America's gun problem, explained

A good primer which I wish could be taken for granted as a starting point for an honest debate.

Why is it that for all the outrage and mourning with every mass shooting, nothing seems to change? To understand that, it's important to grasp not just the stunning statistics about gun ownership and gun violence in the United States, but America's very unique relationship with guns — unlike that of any other developed country — and how it plays out in our politics to ensure, seemingly against all odds, that our culture and laws continue to drive the routine gun violence that marks American life.

Newly published FBI request shines light on National Security Letters →

An ISP has released the first unredacted National Security Letter attachment ever made public, exposing just how much access US law enforcement asks for in its secretive letters. In 2004, the FBI requested that Nicholas Merrill and his former ISP, the Calyx Internet Access Corporation, submit anything considered an "electronic communication transactional record," and it didn't clarify the vague wording. The agency did, however, explicitly list some examples for Merrill to go off, including his complete web DSL account information, including subscriber information and account numbers, along with his internet service provider and other personal data. He also received, like nearly all other NSL targets, a gag order with the letter, which he directly challenged in his court case.

National Security Letters are controversial among privacy advocates because of their broad powers and minimal oversight. The FBI sends the letters whenever senior officials deem necessary, but no court approval is involved. Although the legal weight of the letters is unclear, the agency's intimidation tactics typically work, said Andrew Crocker, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an interview with The Verge. Recipients comply, especially when they’re bound to silence and can’t discuss the terrifying letter they just received. "More transparency is really needed, and not just [around] what [the FBI] can get and how many they issue," Crocker said. The gag order and lack of judicial opinions over their constitutionality particularly need to be rethought, he said. Merrill's case is a start.

Challenging the Oligarchy →

Economists struggling to make sense of economic polarization are, increasingly, talking not about technology but about power. This may sound like straying off the reservation—aren’t economists supposed to focus only on the invisible hand of the market?—but there is actually a long tradition of economic concern about “market power,” aka the effect of monopoly. True, such concerns were deemphasized for several generations, but they’re making a comeback—and one way to read Robert Reich’s new book is in part as a popularization of the new view, just as The Work of Nations was in part a popularization of SBTC. There’s more to Reich’s thesis, as I’ll explain shortly. But let’s start with the material that economists will find easiest to agree with.

Market power has a precise definition: it’s what happens whenever individual economic actors are able to affect the prices they receive or pay, as opposed to facing prices determined anonymously by the invisible hand. Monopolists get to set the price of their product; monopsonists—sole purchasers in a market—get to set the price of things they buy. Oligopoly, where there are a few sellers, is more complicated than monopoly, but also involves substantial market power. And here’s the thing: it’s obvious to the naked eye that our economy consists much more of monopolies and oligopolists than it does of the atomistic, price-taking competitors economists often envision.

...In any case, the causes and consequences of union decline, like the causes and consequences of rising monopoly power, are a very good illustration of the role of politics in increasing inequality.

But why has politics gone in this direction? Like a number of other commentators, Reich argues that there’s a feedback loop between political and market power. Rising wealth at the top buys growing political influence, via campaign contributions, lobbying, and the rewards of the revolving door. Political influence in turn is used to rewrite the rules of the game—antitrust laws, deregulation, changes in contract law, union-busting—in a way that reinforces income concentration. The result is a sort of spiral, a vicious circle of oligarchy...

How Hillary Clinton Is Making Aging Parents a 2016 Issue →

...The bulk of caregiving for the elderly, ailing, and disabled is still carried out by family members, who help their relatives with everything from bathing and dressing to preparing meals and managing medication. It’s decidedly unsexy,sometimes grueling domestic drudgery, mostly carried out by women who are hard-pressed to juggle these responsibilities with work and childcare—the so-called “Sandwich Generation” stuck between aging parents and kids. “It’s an invisible workforce,” says Carol Regan, a senior adviser and long-term care expert at Community Catalyst, a national health advocacy group. 

That’s why it’s fairly remarkable that family caregiving has come up in the 2016 campaign at all. All three Democratic candidates have offered some form of support to Americans who take time out of the workforce to care for ailing adult relatives, with Hillary Clinton unveiling her plan last week. It’s the first presidential race in recent memory where leading candidates have highlighted the need to support caregivers for elderly and disabled family members—a shift that reflects not only a focus on family-oriented economic policies, but also the huge demographic changes on the horizon. About 12 million Americans, or 4 percent of the population, currently require long-term care—a number that is expected to more than double by 2050.

The Refugee Issue Is a Religious Liberty Issue →

Late last week, nonprofit and charitable organizations around Texas received atroubling letter from the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Dated November 19, the letter instructs all refugee-related agencies in the state of Texas to report any plans of resettling Syrian refugees to the commission, and asks that if they are in the process of resettling Syrian refugees, to “please discontinue those plans immediately.” The commission’s letter followed a separate letter sent November 16 by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to President Barack Obama, wherein the governor informed the president that Texas would not be accepting any Syrian refugees.

If Abbott’s discomfort with Syrian refugees had remained at the level of gubernatorial grandstanding—keeping in mind the fact that governors lack the authority to deny specific religious or ethnic groups entry into their states—then it would likely not have been more newsworthy than similar reservations expressed by a host of other American governors. But with the letter to nonprofits and other private agencies with refugee resettlement programs, Texas moved into direct opposition to federal law and, some say, threatened the religious liberty of numerous Texan faith groups.

State sues prisoners to pay for their room, board →

21st century 1st-world slavery. Only in the U.S.

Either way, critics say the lawsuits make it harder for paroled prisoners to get back on their feet, defeating the department’s goals of rehabilitation and cutting recidivism. Because financial stability and a job are key to not returning to prison, taking away an inmate’s financial safety net increases the odds they return to crime or, at least, be dependent on taxpayers, as Melton was when he went on food stamps. Lawmakers around the country, and even President Barack Obama, have focused recently on such re-entry issues.

In a few cases the lawsuits seem punitive, if not retaliatory, to inmates, and could have a chilling effect on the incarcerated asserting their constitutional rights. After one inmate received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the department for failure to properly treat his cancer, the department turned around and sued the inmate for nearly $175,000 — even though the department already had agreed in writing not to try to claw back the settlement money.

Why ISIL Will Fail on Its Own →

Deciding how we think about ISIL is critical to deciding how to fight it. President Obama said he plans to stay the course by intensifying his current policy, which you might call containment plus: contain the group’s expansion in Syria and Iraq, and hasten its demise with steady air strikes and support to regional allies. His critics, meanwhile, call for a range of options, from allowing local forces to defeat the group, to easing the rules of engagement for airstrikes, to deploying U.S. special forces, to a large-scale campaign using 20,000 or more U.S. troops in direct combat ground roles.

Which is right? The answer depends at least in part on what kind of an enemy we think ISIL really is. Is it a tremendously well-resourced terrorist group that controls substantial territory, which it uses to plan attacks, vet operatives and manage a complex financial network? Or is it a fledgling nation-state that sponsors terrorist attacks? If we view ISIL as the former, then containment seems like an odd strategy, since even if contained it could continue to support terrorist attacks. But if we view it as a state, then it looks very different: a desperately poor nation trying to fight a three-front war—Iraq to the East, the Kurds to the North and Syria and other insurgents to the West.

Cash squeeze maims Venezuela's pre-election food imports →

In July, President Nicolas Maduro smiled as he sealed a multimillion-dollar food import deal with his Uruguayan counterpart designed to combat shortages ahead of Venezuela's legislative elections.

But instead of paying the $267 million as agreed, Maduro's government deposited in November under a fifth of that amount, according to Uruguay's government.

That put a brake on the shipments to Venezuela.

...

Yet five sources who work in Venezuela's two main ports say total imports are in fact down about 60 percent from last year.

Maduro says Venezuela has lost more than 60 percent of the hard currency it enjoyed in 2014 due to the oil crash. Those losses have punctured the tried-and-tested election strategy of supplying cheap goods to its largely poor voting base.

Anger is mounting over worsening shortages, now Venezuelans' No. 1 worry according to polls, and threatens to erode Maduro's support among the poor, who spend hours in line for scarce products.