politics

Surprising no one who's been paying attention, it turns out the despite the body scanners, the "gate rape", and the rest of the security theater to which the TSA has subjected us, it remains so easy to get utility knives ("box cutters") on to planes that you can do it by accident. According to the AP, the TSA is sending three screeners at Kennedy airport (in New York) back for remedial training after they let a passenger carry three knives onto a JetBlue flight: "The box cutters fell out of the passenger's carry-on luggage as he was stowing it in an overhead compartment on Flight 837 to Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, on Saturday night, authorities said. Police evacuated the flight and questioned the passenger, who said he used the box cutters for his work and had forgotten to take them out of his bag."

You know what? One guy with a utility knife -- hell, six guys with utility knives -- are no match for a plane full of passengers. In the post-9/11 world where letting attackers take over the pilot's seat is no longer an option, nobody's hijacking a flight with anything sharp and pointy. Can we please get over The Fear, direct our screening efforts at explosives and illegal firearms, and stop harassing people for carrying legitimate tools on their person or in their carry-on?

Over at The Daily Beast, Ezra Klein weighs in on why unions are worth fighting for:

That means higher wages, but it also means that workers can go to their managers with safety concerns or ideas to improve efficiency and know that they’ll not only get a hearing, they’ll be protected from possible reprisals. Second, unions are a powerful, sophisticated player concerned with more than just the next quarter’s profit reports—what economist John Kenneth Galbraith called a “countervailing power” in an economy dominated by large corporations. They participate in shareholder meetings, where they’re focused on things like job quality and resisting outsourcing. They push back on business models that they don’t consider sustainable for their workers or, increasingly, for the environment. In an economy with a tendency toward bigness—where big producers are negotiating with big retailers and big distributors—workers need a big advocate of their own. Finally, unions bring some semblance of balance to the political system. A lot of what happens in politics is, unfortunately, the result of moneyed, organized interests.... One of the few lobbies pushing for the other side is organized labor—and it plays a strikingly broad role. The Civil Rights Act, the weekend, and the Affordable Care Act are all examples of organized labor fighting for laws that benefited not just the unionized.

Despite a previously announced 4 p.m. deadline, the AP reports that Wisconsin Capitol Police police have decided not to forcibly remove protectors from the capital building. As members of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association have joined the demonstrators, this eliminates (for now) the possibility of the spectacle of cops dragging cops out of the building.

Wisconsin, well done.

Things may get very interesting in Wisconsin over the next 24 hours or so.

Wire reports say that Wisconsin police plan to clear protesters out of the Wisconsin Capitol on Sunday at 4 p.m. In the words of one protest organizer, "I'm pretty sure there will be people unwilling to leave the building on their own two feet."

The president of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association (WLEA)'s executive board, Tracy Fuller, says that police would "absolutely" carry out any order given to them, even using force against peaceful protesters, whether they agree or disagree policies being protested.

The very very interesting part comes from the fact that some of those protesters are cops. The Wisconsin Professional Police Association (WPPA)'s Executive Director, Jim Palmer, has requested members from across the state to come to the Capitol and join the occupation. "Law enforcement officers know the difference between right and wrong, and Governor Walker’s attempt to eliminate the collective voice of Wisconsin’s devoted public employees is wrong...That is why we have stood with our fellow employees each day and why we will be sleeping among them tonight."

According to Ryan Harvey, yesterday "Hundreds of cops have just marched through the center of the capitol to show solidarity. Massive applause. So much for the 4 pm deadline." Rainforest Action Network's "The Understory" has more info and video of a police union spokesman rallying protestors.

USAToday reports that today, hundreds of off-duty officers and deputies joined protests against Walker's attempt to strip unions of collective bargaining rights.

(Background on Walker and his billionaire backers, the Kochs, attempt to kill unions here.)

So what's going to happen if the order comes down to clear the protesters? Will pro-union cops try to talk other pro-union protesters into walking away? Will "I was only following orders" cops drag fellow LEOs out of the building?

What happens tomorrow at 4 p.m. in Madison may determine America's future.

If you haven't been following developments in Wisconsin, this article at Mother Jones will get you up to speed. But to recap: the first thing you need to know is that Scott Walker, the state's newly elected governor, is in the pocket of the Koch Brothers. (And this is not a new revelation, it came out during the campaign.)

If you've been asleep for the past year or so, the Kochs are the oil billionaires whose company has been described by Greenpeace as a "kingpin of climate science denial". Their family fortune -- built, ironically enough, on seed money obtained from contracts with Stalin's USSR -- is a major part of the bankroll behind Reason magazine, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute. And more importantly, they funded the astroturfing of the whole "Tea Party" farce. As one GOP Republican consultant who has done research on behalf of the Koch brothers said of the Tea Party, "The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!"

The recent centenary of the birth of Ronald Reagan has had conservative pundits pouring on the hagiography in their usual ahistorical manner, and ignoring the inconvenient fact that decades of Reganomics -- tax cuts for the rich, deficient spending, anti-union tactics, deregulation of the financial industry, and a shredding of the social safety net -- are responsible for the economic mess in which the nation finds itself.

Here, then, a few clearer looks at the legacy of the President whom one wag -- I wish I could remember who -- described as doing for the U.S. what anabolic steroids do for athletes: big muscles, sure, at the cost of withered testicles.

For years I've been passing on the message that, even if you are 100% innocent of wrongdoing, the only things you say to a cop (outside of a purely social interaction, of course, or when filing a complaint yourself), are "Am I free to go?" and "I want a lawyer." In this great video, Professor James Duane explains why Fifth Amendment protections are so vital and why you should not talk to the police, even when you've done absolutely nothing wrong.

Did you know that nothing you say to a cop can be used as evidence in your favor in court -- that's considered hearsay -- but everything you say can used against you? Did you know how even things that seem completely innocuous or exculpatory can be used against you in court? Watch the video. It's 27 minutes and 25 seconds that could keep you out of big trouble. (It's also worth watching the next part of this presentation, with Officer George Bruch from the Virginia Beach police department talking about criminal interrogation strategies.)

I recently discussed how the "original intent" doctrine of Constitutional interpretation is intellectually bankrupt, leading as it does to contradiction since the intent of the Framers was that their intent not be used as a guide to the document. But it's unlikely that this idea is going to go away soon. So it's perhaps worthwhile -- and definitely interesting, even entertaining -- to take a look at the opinions of the Framers on two issues that currently cause a lot of pettifoggery, health care mandates and "state's rights". When we do, we see that (as usual) the people invoking the names of the Framers the loudest, have got those gentlemen's opinions exactly wrong.

First, health care. Now, I am not a fan of the mandate to purchase health insurance. I think that, without the public option, it's a bad policy. But "bad policy" is not the same as "unconstitutional". Do we have some historical insight into what the Framers might have thought about the federal government messing with the "free market" by mandating that people buy health insurance?

As it happens, we do.

According to the AP, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has finally resigned, and handed power to the military, the group probably most respected by the Egyptian people. The top military body, the Armed Forces Supreme Council, has vowed to guide the nation towards democracy.

This is an amazing moment not just for the people of Egypt but for human rights and democracy.

This is how democracy comes about -- not brought into a nation by invaders, but grown from the roots up by the people.

Congratulations to the people of Egypt.

As I've mentioned before, the "American are overtaxed!" meme is counter-factual. In fact, as the AP reports, this year federal taxes as a share of GDP -- 14.8% -- will be the lowest since 1950. In W's last year in office, the figure was 17.5%.

Combine the ever-growing deductions, credits and exemptions (which lower the effective tax rate) with the crappy economy (which lowers the amount out there to tax) and, according to the CBO, income tax payments will be nearly 13% percent lower than in 2008, and corporate taxes will be lower by a third.

As the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Ken Conrad, says, "The current state of the tax code is simply indefensible. It is hemorrhaging revenue."

And even Donald Marron, a former economic adviser to Bush, says "America's tax system is clearly broken. It fails at its most basic task, which, lest we forget, is raising enough money to pay for the federal government."

The AP had The Tax Institute at H&R Block compared some hypothetical family's tax bills for 2008 and 2010. While tax rates are the same, Obama has put in place more generous tax credits -- many as part of the 2009 economic stimulus package.

Here are the scenarios:

— A married couple with two young children and a combined income of $25,000 will pay no federal income taxes for 2010. Instead, they'll get a payment of $7,085 — up from $6,700 in 2008...

— A married couple with two children, including one in college, and a combined income of $50,000 would pay no federal income taxes, instead getting a payment of $734 from the government this year. However, they did better in 2008 when they netted a $1,234 payment from the government...

— A single person making $50,000 while paying interest on a student loan would have a 2010 tax bill of $5,325 — a $63 decrease from 2008...

— A married couple with two children, including one in college, with some modest investments and a combined income of $200,000 will see their federal income tax bill drop by $780, to $28,496...

-A rich couple with two kids in college, larger investments and a combined income of $1 million will see their taxes drop by $6,740, to $277,699 in 2010...