Tag: Punting the Pundits

Hillary Clinton has backed NAFTA-style “free-trade” agreements and she has opposed NAFTA-style “free-trade” agreements. Like other prominent Democrats, she has been inconsistent in her support of what is best for workers, the environment and human rights.

But Clinton has a chance to get trade policy right when it matters.

And when it matters is now.

As she launches a 2016 presidential campaign in which she seems to be interested in grabbing the banner of economic populism-going so far as to complain in her announcement video about how “the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top”-Clinton can and should stake out a clear position in opposition to granting President Obama Trade Promotion Authority to negotiate a sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Jocelyn Sominson: Let citizens film the police! It’s the only way we learned what really happened to Walter Scott

Police-worn body cameras should be everywhere, but they’re no substitute for a civilian with a cellphone

We almost never saw the Walter Scott video. Feidin Santana, who recorded the April 4 shooting of Scott on his cellphone, nearly deleted the recording out of fear for his own safety. Santana had good reason to be scared – police officers across the United States have been known to retaliate against those who film them, using methods that range from blocking cameras and erasing recordings, to physical intimidation, violence and arrests for interference.  Such conduct by police officers is often in violation of established police procedures and constitutional rules regarding police conduct.  But it persists nonetheless.  In Washington, D.C, for example, an officer arrested someone for filming just one day after his police department issued a formal – and well-publicized – regulation regarding the filming of the police.

Although politicians across the country – from North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey to NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio – have reacted to the shooting of Walter Scott by calling for more police-worn body cameras, such calls for reform pass over the important issue of protecting civilian recording of the police.  Filming of the police by civilians serves a different purpose than police-worn cameras.  Cellphone footage, shot from the point of view of the civilian spectator, remains in control of the people rather than the police.  Videos can immediately become part of the public discussion, an antidote to the monopoly that police officers usually possess over official narratives surrounding police-citizen interactions.  Moreover, when filming is done by organized groups, often called [Copwatching http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa… recording of the police becomes a form of power-building that gives purpose and momentum to movements for change.

George Zornick: Now Congress Is Fast-Tracking the TPP Fast Track

After months of back-room negotiations, key congressional negotiators are finally ready to unveil legislation that would fast-track approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The bill would prohibit Congress from amending the trade deal, and would require a simple-majority vote for passage, but would in exchange set a variety of negotiating parameters.

If the architects of the legislation – Senators Ron Wyden and Orrin Hatch and Representative Paul Ryan – are at all worried that members of Congress will feel fast-track leaves them out of the process, they are doing a pretty terrible job of addressing those concerns.

A Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday morning featured top US trade officials-but occurred before the legislation was even unveiled, and was called with almost no notice. This drew some unusual and strong rebukes from Democrats on the Finance Committee over an unfair process.

Michael Eric Dyson: Racial Terror, Fast and Slow

IN the past two years, this country has held events commemorating 50 years since the triumphs and key struggles of the civil rights movement: the March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act and, most recently, the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala.

Yet the glory of the past runs up against the gory details of the present.

The killing this month of Walter L. Scott by Officer Michael T. Slager highlights two interlocking truths: Social protest forces us to see realities we would rather avoid, and blacks live in mortal fear for our lives in a manner that most whites don’t see or understand.

Americans are bad at viewing race in real time; we prefer rose-tinted lenses and slow-motion replays in which we can control the narrative and minimize our complicity in the horrors of our history. The racial present is messy, and upends bland racial optimism about how far we’ve come.

On April 15, perhaps as you’re reading these words, working people in 200 American cities will rally for a $15 dollar base wage and the right to form a union. Solidarity demonstrations are planned in more than 30 cities on six continents, and have already taken place in Switzerland, the Philippines, South Korea, New Zealand, and Japan. The “fight for $15” matters — because the lives of working people matter, and because the success of this effort will help strengthen the American economy for everyone.

But the significance of April 15’s action runs even deeper than that. [..]

As our world continues to change, we will continue to face new challenges. We will need new movements, new alliances, and new ideas. But behind them will remain an idea as old as the labor movement itself: that all working people have the right to a decent life. That means a living wage, and time to live your life. It means knowing you’ll be financially secure decades from now, and knowing that your work hours have been scheduled for the next week so that you can arrange for child care.

Labor movements are a symbol of our values and an expression of our renewed hope. The Fight for $15 is a fine cause on its own merits. But its greatest importance may lie in the fact that it represents the return of the “vanishing worker” — which in the end means the return of our friends, our families, and our neighbors — to the American political stage.

Mary Bottari: Hotel Industry Spins Wage Hikes as ‘Extreme’ While CEOs Rake in Millions

Hotels are making a killing. Occupancy rates are exceeding pre-recession highs, and are expected to reach record levels in 2016.  Profits per room are up over 11 percent this April compared to April 2014 and the average daily rate for a room is almost 13 percent higher than it was a year ago. Executive salaries have skyrocketed.

But the little-known trade association representing this robust $163 billion dollar industry is a major force fighting behind the scenes on Capitol Hill and in statehouses and courtrooms across the country to keep workers wages low.

On Wednesday, April 15, the same day that hundreds of thousands of working people in over 200 cities are expected to participate in the largest-ever mobilization of underpaid workers, the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) which represents the 1.8 million-employee U.S. lodging industry will join forces with the National Restaurant Association to ask Congress to block a federal minimum wage increase, shrink the number of workers eligible for employer-provided health care insurance, and challenge the National Labor Relations Board ruling protecting the rights of franchise workers.

Frank Clemente: Repeal of Estate Tax Rewards Billionaires, Punishes Working Americans

Who deserves a break more these days: a struggling working family, or the heir to a billion-dollar fortune? According to the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, it’s the billion-dollar baby.

Recently, the House voted for a budget that would end tax credits for many working families that put $1,000 a year in their pockets, on average. The Republican budget also would cut $5 trillion in funding for benefits and services that make groceries, health care and college more affordable, pay for road improvements, and invest in scientific research.

Adding insult to injury, House conservatives plan to eliminate the estate tax, which is paid only by multi-millionaires and billionaires. An estate has to be worth at least $5.4 million before a dime in taxes gets paid. If the estate is passed on by a couple, it has to be worth nearly $11 million.

Repeal would hand elite households a $3 million tax break, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

Simon Jenkins: Cuba has shown us that sanctions don’t work – so why keep using them?

Sanctions have become as sacred to western armouries as nuclear bombs were 50 years ago. No one dares question them for fear of being thought a dove or a wimp. They cost little to the aggressor but make them feel good. They repress trade rivals. They attract macho adjectives, such as tough, meaningful, targeted and smart. They are chiefly aimed at domestic consumption. Only the poor (and a handful of rich) in the victim states suffer.

Influencing policy in foreign countries short of war is a mug’s game. It is realistic only where it takes the form of diplomatic, trade and cultural exchange, and strengthens the professional and merchant class from which brave criticism of authoritarian government tends to emerge. Yet sanctions suppress such groups and drive them into exile, as now in Russia and Iran.

The idea that economic warfare would ever cause Iraqis to rise up against Saddam, or Libyans against Gaddafi, or Cubans against Castro, was always daft. The idea that it will turn Russia against Putin is beyond absurd. Yet such warfare remains British government policy. And in Labour’s manifesto, sanctions are no more questioned than nuclear weapons. Stupid still rules.

In the coming weeks, Congress must decide whether to renew the Patriot Act, which the National Security Agency (NSA) uses to collect Americans’ telephone records in bulk, regardless of whether they are suspected of any criminal or terrorist activity. These records can tell the government a lot about our private lives – whether we called a psychiatrist or a gun dealer, for example – and the debate likely will focus on how to protect Americans’ right to privacy against unwarranted intrusions. But there is another important issue at stake in the run up to the Patriot Act’s sunset: the role of the foreign intelligence surveillance court that supervises NSA programs.

Like the president and Congress, courts have limits on their authority. Under the Constitution, our courts don’t give advice – they decide concrete disputes. In practical terms, that generally means there must be at least two parties present in court, and they must disagree over the lawfulness of particular actions that one or more of them has taken.

Anna Lappé: The long, dirty trail of fake science

Revealing Big Oil’s role in climate change denialism

“Doubt is our product,” (pdf) wrote executives for tobacco giant Brown & Williamson in a now infamous 1969 memo on industry communications strategy. The memo was revealed during discovery in class-action lawsuits against tobacco companies that would eventually yield a trove of 85 million pages. Among those pages are details about the public relations playbook of an industry that – as far back as 1958 – knew that smoking caused cancer and used public relations to fight regulation for decades.

“Merchants of Doubt,” a brilliant new film from documentarian Robert Kenner (of “Food Inc.” fame), reveals this spin and tracks how other industries, from chemical manufacturers to pharmaceuticals, are ripping pages from Big Tobacco’s playbook to fight their own regulation and public scrutiny.

Based on the book of the same name by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, the film reveals, in particular, Big Oil’s role in climate change denialism. It makes the argument that the world’s biggest energy companies funded PR and lobbying firms that fomented doubt about climate science and thereby stalled action on climate policy. The film pulls back the curtain on the backstage battle to win the hearts and minds of the American public, with nothing short of a stable climate in the balance.

Michelle Chen: Can Labor Bring Wall Street Back to Main Street?

The 2007 banking collapse exposed the abysmal gap between the titans of finance and the 99 percent. But long ago, there was one place where Wall Street and Main Street intersected: at the teller window of your local retail bank. Some community activists want to pull Wall Street back toward an era when banking was done by real people, and retail banks invested in the neighborhood instead of pushing consumers into foreclosure. Can we bring back your friendly bank teller?

Seven years since Wall Street imploded, it seems the banking sector has rebounded far faster than the communities it has devastated, according to a report published by Center for Popular Democracy (pdf) (CPD), which builds on a global campaign to advocate for fair labor and corporate accountability in Big Banks.

The report finds that poor communities tend to be both underbanked and overexploited by banks. Though lenders no longer give away subprime mortgages like candy, bank chains still degrade vulnerable consumers. Roughly a quarter of households nationwide are considered unbanked or underbanked, lacking access to basic financial resources like a checking account. Big Banks instead market relatively high-risk financial products to the poor, while ignoring the essential economic vehicles that help build assets prudently and realistically. Despite their relatively paltry wealth, among the hardest hit by the financial collapse were low-income communities of color. “The median net worth for people of color fell 53 percent during the Great Recession [but] for whites fell only 16 percent,” CPD reports. But today the leading Big Banks have ironically “emerged stronger and more consolidated, rather than being fundamentally restructured.”

Jessica Valenti: Dealing with trolls will make young women sympathetic to Hillary Clinton

When I visit college campuses, young women always ask me how I deal with negativity online – and how they can. How can I write and participate on social media when it inevitably results in ad hominem attacks and vitriol? The students I speak to increasingly feel like they have to consider, before choosing a career path or posting an opinion in a public forum, whether they can cope with violently sexist responses and a never-ending barrage of misogynistic bullshit.

If anyone knows the answer to their questions, it’s Hillary Clinton. Her career has long epitomized how misogyny can haunts female politicians: the Hillary “nutcracker”, the pokes about her headbands, her hair, her pantsuits, her voice. She has too often been the target of insults based on men’s fear about powerful women – an unenviable position that few can understand. [..]

Clearly there is more to winning over young female voters than commiserating over sexist awfulness and advice on overcoming misogyny. But I’m betting there’s a deep-seated desire in a lot of young women to see sexist tormentors get theirs. Maybe they can’t stop the guy who tweets fat jokes at them, and maybe they’re too embarrassed to report the anonymous sexual threats in their Facebook messages. But what they can do is give a big “fuck you” to every get-back-in-the-kitchen YouTube bottom-dweller or cable news host jerk who mocks Clinton’s appearance by making their distaste known at the voting booth.

Then we’ll see who is making the sammiches. I’ll take an Italian sub.

Ashley Diamond, a transgender inmate who was denied medically necessary hormones by the Georgia correctional system, was raped seven times, called a “he-she thing”, and thrown into solitary confinement for “pretending” to be a woman.

Last week, the United States Justice Department weighed in on her lawsuit and found that Georgia’s “freeze-frame” policy – which denied trans inmates the chance to begin or expand hormone treatment in prison – constituted “cruel and unusual punishment” and violated the United States Constitution.

This horrific treatment illustrates the broader policy changes we desperately need to ensure that no one in a correction setting – or any setting, for that matter – is denied their human or civil rights because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

Today, transgender women in male prisons are 13 times more likely than the general prison population to be sexually assaulted while incarcerated. Nearly two-thirds of trans inmates report sexual assault. And more often than not, assaults go unreported in part because the perpetrators are prison guards, wardens and staff.

This is a disgrace.

Steven W. Thrasher: The inhumanity of ‘Fuck your breath’ should stop all of us cold

It’s hard for black Americans to catch our breath these days: from Michael Brown to Eric Garner to John Crawford to Tamir Rice to Walter Scott and now Eric Harris, we just keep getting the wind knocked out of us as we bear witness to death after unnecessary death of black men at the hands of the police.

Those who police us, however, can breathe quite easily. [..]

This weekend, Black Lives Matter activist Cherrell Brown asked audience members of a conference on policing that I attended to close our eyes and imagine a place where we felt safe. No one imagined a place with cops, cameras, guns, or attack dogs. And yet, as Brown noted, we’re asked to believe that, to feel safe, we need more cops in New York City, more racially diverse cops, more cops wearing cameras – more law enforcement, not more safety.

More cops, more guns and more cameras might make many white people feel more safe, but just the thought makes it hard for black people to breathe, because we know that they’ll all be trained on us. Fuck your false sense of security; I just want to be able to catch my breath.

Robert Reich: Will Hillary Rodham Clinton Deliver on Her Promise to Be a ‘Champion’ for ‘Everyday Americans’?

It’s a paradox.

Almost all the economic gains are still going to the top, leaving America’s vast middle class with stagnant wages and little or no job security. Two-thirds of Americans are working paycheck to paycheck.

Meanwhile, big money is taking over our democracy.

If there were ever a time for a bold Democratic voice on behalf of hardworking Americans, it is now.

Yet I don’t recall a time when the Democratic Party’s most prominent office holders sounded as meek. With the exception of Elizabeth Warren, they’re pussycats. If Paul Wellstone, Teddy Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or Ann Richards were still with us, they’d be hollering.

The fire now is on the right, stoked by the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, and a pocketful of hedge-fund billionaires.

Today’s Republican firebrands, beginning with Ted Cruz, blame the poor, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants for what’s been happening. They avoid any mention of wealth and power.

Which brings me to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sometimes I’m challenged over my linking belligerent neoconservatives with “liberal interventionists” who justify U.S. military invasions under the “humanitarian” banner of “responsibility to protect” – or R2P – meaning to intervene in war-torn countries to stop the killing of civilians, like the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda.

And, most people would agree that there are extraordinary situations in which the timely arrival of an external military force might prevent genocide or other atrocities, which was one of the intended functions of the United Nations. But my overall impression of R2Pers is that many are careerist hypocrites who voice selective outrage that provides cover for the U.S. and its allies to do pretty much whatever they wish.

Though one can’t generalize about an entire group – since some R2Pers act much more consistently than others – many of the most prominent ones operate opportunistically, depending how the dominant narrative is going and where the power interests lie.

Robert E. Scott: Fast Track to Lost Jobs and Lower Wages

This week, Senator Hatch will reportedly introduce “fast track” (trade promotion authority) legislation in the Senate, to help President Obama complete the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade and investment deal with eleven other countries in Asia and the Americas. “Fast Track” authority would allow the President to submit trade agreements to Congress without giving members of Congress the opportunity to amend the deal. Experience has shown that these trade and investment deals typically result in job losses and downward pressure on the wages of most American workers. The last thing America needs is renewal of fast track and more trade and investment deals rushed through Congress.

The administration has claimed that the TPP will create jobs, but it will not. There are other policies that have attracted bipartisan support, including ending currency manipulation and rebuilding infrastructure that could each create millions of U.S. jobs. President Obama has limited political capital to expend with the Republican-controlled Congress and he must choose his policies wisely.

John Nichols: Hillary Clinton’s Soft Populism Is Not Enough

As she struggled to keep her 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination alive, Hillary Clinton took a turn toward economic populism. It helped; after a series of setbacks in early caucus and primary states, Clinton’s abandonment of frontrunner caution and embrace of “I’m in this race to fight for you” rhetoric played a significant role in securing her big wins in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ultimately, she gained more votes than Barack Obama and came close to wrestling the nomination from him. If Clinton had run from the start as a populist, there is no telling what might have happened. But the important thing to remember is that Clinton did not turn up the volume until she felt she had no other choice-and by then it was too late. [..]

Clinton is running another race for the presidency, and this time she is starting with the populist themes she used at the end of her last race. That’s progress-for her, for her party and maybe for her country. But that’s not enough progress. Clinton needs to be pinned down on the details and prodded to go big.

Activist pressure is essential, and it may move Clinton some. But a real race for the nomination, as opposed to a coronation, is the best guarantee that the party will produce a sufficiently populist nominee to strike the chords that will inspire voters. If Clinton is not up to the task, then Democrats had better find an alternative. If Clinton recognizes that she must not merely note the crisis but address it-recognizing the concerns about her record and answering them with an economic agenda that makes real the populist promise-then she will have the right message for a nomination fight and for a November fight that will require a lot more than platitudes.

Peter van Buren: Twelve Years Later, We Know the Winner in Iraq: Iran

The U.S. is running around in circles in the Middle East, patching together coalitions here, acquiring strange bedfellows there, and in location after location trying to figure out who the enemy of its enemy actually is. The result is just what you’d expect: chaos further undermining whatever’s left of the nations whose frailty birthed the jihadism America is trying to squash.

And in a classic tale of unintended consequences, just about every time Washington has committed another blunder in the Middle East, Iran has stepped in to take advantage. Consider that country the rising power in the region and credit American clumsiness for the new Iranian ascendancy.

There is a fear I feel when I am in spaces dominated by powerful white people, and it can’t be captured on video. Black folks and other people of color will understand the fear I feel, but after the past week – after watching Walter Scott run away from a white police officer and then fall as he is shot in the back, and watching others watch it – I am not sure white people will ever understand it, even when they, too bear witness to the violent end of a black life. [..]

The visible carnage of a shooting like Walter Scott’s – and whichever new one will come in the next weeks – heightens the anxiety that black people feel in a white supremacist America, no matter how many white people watch and decry the violence. But addressing such obviously graphic brutality, and then ignoring the institutional discrimination that allows it to continue, cannot change how racism consigns black people to premature death in ways visibly and equally invisibly insidious, nor stop us from being afraid that we might be next.

Robert Reich: The Defining Moment, and Hillary Rodham Clinton

It’s a paradox.

Almost all the economic gains are still going to the top, leaving America’s vast middle class with stagnant wages and little or no job security. Two-thirds of Americans are working paycheck to paycheck.

Meanwhile, big money is taking over our democracy.

If there were ever a time for a bold Democratic voice on behalf of hardworking Americans, it is now.

Yet I don’t recall a time when the Democratic Party’s most prominent office holders sounded as meek. With the exception of Elizabeth Warren, they’re pussycats. If Paul Wellstone, Teddy Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or Ann Richards were still with us, they’d be hollering.

The fire now is on the right, stoked by the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, and a pocketful of hedge-fund billionaires.

Today’s Republican firebrands, beginning with Ted Cruz, blame the poor, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants for what’s been happening. They avoid any mention of wealth and power.

Which brings me to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Morgan Hargrave: Police body cameras cannot replace the power of citizen witnesses

The case of Walter Scott shows just how valuable a citizen with a camera can be. Video footage capturing excessive police force can make all the difference in securing justice. Yet, in the conversation about more dashboard and body cameras for police, what gets lost is the value of video shot by citizen witnesses. We don’t need more video from the police perspective, but more from our own. [..]

Concerns about abuse and selective use of the cameras by police are well-founded, especially given that the rules are far from clear about when cameras will be on, what penalties (if any) there will be if an officer turns off their camera or loses footage, and who will have access to bodycam video. The original police accounts of the South Carolina shooting were shown to be so far from the truth – compare the original story from the Post And Courier with what we know now – that leaving police to record and publish video of events seems risky, to say the least.

Scott Ritter: When Debating Iran’s Nuclear Program, Sort Fact from Fiction

American policy makers have made it a point, expressed consistently over time, to emphasize that intelligence estimates do not, in and of themselves, constitute policy decisions, and are useful only in so far as they inform policy makers who then make the actual decisions. The logic of this argument allows for the notion of detached decision-making on the part of the policy makers, and includes a built-in premise that the estimates they use are constructed in such a manner as to allow for a wide range of policy options. This model of decision-making works well on paper, and within the realm of academic theory, but in the harsh reality of post-9/11 America, where overhyped information is further exaggerated through a relentless 24-hour news cycle that encourages simplicity to the point of intellectual dishonesty, it is hard to imagine a scenario where such a pattern of informed, deliberate decision-making has, or could, occur. [..]

The bottom line is that the IAEA’s continued ability to account for Iran’s safeguarded nuclear materials remains the best deterrent against any Iranian nuclear weapons program. Iran and the international community still have a long way to go before they will be able to reach any accommodation which provides Iran with the nuclear enrichment capabilities it desires while operating within an expanded framework of safeguards the IAEA and the West require. The nuclear framework agreement recently concluded between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany goes a long way toward achieving this, but the devil is in the details, and those details need to be hammered out by June 30.

The gun lobby jumps through hoops each year to comply with the same regulations they would much rather dismantle

Reports of road rage incidents resulting in gun violence are on the rise. In fact, they are now so common that newspapers report them as if they are fender benders. [..]

New laws that allow the open carry of loaded guns in public places – and such laws are springing up all over the nation – have resulted in even more terrifying confrontations: For example, parents are forced to deal with gun activists brandishing their firearms in front of their kids in a public park, shouting: “Look at my gun! There’s nothing you can do about it!” Likewise, workers in businesses serving the public are forced to deal with customers blithely slinging loaded semi-automatic weapons over their shoulders, or casually leaning firearms up against tables. These owners have little recourse but to pray they don’t become the victim of one of the thousands of firearm-related accidents that occur all over the country every year.

But never let it be said that the gun rights zealots are totally rigid in their thinking and have no common sense at all. I have written in the past about the odd hypocrisy of gun proliferation advocates in Republican state houses who refuse to people the right to carry firearms in their work places, even as they pass laws making everyone else work in a world where an angry person with a gun might very well lose his or her temper and decide to make their point with a bullet.

Conor Lynch: Patriotic bullies of the war-hungry GOP: The truth about its obsession with American exceptionalism

Dick Cheney’s ridiculous claims about Barack Obama this week fit into a longstanding right-wing tradition

It is a well known fact that liberals hate America, or as the always rational Ann Coulter once said, “even fanatical Muslim terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do.” While I would estimate that Islamic terrorists probably hate America just a tad more than liberals, it is true that liberals tend to be less brazenly patriotic than god-fearing, flag-waving conservatives. According to Pew polls, 81 percent of “business conservatives” often feel U.S. pride, while only about 40 percent of “solid liberals” feel the same way. It seems like liberals are just not as infatuated with the idea of America as conservatives are. [..]

But here’s the thing: Criticizing the actions of America seems to be a whole lot more patriotic than sitting back and buying into false talk of American exceptionalism, when reality tells a different story. One does not have to constantly feel pride about one’s country to be a patriot, and carrying on that way can blind a person when their country is actually on the wrong side.

So, yes, conservatives do tend to feel more pride in America than liberals do. But what does this really tell us? Not that conservatives are any more or less patriotic than liberals, but that they are more likely to be fooled by nationalistic propaganda. A rational person looks at their own actions, or their country’s actions dispassionately, and is able to admit when they are wrong. Blind patriotism is never able to make such an admission, and will resort to fairy tales in order to defend indefensible actions.

There are a lot of fairy tales in the United States. But true patriots live in the real world; when they see a problem with their country, they seek to expose and to change it – not mask it with ardent deception.

Russel Simmons: Governor Cuomo, We’ve Had Enough!

We marched through the cold snow, the winter nights, the brutal winds, the shivering rain… for justice. For months, we have not let up. We refuse to let the death of Eric Garner be in vain, so we have made demands, organizations joined forces and thousands of young people took to the streets. I am beyond disbelief that even though there is a glaring problem with the policies of policing in New York City and in our country coupled with an inherently flawed justice system, not one new law has been passed since a father of four was choked out on a hot, summer day last July in Staten Island. Mr. Governor, not one. [..]

You have to restore faith within the criminal justice system here in New York State. Without action, everyday it is deteriorates more and more. The country is at a breaking point. With the death of Mr. Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina over the weekend, we are witnessing the end of the rope. You must lead. If you have any ambition for office beyond our home state, now is the time to show the nation that you can make a decision to protect the people and restore confidence in our criminal justice system. There is much you can do and need to do besides this, but this should have been done by now.

Robert Borosage: The Republican Congress Votes for Dynasty Over Democracy

Next week as Congress returns, House Republicans will address what they consider one of the nation’s most pressing problems: relieving the tax burdens on multimillionaires — not the 1 percent but the wealthiest 0.2 percent, two of 1000 — by eliminating the estate tax. Its repeal will cost $269 billion over 10 years, but Republicans find the cause so compelling that they would add that sum to our deficits rather than struggle with “paying” for it.

The bill, of course, has no chance of becoming law. If necessary, the president will veto it. It is a message bill. Conservatives love to rail against what they have been taught to call the death tax. Republicans want voters — or more importantly billionaire donors — to know that, even with inequality at record extremes, with the wealthiest 0.1 percent of families possessing as much wealth as 90 percent of American families, they are on the case, standing strong to defend the inheritances of the sons and daughters of the privileged few.

Despite the power of incumbency, the backing of the President, and an array of wealthy and powerful backers, Rahm Emanuel nevertheless became the first mayor in Chicago history to be forced into a runoff. Sure, Chuy Garcia’s defeat was a setback for the left, but Emanuel’s struggle to retain his office is a warning for politicians everywhere: Corporate Democrats are likely to find themselves on the defensive in 2016 and beyond.

As the Chicago Sun-Times concluded, being forced into a runoff was a “huge national embarrassment” for Emanuel — one that could have ended his mayoralty. The nickname Emanuel earned during this race was “Mayor 1 Percent,” and it’s a name which is likely to stick. That reflects a new reality for “centrists” in the Emanuel/Third Way mold: corporate-friendly policies bring serious political risk.

David Cay Johnston: Top-earning Americans had shockingly good 2012

Americans at the top of the income ladder enjoyed an astonishing year in 2012, new data show. Compared with 2011, their incomes increased by half – their second highest ever – while their tax burdens fell to almost the lowest ever.

The tax returns of the top 400 earners reported average income of $335.7 million, a real increase of more than $111 million over 2011, a new IRS report reveals.

Even better for the top 400, their taxes came to just 16.7 percent of their adjusted gross income. [..]

Although the top 400 earners is a statistical group that can change year to year, 343 taxpayers have turned up on the list five or more times since 1990. Anyone who makes the list even once would remain for life among the top one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans, those making $2 million or more, even if they achieve only average returns on their investments.

There’s a word for a government whose policies pump up the incomes of top earners and cut their tax rates while suppressing what the vast majority earn. That term is “oligarchy.”

Daphne Eviater: Guantanamo Military Commissions Stall Again: Time to Move On

How long will it take for the government to admit that the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay just aren’t working?

While closing arguments began Monday in the Boston Marathon bombing trial, moving toward some resolution for victims and their families, the trial of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks slated to eventually take place at Guantanamo is nowhere near even beginning. [..]

It’s time for the U.S. government to put an end to this fiasco. The legitimacy of such important terrorism cases as the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil is not something to be disregarded, nor is the impact on the victims’ families, who have yet to see justice done. These cases shouldn’t be maintained where they’re not working. All the military commission cases could be reliably tried in the seasoned and successful U.S. federal court system. It’s time to accept that this venture isn’t working, pack up the military commissions, transfer the cases to the United States, try the alleged perpetrators, and move on.

Robert Reich: The Big Chill: How Big Money Is Buying Off Criticism of Big Money

Not long ago I was asked to speak to a religious congregation about widening inequality. Shortly before I began, the head of the congregation asked that I not advocate raising taxes on the wealthy.

He said he didn’t want to antagonize certain wealthy congregants on whose generosity the congregation depended.

I had a similar exchange last year with the president of a small college who had invited me to give a lecture that his board of trustees would be attending. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t criticize Wall Street,” he said, explaining that several of the trustees were investment bankers.

It seems to be happening all over. [..]

Philanthropy is noble. But when it’s mostly in the hands of a few super-rich and giant corporations, and is the only game available, it can easily be abused.

Our democracy is directly threatened when the rich buy off politicians.

But no less dangerous is the quieter and more insidious buy-off of institutions democracy depends on to research, investigate, expose, and mobilize action against what is occurring.

You may have heard that the government is forcing businesses not to discriminate. It isn’t. If you chose to run a business, you have to follow the laws. If you don’t, that’s a choice-and you choose to suffer the consequences.

Still, in the wake of the controversy surrounding Indiana’s law, conservatives don’t see it that way. Even potential Republican presidential candidates are getting in on the assertions. Rick Santorum recently said:

   If you’re a print shop and you are a gay man, should you be forced to print ‘God Hates Fags’ for the Westboro Baptist Church because they hold those signs up? Should the government-and this is really the case here – should the government force you to do that? This is about the government coming in and saying, “No, we’re going to make you do this.” And this is where I think we just need some space to say let’s have some tolerance, be a two-way street.

There are two problems with Santorum’s reasoning. The first is that a printer doesn’t have to make such signs, under any law, because refusing to do so is not discrimination in any legally prohibited sense. A print shop can also refuse to print a poster that says, for instance, “F*ck Rick Santorum,” either because it disagrees with the language or the sentiment. Both are entirely legally permissible decisions any business can rightfully make.

Jessica Valenti: We can’t end rape stigma by forcing all victims to identify themselves

In a perfect world, there would be no stigma to being a victim of sexual violence. Sexual assault survivors could come forward and talk about their stories without fear of retribution, shaming or harassment. Reporters could print the names of those assaulted, knowing that the victims’ safety would remain intact.

But we do not live in a perfect – or even near-perfect – world. And if we want rape victims to be able to tell their stories in the media, we must protect their anonymity. [..]

But one misguided suggestion to come out of the discussion about rape, reporting and responsibility is that journalists should only publish stories in which the rape survivor agrees to be named. Sonali Kohli at Quartz, for instance, argued that “there is something patriarchal and counterproductive to the idea that sexual assault is presumed to be shameful for the survivor.”

Maria Margaronis: Syriza Can Still Succeed-Even Though EU Officials Are Set On Its Demise

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is in Moscow today to discuss gas prices, trade and investment with Vladimir Putin; Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis recently left Washington, where he assured the IMF’s Christine Lagarde that Greece will make a loan repayment due tomorrow and discussed with her the Syriza government’s proposed reforms. A symmetrical shuttling, you could say, beyond the EU’s borders; a reasonable hedging of bets at a critical moment for Greece; an assertion of agency. But reading the Anglophone press, you might think the Greek government was about to default on its IMF loan, print drachmas, call snap elections, thumb its nose at Europe, and sell its soul to Putin for a fistful of roubles.

A fog of disinformation surrounds Greece’s ongoing negotiations with its creditors to unblock 7.2 billion euros of loan funds, without which the government is likely to run out of money in weeks (or months-this too is unclear). An April 5 piece in Financial Times, based almost entirely on blind quotes from “senior official[s]” and eurozone finance ministers, suggested that an agreement will only be possible if Syriza ditches its elected left-wing MPs and forms a coalition with two center-left parties, the discredited Pasok and newly created Potami. In The Daily Telegraph three days earlier, Euroskeptic journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard cited unnamed sources “close to the ruling Syriza party” to claim that Greece was about to nationalize the banking system and introduce a parallel currency. This fog is swallowed and recycled by Greece’s private TV channels, bought hacks and politicians. The effect is to spread confusion and mistrust, threatening the already tremulous negotiations, the Syriza government and what’s left of European cohesion.