Today’s Links: September 6, 2011

NEWS

ALCOHOL – Wine Tax Linked to Glut of Two Buck Chuck
“The Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation says that the way Australia taxes wine is feeding a glut and is rewarding poor quality production. The group says cheap cask wine is all too often associated with the most harmful aspects of alcohol abuse and it is calling on the Government to impose a volumetric tax similar to the one on beer.

TSA – Janet Napolitano: Shoes-on Flight in Sight
“Air travelers will eventually be able to keep their shoes on to pass through security, but the restrictions on carrying liquids on board are likely to remain in place for some time, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a POLITICO Playbook breakfast Tuesday.”

CLIMATE CHANGE – Gore’s Dire Weather Warning
“The stability of governance arrangements in many strategically important regions of the world is threatened by the multiple assaults of climate change, as budgets are drained, competition for resources is enhanced, and populations suffer.”

OPINION

Glenn Greenwald: “The DoJ’s Escalating Criminalization of Speech”
“Over the past several years, the Justice Department has increasingly attempted to criminalize what is clearly protected political speech by prosecuting numerous individuals (Muslims, needless to say) for disseminating political views the government dislikes or considers threatening.  The latest episode emerged on Friday, when the FBI announced the arrest and indictment of Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, charged with “providing material support” to a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)).”

George L. Priest: “Washington’s Antitrust Timewarp”
“The Obama administration’s suit to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile will harm, not help, our sputtering economy. The administration claims the acquisition ‘would result in tens of millions of consumers . . . facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services.’ It argues that stopping the buyout ‘will help protect jobs in the economy’ since mergers usually reduce jobs through the elimination of redundancies.”

Michael Barone: “Obama’s Jobs Speech: The Audacity of Weakness”
“Democrats have criticized Obama on the speech-scheduling flap. James Carville said he was ‘out of bounds.’ Salon.com’s Cenk Uygur sensed “the audacity of weakness.’ It reminds me of a phrase describing a character in the 1980s TV series Dallas — ‘blustering, opportunistic, craven and hopelessly ineffective all at once.'”