Afghan war whistleblower Daniel Davis: 'I had to speak out – lives are at stake'

Soldier wrote detailed report claiming US generals 'have so distorted the truth … the truth has become unrecognisable'

Paul Harris in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 April 2012 06.20 EDT

"I am – how do you say it? – persona non grata," said Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Davis, as he sat sipping a coffee and eating a chocolate sundae in a shopping mall, just a subway stop from the Pentagon.
The career soldier is now a black sheep at the giant defence department building where he still works. The reason was his extraordinarily brave decision to accuse America's military top brass of lying about the war in Afghanistan. When he went public in the New York Times, he was acclaimed as a hero for speaking out about a war that many Americans feel has gone horribly awry. Later this month he will receive a Ridenhour prize, an award given to whistleblowers that is named after the Vietnam war soldier who exposed the My Lai massacre.

Davis believes people are not being told the truth and said so in a detailed report that he wrote after returning from his second tour of duty in the country. He had been rocketed, mortared and had stepped on an improvised explosive device that failed to explode. Soldiers he had met were killed and he was certain that a bloody disaster was unfolding. So he spoke out. "It's like I see in slow motion men dying for nothing and I can't stop it," he said. "It is consuming me from the inside. It is eating me alive."

Taxed by the boss

By David Cay Johnston

April 12, 2012

Across the United States more than 2,700 companies are collecting state income taxes from hundreds of thousands of workers – and are keeping the money with the states’ approval, says an eye-opening report published on Thursday.

The report from Good Jobs First, a nonprofit taxpayer watchdog organization funded by Ford, Surdna and other major foundations, identifies 16 states that let companies divert some or all of the state income taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks. None of the states requires notifying the workers, whose withholdings are treated as taxes they paid.

General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Procter & Gamble, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and AMC Theatres enjoy deals to keep state taxes deducted from their workers’ paychecks, the report shows. Foreign companies also enjoy such arrangements, including Electrolux, Nissan, Toyota and a host of Canadian, Japanese and European banks, Good Jobs First says.

How Neocons Sank Iran Nuke Deal

April 12, 2012

 

Exclusive: Iran is resuming talks over its nuclear program with leading international powers – the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany – with the prospect of an agreement to swap some enriched uranium for research isotopes. But a similar plan was torpedoed by U.S. neocons in 2010, recalls Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

Two years ago, Washington’s influential neoconservatives – both inside and outside government – shot down a possible resolution to the Iranian nuclear dispute because they wanted a confrontation with Tehran that some hoped would lead to their long-held dream of “regime change.”

In the ensuing two years, the cost of that confrontation has been high not just for Iranians, who have faced harsh sanctions, but for the world’s economy. For instance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent escalation of bomb-Iran rhetoric contributed to the spike in gasoline prices that seems to be choking off the U.S. recovery, just as job growth was starting to accelerate.

Raising the minimum wage: The right thing to do, and a winning issue, too.

by Laura Clawson for Daily Kos Labor

Raising the minimum wage is once again developing momentum as an issue both federally and in the states. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C. already have minimum wages above the federal level, and at least six others are considering doing so. The New York Times' Steven Greenhouse reports on the efforts to raise federal or state minimum wages—and on the predictable pushback from business interests that oppose a livable minimum wage.

In part, it's time: The last time the federal minimum increased was in 2009, and the bill that increased it had been passed in 2007 after years of fighting to do so. In part, the current $7.25 minimum was too low when it went into effect, and this is a fight that shouldn't end until the federal minimum wage is raised and then indexed to inflation.

Yes, Virginia, This Is Obama’s JOBS Act

A number of people, many of them enthusiastic supporters of President Obama, wrote in to complain about my last piece about the JOBS Act. The gist of many of these letters was that the new deregulatory law could in no way be described as "Obama's JOBS Act."

"This was a Republican bill, birthed by Eric Cantor in the House, and driven by overwhelming Republican support," wrote in one emailer. "All Obama did was sign it. It’s totally dishonest to call it an Obama bill."
Okay, let’s talk about that. But first, a quick note on the bill itself, since I think some people misunderstand the objection to the bill

Corruption Responsible for 80% of Your Cell Phone Bill

By Matt Stoller posted Apr 9th 2012 at 1:45PM

Last year, a new company called Lightsquared promised an innovative business model that would dramatically lower cell phone costs and improve the quality of service, threatening the incumbent phone operators like AT&T and Verizon.  Lightsquared used a new technology involving satellites and spectrum, and was a textbook example of how markets can benefit the public through competition.  The phone industry swung into motion, not by offering better products and services, but by going to Washington to ensure that its new competitor could be killed by its political friends.  And sure enough, through three Congressmen that AT&T and Verizon had funded (Fred Upton (R-MI), Greg Walden (R-OR), and Cliff Stearns (R-FL)), Congress began demanding an investigation into this new company.  Pretty soon, the Federal Communications Commission got into the game, revoking a critical waiver that had allowed it to proceed with its business plan.

Fun facts about the top 96 Pentagon arms programs

Every spring, the Government Accountability Office reports to Congress on how well the Pentagon’s major weapons programs are progressing, and its conclusions have not been flattering for a long time.

An ugly foreclosure story, starring Bank of America
Dirma Rodriguez wonders how a house she'd been paying on for years, and which is specially modified for her severely disabled daughter, could be taken from her.

Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times

April 13, 2012

Dirma Rodriguez had five minutes to gather her things and vacate the West Adams house she and her severely disabled daughter had lived in for more than 25 years.

As a property manager changed the locks, Rodriguez fluttered back and forth from the yard — where a pile of stuff lay by the kitchen stove — to her car, where her daughter, Ingrid Ortiz, sat screaming and crying.

How Rodriguez and Ortiz ended up in this predicament is a long, messy story that resounds with a misery all too common in this age of foreclosure.

Wealth Defense Industry: The Real Reason America's Oligarchs Can Squeeze the Rest of Us

By Jeffrey A. Winters, In These Times
Posted on April 9, 2012, Printed on April 14, 2012

In 2005, Citigroup offered its high net-worth clients in the United States a concise statement of the threats they and their money faced.

The report told them they were the leaders of a “plutonomy,” an economy driven by the spending of its ultra-rich citizens. “At the heart of plutonomy is income inequality,” which is made possible by “capitalist-friendly governments and tax regimes.”

The danger, according to Citigroup’s analysts, is that “personal taxation rates could rise – dividends, capital gains, and inheritance taxes would hurt the plutonomy.”

But the ultra-rich already knew that. In fact, even as America’s income distribution has skewed to favor the upper classes, the very richest have successfully managed to reduce their overall tax burden. Look no further than Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, who in 2010 paid 13.9 percent of his $21.6 million income in taxes that year, the same tax rate as an individual who earned a mere $8,500 to $34,500.

Revealed: CISPA -- Internet Spying Law -- Pushed by For-Profit Spy Lobby

Defense industry contractors are lobbying for the cyber security bill in Congress that would expand the government's ability to access information about online activity. 

By Lee Fang, Republic Report
Posted on April 13, 2012, Printed on April 14, 2012

A cyber security bill moving swiftly through Congress would give government intelligence agencies broad powers to work with private companies to share information about Internet users. While some critics are beginning to organize online against the legislation, defense contractors, many already working with the National Security Agency on related data-mining projects, are lobbying to press forward. Like many bad policy ideas, entrenched government contractors seem to be using taxpayer money to lobby for even more power and profit.

The proposal, H.R.3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, introduced by Congressmen Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), provides companies and the government “free rein to bypass existing laws in order to monitor communications, filter content, or potentially even shut down access to online services for ‘cybersecurity purposes.’” Though the bill has been compared to SOPA given its potential to smother free speech on the Internet, the ill-fated copyright legislation that inspired an intense lobbying battle earlier this year, much of the tech community has has joined with copyright interests to support CISPA.

Right-Wing Religion's War on America

Many in America's Catholic leadership and on the evangelical right claim there's a war on religion. In fact, they are waging a war on individual liberties.

From a posh residence in the heart of New York City that has been described as a “mini-mansion,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan is perhaps the most visible representative of an American church empire of 60 million adherents and vast financial holdings.

Dolan and his fellow clergy move easily through the corridors of political power, courted by big-city mayors, governors and even presidents. In the halls of Congress, they are treated with a deference no secular lobbyist can match.

From humble origins in America, the church has risen to lofty heights marked by affluence, political influence and social respect. Yet, according to church officials, they are being increasingly persecuted, and their rights are under sustained attack.

Millions Against Monsanto: The Food Fight of Our Lives

By Ronnie Cummins, AlterNet
Posted on April 11, 2012, Printed on April 13, 2012

"If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it." -- Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star, March 7, 1994

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." -- Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications, quoted in the New York Times, October 25, 1998

For nearly two decades, Monsanto and corporate agribusiness have exercised near-dictatorial control over American agriculture, aided and abetted by indentured politicians and regulatory agencies, supermarket chains, giant food processors, and the so-called “natural” products industry.

Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry’s contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We’re fighting back.

Paul Krugman: US Hedge Fund Managers Can Buy Anything, Except Respect

Alec MacGillis, a senior editor at The New Republic, has a fantastic piece in the latest edition about how hedge fund managers' love for President Obama has turned into blind, spitting hatred.

His main argument is that it's all about feeling disrespected:

"[I]t wasn't just anyone knocking them — it was the president of the United States, notes Eugene Fama, a legendary finance professor at the University of Chicago ... 'Lots of [hedge fund managers] started out poor, and made a huge amount of money, and created thousands and thousands of jobs in the process. They're used to being the American Dream, and now you have the president who looks at them and sneers at them like they're bad guys. For all the brashness and bravado that goes with their world, it seems the managers are oddly insecure about their purpose."

The Wonderful, Unpredictable Life of the Occupy Movement

Wednesday, 11 April 2012 00:00  
By Arun Gupta, Truthout | Report 

I met Nomi on a bus in Baltimore. She was from Wisconsin and had been involved with Occupy Wall Street. She was part of Occupy Judaism and fondly recalled the Yom Kippur services she attended at the Wall Street occupation with hundreds of other people. Nomi said that, for the first time, she and her friends felt like they could combine the religious and radical dimensions of Judaism. The conversation fell silent as the bus rolled along. Suddenly she turned to me and excitedly announced that she met her girlfriend at Liberty Plaza. I smiled and responded, "That's why Occupy Wall Street matters."

By enabling people to find fulfillment in all parts of their lives, whether romantic, spiritual, political or cultural, the Occupy movement is more than a movement. It is life-changing. People experience themselves as complete social beings, not just as angry, alienated protesters. Nomi said she was no longer involved in the movement, which I thought was more evidence of why the actual occupations were so important.

Koch-Funded GOP Economist Uses New Math To Find That Health Reform Increases The Deficit

George W. Bush’s Social Security privatization guru Charles Blahous — who now works for the Koch-fundedMercatus Center — is out with a new report alleging that the Affordable Care Act adds $340 billion to the deficit. The new math relies on the old “double counting” meme — an argument advanced by Republicans in Congress in the final days of the health care reform debate alleging that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) appropriated the same revenue for extending the solvency of the Medicare trust fund as it did for paying out benefits.

Karl Rove Group That Absurdly Blames Obama For Rising Gas Prices Was Bankrolled By Top Oil Speculator

By Stephen Lacey on Apr 11, 2012 at 3:56 pm

conservative political advocacy group attacking Obama for supposedly raising gas prices received a “seven-figure check” from a leading Wall Street oil speculator.

While conservative organizations — and even Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal – agree that presidents have no control over gas prices, excessive oil speculation has been blamed by economists for 15% of the increase in the price of crude oil over the last decade.

How the Banks Endangered Medicare By SIMON JOHNSON

Simon Johnson is the Ronald A. Kurtz Professor of Entrepreneurship at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and co-author of “White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters to You.”

The world’s largest banks have been accused of many things in recent years, including taking excessive risk in the run-up to 2008, doing great damage to the American economy by blowing themselves up and then working hard to resist any sensible notions of financial reform.

All of this is true, but it misses what is likely to be the most profound negative impact of the banks’ behavior on most Americans. The banks’ actions led directly to an increase in government debt, which in turn has made the reduction of that debt by “cutting runaway spending” a centerpiece of the Republican presidential campaign to date.

Windfarms do not cause long-term damage to bird populations: study

By Severin Carrell, The Guardian
Thursday, April 12, 2012 11:39 EDT

A major new study has quashed fears that onshore windfarms are causing long-term damage to bird populations, but found new evidence that some species are harmed when windfarms are built.

The study by conservationists into the impacts on 10 of the key species of British upland bird, including several suffering serious population declines, concluded that a large majority of species can co-exist or thrive with windfarms once they are operating.

High levels of phthalates can lead to greater risk for type-2 diabetes

There is a connection between phthalates found in cosmetics and plastics and the risk of developing diabetes among seniors. Even at a modest increase in circulating phthalate levels, the risk of diabetes is doubled. This conclusion is drawn by researchers at Uppsala University in a study published in the journal Diabetes Care.

"Although our results need to be confirmed in more studies, they do support the hypothesis that certain environmental chemicals can contribute to the development of diabetes," says Monica Lind, associate professor of environmental medicine at the Section for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Uppsala University.

The Long, Hot March of Climate Change


By Amy Goodman

The Pentagon knows it. The world’s largest insurers know it. Now, governments may be overthrown because of it. It is climate change, and it is real. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the hottest March on record for the United States since 1895, when records were first kept, with average temperatures of 8.6 degrees F above average. More than 15,000 March high-temperature records were broken nationally. Drought, wildfires, tornadoes and other extreme weather events are already plaguing the country.

Across the world in the Maldives, rising sea levels continue to threaten this Indian Ocean archipelago. It is the world’s lowest-lying nation, on average only 1.3 meters above sea level. The plight of the Maldives gained global prominence when its young president, the first-ever democratically elected there, Mohamed Nasheed, became one of the world’s leading voices against climate change, especially in the lead-up to the 2009 U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen. Nasheed held a ministerial meeting underwater, with his cabinet in scuba gear, to illustrate the potential disaster.

More BS Lies From the Right: Allen West Claims There are 80 Communists Among House Democrats

By Hunter | Sourced from Daily Kos
Posted at April 12, 2012, 7:57 am

REP. ALLEN WEST (R-FL): I believe there's about 70, 80 to 81 members of the  Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party [in the House of Representatives].

For some reason, a certain set of people in a certain part of Florida decided, back in 2010, that the person they most wanted to represent them in the House of Representatives of the United States was one Allen West. This was despite ample evidence that this fellow was, as gently as can be put, touched in the head. His rhetoric is sketchy at best; some of the stuff in his past is considerably worse than merely sketchy. (I will confess that during the investigations into U.S. abuse of prisoners during the Iraq War, the one thing that did notenter my head was, "You know what, I really think we ought to turn one of these accused torturers into a congressman, they seem really well suited for the job." But I'm not a Republican.) Once ensconced in Congress, he proceeded on his apparent quest to be known as the worst dunderhead in an institution full of them, making headlines again and again for saying profoundly stupid things in profoundly stupid ways, and generally demonstrating to the rest of the nation, once again, that the people of Florida are not really ready for democracy after all.

Why Do So Many Elites Hate Social Security?

By Dave Johnson

April 11, 2012 - 12:49am ET 

This week there was another big attack on Social Security by another elite. This time the attack comes from an elite columnist, other times it comes from Wall Street types, wealthy CEOs or the kind of politicians that have been in DC way too long. These attacks never come from people who depend on these programs (i.e. almost all of us.) Why do the privileged elites hate Social Security so much?

Robert Samuelson wrote this week in the Washington Post, Would Roosevelt recognize today’s Social Security? Samuelson writes that Social Security, "has become what was then called “the dole” and is now known as “welfare.” " He discusses a book that, he writes, "shows how today’s “entitlement” psychology dates to Social Security’s muddled beginnings."

European stock markets rocked by panic selling as debt crisis reignites

Investors demanding high premiums for holding Italian and Spanish bonds as fears of double-dip recession grow

Heather Stewart, Larry Elliott and Giles Tremlett in Madrid
The Guardian, Tuesday 10 April 2012

Europe's sovereign debt crisis exploded back into life on Tuesday, with markets across the continent rocked by a wave of panic selling amid renewed fears about the impact of savage austerity measures in Spain and Italy.

The mood of uneasy calm seen across Europe since the Greek bailout in February was shattered as financial markets took fright at evidence of a double-dip recession and growing popular opposition to welfare cuts and tax increases.

Italy and Spain, the eurozone's third and fourth biggest economies, were at the centre of the market turmoil, with investors demanding an increasingly high premium for holding their bonds.

Understanding the Ideological Divide Between Liberals and Conservatives: Is it Possible for Us to Get Along?

Journalist Chris Mooney discusses his new book, "The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Reject Science -- and Reality." 

April 10, 2012  |   In his new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Reject Science -- And Reality, science journalist Chris Mooney surveys this growing body of data and explains its significance. Mooney recently appeared on the AlterNet Radio Hour to discuss the book. Below is a transcript that has been lightly edited for clarity (listen to the whole show here).

Rachel Maddow Challenges Michigan Republicans to Bring It On

By: Jason Easley
April 10, 2012

Rachel Maddow told Michigan Republicans to bring it on after they responded to her report on their circumventing of democracy with insults.

Here’s the video:

In a Crackpot Economy, Endless Jackpots for Hedge Fund Managers

By Sam Pizzigati

April 9, 2012 - 10:44am ET 

At what point will our world wake up to the fantastically rewarding scam that our hedge fund masters of the universe have been running?

No single individual in the United States had a more lucrative year at the office in 2011 than Raymond Dalio. Working out of his Bridgewater Associates headquarters in Westport, Connecticut, the 63-year-old hedge fund manager pulled down a sweet $3.9 billion.

The typical American worker, by contrast, ended 2011 earning just under $40,000. That typical worker would have had to labor over 97,000 years to equal what Dalio made in just one.

New finding offers neurological support for Adam Smith's 'theories of morality'

The part of the brain we use when engaging in egalitarian behavior may also be linked to a larger sense of morality, researchers have found. Their conclusions, which offer scientific support for Adam Smith's theories of morality, are based on experimental research published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, coming seven months after the start of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, which has been aimed at addressing income inequality, was conducted by researchers from: New York University's Wilf Family Department of Politics; the University of Toronto; the University of California, San Diego; the University of California, Davis; and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Why Obama's JOBS Act Couldn't Suck Worse

by Matt Taibbi

Boy, do I feel like an idiot. I've been out there on radio and TV in the last few months saying that I thought there was a chance Barack Obama was listening to the popular anger against Wall Street that drove the Occupy movement, that decisions like putting a for-real law enforcement guy like New York AG Eric Schneiderman in charge of a mortgage fraud task force meant he was at least willing to pay lip service to public outrage against the banks.

Then the JOBS Act happened.

For Robert Samuelson on Social Security, Fact-Checkers Went AWOL

By Dean Baker

April 9, 2012 - 12:13pm ET 

Social Security and Medicare are hugely important for the security of the non-rich population of the United States. For this reason, Robert Samuelson and The Washington Post hate them.

As we know, this is a question of basic political philosophy. In the view of Samuelson and the Post, a dollar that it is in the pocket of low or middle class people is a dollar that could be in the pocket of the rich. And Medicare and Social Security are keeping many dollars in the pockets of low and middle class people.

Washington, We Have a Revenue Problem

David Callahan and Robert Hiltonsmith

April 9, 2012

Why taxes have to go up—by a lot

The United States has a revenue problem. Taxes at all levels of government are too low to balance budgets and, more important, to ensure America’s future prosperity and cope with an aging population. While many political and policy leaders argue that future revenues should reflect “historic norms,” this is a flawed assumption on which to base long-term fiscal planning.

Tax revenues have accounted for around 18 percent of GDP since World War II, and 18.3 percent over the past 30 years. The budget released by Paul Ryan and the House Budget Committee proposes average revenue levels at this same level—18.3 over the next decade. (Although an analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that the average would in fact be 15.4 percent.) The Simpson-Bowles plan, released in late 2010, proposed average revenues of 19.3 percent through 2020. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration’s 2013 budget proposal sets revenues at 19.2 percent of GDP over the next decade.

Birth control pioneer says fight had personal cost

By BRIDGET MURPHY | Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Taunts of "baby killer" and "butcher" still echo in Bill Baird's ears, nearly five decades after he began fighting for birth control and abortion rights.

Now 79, the Massachusetts man says a Georgetown University law student's recent verbal bashing on a national radio show is evidence that rights he equates with liberty and equality are in jeopardy.

"There will always be those who will try to deny us our freedoms," Baird wrote in a letter to student Sandra Fluke, who testified to Congress about birth control. "As you have seen, it takes eternal vigilance to fight against those forces."

Baird's own fight started grabbing headlines around April 1967.

Falling Coverage Rates: One Reason Government Surveys May Not Show a Rise in Poverty

By: Dean Baker Sunday April 8, 2012 7:39 am

In a NYT Economic blogpost Jason DeParle ponders the fact that government surveys are not showing much increase in poverty, even though we know there are many people experiencing long periods of unemployment and many forms of government assistance have been cut back. One possible explanation is that people in poverty and extreme poverty are less likely to be covered by the survey.

My colleague, John Schmitt, found clear evidence of a coverage problem in comparing employment rates as shown in the 2000 Census and the overlapping months of the Current Population Survey (CPS). This is a useful check on the accuracy of the CPS, the main survey for measuring both unemployment and poverty, since the Census has near universal reach with a response rate of close to 99 percent. By comparison, the coverage rate for the CPS is close to 88 percent.

The $30 Billion Social Security Hack

Sometime last year computers at the U.S. Social Security Administration were hacked and the identities of millions of Americans were compromised. What, you didn’t hear about that?  Nobody did.

The extent of damage is only just now coming to light in the form of millions of false 2011 income tax returns filed in the names of people currently receiving Social Security benefits. That includes a very large number of elderly and disabled people who are ill-equipped to recognize or fight the problem. It’s an impact pervasive enough that the IRS now has a form just to deal with it: Form 14039: Identity Theft Affidavit, December 2011.

Paul Krugman: The Gullible Center
So, can we talk about the Paul Ryan phenomenon?

And yes, I mean the phenomenon, not the man. Mr. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee
and the principal author of the last two Congressional Republican budget proposals, isn’t especially
interesting. He’s a garden-variety modern G.O.P. extremist, an Ayn Rand devotee who believes that the
answer to all problems is to cut taxes on the rich and slash benefits for the poor and middle class.

No, what’s interesting is the cult that has grown up around Mr. Ryan — and in particular the way selfproclaimed centrists elevated him into an icon of fiscal responsibility, and even now can’t seem to let go of their fantasy.

Rahm Emanuel Has a Problem With Democracy

POSTED: April 3, 12:10 PM ET | By Rick Perlstein

Rahm Emanuel insists it’s no biggie. Yes, when it was announced last summer that Chicago would host unprecedented back-to-back summits in May of 2012 of the G8 and NATO, the new mayor raved about his "opportunity to showcase what is great about the greatest city in the greatest country." And yes, when President Obama abruptly announced last month that the G8 would instead take place at Camp David, after the city had already committed millions of dollars for preparations, he gave his chief of staff one hour's notice. But Rahm generously said he took "at face value" his former boss's explanation that the presidential retreat in rustic Maryland would provide a more "intimate" setting for the leaders of the world’s eight largest economies. No embarrassment at all.

The Assault on Public Education

Wednesday, 04 April 2012 09:17  
By Noam Chomsky

Public education is under attack around the world, and in response, student protests have recently been held in Britain, Canada, Chile, Taiwan and elsewhere.

California is also a battleground. The Los Angeles Times reports on another chapter in the campaign to destroy what had been the greatest public higher education system in the world: "California State University officials announced plans to freeze enrollment next spring at most campuses and to wait-list all applicants the following fall pending the outcome of a proposed tax initiative on the November ballot."

Similar defunding is under way nationwide. "In most states," The New York Times reports, "it is now tuition payments, not state appropriations, that cover most of the budget," so that "the era of affordable four-year public universities, heavily subsidized by the state, may be over."

Paul Krugman: Beware of Austerity's Vicious Circle

Thursday, 05 April 2012 11:49 

One of the key arguments made by the proponents of fiscal austerity, even in a deeply depressed economy, has involved a sort of macroeconomic version of Pascal's wager. Yes, the more open-minded admit, borrowing costs are very low in the United States and Britain. Yes, the arithmetic suggests that cutting spending now will do very little to improve long-run fiscal prospects. But you never know — maybe the last trillion dollars of spending will be what causes a sudden loss of market confidence, turning you into Greeeeeeece. (Cue scary noises.)

Leave on one side the enormous difference between countries that do and don't have their own currencies (and debt in their own currencies). Let me instead point out that there are other risks.

Whose World Bank?

Thursday, 05 April 2012 14:33  
By Joseph E Stiglitz, Project Syndicate

New York - US President Barack Obama's nomination of Jim Yong Kim for the presidency of the World Bank has been well received – and rightly so, especially given some of the other names that were bandied about. In Kim, a public-health professor who is now President of Dartmouth University and previously led the World Health Organization's HIV/AIDS department, the United States has put forward a good candidate. But the candidate's nationality, and the nominating country – whether small and poor or large and rich – should play no role in determining who gets the job.

The World Bank's 11 executive directors from emerging and developing countries have put forward two excellent candidates, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria and Jose Antonio Ocampo of Colombia. I have worked closely with both of them. Both are first-rate, have served as ministers with multiple portfolios, have performed admirably in top positions in multilateral organizations, and have the diplomatic skills and professional competence to do an outstanding job. They understand finance and economics, the bread and butter of the World Bank, and have a network of connections to leverage the Bank's effectiveness.

Private Consultants Rake in Public Pension Fund Fees

Sunday, 08 April 2012 13:04  
By Mike Alberti, Remapping Debate

The woes of public pension funds have generally been placed squarely at the feet of public employees, who are often accused of having bloated pension packages that are neither realistic in today's economy nor fiscally sustainable. But much of the damage to pension fund account balances occurred as a result of losses incurred during the collapse of the bubble in 2008 to 2009.

Who has been responsible for fund performance? A recent article in The New York Times shed some light on the huge amounts of money that public pension funds pay each year to Wall Street firms for the service of managing their assets.

SOPA Opponents Fear New Anti-Piracy Legislation is Coming

Carl Franzen April 6, 2012, 3:26 PM 1003

Updated 4:20 pm ET, Friday, April 6

Advocacy groups that led the fight against the failed anti-online piracy bills the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (IP) have begun to mobilize their forces anew, anticipating that lawmakers, backed by Hollywood lobbyists, will attempt to resurrect the bills or launch comparable new legislation in an effort to crack down on piracy.

The sudden regrouping comes three months after a successful, massive one-day protest by millions of Web users and hundreds of thousands of sites, including Google, Wikipedia and Reddit, spooked legislators away from SOPA and PIPA and left the bills indefinitely stalled in Congress. No new similarly broad anti-piracy legislation has been introduced since.

The Truth about Taxes: Just About Everyone Pays Them

Today's employment report showed continued growth in the labor market, although at a slower pace than over the previous four months.  Furthermore, the unemployment rate ticked down from 8.3 percent to 8.2 percent in March. The economy has now produced positive jobs growth for the last eighteen months. Employer payrolls increased by 120,000 jobs in March, with manufacturing and health care posting large gains.

In past months, The Hamilton Project has examined employment trends over the last several years, as the Great Recession has taken its toll on many Americans across various segments of the population. This month, in honor of tax day, we explore how the current labor market has impacted one area affecting all Americans: taxes and, more specifically, who pays them.  We also continue to explore the nation’s “jobs gap.”

Team American Needs A New Game Plan

Analysis: Even in this first post-crisis presidential year, the US is still as out of touch as ever.

Michael Moran 
April 4, 2012 06:13

NEW YORK, New York — Through the patriotic haze of an American political campaign year, it is tempting to believe our own hooey.

America is exceptional and not in decline, Barack Obama insisted in his most recent State of the Union address. Mitt Romney, his leading GOP rival, insists against the opinion of most economists that the US economy can achieve average annual growth of 4 percent a year and anyone who says otherwise is a defeatist.

In fact, both are dead wrong. Gravity does affect the US just like any other nation, and 4 percent average annual growth for a mature economy is a pipedream.

These Are The Prices AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Charge For Cellphone Wiretaps

If Americans aren’t disturbed by phone carriers’ practices of handing over cell phone users’ personal data to law enforcement en masse–in many cases without a warrant–we might at least be interested to learn just how much that service is costing us in tax dollars: often hundreds or thousands per individual snooped.

Earlier this week the American Civil Liberties Union revealed a trove of documents it had obtained through Freedom of Information Requests to more than 200 police departments around the country. They show a pattern of police tracking cell phone locations and gathering other data like call logs without warrants, using devices that impersonate cell towers to intercept cellular signals, and encouraging officers to refrain from speaking about cell-tracking technology to the public, all detailed in a New York Times story.

While Jamie Dimon Gently Weeps, a "Big Stick" Bank Attack on Democracy

By Richard (RJ) Eskow

April 5, 2012 - 2:40pm ET 

He's at again - and we're glad. A lot of smart people are dedicating their lives to fighting the corrosive effect of Wall Street on our economy and our democracy, but the best spokesman for that cause comes from Wall Street itself.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is still the poster child for today's morally degraded, self-entitled banker mentality. I don't know why he keeps talking, but he's the gift that keeps on giving.

Come Saturday Morning: Minnesota’s ALEC-Inspired “Chaos Amendment” – Paid for by Wells Fargo, US Bank and TCF
By: Phoenix Woman Saturday April 7, 2012 6:45 am

Even as Texas and Wisconsin Republicans see their versions of ALEC’s voter ID model bill run into constitutional problems, Minnesota’s Republicans — who wafted into office on a magic carpet propelled in large part by cash from corporate voter ID backers — are prepared to flout that part of the state constitution that guarantees the right to vote. As Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat who vetoed last year’s GOP efforts to push the ALEC Voter ID Bill but whose hands are tied this year because ballot amendments can’t be vetoed, says:

“This is a partisan amendment based on a false premise that voter fraud is a significant problem in Minnesota. Our election system is the best in the nation. We have the highest voter turnout year after year and under intense, bipartisan scrutiny, the recent statewide recounts have highlighted how reliable the results are. Much of the strength of the system derives from over 150 years of bipartisan work and its federated nature – the 87 county auditors, hundreds of municipal clerks, and 30,000 volunteer election judges who administer Minnesota’s elections and ensure they are free and fair.