Intrepid Report: Week of July 17, 2017

Intrepid Report Newsletter
We cannot keep publishing without your help. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate  Monday Why healthcare should be managed as a natural monopoly By Richard John Stapleton In industries in which there is inelastic demand, in industries in which people have to buy a product or service regardless of prices charged, free competition does not work in the best interest of customers. Prices charged are not inexorably driven down by competition to an optimum level for all stakeholders, to the lowest prices that fairly compensate all factors of production in the industry, including a rational return for the owners of capital. Public interest in the communications of ‘the commons’ about to be dealt a fatal blow By Wayne Madsen Ever since the dawn of modern telecommunications, the American public has been guaranteed by law certain inalienable rights. The law that established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Communications Act of 1934, enshrined for all Americans the principle of universal access to communications services. Subsequent laws have expanded universal access from telephones to other services, such as high-speed Internet. There is a particular right of universal access to communications for those living in rural and insular areas, and low-income Americans. The other FCC law that guaranteed Americans the right of access to the communications conduits of the public commons, in this case, the public airwaves, was the Fairness Doctrine of 1949. The doctrine required holders of public broadcast licenses to provide honest, equitable, and balanced views of public importance. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine in order to please the wealthy GOP donors who owned various media conglomerates. Yes, violating certain campaign finance laws is a criminal offense If the documents that Donald Jr. was emailing about are deemed valuable, soliciting them is a criminal offense. A legal expert weighs in. By Ciara Torres-Spelliscy Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s private lawyers, has been making the rounds of radio, and network and cable TV shows trying to put out the fire set by Donald Trump Jr.’s release of emails which confirm that Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who claimed to have compromising material about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race. The 10 steps to impeach a president By Robert Reich It won’t be easy to impeach Donald Trump. No president in American history has ever been convicted on articles of impeachment. Living the American dream in a trailer park Home to some 20 million people—6 percent of Americans—they are the nation’s largest source of unsubsidized affordable housing, offering a shot at the American dream to people who can’t afford a traditional home. By Sara Terry All too often, they’re the butt of jokes and stereotypes—mobile home parks and the “trailer trash” who live in them. Tuesday Identifying the root of our problems By Dave Alpert The environmentalists are fighting their fight, the anti-racists are fighting their fight, those who want universal healthcare are fighting their fight, the anti-imperialists are fighting their fight. I could go on and on but the message should be clear . . . we are divided into pockets of struggle, ignoring the very issue that is the root of all these struggles and around which we should all unite . . . CAPITALISM. New lawsuit aims to stop Trump’s ‘sham commission’ dead in its tracks Suit filed a day after White House releases commenters' personal information in comments that show hatred for voter commission By Andrea Germanos As the White House releases 112 pages of colorful comments—and personal information—after it asked for the public to weigh in on its so-called Election Integrity Commission and received an overwhelmingly negative response, a new lawsuit aims to protect voters’ privacy rights by stopping the controversial commission’s sweeping data demand. A culture war against tolerance By Lawrence Davidson In case you haven’t noticed, the United States is a country deeply divided on a large number of basic issues: racial issues, gender issues, issues of sexual preference, the role of government in society, the role of religious views in shaping laws, and so on. Influential institutions, such as media outlets, are being labeled as “left” or “right” depending on how they report or relate on these issues. Return of Pentagon mercenaries worries US active duty military By Wayne Madsen During the time that U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster were reviewing the U.S. military policy in Afghanistan, The New York Times ran a story on July 10, 2017, that exposed a threat that will upend U.S. defense strategy and return it to a bitter past. Trump bet Americans would like his un-presidential antics. He may be right. Is America one big con game? By Neal Gabler Political pundits have been intoxicated lately by explanations as to why Democrats always seem to be behind the eight ball—never mind that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote; that liberal positions on issues like health care, climate change and income inequality are held by a majority of Americans; or that Republicans are more unpopular. Wednesday ‘The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America’ A Q&A with author Nancy MacLean about the elusive James McGill Buchanan. By Kristin Miller Author Nancy MacLean has unearthed a stealth ideologue of the American right. Her book, “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America,” tells the story of one James McGill Buchanan, a Southern political scientist and father of “public choice economics.” MacLean details how this little-known figure has had a massive impact on the ideology of the far right. None other than Charles Koch looked to MacLean’s theories for inspiration. They are libertarian—but with a twist: bluntly, it “entails restrictions on the freedom of the great majority in order to protect property rights and the prerogatives of the most well off.” MacLean shows how this idea can be traced down through the last 60 years of right-wing politics, starting with Brown v. The Board of Education and continuing with the Koch brothers’ empire. And she demonstrates that those followers and those in thrall to the Koch billions are pumping up their fight under the new administration. Zombies R Us: ‘We the people’ are the walking dead of the American police state By John W. Whitehead RIP George Romero (1940–2017). The Trump standard By Robert Reich What did Trump say when confronted with proof that his son jumped at the prospect of meeting with a “Russian government attorney” offering to dish dirt on Hillary Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support” for his candidacy? On nationalism By Linh Dinh If you like these lyrics, you’re most likely to be young, progressive and/or a Westerner. A video of the song begins with John and Yoko walking through a misty woods towards an elegant mansion. Above the door, there’s a sign, “THERE IS NO HERE,” a clear reference to Thomas More’s Utopia, which literally means “no place.” Whereas More was being satirical, Lennon sang “Imagine” quite earnestly, and his admirers see it as an ideal. Considering how things are going in the West, they feel closer to this goal of having no countries than ever. Borders are bad, and nationalism is just another word for fascism, they believe. That night the lights went out Forty years after the torrid summer of 1977 brought a massive blackout, New Yorkers confront a different kind of powerlessness. By Michael Winship Forty years ago this summer, the lights went out. Thursday Trumpcare has long been with us By Jack Balkwill Watching CNN’S New Day health care exchange Tuesday morning I was ready to explode after Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo traded words. Cuomo pointed out that many Republicans now favor simply doing nothing on health care until Obamacare falls apart, with, perhaps, a push from the president. He then remarked that a great many people would suffer. Yemen: The war that isn’t happening even as it’s happening By Luciana Bohne The manipulation of news and the distortion of reality are the most powerful weapons in the hands of power. They can make a whole reality disappear. This is not a ‘victory’ By Dave Alpert Every two to four years, we the people are given the opportunity to vote. This is our claim to living in a democracy. There’s no ‘free market’ solution to health care A fully privatized system can never adequately provision the nation. By Geoff Coventry The Republicans have big plans for health care in this country: to eliminate coverage for millions of Americans while delivering a big tax cut to the rich. Six-month update for Trump voters By Robert Reich So after six months, has he delivered what he promised you? Friday The ‘deep state’ then and now By Edward Curtin Have you ever seen a photograph of yourself from the past and laughed or grimaced at the way you were dressed or your hair style? It’s a common experience. But few people draw the obvious conclusion about the present: that our present appearance might be equally laughable. The personal past seems to be “over there,” an object to be understood and dissected for its meaning, while the present seems opaque and shape-shifting—or just taken-for-granted okay. “That was then,” says the internal voice, “but I am wiser now.” Historical perspective, even about something as superficial as appearance, rarely illuminates the present, perhaps because it makes us feel ignorant and unfree. The story behind the Jerusalem attack: How Trump and Netanyahu pushed Palestinians into a corner By Ramzy Baroud In early October 2016, Misbah Abu Sbeih left his wife and five children at home and then drove to an Israeli police station in Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. Criminalizing support for BDS By Stephen Lendman BDS activism is vital to demand Israel be held accountable for its longstanding high crimes against millions of Palestinians. America’s Trump, not Trump’s America By Frank Scott Strong words from a brave woman unknown to most Americans because her bravery and boldness didn’t just concern a minority group but all of humanity. She demanded radical change in a system and not just one or another representative to operate that system in a more beneficial way for her group. And the Catholic Worker, the organization she founded and led, operated on behalf of the poorest of Americans while working to both help them and everyone else by advocating and working for radical social change of a system and not just its board of directors. She called a spade a spade, unlike most political leaders of her time and ours. They give euphemism a really bad name and are more likely to identify a spade as a club, hypocrisy as democracy, war as peace, and humans as a market. Don’t trust business with education Greasy politicians use education funds to enrich corporations—and themselves. By Jim Hightower Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick are lucky: They inherited a big chunk of the multi-billion-dollar fortune that Dick’s dad Richard amassed through his shady Amway corporation. But what they’ve done with their Amway money is certainly not the American Way.
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