Richard Eskow: Big-Bank Bad Guys Bully Democracy – And Blow It

For so-called “masters of the universe,” Wall Street executives sure seem touchy about criticism. It seems they don’t like being painted as the bad guys.

But if they don’t like being criticized, why do so many of them keep behaving like B-movie villains? That’s exactly what executives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America looked like after an article appeared last week detailing their coordinated attempt to intimidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Democrats who want to fix the mess on Wall Street.

Latest Assault on Net Neutrality Launched at Telecom Industry-Funded Think Tank

By Lee Fang

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., last week addressed the Free State Foundation to announce his new plan to undermine recently enacted net neutrality rules by going after the funding of the Federal Communications Commission, the agency behind the decision.

The FCC’s approach to net neutrality represents “potential untenable rules and regulatory overreach that will hurt consumers,” said Walden, the chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, speaking at the foundation’s annual Telecom Policy Conference. Walden outlined a plan to limit FCC appropriations, cap its other revenue sources, and change the hiring process for the FCC’s inspector general.

Neocons: the Echo of German Fascism

Exclusive: The “f-word” for “fascist” keeps cropping up in discussing aggressive U.S. and Israeli “exceptionalism,” but there’s a distinction from the “n-word” for “Nazi.” This new form of ignoring international law fits more with an older form of German authoritarianism favored by neocon icon Leo Strauss, says retired JAG Major Todd E. Pierce.

By Todd E. Pierce

With the Likud Party electoral victory in Israel, the Republican Party is on a roll, having won two major elections in a row. The first was winning control of the U.S. Congress last fall. The second is the victory by the Republicans’ de facto party leader Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s recent election. As the Israeli Prime Minister puts together a coalition with other parties “in the national camp,” as he describes them, meaning the ultra-nationalist parties of Israel, it will be a coalition that today’s Republicans would feel right at home in.

The common thread linking Republicans and Netanyahu’s “national camp” is a belief of each in their own country’s “exceptionalism,” with a consequent right of military intervention wherever and whenever their “Commander in Chief” orders it, as well as the need for oppressive laws to suppress dissent.

The Gates Foundation vs. the World Social Forum: A Tale of Two Meetings

by Morten Thaysen

This week the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID hosted a meeting in London with big agribusinesses to discuss strategies to increase corporate control over seeds in Africa. The location of the meeting was secret. So was the agenda. Attendance was strictly invite-only and nobody who even came close to representing African small farmers was invited.

Meanwhile farmers and food sovereignty activists met at the World Social Forum in Tunis, Tunisia to discuss their solutions to the problems of our food system. These two meetings represent not just two different types of meeting – a closed, secretive meeting of the powerful versus an open, democratic meeting of grassroots activists – but also two radically different paths for the future of our food. One is based on corporate control and would generate vast profits for a small elite; the second is centred on sustainable, democratic, local food production.

Secretive group destroys candidates' chances, leaves few fingerprints

NRA-launched Law Enforcement Alliance of America targets state races

By Rachel Baye

LAKE RIDGE, Va. — Wedged between a nail salon and a pizza shop in a strip mall about 25 miles south of Washington, D.C., is a postal supply store where a small brass mailbox sits stuffed with unopened envelopes.

It’s the unlikely home of one of the country’s most mysterious political hit squads.

Naomi Klein: Shock of Oil Price Plunge Is Opportunity World Must Seize

Riffing on key ideas from her last two books, Canadian author argues time is perfect to employ "shock doctrine" for good by using climate change as opportunity to "change everything" about our economy and energy systems

by Jon Queally, staff writer

As part of the Guardian newspaper's recently launched "keep it in the ground" campaign, Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein appears in a new video on Wednesday in which she argues the current moment is ripe for the world to take advantage of the dramatic drop in global oil prices by kicking the fossil fuel industry "while it's down."

Calling on themes from her two most recent books—'The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster' in 2007 and the more recently published 'This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate'—Klein says the fall in oil prices since last year should be seen as an opportunity for those concerned about both the prevailing economic order and the dangers of climate change. "Let's turn this shock," she says in the nearly five-minute video essay, "into the shift we need."

Walmart, Lowe's, Safeway, and Nordstrom Are Bankrolling a Nationwide Campaign to Gut Workers' Comp

America's biggest employers want to pick and choose the benefits they give their injured workers.

—By Molly Redden

Nearly two dozen major corporations, including Walmart, Nordstrom, and Safeway, are bankrolling a quiet, multistate lobbying effort to make it harder for workers hurt on the job to access lost wages and medical care—the benefits collectively known as workers' compensation.

The companies have financed a lobbying group, the Association for Responsible Alternatives to Workers' Compensation (ARAWC), that has already helped write legislation in one state, Tennessee. Richard Evans, the group's executive director, told an insurance journal in November that the corporations ultimately want to change workers' comp laws in all 50 states. Lowe's, Macy's, Kohl's, Sysco Food Services, and several insurance companies are also part of the year-old effort.

Matt Taibbi: Regulatory Capture, Captured on Video

SEC official slobbers over private equity titans, suggests his son might want a job in the field

This is courtesy of Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism, who's been following the strange story of SEC Examination chief Andrew Bowden's evolving position on financial corruption for a while.

That story blew up recently in a remarkable public appearance by Bowden, in which the would-be enforcement official cravenly compliments the industry he supposedly polices and then — get this — jokingly puts forward his own son as a candidate for a job in private equity. On video. You won't see a more brazen example of regulatory capture anywhere.

The Retirement Crisis

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Yves Smith

This interview, with Teresa Ghilarducci, who the Wall Street Journal called “the most dangerous woman in America,” discusses how and why pensions are under stress, and what can be done to fix them. While she agrees that the retirement crisis is real, she also argues that it is eminently fixable, particularly since there really is no free lunch. The alternative, of widespread poverty among the aged, also imposes costs on government and society.

Gaius Publius: New Leaked TPP Chapter; Worse Than the Last Leaked Version

There's a new leaked chapter from the TPP draft agreement, thanks to WikiLeaks, and it confirms our worst fears. From a press release by Lori Wallach at Public Citizen (my emphasis):

TPP Leak Reveals Extraordinary New Powers for Thousands of Foreign Firms to Challenge U.S. Policies and Demand Taxpayer Compensation

Unveiling of Parallel Legal System for Foreign Corporations Will Fuel TPP Controversy, Further Complicate Obama’s Push for Fast Track

WASHINGTON, D.C.– The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Investment Chapter, leaked today, reveals how the pact would make it easier for U.S. firms to offshore American jobs to low-wage countries while newly empowering thousands of foreign firms to seek cash compensation from U.S. taxpayers by challenging U.S. government actions, laws and court rulings before unaccountable foreign tribunals. After five years of secretive TPP negotiations, the text – leaked by WikiLeaks –proves that growing concerns about the controversial “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) system that the TPP would extend are well justified, Public Citizen said.

The World Bank, Poverty Creation and the Banality of Evil

By Alnoor Ladha, Truthout | News Analysis

This week, the World Bank is convening its 16th annual "Conference on Land and Poverty," which brings together corporations, governments and civil society groups to ostensibly discuss how to "improve land governance."

As this is happening, hundreds of civil society organizations are denouncing the World Bank's role in global land grabs. As the organization I am part of, The Rules, is a member of Our Land Our Business, the umbrella campaign of farmer organizations, indigenous groups, trade unions and grassroots organizers from around the world protesting against the Bank's policies, I often get asked the question, why do civil society and the World Bank have such differing views of the Bank's role? Reading the Bank's website, one would think that the World Bank was in the same line of work as the activists challenging their policy. In fact, they have recently adopted the earnest tagline of "Working for a world free of poverty."

WikiLeaks Leaks TPP Draft!!!

by Tasini

Per WikiLeaks:

This is an advanced January 2015 version of the confidential draft treaty chapter from the Investment group of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks between the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei Darussalam. The treaty is being negotiated in secret by delegations from each of these 12 countries, who together account for 40% of global GDP. The chapter covers agreements on investments from one TPP nation to another, including empowering foreign firms to "sue" other states' governments, as well as regulations around investor-state dispute settlements and tribunals. This document was prepared by TPP investment chapter negotiators in advance of the informal round of negotiations held in New York City 26th January to 1st February, 2015

To move beyond boom and bust, we need a new theory of capitalism

Finding one is the the holy grail of economics

Paul Mason

This is the year that economics might, if we are lucky, turn a corner. There’s a deluge of calls for change in the way it is taught in universities. There’s a global conference at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, where the giants of radical economics – including Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis – will get their biggest ever mainstream platform. And there’s a film where a star of Monty Python talks to a puppet of Hyman Minsky.

Terry Jones’s documentary film Boom Bust Boom hits the cinemas this month. Using puppetry and talking heads (including mine), Jones is trying to popularise the work of Minsky, a US economist who died in 1996 but whose name has become for ever associated with the Lehman Brothers crash. Terrified analysts labelled it the “Minsky moment”.

Guess Which Ultra Liberal State Is About to Become a Hellish Place for People to Work in?

Bad news for Bernie Sanders' back yard.

By Michael Arria / AlterNet

Vermont, a state perceived as a liberal utopia by many, is being hit with a barrage of anti-labor policies. In a recent budget address, Gov. Peter Shumlin called out Vermont State Employees' Association, declaring he expected VSEA to reopen its contracts to ditch pay increases. The governor also announced that he plans to hack away at state jobs by consolidating emergency call centers and closing a school that serves state prisoners. In addition, he said that Vermont parents should “expect better outcomes for our students at lower costs.” He’s called for education cuts and higher student-teacher ratios, moves that will probably result in layoffs. This past fall, he announced he wants to outlaw teacher strikes in the state. That idea might soon become a reality: a bill prohibiting public school teachers from striking was recently introduced by Republican Rep. Kurt Wright and passed the House Education Committee by a vote of 8-3.

ALEC Pushes to Repeal "Prevailing Wage" Laws

By Jody Knauss, PR Watch | Report

As unions and working people battle "right-to-work" legislation in several states, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and allies have opened another flank in their war on good jobs. Targeted this time are state prevailing wage laws, which require public construction projects to support local wage standards instead of undercutting them. Studies have repeatedly found that prevailing wage laws do not harm taxpayers but are effective in providing something increasingly rare in regional labor markets, upward pressure on wages.

The Capitalist Takeover of Higher Education

by ROBERT ABELE

The great under-reported crime against education by corporate America is not the buying and selling of schools by for-profit corporations; that this is a significant threat to education is indubitable and well-documented. But the little-discussed threat to education is the deliberate “hollowing-out” of education from within—i.e. by the philosophy which views education, especially at and up through the community-college level, as preparing students to take jobs in the business world upon their graduation, rather than to learn the art of deepening their distinctly human character by engaging in learning and reflection through courses and content that cannot be bought or sold in the business world, such as philosophy, art, humanities, the history of human cultures, logic and critical thinking, ethical decision-making, etc. These are all activities the deepening of which has traditionally been seen as part of the very definition of a college-level education. These are the activities usually called “academic,” and their function was to deepen and expand the humans who engaged in them, in what, for many students, would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

U.S. Congress Clears Deck for Pension Decimation

The Columbus Dispatch reported:

Many retirees are unaware "of the risk to their pension as a result of the legislation passed in December as part of a spending bill meant to run the federal government through the rest of its fiscal year. The legislation affecting the retirees was added at the last minute. It is targeted at companies that enter into pension plans with other companies. There are about 10 million workers and retirees in 1,400 multiemployer plans, according to the Pension Rights Center in Washington."

AP Investigation: Is the fish you buy caught by slaves?

By MARGIE MASON, MARTHA MENDOZA and ROBIN MCDOWELL, Mar. 25, 2015 12:53 PM EDT

BENJINA, Indonesia (AP) — The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home.

Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States.

“Apocalypse is right around the corner”: Rick Perlstein unloads on Mike Huckabee-style conservatives

Author-historian Rick Perlstein tells Salon why the crypto-candidate's avarice fits so well with today's party

Elias Isquith

Earlier this month former governor of Arkansas, Fox News host and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee found himself on the receiving end of some well-deserved ridicule. But although his views on women’s rights (and Beyoncé, apparently?) are so retrograde that it’s almost funny, Huckabee’s mistake wasn’t letting slip that he thinks women sound “trashy” when using cuss words. No, his goof was something even sillier and even more lacking in dignity: He got caught hawking some snake oil cure for diabetes.

As many noted, Huckabee is far from the first ex-presidential candidate to trade his name for some grubby money; Bob Dole and Fred Thompson both carved out nice little niches in their post-politics years doing just that. What was new — or at least newer — however, was Huckabee selling himself to the highest bidder while simultaneously preparing to make another run for president. Reaching for the White House requires all manner of indignities, of course. At least for the time being, though, offering Americans some magic beans in exchange for their money is simply considered unpresidential.

Prenatal exposure to common air pollutants linked to cognitive and behavioral impairment

Everyday pollutants in and outside the home can be bad for the environment...and bad for your baby's brain

Children's Hospital Los Angeles

Researchers at the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and colleagues at Columbia University's Center for Children's Environmental Health have found a powerful relationship between prenatal PAH exposure and disturbances in parts of the brain that support information processing and behavioral control. Their study of 40 children, followed from before birth until 7 to 9 years of age as part of the Center's large community-based cohort, will be published online by JAMA Psychiatry on March 25.

'Recipe for Disaster' as US Supreme Court Refuses Challenge to Voter ID Law

As general election already underway, Wisconsin law threatens to impact 300,000 voters

by Lauren McCauley, staff writer

In a move that will impact hundreds of thousands of voters and may carry national implications, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's restrictive voter identification law.

Immediately after the high court rejected, without comment, to hear the case of Frank v. Walker, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency motion with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking that the court stop the law from taking immediate effect. In Wisconsin, voting is currently underway in the April 7 general election as absentee ballots have already been sent to voters and early voting began Monday morning. ACLU warned that if the law is immediately enacted, some 300,000 Wisconsin voters will be impacted.

With $8.5 Trillion Unaccounted for, Why Should Congress Increase the Defense Budget?

By Jacqueline Leo and Brianna Ehley, The Fiscal Times

The U.S. military is good at fighting wars, but it sucks at managing money. Partly because of its convoluted bookkeeping systems, $8.5 trillion—yes, trillion—taxpayer dollars doled out by Congress since 1996 has never been accounted for.

That was also the first year that Congress passed a law requiring the Defense Department to be audited, which it has failed to do. In 2009, Congress passed another law requiring the DOD to be audit-ready by 2017. After spending—no wasting—billions on failed accounting software, the department is likely to miss that deadline, too.

The War on Poverty: Was It Lost?

Christopher Jencks

Legacies of the War on Poverty edited by Martha J. Bailey and Sheldon Danziger Russell Sage, 309 pp., $39.95 (paper)

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. I urge this Congress and all Americans to join with me in that effort. It will not be a short or easy struggle, no single weapon or strategy will suffice, but we shall not rest until that war is won. —Lyndon Johnson, State of the Union Address, January 8, 1964

Some years ago, the federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won. —Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1988

Lyndon Johnson became president in November 1963. In January 1964 he committed the United States to a war on poverty. In August he sought and gained authority to expand the war in Vietnam. Of course, the War on Poverty was only a figure of speech—a political and economic promise, not a war from which young men would return in body bags. Nonetheless, most Americans look back on the two wars as kindred failures. Both have had an exemplary part in the disillusionment with government that has been reshaping American politics since the 1970s. Asked about their impression of the War on Poverty, Americans are now twice as likely to say “unfavorable” as “favorable.” In one poll, given four alternative ways of describing how much the War on Poverty reduced poverty, 20 percent chose “a major difference,” 41 percent chose “a minor difference,” 13 percent chose “no difference,” and 23 percent chose “made things worse.”

Martin O'Malley Wants to Be the Glass-Steagall Candidate

The former Maryland governor escalated his attack on Wall Street as he mulls a run to Hillary Clinton's left.

By Ben Brody

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who seems to be readying a 2016 run as the un-Hillary, stepped up a campaign line this past weekend: bring back the Glass-Steagall Act.

"Today, most Republicans in Congress are hell-bent on disassembling the Dodd-Frank Act," O'Malley's PAC wrote in an email to supporters Monday. "And too many Democrats have been complicit in the backslide toward less regulation."

Why the 99 Percent Keeps Losing

by Robert Kuttner

Our current political situation is unprecedented. The vast majority of Americans keep falling behind economically because of changes in society's ground rules, while the rich get even richer -- yet this situation doesn't translate into a winning politics.

If anything, the right keeps gaining and the wealthy keep pulling away. How can this possibly be?

Have the Banks Escaped Criminal Prosecution because They’re Spying Surrogates?

Published March 21, 2015 | By emptywheel

I’m preparing to do a series of posts on CISA, the bill passed out of SSCI this week that, unlike most of the previous attempts to use cybersecurity to justify domestic spying, may well succeed (I’ve been using OTI’s redline version which shows how SSCI simply renamed things to be able to claim they’re addressing privacy concerns).

But — particularly given Richard Burr’s office’s assurances this bill is great because “business groups like the Financial Services Roundtable and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association have already expressed their support for the bill” — I wanted to raise a question I’ve been pondering.

Flower-enriched farms boost bee populations

University of Sussex

Flower strips sown into farmers' fields not only attract bees but increase their numbers, new University of Sussex research has shown.

A two-year study of farms in West Sussex and Hampshire in the UK found that England's most common bumblebee species saw significant population growth where targeted, bee-friendly planting schemes were in place.

The secret to saving the world: How ordinary people actually can prevent global disaster

"Sometimes the most powerful changes are well within the reach of ordinary citizens," says Paul Steinberg

Lindsay Abrams

Let’s face it: you’re not going to save the planet by recycling. Or by riding your bike, or by bringing reusable bags to the grocery store. “Scientists tell us that one out of every five mammal species is threatened with extinction,” is how Paul Steinberg puts it, “and we react by switching coffee brands.”

To which you might add, if even that.

A Smart Strategy to Defeat 'Right to Work'

by Rand Wilson

Wisconsin is now the 25th state to adopt a so-called “right-to-work” law, which allows workers to benefit from collective bargaining without having to pay for it.

It joins Michigan and Indiana, which both adopted right to work in 2012. Similar initiatives, or variants, are spreading to Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and West Virginia—and the National Right to Work Committee and the American Legislative Exchange Council probably have a well-developed list of additional targets.

OSHA Whistleblower Investigator Blows Whistle on Own Agency

Employee says the federal whistleblower program isn’t protecting whistleblowers or the public

By Vicky Nguyen, Liz Wagner and Felipe Escamilla

For decades, whistleblowers have played a pivotal role in exposing wrongdoing in industries that affect public safety and welfare. NSA leaker Edward Snowden, “Deep Throat” Mark Felt and Enron Corporation’s Sherron Watkins famously blew the whistle on their employers.

The federal government established the Whistleblower Protection Program in the 1970s to shield employees from retaliation when they report wrongdoing or safety hazards in their industry. But insiders say the program is failing the very people it is supposed to protect, and jeopardizing public health and safety in the process.

Private University Police Patrol Off-Campus (and Off the Record)

Members of the University of Chicago Police Department carry guns, make arrests, and patrol tens of thousands of residents unaffiliated with the university—but they don’t have to disclose any information about stops, arrests, and policies. Two Illinois Representatives are finally trying to change that.

Hannah K. Gold, Mar 17, 2015

Campus police at private universities are just like everyone else: they pay their taxes, they sleep in on Sundays, and they’re not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This means that they don’t have to disclose statistics about arrests and stops made, or any of their internal policies.

A newly proposed piece of state legislation might, for the first time, reverse this norm—at least in Illinois. On February 27, Illinois Representative for the 25th district, Barbara Flynn Currie, proposed a bill—HB 3932—to amend the state’s Private College Campus Police Act, on the books and untouched since it was passed in 1992. The act gives campus police at private universities all the powers of municipal police, including making arrests, and sets a minimum standard of training for these officers. In addition, the act details how campus police officers shall be selected and where, both on and off campus, they have permission to patrol. It also bars private campus police from participating in any state, county, or municipal retirement fund, and from being reimbursed for training with state funds.

GOP’s new moral monstrosity: Trickle-down lies enrich the 1 percent, as wing-nuts assert control

Republican extremists have outlined two demented budgets loaded with phony numbers. Why won't Democrats fight back?

Bill Curry

Republicans in Congress proposed their budgets this week. You don’t want to know about them, yet there are things you should know. You should know, for instance, that what I just wrote isn’t true: No actual budgets were proposed this week. A budget details what you plan to do, how much it costs and how you plan to pay for it. The Republican “budgets” do none of that. They’re like Captain Jack Sparrow’s pirate’s code — “more what you call just guidelines” — and really, not even that.

Republicans say any such criticism is unjust, that in the chutes-and-ladders game of federal finances, budget committees don’t write budgets. Oddly enough, it’s true. Budget resolutions merely set standards for later processes known as authorization and appropriation. You’ll be glad to hear I’m not writing about those today, except to say members of Congress who prattle on about government duplication might ask why authorization and appropriations committees can’t set their own standards.

You Shouldn't Be Scared of Homeless People, Homeless People Should Be Scared of You

If anyone in America should be paranoid about crime, it's not white people in the suburbs -- it's the homeless.

By Tana Ganeva / AlterNet

Sometimes, a valiant public servant must take action to protect his constituents, grab a sledgehammer and parade around town smashing homeless people's shopping carts, as Hawaii's State Rep. Tom Brower did two years ago. Others might favor a softer touch. Councilman Cameron Runyan of Columbia, South Carolina, suggested the city ship homeless people to a privately operated "Retreat" 15 miles out of the city. This helpful service would be no free ride though; the homeless people placed there would be expected to hand over their disability checks to help pay for the facility, local media reported.

Shocking official responses to homelessness are in no short supply, although the really outrageous cases can backfire. A backlash forced Runyan to scale back his plans; perhaps he was made aware of the unfortunate historical precedent for rounding up and disappearing undesirables. But the savvy lawmaker looking to spruce up a neighborhood knows there's a better way to sell a crackdown: you need to paint it as essential to public safety, reluctantly undertaken, with plenty of hand-wringing about balancing the rights of homeless people with everyone else's security. That's key, because open antipathy towards the homeless is for mean cops, Wall Street jerks or local politicians who haven't mastered political optics. Everyone else is deeply troubled by homeless people's plight, but at the same time: what about the mom or the tourist who doesn't feel safe walking down a street lined with panhandlers?

Is a New Political System Emerging in This Country?

By Tom Engelhardt

The New American Order 1% Elections, The Privatization of the State, a Fourth Branch of Government, and the Demobilization of "We the People" By Tom Engelhardt

Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.

And here’s what I find strange: the evidence of this, however inchoate, is all around us and yet it’s as if we can’t bear to take it in or make sense of it or even say that it might be so.