EFTA01159482.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bee: [email protected] Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 3/22/2015 Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 07:35:11 +0000 Attachments: America is one big_prison,Why_mass_incarceration_is_coming_home 1u2014_literally_ Salon hcbr_24,_-2015.docx; The 12 threats to human civilization„ranked_Matt_MacFarland_TWP_Feb._20,_2015.do cx; (lc; Peterson bio.docx; I_Was_A&bama's_topiudge...Sue_Bell_Cobb_Politico_March.April_2015.docx; Your Waitress„Your Professor Brittany_Bronson_NYT_Dec._18„2015.docx; The_income_gap_between_bosses_and_workers_is_getting_even_bigger_worldwideiena_ McGregor TWP_March_13,2015.docx; Netanyahu's_Hard- Right_Shift_To_Win_Election_Presents_Troubles_Ahead_Luke_Baker_Reuters_Mar._18„2 015.docx; Nasdaq_Changed_in_Its_Climb_to_5,000James_B._Stewart_NYT_Mar._5,_2015.docx; Israel chooses_the_path_to_apartheidiames_Besser_Haaretz_Mar._22„2015.docx Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png; image(10).png; image(11).png; image(12).png; image(13).png; image(14).png; image(15).png; image(16).png; image(17).png; image(18).png; image(19).png; image(20).png; image(21).png; image(22).png; image(23).png; image(24).png DEAR FRIEND Justice For Sale I Was Alabama's Top Judge. Ashamed by What I Had to Do to Get There. I low money is ruining America's courts. By SI Di II COM •INICHOMMI 200 7 la - sit I recently read an interesting article in Politico by Sue Bell Cobb who was the top judge in the State of Alabama confessing that although she was committed to her career in the legal arena, she was EFTA01159482 ashamed by what she had to do to get there. Rising to the position of chief justice of Alabama and the first woman to head the state Supreme Court, it was the pinnacle of achievement. But to get to there, she had to win the nation's most expensive judicial race that year. But at what cost? She needed $2.6 million to win — and that money had to come from somewhere, because her opponent raised even more, nearly $5 million in all. Needless to say it has to be a terribly awkward and uncomfortable position for a judge to have to ask for campaign money. Except that you can win without raising money and today its lots of money. And as we all know, most big donors are not giving you their money and not expecting anything in return. Consequently how can one convince people that their courts are not for sale in the most expensive judicial race in the United States this year? And did I mention this was in 2006 so let's accept that the latest judicial race for Chief Justice in Alabama was even more expensive than it was nine years ago... Today in America.... justice isfor sale, not only in Alabama but in 38 other states as well.... Justice Cobb explained that like everyone from school board candidates to congressmen, mayors and governors she had to spend an insane amount of time on the phone dialing for dollars. The phone calls always started with chitchat: How's the family? How's your law practice going? It was fun catching up with old friends and acquaintances until the point when I had to steer them toward the real reason I was calling. "I'd very much appreciate your support for my campaign," I'd say, religiously avoiding the "ask" and handing the phone to my finance director when it came time to talk real money. The money was important. In Alabama, you don't get to mete out justice without spending millions of dollars. She had her money; her opponent had his. The race for dollars reached new heights when a poll showed that she had a real chance of winning despite being a Democrat and the underdog, leading my opponent and his supporters to significantly increase their fundraising. And she had to answer in the best way she could — by trying to raise more money — or risk falling woefully behind. The amounts are utterly obscene. In Alabama, would-be judges are allowed to ask for money directly. They can make calls not just to the usual friends and family but to lawyers who have appeared before them, lawyers who are likely to appear before them, officials with companies who may very well have interests before the court. So where do you draw the line? The simple fact is: Judicial elections have become just as overwhelmed by money as all the other contests in American politics, even if we tend to forget that in Alabama and 38 other states, judges have to stand for election. And if you're running for office, it means you have to raise money. Lots of money. And that meant phone calls. Lots of phone calls. Justice Cobb described running for judge, "means pitching yourself to the public just as if you were running for dogcatcher." Many ads for judicial candidates are downright terrifying, with would-be judges bashing opponents as if they were evil incarnate. These candidates were portrayed as judges who, if given the chance, would release child molesters and murderers and order them to move in next door. Even when nothing could be further from the truth, dignity and fairness are too often the first casualties in these kinds of endeavors. How else to explain a campaign ad from the late 199os in which one candidate for the Alabama Supreme Court, who was revered by many in the bench and bar, nevertheless gave in to pressure from his campaign consultants and ran an ad comparing his opponent to a skunk? The ad opens with the image of the animal and is replaced by a photograph of the opponent as the narrator explains, "Some things you can smell a mile away. ... You can smell how bad this man's ideas are no matter where you live in Alabama." EFTA01159483 But here's the thing: Donors want clarity, certainty even, that the judicial candidates they support view the world as they do and will rule accordingly. To them, the idea of impartial and fair judges is an abstraction. They want to know that the investments they make by donating money to a candidate will yield favorable results. For businesses, this means judges who are skeptical of, or hostile to, malpractice suits and product liability claims. For unions, it translates to backing those who see business, especially Big Business, as the enemy. Opposing sides frequently give lip service to seeking justice, but that's not what they mean. They're not thinking about the fact that our rulings bind not just those who appear before us but every resident of the state, whether it's a matter involving an allegedly faulty product or an unpaid worker's comp claim or a property owner's fight against a government entity trying to seize his building. No, what these special interests want is simply to win. This helps to explain why judicial elections have become awash in money, with some $275 million spent on such campaigns since 2000, as each side tries to stack the bench with judges it trusts are on their team. But public trust is eroded when judicial candidates are forced to court big donors and spenders. And outright corruption can occur too, as we saw in Arkansas recently when a former state circuit judge pleaded guilty to having reduced a jury's negligence award against a health care business in exchange for a campaign bribe. It was no coincidence, it turns out, that the owner of the business had funneled thousands of dollars to the judge's campaign fund just as the judge had an epiphany: He slashed to $1 million the jury's $5.2 million award because the original amount "shocked the conscience." That's not the only thing shocking about this case. When a judge asks a lawyer who appears in his or her court for a campaign check, it's about as close as you can get to legalized extortion. Lawyers who appear in your court, whose cases are in your hands, are the ones most interested in giving. Its human nature: Who would want to risk offending the judge presiding over your case by refusing to donate to her campaign? They almost never say no—even when they can't afford it. Imagine how much worse it gets when a judge or candidate has no qualms about applying pressure. And there are a number of examples in Texas where judges can solicit money directly. And although these overtures are shameful and embarrassing, in Texas they are perfectly legal. The money and politics that engulf judicial campaigns have other deleterious effects. The American Constitution Society worked with Joanna Shepherd, an Emory University law professor, on a recent study that suggested that attack ads accusing judicial candidates of being soft on crime can affect an elected judge's votes. "The more TV ads aired during state Supreme Court judicial elections in a state, the less likely justices are to vote infavor of criminal defendants," the study concluded. There isn't a perfect system for selecting judges, but there certainly is a better one. Let's start with nonpartisan elections, the public financing of judicial campaigns — which was successful in North Carolina until the legislature killed it in 2013 — and merit-based selection of judges, a system that can include nonpartisan screening commissions, gubernatorial appointment and retention elections. Judges are not, and should never be, like ordinary politicians. We cannot and should not promise the promise of anything to those who we elect as judges. And if this judicial money trend does not change, justice in America will continue to erode. EFTA01159484  February Employment Number Pretty good!!! The U.S. economy added 295,000 jobs in February, as the unemployment rate fell from 5.7 to 5.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday and the lowest since 2008. February is the 12th straight monthly job gain above 200,000, as the country has added more than 3.3 million new jobs. More jobs and lower gas prices have led many consumers to step up spending. That's boosting the economy, offsetting sluggish economies overseas and giving employers the confidence to hire. The U.S. job market and economy are easily outpacing those of other major nations. Though Europe and Japan are showing signs of growing more than last year, their economies remain feeble. The euro currency union's unemployment rate has started to fall, but at 11.2 percent it remains nearly twice the U.S. level. The U.S. economy expanded at a breakneck annual pace of 4.8 percent in last year's spring and summer, only to slow to a tepid 2.2 percent rate in the final three months of 2014. Many economists estimate that growth is picking up slightly in the current quarter to an annual rate of 2.5 percent to nearly 3 percent. Still, economists remain bullish about hiring despite the slowdown in growth. The fourth quarter's slowdown occurred largely because companies reduced their stockpiles of goods, which translated into lower factory output. Still over the past three and six month periods, payrolls are up about 290,000 on average; that's 3.5 million jobs per year if it sticks, an acceleration over the 12- month average. JB's Jobs Day Smoother: Avg Payroll Growth (in 000's) in prior 3, 6, and 12 month periods 350 288 293 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 3 Monns 6 Months 12 Months EFTA01159485 But companies focus more on consumer demand in making hiring decisions, and demand was strong in the October-December quarter. Americans stepped up their spending by the most in four years. And though consumers are saving much of the cash they have from cheaper gas, spending in January still rose at a decent pace after adjusting for lower prices. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, expects the economy to grow 3 percent this year, which would be first time it's reached that level in a decade. That's fast enough to support hiring of about 250,000 a month, he said. The jobs report also showed average hourly earnings up 2% once again, in lockstep with the long-term trend and down slightly from the 2.2% pace in January. The fact of more people working more hours per week, along with about zero inflation, means real weekly paychecks are up significantly, so living standards should be improving. But such low-inflation will not last -- and can itself be a sign of underlying weakness (though it's still largely an energy story) -- and families can add only so many hours before facing real stressors trying to balance work and family. Labor force participation: The unemployment rate fell in part because more people got jobs but also because the labor force contracted. These monthly numbers are particularly noisy, so the trend is key, and it shows the share of the population in the labor force bouncing around 63% (it was 62.8% last month) for over a year. That's down from a pre-recession peak of around 66%, a large drop in a key indicator. Extensive research has shown the part of the decline in labor force participation is due to aging boomers leaving the job market, but that's not the whole story. The punchline here is that we very much need to hit and stay at full employment to pull working-age people back into the labor force. Stabilization of the labor force participation rate is a good sign; but there's room for it to tick up some as well. With everything said, February's job numbers are pretty good as the economy U.S. economy continues to improves outpacing both Europe and Japan... Does Anyone Believe That Congress Can Negotiate Any Treaty With Iran? Pope Francis said, echoing Pope John Paul II's words before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, "War always marks thefailure of peace. It is always a defeatfor humanity." I start with these words because when I read that a group of 47 Republican senators wrote an open letter to Iran's leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they sign with President Barack Obama's administration won't last after Obama leaves office. Why would they want to sabotage the Obama's negotiations with Iran that EFTA01159486 would halt their developing a nuclear weapon for at least ten years? And what is their solution if negotiations fail? And isn't the 114 U.S. Congress another "do nothing congress?" Other than reauthorizing funding for Homeland Security and passing the Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act which was vetoed by President Obama the 114 Congress has done nothing. So how then does anyone think that they could lead negotiations with anyone, especially weapon negotiations with Iran? And by the way isn't undermining the President a slippery slope on the way to treason? Organized by freshman Senator Tom Cotton and signed by the chamber's entire party leadership as well as potential 2016 presidential contenders Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, the letter is meant not just to discourage the Iranian regime from signing a deal but also to pressure the White House into giving Congress some authority over the process. "It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may notfully understand our constitutional system ... Anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement,"the senators wrote. "The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen andfuture Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time." Arms-control advocates and supporters of the negotiations argue that the next president and the next Congress will have a hard time changing or canceling any Iran deal -- -- which is reportedly near done - - especially if it is working reasonably well. Many inside the Republican caucus, however, hope that by pointing out the long-term fragility of a deal without congressional approval -- something Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei understands -- the Iranian regime might be convinced to think twice. "Iran's ayatollahs need to know before agreeing to any nuclear deal that ... any unilateral executive agreement is one they accept at their own peril,"Cotton said. The issue has already become part of the 2016 GOP campaign. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush came out against the negotiations in a speech at the Chicago Council last month. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry released a video criticizing the negotiations and calling for Congressional oversight. "An arms control agreement that excludes our Congress, damages our security and endangers our allies has to be reconsidered by anyfuture president," Perry said. Republicans also have a new argument to make in asserting their role in the diplomatic process: Vice President Joe Biden similarly insisted -- in a letter to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell -- on congressional approval for the Moscow Treaty on strategic nuclear weapons with Russia in 2002, when he was head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The letter is the latest piece of an effort by Senators in both parties to ensure that Congress will have some say if and when a deal is signed. Senators Bob Corker, Lindsey Graham, Tim }Caine and the embattled Bob Menendez have a bill pending that would mandate a Congressional review of the Iran deal, but Republicans and Democrats have been bickering over how to proceed in the face of a threatened presidential veto. Still, Senators from both parties are united in an insistence that, at some point, the administration will need their buy-in for any nuclear deal with Iran to succeed. There's no sign yet that Obama believes this -- or, if he does, that he plans to engage Congress in any meaningful way and especially now that they have showed their cards -- to stop not only any agreement with Iran but negotiations as well. Although Senator Cotton and other hawks claim that their opposition to the treaty that the Obama is currently negotiating with Iran is because of its weaknesses, except that the truth is that the open letter to Iran is designed to kill any potential deal. Let's remember that Cotton previously told a conservative audience that the goal of congressional action should be to scuttle talks with Iran. The U.S. should, EFTA01159487 instead, engage in-a policy of "regime change," he argued. As David Ignatius wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post — GOP senators' letter to Iran is dangerous and irresponsible. And Vice President Biden blasted the letter as "beneath the dignity of an institution I revere." "In 36 years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which Senators wrote directly to advise another country — much less a longtimeforeign adversary — that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them," Biden said in a statement. Liberal bloggers argue that the GOP letter violated the Logan Act, named for a Pennsylvania politician's attempt to meddle in President John Adams's delicate negotiations with France in 1798. The language of that 216-year-old statute does sound eerily pertinent: "Any citizen...who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with anyforeign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of anyforeign government...to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both." As usual Cotton and the Republican opposition played the Constitution card. The letter stated that the senators believe Tehran "may not fully understand our constitutional system." So the lawmakers say they have taken it upon themselves, apparently for the sake of "mutual understanding and clarity" and that after President Obama leaves office "the next President can revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen andfuture Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time." Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard University law professor and former top legal official in the George W. Bush administration, offered the lawmakers their own lesson. Writing for the blog Lawfare, Goldsmith noted that the senators mistakenly say in their message that the Senate "must ratify" any treaty. In fact, he points out, the Senate's role is to give the president its consent for a treaty -- and to recognize that ratifying it is the president's choice. 'This is a technical point that does not detract from the letter's message that any administration deal with Iran might not last beyond this presidency," Goldsmith wrote. "But in a letter purporting to teach a constitutional lesson, the error is embarrassing." This stunt by Republicans telling the leadership in Iran that America's President cannot be trusted is both embarrassing and a totem of diplomatic self-sabotage. The consequences of sabotaging a nuclear deal could be catastrophic. It could isolate America from its closest allies and other world powers. It could free Iran from nuclear constraints and unravel the sanctions without any Iranian concessions. Worst of all, it could lock the US onto a path towards a disastrous war. As Senator Bill Nelson who was "appalled and saddened"by the open letter said, "What it sends is a message to the rest of the world that we are not united." More importantly due to the absurdity of this stunt, what is lost is that halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons is too important to divide us among partisan lines, especially when the main priority of the stunt is to delegitimize the Presidency of Barack Obama. What is also lost in Congress' zeal to rein in President Obama's power is that a signed deal not only benefits both Iran and the United States, it will benefit all of the other counties in the Middle East and our partners in NATO, while not leaves us exactly where we were before: with sanctions in place but Iran on a path to a nuclear weapon. So why not pursue negotiations? And as we all know any successful negotiations require give and take with none of the parties getting everything that they want. And as we also know that the Congressional Republicans especially in the House of Representatives don't believe in compromise. How then can they seriously be part of any diplomatic EFTA01159488 negotiations? Especially with a country that they often characterize as evil? Sore importantly a country needs to speak with a single voice in any negotiations. And that voice in the United States has to be the President. What we can't allow is for anyone to sabotage, including Congress, diplomatic negotiations with foreign countries, especially with Iran, where people are beating the drums of war on both sides. A wiser course for Republicans is to demonstrate that they love America more than they hate the president, by working together for a multilateral effort to stop Iran and others from gaining nuclear weapons and to advance peace in the Middle East. Nasdaq Changed in Its Climb to 5,000 Because these aren't the same stocks Inline image U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, with the Nasdaq Composite Index closing at its highest level in 15 years. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 34.04 points, or 0.7%, to end at 5026.42, placing the index within striking distance of its record close of 5048.62, reached in March 2000. On Friday, the index hit 5042.14, its highest point since the index reached its intraday record of 5132.52 on March 10, 2000. It has been nearly three weeks since the Nasdaq broke through and closed above 5000 for the first time since 2000. "Clearly this year growth is getting rewarded," said Bob Turner, chief investment officer for Turner Investments, which manages roughly $1 billion. He added that the rise in many technology stocks in the past year has been driven by rapid revenue and profit growth. "This is such a better high level than it was in 2000, because that was all speculation," he said. "Now it's really sustainable." While Nasdaq still remains below its record closing level, and investors and traders warned it may take time before it reaches that milestone. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 168.62 points, or 0.9%, to 18127.65 and the S&P 500 rose 18.79 points, or 0.9%, to 2108.06. And The Russell 2000 also reached a record Friday, climbing 11.51 points, or 0.9%, to 1266.37. EFTA01159489 We should remember that when the Nasdaq composite that peaked at 5,048.62 on March 10, 2000, in what turned out to be the height of the technology bubble, bears little resemblance to today's Nasdaq index. Of the top 20 Nasdaq companies by market capitalization in 2000, only four — Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel and Qualcomm — remain in the top 20 today. Eight no longer exist as independent companies, most as a result of bankruptcy or acquisition, and several are shadows of their former selves. The current Nasdaq composite index has only about half as many companies as it did in 2000. Nasdaq's Top Companies, Then and Now Only three companies that were among the top 10 when the market peaked in 2000 remain there. Top comcients in the Nesdea composite by rnanket cabtelizabon in b.lions of dollars MARKET PEAK CURRENT March 10, 2000 As of Trrarteeis market doss 2 lionmple 1/20 1 arbole 5741 2 am* 404 2 Google' 361 3. SS 401 2 IMummIt 340 4. Cvaciei 232 4 ;Kebob/ 181 5 Sun Mcrosystoon 165 = 5 Amazon 180 = 6. DO 131 M O. SS 143 = 7. Quelcomm 96 El 7 Gilead Sciedces 156 8 Yahoo 94 U S. Clem 110 9. Aoplied %%TICK'', 75 . 9 Ca ncest 130 MI 10. JOS Unohase 69 MI 10 Amgen 121 IIII In the intervening 15 years, a new generation of entrepreneurs, newly public companies and entire industries have emerged and seized the dominant positions in the Nasdaq index even as their predecessors faltered. Apple, now the world's largest company by market capitalization, barely registered in 2000, and the first iPhone was not announced until 2007. Over a billion smartphones were shipped in 2014. Google, which now ranks third and dominates the market for Internet search advertising, went public in 2004 at $85 a share, giving the company a market value then of $23 billion. Today, its market capitalization is over $360 billion, and its shares were trading this week above $570. Facebook, now No. 5 in Nasdaq's ranking, dominates social networking, another industry that did not exist in 2000. It went public less than three years ago, and is already valued at over $180 billion. Had the Nasdaq index itself not been transformed by innovation and competition, it would be nowhere near its previous peak. The stocks of many of the surviving companies, like Microsoft and Intel, have not come close to the levels they reached before 2000. That means investors who bought and held the stocks of individual companies in 2000, as opposed to broad mutual funds tied to the Nasdaq or index funds like the QQQs, are still underwater — a cautionary note for investors who try to pick individual stocks. Many investors have forgotten that the plunge in the Nasdaq that began in 2000 was no steeper than its rise in the late 199os — a classic formation and bursting of an investment bubble, as a glance at a chart of the Nasdaq over the past 20 years makes clear. The plunge was so severe in large part because the index's steep rise resulted from not one, but two simultaneous bubbles — one in dot-com stocks and the companies that supplied them, the other in telecommunications. Some of the flashier companies that attracted the most absurd valuations were consumer Internet companies like Pets.com, WebVan and Urbanfetch. But investors were also whipped into a frenzy by the promise of wireless communications. Larger telecommunications companies like JDS Uniphase, EFTA01159490 Juniper Networks, Sycamore Networks and PMC-Sierra had far more impact on the rise and subsequent plunge in the index. All four were among the top 20 by market capitalization in 2000, ranging in size from JDS Uniphase ($44 billion) to PMC-Sierra ($33 billion). Sycamore, once a leader in routing Internet traffic, dissolved in 2013. The other three have market capitalizations today that are tiny fractions of their peak values. "I never expected to see the Nasdaq at 5,000 again in my lifetime," said Jeffrey W. Smith, a Nasdaq managing director in economic research, and co-author of a paper called "The Nasdaq Composite Index, a 14-Year Retrospective." Mr. Smith you are right because it is not the same group of companies ****** The pope deplored it. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said she's "greatly concerned" about it. The World Economic Forum holds panels about its threat to the global economy at its annual Davos conclave of the wealthy and powerful. U.S. President Barack Obama wants to raise taxes to combat it. And a 7oo-page book about it by a French economist was a surprise best seller. It is inequality, a gap between rich and poor that has been widening in the U.S. and many other countries for a generation. The term is often used as a catch-all description of various related ills including poverty, job stagnation, class division and social disorder. Yet there's much debate among economists about the impact of inequality itself and its relationship to prosperity. The Situation The income gap narrowed in the U.S. between the Great Depression and the 197os. Since then, it has widened. From 1979 to 2007, after-tax income for the top 1 percent of households grew 275 percent; for the bottom fifth it rose 18 percent. The top 1 percent of earners took home 95 percent of the gains in the first three years of the recovery from the 2008 recession. By 2013, the Fed found that the lower half of U.S. households by wealth held 1 percent of the total while the wealthiest 5 percent held 63 percent. And one family in the United States (the Waltons) has more money than the bottom 150 million Americans. The CIA World Fact Book ranks the U.S. 41st of 136 countries listed in order of unequal family income distribution, with Sweden the most equal and Lesotho the least. Equality and prosperity can also diverge. While U.S. incomes were spreading out, poverty rates were falling. New York City has the biggest rich-poor gap in the country, but its poverty rate is roughly half of Detroit's. China's income gap has grown wider than America's even as hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty. The top 1 percent's share of income has fallen since 2005 in Spain and Norway as one struggled and the other prospered. EFTA01159491 The Background Many factors are thought to contribute to the growing rich-poor gap. The export of manufacturing jobs from rich countries to poorer ones has often been accompanied by widening inequality at both ends. In the U.S., the rise of the financial and tech sectors, the growing importance and cost of higher education, falling tax rates for the wealthy and reduced levies on capital gains may also play roles. The French author of the bestselling "Capital in the 21st Century," Thomas Piketty, argued that unchecked capitalism concentrates wealth because the rate of return on capital generally exceeds the growth rate of labor income. The decades in the mid-loth Century in which inequality fell were the exception, not the rule, he concluded. The Argument Critics of inequality point to studies finding that more unequal societies suffer from higher unemployment, social instability and reduced investment. One linked households living in high- inequality areas with more financial distress, reflected by increased bankruptcy filings, higher divorce rates and longer commutes. The Great Gatsby Curve suggests that more inequality is linked to less mobility — the ease with which people move up and down the income ladder. Others contend there is scant proof these trends actually cause inequality to grow. Inequality acts as an incentive for people to produce and create wealth, innovate and take risks, they say. They point out that inequality isn't a zero-sum game; when the recession shrank the stock portfolios of wealthy Americans, briefly reducing inequality, the poor did not get richer. Proposals to narrow inequality include increasing the minimum wage, taxing the affluent to help the middle-class build wealth and raising levies on inheritance and investments. In Switzerland, voters rejected both what would have been the world's highest minimum wage, and a more radical measure to cap the salaries of CEOs. Piketty proposed a global tax on capital to combat social disarray that he considers a byproduct of inequality. Whatever you believe you have to think that in the wealthiest country in the world the fact that almost 5o million Americans live below the poverty level, which the federal government defined in 2013 was $11,490 last year for a person and $23,550 for a family of four - something is wrong. Poverty is particularly dire for single mothers: A third of all families headed by single women were in poverty last year -- that's 15.6 million such households. The black poverty rate was 27.2 percent, unchanged from 2012 and higher than 24.3 percent before the recession began. More than 11 million black Americans lived below the poverty level last year. About 42.5 percent of the households headed by single black women were in poverty. The Hispanic poverty rate was 23.5 percent. Something Is Wrong I am deeply disturbed by inequality and other injustices in my country. And it is not just the rich and powerful to be blamed. We are all implicated; we share responsibility for our witness of well-defined evil. We don't protect our most vulnerable children; we value people according to arbitrary standards blind to the image of God on every face; we are too quick to kill and to slow to forgive; we tolerate the desecration of the only earth we will ever know. We give a platform to political leaders who want EFTA01159492 to "take back our country"— by setting policies that favor the wealthiest over everyone else, selling public schools to the highest bidder, and tearing apart the safety net that sustains the elderly and assists our most vulnerable — as if their words and ideas are worth listening to, or are grounded in principles worthy of our attention or even support. Our response? Too often it is tantamount to this: "Whatever." We allow injustices to persist as if solutions are someone else's responsibility. We watched our Congress over the last six years — as we slid deeper into recession, as our immigration crisis worsened, as tragic deaths from gun violence killed children school by school, people in movie theaters, women and children in the sanctity of their homes — do less and less, making history for inactivity. Even now, behind all of the soaring rhetoric is a shocking lack of action. It's almost as if Congress said, whatever. Today, we are a society that has lost its collective conscience. One only has to listen to the foolishness that passes for debate in any political season — or the witless chatter on our televisions suggesting that there are equal sides of arguments — and somehow the most vulnerable created the situation that they find themselves in. And if this doesn't sicken you I can't help you because you are lost.... And this is my rant of the week.... WEEK's READINGS Unmasked In his successful attempt to stay in power Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that he will not move the establishment of a Palestinian state or evacuate territory now occupied by Israeli settlement — otherwise he is oppose to the two-state solution and is adamant to not make any meaningful concessions to reach peace with the Palestinians. Netanyahu's strategy to win this last election is based on race baiting, fear tactics and fear mongering. A number of his critics say it encourages outright incitement against Palestinians, Israel's Arab neighbors and even the White House as on the eve of the election he warned Israeli voters that Arab voters were coming out in droves and the Obama Administration was secretly supporting his opposition. And although this has caused shock among some of his moderate supporters, his critics say that it really isn't anything new. EFTA01159493  Israel chooses the path to apartheid It was once possible to argue that Israel's policies were not the same as apartheid because their stated goal, however imperfectly pursued, was to end the occupation. After Netanyahu's reelection, this is no longer the case. James Besser — Haaretz — Mar. 22, 2015 Mainstream Jewish groups go ballistic when they hear the term apartheid because of what it implies: an official policy of unfairness so profound that a fractious world unites against it with sanctions, boycotts and a pariah label for the perpetrators. Once, it was possible to argue that Israel's policies were not the same as apartheid because their stated goal, however imperfectly pursued, was to end the occupation. No more: Bibi's reelection makes it clear that Israeli voters, more clearly aware of Netanyahu's intent than ever, have chosen the apartheid path, and will now have to live with the consequences. American Jewish groups, key players in the coalition against South African apartheid, will resort to verbal gymnastics to argue that ifs not the same. Or they will simply use the convenient ploy of pointing out all the bad decisions made by Palestinian leaders over the years. When the inevitable violence erupts and when the Palestinians, left with no other options, renew their push to condemn Israel in international bodies, they will circle the wagons to defend a Jewish state they claim is unfairly treated by a hostile world. They will ratchet up efforts to stifle even moderate dissent in the Jewish world. They'll blame the deepening divisions in the Jewish community on J Street. Or they will say the no-statehood pledge was just politics as usual in Israel's fractious democracy, as meaningless as most other campaign promises. And nobody outside an increasingly narrow pro-Israel tent will buy it because apartheid is apartheid. Except that's exactly what Israeli voters chose this week as a course for their nation. Although voters will may say before elections that their major concerns are the economy or the cost of living or social and domestic issues but in the end of the day Israelis vote at what they perceive as security concerns and Netanyahu knows how to ring that bell like very few. Because the candidates that don't address those concerns are often punished at the ballot box. Obviously there is a growing international movement calling for the boycotts, divestments and sanctions against the nation of Israel until it complies with international law first and foremost ending the occupation of the territories that it took over after the 1967 War, that being occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While at the same time neither the European Union or the United States have meaningfully changed their relationship with Israel although there have been a lot of public feuds and spats that have caused an uproar in the media and so forth nothing really has actually changed in either's support for Israel. EFTA01159494 Netanyahu has drawn a "red line" in the sand sort of speak, when he publicly broke with the White House and European Nations seeking a two-state solution. "Despite campaign rhetoric, Israel must pursue a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians." Senator Diane Feinstein on March 18, 2015. But as American journalist Patrick Strickland reported this week from Israel, "This is nothing new again. Since the1994 Oslo Accords we have been hearing that there is going to be a two-state solution. During that time settlements have expanded. These are Jewish settlement colonies throughout the West Bank that includes East Jerusalem. That is territory that is occupied under International Law. And Israel has also violated International Law by transferring civilian infrastructure to that territory. But again there has been no meaningful pressure and the aid packages keep coming. But to be honest, the two-state solution has long been since dead. We are beating a dead horse here. And infact negotiations are used as a smoke screen to continue colonization of the West Bank and in Netanyahu's case, it is just at an expedited pace." Since Netanyahu came back to office settlements grew at 23% -- an accomplishment that he campaigned on. The essential precursor to any solution — has to be the will to recognize the equal rights of non-Jews in any of the five states that Israel controls. Hours after the Israeli election results were finalized, the White House quickly reaffirmed its support for the idea of two independent nations living side by side, a central tenet of peace negotiations led by presidents from both U.S. political parties. And the White House sharply chastised Netanyahu's party for using anti-Arab rhetoric in the lead-up to the election. "Rhetoric that seeks to marginalize one segment of their population is deeply concerning and it is divisive," Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said. While senior American officials said the administration was still evaluating options, they suggested the U.S. could ease its staunch opposition to Palestinians turning to the UN Security Council to create a state. "There are policy ramifications for what he said," one official said of Netanyahu's campaign rhetoric rejecting the creation of a Palestinian state. "This is a position of record." Frustrated by both Israel and the U.S., Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has become increasingly aggressive in efforts to secure a Palestinian state through other means, including the UN Security Council. The U.S. has veto power on the council and has repeatedly warned Abbas it would block his efforts to use that avenue. If Netanyahu holds firm to his opposition to a two-state resolution to the Mideast conflict, it could force whoever sits in the Oval Office — now and in the next administration — to choose between the prime minister and a longstanding U.S. policy with bipartisan support. Most Republican presidential hopefuls welcomed Netanyahu's victory, but they were notably silent about whether they backed Palestinian statehood. Only Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker weighed in, saying the U.S. goal "must remain a two-state solution." But we should remember that former Republican President George W. Bush made a two-state solution a cornerstone of his efforts to secure peace between Israelis and Palestinians. President Obama also has pursued Palestinian statehood, most aggressively in a months-long push for peace that ultimately collapsed last year. And Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner if she enters the 2016 campaign, worked closely with Netanyahu and championed an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu's reelection could end up being a horrifying development that might cause irreparable damage to Israel in every which way imaginable. In particular, if he scuttles once and for all any prospect of peace with the Palestinians. This most likely will cause them to seek an independent state EFTA01159495 though the UN and open up the possibility that the Obama administration will no longer provide Israel with blanket political immunity. "In the lead up to Israel's March i7th election, Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, fearful that he might lose his reelection bid, threw caution to the wind making blatant appeals to scare voters into returning him to office. He did so not caring who he alienated or what might be the consequences of his behavior. I have always argued that in the animal kingdom there is no creature more dangerous than a panicking politician and, in the last few days, Bibi was one such creature." James Zogby — Mardi 21, 2015 Parliaments in historically pro-Israel countries including France and Britain have held non-binding votes favoring recognizing Palestinian independence. Western countries have generally held back from this step, arguing that a Palestinian state must emerge from negotiations, but with Netanyahu having apparently abandoned the "two state" principle of such talks, the argument is harder to make. His victory also raises questions about what happens on Iran, with Obama determined to pursue negotiations towards a deal on Tehran's nuclear program and Netanyahu determined to scupper it, including by mobilizing domestic U.S. opinion. The Palestinians may quickly create problems for Netanyahu as they will formally become members of the International Criminal Court on April 1 and have said they will pursue war crimes charges against Israel over its 48-year occupation of the West Bank and last year's war in Gaza. If history is a guide to the future, Netanyahu will continue to expand the Jewish settlements, expropriate more Palestinian land and impose ever-harsher measures that will be needed to maintain the occupation. Then it will be only a question of time when the Palestinians rise against Israel and plunge both sides into a major conflagration that will exact blood and treasure beyond anything that we have seen thus far. In the interim, Israel will lose what is left of its legitimacy and will be treated as an apartheid state subject to international condemnation, sanctions and divestment. To be sure, the stakes for Israel have never been higher. And if Netanyahu wants his legacy as Prime Minister to be that of preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, he has succeeded. In his wake, however, he did it at an enormous cost leaving a troubled nation -- a nation filled with anxiety and fear for the future.... and need I say.... a country on the verge on apartheid. ****** America Is Becoming One Big Prison EFTA01159496  Inline image 1 As Maya Schenwar recently wrote in Salon — America is one big prison: Why mass incarceration is coming home — literally. To counter the nation's overcrowding of its jails and prisons, house arrests are on the rise, transforming communities of color across the country into open- air jail cells. Enabling this new trend is the growth of electronic moni