Bernie Sanders is right: Bill Clinton’s welfare law doubled extreme poverty

By Max Ehrenfreund

After 20 years, Bernie Sanders wants to put welfare back on the national agenda, seeing a chance to use his message of economic equality to undermine Hillary Clinton's base of support among black voters.

Primaries across the South over the next few days give him what might be the best chance he'll get. Hundreds of thousands of Southern families are living on less than $2 in cash a day as a result of legislation President Bill Clinton signed in 1996, according to new research by Johns Hopkins University's Kathryn Edin and University of Michigan's Luke Shaefer.

A 1994 Report from GAO Warned Congress That Wall Street Could Explode

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Fourteen years before Wall Street blew itself up in 2008, the General Accounting Office (now called the Government Accountability Office), warned Congress that Wall Street was on a dangerous path that could put the taxpayer at risk of bailouts as a result of trillions of dollars of derivatives being held by a handful of interconnected firms. These dangers were heightened according to the GAO by shoddy accounting practices for derivatives, inadequate regulatory reporting, and high leverage.

Despite the fact that almost every single warning that the GAO called out in 1994 was ignored by the U.S. Congress, leading to the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression in 2008, Congress has still not attended to the most dangerous elements highlighted in the report.

Why the coming cuts to Teamster pensions deserve more national news coverage

By Trudy Lieberman

In October 2015, when word came down that hundreds of thousands of current and future Teamster retirees were facing the loss of a portion of their pension benefits—in some cases, more than half of the monthly payment—Jim Gallagher, a business columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, did what good journalists do. He started asking questions, understanding context, and crafting a cohesive narrative about a crisis that will ultimately reach far beyond the households of union truck drivers. The result was a strong early piece about a story that has drawn increasing attention from local media, but deserves a much bigger spot on the national news agenda.

Historically, it was illegal for pension plans to cut core benefits to people who are already retired; if the plan had money in the bank, it had to pay promised benefits. But many so-called “multi-employer” plans, which serve workers from multiple companies in a particular industry, have been falling into financial distress for years. The federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is supposed to backstop failing private pensions, but the guarantees are lower for multi-employer plans, and the PBGC itself is in trouble.

Secret Documents Reveal the Sick Mindset of the People Who Signed Off on the Genocide in East Timor

Out of a population of almost a million, up to a third were extinguished.

By John Pilger

Secret documents found in the Australian National Archives provide a glimpse of how one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was executed and covered up. They also help us understand how and for whom the world is run.

The documents refer to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, and were written by diplomats in the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The date was November 1976, less than a year after the Indonesian dictator General Suharto seized the then Portuguese colony on the island of Timor.

GAO: Federal Government Flunks Its Audit

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Maybe the presidential candidates should start wearing baseballs caps with the slogan: Make America Auditable Again.

The country that has delivered epic accounting frauds like Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and Bernie Madoff just flunked its own audit. Yesterday, the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, released a thumbs down report on how the U.S. government keeps its books. The GAO said it could “not render an opinion on the federal government’s consolidated financial statements for FY 2015 because of persistent problems with the Department of Defense’s (DOD) finances, the federal government’s inability to account for and reconcile certain transactions, an ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements, and significant uncertainties.”

Top aides told Michigan governor to put Flint back on Detroit’s water supply — but he refused

Quality problems prompted two of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s top lawyers to urge that the city of Flint be moved back to the Detroit water system just months after a decision to draw water supply from the Flint River, according to emails released on Friday.

Several critics have urged Snyder to resign over concerns about the state’s handling of the crisis.

UT Dallas study: WikiLeaks list did not lead to attacks

Researcher found no evidence that secret memo was target list for terrorists

University of Texas at Dallas

The WikiLeaks organization was criticized for providing a target list for terrorists when it published a secret memo in 2010 with 200 international sites that the U.S. Department of State considered critical to national security.

Was there any truth to that claim?

Dr. Daniel G. Arce, Ashbel Smith Professor and program head of economics in the UT Dallas School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, wanted to find out. In a new study published in the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, he found no evidence that the leak led to any attacks.

How the Feds Blocked Me from Covering a Pill Mill TrialE

By Philip Eil

If you took President Obama at his word, this was supposed to be a golden age for investigative journalism in America.

On his first day in office, the Commander-in-Chief penned a memo encouraging executive agencies to adopt a "presumption in favor of disclosure" when processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The White House later rolled out the details of an "unprecedented level of openness" it was determined to bring to Washington. In 2013, Obama famously said he's running the "most transparent administration in history."

It hasn't quite worked out that way.

The Liberal Redbaiting of Bernie

by Doug Henwood

The Sanders campaign has certainly sharpened the contradictions, hasn’t it? It’s been very clarifying to see Hillary Clinton and her surrogates running against single-payer and free college, with intellectual cover coming from Paul Krugman and Vox. Expectations, having been systematically beaten down for 35 years, must be beaten down further, whether it’s Hillary saying that to go to college one needs some “skin in the game,” or Rep. John Lewis reminding us that nothing is free in America. A challenge from the left has forced centrist Democrats to reveal themselves as proud capitalist tools.

Latest to step up is Paul Starr, co-founder of The American Prospect. Normally the dull embodiment of tepid liberalism, Starr has unleashed a redbaiting philippic— a frothing one, even, by his usual standards—aimed at Bernie Sanders. Sanders is no liberal, Starr reveals—he’s a socialist. He may call himself a democratic socialist to assure us that he’s no Bolshevik—Starr actually says this—but that doesn’t stop Starr from stoking fears of state ownership and central planning. Thankfully the word “gulag” doesn’t appear, but that was probably an oversight.

The FDA Now Officially Belongs to Big Pharma

Robert Califf's ties to Big Pharma run deep and the Obama nominee just sailed through the U.S. Senate.

By Martha Rosenberg

It is hard to believe only four senators opposed the confirmation of Robert Califf, who was approved today as the next FDA commissioner. Vocal opponent Bernie Sanders condemned the vote from the campaign trail. But where was Dick Durbin? Where were all the lawmakers who say they care about industry and Wall Street profiteers making money at the expense of public health?

Califf, chancellor of clinical and translational research at Duke University until recently, received money from 23 drug companies including the giants like Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Merck, Schering Plough and GSK according to a disclosure statement on the website of Duke Clinical Research Institute.

Tony Blair admits he is baffled by rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn

Former UK prime minister likens US presidential candidate to Labour leader and says he struggles to grasp their popularity given ‘the question of electability’

David Smith

Tony Blair has said he is struggling to understand the appeal of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn because both are hampered by “the question of electability”.

The former British prime minister, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, admitted that he is finding it hard to grasp popular movements in both Britain and the US favouring mavericks who will “rattle the cage” and which reflect a loss of faith in the progressive centre.

In a joint interview with the Guardian and the Financial Times in Washington, he emphasised that Americans must make their own decision but made clear his scepticism about Sanders, the leftwing senator whose challenge to wealthy elites has energised young supporters.

Conservatives prefer using nouns, new research finds

University of Kent

New transatlantic research led by a psychologist at the University of Kent suggests conservatives prefer using nouns.

As part of the study researchers found that US presidents who were considered conservative used a greater proportion of nouns in major speeches.

Who Deserves Blame for Retiree Crisis?

Trump is blaming foreign workers — and ignoring the CEOs who’ve gutted worker pensions while they pump up their own golden nest eggs.

by Sarah Anderson

Donald Trump showed a glimmer of reason in his last debate when he defended his position as the Republican Party’s only presidential contender who is opposed to cutting Social Security.

Alas, it was but a glimmer. A split second later, Trump took a loony leap from defending America’s most effective anti-poverty program to blaming foreign workers for our fiscal challenges. “They are taking our jobs. They are taking our wealth. They are taking our base.”

Foreign workers are not the ones doing the taking. CEOs of big U.S. corporations are responsible for taking jobs and wealth out of this country. And these CEOs are also the ones who deserve much of the blame for our country’s retirement crisis.

Over the past several decades, top executives have gutted worker pensions. Since 1980, the share of private sector workers covered by defined benefit pension plans, the kind that guarantee a monthly benefit after retirement until death, has dropped from 46 percent to 18 percent.

Paul Krugman: Cranks on Top

If prediction markets (and most hardheaded analysis) are to be believed, Hillary Clinton, having demonstrated her staying power, is the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination. The Republican race, by contrast, has seen a lot of consolidation — it’s pretty much down to a two-man race — but the outcome is still up for grabs.

The thing is, one of the two men who may still have a good chance of becoming the Republican nominee is a scary character. His notions on foreign policy seem to boil down to the belief that America can bully everyone into doing its bidding, and that engaging in diplomacy is a sign of weakness. His ideas on domestic policy are deeply ignorant and irresponsible, and would be disastrous if put into effect.

Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling the Latest Scam Trade Deal

A corporate-backed study says the latest Washington trade scam will raise incomes — but for whom?

By Jim Hightower

A New York Times article about Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership opened with this sunny headline: “Trade Pact Would Lift U.S. Incomes, Study Says.”

But wait, a study by whom? It comes from the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.

What’s that? We’re not told, even though that information is key to understanding this group’s upbeat take on the TPP trade scheme.