Stephan: America is perhaps the most corrupt developed nation in the world. Few Americans seem to truly comprehend just how corrupt the United States has become since the Citizens United decision that legalized bribery although, of course, the Supreme Court didn't use that word. Everything in government, every law, every regulation, every interpretation of a law or regulation, can be purchased in Congress or the relevant agency to conform with a special interest's desires if you know how to do it, and have enough money. And how convenient, we have a Supreme Court that has no ethical standards.
The U.S. Supreme Court
Conservative donors poured tens of millions of dollars of anonymous “dark money” into groups supporting Republican lawmakers in a supreme court case that could upend American election law.
The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in Moore v Harper, according to a recent analysis. They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority.
Eight conservative groups that submitted amicus briefs in the supreme court case have received close to $90m from dark money donors since 2016, according to Accountable.US, a liberal leaning watchdog group that tracks government corruption.
Robert Reich, Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, - Robert Reich blog
Stephan: Robert Reich nails it. Because profit and greed are our only social priorities we now have a large segment of our economy that produces nothing of value. As a result, from our infrastructure, to our healthcare, our education system, childcare, eldercare, or anything else you choose to name we rank near or at the bottom compared with other developed democracies.
That Donald Trump is now hawking digital trading cards featuring images of himself as a superhero for $99 each tells you all you need to know about Trump and about NFTs.
The recent implosion of Samuel Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto market offers another case in point. Months ago, FTX was huge. Now it’s a hole in the pockets of countless people who had put their money into it. (Until a few week ago, Bankman-Fried was one of the world’s richest people.)
Crypto as a whole is proving to be little more than a giant zero-sum game. Like NFTs, crypto’s current value depends on whether buyers believe future buyers will be even bigger suckers.
A large and growing sector of the U.S. economy produces nothing of value. Nada. Zilch. Every winner comes at the expense of a current or future loser. The only things this “zero-sum” sector produces are many of the nation’s ultra-wealthy. Money moves from one set of pockets into another — mostly upward, into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.
Much of Wall Street is expanding this zero-sum economy. Derivatives, private equity, hedge funds, and funds of […]
Neil Bedi, Sharon Lerner and Kathleen McGrory, - ProPublica
Stephan: In my view, the United States faces three major problems: the first and most defining one is the corruption that arises because we have only one social priority and that is profit and the encouragement of greed. This report is one example of what I mean, and what the blatant corruption in our government has wrought. Second, is the fear of the "other" a particularly weird social affliction since we are a nation of immigrants. There is not a single man, woman, or child in the United States who is not either an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants, and that includes the Native Americans who were the first to immigrate to these shores. Racism and fear of immigrants were baked into the founding of the country, and we are nowhere near accepting that truth. Third, the fear of gender equality, a major issue we share with every other nation in the world, although some, like New Zealand, are finally attempting to accept gender equality and make it a fundamental in their culture.
Asbestos is only one of many toxic substances that are linked to problems like cancers, genetic mutations and fetal harm and that other countries have banned, but the United States has not. That includes substances like hexabromocyclododecane, a flame retardant used in some building materials that can damage fetal development and disrupt thyroid hormones, and trichloroethylene, a toxic industrial degreaser that has contaminated communities, including a whole neighborhood that suffered a string of tragic pediatric cancer cases.
Michal Freedhoff, the head of chemical regulation at the Environmental Protection Agency, concedes to decades of regulatory inaction. She says a chronic lack of funding and staffing, plus roadblocks created by the Trump administration, have hamstrung the agency in recent years. Still, Freedhoff believes in the regulatory system’s ability to protect the public from […]
Stephan: This is a very important exegetic essay on the corruption of the Supreme Court by Thom Hartmann, please read it, and call the Senate’s switchboard tel:202-225-3121, ask for your senator and tell them you want Congress to implement ethical standards for the Supreme Court.
The European Parliament and the US Supreme Court are both ensnarled in major corruption scandals. Each was caused by powerful politicians having no independent legal check on their own behavior.
And on “this side of the pond” Congress needs to act as soon as possible (as are the Europeans).
While news coverage of the EU here in the United States is mostly confined to the rarefied pages of financial and diplomatic publications and “international news” in major papers, the European Parliament is in the midst of a major, multinational bribery scandal.
Numerous members are accused of taking hundreds of thousands of Euros in cash as well as trips and expensive gifts; several have been arrested; and it’s rocking that body and among the biggest buzzes across the European continent.
Here in the United States, the scandal de jour is around a group of wealthy rightwing “Christians” who spent millions to get close to and influence Republican members of the Supreme Court.
RICHARD WIKE, LAURA SILVER, JANELL FETTEROLF, CHRISTINE HUANG, SARAH AUSTIN, LAURA CLANCY AND SNEHA GUBBALA, - Pew Research Center
Stephan: Social media, as this data-based report from Pew Research Center makes clear is fundamentally changing the culture of societies. But not in the same way. Here is the data, and here are the facts. Once again the U.S. is an outlier because as a society we have no sense of ethics, which is why disinformation is such an issue. We are in a fear fugue over truth.
As people across the globe have increasingly turned to Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other platforms to get their news and express their opinions, the sphere of social media has become a new public space for discussing – and often arguing bitterly – about political and social issues. And in the mind of many analysts, social media is one of the major reasons for the declining health of democracy in nations around the world.
However, as a new Pew Research Center survey of 19 advanced economies shows, ordinary citizens see social media as both a constructive and destructive component of political life, and overall most believe it has actually had a positive impact on democracy. Across the countries polled, a median of 57% say social media has been more of a good thing for their democracy, with 35% saying it has been a bad thing.
There are substantial cross-national differences on this question, however, and the United States is a clear outlier: Just 34% of U.S. adults think social media has been good for democracy, while 64% say it […]
