The New York Times actually seems rather concerned that the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" "free" trade deal (which concluded a recent round of negotiations in Maui last week, without scheduling another one) won't get done. To which I say: we can only hope! Trouble is, if the TPP gets dashed on the rocks because, say, Republicans insist on giving American pharmaceutical corporations more handouts, the "liberal" media will still report it as "the deal died because the hippies all screamed."
David Cay Johnston writes a comprehensive account of how corporations have hidden more and more of their profits offshore to avoid taxation in America. And, apparently, repealing one section of the giant 1986 tax reform law would do the job -- it would bring back at least $6 trillion in cash that's just sitting overseas doing nothing right now, and that could finance a lot of good projects. But Congress won't do it, because socialism.
U.S. District Court for Idaho rules that the state's "ag-gag" law is unconstitutional. Key quotation: "an agricultural facility’s operations that affect food and worker safety are not exclusively a private matter. Food and worker safety are matters of public concern. Moreover, laws against trespass, fraud, theft, and defamation already exist." Fairly succinct, and portends future good works.
Scott Walker's financial disclosures reveal that he has two credit cards running $10,000 of debt each, and is paying over 27% interest on one of them. Everyone struggles with credit card debt at some time or other, but not everyone's selling their ability to shepherd the people's money well as their President. And Mr. Walker is also one of the poorest Republican Presidential candidates -- rather like Max Baucus, long a lackey of the big banks and never an even remotely wealthy Senator -- and I think I actually like it less that Mr. Walker seems to believe so sincerely in shoveling the people's money to corporate welfare queens that he refuses to benefit from it.
Finally, on the occasion of the Obama Administration issuing its final climate change rules, Media Matters profiles over 20 "grassroots" organizations dedicated to killing the new carbon emissions rules dead. You'll recognize the gnarled hands of the Koch brothers in most of them. Some of them sound all reasonable and citizenly ("Partnership for Affordable Clean Energy," for example), but, as a famous philosopher once said, "you can't be a successful crook with a dishonest face."
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