The National Labor Relations Board doing its job isn't a Soviet plot to end capitalism...

Labor Board Rules for Workers, Conservatives Freak Out 

If your boss says, “I’m cutting your hours because you won’t have sex with me,” he’s broken sexual harassment law. If your boss says, “I’m cutting your hours because you’re active with the union,” he’s broken labor law. It’s retaliation, and it’s illegal    

Elizabeth Warren campaign--A poisoned chalice handed her by the Democratic party hackocracy.

I think Yves Smith was dead on yesterday in her comments on the Warren campaign:

As readers probably know, we believe that Warren has decided to drink a poisoned chalice handed her by the Democratic party hackocracy. The notion of a Senate bid was dangled before her as a bright shiny toy to get her to leave the her role as de facto head of the CFPB gracefully. And she is showing Stockholm-syndrome-style loyalty to the people who used her, offered weak to no support as she was abused by Republican Congresscritters and then fired by the Obama Administration.

Having her fight the uphill battle of trying to claim the Scott Brown seat is a no-lose proposition for the party. If she 

wins

, they’ve reversed the embarrassment of losing a Senate seat in a blue state. And if she fails, her bid will have pulled out-of-state, financial services industry dollars into the likely-to-be-a-Republican-win-anyhow Scott Brown race, depriving Republican candidates of funding that might tip other races. Brown has already been soliciting based on the Warren threat even before this announcement.

Warren bears all the 

signs

 of being advised badly. Remember, for them, she is just another fee generating, presentable product in an tough race. It was to their benefit to tell her whatever it took to get her to run. Seasoned local observers said her six week listening campaign didn’t help her prospects; she should have fished or cut bait sooner. Her ties to Harvard are a weak point; elitism plays badly in much of the state. Yet her team is full of operatives who hew from similar backgrounds.

Even with favorable pre-bid media coverage (the Republicans have not yet pulled out their knives in Massachusetts, and she has the tail wind of sympathetic national coverage from her exodus from the CFPB), Brown leads by nine points. Boston Mayor Tom Menino, who controls a substantial voting machine and kneecapped a past progressive gubernatorial candidate, is a Scott Brown fan.

Moreover, her association with the Obama Administration is likely to prove more toxic as the campaign advances. The race for the Anthony Weiner seat is proving how Obama’s devil-take-the-hindmost calculus serves him at the expense of other Democratic candidates. His selling proposition has been reduced to being less awful than the rabid choices on offer from the GOP. That means he can continue to sell out the traditional Democratic base at little apparent cost (although he runs the risk of being defeated by low turnout among supporters-by-default).

By contrast, the disenchantment with Obama’s continued sellout is affecting local races. Even though every district has its own quirks, and New York’s 9th Congressional district is particularly quirky, the special election for Anthony Weiner’s seat is showing Democratic voters to be in a particularly sour mood.(Update 12:40 AM: the election was just called for Republican Bob Turner, at 53% versus 46% for David Weprin, this in a district with a 3:1 Democrat advantage in voter registration). Warren may come to regret her “standing shoulder to shoulder with the President” remark.

But more important than the difficulty of the campaign is whether this is a fight worth fighting. While the Democrats win no matter what, the calculus is vastly less favorable for Warren. She seems to ignore the cost, not just to her, but to her agenda, if she loses. It will be 

easy

 for opponents of banking reform to argue that her inability to win in a liberal state is proof her ideas have thin public support. And if she wins? She seems to be operating on the premise that she can be a celebrity Senator, be appointed to important committees, and have impact out of proportion to her standing as a freshman Senator. The ne plus ultra of celebrity Senators, Hillary Clinton, would seem to disprove that thesis. Hillary had to devote considerable effort to brown nosing her colleagues in order to win acceptance, including getting coffee for the men.

Ultimately, what good is running as a protest candidate for a body like the Senate? A real outsider, socialist Bernie Sanders who has no reason to be loyal to the Democrats, initially was a critical backer of Audit the Fed. He later played a Quisling role by (at Administration behest) proposing that the audit be limited to specific window during the financial crisis. Warren is relying on Democratic party backing; she will be expected to carry the President’s water in the Senate at least a fair portion of the time. That alone is too high a price to pay. Her best hope for independence is if he loses, but she is even less likely to win if Obama is turfed out.

For someone who is such a clear-headed analyst and communicator, Warren’s thinking about her future seems incredibly muddled. I wish her the best, but I do not see any happy outcomes from her decision to run for the Senate.

Rep. Steve King: "You Don't Hand People More Food Stamps And Think It Stimulates The Economy"

Wait, no... no I think you don't but the rest of us looking at the economic data do. 

File under another example of why i'm voting for Romney in the GOP primary

Via TPM; New PPP poll shows Mitt Romney holds a lead over Rick Perry among Republicans who believe Global Warming is real. Unfortunately, only 27% do.

The reality based community in the GOP needs help as they are outnumbered.  Because of that fact, and RomneyCare which is a pretty successful reform that ObamaCare is based off of, i'm going to be voting and involved locally for Romney in the Primary.

Affordable Care Act Reforms Could Reduce the Number of Underinsured U.S. Adults by 70 Percent

New study done by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. 

Hmmm, ObamaCare: improving the lives of millions AND causing upper middle class white nannystate GOP suburbanites with government health care subsidies--do you have employee provided health care?-- go into tantrums about being "forced" to buy health insurance they already buy; thats a double win in my book!

Yes thats the ObamaCare cowritten by Heritage Foundation health care experts, the health insurance industry, and other conservatives in response to the Clinton Health Care Reform efforts; the ObamaCare based off of RomneyCare; yeah that ObamaCare.

ryan harvey ~ tea party - YouTube

Crowd source: Why is Capitalism good?

Taking a Marxism class and I need some help brain storming a critique of Marx's critique of capitalism.   Its 12:22am, i'm tired.  Help a guy out.

Marx and the prediction of single parent households

Karl Marx's critics may fixate on things he got wrong (what social scientist worth their salt doesn't over his career?); but he got a whole lot right about how capitalism would evolve over time.

This line in the Communist Manifesto struck me as foreseeing the rise of single parent households:

On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based?  On capital, on private gain.  In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.  But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among proletarians, and in public prostitution.  

Or am I misreading him here?

Georgia Supreme Court Seeks Olens's Opinion on Atlanta's Secret Vote

Georgia Supreme Court Seeks Olens's Opinion on Atlanta's Secret Vote

As previously covered by APN, at issue is whether the Open Meetings Act requires agencies to list in the minutes who voted against a proposal or abstained in the case of a non-roll call vote.

Councilwoman Felicia Moore (District 9) conducted a vote at lunch at the February 2010 Council Retreat over whether to limit public comment at Committee Meetings, but the minutes do not state who voted which way.

OCGA 50-14-1(e)(2) states that in the case of a non-roll call vote, "It shall be presumed that the action taken was approved by each person in attendance unless the minutes reflect the name of the persons voting against the proposal or abstaining."

Lower courts, including Fulton County Superior Court Judge Christopher Brasher and a Court of Appeals panel, ruled that this section does not require the listing of the names of those voting nay or abstaining, but merely requires citizens to presume the vote is unanimous if the minutes do not list any names.

APN's Editor has argued that the Court should look at the intent of the law, that is, open and transparent government, when interpreting the clause.

Case law states that statutes should be construed in terms of their plain language, unless such a construction leads to an absurd or irrational result.

APN's Editor has argued that it is an absurd or irrational result, that citizens should have to assume a vote is unanimous when the vote is split.

In a recent Appellant's Brief filed by the City of Atlanta on August 22, 2011, the City of Atlanta argued that the vote was not a secret vote because it was taken at an open meeting.

"In an interpretation of the Act allows for the presumption of unanimity in non roll-call votes, where the vote may not have actually been unanimous, would not have the effect of allowing closed-door meetings or secret votes.  This is illustrated by the fact that in this case, the vote at issue was taken in a meeting which was open to the public during which anyone could have witnessed the details of how the City Council voted," the City states in its Brief.

However, this only highlights the absurdity of their interpretation of the statute: If a citizen attends the lunch at the Retreat, they can know who the seven yeas and eight nays are; however, if a citizen reads the minutes, by law they "shall" assume the vote was unanimous.  So, who is right?  The effects of the City of Atlanta's interpretation is to create a Tower of Babel where a fraction of the City believes, under legal mandate, that all fifteen Council Members voted nay, and where another fraction of the City, who witnessed the vote, believes the vote was seven to eight.

The Attorney General's office has stressed in its statements about the case that there clearly is some ambiguity in the way the current statute is written; that case law says that the Open Meetings Act is remedial in nature and should be broadly construed; and that when there are doubts of interpretation regarding a statute, that they should be resolved in favor of openness.

You might be a capitalist if...

I'm still trying to flesh this out in a more substantive way but I think one of the aspects of Marx that is misunderstood by people is what the bourgeoisie vs. proletariat dynamic looks like.  

I think the emphasis--especially in the neoliberal age of financialization--should be put on the different dynamics of the social relations that people have as they go about their day to day lives.

I think a lot of people take the position---"we'll i've got stocks and a 401k.  I'm an investor; I'm a capitalist!" 

Um.  No, you aren't.

A quick rule of thumb.  You might be a capitalist if...  you want to invest in some shares of a bank, so you get your assistant to put in a call to the CEO of Bank of America and he quickly calls you back to make a deal.  

Slate.com No, You Can't Invest Like Warren Buffett: His Bank of America deal is a bargain no ordinary investor could get.