Tag: Punting the Pundits

If President Obama and his party didn’t even try to deliver on their 2008 campaign promise of a minimum wage hike when they had the White House and both houses of Congress on lockdown in 2010 and 2011, what does their sudden rediscovery of the minimum wage mean now, when they know they can move nothing through Congress?  Are they and their sheepdogs, the so-called “progressive Democrats” just yanking our chain again?

As a presidential candidate back in 2007 and 2008, Barack Obama promised to ram a hike in the minimum wage through Congress by 2011. Like the president’s promises to renegotiate NAFTA and enact labor law reforms to make union organizing possible again, it wasn’t one of those high profile pledges he repeated at every opportunity in front of every audience. He didn’t have to, that’s not the way it works.

If you’re a right-leaning Democrat nowadays, here’s how it works: you make those kinds of promises before small audiences of labor and poor folks. From that point, it’s the job of your sheepdogs, the Democrat “progressives” campaigning for you to keep the herd of your base voters in line by putting those words in your mouth a lot more often, and with a lot more emphasis than you actually place upon them. Promises are promises, after all, and promises made by the wealthy and powerful to the poor and powerless are worth exactly nothing.

Sadhbh Walshe: Lowering the minimum wage? What a terrible idea

Tony Abbott’s top business adviser wants a lower minimum wage in Australia. Well, let me fill you in on how the low-as-you-can-go wage model is working out for Americans

As someone who lives in America, every time I come in contact with Australia I get the feeling that we live in an upside down world. Your night time is our morning, our summer is your winter and while we’re firmly stuck in today, you’re already doing tomorrow (or is it the other way around)? Anyway, you get the drift, Australia is the Ginger Rogers to America’s Fred Astaire. I suppose it’s fitting then with the countries’ penchant for doing things in reverse, that just as America finds itself in the throes of a quasi-revolution to raise the minimum wage, some Australians are mounting a push to lower theirs. [..]

Before this movement takes flight, however, let me fill you in on how the low-as-you-can-go wage model is working out for Americans.

William Pfaff: NSA Megalomania Accomplishes Little Beyond Alienating Allies

It is the nature of bureaucracies to expand and accumulate prerogatives. The National Security Agency, a dusty post-Second World War institution of routine habits and outdated technology, focused on the remnants of the Soviet Union and its East European satellites, did not waste an opportunity when the 9/11 attacks occurred in New York and Washington. [..]

But the question to be asked of any bureaucracy is what it actually does. We know now that the NSA purloins (presumably electronically, but who knows?) other people’s mail. It undoubtedly, with its billions, can employ some second-story men, as well as those who service its giant antennae-or read your e-mails or copy out your Facebook page. But why do they bother? That is the fascinating question.

Teresa Wiltz: Renisha McBride: another racially charged shooting, same sad response

Renisha McBride’s death is still under investigation in Michigan, but we’re already seeing the mistrust with the case

it’s early still.

It’s been little more than a week, and the police are still investigating. So right now, it’s still too early to really know why – or how – Renisha McBride ended up dead on a porch in the middle of the night in Dearborn Park, Michigan. Reports differ: she was shot in the back of her head. No, she was shot in the face. Her body was dumped somewhere. No, she was found right there, right where she was shot. The gun went off accidentally. No, it was a “justified shooting” – the homeowner feared for his life. [..]

But it’s not too early for the country to react on cue, following the same sad script. On the one side, you have protesters bearing signs that read, “We Demand Justice: Renisha McBride”. On the other hand, on the internet, commenters quote Detroit crime statistics, creating an equation where Detroit equals black and scary, and one young woman’s life doesn’t count for much.

According to Ruth Moore, she was 18, just months out of Navy boot camp when an officer raped her, twice. Although Moore reported the crimes to a chaplain, her attacker was never prosecuted. After a suicide attempt and a stay in a psychiatric facility, Moore was repeatedly denied disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because the VA said she could not prove the rape.

The VA discriminates against thousands of military sexual trauma (MST) survivors like Moore each year, alleges a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Service Women’s Action Network and the Veterans Legal Service Clinic at Yale Law School. In trying to obtain compensation for the impact of sexual trauma on their mental health, survivors face bureaucratic hurdles and long delays. Ultimately, a disproportionate number of their claims are rejected.

The report is based on previously withheld data that the VA released to settle Freedom of Information Act lawsuits brought by the Yale clinic. The numbers reveal that the VA grants disability claims for PTSD related to sexual assault at significantly lower rates than for PTSD caused by other types of trauma. In 2011, for example, the VA granted benefits to 74.2 percent of veterans who submitted non-MST-related trauma claims, but only to 44.6 percent of those with MST-related PTSD, a gap of nearly 30 percent.

Karen Johnson: Bad Food, Bad Policy, Bad Gut Reaction

That the macrocosm is in the microcosm is not conjecture, but the reality of good digestion. What we eat becomes our flesh and bone built directly from air breathed, water drank, and soil nourishing a plant. Clean air, water, and soil have long been the concerns of the environmental movement, but as a food advocate, I’ve gone beyond the farm and farmer to conclude that optimal functioning of the human microbiome, known as our “gut flora”, is a reflection of good health – within our selves, our culture, and the environment.

With the epidemic of obesity and other digestive disorders, the collective gut is telling us that the food system and supporting environment is flat out broken.

There is growing evidence that compromised, imbalanced gut flora, resulting from a combination of environmental toxins, genetically modified food, overuse of antibiotics, and chronic stress has a strong link to increasing incidence of disorders like autism, Alzheimers, and multiple sclerosis.

Taliesin Nyala: Work Should Adapt to Mothers: Human Shapes Don’t Fit Inhuman Holes

The argument over women – as workers, mothers, partners and wives – “having it all,” “opting out” or “leaning in” distracts and detracts from the fact that we’re squabbling over a failed economic system that doesn’t work for the majority of people.

As an employed mother, I keep coming back to this question: Why are we scrambling to figure out how to bend ourselves into the right shape to fit into a business culture that is inherently flawed?

Instead of having women change to fit the workplace, we need to overhaul the current system to fit the needs of women and their families. Working mothers need to have an equal voice in directing their workplaces and creating the mission, values and ethos of their organizations.

Medea Benjamin: Will Jeh Johnson Make the Homeland More Secure?

Jeh Johnson, President Obama’s pick to replace outgoing Secretary Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security, will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee this week for his confirmation hearing. Johnson is an obscure figure to the general public, but his likely confirmation does not bode well for human rights, or your civil liberties. Johnson is civil and criminal trial lawyer who made millions defending corporations such as Citigroup and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. His government positions included a stint as New York assistant US attorney and general counsel for the Pentagon from 2009 to 2012, during President Obama’s first term.  

Johnson’s nomination came as a surprise even to the Washington beltway crowd. In a July National Journal poll asking more than 100 defense and foreign policy experts who should replace retiring Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, suggestions included retired Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen (he oversaw relief efforts for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which is one of the department’s responsibilities), Homeland Security undersecretary Rand Beers, number two at department Jane Holl Lute, NYC police commissioner Ray Kelly, and former California Congresswoman Jane Harman. Not a single person cited Jeh Johnson. [..]

One reason for Johnson’s unexpected nomination might well have to do with money. He was a heavy-weight fundraiser for Obama, raising more than $200,000 during Obama’s first campaign for office, according to USA Today reported in 2009. During the 2008 race, Obama’s campaign website listed Johnson as a member of his national finance committee. Federal records show that Johnson has personally contributed over $100,000 to Democratic groups and candidates, including influential senators such as Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and James Clyburn.

Erika Sánchez: America’s Dumbest Idea: Creating a Multiple-Choice Test Generation

Standardized testing means more rote memorization and less time for creativity. Students aren’t prepared for college and life

No Child Left Behind, which was passed in 2001, mandated that states use test scores to determine whether schools were succeeding or failing. Unfortunately, this emphasis on testing had dire consequences. Even initial supporters, such as Diane Ravitch, an education historian and former assistant secretary of education in George Bush senior’s administration, realized how detrimental these measures were. [..]

And Ravitch doesn’t believe that Common Core is the solution to this crisis in education either. Now all states must adopt Common Core or similar standards approved by state higher education officials if they want to receive federal waivers from No Child Left Behind. Ravitch feels that these new standards are being imposed on children with little evidence of how they will affect students, teachers, or schools.

“I only see it getting worse”, says one of my friends, a fourth grade teacher in Chicago. “Common Core standards have been added to our Illinois testing now, which are much, much more challenging standards. This means learning a whole new test for the teachers and students.” Not only are these requirements causing a lot of stress, she says that the materials for the tests are also very expensive. A report from Truthout has outlined Common Core’s various corporate connections. Clearly the objective is profit, not a rigorous and nuanced education that will benefit students in the long run.

Gene Farley and I shared a deep affection for Tommy Douglas, the Baptist preacher-turned-statesman who as the leader of Saskatchewan’s Cooperative Commonwealth Federation established the framework for what would become Canada’s single-payer national healthcare system. [..]

Paraphrasing Tennyson, Douglas roused Canadians with a promise: “Courage, my friends; ’tis not too late to build a better world.” That line always came to mind when I was with Gene, who died Friday at 86.

Gene was an internationally renowned physician, an originator of family practice residency programs and innovative public-health initiatives who finished a distinguished academic career as chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin. [..]

It is, Gene said, “about morality.”

Canada came to recognize that morality, embracing the vision of Tommy Douglas.

And it is right and necessary to expect that America will come to recognize that morality, embracing the vision of Gene Farley.

Ralph Nader: Target — The Emperor Has No Clothes!

What’s the difference between Target and Walmart? Many liberal-minded people bristle at the name Walmart and think of its well-documented history of low wages, poor employee treatment and its devastating effect on many small businesses and communities across America. Target, on the other hand, has managed to avoid much of the negativity associated with the Walmart brand. Target has instead tried to cultivate an image as the socially-conscious alternative to Walmart’s evil big box retail empire — it perpetuates the notion that it treats its workers better and provides higher quality goods and services, all without sinking to the same harsh lows as its Bentonville-based competitor. Many so-called “blue states” welcome Target with open arms while shunning Walmart for their anti-worker practices.

So this begs the question — is Target really any better? Is this line of thinking justified?

Paul Buchheit: The Stealthy Killer That Is Capitalism

The process is gradual, insidious, lethal. It starts with financial stress in various forms, and then, according to growing evidence, leads to health problems and shorter lives.

Financial stress is brought upon us by the profit motive of capitalism, which offers little incentive to feed hungry children, to treat the sick, to secure us in retirement, to provide job opportunities for middle-class Americans. Some of the steps in the process are becoming more and more familiar to us. [..]

The facts show that we were a relatively healthy people until unregulated free-market capitalism began to disrupt our lives. Now, because of its winner-take-all profit motive, we’re literally fighting for our lives.

Eric Boehlert: CBS News: We’re Sorry, But Not That Sorry

The message from CBS News, following the high-profile implosion of its October 27 Benghazi report? We’re sorry. But we’re not that sorry.

Coming days after CBS News chief Jeff Fager categorized the Benghazi mess as among the worst blunders in the show’s history, the network’s eagerly awaited apology on Sunday’s night’s 60 Minutes turned out to be an extremely tepid and limited effort, with correspondent Lara Logan taking just 90 seconds to walk back what she described as a sourcing error.

Logan’s correction, in which she conceded the program “made a mistake,” failed to capture the scope of the 60 Minutes Benghazi blunder. She also refused to address the pressing questions about how she and her colleagues produced such a flawed report; a report that 60 Minutes reportedly worked on for an entire year. (Logan’s previous apology on CBS This Morning also failed to address those key issues.) The correction was widely derided by critics as being insufficient and misleading.

Wall Street analysts, corporate lobbyists, and front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce form an exuberant cheering squad for maintaining the status quo of America’s do-nothing jobs policy. [..]

Well, yes, the official jobless rate has edged down to 7.2 percent, but don’t get giddy, for that’s not the total score. In December 2007, when Wall Street’s reckless greed crashed our economy, the unemployment rate stood at only 5 percent (pdf), the average length of being unemployed was half of today’s, and far fewer people were forced into part-time work or had to find multiple jobs to make ends meet. [..]

But there’s an even more telling statistic that we rarely hear about: the employment/population ratio. This indicator tells us the number of working-age adults actually in the workforce, meaning they’re employed at least part-time or are looking for jobs.

This important number has plummeted by five million people since the crash. They’re not working, and they’re not counted as unemployed.

Robert Kuttner: Time to Thank Edward Snowden

When Edward Snowden first leaked massive NSA files to the Guardian newspaper, public reaction was mixed. To some, he had arrogated to himself a decision to make public some of the most sensitive national security secrets, damaging America’s ability to track terrorists, a decision that he had no right to make. People questioned his mental stability and his motives. To others, he had forced a submerged national debate and slowed down a secret and inexorable slide to a police state that protects security by routinely monitoring everybody. [..]

What Snowden has done is to force a long repressed debate about how much liberty, if any, we need to sacrifice in order to protect our security. Before his leaks, that urgent conversation was a non-debate because the violations of liberty were being done entirely in secret, beyond the reach of democratic deliberation. Even Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, a key author of the Patriot Act, was appalled. He wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder: “I am extremely troubled by the FBI’s interpretation of this legislation … Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”

Dean Baker: Robert Rubin Wants to Redistribute More Income Upward

Along with Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin is the person most responsible for the country’s economic downturn. He helped steer the country on a path of bubble-driven growth and massive trade deficits. The latter was the result of the IMF engineered bailout from the East Asian financial crisis. The outcome of this bailout was a rush by developing countries to accumulate dollar reserves in order never to have to be in the situation that the East Asian countries faced in dealing with the IMF. This sent the dollar soaring, making U.S. goods and services uncompetitive internationally, causing the trade deficit to explode.

The lost demand from the trade deficit was offset in the 1990s by the stock bubble. The wealth created by the bubble led to a boom in consumption. Also, the ability for hare-brained Internet start-ups to raise billions by issuing stock led to an investment boom in hare-brained Internet start-ups. The bursting of the stock bubble gave us the longest period without job growth since the Great Depression. However the economy did eventually recover on the back of the housing bubble. The collapse of that bubble has given us an even longer stretch without job growth, ruined millions of lives, and will likely cost us tens of trillions of dollars in lost output.

Robert Reich: Pragmatists, Ideologues, and Inequality in America

How will the 2016 election be framed? What will be America’s choice?

If the coverage of last week’s two big winners offers a guide, the choice will be between “pragmatism” and “ideology.” [..]

But these appellations ignore what’s happening to an America in which almost all the economic gains are going to the richest 1 percent, median household incomes continues to drop, and the number of Americans in poverty continues to rise.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: What’s the matter with motherhood?

If you’re a conservative strongly opposed to abortion, shouldn’t you want to give all the help you can to women who want to bring their children into the world? In particular, wouldn’t you hope they’d get the proper medical attention during and after their pregnancy?

This would seem a safe assumption, which is why it ought to be astonishing that conservatives are positively obsessed with trashing the Affordable Care Act’s regulation requiring insurance policies to include maternity coverage.

Never mind that we who are lucky enough to have health insurance end up paying to cover conditions we may never suffer ourselves. We all want to avoid cancer, but we don’t begrudge those who do get it when the premiums we pay into our shared insurance pools help them receive care.

When Wendy Davis proclaimed that she is “pro-life”-a description long since appropriated by conservatives opposed to abortion rights-the right-wing media practically exploded with indignation. How could she dare to say that? But having won national fame when she filibustered nearly 12 hours against a law designed to shutter Lone Star State abortion clinics, the Texas state senator with the pink shoes doesn’t hesitate to provoke outrage among the righteous.

Speaking to a crowd at the University of Texas in Brownsville last Tuesday, Davis, now running for governor as a Democrat, made a deceptively simple but profound declaration: “I am pro-life. I care about the life of every child: every child that goes to bed hungry, every child that goes to bed without a proper education, every child that goes to bed without being able to be a part of the Texas dream, every woman and man who worry their children’s future and their ability to provide for that.”

Her argument directly pierced to the contradiction within the right’s “pro-life” sloganeering. So far the feeble answer from the right is that Davis must be “lying” because nobody who supports a woman’s right to choose is pro-life.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: What’s the Matter With Motherhood?

If you’re a conservative strongly opposed to abortion, shouldn’t you want to give all the help you can to women who want to bring their children into the world? In particular, wouldn’t you hope they’d get the proper medical attention during and after their pregnancy?

This would seem a safe assumption, which is why it ought to be astonishing that conservatives are positively obsessed with trashing the Affordable Care Act’s regulation requiring insurance policies to include maternity coverage.

Never mind that all of us lucky enough to have health insurance end up paying to cover conditions we may never suffer from ourselves. We all want to avoid cancer, but don’t begrudge those who do get it when the premiums we pay into our shared insurance pools help them receive care.

David Sirota: The Connection Between Poverty and Education

Google the phrase “education crisis” and you’ll be hit with a glut of articles, blog posts and think tank reports claiming the entire American school system is facing an emergency. Much of this agitprop additionally asserts that teachers unions are the primary cause of the alleged problem. Not surprisingly, the fabulists pushing these narratives are often backed by anti-public school conservatives and anti-union plutocrats. But a little-noticed study released last week provides yet more confirmation that neither the “education crisis” meme or the “evil teachers union” narrative is accurate.

Before looking at that study, consider some of the ways we already know that the dominant storyline about education is, indeed, baseless propaganda.

Jacob Swenson and Jamie Merchant: Shooting Ourselves: Mass Killings, Austerity, and the Breakdown of American Society

Sandy Hook. Columbine. Aurora. Tucson. Fort Hood. These names ring out in popular memory as the sites of seemingly random, horrific atrocities.

Mass violence and how we can address it has become a hot-button issue and for good reason. Last week, between October 26thand November 1st, there were five mass killings in the United States. And Monday, a gunman opened fire in a New Jersey shopping mall, firing several shots, but killing only himself.

Our nation leads wealthy democracies in allowing the market to disseminate, nearly unchecked, huge numbers of guns into the hands of a society riddled by extreme economic inequality, widening social polarization, and deep racism. In this context, advocating gun control is the only sane thing to do. Yet, to jump from mass violence to the conclusion that there are just too many guns – and that the solution is simply to reduce them – is to fatally misdiagnose the problem.

ASK most people in this city what the most important step is to increasing economic growth and job creation, and they’ll reply, “Reduce the budget deficit!”

They’re wrong. So-called austerity measures – lowering budget deficits while the economy is still weak – have been shown both here and in Europe to be precisely the wrong medicine. But they could be on to something important if they popped the word “trade” into that sentence.

Simply put, lowering the budget deficit right now leads to slower growth. But reducing the trade deficit would have the opposite effect. Not only that, but by increasing growth and getting more people back to work in higher-than-average value-added jobs, a lower trade deficit would itself help to reduce the budget deficit.

Robert Kuttner: Fruits of Republican Folly

The Republicans badly damaged themselves with their contrived government shutdown and debt crisis, but it remains for the Democrats to drive home their advantage. Will they?

Based on the cost to the Republican brand and the pressure from corporate elites not to harm the economy, the days of shutdowns and games with the debt are probably over for the foreseeable future. If the Tea Party faction tries to repeat these maneuvers, House Speaker John Boehner would likely permit a free vote again, and enough Republicans would vote with Democrats to keep the government open.

The Republicans seem hopelessly split between a Tea Party faction that relishes governing crises and a more mannered corporate faction that kills government softly. But the GOP is still one party when it comes to destroying government as a constructive force in the economy and society.

Tom Hayden: Bill de Blasio: Harbinger of a New Populist Left in America

Strong stances on inequality and policing underpin the New York mayor’s win. If he holds true, he can shift the national debate

The overwhelming support of New York City voters for Bill de Blasio is the latest sign of the shift towards a new populist left in America. De Blasio owes his unexpected tailwind to campaigning on issues considered by insiders to be too polarizing for winning politics.

One is De Blasio’s promise to redress the “tale of two cities” inequalities among New Yorkers, an issue forced into mainstream discourse by the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement – not by New York Democrats aligned with Wall Street. The other is De Blasio’s pledge to sharply curb police stop-and-frisk policies directed against young people of color – aggressive tactics favored by a majority of white voters and overwhelmingly criticized by African Americans, Latinos and Asian-American voters.

Despite its Democratic voter majority, New York in recent decades has been the political stronghold of the plutocratic Mayor Michael Bloomberg and, before him, the abrasive law-and-order Mayor Rudolph Giuliani – both Republicans with national, even global, reach. Democrats have lacked a progressive voice on the national stage of American politics often provided by the New York mayor’s office – until now.

Bob Dreyfuss: Losing Friends, Influencing No One, and Alienating the Middle East

Put in context, the simultaneous raids in Libya and Somalia last month, targeting an alleged al-Qaeda fugitive and an alleged kingpin of the al-Shabab Islamist movement, were less a sign of America’s awesome might than two minor exceptions that proved an emerging rule: namely, that the power, prestige, and influence of the United States in the broader Middle East and its ability to shape events there is in a death spiral.

Twelve years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and a decade after the misguided invasion of Iraq-both designed to consolidate and expand America’s regional clout by removing adversaries-Washington’s actual standing in country after country, including its chief allies in the region, has never been weaker. Though President Obama can order raids virtually anywhere using Special Operations forces, and though he can strike willy-nilly in targeted killing actions by calling in the Predator and Reaper drones, he has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Middle East. Not only does no one there respect the United States, but no one really fears it, either-and increasingly, no one pays it any mind at all.

Folks who think that (at the very least) we should be allowed to experience a few years of peace before launching the next military adventure are on the cusp of a major victory in Washington. All we have to do to win this historic victory is maintain the “sequester” cuts to the Pentagon budget that are already planned in existing law. And if we win the next round — if we avoid any kind of “grand bargain” one more time — we will likely win forever, because the Pentagon cuts will be an accomplished fact, and when everyone sees that the Earth is still spinning on its axis, we’ll all realize that cutting the Pentagon budget is no big deal. The Pentagon will be smaller, the sun will come up in the morning, and life will go on.

Norman Solomon: Big Brother’s Loyal Sister: How Dianne Feinstein Is Betraying Civil Liberties

Ever since the first big revelations about the National Security Agency five months ago, Dianne Feinstein has been in overdrive to defend the surveillance state. As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she generates an abundance of fog, weasel words, anti-whistleblower slander and bogus notions of reform — while methodically stabbing civil liberties in the back.

Feinstein’s powerful service to Big Brother, reaching new heights in recent months, is just getting started. She’s hard at work to muddy all the waters of public discourse she can — striving to protect the NSA from real legislative remedies while serving as a key political enabler for President Obama’s shameless abuse of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

Amy Goodman: Election 2013: A Grass-Roots Resurgence

The cable news channels wasted no time before crowing over the landslide re-election victory of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. According to exit polls, Christie won a majority of both women and Latino voters, traditional Democratic voting blocs. The political chattering class is abuzz with Christie as the GOP’s great hope to retake the White House in 2016. But they miss a vital and growing undercurrent in U.S. politics: grass-roots movements at the local and state level that are challenging the establishment, and winning.

Robert Sheer: Pay No Attention to That Imperialist Behind the Curtain

What John Kerry did this week in Egypt and Saudi Arabia is nothing short of despicable. He, and the president who appointed him, managed to honor both a vicious military dictatorship and a totalitarian medieval monarchy as examples of progress toward a more democratic Middle East, as if neither stood in contradiction to professed U.S. objectives for the region.

“Egyptians Following Right Path, Kerry Says,” read the New York Times headline Sunday trumpeting the secretary of state’s homage to ruthless military dictators who the very next day were scheduled to stage a show trial of Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

This was all part of a “road map” to democracy “being carried out to the best of our perception,” Kerry intoned, apparently embracing the calumny that the destruction of representative government in Egypt was always the American plan.

Let government borrow for crisis bailouts, then insist cuts pay for them. Guess who loses.

Center-right governments in Britain and Germany do it. So do the center-left governments in France and Italy. Obama and the Republicans do it, too. They all impose “austerity” programs on their economies as necessary to exit the crisis afflicting them all since 2007. Politicians and economists impose austerity now much as doctors once stuck mustard plasters on the skins of the sick.

Austerity policies presume that the chief economic problems today are government budget deficits that increase national debts. Austerity policies solve those problems mainly by cutting government spending, and secondarily, by limited tax increases. Reducing expenditures while raising revenues does cut governments’ deficits and their needs to borrow.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Hooray for Taxes

Joshua Holland of BillMoyers.com  offers an important counterpoint to today’s slanted political dialogue with his new essay on “the high cost of low taxes.” This hidden cost needs to become the center of our public debate. Washington’s obsession with tax cuts and deficit reduction is distracting the American people from the slow dismantling of the social contract, and its devastating impact — financial and otherwise — on all but the wealthiest among us.

Our political discourse focuses far too much on the cost of taxation, while all but ignoring its benefits. Journalists and politicians rarely discuss the direct or indirect costs Americans often encounter when forced to rely on the private sector for services which might be more efficiently provided through government.

Michael Cohen: The TSA shootings at LAX highlight America’s real terror threat

Arguably, the $8bn a year spent on the TSA prevents rare acts of terrorism. Yet we do nothing to stop thousands of US gun deaths

In 2012, 15 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks.

The previous year, more than 32,000 Americans died from gun violence (including homicides, suicides and accidents). That total represents an almost 2,600 person increase in gun deaths since 2001.

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the first Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent to be killed in the line of duty was not slain by an al-Qaida terrorist, but rather by an American with a gun.

Gerardo Hernandez, who was shot and killed at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Friday, was tasked with protecting Americans from a threat that barely exists. Instead, he died from a threat that we as a nation tacitly accept as a “price of freedom”: practically unfettered access to firearms.

Harvey Wasserman: Dear Climate Scientists, Please Note the Global Terror at Fukushima Four

Four climate scientists have made a public statement claiming nuclear power is an answer to global warming.

Before they proceed, they should visit Fukushima, where the Tokyo Electric Power Company has moved definitively toward bringing down the some 1300 hot fuel rods from a pool at Unit Four.  

Which makes this a time of global terror.  

Since March 11, 2011, fuel assemblies weighing some 400 tons, containing more than 1500 extremely radioactive fuel rods, have been suspended 100 feet in the air above Fukushima Daiichi’s Unit Four.  “If you calculate the amount of cesium 137 in the pool, the amount is equivalent to 14,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs,” says Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.  Former US Department of Energy official Robert Alvarez, an expert on fuel pool fires, calculates potential fallout from Unit Four at ten times greater than what came from Chernobyl.