The Ledes

Friday, September 6, 2024

CNBC: “The U.S. economy created slightly fewer jobs than expected in August, reflecting a slowing labor market while also clearing the way for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates later this month. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 142,000 during the month, down from 89,000 in July and below the 161,000 consensus forecast from Dow Jones, according to a report Friday from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

New York Times: “Colin Gray, the father of the 14-year-old accused of killing two teachers and two students at his Georgia high school, was arrested and charged on Thursday with second-degree murder in connection with the state’s deadliest school shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. In addition to two counts of second-degree murder, Mr. Gray, 54, was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children, according to a statement. At a news conference on Thursday night, Chris Hosey, the G.B.I. director, said the charges were 'directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon.'” At 5:30 am ET, this is the pinned item in a liveblog. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's report is here.

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The Ledes

Thursday, September 5, 2024

CNBC: “Private sector payrolls grew at the weakest pace in more than 3½ years in August, providing yet another sign of a deteriorating labor market, according to ADP. Companies hired just 99,000 workers for the month, less than the downwardly revised 111,000 in July and below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 140,000. August was the weakest month for job growth since January 2021, according to data from the payrolls processing firm. 'The job market’s downward drift brought us to slower-than-normal hiring after two years of outsized growth,' ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said. The report corroborates multiple data points recently that show hiring has slowed considerably from its blistering pace following the Covid outbreak in early 2020.”

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the Georgia school massacre are here, a horrifying ritual which we experience here in the U.S. to kick off each new School Shooting Year. “A 14-year-old student opened fire at his Georgia high school on Wednesday, killing two students and two teachers before surrendering to school resource officers, according to the authorities, who said the suspect would be charged with murder.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I heard Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) speak during a press conference. Kemp is often glorified as one of the most moderate, reasonable GOP elected public officials. When asked a question I did not hear, Kemp responded, "Now is not the time to talk about politics." As you know, this is a statement that is part of the mass shooting ritual. It translates, "Our guns-for-all policy is so untenable that I dare not express it lest I be tarred and feathered -- or worse -- by grieving families." ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: “Police identified the suspect as Colt Gray, a student who attracted the attention of federal investigators more than a year ago, when they began receiving anonymous tips about someone threatening a school shooting. The FBI referred the reports to local authorities, whose investigations led them to interview Gray and his father. The father told police that he had hunting guns in the house, but that his son did not have unsupervised access to them. Gray denied making the online threats, the FBI said, but officials still alerted area schools about him.” ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: I heard on CNN that the reason authorities lost track of Colt was that his family moved counties, and the local authorities who first learned of the threats apparently did not share the information with law enforcement officials in Barrow County, where Wednesday's mass school shooting occurred. If you were a parent of a child who has so alarmed law enforcement that they came around to your house to question you and the child about his plans to massacre people, wouldn't you do something?: talk to him, get the kid professional counseling, remove guns and other lethal weapons from the house, etc.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code:   <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, but Akhilleus found this new one that he says is easy to use.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass.

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Monday
May162016

The Commentariat -- May 17, 2016

Afternoon Update:

Patricia Zengerle of Reuters: "The U.S. Senate passed legislation on Tuesday that would allow families of Sept. 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia's government for damages, setting up a potential showdown with the White House, which has threatened a veto. The Saudis, who deny responsibility for the 2001 attacks, strongly object to the bill. They had said they might sell up to $750 billion in U.S. securities and other American assets in retaliation if it became law. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and a...co-sponsor, said the bill is overdue. Asked if Senate Democrats would back a veto, Schumer said he would vote against Obama. -- Akhilleus

Kate Linthicum of The Los Angeles Times: "Bernie Sanders and Democratic party leaders clashed Tuesday over violence that erupted over the weekend at the Nevada Democratic convention, which party official blamed on a disgruntled group of Sanders supporters. At issue in the escalating argument: Whether the fire that Sanders has lit among millions of supporters with his critiques of Wall Street greed and political corruption will burn the party this summer." -- Akhilleus

Erin Kelly of USA Today: "With the summer mosquito-season fast approaching, the Senate voted Tuesday to advance a bipartisan compromise that would provide $1.1 billion to help public health officials battle the Zika virus as it begins to threaten the continental United States...The Senate compromise provides $800 million less than the $1.9 billion that President Obama has been seeking since February. But it is far more than the House is proposing. Republican House leaders introduced legislation Monday that would provide $622 million in Zika funding." -- Akhilleus

And Speaking of Zika...Norman Ornstein in The Atlantic predicted that this congress, which he considers the worst ever, "...will slap together something on Zika and opioids, and declare victory. Most likely, it will be too little, too late, and taxpayers will foot larger bills in subsequent years, while too many people will suffer, and too many will die." Ornstein writes that it is "...no exaggeration to call the current, 114th Congress the worst ever at least edging out the infamous 112th."

Akhilleus: If anything, Ornstein is too generous in his assessment. He doesn't attempt to answer the question of "Why Johnny Can't Govern", but we all know why. Confederates hate government, don't care about governing, and couldn't do it if you paid them. Oh wait...

*****

Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down an unusual order seeking more briefing in Zubik v. Burwell, a challenge to Obama administration regulations intended to expand access to birth control. Under the regulations at issue in Zubik, most employees must include contraceptive coverage in their employer-provided health plan...Tuesday's order suggests that the Court is willing to give an 80% victory to the Obama administration. Though their current rules might be struck down, the Court appears ready to greenlight a slight tweak to those rules that would still ensure that most women employed by religious objectors obtain birth control coverage." -- Akhilleus

Garrett Epps of The Atlantic: "The United States Supreme Court, whose Oz-like roar until recently terrified all who heard, is now short a justice and is slowly coming undone. Its voice from the bench, like HAL's [the ominous computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey], is slowing and blurring. The Court's per curiam 'decision' in Zubik v. Burwell, announced Monday, is the latest evidence of its slide toward paralysis." -- Akhilleus

Presidential Race

Primary Day in Kentucky and Oregon: Eric Braden of CNN: "If Bernie Sanders is going to catch Hillary Clinton, he'll need to narrow the delegate gap -- significantly -- on Tuesday night. Two Democratic presidential primaries are taking place: Kentucky, with 61 delegates up for grabs, and Oregon, with 74 delegates. For Sanders, erasing Clinton's lead in pledged delegates (currently 1,722 to 1,424) will take winning about two-thirds of those that remain. That's to say nothing of Clinton's huge edge among superdelegates -- a project Sanders is saving for later." -- Akhilleus

Today in the Horse Race: NBC News: Hillary Clinton Holds Slight Lead Over Donald Trump. "Attention is now rapidly moving to the hypothetical match-up between the leading candidates with an emphasis on a Clinton and Trump contest. In this week's poll, Americans are nearly split between their choice of Trump or Clinton; her margin over Trump narrows from 5 points last week to 3 points this week to 48 percent to 45 percent." -- Akhilleus

If You Can Stand It: Dan McAdams, a psychologist, explores the mind of Donald Trump in The Atlantic: "Who, really, is Donald Trump? What's behind the actor's mask? I can discern little more than narcissistic motivations and a complementary personal narrative about winning at any cost. It is as if Trump has invested so much of himself in developing and refining his socially dominant role that he has nothing left over to create a meaningful story for his life, or for the nation. It is always Donald Trump playing Donald Trump, fighting to win, but never knowing why."

Akhilleus: Spelunking gear and disinfectant not included.

An Image None of Us Needs: "Last Week Tonight host John Oliver gave perhaps the best description so far of Donald Trump's tenuous relationship with the Republican establishment. 'Trump and the Republican establishment are like a teenage Christian couple who've made an abstinence pledge,' Oliver said. 'They are going to have sex. It is just a matter of time. But they still need to make a big show of resisting it for anyone who might be paying attention.'" -- Akhilleus

Another Minority Group Insulted. Emily Crockett on Vox: "In a Friday interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Donald Trump mocked Elizabeth Warren by referring to her as 'Pocahontas'...'Trump’s inability to discern the difference between Sen. Warren and Pocahontas is no accident,' Cherokee Nation citizen Mary Kathryn Nagle told MSNBC's Adam Howard on Monday. 'Instead, his attack on her native identity reflects a dominant American culture that has made every effort to diminish native women to nothing other than a fantastical, oversexualized, Disney character.'" -- Akhilleus

Beyond the Media

It's All So Unfair! Charlie Pierce in Esquire: Noted Genius Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg Forced to Meet Glenn Beck [and other outraged Confederate "intellectuals"]. You may recall that, last week, there was another outbreak of conservative hemorrhagic outrage when a former Facebook contractor charged that people working at the social media behemoth were downplaying conservative entries in Facebook's "trending topics" feature...What's the point of having fck-you money if you can't say fck you to Glenn Beck? ...

... Akhilleus: What I'd like to know is whatever happened to that bullshit about freeeedom to run your own business as you see fit? Rand Paul wants nothing more than to toss black people out of his eye poking shop because freeeedom. Is anyone suggesting that Fox News live up to its "Fair and Balanced" lies? Certainly not. I guess that freedom business only applies to wingnut cranks and Confederate oligarchs.

Beyond the Beltway

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten. Emma Brown of the Washington Post: 62 Years after Brown v Board of Education, "A federal judge has ordered a school district in the Mississippi Delta to desegregate its middle and high schools, capping a legal battle that has dragged on for more than five decades...The order, written by Judge Debra M. Brown and released late Friday, comes 62 years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling on school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education. And it comes a half-century after Cleveland families first sued the district for continuing to operate racially segregated schools. 'The delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally-guaranteed right of an integrated education,' Brown wrote. 'Although no court order can right these wrongs, it is the duty of the district to ensure that not one more student suffers under this burden.'"

Akhilleus: Hey, they were gettin' to it. Any decade now them darkies would have been allowed to sit in a classroom with the white kids.

Scott Walker's Voter ID Law on Trial: Jesse Opoien of the Cap Times in Madison, WI: "Attorneys challenging a series of Wisconsin voting laws implemented over the last five years argued Monday that lawmakers intended to discriminate against non-white voters by passing them. The trial began with a former Republican legislative staffer testifying that not only was that the intent, but some state senators were "giddy" to do so. 'Restricting access to the ballot box was not simply a consequence, but the very purpose of these laws,' lawyer Josh Kaul told the court, asking not only to have the laws struck down, but for a judge to find they were passed with discriminatory intent." -- Akhilleus

Way Beyond the Beltway

The Bush-Cheney Debacle Continues to Pay Dividends. Krishnadev Kalamur in The Atlantic: "Two separate sets of attacks in Shia-dominated parts of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, have killed dozens and wounded several others, Iraqi officials said. ISIS claimed responsibility for two car-bomb attacks in Shaab, in northeastern Baghdad, killing at least 28 people. A third blast then hit Sadr City, killing at least 14 people. Those numbers came from the Associated Press. Al Arabiya, the Arabic-language broadcaster, has a higher death toll." -- Akhilleus

On Another Planet

Tea Party Not Far Enough to the Right. Betsy Russell of the Spokesman-Review (Idaho): "In Idaho's northernmost legislative district, Republican Party politics has been pulled farther to the right in recent years with the rise of the tea party. But now a new element is pushing the party farther still: the arrival of conservative Christian 'preppers' fleeing more populated states, who see the region as a 'redoubt' -- a place to settle and defend themselves when the whole country goes bad.

Akhilleus: These people seem genuinely unhinged. In addition to Idaho, they're targeting Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. This is like whole towns taken over by Bundy type, government hating, evangelical law unto themselves types. They even have their own real estate operations alerting like minded loons to move there to help with the takeover. A longtime resident of the area and staunch, lifelong right-wing Republican is being attacked by the insurgents as a 'liberal authoritarian progressive' [who] accused her of 'gun grabbing' and wanting to 'tax more so she can spend more on her socialists [sic], pro-homosexual union allies working in governmental schools.'" Wow.

Comments Off

Reader Comments (16)

Trey Gowdy's Benghazi burr is stuck in his ass and won't let go even though it has been pretty well established that State and Military did all it could. Even Gowdy's top lawyer concurs. The amount of money spent on this endeavor is shocking and this from a party that is so concerned with spending. But from the beginning it seemed to be "let's get Hillary with her knickers down" and it might still be, yet it might just be that burr in Gowdy's behind.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trey-gowdy-dana-chipman-benghazi-committee_us_5738db52e4b08f96c18373e2

On the side bar mention of the death of Julius La Rosa and the firing on air by Arthur Godfrey ( another control freak). This firing was the beginning of the end for Godfrey who forgot the rules of the game. When the audience falls in love with someone they'll try and destroy anyone who tries to bring down that beloved. You can find the whole story with video on You-Tube.

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Posted a few days back by Hedrick Smith, but not at all out of date.


http://reclaimtheamericandream.org/2016/05/populist-earthquake-of-2016/

A nice summary of the class war being fought that the Right would prefer to dismiss. Part of the problem, IMHO, is that America's so-called Left has been fighting that war on the wrong side for too many years. No wonder the masses are confused.

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

The Normalization of Donaldo
(becomes more sophisticated)

I spotted an opinion piece (labeled as commentary) on the CBS News site written by Will Rahn, a former editorial lackey for Very Serious Thinkers, Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough. Rahn attacks the idea that Trump supporters are idiots and racists, as they've recently been deemed in a now widely read piece by Jonathan Chait (linked here last week).

No, no, declares Rahn, they're just misunderstood. Both Sides (here we go) are wrong. Trump is actually some kind of genius, and whether you love him or hate him, he is an Agent of Change, dammit (I half expect a trailer for "Marvel's Agents of Shield" the sci-fi comic book TV show to pop up with Trump in the lead, brandishing high tech weapons, ready to mow down Washington bureaucrats to start playing as I read this).

Yeah. So was Pol Pot. What's your point?

Well, the point he makes actually does have some serious considerations, which makes it hard to completely dismiss. For instance, he does assert that, according to a person described as a liberal Democrat from North Carolina (haven't they all been sent to winger re-education camps?)"...[Trump's] supporters realize he's a joke. They do not care. They know he's authoritarian, nationalist, almost un-American, and they love him anyway, because he disrupts a broken political process and beats establishment candidates who've long ignored their interests".

This sounds entirely reasonable. But then Rahn weaves in some of the usual Both Sides bullshit, comparing (astonishingly) 'bagger-come-lately Ben Sasse with Elizabeth Warren(!) He then constructs a thought experiment to demonstrate how Trump, the political genius, will somehow exasperate the Elites of Both Sides even as he extemporizes amazing, great, fabulous partnerships between left and right that none but Trump could pull off (for his next magical trick, the Great Donaldo will make Barbara Mikulski and Mike Lee join hands and sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" while dancing the tarantella on the burning embers of the Constitution).

He finishes up with a bit of what has become standard wisdom of not underestimating Donaldo then whips your head around by informing readers that Trump's antagonists simply lack the kind of empathy that has made him so successful at the polls. Empathy. Trump, the guy Matt Taibbi once described, quite deftly and accurately, as someone who would eat a child in a lifeboat, has somehow morphed into Mr. Empathy.

This is how it will go. Some of the Trump Reconditioning will be overt and ham-handed (Reince Priebus) but some will be more skillful and insidious.

Wait now to see how the press handles the coming attacks on Hillary and Bill Clinton. Trump--"Mr. Morals"--will be given a pass on much of his epic and sleazy philandering (Oh, give him a break, he's just a playboy) while the Clintons will be excoriated as degenerates (Horrible! Jail time!). Trump will scream and the press, instead of taking note and doing their job, will take notation.

Or in the case of Trump, dicktation.

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

The Benjamin Wallace-Wells piece, linked above, contains this little gem of an idea relating family problems with Trump's solutions for same:

"...there must be something refreshing in Trump’s message that the problems of American communities are located not within them but in China, and that they can be solved by appointing a new ambassador."

There now. Isn't that a plan to write home about?

It's just like if you get into your car in the morning and it won't start, the solution is very likely to change your shampoo.

Who says Trump supporters aren't idiots?

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

"...I'm not stupid!"

Said the orange one in a teevee interview with former Celebrity Apprentice winner and Britisher, " I.Q. Test Challenge ".

...and on the not-self-funding-anymore campaign trail:

"Trump will now happily take millions from the likes of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. The Wall Street Journal reports that this is probably because Trump lacks the liquid assets to cover the $700 million to $1 billion it will take to compete in the general election" " Sheldon Adelson " Odd, isn't it, how billionaire Adelson's success is built on (losing) gamblers who make his casinos so profitable—and, likewise he continually places losing bet(s) when it comes to the political game. Let's see, first there was Newt Gringrich, then Mitt Romney, and now The Donald.

Must be great to regard $100,000,000.00 as chump change!

Ultimately, I think the house will win,
...just hope that the house is the Democratic White House.

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Now regular readers here at RC know that my nickname for Bill Kristol is "Always Wrong", and that he is. He has, over the years, been a veritable Old Faithful of fallacious whoppers and thinking so uncritical as to make a slow third grader appear able to best Socrates in the most abstruse Platonic dialogues.

You can call Bill Kristol a lot of things, but now, because he is not lining up to sexually service Herr Drumpf like the other good storm troopers who have bent over, grabbed their ankles and loudly proclaimed fealty to The Drumpf Supremacy (see Priebus, Reince), the online anal cyst known as Breitbart, has offered a new name for Kristol: "Renegade Jew".

Some pretty apocalyptic language here:

"To weaken the only party that stands between the Jews and their annihilation, and between America and the forces intent on destroying her, is a political miscalculation so great and a betrayal so profound as to not be easily forgiven,” Horowitz concludes."

The writer, David Horowitz, is a grade A winger whacko. He's called Obama a racist, Hillary Clinton a bitch, Trump protesters Nazis, and has declared that Democrats are race traitors for trying to run down white people.

Such a nice man.

If I didn't think Bill Kristol was such a scorching hemorrhoid in his own right, I'd almost feel a tiny bit of solidarity with the guy, but....

One snake in the shithole attacks another snake in the shithole. Such is the state of the Modern Confederacy.

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Lest we forget...

The Trumpal Wave is providing (and will continue to provide) outstanding cover for plenty of nasty schemes being perpetrated by wingers. For instance, while the press is hypnotized by every "amazing", "loser", "so great" pronouncement spewed from the Trump pie hole, the Kochs are teaching school kids that it's not only perfectly acceptable, but practically required, that capitalists kill people to increase profits.

I am not even kidding.

For years the Kochs have been funding economic "education" programs to instill in small minds the Confederate Way of Economics. One program, which begins as early as kindergarten, teaches students that killing people is one of the better ways to increase a profit margin and when they become CEO of some corporation, they shouldn't feel bad if a few losers are killed because of their shoddy products:

"...greedy corporations sacrifice human lives to increase their profits. Is this charge true? Of course it is. But this isn’t a criticism of corporations; rather it is a reflection of the proper functioning of a market economy. Corporations routinely sacrifice the lives of some of their customers to increase profits, and we are all better off because they do. That’s right, we are lucky to live in an economy that allows corporations to increase profits by intentionally selling products less safe than could be produced. The desirability of sacrificing lives for profits may not be as comforting as milk, cookies and a bedtime story, but it follows directly from a reality we cannot wish away."

Allowing--no planning for--consumers to die=proper functioning.

The press is far more concerned with whether Trump will promise to bomb the Netherlands if they don't send him the right kind of chocolate bar. Meanwhile the Kochs are spreading their gospel of Death by Capitalism, developing the prototypes for an Ayn Randian future of hot money and cold murder.

Plenty of other noxious, dangerous, un-American, and inhuman winger schemes are proceeding apace while the media swoon over Donaldo and his Best Words.

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Akhilleus,

Thanks for the update to Paine's "Common Sense."

From a righteous revolution against the aristocracy to common sense Koch-Confererate economics. How far we have come!

This one will likely make our local radio show...

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

I came across this today and it has been on my mind most of the day.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

"That we are overdone with banking institutions which have banished the precious metals and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium, that these have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness, that the wars of the world have swollen our commerce beyond the wholesome limits of exchanging our own productions for our own wants, and that, for the emolument of a small proportion of our society who prefer these demoralizing pursuits to labors useful to the whole, the peace of the whole is endangered and all our present difficulties produced, are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied."

Thomas Jefferson, 14 March 1810

And the remedy was not found for this corruption of the banking system cited by Jefferson until the coming of 'Old Hickory,' who although with Jefferson is sometimes reviled by the oligarchs and statists of today, nevertheless brought reform and relief to the general public, for whom they never broke their faith or betrayed their confidence, despite all the failings and shortcomings of their times.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.

There was intraday commentary here.

"In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."

Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Second Bank of the United States

May 16, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterDan Lowery

Looks like it might be May 16th for some time unless our Techie saviors save the day. Until that I guess we can keep the comments coming. So––the best news of the day:

Ambrosia Starling, a drag queen, is running for governor in Alabama. Her message is: "Have good manners."

Billy Graham's daughter says God sends terror to show us we need him which is contrary to my conversation with God (see Sunday's comments) who empathically denies he has anything to do with the human condition anymore––he's been retired ever since WWII but people still pray and think He's viable. He ain't.

Continuing with the religious theme, here is Samantha Bee who breaks down the Religious Right's reason for voting for Trump. Most entertaining and historically accurate.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/samantha-bee-donald-trump-evangelicals_us_5739d7e2e4b08f96c18396a2

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Dan,

Thanks for the delving into the archives.

It's an old argument, this money and banking thing, reflecting as it does the way we identify "teams" and how we choose to keep score.

Due to their place and time Jefferson and Jackson represented slightly different teams, but both were variants of the Jefferson notion of a nation of independent land-owning (white) freeholders, Jackson's Tennessee version with the rougher edges to be expected from a newly-settled frontier opened by Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase.

From what I understand, both Jefferson and Jackson (and their adherents) resented the power exerted by the big New England banks because that power and its location did not adequately support agricultural or frontier enterprise--as it developed it was more given to manufacturing and trade--and because of that economic imbalance--and the emerging strength of cities made up of wage earners, not freeholders--it flew in the face of the democratic ideal both men had in mind, Jefferson's notion more philosophic, I'm guessing, Jackson's more pragmatic.

To a great degree, the whole banking imbroglio, still very much with us of course, is another face of the continuing tussle over regional interests, which we encoded in our Constitution by acknowledging states' rights, over which we have fought a great war, and which still plays out in Presidential elections every four years, though this year when the two likely candidates can both be said to have corporate roots, both tied to Big Money, the regional lines are a bit more blurred, which I suspect is another source of the voting publics' flailing in evident confusion.

It seems in voter's minds this election is about power or for most, its absence than it is about region, tho' from my reading of primary results, region is not wholly absent.

Have some more thoughts on the current faces of our economic teams and even more on how we keep score--we do a very poor job, which is of great benefit to some of those teams (yes, they cheat)-- but not now. Might get to them later.

For now, all are spared.

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

PD,

Thanks for passing along the information about Ambrosia Starling. Not only is it a bracing piece of news--a transvestite running for governor in Alabama(!) but she has already performed a vital public service by signing and promoting a complaint helping to oust Christianist law breaker, the now suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who is attacking her as mentally unstable.

Her reply: "'The Judicial Inquiry Commission for the State of Alabama seems to think I am quite mentally stable, as are more than 50 fellow citizens who have filed such complaints,' Starling said. 'Your attempt to manipulate laws and due process of law against any citizen are a disgrace to your elected office.'"

And by the way, Roy? You'd look stunning in a little black dress. Sorry, only kidding. You'd look ghastly. But you'd look great in an orange jump suit.

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@ AK: Thank you so much for giving us a new day and for all the interesting information. The one in particular that I found extraordinary was Dan McAdams/ piece on piecing together Trump's mind, motivations and narcissism intertwined with historical references from past presidents and once again having Andrew Jackson's legacy connected to "someday we are going to see another savior come riding in on horseback and take over the country" and the people shall rejoice and rally round––big time. This is a long read, but well worth the time.

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Since I was moved (thanks but no blame to Dan) to history's archives, how about these snippets from A.J. Langguth's "After Lincoln?"

"As he headed for Chicago (1866), Andrew Johnson confirmed (Thaddeus) Steven's misgivings by playing to the underlying apprehensions of Southern white males. The President announced that he did not want the South to rejoin the Union as 'a degraded and debased people.' Rather I want them to come back with all their manhood."

Further, on the tenor of Johnson's Chicago tour, the editor of the NYTimes has this to say, "The President--or, Ken would add, President to be-- of the United States cannot enter upon an exchange of epithets the with the brawling of a mob."

Any of this sound familiar?

There's much more, seemingly like "Law and Order" used to say, ripped from today's headlines in Langguth's book on Reconstruction, which I would summarize this way.

We're still a far cry from reconstructed.

And Akhilleus, my thanks, too.

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

OOPS!

<< . . . a conservative candidate for the United States Congress (VA-8) . . . hoping to bring “responsiveness and accountability” to Washington, D.C. . . . is campaigning with a hands-on [!!!] approach, insisting he does all of his own social media . . . Unfortunately . . . he shared a screenshot of his computer screen while trying to make a point . . . and he forgot to close out a couple of tabs . . . >>

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/16/1527124/-Conservative-congressional-candidate-shares-screenshot-forgets-to-close-porn-windows detail=email&link_id=1&can_id=091262697a6e017262b183bd80a48c09&source=email-conservative-congressional-candidate-shares-screenshot-forgets-to-close-porn-windows-2&email_referrer=conservative-congressional-candidate-shares-screenshot-forgets-to-close-porn-windows-2&email_subject=conservative-congressional-candidate-shares-screenshot-forgets-to-close-porn-windows

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterOphelia M.

Less-Crazy-Link:

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/16/1527124/-Conservative-congressional-candidate-shares-screenshot-forgets-to-close-porn-windows

May 17, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterOphelia M.
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