Archive for April, 2009
Paul Ryan Mocks Idea That Tea Parties Are Astroturf At A Tea Party Organized By A Lobbyist Group
Paul Ryan Mocks Idea That Tea Parties Are Astroturf At A Tea Party Organized By A Lobbyist Group
ThinkProgress first reported that corporate front groups run by lobbyists were orchestrating the radical anti-Obama tea party protests held yesterday. One of the front groups that mobilized the protests is Americans for Prosperity, an organization funded by oil industry money and run by Tim Phillips, a former partner in Ralph Reed’s lobbying firm. On Monday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted these these “astroturf” campaigns were meant to appear as a grassroots, spontaneous protests.
Speaking at a tea party protest in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) mocked Krugman’s assertions:
RYAN: Earlier this week, a columnist from the New York Times wrote about these events and I want to read you a few quotes. What we have here today is an astroturf event, a fake grassroots event. These rallies don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. What do you all think about that? [audience boos]
Watch it:
DeLay defends Gov. Perry, explains how Texas could secede from the Union.
DeLay defends Gov. Perry, explains how Texas could secede from the Union.
Yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) raised the specter of his state seceding from the Union “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people.” Today on MSNBC, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay offered a staunch defense of Perry’s statement, saying the Texas governor was “standing up for [Texas’s] sovereignty.” DeLay elaborately explained how Texas could secede:
Q: You can’t secede from the Union!
DeLAY: Texas was a republic. It joined the Union by treaty. There’s a process in the treaty by which Texas could divide into five states. If we invoke that, and the last time it was voted on was 1985, the United States Senate would kick us out and nullify the treaty because they’re not going to allow 10 new Texas senators into the Senate. That’s how you secede.
“So we would kick them out of the Union? That’s nutty!” asked Matthews. “Yeah…it’s not nutty!” DeLay responded. Watch it:
via Think Progress » DeLay defends Gov. Perry, explains how Texas could secede from the Union..
Alaska lawmakers reject Palin’s controversial attorney general pick.
Alaska lawmakers reject Palin’s controversial attorney general pick.
The Alaska Legislature rejected Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) pick for state attorney general, Wayne Anthony Ross, by a vote of 35-23 today. Ross’s nomination caused a firestorm because of his radical right-wing views. He had called gay people “degenerates” and allegedly defended men who rape their wives. He also praised a student for creating a large statue of a Ku Klux Klan member, saying the “project gets ‘A’ for courage.” Introducing Ross last month, Palin said he “brings years of good service, in more ways than one.” “He will make an excellent attorney general,” she said.
via Think Progress » Alaska lawmakers reject Palin’s controversial attorney general pick..
Foreign Policy and Israel: it’s two states, like it or not
Foreign Policy and Israel: it’s two states, like it or not
This is George Mitchell’s first visit to Israel since the new administration of Bibi Netanyahu has been put in place. Much has happened since the Likud leader was requested by President Shimon Peres to form a coalition government. We’ve seen and heard too much already from Avigdor Lieberman, – Netanyahu has been ignoring the call for a two-state solution, Shimon Peres saying that Iran wants to control the Middle East, and now that Mitchell has arrived, one of the headlines reads that Netanyahu will not discuss Palestinian statehood unless Israel is recognized as a Jewish state.
The more significant events are the ones not making headlines. While President Obama is facing his Latin American counterparts for the rest of the week, others are speaking in his voice. Surprisingly, it was not Hillary Clinton, but Rahm Emmanuel that said the following:
via NY Foreign Policy Examiner: Foreign Policy and Israel: it’s two states, like it or not.
Time Warner Scraps Bandwidth Cap Testing
Time Warner Scraps Bandwidth Cap Testing
Time Warner Cable has shelved plans to test consumption-based billing until it can improve its “customer education process,” the company announced Thursday.
“It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing,” Time Warner CEO Glen Britt said in a statement. “As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met.”
Time Warner started testing bandwidth caps last year in its Beaumont, Texas market – a test that it recently expanded to North Carolina and New York.
But while rival Comcast implemented a 250GB bandwidth cap for residential customers last year without much fanfare, and AT&T announced plans to test a 150GB cap, Time Warner took some heat because its caps were relatively low – between 5GB and 40GB.
via Time Warner Scraps Bandwidth Cap Testing – News and Analysis by PC Magazine.
What The Boston Tea Party Was Really About
Thom talks about the real history behind The Boston Tea Party.
via YouTube – What The Boston Tea Party Was Really About.
Scott Horton and Thom Hartmann talk about the Spanish court indictment of “The Bush 6.”
Scott Horton of Harpers Magazine and Thom Hartmann talk about the Spanish court indictment of “The Bush 6.
via YouTube – Scott Horton and Thom Hartmann talk about the Spanish court indictment of “The Bush 6.”.
GOP Tea Party (Sam Seeder Undercover)
Seder goes undercover to see what happens inside the explosive GOP tea bag parties. Sam Seder Beaten Up By Teabaggers.
YouTube – GOP Tea Party (Sam Undercover) @ BreakRoomLive.com.
Guts at the Pensacola Tea Party 4-15-09
OPS: Want to see what GUTS looks like? Watch this….. [it's short]
YouTube – Pensacola Tea Party 4-15-09.
Recession Is Far From Over As Jobless Tops 6 Million For First Time
Recession Is Far From Over As Jobless Tops 6 Million For First Time
WASHINGTON — Housing construction unexpectedly plunged, the number of people receiving jobless benefits grew and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said its first-quarter profit dropped compared with last year.
That was the bad news. But those same reports Thursday included some silver linings suggesting the recession may be easing.
The pace of new-home construction seems to be nearing a bottom. First-time jobless benefit claims fell more than expected for the second straight week. And JPMorgan’s profits were larger than analysts had expected. In the past week, two other banks, Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., issued positive earnings reports, too.
All told, growing evidence indicates the economy may be stabilizing.
“The economy is still very weak, but there are some encouraging signs that support cautious optimism,” Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said in a speech Thursday.
via Recession Is Far From Over As Jobless Tops 6 Million For First Time.
The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unraveling
The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unraveling
In one sense, it isn’t hard to see why the Republican Party seems to be coming apart at the seams. When you get caught gutting the regulations that had kept us for 70 years from another stock market crash like the crash of 1929 and another collapse of the banking system like the one that occurred during the Great Depression, and when your policies throw millions of people out of their homes, jobs, retirement, and doctors’ offices, the next bottle of elixir you sell is not likely to fly off the shelf, especially if it’s the same whine in a new deCantor.
But at a deeper level, the modern conservative movement, which eventually came to define the GOP (to its benefit for many years), was built on an ideological foundation–and a coalition–that was fundamentally incoherent. It took a charismatic leader to bring it together (Ronald Reagan), a tacit agreement among its coalition partners to give each other what they wanted, and a message machine to start selling the idea that that there was coherence to a conservative “philosophy” that was anything but coherent.
Modern conservatism wove together five discrete strands and interest groups that couldn’t coexist. What is remarkable is how well it held together despite the fact that those strands were actually difficult to interweave.
via Drew Westen: The Five Strands of Conservatism: Why the GOP is Unraveling.
MIDEAST: West Bank a Time Bomb Waiting to Explode
MIDEAST: West Bank a Time Bomb Waiting to Explode
Analysis by Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, Apr 16 (IPS) – Tension between Israel and Palestinians is rising sharply as reflected in a number of increasingly bloody and violent confrontations since Israel’s devastating war in Gaza at the beginning of the year.
While Gaza, which the Islamic organisation Hamas controls, has been a powder-keg for several years, recent attacks in the West Bank, which is under the control of the secular Palestinian Authority (PA) that is Israel’s peace partner, are causing alarm.
“The West Bank is a ticking time-bomb waiting for the right time and the right conditions to explode,” Dr Samir Awad from the political science department at Birzeit University near Ramallah in the West Bank told IPS.
Last week a 16-year-old settler boy from the illegal Israeli Bat Ayin settlement, situated between Bethlehem and Hebron in the southern West Bank, was axed to death by a Palestinian. Another seven-year-old settler boy was hospitalised with a fractured skull in the same incident.
Earlier in the year two Israeli policemen were shot dead at point blank range after they stopped to help what appeared to be a broken down car with a flat tyre in the northern West Bank.
Even more serious was the discovery of a car laden with explosives in the parking lot of a large shopping centre in the northern Israeli city Haifa last month. The bomb was deactivated in time.
It is believed that West Bankers or possibly Israeli-Arabs were behind this, again pointing to increasing militancy from the West Bank or even within Israeli’s own borders.
via MIDEAST: West Bank a Time Bomb Waiting to Explode.
McClellan: Bush insiders planning to ‘spin an alternative reality’
OPS: Here’s a clue Scotty – The Reich has been doing that since at least Reagan and you were part of it for a while. Welcome – glad you 
could join us.
McClellan: Bush insiders planning to ‘spin an alternative reality’
Former President George W. Bush has been holding a reunion of his “old gang” in Texas this week to make plans for his presidential library and policy institute.
According to Scott McClellan, one-time Bush White House press secretary, those plans can be expected to center on attempting to spin the history of the Bush administration rather than addressing it honesty.
“This gathering in Dallas is really the first meeting of the Bush legacy-shaping group,” McClellan told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Tuesday, “which happens to include the core members of the White House Iraq Group. And I think some of their thinking is still grounded in the mentality that was used to sell the war in Iraq in the first place.”
As described by McClellan in his book, What Happened, the White House Iraq Group was “set up in the summer of 2002 to coordinate the marketing of the war to the public” and “to convince Americans that war with Iraq was inevitable and necessary.”
via The Raw Story | McClellan: Bush insiders planning to ‘spin an alternative reality’.
Desperate veterans turn to suicide
Desperate veterans turn to suicide
VA blamed for failing to help Iraq, Afghan veterans
On June 11, 2006, at 8:30 p.m., Randen Harvey, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran, walked into the emergency room of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Ann Arbor in such a state of despair he warned he “might jump off the roof or put a hose in his car exhaust.”
Four hours later, around 1 a.m., he was found on the roof of the nine-story building. Hospital security had to be called to bring him down.
Three days later, on June 15, the Marine who served two back-to-back combat tours in Iraq surrendered to his demons. He was found sprawled on the tile floor in the bathroom of his father’s Farmington Hills home, dead from an overdose of street and prescription drugs.
via Desperate veterans turn to suicide | detnews.com | The Detroit News.
Bush Administration authorized use of insects in interrogations
Bush Administration authorized use of insects in interrogations
The Bush Administration Office of Legal Counsel authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to put insects inside a confinement box as part of the Administration’s “harsh interrogation” practice, as well as throwing detainees into walls, according to memos released by President Barack Obama on Thursday.
Read the full memos here.
“You would like to place Zubadayah in a cramped confinement box with an insect. You have informed us he has a fear of insects,” the Bush White House said.
“As we understand it, no actually harmful insect will be placed in the box. Thus, though the introduction of an insect may produce trepidation in Zubaydah (which we discuss below), it certainly does not cause physical pain.”
But, the memo cautioned, to comply with the law, the CIA “must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain.”
via The Raw Story | Bush Administration authorized use of insects in interrogations.
NYT Report On ‘Significant’ Surveillance Abuses Confirms Progressive Criticisms Of 2008 FISA Compromise
NYT Report On ‘Significant’ Surveillance Abuses Confirms Progressive Criticisms Of 2008 FISA Compromise
Last night, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists James Risen and Eric Lichtblau reported in the New York Times that “the National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year.” According to intelligence officials, the problems grew “out of changes enacted by Congress last July in the law that regulates the government’s wiretapping powers.”
In July 2008, as Congress — including then-Sen. Barack Obama — moved towards approving the re-write of surveillance law, progressives mobilized against the legislation. As Glenn Greenwald points out, many of the concerns held by progressives at the time are proven by the NYT report. Here’s how Greenwald summarized the opposition in June 2008:
Rep. Mark Kirk suggest shooting Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn because of higher taxes.
OPS: When is SOMEONE going to be prosecuted for this crap?
Rep. Mark Kirk suggest shooting Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn because of higher taxes.
The Chicago Tribune reports today that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is considering running for Illinois governor, saying his interest is the result of “so much corruption in our state.” Responding to reports that Gov. Pat Quinn (D) will raise income taxes to patch a crippling budget deficit, Kirk suggested shooting Quinn:
“I think that the decision to raise taxes by 50 percent in Illinois is political suicide,” Kirk said of Quinn’s proposal to raise the tax rate to 4.5 percent from 3 percent, coupled with an increase in the personal deduction. “I think the people of Illinois are ready to shoot anyone who is going to raise taxes by that degree.”
Last June, Kirk mistakenly referred to then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as “Osama,” saying that he supports a policy “where if we see Obama there’s a shoot-on-sight order.”
via Think Progress » Rep. Mark Kirk suggest shooting Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn because of higher taxes..
Rep. Peter King Responds To Extremism Report, Says DHS Should Be Targeting ‘Mosques’ Instead
Rep. Peter King Responds To Extremism Report, Says DHS Should Be Targeting ‘Mosques’ Instead
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report requested by the Bush administration that warned of the rising threat of right-wing extremism. The political right has been up in arms over the intelligence assessment, falsely claiming it is an assault on conservativism.
Today on MSNBC, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) used the release of the DHS assessment to advance his well-documented anti-Muslim agenda. King told Joe Scarborough that, instead of discussing the threat of anti-government radicals, DHS should focus on the threat emanating from “Muslims” and “mosques” at home:
Obama announces release of Bush-era OLC torture memos.
Obama announces release of Bush-era OLC torture memos.
President Obama announced this afternoon in a written statement that the Justice Department is releasing memos from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) between 2002 and 2005 which “speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects.” In his statement, Obama laid out his reasoning for making the memos public and announced that his administration would not seek to prosecute individuals who “who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice”:
First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program – and some of the practices – associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.
In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world.
via Think Progress » Obama announces release of Bush-era OLC torture memos..
The Geithner Bubble
The Geithner Bubble
In some people’s eyes, a miraculous emergence from the crisis is brewing: Through the combined play of the Geithner plan, (which allows investment funds and banks to buy other banks’ toxic assets, borrowing most of what they need to do so from the Federal budget) and accounting changes (which allow banks to carry those assets at an inflated value), we see a derivatives market take hold in which some will sell these assets at a very high price to others in order to buy more of those assets at a still higher price: so that an asset value bubble will form, entirely financed by the taxpayer. The value of banks’ capital funds, up until now totally corrupted by the presence of these toxic assets, will be raised naturally by this operation, without the government having to spend any money apart from that which will have allowed the banks to buy these products and make their price rise. Then growth will be able to take off again, creating new financial fortunes in the midst of innumerable industrial bankruptcies.
This bubble is already underway: It can be measured by the difference between the stock market ( in full growth mode), in particular, stocks of at-risk sectors (especially the financial sector) and the (totally anemic) credit market, by the difference between the (negative) change in estimated profits and the (positive) change in stock prices, by the increase in company multiples, by the foreseeable nature of central bank actions, allowing the return of mechanisms for currency transfer, the so-called carry trade, on the dollar and the yen.
via t r u t h o u t | The Geithner Bubble.
The Hundred Days War: Histories of the New Deal
The Hundred Days War: Histories of the New Deal
By Thomas J. Sugrue
During Barack Obama’s first hundred days, history has provided pundits and politicians with a grab bag of analogies. Obama himself has invoked Abraham Lincoln and put him on a pedestal. I’m not speaking figuratively: a bust of the sixteenth president sits on the same plinth in the Oval Office where Obama’s predecessor had displayed a sculpture of Winston Churchill. Obama has also cited Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, an analysis of Lincoln’s complex relationships with leading members of his cabinet, as a model for his own style of presidential leadership. Journalists have compared the youth and idealism of Obama and his supporters to John F. Kennedy’s Camelot, and fashionistas have twittered about the dashing Michelle being a latter-day Jackie (with sinewy biceps). Still others have suggested that Obama embodies Reagan’s charisma while reclaiming Reaganesque paeans to national greatness for the Democrats. A few wags have tried to burst the bubble of hope by comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter, another Washington outsider and intellectual who promised sweeping change but whose mandate collapsed under the weight of recession, malaise and crisis in the Middle East.
Barack Lincoln. Barack H. Kennedy. Barack Carter. Barack Reagan. None have captured the imagination of editorialists, bloggers and journalists like Barack Delano Roosevelt. A recent New Yorker illustration portrayed the forty-fourth president chin up in the Rooseveltian fashion, exuberant and self-confident, a cigarette holder clenched in his teeth. In this version of history-as-analogy, Obama’s fight against the “Great Recession” will restore a faith in government that has been wholly discredited by the disastrous policies of George W. Hoover. Obama’s most fervent supporters hope that the president’s stimulus package and ambitious budget will launch a “new New Deal” designed to restore confidence in the financial system, curb unemployment, revivify the housing market and rebuild America’s decaying highways and schools. The Obama-Roosevelt analogy is compelling–until you remember that history does not repeat itself. It is not cyclical. And it seldom offers easy lessons for the present. Ultimately, the differences between FDR and BHO and their respective eras are as instructive as the similarities.
Each generation has drawn its own lessons from the New Deal. The first wave of New Deal histories were written by unabashed Democrats during the 1950s and early 1960s, when liberalism seemed invincible. The eminent historian and Washington courtier Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. popularized the heroic interpretation of Roosevelt with a triple-decker history in which the New Deal represents the full flowering of an American political tradition of strong executive power and visionary leadership rooted in the Age of Jackson. FDR created the modern American state, offering a pragmatic, humane alternative to the radical individualism and anti-statism that had long hindered the fulfillment of the American promise of equality and opportunity.
via The Hundred Days War: Histories of the New Deal_TheNation.
Harper’s Cover Story on Evangelism in the Military
Harper’s Cover Story on Evangelism in the Military
Jeff Sharlet wades deep into the rising big muddy of evangelism in the military in the current issue of Harper’s Magazine.
The article is titled, “Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military.” The media world is being spammed with the press release, andthe article is an eye opening and hair raising read — so Jeff may very well be coming to a radio or TV show near you.
I am sure some of us will have more to say about all this, so for now, check out the press release for yourself on the flip, or if you are a subscriber, or would like to become one, go to Harper’s online to read the story. Or you can pick it up at the news stand on April 28.
via Talk To Action | Harper’s Cover Story on Evangelism in the Military.
Report Card on Civil Liberties
Report Card on Civil Liberties
Obama pledged to reject the Bush administration’s fast-and-loose adherence to constitutional rights. How is he doing?
During his inauguration speech, President Barack Obama declared, “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” These were words many Americans who voted for Obama longed to hear — an acknowledgement that American security could not be purchased by shredding the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.
In these first few months, the Obama administration has taken a number of positions on issues relating to civil liberties and the fight against terrorism. Below, we look at how the administration has handled its commitment to reversing the policies of the previous administration.
via Report Card on Civil Liberties | The American Prospect.
U.S. phone intercepts go beyond legal limits: report
U.S. phone intercepts go beyond legal limits: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The National Security Agency intercepted Americans’ e-mails and phone calls in recent months on a scale that went beyond limits set by the U.S. Congress last year, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Citing unnamed intelligence officials, it said the NSA had engaged in “‘over-collection’ of domestic communications of Americans.” The sources variously characterized the practice as significant, systemic or unintentional, the Times said.
“A series of classified government briefings have been held in recent weeks in response to a brewing controversy that some officials worry could damage the credibility of legitimate intelligence-gathering efforts,” the paper said.
It said the Justice Department acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday that there had been problems with NSA surveillance operations and said they were resolved.
A bill passed by Congress in July 2008 authorizes U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop without court approval on foreign targets believed to be outside the United States.
Critics complained that this allowed warrantless surveillance of phone calls and e-mails of Americans who communicate with the foreign targets. The bill sought to minimize such eavesdropping on Americans, but critics said the safeguards were inadequate.
via U.S. phone intercepts go beyond legal limits: report.
Experts Detail How Mathematics Can Shed Light on Terrorism”
In Conference at AAAS, Experts Detail How Mathematics Can Shed Light on Terrorism
Mathematicians and computer specialists have enlisted in the effort against terrorism, using tools of their trade on such problems as modeling the behavior of terrorist cells, finding common patterns in insurgencies, sifting huge amounts of data for tell-tale connections between individuals, and assessing how communities might respond to terror attacks.
Even as scientists have used computational techniques to help policy makers understand the shadowy world of terrorism, much of their work remains theoretical—constrained by a lack of data on the targets of interest.
That is perhaps understandable, given the secrecy surrounding both the terrorists and the intelligence agencies that track them. But participants at the 5th Conference on Mathematical Methods in Counterterrorism, hosted 12-13 March at AAAS, urged more sharing of information by federal agencies to help improve the computer models and analytical tools being developed by academic specialists.
“It’s very hard to find good, open-source data sets,” said Roy Lindelauf of the Netherlands Defense Academy. He has been using network theory to assess the tradeoffs between secrecy and operational efficiency in covert groups.
“AAAS Joins Leading Texas Scientists and Educators in Urging State Board to Reject Anti-Evolution Amendments”
AAAS Joins Leading Texas Scientists and Educators in Urging State Board to Reject Anti-Evolution Amendments
Leading members of the Texas scientific community, in collaboration with AAAS, have urged the Texas State Board of Education to reject amendments to the state’s draft science standards that would undermine sound science teaching. And in a commentary published in the San Antonio Express-News online edition, AAAS officials warned that approval of the anti-science amendments could undermine Texas’s reputation as a world engine of scientific discovery and innovation.
The board is to take a final vote on the standards on Friday 27 March.
In a 23 March letter to Chairman Don McLeroy and the other members of the Texas board, the scientists said certain amendments, introduced and approved during the January 2009 board meeting, “would mislead students should they make it into the final standards.” Among the concerns, the scientists say, is an amendment to the biology standards that attacks one of evolution’s key principles: that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor.
The Genetics of Thinking Differently
The Genetics of Thinking Differently
It may be something that you’ve always suspected and joked about: your brain operates differently than your brother’s brain. Now, research published in the 27 March issue of the journal Science can back up that punch line. A study of male twins and their non-twin brothers suggests that individuals may use different areas of the brain to solve a memory problem, and that the differences appear to be genetically controlled.
The twins and their brothers were asked to memorize a short string of digits, after which they were “distracted” by solving simple math problems or sorting a list of fruits and vegetables into separate categories. Functional magnetic resonance images of the brothers’ brains show that the siblings then used different neural networks to help them recall specific numbers from the memory task.
Some of the brothers used brain networks related to spatial and numerical tasks, while others activated language-related networks to help them remember the numbers. The more closely genetically related the brothers were, the more likely they were to use the same network to jog their memories.
via AAAS – AAAS News Release – “SCIENCE: The Genetics of Thinking Differently”.
“SCIENCE: Self-Affirmation Can Break Cycle of Negative Thoughts”
Science: Self-Affirmation Can Break Cycle of Negative Thoughts
Updating the results of an experiment first reported in Science two years ago, researchers say that the positive effects from psychological interventions administered then are still being experienced today. The findings of this long-term study demonstrate how early and subtle self-affirmation exercises can have long-lasting impacts that help people to escape from perpetuating negative thoughts.
This experiment focused on racially diverse middle-school students, and specifically shows how values-affirmation exercises closed the achievement gap between low-performing African Americans students and their peers not only over one school term, but throughout students’ tenure in middle school.
via AAAS – AAAS News Release – “SCIENCE: Self-Affirmation Can Break Cycle of Negative Thoughts”.
Made For Each Other: The Biology Of The Human-Animal Bond By Meg Daley Olmert
Book Review: Made for Each Other: The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond
A nursing mother, a pet lover and a horse in a cavalry charge have at least one thing in common: bloodstreams full of oxytocin, Olmert contends in this fascinating book that explores the deep connection between people and animals.
Many studies have linked oxytocin, one of several mammalian hormones produced in the hypothalamus, to maternal bonding, trust and social recognition in several species.
In pregnant humans, a surge of oxytocin stimulates labor. Once a baby is delivered, the neurochemical induces the mother to release breast milk — an elegant symbiotic design that keeps babies fat and happy and can send nursing mothers into a state of dreamy contentedness. At the other extreme, mice genetically incapable of producing oxytocin can’t recognize mice that they’ve previously encountered.
Studies show that stroking pets increases levels of oxytocin in the groomer and the groomed, and the hormone’s calming effects may explain the benefits of pet therapy, the connections people forge with individual animals and people’s love for animals in general.
Olmert suggests that oxytocin has played a key role in domesticating large mammals and turning them into pets. In horses, for instance, a naturally high level of oxytocin — boosted in the species by evolution and in individuals by a bond with a nurturing horseman — may be key to transforming the gentle creatures into warhorses capable of galloping headlong into the noise and confusion of a battlefield.
IMF sees long and severe slowdown
IMF sees long and severe slowdown
The current global recession is likely to be “unusually long and severe, and the recovery sluggish,” the International Monetary Fund has warned.
Slowdowns linked with financial crises tend to be severe, while synchronised slowdowns last longer, it said.
The current global crisis has also been strongly felt in emerging economies, it said in its World Economic Outlook.
The global links between financial sectors have intensified the speed the downturn has spread across the world.
The recession will be less severe if government spending increases, the IMF says, with fiscal policies seen as more effective than monetary policy
Detailed forecasts for individual countries are set to be released next week, ahead of the IMF’s spring meeting in Washington.
via BBC NEWS | Business | IMF sees long and severe slowdown.
Is America the new Russia?
Is America the new Russia?
By Martin Wolf
Is the US Russia? The question seems provocative, if not outrageous. Yet the person asking it is Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In an article in the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Prof Johnson compares the hold of the “financial oligarchy” over US policy with that of business elites in emerging countries. Do such comparisons make sense? The answer is Yes, but only up to a point.
“In its depth and suddenness,” argues Prof Johnson, “the US economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets.” The similarity is evident: large inflows of foreign capital; torrid credit growth; excessive leverage; bubbles in asset prices, particularly property; and, finally, asset-price collapses and financial catastrophe.
“But,” adds Prof Johnson, “there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests – financiers, in the case of the US – played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse.” Moreover, “the great wealth that the financial sector created and concentrated gave bankers enormous political weight.”
via FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf – Is America the new Russia?.
Gov. Paterson unveils same-sex marriage bill: ‘It’s time to take a stand.’
Gov. Paterson unveils same-sex marriage bill: ‘It’s time to take a stand.’
Declaring that “it’s time to take a stand,” New York Gov. David Paterson today announced a bill to legalize gay marriage. “We come to this debate with the wind at our back,” Paterson said. “The events in Connecticut and Massachusetts, the decisions in Iowa and in Vermont, give us the feeling that we can be effective.” He emphasized that 1,300-1,400 rights would be granted to individuals that don’t exist in the case of civil unions. “Rights should not be stifled by fear,” he said. “What we should understand is that silence should not be a response to injustice.” Watch it:
via Think Progress » Gov. Paterson unveils same-sex marriage bill: ‘It’s time to take a stand.’.
Obama Hints At Torture Investigation: ‘We Are Moving A Process Forward’
Obama Hints At Torture Investigation: ‘We Are Moving A Process Forward’
Earlier this month, a Spanish court said it would consider opening a criminal case against six Bush administration officials “over allegations they gave legal cover for torture at Guantanamo.” The Spanish attorney general said today that he would not recommend a case, but Judge Baltazar Garzon “will decide whether to press ahead with a criminal investigation.”
Thus far, Obama administration officials have tried to skirt questions on the matter. On Tuesday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded, “We may have some reaction based on what ultimately happens.” Today, CNN’s Juan Carlos Lopez asked Obama about the investigation ahead of his trip to Mexico. Obama repeated his desire to look forward:
via Think Progress » Obama Hints At Torture Investigation: ‘We Are Moving A Process Forward’.
In search of the renewable energy economy
As a result of the wind energy boom, Nolan County cut taxes this year, even as they approved spending $24,000.000 for new school construction through 2010.
I walked through a new $14,000,000 school under construction for a total of 168 students (K-12). I talked to high school students, administration, and the construction manager and learned that that single district will receive $45 million in contracted revenue directly from wind energy production (on district property) through 2020.
In search of the renewable energy economy – part 2 of 3 | GPACE.
Wells Fargo’s Profit Looks Too Good to Be True
Wells Fargo’s Profit Looks Too Good to Be True: Jonathan Weil
April 16 (Bloomberg) — Wells Fargo & Co. stunned the world last week by proclaiming it had just finished its most profitable quarter ever. This will go down as the moment when lots of investors decided it was safe again to place blind faith in a big bank’s earnings.
What sent Wells shares soaring on April 9 was a three-page press release in which the San Francisco-based bank said it expected to report first-quarter net income of about $3 billion. Wells disclosed few details of what was in that figure. And by pushing the stock up 32 percent that day to $19.61, investors sent a clear message: They didn’t care.
Dig below the surface of Wells’s numbers, though, and there are reasons to be wary. Here are four gimmicks to look out for when the company releases its first-quarter results on April 22:
Gimmick No. 1: Cookie-jar reserves.
Wells’s earnings may have gotten a boost from an accounting maneuver, since banned, that it used last year as part of its $12.5 billion purchase of Wachovia Corp. Specifically, Wells carried over a $7.5 billion loan-loss allowance from Wachovia’s balance sheet onto its own books — the effect of which I’ll explain in a moment.
via Wells Fargo’s Profit Looks Too Good to Be True: Jonathan Weil – Bloomberg.com.
Obama Publishes Op-Ed in Advance of Summit of the Americas
Obama Publishes Op-Ed in Advance of Summit of the Americas
By Garance Franke-Ruta
President Obama wrote an op-ed that ran today in 15 Carribean, Latin American and United States newspapers, promising the other nations of the hemisphere “a new day” in their relationship to its most powerful member.
“Choosing a Better Future in the Americas” appeared this morning in the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald, both of which serve substantial Cuban American readerships, and the Trinidad Express of Trinidad and Tobago, where Obama is headed to tomorrow to attend the Summit of the Americas than runs through April 19. As well, the op-ed ran in El Nuevo Herald, an American Spanish-language paper.
The op-ed also ran in a number of Grupo de Diarios America affiliates across the hemisphere: La Nación in Argentina, O Globo in Brazil, El Mercurio in Chile, El Tiempo in Colombia, La Nación in Costa Rica, El Comercio in Ecuador, El Universal in México, El Comercio in Perú, El Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico, El País in Uruguay and El Nacional in Venezuela.
The English version of President Obama’s op-ed, which was published in Spanish and Portuguese, follows:
via Obama Publishes Op-Ed in Advance of Summit of the Americas | 44 | washingtonpost.com.
That’s more than 6,000,000 on unemployment
That’s more than 6,000,000 on unemployment
The number of people getting jobless benefits topped 6 million for the first time last week. The so-called continuing claims number was part of the Labor Department’s weekly jobless report, which also contained a few bits of hope.
The number of first-time applicants was down 53,000 last week, to 610,000, and was lower than the 655,000 economists had expected. The four-week average for new claims — a less volatile measure — also was down 9,000, to 651,000.
But the continuing claims number was up 172,000 last week. Continuing claims are up by 1.25 million the past nine weeks and 102.4 percent in the past year, their biggest yeear-on-year increase since 1975.
via That’s more than 6,000,000 on unemployment | Dollars & Sense.
Politico’s Mike Allen claims that author of DHS report on right-wing extremism couldn’t be from ‘real America.’
Politico’s Mike Allen claims that author of DHS report on right-wing extremism couldn’t be from ‘real America.’
On Tuesday, the Washington Times revealed a recent Department of Homeland Security assessment that warned about increased activity by “rightwing extremists.” Conservatives have responded with hyperventilation, claiming that the report meant the government was targeting them. On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Tuesday night, Politico’s Mike Allen added fuel to the outrage fire, claiming that the report couldn’t have been written by someone from “the real America”:
ALLEN: I think it’s a big story — I don’t know, I think some bureaucrat who wrote this report like misstated in a way that doesn’t comport with your or my observations about the real America. I think it was somebody, who written inside the Beltway, who maybe has fantasies about what happens outside in the real America. But I think it was obviously overstated that I can only get so like excited about that.
Listen here:
Beck endorses Texas secession.
Beck endorses Texas secession.
While speaking at a “tea party” yesterday, Texas governor Rick Perry (R) suggested that his state might have to secede “if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people.” Last night on Fox News, Beck seemed to agree with Perry’s call, insisting that “Texas does America best“:
via Think Progress » Beck endorses Texas secession..
Bachmann: The Six Muslim Leaders Detained In MN In 2006 Were On Their Way To Ellison’s Victory Party
OPS: Speaking of insane…
: The Six Muslim Leaders Detained In MN In 2006 Were On Their Way To Ellison’s Victory Party
Last week, KSGO 560 AM San Francisco conducted a little-noticed radio interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in which the host, Lee Rogers, took issue with the fact that the voters of Minnesota were the first to elect “an openly, avowed Muslim to Congress,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN). Rogers asked for Bachmann’s reaction to the fact that Ellison helped President Obama find qualified American Muslims to serve in his administration.
[snip]
In fact, the six were not attending Ellison’s victory celebration. As the New York Times reported after the incident were on their way back from a “Minneapolis conference of the North American Imams Federation.” more…..
Pope Investigating US Catholic Sisters For Not Holding Vatican Line On Homosexuality
Pope Investigating US Catholic Sisters For Not Holding Vatican Line On Homosexuality
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has launched a doctrinal investigation into the leadership of Catholic sisters in the United States, reportedly because they have not sufficiently promoted the Vatican line on homosexuality and other issues.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an association that gathers the leaders of most of the country’s women’s congregations, said it was informed of the “doctrinal assessment” in a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s orthodoxy watchdog.
The doctrinal investigation is separate from another Vatican-ordered study looking into the quality of the life in more than 400 U.S. women’s religious institutes. That study was launched as the church grapples with the dramatic decline in the number of American nuns and sisters over the past several decades.
In a statement Tuesday, the Leadership Conference said the new doctrinal study would look into its activities and initiatives, but it provided no details.
Calls to the Vatican spokesman were not returned late Wednesday. A spokeswoman of the conference, Sister Annmarie Sanders, declined to comment beyond the statement.
via Pope Investigating US Catholic Sisters For Not Holding Vatican Line On Homosexuality.
Construction Of 2 World Trade Center Towers May Be Delayed For Years
Construction Of 2 World Trade Center Towers May Be Delayed For Years
NEW YORK — The owners of ground zero, locked in a new round of heated talks with a private developer about how and when to build office towers at the World Trade Center site, have proposed indefinitely putting off two of three planned skyscrapers until the real estate market recovers, officials familiar with the negotiations say.
One analysis prepared for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey predicts World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein wouldn’t be able to finish building all three towers he plans for decades, with the last tower finished by 2030.
Silverstein and the Port Authority have been talking on and off for months about rewriting a 3-year-old agreement that gives the developer rights to build three out of five towers planned at the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack site.
In a failing economy where developers have found it impossible to obtain financing for new projects, Silverstein last fall asked the Port to back financing for two of his towers, three officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential.
via Construction Of 2 World Trade Center Towers May Be Delayed For Years.
Obama: High-Speed Rail System Needed
Obama: High-Speed Rail System Needed
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is calling for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail travel, saying it will relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy.
Appearing with Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Thursday, Obama said the country cannot afford not to invest in a major upgrade to rail travel. He said he understands it necessarily will be “a long-term project” but said the time to start is now.
Obama said that “this is not some fanciful, pie-in-the-sky vision of the future. It’s happening now. The problem is, it’s happening elsewhere.” He cited superior high-speed rail travel in countries like China, Japan, France and Spain.
Obama said the rail upgrades are critically needed because the nation’s highways and airways “are clogged with traffic.”
via Obama: High-Speed Rail System Needed.
A Short Citizen’s Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day
A Short Citizen’s Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day - Robert Reich
No one likes to pay taxes, so tax day typically attracts a range of right-wing Republicans, kooks, and demagogues, all of whom tell us how awful we have it. Here’s a short citizen’s guide (that is, a citizen’s guide that’s short rather than a guide for short citizens) responding to the predictable charges:
1. “Americans pay too much in taxes.” Wrong: The United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations.
2. “The rich pay too much! The top ten percent of income earners pay over 72 percent of all income taxes!” Misleading: The main reason the rich pay such a large percent is they’ve become so much richer than the bottom 90 percent in recent years. If you look at what they pay as individuals — the percent of their incomes over and above the highest rate below them — you’ll see a steady decline over the years. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the marginal rate on the highest earners was 91 percent (after deductions and tax credits, closer to 50 percent); by 1980 it was still up there, at 70 percent (an effective rate of closer to 45 percent); under Bill Clinton, it was 38 percent (an effective rate closer to 28 percent).
via Robert Reich: A Short Citizen’s Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day.
Robert Reich – Fire CEO Ken Lewis
While Bank of America’s CEO, Ken Lewis, is calling for business as usual, taxpayers are calling for change. It’s time for Bank of America to stop the policies and practices that helped crash our economy and hurts its customers with unfair fees and hidden costs.
Homeland Security Chief Defends Report On Right Wing Extremism Risk
Homeland Security Chief Defends Report On Right Wing Extremism Risk
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday a report warning that military veterans could be prone to joining right wing extremism was a routine assessment giving a “situational awareness” of potential threats.
Napolitano defended the internal agency intelligence report against a crescendo of criticism during a series of interviews on network news shows as she toured the troubled U.S.-Mexican border.
Asked about the report’s assertion that some U.S. military veterans could be seen as potential converts to right wing extremism during a time of a down economy, Napolitano said the report was a routine form of guidance for state and local police and that it is a set of assertions, “not accusations.”
via Homeland Security Chief Defends Report On Right Wing Extremism Risk.
Report: NBC Brass Held Secret Dinner To Discuss CNBC’s “Anti-Obama” Image
Jeff Zucker, Top NBC Brass Concerned About CNBC’s “Conservative,” “Anti-Obama” Image: Report
The New York Post‘s Page Six reports Thursday that GE and NBC execs are worried about the CNBC becoming the “Obama-bashing network,” and that they recently held a top secret dinner in New York to discuss the topic.
Page Six reports that CNBC execs and some on-air talent were called to meet with GE CEO Jeff Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker for “an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock.” According to Page Six’s source, Zucker himself called the dinner, which featured “a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much.”
In the past few months, two on-air personalities — “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer and correspondent Rick Santelli — have come under fire in the media and have come to define the CNBC brand.
via Jeff Zucker, Top NBC Brass Concerned About CNBC’s “Conservative,” “Anti-Obama” Image: Report.
Elizabeth Warren Makes Jon Stewart Feel Better On “Daily Show” (VIDEO)
Elizabeth Warren Makes Jon Stewart Feel Better On “Daily Show” (VIDEO)
Detailing the need for transparency, laying out a framework for bank recovery and making a clear and succinct case for a smart regulatory system, TARP overseer Elizabeth Warren did what few other “Daily Show” guests have done in the past year: instill confidence in its host, Jon Stewart.
In a relatively lengthy interview that aired on Wednesday night, Warren, ever the academic, managed to generate a few laughs, none more so when she stumped herself on what exactly the acronym PPIP meant (for the record: the Public-Private Investment Program). But it was her commentary on the economy, at once clear and forthright, that left Stewart soothed.
“[This] is probably the first time in probably six months to a year that I feel better,” said the Daily Show host. “I don’t know what it is you just did right there. But for a second that was like financial chicken soup for me.”
via Elizabeth Warren Makes Jon Stewart Feel Better On “Daily Show” (VIDEO).
General Growth Properties Files Record Real Estate Bankruptcy
General Growth Properties Files Record Real Estate Bankruptcy
General Growth Properties, the nation’s second-largest US shopping mall owner, has filed what is the largest real estate bankruptcy in US history, Bloomberg News reports.
General Growth Properties Inc., the nation’s second-largest mall operator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Thursday after it failed to persuade a majority of its debt holders to give it more time to refinance billions of dollars in debt racked up during the housing boom.
The news sent the real estate investment trust’s stock down 60 cents, or 57 percent, to 45 cents in electronic premarket trading. Its stock traded last spring as high as $44.23.
The move by the Chicago-based company had been widely anticipated since the fall, when the company warned it might have to seek bankruptcy protection if it didn’t get lenders to rework its debt terms. Efforts to negotiate with its unsecured and secured creditors ultimately fell short late last month.
via General Growth Properties Files Record Real Estate Bankruptcy.
Breaking Up The Banks
Breaking Up The Banks
I got kind of tee’d off with all the nonsense floating around about t-parties for the last few days. Or was it PO’d, I don’t know. But you do have to laugh, what goes around comes around. Didn’t anyone tell them its all been done before?
They got the wrong darn Tea Party. Glen Beck for March Hare? It works for me. I think we could sponsor a competition for Dormouse and Mad Hatter. Any takers? But maybe Glenn Beck isn’t the best stand in for the March Hare. I’ve not really seen Hares much over here. But over there, where they have real hares, the phrase “Mad as a March Hare” has quite a long history, almost as long as the Spanish Inquistion, and seems to originate with Thomas More who lost his head under different circumstances.
The first record of the belief in their madness, or in this case their brainlessness, was circa 1500, in Blowbol’s Test reprinted by W. C. Hazlitt in Remains Early Popular Poetry of England, 1864:
“Thanne [th]ey begyn to swere and to stare, And be as braynles as a Marshe hare.”
Of course, the phrase ‘hare brained’ refers to the same behaviour. This is also old and is referenced in Edward Hall’s Chronicle, 1548:
“My desire is that none of you be so unadvised or harebrained as to be the occasion that …”
The first citation that uses the phrase in a form we now know it is in 1529, in Sir Thomas More’s The supplycacyon of soulys:
“As mad not as a march hare, but as a madde dogge.”
via Breaking Up The Banks | discuss, debate, decide.
Russia demands NATO call off exercises in Georgia
Russia demands NATO call off exercises in Georgia
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Thursday demanded NATO call off planned military exercises in Georgia, saying they could undermine its efforts to rebuild ties with the Western alliance.
Ex-Soviet Georgia has become a focus of tension between the West and Russia, which sees it as part of its legitimate sphere of influence. NATO’s offer of eventual membership for Georgia has particularly angered Moscow, which sent troops into Georgia last August.
NATO says the exercises, from May 6 to June 1, will involve 1,300 troops from 19 countries.
“This is absurd and a provocation,” Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Reuters by telephone. “I have asked the NATO secretary general … to postpone these exercises or to cancel them.”
And Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the exercises would not help efforts to restore stability in the restive Caucasus region, Interfax news agency reported.
via Russia demands NATO call off exercises in Georgia | International | Reuters.
Obama’s huge test today: do we believe in secret law?
Obama’s huge test today: do we believe in secret law? – by – Glenn Greenwald
(updated below – Update II)
Today is the most significant test yet determining the sincerity of Barack Obama’s commitment to restore the Constitution, transparency and the rule of law. After seeking and obtaining multiple extensions of the deadline, today is the final deadline for the Obama DOJ to respond to the ACLU’s FOIA demand for the release of four key Bush DOJ memos which authorized specific torture techniques that have long been punished (including by the U.S.) as war crimes. Today, Obama will either (a) disclose these documents to the public or (b) continue to suppress them — either by claiming the right to keep them concealed entirely or, more likely, redacting the most significant parts before releasing them.
It is genuinely unclear what the Obama administration will do today. Several weeks ago, Newsweek reported that Eric Holder had decided to release the memos — which an Obama official described as “ugly”– essentially in full. But then, several other sources reported there was a “war” being waged inside the Obama administration, led by former Bush-era CIA official (and top Obama terrorism adviser) John Brennan, to prevent disclosure. Yesterday, The Wall St. Journal reported that Obama is leaning towards the CIA position that only minimal disclosures are warranted, and today the WSJ reports that the memos will be released with substantial redactions to conceal the details of the Bush administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” — i.e., will suppress information of America’s use of torture.
via Obama’s huge test today: do we believe in secret law? – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Pentagon Closes Office Accused of Issuing Propaganda Under Bush
OPS: And no one got a Court Marshal, no one got fired, no on e is in jail for their Treason.
Pentagon Closes Office Accused of Issuing Propaganda Under Bush
WASHINGTON — A Pentagon office responsible for coordinating Defense Department information campaigns overseas has been abolished in an effort by the Obama administration to distance itself from past practices that some military officers called propaganda, senior officials said Wednesday.
Military and civilian critics said the office, the Defense Department office for support to public diplomacy, overstepped its mandate during the final years of the Bush administration by trying to organize information operations that violated Pentagon guidelines for accuracy and transparency.
Pentagon officials said the position of deputy assistant secretary of defense for support to public diplomacy had been eliminated, with the staff members reassigned and the office closed.
via Pentagon Closes Office Accused of Issuing Propaganda Under Bush – NYTimes.com.
Coleman: ‘We will never know who won’
Coleman: ‘We will never know who won’
The latest episode of “Total Makeover: Make Me a More Huggable Mercenary” is just too precious to pass up. As observers of the rise of private paramilitary forces, like Blackwater/Xe (Bush’s thugs) and Triple Canopy (Obama’s hired guns) know, the mercenary industry has its very own trade association, with the warm and fuzzy Orwellian name, the International Peace Operations Association.
With its Disney-esque cartoon sleeping lion logo, this group has long spearheaded the drive to sell greater involvement by the private sector in the U.S. war machine and all other U.S. and UN operations.
Well, the past few months have brought some intense (at times comical) rebranding efforts in the mercenary world. Most prominently, Blackwater changed its name to Xe and its shadowy leader Erik Prince resigned as CEO (while retaining his title of chairman and sole owner of the company).
via Minnesota Independent: News. Politics. Media. » Coleman: ‘We will never know who won’.
U.S. Mercenaries to UN: Stop Using the Word ‘Mercenary’ in Your Investigation into Mercenaries
U.S. Mercenaries to UN: Stop Using the Word ‘Mercenary’ in Your Investigation into Mercenaries
The U.S. mercenary trade association asks the UN to join its rebranding campaign.
The latest episode of “Total Makeover: Make Me a More Huggable Mercenary” is just too precious to pass up. As observers of the rise of private paramilitary forces, like Blackwater/Xe (Bush’s thugs) and Triple Canopy (Obama’s hired guns) know, the mercenary industry has its very own trade association, with the warm and fuzzy Orwellian name, the International Peace Operations Association.
With its Disney-esque cartoon sleeping lion logo, this group has long spearheaded the drive to sell greater involvement by the private sector in the U.S. war machine and all other U.S. and UN operations.
Well, the past few months have brought some intense (at times comical) rebranding efforts in the mercenary world. Most prominently, Blackwater changed its name to Xe and its shadowy leader Erik Prince resigned as CEO (while retaining his title of chairman and sole owner of the company).
Republicans criticize report on right-wing groups
Republicans criticize report on right-wing groups
WASHINGTON – Republicans on Wednesday said a Homeland Security Department intelligence assessment unfairly characterizes military veterans as right-wing extremists. House Republican leader John Boehner described the report as offensive and called on the agency to apologize to veterans.
The agency’s intelligence assessment, sent to law enforcement officials last week, warns that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members.
The assessment also said that returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their home communities could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or might engage in lone acts of violence.
via Republicans criticize report on right-wing groups.
Germany Has Sights on Several Alleged Nazi War Criminals
Prosecutors Not Just Targeting Demjanjuk
Germany Has Sights on Several Alleged Nazi War Criminals
By SPIEGEL Staff
John Demjanjuk is not an isolated case. German investigators have set their sights on other presumed Nazi war criminals, raising the question of how the law should deal with the aged accessories of the Holocaust.
When he had completed the job, SS Colonel Karl Jäger, filled with pride, wrote in his report to his superiors: “Today, I am proud to report that the objective of solving the Jewish problem for Lithuania has been achieved by Task Force 3. There are no longer any Jews in Lithuania …”
It was Dec. 1, 1941, and German troops had occupied Lithuania, which was part of the Soviet Union, since the summer. According to Colonel Jäger’s meticulous account, his subordinates had killed exactly 47,326 men, 55,556 women and 34,464 children.
But Jäger did not claim all the credit for himself and the 120 men he commanded. He was only able to achieve his goal, the ardent Hitler supporter wrote, because one of his subordinates had managed to “secure the cooperation of the Lithuanian partisans.”
Spanish AG says no torture probe of US officials
Spanish AG says no torture probe of US officials
MADRID – Spanish prosecutors will recommend against opening an investigation into whether six Bush administration officials sanctioned torture against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the country’s attorney-general said Thursday.
Candido Conde-Pumpido said the case against the high-ranking U.S. officials — including former U.S. Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales — was without merit because the men were not present when the alleged torture took place.
“If one is dealing with a crime of mistreatment of prisoners of war, the complaint should go against those who physically carried it out,” Conde-Pumpido said in a breakfast meeting with journalists. He said a trial of the men would have turned Spain’s National Court “into a plaything” to be used for political ends.
Prosecutors at Spain’s National Court have not formally announced their decision in the case, but Conde-Pumpido is the country’s top law-enforcement official and has the ultimate say.
While an investigative judge is not bound by the prosecutors’ decision, it would be highly unusual for a case to proceed without their support.
via Spanish AG says no torture probe of US officials.
DR. Ron Paul On Legalizing Marijuana: Drug War Is A Horrible Failure
Thom Hartnmann’s definition of a Libertarian:
Republicans that want to smoke dope and get laid.
YouTube – DR. Ron Paul On Legalizing Marijuana: Drug War Is A Horrible Failure.
JPMorgan earns $2.1bn on record sales
OPS: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and others that took TARP money, now want to pay it back. QUESTION - where the hell did that much ‘profit’ come from in just a few months?
JPMorgan earns $2.1bn on record sales -By Alan Rappeport in New York
Dimon eager to repay Tarp funds
JPMorgan Chase on Thursday reported first quarter profits of $2.1bn as its investment banking business returned to profitability, beating analysts’ expectations, and said that it would not require additional capital to repay funds lent by the US government.
Net income at $0.40 a share was 10 per cent lower than what it earned in the first quarter of last year but was ahead of consensus estimates of $0.32 a share.
The news followed better-than-expected results from Goldman Sachs and an optimistic outlook from Wells Fargo in the past week and JPMorgan shares jumped 2.73 per cent to $33.45 in pre-market trading.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, said that the bank benefited from growth in its retail banking business, higher volumes in its mortgage refinancing business and “excellent progress” integrating its recent acquisition of Washington Mutual.
via FT.com / Companies / Financials – JPMorgan earns $2.1bn on record sales.
Corporate Offense Against Unions Relies on Myths
Corporate Offense Against Unions Relies on Myths – by John Buell
Economic crises are as endemic to capitalism as is its resilience. Nonetheless, the system seldom survives in the terms predicted even by its most powerful players. The corporate CEOs that dominate contemporary capitalism know that the system cannot survive in its present incarnation. Most, however, demand that however much they rely on public dole, they should continue to dominate business and finance.
The Employee Free Choice Act is at the center of a battle to challenge such hubris. For more than a year, right-wing groups have lavishly funded anti-labor initiatives. These charge that granting employees the right to choose either card check or secret ballot elections would subject workers to possible workplace coercion. Yet their oft stated concern for workplace democracy won’t stand common sense scrutiny.
Would American workers consent to hundreds of millions in bonuses to corporate CEOs who trashed their businesses? Or would workers accept a generation-long wage freeze even as their productivity increases every year? Not surprisingly, polls show that a majority would like to join independent unions.
Since corporate claims of concern for worker democracy ring hollow in the face of CEO crime and abuse, employer interests have opened another front in the war: this is not a good time to unionize. Unions will increase labor costs, thereby making it impossible to hire new workers. This new corporate tack is based on an ideol-ogy being discredited every day. The very inequalities fostered by corporate workplaces led to the current crisis. Underpaid workers had insufficient income to purchase the goods their own more productive plants produced. Future profit-making possibilities came to depend on perilous forms of “creative finance.”
via Corporate Offense Against Unions Relies on Myths | CommonDreams.org.
Look Out for the Blimp That Doesn’t Blink
Look Out for the Blimp That Doesn’t Blink
I’ve always wondered: What was the guy who invented bagpipes really trying to make?
Well, at least that wheezing, whining invention turned out to be merely irritating, not actually dangerous. Leave it to the Dr. Strangelovian schemers at the Pentagon, however, to come up with an invention that is both irritating and truly dangerous, as well as being a galloping rip-off of us taxpayers. -
by Jim Hightower
It’s a blimp. But not at all like the friendly “Snoopy” dirigible that MetLife deploys at various sporting events. This thing is 20 times larger and is designed to be an eye in the sky, floating12 miles above the Earth, to provide unblinking surveillance of whatever and whomever the authorities want watched, including you and me.
Unlike spy planes, the Pentagon’s unmanned super-snooper can “park” anywhere in the sky and stay focused on groups or individuals for days, months or years, capturing every second of their comings, goings and doings. With its giant antenna and sophisticated, high-definition radar system, it can monitor tiny details over a vast area, linking this unrestricted flow of information to government computers that form digital dossiers on those being watched.
“It is absolutely revolutionary,” gushed Werner J.A. Dahm, the Air Force scientist overseeing the project. “It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted.”
via Look Out for the Blimp That Doesn’t Blink by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.
Economic Survivalists Take Root
Economic Survivalists Take Root – by Judy Keen
When the economy started to squeeze the Wojtowicz family, they gave up vacation cruises, restaurant meals, new clothes and high-tech toys to become 21st-century homesteaders.
Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They’re planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.
“As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money,” Patrick says. “We’re not saying this is right for everybody, but it’s right for us.”
Hard times are creating economic survivalists such as the Wojtowicz family who are paring expenses by becoming more self-sufficient.
Reviving “almost lost” skills and preparing for tough days make people feel more in control, says Charlotte Richert, consumer sciences educator for Oklahoma State University’s Extension Service in Tulsa County.
Karen Gulliver, MBA program chair at Argosy University in Eagan, Minn., expects the movement to grow as the sour economy forces people to reassess priorities. People are asking, “Do I really want to be 100% vulnerable with no self-sufficiency skills if something happens?” she says.
Some signs of the trend:
via Economic Survivalists Take Root | CommonDreams.org.
Pacifica Radio at 60: A Sanctuary of Dissent
Pacifica Radio at 60: A Sanctuary of Dissent -by Amy Goodman
Pacifica Radio, the oldest independent media network in the United States, turns 60 years old this week as a deepening crisis engulfs mainstream media. Journalists are being laid off by the hundreds, even thousands. Venerable newspapers, some more than a century old, are being abruptly shuttered. Digital technology is changing the rules, disrupting whole industries, and blending and upending traditional roles of writer, filmmaker, publisher, consumer. Commercial media are losing audience and advertising. People are exploring new models for media, including nonprofit journalism.
Pacifica Radio was founded by Lew Hill, a pacifist who refused to fight in World War II. When he came out of a detention camp after the war, he said the United States needed a media outlet that wasn’t run by corporations profiting from war. Instead, he said, it needed a one run by journalists and artists-not by “corporations with nothing to tell and everything to sell that are raising our children today,” in the words of the late George Gerbner, one-time dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. KPFA, the first Pacifica station, began in Berkeley, Calif., on April 15, 1949. FM radio was in its infancy at the time, so KPFA had to make and give out FM radios in order for people to hear the station. Pacifica Radio tried something no one thought would work: building a network based on the voluntary financial support of individual listeners, a model later adopted by National Public Radio and public television.
The Pacifica network grew to five stations: KPFA in Berkeley, KPFK in Los Angeles, WBAI in New York, WPFW in Washington and KPFT in Houston.
via Pacifica Radio at 60: A Sanctuary of Dissent | CommonDreams.org.
Lehman Brothers Sitting on a Stockpile of Uranium ‘Yellowcake’
OPS: What the hell is a failed Financial Corporation doing in physical possession of a nuclear stock pile? What the hell is ANY Financial Corporation doing in possession of a nuclear stock pile?
Lehman Brothers Sitting on a Stockpile of Uranium ‘Yellowcake’ – by by Andrew Clark
Lehman’s nuclear stockpile is a hangover from a trading contract undertaken before the Wall Street bank collapsed last year
The rump of the bankrupt bank Lehman Brothers is sitting on a stockpile of 450,000 lb of uranium “yellowcake” which could be used to power a nuclear reactor or, theoretically, to make a bomb.
via Lehman Brothers Sitting on a Stockpile of Uranium ‘Yellowcake’ | CommonDreams.org.
Errant Drone Attacks Spur Militants in Pakistan
Errant Drone Attacks Spur Militants in Pakistan -by Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – The U.S. program of drone aircraft strikes against higher-ranking officials of al Qaeda and allied militant organizations, which has been touted by proponents as having eliminated nine of the 20 top al Qaeda leaders, is actually weakening Pakistan’s defence against the insurgency of the Islamic militants there by killing large numbers of civilians based on faulty intelligence and discrediting the Pakistani military, according to data from the Pakistani government and interviews with senior analysts.
Some evidence indicates, moreover, that the top officials in the Barack Obama administration now see the program more as an incentive for the Pakistani military to take a more aggressive posture toward the militants rather than as an effective tool against the insurgents.
Although the strikes have been sold to the U.S. public as a way to weaken and disrupt al Qaeda, which is an explicitly counter-terrorist objective, al Qaeda is not actually the main threat to U.S. security emanating from Pakistan, according to some analysts. The real threat comes from the broader, rapidly growing insurgency of Islamic militants against the shaky Pakistani government and military, they observe, and the drone strikes are a strategically inappropriate approach to that problem.
“Al Qaeda has very little to do with the militancy in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” said Marvin Weinbaum, former Afghanistan and Pakistan analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence Research at the U.S. Department of State and now scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute.
via Errant Drone Attacks Spur Militants in Pakistan | CommonDreams.org.
American Government Facilitating in U.S. Titans’ Downfall
American Government Facilitating in U.S. Titans’ Downfall – by Dustin Ensinger
While bankruptcy is not an option for such a vital U.S. industry, neither is aiding and abetting the outsourcing of millions of American manufacturing jobs.
U.S. automakers Chrysler and General Motors are increasingly outsourcing North American production to Mexico while at the same time asking for more taxpayer money to stay afloat. Perhaps that worst part, however, is the government is basically encouraging the outsourcing, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
Both automakers have already received $17.2 billion in federal aid as the demand for new vehicles has plummeted in a deepening recession in which credit remains hard to get. Now the companies are asking for an additional $22 billion to stay afloat and before they receive it, the Obama administration has demanded that the they cut “manufacturing, headcount, brand, nameplate, and retail network[s].”
According to the EPI, those demands will do nothing more than serve as an invitation to outsource more production to Mexico. Moving production south of the border is certainly nothing new. In 1999, U.S. sales of Big Three vehicles had fallen to 67.4 percent of the U.S. market. By 2008, that number had fallen to 54.8 percent.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Restoring Our Economy to Prosperity and Solvency through Saving
Restoring Our Economy to Prosperity and Solvency through Saving – by Dustin Ensinger
From the 1950s through the 1980s Americans saved, on average, eight to 10 percent of their earnings. Over the last decade that savings rate actually turned negative at one point in time.
It is no secret that over the past two-and-a-half decades Americans have been saving less and spending more. From the 1950s through the 1980s Americans saved, on average, eight to 10 percent of their earnings. Over the last decade that savings rate actually turned negative at one point in time.
But economist Richard Thaler, writing in Newsweek, argues that Americans high savings rates in the latter half of the 20th Century was more a product of a system designed to encourage people to save. Americans were able to save without even trying to do so.
“Americans never showed much willpower for stashing away cash,” he writes. “The most important ways households saved were in pensions, cash-value life insurance, and by paying off their home mortgage. What these have in common is that the saving occurs automatically and effortlessly.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
THE ECONOMICS OF GREED
THE ECONOMICS OF GREED – by John Basel, with video by Craig Harrington
It is no surprise that this global goober of a mess we are in started in the capital of greed where in many circles it is considered a virtue instead of one of the seven deadly sins, the United States
The following article originally appeared on OpEdNews.org and may not reflect the views or opinions of EconomyInCrisis.org. Feedback is welcome.
Bernie Madoff, whose name will live in infamy in the annals of Wall Street scam lore, has been sentenced to jail for a very long time. His offense was running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme stealing wealthy investors’ money instead of performing the investment services his customers thought they were buying. While his scheme is not directly related to the economic tragedy of our lifetime that is the mortgage meltdown/Wall Street washout/derivative disaster in which we have become enveloped, he has become the poster child of greed that has become the center of blame of this worldwide financial nightmare.
It is no surprise that this global goober of a mess we are in started in the capital of greed where in many circles it is considered a virtue instead of one of the seven deadly sins, the United States. It is with this backdrop that the story of Marvene Halterman serves as a symbol of the smoking gun for the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
Marvene Halterman’s story has been told in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Dallas Morning News. Who is she? Ms. Halterman is a poor, unemployed, disability recipient in Arizona. How does this make her newsworthy? She was the recipient of a $103,000 mortgage which she had not a prayer of being able to pay off. The value of the house that the mortgage financed was about $18,000. Was this part of some special government program? No it wasn’t. This was just another example of the tens of thousands of such mortgages that were extended to individuals who really had no business going into such legally binding financial contracts. Ms. Halterman’s mortgage, like so many others, ended up being sold and bundled into a pool of mortgages which then earned the highest triple A rating and, therefore, the interest of many investors.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
White House Putting the Cart Before the Horse
White House Putting the Cart Before the Horse – by Craig Harrington
We will not have a future unless we make major reforms, and the President and his team have been prudent in making these key priorities. Unfortunately, we will have no PRESENT unless we do something about manufacturing, production, and employment in the United States.
Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business & Industry Educational Foundation and author of The Race to the Bottom (a stinging critique of “free trade”), has expressed concerns about the course charted by the Obama administration as it hopes to rebuild the American economy.
Tonelson, writing for AmericanEconomicAlert.org, believes that so-called “Obama-nomics” is addressing the wrong problem at the wrong time.
David Axelrod, the president’s senior advisor, has said that the administration is going to emphasize energy, education and healthcare as it lays the foundations for a new economy. However, according to Tonelson, this policy will be a failure if we continue to ignore our one major shortcoming as a nation: our lack of manufacturing.
The United States has lost millions of jobs to foreign producers in the past several decades. Exacerbating the problem, we have lost thousands of companies to foreign dominance as well, along with dozens of entire industries.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Mich. unemployment rate jumps to 12.6% in March
OPS: again, they are using the U3 rather than the more accurate U6. More on that here. And Here.
Mich. unemployment rate jumps to 12.6% in March
LANSING — Michigan’s unemployment rate
jumped to 12.6 percent in March, up from 12 percent the month before.
The higher number is likely to keep Michigan in the spotlight as the state with the nation’s worst unemployment rate. The national unemployment rate in March was 8.5 percent.
The state Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Development said today that the weakness in the auto industry along with the national recession have “severely affected” Michigan’s labor market over the past year.
The state’s unemployment rate has risen over the past year at a faster pace than any twelve-month period since 1980.
via Mich. unemployment rate jumps to 12.6% in March | battlecreekenquirer.com | The Enquirer.
BofA retreats from overdraft fee hike
BofA retreats from overdraft fee hike
But Charlotte-based bank institutes new charges for negative account balances.
Bank of America Corp. is backing down from a previously announced overdraft fee increase, while adding charges that would hit customers who spend more than they have in their accounts.
The Charlotte-based bank on Tuesday also said it has launched a program to help customers who have lost their jobs.
The changes come as banks face criticism for raising fees and interest rates as customers struggle with tough economic times. Bank of America and others that have received taxpayer assistance are under particular fire.
Bank of America’s changes offer a dose of good news and bad news for customers of the nation’s biggest consumer bank.
via BofA retreats from overdraft fee hike | CharlotteObserver.com.
Poll says Minnesotans want Franken seated
Poll says Minnesotans want Franken seated
ST. PAUL, Minn., April 15 (UPI) — A poll released Wednesday reveals Minnesotans, by and large, want Republican Norm Coleman to concede the state’s U.S. Senate race to Democrat Al Franken.
Public Policy Polling said its survey indicated 63 percent say Coleman should call it a day rather than continue to fight in court, USA Today reported. That percentage includes “almost all of Franken and (independent candidate) Dean Barkley’s supporters, as well as a third of respondents who voted for Coleman last fall,” the polling organization said.
Fifty-nine percent said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, should certify Franken the winner and he should be seated immediately.
A three-judge panel has voted that Franken won by 312 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. Coleman has said he intends to ask the state Supreme Court to allow about 4,000 more absentee ballots to be counted. He also has supporters who say he should take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.
via Poll says Minnesotans want Franken seated – UPI.com.
U.S. foreclosure filings jump as moratoriums end
U.S. foreclosure filings jump as moratoriums end
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. foreclosure activity leaped 46 percent in March from a year earlier, hitting a record high as programs stunting the torrid pace of failing mortgages expired, RealtyTrac reported on Thursday.
A temporary freeze on foreclosures by major banks and government-controlled home finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended before President Barack Obama‘s massive housing stimulus, unveiled on March 6, could take root.
Filings, which include notice of default, auction sale or bank repossession, jumped 17 percent in March from February.
Filings for the quarter also marked a record high, jumping 24 percent from the same period a year ago.
The March and first-quarter totals were the highest since RealtyTrac began tracking them in January 2005, even as bank repossessions declined.
via U.S. foreclosure filings jump as moratoriums end | Reuters.
1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India
OPS: Wonder if GM crops and Monsanto are involved at the root of this? More to follow…..
1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India
Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.
The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.
“The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine
“Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.”
Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.
In another village nearby, Beturam Sahu, who owned two acres of land was among those who committed suicide. His crop is yet to be harvested, but his son Lakhnu left to take up a job as a manual labourer.
His family must repay a debt of £400 and the crop this year is poor.
“The crop is so bad this year that we will not even be able to save any seeds,” said Lakhnu’s friend Santosh. “There were no rains at all.”
“That’s why Lakhnu left even before harvesting the crop. There is nothing left to harvest in his land this time. He is worried how he will repay these loans.”
via 1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India – Asia, World – The Independent.
Anderson Cooper: ‘It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging’
VIDEO at link
Anderson Cooper: ‘It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging’
Anderson Cooper seems to have gotten more than his foot in his mouth.
Speaking of the political landscape on CNN today, commentator David Gergen spoke about disarray in the Republican Party, noting a survey that shows Obama with high trust among voters. “They have not yet come up with a compelling alternative, one that’s gained popular recognition,” he said.
“Tea-bagging, they’ve got teabagging,” Cooper interjected.
“It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging,” he later added.
via The Raw Story | Anderson Cooper: ‘It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging’.
NSA spied on member of Congress, report says
NSA spied on member of Congress, report says
In an article detailing new violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by The New York Times, the paper reveals that the National Security Agency spied on a member of Congress and sought to wiretap the lawmaker without a warrant. Reports the Times:
“And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
“The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.
“The official said the plan was ultimately blocked because of concerns from some intelligence officials about using the N.S.A., without court oversight, to spy on a member of Congress.”
via The Raw Story | NSA spied on member of Congress, report says.
Goldberg falsely claims that DHS reports never “use the all-purpose term ‘left-wing.’”
Goldberg falsely claims that DHS reports never “use the all-purpose term ‘left-wing.’”
Joining the chorus of conservative voices that are hyperventilating over the recently-leaked Department of Homeland Security report on “rightwing extremists,” National Review’s Jonah Goldberg wrote yesterday that though “DHS has done reports on anti-war, environmental, and other groups,” it was his “understanding is that they didn’t — and wouldn’t — use the all-purpose term ‘left-wing’ to describe those threats.” Later in the day, when a reader pointed him to an April 2001 DOE report titled “Left-Wing Extremism: The Current Threat,” Goldberg replied that he didn’t know of a report that “came out after 9/11.” But this too is wrong, considering the January 26, 2009 DHS report, “Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade.”
As Fox Host Denies Tea Parties Are ‘A Right-Wing Conspiracy,’ Fox Chyron Touts AmericanSolutions.Com
As Fox Host Denies Tea Parties Are ‘A Right-Wing Conspiracy,’ Fox Chyron Touts AmericanSolutions.Com
As part of the network’s day-long promotion of the anti-Obama tea parties, Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson interviewed three tea party organizers on Fox and Friends this morning. In an attempt to push back against criticism that corporate lobbyists were helping to orchestrate the so-called grassroots movement, Carlson asked Kellen Guida, the organizer of the New York City tea party, to answer the claim that the protests are “a right-wing conspiracy. “All you can do is laugh to that,” replied Guida. Watch it:
Fox Reporter Contradicts Fox: DHS Report On Right Wing Was ‘Requested By The Bush Administration’
Fox Reporter Contradicts Fox: DHS Report On Right Wing Was ‘Requested By The Bush Administration’
Yesterday, a Department of Homeland Security report about the rising radicalization of “rightwing extremists” was leaked. The right wing was immediately incensed, viewing the report on radical “extremists” as an attack on “conservatives.” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, for example, tried to suggest it was a report about Republican “loyalists.”
However, this morning, Fox News’s Catherine Herridge revealed that the report, along with an earlier report on radicalized left-wing groups, was actually “requested by the Bush administration” but not completed until recently:
HERRIDGE: Well this is an element of the story which has largely gone unreported. One looks at right-wing groups, as you mentioned. And a second is on left-wing groups. Significantly, both were requested by the Bush administration but not finished until President Bush left office.
Herridge’s reporting undermines her network’s own “reporting” over the past 24 hours. Since news of the DHS assessment broke yesterday, Fox anchors and guests have been seizing upon the report as evidence that the administration is trying to intimidate tea party goers or “stifle speech”:
Pelosi: Tea parties are part of an ‘astroturf’ campaign by ‘some of the wealthiest people in America.’
Pelosi: Tea parties are part of an ‘astroturf’ campaign by ‘some of the wealthiest people in America.’
This morning on San Francisco’s KTUV News, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explained that today’s tea party protests are not by any means an organic grassroots movement. Rather, she said, they are a deliberate astroturf campaign organized by two well-funded right-wing think tanks intent on obstructing the Obama agenda:
PELOSI: What they want is a continuation of the failed economic policies of President George Bush which got us in the situation we are in now. What we want is a new direction. … This [tea party] initiative is funded by the high end — we call call it astroturf, it’s not really a grassroots movement. It’s astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class.
Watch it:
Armitage: I should have resigned because of torture.
OPS: and you STILL should be put on trial for your involvment, Dick.
Armitage: I should have resigned because of torture.
In an interview to be aired on Thursday, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Al Jazeera English that he “did not know…that torture was going on” in the Bush administration. In retrospect, if he knew about the mistreatment, Armitage said he would have resigned:
armitage12.jpgQ: So when you knew that the administration of which you were a part was departing from the Geneva Conventions and sidelining them, why didn’t you quit?
ARMITAGE: In hindsight maybe I should’ve. But in those positions you see how many more battles you have. You maybe fool yourself. You say how much worse would x, y, or z be if I weren’t here trying to do it? So torture is a matter of principle as far as I’m concerned. I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would’ve had the courage to resign.
via Think Progress » Armitage: I should have resigned because of torture..
Fox News’s ‘coverage’ of tea parties: 23 segments, 73 on-air promos in eight days.
Fox News’s ‘coverage’ of tea parties: 23 segments, 73 on-air promos in eight days.
As ThinkProgress has documented, Fox News has aggressively promoted today’s conservative, anti-Obama tea parties. A Media Matters analysis found that Fox dedicated 23 separate segments to the tea parties between April 6 and April 13; it aired at least 73 in-show and commercial promotions for the parties as well. Of all the Fox programs, Neil Cavuto’s “Your World” dedicated the most time to the tea parties:
via Think Progress » Fox News’s ‘coverage’ of tea parties: 23 segments, 73 on-air promos in eight days..
‘Grassroots’ Chicago tea party organized with the help of the right-wing Heartland Institute.
‘Grassroots’ Chicago tea party organized with the help of the right-wing Heartland Institute.
This afternoon on MSNBC’s Hardball, host Mike Barnacle had Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Chicago tea party organizer John O’Hara on to discuss the tea party protests. Throughout their discussion, both Pence and O’Hara repeatedly claimed that today’s protests were nothing more than a “grassroots” movement that had finally reached a boiling point. It wasn’t until Barnacle pressed O’Hara on how he got involved with the protests that O’Hara explained that he worked for the right-wing think tank, the Heartland Institute. Still, O’Hara claimed he only worked on the tea party project in his “spare time — on weekends and nights“:
BARNACLE: Why are you involved in this?
National Security Agency tried to spy on a member of Congress.
NYT report: National Security Agency tried to spy on a member of Congress.
The New York Times’ Eric Lichtblau and James Risen report that the National Security Agency engaged in “overcollection” of e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans last year. The legal authority given to the NSA authorizes the surveillance of targets “reasonably believed” to be outside the United States. The Obama Justice Department said it “detected issues that raised concerns,” but claims that the problems have now been resolved. “[T]he issue appears focused in part on technical problems in the N.S.A.’s ability at times to distinguish between communications inside the United States and those overseas.” Lichtblau and Risen document one particular instance of misconduct involving the wiretapping of a member of Congress:
And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The agency believed that the congressman, whose identity could not be determined, was in contact — as part of a Congressional delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006 — with an extremist who had possible terrorist ties and was already under surveillance, the official said. The agency then sought to eavesdrop on the congressman’s conversations, the official said.
via Think Progress » NYT report: National Security Agency tried to spy on a member of Congress..
10 Surprising Things You Might Not Know About Sex
10 Surprising Things You Might Not Know About Sex
Average penis size? The rate of erectile dysfunction? Friends with benefits? Here is a list of facts and stats you may or may not know about sex.
Remember those pamphlets you got during awkward Sex Ed classes back in junior high that said, “Am I Normal?” and featured a frizzy-haired 13-year-old girl wearing a worried look? Inside the pamphlet were various facts and statistics about puberty and sex that did as much to ease your nerves as a trip to the mall with mom to shop for a new bra. Well, you may be older and wiser now and more comfortable in your skin, but if you’re like me, you’re still a little bit curious what constitutes “normal” between the sheets and under one’s clothes. After the jump, a list from LifeScience.com of ten surprising — and, not so surprising — sex statistics.
10. “An 18th-century Russian woman holds the world record for having birthed the most children: 69, which she had over the course of 27 pregnancies that included sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. But she’s outdone by the male record-holder for most kids, a Moroccan emperor who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, sired ‘at least 342 daughters and 525 sons, and by 1721, he was reputed to have 700 male descendants.’”
via 10 Surprising Things You Might Not Know About Sex | Sex and Relationships | AlterNet.
Quote of the Day
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion;and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants,
is the liberty of appearing.
-Thomas Paine
The Consequences of ‘Drill, Baby Drill’: More Than 90 Oil Spills a Day in the U.S.
The Consequences of ‘Drill, Baby Drill’: More Than 90 Oil Spills a Day in the U.S.
And that’s just the fraction of reported spills. While big tanker disasters make the headlines, the daily toll of the oil industry is huge.
The 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska on March 24 got much attention, including reports that significant oil still pollutes the area and many fish and animal species and the Alaska Native economies that relied on them have still not recovered.
Meanwhile, the captain of the Cosco Busan oil tanker which slammed into San Francisco’s Bay Bridge and caused a major spill in November 2007 is currently on trial.
Such dramatic tanker accidents are what normally come to mind when people think of oil spills. But oil spills and ongoing leaks from pipelines, platforms, storage tanks and other infrastructure are actually a daily occurrence in Alaska, the Gulf Coast, California and other parts of the U.S.
Companies are rarely punished for such occurrences, yet these sources of contamination create serious and ongoing public health and environmental problems that communities are often left to deal with on their own. These spills happen from rigs, pipelines and infrastructure both on land and offshore, with the most serious health and environmental consequences coming when oil and related contaminants pollute waterways or seep into groundwater.
Honeybees in Danger
Honeybees in Danger
When I was teaching at Humboldt State University in northern California 20 years ago, I invited a beekeeper to talk to my students. He said that each time he took his bees to southern California to pollinate other farmers’ crops, he would lose a third of his bees to sprays. In 2009, the loss ranges all the way to 60 percent.
Honeybees have been in terrible straits.
A little history explains this tragedy.
For millennia, honeybees lived in symbiotic relationship with societies all over the world.
The Greeks loved them. In the eighth century BCE, the epic poet Hesiod considered them gifts of the gods to just farmers. And in the fourth century of our era, the Greek mathematician Pappos admired their hexagonal cells, crediting them with “geometrical forethought.”
However, industrialized agriculture is not friendly to honeybees.
In 1974, the US Environmental Protection Agency licensed the nerve gas parathion trapped into nylon bubbles the size of pollen particles.
via t r u t h o u t | Honeybees in Danger.
Rapacious Corporate Players Are the Real Pirates of the High Seas
Rapacious Corporate Players Are the Real Pirates of the High Seas
Though they may be the most violent actors at sea, the Somali pirates’ mercenary motives place them in the mainstream of today’s shipping world.
The Somali pirates literally blown away by the USS Bainbridge were unlucky thieves. In capturing a U.S.-flagged container ship, the Maersk Alabama, and its captain, Richard Phillips, they chose the wrong target.
One sequestered U.S. captain drew more attention than the hundreds of other pirate captives, either ransomed or still in Somali custody.
The difference between the Maersk Alabama and the Somalis’ other targets, however, was not just that they had picked on the most powerful nation in the world, but that they were suddenly confronting a “nation” at all.
Red Meat or Chicken? That’s Like Choosing Between an SUV and a Hummer
Red Meat or Chicken? That’s Like Choosing Between an SUV and a Hummer
Cutting out red meat while still eating chicken doesn’t address the fact that the industrial model for raising both is very bad for the environment.
Nicholas Kristof’s column on Wednesday discusses the recent work by animal activists on behalf of chickens and pigs, and the degree to which “animal rights are now firmly on the mainstream ethical agenda” in the United States, as they have been for some years in Europe. I am delighted to see from Mr. Kristof yet another thoughtful essay about a moral issue that is, until recently, not widely discussed, and even more pleased that in discussing the cruelties of modern intensive farms, he is focusing on birds.
You see, people often tell me that they’ve given up eating red meat out of concern for animals, the environment, or their health (or all three). Of course all efforts to make the world a kinder and less polluted place should be applauded. But here’s the thing: cutting out red meat while still eating chicken doesn’t address the whole problem.
Here’s why: Both choices — beef and chicken — badly damage the environment, so choosing one or the other is sort of like the difference between driving a huge SUV and a Hummer. That’s also why I’m a little baffled when some environmental organizations say that cutting out beef is advisable, but eating other meats is “relatively” ok. It’s really not.
via Red Meat or Chicken? That’s Like Choosing Between an SUV and a Hummer | Environment | AlterNet.
From Now on, Equality Needs to Be Our Organizing Principle
From Now on, Equality Needs to Be Our Organizing Principle
In the smoking rubble of market fundamentalism, we are all being forced to rethink the principles that order our societies – and one small, shining idea is rising from the wreckage. It is the idea of human equality.
The need for us to return to this, our best and most basic instinct, is spelled out in a new book by Professor Richard Wilkinson and Dr. Kate Pickett called ‘The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.’ It is the culmination of twenty-five years of scientific research. The truths it contains provide us with a compass to rebuild our societies – and a reason to be profoundly optimistic. There is a way we can make our societies dramatically better – and the impulse to do it is hard-wired into each of our brains.
It starts with a stark realization. For millennia, there was one obvious and necessary way to improve human life: raise material living standards. If you are hungry, you will be made a lot happier by food. If you are thirsty, you will be made a lot happier by water. The human impulse for self-improvement was simple: give us more, and give it to us now. But we now know from reams of studies that once your basic needs are met – once you pass the magic number of $25,000 a year – something changes.
via Johann Hari: From Now on, Equality Needs to Be Our Organizing Principle.
-
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
-
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. 
