Tidbits - July 25, 2019 - Reader Comments: GOP Destroying Democracy; Puerto Rico Rises and WINS; Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson and Colin Kaepernick; Iran; Europe's Right; Citizens United; What to Do When ICE Shows Up; Angela Davis and Black Lawyers; more

Portside
Reader Comments: GOP Destroying Democracy; Puerto Rico Rises and WINS; Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson and Colin Kaepernick; Iran; Europe's Right; Citizens United; What to Do When ICE Shows Up; Angela Davis and Black Lawyers; and more ...

labor

Trumka Calls for New Supreme Court Direction at Yale Law School

Richard Trumka AFL-CIO
Judge Kavanaugh would return workplace law to the 19th century. He would deny working people our most fundamental rights. And that’s exactly why he was nominated. He’s been vetted by the same people who’ve been pulling the strings since Bush v. Gore.

Because Scott Walker Asked . . .

Ed Pilkington and the Guardian US interactive team The Guardian
Leaked court documents from ‘John Doe investigation’ in Wisconsin lay bare pervasive influence of corporate cash on modern US elections

Clinton’s Defense of Big Money Won’t Cut It

Robert Borosage Campaign for America's Future
When Sanders questions Clinton about her funding from Wall Street, her speeches to big banks and other interests that brought her millions personally, and her array of super PACs, she charges Sanders with making “false character attacks.” But the influence of campaign contributions isn’t about character, it is about association, gratitude and access.

The Republican Party's 50-State Solution

By Thomas B. Edsall, Contributing Op-Ed Writer New York Times
Since the early 1970s, the right has conducted a sustained drive to gain power and set policy in the 50 states. The left, by contrast, has been far less effective at the state-level. The sustained determination on the part of the conservative movement has paid off in an unprecedented realignment of power in state governments.

The Political One Percent of the One Percent

Peter Olsen-Phillips, Russ Choma, Sarah Bryner and Doug Web opensecrets.org
Just one hundredth of one percent of people in the United States contributed nearly one third of all the money spent in the 2014 elections, a greater proportion than ever before, according to a new study. In the first full midterm since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the influence of the One Percent of the One Percent continued to grow. Candidates, parties and super PACs depend on the super elite.

books

Court-Sanctioned Corruption and Plutocracy in America

Michael Hirsch The Indypendent, Issue #205
Successive High Court decisions have done more than enfranchise corporations at the expense of the rest of us. The same logic in the same cases now defines public corruption down: that a direct and palpable quid pro quo must be seen to operate. Absent that smoking gun, the financial elite has no limits on bankrolling campaigns whose candidates then vote their interests. To the nation's founders, that untrammeled influence was the essence of public corruption.

Legalized Bribery, Zephyr Teachout on Sheldon Silver, Corruption and New York Politics

Zephyr Teachout New York Times - Op-Ed
Albany is reeling, but fighting the kind of corruption that plagues not only New York State but the whole nation isn’t just about getting cuffs on the right guy. Under current law, campaign contributions are illegal if there is an explicit quid pro quo, and legal if there isn’t. But legal campaign contributions can be as bad as bribes in creating obligations. The corruption that hides in plain sight is the real threat to our democracy.
Subscribe to Citizens United