Jul 3, 2013
Another "encore performance" kicked off with Derp News from Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal's private school voucher program apparently caught legislators by surprise when they found out that funding religious schools also meant funding Muslim schools. Greg Dworkin rounded up jobs report news and presidential election polling. Then, more about Mitt Romney's weird offshore tax shelters. And a shocking story about privatized probation and fine-levying in Alabama. (Remember when we were saying with regard to surveillance that at least private companies can't arrest you? Hmm!) That led to a wider discussion of prison privatization and how it unbalances what might be described as one of the unenumerated checks and balances on state power. Later, Steve Singiser joined in for his first appearance on the air, discussing the June jobs data, and the Tea Party-driven implosion in Republican Senate primaries. Returning to the private probation story, we connected the spread of such schemes, once again, to ALEC. And the proliferation of fees and fines, once again, to the burgeoning rent-seeking culture. And hey, what about these rent-seeking municipal bond hucksters? And why is the South, in particular, so prone to these schemes?