"Pentagon Preparing for Mass Civil Breakdown" is the headline of this Guardian article. Apparently they've been partnering with universities in studies that monitor social media to discover when "social contagions" reach a "tipping point," as they supposedly did in the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the 2013 Gazi park protests. In their zeal to pre-empt (or cause?) these tipping points, some Pentagon-backed studies will scrutinize non-violent activists, and they're quite tight-lipped about that. But we could tell them all about tipping points for nothing: whenever governments and corporations screw people over, they should expect blowback.
L.A.-based writer/producer Joel Silberman tells us why, after refusing to support Hillary Clinton in 2008, he's ready to do so in 2016. I'm sympathetic to his point about President Obama -- that Mr. Obama was our "olive branch" to the right, "a way to try to dial down the culture war" -- but I still doubt a woman President will stop the Todd Akins of the world from making fools of themselves and getting a lot of attention for it. And even if she does enjoy fighting right-wingers, what great policy triumphs will that deliver?
ProPublica reminds us that when Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) ran for governor in 2010, he pledged to close a loophole allowing Limited Liability Corporations (or LLCs) to donate well above the limits for everyone else, but instead he's raised record amounts of money from them. And folks can basically create as many LLCs as they can afford, meaning they can easily evade even the flimsy LLC limits on the books. Mr. Cuomo has proposed legislation to end them, and has even put such legislation in the budgets he submits to the legislature, but Governors put a lot of things into budgets they know will never pass.
Right Wing Watch introduces us to the Wilks brothers, Farris and Dan, who may one day be to the fracking industry what the Koch brothers are now to coal. They're worth "only" $3 billion, but they give their money generously to far-right causes, which actions Right Wing Watch document copiously. As an aside, I didn't know David Barton's idiocy extended to claiming that the Bible opposes progressive taxation. Perhaps he possesses "unconfirmed quotations" from Jesus.
Finally, in case you were wondering, the Economic Policy Institute informs us that "CEO Pay Continues to Rise as Typical Workers Are Paid Less." And their pay has risen twice as fast as the stock market has grown since 1977, so I will brook no BUT TEH CEOS WORK FOR TEH SHAREHOLDERZ!!!! silliness. And CEO pay doesn't just blow away yours-and-mine pay -- it outstrips other highly-paid workers' pay, too. What do they do all day?
Comments