A federal agency, with access to unlimited tax dollars, descends upon corporations, demanding access to all manner of records to 'discover' a wrong that they can use to extract punitive damages. Has there ever been a better argument for less government?
You show me the corporation, I will find the crime.
(Reminds me of the governmental abuse Trump and associates have undergone, and are still undergoing)
Corporations are breaking the law daily in this country. This social justice activism litigation is a distraction from more important things like tax dodging, influence peddling, consumer defrauding, and anti-trust law violations.
Actually, you don’t know that... if you read this carefully, what Matt uncovered is the govt lawyers slandering and harassing American companies trying to shake them down for sport...
Litigant's mistake was visualizing BILLIONS of dollars falling into their coffers, not correcting any social injustice. I question the whole argument of "discrimination".
"The meaning of DISCRIMINATING is making a distinction".
"showing or indicating careful judgment and discernment especially in matters of taste."
"Synonyms: discerning having or revealing keen insight and good judgment" discriminate marked by the ability to see or make fine distinctions "
Colleges and Universities used take only the best of the applicants on academic qualifications only. Government used to be that way also.
Look what happened to both!
Laws against discrimination are ineffective and don't seem to have a remedy. That's what I glean from Matt' expose. Oriacle, Hewlett-Packard (CEO is Female), Tesla and 230 other businesses moved out of California some were for taxes other for litigation.
The philosophical concept behind this litigation is equity. Any statistical disparity in outcomes between white people and especially white men and any other population must be always and exclusively due to oppression and must end in a huge payday for the doctrinally aggrieved (if not aggrieved in reality) population. Period. No actual discrimination needs to be proven or even alleged.
They're doing that as we speak, with Trump. They have no evidence to charge him so they are petitioning for an invasion of his house to fine whatever they can. Then they want to interrogate him until they find something.
They should have enough evidence of a crime BEFORE they harass him. The court should ask the prosecution what they have right now.
The USA will never resemble other corrupt countries, because of its unique corruption system. In some countries corruption is indeed characterized by no rule of law. In others by bribes to break the rule of law, In the USA, where the laws are made by people elected by corporate money, it’s the rule of law itself to be corrupted. Little of this is the work of “cultural marxists”, whatever one wants that term to denote.
From Matt’s report, I would not conclude that. What emerges from the story is an overzealous group of bureaucrats with an ideologically-driven agenda (always the recipe for disaster, no matter the ideology) whose actions were systematically dismantled by judges belonging to the same government agency, and whose last stand was terminated by the California government.
To me the story raises very important questions of oversight and accountability in giant bureaucratic structures that obviously do not answer to voters, as most of us have not even idea of their existence and role.
It's the old Jefferson v Hamilton argument and they fixed it back then (Hamilton was shot) The people dictate to the government not what Biden is doing - "One World Government", "You will own nothing and be happy".
The executive Branch should not be stroking pay checks for Congressional service. The Congress becomes slaves to the EXECUTIVE.
Hopefully your little tirades made you happier with yourself, even though they had no trace of any substantive argument. Everyone discusses the way he can.
Power structures are illiberal by definition. It is myopic to see it only through the distortion of an ideological lense, especially one so rabidly fundamentalist. The first clamp down on freedoms in recent times was done under Bush jr with the Patriot act and all the crap that followed, supported by both sides. Both sides that kept supporting all the unconstitutional use of it made by the IS. Saying that the whole system is rotten is not whataboutism. Saying that it is rotten only when the malfeasance is done by those you despise is myopic if not purely bad faith.
Now, after this short break, please feel free to resume with your elegiac verses
Mmmhhh, you seem to have some serious irritability problems. Hopefully you keep blood pressure in check. As usual, the recourse to insults does not lend strength to an argument, but only underlines its weakness. And the insults themselves tell way more about their author than their intended target, of whom you know basically nothing.
I read the article, and it was a great investigative work on the excesses of bureaucratic power, which needs to be kept in check, as with every position of power. From here to conclude, as you do, that this is evil incarnated, i.e., in your view, cultural marxists destroying the rule of law in this otherwise chaste-as-a-virgin country there is an abyss. You might want to read Griftopia or The Divide for a start. Or read about mass surveillance, Pentagon budgets, Citizens United, just pick and choose
As the Communist KGB has said "show me the man and I'll find the crime." With these punitive discovery motions they are encouraged to rummage through all manner of corporate documents searching for a crime. All without any predicate for their original targeting. These made up charges based are nothing are but a subterfuge to gain access to everything and anything to find a violation of some bogus statistical twist regarding hiring or pay disparity. Too many Asians or Hispanics? That alone should be a huge red flag that these regulators are acting on their own illegal agenda to confiscate corporate funds for their own purposes. Steal is the word that comes to mind.
I’m for “more” government, I’d say, but one that belongs to us … the collective riff-raff, “left”, “right”, and “center” (whatever the terms mean). I think we can work out areas of disagreement (certainly not totally resolve them, but struggle with/through them, certainly with lots of difficulty) if the institutional structures changed (dramatically reducing influence of money on politics). Not technically difficult, I think. But needs a broad unity placing reform … revolution … as the ultimate priority,
Your position assumes a pretty difficult assumption to prove. That is that "government" in any form is something intrinsically "good." Our founders studied government pretty closely and decided that it was a necessary, but dangerous institution. Like fire it should always be small and controllable.
The bigger and more unaccountable it becomes the less effective and helpful it is to the nation which it is supposed to serve. Just the study of bureaucracy, which always exists within the larger government, would easily determine that it is a cancer like organism that exists to serve itself firstly. Its original mission always becomes subservient to the dynamics of any "living" organism and that is self preservation and growth.
Government bureaucracies are particularly pernicious in that they seem to have an unlimited source of funding and are NEVER held accountable or eliminated for any reason. Like a virus they exist without much purpose or do any overall good for the host that keeps them alive.
Government by its' very nature seems to grow until it topples of its own weight and ever increasing expenses. Then like has been proven over and over it begins the cycle over again and again. History is a harsh taskmaster but is almost never heeded nor learned from. If interested "right" has come to mean smaller government, less expensive and more accountable to the voters. "Center" is a slower growth with more services. "Left" is usually denoted as big, all encompassing and in control of every aspect of s society's means of production and distribution of its' work product. Just a thumbnail sketch but generally understood as. such by American society.
A few years ago we only had 80 Government Welfare Agencies (money distribution centers) now we have 90.
US Welfare Spending Total US government estimated spending for 2022 is $9.10 trillion, including a budgeted $5.85 trillion federal, a " guesstimated " $2.31 trillion state, and a " guesstimated " $2.16 trillion local.
SS, Disability & Medicare $721.89B Total Budgetary Resources for 2022. The 2019 Trustees Report Social Security has a large accumulated surplus.
$721.89B Total Budgetary Resources SSA for 2022.
This was added to the report as WELFARE and always is! Democrats don't know the difference between using tax dollars and Making tax dollars.
If the November mid-terms are any indication of who supposedly supports what political POV we will see what the Biden progressive presidency brings home. I agree that the "old" right were corporate shills. They were on their death beds during Trump and they helped to sink his Administration. He had no small part in his own demise but the old right was a big part of him being so demonized.
But what emerges? RINOs and far left appear to be driving key policy initiatives, e.g. proxy war with Russia at any cost, massive stimulus causing inflation/stagflation, encroachment of state on 1st Amendment, Education, tax policy (let's tax unearned capital gains?) and civil liberties - anyone notice that all cause deaths, even in the young, are now at record highs, following mass covid policies? The cure was actually worse than the disease. The stats are there, plain as day, and the health care industrial complex is yelling, "look, squirrel, get another booster." Shut down baby formula manufacturer and create Soviet like shortages? As a grand parent with a grand daughter who needed that exact formula, I'm wondering, what's next? At the midterm, we get whipsawed into the next set of preening, "public servants?", bought and paid for by the same lobbyists sustaining the R and D parties.
The only hope is to disconnect the money/influence peddling from "public service" - politics should NOT be a career. As if Nancy Pelosi could explain how bitcoin operates so she could "legislate" its future. And the R and D parties have outlives their usefulness.
Right. Though to be fair it's a widely "open-textured" word (Chomsky uses this description a lot). I can see an argument that there's no "good" national government in the world today (one with legitimate authority; also Chomsky).
The "our founders" hagiography is telling, in my view.
As I suppose you may also see it, the US was founded by wealthy land speculators, merchants, and lawyers who were concerned with a very specific kind of "democracy"--namely, protecting themselves against it.
Not that they were not also "great men," nor new manifestations of greed, etc, in the species.
Well, I'm almost 60 and only figured out this much really over the past 8-ish years. (Too well-educated 😢) So I try to listen sympathetically to most people's views. We're going to need each other if humanity's going to last long.
Yep. Me and my two dogs here are a community with a government. (Rather autocratic, they; oppressing me from getting up to work at my computer, tying me to this bed, leeching my body heat.) I plot revolution. Feebly. 😂
I think it may be too late. How do you stop a legislative body that elects and grifts their way to power, rewarded by a system paying for access to power? Elections don't seem to matter.
Undermining elections is a ploy by the "New World Order" and why they proliferated hundreds of thousands PRIVATE mail boxes with no verification and no chain of Custody and no court would take it. As one who heard a SCOTUS member saying, "We don't want to be responsible calling a new election."
IF OR WHEN elections don't matter coupled with chaos in society that is brought on by those same elected officials it can be the beginning of the elements needed for an actual insurrection. Populations only can be pushed so far before they explode into revolt. When elections are negated where else do people turn? With Congresspersons ALL becoming wealthy utilizing their positions for their own personal gain and DOJ doing nothing, people will at times "create" their own JUSTICE. It is often messy and random but inevitable as history has proven over and over.
As long as a society is well fed and relatively secure it will endure a lot of abuse --- until it won't!!
I suppose, all politics are local, perhaps it starts there. Too many are uninvolved. Non presidential elections turn out 20-40%...there is a sense that voting either doesn't matter or won't make a difference. Or, many are too busy to care. There is a definite disconnect.
The collective riff-raff needs a catchy name ... the "Non-Neos"? As in, not a Neocon, not a Neolib, but everyone else. Heh, the "UNeons" (sounds like "onions").
Government can be cut back in some areas, especially defense. And it should be expanded in many areas, such as corporate regulations that make sense (not the kind reported here by Matt). Americans though, who are naive in the extreme about government and most other subjects, think in black and white. Their minds run in one or two grooves, relentlessly, like a stuck needle on a turntable.
Some form of gov't has always been necessary when men have gathered. America though is home to an extreme form of libertarian-ism, exhibited in these comments by one solipsistic fellow who calls everyone names then angrily slaps a hyperlink in his comment. He's got it all figured out.
Libertarian-ism is a thin philosophy that justifies man's animal instinct towards the superiority of power and greed. People who subscribe to it are society's freeloaders and, paradoxically, are closest to early 20th century fascists who followed "scientific" social Darwinism. But as much as they believe fantasies like the righteousness of the free market, in their dotage they come to the gov't for their pension, just like everyone else. But you would never want to be in a foxhole with such a person while the bullets are flying overhead. Libertarian-ism has never in fact seen the light of day in any civilization in history because it's the opposite of government. Perhaps it's an end-stage of civilization. It's as idealistic as "good"anarchy or pure socialism and so is only good for theorizing.
But this is all beside the point. The U.S. has passed the tipping point and "bad" anarchy is now in force. That doesn't mean there are no laws; it means the laws that exist make no moral sense and are unevenly applied. Rip off taxpayers for $10M, a slap on the wrist; get caught with more than an ounce of weed, prison time. Once you see video (never on the "news," which today is corporate propaganda) from typically ungoverned places like South Central, and read stories like this one, it''s clear that the corporations that run the United States are stripping the nation of its last copper wiring before the whole country goes tits up. The time is quickly coming when other nations will listen first to the Chinese, not Americans. Domestically it's corporation vs corporation to the death. There is a real, frenetic violence going on right now, from the nightstick streets to the harshly illuminated boardrooms. The rich don't respect the rule of law, so why should anyone else? The liberal press shows the right's version of anarchy; the conservative press vice versa. If you are a successful capitalist, you won't notice so much insider trading in Congress; you will notice instead someone blatantly shoplifting. And if you are one of capitalism's "losers," vice versa.
No reason to choose sides at this point because there's nothing you can do. You might as well try to empty Lake Superior with a teaspoon.
I wonder if people subscribe to these Substacks to listen or to just restate their beliefs, most of which are historically unfounded and poorly expressed. Young people do this especially; they repeat the same issues over and over and over, and never talk about realistic action to take. It's as if the statement of wrongs accomplishes something; it doesn't; it's virtue signalling to your tribe.
Regardless of the story Matt's written, commenters seem to always find their ways back to some variation of the idea that "America today is Weimar Germany, and liberals are the new Nazis," or other crackpot schemes that fall some way short in credibility of the theories on Ancient Aliens. The aliens ones are far more entertaining, at least.
Substack instead is a way for people to add bricks to the walls of their own belief structures. I suppose a few people have subscribed to writers they disagree with, with the idea that "Maybe I should put a check on my current understanding by hearing opposing viewpoints, no matter how extreme I think they are now." This isn't some question of Maddow vs. Tucker. They represent two teams playing the same sport in the same league. Any video you watch from carnival barkers like them (or the more serious sounding ones like on CNN, etc.) is time wasted. Instead, drift through works of serious literature; fiction, philosophy, personal essays, the whole gamut.
But the average Substack audience member seems to want to promote themselves within the peer groups they favor, and what they favor is based more on their psychology than critical thinking. It's no different than Twitter except that people can bloviate at greater length.
MB - Tell me, do you recall reading any articles about big companies bullying workers that don't have deep pockets. Making them work in humiliating circumstances or risking their lives surrounded by other sick workers during a pandemic.
I think it is telling that the story about the Rich and Powerful getting fleeced has a bunch of people charging to defend them while those same people turn a blind eye when these same companies fleece their employees and us consumers. Don't you agree?
I think probably 80% of the population's financial problems are self created. And most of the people who feel like they are "exploited" by their employer simply don't have very valuable labor.
If you are a barista with a masters in Art History Starbucks isn't "exploiting" you. You simply don't have a lot of options. Society doesn't owe you a way to make a living.
MB - Lets see if i am clear on your thinking here. Over the last 40yrs due to changes in government policy the share of GDP going to the poor and middle class has decreased from 20% of GDP down to 11% of GDP. And at the same time the % of GDP going to the top 1% of Americans has increased from 12% to 20%.
And you think 80% of the populations financial problems are "self created"
What say we take HALF of your income, insist you work just as hard if not harder, and layer in society pressure that tells you you are a loser if you don't live in the right community or drive the right car. Then tell me what the chances are that most people are going to "self create" financial problems.
Blaming the poor for being poor is the oldest trick in the book. It is the propaganda of the rich and it seems you have been swimming in it for quite some time
Another is that computers and a globalized economy have badly hurt the competitiveness and value of US low skill labor. And that while the overall economy is much more productive, it doesn't have much to do with low skill US labor and so its share of the overall pie has shrunk.
But the pie is also much larger overall, so while their share has fallen, actual standard of living has increased.
The US is a very wealthy country in the grand scheme of things, even someone living just above poverty level generally has more than enough income to live a safe comfortable life. But people over spend and expect lifestyles their labor doesn't actually justify.
Its not "blaming the poor for being poor", it is being realistic about the value proposition of low skill labor and the causes of their financial stress. So many people who are on the verge of collapse, and the second they get the car paid off, they get another one.
In terms of "taking income", that is just the wrong perspective. Society doesn't give or take anyone's income. People EARN their income.
You seem to think the economy exists to somehow guarantee everyone a certain lifestyle. That is not what it is there for. The economy is there to distribute goods and services and provide a framework for people to chisel out of life an existence, same way they did 50, 500, and 5000 years ago. If people don't like their results, they need to pursue different strategies.
Now markets aren't perfect, and there are some systemic issues. I absolutely agree with Matt, and Piketty and likely yourself that in some areas the wealthy have over slanted the game, and Wall Street/advertising in particular needs to be reigned in. But viewing people's income as some thing society inflicts on them is just a completely backwards perspective.
MB - It is not "one perspective" It is a stone cold fact.
My perspective is that these people do not consider their quality of life to have increased at all. Quite the opposite their quality of life has materially decreased. Along with declining wages, (relative to the cost of housing in safe areas with good schools, higher education) the end of pension plans, horrific health care costs and horrifying job insecurity relative to past day their quality of life has not increased. Most Americans don't have $800 in their checking account for an emergency. That is not what you call increasing quality of life. The US has declined so far in income mobility we no longer crack the top 30 globally. A Canadian or Danish person born poor is far more likely than a poor American to make it into the top 10%...
The country exists to ensure that all Americans are afforded an equal chance to persue life liberty and persuit happiness. The way we choose the divide GDP is massively important in ensuring that Americans are enabled to do that.
The economy works the way we want it to work. It is a choice. From 1940 to 1980 we had laws in place that resulted in ALL American income groups, seeing similar growth in income year after year after year.
We all had to carve out where we were going to be in that pecking order and some fell and others rose.
Over the last 40yrs the laws have changed and the result has been that those at the top no longer fall based on their own competence. Those at the bottom do not have anywhere near the chance of moving up that they used to. And there is empirical evidence to back all of this, this is not just my opinion.
On top of that Productivity growth has declined, GDP growth has declined and voter participation has declined. Deaths of dispair have increased and we now think nothing of allowing mentally ill Americans to walk the streets homeless and in dispair and somehow we all rationlize it.
The laws have changed and the data is irrefutable. We either change the laws back to where more Americans have a brighter future, the way they did from 1950 to 1980 or we start seeing our Democracy give way to Autocratic rulers that promise the world and of course deliver nothing,.
As Ben Franklin is reported to have said. "Democracy, if you can keep it"
Stop blaming the poor for being poor. That old adage no longer works. The data is irrefutable and if you want me to i am happy to start sharing it with you.
Read the book "The Chickenshit Club". Major corporations have successfully whipped the DOJ for 40 years. Now, blue and red presidents just hire people who used to work for those corporations. The result? The companies get away with almost anything.
Sniggle - Isn't that what we all sign when we sign a "customer agreement". Do you seriously think that the companies making us sign those things (our bank, internet provider, social media provider etc...) are going to lose a case if we sue them. Hell the arbitor in the case usually worked for them at one point.
Funny how the media gets us angry at the government fighting big business on our behalf but when big business gets to be the judge and jury when they screw us the media has very slim reporting on that. Right?
"At a dense 278 pages, it reads like the diary of a man reduced to his last nerve cell of patience, kept going only out of determination to record every detail of his journey toward madness before perhaps jumping out an office window or going limp in front of a BART train."
These bastards are systematically destroying our country. It makes me so sad to see where our country is now. Donald Trump would be a breath of fresh air compared to this fuckery. Barrack Obama set us on this path and that idiot in the white house is nothing more than a wizard for oz. Thank you Matt for your great work
Not here to defend Obama or Biden, just to invite to a deeper analysis of what was actually better when the party we think “closer to us” was in charge. If everyone came up with a list of what was better when the Reps (Dems) were in charge, concentrating on things that really make life easier, we would have a great starting point for discussion.
Hence the need for Independents and the R and D’s looking for the Exit Door to unite, COMPROMISE and form a third party. I’m done with both. I cannot keep jumping around and never see any improvement....
To me both Ds and Rs should be at our service, they should represent the people who gave them their vote. Instead, the way our elections are structured, they serve the interests of the money that filled their campaign coffers. We pay taxes and we get very little back in terms of services for the community. But sure as hell the money to build another aircraft carrier or to rescue the next airline or bank that did not plan for a bad season will never be lacking
It is Congress who is allowing all the corruption and a major part of it because thy are responsible to he who signs their checks which is the Executive. They never represented their state or local district because they never got paid from them.
Like what? Easier for Who? Is Biden leaving the Border open because there will be more people who will vote for an Open Border? More people to vote for Welfare as 63% of non citizens access welfare?
To be specific, I hope you see how these questions you pose do not lead to any discussion. Rhetorical questions make no sense if they have no obvious answers. I assume you know that only US citizens can vote. Are you aware of any plans to award mass citizenship, when congress could not even reach an agreement on dreamers? Can you please provide the link where I can educate myself on those 63% of non-citizens accessing welfare? I'm shocked by such a high number, but of course I don't want to doubt that you did a thorough fact checking on the subject before writing
Easier for the citizen of this country to live their lives. This should be the main role of government. Centuries ago people decided to live in societies because it's more efficient and delegated to "government" the handling of tasks beneficial for the community (buiding and maintaning infrastructures, protecting the community, providing essential services, and so on). I was proposing a change in the dynamics of the discussion: instead of producing the usual negative list of what "the other side" did wrong (which always becomes a non-productive battle o slogans), each one of us should rather come up with a positive list: what "our side" did, when it was in power, that objectively improved the life of the average US citizen. This would lead to a much more fact-based discussion and to the realization, in my opinion, that both lists are surprisingly short.
Government works well on the community level. Big government, everyone falls through the cracks who doesn't have enough money to plug the holes. Negative lists should be addressed like NJ where residents were registered in up to 6 counties and voted in all of them. That's in litigation now, or private ballot boxes where 2,000 ballots were were stuffed by 127 people. Those ballots had to have the name of the person who deposited them on the outside and none had names. This is what they mean by chain of custody.
And that is exactly one of the biggest problems in the way of a productive discourse. While I might agree on the principle, as I believe as well that huge central governments are too invasive of citizens' lives, as long as you keep airing your negative lists, replete with what is, at best, hearsay without any demonstrable factual basis (I am still waiting on the data about that 63% of welfare being used by non-citizens) there is no possibility of reaching an agreement. As long as we prefer to complain about a problem rather than putting in the effort to work out a solution, the problem won't magically disappear. For the joy of the perennial complainers.
If one is against government overreach for example, one cannot pick and choose where one wants government to back off. So one can't be, for example, against mask mandates when imposed by Dems but in favor of the restrictions of freedom mandated by the Patriot Act. Or in favor of the war on drugs: why should givernment dictate what one can and what can't put in one's body? Or in favor of death penalty, because there is no bigger overreach than taking a citizen's life. The mere existence of the possibility of error in executing an innocent should horrify everyone who claims to value freedom. Instead, despite repeated documented errors, there is no widespread condemnation.
Clearly, it is much easier to point out the other side's misdeeds, real or alleged, than to self-analyze to verify whether our beliefs are in line with our stated ideals.
The number of non-citizen households using welfare increased to 70% for those who have lived in the United States for 10 years or more. There are 9,000,000 Birthright Citizens that allow the WHOLE unauthorized family to collect just like a CITIZEN:
Several hospitals, including ones in Stockton (40% Hispanic & Bankrupt), CA and Dallas, TX, report as many as 70% of their deliveries are to nonUS-residents. Similarly, the parents of infant citizens still qualify for welfare in order to protect the children
Immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous trip because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits.
Hahaha are you suggesting the LA Times should pivot from their 24 hour coverage of Dave Chappelle to investigate the governance policies of the fifth largest economy in the world?
Labor Unions that were busted by CHEAP immigrant labor (SCABS).
Construction in Los Angeles has shifted from a heavily unionized labor force that was two-thirds white to a largely non-union one that is 70% Latino and heavily immigrant. American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation. (2014 stats)
Yeah, I don't want to bait you, but please don't put your "foreign invasion" garbage on my comment thread. Gross. Go poop on someone else's front door.
237,000 people a month invading the US. 3,000,000 Unauthorized apprehended since Biden.
That's more unauthorized than Russians invading Ukraine. You're full of it if you think it's not an invasion. an invasion that made our Safety Net into a Trampoline.
I'm leaving California in less than two months. It's going to be like that scene in the last episode of Breaking Bad, when Jesse escapes and drives away in a sort of highway-hypnotic semi-delusional bout of hysterics.
Joking about going to California…. Water… Californians being such clueless elitists should drink “ Smart Water”….it’s an expensive bottled water fortified with minerals… not a fan of Gulagifornia .. their Governor is a corrupt nightmare
This kind of rancid deranged shit is why NOTHING can be done anymore. Between 1952-1960, we built a substantial portion of the Interstate Highway System. THOUSANDS of miles of roads, but NO attorneys were able to stop it. In today's CA, they could not build 1 high speed railroad in 10 years. There is a CO2 pipeline going in the Midwest, which is widely agreed to be a Good Thing. Yet there are hundreds of idiots who have NO EVIDENCE of ANYTHING who are opposing this. We cannot build a petroleum pipeline, even though our society depends on petroleum.
Agreed. We're self-destructing. I'd say the following is why:
- "The judge ... recommended dismissal, chiding the OFCCP for 'reaching its results by making powerful, but unwarranted assumptions' instead of finding 'good reason' to conclude discrimination."
- " 'You had to have something beyond a conviction that enough discovery requests would eventually reveal the bad thing,' is how one attorney put it."
- "The most critical part of this enforcement action is the public airing and discussion of common industry pay practices ..."
It seems nearly everything involving human relations today seems to resolve around telling *stories* (where truth or falseness is irrelevant, and instead BS rules), and telling them specifically for *selfish* gain, whether personal or in-group. Rarely is the public good valued, or even considered, nor even the intent of laws themselves which (ostensibly) are painstakingly hammered out.
The US cannot survive permeated with this kind of manipulation, where everyone is in a hybrid war with everyone else, while doing it so disingenuously that it can hardly be identified and rooted out. As a Leftist, I'm confident this sickness is, at root, what MAGA actually -- and legitimately -- targeted. The judges and officials who tried to arrest this madness should be commended.
And as everyone from journalists, to government regulators, to all manner of woke jihadists, have forgotten -- Discovery comes *before* Assertion.
"The US cannot survive permeated with this kind of manipulation, where everyone is in a hybrid war with everyone else, while doing it so disingenuously that it can hardly be identified and rooted out. As a Leftist, I'm confident this sickness is, at root, what MAGA actually -- and legitimately -- targeted"
Yes. There was a huge political vacuum by 2016, and Trump was the one who filled it. Being a "reality TV star" had/has little to do with his appeal.
Instead of paying workers $20 an hour for tens of thousands thousands of man-hours to build highways, we’re paying lawyers $500 an hour for thousands of man-hours to litigate and lose wasteful suits
Bravo, Matt! Shine a light on these obscure but consequential stories, and you will be doing what the NYT/WaPo/CNN crowd never does anymore (if it ever did). As a California resident, I can hardly wait to read the next part of your investigation/analysis. Stepping back from the details for a moment (and the details are truly revealing!), I would encourage you to do more stories like this which the legacy media is not doing, and less stories critiquing what they are doing, if that makes sense. You are excellent at investigative analysis, so more of that please; leave the smackdowns of big media to others who are less capable of such investigative work. Thank you!
Another great article Matt, you are the man. I love these exposes of judicial fuckness, especially at the federal level, makes it even more delicious if not more terrifying, and if anyone thinks this is going to somehow get any better, just look at what’s coming out of the Ivy League law schools, a wave of social justice Einsatzgruppen. When the smoke clears, the only inhabitants left on earth will be government attorneys and cockroaches, where litigation will begin immediately in a class action against the roaches.
WOKE attorney's have become the new Nazis using the "system" to crush, financially or criminally ANYONE or anything they feel is in the way of their ideology. Shakespeares' admonition about "first kill all the lawyers" was in the past a funny joke. Currently it may be the answer too many of our woe's. Not so funny anyone.
Wake up. The ACTUAL definition of fascist is what the Dem party is. Spend a minute on research before you shit-post up and down Taibbi's comments.
Your out here believing yourself to be telling everyone off, meanwhile the most obvious of truths skitters right past you. You claim to revile the leftists, yet you are still falling hook line and sinker for their projections.
Well, of course "Ultimately, Biden turned right around after entering the White House and reinstalled Herold as the Western region’s chief legal officer for the Department of Labor at the outset of 2021. Moreover, he soon after undid the rule requiring “qualitative” evidence in discrimination cases, seemingly bringing the whole affair full circle. "
The only definable purpose for much Biden admin rule-making is that anything Trump did must be undone post-haste.
The mentality displayed by these attorneys is at the cutting edge of what will be normalized in the future if it's not stopped. The American Bar Association and prestigious law schools throughout the country are embracing social justice activism as a legal ethos in place of the rule of law.
It will not be long before recent graduates make their way into the judiciary. Over time they will take full control and come to endorse these tactics as justified for social justice.
We must immediately regulate the teaching and accreditation of lawyers to prohibit things like compelled diversity statements and all other social justice compulsion tactics.
"We must immediately regulate the teaching and accreditation of lawyers to prohibit things like compelled diversity statements and all other social justice compulsion tactics."
Nope. We'd be just as bad as they are. Just let them hang themselves. Sit back and enjoy the mighty backlash they're going to get.
To many lawyers. To many regulations. We are destroying our own country. Amusing that one company gets cited for not hiring enough Asians while Harvard actively discriminates against Asians. This is a really fucked up country thanks to bipartisan efforts.
I think you've got the wrong target there. I'm guessing that you have a problem with corporations replacing American tech workers with cheaper H1-B visas from abroad. So do I. But my problem isn't with the poor sods who take the opportunity to come over here legally to work. My problem is with the corporate scumbags who do the replacing, and the scumbag politicians they're in bed with who grease the way and enable them to do it.
If you fail to see how the republicans are complicit you are either someone who has been living in middle earth, or someone who would be much better off moving to middle earth.
Creating is not the question. Rather the direction of the tide while one or the other are in power is far more important and consequential. Do we need to debate which way the tide flows when?
Bipartisan for sure. Step back to get the bigger picture and you can discern (A) an interminable scrum for the spoils of electoral politics (B) gleeful dismantling of sensible regulations such as Glass-Steagall (C) slight differences in attitudes toward corporatism that belie a shared basic faith in its benefits for those fortunate few shareholders who can afford to piss away sums the rest of us poor slobs might consider ‘life savings’ or a ‘retirement fund.’
Thanks for the gobblygook response. Count me as one of those fortunate to have a 401k ‘retirement plan’. My index fund investing in corporate America and beyond has been a godsend. It would have been even more prosperous without state sponsored harassment such as Matt describes here. It’s a odious tax on all of us.
I was in the technology industry in California for a long time. I left eight years ago and never looked back. I saw where the state was going and decided it was time to bail. As a bonus, I got to mostly retire early on my house winnings upon moving. California is going in a very bad, quite Marxist direction about a great many things. Companies are leaving because being there is too hard. The problem now is that anyone looking to do mass employment in California won't. It is so risky that getting new operations will not really be possible. If you want your life controlled by the state, by all means go there. Unless you are very rich or quite strange, you will not like it.
You took an exceedingly dry set of cases and made them and the ideas behind them comprehensible and interesting! Thanks.
I am not "anti-government," but I am well aware of the government's power and potential for abuse of that power. After AGs like Holder and Garland and the horrendous abuse of power by the IRS under Lois Lerner, we should all be aware of what the government says and does. Get rid of the Ministry of Truth next.
This reads to me simply as a case of the race hustler shakedown methods we observed beginning in the 1980s being co-opted by the federal government. Use the media to spin up outrage over a fake story, then reap the benefits.
A federal agency, with access to unlimited tax dollars, descends upon corporations, demanding access to all manner of records to 'discover' a wrong that they can use to extract punitive damages. Has there ever been a better argument for less government?
You show me the corporation, I will find the crime.
(Reminds me of the governmental abuse Trump and associates have undergone, and are still undergoing)
Corporations are breaking the law daily in this country. This social justice activism litigation is a distraction from more important things like tax dodging, influence peddling, consumer defrauding, and anti-trust law violations.
Actually, you don’t know that... if you read this carefully, what Matt uncovered is the govt lawyers slandering and harassing American companies trying to shake them down for sport...
AND HUGE SETTLEMENTS instead of first attempting to correct the problem.
Pleading guilty to woke-ist “diversity crime” is like a plea bargain slap on the wrist for truly bad stuff.
Litigant's mistake was visualizing BILLIONS of dollars falling into their coffers, not correcting any social injustice. I question the whole argument of "discrimination".
"The meaning of DISCRIMINATING is making a distinction".
"showing or indicating careful judgment and discernment especially in matters of taste."
"Synonyms: discerning having or revealing keen insight and good judgment" discriminate marked by the ability to see or make fine distinctions "
Colleges and Universities used take only the best of the applicants on academic qualifications only. Government used to be that way also.
Look what happened to both!
Laws against discrimination are ineffective and don't seem to have a remedy. That's what I glean from Matt' expose. Oriacle, Hewlett-Packard (CEO is Female), Tesla and 230 other businesses moved out of California some were for taxes other for litigation.
The philosophical concept behind this litigation is equity. Any statistical disparity in outcomes between white people and especially white men and any other population must be always and exclusively due to oppression and must end in a huge payday for the doctrinally aggrieved (if not aggrieved in reality) population. Period. No actual discrimination needs to be proven or even alleged.
Not to mention, acting as buttbois for the National Security State.
You cannot demand discovery of a crime for which the Government has no proof in the first place. Demand self incrimination much?
They're doing that as we speak, with Trump. They have no evidence to charge him so they are petitioning for an invasion of his house to fine whatever they can. Then they want to interrogate him until they find something.
They should have enough evidence of a crime BEFORE they harass him. The court should ask the prosecution what they have right now.
Equity. Read up on what it means.
Hahahhahahaahaha! That’s rich!
?lobbyists?
The USA will never resemble other corrupt countries, because of its unique corruption system. In some countries corruption is indeed characterized by no rule of law. In others by bribes to break the rule of law, In the USA, where the laws are made by people elected by corporate money, it’s the rule of law itself to be corrupted. Little of this is the work of “cultural marxists”, whatever one wants that term to denote.
“ Little of this is the work of “cultural marxists”, whatever one wants that term to denote.”
In this case, it’s called “the US government”.
From Matt’s report, I would not conclude that. What emerges from the story is an overzealous group of bureaucrats with an ideologically-driven agenda (always the recipe for disaster, no matter the ideology) whose actions were systematically dismantled by judges belonging to the same government agency, and whose last stand was terminated by the California government.
To me the story raises very important questions of oversight and accountability in giant bureaucratic structures that obviously do not answer to voters, as most of us have not even idea of their existence and role.
You just expressed the definition of “cultural marxists”. The Bureaucratic structures ARE the cultural marxists. That's what Biden ran on!
“I’ve never heard about what you’re talking about, so I’m going to assume things instead. “
Thx for link. Interesting article.
Don't hold back!
It's the old Jefferson v Hamilton argument and they fixed it back then (Hamilton was shot) The people dictate to the government not what Biden is doing - "One World Government", "You will own nothing and be happy".
The executive Branch should not be stroking pay checks for Congressional service. The Congress becomes slaves to the EXECUTIVE.
Hopefully your little tirades made you happier with yourself, even though they had no trace of any substantive argument. Everyone discusses the way he can.
Power structures are illiberal by definition. It is myopic to see it only through the distortion of an ideological lense, especially one so rabidly fundamentalist. The first clamp down on freedoms in recent times was done under Bush jr with the Patriot act and all the crap that followed, supported by both sides. Both sides that kept supporting all the unconstitutional use of it made by the IS. Saying that the whole system is rotten is not whataboutism. Saying that it is rotten only when the malfeasance is done by those you despise is myopic if not purely bad faith.
Now, after this short break, please feel free to resume with your elegiac verses
Both sides of Congress are Paid by the Executive Branch. That's how the alleviate the people of their VOICE.
Mmmhhh, you seem to have some serious irritability problems. Hopefully you keep blood pressure in check. As usual, the recourse to insults does not lend strength to an argument, but only underlines its weakness. And the insults themselves tell way more about their author than their intended target, of whom you know basically nothing.
I read the article, and it was a great investigative work on the excesses of bureaucratic power, which needs to be kept in check, as with every position of power. From here to conclude, as you do, that this is evil incarnated, i.e., in your view, cultural marxists destroying the rule of law in this otherwise chaste-as-a-virgin country there is an abyss. You might want to read Griftopia or The Divide for a start. Or read about mass surveillance, Pentagon budgets, Citizens United, just pick and choose
Now that COVID’s over, you should get our more and talk to real people face to face in bars. Bring bandages and a card with your blood type.
I wonder if what I’m feeling now is the same some Chinese felt during their own cultural revolution.
Wild.
As the Communist KGB has said "show me the man and I'll find the crime." With these punitive discovery motions they are encouraged to rummage through all manner of corporate documents searching for a crime. All without any predicate for their original targeting. These made up charges based are nothing are but a subterfuge to gain access to everything and anything to find a violation of some bogus statistical twist regarding hiring or pay disparity. Too many Asians or Hispanics? That alone should be a huge red flag that these regulators are acting on their own illegal agenda to confiscate corporate funds for their own purposes. Steal is the word that comes to mind.
Sounds a lot like what Mr Durham has uncovered re: "russia collusion" yet many still believe the now discredited "story"
I’m for “more” government, I’d say, but one that belongs to us … the collective riff-raff, “left”, “right”, and “center” (whatever the terms mean). I think we can work out areas of disagreement (certainly not totally resolve them, but struggle with/through them, certainly with lots of difficulty) if the institutional structures changed (dramatically reducing influence of money on politics). Not technically difficult, I think. But needs a broad unity placing reform … revolution … as the ultimate priority,
Your position assumes a pretty difficult assumption to prove. That is that "government" in any form is something intrinsically "good." Our founders studied government pretty closely and decided that it was a necessary, but dangerous institution. Like fire it should always be small and controllable.
The bigger and more unaccountable it becomes the less effective and helpful it is to the nation which it is supposed to serve. Just the study of bureaucracy, which always exists within the larger government, would easily determine that it is a cancer like organism that exists to serve itself firstly. Its original mission always becomes subservient to the dynamics of any "living" organism and that is self preservation and growth.
Government bureaucracies are particularly pernicious in that they seem to have an unlimited source of funding and are NEVER held accountable or eliminated for any reason. Like a virus they exist without much purpose or do any overall good for the host that keeps them alive.
Government by its' very nature seems to grow until it topples of its own weight and ever increasing expenses. Then like has been proven over and over it begins the cycle over again and again. History is a harsh taskmaster but is almost never heeded nor learned from. If interested "right" has come to mean smaller government, less expensive and more accountable to the voters. "Center" is a slower growth with more services. "Left" is usually denoted as big, all encompassing and in control of every aspect of s society's means of production and distribution of its' work product. Just a thumbnail sketch but generally understood as. such by American society.
A few years ago we only had 80 Government Welfare Agencies (money distribution centers) now we have 90.
US Welfare Spending Total US government estimated spending for 2022 is $9.10 trillion, including a budgeted $5.85 trillion federal, a " guesstimated " $2.31 trillion state, and a " guesstimated " $2.16 trillion local.
SS, Disability & Medicare $721.89B Total Budgetary Resources for 2022. The 2019 Trustees Report Social Security has a large accumulated surplus.
$721.89B Total Budgetary Resources SSA for 2022.
This was added to the report as WELFARE and always is! Democrats don't know the difference between using tax dollars and Making tax dollars.
If the November mid-terms are any indication of who supposedly supports what political POV we will see what the Biden progressive presidency brings home. I agree that the "old" right were corporate shills. They were on their death beds during Trump and they helped to sink his Administration. He had no small part in his own demise but the old right was a big part of him being so demonized.
But what emerges? RINOs and far left appear to be driving key policy initiatives, e.g. proxy war with Russia at any cost, massive stimulus causing inflation/stagflation, encroachment of state on 1st Amendment, Education, tax policy (let's tax unearned capital gains?) and civil liberties - anyone notice that all cause deaths, even in the young, are now at record highs, following mass covid policies? The cure was actually worse than the disease. The stats are there, plain as day, and the health care industrial complex is yelling, "look, squirrel, get another booster." Shut down baby formula manufacturer and create Soviet like shortages? As a grand parent with a grand daughter who needed that exact formula, I'm wondering, what's next? At the midterm, we get whipsawed into the next set of preening, "public servants?", bought and paid for by the same lobbyists sustaining the R and D parties.
The only hope is to disconnect the money/influence peddling from "public service" - politics should NOT be a career. As if Nancy Pelosi could explain how bitcoin operates so she could "legislate" its future. And the R and D parties have outlives their usefulness.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/334768-here-are-the-66-programs-eliminated-in-trumps-budget/
Most are government departments to oversee.
Grants for Flood Mapping are already done by FEMA.
We already have programs for home ownership yet there were 4 subsequent agencies doing the same thing
OSHA Training Grants. The employer pays for that.
Earmarked Appropriations for Non-Profit Organizations programs (on a political basis as usual)
Office for Education - we already have one.
Then I’d say you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of government.
Right. Though to be fair it's a widely "open-textured" word (Chomsky uses this description a lot). I can see an argument that there's no "good" national government in the world today (one with legitimate authority; also Chomsky).
The "our founders" hagiography is telling, in my view.
As I suppose you may also see it, the US was founded by wealthy land speculators, merchants, and lawyers who were concerned with a very specific kind of "democracy"--namely, protecting themselves against it.
"The purpose of the Senate is to protect the interests of the opulent few from the many (paraphrasing)." --James Madison 1787 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0044
"Those who own the country ought to govern it (paraphrasing)."
--John Jay, first chief justice SCOTUS; Federalist Papers author, yada yada. https://legacyclub.boston/john-jay
Not that they were not also "great men," nor new manifestations of greed, etc, in the species.
Well, I'm almost 60 and only figured out this much really over the past 8-ish years. (Too well-educated 😢) So I try to listen sympathetically to most people's views. We're going to need each other if humanity's going to last long.
Yep. Me and my two dogs here are a community with a government. (Rather autocratic, they; oppressing me from getting up to work at my computer, tying me to this bed, leeching my body heat.) I plot revolution. Feebly. 😂
I think it may be too late. How do you stop a legislative body that elects and grifts their way to power, rewarded by a system paying for access to power? Elections don't seem to matter.
Undermining elections is a ploy by the "New World Order" and why they proliferated hundreds of thousands PRIVATE mail boxes with no verification and no chain of Custody and no court would take it. As one who heard a SCOTUS member saying, "We don't want to be responsible calling a new election."
IF OR WHEN elections don't matter coupled with chaos in society that is brought on by those same elected officials it can be the beginning of the elements needed for an actual insurrection. Populations only can be pushed so far before they explode into revolt. When elections are negated where else do people turn? With Congresspersons ALL becoming wealthy utilizing their positions for their own personal gain and DOJ doing nothing, people will at times "create" their own JUSTICE. It is often messy and random but inevitable as history has proven over and over.
As long as a society is well fed and relatively secure it will endure a lot of abuse --- until it won't!!
An age-old question. Not trying to pose myself as Socrates, but you have any ideas, bad or good, partially formed or stream-of-consciousness?
I suppose, all politics are local, perhaps it starts there. Too many are uninvolved. Non presidential elections turn out 20-40%...there is a sense that voting either doesn't matter or won't make a difference. Or, many are too busy to care. There is a definite disconnect.
The collective riff-raff needs a catchy name ... the "Non-Neos"? As in, not a Neocon, not a Neolib, but everyone else. Heh, the "UNeons" (sounds like "onions").
I still like the term “fucknuts”!!
That's a multi-layered analysis
Love that.
Here's one you'll like:
HASHTAG (Dust) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krkk8eyx-lU&t=11s
Government can be cut back in some areas, especially defense. And it should be expanded in many areas, such as corporate regulations that make sense (not the kind reported here by Matt). Americans though, who are naive in the extreme about government and most other subjects, think in black and white. Their minds run in one or two grooves, relentlessly, like a stuck needle on a turntable.
Some form of gov't has always been necessary when men have gathered. America though is home to an extreme form of libertarian-ism, exhibited in these comments by one solipsistic fellow who calls everyone names then angrily slaps a hyperlink in his comment. He's got it all figured out.
Libertarian-ism is a thin philosophy that justifies man's animal instinct towards the superiority of power and greed. People who subscribe to it are society's freeloaders and, paradoxically, are closest to early 20th century fascists who followed "scientific" social Darwinism. But as much as they believe fantasies like the righteousness of the free market, in their dotage they come to the gov't for their pension, just like everyone else. But you would never want to be in a foxhole with such a person while the bullets are flying overhead. Libertarian-ism has never in fact seen the light of day in any civilization in history because it's the opposite of government. Perhaps it's an end-stage of civilization. It's as idealistic as "good"anarchy or pure socialism and so is only good for theorizing.
But this is all beside the point. The U.S. has passed the tipping point and "bad" anarchy is now in force. That doesn't mean there are no laws; it means the laws that exist make no moral sense and are unevenly applied. Rip off taxpayers for $10M, a slap on the wrist; get caught with more than an ounce of weed, prison time. Once you see video (never on the "news," which today is corporate propaganda) from typically ungoverned places like South Central, and read stories like this one, it''s clear that the corporations that run the United States are stripping the nation of its last copper wiring before the whole country goes tits up. The time is quickly coming when other nations will listen first to the Chinese, not Americans. Domestically it's corporation vs corporation to the death. There is a real, frenetic violence going on right now, from the nightstick streets to the harshly illuminated boardrooms. The rich don't respect the rule of law, so why should anyone else? The liberal press shows the right's version of anarchy; the conservative press vice versa. If you are a successful capitalist, you won't notice so much insider trading in Congress; you will notice instead someone blatantly shoplifting. And if you are one of capitalism's "losers," vice versa.
No reason to choose sides at this point because there's nothing you can do. You might as well try to empty Lake Superior with a teaspoon.
I wonder if people subscribe to these Substacks to listen or to just restate their beliefs, most of which are historically unfounded and poorly expressed. Young people do this especially; they repeat the same issues over and over and over, and never talk about realistic action to take. It's as if the statement of wrongs accomplishes something; it doesn't; it's virtue signalling to your tribe.
Regardless of the story Matt's written, commenters seem to always find their ways back to some variation of the idea that "America today is Weimar Germany, and liberals are the new Nazis," or other crackpot schemes that fall some way short in credibility of the theories on Ancient Aliens. The aliens ones are far more entertaining, at least.
Substack instead is a way for people to add bricks to the walls of their own belief structures. I suppose a few people have subscribed to writers they disagree with, with the idea that "Maybe I should put a check on my current understanding by hearing opposing viewpoints, no matter how extreme I think they are now." This isn't some question of Maddow vs. Tucker. They represent two teams playing the same sport in the same league. Any video you watch from carnival barkers like them (or the more serious sounding ones like on CNN, etc.) is time wasted. Instead, drift through works of serious literature; fiction, philosophy, personal essays, the whole gamut.
But the average Substack audience member seems to want to promote themselves within the peer groups they favor, and what they favor is based more on their psychology than critical thinking. It's no different than Twitter except that people can bloviate at greater length.
>with access to unlimited tax dollars
This type of hyperbole isn't helpful, these actors absolutely do not have access to unlimited dollars, like at all.
But you are correct the people in this affair are clowns who should be disbarred/debarred, and possibly behind bars for abusing their office.
MB - Tell me, do you recall reading any articles about big companies bullying workers that don't have deep pockets. Making them work in humiliating circumstances or risking their lives surrounded by other sick workers during a pandemic.
I think it is telling that the story about the Rich and Powerful getting fleeced has a bunch of people charging to defend them while those same people turn a blind eye when these same companies fleece their employees and us consumers. Don't you agree?
I think probably 80% of the population's financial problems are self created. And most of the people who feel like they are "exploited" by their employer simply don't have very valuable labor.
If you are a barista with a masters in Art History Starbucks isn't "exploiting" you. You simply don't have a lot of options. Society doesn't owe you a way to make a living.
MB - Lets see if i am clear on your thinking here. Over the last 40yrs due to changes in government policy the share of GDP going to the poor and middle class has decreased from 20% of GDP down to 11% of GDP. And at the same time the % of GDP going to the top 1% of Americans has increased from 12% to 20%.
And you think 80% of the populations financial problems are "self created"
What say we take HALF of your income, insist you work just as hard if not harder, and layer in society pressure that tells you you are a loser if you don't live in the right community or drive the right car. Then tell me what the chances are that most people are going to "self create" financial problems.
Blaming the poor for being poor is the oldest trick in the book. It is the propaganda of the rich and it seems you have been swimming in it for quite some time
Well that's one perspective.
Another is that computers and a globalized economy have badly hurt the competitiveness and value of US low skill labor. And that while the overall economy is much more productive, it doesn't have much to do with low skill US labor and so its share of the overall pie has shrunk.
But the pie is also much larger overall, so while their share has fallen, actual standard of living has increased.
The US is a very wealthy country in the grand scheme of things, even someone living just above poverty level generally has more than enough income to live a safe comfortable life. But people over spend and expect lifestyles their labor doesn't actually justify.
Its not "blaming the poor for being poor", it is being realistic about the value proposition of low skill labor and the causes of their financial stress. So many people who are on the verge of collapse, and the second they get the car paid off, they get another one.
In terms of "taking income", that is just the wrong perspective. Society doesn't give or take anyone's income. People EARN their income.
You seem to think the economy exists to somehow guarantee everyone a certain lifestyle. That is not what it is there for. The economy is there to distribute goods and services and provide a framework for people to chisel out of life an existence, same way they did 50, 500, and 5000 years ago. If people don't like their results, they need to pursue different strategies.
Now markets aren't perfect, and there are some systemic issues. I absolutely agree with Matt, and Piketty and likely yourself that in some areas the wealthy have over slanted the game, and Wall Street/advertising in particular needs to be reigned in. But viewing people's income as some thing society inflicts on them is just a completely backwards perspective.
MB - It is not "one perspective" It is a stone cold fact.
My perspective is that these people do not consider their quality of life to have increased at all. Quite the opposite their quality of life has materially decreased. Along with declining wages, (relative to the cost of housing in safe areas with good schools, higher education) the end of pension plans, horrific health care costs and horrifying job insecurity relative to past day their quality of life has not increased. Most Americans don't have $800 in their checking account for an emergency. That is not what you call increasing quality of life. The US has declined so far in income mobility we no longer crack the top 30 globally. A Canadian or Danish person born poor is far more likely than a poor American to make it into the top 10%...
The country exists to ensure that all Americans are afforded an equal chance to persue life liberty and persuit happiness. The way we choose the divide GDP is massively important in ensuring that Americans are enabled to do that.
The economy works the way we want it to work. It is a choice. From 1940 to 1980 we had laws in place that resulted in ALL American income groups, seeing similar growth in income year after year after year.
We all had to carve out where we were going to be in that pecking order and some fell and others rose.
Over the last 40yrs the laws have changed and the result has been that those at the top no longer fall based on their own competence. Those at the bottom do not have anywhere near the chance of moving up that they used to. And there is empirical evidence to back all of this, this is not just my opinion.
On top of that Productivity growth has declined, GDP growth has declined and voter participation has declined. Deaths of dispair have increased and we now think nothing of allowing mentally ill Americans to walk the streets homeless and in dispair and somehow we all rationlize it.
The laws have changed and the data is irrefutable. We either change the laws back to where more Americans have a brighter future, the way they did from 1950 to 1980 or we start seeing our Democracy give way to Autocratic rulers that promise the world and of course deliver nothing,.
As Ben Franklin is reported to have said. "Democracy, if you can keep it"
Stop blaming the poor for being poor. That old adage no longer works. The data is irrefutable and if you want me to i am happy to start sharing it with you.
Read the book "The Chickenshit Club". Major corporations have successfully whipped the DOJ for 40 years. Now, blue and red presidents just hire people who used to work for those corporations. The result? The companies get away with almost anything.
So a bogus charge on one corporation is justified revenge?
Sniggle - Isn't that what we all sign when we sign a "customer agreement". Do you seriously think that the companies making us sign those things (our bank, internet provider, social media provider etc...) are going to lose a case if we sue them. Hell the arbitor in the case usually worked for them at one point.
Funny how the media gets us angry at the government fighting big business on our behalf but when big business gets to be the judge and jury when they screw us the media has very slim reporting on that. Right?
I agree with all of what you said.
"At a dense 278 pages, it reads like the diary of a man reduced to his last nerve cell of patience, kept going only out of determination to record every detail of his journey toward madness before perhaps jumping out an office window or going limp in front of a BART train."
Great writing again from Taibbi.
Edit: Wow part II is up already.
Howard Beale's ghost returns ... or has never really left?
I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
I'm not familiar with him. Guess I have another person to read up on.
Or a movie to see. "Network" ... Peter Finch plays Howard Beale!
I remember now. I was thinking you were referring to a real person.
His name is Howard Beale.
His name is Howard Beale.
His name is Howard Beale.
These bastards are systematically destroying our country. It makes me so sad to see where our country is now. Donald Trump would be a breath of fresh air compared to this fuckery. Barrack Obama set us on this path and that idiot in the white house is nothing more than a wizard for oz. Thank you Matt for your great work
I have never heard the term "f**kery," but you made me laugh.
I think it was Hunter S. Thompson.
I learned it during the DNC’s nefarious Russian hacker story... “ what kind of fucked up fuckery is this? “ 👍👍👍
Been saying it for years. Also twattery douchery, and dickery.
Try: Dickery, douchery, twat.
Not here to defend Obama or Biden, just to invite to a deeper analysis of what was actually better when the party we think “closer to us” was in charge. If everyone came up with a list of what was better when the Reps (Dems) were in charge, concentrating on things that really make life easier, we would have a great starting point for discussion.
Hence the need for Independents and the R and D’s looking for the Exit Door to unite, COMPROMISE and form a third party. I’m done with both. I cannot keep jumping around and never see any improvement....
To me both Ds and Rs should be at our service, they should represent the people who gave them their vote. Instead, the way our elections are structured, they serve the interests of the money that filled their campaign coffers. We pay taxes and we get very little back in terms of services for the community. But sure as hell the money to build another aircraft carrier or to rescue the next airline or bank that did not plan for a bad season will never be lacking
BINGO!!!
It is Congress who is allowing all the corruption and a major part of it because thy are responsible to he who signs their checks which is the Executive. They never represented their state or local district because they never got paid from them.
Like what? Easier for Who? Is Biden leaving the Border open because there will be more people who will vote for an Open Border? More people to vote for Welfare as 63% of non citizens access welfare?
To be specific, I hope you see how these questions you pose do not lead to any discussion. Rhetorical questions make no sense if they have no obvious answers. I assume you know that only US citizens can vote. Are you aware of any plans to award mass citizenship, when congress could not even reach an agreement on dreamers? Can you please provide the link where I can educate myself on those 63% of non-citizens accessing welfare? I'm shocked by such a high number, but of course I don't want to doubt that you did a thorough fact checking on the subject before writing
Easier for the citizen of this country to live their lives. This should be the main role of government. Centuries ago people decided to live in societies because it's more efficient and delegated to "government" the handling of tasks beneficial for the community (buiding and maintaning infrastructures, protecting the community, providing essential services, and so on). I was proposing a change in the dynamics of the discussion: instead of producing the usual negative list of what "the other side" did wrong (which always becomes a non-productive battle o slogans), each one of us should rather come up with a positive list: what "our side" did, when it was in power, that objectively improved the life of the average US citizen. This would lead to a much more fact-based discussion and to the realization, in my opinion, that both lists are surprisingly short.
Government works well on the community level. Big government, everyone falls through the cracks who doesn't have enough money to plug the holes. Negative lists should be addressed like NJ where residents were registered in up to 6 counties and voted in all of them. That's in litigation now, or private ballot boxes where 2,000 ballots were were stuffed by 127 people. Those ballots had to have the name of the person who deposited them on the outside and none had names. This is what they mean by chain of custody.
The more government the less freedom.
And that is exactly one of the biggest problems in the way of a productive discourse. While I might agree on the principle, as I believe as well that huge central governments are too invasive of citizens' lives, as long as you keep airing your negative lists, replete with what is, at best, hearsay without any demonstrable factual basis (I am still waiting on the data about that 63% of welfare being used by non-citizens) there is no possibility of reaching an agreement. As long as we prefer to complain about a problem rather than putting in the effort to work out a solution, the problem won't magically disappear. For the joy of the perennial complainers.
If one is against government overreach for example, one cannot pick and choose where one wants government to back off. So one can't be, for example, against mask mandates when imposed by Dems but in favor of the restrictions of freedom mandated by the Patriot Act. Or in favor of the war on drugs: why should givernment dictate what one can and what can't put in one's body? Or in favor of death penalty, because there is no bigger overreach than taking a citizen's life. The mere existence of the possibility of error in executing an innocent should horrify everyone who claims to value freedom. Instead, despite repeated documented errors, there is no widespread condemnation.
Clearly, it is much easier to point out the other side's misdeeds, real or alleged, than to self-analyze to verify whether our beliefs are in line with our stated ideals.
Totally agree about government OVERREACH especially your examples.
63% of NON citizen Households Access Welfare
https://cis.org/Report/63-NonCitizen-Households-Access-Welfare-Programs
The number of non-citizen households using welfare increased to 70% for those who have lived in the United States for 10 years or more. There are 9,000,000 Birthright Citizens that allow the WHOLE unauthorized family to collect just like a CITIZEN:
Several hospitals, including ones in Stockton (40% Hispanic & Bankrupt), CA and Dallas, TX, report as many as 70% of their deliveries are to nonUS-residents. Similarly, the parents of infant citizens still qualify for welfare in order to protect the children
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-14th_b_1343158
Immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous trip because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits.
https://apnews.com/article/3ef53d48e1544f54b1572d736b1f0852
SOLUTION - Mass Deportation. Think of all the jobs it will generate and all the schools it will save.
Repeal Birth Right Citizenship
Hahaha are you suggesting the LA Times should pivot from their 24 hour coverage of Dave Chappelle to investigate the governance policies of the fifth largest economy in the world?
LA already knows how they destroyed CA:
Labor Unions that were busted by CHEAP immigrant labor (SCABS).
Construction in Los Angeles has shifted from a heavily unionized labor force that was two-thirds white to a largely non-union one that is 70% Latino and heavily immigrant. American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation. (2014 stats)
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-construction-trump/
You don't want to know what the foreign invasion did to their hospitals.
Yeah, I don't want to bait you, but please don't put your "foreign invasion" garbage on my comment thread. Gross. Go poop on someone else's front door.
237,000 people a month invading the US. 3,000,000 Unauthorized apprehended since Biden.
That's more unauthorized than Russians invading Ukraine. You're full of it if you think it's not an invasion. an invasion that made our Safety Net into a Trampoline.
63% of NON citizen Households Access Welfare
https://cis.org/Report/63-NonCitizen-Households-Access-Welfare-Programs
WAKE UP!
I'm leaving California in less than two months. It's going to be like that scene in the last episode of Breaking Bad, when Jesse escapes and drives away in a sort of highway-hypnotic semi-delusional bout of hysterics.
*correction: sure you meant “ $mart water”...
I was being a sarcastic wise ass about California
Joking about going to California…. Water… Californians being such clueless elitists should drink “ Smart Water”….it’s an expensive bottled water fortified with minerals… not a fan of Gulagifornia .. their Governor is a corrupt nightmare
This kind of rancid deranged shit is why NOTHING can be done anymore. Between 1952-1960, we built a substantial portion of the Interstate Highway System. THOUSANDS of miles of roads, but NO attorneys were able to stop it. In today's CA, they could not build 1 high speed railroad in 10 years. There is a CO2 pipeline going in the Midwest, which is widely agreed to be a Good Thing. Yet there are hundreds of idiots who have NO EVIDENCE of ANYTHING who are opposing this. We cannot build a petroleum pipeline, even though our society depends on petroleum.
Agreed. We're self-destructing. I'd say the following is why:
- "The judge ... recommended dismissal, chiding the OFCCP for 'reaching its results by making powerful, but unwarranted assumptions' instead of finding 'good reason' to conclude discrimination."
- " 'You had to have something beyond a conviction that enough discovery requests would eventually reveal the bad thing,' is how one attorney put it."
- "The most critical part of this enforcement action is the public airing and discussion of common industry pay practices ..."
It seems nearly everything involving human relations today seems to resolve around telling *stories* (where truth or falseness is irrelevant, and instead BS rules), and telling them specifically for *selfish* gain, whether personal or in-group. Rarely is the public good valued, or even considered, nor even the intent of laws themselves which (ostensibly) are painstakingly hammered out.
The US cannot survive permeated with this kind of manipulation, where everyone is in a hybrid war with everyone else, while doing it so disingenuously that it can hardly be identified and rooted out. As a Leftist, I'm confident this sickness is, at root, what MAGA actually -- and legitimately -- targeted. The judges and officials who tried to arrest this madness should be commended.
And as everyone from journalists, to government regulators, to all manner of woke jihadists, have forgotten -- Discovery comes *before* Assertion.
"The US cannot survive permeated with this kind of manipulation, where everyone is in a hybrid war with everyone else, while doing it so disingenuously that it can hardly be identified and rooted out. As a Leftist, I'm confident this sickness is, at root, what MAGA actually -- and legitimately -- targeted"
Yes. There was a huge political vacuum by 2016, and Trump was the one who filled it. Being a "reality TV star" had/has little to do with his appeal.
Instead of paying workers $20 an hour for tens of thousands thousands of man-hours to build highways, we’re paying lawyers $500 an hour for thousands of man-hours to litigate and lose wasteful suits
People fail to recognize that politicians are mostly lawyers who create meaningless, high-paying work for their own industry.
Patronage. You see it with fake NGO jobs too.
White persons constituted 88.6% of the total population in 1960. No diversity problem.
"Richer countries more likely to be homogenous." The more ethnically homogeneous the more successful
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
There are African tribes today that trace their ancestors back 6,000 years. There are 3,000 active tribes in Africa today. THEY are successful.
Before Diversity Majority!
Only in Texas? LMAO!
Bravo, Matt! Shine a light on these obscure but consequential stories, and you will be doing what the NYT/WaPo/CNN crowd never does anymore (if it ever did). As a California resident, I can hardly wait to read the next part of your investigation/analysis. Stepping back from the details for a moment (and the details are truly revealing!), I would encourage you to do more stories like this which the legacy media is not doing, and less stories critiquing what they are doing, if that makes sense. You are excellent at investigative analysis, so more of that please; leave the smackdowns of big media to others who are less capable of such investigative work. Thank you!
Screw that. Do both. Brilliance is needed in both cases. Where are your sypaticos??
Another great article Matt, you are the man. I love these exposes of judicial fuckness, especially at the federal level, makes it even more delicious if not more terrifying, and if anyone thinks this is going to somehow get any better, just look at what’s coming out of the Ivy League law schools, a wave of social justice Einsatzgruppen. When the smoke clears, the only inhabitants left on earth will be government attorneys and cockroaches, where litigation will begin immediately in a class action against the roaches.
WOKE attorney's have become the new Nazis using the "system" to crush, financially or criminally ANYONE or anything they feel is in the way of their ideology. Shakespeares' admonition about "first kill all the lawyers" was in the past a funny joke. Currently it may be the answer too many of our woe's. Not so funny anyone.
You made me laugh out loud with your last phrase.
Wake up. The ACTUAL definition of fascist is what the Dem party is. Spend a minute on research before you shit-post up and down Taibbi's comments.
Your out here believing yourself to be telling everyone off, meanwhile the most obvious of truths skitters right past you. You claim to revile the leftists, yet you are still falling hook line and sinker for their projections.
If the last paragraph of this piece does not convince one that this is Obama's third term, nothing ever will.
All being carried out from a Martha’s Vineyard $15 million mansion on a bluff that supposedly should be in the ocean in another ten years. Madness.
I believe their property on Oahu is even closer to sea level
And their DC home is in official Swampland.
Well, of course "Ultimately, Biden turned right around after entering the White House and reinstalled Herold as the Western region’s chief legal officer for the Department of Labor at the outset of 2021. Moreover, he soon after undid the rule requiring “qualitative” evidence in discrimination cases, seemingly bringing the whole affair full circle. "
The only definable purpose for much Biden admin rule-making is that anything Trump did must be undone post-haste.
Amusing and true but sadly he the POTUS not Student Council President…..
The mentality displayed by these attorneys is at the cutting edge of what will be normalized in the future if it's not stopped. The American Bar Association and prestigious law schools throughout the country are embracing social justice activism as a legal ethos in place of the rule of law.
It will not be long before recent graduates make their way into the judiciary. Over time they will take full control and come to endorse these tactics as justified for social justice.
We must immediately regulate the teaching and accreditation of lawyers to prohibit things like compelled diversity statements and all other social justice compulsion tactics.
I agree, but good luck with that. Here in MN, someone has decried the bar exam as "racist". Merit will be undercut in the legal profession as well.
That’s “Minnesota nice” for sure
"We must immediately regulate the teaching and accreditation of lawyers to prohibit things like compelled diversity statements and all other social justice compulsion tactics."
Nope. We'd be just as bad as they are. Just let them hang themselves. Sit back and enjoy the mighty backlash they're going to get.
There was that amazing piece on woke lawyers on Common Sense—Aaron Sibarium, I think? Truly terrifying.
In awe at the work this took and the clarity with which it is presented.
To many lawyers. To many regulations. We are destroying our own country. Amusing that one company gets cited for not hiring enough Asians while Harvard actively discriminates against Asians. This is a really fucked up country thanks to bipartisan efforts.
Too
Most tech companies hire NOTHING BUT ASIAN H-1B SCUM. We need to stop the hiring of H-1B scum.
I think you've got the wrong target there. I'm guessing that you have a problem with corporations replacing American tech workers with cheaper H1-B visas from abroad. So do I. But my problem isn't with the poor sods who take the opportunity to come over here legally to work. My problem is with the corporate scumbags who do the replacing, and the scumbag politicians they're in bed with who grease the way and enable them to do it.
How is it bipartisan?
The Republican section of the uniparty has been complicit in our destruction.
Sorry madjack. You’re going to have to offer more specifics. I fail to see how republicans are complicit in this.
If you fail to see how the republicans are complicit you are either someone who has been living in middle earth, or someone who would be much better off moving to middle earth.
whoa there. there is no OFCCP in the Shire. Sauron was more merciful than to inflict such a thing upon his cohabitees.
I jumped at that one---was like a lightning strike! Take cover! Storm front moving in from the cranky center!
Creating the regulatory state? You think the Democrats did that alone??
This crap is partially a legacy of Tricky Dick Nixon and his regulatory mania.
Creating is not the question. Rather the direction of the tide while one or the other are in power is far more important and consequential. Do we need to debate which way the tide flows when?
No. I would agree the left is worse but I’m not happy with the purported right either
Bipartisan for sure. Step back to get the bigger picture and you can discern (A) an interminable scrum for the spoils of electoral politics (B) gleeful dismantling of sensible regulations such as Glass-Steagall (C) slight differences in attitudes toward corporatism that belie a shared basic faith in its benefits for those fortunate few shareholders who can afford to piss away sums the rest of us poor slobs might consider ‘life savings’ or a ‘retirement fund.’
Thanks for the gobblygook response. Count me as one of those fortunate to have a 401k ‘retirement plan’. My index fund investing in corporate America and beyond has been a godsend. It would have been even more prosperous without state sponsored harassment such as Matt describes here. It’s a odious tax on all of us.
Ok. Glad you’re good. Sorry if you missed my point. Here it is in blunter terms: never trust a pol, even the ones you like.
You’re an amazing journalist, Matt. Looking forward to the next installment.
I was in the technology industry in California for a long time. I left eight years ago and never looked back. I saw where the state was going and decided it was time to bail. As a bonus, I got to mostly retire early on my house winnings upon moving. California is going in a very bad, quite Marxist direction about a great many things. Companies are leaving because being there is too hard. The problem now is that anyone looking to do mass employment in California won't. It is so risky that getting new operations will not really be possible. If you want your life controlled by the state, by all means go there. Unless you are very rich or quite strange, you will not like it.
Ditto For New York
Where do you go if you're neither rich nor strange, don't like California, but get off on being controlled by the state?
Singapore?
You took an exceedingly dry set of cases and made them and the ideas behind them comprehensible and interesting! Thanks.
I am not "anti-government," but I am well aware of the government's power and potential for abuse of that power. After AGs like Holder and Garland and the horrendous abuse of power by the IRS under Lois Lerner, we should all be aware of what the government says and does. Get rid of the Ministry of Truth next.
This reads to me simply as a case of the race hustler shakedown methods we observed beginning in the 1980s being co-opted by the federal government. Use the media to spin up outrage over a fake story, then reap the benefits.