Spencer Woodman at The Intercept runs down five-count-'em-five bills proposed by Republican state legislators that aim to criminalize peaceful protest. The one from Washington state that would equate certain protests with "economic terrorism" is my personal favorite, and please understand that by "favorite" I mean "the bill I'd most like to see humiliate its author to the point where he never shows his face in public again." Don't figure that cooler heads will prevail and none of these laws will pass, because your representatives are nothing without you communicating your will to them.
In case you've been hearing that TEH DONALD IZ CREATINGZ TEH JOBZ ALREADYZ!!!!, please note that most of the corporations that have announced big job-creation plans in recent days are mostly announcing job-creation plans that have been in the works for some time. I mean, I'm as big a fan of public shaming as anyone, and if Mr. Trump were really shaming corporations into creating jobs, I'd be all for it. But when Sprint re-announces big job creation plans that they already announced long ago, or WalMart announces their regular amount of job creation not too long after cutting jobs, or Bayer announces job creation if their merger with Monsanto goes through (and that's some hostage-taking right there!), you have every reason to believe this is all snake oil salesmanship.
Oh, and if you're hurrying to protest the above paragraph by saying TEH AMAZON IZ ADDINGZ TEH 100,000 JOBZ!!!!, please note, as Greg LeRoy at Good Jobs First does, that if Amazon adds 100,000 jobs to its warehouses, that still won't make up for the loss of 200,000 jobs at brick-and-mortar retail stores over just the past four years. Yes, we can draw a direct line from one to the other, particularly when we remember that Amazon has been around since 1994, and we all remember the obliteration of medium-sized bookstore chains like B. Dalton Booksellers, Waldenbooks, and Encore Books (not to mention Borders!). (Also, too, Amazon sure gets a lot of corporate welfare handouts from states. How libertarian is that, Mr. Bezos?)
Outgoing FCC Chair Tom Wheeler explains why we should keep net neutrality rules. He wasn't that much in favor of them until millions of Americans spoke out, but Mr. Wheeler makes a case that should persuade folks who don't know much about net neutrality, and that's no small thing. Seriously, it doesn't have to be all freedom-from-corporate-interference all the time -- sometimes you need to hear someone say that net neutrality hasn't slowed capital investment or injured corporate profits, and sometimes you also need to hear someone cite "the desires of a few ISPs to be free of meaningful oversight," since that's what net neutrality opposition is really all about. And why should a few big telecoms get all the say about everything?
Finally, Michael T. Klare at TomDispatch describes the "four flash points" that could develop into an international crisis Mr. Trump will have to deal with as President. None of them will surprise you -- "North Korea, the South China Sea, the Baltic Sea region, and the Middle East," and it's good to be reminded that Gen. Mattis (Mr. Trump's Defense Secretary nominee) wanted to attack Iran back in 2011. But don't worry; somehow, for Republicans and their "liberal" media enablers, whatever happens will all be Mr. Obama's fault. And the same people who would blame Mr. Obama will call you a traitor if you blame Mr. Trump.
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