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The Supreme Court After Scalia

Jeffrey Toobin The New Yorker
There has not been a liberal majority of Justices since Nixon was President. If Hillary Clinton is elected, that will change.

The Fight Against Public Lands: Racism Runs Through It

Nate Schweber Narratively
Ammon and Ryan Bundy are presently on trial in federal court for leading the 41-day armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur federal wildlife refuge earlier this year. Among other things, they demanded the government privatize thousands of acres of public lands. While their supporters are quick to separate their anti-public lands crusade from their racist tirades, a historical review finds that in the West, privatization and racial hatred have always been intertwined.

The Clinton-Trump Electoral Map Looks Almost Exactly Like the Obama-Romney Map. How Is That Possible?

Jon Wiener The Nation
These long-term patterns of stability are amplified by the electoral college and its winner-take-all rule. Over the last five or six elections, only a handful of states have shifted parties from one election to the next. And despite campaigns spending hundreds of millions in swing states, most of them swing back to where they were last time. This year it looks like only one or two states will switch parties on election day.

The Perfect Storm, of Logistics

Sergio Bologna il manifesto
The shipping companies have been transporting goods at a loss. They put too many ships into service and they continued to order increasingly larger ships at. The shipyards competed fiercely for the orders and built the ships at bargain prices, although they are technological jewels. With the increase in freight capacity, freight rates plummeted, volumes grew but the income per unit of freight transported decreased. Then, China slowed exports creating the perfect storm.

Why Standing Rock Is a Test for Obama—And All Climate Choices Ahead

Mark Trahant Yes! Magazine
The people who are camped at Standing Rock are giving President Obama the opportunity to show how a managed decline in the use of fossil fuels is possible. And, if done right, inspiring. As the president said, “This gives us the best possible shot to save the one planet we’ve got.”