Amy Chozick, writing in Bernie Sanders Wins Wisconsin Democratic Primary, Adding to Momentum for The New York Times, reports:

Senator Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday, his sixth straight victory in the Democratic nominating contest and the latest in a string of setbacks for Mrs. Clinton as she seeks to put an end to a prolonged race against an unexpectedly deft and well-funded competitor.

Mrs. Clinton’s defeat does not significantly dent her comfortable lead in the race for the 2,383 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination. But the loss underscores her problems connecting with young and white working-class voters who have gravitated to Mr. Sanders’s economic message — a message he will now take to economically depressed parts of New York State ahead of the April 19 primary there.

Mr. Sanders’s victory came after he had hardly left Wisconsin in recent days, pouring his energy and resources into securing a win that would help him put to rest any doubts that he could capture a major primary state, and providing his campaign with renewed focus as he strives for an upset in New York, Mrs. Clinton’s adopted home state.

Bernie’s campaign writes:

On a winning streak, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday thanked Wisconsin Democrats for his seventh straight victory over Hillary Clinton in the last eight contests for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

“We have a path toward victory, a path to the White House,” Sanders said at nighttime rally where he began by thanking the people of Wisconsin and looking forward to caucuses in four days here in Wyoming.

He told the 2,000 supporters that the latest victory builds on the momentum of his grassroots campaign. “Momentum is starting a campaign 60 to 70 points behind Secretary Clinton” and “momentum is national polls in the last weeks that had us 1 point up or 1 point down,” he told the rally at a University of Wyoming auditorium.

“Momentum is we are defeating Donald Trump by very significant numbers,” Sanders added, “and in almost every instance our margin over Trump is wider than Secretary Clinton’s.”

Since I mentioned Father Ted yesterday, I thought everyone should have a giggle with this.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap from China. On The Writing On The Wal—the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar—I continue my singular work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

BETTY DUKES IS BACK WITH A NEW CAREER… Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court denied her discrimination claim against Walmart on the behalf of all the women working for the Bentonvile Behemoth, Betty Dukes is back with a new, broader fight… Keep reading…

WALMART REPELS PUERTO RICO TAX ATTACK… The celebratory glee in Ian Mount’s lede to his story, Puerto Rico’s ‘Walmart Tax’ Is Illegal, Federal Judge Says for Fortune is worthy of Reuben Rollings’ Hollingsworth Hound. Cue Hound’s archenemy: Lucky… Keep reading…

APRIL FOOL’S…? NOPE… Shelly Banjo reporting in Wal-Mart’s first-ever sales drop marks the end of an era for Bloomberg News, writes: For the first time ever—or at least since the company went public some 45 years ago—Wal-Mart’s revenues shrank from… Keep reading…

ARE THE CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST…? While reading this morning I found Brian Feroldi over at The Motley Fool. I expected a follow-on this week’s news that Walmart failed to post annual sales growth for the first time since the company went… Keep reading…

AS THE RATS SCRAMBLE THRU THE HAWS PIPE… Given the news last week regarding Walmart annual sales (lack of) growth, a reasonable person might expect that investors would look elsewhere growth opportunities. Four news items today…, Keep reading…

ARE POLICE SEEKING THE EASTER BUNNY…? Did witnesses report a white fluffy rodent with long ears and a wicker basket over one arm answering to the name Harvey? Hmmm, could be. However, station KLFY in Acadiana reports: The Louisiana State… Keep reading…

BEST WAY TO FEED THE HUNGRY: PAY WORKERS… Walmart is very fond of spending charitable funds to garner tax breaks and public relations good will, but never seems to ask the question: how many of our employees are showing up to get food to… Keep reading…

WALMART LOSES PENNSYLVANIA APPEAL… Good news for Walmart workers in Pennsylvania. Robbie Neiswanger, writing in High court rejects Wal-Mart appeal for Arkansas Online, reports: The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request from Wal-Mart… Keep reading…

BE FREE CHICKEN LITTLE, BE FREE…! So, Walmart, the largest food retailer in the United States (world?) has joined other corporate entities in pledging to only sell eggs from cage-free chickens by 2025. Good on you Walmart, but why in 2025? Why… Keep reading…

Senator Bernie Sanders told us on 12 October 2011 what was going on with the United States-Panama free trade agreement.

Bernie opposed the 2011 Panama Free Trade Agreement because he was worried it would increasingly allow wealthy Americans and large corporations to evade U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens. Now with the release of the Panama Papers it appears he was right. They show that over 214,000 offshore companies are using Panama to evade taxes. That is unacceptable, and that has got to change.

Matthew Turner, writing this morning in The Panama Papers could hand Bernie Sanders the keys to the White House for the Independent, explains:

The revelation that the rich and wealthy are shovelling money in overseas tax havens is not a particularly surprising one. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of the 11.5 million document leak from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has whipped up an overdue storm and forced the issue of tax justice back on the agenda. It is likely that the Panama papers is just the tip of the iceberg, and if even more is revealed about the financial affairs of world leaders, the implication for global politics will be huge.

The Democratic presidential primaries in the US have been characterised by surging anger at the global elite. The Panama papers scandal will only fuel popular indignation at the actions of perceived establishment figures – those who have stood idly by and allowed this huge miscarriage of justice to take place.

Although there have been no major American casualties over the leak at this stage, all of the presidential candidates will be questioned about the scandal. And nobody is going to be under more pressure than Hillary Clinton. For some Americans, she is the embodiment of a “global elite”, while Bernie Sanders is its antithesis.

The huge leak exposes governments across the globe wilfully ignoring tax avoidance by the rich. Although Clinton has not been linked to any malfeasance in the leak, there is a sense that she is among the elite rich, some of whose members have benefited from such schemes.

It has been revealed Clinton pushed through the Panama Free Trade Deal at the same time that Sanders vocally opposed it, citing research warning that it would strictly limit the government’s ability to clamp down on questionable or even illegal activity. Even if the Clintons remain unmentioned in future tax bombshells, Sanders can continue to exploit the narrative that Clinton is part of the demographic responsible, and has assisted in flagrant abuses of the system through trade deals.

In the wake of the global scandal, Bernie released this statement:

“We now know, as a result of the ‘Panama Papers’ released by an international consortium of investigative journalists, that more than 214,000 entities throughout the world have been using a law firm in Panama to avoid paying taxes.

“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality in the United States and around the world, the wealthiest people and largest corporations must start paying their fair share of taxes. Children should not go hungry while billionaires use offshore tax havens to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

“The Panama Free Trade Agreement put a stamp of approval on Panama, a world leader when it comes to allowing the wealthy and the powerful to avoid taxes.

“I was opposed to the Panama Free Trade Agreement from day one. I predicted that the passage of this disastrous trade deal would make it easier, not harder, for the wealthy and large corporations to evade taxes by sheltering billions of dollars offshore. I wish I had been proven wrong about this, but it has now come to light that the extent of Panama’s tax avoidance scams is even worse than I had feared.

“My opponent, on the other hand, opposed this trade agreement when she was running against Barack Obama for president in 2008. But when it really mattered she quickly reversed course and helped push the Panama Free Trade Agreement through Congress as Secretary of State. The results have been a disaster.

“The American people are sick and tired of establishment politicians who say one thing during a campaign and do the exact opposite the day after the election.

“It is time for real change. As president, I will use my authority to terminate the Panama Free Trade Agreement within six months. My administration will conduct an immediate investigation into U.S. banks, corporations and wealthy individuals who have been stashing their cash in Panama to avoid taxes. If any of them have violated U.S. law, my administration will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”

The legion minions of the Billionaire class are toast.

As global protests over the obscenity revealed by the Panama Papers swell, one protester channels Father Ted who stood with Father McGuire to protest the showing of The Passion of Saint Tibulus on Craggy Island.

Seriously though, Glenn Greenwald (with the help of Matt Yglesis) explains why the papers are vital in A Key Similarity Between Snowden Leak and Panama Papers: Scandal Is What’s Been Legalized:

Some of these documents undoubtedly reveal criminality: either monies that were illegally obtained (and are being hidden for that reason) or assets being concealed in order to criminally evade tax debts. But the crux of this activity—placing assets offshore in order to avoid incurring tax liability—has been legalized. That’s because Western democracies, along with overt tyrannies, are typically controlled by societies’ wealthiest, and laws are enacted to serve their interests. Vox’s Matt Yglesias this morning published a very good explainer of various aspects of this leak and he makes that point clear:

Even as the world’s wealthiest and most powerful nations have engaged in increasingly complex and intensive efforts at international cooperation to smooth the wheels of global commerce, they have willfully chosen to allow the wealthiest members of Western society to shield their financial assets from taxation (and in many cases divorce or bankruptcy settlement) by taking advantage of shell companies and tax havens.

If Panama or the Cayman Islands were acting to undermine the integrity of the global pharmaceutical patent system, the United States would stop them. But the political elite of powerful Western nations have not acted to stop relatively puny Caribbean nations from undermining the integrity of the global tax system — largely because Western economic elites don’t want them to. …

… But even though various criminal money-laundering schemes are the sexiest possible use of shell companies, the day-to-day tax dodging is what really pays the bills. As a manager of offshore bank accounts told me years ago, “People think of banking secrecy as all about terrorists and drug smugglers, but the truth is there are a lot of rich people who don’t want to pay taxes.” And the system persists because there are a lot of politicians in the West who don’t particularly want to make them. …

… Incorporating your hedge fund in a country with no corporate income tax even though all your fund’s employees and investors live in the United States is perfectly legal. So is, in most cases, setting up a Panamanian shell company to own and manage most of your family’s fortune.

Tax avoidance is an inevitable feature of any tax system, but the reason this particular form of avoidance grows and grows without bounds is that powerful politicians in powerful countries have chosen to let it happen. As the global economy has become more and more deeply integrated, powerful countries have created economic “rules of the road” that foreign countries and multinational corporations must follow in order to gain lucrative market access.

Proving that certain behavior is “legal” does not prove that it is ethical or just. That’s because corrupted political systems, by definition, often protect and legalize exactly the behavior that is most unjust. Vital journalism does not only expose law breaking. It also highlights how corrupted political and legal systems can be co-opted by the most powerful in order to legally sanction atrocious and destructive behavior that serves their interests, typically with little or no public awareness that it’s been done.

The expectation is that the clients of Mossack Fonseca in the United States will shortly have their laundry hung in public.

If any of the current crop of politicians seeking the presidency of The United States show up on the list, will anyone give a feck?

So far I’ve donated $700 to the Bernie Sanders campaign and I get email daily asking me for more. I’ve never given anywhere near this money to a political candidate before, but I believe that the 2016 election is that important.

Yet, I won’t make fundraising calls for Bernie and I feel horrible for the poor souls who do. I suppose that if I really believed in Bernie I would swallow my sense of self worth, toss basic human dignity in the trash, and shamelessly beg for more of those $27 donations, but I just can’t. That sucks.

Thanks to Oliver’s piece I no longer think of Congress, or politicians in general, as being part of a noble effort focused on public service. Rather, this is the image I have in my head.

[Update @ 0637]

So, I’ve just finished watching the discussion and while I found the entire conversation fascinating, I would make note of three bits.

First, beginning at about time mark 1:26:10, Edward Snowden points to the single greatest flaw in our present security state when he says, “When you collect everything, you understand nothing.” He made that assertion in the context of the attacks in Boston and Brussels because in both cases the appropriate police agencies had clear intelligence regarding individuals involved in the attacks (as they also did in 2001 before the attacks of 11 September) but failed to act because the intelligence was masked by the noise of mass surveillance.

Second, Noam Chomsky demonstrated the value of six decades of work when he took the conversation regarding the question “why do people in the Middle East hate us?” back from a 2004 Donald Rumsfeld report to a 1958 Eisenhower report. Institutional memory is everything.

Third, Chomsky also referenced, in a discussion with Glenn Greenwald regarding reading George Orwell’s 1984, a generally unknown, and unpublished, preface to Orwell’s other well-known work Animal Farm. I was not aware of the preface, but now that I am, I’ll be taking I’ve invested the time to read the piece this morning.

As always, Orwell’s writing is crisp and on message as any I’ve ever read. He is a master of the essay form and any writer would benefit from reading, and studying, his virtuosity. While there is much I have taken away from this reading, I am particularly struck by the similarities in the relationship between Great Britain and The Soviet Union as Orwell described it, and our own present-day relationship with Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud.

While we are capable of criticizing the Saudi royal family, at least in the United States, we do so only on the fringes.

This is a fault of the American journalist community which, Noam Chomsky quips to the delight of the audience, contains far too many “actors portraying journalists on television.

I think there’s more than a little of the undead in Donald Trump so I’m not so sure that Nader is right here, too many have been wrong about Trump’s demise in the past, but if he is correct then the Republicans are left with Ted Cruz or John Kasich (I can’t believe I just had to Google governor Ohio to recall Kasich’s name, and I live in Ohio).

Cruz is creepy scary and the only reason people think Kasich is even remotely moderate is because they’ve only had the likes of Trump, Cruz and Marco Rubio to compare him to. Compared to that lineup, Mitt Romney looks good.

Nader writes in Trump’s Self-Inflicted Fall:

Donald J. Trump is done. He will not be the Republican Party’s nominee for President. He will not receive the requisite number of 1237 delegate votes to secure a majority going into the Republican Convention in July.

Last June, I wrote a column predicting that Trump would give the GOP nightmares, but that his penchant for “leaving no impulsive opinion behind” would be his Achilles heel. Nine and a half months later, this is what is transpiring.

His egotistical bombast—false statements, displays of shocking factual ignorance on policy issues, and planned, staccato-like insults toward the other Republican contenders—got him lots of media attention. But like an elastic band being stretched to its purpose, there comes the time when the band must snap.

In the last two weeks, the casino-hotel baron has snapped. He was trapped into a petty retaliation against Senator Cruz after one of Cruz’s Super PACs distributed a semi-nude pin-up picture of Trump’s wife. He has stopped campaigning for a week before the crucial Wisconsin primary while he continues to be barraged by reporters asking about his campaign manager’s potential criminal charge in Florida for having vigorously pulled a reporter’s arm. He then stumbled badly in an interview with NBC’s Chris Matthews (a fervid political Democrat). In the interview, The Donald said, women who have abortions should receive “some punishment.” His recanting of that statement hours later hasn’t caught up with the immediate uproar.

National polls of all voters have never been good for Trump. Now they spill over into disasterland. He has the highest unfavorability ratings of any candidate, followed by Hillary Clinton. Of women who are expected to vote in the Republican primary, only 24 percent support him and nationally almost 3 out of 4 women oppose him—foreshadowing a certain defeat in November, given his very low standing among minority voters. Even in his victories, Trump has rarely won more than 30% of the Republican primary vote against his competitors.

Now Trump has left his lavish Florida vacation mansion for Wisconsin only to find a maelstrom of opposition from the Republican Party, the Republican Governor and the Republican legislators who control the state government. What’s more, the state’s influential conservative talk radio bloviators—most of whom are backing the madcap Ted Cruz—are bashing Trump daily as juvenile and as not a conservative.

Then, Papa Pope weighed in and the story really gets ugly.

Remember, however, that the orange Martian attached to Trump’s head has other plans.

[Updated on 19 April at 1900. Jeff Applebaum took exception to this piece and provided additional information to Roldo. You can read the entire exchange at $11-MILLION RESTAURANT DISPUTED BY COUNTY. JH]

Do you think downtown Cleveland needs another new upscale restaurant?

Do you think downtown Cleveland needs two more new fancy bars?

Do you think Cuyahoga County taxpayers should pay for the new restaurants and bars?

Well, guess what? You ARE going to pay for them!

The new Hilton hotel—County financed—will come with two new restaurants-bars.

The “Reformed” (biggest joke in years) Cuyahoga County government will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in construction and interest for a hotel that will lose money. The County, via the Port Authority bonds (allowing the dodge of federal taxes too), will borrow $256,864,057.75. Of this, $1,243,318 goes to pay the money people who draw up the documents. Finance guys always take a cut.

We have Gilded Age politicians here. Weak. Bought off.

And YOU will pay for it all. EVERY PENNY. With your sales tax. Regressive, of course.

(These eateries are reminiscent of Gateway where taxpayers paid $5,155,893 for the Terrace Club at then Jacobs Field and $2,370,134 for Sammy’s at the Arena, run by former Gateway board member Denise Fugo. All food revenue, however, goes Continue Reading »

My take is that she’s sick of liberals/progressives who keep asking embarrassing questions and won’t shut the fuck up so that the Democratic National Committee can anoint her President of the United States of America.

Well, we’re going to keep asking those questions until she starts acting like she wants to represent We The People and not the Billionaire Class from Wall Street and the Fossil Fuel Cartels.

Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Bernie Sanders emails:

During a campaign stop and fundraiser in New York yesterday, Hillary Clinton was asked by a young woman if she’d stop taking money from the fossil fuel industry. It was a simple question, one she could have easily answered with a “yes,” or, perhaps because of the way she funds her campaign, responded with a “no.”

Instead, she said she was “sick of the Sanders campaign lying” about the donations she receives.

Now, here’s the truth—the hard numbers don’t lie. And it’s something everyone should know as this video spreads online and is covered in the news: The fossil fuel industry has given more than $4.5 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and her top super PAC, including 11 lobbyists who have bundled more than $1 million to her put her in the White House.

Earlier in this campaign, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley signed a pledge to refuse money from fossil fuel interests. No Republican added their name, which isn’t surprising given that they don’t believe climate change is real. But neither did Hillary Clinton. It’s time for her to distance herself from the Republicans on this issue and add her name.

Ask Hillary Clinton to sign the pledge launched by Greenpeace USA and 20 other organizations asking all presidential candidates to reject fossil fuel contributions, because you cannot be expected to take an industry on while you’re taking their money.

When we talk about our responsibilities as humans beings, there is nothing more important than leaving this country and our entire planet in a way that is habitable to our children and grandchildren. Donald Trump may believe that climate change is a hoax being perpetrated by the Chinese, but for almost everyone else, the debate is over. The scientific community is unanimous on this issue.

And what the scientists are saying is that we must boldly transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency. Unfortunately one of the biggest obstacles to realizing that goal is a corrupt system of campaign finance that enriches the CEOs of fossil fuel companies at the expense of average Americans and our planet.

The easiest way to reject their influence is to refuse their money. And it would send a powerful message if the leading presidential candidates in the Democratic Party both stand up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH, we are tired of fossil fuel companies regulating Congress with their campaign contributions and not the other way around.

Bernie has taken that pledge. It’s time for Hillary Clinton to join him.

Ask Hillary Clinton to sign the pledge launched by Greenpeace USA and 20 other organizations asking all presidential candidates to reject fossil fuel contributions, because you cannot be expected to take an industry on while you’re taking their money.

The United States must lead the world in fighting climate change. CEOs are making record profits, while climate change ravages our planet and our people. Refusing their money is the first step towards combatting their obscene influence.

In solidarity,
Jeff Weaver
Campaign Manager
Bernie 2016

The poor little pooch is really pooped…

*Buster and me…

[Update @ 1900 on 4 April: Democracy Awakening asks that I distribute the following to my readers:

A first-of-its-kind gathering in our nation’s capital is putting We the People back in charge of OUR democracy.

Democracy Awakening — organized by Public Citizen, the NAACP, the Communications Workers of America, Greenpeace USA, People For the American Way, the Democracy Initiative and nearly 200 other allies — will bring thousands of Americans to Washington, D.C., from April 16-18 for a long weekend of workshops, trainings, rallies, music, advocacy and direct action in support of voting rights and money in politics reform.

Why?

The very essence of our democracy is in peril. We simply cannot wait any longer to:

• Overturn U.S. Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United that have allowed billionaires and Big Business to spend literally without limit in their attempt to take over our elections.
• Demand that Congress do its constitutional duty and commit to a fair and timely confirmation process for the next Supreme Court justice.
• Fully restore the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that was gutted by the Supreme Court’s recent Shelby County decision, enabling states to reinstitute discriminatory Jim Crow-era laws.

Buses, vans and trains are being organized in cities up and down the East Coast to help you get to Democracy Awakening.

Check out the Democracy Awakening website and RSVP to receive more information.

Be there in our nation’s capital when democracy awakens!

Onward,

Courtney Fuller
Public Citizen’s Democracy Is For People Campaign

Hope to see you in Washington.]

So, I’m late to this party, but better late than never.

Democracy Awakening is a broad coalition of organizations representing the labor, peace, environmental, student, racial justice, civil rights and money in politics reform movements that shares a firm belief that we will not win on the full range of policy issues we all care about until we combat attacks on voting rights and the integrity of the vote by big money.

That energy is scheduled to peak over the weekend of 16-18 April in Washington, D.C. The Organizers write:

In April 2016, more than 200 organizations representing a diverse array of movements and hundreds of thousands of people are coming together to demand a democracy that works for all of us – a nation where our votes are not denied and money doesn’t buy access and power. Join us as we converge upon Washington, D.C. for an array of actions, including demonstrations, teach-ins, direct action trainings, music, a Rally for Democracy, and pressing for a Congress of Conscience through non-violent direct action and advocacy. Together we will build a nation that is truly of, by and for the people.

American democracy is premised on the fundamental tenet, “one person, one vote,” but since the very beginning, we’ve had to fight for every voice to be heard and every vote to be counted.

Today, we’re fighting for change on many fronts – for action on climate change, racial justice, workers’ rights and fair pay, safe food and water, health care, peace, immigration reform and improvements in education. But an array of barriers are keeping regular Americans shut out of the political process, from restrictive voting laws suppressing the voting rights of people of color, seniors, students, and low-income Americans, to a campaign finance landscape that allows big money to increasingly shape elections and the policy-making process.

For both money in politics and voting rights, the U.S. Supreme Court has eviscerated laws that once protected the voices and votes of everyday Americans. And for both issues, Congress has solutions in front of them, but has so far failed to act. And now the Senate is blocking fair consideration of the nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, including timely hearings and a vote by the full Senate.

It’s time for us to come together and claim a democracy where every voice is heard and every vote counts equally—in other words, a democracy that works for all of us.

It’s time for a Democracy Awakening.

That’s why we are mobilizing. And that’s why we need you to join us.

We need a Congress that stands up for democracy rather than stands in its way. Here’s the agenda we’re calling for Congress to pass:

Fair consideration of the nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, including timely hearings and a vote by the full Senate.

The Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 2867, S. 1659), legislation that would restore the protections against voting discrimination that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its Shelby County v. Holder decision, and make additional, critical updates to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Voter Empowerment Act (H.R. 12), legislation to modernize voter registration, prevent deceptive practices that keep people from the ballot box and ensure equal access to voting for all.

The Democracy For All Amendment (H.J.Res. 22, S.J.Res. 5), a constitutional amendment that would overturn U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United and allow elected representatives to set commonsense limits on money in elections.

The Government By the People Act/Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 20 and S. 1538), a small donor empowerment measure that would encourage and amplify small contributions from everyday Americans.

Our reform agenda is aimed at creating a democracy where every voice is heard and every vote counts equally—in other words, a democracy that works for all of us.

That all looks good to me.

…and four packets of peanuts, of course.

I seriously hope that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is having a bad week following the Supreme Court’s four-to-four decision in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that sought to overturn the 1977 pro-union decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.

Ed Pilkington, reporting in Scalia’s absence resonates as supreme court hands down split union ruling, for The Guardian, writes:

The impact of the death of the conservative supreme court justice Antonin Scalia on the political sway of the nation was laid bare on Tuesday when the eight surviving justices held each other to a draw over an attempt to gut the power of public sector unions.

By dividing evenly 4-4, the country’s highest judicial panel averted a major blow to unions representing government workers and teachers. The split leaves in place a lower appeals court ruling that allows unions to continue to collect mandatory dues from workers covered by collective bargaining even though those workers refuse to join the union.

The supreme court issued a one-page ruling that gave no clue as to its thinking other to note that the “judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court”. But there was little doubt that the outcome underlined the seismic shift that has occurred in the US as a result of Scalia’s death last month.

In oral arguments in January, Scalia made it plain that he was minded to vote to overturn the 1977 ruling, Abood v Detroit Board of Education, that allows unions to collect fees from non-members in order to carry out collective bargaining on their behalf. Had he done so, the supreme court would have divided by the 5-4 conservative-to-liberal dynamic that was dominant until Scalia’s death.

Under Abood, organized labor is permitted to charge so-called “agency fees” to cover the costs of collective bargaining from non-members so long as the money is not put towards political goals. But in his questioning in January, Scalia indicated that he thought the distinction was impossible to make when unions were negotiating with government.

I can’t wait until McConnel, or some other billionaire’s whipping boy, makes the case that Justice Scalia clearly made his original intent known and so should be permitted to cast the critical fifth vote from the grave.

Yeah, good luck with that.

May we have many more such votes in the remaining month of President Obama’s lame-duck presidency.

Mano Singham, Lyle Dennison and Scott Lemieux had this to say…

Ha ha…!

So, why do I learn about this in a comedy show. Seriously, I didn’t catch this from any of my regular news sources. What the fuck, journalists?

A quick Google search under news for Nixon War On Drugs turned up plenty of hits but only one on the front page from a major news source? Again, what the fuck, journalists?

CNN has this to say:

One of Richard Nixon’s top advisers and a key figure in the Watergate scandal said the war on drugs was created as a political tool to fight blacks and hippies, according to a 22-year-old interview recently published in Harper’s Magazine.

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Ehrlichman’s comment is the first time the war on drugs has been plainly characterized as a political assault designed to help Nixon win, and keep, the White House.

So, what do we do with his latest revelation of Nixon’s dirty-tricks regime?

So, I think this is kind of lame, but I’ll chalk this up to stupidity at some lower level of the campaign. When you click on the image above you’ll get a donation pitch—donate any amount and get a Birdie Sanders sitcker—that’s cool. What isn’t cool is after you make a donation you get a second pitch worthy of Ron Popeil: donate an additional $15 and you’ll get three additional stickers. Sorry, Jeff Weaver, that sucks.

So, if you want to get additional stickers, low ball you’re donation for the first sticker by subtracting $15 from the amount you intended to make and then add the $15 back in to get the additional three stickers.

No one is perfect, but this still pisses me off.

For the record, I’ve donated $600 to the campaign so far.]

Bernie’s campaign writes:

We sent a letter to Hillary Clinton’s campaign over the weekend asking for a debate in New York before its battleground primary on April 19.

Add your name to our letter to say you want to see Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debate in New York.

You can read the full letter to Clinton Campaign Manager Robby Mook here:

Dear Robby,

I am writing to you about the remaining, agreed-upon Democratic primary season debates in April and May of this year. As you know, Secretary Clinton agreed to three additional debates—one in March, one in April, one in May—in return for our campaign agreeing to the late-scheduled debate in New Hampshire prior to that state’s primary.

At Senator Sanders’ request, the March debate was held in Michigan. As I understand it, there was previously agreement reached by our representatives for the May debate to be held in California. I trust that commitment remains on your part.

However, there has not been agreement on the April debate in terms of date or location. Our campaign continues to believe that the people of New York deserve to have the debate held in their state, and that it should be held prior to the New York primary.

Given the outcome of electoral contests since March 15th it is clearer than ever that New York will play a critical role in determining the Democratic nominee. However, your campaign has consistently chosen to deny the people of New York the opportunity to see Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton debate in the Empire State.

It is difficult to understand your motivation. I have received calls from numerous news companies seeking to sponsor a New York debate so I know the media interest would be high. Can you please explain why New York should not host the April debate? Is the Secretary concerned about debating before the people who twice elected her to the U.S. Senate?

Perhaps there is some tactical advantage you are seeking by avoiding a debate in New York but I would remind you that Senator Sanders agreed to debate the Secretary in New Hampshire when he was well ahead in the polls.

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience so we can schedule the New York debate in April.

Regards,

Jeff Weaver

I’m not surprised, there’s never an upside to a campaign front runner agreeing to a debate, especially when the lead is diminishing. I don’t expect Hillary to agree, but I hope that the people of New York, her faux home state that she used as a stepping stone to power, get and understand the message.

So, I finished reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work yesterday and now I’m going back through my notes (one of my students was shocked, shocked, I say, when she saw my stack of 65 notecards; she told me I had copied the whole book.) and I found a reference to a bit of productivity porn by Eric Barker titled Stay Focused: 5 Ways To Increase Your Attention Span. Barker’s list is great clickbait, but also contains a worthwhile repetition of common advice on how to reduce distraction and increase focus, the superpower of the 21st (or any, really) century.

You can read the article if you’re feeling a surfeit of focus, but what caught my eye was a related-posts link (also great clickbait, that worked) How To Make Your Life Better By Sending Five Simple Emails at the bottom of the post.

Email is generally the anti-Christ of productivity, so the headline is counter-intuitive which make the post super clickbait. Clearly, I was sucked in. The advice is essentially about showing gratitude (a topic that Oliver Burkeman has discussed no less than three times in How to feel up in a downturn; Why you really should keep a journal, no matter how cheesy that sounds; and just last month, Gratitude: yes please or no thanks?) to the important people in your life.

Not bad advice, that.

Oh yeah, the headline on this post is an intentional homage to the aforementioned clickbait.

Here are some of those other Bernie clips Silverman mentions…

The tag line on the video gave me a giggle as well: John Oliver wakes up the sheeple who have had the wool pulled over their eyes by the lamestream media.

Also, I ate half a Cabury Cream Egg yesterday.

I remember George McGovern’s 1972 campaign for President. I was too young to vote (I turned 18 the following year) but I was engaged because I understood McGovern’s message and I knew what a worthless waste of human genome President Richard Nixon was.

Matt Taibbi pegs our present woes on McGovern’s loss in that election. He remain’s, however, positive in the outlook for this election because he sees the connection between 1972 and 2016. Forty-four years later, the youth vote can make a difference.

I linked to Taibbi’s piece on Saturday, but I wanted to revisit the column because of how he wraps up the message in his examination of Why Young People Are Right About Hillary Clinton:

My worry is that Democrats like Hillary have been saying, “The Republicans are worse!” for so long that they’ve begun to believe it excuses everything. It makes me nervous to see Hillary supporters like law professor Stephen Vladeck arguing in the New York Times that the real problem wasn’t anything Hillary did, but that the Espionage Act isn’t “practical.”

If you’re willing to extend the “purity” argument to the Espionage Act, it’s only a matter of time before you get in real trouble. And even if it doesn’t happen this summer, Democrats may soon wish they’d picked the frumpy senator from Vermont who probably checks his restaurant bills to make sure he hasn’t been undercharged.

But in the age of Trump, winning is the only thing that matters, right? In that case, there’s plenty of evidence suggesting Sanders would perform better against a reality TV free-coverage machine like Trump than would Hillary Clinton. This would largely be due to the passion and energy of young voters.

Young people don’t see the Sanders-Clinton race as a choice between idealism and incremental progress. The choice they see is between an honest politician, and one who is so profoundly a part of the problem that she can’t even see it anymore.

They’ve seen in the last decades that politicians who promise they can deliver change while also taking the money, mostly just end up taking the money.

And they’re voting for Sanders because his idea of an entirely voter-funded electoral “revolution” that bars corporate money is, no matter what its objective chances of success, the only practical road left to break what they perceive to be an inexorable pattern of corruption.

Young people aren’t dreaming. They’re thinking. And we should listen to them.

The key here is that they are not just thinking, they’re talking and, critically, they’re voting.