Reading the Akron Beacon Journal…
With all the conversation about what the President meant by going it alone in the State of the Union it is a good idea to remind ourselves that, despite Fox News nonsense, this has nearly nothing to do with a President threatening new Constitutional violations or a President unwilling to compromise. 

Here is a good, short, primer on the tools any president regularly uses to execute the law, tools President Obama has indicated he plans to deploy more often when faced by Congressional obstruction.

Welcome signs of sanity on the rise in Texas today.  After years of using their market position to transform school textbooks into Young Tea Party recruitment brochures, the state has finally taken action to curb the influence of non-experts who want creationism in Biology classrooms.

A comment by one of the extreme conservatives about the state decision to give preference to teachers and professors and other disciplinary experts in these decisions is telling. 

‘An outspoken conservative on the board, David Bradley, said he did his best to insert language mitigating what was approved. But he said “liberals are really trying to make it difficult for Christians and conservatives to have a voice in public education.”’

On the far right knowledge and expertise are illustrations of a liberal bias. It is a very good sign that there is now, in Texas, some sign of successful pushback against this lunatic fringe that has been damaging both the nation and the Republican Party. 

Why?  We have less trivial conflicts to attend to...

According to the Akron Police Department 98% of an annual 10,000 alarms in the city are false alarms.  The department is proposing that the alarm companies first verify that there is an actual need for police before the police will respond.  The companies response:

‘“It’s basically putting the public in danger,” said David Margulies, spokesman for the Security Industry Alarm Coalition, an advocacy business group.’

This is fear mongering, by a private sector agent trying to preserve what amounts to a tax payer subsidy of their own shoddy business model…a taxpayer subsidy that allows these companies to exist despite the fact that without this subsidy the free market would compel them to either provide a service that is not a waste of time and money 98% of the time…or the free market would drive them out of business. 

Taxpayer subsidies to big business, hidden in plain sight, need more attention and scrutiny in an era when our dominant conversation is how to do more with less.

 

Walmart (and others) executives and stockholders profit from our failure to internalize these externalities and instead providing subsidies to pay for things the companies should pay themselves as a cost of doing business. 

Of course, big business is not the only form we find entrenched power seeking to protect is priviledge and revenue stream at the expense of ordinary citizens. 

 

Here, again, we see fear mongering (about the danger of unions) to protect hidden in plain taxpayer subsidies to private sector elites who believe it is just their right to be beyond challenge.