Shakedown: The Fleecing of the Garden State

Carl J. Mayer profiled mostly legalized corruption twenty years ago on Sixty Minutes:
.

.
This segment yielded a book that, sadly, remains timely. Excerpts follow:

U.S. Pension Crisis

I missed this 2013 book when it came out but my Amazon order came yesterday and here are some excerpts starting with a seminal flaw in the valuation of underfunded plans that I also note:

The Soul of the First Amendment

“[Floyd Abrams is the] most significant First Amendment lawyer of our age.” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Floyd Abrams  prevailed in his argument before the Supreme Court on behalf of Senator Mitch McConnell as amicus curiae, defending the rights of corporations and unions to speak publicly about politics and elections in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and his new book reads like a thought-provoking apologia for that job. Excerpts follow:

Drain the Swamp

In this age of Amazon where you can order any book ever written there is still a place for library visits and browsing selected Dewey Decimal classes (in this case 320.973) for books that some library director  (in this case Scotch Plains) thought worthwhile. I found this one on Sunday and just finished reading it. Excerpts follow:

Breaking Through Power

Ralph Nader’s new book is dedicated

to all citizens who wish to better the world and are seriously willing to dedicate some of their time, talent and resources to advance important causes.

Though a little heavy on the bashing of large corporation (who, even if they do not pay much in taxes directly, do employ people who through both income and payroll taxes do pay quite a bit) there were some interesting excerpts to note:

Media Watchdogs?

The New York Times headline seemed interesting:

In New Jersey, Only a Few Media Watchdogs Are Left

But then it turned out NOT to be about why there is supposedly less oversight over journalists but rather implied a nonsensical link between having fewer people working on newspapers and somehow there being less coverage of important government actions.

Three points:

Nails Over Trump

The Kenilworth library presented a choice of Labor day weekend reading between learning about the life of a dissolute egomaniac responsible for a string of bankruptcies or Lenny Dykstra.

I went with the one likely to provide more useful and/or believable information: