Regal-atory capture
Progressive groups are sure to be fuming over the agreement among congressional leaders on approving “fast track” authority: In what is sure to be one of the toughest fights of Mr. Obama’s last 19...
View ArticleEarth Day 2015 – Water
Today, Earth Day 2015, President Obama visits Everglades National Park to talk about climate change and the threat it poses to the water ecology of south Florida. On the first Earth Day in 1970, few...
View ArticleIsn’t that special?
Re: Trans-Pacific Partnership investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) tribunals. Query: If corporations can sue over loss of “expected future profits” they didn’t earn, can people get food over loss...
View ArticleSuper-deluxe, Extra-special, Inc.
Avoiding responsibility is just what the corporate form was designed for, wasn’t it? That’s why corporations will always go to the mat to protect their special rights and privileges as super-citizens....
View ArticleOh, Lawdy-Lawd, he’s desp’at!
This Tweet went by the other day and I just had to go back and find it: wow. Gov Walker wants taxpayers to pay HALF of construction costs for Milwaukee Buck's nice new arena; http://t.co/UHnd0FdsK4 —...
View ArticleOne can only hope
In his post-Greek referendum analysis, Howard Fineman sees echoes of the past: It’s a new echo on a global scale of the politics of a much earlier, but in some ways remarkably similar, era in the U.S....
View ArticleRevenge of the Midas cult
The troika didn’t take well to Greek voters telling them where they could stick their austerity. Rebels from the country that invented democracy last week seemed poised to jump into their X-wing...
View ArticleReifying the economy
From Europe to the Pacific rim, capitalism marches on. Right over democracy. Guess what? People don’t like it. You remember people? They’re the ones, as Pope Francis suggested, the economy is supposed...
View ArticleSham democracy and kangaroo elections
In 2008, there were financial bailouts for megabanks and foreclosures for homeowners. There was vulture capitalist Paul Singer seizing an Argentine naval vessel in a dispute over debt in 2012. There...
View Article“Privatization of the justice system”
Just yesterday I was wondering what ever happened to “frivolous lawsuits” and the runaway juries Big Bidness and Republican lawmakers used to cite as reasons to push for tort reform. It seems...
View ArticleTPP: It’s The Company’s world. They just let you live in it.
Credit Mary Shelley with the “creation gone wrong” trope. Or perhaps Genesis. Yet, the evil mega-corporation is as much a staple of popular fiction as the radiation-spawned monstrosities and failed...
View ArticleOh, but poor people…
So now TransCanada is suing the United States under NAFTA for $15 billion over President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone pipeline deal: In filing the NAFTA claim, TransCanada said it “had every...
View ArticleElizabeth Warren indicts “shockingly weak” enforcement
If justice means a prison sentence for a teenager who steals a car, but it means nothing more than a sideways glance at a CEO who quietly engineers the theft of billions of dollars, then the promise of...
View ArticleBonana fanna fo Fump
It’s the blame game this morning as fingers point to who is to blame for the rise of Trump and Trumpism. Eric Boehlert of Hillary-friendly Media Matters examines how the media’s obsession with Donald...
View ArticleShort Attention Span Theater
After several years of delays, Short Attention Span Theater will again resume production on Repatriation Tax Holiday 2. Robert Reich flagged District Studios’ announcement yesterday on Facebook: I’ve...
View ArticleIncentives for the perverse
Not all political deflections are bright and shiny. Hyperventilating over public aid to those at the bottom of the wealth curve is an oldie but goody. Is Wall Street defrauding the planet to the tune...
View ArticleDrowned in the bathtub
Why yes, we really do mean to drown the government in the bathtub. Thanks to Congress slowly drowning the U.S. Postal Service in the metaphorical bathtub, the form I put in the mail to my doctor last...
View ArticleTPP: More trans(fer) than partnership
In days of yore (pre-Internet), I telephoned the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) about a wall-sized world map I had heard about developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When I...
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