Opinion | Trump’s Supreme Betrayal – Paul Krugman – NYT

“By now, it’s almost a commonplace to say that Trump has systematically betrayed the white working class voters who put him over the top. He ran as a populist; he’s governed as an orthodox Republican, with the only difference being the way he replaced racial dog-whistles with raw, upfront racism.

Many people have made this point with respect to the Trump tax cut, which is so useless to ordinary workers that Republican candidates are trying to avoid talking about it. The same can be said about health care, where Democrats are making Trump’s assault on the Affordable Care Act a major issue while Republicans try to change the subject.

But I think we should be seeing more attention devoted to the way Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court fits into this picture. The Times had a good editorial on Kavanaugh’s anti-worker agenda, but by and large the news analyses I’ve seen focus on his apparently expansive views of presidential authority and privilege.

I agree that these are important in the face of a lawless president with authoritarian instincts. But the business and labor issues shouldn’t be neglected. Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment.”

David Lindsay: Yes, Bravo. Here is the top comment to enjoy.
Socrates
Downtown Verona. NJJuly 30
As far as a majority of Republican and Trump voters are concerned, the United States Supreme Court is for enshrining Christian Shariah Law, negating the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and preserving the inalienable right of White Christian Male terrorists to randomly slaughter as many Americans as possible based on their individual mood swings.

The corporate and 1% raping of 99% of America doesn’t really register with these voters.

As long as Republicans wave the slightly veiled neo-Confederate flag of White Spite, these voters are perfectly comfortable with 350:1 CEO:worker pay ratios, the elimination of class action suits, mandated corporate arbitration, the destruction of union/worker rights, the fouling of the water, the air and the land, and the elimination of all common sense regulation that protects consumers, citizens and the non-rich.

Trump and the Grand Old Plantation party know exactly what they’re doing and they’ve been doing it very effectively since 1968 when they began their neo-Confederate Strategy.

The Republican Party is no friend of anyone except the richest Americans.

“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Lyndon B. Johnson

Kavanaugh is for Corporate Shariah Law that reduces Republican voters to Grand Old Peasants.

D for democracy; R for right-wing, Randian radicalism.

Resist.

Reply783 Recommended

Facebook Has Identified Ongoing Political Influence Campaign – By Nicholas Fandos and Kevin Roose – NYT

By Nicholas Fandos and Kevin Roose
July 31, 2018

198
WASHINGTON — Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has identified a coordinated political influence campaign, with dozens of inauthentic accounts and pages that are believed to be engaging in political activity around divisive social issues ahead of November’s midterm elections.

In a series of briefings on Capitol Hill this week and a public post on Tuesday, the company told lawmakers that it had detected and removed 32 pages and accounts connected to the influence campaign on Facebook and Instagram as part of its investigations into election interference. It publicly said it had been unable to tie the accounts to Russia, whose Internet Research Agency was at the center of an indictment earlier this year for interfering in the 2016 election, but company officials told Capitol Hill that Russia was possibly involved, according to two officials briefed on the matter.

Facebook said that the accounts — eight Facebook pages, 17 Facebook profiles, and seven Instagram accounts — were created between March 2017 and May 2018 and first discovered two weeks ago. Those numbers may sound small, but their influence is spreading: More than 290,000 accounts followed at least one of the suspect pages, the company said.

Between April 2017 and June 2018, the accounts ran 150 ads costing $11,000 on the two platforms. They were paid for in American and Canadian dollars. And the pages created roughly 30 events over a similar time period, the largest of which attracted interest from 4,700 accounts.

via Facebook Has Identified Ongoing Political Influence Campaign – The New York Times

David Lindsay:

The European Union passed a law that companies like Facebook, have just 24 hours to identify fake news and remove it in the European Union, or face a 50 Million Euro fine per incident. Facebook set up an HQ in Germany with 2000 analysts to remove all fake posts within 24 hours.

If only the GOP were patriots, they would pass similar legislation. But they are in bed with the Russians, it appears.

Asia Development Bank Report on Climate Change in Asia

 

“The historic Paris Agreement of 2015 has acknowledged that the global climate crisis is arguably the greatest challenge
human civilization faces in the 21st century. In this context, the role of the Asia and Pacific region is characterized
by a double dichotomy that entails simultaneously high risks and significant opportunities. Proper analysis guided
by adequate information can result in investment and policy choices that will continue to promote sustainable economic
development and eradicate poverty in the region.
The first dichotomy relates to the region accounting for an increasing overall share of global emissions of greenhouse
gases (GHGs) harming not only the world but the region itself. At the same time however, countries of the region have
the unprecedented opportunity to break the GHG-intensive development path by rapidly modifying the historical
model of industrial development. The rapidly decreasing costs of wind and solar power generation clearly indicates that
consumption and production of the future could be driven by renewable energy sources, though the when and where of
this great transition remain uncertain.
The second dichotomy pertains to the already observed and anticipated future impacts of anthropogenic global warming.
On the one hand, the rapid economic and human development of the region renders societies less vulnerable to the familiar
vagaries of the environment—such as heat waves, heavy precipitation or tropical cyclones. In particular, the shift away from
agriculture as the core sector guaranteeing livelihoods and the associated economic diversification of the countries of the
region help to increase resilience to weather extremes such as those experienced historically. Simultaneously however,
the same developments have opened up new avenues of exposure and vulnerability. Coastal populations and assets are
highly at risk from projected rises in sea level and the intensification of extreme weather events. Urbanized populations
are exposed to heat stress hazards. National and increasingly integrated regional economic systems are vulnerable to
disruptions in supply chain networks. Populations are migrating away from areas where climate change impacts represent
an increasing threat.
These rapidly emerging new climate vulnerabilities in the Asia and Pacific region need to be addressed with a portfolio
of strategies involving capacity building, preparedness programs, urban and rural planning, national and social security
schemes, proactive migration and numerous others. Crucial preconditions for success are whole-systems and long-term
thinking and planning, based on the best available data, analysis, and modeling.”

The City of My Birth in India Is Becoming a Climate Casualty. It Didn’t Have to Be. – By Somini Sengupta – NYT

 

By Somini Sengupta

• July 31, 2018

“KOLKATA, India — I wanted to glimpse the future in the city where I was born. So, this summer I returned to India for a firsthand look at the way climate change is affecting Kolkata.

I spent the first seven years of my life in this delta city, close to where the Ganges pours into the sea. In my memory, it was a city of steam and sweat, rice and fish, of languid, muggy afternoons. A city of water. Lots and lots of water.

On this trip, in the era of global warming, I found a city at profound risk.”

Source: The City of My Birth in India Is Becoming a Climate Casualty. It Didn’t Have to Be. – The New York Times

The Worst Drug Crisis in American History – By Jessica Bruder – NYT

By Jessica Bruder
July 31, 2018 89 comments
DOPESICK Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America By Beth Macy Illustrated. 376 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $28.

In 2000, a doctor in the tiny town of St. Charles, Va., began writing alarmed letters to Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. The drug had come to market four years earlier and Art Van Zee had watched it ravage the state’s poorest county, where he’d practiced medicine for nearly a quarter-century. Older patients were showing up at his office with abscesses from injecting crushed-up pills. Nearly a quarter of the juniors at a local high school had reported trying the drug. Late one night, Van Zee was summoned to the hospital where a teenage girl he knew — he could still remember immunizing her as an infant — had arrived in the throes of an overdose.

Van Zee begged Purdue to investigate what was happening in Lee County and elsewhere. People were starting to die. “My fear is that these are sentinel areas, just as San Francisco and New York were in the early years of H.I.V.,” he wrote.

Since then, the worst drug crisis in America’s history — sparked by OxyContin and later broadening into heroin and fentanyl — has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, with no signs of abating. Just this spring, public health officials announced a record: The opioid epidemic had killed 45,000 people in the 12-month span that ended in September, making it almost as lethal as the AIDS crisis at its peak.”

David Lindsay:

My comment to the NYT, now also the blog post before this one:

If we legalize and regulate addictive drugs, much of these enormous profits from the illegal drug business would decrease dramatically. When alcohol was re-legalized after prohibition, armed gangs were disbanded and killings decreased greatly.

Many economists, at least privately, admit that we should legalize addictive drugs to ameliorate the negative effects. Herbert Stein and Milton Friedman are two famous right of center economists who have called for legalization.

   Legalization would allow us win the war on illegal drug trafficking, and it is probably the only way to win the war on drug trafficking.

It would not be simple. There would need to be investment and resources into drug addiction rehabilitation programs, jobs programs, support systems. We would need severe financial penalties and long jail sentences for  businesses and individuals that push addictive drugs onto non-addicts. The law has to be severe with people who turn citizens or patients into addicts.

Decriminalization would be an immediate place to begin, to get tens of thousands of petty drug users and sellers out of our jails.

We have a heroin epidemic in New England and the rest of the country right now. Much of the heroin is bad, and kills people. If heroin was legal and regulated, doses would be bad for you, but wouldn’t stop your heart. Countless young people, including my son Austin, would be alive after experimenting with the drug. It is the illegality of these drugs that make them unregulated. Bad batches kill people, like my son Austin. The huge illegal profits are destabilizing whole countries, and police forces, prosecutors and judges.

Legalize Addictive Drugs – By David Lindsay Jr

David Lindsay

May 5, 2014 · 

Legalize Addictive Drugs

If we legalize and regulate addictive drugs, much of these enormous profits from the illegal drug business would decrease dramatically. When alcohol was re-legalized after prohibition, armed gangs were disbanded and killings decreased greatly.

Many economists, at least privately, admit that we should legalize addictive drugs to ameliorate the negative effects. Herbert Stein and Milton Friedman are two famous right of center economists who have called for legalization.

   Legalization would allow us win the war on illegal drug trafficking, and it is probably the only way to win the war on drug trafficking.

It would not be simple. There would need to be investment and resources into drug addiction rehabilitation programs, jobs programs, support systems. We would need severe financial penalties and long jail sentences for  businesses and individuals that push addictive drugs onto non-addicts. The law has to be severe with people who turn citizens or patients into addicts.

Decriminalization would be an immediate place to begin, to get tens of thousands of petty drug users and sellers out of our jails.

We have a heroin epidemic in New England and the rest of the country right now. Much of the heroin is bad, and kills people. If heroin was legal and regulated, doses would be bad for you, but wouldn’t stop your heart. Countless young people, including my son Austin, would be alive after experimenting with the drug. It is the illegality of these drugs that make them unregulated. Bad batches kill people, like my son Austin. The huge illegal profits are destabilizing whole countries, and police forces, prosecutors and judges.

 

originally posted on Facebook.

Here is the same comment, cut to under 1500 words, to become a comment at the NYT today, after an article by Jessica Bruder, “The Worst Drug Crisis in American History”

If we legalize and regulate addictive drugs, much of these enormous profits from the illegal drug business would decrease dramatically. When alcohol was re-legalized after prohibition, armed gangs were disbanded and killings decreased greatly. Many economists, at least privately, admit that we should legalize addictive drugs to ameliorate the negative effects. Herbert Stein and Milton Friedman are two famous right of center economists who have called for legalization. There would need to be investment and resources into drug addiction rehabilitation programs, jobs programs, support systems. We would need severe financial penalties and long jail sentences for  businesses and individuals that push addictive drugs onto non-addicts. The law has to be severe with people who turn citizens or patients into addicts. Decriminalization would be an immediate place to begin, to get tens of thousands of petty drug users and sellers out of our jails. We have a heroin epidemic in New England and the rest of the country right now. Much of the heroin is bad, and kills people. If heroin was legal and regulated, doses would be bad for you, but wouldn’t stop your heart. Countless young people, including my son Austin, would be alive after experimenting with the drug. It is the illegality of these drugs that make them unregulated. Bad batches kill people, like my son Austin. The huge illegal profits are destabilizing whole countries, and police forces, prosecutors and judges.

Editorial | Impeach Rosenstein? C’mon Man – Reps Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio – NYT

“While Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is surely disheartened to have had five articles of impeachment filed against him by a clutch of congressional Republicans on Wednesday evening, he should not take the move personally.

Although Representatives Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the current and former chairmen of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who are leading this crusade, are running around Washington loudly accusing Mr. Rosenstein of high crimes and misdemeanors, their public relations assault is not actually about his refusing to turn over this or that document related to the Russia investigation. It’s not really even about the lawmakers’ loathing of the broader investigation, though certainly President Trump’s congressional lackeys — Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan most definitely included — are increasingly desperate to derail it.

For Freedom Caucus leaders, this impeachment resolution is about something at once much broader and far pettier: the need to make a huge, disruptive, polarizing political stink just as members head home for the long hot August recess. Especially with a critical midterm election coming, it never hurts to have some extra well-marbled meat to throw the voters. And it is unlikely a coincidence that, less than 24 hours after filing, Mr. Jordan — who, lest anyone forget, is multiply accused of overlooking rampant sexual abuse while an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University — formally announced his candidacy for House speaker.

Not to make Mr. Rosenstein feel any less special, but this is the fourth year in a row that Freedom Caucusers have pulled a summer-break stunt so nakedly self-serving that it would be comic if it weren’t so odious in its quest to erode public faith in government and in democratic institutions more broadly. Indeed, for all those wondering how the Republican Party reached the point where Donald Trump could swallow it whole with his furious everything-is-awful-and-everyone-is-out-to-get-you brand of demagogy, look no further than the nihilists in the Freedom Caucus.” . . . . .

“This stunt is in fact so ridiculous, so unfounded, so poisonous to the Republic that Attorney General Jeff Sessions felt compelled not only to publicly defend his deputy, but also to suggest that the lawmakers involved find a better use of their time. And Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general who was fired in January 2017 for refusing to defend President Trump’s travel ban, tweeted a warning about the long-term damage of “using the Department of Justice as a prop for political theater.”

Opinion | Michael Cohen Takes a Bullet – by Charles Blow – NYT

“Here’s to Michael Cohen. He’s finally getting something right.

First, let’s state forthrightly that Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, the fix-it man, the one who mopped up Trump’s messes, the one who said he would “take a bullet for the president,” is an incredibly unsavory character and a bully.

He thought himself a tough guy, Trump’s muscle collecting the crumbs of Trump’s money.

For instance, in 2015 he threatened a Daily Beast reporter who was writing about the time Trump’s first wife, Ivana, claimed Trump had raped her, only to later say that she didn’t want her use of the word rape “to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

According to that reporter, Cohen erroneously — and outrageously — claimed, “You cannot rape your spouse,” before launching into this tirade:

“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know … So I’m warning you, tread very [expletive] lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be [expletive] disgusting. You understand me?

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up … for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet … you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it.” “

Opinion | How Trump Lost Re-election in 2020 – by David Leonhardt – NYT

“Last week, my colleague Bret Stephens imagined a news article on the morning after President Trump’s re-election. Today, I imagine a different outcome.In the end, it was a lot simpler than it often seemed.Donald J. Trump, who spent much of the past four years as a historically unpopular president, lost his bid for re-election Tuesday. His approval rating hasn’t approached 50 percent since he took office, and neither did his share of the vote this year.

In an era of deep national anxiety — with stagnant wages, rickety health insurance and aggressive challenges from China and Russia — voters punished an incumbent president who failed on his central promise: “I alone can fix it.” ”

David Lindsay:

Bravo David Leonhardt. Well written. You have even opened my mind a few inches towards considering Elizabeth Warren. I have been thinking, we must have a Joe Biden or a younger version of him, to win those pesky swing states. But, on the other hand, the never another woman in our lifetime crowd, which I was in, should all read David Brooks magnificent piece recently on the need for the Democrats to tell a good story. Trump has a good story, and focusing on identity politics isn’t the same thing as a moving narrative. Not only is Elizabeth Warren extremely qualified, she also has her life passion for consumer protection.  I still prefer we run a male, but we have to find one that swears that Elizabeth Warren will get to run the Consumer Protection Agency that she helped create.

That said, let me remind my fellow commentators and readers that Leonhardt did not choose Elizabeth Warren yet, he used her because Bret Stephens did. Pay attention to who Leonhardt does support, because I will bet you a penny he has sophisticated polling data to back up his choice if he makes one.

How to Beat F.O.B.O.- From the Expert Who Coined It – by Tim Herrera – NYT

Earlier this summer we talked about F.O.B.O. — the Fear of Better Options — and how it can sometimes lead us to paralysis when we’re trying to make a decision.

To refresh, F.O.B.O. gives a name to that spiral we fall into when we obsessively research every possible option when faced with a decision, fearing we’ll miss out on the “best” one. It can lead to indecision (duh), regret and even lower levels of happiness. One of the solutions I threw out was finding the Mostly Fine Decision — the outcome you’d be fine with, even if it’s not the absolute best possible outcome.

Hundreds of readers emailed and tweeted saying they recognized their own behavior, but one reader email in particular caught my attention: a note from Patrick McGinnis.

via How to Beat F.O.B.O., From the Expert Who Coined It – The New York Times