Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Bloomberg Unleashes Warren’s Rage—At Last

For supporters of Elizabeth Warren, the last several months have been tough: frustrating and often painful. The pro-Warren momentum that had been gathering steam through the summer and early fall came to a halt, and her poll numbers fell as she was dogged by attacks on her Medicare for All plan and the controversy over whether Bernie Sanders had or had not told her, in a private meeting, that a woman couldn’t beat Trump. She managed to claw her way to a respectable third place finish in Iowa, but in New Hampshire she couldn’t even crack double digits and placed a distant fourth. New Hampshire voters preferred even the empty suit mediocrities Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar over Warren, and that hurt. Ominously, he media began treating her as an also-ran, frequently erasing her from campaign coverage. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this week, she was statistically tied for second place, yet blatantly excluded from questions about head-to-head matches between the Democratic candidates and Trump.

What was maddening to so many of Warren’s supporters is that her core strengths as a candidate were not coming through. Her answers in debates were always intelligent and well-formulated, but her presence seemed subdued. Long stretches of time would go by without Warren being called on, but she didn’t proactively try to insert herself back into the conversation. Her campaign had adopted a not especially compelling “unity” message and she seemed reluctant to criticize or even draw sharp contrasts between herself and the other candidates. The persona that came across was that of a nice but ineffectual, overly idealistic professor lady. Increasingly, pundits and voters were expressing fears that Warren could not beat Trump.

Warren supporters began asking one another: where was the Warren we came to know and love from viral videos of Congressional hearings where she savaged dirtbag CEOs, chiseling bankers and slimy government officials, turning them into quivering bowls of jello?

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If Warren has a superpower, it is her anger, a righteous, coruscating fury that beautifully clarifies the moral stakes of a rigged economy that enables the rich to suck up vast resources of money and power at the expense of everyone else. But of course, coming from a woman, a rage that powerful can frighten people, and it’s likely that the staff in charge of Warren’s debate prep advised her to keep it under wraps.

But a Warren without her rage is like a boxing champion with one hand tied behind her back. All women running for office face a delicate balance of trying to defuse sexism by appearing pleasant and unthreatening on the one hand, while also having to present themselves as tough and powerful enough to lead on the other. Up to this point in her campaign, Warren mostly refrained from attacking other candidates. But it’s interesting to note that the one time the abortive campaign of Kamala Harris showed any life was her masterful takedown of Joe Biden in an early debate. Similarly, Amy Klobuchar got a significant boost from her attacks on Peter Buttigieg in the New Hampshire debate, which buoyed her to a surprise third place finish in that state.

It was clear that the neutered version of Warren wasn’t working for her. She is not running for Miss Effing Congeniality, she is running for President of the United States—and specifically, as the warrior queen who will take down the monstrous Donald Trump. She needed to prove to voters that she can do that. She needed to bring the steel and the fire, and she needed to aggressively insert herself into the conversation instead of politely waiting for the moderators to call on her.

Last night was a high-stakes moment for Warren, an event that had the potential to become the turning point of her campaign. Her back was against the wall and especially in light of the virtual media blackout of Warren of late, she badly needed a breakout moment. The Nevada debate might prove to be her last chance to create one. Luckily, fate provided her with the perfect foil: the racist, misogynist, former Republican billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the living embodiment of the corruption and capitalist excesses that Warren has been railing against for her entire career. It marked the first debate appearance for Bloomberg, a late entry into the race.

Bloomberg, who in so many ways is eerily similar to Trump (the racism! the sexism! the bullying and arrogance! the refusal, so far, to release his tax returns!), was effectively a stand-in for Trump in the debate. And if the debate was an audition for the role of the candidate who has what takes to bring down Trump, Warren was the hands-down winner. She owned that stage like a boss. I can’t remember any other debate where one candidate dominated as much as Warren did. Her confrontations with Bloomberg were brutal, fearless and unsparing.

Here’s a sample:

On Bloomberg’s stop and frisk policy: “No, this isn't about how it turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with. ... You need a different apology here, Mr. Mayor.”

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On the numerous allegations of sexual harassment that have been made against Bloomberg personally and the company he’s in charge of: “So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements, so we can hear their side of the story? ... We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against.”

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Bloomberg ... did not respond well. When Warren spoke, his eyes were full of cold fury and his lips were pursed as if he were sucking on a lemon. When Warren talked about the sexual harassment lawsuits against his company, he literally rolled his eyes.

Two things Warren accomplished in the debate are especially notable. First, she insistently included a racial analysis even in questions that didn’t ask directly about race, such as the discussion about globalization. She also performed a brilliant jujitsu by bringing up the electability question, which has often been used against her, to turn it on Bloomberg instead: “Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist polls like redlining and stop and frisk.”

Will Warren’s debate performance help her regain momentum and her foothold as a top contender in the race? That is not clear. It might not have much of an impact on the outcome in Saturday’s Nevada caucus, since thousands of people have already participated in early voting.

And for a female candidate, a performance as fierce as Warren’s was has the potential to backfire. Like clockwork, centrist media scolds took her to task for being “mean and angry.” But while it’s likely that such a combative performance would have been poorly received if she were leading in the polls, it plays differently now that she’s an underdog candidate. Even Warren critics like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews declared her the winner of the debate. Matthews said that “Democrats have to find someone who can coalesce the left and center left. Elizabeth Warren can do that.” The debate earned her an outpouring of social media love, and anecdotally a number of voters on my Twitter feed who had previously said they’d been undecided declared that they would be voting for Warren. Perhaps most significantly of all, Warren’s campaign announced that yesterday was their “best debate day of the entire campaign, raising more than $2.8 million.”

But in the end, Warren had no choice but to come out swinging. If she’d given another subdued performance she would have run the risk of being completely disappeared by the media. And also? It was clearly the right thing to do. Elizabeth Warren is a fighter, and fighters fight. At best, it will help her turn the tide of the race and create the kind of momentum that will result in victory. At worst, she performed a major public service by taking down a despicable billionaire with horrendous politics who is trying to subvert democracy by buying his way into the White House. What’s not to like?

Scientists develop open-source software to analyze economics of biofuels, bioproducts

Perennial grasses can be converted into everything from ethanol to bioplastics, but it's unclear which bioproducts hold the greatest potential. BioSTEAM, a new open-source simulation software package in Python gives scientists, engineers, biotechnology companies, and funding agencies a fast, flexible tool to analyze the economics of producing different biofuels and bioproducts -- in a matter of seconds.

Methane emitted by humans vastly underestimated

Researchers measured methane levels in ancient air samples and found that scientists have been vastly underestimating the amount of methane humans are emitting into the atmosphere via fossil fuels. The researchers indicate that reducing fossil fuel use is a key target in curbing climate change.

"Rankin warned that tech giants were now "redefining the word "privacy" in their own marketing." While they may claim to protect it, what they really want is to protect privacy from their competitors, he added. "They add security measures to their software and services so only they can capture, view and sell all of your data and others can't.""

https://www.dw.com/en/smartphone-startups-take-on-google-apple-and-put-privacy-first/a-52369255

Think all BPA-free products are safe? Not so fast, scientists warn

Using 'BPA-free' plastic products could be as harmful to human health -- including a developing brain -- as those products that contain the controversial chemical, suggest scientists.

'Wood' you like to recycle concrete?

Scientists studied a method for recycling unused concrete with wood fibers. They found the conditions that produce new building materials with bending strength even greater than the original concrete. This work may help reduce the CO2 emissions associated with manufacturing new concrete.

Seattle, WA: PSPS Statement on Recent FBI Activity https://itsgoingdown.org/seattle-statement-on-recent-fbi-visit/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Jersey of truth?

Where the Ongoing Mass Protests Against Neoliberalism in Chile Came From

In recent months, common people in Chile have taken to the streets not to pursue an ideological project or concrete cause—but as the result of the fragility and insecurity of everyday life, and the injustice of the political system. We have seen this with the Occupy Wall Street movement, in the context of the Arab Spring and the Indignados Movement in Spain. Although more than two months of social mobilizations forced the right-wing billionaire Sebastian Piñera government to implement policies it has previously opposed such as the reform of the constitution and the increase in public social spending, none of the major political forces were able to channel the movement giving rise to questions about the durability of these mobilizations in the long term. The political debates have increasingly focused on questions of institutional reforms and transparency, which although important for framing future political struggles, tend to mask more urgent economic reforms such as greater taxation of wealth and universal access to social services. Such policy changes are indispensable for the reduction of Chile’s exorbitant inequalities.

The explosion

The social explosion started in Santiago on October 18 following clashes between the armed police and students who were evading raised metro fares. Mobilizations quickly spread throughout the country demanding justice and change of the highly unequal economic model, bringing together a range of qualms that are typically discussed in isolation: low pensions, highly unequal healthcare, underfinanced education, political corruption and frequent cases of economic collusion between producers to raise consumer prices. The mobilizations boasted unprecedented social support: surveys conducted at the end of October demonstrated that close to 85% of the public supported the protests and after two months of mobilizations, support for them still stood at around 77%.

Pinochet’s legacy

Chile’s current economic model was established during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1989) by a group of Chilean economists educated at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman. The country’s economy is widely considered to be the first attempt in the world at the introduction of a thorough program of neoliberal restructuring—many of the reforms established by Ronald Reagan in the United States and by Margaret Thatcher in the UK were first “tested” in Chile during the second half of the 1970s. The reforms included unprecedented liberalization of trade, the establishment of a new labor code which practically prohibited collective bargaining, financial liberalization, privatization of public companies, diminished per capita social spending, regressive tax reform and privatization of pensions. When it came to education and healthcare, reforms led to the creation of dual public and private systems, making access to education and healthcare the responsibility of individuals through their participation in the market.

The reforms carried out during the dictatorship (as well as the 1982 economic crisis) contributed to increased inequalities and a ballooning poverty rate (in 1987 close to 45% of the population lived under the poverty line), a greater concentration of wealth, a fall in real wages and an increase in unemployment.

Continuity and change

During much of the post-dictatorship period Chile was governed by center-left coalitions (between 1990 and 2009 and then 2014 and 2017, with the first right-wing Sebastian Piñera government in the interim), which focused on addressing extreme poverty and Chile’s rampant inequalities, but within the framework of the economic model inherited from the dictatorship.

Members of the coalitions have frequently pointed to the 1980 Constitution—written by Pinochet’s advisers and approved in a fraudulent plebiscite—as a structural limitation on any major reforms to the economic model. The constitution limits the state’s absolute ability to provide social services such as health, education and pensions, virtually prohibits strikes of public sector employees, obliges workers to join private pension funds, gives the president substantial control over Congress and makes it extremely difficult to reform the armed forces and the police, as well as the electoral and educational systems, because of extremely high quorum required for the approval of the reforms.

The governments of center-left coalitions did manage to decrease poverty and income inequalities. However, access to quality social services remains highly unequal and the relative poverty rate is very high. Chile’s tax system also features regressive characteristics while public social expenditure is tiny, translating into low quality public social services. In addition, the job market is highly segmented and a high share of the population works with temporary contracts or is self-employed in low skilled jobs, meaning their access to social services is also limited.

What’s next?

The recent mobilizations practically paralyzed the Chilean economy, which helped force the right-wing government of billionaire Sebastian Piñera to make concessions, such as paving the way toward the replacement of the 1980 Constitution (a plebiscite on whether a new constitution should be drafted is scheduled for April), scrapping plans to lower corporate taxes and increasing cash transfers to the poorest including modest cash subsidies to employees earning the minimum wage and those receiving the basic pension. The government also announced projects to increase sentences and fines for corporate collusion and fraud.

Social mobilizations have shaken the political system and demonstrated that the injustice of the neoliberal economic order is felt across Chilean society. But it is so far uncertain how the solutions to this broader issue will be achieved—and who will implement them. After the social explosion, the political Left has emerged highly divided and unable to channel social demands. According to a recent poll, although the president has record low approval rates (only 11%), the most popular political figures are associated with the political right and support has dropped for young left-wing politicians who have won elections by promising to transform Chile’s economic model.

Protesters have continued flowing to the streets but their dissociation from political parties and unions makes their calls increasingly appear as individual demands which can be satisfied through occasional cash transfers and reforms. Without a broader political movement, however, these reforms may simply consecrate the unequal status quo.

Bloomberg Wants To Take Your Student Loan Payments Directly Out of Your Paycheck

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg launched his campaign for president by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertisements to boost his poll numbers. Yesterday, he released a policy proposal to address the cost of higher education. 

Unsurprisingly, Bloomberg would not cancel student debt or make all public colleges free (as Bernie Sanders proposes). Instead, he would place all student debtors in an income-driven repayment plan so that payments are taken directly from borrowers’ paychecks. 

This plan is a neoliberal technocrat’s wet dream. It would treat student debtors as isolated individuals who must make payments tailored to their specific situations and according to means-tested formulas. 

Bloomberg’s education payment plan would also eliminate the possibility of student debt strikes. This is an outcome that I am particularly concerned about. 

In 2015 I helped organize the first student debt strike in U.S. history as part of the Debt Collective, an organization for debtors that I co-founded. That strike helped win more than $1 billion in debt relief for people who had attended predatory for-profit colleges. 

What does it mean to go on a student debt strike and why is now the time for millions of student debtors across the United States to join together to refuse to pay their loans?

First, it’s important to understand how deep the crisis has become. Today, there are 45 million people are carrying $1.6 trillion in loans. What’s worse, student debt has a disproportionate impact on people of color and women, precisely those groups for whom education was supposed to provide a path to a better life. It turns out that a college degree alone can’t address racial, gender or economic inequality, particularly when education has been turned into a consumer product instead of what it ought to be: a public good. 

While everyone knows that servicers like Navient make a bundle collecting on student loans, what a lot of people don’t realize is that millions of us are already not making payments. The Department of Education reported that, as of March 2019, 20% of student debts were in default, meaning borrowers have not made a payment in 270 days. This trend shows no sign of slowing down. According to the Center for American Progress, about a million new borrowers go into default every year. As the number of people who are forced to debt finance their college degrees has risen, so has the number of those who can’t—or won’t—pay.

But defaults are only part of the story. The federal government has reported that only 36% of people with student debt are making progress repaying their loans. Millions are not even making payments because we are enrolled in deferral, forbearance or in one of the “income driven repayment” plans that allow many low-income people to pay nothing. 

It is time that we call this massive non-repayment what it is: a debt strike. Indeed, that is exactly what the Debt Collective aims to do. Debtors who are not making payments, whether they are in default, forbearance or $0 income-based repayment, can join the campaign as bona-fide debt strikers. By joining together with others in their situation, student debtors can send a message to the federal government, lenders, collectors and especially to those running for president that they have had enough.

Why is now the time for a national student debt strike? First, collective action by debtors brings people together. With an election in full swing and many people divided over the right way forward, one thing is certain: More of us need to get involved. The fact that millions are struggling with educational debt can unite us across our differences and give us a reason to get involved in the political process. I saw this type of shared struggle firsthand five years ago during the strike that I helped to launch with former for-profit college students. People from all walks of life including Democrats, Republicans and those who don’t identify with either party came together to demand justice from the federal government—and they won! Now is the time for student debtors to rise up with one voice.

What do student debtors want? The Debt Collective has long been demanding a student debt jubilee and free public college. A decade ago, such proposals were considered totally outside the mainstream. Today, thanks in part to the Debt Collective’s work, top presidential candidates have signed on to both policies. First, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed cancelling a portion of student debt. Then, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Mich.), introduced bills that would cancel all student debt, both federal as well as private loans, and make public college free. 

Such proposals represent a stunning shift in public policy, and they were made possible by ordinary people rising up and refusing to pay. In fact, the Debt Collective has already identified the mechanism by which federal student loans can be cancelled. One of our founders co-wrote a legal brief on the Higher Education Act of 1965, which gives the Department of Education the authority to decide not to collect federal student debt, without going through Congress. 

We are closer than ever to liberating tens of millions from the burden of student loans and to assuring that future generations have a right to a quality education without going into debt.   

The Debt Collective has helped to normalize the idea that student debt can be cancelled. We also showed that it can be done. Indeed, for thousands of former for-profit college students who have been freed from their debt, joining a debt strike had a profoundly positive impact on their lives. 

I attended a public university. But I have much in common with former for-profit college students who believe education is a right and a public good. Regardless of where we went to school—whether it was a private college, a public university, or a predatory for-profit—the fight for debt cancellation, free education, as well as for public goods more broadly, must include all of us. That’s why, this time, in addition to helping to organize the strike, I’ve joined it. I believe it’s time to follow the example of those who already refused to pay and won. More and more people are recognizing the power of collective action by debtors. This is precisely the kind of collective action that Bloomberg’s higher education plan intends to stop in its tracks. And that is why he must—and will—be stopped. 

DMV’s sell your data to insurance companies, data brokers, private investigators, and bulk marketers—“a serious intrusion on the privacy of the public” that needs to stop, EFF Senior Staff Attorney @Adam_D_Schwartz tells @jocefromthenews. https://wjla.com/news/spotlight-on-america/depending-on-where-you-live-your-dmv-may-be-selling-your-personal-information

#Oil and #gas firms ‘have had far worse climate impact than thought’ | #Environment | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/19/oil-gas-industry-far-worse-climate-impact-than-thought-fossil-fuels-methane

#FossilFuels #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

The Next Big Grocery Strike Is Knocking on Safeway and Giant’s Door

Last April, more than 30,000 Stop & Shop grocery workers across the Northeast won a raucous 11-day strike against the company, beating back health care and pension cuts. Now, another major grocery strike has become a serious possibility, this time in and around the nation’s capital.

On Wednesday, UFCW Local 400 announced that it will be holding a strike vote early next month for more than 25,000 workers at hundreds of Giant Foods and Safeway stores across DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The union has separate contracts with Giant and Safeway, but both of those contracts have been expired since last October. Negotiations in the ensuing months proved fruitless, and now the union is preparing for what could become the first large strike of 2020. 

Giant is owned by Ahold Delhaize, the same European conglomerate that owns Stop & Shop. Safeway is owned by Albertsons, the national grocery holding company controlled by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. As is common in private equity deals, Cerberus is reportedly eyeing an IPO for Albertsons—placing great pressure on the company to spiff up its balance sheet, including labor and pension costs. Not coincidentally, those issues are now fueling the contract dispute that has brought these UFCW members to the point of a strike vote. In addition to pension cuts, the union says that the companies are pursuing cuts to health care funding, tight restrictions on benefit access for part time employees, and a plan to keep many new hires locked in a minimum wage salary for years.

First JumpShot and now Hitwise. GDPR is starting to change the marketing world.

"Our primary partner is no longer in a position to provide us with data"

Hitwise used to "help companies track every stage of the consumer’s journey, from search to purchase down to the hour"

Wanted by the DNC: Someone, Anyone to Stop Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders is now the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. But the DNC is still trying to recruit someone to stop him. First it was Kamala Harris. Then it was Joe Biden. Now it’s Mike Bloomberg.

Wall Street investors react to climate change

Institutional investors are factoring climate risks into their investment decisions.