General update

Hello, all. I wish I had better news this week, but it's all grim.

Britain is pursuing additional massive cuts, the brunt of which are falling on the revenue share allotted to Scotland as punishment for Scotland electing so many progressives. This continues the government's pattern of targeting Scots for revenge- plans for stripping Scottish MPs of voting power (!) in parliament were in this year's Queen's Speech- traditionally written for her by the current government to announce their current plans- and cut after cut has been forced on the entire UK.

Last week, Osborne (Cameron's treasury guy) announced that they're proceeding with privatizing the Royal Mail wholesale, even abolishing the last 30% stake the government was required by law to maintain. Even the BBC has pointed out the striking appearance of insider trading or even outright undervaluing of the Mails that followed the last round of Mail privatizations in 2013, with some of the government's approved buyers making 70% profits within days of the initial sale.

President Obama and Senator Paul have submitted competing schemes to abolish Endangered Species Protection- Obama's plan calls for abolishing all new protections and gradual phaseout of existing ones. Paul's plan calls for setting a five year cap on all protections regardless of species' viability, and requiring the consent of state governors to maintain any protections at all. Obama's plan is obviously more likely to go into effect as a regulatory adjustment, and it is plenty scary enough. Couple this with the administration's renewed love for drilling in the Arctic as well as opening huge new coal reserves to strip mining (containing a total carbon footprint of more then 4 times the reduction which would result from their own energy plan, should it ever even go into effect) showcasing once again the strength of this president's love for the environment.

The Labour leadership contest is continuing to heat up- a new candidate has entered- Jeremy Corbyn, the oldest candidate yet to declare. He's a good representative of what is called “Old Labour”- that is, Labour before Blair made them the second party of privatization and cuts. Seems he got in a bit of trouble for taking too hard a line against Thatcher's evisceration of British manufacturing and imposition of discriminatory poll taxes. He sounds terrific, and I'm reconsidering my support for Creagh. There are four previously declared candidates

Mary Creagh- used to be Labour's spokeswoman on agriculture and the environment (separate from the post of energy and climate change). She seems to be the Ed Miliband in this pack- fairly conservative on a lot of important issues- taxes, union rights, wants Labour to start pursuing the fallacious “aspirational voter” who thinks “I don't want to tax the rich, I'm going to be rich someday because I'm better than everybody else who doesn't make it”, all of which are spectacular strikes against her in my book, but she does have a really strong and active environmental record, and that is the single most important issue in my estimation. She pulled off an impossible victory some years back when her protest campaign managed to convince the Cameron government to abandon its plan to abolish 85% of Britain's forest reserve. I don't know much about Corbyn's environmental record, so unless I find out he's better on it than her, she would probably be my first choice though I do have my reservations.

Edit- as of Tuesday, Creagh has rejected a popular fracking ban. I'm now firmly behind Corbyn.

Yvette Cooper- shadow Home Secretary or something. She seems to be the mainstream of the leadership candidates, and has extensive ties to the last few Labour leadership teams. Pass.

Liz Kendall- the Blairite, shadow health secretary, the privatize everything candidate. Pass.

And Andy Burnham- the union's favourite, and dominant frontrunner- this makes him my third choice behind Creagh and Corbyn.

Penultimately, (back to the states) Wisconsin's budget- already horrendous in its attacks on everything from school funding to the Secretary of State's office, is taking a new tack to ensue ideological reliability in the second state to ban public employees from acknowledging climate change: abolishing tenure and putting university policy and curricula entirely in the hands of governor-appointed boards of trustees. Really, watching Scott Walker go is like Frank Underwood without the stealth. I worry that Underwood references are about to become a new Godwin's Law of political discourse but the extent of Walker's power grab is truly astonishing- from the armed paramilitary goons by mining sites harassing local journalists and staging false-flag “eco-terrorist” attacks to the purge of all opposition from both party and government, to requiring unions to function without charging dues, all while being bankrolled into invincibility by the Koch family, Walker has encountered no meaningful opposition since his first union busting in 2011. No bet on whether he or Bush (architect of the most successful purge of Black voters since 1877) will be the GOP nominee.

Finally, everyone should be calling the capitol switchboard complaining about the administration's Trans Pacific Partnership, which is set to clear a procedural hurdle on Friday with the passage of “trade Promotion Authority” which will suspend all debate on the as yet incomplete measure until after we fully adopt it. Because that makes sense to business. Call at (202) 224-3121 , ask for your House member because the senate already passed this disaster.

This treaty, Obama's current top foreign policy priority, will give corporations in any of the 13 signatory countries standing to sue in a privately run court any member government for loss of profit due to regulation, while eliminating all buy-local ordinances and preferences. The cost in jobs alone will be catastrophic, and this will spell the end, once and for all, of things like GMO labelling, renewable energy standards, and if fully enacted, the minimum wage. The reasoning for supporting it is that apparently it will help us sell our GMO beef easier in Australia, and will make China upset, also we're not supposed to know any of this because the bill is entirely secret- Congresswoman Louise Slaughter D-NY risked serious charges by disclosing this much. Obama has joined forces with the Republicans to deal another body blow to the workers of the world, and render all future regulations subject to a corporate tribunal. Believe in that change.

Solidariät, Genossinnen und Genossen