Issue #333

(Daily Clips will publish Tuesday, September 2. Enjoy Labor Day.) The expanding world of poverty capitalism In Orange County CA the probation department’s “supervised electronic confinement program,” which monitors the movements of low-risk offenders, has been outsourced to a private company, Sentinel Offender Services. The company, by its own account, oversees case management, including breath alcohol and…

Issue #330

Inside the Democrats’ plan to save Arkansas—and the Senate No sign announces the purpose of this little storefront, squeezed between a Bestway Rent to Own and a Rent-a-Center in a dilapidated Pine Bluff shopping center. But the words hand-lettered in black and red marker on three pieces of paper taped to the window—”Register to Vote…

Issue #330

Labor organizing under way at Boeing and MUSC, despite antiunion climate in South Carolina It is famously difficult to start a union in South Carolina. The state has the third-lowest union participation rate in the country, with just 4.7 percent of workers represented by unions. Part of the reason has to do with the Palmetto State’s right-to-work…

Issue #329

Meet 13 Republican climate deniers who want to be president It’s hard to believe, surveying the GOP field of possible presidential nominees, but back in 2008 the parties were not that far apart on climate change. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, backed cap-and-trade for carbon emissions. After joining his ticket, so did…

Issue #326

When companies flee U.S. tax system, investors often don’t reap big returns Establishing a tax domicile abroad to avoid U.S. taxes is a hot strategy in corporate America, but many companies that have done such “inversion” deals have failed to produce above-average returns for investors, a Reuters analysis has found. Looking back three decades at 52…

Issue #325

(Editor’s note: This one is several months old, but people need a reminder sometimes.) Five obnoxious libertarian oligarchs who earned fortunes from the government they’d like to destroy The cult of the libertarian-minded ultra-wealthy would make an intriguing anthropological case study. But it would be a case study with a twist: its research subjects increasingly…