March 22, 2024

March Elrich is loved by the Washington Post — but only when they think he won’t be in office. Pete Tucker, writing in Counterpunch, comments on how, after consistently attacking Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich during last year’s campaign, the WaPo began to praise him when they thought his wealthy opponent won. When they realized Elrich was back in office, the attacks began. According to Tucker, we see the same game now: Elrich announced his plans to run for a third term and the WaPo’s knives are out again.

Working-class people rarely have a seat ‘at the legislative table’ in state capitals

The dearth of working-class legislators raises concerns that economic challenges such as wage stagnation and the rising cost of living will get short shrift in state capitals. Stateline/Route Fifty

Maryland Public Service Commission is target of extraordinary lobbying by corporate power companies

Maryland PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) has released a study of how intensively – and expensively – corporate power companies lobby the state Public Service Commission, which is known to roll over for those it is charged with regulating. See the report here.

Millennials’ Obama-era hangover pounding metaphorical heads everywhere in full force

Every publication seems to be dipping into a fast-cohering narrative about a broader cultural decay. A broader 2010s hangover caused by the cutoff of post-recession liquidity and quantitative easing. Ambitious (and gilded) new corporate projects and work-life modes have eroded, and all manner of life – which has come to rely or pine for these new system – now faces the slow encapsulation of value by tech giants and VC firms hungry for high returns. Some…lighter reading on the subject: In Defector, musings on the gilded menace of Vice media, that once inescapable source of digital news for snarky stoners and alt-millennials; in The New Republic — The Age of Cultural Stagnation reckons with a deeper collapse of original production and creative freedom; and soo everyone wants to be a creative? from The Trend Report, on collapse of the “creative job.”

Honduras Ratchets Up Battle With Crypto-Libertarian Investors, Rejects World Bank Court

“The fight presents an almost-impossible-to-believe scenario: A group of libertarian investors teamed up with a former Honduran government — which was tied at the hip with narco-traffickers and came to power after a US-backed military coup — in order to implement the world’s most radical libertarian policy, which turned over significant portions of the country to those investors through so-called special economic zones. The Honduran public, in a backlash, ousted the narco-backed regime, and the new government repealed the libertarian legislation. The crypto investors are now using the World Bank to force Honduras to honor the narco-government’s policies.” From The Intercept.

A Revolution in American Foreign Policy 

…is no less than what we must have, Bernie writes in Foreign Affairs. ‘…some of the most important issues facing the United States and the world are rarely debated in a serious manner. Nowhere is that more true than in the area of foreign policy. For many decades, there has been a “bipartisan consensus” on foreign affairs. Tragically, that consensus has almost always been wrong.’ via Portside