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Incarceration Nation

Posted on May 25, 2013 in Articles

prison Incarceration Nation

The Article: by Fareed Zakaria in CNN Online.

The Text: “Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today,” writes the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America – more than 6 million – than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”

Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts. The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That’s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and Britain – with a rate among the highest – has 153….

This Isn’t Obama’s Malaise, It’s GOP Intransigence

Posted on May 24, 2013 in Articles

barack obama This Isn’t Obama’s Malaise, It’s GOP Intransigence

The Article: This Isn’t Obama’s Malaise, It’s GOP Intransigence by Robert Shrum in The Daily Beast.

The Text: There is a malaise in Washington that’s spreading across the country. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, “Americans [do] not give Mr. Obama high marks for his handling of issues”—even though they largely, at times overwhelmingly, agree with his positions on background checks for gun sales and a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to rein in the federal deficit.

The disconnect is sharp; the frustration, the sense of ennui palpable from Capitol Hill to California. You could fairly call it the Obama malaise, but it’s not his fault. It’s his very existence, his presence in the Oval Office, that fuels a nihilistic opposition, driving obstruction and seeding an increasingly disillusioned national mood.

That mood is distinctly different from the malaise that prompted Jimmy Carter to his self-pitying crisis-of-confidence speech in the summer of 1979. The crisis he identified then was not merely doubt about national leadership, but something “deeper, deeper”—a “loss of faith” on the part of the American people. He seemed to be saying that they had let the country, and him, down. He urged his fellow citizens “to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying”—to stop whining and to “say something good” about America.

At Guantanamo, US Government Spends 900 Grand A Prisoner

Posted on May 23, 2013 in Articles

guantanamo bay At Guantanamo, US Government Spends 900 Grand A Prisoner

The Article: Guantanamo camp burns through $900,000 a year per inmate in Reuters.

The Text: It’s been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 per prisoner annually.

The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate the prison and military court system at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, which was set up 11 years ago to house foreign terrorism suspects. With 166 inmates currently in custody, that amounts to an annual cost of $903,614 per prisoner.

By comparison, super-maximum security prisons in the United States spend about $60,000 to $70,000 at most to house their inmates, analysts say. And the average cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000, they say.

The Fruits Of The Rich’s Speedy Recovery

Posted on May 22, 2013 in Articles

rich gain poor loss The Fruits Of The Richs Speedy Recovery

The Article: The Rich Have Gained $5.6 Trillion in the ‘Recovery,’ While the Rest of Us Have Lost $669 Billion by Les Leopold in AlterNet.

The Text: Oh, are we getting ripped off. And now we’ve got the data to prove it. From 2009 to 2011, the richest 8 million families (the top 7%) on average saw their wealth rise from $1.7 million to $2.5 million each. Meanwhile the rest of us — the bottom 93% (that’s 111 million families) — suffered on average a decline of $6,000 each.

Do the math and you’ll discover that the top 7% gained a whopping $5.6 trillion in net worth (assets minus liabilities) while the rest of lost $669 billion. Their wealth went up by 28% while ours went down by 4 percent.

It’s as if the entire economic recovery is going into the pockets of the rich. And that’s no accident. Here’s why.

1. The bailouts went to Wall Street, not to Main Street.

The 11 Most Heartless GOP Amendments To The Immigration Bill

Posted on May 21, 2013 in Articles

immigration reform The 11 Most Heartless GOP Amendments To The Immigration Bill

The Article: The 11 Most Heartless Republican Amendments To The Immigration Bill by Esther Yu-Hsi Lee in ThinkProgress.

The Text: On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin marking up the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that will allow America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants to earn a path to citizenship over 13 years.

Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has promised an open amendment process, leading senators from both parties to offer more than 300 changes to the underlying legislation. Republicans introduced almost two-thirds of the changes, including a series of draconian provisions preventing the undocumented population from ever earning citizenship and or receiving any government assistance. Here are 11 of the most heartless GOP amendments:

1. Undocumented immigrants can never become citizens. “No person who is or has previously been willfully present in the United States will [sic] not in lawful status…shall be eligible for United States citizenship.” Offered by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

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