Elizabeth Warren for Majority Leader

"Her lifetime of fighting for the little guy against Wall Street power … shows she can think big, wage tough fights against powerful interests, and win key votes in the Senate,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement expressing support for Warren to replace Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who announced that he won't seek reelection in 2016.

The rest of the story:

Progressives push for Warren as next Senate Democratic leader by Jonathan Easley (The Hill).

Frank Little: The Hobo Agitator (PBS)

The summer of 1917: the war of the Copper Kings was winding down, a highly charged time for Butte, which had a socialist mayor and no unions. This extremely well done profile of Frank Little, the hobo agitator, brings that summer to life, when vigilantes roamed freely though the city and dominated the mines. Little was one of the major IWW leaders of the time; he was lynched at Butte on August 1 1917. The doc also provides background on Butte and copper, the emergence of militant unionism, and some of the radicalism of the times. Don't pass this up.

Rail: Fail

One measure of American political dysfunction is the not-so-slow collapse of infrastructure during the last four decades, including passenger rail service, an area where the U.S. is dead last versus all its economic rivals.

"In the 1960, the United States had an extensive network of passenger rail trains. All the major cities in the Midwest and South were linked by regular train service. You could get service on smaller routes, like the one from Boise, Idaho, to Portland, Oregon, three times a day. Then a lot of lines got shut down in the late 1960s and 1970s, as this animation shows."

(Maps from the National Association of Railway Passengers and Malcolm Kenton. Animation by Joss Fong)

Source: Watch American passenger rail shrivel up and die in this animated map by Timothy B. Lee (Vox).

Resource: National Association of Railroad Passengers

We reached a new level of political dysfunction this week.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a bill that effectively prevents scientists who are peer-reviewed experts in their fields from providing advice -- directly or indirectly -- to the EPA, while at the same time allowing industry representatives with financial interests in fossil fuels to have their say. Naturally, this is being done in the name of “transparency.”

The appearance of corruption is as corrosive to public trust as actual corruption.

Or, what is there about a seat on the Santa Monica City Council that makes it worth $173,762.98 to Sue Himmelrich?

Corollary: Is it time for local campaign finance reform?

The rest of the story: More than $1 million spent on council race (Santa Monica Daily Press).

The End Is Nigh

The idea that we face a number of global risks threatening the very basis of our civilization at the beginning of the 21st century is well accepted in the scientific community, and is studied at a number of leading universities. But there is still no coordinated approach to address this group of risks and turn them into opportunities. The 12 global risks that threaten human civilization are:

Current risks
1. Extreme Climate Change
2. Nuclear War
3. Ecological Catastrophe
4. Global Pandemic
5. Global System Collapse

Exogenic risks
6. Major Asteroid Impact
7. Supervolcano

Emerging risks
8. Synthetic Biology
9. Nanotechnology
10. Artificial Intelligence
11. Uncertain Risks

Global policy risk
12. Future Bad Global Governance

Global Challenges Foundation

The Fourth Estate

Draft of an Eight-Point Platform for Making a Major Breakthrough on 'Left Unity'

By Carl Davidson, Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Pat Fry

Introduction: The following eight-point proposal is designed to initiate both a discussion and a process. The points can be further refined, and subtracted from or added to. Given the scope of the challenges ahead of us, there is a certain degree of urgency, but it is also wise to take to time to start off on a sound footing, uniting all who can be united. The main things it wants to bring into being at all levels—local, regional, national or in sectors—are common projects.

Some of these already exist, such as the Left Labor Project in New York City, a good example of what we are advocating here. It brought together organizers from CCDS, CPUSA, DSA, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and other independent left trade unionists and activists. Over a few years work, it was able to build a far wider alliance bringing together the city’s labor organizations and allied social movements to bring out tens of thousands on May Day.

We know that many of us are already involved in a wide variety of projects. But is there any compelling reason we have to do this separately, behaving like a wheelbarrow full of frogs trying to win a common goal? A good case in point is Chuy Garcia’s mayoral campaign in Chicago. Wouldn’t this campaign be better served if we worked together in a planned way to draw in and skillfully deploy even more forces? Or take the labor-community alliance projects building solidarity for labor strikes or the campaign for an increase in the minimum wage? We can all make a long list here, but the core idea should be apparent, at least for starters, and we invite your responses and queries.

1. We need something new The left is not likely to find critical mass through mergers of existing groups, although any such events would be positive. But a new formation to which all would be equally cooperative in a larger project -- call it a Left Front or Left Alliance -- would have a greater impact. Groups participating in it could retain whatever degree of autonomy they desire, such as keeping their own newspapers, national committees, local clubs meeting separately, and so on. Every group involved can exercise its own independence and initiative, to the degree it finds necessary. But all would be striving in common to help the overall project succeed. While the US situation is not strictly comparable, the Front de Gauche in France, Die Linke in Germany, PODEMOS in Spain and Syriza in Greece serve as examples.

2. We need a ‘project based’ common front. At the grassroots level, it would be comprised of joint projects—electoral, union organizing, campaigns against the far right, for a living wage or reducing student debt, for opposing war, racism, sexism and police violence, and many others. The existing left groups in a factory, a neighborhood, a city or a campus, would be encouraged to advance the joint projects.

3. We need a ‘critical mass’ at the core that is both young, working class and diverse. While people from all demographics are welcome, the initial core has to be largely drawn from the Millennials, those born after 1980 or so. And the core also has to be a rainbow of nationalities with gender equity, and well-connected to union and working class insurgencies. If the initial core at the beginning is too ‘white’ or too ‘1968ers’, it will not be a pole with the best attractive power for a growing new generation of socialist and radical minded activists.

4. We need a common aspiration for socialism. That’s what makes us a ‘Left Front or Left Alliance’ rather than a broader popular front or people’s coalition. We are strongly supportive of these wider coalitions and building the left is not done in isolation from them. But we also see the wisdom in the concept: the stronger the core, the broader the front. Moreover we do not require a unified definition on what socialism is; only that a larger socialist pole makes for an even wider, deeper and more sustainable common front of struggle.

5. We do not need full agreement on strategy. A few key concepts—the centrality of fighting white supremacy, the intersection of race, class and gender, the alliance and merger of the overall workers movement and the movements of the communities of the oppressed—will do. We can also agree on cross-class alliances focused on critical targets: new wars, the far right and the austerity schemes imposed by finance capital. Additional elements, perspectives, nuances and ‘shades of difference’ can be debated, discussed and adjusted in the context of ongoing struggle.

6. We need a flexible but limited approach to elections. We can affirm that supporting our own or other candidates is a matter of tactics to be debated case-by-case, and not a matter of ‘principle’ that would exclude ever voting for any particular Democrat, Green or Socialist. We see the importance for social movements to have an electoral arm that presses and fights for their agenda within government bodies.

7. We need to be well embedded in grassroots organizations. Especially important are the organizations of the working class and in the communities of the oppressed—unions and worker centers, civil rights and women’s rights, youth and students, peace and justice, churches and communities of faith, cooperatives and other groups tied to the solidarity economy, and other community-based NGOs and nonprofits.

8. We need to be internationalists. But we do not have to require support for any particular countries or bloc of countries and national liberation movements, past or present. But we do oppose the wars of aggression, occupations and other illicit interventions of ‘our own’ ruling class, along with the hegemonism, ‘superpower mentality’ and Great Power chauvinism it promotes. That is the best way we can promote world peace and practice solidarity and assistance to forces beyond our borders.

Posted originally on February 3, 2015.

[Carl Davidson and Pat Fry are national co-chairs of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. Bill Fletcher Jr. is a member of several socialist organizations and author of ‘They're Bankrupting Us! And 20 Other Myths about Unions.’ Comments can be sent to carld717@gmail.com ]

Must Read

"For example, the idea that wealth is privately produced and then appropriated by a quasi-illegitimate state, through taxation, is easy to succumb to if one has not been exposed first to Marx’s poignant argument that precisely the opposite applies: wealth is collectively produced and then privately appropriated through social relations of production and property rights that rely, for their reproduction, almost exclusively on false consciousness."

Before he entered politics, Yanis Varoufakis, the iconoclastic Greek finance minister at the centre of the latest eurozone standoff, wrote this searing account of European capitalism and how the left can learn from Marx’s mistakes: How I became an erratic Marxist by Yanis Varoufakis (Guardian).

Turf War

Former mayor and assembly-speaker Antonio Villaraigosa will likely announce his candidacy for U.S. Senate this coming week. If Tony runs, he'll be taking on the Democratic front runner, California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Harris is coffee-colored and from the Bay Area and Villaraigosa is an Elay homeboy with an Hispanic name, so the media have made the sensible decision to present the competition in a way that's simple and easy-to-understand: black against Latino, SanFran vs SoCal. The alternative would be to waste endless column inches and seconds of airtime evaluating the candidates' records and explaining their policy differences, and no one wants that. The only snag in the epic ethnic showdown scenario is that the candidates don't fit the required templates -- Harris is the offspring of an Indian physician mother and Jamaican economist father and Villaraigosa was still struggling with español as recently as his run for mayor -- and may balk at being cast as ethnic stereotypes.

Oh, well. It's not their choice to make.

Civilization does not depend on the automobile

Probably our closest cohort among nations, Germany has a lot to teach us: "Compared to Americans, Germans own fewer cars, drive them shorter distances and less frequently, and walk and cycle and ride transit more often. They have slimmer waistlines to show for their active transport habits and suffer fewer traffic deaths whether in a car or not. They spend less household income on getting around even as they pay much more in driving costs. They use less energy per person on ground transport, resulting in lower carbon emissions."

(Source: The Atlantic)

The rest of the story:
All the Ways Germany Is Less Car-Reliant Than the U.S., in 1 Chart: There are rather a lot of ways, as it turns out. (The Atlantic/CityLab)

Alternative and shared-use bridges

While we await the opportunity to cap the I-10 and reunite Santa Monica's neighborhoods, we can do a lot for the city's walking and biking populations by building three or four pedestrian/bike bridges. The I-10 overpasses at 4th St. and at Lincoln Blvd., also, are in especially desperate need of makeovers to make them safer and more attractive to walkers and cyclists.

(Credit: CityLab.com)

More:
The Bright Future of the Pedestrian Bridge: Top engineer Ted Zoli says the era of shared-use structures has arrived.
Can a Beehive-Inspired Overpass Unite a City?: New Britain, Connecticut, is split by a highway overpass—which is also the city's main street. Will a high-design walkway bridge deep divisions?

What is a Democrat?

One thing I'm tired of hearing about is Bernie Sander's "tenuous" connection to the Democratic Party and his "hypocrisy" in running in the Democratic primaries. In his 16 years in the House, Rep. Sanders not only caucused with the Democrats, he co-founded the Progressive Caucus with liberal Democrats and chaired it for eight years. When it came time to move to the Senate, Sen. Charles Schumer, who was chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, endorsed Sanders, meaning no Democrat running against Sanders could expect to receive financial help from the party. Sanders was also endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic National Committee Chairman and former VT Gov. Howard Dean. Dean said in May 2005 that he considered Sanders an ally who "votes with the Democrats 98% of the time." Then-Senator Barack Obama also campaigned for Sanders. His caucusing with the Democrats gave them a 51-49 majority in the Senate during the 110th Congress in 2007-08. By registering as a Democrat, by the way, he became only the second member of the party ever to represent Vermont in the Senate (the other being Leahy). As a nominal Independent, he agreed to vote with the Democrats on procedural issues, but was free to vote as he pleased on policy matters (not that Congressional Democrats are very disciplined on policy anyway), and voted with the majority of Democrats almost always. By caucusing with the Democrats, he was allowed to keep his seniority and received the committee seats that would have been available to him as a Democrat; in 2013-14, he was Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Little Libraries: Threat or Menace?

Nanny-state nags and freelance busybodies (of the sort who drove the kid-pleasing petting zoo from the Main Street Farmers' Market in Santa Monica) are now targeting Little Libraries as the latest peril to public order and property values: "Crime, homelessness and crumbling infrastructure are still a problem in almost every part of America, but two cities

have recently cracked down on one of the country's biggest problems: small-community libraries where residents can share books. Officials in Los Angeles and Shreveport, Louisiana, have told the owners of homemade lending libraries that they're in violation of city codes, and asked them to remove or relocate their small book collections."

The rest of the story: The Danger of Being Neighborly Without a Permit: All over America, people have put small "give one, take one" book exchanges in front of their homes. Then they were told to tear them down. (CityLab)

Planning tool

Santa Monica has introduced an online interactive tool to evaluate various options for the future of the Civic Auditorium. Anyone interested in the costs and benefits of public investment in amenities such as parks, theaters, restaurants, retail spaces, offices, hotels, parking, etc., can get a better understanding through playing with the options. Plus, it's possible that you will help influence the outcome of the Civic Auditorium development process. The tool will be available through February 14th.

Go to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium website.

Resource: Left Labor Project

"Left Labor Project works to build a mass movement of working people who share the goals of progressive movements across the country and the world. We believe that the real basis for a democratic future is the working class, in its diversity – all colors, ages, creeds, whatever sexual orientation or legal status, employed and unemployed. Within that shared view, we work through our differences, learn from one another, and look for flexible and effective strategies and tactics to change the city and the world for the better." Visit Left Labor Project.

City to Parkers: "You can't say we didn't warn you."

Santa Monica municipal signage is too often confusing, obscure or absent. Except, of course, when it comes to parking.

                                                           (photo: John Gabree)

(heh heh)

See? We're not going to miss Michele Bachmann after all. Or Sarah Palin, for that matter.

Joni Ernst more than makes up for both of them.

As Andy Borowitz just said, she brings the "nation the greatest gift of all: the gift of laughter."

Fake Poll #6,580,222

Democracy for America wants you to choose your top three picks to replace Senator Barbara Boxer from this list:

Karen Bass
Xavier Becerra
John Chiang
John Garamendi
Jane Harman
Kamala Harris
Kevin Johnson
Dave Jones
Loretta Sanchez
Adam Schiff
Jackie Speier
Hilda Solis
Tom Steyer
Ellen Tauscher
Antonio Villaraigosa

Being located in VT, DFA can perhaps be forgiven for not knowing CA politics, for not knowing, for example, that Tony Villaraigosa was pretty much a failure as LA mayor or that Kamala Harris runs the AG's office like every day is Be Kind to Corporations Day. But they should know something about goings-on in Washington. John Garamendi? Jane Harman? Ellen Tauscher? Do they think party hacks and corporate shills will lift a finger to advance DFA's agenda to rejuvenate the Democrats as an instrument of change? Dave Jones? Tom Steyer? Adam Freaking Schiff? Are they kidding?

Or is this just a convenient cover for a chance to hit us up for spare change one more time before the serious fundraising starts up later this year?

Graphic.

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose"

Who's counting?

Here's a factoid for you: Accounting for inflation, we have spent nearly as much on Afghan reconstruction as we did on the Marshall Plan.

We're all French

I have yet to see a sensible explanation of why the United States alone among its peers was absent from the Paris march. If the Secret Service was quaking in its government-issued brogans over the prospect of losing the president in a crowd, surely they can't be worried that anyone will waste ordnance on Joe Biden. Instead of the president or the vice-president, the U.S. dispatched our ambassador to Paris, Obama fundraiser Jane Hartley, who happens to live down the street.

After 9/11, the world lined up in solidarity with us; it is at the least very poor taste for us, when our oldest ally suffers the same fate, to send as our delegate a political hack with no stature here or in Europe. But there is a bigger picture, too. The attack on Charlie Hebdo, the murders of artists exercising one of the fundamental values of American and western political thought, was a blow against all our freedoms, not just freedom of expression (and, indeed, in the west, in Britain and the United States especially, there were immediate calls to save freedom by increasing the grasp and reach of the surveillance state).

Despite all the ups and downs of the relationship between the two nations (and the downs have to do mostly with right-wing politics in the U.S., anyway), the French are our friends and our allies. The day after the attack on the World Trade Center, the headline in Le Monde was "Nous sommes tous Américains;” this week, Muslims in France risked their lives to demonstrate fraternity with their fellow citizens; American leaders couldn't be bothered to show up. Obama has revealed himself, once again, to be politically tone deaf -- he was quoted in European papers as saying something to the effect that the murders were an assault on a universal value; but free speech and liberty in general are anything but "universal" values -- not only did millions of people have to give their lives to achieve them, but they are under perpetual attack, even in the western democracies where they are rhetorically enshrined, and must be constantly and rigorously defended.

When leaders of the free world gathered in the streets of the French capital this week to link arms in defense of freedom, everyone in the world could see at a glance that we were not among them. That the president doesn't appear to know that for reasons both practical and symbolic we should have been there is not just a cause for embarrassment and sorrow; it throws into silhouette the continuing question of the quality of his leadership in the two long years remaining in his term.

Good writing.

-- Hacked traffic sign in L.A.

Moi Aussi

Eighty-seven-year-old Albert Uderzo, the creator of Asterix and France's most famous cartoonist, comes out of retirement to honor dead comrades.

Desclasifican conversación inédita entre el Ché y Fidel.

Che: Fidel, will we ever have diplomatic relations with the Yanks again?

Fidel: Yes, when the U.S. President is black and the Pope is Argentine like you.

Scutage: $738.8 billion

Buried in the Magna Carta is the forgotten word scutage, a feudal tax to pay for war. With America in decline because more than half its taxes are thrown away on military expenditures, scutage should be revived. It has the perfect onomatopoeic ring to it.

The president draws a red line in the silicon

"Obama Vows a Response to Cyberattack on Sony" -- New York Times headline

Diary

21 Democrats plus Sen. Sanders (and 18 Republicans) tried to stop the giveback to the banksters and other bad stuff in the budget bill. Here they are:

Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hirono (D-HI)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Levin (D-MI)
Manchin (D-WV)
Markey (D-MA)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Reed (D-RI)
Sanders (I-VT)
Tester (D-MT)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

You will note that Feinstein and Schumer are not among them.

"Oh, what fun!"

Really, Starbucks?

That's the best you can do? You paid big bucks for that?

Every Starbucks on the planet is packed with writers.

Any one of them would have come up gladly -- merrily -- with a more compelling slogan at no more cost to you than a free cup of coffee.

Washington is trying to drive down oil prices by flooding the market with crude but risks collateral damage to its own shale industry

The Long War: "U.S. powerbrokers have put the country at risk of another financial crisis to intensify their economic war on Moscow and to move ahead with their plan to 'pivot to Asia'....Washington has persuaded the Saudis to flood the market with oil to push down prices, decimate Russia’s economy, and reduce Moscow’s resistance to further NATO encirclement and the spreading of US military bases across Central Asia. The US-Saudi scheme has slashed oil prices by nearly a half since they hit their peak in June. The sharp decline in prices has burst the bubble in high-yield debt which has increased the turbulence in the credit markets while pushing global equities into a tailspin. Even so, the roiled markets and spreading contagion have not deterred Washington from pursuing its reckless plan, a plan which uses Riyadh’s stooge-regime to prosecute Washington’s global resource war."

The rest of the story:
The Oil Coup: US-Saudi Subterfuge Send Stocks and Credit Reeling by Mike Whitney (CounterPunch)
Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia by Larry Elliott (Guardian)

Won't be fooled again?

According to Gallup, 60% of Americans want a third party candidate for 2016. Even so, in the fall of 2016, we will be warned once again (by The Nation, Daily Kos and their ilk) that -- once again -- we must must must vote for the Lesser-of-Two-Evils -- a Wall Street-militarist-security state Democrat -- or face Catastrophe -- a Wall Street-militarist-security state Republican.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result isn't really the definition of insanity. But it is the definition of stupidity.

See, In U.S., Perceived Need for Third Party Reaches New High: Twenty-six percent believe Democratic and Republican parties do adequate job (Gallup).

In your face, Little Drummer Boy

The Duopoly

A provision "Congress snuck into the spending the bill will be more galling to some, because it amounts to a pay raise for the two unpopular political parties: It raises the $32,400 maximum that donors could give the Democratic National Committee or Republican National Committee to a whopping $324,000 per year, gutting what’s left of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law. The Washington Post says this was inserted on page 1,599 of a 1,603-page bill."

The rest of the story: Sneak Attack? Congress Slips Controversial Measures Into Spending Bill (PopularResistance)

The United States of America is at moral crossroads

The CIA should be shut down.

The spy work, if there was any, can be carried on gamely by the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Air Force Intelligence, the FBI's National Security Branch, the Army Intelligence and Security Command, the Department of Energy's Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Coast Guard Intelligence, the Treasury's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (sic), the National Reconnaissance Office, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to say nothing of all the state and local police spooks.

Military operations should have been handled by the Department of Defense all along.

But it will be a further crime if all that happens now is that a few relatively-low level functionaries, however blood-soaked their uniforms, are scape-goated, Abu Graib-style. This fish was rotting from the head. The only way that these and other crimes can be prevented from happening in the future is to hold the perpetrators accountable. If this were some failing garrison in the Third World, instead of the failing Leader of the World, the State Department would be piously scolding them to clean-house. The United States needs to be live up to its ideals. If we can't clean our house, if we can't prosecute the criminals ourselves, as domestic and international law requires, then we should turn Bush, Cheney, and their co-conspirators over to the International Criminal Court and let the world community help us out.

More:
CIA tortured, misled, U.S. report finds, drawing calls for action by Mark Hosenball (Reuters)

Return of the CIA's 'Rogue Elephants': The Senate's report on torture shows U.S. intelligence agencies need to be reined in again by Peter Fenn (US News)

There Is Something Worse Than Torture in the Senate Torture Report: It's not the torture—it's the CIA lying by David Corn (Mother Jones)

U.S. under fire over Senate's report on CIA torture by Bill Trott (Reuters UK)

The Bush administration's response to the torture report is straightforward:

The CIA's actions were fully authorized. And we didn't know anything about them.

Every important movement faces significant push-back

That doesn’t mean it won’t succeed.

One of the hardest things for activists to hold in mind is that they are not alone. Most people, however well-intentioned, will wait for what Martin Luther King called a "more convenient season" to move to action. So the activist must not only organize but represent.

'It’s worth remembering that the civil rights protesters of the 1950s and ’60s faced as much derision then as the Ferguson and New York protesters do today … probably more. In 1964, the American National Election Studies, as part of its biennial survey, began asking Americans whether they thought civil rights leaders “are trying to push too fast, are going too slowly, or are … moving about the right speed.” The responses are most telling. Among whites, 84 percent of Southerners, and 64 percent of non-Southerners, said that civil rights leaders were pushing too fast."

The rest of the story: For most, there's never a right time to protest by Seth Masket (Pacific-Standard)

Rectal feeding and rehydration...

Something new to think about.

Oliver Laughland takes a look at some of the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used by the agency: How the CIA tortured its detainees: Waterboarding, confinement, sleep deprivation (The Guardian).

Supply and Demand

'Lord o Lord, not
again,' sighed
the printer who set
Henry David
Thoreau's Walden, and kept
running out
of the letter
'I'...

              -- Mark Ford

 

Just read, at Bartleby.com,

that "The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus," in preparation for a screening tonight of the new Hollywood version, just called "Exodus" in deference to Tinseltown's love of one-word titles. I'm above all looking forward to digitally rendered plagues. I'm wondering, though, should it have happened, as is likely, that the filmmakers have taken liberties with the story and characters, whether the Writers Guild will be forced to negotiate between God and the screenwriters over credits. Also wondering, if "Exodus" the movie is a hit and there are x-rated spin-offs, will one be entitled "Aaron's Rod"?

High note

New Hampshire license plates instruct you to "Live Free or Die."

You aren't allowed to do both things at once, however: It's illegal in the Granite State to inhale bus fumes with the intent to induce euphoria.

Do your job

Challenges facing the next do-nothing Congress: “Absent congressional action, a host of business and personal tax breaks expires on Jan. 1. The government’s borrowing limit is reinstated on March 16, although the government might not actually hit the ceiling until August. On March 28, unless lawmakers act, physician reimbursements from Medicare drop off a cliff. On May 31, the highway trust fund runs out of money. In June, the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance overseas purchases of American exports, might shut in the face of conservative opposition to its mission. Then on Sept. 30, the entire Children’s Health Insurance Program faces its expiration. A few days later, across-the-board spending cuts loom once again.” -- The New York Times

The Future of Wi-Fi Could Run Through Old TV Infrastructure

Free, high-capacity Internet access using old television frequencies

"Two academics are recommending that governments develop free, public Wi-Fi networks using obsolete TV frequencies. The researchers believe this could potentially lead to 'Super Wi-Fi' systems popping up across the globe.

"Broadcasting TV via old-school frequencies received through antennas has almost entirely given way to digital services, leaving blank channels or 'white spaces' -- TV frequencies that are no longer in use. In a new study, researchers suggest transforming these abandoned frequencies into a 'wireless commons.'

"Distributing public Wi-Fi through underused TV infrastructure, they say, has many potential benefits: Wi-Fi traveling through antenna and radio frequencies can extend beyond six miles, according to a recent report. Moreover, it may have the capacity to penetrate through walls, buildings, vegetation, and other obstacles that often disrupt current Wi-Fi infrastructure. This range, coupled with public access, could result in 'unprecedented low-cost,' the new study suggests, because 3G and household wireless services would likely be less in demand.

"'Individuals, institutions, and companies would be far less dependent on expensive mobile communications networks in conducting their digital communication,' says Arnd Weber of Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a co-author of the new report."

The rest of the story: http://www.citylab.com/tech/2014/11/the-future-of-wi-fi-could-run-through-old-tv-infrastructure/383231/

Elizabeth Warren on Reagan-Clinton

Santa Monica: Roll back executive pay

The hiring of a replacement for exiting city manager Rod Gould provides Santa Monica with the chance to begin -- at the top -- the difficult but necessary task of reducing the outrageous salaries paid at upper levels of city staff.  

Gould's annual haul -- at least $352,889 -- beggars the imagination. For comparison, the compensation paid the mayor of the City of New York -- you know, with its $70 billion budget and its 325,000 employees -- is $225,000, and the People get to do the hiring! In 2012, Governor Jerry Brown took home $165,288  -- it shouldn't require a sacrifice to go from running the City of Santa Monica to governing the State of

California. Even limiting comparison to other charter cities, Santa Monica's salary schedule is out of whack: the city manager in Culver City, for example, tops out at $256,139.00 and Newport Beach's at $282,318.00. The National League of Cities latest figures (for 2009 -- five years ago, so inflation may have pushed some numbers higher; but, also, not reflecting the implosion and stagnation of the economy since) show the national average remuneration for chief administration officer/city manager as $106,408 and, by way of comparison, for chief law enforcement official as $82,015, in stark contrast to pay in Santa Monica for jobs like city attorney -- $294,878 -- and assistant city attorney -- $295,243, or assistant city manager -- $283,312 (not to mention a police sergeant racking up $293,264 with overtime). While the League of Cities averages include municipalities in areas of the country that have lower costs of living than west Los Angeles, they also include towns that are much bigger, much more problem-riddled, and much less pleasant and prestigious to work in. 

Typically, when a city bureaucracy tries to lower its costs of doing business, it begins by cutting services, reducing staff or getting lower-level employees to accept less in pay and benefits. With the change of administration, Santa Monica has a unique opportunity: reducing the burden of staffing at the executive level is -- economically, politically, morally -- the right thing to do.

2016: Winning

The Daily News reports that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, moving ahead with his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination -- "It's Jeb's turn!" bumper stickers are already at the printers, is meeting with potential donors and lining up support in the downtown Manhattan financial community. Since Hillary Clinton has also been engaged for many months in regular seances in the offices of Goldman Sachs, it's already clear who is not going to lose the 2016 election: Wall Street.

No learning curve. None. Zip. Zero.

The New York Times reports that "people familiar with the president’s thinking say that in 2015 he might use Keystone as a bargaining chip: He would offer Republicans approval of it in exchange for approval of one of his policies."

Charades

The New York Times says that "people familiar with the president’s thinking say that in 2015 he might use Keystone as a bargaining chip: He would offer Republicans approval of it in exchange for approval of one of his policies."

No learning curve. None. Zero. Zip. 

To run or not to run, that is the question

As Sen. Bernie Sanders considers a run for president, his big concern is whether the infrastructure exists to support an independent candidacy. It seems to me that his decision to run would be favorably influenced if the Peace & Freedom Party were to endorse him now. Not only would it nudge him in the right direction, but the fact that he would be on the ballot in the nation's largest state would encourage third parties in other region's to get on board.

The Long War

In Julius Caesar, Brutus argues that "Th'abuse of greatness is when it disjoins / Remorse from power." Thus Lincoln, in whose character cohabited forcefulness, caution and morality, will be honored through generations, long after Bush and Obama, the facilitators of endless war and apologists for the slaughter of innocents, are mercifully consigned to oblivion.

Oh, the humanity

"... all the folks agree that this is terrible, this is one of the worst catastrophes in the world. It's–it's–it's the flames, oh, four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it ... it's a terrific crash, ladies and

gentlemen. It's smoke, and it's flames now ... and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring-mast. Oh, the humanity and all the passengers screaming around here. I told you, I can't even talk to people whose friends are on there. Ah! It's–it's–it's–it's ... o–ohhh! I–I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest, it's just laying there, a mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk, and the screaming. Lady, I–I'm sorry. Honest: I–I can hardly breathe. I–I'm going to step inside where I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Ah, ah—I can't. I, listen, folks, I–I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because I've lost my voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed."

Blue pencil

The Times, keeping it real:

"An earlier version of this post misidentified Boniface VIII as Boniface VII."

We're not only criminalizing poverty.

We're criminalizing compassion and generosity.

Arnold Abbott being arrested on November 2, 2014

90-year-old Florida man faces 60 days in jail for feeding the homeless by Eric W. Dolan (Raw Story)