Nancy MacLean

We pay attention to things so we're less likely to be fooled.

• We pay attention to our health so pharmaceutical ads are less deceiving
• We pay attention to economics so we're not as likely to be deceived by "Financial Reporters" telling us about indicators - leading or trailing or Market Basket or Durable Goods or interest rates or whatever
• We pay attention to politics so we won't be fooled so often by demagogues and dog-assed Republicans

Richard Uilein:

GOP megadonor pours millions into effort to hinder Ohio abortion amendment

New campaign finance records show Illinois Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein is funding the bulk of the campaign aimed at thwarting a constitutional amendment on abortion in Ohio.

Ohio is likely the only state this year to have a measure on the ballot to enshrine abortion access into the state constitution, setting up a test case for how the issue may drive voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election. A USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University poll released this week found 58% of Ohioans support a constitutional amendment.

That support may not be enough to pass. Currently, such amendments require support from a simple majority — 50% + 1 vote. But the GOP-led state legislature set up a special election for Aug. 8 to raise the threshold to 60%. That measure is known as Ohio Issue 1.

Uihlein, an Illinois shipping supplies magnate with a history of donations to anti-abortion groups, was the top funder of Protect our Constitution, the main group supporting Issue 1. Uihlein gave $4 million to the group, the bulk of the $4.85 million raised.

Last month, a CBS News investigation found Uihlein had an outsized role in getting Issue 1 on the ballot. In April, he gave $1.1 million to a political committee pressuring Republican lawmakers to approve the August special election. Financial disclosures show a foundation controlled by Uihlein has given nearly $18 million to a Florida-based organization pushing similar changes to the constitutional amendment process in states across the country.

Uihlein didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ohio Republicans pushing to change the rules over constitutional amendments originally billed the effort as one that would prevent outside interests from influencing the state constitution. But supporters, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose, have since acknowledged the change would make it harder for a constitutional amendment on abortion to pass.

Last year, voters in Kansas and Michigan chose to preserve abortion access in their state constitutions with just under 60% approval.

Once the August special election was approved, money began to flow in on both sides. The central group opposed to raising the threshold for passing an amendment to 60%, One Person One Vote, raised a total of $14.4 million. The Sixteen Thirty Fund gave $2.5 million to the effort, campaign finance records show. The group, based in Washington D.C., has spent millions on left-leaning causes, including the campaign against the confirmation of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

When A Bad Idea Sounds Pretty Good

It sounds a lot like the little band of Republican crazies in the House are really stoopid, and maybe they are, but when you leave the other side with a chance to blow up your whole scheme, you may need to rethink one or two things.

On the other hand, if I come at this from the perspective of my belief that Radical Libertarians are always looking for ways to torpedo every institution that keeps a democratic republic afloat, then it makes more sense.

"Why not leave the tools of destruction in the hands of the Democrats, and let them do what we need never to admit to doing?"

paranoia strikes deep

into your life it will creep

it starts when you're always afraid

step outa line, men come and take you away

Fact Check: Can House Democrats Bring Motion to Vacate House Speaker?

After a protracted battle between House Republicans, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has finally begun settling in as Speaker following a series of concessions to a faction on the right of his party.

McCarthy, whose ascension above the dais was halted for several days by representatives from the GOP's Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), has spent his first week in the role introducing committee and rule changes following his deal with party colleagues.

One important concession included reducing the threshold for triggering a vote to remove the Speaker at any given time. However, social media posts now suggest that this new change might make him vulnerable not just to fellow Republicans, but even to the minority opposition.

The Claim

A post published on Reddit on January 11, 2022, which received more than 45,000 engagements, highlighted that under new House rule changes, a Democratic representative could initiate a "recall vote" for House Speaker.

The post included a tweet about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), claiming she opposed the "compromise to allow one House Member to bring a Motion to Vacate to remove the Speaker because even one Democrat can do it, and she heard Democratic Rep. Al Green is getting ready to do it already."

The Facts

It's true that under rules changes made for the 118th Congress, it will now only take one member to motion for the Speaker to vacate their seat.

The privilege was introduced under early House rules set out in Jefferson's Manual, a book of parliamentary procedure written by Founding Father and former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson, stating: "A Speaker may be removed at the will of the House."

Jefferson's Manual didn't stipulate the number of members required to begin a motion. This remained the case until 2018, when changes enacted by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lifted the threshold requiring "that a resolution causing a vacancy in the Office of the Speaker will be privileged if offered by the direction of a major party caucus or conference."

The motion to vacate has rarely been used. But the changing of its wording back to what existed before 2018 may remind McCarthy of the House's tools of accountability.

And it's not just the Republican House members that pose such a threat. As pointed out on social media, the re-wording of the 118th House Rules does not prohibit a minority party from bringing such a motion.

The likelihood of any such motion succeeding is another matter, but, in principle, under the current wording, the Democrats could begin a motion to vacate (without any restrictive threshold) and then with a simple majority (requiring some Republican rebels) remove McCarthy.

As Dr. David Andersen, assistant professor of United States Politics at Durham University, told Newsweek, the new rules put McCarthy in an "awful position," leaving it a possibility that Democrats would only need five Republicans to pass a motion to vacate.

"The really interesting scenario is whether five Republicans will get so frustrated with McCarthy that they would do the unthinkable—work with Democrats to oust the Speaker," Andersen said.

"If just five Republicans in the House join together with a united Democratic caucus, the Speaker will be ousted and nothing can be done until a new Speaker is elected.

"Given that 20 Republicans worked to deny McCarthy the seat, once the GOP starts attempting to legislate—and more importantly, once certain members start competing for media attention—this possibility will become very interesting to watch.

"McCarthy can't change the rules now that they have been passed so this is something that he will have to live with for the next two years.

"Honestly, the one person rule doesn't matter too much other than for grandstanding by individual legislators. It is the risk of a 5-member GOP defection that is more interesting."

How long it might take for such an alliance to form is another matter.

For now, McCarthy appears to be meeting some of the wishes of the Freedom Caucus, with Gaetz saying that he had nearly run out of "stuff to ask for" from the Speaker during the negotiations.

This suggests McCarthy may face less pressure from his party, at least in the short term.

Furthermore, the vote for Speaker took so long to pass—a situation described as "embarrassing" to CNN by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT)—that it may be some time before any Republicans would side with Democrats, in fear of the political repercussions.

But Boebert told Fox News: "I'm proud that we took a few extra days to make sure that we get this right. It may look like chaos and dysfunction, but I'm a mom of four boys that's a part of my everyday life.

"And really last week was the most productive week I have experienced in Congress."

Given the disruptive power motion to vacate could wield, why hasn't it been used more?

A 2015 fact check by Ballotpedia found that the rule has only been used in 1910, to remove Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon, and in 2015 against Republican Speaker John Boehner (although in Boehner's case, he retired before the motion could even reach a vote).

As mentioned, a motion brought by the Democrats, unless orchestrated with support from a sufficient number of Republicans, would be unlikely to succeed. As for Republicans, McCarthy still has the majority of support from GOP House members.

In theory, there may be little to stop a series of motions to vacate (particularly now the privilege is fresh in the mind of House members), perhaps as a way to frustrate the GOP's legislative efforts.

Notably, there is little indication at the moment that this strategy is being explored by the Democrats, including Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who was mentioned in the original comment.

A representative of Green told Newsweek by email that the congressman "has no such plans and has never discussed any aspect of such plans with anyone," adding that this publication's inquiry "is the first time Congressman Al Green has ever heard of this."

Still, if that were to change, such a move could trigger the introduction of rules or changes to better protect the Speaker (including altering or reversing rules on the motion to vacate). This might make it harder for Democrats to change the Speaker (should they wish to) and weaken the hand of McCarthy's opponents.

"We are sailing into uncharted waters. The reversion to former institutional rules takes place amid unprecedented partisanship and bitter intra-party divisions within the GOP," Morgan said. "No one knows for sure what may happen, but we can speculate.

"McCarthy is between a rock and a hard place. Whatever procedural maneuvers he comes up with, the bigger picture remains the same in terms of the dilemma he faces. He has to keep his far-right Republicans on side, but this may cost him any hope of cutting deals with the opposition Democrats to keep government going.

"GOP right-wingers tend to target the deficit and the public debt when they face a Democratic president (less so when one of their own is in the White House) and may demand huge spending cuts. If McCarthy bowed to their demands, the Democrats would come out swinging.

"Such cuts would have little hope of getting through the Senate, of course, and would face a presidential veto if they did. So, we may get into a position of government shutdowns early in the Congressional year.

"We could be back into Clinton-era standoffs over the budget as in 1995-96, but then it was the GOP Congress vs. a Democratic president. This is a much more complex political situation and therefore harder to resolve."

Newsweek has contacted the House Conference Chair, House Republicans, House Democrats and Kevin McCarthy for comment.

Describe Libertarians For Me

Libertarians are like house cats - they perceive themselves to be fiercely self-reliant, while being utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate and can't understand.

In Passing On Passing

Walker Bragman, The Independent:

How does one eulogize a villain? It’s a question I find myself asking today after reading the news that David H Koch has died. What else can we really call a man who spent his entire adult life enriching himself at the expense of the world around him, leaving in his wake millions of destroyed lives, a planet on the brink of ecological catastrophe, and a nuclear superpower governed by a far-right political party? 

While it is generally impolitic to castigate someone after death, in the case of David Koch, it’s hard not to point out that his life’s work was the destruction of others. 

Koch went by many titles — billionaire industrialist, businessman, philanthropist, entrepreneur, conservative activist, libertarian vice presidential candidate — and I expect we’ll see many of those thrown around today. But “villain” is the one that suited him best.

Indeed, such is the appropriate term for a profoundly wealthy man who relies on a shadowy network of political advocacy groups to sell unpopular, detrimental policies to unsuspecting voters for the purposes of personal gain. 

Along with a 42 per cent stake in Koch Industries, David inherited what could be described as a pathological distaste for government from his father, a founding member of the far-right John Birch Society and a man who reportedly once built an oil refinery for Nazi Germany. Together with his brother Charles, David would use both to reshape America for the worse.

David and Charles, colloquially known as the infamous “Koch Brothers,” poured money into causes like climate change denial to ensure their fossil fuel empire remained profitable for as long possible. They went after public education, throwing their cash behind voucher programs in states like Arizona, which ranked 47 in the nation for its public schools last year. They went after unions through proxies like former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. They targeted Social Security for privatization. According to one report, they even tried to hamper cleanup efforts after Hurricane Katrina. 

And these are just some of the worthy causes David Koch and his brother used their vast fortunes to pursue. The reality is, given the porous nature of America’s campaign finance laws, there is no way of truly knowing the complete extent of their political ventures. 

David Koch’s legacy is truly one of injustice. For as much injustice as there was in how he lived, there is much more in how he died. Rather than slip into obscurity, forgotten by the generations that will hopefully do the work of undoing the damage he caused the planet, Koch finds unearned immortality in infamy.

If not for our human need to learn from the mistakes of our past, this man ought to have no legacy. But the world he left behind is undeniably impacted by his actions and riddled with inequities, many of which he should have answered for in life, but instead will have to do so in the books of history.

I've never wished any man dead, but I've read some obituaries with great pleasure.

--Mark Twain (but not really)

Defining

We've been having this fight for quite a while.

1913 Paterson Strike

A libertarian is an anarchist who expects the police to protect him from this slaves.

The Paterson Strike

The 1913 Paterson silk strike was a work stoppage involving silk mill workers in Paterson, New Jersey. The strike involved demands for establishment of an eight-hour day and improved working conditions. The strike began in February, 1913, and ended five months later, on July 28th. During the course of the strike, approximately 1,850 strikers were arrested, including Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) leaders William Dudley Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.

Today's Tweet

Follow the thread

I get the appeal of libertarianism, I do. But until there are empty worlds to conquer and an easy way to get there, or until the fundamental nature of humanity changes, libertarianism is utterly non-viable beyond a single selfish individual in the world we live in.

6/6

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) September 16, 2018

Revisiting

John Oliver from 2014

The Radical Libertarian

Today's Takedown

Haven't seen a better hunk of satire in quite a while.  Copied whole from The New Yorker:

I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

Tom O’Donnell’s children’s novel, “Space Rocks!” is out now.

Today In Stoopid

Let's take a quick look at one of the Libertarians' favorite phony notions:  "Spontaneous Order".

Here's John Stossel conducting a small group fap with Tucker Carlson (via David Edwards at Raw Story):

Fox Business host John Stossel on Sunday asserted that most government was unnecessary because companies like Walmart would spontaneously provide assistance to disaster victims “in many more ways” than the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could.

“Ever feel like government makes too many plans that come to naught?” Fox News host Tucker Carlson told Stossel during a segment on Fox & Friends. “It’s kind of a bold idea. You’re saying that not every human activity needs to be planned from above. Some things spontaneously work themselves out pretty well.”

According to Stossel, Americans would be better off with less government and more “spontaneous order,” a term coined by economist Friedrich Hayek which states that order will naturally emerge from chaos.

Edwards goes on to point out that "Spontaneous Order" didn't work out so well in Iraq and Libya (and I'll add Afghanistan and Syria and Crimea and Chile and Argentina and Somalia and Chechnya and and and).

Anyway, it'd be nice if the Dumbass Dems could kinda latch onto some of the old GOP-style rhetoric and just once in a while flip the script by refering to things like Spontaneous Order or Supply Side as "the failed policies of a bygone era..."

And also too - can anybody come up with a better example of the Epitome of Central Planning than God's Will?  How 'bout "The 4-Year Revenue Plan of [insert name of mega-corp here]"?

And also too too - just in case ya missed it, Stossel and Carlson are preaching more of the bullshit Gospel of Privatization.

A Brief Moment Of Enlightenment

Libertarians (for lack of a better label) are opposed to ObamaCare because taken to the logical extreme - which is where an awful lot of 'em seem to be located now - they have to be opposed to any and all efforts to suck them into any and all kinds of Collaborative/Cooperative/Collective endeavor.

It's not that they object to ObamaCare per se - they have to object to the very notion of Insurance itself.  The idea of getting together with a bunch of people you don't know and can't trust is off-putting enough, but being forced to pool your resources with these unwashed, unwelcome, undeserving miscreants?  Child, please.

Insurance is the Communism of Capitalism, and it must be avoided by all self-respecting Rugged Individuals.

Libertarian Debunked

I venture into town on the occasional Wednesday (or sometimes Friday) to meet up with some buddies to have a little drink and talk a little treason.  Sitting at the outside tables on a recent evening, I spotted the ubiquitous Driving-While-Cell-Phoning motorist and made the usual comment, "Hey lady, hang up and drive your car".

My Libertarian friend contended that I sounded like "a typical Nanny-State Liberal who needs to tell everybody how to live their lives".  Something else came up and we didn't get into it, but I've been thinking about that for a while now.  His assertion that basically, I was butting in where I didn't belong is one of those great turnaround attacks that tend to stop debate, but here's the thing:  Isn't it really the case that the driver talking on the phone is the one forcing the rest of us to live by her standards?  Why do all the other drivers and bike riders and pedestrians have to accommodate her?  What's so special about her and what she has to do?  Why do all of us have to adjust and be a little extra cautious just because she has to "be in touch"?

If I'm a client or a colleague (eg) on the phone with her while she's driving, I know I'm not getting her full attention, and I think I deserve better.

If I'm her friend and I care about what happens to her, then I think I should tell her to hang up and I'll catch her later - or at least I should tell her to pull over for a bit so we can talk.  After all, there's a lot of boneheads on the roads these days who aren't paying as much attention to their driving because they're distracted by something like - I dunno - TALKING ON THE FUCKING PHONE!