Daily Archives: June 20, 2021

Based on relationship

Last month, I suggested that personal identity has shifted from relationship-based to market-based notions of success and that this shift contributes significantly to our political strife. Today I suggest that this shift has been driven by the political right.

Libertarianism with its emphasis on extreme personal freedom and rugged individualism within the marketplace--raw capitalism, let's call it--has taken over the GOP. This value system leads many to feel undervalued or left out. The schism within the GOP between libertarian/capitalist values and traditional conservatism with its focus on family and community relationships has led directly to Trumpism, which attempts to fill the void by emphasizing class or race as a basis for identity.

Democratic ideals have changed little from those well-articulated by Mario Cuomo in the mid-1990s when he likened society to an extended family stating that we should provide for the education, clothing, feeding, health care and housing of members of our family. One can argue about whether large-scale social programs are effective, but few would argue with the principle of helping others. We used to agree on helping each other and differ on the means to achieve this.

Our biggest threat is not socialism, but elevation of libertarian capitalism to a moral rather than an economic system. This criticism is not anti-capitalist because capitalism thrives best in a society based on traditional moral values of caring.

Religion is not the remedy because those parts of the country with the highest degree of religiosity are those with the highest rate of "deaths of despair": suicide, and deaths from substance abuse, specifically more rural areas. Let's all recommit to relationships and social responsibility as the bedrock of society. These values transcend party.

KATHY CURTIN

Fayetteville

Solve issues together

It seems Republicans have always been opposed to entitlements, yet our governor has stopped the added monthly unemployment benefits to those who need it the most. All in an effort to force people to go back to work for starvation wages so someone can own a hamburger stand, all this when maybe only 30 percent of the people are fully vaccinated.

This is on the governor. This is the very definition of entitlement. What about helping with child care, which is almost impossible to find, or help with transportation, health care, etc.? Work with small-business owners and potential employees. Let's solve these issues together. What would it hurt? I was in the staffing business for 30 years and it's just not this hard.

J.E. JACKSON

Hot Springs Village

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Based on relationship | Solve issues together - Arkansas Online

Getting down to the specifics of these bills, they range from bad to ugly, said Patrick Hedger, vice president of policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which is funded in part by groups connected to the Kochs. Americans for Prosperity, a Koch group, called the antitrust package a jumble of legislative proposals [that] targets American companies [and] treats them as guilty until proven innocent.

The critics are arguing, in part, that the bills are antithetical to GOP values, which traditionally emphasize the free market and oppose regulatory intervention.

These bills represent a huge intervention into the U.S. economy, said Jessica Melugin, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institutes Center for Technology and Innovation, which has received tens of thousands of dollars from Koch foundations in recent years as well as funding from the major tech companies. This is not on-brand for Republicans.

The Houses top Republican, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, weighed in against the legislation on Wednesday, saying it only gives Democrats in the federal government more power to tip the scales. McCarthy, a California lawmaker, has received tens of thousands of dollars from Google, Amazon and Facebook, as well as the Koch Industries PAC, in recent years.

But traditional Republican aversion to meddling in big business saw serious erosion under Trump, whose Justice Department filed a major antitrust suit against Google. The antitrust bills right-leaning supporters say the Koch groups are simply out of touch with a populist GOP base that feels censored and silenced by the tech giants.

The Koch group and all of these pro-big tech people on the right, they do have an advantage, which is inertia, said Jon Schweppe, the director of policy and government affairs at the populist American Principles Project, which has received money from the Mercer family. The Republican Party for a long time has been a party opposed to any antitrust or concern about concentrated power. But the divide here is that the base definitely wants to break up Big Tech.

One sign of the anti-tech messages growing appeal among the GOP caucus: Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, the top Republican on the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, co-sponsored all five of the antitrust bills, along with North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn and Texas Rep. Lance Gooden.

Buck said he believes that the legislative efforts are an extension of his outreach to blue collar voters.

When I go back to my district, I hear a lot of people talk about the fact that what Big Tech doing is wrong, he said. They dont necessarily know they cheated this particular company in this way, but they have this gut feeling that these companies are too big and theyre cheating. So I do think that we will reach out to a broad spectrum [with these bills].

Democrats behind the legislation have welcomed the support from Republicans, seeking to ride the populist wave to garner lasting support for their agenda.

Ultimately, its a fight for the future of the Republican party Trump-style populism vs. traditional conservatism and the Koch network isnt going down without a fight. As soon as the bills were introduced last week, Koch-backed groups including Americans for Prosperity, the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, the Open Competition Center, TechFreedom and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation came out with statements and campaigns condemning the legislation.

Aside from the tech companies themselves, the Koch groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been some of the loudest voices blanketing Capitol Hill urging Republican lawmakers to oppose the legislation, according to two aides familiar with the conversations who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss private conversations. (Many of the groups that receive Koch funding also receive money from Facebook, Google or Amazon.)

I dont think Koch is out on their own on this, said Zach Graves, head of policy at the Lincoln Network, a right-of-center tech advocacy group. I think they have a lot of alignment with relatively powerful industry groups not just tech, but also just general Chamber of Commerce types who dont want to see massive expansion of the antitrust regime and giving big new powers to the [Federal Trade Commission] and DOJ.

Each of the bills has at least one Republican co-sponsor, but the legislation will need more GOP support to push through the Senate. Thats left undecided Republicans in the middle of a tense debate.

For instance, the Heritage Foundation, which is building out its tech policy apparatus, has chosen to stay out of the public conversation for now as it weighs how to thread the needle between taking on Big Tech and maintaining a hands-off approach to government regulation.

As with any other meaningful policy debate, Heritage is carefully looking at the issues inherent to the Big Tech debate in order to come up with policy recommendations that address legitimate concerns about censorship and the growing influence of Big Tech platforms, said John Cooper, the Heritage Foundations associate director for institute communications. To argue that these are issues that dont require some sort of action is simply unrealistic at this point, though its important policymakers act in a way that doesnt give the federal government undue authority that Americans will regret giving to bureaucrats down the road.

Another crucial dynamic is the fact that the Koch network and the Chamber of Commerce, once two of the most important forces in the Republican Party, fell increasingly out of favor with GOP backers during the Trump era. The Koch network alienated a huge swath of formerly devoted Republican followers as its political arm expressed new openness last year to backing Democrats, and the Chamber drew fire for backing several Democrats as well.

The Koch network and Chamber crowd have zero influence right now, said one House Republican aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly. Most of the House Judiciary members and their staff couldnt pick out their people from a police lineup.

But on the other side of the schism, many traditional conservatives and libertarians feel theyre defending the core of their party against Trumps influence. That includes growing GOP calls for a government crackdown on social media companies that they accuse of censoring conservatives, a theme that Trump pressed repeatedly during his time in the White House.

I reject the premise that this is the right is divided, said Berin Szoka, president of the tech- and Koch-funded think tank TechFreedom. People accusing tech companies of censorship, he added, are seeking to compel social media sites to host the most despicable people and content imaginable.

The Democratic-led bills H.R. 3816 (117), H.R. 3825 (117), H.R. 3826 (117), H.R. 3843 (117) and H.R. 3849 (117) dont include prominent anti-tech proposals that Trump and other Republicans had championed, such as stripping or reducing the online industrys protections against lawsuits over user-posted content. But anti-tech activists on the right have made it clear that they support the House antitrust bills in part to punish the major tech companies alleged censorship.

Conservatives are being canceled by Big Tech, we are being kicked off these platforms, we are being silenced and censored, said Mike Davis, founder and president of the right-wing Internet Accountability Project, which receives some funding from Oracle. Conservatives need to pick a side theyre either with everyday Americans or theyre with these Big Tech monopolists and their D.C. lobbyists.

Both sides agree that theres nowhere near as robust of an apparatus on the right for supporting antitrust changes. Whereas a swath of academics and groups on the left have taken up trust-busting as a priority policy area, only a few groups and figures are devoted to the issue on the right.

I think its going to take a new generation of folks, said the House Republican aide.

So far, most Republicans in Congress have not weighed in publicly on the legislation. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the pro-Trump ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee with a more libertarian bent, has been actively whipping against the bills, targeting their Democratic roots.

On the other side, lobbyists for News Corp. and fellow Murdoch-owned company Fox have been working Republican lawmakers to vote in favor, according to two people familiar with the dynamics. And the tech giants themselves some of the biggest lobbying spenders in Washington are caught in the middle.

There is going to continue to be a battle on this, and it parallels the realignment, Schweppe said. The Kochs have always been this more libertarian wing. I dont think thats the main thrust of the party anymore.

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How the Houses Silicon Valley smackdown is dividing conservatives - POLITICO

SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Louis Marinelli, an American political activistand California governor candidate, released a short filmexploring the issue of Vrbetice explosions in the light of the first Biden - Putin meeting.

The film was made in collaboration with Adam Kokesh, a libertarian activist who ran for USA presidency in 2020 and was aimed to present a perspective that is not widespread in the media today and discuss an alternative vision of the explosions in Czech Republic, sanctions against Russia and the current state of international relations prior to Putin - Biden meeting.

In 2014, a series of explosions destroyed an arms depot in the Czech Republic, causing two deaths. At the time, Czech authorities blamed the explosions on human error. But now, in the months leading up to the Biden-Putin meeting set for Geneva, the explosions have resurfaced as a topic of international concern - except now NATO allies and EU members are blaming Russia - and placing sanctions on Russia as a result, even though they lack any direct evidence of Russian involvement.

Louis Marinelli unravels the story and presents an alternative theory - is Europe's renewed interest in the 2014 explosions in Vrbetice really just a pretext to place sanctions on Russia and tarnish Russia's reputation before Putin's meeting with Biden? Or maybe the explosions are simply the result of a rivalry between two arms dealers - Emelian Gebrev, and Boyko Borissov, who, until recently, was also the Prime Minister of Bulgaria?

Additional information:

Louis J. Marinelli(born March 28, 1986) is an Americanpolitical activistof theCalifornia independencemovement organized under theYes CaliforniaIndependence Campaign, an umbrella organization representing the coalition of parties and organizations supporting the proposed California independence referendum. Marinelli is the former president of Yes California and the former interim chairman of theCalifornia National Party, under which he also ran forCalifornia State AssemblyinCalifornia's 80th State Assembly districtrepresenting southSan Diego,National City,Chula Vista,San Ysidro, and the surrounding communities.

Adam Charles Kokesh(born February 1, 1982) is anAmericanlibertarianpoliticalactivist, radio host, and author. Kokesh was a U.S.2020 Libertarian presidential candidaterunning on thesingle-issueplatform of an "orderly dissolution of thefederal government."

Kokesh is a formerU.S. Marine Corpssergeant, serving in theIraq Warin 2004. Upon his return from Iraq, he became ananti-waractivist and an advocate forIraq Veterans Against the War.

Media contact:Louis Marinelli[emailprotected]+79859426240

SOURCE Louis Marinelli

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Louis Marinelli: Is Europe's interest in the 2014 Vrbetice Explosions driven by the Biden-Putin meeting? - PRNewswire

USA TODAY Published 8:00 a.m. ET June 19, 2021

From Joe Biden's meeting with Putin, to a Pulse nightclub shooting, and vaccine passports, here are some of our top columns you may have missed.

In today's fast-paced news environment, it can be hard to keep up. For your weekend reading, we've startedin-case-you-missed-it compilations of some of the week's topUSA TODAY Opinionpieces.As always, thanks for reading, andfor your feedback.

USA TODAY Opinion editors

By Tom Nichols

"It all started in 2019, when in response to an open invitation from a user on Twitter to post ourmost controversial food takes, I decided to bypass all the hatred for mayonnaise and other foods, and to fire off a zinger about the cuisine of an entire subcontinent. 'Indian food,'I said, 'is terrible and we pretend it isnt.'"

By Philip Levine

"Yet when partisan politics get in the way of good intentions, policies and people suffer needlessly.Exhibit A: Florida.First, Gov.Ron DeSantis uses a libertarian, free-market approach to keep the state open while others closed shut.Now hes doing an about-face,dictating rules to ailing cruise companieswho want to set sail swiftly and safely."

By Connie Rice

"To my fellow Americans I have an urgent alarm: Stop distractifying over 'wokeness'and deal with the wolf at the door. Firing folks over 'forbidden'words or views is absurd. Shaming the interracially clueless is counterproductive.But arguing 'wokeness'right now is the strategic equivalent of Titanic musicians debating preludes."

No guns allowed(Photo: USA TODAY Handout)

By Brandon Wolf

"Gunshots endless gunshots filled my ears. I crouched in a dark corner of the bathroom. The smell of blood and smoke singed my nose. Finally, I made a break for the door. I didnt look right; I didnt look left. I just ran. When I dialed Drews number over and over, no one picked up."

ByJon Patricof, Cheri Kempf

"Over the past weeks, softball fans have marked the end of stellar collegiate careers for the likes ofGiselle Juarez, Sis Bates, Dejah Mulipola and Carrie Eberle. But the end of this chapter of their careers marks the start of another one and a chance for fans to continue to follow them:All four were among 12 selected in our first college draft and have been invited to join Athletes Unlimited Softballs second season, which starts this August and will air onCBS Sports Network and Fox Sports."

By The Editorial Board

"If anything, the contrast with Trump's 2018 summit was so stark, it was almost as if roles were reversed. Putin, who spoke to the news media first, complimented Biden as experienced,professional and a man of 'attractive'moral values. 'It seems to me we did speak the same language,'Putin said."

Stop the steal(Photo: USA TODAY Handout)

By Andrea O'Sullivan

"Ransomware attacks happen frequently, but they usually dont shut down gasoline sales on much of the East Coast. These cyberattacks target systems by encrypting or shutting users out from computers until they pay the attackers. Many businesses have had to deal with the headache of ransomware, and it can bemore cost effectiveto just pay the attackers, asColonial Pipeline eventually did."

By Meme Styles

"Like many of their predecessors, 21st century police reform advocates are emotionally intelligent, data driven, socially awareand relentless in the pursuit of justice for all especially those historically and disproportionately impacted by police brutality. Accountability is their armor, and evidence is their driver."

Older vehicles on US roads(Photo: USA TODAY Handout)

By Tim Swarens

"To me, that's sad because coworkers ought be able to share a lunch room without fear of political strife.It's alarming because people will put up with bullying and it is bullying when we're forced into silence to keep the peace for only so long."

By Connie Schultz

"This yard of trees is our map, perhaps, for our grandchildren. It is a story of love and resilience that began with a marriage of second chances and grew into our version of a family tree."

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Joe Biden's meeting with Putin, vaccine passports, nightclub shootings, and other top columns - USA TODAY

Anthony Bland affirms plan to run for governor - Arkansas Times

ANTHONY BLAND

Anthony Bland, a Little Rock teacher and minister, said hell formally announce as a Democratic candidate for governor at 1 p.m. Wednesday in Hot Springs.

He was the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in 2018. (I left lieutenant out of the original post.)

His announcement today said:

Many of The Working Poor feel marginalized within their own communities, Dr. Bland wants to provide them with useful resources and opportunities required to pull themselves out of poverty.

Dr. Bland as Governor will enhance the Education System, improve the Healthcare System, work to reform the Criminal Justice System, and improve the Job opportunities for Arkansans, as you may well be aware that many young adults leave Arkansas for better career and job opportunities elsewhere. It is vital for the growth of Arkansas that we retain our talented young people here in the State Of Arkansas.

Other Democrats whove announced: Chris Jones, Rus Russell and Supha Xaysprasith-Mays. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Leslie Rutledge have announced as Republicans to succeed term-limited Governor Hutchinson. Ricky Dale Harrinton Jr. has said hell be a Libertarian candidate.

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Anthony Bland affirms plan to run for governor - Arkansas Times

From the very beginning, I was among those that said the claims inCalifornia v. Texas were categorically different from those in prior Affordable Care Act cases and would ultimately fail. (My prior posts on this litigation are indexed here.) The question was never whether Texas would lose, but how and when. I further said repeatedly that the claims would be lucky to get two votes on the Supreme Court.

What distinguished the claims inCalifornia v. Texas from the claims inNFIB v. Sebelius andKing v. Burwell was not merely relative weakness of the arguments, but also the lack of any grounding in conservative jurisprudence. The arguments underlying aggressive legal challenges often seem weak at first. If they are to go from "off the wall" to "on the wall" they need to be grounded in sound legal principles. Planted in the fertile soil of an underlying jurisprudence, even apparently outlandish legal arguments may blossom. Legal arguments motivated by nothing more than policy aims, on the other hand, are likely to wither.

The claims in NFIBwere grounded in longstanding concern about maintaining the limits on enumerated powers. The individual mandate and Medicaid expansion both represented unprecedented assertions of federal power, and the arguments against each were directly tied to principled arguments about the need for judicially enforceable limits on federal power. (Some of us here at the VC were involved in developing those arguments, as documented in our book, A Conspiracy Against Obamacare.) Thus the arguments inNFIBwere not merely about the ACA. They were about vindicating a constitutional principle that has long been embraced by conservative and libertarian legal scholars and jurists.

Just as the arguments inNFIB were grounded in a core conservative constitutional principle, the arguments inKing v. Burwell were grounded in a core conservative interpretive principle: that the meaning of a statute is controlled by the statute's text. The idea that words in a statute mean what they mean was not invented for this case. The argument that statutory interpretation must be grounded in and anchored by the statutory text have been made for decades. Moreover, the central arguments in King were developed and advanced before there was even any prospect of litigation. (In my case, I first spoke and published on the meaning of the relevant provisions of the ACA before NFIB had been decided and when it still looked as if every state would create their own exchange.) The arguments were no doubt supported by many who saw them as a means to attack the ACA, but the arguments themselves involved straightforward textualist analysis of the relevant provisions in their broader statutory context. (The Court'sKing opinion, on the other hand, not so much.)

California v. Texas, in contrast toNFIBandKing, was not moored to any underlying jurisprudential principle. IfNFIB was about limited and enumerated powers andKing was about text, California v. Texaswas about what exactly? Hamstringing the legislature's ability to use reconciliation? Turning statutory challenges into games of Jenga? In the end, the case was really about nothing more than slaying the ACA by any means necessary. This explains why it prompted significant opposition on the Right found greater support from state attorneys general than from conservative and libertarian legal scholars (as illustrated by the line-up of amicus briefs). Hating on the ACA may win a Republican primary or fill fundraising coffers, but it's not enough to win over a majority of justices.

Not only were the core legal arguments in California v. Texas unmoored from conservative jurisprudence, key elements of the case actually challenged longstanding conservative principle. As I've explained in prior posts, for the plaintiffs to prevail, the Court would have had to abandon longstanding constraints on Article III standing, adopt selective and result-oriented purposivist analyses of legislative intent, and invent a new approach to severability at odds with any notion of remedial restraint.

All of this meant that the headwinds against the arguments in Calfornia v. Texas were simply too strong to be overcome. To some of us, that this would be so was obvious from the start.

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Why the Texas ACA Suit Was Always Destined to Fail (Even on a 6-3 Court) - Reason

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 16th June, 2021) Joe Biden will likely repair relations with Vladimir Putin at the upcoming summit in Geneva, Gary Dye from the Libertarian Party told Sputnik, adding that the US media will present the American president in a more or less even way to help improve Biden's public image.

"Before the election, the Democratic Party tried to make Russia a great threat and enemy of the United States and it was all political... But now that Biden got elected and the Democrats kind of control the government here, they don't need to consider or say that Russia is this big huge enemy," Dye, who ran for election to the US Senate to represent Oregon, and who is now running for governor of Oregon, said.

He surmises that Biden is trying to bury the hatchet with Putin.

"He had this opportunity to do some bad things against Russia with some of these hackers that seem to be operating within Russia, but Biden didn't do anything. He didn't blame it on Putin. It's all about politics. And I think Biden is going to patch things up," he said.

Dye also believes that the American press is going to be "a little bit more even" while covering the Geneva summit.

"And they're going to try to help that process along and make Biden look like this genius who is able to deal with Russia or peacefully coexist, cooperate. I think it's going to be more of a cooperative press rather than a press that really starts slinging mud at Putin. They want to use this summit to improve Biden's public relations. And make him look like a really smart guy, that other countries like him," the politician continued.

According to Dye, most of the countries in Europe want to get along with Russia, have a "decent amount of trade" and abandon tensions.

"The Ukraine thing disrupted and made it very, very difficult for Western European countries to have decent relations with Russia or to at least not say bad things against Russia," he said.

Putin and Biden are set to face off at Geneva's 18th-century Villa La Grange later on Wednesday.

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Biden Likely to Patch Things Up With Putin at Summit - Libertarian Party - UrduPoint News