Reclaiming Abortion Rights

Katha Pollitt

How can the reproductive rights movement start to win again?

“Start” is the operative word. We’re getting crushed out there. Since 2010, 283 abortion restrictions have been passed in the United States. Women’s access to contraception is under attack, not just from religious employers, now empowered by the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, but also in some state legislatures. Abstinence-only sex education continues to receive millions in government funding, even though studies show it doesn’t work. Women who have stillbirths or miscarriages are being arrested for their conduct during pregnancy. As one repro-rights activist wrote on a listserv recently, it’s not even a question of David versus Goliath anymore. It’s David versus the Empire State Building.

Dick Cheney’s book explains his ‘exceptional’ vision for America: War, torture and mass surveillance

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, The Washington Spectator

Exceptional, the new book from former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz, is not. It is nothing more than an unhinged rant that smacks of sedition.

“The children need to know the truth about who we are, what we’ve done, and why it is uniquely America’s duty to be freedom’s defender,” the prologue proclaims. The book, however, is not about who we are but who Cheney wants us to become. It is a call for Americans to reject constitutional government and those values that have guided our nation for 227 years and replace it with imperial rule in the name of “freedom”––even when that rule includes wars of choice, intrusive violations of our privacy and civil liberties, and of course, an aggressive regime of torture.

'New Era of American Prosperity': Sanders Calls for Free Higher Ed for All

Presidential candidate outlines his plan to make public colleges and universities tuition-free on campaign trail and in a new op-ed

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

"It is time to build on the progressive movement of the past and make public colleges and universities tuition-free in the United States," presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wrote in an op-ed on Thursday, saying such a move would "be the driver of a new era of American prosperity."

"In my view, education is essential for personal and national well-being," Sanders declared, elaborating on a key aspect of his populist platform. "We live in a highly competitive, global economy, and if our economy is to be strong, we need the best-educated workforce in the world. We won’t achieve that if, every year, hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college while millions more leave school deeply in debt."

Campbell Brown’s Dark Money And The War On Teachers’ Unions

Jeff Bryant

Before Democratic Party presidential candidates readied for their first debate on CNN, they turned down an opportunity to meet at another forum.

That meeting was to be hosted by ex-CNN anchorwoman Campbell Brown who now operates a media outlet, The Seventy Four, that promotes charter schools and other public education policies favored by wealthy foundations and individuals. Brown’s financial backers include the philanthropic organization of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the foundation of the family that owns Wal-Mart.

MH-17 Case: ‘Old’ Journalism vs. ‘New’

Exclusive: For skilled intelligence operatives, the Internet can be a devil’s playground, a place to circulate doctored photos, audio and documents, making investigations based on “social media” and such sources particularly risky, a point worth recalling in the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, says Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The first thing any thinking person learns about the Internet is not to trust everything you see there. While you can find much well-researched and reliable material, you’ll also encounter disinformation, spoofs, doctored photographs and crazy conspiracy theories. That would seem to be a basic rule of the Web – caveat emptor and be careful what you do with the information – unless you’re following a preferred neocon narrative. Then, nothing to worry about.

text

Bernie Sanders's Highly Sensible Plan to Turn Post Offices Into Banks

They're much less crazy than payday-lending services, and the rest of the world agrees.

Joe Pinsker

In an interview with Fusion’s Felix Salmon the day after last week’s Democratic debate and published Tuesday, Senator Bernie Sanders discussed the marquee features of democratic socialism he’s been tirelessly calling for during his presidential campaign: higher taxes for the wealthiest Americans, an increased minimum wage, and breaking up the biggest Wall Street banks.

Salmon also raised a possibility that has not been as prominent in Sanders’s stump speeches, but animates him nonetheless: turning the U.S.’s post offices into banks.

Homan Square revealed: how Chicago police 'disappeared' 7,000 people

Exclusive: Guardian lawsuit exposes fullest scale yet of detentions at off-the-books interrogation warehouse, while attorneys describe find-your-client chase across Chicago as ‘something from a Bond movie’

Spencer Ackerman

Police “disappeared” more than 7,000 people at an off-the-books interrogation warehouse in Chicago, nearly twice as many detentions as previously disclosed, the Guardian can now reveal.

From August 2004 to June 2015, nearly 6,000 of those held at the facility were black, which represents more than twice the proportion of the city’s population. But only 68 of those held were allowed access to attorneys or a public notice of their whereabouts, internal police records show.

Sunscreen is proven toxic to coral reefs

Tel Aviv University researchers discover chemical found in most sunscreen lotions poses an existential threat to young corals

American Friends of Tel Aviv University

The daily use of sunscreen bearing an SPF of 15 or higher is widely acknowledged as essential to skin cancer prevention, not to mention skin damage associated with aging. Though this sunscreen may be very good for us, it may be very bad for the environment, a new Tel Aviv University study finds.

New research published in Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology finds that a common chemical in sunscreen lotions and other cosmetic products poses an existential threat -- even in miniscule concentrations -- to the planet's corals and coral reefs. "The chemical, oxybenzone (benzophenone-3), is found in more than 3,500 sunscreen products worldwide. It pollutes coral reefs via swimmers who wear sunscreen or wastewater discharges from municipal sewage outfalls and coastal septic systems," said Dr. Omri Bronstein of TAU's Department of Zoology, one of the principal researchers.

Plutocrats in NYC Are Buying the Airwaves, and Trashing Public Schools Again

What does this mean for education?

By Jan Resseger / janresseger

Public schools are among the primary institutions that serve the families in the 99 Percent. As primarily middle class institutions, they are coming under attack from the One Percent, the plutocrats—both Republican and Democrats—who control the levers of power.

In a piece earlier this week the NY Times profiled 158 families across the country who have provided nearly half of all the early money that has been underwriting the campaigns of the candidates currently vying for the 2016 Presidential nominations. The reporters quote the political analyst and demographic expert Ruy Teixeira: “The campaign finance system is now a countervailing force to the way the actual voters of the country are evolving and the policies they want.”

Paul Krugman: Something Not Rotten in Denmark

No doubt surprising many of the people watching the Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders cited Denmark as a role model for how to help working people. Hillary Clinton demurred slightly, declaring that “we are not Denmark,” but agreed that Denmark is an inspiring example.

Such an exchange would have been inconceivable among Republicans, who don’t seem able to talk about European welfare states without adding the word “collapsing.” Basically, on Planet G.O.P. all of Europe is just a bigger version of Greece. But how great are the Danes, really?

They died for Henry Kissinger’s “credibility”: The real history of our Vietnam immorality

There was no good answer when John Kerry asked how you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake. Here's why

David Milne

Détente with the Soviet Union and the opening to China were significant breakthroughs in their own right. Indeed, a positive appraisal of the Nixon administration’s foreign policies is predicated on our viewing them this way. But Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger did not view them in isolation at the time. Instead, both men believed that Moscow and Beijing, keen to extract economic and strategic benefits from an improved relationship with Washington, would apply pressure on Hanoi to agree to peace terms permitting a full American withdrawal. On this topic their reasoning was misguided. It did not accord sufficient respect to North Vietnam’s fiercely guarded status as an independent actor, or indeed to the ideological solidarity that existed on at least a bilateral basis between Hanoi and its two Marxist-Leninist patrons.

So when the United States withdrew from Vietnam in January 1973, when “peace” was finally achieved, it came at a horrendous cost. Cambodia was dragged directly into the fray, leading ultimately to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and a genocide that killed approximately 1.7 million people— 20.1 percent of Cambodia’s population. Hundreds of thousands of North and South Vietnamese soldiers and noncombatants lost their lives. Of the fifty-seven thousand American soldiers who died on or above Vietnamese soil, twenty thousand perished during Nixon’s presidency. During the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon had stated his intention to achieve “peace with honor.” In 1971, a returning veteran named John Kerry testified powerfully before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He indicted the war as “the biggest nothing in history” and posed a powerful question: “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Fox News Gets Suckered: 11 Outrageous Lies by Their 'Terror Analyst' Who Was Actually a Con Man

For 13 years, Fox News presented Wayne Simmons as a CIA officer. He's now indicted as a fraud. Let's recap his lies.

By Ben Norton / Salon

Surprise: One of Fox News’ most popular so-called “terror analysts” was actually a con man.

Con artist Wayne Simmons created an elaborate life story. It is fake. He identified as a CIA outside paramilitary special operations officer. He wasn’t. He wrote a book claiming he worked in the CIA for 27 years. He didn’t.

George W. Bush's Military Lies: The Real Story About the Undeniable Service Gaps He Got Away With

The CBS report at the heart of a new film might have been false. But the underlying question about his service remains.

By Paul Rosenberg / Salon

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein weren’t just journalistic heroes in the normal sense. Their work on Watergate redefined the journalistic world they inhabited, making them more like heroes in the classic mythical sense. Everyone wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein.

That stature was underscored by the stars who brought them to the screen — Robert Redford as Woodward, Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. Four decades later, Redford has returned, in a sense to close out that era (a la his earlier role in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid“). Redford plays Dan Rather in a new film, “Truth,” about the Sept. 8, 2004 “60 Minutes II” report on George W. Bush’s dodgy record in the Texas Air National Guard, which effectively ended Rather’s career at CBS, after he and producer Mary Mapes were unable to prove the authenticity of six memos which played a central role in their report.

Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire

Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world's largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don't want you to know is how they made all that money

By Tim Dickinson | September 24, 2014

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers' fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America's second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The company's stock response to inquiries from reporters: "We are privately held and don't disclose this information."

Paul Krugman: Democrats, Republicans and Wall Street Tycoons

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had an argument about financial regulation during Tuesday’s debate — but it wasn’t about whether to crack down on banks. Instead, it was about whose plan was tougher. The contrast with Republicans like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, who have pledged to reverse even the moderate financial reforms enacted in 2010, couldn’t be stronger.

For what it’s worth, Mrs. Clinton had the better case. Mr. Sanders has been focused on restoring Glass-Steagall, the rule that separated deposit-taking banks from riskier wheeling and dealing. And repealing Glass-Steagall was indeed a mistake. But it’s not what caused the financial crisis, which arose instead from “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers, which don’t take deposits but can nonetheless wreak havoc when they fail. Mrs. Clinton has laid out a plan to rein in shadow banks; so far, Mr. Sanders hasn’t.

The Malloy Administration’s stunning attack on unions, professors and the future of Connecticut State University

Jonathan Pelto

In a stark reminder that action speaks louder than words, Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy’s administration has dropped a stunningly anti-union, anti-faculty, anti-Connecticut State University proposal on the table as it begins its contract negotiations with the CSU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the union that represents faculty and a variety of education professionals at the four universities of CSU.

This development comes on top of the news that Malloy’s political appointees on the University of Connecticut’s Board of Trustees have authorized a contract with an extremely controversial, high profile, anti-union, Governor Chris Christie affiliated New Jersey law firm to lead the negotiations against the UConn Chapter of the AAUP. That contract could cost taxpayers and students as much as $500,000 or more.

The Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared

By Jeremy Malcolm, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Last week's release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions wouldn't survive to the end of the negotiations.

Since we now have the agreed text, we'll be including some paragraph references that you can cross-reference for yourself - but be aware that some of them contain placeholders like "x" that may change in the cleaned-up text. Also, our analysis here is limited to the copyright and Internet-related provisions of the chapter, but analyses of the impacts of other parts of the chapter have been published by Wikileaks and others.

Paul Krugman: The Crazies and the Con Man

How will the chaos that the crazies, I mean the Freedom Caucus, have wrought in the House get resolved? I have no idea. But as this column went to press, practically the whole Republican establishment was pleading with Paul Ryan, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to become speaker. He is, everyone says, the only man who can save the day.

What makes Mr. Ryan so special? The answer, basically, is that he’s the best con man they’ve got. His success in hoodwinking the news media and self-proclaimed centrists in general is the basis of his stature within his party. Unfortunately, at least from his point of view, it would be hard to sustain the con game from the speaker’s chair.

Monetarily, We Are Already In The Next System…

…We Just Don’t Act Like It.

Jesse A. Myerson

1. The Old System

Fifty miles southwest of Dallas, in the small agricultural community of Cleburne, a group of Texas farmers assembled in August of 1886 to demand the Next System.

The current “crop lien” system was intolerable: a farmer could only get a harvest-time cotton gin or any other necessary equipment from one person: the local merchant. A white farmer would call him “the furnishing man,” a black farmer simply “the Man.” Not having lots of cash handy, the farmer would take out a mortgage (“lien”) on his forthcoming crop. Since the merchant had a monopoly on credit in the area, he could make loans at whatever interest rate suited him—perhaps 25 percent. Many was the farmer who left a merchant’s counter praying to high heaven his crop would command a good enough price at market to service his debt to the Man.

Year in and year out, heaven declined to heed farmers’ prayers: the price the harvest commanded dropped and dropped and dropped. This deflation (general drop in prices) was a result of the gold standard to which the value of money was pegged: while the size of the population rapidly expanded, the size of the money supply remained steady. This grew the farmer’s debt in more than one way: not only did the lousy income force him to borrow more at higher interest the next year, but deflation also magnified the real cost of the previous year’s loan, which now had to be paid back in dollars that were harder to come by. Every dollar the merchant got back was worth more than when he’d lent it. Year after exhausting year, farmers would go deeper and deeper into debt, until, at last, the banks foreclosed on their land. If they could afford the rent, farmers became tenants. If not, they would join millions of others as farm hands.

The Return of the Middle American Radical

An intellectual history of Trump supporters.

John B. Judis

In 1976, Don­ald War­ren—a so­ci­olo­gist from Oak­land Uni­versity in Michigan who would die two dec­ades later without ever at­tain­ing the rank of full pro­fess­or—pub­lished a book called The Rad­ic­al Cen­ter: Middle Amer­ic­ans and the Polit­ics of Ali­en­a­tion. Few people have read or heard of it—I learned of it about 30 years ago from the late, very ec­cent­ric pa­leo­con­ser­vat­ive Samuel Fran­cis—but it is, in my opin­ion, one of the three or four books that best ex­plain Amer­ic­an polit­ics over the past half-cen­tury.

While con­duct­ing ex­tens­ive sur­veys of white voters in 1971 and again in 1975, War­ren iden­ti­fied a group who de­fied the usu­al par­tis­an and ideo­lo­gic­al di­vi­sions. These voters were not col­lege edu­cated; their in­come fell some­where in the middle or lower-middle range; and they primar­ily held skilled and semi-skilled blue-col­lar jobs or sales and cler­ic­al white-col­lar jobs. At the time, they made up about a quarter of the elect­or­ate. What dis­tin­guished them was their ideo­logy: It was neither con­ven­tion­ally lib­er­al nor con­ven­tion­ally con­ser­vat­ive, but in­stead re­volved around an in­tense con­vic­tion that the middle class was un­der siege from above and be­low.

George Monbiot: Wiping the World Clean

The Ecomodernists launching their manifesto today propose solutions that are both ignorant and brutal.

Beware of simple solutions to complex problems. That is a crucial lesson from history; a lesson that intelligent people in every age keep failing to learn.

Later today (Thursday), a group of people who call themselves Ecomodernists launch their manifesto in the UK. The media loves them, not least because some of what they say chimes with dominant political and economic narratives. So you will doubtless be hearing a lot about them.

Their treatises are worth reading. In some important respects they are either right or at least wrong in an interesting way. In other respects … well, I will come to that in a moment.

Reifying the economy

by Tom Sullivan

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 to serve, not rule:

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Berlin on Saturday in protest against a planned free trade deal between Europe and the United States that they say is anti-democratic and will lower food safety, labor and environmental standards.

WikiLeaks Reveals How the US Aggressively Pursued Regime Change in Syria, Igniting a Bloodbath

By Robert Naiman, Verso Books | Book Excerpt

The following is Chapter 10 of The WikiLeaks Files:

On August 31, 2013, US president Barack Obama announced that he intended to launch a military attack on Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack in that country that the US blamed on the Syrian government. Obama assured the US public that this would be a limited action solely intended to punish the Assad government for using chemical weapons; the goal of US military action would not be to overthrow the Assad government, nor to change the balance of forces in Syria's sectarian civil war.

History shows that public understanding of US foreign policy depends crucially on assessing the motivations of US officials. It is likely inevitable as a result that US officials will present themselves to the public as having more noble motivations than they share with each other in private, and therefore that if members of the public had access to the motivations shared in private, they might make different assessments of US policy. This is a key reason why WikiLeaks' publishing of US diplomatic cables was so important.

Manipulating Reality: Facebook Is Listening to You

by Mel Gurtov

One thing we have become all too used to is that our reality can be manipulated to create the appearance of something else entirely. Invading another country is defensive, rigged elections are passed off as democracy in action, more guns (or more nuclear weapons) ensure the peace, trade and foreign investment increase jobs at home. Orwellian logic has become commonplace.

What I am reporting on here is another kind of manipulation: How Facebook and other social media use the information we for the most part unknowingly provide it—including even words we speak in the privacy of our own homes—to advertise products that we didn’t request and almost certainly don’t want, and pass data on to the government.

The Ugly Charter School Scandal Arne Duncan Is Leaving Behind

Jeff Bryant

Arne Duncan’s surprise announcement to leave his post as secretary of education in December is making headlines and driving lots of commentary, but an important story lost in the media clutter happened three days before he gave notice.

On that day, Duncan rattled the education policy world with news of a controversial grant of $249 million ($157 million the first year) to the charter school industry. This announcement was controversial because, as The Washington Post reports, an audit by his department’s own inspector general found “that the agency has done a poor job of overseeing federal dollars sent to charter schools.”

Hillary’s Free Trade Fake-Out

Democrats always hate on free trade—before they enact it.

By Bill Scher

While Hillary Clinton is probably lying about her newfound opposition to President Barack Obama’s trade deal, that doesn’t tell us much about her character. She is simply doing what every Democratic presidential nominee has done on trade for the past three decades: campaign one way, govern another.

Immediately after Clinton turned against the Trans-Pacific Partnership multinational trade agreement Wednesday, opponents and pundits pinned the flip-flop badge to her pantsuit lapel. A June review of her past 45 pro-TPP statements by CNN.com was quickly re-circulated on social media. But the most cutting reaction was the more-in-sadness-than-in-anger conclusion from Vox’s Ezra Klein that Clinton is being dishonest. “It’s hard to believe that Clinton really opposes the TPP deal,” he sighed. “As someone trying to understand Clinton’s likely governing philosophy, it’s unnerving.”

How Digital India Is WhatsApping Mob Violence and Lynching

Whatsapp is just technology. It’s neither good nor bad. It just depends on how we use it.

By Sadip Roy / New America Media

We are not a country of beggars and elephants and snakecharmers.

This is a new India of Whatsapp and smartphones and MyGov.in. That’s the Digital India Narendra Modi sold, to a starstruck Silicon Valley just the other day.

Mr Modi told an inspiring story about an India where farmers in Maharashtra are on a Whatsapp group to share agricultural tips and techniques.

Days later barbaric violence erupted in Dadri village, not too far from Delhi. A mob, apparently fired up by announcements of cow slaughter made at the local temple, barged into the house of the Muslim ironsmith, convinced that he had beef in his refrigerator. Soon the iron smith was dead, his son in hospital and #DadriLynching was the latest hashtag of shame on Twitter.

The Deadly Fraud of "American Exceptionalism"

By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

Doubtless you have heard more than once the term "American Exceptionalism." It implies, in short, that we are somehow special, different, superior. We are the "city upon a hill" whose freedoms and accomplishments set us apart. Alexis de Tocqueville coined the phrase midway through the 19th century, and it has enjoyed constant deployment by politicians and pundits ever since, because it lights a warm bulb of self-satisfaction in many bellies ... and people feeling good about themselves are easier to convince. Salesmen thrived on this axiom before Babylon's bricks were laid.

For the sake of comparison, here's something exceptional: Médecins Sans Frontières. Founded in France, the organization is most commonly known in the US as Doctors Without Borders. Made up of more than 30,000 medical professionals, administrators and logistical experts, this organization provides vital health care in places mired in war and strife: Sudan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Afghanistan ... sadly, the list has included some 70 countries over the intervening years, and does not stop. Military personnel have a saying: "Run to the sound of the guns." Doctors Without Borders volunteers do exactly the same thing.

The Next Two Decades Will Make or Break Humanity — Why Are We Waiting to Fight Climate Change?

We must make fundamental choices now that will shape our future economy and climate.

By Nicholas Stern / The MIT Press

We stand at a crossroads where, consciously or otherwise, we must make fundamental choices that will shape our future economy and climate. Over the next two decades we will see a remarkable coincidence of two vital transformations in world history. First, it is in this period that we will largely determine whether or not we have a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous climate change, usually defined as holding the increase in average global surface temperature to less than 2 ° C above nineteenth-century levels. The link between emissions of greenhouse gases and climate change should be well known. Our activities cause the emission of these gases (among which carbon dioxide is particularly important) which are not fully absorbed by the earth and which thus accumulate in the atmosphere, thereby raising concentrations of the gases. These concentrations prevent energy from escaping, resulting in global warming and climate change. We have a period-by-period “ ratchet effect ”of flows of emissions into concentrations in the atmosphere because carbon dioxide, in particular, is very long-lasting in the atmosphere.

The Meat Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Obama's Massive Trade Deal

—By Tom Philpott

The US meat industry scored a big victory this week when world leaders hammered out an agreement that would reduce trade barriers across the Pacific: from the United Sates, Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Chile on this side to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Singapore on the other.

President Barack Obama has made passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or the TPP, the signature goal of his second term. Now it goes to Capitol Hill for approval—which it will likely get, given that back in June, Congress granted the president "fast track" authority to negotiate trade deals, meaning that it will be considered in up-down, simple-majority votes in both chambers, with no chance of amendment or filibuster.

The Right Wing's Assault on the Post Office — Smashing the Myth That It's in Financial Trouble

Congress could easily eliminate the worst fiscal problem plaguing the Postal Service.

By Zaid Jilani / AlterNet

The Washington Post recently published an article asking if the post office should “be sold to save it.” It begins with an explanation of what the author sees as an unsustainable postal service:

The U.S. Postal Service, which has been losing customers for almost a decade, is still struggling to right itself. Everyone understands its basic problem. The electronic age has pushed first-class mail into an unstoppable decline. To stay afloat, the post office needs to get its costs under control, by closing post offices, eliminating Saturday delivery, downsizing its workforce. To boost revenue, it could offer banking services and sell lots of stuff besides stamps.

It goes on to advocate for privatizing the agency by selling off parts of it to bidders who could then operate it independently.

Paul Krugman: Enemies of the Sun

Does anyone remember the Cheney energy task force? Early in the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney released a report that was widely derided as a document written by and for Big Energy — because it was. The administration fought tooth and nail to keep the process by which the report was produced secret, but the list of people the task force met was eventually leaked, and it was exactly what you’d expect: a who’s who of energy industry executives, with environmental groups getting a chance to make their case only after the work was essentially done.

But here’s the thing: by the standards of today’s Republican Party, the Cheney report was enlightened, even left-leaning. One whole chapter was devoted to conservation, another to renewable energy. By contrast, recent speeches by Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio — still the most likely Republican presidential nominees — barely address either topic. When it comes to energy policy, the G.O.P. has become fossilized. That is, it’s fossil fuels, and only fossil fuels, all the way.

Wonks for Hire

Elizabeth Warren challenged a think tank over iffy, industry-backed research. There’s a lot more where that came from.

By Helaine Olen

This week, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took her battle against the seemingly limitless power of the financial services industry to that shadowy place where business interests, politics, and academics mingle.

Washington is still in recovery mode.

The target of Warren’s ire was policy wonk and economist Robert Litan, a former Clinton administration official and—until earlier this week—something called a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Researchers discover evidence that lead exposure in mothers can affect future generation

Wayne State University

A team of researchers at Wayne State University have discovered that mothers with high levels of lead in their blood not only affect the fetal cells of their unborn children, but also their grandchildren. Their study, Multigenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans: DNA methylation changes associated with maternal exposure to lead can be transmitted to the grandchildren, was published online this week in Scientific Reports.

It's a known fact that babies in the womb can be affected by low levels of lead exposure. If a pregnant woman is exposed to lead, the lead passes through the placenta into the baby's developing bones and other organs. Pregnant women with a past exposure to lead can also affect the unborn child's brain, causing developmental problems later in life. Previous research studies have suggested that exposure to heavy metal toxicants can influence a person's global DNA methylation profile.

Caution, Trolling Ahead: Fossil Fuel Advocates Are Hoping You Fail Their Latest Challenge

by Ryan Koronowski

The oil and gas advocacy group Western Energy Alliance (WEA) is waging a social media campaign that challenges people to not use fossil fuels for five days. To the group, the point of the Fossil Fuel Free Challenge is to show how impossible it would be to live without fossil fuels right now.

“Eliminate fossil fuels! We hear it all the time,” says the campaign’s website. “Sounds easy, right? Then pledge to live fossil fuel free for a week and see what it’s really like.” The site shows a yes button that agrees to the challenge and a no button that says “no, life’s pretty good with fossil fuels.” Clicking on the yes button brings up a new page.

Warning: Another Attack On Our Postal Service

Dave Johnson

Should we run our country for the benefit of We the People, or so that a few people can profit off of We the People? This is a question that is rising to the surface in a battle between those who want the United States Postal Service (USPS) maintained and expanded, and those who want it privatized.

There are some conservative ideologues who just can’t stand that the USPS demonstrates government doing its job of helping make our lives better. As with Social Security, they attack it relentlessly and endlessly.

Why Debates Over the Fed's Interest Rate Miss the Point

By Richard D. Wolff, Truthout | News Analysis

Sometimes public debates focus on important social issues; at other times, debates distract from them. Disputes over whether the Federal Reserve System should raise interest rates illustrate that second sort. Yes, "serious people" take strong positions for or against interest rate hikes. They sharply question one another's motives to spice up what passes for mainstream media economic news. But it is not the debate we could and should have, not even close.

Both sides of that debate celebrate capitalism. They differ only on how best to have government serve the reproduction of capitalism: by leaving it alone, by intervening intensely or somewhere in between. These days they hassle over raising, lowering or leaving interest rates unchanged. The possibility that capitalism - rather than the Fed or interest rates - might be the problem troubles none of these folks. It does not occur to them. Nor is that surprising given the monotonous mantra of academic economics departments and the journalists and politicians trained by them. The orthodox economics professoriate treats capitalism as so wonderful and "optimal" (among their favorite words) that questioning it brings only the momentary scowl of a teacher/priest dismayed by a student's/acolyte's failure to grasp essential, universal, absolute truth.

New Book: Financial Markets “Contribute Little, If Anything, to the Betterment of Lives and the Efficiency of Business”

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

If you want to engage in a serious effort to reform Wall Street, buy two copies of economist and financial writer John Kay’s book coming out in the U.S. on Tuesday. Keep one copy of the book for yourself (share it with family and friends) and send the other copy to a member of the Senate Banking committee. That committee is highly likely to be looking at reforming Wall Street again in the near future, given the convulsions in equity, credit and commodity markets of late and an endless stream of ongoing charges of corruption against the mega banks.

Paul Krugman: Voodoo Never Dies

So Donald Trump has unveiled his tax plan. It would, it turns out, lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit.

This is in contrast to Jeb Bush’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit, and Marco Rubio’s plan, which would lavish huge cuts on the wealthy while blowing up the deficit.