Portside

Where oversight and accountability have failed, Snowden's leaks have opened up a vital public debate on our rights and privacy. The relevant issue should be: what exactly is the US government doing in the people's name to "keep us safe" from terrorists?

While the TPP is in many ways like NAFTA and other existing trade agreements, it appears that the corporations have learned from previous experience. They are carefully crafting the TPP to insure that citizens of the involved countries have no control over food safety, what they will be eating, where it is grown, the conditions under which food is grown and the use of herbicides and pesticides.

Many conservatives still characterize Medicaid as “welfare,” and many think of it as such. Presumably other types of health care coverage have been “earned” (think veterans and the military, highly paid executives, union members and congressional staff). We resent our tax dollars going to “freeloaders.” Until the slicing and dicing is ended, the finger pointing, blame shifting and their attendant political wars will continue.

The Supreme Court issued a pair of 5-to-4 rulings on workers' lawsuits. Justice Ginsburg filed a dissent in both cases calling for Congress to overturn the decisions by passing new legislation.

New documents reveal the FBI has cleared its agents in every single shooting incident dating back two decades. Out of 289 shootings that were found to be deliberate, no agent was disciplined except for letters of censure in five cases. Even in a case where the bureau paid a shooting victim more than a million dollars to settle a lawsuit, the internal review did not find the agent who shot the man culpable.

If most homeowners have not hedged themselves against the possibility that home prices, like bond prices, may fall if interest rates rise, we may be in for another round of very bad news if interest rates ever return to more normal levels. It is remarkable that the latest run-up in house prices has received so little attention from people in policy positions. There may be an enormous price to pay for the continued lack of attention to housing bubbles.

One day, sometime around the middle of this century, during the lifetime of people now alive, the population of the planet will be smaller than it was the day before. Global population growth is slowing, will level off, and one remarkable day, decline.