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Pence Isn’t Going to Solve Trump’s Money Problems

by HenrietTKQ Posted on July 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, known for his staid manner and his short-sleeved-shirt-and-tie combinations, might have been chosen as a steady counterweight to Trump’s flamboyant provocative style. But when it comes to adding weight to the Trump campaign’s wobbling fundraising operation, he might have been the worst pick Trump could have made. Newt Gingrich, for instance, has a devoted backer in Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the single biggest source of cash for Mitt Romney’s efforts in 2012 who has yet to commit significantly to Trump’s operation. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is known to have been a darling of some of Wall Street’s biggest names.

But Pence? He isn’t exactly a star with the party’s regular fundraisers and donors—the people who have always been the backbone of GOP financial support. It’s true that Pence has ties to both the political empire of the conservative billionaire Koch brothers and some tea party grassroots organizations. But if Trump thought he could tap into those connections to fuel his presidential campaign, he might have been mistaken.

Over the course of his career, Pence’s biggest source of campaign cash has been the Republican Governors Association, which has put more than $2.6 million into supporting his gubernatorial aspirations. The RGA’s main job is to funnel money from wealthy Republicans nationwide into potentially pivotal governor’s races, and much of the organization’s success in doing that hinges on the connections and interests of the RGA’s executive director. In 2012, the director was a party operative named Phil Cox, who went on to become a close Christie ally, running the presidential super-PAC that raised more than $20 million this year. If Cox stays with Trump, it won’t be because of Pence. (Christie’s relationship with Trump, meanwhile, may be going through a rocky stretch.)

Pence did spend 12 years in Congress, but he never really made his mark as a fundraiser there. His largest source of support, according to the campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets.org, were donations fundraised on his behalf by the Club for Growth, the tea-party-aligned group that relies heavily on its expansive grassroots fundraising operation. It’s an organization that has devoted a great deal of time and energy this election to trying to destroy Donald Trump. Almost immediately after kicking off his presidential campaign, Trump picked a fight with the group, accusing it of trying to extort him for $1 million. That’s a rift that all of Pence’s past goodwill with the group probably won’t be able to overcome.

If Trump can’t rely on Pence to hook him up with any fundraising networks, perhaps he can call on some of Pence’s sugar-daddy donors? Notably, Pence has had two billionaires backing his political aspirations, Indiana businessman Dean White and industrialist David Koch, but neither looks promising for Trump.

Koch personally contributed $300,000 to Pence’s war chest, a much more direct investment in a candidate than he usually makes. (David and his brother Charles are known to be major backers of dark-money groups that operate independent of any candidate, and their direct contributions to candidates are generally not so large.) But if part of the Trump campaign’s calculation in picking Pence is that he could rope in the Kochs, it’s probably not going to happen. Both brothers have expressed serious doubts about Trump, and almost immediately after word leaked that Pence was the choice, the Koch organization threw cold water on the idea that the move would endear them to Trump.

White, who is not a household name like Koch, is actually the individual who has done more for Pence’s political career than anyone else, according to campaign finance filings. White has shoveled at least $775,000 into Pence’s two bids for governor of Indiana, including $350,000 already this year. Those numbers, while eye-popping for the average American, are actually not that extraordinary for White, who has given hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years to various Republican candidates in Indiana.

But despite being worth more than $2.3 billion, White is not a major player on the presidential level. The one noteworthy donation he’s made when it comes to presidential politics is a $1 million contribution in 2012 to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super-PAC, which backed Romney. Rove’s animosity toward Trump and the fact that White also gave directly to Romney (who has spoken out against Trump) suggest that White will not automatically transfer his allegiances, or his deep pockets, to Trump.

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Pence Isn’t Going to Solve Trump’s Money Problems

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The group that was supposed to make palm oil sustainable just disappeared

by IsiahFunk55 Posted on June 30, 2016

IPOP pops

The group that was supposed to make palm oil sustainable just disappeared

By on Jun 30, 2016Share

The skyrocketing global demand for palm oil is devastating forests in Southeast Asia, and now a group that was created to stop the destruction has been cut down, too — razed by political forces that opposed the push to end deforestation. But all is not as dark as it might look.

Palm oil is everywhere: it’s in most processed foods, not to mention shampoos, soaps, and cosmetics. The Indonesia Palm Oil Pledge, or IPOP, was created at the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit as a means to allow sustainable-minded business interests and responsible palm oil companies to work with and influence government leaders, in an effort to preserve forests and stamp out human rights abuses by bad operators. But IPOP and its member companies became punching bags for their political opponents, who want to keep clearing land (more on the factions here).

The organization itself has not confirmed its dissolution — at least as of June 30 — but corporate members have said it is shutting down. “Cargill supports the dissolution of IPOP,” an associate vice president of the giant U.S.-based agribusiness wrote in a letter to stakeholders, explaining that the Indonesian government had stepped in to fill the role IPOP was originally supposed to perform. The government has instituted a moratorium on new palm oil plantations, protected areas with big trees and high biodiversity, and established an agency to restore carbon-rich peatland.

But the government will need industry support to bring these policies to fruition. Responsible companies should look to the successful strategy used to reduce soy and cattle deforestation in the Amazon, which involved blocking rogue companies from access to the market, said Glenn Hurowitz, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. That strategy allowed agricultural production to double even as forest clearance was reduced to one third of what it had been.

The Amazon example shows that there’s plenty of room for Indonesia to grow its agriculture businesses without burning more trees. But to achieve that, responsible companies will have to engage in politics and fight for sustainability, Hurowitz said. Now business leaders will have to do that in some other form than IPOP.

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The group that was supposed to make palm oil sustainable just disappeared

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No, Hillary Clinton Isn’t Being Attacked for Being "Not Qualified"

by AidenBenes01 Posted on May 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over the weekend, Janell Ross interviewed a couple of experts in gender and politics to get their take on whether Hillary Clinton is held to a different standard than male candidates. Julie Dolan, a professor of political science at Macalester College in Minnesota, had this to say:

Clinton is the most experienced candidate in the field, but campaign rivals Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are leveling attacks against her that she’s not qualified for the job. In doing so, they’re playing into a long-standing narrative that women lack what it takes to succeed in the male-dominated world of politics. The fact that two less-experienced male candidates are leveling this attack against her is telling. Neither Trump nor Sanders feels compelled to shore up their own credentials or justify their own relative lack of experience because they don’t need to; they benefit from a gendered double standard where men are automatically presumed qualified for public office and women are not.

This illustrates the problem of viewing politics through too narrow a lens. For starters, Hillary Clinton isn’t the most experienced candidate in the field. Bernie Sanders has served in Congress since 1991. That’s more experience than Hillary even if you count her years as First Lady. And while Trump has no political experience, he’s running on his business background—just as lots of other candidates have. This year alone Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson joined Trump in the Republican primary as candidates with no political experience at all.

Nor is it true that Hillary’s opponents have been slamming her for being unqualified—aside from the usual sense in which political candidates always claim to be better qualified than their opponents. There was a single incident in April where Hillary tiptoed a bit around the question of whether Bernie was qualified, which led to a misleading Washington Post headline (“Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president”), which in turn led to Bernie losing his temper and kinda sorta saying she’s not qualified if she’s taking lots of money from Wall Street. But even there, Bernie was pretty obviously using “unqualified” in the sense of “bad policies,” not in the sense of having too little experience.

As for Trump, again, there was a single incident a couple of weeks ago in which Hillary called him unqualified, and he naturally hit back in his usual nanner-nanner way: calling her judgment bad and saying she’s the one not qualified to be president. Just the usual Trump bluster.

Hillary Clinton simply isn’t the target of an unusual number of attacks on her experience and qualification. She’s rather famously running on the fact that she has more of those qualities than anyone else in the race, and no one has really disputed that. Quite the contrary: this year, having a lot of experience is something of a problem, one that both Sanders and Trump have capitalized on. If Hillary Clinton is being slammed for anything, it’s for being too qualified, not the opposite.

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No, Hillary Clinton Isn’t Being Attacked for Being "Not Qualified"

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At world’s first humanitarian summit, major world leaders are no-shows

by DamianPickrell9 Posted on May 25, 2016

At world’s first humanitarian summit, major world leaders are no-shows

By on May 25, 2016Share

Heads of state from across the globe convened in Istanbul, Turkey, this week for the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, a United Nations convention on how nations, NGOs, the private sector, and humanitarian groups can aid in the global crises currently affecting 125 million worldwide.

More than 5,000 participants attended the summit — including the heads of 57 world nations and celebrities like Daniel Craig, Ashley Judd, and Forest Whitaker. Strangely absent, however, were the heads of the wealthiest and most powerful countries on the planet, including President Obama, who sent USAID administrator Gayle Smith in his place. The only leader of a G7 nation to attend was German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was not pleased with the no-shows, the Huffington Post reports.

“It’s disappointing that some world leaders could not be here, especially from the G7 countries,” he said at a press conference Tuesday. “The absence of these leaders from this meeting does not provide an excuse for inaction. They have a unique responsibility to pursue peace and stability.”

And these leaders have plenty of problems to tackle. Around the world — and particularly in developing nations — people are dealing with the effects of climate change, the spread of infectious disease like the Zika virus, and the Syrian refugee crisis (often considered the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II.). The U.N. requested that nations participating in the summit commit to five core responsibilities: preventing and ending conflict; upholding the norms that safeguard humanity; leaving no one behind; delivering aid; and investing in humanity.

But the commitments countries made are non-binding, and critics have accused the event of being a lot of talk and no action. Humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders called it a “fig-leaf” for international failures and pulled out of the summit entirely. The host nation itself faces criticism for its “growing intolerance of political opposition, public protest, and critical media,” according to Human Rights Watch.

Regardless of the criticism — and the absence of the world’s most important leaders — some attendees are still optimistic. “This conference is a beginning,” Manuel Bessler, Switzerland’s top humanitarian aid delegate, told a Swedish outlet. What follows these commitments will make the real difference.

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Trump’s Political Advisers Wanted to Vet Him. He Said No.

by VGEWanda13153970 Posted on May 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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For most major presidential campaigns, it is a routine act: you conduct opposition research on your own candidate. The reason is obvious; campaign officials and candidates want to know what they might have to contend with once the you-know-what starts flying. But not Donald Trump. At least not at the start of the campaign that would lead to him becoming the presumptive GOP nominee. According to a source with direct knowledge, when Trump was considering entering the presidential race early last year, his political advisers, including Corey Lewandowski, who would become his campaign manager, suggested that Trump hire a professional to investigate his past. But the celebrity mogul said no and refused to pay for it.

Marital infidelity, connections to mob-related persons, bankruptcies, the hiring of undocumented workers, policy flip-flops, deals gone bad, legal troubles—Trump’s life is an opposition researcher’s dream. That was no secret to his political lieutenants, who prior to his announcement discussed the need to conduct a deep dive into the tycoon’s background. The point was to go beyond Googling and perusing the many books written on Trump—and mount a full forensic examination of everything Donald. Especially before anyone else did. (Trump’s aides had heard a rumor that wealthy conservative donors, perhaps including the Koch Brothers, were underwriting a private opposition research effort aimed at the former reality TV star.)

“Everyone does this,” says a former Mitt Romney aide. “I don’t know a campaign that didn’t. It’s a standard procedure.” Political research firms specialize in this sort of work. “It’s an off-the-shelf service they provide,” this aide notes. “For X dollars, you get a different level of digging. I’ve never known a campaign that didn’t do this. After all, you’re expected to know your own record. Any responsible campaign would do that.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

One subject on the mind of Trump’s advisers was Jeffrey Epstein, the finance mogul who was arrested in 2006 and subsequently pled guilty to having solicited paid sex with a minor. He ultimately served 13 months in prison and had to register as a sex offender. (Several years ago, alleged Epstein victims filed a lawsuit against the US government claiming Epstein received too sweet a plea bargain.) Trump’s advisers didn’t know of anything in particular to worry about. But they knew that Trump had been linked to his fellow Palm Beach resident. In 2002, Trump had said of Epstein, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Epstein had occasionally visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s estate and club down the road from Epstein’s mansion. Trump also had flown on Epstein’s plane and had dined at his house. And Virginia Roberts, an alleged Epstein victim who tried to join the civil lawsuit, maintaining that Epstein kept her as a sex slave for several years when she was a teenager, was working at Mar-a-Lago as a changing room assistant when she was recruited, at age 15, to be a masseuse for Epstein. (A judge recently denied Roberts’ bid to become a plaintiff in the case.)

Trump has downplayed his association with Epstein. But these connections would be enough to cause any senior campaign staffer to want a full examination. “This vetting process was not for the purpose of looking at Epstein specifically,” a Trump insider says. “It was to be an audit to see what could be found on anything.” (Conservatives have pointed to Bill Clinton’s friendship with Epstein—he often was a passenger on Epstein’s private plane—as possible ammunition to be used in the 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.)

Though Trump would not authorize an extensive research effort to identify what oppo might be most harmful to his candidacy, his campaign did prepare responses to obvious lines of attack against the billionaire. Mother Jones reviewed one campaign memo outlining possible replies to expected assaults, but most of these topics were policy and political matters already in the public realm. What about Trump’s 1999 proposal to raise taxes on the well-to-do? Trump merely had proposed a one-time fix designed to erase the national debt, a move that showed that Trump possessed the foresight to see that deficits would become a major problem. What about his past donations to Democrats? Trump was supporting incumbents of both parties as an act of civic participation, and since 2011 he has only contributed to Republicans. What about Trump manufacturing his clothing line in China? He had played no role in the decision to out-source, and China was picked because US regulation and red tape made it too expensive to manufacture goods in the United States. What about his failure to serve in the military? Trump had received student deferments, and as a graduate of a military academy he has been a strong proponent of the US military and veterans.

This memo covered numerous issues. What about the bankruptcies filed by his companies? Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy. What about Trump’s previous support for universal healthcare? Trump has always called for a market-based system and has been an ardent opponent of Obamacare. What about Trump saying he has a plan to defeat ISIS but refusing to provide details? Trump does not want to tell ISIS in advance how he will defeat it; that would put US soldiers at risk. What about Trump’s support for the TARP bailout of the big banks? Trump believed TARP was necessary to stabilize the global financial system but came to conclude the program was poorly administered. What about Trump’s previous support for Jeb Bush, whom he once called the kind of political leader the United States needs? The Bush presidencies have been failures, Jeb Bush governed Florida as a typical politician who bowed to lobbyists and special interests, and it’s time to make America great again.

These were talking points designed to deal with the existing public record—not responses crafted to address new revelations. At the beginning of his presidential crusade, Trump would not allow his aides to prepare for that. The candidate, who now refuses to release his income taxes, did not want his own campaign scrutinizing his past. He was not willing to be transparent—not even for his own team.

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Trump’s Political Advisers Wanted to Vet Him. He Said No.

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John Kasich Drops Out of Presidential Race

by DianTrivett Posted on May 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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John Kasich announced Wednesday evening that he was dropping out of the presidential race, leaving Donald Trump as the sole Republican contender and almost-certain nominee. Kasich’s announcement comes less than 24 hours after Trump’s sweeping Indiana primary victory sent shock waves through the political world and prompted Ted Cruz to abandon the race. Following Cruz’s announcement, GOP chairman Reince Priebus called Trump the presumptive nominee on Twitter and encouraged Republicans to rally behind the real estate mogul.

Unlike Cruz, Kasich never had much of a shot at becoming the GOP’s nominee. On the campaign trail, he touted positions—expanding Medicaid, supporting a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants, and more—that seemed removed from the typical attitudes of the GOP electorate. The Ohio governor won only one state primary: his own. But with Cruz out of the race, Kasich represented the GOP’s last, long-shot hope for somehow stopping Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Shortly after Cruz dropped out Tuesday night, Kasich’s campaign assured voters he would be staying in the game. “It’s up to us to stop Trump and unify our party in time to defeat Hillary Clinton,” Kasich’s campaign manager, Ben Hansen, wrote in an email to supporters.

But Wednesday evening, during a speech in Columbus, Ohio, Kasich changed course. He opened by thanking his family, his wife, and his campaign staff and volunteers. He recounted some of the interactions with voters he had on the campaign trail: “The people of our country changed me with the stories of their lives,” Kasich said. He ended on a somber note: “As I suspend my campaign today, I have renewed faith, deeper faith, that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life.”

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John Kasich Drops Out of Presidential Race

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Breaking: The climate is changing because a Koch brother said so

by AntwanDwy531240 Posted on April 12, 2016

Breaking: The climate is changing because a Koch brother said so

By on 12 Apr 2016commentsShare

The climate is officially changing, as the eternally wise petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch, a notorious climate denial funder, has declared it to be so.

Koch Industries’ Environmental, Health and Safety Director Sheryl Corrigan made the comment about Koch’s climate beliefs at a recent event hosted by The Wall Street Journal, reports Environment & Energy Publishing. So sayeth Koch, and it shall be true:

“Charles has said the climate is changing. So, the climate is changing,” Corrigan said. “I think he’s also said, and we believe, that humans have a part in that. I think what the real question is … what are we going to do about it?”

Koch has been see-sawing over climate change for years. At one point, Koch acknowledged that “it’s been warming some” to The Washington Post in 2015, then quickly qualified his statements an interview with Forbes, saying he believes “it’s not certain” that humans are to blame for climate change. This statement seems to be the first time Koch has been said to attribute human activity to global warming.

But throughout it all, Koch has been actively supporting lobbyists and climate skeptics. While blasting “crony capitalism,” he and his political network has said they plan to spend nearly $900 million during the 2016 presidential election race. His roster of climate-related fundees includes scientists who are critical of climate science and members of Congress who signed a pledge promising to vote against climate legislation in 2013.

Koch hasn’t publicly commented on Corrigan’s statements just yet, so we can’t be sure that the climate will still be changing tomorrow.

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Breaking: The climate is changing because a Koch brother said so

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I asked random Swedes to weigh in on American climate change denial

by TrishaWoodall32 Posted on April 11, 2016

I asked random Swedes to weigh in on American climate change denial

By on 11 Apr 2016commentsShare

Ah, Sweden! The land of IKEA, Volvos, and top-ranking green living. And now, you can learn so much more. Swedish tourist officials created a new app, The Swedish Number, that connects foreign callers to any “random Swede” who’s downloaded the app, per The New York Times. The creators encourage callers to “talk about anything.”

I dialed in to find out what Swedes really think about an issue that is commonplace in the United States and less so in Sweden — climate change denial. Even though Americans are now more concerned about climate change than at any time in the past 8 years, at 64 percent according to Gallup, a 2014 survey also found the United States had the lowest rate of people in the world who think we’re observing human-caused climate change. That study also found Sweden to be more accepting of the science.

I found the same to be true in my small, unscientific experiment as I heard my Swedish conversation partners’ reflections on this unwelcome form of American exceptionalism.

“I see [climate denial] as a sign of poor education, and maybe a bit too much influence from some of the more religious groups or the right wing,” said one Swedish IT developer. “And most of all, I think it’s something sad, actually, for all of us, that we can’t agree that climate change is happening to our planet.”

One man I spoke to, Joachim, said that “we have to stand up for the planet and take responsibility” — he built his own low-energy, solar-powered house 10 years ago, and says his next car will not be Volvo, but a Tesla.

Another resident mused on the political differences between his country and the United States, in progressiveness as well as power. “Most Swedes on the political spectrum fall very much on the left in comparison to the American political spectrum, and therefore most [Swedes] would have some sort of agreement that climate change is a result of human output,” he said. “But to be brutally honest, I don’t think that Sweden’s opinion matters in the world stage. It’s like a little tiny Chihuahua who’s there, barking, barking at the ankle of the big dog. The big dog sort of politely nods at the Chihuahua, and then they get back to their business.”

Another pointed out that climate change is already having an effect in Sweden: “Look, 20 years ago when I was a kid, there was snow in November. Now, the snow is coming in January.”

One Stockholm resident, Frederick, was incredulous there are people who deny climate change is happening. “People are denying that climate change is happening? … Are you sure?” he asked, adding some advice for his American counterparts: “I think maybe they should open their eyes then, because I think it’s a fact. I don’t know anything about it, but I do know it’s happening.” The U.S. might want to take some notes.

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Chuck Grassley Is Making Sense

by DelorasBenham8 Posted on April 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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Sen. Chuck Grassley, who heads up the Judiciary Committee, took to the floor yesterday to criticize Chief Justice John Roberts, who says that politicized confirmation hearings have caused the public to believe the court itself is politicized. Now, Roberts made those comments two months ago, so I’m not quite sure what prompted Grassley to suddenly get worked up about them. Nonetheless, Grassley is taking a lot of heat for his crazy talk. Let’s listen in:

The Chief Justice has it exactly backwards. The confirmation process doesn’t make the Justices appear political. The confirmation process has gotten political precisely because the court has drifted from the constitutional text, and rendered decisions based instead on policy preferences….In fact, many of my constituents believe, with all due respect, that the Chief Justice is part of this problem.

….As the Chief Justice remarked, although many of the Supreme Court’s decisions are unanimous or nearly so, the Justices tend to disagree on what the Chief Justice called the ‘hot button issues.’ We all know what kinds of cases he had in mind. Freedom of religion, abortion, affirmative action, gun control, free speech, the death penalty, and others.

The Chief Justice was very revealing when he acknowledged that the lesser known cases are often unanimous and the ‘hot button’ cases are frequently 5-4.

But why is that? The law is no more or less likely to be clear in a ‘hot button’ case than in other cases. For those Justices committed to the rule of law, it shouldn’t be any harder to keep personal preferences out of politically charged cases than others….The explanation for these 5-4 rulings must be that in the ‘hot button’ cases, some of the Justices are deciding based on their political preferences and not the law.

That sounds…surprisingly reasonable. It was anger at Supreme Court rulings that turned confirmation hearings political, not the other way around. And Grassley is right that for truly impartial justices, the law shouldn’t be any harder to interpret in hot button cases than in more obscure cases. And yet, hot button cases are very often split along partisan lines.

Now, it’s worth noting a couple of things. First, Grassley’s beef with Roberts is precisely that he didn’t vote on partisan lines when he upheld Obamacare. So he’s not exactly on the moral high ground here. Second, the court has always been political. But for most of its history it was politically conservative and mostly confirmed Republican positions. That changed after World War II, and what conservatives are really upset about is that the Supreme Court now hands down both liberal and conservative rulings. They want it to go back to being an arm of the Republican Party.

So Grassley is hardly presenting a balanced picture here. But he’s a Republican partisan, so why would he? More generally, though, I’d say his view of the Supreme Court is pretty defensible, and certainly more accurate than Roberts’ view. I see no particular crazy talk here.

The Chief Justice was very revealing when he acknowledged that the lesser known cases are often unanimous and the ‘hot button’ cases are frequently 5-4.

But why is that?

The law is no more or less likely to be clear in a ‘hot button’ case than in other cases.

For those Justices committed to the rule of law, it shouldn’t be any harder to keep personal preferences out of politically charged cases than others.

In some cases, the Justices are all willing to follow the law. But in others, where they are deeply invested in the policy implications of the ruling, they are 5-4.

The explanation for these 5-4 rulings must be that in the ‘hot button’ cases, some of the Justices are deciding based on their political preferences and not the law.

– See more at: http://www.publicnow.com/view/F2FDFB07EA2C3F7479ECA11B451EC03E32E4545E?2016-04-06-02:30:30+01:00-xxx6292#sthash.7tuZH0HM.dpuf

As the Chief Justice remarked, although many of the Supreme Court’s decisions are unanimous or nearly so, the Justices tend to disagree on what the Chief Justice called the ‘hot button issues.’ We all know what kinds of cases he had in mind. Freedom of religion, abortion, affirmative action, gun control, free speech, the death penalty, and others.

The Chief Justice was very revealing when he acknowledged that the lesser known cases are often unanimous and the ‘hot button’ cases are frequently 5-4.

But why is that?

The law is no more or less likely to be clear in a ‘hot button’ case than in other cases.

For those Justices committed to the rule of law, it shouldn’t be any harder to keep personal preferences out of politically charged cases than others.

In some cases, the Justices are all willing to follow the law. But in others, where they are deeply invested in the policy implications of the ruling, they are 5-4.

The explanation for these 5-4 rulings must be that in the ‘hot button’ cases, some of the Justices are deciding based on their political preferences and not the law.

– See more at: http://www.publicnow.com/view/F2FDFB07EA2C3F7479ECA11B451EC03E32E4545E?2016-04-06-02:30:30+01:00-xxx6292#sthash.7tuZH0HM.dpuf

As the Chief Justice remarked, although many of the Supreme Court’s decisions are unanimous or nearly so, the Justices tend to disagree on what the Chief Justice called the ‘hot button issues.’ We all know what kinds of cases he had in mind. Freedom of religion, abortion, affirmative action, gun control, free speech, the death penalty, and others.

The Chief Justice was very revealing when he acknowledged that the lesser known cases are often unanimous and the ‘hot button’ cases are frequently 5-4.

But why is that?

The law is no more or less likely to be clear in a ‘hot button’ case than in other cases.

For those Justices committed to the rule of law, it shouldn’t be any harder to keep personal preferences out of politically charged cases than others.

In some cases, the Justices are all willing to follow the law. But in others, where they are deeply invested in the policy implications of the ruling, they are 5-4.

The explanation for these 5-4 rulings must be that in the ‘hot button’ cases, some of the Justices are deciding based on their political preferences and not the law.

– See more at: http://www.publicnow.com/view/F2FDFB07EA2C3F7479ECA11B451EC03E32E4545E?2016-04-06-02:30:30+01:00-xxx6292#sthash.7tuZH0HM.dpuf

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Chuck Grassley Is Making Sense

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Helping the Poor Is the Right Thing to Do, But Maybe Not Much of a Political Winner

by DinaRamsey Posted on April 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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I don’t want to make too big a deal out of one comment from one guy, but here’s the response of a minimum-wage worker who got a big increase when Emeryville raised its minimum wage to $14 per hour:

Security guard Kenneth Lofton was among the workers who benefited last year when this East Bay city hiked its hourly minimum wage to nearly $15 for employees at large companies. The jump was almost 70% more than what he used to make in nearby Oakland when he was paid $10 an hour.

….”It’s somewhat better, but not much,” Lofton said Tuesday morning while eating breakfast and manning the security gate at an Emeryville parking lot. “The high cost of living here takes a big bite out of whatever monetary increase you get, so it’s like not getting an increase at all.”

But, he said, “at least they’re trying.”

This is crazy. If Lofton works full time, he’s seeing an increase of $160 per week. Call it $130 or so after taxes. That’s real money. But “it’s like not getting an increase at all.”

Raising the minimum wage—whether to $12, $14, or $15—is the right thing to do. But as a purely political matter, comments like Lofton’s make you wonder if this kind of thing provides any benefits for Democrats. It earns them plenty of annoyance from employers, along with at least some annoyance from consumers who have to pay higher prices, but it’s not clear if this is offset much by increased loyalty from the folks who are helped. Is Lofton more likely to show up at the polls in November because he got a raise? Hard to say.

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Helping the Poor Is the Right Thing to Do, But Maybe Not Much of a Political Winner

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