Tag: Opinion

It will not be with guns.

If ever tyranny overtakes this land of the sometimes free and home of the intermittently brave, it probably won’t, contrary to the fever dreams of gun rights extremists, involve jack-booted government thugs rappelling down from black helicopters. Rather, it will involve changes to words on paper many have forgotten or never knew, changes that chip away until they strip away precious American freedoms.

It will involve a trade of sorts, an inducement to give up the reality of freedom for the illusion of security. Indeed, the bargain has already been struck.

Juan Cole: So When Will Dick Cheney Be Charged With Espionage?

The US government charged Edward Snowden with theft of government property and espionage on Friday. [..]

Charging leakers with espionage is outrageous, but it is par for the course with the Obama administration.

The same theory under which Edward Snowden is guilty of espionage could easily be applied to former vice president Dick Cheney. [..]

What Cheney did in ordering his aides Scooter Libby and Karl Rove to release the information about Plame’s identity was no different from Snowden’s decision to contact the press.

And yet, Cheney mysteriously has not been charged with Espionage. Hmmm….

New York Times Editorial Board: More Overreach by the N.Y.P.D.

The revelation in 2011 that the New York City Police Department was spying on law-abiding Muslims rightly attracted scrutiny from the Justice Department, which announced last year that it intended to review the program. The disclosure also raised troubling questions about whether the city was violating a federal court order that bars it from retaining information gleaned from investigations of political activity unless there are reasonable indications of potential wrongdoing. The purpose of that order was to discourage unjustified surveillance and prevent police from peering into people’s private affairs and building dossiers on them without legitimate cause.  [..]

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has responded to such complaints by insisting that the department’s surveillance program is perfectly legal and implying that critics are undermining public safety. This is the same response he offers when challenged on the stop-and-frisk program. This arrogant approach tries to discredit legitimate criticism while justifying further overreach by a department with a history of abusive behavior. It is up to the courts to determine whether the Muslim surveillance program and the stop-and-frisk program are constitutional. What already seems clear is that these surveillance policies create suspicion and mistrust, which does not help the Police Department or anyone else.

Robert M. Morgenthau: Let Shooting Victims Sue

In 2004, relatives of eight people shot in the Washington-area sniper attacks received $2.5 million dollars from the maker and seller of the rifle used in those shootings. That was a matter of simple justice. But the gun lobby had no use for that kind of justice. They went to work and, the next year, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, severely reducing the legal liability of gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers for reckless acts that send guns to the black market. The National Rifle Association called it “the most significant piece of pro-gun legislation in 20 years.”

This kind of legislation encourages arms dealers to turn a blind eye to the lethal consequences of what they peddle, and rewards their breathtaking irresponsibility. [..]

The Second Amendment right to bear arms is an important right. But the contours of that right must not extend to those who look away as their guns enter the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable. Congress should immediately repeal the 2005 gun immunity law, and let free-market incentives encourage responsible behavior by the gun industry.

The National Security Agency’s recently revealed surveillance programs undermine the purpose of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was established to prevent this kind of overreach. They violate the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. And they underscore the dangers of growing executive power. [..]

Americans reasonably expect that their movements, communications and decisions will not be recorded and analyzed by the government. A majority of the Supreme Court seems to agree. Last year, the court considered a case involving 28-day GPS surveillance. Justice Samuel Alito suggested that in most criminal investigations, long-term monitoring “impinges on expectations of privacy.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor recognized that following a person’s movements “reflects a wealth of detail about her familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations.” [..]

Congress has an opportunity to create more effective checks on executive power. It could withdraw Sections 215 and 702 and introduce new measures to regulate intelligence collection and analysis. There are many options.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: ‘B.S. It’s What’s For Dinner’: Conservatives and Cattlemen Coddle Rich Kids, Stiff Seniors

I always liked those scenes in old Westerns where the ranchers get together to face a common threat to their livelihood, usually some greedy family dynasty that’s scheming with a big bank, railroad, or mining operation. The scene always starts the same way:

“Boys, we’ve got ourselves a problem!”

Organizations like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association are supposed to help their members by making sure people can and do buy their products.  That’s why the NCBA created its famous ad campaign: “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.”

So why aren’t they fighting the pro-rich-people austerity policies that are killing the market for beef?

Ralph Nader: Corporatizing National Security: What It Means

Privacy is a sacred word to many Americans, as demonstrated by the recent uproar over the brazen invasion of it by the Patriot Act-enabled National Security Agency (NSA). The information about dragnet data-collecting of telephone and internet records leaked by Edward Snowden has opened the door to another pressing conversation-one about privatization, or corporatization of this governmental function.

In addition to potentially having access to the private electronic correspondence of American citizens, what does it mean that Mr. Snowden-a low-level contractor-had access to critical national security information not available to the general public? Author James Bamford, an expert on intelligence agencies, recently wrote: “The Snowden case demonstrates the potential risks involved when the nation turns its spying and eavesdropping over to companies with lax security and inadequate personnel policies. The risks increase exponentially when those same people must make critical decisions involving choices that may lead to war, cyber or otherwise.”

David Sirota: Power Killer

This is a tale of two presidents-the one we hope we have and the one we actually have. It is also a tale of two kinds of violence-the surgical and the indiscriminate-and how the latter blurs the distinction between self-defense and something far more sinister.

This story began last year, when the White House told the New York Times that President Obama was personally overseeing a “kill list” and an ongoing drone bombing campaign against alleged terrorists, including American citizens. Back then, much of the public language was carefully crafted to reassure us that our country’s military power was not being abused. [..]

The unstated deal being offered to America was simple: Accept a president claiming unprecedented despotic authority in exchange for that president promising to comport himself as an enlightened despot-one who seeks to limit the scope of America’s ongoing violence.

For proof that the current surveillance programs are ripe for abuse, Americans need only look at what preceded them.

Since we learned that the government has been collecting and storing Americans’ call data for years, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein; her counterpart in the House, Mike Rogers; and James Clapper, director of national intelligence, have been trying to claim it is not as bad as it sounds. The collection doesn’t include the content of communications, merely “metadata,” they argue, and anyway, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court limits the circumstances under which the government can access this information. “The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization,” says Clapper.

In other words, the government’s response amounts to “trust us.”

But Americans have good reason to distrust the program, which, according to The Washington Post, is called MAINWAY. That’s true not just because history reminds us that the government has abused surveillance authorizations in the past, as it did when it used COINTELPRO to spy on dissidents decades ago. It’s also true because one of the direct predecessors of this program proved ripe for abuse.

Dean Baker and David Rosnick: Do Wall Street and the 1 Percent Thrive at the Expense of Our Kids?

One of the most compelling lines put forward by those seeking cuts in Social Security and Medicare is that spending on the elderly is coming at the expense of our children. The people putting forward this argument typically point to the high percentage of children living near or below the poverty line. The argument is that if we could cut money for programs that primarily serve the elderly then we would free up money that could be spent to ensure that the young get a decent start on life.

There are many reasons this logic is faulty, most importantly by implying that there is any direct relationship between the money we spend on seniors and the money we spend on our children. Even if we were to cut funding for Social Security and Medicare there is no mechanism that ensures the money saved would go to helping children. It is entirely possible that the money would simply be diverted to tax cuts targeted to the wealthy or for some other purpose.

Stan Sorscher: “Free Trade” Was Never Really About Trade

First, let me say that I am 100% in favor of trade. Trade is when we do what we do best, they do what they do best, and we trade. Trade, done right, will raise living standards.

If trade is good, then free trade must be better, right? So consider this old joke about “free trade.”

   It’s not free.

   It’s not trade.

Twenty years after NAFTA we can add that it doesn’t work. It’s bad for millions of workers, families and communities around the world.

“Free trade” is not free. Our free trade policy encourages production to leave the country. We’ve lost millions of manufacturing jobs. More than 60,000 manufacturing plants were closed between 2000 and 2010 as production moved overseas. These costs are real.

Jim Hightower: Repeal the Patriot Act

It’s back. The Patriot Act – that grotesque, ever-mutating, hydra-headed monstrosity from the Bush-Cheney Little Shop of Horrors – has risen again, this time with an added twist of Orwellian intrusiveness from the Obamacans.

Since 2006, Team Bush, and then Team Obama, have allowed the little-known, hugely powerful National Security Agency to run a daily dragnet through your and my phone calls – all on the hush-hush, of course, not informing us spyees. Now exposed, leaders of both parties are piously pointing to the Patriot Act, saying that it legalized this wholesale, everyday invasion of our privacy, so we shouldn’t be surprised, much less upset by NSA’s surreptitious peek-a-boo program. [..]

It’s not enough to fight NSA’s outrageously invasive spying on us – the Patriot Act itself is a shameful betrayal of America’s ideals, and it must be repealed.

The future of immigration reform is, for now at least, not up to House Speaker John Boehner. It is in the hands of a group of moderately conservative Republican senators who have to decide whether their desire to solve a decades-old problem outweighs their fears of retaliation from the party’s right wing.

These senators are clearly looking for a way to vote for a bill that is the product of excruciating but largely amicable negotiations across partisan and ideological barriers. But these Republicans-they include Bob Corker, John Hoeven, Susan Collins, Dean Heller and Rob Portman-want enough changes in the measure’s border security provisions so they can tell tea party constituents that they didn’t just go along with a middle-of-the-road consensus.

Jared Berstein: CBO Scores the Immigration Reform Bill and Finds… (Wait for It)… It Reduces the Deficit

Well, would you look at that: CBO just released their analysis of the fiscal impact of the immigration reform legislation from the Senate and it turns out that the bill is expected to lower the budget deficit by $197 billion over the next decade.

That means that opponents who wanted to make the case that comprehensive reform of our current “system” would be a net cost — e.g., the Heritage folks — just got some pretty bad news. [..]

What’s going on here is that the budget agency expects immigration to generate more costs but even more revenues. Between health programs, entitlements, SNAP, etc., they expect spending to go up about $260 billion over the next ten years. But they estimate revenues to go up about $460 billion. The net difference, about $200 billion, is the projected impact on the deficit.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: The Looting of Detroit

Nearly 100 years ago two young Detroit girls visited a now-vanished island park that had a dance pavilion, amusement rides, and swimming, and wrote that they were “having fun” on a piece of paper. Then they put the paper in a bottle and tossed it into the St. Clair River, where a diver found it last June.

They wouldn’t recognize the place today. Detroit, which grew and prospered for much of the last century, has become a wasteland of abandoned buildings, lawlessness, and municipal debts.

Somebody’s going to pay for that.

It’s not going to be the politicians whose decisions undermined Detroit.  And it’s not going to be the industrial and financial executives who made bad decisions, yet retired with their full pensions and portfolios.

Robert Sheer: The Terror Con

For defense contractors, the government officials who write them mega checks, and the hawks in the media who cheer them on, the name of the game is threat inflation. And no one has been better at it than the folks at Booz Allen Hamilton, the inventors of the new boondoggle called cyberwarfare.

That’s the company, under contract with the National Security Agency, that employed whistle-blower Edward Snowden, the information security engineer whose revelation of Booz Allen’s enormously profitable and pervasive spying on Americans now threatens the firm’s profitability and that of its parent hedge fund, the Carlyle Group.

When it comes to helping Wall Street lobbyists gut reforms passed in the wake of the financial crisis, there is often very little difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. Recent votes in the House Financial Services Committee demonstrated this bipartisanship all too well. Last month, the committee considered H.R. 1256, the Swaps Jurisdiction Certainty Act, which garnered a “Yea” from every single Republican and a majority (17) of Democrats. Eleven Democrats voted against the measure, including Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). Republicans are making a move to bring this deregulatory bill to the House floor as early as Wednesday.

Despite its formal name, H.R. 1256 should really be called the “Intimidate a Financial Regulator Act.” The bill seeks to change how derivatives are regulated. Derivatives allow bets to be made on the future value of some real asset like corn or gold or a stock. Warren Buffett has called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction,” and they played a major role in the financial crisis; it was derivatives trading, for example, that brought down the giant insurance company AIG and led to a government bailout.

Margaret Flowers: Trans-Pacific Partnership undermines health system

Medical corporations seek tools to protect their profits despite harmful effects on public health.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with the help of more than 600 corporate advisers and Pacific Rim nations, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the US already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations. [..]

From the information available, one thing is clear about the impacts of the TPP on health care: the intention of the TPP is to enhance and protect the profits of medical and pharmaceutical corporations without considering the harmful effects their policies will have on human health.

We know that the TPP will extend pharmaceutical and medical device patents and provide other tools to keep the prices of these necessities high. This will make medications and treatments unaffordable for millions of people and raise the costs of national health programmes. At its worst, the TPP will provide a pathway to infect the world’s health systems with the deadly parasite of for-profit health corporations that plague the US.

Jill Filipovic: America’s Private Prison System is a National Disgrace

An ACLU lawsuit against a prison in Mississippi is the latest to detail flagrant abuses at a private correctional facility

The privatization of traditional government functions – and big government payments to private contractors – isn’t limited to international intelligence operations like the National Security Agency. It’s happening with little oversight in dozens of areas once the province of government, from schools to airports to the military. The shifting of government responsibilities to private actors isn’t without consequence, as privatization often comes with a lack of oversight and a series of abuses. One particularly stunning example is the American prison system, the realities of which should be a national disgrace.

Some of those realities are highlighted in a recent lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF). EMCF houses severely mentally ill prisoners, with the supposed intent of providing both incarceration and treatment. Instead, the ACLU contends, the facility, which is operated by private contractors, is rife with horrific abuses.

Lucinda Marshall: Confronting Militarism And Patriarchy-The Take Away From The Congressional Hearings On Sexual Assault In The Ranks

The decision last week by both houses of Congress not to consider measures that would remove absolute control over the prosecution of sexual assault cases in the military from the chain of command sends a clear signal that preserving the system of power over that our military both depends upon and upholds is far more important than actually protecting the citizens of this country who serve in its ranks from attacks by those who supposedly have their backs.  While disappointing, it is hardly surprising.  After days of grueling hearings, in the end the congressional status quo effectively bitch slapped those who dared question how this country maintains its power structure.*

It isn’t often that progressives in the United States have much to celebrate. After all, the news has swung between bad and worse for most of the last three decades. That is why we should be celebrating the victory over the Campaign to Fix the Debt and its efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. [..]

The result will be a somewhat smaller share of the pie for those on top and a larger share for everyone else. And it will almost certainly also mean a more rapidly growing economy. The latter would especially be true if we could reverse the sequester and other pointless austerity measures.

But the move to offense is not about to happen right now. And with all the money it has available, we can’t even assume the CFD effort will stay dead.

Jon Soltz and Sen. Tom Udall: President Obama Has Three Questions to Answer on Arms to Syria

In light of recent findings regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons, the President has decided to send arms to the rebels fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad, but the full scope of this new intervention is unclear. There is a growing fervor for military intervention. As one of just three senators on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to vote against arming unorganized rebels, and as an Iraq War Veteran, we urge a different course.

A number of experts are warning that the options to intervene in Syria are misguided, and could prove damaging to America’s strategic interests. Despite these concerns, many who advocated for previously disastrous Middle East interventions are pushing loudly to arm groups we know little about, and declare war through air strikes on another Middle Eastern country.

This rush to judgment is dangerous. We should learn from history, not repeat it.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: We Need a New Deal For Millennials

What kind of society abandons its own young? What kind of society allows the generations in power to favor themselves over those who follow them, and then lets them claim they’re doing it out of selflessness?

Look around you.

This weekend we reviewed nine ways an extreme-right right social agenda has harmed the Millennial Generation.  But there’s a cure for that, a formula that’s rational, sane, wise, and fair. It involves time-tested techniques for jobs, growth, and education – a New Deal for Millennials.

And a New Deal starts with new values.

Mark Weisbrot: Domestic Dissent Can Change US Foreign Policy for the Better

From the Vietnam era to the Iraq war, it’s clear that the moral authority of protest has altered US government behaviour

The current revelations of a vast, secret NSA surveillance program are, of course, a continuation of what our government has been doing for the past century – the main difference being that the dragnet has gotten much larger due to change in communications technology. But there is an often-overlooked political reason for this mass intrusion on our personal communications: the government is gathering actionable intelligence in order to use it against those who oppose unpopular, unjust, and often criminal policies of that same government. And it has good reason to do so, because that opposition can be quite effective.

It is well-known that a mass protest movement, as well as its lobbying of Congres,s helped get us out of Vietnam. It is less widely known that the movement against the Central American wars in the 1980s, which involved hundreds of thousands of people, succeeded in cutting off congressional funding for the war against Nicaragua. And perhaps more historically significant, that result caused major problems for then-President Reagan, when his government turned to illegal funding and got caught, resulting in the infamous “Iran-Contra” scandal.

Just because the authorities have taken private data from Facebook doesn’t make it right.

The federal government is not a grocery store or a social networking site. The government has a special relationship with its citizenry. The terms of that relationship in the US are spelled out in the Constitution of the United States of America. The right to be “secure in our persons, homes, and papers” has a long history of protection in the United States. In response to the tyranny of British rule, this country was founded on principles that embody freedom from government intrusion in our lives.

Unless and until the government – in the form of police, federal agents, or a prosecuting attorney – can show that there is probable cause to believe that a person is engaged in criminal activity, we have rights against the government (what legal scholars call “negative rights”). This can be thought of as the list of things that the government may not do to you or take from you without proving to a judge that they may take it from you. And you are entitled to a fair determination on that question – this is your “due process” right.

What can’t the government take from you without due process? Your property, your life, and yes, your privacy. I have argued above that our clicking behaviour is valuable, so you might think of your internet footprint as your property.

Robert Kuttner: Thinking About the Government

I remember a time when liberals were the people who used government as a democratic counterweight to the abuses of capitalism, and conservatives were those close to big business who wanted to limit government. Liberals also recognized, with the Framers of the Constitution, that government had to be strong enough to protect the rights of the weak. Conservatives didn’t like the power of the state, but were fine with concentrated private power.[..]

But, lately the lines have blurred. The old, stylized picture of what liberals and conservatives want of government doesn’t mean much, especially to younger Americans, because they have seldom experienced it.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: 9 Ways the Right’s Cradle to Grave “Randian State” Is An Assault on Millennials

Conservatives keep claiming liberals want a “cradle to grave nanny state.” That rhetoric has distracted us from the real social re-engineering taking place all around us. The right, along with its “centrist” collaborators, is transforming our nation into a bloodless and soulless Randian State.

Their decades-long assault on our core social values is on the verge of consuming its first complete generation of Americans. Born at the dawn of the Reagan era, Millennials were the first to be fully subjected to this all-out attack on the idea that we take care of each other in this country, and they’ll pay for it from the cradle to the grave.

Some of us are the parents of Millennials. On this Father’s Day it’s hard not to wonder: Who’ll fight with them, and for them?

Glen Ford: Rep. Clyburn: Putting Obama First – Civil Liberties, Peace, Justice, and Reality Last

Congressman James Clyburn is supposed to represent the interests of more than half a million South Carolinians, the majority of them Black. One might expect a Black congressman to have more than a passing interest in the Bill of Rights and protection of civil liberties. The revelation that Uncle Sam is building up a dossier on everyone with a telephone and a computer connection should be at least mildly upsetting to anyone that calls himself a Black leader. But Congressman Clyburn has but one priority: to protect the image and legacy of Barack Obama.

Rather than thank whistleblower Edward Snowden for revealing the massive scope of government spying under Obama, Congressman Clyburn sees a conspiracy against the president. Otherwise, how could a 30-year-old white boy who dropped out of high school get in a position to blow the whistle on the Obama administration. “I haven’t gotten to where I am in politics without relying on my gut,” said Clyburn. “And my gut tells me this is an effort to embarrass the president.”

Mr. Obama has also come under increasing attack from a small number of American politicians, including former President Bill Clinton, who this week said Mr. Obama risks looking “lame” for not doing more to help the rebels. It was a cheap shot leveled at an event hosted by Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a leading advocate of aggressive action in Syria. It is irresponsible for critics like Mr. McCain and Mr. Clinton to fault Mr. Obama without explaining how the United States can change the course of that brutal civil war without being dragged too far into it.

Like most Americans, we are deeply uneasy about getting pulled into yet another war in the Middle East. Those urging stronger action seemed to have learned nothing from the past decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has sapped the United States and has produced results that are ambiguous at best.

John Nichols: Peter King Goes All 1798 on the Bill of Rights

New York Congressman Peter King, with his call for the prosecution of journalist Glenn Greenwald, recalls a long and dishonorable American tradition. [..]

Growling that “legal action should be taken against (Greenwald),” the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security dismissed First Amendment concerns declares that: “No right is absolute!” — and that includes the First Amendment right of the people to be served by a free press.

So King is calling for the “very targeted, very selective” prosecution of journalists for informing the American people about what their government is doing — and why it might be wrong.

How very 1798 of him.

Joe Nocera: This Isn’t How to Stop Hacking

I don’t know whether Prism and the other programs truly stop terrorists. I have my doubts. What I do know is that if you are going to lecture the world about right and wrong – and if you’re trying to stop bad behavior – perhaps you shouldn’t be engaging in a version of that behavior yourself.

Instead, this has become one of the trademarks of the Obama administration: decry human rights abuses abroad, but hold men in prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who have never been accused of a crime. Say all the right things about freedom of the press – even as you’re subpoenaing reporters’ phone records. And express outrage over Chinese hacking while carrying on a sophisticated spying operation of your own citizens. It may seem to us a false equivalence, but the existence of Prism will make it far more difficult to force the Chinese to get serious about stopping their own hacking.

Maybe America’s new motto should be: Do As We Say, Not As We Do.

Peter Dörrie: Ready for More Interventions in Africa? Obama is

While most of the coverage of the recent reshuffle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team has been focused on how it will (or won’t) change his administration’s approach to Syria, the continent most affected by it could turn out to be Africa. President Obama designated U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security advisor – a post with influence on foreign policy potentially on par with the secretary of state – and nominated Samantha Power, a former journalist and longtime member of his administration, as Rice’s successor at the United Nations. [..]

There are currently a whole range of conflicts that could warrant military intervention: Most prominently, the civil wars in Darfur, Somalia, Eastern Congo and Mali – but also low-intensity or developing conflicts in South Sudan, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, the Katanga province of Congo and Zimbabwe. It is likely that Power and Rice will try to use their new positions (as they have used their old ones) to push for greater U.S. engagement in resolving these conflicts, by military means if necessary.