Richard Clarke, one of the few who knew what was going on in the early days of Tha Bush Mobb, tells us that "encryption and privacy are larger issues than fighting terrorism," and that governments need to fight terrorism within limits. He's right, of course -- you need privacy every day of your life, but how long does terrorism last? Terrorists blow up a building or a disco or (even) carry out attacks in multiple places, and they have their little drama and get their dose of attention for a short time, and then life settles back down and no one addresses, or even remembers, their grievances. But our government punishes us for it. Funny how that works.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) notes the tide of public opinion against "free" trade, and says "it would be very damaging to the Republican Party to try to jam it through at the last minute after the elections are over." Well, unless Republicans have already won all the goodies, I suppose -- and then they can do what they always do and hope people forget about it in two years. And though I'd love to report that one of my least favorite Republican Senators did heroic work in stopping the TPP from ever getting passed, I really think he'll fold. If I'm wrong about that (and I'd be happy to be wrong about that!), you'll hear it here first.
What is "The Unexpected Cause of Water Crises in American Cities," according to Carrie Sloan at TalkPoverty? Banksters, naturally! Who took advantage of crumbling infrastructure and decreasing revenues to trick American cities into using interest rate swaps to alleviate their spending woes in the short term -- but of course these swaps had all kinds of penalties built into them that cities were going to trigger sooner or later. Anyone else think taxing speculation and outlandish wealth is a lot easier than depending on hifalutin financial instruments?
Amber A'Lee Frost, writing at FAIR, catches more than a few "liberal" media outlets attacking Bernie Sanders's proposal to use financial transaction taxes to pay for college tuition as unfair to the poor. How? Because "free" college which it's not if taxes pay for it Jesus Mary and Joseph is also "free" for the wealthy, meaning taxes will have to go up on everyone -- even though Mr. Sanders has dedicated a specific revenue stream to pay for it! Of course, dedicating specific revenue streams to specific programs is a bad idea; better to just say I'm going to raise taxes on millionaire income big time and keep pounding that message until people get it -- which they will, with or without "liberal" media help.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie misses a slain state trooper's funeral because he's out campaigning for Donald Trump. I mention this not to pick on the guy (Lt. Gov. Guadagno did attend the funeral, after all), but to point out that all your right-wing friends on Facebook -- the ones who excoriated President Obama's "silence" on certain police officer deaths he actually condemned in public, the ones who slammed Mr. Obama for not attending Nancy Reagan's funeral when precisely zero Presidents have attended First Ladies' funerals since World War II -- will pass around precisely zero memes excoriating Gov. Christie for this oversight.
Finally, a few "conservative" "establishment" types have gotten together to plot an alternative to having Donald Trump as the Republican Presidential nominee. But two of them are a former Bush Mobb aide and Red State's execrable founder, Erick Erickson -- two men who don't seem to think they've done anything to stoke the rage in the populace Mr. Trump is now exploiting. One more time: this is chickens-coming-home-to-roost territory for the Republican establishment. They not only deserve no sympathy for their predicament, they deserve no empathy -- they should have known they were playing with fire all those years they happily called their political opponents "traitor."
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