Month: August 2016

Not kicking people when they are down can help: Daily Bullshit, August 12, 2016 (updated again)

benfell

Updated for a Christian Science Monitor analysis of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s decision to preserve marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 drug[1] and for my own commentary on that decision. Updated again for the non-changing of the guard at Fox News,[2] a summary of challenges to the Brexit vote,[3] and a story on what the Republican mayor of Albuquerque is doing about the homeless—hint: it appears to involve “[g]enuinely ask[ing] why they are in the predicament they are.”[4]

Homelessness

It should be so blindingly obvious that I shouldn’t have to say it. But in many, many ways, this society kicks people when they are down and then blames them for not being able to pick themselves up. For instance, while I face several obstacles in my job hunt, including multiple forms of probable discrimination,[5] with discrimination against the long-term unemployed, the fact I haven’t found work makes it harder to find work—I haven’t been able to find gainful employment in fifteen years.

The homeless and marginally housed face a similar pattern: If you can’t pull together a deposit to rent an apartment, you could wind up paying more in aggregate for a spot in a single-room occupancy hotel. Plus, lacking access to a kitchen, you’ll spend more on meals. All of this makes it even harder to come up with that deposit.

Add to this that the stress of being poor actually makes people stupider.[6] So helping limit that spiral downwards should obviously help. And apparently it does.[7]

Colby Itkowitz, “This Republican mayor has an incredibly simple idea to help the homeless. And it seems to be working,” Washington Post, August 11, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08/11/this-republican-mayor-has-an-incredibly-simple-idea-to-help-the-homeless-and-it-seems-to-be-working/

David Shultz, “A bit of cash can keep someone off the streets for 2 years or more,” Science, August 11, 2016, http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/bit-cash-can-keep-someone-streets-2-years-or-more

Marijuana

“[F]or those who study drug policy and the complex process of approving new drugs for medicine, [the Drug Enforcement Agency’s announcement that the drug classification for marijuana will remain a Schedule 1, the same as cocaine or heroin] was no surprise.”[8] I don’t study drug policy, but I wasn’t surprised either. I would, however, presume somewhat more sinister motives. The war on drugs is, in no small part, a war on people of color.[9] It is an important part of a larger picture in which the poor (especially those of color)—and their survival tactics—are targeted by the criminal injustice system, sometimes to raise revenue, and in which too many poor people (especially those of color) are shot.[10] The criminalization of the poor, in turn, diverts attention from the criminal activities of the rich and supports a criminal justice system that, among other things, employs cops, prison guards, lawyers, and judges.[11] The war on drugs is, in short, an important part of how the elite keep the rest of us divided against ourselves and thus preserve their position.[12] They aren’t giving up marijuana’s ridiculous Schedule 1 classification without a fight.

Marcia Coyle, “When Will the Justices Take Up Pot Again?” Law.com, August 11, 2016, http://www.law.com/sites/almstaff/2016/08/11/when-will-the-justices-take-up-pot-again/

Lucy Schouten, “Why the federal government still rejects marijuana as medicine,” Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0811/Why-the-federal-government-still-rejects-marijuana-as-medicine

Roger Ailes

Rupert Murdoch is still calling the shots at Fox News.[13] One of the points that David Halberstam made in The Powers That Be is that those who control journalism operations do so for the voice, perhaps even more than any other reason.[14] It sure seems like that’s what’s in play here.

Gabriel Sherman, “Rupert Murdoch Promotes Roger Ailes Loyalists to Run Fox News,” New York, August 12, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/murdoch-promotes-roger-ailes-loyalists-to-run-fox-news.html

Brexit

Alanna Petroff, “New legal challenge to Brexit from Northern Ireland,” CNN, August 12, 2016, http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/12/news/brexit-legal-cases-lawsuits/

  1. [1]Lucy Schouten, “Why the federal government still rejects marijuana as medicine,” Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0811/Why-the-federal-government-still-rejects-marijuana-as-medicine↩
  2. [2]Gabriel Sherman, “Rupert Murdoch Promotes Roger Ailes Loyalists to Run Fox News,” New York, August 12, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/murdoch-promotes-roger-ailes-loyalists-to-run-fox-news.html↩
  3. [3]Alanna Petroff, “New legal challenge to Brexit from Northern Ireland,” CNN, August 12, 2016, http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/12/news/brexit-legal-cases-lawsuits/↩
  4. [4]Kellie Tillerson, quoted in Colby Itkowitz, “This Republican mayor has an incredibly simple idea to help the homeless. And it seems to be working,” Washington Post, August 11, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/08/11/this-republican-mayor-has-an-incredibly-simple-idea-to-help-the-homeless-and-it-seems-to-be-working/↩
  5. [5]Kristen V. Brown, “Inside Silicon Valley’s cult of youth,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 4, 2014, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Inside-Silicon-Valley-s-cult-of-youth-5451375.php; Shaila Dewan, “Frayed Prospects, Despite a Degree,” New York Times, July 19, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/recent-graduates-lose-out-to-those-with-even-fresher-degrees.html; Kevin Drum, “10 Reasons That Long-Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe,” Mother Jones, December 23, 2013, http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/10-reasons-long-term-unemployment-national-catastrophe; Susan Heavey, “Over 55 and jobless, Americans face tough hunt,” Reuters, May 15, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/15/us-usa-aging-workers-idUSBRE84E04Y20120515; Paul Krugman, “The Jobless Trap,” New York Times, April 21, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/opinion/krugman-the-jobless-trap.html; Annie Lowrey, “Long-Term Jobless: Still a Bleak Picture,” New York Times, June 7, 2013, http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/long-term-jobless-still-a-bleak-picture/; Alexander Monge-Naranjo and Faisal Sohail, “Age and Gender Differences in Long-Term Unemployment: Before and After the Great Recession,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, November 6, 2015, https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2015/11/06/age-and-gender-differences-in-long-term-unemployment-before-and-after-the-great-recession/; Matthew O’Brien, “The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment,” Atlantic, April 13, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-terrifying-reality-of-long-term-unemployment/274957/; Lynn Stuart Parramore, “50 Is the New 65: Older Americans Are Getting Booted from Their Jobs and Denied New Opportunities,” Alternet, December 22, 2013, http://www.alternet.org/economy/age-discrimination-workplace; Catherine Rampell, “In Hard Economy for All Ages, Older Isn’t Better … It’s Brutal,” New York Times, February 2, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/business/americans-closest-to-retirement-were-hardest-hit-by-recession.html; Motoko Rich, “For Jobless, Little Hope of Restoring Better Days,” New York Times, December 1, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/business/for-jobless-little-hope-of-full-recovery-study-says.html; Christopher S. Rugaber, “Even as US job market picks up, unemployed face frustration,” Seattle Times, February 8, 2015, http://old.seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2025650060_apxeconomyjobopeningsvsunemployed.html; Michael Winerip, “Set Back by Recession, and Shut Out of Rebound,” New York Times, August 26, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/booming/for-laid-off-older-workers-age-bias-is-pervasive.html; Matthew Yglesias, “The Long-Term Unemployed Are Doomed,” Slate, April 15, 2013, http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/15/rand_ghayad_on_long_term_unemployment_the_long_term_unemployed_are_discriminated.html; Matthew Yglesias, “Statistical Discrimination Against the Long-Term Unemployed,” Slate, April 23, 2013, http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/23/long_term_unemployed_face_ferocious_statistical_discrimination.html↩
  6. [6]Anandi Mani et al., “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function,” abstract, Science, 341, no. 6149, (August 30, 2013): 969-970. doi: 10.1126/science.1238041↩
  7. [7]David Shultz, “A bit of cash can keep someone off the streets for 2 years or more,” Science, August 11, 2016, http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/bit-cash-can-keep-someone-streets-2-years-or-more↩
  8. [8]Lucy Schouten, “Why the federal government still rejects marijuana as medicine,” Christian Science Monitor, August 11, 2016, http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0811/Why-the-federal-government-still-rejects-marijuana-as-medicine
    ↩
  9. [9]Elizabeth Kulze, “States’ Racial Makeup Drives Mass Incarceration,” Vocativ, October 16, 2014, https://www.vocativ.com/usa/justice-usa/prison-statistics-race/; Mike Spindell, “Obama and the War on Drugs: Hypocrisy in Action,” June 29, 2012, http://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/29/obama-and-the-war-on-drugs-hypocrisy-in-action-2/↩
  10. [10]Daniel Denvir, “Criminalizing the hustle: Policing poor people’s survival strategies from Eric Garner to Alton Sterling,” Salon, July 8, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/07/08/criminalizing_the_hustle_policing_poor_peoples_survival_strategies_from_erin_garner_to_alton_sterling/; Jack Hitt, “Police Shootings Won’t Stop Unless We Also Stop Shaking Down Black People,” Mother Jones, September/October, 2015, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/police-shootings-traffic-stops-excessive-fines; Emma Pettit, “‘One Trigger Finger for Whites and Another for Blacks’: What the Research Says,” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 8, 2016, http://chronicle.com/article/One-Trigger-Finger-for-Whites/237057; Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison, 7th ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2004).↩
  11. [11]Herbert J. Gans, The War Against The Poor: The Underclass And Antipoverty Policy (New York: Basic, 1995).↩
  12. [12]David Benfell, “We ‘need to know how it works,'” March 15, 2012, https://parts-unknown.org/drupal7/journal/2012/03/15/we-need-know-how-it-works↩
  13. [13]Gabriel Sherman, “Rupert Murdoch Promotes Roger Ailes Loyalists to Run Fox News,” New York, August 12, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/murdoch-promotes-roger-ailes-loyalists-to-run-fox-news.html↩
  14. [14]David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, 2000).↩

I guess George Monbiot is getting his vitamin B-12 (still not a #vegan): Daily Bullshit, August 11, 2016

benfell

George Monbiot

George Monbiot has prevaricated on going vegan for a while.[1] I’m sometimes inclined to credit him for seeking honest answers. Other times I think he’s just fooling himself because the actual studies have been available for some time and he could just go to an academic library, do a literature search, and put his lingering questions to rest. This time, I think he’s just being absurd: Roadkill?[2] Really?

George Monbiot, “Stock Answer,” August 11, 2016, http://www.monbiot.com/2016/08/11/stock-answer/

Islamic State

Julian Hattem, “House GOP report finds intelligence manipulated on ISIS,” Hill, August 11, 2016, http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/291078-house-gop-report-finds-intelligence-manipulated-on-isis

Christoph Reuter, “Retreat and Delusion: Is the Islamic State Finally Collapsing?” Spiegel, August 10, 2016, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamic-state-sees-power-erode-on-all-fronts-a-1106594.html

Gadsden Flag

Gadsden Flag, by Lexicon, Vikrum - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1440653
Fig. 1. Gadsden Flag, by Lexicon, Vikrum – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Gadsden Flag (figure 1) was, once upon a time, one of my favorites. I was entirely unaware—and indeed continued to be unaware until this case hit my radar—of the connotation involving slavery. That said, I see an argument that echoes that over the Tenth Amendment alleging the Federal Government has overstepped in exerting authority in realms reserved to the states. That would be the same argument that, as I noted in my dissertation, almost always rationalizes some form of institutionalized bigotry, particularly against people of color.[3]

You might notice I qualified that statement with the word almost and you might be inclined to dismiss that as just the usual academic hesitation about universal declarations. Not this time: There is also a states’ rights argument for respecting state laws legalizing marijuana, an argument that has been acknowledged even by President Obama, at least through his then-press secretary.[4] When I was admiring the Gadsden Flag, I was almost certainly thinking of personal autonomy, and what I see as a right to do with one’s body what one pleases (which I see as implicit in the Fourth Amendment). I was almost certainly thinking of both of government overreach in banning marijuana and a conservative desire to ban abortion.

I don’t know anywhere near enough about the workplace where this case arises. But I am wondering what that co-worker’s intent was.

Ed Silverstein, “Does wearing a Gadsden Flag insignia make for a hostile workplace?” Inside Counsel, August 11, 2016, http://www.insidecounsel.com/2016/08/11/does-wearing-a-gadsden-flag-insignia-make-for-a-ho

Horse race

Given how appalling both candidates are, I’m thinking “horse race” is entirely too kind a label. That economists are unhappy[5] is somewhat to be expected. Their prized oxen—neoliberal polices that are now being labeled a failure even in a functionalist conservative publication like Foreign Affairs[6]—are being gored by both major party candidates.[7]

Josh Zumbrun, “Economists See Election-Induced Uncertainty Harming U.S. Economy,” Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-see-election-induced-uncertainty-harming-u-s-economy-1470924003

Supreme Court

Bridget Bowman, “Reid: Democrats Considering Forcing Votes on Supreme Court Nominee,” Congressional Quarterly Roll Call, August 11, 2016, http://www.rollcall.com/news/reid-democrats-considering-forcing-votes-supreme-courtinee

  1. [1]George Monbiot, “Why vegans were right all along,” Guardian, December 23, 2002, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/dec/24/christmas.famine; George Monbiot, “I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat – but farm it properly,” Guardian, September 6, 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-production-veganism-deforestation; George Monbiot, “Wrong About Being Wrong,” November 27, 2013, http://www.monbiot.com/2013/11/27/wrong-about-being-wrong/↩
  2. [2]George Monbiot, “Stock Answer,” August 11, 2016, http://www.monbiot.com/2016/08/11/stock-answer/↩
  3. [3]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).↩
  4. [4]White House, “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney,” December 14, 2012, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/12/14/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-12142012↩
  5. [5]Josh Zumbrun, “Economists See Election-Induced Uncertainty Harming U.S. Economy,” Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-see-election-induced-uncertainty-harming-u-s-economy-1470924003↩
  6. [6]Mark Blyth, “Capitalism in Crisis: What Went Wrong and What Comes Next,” review of Capitalism: A Short History, by Jürgen Kocka, Buying Time, by Wolfgang Streeck, and Postcapitalism, by Paul Mason, Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2016-06-13/capitalism-crisis↩
  7. [7]Josh Zumbrun, “Economists See Election-Induced Uncertainty Harming U.S. Economy,” Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-see-election-induced-uncertainty-harming-u-s-economy-1470924003↩

Be a little more afraid, north of Newport, Oregon: Daily Bullshit, August 10, 2016

benfell

Cascadia Subduction Zone

The Cascadia Subduction Zone extends from far northern California to British Columbia and was, in fact, the basis for one idea of what territory the Cascadia secession movement should claim (from what I can see now, they’ve since settled on the broadest claim they had contemplated, which even includes the greater Russian River watershed, where I live, at its southern extent). I tend to think that some of the claims regarding a potential earthquake here are hyperbolic—I don’t think ground behaves in the way that a New Yorker article (which apparently won a Pulitzer Prize[1] claims,[2] for example. But wanting to be farther north and closer to the coast than I am, this is something I watch nonetheless.

Kale Williams, “Risk of major quake on Cascadia Subduction Zone higher than previously thought,” Oregonian, August 10, 2016, http://www.oregonlive.com/pacificthwest-news/index.ssf/2016/08/risk_of_major_quake_on_cascadi.html

Capitalism

Mark Blyth, “Capitalism in Crisis: What Went Wrong and What Comes Next,” review of Capitalism: A Short History, by Jürgen Kocka, Buying Time, by Wolfgang Streeck, and Postcapitalism, by Paul Mason, Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2016-06-13/capitalism-crisis

  1. [1]Kale Williams, “Risk of major quake on Cascadia Subduction Zone higher than previously thought,” Oregonian, August 10, 2016, http://www.oregonlive.com/pacificthwest-news/index.ssf/2016/08/risk_of_major_quake_on_cascadi.html↩
  2. [2]Kathryn Schulz, “The Really Big One,” New Yorker, July 20, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one↩

Roger Ailes is evil! (Audience cue: Expressions of shock and dismay): Daily Bullshit, August 9, 2016

benfell

Episode 3 of Benfell’s Nibbles is up, A Brief Introduction to Systems Theory.

Roger Ailes

Gabriel Sherman, “Roger Ailes Used Fox News Budget to Finance ‘Black Room’ Campaigns Against His Enemies,” New York, August 7, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/ailes-used-fox-budget-to-finance-campaigns-against-enemies.html

Sarah Ellison, “Exclusive: Inside the Fox News Bunker,” Vanity Fair, August 8, 2016, http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/exclusive-inside-the-fox-news-bunker-roger-ailes

University of California, Davis

Teresa Watanabe, “UC Davis chancellor resigns following probe on ethical violations,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-davis-chancellor-katehi-resigns-20160809-snap-story.html

Yet another accusation of sexual harassment against Roger Ailes: Daily Bullshit, August 8, 2016

benfell

At this time, all of my mailing lists are down, including the Thoughts list previously used to automatically notify readers of my various postings. Modern mailing list managers now all require web servers and I haven’t figured out how to get a web server running under OpenBSD. The mailing lists were seeing very little use, so this is a pretty low priority in the scheme of things. RSS feeds for my research journal, blog, vegetarian ecofeminist blog, and the (Almost) Daily Bullshit remain operational. Also, I automatically post notices on my Twitter and GNU Social feeds.

Roger Ailes

To my knowledge, Roger Ailes’ accusers now include Gretchen Carlson,[1] now Andrea Tantaros,[2] and apparently Megyn Kelly.[3] These are only the women who have been named publicly.

Gabriel Sherman, “Fox News Host Andrea Tantaros Says She Was Taken Off the Air After Making Sexual-Harassment Claims Against Roger Ailes,” New York, August 8, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/andrea-tantaros-made-harassment-claims-against-roger-ailes.html

  1. [1]Joe Flint, “Roger Ailes Resigns From Fox News; Rupert Murdoch to Take Over,” Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/roger-ailes-resigns-from-fox-news-rupert-murdoch-to-take-over-1469132116; Brendan Gauthier, “Drudge: Roger Ailes reaches deal with Fox News amid sexual harassment allegations,” Salon, July 19, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/07/19/drudge_roger_ailes_reaches_deal_with_fox_news_amid_sexual_harassment_allegations/; Hadas Gold, “21st Century Fox says Roger Ailes remains at Fox News,” Politico, July 19, 2016, http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/07/roger-ailes-to-leave-fox-news-225824; Ryan Grim and Michael Calderone, “Ann Coulter Says ‘Every Woman Who Has Ever Been Employed By Fox’ Has Stories About Roger Ailes,” Huffington Post, July 19, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ann-coulter-roger-ailes_us_578e5fb2e4b07c722ebc5efd; Sara Jerde, “Fox News Awkwardly Addresses Roger Ailes Drama On Air,” Talking Points Memo, July 19, 2016, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-news-addresses-ailes-drama-on-air; Gabriel Sherman, “Murdochs Have Decided to Remove Roger Ailes — the Only Question Now Is When,” New York, July 18, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/murdochs-have-decided-to-remove-roger-ailes.html; Gabriel Sherman, “Sources: Megyn Kelly Told Murdoch Investigators That Roger Ailes Sexually Harassed Her,” New York, July 19, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/sources-kelly-said-ailes-sexually-harassed-her.html; Gabriel Sherman, “Fox News Host Andrea Tantaros Says She Was Taken Off the Air After Making Sexual-Harassment Claims Against Roger Ailes,” New York, August 8, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/andrea-tantaros-made-harassment-claims-against-roger-ailes.html↩
  2. [2]Gabriel Sherman, “Fox News Host Andrea Tantaros Says She Was Taken Off the Air After Making Sexual-Harassment Claims Against Roger Ailes,” New York, August 8, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/andrea-tantaros-made-harassment-claims-against-roger-ailes.html↩
  3. [3]Joe Flint, “Roger Ailes Resigns From Fox News; Rupert Murdoch to Take Over,” Wall Street Journal, July 21, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/roger-ailes-resigns-from-fox-news-rupert-murdoch-to-take-over-1469132116; Brendan Gauthier, “Drudge: Roger Ailes reaches deal with Fox News amid sexual harassment allegations,” Salon, July 19, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/07/19/drudge_roger_ailes_reaches_deal_with_fox_news_amid_sexual_harassment_allegations/; Hadas Gold, “21st Century Fox says Roger Ailes remains at Fox News,” Politico, July 19, 2016, http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/07/roger-ailes-to-leave-fox-news-225824; Ryan Grim and Michael Calderone, “Ann Coulter Says ‘Every Woman Who Has Ever Been Employed By Fox’ Has Stories About Roger Ailes,” Huffington Post, July 19, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ann-coulter-roger-ailes_us_578e5fb2e4b07c722ebc5efd; Sara Jerde, “Fox News Awkwardly Addresses Roger Ailes Drama On Air,” Talking Points Memo, July 19, 2016, http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-news-addresses-ailes-drama-on-air; Gabriel Sherman, “Sources: Megyn Kelly Told Murdoch Investigators That Roger Ailes Sexually Harassed Her,” New York, July 19, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/sources-kelly-said-ailes-sexually-harassed-her.html; Gabriel Sherman, “Fox News Host Andrea Tantaros Says She Was Taken Off the Air After Making Sexual-Harassment Claims Against Roger Ailes,” New York, August 8, 2016, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/08/andrea-tantaros-made-harassment-claims-against-roger-ailes.html↩

Stop calling Donald Trump a narcissist or a sociopath, even if he is: Daily Bullshit, August 7, 2016 (updated again)

benfell

Updated for a new video in a new series I’m creating called Benfell’s Nibbles. This is Episode 1: What is a Radical?

Updated again for a second video in this series. This is Episode 2: The Power of Exchange:

There was a posting yesterday but because I’m still recovering from some mail server issues, the usual notices did not go out.

Much of the rest of this note involves technical details. Those not so inclined can skip over this. But if anyone out there has sent me email over the last few days that I haven’t acknowledged, there is a possibility it got lost and you should re-send.

Beginning on Tuesday, I started having problems with first hundreds, then thousands of duplicated email messages, then tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of duplicated messages. I still don’t know what caused this and as near as I can tell, neither my operating system (FreeBSD) nor my SMTP server software (postfix) were to blame—logs did not show any unusual activity. I’m actually a little suspicious of Thunderbird, the mail user agent I was using and which suddenly refused to open my mail accounts, but I’m not sure even a malfunction here can adequately explain what was going on.

All attempts to halt the exponential duplication were failing and I had been thinking I’d like to switch my mail server from FreeBSD to OpenBSD anyway. OpenBSD seems to be a little tighter on security in the ways that I use an operating system and it already uses LibreSSL while FreeBSD is still on OpenSSL. (OpenSSL has been a security disaster recently, only partly due to its continued support for faulty encryption algorithms that no one should use under any circumstances.) I’d just gotten through installing OpenBSD when a friend called with a crisis that I had to run off to deal with. Despite operating remotely, I managed to move forward on bringing services back on line, but at a snail’s pace: My friend’s situation really did have to come first.

By Thursday, I was receiving mail again and now, most things are operating normally, although there are still some details to be tested and worked out.

Donald Trump

There are a couple problems with psychoanalyzing public figures. First, as the American Psychiatric Association (ApA, not APA—the latter is the American Psychological Association) notes, diagnoses should involve an actual examination of the subject.[1]

The other aspect is more troubling from a perspective of political debate: We’re using an allegation of mental illness to deal with positions and candidates we strongly disagree with, which first, further stigmatizes people suffering mental illness; and second, amounts to an ad hominem attack. In my dissertation work, I mostly tried to steer around this. The allegation that conservatives suffer from mental illness is hardly new and conservatives legitimately view it as a way of avoiding dealing with their arguments.[2] I felt that one should first establish the irrationality of conservatism before turning to a diagnosis of mental illness.[3] That said, there are grounds for suspicion, I am suspicious, I’m not the only one who’s suspicious, and political psychologists may be bending a little too far over backwards (and using quantitative methods which can omit much more than they include) trying to avoid associating conservatism with a psychopathology. As I wrote,

In an article about political conservatism, Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) wrote, “Our first assumption, too, is that conservative ideologies—like virtually all other belief systems—are adopted in part because they satisfy some psychological needs  This does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled” (p. 340). This disclaimer is interesting for its very presence. Jost et al. concluded their meta-analysis in part, writing

Many different theoretical accounts of conservatism over the past 50 years have stressed motivational underpinnings, but they have identified different needs as critical. Our review brings these diverse accounts together for the first time. Variables significantly associated with conservatism, we now know, include fear and aggression (Adorno et al., 1950; Altemeyer, 1998; Lavine et al., 1999), dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity (Fibert & Ressler, 1998; Frenkel-Brunswik, 1948; Rokeach, 1960; Sidanius, 1978), uncertainty avoidance (McGregor et al., 2001; Sorrentino & Roney, 1986; Wilson, 1973b), need for cognitive closure (Golec, 2001; Jost et al., 1999; Kemmelmeier, 1997; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996), personal need for structure (Altemeyer, 1998; Schaller et al., 1995; Smith & Gordon, 1998), terror management (Dechesne et al., 2000; Greenberg et al., 1990, 1992; Wilson, 1973d), group-based dominance (Pratto et al., 1994; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), and system justification (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2001; Jost & Thompson, 2000). From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination. ( p. 369)

Similarly, Spassena Koleva and Blanka Rip (2009) suggested, among other things, that individuals with “a satisfied need for attachment security” are more likely to be liberal while “an unsatisfied need for attachment security leads to political conservatism” (p. 123). To claim in this light that conservatism is not pathological may depend on specialized meanings of the word pathology. Albert Mehrabian (1996) accordingly assessed “a total of 44 relations . . . between various indicators of psychopathology and political orientations, and none of these were found to be significant” (p. 487).[4]

Aaron Blake, “The American Psychiatric Association issues a warning: No psychoanalyzing Donald Trump,” Washington Post, August 7, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/07/the-american-psychiatric-association-reminds-its-doctors-no-psychoanalyzing-donald-trump/

  1. [1]Aaron Blake, “The American Psychiatric Association issues a warning: No psychoanalyzing Donald Trump,” Washington Post, August 7, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/07/the-american-psychiatric-association-reminds-its-doctors-no-psychoanalyzing-donald-trump/↩
  2. [2]George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, 30th anniversary ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006).↩
  3. [3]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126).↩
  4. [4]David Benfell, “Conservative Views on Undocumented Migration” (doctoral dissertation, Saybrook, 2016). ProQuest (1765416126), pp. 86-87.↩

A woman is violently arrested. Her crime? Fear of police: Daily Bullshit, August 6, 2016

benfell

Race and police

Amy B. Wang, “A black woman called 911 because she was afraid of a police officer. A violent arrest followed,” Washington Post, August 5, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/05/social-worker-calls-911-because-shes-afraid-of-a-police-officer-he-then-violently-arrests-her/

Random police violence

Kristine Guerra, “‘I lost it, I just snapped’: Indiana police officer shot fellow cop in fit of jealousy,” Washington Post, August 5, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/05/i-lost-it-i-just-snapped-indiana-police-officer-shot-fellow-cop-in-fit-of-jealousy/

How to obscure an anti-neoliberal backlash: Daily Bullshit, August 2, 2016

benfell

Brexit

It’s useful to know that concern for Britain’s National Health Service seems to have been a factor in the ‘Brexit’ vote.[1] However, Mateusz Tomkowiak makes a couple of instructive errors that illustrate the deficiencies of traditional social sciences. First, he reduces what may have been an anti-establishment or anti-neoliberal backlash to components. He deflects blame for this onto multiple unnamed “commentators,” writing that such “commentators have zeroed in on four potential reasons: fear of immigrants, voter dissatisfaction with a weak economy or the status quo, loss of national autonomy, and age,”[2] but this is not an excuse for “zeroing in” at all: The fallacy here is of reductionist analysis and in this case, he piles reductionist analysis on top of reductionist analysis, as he diminishes three of these factors in favor of age, which he argues is a proxy for concern for the NHS.

Reductionist analysis flows largely from positivism, which favors a linear view of cause and effect, which is to say that under positivism a single effect has a single cause. In systems theory, we see that this is almost always never the case, that events occur in a context which governs how an event develops even as the event affects the context. This is known as mutual causation.[3] Tomkowiak acknowledges the fallacy in admitting that the Brexit vote was the result of multiple factors among millions of voters. But his emphasis on concern for the NHS at the expense of other factors, at least one of which he doesn’t even consider,[4] betrays his quest for a single overriding explanation.

I need to re-emphasize that I’m not saying that concern for the NHS wasn’t an important factor. The trouble is first that as a political scientist, Tomkowiak is blind to what really amounts to a backlash against the authoritarian system of social organization but which authoritarian populists generally misdirect at “other” subaltern groups but whose true colors appear in resentment against centralized (almost always urban) cultural, political, economic, and intellectual elites. In the ‘Brexit’ vote this appeared in a disdain for so-called “experts.”[5] As Jean Pisani-Ferry put it, “A pre-referendum YouGov opinion poll tells why: ‘Leave’ voters had no trust whatsoever in the advice-givers. They did not want their judgment to rely on politicians, academics, journalists, international organizations, or think tanks.”[6] Tomkowiak does not consider that poll in his analysis. Such blindness is not unusual, by the way, as nearly all social sciences, albeit some more than others, suffer not only from foundational biases premises (which by definition are considered beyond challenge and are therefore unexamined) but dubious “theories” which are treated as paradigms or general “laws” rather than as explanations applicable only under particular conditions. A contribution of human science is to resist these tendencies.

Reliance on experts is also a serious problem for Hillary Clinton, whose neoconservative[7] and neoliberal[8] tendencies—notably on so-called “free trade”—essentially claim to voters that powerful experts know better than voters do and deny or devalue voters’ experiences.

Why this angry attitude toward the bearers of knowledge and expertise? The first explanation is that many voters attach little value to the opinions of those who failed to warn them about the risk of a financial crisis in 2008. Queen Elizabeth II spoke for many when, on a visit to the London School of Economics in the autumn of 2008, she asked why no one saw it coming. Furthermore, the suspicion that economists have been captured by the financial industry, expressed in the 2010 movie Inside Job, has not been dispelled. Ordinary people feel angry about what they regard as a betrayal by the intellectuals.

Most economists, let alone specialists in other disciplines, regard such accusations as unfair, because only a few of them devoted themselves to scrutinizing financial developments; yet their credibility has been seriously dented. Because no one pled guilty for the suffering that followed the crisis, the guilt has become collective.

The second explanation has to do with the policies advocated by the cognoscenti. Experts are accused of being biased, not necessarily because they are captured by special interests, but because, as a profession, they support the mobility of labor across borders, trade openness, and globalization more generally.

There is some substance in this argument: although not all economists, and certainly not all social scientists, advocate international integration, they are undoubtedly more inclined toward highlighting its benefits than the average citizen is.

This points to the third and most convincing explanation: while experts emphasize the overall benefits of openness, they tend to disregard or minimize its effects on particular professions or communities. They regard immigration – to which Cameron attributed the Leave campaign’s victory – as a net benefit for the economy; but they fail to pay attention to what it implies for workers who experience downward wage pressure or for communities struggling with a scarcity of affordable housing, crowded schools, and an overwhelmed health system. In other words, they are guilty of indifference.

This criticism is largely correct. As Ravi Kanbur of Cornell University pointed out long ago, economists (and policymakers) tend to look at issues in the aggregate, to take a medium-term perspective, and to assume that markets work well enough to absorb a large part of adverse shocks. Their perspective clashes with that of people who care more about distributional issues, have different (often shorter) time horizons, and are wary of monopolistic behavior.[9]

With ‘Brexit,’ Tomkowiak is much too hasty in dismissing economic concern, writing both that unemployment is low and that “in surveys, large pluralities of Brits have — over a two-year span — consistently thought that exiting the EU would make the UK economy worse off.” Here, he utterly fails to apply the same level of analysis to worries about the economy that he does to concern for the NHS.[10]

Mateusz Tomkowiak, “The big thing almost everyone missed about Brexit,” Vox, August 2, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12345658/brexit-healthcare-nhs

  1. [1]Mateusz Tomkowiak, “The big thing almost everyone missed about Brexit,” Vox, August 2, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12345658/brexit-healthcare-nhs↩
  2. [2]Mateusz Tomkowiak, “The big thing almost everyone missed about Brexit,” Vox, August 2, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12345658/brexit-healthcare-nhs↩
  3. [3]Joanna Macy, Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory (Delhi, India: Sri Satguru, 1995).↩
  4. [4]Mateusz Tomkowiak, “The big thing almost everyone missed about Brexit,” Vox, August 2, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12345658/brexit-healthcare-nhs↩
  5. [5]David Matthews, “Why Academics Were Ignored,” Inside Higher Ed, July 7, 2016, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/07/07/british-academics-consider-why-they-were-ignored-brexit-debate; Jean Pisani-Ferry, “Why Are Voters Ignoring Experts?” Project Syndicate, July 1, 2016, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/brexit-voters-ignoring-experts-by-jean-pisani-ferry-2016-07↩
  6. [6]Jean Pisani-Ferry, “Why Are Voters Ignoring Experts?” Project Syndicate, July 1, 2016, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/brexit-voters-ignoring-experts-by-jean-pisani-ferry-2016-07↩
  7. [7]Medea Benjamin, “Hillary Clinton Hasn’t Learned a Thing From the Iraq Experience,” Truthdig, October 29, 2015, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/hillary_clinton_hasnt_learned_a_thing_from_iraq_20151029; Marjorie Cohn, “Want Endless War? Love the U.S. Empire? Well, Hillary Clinton’s Your Choice,” Truthdig, February 1, 2016, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/want_endless_war_love_the_us_empire_hillary_clintons_your_choice_20160201; David Corn, “Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger: It’s Personal. Very Personal,” Mother Jones, February 12, 2016, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/hillary-clinton-kissinger-vacation-dominican-republic-de-la-renta; Greg Grandin, “Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton’s Tutor in War and Peace,” Nation, February 5, 2016, http://www.thenation.com/article/henry-kissinger-hillary-clintons-tutor-in-war-and-peace/; Daniel Larison, “Clinton’s Reliably Bad Foreign Policy,” American Conservative, April 12, 2016, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/clintons-reliably-bad-foreign-policy/; Jackson Lears, “We came, we saw, he died,” review of Hard Choices, by Hillary Clinton, and HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, London Review of Books 37, no. 3 (February 5, 2015), pp. 8-11, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n03/jackson-lears/we-came-we-saw-he-died; Lauren McCauley, “Critics Aghast at ‘Disgusting Speech’ Clinton Just Gave to AIPAC,” Common Dreams, March 21, 2016, http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/21/critics-aghast-disgusting-speech-clinton-just-gave-aipac; Robert Scheer, “Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Record,” Truthdig, October 9, 2015, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and_forget_all_about_her_record_20151009; Arnie Seipel, “Why Did Hillary Clinton Say The U.S. Is ‘Where We Need To Be’ In Syria?” National Public Radio, December 20, 2015, http://www.npr.org/2015/12/20/460489791/why-did-hillary-clinton-say-the-u-s-is-where-we-need-to-be-in-syria; Micah Zenko, “Hillary the Hawk: A History,” Foreign Policy, July 27, 2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/27/hillary-the-hawk-a-history-clinton-2016-military-intervention-libya-iraq-syria/ (link is external); Stephen Zunes, “Hillary the Hawk,” Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Winter, 2016, http://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/hillary-the-hawk/; Stephen Zunes, “The Five Lamest Excuses for Hillary Clinton’s Vote to Invade Iraq,” Foreign Policy In Focus, January 26, 2016, http://fpif.org/five-lamest-excuses-hillary-clintons-vote-invade-iraq/↩
  8. [8]Michelle Alexander, “Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote,” Nation, February 10, 2016, http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/; Musa al-Gharbi, “Hillary’s atrocious race record: Her stances over decades have been painful and wrong,” Salon, April 3, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/04/03/hillarys_atrocious_race_record_her_stances_over_decades_have_been_painful_and_wrong/; Jonathan Allen, “The selective liberalism of Hillary Clinton,” Vox, June 10, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8760287/Hillary-Clinton-selective-liberal-trust; Dana Bolger, “Dear New York Times: The Real Reason Young Feminists Reject Hillary,” Feministing, December 17, 2015, http://feministing.com/2015/12/17/dear-new-york-times-the-real-reason-young-feminists-reject-hillary/; Robert Borosage, “As Panic Grips Clinton Campaign, The Real Question: What’s Wrong with Hillary?” Common Dreams, January 21, 2016, http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/01/21/panic-grips-clinton-campaign-real-question-whats-wrong-hillary; Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick, “Wall Street Offers Clinton a Thorny Embrace,” New York Times, July 7, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/us/08wallst.html; Nick Confessore and Jason Horowitz, “Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches to Wall Street Animate Her Opponents,” New York Times, January 21, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/us/politics/in-race-defined-by-income-gap-hillary-clintons-wall-street-ties-incite-rivals.html; Gabriel Debenedetti and Hadas Gold, “Hillary Clinton gets the Fox News treatment,” Politico, March 7, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-fox-news-220399; James Downie, “Hillary Clinton’s unbelievable defense of Wall Street contributions,” Washington Post, November 15, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/11/15/hillary-clintons-unbelievable-defense-of-wall-st-contributions/; Jonathan Easley and Amie Parnes, “Chelsea Clinton goes on the attack; Democrats ask why,” Hill, January 14, 2016, http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/265839-chelsea-goes-on-the-attack-dems-ask-why; Alex Emmons, “Hillary Clinton Will Be Good for Business, Predicts Chamber of Commerce Lobbyist,” Intercept, July 29, 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/07/29/hillary-clinton-will-be-good-for-business-predicts-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist/ (link is external); Lee Fang, “Top Hillary Clinton Advisers and Fundraisers Lobbied Against Obamacare,” Intercept, February 8, 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/02/08/hrc-inner-circle-lobbyists/; Thomas Frank, “None of the Bankers Think Hillary Clinton Believes Her Populism, a Financial Journalist Wrote,” Truthout, May 12, 2016, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36010-none-of-the-bankers-think-hillary-clinton-believes-her-populism-a-financial-journalist-wrote; Matea Gold, Tom Hamburger, and Anu Narayanswamy, “Clinton blasts Wall Street, but still draws millions in contributions,” Washington Post, February 4, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-blasts-wall-street-but-still-draws-millions-in-contributions/2016/02/04/05e1be00-c9c2-11e5-ae11-57b6aeab993f_story.html; Todd Gitlin, “Hillary Clinton: On Feet of Clay,” Tablet, June 5, 2016, http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/204190/hillary-clinton-on-feet-of-clay; Jeff Greenfield, “What’s Wrong With Hillary?” Politico, March 14, 2016, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-2016-whats-wrong-with-hillary-213722; Glenn Greenwald, “Perfect End to Democratic Primary: Anonymous Superdelegates Declare Winner Through Media,” Intercept, June 7, 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/06/07/perfect-end-to-democratic-primary-anonymous-super-delegates-declare-winner-through-media/; Evan Halper, “Why young feminists are choosing Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton,” Los Angeles Times, February 3, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-millennial-women-20160203-story.html; Jesse Hamilton and Cheyenne Hopkins, “Hillary Clinton Lets Big Banks Off the Hook for Financial Crisis,” Bloomberg, October 2, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-02/hillary-clinton-lets-big-banks-off-the-hook-for-financial-crisis; Simon Head, “Clinton and Goldman: Why It Matters,” New York Review of Books, April 12, 2016, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/12/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-why-it-matters/; Patrick Healy, “Wall St. Ties Linger as Image Issue for Hillary Clinton,” New York Times, November 21, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/us/politics/wall-st-ties-linger-as-image-issue-for-hillary-clinton.html; Zoë Heller, “Hillary & Women,” review of Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works, by Jay Newton-Small, and My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency, by Doug Henwood, New York Review of Books, April 7, 2016, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/07/hillary-women/; Annie Karni, “Clinton friend McAuliffe says Clinton will flip on TPP, then walks it back,” Politico, July 26, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/terry-mcauliffe-hillary-clinton-tpp-trade-226253 (link is external); Brody Mullins and Rebecca Ballhaus, “Financial Sector Gives Hillary Clinton a Boost,” Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-sector-gives-hillary-clinton-a-boost-1462750725; New York Times, “Hillary Clinton Botches Wall Street Questions,” November 15, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/opinion/hillary-clinton-botches-wall-street-questions.html; P. J. Podesta, “The case against Hillary Clinton: This is the disaster Democrats must avoid,” Salon, February 28, 2016, http://www.salon.com/2016/02/28/the_case_against_hillary_clinton_this_is_the_disaster_democrats_must_avoid/; Jon Queally, “Clinton Inflames Progressive Base with Choice of Tim Kaine as Vice President,” Common Dreams, July 22, 2016, http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/22/clinton-inflames-progressive-base-choice-tim-kaine-vice-president; Janell Ross, “Hillary Clinton invoked 9/11 to defend her ties to Wall Street. What?” Washington Post, November 15, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/15/hillary-clinton-invoked-911-to-defend-her-ties-to-wall-street-what/; Robert Scheer, “Go Ahead, Back Hillary Clinton and Forget All About Her Record,” Truthdig, October 9, 2015, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/go_ahead_back_hillary_clinton_and_forget_all_about_her_record_20151009; Noam Scheiber, “Hillary Clinton’s Inequality Rhetoric Is Weak: No, we’re not ‘all in this mess together’,” New Republic, July 9, 2014, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118632/hillary-clintons-inequality-rhetoric-insulting; Donna Smith, “An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton from One Progressive Woman,” Common Dreams, January 23, 2016, http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/01/23/open-letter-hillary-clinton-one-progressive-woman; Yves Smith [Susan Webber], “Why Some of the Smartest Progressives I Know Will Vote for Trump over Hillary,” Politico, June 1, 2016, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/wall-street-2016-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-213931; Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Hillary Clinton’s Comment on Jobs Raises Eyebrows on Wall St.,” New York Times, October 27, 2014, http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/hillary-clintons-comment-about-corporations-and-job-creation-raises-wall-st-s-eyebrows/; Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “The Clintons Have Lost the Working Class,” New Yorker, February 10, 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/the-clintons-lose-the-working-class; Ben White, “Wall Street donors seek to block Warren VP pick,” Politico, June 20, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/elizabeth-warren-wall-street-vice-president-224489↩
  9. [9]Jean Pisani-Ferry, “Why Are Voters Ignoring Experts?” Project Syndicate, July 1, 2016, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/brexit-voters-ignoring-experts-by-jean-pisani-ferry-2016-07↩
  10. [10]Mateusz Tomkowiak, “The big thing almost everyone missed about Brexit,” Vox, August 2, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12345658/brexit-healthcare-nhs↩

Barack Obama is still trying to take the heat off Hillary Clinton on TPP: Daily Bullshit, August 1, 2016

benfell

TransPacific Partnership

While Hillary Clinton won’t advocate for the TransPacific Partnership, she would likely revert to her true neoliberal colors if elected,[1] as her choice of a vice presidential candidate made clear: “In the last week [July 10-16, 2016] alone, [Tim] Kaine is on the record as pushing for new rounds of Wall Street deregulation and voicing active support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement—both in direct contradiction to what grassroots progressives have been demanding.”[2] Having flip-flopped (or “triangulated”), it’s an issue she really needs to and has tried to avoid:

Senior aides have since said that [Clinton] doesn’t need to take a position until the deal is finalized and the fine print can be analyzed. If she’s lucky, the House will reject Trade Promotion Authority for [Barack] Obama this week [effectively June 11-13, 2015], mooting TPP. But as it stands, the vast majority of House Democrats — and party activists — oppose the deal. If Clinton supports it, she’ll disappoint them and give more fuel to Sanders and O’Malley, both of whom oppose the pact. If she opposes it, she’ll have flip-flopped and turned her back on Obama.[3]

“She avoided taking an unequivocal position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) even as the related debate over fast-track trade authority roiled Congress last month [June, 2015].”[4] “Clinton repeatedly sidestepped her position on fast-track, mostly staying silent until the debate in Congress was nearly over.”[5] However, she eventually yielded—or, more likely, pandered:

On Wednesday [October 7, 2015], Clinton came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, saying that she’s concerned with the provisions around pharmaceuticals and the absence of provisions around currency manipulation. But as Tim Lee notes, Clinton strongly supported early versions of the deal — she called the TPP “the gold standard in trade agreements” — that were worse on pharmaceuticals and identical on currency manipulation.

Good grief, the architect of “the pivot to Asia” opposes TPP? In her book she praised the deal! pic.twitter.com/9XDiv0btzM
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) October 7, 2015

Again, the argument here isn’t that there aren’t reasons to oppose the TPP, but rather that knowing Clinton’s record, her advisers, and her past comments about the deal, it’s hard to believe Clinton really opposes the TPP deal.[6]

Though Clinton talked up the treaty when she ran the State Department, she announced last week [on October 7, 2015] that the agreement doesn’t meet the “high bar I have set” for trade deals. Yet the TPP may well be off the docket by January 2017, when she would be inaugurated if elected president. Even if it’s not, she hasn’t adopted the anti-trade hyperbole of others in the race. This leaves her rhetorical space to favor a “modified” TPP or other future trade deals that, she can argue, do meet her standards. Moreover, she put off announcing her opposition until after Congress voted to give President Obama fast-track trade authority, reducing the likelihood that what she says will make any difference to the treaty’s final outcome.[7]

Obama, by contrast, has nothing to lose. In the event (which at this point I think rather unlikely) he manages to get TPP passed, he’ll have relieved Clinton of responsibility for passing yet another disastrous trade pact.

John T. Bennett, “Despite Convention Jeers, Obama to Continue TPP,” Congressional Quarterly Roll Call, July 29, 2016, http://www.rollcall.com/news/despite-convention-jeers-obama-to-continue-trade-push

Turkey

Yesim Dikmen and David Dolan, “Turkey culls nearly 1,400 from army, overhauls top military council,” Reuters, August 1, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-military-idUSKCN10B08G

Student Loans

Josh Mitchell, “Student-Loan Defaulters in a Standoff With Federal Government,” Wall Street Journal, August 1, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/student-loan-defaulters-in-a-standoff-with-federal-government-1470080970

  1. [1]Alex Emmons, “Hillary Clinton Will Be Good for Business, Predicts Chamber of Commerce Lobbyist,” Intercept, July 29, 2016, https://theintercept.com/2016/07/29/hillary-clinton-will-be-good-for-business-predicts-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist/; Annie Karni, “Clinton friend McAuliffe says Clinton will flip on TPP, then walks it back,” Politico, July 26, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/terry-mcauliffe-hillary-clinton-tpp-trade-226253; Timothy Scott, “War and Wall Street: Clinton’s Bleak Record,” Truthout, August 1, 2016, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37054-hillary-clinton-s-record-a-us-horror-story↩
  2. [2]Jon Queally, “Clinton Inflames Progressive Base with Choice of Tim Kaine as Vice President,” Common Dreams, July 22, 2016, http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/22/clinton-inflames-progressive-base-choice-tim-kaine-vice-president↩
  3. [3]Jonathan Allen, “The selective liberalism of Hillary Clinton,” Vox, June 10, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8760287/Hillary-Clinton-selective-liberal-trust↩
  4. [4]Niall Stanage, “Clinton’s habit of dodging key issues draws Democrats’ fire,” Hill, July 30, 2015, http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/249741-clintons-habit-of-dodging-key-issues-draws-democrats-fire↩
  5. [5]Tim Devaney, “Labor unions hold back on endorsements for Hillary,” Hill, September 7, 2015, http://thehill.com/regulation/labor/252823-labor-unions-hold-back-on-endorsements-for-hillary↩
  6. [6]Ezra Klein, “Why Clinton’s TPP opposition unnerves me,” Vox, October 8, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/10/8/9477965/hillary-clinton-tpp↩
  7. [7]Stephen Stromberg, “How Hillary Clinton panders,” Washington Post, October 11, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/10/11/how-hillary-clinton-panders/↩