WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
THE EMPIRE COMES HOME
As in Baghdad, so in Baltimore. It’s connected, you see. Scholars, pundits, politicians, most of us in fact like our worlds to remain discretely and comfortably separated. That’s why so few articles, reports, or op-ed columns even think to link police violence at home to our imperial pursuits abroad or the militarization of the policing of urban America to our wars across the Greater Middle East and Africa… It may be something of a cliché that distant wars have a way of coming home, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Policing today is being Baghdadified in the United States. Over the last 40 years, as Washington struggled to maintain its global military influence, the nation’s domestic police have progressively shifted to military-style patrol, search, and surveillance tactics, while measuring success through statistical models familiar to any Pentagon staff officer… What’s global is local. And vice versa. American society is embracing its inner empire. Eventually, its long reach may come for us all. More
THE SCANDAL OF PENTAGON SPENDING
Your Tax Dollars Support Troops of Defense Contractor CEOs
Hawks on Capitol Hill and in the U.S. military routinely justify increases in the Defense Department's already munificent budget by arguing that yet more money is needed to “support the troops.” If you’re already nodding in agreement, let me explain just where a huge chunk of the Pentagon budget -- hundreds of billions of dollars -- really goes. Keep in mind that it’s your money we’re talking about. The answer couldn’t be more straightforward: it goes directly to private corporations and much of it is then wasted on useless overhead, fat executive salaries, and startling (yet commonplace) cost overruns on weapons systems and other military hardware that, in the end, won’t even perform as promised. Too often the result isweapons that aren’t needed at prices we can’t afford. If anyone truly wanted to help the troops, loosening the corporate grip on the Pentagon budget would be an excellent place to start. More
US police killings undercounted by half, study using Guardian data finds
Over half of all police killings in 2015 were wrongly classified as not having been the result of interactions with officers, a new Harvard study based on Guardian data has found. The finding is just the latest to show government databases seriously undercounting the number of people killed by police. “Right now the data quality is bad and unacceptable,” said lead researcher Justin Feldman. “To effectively address the problem of law enforcement-related deaths, the public needs better data about who is being killed, where, and under what circumstances.” More
Trump’s acting like Obamacare is just politics. It’s people’s lives.
Donald Trump has long predicted the implosion of Obamacare. He just took a huge step to fulfilling his own prophecy.
The White House announced late Thursday morning it would cut off a key Obamacare subsidy that makes copayments and deductibles more affordable for low-income Americans. Trump pulled the trigger on the plan late Thursday night. Trump has spent months toying with the idea of ending these payments, which are drawn from a $7 billion fund set up specifically to cover these costs. House Republicans havechallenged these payments in court, arguing that they were never appropriated in Obamacare and thus being illegally distributed… To recap: Trump is enacting a policy where the government spends billions more to insure fewer people. This is a policy that helps nobody and hurts millions. And that is actually different from the other health care policies Trump and congressional Republicans have pursued. More
Trump's Latest Attack on Obamacare Violates Oath to Uphold Constitution
President Trump’s executive order Thursday to sabotage the Affordable Care Act—aka Obamacare—is crossing a new legal threshold that could become part of a growing list of ultimately impeachable actions, much like Richard Nixon faced a deepening list of offenses before he resigned from office in 1974. That’s because Trump’s willful destruction of Obamacare, a law passed by the Congress—not a regulation promulgated by federal departments—would violate his oath to uphold the Constitution, whose Article Two demands that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” … What’s new and different about Trump’s presidency at this time is his actions—and his threats tied to governmental actions—which are clashing with different constitutional duties and rights he has sworn to uphold. More
The Billionaire Battle Plan to Destroy Unions
Citizens United was a federal decision, but until 2010 there were 22 states that had their own laws barring or limited corporate spending in politics. All of those were invalidated by the Supreme Court decision. Following that decision, 11 states went from either mixed or Democratic rule to being wall-to-wall Republican, with the GOP in control of both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office. Critically for the labor movement, this included a swath of states in the upper Midwest that included Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin—states that were historically union strongholds and swing states in national elections… Chamber of Commerce and Republican Party in multiple states say that passing right-to-work legislation is their number one priority. Only seven percent of the private sector is unionized, so why would this be their number one priority?
Because they want to undermine unions now, to limit the possibility down the road that workers will organize. More
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