Feel the Hate

by Paul Street

Many Bernie Sanders activists and supporters are understandably disgusted by the contemptuous mistreatment they and their candidate have received from the corporate-Clintonite Democratic Party and its numerous media allies. The examples of this disrespect and abuse include:

The discourteous rapid-fire inquisition that the New York Daily News editorial board conducted with Sanders and then released as an interview transcript prior to the New York Democratic presidential primary last April.

Hillary Clinton telling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough that the Daily News grilling “raise[d] a lot of questions” about Sanders’ qualification for the presidency.

Bill Clinton in New Hampshire calling Sanders and his team “hermetically sealed” purists, hypocrites, and thieves and mocking Sanders as “the champion of all things small and the enemy of all things big.”

Secret-money groups, some with Southern ties, may have broken election laws

By Alex Kotch

Nonprofits that spend on elections but are not required to disclose their donors have grown dramatically in number since 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee decision loosening restrictions on money in politics. That year, secret-money groups spent roughly $7.2 million on federal elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. So far in the current election cycle, they have spent more than five times as much — $36.9 million, already surpassing the 2014 total.

But as nonprofit political activity has increased, many of these so-called "social welfare" nonprofits appear to have broken campaign finance laws — and watchdog groups are demanding the government take action.

What's Really Happening to the Humanities Under Neoliberalism?

By Dan Falcone, Truthout | Op-Ed

The number of college students majoring in English, according to some contested reports, has plummeted. In general, the humanities are taking a back seat to more "pragmatic" majors in college. Students, apparently, are thinking more about jobs than about general learning. Given this trend, should schools be scaling back on the humanities?

I understand these sentiments and concerns completely. I've worked at schools where math and science were esteemed, and for good reason. When parents attend school assemblies, the college counselors and deans present course selection mappings. The flow charts for math and science look very impressive, intricate and complex, with many boxes, lines, twists, turns and explanations that require qualifications. Meanwhile, history and English get a few boxes and they appear straightforward. What is this illustrative of? The fact that more time and energy are dedicated to upholding math and science as gospel? It's possible.

Caving to Post-Orlando Fear, House Betrays Civil Liberties

Massie-Lofgren amendment fails 198-222 in turnaround for House

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

Late Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives blocked an amendment that would have prohibited warrantless surveillance of Americans' electronic communications and banned the government from forcing technology companies to install backdoors to encrypted devices.

The amendment to the House's annual military spending bill, introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), failed by a vote of 198-222. The roll call is here.

The Conservative Backlash Against Minimum Wage and Paid Sick Leave Victories Sweeping The Nation

by Bryce Covert & Evan Popp

Antoin Adams likes working, and working hard. In his job at a KFC in Birmingham, Alabama, he’s responsible for cooking food, cleaning the restaurant, and keeping track of the inventory. But all that hard work has yet to even nudge his boss to discuss a raise from his current pay: $7.25 an hour, or the very least a worker in America can be paid.

“I don’t have a problem with working, I love working,” he said. “But I want to feel like I’m working for something… I know how hard I work and I work too hard for $7.25.”

Making minimum wage is rough on him. He has rent, utilities, and car payments to worry about. Adams says he doesn’t get food stamps, so he has to buy all of his groceries on that wage too. “On $7.25, you can’t really pay your rent or anything or utilities,” he said. “It’s hard.”

Richard Eskow: Would You Trust Henry Kissinger with Your Social Security?

Years ago a political scientist said that the mass media can’t influence what people think, but it can influence what people think about. Today it does both. If you’re a billionaire who wants to manipulate public opinion, that means you’ll keep feeding it stories that serve your ideology and self-interest.

Hedge fund billionaire Peter G. “Pete” Peterson is a master of the art. At a time when 47 million Americans (including one child in five) live in poverty, when our national infrastructure is collapsing and the middle class dream is dying before our eyes, he’s managed to convince a few voters, a lot of politicians, and far too many major-media journalists that our most urgent problem is … federal deficit spending.

"Nothing for Other People": Class War in the United States

By Noam Chomsky, Metropolitan Books | Book Excerpt

The following is an excerpt from Noam Chomsky's new book, Who Rules the World?

Norman Ware's classic study of the industrial worker appeared ninety years ago, the first of its kind. It has lost none of its significance. The lessons Ware draws from his close investigation of the impact of the emerging industrial revolution on the lives of working people, and on society in general, are just as pertinent today as when he wrote, if not more so, in the light of the striking parallels between the 1920s and today.

It is important to remember the condition of working people when Ware wrote. The powerful and influential American labor movement that arose during the nineteenth century was being subjected to brutal attack, culminating in Woodrow Wilson's Red Scare after World War I. By the 1920s, the movement had largely been decimated; a classic study by the eminent labor historian David Montgomery is entitled The Fall of the House of Labor. The fall occurred in the 1920s. By the end of the decade, he writes, "corporate mastery of American life seemed secure.... Rationalization of business could then proceed with indispensable government support," with government largely in the hands of the corporate sector. It was far from a peaceful process; American labor history is unusually violent. One scholarly study concludes that "the United States had more deaths at the end of the nineteenth century due to labor violence -- in absolute terms and in proportion to population size -- than any other country except Czarist Russia." The term "labor violence" is a polite way of referring to violence by state and private security forces targeting working people. That continued into the late 1930s; I can remember such scenes from my childhood.

Gingrich: Let's Create New Version Of House Un-American Activities Committee

By Allegra Kirkland

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich proposed the creation of a new version of the controversial House Un-American Activities Committee to root out American citizens who plan to commit terrorist attacks in the U.S.

“We originally created the House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Nazis. We passed several laws in 1938 and 1939 to go after Nazis and we made it illegal to help the Nazis. We're going to presently have to go take the similar steps here,” Gingrich said in a Monday appearance on “Fox and Friends.”

How Plutocrats Cripple the IRS

You pay more because elites use their influence to pay less.

By Martin Lobel

For every dollar appropriated to the Internal Revenue Service, the public collects more than $4 in taxes. Nonetheless, Congress has cut the IRS appropriations by $1.2 billion since 2010 while expanding the service’s administrative burdens by giving it responsibility for enforcing laws extraneous to tax collection, such as the Affordable Care Act. The IRS is also responsible for administering innumerable socioeconomic incentives in the tax code, including tax preferences for health care, retirement, social welfare, education, energy, housing, and economic stimulation, none of which are related to the IRS’s primary function of raising revenue—all with reduced funding.

Plutocrats, the richest 0.1 percent of Americans, get the most benefit from a weakened IRS. Because they have the money, the lawyers, the lobbyists, the accountants, and the secret campaign funds, they are able to ensure that the IRS won’t have the resources to effectively collect the money they owe to it. Plutocrats do this by devising tax shelters too complex for the IRS to challenge at an acceptable cost, and by having allies in Congress who intimidate the IRS from issuing tough regulations and who cut IRS funding to prevent adequate enforcement. (The top 0.1 percent consists of 115,000 individuals and families with an average income of $9.44 million. 40.8 percent of the top 0.1 percent are executives, managers, or supervisors of non-finance firms, and 18.4 percent are in the financial professions.)

Hundreds of Cancer-Causing Chemicals Pollute Americans’ Bodies

From EWG, First Complete Inventory of Carcinogens in the U.S. Population

Environmental Working Group (EWG)

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals are building up in the bodies of Americans, according to the first comprehensive inventory of the carcinogens that have been measured in people. EWG released the inventory today.

EWG spent almost a year reviewing more than 1,000 biomonitoring studies and other research by leading government agencies and independent scientists in the U.S. and around the world. The nonprofit research group found that up to 420 chemicals known or likely to cause cancer have been detected in blood, urine, hair and other human samples.

Cable and telecom companies just lost a huge court battle on net neutrality

By Brian Fung

A federal appeals court has voted to uphold a series of strict new rules for Internet providers, handing a major victory to regulators in the fight over net neutrality and ensuring that one of the most sweeping changes to hit the industry in recent years will likely remain on the books.

The 2-1 court ruling Tuesday forces Internet providers such as Verizon and Comcast to obey federal regulations that ban the blocking or slowing of Internet traffic to consumers. The regulations from the Federal Communications Commission also forbid carriers from selectively speeding up websites that agree to pay the providers a fee — a tactic critics have said could unfairly tilt the commercial playing field against startups and innovators who may not be able to afford it.

After SCOTUS Gutted Voting Rights, An Explosion of Democratic Suppression

Millions of minority voters remain 'vulnerable to voter suppression schemes in towns, counties, and states across the country,' NAACP analysis shows

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

State and local threats to voting rights have exploded in the three years since the U.S. Supreme Court attacked a critical constitutional protection for minority voters, despite overwhelming evidence of discrimination, a new report by the NAACP reveals.

Democracy Diminished, released by the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), looks at disenfranchisement around the country since the Supreme Court effectively blocked Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act—which requires certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination against voters to submit proposed voting changes to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) or a federal court in Washington, D.C. for pre-clearance—in its 2013 ruling on Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder.

Did the Press Take Down Bernie Sanders?

The rebellious nature of the Vermont senator's presidential bid didn't fit the mainstream media's predetermined scenario.

By Neal Gabler

Earlier this week, even before Hillary Clinton’s primary victory in California assured her the Democratic presidential nomination, the Associated Press had already declared her the presumptive nominee. Bernie Sanders and his supporters were sore, and they had a right to be.

Although the AP defended its decision, saying that Clinton’s crossing the delegate threshold was news and they had an obligation to report it when they did (the day before the clinching primaries) the timing and the circumstances were suspicious. It appears that AP had been hounding superdelegates to reveal their preferences, and blasting that headline just before those primaries threatened either to depress Sanders’ vote or Hillary’s or both because the contest was now for all intents and purposes over.

Paul Krugman: A Party Agrift

This is not a column about Donald Trump.

It’s not about the fraudulent scheme that was Trump University. It’s not about his history of failing to pay contractors, leading to hundreds of legal actions. It’s not about how he personally profited while running his casinos into the ground. It’s not even concerned with persistent questions about whether he is nearly as rich as he claims to be, and whether he’s ever done more than live off capital gains on his inheritance.

No, my question, as Democrats gleefully tear into the Trump business record, is why rival Republicans never did the same. How did someone who looks so much like a cheap con man bulldoze right through the G.O.P. nomination process?

An End of Power? The Weakening of the Transnational Ruling Class

By Cynthia Kaufman, Truthout | Book Review

We are entering a period where the social structures and mechanisms that have channeled and controlled power for the past few hundred years are shifting radically. In The End of Power, Venezuelan politician and former director of the World Bank, Moisés Naím, describes some serious ways in which the systems we have lived under for the past 50 years are becoming deeply unstable. In Europe and in the US, the political parties that have ruled nations since the end of World War II are crumbling before our eyes; dominant military forces are increasingly challenged by and unable to control small non-state actors; and small new companies are emerging with incredibly rapidity while older ones, once seen as the bedrocks of capitalism, sometimes crumble overnight.

The End of Power

Naím argues that three deep social transformations have undermined old barriers to new forces gaining power. He calls these transformations more, mobility and mentality. The fact that there are many more of us than there used to be has led to systems of control being overwhelmed. There are more people in the world, who are generally living longer and doing better than in past times. This is leading people all around the world to have rising expectations. "When people are more numerous and living fuller lives, they become more difficult to regimen and control," he writes.

Ralph Nader: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over for Bernie Sanders

The Democratic candidate has many good reasons not to descend to the bended-knee posture of a toady

Ralph Nader

Quo Vadis, Senator Bernie Sanders? For months Sanders has scored higher in the national polls against Donald Trump, than Hillary Clinton, highlighting some of her drawbacks for the November showdown. Yet, with one primary to go next Tuesday in the colony known as the District of Columbia, the cries for him to drop out or be called a “spoiler,” are intensifying. Don’t you understand that you have been vanquished by Hillary? You must endorse her to unify the party.

No, Bernie has other understandings beyond his principled declaration in speech after speech that his campaign is going all the way to the Democratic Party Convention. Between the June 14th D.C. Primary and the July nominating convention, lots can happen. As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” (The run-up to the primary is a perfect time for Sanders and Clinton to forcefully advocate for DC Statehood.)

Matt Taibbi: Democrats Will Learn All the Wrong Lessons From Brush With Bernie

Instead of a reality check for the party, it'll be smugness redoubled

Years ago, over many beers in a D.C. bar, a congressional aide colorfully described the House of Representatives, where he worked.

It's "435 heads up 435 asses," he said.

I thought of that person yesterday, while reading the analyses of Hillary Clinton's victories Tuesday night. The arrival of the first female presidential nominee was undoubtedly a huge moment in American history and something even the supporters of Bernie Sanders should recognize as significant and to be celebrated. But the Washington media's assessment of how we got there was convoluted and self-deceiving.

This was no ordinary primary race, not a contest between warring factions within the party establishment, á la Obama-Clinton in '08 or even Gore-Bradley in '00. This was a barely quelled revolt that ought to have sent shock waves up and down the party, especially since the Vote of No Confidence overwhelmingly came from the next generation of voters. Yet editorialists mostly drew the opposite conclusion.

Experiment 'turns waste CO2 to stone'

By Jonathan Amos

Scientists think they have found a smart way to constrain carbon dioxide emissions - just turn them to stone.

he researchers report an experiment in Iceland where they have pumped CO2 and water underground into volcanic rock.

Reactions with the minerals in the deep basalts convert the carbon dioxide to a stable, immobile chalky solid.

Paul Krugman: Hillary and the Horizontals

I spent much of this politically momentous week at a workshop on inequality, where papers were presented on everything from the causes of wage disparities to the effects of inequality on happiness. As so often happens at conferences, however, what really got me thinking was a question during coffee break: “Why don’t you talk more about horizontal inequality?”

What? Horizontal inequality is the term of art for inequality measured, not between individuals, but between racially or culturally defined groups. (Of course, race itself is mainly a cultural construct rather than a fact of nature — Americans of Italian or even Irish extraction weren’t always considered white.) And it struck me that horizontal thinking is what you need to understand what went down in both parties’ nominating seasons: It’s what led to Donald Trump, and also why Hillary Clinton beat back Bernie Sanders. And like it or not, horizontal inequality, racial inequality above all, will define the general election.

Paul Krugman. VSP

Nakul

Leaders should, I think, bring out the best in people: not just appeal to our better selves but get us to find better, more accurate answers and drive better solutions – that’s simply how you make things better. Of course, as Paul Krugman often notes, Republican talking heads often, if not always, get their analysis wrong. What I think is interesting and very disturbing is that Hillary Clinton is getting the same bad quality analysis and positions out of her supporters – chief among them is Krugman himself. Take this quote from a damning column on Bernie Sanders view on financial market reform:

“Many analysts concluded years ago that the answers to both questions were no. Predatory lending was largely carried out by smaller, non-Wall Street institutions like Countrywide Financial; the crisis itself was centered not on big banks but on “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers that weren’t necessarily that big. And the financial reform that President Obama signed in 2010 made a real effort to address these problems. It could and should be made stronger, but pounding the table about big banks misses the point.”

– from Krugman’s “Sanders Over the Edge” column dated April 8, 2016

Thomas Frank: Anthem for Bummed Youth

As the Democratic primary campaign comes to a close, let us recall how strange and improbable it has been all along. Hillary Clinton started out as her party’s hand-picked standard-bearer, the baddest and brightest of the nation’s dominant political faction. No prominent Democrat (save Martin O’Malley) dared stand against her.

But when the mighty champion took the field—with the vast ranks of her company deployed out around her, with every tool and contrivance of political warfare at her disposal—the whole great gleaming Democratic host was nearly put to rout by an aged socialist from Vermont. It was like watching Napoleon’s Grande Armée be sent scurrying by the gang from F Troop.

The Koch Brothers Are Trying To Handpick Government Officials. We Have To Stop Them.

SUBHEADINGGOESHERE

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

On Wednesday, members of the Senate Finance Committee will vote on the nomination of Charles Blahous, a Republican, to serve a second term as a public trustee for Social Security. Mr. Blahous, a prominent opponent of Social Security and the architect of President George W. Bush’s efforts to privatize benefits, is part of an army of aggressive conservative ideologues groomed for government service and bankrolled by the Koch brothers. Their purpose is clear — to tilt the game in Washington ever further in favor of corporate special interests. The Senate should reject them.

For more than a decade, conservative activists like the Koch brothers have worked to distort our politics by using their vast corporate and personal wealth to rig the rules in Washington in favor of giant corporations like theirs. Their acidic influence on our elections is obvious, as far-right activists have exploited our broken campaign finance system to bankroll candidates who will espouse their rigidly pro-corporate, anti-government view.‎

A conservative environment makes conservatives happier

Life satisfaction depends on time and country

University of Cologne

Past studies have found that conservatives are happier than liberals. Dr. Olga Stavrova from the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology (ISS) and Junior Professor Maike Luhmann from the Psychology Department at the University of Cologne were able to show in two studies that the positive effect of a conservative ideology on people also depends on the ideological orientation of their social surroundings.

If the dominant ideology in society is rather conservative, adherents of a conservative ideology tend to be happier than liberals. With decreasing social conservatism, the conservatives tended to forfeit their "satisfaction advantage." In the studies, the scientists used the data of 200,000 survey respondents from the USA and 92 countries around the world. The results of the studies will be published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Volume 63, August 2016, Pages 29-35).

This veggie is as good for the planet as it is for the body

By Katie Herzog

Move over, kale. There’s a hip new veggie in town, and this one isn’t just good for the body, it’s good for the world. Meet kelp.

Kelp, otherwise known as seaweed, has long been a staple of diets in Asia, but the kelp industry is catching on in North America as well. You can now spot it on grocery shelves, in hospitals, and in schools.

How political megadonors can give almost $500,000 with a single check

by Libby Watson

On May 17, Donald Trump announced an arrangement with the Republican National Committee (RNC) that will allow individuals to donate almost $500,000 each to a joint fundraising committee between Trump, the RNC and 11 state Republican parties. In 2012, Mitt Romney’s joint fundraising committee could only raise $135,000 from each individual. What happened in the last four years to make these numbers so much higher?

A couple of developments got us here. First, in 2014, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC that eliminated aggregate limits on donations. Before McCutcheon, an individual could donate a maximum of $123,000 to political candidates, PACs and parties in a single cycle. After McCutcheon, although contribution limits to each committee still apply, donors can give as much as they want overall. While they are still limited in how much they can give to each candidate and committee — a maximum of $2,700 to a campaign per election, $5,000 per year to a PAC, $33,400 per year to a national party committee, and so on — they can now give the maximum amounts to as many candidates and PACs as they want (if they have the cash and the inclination). That allows wealthy donors to give huge amounts overall.