Democracy gone Astray: Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

The Noxious Legacy of Fracking King Aubrey McClendon

WHEN FRACKING BILLIONAIRE Aubrey McClendon died after crashing his Chevy Tahoe into a bridge last week, the federal investigation into his alleged bid-rigging came to an end. At his memorial in Oklahoma City today, his friends and family will remember him as a “swashbuckling innovator” and a loyal friend, but his most enduring legacy may be his role in convincing policymakers and the public that natural gas could be an environmental boon and a solution to global warming. More than any other individual, McClendon personified the excesses of the fracking boom, gobbling up land so quickly and spinning the boom’s story so effectively that regulators, environmentalists, and even Wall Street struggled to keep pace.

As the writer, producer, and director of many of the Human Rights exhibits at the Museum of Tolerance in NY and LA (including one on the poisonous impact of hate speech) the silence of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in the face of the bigotry and intolerance sweeping our nation is both unconscionable and deplorable.

Donald Trump is the most vulgar and dangerous bigot to surface in the American body politic since the ugliness of demagogue Huey Long, anti-Semite Father Charles Coughlin, racist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond, and Neo Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell.

The U.S. economy added 242,000 jobs in February—but the major gains were in low-wage industries, and average hourly earnings dropped 3 cents. And unemployment rates remained far higher for minorities than for whites.

LONDON—Climate change could seriously redistribute resources and reallocate wealth—but not in a fair way.

In a reverse of the famous Robin Hood folklore, it could rob from the poor to give to the rich, according to researchers. Yet even the rich may not feel any richer.

In one clear instance, as scientists have repeatedly warned, fish stocks are likely to move away from the equator and towards the poles, as the tropics heat up and expand.

America’s war in Afghanistan, which is now in its fifteenth year, presents a mystery: how could so much money, power, and good will have achieved so little? Congress has appropriated almost eight hundred billion dollars for military operations in Afghanistan; a hundred and thirteen billion has gone to reconstruction, more than was spent on the Marshall Plan, in postwar Europe. General David Petraeus, a principal architect of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, encouraged the practice of pumping money into the economy of Afghanistan, where the per-capita G.D.P. at the time of the invasion was around a hundred and twenty dollars. He believed that money had helped buy peace during his command of American forces in Iraq. “Employ money as a weapons system,” Petraeus wrote in 2008. “Money can be ‘ammunition.’ ”

Without public notification of any kind, the US Navy has secretly been conducting electromagnetic warfare testing and training on public roads in western Washington State for more than five years.

An email thread between the Navy and the US Forest Service between 2010 and 2012, recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Oregon-based author and activist Carol Van Strum in November 2014, revealed that the Navy has likely been driving mobile electromagnetic warfare emitters and conducting electromagnetic warfare training in the Olympic National Forest and on public roads on Washington's Olympic Peninsula since 2010.

More than 920,000 children died of pneumonia in 2015, according to the World Health Organization. For 2015, Ian Read, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer who earned a salary of $23.3 million, reported that the pharmaceutical giant turned a $7.7 billion profit, driven in part by a 53 percent growth in revenue from the Global Vaccines division.

These figures are not unrelated.

An elite group of millionaires and billionaires with ties to fossil fuels have spent more than $100 million in this US election cycle, Energy desk can reveal.

A Greenpeace analysis of Federal Election Committee data has turned up 124 'megadonors' who are executives, board members or major investors in the fossil fuel industry - these guys have each given at least $100,000 to Super PACs supporting a political candidate or cause.

America is practically bankrupt, yet Israel remains a multi-billion dollar dependent. The U.S. can't afford to continue subsidizing well-off nations, no matter how friendly. And Israel, which spends heavily both to expand state regulation and occupy Palestinian lands, doesn't need American support.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) newly-appointed state Supreme Court justice, Rebecca Bradley, once wrote columns calling gay people "queers" and arguing that individuals who get AIDS deserve no sympathy.

Bradley is a conservative judicial superstar, rising through the ranks during Walker's tenure with the support of groups like the Wisconsin Club for Growth. The governor first named her to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in 2012, and then he elevated her to Wisconsin Court of Appeals in May 2015. In October, when a vacancy arose on the state Supreme Court, Walker again gave her a plum appointment.

The Florida Supreme Court is set to weigh in on a controversial ballot measure that environmentalists warn could erect a new obstacle for the state's struggling renewable-energy industry.

On Monday, the court is expected to begin hearing oral arguments over Amendment 1, a proposed ballot initiative that purports to strengthen the legal rights of homeowners who have rooftop solar panels. But critics in the solar industry and environmental groups claim that if the measure passes in November, it would actually deal a major blow to rooftop solar by undermining one of the key state policies supporting it.

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders gave vastly different answers on fracking at the CNN Democratic debate on Sunday, illustrating a key policy contrast between the two.

The candidates were asked by University of Michigan student Sarah Bellaire about whether they support fracking, the controversial process of injecting high-pressure water, sand, and chemicals underground to crack shale rock and let gas flow out more easily. Clinton, who answered first, said she does — but only under certain conditions.

Mount St. Mary’s University, a private, liberal arts Catholic university in Maryland, has recently been plagued with controversy thanks to comments from the university president that made an alarming comparison between students and bunnies.

After a career in the financial industry, president Simon Newman vowed to make sweeping changes in both finances and academics at Mount St. Mary’s. But some faculty were taken aback by his communication style, one that may have gone unnoticed in private equity, especially when he talked about encouraging struggling students to leave the university earlier in the semester for a better federally reported retention rate.

Hundreds of kids in Los Angeles are languishing in a detention center that one probation monitor likens to a “Third World country prison.” According to a scathing new report on conditions in L.A. County’s main juvenile detention center, Central Juvenile Hall, some 200 kids — most of whom are waiting for their trials to start — are living in squalid units and tossed in solitary confinement for minor infractions.

Women demonstrate against a Texas law that presents obstacles to women seeking abortions

The demand for information about how to self-induce an abortion “has risen to a disturbing level,” according to a New York Times analysis that examined more than 700,000 Google searches across the country in 2015.

Warren Buffett’s recent annual letter to shareholders extols renewable energy. Yet he fails to mention that his company is working to crush solar energy in Nevada and around the western United States.

In Part One, I explored how Buffett, despite being one of the world’s most successful investors, mistakenly downplays the climate risk to his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BH). In particular, he fails to tell investors of the climate risk associated with his massive $1.1 billion investment in Canadian tar sands giant Suncor, a company that can only make a big profit by helping to destroy a livable climate.

Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court handed down a very brief order allowing several Louisiana abortion clinics to reopen after a conservative federal appeals court forced them to shut down. Yet, while the Supreme Court’s order was very short — only slightly more than a paragraph long — it contained 14 more words than such an order normally would. And those 14 words appear to be a direct swipe at the appeals court that shut down Louisiana’s clinics in the first place.

AS A WRITER who has covered Silvio Berlusconi since he became Italy’s prime minister in 1994, it has been difficult not to be overcome with a powerful sense of déjà vu all over again watching the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

Some of the resemblances are obvious as well as uncanny. Both are billionaires who made their initial fortunes in real estate, whose wealth and playboy lifestyles turned them into celebrities. Both have had ugly divorces and brag of their sexual prowess. Trump notably defended his manhood at the debate last week, while Berlusconi once said, “Life is a matter of perspective: Think of all the women in the world who want to sleep with me but don’t know it.” (This was before Berlusconi began holding “bunga bunga” parties with prostitutes.) They are masters of media manipulation, Berlusconi as Italy’s largest private television owner, Trump as the star of his own reality TV show and creator of the Trump “brand.” Entering politics, both have styled themselves as the ultimate anti-politician — as the super-successful entrepreneur running against gray “professional politicians” who have never met a payroll and are ruining their respective countries.

The declaration by the Republican majority controlling the Senate Judiciary Committee that they will not consider any Obama nomination to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court may not be a constitutional crisis anyone has sought, but it may be one that we need.

Cousin Jeff worries that a vote for Bernie is a vote for a Republican sweep in the fall. Iris, a veteran of peace campaigns, fears another George McGovern debacle (losing 49 states to Nixon in 1972.) And Jacques, a radical artist, is certain that a self-declared socialist can't possibly become president in the most capitalist nation on earth.

The leader of one of the UK's biggest business groups has resigned after expressing his support for a British exit from the European Union, amid claims that political pressure caused him to quit.

John Longworth quit as director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) following the controversy over his suggestion the UK could have a "brighter" future outside the EU.

David Cameron has announced that a Royal Navy ship will join Nato attempts to tackle smugglers bringing migrants across the Aegean Sea - but he may have misunderstood what the vessel will actually be doing.

The Prime Minister hailed Britain's involvement in the mission: "It’s an opportunity to stop the smugglers and send out a clear message to migrants contemplating journeys to Europe that they will be turned back. That’s why the UK is providing vital military assets to work with our European partners and support this mission."

The front page of The Independent backed up this idea, claiming the RFA Mounts Bay ship was dispatched "to turn back migrants", while the Metro wrote: "Royal Navy ships will be sent to turn back boats".

A staggering Guardian investigation reveals how far from being “the most indulged young people in the history of the world,” westerners born in the 1980s and mid 1990s have actually been betrayed by previous generations who have left them in debt, jobless and locked out of property markets.

The series, which will be published over the next couple of weeks, will combine decades of data on 8 of the largest developed nations in the world with accounts of “the fortunes, feelings and finances of the developed world’s young adults, as well as looking at fallacies surrounding them.” The newspaper also promises to analyze what the results of these “betrayals” have been and will be, such as a decline in birthrates.

The parents of a 13-year-old boy were forced to pay thousands of dollars for eye surgery or wait until their son was legally blind before the public health-care system would help him.

"It doesn't make sense. Why would you knowingly let someone suffer like that?" the boy's mother, Krystal Tanner, told Go Public from her home in Rockland, just outside Ottawa.

News that Premier Christy Clark has spent $500,000 on private jets since assuming office has -- not surprisingly -- raised a few eyebrows.

It's a story that has as much to do with the symbolism as it does with the dollars. A political condition that the government seems increasingly tone deaf to as of late.

Ever shown up for work -- only to discover your boss has deactivated you?

"Sounds like a robot," joked Donald Lafleur, vice president of the Canadian Labour Congress.

Uncomfortable laughter erupted around the large conference table as several dozen representatives of the country's major unions gathered behind closed doors to figure out what to do about the technology-fuelled platforms of the "gig economy," or what cheerleaders call the "sharing economy."

It's time to put the moral crisis over the political one. Donald Trump's potential nomination by the Republican Party is not just a crisis for that party and for election politics in general, it is a moral crisis for the country, for democracy itself, and for the state of faith in the nation.

The media can act shocked about Trump failing to quickly and very clearly denounce David Duke and the KKK and their support for him, but they didn't seriously ask the more important question: Why do the advocates of white supremacy like and advocate for Donald Trump?

Can a government that adopted austerity policies win an election? Over the past year, this question has been asked in many languages and in many countries. And the answer seems to be, for the time being, a unanimous no.

After Greece, Portugal and Spain, it was Ireland's turn to take the test. It was its chance to submit an exception to the rule. Ireland was the exemplary student in the Troika classroom; it executed the recipe willingly and without complaint. It diminished public spending dramatically, taxed citizens, and cut pensions. But when compared with Greece, it did so with a smaller economical and social cost, and achieved greater success.

Nearly three decades ago, Howard Kaminsky, of Random House, called on the real-estate developer and self-marketing master Donald Trump at his office on Fifth Avenue. Kaminsky brought along a cover design for “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” its author’s literary début. Trump seemed reasonably happy. Just one thing, he said. “Please make my name much bigger.”

NEW DELHI -- Here are the telltale signs of a government in serious trouble: when it sniffs a conspiracy in every criticism aimed at it; when it deploys state power in a ham-handed manner to curb dissent; when it looks the other way as its supporters abuse, intimidate, injure and even murder its ideological and political foes; when it seeks shelter behind a veil of high-decibel nationalism; when it dons the mantle of victimhood; and, not least, when it attracts ridicule more than rage.

Friends of Devon LaFleur are shocked the towering, “gentle” 30-year-old Ottawa man with a love of nature and history of mental illness was shot dead by Toronto police.

“If you saw Devon he would put a smile on your face,” said Nayef Abdul, who grew up with LaFleur in Ottawa’s south end and bumped into him about six weeks ago.

IN AN EARLY SCENE from the HBO documentary Homegrown, an FBI agent describes his angst while tracking a teenager’s engagement in the online jihadi world. “You almost want to pick up the phone and say, ‘Son, don’t do this,’” the agent reflects. The teenager in question was Shifa Sadequee, a 19-year-old who was arrested on terrorism charges in 2006. Following a 2009 trial in which Sadequee represented himself, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison plus an additional 30 years of supervision.

Gun owners in West Virginia will no longer need to get a permit to have a concealed weapon, putting it among the most far-reaching states for gun rights. The House voted on the measure Friday and officially overrode a gubernatorial veto on Saturday.

The law, which does away with the permit and training program for people 21 and older who want to carry a concealed weapon, was supported by the National Rifle Association, but opposed by law enforcement across the state.

IS there any scarier nightmare than President Donald J. Trump in a tense international crisis, indignant and impatient, with his sweaty finger on the nuclear trigger?

“Trump is a danger to our national security,” John B. Bellinger III, legal adviser to the State Department under President George W. Bush, bluntly warned.

Most of the discussion about Trump focuses on domestic policy. But checks and balances mean that there are limits to what a president can achieve domestically, while the Constitution gives a commander in chief a much freer hand abroad.

Tim Cook got almost $400 million of restricted stock when he was named Apple chief executive in 2011, succeeding Steve Jobs. Regardless of whether Apple shareholders fared well or badly over the grant’s 10-year term, all Cook needed to do to collect that stock (worth about $700 million at today’s price) was keep his job. It was the kind of deal that pay mavens derisivelycall “pay for pulse.”

But two years later, Apple and Cook retroactively changed the terms of his grant, making about 40 percent of it “pay for performance” based on how Apple shares do relative to those of other companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Apple quoted Cook as saying he wanted to align his interests with those of regular shareholders.

Imagine if a corporation set up shop in your community and immediately dumped toxic sludge in your local waterways and buried radioactive waste next to your biggest playground. You and your neighbors, I bet, would demand full compensation from that corporation to pay for the clean-up and public health costs.

You’d have a strong case.

It was remarkable to watch Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, an Iraq War veteran, defy her bosses, resign her post as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for president.

She did so Sunday on the grounds that Sanders would make a more responsible and effective commander in chief than Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination and the party’s clear favorite.

The nation must have a president “who has foresight, who exercises good judgment,” Gabbard told NBC host Chuck Todd on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.”

ISTANBUL, March 5 (Reuters) - Turkish police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Saturday to disperse protesters outside the country's biggest newspaper after authorities seized control of it in a crackdown on a religious group whose leader the government accuses of treason.

A court on Friday appointed an administrator to run the flagship Zaman, English-language Today's Zaman and Cihan agency, linked to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who the government says plotted a coup. The ruling came at the request of a prosecutor probing Gulen on terrorism charges, state media said.

Donald Trump's rallies represent "21st century American fascism," MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell said Saturday night.

"Trump has, whether we like it or not, he has joy," MSNBC's Chris Matthews said during a panel discussion, while comparing him to rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). "The people at his events are having a good time."

I have lived in Britain – mainly on, sometimes off – for 25 years, but there are still two things about this country I don’t understand. Number one: why do so many of your classic TV shows have such bizarre titles? Last Of The Summer Wine? Only Fools And Horses? Can you imagine what it was like to move here in the 90s, from the land of the prosaically titled Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, to a country where one of the most popular shows was called Drop The Dead Donkey?

In the 1960s, political conservatives accused the justices of the Warren Court of imposing their own liberal values and preferences on the nation in the guise of constitutional interpretation. They charged that the justices of that era consistently exploited the ambiguity of vague constitutional provisions guaranteeing, for example, "the freedom of speech," "the equal protection of the laws," "the free exercise of religion," and "due process of law," to inflict upon the nation liberal policies that were not, in fact, warranted by a more even-handed approach to constitutional interpretation.

Rivers and other bodies of water in India are sources of the country's spiritualism. Activists working for water rights say capturing India's waters is akin to capturing the nation's soul. The law in India is that all bodies of water are state property. As such, the government can do whatever it pleases with the waters of India. Right now, India's water war has three fronts.

The first is the battle for drinking water being waged between citizens and corporations. Companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi have already gained notoriety for illegal use and overuse of groundwater. There are issues of huge displacements by power projects and dams.

With the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) attempting to gain access to the San Bernardino shooter's phone, and in the process create a backdoor into encrypted devices across the world - many in the media have framed the issue as being one of privacy versus security. While there is undoubtedly a compelling privacy issue at stake, many advocates have also pointed to another fundamental right at stake - the right of free expression. The Supreme Court has long noted that privacy is fundamental to free expression. More recently, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression released a report concluding that strong encryption was essential to protect free expression.

Both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will be headed to Miami next week in advance of their next primary debates. Local Floridians, already on the front lines of climate change as rising seas spill into their neighborhoods, want them to talk about climate change.

Cindy Lerner is the Mayor of Pinecrest, a coastal suburb of Miami. She and 14 other South Florida mayors sent letters to GOP candidates Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush (before he ended his campaign) asking to meet with them about climate change. Both candidates agreed when Lerner went to New Hampshire to make the request in person. Bush has since dropped out of the race, and she is still trying to schedule a meeting with Rubio next week.

On Friday, Southern California’s air quality board voted during a closed-door meeting to forcefully roll back pollution regulations in favor of regulations backed by oil refineries and other polluters. At the same time, the board also voted to dismiss their executive officer Barry Wallerstein, who had presided over the board since 1997.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District board manages pollution in a four-county region of Southern California, including some of the most polluted areas in the country. Under Wallerstein’s tenure, the number of days that air quality exceeded federal standards dropped by a third, but environmental and public health groups are quick to note that Southern California’s pollution levels are still far from meeting federal health standards, according to the Los Angeles Times.

DENVER - Homeless camps that went up on sidewalks near the downtown Samaritan House homeless shelter last year will start to get cleared out by the beginning of next week.

Denver Public Works said Friday officials plan to alert those camped outside that they would begin letting them of the changes in order to keep public spaces and sidewalks "free of obstruction."

In a notice sent to Denver7, DPW officials stated that personal daily necessities, "such as small personal electronic devices, medications, and important documents such as identification cards, birth certificates, drivers' licenses, and health care documents," would be removed from sidewalks.

Politicians in states around the country have moved in recent years to rein in the pensions of government employees, which in many cases had become more generous and less risky than those of their private sector counterparts.

Now that movement may be breaching yet another firewall: the pensions of federal employees.

On Thursday, the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority Retirement System, the pension program for roughly 11,000 workers and 24,000 retirees at the venerable New Deal-era agency, approved a tentative plan to lower the system’s funding shortfall by reducing benefits.The plan will be implemented later this year if the T.V.A.’s management and board go along with it.

Homicide statistics released late last year showed that El Salvador had passed a grim milestone: The Central American nation registered more homicides in 2015 than in any year during its civil war, which lasted from 1980 to 1992.

El Salvador’s Institute of Legal Medicine tallied 6,656 killings last year, for a homicide rate of roughly 116 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants -- the highest in the world for a country not at war, and more than a 70 percent spike from the year before. It should come as no surprise that tens of thousands of Salvadorans, including children, have fled to the United States and other countries in the region seeking refuge.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish authorities seized control of a newspaper linked to Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen on Friday, in a widening crackdown against supporters of the U.S.-based foe of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Administrators have been appointed to run the Zaman newspaper at the request of an Istanbul prosecutor, state-run Anadolu Agency reported. It was unclear how the paper's sister publications, including the English-language Today's Zaman, would be affected.

One of the originators of Europe's far-right populist movement came out in support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday. In a statement on Twitter, the 87-year-old former leader of France's National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, said that if he were American he would vote for Trump, and asked God to protect the candidate.