Government

Could This Be The End Of The NRA?

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Could This Be The End Of The NRA?

8/7/20 by Diane Rehm

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/110784225
Episode: https://downloads.wamu.org/mp3/dr/20/08/r1200807.mp3

In a lawsuit filed this week, New York Attorney General Letitia James said a months long investigation into the National Rifle Association found extensive “fraud and abuse” and she’s calling for the powerful gun rights organization to be dissolved. Diane talks with Adam Winkler, professor of law at UCLA, about the lawsuit and what comes next.

Institutionally that may be correct, some of the abuses of the NRA executives are pretty aggregious by any accounting. Besides forcing paybacks and resignations of the executives, the NRA 501c3 could be dissolved under state law ⚖ but that doesn’t mean that gun rights advocacy would disappear – the assets of the NRA would be transferred to other gun rights advocacy groups that have a record of being more responsible to their donors.

Some of those groups are far more stronger advocates of the second amendment and are smaller and less wasteful. And people still care about their rights – if the NRA disappears other group like the National Association for Gun Rights or Shooting Sports Alliance may take up their mantle.

Honestly, the pervasive corruption of the NRA as an institution suggests maybe its time for its competitors to take up the mantle and become a more trustworthy source of advocacy and training for gun rights. Just because an institution has been all powerful for generations doesn’t mean it’s above the law or not subject to corruption. Times change and sometimes new leadership is needed.

Cutting the FICA tax? 🤑

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Cutting the FICA tax to stimulate the economy ? 🤑

Social security is an important program that is funded via a regressive tax that is most acutely felt by the working poor and the lower middle class. For many low end earners, the FICA is the biggest tax they’ll pay out of their paycheck.

That’s seen as tolerable of funding these programs as it means that the important program of social security and Medicare will be funded. Social security is meant to provide about a third of retirement income for most adults – but for some of bad fortune or lack of savings it’s a vital tool against extreme poverty in old age. But the regressive nature of taxes funding it are bad for the working poor.

In times of a weak economy, suspending the FICA tax would provide a modest boost to the wages of workers, but I think they’re should be something to back fill the loss of revenue to government. Maybe borrowing and bonds are appropiate but that’s just kicking the cab down the road. It risks creating an unfunded liability that could encourage politicians who oppose the social safety net and taxes to cut social security and Medicare in future years.

There is a lot attraction on the surface to making Medicare and Social Security look like programs that you pay into today for benefits tomorrow. Even if that’s not how the programs work in reality – they’re mostly pay as you go – with a promise to future generations to continue. But it’s not a great way to fund them as it puts a big tax burden on the working poor who disproportionately pay the FICA tax even if they have the most to gain from it.

I would much rather see the FICA tax replaced with progressive taxation and fees on vices and institutions that cause real harm like the fossil fuel industry. Maybe a carbon tax could be part of the solution. But I also think corporations and the wealthy should pay more in taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security and take more of it off the backs of workers.

NPR

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In 2020, A Woman Running Mate Won’t Be A ‘Hail Mary’ : NPR

Thirty-six years later, Democrats are still fretting about women and electability — not to mention ambition.

"​I remember when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated, and it was exciting," said Karen Finney, spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. "But our country is in a different place, even though some of those same sexist and racist tropes remain."

It's true that a lot has changed.

For starters, Biden announced months ahead of time that he'd pick a woman, and there's a deeper bench of women for him to pick from. In addition, several women of color are contenders for that spot.

What we train our police to do — and what they actually do – Vox

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What we train our police to do — and what they actually do – Vox

Richard Nixon called police forces “the real front-line soldiers in the war on crime.” Bill Clinton, in his signing ceremony for the 1994 crime bill, called them “the brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day.” In 2018, Donald Trump described their job as follows: “Every day, our police officers race into darkened alleys and deserted streets, and onto the doorsteps of the most hardened criminals … the worst of humanity.”

For decades, the warrior cop has been the popular image of police in America, reinforced by TV shows, movies, media, police recruitment videos, police leaders, and public officials.

This image is largely misleading. Police do fight crime, to be sure — but they are mainly called upon to be social workers, conflict mediators, traffic directors, mental health counselors, detailed report writers, neighborhood patrollers, and low-level law enforcers, sometimes all in the span of a single shift. In fact, the overwhelming majority of officers spend only a small fraction of their time responding to violent crime.

However, the institution of policing in America does not reflect that reality. We prepare police officers for a job we imagine them to have rather than the role they actually perform. Police are hired disproportionately from the military, trained in military-style academies that focus largely on the deployment of force and law, and equipped with lethal weapons at all times, and they operate within a culture that takes pride in warriorship, combat, and violence.

Lessons in the Decline of Democracy From the Ruined Roman Republic

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Lessons in the Decline of Democracy From the Ruined Roman Republic

Aspects of our modern politics reminded University of California San Diego historian Edward Watts of the last century of the Roman Republic, roughly 130 B.C. to 27 B.C. That’s why he took a fresh look at the period in his 2018 book Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny. Watts chronicles the ways the republic, with a population once devoted to national service and personal honor, was torn to shreds by growing wealth inequality, partisan gridlock, political violence and pandering politicians, and argues that the people of Rome chose to let their democracy die by not protecting their political institutions, eventually turning to the perceived stability of an emperor instead of facing the continued violence of an unstable and degraded republic. Political messaging during the 2018 midterm elections hinged on many of these exact topics.

Though he does not directly compare and contrast Rome with the United States, Watts says that what took place in Rome is a lesson for all modern republics. “Above all else, the Roman Republic teaches the citizens of its modern descendants the incredible dangers that come along with condoning political obstruction and courting political violence,” he writes. “Roman history could not more clearly show that, when citizens look away as their leaders engage in these corrosive behaviors, their republic is in mortal danger.”

Don’t fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2020 or we’ll retaliate

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Democrats warn GOP: Don’t fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2020 or we’ll retaliate

WASHINGTON — Democrats are warning Republicans not to fill a possible Supreme Court vacancy this year after denying President Barack Obama the chance in 2016, saying it would embolden a push on the left to add seats to the court whenever they regain power.

"We knew basically they were lying in 2016, when they said, 'Oh, we can't do this because it's an election year.' We knew they didn't want to do it because it was President Obama," Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in an interview.