Wednesday March 29, 1916
From The Day Book: Judge Anderson Quashes Indictments Against Judge Gary
Morning folks, greetings from the great solar north. Here's bit of good news amidst the daily doom and gloom.
There is a recession coming.
This isn't a controversial statement, because unless you believe that we've solved the problem of the business cycle in capitalism then another recession is inevitable.
Saturday night, around 11:40pm, a 25-year-old transgender woman was inside a single-occupancy unisex bathroom at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York's Greenwich Village when a man entered the bathroom claiming he only needed to wash his hands. The man then groped and raped the woman.
The man fled the scene. The woman also left the scene, before returning an hour later and calling 911. She was taken to Lennox Hill Hospital for treatment.
This article is reblogged in its entirety from the Morning Nightcap
Imagine the headline, Tens of Thousands of People Poisoned by, {then insert name of bad dictator the US does not have any use for anymore}, and you have the same basic headline for the last 40 to 100 years. The call for a bombing campaign, if not all out war would be immense. Just think for a moment, when the people of Crimea voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to secede to Russia in 2014, we had TV pundits, a retired general on Tee Vee, calling to Kill more Russians.
So I'm bouncing around this morning reading here and there. Robert Reich piece is worthwhile. Robert Reich sees the future: America’s two-party system is finished. It a fictionalized view of the year 2020, rather tongue in cheek:
Politics abhors a vacuum. In 2019, the People’s Party filled it.
Wednesday March 28, 1906
Boise, Idaho - W. F. of M. Officers Now Confined at Ada County Jail
My title is from the King James Version of the of the New Testament, Matthew 7:15-20, which relates Jesus' parable of the Tree and its Fruits. Here is the full version:
7:15 "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves."
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
In case you aren't familiar with it, PREA is the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003.
The National PREA Resource Center has clarified guidelines set in 2012 regarding the treatment of transgender inmates within the prison system, stating Thursday that any policy that houses transgender or intersex inmates based exclusively on external genital anatomy violates PREA standards.
Standard 115.42(c): In deciding whether to assign a transgender or intersex inmate to a facility for male or female inmates, and in making other housing and programming assignments, the agency shall consider on a case-by-case basis whether a placement would ensure the inmate’s health and safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems.
(e) A transgender or intersex inmate’s own views with respect to his or her own safety shall be given serious consideration.
Think about that: This is a better situation than transgender people are facing in North Carolina in regards to restrooms usage.
Monday March 27, 1916
From the United Mine Workers Journal: Springtime and Freedom for Louis Zancanelli
Until a couple of years ago I used to frequent a website known as the online liberal bastion the world over. At the beginning, I used to just read essays posted by other users/members, many of which I found to be very informative, compelling, inspiring, and motivating.
And you need some love and care,
And nothing, nothing is going right...
...then I find myself looking for something...anything...to brighten up even the darkest night.
There is Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, who posted on Facebook about the anti-trans legislation the GOP is promoting in his state.
They are wrong on the issue and wrong on the morality of it in my opinion. I’ll veto it.
--Dayton
I'm slowly bringing some of my old articles over to post here on C99. This is one that I originally published Jun 21, 2013. Now that we are in the midst of FBI vs. Apple wherein the FBI is attempting to compel Apple to become an arm of the surveillance state, some of this seems pretty current in a way.
The US government works closely with thousands of corporations to bring you everything from national security to the drivers of climate change. The connections between these entities are diverse and often quite opaque making it difficult for citizens to tell who is really in charge. Is it the corporations with their ultimate responsibility to make a profit for their owners and shareholders, or is it the government with its ultimate responsibility to the electorate that is in charge? Do the principles of government or business apply to joint decision making processes when government invests in businesses and sits on their boards, or when government agencies have representatives of business sit on task forces and decision making structures?
The economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith wrote, “people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
What happens when the interests of business and government so align, that they are fundamentally, "in the same business?"
