Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Charges dropped against Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case; Garry Kasparov loses a chess match against IBM’s Deep Blue computer; Songwriter Irving Berlin born; Reggae star Bob Marley dies.

Europeans are much more serious than we are in America because they think that a good place to discuss intellectual matters is a beer party.

Richard P. Feynman

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Trump tramples and divides world, just like he does at home

Analysis by Nic Robertson, CNN

Updated 0449 GMT (1249 HKT) May 11, 2019

Nearly all countries agree to stem flow of plastic waste into poor nations

Sometimes people may think I go too far in my political analysis.

Jen Rubin is no Lefty, nor even a Democrat.

Trump will betray his country — again
By Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post
May 10, 2019

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller lll’s report established that while no criminal conspiracy with Russia could be proved, President Trump’s campaign sought and expected to benefit from Russian assistance. (Lawfare blog explains that there was “a large quantity of engagement that was apparently not chargeably criminal but that did involve covert attempts to engage with a hostile foreign government for the benefit of Trump’s campaign and business.”) Trump publicly called for the Russian government to find Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump’s eldest son, son-in-law and campaign chairman went to a meeting to obtain “dirt” on Clinton.

While we do not know whether conspiracy/coordination occurred between Trump associates and WikiLeaks (highlighting one giant reason for getting the unredacted Mueller report), we do know that there was a pattern of inviting help and then making use of it (as when Trump blasted away at the leaked Clinton emails in the waning days of the campaign). This was not a criminal conspiracy, but rather, a betrayal of American democracy. Trump encouraged a foreign power to determine our election, to favor him over Clinton. In short, Mueller’s report states that “the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

This should be illegal, right? It’s a violation of campaign finance laws to solicit something of value from a foreign national, but it is not quite clear that opposition research or leaked emails meet the definition. (Mueller noted that the law had never been applied to cover such help.) We should — except the morally bankrupt Trump cultists — agree that it would be wrong for, say, Democrats to get opposition research from China to smear Trump, or for Trump to go to another hostile power to get help beating the Democratic nominee. The essence of our democracy is that the American people — not foreign foes — pick our leaders.

Nevertheless, Trump and his TV lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani are attempting once more to subvert U.S. sovereignty by getting help from a foreign power.
…
Democrats should call this out for what it is: Betrayal of, and disloyalty to, the United States.

Beyond that, the House should expeditiously pass a law making it mandatory for a campaign to report all contacts with foreign officials, prohibiting solicitation of information or action from a foreign government for the purpose of influencing a campaign, and making it illegal to knowingly use material provided directly or indirectly from a foreign government in a campaign.

Should Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refuse to take up the measure, he would confirm the moral degradation of the Republican Party and the same unpatriotic attitude that prompted him to oppose a robust warning in 2016 about Russian interference in the election. This would be nothing less than a repudiation of democracy, a willingness to become a vassal of hostile foreign powers for the sake of winning the election. In such a circumstance, Democrats should come right out and say it: The Republicans want to get hostile powers to help them win elections because those powers figure that Republican presidents will be patsies.

I am often asked whether the Republican Party can be rehabilitated. A party is made up of individuals; in this case, a group of elected leaders who uniformly invite foreign intervention in our election should be permanently disqualified from holding office. They have violated their oaths in the most egregious manner possible and cannot be entrusted with power again. Ever.

So, am I out of the norm or not?

How’s it going Mr. Peterson?

It’s a dog eat dog world, Woody and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.

Can I pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson?”

A little early isn’t it, Woody?

For a beer?

No, for stupid questions.

Stonewalls and Paper Trails

Because I like my Guns Hyper-Caffeinated

So basic

Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

A golden spike completes America’s first transcontinental railroad; Nazis burn books in Germany; Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland; Nelson Mandela takes office in S. Africa; U2’s frontman Bono born.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

Bono

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Trade war: Trump raises tariffs on $200bn of Chinese goods

The US has more than doubled tariffs on $200bn (£153.7bn) worth of Chinese products, in a sharp escalation of the countries’ damaging trade war.

Tariffs on affected Chinese goods have risen to 25% from 10%, and Beijing has vowed to retaliate.

China says it “deeply regrets” the move and will have to take “necessary counter-measures.”

It comes as high-level officials from both sides are attempting to salvage a trade deal in Washington.

Only recently, the US and China appeared to be close to ending months of trade tensions.

Tiananmen Square: China steps up curbs on activists for 30th anniversary

Government’s critics say controls are more severe: ‘They know the 30th anniversary means a lot’

Lily Kuo in Beijing

Every year in late May, Hu Jia is taken on a mandatory holiday to Qinhuangdao, a port city almost 200 miles from his home in Beijing. He is accompanied by police on walks in the park or by the sea and is always in view of a minder. Hu returns to the capital only after 4 June, the anniversary of the Chinese government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

Hu, one of China’s most prominent political activists, has been under house arrest for years in part for attempting to commemorate the anniversary of the crackdown, one of the most notorious incidents of state violence against activists in living memory. He still maintains hope that democracy will come to China in his lifetime.

“I won’t change, because this is based on feeling,” he said. “I don’t believe the Chinese Communist party is made of iron. I have never lost faith. I don’t think the power of evil can last for ever. It won’t.”

German government defends planned immigration laws

Angela Merkel’s government presented its long-awaited draft immigration law to the Bundestag — and got plenty of criticism from all political sides in return. Reforms to attract skilled workers aren’t enough for some.

In a heated debate in the Bundestag on Thursday, the German government made the case for its much discussed proposed law governing immigration for skilled workers.

The new proposal, initially agreed upon by Angela Merkel’s Cabinet five months ago, is the government’s response to many years of complaints from a business community increasingly concerned about the lack of qualified IT specialists and engineers in Germany and shortfalls in other vocational professions. The country’s aging population is also desperately in need of health care workers.

Israel lifts Gaza fishing ban as calm returns

Israel lifted a ban on Friday on Palestinian fishing boats putting to sea off Gaza, an Israeli military body said, ending a measure imposed during a deadly flare-up of violence earlier this month.

The measure is seen as a first step in implementing a fragile truce meant to avert a new conflict between the army and Palestinian militants.

“Friday, the Gaza Strip fishing zone is expected to reopen at a range of up to 12 nautical miles,” the Israeli military body responsible for the Palestinian territories, COGAT, said.

Former Xinjiang teacher claims brainwashing and abuse inside mass detention centers

By Matt Rivers and Lily Lee, CNN

Updated 0352 GMT (1152 HKT) May 10, 2019

Did I shout that loud enough? You should be creeped out and afraid, very very afraid, of a Government Old Age pension (Social Security) and subsidized Medical care (Medicare/Medicaid) without which you’d have deal with Mumsey and Pop Pop rattling around at a cost of Thousands, perhaps Hundreds of them, unless you push ’em out to sea on an ice flow or scheme a Cyanide Cocktail.

It’s a bribe to make us go away and not infect you with our old (let me know how that’s working out for you in 20 – 40 years).

Not much wrong with this idea either-

Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez want to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent
By Renae Merle, Washington Post
May 9, 2019

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will introduce legislation on Thursday to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent, a steep reduction from current levels.
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In addition to a 15 percent federal cap on interest rates for credit cards and other consumer loans, states could establish their own lower limits under the legislation. It would also allow the U.S. Postal Service to get into the banking business, including offering savings and checking accounts.

The proposal is sure to meet stiff resistance from the banking industry, which brought in $113 billion in interest and fees from credit cards last year, up 35 percent since 2012, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The 15 percent cap would be the same as the one Congress imposed on credit unions in 1980, Sanders said. (The National Credit Union Administration, the industry’s regulator, raised that cap to 18 percent in 1987 and has repeatedly renewed it at that higher level.)
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The proposal may not get through Congress now but that calculus could change if Democrats gain control of the Senate in 2020, Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with Cowen’s Washington Research Group, said in a research note. “The progressive attack is organized and there are multiple paths for them to achieve victory. It is why we believe this is a risk that is worth monitoring,” he said.

Credit card rates have recently reached a record high, according to Creditcards.com, which has been tracking the data since 2007 and compiles data from 100 popular cards. The median interest rate was 21.36 percent last week, compared with 20.24 percent about a year ago and 12.62 percent about a decade ago, according to the website.

Rates have been rising fastest for those with the lowest credit scores, said Ted Rossman, an industry analyst for Creditcards.com. “Issuers are taking an opportunity to charge people with lesser credit a bit more,” he said.

For borrowers with high credit scores, the average rate was 17.73 percent last week, compared with 16.71 percent a year ago. For those with poor credit scores, the average is now about 24.99 percent, compared with 23.77 percent a year ago.

The difference in the increase is about 20 basis points higher for customers with a low credit score. A basis point is a common way to measure changes in percentages.

“It may not sound like that much, but that is just in one year,” Rossman said. And even small increases in rates can be crippling to a cash-strapped borrower, he said. “It is the ultimate slap in the face when you’re already down.”

A quick reminder- this is money they pay 2.5% to rent from the Federal Reserve and the only reason it’s so damn high is the Fed still believes in the feeble magic of Rate Cuts.

Occasionally I feel you think I have only the single Nobel Prize winning economist up my sleeve.

Pfui. He ain’t even the Liberal one.

A ‘democratic socialist’ agenda is appealing. No wonder Trump attacks it.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Washington Post
May 8, 2019

Through much of this spring, President Trump has made a big deal out of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling themselves democratic socialists. He likens them to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. But no one in the United States is advocating a government takeover of coal mines or oil fields — not Ocasio-Cortez, not Sanders, not anybody.

Now stop. Stop right there. I would except Coal Mines and Oil Fields are great huge liability sinks and you Greedhead Vultures can feast on the the capitalist corpse carcasses.

But I’m not an Academic Economist, I’m a Historian. To continue in a more abstract tone-

Trump is merely engaging in an old-fashioned smear campaign, hoping to turn voters against democratic socialism by conflating ideas.

I prefer another name, “progressive capitalism,” to describe the agenda of curbing the excesses of markets; restoring a balance among markets, government and civil society; and ensuring that all Americans can attain a middle-class life. The term emphasizes that markets with private enterprise are at the core of any successful economy, but it also recognizes that unfettered markets are not efficient, stable or fair.

It is no surprise that the extremes of capitalism and its dysfunction have given rise to questions such as: Can capitalism be saved from itself? Is it inevitable that the materialistic greed that it breeds will lead to ever-increasing pay packages for chief executives? Or that those with money will use their political influence to shape our tax system so that the richest pay proportionately less than everyone else? Progressive capitalism can, I believe, save capitalism from itself — if only we can get the political will behind it.

Research over the past 40 years has explained why markets on their own don’t deliver rising economic benefits for all. Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, recognized how, if unregulated, businesses would conspire against the public interest by raising prices and suppressing wages. Yet he also suggested that at times markets would lead, as if by an invisible hand, to the well-being of society. Now we understand why markets often fail to deliver on their promise and why Smith’s invisible hand often seems invisible: because it simply isn’t there. Modern theories of industrial organization have taught us how firms construct barriers to entry to enhance their market power. Twenty years into this new century, the empirical evidence is overwhelming: There is increasing market concentration in sector after sector, with increasing profits and increasing markups in prices.
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This new breed of American democratic socialists — or call them what you will — is simply advocating a model that embraces government’s important role in social protection and inclusion, environmental protection, and public investment in infrastructure, technology and education. They recognize the public’s regulatory role in preventing corporations from exploiting customers or workers in a multitude of ways, whether it’s through data collection by the new tech companies or excessive risk-taking, as exemplified by banks in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

Of course, while reforms that curb such excesses and make greater investments, for example, in science and technology will increase growth rates in a sustainable way, they will not suffice to restore the middle-class lifestyle increasingly out of reach for large numbers of Americans. That’s why democratic socialists talk about reforms in education (including doing something about the $1.5 trillion of student debt), in housing, in ensuring access to employment for everyone who is able to work, and in retirement programs.

My generation sometimes forgets that the Cold War ended 30 years ago with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those hard-fought, ideological battles are long over. Millennials respond to the label “democratic socialist” in a pragmatic way. They say, if it means ensuring a decent life for all Americans, then we’re for it. If it means ensuring that we have a future — because we work to curb climate change — we’re for that, too.

Some on the right will respond that it’s just a 21st-century version of economic populism. That it’s popular is clear — many of these ideas have the support of a majority of Americans, especially the young. But variants of these ideas are economically feasible — indeed, the kinds of investments and regulations that are being advocated are necessary if we intend to have sustainable shared prosperity.

A key component to the democratic socialist agenda is democracy. Democracy is more than having elections every four years. It includes systems of checks and balances — ensuring that no one, not even a president, has unbridled power — and a deep belief that no one can be above the law. It also includes protections of the rights of minorities, and a Congress and a healthy news media holding everyone to account. But it also embraces fair representation, because a system of voter suppression, gerrymandering and money-dominated politics, where the views of the minority can dominate the majority, is antidemocratic.

Whatever it’s called, it’s an appealing combination. No wonder the president spends so much time issuing slurs against it.

Ahem. He’s not the only one. Populist ideas are popular, Democrats should learn that.

How about some politics from the “golden” age of democracy?