Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“The core of the JCPA is an exemption to US antitrust law for news organizations. Put that way, I’m inclined to like it. Contra high school history/civics texts, antitrust law was invented by and for the benefit of large corporations, and has always functioned to reduce competition and jack up prices. But that’s another story. The intent of the JCPA is to ‘allow’ media organizations to get together and create ‘joint negotiation entities’ (the kind of cartel antitrust law forbids) to ‘collectively bargain’ with digital platforms for compensation. Compensation for what? Promoting and giving advertising to those same media organizations and their content. The idea is that these cartels would have the ‘bargaining power’ to bludgeon Google News, Facebook, et al. into paying news organizations for the privilege of linking and previewing content that sends readers or viewers to that content.” (12/08/22)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/17309

Source: CounterPunch
by Kirkpatrick Sale

“In a healthy society of non-human primates, there are no nations, no extended organizations, no supraterritorial forms that might resemble a state. Troops of primates do have a social cohesion about them, creating various temporary leaders or hierarchies according to the function at hand — one for fighting, say, another for vigilance, a third for feeding — and establishing customs and groundrules of permissible behavior. But nowhere do these basically autonomous troops combine into larger associations, nowhere do members of the same species, though clearly knowing themselves to be essentially related, attempt to create large-scale units of social control. … Capitalism, and its fundamental tenet of growth-at-any-cost, and the state system which supports and protects it, must give way to a world of small-scale, non-pollutant, non-aggressive societies that can exist on few resources and human-scale self-government. A world, in short, without the state and its accompanying economic resource destroyer.” (12/08/22)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/08/what-do-we-need-state-for-anyway/

Source: CNN
by Harry Enten

“One of the most common refrains in politics is voters hate Washington and want outsiders to be elected to office. But Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory in Georgia’s Senate runoff on Tuesday is part of a trend that suggests that, at least in 2022, that wasn’t true. Each of the 29 Senate incumbents who ran for reelection won. This year’s Senate elections marked the first time in at least a century in which no incumbent senator up for reelection lost. So what just happened? Bad challenger quality, a map without a lot of competitive races taking place in an era of high polarization and an unusually tight national environment combined to create history. Let’s start with the fact that Republicans were not able to take advantage of the typical midterm headwinds that move against the president’s party.” (12/08/22)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/politics/senate-incumbents-analysis/index.html

Source: RealClearPolitics
by Debra J Saunders

“New House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos he believes the soon-to-be GOP-controlled House could pass marijuana reform in the next term. Yes, legalization could be a bipartisan issue — just the sort of measure Jeffries says he wants to make happen. Jeffries and Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, have introduced the Preparing Regulators Effectively for a Post-Prohibition Adult-Use Regulated Environment (PREPARE) Act, which, if passed, would do what it says.” (12/08/22)

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/12/08/prepare_for_legal_marijuana_148578.html

Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone

“The December issue of my print-friendly zine is out now! This one’s got paintings, an easier-to-read format, and a clean, new look. In this month’s Treazine ‘The Disappearing Of Julian Assange,’ sedition 5 features: * US Officials Concern Troll About World Press Freedoms While Assaulting Them * The Guardian Could Help Assange By Retracting All The Lies It Published About Him * Robbing The Global South, Then Scorning Its Poverty * NATO Exists To Solve The Problems Created By NATO’s Existence … and much more. (Friendly reminder that you can subscribe to TreaZine to automatically receive each monthly sedition. As usual anyone is free to print, copy, republish, distribute, or use any and all of these materials in any way they choose, either digitally or in the meat world.)” (12/08/22)

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/12/08/treazine-sedition-5-is-available-now/