401(k) Plan Has Been a Disaster for Black Workers (And a Wealth Transfer to Wall Street for Everyone Else)

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, shows that Black workers experienced devastating declines in their defined contribution plan balances (mostly 401(k) plans) between 2007 and 2013 – an experience not shared by White workers.

According to the GAO, Black working households’ median 401(k) balance declined by a stunning 47 percent between 2007 to 2013, the latest date for which data is available. The median balance for Black working households in 2007 stood at $31,100 versus $16,400 in 2013. To put that 47 percent decline into sharper focus, the GAO found that the 401(k) balance for White working households “did not change significantly over the same period.”

Obama Wanted to Cut Social Security. Then Bernie Sanders Happened.

Zaid Jilani

President Barack Obama endorsed an expansion of Social Security for the first time on Wednesday.

“We can’t afford to weaken Social Security,” he said during a speech on economic policy in Elkhart, Indiana. “We should be strengthening Social Security. And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term health, it’s time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that today’s retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they’ve earned.”

The increased benefits, he said, could be paid for “by asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute a little bit more. They can afford it. I can afford it.”

How False Equivalence Is Distorting the 2016 Election Coverage

The media’s need to cover “both sides” of every story makes no sense when one side has little regard for the truth.

By Eric Alterman

On March 15, Donald Trump won Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, and Illinois, dispatching Marco Rubio’s campaign to the ash heap of history and giving every impression that he had become the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee. Hillary Clinton also did extremely well that day, taking Illinois, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. The New York Times gave its prime spot—the top-right corner of the paper’s front page—to a story headlined “2 Front-Runners, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Find Their Words Can Be Weapons.” Readers quickly learned, if they had missed it previously, that Trump frequently used words like “bimbo,” “dog,” and “fat pig” to refer to some of the women he didn’t like, and this had led to disapproval ratings among women that reached historic proportions. And what “weapons” did Clinton give her adversaries? During a recent speech in coal country, she had suggested that her support for sustainable, clean-energy jobs would “put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

To Pay for Subsidies to Massive Corporations, States Are Waging War on Poor Families

by Jake Johnson

To witness the consequences of a political system captured by and utterly subservient to the interests of organized wealth, take a quick look at the state of Oklahoma.

There we see the embodiment of the economic trends that have, over the past several decades, harmed working families and lifted the wealthiest: While providing a windfall of cash to special interests, particularly big oil, the state is cutting education and slashing funds allocated for the earned income tax credit, widely recognized as one of the more effective anti-poverty programs.

NASA satellite finds unreported sources of toxic air pollution

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Using a new satellite-based method, scientists at NASA, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and two universities have located 39 unreported and major human-made sources of toxic sulfur dioxide emissions.

A known health hazard and contributor to acid rain, sulfur dioxide (SO2) is one of six air pollutants regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Current, sulfur dioxide monitoring activities include the use of emission inventories that are derived from ground-based measurements and factors, such as fuel usage. The inventories are used to evaluate regulatory policies for air quality improvements and to anticipate future emission scenarios that may occur with economic and population growth.

'Illegitimate' Request Denied: GOP Gets Middle Finger for #ExxonKnew Ploy

Refusing to submit to House inquiry, environmental groups question whether committee is "operating properly" or just acting out a "partisan effort to protect fossil fuel companies."

by Lauren McCauley, staff writer

Environmental groups that have become targets of a Republican-led effort to insulate ExxonMobil against accusations of fraud and climate science suppression dug in a bit deeper on Wednesday by refusing to submit to a Congressional inquiry on the matter.

As Common Dreams previously reported, House Republicans with the Committee on Space, Science and Technology sent a letter (pdf) on May 18th to 17 attorneys general and eight environmental organizations—including 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Union of Concerned Scientists—claiming their #ExxonKnew effort amounted to a violation of climate deniers' First Amendment rights and demanding that they submit communications related to state investigations into Exxon Mobil.

That over-broad request had a deadline of noon on June 1.

The Highly Questionable Blueprint for Charter School Takeover in Your City or Region

Oakland, California, is the below-the-radar model to drain the public schools of their funding.

By Bill Raden

Last September’s sensational leak of the Great Public Schools Now Initiative, a half-billion-dollar plan to double the number of charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), sparked a firestorm of controversy. Citing the plan’s potentially crippling fiscal impact on a financially troubled district that already leads the nation in its number of charters (around 230), critics denounced the plan as “an outline for a hostile takeover” and “a declaration of war on public schools.”

The combination of public furor and the LAUSD school board’s unanimous repudiation of the initiative—which was quickly dubbed the “Broad Plan” after its sponsor, Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad—subsequently forced the nonprofit tasked with implementing it to beat a retreat in its rhetoric, if not its intent to transform half of Los Angeles’ public schools into charters.

Bernie Sanders Fights On: The Rolling Stone Interview

A defiant candidate on what he's trying to achieve

By Tim Dickinson May 31, 2016

Not even "the math" can spoil a Bernie Sanders rally. The democratic-socialist senator from Vermont has outperformed any rational expectation, building an insurgent campaign that has captured 20 states, propelled by more than $210 million in grassroots contributions, averaging under $30 a pop. But with each passing state election – including the ones he's winning by less-than-blowout margins – Sanders' long shot grows longer.

At a mid-May Sanders rally in Salem, Oregon, there's not a hint of gloom among the overflow crowd of 4,000 packing the National Guard Armory auditorium to roar for its champion. The vibe in Salem, Oregon's capital city, is Phish-show-meets-Portlandia. Fans wear FEEL THE BERN shirts emblazoned with the Grateful Dead's lightning-bolt logo – tweaked to give the skull Sanders' untamed hair and glasses.

The Untold Story Behind Saudi Arabia’s 41-Year U.S. Debt Secret

How a legendary bond trader from Salomon Brothers brokered a do-or-die deal that reshaped U.S.-Saudi relations for generations.

Andrea Wong

Failure was not an option.

It was July 1974. A steady predawn drizzle had given way to overcast skies when William Simon, newly appointed U.S. Treasury secretary, and his deputy, Gerry Parsky, stepped onto an 8 a.m. flight from Andrews Air Force Base. On board, the mood was tense. That year, the oil crisis had hit home. An embargo by OPEC’s Arab nations—payback for U.S. military aid to the Israelis during the Yom Kippur War—quadrupled oil prices. Inflation soared, the stock market crashed, and the U.S. economy was in a tailspin.

Officially, Simon’s two-week trip was billed as a tour of economic diplomacy across Europe and the Middle East, full of the customary meet-and-greets and evening banquets. But the real mission, kept in strict confidence within President Richard Nixon’s inner circle, would take place during a four-day layover in the coastal city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Paul Krugman: Feel the Math

This is my fifth presidential campaign as a New York Times columnist, so I’ve watched a lot of election coverage, and I came into this cycle prepared for the worst. Or so I thought.

But I was wrong. So far, election commentary has been even worse than I imagined it would be. It’s not just the focus on the horse race at the expense of substance; much of the horse-race coverage has been bang-your-head-onthe- desk awful, too. I know this isn’t scientific, but based on conversations I’ve had recently, many people — smart people, who read newspapers and try to keep track of events — have been given a fundamentally wrong impression of the current state of play.

Sanders, Brown Speak Out On Gunboat Diplomacy For Corporations

Dave Johnson

Members of Congress are weighing in against the U.S. government’s use of “gunboat diplomacy”-style intimidation of Colombia against that country allowing a generic version of an ultraexpensive cancer drug named Gleevec in order to protect the public’s health.

Meanwhile, a coalition of nonprofit groups sent a letter to President Obama on Friday expressing “great alarm” that the U.S. is considering withholding aid to Colombia because of its plan to allow the use of a generic competitor to Gleevec.

Heads Up Internet: Time to Kill Another Dangerous CFAA Bill

By Jamie Williams

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the federal “anti-hacking” statute, is long overdue for reform. The 1986 law—which was prompted in part by fear generated by the 1983 techno­thriller WarGames—is vague, draconian, and notoriously out of touch with how we use computers today. Unfortunately, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Lindsey Graham are on a mission to make things worse. They've proposed (for the second time) legislation that fails to address any of the CFAA’s problems while simply creating more confusion. And they may try to sneak their proposal through as an amendment to the Email Privacy Act—the very same sneaky tactic they tried last year.

Their latest proposal is ostensibly directed at stopping botnets. It's even named it the “Botnet Prevention Act of 2016.”

Emails Show TPP 'Collusion' Between Big Banks & Obama Administration

Emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show U.S. Trade Rep. Michael Froman discussing TPP with Goldman Sachs lobbyists

by Nadia Prupis, staff writer

A series of emails released Friday show what activists describe as "collusion" between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Wall Street executives to push for the passage the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The emails, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the group Rootstrikers, which organizes against money in politics, include a message to Froman from a managing director at Goldman Sachs urging him to push for "robust commitments" on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions—which allow private corporations to sue governments for perceived loss of profits—to be included in the divisive trade deal.

The Defense Department Is Ruining America: Big Budgets, Militarization and the Real Story Behind Our Asia Pivot

"Our defense contractors await your business." That was the message behind Obama and Carter's visits to Asia.

By Patrick Smith

You have to tip the cap to Defense Secretary Carter. People in Washington spin things as a matter of course, as Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national security advisor, just explained in that New York Times profile considered in this space a few weeks ago. The spin is the thing. But never mind all that. Ashton Carter spins aircraft carriers, and right before your eyes.

There he was last month, a few weeks before Obama’s current swing through Asia, on the flight deck of the John C. Stennis as it passed through a narrow strait in the South China Sea hard by the People’s Republic’s territorial waters, pronouncing in the somber tones these people favor that China is militarizing the western Pacific. The Stennis, you need to know, is a nuclear-powered supercarrier that forward-deploys for indefinite periods with a strike group of escort vessels attending it. It travels with eight squadrons of attack craft on its deck—25 to 30 fighter jets.

Is Your Local Public Library Run by Wall Street?

by Donald Cohen

What do 82 public libraries, a Texas beef processing company, and a string of Pizza Huts across Tennessee and Florida have in common?

They’re all managed by the same private equity firm.

Fifteen of those libraries are in Jackson County, Oregon, where public officials are starting to raise concerns over the firm’s ownership of the private contractor that manages them. Facing budget issues in 2007, the county contracted with Library Systems and Services (LS&S), the country’s largest library outsourcing company, to try to save money—but LS&S is owned by Argosy Private Equity, whose mission is to “generate outstanding returns” and “substantially grow revenues and profits” for the businesses it owns.

Anti-Choice Activists Using Location Services to Send Targeted Ads to Women in Abortion Clinics

Anti-choice activists are using smartphones to push propaganda to women seeking abortions.

By Elizabeth Preza

A new effort by anti-choice activists to target women seeking abortions just reached a brand-new level of creepy, according to an investigation by the reproductive health news site Rewire.

John Flynn, CEO of Boston-based Copley Advertising, discovered a way to use geotagging—the same technology that allows Uber cars to pick you up—to send targeted ads to women waiting inside Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics.

Even the IMF—the IMF!—Turns on Neoliberalism

New paper by three IMF economists finds that policies of capital account liberalization and austerity fuel inequality, which in turn hurts growth—"the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting."

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer

In what may be a sign of a "shifting zeitgeist," a new paper published this week by economists with the International Monetary Fund questions the very neoliberal policies the body has imposed.

Entitled "Neoliberalism: Oversold?" the IMF's Jonathan Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri focus their analysis on two policies of what British writer George Monbiot dubbed the "zombie doctrine": "removing restrictions on the movement of capital across a country's borders (so-called capital account liberalization); and fiscal consolidation, sometimes called 'austerity,' which is shorthand for policies to reduce fiscal deficits and debt levels."

An evaluation of these two neoliberal policies, the authors write, leads to "three disquieting conclusions."

Secret Text in Senate Bill Would Give FBI Warrantless Access to Email Records

Jenna McLaughlin

A provision snuck into the still-secret text of the Senate’s annual intelligence authorization would give the FBI the ability to demand individuals’ email data and possibly web-surfing history from their service providers without a warrant and in complete secrecy.

If passed, the change would expand the reach of the FBI’s already highly controversial national security letters. The FBI is currently allowed to get certain types of information with NSLs — most commonly, information about the name, address, and call data associated with a phone number or details about a bank account.

'Free Market' Authoritarian Leaders Across the Planet Are Stifling Dissent and Enriching the Elites

Job creation is not always a better solution to poverty than welfare spending.

By Vijay Prashad / AlterNet

Earlier this month, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released its important World Employment Social Outlook report for 2016. There was little press coverage. The title is bureaucratic and boring. How does one make news from this drabness? One of the most significant findings is that poverty rates have now declined. The ILO finds that this is because of the immense gains in China and in parts of Latin America—notably Brazil. In parts of Africa and in other regions of Asia—including India—“poverty remains stubbornly high.” Meanwhile, those who have skipped above the poverty line “continue to live on just a few dollars per day, often with limited access to essential services and social protection.” Despite the optimism from the data, the ILO remains cautious. Matters are no-where near celebration. Economic slowdown in China and the coup in Brazil are indicators that the slide backwards is possible.