She spreads propaganda and conspiracy theories like infectious diseases. The NY public health health authorities quarantined Typhoid Mary for spreading typhoid. White wing media, Tomi Lahren included, are a similar threat to the public health of the nation and planet.
IMHO, impeaching DJT is a necessary housekeeping for the sake of American democracy. Between Nixon (Watergate), Reagan (Iran-Contra), Bush 41 (Iran-Contra), Bush 43 (illegal wars, domestic spying, war crimes) and now DJT, there have been numerous egregious violations of the U.S. Constitution at the level of the Executive branch of the federal government. Every single violation has chipped away the founding principles of this nation. A presidential impeachment would do much to restore American and international faith in the rule of law. Unfortunately, our politics hates to air dirty laundry so it's not likely to happen.
As to the Fall of the House of Trump, I'm stocking up on snacks to watch the action. It's small payback for his assaults on my psyche and our nation during his time in office. Let the show begin.
This is happening under the rubric of the Republican Party... doesn't that mean they are engaged in a conspiracy to abridge a Constitutionally guaranteed right? While perhaps not 'treasonous', it is a bare step short of treason. A crime syndicate would be forcibly disbanded for the same behavior...
(1) Bernie Sanders is a standing Senator representing the state of Vermont. He has a responsibility to (a) act in the interests of his voters; (b) convey the legislation they want and (c) adhere to his personal code of ethics. To carry out his duties, especially as a member of the minority party, he must be able to walk/talk/commune with other representatives. This involves a level of public diplomacy that he often gets criticized for – supporting Hilary, anodyne comments about the late GHWB… IMHO, Bernie’s critics seem to prefer he behave Newt Gingrich, “allowing hurt feelings over a perceived slight by Clinton to influence his stance in the budget negotiations” and that turn out swimmingly (/s).
(2) “Raising the minimum wage, 15 bucks an hour. Radical idea a few years ago; kind of mainstream today.”And by the time you actually pass the 15 bucks an hour minimum wage in another few years, workers will be even further behind on the wage scale. The fight should be for a minimum wage pegged to annual average wages. Fighting the same fight is good for keeping Bernie Sanders employed but not so good for the minimum wage workers he’s purportedly fighting for.
(3) “…And as a nation we have got to think from a moral perspective and an economic perspective whether we think it is appropriate that three people, one, two, three, own more wealth than the bottom half of the American society. You know, that’s really quite outrageous, and it’s appropriate that we take a hard look at that.”Economics originated as a moral enterprise. Even today, economics of average individual families are about working to earn the means to support the members of a family, which is morally superior to not working and allowing your family to languish. It was the introduction of profit as the be all and end all to economies that drove ethics out of policy. Profiteering allows gun makers to ‘morally’ profit from making and selling goods designed to perpetrate objectively morally questionable acts. Profiteering allows the military industrial complex to ‘morally’ profit from the making, selling and use of goods and services designed to murder en masse. Profiteering allows big pharma to ‘morally’ profit from the making, selling, use, misuse and withholding of drugs that can save and/or destroy lives. Profiteering allows extractive industries to ‘morally’ profit from the damaging of viable ecosystems to the extent that much that supports human life is at risk. One place where a basic reform might have immediate and significant impact would be to redefine economies to be self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants… This would force all policy to account for impacts on sustainability and human well-being as opposed to sole the profitability for investors.
Market fundamentalism has its flaws, no thinking person would question that. However, the system evolved into its current state through regulatory capture. Arguing for alternate regulatory capture is analogous to replacing a despotic ruler with a benign ruler. In the short term, conditions can improve but the state mechanisms enable reversion are present and calling for turnover.
“Markets are product of government.”“Markets not fundamental but created.”Markets are part of economies (economies can be broadly divided into production & markets). Economies form in any human community, regardless of government (refugee settlements have economies with markets)… thus economies (and markets) *are* fundamental. When communities/economies grow sufficiently large/complex, governments emerge as a property of complex systems.---“How to shape markets and to what end?”“How to shape markets for long term wealth creation for all Americans. For that matter, all of the world’s population?”Is the market aspect of economies the best area to ‘shape’? Economics is a social science; that is, primarily concerned with relationships between individuals, groups and communities. Market relationships tend to be rather transient: buyers examine sellers’ goods; trade transaction occurs (or not); termination of relationship. In contrast, the relationships on the production side, (employer/employee, supervisor/supervisee, colleagues) tends to be of long duration, both in daily interaction and term of employment. Strong/healthy relationships on the production side of the economy empowers workers to become capable consumers who drive (somewhat transient) market activity.---“Challenge for securities regulation…”Also must consider the damaging effects of concentrating capital on the scale of economic operations. For example, mountain top removal mining is only possible because enormous amounts of capital can be pooled to build the massively expensive equipment. The same is true for most large scale extractive endeavors. While these projects may be profitable in the short term, the resulting environmental damage has incalculable long term financial and ecological costs (climate change for one).“(3)…transparency around key problems…data secret…”Information asymmetry plagues far more than the securities markets. It is the source and driver of power imbalance and economic inequality. In fact, the term ‘free market’ is a misnomer in light of the absence of information symmetry regarding market goods/services (working conditions, environmental impact, costs, etc.).
In this segment and the last segment, Daniel Ellsberg described a nuclear and war-making policy largely determined by (1) a capitalistic military-industrial-complex whose raison d’etre is the pursuit of profit without regard to consequences and, (2) military commanders whose raison d’etre is ‘victory’, pyrrhic and otherwise. The absence of morality is so striking that the only rational conclusion is that the MIC and military consists solely of sociopaths. This would also explain their absolute resistance to rational reform their war planning.
The performance of DJT as POTUS has illustrated the need to consider the mental health status of presidential candidates. This series of interviews highlights the need for a similar mental health review for leaders in other areas including military and industry {such as MIC). Sociopaths might make the best commanders for immediate [hot] combat, but their lack of empathy, morality and remorse makes them unsuitable for high level leadership positions.
For the vast majority of people without bubble hideouts in New Zealand to wait out a nuclear winter, the only rational response to a nuclear strike is to immediate travels *towards* the first strike zone. Should humanity come to such a pass, it will prove itself not worthy of saving and not deserving of any efforts on its behalf. Let the 'true believers' of rapture inherit the destruction they will have wrought.
The most often repeated critique of 'socialized medicine' is long wait times. These same critics rarely point out the high costs of private-for-profit-socialized-health-insurance-medicine; costs that produce infinite wait times for patients without the wherewithal to pay for healthcare. In Harry Leslie Smith's youth, there were no 'long waits' to see a doctor; members of his community had variable waits for death, at times, very painful deaths. Today, many Americans have a similar long/moderate/short waits for death. Given the choice, most Americans chose the 'long wait' for care over the wait for death. We now have a Democratically controlled House and a number of States are under a Democratic majority; they must make this issue a priority. It's long past time to make healthcare affordable to everyone in this country.
We have enabled a rich and powerful Military-Industrial-Complex to legally bribe politicians, policy makers and regulators through campaign contributions, political action committees, think tanks, ideological foundations, revolving door employment, etc. In return, all American taxpayers are forced to pay for ever more expensive, excessive and often unnecessary military hardware (with a side effect of excessively militarized local police) while less advantaged taxpayers send their children to become war fodder by foreign hands or self-destruction by suicide. We pay with our treasure, we pay with our future in our children, we pay with the future of our grandchildren.
MIC and the military get away with this degree of theft by hiding information. An audit is information about how the military spends its funds. Their audit failure is not an inability to track and report their spending; it reflects an unwillingness by the military to report their spending and allow themselves to be held accountable to our elected representatives. [BTW, elected representatives who have been bought by the MIC and eager the stories told by the military.] It's not about the defense of nation from enemies; it's the offense of military, especially MIC, against Americans and anyone who might interfere with their profits.
The true conflict is not between the U.S. and Russia/China/N.Korea/Syria/Mexico or Saudi Arabia & Yemen or any other nation-vs-nation aggression. The real fight is between the power elite and everyday working people on the planet. Any 'special' interest (such as Jeff Bezos, Koch bothers, Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, big pharma, oil industry, military industrial complex, health insurance industry) that lobbies Congress for policies/laws/rules that increases their profits at the expense of the well being (health/education/standard of living) of their workers and consumers is participating in a long campaign against public interests.
As every maker knows, the quality of any end product is largely determined by the quality of the starting material. This also hold true for economies; the quality and productivity of an economy is largely determined by education and health of its starting material of workers and consumers. Neo-liberal economics are marketed on the contrary principle that strong foundations are not necessary for strong economies. The Trump tax cut directly depletes economic foundations by removing money from a slowly growing economy - and he tells taxpayers it will grow faster. Unless neo-liberals have cracked the secret of creating something from nothing (aka, Big Bang), our current economic trajectory offers no hope of better conditions to workers.
"...funding for research should be increased and any licensed, FDA-approved manufacturer should be able to make and sell the drugs, whose patent belongs to the government. This would introduce competition and drastically lower cost."
Public ownership of publicly funded intellectual property would resolve the problem of big pharma. Tight limits on private control of intellectual property would place severe limits on the corporate growth which would have positive impacts on income inequality. Severely minimizing state secrets would set limits on the power of the state. Information is power. If information were less controlled, the power of current institutions would be curtailed.
It is highly disingenuous for any nominee to the Supreme Court including Brett Kavanaugh to call any Supreme Court decision "settled law." For any American not sitting on the Supreme Court, all their decisions 'settle law' (as determined by the U.S. Constitution. Justices on the Supreme Court use their Constitutional power to 'settle'/'resettle' law according to their procedures. As a non-Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh can legitimately claim he personally considers Roe v. Wade 'settled law'. But as a potential Supreme Court justice, that statement is using semantics to deceive the public. Lawmakers know this; Brett Kavanaugh knows this and Brett Kavanaugh's nomination shepherds know this. It is the people most impacted by Supreme Court decisions who do not know this and in a democracy, that is reprehensible.
"All of these [efforts to mitigate climate change] need to be underpinned by new value systems that value stabilizing the earth's systems as the highest priority that any economy must strive for."
This should be the take home message of every economics course/lecture from now on. Economics and the values of economics must be defined beyond goods/services and financial return. My preferred definition of economies are self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. Capitalism would not be an acceptable primary economic system under this definition because it is not self-sustaining... using fossil fuels will eventually degrade the environment to the point where it cannot sustain human life as we know it. Placing profit and 'economic growth' above all else is the source of climate change, income inequality, health care crisis and many other social ills. But economies are human made social constructs; humans made/make them, humans can reshape them.
DJT's strategy to "Make America Great Again" is to attack the *real* pillars of American exceptionalism (tolerance, melting pot, economic mobility, reliable ally) and bolster the *very worst* of its character (nativism, hubris, racism, militarism, religiosity - to shield everything, class structure).
Trump and his peeps are the dung beetles of today's culture. They are burrowing deep into the middens of history and recycling its least humanistic ideas for modern consumption. As receptacles of the rejected, middens are repositories of death and disease. The Resistance has the crucial role of defending the U.S. and the larger global community from the toxins unearthed by DJT & Co. Ideally, his influence can be contained, destroyed and if possible, immunized against.
Dung beetles have a constructive purpose . . . GOParasites don't.
Indeed, dung beetles recycle organic matter from organic waste back into the ecosystem. DJT & peeps are recycling the worst tendencies of humanity. Everyone needs to heed the words of Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews [asylum seekers], and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew [an asylum seeker].
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 23, 2018
The host of this segment made a big mistake by labeling the Great March of Return the "so-called “Great March of Return”."
Gazans were exercise the right to protest their repression by the Israeli government. They organized and gave their social operation a name. I do not know Israel's laws regarding free speech but if Israelis have freedom to speak, Israeli's violent response to the Great March of Return was a flagrant violation of the right of Gazans to speak out against their treatment. Labeling their name 'so-called' further denigrates and invalidates their attempt to speak out. Freedom to speak and the free press is under attack in many places of the world, including the U.S. with DJT's 'fake news' moniker. As one of the first countries to codify the right to speak freely into the Constitution, all Americans should respect the right of a people to self-identify, self-organize and freely associate for the purpose of expression. As a [so-called] journalist, the host of this segment should have, at minimum, done the same.
In the distant possibility that DJT and KJU actually meet face to face, I predict DJT will attempt a jovial gab-fest followed by grovelling at KJU's feet for any sliver of a 'deal' that he can take to the cameras to announce as the 'best deal in the history of the world' followed by a demand for the Nobel Peace Prize.
'Businessman' DJT didn't make money through 'deal making'; he made money by using mafia-like tactics to swindle investors, contractors and customers alike. He doesn't deal, he uses fixers like Michael Cohen to strong arm.
"What do you think of this basic income, and is it progressive or is it a regressive tool?"
Her answer already says it's the wrong question. The right question: does basic income change the balance of power in that a few people become more powerful? The answer is yes; the people charged with the power to collect and distribute these monies become more powerful. Further concentrating power is dangerous because those in control will never give up power and eventually power corrupts their original good intentions... just look at the U.S.... many social problems intended to assist/benefit the needy/low income are under constant assault by politicians of both major parties. Instead of creating (political) solutions to inequality (collect and redistribute money), change the system so capital is distributed more equally in the first place.
"...the idea is that, if the minimum wage were eliminated, then hiring workers would be less expensive and firms would be more likely to hire them, as opposed to investing in labor-saving technology."
Robots do not eat food, buy shelter nor wear clothing. No-income people cannot eat food, buy shelter nor wear clothing. How do robots which don't earn money and people without money build a functioning economy which requires movement of money? Mass automation will create a class of people without access to traditional money who survive through an underground economy, likely with a lot of bartering... the implosion of capitalism.
The moral crisis of our [modern] age is the concentration of power. This is not a new phenomenon; in the past, the Magna Carta, the American Revolution (and Constitution) and French Revolution all attempted to redress inequity. The nuclear bomb and nuclear button epitomizes the immorality of such power - how is it moral to knowingly and voluntarily give power over life and death of humanity to one person (every leader with power to launch a nuclear weapon)? From an economic perspective, how is it moral for the few owners of Koch industries to fully control the livelihoods of 120,000 workers & their families, much less be so prevalent that it's impossible to not use their products. What is the moral justification for allowing a few bankers the power to crash the national economy and likely depress the world economy?
"...on the one hand, this universalization, but on the other hand, are we becoming more fragmented?... How does that go together, on the one hand the universalization and on the other hand this fragmentation?"
The establishment, also known as the system, is unified and highly successful in fragmenting the working people of the world. They use identity and social issues to splinter voters into opposing groups so they are disinclined to organize significant resistance. For example, the Republican and Democratic Parties don't particularly care abortion; so long as individual politicians can get the medical care they seek for their families, they aren't concerned if poor women have access to abortion or reproductive care. They care about policies that their donors want. Abortion is useful because it polarizes their electorate and generates a mock conflict between the pro and anti sides (like pro-wrestling) which distracts the real policy intent of the Republican and Democratic Parties which is to always advance the concentration and transfer of power/wealth to their donors.
The key to resist voter fragmentation is not to ignore the differences but to unify to respect these differences and advocate for each others' rights to those positions. The poor, brown, white, low wage, immigrant, women, LGBT and other groups are not outsiders; they are insiders, part of the group. In this country, they are all known as Americans but workers should not overlook the same systemic pattern of deliberate fragmentation that is also exercised abroad. The system uses competition between native and foreign workers to sow division internationally. The entire point of corporate/trade globalization is to create wage competition to force down production costs. Worker unity must also cross national borders if the establishment/system is to be contained.
