Archive for May, 2009
GOP pays $750,000 in Coleman legal bills
GOP pays $750,000 in Coleman legal bills
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is picking up the tab on former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman’s legal bills, to the tune of $750,000, a Republican official confirms to CNN.
Coleman remains locked in a months-long court battle with Democrat Al Franken, after the Election Day result failed to yield a clear winner. In April, a three-judge panel ruled Franken should be declared the winner with a margin of 312 votes, a ruling Coleman is appealing to the state’s Supreme Court.
The $750,000 tab is no small check for the NRSC to write, which ended the first quarter of this year with $2.27 million cash on hand and $1 million in debt. But the organization remains firmly behind Coleman, who alone stands between Democrats and their hopes of achieving a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
NRSC Chairman John Cornyn has said Coleman’s challenge could go through federal courts and take “years” to resolve. He also threatened “World War III” if Democrats try to seat Franken prematurely.
Obama admin. opposes Joe and Valerie Wilson’s request for Supreme Court appeal in suit against Cheney, Rove, Libby and Armitage
Obama admin. opposes Joe and Valerie Wilson’s request for Supreme Court appeal in suit against Cheney, Rove, Libby and Armitage
CREW learned today that the Obama administration is opposing our request that the Supreme Court reconsider the dismissal of the lawsuit, Wilson v. Libby, et al. In that case, the district court had dismissed the claims of Joe and Valerie Wilson against former Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage for their gross violations of the Wilsons’ constitutional rights.
Agreeing with the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department argues the Wilsons have no legitimate grounds to sue. It is surprising that the first time the Obama administration has been required to take a public position on this matter, the administration is so closely aligning itself with the Bush administration’s views.
Military attorney: Waterboarding is ‘tip of the iceberg’
OPS: Well, we already have reports of children being sodomized in front of their fathers - what the hell is still out there?
Military attorney: Waterboarding is ‘tip of the iceberg’
A military attorney who represented a now-freed Guantanamo detainee told CNN on Wednesday that waterboarding is only “the tip of the iceberg”
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley was the lawyer for Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who was arrested by the Pakistani government in April 2002 on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda. He was then shuffled through a series of CIA “ghost prisons” before being imprisoned at Guantanamo for five years. Last winter, President Obama ordered him released to the United Kingdom, where he had been a legal resident.
Bradley told CNN that when she was first assigned to represent Mohamed, she did not question he was a hardened terrorist, because “my government was saying these were the worst of the worst.” However, she now says, “There’s no reliable evidence that Mr. Mohamed was going to do anything to the United States.”
According to Bradley, when Mohamed was first held at a CIA prison in Morocco, “They started this monthly treatment where they would come in with a scalpel or a razor type of instrument and they would slash his genitals, just with small cuts.”
Following that torture, Mohamed confessed that he had attended an al Qaeda training camp and discussed plans to make a dirty bomb. He also answered “No” to the question, “While in U.S. military custody have you been treated in any way that you would consider abusive?”
Now Bradley believes, “This has nothing to do about national security, it has to do with national embarrassment.”
via Raw Story » Military attorney: Waterboarding is ‘tip of the iceberg’.
Gingrich: Only Republicans — Like Me — Are Allowed To Accuse The CIA Of Misleading Congress
Gingrich: Only Republicans — Like Me — Are Allowed To Accuse The CIA Of Misleading Congress
This morning, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich went on ABC’s Good Morning America and called on Democrats to pressure Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to resign her position as Speaker. He claimed that she has “disqualified herself” for the leadership spot, because “if I were a person trying to defend this country, I’d have very little confidence that the Speaker of the House had any regard for what we were doing.”
Host Diane Sawyer challenged Gingrich, noting that he never criticized Rep. Peter Hoekstra’s (R-MI) repeated criticism of the agency, including this statement in 2007: “We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress.” Gingrich struggled uncomfortably and repeatedly attempted to change the subject:
GINGRICH: Well, in that case, he’s writing a specific letter asking them to change something they were doing. He did not say the CIA routinely lies —
SAWYER: “Lies,” he said —
GINGRICH: — to the Congress.
SAWYER: Well, he says “lies.” He says “what it does and then lies to Congress.”
GINGRICH: And I think they actually had to come back and testify.
Watch it:
O’Reilly: ‘I Consider Myself A Middle Class Guy’ Even Though I Make $10 Million A Year
O’Reilly: ‘I Consider Myself A Middle Class Guy’ Even Though I Make $10 Million A Year
In October, Bill O’Reilly renewed his contract with Fox News, winning a multi-year deal paying him roughly $10 million per year — placing him well above the top 0.1 percent of income earners. O’Reilly also reportedly charges $50,000 per speaking engagement. Yesterday on his show, O’Reilly said he supports more fuel efficient cars because he has a “middle-class…sensibility”:
INGRAHAM: And what this is, whether you like the green initiatives or not, ultimately, will end up being a continued war on the prosperity of the middle class of America. That’s what this is. It’s part of the remaking of the middle class of America –
O’REILLY: Why, why, why? Look, I consider myself a middle-class guy. Even though I make a lot of money, my sensibility is there.
INGRAHAM: Yeah.
Watch it:
Steele declares that ‘liberalism will kill you.’
Steele declares that ‘liberalism will kill you.’
steeleThis past weekend, RNC Chairman Michael Steele made headlines when he delivered a speech at the Georgia Republican convention, in which he argued that same-sex marriage would be a huge burden on small businesses. But that wasn’t the only controversial claim Steele made in the speech. According to Human Events’ Martha Zoller, Steele also declared that “liberalism will kill you“:
He went on to say, “The Republican Party’s credibility as the reliably conservative choice has been damaged, and it’s up to us to fix it. Faith, freedom, personal responsibility, respect for life and prosperity” Then he added, “Like a bad diet, liberalism will kill you. It’s a drug we don’t need to be hooked on. We are what stand between an America of prosperity or dependency. Which one do you want?” For that crowd, they wanted the Republican values of Michael Steele.
via Think Progress » Steele declares that ‘liberalism will kill you.’.
After Claiming He Couldn’t ‘Imagine’ The CIA ‘Would Mislead Us,’ Boehner Acknowledges They May Have
After Claiming He Couldn’t ‘Imagine’ The CIA ‘Would Mislead Us,’ Boehner Acknowledges They May Have
Last week, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) asserted in a press conference that she believed the CIA had misled her in a briefing on interrogation, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) scoffed at the idea that the CIA could have been dishonest. “It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone in the intelligence areas would mislead us,” said Boehner in his own press conference.
But on CNN today, Boehner acknowledged that members of his own party, such as Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), have previously accused the CIA of lying to Congress. Pressed by Wolf Blitzer, Boehner did not disagree with Hoekstra’s allegation that the CIA lied to Congress in a previous case:
BOEHNER: Pete Hoekstra did say that. And the Inspector General at the CIA did an investigation and it became clear that some CIA operatives did in fact cover this up. This is not, we’re talking about two different issues here. All the facts in this case are on the table and the truth is now known to all, to everyone.
BLITZER: So, based on what you know on that case involving Hoekstra, the case he was interested in. Do you agree that the CIA then lied to Congress?
BOEHNER: I know as much about this case as Pete Hoekstra does and the Inspector General did in fact do an investigation, produced a report and frankly supported, I think, Pete’s claims.
Watch it
Conspiracy Theorist Military Chaplains Promote Anti-American Militia Activity
Conspiracy Theorist Military Chaplains Promote Anti-American Militia Activity
Every once in a while, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) stumbles into a story that’s so crazy that even we have a hard time believing it’s true, and, it just happened again. But, before getting into this story, I would be remiss in not extending, on behalf of MRFF, a sincere thank you to former Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, without whose recent actions we never would have paid attention to an organization whose members include some of the most bizarre and dangerous chaplains we have ever come across in the U.S. military.
For those who don’t remember the story of Gordon Klingenschmitt, he’s the ex-chaplain who made headlines a few years ago for his publicity stunts for Jesus, such as holding a hunger strike over military chaplains being able to pray in Jesus’ name. Klingenschmitt claimed, and continues to claim, that he was booted out of the Navy because of the form of his prayers, when, in reality, he deliberately got himself court-martialed by disobeying a direct order not to appear in uniform at a political rally, an activity that is strictly prohibited by military regulations. But, Klingenschmitt needed to get himself court-martialed in order to embark on his new career as a martyr, and seizing the opportunity to disobey this direct order would do the trick, so he did it.
via Chris Rodda: Conspiracy Theorist Military Chaplains Promote Anti-American Militia Activity.
GOP struggles with push to rename Dems ‘Socialist’
GOP struggles with push to rename Dems ‘Socialist’
WASHINGTON – Republican Party leaders are trying to avoid a public confrontation over a GOP-led effort to rename the Democratic Party the “Socialist Democrat” party.
The Republican National Committee is slated to vote on several resolutions Wednesday. Leaders already have softened one that would have pointedly criticized Republicans who supported recent billion-dollar bailouts.
Party Chairman Michael Steele and others say the party should also drop the renaming resolution and focus on more serious problems. To avoid a party dispute over the renaming, Republicans were trying to compromise on milder language that would simply criticize Democrats for what they call socialist tendencies.
Some party leaders described the initial resolution as “stupid” and “absurd.”
Jeff Kent, a Washington state Republican who helped spearhead the effort, declined to comment on a potential compromise, saying he is still working to pass the resolution.
Henry Barbour, a committeeman from Mississippi who chairs the panel that will decide which resolutions go to the full caucus, said he didn’t want to comment until after the committee votes late Wednesday afternoon.
The fight reflects a divide between Republicans who want a more centrist message and party hardliners.
via GOP struggles with push to rename Dems ‘Socialist’.
Krugman: US “Depressed Economy” Could Last 5 Years
Krugman: US “Depressed Economy” Could Last 5 Years
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)– The United States may emerge from recession as early as this summer, though further job losses mean a “depressed economy” could last as long as five years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said Tuesday.
“I think it’s quite possible that industrial production in the United States and perhaps in the world as a whole will bottom out sometime in the next few months, that GDP growth in the United States will be positive in the second half of the year and maybe a little bit later than that in Europe,” Krugman told a global financial conference in Seoul.
Krugman said that he would not be surprised if the U.S. recession, which began in December 2007, ended in August or September this year. But job losses were likely to continue into 2011, meaning “the period of a depressed economy” could last until 2013 or 2014, he said.
Krugman, who teaches at Princeton University, won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences last year for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect international trade patterns. He also writes columns for The New York Times.
via Krugman: US “Depressed Economy” Could Last 5 Years.
A Consumer’s Guide to the New Credit Card Rules
Consumers Are Dealt a New Hand in Credit Cards
At first glance, the sweeping credit card legislation that passed the Senate on Tuesday looks like a huge victory for consumers. The bill, after all, contains relief from penalty fees and certain interest rate spikes.
But for people who pay off their bills each month, and milk the card rewards programs for everything they’re worth, there is some cause for concern.
For months now, the card companies have been threatening to cut rewards programs sharply to make up for revenue lost because of the new restrictions.
My guess, however, is that this talk is just so much saber-rattling.
Card companies want to make money, and big spenders help them do it, even if those cardholders do not go into debt.
First, let’s lay out the things we know will change because of the new legislation. The bill is chock-full of new rules, which will take effect at various points in the year after President Obama signs the final legislation.
via Your Money – A Consumer’s Guide to the New Credit Card Rules – NYTimes.com.
Rep. Michele Bachmann and Chairman Barney Frank Face Off on ACORN Funding
Rep. Bachmann and Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank face off on ACORN with CNN’s Lou Dobbs. The question is, why should the federal government and the American taxpayer be funding supposedly non-profits groups like ACORN to the tune of billions of dollars? ACORN has been indicted and its employees convicted time and time again, yet the taxpayer continues to fund their fraudulent behavior.
YouTube – Rep. Michele Bachmann and Chairman Barney Frank Face Off on ACORN Funding.
Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal
Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal
n remarkable research, the sociologist Rebecca Warner and the economist Ebonya Washington have shown that the gender of a person’s children seems to influence the attitudes and actions of the parent.
Warner (1991) and Warner and Steel (1999) study American and Canadian mothers and fathers. The authors’ key finding is that support for policies designed to address gender equity is greater among parents with daughters. This result emerges particularly strongly for fathers. Because parents invest a significant amount of themselves in their children, the authors argue, the anticipated and actual struggles that offspring face, and the public policies that tackle those, matter to those parents. . . The authors demonstrate that people who parent only daughters are more likely to hold feminist views (for example, to favor affirmative action).
By collecting data on the voting records of US congressmen, Washington (2004) is able to go beyond this. She provides persuasive evidence that congressmen with female children tend to vote liberally on reproductive rights issues such as teen access to contraceptives. In a revision, Washington (2008) argues for a wider result, namely, that the congressmen vote more liberally on a range of issues such as working families flexibility and tax-free education.
via FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal.
Who Are the Richest People in Town?
Who Are the Richest People in Town? - BusinessWeek
Every town has a richest person. Do you know who the richest person in your town is?
Have you ever wondered who the richest man in town is? W. Randall Jones has. The former magazine executive found himself in a country club near his hometown of Carrollton, Ga., one day when someone he was with pointed out a man at another table and said: “See him? He’s the richest man in town.”
That got Jones thinking. What his friend did is what people have been doing for millennia: pointing out the richest man in town. Sometimes people just want to know out of curiosity; other times it’s because they think such proximity to wealth might present an opportunity. And, of course, the scale of the wealth in question might vary widely. What might pass for rich in a small town in Georgia may seem like a rounding error when compared with the net worth of billionaires such as Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates or Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKA) Warren Buffett.
So Jones got out a map and began identifying the largest metro areas in the U.S., then set out on a two-year search to find out who the richest men were. Some, like Gates, were well-known. His $40 billion fortune has established him as the richest man in Seattle, if not the world, for more than a decade. But what about the richest man in Spokane, Washington State’s second-biggest city? According to Jones, it is Harlan D. Douglass, the largest real estate developer in town, who also sits on the board of Northwest Bank (NBCT) and invests in local companies such as Eagle Hardware & Garden. Bet you didn’t know that.
via Who Are the Richest People in Town? – BusinessWeek.
Michael Savage Tees Off On Limbaugh
Michael Savage Tees Off On Limbaugh
All is not well in the world of talk radio today, as an internecine spat is being brewed up by right-wing host Michael Savage, who today spent a portion of his airtime criticizing fellow conservative talker Rush Limbaugh. Oh noes! What has come between the two men? England, it seems! Well, according to Media Matters, here’s what Savage said:
SAVAGE: And yet here in America, I’ve had some people come to my aid. They see the bigger picture. They’re not like [Bill] O’Reilly; they’re not like Limbaugh, who’s the biggest disappointment of all. Limbaugh has turned out to be the biggest phony of all of them, all of them. Amongst all of them, he is the biggest fraud. Rush Limbaugh is a fraud. When he was accused of the drug usage, I supported him. But that man is a one-way street. It’s all about him. He’s in it for nobody but himself.
via Michael Savage Tees Off On Limbaugh.
Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft still hiring in India
Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft still hiring in India
NEW YORK: Global majors like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google may have decided to trim their workforce worldwide to cope with the economic turmoil, but these entities do have openings in India.
Interestingly, the companies are cutting jobs in India too, even as they have hiring plans in the country.
For instance, software giant Microsoft recently said it would create employment opportunities in tune with the growth of the Indian economy.
The announcement came from its Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer amid the firm proceeding with 5,000 job cuts worldwide, including 55 employees in India. The workforce reduction in the country would be completed in the next 18 months.
Few months ago, search engine giant Google unveiled plans of trimming as many as 200 jobs in sales and marketing operations worldwide. Nonetheless, the firm is hiring for about 20 positions in engineering operations, finance and software engineering, among others.
Internet entity Yahoo! too would be slashing its employee strength as part of its efforts to bring down costs. At the same time, the company has over 100 vacancies in India, according to its website.
Steve Ballmer noted that Microsoft would continue to hire and create employment opportunities in line with the recovery and growth of the Indian economy.
“We had said that we would lay off about 5,000 people. We are still filling other jobs. We are mostly through that process globally and there is still some work to do.
“… There are areas where we are continuing to add people. As I said, these are global additions, so it is a little hard to separate our work globally from our work in India,” he said.
via Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft still hiring in India- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times.
The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it Happen Again?
The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it Happen Again?
by Ellen Brown
“It was horrible. Horrible! Like lightning it struck. No one was prepared. The shelves in the grocery stores were empty. You could buy nothing with your paper money.” – Harvard University law professor Friedrich Kessler on the Weimar Republic hyperinflation (1993 interview)
Some worried commentators are predicting a massive hyperinflation of the sort suffered by Weimar Germany in 1923, when a wheelbarrow full of paper money could barely buy a loaf of bread. An April 29 editorial in the San Francisco Examiner warned:
“With an unprecedented deficit that’s approaching $2 trillion, [the President’s 2010] budget proposal is a surefire prescription for hyperinflation. So every senator and representative who votes for this monster $3.6 trillion budget will be endorsing a spending spree that could very well turn America into the next Weimar Republic.”1
In an investment newsletter called Money Morning on April 9, Martin Hutchinson pointed to disturbing parallels between current government monetary policy and Weimar Germany’s, when 50% of government spending was being funded by seigniorage – merely printing money.2 However, there is something puzzling in his data. He indicates that the British government is already funding more of its budget by seigniorage than Weimar Germany did at the height of its massive hyperinflation; yet the pound is still holding its own, under circumstances said to have caused the complete destruction of the German mark. Something else must have been responsible for the mark’s collapse besides mere money-printing to meet the government’s budget, but what? And are we threatened by the same risk today? Let’s take a closer look at the data.
History Repeats Itself – or Does It?
In his well-researched article, Hutchinson notes that Weimar Germany had been suffering from inflation ever since World War I; but it was in the two year period between 1921 and 1923 that the true “Weimar hyperinflation” occurred. By the time it had ended in November 1923, the mark was worth only one-trillionth of what it had been worth back in 1914. Hutchinson goes on:
“The current policy mix reflects those of Germany during the period between 1919 and 1923. The Weimar government was unwilling to raise taxes to fund post-war reconstruction and war-reparations payments, and so it ran large budget deficits. It kept interest rates far below inflation, expanding money supply rapidly and raising 50% of government spending through seigniorage (printing money and living off the profits from issuing it). . . .
via The Weimar Hyperinflation? Could it Happen Again?.
US Supreme Court Rejects Prop. 215 Challenge
US Supreme Court Rejects Prop. 215 Challenge | CommonDreams.org
SAN FRANCISCO – California’s medical marijuana law survived its most serious legal challenge Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court denied appeals by two counties that argued they were being forced to condone violations of federal drug laws.
The justices, without comment, denied a hearing to officials from San Diego and San Bernardino counties who challenged Proposition 215, an initiative approved by state voters in 1996 that became a model for laws in 12 other states. It allows patients to use marijuana for medical conditions with their doctor’s recommendation.
The counties specifically objected to legislation requiring them to issue identification cards that protect holders from arrest by state or local police for possessing small amounts of marijuana for medical use.
The cards are objectionable because “the state law authorizes individuals to engage in conduct that the federal law prohibits,” said Thomas Bunton, a lawyer in the San Diego County counsel’s office. “We are disappointed that the court did not take the case to resolve what we believe was a conflict between federal and state law.”
Medical marijuana advocates were relieved.
via US Supreme Court Rejects Prop. 215 Challenge | CommonDreams.org.
US Energy Use a National Security Threat: Study
US Energy Use a National Security Threat: Study | CommonDreams.org
WASHINGTON – US dependence on fossil fuels and a vulnerable electric grid pose a perilous threat to the country’s national security, retired military officers warned Monday in a report.
The threat requires urgent action and the Defense Department should lead the way in transforming America’s energy use by aggressively pursuing efficiency measures and renewable sources, said the report by CNA, a nonprofit research group.
“Our dependence on foreign oil reduces our international leverage, places our troops in dangerous global regions, funds nations and individuals who wish us harm, and weakens our economy,” it said.
“The market for fossil fuels will be shaped by finite supplies and increasing demand. Continuing our heavy reliance on these fuels is a security risk,” said the report titled “Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security.”
The authors, top ranked retired officers from the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, also point to the strained domestic electricity network as a possible hazard for US military bases.
via US Energy Use a National Security Threat: Study | CommonDreams.org.
Don’t Be Fooled by a Fake “Recovery”
OPS – the “Markets” are not the economy. Jobs and Manufacturing are.
Don’t Be Fooled by a Fake “Recovery”
We cannot simply watch the markets and hope that they will dictate our fate, we have to examine the real economy and understand that it is still in shambles. This country produces nothing of value and lives on imports.
The stock market is up, financiers are turning profits once again, real estate is as affordable today as it has been in two decades, and the collapse of the oil market is almost certainly over. The “recovery” of the past several months has been significant, but it should come as no surprise.
Our government took taxpayer money and gave trillions of dollars to banks, lenders, creditors and financial institutions. All of their costs were taken over by the people, while all of the profits were kept by the bailed out companies. This is why share prices are up; this is why financials are making profits. Our so-called “recovery” has nothing to do with economic fundamentals. It has everything to do with the vast sums of money going into the system out of the pockets of every taxpaying American.
It is for this reason that entrepreneurship in this country is still stagnant. The entrepreneurs who are supposed to build the small-business backbone of this country are still lost in economic tumult. The manufacturing sector is still just as gutted as it was a year ago. The auto industry has gone almost completely bust and individual Americans are more encumbered with debt today than at any point in history.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Local Banks Face Big Losses
Local Banks Face Big Losses
600 banks fail WSJ ‘stress test’
Journal Study of 940 Lenders Shows Potential for Deep Hit on Commercial Property
Commercial real-estate loans could generate losses of $100 billion by the end of next year at more than 900 small and midsize U.S. banks if the economy’s woes deepen, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.
Such loans, which fund the construction of shopping malls, office buildings, apartment complexes and hotels, could account for nearly half the losses at the banks analyzed by the Journal, consuming capital that is an essential cushion against bad loans.
via Local Banks Face Big Losses – WSJ.com.
US home building starts, permits fall to record lows
US home building starts, permits fall to record lows
US housing starts and building permits slumped in April to record lows, highlighting the crisis in the real-estate sector as the economy struggles with recession, government data showed Tuesday.
The number of construction permits on new US homes fell to an annual rate of 494,000, a decline of 3.3 percent from March, the Commerce Department reported in seasonally adjusted data.
The pace was the lowest since the data began to be tracked in 1960 and eclipsed the prior record set in March of a revised 511,000 permits.
The April decline surprised most analysts, who had expected a rebound in the indicator of the future direction of the housing market, to 530,000 permits.
via The Raw Story | US home building starts, permits fall to record lows.
HP cuts outlook as PC sales drop – 6,400 jobs gone
HP cuts outlook and jobs – PC sales slump
Tech giant reports quarterly earnings that beat estimates; company reins in full-year revenue outlook, says will cut 2% of workforce.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Hewlett-Packard Co. cut its full-year sales outlook and announced another round of job cuts Tuesday as it reported that weak PC sales contributed to a 17% drop in quarterly profit.
But the company also said it was starting to see some improvement in consumer sentiment.
“We see some encouraging signs, and we saw some slight improvements with the U.S. consumer. I’m just not ready to call it better,” said Chief Executive Mike Hurd on a conference call with analysts.
HP has benefited from its belt-tightening efforts but Hurd said that “the vast majority of cost savings are ahead of us.”
via HP cuts outlook as PC sales drop – May. 19, 2009.
Revealed: Top GOP aide yanks post linking same-sex marriage, child rape
Revealed: Top GOP aide yanks post linking same-sex marriage, child rape
Senator praised staff last week, saying their positions were ‘in harmony’ with GOP
The chief Republican counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee penned a blog post last month linking same sex marriage to pedophilia — and subsequently yanked it when it drew attention.
William Smith, who was installed as Judiciary chief counsel last week by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL, above right), wrote a seething blog post last month responding to a speech advocating that the party embrace same sex marriage.
Smith was responding to a speech given by a McCain consultant and former Bush aide Steve Schmidt to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay Republican lobbying group. In his post, Smith linked same sex marriage to child rape, bestiality and pedophilia.
“I wonder if next week Schmidt will take his close minded stump speech to a NAMBLA meeting,” Smith quipped on Apr. 20. “For those unfamiliar with NAMBLA, the acronym is for North American Man Boy Love Association.”
via Raw Story » Revealed: Top GOP aide yanks post linking same-sex marriage, child rape.
GOP Senator Leading Attacks Against Health Care Reform Admits Gitmo Detainees Get Better Care Than Americans
GOP Senator Leading Attacks Against Health Care Reform Admits Gitmo Detainees Get Better Care Than Americans
Last week, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) visited the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and declared that even if detainees are held without charge, they should remain at Guantanamo “until the war against terrorism ends.” “They are like having Charles Manson times whatever factor — these people are so dangerous,” Ensign said.
Ensign said that Guantanamo seemed so appealing to him that it would be “hard to imagine” why anyone would want to close the facility. When making this argument, however, Ensign inadvertently made a case for health care reform:
“It is hard to imagine why we would ever think about closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” Ensign said. “I walked away very proud of what our troops are doing down there. I think any American would be proud as well.”
Ensign said the facilities at Gitmo are nicer than prisons in the United States, and said the food detainees were served was better than what he and the traveling lawmakers ate. “They get better health care than the average American citizen does,” Ensign said.
Montana town requests that U.S. government send 100 Gitmo detainees to its prison.
Montana town requests that U.S. government send 100 Gitmo detainees to its prison.
A frequent attack on the closure of Guantanamo is the claim that no one in the U.S. wants detainees housed in their backyard. Last Sunday, Dick Cheney remarked, “I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.” But Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports that the town of Hardin, MT requesting that 100 detainees be sent to its empty prison:
hardin1Earlier this month, Hardin’s town council voted unanimously to offer the US government a deal: Send Hardin the detainees that most foreign countries and other cities the US are afraid to take.
“Why not us?” [Greg Smith, Hardin's economic development director] asks. “They’ve got to go somewhere.” He dismisses security concerns over housing inmates former Bush administration officials famously described as “the worst of the worst”. “We have some very hardened criminals in our own country that have committed some heinous crimes, and they are in communities all across this country,” Smith argues. [...]
He estimates at least 100 new jobs would come from filling the prison, a real boost to this small, beleaguered community. Smith describes the town’s quest to become a new penal colony as “a piece of the American dream.” “Like anything in America, we’re looking for opportunities,” he says.
via Think Progress » Montana town requests that U.S. government send 100 Gitmo detainees to its prison..
Insurance Lobby Reverses Course, Prepares To Smear Key Element Of Obama’s Health Reform
OPS: Of course they do. They aren’t giving up unless they can take everyone down with them. Sometimes cancer rot needs to be cut out.
Insurance Lobby Reverses Course, Prepares To Smear Key Element Of Obama’s Health Reform
ensign121Last week, the health insurance lobby met with President Obama and pledged to “work together” to provide quality, affordable coverage and access for every American. In less than five days, the insurers not only broke that promise, but the Washington Post reports that Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina has drafted ads aimed at smearing the President’s proposed public health insurance plan.
The Post obtained a copy of the story boards for the ads attacking the public plan. The description for one ad depicts a woman trapped in a hallway of locked doors:
[The mother's hand tries another door, as her child begins to get visibly anxious and restless. Still no luck. In rapid-fire succession, we see their hands trying a series of doorknobs. The pair is seen making their way to the next door, as the tension builds. It seems as if their search may be fruitless.]
While “innocent-sounding piano music, vaguely reminiscent of a nursery rhyme” plays in the background of this increasingly dramatic scene, the narrator intones:
“We can do a lot better than a government-run health care system.”
Reid: Guantanamo Detainees Should Not Be Held In U.S. Prisons
OPS: Why? The SuperMax prisons thest guys would go to handle more violent people. SO what are we afraid of? Maybe them talking and their stories getting out? What?
Reid: Guantanamo Detainees Should Not Be Held In U.S. Prisons
Today, Senate Democrats announced that the Senate will strip $80 million in funding for closing Guantanamo until the Obama administration devises a specific plan for transferring detainees. The move comes as conservatives are pushing the claim that Guantanamo “terrorists” could escape into Americans’ backyard if the facility is closed.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared in a press conference today, “We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.” In several tense back and forths with reporters, Reid said he opposes imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil, saying flatly, “We don’t want them around the United States”:
REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.
QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.
via Think Progress » Reid: Guantanamo Detainees Should Not Be Held In U.S. Prisons.
Intel officer: CIA is being ‘disingenuous’ about congressional briefings.
Intel officer: CIA is being ‘disingenuous’ about congressional briefings. -Think Progress »
After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that the CIA’s briefing notes were wrong to claim she had been told about the use of waterboarding in 2002, former Sen. Bob Graham came forward to say that the CIA’s notes on briefings he attended were also factually inaccurate. Now, a former intelligence official who participated in congressional briefings told Talking Points Memo that the CIA was being “disingenuous” in referring to “enhanced interrogation techniques” in memos about 2002 and 2003 briefings, because the term was not formulated until 2006:
Almost every briefing described in the document — including the September 2002 Pelosi briefing that’s directly at issue — refers to “EITs,” or enhanced interrogation techniques, as a subject that was discussed. But according to a former intelligence professional who has participated in such briefings, that term wasn’t used until at least 2006.
via Think Progress » Intel officer: CIA is being ‘disingenuous’ about congressional briefings..
How We Talk About the Environment Has Everything to Do with Whether We’ll Save It
How We Talk About the Environment Has Everything to Do with Whether We’ll Save It
By George Lakoff,
The American public’s understanding of the environment is crucial — the future of our earth and every living being depends on it.
EcoAmerica is soon to make public a report on the framing of the environment called “Climate and Energy Truths: Our Common Future.” The New York Times, on May 1, 2009, ran a front-page story on the report by John M. Broder called “Seeking to save the Planet, with a Thesaurus.” It amounted to a belittlement of the report.
Broder quoted Drexel University Professor Robert J. Brulle as saying that “ecoAmerica’s campaign was a mirror image of what industry and political conservatives were doing. ‘The form is the same; the message is just flipped,’ he said. ‘You want to sell toothpaste, we’ll sell it. You want to sell global warming, we’ll sell that. It’s the use of advertising techniques to manipulate public opinion.’”
The story missed most of the main issues, but at least it was on the front page. Broder, a fine environmental policy reporter, did his best with a very limited understanding of framing. I am glad that Broder and the Times saw that the issue is significant enough for the front page.
This is an attempt to make better sense of that story.
Framing is Understanding
How the environment is understood by the American public is crucial: it vastly affects the future of our earth and every living being on it.
Wall St. and the Media Are Trying to Make Us Forget Who Started the Financial Crash
Wall St. and the Media Are Trying to Make Us Forget Who Started the Financial Crash
We’re at the moment Wall Street has been waiting for: The time where we begin to forget who brought the economy down.
It’s fast approaching the time Wall Street has been waiting for: the time when the media and the public forget what got us into this economic mess. As massive doses of taxpayer Viagra lift the stock market ticker, we hold out hope that our 401k and pension plans will re-erect themselves along with our jobs. We feel stimulated by the stimulus package… and the morning after we forget. The crisis, whatever it was, is over, isn’t it? Surely, it’s time to move on.
Wall Street is praying that we forget how they broke open the Treasury vault to the tune of trillions in loan guarantees, subsidies and interest free money in addition to the more highly publicized TARP funds — the largest transfer of wealth since African-American slaves built the South. It would be nice if we forgot about proposed wage caps on bankers. It would be nice if we stopped talking about ridiculous reforms and regulations that might prevent banker and hedge funds operators from walking off with hundreds of millions in private booty. Better to turn our attention to the auto industry. And maybe, if it all breaks just right, most of us might start to believe that the real problem all along was Detroit, rather than the wildest Wall Street casino ever created. It would be much better for the wealthy if we returned to one of our favorite pastimes: blaming autoworkers’ health care and pension benefits, or blasting big government for interfering in the economy.
Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought
Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought
The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that.
The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well – such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries.
Study co-author Ronald Prinn, the co-director of the Joint Program and director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, says that, regarding global warming, it is important “to base our opinions and policies on the peer-reviewed science,” he says. And in the peer-reviewed literature, the MIT model, unlike any other, looks in great detail at the effects of economic activity coupled with the effects of atmospheric, oceanic and biological systems. “In that sense, our work is unique,” he says.
via Climate Change Odds Much Worse Than Thought.
Microscopic Manufacturers Produce Eco-friendly Plastics
Microscopic Manufacturers Produce Eco-friendly Plastics
Last year’s energy crisis highlighted an unforseen by-product of the looming fuel shortages of the 21st century. Petroleum-based products such as plastics that society takes for granted but now requires to function will run out with the oil. Scientists are looking to microorganisms to pick up the slack and help produce environmentally friendly plastics, according to research presented May 19 at the 109th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
“Organic waste from agriculture, industries and households forms a very large resource that is currently discarded or at best transformed into biogas. From a sustainability point of view it is desired to convert these organic resources in chemicals,” says Mark van Loosdrecht of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who has been working on using bacteria to transform this waste into bioplastics known as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs).
PHAs are linear polyesters produced by bacterial fermentation of sugar or lipids (fats). They are produced by the bacteria to store carbon and energy. More than 150 different monomers can be combined within this family to give materials with extremely different properties. These plastics are biodegradeable and are used in the production of bioplastics. However, the high cost of PHA production compared to conventional plastics has limited their use in a wide range of applications.
via Microscopic Manufacturers Produce Eco-friendly Plastics.
Employment Is Worse Than You Think
OPS: Getting into the U6 – and other dirty little secrets
ECONOMY: Employment Is Worse Than You Think - The Center for Public Integrity |
Everyone knows it’s a tough economy out there. But it may be even tougher than you realize. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 13.7 million people were unemployed as of April 2009. But if you dig deeper, you get a much, much bigger number. Adding up all the people who want jobs, or want to work more hours, there are 24.7 million people looking for work. And there are just 2.7 million jobs open.
Those 13.7 million people counted as unemployed translate into an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent. A person has to have actively sought work within the last four weeks to be classified as unemployed. People who have given up looking for work don’t factor into the tally, as PaperTrail has previously discussed.
Those folks are, however, counted in the Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization, one of the many often-overlooked charts that come out along with the marquee unemployment numbers each month. In April, there were 2.1 million “marginally attached” people, who wanted and looked for work within the last year (not seasonally adjusted). That includes 740,000 “discouraged workers,” who have given up looking for work because they think there are no jobs available. Then there are also the people who are working part time for economic reasons, meaning that they’d like to be working full time, but either can’t find full time work or can’t get enough hours at their current job. In April, that was 8.9 million people. And remember, none of those people count as unemployed.
All those workers might have good reason to be discouraged. As of March 2009, the most recent month for which data is available, there were just 2.7 million job openings — down 300,000 from the month before. That’s the smallest number of job openings since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began calculating job openings eight years ago.
via The Center for Public Integrity | PaperTrail Blog – ECONOMY: Employment Is Worse Than You Think.
Who’s Behind the Financial Meltdown?
Who’s Behind the Financial Meltdown? – The Center for Public Integrity |
Center for Public Integrity Investigation Identifies Top 25 Subprime Lenders and their Wall Street Backers
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 6, 2009 — The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or backed by giant banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout money, according to Who’s Behind the Financial Meltdown?, a new investigation by the Center for Public Integrity.
“The mega-banks that funded the subprime industry were not victims of an unforeseen financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves,” said Center Executive Director Bill Buzenberg. “These banks were deliberate enablers that bankrolled the type of lending that’s now threatening the financial system.”
These are among the findings that emerged from the Center’s computer analysis of government data on nearly 7.2 million “high-interest” or subprime loans made from 2005 through 2007, a period that marks the peak and collapse of the subprime boom. The analysis also revealed “The Subprime 25“ — the top 25 originators of the high-interest loans, accounting for nearly $1 trillion and about 72 percent of industry — who reported subprime loans during that period.
The Center found that U.S. and European banks poured huge sums into the subprime lending market due to unceasing demand for high-yield, high-risk bonds backed by home mortgages. The banks — including household names like Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Credit Suisse/First Boston, and Goldman Sachs & Co — made huge profits while their executives collected handsome bonuses until the bottom fell out of the real estate market.
According to the analysis
via The Center for Public Integrity | Front & Center News – Who’s Behind the Financial Meltdown?.
Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks?
Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks? – | Media Matters for America
Newt Gingrich Is a GOP Nobody from the ’90s — Why Is He Quoted Like the Gospel? Every time Gingrich opens his mouth, the media clings on his every word. There’s no reason this man should be listened to.
Newt Gingrich made headlines late last week during an interview with ABC News when he unloaded on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding the unfolding Beltway process gotcha story about what she knew about the use of torture seven years ago. Gingrich made a news splash with his red-hot rhetoric, condemning Pelosi as a “trivial politician” who is either “incompetent or dishonest,” and accusing her of having “lied to the House.” He demanded a congressional investigation and noted that, as “an Army brat,” he was appalled by the Democrats’ disinterest in defending America.
ABC News posted a news bulletin online, and just as quickly, it landed on the Drudge Report, complete with a red headline. News outlets all over the Beltway jumped on the breaking story, including The Boston Globe, CBS, and CNN.
Personally, I thought the Gingrich slap was of marginal interest. (Gingrich attacked a prominent Democrat? Wow, get me rewrite.) And as often happens when I read breaking, this-is-what-Newt-said dispatches, I couldn’t help thinking, “Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks?” And I don’t mean that in the partisan sense. I mean it in the journalistic sense: How do Gingrich’s daily pronouncements about the fundamental dishonesty of Democrats (Newt’s favorite phrase) translate into news? Why does the press, 10 years after Gingrich was forced out of office, still treat his every partisan utterance as a newsworthy occurrence? In other words, why does the press still treat him like he’s speaker of the House?
It’s unprecedented.
via Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks? | Media Matters for America.
Call To Disbar Torture Lawyers Is No Wild-Eyed, Left-Wing Plot
Accountability Watch: Call To Disbar Torture Lawyers Is No Wild-Eyed, Left-Wing Plot
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS – by Christine Bowman
It is not an eye for an eye, or a waterboard for a waterboard. In fact, it may better be described as a slap on the wrist. But a coalition of groups spearheaded by Voters For Peace and the Velvet Revolution, and represented at a D.C. press conference Monday by grass-roots activist and 2006 Green Party candidate Kevin Zeese, did move the accountability agenda forward by filing legal ethics complaints against 12 former Bush administration lawyers associated with providing legal justifications for torture. The disciplinary complaints seeking disbarment were filed with Wallace E. “Gene” Shipp Jr., bar counsel for the District of Columbia.
Rescinding the licenses of the likes of John Yoo and Jay Bybee may only embarrass and force torture-tainted lawyers to earn their money as lecturers or cable news pundits instead of by continuing to practice law, but it is a grass-roots start down the long road towards Bush Administration accountability. Citizens have found few paths other than through the ballot box, and even voting for Democrats has brought only mixed results.
An unsensational, straightforward presentation of the campaign’s rationale can be found at the Velvet Revolution website:
Torture is illegal under both United States and international law. …
via Accountability Watch: Call To Disbar Torture Lawyers Is No Wild-Eyed, Left-Wing Plot | BuzzFlash.org.
Why Are We in Afghanistan?
Why Are We in Afghanistan? | CommonDreams.org
“Now there’s folks in Washington that care what’s on our minds.”
–Folksinger Ani DiFranco in a new verse added to the old union song “Which Side Are You On?”
“We meet today as three sovereign nations joined by a common goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda.”
–Barack Obama, President of the United States
“We demand an end to these operations … an end to air strikes.”
–Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan
Why are we in Afghanistan? That is, why are we still in Afghanistan, seven years on? There’s no simple answer, but one factor could be that those who feel that the new folks in Washington care about what’s on their minds are themselves not paying very close attention to what’s going on there. Otherwise, how do we explain so little public outcry about a war in which the number of civilians killed may have surpassed the total membership of the principal enemy?
There are no hard figures on Al Qaeda’s membership, clearly due not to want of effort on the part of western intelligence agencies but to the organization’s conspiratorial nature. In an article published in Slate earlier this year, Timothy Noah wrote that “intelligence estimates suggest al-Qaida’s (sic) current membership may be as low as 200 or 300,” a remarkably low number, but within the range of mainstream opinion. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that “estimates range from several hundred to several thousand members.”
(The organization known alternately as Al Qaeda Iraq or Al Qaeda Mesopotamia, which sprang up in Iraq following the American invasion of that country, is estimated to have anywhere from under a thousand to five thousand members. Obviously they are not the target of military activities in Afghanistan.)
via Why Are We in Afghanistan? | CommonDreams.org.
American Academy of Environmental Medicine Calls for Immediate Moratorium on All Genetically Modified Foods
OPS: It’s a first step anyway.
American Academy of Environmental Medicine Calls for Immediate Moratorium on All Genetically Modified Foods
Today, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on “Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.”[i] They called for a moratorium on GM foods, long-term independent studies, and labeling.
AAEM’s position paper stated, “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. They conclude, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation,” as defined by recognized scientific criteria. “The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.”
More and more doctors are already prescribing GM-free diets. Dr. Amy Dean, a Michigan internal medicine specialist, and board member of AAEM says, “I strongly recommend patients eat strictly non-genetically modified foods.” Ohio allergist Dr. John Boyles says “I used to test for soy allergies all the time, but now that soy is genetically engineered, it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it.”
Fannie, Freddie in critical condition
OPS: Fine – Nationalize them. They should have never been sold into Corporate Slavery in the first place.
Fannie and Freddie in ‘critical’ condition
Regulator says companies still suffer from severe operational and financial weaknesses. Recruiting executives also tough.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, charged with helping lead the nation out of its housing crisis, are facing “critical” financial problems, federal regulators said Monday.
The companies suffer from severe financial, operational and compliance weaknesses, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said a report to Congress detailing its annual examinations of the firms. Taken over by the government in September, Fannie and Freddie are not able to operate without federal assistance.
“With new senior management teams, each enterprise has made strides in remediating problems,” the agency said. “But they still face numerous significant challenges including building and retaining staff and correcting operational and credit management weaknesses that led to conservatorship.”
Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500) play a vital role in the national housing market, accounting for a combined share of 73% of mortgage originations in the second half of 2008. They also serve central roles in the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention plan.
via Fannie, Freddie in critical condition – May. 18, 2009.
Rep. Joe Barton on Global Warming Bill
OPS: These people are not only a danger to themselves – they are a danger to humanity. If he gave this kind (level) of ‘logic’ to excuse walking across a Freeway blindfolded – we’d have to lock him up for his own saftey. Why are we legitimizing THIS argument by allowing him to say it on TV?
YouTube – Rep. Joe Barton on Global Warming Bill.
Joe Barton, GOP Congressman, Explains Why CO2 Is Harmless: “It’s In Your Coca-Cola” (VIDEO)
OPS: These people are not only a danger to themselves – they are a danger to humanity. If he gave this kind (level) of ‘logic’ to excuse walking across a Freeway blindfolded – we’d have to lock him up for his own safety. Why are we legitimizing THIS argument by allowing him to say it on TV?
Joe Barton, GOP Congressman, Explains Why CO2 Is Harmless: “It’s In Your Coca-Cola” (VIDEO)
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) has long been one of the most outspoken global warming skeptics in the Congress.
This morning, on C-SPAN, he denounced the pending cap-and-trade legislation by stating that “the stupidest thing that Congress could do this year is pass Waxman-Markey.”
Barton, who has resisted proposals to reduce the country’s oil dependence, explained that there shouldn’t be any concern about carbon-dioxide emissions because CO2 is relatively harmless:
I’m creating it as I talk to you. It’s in your Coca-Cola. your Dr. Pepper and your Perrier water. It’s necessary for human life. It’s odorless, colorless, tasteless, doesn’t cause cancer, doesn’t cause asthma. There’s nobody that’s ever been admitted to a hospital because of CO2 poisoning.
via Joe Barton, GOP Congressman, Explains Why CO2 Is Harmless: “It’s In Your Coca-Cola” (VIDEO).
EPA urged to act on climate, not wait for Congress
EPA urged to act on climate, not wait for Congress
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency should not wait for Congress before taking steps to control the gases blamed for global warming, supporters of federal greenhouse-gas regulation said Monday.
The EPA hearing is the first of two public forums on the agency’s April finding that concentrations of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere pose dangers to human health and welfare — and that emissions from new motor vehicles and engines are contributing to the problem.
The proposal could eventually lead to regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, starting with emissions standards for motor vehicles.
“We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions now without further delay and without waiting for a perfect solution,” said Navis Bermudez, speaking on behalf of New York Gov. David A. Paterson.
“While we also hope that Congress enacts comprehensive federal climate change legislation, we believe EPA can act now under the existing Clean Air Act without waiting for such legislation.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee planned to begin work later on Monday on legislation that, for the first time, would limit the emissions blamed for global warming from large industrial sources.
The EPA proposal has put pressure on Capitol Hill to take action.
via The Associated Press: EPA urged to act on climate, not wait for Congress.
Obama’s coming collision with Netanyahu
Obama’s coming collision with Netanyahu
American politicians hate to confront Israel. But here’s why Obama will.
Monday’s meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made obvious what everyone already knew: There is a vast and unbridgeable gap between the two leaders’ positions. Netanyahu refuses to accept the idea of a Palestinian state, the sine qua non of any Mideast peace plan. He also believes, apparently sincerely, that Iran is a psychotically anti-Semitic state willing to commit national suicide to kill Jews. Driven by his perceived need to avert a second Holocaust, Netanyahu could decide to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran, even if the U.S. tells him not to.
There is zero convergence between Netanyahu’s ideas and Obama’s. Unbeholden to the extreme “pro-Israel” neoconservative ideology that warped the Bush administration’s policies in the region, Obama realizes that brokering a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essential for America’s interests. Nor does he buy Netanyahu’s shrill claims that an Iran with nuclear arms would be willing to commit national suicide by attacking Israel. He sees that accepting Netanyahu’s demand that the U.S. either attack Iran itself or allow Israel to attack it would be an act of supreme folly, one that would have catastrophic consequences for the U.S., the region and the world. All the hoopla over Obama’s statement Monday about an end-of-year “deadline” for negotiations with Iran is meaningless because the U.S. would never sign off on an attack on that country.
via Obama’s coming collision with Netanyahu | Salon.
Electric cars are coming!
Electric cars are coming! | Salon
We’re sorry to be buzz kills. But we’ve heard this one before. Like in 1990. And 1910. Do the automakers have the juice this time?
On Tuesday, when President Obama proposed the first nationwide regulation of greenhouse gases, which would set limits on tailpipe emissions for cars and trucks, he jacked up the buzz about electric cars. The new regulation requires new cars and light trucks to get on average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, which is almost 40 percent more fuel-efficient than the requirements today. Automakers, which have kicked and screamed for generations about increasing fuel efficiency, stood politely by Obama, having to suck it up, as their fortunes now depend on the government. In good part, they will attempt to meet the goal with a flashy new line of cars powered by the electrical outlet in your garage.
“The industry is already transitioning. Hybrid cars are the first step toward electric drive vehicles, and the question now is how fast will the transformation take place,” says professor Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis, and coauthor of the recent book “Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability.”
On May 6, Ford declared it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to convert an SUV plant near Detroit to churn out the Ford Focus. By 2011, the plant would be producing battery-electric versions of the diminutive car. Nissan recently claimed that 10 percent of its new cars will be electric by 2016. Mitsubishi plans to unleash its i-MiEV in Japan this year and bring it to the U.S. in 2012. Toyota, which has dominated the hybrid market with its Prius, plans to launch an electric Prius by 2012. Even famed investor Warren Buffett is jumping on the buzzwagon: He’s bought a stake in BYD, a Chinese battery and electric car company.
via Electric cars are coming! | Salon.
Joe Papintonio: No Free Pass for Obama
For the last 8 years, the base of the GOP acted as little more than cheerleaders for Bush and his failed policies. No matter how disastrous or stupid they were, the base would always rally behind their president. The Democrats cannot afford to become cheerleaders for Obama, and we need to hold him to the standards that he set for himself during his campaign. Mike Papantonio talks about the need to question the president’s actions, and why Obama won’t be getting a free pass.
YouTube – No Free Pass for Obama.
Siegelman Judge Committed Fraud on the Court
Siegelman Judge Committed Fraud on the Court
Mark Fuller, the federal judge who oversaw the Don Siegelman trial, committed fraud on the court by failing to disclose his bias against the former Alabama governor. That means the judgment against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy should be vacated, says an attorney who has conducted extensive research on Fuller’s legal and business activities.
“The evidence is clear to me that Judge Fuller failed to disclose his bias in the Siegelman case and committed fraud on the court,” said Paul Benton Weeks, an attorney in Springfield, Missouri. “It is an example of what the Supreme Court has called an ‘inexcusable’ failure of a judge to remove himself from a case.”
Weeks spoke at a media teleconference this morning as a follow up to an investigative report by veteran attorney and journalist Andrew Kreig that was published last Friday at Huffington Post. Kreig reports that Weeks is initiating a renewed call for impeachment amid allegations that Fuller tried to defraud Alabama’s state-employee pension system and earned millions of dollars from military contracts during the Bush administration.
Weeks said he uncovered Fuller’s misconduct with the assistance of Gary McAliley, a Siegelman appointee who took over as district attorney for two south Alabama counties after Fuller was named to the federal bench by George W. Bush.
via Legal Schnauzer: Siegelman Judge Committed Fraud on the Court.
Obama says U.S. Debt is Unsustainable
Obama says U.S. Debt is Unsustainable
“We have to pay interest on [U.S.] debt and that means that we’re mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt,” Obama said
Speaking at a town hall meeting Thursday in New Mexico, President Obama warned that the mounting U.S. debt is “unsustainable” in the long run and may soon cause creditor nations such as China to sour on U.S. Treasuries and other securities.
“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China or borrowing from other countries,” Obama said.
The Treasury Department recently warned that the debt ceiling of $12.1 trillion will almost certainly be topped in the second half of this year as the government continues to spend wildly to fill the void left by consumers battered by the worst recession since the Great Depression.
China holds a large portion of that debt, recently passing Japan to become the top international financier of U.S. debt. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, as of the end of February, China held approximately $744 billion in U.S. debt. Over the last five years, China has spent one-seventh of its economic output on buying foreign debts, with a large portion of that being used to buy up U.S. treasuries. Some estimates have put that number over $1 trillion.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Americans Standing Up Against “Free Trade”
Americans Standing Up Against “Free Trade”
If those on Capitol Hill are held accountable, they may think twice before sending thousands of jobs to a third world country
After years and years of the same failed policies of free trade,” Americans are responding by making their voices heard on a crucial issue that was largely ignored for years. Through their votes, petitions, protests and other forms of activism, Americans are getting the message out that “free trade” is nothing more than a recipe for job loss and environmental destruction.
We at EconomyInCrisis.org are proud to be a part of the faction of Americans that are standing up and saying ‘enough!’ That is why we are currently profiling those Washington legislators that have not received the message and are still married to the failed policy of “free trade.” We encourage you to use this Web site as a resource before entering the voting booth.
If those on Capitol Hill are forced to be held accountable for their job-killing votes, they may think twice before voting aye on a bill that will send thousands of jobs to a third world country. And if not, then they will get what they deserve: an early retirement.
According to Public Citizen, in 2008 fair traders continued a trend that began in 2006, trouncing “free traders” in election contests from Maine, to Oregon, to New Mexico to Ohio. In 2006, the American people rejected the failed philosophy of “free trade” and sent 37 fair traders to Congress – 30 in the House and seven in the Senate – for a net gain of 30 seats belonging to those who oppose unfettered free trade.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
How Can America Restore Its Industrial Self-sufficiency?
How Can America Restore Its Industrial Self-sufficiency?
Japan through its Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has helped provide leadership and assistance for development of industrial productivity and employment.
Editor’s note: This article first ran in 2005, but is just as relevant today.
The wealth that the U.S. achieved in the early 20th century has been eroded by encouraging other countries to build their industrial base while not taking care to insure a domestic industrial future in this country.
This has been extensively documented and is evidenced by 30 years of trade deficits and a most recent deficit of $817 billion last year – the U.S. simply does not produce what it needs to sustain itself.
What can we do to correct this?
Coming to terms with reality
U.S. consumers of many products including capital equipment now find that foreign imports or foreign-owned domestic producers provide a better value or quality than domestic counterparts, if they even exist. Without some incentive, current policies are simply failing to stimulate competitive domestic industry.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Disastrous Effects of Free Trade: Part Two
Disastrous Effects of Free Trade: Part Two
It is time to fix the economic situation and get America back on a path toward growth and prosperity. The only way to do this is by pursuing fair trade policies which counteract the decades of unsustainable imbalances brought on through “free trade.”
The United States economy has lost over $7 trillion to international commerce in the past four decades, the majority of those losses have come in the past 10 years alone.
We know where the money is going: overseas.
We know how much of it is leaving this country: roughly $700 billion annually.
We know why this country is losing such astounding sums: “free trade”.
It is time to fix the situation and get America back on a path toward growth and prosperity once again. The only way to do this is by pursuing fair trade policies which counteract the decades of unsustainable imbalances brought on through “free trade.” We need policies that can be adapted quickly and that meet the needs of this nation first and foremost.
Many around the world argue that the United States has had its opportunity as the hyperpower, and now it is time to share the wealth. Still more argue that the U.S. is not yet doing enough to help the rest of the world grow economically. Unfortunately these critics overlook the fact that American prosperity was hard fought, it had to be earned. The U.S. cannot simply open the taps and give itself up as it has in the past, to do so would be to forsake its own citizen
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Graham Introduces New Fair Trade Legislation
Graham Introduces New Fair Trade Legislation
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Introduces Legislation Directing USTR to Negotiate Equitable Border Tax Treatment for U.S. Goods and Services
The following article originally appeared on TradeRefrorm.org.
American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Introduces Legislation Directing USTR to Negotiate Equitable Border Tax Treatment for U.S. Goods and Services
Bill Addresses Need to Negate Disadvantages Inflicted by Foreign VAT Taxes on U.S. Producers
May 15, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC – Late yesterday U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced legislation (S.1043) that would require the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to negotiate fair border tax treatment for U.S. goods and services within the WTO by January 1, 2010. U.S. manufacturers and service providers face severe disadvantages in the global market as a result of foreign border-adjusted taxes such as value-added (VAT) taxes. In 2007, these foreign border-tax schemes acted as a combined $474 billion trade barrier to U.S. exports and export subsidy for our foreign competitors.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Feingold blocks measure commemorating Reagan’s birth
OPS; Good on Feingold!
Feingold blocks measure commemorating Reagan’s birth
The 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth is just around the corner. Not surprisingly, Republicans are looking to pass legislation commemorating the centennial of his birth.
But Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) is standing in their way.
The Wisconsin Democrat says his refusal to let the Reagan bill move to a vote in the full Senate has nothing to do with maligning President Reagan. Instead, he says he’s trying to have a “noncontroversial” measure passed.
Feingold wants to attach an amendment to the bill that would create two commissions to examine the internment and restrictions of German and Italian Americans and Jewish refugees during World War II. A similar measure passed the Senate in 2007 but failed when included in a larger immigration bill.
via Raw Story » Feingold blocks measure commemorating Reagan’s birth.
Hersh did not say Cheney ordered Bhutto assassination
Hersh did not say Cheney ordered Bhutto assassination
UPDATE (below): Wall Street Journal removes links
Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator linked phony reports
In a telephone conversation with RAW STORY, Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh refuted reports that he told an Arab television network that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Numerous Internet and mainstream publications picked up the story on Monday. Even The Wall Street Journal linked to unverified sources carrying the story. (Screenshot.) U.S. conservative magazine The American Spectator also published a blog with the false information. (Screenshot.)
Hersh told RAW STORY Investigative News Editor Larisa Alexandrovna that he made no such statements.
Following RAW STORY’s Monday evening report, the Journal removed the links from its Web site. (Screenshot.)
“We’ve tried to reach out to people in the media that we know and correct this,” confirmed Alexa Cassanos, director of public relations at The New Yorker, speaking to this reporter. “We’re not even sure where this came from.”
via Raw Story » Hersh did not say Cheney ordered Bhutto assassination.
Ventura enrolls Fox & Friends in waterboarding ’school’
Ventura enrolls Fox & Friends in waterboarding ’school’
A day after “schooling” the hosts of ABC’s The View on waterboarding, Jesse Ventura took his case for prosecuting torture to Fox News.
“You are worried about [the terrorists'] welfare,” accused Fox’s Brian Kilmeade.
“No. I’m not worried about their welfare. I’m worried about what our country stands for,” Ventura responded.
This video is from Fox’s Fox & Friends, broadcast May 19, 2009.
via Raw Story » Ventura enrolls Fox & Friends in waterboarding ’school’.
Obama’s embrace of Bush terrorism policies is celebrated as “Centrism”
Obama’s embrace of Bush terrorism policies is celebrated as “Centrism” – - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
I wonder how many people from across the political spectrum will have to point this out before Obama defenders will finally admit that it’s true. From Harvard Law Professor and former Bush OLC lawyer Jack Goldsmith, systematically assessing Obama’s “terrorism” policies in The New Republic:
Many people think Cheney is scare-mongering and owes President Obama his support or at least his silence. But there is a different problem with Cheney’s criticisms: his premise that the Obama administration has reversed Bush-era policies is largely wrong. The truth is closer to the opposite: The new administration has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit. Almost all of the Obama changes have been at the level of packaging, argumentation, symbol, and rhetoric. . . .
[A]t the end of the day, Obama practices will be much closer to late Bush practices than almost anyone expected in January 2009.
Most important, Goldsmith expresses admiration for Obama’s rhetorical and symbolic changes — such as Obama’s emphasis on obtaining Congressional support for Bush’s policies while highlighting his deep concern for “civil liberties” — because Goldsmith believes that Obama’s rhetoric vests Bush’s policies with more credibility, ensures more bipartisan and Congressional support for these policies, makes them more palatable to Democrats, and thus ensures that those policies will endure in a stronger and longer-lasting form:
via Obama’s embrace of Bush terrorism policies is celebrated as “Centrism” – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
GAO report: Special-needs kids abused in schools
GAO report: Special-needs kids abused in schools 
Congressional auditors have uncovered widespread abuse of techniques use to restrain or discipline special-education students in U.S. schools, with some deaths linked to the practices, a top congressman says.
The findings are among those expected from a Government Accountability Office report scheduled to be released Tuesday. The report documented serious problems with the way children with disabilities are being treated in public schools, including cases of children being held face-down on the ground.
The GAO report was prepared for the House Education and Labor Committee, which is considering new laws governing what actions teachers can take to rein in disruptive special-needs students.
“I think what we’re going to hear from the GAO is that very often, special-need children are subjected to the policies of seclusion and policies of restraint that have turned out to be lethal in a number of circumstances,” said Rep. George Miller, D-California, the committee’s chairman.
via GAO report: Special-needs kids abused in schools – CNN.com.
IRS says focus on wealthy individuals, companies
IRS says focus on wealthy individuals, companies
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is focusing its audits on wealthy individuals and corporations as part of a broader effort to crack down on international tax cheats, the agency chief told lawmakers on Tuesday.
“Our long-term investment is to have a trend where wealthy individuals, large corporations, (those) who have really benefited from being in the United States, we’re going to make sure that they pay their taxes,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the agency’s 2010 budget request.
Shulman refuted data cited by Representative Jose Serrano, chairman of the subcommittee, that the IRS audit rate for millionaires fell 19 percent between fiscal 2007 and 2008. Serrano’s information came from a Syracuse University database system that tracks government agencies.
“That number did not decrease by 19 percent,” Shulman said, adding there was a slight decline because the overall number of audits grew.
via IRS says focus on wealthy individuals, companies | U.S. | Reuters.
U.S. military: Heavily armed and medicated
U.S. military: Heavily armed and medicated
Prescription pill dependency among American troops is on the rise
Marine Corporal Michael Cataldi woke as he heard the truck rumble past.
He opened his eyes, but saw nothing. It was the middle of the night, and he was facedown in the sands of western Iraq. His loaded M16 was pinned beneath him.
Cataldi had no idea how he’d gotten to where he now lay, some 200 meters from the dilapidated building where his buddies slept. But he suspected what had caused this nightmare: His Klonopin prescription had run out.
His ordeal was not all that remarkable for a person on that anti-anxiety medication. In the lengthy labeling that accompanies each prescription, Klonopin users are warned against abruptly stopping the medicine, since doing so can cause psychosis, hallucinations, and other symptoms. What makes Cataldi’s story extraordinary is that he was a U. S. Marine at war, and that the drug’s adverse effects endangered lives — his own, his fellow Marines’, and the lives of any civilians unfortunate enough to cross his path.
via U.S. military: Heavily armed and medicated – Health care- msnbc.com.
The Health Care Industry: Protectionism the Free Traders Love
The Health Care Industry: Protectionism the Free Traders Love
Suppose that people in the United States paid twice as much for our cars as people in Canada, Germany, and every other wealthy country. Economists would no doubt be pointing out the enormous amount of waste in the US auto industry. They would insist that we both take advantage of the lower cost cars available elsewhere and take steps to make our own industry more efficient.
For some reason, economists do not have the same attitude towards health care. Most seem little bothered by the fact that we spend more than twice as much per person as people in other countries, with no obvious benefit in terms of health care outcomes. This lack of concern is especially striking since health care is a far larger share of the US economy than autos, comprising 17 percent of total output, as compared to about 3 percent for autos.
The excess health care spending comes to more than $1.2 trillion a year or the equivalent of more than $16,000 for a family of four. Paying too much for health care has the same economic impact as a health care tax. In effect, we have a health care waste tax that is about 10 percent larger than the projected federal revenue from the personal and corporate income tax combined. In short, this is real money.
via t r u t h o u t | The Health Care Industry: Protectionism the Free Traders Love.
Noam Chomsky, Unexceptional Americans
Noam Chomsky, Unexceptional Americans
Murder, torture, abuse… and photos of the same. We’ve seen some of them, of course. Now, evidently under pressure from his top generals, President Obama has decided to fight the release of other grim photos from the dark side of the Bush years of offshore injustice — on the grounds that their publication might inflame opinion in the Middle East and our various war zones (as if fighting to suppress their publication won’t). In this way, just as the president is in the process of making Bush’s wars his own, so he seems to be making much of the nightmare legacy of those years of crime, torture, and cover-up his, too.
The photos his Justice Department will fight to suppress (for how long or how successfully we don’t yet know) are now officially “his”; next, assumedly, come those military commissions, suspended as Obama took office, which are evidently about to be reborn as Obama era tools of injustice. (This brings to mind, in grimmer form, the old saw about how military justice is to justice as military music is to music.) And with those commissions comes that wonderfully un-Constitutional idea of detaining chosen prisoners indefinitely either entirely without trial or with trials that will be mockeries. And with that, evidently, goes the idea of possibly setting up some sort of new “national security court” to try some detainees. (Keep in mind that the Obama administration is already hanging on tightly to Dick Cheney’s “state secrets” privilege to block various lawsuits by those wronged in all sorts of ways in the Bush years.)
In other words, if you can’t go to court and get the punishments you want, the solution is simply to create courts jiggered in such a way (and surrounded by enough secrecy) that you’ll get the decisions you desire. If that isn’t a striking definition of American justice, I don’t know what is.
Obama’s national security world is now coming into view — and it’s not a pretty picture, but then, as Noam Chomsky points out, in a tour de force piece below, it hasn’t been a pretty picture for a long, long time. Tom
via Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Unexceptional Americans.
Missing Link: Scientists In New York Unveil Fossil Of Lemur Monkey Hailed As Man’s Earliest Ancestor
Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution
Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.
The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years – but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.
The discovery of the 95%-complete ‘lemur monkey’ – dubbed Ida – is described by experts as the “eighth wonder of the world”.
They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be “somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth”.
Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.
via Missing Link: Scientists In New York Unveil Fossil Of Lemur Monkey Hailed As Man’s Earliest Ancestor | World News | Sky News.
Was the bank bailout necessary?
Was the bank bailout necessary? – | Dean Baker
Saving zombie banks supposedly prevented financial collapse. But would letting them fail really have been so bad?
US Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner says that we don’t need to bail out the banks anymore based on the results of his stress tests. We should follow up quickly on his assessment and start shutting the special Fed lending facilities enjoyed by the banks, the FDIC loan guarantee programme and the AIG slush fund.
However, given the hundreds of billions that have already gone out the door, it is still worth asking whether this bailout was necessary. The argument made by many economists was that it would cost taxpayers more money to do an FDIC-type takeover of banking behemoths like Citigroup and Bank of America than the tens of billions handed over to keep them afloat. In their story, the taxpayer bailout of bank stockholders, bondholders and top management was an unfortunate side effect.
While the next step in this argument is a calculation of the cost of a bite-the-bullet now approach versus a handout-and-wait strategy. With the right assumptions, the handout-and-wait strategy can be shown to come out on top, so we really were just helping ourselves when we gave hundreds of billions of dollars to the bankers that wrecked the economy.
via Was the bank bailout necessary? | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Warning to NYC: Don’t Fall for Mayor Daley’s Greenwashing of Chicago
Warning to NYC: Don’t Fall for Mayor Daley’s Greenwashing of Chicago
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White
green is good
This morning, I opened up an e-mail from the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI) titled, “Will a Greener NYC Look Like Chicago?”
green chicago river”Good, Lord, I hope not,” I thought. Keep in mind, this grumbling came directly after walking from the bus stop past several overflowing garbage cans and dodging traffic on smoggy Milwaukee Avenue in order to get to BuzzFlash HQ, the windows of which overlook the Kennedy Expressway.
DMI, a nonprofit think tank dedicated to preserving the middle class and generating progressive solutions to social injustice, held an event in New York yesterday looking for a way to turn the “concrete jungle into an urban oasis.” Our very own Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was a featured guest at the conference. New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was one participant who sang Daley’s praises, although the clip highlighted by DMI made her look more jealous of Chicago’s City Hall than motivated to save the planet.
“[Daley] is someone who is really, well, in some ways making us look a little bad,” Quinn complained. “It’s upsetting to me that his city hall is A) in that good of shape and B) that he had a better idea more quickly that we did.”
Come on, New York. I thought you were more cynical than that.
via Warning to NYC: Don’t Fall for Mayor Daley’s Greenwashing of Chicago | BuzzFlash.org.
US energy chief vows to pursue ‘clean coal’
US energy chief vows to pursue ‘clean coal’ -The Raw Story |
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged Tuesday the administration would pursue “clean coal” technology, even as it focuses research on alternatives such as wind and solar.
The US coal industry and lawmakers from coal-mining states have mounted an aggressive campaign to promote investment in cleaner coal as President Barack Obama’s administration takes tougher action on the environment.
But many environmentalists say that clean coal methods — such as capturing and storing carbon emissions — are unproven and drain resources from finding real ways to combat global warming.
Chu, asked during testimony at the Senate Appropriations Committee whether the administration was committed to researching clean coal, replied: “Yes.”
Presenting the 2010 budget requests, Chu acknowledged the administration’s views had changed after Congress made clean coal a priority in its 787 billion-dollar stimulus package.
via The Raw Story | US energy chief vows to pursue ‘clean coal’.
Senate approves tougher credit card rules in 90-5 vote
Senate approves tougher credit card rules in 90-5 vote – TheHill.com
The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to impose tough new restrictions on the credit card industry, which had spent years successfully avoiding regulations.
The 90-5 vote was a turnaround from the last session of Congress, when a similar bill that passed the House languished in the Senate without a companion measure.
This year, with the White House taking up the call for greater regulation, the industry found itself facing a barrage of criticism that it could not overcome.
The bill heads back to the House for a vote this week to finalize differences and will likely head to President Obama’s desk by the weekend.
via TheHill.com – Senate approves tougher credit card rules in 90-5 vote.
What Do Starbucks and Wal-Mart Have in Common?
What Do Starbucks and Wal-Mart Have in Common?
by Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
Exposing Starbucks’ atrocious labor practices in our newest campaign, Stop Starbucks.
Both corporate giants have long track records of harassing their workers when it comes to joining unions. Harassment and intimidation are illegal under Federal law, and we won’t stand for it. Tell Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ billionaire owner, to respect the people who work for Starbucks.
“The regional manager literally told us that we weren’t allowed to invite people to union meetings…that’s the same kind of violation that you see at Wal-Mart,” said Erik Forman, a former Starbucks employee fired for union organizing.
Starbucks, like retail giant Wal-Mart, has a well-established history of breaking labor laws. The company has spent millions settling five labor complaints in the past few years alone, and it has fought hard against the Employee Free Choice Act in an attempt to continue intimidating workers hoping to unionize. In 2005, we took on Wal-Mart for their assault on workers with Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Now we are exposing Starbucks’ atrocious labor practices in our newest campaign, Stop Starbucks.
Watch the video to see Starbucks’ blatant disregard for workers’ rights.
via What Do Starbucks and Wal-Mart Have in Common? | Video | AlterNet.
Good News, There’s a Climate Bill — Bad News, It Stinks
Good News, There’s a Climate Bill — Bad News, It Stinks
Sparing the many odiferous details, here are three particularly bad aspects that have to be addressed.
First, the good news: One of the most comprehensive pieces of energy and climate legislation ever drafted by members of the U.S. Congress has finally seen the light of day. After lots of haggling among fellow moderate and conservative Democrats, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) released their “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.”
Now the bad news: Their bill stinks. I’ll spare you the many odiferous details and just highlight three particularly bad aspects: 1) It won’t protect the poor from price-hikes as the price of carbon is slowly internalized into our energy bills, but will protect polluting industries by allowing them free pollution permits; 2) It opens the door to fraud and shell games instead of real climate action by setting up a huge carbon derivatives market; 3) It makes a mockery of our common understanding of “renewable energy,” favoring dirty smokestacks over truly clean, renewable energy.
Right out of the starting gate, the bill provides a ridiculous number of giveaways to industry — something President Barack Obama campaigned against as unfair to consumers: Upwards of 85 percent of pollution allowances are being given away for free to the electricity sector, with many of these free permits not phasing out until 2030. This means little to none of the revenues coming into the public coffers from this “cap and trade” scheme will be used to protect low and moderate households from energy price increases, as envisioned by Obama.
via Good News, There’s a Climate Bill — Bad News, It Stinks | Environment | AlterNet.
John Cusack’s Email to Obama’s Blackberry: You’re in Power, Don’t Let Cheney’s Torture Crew off the Hook
John Cusack’s Email to Obama’s Blackberry: You’re in Power, Don’t Let Cheney’s Torture Crew off the Hook
By John Cusack,
We can’t whitewash institutionalized torture, trash any conceivable notion of the rule of law, and call that ‘looking forward.’
If I had the President’s Blackberry, I would send this.
President Obama,
On Wednesday you reversed your administration’s promise to finally release pictures of detainee abuse.
The release of the photos was won by ACLU lawyers who have fought to bring to light the full extent of the brutality and torture that U.S. Army and intelligence services have perpetrated against human beings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and at CIA “black sites” around the world. Torture that was sanctioned and effectively legalized under the former administration, and that, if we are to be honest, most Americans knew — or should have known — was being carried out in our names.
Only now is the knowledge starting to give rise to the widespread outrage and calls for accountability that such crimes against humanity deserve. Growing numbers of citizens are demanding the independent investigation and prosecution of the members of the Bush administration responsible for the vitiation of fundamental legal principles like habeas corpus and the flagrant violation of both international and domestic laws against torture. The pundits, hacks and shills who dismiss these calls for investigation and prosecution — integral to any serious definition of accountability — disgrace themselves and their country.
The Disease of Permanent War
The Disease of Permanent War - By Chris Hedges
The embrace by any society of permanent war is a parasite that devours the heart and soul of a nation. Permanent war extinguishes liberal, democratic movements. It turns culture into nationalist cant. It degrades and corrupts education and the media, and wrecks the economy. The liberal, democratic forces, tasked with maintaining an open society, become impotent. The collapse of liberalism, whether in imperial Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Weimar Germany, ushers in an age of moral nihilism. This moral nihilism comes is many colors and hues. It rants and thunders in a variety of slogans, languages and ideologies. It can manifest itself in fascist salutes, communist show trials or Christian crusades. It is, at its core, all the same. It is the crude, terrifying tirade of mediocrities who find their identities and power in the perpetuation of permanent war.
It was a decline into permanent war, not Islam, which killed the liberal, democratic movements in the Arab world, ones that held great promise in the early part of the 20th century in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It is a state of permanent war that is finishing off the liberal traditions in Israel and the United States. The moral and intellectual trolls—the Dick Cheneys, the Avigdor Liebermans, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads—personify the moral nihilism of perpetual war. They manipulate fear and paranoia. They abolish civil liberties in the name of national security. They crush legitimate dissent. They bilk state treasuries. They stoke racism.
“War,” Randolph Bourne commented acidly, “is the health of the state.”
via Truthdig – Reports – The Disease of Permanent War.
What, Exactly, Was Pelosi Supposed To Do?
What, Exactly, Was Pelosi Supposed To Do?
Listening to the news over the past week, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that Nancy Pelosi was personally responsible for torturing prisoners. Because that’s how the storyline seemed, if you had just beamed in from Mars and didn’t know anything else about the debate on prisoner interrogation. The problem is, we have not just arrived on this planet, and Nancy Pelosi will ultimately wind up in the history books with a footnote (if that) in the description of what took place under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But her critics in the past few days have remarkably failed to answer a very basic question (not that the media is really asking, but maybe they’ll get around to it) — what, exactly, was Nancy Pelosi supposed to do?
In other words, set aside for a moment the relative culpability of Pelosi versus others involved. Assume the worst her critics are charging her with in the “what and when did she know?” debate — that she was told a month or so after waterboarding had happened that it was being used. And then answer the question: “What would you have done in her place?” Any critic of the Speaker of the House today should be able to come up with an answer to that, or else their criticism should be discounted as sheer partisanship and political games.
Let’s review a few facts, and then lay out the possible courses of action for Pelosi at the time. The Central Intelligence Agency is, by law, required to brief certain members of Congress on covert activities. This is a safeguard put in place since the abuses of the agency came to light in the 1970s. The CIA is required to brief not only the White House, but also the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, and the ranking minority and majority members of both houses’ intelligence committees. These eight members of Congress — four from each party — are given secret briefings by the CIA to inform Congress what is being done in the American peoples’ name.
via Chris Weigant: What, Exactly, Was Pelosi Supposed To Do?.
New Report: Many Organic Soy Food Brands Importing Beans from China
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2009
12:22 PM
CONTACT: Cornucopia Institute
Mark Kastel, 608-625-2042
New Report: Many Organic Soy Food Brands Importing Beans from China
We no longer trust these imports to feed our pets They have no place in organics
CORNUCOPIA, Wisconsin – May 18 – Tremendous growth in the organic soy foods industry has occurred over the last two decades as consumers seek healthy dietary alternative sources of protein. Many companies touting their “natural” or “organic” soy brands have found favor in the supermarket. A new report, released this week by The Cornucopia Institute, lifts the veil on some of these companies, exposing widespread importation of soybeans from China and the use of toxic chemicals to process soy foods labeled as “natural.”
The report, Beyond the Bean: The Heroes and Charlatans of the Natural and Organic Soy Foods Industry, and an accompanying ratings scorecard of organic brands, separates industry heroes—who have gone out of their way to connect with domestic farmers—from agribusinesses that are exploiting the trust of consumers.
Part of the meteoric rise in organic food sales has been built on the expectation from consumers that organic foods support a more environmentally sound form of agriculture and one that financially rewards family farmers through their patronage. “Importing Chinese soybeans or contributing to the loss of rain forests by shipping in commodities from Brazil just flat-out contradicts the working definition of organic agriculture,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at The Cornucopia Institute.
Through a nationwide survey of the industry, onsite farm, and processor visits, plus reviews of import data, Cornucopia assembled a rating system aimed at empowering consumers and wholesale buyers with the knowledge necessary to support brands that respect the fundamental tenets of organics.
via New Report: Many Organic Soy Food Brands Importing Beans from China | CommonDreams.org.
Making Ben Franklin Proud: Philadelphians Reject Torture Enabler John Yoo at the Philly Inquirer
Making Ben Franklin Proud: Philadelphians Reject Torture Enabler John Yoo at the Philly Inquirer - | AfterDowningStreet.org
Why: If you agree that torture enablers have no place on the editorial pages, please join us in telling the Philadelphia Inquirer in no uncertain terms, “Keep John Yoo off the pages of the Inquirer. Terminate his contract immediately.”
When: Wednesday – May 20th – 5 PM
Where: 400 North Broad Street in Philadelphia, PA 19130 – (outside of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s building) – Map
Yesterday Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, and author of the blog Attytood published this article “The latest poor information on John Yoo” dissecting the defense given by Harold Jackson, the Inquirer editorial page editor, in the column “Uproar over Inquirer’s Yoo ignores opinion page purpose”.
Harold Jackson defends the paper’s decision to hire Yoo in the following:
The decision to publish Yoo monthly came at the suggestion of The Inquirer’s publisher, Brian Tierney, who cited Yoo’s mutual roots in Philadelphia as well as his legal scholarship. He’s a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar
Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar -FT.com
By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.
The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.
via FT.com / Americas – Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar.
ACLU: Obama admin. will defend Patriot Act ‘gag order’ letters
ACLU: Obama admin. will defend Patriot Act ‘gag order’ letters
The Obama administration will not ask the Supreme Court to review the national security letter provision of the Patriot Act, which has been criticized as unconstitutional by civil rights groups and curtailed by a lower court following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
By not seeking a review, the ACLU said, the administration is committing itself to defending the Bush-era rule.
“[National Security Letters] issued by the FBI require recipients to turn over sensitive information about their clients and subscribers,” the ACLU said in a Monday media advisory. “A lower court ruled in 2007 that the gag order provisions were unconstitutional, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld that ruling in 2008. The government’s time for petitioning the Supreme Court for review has now expired.”
“We’re very pleased that the government has decided not to seek further review of the appeals court’s decision,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project, in a prepared statement. “The appeals court was right to find that the FBI can’t be given the unchecked power to impose gag orders on the recipients of national security letters, and the government’s decision not to seek Supreme Court review means that FBI gag orders will finally be subject to meaningful judicial review.”
via Raw Story » ACLU: Obama admin. will defend Patriot Act ‘gag order’ letters.
Contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress | Grist
Memo to House GOP: We get it. You don’t believe in clean, safe sources of energy that never run out or in protecting our children and grandchildren from catastrophic global warming or in competing with China, Japan, and Europe for the jobs and industries of the future or in making polluters pay (see House GOP pledge to fight all action on climate).
But your list of 450 planned amendments to Waxman-Markey during the markup next week — [insomniacs can download the list here] — goes beyond principled opposition to petty politics.
Two dozens amendments removing the tax benefits for each and every corporate member of the US Climate Action Partnership (which served as the basis of Waxman-Markey)? How proud the founding fathers would be to see you try to use the tools of governance for meaningless attempts at retribution.
And 50 separate amendments to let each individual state opt out? [Plus a DC-opt-out amendment! It’s nice to know you thought of us, too, even though you won’t let us have any representation in our government, but, thank you, no, we want clean energy jobs and a livable climate.]
I am interested to see details of the “American Hero Exemption and Credit,” but since it follows the “Defense Department Exemption,” I’m guessing it would be an amendment to exempt veterans from the bill. Of course, if America keeps following your all of the above more-of-the-same energy policy, then we’ll end up with lots more veterans as it would mean our dependence on oil from unstable regions would keep rising and rising.
And what is the point of more than 100 amendments of the form:
- Suspends the Act should more than 1,000 jobs in Wyoming be lost due to implementation of this Act
- Suspends the Act should 2,000 jobs in Texas be lost due to implementation of this Act
- Suspends the Act should more than 5,000 jobs in Utah be lost due to implementation of this Act?
What can one say but, Joe ‘get shade’ Barton and House GOP plan to fiddle furiously while planet burns.
via Contempt of Congress | Grist.
Study Reinforces Links Between Formaldehyde and Cancer
OPS: Wonder if they’re still putting it in ice cream
Study Reinforces Links Between Formaldehyde and Cancer
A study released last week by the National Cancer Institute strengthens the link [1] between exposure to formaldehyde and several forms of cancer, including leukemia. The 30-year study, which tracked the health of nearly 25,000 men exposed to the chemical in industrial plants, is likely to impact a long-awaited Environmental Protection Agency risk assessment of formaldehyde.
Last year we reported on how FEMA trailers used by Hurricane Katrina victims [2] were contaminated by formaldehyde, causing severe respiratory ailments. At the time, FEMA defended its use of the trailers [3] by pointing to a lack of formal rules governing the chemical’s use in wood and particle board.
Now the EPA is developing those rules [4], and it will probably use its formaldehyde risk assessment to determine an appropriate safety standard.
But the risk assessment has long been sidetracked by the cancer study and the politics around it. The assessment was scheduled to come out in 2004, until Sen. James Inhofe, then chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote a letter [5] (PDF) to Michael Leavitt, the EPA administrator at the time, persuading him to delay the assessment until the NCI released its study.
via Study Reinforces Links Between Formaldehyde and Cancer – ProPublica.
Note to Congress: 23 States Rejected Real ID
Note to Congress: 23 States Rejected Real ID – ACLU
Saturday, May 16, 2009, should go down in legislative history as the tipping point for the Real ID Act of 2005. This failed law tried to turn state drivers licenses into a national ID card and impose new burdens on taxpayers, citizens, immigrants and state governments. But the states pushed back
On Saturday — almost four years to that May 11 day that then-President George W. Bush signed the Real ID Act of 2005, Minnesota became the 23rd state to reject it. In the entire state of Minnesota, only one lawmaker voted in support of Real ID.
In signing legislation that prohibits the state from creating a national ID, Minnesota Gov. Timothy Pawlenty joined 22 governors in every corner of the United States. Among the 23 states are governors as far north as Alaska and far south as Louisiana as well as the eastern most corner in Maine and all the way to the western tip in Washington. In fact, you can walk from coast to coast in the United States without ever leaving an anti-Real ID state.
And we would not want to forget to mention Arizona. Janet Napolitano, who opposed Real ID when she was the governor of that state, is in charge of implementing this fruitless law as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates
Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates - NYTimes.com
In an age of advanced forensic science, the first step toward ending Kenneth Reed’s prolonged series of legal appeals should be simple and quick: a DNA test, for which he has offered to pay, on evidence from the 1991 rape of which he was convicted.
Louisiana, where Mr. Reed is in prison, is one of 46 states that have passed laws to enable inmates like him to get such a test. But in many jurisdictions, prosecutors are using new arguments to get around the intent of those laws, particularly in cases with multiple defendants, when it is not clear how many DNA profiles will be found in a sample.
The laws were enacted after DNA evidence exonerated a first wave of prisoners in the early 1990s, when law enforcement authorities strongly resisted reopening old cases. Continued resistance by prosecutors is causing years of delay and, in some cases, eliminating the chance to try other suspects because the statute of limitations has passed by the time the test is granted.
via Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates – NYTimes.com.
Picking on AIPAC?
Picking on AIPAC?
Republicans and Democrats seek to outdo each other when it comes to praising and defending Israel, particularly during election years. The mainstream media likewise marches in lockstep, burying stories critical of Israel within a day or two after they first appear. Even in the blogosphere, Israel has many friends, at least some of whom are Israel Defense Forces soldiers fluent in English tasked with presenting a rebuttal whenever a critic surfaces. Israel has no shortage of allies, but most would agree that its principal supporter in the United States is the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC.
AIPAC is generally regarded as one of the three most powerful lobbies in Washington. Unlike most other major lobbies, which engage on a variety of issues, AIPAC has only one objective: strengthening American support for the state of Israel through creation of a “special relationship” between the two countries. AIPAC’s support is uncritical, no matter what Israel does and no matter what the impact on the U.S. might be. Because Congress and the White House are fearful of confronting AIPAC, it enjoys a unique status. Even though it acts as a foreign lobby, it has not been required to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Not having to register is significant, as it means that AIPAC’s sources of income and its disbursements are not a matter of public record.
AIPAC has had a free ride in the media and the government for many years, but that is beginning to change. A majority of Americans now favor a more evenhanded approach to the Palestinian issue, even if the politicians have not yet figured that out. Criticizing AIPAC and Israel’s actions has been largely confined to so-called paleocons, libertarians, and traditional antiwar leftists, groups that mainstream politicians feel they can safely ignore. Most other Americans would call themselves supporters of Israel, though the support is probably a mile wide but only an inch deep, since most Americans really don’t care about what happens in the Middle East. Those calling themselves Republicans are disinclined to criticize Israel and the Israel lobby for ideological or theological reasons, while liberals, though normally opposed to the sort of large-scale human rights violations taking place on the West Bank and in Gaza, are particularly uncomfortable when called on to confront Tel Aviv. This nervousness is partly due to fear that such criticism will lead to bogus charges of anti-Semitism from the likes of Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman, but it is also undeniably connected to an understandable desire not to offend Jewish Americans. The Holocaust has also been exploited by the Israeli government and AIPAC to create a sense of collective guilt and is invoked as needed, particularly relating to the drive to disarm Iran.
via Picking on AIPAC? by Philip Giraldi — Antiwar.com.
While Opponents Scare, Progressive Paints Different Healthcare Reform Picture
While Opponents Scare, Progressive Paints Different Healthcare Reform Picture – On The Hill
While conservative opponents of healthcare reform have begun to portray healthcare reform as a bureaucratic takeover of medical treatment with rationed care, a progressive expert paints a far different picture of what a reformed U.S. healthcare system would look like.
In the most recent GOP radio and Internet address, Rep. Charles Boustany of Louisiana warned that Democratic efforts to lead healthcare reform would have “devastating consequences.”
A cardiovascular surgeon, Boustany offered a fairly grim assessment of what would happen to care under reform, saying, “A government takeover of health care will put bureaucrats in charge of health care decisions that should be made by families and doctors.”
Meanwhile, Judy Feder of the Center for American Progress, offers a very different take on what reform will bring.
“I think we all know how frustrating the health care system is–how much duplication, and waste, and repetition there can be. What we need is a system in which everybody can count on getting care when they need it, having insurance that makes it affordable, and having it simple for them to get the kind of care they need,” says Feder, a senior fellow at the progressive Washington think tank.
via On The Hill: While Opponents Scare, Progressive Paints Different Healthcare Reform Picture.
Dramatic increases in water bills expected globally, including South Florida
OPS: How about eliminating #3 entirely by replacing engineered grasses with plants native to your area. Lush green lawns are an unnecessary expense in time and pollution as well as a waste of water. If you’re going to water something, make it something you can eat.
Dramatic increases in water bills expected globally, including South Florida 
Inflation, drought, new taxes, and expensive water projects are among the drivers of higher water bills expected around the world, despite the squeeze already on consumers as a result of the recession. Locally, customers could be facing water bill increases of up to 40% in the following South Florida cities: Plantation, Sunrise, Southwest Ranches, Weston, and parts of Davie. Other local cities that could face higher water bills include Boynton Beach, Cooper City, Dania Beach, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Lake Worth, Miramar, and parts of Pembroke Pines.
Other areas of the United States are also preparing for high increases. The City of Camarillo in South California is facing a staggering increase of 70% in their water bill by 2011. In West Virginia, the City of Fairmont requested a 49% increase. Furthermore, landlords around the country are being strained by rental contracts that include water in the monthly rental fees while water prices continue to climb.
Overseas, consumers in Victoria, Australia, are preparing for their water bills to jump as much as 60% over the next three years. And in the UK, churches and community groups are bracing for a whopping 4000% increase in their water bills as a result of a new tax.
If you’re not already conserving water for ecological, scientific, or spiritual reasons, then you might consider saving water now for financial reasons! Here are five cheap, easy things you can do to make a huge difference:
The right’s Social Security scare tactics
The right’s Social Security scare tactics - By Michael Lind | Salon
Libertarians and conservatives react to the latest undramatic report on the trust fund’s health by marshaling frightening, meaningless numbers.
Last Tuesday, just before the release of the annual Social Security trustees report, I predicted that no matter what the report contained the perennial enemies of America’s most effective and efficient universal social insurance program would cite it as proof that Social Security needs to be means-tested, privatized or both. The report is in, and its contents are far from dramatic. The (dubiously) estimated date at which, absent changes, the trust fund dries up and Social Security shifts to a pay-as-you-go program paying most, but not all, promised benefits has moved up slightly from 2041 to 2037. But to listen to the critics of Social Security on the right you would think that Godzilla was blocks away from the Fulton Fish Market.
Posting at the libertarian Cato Institute’s Cato@Liberty blog, Michael Tanner claims to be alarmed that Social Security’s “unfunded liabilities — the amount it has paid beyond what it can actually pay — now total $17.5 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a ‘T.’ That’s $1.7 trillion worse than last year.”
Is the government really going to have to come up with $17.5 trillion in the next year or two to pay for Social Security, as more baby boomers retire? Undoubtedly that is what some opponents of Social Security want to frighten their fellow Americans into thinking. What Tanner neglects to tell his readers is that this big, scary number purports to measure Social Security’s unfunded liabilities over an infinite time horizon and assumes there are no changes made between now and eternity. Any number of relatively minor changes, from lifting the cap on the Social Security payroll tax to infusing general revenues, could preserve the program in its present form into the 22nd century without insolvency or harm to the U.S. economy.
via The right’s Social Security scare tactics | Salon.
The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More
Poor? Pay Up. - washingtonpost.com
Having Little Money Often Means No Car, No Washing Machine, No Checking Account And No Break From Fees and High Prices
You have to be rich to be poor.
That’s what some people who have never lived below the poverty line don’t understand.
Put it another way: The poorer you are, the more things cost. More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace. This is a fact of life that reality television and magazines don’t often explain.
So we’ll explain it here. Consider this a primer on the economics of poverty.
via The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More – washingtonpost.com.
Using Law License to Facilitate Torture Should Result in Disbarment
Using Law License to Facilitate Torture Should Result in Disbarment
Statement Made Upon the Filing of Complaints Seeking Disbarment of Bush-Cheney’s Cadre of Torture Lawyers
My name is Kevin Zeese, I am an attorney licensed to practice law in Washington, DC and before the U.S. Supreme Court. I serve as the executive director of VotersForPeace.US and on the board of Velvet Revolution. Today, we filed complaints with the District of Columbia Bar and with four other states seeking the disbarment of 12 Bush-Cheney torture lawyers. These lawyers misused their license to practice law to provide legal cover for the war crime of torture. This misuse of their license requires the bar association to disbar them or the bar will become complicit in torture.
Complaints have been filed against: John Yoo, Judge Jay Bybee, and Stephen Bradbury who authored the torture memoranda. As well as attorneys who advised, counseled, consulted and supported those memoranda including Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Michael Chertoff, Alice Fisher, William Haynes II, Douglas Feith, Michael Mukasey, Timothy Flanigan, and David Addington. These detailed complaints, with over 500 pages of supporting exhibits, have been filed with the state bars in the District of Columbia, New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania, and they seek disciplinary action and disbarment. Copies of the complaints and exhibits are available on-line at DisbarTortureLawyers.com and VotersForPeace.us.
This cadre of torture lawyers colluded to facilitate the abuse and torture of prisoners (detainees) that included, evidence suggests, deaths at overseas U.S. military facilities. Human Rights Watch reports 98 deaths of people in custody of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Making torture even worse in this case is that it was used to try and get information to tie Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda – a relationship that did not exist – as well as information about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.
via Using Law License to Facilitate Torture Should Result in Disbarment | CommonDreams.org.
A Case For Economic Democracy
A Case For Economic Democracy | CommonDreams.org
Rather than continuing to pay off the very people who created this financial crisis, it’s time to bite the bullet and start building an economic democracy featuring public banks and mutual funded holding companies
by Gary Dorrien
Today we are caught in a global economic crash and depression, a calamity affecting every nation connected to the global economy, especially poor nations lacking economic reserves. But this crisis also puts into play new possibilities for a democratic surge, perhaps toward economic democracy.
From the perspective of Economics 101, every bubble mania is basically alike, but from the beginning, this one has been harder to swallow, because it started with people who were just trying to buy a house of their own, who usually had no concept of predatory lending, and who had no say in the securitization boondoggle that spliced up various components of risk to trade them separately.
It seemed a blessing to get a low-rate mortgage. It was a mystery how the banks did it, but this was their business; we trusted they knew what they were doing. Our banks resold the mortgages to aggregators who bunched them up with thousands of other subprime mortgages, chopped the package into pieces and sold them as corporate bonds to parties looking for extra yield. Our mortgage payments paid for the interest on the bonds.
via A Case For Economic Democracy | CommonDreams.org.
Federal Authorities Crack Down on Sea-Borne Oil Polluters
Federal Authorities Crack Down on Sea-Borne Oil Polluters | CommonDreams.org
The M/V Snow Flower, a 568-foot refrigerated container ship, was outbound from Los Angeles when it began experiencing serious problems in the engine room.
A faulty valve had caused waste oil and water levels in the bilge holding tank to begin rising, while one of the ship’s deep water ballast tanks had become badly contaminated with heavy fuel oil. With no place to put the bilge water, crew members would later tell the Coast Guard, chief engineer Igor Krajacic decided to partially pump out of the port and starboard holding tanks while bypassing a key pollution-control device.
“I need a magic pipe,” he told a junior engineer. The crew, sweating in the hot engine room, jury-rigged a pipe to a discharge valve. Then they began illegally pumping the oil and water directly overboard, mostly at night, as the Snow Flower continued on its voyage to Chile, and then to Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey.
By the time the ship reached New Jersey, the Coast Guard — alerted by someone on board — was waiting.
via Federal Authorities Crack Down on Sea-Borne Oil Polluters | CommonDreams.org.
The 13 People Who Made Torture Possible
The 13 People Who Made Torture Possible | CommonDreams.org
The Bush administration’s Torture 13. They authorized it, they decided how to implement it, and they crafted the legal fig leaf to justify it.
by Marcy Wheeler
On April 16, the Obama administration released four memos that were used to authorize torture in interrogations during the Bush administration. When President Obama released the memos, he said, “It is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”
Yet 13 key people in the Bush administration cannot claim they relied on the memos from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. Some of the 13 manipulated the federal bureaucracy and the legal process to “preauthorize” torture in the days after 9/11. Others helped implement torture, and still others helped write the memos that provided the Bush administration with a legal fig leaf after torture had already begun.
The Torture 13 exploited the federal bureaucracy to establish a torture regime in two ways. First, they based the enhanced interrogation techniques on techniques used in the U.S. military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program. The program — which subjects volunteers from the armed services to simulated hostile capture situations — trains servicemen and -women to withstand coercion well enough to avoid making false confessions if captured. Two retired SERE psychologists contracted with the government to “reverse-engineer” these techniques to use in detainee interrogations.
via The 13 People Who Made Torture Possible | CommonDreams.org.
Supreme Court Blocks Sept. 11 Detainee Lawsuit
Supreme Court Blocks Sept. 11 Detainee Lawsuit | CommonDreams.org
WASHINGTON – A deeply split Supreme Court on Monday blocked a Pakistani man from suing former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller for allegedly abusive treatment he faced when rounded up with other Arab Muslims in New York after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The court, in a decision by Justice Anthony Kennedy, said the man failed to present sufficient information that would link Ashcroft and Mueller to mistreatment he faced or show that the detention policies arose from bias on account of race or religion, rather than a neutral investigation.
Kennedy was joined by the four more conservative members of the court; the four liberals dissented.
Javid Iqbal sued Ashcroft and Mueller, along with other officials, saying he was subjected to harsher conditions, including abusive strip searches and beatings, because he is an Arab Muslim.
via Supreme Court Blocks Sept. 11 Detainee Lawsuit | CommonDreams.org.
Obama: Israeli settlements ‘have to be stopped.’
Obama: Israeli settlements ‘have to be stopped.’
Haaretz reports today that “Israel has moved ahead with a plan to build a new settlement in the northern West Bank for the first time in 26 years, pursuing a project the United States has already condemned as an obstacle to peace efforts.” In a much-anticipated press conference today with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, President Obama said that new Israeli settlements “have to be stopped”:
OBAMA: Now, Israel is going have to take some difficult steps as well. And I shared with Prime Minister the fact that, under the road map, under Annapolis there’s a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements, that settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That’s a difficult thing to recognize, but it’s an important one. And it has to be addressed. I think the humanitarian situation in Gaza has to be addressed.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Obama: Israeli settlements ‘have to be stopped.’.
Supreme Court Votes Against Redressing Gender Discrimination In The Workplace
Supreme Court Votes Against Redressing Gender Discrimination In The Workplace
It used to be legal to discriminate against pregnant women in the workplace. If a woman took maternity leave, that time wouldn’t count toward her retirement benefits. The 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) changed all that: “If an employee is temporarily unable to perform her job because of her pregnancy, the employer must treat her the same as any other temporarily disabled employee.”
But what happens to women who took maternity leave before 1979? The 9th Circuit ruled in 2007 that the new law should apply to these women. However, today the Supreme Court voted to overturn the 9th Circuit’s ruling.
AT&T Corp. v. Hulteen, involved four women who worked at AT&T and took maternity leave prior to 1979. They said that each reduced retirement check they receive is “a fresh act of discrimination.” A seven-member majority on the Supreme Court, however, agreed with AT&T: Because Congress did not make the PDA retroactive, the company had no obligation to pay the women for past discrimination.
via Think Progress » Supreme Court Votes Against Redressing Gender Discrimination In The Workplace.
Matthew Yglesias discusses how the right-wing strategy on torture is backfiring.
Matthew Yglesias discusses how the right-wing strategy on torture is backfiring.
Today, ThinkProgress’s Matthew Yglesias (who is celebrating his birthday today) wrote a column for the Daily Beast arguing that the right wing’s sideshow on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) only furthers the case for a full investigation into torture. When host Norah O’Donnell asked him about Newt Gingrich’s call for Pelosi’s resignation, Yglesias reminded her who was ultimately responsible for Bush’s torture policy:
YGLESIAS: You know, Newt Gingrich knows a lot about saying stupid things and being forced out of the job as Speaker. … But one way or the other — I mean, I wasn’t in the room, you weren’t in the room, Newt Gingrich wasn’t in the room. None of us know exactly what happened there. But whatever it is Nancy Pelosi knew about, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, they knew more. And ultimately, when we have a thorough investigation of what happened, the bulk of the blame has to lie with the architects of the policy, not with a member of the opposition party.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Matthew Yglesias discusses how the right-wing strategy on torture is backfiring..
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
