Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens offers six Constitutional amendments. Off the top of my head, I approve of amendments one through four (covering local refusal to enforce federal law, gerrymandering, campaign finance, and states attempting to evade federal law), and not amendments five and six (covering the death penalty and gun control), but if the good Lord lets me live to 94, I hope I can be half as nimble-minded as Mr. Justice Stewart.
Jim Hightower writes about the "Whining Wall Street Banker Plead(ing) Pity, who would be JP Morgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon, who thinks "banks are under assault," though he still makes unearned millions hand over fist and will never see the inside of a prison cell for his multitudinous sins. How "American" is it to have to deal with "five or six" regulators instead of "one," he asks? Well, let's consult the U.S. Constitution -- and we find it silent on the matter of exactly how many federal regulators is "fair" or "American," just as I suspected. Poor, poor man, having redistributed all that worker wealth upward to himself and still being unloved. You'd almost think the two facts are related or something.
Helaine Olen at Slate tells us that while "financial literacy" sounds like a terrific goal to which we should all aspire, actual efforts at financial literacy education don't deliver very much financial literacy. Why do these efforts continue, then? Because, she says, the corporate world doesn't want to be regulated, and if it can convince you that you don't need your government to work on your behalf, it can wriggle "free" of those regulations. We see this all the time when folks say some variation of you should've known that Big Bankster was going to steal your money, rather than saying something more pertinent, like those Big Banksters shouldn't take advantage of people like that.
Paul Waldman at the Washington Post looks at the crash-and-burn of the Obama Administration's plan to eliminate tax benefits for upper middle-class citizens who use 529 accounts to save for college, and says the lesson is "Don't Mess with Government Giveaways to the Well-Off." But I think there's a different lesson here: if Democrats would just propose hiking taxes dramatically on millionaire income, they wouldn't have to rely on proposals that take a reasonable person more than a dozen words to describe, which Republicans can then dispatch of in less than half a dozen words. And even if 70% of 529 account owners make over $200,000 annually, most of them still aren't in the Super Rich People's Club.
Cuban President Raul Castro wants Guantánamo Bay back as part of any deal with the U.S. to re-open diplomatic relations. I would not be averse to depriving our government of at least one place to detain people for no good reason in this manner; indeed, I wouldn't put it past President Obama to have begun this process knowing it would bring such an end, and perhaps one day I'll be mature (or weary) enough to call that cleverness.
Finally, Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America's Future summarizes "Corporate Arguments for Fast-Track." It's a thorough analysis (especially for the demolition of the FREE TRADEZ HELPZ TEH SMALL BIZNIZZEZ!!! line), but spoiler alert: nobody in the pro-"free" trade crowd, from the President on down, has bothered to explain why any of their listed reasons justify expediting the pact's passage, with less debate. Of course, Mr. Obama himself has been telling Democrats to get their media information from somewhere other than the Huffington Post. Two problems: 1) traditional "liberal" media outlets aren't covering "free" trade, likely because everyone would know they're full of shit, and 2) the negotiators are keeping their negotiations secret, likely for the same reason.
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