Archive for April, 2009
Bachmann: It’s ‘interesting’ that the last swine flu outbreak also occurred under a ‘Democrat President.’
Bachmann: It’s ‘interesting’ that the last swine flu outbreak also occurred under a ‘Democrat President.’
During an interview with PajamasTV today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) falsely claimed that the last swine flu outbreak occurred under “another Democrat President, Jimmy Carter.” Bachmann, however, insisted she was not trying to blame either man for the outbreaks:
BACHMANN: I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it is an interesting coincidence.
More Bad Business from the Supreme Court on the FCC and the First Amendnment
More Bad Business from the Supreme Court on the FCC and the First Amendnment
Another grim, outrageous, but not really surprising ruling on the First Amendment from the US Supreme Court today, which held 5-4 that fleeting or single-word expletives on broadcast television and radio shows could be fined millions of dollars.
A lower U.S. Appeals Court in New York had found the FCC fines “arbitrary and capricious,” by Justice Scalia, writing for the Supreme Court majority, reasoned that “the F-word’s power to insult and offend derives from its sexual meaning.”
So? Whatever the psychological wellsprings of its semantic power, what counts is whether any Federal agency has the right to fine any broadcaster or anyone, any amount of money, for saying the word “fuck” one or a dozen times, sotto voce or with trumpets blaring, given that the First Amendment to our Constitution says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech”. The linguist Scalia and his four similarly minded colleagues on the bench not only are showing utter contempt for the First Amendment, but are violating their own sacred conservative principle of not “legislating from the bench” with this dangerous ruling.
WHO to raise swine flu alert level to 5
OPS: the scale only goes to 6
WHO to raise swine flu alert level to 5
Considering the rapidly increasing number of confirmed swine flu cases, WHO officials have decided to raise the pandemic alert level to phase 5.
Swine Influenza (swine flu) caused by type A influenza, regularly leads to influenza outbreaks among pigs. The virus does not normally infect humans.
Confirmed sufferers in the United States and Mexico, however, are believed to have spread the disease to their families and others in close contact.
The alert level was increased to 4 on Monday, and WHO officials now say they will be forced to declare a phase 5 alert soon.
“We’re still awaiting for a final confirmation from the US authorities, but it appears that there’s a number of cases in New York which appear to be human-to-human transmission,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told a news briefing.
The United Nations agency also raised its alert level to 4 on Monday as the virus was detected in several European countries.
via WHO to raise swine flu alert level to 5.
Profits mask coming storm
Profits mask coming storm
Contrary to surface appearances such as the recent stock market rally and “glowing” first quarter profitability statements from certain Wall Street banks, multipronged risks for renewed, considerable turmoil in the US financial sector are mounting.
The recent six-week rally on Wall Street, led mostly by banking and other financial shares, isn’t based on any concrete turnaround in the deeply worrying fundamentals of the financial sector.
Instead, it is based largely on the fact that the new administration has trotted out into public view multiple and very large government programs aimed at cleansing the banks’ balance sheets of huge sums of toxic assets, unlocking the persistently seized credit
via Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs.
Hospitals cutting services, staff amid recession
Hospitals cutting services, staff amid recession
Ailing from the recession, many U.S. hospitals have had to begin making painful cuts to patient services and laying off staff, as previous cost-cutting hasn’t been enough, an industry survey found.
In previous recessions the health care industry has held up well, but this time hospitals and other health care businesses are hurting. Besieged by financial pressures including more needy and uninsured people, hospitals now are making tough decisions that affect their patients and communities.
The American Hospital Association found 22 percent of hospitals that responded to its March survey have reduced services since the economic crisis began in September. Those services range from outpatient clinics and behavioral health programs to patient education and home health care after discharge.
University Medical Center of Southern Nevada had to close its mammography center and started phasing out outpatient cancer treatment in November, said spokesman Rick Plummer. The decision was made right after Nevada’s legislature, squeezed because high unemployment and foreclosure rates have slashed tax revenue, cut about $30 million from the Las Vegas safety-net hospital’s charity care and Medicaid funding.
“It’s a domino effect,” Plummer said. “We had to make some difficult choices.”
via Hospitals cutting services, staff amid recession.
Elephants abandon troubled Zimbabwe
Elephants abandon troubled Zimbabwe
Growing pressure from poaching and human encroachment in Zimbabwe has driven hundreds of elephants to migrate from the country, conservationists have said.
As many as 400 elephants have crossed the Zambezi River, which separates Zambia from northern Zimbabwe, in recent months, said Johnny Rodrigues, head of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.
Three elephants also roamed into the eastern border city of Mutare this month and state wildlife authorities “want to shoot them before they kill somebody,” he said.
The task force and a Zimbabwe animal group received official authority to capture and transport the elephants to Chipinda Pools, believed to be their original home area 125 miles to the south.
“The problem is funding for the relocation,” Mr Rodrigues said. State game rangers “won’t wait much longer before destroying the elephants.”
He said changes in Zimbabwe’s countryside had also forced a leopardand its cub out of its natural habitat and into an upmarket Harare suburb.
via Elephants abandon troubled Zimbabwe – Telegraph.
Who Pays for America’s Chernobyl Roulette?
The Pricetag of Price-Anderson
Who Pays for America’s Chernobyl Roulette?
By HARVEY WASSERMAN
As the US attempts to dig out from economic collapse, a little-known nuclear industry liability could seriously derail Obama’s attempt to revive our finances.
It is the federal disaster insurance on 104 rickety atomic reactors. Because the industry cannot get its own insurance, we taxpayers are on the hook.
There is no “rainy day” fund to finance the clean-up after a reactor disaster. No one in government or industry can reasonably explain how we would pay for such a catastrophe.
Chernobyl’s lethal cloud began pouring into the atmosphere 23 years ago this week. Dr. Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and president of the Center for Russian Environmental Policy, estimates the death toll at 300,000.
It also gutted the regional economy, and accelerated the Soviet collapse. By conservative accounts Chernobyl’s explosion has so far cost a half-trillion dollars, with its financial toll continuing to accrue.
A disaster at a US reactor could dwarf that number.
via Harvey Wasserman: Who Pays for America’s Chernobyl Roulette?.
A financial transactions tax would curb Wall Street excess
The cost of business on Wall Street
A Financial Transactions Tax: The Perfect Gift for Wall Street
By Dean Baker
To curb Wall Street excess, the US should tax financial transactions as the UK does
ust like that perfect sweater, a financial transactions tax (FTT) would look just great on those Wall Street bankers and financiers. A modest tax, which would be too small for normal investors to even notice, could easily raise more than $100bn a year. That’s real money even in the land of AIG and Citigroup bailouts.
The Wall Street boys and the politicians they support just hate it when people talk about a FTT. They start huffing and puffing and get out their best indignant voices to quickly dismiss such naïve notions by those not initiated in the ways of finance. These arrogant dismissals are usually sufficient to scare reporters away from writing about the idea and to keep most interest groups and politicians from seriously pressing it.
But for those not easily intimidated by blowhard bankers and their hired flacks (which include many economists), a FTT makes a huge amount of sense. The basic point is quite simple.
Uptick In Iraq Violence Was Expected, Could Get Worse
John Kerry: Uptick In Iraq Violence Was Expected, Could Get Worse
A recent uptick in violence in Iraq was expected and could get worse as the country seeks to reconcile itself politically after years of bitter sectarian conflict, according to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Kerry insisted that the United States’ decision to withdraw troops from Iraq remained fundamentally correct and should not be revisited. But he cautioned that the early results of these troop withdrawals — dictated in large part by the Status of Forces Agreement between the two countries — would likely not be pretty.
“I think there is probably going to be an increase in violence because they have not resolved their political issues,” said Kerry. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be changing our posture there. It is time for the Iraqis to stand up and take charge. But there will undoubtedly be some violence because political reconciliation that we have long said was necessary has never been achieved.”
via John Kerry: Uptick In Iraq Violence Was Expected, Could Get Worse.
The Specter of Republican marginalization
The Specter of Republican marginalization – by Paul Krugman
Arlen Specter’s party switch isn’t all that startling. Richard Shelby and Ben Nighthorse Campbell switched to the Republicans right after the 1994 election, without (as far as I know) facing the same kind of primary challenge. But this switch is especially important, because once Al Franken finally gets seated it will give the Democrats the magic 60 number. The way is now open to a seriously progressive agenda.
What strikes me, however, is the extent to which this is a self-inflicted wound. If Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth weren’t so diligent about enforcing supply-side purity; if Republicans hadn’t made Rush Limbaugh the effective head of the party; Specter might still be GOP, and the Obama agenda much more limited.
via The Specter of Republican marginalization – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.
Kilmeade: McCain ‘Should Not Be Allowed To Talk On Torture’ Because ‘He Was Tortured’
Kilmeade: McCain ‘Should Not Be Allowed To Talk On Torture’ Because ‘He Was Tortured’
On CBS’ Face The Nation this past Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that “resignation would be a decision” that Judge Jay Bybee, who authored one of the recently released torture memos, “would have to make on his own.” McCain added that Bybee had “fundamentally” misinterpreted “what the United States is all about, much less things like the Geneva Conventions.”
On the Brian And The Judge radio show yesterday, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade responded to McCain’s argument by saying that the former prisoner of war “should not be allowed to talk on torture because he is clearly somebody who went through unspeakable pain and punishment”:
Global Warming Denier Michele Bachmann Named To House GOP ‘Energy Solutions’ Group
Global Warming Denier Michele Bachmann Named To House GOP ‘Energy Solutions’ Group
bachmann-glasses.jpgLast month, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced the creation of the House GOP American Energy Solutions Group, meant to “work on crafting Republican solutions to lower energy prices for American families and small businesses.” Helping lead the way toward finding those solutions? Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who yesterday announced her appointment to the group:
“My colleagues and I on the Energy Solutions Working Group are dedicated to an ‘all of the above’ approach that will increase the supply of clean, affordable, American-made energy today and encourage investment for newer, more efficient energy technologies for the future. I will also continue my fight against energy tax increases as proposed in the Democrat’s energy proposal for Minnesotan families and small business,” said Bachmann.
If Boehner and the House GOP were truly interested in promoting real solutions to America’s energy and environmental crises, Bachmann should be their last pick for the group. After all, she has made a name for herself by constantly repeating the most nonsensical, misleading, radical untruths about energy and the environment:
via Think Progress » Global Warming Denier Michele Bachmann Named To House GOP ‘Energy Solutions’ Group.
Specter switching parties, Dems will gain filibuster proof Senate
Specter switching parties, Dems will gain filibuster proof Senate
“This was a straight up survival decision,” according to NBC News’ Chuck Todd.
The Washington Post reports, “Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning.”
“Specter’s decision would give Democrats a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate assuming Democrat Al Franken is eventually sworn in as the next Senator from Minnesota,” Chris Cillizza writes for the paper’s online The Fix column.
“My change in party affiliation does not mean I will be a party line voter for the Democrats than I have been for the Republicans,” Specter noted in a press release. “Unlike Senator Jeffords switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatically 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on employee free choice card check will not change.”
Full statement by Senator Arlen Specter:
via Raw Story » Specter switching parties, Dems will gain filibuster proof Senate.
Swine Flu Could Have Started In US: Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova
OPS: Finger pointing begins
Swine Flu Could Have Started In US: Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova
As more swine flu cases are reported, Mexico is fighting the claim that the disease started within its borders. The push back is becoming increasingly difficult, especially now that reports are surfacing that the possible source could be a Mexican four-year old named Edgar Hernandez Hernandez.
Mexico’s Health Secretary said it was “risky” to blame Mexico for the outbreak:
Mexico, where the number of deaths believed caused by swine flu rose by 50 percent on Monday to 152, is suspected to be the center of the outbreak. But Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova late Monday said no one knows where the outbreak began, and implied it may have started in the U.S.
“I think it is very risky to say, or want to say, what the point of origin or dissemination of it is, given that there had already been cases reported in southern California and Texas,” Cordova told a press conference.
via Swine Flu Could Have Started In US: Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova.
TEXAS GOVERNOR DRAWS LINE IN THE SAND
TEXAS GOVERNOR DRAWS LINE IN THE SAND - by Jim Hightower
Listen to this Commentary at link
The Texas Governorship is one of the weakest in the country – and we often elect people whose abilities are perfectly matched to the job.
Take our first woman governor, Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson, elected in 1924. Faced with a bill to provide bilingual education in our schools, she came out against it, declaring that, “If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
The tradition continues with our present incumbent, Rick Perry, whose chief claim to fame has been that he sports a spectacular head of hair. In April, however, he launched himself onto the national stage of right-wing politics by assailing Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program. It expands big government, he wailed, and it intrudes on Texas sovereignty, and By Gollies, he won’t stand for that. Puffing out his chest, the guv declared that if Obama keeps messing with us, Texas could secede from the union.
via Jim Hightower | TEXAS GOVERNOR DRAWS LINE IN THE SAND.
Deutsche Bank back in black
Deutsche Bank back in black
Investment banking revenues jump
Deutsche Bank on Tuesday said it had bounced back into profit in the first three months of the year, following many of its global investment banking rivals in taking advantage of a sharp upturn in conditions after a disastrous last quarter of 2008.
Better trading for many of Deutsche’s most important debt businesses helped it lift net income to €1.2bn ($1.5bn), which was above analysts’ expectations and compares with a net loss of €141m in the same period of 2008. In the prior quarter – when Deutsche’s trading positions went badly wrong in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ collapse – the bank lost €4.8bn.
via FT.com / Companies / Banks – Deutsche Bank back in black.
US house prices fall 18.6% in February
US house prices fall 18.6% in February – By Alan Rappeport
House prices in the largest US cities tumbled further in February but for the first time in 16 months the rate of decline eased from the prior month, lifting consumer confidence and offering a glimmer of hope that the stricken market could be beginning to bottom out.
The 18.6 per cent drop in house prices followed a 19 per cent year-on-year decline in January, a record, as prices fell steeply in a wide array of cities including Cleveland, Charlotte, New York and Washington, according to the closely watched Case-Shiller index, released on Tuesday.
In depth: US downturn – Apr-15Separately on Tuesday US consumer confidence jumped the most since 2005 this month, as the recent stock market rally lifted spirits.
via FT.com / World – US house prices fall 18.6% in February.
Fears of swine flu epidemic increase
Fears of swine flu epidemic increase
WHO says travel curbs do not work
Fears that a swine flu outbreak could turn into a global pandemic intensified on Tuesday, as governments across the globe stepped up their response.
The World Health Organisation has increased its assessment of the H1N1 virus to a ”significant risk” and increased its alert to an unprecedented phase four.
Thus far the outbreak has spread from Mexico, where 149 people are reported to have died, to the US, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Israel and the UK. The cases outside Mexico have been relatively mild.
via FT.com / Global Economy – Fears of swine flu epidemic increase.
U.S. consumer confidence soared in April
U.S. consumer confidence soared in April
Americans lifted by hopeful signs economy starting to stabilize
WASHINGTON – Hopeful signs that the worst may be over for the economy boosted Americans’ moods in April, sending a closely watched barometer of sentiment to the highest level since November.
The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index rose more than 12 points to 39.2, up from a revised 26.9 in March. The reading marks the highest level since November’s 44.7 and well surpasses economists’ expectations for 29.5.
The consumer confidence survey showed a substantial improvement in consumers’ short-term outlook, including even their assessment of the job picture.
via U.S. consumer confidence soared in April – Stocks & economy- msnbc.com.
Do Not Take A Swine Flu Vaccine!
OPS: OPS is not endorsing this course of action or any particular course of action regarding the swine flu. This article is posted for informational purposes. Make your own decisions.
Do Not Take A Swine Flu Vaccine! – by Dr. Patricia A. Doyle
I am making a plea to everyone who reads this, please, please DO NOT TAKE ANY VACCINE THAT IS PURPORTED TO ‘PREVENT’ THIS FLU.
Remember 1976 and the so called Swine Flu outbreak that was purported to be a coming pandemic? It only infected recruits at Ft. Dix. Why? Because I believe that the so called Swine Flu virus infected the recruits due to the vaccines they were given. Whether the government developed the Swine Flu 1976 virus and infected the recruits as a means to test the public to see if people would comply with a call to take vaccination against Swine Flu, or the recruits became infected via contaminated vaccine they were given as part of the recruit regimen, that outbreak was as phony as they come. I was one of the people duped into taking a Swine Flu shot and it made me so sick. I was sick in bed for three months after taking the vaccine.
Do not take seasonal flu vaccine if you are told that it could help prevent this brand new Swine Flu variant. It won’t do a thing to prevent this flu. What it will do is serve up new genetic material to the Swine Flu virus that I have dubbed Spanish Flu 2, the Sequel. The Spanish Flu variant will use the gene sequences in the vaccine in humans to develop more of the changes that make the virus more readily infect humans. We do not want to give this virus more human genetic material so that it will infect humans more readily person to person. This is what vaccinated individuals do for pandemic strains.
There is also a safety issue in any experimental vaccine, much like the one in 1976. Some people even feel that such a vaccine for pandemic strain might require more than one vaccination which could actually be a binary set up. The first shot might just add some genetic code that stays dormant in the body until one gets the second vaccine shot which then serves to only cause infection. It could trigger Guillain-barre syndrome, Typhus or some other condition.
via Do Not Take A Swine Flu Vaccine!.
Why Monetary Reform?
Why Monetary Reform? – by Richard C. Cook
“Pinky and The Brain”
Do you remember the TV cartoon show “Pinky and The Brain”?
The show was about two white mice. Pinky was a gangly nutcase who talked like the Walt Disney character Goofy, with a similar personality. The Brain was this little conniving, scowling kind of guy who woke up every morning with his latest plan to take over the world.
Each episode of “Pinky and The Brain” showed how The Brain tried and failed on a given day to implement his nefarious intent. Sometimes he would try to get elected as president of the U.S. or stage a military coup or put something in the drinking water so the people would obey his will, or whatever.
In other words, “Pinky and The Brain” was not far from the truth! Today we have a cabal of financiers centered mainly in London and New York who have been trying to take over the world for the last 500 years. One term for this conspiracy is the New World Order.
With today’s worldwide economic crash, the plan is moving to its latter stages. The cabal works through the world financial system, with the world’s central banks like the Bank of England and Federal Reserve playing major roles and the Bank of International Settlements in Basel , Switzerland , at the top. They maintain control by assuring that every bit of currency used in the world derives at some point through a debt owed to a bank. That’s why it’s called a debt-based monetary system.
via Why Monetary Reform?.
Bush Flashback: “War Crimes Will Be Prosecuted…It Will Be No Defense To Say, ‘I Was Just Following Orders’”
Bush Flashback: “War Crimes Will Be Prosecuted…It Will Be No Defense To Say, ‘I Was Just Following Orders’”
Just before launching his invasion of Iraq, President Bush went on national television to issue an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, urging him to leave his country within 48 hours. Bush also had this message for “all Iraqi military and civilian personnel”:
War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.”
Watch it:
Combating the Casual Lie
OPS: Diaper Dave strikes again
Combating the Casual Lie
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) used a CAP co-authored report to assert that the pending energy bill would destroy jobs in the oil industry. This figure results from a gross distortion of a finding in the report.
During the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama warned us of a “silly season” that can at times infect the political process. That season arrived early in Washington this past month.
Various conflicted groups and most recently a U.S. Senator are making attempts to distort studies about the potential costs of implementing carbon cap-and-trade legislation to impede the development of an ambitious plan to create green jobs and solve the problem of global warming. The first egregious effort was the distortion of a two-year-old study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, against the objections of its authors—a distortion that argues the climate change bill proposed by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-MA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) will increase household energy bills by $3,100 a year.
That’s a fundamentally dishonest distortion of the MIT study, yet the effort continues to frighten the American people away from solving one of the greatest threats to our health, environmental and financial security. Others went to even further extremes to claim that the price tag for cap-and-trade is even higher.
We Are All Torturers in America
We Are All Torturers in America
by Naomi Wolf
As citizens’ outrage over the torture memos heats up, and the US Congress is barraged with calls to appoint a special prosecutor, Americans may be about to commit an egregious miscarriage of justice. Republicans have now accused Democrats in Congress of having “blood on your hands too” in relation to the escalating calls to investigate. I would go further: not only do Congressional Democrats have blood on their hands – but so do we, the American people. And CIA agents may be about to be sacrificed to assuage their – and our – actual and associative guilt.
The suddenly urgent calls by our Congressional Democratic leaders, and even by many of the American people, to prosecute CIA operatives, military men and women and contractors who were certainly involved with, colluded in or turned a blind eye to torture are not only the height of hypocrisy, they are a form of unconscionable scapegoating. The scapegoating is political on the part of Congressional leaders, and psychological on the part of many Americans who are now “shocked” at what was done in their name.
Hello America, were you asleep for the past seven years? The fact that the Bush administration used torture has been the furthest thing from a secret. When the political winds were with the last administration, which framed qualms about torture as being soft on “the war on terror”, just about every Congressional Democrat fell right into line to accept it, if not cheer it on. Even Hillary Clinton supported torture – right up through her presidential run. Nancy Pelosi was briefed on the torture in closed-door meetings. When activist groups and citizens called for a special prosecutor, all we heard from Congressional Democrats was how they did not wish to spend the political capital.
via We Are All Torturers in America | CommonDreams.org.
Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report
Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report
Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme study tells of profound changes to sea ice and permafrost, among others
Extensive climate change is now affecting every form of life in the Arctic, according to a major new assessment by international polar scientists.
In the past four years, air temperatures have increased, sea ice has declined sharply, surface waters in the Arctic ocean have warmed and permafrost is in some areas rapidly thawing.
In addition, says the report released today at a Norwegian government seminar, plants and trees are growing more vigorously, snow cover is decreasing 1-2% a year and glaciers are shrinking.
Scientists from Norway, Canada, Russia and the US contributed to the Arctic monitoring and assessment programme (Amap) study, which says new factors such as “black carbon” – soot – ozone and methane may now be contributing to global and arctic warming as much as carbon dioxide.
“Black carbon and ozone in particular have a strong seasonal pattern that makes their impacts particularly important in the Arctic,” it says.
The report’s main findings are:
via Climate Change Hitting Entire Arctic Ecosystem, Says Report | CommonDreams.org.
Poll: 71 percent believe that waterboarding is torture.
Poll: 71 percent believe that waterboarding is torture.
Greg Sargent notes that despite the media’s reluctance to describe it as such, a new poll out today by the New York Times and CBS News found that 71 percent of Americans consider waterboarding to be “a form of torture”:
The poll also found that 87 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. health care system needs to be fundamentally changed or rebuilt completely. Additionally, 42 percent said that they believe gay couples should be allowed to marry, an increase of nine percentage points from March 2009. In total, 67 percent support either same-sex marriage or civil unions.
via Think Progress » Poll: 71 percent believe that waterboarding is torture..
Truth commission to proceed despite Obama’s wishes
OPS: Fraud. Another goddamn whitewash in the making 
Truth commission to proceed despite Obama’s wishes
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) plans to proceed with a special commission to investigate alleged Bush administration abuses of power, despite lacking President Barack Obama’s support, according to a report Tuesday.
Sen. Leahy called for a “Truth Commission” in February to probe Bush administration policies on torture, interrogation and surveillance and to — as he puts it — “get to the bottom of what went wrong.” Such an idea would be modeled around truth commissions established in South Africa and Chile, which offered immunity to officials who committed abuses in exchange for the truth.
“Many Americans feel we need to get to the bottom of what went wrong,” Leahy said when announcing his idea in February. “I agree. We need to be able to read the page before we turn the page.”
via Raw Story » Truth commission to proceed despite Obama’s wishes.
Utah County Republicans reject ‘Satanic’ resolution – Salt Lake Tribune
OPS: Whoa.
Utah County Republicans reject ‘Satanic’ resolution
Orem » Utah County Republicans defeated a resolution opposing well-heeled groups that a delegate claims are pushing a satanic plan to encourage illegitimate births and illegal immigration.
Don Larsen, a Springville delegate, offered the resolution, titled “Resolution opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal,” warning delegates that an “invisible government” comprised of left-wing foundations was pumping money into the Democratic Party to push for looser immigration laws and anti-family legislation.
Larsen said Democrats get most of the votes cast by illegal immigrants and people in dysfunctional families.
But it’s not the Democrats who are behind this strategy, Larsen said. It’s the devil.
“Satan’s ultimate goal is to destroy the family,” Larsen said, “and these people are playing a leading part in it.”
Larsen’s resolution contained quotes from the New Testament on the battle between good and evil. The copy of the resolution handed to delegates stated it “fulfills scriptural prophecies about our times.”
Larsen offered a similar resolution at the 2007 convention. That also was defeated by delegates.
David Rodeback, a delegate from American Fork, urged delegates to forcefully reject the resolution, as it would do the party more harm than good.
via Utah County Republicans reject ‘Satanic’ resolution – Salt Lake Tribune.
Palin’s legal fund challenged as ethics violation
OPS: Palin & Ethics in the same sentence?
Palin’s legal fund challenged as ethics violation
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An ethics complaint filed Monday against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claims the legal defense fund formed last week to challenge such claims is an ethics violation itself.
The complaint filed with the attorney general’s office seeks an investigation by the state personnel board for violations of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. The complainant, Kim Chatman of Eagle River, claims Palin is misusing the governor’s office for personal gain by securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts.
The governor’s office said Monday the new complaint and others filed against Palin or her staff show a disturbing trend in Alaska politics.
“It’s obvious the intent with this unprecedented action against the governor is to see her administration paralyzed and for her to declare personal bankruptcy,” Palin spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
The new complaint targets the Alaska Fund Trust, which Palin supporter and friend Kristan Cole established last week. Palin has said has said she’s accumulated more than $500,000 in legal fees from defending herself against ethics complaints and in Troopergate, the Legislature‘s probe into the firing of Palin’s former public safety commissioner.
Chatman’s complaint cites as potential donors the 500,000 supporters signed up for Palin’s Facebook account and various political organizations.
“Gov. Palin is perched to improperly receive an enormous amount of money for herself and her family and position a pool of pre-paid defense lawyers organized to deflect consequences of wrongdoings,” the complaint says.
via Palin’s legal fund challenged as ethics violation.
Mortgage Vultures Dupe Cash-Strapped Homeowners
Mortgage Vultures Dupe Cash-Strapped Homeowners
Capitalizing on the collapse of the housing market, a Fair Oaks, California company claimed to provide loan modification services while siphoning money from clients on the brink of losing their homes, say several former clients and employees.
Superior Properties, formerly 2nd Chance Negotiations, operates by soliciting an upfront fee from homeowners facing foreclosure in return for legal counsel, a lower principal on their mortgage, and a “100% money back guarantee.” It’s the type of promise that the Federal Trade Commission says is typical of mortgage scams that are the subject of a recently-announced nationwide crackdown by the federal government.
2nd Chance Negotiations attracted over 1,000 customers before the California Departments of Corporations (DOC) and Real Estate (DRE) issued separate desist and refrain orders on March 24. The joint investigation that led to the desist orders stated that the business was “not licensed and/or legally authorized” to perform its promised services, nor to collect fees in advance — fees that ran as high as $6,000.
via Mortgage Vultures Dupe Cash-Strapped Homeowners.
Business reporters confess news sins while U.S. economy collapsed
OPS: A simple mia culpa does not explain it and is not enough
Business reporters confess news sins while U.S. economy collapsed
In a windowless room at the Westin Hotel in downtown Denver, leading business journalists and editors explained how the media “blew it” in covering the economic meltdown. They admitted, on one hand, to falling under the sway of free-market ideology and celebrating risk-taking financial leaders and, on the other, to missing the complex story of the rupturing system by only reporting it in parts and to almost no effect for the past decade.
Although not planned as confession, the discussion, which kicked off the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW), quickly descended into an unburdening, with the panelists taking turns voicing their own explanations and excuses for the failure. Former Wall Street Journal managing editor and current ProPublica.org chief Paul Steiger moderated the impromptu journalistic penitence.
“We drank the Kool-Aid,” said Jane Bryant Quinn, personal finance columnist for Bloomberg and Newsweek. “We believed that free markets were the best kind [of markets].” She said it had become “unfashionable” over the last three decades to write about regulation, so they didn’t.
via Colorado Independent » Business reporters confess news sins while U.S. economy collapsed.
“Auto Warriors”: Ford Plants Compete To Keep Their Jobs (VIDEO)
SATIRE
“Auto Warriors”: Ford Plants Compete To Keep Their Jobs (VIDEO)
The Onion skewered both reality television and the auto industry this week with a segment on a new show called “Auto Warriors” in which two teams at opposing Ford plants compete to keep their jobs, pensions, and benefits. The head of one team was nearly eliminated for approving an injured coworker’s sick leave, but eked by to make it to the “dark factory challenge” in which the teams had to build 1,000 cars with no electricity.
via “Auto Warriors”: Ford Plants Compete To Keep Their Jobs (VIDEO).
Bank Stress Tests A “Complete Sham” — Former Regulator
Bank Stress Tests A “Complete Sham” — Former Regulator
The bank stress tests currently underway are “a complete sham,” says William Black, a former senior bank regulator and S&L prosecutor, and currently an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. “It’s a Potemkin model. Built to fool people.” Like many others, Black believes the “worst case scenario” used in the stress test don’t go far enough.
He detailed these and related concerns in a recent interview with Naked Capitalism. But Black, who was counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the S&L Crisis, says the program’s failings go way beyond such technical issues. “There is no real purpose [of the stress test] other than to fool us. To make us chumps,” Black says. Noting policymakers have long stated the problem is a lack of confidence, Black says Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is now essentially saying: “’If we lie and they believe us, all will be well.’ It’s Orwellian.”
The former regulator is extremely critical of Geithner, calling him a “failed regulator” now “adding to failed policy” by not allowing “banks that really need desperately to be closed” to fail. (On Saturday, Geithner said on Face the Nation, if banks need “exceptional assistance” in the future “then we’ll make sure that assistance comes with conditions,” including potentially changing management and the board, but did not say they’d be shut down.)
via Bank Stress Tests A “Complete Sham” — Former Regulator.
Workers Walk the Plank
Workers Walk the Plank – BOB HERBERT
I’m sure everyone is thrilled to know that the high rollers on Wall Street are bouncing back. With profits on the rebound, the big shots at the biggest institutions are on track, as The Times reported Sunday, to make as much money this year as they were hauling in before the mega-recession began.
The growing legions of the unemployed can be forgiven for not shouting hallelujah. It’s a little like watching the drunken driver who plowed into your family car and caused untold havoc and heartache, suddenly pulling up one morning, no worse for the wear, in a sparkling new vehicle.
via Op-Ed Columnist – Workers Walk the Plank – NYTimes.com.
Colbert Study: Conservatives Don’t Know He’s Joking
OPS: This should scare the hell out of any rational person. Not only another reason Conservatives should NOT be allowed to control anything, but also proving that they are mentally damaged individuals and need to be treated as such.
Colbert Study: Conservatives Don’t Know He’s Joking
Last week, Stephen Colbert revisited a segment he had done on Florida Representative Bill Posey, who sponsored a bill that “would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificate,” in order to put insane rumors of President Barack Obama’s birthplace to bed.
Colbert thought a similar measure should be taken to end the whisperings that Posey was a human-alligator hybrid. Posey, in response to Colbert, said, “I expected there would be some civil debate about it, but it wasn’t civil…There is no reason to say that I’m the illegitimate grandson of an alligator.” And one wondered, “Does Posey not realize that Colbert is not speaking in earnest? His reaction seems uniquely stupid!”
Stupid, yes. But apparently it’s not unique at all, according to a study from The Ohio State University, which proves, with math and stuff, that lots of conservatives seem to not understand the intrinsic, underlying joke of The Colbert Report:
via Colbert Study: Conservatives Don’t Know He’s Joking.
UAW leaders recommend members OK Chrysler deal
OPS: NOW that management has completely wrecked it they are willing to cut the Unions in.
UAW leaders recommend members OK Chrysler deal
UAW leaders recommend Chrysler concessions; union trust to own 55 percent of company
STERLING HEIGHTS, Michigan (AP) — The United Auto Workers union will own 55 percent of a restructured Chrysler LLC and its retiree health care trust will get a seat on the board of directors if union members vote to approve contract concessions later this week.
Factory-level union leaders voted unanimously Monday night to recommend approval of concessions that union President Ron Gettelfinger said would help keep the automaker out of bankruptcy.
A summary of the revised Chrysler-UAW contract says that Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA eventually will own 35 percent of a restructured Chrysler, with the remaining 10 percent stake divided between the U.S. government and secured lenders, mostly banks and hedge funds.
The summary says that Chrysler stock eventually will be traded publicly again, as there are mechanisms for the UAW to sell shares to fund the trust.
via UAW leaders recommend members OK Chrysler deal – Yahoo! Finance.
Sebelius Health Secretary Confirmation Expected Today
Sebelius Health Secretary Confirmation Expected Today
WASHINGTON — The Senate was set to approve President Barack Obama’s nominee for health and human services secretary Tuesday, giving the agency a leader in the midst of the swine flu outbreak.
Morning debate and an afternoon vote were scheduled to confirm Kathleen Sebelius, the two-term Democratic governor of Kansas. She was expected to get the 60 votes needed in the Democratic-led Senate, though perhaps with little margin to spare.
Anti-abortion groups have been lobbying Republican senators to vote against Sebelius, criticizing her stances on abortion and her ties to a late-term abortion doctor who donated to her campaigns. Sebelius initially underreported to senators the size of those donations, though she apologized and said it was an inadvertent error.
via Sebelius Health Secretary Confirmation Expected Today.
SILENT CONSPIRACIES
SILENT CONSPIRACIES
The President must enforce our trade laws and Congress must move to protect the economy.
Editor’s Note: The following article was contributed by Former Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, author of Making Government Work.
This week’s Toles cartoon has President Obama looking at a pile of sand and talking to the U. S. in the first frame with the heading: “We’re not going to build a new economy on this same pile of sand.” The next frame of the cartoon shows President Obama talking to the U. S. not on one pile but a sea of piles of sand. Toles exposes Washington’s silent conspiracy of debt.
President Reagan started a strategy of growth for the economy – cutting taxes, borrowing, spending, and growing the national debt instead of the economy. In two hundred years of history we had paid for all of our wars and President Johnson’s Great Society program and still hadn’t reached a national debt of $1 trillion dollars. But with President Reagan cutting taxes and “growth” for the economy, the national debt reached $1 trillion in 1982. President Clinton and the Democrats gave the nation its strongest economy in 1993 by cutting spending and increasing taxes. But the Democrats lost the House of Representatives the next year because of the tax increases.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
WTO Rules Against U.S… Again
WTO Rules Against U.S… Again
Why does the WTO rule against the U.S. whenever a major economy subpoenas it, while also ruling against the U.S. whenever it brings charges against another major economy?
The United States has once again lost an international arbitration hearing before the World Trade Organization, for having the audacity to protect its industries in a way similar to that of its trade competition. The latest case involved allegedly illegal barriers erected by the United States to increase the price of imported steel products and ball bearings from Japan. The barriers reportedly cost the Japanese industry $248.5 million annually.
The United States has lost similar cases recently against the European Union, Canada and others. The Commerce Department maintains tariffs against goods which it believes are being “dumped” into the American market, and the WTO consistently tears down each of these barriers whenever one is questioned before their tribunal.
The problem is not whether or not what the U.S. is doing is technically legal according to its WTO agreement, what must be focused on are all of the things that Japan is doing which are explicitly illegal yet allowed to continue. Japan blocks almost all imported goods – and levies high tariffs on what it allows in, it manipulates currency, and it illegally subsidizes domestic industries so they can sell products at low costs. Japan is not as egregious a violator of international commercial law as China, but it certainly engages in a good deal of practices that should not be allowed according to its international commitments.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
US Treasury Sees Apr-Jun Quarter Borrowing Needs Of $361 Billion
US Treasury Sees Apr-Jun Quarter Borrowing Needs Of $361 Billion
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Treasury Dept. estimated it will borrow $361 billion in marketable debt in the April-June quarter, $196 billion higher than it previously projected, according to a Treasury statement released Monday.
The latest projection for the current quarter would leave the Treasury with an estimated cash balance of $245 billion on June 30.
The $361 billion figure is a record for an April-June quarter. It includes $ 200 billion for the supplementary financing program. Started last year, that program allows for auction of Treasury bills that will provide cash for use in Federal Reserve initiatives designed to support credit markets.
via US Treasury Sees Apr-Jun Quarter Borrowing Needs Of $361 Billion.
Plan to Cut Weapons Programs Disputed
OPS: The US Military MUST BE cut. Here’ why
Plan to Cut Weapons Programs Disputed
Defense Supporters Say 100,000 Jobs Are in Jeopardy
Some of the nation’s largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are banding together to argue that the Obama administration is putting 100,000 or more jobs at risk by proposing deep cuts in weapons programs.
The defense industry and its supporters argue that the proposals by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will increase unemployment during a historic economic crisis. Why, they ask, would President Obama push hundreds of billions in stimulus spending to create jobs only to propose weapons cuts that would eliminate tens of thousands of them?
“It doesn’t make sense that our government is looking at trying to save or create jobs at the same time it’s talking about cutting something like this,” said Jeff Goen, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers chapter in Marietta, Ga., where Lockheed Martin does final assembly on the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, which is slated to be cut.
via Plan to Cut Weapons Programs Disputed – washingtonpost.com.
Pentagon developing ‘Internet of the future’
Pentagon developing ‘Internet of the future’
The next-generation arms race begins
When American forces in Iraq wanted to lure members of Al Qaeda into a trap, they hacked into one of the group’s computers and altered information that drove them into American gun sights.
When President George W. Bush ordered new ways to slow Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb last year, he approved a plan for an experimental covert program — its results still unclear — to bore into their computers and undermine the project.
And the Pentagon has commissioned military contractors to develop a highly classified replica of the Internet of the future. The goal is to simulate what it would take for adversaries to shut down the country’s power stations, telecommunications and aviation systems, or freeze the financial markets — in an effort to build better defenses against such attacks, as well as a new generation of online weapons.
Just as the invention of the atomic bomb changed warfare and deterrence 64 years ago, a new international race has begun to develop cyberweapons and systems to protect against them.
I highly recommend reading the rest of this fascinating report. I’m especially curious as to this “highly classified replica of the Internet of the future.” (For instance: how does one create a replica of something that does not exist?)
Consider this: the Internet was an eventual byproduct of President Dwight Eisenhower’s reaction to the Soviet launch of Sputnic. Hoping to protect America from space-based nuclear weapons, Eisenhower was instrumental in kicking off a technological revolution that led to modern-day spy satellites. But not just that: programs which his administration began eventually snowballed into the first IP protocols being created for use on ARPANET, the first iteration of the Internet.
via The Raw Story » The next-generation arms race begins.
Busting the Torture Myths
Busting the Torture Myths
The Stomach-Turning Truth About Bush’s Torture Programs
Scott Horton, who has led coverage of Bush-era wrongdoing, exposes three pervasive myths—and the surprising reason Cheney and Rove are keeping the issue alive.
• A torture memo writer refused to comply with a warning about criminal risks—and exposes the truth about the policies.
• Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are convinced that Bush-era torture policy is a promising political product for a party down on its luck.
• Donald Rumsfeld gave step-by-step directions for techniques used at Abu Ghraib.
• Torture techniques originated from the White House shortly after 9/11—long before they were arguably needed on the battlefield.
• Torture was used by Cheney and Rumsfeld to find justification for the invasion of Iraq.
• Jay Bybee was confirmed to a lifetime appointment as all eyes were on Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N. about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.
In the space of a week, the torture debate in America has been suddenly transformed. The Bush administration left office resting its case on the claim it did not torture. The gruesome photographs from Abu Ghraib, it had said, were the product of “a few bad apples” and not of government policy. But the release of a series of grim documents has laid waste to this defense. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s report—adopted with the support of leading Republican Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham—has demonstrated step-by-step how abuses on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan had their genesis in policy choices made at the pinnacle of the Bush administration. A set of four Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel memoranda from the Bush era has provided a stomach-turning legal justification of the application of specific torture techniques, including waterboarding.
via Busting the Torture Myths – Page 1 – The Daily Beast.
A Serial Job-Killer Is Stalking America
A Serial Job-Killer Is Stalking America
With Barack Obama’s election, real reform has once again become politically viable. And America’s anti-union business leaders know it.
Conservatives in Congress, predictably enough, are going after the wrong suspect. In the process, CEOs are getting away with economic murder — and labor law reform stands imperiled.
new crime has burst out onto America’s political blotter. Move over drug pushing and car stealing, meet the new menace. Job killing. But fear not. We now have in Congress a dedicated army of self-selected saviors who have loudly vowed to keep us protected.
And just how are these lawmakers going to keep our jobs secure? They’re going to put the kibosh on labor law reform.
Americans who believe all workers have the right to bargain collectively with their employers have been battling for labor law reform for some time now. The plentiful loopholes in our current labor law, they note, let companies make life intolerably miserable for workers who want to start a union. But reform had no chance so long as George W. Bush sat in the White House.
With Barack Obama’s election, real reform has once again become politically viable. And America’s anti-union business leaders know it. They’ve been spending furiously on anti-reform ads and lobbying. And now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is threatening a “firestorm bordering on Armageddon” if Democrats in Congress try to get reform onto President Obama’s desk.
via Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality.
Obama’s First 100 Days: What’s a Presidency For?
Obama’s First 100 Days: What’s a Presidency For?
Obama Has Amassed Enormous Political Capital, But He Doesn’t Know What to Do with It
A severe economic crisis coupled with the election of a new progressive president is an opportunity for a dramatic break with the old order. But that process doesn’t just happen spontaneously. It takes exceptional presidential resolve and leadership. And there are three huge obstacles to President Obama seizing the moment to produce fundamental change, two of them systemic and one self-inflicted.
The first systemic obstacle is the lingering political power of the old order. Practical failure doesn’t diminish political influence. On the contrary, it leads to a defensive redoubling of political resolve. We see this every day in the relentless lobbying by the financial industry against new regulations. We see it in the ongoing power of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to block comprehensive health reform, and in the efforts of corporate America generally to resist sweeping changes in corporate governance and executive compensation. The economy has crashed, ordinary people are suffering, rightwing ideology has been disgraced–and the old order endures.
via Robert Kuttner: Obama’s First 100 Days: What’s a Presidency For?.
America’s Schizoid Pot Culture — 4 in 10 Have Smoked It, and Millions Are Still Getting Busted
America’s Schizoid Pot Culture — 4 in 10 Have Smoked It, and Millions Are Still Getting Busted
The Obama administration is giving mixed signals on its pot policies despite a tidal shift in social views on legalizing marijuana.
Fully 80 percent of Americans approve of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and fewer than one in five favor locking up non-violent adults who use pot in general. But since the inception of the disastrous “War on Drugs,” politicians from across the political spectrum have found that being a dedicated drug warrior is an easy way to appear “tough on crime” without much political risk.
The result of that divide is a truly schizoid patchwork of laws regulating the use of cannabis. Several states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of weed — most recently Massachusetts this year — and 13 states have legalized medical marijuana. Yet each and every year we continue to lock up three-quarters of a million Americans for possession of marijuana and waste an estimated $14 billion on our misguided prohibition of a cash crop that’s worth more than wheat and corn combined.
The Obama administration has sent markedly mixed signals about whether it would continue the most regressive element of the “Drug War” — Bush’s policy of going after medical marijuana providers in the states that have legalized the industry
Foreclosure Pets: Soaring Rate of Abandoned Animals Are the Latest Sign of a Deep Economic Crisis
Foreclosure Pets: Soaring Rate of Abandoned Animals Are the
Latest Sign of a Deep Economic Crisis
Abandoned animals and “foreclosure pets” are the innocent victims of our financial downward spiral.
Beginning last year and well into 2009, a disturbing media trend emerged, as local news outlets across the country began reporting different versions of the same sad tale: Dogs, cats and other animals were being found abandoned inside and outside of shuttered homes, the “silent victims,” apparently, of the foreclosure crisis.
There were the three dogs found dead in Arkansas that had been locked inside pet carriers without food or water; the “emaciated” German shepherd left chained to a tree in the backyard of an abandoned home in Arizona (he was later euthanized); the starving pit bull in Stockton, Calif., discovered in the wreckage of a ruined house, whose owners had “trashed their home before a bank foreclosed on it.” (One Animal Protective League officer in Cleveland calls this “part of the revenge process: They leave these animals to defecate in the house to destroy the furniture and to urinate on everything to make it difficult for the mortgage company to clean up.”)
As more and more Americans have lost their homes to the wave of foreclosures that has swept the nation, a shocking portion of them, whether due to an inability or an unwillingess to find homes for their animals after being rendered homeless themselves, have simply left their pets behind.
Europe’s ‘Special Interrogations’: New Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland
New Evidence of Torture Prison in Poland
The current debate in the US on the “special interrogation methods” sanctioned by the Bush administration could soon reach Europe. It has long been clear that the CIA used the Szymany military airbase in Poland for extraordinary renditions. Now there is evidence of a secret prison nearby.
Only a smattering of clouds dotted the sky over Szymany on March 7, 2003, and visibility was good. A light breeze blew from the southeast as a plane approached the small military airfield in northeastern Poland, and the temperature outside was 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit). At around 4:00 p.m., the Gulfstream N379P — known among investigators as the “torture taxi” — touched down on the landing strip.
We Can’t Afford To Ignore the Douchebags
Natasha quick hits to this piece by David Roberts arguing (fairly well) that progressives should avoid spending time arguing with the various wingnuts that pervade our discourse. He concludes:
Some time in the next hour, somebody will say something stupid on cable TV. Somebody will write an idiot op-ed. Somebody will be wrong on the internet. Let. It. Go.
Focus on wavering Dems and their constituents and their constituents’ jobs. Focus on how energy/climate legislation will make the country cleaner, healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous. The Newts can’t stop anybody, they can only distract and sap energy from those doing the work.
They are not Boogie men. They are douchebags, and everyone hates them.
I wish I could agree, but I don’t. Douchebags they are, but these vipers have not been defanged.
Daniel De Groot :: We Can’t Afford To Ignore the Douchebags
On one level, I will say I’m pleased we can even have this debate. In our shared quest to drive the wingnuts out of the “sphere of deviance” it is a sign of progress that we can even consider whether they’re already out there, safe for us to ignore. From 1994 to 2008, this position was simply unsupportable, the freaks were literally pulling the levers of power. Now at least they’re on the sidelines, but I’m not convinced this is good enough. Hecklers can sometimes disrupt the actual participants, or even provoke a rush onto the field so if my metaphor is accurate enough, I won’t be satisfied until Security has escorted them from the arena where decisions are made.
So a couple points in rebuttal to David:
via Open Left:: We Can’t Afford To Ignore the Douchebags.
Patient Zero?
Patient Zero?
OK – bad joke….. but why was dad taking this picture rather than grabbing the kid?
Progressive Caucus Will Pitch Public Option for Health Care in Meeting With Obama
Progressive Caucus Will Pitch Public Option for Health Care in Meeting With Obama
Progressive Democrats plan to remind President Barack Obama of his liberal roots in a meeting Tuesday and press him to deliver on an expanded federal role in providing health care coverage.
Obama has caught the attention of liberals by wooing centrists and vowing to cut deals on issues such as health care. Last month, he raised eyebrows when he described himself as a New Democrat at a meeting with members of the more moderate New Democrat Coalition.
Now, liberals are pressing Obama to make sure that any deal includes a government alternative to private insurers. Raúl M. Grijalva , D-Ariz., co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says the 78-member group will push for a government-run insurance option in a scheduled meeting at the White House.
“Some of our members want a single-payer system. But at a minimum, as a caucus, we want a public plan option,” Grijalva said. He and Lynn Woolsey , D-Calif., another CPC co-chairman, warned party leaders in an April 2 letter that CPC members “will not support legislation that does not include a public plan option.”
For his part, Obama hopes to drum up support for his $83.4 billion request of supplemental war funds. Grijalva said he and some other progressives were undecided and wanted more details about growing military efforts in Afghanistan.
via CQ Politics | Progressive Caucus Will Pitch Public Option for Health Care in Meeting With Obama.
Markoff friends seek clues, wonder if they missed something
‘If there were any clues, he hid them well’
Philip Markoff’s friends knew him as a straight-arrow, shy and driven. Now he is an accused killer, and they wonder what they missed.
They called him a “straight edge.”
At the state university in Albany, Philip Markoff was known for the same discipline and intensity that had made him an academic star in high school. He logged long hours in labs and the library and carried a heavy course load that allowed him to graduate with honors a year early.
Amid the pressure, friends said, he had just one true release: Poker. All-night games, every weekend, that he took very seriously, indeed.
Markoff looked forward to the gatherings all week and talked about them a lot, according to several college friends interviewed by the Globe. The sessions were meant to be casual, but to Markoff they seemed more than that. While others joked or talked about sports, he insisted on concentrating on the cards and turned easygoing games into intense competitions.
via Markoff friends seek clues, wonder if they missed something – The Boston Globe.
Arctic CO2 levels growing at an ‘unprecedented rate’, say scientists
Arctic CO2 levels growing at an ‘unprecedented rate’, say scientists
Figures from a measuring station in northern Norway show that CO2 levels are increasing by 2-3 parts per million every year
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached a record high, according to the latest figures released by an internationally regarded measuring station in the Arctic.
The measurements suggest that the main greenhouse gas is continuing to increase in the atmosphere at an alarming rate despite the downturn in dip in the rate of increase of the global economy.
Levels of the gas at the Zeppelin research station on Svalbard, northern Norway, last week peaked at over 397 parts per million (ppm), an increase of more than 2.5ppm on 2008. They have since begun to reduce and today stand at 393.7ppm. Prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 levels were around 280ppm.
via Arctic CO2 levels growing at an ‘unprecedented rate’, say scientists | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Four-year-old could hold key in search for source of swine flu outbreak
Four-year-old could hold key in search for source of swine flu outbreak
Case confirmed in village in east Mexico where sixty per cent of residents fell ill
A Mexican village whose inhabitants were overwhelmed by an outbreak of respiratory illness starting in February has emerged as a possible source of the swine flu outbreak which has now spread across the world.
The state government of Veracruz in eastern Mexico has confirmed one case of swine flu in the village of La Gloria with the sufferer named locally as a four-year-old boy, Edgar Hernandez Hernandez. The federal government said tonight that he tested positive for the same strain of the virus which has claimed lives in Mexico.
The boy’s case earlier this month came amid an outbreak of respiratory illness in the area in which around 400 people requested medical help. The boy was treated in hospital and survived. But two babies from the same village died during the outbreak. Sufferers complained of symptoms including fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm
“60 Minutes” Coal Reporting Misses Point (VIDEO)
“60 Minutes” Coal Reporting Misses Point (VIDEO)
This week’s “60 Minutes” had a feature on coal which compares the CEO of Duke Energy “a reformed tobacco executive.” Sounds like it has potential, right? It’s encouraging that such a large media outlet reports on coal in the context of how dangerous it is to the climate, but the piece still falls short.
Despite consulting Dr. James Hansen, Scott Pelley manages to spit out this gem: “Cleaning up the carbon would solve everything.” Then the program goes to a carbon sequestration plant — the only one in the country, the show says — which liquefies carbon emissions and pumps them underground. Pelley, narrating, says that everyone agrees that this is the only way to make coal safe for the planet.
While he does say that this South Dakota coal plant cost far too much to be replicated on a large scale, Pelley’s reporting omits the first part of the process of using coal for energy — the part where you gather the coal. If you don’t know what that looks like, it looks like this:
via “60 Minutes” Coal Reporting Misses Point (VIDEO).
AIG’s Fall: Bad Business Or Criminal Acts?
AIG’s Fall: Bad Business Or Criminal Acts?
CBS Exclusive: Investigators Digging Into Whether Execs Of Failed Financial Giant Misled The
(CBS) A $5 million Connecticut mansion. A $4 million London townhouse. A $7 million English estate. The houses are owned by three men CBS News has learned are now the subjects of a Justice Department criminal investigation into how AIG crumbled.
Sources say investigators are digging into whether Joseph Cassano, the former head of London-based AIG Financial Products, and two of his top deputies – Andrew Forster, an executive vice president, and Thomas Athan, a managing director – committed securities fraud and other federal crimes, reports CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.
At issue: whether they intentionally provided false information about the size of AIG’s loses in the mortgage-backed securities market to the public and auditors.
“They would look at the email traffic to try and see who was saying what to whom,” said John Laperla, a former fraud investigator for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
via AIG’s Fall: Bad Business Or Criminal Acts? – CBS News.
Santorum: Reconciliation ‘Has Never Been Done Before’ — Except For When I Used It
OPS: Man -on-Dog speaks
Santorum: Reconciliation ‘Has Never Been Done Before’ — Except For When I Used It
Last week, the White House increased the pressure to pass President Obama’s budget proposal this week by keeping the reconciliation language in place that would allow the budget — and the essential health care reforms it includes — to pass with 51 rather than 60 Senate votes.
Adding his voice to the conservative hysteria over the use of reconciliation, former senator Rick Santorum declared today that such a move would “short-circuit the process” and “has never been done before”:
SANTORUM: What the Democrats have done is to try to short-circuit the process on a major piece of legislation. This has never been done before. We have never seen a major, long-term, policy prescription, whether it’s Medicare, or go back throughout history and look at all the major pieces of legislation, none of them have ever been passed using this procedure. … This is truly an abomination.
Listen to it:
via Think Progress » Santorum: Reconciliation ‘Has Never Been Done Before’ — Except For When I Used It.
Rep. DeLauro: Budget Conference Committee Will Not Tinker With Social Security
Rep. DeLauro: Budget Conference Committee Will Not Tinker With Social Security
Last week, House and Senate negotiators “struck a tentative deal” on the FY 2010 budget, including an agreement to use the reconciliation process to push through health care legislation. Under this process, the bill would be “protected from filibusters and passed by a simple majority vote.” Democrats have made clear that they would prefer to use the normal process, but are unable to proceed because of GOP obstruction. However, until recently, some Democrats — such as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) — still resisted.
Conrad is one of the Democrats who has been chosen to serve on the budget conference committee, which is set to have a formal meeting today and then continue closed-door negotiations on Friday and through the weekend. “One outstanding question is what Conrad may get in exchange for not standing in the way of reconciliation provisions,” CQ wrote last week. Conrad, in reply, said, “Would I want things? Yeah.”
via Think Progress » Rep. DeLauro: Budget Conference Committee Will Not Tinker With Social Security.
5 members arrested after crossing embassy perimeter
5 members arrested after crossing embassy perimeter
Five lawmakers were arrested at a demonstration in front of the Sudanese embassy Monday.
Protesting the expulsion of aid groups from Darfur, House Democratic Reps. James McGovern (Mass.), John Lewis (Ga.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Keith Ellison (Minn.) and Lynn Woolsey (Calif.) were arrested along with other activists for crossing a police line and refusing to leave.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir recently kicked 16 aid groups out of the region.
“President Bashir has a choice,” McGovern said at the protest. “He can choose to let the humanitarian groups return; he can choose to end the violence and the killing; and he can choose serious negotiations for a just and lasting peace. Or he can continue to commit crimes against humanity — crimes with which he is already charged — and charges that will one day catch up with him and bring him down.”
The Secret Service had established a perimeter around the embassy. The lawmakers and protest organizers deliberately crossed the line and refused three warnings to leave, a spokesman for Edwards said.
via TheHill.com – 5 members arrested after crossing embassy perimeter.
Former LU Professor Facing Sex Charges
Former LU Professor Facing Sex Charges
Lynchburg, VA – Liberty University (web) police have arrested a former Liberty University professor on sex related charges. Court records show Joshua Young Moon is charged with object sexual penetration by force. We’re told the alleged incident happened with a student. Police won’t tell us when but say they received a complaint earlier this week.
L.U.P.D. chief Richard Hinkley says the suspect taught math at the school. He says Moon has been at LU for some time but could not say how long. Court records show him having a North Carolina address. Police are not talking about the details of the complaint or whether it was a male or female student involved
via Former LU Professor Facing Sex Charges|ABC 13.
Waterboarding Sean Hannity
Waterboarding Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity’s offer to undergo waterboarding for charity is almost too good to refuse. However, before we undertake any such extraordinary interrogation techniques (EIT’s, for short) on the Fox talk show host, we should be sure to get some airtight legal opinions to make sure we won’t run afoul of the Geneva Convention. I know a couple of former Justice Department employees who would fit the bill perfectly — and I’m pretty sure they’ll find a way to carve out a broad exception to the rules against torturing right-wing blowhards. If there ever was an open and shut threat to national security, Mr. Hannity fits the bill.
But what’s the real purpose of waterboarding slick Sean? Is this a case of exigent circumstances? A ticking clock? “Hell, yes,” as they say in neocon lingo. We need to know if Mr. Hannity really believes all the tripe he spews or is he just doing it to grab viewers and sell books? Well, actually, we already know the answer to that question without torturing the guy. But what else does he know that he’s not telling us? Is there really a vast right-wing conspiracy, or is it actually a few wingnuts like Sean and Rush who are making a couple of bucks by stirring up the hackles of the left and tickling the cockles of the right? And after we get through waterboarding Sean — 183 times sounds about right — will we really have gotten any useful information out of him? (What do you think?)
via Hoyt Hilsman: Waterboarding Sean Hannity.
Boehner: I Only Want To Declassify Those Documents That Help My Party And Me Politically
Boehner: I Only Want To Declassify Those Documents That Help My Party And Me Politically
Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) asked President Obama to release several classified memos referenced in a recent interview by former Vice President Dick Cheney, claiming that the memos could show that the Bush administration’s torture program was effective in gathering intelligence.
Over the weekend, however, McClatchy reported that the CIA Inspector General (IG) found in a still-classified 2004 report “that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any ‘specific imminent attacks.’” The IG concluded that “waterboarding was riskier than officials claimed and reported that the CIA’s Office of Medical Services thought that the risk to the health of some prisoners outweighed any potential intelligence benefit.”
Pastors In Prison?: Religious Right Spreads Lies About Hate Crimes Bill
OPS: Christofascists it again
Pastors In Prison?: Religious Right Spreads Lies About Hate Crimes Bill
Legislation that would target hate crimes is expected to start moving in Congress soon. The Religious Right is going bananas.
The legislation, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (H.R. 1913), is intended to do a few key things: It would allow the U.S. Justice Department to offer assistance when a crime that results in death or serious injury is committed against any American because of the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
The federal government could even prosecute such cases if local officials were unwilling to do so. This section of the proposed bill reflects statutes from the Civil Rights era that gave the federal government a greater role in battling crimes against African Americans in the Jim Crow South and also allowed the Justice Department to address the denial of voting rights. It’s nothing new.
The bill also would also make some federal money available to for law enforcement training. It would help police officers recognize bias-motivated violence and combat it, especially among young people.
via Talk To Action | Pastors In Prison?: Religious Right Spreads Lies About Hate Crimes Bill.
GE unveils breakthrough micro-holographic disc that will have capacity of 100 DVDs
GE unveils breakthrough micro-holographic disc that will have capacity of 100 DVDs
NISKAYUNA — Scientists at GE Global Research announced today the development of a computer disc capable of holding 20 times the data contained on a Blu-ray disc, or 100 times the capacity of a regular DVD, a technological breakthrough expected to revolutionize optical storage technology.
“We have gone from surface storage to volume storage,” said Brian Lawrence, a research scientist who leads GE’s Holographic Storage program.
The discs can hold 500 gigabytes, equal to the capacity of 20 single-layer Blu-ray discs, 100 DVDs or the hard drive for a large desktop computer. A gigabyte is equal to 114 minutes of uncompressed CD-quality audio.
“We’ve been working on this project six years. We still have a ways to go, but this was most critical step, getting material to meet commercial requirements,” Lawrence said.
via GE unveils breakthrough micro-holographic disc that will have capacity of 100 DVDs.
Austrian Holocaust denier sentenced to five years in jail
Austrian Holocaust denier sentenced to five years in jail
Notorious Austrian Holocaust denier Gerd Honsik was sentenced to five years in prison Monday by a Vienna court that found him guilty of spreading National Socialist ideology.
While living in Spain from the early 1990s to evade a previous Austrian prison sentence, the neo-Nazi had continued to publish National Socialist ideology in a magazine and other venues.
“He is one of the ideological leaders of the neo-Nazi scene,” prosecutor Stefan Apostol said Friday, alleging that Honsik had also passed out his publications at schools.
via Austrian Holocaust denier sentenced to five years in jail – Haaretz – Israel News.
WHO raises pandemic alert level; more swine flu cases feared
WHO raises pandemic alert level; more swine flu cases feared
(CNN) — The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert level in response to the outbreak of swine flu that originated in Mexico, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday.
The move indicates the world body has determined the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission.
Seventy-three cases of swine flu have been confirmed worldwide, the WHO said Monday.
Forty of those cases are in the United States, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada and one in Spain, a WHO representative said.
Later Monday, health officials in Scotland said two cases of swine flu had been confirmed there.
Hundreds more cases are suspected, especially in Mexico, where deaths thought to have been caused by the virus are rising, the country’s health minister said.
“Sadly, 149 people have died, of which we are working to confirm if they are linked to the swine flu,” Mexico Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said. “The number of cases, unfortunately, will continue to increase.”
via WHO raises pandemic alert level; more swine flu cases feared – CNN.com.
Astronomers take virtual plunge into black hole
Astronomers take virtual plunge into black hole
(CNN) — Dare to fall into a black hole and you would get vaporized in what is probably the most violent place in the universe. But the journey would yield some amazing sights, though you might need three eyes for the best view of what’s going on, new research suggests.
Humans have only gotten close to black holes in sci-fi books and movies.
In fact, astronomers can’t even see black holes directly, though there is strong evidence millions of them exist in our galaxy alone.
Scientists can try to simulate a trip inside with the help of equations in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which make predictions about black hole behavior, said Andrew Hamilton, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
“Black holes are some of the simplest things in the universe. We think of them as being complicated things because they’re described by complicated mathematics,” Hamilton said.
“But as a practical matter, they are, in fact, much simpler than the sun, far simpler than stars and infinitely simpler than human beings.”
via Astronomers take virtual plunge into black hole – CNN.com.
Gallup: Majority support investigation of Bush administration’s interrogation tactics.
Gallup: Majority support investigation of Bush administration’s interrogation tactics.
In a new poll out today, Gallup found that a slim majority of Americans — 51 percent — support “a government investigation into harsh interrogation techniques of terrorist suspects.” Forty-two percent said they were opposed to such investigations:
Greg Sargent notes that the poll also found that 55 percent believe in retrospect that the use of the interrogation techniques was justified. According to Sargent, this suggests “that the electorate doesn’t generally think a government probe would necessarily amount to retribution or revenge, as so many pundits keep saying, and merely view it as a necessary accounting of what actually happened.”
Lawrence Wilkerson: Disbar The Bush Lawyers And Get A Special Prosecutor For The Rest
Lawrence Wilkerson: Disbar The Bush Lawyers And Get A Special Prosecutor For The Rest
Colin Powell’s former chief of staff called on Friday for a special prosecutor to be appointed and “armed to the teeth” to investigate the authorization of torture by Bush administration officials. He also stated that the lawyers involved in drafting the “torture memos” should be disbarred, but he held out little hope that the political will exists for either course of action to take place.
In an email exchange with the Huffington Post, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson did not shy away from describing what he thought would be an apt punishment for the Bush officials involved in implementing controversial detainee interrogation programs:
“First, the lawyers,” he wrote. “I feel that [Alberto] Gonzales, [David] Addington, [John] Yoo, [Jay] Bybee, [Defense Department General Counsel William J.] Haynes and [Douglas] Feith should be, at a minimum, disbarred… That, in my view, is punishment enough for them…”
via Lawrence Wilkerson: Disbar The Bush Lawyers And Get A Special Prosecutor For The Rest.
Swine Flu: Bringing Home the Bacon
Swine Flu: Bringing Home the Bacon
— By James Ridgeway
As the world gears up once again for a flu pandemic that may or may not arrive (it actually seems possible this time), we might want to remember some of the lessons of the last flu scare. One of these is that there are winners as well as losers in every high-profile outbreak of infectious disease. First and foremost among them, of course, is Big Pharma, which can always be counted on to have its hand out wherever human misery presents an opportunity to rake in some cash.
In 2005, I reported on the bird flu scare for the Village Voice in a piece called “Capitalizing on the Flu.” We can realistically hope that our current federal government will improve upon the bungled effort made by the Bush Administration to prepare for the onslaught of avian flu—which fortunately didn’t materialize. But certain aspects of the crisis are likely to be repeated, and profiteers will surely waste no time in gathering at the trough.
Then, as now, one of the two effective antidotes was a drug called Tamiflu. But this silver bullet came with side effects, as well as a high price tag. As I reported in 2005:
via Swine Flu: Bringing Home the Bacon | Mother Jones.
Reform US Foreign Policy by Passing EFCA
Reform US Foreign Policy by Passing EFCA
Sometimes an opportunity for reform comes along that is “strategic” in that it changes the playing field for efforts to win other reforms in the future. The passage of the National Labor Relations Act – establishing the right of American workers to organize unions and bargain collectively – was a strategic reform. It increased the power of people previously excluded from power, and thereby reduced the power of corporate interests.
But the right of workers in America to organize has been steadily eroded by unpunished abuses by anti-union employers. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is easy to justify on the basis of guaranteeing the basic human rights of working Americans. When the Employee Free Choice Act is signed into law, millions of private sector workers will have greater protection from having their rights violated.
What difference would that make? Ask Steve Arney. He used to be a reporter at the Bloomington Pantagraph, a newspaper in Illinois owned by Lee Enterprises.
A majority of employees at the Pantagraph signed cards to support forming a union with the St. Louis Newspaper Guild. Lee Enterprises responded with a campaign to defeat the effort by Pantagraph employees to form a union.
As part of Lee’s anti-union campaign, Steve Arney lost his job.
via Reform US Foreign Policy by Passing EFCA | CommonDreams.org.
As Swine Flu Spreads, Conspiracy Theories of Laboratory Origins Abound
As Swine Flu Spreads, Conspiracy Theories of Laboratory Origins Abound
NaturalNews) Perhaps due to the genetic makeup of the fast-spreading H1N1 strain of influenza — which includes genetic elements from bird flu, swine flu and human flu spanning three continents — there is considerable speculation that the origins of this virus are man-made.
It’s not an unreasonable question to ask: Could world governments, spooked by the prospect of radical climate change caused by over-population of the planet, have assembled a super-secret task force to engineer and distribute a super virulent strain of influenza designed to “correct” the human population (and institute global Martial Law)?
Technically, it’s possible. The U.S. military, all by itself, has the know-how to engineer and unleash such a virus. That doesn’t mean they’ve done so, however. It would be an astonishing leap into crimes against humanity to intentionally unleash such a biological weapon into the wild.
Medical Director: Swine Flu Was “Cultured In A Laboratory”
Medical Director: Swine Flu Was “Cultured In A Laboratory”
by Paul Joseph Watson
Editor’s note: On Friday, NPR reported that the deadly swine flu “combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before,” thus leading us to suspect it was cooked up in a lab.
Swine flu panic is spreading in Mexico and soldiers are patrolling the streets after it was confirmed that human to human transmission is occurring and that the virus is a brand new strain which is seemingly affecting young, healthy people the worst. Questions about the source of the outbreak are also being asked after a public health official said that the virus was “cultured in a laboratory”.
“This strain of swine influenza that’s been cultured in a laboratoryis something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified,” said Dr. John Carlo, Dallas Co. Medical Director (video clip here).
Was this a slip-up or an admission that this new super-strain of swine influenza was deliberately cultured in a laboratory and released?
Alarming reports are now filtering in about people catching the illness who have had no contact with pigs whatsoever. These include a man and his daughter in San Diego County, a 41-year-old woman in Imperial County and two teenagers in San Antonio, Texas. In fact, in all U.S. cases, the victims had no contact with any pigs.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, San Diego County’s public health officer, told KPBS “We have had person-to-person spread with the father and the daughter,” says Wooten, “And also with the two teenagers in Texas, they were in the same school. So that also indicates person-to-person transfer.”
“Dr. Wooten says it’s unclear how people were exposed to swine flu. She says none of the patients have had any contact with pigs,” according to the report.
Although the situation in the U.S. looks under control, panic is spreading in Mexico, where 800 cases of pneumonia in the capital alone are suspected to be related to the swine flu and the virus has hit young and healthy people, which is very rare with an flu outbreak. Despite the danger of a pandemic, the U.S. border with Mexico remains open.
via Medical Director: Swine Flu Was “Cultured In A Laboratory”.
By pushing for pandemic preparedness cuts, Collins helped finish what Vitter started.
By pushing for pandemic preparedness cuts, Collins helped finish what Vitter started.
By pushing for pandemic preparedness cuts, Collins helped finish what Vitter started.
Given the recent outbreak of swine flu, Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) push to strip funding for pandemic flu preparedness is looking increasingly shortsighted. But Collins was not the first to campaign against the provision. Indeed, several days prior to Collins’s public push, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced an amendment that would have stripped, among other things, the flu funding provision. In arguing for his amendment on the floor of the senate, Vitter apparently couldn’t fathom how pandemic preparedness could possibly serve to protect the economy, calling it part of a “laundry list of…big government spending items”:
vitter.jpgVITTER: The Vitter amendment is an attempt to start the important work of cutting out some of the clearly non stimulative parts of this bill. … [N]eighborhood stabilization, historic preservation, fish and wildlife resource construction, comparative research, the pandemic flu, the smart grid.
Germ warfare `could target ethnic groups’
Germ warfare `could target ethnic groups’
GENETICALLY engineered biological weapons capable of targeting particular ethnic groups could become reality within 10 years, an expert panel warned yesterday.
Viruses and other micro- organisms tailored to detect the differences in the DNA of races could offer warmakers and terrorists of the future a new means to carry out “ethnic cleansing”, said the panel convened by the British Medical Association (BMA).
Yet the scientific advances that would make such weapons possible will be a spin-off of two areas of medicine with potentially huge benefits. The first is the Human Genome Project, which aims to unravel the 100,000 or so genes in human DNA by 2003. The other is the nascent technology of gene therapy, which tries to repair defective genes in the body.
Launching a book entitled Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity, members of the panel insisted yesterday that they were not scaremongering. “We went into this being very sceptical, with a position that `It can’t be done’,” said Professor Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA’s head of health policy and research. “But then after examining what is going on we decided that it might be possible after all.”
via Germ warfare `could target ethnic groups’ – News – The Independent.
Ali Soufan Breaks His Silence
‘We Could Have Done This the Right Way’ - NEWSWEEK
How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture.
The arguments at the CIA safe house were loud and intense in the spring of 2002. Inside, a high-value terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was handcuffed to a gurney. He had been wounded during his capture in Pakistan and still had bullet fragments in his stomach, leg and groin. Agency operatives were aiming to crack him with rough and unorthodox interrogation tactics—including stripping him nude, turning down the temperature and bombarding him with loud music. But one impassioned young FBI agent wanted nothing to do with it. He tried to stop them.
The agent, Ali Soufan, was known as one of the bureau’s top experts on Al Qaeda. He also had a reputation as a shrewd interrogator who could work fluently in both English and Arabic. Soufan yelled at one CIA contractor and told him that what he was doing was wrong, ineffective and an affront to American values. At one point, Soufan discovered a dark wooden “confinement box” that the contractor had built for Abu Zubaydah. It looked, Soufan recalls, “like a coffin.” The mercurial agent erupted in anger, got on a secure phone line and called Pasquale D’Amuro, then the FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. “I swear to God,” he shouted, “I’m going to arrest these guys!”
D’Amuro and other officials were alarmed at what they heard from Soufan. They fretted about the political consequences of abusive interrogations and the Washington blowback they thought was inevitable, say two high-ranking FBI sources who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. According to a later Justice Department inspector general’s report, D’Amuro warned FBI Director Bob Mueller that such activities would eventually be investigated. “Someday, people are going to be sitting in front of green felt tables having to testify about all of this,” D’Amuro said, according to one of the sources.
via Ali Soufan Breaks His Silence | Newsweek National News | Newsweek.com.
Death knell sounds for Europe’s beekeepers
Death knell sounds for Europe’s beekeepers
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s beekeeping industry could be wiped out in less than a decade as bees fall victim to disease, insecticides and intensive farming, international beekeeping body Apimondia said on Monday.
“With this level of mortality, European beekeepers can only survive another 8 to 10 years,” Gilles Ratia, president of Apimondia, told Reuters.
“We have had big problems in southwest France for many years, but also now in Italy and Germany.”
Last year, about 30 percent of Europe’s 13.6 million hives died, according to Apimondia figures. Losses reached 50 percent in Slovenia and as high as 80 percent in southwest Germany.
With 35 percent of European food crops relying on bees to pollinate them, it poses a big threat for farmers, said Ratia.
“It is a complete crisis,” said Francesco Panella, who tends about 1,000 hives in Piedmont, northern Italy. “Last year, I lost about half my production. I can’t survive more than 2 or 3 more years like this. My son won’t be able to continue my trade.”
Mystery has surrounded the recent decline of bee numbers, but most keepers blame modern farming methods and the powerful new pesticides used on crops like sunflower, maize and rapeseed.
via Death knell sounds for Europe’s beekeepers | Environment | Reuters.
Fluorescent puppy is world’s first transgenic dog
Fluorescent puppy is world’s first transgenic dog
A cloned beagle named Ruppy – short for Ruby Puppy – is the world’s first transgenic dog. She and four other beagles all produce a fluorescent protein that glows red under ultraviolet light.
A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.
Lee and stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy
, in 2005. Much of Hwang’s work on human cells turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later concluded.
This new proof-of-principle experiment should open the door for transgenic dog models of human disease, says team member CheMyong Ko of the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “The next step for us is to generate a true disease model,” he says.
via Fluorescent puppy is world’s first transgenic dog – life – 23 April 2009 – New Scientist.
US offshores 22,000 green jobs to India
US offshores 22,000 green jobs to India
BANGALORE: As the Obama government gets ready to raise a protectionist wall against offshoring, the US firms seem to be shipping more jobs to India.The US firms have offshored 22,000 green technology jobs to India since January 1, 2009, Doug Brown, co-author of the influential 2009 Green Outsourcing Report, informed TNIE.“We see the (green job offshoring) trend increasing as the US and the UK outsourcing buyers are seeking lower cost in labour and energy consumption. There are few suppliers who match credentials and outcomes of Indian firms,” he said.The annual industry study by Brown-Wilson Group, which surveyed 4,000 global firms, was released last week.The report lists Patni, HCL, WNS, Wipro, Mastech and Tech Mahindra among important Indian green vendors who are benefiting from the offshoring wave.Among the non-Indian firms, Xerox, Accenture, IBM Global, CSC, Capgemini, Oracle, HP/ ED S, Aramark, SITEL and Perot lead the list.As most of these firms run large delivery centres in India, the boom in their green offshoring business is expected to further create jobs in India.
via US offshores 22,000 green jobs to India.
Put Wealth on Trial
Put Wealth on Trial
Congress needs to investigate the reasons behind the economic collapse — the way Ferdinand Pecora probed the ’29 market crash, and made tycoons confess their financial sins.
by Michael Winship
For policy wonks near and far, the celebrity of the hour isn’t Susan Boyle, the Scottish church marm who belted out “I Dreamed a Dream” with the voice of an airy angel, or ex-Somali pirate hostage Richard Phillips, or Carrie Prejean, the Miss USA contestant from California who’s against gay marriage because the Bible tells her so.
No, it’s Ferdinand Pecora.
Who’s he, you may ask, and guess that maybe he once played infield for the Dodgers or sang Faust at the Metropolitan Opera. But back in the ’30s, during the depths of the Great Depression, Ferdinand Pecora emerged as an unlikely hero, leading a sensational Senate investigation of what caused the ’29 market crash.
Over the last few weeks, public pressure fueled by rage and pain has built for a similar probe of the causes of our current economic collapse, an inquiry that will search for real answers going beyond the hearings that have been held so far — more heat and wasted fire than illumination. People want to know what really happened, and how we can keep it from happening again.
Congress is finally getting the message. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a crowd at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, “I want to initiate… the equivalent of what happened in the ’30s. They had something that was called the Pecora Commission,” and this week the Senate passed two amendments to anti-fraud legislation, one calling for an independent investigation, similar to the 9/11 Commission; the other for an internal select committee — like the Senate’s Watergate hearings in 1973.
via Put Wealth on Trial | CommonDreams.org.
FDA warns of salmonella in sprouts
FDA warns of salmonella in sprouts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told people on Sunday not to eat raw alfalfa sprouts, saying they may be contaminated with salmonella.
The contamination appears to be in seeds so washing the sprouts may not help, the FDA said in a statement.
“Other types of sprouts have not been implicated at this time,” the agency said.
via FDA warns of salmonella in sprouts.
The swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry’s monstrous power
The swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry’s monstrous power
The Mexico swine flu outbreak should alert us to a highly globalised industry with global political clout
The Mexican swine flu, a genetic chimera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty, suddenly threatens to give the whole world a fever. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already travelling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.
Stealing the limelight from our officially appointed assassin, H5N1, this porcine virus is a threat of unknown magnitude. It seems less lethal than Sars in 2003, but as an influenza it may be more durable than Sars. Given that domesticated seasonal type-A influenzas kill as many one million people a year, even a modest increment of virulence, especially if combined with high incidence, could produce carnage equivalent to a major war.
Meanwhile, one of its first victims has been the consoling faith, long preached by the World Health Organisation, that pandemics can be contained by the rapid responses of medical bureaucracies, independent of the quality of local public health. Since the initial H5N1 deaths in Hong Kong in 1997, the WHO, with the support of most national health services, has promoted a strategy focused on the identification and isolation of a pandemic strain within its local radius of outbreak, followed by a thorough dousing of the population with antivirals and (if available) vaccine.
End the University as We Know It
End the University as We Know It
GRADUATE education is the Detroit of higher learning. Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market (candidates for teaching positions that do not exist) and develop skills for which there is diminishing demand (research in subfields within subfields and publication in journals read by no one other than a few like-minded colleagues), all at a rapidly rising cost (sometimes well over $100,000 in student loans).
Widespread hiring freezes and layoffs have brought these problems into sharp relief now. But our graduate system has been in crisis for decades, and the seeds of this crisis go as far back as the formation of modern universities. Kant, in his 1798 work “The Conflict of the Faculties,” wrote that universities should “handle the entire content of learning by mass production, so to speak, by a division of labor, so that for every branch of the sciences there would be a public teacher or professor appointed as its trustee.”
via Op-Ed Contributor – End the University as We Know It – NYTimes.com.
Mexico hit by 6.0 magnitude earthquake
Mexico hit by 6.0 magnitude earthquake: USGS
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico was hit by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The USGS said the quake hit 19 miles south-southeast of Tixtla, Guerrero, about 150 miles south of the capital, Mexico City. It was 25.6 miles deep.
Buildings in the capital shook.
Quakes of this magnitude are classified as strong and are capable of causing severe damage.
The USGS earlier reported the quake measured 5.8.
via Mexico hit by 6.0 magnitude earthquake: USGS | International | Reuters.
New FAS-FAX Shows (More) Steep Circulation Losses
New FAS-FAX Shows (More) Steep Circulation Losses
NEW YORK The Audit Bureau of Circulations released this morning the spring figures for the six months ending March 31, 2009, showing that the largest metros continue to shed daily and Sunday circulation — now at a record rate.
According to ABC, for 395 newspapers reporting this spring, daily circulation fell 7% to 34,439,713 copies, compared with the same March period in 2008. On Sunday, for 557 newspapers, circulation was down 5.3% to 42,082,707. These averages do not include 84 newspapers with circulations below 50,000 due to a change in publishing frequency.
The percent comparisons are for the same period ending in March 2008. (All daily averages are for Monday through Friday.)
Daily circulation at The New York Times dropped 3.5% to 1,039,031. The Times’ Sunday circ was down 1.7% to 1,451,233.
The Washington Post lost 1.6% of its daily circ to 665,383 and 2.3% to 868,965.
USA Today, as reported earlier this month, lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 2,113,725 due to a decline in hotel copies.
via New FAS-FAX Shows (More) Steep Circulation Losses.
Woman held for noisy sex ‘breach’
Woman held for noisy sex ‘breach’
A woman has been remanded in custody accused of breaching an Asbo banning her from being noisy during sex.
Neighbours complained of hearing Caroline Cartwright, 48, moaning and groaning and her bed banging against the wall at her Washington home.
Ealier this month she was given a four-year Asbo banning her from making excessive noise anywhere in England.
But she appeared in court on Monday, charged with three breaches of her Asbo in just 10 days.
She was remanded in custody until 5 May.
Cartwright was convicted of five breaches of a noise abatement notice on 17 April and fined £515.
But Houghton le Spring Magistrates’ Court heard police arrested her on 18 April, on 22 April and again on 26 April, after reports from neighbours she was flouting the ban with her husband Steve.
Prosecutor Claire Ward said neighbours complained to police about early morning noises including shouting and groaning coming from the Cartwrights’ home in Hall Road, Concord, Washington.
via BBC NEWS | England | Wear | Woman held for noisy sex ‘breach’.
Daily Kos: “Fatwa” Issued Against Mikey Weinstein and Barry Lynn
“Fatwa” Issued Against Mikey Weinstein and Barry Lynn
Everyon’e favorite ex-Navy chaplain, Gordon (M-U-S-T—P-R-A-Y—I-N—J-E-S-U-S’—N-A-M-E) Klingenschmitt, is at it again. You remember Klingenschmitt, right? The “martyr” who deliberately got himself court martialed so he could be a martyr. The guy who staged a hunger strike publicity stunt for Jesus. The guy who claims to have been kicked out of the Navy for praying in Jesus’ name, when in reality he was court martialed for disobeying a direct order not to appear in uniform at a political rally. The guy who tried to extort money from the Navy to keep his trap shut, and, when that didn’t work, went on every TV show that would have him, spewing that his ouster from the Navy cost him a million dollars, so churches needed to hire him to come and speak to their congregations. The guy whose sham of a cause was taken up by FAUX News and all the other Christian broadcasters who sanctimoniously parroted this disgrace of a military chaplain’s lies.
via Daily Kos: “Fatwa” Issued Against Mikey Weinstein and Barry Lynn.
Japan revises growth forecasts sharply lower
Japan revises growth forecasts sharply lower
Official GDP forecast cut from zero to -3.3%
TOKYO, April 27 – The government cut its forecast for Japan’s economy to shrink 3.3 per cent in the year to next March instead of its previous estimate of zero growth on Monday as the world’s second largest economy remains in the grip of the worst recession since World War Two.
The government also sharply lowered forecasts for industrial output and exports, which have been the main drag to the economy.
via FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Japan revises growth forecasts sharply lower.
Fed study puts ideal US interest rate at -5%
Fed study puts ideal US interest rate at -5%
Estimate based on unemployment and inflation
The ideal interest rate for the US economy in current conditions would be minus 5 per cent, according to internal analysis prepared for the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting.
The analysis was based on a so-called Taylor-rule approach that estimates an appropriate interest rate based on unemployment and inflation.
via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – Fed study puts ideal US interest rate at -5%.
GM offers bondholders equity swap
GM offers bondholders equity swap
US government may take majority stake
The US government would end up as a majority shareholder in General Motors under a series of sweeping restructuring measures proposed on Monday by America’s largest carmaker.
GM said it was seeking to swap about 50 per cent of its emergency loan to the US Treasury, or $10bn, for equity in GM to be held by the US government.
via FT.com / Companies / Automobiles – GM offers bondholders equity swap.
Minnesota Poll: Most want Coleman to call it quits
Minnesota Poll: Most want Coleman to call it quits
The Republican should end his recount fight, most say, and fatigue over the six-month ordeal is clear.
Nearly two-thirds of Minnesotans surveyed think Norm Coleman should concede the U.S. Senate race to Al Franken, but just as many believe the voting system that gave the state its longest running election contest needs improvement.
A new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll has found that 64 percent of those responding believe Coleman, the Republican, should accept the recount trial court’s April 13 verdict that Democrat Franken won the race by 312 votes.
Only 28 percent consider last week’s appeal by Coleman to the Minnesota Supreme Court “appropriate.”
Large majorities of those polled said they would oppose any further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Should Coleman win at the state Supreme Court, 57 percent of respondents said Franken should concede. And 73 percent believe Coleman should give up if he loses at the state’s highest court.
via Minnesota Poll: Most want Coleman to call it quits.
GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus
GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus
Remember way back in the day, President Obama delivered his Not Really The State Of The Union address, and the GOP trotted out Future Of The Republican Party Supra-Genius Bobbly Jindal to provide a rebuttal? Well, we all had some laughs, didn’t we? Mainly because Jindal was all: “They want to spend stimulus money on volcano monitoring? Why everyone knows that the Hill Witch keeps tabs on our volcanoes by floating chicken bones in her own intestinal ichor!” And then Alaska’s Mount Redoubt erupted, suggesting there might be something to this “let’s monitor volcanoes with government-funded science” idea.
Well, as it turns out, volcano monitoring wasn’t the only worthwhile public safety program that was deemed extravagant in the stimulus package, funding for pandemic preparation was axed as well. And playing a critical role was Susan Collins — for whom the necessity of obtaining her vote is in inverse proportion to the intelligence she shows in policy making:
Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: “Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not.”
via GOP Stripped Flu Pandemic Preparedness From Stimulus.
In Attempt To Placate The Right Wing, Collins and Specter Endorsed Pandemic Flu Funding Cut
OPS: What is it going to take before people realize that republicans want people to die and hate democracy. They are mentally damaged. We have to face that and deal with it accordingly or they will kills us all. We have to stop giving the Conservative mind the benefit of the doubt – have been wrong about everything. The last time a conservative got something correct – Nixon signed the EPA into law.
In Attempt To Placate The Right Wing, Collins and Specter Endorsed Pandemic Flu Funding Cut
On February 5, Karl Rove took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to argue against President Obama’s Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act because, in his view, the spending was not targeted to create or preserve jobs. In particular, Rove complained about the fact that the bill included “$900 million for pandemic flu preparations.” He contended that such spending was unnecessary because the health care sector “added jobs last year.”
Rep. David Obey (D-WI) included the pandemic preparation funding in the package because he believed “that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse.” But Rove was not concerned with the actual substance of the funding.
Rather, as Paul Krugman explained at the time, in attempting to oppose and discredit the economic recovery package, conservatives in the media and Republicans in congress aligned themselves around a strategy that amounted to “snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny.” Unfortunately, this “snickering” at funding priorities had very real impacts.
U.S. swine flu cases climb to 40
U.S. swine flu cases climb to 40
Obama expresses concern, “not alarm” about spreading disease
The United States and other countries across the globe increased their vigilance as the World Health Organization said there are now 40 confirmed cases in the U.S.
That’s twice the number previously reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. None of the cases in the U.S. has been fatal.
Amid increasing worries about a possible global pandemic, President Barack Obama said Monday the threat of spreading swine flu infections is matter of concern but “not a cause for alarm.”
via U.S. swine flu cases climb to 40 – Swine flu- msnbc.com.
-
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. 
