Joe Stiglitz at The New York Times writes Student Debt and the Crushing of the American Dream:
The crisis that is about to break out involves student debt and how we finance higher education. Like the housing crisis that preceded it, this crisis is intimately connected to America’s soaring inequality, and how, as Americans on the bottom rungs of the ladder strive to climb up, they are inevitably pulled down — some to a point even lower than where they began.
This new crisis is emerging even before the last one has been resolved, and the two are becoming intertwined.
David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu at
The New York Times lament
How Austerity Kills:
The correlation between unemployment and suicide has been observed since the 19th century. People looking for work are about twice as likely to end their lives as those who have jobs.
In the United States, the suicide rate, which had slowly risen since 2000, jumped during and after the 2007-9 recession. In a new book, we estimate that 4,750 “excess” suicides — that is, deaths above what pre-existing trends would predict — occurred from 2007 to 2010. Rates of such suicides were significantly greater in the states that experienced the greatest job losses. Deaths from suicide overtook deaths from car crashes in 2009.
Joe Romm at
Climate Progress writes
Climate Sensitivity Stunner: Last Time CO2 Levels Hit 400 Parts Per Million The Arctic Was 14°F Warmer!
We have pushed atmospheric CO2 levels to 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in human existence. [...]
At the same time, a major new Science study of paleoclimate temperatures — based on ”the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the Arctic” – revealed what happened the last time we had similar CO2 levels:
“One of our major findings is that the Arctic was very warm in the Pliocene [~ 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago] when others have suggested atmospheric CO2 was very much like levels we see today. This could tell us where we are going in the near future. In other words, the Earth system response to small changes in carbon dioxide is bigger than suggested by earlier models,” the authors state.
Kathleen Parker at the Washington Post writes Yes, Ted Cruz is Hispanic ‘enough’:
Freedom means, foremost, freedom to speak without fear of impeachment or censure. And a diverse society succeeds only insofar as diverse ideas are welcomed. Cruz is no more bound by his heritage to fall in line with “almost every Hispanic” than Obama was required to place alms at the feet of those who, by their own analysis, considered themselves blacker than he.
Joshua Keating at
The Salt Lake Tribune writes:
When it comes to selling guns to shady regimes, the United States is still firmly No. 1.
Ana Marie Cox at
The Guardian writes
Right-wing media check up: still crazy:
Several observers have pointed out that the conservative media's real complaint about #BENGHAZI is that the coverage in the MSM hasn't taken their side, and, even more to the point, the American public at large (i.e., those outside the Fox News demographic) has not responded to the coverage with outrage and alarm to match their own. The Week's Mark Ambinder has teased out why that is; they aren't on board with the guiding principle of today's right-wing journalists: Obama is evil.
George Zornick at
The Nation writes
The Troubling Case of Gregory Hicks:
It appears, according to experts, that indeed Hicks not only fits the profile of a whistleblower but is also being unfairly retaliated against by his superiors. The unfortunate backdrop here is an administration with a troubling record of retribution against federal employees who speak out against official policy. [...]
“Hicks’s whistleblower status is not dependent on whether or not his disclosures are factually correct,” Jesselyn Radack, the Government Accountability Project’s national security and human rights director, told The Nation. “In terms of whistleblower calculus, he fits—he had a reasonable belief that he could get help there in time to at least minimize the damage.”
Radack has represented numerous federal whistleblowers, including many from the State Department. She said that not only is Hicks unquestionably a whistleblower but that his immediate poor performance review and subsequent inability to get a good assignment easily categorize as improper retaliation.
David Corn at
Mother Jones writes
Benghazi Isn't Watergate. But the White House Didn't Tell the Full Story:
This is not much of cover-up. There is no evidence the White House is hiding the truth about what occurred in Benghazi. My colleague Kevin Drum dismisses this recent Benghazi news ("on a scale of 1 to 10, this is about a 1.5"). But the White House has indeed been caught not telling the full story. Despite Carney's statement, there was politically minded handling of the talking points. Yet in today's hyperpartisan environment, such a matter cannot be evaluated with a sense of proportion. Obama antagonists decry it as a deed most foul, and White House defenders denounce the the critics. The talking points dispute is not a scandal; it's a mess—a small mess—and not as significant as the actions (and non-actions) that led to Benghazi. Yet no mess is too tiny for scandalmongers in need of material.
Roldo Bartimole, a journalist for more than 40 years, with much of his career in Cleveland, writes at
The Progressive in
Captive Women Expose Cleveland’s Systemic Failure:
The revelation that these three women were held captive, no matter what the circumstances get revealed, shows that the systemic failure goes far beyond the police force.
Who is paying attention? What is happening on Cleveland streets?
Who are on the streets of Cleveland with open eyes? Apparently not the Cleveland police. They’re paid to do that job. Where are they — at Progressive Field?
These tragedies are only a symptom of a systemic failure of a town and its leadership that has utterly avoided giving a damned about its ordinary citizens.
The Editorial Board at Haaretz calls for Israel to
Outlaw Amana:
Amana, the cooperative association headed by Ze’ev Hever, defines itself as the settling entity of Gush Emunim. However, Amana is something else: it is proof that Israel is not a law-abiding country. It is also proof that official Israeli policy, which states its desire to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, is nothing but a smokescreen for the exact opposite.
The investigative report by Chaim Levinson, published Friday in Haaretz’s Hebrew edition, shows how Israel allows Amana to build illegally in the territories, while at the same time buildings belonging to hilltop youth are unhesitatingly demolished. It turns out that in Israel the law is a mere option, and it bends before those who wield great political power and have widespread connections. [...]
The purpose of Amana is to create “facts on the ground” and thwart any possibility of a future diplomatic accord. In any proper country, the police would immediately launch a comprehensive investigation, raid the organization’s offices, scrutinize its bank accounts, construction contracts and connections to suppliers. It would put its leaders on trial and shut it down. The fact that Israel doesn’t do this shows the real motivation behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s empty declarations about peace.
Rebecca Burns at
In These Times writes
How Chicago Workers Went From Occupation to Cooperative:
“Today, you’re going to see 18 people cutting a ribbon together—should be interesting,” joked Leah Fried, a spokesperson for the United Electrical Workers (UE), at yesterday’s launch of the New Era Windows Cooperative.
Given the occasion, nothing less than a collaborative ribbon-cutting would do. The group of 18 African-American and Latino men and women who crowded around the pair of ceremonial scissors were embarking on a trailblazing experiment in collective ownership.