Plan Colombia has been on the lips of many U.S. officials lately, who tout the 15-year-old plan as a model to stabilize the country and promote human rights and transparency. This week, two new reports alleged sexual exploitation by U.S. security forces in Colombia, underscoring the detrimental (and hypocritical) role of Plan Colombia and U.S. military and police presence in the region.  

A report [PDF]released Thursday by the U.S. Inspector General (IG) investigating the DEA found that DEA agents stationed in Colombia allegedly had “sex parties” with prostitutes bankrolled by drug cartels. This follows last month’s even more alarming report, commissioned to inform peace talk negotiations, that revealed sexual abuse of more than 54 young Colombian children at the hands of U.S. security forces between 2003 and 2007.

According to the IG report, Colombian police officers reportedly provided “protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties.” It also states that “the DEA, ATF, and Marshals Service repeatedly failed to report all risky or improper sexual behavior to security personnel at those agencies” and expressed concern at the DEA’s general delay and unwillingness to comply with the investigation.

While the sex party report has garnered a fair amount of media attention, the Colombian report of sexual abuse has gone largely unmentioned. (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting points out that, although the claims in have received some international attention, there has been almost no coverage of the claims in the U.S. media.) That report was commissioned by the Colombian government and the FARC in an attempt to determine responsibility for the more than 7 million victims of Colombia’s armed conflict. It reported that U.S. military personnel sexually abused 53 young girls, filmed the assaults, and sold the footage as pornographic material. In another instance, a U.S. sergeant and a security contractor reportedly drugged and raped a 12-year-old girl inside a military base. The alleged rapists, U.S. sergeant Michael J. Coen and defense contractor Cesar Ruiz, were later flown safely out of the country, while the girl and her family were forced from their home after receiving threats from “forces loyal to the suspects,” as Colombia Reports described them.

March, 2015, Dean Baker

Many media outlets cite the official unemployment rate—the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ U-3 unemployment rate—when reporting on the recovery in the jobs market. This rate stood at 5.0 percent in December 2007 (the first month of the recession) and rose to

My colleague Kevin Cashman and I recently released a new measure of unemployment called the "Jobless Rate". The "Jobless Rate" takes account of all Americans who say they want a job but are unable to find one. While the official unemployment rate for February was just 5.5 percent, the jobless rate stood at 9.3 percent.

Robert Samuelson (sorry, he's not going to take advantage of my vacation) gets it badly wrong about the economy again. He began his Monday column by telling readers:

"The Federal Reserve is at a crossroads, and it doesn’t know where it’s going."

Really? The Fed doesn't know where it's going? How about Robert Samuelson doesn't know where it's going? 

It gets worse:

"There was a time when we were more confident. We didn’t pay attention to details, because the experts had matters in hand. During the Alan Greenspan era (1987-2006), the Fed was routinely seen as an economic superman. Its surgical shifts in the federal funds rate seemed to stabilize the economy: Expansions were long, recessions rare and mild."

Umm, no. "We" did pay attention to details. We yelled as loudly as we possibly could that there was a huge housing bubble that would sink the economy when it burst. Of course papers like the Washington Post did not pay attention to us because it did not fit their story that the Fed was an economic superman. Such nonsense was the conventional wisdom at the time and the paper did not want to give those who challenged the claim a voice. Now, it wants to pretend that people who understood the basic economics of the housing bubble, and the stock bubble before it, did not exist. 

And Samuelson gives us more error:

Many media outlets cite the official unemployment rate—the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ U-3 unemployment rate—when reporting on the recovery in the jobs market. This rate stood at 5.0 percent in December 2007 (the first month of the recession) and rose to

I have sometimes noted that in the current “four legs good, two legs bad” discourse about Venezuela, journalists can write almost anything about the country and no one will question it – so long as it is something negative.  On Saturday, March 13, the Wal

Eileen AppelbaumThe Huffington Post, March 19, 2015

Mark Weisbrot
US News & World Report, 18 de marzo

Alexander MainThe Hill, March 19, 2015

In 2012, the AFL-CIO and 26 Honduran unions and civil society organizations handed a 78-page submission to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) claiming that the Government of Honduras violated its commitments under the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) Labor Chapter. In response to these claims, DOL published a report that “found evidence of labor law violations in nearly all the cases.” The DOL provided a series of recommendations to address the concerns raised and called for the implementation of a monitoring and action plan.

Although the report included a number of problems that ended up demonstrating labor rights violations in Honduras, some issues were addressed in a way that make the case’s future seem uncertain.

The report was published almost three years after the submission was handed in (March 26, 2012). This is not the first instance in which the DOL has been slow to respond to claims of CAFTA-DR labor violations. In April 2008, the DOL received a submission from the AFL-CIO and six Guatemalan workers’ organizations alleging that the Guatemalan government had violated its obligations under the CAFTA-DR to effectively enforce its labor laws. After reviewing the submission, DOL issued a report in January 2009 finding significant weaknesses in Guatemala's labor law enforcement and making specific recommendations for improvement. It also stated that the Office of Trade and Labor Affairs (OTLA) “will reassess the situation within the next six months following publication of this report and determine whether further action is warranted.” However, instead of six months, six years have passed and OTLA has still not announced what it will do. In the case of the new Honduran report, the OTLA assures that within 12 months it will assess whether there has been progress in resolving the labor violations, but is there any chance that this timeline will be respected?

Ever wonder where you can get access to the data we use for our papers? Look no further than ceprDATA.org, a website where we provide consistent, (relatively!) user-friendly versions of the Current Population Survey (CPS), American Community Survey (ACS),

Alexander MainThe Hill, March 19, 2015

Mark WeisbrotUS News & World Report, March 18, 2015

At a lively press conference yesterday on Capitol Hill, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), one of the largest caucuses in Congress, released The People's Budget: A Raise for America. The topline numbers are impressive: 8.4 million good-paying jobs by 2018 as well as $820 billion in infrastructure and transportation improvements and $4.6 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years.

The EPI Policy Center has analyzed the People's Budget closely and finds that it would, among many outcomes, accelerate the economic recovery, promote full employment, strengthen social insurance, smartly cut spending, fairly tax the wealthy and corporations, and reduce the debt ratio to a sustainable 66 percent of GDP by 2025.