The Coming Assault on Social Security

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/30/the-coming-assault-on-social-security/

From the site:

The first assault of the new Trump administration and Republican Congress upon Social Security has been launched. It comes in the form of release of a new report by the Congressional Budget Office, which of course these days is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Congressional Caucus.

Using some financial sleight-of-hand, this CBO report pushes forward by two years the date at which its ideologically driven experts claim Social Security benefits will exhaust the Trust Fund, and since the Social Security program is required to be self-financing, the date at which, barring adjustments by Congress in the program’s funding and/or benefit payment levels, promised benefits would have to be cut by what the CBO claims will have to be 31%.

Such a cut would clearly be a staggering blow to the finances and livelihoods of nation’s retirees, dependents and the disabled.

This end-of-the-year CBO report is at odds with a report issued earlier this year by the Trustees of the Social Security Administration, which projected that the Trust Fund, barring any changes in taxes or benefit payments, would be tapped out in 2033, and that at that point benefits, barring some fixes in Social Security financing, would have to be cut by an also horrific but far lower 21% (with the remaining 79% of benefit payments being covered by current employee FICA taxes being paid into the system).

 Trump Is Capitalizing on the Anxiety Caused by the End of Steady Employment

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-is-capitalizing-on-the-anxiety-caused-by-the-end-of-steady-employment/

From the site:

 The left will fight Donald Trump’s plans for remaking the economy in the interests of finance, energy extraction, and CEOs. But the left also needs to figure out its own approach to the economy—one that connects with workers who feel left behind and delivers in a way that Trump’s economics will not.


One useful tool in this regard is The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It by David Weil. This underappreciated book describes the “fissured workplace”: the result of corporations increasingly distributing activities through an extensive network of contracting, outsourcing, franchising, and ownership. Workers are less likely to work for the corporation that ultimately profits from their labor; instead, they work for a loose network of middlemen or as independent contractors. Their work is still monitored and controlled as closely as any other office worker, but they lose the protections of labor law and the ability to fully enjoy the rewards of economic growth.


The world today looks ominously like it did before World War I

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/29/the-world-today-looks-ominously-like-it-did-before-world-war-i/

From the site:

A backlash to globalization appears to be gaining strength around the world. U.S. politicians on both the right and left have called for curbing free trade deals they say benefit foreigners or the global elite. President-elect Donald Trump has championed tariffs on imports and limits on immigration, and suggested withdrawing from international alliances and trade agreements. Meanwhile, populist and nationalist governments have gained ground in Europe and Asia, and voters in Britain have elected to withdraw from the European Union.

To some, it looks ominously like another moment in history — the period leading up to World War I, which marked the end of a multi-decade expansion in global ties that many call the first era of globalization.

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause'

The article quotes Brooks D. Simpson, an Arizona State University historian, as saying that targeted populations will be told by whites to "get over it." I suspect we're going to hear a lot of "move on" and "get over it" rhetoric in the next four years.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/28/us/lost-cause-trump/index.html

From the site:

After President-elect Donald Trump's recent victory, some of his supporters celebrated by flying Confederate battle flags from pickup trucks and waving them at rallies.

But Trump's victory may mark the resurgence of the Old South in another more sinister way: The return of "racial amnesia." That's what some historians are saying as they watch a familiar storyline emerge. Trump's triumph is now being roundly described as a revolt by white working-class voters; racism, sexism and religious bigotry had little, if anything, to do with it.

People making this argument are following a script first honed by another group of Americans who made history disappear. After the Civil War, "Lost Cause" propagandists from the Confederacy argued the war wasn't fought over slavery -- it was a constitutional clash over state's rights, they said; hatred toward blacks had nothing to do with it.

It was an audacious historical cover-up -- to convince millions of Americans that what they'd just seen and heard hadn't really happened. It worked then, and some historians say it could work again with Trump.

Holiday Special: An Interview With Bernie Sanders

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38873-holiday-special-an-interview-with-bernie-sanders

From the site:

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you on election night?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Home.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what you went through.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, when the results came in from Indiana, I was very nervous. We had an outside chance with a conservative Democrat to win that seat -- no one thought that Clinton was going to win it -- and he got beaten rather badly, and I started getting nervous. And it was downhill from there. I went into the evening thinking that it was about a two-to-one shot that Clinton would win. So, I mean, I was -- I was not shocked that Trump won -- surprised, but not shocked -- for the reasons, some of the reasons, that I gave. But I will not deny to you that it was a very depressing evening. I did not want to deal with the media. I didn't want to -- I was invited to be on, you know, a million different things. I didn't even show up at the state event, you know. So, I will not deny that it was a depressing evening. And since then, I've been thinking as hard as I can, with other people, about how we go forward and what the best response is.

Shocked that Barack Obama Will Be Succeeded by Donald Trump?

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/164643

From the site:

Victories over racial inequality in America are all too often followed by a racist backlash –sometimes involving incredible acts of violence. Emancipation brought a wave of white supremacist terrorism against African Americans in the South during Reconstruction. Lynching targeted those blacks who achieved personal success, or challenged Jim Crow laws or established racial etiquette, by “acting uppity,” as segregationists came to name such behavior. The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency in 2008 produced an unprecedented rise in political obstructionism and efforts to delegitimize him in Washington, D.C., as well as in the growth of hate groups, ugly stereotyping, and incidents of racial violence in the heartland.

To Understand 2016’s Politics, Look at the Winners and Losers of Globalization

https://newrepublic.com/article/139432/understand-2016s-politics-look-winners-losers-globalization

From the site:

Let’s start with the obvious question. Does the elephant graph explain Brexit and Trump?

Yes, I think that it largely does explain Brexit and Trump. Why? Because it shows in very stark terms that people in the lower parts of rich countries’ income distributions have seen fewer benefits of globalization compared both to the people in Asia against whom they often compete in global supply chains and compared to the people in their own countries’ tops of the distributions. You just cannot undo these two facts.

Why the white working class votes against itself

This is one of the biggest mysteries I know of -- why people vote against their own self-interest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-white-working-class-votes-against-itself/2016/12/22/3aa65c04-c88b-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1

From the site:

Here’s the problem. These Democratic policies probably would help the white working class. But the white working class doesn’t seem to buy that they’re the ones who’d really benefit.

The Long-Term Jobs Killer Is Not China. It’s Automation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer-is-not-china-its-automation.html

From the site:

People who work in parts of the country most affected by imports generally have greater unemployment and reduced income for the rest of their lives, Mr. Autor found in a paper published in January. Still, over time, automation has had a far bigger effect than globalization, and would have eventually eliminated those jobs anyway, he said in an interview. “Some of it is globalization, but a lot of it is we require many fewer workers to do the same amount of work,” he said. “Workers are basically supervisors of machines.”

How Republics End

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/how-republics-end.html

From the site:

So what’s driving this story? I don’t think it’s truly ideological. Supposedly free-market politicians are already discovering that crony capitalism is fine as long as it involves the right cronies. It does have to do with class warfare — redistribution from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy is a consistent theme of all modern Republican policies. But what directly drives the attack on democracy, I’d argue, is simple careerism on the part of people who are apparatchiks within a system insulated from outside pressures by gerrymandered districts, unshakable partisan loyalty, and lots and lots of plutocratic financial support.

Why the GOP Wants to Gut Social Security

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38796-why-the-gop-wants-to-gut-social-security

From the site:

"They've changed it from a social insurance program which returns 99 cents on every dollar in the form of benefits, into this very weird regressive tax structure that hits the middle class the hardest and does not return the money in the form of benefits," explains Social Security Works' Alex Lawson to ThinkProgress. "It's a symphonically destructive thing."

To Understand 2016’s Politics, Look at the Winners and Losers of Globalization

Very nice interview with Branko Milanovic, author of Global Inequality.

https://newrepublic.com/article/139432/understand-2016s-politics-look-winners-losers-globalization

From the site:

Since the 1980s, the world has been undergoing a particular type of globalization, one that has been very good for some people, and not so good for others. Branko Milanovic’s book Global Inequality, which came out earlier this year, showed who won and lost under this system in the last 30 years. By doing so, he pinpointed, many believe, a source of discontent that has increasingly shaped our political climate, from the UK’s move to leave the EU to the outcome of the United States presidential election.

The biggest gains, he found, have gone to the very richest in the richest countries—the kinds of people that are overwhelmingly found in places like London or US coastal cities—as well as the “emerging global middle class,” people with much less wealth who are predominantly located in China. Both of these groups saw their real incomes skyrocket from their previous levels, though Chinese people on overage are still only one fourth as wealthy as Americans. The world’s poorest people didn’t do nearly as well, but they saw some improvements.

And the losers have been working people in rich countries. A large portion of the lower middle class in Western Europe and the US saw essentially no income gains since the Reagan administration, while almost everybody else in the world, including elites in their own countries, moved forward. Milanovic presented his data for these findings in the now famous “Elephant chart.” The graph, which looks like the outline of an elephant, shows how much incomes have increased for people at different levels of wealth. The dip between the elephant’s back and its trunk shows the comparatively small gains that working people in rich countries have seen.

Bad News for America’s Workers

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-economy-hurts-workers-by-joseph-e--stiglitz-2016-12

From the site:

NEW YORK – As US President-elect Donald Trump fills his cabinet, what have we learned about the likely direction and impact of his administration’s economic policy?

To be sure, enormous uncertainties remain. As in many other areas, Trump’s promises and statements on economic policy have been inconsistent. While he routinely accuses others of lying, many of his economic assertions and promises – indeed, his entire view of governance – seem worthy of Nazi Germany’s “big lie” propagandists.

Trump will take charge of an economy on a strongly upward trend, with third-quarter GDP growing at an impressive annual rate of 3.2% and unemployment at 4.6% in November. By contrast, when President Barack Obama took over in 2009, he inherited from George W. Bush an economy sinking into a deep recession. And, like Bush, Trump is yet another Republican president who will assume office despite losing the popular vote, only to pretend that he has a mandate to undertake extremist policies.

The only way Trump will square his promises of higher infrastructure and defense spending with large tax cuts and deficit reduction is a heavy dose of what used to be called voodoo economics. Decades of “cutting the fat” in government has left little to cut: federal government employment as a percentage of the population is lower today than it was in the era of small government under President Ronald Reagan some 30 years ago.

We Are All Deplorables

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/we_are_all_deplorables_20161120

From the site:

Those cast aside by the neoliberal order have an economic identity that both the liberal class and the right wing are unwilling to acknowledge. This economic identity is one the white underclass shares with other discarded people, including the undocumented workers and the people of color demonized by the carnival barkers on cable news shows. This is an economic reality the power elites invest great energy in masking.

How To Overthrow Capitalism With Ralph Nader and Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges interviews Ralph Nader who has been a people's advocate for over fifty years. Ralph does a very nice job of explaining how the Democrats competed with Republicans for corporate dollars and sold their souls in the process.

https://youtu.be/1eOQfTtexwc

 American Radicals and the Change We Could Believe In

Professor Eric Foner discusses his course about the history of American radicalism.

From the site:

 I have taught a version of this course every three to four years since the mid-1970s. Given the conservative climate that has gripped our politics and the marginalization felt by many activist students, I’ve usually concluded it by warning against discouragement and reminding the class that every generation of Americans has witnessed some kind of radical upsurge. Despite overwhelming odds, I pointed out, Douglass, Debs, King, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, Malcolm X, and the many others we studied did not give up hope: They were willing to fight and lose for a long time before achieving even partial success. And it’s also important to remember that all revolutions are unfinished, all triumphs incomplete, and every success or failure simply sets up the next series of struggles.

FBI in agreement with CIA that Russia aimed to help Trump win White House

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-blames-putins-personal-grudge-against-her-for-election-interference/2016/12/16/12f36250-c3be-11e6-8422-eac61c0ef74d_story.html?utm_term=.77dda111a7f4

From the site:

FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. are in agreement with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House, officials disclosed Friday, as President Obama issued a public warning to Moscow that it could face retaliation.

Socialism for the Rich, Capitalism for the Poor: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38682-socialism-for-the-rich-capitalism-for-the-poor-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky

From the site:

The inequality in the contemporary period is almost unprecedented. If you look at total inequality, it ranks amongst the worse periods of American history. However, if you look at inequality more closely, you see that it comes from wealth that is in the hands of a tiny sector of the population. There were periods of American history, such as during the Gilded Age in the 1920s and the roaring 1990s, when something similar was going on. But the current period is extreme because inequality comes from super wealth. Literally, the top one-tenth of a percent are just super wealthy. This is not only extremely unjust in itself, but represents a development that has corrosive effects on democracy and on the vision of a decent society.

Demagogue-in-Chief

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/demagogue-in-chief_20161211

From the site:

For Donald Trump, the presidency will be a vast stage for accommodating his megalomania and insatiable appetite for money. Those who mock, defy or anger him will feel the wrath of the state. Those who are not obsequious will be cast aside. He will invest most of his energy in his brand. Self-promotion is the only real talent he possesses. Corruption, already rife within the political system, will explode into a full-blown kleptocracy. Manufactured stories about Trump’s prowess, brilliance, sexual allure and goodness, as well as how America is becoming “great again,” will be pumped out by the White House smoke machine. He will demand encomiums that will become ever more outrageous. All love, devotion and allegiance will be to Trump.

The Mafia State

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_mafia_state_20161204

From the site:

The rich never have enough. The more they get, the more they want. It is a disease. CEOs demand and receive pay that is 200 times what their workers earn. And even when corporate executives commit massive fraud, such as the billing of hundreds of thousands of Wells Fargo customers for accounts they never opened, they elude punishment and personally profit. Disgraced CEO John Stumpf left Wells Fargo with a pay package that averages nearly $15 million a year. Richard Fuld received nearly half a billion dollars from 1993 to 2007, a time in which he was bankrupting Lehman Brothers.

Rigged: How Mainstream Economics Failed Us All

Article about Dean Baker's excellent book Rigged. Rigorous math is fine but in the case of economics it became the dominant approach for economic decisions while morality and fairness were ignored.

http://theminskys.org/rigged-mainstream-economics-failed-us-all/

From the site:

In the late 19th century neoclassical economics transformed the subject into “the Calculus of Pain and Pleasure,” by introducing the concept of utility, and creating a theory based on the assumption that each individual aims to maximize their own utility. By introducing a mathematical component, the new theory offers, as Baker states, “a basis for distributing income that is independent of political decisions or moral judgments.” The discussions about class struggle and distribution of wealth, which previously dominated the economics debate, became obsolete. Ever since, the mathematical component has become the norm in mainstream economics.

A pollster on the racial panic Obama's presidency triggered -- and what Democrats must do now

http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/12/13894546/obama-race-black-white-house-cornell-belcher-racism

From the site:

Belcher lays out [the idea] in detail in his new book, A Black Man in the White House. In it, he makes the case that Obama’s election triggered what he’s dubbed “America's racial aversion crisis”: a panicked emotional response on the part of white Americans to an African-American president, which transformed into a powerful force in politics.

Belcher uses numbers to support that claim. The book was inspired by a survey of voters between the 2008 general election and Obama’s reelection in 2012, tracking levels of “racial antagonism” — a term that basically means racism — along with political opinions.

His conclusion, as he wrote in his book: “The changing cultural and racial demographics of the country had, indeed, finally allowed the nation to overcome a monumental electoral political barrier, but they did not ‘exorcize the racial ghost.’” That “racial ghost,” he writes, worked to “delegitimize the black man in the White House and stop him from effectively governing.”

Trump’s 17 cabinet-level picks have more money than a third of American households combined

http://qz.com/862412/trumps-16-cabinet-level-picks-have-more-money-than-a-third-of-american-households-combined/

From the site:

The 17 people who US president-elect Donald Trump has selected for his cabinet or for posts with cabinet rank have well over $9.5 billion in combined wealth, with several positions still unfilled. This collection of wealth is greater than that of the 43 million least wealthy American households combined—over one third of the 126 million households total in the US.

Affluence of this magnitude in a US presidential cabinet is unprecedented.

U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-officials-putin-personally-involved-u-s-election-hack-n696146

From the site:

U.S. intelligence officials now believe with "a high level of confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

Fountainhead of bad ideas: Ayn Rand’s fanboys take the reins of power

We all know that Donald doesn't read but he certainly subscribes to Rand's philosophy.

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/14/fountainhead-of-bad-ideas-ayn-rands-fanboys-take-the-reins-of-power/

From the site:

As I said earlier, I seriously doubt that Donald Trump is really a fan of Ayn Rand. Her books may be juvenile and shallow, but they’re way too deep for him. Still, Trump is definitely narcissistic and almost pathologically self-confident — he’s like John Galt’s id, without knowing it. He certainly subscribes to Ayn Rand’s personal credo: “What is good for me is Good!” It appears he’s found a group of like minds to help him ruin the country.

2016 Lie of the Year: Fake news

This is from the Politifact web site. Trump has the worst record for accuracy since the site started in 2007.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/dec/13/2016-lie-year-fake-news/

From the site:

As for Trump, who took Lie of the Year honors in 2015 for his body of work, there were many possibilities. Since the Tampa Bay Times started PolitiFact in 2007, no other major politician has a worse record for accuracy, with more than 70 percent of his claims rated Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire.

Trump Against the American Worker

www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trump-against-the-american-worker

From the site:

This has become a pattern among Trump’s appointments—naming bitter foes of federal agencies to head them, or behead them. It’s happening with health, education, environmental protection, civil rights, even at the State Department, according to reports about Trump’s appointment there. But Trump ran for President as the unlikely defender of the forgotten American worker, which makes his nominating a wealthy, anti-labor C.E.O. from an industry notorious for wage theft and labor-law violations to be his Secretary of Labor incongruous, even for him. I tend to agree with John Cassidy’s theory that, as much as the President-elect may enjoy toying with job applicants, his basic notion at this stage is to give Republican congressional leaders the hard-right Administration they crave so that he can pursue his own interests, including private interests, with a minimum of interference from them. The policy and personnel details have already begun to bore him.

Dangerous Americans: The Trump Nominees in Full

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/38697-dangerous-americans-the-trump-nominees-in-full

From the site:

People in this country become obsessed with the individuals running for president, and always manage to forget that some 4,500 other people follow the election's winner into the White House. Far more than any president, these are the people who make and set real policy, and who have the most real impact on everyday lives. This rogue's gallery is, far and away, the worst, most unsuitable, most unprepared, most dangerous rack of nominees ever assembled. Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice collapsed the economy and got millions of people killed. These people could very well leave that pestilent record in deep shade.

Trump Trumpets His Real Plans

http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c5cfd22327c3214afb5955d02&id=25cdae2469&e=35739b383a

From the site:

Even for a failed gambling czar, Donald Trump has been surprisingly quick to show his hand as he sets the course of his forthcoming presidency. With a reactionary fervor, he is bursting backwards into the future. He has accomplished this feat through the first wave of nominations to his Cabinet and White House staff.

Only if there is a superlative to the word “nightmare” can the dictionary provide a description of his bizarre selection of men and women marinated either in corporatism or militarism, with strains of racism, class cruelty and ideological rigidity. Many of Mr. Trump’s nominees lack an appreciation of the awesome responsibilities of public office.

Carl Bernstein: Donald Trump “thrives in a fact-free environment”

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/12/carl-bernstein-trump-thrives-in-a-fact-free-environment/

From the site:

Bernstein said during an appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday that, “No president, including Richard Nixon, has been so ignorant of fact and disdains fact as this president does.” He says, “it has something to do with the growing sense of authoritarianism he and his presidency are projecting.”

Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump

This is very worrisome!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/scientists-are-frantically-copying-u-s-climate-data-fearing-it-might-vanish-under-trump/?utm_term=.10fa32bb2fc5

From the site:

Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.

Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump

Very good article but I want to bang my head against the wall after reading it. How can people be so confused and misinformed? The short answer is a lot of money and effort goes into shaping people's opinions.

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/13/13848794/kentucky-obamacare-trump

From the site:

We spoke a good deal longer about the Affordable Care Act, and the possibility of repeal. Mills said she had gone into the voting booth confident that Republicans wouldn’t dismantle the law, despite their promises. How could they, when people like her had become so reliant on it?

Mills’s expectation that Trump would keep the Affordable Care Act, on the one hand, feel unrealistic: Of course Republicans would dismantle the law they spent six years campaigning against.

But it is also understandable: Legislators typically don’t dismantle large health coverage programs that serve millions. Since their creation in 1965, Medicare and Medicaid have certainly faced some opposition but never threats of outright repeal.

“I assumed it was impossible to repeal the ACA with 20 million people covered,” Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, recently tweeted. “I may have been wrong about that.”

The electoral college is a medieval relic. Only the U.S. still has one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/11/the-electoral-college-is-a-medieval-relic-only-the-u-s-still-has-one/?utm_term=.aa99952991d7&wpisrc=nl_cage&wpmm=1

From the site:

The U.S. electoral college is a medieval relic. For several centuries, many political communities in Europe and the Americas used electors chosen from different territorial and political units to select a main magistrate. The United States is the only country in the world to still use the system to elect a president.

Brexit, Trump and What We’ve Failed To Learn From the 1930s

http://inthesetimes.com/article/19695/the-brexit-voter-and-the-trump-voter

From the site:

I fear that most of the Trump and Brexit voters share, among other things, apparent ignorance, amnesia, or both, about what happened to Germany and then to the whole of Europe between 1934 and 1945. And perhaps those of us on the other side have too blithely assumed that the poisons of racism, class hatred, and misogyny had at least been addressed and partly contained by the post-war settlement in Europe and the civil rights movement in America. Perhaps these lethal feelings and ideas lurk permanently and vigilantly in the sewers beneath even the most civilised societies, and need only a depression and a demagogue to let them out.

Civil Rights Déjà Vu, Only Worse

The author worked in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. He's not optimistic about the effectiveness of the Civil Rights Division under the incoming administration.

http://prospect.org/article/civil-rights-d%c3%a9j%c3%a0-vu-only-worse

From the site:

All told, we can expect a Trump Civil Rights Division to reverse a vast swath of the gains, both in management and in substance, that the division made under Obama. Can anyone take up the slack? Committed activists and lawyers outside the government will fight the good fight and win some battles, but the sad fact is that the Civil Rights Division is indispensable to effective civil-rights enforcement. Over decades, the Supreme Court has chipped away at the tools for private plaintiffs to sue to enforce the civil-rights laws. State attorneys general have some authority, but they lack the resources of the federal government, and most lack the will. The election of President Trump will massively set back civil-rights enforcement for years to come.

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.0d51afba34a0

From the site:

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter. Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

An American Authoritarian

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/american-authoritarianism-under-donald-trump/495263/

From the site:

Fascism has been back in the news with Donald Trump’s candidacy for the American presidency. His populist claim to speak for the white everyman, along with his menacing leadership style, have brought forth comparisons among this “homegrown authoritarian,” as President Barack Obama has called Trump, and foreign strongmen.

Trump is not a Fascist. He does not aim to establish a one-party state. Yet he has created a one-man-led political movement that does not map onto traditional U.S. party structures or behave in traditional ways. This is how Fascism began as well.

A Cabinet for the Deep-Pocket Ages

Difficult to see how the incoming administration is going to stand up for regular working folks. As Sam's article notes, the cabinet and advisors are all from the wealthiest top tenth of one percent.

http://inequality.org/cabinet-deeppocket-ages/

From the site:

People holding personal fortunes worth over $5 million this year make up less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the world’s adult population. People worth over $5 million may also this year make up nearly 100 percent of the picks Donald Trump chooses for his cabinet and inner circle.

Why I Left White Nationalism

The author notes that changing people's minds "happens in person-to-person interactions and ... requires a lot of honest listening on both sides."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/opinion/sunday/why-i-left-white-nationalism.html?_r=0

From the site:

Several years ago, I began attending a liberal college where my presence prompted huge controversy. Through many talks with devoted and diverse people there — people who chose to invite me into their dorms and conversations rather than ostracize me — I began to realize the damage I had done. Ever since, I have been trying to make up for it. For a while after I left the white nationalist movement, I thought my upbringing made me exaggerate the likelihood of a larger political reaction to demographic change. Then Mr. Trump gave his Mexican “rapists” speech and I spent the rest of the election wondering how much my movement had set the stage for his. Now I see the anger I was raised with rocking the nation.

Everything we thought we knew about free trade is wrong

Excellent article -- well worth reading.

http://qz.com/840973/everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-free-trade-is-wrong/

From the site:

The era between 1945 and 1975 is what economists Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have termed the Great Compression (pdf). During this time, incomes of the best-paid American workers grew at a slower pace than those of middle- and lower-income households, creating rare equality among different socioeconomic classes. Ironically, these halcyon days have their roots in two darker events, The Great Depression and World War II, as economist Robert Gordon explains in The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Despite the devastation the Great Depression wreaked on the US economy, it led to New Deal reforms that encouraged unions, boosting real wages at the same time as it shrank working hours. Xenophobic policies typified by the Chinese Exclusion Act kept out immigrants, making low-skilled native workers more valuable. A protectionist trans-Atlantic trade war that broke out in 1930 helped seal off the US to trade until after the war ended.

Carrier union leader: Trump's attack means I'm doing my job

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/12/08/donald-trump-carrier-union-president-tweets/95133454/

From the site:

But until Trump acknowledges that he wasn't telling the whole truth, Jones said he's going to keep calling him out on what he says are "falsehoods." "I’m not backing up on my position one iota," Jones told O'Donnell. "He’s wrong, and I’m right.”

The End of the EPA? Trump Taps Climate Change Denier & Fossil Fuel Ally Scott Pruitt to Head Agency

https://democracynow.org/2016/12/8/the_end_of_the_epa_trump

From the site:

President-elect Donald Trump has announced he will nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt is seen as a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, The New York Times revealed that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed what the paper described as an "unprecedented, secretive alliance" with the nation’s top energy producers to fight Obama’s climate efforts. Senator Bernie Sanders said, "Pruitt’s record is not only that of being a climate change denier, but also someone who has worked closely with the fossil fuel industry to make this country more dependent, not less, on fossil fuels."

Trump’s Labor pick proves that he was never about the working class

Mind-boggling that so many working people voted Republican expecting improved economic conditions. This is what they can look forward to.

From the site:

Andy Puzder, the CEO of CKE Restaurants Holdings Inc., which owns fast food chains like Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, is expected to be Trump’s pick to run the Department of Labor. It’s hard to think of someone who has been a worse advocate for workers over his career. Puzder consistently rails against raising the minimum wage, even to just $9 an hour, and advocates for rolling back regulations on corporations. He also opposed President Obama’s new overtime rules. When investigated by the DOL, more than half of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants examined had at least one wage and hours violation. And, according to Talk Poverty, Puzder makes more in one day than one of his minimum wage employees makes in an entire year.

Report: Trump's NatSec Pick Pushed Fake News 16 Times Since August

This is an example of the first-rate appointees we can expect from the incoming administration.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/flynn-pushed-fake-news-sixteen-times

From the site:

The report cited Flynn's retweet of a post claiming that Hillary Clinton "secretly waged war" on the Catholic Church and another which called President Barack Obama a "jihadi" who "laundered" money for Muslim terrorists in Iran. Flynn promoted a claim that John Podesta, Clinton's campaign manager, took part in occult rituals involving bodily fluids. He also posted tweets suggesting that Clinton's emails contained information on "Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc" and asking readers to "decide" for themselves based on a "MUST READ" article by True Pundit, a fake news site.

Trade, Trump and the Economy: What Does Greg Mankiw's Textbook Say?

http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/trade-trump-and-the-economy-what-does-greg-mankiw-s-textbook-say

From the site:

If we generate $100 billion in demand by having the government spend more money or by replacing $100 billion in imports with $100 billion in domestically produced goods and services, it has the same effect on output. In a context where there are major political obstacles to larger budget deficits (think Peter Peterson, Paul Ryan, and the Washington Post), a smaller trade deficit may be the most plausible route back to full employment.

Hope in a Dark Era: In the Face of Barbarism, Thousands Turn to Democratic Socialism

The modern Democratic party has gone in the opposite direction from that outlined by Galbraith. As the articles states, they "doubled down on capitalism."

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/01/hope-dark-era-face-barbarism-thousands-turn-democratic-socialism

From the site:

In his book The American Left and Some British Comparisons, published in 1971, the renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith sought to analyze the persistent shortcomings of the Democratic Party. The stakes, he believed, were quite high, as the collapse of the New Deal order seemed imminent.

Steve Keen and Michael Hudson Unpick Historical Path to Global Recovery

GREAT interview -- Steven Keen interviews Michael Hudson!

http://michael-hudson.com/2016/11/keen-hudson-unpick-historical-path-to-global-recovery/

From the site:

Discussing the complacency and complicity of traditional economic models, as taught in universities and adopted by central banks, Michael and Steve take us on a journey from a solar system to a galaxy of thought, taking in the history of economics to solutions for the ongoing global depression.

Trade and Manufacturing Jobs (Wonkish)

Link to the PDF Paul references is here (also linked below in the quote).

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/trade-and-manufacturing-jobs-wonkish/?_r=0

From the site:

Recent conversations indicate some confusion about what the economic analysis of trade and jobs actually says, with an impression of big disagreements when what is really happening is that different papers ask different questions. So I attempt a wonkish clarification.

Finance Is Not the Economy

http://evonomics.com/finance-is-not-the-economy-bezemer-hudson/

From the site:

An economy based increasingly on rent extraction by the few and debt buildup by the many is, in essence, the feudal model applied in a sophisticated financial system. It is an economy where resources flow to the FIRE sector rather than to moderate-return fixed capital formation. Such economies polarize increasingly between property owners and industry/labor, creating financial tensions as imbalances build up. It ends in tears as debts overwhelm productive structures and household budgets. Asset prices fall, and land and houses are forfeited.

This CNN Video of Trump Supporters Shows You Why We Are Completely and Utterly F*cked

Good job here Alisyn -- anyone who makes a demonstrably false claim as shown here should be challenged!

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/12/cnn-video-of-trump-supporters/

From the site:

How do we combat this? Where do we go from here? Is there any hope for America if adults can be so easily manipulated by Fox News, Breitbart.com and the vile right wing propaganda system?

An econ theory, falsified

I like reading Noah Smith's blog and particularly appreciate the fact that he's honest about which models really work and which should be set aside. The below quote is in answer to a commenter.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2016/12/an-econ-theory-falsified.html

From the site:

A model can work well in one situation and not work well in another. For example, Econ 101 supply-and-demand theory (also called "price theory") might do a great job of describing the market for oranges, but a terrible job for describing the market for stocks and bonds. An analogy is physics. "Frictionless projectile motion" (the first theory most high school students learn) is a great model for cannonballs, and a terrible model for falling feathers. Every model should have a "domain of applicability".