Tag: Opinion

From Nicosia, Cyprus, to Detroit, Michigan, the global financial octopus is squeezing the life out of society, stripping away public and individual assets in a vain attempt to fend off its own, inevitable collapse. The bankers “troika” that effectively rules Europe prepares to reach into the individual accounts of ordinary depositors on the island nation of Cyprus to fund the bailout of their local banking brethren. Across the Atlantic, a corporate henchman makes arrangements to seize the assets and abolish the political rights of a Black metropolis. The local colorations may vary, but the crisis is the same: massed capital is devouring its social and natural environment. Either we liquidate the banksters, or Wall Street will liquidate us. [..]

Detroit and the people of Cyprus share the same enemy, a class that is beyond the reach of simple civil rights suits. The Lords of Capital on Wall Street and the City of London and the Federal Reserve in Washington and in the “troika” at Brussels confront their own existential crisis, which compels them to liquidate the public sector so that it can eventually be transferred to their own balance sheets. There are many ways to accomplish this, through privatization of existing public institutions, or by simply blowing a hole in public services and allowing privateers to fill the void, subsidized by public funds. However, nothing can save the banksters from inevitable, and increasingly imminent, collapse. Ever-increasing profit margins must be achieved, somehow, or the system implodes. Hundreds of trillions of notional dollars in derivatives must be serviced and fed by a class that makes nothing and can only survive by chicanery and coercion by governments under their control.

Rep. Keith Ellison and Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva: Ryan Blueprint Would Wipe Out Decades of Progress

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other Republican Party leaders have staked their party’s future on a false premise. They say the wealthy are already providing for everyone else, and middle class families need to sacrifice for a change while millionaires reap the benefits.

This year’s Ryan budget is a product of this assumption. It treats the government to which Rep. Ryan has been elected as something between a nuisance and a menace, with no role in helping the economy except to transfer more wealth upward.

Plenty of people have pointed out that these ideas lost in November. What they often forget is that a more positive vision also won that election: a vision of an America that helps us all achieve more than we could individually, a government that acts when the moment calls for it.

Thomas Hedges: Reports of My WMD Are Greatly Exaggerated

Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the American war machine might be revving up for another strike, this time in Syria. The push has accelerated in the last few days after rebels and government forces accused each other of using chemical weapons in a rocket attack Tuesday outside of Aleppo, though reports now suggest such weapons were not fired.

Republicans, latching on to President Obama’s assertion that government use of chemical weapons would be a “game changer,” are trying to convince the public that the allegations about President Bashar Assad’s stockpiling of and willingness to use such weapons are true, despite the lack of evidence. GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, along with Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, have all been pressing for the use of force in Syria for more than a year. Recently, they have used the prospect of chemical warfare in an effort to shape public opinion.

Joe Nocera: Saving Children From Guns

For nearly two months, my assistant, Jennifer Mascia, and I have been publishing a daily blog in which we aggregate articles about shootings from the previous day. Of all the stories we link to, the ones I find hardest to read are those about young children who accidentally shoot themselves or another child. They just break my heart. Yet Jennifer and I find new examples almost every day.

Partly, I react by thinking, “How can anyone be so stupid as to leave a loaded gun within reach of a small child?” But I also have another reaction. In 1970, Congress passed a law that resulted in childproofing medicine bottles. The Consumer Product Safety Commission regulates the paint used in children’s toys. State laws mandate that young children be required to use car seats.

So why can’t we childproof guns?

The Cyprus banking crisis presents, in microcosm, everything that is perverse about the European leaders’ response to the continuing financial collapse. And bravo to the Cypriot Parliament for rejecting the EU’s insane demand to condition a bank bailout on a large tax on small depositors.

If this crisis threatens to spread to other nations, it’s a good object lesson. Here is the punch line of this column: Its time for Europe’s small nations, who are getting slammed into permanent depression by the arrogance of Berlin and Brussels, to think about abandoning the euro. At least the threat would strengthen their bargaining position, and if they actually quit the euro, the result could hardly be worse than their permanent sentence to debtors’ prison.

Elizabeth Holtzman: Statutes of Limitations Are Expiring on Some Bush Crimes

Americans have been facing a number of momentous deadlines, including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the “sequester” of $1 trillion from federal programs. But another critical deadline is fast approaching without attracting much notice. Statutes of limitations applicable to possible crimes committed by former President George W. Bush and his top aides, with respect to wiretapping of Americans without court approval and to fraud in launching and continuing the Iraq War, may expire in early 2014, less than a year from now.

President Bush has publicly admitted to authorizing wiretaps of Americans on more than thirty separate occasions without a court order, an apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). In justification, Bush claimed legal advice exempted him as commander-in-chief from obeying FISA. Normally, a lawyer’s advice is not a defense to prosecution, particularly when the client shapes the advice. Here, the White House worked closely with Justice Department lawyer John Yoo on the legal opinion and blocked standard Justice Department review, even though the opinion was seriously flawed according to Yoo’s successors. The opinion bears the hallmarks of a handy stay-out-of-jail card, instead of a serious independent analysis prepared and relied upon in good faith.

Robert Reich: Selling the Store: Why Democrats Shouldn’t Put Social Security and Medicare on the Table

Prominent Democrats — including the President and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — are openly suggesting that Medicare be means-tested and Social Security payments be reduced by applying a lower adjustment for inflation.

This is even before they’ve started budget negotiations with Republicans — who still refuse to raise taxes on the rich, close tax loopholes the rich depend on (such as hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ “carried interest”), increase capital gains taxes on the wealthy, cap their tax deductions, or tax financial transactions.

It’s not the first time Democrats have led with a compromise, but these particular pre-concessions are especially unwise.

John Buell: Combating US Capitalism’s Moral Blinders

US capitalism is not merely a set of institutions that include large corporate ownership of the means of production, concentrated product markets, unregulated finance, and “flexible” labor markets, and corporate-advertiser-financed media. It is also an ethic, a set of moral sensibilities regarding profits and wealth. Whereas both were once regarded as signs of one’s social contributions, they have become ends in themselves.

Anything that maximizes profits-and often even for the CEO alone-is regarded as fair game. And except in cases where the wealthy have swindled other wealthy citizens, the megarich are treated with deference or at least kid gloves. Thus Bernie Madoff does go to jail, but authors and abettors of other ponzi schemes like Jamie Dimon remain honored guests on CNBC.

$16 billion.

That’s how much JPMorgan Chase has paid in fines, settlements and other litigation expenses in the last four years alone. [..]

Life is still good for Dimon and some of the other senior executives at JPMorgan Chase: Shareholders can’t — or won’t — fire them. The government won’t prosecute them. Taxpayers are helping them get rich. And every day their institution becomes bigger and more powerful. Sure, all that power doesn’t come cheap, but they’ve found other peoplewilling to pay the price …

$16 billion and counting.

The price of evil may be high at JPMorgan Chase, but the malefactors who actually committed the wrongdoing aren’t paying it. Wrongdoing and incompetence may be expensive. But for executives at JPMorgan Chase and our other too-big-to fail banks, it’s also surprisingly affordable.

John Cavanagh: Inequality Is Hurting Us All

If the levels of greater income equality of 1968 still prevailed today, the poorest fifth of Marylanders would be earning twice what they take home now.

Inequality hurts us all.

Imagine if you could go back 45 years to 1968. That year, after three decades of creative policy from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal through President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, the United States was one of the world’s most equal nations.Now imagine that instead of falling into the extreme inequality of today, the United States had stayed at the levels of greater equality of that era. What would be the benefits?

Col. Ann Wright: 10 Years Later and I’m Still Protesting War

A decade after I stepped down as the deputy ambassador in the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia, the war in Iraq is over for Americans, but continues for Iraqis. The whirlwind of sectarian violence brought on by the U.S. invasion and occupation continues to blow there.

The war on Afghanistan is now in its 13th year and as the anniversary of my resignation day approaches, I find myself outside the gates of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, protesting war and, in particular, President Obama’s killer drone programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Although Obama’s kill list, the CIA drone attacks in the undeclared war on Pakistan and the assassination of three American citizens by drone in Yemen receive most of the media and congressional attention, the incredibly large number of drone strikes in Afghanistan has gotten scant coverage-and that is why I am at Creech.

Robert Sheer: Dumb Wars, Now and Forever

It is a staple of our widely trumpeted Judeo-Christian heritage that the acknowledgment of sin is a prelude to redemption. So how is it that there is no palpable sense of soul searching associated with the 10th anniversary of a war based on officially concocted lies and a policy of torture? It is because the presumption of a unique American claim to an original and enduring innocence perseveres, no matter the death and destruction.

Indeed, some of our most celebrated publicists defined moral deceit as virtue in justifying the Iraq War. “As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in April 2003, when U.N. inspectors had clearly established that the proclaimed basis for invading Iraq was a lie. “Mr. Bush doesn’t owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue).”

Harry Reid drops her assault weapons ban from the Democratic gun-control package as the NRA cheers

Everyone knew that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban was going to be the toughest gun-control reform to achieve in the wake of the Newtown massacre. Although it passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on a party line vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Feinstein last night that it won’t be part of the still-undefined gun control package he’ll bring to the Senate floor. Feinstein is free to introduce her bill, which bans 157 models of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, as an amendment to the package, but it will almost certainly fail. [..]

Still, dumping the ban from the Democrats’ official package is a sign that the NRA still holds sway over Democrats. Clearly Reid cares more about red-state Democrats beholden to the gun lobby than he does about gun safety. Remember, this is the same NRA-backed Reid who put an amendment in the Affordable Care Act declaring that wellness and prevention efforts should not collect or disseminate information about whether patients had guns in their home.

Jessica Stern: Iraq: Where Terrorists Go to School

IRAQ, President George W. Bush said in 2003, was a “central front” in the war on terrorism. He was wrong, but prescient. Iraq has become a front for militant extremism – a front the United States created. [..]

Leaving aside everything else – the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the toll in blood and fortune, the immense loss of life – the 10th anniversary of the invasion, is a moment to reflect on this huge setback in the so-called war on terror.

The Qaeda affiliate that emerged in Iraq over the last decade did not disappear when Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 or when the last American troops withdrew in December. On the contrary, the group is resurgent in Iraq and now its neighbors, even while other Qaeda offshoots continue to be active on the Arabian Peninsula and in North Africa.

Kathy Kelly: War without End

Ten years ago today, Iraqis braced themselves for the anticipated “Shock and Awe” attacks that the United States was planning to launch against them. The media buildup for the attack assured Iraqis that barbarous assaults were looming. I was living in Baghdad at the time, along with other Voices in the Wilderness activists determined to remain in Iraq, come what may. We didn’t want U.S.-led military and economic war to sever bonds that had grown between ourselves and Iraqis who had befriended us over the past seven years. Since 1996, we had traveled to Iraq numerous times, carrying medicines for children and families there, in open violation of the economic sanctions which directly targeted the most vulnerable people in Iraqi society – the poor, the elderly and the children. [..]

The war had just ended for those killed during the “Shock and Awe” bombing and invasion, and it was to abruptly end for many thousands killed in the ensuing years of military occupation and civil war. But it won’t end for the survivors.

Effects go on immeasurably and indefensibly.

Bryce Covert: Obama’s Nominee for Labor Department Head Has Championed Domestic Workers’ Rights

Word is out that President Obama will nominate Thomas Perez to head the Department of Labor today, the current assistant attorney general for civil rights. Perez has some bona fide progressive credentials, having cracked down on voting restrictions, police brutality, harassment against LGBT students and other issues at the Department of Justice, plus bringing a history of promoting immigration reform and labor rights. But one part of his history should give domestic workers heart and may take on even more meaning if he assumes this new role. [..]

Meanwhile, home health aides are on the brink of getting good news from the Department of Labor that they will finally be protected by national labor laws. They’ve been excluded from minimum wage and overtime laws, but a department rule change could finally grant them these protections enjoyed by almost all other workers.

There was panic in Cyprus today as ordinary citizens learned that the government was about to take nearly seven percent (6.75 percent) of the money in their bank accounts as part of a package to bail out reckless banks.

The outrage was justified, predictable, and immediate. Then, in a move reminiscent of the Great Depression, banks were closed in a government-mandated ‘holiday’ while lawmakers and financial authorities scrambled and tried to figure out what to do next.

Putin’s mad. Observers like Paul Krugman are predicting bank runs in other troubled European countries. There’s only one saving grace for American observers:

It Can’t Happen Here

… Or can it?

William K. Black: The SEC Embraces Irony — its Enforcement “Inflection” “Point”

Many readers doubtless shared my doubt that the SEC was capable of exercising the critical self-examination and sense of humor about itself as a flawed institution that would make it capable of deliberate irony. When I accessed the Wall Street Journal‘s home page I found the most delicious example of SEC (and WSJ) irony. The WSJ synopsis of its article on the SEC reads: “The SEC is filing significantly fewer civil fraud cases this year, as its efforts to punish misconduct related to the financial crisis start to ebb.” [..]

Actually, at full tide there were zero prosecutions of elite bankers for the accounting control frauds that drove the financial crisis. And there were zero civil or enforcement cases by the SEC against the elite officers who grew wealthy through the frauds that drove the financial crisis that actually left the officers suffering a net loss from their frauds and required them to admit their frauds. The last time the SEC “tide” of enforcement actions against elites resembled even a pale imitation of the Bay of Fundy was a decade ago in response to the Enron-era frauds. Even then, Eliot Spitzer, then the Attorney General of New York, put the SEC to shame with his far greater success with far fewer resources.

Josh Barro: The Supreme Court Can Save Republicans From Gay-Marriage Mess

In his pro-gay marriage op-ed last week, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio repeated a common argument against the idea that the Supreme Court should find a constitutional right to gay marriage: “An expansive court ruling would run the risk of deepening divisions rather than resolving them.”

This is exactly wrong. An expansive court ruling would settle the gay-marriage issue for good, eliminating the need for 20 years of state legislative fights that will be painful for gays and hugely politically damaging to the Republican Party. [..]

Gay marriage opponents are going to lose the fight; the only question is whether they will lose it in a way that is quick and painless or long and ugly. If Anthony Kennedy or John Roberts vote to strike down all the state bans on gay marriage, Republicans will be furious with them, but the justices will in fact have done the party a huge favor.

Wendell Potter: Getting Sick and Getting Purged

On Friday I was one of three witnesses to testify before a House committee hearing on whether the cost of health insurance will be higher or lower for people who cannot obtain it through their employer when important provisions of the Affordable Care Act go into effect in a few months. [..]

One of the reasons for the congressional hearing was the industry’s massive PR and lobbying campaign to try to get Congress to change Obamacare so that states can decide how much insurers can charge people based on age. That would enable them to maintain the very profitable status quo. By restricting the amount insurers can charge older Americans, however, the Affordable Care Act will foil their attempts to deny coverage to people they want to avoid by charging exorbitant premiums. People who need medical care the most. People like Leslie Elder.

This new restriction is one of the most important consumer protections in the reform law. It would be a tragedy if Congress guts it.

If you want more evidence that JP Morgan Chase is closer to a criminal enterprise than a economically useful bank, then read the report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, JP Morgan Chase Wale Trades: A Case History of Derivatives Risks and Abuses. It shows in high definition how this mega-bank, touted as the best managed bank on Wall Street, repeatedly lied and dissembled to regulators and investigators. [..]

The stench of Wall Street arrogance wafts through the report. Executives show utter contempt for regulators and for telling the truth. How dare those lowly public servants interfere with the banks primary mission, which is making as much money as possible, anyway possible, and damn the law!

Dean Baker: Capitalism, Steven Pearlstein, and Morality

The Washington Post had a major column by Steve Pearlstein on the front page of its Outlook section headlined, “Is Capitalism Moral?” The piece notes the sharp upward redistribution of income over the last three decades and asks whether we should just being willing to accept market outcomes.

Of course this question is absurd on its face. The upward redistribution of the last three decades was the result of deliberate government policies designed to redistribute income upward; it was not the natural workings of the market. [..]

The massive upward redistribution of the last three decades has been the result of these and other deliberate policies that had the goal of redistributing income upward. It was not the result of free market capitalism. [..] The real question is whether a system that is designed around policies that redistribute from the middle and the bottom to the top is moral.

Robert Kuttner: Talking ‘Bout My Generation

I will start drawing Social Security next month. I think I’ve earned it. On the other hand, I have to admit that society has been good to my generation.

I was able to graduate from a good private college with no debt. Four years at Oberlin cost $10,000 — tuition, room, board, books, fees. Not $10,000 a year — but for four years.My employers all provided good health insurance. Though I’ve had a somewhat unorthodox career, I did not hold multiple jobs because economic circumstances forced me to but because I enjoyed being at the cusp of journalism and academia. Yeah, I’ve worked hard, but the truth is, I’ve had a nice generational tailwind.

Why am I telling you this? Not because I expect to retire any time soon. But because, if you are under 40, your generation is getting utterly screwed compared to mine, and you should be in the streets.

Joe Romm: The Dangerous Myth That Climate Change Is Reversible

The CMO (Chief Misinformation Officer) of the climate ignorati, Joe Nocera, has a new piece, “A Real Carbon Solution.” The biggest of its many errors comes in this line:

   A reduction of carbon emissions from Chinese power plants would do far more to help reverse climate change than – dare I say it? – blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Memo to Nocera: As a NOAA-led paper explained 4 years ago, climate change is “largely irreversible for 1000 years.” [..]

The fact is that, as RealClimate has explained, we would need “an immediate cut of around 60 to 70% globally and continued further cuts over time” merely to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of CO2 – and that would still leave us with a radiative imbalance that would lead to “an additional 0.3 to 0.8ºC warming over the 21st Century.” And that assumes no major carbon cycle feedbacks kick in, which seems highly unlikely.

Forgive us if we begin our discussion of the Senate Subcommittee for Investigation’s JPMorgan Chase hearing with a small victory lap, but as they say down South, “It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true.” We’ve been saying for years that JPMorgan Chase is fundamentally a criminal enterprise, that “Obama’s favorite banker” Jamie Dimon is a fraud, and that “America’s best bank” is a nest of venality and criminality. Although we value civility as much as the next guy, we’ve been forced to suggest that this bank is the “Scandal of Our Time,” a leading contender for “Worst Corporate Outlaw of the Year.”

We were also forced, civility or no, to suggest that JPM’s relationship with Syracuse University is corrupting our young people, and that the most generous interpretation of Dimon’s own tenure is that he is so profoundly incompetent as an executive that “Jamie Didn’t Know.” We also noted that Jamie did know that the London Whale scheme had cost his bank billions, even as he told investors on a phone call that it was just a “tempest in a teapot.”

Kevin Gosztola: Obama’s I’m-No-Dick-Cheney Standard for Government Secrecy

Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, upset about not being provided with memos containing the legal justification for targeted killing operations, such as drone strikes, was apparently told by President Barack Obama not to worry because he is not Vice President Dick Cheney. [..]

This is the “Trust Us” defense for secrecy. It is in line with what Attorney General Eric Holder said to Republican Representative Ted Cruz when he was asked about whether it would be legal to target American citizens on United States soil. Holder said it would be inappropriate. But, the trustworthiness of an administration should never justify keeping official interpretations of the law secret.

Jared Berstein: Why Does Rep. Paul Ryan Get So Much Attention?

So, I’m doing a radio interview last night, and moderately impressed with myself for being able to speak coherently about four different budgets: Ryan’s, Senate’s, POTUS (not out yet, but we can guess at the mix), and the CPC. Then I got asked a question which threw me a bit: why is Paul Ryan and his budget taken so seriously?

It wasn’t a snarky question. It’s just that I’d been discussing the absolute non-reality of his proposal — how the numbers don’t begin to add up, the unrealistic budget cuts, the plethora of magic asterisks in the absence of actual proposals (the most egregious of which is: I’ll cuts taxes by $6-7 trillion over the next decade and offset the revenue losses with… um… sorry, gotta run). And the interviewer was like, “OK… but if you’re right, why is his budget front page news such that he’s driving the debate?”

David Macaray: From the Folks Who Brought You NAFTA

Although there hasn’t been much mainstream news coverage, the U.S. is currently in negotiations with nine APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) countries on what could become the biggest, most ambitious, most comprehensive FTA (free trade agreement) in history.  The proposed agreement is called TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership).  Basically, if approved in its present form, it would resemble NAFTA on steroids.  And we all know how well.

NAFTA turned out.

The nine countries involved in TPP negotiations are: the U.S., Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Mexico, Malaysia, Peru, Chile, New Zealand and Australia.  Trade analysts have noted that should TPP be approved in its present, open-ended form, it would allow additional countries to sign onto it whenever they liked (without having to negotiate) which would mean, in effect, that TPP could be the last trade agreement the U.S. ever signed.  In other words, it’s a critically important agreement.

In the richest country in the world, it’s downright insane to even consider cutting back on benefits necessary to provide a dignified retirement for hard-working Americans.

Rhonda Straw is one of millions of Americans who do important work every day but still have a hard time saving for retirement. As a home health aide, Straw administers medication, changes bandages, and performs other vital services to the elderly and disabled. With an hourly wage of only $9, Straw, 51, expects to rely almost entirely on Social Security when she retires.

Unfortunately, workers like Straw aren’t big players in the Social Security debate. The Business Roundtable, the club for America’s most powerful corporate CEOs, is using its muscle to push for an increase in the retirement age to 70 and to recalculate inflation in a way that would further reduce benefits. Fix the Debt is another CEO-driven outfit that’s throwing around tens of millions of dollars in a campaign to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Robert Borosage: A Tale of Two Futures: Ryan Against the Congressional Progressive Caucus

Budgets are pure EGO — eyes glaze over. But this week revealed two budgets — Rep. Paul Ryan’s Republican “Path to Prosperity” 2014 budget and the Congressional Progressive Caucus “Back to Work Budget” — that in stark terms lay out two visions and two futures for America. Next week the Congress will vote on each one of them. Neither will become law, but Ryan’s budget is expected to pass with the support of virtually the entire Republican majority. The CPC budget will struggle to win a majority of the Democratic caucus. For those who take a look, the contrast will open your eyes.

Both parties agree that we suffer from mass unemployment, declining wages, and growing inequality. Both agree that rising future deficits should be addressed. But they offer completely different responses to these realities.

Les Leopold: Paul Ryan’s Budget, Ayn Rand’s Dream

The inspiration for Paul Ryan’s budget comes directly from Ayn Rand. In fact, far too much of the current budget debate is shaped by her philosophy that so viciously divides the world into “creators” against the “moochers” — the “makers” against the “takers.” How else it is possible to propose a budget that so favors the wealthy and so cruelly punishes the less fortunate? How else to explain why both parties are engaged in a foolish deficit reduction dance that will undermine social programs and exacerbate the real problem — the lack of decent, sustainable employment?

Ryan wants to cut taxes on the rich by 14 percent, wipe out Obamacare, trim the Food Stamp program, and turn Medicare into a voucher system — all the name of fiscal responsibility, economic growth and balancing the budget. But any references by Ryan and other Randian acolytes to protecting and enhancing the common good are nothing but spin. Unlike Ayn Rand, they are fearful to say what they really mean. Instead, they hide their belief in utter selfishness by trying to sound like they care about society as a whole. In reality, their Randian philosophy maintains that that the rich should be rewarded and the poor should fend for themselves.

Ralph Nader: Walmart Bosses: Time for a Decision

Last weekend on a bright, sunny day a dozen of us demonstrated at shopping malls where Walmart has three of its giant stores, supplied heavily by products from China and other serf-wage countries. But outsourcing the jobs of its American suppliers to China was not the focus last Saturday. We were drawing attention to the plight of one million Walmart workers who are making far less than what Walmart workers made in 1968 when the minimum wage was the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $10.50 an hour today. [..]

The clenched-jawed CEO opposition to catching the minimum wage up with 1968 for their workers continues to manifest itself today. CEOs seem to have little concern for the budget-squeezed daily lives of their employees.

Joe Weisenthal is wrong. The reporter at Business Insider recently wrote that everyone predicted the unfolding economic disaster in Europe. Not so. It’s what he predicted, it’s what I predicted, but it’s not at all what many people were predicting.

And the people who got it completely wrong happen to be the people still running European economic policy.

As the economist Jonathan Portes pointed out in his blog, it is now more than two years since Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, declared that “Europe’s recovery in the real economy has taken hold and is becoming self-sustaining.”

Mr. Rehn is still in place at the European Commission, and he’s still telling us that austerity will work any day now. And he’s not alone. The economics team at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that told us in May 2010 not just that Europe needed fiscal austerity, but that the Federal Reserve needed to raise rates by the end of the year to head off inflation, is still issuing reports. And then there’s Britain’s David Cameron and George Osborne.

Richard Reeve: Get the Hell Out of Afghanistan

If you Google “Afghanistan,” you get your choice of occupiers. There’s “Occupation of Afghanistan by British,” “Occupation of Afghanistan by Russians” and “Occupation of Afghanistan by United States.”

The British occupation began in arrogance in 1878 and ended in 1880 in massacre. The occupation by the Soviet Union ended in defeat and humiliation. The American occupation, officially an operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, goes on and on toward another bad ending.

You’d think we would have Googled the place before we invaded after the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. We did not use the word “invasion” then, of course. We said it was a “mission” to find and punish al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, and the brutal Taliban, which had given him refuge in the hard mountain territory of western Afghanistan.

Robert Reich: Ryan the Redistributionist

“Who is going to end up making all the money in the end if Obamacare continues to be in place?” Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus growled Monday on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. “It’s going to be the big corporations, right? And who gets screwed? The middle class.”

The Republican Party makeover is breathtaking. Now, suddenly, instead of accusing Democrats of being “redistributionists,” the GOP is posing as defender of the middle class against corporate America-and it’s doing so by proposing to do away with the most progressive piece of legislation in well over a decade.

Paul Ryan’s new budget purportedly gets about 40 percent of its $4.6 trillion in spending cuts over ten years by repealing Obamacare, but Ryan’s budget document doesn’t mention that such a repeal would also lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy that foot Obamacare’s bill.

Joe Conason: Ryan’s Blurred Vision: What the ‘New’ Republican Budget Reveals (and Conceals)

Someone needs to tell Paul Ryan that his party-and the economic platform of austerity and plutocracy he crafted for it-lost a national election last year. Someone also needs to tell the Wisconsin Republican that he still chairs the House Budget Committee mainly thanks to gerrymandered redistricting.

Someone clearly needs to remind him of those realities because the “vision document” he proposed on Tuesday as the Republican federal budget is only a still more extreme version of the same notions (and the same evasions) that he and Mitt Romney tried to sell without success last fall.