October 21, 2015

Justice Scalia Says He'll Retire Once He 'Can't Do The Job As Well'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/justice-scalia-retirement_5627ba31e4b08589ef4a1366?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

October 21, 2015

The Real Revolution: Bernie Sanders Owes His Success to Occupy Wall Street

On September 17, 2011, a group of activists descended on a New York City park to declare war on corruption in the US political system. Today, 2016 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is closing the gap with rival Hillary Clinton, once thought a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination, and he largely has Occupy Wall Street to thank for it.

They came from all races, creeds, religions, ethnicities, classes and political backgrounds with a unified message: that the unfair distribution of wealth, along with the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision that saw corporations as people who can donate unlimited riches of campaign cash, together as the most corrupting force jeopardizing America’s political system and the security of US citizens.

Over the FOLLOWing days and weeks, heeding the calls of decentralized Anonymous activists organizing online, they came to Zuccotti Park in New York City's Financial District and pitched tents. They helped 2000 other Occupy encampments to organize in the town squares of other cities in other states, which then spread to countries on all seven continents, often as movements continuing the social upheaval that the Arab Spring and Indignados protests brought across Europe. They had a common unifying message, bringing together income inequality and capitalist exploitation, environmental degradation and the human toll of America’s worldwide military adventurism. The people, it turned out, were sick and tired of bailouts to banks backing the military-industrial-prison complex rather than ordinary people. The movement, and the year itself, was radically transformative for the world round.

Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president has become the end result of those thousands of man-years of activism from Occupy Wall Street. Sanders listened to what started as a genuine grassroots movement of citizens’ demands to transform their country, and the radical idea that a politician should listen to the people’s call for change seems to be paying off for him, as he now leads Clinton in several key polls. His success, along with Donald Trump’s for the GOP, is driving a schism deep into the foundation of the old guards of US political parties.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/news/20150918/1027166956.html#ixzz3pFQpSpQs


POSTED FOR DISCUSSION

October 21, 2015

Cyberspying bill CISA is up for a vote

Source: ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION

Dear Friend of Digital Freedom,

Privacy advocates, security experts, major tech companies, and even the Department of Homeland Security all agree—the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015(CISA) is a dangerously wrong approach to cybersecurity that must not become law. But time is running out. The Senate took up the bill yesterday and is planning to bring it for an initial vote as early as tomorrow. We need your help to stop it.

CISA is fundamentally flawed because it creates aggressive spying powers for the government and broad immunity clauses for companies. Vague definitions of key terms would leave the new powers the bill grants open to abuse. It’s only your emails, faxes, and phone calls that have stopped this bill from moving forward. But even against cross-partisan, nationwide opposition, supporters of CISA like Senators Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr are trying to ram this bill through.

With your help, we can stop them. Can you make a call today? CLICK ON LINK: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-the-senate-vote-no-on-the-cybersecurity-information-sharing-act

Public pressure has helped convince companies like Salesforce, reddit, Yelp, Twitter and Apple to oppose the bill. Like us, these companies recognize that CISA wouldn’t have prevented major cyber attacks that endanger the privacy of ordinary people, like the Target or U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breaches—but it would endanger the privacy and civil liberties of Internet users everywhere. The vote on CISA could happen as early as tomorrow morning. With your help, we’ll make sure Congress gets the message: now more than ever, we don’t need more cyber surveillance. We need better security. CISA must be defeated.

Please pick up the phone and make a call today. With your help, we’ll kill this bill.

Nadia Kayyali
EFF Activism Team
Support our work


Read more: https://supporters.eff.org/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=1224

October 21, 2015

The Problem is: Hillary is part of the Obama Administration

But the solution is: Hillary is part of the Obama Administration.

It's no secret that Obama's disapproval ratings have been high from the start:

Here are approval ratings...just subtract from 100 to get disapproval:



http://www.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx

For comparison's sake:





Other years at link.

Similar results from Rassmussen: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history

And then, there is the prickly and petulant way Obama supplies his support/prestige to Hillary, when he wants to, and I'm sure she pays a steep price for it. So tying Hillary to Obama and encouraging people of all persuasions to vote for Bernie in the primaries is essential.

October 21, 2015

Bernie and Hillary: the Sheepdog and the She-Wolf in Vegas by Paul Street

POSTED FOR DISCUSSION

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/20/bernie-and-hillary-the-sheepdog-and-the-she-wolf-in-vegas/

Left critics of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign inside the dismal, dollar-drenched, corporate-neoliberal and imperialist Democratic Party were born out by the first Democratic presidential debate in Last Vegas last week. In his first exchange with the CNN host Anderson Cooper and Hillary Clinton, Sanders spoke in terms consistent with Bruce Dixon’s early identification of Sanders as a “sheepdog” candidate – a “contender” whose basic mission is to rally reasonably disaffected voters and non-voters to the corporate and military Democrats by fueling the illusion that meaningful progressive change can be achieved by voting for history’s second most enthusiastic capitalist party...

October 20, 2015

Seth MacFarlane’s Intro for Bernie is Incredible

October 19, 2015

Corrupt Corporatists Steve Israel, DWS Declare Fratricidal War Against Progressives

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2015/10/corrupt-corporatists-steve-israel-and.html


Steve Israel, de facto head of the DCCC (and the most outspoken member of their recruitment committee) and with a new title Pelosi invented for him, Chair, Policy and Communications, Israel’s war against progressives is multi-faceted. Although Pelosi, when giving him his new job, said that he “has consistently proved the depth of his wisdom and the strength of his strategic vision in making our case to the American people,” she overlooked the fact that under his catastrophic chairmanship, the DCCC– largely because of him and only him– managed to lose a net of 8 seats in a year when Obama won the country and a much smarter DSCC chairman just about swept the field and won tough races in Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Israel’s incompetence and /or lame strategy cost the Democrats CA-10 (Denham), CA-21 (Valadao), CA-25 (McKeon), CO-06 (Coffman), FL-10 (Webster), IL-13 (Davis), MI-01 (Benishek), MI-06 (Upton), MI-11 (Bentivolio), MN-02 (Kline), MN-06 (Bachmann), NV-03 (Heck), NJ02 (LoBiondo), NJ-03 (Runyan), NJ-05 (Garrett), NY-11 (Grimm), NY-19 (Gibson), NY-22 (Hanna), NY-23 (Reed), NY-27 (Collins), NC-08 (Hudson), NC-11 (Meadows), NC-13 (Holding), OH-06 (Johnson), OH-16 (Renacci), PA-06 (Gerlach), PA-07 (Meehan), PA-08 (Fitzpatrick), PA-12 (Rothfus), PA-15 (Dent), TN-04 (DesJarlais), VA-02 (Rigell), WI-07 (Duffy) and WI-08 (Ribble)...In 2014 Israel led the DCCC to an even more disastrous year by following his same lame playbook. He lost a net of 13 seats, primarily conservaDems who he had counseled to vote with the GOP at every opportunity, like Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ), Joe Garcia (New Dem-FL), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL), Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV). 3 other right-wing Democrats– Bill Owens (New Dem-NY), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC) and Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)– knew they would be defeated and retired, their seats all going to Republicans. Israel’s only victories were for right-wing Democrats Gwen Graham (Blue Dog-FL), Brad Ashford (Blue Dog-NE) and Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Aguilar the only one likely to retain his seat in 2016.

So yesterday Chairman Strategic Vision lashed into progressives again in an interview with Alex Brown for the National Journal, denouncing them for fratricide for daring to side with working people against the corporate TPP. Neglecting to mention that on June 12 a preliminary TPP vote narrowly passed the House (219-211, only 28 wretched excuses for Democrats voting in favor, Israel railed against Democratic allies, saying “We have to stop the fratricide. It’s hard enough to go up against Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers. Our members shouldn’t have to go up against Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers– and members’ friends.” The “friends” Israel referred to are the labor and progressive groups that have gone after the 28 Democrats in the House and 13 in the Senate who voted to pass Trade Promotion Authority in June. That measure limits Congress to an up-or-down vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal that will land on Capitol Hill early next year. TPP has been a key priority of the Obama administration, but is opposed by most Democrats...

**************************************************************

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who heads the Democratic National Committee and voted for TPA, said she has heard nothing about such a backlash– an issue on which every other member of the House seems to have an opinion. She said she met recently with labor leaders, including the AFL-CIO, without it coming up. “I’ve honestly not heard any threat whatsoever to any Democrat related to the trade deal,” she said. “I have a hard time commenting on something that I haven’t heard.” Still, many of the other members in her caucus say the focus should be on winning the House– not a single trade vote. “I have committed to making sure we win back the majority, and that starts with returning incumbent Democrats in swing districts—including those that I sometimes disagree with,” Kildee said. “Obviously, I think this is important to labor, and I think they should take a strong position. … But I think we should focus on the long-term battle as well as the short-term battle.”

Wasserman Schultz, a congenital liar, is very much aware that labor is helping recruit a strong Democratic candidate to run against her in a primary next year, presumably Tim Canova, a professor of law and public finance at Nova Southeastern University. A Sanders supporter, Canova has been critical of Wasserman Schultz’s performance as chair of the DNC, including her role in limiting the presidential debates. “It’s bad for Democrats and bad for the country, but she’s apparently decided that it’s good for her own career to hitch her wagon to Hillary Clinton– but it’s a wagon filled with a lot of baggage and broken promises to American workers.


EVER SO MUCH MORE AT LINK

October 16, 2015

Did the Media Get the Democratic Debate Wrong? By John Cassidy

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/did-the-media-get-the-democratic-debate-wrong?mbid=nl_101615_Daily_PM&CNDID=26139401&spMailingID=8163721&spUserID=MzkxMjA1MjAwODQS1&spJobID=782195080&spReportId=NzgyMTk1MDgwS0


In the media coverage of Tuesday’s Democratic debate, there was almost universal agreement that Hillary Clinton came out on top. In online polls, several focus groups, and much of social media, though, the story was rather different. Many people insisted that Bernie Sanders was the victor, and that the lame “M.S.M.” had gotten it wrong again...I experienced this difference of opinion firsthand. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, I pronounced Clinton the big winner, saying that she had been “sharp, personable, and assured.” I also said that Sanders “gave a good account of himself,” but that didn’t satisfy some readers. Within hours, the complaints were raining in—on Twitter, on Facebook, and elsewhere. Had I been coöpted by the Clinton campaign? Was I watching the same debate as everybody else? Did I have a clue what I was writing about?

For the record, my answers are no, yes, and I hope so.

It’s certainly possible that I, and many other commentators, got it wrong. The media has erred before, plenty of times. Back in April, when Sanders announced his candidacy, many observers wrote him off as a fringe candidate who wouldn’t have much of an impact. I didn’t make that particular error: indeed, I welcomed Sanders to the race, pointing out that he would “provide a voice to those Democrats who agree with him that the U.S. political system has been bought, lock, stock, and barrel.” That one I got right. But on the Republican side, after Donald Trump jumped in, I underestimated his staying power, as did many other members of the media. Did we get the Democratic debate wrong, too?

Let’s look, briefly, at the case for the prosecution. At AlterNet, the alternative-news site, Adam Johnson pointed out, “Sanders won the CNN focus group, the Fusion focus group, and the Fox News focus group; in the latter, he even converted several Hillary supporters. He won the Slate online poll, CNN/Time online poll, 9News Colorado, The Street online poll, Fox5 poll, the conservative Drudge online poll and the liberal Daily Kos online poll. There wasn’t, to this writer’s knowledge, a poll he didn’t win by at least an 18-point margin.” At the other end of the ideological spectrum, Dick Morris, the Republican political strategist and Clinton antagonist, suggested that the media no longer understands a Democratic electorate that has moved to the left and is now highly issues-oriented. “Sanders identified and successfully focused on his two main issues: First, income inequality and the need to break up the big banks and second, the need for more restraint in committing military forces abroad,” Morris wrote on his Web site. “These two positions, clearly articulated in the debate will impel Sanders to a steep rise in the polls.”

The ultimate arbiter of who won the debate will, of course, be the public, not the pundits. But we won’t get a reliable reading of public opinion until we see some scientifically conducted surveys based on random samples of Democratic voters. The post-debate online polls weren’t of this type: their samples were self-selecting, and you would expect their results to be skewed toward the candidate with the most-committed supporters. In this race, without a doubt, that is Sanders. The only post-debate poll I’ve seen that employed orthodox surveying techniques was carried out by the research firm Gravis Marketing, and it showed Clinton as the clear victor. Researchers for Gravis asked a random sample of seven hundred and sixty registered Democrats across the United States this question: “Who do you think won the debate?” Sixty-two per cent of respondents said Clinton, thirty per cent said Sanders, and six per cent said Martin O’Malley. It’s just one poll and its results aren’t definitive, but if most Democratic voters, in fact, believe that Sanders won, it is an enormous outlier. The findings of the media focus groups deserve to be taken more seriously than the online polls, but here, too, representativeness is an issue. For the first G.O.P. debate, Frank Luntz, who runs focus groups for Fox News, organized a panel of Republican voters, which said that Donald Trump had performed poorly. Subsequently, Trump’s lead in the polls increased (and he excoriated Luntz on Twitter). Still, the fact that all three of the focus groups mentioned in Johnson’s article identified Sanders as the winner shouldn’t be dismissed; nor should the participants’ responses. When Luntz asked some members of his group, which consisted of Democratic voters from Florida, for a one- or two-word description of Sanders’s performance, these were some of the responses he received: “for the people,” “strong,” “straightforward,” “confident,” “direct,” “sincere,” “powerful,” “educator,” and “smart.” As I noted in my post-debate post, Sanders certainly “got his message through.” As Morris pointed out, it’s a message that resonates with many Democratic voters and is forcing other candidates, Clinton very much included, to adapt to it. It may also be true that Sanders benefited from the fact that many viewers were seeing him for the first time on the national stage, and that the media underestimated this factor. “Beforehand, a third of Democrats said they didn’t yet know enough about Sanders to have an opinion on him,” Andrew Prokop pointed out in a post at Vox. “Even many of those who did know about him likely hadn’t been exposed to him all that much. So when Sanders makes the case at length for why he’s a democratic socialist, many of these voters might not have heard that before—and might like it.”

But just because Sanders did well doesn’t mean he did best of all. In judging the winner of any debate, it’s probably wise to consider at least three questions. Who did the best onstage? Who came out on top in the polls? Who gave his or her campaign the biggest boost?

The second question I’ve already covered. The answer to the first one is subjective, though anybody who was on a high-school or college debate team knows that it’s not entirely so. Based on Clinton’s manner, her ability to react to what others were saying, and her deftness in evading awkward questions, I think she delivered the best performance, even though, as I wrote yesterday, I strongly disagreed with some of her answers, particularly those relating to Edward Snowden. Some of Clinton’s Republican critics agreed with my assessment of her manner. Trump said that she “did what she had to do.” Scott Walker, who dropped out of the race last month, said, “She came across as surprisingly very confident and I thought relatively pleasant.” So much for technique. The main reason that I think Clinton emerged as the winner relates to the third question: she gave her campaign a huge and much-needed boost. Of all the debate participants, she had the most to lose. After six months in which Clinton struggled to deal with the issue of her use of a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state, Democratic élites and donors were starting to question her abilities as a candidate. A poor performance on Tuesday could well have engendered outright panic. Clinton not only reassured the elected politicians, interest groups, and donors who have thrown in with her; she dealt a big blow to the “draft Biden” movement, which probably, in hindsight, needed its man to be onstage in Las Vegas...The Clinton campaign believes that it can ultimately deal with a buoyant Sanders, even one who raises more money after the debate or gains a few more points in the polls. A panicking Democratic establishment and a swift entry into the race by Joe Biden would have presented a much more alarming scenario—one that now appears to be receding as a possibility. The Vice-President may still decide to run, but it will be harder for him to portray himself as a savior for the Party.

So let’s give Clinton her due. She had a good night. She won.

******************************************************************

EVIDENTLY, SHE "WON" BY NOT LOSING. CAN WE SET THE BAR A LITTLE LOWER?

IF PEOPLE PARSE OUT HER ANSWERS, THEY WILL SEE THAT SHE'S NOT ALL THAT AND A BAG OF CHIPS...BUT A WAR-MONGERING, BANK-CODDLING SOCIAL CLIMBER.

October 16, 2015

Weekend Economists Could Have Danced All Night! October 16-18, 2015

My Fair Lady is our theme this Weekend. The film, an instant classic, was released November 9th, 1964, just 3 weeks and 3 days short of 50 years ago. (So, I'm ahead for once!) This film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe eponymous stage musical was based on the 1938 film adaptation of the original 1913 stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. (That's 102 years ago!)



The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director. The film was re-released in 1971 and earned North American rentals of $2 million. It was re-released again in 1994 after a thorough restoration. (There will be an anniversary showing at a theater near you! Look for it!) http://www.myfairlady50.com/

The original Broadway, London and film versions all starred Rex Harrison. Julie Andrews, who did the Broadway and London shows, was replaced by Audrey Hepburn in the film. Her singing was so atrocious, it had to be dubbed over by Marnie Nixon, who sang all songs except "Just You Wait", where Hepburn's voice was left undubbed during the harsh-toned chorus of the song and Nixon sang the melodic bridge section. Some of Hepburn's original vocal performances for the film were released in the 1990s, affording audiences an opportunity to judge whether the dubbing was necessary. (I heard those, and believe me, it was!) Less well known is the dubbing of Jeremy Brett's songs (as Freddy) by Bill Shirley.



Harrison declined to pre-record his musical numbers for the film, explaining that he had never talked his way through the songs the same way twice and thus could not convincingly lip-sync to a playback during filming (as musical stars had, according to Jack L. Warner, been doing for years. "We even dubbed Rin-Tin-Tin&quot . George Groves decided to use a wireless microphone, the first such use during filming of a motion picture. The sound department earned an Academy Award for its efforts.



My Fair Lady currently holds a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the general consensus states: "Fans of the play may miss Julie Andrews in the starring role—particularly when Marni Nixon's singing comes out of Audrey Hepburn's mouth—but the film's charm is undeniable." Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, and, in 2006, he put it on his "Great Movies" list, praising Hepburn's performance, and calling the film "the best and most unlikely of musicals."



There were rumors in 2011 of a remake of the film, starring Colin Firth and Carey Mulligan, but those plans have been reportedly shelved as of April, 2014. I cannot imagine what could be added to the original, now that it's been digitally remastered.



My Fair Lady the musical, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe opened on Broadway in 1956. The Broadway production was a momentous hit, setting a record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals. It has been called "the perfect musical".

And there's so much more! Plus some of the usual....economics, finance, etc., for those who have no interest in Shaw.

October 16, 2015

United States vs. Denmark, in 17 Charts By Matt Bruenig

GRAPH HEAVY AND SATISFYING

http://www.demos.org/blog/10/14/15/united-states-vs-denmark-17-charts




People claim we can't do this sort of thing here, but their arguments are fairly unpersuasive. There is good reason to think we won't do it here for political reasons and for reasons having to do with the fact that whites in the US generally don't want to improve the well-being of Blacks and Latinos, and this turns them off from high taxes and welfare. But if you put that political question aside, the policy side of things is not that complicated. IT'S THE RACISM, HILLARY!

The US is bigger than Denmark by a lot, but with its larger size also comes a larger national income. On a per-capita basis, the US actually has quite a bit more national income than Denmark (in 2005 $PPP). So we don't lack for the income necessary to fund a Denmark-like system.

The US has shown itself to have a good ability to administer tax systems. Unlike some large states where the central government has a difficult time exerting itself in the hinterlands, it appears the US government has been quite able to collect taxes from all over the country. It also has a lot of room available in its tax level (as indicated by the taxes section above).

Finally, the US has shown itself to have a good ability to administer welfare systems. As Michael Calderwood notes, the US Social Security Administration alone sends out 59.5 million checks per month, a number which is greater than the entire Nordic population combined (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden). If anything, the larger size of the US should make it easier to implement Nordic-like systems because economies of scale should reduce the per-capita administrative costs of running the welfare programs.

Conclusion

So, in total, Denmark is a low-poverty, low-inequality, high-income, high-tax, high-welfare, high-innovation, high-employment country that has generous time off for vacations and newborns and has a relatively high amount of leisure time for workers. The US could easily move in the Danish direction, and it would be a big improvement for poor and working people if it did so, but given the toxic politics of the country, I wouldn't expect it any time soon.