Good morning! Here’s your daily digest of money-in-politics news and the headlines of the day, compiled by BillMoyers.com’s John Light. (You can sign up to receive Morning Reads daily in your inbox!)
Bye-bye, Lessig — for now –> Lawrence Lessig, the Democratic presidential candidate whose platform focused solely on campaign finance reform, is ending his campaign, blaming the party for blocking his participation in debates. “I may be known in tiny corners of the tubes of the Internets, but I am not well-known to the American public generally,” he said in a YouTube video. “Our only chance to make this issue central to the 2016 presidential election was to be in those debates.”
“Ban the box” –> President Obama announced yesterday that the federal government will stop asking those applying for US civil service jobs whether they have a criminal record. Gregory Korte at USA Today: “The American Civil Liberties Union called the move ‘an important first step,’ but called on him to follow up with an order that would apply not only to federal employees, but federal contractors.”
“Millennials can no longer be silent about our broken system” –> Environmental, immigration and racial justice groups will stage the largest-ever act of civil disobedience on Nov. 9. Three organizers have a rallying cry at Salon: “Today we face a true crisis of democracy: the will of the people is no longer the priority of our political system. Our government is failing us. Democrats keep letting us down. Republicans are terrifying. Politicians continue to blame each other, failing to act on the most pressing issues of our time. It’s no surprise why: from every side, we see cynical pitches to Americans’ worst instincts and modest solutions proposed to big problems.”
The end of Keystone? –> As a seven-year review process continues without a decision from the Obama administration, TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, is asking the government to put a hold on its application for the project. The company seems to hope that it can resume pushing for the pipeline after the next election, when a Republican president may be in office. The State Department doesn’t have to heed the company’s request and can still choose to approve or (far more likely) reject the pipeline during the remainder of Obama’s presidency.
Investigate Exxon! –> Four Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are calling for the SEC to investigate Exxon to see if the company “violated securities laws by failing to adequately disclose material risks to its business posed by climate change,” reports Neela Banerjee at InsideClimate News. This is on top of the roster of polticians calling for a Justice Department investigation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Related –> Chris Mooney at The Washington Post: “Scientists confirm their fears about West Antarctica — that it’s inherently unstable.”
Ahmad Chalabi, 1944-2015 –> The exiled Iraqi politician was a lead cheerleader urging the Bush-Cheney White House to invade his country after 9/11. In The New York Times Magazine in 2006, Dexter Filkins wrote, “For many in the West, Chalabi has become the personification of all that has gone wrong in Iraq: the lies, the arrogance, the occupation as disaster.”
Shocking statistic –> A new study finds that one group of white, middle-aged Americans is dying at a very high rate. Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach at The Washington Post: “The mortality rate for white men and women ages 45-54 with less than a college education increased markedly between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide.” An increase in mortality rates among a certain segment of the population in developed countries is virtually unheard of.
Debate angst continues –> GOP candidates are working on questions they’ll use to vet TV networks hoping to host future debates. A draft given to The Washington Post includes questions ranging from “Will you commit to provide equal time/an equal number of questions of equal quality (substance as opposed to “gotcha” or frivolous) to each candidate?” to “Can you pledge that the temperature in the hall be kept below 67 degrees?” Trump’s campaign isn’t signing on — he prefers to negotiate with networks individually. CNBC — you’re fired!
If it ain’t broke… –> And Marcus Brauchli, a former executive editor of The Washington Post who helped arrange one of the GOP debates in 2011, thinks that the tenor of the debates so far is right on track. He writes at Vox: “Sure, the format lacks the earnest, bland decorum of earlier cycles. But there are benefits: more, earlier, and livelier debates, engaged voters, and a crucible that tests candidates and holds them to account.”
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