ISDS – Unconstitutional?

From Naked Capitalism ( Yves Smith):

In November 2015, just after President Obama finally stood up to the fossil fuel industry and rejected the TransCanada Corporation’s application for its tar sands pipeline through the United States, I issued a warning: In The Hill, I applauded the Obama decision and laid out the reasons why, under current trade and investment rules, TransCanada had grounds to sue the United States under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). I hardly need remind readers that NAFTA launched the modern era of corporate-biased investment rules, and serves as the model for the investment chapter in the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) that now awaits votes in the U.S. Congress and in the legislative bodies of the 11 other TPP countries.

Lo and behold, TransCanada came to the same conclusion that I did. They hired a giant corporate “K Street” law firm, Sidley Austin, and in January 2016, the fossil-fuel giant put the U.S. government on notice of a potential lawsuit under the investment chapter of NAFTA.

Can we, the people, file a court based constitutional challenge to the ISDS process entered into by 2 Branches of our Government, which excludes the third branch of our government from it’s purpose, disputes?

I suggest a kickstarter funded challenge to the seeming unconstitutional mechanism. I’ve read there are several, or even many, law professors who believe the mechanism unconstitutional.

I suspect, but do not know, that the limitation on a challenge is funding.

As Bernie has shown, and Kickstarter has proven over and over again, getting individuals to fund a large undertaking is possible.

If we challenge the ISDS process as unconstitutional and win in the US, ISDS probably falls apart worldwide.

Other people from other countries, especially in Europe would probably contribute to a fund to challenge ISDS.

No re-litigating the primary

I post this because I personally disagree with Jay. I may be in “wishful thinking” land in preferring Saunders over Clinton. Pragmatically, I believe Saunders more electable, and can win over Trump, see chart below.

Jay’s view:

When Sanders drops out and endorses Clinton, pragmatic progressives will do the same.

Now for the analysis:

This is a NYT chart, and the point currently being made is: Clinton only wins primaries against Saunders in states she cannot win in a general election.

Discern for oneself what the means in the General election, as my speculation could be taken for an attack on Clinton herself.

However, I’m not yet ready to embrace the theory she will be a better president than Trump, because I personally cannot trust the evidence (what there is) that Clinton will actually not pivot to the Right, so signing TPP and TTIP and TISA. After signatures you can kiss what currently remains of democracy worldwide goodbye – We’ll all be singing to the refrain of “Yes Boss”, or as I leaned the phrase, “Yes Bass” in apartheid South Africa. I perceive good futures on knuckling the forehead, too.

I do believe Trump will become the Republican nominee. I hope Trump would not sign TPP and TTIP and TISA. At least Trump’s said he is against those treaties, which pragmatically is a better position for me to support. As for the Torture and banning Muslims, we’ll have to be Pragmatic: Those memes have to be viewed in the context of of Drones, Wedding Parties, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia and Syria, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile and others (It’s such a burden having goals of Empire and not goals of enlightenment.)

I do believe Trump’s vision of bringing jobs back to the US naive, because after reviewing my 2015 Pre-Tax filing accounting, I find my wife and son’s health insurance premiums to be about $12,000 per year, about the same as the sum of my mortgage interest and property taxes, $13,000. If I were a business manager I’d move business to a country where I can hire two employee’s for the cost of one employee’s health care in the US.

I also believe the pearl-clutching by the Republican establishment is due to their fear of Trump’s (long) enemies list. All the members of which will be purged from their positions of influence (for them that’s death sentence, because they have to retire from the scene and grow roses, and their asses will dry out due to the lack of kisses.)

Which reminds me of the Wagnerian Opera “Schadenfreude, O Schadenfreude…”

Despite U.S. airstrikes, a Somali militia is rising again

WaPo – Somalia’s al-Shabab movement is emerging as one of the most loyal — and lethal — al-Qaeda affiliates, even as the Islamic State expands its reach into the region, according to Western and Somali analysts.

The Somali militants have shown signs of a resurgence, staging deadly attacks and assassinations in recent months, despite the billions of dollars being spent by the United States to fight them. That has prompted the Islamic State to try to woo them away from al-Qaeda, as U.S. and other Western intelligence officials grow increasingly alarmed.

The concern is so great that U.S. warplanes and drones attacked an al-Shabab training camp on Saturday, killing more than 150 fighters, according to the Pentagon. It was the deadliest U.S. strike on the militant group, whose name in Arabic means “the youth,” since it emerged a decade ago with the goal of turning Somalia into a fundamentalist Islamic state.

Al-Qaeda is believed to have provided financing, training and logistical support to the militia. And while there have been some defections to the Islamic State, al-Shabab has shown no visible signs of fragmenting or weakening.

Battered by drop in oil prices and Jindal’s fiscal policies, Louisiana falls into budget crisis

Washington Post, By Chico Harlan, March 4

Baton Rouge, LA — Already, the state of Louisiana had gutted university spending and depleted its rainy-day funds. It had cut 30,000 employees and furloughed others. It had slashed the number of child services staffers, including those devoted to foster family recruitment, and young abuse victims for the first time were spending nights at government offices.

And then, the state’s new governor, John Bel Edwards (D), came on TV and said the worst was yet to come.
Read More

Daily Kos transitions to General Election footing, The Agonist agrees

Markos says, “It does us no good to keep fighting over something that is already determined. People have voted, and the numbers are the numbers. It’s time to move on and focus on what binds us together.”

I am instituting a subset of their announced policies at The Agonist for the rest of the election season:

• No attacks on Hillary Clinton using right-wing tropes or sources. I will delete these, and mindless anti-establishment foolery, at my discretion. They are a waste of time and make the reader dumber.
• Constructive criticism is allowed. We all learn from well-reasoned, well-sourced arguments.
• No re-litigating the primary. When Sanders drops out and endorses Clinton, pragmatic progressives will do the same. We won’t become a refuge for a bitter “should have” crowd.

I appreciate your cooperation in making what’s posted here as truthful and accurate as we humans can muster.

China goes “Minority Report” with Predictive Crime Initiative

“The Communist Party has directed one of the country’s largest state-run defense contractors, China Electronics Technology Group, to develop software to collate data on jobs, hobbies, consumption habits, and other behavior of ordinary citizens to predict terrorist acts before they occur,” reports Bloomberg.

“The program is unprecedented because there are no safeguards from privacy protection laws and minimal pushback from civil liberty advocates and companies, says Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who has advised Google on freedom of expression and the Internet. The project also takes advantage of an existing vast network of neighborhood informants assigned by the Communist Party to monitor everything from family planning violations to unorthodox behavior.”

Of note, “New antiterror laws that went into effect on Jan. 1 allow authorities to gain access to bank accounts, telecommunications, and a national network of surveillance cameras called Skynet.” Sigh.

We reported recently on the media lockdown in China that makes it hard to get a clear picture of how this unfolds on the ground, and on the Creepy Sesame Credit System that will feed data into this new security network. The civil liberties ramifications of this consolidation are enormous.

Effectively administered, this would seem to be the end of free expression in China, mere years after it pecked its first hole in the eggshell. Speaking of holes, re-read your favorite dystopian novels until further details emerge, because we’re not sure how deep this one goes.

Related via The Guardian: China bans depictions of gay people, adultery, one night stands, cleavage and reincarnation on television

Weekend Jukebox

A few days ago, Delmer Berg passed away.
He was the last known veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

To all the politicians and pretend politicians: Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep. Read More

Tax Policy Center confirms Sanders plan is expensive, flawed and unpassable

The Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan project from the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, has posted its analysis of the Sanders tax plan (PDF). Its hefty $15 trillion price tag, a load heavy enough to pay off the national debt by 2036, is just the first of many problems.

Bloomberg quotes the Center’s director: “This is a very ambitious proposal,” Burman said. “Changes of this mag