Monday, January 04, 2016

The Most Undercovered Stories of 2015

"Around this time every year, BillMoyers.com asks reporters, editors and bloggers which key story they feel the mainstream media failed to cover adequately over the last 12 months. "

Here are some that interested me:

  • The social safety net reduced poverty by nearly half. "Census data released this year showed that in 2014 the safety net lifted 38 million people out of poverty. Without the safety net, our poverty rate would have been 27 percent instead of 15 percent. In 2012, the safety net literally cut poverty in half. That’s not losing: The War on Poverty has brought us halfway to where we want to be."
  • Federal regulators won’t enforce campaign finance regulations. "Since 2009, the agencies tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws — notably those governing what super PACs and “social welfare” organizations can and cannot do to advance their political agendas — have, to varying degrees, been severely constrained from doing their jobs. Campaign finance watchdogs say they’re frustrated by their inability to get the FEC and the IRS to act on even airtight cases alleging campaign finance violations."
  • Wall Street is putting trillions of America’s retirement savings into risky, secretive “alternative investments”
  • The first presidential election in 50 years without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act

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