Unhappy Days for America

Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam Simon and Schuster, 386 pp., $28.00

Nicholas Lemann

Robert Putnam made the leap from the academic prominence he had already achieved to something much broader in 1995 with an article in the Journal of Democracy called “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital.” Whenever an article in a small publication causes the kind of sensation that “Bowling Alone” did—it generated a great deal of enthusiasm in government and in the foundation world—it says something about the intellectual climate of the moment when it was published. Putnam’s main point was that community life outside government and business—the proliferation of voluntary organizations that observers since Tocqueville have noted as a special feature of American culture—had severely eroded. He presented this apparent decline in “social capital” as alarming, and his argument had a powerful effect on people who had grown up in a world of Parent-Teacher Associations, Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, and bowling leagues, and who now lived in circumstances where such institutions didn’t seem to exist.

Wall Street’s Fatal Flaw: Confusing “Disruptors” With “Corruptors”

By Pam Martens: May 19, 2015

In the late 1990s, Salomon Smith Barney’s telecom analyst, Jack Grubman, was viewed by his powerful firm as a “disruptor.” He was throwing out the old rules on how a telecom analyst should interact with a company on which he was delivering research to the public and creating a new, innovative model. Instead of following the old rules and remaining pristinely independent and objective, Grubman was sitting in on board meetings at WorldCom, giving investment advice to its executives, while simultaneously issuing laudatory research to induce the investing public to buy the stock.

1776: The Revolt Against Austerity

Steve Pincus

Was the Declaration of Independence a powerful indictment of British austerity policies? Does America’s founding document need to be seen as part of an economic debate about the British Empire? These questions may seem jarring, almost anachronistic. But eighteenth-century political argument, like that of our own day, often revolved around responses to fiscal crisis. Just as political debates in Britain and the United States today turn in large part on the response to the great recession of 2008, so the events that made the United States were shaped by the British imperial government’s reaction to the debt crisis of the 1760s. What made the Declaration so offensive to British politicians then, and what makes it highly relevant to Europeans and Americans today, is that America’s founders offered a blueprint for a different kind of state response to fiscal crisis.

Kansas's shocking new law will take poor people’s money and give it to big banks

Updated by Dylan Matthews on May 22, 2015, 10:10 a.m. ET

Kansas Republicans have put forward a new policy initiative that's almost shocking in its clear intent to harm the interests of poor people. The provision, which takes effect July 1, will ban welfare recipients from taking out more than $25 in benefits a day from an ATM.

Other broadly similar benefits-restriction measures — things like laws that require drug testing for welfare or food stamp recipients, for example, or that ban food stamp recipients from buying seafood or steak — normally have at least a veneer of an anti-fraud or public health rationale. But the ATM rule is simply a financial hardship and a logistical hassle that can't possibly help anyone other than banks collecting the fees.

NSA bulk phone records collection to end despite USA Freedom Act failure

- Administration has not applied to secret court for 90-day extension
- USA Freedom Act fails in early hours after long Senate session
- Senators reject bill to scrap NSA bulk collection

Spencer Ackerman

Even as the Senate remains at an impasse over the future of US domestic surveillance powers, the National Security Agency will be legally unable to collect US phone records in bulk by the time Congress returns from its Memorial Day vacation.

The administration, as suggested in a memo it sent Congress on Wednesday, declined to ask a secret surveillance court for another 90-day extension of the order necessary to collect US phone metadata in bulk. The filing deadline was Friday, hours before the Senate failed to come to terms on a bill that would have formally repealed the NSA domestic surveillance program.

Drone Warfare’s Costs and Benefits

Lethal drones are President Obama’s weapon of choice in striking at suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists in remote areas, but – as with any weapon of war – there must be a cost-benefit analysis, including whether drone strikes create more enemies than they kill, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.

By Paul R. Pillar

President Barack Obama’s announcement last month that earlier this year a “U.S. counterterrorism operation” had killed two hostages, including an American citizen, has become a fresh occasion for questioning the rationales for continuing attacks from unmanned aerial vehicles aimed at presumed, suspected, or even confirmed terrorists.

This questioning is desirable, although not mainly for hostage-related reasons connected to this incident. Sometimes an incident has a sufficient element of controversy to stoke debate even though what most needs to be debated is not an issue specific to the incident itself. More fundamental issues about the entire drone program need more attention than they are getting.

Why Some Kids Go to Prison for No Reason and Some Kids Go to College No Matter How Badly They Act

The heartbreaking, everyday tragedies witnessed by sociologist Alice Goffman in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood.

By Alice Goffman

On the path that American children travel to adulthood, two public institutions oversee the journey. One institution, the one we hear a great deal about, is college. Many of you may remember the excitement you felt as you set off for college, maybe some of you are in college right now, and you feel this excitement this very this minute. College may have its shortcomings – it's really expensive, it leaves young people in debt -- but all in all, it’s a pretty good path. Young people graduate from college with pride, with great friends, with a good deal of knowledge about the world, maybe with a future spouse, and hopefully with a job, or the ability to get one.

I want to talk about the second major public institution that is overseeing the journey from childhood to adulthood in the United States, and that institution is prison. The young people on this journey are going to court dates instead of class, they are meeting with probation officers instead of with teachers, their junior year abroad is instead a trip to a state correctional facility, and they are graduating not with degrees in business and English but with criminal records.

Richard Eskow: The Big Banks Are Corrupt – And Getting Worse

The Justice Department’s latest settlement with felonious big banks was announced this week, but the repercussions were limited to a few headlines and some scattered protestations.

That’s not enough. We need to understand that our financial system is not merely corrupt in practice. It is corrupt by design – and the problem is growing.

Exclusive: The CIA Is Shuttering a Secretive Climate Research Program

Scientists used the Medea program to study how global warming could worsen conflict. Now that project has come to an end.

—By Tim McDonnell | Thu May 21, 2015 2:44 PM EDT

On Wednesday, when President Barack Obama spoke at the US Coast Guard Academy's commencement ceremony, he called climate change "an immediate risk to our national security." In recent months, the Obama administration has repeatedly highlighted the international threats posed by global warming and has emphasized the need for the country's national security agencies to study and confront the issue.

So some national security experts were surprised to learn that an important component of that effort has been ended. A CIA spokesperson confirmed to Climate Desk that the agency is shuttering its main climate research program. Under the program, known as Medea, the CIA had allowed civilian scientists to access classified data—such as ocean temperature and tidal readings gathered by Navy submarines and topography data collected by spy satellites—in an effort to glean insights about how global warming could create security threats around the world. In theory, the program benefited both sides: Scientists could study environmental data that was much higher-resolution than they would normally have access to, and the CIA received research insights about climate-related threats.

No, Neil deGrasse Tyson, We Don't Get the Democracy We Deserve, We Get the Democracy Our Elites Give Us

Blaming the voters only serves to indemnify the rich. We should stop doing it.

By Adam Johnson

Recently at a graduation ceremony for seniors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the brilliant scientist and public commentator Neil deGrasse Tyson delivered a not-so-smart thought:

"It has become a pastime to blame politicians for the ills of the world. I understand the urge to do that ... but at the end of the day, the politician is a representative of an electorate. If you have an issue with politicians it's because you have an issue with your fellow citizens who put them there."

This statement couldn’t be any more false, the logic any more toxic. It’s a sentiment that dates back centuries but was most famously summed up by the 18th-century French writer Joseph de Maistre, who said, “In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve.” It’s a popular cliche. There’s only one problem: decades of research tell us it’s untrue.

Paul Krugman: Trade and Trust

One of the Obama administration’s underrated virtues is its intellectual honesty. Yes, Republicans see deception and sinister ulterior motives everywhere, but they’re just projecting. The truth is that, in the policy areas I follow, this White House has been remarkably clear and straightforward about what it’s doing and why.

Every area, that is, except one: international trade and investment.

I don’t know why the president has chosen to make the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership such a policy priority. Still, there is an argument to be made for such a deal, and some reasonable, well-intentioned people are supporting the initiative.

Matt Taibbi: World’s Largest Banks Admit to Massive Global Financial Crimes, But Escape Jail (Again)

Five of the world’s top banks will pay over $5 billion in fines after pleading guilty to rigging the price of foreign currencies and interest rates. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the $5 trillion FX spot market. UBS pleaded guilty for its role in manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate. No individual bank employees were hit with criminal charges as part of the settlements. We are joined by Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine.

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the felons on Wall Street. Five of the world’s top banks will pay over $5 billion in fines after pleading guilty to rigging the price of foreign currencies and interest rates. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty to conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged in the five trillion foreign exchange—$5 trillion foreign exchange spot market. UBS pleaded guilty for its role in manipulating the Libor benchmark interest rate. On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the deal.

ATTORNEY GENERAL LORETTA LYNCH: We are here to announce a major law enforcement action against international financial institutions that for years participated in a brazen display of collusion and foreign exchange rate market manipulation, and will, as a result, pay a total of nearly $3 billion in fines and penalties. As a result of our investigation, four of the world’s largest banks have agreed to plead guilty to felony antitrust violations. They are Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Barclays PLC and the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC.

Brian Beutler: Charles Murray and the Right's Plan to Subvert Democracy

Early last week, a watchdog website hosted by People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, reacted with alarm to a political-legal strategy outlined in a new book by the conservative social theorist Charles Murray. Normally when liberals assail Murray it’s in connection with his infamous tome The Bell Curve, which made him synonymous with race science—specifically the presumption that I.Q. differences between whites and blacks can be partially attributed to genetics.

Twenty years later, Murray has moved on to a more direct form of conservative activism, and taken a critical look at the mixed record of various expensive right-wing efforts to roll back the New Deal consensus. As you might expect from someone as deterministic as the author of The Bell Curve, Murray has concluded that the conservative movement’s shortcomings must be explained via reference to its political DNA and the political DNA of its competitors. But rather than reason much as he did two decades ago that these shortcomings reflect the intrinsic weakness of his ideology, he has concluded instead that the system is rigged against it. Appealing as populist libertarian ideas are to him and his cohort, or as they should be in the abstract, they simply can’t compete in a democratic environment with downwardly distributive progressivism. For the right to gain advantage, it will have to change terrain.

Noam Chomsky Reads the New York Times -- Explains Why 'Paper of Record' Is Pure Propaganda

A front-page article is devoted to a flawed story about a campus rape in the journal Rolling Stone, exposed in the leading academic journal of media critique. So severe is this departure from journalistic integrity that it is also the subject of the lead story in the business section, with a full inside page devoted to the continuation of the two reports. The shocked reports refer to several past crimes of the press: a few cases of fabrication, quickly exposed, and cases of plagiarism (“too numerous to list”). The specific crime of Rolling Stone is “lack of skepticism,” which is “in many ways the most insidious” of the three categories.

It is refreshing to see the commitment of the Times to the integrity of journalism.

Paul Krugman: Conservatives and Keynes

Tony Yates asks, “Why can’t we all get along?” Lamenting another really bad, obviously political defense of austerity, he declares that

it’s disappointing that the debate has become a left-right thing. I don’t see why it should.

But the debate over business-cycle economics has always been a left-right thing.

Obscure Government Document Shows Elizabeth Warren Is Right About TPP

By Zaid Jilani

As opponents and advocates of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continue to battle it out, the debate over the agreement has largely focused on the issue of trade – whether jobs will be lost or gained, what the agreement will do to our trade deficit, and other related matters.

It's worth pointing out that the United States already trades heavily with the other 11 nations included in the TPP talks. As Paul Krugman says [3], “this is not a trade agreement. It's about intellectual property and dispute settlement; the big beneficiaries are likely to be pharma companies and firms that want to sue governments.” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been particularly critical of the so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions [4], which would empower corporations to use international courts to sue the U.S. government and others who are enacting regulations and protections that harm their profits.

Why Are We in the Middle East?

by Jeff Faux

To placate their pique at his effort to get a non-proliferation agreement with Iran, Barack Obama met last Thursday at Camp David with Saudi royals and leaders of the other five feudal dictatorships of the Persian Gulf. He reaffirmed the United States "ironclad" commitment to their security and promised even more military aid and cooperation. After the personal dust-up between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu settles, we can expect the Administration and Congress to add even more steel to our commitment to protect and subsidize Israel by adding more to its already vast store of sophisticated weapons.

Thus, we take another step deeper into the tragedy of U.S. intervention in the Middle East that has become a noxious farce.

Bosses Are Turning Poverty-Wage Workers Into ‘Managers’—and Barring Them From Overtime in the Process

Michelle Chen

If you’re one of the millions working in retail, some days you might work late at the register or do the store opening in hopes of clocking a little overtime pay. And you might hope to eventually rise to a higher-ranked managerial position. But did you know that promotion might just mean a smaller paycheck for the same job?

Welcome to the promotion from hell: Federal law says time-and-a-half is for ordinary laborers, and management is exempt from overtime provisions. So congratulations, as a shop “manager,” you no longer qualify for overtime—but still end up doing basically the same work for less.

I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned.

By Michael Wessel

“You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago,” a frustrated President Barack Obama recently complained about criticisms of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He’s right. The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you.

I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal. We should be very concerned about what's hidden in this trade deal—and particularly how the Obama administration is keeping information secret even from those of us who are supposed to provide advice.

The Engineered Ignorance of Fox News

By Josh Marshall

You probably saw this story yesterday about a failed GOP congressional candidate from Tennessee who was arrested and charged with conspiring to lead a militia attack - using the assistance of an existing 'militia' which goes by the initials OAF - on a Muslim community in Hancock, New York. "We shall be Warriors who will inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies of our Nation and World Peace,” he wrote in a Facebook post. And in a call intercepted by federal investigators, he told one woman “When we meet with this state, the people that we will seek will know who we are. We will be cruel to them. And we will burn down their buildings."

But there's one element of this story buried in the piece. The supporting role of Fox News. Not long after the terror attacks in Paris at the beginning of the year, Fox News went on a tear about no-go zones in Paris, Birmingham and other places - a run of fabrications so extreme that the station was compelled to issue one of the only retractions and apologies the network has ever issued.