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The Commentariat -- Sept. 1, 2014
The History of Labor Day:
Maybe for you, as for most Americans, the holiday simply means a weekend away:
E. J. Dionne on the Market Basket walk-out. ...
... Arthur T. Demoulas addresses Market Basket employees:
Fuck the U.A.W. -- Rahm Emanuel, re: the auto industry bailout, according to Steve Rattner
... "Why white men hate unions." Edward McClelland in Salon on the evolution of union demographics. ...
... Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times: "... a flood of recent cases ... accuse employers of violating minimum wage and overtime laws, erasing work hours and wrongfully taking employees' tips. Worker advocates call these practices 'wage theft,' insisting it has become far too prevalent. Some federal and state officials agree. They assert that more companies are violating wage laws than ever before, pointing to the record number of enforcement actions they have pursued.... Many business groups counter that government officials have drummed up a flurry of wage enforcement actions, largely to score points with union allies. If anything, employers have become more scrupulous in complying with wage laws, the groups say, in response to the much publicized lawsuits about so-called off-the-clock work that were filed against Walmart and other large companies a decade ago." CW: They said/they said; Who's to know? ...
... Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post on the real reason for economic stagnation: "From the end of World War II through the late 1970s..., major U.S. corporations retained most of their earnings and reinvested them in business expansions, new or improved technologies, worker training and pay increases. Beginning in the early '80s, however, they have devoted a steadily higher share of their profits to shareholders." ...
... CW: I wonder how much this has to do with the ballooning of MBA's & what-all business schools have been teaching the kids. There's a chicken-&-egg issue here; young people who opt for MBAs are probably not, on the whole, the most socially-conscious. But doesn't that leave you with institutions devoted to teaching little dickheads how to be bigger, more ruthless dickheads?
** NEW. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Some of the factual assertions in recent amicus briefs would not pass muster in a high school research paper. But that has not stopped the Supreme Court from relying on them. Recent opinions have cited 'facts' from amicus briefs that were backed up by blog posts, emails or nothing at all.... Some 'studies' presented in amicus briefs were paid for or conducted by the group that submitted the brief and published only on the Internet. Some studies seem to have been created for the purpose of influencing the Supreme Court. Yet the justices are quite receptive to this [sic.!] dodgy data."
Erin Cunningham & Abigail Hoslohner of the Washington Post: "Iraqi troops aided by U.S. airstrikes entered the besieged town of Amerli on Sunday, residents and Iraqi officials said, breaking a months-long blockade of the Shiite Turkmen village by Islamic State militants that raised fears of a massacre..... The U.S. strikes around Amerli on Saturday appeared to swiftly tilt the balance in favor of Iraqi forces." ...
... Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "After a week in which [President Obama] was criticised for failing to develop military plans for tackling Islamic State militants inside Syria and taking a relatively cautious approach to Russian incursions in Ukraine, senior figures [of both parties] in Congress took turns to demand greater US intervention." ...
... Martin Matishak of the Hill: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), "the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that President Obama has perhaps been 'too cautious' in confronting the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)." ...
... Timothy Cama of the Hill: "The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday sharply criticized President Obama's lack of a strategy to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Speaking on 'Fox News Sunday,' Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said statements from the White House last week that it does not yet have a firm strategy on ISIS are indicative of the Obama administration's foreign policy failures." ...
... Martin Matishak: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Sunday said President Obama's responses to the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine (Fill in the Blank) ." * ...
* A few weeks ago, Jon Soltz, in the Huffington Post, wrote a piece laying out some of the wrong calls McCain has made regarding military policy & our international military adventures. Soltz can't figure out why John (pronounced "wrong" McCain is the most popular guest ever on the Sunday shows. Via Heather of Crooks & Liars. ...
... ** Steve Coll of the New Yorker: "If the United States is returning to war in the region, one might wish for a more considered vision than Whack-a-Mole against jihadists."
... In case you were unaware of it, Howie Kurtz is still on the teevee, ostensibly watchdogging the media & wondering what-all is wrong with it from his Fox "News" perspective (having been dumped from his slightly more respectable perspectives, in the last instance for "serial inaccuracy"). Driftglass tuned in Sunday morning.
CW: I can't help seeing Bibi Netanyahu as Baby Vladimir. Of course Putin hasn't directly killed hundreds of Ukrainian children. Too bad U.S. politicians haven't the guts to say, "Bibi, that BFF thing has a limit, & you're over the top." If Israeli voters want to stick with Netanyahu or another hardliner, the U.S. should cut off funding & transfer of military equipment. Nearly as long as there has been an Israel, I have been an ideological supporter. Not anymore. See Sunday's News Ledes.
Paul Krugman: "For years, pundits and politicians have insisted that guaranteed health care is an impossible dream, even though every other advanced country has it. Covering the uninsured was supposed to be unaffordable; Medicare as we know it was supposed to be unsustainable. But it turns out that incremental steps to improve incentives and reduce costs can achieve a lot, and covering the uninsured isn't hard at all. When it comes to ensuring that Americans have access to health care, the message of the data is simple: Yes, we can." Read the whole column.
AP: "Fearing a Russian invasion and occupation of Alaska, the U.S. government in the early Cold War years recruited and trained fishermen, bush pilots, trappers and other private citizens across Alaska for a covert network to feed wartime intelligence to the military, newly declassified Air Force and FBI documents show. Invasion of Alaska? Yes. It seemed like a real possibility in 1950."
Beyond the Beltway
Collier Meyerson of msnbc: "The St. Louis County police officer who was recently suspended after video surfaced of him threatening to 'kill everybody' and who shoved CNN's Don Lemon on live television in Ferguson has retired. Officer Dan Page, a 35-year veteran of the force, had his last day on August 25th. Sergeant Colby Dolly, aid to the St. Louis County Police Chief, told msnbc by phone that Page is expected to receive his full pension." CW: And before he got a chance to kill everybody. ...
... Denise Hollinshed of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Ferguson "Police officers ... began wearing body cameras on Saturday as marchers took to the streets in the most recent protest of a shooting two weeks earlier by a city officer that left an unarmed teenager dead. Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson said his department was given about 50 body cameras by two companies, Safety Visions and Digital Ally, about a week ago. The companies donated the body cameras after the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson." ...
... Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "After raising more than $400,000 for the police officer who killed an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Mo., two online donation pages appear to have been shut down by their organizers without explanation this weekend." Thanks to James S., for the link.
Gubernatorial Race
CW: Yikes! I was asleep at the wheel on this. The primary was August 9! AP: "Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie said he lost his bid for re-election in a Democratic primary because of his decision to call a special session to legalize gay marriage. Republicans are allowed to vote for Democrats in Hawaii's open primary, and Abercrombie said they chose to vote against him because of his support for gay marriage and because they think his party rival, state Sen. David Ige, is an easier target to beat in the general election.... Abercrombie, who spoke to reporters in his office, lost to Ige by a stunning 2-1 margin, the first time a Democratic governor has been unseated in a Hawaii primary."
Presidential Race
Ken Vogel of Politico: "Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Pence, Rick Perry and Ben Carson all sounded like presidential candidates in weekend speeches to conservative activists ... [at] a conference organized by an influential Koch-backed group. The would-be candidates touted their small-government bona fides and hammered prospective Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama on issues ranging from the Middle East to health care to Obama's golfing. Cruz and Perry got among the lustiest responses from the nearly 3,000 grass-roots activists at Americans for Prosperity's annual Defending the American Dream summit. But Paul and Pence, who on Thursday night dined privately with a more exclusive group of major donors and VIPs including AFP foundation chairman David Koch and columnist George Will, appear to have made the best impressions on the elite and moneyed class." ...
... Erin Durkin of the New York Daily News: New York"City pols blasted Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Sunday for taking a swipe at the Bronx in a speech to a conservative group. Cruz invoked the borough's bad old days high-crime image, saying he was tired of hearing northern pols like Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) 'lecture' about immigration. 'Now, I understand that Manhattan is very concerned with their security with the Bronx, but it's a little bit different on 2,000 miles of the Rio Grande,' he said in a speech Saturday to the group Americans for Prosperity. That got a rise out of city Democrats who represent the borough."
News Ledes
Guardian: "The UK and US governments have criticised, in unusually strong language, Israel's decision to approve one of the largest appropriations of Palestinian land for settlement in recent decades. The UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said he deplored the move as 'particularly ill-judged'."
Al Jazeera: "Iraqi Kurdish forces and Shia armed volunteers have retaken more northern towns from the Islamic State group, killing at least two of its senior fighters, sources have told Al Jazeera. A day after breaking the siege in the town of Amerli north of Baghdad, government forces retook the town of Sulaiman Bek on Monday, removing another key stronghold of the Islamic State group." ...
... Guardian: "Barack Obama on Monday formally notified Congress that he had authorised targeted air strikes in Iraq to help deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Shia town of Amerli, the White House said in a statement."
Washington Post: Pakistan's "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was clinging to power Monday as protesters stepped up their assault on government buildings while the capital was gripped with fear and confusion about whether the country's powerful military will step in to defuse the tension. As the demonstrations calling for the prime minister's resignation enter their third week, Sharif is trying to navigate Pakistan's worst political crisis in more than a decade."
Guardian: "The American government on Monday asked North Korea to release three Americans currently held in the communist country, after foreign media outlets were allowed to interview detainees. 'Out of humanitarian concern for Jeffrey Fowle, Matthew Miller, and their families, we request the [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] release them so they may return home,' said Jen Psaki, spokesperson for the State Department, in a statement. 'We also request the DPRK pardon Kenneth Bae and grant him special amnesty and immediate release so he may reunite with his family and seek medical care.'"
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