The Infrastructure of the Great Outdoors

  Millions of Americans who visit national parks, live near national forests, or make their living from the enjoyment and use of America’s public lands now face deep uncertainty about how President-elect Donald Trump plans to manage the nation’s natural resources. These roughly 5.5 million square miles of public lands and ocean amount to a valuable system of natural infrastructure, which each president is tasked with governing. While on the campaign trail, President-elect Trump indicated a measure of commitment to protecting public lands, but it remains to be seen whether he will manage these resources on behalf of all Americans.

Billy Corriher: Big Business is still dominating state Supreme Courts

  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the billionaire Koch brothers, and their big business allies have engaged in a decades-long effort to elect pro-corporate judges to state courts. In 1971, a corporate lawyer named Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote a secret memo to the chamber arguing that big business was under attack from institutions he perceived as liberal: academics, the media, college students, and politicians. He also cited the public’s support for legislation to protect consumers and the environment. Powell lamented that “few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders.” Powell suggested a solution:

Eric Alterman: Heads, the Tea Party wins; tails, the Tea Party wins

  Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum recently suggested that Americans would be less apt to hold Republicans responsible for the government shutdown than they did in 1995 because of the help Republicans could expect to receive from Fox News. She was wrong about this; indeed, she and Fox News host Brit Hume were typically wrong about almost everything. For instance, MacCallum said that:

        Fox News Channel was just beginning. People are very—it’s a different world in terms of what people understand about what’s going on. In those days, it was much easier to pin the problems in this on the Republicans … I’m not sure that they’re going to punish the Republicans to the extent that they did last time around.

Ian M. MacIsaac: Mitt's mysterious money: The growing controversy around Governor Romney's shadowy finances

  Mitt Romney loves his money. He loves it so much he does not want to pay taxes on it, keep it in the United States where it might be monitored by the IRS, or even allow the public to know how much of it he has (estimates hover around $250 million).

  He refused to release his tax returns during the 2008 campaign, and released them this time around only after being politically hammered into doing so by his fellow Republican candidates, namely Rick Santorum.

  And, despite having officially retired from the business world in 1999, Romney still makes a heaping pile: $42.5 million in income in 2010-2011, with taxes of only $6.2 million--below 15 percent taxation, just over half of the overall rate paid by the average American.