The Neoliberal Nightmare

from the Huffington Post

The great American middle class has become an anxious class -- and it's in revolt.

Before I explain how that revolt is playing out, you need to understand the sources of the anxiety.

Start with the fact that the middle class is shrinking, according to a new Pew survey.

The odds of falling into poverty are frighteningly high, especially for the majority without college degrees.

Two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Most could lose their jobs at any time.

Many are part of a burgeoning "on-demand" workforce -- employed as needed, paid whatever they can get whenever they can get it.

Yet if they don't keep up with rent or mortgage payments, or can't pay for groceries or utilities, they'll lose their footing.

The stress is taking a toll. For the first time in history, the lifespans of middle-class whites are dropping.

According to research by the recent Nobel-prize winning economist, Angus Deaton, and his co-researcher Anne Case, middle-aged white men and women in the United States have been dying earlier.

They're poisoning themselves with drugs and alcohol, or committing suicide.

The odds of being gunned down in America by a jihadist are far smaller than the odds of such self-inflicted deaths, but the recent tragedy in San Bernadino only heightens an overwhelming sense of arbitrariness and fragility.

The anxious class feels vulnerable to forces over which they have no control. Terrible things happen for no reason.

Yet government can't be counted on to protect them.

Safety nets are full of holes. Most people who lose their jobs don't even qualify for unemployment insurance.

Government won't protect their jobs from being outsourced to Asia or being taken by a worker here illegally.

Government can't even protect them from evil people with guns or bombs. Which is why the anxious class is arming itself, buying guns at a record rate.

They view government as not so much incompetent as not giving a damn. It's working for the big guys and fat cats -- the crony capitalists who bankroll candidates and get special favors in return.

When I visited so-called "red" states this fall, I kept hearing angry complaints that government is run by Wall Street bankers who get bailed out after wreaking havoc on the economy, corporate titans who get cheap labor, and billionaires who get tax loopholes.

Last year two highly-respected political scientists, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, took a close look at 1,799 policy decisions Congress made over the course of over twenty years, and who influenced those decisions.

Their conclusion: "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."

It was only a matter of time before the anxious class would revolt.

They'd support a strongman who'd promise to protect them from all the chaos.

Who'd save jobs from being shipped abroad, slam Wall Street, stick it to China, get rid of people here illegally, and block terrorists from getting into America.

A strongman who'd make America great again -- which really means make average working people safe again.

It was a pipe dream, of course -- a conjurer's trick. No single person can do this. The world is far too complex. You can't build a wall along the Mexican border. You can't keep out all Muslims. You can't stop corporations from outsourcing abroad.

Nor should you even try.

Besides, we live in a messy democracy, not a dictatorship.

Still, they think maybe he's smart enough and tough enough to pull it off. He's rich. He tells it like it is.

He makes every issue a test of personal strength. He calls himself strong and his adversaries weak.

So what if he's crude and rude? Maybe that's what it takes to protect average people in this cruelly precarious world.

For years I've heard the rumbles of the anxious class. I've listened to their growing anger -- in union halls and bars, in coal mines and beauty parlors, on the Main Streets and byways of the washed-out backwaters of America.

I've heard their complaints and cynicism, their conspiracy theories and their outrage.

Most are good people, not bigots or racists. They work hard and they have a strong sense of fairness.

But their world has been slowly coming apart. And they're scared and fed up.

Now someone comes along who's even more of a bully than those who for years have bullied them economically, politically, and even violently.

The attraction is understandable, even though misguided.

If not Donald Trump, then it will be someone else posing as a strongman. If not this election cycle, it will be the next one.

The revolt of the anxious class has just begun.

Robert B. Reich, "Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few"

Jihadi's Come to Harford County

from the Baltimore Sun

An Edgewood man pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State and received thousands of dollars from overseas that he believed was funding from the terror group to carry out an attack, federal prosecutors said Monday.

Mohamed Elshinawy, 30, was arrested on charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and other offenses, federal prosecutors said. He was scheduled to have an initial court hearing Monday afternoon.

"When confronted by the FBI, he lied in order to conceal his support for ISIL and the steps he took to provide material support to the deadly foreign terrorist organization," Assistant Attorney General John P. Carlin said in a statement.

"He will now be held accountable for these crimes."

The criminal complaint filed against Elshinawy lays out extensive communications the FBI says he had with contacts overseas and alleges he received at least $8,700 he believed was support for terrorism. Federal authorities have brought charges against dozens of people they say are ISIL supporters, but terrorism analysts said the allegation that Elshinawy received funding from the group is new.

Michael Greenberger, the director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, said the charges are another example of ISIL's reach from its bases in the Middle East and their hope to cause mayhem in the United States.

"It appears they have enough money to be able to set out a lot of lures, hoping that one lure will catch somebody who's willing to engage in dangerous activity," Greenberger said.

A couple who investigators believe were inspired by ISIL killed 14 people in a shooting rampage this month at a government facility in San Bernardino, Calif. The group, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility for attacks that have killed scores in Paris, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt.

Elshinawy is the first person to charged by federal prosecutors in Maryland for his alleged ties to the group. He was arrested on Friday, prosecutors said.

No one answered the door Monday afternoon at his address, a townhouse in the 300 block of McCann St. in a neighborhood called Harford Commons, which has several blocks of identical, green-and-white one-story homes. A neighbor said she had seen FBI agents in the area but assumed it was to do with drug dealing rather than a terrorism case.

Agents first interviewed Elshinawy in July, after learning about a suspicious $1000 wire transfer he received from Egypt, according to the criminal complaint.

Elshinawy originally said that the money was from his mother before changing his story and admitting that he had been in contact with a childhood friend who had been arrested in Egypt on terror charges, an FBI agent wrote in the complaint. The friend had fled to Syria but Elshinawy said the friend put him in touch with an ISIL operative in Egypt who sent he money, the FBI says.

Elshinawy said the operative did not give him any guidance on how to carry out an attack but cited the May shooting at Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas as an example, according to the FBI.

Elshinawy said he was actually conning the ISIL operative — including concocting a plot to make it look as though he sold printers on eBay to provide cover for Paypal transfers — and did not plan to do anything.

"Rather, he claimed he saw an opportunity to make money and take it from 'thieves,' and felt that the FBI should reward him for what he had done," the agent wrote.

As they probed further, the investigators wrote that they concluded that wasn't true and that Elshinawy had pledged allegiance to ISIL on social media, had discussed making an explosive device and traveling to live in ISIL controlled territory, and had concealed how much money he had actually received.

It's not clear from the court document what connection the Egyptian contact — who is not identified in the court papers — had with ISIL. Seamus Hughes, who studies ISIL at George Washington University, said the lack of a clear plot suggests the person was not a core member of the terrorist group.

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said the case shows how terrorists exploit technology to find recruits and attempt to communicate in secret.

"Federal agents and prosecutors are working tirelessly and using every available lawful tool to disrupt their evil schemes," he said.

While the case shows some similarities with others where authorities allege people have been radicalized by reading online propaganda, Hughes said the allegations also show how personal connections — like the childhood friend — can lead someone down a path to extremism.

"Real world relationships matter," said Hughes, a former counterterrorism official. "You're more likely to be engaged in this ideology if your friends, or your brother, or your sister are also interested."

The FBI said that after he was interviewed in July, Elshinawy took steps to make it look like he cut off communication with his childhood friend. But as they probed his electronic communications, investigators said they traced a web of email accounts, cell phone numbers and social media platforms that Elshinawy had used to discuss terrorism.

Writing in Arabic, Elshinawy told the friend on Feb. 17 that he had pledged allegiance to ISIL, the FBI said, and in April told him he had many targets in mind.

"Elshinawy also told his childhood friend that he was indebted to him for showing him the way to martyrdom, and that the childhood friend should continue to fight," the FBI agent wrote.

Van Hollen Embraces the Urgency to "Do Something..."

from the Baltimore Sun

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic candidate for Senate, is pressing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan to use his executive power to stop people on the FBI's terrorist watch list from obtaining guns.

Echoing an issue Democrats have been pressing in Washington, Van Hollen wrote in his letter that "Tea Party obstructionism and the NRA" have blocked efforts to pass federal legislation. Instead, Van Hollen wrote, Hogan should "explore every possible state action to prevent dangerous individuals from purchasing guns in Maryland."

Van Hollen, a former state lawmaker who is running against Rep. Donna F. Edwards for the seat that will be left vacant by Sen. Barbara Mikulski in 2017, did not indicate whether he had also sent the letter to the state's Democratic legislative leaders.

Democrats have been pressing Republicans on the issue nationally since several GOP candidates for president have refused to endorse the idea.

Van Hollen and Edwards have both sought to tout their record promoting gun control in their high-profile Senate campaign.

Hogan dismissed Van Hollen's letter as "politics" and "silly."

"It's not an issue in Maryland," he said. "No one on any watch list has ever received a gun."

Maryland already performs comprehensive gun background checks that flag applicants on the federal no-fly list, Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said. The Maryland State Police, who execute those checks, then contact the FBI to discuss the reasons someone is on the list.

To date, Mayer said, no one on the list has been approved to buy a firearm.

Still, the issue is likely to come up during the legislative session in Annapolis next year. A group of four lawmakers, all Democrats, have begun drafting a bill that would expressly prohibit people on FBI watch list from getting a concealed carry permit.

"If we wouldn't let them board a plane at BWI, why would we let them purchase a gun in our state?" said state Sen. Jamie Raskin of Montgomery County, who is also running for congress.

"We obviously can't stop every gun massacre in America but we can at least stop suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms in our own community. I know Congress is deadlocked on it, but that makes it essential for us to act in Maryland as soon as we get back to Annapolis," he said.

State Sen. Jim Rosapepe, of Prince George's County, and Dels. David Moon and Luke Clippinger are drafting the bill with Raskin. Moon is from Montgomery County; Clippinger is from Baltimore.

"If law enforcement officials believe someone is enough of a threat to be on a terrorism watch list, that person should not be allowed to buy the guns that can be used to turn that threat into a tragedy," said Clippinger, who works as a prosecutor. "That's just common sense."

Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley said the department's licensing division has never come across a gun buyer who was on the federal watch list, but that it would show up during the background check.

"If that occurs, our policy is to immediately place a hold on the purchase application and contact the FBI and DHS (Department of Homeland Security). We have no intention of knowingly permitting a potential terrorist to purchase a firearm."

The bill would make that policy law, its sponsors said.

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy said this week he will sign an executive order prohibiting people on terrorism watch lists from buying firearms. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is now running for the GOP presidential nomination, signed a similar law in 2013.

I think that the Left and Right should compromise on this issue, and ban firearm sales to Democrats!