern sheds light on the nature of the President's acts and the inference that can be drawn about his intent. Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.' "
Toobin concludes that Trump's company and his campaign had paid approximately $1.5 million in Cohen's attorney's fees before the payments were ended.
Jeffrey Toobin's conclusion about Michael Cohen is that: "He embraced Trump so uncritically that he wound up committing crimes on his behalf." He adds that Trump has thus far "escaped the wreckage he leaves behind."
#In an interview with Fox News, Trump said that Cohen "should give information maybe on his father-in-law, because that's the one that people want to look at because where does that money -- that's the money in the family."
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Surveillance Capitalism
I. Surveillance Capitalism
Shashana Zuboff, the author of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", explains that "Silicon Valley firms are looking to wearable technologies and other smart devices to gain an increasingly detailed view of our physical information that Mark Zuckerberg's company has gathered from users, transforming Facebook from 'a social networking site to an advertising behemoth.' Thus, these companies have a direct financial stake in the broadening, deepening, and perfecting of the surveillance they already profit from -- and in making sure that it remains legal." [1]
Drawing primarily on Adam Smith, Zuboff asserts that the "vast amounts of data available to technology companies will make once-unknown markets predictable, thus granting those companies an unprecedented power over our economic lives." "Their goals are much simpler: first, to acquire profits through targeted advertising; and second, to promote their direct economic and political interests." "If those at the margins of our society are the most likely to be directly affected by surveillance, then building power at those margins --among tenants, debtors, immigrants, prisoners, and of course, workers, will allow us to resist the worst abuses of surveillance capitalism at the point of their application."
"Telecommunications is a highly regulated industry, and under Trump the government has consistently furthered [Rupert] Murdoch's business interests, to the detriment of his rivals."
Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, believes that the President records "Fox and Friends", and frequently posts about points with which he agrees. Since August 2018, Media Matters has tallied more than two hundred instances of Trump disseminating Fox News items to his fifty-eight million Twitter followers.
II. Let Afghan Women Make Peace
Angeline Jolie, with a UN ambassadorial portfolio, has said that the women of Afghanistan have the most to lose if the Taliban return to power, "have the least to say in the process by which they do so." Jolie proposes a three-point plan for the women to exercise power. "First, Afghan women must be able to speak for themselves. Second, women's rights and concerns must be on the formal agenda, not relegated to side events or made the sole responsibility female delegates, Third, as the U.S. possesses a position of power in the peace process, Afghan women look to us to bring our diplomatic leverage to bear to uphold their rights, alongside their own government." [2]
III. Putin's Autocrats
There has been "a flood of Russian ventures in Sudan, from political consulting to mining and military aid," according to documents obtained by TIME. "They have been targeting countries that have toxic relations with the West, says Andrew Weiss, who studies Russia at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a think tank based in Washington D.C. "Last year alone, Russia made major arms deliveries to at least 23 nations. It won the rights to build logistics hubs on the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. It has struck major energy deals over the past three years with Turkey, India and Iraqi Kurdistan. Russia even brought the Taliban to Moscow last fall to try to broker peace in Afghanistan." "But the ambitions set out in the document suggest that Russia has begun to offer its allies in Africa the sort of soft-power assistance with state building typically provided by NGOs and development agencies." [3]
"Today, while some in the West still offer sermons about democracy and human rights, the value that Russia champions on the world stage is sovereignty -- which holds that each regime has the right to rule its ow territory without fear of foreign interference." "In Africa, where the rule is too frequently tenuous, at least 18 governments have signed military-cooperation deals with Russia since its warplanes roared in to save Assad in 2015."
Footnotes:
[1] Katie Fitzpatrick, 'None of Your Business," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[2] Angeline Jolie, "Let the women of Afghanistan make peace," TIME, April 22, 2019.
[3] Simon Shuster, "Putin's Empire of Autocrats," TIME, April 22, 2019.
Shashana Zuboff, the author of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", explains that "Silicon Valley firms are looking to wearable technologies and other smart devices to gain an increasingly detailed view of our physical information that Mark Zuckerberg's company has gathered from users, transforming Facebook from 'a social networking site to an advertising behemoth.' Thus, these companies have a direct financial stake in the broadening, deepening, and perfecting of the surveillance they already profit from -- and in making sure that it remains legal." [1]
Drawing primarily on Adam Smith, Zuboff asserts that the "vast amounts of data available to technology companies will make once-unknown markets predictable, thus granting those companies an unprecedented power over our economic lives." "Their goals are much simpler: first, to acquire profits through targeted advertising; and second, to promote their direct economic and political interests." "If those at the margins of our society are the most likely to be directly affected by surveillance, then building power at those margins --among tenants, debtors, immigrants, prisoners, and of course, workers, will allow us to resist the worst abuses of surveillance capitalism at the point of their application."
"Telecommunications is a highly regulated industry, and under Trump the government has consistently furthered [Rupert] Murdoch's business interests, to the detriment of his rivals."
Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, believes that the President records "Fox and Friends", and frequently posts about points with which he agrees. Since August 2018, Media Matters has tallied more than two hundred instances of Trump disseminating Fox News items to his fifty-eight million Twitter followers.
II. Let Afghan Women Make Peace
Angeline Jolie, with a UN ambassadorial portfolio, has said that the women of Afghanistan have the most to lose if the Taliban return to power, "have the least to say in the process by which they do so." Jolie proposes a three-point plan for the women to exercise power. "First, Afghan women must be able to speak for themselves. Second, women's rights and concerns must be on the formal agenda, not relegated to side events or made the sole responsibility female delegates, Third, as the U.S. possesses a position of power in the peace process, Afghan women look to us to bring our diplomatic leverage to bear to uphold their rights, alongside their own government." [2]
III. Putin's Autocrats
There has been "a flood of Russian ventures in Sudan, from political consulting to mining and military aid," according to documents obtained by TIME. "They have been targeting countries that have toxic relations with the West, says Andrew Weiss, who studies Russia at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a think tank based in Washington D.C. "Last year alone, Russia made major arms deliveries to at least 23 nations. It won the rights to build logistics hubs on the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. It has struck major energy deals over the past three years with Turkey, India and Iraqi Kurdistan. Russia even brought the Taliban to Moscow last fall to try to broker peace in Afghanistan." "But the ambitions set out in the document suggest that Russia has begun to offer its allies in Africa the sort of soft-power assistance with state building typically provided by NGOs and development agencies." [3]
"Today, while some in the West still offer sermons about democracy and human rights, the value that Russia champions on the world stage is sovereignty -- which holds that each regime has the right to rule its ow territory without fear of foreign interference." "In Africa, where the rule is too frequently tenuous, at least 18 governments have signed military-cooperation deals with Russia since its warplanes roared in to save Assad in 2015."
Footnotes:
[1] Katie Fitzpatrick, 'None of Your Business," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[2] Angeline Jolie, "Let the women of Afghanistan make peace," TIME, April 22, 2019.
[3] Simon Shuster, "Putin's Empire of Autocrats," TIME, April 22, 2019.
Monday, June 3, 2019
Topics Not Necessarily Front-Page News
I. Retail Bankruptcies and Severance Pay
"Nine of the 10 largest retail bankruptcies in 2017 were backed by private-equity firms, as were 40 percent of the largest ones from 2015 to early 2017. A third of retail job losses in 2016 and 2017 can be pinned on private-equity ownership." [1]
In New Jersey, a bill introduced by State Senator Joseph Cryan would "mandate that laid-off employees of large companies in that state be paid a severance equal to one week of wages for each year of employment. Cryan's bill would mean more than giving workers money to help after a layoff. It would change the calculation that companies make when deciding to cut workers in the first place, by putting a price on it. Right now, it's "virtually costless" to fire employees. Cryan's bill, if enacted, could make creditors hesitate to liquidate companies like Sears in bankruptcy, if the cost of paying out severance would outweigh the cost of restructuring and continuing to operate.
Sears and Kmart workers are calling for representation on the new company's board, which will restructure 223 Sears locations and 202 Kmart stores now that Eddie Lambert put in the winning bid for what remains of the companies during the bankruptcy. And workers also want a seat at the table when companies go into bankruptcy. United for Respect is supporting a bill sponsored by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D- WI) that would give employees of public companies the right to directly elect one-third of the board of directors.
II. Social Democratic Programs Prosper
'Recent polls have discovered commanding public support for social programs long exiled from mainstream politics: a national single-payer health plan, a federal jobs guarantee, universal parental leave and child care, and tuition-free college, along with heavy income and wealth taxes on the super-rich." "Three years later, many Democrats now stand much closer to Bernie than Hillary on wages, college, and trade policy. A reliable opponent of US defense sending and military intervention, from Vietnam to Libya, Sanders can boast an equally long record of skepticism toward America's alliance with Saudi Arabia which he spent three decades denouncing as a 'feudalistic dictatorship.' " [2]
"Denouncing the 'military-industrial complex' is one thing, dismantling it quite another." "And in contrast to the party's leadership, he [Sanders] recognizes that the power of the ownership class extends far beyond the nebulous special interests that every politician denounces." "But in contrast to means-tested programs like Harris's LIFT Act, Sanders champions unapologetically universal programs: medical care, college education, living wage jobs, retirement income, and environmental safety for everyone."
III. Rural Seat on GND Table
"The Rural Electrification Act authorized loans nationwide to launch cooperative companies. The GND [Green New Deal] platform would replicate this strategy, providing redress for the economic devastation of rural deindustrialization while pursuing a just transition from fossil fuels." "The Green New Deal's architects must commit to the lofty ideals laid out in the resolution: 'a democratic and participatory process to plan, implement, and administer the [GND] mobilization at the local level.' That means rural communities need a seat at the table in the coming year as the GND moves from resolution to reality." [3]
IV. Make Flynn Redactions Public
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to make public the still-redacted portions of Robert Mueller's report relating to Michael Flynn. He also ordered the publication of two conversations by May 31: the first is from Flynn's December 2016 phone call with Sergey Kisiyak, in which Flynn urged Kisiyak [the Russian ambassador to the U.S.] to go easy in response to the sanctions President Obama had announced . The second is a voice mail left by John Dowd, a Trump lawyer, to Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, on November 22, 2017 -- a clear sign that Trump felt fondly about Flynn and demanded to know if Flynn was going to turn over 'information that implicates the president.'
V. An European Disaster
"Across Europe, traditional political parties have crumbled while far-right parties have grown." "The EU is in desperate need of the kind of reform that will make it more democratic, transparent, responsive, and engaged. Britain's petulant and erratic behavior over Brexit has not just made it look bad; it has made the EU look far more coherent, popular and impressive than it deserves."
VI. Fix Military Housing
Senator Elizabeth Warren's plan to meet the deteriorating state of military housing is to require the Secretary of Defense to standardize leases across the military services, and review all existing housing contracts for violations before they can be renewed. The offices will have independent authority to inspect housing. Military tenants will have a "bill of rights." If repair or remediation is needed, the work order can't be closed until the service member approves.
ADDENDUM:
*"Cuba imports two-thirds of its food each year, and as Cuba's Interior Minister Betsy Diaz Velaqyuez says, Cuba has had to find new sources due to its relationship to Maduro. [5]
Footnotes:
[1] Bryce Covert, "Every One Must Go," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[2] Matthew Kape, "The Long Shot," The Nation, May 20/27, 2019.
[3] Lucas Smolic Larson, "A Generation Responds," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[4] Gary Younge, "A European Disaster," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[5] Abigail Abrams, "As rationing begins," TIME, May 27, 2019.
"Nine of the 10 largest retail bankruptcies in 2017 were backed by private-equity firms, as were 40 percent of the largest ones from 2015 to early 2017. A third of retail job losses in 2016 and 2017 can be pinned on private-equity ownership." [1]
In New Jersey, a bill introduced by State Senator Joseph Cryan would "mandate that laid-off employees of large companies in that state be paid a severance equal to one week of wages for each year of employment. Cryan's bill would mean more than giving workers money to help after a layoff. It would change the calculation that companies make when deciding to cut workers in the first place, by putting a price on it. Right now, it's "virtually costless" to fire employees. Cryan's bill, if enacted, could make creditors hesitate to liquidate companies like Sears in bankruptcy, if the cost of paying out severance would outweigh the cost of restructuring and continuing to operate.
Sears and Kmart workers are calling for representation on the new company's board, which will restructure 223 Sears locations and 202 Kmart stores now that Eddie Lambert put in the winning bid for what remains of the companies during the bankruptcy. And workers also want a seat at the table when companies go into bankruptcy. United for Respect is supporting a bill sponsored by Senator Tammy Baldwin (D- WI) that would give employees of public companies the right to directly elect one-third of the board of directors.
II. Social Democratic Programs Prosper
'Recent polls have discovered commanding public support for social programs long exiled from mainstream politics: a national single-payer health plan, a federal jobs guarantee, universal parental leave and child care, and tuition-free college, along with heavy income and wealth taxes on the super-rich." "Three years later, many Democrats now stand much closer to Bernie than Hillary on wages, college, and trade policy. A reliable opponent of US defense sending and military intervention, from Vietnam to Libya, Sanders can boast an equally long record of skepticism toward America's alliance with Saudi Arabia which he spent three decades denouncing as a 'feudalistic dictatorship.' " [2]
"Denouncing the 'military-industrial complex' is one thing, dismantling it quite another." "And in contrast to the party's leadership, he [Sanders] recognizes that the power of the ownership class extends far beyond the nebulous special interests that every politician denounces." "But in contrast to means-tested programs like Harris's LIFT Act, Sanders champions unapologetically universal programs: medical care, college education, living wage jobs, retirement income, and environmental safety for everyone."
III. Rural Seat on GND Table
"The Rural Electrification Act authorized loans nationwide to launch cooperative companies. The GND [Green New Deal] platform would replicate this strategy, providing redress for the economic devastation of rural deindustrialization while pursuing a just transition from fossil fuels." "The Green New Deal's architects must commit to the lofty ideals laid out in the resolution: 'a democratic and participatory process to plan, implement, and administer the [GND] mobilization at the local level.' That means rural communities need a seat at the table in the coming year as the GND moves from resolution to reality." [3]
IV. Make Flynn Redactions Public
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the Justice Department to make public the still-redacted portions of Robert Mueller's report relating to Michael Flynn. He also ordered the publication of two conversations by May 31: the first is from Flynn's December 2016 phone call with Sergey Kisiyak, in which Flynn urged Kisiyak [the Russian ambassador to the U.S.] to go easy in response to the sanctions President Obama had announced . The second is a voice mail left by John Dowd, a Trump lawyer, to Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, on November 22, 2017 -- a clear sign that Trump felt fondly about Flynn and demanded to know if Flynn was going to turn over 'information that implicates the president.'
V. An European Disaster
"Across Europe, traditional political parties have crumbled while far-right parties have grown." "The EU is in desperate need of the kind of reform that will make it more democratic, transparent, responsive, and engaged. Britain's petulant and erratic behavior over Brexit has not just made it look bad; it has made the EU look far more coherent, popular and impressive than it deserves."
VI. Fix Military Housing
Senator Elizabeth Warren's plan to meet the deteriorating state of military housing is to require the Secretary of Defense to standardize leases across the military services, and review all existing housing contracts for violations before they can be renewed. The offices will have independent authority to inspect housing. Military tenants will have a "bill of rights." If repair or remediation is needed, the work order can't be closed until the service member approves.
ADDENDUM:
*"Cuba imports two-thirds of its food each year, and as Cuba's Interior Minister Betsy Diaz Velaqyuez says, Cuba has had to find new sources due to its relationship to Maduro. [5]
Footnotes:
[1] Bryce Covert, "Every One Must Go," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[2] Matthew Kape, "The Long Shot," The Nation, May 20/27, 2019.
[3] Lucas Smolic Larson, "A Generation Responds," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[4] Gary Younge, "A European Disaster," The Nation, May 13, 2019.
[5] Abigail Abrams, "As rationing begins," TIME, May 27, 2019.
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Locked Up, Stalinist Model, and Trump TV
I. Locked Up
"For a long time, the consensus blamed three strikes, mandatory minimum sentences, stop-and-frisk, and the rest of the oppressive apparatus of a panicked anti-crime policy." "There were too many prosecutors who had the astounding freedom to indict anyone more or less as they chose and who could so overcharge the indicted that plea bargains were forced upon good and bad alike, as confessions were forced by the Inquisition." "All but about five per cent of criminal cases are resolved by plea bargains, and never go to trial." [1]
"Plea bargaining -- which typically means forcing someone to accept a long sentence out of fear of an even longer one -- is unknown in other liberal democracies." "Ours remains a singularly punitive society, a society obsessed, right and left alike, with inflicting punishment on our preferred villains."
"The quality of mercy has never been more highly strained than it is in America today." "The evidence is overwhelming that, even with the most seemingly noxious criminals, age and time wear away danger; little violent crime is done by middle-aged people, and eliminating all hope of release is one of the crueler, if unfortunately not at all unusual, punishments we impose." "We have to want to humanize the treatment of those we think 'belong' in prison with the same energy with which we agitate for those we don't."
II. The Stalinist Model
"In 1985, almost two-fifths of the world's population lived in countries governed by communist parties." "After the Second World War, it was the Stalinized model of the party that served as the basis for what was called the monolithic socialism of Eastern Europe, the 'people's democracies' that led to the imposition of rigid one-party rule." [2]
"In the early years of the Cold War, the spread of the Stalinist model made it clear that other kinds of parties would not be permitted to emerge, imposing a leader homogeneity on what remained, nonetheless a living global movement." "The voluntarism that infused the Great Leap Forward --the idea that sheer evolutionary enthusiasm would be enough to overcome the structural weaknesses of China's economy and society -- contributed centrally to the chaotic failures and the ensuring famine, in which at least 30 million people died."
"By the start of the new century, precious little was left of the communist party as an ideal, and the only party organizations left standing seemed to have committed themselves to entirely different principles."
III. "Trump TV"
"For both Trump and Fox, 'fear is a business strategy -- it keeps people watching.' " The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other's lead." "As; Edward Luce of the 'Financial Times' has noted, 'both men have tapped into anti-elitist resentment to connect with the public and to increase their fortunes." "Blair Levin observes, "The genius was seeing that there's an attraction to fear-based, anger-based politics that has to do with class and race." [3]
"Telecommunications is a highly regulated industry, and under Trump the government has consistently furthered [Robert] Murdoch's business interests to the detriment of his rivals." "Yochai Bankler, a Harvard Law School professor who co-directs the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society says, 'Fox's most important role since the election has been to keep Trump supporters in line.' " "Judging from the timing of Trump's tweets. Gertz [Matt, a senior fellow at Media Matters] believes that the President records 'Fox and Friends' and views it from the beginning, often with a slight delay. As Trump watches, he frequently posts about points that he agrees with. Since August 2018, Media Matters has tallied more than two hundred instances of Trump disseminating Fox News items to his fifty-eight million Twitter followers."
Footnotes:
[1] Adam Gopnik, "Locked Up," The New Yorker, April 15, 2019.
[2] Tony Wood, "Organization Over Ideals," The Nation, March 25, 2019.
[2] Jane Mayer, "Trump TV," The New Yorker, March 11, 2019.
"For a long time, the consensus blamed three strikes, mandatory minimum sentences, stop-and-frisk, and the rest of the oppressive apparatus of a panicked anti-crime policy." "There were too many prosecutors who had the astounding freedom to indict anyone more or less as they chose and who could so overcharge the indicted that plea bargains were forced upon good and bad alike, as confessions were forced by the Inquisition." "All but about five per cent of criminal cases are resolved by plea bargains, and never go to trial." [1]
"Plea bargaining -- which typically means forcing someone to accept a long sentence out of fear of an even longer one -- is unknown in other liberal democracies." "Ours remains a singularly punitive society, a society obsessed, right and left alike, with inflicting punishment on our preferred villains."
"The quality of mercy has never been more highly strained than it is in America today." "The evidence is overwhelming that, even with the most seemingly noxious criminals, age and time wear away danger; little violent crime is done by middle-aged people, and eliminating all hope of release is one of the crueler, if unfortunately not at all unusual, punishments we impose." "We have to want to humanize the treatment of those we think 'belong' in prison with the same energy with which we agitate for those we don't."
II. The Stalinist Model
"In 1985, almost two-fifths of the world's population lived in countries governed by communist parties." "After the Second World War, it was the Stalinized model of the party that served as the basis for what was called the monolithic socialism of Eastern Europe, the 'people's democracies' that led to the imposition of rigid one-party rule." [2]
"In the early years of the Cold War, the spread of the Stalinist model made it clear that other kinds of parties would not be permitted to emerge, imposing a leader homogeneity on what remained, nonetheless a living global movement." "The voluntarism that infused the Great Leap Forward --the idea that sheer evolutionary enthusiasm would be enough to overcome the structural weaknesses of China's economy and society -- contributed centrally to the chaotic failures and the ensuring famine, in which at least 30 million people died."
"By the start of the new century, precious little was left of the communist party as an ideal, and the only party organizations left standing seemed to have committed themselves to entirely different principles."
III. "Trump TV"
"For both Trump and Fox, 'fear is a business strategy -- it keeps people watching.' " The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other's lead." "As; Edward Luce of the 'Financial Times' has noted, 'both men have tapped into anti-elitist resentment to connect with the public and to increase their fortunes." "Blair Levin observes, "The genius was seeing that there's an attraction to fear-based, anger-based politics that has to do with class and race." [3]
"Telecommunications is a highly regulated industry, and under Trump the government has consistently furthered [Robert] Murdoch's business interests to the detriment of his rivals." "Yochai Bankler, a Harvard Law School professor who co-directs the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society says, 'Fox's most important role since the election has been to keep Trump supporters in line.' " "Judging from the timing of Trump's tweets. Gertz [Matt, a senior fellow at Media Matters] believes that the President records 'Fox and Friends' and views it from the beginning, often with a slight delay. As Trump watches, he frequently posts about points that he agrees with. Since August 2018, Media Matters has tallied more than two hundred instances of Trump disseminating Fox News items to his fifty-eight million Twitter followers."
Footnotes:
[1] Adam Gopnik, "Locked Up," The New Yorker, April 15, 2019.
[2] Tony Wood, "Organization Over Ideals," The Nation, March 25, 2019.
[2] Jane Mayer, "Trump TV," The New Yorker, March 11, 2019.
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