In the wake of the National Security Agency scandal, the mainstream media is obsessing over Edward Snowden’s security clearance. It is asking, along with Senators from the Intelligence Committee, why a systems administrator at Booz Allen Hamilton had access to troves of top-secret documents and whether or not the vetting process for the other 1.4 million people with top-secret clearances is rigorous enough. The fear, the mainstream seems to be pushing on Americans, is that other leaks are in store.
Borrowing a line from Tolstoy, Gar Alperovitz’s latest book, What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution, seeks to resolve a troublesome political puzzle: How do we eradicate systemic problems like inequality, climate destruction, and poverty when these problems seem to get worse and worse, year after year, despite the good efforts of social reformers, progressives, and radicals of all stripes? Good question.
One by one, the House Financial Services Committee has rubber-stamped industry approved bills that would weaken elements of Dodd-Frank designed to hem in risky derivatives trading.
A new report details how the failure to finalize rules harms the American people by compromising the safety of food, automobiles, workplaces and protections for investors.
Imagine that you're trying to make an extremely complicated decision. You want to understand the facts and do the right thing. At one ear, you have someone -- perhaps a former colleague -- who whispers you highly detailed advice six times a day, cajoling and pleading. At the other ear, is someone who whispers you advice only once or twice a week.
Housing prices are coming back and consumers—feeling flush now that their home equity is rebounding—are more confident than they've been in four years. The American middle class is finally getting back on its feet after a half decade of trauma, right?
Progressive organizations in New York City and Washington, D.C. rail a good amount against big banks. But not enough of those organizations have cut themselves off from those "too-big-to-fail" institutions to join, say, the Amalgamated Bank (AB), a bank which does not have a history of scandals and scams that banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase do.
New rules to regulate derivatives, adopted last week by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are a victory for Wall Street and a setback for financial reform. They may also signal worse things to come.
New York, NY – As Coloradans celebrate the expansion of their freedom to vote and North Carolinians fight to protect theirs, national public policy institute Demos will mark the 20th Anniversary of the passage of the National Voter Registration Act, better known as the “Motor Voter” law on Monday, May 20th by releasing a new report analyzing its impact.
In 2012, no one, it seemed, could afford to sit on the sidelines. Having decried super PACs as "a threat to democracy," Obama and his advisers flip-flopped and blessed the creation of one devoted specifically to reelecting the president. Soon, they were everywhere, at the local, state, and federal levels.
This week has delivered two economic surprises that illustrate the right way and the wrong way to respond to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.
First, the euro zone economy shrank more than expected in the past three months, moving France back into a recession. That's what happens when you implement an austerity policy that serves to undermine economic demand.
With Jamie Dimon under growing fire from shareholders of JP Morgan Chase, one possibility is that he may relinquish his role as chairman of the board but remain as CEO. That raises an interesting question: Why does Dimon hold both jobs to begin with?
The IRS is under siege for investigating conservative political groups applying for tax-exempt status. But the real problem wasn’t that the IRS was too aggressive.
The banks have systematically figured out how to rip off the government,” Lerner says.
Part of that ripoff was the LIBOR scandal, which had a “massive consequence on everything,” according to Wallace Turbeville, a former Goldman Sachs employee and current senior fellow at nonpartisan think tank Demos.
New York, NY – Today, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed into law landmark legislation that will allow voters to both register to vote and cast a ballot during the state’s early voting period. Twelve states and the District of Columbia now offer Same Day Registration. Senate Bill 279 also adds two additional days to the early voting period, increasing the number from six to eight days to vote prior to Election Day.
The shocking allegations against four more elected officials in New York are depressing — but they provide an opportunity for bold action by our state leaders. Gov. Cuomo has proposed a new, comprehensive campaign finance law, including the creation of a voluntary, small-donor public financing system and an independent enforcement unit.
This effort could be a game-changer, a way to begin reversing the dangerous concentration of wealth and political power in the U.S. Naysayers will complain that proposals like this are doomed from the start because of the current makeup of Congress, especially the House. But that’s not so. Enhancing the impact of small donors is an important component of a broad, long-term effort to reduce the toxic impact of big money in an era of super PACS, Citizens United and rising inequality. Democrats in the House should be commended for pushing this initiative along.
Collusion — and conflicts of interest — between politicians and billionaires now operate across borders. When he was president, Nicolas Sarkozy reserved special favours for the Qataris (including a tax exemption on their highest-value property purchases). Qatar is now prepared to back him in starting a private equity fund.