Archive for April, 2009

Peak Oil Review – Apr 20 | Energy Bulletin

Peak Oil Review – Apr 20  by Tom Whipple

1. Production and Prices

Oil prices started last Monday at $52 a barrel, quickly fell to circa $50, and remained there for the rest of the week. Bad economic news and forecasts of lower demand for oil dominated the energy story, punctuated with occasional bursts of optimism from Wall Street which continues to maintain there are early signs of an economic rebound.

As the world’s economy continues to slip, more investors are seeing oil and other commodities as a safe haven to store wealth. China is making a major effort to convert some of its $2 trillion in reserves into oil and other minerals as a hedge against what might happen to the value of dollar-based securities. This safety-in-oil may prove to be a major factor in supporting oil prices if consumer demand continues to drop.

Recent reports about OPEC efforts to cut production appear to show that the enterprise has stalled after achieving about 3.8 million b/d of the 4.2 million that was mandated. So long as prices remain around $50 a barrel, OPEC seems content to let matters stand. The next OPEC meeting is about 5 weeks away.

2. Off-Shore Drilling

US Interior Secretary Salazar has been traveling around the country conducting hearings on whether to permit off-shore drilling in areas that were off-limits until October 1, 2008. The Secretary visited Atlantic City, New Orleans, Alaska, and San Francisco. Public testimony was mixed as environmentalists and pro-drillers continue their decades-old argument. In Anchorage, Governor Sarah Palin warned that the trans-Alaska pipeline was in danger of shutting down unless new sources of oil were opened up. Fishermen raised the specter of another Exxon-Valdez.

At the San Francisco hearing, California officials unanimously opposed opening the coast to offshore drilling saying the country should concentrate on renewable energy sources and higher energy efficiency standards.

On Friday a federal appeals court ruled that the Bush Administration did not properly study the environment impact of drilling off the Alaska coast and ordered the Interior Department to assess the areas before moving forward. The decision stops work on drilling projects already underway in Alaska and applies to other coastal projects under consideration. The Interior Department has already announced that it will delay further leasing by five years to complete the necessary studies. The offshore drilling issue appears to be out of the energy debates for a while.

via Peak Oil Review – Apr 20 | Energy Bulletin.

Lawmaker Is Said to Have Agreed to Aid Lobbyists

OPS: May need a new Category: Democrats that need to be Culled from the herd

Lawmaker Is Said to Have Agreed to Aid Lobbyists

WASHINGTON — One of the leading House Democrats on intelligence matters was overheard on telephone calls intercepted by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment from the Bush administration for two pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage, current and former government officials say.

The lawmaker, Representative Jane Harman of California, became the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee after the 2002 election and had ambitions to be its chairwoman when the party gained control of the House in 2006. One official who has seen transcripts of several wiretapped calls said she appeared to agree to intercede in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post.

One of the very few members of Congress with broad access to the most sensitive intelligence information, including aspects of the Bush administration’s wiretapping that were disclosed in December 2005, Ms. Harman was inadvertently swept up by N.S.A. eavesdroppers who were listening in on conversations during an investigation, three current or former senior officials said. It is not clear exactly when the wiretaps occurred; they were first reported by Congressional Quarterly on its Web site.

via Lawmaker Is Said to Have Agreed to Aid Lobbyists – NYTimes.com.

Former astronaut: Man not alone in universe

Former astronaut: Man not alone in universe

(CNN) — Earth Day may fall later this week, but as far as former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell and other UFO enthusiasts are concerned, the real story is happening elsewhere.

Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, asserted Monday that extraterrestrial life exists, and that the truth is being concealed by the U.S. and other governments.

He delivered his remarks during an appearance at the National Press Club following the conclusion of the fifth annual X-Conference, a meeting of UFO activists and researchers studying the possibility of alien life forms.

Mankind has long wondered if we’re “alone in the universe. [But] only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we’re not alone,” Mitchell said.

“Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. … We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there.”

via Former astronaut: Man not alone in universe – CNN.com.

Meltdown losses of ‘$4 trillion’

Meltdown losses of ‘$4 trillion’

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that potential losses from the credit crunch could reach $4 trillion (£2.75tn) and damage the financial system for years to come.

It says that even if urgent action is taken to clean up the banking system, the process will be “slow and painful”, delaying economic recovery.

It says that banks may need $1.7 trillion in additional capital.

But it warns that political support for further bank bail-outs is waning.

One year ago, the IMF estimated that total losses from the credit crunch would be $1 trillion, which has been exceeded, showing how rapidly the financial meltdown has escalated.

via BBC NEWS | Business | Meltdown losses of ‘$4 trillion’.

Holder DOJ May Appoint Prosecutor Torture? Check & Balances May NOT Be Dead!

YouTube – Holder DOJ May Appoint Prosecutor Torture? Check & Balances May NOT Be Dead!.

McCain Weighs In On Torture Memos and Waterboarding

YouTube – McCain Weighs In On Torture Memos and Waterboarding.

We Should Be Able to Use Waterboarding! Senator Lieberman

YouTube – We Should Be Able to Use Waterboarding! Senator Lieberman.

A Future Too Big to Fail: Ecological Ignorance and Economic Collapse

OPS:  The Future is TOO BIG to fail!  …..great rallying cry.

A Future Too Big to Fail: Ecological Ignorance and Economic Collapse – by Chip Ward

“Too big to fail.” It’s been the mantra of our economic meltdown. Although meant to emphasize the overwhelming importance of this bank or that corporation, the phrase also unwittingly expresses a shared delusion that may be at the root of our current crises — both economic and ecological.

In nature, nothing is too big to fail. In fact, big is bound to fail. To understand why that’s so means stepping away from a prevailing set of beliefs that holds us in its sway, especially the deep conviction that we operate apart from nature’s limits and rules.

Here’s the heart of the matter: We are ecologically illiterate — not just unfamiliar with the necessary scientific vocabulary and concepts, but spectacularly, catastrophically, tragically dumb. Oh yes, some of us now understand that draining those wetlands, clear-cutting the rainforests, and pumping all that CO2 into the atmosphere are self-destructively idiotic behaviors. But when it comes down to how nature itself behaves, we remain remarkably clueless.

The Adaptive Cycle from Google to GM

Science tells us that complex adaptive systems, like economies or ecosystems, tend to go through basic phases, however varied they may be. In the adaptive cycle, first comes a growth phase characterized by open opportunity. The system is weaving itself together and so there are all sorts of niches to be filled, paths to take, partnerships to be made, all involving seemingly endless possibilities and potential. Think of Google.

As niches are filled and the system sorts out, establishing strong interdependent relationships, the various players become less diverse and are bound together in ways that are ever more constricting. This is the consolidation phase that follows growth. As the system matures, it may look ever bigger and more indestructible, but it is actually growing ever more vulnerable. Think of General Motors.

via A Future Too Big to Fail: Ecological Ignorance and Economic Collapse | CommonDreams.org.

Why We Should Banish Larry Summers from Public Life

Why We Should Banish Larry Summers from Public Life

by Naomi Klein

I vote to banish Larry Summers. Not from the planet. That wouldn’t be nice. Just from public life.

The criticisms of President Obama’s chief economic adviser are well known. He’s too close to Wall Street. And he’s a frightful bully, of both people and countries. Still, we’re told we shouldn’t care about such minor infractions. Why? Because Summers is brilliant, and the world needs his big brain.

And this brings us to a central and often overlooked cause of the global financial crisis: Brain Bubbles. This is the process wherein the intelligence of an inarguably intelligent person is inflated and valued beyond all reason, creating a dangerous accumulation of unhedged risk. Larry Summers is the biggest Brain Bubble we’ve got.

Brain Bubbles start with an innocuous “whiz kid” moniker in undergrad, which later escalates to “wunderkind.” Next comes the requisite foray as an economic adviser to a small crisis-wracked country, where the kid is declared a “savior.” By 30, our Bubble Boy is tenured and officially a “genius.” By 40, he’s a “guru,” by 50 an “oracle.” After a few drinks: “messiah.”

The superhuman powers bestowed upon these men — and yes, they are all men — shield them from the scrutiny that might have prevented the current crisis. Alan Greenspan’s Brain Bubble allowed him to put the economy at great risk: When he made no sense, people assumed that it was their own fault. Brain Bubbles also formed the key argument Greenspan and Summers used to explain why lawmakers couldn’t regulate the derivatives market: The wizards on Wall Street were too brilliant, their models too complex, for mere mortals to understand.

via Why We Should Banish Larry Summers from Public Life | CommonDreams.org.

More Fiscal Stimulus is Needed to Reverse Economic Decline

More Fiscal Stimulus is Needed to Reverse Economic Decline – by Mark Weisbrot

In February the Congress approved $787 billion of federal spending, in order keep the economy from sinking into a deeper recession. However it is increasingly clear that this is not enough, and a third stimulus (the first was a small stimulus package early last year) will be necessary.

About $584 billion of the stimulus package will be spent over the next two years, in order keep the economy from sinking into a deeper recession. This sounds like a lot of money, but it is only about two percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next two years. Our economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year; economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal project negative 1.4 percent for 2009, with recovery beginning in the second half. However these forecasts have been over-optimistic in the past — most economists missed the housing bubble and the disastrous impacts of its inevitable collapse.

In short, we really don’t know where the bottom of the recession is, or whether a prolonged period of high unemployment and weak growth will follow. There has been a lot of emphasis on curing the ills of the financial system, and this is surely necessary for a sustained recovery to take hold. However it is not sufficient. Even if the U.S. Treasury’s latest plan were to restore solvency to the entire financial system — and this seems very unlikely — we would still be facing a serious recession in the real economy. Even solvent banks are not going to increase lending if there are no additional credit-worthy borrowers seeking loans.

via More Fiscal Stimulus is Needed to Reverse Economic Decline | CommonDreams.org.

Torturing Judge Bybee: Make Him Eat His Own Words

Torturing Judge Bybee: Make Him Eat His Own Words – by Dave Lindorff

If the day comes that Congress finally does its duty and begins an impeachment effort against 9th Circuit Federal Appeals Judge Jay Bybee, the former Bush assistant attorney general who in 2002 authored a key memo justifying the use of torture against captives in the Afghanistan invasion and the so-called “War on Terror,” it would be fitting punishment to watch him squirm as his own words as a judge were played back to him.

It was as an Appeals Court Judge Bybee, sitting on a case being heard in 2006 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, that he wrote the following words:

“The only thing we have to enforce our judgements is the power of our words. When these words lose their ordinary meaning-when they become so elastic that they may mean the opposite of what they appear to mean-we cede our own right to be taken seriously.” (Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1309 v. Laidlaw Transit Services, Inc.).

Yet causing words to become “so elastic that they may mean the opposite of what they appear to mean” was precisely the goal of the 48-page memo, just released by the Obama Administration, which Bybee wrote for the Bush/Cheney White House authorizing the use of what any ordinary person, and indeed the US Criminal Code, would define as torture against captives held in Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere.

The actual Geneva Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, incorporated in 1996 by act of Congress as a part of the US Criminal Code, Title 18, Sections 2340-2340A, is quite unambiguous in its proscription. As Bybee notes in his memo, the Convention Against Torture defines torture as:

via Torturing Judge Bybee: Make Him Eat His Own Words | CommonDreams.org.

Cheney Demands Release of CIA Memos Proving Torture ‘Success’

Cheney Demands Release of CIA Memos Proving Torture ‘Success’

Former US vice-president Cheney says CIA memos showed torture methods such as waterboarding delivered ‘good’ intelligence

by Ewan MacAskill and Robert Booth

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney has called for the disclosure of CIA memos which reveal the “success” of torture techniques, including waterboarding, used on al-Qaida suspects under the Bush administration.

Cheney said that, according to secret documents he has seen, the interrogation techniques, which the Obama administration now accepts amounted to torture, delivered “good” intelligence. He hinted that it had significant consequences for US security.

Cheney was speaking out in response to the release by Barack Obama of four Bush administration memos detailing the agency’s interrogation methods used against al-Qaida suspects.

“One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn’t put out the memos that showed the success of the effort,” Cheney said in an appearance on Fox News.

“I haven’t talked about it, but I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.

“I’ve now formally asked the CIA to take steps to declassify those memos so the American people have a chance to see what we obtained and what we learned and how good the intelligence was.”

via Cheney Demands Release of CIA Memos Proving Torture ‘Success’ | CommonDreams.org.

The Global Economic Crisis

The Global Economic Crisis – by Dr. Raju M. Mathew

It may take at least five years for conventional economists to realize that we are in a Great Depression.

Dr. Raju M. Mathew is an economist and a strategist and theoretician with a strong background in Cybernetics, Education and Information Science & Technology. Dr. Mathew formulated two basic theories of knowledge consumption and knowledge production that got published jointly by the FID and the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1985 in the work, ‘Theoretical Problems of Informatics’. Now these theories are known in his name and have become the field for doctoral research.

Global Economic Crisis

The world is under a great economic crisis. For the conventional economists it is only a Recession and not a Depression at all, for their partial analytical techniques, over-simplified models with unrealistic assumptions and over emphasis on data. It may take at least five years for them to realize that we are in a Great Depression and by that time it may be over. When Cybernetics is employed for the study of the working of the global economy as a whole with multi-sector approaches on the basis of the deeper understanding of economics, we are forced to admit that this is not a simple Recession, but a Great Depression that requires not only economic stimulus but Ethical or Spiritual and Political Stimulus also to recover.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

The Continuation of a Debilitating Trend

The Continuation of a Debilitating Trend

British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline will purchase Florida drug maker Stiefel.

The world’s second largest drug maker in revenues will acquire a leading American-based maker of dermatology drugs, according to The New York Times.

British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to purchase Coral Gables, Florida drug maker Stiefel for approximately $2.9 billion. The deal could balloon to $3.6 billion, as Glaxo has agreed to assume $400 million of Stiefel’s debt and could be on the hook for as much as $300 million more based on performance incentives.

The deal is just the latest in a slew of foreign acquisitions of American companies. The trend has only accelerated as the recession has worsened.

The United States now no longer controls many of its domestic industries. Over the last 10 years alone foreign entities have spent $1.2 trillion acquiring more than 8,000 key U.S. companies. As of 2002, foreign entities owned or controlled 20 percent of America’s dwindling manufacturing base. In many high-tech and defense-related industries, the proportion is far higher. Such U.S. industries as mining, cement, publishing, engine and power transmission equipment, rubber and plastics, and sound recording and motion pictures are now largely foreign owned. Recently foreign ownership has also become very high in industries like pharmaceuticals, chemicals, industrial machinery, transportation equipment, electronics, metal, and coal and petroleum.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Trade and consumption taxes, a left of center view

Trade and consumption taxes, a left of center view

Virtually all our trading partners charge a tax on U.S. exports to them. It is called a consumption tax, or a value added tax, or a border adjustable tax, or a goods and services tax.

The following article originally appeared on TradeReform.org.

One reason that free trade produces persistent deficits for us is that other countries are not free traders. If other countries subsidize exports and charge imports, but we do not, the result is a predictable trade imbalance. Unless we neutralize their action through some sort of countervailing action, to return to balance.

Virtually all our trading partners charge a tax on U.S. exports to them. It is called a consumption tax, or a value added tax, or a border adjustable tax, or a goods and services tax. NAFTA countries, CAFTA countries, WTO countries, Europe… they all do that to us. And we pretend to be engaging in free trade. A CPA issue sheet on the problem, discussing the VAT tariffs in relation to trade, is here (PDF file).

One potential solution is to implement a U.S. consumption tax. This possibility has been talked about more on the right than the left. The income tax system is attractive to the majority of citizens because of progressivity. But the progressivity is illusory, as noted by Warren Buffett who challenged his CEO colleagues to prove they paid a higher percentage tax rate than their secretaries.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

National service bill to get Obama’s signature

National service bill to get Obama’s signature

WASHINGTON – The AmeriCorps program started by President Bill Clinton will triple in size over the next eight years, and tens of thousands of other Americans will soon see new opportunities to give back to their communities.

It’s all part of a $5.7 billion national service bill President Barack Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday to foster and fulfill people’s desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or building and weatherizing homes for the poor.

Bolstering voluntary public service programs has been a priority of Obama, who credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life.

The White House said Monday that the president “will call on people across the country to serve their communities and work together to tackle the nation’s tough challenges.”

Obama is set to visit the SEED School of Washington, a public boarding school that serves inner-city students facing problems in both the classroom and at home, for the signing ceremony.

via National service bill to get Obama’s signature.

The Deadliest Sin?

The Deadliest Sin?

On Sex Addiction – by By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK

“Sinful” Sex Addiction: The Newest Way to Demonize Sexuality. Sex addiction has emerged as the 21st century version of sin — the latest way to guilt people about sex.

Addictions. Gotta love ‘em. Gotta hate ‘em too, sometimes. But first, we gotta love ‘em, or we wouldn’t have ‘em in the first place. Addictions are the spices of our lives. Of course, too much spice spoils the enchilada. But remember, without a little salsa, it’s all just beans and dead meat.

Granted, addiction can certainly be a destructive force, wreaking havoc on your world, but it can also be the source of tremendous creative energy in human life. Sometimes, the only way to truly master something is to become passionately, obsessively addicted to it. Without the driving vigor of our addictions, we surrender to mediocrity, bureaucracy, and (shudder) mere functionality. The world’s greatest artists, many of our greatest statesmen, certainly our greatest lovers, and even some of our greatest scientists have been notoriously addictive personalities, all living and dying in overheated pursuits of pleasure, power, knowledge and love.

Our addictions give us a taste of paradise. It may be a temporary paradise, and it may be an artificial paradise, a dangerous, even doomed paradise, but the pursuit of paradise, ecstasy, bliss, nirvana, heaven-on-earth – also known as “the pursuit of happiness,” as written into the U.S. Declaration of Independence – is one of the great natural drives of humanity, maybe even of all so-called intelligent life on earth.

The Seven Deadly Addictions

Everybody’s addicted to something, even if it’s the philosophy of not getting addicted to anything. Some of us channel our addictive drives into stuff that society deems safe or constructive. For instance, work is a socially acceptable addiction, even though the heroes of our culture, the work-driven businessmen and traders, are more likely to die young of a heart attack (or jump out the window when the stocks crash) than the pot-smoking slackers among us. Shopping is another socially sanctioned narcotic, until all your credit cards are maxed out, and suddenly your favorite shopping outlets stop loving you back. Then there are prescription drugs, an all-American addiction with soothing celebrity-studded ads to make those mysterious little pills easier to swallow, and you don’t even have to worry about your credit cards if you’ve got the right insurance.

via Dr. Susan Block: On Sex Addiction.

Korb vs. vanden Heuvel: More or Less Troops in Afghanistan?

YouTube – Korb vs. vanden Heuvel: More or Less Troops in Afghanistan?.

Getting Serious About Holding Democrats Accountable

Video at link

Getting Serious About Holding Democrats Accountable

Hold conservative Democrats accountable–contribute to BlogPac now.

Just in case anyone had their doubts about whether progressive groups are serious about holding Blue Dogs, conservodems, and other center-right Democrats accountable for supporting Wall Street and conservative groups instead of supporting their own constituents, doubt no more. The following video is the first paid media campaign from a large progressive coalition designed to hold Democrats accountable on mortgage bankruptcy reform, otherwise known as “cramdown.”

Here are some details on the ad buy:

via Democracy and Elections | AlterNet.

Obama Campaign’s Multi-Million Dollar Propaganda Firm Deployed in Iraq to Advise on “New Media”

Obama Campaign’s Multi-Million Dollar Propaganda Firm Deployed in Iraq to Advise on “New Media”

With Iraq in ruins, Obama sends a politically connected firm, along with reps from AT&T, Google, and Twitter to build ‘smart power’ in Baghdad.

The U.S. State Department has announced it is sponsoring a “New Media Technology” delegation to Iraq to “explore new opportunities to support Iraqi government and non-government stakeholders in Iraq’s emerging new media industry.” Of all of the areas in Iraq in desperate need of attention, its “emerging new media industry” is not the one that pops to mind. Things like clean water, electricity, right of safe return for refugees and an end to the occupation seem more pressing than increasing Nouri al Maliki’s Twitter followers. But unfortunately, that’s how U.S. priorities in Iraq seem to work.

Anyway, the super star tech delegation, according to the State Department press release, includes “a mix of CEOs, Vice-Presidents and senior representatives” from “AT&T, Google, Twitter, Howcast, Meetup, You Tube and Automattic/Wordpress.”

But the final company listed as participating in the delegation begs for some sort of special review: Blue State Digital, a firm which boasts its services were “Critically important to President Obama’s victory” in the November election. Indeed, federal campaign spending records indicate that the Obama campaign paid the firm at least $2,864,138 in 2007-2008, including more than $700,000 on election day.

via Obama Campaign’s Multi-Million Dollar Propaganda Firm Deployed in Iraq to Advise on “New Media” | War on Iraq | AlterNet.

10 Environmental Disasters to Remember on Earth Day

10 Environmental Disasters to Remember on Earth Day

Ten tragic lessons in our history that should never be forgotten. And one climate tragedy in the making that needs our urgent help.

Ten tragic lessons in our nation’s environmental history that should never be forgotten. And one climate destabilization tragedy in the making that needs our urgent help.

1. Extinction: Three Species Per Hour

According to a United Nations report released in 2007, our planet is at risk of losing three species per hour. Ahmed Djoghlaf, the head of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, declared: “We are indeed experiencing the greatest wave of extinctions since the disappearance of the dinosaurs. Extinction rates are rising by a factor of up to 1,000 above natural rates. Every hour, three species disappear. Every day, up to 150 species are lost. Every year, between 18,000 and 55,000 species become extinct.”

For John J. Audubon, the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, the great American wild pigeon, would have ranked high: “The multitudes of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing,” Audubon wrote. “Indeed, after having viewed them so often, and under so many circumstances, I even now feel inclined to pause, and assure myself that what I am going to relate is fact. Yet I have seen it all, and that too in the company of persons who, like myself, were struck with amazement.” A victim of hunting and industrial abuses, the last Passenger Pigeon died in an Ohio zoo in 1914.

via 10 Environmental Disasters to Remember on Earth Day | Environment | AlterNet.

Goldman Sachs Shook Tens of Billions Out of Tax-Payers — Now They’re Whining All the Way to the Bank

Goldman Sachs Shook Tens of Billions Out of Tax-Payers — Now They’re Whining All the Way to the Bank

By Dean Baker,

The Wall Street crew relied on its political power to ensure that the rules remained rigged, even though their crooked deck wrecked the economy.

Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, is very upset with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Last fall, Mr. Blankfein borrowed $10 billion through the TARP at below market interest rates. Now, the government is starting to tie some real conditions to this money, for example, by limiting what Goldman can pay its executives. Mr. Blankfein argues that such conditions are making it impossible to run his business and is now anxious to return the TARP money.

It is great to see that Goldman is finally prepared to go forward into the market without its government training wheels of TARP aid, but, unfortunately, Mr. Blankfein isn’t yet confident enough in his business acumen to actually forego government assistance. Goldman Sachs has benefited and continues to benefit enormously from other forms of government aid.

For example, last fall Mr. Blankfein also took advantage of the opportunity to borrow $25 billion with an FDIC guarantee to his creditors. If this government guarantee reduced his borrowing costs by two percentage points, then it means that the taxpayers handed Goldman $500 million a year in lower interest costs.

via Goldman Sachs Shook Tens of Billions Out of Tax-Payers — Now They’re Whining All the Way to the Bank | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.

Bill Moyers Talks Drugs, Crime, Journalism and Democracy with Creator of ‘The Wire’

Bill Moyers Talks Drugs, Crime, Journalism and Democracy with Creator of ‘The Wire’

By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal.

HBO’s critically-acclaimed “The Wire” creator David Simon talks about inner-city crime and politics, storytelling and the future of journalism.

Editor’s Note: The following is the transcript from Bill Moyers’ recent interview with newspaper beat reporter turned television writer and producer David Simon. You can watch the interview here.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.

“When television history is written,” one critic says, “Little else will rival ‘The Wire.’”And when historians come to tell the story of America in our time, I’ll wager they will not be able to ignore this remarkable and compelling portrayal of life in our cities.

Take a look at this scene:

[...]

DETECTIVE JIMMY MCNULTY: Let me understand you, every Friday night you and your boys will shoot crap right? And every Friday night your pal Snot Boogie he’d wait ’till there was cash on the ground and then he’d grab the money and run away? You let him do that?

WITNESS: If we’d catch him we’d beat his ass but ain’t nobody let it go past that.

DETECTIVE JIMMY MCNULTY: I gotta ask you, if every time Snot Boogie would grab the money and run away why’d you even let him in the game?

WITNESS: What?

DETECTIVE JIMMY MCNULTY: Snot Boogie always stole the money, why’d you let him play?

WITNESS: Got to. This America, man.

via Bill Moyers Talks Drugs, Crime, Journalism and Democracy with Creator of ‘The Wire’ | DrugReporter | AlterNet.

Neocon Fantasies of Empire Crushed: the New Global Reality

Two disastrous wars and the economic meltdown have shaken America’s superpower status. What can Obama do to help shape a sustainable global order?

Empire Foreclosed?  – By Mark Engler

Not long ago, excitement over American imperialism reached levels not seen in a century. “People are coming out of the closet on the word ‘empire,’” the right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer told The New York Times in early 2002. Neoconservatives were on the rise in Washington, and their leading propagandists were not shy in making the case for aggressive expansionism.

Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot, for instance, took issue with Pat Buchanan’s belief that the United States should be a “republic, not an empire.” “This analysis is exactly backward,” Boot wrote. “[T]he Sept. 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition; the solution is to be more expansive in our goals and more assertive in their implementation.” He added, “troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.”

It’s hard to believe those sentiments, hallmarks of George W. Bush’s first term, were features of our very recent history. The debate they were a part of now seems distinctly strange and foreign. Since then, the world has experienced a catastrophic occupation in Iraq, and voters have ousted the Republican vanguard of the “War on Terror.” Overt defenders of imperialism have found good reason to creep back into their wardrobes.

And that, of course, is to say nothing of the bursting of the housing bubble, the fall of Lehman, and the end of the hedge fund era. With unemployment rising and Wall Street shamed, we have entered a period of economic downturn acute enough to raise serious questions about the viability of U.S. power. The pressing issue today is: How will the economic crisis affect our country’s role in the world? Or, more bluntly: Is America’s empire facing foreclosure?

The answer involves more than just quibbles over the semantics of U.S. dominance. Together, the fallout from the imperial hubris of the Bush administration and the discrediting of the deregulated market fundamentalism that thrived even under Bill Clinton have opened new possibilities for reshaping the global order in the Obama years.

via Foreign Policy In Focus | Empire Foreclosed?.

Meet the Press and the media’s distortions of the prosecutions debate

Meet the Press and the media’s distortions of the prosecutions debate – - Glenn Greenwald

Whatever else one thinks about the debate over investigations and prosecutions for Bush crimes, there is no question that huge numbers of Americans — likely majorities — favor them. And that was true even before the release of the most graphic and stomach-turning evidence yet: the 4 DOJ memos released this past week which describe the torture in detail. The assertion that “most Americans” don’t want investigations — whether made by media stars to argue against investigations or Obama supporters to justify the immunity the President wants to extend to everyone involved — is factually false.

A USA Today poll from February — headlined: “Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics” — found “two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants,” and “four in 10 favor criminal investigations.” A Gallup poll from mid-February found that between 60 to 70% of Americans favor investigations for torture, warrantless eavesdropping and DOJ politicization, and that majorities of Democrats (and more than 40% of all Americans and independents) favor criminal prosecutions. Only small percentages of independents — between 25-38% — oppose investigations for each of the three lawbreaking allegations. A Washington Post/ABC News poll from January similarly found that a majority of Americans (50-47%) — and an overwhelming majority of Democrats (69%) — believe that the Obama administration should investigate whether the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees was illegal. While polls can vary based on how the questions are asked, every poll shows substantial percentages favoring investigations.

These facts about public opinion are virtually always excluded from establishment media discussions, and those who advocate investigations and prosecutions — the view held by large percentages, if not majorities, of Americans — are virtually never heard from. That’s because the belief that elites should be exempted from all consequences when they break the law is as close to a trans-partisan religious tenet of Beltway culture as it gets.

via Meet the Press and the media’s distortions of the prosecutions debate – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Let’s fast-track universal healthcare

Let’s fast-track universal healthcare - By Robert Reich

Obama will be tempted to bargain for his agenda with spending cuts; healthcare’s not the place to trim.

April 20, 2009 | It’s no accident that as Congress returns this week from its two-week recess and begins debate on the $3.5 trillion budget plans for the fiscal year starting in October — which may or may not include a provision that fast-tracks Obama’s healthcare proposal by allowing it to pass the Senate with a mere majority — the president has summoned his Cabinet for a first meeting, at which he’ll call for more cuts in domestic spending.

Symbolism counts in Washington, and Obama’s request that his Cabinet officers come up with $100 million in spending cuts will be played up by the White House as the beginning of a major effort to trim unnecessary government spending. It’s part of the president’s effort to reach out to Republicans (and calm the nerves of “blue-dog” Democrats) worried about all the money the administration has spent and still wants to spend — $787 billion on the stimulus, $700 billion committed to the bank and auto bailouts, and, most important, $3.5 trillion for the next 10 years, including universal healthcare. Throw in the cost of a cap-and-trade system to control climate change and you’re talking big money.

via Let’s fast-track universal healthcare | Salon.

Poison in the well

Poison in the well

Crestwood officials cut corners and supplied residents with tainted water for 2 decades

Like every town across the nation, south suburban Crestwood tucks a notice into utility bills each summer reassuring residents their drinking water is safe. Village leaders also trumpet the claim in their monthly newsletter, while boasting they offer the cheapest water rates in Cook County.

But those pronouncements hide a troubling reality: For more than two decades, the 11,000 or so residents in this working-class community unknowingly drank tap water contaminated with toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other health problems, a Tribune investigation found.

As village officials were building a national reputation for pinching pennies, and sending out fliers proclaiming Crestwood water was “Good to taste but not to waste!,” state and village records obtained by the newspaper show they secretly were drawing water from a contaminated well, apparently to save money.

Officials kept using the well even though state environmental officials told them at least 22 years ago that dangerous chemicals related to a dry-cleaning solvent had oozed into the water, records show.

via Poison in the well — chicagotribune.com.

The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class

Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy, and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America’s credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class. Series: “UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures” [6/2007] [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 12620]

YouTube – The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class.

Address by PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day

Address by PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day

Israeli Prime Minister: We will not allow Holocaust deniers to carry out another Jewish Holocaust

Honorable President, Shimon Peres,
Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin and His Wife,
President of the Supreme Court, Dorit Beinish,
Ministers, Members of Knesset,
Honorable Chief Rabbis and Congregation Leaders,
Chairman of the Council of Yad Vashem, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau,
Chairman of the Board of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev,
Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine and His Wife,
Esteemed Holocaust Survivors from Israel and Abroad,
Righteous Gentiles,
Distinguished Guests,

Before the recent Pesach holiday, a Jewish hero passed away – David Plonsky, also known as “Yurek”, may his memory be blessed – the cigarette salesman from the Triple Cross Square in Warsaw.

Yurek was only 14 when the Warsaw Ghetto was established.  He turned from child into adult overnight.  He smuggled food into the ghetto and his life was under constant threat.  Yurek survived. He immigrated to Israel, fought in the War of Independence, started a family and built a home at Kibbutz Meggido.  He lost his son Eitan during the Yom Kippur War, but found the fortitude to overcome this tragedy as well.  He continued living, continued building and continued inculcating his legacy into thousands of youngsters.

His life story and activities are, to a large extent, a mirror of the Jewish people’s transition from exile to liberty – a story of suffering, supreme heroism, construction and renaissance; a story of bereavement, faith and independence.

Yurek may have survived the inferno, but close to a million and a half Jewish children did not survive and perished in the Holocaust.  I think the human mind cannot grasp this fact.  We always see before us the famous picture of the frightened Jewish child, raising his hands in front of the barrels of German rifles.  But this child was only one out of a million and a half children, a million and a half pairs of frightened eyes.  Each one of them was an entire world of hopes and dreams, a mother’s love and a father’s concern, a world transformed instantly into one of terror, suffering and death.

via Address by PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day.

Going Green with the Tech Industry

Going Green with the Tech Industry

The computer age changed the way we live our life, it has also changed the environment. With the bountiful array of new products being offered, we’ve created new waste as we consumers’ upgrade, and the plants where these products are manufactured also put out waste. The tech industry has taken a step up to fight the adverse affects of their ways and been forerunners in the go green campaigns that seem to be on everyone’s minds right now.

Rebuilding the Earth

If you want to contribute to the creation and replacement of lost trees, check out 10 products that get a tree planted. Every time you purchase something from one of those companies, they take part of the profits and put it towards planting trees, helping offset their carbon footprint. Going one step further, IOGEAR will now plant two trees for every product you purchase on their online store or one for the program partners via their Road to a Million Tree’s campaign.

The computer industry as a whole has really been trying to give back to the world, Dell for example has a Plant a Tree for Me campaign, simply add a tree to the shopping cart while ordering from them online and they will do the rest.

Being More Efficient and Less Damaging to the Environment

Since giving back isn’t the only option for the tech sector to go green, many have started to make their devices less power hungry, thus reducing the amount they pull from the grid.

via IOGEAR » Going Green with the Tech Industry.

Bailout

bail-out-plan.jpg (JPEG Image, 500×351 pixels).

Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters

Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters

“In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes. The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars.”

The special inspector general says TARP is ‘inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse.’ The risk grows as the plan becomes more complex, he says.

Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — In the first major disclosure of corruption in the $750-billion financial bailout program, federal investigators said Monday they have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax violations, insider trading and other crimes.

The cases represent only the first wave of investigations, and the total fraud could ultimately reach into the tens of billions of dollars, according to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the bailout program.

The disclosures reinforce fears that the hastily designed and rapidly changing bailout program run by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve is going to carry a heavy price of fraud against taxpayers — even as questions grow about its ability to stabilize the nation’s financial system.

via Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters – Los Angeles Times.

Quote of the Day

“I wouldn’t have thought the economy was as vulnerable,” …
“I wouldn’t have thought that banking deregulation was dangerous.”

– Judge Richard A. Posner
federal appeals court judge who has been called the most cited legal scholar of all time

SHOULD BANKSTERS GET A SPECIAL BREAK ON BAILOUT REPAYMENT?

SHOULD BANKSTERS GET A SPECIAL BREAK ON BAILOUT REPAYMENT? - by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary at link

I’ve got a sob story for you that I know will just break your heart. You might want to grab a couple of tissues. Ready?

It’s about those bankers who took bailout money from you and me. Far from grateful, these executives are in a deep, industry-wide pout about how they’re being treated. Having taken billions of tax dollars for their bailouts, and having refused to use those billions for loans that would help our economy recover – bank executives are now stamping their Gucci-clad feet and whining that the Obama administration is being mean to them. Go ahead – dab those tears from your eyes.

First, they’re having heart palpitations over the possibility that Obama and his bailout overseers might demand “management changes” at some of Wall Street’s largest failed banks. They saw the CEO of General Motors get the boot, and these once-haughty titans of finance are aghast that it could also happen to them.

via Jim Hightower | SHOULD BANKSTERS GET A SPECIAL BREAK ON BAILOUT REPAYMENT?.

Obama Fails Torture…So Far (1/3)

Thom Hartmann

YouTube – Obama Fails Torture…So Far (1/3).

Part 2/3

Part 3/3

AP source: Chrysler Financial refuses exec pay cap

AP source: Chrysler Financial refuses exec pay cap

WASHINGTON – Chrysler LLC‘s financial arm turned down additional government aid after some top executives refused to accept new limits on executive pay, according to a government official with knowledge of the negotiations.

The official said Monday that the Treasury Department denied Chrysler Financial’s request for more aid because some of its top 25 executives would not waive their rights to legal claims against the government and Chrysler Financial regarding new caps on executive compensation. The official did not want to be identified because the decision has not been made public.

The Washington Post reported on its Web site Monday that Chrysler Financial turned down $750 million in aid on top of $1.5 billion it already has received.

Chrysler Financial denied the allegation. It issued a statement saying it has enough private capital to meet its short-term needs of lending money to dealers and customers, and it doesn’t need more money now from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Chrysler Financial received a $1.5 billion loan from the bank bailout program in January and said it would use the money to provide low-rate financing to more car buyers.

The government also restricted executive pay for federal bailout recipients at that time, but the restrictions have gotten tougher since then.

via AP source: Chrysler Financial refuses exec pay cap.

U.S. Senate Approves New Top Antitrust Chief

U.S. Senate Approves New Top Antitrust Chief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate voted on Monday to approve President Barack Obama’s nominee to enforce antitrust law at the Justice Department.

Christine Varney, who was approved by a vote of 87 to 1, indicated at a confirmation hearing in March that she would have challenged mergers that Bush antitrust enforcers allowed to go through, such as the merger of appliance rivals Whirlpool and Maytag in 2006.

Varney, a former commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, said she would work with the FTC, which also enforces antitrust law, on issues like drug companies’ settlements with other companies to delay production of cheaper, generic drugs.

She said she would support legislation to ban the practice if courts determine the settlements are legal.

via U.S. Senate Approves New Top Antitrust Chief – NYTimes.com.

Obama Has No Plans to Reopen Nafta Talks

Obama Doesn’t Plan to Reopen Nafta Talks

WASHINGTON — The administration has no present plans to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to add labor and environmental protections, as President Obama vowed to do during his campaign, the top trade official said on Monday.

“The president has said we will look at all of our options, but I think they can be addressed without having to reopen the agreement,” said the official, Ronald Kirk, the United States trade representative. It was perhaps the clearest indication yet of the administration’s thinking on whether to reopen the core agreement to add labor and environmental rules.

Mr. Kirk spoke in a conference call with reporters after returning from a regional summit meeting that Mr. Obama attended over the weekend in Trinidad. He said that Mr. Obama had conferred with the leaders of Mexico and Canada — the other parties to the trade agreement — and that “they are all of the mind we should look for opportunities to strengthen Nafta.”

But while he said that a formal review of the 1992 pact had yet to be completed, Mr. Kirk noted that both Mr. Obama and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico had said that “they don’t believe we have to reopen the agreement now.”

Mexico in particular, whose exports have exploded under Nafta, has little interest in such a renegotiation.

via Obama Has No Plans to Reopen Nafta Talks – NYTimes.com.

The Ink Tank:

The Ink Tank: Our daily roundup of editorial cartoons – Boston.com.

The Ink Tank:

The Ink Tank: Our daily roundup of editorial cartoons – Boston.com.

Judge Richard Posner Questions His Free-Market Faith In “A Failure Of Capitalism”

Judge Richard Posner Questions His Free-Market Faith In “A Failure Of Capitalism”

“If you’re worried that lions are eating too many zebras, you don’t say to the lions, ‘You’re eating too many zebras.’ You have to build a fence around the lions. They’re not going to build it.”
- Judge Richard A. Posner

One of the most prominent proponents of free-market capitalism is having second thoughts.

Judge Richard A. Posner, a federal appeals court judge who has been called the most cited legal scholar of all time, discussed his doubts and his analysis of the current financial crisis in a wide-ranging interview with the Huffington Post.

A longtime proponent of deregulation, the idea that business works best in a free market without burdensome government regulations, Posner began to change his mind when he realized the enormity of the crisis. This change of heart inspired him to write his upcoming book, “A Failure Of Capitalism.”

Though still a believer in the virtues of capitalism, Posner now emphasizes the importance of government regulations; the need to strengthen the regulatory structure by directly funding authorities rather than the current fee-based model; the dangers of excessive executive compensation, and even expressed support for the idea of changing bankruptcy law to make it easier for homeowners who face foreclosure.

“I wouldn’t have thought the economy was as vulnerable,” he explains. “I wouldn’t have thought that banking deregulation was dangerous.”

via Judge Richard Posner Questions His Free-Market Faith In “A Failure Of Capitalism”.

Ron Howard: Angels & Demons: It’s A Thriller, Not A Crusade

Angels & Demons: It’s A Thriller, Not A Crusade

William Donohue of the Catholic League is on a mission. Whether it is a “mission from God,” as the Blues Brothers would say, only God knows, but the goal of his mission is clear: to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels & Demons, as anti-Catholic.

For a $5 donation to his organization, Mr. Donohue will send you his glossy new booklet (Angels & Demons: More Demonic Than Angelic), in which he writes that I and the people who made this thriller “do not hide their animus against all things Catholic.”

He’s been making these assertions for years, going back to the theatrical release of The Da Vinci Code. He stepped up his campaign more than a month ago with a series of press releases. And there he goes again, in a Daily News op-ed last Friday, saying that Dan Brown and I “have collaborated in smearing the Catholic Church….”

via Ron Howard: Angels & Demons: It’s A Thriller, Not A Crusade.

Axelrod: We Can’t Afford To Get “Bogged Down” In Bush Investigation Debate

OPS:  We can’t afford NOT to, asshole

Axelrod: We Can’t Afford To Get “Bogged Down” In Bush Investigation Debate

Remarks made by Obama senior adviser David Axelrod on Monday provide the clearest indication to date that the White House is not only uninterested in pursuing investigations of Bush officials involved in torture but views them as a distraction from a larger governing agenda.

Speaking before the Religious Action Center, a Reform Judaism advocacy organization, Axelrod warned against re-litigating the past, arguing that the current White House didn’t need such a distraction when it already had so much on its plate.

“The president believes strongly that we need to be looking forward,” said Axelrod. “If he had not banned these [interrogation techniques] there would be a different case to be made here. But these practices are a thing of the past. What this should not become is a forum for re-litigating these issues apropos to the last administration and some of the policy makers there, because we have too much work to do to become bogged down in that debate. That’s the feeling.”

The remarks, which Axelrod acknowledged would come as a disappointment to the largely progressive crowd, are a step further than the Obama White House has largely been willing to go on the issue of investigating the Bush years.

via Axelrod: We Can’t Afford To Get “Bogged Down” In Bush Investigation Debate.

Obama proposes US loan $100 billion to International Monetary Fund

OPS: Of course, The Beast isn’t completely starved yet…

Obama proposes US loan $100 billion to International Monetary Fund

U.S. President Barack Obama Monday asked Congress to back an expansion of an IMF emergency fund by $500 billion in a move designed to expand its reach to big emerging-market nations.

Obama also asked lawmakers to approve a U.S. contribution to the fund to $100 billion, as part of the plan to swell International Monetary Fund reserves agreed at this month’s Group of 20 industrial and developing nations summit in London.

At the G20 summit, “the Germans did not want an EU effort to bail out the banks,” reported the Asia Times. “They wanted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bail out a substantial part of the EU financial system instead. The reason was simple: The IMF receives loans from the United States, as well as China and Japan, meaning the Europeans would be joined by others in underwriting the bailout. The United States has signaled it would be willing to contribute $100 billion to the IMF, of which a substantial portion would go to Central Europe. (Of the current loans given by the IMF, roughly 80% have gone to the struggling economies in Central Europe.)”

The president made the request in several letters to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders Monday, pointing out that the fund didn’t require an extra financial outlay from the U.S.

via Raw Story » Obama proposes US loan $100 billion to International Monetary Fund.

Sen. Whitehouse on Jay Bybee: ‘It is certainly possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted.’

Sen. Whitehouse on Jay Bybee: ‘It is certainly possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted.’

Tonight on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow interviewed Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Judiciary Committee, about his views on whether Jay Bybee should be impeached:

MADDOW: Do you think that it is possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted in this case, if only because the circumstances that are known about Judge Bybee’s career are now so different than when the Senate voted on

him in 2003?

WHITEHOUSE: It is certainly possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted. But I think that decision should probably wait until the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility finishes its investigation into the Office of Legal Counsel and all of these opinions.

Whitehouse said the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is expected to release the results of its year-long investigation in the very near future. Watch it:

via Think Progress » Sen. Whitehouse on Jay Bybee: ‘It is certainly possible that an impeachment inquiry is warranted.’.

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will debate each other next month.

OPS: more political Kabuki brought to you by the Oligarchy

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will debate each other next month.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will meet for a debate late next month. The event will take place on Friday, May 29th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. ThinkProgress has been told the “debate” will occur in the form of a moderated question-and-answer session, rather than a more lively exchange between the two Presidents.

via Think Progress » Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will debate each other next month..

Big Bro’s Cybersecurity Act: A means to shut down the Internet

Big Bro’s Cybersecurity Act: A means to shut down the Internet

I’m not the first to write about this little-noticed Senate bill, S.773, the Cybersecurity Act of 2009. Nor should I be the last because it is such an important piece of legislation.

The bill states that “the president may order a Cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic” and would hand the government continuous access to “all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” George Orwell must be turning over in his grave.

The bill came to us from a Rockefeller, surprise, supposedly the Democratic one, Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, along with Senators Bayh and Nelson. But think of it mainly as a Rockefeller Snowe job this Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which also wants to hands us a Cybersecurity Czar, to compliment our Drug Czar, Homeland Security Czar, Border Czar, and any other bizarre Czar they can think of to limit American freedoms.

Supposedly, the White House didn’t endorse the bill’s draft, but had a hand in its language, whatever the hell the Washington Post meant by that. Naturally, supporters of this bill need to “centralize Cybersecurity” of the private sector. Rockefeller claims, “People say this is a military or intelligence concern, but it is a lot more than that. It suddenly gets into the realm of traffic lights, rail networks, water and electricity.” In other words, anything attached to a computer.

Snowe adds, “American’s vulnerability to massive cyber-crime, global cyber-espionage and cyber-attacks has emerged as one of the most urgent national security problems facing our country today. Importantly, this legislation loosely parallels the recommendations in the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) blue-ribbon report to President Obama and has been embraced by a number of industry and government thought leaders.”

The question is what are “thought leaders?” Are they like Big Brothers? And why are we priming the fear pump again ala the USAPATRIOT Act, the elimination of habeas corpus, the Bush/CIA memos that okay torture, the NSA’s right not only to spy on international electronic communications but its adaptation as well for civilian use, not to mention the government’s continuing right to rendition, torture abroad, and so on. If this isn’t still another plea for dictatorial powers, I’m Elmer Fudd. No wisecracks.

via Big Bro’s Cybersecurity Act: A means to shut down the Internet.

Radical cheap: $1,000 homes

Radical cheap: $1,000 homes

The real estate market is so awful that buyers are now scooping up homes for as little as $1,000.

There are 18 listings in Flint, Mich., for under $3,000, according to Realtor.com. There are 22 in Indianapolis, 46 in Cleveland and a whopping 709 in Detroit. All of these communities have been hit hard by foreclosures, and most of these homes are being sold by the lenders that repossessed them.

“Foreclosures have turned banks into property management companies,” said Heather Fernandez, a spokeswoman for Trulia.com, the real estate Web site. “And it’s often cheaper for them to give these homes away rather than try to get market value for them.”

In Detroit for instance, Century 21 Villa owner Randy Eissa has a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow of about 1,000 square feet listed at just $500. It’s a nice place with lots of light, but it needs a total rehabilitation inside, which Eissa estimates will cost between $15,000 and $20,000. But that’s not bad, considering that the home last sold for $72,000 in late 2007, according to Zillow.com.

via Radical cheap: $1,000 homes – Yahoo! Finance.

Kucinich: Victory Against Privatization

Kucinich: Victory Against Privatization

DFAS takes away Contract from Lockheed Martin, Government to Perform Services

WASHINGTON – April 20 – Following a relentless effort by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to challenge the Bush administration’s efforts to privatize Defense Finance and Accounting Services (DFAS) jobs since 2001, DFAS today announced that that it will cancel agreements with Lockheed Martin and employ government workers to perform all areas of retroactive pay and benefits for veterans.

“This is a great day for veterans and a victory for government oversight. This decision will finally end the six-year nightmare of privatization of retired and annuitant pay services that resulted in the degradation of services to veterans and an increased cost to taxpayers. I thank Director McKay and Comptroller Robert Hale for their choice to serve veterans first, rather than perpetuate a lucrative contract with the nation’s largest military contractor,” stated Kucinich

Lockheed’s performance of the retired and annuitant pay functions of DFAS was characterized by mishandling, delay, poor quality and exorbitant charges. An investigation by Chairman Kucinich’s Domestic Policy Subcommittee published in July 2008 revealed that 8,763 disabled veterans died before their cases were even reviewed for eligibility in a program that allowed retired veterans with severe combat-related disabilities to receive concurrent disability and retirement pay. Almost 30,000 veterans were denied the benefit based solely on the determination of Lockheed employees with about six weeks of training.

At a Subcommittee hearing, then-director Zack Gaddy promised Chairman Kucinich a thorough audit of the VA Retro program, and correction of the underlying problems. DFAS’ announcement today stems from that assurance.

via Kucinich: Victory Against Privatization | CommonDreams.org.

Is Local Food Better?

Is Local Food Better?

Yes, probably-but not in the way many people think.

(Editor’s note: The local-food movement has been gaining momentum in developed countries, and in many developing countries as well, in recent years; in the United States alone, sales of locally grown foods, worth about $4 billion in 2002, could reach as much as $7 billion by 2011. Local food’s claimed benefits are driving health- and environment-conscious consumers to seek alternatives to the industrial agriculture system whose products dominate grocery-store shelves. It is also linked to the localization efforts of people who believe that rising transport costs and reaction to globalization will trigger a shortening of economic links and greater reliance on local and regional economies. This two-part series examines the potential impacts of greater localization of food, beginning with the environmental effects and then, in our July/August issue, the economic implications.)

by Sarah DeWeerdt

In 1993, a Swedish researcher calculated that the ingredients of a typical Swedish breakfast-apple, bread, butter, cheese, coffee, cream, orange juice, sugar-traveled a distance equal to the circumference of the Earth before reaching the Scandinavian table. In 2005, a researcher in Iowa found that the milk, sugar, and strawberries that go into a carton of strawberry yogurt collectively journeyed 2,211 miles (3,558 kilometers) just to get to the processing plant. As the local-food movement has come of age, this concept of “food miles” (or “-kilometers”)-roughly, the distance food travels from farm to plate-has come to dominate the discussion, particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom, and parts of Western Europe.

The concept offers a kind of convenient shorthand for describing a food system that’s centralized, industrialized, and complex almost to the point of absurdity. And, since our food is transported all those miles in ships, trains, trucks, and planes, attention to food miles also links up with broader concerns about the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-based transport.

via Is Local Food Better? | Worldwatch Institute.

81 year old black farmer arrested on terroristic threat allegations

81 year old black farmer arrested on terroristic threat allegations

Harry Young, an 81 year old black farmer who has been protesting what he says is an illegal and unconstitutional foreclosure of his western Kentucky farm, has been arrested on allegations terroristic threatening. The charges reportedly stem from a 5 year old incident where Young allegedly threatened a federal marshal. Young says he has made no terroristic threats.::::::::

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Willard Young 919-464-4111

(Owensboro, KY) April 18 2009

Harry Young, an 81 year old black farmer who has been protesting what he says is an illegal and unconstitutional foreclosure of his western Kentucky farm, has been arrested on allegations terroristic threatening. The charges reportedly stem from a 5 year old incident where Young allegedly threatened a federal marshal. Young says he has made no terroristic threats.

The incident stems from a disputed debt over a farm loan going back to the late 1970s. Young claims that he never received the proceeds of the loan in question, and has signed documents from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency proving the debt has been paid. The farm was auctioned in 2005.

via OpEdNews » 81 year old black farmer arrested on terroristic threat allegations.

SPLC Sues Mississippi County to Stop ‘Shocking’ Abuse of Children at Detention Center

SPLC Sues Mississippi County to Stop ‘Shocking’ Abuse of Children at Detention Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center today filed a federal class action suit to stop the “shockingly inhumane” treatment of children at a juvenile detention center and to force officials to provide sanitary facilities and mental health treatment to young people confined there.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on behalf of a 17-year-old boy who, despite attempting suicide while in the facility, has received no mental health treatment. He has been subjected to physical abuse and filthy conditions, and has been forced to sleep on the floor in an overcrowded, insect-infested cell.

The Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center in Biloxi, Miss., has been operated by a private corporation, the Mississippi Security Police, for more than nine years at an annual cost of $1.6 million.

“It is a travesty that the county has chosen to let a private company profit by neglecting and abusing our children,” said Vanessa Carroll, a staff attorney for the SPLC’s Mississippi Youth Justice Project and counsel for the children.

Most of the children confined at the facility have not been adjudicated guilty of any crime and are awaiting court hearings. Many are there for minor offenses and so-called “status offenses” like truancy.

The lawsuit describes how the county has failed to provide the most basic, constitutionally required services to the plaintiff, known in the suit as D.W.

via SPLCenter.org: SPLC Sues Mississippi County to Stop ‘Shocking’ Abuse of Children at Detention Center.

After Calling Waterboarding Torture In December, David Rivkin Pens Op-Ed Defending Its Use

After Calling Waterboarding Torture In December, David Rivkin Pens Op-Ed Defending Its Use

In today’s Wall Street Journal David Rivkin and Lee Casey — who have made something of a cottage industry out of defending the worst actions of the Bush administration — argue that the OLC torture memos released last week by the Obama administration “prove” that the Bush administration did not torture detainees. “Far from ‘green lighting’ torture…the memos detail the actual techniques used and the many measures taken to ensure that interrogations did not cause severe pain or degradation,” they write.

To support their argument, Rivkin and Casey claim that the memos show that the Bush administration made use of waterboarding only on a very limited and controlled basis. The tactics were “harsh,” they acknowledge, but “fall well short of torture.” Anyone claiming otherwise is exaggerating as a result of what they call “speculative rage”:

via Think Progress » After Calling Waterboarding Torture In December, David Rivkin Pens Op-Ed Defending Its Use.

History Professor Gingrich Falsely Claims U.S. Presidents Don’t ‘Smile And Greet’ Russian Leaders

History Professor Gingrich Falsely Claims U.S. Presidents Don’t ‘Smile And Greet’ Russian Leaders

Yesterday, President Obama shook hands and briefly chatted with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, explaining in a press conference afterwards that he was trying to move towards a “more constructive” relationship with the South American country.

The right wing has responded with outrage to Obama’s meeting with Chavez, claiming face-to-face talks with a dictator show that Obama is projecting weakness. On NBC this morning, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama “bows to the Saudi King and is friends with Venezuela” and claimed the President showed “shallowness” in talking with Chavez. Gingrich then claimed that U.S. presidents do not “smile and greet” with Russian leaders:

via Think Progress » History Professor Gingrich Falsely Claims U.S. Presidents Don’t ‘Smile And Greet’ Russian Leaders.

Rep. Tiahrt Backtracks, Bows Down: Limbaugh ‘Is A Great Leader Of The Conservative Movement’

Rep. Tiahrt Backtracks, Bows Down: Limbaugh ‘Is A Great Leader Of The Conservative Movement’

Last week in an interview with the Kansas City Star editorial board, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) risked alienating thousands of ditto-heads by giving his honest opinion of whether Rush Limbaugh was the “de facto leader of the GOP.” “No, no, he’s just an entertainer,” Tiahrt said.

According to the Wichita Eagle (via Kansas Jackass), Tiahrt’s office is now also rushing to apologize:

Asked about the episode and resulting Web buzz, Tiahrt spokesman Sam Sackett said Tiahrt was not speaking negatively about Limbaugh but was trying to defend him against the suggestion that Limbaugh could be blamed for the GOP’s woes. “The congressman believes Rush is a great leader of the conservative movement in America — not a party leader responsible for election losses,” Sackett told The Eagle editorial board. “Nothing the congressman said diminished the role Rush has played and continues to play in the conservative movement.”

via Think Progress » Rep. Tiahrt Backtracks, Bows Down: Limbaugh ‘Is A Great Leader Of The Conservative Movement’.

Petition: Impeach Jay Bybee

Impeach Jay Bybee

Former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee was the primary author of “legal” memos purporting to justify torture.

He is now a federal judge.

Ask your Congress member to begin impeachment proceedings.

We encourage you to use your own words to alter the text and title below.

via News – Progressive Democrats of America.

Russia Deploys the Black Sea Fleet

Russia Deploys the Black Sea Fleet

Russia has sent an official notification to NATO’s general secretary, Hoop Scheffer, proposing that “all upcoming military exercises planned in Georgia should be postponed or canceled.”

On any other day of the year, I would read news article discussing a disagreement between NATO and Russia regarding Black Sea naval activity and dismiss it, but this isn’t an average day. Earlier this week, as per the agreement between Russia and the Ukraine, Russian officials notified the Ukraine that 22 of its Black Sea Fleet vessels will leave Sevastopol for military maneuvers. Those ships were expected to depart earlier this week, but it was noteworthy when all of the amphibious ships deployed first rather than all of the ships at once.

The Black Sea Fleet has now deployed all 22 ships, which is getting some attention in the region because regional news reports have noted the Russian military exercises taking place in the Caucasus since the political turmoil and protests began last week in Georgia. There has been a lot of discussion over the past several days, mostly unverified hearsay and internet chatter, of movement of Russian troops towards the Russian-Georgian border and into Abkhazia as part of those exercises. Those rumors were confirmed today when an EU monitor told Reuters “it had registered Russian reinforcements at the boundaries between Georgian-controlled territory and South Ossetia and Abkhazia.”

via Information Dissemination: Russia Deploys the Black Sea Fleet.

183

183

… there is now no way to view the people who ruled us these past 8 years as anything but monsters.

by  Paul Krugman

Back from a partly medical absence. Before I do some economics posts, I think I ought to say something about the torture memos — namely, that there is now no way to view the people who ruled us these past 8 years as anything but monsters. We had all these rationalizations of torture over the “ticking clock” and all that — then we learn, for example, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month.

I really don’t even want to think about all this. But this was our government — and these people might be back.

Then the convenient thing is that Holder is saying the people who did it were, “just following orders,” which gives them sovereign immunity. Criminal charges can’t be brought by our government, because that would mean the government essentially bring criminal charges against itself. The government would be obligated to defend these people in any suit. This is why a case like this would have to be brought in a place like the world court. I had high hopes on Spain taking this case as investigated by Garzon, but the judges there wimped out and unless the case somehow goes to Garzon in the lottery system of the 6 judges who could get it, it’s doomed in Spain.

via 183 – Paul Krugman Blog – NYTimes.com.

Wind Technology Company Puts Ex-Auto Industry Employees Back to Work

Wind Technology Company Puts Ex-Auto Industry Employees Back to Work

Mariah Power, a wind technology company, is opening its first high-volume wind turbine (Windspire) manufacturing facility in Manistee, Michigan. The facility will bring more than 120 jobs to Manistee over the next three years. Manufacturing will take place in a retrofitted auto parts automation manufacturing facility and will employ former auto industry workers who have prior experience working with steel, building auto assembly lines and auto robotics.

A grand opening celebration will be held at the Manistee facility on April 20th. Festivities include plant tours, scheduled remarks from Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm, and free community celebration with food and music.

via Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability News: ENN — Know Your Environment.

Torture case lawyers may face jail for letter

Torture case lawyers may face jail for letter

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who accused a Bay Area company of flying him to foreign torture chambers for the CIA is at the center of a bizarre new case, in which his lawyers face possible jail sentences for writing a letter that asked President Obama to disclose how brutally he was treated.

The government says the letter falsely accused a Pentagon review team of censoring details of the alleged torture of Binyam Mohamed from a document the attorneys wanted to send to Obama. The lawyers stand by their accusations but have been summoned to Washington, D.C., by a federal judge for a hearing next month on whether they should be held in contempt of court, punishable by up to six months in jail.

Mohamed, meanwhile, awaits a ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on whether he and four other men can sue a Boeing Co. subsidiary in San Jose for allegedly colluding with the CIA to violate their rights.

via Torture case lawyers may face jail for letter.

Subsidizing Sweatshops II

Subsidizing Sweatshops II

How our tax dollars can foster worker rights and economic recovery rather than fuel the race to the bottom

Download Photos Media Factsheets Take Action More Research

April 15, 2009– Subsidizing Sweatshops II, a new report released today by SweatFree Communities, documents severe violations of labor law and human rights in nearly all factories investigated, including:

* Child labor (14 and 15 year olds work in two factories investigated)

* Poverty wages (only enough to cover 1/4-1/2 of a family’s basic needs)

* Excessive production quotas (resulting in 12 hour days, coming to work sick, and limits on bathroom usage)

* Mandatory pregnancy tests (in two factories, as a requirement of employment)

* Unhealthy work environment (suffocating heat; dust causing chronic respiratory problems; accidents resulting in puncture wounds and losing fingers)

* Severe repression of union supporters (harassment, intimidation, firings and, in at least one case, blacklisting)

via SweatFree Communities: Subsidizing Sweatshops II.

Nadler: Impeach Torture Memo Author

Nadler: Impeach Torture Memo Author

Rep. Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called Monday for the impeachment of federal judge Jay Bybee, one of the principal authors of the torture memos released last week by the Obama administration.

“He ought to be impeached,” Nadler said in an interview with the Huffington Post. “It was not an honest legal memo. It was an instruction manual on how to break the law.”

Nadler, a New York congressman, is chairman of Judiciary’s Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee. Bybee is currently serving a lifetime term on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, appointed in 2003 and confirmed before it was publicly known that he had authorized the torture of detainees.

Nadler is meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday to argue that the release of the torture memos further buttresses a call he had made earlier for a special prosecutor on torture.

“Any special prosecutor on torture would have to look at the authors of those torture memos,” said Nadler. “And certainly you have real grounds to impeach him once the special prosecutor took a good look at that. I think there ought to be an impeachment inquiry looked at in any event. Which should happen first, I’m not sure.”

via Nadler: Impeach Torture Memo Author.

Supreme Court won’t disturb death sentence in case of jurors who consulted Bible — South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Supreme Court won’t disturb death sentence in case of jurors who consulted Bible

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned away a challenge from a death row inmate in Texas who claimed his constitutional rights were violated by jurors who consulted a Bible during deliberations.

Jurors reviewed a biblical passage relating that a murderer who used an iron object to kill “shall surely be put to death.” They were deciding whether to impose a death sentence on Khristian Oliver for fatally shooting and bludgeoning his victim with the barrel of a gun.

The court previously has said that jurors should base their verdicts only on evidence presented in the courtroom.

But state and federal courts upheld Oliver’s sentence, despite testimony that some jurors consulted the passage that described a killing similar to the one Oliver committed.

via Supreme Court won’t disturb death sentence in case of jurors who consulted Bible — South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

McCain Reacts To KSM Being Waterboarded 183 Times: ‘One Is Too Much. Waterboarding Is Torture’

McCain Reacts To KSM Being Waterboarded 183 Times: ‘One Is Too Much. Waterboarding Is Torture’

This morning on Fox News, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) responded to the startling information — first noted by blogger Marcy Wheeler — that detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. “It’s unacceptable,” McCain said, adding:

One is too much. Waterboarding is torture, period. I can ensure you that once enough physical pain is inflicted on someone, they will tell that interrogator whatever they think they want to hear. And most importantly, it serves as a great propaganda tool for those who recruit people to fight against us.

McCain later reiterated his point, “The image of the United States of America throughout the world is a recruiting tool for Islamic extremists.” Watch it:

via Think Progress » McCain Reacts To KSM Being Waterboarded 183 Times: ‘One Is Too Much. Waterboarding Is Torture’.

Ron Paul defends Texas secession as ‘very much an American principle.’

Ron Paul defends Texas secession as ‘very much an American principle.’

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) recently raised the idea of Texas seceding from the Union as one possible response to President Obama’s fiscal policies. Now, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is following suit. In a video post on his Campaign for Liberty PAC, Paul said the secession debate “is worth a discussion“:

[Perry] really stirred some of the liberal media, where they started screaming about: ‘What is going on here, this is un-American.’ I heard one individual say ‘this is treasonous to even talk about it.’ Well, they don’t know their history very well, because if they think about it…it is very American to talk about secession. That’s how we came in being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country. So secession is a very much American principle.

Watch it:

via Think Progress » Ron Paul defends Texas secession as ‘very much an American principle.’.

Report: ‘A real possibility’ that Nevada U.S. attorney fired by Bush might be hired back by Obama.

Report: ‘A real possibility’ that Nevada U.S. attorney fired by Bush might be hired back by Obama.

On Dec. 7, 2006, then-Nevada U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden, along with six other U.S. attorneys, was told by the Bush Justice Department to resign, which he did on Jan. 17, 2007. In March, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters that he had recommended to the Obama White House that they should reappoint Bogden. In the Atlantic today, Murray Waas reports that there is “a real possibility” that the Justice Department will re-hire him:

A Justice Department official told me that the idea of hiring Bogden back is in fact a real possibility, and said that the White House counsel’s office has been quietly vetting his background in anticipation of his possible reappointment — not a difficult task, considering that he has been employed by the government for the majority of his adult life.

via Think Progress » Report: ‘A real possibility’ that Nevada U.S. attorney fired by Bush might be hired back by Obama..

American Atheists 09 – Richard Dawkins (w/ Q&A)

Richard Dawkins at the American Atheists 2009 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The talk is divided into four sections: 1. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation / 2. Mining the Eddington Concession / 3. God as Science Ficton / 4. Q&A on dealing with Creationists

YouTube – American Atheists 09 – Richard Dawkins (w/ Q&A).

A Tale of Two Energy Economies

A Tale of Two Energy Economies

New research shows that the real energy future for Colorado and much of the West rests not with fossil fuel development but with renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. Some, however, would have you believe otherwise.

Throughout a nearly two-year battle to overhaul the way Colorado regulates oil and gas development that concluded recently, the fossil fuel industry and its allies often argued that a comprehensive set of new rules requiring better protections for the environment, wildlife, and public health and safety would be devastating for a sector critical to the state’s economic well-being.

“Make no mistake; this is a jobs-killing bill,” said state Sen. Kevin Lundberg last month as the legislature neared final approval of the new rules established by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission that some see as a model for other western states. “It is an energy-killing bill. It closes the door on the future of Colorado’s energy potential.”

There’s no question that some western states have been riding a huge oil and gas boom, though it has slowed during the current recession. Assisted by the previous administration’s pro-drilling policies, the boom created political support for states such as Colorado to pass stronger environmental protections.

via A Tale of Two Energy Economies.

We Must Seize the Energy Opportunity or Slip Further Behind

We Must Seize the Energy Opportunity or Slip Further Behind

A Primer on Global Competition in Green Technology Investments

China’s leaders are investing $12.6 million every hour to green their economy. Other countries are equally energetic in their embrace of alternative energy technologies; they are setting targets and investing billions of dollars to spur the development of entirely new markets in wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels, energy efficiency, high-speed rail, and other clean and innovative solutions to global warming.

The United States, too, is poised to transform its economy to create millions of new jobs and help create a cleaner, safer planet by investing in a green, renewable-energy based economy. The Obama administration wants to unleash the ingenuity of our private sector to rein in pollution and put millions of Americans back to work. Yet China is spending twice as much as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act spends to lay the foundations for a green energy economy, despite the U.S. economy being 1.5 times as large as China’s. And across Europe and Asia, other governments have diversified their energy portfolios and encouraged entrepreneurs to start and expand clean and renewable energy companies.

As venture capitalist John Doerr recently pointed out in his testimony before the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, “If you list today’s top 30 companies in solar, wind and advanced batteries, American companies hold only 6 spots. That fact should worry us all.”

via We Must Seize the Energy Opportunity or Slip Further Behind.

Greider: Be Willing To Destabilize The Party

Greider: Be Willing To Destabilize The Party

Journalist and author William Greider is urging the labor movement and other progressives to get tough with the Democratic Party, even if that means putting the party’s majority control in the House and Senate at risk.

Greider, who was at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington Thursday to discuss his latest book, “Come Home America,” said that groups that have reliably supported Democrats over the years needed to more aggressively counter the ability of conservatives within the party to “blow the whistle” against reforms that working people are fighting to gain. In saying that, he bolsters the case of progressives who have argued that they must act as an independent force that alternately cooperates with and challenges Democrats, including President Obama.

Greider said that progressives should respond to those southern Blue Dogs and other conservatives by telling the party, “We are going to their districts and talk about what they’re for and what they’re against. Are they for whacking Social Security or aren’t they? Let’s put it on the table. Let’s have an honest debate about that. If that makes people nervous, that’s good.”

via Greider: Be Willing To Destabilize The Party | OurFuture.org.

Ring of Fire Radio – Mike Pap and Greg Palast on Exxon

 Palast and Papantonio on the untold story of the Exxon Valdez disaster

YouTube – Ring of Fire Radio – Mike Pap and Greg Palast on Exxon.

Greg Palast: on the trail of the financial marauders

PALAST INVESTIGATES:

From 8-Mile to the Amazon – on the trail of the financial marauders

From the ass-kicking BBC Television exposés as seen on Democracy Now!

Presented by Bobby Kennedy Jr and Mike Papantonio’s Air America Radio show Ring of Fire.

via Greg Palast.

Caffeine Reduces Pain During Exercise, Study Shows

Caffeine Reduces Pain During Exercise, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2009) — Stopping to smell the coffee – and enjoy a cup of it – before your morning workout might do more than just get your juices flowing. It might keep you going for reasons you haven’t even considered.

As a former competitive cyclist, University of Illinois kinesiology and community health professor Robert Motl routinely met his teammates at a coffee shop to fuel up on caffeine prior to hitting the pavement on long-distance training rides.

“The notion was that caffeine was helping us train harder … to push ourselves a little harder,” he said.

The cyclists didn’t know why it helped, they just knew it was effective.

“I think intuitively a lot of people are taking caffeine before a workout and they don’t realize the actual benefit they’re experiencing. That is, they’re experiencing less pain during the workout,” Motl said.

via Caffeine Reduces Pain During Exercise, Study Shows.

Death Star Poised for Supernova Detonation Aimed at Earth?

Is a Death Star Poised for Final Supernova Detonation Aimed at Earth? Astronomers Say “Maybe”

Australian astronomers have been studying an intergalactic assassin poised to wipe out life on Earth.  Maybe.  Observations indicate that cosmological curiosity WR104 may be a killer – and we might be the victim.

The pretty pinwheel that makes the system so distinctive is now know to be a combination of two stars – a blue star orbiting the Wolf-Rayet 104.  Note that the “Wolf-Rayet” name is the astronomical equivalent of a beeping red LCD countdown reading “0:01″ – it’s a swollen star getting ready for final supernova detonation.  At the moment its fusion reactions are blasting its own photosphere off into space, where the blue companion orbits and illuminates the material, creating a seriously impressive spiral over twice the size of our solar system.

We have a perfect view of this pinwheel pattern, since the spiral is at right angles to us, in the same way a man being held at gunpoint has a perfect view of the little hole the bullets come out of.  And the gun is over twenty-five times the size of the sun.  When a binary system collapses into a black hole, which astronomers call ‘coalescence’ (a euphemism which makes ‘heated debate’ a valid description of World War II), it can release a gigantic burst of gamma rays.  Gamma rays are the ultimate high energy electromagnetic radiation, and while the burst lasts less than two minutes it can contain more energy than the entire mass of the sun converted into energy by E = m c^2.  You’ll notice that the mass of the sun and the speed of light, c, are extremely large numbers.

Death Star Poised for Supernova Detonation Aimed at Earth?.

Judge orders Bush to testify in SMU case.

Judge orders Bush to testify in SMU case.

Late last week, Texas district court judge Martin Hoffman ordered that President Bush be deposed in a lawsuit against Southern Methodist University (SMU). In the case, two condominium owners near SMU are claiming that “the university bullied owners into selling without disclosing plans to build a presidential library at the site.” They want the former president to “give a statement about whether SMU officials told him about plans to build on the site before the university bought the land.” The plaintiffs have already received statements from Dallas businessman Ray Hunt and former White House counsel Harriet Miers, but neither of them could remember full details of the conversations. Hoffman ruled that Bush can be deposed because he has “clearly relevant and material information about the central issues of the case.” Bush’s lawyers are now preparing an appeal “that would trigger an immediate stay.”

via Think Progress » Judge orders Bush to testify in SMU case..

The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency

The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency

Awesome and fearful role of running monetary policy for all humanity

Do we really want the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) issuing our global currency

by Ellen Brown

In an April 7 article in The London Telegraph titled “The G20 Moves the World a Step Closer to

a Global Currency,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote:

“A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order.

“‘We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,’ it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.

“In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”

Indeed they will. The article is subtitled, “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” Which naturally raises the question, who or what will serve as this global central bank, cloaked with the power to issue the global currency and police monetary policy for all humanity? When the world’s central bankers met in Washington last September, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve in that awesome and fearful role. A former governor of the Bank of England stated:

“[T]he answer might already be staring us in the face, in the form of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). . . . The IMF tends to couch its warnings about economic problems in very diplomatic language, but the BIS is more independent and much better placed to deal with this if it is given the power to do so.”1

via The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency.

The criminalisation of political dissent in Britain

The criminalisation of political dissent in Britain

“From foul deeds endless tragedy arises,” the World Socialist Web Site wrote, commenting on the state execution of innocent Brazilian worker, Jean Charles de Menezes, by plainclothes policemen on a London subway train on July 22, 2005.

Events have tragically confirmed that warning. In the years since Menezes’ killing, for which no one has ever been held to account, the legal framework of a police state has been enacted in Britain.

The implications of this have been made clear over the last weeks.

Since the start of April, some 300 people have been arrested and detained in just three police operations. The vast majority of these were rounded up in two of these operations, both focusing on a supposed threat to “public order”.

Maintaining public order is now a pseudonym for the criminalising of political dissent.

Even before the G20 summit of world leaders began in London, five people were arrested in Plymouth under the Terrorism Act, reportedly accused of possessing “material relating to political ideology”.

All were released without charge, but the fact that political activism is considered a criminal offence in 21st century Britain was subsequently writ large on the streets of the capital.

Beginning April 1, a massive police operation was set in place around the G20 summit. Hundreds of people, legally exercising their right to protest, were “kettled”—forcibly held behind police cordons for up to seven hours—in the side streets of central London.

It was behind one of these cordons that Ian Tomlinson—attempting to make his way home after work—was attacked from behind by a baton-wielding masked police officer. He died moments later.

Eyewitness accounts, video footage and photo stills provide conclusive proof that the police’s attack against Tomlinson was par for the course during the protests.

via The criminalisation of political dissent in Britain.

Timeline of Gaza Marine Zone, Fishermen and Natural Gas Deposits.

Timeline of Gaza Marine Zone, Fishermen and Natural Gas Deposits.

There is an historical connection between the Gazan community and the off shore fishery. In recent times some 3000 fishermen in over 700 boats made their livelihood in the waters off the shores of Gaza. Before 1978 when the fishing area included the sea off the Sinai coastline the area covered some 75,000 square kilometers.

The larger boats are about 20 meters in length and usually carry a crew of 7. They are typically trawlers using downriggers to lower their nets to the ocean bed. Currently their main catch is bream or sardines that average between 8 and 14 inches. Smaller craft, hassakas, normally deploy their nets a few hundred meters off shore. The nets are then hauled in by hand. These catches are very modest.

On September 13, 1993 the Oslo Agreement was signed marking the basis for a peaceful accord between Israel and the Palestinians.

The 1994 GAZA-JERICHO AGREEMENT outlined specific steps needed to realize the general provisions of the Oslo Agreement. Under its terms the Gazan fishermen were free to use a marine corridor extending 20 nautical miles from the Gaza shore bounded by restricted zones to the north and south abutting Israeli and Egyptian waters.

Beginning in late 2000 the Israeli military initiated a continuing campaign of intimidation and harassment against fishing boats that ventured near or beyond a 6 nautical mile limit. Their patrol boats attacked and harassed the Gazans on a daily basis. To date the Israelis have killed 15 and wounded over 200 fishermen

Among the warships used were ones in the Dabur and Dvora classes. Their armaments include 20 mm to 30 mm cannons, machine guns, automatic grenade launchers plus high-pressure water cannons. Some have 700-mile ranges and top speeds of 52 knots. Originally they were built in the US but in recent years they are constructed by Israel Aircraft at a plant in the Negev.

via Timeline of Gaza Marine Zone, Fishermen and Natural Gas Deposits..

GM ‘Likely’ to Build in China as U.S. Factories Close

OPS:  Corporate Treason

GM ‘Likely’ to Build in China as U.S. Factories Close

April 20 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., shuttering U.S. plants in a bid to avoid bankruptcy, is “likely” to build a new factory in China on surging demand.

“Operations in China are profitable and in the future China can finance its own growth,” Nick Reilly, the company’s Asia-Pacific president, said at the Shanghai auto show today. He didn’t give a timeframe for the new plant.

GM, the biggest overseas automaker in China, boosted sales in the country 38 percent last month as government stimulus measures spurred demand for its minivans. By contrast, the company’s U.S. sales slumped 45 percent on the recession, as it battles to convince the U.S. government that it’s still viable.

The automaker has also delayed expansion of an Indian plant for as long as two years as sales growth there has slowed, Reilly said. The company will seek to turn around sales in Australia and South Korea, he added.

GM is basing its business planning in Asia on the assumption that it will have to finance projects locally, insulating it from possible problems in the U.S., Reilly said.

“We won’t get money out of the U.S. into China,” Reilly said. Still, “we don’t need to because we have a very good balance sheet.”

China Sales

via GM ‘Likely’ to Build in China as U.S. Factories Close (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.

Secret prison in Illinois and Indiana for jailed Muslims-1/2

OPS: Near the Blackwater compound perhaps?

YouTube – Secret prison in Illinois and Indiana for jailed Muslims-1/2.

Banks Go On The Offensive

Banks Raking In Billions In Penalty Fees Ahead of New Regulations

YouTube – Banks Go On The Offensive.

Waste Not, Want Not

Waste Not, Want Not

We’ve finally reached a point where we can’t keep hyperconsuming—and that’s a good thing.

Once a year or so, it’s my turn to run recycling day for our tiny town. Saturday morning, 9 to 12, a steady stream of people show up to sort out their plastics (No. 1, No. 2, etc.), their corrugated cardboard (flattened, please), their glass (and their returnable glass, which goes to benefit the elementary school), their Styrofoam peanuts, their paper, their cans. It’s quite satisfying-everything in its place.

But it’s also kind of disturbing, this waste stream. For one, a town of 550 sure generates a lot-a trailer load every couple of weeks. Sometimes you have to put a kid into the bin and tell her to jump up and down so the lid can close.

More than that, though, so much of it seems utterly unnecessary. Not just waste, but wasteful. Plastic water bottles, one after another-80 million of them get tossed every day. The ones I’m stomping down are being “recycled,” but so what? In a country where almost everyone has access to clean drinking water, they define waste to begin with. I mean, you don’t have a mug? In fact, once you start thinking about it, the category of “waste” begins to expand, until it includes an alarming percentage of our economy. Let’s do some intellectual sorting:

There’s old-fashioned waste, the dangerous, sooty kind. You’re making something useful, but you’re not using the latest technology, and so you’re spewing: particulates into the air, or maybe sewage into the water. You wish to keep doing it, because it’s cheap, and you block any regulation that might interfere with your right to spew. This is the kind of waste that’s easy to attack; it’s obvious and obnoxious and a lot of it falls under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and so on. There’s actually less of this kind of waste than there used to be-that’s why we can swim in most of our rivers again.

via Waste Not, Want Not | CommonDreams.org.

Major Scandal Erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC

Major Scandal Erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC

by Glenn Greenwald

Other obligations prevent me from writing until later today — and I intend to focus on Rahm Emanuel’s war-crimes-protecting proclamation that Obama’s desire for immunity extends beyond CIA officers perpetrating torture to the “policy makers” who ordered it (watch today as the hardest-core Obama loyalists start explaining how the UN doesn’t matter, international treaties are irrelevant, and war criminals need not be held accountable) — but, until then, I wanted to highlight this extremely important and well-reported story from CQ’s Jeff Stein, which involves allegations of major corruption and serious criminal activity on the part of Democratic Rep. Jane Harman. Here’s one crucial prong of the story:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

via Major Scandal Erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC | CommonDreams.org.

Stressed Americans Postpone Healthcare: Study

Stressed Americans Postpone Healthcare: Study

WASHINGTON – Twenty percent of Americans say they have delayed or postponed medical care, mostly doctor visits, and many said cost was the main reason, according to a survey released on Monday.

The Thomson Reuters survey found 21 percent of U.S. adults expected to have difficulty paying for health insurance or healthcare services in the next three months.

“The results of this survey have serious implications for public health officials, hospital administrators, and healthcare consumers,” Gary Pickens of the Healthcare division of Thomson Reuters, who led the study, said in a statement.

“We are seeing a positive correlation between Americans losing their access to employer-sponsored health insurance and deferral of healthcare.”

Pickens added that “if this trend continues, it will ultimately have an impact on our collective well-being.”

Thomson Reuters Healthcare is part of the same company as the Reuters news agency.

Pickens and colleagues surveyed 12,000 Americans in February and March and said their findings were representative of the United States in general.

They found that 24 percent of people who canceled or postponed care said cost was the primary reason.

via Stressed Americans Postpone Healthcare: Study | CommonDreams.org.

Obama Fails to Acknowledge Currency Manipulation

Obama Fails to Acknowledge Currency Manipulation

China’s practice of currency manipulation has decimated America’s manufacturing base and armed China with the means to systematically purchase American assets at will through America’s trade deficit.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department, released its first Semi-Annual Treasury Report to the Congress on Currency, the first under the new Obama administration, and failed to name China, or any other country for that matter, as a currency manipulator.

China’s practice of purposely undervaluing its yuan is a well-known mercantilist practice that the Communist nation uses to distort trade. For years now, the Chinese government has been undervaluing its currency, making its exports artificially cheap and more enticing while U.S. exports are sold at inflated prices.

Some experts assert that China’s yuan is undervalued by as much as 20 to 40 percent against the dollar.

Renowned economist Peter Morici has stated that tackling China’s unfair practice of currency manipulation is the most pressing matter facing the economy right now – more salient than the banking crisis, the foreclosure crisis or the credit crisis.

“The undervalued yuan provides Chinese manufacturers with a huge export subsidy and a hidden tariff on imports,” Morici said. “China is using its currency as a development tool, but this victimizes otherwise competitive businesses and their employees in the United States.”

He has also stated that redressing China for the illegal and trade distorting practice would be much more stimulative for the economy than even the $787 billion stimulus package recently passed by Congress. If done right, tackling China’s currency manipulation could spark a renaissance in American manufacturing and restore American growth and wages, he said.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

America’s Future Depends On Learning From Past Mistakes

America’s Future Depends On Learning From Past Mistakes

Americans are traveling down a road previously traversed by Latin Americans; promoting imports over exports, falling deep into debt while losing any ability to promote and create jobs through manufacturing.

Americans are traveling down a road previously traversed by Latin Americans; promoting imports over exports, falling deep into debt while losing any ability to promote and create jobs through manufacturing.

In April 2009 the outstanding national debt is over $11.2 trillion, and the balance of traded deficits for the last four years have been $711 billion (2005), $753 billion (2006), $700 billion (2007), and $681 billion (2008) larger than at any point in U.S. history. Coupled with these debts is the fact that the United States has lost well over 16,600 companies since 1978, and continues to shed them at a regular pace.

These facts do not show a strong, independent nation, instead, one dependent on the financing of foreign banks, paralleling Latin America’s past.

Latin America’s demise began after the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944. A group of economists, led by Raul Prebisch, decided to enact a plan of import-substitution industrialization (ISI). ISI was a plan to favor imports over exports to subsidize a weak and uncompetitive industrial sector, leading to competition with and emulation of the rapid growth and industrialization of the East Asian Tigers – Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

America Needs to Wake Up

America Needs to Wake Up

We survive almost completely on imports, and watch our jobs, our money, and our technology flow overseas – slowly making America irrelevant.

The situation in the United States today is getting worse and worse, yet many in the media (on all sides of the political spectrum) believe that we are witnessing real positive changes. The fact is, this country still operates the same way today as it did 10 years ago, and that is precisely why we continue to deteriorate.

CNBC and Time.com, among others, have run articles in the past month which declared an end to the financial and banking crisis. CNNMoney.com ran an article on April 16 in which it claims that jobless claims “plunged” in the last month. The truth is jobless claims are slightly down from last month. They are down from well over 660,000 to just over 610,000. That is hardly an improvement worthy of boasting.

The United States has lost nearly 1.5 million jobs in 2009 alone and the projections for the rest of the year are likely to be more of the same. There are approximately 6 million people in the U.S. collecting unemployment benefits. They put extra strain on the government by collecting outlays while not giving anything back through employment taxes.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Men bear the brunt of US jobs lost

Men bear the brunt of US jobs lost

Women set for labor force majority

The US recession has opened up the biggest gap between male and female unemployment rates since records began in 1948, as men bear the brunt of the economy’s contraction.

Men have lost almost 80 per cent of the 5.1m jobs that have gone in the US since the recession started, pushing the male unemployment rate to 8.8 per cent. The female jobless rate has hit 7 per cent.

This is a dramatic reversal of the trend over the past few years, where the rates of male and female unemployment barely differed, at about 5 per cent. It also means that women could soon overtake men as the majority of the US labour force.

“It’s almost like a snow globe, the economy’s been turned over and we’re watching it settle in different ways,” said Gary Field, founder of Career Gear, a non-profit organisation that helps low-income men apply for jobs. He has seen referrals rise 35 per cent.

via FT.com / US & Canada – Men bear the brunt of US jobs lost.

G8 admits losing battle against hunger

G8 admits losing battle against hunger

Call for greater public and private investment

Published: April 20 2009 14:03 | Last updated: April 20 2009 14:03

The Group of Eight leading nations called on Monday “for increasing public and private investment” in agriculture, but their communiqué after the first meeting on the subject acknowledged that efforts to tackle hunger were lagging.

G8 agriculture ministers, meeting in northern Italy, said that the world was “very far from reaching” the United Nations’ goal of halving by 2015 the world’s proportion of malnourished people, after they reviewed what the called “alarming data” on hunger.

Although officials have in private suggested that the so-called Millennium goal target was almost unachievable, this is the first admission of failure by leading countries.

The communiqué, first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday, reiterated the G8’s determination to achieve its goal of “defeating hunger”.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation told the G8 that the number of chronically hungry people is set to increase by 75-100m this year as result of persistently high food prices and the economic crisis, bringing the number of malnourished well above the one billion mark.

via FT.com / Global Economy – G8 admits losing battle against hunger.

Bank of America profit triples to $4.2bn

Bank of America profit triples to $4.2bn

By Alan Rappeport in New York

Bank of America on Monday reported net income more than tripled to $4.2bn in the first three months of the year, well ahead of analysts’ expectations, as mortgage refinancing and commercial banking revenues boosted its performance.

The bank’s profits of $0.44 a share beat consensus expectations that it would earn $0.04 a share and represented a sharp improvement from the $0.23 a share, or $1.2bn, from the same period last year. But shares of Bank of America fell by 14.15 per cent $9.10 in early trading on Monday as investors were spooked by the bank’s warning of deteriorating credit quality and its swelling provisions for additional credit losses.

via FT.com / Companies – Bank of America profit triples to $4.2bn.

US Water Contaminated By Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals, Consumers

US Water Contaminated By Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals,

Consumers

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water _ contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.

Federal and industry officials say they don’t know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them _ as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.

via US Water Contaminated By Pharmaceutical Companies, Hospitals, Consumers.

Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday Scenario

Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday

Scenario

Days before Earth Day 2009, President Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave a press briefing at the “Summit of the Americas” in Trinidad and Tobago where he laid out the potentially disastrous consequences if the world community doesn’t unite to combat climate change.

Chu, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, detailed several of the most dramatic impacts that global warming could have, such as several island nations being submerged.

We’ve posted the transcript below — take a look:

* * * * *SECRETARY CHU: Well, I had no discussions in this summit meeting on the issue as to whether the climate is really changing or what are potential economic consequences. Now, in full candor, I haven’t talked with representatives from Venezuela yet, but I think they’re — in terms of discussing whether the climate is changing or whether humans have caused it, I think for the most part this debate is over. It’s something — yes, it’s changing; that’s a demonstrable fact. If one looks at the latest IPCC reports, there’s very, very convincing evidence — very high probability it was caused predominantly by greenhouse gas emissions. And what is not known with certainty is what are the range of effects that might happen, and — because that, quite frankly, also depends on what the world does.

via Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday Scenario.

Inflation is looming on America’s horizon

Inflation is looming on America’s horizon

The US last week showed its first signs of deflation for 55 years, prompting inevitable fears of further deflation in the future. Yet the primary reason for the negative rate of US inflation is the dramatic 30 per cent fall of commodity prices. That will not happen again. Moreover, excluding food and energy, consumer prices are up 1.8 per cent from a year ago. That is the good news: the outlook for the longer term is more ominous.

The unprecedented explosion of the US fiscal deficit raises the spectre of high future inflation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the president’s budget implies a fiscal deficit of 13 per cent of gross domestic product in 2009 and nearly 10 per cent in 2010. Even with a strong economic recovery, the ratio of government debt to GDP would double to 80 per cent in the next 10 years.

There is ample historic evidence of the link between fiscal profligacy and subsequent inflation. But historic evidence and economic analysis also show that the inflationary effects can be avoided if the fiscal deficits are not accompanied by a sustained increase in the money supply and, more generally, by an easing of monetary conditions.

via Inflation is looming on America’s horizon.

U.S. May Convert Bank Bailouts to Common Stock

U.S. May Convert Banks’ Bailouts to Equity Share

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top economic advisers have determined that they can shore up the nation’s banking system without having to ask Congress for more money any time soon, according to administration officials.

In a significant shift, White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout fund further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government’s existing loans to the nation’s 19 biggest banks into common stock.

Converting those loans to common shares would turn the federal aid into available capital for a bank — and give the government a large ownership stake in return.

While the option appears to be a quick and easy way to avoid a confrontation with Congressional leaders wary of putting more money into the banks, some critics would consider it a back door to nationalization, since the government could become the largest shareholder in several banks.

via U.S. May Convert Bank Bailouts to Common Stock – NYTimes.com.

Pundits Whitewash Torture

Pundits Whitewash Torture

On the Sunday morning news programs, several pundits went out of their way to either endorse waterboarding and other techniques endorsed in the torture memos – or to dismiss the idea of holding their authors responsible.

On ABC News’ “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” George Will echoed several Bush officials when he criticized the release of the memos, saying “The problem with transparency is that it’s transparent for the terrorists as well.” Will expressed concern about the cost of letting “the bad guys” know what techniques, such as waterboarding, will be used on them. He went on to add, as noted by HuffPost’s Jason Linkins, that “intelligent people of good will” believe the President of the United States can do whatever he wants to “defend the country.”

Peggy Noonan went even further, articulating a position that upends George Santayana’s famous quote: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

“Some things in life need to be mysterious,” said Noonan, adding, “Sometimes you need to just keep walking.”

via Pundits Whitewash Torture.

What 420 Means: The True Story Behind Stoners’ Favorite Number

What 420 Means: The True Story Behind Stoners’ Favorite Number

Warren Haynes, the Allman Brothers Band guitarist, routinely plays with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, now touring as The Dead. He’s just finished a Dead show in Washington, D.C. and gets a pop quiz from the Huffington Post.

Where does 420 come from?

He pauses and thinks, hands on his side. “I don’t know the real origin. I know myths and rumors,” he says. “I’m really confused about the first time I heard it. It was like a police code for smoking in progress or something. What’s the real story?”

Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California. It’s the number of active chemicals in marijuana. It’s teatime in Holland. It has something to do with Hitler’s birthday. It’s those numbers in that Bob Dylan song multiplied.

The origin of the term 420, celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20th, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon.

via What 420 Means: The True Story Behind Stoners’ Favorite Number.

Bank Lending Keeps Dropping

Bank Lending Keeps Dropping

Analysis of Treasury Data Paints Starker Picture Than Official Government Snapshots

via Bank Lending Keeps Dropping – WSJ.com.

More companies are becoming hesitant to forecast

More companies are becoming hesitant to forecast

These days, it’s not what companies say about the past as much as what they say about the future that matters most to investors.

Increasingly, though, companies are dialing back what they’re willing to forecast.

Consider what happened to Intel on Tuesday. The company reported stronger-than-expected first quarter results after the close of trading. It even said the personal computer market had bottomed out.

But Intel declined to provide a specific revenue forecast because of the uncertainty in the economy. The next day Intel shares dropped as much as 7 percent.

A third of the 600 companies responding to a recent survey by the National Investor Relations Institute said their policies about financial guidance had changed. Most eliminated or limited the amount of guidance they provide about earnings and revenue.

via More companies are becoming hesitant to forecast.

Bank of America Profit Rises on Housing, Trading Gain

Bank of America Profit Rises on Housing, Trading Gain

April 20 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. lender by assets, reported first-quarter profit more than tripled on gains from home refinancing and trading. The stock dropped 8.2 percent as the bank said more borrowers fell behind on payments.

Net income rose to $4.25 billion from $1.21 billion, or 23 cents a share, a year earlier, the Charlotte, North Carolina- based bank said today in a statement. Earnings per share equaled 44 cents in the three months ended March 31 after preferred dividends to the U.S. rescue fund. The quarter included an addition of $6.4 billion to loan-loss reserves.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis is under pressure from shareholders after Bank of America spent more than $30 billion on takeovers during the past year as the recession worsened. Lewis said Feb. 26 that the purchases of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Countrywide Financial Corp. were “the two stars” driving profit. He said today unpaid loans are rising because of the weak economy and rising unemployment.

via Bank of America Profit Rises on Housing, Trading Gain (Update3) – Bloomberg.com.

GM exec says 1,600 will lose jobs in next few days

GM exec says 1,600 will lose jobs in next few days

DETROIT — A top General Motors Corp. executive says 1,600 workers will lose their jobs during the next few days as the automaker tries to cut costs and restructure to stay in business.

GM North America President Troy Clarke says in an e-mail to workers obtained by The Associated Press that the layoffs are needed to ensure GM’s long-term viability.

Last month GM began cutting 3,400 U.S. salaried jobs as part of the 47,000 job cuts that it will make worldwide by year’s end.

GM is living on $13.4 billion in government loans and faces a June 1 deadline to cut costs and gain concessions from stakeholders in order to get more government help. It may be forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

via GM exec says 1,600 will lose jobs in next few days | Business | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.