Tag: Opinion

J.P. Morgan was recently socked in the wallet by financial regulators who levied yet another multibillion-dollar fine against the Wall Street baron for massive illegalities.

Well, not a fine against John Pierpont Morgan, the man. This 19th-century robber baron was born to a great banking fortune and, by hook and crook, leveraged it to become the “King of American Finance.” During the Gilded Age, Morgan cornered the U.S. financial markets, gained monopoly ownership of railroads, amassed a vast supply of the nation’s gold and used his investment power to create U.S. Steel and take control of that market. [..]

Moving the clock forward, we come to JPMorgan Chase, today’s financial powerhouse bearing J.P.’s name. The bank also inherited his pattern of committing multiple illegalities-and walking away scot-free.

Oh, sure, the bank was hit with big fines, but not a single one of the top bankers who committed gross wrongdoings were charged or even fired-much less sent to jail.

Jared Bernstein: The 529 Microcosm: A Revealing Political Train Wreck with Regard to an Inefficient Tax Break

This little train wreck over the White House’s proposal and then retraction of a plan to cut back on a wasteful yet beloved tax benefit is highly instructive. It’s a clear example of how much hot air there is in these fiscal debates, where policy makers and pundits scold everyone within earshot of the need for “fiscal responsibility,” then punt when they’ve got a chance to actually… you know… do something responsible.

The benefit in question is the 529 college savings plan, a tax break that allows people to save as much as they want without paying tax on either accruals or withdrawals (the accounts must be used to pay for college). It turns out that 70 percent of the benefits of 529s go to the top five percent of households — those with incomes above $200,000. The problem with that, as higher education scholar Sandy Baum recently noted, is that “[529s] primarily provide a subsidy to people who would save in other forms anyway.”

So the WH, to their credit, proposed to tax withdrawals from the plans (accruals would remain untaxed) while significantly boosting better targeted measures to help lower-income households afford college (the 529 change was to be grandfathered in, i.e., applied solely to new plans).

Joe Conason: End Poverty? Reduce Inequality? What Republicans Must Do First

The latest fad among would-be Republican presidential contenders is to proclaim their deep commitment to fighting poverty and inequality-which sounds as plausible as a promise by McDonald’s to abolish greasy food.

Decades of abuse of the nation’s poor and working families, which reached a crescendo in Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” campaign in 2012, hasn’t left much space for Republicans to follow the public morality of Pope Francis. Yet for the moment at least, they seem to think that they must.

They also seem to believe that reminiscing about bread-bag overshoes, like Senator Joni Ernst, or jeering the wealth of the Clintons, like RNC chair Reince Priebus, will somehow transform them into Franciscan populists. But such delusional ploys only make them look ridiculous.

So in the gracious spirit of the pontiff, who told us that even atheists can be saved, let’s help our Republican brothers and sisters.

Texas legislator Molly White joined some more famous conservatives in the ‘Super Bowl of Bigotry’ this week, vying for the title of Biggest Islamophobe

In many parts of the United States, if you want to win an election, you need talking points full of misinformation and bigotry towards Muslims to scare the wits out of non-Muslim Americans in to voting for you (and others to fund your campaign). Events in the Middle East simply provide more fuel to an already-raging fire, and convince officials elected to serve all of their constituents that their inappropriate and bigoted comments will not only go unchallenged but will be applauded. [..]

Meanwhile, American Muslims continue to build civic and electoral power. From serving on state party committees in California to founding the first-ever Muslim Democratic Club in New York City (dedicated to electing Muslims on all levels of government across the nation, which I co-founded and of which I am currently the president), American Muslims are an emerging political bloc. We are not waiting for validation from bigoted politicians or to pass tests of our allegiance from the likes of White – and we will respond to bigotry, regardless of party affiliation. As the 2016 elections quickly approach, we as voters expect real debates on issues impacting all Americans: the economy, education, healthcare and national security. It is our responsibility to keep elected officials and candidates accountable to all the people they serve; that is how we pledge our allegiance.

Ladar Levison: Prosecutors used the same legal strategy against Barrett Brown as they did me. Are you next?

FBI agents and the state’s lawyers misrepresented events to create a false narrative, and the judges in both our cases bought it

When it happened to me, I dismissed it as an anomaly. The government – while trying to access the private emails of my company’s 410,000 users – made material misrepresentations to the courts in a coordinated campaign to portray me as obstinate and uncooperative. Their intent? To manipulate a judge into accepting an unconstitutional legal theory. It cost me my business.

Barrett Brown, whose investigative journalism frequently embarrassed the DOJ and FBI, wasn’t quite so lucky. Last week, he was sentenced to five years in prison, followed by another two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $890K in restitution. That was the penalty for pleading guilty to three charges: “accessory after the fact”, a charge he faced for attempting to negotiate redactions in the stolen data, “obstructing justice” because he moved his laptop from a table to a cabinet, and “threatening a federal agent” in a video posted on the internet. The justification provided for his harsh sentence was a “trafficking in stolen authentication features” charge, for sharing a hyperlink to a public website, that the prosecution dropped before his plea. ]..]

Barrett Brown and I don’t have a lot in common: I’m a clean-cut, successful American entrepreneur, and, at the time of his arrest, Barrett was eking out an existence as an independent journalist while attempting to cope with a series of personal problems. We were both singled out by the government for what they thought we could – and would – tell them about other people. When we resisted, they twisted our words, our actions and the law. The result has been a set of disturbing court decisions that may give the government the ability to selectively prosecute anyone they wish. This time it was a journalist. Next time it could be you.

Andrew Bacevich: Save Us From Washington’s Visionaries

En route back to Washington at the tail end of his most recent overseas trip, John Kerry, America’s peripatetic secretary of state, stopped off in France “to share a hug with all of Paris.” Whether Paris reciprocated the secretary’s embrace went unrecorded.

Despite the requisite reference to General Pershing (“Lafayette, we are here!”) and flying James Taylor in from the 1960s to assure Parisians that “You’ve Got a Friend,” in the annals of American diplomacy Kerry’s hug will likely rank with President Eisenhower’s award of the Legion of Merit to Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza for “exceptionally meritorious conduct” and Jimmy Carter’s acknowledgment of the “admiration and love” said to define the relationship between the Iranian people and their Shah.  In short, it was a moment best forgotten.

Alas, this vapid, profoundly silly event is all too emblematic of statecraft in the Obama era.  Seldom have well-credentialed and well-meaning people worked so hard to produce so little of substance.

Steven W. Thrasher: Legal same sex marriage is coming to Alabama – it’s just a question of when

In a state where interracial marriage remained unconstitutional until the year 2000, is there hope for same sex couples who want to wed right now?

“Honestly, I thought it was a hoax,” Kacie Reeves of Jasper, Alabama said of when she heard that a federal judge ruled that same sex marriages would be allowed in her home state. She and her fiancée, Brittany Rush, had long planned a wedding for friends and family in May – after which they planned to “take a vacation and drive to some other state where we could make it legal.” [..]

The brides-to-be still have good reasons to be skeptical about getting legally wed at home. Shortly after the jubilant news, a 14-day stay was put in effect. Then, in a letter to Alabama governor Robert Bentley, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore wrote that nothing “grants the federal government the authority to redefine the institution of marriage” and vowed to “stop judicial tyranny and any unlawful opinions issued without constitutional authority.”

Judge Moore is as wrong about same sex marriage as he was about refusing to remove a 2.6 ton statue of the 10 Commandments from government property (which saw him removed from the bench more than a decade ago): the federal ruling indeed applies to all Alabama officials. But while a ruling in favor of same sex marriage by the Supreme Court this spring could potentially create a right to it in all 50 states, will that stop Alabama’s legal obfuscation and insurrection on marriage equality, given its history?

The fact that this even needs to be said demonstrates that there’s been a breakdown in the democratic process, but we’ll say it anyway: Our number-one priority should be protecting the planet for future generations. That said, green energy makes sense even if we base our thinking on economic considerations alone.

Energy policies can roughly be divided into two kinds: those which benefit society as a whole, and those which only benefit the very few — the Koch brothers and their ilk.

Guess which kind the GOP supports? Republicans are blocking pro-growth, job-creating green energy investments while pushing a pipeline that would enrich the few at the expense of the many — with potentially disastrous environmental consequences.

If you want to know why, follow the money.

Dave Johnson: Let’s Take Apart the Corporate Case for Fast Track Trade Authority

U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Michael Froman appeared before Congress Tuesday to make the corporate argument for “fast track” trade promotion authority. The USTR and President Obama are pushing fast-track pre-approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other big “trade” agreements they are working on. The Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and other corporate groups and lobbyists are also pushing hard for Congress to pass fast track.

The promoters of fast track say we need it to push “trade” agreements through Congress to expand trade and increase exports. “What we’re going to do through this trade agreement is open up markets,” Froman told Congress Tuesday, “and then level the playing field so we can protect workers, protect American jobs and then ensure a fair and level playing field by raising labor and environmental standards, raising intellectual property rights, standards and enforcement, making sure that we’re putting disciplines on state-owned enterprises that pose a real threat to workers.”

These corporate arguments (you can see them in this Chamber of Commerce slide show “Ten Reasons Why America Needs Trade Promotion Authority”) just make me more skeptical of what they are selling. Here’s why.

John Nichols: If Elections Matter for Greece, Why Not America?

Elections are supposed to have consequences. When countries establish electoral processes that are sufficiently free and functional to ascertain the clear will of the people-and when those votes are cast and counted in an election that draws a solid majority of eligible voters to the polls-that will should be expressed as something more than a New York Times headline or a Fox News alert. It should be expressed in leadership, law and governance.

That governance should be sufficient to address poverty, tame inequality and conquer injustice. And if outside forces thwart those initiatives, that government should challenge them on behalf of the common good. After all, if meaningful economic and social change cannot by achieved (or at the very least demanded) with a stroke of the ballot pen, then what is the point of an election?

Media Benjamin: Take Cuba Off the Terrorist List

The new U.S.-Cuba talks are a refreshing burst of sunshine in the 54-year dismal relationship between neighbors separated by a mere 90 miles. The nations negotiated a successful swap of prisoners. The onerous travel restrictions the U.S. government placed on just visiting the island are starting to crumble. Embassies in Washington and Havana will soon be opened. Rules designed to ease trade are being written. But despite this long-awaited meltdown of U.S. policies that added to the island’s economic woes but never succeeded in tumbling Cuba’s communist government, a portion of the Cold War edifice remains intact: Cuba is still on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list. [..]

Most people around the world would find it very strange that Cuba would be on a “terrorist list,” as it is most known worldwide for exporting doctors, musicians, teachers, artists, and dancers — not terrorists.

Syriza’s win signals rise of anti-austerity progressive tide in Europe

With Sunday’s elections, the Greeks sent a message to Europe’s austerity-peddling elites of the so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank negotiating their country’s debt: You don’t own us. [..]

Greece’s elections represented the bubbling over of rage from a population that has suffered the most from the eurozone’s “Hunger Games” approach to the 2007 global financial crisis. Struggling countries have been forced to impose savage cuts on their worn-down populations and pursue competitiveness through reducing wages, decimating worker protections and slashing social safety nets. The choice of the charismatic 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras as prime minister- a man who believes in economic policies linked to the needs of ordinary people rather than the desires of bankers – marks a radical change in tone for Europe.

For starters, Syriza’s victory announces the failure of austerity policies that produce misery rather than growth. By now there is wide consensus among economists that if Europe had passed a robust stimulus plan designed to put enough money in the pockets of ordinary people to drive demand and adopted a bolder monetary policy aimed at boosting the economy, Greece would not have ended up with a crippled economy, disastrous unemployment currently[ more than 60 percent among youths] and a pervasive sense of desperation among the masses. Nearly a third of Greeks are living below the poverty line.

Heather Digby Parton Meet the CIA’s secret protector: Why Sen. Richard Burr is its favorite “overseer”

No, GOP is not going back to its old isolationist ways. Here’s why the intelligence community is licking its chops

One of the newest pieces of conventional wisdom among the political commentariat is the idea that under the influence of the Tea Party and the libertarians, the Republicans are no longer the national security hawks they once were. They are going back to their old isolationist ways, the thinking goes, because Rand Paul is running for president and he doesn’t support military adventurism overseas (except when he does) and the right wing of the GOP is uninterested in national security.

As I have written before, this is a fallacy. And we can see that playing itself out in living color as the GOP Senate’s newest committee chairmen take their gavels. Yes, we have seen the embarrassing spectacle of climate change denier James Inhofe being promoted to head the environmental committee and the neo-Confederate anti-immigration zealot Jeff Sessions being named to head a panel on immigration.  But nothing is as astonishing as the Senate’s greatest protector of the intelligence services being named the committee assigned to intelligence “oversight.”  That would be Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina.

Joan Walsh: When “political correctness” hurts: Understanding the micro-aggressions that trigger Jonathan Chait

A new opus on progressive racial extremism features the liberal writer’s trademark mix of insight and overreaction

When New York magazine teased Jonathan Chait’s coming opus on race, politics and free speech last Friday – “Can a white liberal man critique a culture of political correctness?” – the hook alone was enough to send his Twitter haters into multiple ragegasms. I thought folks should save themselves some grief and at least wait until the story itself appeared before defaulting to fury. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.

But to anyone who hated that teaser, I’m sure, the story itself is just that bad. Chait continues to pick the scab of his suffering over the fact that the every musing of white liberal men (and women, to be fair) about race and politics is no longer welcomed for its contribution to the struggle. He no doubt finished his piece before the Twitter backlash against Nick Kristof for suggesting the police reform movement find a more “compelling face” than Mike Brown, because he doesn’t mention it, though it’s the kind of thing that sets him off.

This is not to say that there are no good points in Chait’s piece, only that his tone of grievance and self-importance, as though he’s warning us of a threat to our democracy that others either can’t see or are too intimidated to fight, makes it very hard to parse.

Presidential aspirants in both parties are talking about saving the middle class. But the middle class can’t be saved unless Wall Street is tamed.

The Street’s excesses pose a continuing danger to average Americans. And its ongoing use of confidential corporate information is defrauding millions of middle-class investors.

Yet most presidential aspirants don’t want to talk about taming the Street because Wall Street is one of their largest sources of campaign money. [..]

It’s nice that presidential aspirants are talking about rebuilding America’s middle class.

But to be credible, he (or she) has to take clear aim at the Street.

That means proposing to limit the size of the biggest Wall Street banks; resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act (which used to separate investment from commercial banking); define insider trading the way most other countries do – using information any reasonable person would know is unavailable to most investors; and close the revolving door between the Street and the U.S. Treasury.

It also means not depending on the Street to finance their campaigns.

Sarah Laskow: Snow looks pretty. But climate change and the storms it triggers are dangerous

‘Global warming’ doesn’t stop when winter comes – and dramatic cold weather events are exactly what scientists predict will be the result

It isn’t news to anyone that global temperatures are rising. Last month was the warmest December the world has seen in 135 years. Last year was the warmest year on record: according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the average combined temperature of land and ocean surfaces was 1.24°F about the 20th century average.

Yet, as you may have noticed or read, it’s been snowing on the east coast of the United States – a lot. And that too is the result of what we call “global warming”.

It seems to be counterintuitive. Aren’t we worried about melting ice? Yes. Isn’t snowpack diminishing high in the mountains, where it matters most? Yes. But it is also true that in some places in the world – and the northern United States is one of them – dramatic winter snowstorms are exactly what scientists expect from climate change.

Robert Kuttner: A Break in the Greek Tragedy

Europe should count itself lucky that a leftwing anti-austerity party won the Greek elections, swept into office by citizens who’ve had enough. Elsewhere in Europe, seven years of stupid, punitive, and self-defeating austerity policies have led to gains by the far right.

If a radical left party is now in power in Athens and sending tremors through Europe’s financial markets, the EU’s smug leaders and their banker allies in Frankfurt, Brussels and Berlin have only themselves to blame.

Alexis Tsipras, leader of the winning Syriza coalition, says he doesn’t want Greece to leave the Euro. He just wants Europe’s leaders to renegotiate Greece’s debt. It’s about time. [..]

This crisis could have ended years ago with far less suffering for ordinary people who had no responsibilities for the offending policies. Greece, after all, has about two percent of the EU’s total economic product — and it has about 25 percent less than it had before the crisis. (That’s how well austerity medicine worked.) Writing off Greece’s debt outright would have cost peanuts, and still would.

The EU should have given Greece serious debt relief in 2009. Now, finally, there is a government in Athens that will demand it. But that will require a very high stakes game of chicken. Tsipras has to be willing to risk a default, and the financial shocks that would set off. He has to gamble that the IMF and the European Commission would institute an emergency damage control plan.

Alexis Tsipras, leader of the left-wing Syriza coalition, is about to become prime minister of Greece. He will be the first European leader elected on an explicit promise to challenge the austerity policies that have prevailed since 2010. And there will, of course, be many people warning him to abandon that promise, to behave “responsibly.”

So how has that responsibility thing worked out so far?

To understand the political earthquake in Greece, it helps to look at Greece’s May 2010 “standby arrangement” with the International Monetary Fund, under which the so-called troika – the I.M.F., the European Central Bank and the European Commission – extended loans to the country in return for a combination of austerity and reform. It’s a remarkable document, in the worst way. The troika, while pretending to be hardheaded and realistic, was peddling an economic fantasy. And the Greek people have been paying the price for those elite delusions.

Jonathan Schwartz: Survivor of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Massacre ‘Very Happy Obama Didn’t Come to Paris’

In a new interview Laurent Léger, an investigative reporter at Charlie Hebdo and a survivor of the January 7th assault on the magazine’s Paris office, condemned President Obama for his administration’s attack on press freedom.

“You have to be very happy Obama] didn’t come to the march in Paris,” said Léger. “[His administration’s actions are] an absolute scandal. It’s very good he didn’t come to the march that day.” A 2013 report by the Committee to Protect Journalists [stated that the Obama administration’s “war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive… since the Nixon administration.” Eight whistleblowers have been prosecuted by Obama’s Justice Department under the 1917 Espionage Act, twice as many as under all other presidents combined. [..]

Léger said he believed many French officials at the January 10th rally in Paris protesting the assault on Charlie Hebdo were sincere. However, he described the presence of numerous top officials from countries with poor records on freedom of the press as “incredible and ludicrous. It’s too bad that the cartoonists who were killed couldn’t be there to see it. If they had, they would have made some fantastic cartoons.”

Lyric R Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe: Counter-terrorism is supposed to let us live without fear. Instead, it’s creating more of it

How many ‘terrorism plots’ initiated by FBI informants will the agency interrupt before Congress finally performs some oversight?

People think that catching terrorists is just a matter of finding them – but, just as often, terrorists are created by the people doing the chase. [..]

The stated purpose of the FBI’s counter-terrorism mission is to enable Americans to go about their daily lives without fear. But in addition to imprisoning hundreds of Muslim men caught up in the FBI’s informant-led traps, the agency has actively created and encouraged a pervasive climate of fear and suspicion among Americans exercising their constitutional right to freedom of religion. In fact, the FBI’s tactics have profoundly impacted law enforcement’s ability to maintain a relationship of trust with Muslim American communities, much to the detriment to our collective national security. Authorities must rein in the informant program, and institute immediate congressional oversight, if they sincerely aim to defend the liberty and security of all Americans, regardless of race or religion.

Wendall Potter: Health Insurers’ Stock Soars as They Dump Small Business Customers

Several million previously uninsured Americans now have coverage because of Obamacare, but it could be argued that the people who have benefited most from the law — at least financially — are the top executives and shareholders of the country’s health insurance companies.

Among those who apparently have not yet benefited much at all, at least so far, are owners of small businesses who would like to keep offering coverage to their employees but can no longer afford it. They can’t afford it because insurers keep jacking their rates up so high every year that more and more of them are dropping employee health benefits altogether.

And let’s be clear, these insurers aren’t suffering. UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer, reported last week that it made $10.3 billion in profits in 2014 on revenues of $130.5 billion. Both profits and revenues grew seven percent from 2013.

American politics are dominated by those with money. As such, America’s tax debate is dominated by voices that insist the rich are unduly persecuted by high taxes and that low-income folks are living the high life. Indeed, a new survey by the Pew Research Center recently found that the most financially secure Americans believe “poor people today have it easy.”

The rich are certainly entitled to their own opinions-but, as the old saying goes, nobody is entitled to his or her own facts. With that in mind, here’s a set of tax facts that’s worth considering: Middle- and low-income Americans are facing far higher state and local tax rates than the wealthy. In all, a comprehensive analysis by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that the poorest 20 percent of households pay on average more than twice the effective state and local tax rate (10.9 percent) as the richest 1 percent of taxpayers (5.4 percent). [..]

Of course, if you aren’t poor, you may be reading this and thinking that these trends have no real-world impact on your life. But think again: In September, Standard & Poor’s released a study showing that increasing economic inequality hurts economic growth and subsequently reduces public revenue. As important, the report found that the correlation between high inequality and low economic growth was highest in states that relied most heavily on regressive levies such as sales taxes.

In other words, regressive state and local tax policies don’t just harm the poor-they end up harming entire economies. So if altruism doesn’t prompt you to care about unfair tax rates and economic inequality, then it seems self-interest should.

Mark Weisbot: In Syriza, Greece Has a Real Choice

Greek voters should not be intimidated into voting against the anti-austerity party.

Here we go again. There is talk of Greece exiting the euro, and the German government has tried to say that it would be no big deal for Europe, then apparently walked back from that position. At the same time, the German government appears to be trying to influence the Greek election scheduled for January 25 by saying that if the left party Syriza wins, a Greek exit will follow. [..]

We have seen most of this story before, but the way it is presented in most of the press can be confusing. Most importantly, all this talk of how financial markets will respond to the election is somewhat misleading. The financial markets are not the driving force here. Rather, it is the European authorities, led by the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt in July 2012, when he put an end to the financial crisis in Europe with just a few words, announcing that the bank was “ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.”

He didn’t even have to back the statement up with any hard cash. Yields on the troubled European governments’ bonds – including the potentially euro-meltdown-size debt of Italy and Spain — went into decline and the financial crisis of the euro was over.

Joshua Kopstein: In Obama’s war on hackers, everyone loses

Persecution of Barrett Brown offers chilling preview of cybersecurity proposals

For weeks, President Barack Obama has been pushing a set of controversial cybersecurity proposals. He prominently mentioned the plans during his State of the Union address, stressing the need for legislation, using that classic political pretext for demolishing civil liberties, protecting children.

“No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids,” he said during the speech, dutifully ignoring the elephant in the room: the U.S. government’s role in doing much of the same.

But Obama’s proposals are a mixed bag of old and dangerous ideas. He wants to create information-sharing regimes between private companies and the government to detect threats as well as expand the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the draconian anti-hacking law that the government used to prosecute the late Internet activist Aaron Swartz. Both steps would not only be ineffective at improving cybersecurity in any practical sense but also further empower the government to go after activists and journalists such as Barrett Brown, who was sentenced Thursday to 63 months in prison

Henner Weithöner: Coal Casts Cloud Over Germany’s Energy Revolution

The energy market in Germany’s saw a spectacular change last year as renewable energy became the major source of its electricity supply-leaving lignite, coal and nuclear behind.

But researchers calculate that, allowing for the mild winter of 2014, the cut in fossil fuel use in energy production meant CO2 emissions fell by only 1%.

Wind, solar, hydropower and biomass reached a new record, producing 27.3% (157bn kilowatt hours) of Germany’s total electricity and overtaking lignite (156bn kWh), according to AGEB, a joint association of energy companies and research institutes.

This was an achievement that many energy experts could not have imagined just a few years ago.

“Imagine if we did something different.”

Those were just seven words out of close to 7,000 that President Barack Obama spoke during his State of the Union address. He was addressing both houses of Congress, which are controlled by his bitter foes. Most importantly, though, he was addressing the country. Obama employed characteristically soaring rhetoric to deliver his message of bipartisanship. “The shadow of crisis has passed, and the State of the Union is strong,” he assured us.

From whose lives has the shadow of crisis passed? And for whom is this Union strong?

Jessica Valenti: The Republican abortion bill shows they still believe many women lie about rape

In a move being credited to the wisdom of Republican women lawmakers, the House will not be voting on a sweeping 20 week abortion ban that only allowed for rape and incest exceptions if the victims reported their assaults to police. (Because Republicans know just how much women love to lie about rape and incest to get those sweet, sweet abortions!)

But before we pat all those kind, considered Republican women on the back for their reasoned withdrawal of support for a bill that would’ve made women file police reports 20 weeks after being assaulted in order to have the option of not being forced to have their rapist’s baby, let’s not forget that all of this is just political posturing. The bill – or even another, less extreme 20 week abortion ban – was unlikely to ever pass the Senate, and President Obama made clear that he would veto it (pdf) if it did.

So backing off on yet another terrible anti-abortion bill – they tried this in 2011 with the “forcible rape” provisions in the Hyde Amendment renewal – is not a sign that Republicans will be more moderate with their future restrictions on reproductive rights, or that Republican women will be able to temper the radical anti-choice agenda of their party.

Lauren Carasik: Holder assails policing for profit

Attorney general’s initiative curbs but does not eliminate controversial asset seizure policies

On Jan. 16, outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced sweeping revisions to the federal civil asset forfeiture policy, barring state and local police from using federal law to confiscate cash and other property. Under the oft-criticized equitable sharing program, the federal government “adopts” assets seized by state and local law enforcement and then funnels up to 80 percent of the value back to the agencies.

The program invited malfeasance by giving cash-strapped police departments incentive to confiscate property believed to be involved in illicit activities even when the owners were not accused – much less convicted – of any crime. The program’s abuses have garnered bipartisan support for reform, and critics are praising Holder’s changes.

While the improvements are laudable, they will not end the abuse for a number of reasons. First, local agencies may continue the programs under state laws. Second, Holder did not ban forfeiture for state and federal joint operations. And finally, the changes fall short of addressing the how civil forfeiture tramples due process rights.

Norman Solomon: Leak Trial Shows CIA Zeal to Hide Incompetence

Six days of testimony at the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling have proven the agency’s obsession with proclaiming its competence. Many of the two-dozen witnesses from the Central Intelligence Agency conveyed smoldering resentment that a whistleblower or journalist might depict the institution as a bungling outfit unworthy of its middle name.

Some witnesses seemed to put Sterling and journalist James Risen roughly in the same nefarious category — Sterling for allegedly leaking classified information that put the CIA in a bad light, and Risen for reporting it. Muffled CIA anger was audible, coming from the witness stand, a seat filled by people claiming to view any aspersions on the CIA to be baseless calumnies.

Other than court employees, attorneys and jurors, only a few people sat through virtually the entire trial. As one of them, I can say that the transcript of USA v. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling should be mined for countless slick and clumsy maneuvers by government witnesses to obscure an emerging picture of CIA recklessness, dishonesty and ineptitude.