Archive for March, 2009
Quest to legalise polygamy in Utah
Quest to legalise polygamy in Utah
Some 40,000 people in the US state of Utah live in illegal polygamous families in which a man takes more than one wife. These fundamentalist Mormons have now begun a campaign for a change in the law they regard as discriminatory and unfair. Humphrey Hawksley met some of the families involved.
“All right everyone, listen up,” shouted Kody Brown, brushing his shoulder-length hair clear of his face.
He put both hands out in front of him, pointing towards 12 children aged between four and 14 gathered around a square table in the middle of a huge kitchen. Six were on one end. One all alone in the middle and five with their mother stood at the other end.
“Those belonging to Janelle identify yourselves,” instructed Kody who is 41. Six pairs of hands shot up with screams of “wahoo”.
“And the child belonging to Meri,” said Kody. Thirteen-year-old Mariah raised her hand.
“Now Christine’s kids,” said Kody.
via BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Quest to legalise polygamy in Utah.
Dalai Lama’s 2010 South Africa conference ban causes uproar
Dalai Lama’s South Africa conference ban causes uproar
Nobel winners Desmond Tutu and FW de Clerk to boycott anti-racism conference in World Cup run-up after Chinese pressure forces ban on Tibetan spiritual leader
Two of South Africa‘s Nobel peace prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and FW de Klerk, have pulled out of a Johannesburg conference to fight racism after what they branded as Pretoria’s “disgraceful” decision to ban the Dalai Lama from attending following Chinese pressure.
The Nobel peace prize committee also said it would boycott this Friday’s conference, which is dedicated to tackling racism ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
via Dalai Lama’s 2010 South Africa conference ban causes uproar | World news | guardian.co.uk.
UPDATE 1-Top pension funds aim to lead Bank of America suit
UPDATE 1-Top pension funds aim to lead Bank of America suit
* Top U.S. pension funds aims join Bank of America suit
* Say they hope to be lead plaintiffs in class-action suit
LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO, March 23 (Reuters) – The first and third largest U.S. pension funds plan to lead a class-action suit against Bank of America (BAC.N), accusing the lender of mis-stating or omitting crucial information about the financial health of acquired investment bank Merrill Lynch.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) said on Monday they were trying to protect the retirement security of their over 2 million members.
On Monday, they filed a joint motion to the District Court of the Southern District of New York to be designated lead plaintiff in class actions against Bank of America stemming from its merger with Merrill Lynch.
via UPDATE 1-Top pension funds aim to lead Bank of America suit | Reuters.
Strip-Search Case Tests How Far Schools Can Go
Strip-Search of Girl Tests Limit of School Policy
SAFFORD, Ariz. — Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on — black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt — the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.
An assistant principal, enforcing the school’s antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.
The search by two female school employees was methodical and humiliating, Ms. Redding said. After she had stripped to her underwear, “they asked me to pull out my bra and move it from side to side,” she said. “They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.”
Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.
via Strip-Search Case Tests How Far Schools Can Go – NYTimes.com.
Geithner to Ask Congress for Broad Power to Seize Firms
Geithner to Ask Congress for Broad Power to Seize Firms
Goal Is to Limit Risk to Broader Economy
The Obama administration will ask Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said this morning.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill that was scheduled to address the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials say the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.
The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.
via Geithner to Ask Congress for Broad Power to Seize Firms – washingtonpost.com.
Workers feel the brunt of health insurance woes
Workers feel the brunt of health insurance woes
WASHINGTON – American workers — whose taxes pay for massive government health programs — are getting squeezed like no other group by private health insurance premiums that are rising much faster than their wages.
While just about all retirees are covered, and nearly 90 percent of children have health insurance, workers now are at significantly higher risk of being uninsured than in the 1990s, the last time lawmakers attempted a health care overhaul, according to a study to be released Tuesday.
The study for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that nearly 1 in 5 workers is uninsured, a statistically significant increase from fewer than 1 in 7 during the mid-1990s.
The problem is cost. Total premiums for employer plans have risen six to eight times faster than wages, depending on whether individual or family coverage is picked, the study found.
“The thing I think is interesting is how many workers are newly uninsured,” said Lynn Blewett, director of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota, which conducted the research. “In the last couple of years we’ve seen a deterioration of private health insurance.”
via Workers feel the brunt of health insurance woes.
The Origins of John F. Kennedy’s Struggle against the CIA
OPS: This is a blog posting. This blogger has a solid reputation over many hundreds of postings.
The Origins of John F. Kennedy’s Struggle against the CIA
A couple months ago I wrote a DU post titled “The GAME”, which I began by noting the many unmentionable things in U.S. politics, and I concluded that the purpose of the censoring of so many important issues is the creation of an alternate reality among a critical mass of the American people. The belief in that alternate reality is necessary in order to convince the American people to continue to play the GAME that has been laid out for them by the GAME’s masters. For the actual reality of the GAME’s methods and purposes, I believe, is so terrible that if people consciously recognized it they would refuse to play, and the GAME would have to be radically altered or come to an end – peaceful or otherwise. The ultimate purpose of the GAME’s masters is to arrange the world to their advantage or according to the way that they believe things should be. In pursuit of their goals we have wars, overthrow of sovereign governments, and obscene wealth accumulation into the hands of the GAME’s masters and prime players.
Another way of saying this is that there is a group of people that some of us sometimes refer to as “The powers that be”, who exert a lot more control over our country, our planet, and our lives than we imagine is possible in a so-called democracy. The comedian Bill Hicks once memorably captured the thrust of that idea:
Some excellent books that touch on the subject include: “The Shock Doctrine – the Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, by Naomi Klein; “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man – How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries out of Trillions” and “The Secret History of the American Empire”, by John Perkins; “The Bush Agenda – Invading the World, One Economy at a Time”, by Antonia Juhasz; “Moyers on Democracy”, by Bill Moyers; “Blowback”, “The Sorrows of Empire”, and “Nemesis – The Last Days of the American Republic”, by Chalmers Johnson; and, “Who Will Tell the People – The Betrayal of American Democracy”, by William Greider. President Eisenhower’s farewell address, warning us about the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), is also relevant.
Also highly relevant to this discussion is a book that I read many years ago, by two former CIA agents, who required a prolonged legal battle with the CIA in order to get their book published. I don’t recall the name of the book, the authors, or many of the details. The main point that stuck with me was the authors’ claim that the CIA had developed such autonomy that U.S. presidents could not control what it does. Since then, I’ve often wondered how that could be. It is related to the issue of the relationship of our Presidents and other elected officials to the GAME. I’ve often thought about this with regard to our new President. How much of his tilt to the right on some issues is forced by the powers that be? How much of his agenda is his own? What exactly is he up against?
via The Origins of John F. Kennedy’s Struggle against the CIA – Democratic Underground.
This Is What the Class War Looks Like
This Is What the Class War Looks Like - by: David Sirota
I was on Fox News this morning talking about efforts to re-regulate Wall Street and reign in executive pay (I’ll post the clip later). I made a simple point that America is now more economically unequal than it was just before the Great Depression. I subsequently received a wave of very angry hate mail (as I always do when I am on Fox), and this one stuck out to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the class war crystallized so well:
I think I am in the majority of Americans who are sick and tired of the unproductive living off of the government. They have become satisfied with a meager existence because it requires no effort on their part…The recent “tax cuts” for Americans is a farce. Taking money from the productive and giving it to the non productive creates an even larger segment of do nothing folks. I own 6 four family units and one 12 unit building in Cincinnati, Ohio…When the so called tax cuts were announced, I immediately raised the rents on all units to be a few dollars more than the “cuts”. I raised the rents, not because I needed or wanted more money but as an act of rebellion and anger at what is happening in this country.
The emailer is referring to the more progressive tax cuts that President Obama put into the stimulus bill – tax cuts I didn’t support (because data showed spending would be a better economic boost) but that are decidedly progressive in focus.
As we can see, after 30 years of right-wing propaganda, the class war has come out into the open – a brutal class war by those at the top, waged against the Rest of Us. In this email, we literally have a landlord bragging about taking his anger out on renters, because the renters had the nerve to get a meager tax cut.
via Open Left:: This Is What the Class War Looks Like.
Nobel Laureate Krugman Slams Geithner Bailout Plan
Nobel Laureate Krugman Slams Geithner Bailout Plan
WASHINGTON – Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman said in remarks published on Monday that the latest U.S. Treasury bailout program is nearly certain to fail, triggering a sense of personal despair.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday unveiled a plan aimed at persuading private investors to help rid banks up to $1 trillion in toxic assets that that are seen as a roadblock to economic recovery.
“This is more than disappointing,” Krugman wrote in The New York Times. “”In fact it fills me with a sense of despair.”
“The Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt,” the Princeton University economist said, citing weekend reports outlining the plan.
“This isn’t really about letting markets work. It’s just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets,” he added.
Krugman called it a recycled idea of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who later abandoned the “cash for trash” proposal.
via Nobel Laureate Krugman Slams Geithner Bailout Plan | CommonDreams.org.
Mr. Cheney, What About This ‘Executive Assassination Squad’?
Mr. Cheney, What About This ‘Executive Assassination Squad’? -by John Nichols
Dick Cheney is not going to fade away.
George Bush may have retreated to Texas to clear brush and ponder how things went so horribly wrong. But Cheney, who failed out of the university from which Bush graduated, has never been so reflective as the former president.
Bush may actually be embarrassed, or scared, about the mess that was made of international affairs, the economy and our system of constitutional governance during his eight years in the White House.
Cheney isn’t.
There will be no apologies from the former vice president.
via Mr. Cheney, What About This ‘Executive Assassination Squad’? | CommonDreams.org.
The Geithner Plan: Billions More for Failed Banks
The Geithner Plan: Billions More for Failed Banks - by Dean Baker
The last-ditch effort to save Wall Street will hurt taxpayers and still require another big bailout down the line
Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner’s latest bank bailout plan is another Rube Goldberg contraption intended to funnel taxpayer dollars to bankrupt banks, without being overly transparent about the process. The main mechanism is a government guarantee that would allow investors to buy junk with a 12-to-1 leverage ratio, where they only risk the downside on their own investment, not the borrowed money.
Ostensibly, this is supposed to reveal the “true” price for junk assets, as investors compete at auctions to buy assets under the new rules. But this story doesn’t pass the laugh test. All we will really learn is what price investors are willing to pay for these junk assets when they are given a large subsidy from the government to buy them. In reality, this plan is a way to use taxpayer dollars to get investors to pay far more than these assets are worth in order to give more money to bankrupt banks.
The results will be mixed. Some of the assets undoubtedly have some value. There are, no doubt, shrewd investors who have identified certain assets that they would have been willing to buy from the banks, but instead put off purchasing while they waited for a deal like this. Now these investors will have the opportunity to buy these assets with large subsidies from the government, allowing them to make substantial profits. (It’s not clear if President Obama will want to invite this new group of hedge fund billionaires, who got rich off this government programme, for photo ops in the White House Rose Garden.)
via The Geithner Plan: Billions More for Failed Banks | CommonDreams.org.
Leaders Still Pushing Failed “Free Trade”
OPS: “free Trade” was, and is a fraud. Bush taught us one good lesson: The US can walk away from ANY treaty or agreement. WE MUST walk away from the WTO, ASAP
Leaders Still Pushing Failed “Free Trade” - Dustin Ensinger
The WTO takes no actions to reverse unfair policies that put U.S. manufacturers on an uneven playing field.
The very same people that pushed the disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization on the American people are now urging leaders of the G-20 nations to complete the failed Doha Round of global trade talks and avoid protectionist measures.
Leaders of multinational corporations and business lobbyists from G-20 nations were in Britain ahead of an April economic summit in London where world leaders will attempt to develop a coordinated response to tackle the worldwide recession.
“We feel the Doha Round would be a terrific, visible step and it’s worth a lot of money,” Confederation of British Industry (CBI) President Martin Broughton told Reuters.
According to his estimation, the completion of the Doha Round would be a boon for economies around the world, estimating its completion would generate $170 billion annually.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Selling Off America
Selling Off America - Dustin Ensinger, with video by Craig Harrington
Protectionism is utilized effectively by virtually all of America’s trading partners, yet anytime any measure thought to restrict trade in America is considered, foreign governments cry foul.
America is up for sale. From July 1978 to July 2008, America sold 16,613 of its best companies to foreign investors, allowing the profits and technological secrets in such industries to benefit to foreign owners. Moreover many of the key jobs (in research and development, for instance) go to foreign workers, while the profits that accrue to foreign holding companies boost the tax revenues of foreign governments.
America’s trading partners on the other hand, do all they can to protect their key industries and businesses through whatever means necessary.
Perhaps the best example of this is the tiny island nation of Japan. Japan is just a fraction of the size of the U.S. in terms of land mass and possesses virtually no resources essential to manufacturing, yet Japan has one of the most robust economies in the world and could one day knock the U.S. off as the world’s largest economy. Japan has been able to achieve this amazing feat by utilizing tools, creating policies and imposing strict standards that have allowed it to protect its citizens, their jobs and the nation’s industries and individual companies.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The High Cost of Neglecting Manufacturing
The High Cost of Neglecting Manufacturing
Today, American owned corporations manufacture less and less each year and import more. This difference between the amount we import and export has created a huge balance of trade deficit.
Editor’s Note This article was originally written in 2004. We tried to inform the country five years ago that our direction and priorities were not on the right track. Our erroneous ways continued unchanged, which have caused our present plight.
The United States is considered to be a rich country. We have accumulated much abundance through most of the twentieth century, as we were a very productive country whose wealth derived to a great extent from manufacturing. Our companies invented and produced many of the things we needed plus much of what the rest of the world needed.
Today, American owned corporations manufacture less and less each year and import more each year. This difference between the amount we import and export has created a huge balance of trade deficit. This has caused us to lose over 1 million high paying manufacturing jobs this year alone.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Cold fusion debate heats up again
Cold fusion debate heats up again
Pons’ and Fleischmann’s announcement was made on 23 March 1989
The long-standing debate about cold fusion is receiving new impetus at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in the US this week.
Cold fusion, first announced 20 years ago on Monday, was claimed to be a boundless source of clean energy by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.
Attempts to replicate their experiments failed, but a number of researchers insist that cold fusion is possible.
The meeting will see several approaches that claim to produce fusion power.
The American Chemical Society has organised sessions surrounding the research at its meetings before, suggesting that the field would otherwise have no suitable forum for debate.
via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Cold fusion debate heats up again.
Michelle Bachmann: The Obama Administration is “Foreign,” “Nefarious,” “The Enemy”
OPS: Proving once again that Republicans are anti-American and fighting to kill democracy.
Michelle Bachmann: The Obama Administration is “Foreign,” “Nefarious,” “The Enemy”
I’m starting to believe Michelle Bachmann isn’t actually a real politician at all, but instead, an unusually gifted performance artist who’s engaged in a brilliant post-modern parody of an insane wingnut.
Over the weekend, she gave a radio interview to Assrocket, and here’s how she describes her blogging and social media outreach as a member of Congress.
“I’m a foreign correspondent on enemy lines and I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.”
This is beyond unhinged. It sounds like a press release from Stormfront.
Let’s imagine for a moment the Faux News/National Review/InstaMalkin/RedState freak out if, say, Debbie Wasserman Schultz gave a radio interview with Kos in 2005 and referred to the Bush administration and the GOP congress as an evil, foreign enemy.
via Firedoglake » Michelle Bachmann: The Obama Administration is “Foreign,” “Nefarious,” “The Enemy”.
Nearly 1 in 5 workers has no health insurance
Nearly 1 in 5 workers has no health insurance
Payroll taxes support Medicare, low-income kids, but adults get overlooked
WASHINGTON – American workers — whose taxes pay for massive government health programs — are getting squeezed like no other group by private health insurance premiums that are rising much faster than their wages.
While just about all retirees are covered, and nearly 90 percent of children have health insurance, workers now are at significantly higher risk of being uninsured than in the 1990s, the last time lawmakers attempted a health care overhaul, according to a study to be released Tuesday.
The study for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that nearly 1 in 5 workers is uninsured, a statistically significant increase from fewer than 1 in 7 during the mid-1990s.
via Nearly 1 in 5 workers has no health insurance – Health care- msnbc.com.
Uprising on Main Street
Uprising on Main Street - By Gary Kamiya
Today’s populist rage could regenerate America — if Obama handles it right.
The peasants are storming the Bastille. The AIG bonuses were a “let them eat cake” moment, and the Ancien Régime is trembling in its gated mansions. The American people are erupting in rage and the racket is so loud that Washington can’t tune them out. You know politicians are hearing it from their constituencies when senators start hinting that disgraced businessmen may want to consider emulating their Japanese counterparts and commit suicide. Even Republicans, who normally react to any criticism of profit as if they had been given a lifetime subscription to Pravda, have been forced to climb aboard the Outrage Express: 85 GOP congressmen voted for the House bill imposing a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid by any company that receives federal bailout money.
In these parlous times, any entertainment is welcome. It provides a dollop of solace to watch the party of Crony Capitalism flailing as its Joe Six-Pack base turns on the Masters of the Universe whom they are supposed to emulate. The right’s brain trust is yelling that the tax is a bill of attainder that will scare off “the investor class,” but GOP politicians, facing pitchfork-waving mobs who want to string up that “investor class,” have stopped following orders. The pearl of Alfred E. Neumann wisdom from the right, priceless in its political tone-deafness, is the repeated assertion that bonuses must be paid to retain “the best and brightest” executives. The best and brightest? Would that be the frauds and mountebanks who made gazillions of dollars on three-card-monte credit default swaps that destroyed the U.S. economy? For Americans who are warming themselves by burning their worthless 401Ks, like the starving artists at the beginning of Puccini’s “La Boheme,” the idea of rewarding these geniuses is like giving a raise to the navigator on the Titanic.
via AIG bonuses | Salon.
France to compensate nuclear test victims
France to compensate nuclear test victims
PARIS — The French government offered for the first time Tuesday to compensate people who suffered health problems as a result of nuclear tests in Algeria and the South Pacific decades ago.
“It’s time for our country to be at peace with itself, at peace thanks to a system of compensation and reparations,” French Defense Minister Herve Morin said in presenting a draft law on the payouts.
The government will set aside some euro10 million ($13.5 million) for the compensation, he said.
Some 150,000 people, including civilian and military personnel, were on site for the 210 tests that France carried out in the Sahara Desert and in the South Pacific from 1960-1996, he said.
via France to compensate nuclear test victims – Salon.com.
Why are the Arsonists Who Started the Wall Street Fire Being Paid Premium Dollars to “Put it Out”?
Tim Geithner, Barack Obama: Why are the Arsonists Who Started the Wall Street Fire Being Paid Premium Dollars to “Put it Out”?
THE BUZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG – By Mark Karlin
The populist and “Krugman” progressive wing revolt against the Obama’s coddling of Wall Street firms and individuals that broke the back of the American economy is simple: Why are the very people who crashed the economy to the tune of a couple trillion dollars or more being championed as the only people who can fix it?
This belies common sense, and the uproar on America’s Main Street represents not so much a pitchfork rebellion as the eruption of just plain, straightforward common sense.
President Obama and others have asked that we act responsibly and reward those who work hard and achieve success. But that rule appears to have been turned on its head as far as the oligarchy on Wall Street.
What the White House doesn’t appear to understand is that you can’t have one standard for 99% of America — sacrifice, work hard, do your job right — and another for the “Masters of the Universe” who run our financial system — be greedy, screw up, and receive millions of dollars from the taxpayer.
Corrupt cops lead NY mayor to consider ‘martial law’
OPS: Well, any excuse will do…. even if you have to generate one by way of a false flag operation.
Corrupt cops lead NY mayor to consider ‘martial law’ – Stephen C. Webster
A New York town’s decades-long struggle with police corruption has its mayor considering potential measures most would consider drastic: disbanding the entire department and declaring “martial law.”
“It may be that as a stopgap measure, that you would need military forces – State Police, National Guard,” said Brian Stratton [pictured on right], mayor of Schenectady, New York.
“The governor would have to declare it and then the National Guard would come in,” reported Capital News 9. “The mayor said it’s more for a transition to a new police force if that were to happen.”
Controversy over Schenectady’s officers is nothing new.
“My father who served in this office from 1956 to 1958 was battling police corruption,” said Stratton in a separate report by Capital News 9.
“Years later, the battle continues as at least five Schenectady police officers face possible termination,” reported the station.
via The Raw Story | Corrupt cops lead NY mayor to consider ‘martial law’.
O’Reilly Attacks Me As A ‘Villain’ For Highlighting His Rape Comments
O’Reilly Attacks Me As A ‘Villain’ For Highlighting His Rape Comments
As promised, tonight, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly aired his segment alleging that ThinkProgress caused “pain and suffering” to rape victims. Our unspeakable offense was contained in a March 1 blog post, which reported that O’Reilly had been invited to speak at a fundraising dinner for the Alexa Foundation, which supports rape survivors.
Our post highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2, 2006, about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered:
Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.
via Think Progress » O’Reilly Attacks Me As A ‘Villain’ For Highlighting His Rape Comments.
Stop Subsidizing Mexican Drug Gangs
Stop Subsidizing Mexican Drug Gangs – By Bruce Mirken
The horrifying drug-war violence south of our border with Mexico continues to worsen, and we’re the ones subsidizing it.
The horrifying drug-war violence south of our border with Mexico continues to worsen: beheadings, killings that now number several thousand at least, honest officials in fear for their lives. It’s time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these murderous drug gangs.
According to U.S. and Mexican officials, some 60 percent of the profits that fuel these thugs come from just one drug, marijuana. While much is smuggled over the border, an increasing amount is produced in the U.S. by foreign gangs operating on American soil — often in remote corners of national parks and wilderness areas.
Every year, we read more headlines about clandestine marijuana farms being uncovered on these precious, environmentally sensitive public lands. These rogue farms not only pose a threat to hikers and the environment, they cost taxpayers more than a billion dollars each year in eradication and clean-up efforts.
This appalling situation, which now carries a real risk of destabilizing Mexico, is not just happenstance. It is the direct result of U.S. policies.
via Stop Subsidizing Mexican Drug Gangs | DrugReporter | AlterNet.
The Taliban and Opium Industry Are Getting U.S. Billions — Not So Much for the Rest of Afghanistan
The Taliban and Opium Industry Are Getting U.S. Billions — Not So Much for the Rest of Afghanistan – By Pratap Chatterjee,
Parts of Afghanistan that have neither violent Taliban resistance nor much opium trade are virtually ignored by the U.S.
Want a billion dollars in development aid? If you happen to live in Afghanistan, the two quickest ways to attract attention and so aid from the U.S. authorities are: Taliban attacks or a flourishing opium trade. For those with neither, the future could be bleak.
In November 2008, during the U.S. presidential elections, I traveled around Afghanistan asking people what they wanted from the United States. From Mazar in the north to Bamiyan in central Afghanistan to the capital city of Kabul, I came away with three very different pictures of the country.
Gaza war crimes investigation
Guardian investigation uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza
Palestinians claim children were used as human shields and hospitals targeted during 23-day conflict
The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals.
A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target.
The testimonies form the basis of three Guardian films which add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas but left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including more than 300 children.
Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel
Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel
It was described as a “phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions”, a “masonic plot” and a “pot pourri of lies”. Now a nervous Vatican is braced for the sequel to The Da Vinci Code and the return of its nemesis, Dan Brown.
Angels & Demonsis the latest Brown thriller to be turned into a film, and already the Catholic Church is agonising over how best to respond: to urge the faithful to boycott the film, or to ignore it? The Vatican and the Italian Catholic Church condemned The Da Vinci Codein its book and film version, but some church officials argued that the campaign against it merely boosted the public’s curiosity by giving it the “oxygen of publicity”.
The plot ofAngels & Demonshas all the ingredients to worry the cardinals: a sinister elite known as the Illuminati wants to destroy the Vatican using an antimatter bomb made with material stolen from the physics experiment at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.
via Vatican plots battle with Dan Brown over Da Vinci Code sequel -Times Online.
Head of China’s Central Bank Proposes New World Currency
Head of China’s Central Bank Proposes New World Currency
There have been rumors and announcements from China about a new reserve currency.
And the IMF has said that it is considering printing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of its own currency.
Today, the two stories came together in a dramatic development. Specifically, the head of China’s central bank proposed making the IMF’s currency the world’s reserve currency, to replace the dollar.
Is this the start of a huge change, or just more posturing ahead of the G-20 summit next month?
Given that a U.N. panel will recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, the attack on the dollar from Geithner and Bernanke’s various actions, and the fact that IMF is independently talking about printing large quantities of its own currency, the possibility that this is real cannot be totally dismissed.
Healthcare Foxes are Building the Taxpayer Funded Hen House
Healthcare Foxes are Building the Taxpayer Funded Hen House – by Donna Smith
If we want to know who is truly at the helm of our national healthcare reform effort, all we need to do is keep watching who is asked to provide official testimony and guidance to Congress and who is left out completely. Those decisions are made at the highest levels in our government and the choices are purposeful and meant to elicit just the information that will bolster a predetermined outcome.
Last week I wrote about Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health insurance Plans (the industry trade group known as AHIP) who was called on and recognized by President Barack Obama during his White House Summit on Healthcare Reform in late February and who was also the only “stakeholder” seated in the front of the room later for a briefing by the staff of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (the committee chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy). Clearly, Ignagni has been afforded a sort of access and status in this debate and in the reform effort that many others have not.
The fox isn’t just in the hen house. The fox is building it.
I’ve got to hand it to Congress right now. Most members of Congress are making sure they remember “on which side of the toast you find the butter” in terms of making the for-profit health insurance industry comfortable in their deeply entrenched roles not only in our broken healthcare system but also in the deep-pocket funding of many Congressional campaigns. The insurance industry’s influence is purchased with millions and millions in campaign contributions and with the preventable deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens every year. That is fact.
via Healthcare Foxes are Building the Taxpayer Funded Hen House | CommonDreams.org.
Obama Sides With RIAA, Supports $150,000 Fine per Music Track
Obama Sides With RIAA, Supports $150,000 Fine per Music Track – By David Kravets
The Obama administration for the first time is weighing in on a Recording Industry Association of America file sharing lawsuit and is supporting hefty awards of as much as $150,000 per purloined music track.
The government said the damages range of $750 to $150,000 per violation of the Copyright Act was warranted.
“The remedy of statutory damages for copyright infringement has been the cornerstone of our federal copyright law since 1790, and Congress acted reasonably in crafting the current incarnation of the statutory damages provision,” Michelle Bennett, a Department of Justice trial attorney wrote (.pdf) Sunday to a Massachusetts federal judge weighing challenge to the Copyright Act.
The position — that the Copyright Act’s monetary damages are not unconstitutionally excessive — mirrors the one taken by the Bush administration and should come as no surprise.
Two top lawyers in President Barack Obama’s Justice Department are former RIAA lawyers: Donald Verrilli Jr. is the associate deputy attorney general who brought down Grokster and fought to prevent a retrial in the Jammie Thomas case. Then there’s the No. 2 in the DOJ, Tom Perrilli. As Verrilli’s former boss, Perrilli argued in 2002 that internet service providers should release customer information to the RIAA even without a court subpoena.
via Obama Sides With RIAA, Supports $150,000 Fine per Music Track | Threat Level from Wired.com.
Why is Obama writing to Jacques Chirac?
OPS: If they can’t find a point to twist they’ll just make sh!t up. And then all the ObamaHaters chime in on the chorus.
Foreign Policy: why is Obama writing to Jacques Chirac?
It is amazing what people will do to discredit newly elected President Obama.
The following headline caught my attention: ‘Obama Snubs French President; Seeks to Work With Predecessor’. This was written today, by Mark Ipomeni of AOL News.
If one were to reflect on the headline, one would assume that President Obama picked up his pen and said to himself: ‘I think I’m going to write to Jacques Chirac, just so I can annoy and undermine President Sarkozy’. So, you’d hope that by reading further into the article, there would be some clarification.
But there isn’t. And that is either poor reporting or just character assassination on the part of the reporter.
I had a look at several sources in the French Press, and yes, President Obama did write a letter to Chirac. That letter was IN RESPONSE to one that he received from the former French president around mid-March.
via NY Foreign Policy Examiner: Foreign Policy: why is Obama writing to Jacques Chirac?.
THE TAKEOVER OF AMERICA / REPUBLIC BECOMES OLIGARCHY
THE TAKEOVER OF AMERICA / REPUBLIC BECOMES OLIGARCHY
America has become an oligarchy ( a government ruled by a powerful few ) versus a Republic ( a government limited by law ) as the banking and Wall Street Masters of the Universe continue their tyranny and class economic rape while the public ignites in furor: Allen L Roland
On February 25th, 2009 I wrote that President Obama has become a cheerleader for the banking elite’s culture of excess ~ http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/02/25.html and I now add that Timothy Geithner continuing as head of Treasury is the equivalent of the Fox guarding the henhouse.
The total tally of government funds committed to date to bailout is closing in on $13 trillion ~ remember, a trillion is a million million or a thousand billion and that cannot be sustained without severe consequences to the economy.
Paul Krugman pessimistically writes today that ” Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing. By the time Mr. Obama realizes that he needs to change course, his political capital may be gone.” http://www.ourfuture.org/progressive-opinion/2009031323/financial-policy-despair
While the political class and banking elite give Geithner good reviews ~ only 11% of the Public feel he is doing a good or excellent job according to Rasmussen poll reports:
via Allen L Roland’s Radio Weblog.
How big a deal is the loss of the dollar’s reserve status?
How big a deal is the loss of the dollar’s reserve status? -by Eric deCarbonnel for Market Skeptics
In the last week we have learned that:
1) Fed is planning 15-fold increase in us monetary base
2) U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar
3) Zimbabwe has ditched the US dollar in favor of the rand
4) China and Russia rethinking the dollar’s status as world’s reserve currency
With the US monetary base expanding at a breathtaking pace and nations around the world worrying about the value of their US holdings, the dollar looks virtually guaranteed to lose its status as the international reserve currency. This begs the question: how big a deal is the loss of the dollar’s reserve status?
To answer this question, lets first calculate just how large are the dollar holdings of foreign governments. From the CIA’s world Factbook, below is a ranking of countries by reserves of foreign exchange.
(amounts in billions)
| Rank | Country | Foreign Exchange Reserves |
| 1 | China | $1,534 |
| 2 | Japan | $954 |
| 3 | Russia | $476 |
| 4 | India | $275 |
| 5 | Taiwan | $275 |
| 6 | Korea, South | $262 |
| 7 | Brazil | $180 |
| 8 | Singapore | $163 |
| 9 | Hong Kong | $153 |
| 10 | Germany | $136 |
| 11 | France | $116 |
| 12 | Algeria | $111 |
| 13 | Malaysia | $101 |
| 14 | Italy | $94 |
| 15 | Thailand | $87 |
| 16 | Mexico | $87 |
| 17 | Libya | $80 |
| 18 | United Arab Emirates | $77 |
| 19 | Turkey | $77 |
| 20 | Switzerland | $75 |
| 21 | United States | $71 |
| 22 | Iran | $69 |
| 23 | Poland | $66 |
| 24 | Norway | $61 |
| 25 | United Kingdom | $57 |
| 26 | Indonesia | $57 |
| 27 | Nigeria | $51 |
| 28 | Argentina | $46 |
| 29 | Canada | $41 |
| 30 | Romania | $40 |
| Etc… | ||
| Total = | $6,898 |
more…..
via Market Skeptics: How big a deal is the loss of the dollar’s reserve status?.
What ARE the Toxic Assets Everyone Is Talking About?
What ARE the Toxic Assets Everyone Is Talking About?
Paul Krugman has already eviscerated Geithner’s toxic asset plan in the New York Times (see this, this and this). So have Yves Smith, Mish and many others.
But very few are taking a step back and addressing a more basic question: what are the toxic assets that Geithner is throwing taxpayer money at?
The answer is that the toxic assets include:
- Credit default swaps (CDS)
- Collateral debt obligations (CDOs)
- Mortgage backed securities
In fact, these different classes of toxic assets are related.
Some CDOs are bundles of subprime and other mortgages sold in “tranches” (when you use a fancy word which sounds French, people assume it must be good). The rating agencies like Moody’s, S&P and Fitch’s gave crazily high AAA ratings to many of the tranches on the assumption that real estate prices wouldn’t fall nationwide.
Exxon Mobil under fire for worker safety violations, oil spill pay-out failure
POWER POLITICS: Exxon Mobil under fire for worker safety violations, oil spill pay-out failure
exxonmobil_logo.gifTomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez disaster that spilled some 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound — but that’s not the only black cloud hanging over the Texas-based company at the moment.
On Friday, a federal investigation found that Exxon Mobil exposed employees at the nation’s second-largest oil refinery to life-threatening conditions by failing to implement an emergency plan when Hurricane Gustav hit the Louisiana coast last September, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The company did not shut down its refinery in Baton Rouge. La. before the storm hit, forcing workers to undertake an emergency shutdown during the hurricane. The Occupational Safety Health and Administration classified the violation as “serious,” according to the paper:
The OSHA citation said, “The employer failed to implement the emergency action plan after it was determined that sustained storm winds would exceed 55 mph and wind gust of 85 mph. This exposed employees to the hazards of fire, explosion, high winds and flying debris.”
via ISS – POWER POLITICS: Exxon Mobil under fire for worker safety violations, oil spill pay-out failure.
As newspapers go away, our shared community is dispersing
As newspapers go away, our shared community is dispersing
It’s been quite a week for viral postings on the future of traditional media and of newspapers in particular. Several have gotten a lot of attention as they made the rounds, including this one by Web theorist Clay Shirky, which has been cited on dozens of media blogs and Web sites.
Shirky’s bottom line: Newspapers are dead, their business model irretrievably broken. So, what’s next? He doesn’t know. Sites like MinnPost are part of the answer, but by no means all of it.
As one of my former bosses liked to say: “Bring me solutions, not problems.” That’s why, of all the scores of media ruminations and predictions I’ve read in the last couple of years, I like this piece by blogger Dan Conover
via MinnPost – As newspapers go away, our shared community is dispersing.
A Chicken in Every Yard
A Chicken in Every Yard – By Betsy Yagla
The case for legalizing urban chickens
New Haven chickens could cross their legal roadblock soon.
There are at least 30 off-the-books flocks in backyards throughout New Haven, and East Rock alderman Roland Lemar has hatched an ordinance to regulate them. He’s tentatively planning on presenting the ordinance this spring. Currently hens are tolerated under an unofficial don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.
Lemar’s ordinance would allow six hens per backyard, but no roosters. Chickens eat pesky bugs like mosquitoes and gardeners use chicken manure as fertilizer. Plus, there’s bountiful eggs fresh from the backyard.
via Hartford Advocate: News – A Chicken in Every Yard.
Is the new Old Navy commercial racist?
Is the new Old Navy commercial racist?
Yes, it’s racist, yes, it’s stereotypical, and there shouldn’t be any dispute over it.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to convince those who believe we now live in a post-racial world, that certain symbols and images–a la monkeys and chimps–evoke memories of shame and humiliation in the psyches of black people. In essence, it becomes an insurmountable task to get them to see why there is a level of inescapable danger in taking for granted the history and legacy celebrated, on a national scale, every February.
The recent Old Navy Commercial, “‘MID-TOWN FLASH’ with The SuperModelquins,” is an ample example of such moments when everyone is forced to pause for a second, in disbelief, over the ignorance of those who permitted its production, and release.
via Is the new Old Navy commercial racist? – The Daily Voice – Black America’s Daily News Source.
Give CEO Pay the Pink Slip
Give CEO Pay the Pink Slip – By David Moberg
Capping outsized salaries is the first step toward creating responsible corporations.
Nearly everyone is angry about excessive corporate executive pay these days, from laid-off autoworkers and foreclosed homeowners to former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
At the seven biggest financial firms that have recently failed, been sold or been bailed out, top executives have received $464 million in “performance pay” since 2005. And these are the same people who helped create the conditions that led to the worldwide crash. For example, in December 2008, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain—paid $83 million in 2007—gave out $3.6 billion in early executive bonuses before his firm was taken over by Bank of America, which has received $45 billion in federal bailout money.
via Give CEO Pay the Pink Slip — In These Times.
Republicanism, Worse than Socialism
- Humor -
That is clearly the silliest damn string of words you will ever hear. Having problems? Need a little help? Who you gonna call? Rush Limbaugh? George Will? Anne Coulter? Sarah Palin? Karl Rove? Glenn Beck? Dick Cheney? Boggles the mind.
We hear far more about conservatism that we do republicanism. We have existed under a conservative culture since Ronald Reagan became President in 1981. It later came to a head in 1994 when after getting used to that lipstick on a pig which was Ronald Reagan, we replaced it with smearing hogshit all over and getting Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Dick Armey and Trent Lott running Congress.
Conservationism is made up of various subsets including Libertarians, the Religious Right, racist militias, gun crazy mofos, and certifiable morons like Joe the Plumber. Glenn Beck and Joe the Plumber are the intellectual cream of the crop.
But it is Republicanism that runs the show. Very wealthy people who own everything including our homes, which they recently packaged, sold and destroyed and then have the gall to blame you and I for. These people could care less about abortions, evolution, God, the NRA, Mexicans, gays or anyone or anything other than their back pockets. But they learned how to use those issues to get the dullest knives in the drawer to keep them in power to further their grab of getting it all and getting in now and to Hell with everyone else.
via Republicanism, Worse than Socialism – Kick! Making Politics Fun – A liberal dose of political humor.
How Alaska Went From ‘Not One Drop’ to More Than 11 Million Gallons of Oil, Thanks to the Exxon Valdez
Riki Ott Explains How Alaska Went From ‘Not One Drop’ to More Than 11 Million Gallons of Oil, Thanks to the Exxon Valdez
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
People want to pass a sustainable future — a living planet — on to their kids. That crosses red and blue. And the indigenous people call it the “Well, duh.” People are saying, “Well, how are we going to do that?” Because it’s not coming from the top down, and people really are rolling up their sleeves. I certainly came back a lot more hopeful than when I first launched in 2005. I just kept thinking, “Man, if we just get somebody from the top who will help, I think we can still turn things around.”
– Riki Ott, author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Two decades after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there is literally no one better to talk to than Riki Ott. As a marine biologist, she studied the effects of oil pollution on the environment and wildlife. She settled in Cordova, AK, making a living fishing the Prince William Sound. She was one of the first people on hand after the disaster, seeing the spill firsthand. She fought Exxon’s lies in court for nearly two decades. And finally, she has the trust of Alaskans affected by the spill, a group that has lost their faith in government, industry and the judiciary.
Ott is Exxon’s worst nightmare. As a scientist, she sorted through Exxon’s doctored data and countered it with sound science. She understood what would be necessary to clean up the Prince William Sound environment, but also the economic needs of coastal Alaskan towns. As an author and public speaker, she offers real solutions to corporatism and our destructive lifestyle.
Ott told BuzzFlash what it was like to be part of a disaster that taught us so much about the toxicity of oil and the sociological cost of man-made disasters. She walked us through the frustration of dealing with Exxon’s deception, regulation dodging and delay tactics.
This interview gave us a unique view of the intersection of politics and science, a place Ott knows well. Even while she admits that all legislation is a compromise, she has high hopes for future change. In the end, Ott is optimistic and overflowing with ideas of how to make the world a better place. Most importantly, she explains how we can get real change in the midst of today’s worldwide economic crisis, and why things might not be as bad as they seem.
Go back into hiding, GOP begs Dick Cheney
Go back into hiding, GOP begs Dick Cheney – By Molly K. Hooper
Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input.
Displeased with the former vice-president’s recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he’s hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings.
The veep, who showed a penchant for secrecy during eight years in the White House,has popped up in media interviews to defend the Bush-Cheney record while suggesting that the country is not as safe under President Obama.
via TheHill.com – Go back into hiding, GOP begs Dick Cheney.
GOP LEADERS MOVE FROM OPPOSITION TO OBSTINACY TO HYPOCRISY
GOP LEADERS MOVE FROM OPPOSITION TO OBSTINACY TO HYPOCRISY – Jim Hightower
“No” can be a very good word. Whether dealing with children or with Congress, a firm “uh-uh” can set the boundaries of acceptable behavior.
But the negative can pretty quickly turn you from a positive force into an obstinate grump – and no one likes those. Yet, this is the persona adopted by Republican Party leaders who’re throwing up a “Stone Wall of No” to President Barack Obama’s economic recovery efforts. Not a single GOP house member, for example, voted for Obama’s $790 billion stimulus package, petulantly dismissing it as “larded with wasteful spending.”
Like what, you might ask? Well, the Republicans issued a list of what irked them in the bill. It included improved sewer systems, flood reduction projects, retrofitting federal buildings for energy conservation, and – gosh their hit list was filled with exactly the kind of job-creating, infrastructure-building, energy-saving work that America needs.
via Jim Hightower | GOP LEADERS MOVE FROM OPPOSITION TO OBSTINACY TO HYPOCRISY.
O’Reilly Lies: I Always Let People Explain Themselves Or Appear On My Show Before Harassing Them
O’Reilly Lies: I Always Let People Explain Themselves Or Appear On My Show Before Harassing Them
The harassment I experienced at the hands of Bill O’Reilly’s henchmen this past weekend was unfortunately not the first such incident by the network. Other victims include the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg, Gov. Jim Douglas (R-VT), the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker, and the Columbia Journalism Review’s Mike Hoyt.
On Aug. 24, 2007, O’Reilly defended his harassment machine:
Sen W VA Jay Rockefeller Shut Down the Internet YUP! Shut Down the AWAKENING
The IV Reich Must Shut the Internet Down to stop the people from AWAKENING… The Puppet Government is using the ploy that it is National Security… Do you really think that National Security has anything to do with this new agenda? Please WORLD Wake Up…. Look at history, it will tell you what is next… as Russell Means states History Repeats… Welcome to the Reservation….
CSPAN 2
YouTube – Sen W VA Jay Rockefeller Shut Down the Internet YUP! Shut Down the AWAKENING.
Bank of America’s Bernstein Says Sell Bank Stocks After Rally
Bank of America’s Bernstein Says Sell Bank Stocks After Rally – By Eric Martin
March 23 (Bloomberg) — Investors should sell bank stocks after they rallied 12 percent today because the Treasury Department’s plan to buy toxic assets won’t stop profits from dropping, Bank of America Corp.’s Richard Bernstein said.
Removing devalued loans and securities from banks’ balance sheets is a short-term solution that will delay the problem’s ultimate solution, which is bank takeovers, Bernstein said. The government won’t be able to inflate the prices banks receive for selling bad assets indefinitely, he added.
“The history of bubbles shows quite well that financial sector consolidation is inevitable,” Bernstein, Bank of America’s chief investment strategist, wrote in a research note. “Financial stocks will be attractive when the government tries to speed up that inevitable process. However, to the contrary, the government continues to attempt to stymie that inevitable consolidation.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index has climbed 51 percent since March 6 after Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said they’ve become profitable. The measure surged 12 percent as of 3:10 p.m. today in New York.
via Bank of America’s Bernstein Says Sell Bank Stocks After Rally – Bloomberg.com.
Bachelorette party prop spooks Wichita police horse, prompts arrest
Bachelorette party prop spooks Wichita police horse, prompts arrest
Wichita police arrested three people on Sunday in an incident that began when a man threw an inflatable penis at an officer’s horse.
Officers were patrolling the Old Town area on horseback at about 1:20 a.m. when they came across a large group of women in their early- to mid-20s who had been celebrating at a bachelorette party, police said.
Also in the group was a 24-year-old man, a brother to one of the women at the party. He was carrying a 5-foot-long inflatable penis, police said.
“While he was joking around with this toy, he launched this large toy toward one of our officers, who was on horseback,” police spokesman Gordon Bassham said.
The toy struck the officer’s horse, causing the horse to get spooked, he said.
Police arrested the man, of Eastborough, on suspicion of battery of a law enforcement officer, in this case, the horse.
A woman, upset at the arrest, grabbed the arresting officer’s arm, police said. She too was arrested.
via Bachelorette party prop spooks Wichita police horse, prompts arrest – Kansas City Star.
EPA proposal aims to regulate carbon
EPA: Greenhouse gases threat to human health
Agency wants to use Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide, other gases
Declaring that greenhouse gases are a significant threat to human health, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, a policy the Bush administration rejected.
The EPA submitted its proposal to the White House on Friday, triggering a review that was posted Monday on the federal government Web site that gathers agency recommendations.
The proposal, technically a “finding,” concluded that six greenhouse gases should be considered pollutants under the 1970 act. But it does not spell out how or what to regulate. If the White House approves the finding, the EPA as well as lawmakers will start that discussion.
via EPA proposal aims to regulate carbon – Climate Change- msnbc.com.
Spitzer for Treasury?
Spitzer for Treasury? – by Katrina vanden Heuvel
Frank Rich is right. Firing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner won’t get us out of the economic disaster we’re in. But at this time of righteous rage, deploying Geithner and Lawrence Summers as the administration’s chief economic messengers displays an astonishing tone-deafness. These are men who, as Rich puts it, ” are too marinated in the insiders’ culture to police it, reform it or own up to their past complicity with it.”
Or as The Nation’s William Greider explains in Sunday’s Washington Post, the anger roiling the nation could “devour his presidency.” Yet Obama “does not seem to grasp that the tone-deaf technocrats are leading him into a dead-end.”
Action, and action now, to restructure bank bailouts so they benefit taxpayers– not preferred shareholders, and classes of creditors, ranging from foreign bondholders to the counterparties of exotic derivative contracts– may be the only way to ensure passage of the administration’s needed recovery and budget programs. That probably means some form of government receivership, supervision, short-term nationalization–call it what you will. The real danger is not nationalization but that Obama and his economic team continues to muddle through on the financial front. If they do, Obama’s job-creation and public investment programs are at risk; they will be conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts, bonuses and crony capitalist excesses.
EPA: Global Warming Threatens Public Health, Welfare
EPA: Global Warming Threatens Public Health, Welfare
The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposal to the White House on Friday finding that global warming is endangering the public’s health and welfare, according to several sources, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the nation’s economy and environment.
The proposal — which comes in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision ordering EPA to consider whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act — could lay the groundwork for nationwide measures to limit such emissions. It reverses one of the Bush administration’s landmark environmental decisions: In July 2008 then-EPA administrator Stephen Johnson rejected his scientific and technical staff’s recommendation and announced the agency would seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming pollution.
via EPA: Global Warming Threatens Public Health, Welfare – washingtonpost.com.
Court tells FDA to rethink Plan B contraceptive
Court tells FDA to rethink Plan B contraceptive
* US courts says Plan B must be available to 17-year-olds
* Rules FDA must reconsider its Plan B decisions
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. court on Monday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its decisions on the sale of the Plan B emergency contraceptive and ordered its producer to make the pills available to 17-year-olds without a prescription.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in a 52-page ruling, said its order to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds under the same conditions it is currently available to older women must be complied with within 30 days.
The controversial Plan B, also known as the morning after pill, is now available without a prescription to women 18 and over to reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy after sexual intercourse. Women 17 and under have been required to get a prescription for the drug.
The contraceptive, which works best when used within 24 hours of sexual intercourse, is sold by Barr Pharmaceuticals, which was recently acquired by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
The FDA was also ordered to reconsider its decisions for Plan B over-the-counter sale. It is currently available only behind the counter, so those who want to use the drug must ask a pharmacist for the pills.
Plan B’s availability without a prescription in the United States was repeatedly delayed during the Bush Administration amid opposition from anti-abortion groups.
via Court tells FDA to rethink Plan B contraceptive | U.S. | Reuters.
Lawmakers, officials see cuts to U.S. missile defense
Lawmakers, officials see cuts to U.S. missile defense
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers and top military officers on Monday predicted cuts in missile defense spending, now running at nearly $10 billion a year, and said the focus would shift increasingly to cooperative efforts with other nations and networking current weapons.
Marine Corps General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, underscored the importance of linking existing missile-warning systems, and said Washington could no longer afford weapons designed to address a single threat.
Cartwright told a missile defense conference the global economic crisis was forcing the Pentagon to make “hard choices” about which weapons programs to continue funding. A priority, he said, was to focus on sensors and command and control systems that made existing weapons systems more effective.
He gave no detailed forecasts for cuts to missile defense programs in the fiscal 2010 budget, but said the Obama administration was “going to put a stamp on this in 2010.” The government’s fiscal 2010 begins on October 1.
via Lawmakers, officials see cuts to U.S. missile defense | Politics | Reuters.
Red meat raises risk of all kinds of death: study | Health | Reuters
Red meat raises risk of all kinds of death: study
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – People who eat the most red meat and the most processed meat have the highest overall risk of death from all causes, including heart disease and cancer, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
The National Cancer Institute study is one of the largest to look at the highly controversial and emotive issue of whether eating meat is indeed bad for health.
Rashmi Sinha and colleagues looked at the records of more than 500,000 people aged 50 to 71 who filled out questionnaires on their diet and other health habits.
Even when other factors were accounted for — eating fresh fruits and vegetables, smoking, exercise, obesity — the heaviest meat-eaters were more likely to die over the next 10 years than the people who ate the least amount of meat.
“Red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality,” Sinha and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
They divided the volunteers into five groups, called quintiles. Between 1995 and 2005, 47,976 men and 23,276 women died.
via Red meat raises risk of all kinds of death: study | Health | Reuters.
Libertarianism, The Dumbest Fuckin’ Idea On Earth
Libertarianism, The Dumbest Fuckin’ Idea On Earth
If Libertarianism serves any useful purpose at all it’s as a benchmark for the height of selfishness excused and enshrined in a amorphous melange of psycho babble peppered with Liberty and Freedom every three or four sentences.
I can admit through first hand experience that when engaged in a political debate and the subject turns to things Libertarian, it pretty much brings the discussion to a grinding halt. How do you argue with someone who says nothing of any real substance but rather platitudes delivered with arrogance and indignation.
Since a truly Libertarian society has never existed and never will, it’s hard to really discuss the matter in any but theoretical terms, it exists only in the imagination- like the Unicorn. The first sentence of the Preamble for National Platform of the Libertarian Party starts this way:
via Libertarianism, The Dumbest Fuckin’ Idea On Earth | The Frank Factor.
Magna Cum Lousy
Magna Cum Lousy — Where Today’s Bad CEOs Went To School (SLIDESHOW)
No big surprise: Most of the bankers, politicians and regulators who got us into this mess went to a handful of elite universities and business schools.
These schools obviously helped frame their philosophies, while providing the networking opportunities needed to climb the highest rungs of the corporate and political ladders. It turns out, of course, that those ladders were planted in mud, rather than solid earth. Whoops.
While you may get a kick out of sneering at the people who went to elite schools, that’s not the point. The point is that these schools may have seen their glory days already, and enter a permanent state of decline. Why? Well for one thing, the money and power networks that supported these schools through generous contributions are crumbling. What’s more, you can no longer go to one of these schools and be assured that they’ll open the doors to the investment bank you thought you were going to get a job at. A big piece of that network has been lost.
via Magna Cum Lousy.
O’Reilly to run ambush segment tonight: ThinkProgress ‘hurt a rape victim and her family.’
O’Reilly to run ambush segment tonight: ThinkProgress ‘hurt a rape victim and her family.’
Over at its website, Fox News is saying that Bill O’Reilly will be running his segment on ThinkProgress tonight:
We’re eagerly awaiting how he justifies sending out his henchman to track me down this weekend, and how he spins his offensive comments about Jennifer Moore.
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: On Its 20th Anniversary, We Can’t Afford to Forget
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: On Its 20th Anniversary, We Can’t Afford to Forget
This week you may catch the sliver of media coverage regarding the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill — and, regretfully, there will only be a sliver, for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, a lot of the people telling the story have spoken to Big Oil before talking to small town Alaska, and the meager amount of anniversary coverage that the public will receive will be damaged because of that.
Riki Ott, a marine biologist living in Cordova, AK who has studied the ecological, social, and economic effects of the spill from day one, told BuzzFlash what she, as an unofficial spokesperson for those hurt by the spill, learned about the game of “media capture” in her spars with Exxon:
via The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill: On Its 20th Anniversary, We Can’t Afford to Forget | BuzzFlash.org.
Corporate United Front Against EFCA Cracking
Commentary: Corporate United Front Against EFCA Cracking
Cracks in the corporate front against the Employee Free Choice Act are spreading, according to a couple of recent articles in the typically pro-big business media.
First, after more than a year of insisting that the Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate the secret ballot process for certifying a union, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board finally admitted last week that “[t]he bill doesn’t remove the secret ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act….” Of course, the WSJ editorial went on to make up other things about the bill, but no one believed that newspaper would ever be perfect.
Many Republican lawmakers hung their hats on this particular argument in their opposition to the bill and will now have reconsider why, or if, they still oppose it. It is likely that many Republicans, without reading the bill, simply accepted the word of anti-worker television entertainers like Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck and a massive $200 million ad campaign by big business groups like the National Association Manufacturers that spread that falsehood about the Employee Free Choice Act.
Democratic lawmakers who support the bill and pro-worker media outlets repeatedly pointed out that the bill does not eliminate a secret ballot process but rather shifts the choice of how to certify a union from the boss to the workers. (Note: contrary to right-wing media claims, the bill also does not create an “open ballot” process, either; that is pure fiction.)
via Political Affairs Magazine – Commentary: Corporate United Front Against EFCA Cracking.
Indian CEOs raise H-1B issue with US
OPS: Phuck ‘em
Indian CEOs raise H-1B issue with US
Washington: India’s corporate leadership raised the issue of H-1B visa restrictions during their first high level interaction with Obama Administration officials and was assured that there would not be a serious setback to the programme unless unemployment rate in US plummets drastically.
The issue was raised by the visiting CII’s CEO Mission led by Bharati enterprise chairman Sunil Bharati Mittal, who among others met Lawrence Summers, Director of the National Economic Council, at the White House on Wednesday.
via Indian CEOs raise H-1B issue with US – The Financial Express.
Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner’s Hands
Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner’s Hands – Arianna Huffington
On February 10th, the New York Times reported that there had been a “spirited” battle within the Obama administration over restrictions on executive pay and bonuses, and over attaching stringent conditions to any bailout money given to banks.
The clash pitted Tim Geithner, who opposed the restrictions and conditions, against David Axelrod, who favored them. According to the Times, Geithner had “largely prevailed.”
In light of what has happened since then, that outcome must now be viewed as a tragic surrender to Geithner, Summers, and the political/Wall Street class — a “victory” that could lead to the unraveling of the president’s entire economic policy.
Maintaining the public trust is always important for a leader, but especially so during hard times. There is a fascinating chapter on Nelson Mandela in Stan Greenberg’s new book, Dispatches from the War Room, in which Greenberg writes about how even the revered Mandela suffered a loss of public confidence when change did not come fast enough after he took office. “Don’t assume the current euphoria, even with your high approval rating will carry you through,” Greenberg counsels Obama, stressing the need to try to build up enough trust so that the public will stay with the president until they can actually experience change.
via Arianna Huffington: Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner’s Hands.
Greed is Not Good: The Ronald Reagan Mantra is Dead
OPS: The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
Greed is Not Good: The Ronald Reagan Mantra is Dead
The true face of the Republican mantra of “Greed is Good” has finally been seen for what it really is by the general public. When Republican President Ronald Reagan famously said “Greed is Good” the public drank the cool-aid whole-heartedly. The Republican Party launched a 20-year campaign to undermine government and replace non-profit government services with for-profit free market business. Anti-trust laws were weakened and regulations on the financial and banking sector were removed. These efforts can now be directly linked to our current financial crisis that ran amok because the driving principle of greed was left unchecked.
Public outrage boiled over this week when it was revealed that AIG bonuses were funded by us the taxpayers in the form of bailout money. When CEOs and upper management are making salaries that are 400 times that of their workers and after running their company into the ground and losing 98% of the stock value and 156 billion in market capitalization the general public has every reason to be outraged. That someone would then expect to get multi-million dollar bonuses after a performance like this and hide behind what they claim are unbreakable legal contracts is unconscionable. A contract that by the way would have been broken or worthless had AIG gone into bankruptcy prior to not being bailed out with funds from us the taxpayers.
via OpEdNews » Greed is Not Good: The Ronald Reagan Mantra is Dead.
Why Tax Cuts and Ruinous War Make this Crisis Worse Than the ‘Great Depression’
Why Tax Cuts and Ruinous War Make this Crisis Worse Than the ‘Great Depression’
Democrats have occupied the executive but eight of the last thirty years. The GOP, therefore, owns the decline and fall of both the American republic and its short lived empire. GOP policies are the cause of the collapse made even worse by calamitous and lost war of aggression in Iraq. Aggravating the crash is the lasting legacy and bone-headed policies of Reagan, Bush, and Shrub! We are living the consequences of several major, pernicious trends that began with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan:
* the rich began to get much, much richer and the poor much, much poorer
* the labor movement was subverted and all but destroyed;
* within but a few years the US would ‘boast’ of the world’s largest NEGATIVE ‘current account balance’;
* US industries of all types declined or disappeared entirely;
* acts of terrorism against US interests increased.
All of the above trends reversed but only briefly during the Clinton years, most notably the gaping disparity between filthy rich elites and everyone else. The respite did not last long enough. The administration of the Senior Bush may be thought of as a mere continuation of the decline of the American empire begun under the regimes of Reagan and the senior Bush. Bush Jr will certainly be remembered as a latter-day Nero –insane, self-absorbed, moronic and megalomaniacal. Junior worked to undo the good done by Clinton. It is his only success however dubious and harmful.
Obama’s refusal to look back lets Bush, AIG go scot free
Obama’s refusal to look back lets Bush, AIG go scot free
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
Baseball fans know this quote is from the great pitcher Satchel Paige, one of the many victims who would have been much better known had he not spent most of his career in the Negro Leagues. Paige actually made his MLB debut at the age of 42 in 1948 and threw his last major league pitch when he was 59.
Growing up when he did, Barack Obama probably knows that quote quite well. And for good or bad, President Obama is incorporating that philosophy into his presidency.
When criticized for not going after Bush Administration officials, Obama talked about looking forward, not backward. In recent interviews on the AIG mess, Obama talks once again about going forward and cleaning up Wall Street.
In establishing a different theme for his presidency, his incorporation of Satchel Paige’s philosophy makes complete sense. For the rest of us who feel like the rich and powerful get away with crimes when the rest of us don’t, this philosophy is disheartening.
via Obama’s refusal to look back lets Bush, AIG go scot free | BuzzFlash.org.
Employee Free Choice Act Threatened by New Lobbying Campaign
Employee Free Choice Act Threatened by New Lobbying Campaign
A new big business lobbying campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA HR1409/S.560) threatens to eviscerate the bill. Starbucks, Whole Foods and CostCo are lobbying together to weaken the pro-labor Cardcheck Bill.
The proposed provision would tighten some organizing rules in favor of workers and keep the secret ballot at the expense of eliminating mandatory arbitration. Mark Ambinder reports that the new provision would also require 70% or workers to sign cards to form a union (cardcheck) vs 50% yes vote by secret ballot.
via Employee Free Choice Act Threatened by New Lobbying Campaign | Ian Welsh.
As credit markets froze, banks loaned millions to insiders
As credit markets froze, banks loaned millions to insiders
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Banks nationwide hold $41 billion in loans to directors, top executives and other insiders, a portfolio that experts say should be stripped of secrecy.
Insider lending to directors is particularly troublesome because it could cloud the judgment of people charged with protecting shareholders and overseeing bank management, the experts say.
At Charlotte-based Bank of America, those loans more than doubled last year, to $624.2 million — the biggest dollar jump in the country. The largest of them likely went to three directors or their companies. The surge came during the third quarter as credit markets froze, the government prepared to infuse banks with billions in tax dollars and the board approved the purchase of troubled Merrill Lynch.
via As credit markets froze, banks loaned millions to insiders | McClatchy.
A.I.G. Bonuses: Class War in the Media
The Battle Over the A.I.G. Bonuses: Class War in the Media – by: Dean Baker
A protester is reflected in the sunglasses of a Washington police officer during a protest against A.I.G. bonuses. (Photo: Alex Brandon / AP)
The debate over the A.I.G. bonuses is class war in its full naked glory. On the surface, everyone agreed that paying multi-million bonuses to the folks who bankrupted their company and handed the taxpayers a bill for $170 billion ($2,300 for a family of four) was outrageous. The difference is between the angry masses, who actually want to take back the bonuses, and the elites who insist that there is nothing that can be done.
In spite of the superior education of the elites, the masses have the much better argument. As a result, the elites have been desperately cooking up excuse after excuse as to why their well-heeled friends at A.I.G. and the bankrupt banks shouldn’t lose their bonuses.
via t r u t h o u t | A.I.G. Bonuses: Class War in the Media.
Bachmann: ‘I Want People…Armed And Dangerous On This Issue’ Of Cap And Trade
Bachmann: ‘I Want People…Armed And Dangerous On This Issue’ Of Cap And Trade
During a Saturday interview with WWTC 1280 AM flagged by Smart Politics, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) slammed President Obama’s cap and trade plan, warning that it would have “the impact of forever changing our country.” She was particularly incensed that the bill was meant to address global warming, which she flatly denied was a human-caused problem:
BACHMANN: And actually, we want this debate because the science is on our side on this one. And the science indicates that human activity is not the cause of all this global warming. And that in fact, nature is the cause, with solar flares, etc.
Instead of merely opposing the legislation, however, Bachmann compared Washington, D.C. to “enemy lines” and urged her supporters to become “armed and dangerous” and fight a “revolution” against cap and trade legislation:
via Think Progress » Bachmann: ‘I Want People…Armed And Dangerous On This Issue’ Of Cap And Trade.
Mississippi Bans Traffic Cameras
Mississippi Bans Traffic Cameras
Red Light, Speeding Cameras Still Allowed In Louisiana
NEW ORLEANS — While some Louisiana drivers look to the courts to remove automated traffic cameras from area roads, Mississippi has enacted a measure that bans the systems under state law.
Gov. Haley Barbour signed into effect a bill that prohibits the red light and speed-enforcement cameras and requires the removal of existing systems.The cities of Jackson and Columbus already use the cameras. Tupelo, Natchez, Southaven and McComb had been considering them.A representative for the governor said Barbour decided to sign the bill into law after being assured by the Mississippi Highway Patrol that law-enforcement officers would still be able to use dashboard cameras to catch speeders.Lawsuits in Louisiana hope to have the same effect as the Mississippi legislation. In December, a federal judge declined to throw out a case against Jefferson Parish. Those behind the class action lawsuit claim the cameras violate their constitutional rights.
via Mississippi Bans Traffic Cameras – Gulf Coast News Story – WDSU New Orleans.
“The Zombie Ideas Have Won” – Paul Krugman on $1 Trillion Geithner Plan to Buy Toxic Bank Assets
Video – audio – mp3 download – transcript
“The Zombie Ideas Have Won”–Paul Krugman on $1 Trillion Geithner Plan to Buy Toxic Bank Assets
Democracy NOW!
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing to unveil a plan today to purchase as much as $1 trillion in troubled mortgages and other assets from banks. The government is reaching out to hedge funds, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds to help buy the toxic assets. The Obama administration has described the plan as a public-private partnership, but most of the actual money will be put up by the government. We speak with Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman. [includes rush transcript]
In credit drought, U.S. car dealers battle to survive
In credit drought, U.S. car dealers battle to survive
LANSING, Michigan (Reuters) – Deep in the last stronghold of the struggling U.S. auto industry, Rosario Criscuolo says he owes the survival of his business to Toyota Motor Corp.
“If it weren’t for Toyota, I’d be gone,” said the owner of Spartan Auto Group, which runs three auto dealerships selling Toyota, Lexus, Infiniti, Volkswagen and Mazda brand cars. “Without them I’d be selling papers on the corner.”
To fund the $25 million worth of gleaming new cars at his showrooms, including here in Michigan’s capital, Criscuolo needs floorplan financing, or inventory loans.
Floorplan financing is the lifeblood of U.S. auto dealers because it allows them to pay for vehicles when they take delivery and carry them until they find a buyers.
via In credit drought, U.S. car dealers battle to survive | U.S. | Reuters.
Competition for water intensifying
Competition for water intensifying
With yesterday’s celebration of the World Water Day, water use is once again in the spotlight. So also the correlation between energy- and water demand. Population growth and mobility, rising living standards, changes in food consumption, and production of biofuels are increasingly intensifying the competition for water, making it as political as is already the fight for the world’s remaining oil- and gas reserves.
A UN report released at the World Water Forum in Istanbul, Turkey last week, for example, finds that the southern and northern tiers of Africa, much of the Middle East, a broad band in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, southern and eastern Australia, as well as northern Mexico and the southwestern United States will be affected by persistent drought and water scarcity in the coming years.
via Dallas Environmental Policy Examiner: Competition for water intensifying.
Stimulus? U.S. to buy Chinese condoms, ending Alabama jobs | McClatchy
Stimulus? U.S. to buy Chinese condoms, ending Alabama jobs
Call it a condom conundrum.
At a time when the federal government is spending billions of stimulus dollars to stem the tide of U.S. layoffs, should that same government put even more Americans out of work by buying cheaper foreign products?
In this case, Chinese condoms.
That’s the dilemma for the folks at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has distributed an estimated 10 billion U.S.-made AIDS-preventing condoms in poor countries around the world.
But not anymore.
In a move expected to cost 300 American jobs, the government is switching to cheaper off-shore condoms, including some made in China.
The switch comes despite implied assurances over the years that the agency would continue to buy American whenever possible.
via Stimulus? U.S. to buy Chinese condoms, ending Alabama jobs | McClatchy.
Treasury Department Releases Details on Public Private Partnership Investment Program
Treasury Department Releases Details on Public Private Partnership Investment Program
Public-Private Investment Program
The Financial Stability Plan – Progress So Far: Over the past six weeks, the Treasury Department has implemented a series of initiatives as part of its Financial Stability Plan that – alongside the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – lay the foundations for economic recovery:
* Efforts to Improve Affordability for Responsible Homeowners: Treasury has implemented programs to allow families to save on their mortgage payments by refinancing, assist responsible homeowners in avoiding foreclosure through a loan modification plan, and, alongside the Federal Reserve, help bring mortgage interest rates down to near historic lows. This past month, the 30% increase in mortgage refinancing demonstrated that working families are benefiting from the savings due to these lower rates.
* Consumer and Business Lending Initiative to Unlock Frozen Credit Markets: Treasury and the Federal Reserve are expanding the TALF in conjunction with the Federal Reserve to jumpstart the secondary markets that support consumer and business lending. Last week, Treasury announced its plans to purchase up to $15 billion in securities backed by Small Business Administration loans.
* Capital Assistance Program: Treasury has also launched a new capital program, including a forward-looking capital assessment undertaken by bank supervisors to ensure that banks have the capital they need in the event of a worse-than-expected recession. If banks are confident that they will have sufficient capital to weather a severe economic storm, they are more likely to lend now – making it less likely that a more serious downturn will occur.
via tg-65: Treasury Department Releases Details on Public Private Partnership Investment Program.
America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout
America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout - by Chris Hedges
In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money.
We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.
via America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout | CommonDreams.org.
The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders
The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders
by Thom Hartmann
Whenever a politician or commentator bloviates about the brokers at AIG who are getting bonuses, we should all be remembering Lynndie England and Charles Granger. AIG brokers are to the financial meltdown what England was to the Iraq war.
Certainly she did things that were deplorable. But she thought they were legal (England, operating under orders to “soften up terrorists,” even thought she was helping defend our nation). And to the extent that John Yoo’s memos were law, arguably her actions were legal (although the Bushies never wanted it tested, so threw them to the wolves).
But the important point is that the real criminals of the Iraq War were not those like Lynndie England: they were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld (and their neocon buddies).
Like Lynndie England, the brokers at AIG are the small fish. Sure they shouldn’t have been doing what they did, and it’s insane that they were compensated the way they were. And even worse is the fact that those compensation packages were worked out in September and October of last year by the Bush administration, and that that convenient little fact is almost always ignored by politicians and commentators in their faux populist outrage.
But the real criminals of the AIG mess – and the entire financial meltdown that was set up between 1999 and 2006 and crashed starting in 2007 – were Grover Norquist, Phil and Wendy Graham, Tom Delay, and, sadly, Bill Clinton.
The philosophy that it’s possible to bomb people into democracy and torture them into being on our side drove the Bushies. It was wrong, flawed, and frankly insane, and we’re paying a huge price for it.
via The Real Criminals are Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders | CommonDreams.org.
Def. Sec. Gates: Use of Private Contractors ‘Vital’
OPS: The extended use of mercenaries is dangerous to Democracy, and the planet. Eventually, they will be used here, against us.
Def. Sec. Gates: Use of Private Contractors ‘Vital’ – In Afghanistan, US Military’s ‘Help Wanted’ Sign
WASHINGTON – The military buildup in Afghanistan is stoking a surge of private security contractors despite a string of deadly shootings in Iraq in recent years that has called into question the government’s ability to manage the guns for hire.
In recent online postings, the military has asked private security companies to protect traveling convoys and guard U.S. bases in troubled southern provinces such as Helmand and Kandahar. And if truckers hired to transport fuel for the military want protection, they can hire their own armed guards, the military says.
The Bush administration expanded the use of such companies with the onset of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because it can save the military time and money. But the practice lost much of its appeal with Congress after September 2007, when five guards with what was then called Blackwater Worldwide (the company recently changed its name to Xe) opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square and killed 17 Iraqis.
via Def. Sec. Gates: Use of Private Contractors ‘Vital’ | CommonDreams.org.
Inflation, Money Supply, GDP, Unemployment and the Dollar – Alternate Data Series
Inflation, Money Supply, GDP, Unemployment and the Dollar – Alternate Data Series
Inflation
M3 Money Supply
Unemployment
GDP
via Inflation, Money Supply, GDP, Unemployment and the Dollar – Alternate Data Series.
“Down the Memory Hole,” Alan Greenspan Style
“Down the Memory Hole,” Alan Greenspan Style – by Stephen Lendman
He’s back and in denial in a March 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined: “The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble.” He lied, the way he did throughout his career and for 18.5 years as Fed chairman. How else could he have kept the job, be knighted in the UK for his “contribution to global economic stability, wisdom and skill,” then afterwards be extolled by the Money Trust he enriched.
So now he’s preserving his “legacy” by expunging its dark side the way Orwell described in 1984 – “down the memory hole,” a convenient slot for “any document….due for destruction,” politically inconvenient truths to be erased to preserve only sanitized versions for the public. It’s called historical revisionism, but even some on the right aren’t convinced.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute is a libertarian research and educational center espousing the Austrian School economics of its namesake. Robert Murphy is one of its adjunct scholars, and in an April 14, 2008 article he asked: “Did the Fed Cause the Housing Bubble?”
“The case….is straightforward,” he stated. “…Greenspan slashed the federal funds target from 6.5% in January 2001 down to a ridiculous 1% by June 2003. After holding rates at 1% for a year, the Fed then steadily ratcheted them back up to 5.25% by June 2006,” a pumping and popping process that “seemed to be more than just a coincidence.” It led to speculative “malinvestments,” then needing a “recession” to correct.
“The Fed’s role in the housing boom and bust is a classic illustration of the Austrian business cycle theory,” according to Murphy. “Indeed, the Misesian explanation is so compelling that more and more economists and financial analysts are being persuaded.” But not Greenspan who made his own case and got the Wall Street Journal to publish it. The problem is what he said, even worse what he omitted.
via “Down the Memory Hole,” Alan Greenspan Style.
IRS Defends Drop In Audits Of Millionaires
IRS Defends Drop In Audits Of Millionaires
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is not living up to its pledge to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, an IRS watchdog group says, citing a drop in audits of millionaires last year.
The tax agency disputes the conclusion, ascribing the “slight” decline in audits to its focus on getting people their economic stimulus checks.
via IRS Defends Drop In Audits Of Millionaires.
Senate Notions Gone, Matthews Extends Contract at MSNBC – NYTimes.com
OPS: Four more years of Tweety… gawd
Matthews Renews Contract at MSNBC
Chris Matthews, the usually garrulous host of “Hardball” on MSNBC, has quietly signed a new long-term contract to remain with the cable network through the next election, signaling that he had quit entertaining any plans to run for a Senate seat.
The deal is for at least four years. Financial terms were not disclosed, and neither side would confirm whether MSNBC had won a reduction in salary for the host, as it had been reported to be seeking. Previous reports put his annual salary at about $5 million.
One executive involved in the negotiations said, “Whether he took a slight cut or got a slight raise, it’s nobody’s business.”
Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, said the deal would guarantee that Mr. Matthews would “be around to cover the next presidential election.” Mr. Matthews, known for his combative interviews, said he was happy to be staying on. “I love what I do,” he said. “It’s transparent. You can see it in my face.”
via Senate Notions Gone, Matthews Extends Contract at MSNBC – NYTimes.com.
Liddy on AIG’s Long Road Ahead – BusinessWeek
Liddy on AIG’s Long Road Ahead
AIG CEO Liddy Defends Bonuses: “Those People Don’t Want To Work For Free”
In an exclusive interview with BusinessWeek, CEO Edward Liddy says he expects AIG’s turnaround to take years, but adds, “This is not a life job for me”
Edward M. Liddy, the would-be rescuer of American International Group (AIG) who has become a target of wrath over Wall Street excesses and the ravages of the recession, knows all too well what is driving that anger. “There’s fear in America,” says Liddy, who came out of retirement last September to run AIG for the government for $1 a year. “People are very concerned about their jobs, their homes, their pensions.”
And Liddy, who is no fan of the multimillion-dollar bonuses agreed to by his predecessors at AIG even while he tolerates them, knows very personally what such fear and want mean. Liddy, who earned more than $130 million over eight years leading Allstate (ALL) until 2007, grew up so poor that he, his mother, and sister were thrown out of their homes at times after his father died when he was 12. There were days, he says, when food was short in his native New Brunswick, N.J. “We’d have dinner for three and food for two and my mother would say, ‘I don’t feel well right now. You two go ahead,’ recalls Liddy, now 63. “You can believe I know the angst of the American taxpayer and what’s happening in economically uncertain times.”
via Liddy on AIG’s Long Road Ahead – BusinessWeek.
Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon
Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon
Teenagers armed with only a £56 camera and latex balloon have managed to take stunning pictures of space from 20-miles above Earth.
Proving that you don’t need Google’s billions or the BBC weather centre’s resources, the four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere.
Taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the Meteotek team of IES La Bisbal school in Catalonia completed their incredible experiment at the end of February this year.
via Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon – Telegraph.
Geithner Aides Worked With AIG for Months on Bonuses
Geithner Aides Worked With AIG for Months on Bonuses
WASHINGTON — Since the fall, senior aides to Timothy Geithner have closely dealt with American International Group Inc. on compensation issues including bonuses, both from his time as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and as Treasury secretary.
The extent of their involvement, which wasn’t widely known, raises fresh questions about whether Mr. Geithner could have known earlier about AIG’s $165 million in bonus payments. When the bonuses sparked a political firestorm last week, Mr. Geithner said he learned about their full scope in early March, just days before they were paid.
Mr. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will be grilled by Congress on Tuesday in a hearing that is likely to focus heavily on AIG. The flap has prompted lawmakers to seek curbs on an array of bonuses, tested the Obama administration and undermined Mr. Geithner’s standing as he attempts to implement measures to stabilize the financial system.
Treasury officials say the department’s staff kept Mr. Geithner in the dark until March 10. “Secretary Geithner, who has been actively engaged in shaping and executing the president’s broad economic agenda, takes full responsibility for not being aware of these programs” before that date, Treasury spokesman Isaac Baker said Sunday in a written response to questions.
This account of how Mr. Geithner and his aides were apprised of the AIG bonuses was based on interviews with government officials, lawmakers and congressional testimony.
via Geithner Aides Worked With AIG for Months on Bonuses – WSJ.com.
After Criticism, CNBC Still Trusts in Cramer
OPS: Good shills are hard to find
Yes, Stewart, CNBC Still Trusts Cramer
Jim Cramer’s personal brand — not to mention that of CNBC’s, his employer — has taken a beating in the last month. But CNBC still trusts him.
The business network, a unit of NBC Universal, continues to show the “In Cramer We Trust” commercials that were blasted by Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” weeks ago during a much-talked-about war of words and video clips. On Friday afternoon, one of the commercials — which play off the United States motto “In God We Trust” to promote Mr. Cramer’s program “Mad Money” — called him “the voice of experience you can trust.”
Mr. Stewart’s criticisms of CNBC, delivered over many nights with the help of out-of-context video clips, included several that singled out Mr. Cramer, accusing him of promoting companies like Bear Stearns before they collapsed.
via After Criticism, CNBC Still Trusts in Cramer – NYTimes.com.
Is Multitasking Good For You?
OPS: The problem is that the Corporation you work for doesn’t give a rats ass whether it’s good for you or not.
Is Multitasking Good For You?
People multitask everywhere these days, thinking they are being productive – Blackberrying away while walking down the street, texting while driving, talking on the phone while answering email. Seems like everyone’s doing it. The only question: is it part of the solution or part of the problem?
When Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) complained that the President was trying to do too much, President Obama replied that a president must be able to do more than one thing at a time.
Perhaps there’s a difference in what President Obama is facing and what the rest of us find on our plates every day. Then again, maybe it’s not so different after all. We all have our challenges – they just seem to vary in terms of scope and complexity.
via Russell Bishop: Is Multitasking Good For You?.
US will appoint Afghan ‘prime minister’ to bypass Hamid Karzai
OPS: It’s good to be king. When you don’t like the old puppet, you can plant your own puppet
US will appoint Afghan ‘prime minister’ to bypass Hamid Karzai
White House plans new executive role to challenge corrupt government in Kabul
The US and its European allies are preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned.
The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election in August.
via US will appoint Afghan ‘prime minister’ to bypass Hamid Karzai | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Howard Dean To Become Regular CNBC Contributor
OPS: GE desperately looking for some credibility. Let’s hope Howard keeps some of his.
Howard Dean To Become Regular CNBC Contributor
Former DNC Chair Howard Dean will become a regular contributor for the business news network CNBC, a source close to the former Vermont Governor confirms. Dean started his new gig on Monday morning with a guest-hosting appearance on the station.
The move comes at a time when CNBC is under intense pressure to change its format and criticism for its failures to report or foresee much of today’s economic crisis. In this regard, Dean — who worked on Wall Street after graduating college and has family ties to the financial sector, but has nevertheless been an early critic of the business practices that contributed to the current recession — should be a refreshing presence, particularly for progressive economists.
via Howard Dean To Become Regular CNBC Contributor.
Obama: Cheney’s philosophy ‘hasn’t made us safer.’
Obama: Cheney’s philosophy ‘hasn’t made us safer.’
On CNN last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney said that President Obama’s national security policies, including his plan to close Guantanamo Bay, will “raise the risk to the American people of another attack.” In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired last night, Obama responded, saying, “I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney.” Obama added that “the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney” hasn’t “made us safer“:
OBAMA: The facts don’t bear him out. I think he is– that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage– to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many– how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn’t made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment. Which means that there is constant effective recruitment of– Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Obama: Cheney’s philosophy ‘hasn’t made us safer.’.
I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer
I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer
wattersf.jpg On March 1, ThinkProgress picked up on a story by News Hounds, which noted that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly — who has made controversial comments about rape victims in the past — was slated to speak at a March 19 fundraiser for the Alexa Foundation. The group is committed to supporting rape survivors.
Our post — which never criticized the Alexa Foundation — highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2 about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered:
via Think Progress » I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer.
Top 10 Aphrodisiac Foods
Top 10 Aphrodisiac Foods
You are what you eat, because what you eat directly influences your body and your body functions. The food you consume can have a direct impact on your sex life, affecting your hormones, brain chemistry, and energy and stress levels. Some foods have psychoactive properties, others arouse because they are psychologically suggestive, and some can actually increase blood flow to the genitals. And if it does not have all that aphrodisiac affect, at least it’s healthy and it will do you good!
10 – ASPARAGUS
English herbalist from the 17th century, Nicholas Culpepper, wrote that asparagus “stirs up lust in man and woman”. In the 19th century France, bridegrooms were served three courses of the sexy spears at their prenuptial dinner. Apparently for a good reason: asparagus is a great source of potassium, fiber, vitamin B6, vitamins A and C, and thiamin and folic acid. The latter is said to boost histamine production necessary for the ability to reach orgasm in both sexes.
via Top 10 Aphrodisiac Foods – Session Magazine.
The French Nuclear Industry Is Bad Enough in France; Let’s Not Expand It to the U.S.
The French Nuclear Industry Is Bad Enough in France; Let’s Not Expand It to the U.S. – By Linda Gunter
Areva, France’s nuclear industry, has a solid reputation, but a trail of radioactive waste and deaths in Africa follow its wake.
“Why can’t the Americans be more like the French?” It’s the prevailing pro-nuclear refrain, the latest in the nuclear industry’s efforts at fictional reinvention.
And until the collapse of his ill-fated and poorly orchestrated presidential run, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was the choirmaster, saying: “If France can produce 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we?”
This clarion call to newfound Francophilia (remember “freedom fries?”) is based on a number of false assumptions, the most obvious being that if France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, this equates with success.
via The French Nuclear Industry Is Bad Enough in France; Let’s Not Expand It to the U.S. | | AlterNet.
The President Needs to Hear Millions of Second Opinions on His Economic Plans
The President Needs to Hear Millions of Second Opinions on His Economic Plans – By William Greider,
Obama is trapped between the governing elites who decide things and the people who are governed. Which side is he on?
This is part of a special AlterNet series on Obama’s latest plans for a rescue of the bankers and Wall Street’s toxic assets.
Read our editorial on the big picture.
The president is getting what he asked for, but perhaps not what he had in mind. During the campaign, Barack Obama beckoned Americans to put aside their cynicism about politics and re-engage as active citizens. They are now doing so with red-hot anger. They are outraged by events and forcing their way into congressional affairs and behind closed doors where policy wonks discuss issues with cerebral civility. The president is now trapped between these two realms — the governing elites who decide things and the people who are governed. Which side is he on? If he does not choose wisely, the anger could devour his presidency.
The immediate impetus is the latest outrage from the financial sector. AIG, the failed insurance giant on government life support, proceeded to hand out $165 million in employee bonuses. Because Washington has pumped $170 billion into this zombie corporation, people quickly grasped that AIG was redistributing their tax money. On March 13, the White House sent out Larry Summers, the president’s economic adviser, to explain things. Government has no choice, Summers said, because this is a government of laws and we must honor contracts. On Monday, the president scrapped that line, hoping to dodge the outrage.
The Voters’ Uprising: President Obama What Are You Thinking?
The Voters’ Uprising: President Obama What Are You Thinking? – By Don Hazen,
As each day’s events unfold, increasing numbers of people are getting angrier and angrier, demanding a government that represents their interests. Why? As Bill Greider so eloquently describes, the reasons are pretty clear and straightforward:
“During the past nine months, gigantic financial bailouts amid collapsing economic life made visible the crippling divide between governing elites and citizens at large. People everywhere learned a blunt lesson about power, who has it and who doesn’t. They watched Washington rush to rescue the very financial interests that caused the catastrophe. They learned that government has plenty of money to spend when the right people want it. ‘Where’s my bailout,’ became the rueful punch line at lunch counters and construction sites nationwide. Then to deepen the insult, people watched as establishment forces relaunched their campaign for “entitlement reform” — a euphemism for whacking Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid.”
The much younger and more surly Matt Taibbi, who uses language more salty and immediate than Greider, but who is no less a brilliant observer of history and popular anger, also thinks that a coup is under way — that Wall Street Insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution. That the global economic crisis isn’t about money — it’s about power.
Writes Taibbi in Rolling Stone:
The Geithner Problem
The Geithner Problem - By Eugene Robinson
President Obama’s claim that Timothy Geithner faces a more daunting set of challenges than any treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Geithner may indeed be the hardest-working man in Washington. But in order to survive, let alone succeed, he’s going to have to make a more convincing case that he’s part of the solution and not part of the problem.
The case of the appalling AIG bonuses—I was going to call them outrageous, but politicians and pundits have exhausted the nation’s supply of outrage since the payments were revealed—is just the latest situation to raise the inconvenient problem-versus-solution question about Geithner. Why didn’t he know about the bonuses earlier? And when he did get clued in, why didn’t he do anything to head off what was obviously going to be a distracting and perhaps damaging controversy?
A simpler way of asking the Geithner question is: Does he get it?
via Truthdig – Reports – The Geithner Problem.
Before I pop this pill, I’d like to know where it came from
Before I pop this pill, I’d like to know where it came from – David Lazarus:
“Like all global pharmaceutical companies, we source globally — in fact, companies do not have a choice on this, since some ingredients are available in certain places only,” Shannon said.
He added that Perrigo has “world-class quality systems and controls in place to assure the safety and quality of materials we use to make our products
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an industry group, says the federal government insists on such quality controls for all pharmaceuticals sold in the U.S.
“Consumers can take comfort in knowing that a new-drug approvals process is in place, and good manufacturing practices are in place no matter where a drug is produced,” said Kendra Martello, the group’s assistant general counsel.
via Before I pop this pill, I’d like to know where it came from – Los Angeles Times.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
