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Here’s a Great New Cause For the Tea Party

by CliftonBisdee Posted on October 2, 2014

Mother Jones

Harold Meyerson writes today about something called the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provision, a feature of most trade agreements since the Reagan administration. Basically, it means that if, say, a Mexican company objects to a regulation in Texas, it can sue Texas. But not in a US court. Instead the case is heard in a special extra-governmental tribunal:

The mockery that the ISDS procedure can make of a nation’s laws can be illustrated by a series of cases. In Germany in 2009, the Swedish energy company Vattenfall, seeking to build a coal-fired power plant near Hamburg, used ISDS to sue the government for conditioning its approval of the plant on Vattenfall taking measures to protect the Elbe River from its waste products. To avoid paying penalties to the company under ISDS (the company had asked for $1.9 billion in damages), the state eventually lifted its conditions.

Three years later, Vattenfall sued Germany for its post-Fukushima decision to phase out nuclear power plants; the case is advancing through the ISDS process. German companies that owned nuclear power plants had no such recourse.

After Australia passed a law requiring tobacco products to be sold in packaging featuring prominent health warnings, a Philip Morris subsidiary sued the government in Australian court and lost. It also sued the government through the ISDS, where the case is still pending. The health ministry in next-door New Zealand cited the prospect of a Philip Morris victory in ISDS as the reason it was holding up such warnings on cigarette packages in its own country.

Meyerson wants to know why Democratic presidents continue to support ISDS, but I’m more interested in why the tea party crowd hasn’t yelled itself hoarse over this. After all, this is a tailor-made example of giving up US sovereignty to an unaccountable international organization, something that normally prompts them to start waving around pocket copies of the Constitution and going on Hannity to complain that President Obama is trying to sabotage America. Agenda 21, anyone?

So why not this time? I guess it’s because ISDS is normally used by big corporations to challenge environmental laws. So which do you hate more? The EPA or an unaccountable international organization? Decisions, decisions….

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Here’s a Great New Cause For the Tea Party

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The Heartwarming Story of Arab Support for Our Bombing Campaign

by Crystal6117 Posted on September 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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Speaking of things to remain skeptical of, the very top of the list certainly has to include the news that our staunch allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan participated in yesterday’s airstrikes in Syria:

A U.S. official said that all five Arab countries were believed to have joined U.S. warplanes, although it is still unclear how many countries dropped bombs during the operation. The official asked not to be identified to discuss sensitive operational details.

Dempsey said that the first Arab government told U.S. officials that it would participate in attacks on Syria “within the last 72 hours” and that once that occurred, the other four soon promised to participate. He would not identify which country was the first to back the U.S. airstrikes.

….There are still major questions about how committed governments in the region are to helping the U.S. and Iraq, whose government is dominated by Shia Arabs, against the well-armed militants, who have claimed large areas of eastern Syria and western and northern Iraq over the last year.

Here’s the nickel version: After months of bellyaching about America’s commitment to fighting ISIS, one single Arab country finally agreed to help out. Only then did anyone else also agree to pitch in. But the extent of their involvement can’t be revealed because it’s a “sensitive operational detail.”

Can you guess just how extensive that involvement is? Or do you need a hint?

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The Heartwarming Story of Arab Support for Our Bombing Campaign

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Who’s Going to Pay For the Latest Iraq War?

by LashundU23 Posted on September 22, 2014

Mother Jones

Andrew Sullivan wonders why fiscal conservatives aren’t asking some searching questions about the cost of the ISIS campaign:

The ISIS campaign is utterly amorphous and open-ended at this point — exactly the kind of potentially crippling government program Republicans usually want to slash. It could last more than three years (and that’s what they’re saying at the outset); the cost is estimated by some to be around $15 billion a year, but no one really knows. The last phase of the same war cost, when all was said and done, something close to $1.5 trillion – and our current travails prove that this was one government program that clearly failed to achieve its core original objectives, and vastly exceeded its original projected costs.

If this were a massive $1.5 trillion infrastructure project for the homeland, we’d be having hearing after hearing on how ineffective and crony-ridden it is; there would be government reports on its cost-benefit balance; there would be calls to end it tout court. But a massive government program that can be seen as a form of welfare dependency for the actual countries — Turkey, Iran, Jordan, Kurdistan — facing the crisis gets almost no scrutiny at all.

Yep. The only problem with Sullivan’s post is the headline: “Does The GOP Really Give A Shit About The Debt?” Surely that’s not a serious question? Of course they don’t. They care about cutting taxes on the rich and cutting spending on the poor. The deficit is a convenient cudgel for advancing that agenda, but as Sullivan says, “it is hard to resist the conclusion, after the last few weeks, that it’s all a self-serving charade.”

Indeed it is. And not just after the last few weeks. After all, if they did care, they’d be demanding that we raise taxes to fund the cost of our latest military adventure. Right?

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Who’s Going to Pay For the Latest Iraq War?

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It’s Time For Kansas to Rejoin the Real World

by CaryThielhhwjd Posted on September 22, 2014

Mother Jones

The Republican governor of Kansas has pauperized his state in order to fund tax cuts for the rich, while the Republican Secretary of State is busily trying to game the midterm ballot to ensure the reelection of the current Republican senior senator. I’d think this was a parody from the Onion if I didn’t know it was for real. I sure hope the good folks of Kansas finally manage to come to their senses this November.

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It’s Time For Kansas to Rejoin the Real World

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Obamacare Isn’t Perfect, But That’s No Reason to Give Up On It

by Andrianayhv Posted on September 22, 2014

Mother Jones

A few days ago I noted that health insurance companies were starting to price certain drugs at higher rates. Not just certain brands of drugs, but entire classes of drugs. This is being done in an apparent attempt to discourage patients with certain conditions from applying for insurance. Better to have some other insurance company pick up the cost of their expensive illness.

The reason this is happening is that Obamacare prohibits insurance companies from turning away customers with pre-existing conditions. So instead they need to find cleverer ways of making sure they’re someone else’s problem. David Henderson comments:

I predict that none of this will cause Kevin Drum to reconsider his pre-existing view that pricing for pre-existing conditions should be illegal.

Quite right. When it comes to Obamacare, there are two kinds of people. Henderson is the first kind. Whenever they hear about a problem, their invariable response is that this proves Obamacare is a hopeless mess and needs to be abandoned.

I’m the second kind. When I hear about a problem, my response is that we need to try to fix it. This is because I believe everyone should have access to decent health care at a reasonable price, and one way or another, we need to figure out how to provide it. We don’t give up just because it’s hard.

For what it’s worth, this particular problem is not something that’s taken any of us by surprise. Capitalism has a well-known capacity for motivating people to find clever ways to make money, and Obamacare supporters were all keenly aware that insurance companies would try to game the rules to maximize their profits. It was one of those things that required constant vigilance. Unfortunately, that never happened because it turned out that Republicans in Congress are so uncompromisingly opposed to Obamacare that they’ve prevented problems of any kind from being addressed, apparently in the hope that someday these problems will grow serious enough that the public will turn against the whole thing.

I guess you can decide for yourself if you consider that a praiseworthy response to a law you don’t like. I consider it loathsome myself. As for my pre-existing view about pre-existing conditions, that’s easily explained. I supported Obamacare as a good first step, but if I had my way the whole edifice would get torn down and replaced with a sensible national health care plan of the kind used by virtually every other civilized country on the planet. This is because health care of the kind that civilized people desire simply isn’t a good that can be efficiently provided by the free market, for reasons that are fairly obvious to anyone familiar with the literature. Nor is this just an academic point. Half a century of experience shows us that national health care works better on nearly every measure than our Rube Goldberg system. It’s not perfect, because nothing ever is. But it would be a big step forward.

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Obamacare Isn’t Perfect, But That’s No Reason to Give Up On It

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Obama Signs Order to Take Away Your Antibiotics

by LeesaClinton Posted on September 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest from the White House:

The Obama administration on Thursday announced measures to tackle the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, outlining a national strategy that includes incentives for the development of new drugs, tighter stewardship of existing ones, and improvements in tracking the use of antibiotics and the microbes that are resistant to them.

….John P. Holdren, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, told reporters that the new strategy — established by an executive order that President Obama signed on Thursday — was intended to jolt the federal government into action to combat a health crisis that many experts say it has been slow to recognize.

I guess we can all see where this is going, right? It’ll start with Alex Jones, maybe, and then Glenn Beck will catch the infection. Drudge will get it next, then Limbaugh, and finally the entire crew of Fox News will come down with it. The tyrant Obama is taking our amoxicillin away from us! Think of the children and their earaches!

Sadly, there’s no treatment for this airborne virus. We just have to let it burn itself out. Maybe someday scientists will find a cure for vox bardus.

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Obama Signs Order to Take Away Your Antibiotics

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IHOP Has Cut Back Its Menu By 30 Items

by Adolph7467 Posted on September 18, 2014

Mother Jones

Here’s an interesting factoid: in 2008 we apparently reached Peak Menu. That year, the average menu contained 99.7 items. Then the housing bubble burst, we entered the Great Recession, and menus began to shrink. Today’s menus feature a paltry 92.6 items.

Why is this? Cost is one reason: it’s cheaper to support a smaller menu. But Roberto Ferdman writes that there’s more to it:

The biggest impetus for all the menu shrinking going on is likely tied to a change in the country’s food culture: Americans are becoming a bit more refined in their tastes.

“Historically, the size of menus grew significantly because there wasn’t the food culture there is today,” said Maeve Webster, a senior director at Datassential. “People weren’t nearly as focused on the food, or willing to go out of their way to eat specific foods.”

For that reason, as well as the fact that there were fewer restaurants then, there used to be a greater incentive for restaurants to serve as many food options as possible. That way, a customer could would choose a particular restaurant because it was near or convenient, rather than for a specific food craving (which probably wasn’t all that outlandish anyway). But now, given the increasing demand for quality over quantity, a growing appetite for exotic foods and a willingness to seek out specialized cuisines, Americans are more likely to judge a restaurant if its offerings aren’t specific enough.

“The rise of food culture, where consumers are both interested and willing to go to a restaurant that has the best Banh Mi sandwich, or the best burger, or the best trendy item of the moment, means that operators can now create much more focused menus,” said Webster. “It also means that the larger the menu, the more consumers might worry all those things aren’t going to be all that good.”

Hmmm. Let me say, based on precisely no evidence, that I find this unlikely. Have American tastes really gotten more refined since 2008? Color me skeptical. And even if American palates are more discriminating, are we seriously suggesting that this has affected the menu length at IHOP, Tony Roma’s, and Olive Garden—the three examples cited in the article? I hope this isn’t just my inner elitist showing, but I don’t normally associate those fine establishments with a “growing appetite for exotic foods and a willingness to seek out specialized cuisines.”

So, anyway, put me down firmly in the cost-cutting camp. Long menus got too expensive to support, and when the Great Recession hit, casual dining chains needed to cut costs. They did this by lopping off dishes that were either expensive to prep or not very popular or both. Occam’s Razor, my friends, Occam’s Razor.

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IHOP Has Cut Back Its Menu By 30 Items

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Apple Gives Its Middle Finger to the NSA

by HildredCouncil Posted on September 18, 2014

Mother Jones

I’m a little late getting started this morning, even though I actually woke up much earlier than usual. What happened is that I wrote a post; then lost it by hitting the wrong key and blowing away my browser window; then recreated it; and then decided not to publish it after all. I’m still not sure if this is because the post was genuinely ill-conceived, or because I’m just too cowardly to put it up. Questions, questions….

In any case, I’m fascinated to see this tidbit among all the boring recent Apple iPhone news (bigger screen, thinner profile, yawn):

Apple said Wednesday night that it is making it impossible for the company to turn over data from most iPhones or iPads to police — even when they have a search warrant — taking a hard new line as tech companies attempt to blunt allegations that they have too readily participated in government efforts to collect user information.

….The key is the encryption that Apple mobile devices automatically put in place when a user selects a passcode, making it difficult for anyone who lacks that passcode to access the information within, including photos, e-mails and recordings. Apple once maintained the ability to unlock some content on devices for legally binding police requests but will no longer do so for iOS 8, it said in the new privacy policy.

I’m not sure how universally this kind of technical fix can be applied elsewhere. I have a feeling that in practice, it’s probably a limited solution. But it would certainly be a bit of poetic justice if the NSA’s overreach and the government’s unwillingness to rein them in led to a sea change in private security that simply makes it impossible to respond to mass requests for customer data.

Of course, this might not be the end of things. For the time being, actual traditional governments with police forces and courts are still more powerful than even the highest of high-tech corporations. If Congress passes a law requiring Apple to maintain unlock codes, then they’ll have to do it whether they like it or not. I wonder how this is all going to play out?

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Apple Gives Its Middle Finger to the NSA

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Scotland Should Plan On Having Its Own Currency

by Tabitha92B Posted on September 17, 2014

Mother Jones

When provinces propose a split with the mother country, they usually insist that they’ll continue to use the old currency. This is odd on its face since having your own money is usually considered one of the key attributes of a sovereign state. So what’s the appeal of keeping the old country’s currency? Greg Ip ponders the question:

Facilitating trade and capital movements is only one part of the story. Another, I think, is political and emotional. Forming a new country is fraught with risk. For savers, in particular the elderly, one risk looms especially large: that one’s retirement savings are suddenly redenominated in a new currency whose value is then inflated away. In both Quebec and Scotland, independence is mostly a movement of the left, and a separate currency would create the ever-present temptation to use the printing press to accommodate fiscal expansion and industrial policy. By promising to keep the old currency, separatists are reassuring savers that they will not succumb to the temptation of inflation.

I wonder if this is true? I hope it’s not. I don’t have a strong opinion about Scottish independence, but I do have a strong opinion about this. Here it is: if you favor independence, but only if Scotland holds onto the British pound, you’re an idiot. If you don’t trust a Scottish government to run its own monetary policy, then you don’t trust a Scottish government. Period.

There are other arguments for currency union, of course, but I don’t think they add up to much. Nor do I truly believe them. They mostly seem like post hoc rationalizations to provide people with a more palatable reason for keeping the British pound than fear of a reckless Scottish monetary authority. Generally speaking, the history of currency unions is simply too fraught for anyone who’s paying attention to really think it’s a good idea. And as Ip points out, they rarely last very long anyway.

An independent Scotland should have its own currency and its own monetary policy. If this makes you nervous, then the whole idea of independence should make you nervous.

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Scotland Should Plan On Having Its Own Currency

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Republicans Are No Longer Favored To Take Control of the Senate

by HoracioWahl Posted on September 17, 2014

Mother Jones

Speaking of poll aggregators and the Senate race, here’s an interesting infographic from Vox:

I actually haven’t been following the polling super closely, so I didn’t realize that basically no one is still projecting a Republican takeover except for Nate Silver—though things are still close enough that none of this probably means much yet. We’re still six weeks away from Election Day, and a lot can happen in six weeks.

Still, there’s a bottom line here for reporters: Republicans are no longer favored to take control of the Senate. At least, not by the folks who have had the best records for projecting election results over the past decade or so. This should no longer be the default assumption of campaign roundup stories.

There’s much more at the link, including forecasts for individual races.

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Republicans Are No Longer Favored To Take Control of the Senate

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