Links 4/24/15

TPP News:

Consent of the Governed: Stop the Emerging TPP Tyranny! Corrente

Trade Bill Clears House Hurdle as GOP Blocks Democratic Alternative WSJ. Paul Ryan used an obscure jurisdictional issue to block the Democratic alternative from even getting a vote. Considering that Democratic votes are needed to pass the bill, that seems mighty stupid. Two Democrats voted for fast track in committee: Earl Blumenauer and Ron Kind.

Obama: Liberal trade critics ‘don’t know what they’re talking about’ The Hill

Obama is failing us all by ignoring the need for currency rules in TPP Dean Baker

Top Democrat Larry Summers: Democrats Are Crazy and Hate Trade The Intercept

There may have been a poison pill in the fast-track trade legislation WaPo. Interesting, it’s a human trafficking piece that could disqualify Malaysia, one of the 12 countries in TPP.

A Drone Program That Has Killed Hundreds Of Civilians Finally Killed Some That The White House Regrets Huffington Post

Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die NY Times. We’re not going to have a national conversation about drones, at least not one with any meaningful policy change at stake. But if we ever would, this would provoke it.

After 9/11, We Were All Judith Miller POLITICO Magazine (!)

Petraeus gets 2 years probation, $100K fine, can travel to speak overseas, lives happily ever after Boing Boing

As Attorney General, Loretta Lynch Plans to Shift Tone for Justice Dept. NY Times. Playing nice with the cops.

Deutsche Bank to Pay Record $2.5 Billion to Resolve Libor Bloomberg

Yvanova v. New Century Mortgage Corporation Amicus Brief of California Attorney General Kamala Harris in Support of Appellant Stop Foreclosure Fraud. Among the die-hards still seeking accountability on mortgage issues, this is seen as a big deal.

Senator Baldwin is Asking the SEC Questions About “Disgorge the Cash” Rortybomb

Mediamacro myth 1: 2010 Britain faced a financial crisis Mainly Macro

How Robbers Got Cops to Pay Ransoms The Atlantic

Some Companies Fight Pay Gap By Eliminating Salary Negotiations NPR. I believe the phrase in the old Connect Four ad was, “Pretty sneaky sis.”

Class Warfare:

Bangladesh garment industry pushes to meet deadlines on safety standards WaPo

Public pensions own payday lender that is illegal in their own states Fortune

Have We Seen the End of the Eight-Hour Day? The Nation

World’s Biggest For-Profit College Chain Plans $1 Billion IPO Bloomberg

UGA student facing judiciary hearing after Capitol protest arrest UGAnews

We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership WIRED

Oklahomans Feel Way More Earthquakes Than Californians; Now They Know Why NPR

Pipeline advocate William Shatner holds senior water rights The Sacramento Bee

Genius Elephant Stops Traffic So Little Calf Can Safely Cross The Dodo (h/t furzy mouse)

Thanks all, it was a pleasure. Antidote Du Jour:

african-elephant_435_600x450

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About David Dayen

David is a contributing writer to Salon.com. He has been writing about politics since 2004. He spent three years writing for the FireDogLake News Desk; he’s also written for The New Republic, The American Prospect, The Guardian (UK), The Huffington Post, The Washington Monthly, Alternet, Democracy Journal and Pacific Standard, as well as multiple well-trafficked progressive blogs and websites. His has been a guest on MSNBC, CNN, Aljazeera, Russia Today, NPR, Pacifica Radio and Air America Radio. He has contributed to two anthology books, one about the Wisconsin labor uprising and another on the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act in Congress. Prior to writing about politics he worked for two decades as a television producer and editor. You can follow him on Twitter at @ddayen.

78 comments

  1. Cassandra

    Yves, what happened to your collection of “Grexit” relatated articles? I miss them.

      1. Cassandra

        I meant your daily dose of links concerning the never ending Greek too much debt dilemma….

    1. Disturbed Voter

      The future is in part-time low-paid service work. Thanks to off-shoring, immigration and automation. But all the benefits will go to the “job makers” … not to the people still working. This is as it should be, in a hierarchical society … Managers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your labor relations!

      See … progress isn’t always a positive, particularly if it destroys something that was working to begin with.

      1. Jef

        What is even more galling is these same corporations have been raking in huge public funded subsidizes, tax breaks, and refunds to encourage these practices. We have bought the rope that we will be hung with with our own money.

    2. jrs

      Average working weeks are probably still some of the highest in the world in the U.S. like they have been for awhile. Somehow we’re not all getting rich off it.

    3. Benedict@Large

      The strength of labor is directly determined by the amount the federal government spends creating jobs. Capitalism by itself can NEVER create enough jobs to create strong labor. The government mush intervene. The Democrats (the real ones; forget about the DINOs) have foolishly bought into the notion that deficit spending is a drag on the future, when in truth, the lack of it is. Until the Democrats can begin to (really) spend again, labor in the US is dead.

  2. wbgonne

    Consent of the Governed: Stop the Emerging TPP Tyranny! Corrente

    Good piece at Lambert’s place. I’ll add one point: the TPP, when combined with TTIP and the existing “trade deals” will pull nearly the entire world economy into the orbit of these supranational corporate courts. By empowering these corporatists to effectively veto legislation around the world, we are locking future generations into a system of neoliberal capitalism. Have we really earned the right to force future generations to follow the path we have chosen? Are we so arrogant that we will not allow our children and grandchildren the freedom to choose the course of self-governance they want? Has this generation done so well for the world that we have earned the right to declare political history over?

    1. ambrit

      History has been declared over before, and it just ignored the pronouncements and kept on. The determining factor with this newest “rule of laws,” as with all such, is in the enforcement provisions. Arab ‘Springs’ and Colour Revolutions of all sorts show that “the Street” is ultimately unpredictable. As long as militias and regional forces continue to exist, no one in the ‘C’ Suite is really safe. For all “our” vaunted and ballyhooed “force multipliers,” todays ‘crowned heads’ are lieing uneasy in the extreme. The real blowback has yet to occur.

      1. susan the other

        It is odd that the multi-nationals are going for supra-national control when the whole world is existing on the generosity of central banks. That is, sovereign national banks. Pure socialism – for the rich all dressed up in an evening gown of elite power.

        1. jrs

          Yea I guess we bailed out the capitalists (and not just the banks, all the companies like Caterpiller etc.) so that they could thoroughly crush us all. Next time their Ponzi economic system collapses and they want a bail out, maybe we’d better let it all crash and burn.

    2. Keenan

      Have we really earned the right to force future generations to follow the path we have chosen? Are we so arrogant that we will not allow our children and grandchildren the freedom to choose the course of self-governance they want?

      The debt based monetary system is one of the precedents that has led us down that path.

  3. frosty zoom

    hmm..

    arbitration, uranium, minimg, tribunal..

    Khan [Resources, Inc.] had been engaged in a prolonged legal battle with the Mongolian government over a uranium project. Last month, an international arbitration panel ruled that the government should compensate the company for cancelling uranium licenses in 2009 and expropriating property where Khan had planned to develop a mine. The company said the compensation award, plus interest, totalled $103.8-million (U.S.) as of the end of March.

    Company officials, including Mr. Doak, held talks this week with government representatives in Ulan Bator. During those talks, the company demanded full payment of the award and vowed to take enforcement action.

    Before he left for Mongolia last week, Mr. Doak talked with enthusiasm about Khan’s arbitration win.

    This case will send a message to foreign governments that they can’t take what isn’t rightfully theirs.” he said at the time. [emphasis probably not necessary]

    is this where TPP/TTIP/TPAP/TPOP/TPOPTART are taking us, to the wild, wild east of corporate showdowns?

    “c’mon, honey! onto the fasttracktrain, there’s lithium in them there hills!”

    1. vidimi

      the best part is the insistence that countries’ natural resources and heritage are not rightfully theirs

      1. JTMcPhee

        “You only own what you can keep…”

        And the notion of resources located by vast happenstance in, on or under one fortuitous “nation” or another are “rightfully theirs,” kind of flies in the face of the larger notion of the “Commons,” of which the general the failure to acknowledge its compelling nature is resulting in our death by carbo-consumption.

  4. frosty zoom

    The president said Democrats’ concerns about past trade deals, such as NAFTA, should not stop him from pursuing new ones.

    “You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago.”

    ••

    Clinton said Monday that Obama’s campaign gave the Canadians “the old wink-wink.”

    “I think that’s the kind of difference between talk and action that I’ve been talking about,” Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio. “It raises questions about Senator Obama coming to Ohio and giving speeches against NAFTA.”

    On Friday, Republican John McCain said the desire by his Democratic presidential rivals to renegotiate the terms of NAFTA would jeopardize crucial military support from Canada.

    ••

    “The face of globalisation is contradictory. The internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence into the home. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and change to communities. In all nations – including America – this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we will lose of control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities – those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith. But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradictions between development and tradition.” ~mr. obama, cairo 2008 (a new beginning speech)

    1. cwaltz

      “You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago.”

      I wonder if he’s even self aware enough to recognize the ridiculousness of asking people to tell him what’s wrong with a trade agreement he’s kept secret. The only reason anyone knows any details is because other countries have released details not him.

      1. Tom Allen

        “You need to explain what’s wrong with this pig in this poke before you reject it. I mean, sure, we lied to you last time. But can you prove that we’re lying to you now? Well then, it’s totally rude of you to doubt us!”

          1. Jess

            That’s an insult to many fifteen year-olds that I know. Maybe fifteen year-olds in general.

            1. frosty zoom

              hahaha..

              i was going to say 14 year-olds but my son is 14 and i didn’t want to insult him!

      2. TedWa

        Is the definition of a psychopathic liar one where the person doesn’t even realize that they’re lying? If so, he fits the bill. Lying so long it seems like the truth to him

    2. diptherio

      That last quote from the O’ster is stomach-turning. What a sleazebag…equating corporate created trade agreements with “human progress,” where’s that barf bag?

      1. Brindle

        “What a sleazebag”….how true. Obama is one of the sleaziest characters to emerge in national politics in some years. He basically is the most skilled and proficient liar of any president in the post WW2 era. He lies with such ease and breeziness—it’s a core aspect of his personality.

          1. James Levy

            Reagan was better because he rarely knew the things he was saying were lies. It’s easy to be earnest when you are spouting nonsense you fervently believe to be true. Margaret Thatcher could say the most insane shit with the most unquestioning conviction. She’s a tough one to interpret, though, because it is almost impossible to plumb the shallows of such a one-dimensional mind.

    3. jrs

      “You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago.”

      Look forward, NOT BACK!!!

      Oh well I suppose “look forward not back” does make a fitting epitaph.

      1. Vatch

        That people are still suffering from 25 year old flaws/features in NAFTA means that 25 years from now people will be suffering from the flaws/features in TPP and TTIP. The key is to prevent the passage of the agreements in the first place.

      2. Doug Terpstra

        Obama: “Look at the facts, don’t just throw a bunch of stuff out there.”

        Yes let’s. Let’s actually look at the carefully hidden facts. Don’t just throw out a bunch of empty bromides and cliched platitudes about concern for workers’ rights and the global environment. Let us see the latest drafts. Put them out there for public scrutiny and democratic debate.

        The truth is that this is the most opaque and secretive regime in US history, trying to pass by guile and deceit what is rightly named “[SHAFTA] on steroids”. It is a fundamentally anti-democratic process for a profoundly anti-democratic global economic tyranny. Unfortunately, as with Obamneycare, Obama and the neo-democrats may just pull it off.

  5. James Levy

    I feel compelled: blinked technocrats like Summers whose knowledge of things is a mile deep and a millimeter wide can blather on about TPP because they have such a “sophisticate”, “nuanced” sense of what trade means that they can make all sorts of abstruse arguments about how great it is and how stupid we all are for denouncing it. What he will never understand is that the vast majority of people are not against trade. They just view trade as this: your country mines X, which we buy so that our workers can turn X into Y. We grow Z. Your people buy Z so that they can make their dinners. The exchange of these things makes life better for you and me. That’s trade.

    Summers would dismiss this as hopelessly, contemptibly, naïve. But it is what is good for most people and good for nations. What he and his Economics ilk have done is switch the narrative to be one obsessively centered on investors and property owners (specifically, patent owners). Instead of measuring trade in terms of how it impacts general standards of living in the nations doing the trading, these bumptious Ph.D.s (and I’m a Ph.D. so no one can accuse me of “doctorate envy”) reduce everything to either individuals (the trade deal will be good for those people who engage in direct foreign investment! yeah, perhaps 2% of the population) or meaningless aggregates (it will boost GDP by .92% per annum!) that when disaggregated show that again 95% of the gains go to 2% of the population. The “little people” hurt by the deal are written off as collateral damage in the great war for economic efficiency. If you point all this out to Summers and his ilk, they will look at you like they would the village idiot and never refute you, just dismiss you as stupid and irrelevant. How they can live with themselves is a puzzlement I will carry to the grave.

    1. JCC

      @James Levy; Your description of the average person’s idea of trade vs the Corporate version is perfect, simply perfect.

      Thank You.

    2. frosty zoom

      How they can live with themselves is a puzzlement I will carry to the grave.

      exactly. they live, you die.*

      *(just kidding, pbuy)

    3. NOTaREALmerican

      You can tell the adults from the children by how well they live a happy duplicitous life.

    4. TedWa

      And in actuality, these trade agreements are only about 5% about trade, the rest is protecting corporate interests over people. They’re arguing trade when really this is not about trade at all.

  6. Garrett Pace

    According to article, Obama is taking “full responsibility” for the death of those hostages.

    How very leaderly. I wonder what consequences come with taking responsibility. Words don’t have meaning anymore, just emotional pretense.

    1. JTMcPhee

      “Hey, Earnest! Dust off that old script from Reagan’s accepting responsibility for all those dead Marines in the barracks bo9mbing in Lebanon! That was classic, pure teflon, and it worked GREAT. Should work again, right?”

      “Sure thing, Mr. President. I’ve already got it polished and cued up on the Teleprompter for you to practice your convincing theatrics!”

      For those who forget, here’s the Beirut context and time line, including how it was all touched off by yet another Israeli war of choice, leading to among other things, 299 dead GIs and a few French paratroopers and some bugsplat Lebanese, and a whole lot of refugees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing But time to mend fences with the Israelis, right? Something like the Lebanon debacle in 1982-3 would NEVER happen again, would it?

      Here’s the speech by Reagan, complete with those famous and so very effective little sincere twists of the head that had Marines crying in sympathy for our CinC’s pain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfLGDxnRH-Q

      How about another take on the Great One’s wisdom and policies? http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/01/30/aide-reagan-left-marines-vulnerable-in-beirut/

      And another famous Reagan speech on the general subject: Yeah, Jerry, “Where IS the beef?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFA5f0n-Nak

      Why am I reminded of THIS? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcSlcNfThUA

      1. Strangely Enough

        This president who was not a marionette would be shown making decisions, and not only that: the decisions he was shown making (or more often in this instance, where rhetoric was soon understood to be interchangeable with action, the speeches he was shown making) would have demonstrable, preferably Manichean, results.

        -Joan Didion, Political Fictions

  7. Jill

    In 2005, Dick Cheney gave himself and his friends a mini-TPP which allowed the frackers to legally eviscerate the clean air and water act. These laws no longer applied to their industry. As we know, this has turned out very well for the people living near the fracking industrial complex! It is a fabulous idea that Obama is expanding Cheney’s mini-TPP into full blown dissolution of US environmental laws!! Congress should pass the TPP just like they passed Cheney’s 2005 exemption from people’s right to drink water and breath air, (along with getting bonus earthquakes).

    1. jrs

      Hmm it was also preceded by a bunch of secretive meetings (which I don’t think were ever leaked), much like the TPP, only just with the energy companies.

  8. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    World’s biggest for-profit college chain.

    Knowledge can be for sale.

    Wisdom can’t. You won’t be able to buy it with money*.

    *That would be one definition of money – it’s something you can’t use to buy wisdom (nor probably love, but perhaps that’s debatable in the world of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Love).

  9. Chauncey Gardiner

    Re Obama’s “Liberal trade critics ‘Don’t know what they’re talking about'” from The Hill:

    To paraphrase Rod Tidwell in his exchange with Jerry Maguire in the film of the same name: “Show! US! The! Agreement! Barry!”

    Or a somewhat lengthier version based on the script from that most excellent film:

    Rod Tidwell: It’s a very personal, a very important thing. Hell, it’s a family motto. Are you ready, Barry?
    Barry: I’m ready.
    Rod Tidwell: I wanna make sure you’re ready, brother. Here it is: Show US the Agreement. Oh-ho-ho! SHOW! US! THE! AGREEMENT! A-ha-ha! Barry, doesn’t it make you feel good just to say that! Say it with me one time, Barry.
    Barry: Show you the Agreement.
    Rod Tidwell: Oh, no, no. You can do better than that, Barry! I want you to say it with me, with meaning, brother! Hey, I got Liz on the other line; I bet you She can say it!
    Barry: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Show you the Agreement.
    Rod Tidwell: No! Not show you! Show US the Agreement!
    Barry: Show US the Agreement!
    Rod Tidwell: Yeah! Louder!
    Barry: Show US the Agreement!
    Rod Tidwell: Yes, but, brother, you got to yell that shit!
    Barry: Show US the Agreement!
    Rod Tidwell: I need to feel you, Barry!
    Barry: Show US the Agreement!
    Rod Tidwell: Barry, you got to yell!
    Barry: [screaming] Show US the AGREEMENT! Show US the AGREEMENT!!

  10. JohnnyGL

    Yves,

    Thanks for having Dave Dayen on for a cameo. He’s usually got good material for us to read.

  11. Pat

    So John Deere and GM want to make sure that even if you have enough technical knowledge to tinker on your equipment (cars, trucks, farm vehicles) it is illegal to do so because of Digital Rights. You are only renting the vehicle. They still own the important parts.

    Funnily enough that idea was destroyed when it was ruled that people had every right to resell or give away the software they had purchased. Which is why Office is now strictly for rent from the beginning and you are informed from the beginning that you only has use of this for X amount of time. Mind you I don’t believe the courts would rule in the same way today, and I’m pretty damn sure that Deere and GM will prevail no matter how ridiculous their argument. Or we’ll see this come up time and again until they get their way.

    And it is always good to see David Dayen, here it is a special treat.

    1. frosty zoom

      it would be great if monsanto claimed they only rented us the “food”.

      that way i could return it when i’m done.

    2. subgenius

      ….and thats why i drive a 1970 c10….shitty mpg, but zero chance of electronic issues..or tracking ex numberplate readers…

    3. jrs

      If one is looking for a weak spot in the enforcement of the global corporate tyranny, that’s it. The can make shows of force elsewhere but that stuff strikes me as difficult to enforce. So rail against the senseless of the law, or when the opportunity arises just break it.

    4. gordon

      From the Wired article: ‘The company argues that allowing people to alter the software—even for the purpose of repair—would “make it possible for pirates, third-party developers, and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique expression and ingenuity of vehicle software.”’

      This is a pretty remarkable argument. Are farmers going into competition with John Deere by making and selling machinery copied from John Deere designs? Really? Who are these sneaky guys? What are their names? Where do they live? Most importantly, where are the ripoffs that they are selling in competition with John Deere?

      Addicts of The Bold and the Beautiful might describe John Deere’s line as the “Sally Spectra” argument. But Sally was (at least in the soap) a real person selling real clothes with designs ripped off from the innovative Forrester firm. I don’t see how the argument can work unless an agricultural Sally Spectra can be found.

    5. different clue

      Would this create a niche-market for strictly-analog cars, trucks, tractors, etc.? If so, would any EuroJapanAmerican company dare to fill it? Or would it be left to India to fill it with Tata cars and Pakistan to fill it with Ursus tractors?

  12. financial matters

    Senator Baldwin is Asking the SEC Questions About “Disgorge the Cash” Rortybomb

    Nice to see someone in Congress taking economic issues seriously, taking on corporate governance and being able to suggest something more useful than austerity with its promotion of further inequality.

    “With that in mind, Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) has sent a letter to the SEC looking for answers on these issues. In particular, she flags whether the SEC’s mission to “foster capital formation and prevent fraud” is jeopardized by short-termism in the market. It will be good to see how the SEC responds, and which other senators and organizations join in with their concerns.

    Personally, I’m happy that it quotes J.W. Mason’s work on profits and borrowing shifting from investment in a previous era to cash leaving the firm now. This issue is a major piece of our Financialization Project here at Roosevelt, and we will continue to develop it in the future.”

  13. homeroid

    Thanks DD nice to see you here. I do read you over there but nice to see you here. Things seem to be getting deeper glad i have my extratuf’s on.

  14. barrisj

    Takeaway message from NYT art. on droning:

    “Mr. Zenko said that Mr. Obama and Congress should create a commission to examine the targeted killing program, its results and its flaws. But he said the combination of public and Congressional popularity probably mean that even the latest disclosures will not bring such scrutiny to the program.

    “I predict that even this episode will have no effect,” he said.
    Herr Dr Dronemeister will occasionally don the hair-shirt, cry crocodile tears for “the loss of innocent lives”, and merrily carry on as before…feh.

    1. frosty zoom

      read the comments from the huffypuffypost article on droning.

      “save’s lives.”
      “better than boots on the ground”
      “We’re fighting a war you nansy-pansies and collateral damage is the cost of keeping us safe. ”

      there must be a big laundramat somewhere under foggybottom where they throw in the brains en masse and just keep the wretched machine on spin cycle 24/7.

  15. barrisj

    Well, all the news isn’t bad, as this morning’s announcement by Comcast that it is abandoning its takeover attempt of TimeWarner Cable, a grab at content monopoly so naked that even the DOJ choked. Tim Wu writes about it in today’s New Yorker on-line:

    The Death of the Comcast Deal
    By Tim Wu
    http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/death-of-comcast-time-warner-deal?intcid=mod-most-popular
    Wu pointed out that Justice and the FCC were extremely concerned about the effect of consolidation on the combined company’s dealings with Internet content providers, and especially those who are actively engaged in persuading long-suffering cable customers to “cut the cord”, and go the a la carte route by choosing from an array of content providers hand-picked Net-based programming, rather than the 500-channel you-get-what-we-give-you shite offerings by the cable companies. Another way of saying that “Net neutrality” means what it implies, and not something subject to the whims or predatory practices of the cable monopolies. Perhaps another step in recognising that the Internet is in practice if not in fact a “public utility” and should be regulated as such.

  16. bruno marr

    After 9/11 …We were all J. Miller:

    Wrong! After 9/11 there were massive protests against the war mongering. (Politocos and the Press!)

    McClatchy Newspapers seemed to get it right. NYT and the others seemed to willingly ignore the evidence. (For profit! Leading the vigilantes for the glory and fame?) The Judith Miller “Mea Culpa Tour” is nothing more than a disgraced journalist seeking alternative income.

    1. diptherio

      My question is, has anybody learned their lesson? Apparently not, since we’re being told that Russia invaded the Ukraine (no mention of civil war). Much easier to look skeptically on yesterday’s reporting than on today’s…

      1. cwaltz

        Our country has been lying to its citizens for awhile. However, they don’t even bother to lie well anymore.

        It’s not like the people in charge are sending THEIR kids off to die for the rich.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          No need to lie well.

          The barometer of their propaganda campaign is measured by how easily the people can be persuaded to follow each year’s new fashion*, for no reason other than being told, sorry, being informed, that that is the new fashion.

          And if you fail to conform on the social front, or if you are just a Neanderthal, you will be easy to spot…to be put on the list.

          Look around and one is confident that the campaign has been a smashing success, thus lessening the need to lie well.

          *or trendy new words/neologisms.

          1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

            “Just tell them something…anything! They will believe it. I know, because they wear anything we tell them to wear.”

    2. Bev

      http://www.c-span.org/video/?320748-5/washington-journal-architects-engineers-911-truth

      Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

      Richard Gage talked about his group, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which claimed that the World Trade Center was brought down by explosive demolition on September 11, 2001. The group was founded in 2006 and said its mission was to “expose the official lies and cover-up surrounding the events of September 11, 2001 in a way that inspires the people to overcome denial and understand the truth.”

      http://www.ae911truth.org/

      1. Bev

        via: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/journal-of-911-studies.html
        http://digwithin.net/2015/03/22/journal-of-911-studies/

        Eight Great Reads at the Journal of 9/11 Studies
        Posted on March 22, 2015 by Kevin Ryan

        This summer will mark the ninth anniversary of the Journal of 9/11 Studies. In that time, my co-editors and I have published over 150 peer-reviewed articles and letters addressing various aspects of the 9/11 crimes. Although it can be hard, thankless work, the job of co-editor has also been rewarding and I’ve learned a great deal.

    1. James Levy

      What a great essay. Thank you for exposing me to it, as I would never have seen it on my own.

      1. JTFaraday

        Yes, I’ve been trying– I emphasize trying, not necessarily succeeding!– to think more clearly in recent months about the nexus of the individual and today’s, in my opinion exhausted, culture.

        It has bothered me for a while that young people today seem to be growing up with almost no guiding ethic beyond the message that they are to go out and get a job/career, and that this is a judgment on them and the sum total of their value and the value of other people.

        As much as I agree that economics is something to which the citizenry ought to attend, given what we might well call the class war, I’m not sure that the single emphasis on revving up the economy that so many across the ideological spectrum have called for is really adequate for what ails us.

        This sentiment, and like I say I’ve only started trying to think about this, is echoed in this other article that I read just yesterday, which focuses on the issue of psychological resilience in the face of deindustrialization:

        http://aeon.co/magazine/society/can-nostalgia-heal-the-toxic-past/

        If the only thing is that is important is economic, and everyone across the ideological spectrum basically agrees, then of course economic breakdown leads to, we’ll call it, psychological breakdown. Everyone’s response is to push the hamsters back in the wheel. I’m not sure why we’re supposed to agree to hamster brain in the first place.

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  18. Demeter

    “A Drone Program That Has Killed Hundreds Of Civilians Finally Killed Some That The White House Regrets”

    I love that headline…and speculate that it was Israel that forced the apology from Obama’s lips for killing off the old man. Was he a dual citizen?

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