Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- John Ripton writes about the connection between the egregious concentration of wealth and the rise of fascist politics. And Virginia Heffernan points out how the uber-rich have used their wealth to fund eugenics, while Kristen Toussaint discusses their similar obsession with climate denialism. 

- Meanwhile, Lucas Amin and Peter Geoghegan examine how corporate donations - particularly from companies under the control of extremely wealthy individuals - are distorting UK politics. 

- Jonathan Cohn discusses how the FDA's refusal to even review new vaccines is a threat to health around the globe. And Max Kozlov notes that the Trump regime is scrubbing any suggestion that the U.S.' public health institutions might prepare for or mitigate future disease outbreaks. 

- Charlie Warzel laments the development of nihilist cultures online. But while it's worth pointing out the presence of dangerous actors, Brian Beutler argues that MAGA has never really succeeded in a broad-based culture war.

-  Finally, Duane Bratt makes the case for Alberta to stay in Canada. And Robert Currie points out how there's no legal path to separation through a referendum - though that's exactly why the separatists' collaboration with a Trump regime which operates under a "just try and stop us" mentality is so dangerous and treasonous. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robert Reich talks about the glaring gap between the wealthy elite who are being catered to by the U.S.' economy and the many who are being left behind - and how even businesses are beginning to notice people can't afford to spend the money they count on to make profits:

- Cara Ence Morse and Eric Lau examine how the wealthiest few are distorting American elections, while Dean Baker discusses their cultivation of other conflict (including between generations) to avoid answering for their own class warfare. And Josh Bivens writes that requiring the ultrarich to pay their fair share is a necessary first step in getting back to some semblance of democracy. 

- Meghan Bartels charts the course of carbon pollution and global warming since the signing of the Paris agreement. Jackie Flynn Mogensen and Henry Carnell ponder whether it's possible to achieve global progress in the climate fight when the U.S. and other petrostates are marshaling every available resource to maximize the damage, while Gabriela Calugay-Casuga points out that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is continuing to short the future of humanity by pouring money into dirty investments. And Max Fawcett rightly calls bullshit on any spin about treating fossil gas exports to developing countries as compatible with responsible energy policy, while Jessica Clogg writes that the only product on offer in the Carney/Smith back-of-a-napkin pipeline deal is snake oil. 

- David Roberts interviews Georgia Lagoudas about the obvious room for improvement in indoor air quality practices. And Jenna Banfield reports on a push from dozens of Senators to ban sports betting advertising. 

- Finally, Markham Hislop discusses Danielle Smith's wholescale adoption of exclusionary and corrupt MAGA politics. And Sean Speer offers a warning about the dangers of accepting state-imposed conservative culture. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Trevor Jackson's review of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance cautions against treating deregulation as anything but a cover for increased corporate control, while Bruce Campbell warns of the dangers of the Libs' anti-regulatory posture. Jared Walker and Silas Xuereb point out that Mark Carney's cuts to public services are being chosen over collecting tens of billions of dollars in money being shifted to tax havens.  And Don Curren questions James Galbraith and Jing Chen's attempt to paint entropy as an economic goal to be pursued when it both spurs inequality and rewards Trump-style agents of chaos. 

- Jim Stanford discusses the importance of targeted industrial policy to build an economy that's both less dependent on the U.S., and sustainable past the impending fossil fuel cliff. And Jason Hickel points out how democratic control over production is essential to a transition to solve the climate crisis. 

- Daniel Otis reports on new research showing the disproportionate climate damage done by fossil fuel and industrial corporations. Euronews Green reports on a study showing how even modest changes are threatening Mediterranean ecosystems. Amanda Follett Hosgood and Zoe Yunker discuss a call from scientists to stop fossil gas expansion (even as Carney is determine to barge ahead with it). Daniel Melser, Antonia Settle and Franscesca Perugia point out that the insurance industry has far more detailed information about climate risks than the general public (and is drastically changing its actions as a result). And Kerrie Holloway notes that people already facing displacement from conflict stand to be among the most affected by climate disasters. 

- Finally, Jamelle Bouie writes that the primary culture war being fought by the Trump regime is the U.S. Civil War, as white supremacists seek to undermine the principle that members of outgroups are people entitled to human rights or participation in public life. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Doug Cuthand writes about the desperate need to rein in the climate breakdown due to its impact in causing wildfires among other environmental catastrophes. And Zoe Schlanger warns that the U.S. is now living in an entirely different world from the rest of the planet as the Trump regime censors any mention of climate change or the science behind it.

- Dave Holmes notes that the Trump regime is generally ushering the age of "big stupid", as selective attacks on particular types of intellectualism give way to a general war against knowledge. Dorothy Woodend discusses how Trump is using culture to entrench social and political control, while noting that Canada can play a crucial role in ensuring people can access alternatives to his propaganda. And Gabriel Rojas Hruska points out the importance of maintaining our cultural sovereignty as a matter of policy, rather than signing onto trade agreements which make it subject to the whims of the same corporations who are bending the knee to Trump.

- Garrett Graff writes about the people fleeing the U.S. to get ahead of the tide of rapidly encroaching fascism. Cassandra Burke Robertson points out the elimination of any safeguards in an immigration system where both enforcement agents and state attorneys are operating in secret. And Rachel Gilmore reports on the role a Canadian company is playing in staffing the Trump regime's concentration camps (while also being on contract to perform work for Canada's federal government). 

- Finally, Victor Tangerman notes the manipulative use of artificial intelligence by realtors to present homes as being different than they actually are. And the Center for Countering Digital Hate warns that AI is providing dangerous advice to teens who are particularly vulnerable to suggestion by fake friends.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Owen Schalk writes that there's no need for Canadian leaders to be doormats for the Trump administration. And A.R. Moxon offers some lessons as to how an opposition party and movement should respond in the face of rising fascism - with a willingness to fight being the first step to both achieving substantive results and earning trust. 

- Jonathan Weisman discusses how U.S. Democrats lost enthusiasm among the working class by hoping policy aimed at long-term stability would overcome an immediate sense of precarity and unfairness. Michael Podhorzer notes that the most important difference between the 2020 and 2024 U.S. elections was a collapse in interest among anti-Trump voters. Brian Beutler writes about the need for simple and repeated messages to reach voters - and the danger that corporatism and corruption will run rampant if opposition leaders don't focus attention on them. 

- Meanwhile, Charlie Warzel and Mike Caulfield write about the most important effect of the right-wing information ecosystem, as it serves to rationalize and excuse even what's obviously wrong. Brandi Buchman talks to Michael Fanone about the disillusionment of security officers seeing the leader of a  violent riot returned to office. 

- Amanda Marcotte writes about the role of toxic masculinity in fomenting terrorist violence against inclusivity and equality (currently framed in terms of "woke" culture). Yves Engler discusses how Pierre Poilievre is using the same themes, while at the same time planning to impose far more draconian restrictions on speech than anything he claims to be complaining about. And Olufemi Taiwo highlights the need for solidarity against the divide-and-conquer bullying from the right. 

- Finally, Amos Barshad discusses how buy now, pay later services are creating sustained precarity (particularly among those who are already the most financially vulnerable). Aballah Fayyad weighs in on the value of universal social programs which both reduce administration costs and ensure far greater income security for recipients. Ned Fresnikoff points out that modest income redistribution alone may do little if anything to reduce homelessness if it's not accompanied with action to make more affordable housing available. And Laura Dwyer-Lindgren et al. study the radically different life expectancies among ten distinct groups of Americans based on factors including race, geography and income. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Paul Rogers discusses the imminent threat of more extreme weather events, shortages of the necessities of life and increased division and inequality if the climate crisis is allowed to continue unchecked - while trying to find some hope in more widespread awareness of the dangers we face. Michael Mann writes about the place of the Republicans' Project 2025 as part of the right's attempt to block global climate action. And Patrick Greenfield reports on Susana Mohamed's warning that even meeting our greenhouse gas emission targets is only a small part of the work to be done in restoring our living environment to balance. 

- Meanwhile, Bob Weber reports on the pleas from Alberta municipalities for the UCP to stop allowing the dirty energy industry to extract resources and spew pollution without contributing to its own cleanup costs. 

- Phil Tank discusses how unsafe commercial transport trucks remain the norm in Saskatchewan as commercial transporters have carried on business as usual even after the Humboldt Broncos tragedy. And Gabriela Calugay-Casuga points out that the main demand of the railway workers who have since been deprived of a place at the bargaining table by the federal government is to avoid the type of catastrophes caused by corporate railways' disregard for worker and public safety. 

- Nadia Khan reports on a new Centre for Future Work report showing that racialized workers continue to be underpaid compared to other Canadian workers - but that union organization helps to close the gap. And Lucy Uprichard compares the cultural funding and organizational models in Montreal and Toronto, noting that the corporate-focused version in the latter is leading to the steady erosion of community-level activity. 

- Finally, Sarah Butler reports on the false "discounts" being peddled by big retailers who grossly inflate prices, then demand that consumers hand over personal information in order to access the previous price as part of a membership program. And Jim Stanford points out the gross dishonesty of the Poilievre Cons in peddling selective or outright false information about the state of Canada's economy. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- William Haseltine writes about the long-lasting and severe cognitive effects of long COVID, while Danny Altmann discusses the urgency of developing effective treatment given the reality that vaccines do little to prevent it. Katherine Wu warns that the U.S. is rapidly losing any window to set up a relatively safe summer, while Yasmine Ghania reports on the prospect that Saskatchewan could be in for months of high transmission to come. And Phil Tank rightly criticizes Scott Moe's choice to deprive people of any current information about the spread of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan even as he claims he wants them to manage their own risks. 

- Brigitte Pellerin points out the Libs' failure to live up to their promise of a disability benefit for Canadians even as provincial governments eliminate any pandemic supports or protections. 

- Naveena Sadisavam writes about the IPCC's conclusion that it's not too late to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius if countries live up to their climate commitments immediately. And Mia Rabson discusses the problem with a climate change policy which is designed to allow the largest emitters to pay the least for their carbon pollution. 

- Qi Yang, Mohsen Mosleh, Tauhid Zaman and David Rand study the familiar gripe that Twitter content management is biased against conservatives, and finds instead that content moderation is consistently based on the level of misinformation being shared by users of any political leaning.  

- Meanwhile, Stephen Magusiak discusses how Jason Kenney is trying to import Republican culture wars - including an attack on any recognition of historical or systemic discrimination - into Alberta's curriculum and education system. 

- Finally, David Dayen writes about the risks of making global trade dependent on China's monopoly in shipping container manufacturing. 

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Eric Levitz exposes the unsoundness of the right-wing excuses for allowing the accumulation of obscene wealth. And Toby Sanger weighs on the effect of increased tax rates on extremely wealthy individuals - along with the other policies which need to accompany more progressive taxation:

(T)here isn’t much evidence that raising top income tax rates actually leads to a large out-migrations. Significant differences in income tax rates in the New York City region haven’t led to many people moving to take advantage of lower tax rates, except for those in retirement age. Other lifestyle factors, including the quality of life and public services, tend to be much more important for people, especially for those with higher incomes.

There’s also little convincing evidence that those with top incomes significantly reduce their work efforts in response to higher income tax rates to the degree that it would result in lower revenues.  Instead, most economists agree that by far the largest behavioral response to higher top income tax rates involves tax avoidance (and evasion) by income shifting. When there’s income shifting for tax purposes, the income often shows up in other places, although taxed at a lower rate.

For those with the money and means, this can be achieved in many ways, some legal and others illegal, including by taking advantage by the lower rates of tax for private corporations, lower rates of tax on stock options, capital gains, and investments, use of private family trusts, tax evasion and taking advantage of tax havens.

Canada’s wealthy are already so proficient at using these loopholes and other means to reduce their taxes that the average reported income tax rate on the very top 0.01% is actually lowerthan the income tax rate on the top 0.1%. If we included the offshore and other unreported income of the wealthiest, their tax rates would be even lower still.

What this all means is that there is considerable room to increase top income tax rates, but it must be combined with much more significant actions to eliminate tax loopholes and preferences that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy, by more serious action to crack down on use tax havens and by more aggressive enforcement and penalties against wealthy tax evaders and those who profit from them.

- Francine Kopun reports on a proposal to alleviate Toronto's housing crisis by developing currently-unused properties. And CBC News discusses Daniel Dutton's observation that investment in social supports produces immense returns in the form of reduced health care costs.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Giles, Danyaal Raza and Rupinder Brar remind us why a privatized health care system produces worse outcomes for everybody except profiteers. 

- Mitchell Anderson warns against being distracted by populist theatre by governments working against their citizens in substance.

- Finally, George Monbiot writes that any genuine crisis of masculinity lies in the culture of fear and repression which has caused readily-avoidable harm to men and women alike.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Rick Salutin writes that Ontario's provincial election shows that nobody is prepared to defend neoliberal ideas on their merits - which should provide an opening to start challenging them in practice. And Alice Ollstein examines how Donald Trump's corporate giveaway looks like an unmitigated economic disaster in the making.

- Phillip Inman notes that financial markets are in a similar position to where they were before the 2008 meltdown. And Robert Booth notes that the less-privileged in the UK are already facing as much homelessness and housing insecurity as they did during the most recent crash.

- Meanwhile, Jordan Press reports on a much-needed effort to ensure that lower-income Canadians receive the benefits available to them.

- Kristen Sze reports on California's dramatically-increased wildfire risks arising out of climate change, while Sarah Boseley notes that pollution is undermining the health value of outdoor exercise for people over 60. And Andrea Harden Donohue warns against accepting the premise that we're stuck with pipelines and/or coal.

- Finally, Anne Karpf points out how the most privileged people have managed to silence the real victims of entrenched power structures by feigning victimhood for themselves.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Sally Goemer writes that extreme inequality is a cause of economic instability for everybody. And Tom Powdrill discusses the importance of organized labour in ensuring the fair sharing of income, while Steven Hill points out the harmful effects of precarious work.

- Sheila Regehr and Roderick Benns are hopeful that we're headed toward a basic income in Canada, while Molly McCracken notes that a secure income is the best defence against hunger.

- Tom Parkin observes that the Trudeau Libs have predictably started to ignore the principles and policies they trumpeted to win over progressive voters. And Duncan Cameron points out that the NDP can take on the cause of challenging corporate power as a matter of both egalitarian principle and political opportunity.

- Michael Geist discusses how the Trans-Pacific Partnership will interfere with Canadian cultural policies. And Jim Stanford finds that Canada's bilateral trade deal with South Korea has fallen far short of what was promised - leading to increased imports but decreased exports.

- Finally, Emily Peck comments on the connection between improved paternal leave and greater upward mobility for women in the workplace.

Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Katie McDonough reports on new research showing the devastating effects of poverty on an individual's ability to plan and function:

According to researchers at Harvard University and the University of British Columbia, people living in poverty experience reduced cognitive functioning as a result of regularly wrestling with how to make ends meet. People struggling to get by were found to suffer a drop of as much as 13 points in their IQ, approximately the same difference found in people who go an entire night without sleep.

“Past research has often blamed [poverty] on the personal failings of the poor. They don’t work hard enough; they’re not focused enough,” University of British Columbia professor Jiaying Zhao, who co-authored the study, told the Washington Post. “What we’re arguing is it’s not about the individual. It’s about the situation.”

- Meanwhile, Larry Hubich points out some of the progress Saskatchewan has helped to lead in the past - while lamenting the fact that our current government insists on making life more difficult for workers. And anybody looking for inspiring news about the future of Canada's labour movement will want to tune in to Unifor's founding convention.

- Eric Horowitz discusses how less forceful arguments may be more effective in convincing people who start with an opposing set of assumptions. But I do think it's worth highlighting that any strategy along those lines has to be based on a limited set of circumstances - as the separate goal of building a strong movement with shared goals generally requires motivation based on strong points of agreement.

- Finally, the Cons' latest abuses of power include new rules to prevent international musical acts from performing in Canada, and hiring a new Parliamentary Budget Officer with the explicit intention of serving their own interests rather than the public's.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Kathleen Geier makes the case for greater progressive activism at lower levels of government - and the point applies with equal force in Canada:

(T)hose of us who want to build a more progressive America would be well-advised to pay relatively less attention to presidential races and more attention to politics at the state and local level. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Because state and local races tend to have lower turnout, you get more bang for your activist buck. A relatively small but well-organized and committed group of activists can make a big difference in a low-turnout election. And because local campaigns are cheaper than national ones, your donations can be more powerful. Think about it: to whom was your marginal political dollar worth more in 2012, Barack Obama in his campaign for president, or Wendy Davis in her campaign for the Texas state senate?

2. Mass political movements with the most staying power and popular support often are enacted first at the grassroots level. Only later do they work their way up the political food chain. Case in point: the modern American conservative movement. In the 50s and 60s, conservative activists tended to focus on local issues, such as school board elections, as this and other histories of that movement document. Only after over 20 years of intense activism did the conservatives finally get their dream president, Ronald Reagan.

3. One way to ensure you’ll have strong progressive candidates for national office (the presidency and the U.S. House and Senate) is by electing strong progressive candidates at the state and local level. That’s where those national candidates are recruited from, after all.

- The Washington Post updates how the U.S.' security apparatus collects and compares personal information from a number of websites to carry out online surveillance. And Timothy Ash writes that plenty of familiar IT businesses have been entirely happy to play along with state surveillance requests.

- Meanwhile, leftdog notes that the vulture capitalists are circling SaskTel among other Saskatchewan Crowns.

- Finally, Stephanie Levitz reports on the Cons' deliberate choice to underfund Canadian culture - and it's not for lack of available projects to be funded:

Figures from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration suggest at least $5 million a year hasn't been disbursed since 2007, and the department's marquee funding program has seen nearly 40 per cent of available funds go unused.

So the department is scaling back the amount of money it sets aside for community multiculturalism projects, despite the fact that an internal government audit suggests demand for the cash remains high and that the government itself is partly to blame for the fact it isn't being spent.
...
In 2010-2011, about $14 million was spent under the program to fund 140 projects and events.
But that money represented only 63 per cent of what was set aside, according to documents from the department obtained via the Access to Information Act.

That year, 751 proposals were received, with the total value of requested funds being nine times the available cash, a 2011 audit found.

Though 567 projects were considered eligible, only 39 were recommended to the minister for approval and only 25 per cent were funded.

"The approval process for projects and events was identified by many stakeholders as the single biggest impediment to the effective operation of the program," the audit said.

"The lack of transparency and lengthy timelines associated with this process made it very difficult for program staff to manage their clients or expend their budgets."

But when it came to spending seven figures to rebrand the military based purely on their own whims, the Cons couldn't burn through public money fast enough.