My initial reaction to the news that our government had blurry, heavily-edited video of Iranian patrol boats in the vicinity of two oil tankers several hours after they suffered attacks was to call it drama -- why would we suddenly go to war with Iran now over something they've been doing for decades? Because our President, or John Bolton, wants a notch on their belt? It was just icing on the cake to hear later that the owner of one of the attacked tankers disputed our government's account of events. I said years ago that President Obama's competence in the service of empire was nothing to celebrate, but this President's inability to run a convincing false flag operation might be.
Michael Corcoran at TruthOut describes the current state of health insurance industry propaganda against Medicare-for-All. ZOMG 150 MILLYUNZ WILL LOSEZ THEIR PRIVATE INSURANZ!!!!! is not a talking point only John Delaney had been using -- and though it's true support wavers for Medicare-for-All once the pollster says psst you'll lose your private health insurance, that's a damn slim reed to hold onto, since "you can keep your hospital and doctor" if they have to take Medicare-for-All health insurance, as they will. And private health insurance plans are only popular when folks don't have to use them. This is a big country, so not everyone's going to have a problem with their health insurance at once, hence polls suggesting private health insurance is "popular" are intensely misleading. Also, too, when Third Way-types say we shouldn't do it because it's "ripe for attack," you should recognize such argument as cowardly. And stupid -- after all, haven't Republicans demonstrated they'll attack anything Democrats propose, no matter how weak?
JP Morgan/Chase CEO Jamie Dimon tells a business roundtable that "(s)ocialism means that the government owns and controls companies" and that government would use them for "political purposes, for jobs and votes." After we remind everyone that some people cry "socialism" at whatever they don't like because they can't win the argument on the merits, we have to remind folks that government corruption is easier to fight than corporate corruption because you have a voice in your government, and we also need to remind folks that restraining the power of the rich to run roughshod over the rest of us (which is what Mr. Dimon's really afraid of losing here!) is the best way to promote freedom for everyone else. People like Mr. Dimon complain about government "own(ing) and control(ling) (corporations)" because they want to do all the owning and controlling. And corporate CEOs need to ask themselves if they really want banksters like Mr. Dimon controlling them.
Ho hum, one of the House architects of the 2017 tax "reform" now says it's "way too early to tell" whether deficits will be worse over the next decade, even though deficit-neutrality was one of Republicans' big selling points and even though deficits are significantly worse now. He adds, "I don’t think anything could have been worse for the deficit than to stick with the old economy and stick with the tax code that was so outdated," although, as I'm now going to say with the Italics Hammer, deficits are worse now. No truth to the rumor that he then added BUT WE ALREADYZ PASSEDZ TEH BILLZ ANDZ OURZ DONURZ GOTZ ALL TEH GOODIEZ SUCKERZ!!!!!
Finally, our President invokes "executive privilege" to keep our House from accessing documents concerning its rulemaking on the census citizenship question. First thought: case is being litigated by our Supreme Court as we speak, so maybe he can. Second thought: House has oversight duties, particularly if they're going to create law on the matter (and Congress has introduced legislation addressing the citizenship question), so maybe he can't. Third thought: our Supreme Court can take care of itself without Executive branch help. Fourth thought: "executive privilege" can't be the answer to everything any more than "national emergency" can be the answer to everything.
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