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Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Mark Sherman - May. 13 (Special Report) - The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news. The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

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The nudge unit – has it worked so far?

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - May. 02 (Opinion) - Since 2010 David Cameron's pet project has been tasked with finding ways to improve society's behaviour – and now the 'nudge unit' is going into business by itself. But have its initiatives really worked? When the day comes to write the obituary of this curious coalition, a day that many feel can't come too soon, it won't be "the big society" that it is remembered for creating. It seems unlikely to be "fairness" either. There may, however, be a large section on "the nudge unit", otherwise known as the cabinet office's behavioural insights team . Set up in the summer of 2010 shortly after this government came to office, and well known to be a pet project of David Cameron's, it is essentially a little band of academics looking for ways to run the country better. (There used to be nine of them, but there are now 13, mostly economists and psychologists.) In part, the unit owes its reputation to Cameron, and to its nickname, a reference to the 2008 book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, ...

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Over $8B of the Money You Spent Rebuilding Iraq Was Wasted Outright

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Wired - Mar. 06 (Opinion) - Over $8B of the Money You Spent Rebuilding Iraq Was Wasted Outright

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Editorial: The Real Cost of Shrinking Government

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - Feb. 17 (Editorial) - The budget sequester will soon affect American life in hundreds of painful ways.

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Dear Whole Foods CEO, This Is What a Fascist Looks Like

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Thom Hartmann, Sam Sacks - Jan. 21 (News Analysis) - The 1983 American Heritage Dictionary defined fascism as: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." Fascism originated in Italy, and Mussolini claims to have invented the word itself. It was actually his ghostwriter, Giovanni Gentile, who invented it and defined it in the Encyclopedia Italiana in this way: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." In other words, fascism is corporate government – a Libertarian’s wet dream.

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Burma ceasefire 'holds' in rebel-held Kachin areas

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - By Jonathan Head - Jan. 19 (News) - A ceasefire announced by the Burmese military fighting rebels in Kachin state appears to be holding, the BBC's Jonathan Head reports from the area.

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GOP governors walk balance beam on health law

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Bill Barrow - Dec. 30 (News Report) - Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who made a fortune as a health care executive, long opposed President Barack Obama's remake of the health insurance market. After the Democratic president won re-election, the Republican governor softened his tone. He said he wanted to "have a conversation" with the administration about implementing the 2010 law.

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FBI probe of Petraeus' emails purportedly led to discovery of extramarital affair

Sat, 10 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Fox News - Nov. 10 (Breaking News) - The FBI investigation that led to the discovery of CIA Director David Petraeus’ extramarital affair and his resignation Friday started when the agency began monitoring Petraeus’ email, Fox News has learned.

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Waves of anger: Japan tsunami victim aid spent on whalers, officials and fighter pilots

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

rt.com - Oct. 31 (News) - A quarter of Japan’s tsunami relief fund has been spent on unrelated projects, including renovating a government office and subsiding whaling. The revelations have ignited outcry as more than 320,000 tsunami victims remain displaced. The expenditure was

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Get Rid of FEMA? Right-Wingers Push Insane Privatization Scheme in the Wake of Hurricane Sandy

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Alex Kane - Oct. 30 (News Report) - A New York Times editorial also goes big after Romney for his remarks on disaster relief. Romney’s FEMA bashing is “absurd,” according to the Times, “but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning... Ideology still blinds Republicans to [FEMA’s] value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.” The editorial also slammed the Republican Party’s and Paul Ryan’s posture on FEMA.

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All the Missing Horses: What Happened to the Wild Horses Tom Davis Bought From the Gov’t?

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Dave Philipps - Sep. 28 (Investigative Report) - The Bureau of Land Management faced a crisis this spring. The agency protects and manages herds of wild horses that still roam the American West, rounding up thousands of them each year to keep populations stable.

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Richard Cohen: The gap in the ‘you didn’t build that’ fight

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Richard Cohen - Jul. 31 (Opinion) -

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Lost the Vote? Deny the Money

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jun. 09 (Editorial) - If you wanted to reproduce the conditions that led to the Great Recession in 2007, the easiest way would be the plan unveiled last week by House Republicans : gut the regulators who are supposed to keep the worst business practices in check. At a time when the economy is still reeling from the downturn, House Republicans released a spending bill that would severely cut the budget of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which would keep it from regulating potentially toxic swaps and other derivatives. It refused to give the Securities and Exchange Commission the extra money it needs to carry out the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. And the bill would cripple the Internal Revenue Service, limiting its ability to detect tax avoidance, particularly by businesses and the wealthy. (The I.R.S. cut, designed to impede the agency’s role in health care reform, will inevitably increase the deficit.)

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Protests erupt in Egypt over Hosni Mubarak verdicts

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Jun. 03 (News Report) - Protests have continued overnight in Cairo's Tahrir Square, after ex-President Hosni Mubarak was jailed for life for his part in the killing of protesters during the 2011 revolution. The crowds are furious at the acquittal of key security officials who were on trial alongside Mubarak. Four interior ministry officials and two local security chiefs were cleared of complicity in protesters' killings. Rallies against the verdict were also held in Alexandria, Suez and Mansoura. mi

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How Cash Keeps Poor People Poor, Digital Money Is Future | Business | TIME.com

Tue, 29 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By David Wolman - May. 29 (Opinion) - tens of millions of people in the U.S. and billions of people worldwide — often have no option but cash, and pay dearly because of it. In a recent piece for Foreign Policy, Vishnu Sridharan of the New America Foundation writes that cash-based economies “harm the poor by heightening the risks they face when carrying money and fueling government corruption and inefficiency.”

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JPMorgan Chase’s $2 Billion Loss

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - May. 13 (Editorial) - The lesson of JPMorgan’s stunning $2 billion trading loss is that the banks haven’t learned their lesson, and neither have the politicians. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, can be clear as a bell when he denounces financial reform. But on an emergency conference call with analysts on Thursday to announce the bank’s stunning $2 billion trading loss, his message was frustratingly vague.

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JPMorgan Chase Fought Rule on Risky Trading

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Edward Wyatt - May. 13 (News Report) - JPMorgan Chase fought for the ability for banks to make big bets in their portfolios, including some of the types of trading that led to the $2 billion loss now rocking the bank.

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At JPMorgan, the Ghost of Dinner Parties Past

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Gretchen Morgenson - May. 13 (News Analysis) - The $2 billion trading loss disclosed last week by JPMorgan Chase shows how the tables have turned on the bank and its chief executive, an industry point man against tighter regulation. What goes around comes around. Sometimes it happens sooner than you’d think. That round wheel turned on JPMorgan Chase last week, which disclosed that it had suffered a $2 billion trading loss in credit derivatives. That such a hit had befallen the mightiest of banks was perhaps more stunning than the size of the loss. So where does the karma come in? The loss, and the embarrassment it held for Jamie Dimon, the bank’s imperious chief executive, came just one month after a private dinner party in Dallas at which he assailed two respected public figures who have pushed for policies that would make banks like JPMorgan smaller and less risky.

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Europe’s rush to austerity will have severe consequences.

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Joseph E. Stiglitz - May. 13 (Opinion) - This year’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund made clear that Europe and the international community remain rudderless when it comes to economic policy. Financial leaders, from finance ministers to leaders of private financial institutions, reiterated the current mantra: The crisis countries have to get their houses in order,...

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Down With Everything

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas L. Friedman - Apr. 21 (Opinion) - Has America gone from a system designed to prevent anyone in government from amassing too much power to a system in which no one can get enough power to do anything?

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Punk Economics: Lesson 3

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

YouTube - By David McWilliams - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Irish Economist David McWilliams discusses the dangers of playing games with liquidity, in Lesson 3.

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The Truth About Healthcare Reform

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Michael Hiltzik - Mar. 26 (News Report) - The Affordable Care Act has already changed the lives of millions of Americans for the better. The problem is, most people don't understand the reforms.' Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times

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The State of the News Media 2012

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Pew Research - By Amy Mitchell, Tom Rosenstiel - Mar. 25 (Special Report) - In 2011, the digital revolution entered a new era. The age of mobile, in which people are connected to the web wherever they are, arrived in earnest. More than four in ten American adults now own a smartphone. One in five owns a tablet. New cars are manufactured with internet built in. With more mobility comes deeper immersion into social networking. For news, the new era brings mixed blessings. New research released in this report finds that mobile devices are adding to people’s news consumption, strengthening the lure of traditional news brands and providing a boost to long-form journalism. Eight in ten who get news on smartphones or tablets, for instance, get news on conventional computers as well. People are taking advantage, in other words, of having easier access to news throughout the day – in their pocket, on their desks and in their laps. At the same time, a more fundamental challenge that we identified in this report last year has intensified — the extent to which technology intermediaries now control the future of news.

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When governments choose to assassinate

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Gordon Corera - Mar. 17 (Special Report) - Can state-sponsored assassination work as a strategy? And can it ever be justified? Governments don't admit to it, but Iranian nuclear scientists know it happens - and it's not easy to distinguish assassination from the US policy of "targeted killing". Seventy years ago, a team of British-trained assassins were preparing to strike. Their target was Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most feared men in the Third Reich, then ruling Czechoslovakia. Britain's recently formed Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Czechoslovak exile movement based in London both needed to make a mark.

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Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money: Government Report

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Mark Gongloff - Mar. 09 (News Report) - Though lots of people grumble about the government bailing out banks in the financial crisis, we have at least taken some comfort in the idea that the government has turned a profit on that bailout. Only problem is, that profit comes from taxpayer money -- money that was meant to spur banks to develop communities and help small businesses. Instead they've used it to develop and help themselves.

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