The question of tax havens and financial opacity has been headline news for years now. Unfortunately, in this area there is a huge gap between the triumphant declarations of governments and the reality of what they actually do.
In 2014, the LuxLeaks investigation revealed that multinationals paid almost no tax in Europe, thanks to their subsidiaries in Luxembourg. In 2016, the Panama Papers have shown the extent to which financial and political elites in the north and the south conceal their assets. We can be glad to see that the journalists are doing their job. The problem is that the governments are not doing theirs. The truth is that almost nothing has been done since the crisis in 2008. In some ways, things have even got worse. [...]
It is the political fragmentation of Europe and the lack of a strong public authority which puts us at the mercy of private interests. The good news is that there is a way out of the current political impasse. If four countries, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, who together account for over 75% of the GDP and the population in the eurozone put forward a new treaty based on democracy and fiscal justice, with as a strong measure the adoption of a common tax system for large corporations, then the other countries would be forced to follow them. If they did not do so they would not be in compliance with the improvement in transparency which public opinions have been demanding for years and would be open to sanctions.
It was recently revealed by way of a massive document leak that the wealthiest of the global wealthy have taken trillions of dollars and, through the services of a secretive Panamanian law firm, squirrelled that money away inside virtual coffee cans in tax havens all over the world. The "Panama Papers" scandal, as it has come to be called, has ensnared a large number of world leaders, and cost Iceland's prime minister his job.
Those 11 million pages contain the names of hundreds of Americans who also used the services of that Panamanian firm to hide their money. They are the focus of my rage, because they did what they did to avoid paying taxes. Taxes, which pay for the school my daughter will attend, the textbooks she will read, the teachers who will guide her, the roads that will carry her there, the police and fire departments that protect her, the public servants who will help her register to vote someday and who clear the roads when the storms turn white.
Meanwhile, the paid lackeys of these thieves run up and down the halls of Congress, and all over the media, shouting about how broke we are as a nation. Austerity, they cry, budget cuts, no food for poor children or assistance for poor families. Social Security and Medicare must be cut because that's the responsible thing to do. No support for wounded and traumatized veterans, but of course we can afford more war. We need education budget cuts, no infrastructure repair, no health care reform, because look, see, we're broke.
No, we aren't. We were robbed, and we can get that money back if we choose to act. This is a fiction we live in, cunningly crafted to cover the tracks of those who care only for themselves. Between the bloated "defense" budget and all that untaxed money lying offshore, we have the revenue required to address these pressing issues and chase the "austerity" argument off like a diseased cur.
Man Exonerated After 33 Years in Prison Was Convicted by Unreliable Bite-mark Evidence
Keith Allen Harward is 60 years old and free now. But for 33 years he was imprisoned for a rape and murder committed by another man. A life wrecked by a hypnotized witness and bite-mark evidence. Finally a DNA test matched that of sailor Harward’s now-deceased shipmate on the USS Vinson. That’s good news, so why is it here in FFS?
The murdered woman had bite marks on her legs. During Harward’s original and second trial, a total of six forensic experts claimed the bite marks were a match for Harward’s dental alignment. But, says Chris Fabricant, director of Strategic Litigation for the Innocence Project: “We have no idea how many other people may have been wrongly convicted based on this evidence, but any conviction resting on this grossly unreliable technique is inherently flawed. Every state in the nation should be conducting reviews to see if there are others like Mr. Harward sitting in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. Moreover, that this technique is still used in our justice system, including current capital prosecutions, presents a public safety threat.”
At least 25 people have been exonerated in cases where bite-mark evidence had been key to their convictions. In one of those cases, what was labeled a human bite by a supposed forensic expert was instead most likely decomposition plus insect and crawfish bites.
"[Harward’s] case has resulted in unspeakable loss for so many people," said Olga Akselrod, a lawyer with the Innocence Project who helped to set Harward free. "The 33 years that Mr. Harward lost cannot be returned to him. Those are years people are building careers, and families."
Harward, at least, will be compensated for his time in prison, though none of those years can be erased by money. Under a Virginia statute, he is due recompense worth 90 percent of the per capita personal income in the state, about $47,000, for each year he served—$1.6 million—plus $10,000 in free tuition at Virginia’s community college system.
Only 30 states and the District of Columbia have statutes setting compensation for wrongful convictions. But some of those statutes are a joke: Montana will only provide educational aid to a wrongfully convicted person. New Hampshire will compensate such person a total of only $20,000 no matter how long s/he was imprisoned.
For the 2008 cycle, the presidential candidates are expected to raise and spend a billion dollars in pursuit of the White House, and—based on the recent numbers—well more than half of that money will be spent by Democrats. While that number screams of the need to reform our system of elections, it also shows an unmatched opportunity to change the game in a more fundamental way. Democrats have already shown they're capable of making better use of the Internet than their counterparts on the right, but most of that money is likely to end up going into the bottomless maw of the traditional media.
Face it, there really is such a thing as media saturation. The second flyer from a candidate is less effective than the first. The third commercial less noticeable than the second. The fourth visit from volunteers is more irritation than enticement. The fifth phone call is more likely to generate rage than a positive response. There really is a point of diminishing returns, and it takes far less than the kind of numbers being tossed around this season to get there. A hundred million dollar campaign may be more effective than a ten million dollar effort, but it's far from ten times as effective. At some point, each dollar pushed into a traditional media effort is about as effective as construction funding in Iraq.
Besides, if the Democratic candidates spend their millions on traditional advertising, much of that money will be going back to media conglomerates who want their campaigns to fail. Democratic dollars will flow into the pockets of CEOs who will be on the "Ranger" list for the Republican candidates. Democratic funds donated by millions of contributors, will end up as commercials that pay the salaries of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh.
I'd like to propose that Democratic candidates for president demonstrate their boldness by taking a different approach to their campaign spending this year. I want them to give it away. Not all of it, mind you. Just 10%.
Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for "Netroots Radio.”
It was bound to happen. While the two major candidates left in the Democratic Party presidential primaries were giving the semblance of being nice to each other, it had to come to a boil.
Many claim that the differences between the policies of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are minimal. As such, they argue, coalescing around the “only outcome” would be a foregone conclusion and if Bernie Sanders plays nice, that would be the case.
The delegate math for Bernie Sanders is next to impossible barring a Hillary Clinton implosion or the materialization of the political revolution Sanders is attempting. Sanders’ recent wins, including the near-record turnout in Wisconsin, may be giving him hope that the spark is about to hit gasoline-soaked hay.
The Democratic race was supposed to be a formality. Bernie Sanders was supposed to be an unelectable Democratic socialist with enough of a following to keep things interesting. He was supposed to split the vote of other Democrats who dared to run to protect the candidate “real” Democrats wanted to coalesce around. He accomplished the latter.
The problem is that one never knows at what point a stressed electorate will throw conventional wisdom to the wind. Is the American electorate at a tipping point?
Theoretical physicist Neil Turok, speaking on how boosting math and science education throughout the continent can help alleviate problems in Africa.
Theoretical physicist Neil Turok, speaking on how boosting math and science education throughout the continent can help alleviate problems in Africa.
Eight years ago, while accepting the 2008 TED Prize, physicist Neil Turok gave a speech in which he issued a challenge: To bring Africa into the global scientific community. “Our TED dream is that the next Einstein will be African,” he told his audience, to much applause.
It looks like he may be getting his wish.
At a meeting in March in Dakar, Senegal, the Next Einstein Forum introduced its new class of 15 Next Einstein Fellows as well as 54 Next Einstein Ambassadors. These fellows and ambassadors are scientists from African countries with PhDs and other advanced degrees in a wide range of scientific fields. They are working, teaching, and studying in Africa and beyond, and the group hopes that these will be Africa’s new generation of scientific leaders. The NEF Global Gathering, as the meeting was called, had people from 80 countries, including all 54 countries in Africa. The 1,000 attendees represented more than 100 organizations from all over the world. The fellows continue their lines of research, and the ambassadors represent their country at NEF meetings.
A South African institute that Turok founded in 2003 joined with partners from industry, academia, African governments, and other funding groups to establish the Next Einstein Initiative. That led to the founding of the Next Einstein Forum, in association with a German philanthropic group, Robert Bosch Stiftung, founded by an industrialist and inventor of the same name. According to its website, the Next Einstein Forum is “a platform that brings together leading thinkers in science, policy, industry and civil society in Africa to leverage science to solve global challenges.”
It’s a continent that needs a lot of intervention. Seven of the 10 countries most at risk from climate change are in Africa, causing flooding, drought, decreased water supply and farming, and even security threats, according to 350Africa.org. As if that’s not enough, there are high threats of terrorism from the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, and related subgroups.
Although Africa’s rate of extreme poverty—defined as living on less than $1.25 per day—fell from 56 percent in 1990 to 43 percent by 2012, sub-Saharan Africa still remains in deep poverty. “The percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day in sub-Saharan Africa ... is more than twice as high as any other region,” according to the Pew Research Center. Three out of four of the world’s poorest countries are in Africa. Most countries in Africa have among the fewest doctors per 10,000 people than anywhere else in the world. Africa leads the world in deaths from often preventable causes like malnutrition, simple infections, and birth complications. Seventy percent of all new HIV/AIDS cases are in sub-Saharan Africa. And the amount of scientific research done in Africa, by Africans, remains the lowest in the world.
So how are the 15 new Next Einstein Fellows going to tackle these problems?
Do Republicans believe the Constitution's Due Process and Equal Protection guarantees apply to fetuses, but not gay Americans?
Do Republicans believe the Constitution's Due Process and Equal Protection guarantees apply to fetuses, but not gay Americans?
The odds of a contested Republican convention rose sharply this week. The strong showing by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Wisconsin primary made frontrunner Donald Trump's task of securing a 1,237 delegate majority a much steeper climb. The prospect of an all-out, multi-ballot floor fight elevating Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, or some Republican white knight like House Speaker Paul Ryan over a nearly-victorious Trump could ignite a firestorm inside and outside Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena.
But the potential for a GOP "Mistake by the Lake" isn't the only reason why the party's convention could produce the worst Republican conflagration in Cleveland since Mayor Ralph Perk set his own hair ablaze with a blow torch in 1972. The war over who will stand for the Republican Party will be joined by another battle about what the GOP stands for. At the heart of the convention's bruising platform battles over the party’s abortion and same-sex marriage planks is one of the greatest accomplishments of the Party of Lincoln. Simply put, the fiercely divided delegates will have to decide whether the GOP believes the 14th Amendment's due process and equal protection guarantees for "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" apply to fetuses—but not actual living, breathing gay Americans.
"On the last day of the first part of my life, I’m running late. As usual."
"On the last day of the first part of my life, I’m running late. As usual."
Joanna Connors is a winner of the 2008 Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism from Northwestern University, and Columbia University’s Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma for “Beyond Rape: A Survivor's Story.” A reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, she wrote the series about her own 1984 rape, her struggles to survive the aftermath, and her resolution to track down her rapist 23 years later.
At the time of her rape, she was a film critic for the Plain Dealer, having arrived in Cleveland from Minneapolis less than a year before. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, where she met her husband, Connors began her journalism career at the Minneapolis Star (now Minneapolis Star-Tribune). She and her husband both left the Star when it was bought out, and at the time of her rape, he was also working for thePlain Dealer, on the police beat.
What started out as a series for the newspaper is now a memoir that is a must read for every woman who has ever been raped, who has feared being raped, or who has never even thought about being raped. And for every man who wants to understand or who cares about the women in his life—mothers, sisters, wives, or daughters. Because it is more than a story of rape. It is a story about our divides—of race, of education and opportunity, of prison, and of family.
This past week we had an election in Wisconsin. Bernie Sanders won, Ted Cruz won, and Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s handpicked Supreme Court justice won. But this post really isn’t about that: It’s about what I noticed on my two-sided ballot in Madison’s Ward 34.
We make a lot of noise about getting out the vote here on Daily Kos. That we need to vote to make change happen, and that we want to elect more and better Democrats. We struggle with low turnout. Well, low Democratic turnout in the latest Wisconsin election (and on the other side of the coin, strong Republican turnout) is the main reason my state has yet another corporate shill as a Supreme Court justice. Turnout and getting out the vote matters. But there is something else that matters too, and the entire idea of representative democracy is in peril because of this one thing.
The text of my ballot is below. Can you see that is wrong with it (other than the Republican Clown CarTM on the top of the ballot)?
In psychological terms, Donald Trump is living proof of the validity of some Freudian theories about certain men’s feelings of inadequacy. In political terms, Trump is the Republican Party's Id. Mainstream Republicans are panicked by Trump not because of the substance of what he says, but because he uses a bullhorn to broadcast what they'd prefer to dogwhistle. Trump's recent comment about imprisoning women who have abortions was just the latest example.
x
NEW Trump to @msnbc: "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who have abortions but he has yet to determine what that should be.
Given the strong backlash, it was no surprise that Trump immediately backtracked, ultimately taking five positions in five days. It's long been clear that Trump neither knows nor cares about most political policies, and is running mostly out of sheer narcissism. His only real convictions seem to be revealed in his endless spew of bigotry. He's a little man desperate to convince himself that he isn't. But the real story has always been about Trump's appeal to the Republican base that the Republican hierarchy for decades coddled and catered to, and now, to their shock and horror, can't control. And what Trump said about punishing women who have abortions was the logical conclusion of a premise that has become standard Republican dogma. And ostensibly more moderate Republicans not only are no better—in some cases, they’re worse.
More progressive accomplishments than any president in a half-century.
More progressive accomplishments than any president in a half-century.
“Why bother? There’s no difference between the parties anyway.” We’ve all heard or read that sentiment. Libertarians love to make this claim. But they aren’t the only ones. It’s the argument behind the Ralph Nader vote in 2000. Although he didn’t use those exact words, Nader himself said there were “few major differences between the two parties.” On other occasions he all but adopted the “no difference” line, saying, for example: “It's a Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum vote … Both parties are selling our government to big business paymasters … That's a pretty serious similarity," and “they're morphing more and more on more and more issues into one corporate party.”
Right now, we are choosing our party’s nominee for president and the candidates’ ideological differences are as stark as in any primary season since 1992, and perhaps since 1980. Whatever his chances of victory are at this point, Bernie Sanders—whom I’m supporting—could have been even or slightly ahead in the delegate count today had things broken his way by a few more percentage points in, say, Iowa and Nevada. Victories there plus in New Hampshire might well have given him valuable momentum in subsequent states that ended up going decisively for Secretary Clinton. The point is, this race could have gone either way.
If (as appears highly likely due to her existing delegate lead and the geographic distribution of the remaining delegates) Clinton is the nominee, that will be a serious disappointment—to say the very least—to those who believe Democrats need a radical shift leftward. We are hearing echoes of Ralph Nader—in particular his claim that the two parties are indistinguishable on economic issues—from those saying that it’s “Bernie or Bust.”
“I will never support Hillary Clinton,” said Adam Burch, 28, of Minneapolis. “I identify as a socialist. She stands for everything that I’m against. It’s Bernie or nothing.”
Hillary is no different from the Republicans, the Bernie or Bust folks say, and the same goes for Obama and the Democratic Party in general. Although I do believe Bernie would be the better nominee and president than Hillary, I firmly reject this false equivalency.
Looking at what the Obama Administration has accomplished over seven plus years compared to what a President McCain or Romney would have done on any number of issues makes clear just how false this equivalency really is—even on economic policy. But we don’t need seven years to demonstrate this. All we need to do is simply look at the past week.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (fifth from right), actor and creator of "Hamilton" and cast bow to the audience opening night on Broadway in New York City, August 6, 2015.
Lin-Manuel Miranda (fifth from right), actor and creator of "Hamilton" and cast bow to the audience opening night on Broadway in New York City, August 6, 2015.
Audiences are flocking to see Hamilton on Broadway. The show is sold out through the fall and has received rave reviews from most critics. While unable to afford a ticket, I listen to the cast album almost daily. One day I’ll see the show, but until then I listen and read all the news about this unique recasting of American history in living color.
The most recent headlines about the play have not dealt with its content but with an issue raised around its casting, and the writer and producers’ intent to explicitly have the founding fathers played by non-white actors. In The Atlantic article Hamilton: Casting After Colorblindness, Spencer Kornhaber writes, “Hamilton does not merely allow for some of the Founding Fathers to be non-white. It insists all of them be.” He concludes:
This insistence is part of the play’s message that Alexander Hamilton’s journey from destitute immigrant to influential statesman is universal and replicable (and comparable to the life stories of many of the rappers who inspired Hamilton’s music). Obama, recently hosting the cast at the White House, gave the standard interpretation: “With a cast as diverse as America itself, including the outstandingly talented women, the show reminds us that this nation was built by more than just a few great men—and that it is an inheritance that belongs to all of us.”
That last line might sound like a platitude, and there have been times in history when it may have really been one. But movements like Black Lives Matter, and renewed calls for the consideration of reparations, are built on the idea that “all” remains an unfulfilled promise—and that fulfillment can only come by focusing on helping the specific populations that suffer greatest from America’s many inequalities rooted in oppression. The national discourse in the past few years has demonstrated that this remains a controversial idea. While Hamilton does not explicitly take a side, the simple fact of its casting suggests which way it probably leans. As the production goes on tour outside New York City in the coming years, it will spread its argument about America—and perhaps also, finally, start a few.
What Bruce Springsteen will not be using in North Carolina this weekend.
What Bruce Springsteen will not be using in North Carolina this weekend.
Look down. Further. Just a little further. There you go. See that story? The one titled Fiction / On Whetsday / Episode 10. Yeah, you do. For the last three months, I’ve been putting a novel on the front page in the form of weekly installments. This is the next to the last one. I try not to pester you about it in this space because… well, frankly because I feel very lucky to be here at all. Getting to put something on the front page here, it’s a gift. And in this case I not only got to spray a novel’s worth of words all over the primary season, but DK regulars Brian Zink and Amy Jones stepped forward to provide original art that’s better than anything I ever got from the big publishing houses back in the day. So if you haven’t been reading it, give it a try. I think you’ll like it.
After next week, it’ll be done. And I promise not to pester you again.
And now, punditry.
David Yassky on the Clinton Crime Bill, the War on Drugs, Black Life Matters, and more.
At a campaign event in Philadelphia last week, former President Bill Clinton was interrupted by protesters incensed about his 1994 crime bill.
… The bill... actually reduced sentences for federal drug crimes by exempting first-time, nonviolent drug offenders from the onerous “mandatory minimum” penalties created under earlier administrations. It funded specialized drug courts, drug treatment programs, “boot camps” and other efforts to rehabilitate offenders without incarceration. It allocated more than $3 billion to keep at-risk young people away from gangs and the drug trade.
The bill also banned semiautomatic assault weapons… the bill incorporated Senator Biden’s Violence Against Women Act, which has transformed enforcement against domestic violence and sexual assault.
Yassky, who helped to draft the bill, also argues that it was pretty effective.
These policies set in motion a reversal of crime trends. Since 1994, violent crime rates have essentially been cut in half. As Bill Clinton pointed out in Philadelphia, the people who benefit most from decreased crime are residents of poor urban neighborhoods. And — crucially for progressives — the reduction in crime has helped restore citizens’ confidence that government can accomplish important goals.
And all that sounds great. Only, well, come on in. Let’s continue after the break.
