David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author whose recent work explores the causes and conditions of inequality in the United States. At the Syracuse University College of Law he’s a distinguished visiting lecturer, where he teaches the history of property, taxation, regulation, and commerce. He’s written a trilogy of books on our pro-corporate tax system; the most recent: The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use “Plain English” to Rob You Blind. He’s also editing the forthcoming book Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality and writes regular columns for Al Jazeera America, Tax Analysts, and a weekly piece for Newsweek.
September 2014 archive
Sep 05 2014
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
New York Times Editorial Board: Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s ‘Disservice to Democracy’
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, who has a huge war chest, is presumed to be far ahead in Tuesday’s Democratic primary race. That assumption, however, should not allow him to shrink from a debate with Zephyr Teachout, his gutsy opponent. Ms. Teachout, a Fordham University law professor, has already appeared alone on NY1 on Tuesday after Mr. Cuomo refused to participate in a debate. At Democratic clubs and other forums, the governor has avoided taking on his opponents, and, on Thursday, Ms. Teachout debated Rob Astorino, the Republican nominee, on WNYC – also minus the governor.
By not appearing with his challengers, Mr. Cuomo deprives voters of a vigorous discussion of state issues. When he was asked recently about whether refusing to debate shows disrespect for democracy, he scoffed at the idea. “I don’t think it has anything to do with democracy,” he said on Tuesday. In fact, he added, “I’ve been in many debates that I think were a disservice to democracy.”
Paul Krugman: The Deflation Caucus
On Thursday, the European Central Bank announced a series of new steps it was taking in an effort to boost Europe’s economy. There was a whiff of desperation about the announcement, which was reassuring. Europe, which is doing worse than it did in the 1930s, is clearly in the grip of a deflationary vortex, and it’s good to know that the central bank understands that. But its epiphany may have come too late. It’s far from clear that the measures now on the table will be strong enough to reverse the downward spiral.
And there but for the grace of Bernanke go we. Things in the United States are far from O.K., but we seem (at least for now) to have steered clear of the kind of trap facing Europe. Why? One answer is that the Federal Reserve started doing the right thing years ago, buying trillions of dollars’ worth of bonds in order to avoid the situation its European counterpart now faces
David Ignatius: The Senate Republicans’ foolish fight over ambassadors
Talk about America’s decline is usually wrong. But how else would you describe a country that, in a world of exploding tensions, is unable to confirm dozens of ambassadors to foreign posts because of partisan squabbling?
Even by Washington standards, the Senate Republicans have hit a new low for hypocrisy. They denounce President Obama’s inaction on foreign policy – and simultaneously refuse to confirm his nominees for U.S. ambassadors to such hot spots as Turkey, on the front lines against the Islamic State, and Sierra Leone, epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
Let’s say it plainly: This is how nations lose their power and influence, when they are unable to agree even on basic matters such as diplomatic representation. The decision-making system breaks down, and the public is too bored or disunited to take action. Sadly, that’s a snapshot of the United States in 2014.
Melissa Cronin: First They Silenced Activists, Now Big Dairy Is Silencing Farmers
In Idaho, where a controversial “ag-gag” bill was signed into law in February, things are only getting more secretive at factory farms. Earlier this week, AP obtained a copy of a confidential letter sent by a dairy industry group in the state to its member farmers. The letter urged farmers to deny interview requests from members of the media, and not to offer press tours on their farms.
The letter (see a copy here), sent by United Dairymen of Idaho chairs Tom Dorsey and Tony Vanderhulst, was received by 500 dairy farmers in the state. It noted an increase in media requests to film on farms after the passing of Idaho’s ag-gag bill, which banned journalists and whistleblowers from filming at factory farms and slaughterhouses. It recommended that farmers defer media requests to the organization instead of dealing with them on their own:
For protection of your farm and the Idaho dairy industry, we recommend that you coordinate any requests for television, print or radio interviews with the Idaho Dairymen’s Association or the Idaho Dairy Products Commission/United Dairymen of Idaho …”
It also provided four sample responses to deny journalists when asked for an interview or farm tour.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: Politicians Show Their Gratitude Where It Count$
There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart, a poet wrote, and as this year’s summer winds toward its end and elections approach, gratitude is indeed what our politicians have flowing from that space where their hearts should be.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is grateful to his friend Rick Anderson, the CEO of Delta Airlines. In late July, a week after McConnell treated him to breakfast in the Senate Dining Room, checks for McConnell’s super PAC came winging their way from Anderson and his wife, as well as Delta’s political action committee.
“This is the kind of rare access that most of us will never experience.” That’s Sheila Krumholz, executive director the Center for Responsive Politics, the campaign finance watchdog. She was talking to National Journal about Delta’s boss dining in first class with McConnell: “Who makes a good enough breakfast companion for a sitting senator in a highly competitive reelection campaign to take time out of their busy day? It never hurts if the person can follow up with a donation, and all the better if it can be a sizable one.”
Michael T. Klare: Oil Is Back!
A Global Warming President Presides Over a Drill-Baby-Drill America
Considering all the talk about global warming, peak oil, carbon divestment, and renewable energy, you’d think that oil consumption in the United States would be on a downward path. By now, we should certainly be witnessing real progress toward a post-petroleum economy. As it happens, the opposite is occurring. U.S. oil consumption is on an upward trajectory, climbing by 400,000 barrels per day in 2013 alone — and, if current trends persist, it should rise again both this year and next. [..]
Accompanying all this is a little noticed but crucial shift in White House rhetoric. While President Obama once spoke of the necessity of eliminating our reliance on petroleum as a major source of energy, he now brags about rising U.S. oil output and touts his efforts to further boost production.
Just five years ago, few would have foreseen such a dramatic oil rebound. Many energy experts were then predicting an imminent “peak” in global oil production, followed by an irreversible decline in output. With supplies constantly shrinking, it was said, oil prices would skyrocket and consumers would turn to hybrid vehicles, electric cars, biofuels, and various transportation alternatives. New government policies would be devised to facilitate this shift, providing tax breaks and other incentives for making the switch to renewables.
Sep 05 2014
In Memoriam: Joan Rivers 1933 – 2014
Iconic comedienne Joan Rivers passed away on Thursday, September 4, a week after suffering a cardiac arrest during an outpatient procedure at a private endoscopy clinic. She was 81 years old and had spent 50 years in show business.
In the almost 50 years since she burst onto the scene on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rivers ascended to the pinnacle of American showbusiness – even as she skewered its excesses with her scathing wit.
A workaholic, Rivers had been hosting an online weekly talk show called In Bed with Joan, and had just filmed a special award-show episode of E!’s Fashion Police before being taken ill. She was frequently performing live stand-up, and had finished the fourth season of Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best, the reality show in which she starred with her daughter. [..]
Rivers never made a secret of the surgical procedures that significantly altered her looks. Instead, they became a source of material for her act. “I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they’ll donate my body to Tupperware,” she once said.
Her daughter, Melissa, released this statement yesterday:
PHOTO: Statement from Melissa Rivers on Joan Rivers' death pic.twitter.com/4l06qk1J0l
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) September 4, 2014
In her 2012 best selling book, Ms. Rivers laid out the plans for her funeral.
When I die (and yes, Melissa, that day will come; and yes, Melissa, everything’s in your name), I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action . . . . I want craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don’t want some rabbi rambling on; I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents. I don’t want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing “Mr. Lonely.” I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyoncé’s.
Her funeral will be held Sunday in Manhattan at Temple Emmanual-El.
Sep 05 2014
On This Day In History September 5
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
September 5 is the 248th day of the year (249th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 117 days remaining until the end of the year..
On this day in 1882, the first Labor Day was celebrated in NYC with a parade of 10,000 workers. The Parade started at City Hall, winding past the reviewing stands at Union Square and then uptown where it ended at 42nd St where the marcher’s and their families celebrated with a picnic, concert and speeches. The march was organized by New York’s Central Labor Union and while there has been debate as to who originated the idea, credit is given to Peter McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor.
It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. The September date was chosen as Cleveland was concerned that aligning an American labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair. All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday.
Sep 05 2014
TDS/TCR (These Kids)
Forecast: Cloudy
Kevin Spacey and the Caliphate
The real news, as well as next week’s guests below.
Sep 04 2014
Why Iraqi’s Don’t Trust Us
Jurors will begin deliberating this week in the murder and manslaughter trial of four former Blackwater operatives involved in the 2007 massacre at Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. The suspects are charged for the deaths of 14 of the 17 Iraqi civilians who died when their Blackwater unit opened fire. The trial featured testimony from witnesses who survived the attack and saw loved ones gunned down. In closing arguments last week, prosecutors said Blackwater guards had shot fleeing civilians and boasted of taking their lives. Nisoor Square is the highest-profile deadly incident involving Blackwater – or any private war contractor – and many Iraqis are watching the upcoming verdict to see how seriously the United States intends to hold its private security companies accountable for their alleged crimes
C’mon. We’re so much more exceptional than the Islamic State Caliphate. We would never torture people or murder innocent civilians and journalists.
Well, I mean not barbarically.
It would be a good, clean death administered remotely by rockets and bombs all the way from Langley.
Can’t you see how much more civilized that is?
Sep 04 2014
Meet the Challengers to NY’s Democratic Establishment
The Democratic Primary for state offices is September 9. Three of the candidates appeared on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and Juan González to discuss the issues and their differences.
New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is being challenged in his own party’s upcoming primary. We host a discussion with two candidates facing off on the party’s ballot. We are joined by Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout and her running mate for lieutenant governor, Tim Wu, who coined the concept of net neutrality. We are also joined political activist Randy Credico, also running for governor. While most of the Democratic establishment has backed the Cuomo ticket, the Teachout-Wu campaign has received some notable endorsements, including the Public Employees Federation, the state’s second-largest union of government workers, as well as the state chapters of the National Organization of Women and the Sierra Club. Credico, who has previously run for New York City mayor and U.S. Senate, is running on a platform calling for economic justice and the reform of the state’s drug laws.
Incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo and his running mate for lieutenant governor, Kathy Hocul declined the invitation and have both declined any debates.
The Transcript can be read here
Sep 04 2014
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Trevor Timm: Homeland Security was built to fend off terrorists. Why’s it so busy arming cops to fight average Americans?
From Ferguson’s military police to loaning drones and tracking your every move, the agency’s expensive, violent sinkhole of bureaucracy needs reform – now
For three weeks and counting, America has raged against the appalling behavior of the local police in Ferguson, Missouri, and for good reason: automatic rifles pointed at protesters, tank-like armored trucks blocking marches, the teargassing and arresting of reporters, tactics unfit even for war zones – it was all enough to make you wonder whether this was America at all. But as Congress returns to Washington this week, the ire of a nation should also be focused on the federal government agency that has enabled the rise of military police, and so much more: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The 240,000-employee, Bush-invented bureaucratic behemoth that didn’t even exist 15 years ago has been the primary arms dealer for out-of-control local cops in Ferguson and beyond, handing out tens of billions of dollars in grants for military equipment in the last decade with little to no oversight and even less training on how use it. “From an oversight perspective, DHS grant programs are pretty much a mess,”
Amy Goodman: Get Ready for the ‘Internet Slowdown’
Next Wednesday, Sept. 10, if your favorite website seems to load slowly, take a closer look: You might be experiencing the Battle for the Net’s “Internet Slowdown,” a global day of grass-roots action. Protesters won’t actually slow the Internet down, but will place on their websites animated “Loading” graphics (which organizers call “the proverbial ‘spinning wheel of death'”) to symbolize what the Internet might soon look like. As that wheel spins, the rules about how the internet works are being redrawn. Large Internet service providers, or ISPs, like Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T and Verizon are trying to change the rules that govern your online life.
The fight over these rules is being waged now. These corporate ISPs want to create a two-tiered Internet, where some websites or content providers pay to get preferred access to the public. Large content providers like Netflix, the online streaming movie giant, would pay extra to ensure that their content traveled on the fast lane. But let’s say a startup tried to compete with Netflix. If it couldn’t afford to pay the large ISPs their fees for the fast lane, their service would suffer, and people wouldn’t subscribe.
David Cay Johnston: Three ways that politicians are storing up disaster for pensioners
Starving, spiking and smoothing are short-term fixes that guarantee long-term problems
From coast to coast, Democrats and Republicans appear united in devastating what remains of traditional pensions in America.
Through three basic strategies – smoothing, spiking and starving – politicians can burnish their images as public benefactors today, but only by inflating future costs and risks that will slam society after their careers are over.
Voters, workers and taxpayers whose time horizon is more than the next election cycle need to police their politicians now, or they and their progeny will bear a terrible burden later.
Juan Cole: What Hackers Did to Celebs? The NSA’s Been Doing That to All of the U.S. Instead of Predicting ISIL
There has been a lot of justifiable outrage about the invasion of privacy of celebrities and the posting of their private, nude photos at 4Chan by hackers who apparently got into their cloud accounts.
It seems odd to me that the discussion of this issue has been completely unconnected to the Snowden revelations that the U.S. government has been assiduously spying on everyone’s cloud. It has been massively recording who we call, when we called them, and where we were when we called them on on our smart phones. You can tell a lot from that information (it could be used for insider trading where it came from financiers like Warren Buffett). The NSA has been sweeping up terabytes of data and storing them (some of this in conjunction with British intelligence). Barack Obama’s glib assurances that they haven’t been recording our emails notwithstanding, they’ve been recording our emails (they can actually read them in real time), as well as sweeping up the content of phone calls as data files. NSA personnel routinely passed around nude photos of people captured from the internet, Snowden has revealed, calling it a perk of the job. Some NSA personnel misused their position to spy on ex-girlfriends. There has been a lot of justifiable outrage about the invasion of privacy of celebrities and the posting of their private, nude photos at 4Chan by hackers who apparently got into their cloud accounts.
It seems odd to me that the discussion of this issue has been completely unconnected to the Snowden revelations that the U.S. government has been assiduously spying on everyone’s cloud. It has been massively recording who we call, when we called them, and where we were when we called them on on our smart phones. You can tell a lot from that information (it could be used for insider trading where it came from financiers like Warren Buffett). The NSA has been sweeping up terabytes of data and storing them (some of this in conjunction with British intelligence). Barack Obama’s glib assurances that they haven’t been recording our emails notwithstanding, they’ve been recording our emails (they can actually read them in real time), as well as sweeping up the content of phone calls as data files. NSA personnel routinely passed around nude photos of people captured from the internet, Snowden has revealed, calling it a perk of the job. Some NSA personnel misused their position to spy on ex-girlfriends.
Oliver Burkeman: To recline your seat or not? Stop arguing. Capitalism already won this stupid war
Airlines, Apple and more corporations are pitting us against each other. It’s time to start changing the terms of debate
The Great Airplane Seat Recliner Wars of 2014 have now caused at least three flights to be diverted, following passenger altercations, while providing much-needed ammunition for professional opinion-havers on the internet. Is it acceptable to use a Knee Defender to prevent the person in front of you from reclining, or monstrous? Should you pay me if you don’t want me to recline, or is it “simple decency towards your fellow humans” to refrain to spread out? Is reclining a right or a privilege?
To this professional opinion-haver, though, the debate has become immensely frustrating, because the answer is that we shouldn’t need to be having the debate at all. There is no right answer because there simply isn’t enough space on airplanes; it’s perfectly reasonable to want to claim a bit more room by reclining, and perfectly reasonable to object to someone else reducing yours. What’s not reasonable is the number of seats crammed into the plane.
Sep 04 2014
The Breakfast Club (Dancing in September)
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Crisis unfolds in Little Rock, Ark. over racial integration in schools; Ford rolls out its ill-fated Edsel; Attorney William Kunstler dies; Mark Spitz sets Olympic gold record; Singer Beyonce born.
Breakfast Tunes
Sep 04 2014
On This Day In History September 4
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
September 4 is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 118 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1886, Apache chief Geronimo surrenders to U.S. government troops. For 30 years, the mighty Native American warrior had battled to protect his tribe’s homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo’s surrender, making him the last Indian warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest.
While Geronimo (Chiricahua: Goyaale, “one who yawns”; often spelled Goyathlay or Goyahkla in English) said he was never a chief, he was a military leader. As a Chiricahua Apache, this meant he was one of many people with special spiritual insights and abilities known to Apache people as “Power”. Among these were the ability to walk without leaving tracks; the abilities now known as telekinesis and telepathy; and the ability to survive gunshot (rifle/musket, pistol, and shotgun). Geronimo was wounded numerous times by both bullets and buckshot, but survived. Apache men chose to follow him of their own free will, and offered first-hand eye-witness testimony regarding his many “powers”. They declared that this was the main reason why so many chose to follow him (he was favored by/protected by “Usen”, the Apache high-god). Geronimo’s “powers” were considered to be so great that he personally painted the faces of the warriors who followed him to reflect their protective effect. During his career as a war chief, Geronimo was notorious for consistently urging raids and war upon Mexican Provinces and their various towns, and later against American locations across Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas.
snip
In 1886, General Nelson A. Miles selected Captain Henry Lawton, in command of B Troop, 4th Cavalry, at Ft. Huachuca and First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood to lead the expedition that captured Geronimo. Numerous stories abound as to who actually captured Geronimo, or to whom he surrendered, although most contemporary accounts, and Geronimo’s own later statements, give most of the credit for negotiating the surrender to Lt. Gatewood. For Lawton’s part, he was given orders to head up actions south of the U.S.-Mexico boundary where it was thought Geronimo and a small band of his followers would take refuge from U.S. authorities. Lawton was to pursue, subdue, and return Geronimo to the U.S., dead or alive.
Lawton’s official report dated September 9, 1886 sums up the actions of his unit and gives credit to a number of his troopers for their efforts. Geronimo gave Gatewood credit for his decision to surrender as Gatewood was well known to Geronimo, spoke some Apache, and was familiar with and honored their traditions and values. He acknowledged Lawton’s tenacity for wearing the Apaches down with constant pursuit. Geronimo and his followers had little or no time to rest or stay in one place. Completely worn out, the little band of Apaches returned to the U.S. with Lawton and officially surrendered to General Miles on September 4, 1886 at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.
The debate still remains whether Geronimo surrendered unconditionally. Geronimo pleaded in his memoirs that his people who surrendered had been misled: his surrender as a war prisoner was conditioned in front of uncontested witnesses (especially General Stanley). General Howard, chief of Pacific US army division, said on his part that his surrender was accepted as a dangerous outlaw without condition, which has been contested in front of the Senate.
In February, 1909, Geronimo was thrown from his horse while riding home, and had to lie in the cold all night before a friend found him extremely ill. He died of pneumonia on February 17, 1909 as a prisoner of the United States at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. On his deathbed, he confessed to his nephew that he regretted his decision to surrender. He was buried at Fort Sill in the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery
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