When Matt Stoller talks about big tech corporations trying to "defund the police," he means that big tech corporations donate to the politicians who'll cut off funding for our Federal Trade Commission (or FTC), who enforce antitrust law and who are more hostile to monopolies than at any time in at least 40 years. Strange that every time Republicans try to cut funding for our IRS or for Medicare's fraud investigators, they don't call it "defunding the police," though that's really what it is. But just try to criticize a cop for killing a Black man who was brandishing a cellphone, and these very same people will scream their lungs out at you like their mamas never taught them any manners. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you yammer on about "urban crime" but you never mention corporate crime, I won't listen to you.
Good news, everyone: Ecuador's Constitutional Court has ruled that indigenous populations have the right to veto any drilling or mining projects on their land. When Marco Rubio hears about this, I'm sure he'll yammer on about trial lawyers, even though getting a small community's permission before drilling for oil or gas near their homes would strike most reasonable thinkers as the conservative thing to do. Giving the most autonomy to the most local forms of government is still conservative, right? Or has the word been tortured until the only thing it says is more money for rich people?
Matthew Jordan and Sydney Forde at The Conversation tell us that "Canadian Trucker Protests Show How the Loudest Voices in the Room Distort Democracy." I've said truckers have the right to close off roads even though they're a bunch of whiny brats, but yeah, if I were living in Ottawa right now, I'd probably be disgusted with all the horn-blowing. Well, as they say, the emptiest wagon makes the loudest noise. You know, just like in campaign finance!
If you've been thinking that the successful recall of three San Francisco school board members sends yet another signal of a Republican wave in 2022, don't think that, and not necessarily because their replacements will be appointed by a Democratic Mayor anyway. Folks much closer to the controversy inform us that the main issue voters had with the school board was its rampant incompetence -- they cared more about renaming Abraham Lincoln High School than, you know, figuring out how to get kids educated in a pandemic. I mean, getting Confederate names off schools is fine. But Abraham Lincoln was a stone-cold slavery fighter! No, really -- look past his carefully-calculated public pronouncements and look at his personal letters, in which he can't STFU about how much he hates slavery.
Some observers, noting that Republican Senators on the Finance Committee boycotted a meeting about a particular Fed nominee, wonder if they'll do the same to the eventual Supreme Court nominee. Some of them are already talking like she won't be qualified just because she'll be Black and female, though plenty of Black women are qualified enough to serve on our Court. And thus the same Senators who rushed the Kavanaugh and Barrett nominations will suddenly become apostles of patience and prudence if their stupidest questions aren't answered to their liking. And Joe Manchin will pretend not to notice Republicans inflicting yet another injury to his beloved "bipartisanship," and Kyrsten Sinema will just blame all liberals everywhere for not "getting to yes" with the party that only says yes when they get everything and you get nothing.
Finally, some more good news! our Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) will reinstate California's authority to set stricter emissions standards than our federal government. This means, of course, that automotive corporations will build their cars to stricter standards, because California has a lot of people in it, you know, but they did it before Donald Trump, so they can do it again after Donald Trump. We really don't ask that much of our "big," "bold" "entrepreneurs."
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