Archive for June, 2009
FDA panel recommends smaller doses of painkillers
FDA panel recommends smaller doses of painkillers
(Vicodin banned; Nyquil not banned)
ADELPHI, Md. (AP) — Government experts say prescription drugs like Vicodin and Percocet that combine a popular painkiller with stronger narcotics should be eliminated because of their role in deadly overdoses.
A Food and Drug Administration panel on Tuesday voted 20-17 that prescription drugs that combine acetaminophen with other painkilling ingredients should be pulled off the market.
The FDA has assembled a group of experts to vote on ways to reduce liver damage associated with acetaminophen, one of the most widely used drugs in the U.S.
Despite years of educational campaigns and other federal actions, acetaminophen remains the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S., according to the FDA.
Panelists cited FDA data indicating 60 percent of acetaminophen-related deaths are related to prescription products. Acetaminophen is also found in popular over-the-counter medications like Tylenol and Excedrin.
“We’re here because there are inadvertent overdoses with this drug that are fatal and this is the one opportunity we have to do something that will have a big impact,” said Dr. Judith Kramer of Duke University Medical Center.
But many panelists opposed a sweeping withdraw of products that are so widely used to control severe, chronic pain.
via The Associated Press: FDA panel recommends smaller doses of painkillers.
PITT STUDY: Accidental release blamed in swine flu outbreak
OPS: “accidental” release that will cost the Tax Payers how much in government vaccine?
PITT STUDY: Accidental release blamed in swine flu outbreak – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Sick pigs at the 1918 Cedar Rapids Swine Show in Iowa and scientists’ accidental release of an “extinct” flu virus in 1977 played key roles in creating a strain that has swept the globe and sparked fear of a more deadly flu season this winter.
University of Pittsburgh infectious disease experts reviewed nearly a century of epidemiology reports to trace the origins of swine flu, the H1N1 virus, that emerged in Mexico this spring. It has sickened at least 27,000 people and killed more than 100 in the United States.
“Our review is the perfect combination of history, public health, science and politics, really,” said Dr. Shanta Zimmer, an assistant professor at Pitt’s School of Medicine and lead author of the research paper, which will be published in the July 16 issue of New England Journal of Medicine.
via PITT STUDY: Accidental release blamed in swine flu outbreak – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Banks own the US government
Banks own the US government – | guardian.co.uk
Dean Baker
There are smart ways to raise money and regulate the market, but Wall Street is working to kill any meaningful financial reform
Last month, when the US Congress failed to pass a bankruptcy reform measure that would have allowed home mortgages to be modified in bankruptcy, senator Dick Durbin succinctly commented: “The banks own the place.” That seems pretty clear.
After all, it was the banks’ greed that fed the housing bubble with loony loans that were guaranteed to go bad. Of course the finance guys also made a fortune guaranteeing the loans that were guaranteed to go bad (ie AIG), and when everything went bust, the taxpayers got handed the bill. The cost of the bailout will certainly be in the hundreds of billions, if not more than $1tn when it is all over.
More importantly, we are looking at the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. The cumulative lost output over the years 2008-2012 will almost certainly exceed $5tn. That comes to more than $60,000 for an average family of four. This is the price that we are paying for the bankers’ greed, coupled with incredible incompetence and/or corruption from our regulators.
via Banks own the US government | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Snowe Talks Triggers
OPS: Say What Bitch?!
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Snowe Talks Triggers | TPMDC
Snowe: Public Option Would Be Too Cheap For Consumers!
This idea sort of came and went a few weeks ago, but some legislators just can’t let it go. According to the Associated Press, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)–a potentially key moderate on the Senate Finance Committee–hasn’t forsworn signing on to a health reform bill that includes a public option. But she’s holding out to see it affixed to a “trigger mechanism,” which would, in theory, give insurance companies a years-long window to lower costs on their own and only “trigger” the public option if they failed to do so.
“If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market … the public option will have significant price advantages,” Snowe said. But this was her argument against making the public option available as soon as the bill becomes law.
via Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Snowe Talks Triggers | TPMDC.
HELP Committee Leak Details Likely Outline Of Public Option; Andy Stern Pleased
HELP Committee Leak Details Likely Outline Of Public Option; Andy Stern Pleased - | TPMDC
A source has leaked details to Politico of what reporters there describe as a “draft of HELP’s likely public option proposal.” Here are the key details:
The option would be one of the Gateway choices. It would follow the same rules as private plans for defining benefits, protecting consumers, and setting premiums that are fair and based on local costs….
The payment rates paid by the option would be no more than the local average private rates – but could be less. The Secretary would negotiate these rates.
Initial reports of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions process suggested that the committee’s draft would call for a public option that paid providers Medicare rates plus about 10 percent–a robust plan which would have left a wide middle ground on the issue between that committee and the Senate Finance Committee. This leak doesn’t rule that configuration out explicitly–but if it’s accurate, then the committee’s kicking the issue back over to the executive branch, and insisting only that the public plan operate on at least a level playing field with private insurers.
via HELP Committee Leak Details Likely Outline Of Public Option; Andy Stern Pleased | TPMDC.
Bachmann Lies About Census’ American Community Survey, Claims It Doesn’t Ask About Citizenship
Bachmann Lies About Census’ American Community Survey, Claims It Doesn’t Ask About Citizenship
As ThinkProgress has previously noted, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been fearmongering about the 2010 Census and bragging that she plans to break the law by refusing to answer it. “I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won’t be answering any information beyond that,” said Bachmann recently.
On Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday, Bachmann continued to attack the Census, repeatedly insisting that people should go to her website to “see the Census form for themselves.” Listing off a few questions from the American Community Survey (a long-form survey sent out to one in 40 households each year) that she considers invasive, Bachmann claimed that it doesn’t ask “are you an American citizen”:
BACHMANN: Twenty-eight pages. Sean, you know the one question they don’t ask? They ask, “are you an American citizen?” They don’t ask if you’re here on a visa or when it expires. We have no real idea how many illegal aliens are in our country. But wouldn’t you think, here they are asking every personal question about our lives, they could at least ask if we’re an American citizen? They don’t bother to ask for that. That’s why I think people need to read this census for themselves. If you go to my website, michelebachmann, you can read it.
Listen here:
Next Segment Of The Housing Market To Crash: $1+ Million McMansions
Next Segment Of The Housing Market To Crash: $1+ Million McMansions
The new hallucination for most strapped McMansion owners is that they’ll “rent the house for a year and then sell when the market comes back.”
The happy theory here is that, yes, prices are temporarily depressed, but when the green shoots really take hold, we’ll go roaring right back to 2006 levels again.
Most real-estate agents will be eager to tell you that they agree with this theory. What they won’t be able to tell you, as Mark Hanson of the Field Check Group points out, is why.
Even after a 30% fall from the peak, house prices are still too high. Meanwhile, millions of homeowners are losing their jobs, consumers are still saddled with truckloads of debt, banks are still tightening credit, foreclosures and delinquencies are still soaring, mortgage-mods are a failure, there are still too many houses on the market, wages are declining, taxes are likely to go up, and the economy is likely to struggle for years.
In short, it’s likely that house prices will now crash below fair value and remain below it for years. So McMansion owners sniffing at current prices and planning to “wait until the market comes back” will likely be waiting a lot longer than they think
via Next Segment Of The Housing Market To Crash: $1+ Million McMansions.
The daily grind: Sex for a week boosts sperm quality
The daily grind: Sex for a week boosts sperm quality
PARIS (AFP) – Men seeking to become a dad should have sex each day, or ejaculate daily, for a week before their partner ovulates in order to maximise sperm quality, according to a study presented on Tuesday.
Australian fertility specialist David Greening recruited 118 men whose sperm had a higher-than-normal level of DNA damage.
Before the test, on average 34 percent of the group’s sperm was rated as damaged, meaning that it was classified as “poor” in quality. Among individuals, this ranged from 15 percent to 98 percent.
The men were asked to ejaculate daily for seven days, but were not given any drugs or told to make any changes to lifestyle.
After seven days, their sperm was examined again.
The average of damaged sperm fell to 26 percent, placing it in the category of “fair” in quality.
Fourth-fifths of the men saw an increase in sperm quality, and many of them moved into the “good” range and out of the “poor” or “fair” categories.
However, one-fifth saw a decline in sperm quality.
Greening, an obstetrician and endrocrinologist at Sydney IVF, an Australian company that carries out assisted reproduction, said the improvements were “substantial and statistically highly significant.”
via The daily grind: Sex for a week boosts sperm quality – Yahoo! News.
On giving Goldman a chance
On giving Goldman a chance
Matt Taibbi
After my Rolling Stone piece about Goldman, Sachs hit the newsstands last week (unfortunately the piece is not yet up on the magazine’s web site, so I can’t link to it yet — but it is out in print), I started to get a lot of mail. Most of it was thoughtful and respectful criticism, although there was an amusingly large number of people writing in impassioned defense of their right, under our American system, to be ripped off by large impersonal financial companies. “If my pension fund is buying [crap mortgages] from Goldman, and my pension fund loses lots of value, that’s not Goldman’s fault,” wrote one reader. “No one is forcing anyone to buy anything. The only thing Goldman is guilty of is making profits.”
I’m not even going to go there — the psychology of a human being who would take the time to actually write in a complaint like that is so bizarre that it would take more time than I have today to even begin discussing it. One other complaint that I will address quickly, though, is the notion that I didn’t tell Goldman’s side of the story. “Not exactly a balanced approach,” complained one reader. “You should take an ethics class. You have to give the other side a fair shot.”
Actually I did contact Goldman and gave the bank every opportunity to respond to the factual issues in the article. I’m bringing this up because their decision not to comment on any of those questions was actually pretty interesting.
via Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – On giving Goldman a chance – True/Slant.
Supreme Court quashes 9/11 lawsuit against Saudis
Supreme Court quashes 9/11 lawsuit against Saudis
The Supreme Court has rejected a class-action lawsuit against Saudi Arabia brought by 9/11 survivors and relatives of those killed in the attacks.
The court’s decision Monday not to allow an appeal of the case to go forward effectively ends an effort by some 6,000 9/11 relatives and survivors to sue the government of Saudi Arabia and several members of the Saudi royal family over the country’s alleged behind-the-scenes role in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Citing the 9/11 Commission report and numerous other documents, the plaintiffs had argued that Saudi royals were among the largest contributors to charities that funneled money to Al Qaeda, AP reported Monday.
via Raw Story » Supreme Court quashes 9/11 lawsuit against Saudis.
Beck Falsely States The U.S. Bought Alaska In The ‘1950s’ So We Could Drill
Beck Falsely States The U.S. Bought Alaska In The ‘1950s’ So We Could Drill
While appearing on Fox & Friends this morning, Glenn Beck managed to make a trio of mistakes when he attacked the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill passed by the House last week. The Fox News pundit falsely asserted the legislation’s effect on our oil dependency would be “none.” Beck then pointed out, incorrectly, that the U.S. purchased Alaska in the “1950s” and that we did so because of our interest in its “resources,” a subtle way of advocating for more drilling in Alaska:
CARLSON: But nowhere in that bill is anything about reducing our dependence on foreign oil.
BECK: None. […]
You know Donald Trump, I want to talk to this guy. When he was on the show just a few minutes ago I was thinking how can you not be laughing at us? How can the world not be laughing at us? We have all these resources. Why did we buy Alaska in the 1950s? We bought Alaska for the resources. And now we say no!
Watch i
via Think Progress » Beck Falsely States The U.S. Bought Alaska In The ‘1950s’ So We Could Drill.
The Disinformation Campaign on Health Care: Another Massive Congressional Betrayal
The Disinformation Campaign on Health Care: Another Massive Congressional Betrayal - Oxdown Gazette »
A New York call-in commenter on Ron Reagan’s Air America show today asserted that the insurance industry had contributed $90 million to the Democratic party and $65 million to the Republican party in the last election.
Such alleged obscene gifting is undoubtedly one more “kiss of death” to a just and effective new health care system for America. How can we citizens hope to compete with such formidable financial influence? The single payer program, not profit driven, seems to many the wisest, most citizen-friendly choice. Evidently it has the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell for passage against such applied lobbying.
Just as Goldman Sachs’ $1 million donation to Obama’s campaign (and proportional generosity to the Democratic party as a whole in the last election) undoubtedly brought it phenomenal advantage post financial meltdown, these massive insurance contributions eradicate the loyalty of a heartbreakingly large number of members of the House and Senate toward those they took an oath to represent.
In fact, Congress seems especially incentivized to join in on the health care industry’s sophisticated propagandizing to an economically shell-shocked but still naive citizenry (with a compromised corporate media no help for enlightenment). Congress is rising up and “giving ’em the old razzle dazzle” (with American-apple-pie-red-white-and-blue reverence) about how superior private health care is to a government run program, shudder. Throw in additional strident “sky-is-falling” cries of socialism.
We are long used to a strong contingent of lobby-compromised representatives. But, tragically, those beating the drums against the most advantageous health program to the average American vastly outnumber its supporters in the House and in the Senate, fantastically, only one lone member stands by the single payer program.
via Oxdown Gazette » The Disinformation Campaign on Health Care: Another Massive Congressional Betrayal.
Oklahoma Republicans Ready To Blame The Recession On ‘Debauchery’
Oklahoma Republicans Ready To Blame The Recession On ‘Debauchery’
Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent catches a bizarre resolution introduced by Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) in Oklahoma, whose state legislature he describes as a “petri dish for wingnuttery.”
The proposed “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality” would blame the economic crisis on moral collapse.
The resolution specifically cites President Obama’s policies as well as his celebration of LGBT Pride month and his decision to end the National Prayer Day service at the White House as key causes of the current recession.
WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and
WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion,
pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and
many other forms of debauchery; andWHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking
the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; andWHEREAS, grieved that the Office of the president of these United States has refused
to uphold the long held tradition of past presidents in giving recognition to our National Day of
Prayer; and
via Oklahoma Republicans Ready To Blame The Recession On ‘Debauchery’.
WHEREAS, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States
disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior;
California’s Empty Wallet: Turning Crisis into Opportunity
California’s Empty Wallet: Turning Crisis into Opportunity
by Ellen Brown
California State Controller John Chiang has warned that without a balanced budget in place by July 1, he will begin using IOUs to pay most of the state’s bills. On June 25, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a plan that would save the state $3 billion by cutting school spending, saying he would rather see the state issue IOUs than delay the funding problem with a piecemeal approach. The state’s total budget deficit is $24.3 billion.
Meanwhile, other funding doors are slamming closed. The Obama administration has said it will not use federal stimulus money to prop up California; and Fitch Ratings, a bond rating agency, announced that it was downgrading the credit rating of the state, which already has the lowest in the nation. Once downgraded, California’s rating is likely to fall below the minimum level legally required for most money market funds, forcing the funds to sell their California bonds. The result could be a cost of millions of additional dollars in higher interest rates for the state.
What to do? Perhaps California could take a lesson from the island state of Guernsey, located in the English Channel off the French Coast, which faced similar funding problems in the 19th century. Toby Birch, an asset manager who hails from there, tells the story in Gold News:
“As weary troops returned from a protracted foreign war [the Napoleonic Wars ending in 1815], they encountered a land racked with debt, high prices and a crumbling infrastructure, whose flood defenses were about to be overwhelmed . . . . While 1815 brought an end to the conflict on the battlefront, . . . severe austerity ensued on the home front. The application of the Gold Standard meant that loans issued over many years were then recalled to balance the ratio of money to precious metals. This led to economic gridlock as labor and materials were abundant, but much-needed projects could not be funded for want of cash.
“This led to a period of so-called ‘poverty amongst plenty’. . . . The situation seemed insoluble; existing borrowing costs were consuming 80% of the island’s revenues. What was already an unsustainable debt burden would need to be doubled to fund the two most essential infrastructure projects. This was when a committee of States members was formed . . . . The committee realized that if the Guernsey States issued their own notes to fund the project, rather than borrowing from an English bank, there would be no interest to pay. This would lead to substantial savings. Because as anyone with a mortgage should understand, the debtor ends up paying at least double the amount borrowed over the long-term.”
via California’s Empty Wallet: Turning Crisis into Opportunity.
Revisiting a Sanford 2002 campaign ad
Revisiting a Sanford 2002 campaign ad
via Revisiting a Sanford 2002 campaign ad – Shenanigans – POLITICO.com.
Norm Coleman concedes Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken
OPS: Franken is going to be on the Judiciary Committee – that’s Huge!
Norm Coleman concedes Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken
Ex-Ala. Gov. Don Siegelman asks for new trial
Ex-Ala. Gov. Don Siegelman asks for new trial | Seattle Times Newspaper
MONTGOMERY, Ala. —
Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman is asking for a new trial following his convictions on bribery and other government corruption charges a few years ago.
Siegelman claims in court documents filed late Monday that the government’s key witness at his 2006 trial was heavily coached by prosecutors and FBI agents. Siegelman cites statements that his former aide, Nick Bailey, made after the trial. Siegelman claims Bailey said prosecutors and agents had him write out some of his testimony.
Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy were convicted of bribery and other charges at the trial. Scrushy asked for a new trial Friday.
Siegelman is out on bail as he appeals. Scrushy is in federal prison.
via Nation & World | Ex-Ala. Gov. Don Siegelman asks for new trial | Seattle Times Newspaper.
Supreme Court to Review Restrictions on Corporate Spending in Federal Elections
Justices to Review Campaign Finance Law Constraints – washingtonpost.com
The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will consider whether to uphold a ban on corporate spending in federal elections, a move that campaign finance experts said could have a dramatic effect on the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.
In a surprise move, the court said it would delay a decision on whether a conservative group’s film criticizing then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran afoul of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act.
Instead, the court scheduled a rare September hearing on whether the law itself raised constitutional questions and it said it would reexamine a 1990 decision that said restricting corporations from spending money from their general treasuries to support or oppose political candidates did not violate constitutional guarantees of free speech.
via Supreme Court to Review Restrictions on Corporate Spending in Federal Elections – washingtonpost.com.
US: Congress Pushing for Federal Reserve Audit
US: Congress Pushing for Federal Reserve Audit
By Matthew Cardinale
ATLANTA, Jun 30 (IPS) – A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives is now in support of a historic bill by Republican lawmaker Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve (the Fed), the privately run central bank that sets monetary policy for the United States.
A similar bill in the U.S. Senate was proposed by Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, and has three right-wing Republican co-sponsors.
Meanwhile, a House committee recently approved an amendment offered by left-leaning Democrat Dennis Kucinich to a bill granting more oversight to the Government Accountability Office, which would audit the Fed’s response to the economic crisis specifically.
Notably, the amendment passed committee unanimously, with broad bipartisan support, and now heads to the full House for action.
“The Fed has taken a number of extraordinary and unprecedented steps to address the financial crisis,” Kucinich told IPS in an email. “In so doing, it has committed over one trillion dollars to the purchase and financing of many different kinds of assets. It has selectively intervened in certain economic sectors, while it has ignored others.”
“All of these interventions mark a departure from traditional monetary policy, raise significant public policy questions, and impact taxpayers considerably,” Kucinich said.
via ECONOMY-US: Congress Pushing for Federal Reserve Audit – IPS ipsnews.net.
Court paves way for Franken to join Senate
Court paves way for Franken to join Senate – msnbc.com
4,000 absentee ballots at center of Minnesota election controversy
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota Supreme Court paves way for Democrat Al Franken to fill long-vacant Senate seat.
Doctors warn against ‘swine flu parties’
Doctors warn against ‘swine flu parties’ -
Health experts are warning parents against holding “swine flu parties” in the hope of infecting their children with the H1N1 virus.
alk of swine flu parties has emerged on Internet forums. The idea is that exposing a child to the H1N1 virus while it remains relatively mild will give the child immunity if the virus returns in a more virulent form later on.
The idea is an extension of chicken pox and measles parties that were once a popular way of exposing children to those diseases so that they might acquire resistance to subsequent infections.
But health officials have been quick to condemn the idea. Speaking at a conference, Dr Richard Jarvis, chairman of the British Medical Association’s public health committee, said “I have heard of reports of people throwing swine flu parties. I don’t think it is a good idea.
“I would not want it myself. It is quite a mild virus, but people still get ill and there is a risk of mortality.”
Last month, Richard Besser, the acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also warned against deliberately exposing people to the virus.
via Doctors warn against ‘swine flu parties’ – CNN.com.
A Storm’s Coming On Campaign Finance
A Storm’s Coming On Campaign Finance 
moneyYesterday’s high-profile decision in the Ricci firefighters case obscures another, equally important development which could usher in a new era of corporate money in politics. Traditionally, the Supreme Court decides every single case it heard during a particular term before adjourning for the summer recess. This Term, however, the Court announced that it will leave one case, a campaign finance case called Citizens United v. FEC, undecided. Moreover, in a brief order explaining why this decision will be delayed, the Court ordered the parties to brief whether a landmark precedent limiting the influence of corporate money in politics should be overruled.
Nineteen years ago, in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Court upheld a ban on independent political expenditures–so-called “soft money” contributions–by corporate donors. As the Court explained in Austin, “the unique state-conferred corporate structure that facilitates the amassing of large treasuries warrants the limit on independent expenditures.” Corporations are designed to amass massive amounts of money, and they can use their enormous wealth to drown out individual voices, all while spending only a fraction of their treasuries.
Should the Court toss out Austin, it could be the end of any meaningful restrictions on campaign finance. In most states, all that is necessary to form a new corporation is to file the right paperwork in the appropriate government office. Moreover, nothing prevents one corporation from owning another corporation. Without Austin, even a cap on overall contributions becomes meaningless, because corporate donors can simply create a series of shell-corporations for the purpose of evading such caps.
via Wonk Room » A Storm’s Coming On Campaign Finance.
“The Commission Has Been Road-Blocked”: Republicans’ War On The FEC
“The Commission Has Been Road-Blocked”: Republicans’ War On The FEC - | TPMMuckraker
Last fall, James Ross, a New York City resident and a donor to several Democratic organizations, received an unusual letter. “Your name has been put in our database,” Ross was told. “We are monitoring all reports of a wide variety of leftist organizations. As your name appears in subsequent reports, it is our intent to publicize your involvement in your local community. Should any of these organizations be found to be engaged in illegal or questionable activity, it is our intent to publicize your involvement with those activities.”
The letter was signed by Howard Rich, a publicity-shy New York real-estate investor and the founder of the conservative activist group Americans for Limited Government. Rich and his group were accused by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee of illegally using Federal Election Commission disclosure reports to obtain the names and addresses of political donors in order to discourage them from making contributions — a violation of election law. In April, three of the FEC’s six commissioners voted to open an investigation into the matter. But the commission’s three Republicans opposed a probe. The FEC deadlocked 3-3, and no action was taken against Rich.
That’s happened with increasing frequency at the FEC lately. Election-law experts, supporters of campaign-finance regulations, and even some members of the commission itself are expressing growing concern about a string of cases in which the three Republicans on the commission — led by Tom DeLay’s former ethics lawyer — have voted as a block against enforcement, preventing the commission from carrying out its basic regulatory function. As the normally mild-mannered Washington Post editorial board wrote recently: “The three Republican appointees are turning the commission into The Little Agency That Wouldn’t: wouldn’t launch investigations, wouldn’t bring cases, wouldn’t even accept settlements that the staff had already negotiated.”
via “The Commission Has Been Road-Blocked”: Republicans’ War On The FEC | TPMMuckraker.
Palin wrote an e-mail to friends pretending to be God: ‘Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.’
Palin wrote an e-mail to friends pretending to be God: ‘Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.’
In a new article in next month’s Vanity Fair by Todd Purdum, former McCain presidential campaign aides unload on former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, calling her a “Little Shop of Horrors,” a “diva,” and a “whack job.” The exposé also reveals that Palin, in an e-mail to her friends announcing the birth of her baby Trig, pretended to play God:
When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.
The Subversive Power of Commons-Based Businesses
The Subversive Power of Commons-Based Businesses
Credit unions offer better credit cards than banks.
There’s s good reason why conventional businesses don’t like commons-based alternatives: they tend to have structural advantages that let them offer better quality products and services. The latest example is documented in an oped article in today’s New York Times.
Harvard doctoral candidates Ryan Bubb and Alex Kaufman describe how credit cards issued by investor-owned banks charge higher fees and penalties than customer-owned credit unions. And when the credit unions do charge fees and penalties, they charge less than banks. Credit unions also offer Visa and Mastercard cards for lower annual fees and longer grace periods.
Bubb and Kaufman cite these facts – the results of an extensive study that they performed – to show that banks can still lend profitably under the recently passed credit-card reform legislation, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act. Banks have pissed and moaned that the reforms will require them to cut credit limits, raise annual fees and eliminate rewards programs (e.g., free plane tickets) for credit-card users. These are the same banks, incidentally, that have recently benefited from billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts. Even a modicum of public accountability from banks — in terms of reasonable credit card terms — is apparently too much to ask for.
via OnTheCommons.org » The Subversive Power of Commons-Based Businesses.
Debt Deflation in America
Debt Deflation in America
What the Jump in the U.S. Savings Rate Really Means 
by Michael Hudson
Happy-face media reporting of economic news is providing the usual upbeat spin on Friday’s debt-deflation statistics. The Commerce Department’s National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) for May show that U.S. “savings” are now absorbing 6.9 percent of income.
I put the word “savings” in quotation marks because this 6.9% is not what most people think of as savings. It is not money in the bank to draw out on the “rainy day” when one is laid off as unemployment rates rise. The statistic means that 6.9% of national income is being earmarked to pay down debt – the highest saving rate in 15 years, up from actually negative rates (living on borrowed credit) just a few years ago. The only way in which these savings are “money in the bank” is that they are being paid by consumers to their banks and credit card companies.
Income paid to reduce debt is not available for spending on goods and services. It therefore shrinks the economy, aggravating the depression. So why is the jump in “saving” good news?
It certainly is a good idea for consumers to get out of debt. But the media are treating this diversion of income as if it were a sign of confidence that the recession may be ending and Mr. Obama’s “stimulus” plan working. The Wall Street Journal reported that Social Security recipients of one-time government payments “seem unwilling to spend right away,” 1 while The New York Times wrote that “many people were putting that money away instead of spending it.”2 It is as if people can afford to save more.
via Debt Deflation in America.
H.R. 675: Building Obama’s Civilian National Security Force
H.R. 675: Building Obama’s Civilian National Security Force
In January, without any recognizable corporate media coverage, Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, introduced H.R. 675. The bill would amend title 10 of the United States Code and extend to civilian employees of the Department of Defense the authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms. The bill was referred to the Armed Services Committee on January 26, 2009.
Filner’s bill would amend the United States code with the following: “Sec. 1585b. Law enforcement officers of the Department of Defense: authority to execute warrants, make arrests, and carry firearms… for any offense against the United States.” (Emphasis added.)
The Posse Comitatus Act, passed on June 18, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The Act prohibits members of the federal uniformed services from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property within the United States.
H.R. 675 sidesteps Posse Comitatus by defining “law enforcement officer of the Department of Defense” as “a civilian employee of the Department of Defense,” including federal police officers, detectives, criminal investigators, special agents, and game law enforcement officers classified by the Office of Personnel Management Occupational Series 0083 (the United States Office of Personnel Management is described as an “independent agency” of the U.S. government that manages the civil service of the federal government).
In 2005, the Office of Personnel Management partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to create a “21st century human resources management system that fully supports the Department’s vital mission,” according to then Office of Personnel Management Associate Director for Strategic Human Resources Policy Ron Sanders.
At approximately the same time, the DoD issued a Defense Directive 1404.10 (read PDF) that establishes a “DoD Civilian Expeditionary Workforce” and rescinds a prior Clinton era directive dealing with the emergency use of civilian personnel. The Obama administration describes the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce as follows:
via H.R. 675: Building Obama’s Civilian National Security Force.
Horses to the slaughter
Horses to the slaughter | Salon
U.S. horses are meeting gruesome ends abroad, while the debate rages on: Are horses 1,500 pounds of food or friend?
EL PASO, Texas — On the dusty outskirts of this border city, neighbored by truck stops and desert scrub, hundreds of horses mill around a sprawling grid of pens at the Rio Grand Classic horse auction. Inside the metal sale barn, a cowboy rides a handsome palomino into the show ring, and the auctioneer’s chant crescendos as the price rises into the thousands. But the bidding on some horses is less enthusiastic. These horses — plump young pintos, old red roans, a scrawny mare and her wobbly-legged foal — dart around the show ring nervously before selling for a few hundred dollars or less. Then they’re shuffled into the “kill pen,” a set of crowded corrals at the edge of the auction property. There, all but the foal are marked with green U.S. Department of Agriculture tags that designate horses bought for slaughter, most likely in Mexico, where the meat is consumed and sold abroad.
Not many people realize slaughtering horses for meat has been big business in the U.S. for generations. Yet in recent decades, public sentiment, matched by state and local laws, has risen against the practice, and in 2007 the last three U.S. horse slaughterhouses were shuttered. Since 2005, Congress has also withheld U.S. Department of Agriculture funding for horse-meat inspections to prevent new abattoirs from opening in states where horse slaughter is still legal. No federal law, though, forbids U.S. horses from being sent to slaughterhouses across the border. Which is exactly what has been happening in the two years since horse slaughter stopped here. The number killed in Canada and Mexico doubled to 49,000 in 2007 and rose to more than 72,000 last year, according to trade data.
via Horses to the slaughter | Salon.
GM cuts ties with Toyota in U.S. joint-venture
GM cuts ties with Toyota in U.S. joint-venture | Reuters
DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Corp cut operational ties on Monday to a northern California auto plant it had operated in a joint-venture with Toyota Motor Corp for a quarter of a century.
The move deepens uncertainty over the future of the plant that employs over 5,000 workers and was once seen as a ground-breaking experiment in bringing production efficiencies pioneered in Japan to a U.S. workforce.
GM, which has been operating in a U.S. government-sponsored bankruptcy since the start of the month, said it was unable to reach an agreement with Toyota on a new production plan for the Fremont, California plant.
“After extensive analysis, GM and Toyota could not reach an agreement on a future product plan that made sense for all parties,” GM said in a statement.
GM and Toyota have been 50-50 partners in the joint-venture plant commonly known by its acronym NUMMI for the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc, since 1984.
via GM cuts ties with Toyota in U.S. joint-venture | Reuters.
Bullying Congressional Progressives: Creepy, Revealing Quote from White House Staffer
Bullying Congressional Progressives: Creepy, Revealing Quote from White House Staffer | CommonDreams.org
by Glenn Greenwald
Jane Hamsher details the extremely aggressive tactics the White House and House leadership used to coerce liberal environmentalist members to vote for the cap-and-trade bill despite their belief that it helped polluters more than it did anything else (and remember their ability to do that the next time they claim that a bill they ostensibly support simply couldn’t pass because it lacked the necessary votes). Jane quotes from a Politico article reporting on White House anger towards Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, due to an impassioned floor speech he gave arguing that the bill was so industry-friendly that it would do more harm than good. That article contains this quote:
The White House is smoking mad at Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who says he’s voting against the climate bill – despite the lobbying of the entire First Family in the Oval Office last night.
If the bill goes down, Obama won’t forget Doggett’s role, Democrats say.
It’s “stunning that he would ignore the wishes not just of his president, but of his constituents and the country,” said an administration official.
Grim Prospects for College Grads
Grim Prospects for College Grads
Those that do not find a career track soon after graduating from college are likely to be financially years behind their peers that do and will need seven to ten years to catch up to their counterparts.
With manufacturing jobs rapidly disappearing, high school graduates are increasingly seeking to obtain advanced degrees, according to The New York Times. That, however, is not necessarily the path to a solid career in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression.
According to a recent study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, less than half of the nation’s college graduates under the age of 25 are currently employed in jobs that require a college degree. That is down dramatically from the 54 percent during the same period last year.
”I’ve never seen it this low and we’ve been analyzing this stuff for over 20 years,” the center’s director, Andrew Sum, said, according to McClatchy Newspapers.
“Mal-employment,” as the center describes it, presents a myriad of problems, both for those college grads and the economy as a whole.
Those that do not find a career track soon after graduating from college are likely to be financially years behind their peers that do. Oftentimes, those that start out in lower-paying jobs need seven to ten years to catch up to their counterparts.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Cracking the Autism Riddle: Toxic Chemicals, A Serious Suspect in the Autism Outbreak
Cracking the Autism Riddle: Toxic Chemicals, A Serious Suspect in the Autism Outbreak
Over the past 30 years, toxic chemicals, like Teflon, plastics, and formaldehyde have increasingly invaded our homes. We used to think these substances were harmless, but a rising tide of evidence has turned the spotlight on chemical exposures as a possible poison to our children’s developing brains.
One group of substances of particular concern is a ubiquitous family of hormone twisting compounds, known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). These substances are the focus of intense scrutiny because: 1) they’re found in every home in America 2) they’re increasingly linked to human disease 3) our exposure to them has risen in parallel with the surge in autism diagnoses and 4) they may theoretically affect the developing fetal brain.
In recent years, research has mounted against a virtual police lineup of EDCs, like BPA (in food cans, hard plastic water bottles), phthlates (in soft plastics, cosmetics) and fire retardants (in sofas, computers, flame-resistant clothing). Multiple animal and human studies have linked EDC exposure (during or after fetal development) with a host of hormone-related disorders, like low sperm count, cancer (breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular), congenital malformation of the genitals and even obesity.
via Harvey Karp: Cracking the Autism Riddle: Toxic Chemicals, A Serious Suspect in the Autism Outbreak.
It Came from Wasilla
It Came from Wasilla | vanityfair.com
Palin’s Life “An Unholy Amalgam” Of “Desperate Housewives” And “Northern Exposure”
The pattern is inescapable: she takes disagreements personally, and swiftly deals vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.
Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future.
via Todd S. Purdum on Sarah Palin | vanityfair.com.
EPA Reveals Dangerous Coal Ash Sites
EPA Reveals Dangerous Coal Ash Sites
The Environmental Protection Agency released on Monday afternoon a list of 44 “high hazard potential” coal ash sites that the federal government had previously insisted be kept secret.
At a June 12 press conference, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the Department of Homeland Security and the Army Corps of Engineers had placed a “huge muzzle” on her staff regarding the coal ash sites.
A coalition of environmental groups, including Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, had pressed for the release of the information in a Freedom of Information Act request. Earthjustice praised the EPA in a press release for disclosing the sites. But Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, isn’t totally satisfied.
“It is laudable for the EPA to respond to our FOIA,” Evans told the Huffington Post. “But now that we can see the list, it raises questions. Like why some are not on the list.”
In addition to the 44 coal sites that have been designated “high hazard,” there are hundreds more that could pose environmental and health risks.
Evans noted that there are no Tennessee facilities on the list. Boxer called a recent massive coal ash spill from the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee 100 times worse than the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.
via EPA Reveals Dangerous Coal Ash Sites.
States brace for shutdowns
States brace for shutdowns - Los Angeles Times
Time is running out for the legislatures in Arizona, California, Indiana, Mississippi and Pennsylvania to solve budget gaps.
Reporting from Indianapolis and Denver — The last time Indiana missed its deadline for passing a budget and had to shut down the government was during the Civil War.
But on Monday, as lawmakers raced to hammer out an agreement over school funding, state agencies began preparing 31,000 workers to be temporarily out of a job. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has warned residents that most of the state’s services — including its parks, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and state-regulated casinos — would be shuttered unless a budget is passed today.
Indiana is one of five states — along with Arizona, California, Mississippi and Pennsylvania — bracing for possible shutdowns this week as time runs out for lawmakers to close billion-dollar gaps in their fiscal 2010 budgets.
via States brace for shutdowns – Los Angeles Times.
Great Lakes Wolves Back On Endangered List
Great Lakes Wolves Back On Endangered List
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The federal government on Monday agreed to put gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region back on the endangered species list _ at least temporarily.
The decision came less than two months after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service discontinued federal protection for about 4,000 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The agency acknowledged Monday that it erred by not holding a legally required public comment period before taking action.
Under a settlement with five environmental and animal protection groups that had sued the agency earlier this month, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it would return Great Lakes wolves to the list while considering its next move. They had been classified as endangered from 1974 until their removal May 4.
via Great Lakes Wolves Back On Endangered List.
Dogs Being Trained To Sniff Out Cancer, Diabetes
Dogs Being Trained To Sniff Out Cancer, Diabetes 
Dogs are now being trained in Britain to warn diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels take a dangerous plunge.
Most people know that dogs are often used in searching for illegal drugs and explosives, and a few have heard that man’s best friend has proven himself even capable of sniffing out certain cancer cells.
But now, these amazing creatures are pioneering a new frontier in diabetes care after recent evidence indicated that a dog’s hypersensitive nose can detect incredibly small changes that occur before a hypoglycemic attack.
Last December, a survey conducted by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast showed that 65% of 212 people with insulin-dependent diabetes reported their pets reacting to a hypoglycemic episode by whining, barking, licking or some other display.
At the Cancer and Bio-Detection Dogs research center in Aylesbury, southern England, animal trainers are taking advantage of this information by utilizing the dog’s skills to assist their owners.
via Dogs Being Trained To Sniff Out Cancer, Diabetes – Health News – redOrbit.
Prehistoric Bird-Bone Flute Unearthed
Prehistoric Bird-Bone Flute Unearthed – : Discovery News
A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture.
A team led by University of Tuebingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard assembled the flute from 12 pieces of griffon vulture bone scattered in a small plot of the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany.
Together, the pieces comprise a 8.6-inch (22-centimeter) instrument with five holes and a notched end. Conard said the flute was 35,000 years old.
via Prehistoric Bird-Bone Flute Unearthed: Discovery News.
Brain scans show how hypnosis can paralyze a limb
Brain scans show how hypnosis can paralyze a limb – USATODAY.com
So the brain region that’s ready to move your hand ignores its usual inputs and listens to this interloper, which says, “Don’t even bother,” the research concluded.
It’s “a kind of reconnection between different brain regions,” said Yann Cojan, a researcher at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
He’s an author of the study in Thursday’s issue of the journal Neuron. It used brain scans to show what happened when 12 volunteers tried to move a hand that had been paralyzed by hypnosis.
Results showed the right motor cortex prepared itself as usual to tell the left hand to move. But the cortex appeared to be ignoring the parts of the brain it normally communicates with in controlling movement. Instead, it acted more in sync than usual with a different brain region called the precuneus. That was a surprise, Cojan said.
via Brain scans show how hypnosis can paralyze a limb – USATODAY.com.
Waterproof Lithium-Air Batteries
Waterproof Lithium-Air Batteries – Technology Review:
A California company’s lithium metal-air batteries are lightweight and energy dense.
A company based in Berkeley, CA, is developing lightweight, high-energy batteries that can use the surrounding air as a cathode. PolyPlus is partnering with a manufacturing firm to develop single-use lithium metal-air batteries for the government, and it expects these batteries to be on the market within a few years. The company also has rechargeable lithium metal-air batteries in the early stages of development that could eventually power electric vehicles that can go for longer in between charges.
Interest in lithium metal-air batteries has been growing in recent years, along with the demand for lighter power sources for devices ranging from plug-in hybrid vehicles to laptops. In lithium-ion batteries, the electrodes are made of materials such as graphite, while in a lithium-metal battery, the anode is made up entirely of lithium metal, and the surrounding air can act as the cathode.
via Technology Review: Waterproof Lithium-Air Batteries.
LANL scientist makes radio waves travel faster than light
LANL scientist makes radio waves travel faster than light
Scientist John Singleton insists that Albert Einstein wouldn’t be mad at him, even though at first blush Singleton appears to have twisted the famous physicist’s theories about light into a pretzel.
Most people think Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but that’s not really the case, Singleton said.
Einstein predicted that particles and information can’t travel faster than the speed of light — but phenomenon like radio waves? That’s a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow.
Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.
The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists, Singleton said.
“Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit radio waves in pulses, but what we don’t know is why these pulses are so bright or why they travel such long distances,” Singleton said. “What we think is these are transmitting the same way our machine does.”
via LANL scientist makes radio waves
travel faster than light.
Has Daschle Gone Rogue?
OPS: ‘gone Rouge” is too kind by half. He is selling out all Americans. He is a miserable Whore.
Has Daschle Gone Rogue? 
by Richard Wolffe
Tom Daschle, Obama’s original pick to overhaul the health care system, is now floating a rival plan, to the chagrin of some in the administration. The Daily Beast’s Richard Wolffe asks the president’s failed health nominee which side he’s on.
He was supposed to be at the heart of the health-care debate, shuttling between his White House office, the halls of Congress, and his expansive Cabinet secretary’s suite. Instead Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader in the Senate and prominent advocate for health reform, is shaping the contentious debate through the advisory job that derailed his nomination as Obama’s first pick for Health secretary. And it’s a shape that the president doesn’t currently accept.
“This is difficult stuff,” he tells me. “It’s not easy. There’s no painless way to reach compromise. There’s no painless way to reach the revenue targets we’re trying to reach. I don’t mind taking heat. I guess I feel I took plenty of heat when I was leading the Senate. It comes with the territory. You have to accept the fact that you’re not going to please everybody.”
“He’s making compromises we don’t want to,” says one senior Obama aide. “We just take a different view right now.”
via Has Daschle Gone Rogue? – The Daily Beast.
Ontario drops plans for 2 new nuclear reactors
Ontario drops plans for 2 new nuclear reactors
Citing ballooning costs and its responsibility to the taxpayers of the province, the Ontario government says it is indefinitely mothballing plans to build two new nuclear reactors at the Darlington power station.
“We still believe that in our energy supply mix to have new nuclear units to replace some of our aging fleet is very prudent for Ontario. But we will not purchase any such units at any cost. The cost must be right for the people of Ontario,” said Energy Minister George Smitherman on Monday morning.
The province’s Liberal government said three years ago it would spend about $26.5 billion to build the new reactors.
Three companies were competing for the contract: Areva from France, the U.S. company Westinghouse, and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
via Ontario drops plans for 2 new nuclear reactors.
Is Scientology’s Wall Cracking?
Is Scientology’s Wall Cracking? – The Daily Beast
Several recent high-profile Scientology defections have led some to wonder whether one of the church’s most visible members, John Travolta, may be next. Kim Masters reports.
The St. Petersburg Times ran an extraordinary three-part series on Scientology last week featuring interviews with some very high-level defectors. Among the claims: that 49-year-old Scientology leader David Miscavige, a close associate of the church’s biggest star Tom Cruise, dished out constant physical abuse to his associates.
One of the key sources in the articles, Mike Rinder, was assigned to deal with me when I wrote a 2005 magazine article about Cruise. A fallen-away Rinder speaking on the record is a big get, as any journalist who has covered Scientology knows. Marty Rathbun is a big name in Scientology circles, too. Both were high-ranking members of the Sea Organization, Scientology’s upper-level staff. Sea Org members commit to the job for one billion years (with breaks provided to accommodate childhood at the beginning of each new incarnation). They live in dorms and are not permitted to have children.
“Celebrities only talk to people who have a certain level of ‘clearance,’ ” says Nancy Many, an ex-Scientologist who served as president of the group’s Celebrity Centre. “The Scientology they get is not the Scientology that an ordinary person gets.”
via Is Scientology’s Wall Cracking? – The Daily Beast.
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora calls for U.S. Justice Department to investigate the motives behind the local corruption probe
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora calls for U.S. Justice Department to investigate the motives behind the local corruption probe - cleveland.com
CLEVELAND — Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora accused the U.S. Department of Justice of launching its local public corruption probe two years ago in a conspiracy with Republicans to undermine the Democratic turnout for Barack Obama.
Dimora said he and his lawyers will ask for a federal investigation into the motives behind the corruption probe, which became public last July when FBI agents raided the commissioner’s home and office and the home and office of political ally Frank Russo, the county auditor.
“This is a Republican-driven prosecution,” Dimora said during a news conference from the county office building.
His remarks come weeks after federal prosecutors released documents that make it clear that prosecutors believe Dimora and Russo are at the center of a pay-to-play political system that involves millions of dollars in public contracts.
Fein: Obama ’shuts his eyes’ to ‘open confessions’ of Bush-era war crimes
OPS: Look up the definition of: Accessory After The Fact.
Fein: Obama ‘shuts his eyes’ to ‘open confessions’ of Bush-era war crimes
Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, former Reagan administration Associate Attorney General Bruce Fein lamented President Barack Obama’s decision to shut his eyes to open confessions of war crimes by members of the prior administration.
“It’s at the highest levels that the rule of law finds its greatest majesty,” he told reporters. “That’s why the United States was so idolized after Nixon left. We said that the most powerful man in the world is subject to the law. He cannot defy it.”
Fein was making the historical argument with respect to the Obama administration’s continued refusal to investigate the Bush administration’s torture program, which was designed and specifically authorized by high-level officials.
“[Today] we have an instance where the President of the United States — Harvard Law Review, a Constitutional Law professor who knows what the law is — shuts his eyes to open confessions,” he said. “We authorized torture, for which there is no exception.”
via The Raw Story » Fein: Obama ’shuts his eyes’ to ‘open confessions’ of Bush-era war crimes.
FDA poised to ban sales of Nyquil, Theraflu
FDA poised to ban sales of Nyquil and Theraflu
FDA panel to vote on painkiller restrictions
FDA panel to vote on possible restrictions for Tylenol, other painkillers to reduce overdoses
Government experts are scheduled to vote on whether Nyquil and other combination cold medications should be pulled from the market to help curb deadly overdoses.
The Food and Drug Administration has assembled more than 35 experts for a two-day meeting to discuss and vote on ways to prevent overdose with acetaminophen — the pain-relieving, fever-reducing ingredient in Tylenol and dozens of other prescription and over-the-counter medications.
Despite years of educational campaigns and other federal actions, acetaminophen remains the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S., sending 56,000 people to the emergency room annually, according to the FDA. There are about 200 acetaminophen-related deaths each year.
via The Raw Story » FDA poised to ban sales of Nyquil.
McCain staffers allegedly called Palin ‘little shop of horrors’
McCain staffers allegedly called Palin ‘little shop of horrors’
It’s well known that there were tensions between Arizona Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last year during their presidential run, but a new article in Vanity Fair magazine sheds light on just how serious the rift between the two camps was.
According to the article, former McCain campaign staffers suffer from a collective “survivor’s guilt” over the problem-plagued choice of Palin as vice-presidential candidate. The friction between the McCain and Palin was so intense that it carried right on into election night, when Palin wanted to address the Arizona crowd to whom McCain was to give his concession speech. After much back-and-forth wrangling, Palin didn’t speak that night.
But trouble had been brewing long before that. Over the course of the campaign, one close adviser to McCain “was heard to refer to Palin as “little shop of horrors’” during the campaign.
McCain campaign members, in a series of conversations, told the magazine that “no serious vetting had been done before the selection (by either the McCain or the Obama team), and there was trouble in nailing down basic facts about Palin’s life” — an omission that would cause immediate trouble as details of Palin’s sordid family life began to emerge.
via The Raw Story » McCain staffers allegedly called Palin ‘little shop of horrors’.
U.S. Files Trade Dispute Against China
OPS: Uh-huh.
U.S. Files Trade Dispute Against China
Ron Kirk said that Beijing is not playing by the rules and the administration is prepared to ensure that they start doing so
Last week the Obama administration followed through on a campaign promise to get tough on the mercantilist practices on the Chinese government by filing it first formal trade dispute against the Asian giant at the World Trade Organization.
The complaint, filed jointly with the European Union, alleges that China, through illegal trade practices, has gained an unfair advantage on U.S. and European producers of steel, aluminum and chemicals by restricting access to raw materials.
“China’s policies on these raw materials seem to be a giant thumb on the scale in favor of Chinese producers. It’s our job to make sure we remove that thumb from that scale,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in announcing the complaint.
Those raw materials include bauxite, zinc and coke. According to the complaint, the Chinese government has used export quotas, duties and other measures that have cause the price of those materials to artificially rise, making it more expensive for U.S. manufacturers to produce the same products as their Chinese counterparts.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Obama Still Failing to Protect the U.S. Economy
Obama Still Failing to Protect the U.S. Economy
President Obama is still reluctant to level the playing field for U.S. manufacturers by imposing tariffs to counteract foreign mercantilist trade practices.
Hardly noticed in the debate over the recently passed cap-and-trade legislation is President Obama’s reluctance to level the playing field for American manufacturers by imposing tariffs to counteract mercantilist trade practices utilized by America’s trade partners.
The historic bill that passed Friday contained a provision that would allow the U.S. to impose trade penalties on nations that fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The president, however, in an interview with nine of the nation’s largest newspapers on Sunday expressed concern over the provision.
“At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals,” Obama said in an Oval Office interview reported by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post.
The provision was inserted into the bill late in the process at the insistence of rust belt lawmakers concerned that the capping greenhouse gas emissions could potentially lead to increased outsourcing of American jobs.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The New Green Economy
OPS: Ok, Then let’s get the hell ON with it!
The New Green Economy
“The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st Century global economy,” said President Barack Obama
On Friday, a bitterly divided House of Representatives passed historic climate change legislation that for the first time will seek to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The outcome of the legislation seemed to be in doubt right up until the end. Democrats eventually prevailed, passing the bill 219 to 212 votes. In the end, eight Republicans crossed over and voted for the bill while 44 Democrats defected and cast “nay” votes. The 219 votes that the bill garnered is just one more than the 218 Democrats needed to pass the bill.
The bill includes the so-called cap-and-trade provision that became the focal point of the debate over the bill. Cap-and-trade essentially sets a national limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that are permitted to emit into the atmosphere, with the limit decreasing each year. The right to pollute would then be auctioned off to companies that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases. If the company has pollution credits remaining, it could then sell them to other companies.
The goal is to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by providing a financial incentive for the use of renewable energy sources and a financial disincentive to those companies that do not move in the direction of cleaner energy sources.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Raging Trade War
Raging Trade War
As Fingleton points out, building protections into your economy cannot instigate a trade war if the war is already raging. America needs to take emergency measures to revitalize the economy.
Editor’s note: The following is the second interview in a six part series with economist Eamonn Fingleton. Tune in daily this week to watch all six groundbreaking interviews.
Much has been said and written about the seemingly contradictory ideas of “free trade” and “protectionism” since the modest economic downturn sped into a full-blown collapse. One of the most important points to take away is the misconception that the world is unilaterally accepting of “free trade” and open markets, and that any “protectionist” strategies provoke economic retribution.
As Fingleton points out, building protections into your economy cannot instigate a trade war if the war is already raging. More importantly, building protections into the American economy does not change the fact that the United States is still the largest consumer market in the world. Many in government, on both sides of the political aisle, have said that we must avoid a trade war. What they should be doing is combating the one we are already engaged in and buffering American consumers from economic hostilities abroad.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Why Does Our Government Still Spy On, Arrest and Persecute Dissidents?
Why Does Our Government Still Spy On, Arrest and Persecute Dissidents? - Consortium News.
One needn’t return in time to the McCarthy Era to find many individuals who have been investigated and persecuted for holding vilified opinions.
Recently, an American Civil Liberties Union report pointed out, “Anti-terrorism training materials currently being used by the Department of Defense (DoD) teach its personnel that free expression in the form of public protests should be regarded as ‘low level terrorism’.”
Although DoD officials removed the offensive section at the urging of ACLU members, the DoD stance is still troubling since a longstanding practice to designate peaceful, law-abiding activists as dangerous and treasonable still exists in many government departments and agencies.
Indeed the participants of the first antiwar protest against the Vietnam incursion, put together in the mid-1960′s using Gandhi’s Salt March as a model for a nonviolent demonstration, faced government operatives filming them face by face from rooftops as they moved en masse down Broadway to the UN Plaza.
DC Metro Crash: Who Will Die Next Because We Throw Money at Billionaries and Scrimp on the Public Good?
DC Metro Crash: Who Will Die Next Because We Throw Money at Billionaries and Scrimp on the Public Good? – The Nation.
The wreckage of the DC train crash is not an accident site. It’s a crime scene. When we spend more on sports stadiums than infrastructure, people die.
Who will be the next to die because our cities spend money on sports stadiums instead of basic infrastructure?
Two years ago, my former college town, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, was the site of thirteen needless fatalities when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed. The tragedy occurred the same month that ground was broken on a $500 million stadium. Now, a mere ten minute walk from my home, two Washington, DC, Metro trains collided, killing nine and sending more than seventy-five to the hospital.
I spent most of that evening on the phone, either assuring people that my family was safe or checking on friends to make sure no one was in the hospital or worse. My loved ones were all in one piece. The parents of my little girl’s friends were secure, although several had been on the trains involved, shaken up for sure but not grievously injured. The relief was palpable, even physical. But then the stories started to be released in small doses, and relief turned to horror.
Can Gardening Make Your Sex Life Better?
Can Gardening Make Your Sex Life Better? - Chelsea Green Publishing.
The skeptical reader will probably go, say what? But I believe gardening is a good model to go off of — in terms of getting off.
et me set the scene. It’s a summer day somewhere in central Vermont. There’s a sweet-smelling breeze picking up whiffs of the last day of lilac season. There are no black flies in this luscious breeze, and you’re kneeling in the dirt. You reach across a 30-inch bed to gently pluck the weeds away from the brassicus varieties. You’ve been working outside all morning, there’s sweat under your arms, on your face, on your chest. The smell of the earth infiltrates your being, and all is beauty, efficiency, and food production…until a thundercloud passes overhead. The sun goes away, and the clouds bring the threat of rain. You look at your better half, who has reached the end of the row he or she has been weeding. They’re bending over, working their hands in the dirt. You’ve just pulled out the first carrot of the season, and you brush off the dirt, and take a sweet bite. It’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted. You pass a water bottle back and forth with your lover. It begins to rain. You rush inside, and I bet you can guess what happens next.
Gardening — besides my proposed sexual connotations — is satisfying. And while weekend-long weeding can suck at the height of summer, all in all gardening is a valuable alternative to the grocery store, and allies humans with the sensualities of the land. There have been tomes written on gardening (see here and here); both the various techniques for various seasons, and the philosophy behind what it means to work the land. There is no doubt in my mind — and if you’re into gardening or enjoy visiting gardens, I think you’ll agree — that gardening, albeit hard work, is an intimate way to connect with the earth, and a delightful way to spend the day. My question is — aside from all of the obvious benefits to man and land — does gardening make sex better?
via Can Gardening Make Your Sex Life Better? | Environment | AlterNet.
Should We Bulldoze the ‘Burbs?
OPS: many of us would go insane dealing with the congestion of a City on a daily basis
Should We Bulldoze the ‘Burbs? - Christian Science Monitor.
A debate has ensued about whether to raze neighborhoods that have fallen into economic decay.
A story last week in the Telegraph, a British paper, describes how the city of Flint, Mich., a former industrial powerhouse now facing depopulation and plummeting home values, is dealing with vacant housing.
The solution? Bulldoze entire districts, returning the land to nature, and concentrate the population in the urban core.
The Telegraph’s Tom Leonard reports that the idea is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
He said: “The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there’s an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they’re shrinking, they’re failing.”
But some Flint dustcarts are collecting just one rubbish bag a week, roads are decaying, police are very understaffed and there were simply too few people to pay for services, he said.
If the city didn’t downsize it will eventually go bankrupt, he added.
via Should We Bulldoze the ‘Burbs? | Environment | AlterNet.
Bogus Think Tank “Third Way” Pops Up to Thwart Health Care Reform
Bogus Think Tank “Third Way” Pops Up to Thwart Health Care Reform
Third Way is drenched in corporate money, tangled in ties to big business and bent on Clintonian triangulation. How dare it call itself progressive?
A couple of weeks ago, the slippery think tank Third Way came under fire from progressives when a memo surfaced under the group’s letterhead arguing against the creation of a public health care plan. In place of a public plan, Third Way proposed a “hybrid” model attached to a ludicrous sunset provision of four years.
Not for the first time, people wondered aloud: Who are these Third Way people, and why are they calling themselves “progressives”? Why does their goal appear to be to complicate the drive for public health insurance?
Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee captured the feelings of many when he organized a call campaign to urge Third Way to cease its attempts to retard momentum toward a public plan. Green also floated the idea of a campaign to de-fund and blacklist the organization.
But maybe that’s going too far. Looked at another way, Third Way perhaps deserves more pity than anger. It seems the nebulous policy shop is constantly being misunderstood.
via Bogus Think Tank “Third Way” Pops Up to Thwart Health Care Reform | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
A Fairer Credit Card? Priceless
OpEd
A Fairer Credit Card? Priceless - NYTimes.com
INDUSTRY representatives would have you believe that the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act enacted last month spells the end of the credit card as we know it. President Obama’s proposal last week to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to enforce the law has increased the industry’s concerns.
But the example of cards issued by credit unions puts the lie to these claims. Credit unions largely conform to the new rules already, while profitably maintaining the basic features that users know and love.
The credit card act is under fire for limiting a number of fees commonly used in credit card contracts, like the charge for going over the credit limit and the increased interest rate that applies once a borrower has missed a payment. These changes might look like a boon for the average card user, but industry advocates claim that fees on delinquent borrowers subsidize the perks for those who pay on time. Take away the lucrative fees, the argument goes, and credit card issuers will be forced to ax free plane rides, slash generous credit limits and impose hefty annual dues for all.
via Op-Ed Contributors – A Fairer Credit Card? Priceless – NYTimes.com.
The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free
The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free - Truthdig
The Corporate Media State Has Deformed American Culture — Time to Fight Back. Progressives must embrace emotion and passion to counter the force of corporate propaganda.
By Chris Hedges
The ability of the corporate state to pacify the country by extending credit and providing cheap manufactured goods to the masses is gone. The pernicious idea that democracy lies in the choice between competing brands and the freedom to accumulate vast sums of personal wealth at the expense of others has collapsed. The conflation of freedom with the free market has been exposed as a sham. The travails of the poor are rapidly becoming the travails of the middle class, especially as unemployment insurance runs out and people get a taste of Bill Clinton’s draconian welfare reform. And class warfare, once buried under the happy illusion that we were all going to enter an age of prosperity with unfettered capitalism, is returning with a vengeance.
Our economic crisis—despite the corporate media circus around the death of Michael Jackson or Gov. Mark Sanford’s marital infidelity or the outfits of Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest incarnation, Brüno—barrels forward. And this crisis will lead to a period of profound political turmoil and change. Those who care about the plight of the working class and the poor must begin to mobilize quickly or we will lose our last opportunity to save our embattled democracy. The most important struggle will be to wrest the organs of communication from corporations that use mass media to demonize movements of social change and empower proto-fascist movements such as the Christian right.
via Truthdig – Reports – The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free.
Wilkerson says DADT ‘should be repealed’ immediately.
Wilkerson says DADT ‘should be repealed’ immediately.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, appeared on the XM/Sirius radio show “Stand Up! With Pete Dominick” today and stated forcefully that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy barring gay men and women from serving openly in the military “should be repealed”:
DOMINICK: You’re a 31 year veteran of the military, Army, like I’ve said, you served in Vietnam. What’s your opinion of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy currently in place? Should it be repealed or should it remain in place?
WILKERSON: Let me say just right off the bat, it should be repealed. Gays should be able to serve – gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the American armed forces just like anyone else does. [...]
DOMINICK: It should be repealed immediately.
WILKERSON: Yep.
Listen here:
via Think Progress » Wilkerson says DADT ‘should be repealed’ immediately..
The Global Warming Lie Detector
The Global Warming Lie Detector - Oxdown Gazette »
By: Dean Baker
The House’s passage of the Waxman-Markey bill raises the possibility that the United States will finally do something on global warming. This prospect has the industry hacks screaming at top volume about the horrible fate that awaits the economy. Everyone should know not to take them seriously, as I will explain in a moment.
First, we should acknowledge the obvious: The bill is awful. It gives away permits to greenhouse gas emitters that should instead be auctioned. As a result, money that could be rebated to taxpayers or used to fund the development of clean technologies instead goes to the industries that are the source of the problem.
Second, the use of tradable permits rather than a tax is a rather questionable policy. Permits will almost certainly require more government enforcement bureaucracy than a system of taxes and subsidies. And, incidentally, permits will allow Goldman Sachs and our other Wall Street friends to make tens of billions of dollars on trading fees in the coming decades, a high priority for all Americans.
But a bad bill is almost certainly better than no bill. If Waxman-Markey doesn’t get through, it is very difficult to see another bill getting through this Congress. And there is no reason to believe that the Congress that gets elected in 2010 will be any less indebted to the corporate lobbyists.
via Oxdown Gazette » The Global Warming Lie Detector.
“In a Society Governed Passively by Free Markets and Free Elections, Organized Greed Always Defeats Disorganized Democracy”
In his excellent new essay arguing that “Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression”, Matt Taibbi writes:
In a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.
“In a Society Governed Passively by Free Markets and Free Elections, Organized Greed Always Defeats Disorganized Democracy”
I agree.
This same thinking applies to the government’s lies about Iraq, as more and more evidence proves that the American government knowingly lied when it claimed that Iraq had wmds, and when it claimed there was a link between Iraq and 9/11. The “organized greed” of those in government who wanted to invade Iraq defeated the “disorganized democracy” of everyone else.
If asked, Taibbi might even admit this parallel.
But Taibbi and many other quasi-mainstream writers have a blind spot when it comes to the ultimate example of where “organized greed … defeats disorganized democracy”: false flag operations.
Financial commentator and former broker and options trader Max Keiser is perhaps less shy than Taibbi. As Keiser said of Goldman’s manipulation:
This was a controlled demolition sponsored by Goldman Sachs . . .
We Were Acquitted of Speaking Against Wars
We Were Acquitted of Speaking Against Wars
by davidswanson
[Laurie was one of 17 citizens arrested in a senate office building on the opening day of Congress, January 6, 2009, for speaking against wars. (video)]
I finally settled down since returning from Washington and now have a chance to write and send my appreciation directly to all of you for your support and interest in our trial. I really felt you behind us and that made such a difference.
As you may have already heard that the trial verged on the absurd. What is so shocking is how much leeway the government gets in their incompetence mounting a prosecution. What is more chilling is facing for oneself, what many of us know, that they will blatently lie in order to get a conviction. In our case the personal consequences were relatively minor but I couldn’t help but think about so many others, that face much greater harm due to false testimony, day in and day out, in the criminal “justice” system. The officer in our case took his oath and then on the stand proceeded to make up the events and behavior he attributed to us, that the prosecutor hoped would persuade the judge to convict us. We never did get to mount our defense because there was so much else wrong, including the destruction of evidence, that at a certain point, not soon enough, the judge struck the testimony of the witness and the prosecutor threw out the case.
I did prepare a statement in the event that I was convicted and I have included it here if anyone wants to read it. Thankfully, I could read it outside of the courthouse after we prevailed:
via We Were Acquitted of Speaking Against Wars | AfterDowningStreet.org.
Camp David Chaplain: “First we get the military, then we get the nation”
Camp David Chaplain: “First we get the military, then we get the nation”
For a few hours today it seemed, according to a new Time Magazine story by Amy Sullivan, released Monday morning, that US President Barack Obama had chosen, as his main place of worship, Camp David’s Chapel as his church. The chapel is currently headed by a Navy Chaplain who has publicly advocated for a Christian takeover of the United military, then the United States. [note: story first covered by MRFF Senior Research Director Chris Rodda]
The White House has subsequently issued a statement denying that Obama has chosen the Evergreen Chapel, and heated discussion of the affair is currently raging at the leading Democratic activist forum, the Daily Kos.
Carey Cash, a relative of famous country singer Johnny Cash, is a Navy chaplain who survived some of the heaviest fighting during the initial US invasion of Iraq. Cash is now head pastor of Camp David’s Evergreen Chapel.
via Talk To Action | Camp David Chaplain: “First we get the military, then we get the nation”.
Oregon Passes Hemp Bill: Sixth US State to Say Yes to Hemp in 2009
Oregon Passes Hemp Bill: Sixth US State to Say Yes to Hemp in 2009 - Salem-News.Com
Oregon becomes the sixth state in 2009 to take control; pressure to grow hemp continues to mount as business booms.
(SALEM, Ore.) – Today, by a vote of 46 to 11, the Oregon House passed SB 676, a bill that permits production and possession of industrial hemp and trade in industrial hemp commodities and products.
“I am glad that Oregon has joined the list of states that have agreed that American farmers should have the right to re-introduce industrial hemp as an agricultural crop,” says SB 676 sponsor, Sen. Floyd Prozanski.
“By passing SB 676 with strong bi-partisan support, the Oregon Legislature has taken a proactive position to allow its farmers the right to grow industrial hemp, to provide American manufacturers with domestically-grown hemp, and to profit from that effort.”
The Oregon Senate passed the bill by an overwhelming majority vote of 27 to 2 on June 19th. Vote Hemp is optimistic that Governor Kulongoski will sign the bill. Oregon would become the ninth state to authorize regulated hemp farming under state law.
“The time has come for the federal government to act and allow farmers to once again grow hemp, so American companies will no longer need to import it and American farmers will no longer be denied a profitable new crop,” comments Vote Hemp President, Eric Steenstra.
via Oregon Passes Hemp Bill: Sixth US State to Say Yes to Hemp in 2009 – Salem-News.Com.
Obama Tried To Stop Honduras Coup
Obama Tried To Stop Honduras Coup
Buried in a Wall Street Journal article is the news that President Obama tried to stop Sunday’s coup in Honduras:
The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya, said senior U.S. officials. Washington’s ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, sought to facilitate a dialogue between the president’s office, the Honduran parliament and the military.The efforts accelerated over the weekend, as Washington grew increasingly alarmed. “The players decided, in the end, not to listen to our message,” said one U.S. official involved in the diplomacy. On Sunday, the U.S. embassy here tried repeatedly to contact the Honduran military directly, but was rebuffed. Washington called the removal of President Zelaya a coup and said it wouldn’t recognize any other leader.
via Obama Tried To Stop Honduras Coup.
Goldman Sachs The Fourth Branch of the U.S. Government
Goldman Sachs The Fourth Branch of the U.S. Government :: The Market Oracle
This pretty much has us covered in terms of political strategy… but what about financial issues? Everyone knows Congress has no clue how to allocate capital. And the Executive Branch doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to financial matters either (we’ve run a deficit virtually every year since 1970).
Shouldn’t we have a Financial Branch of government? A group of fiscal experts entirely devoted to keeping the US’s fiscal house in order?
Well, we actually do, but instead of installing a branch of smart, genuine financiers interested in benefiting the American people, we installed a bunch of greedy crooks intent on stealing as much of the public’s money as possible with no consequences what so ever.
Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you America’s Financial Branch of the Government: Goldman Sachs.
Trying to detail exactly how integrated Goldman has become to the Federal Government would be like trying to track the peanut butter swirls in Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl ice cream. Indeed, with the exception of Ben Bernanke and a few other officials, Goldman Sachs provided all the lead characters for the Tragic Comedy that is our latest Financial Crisis.
A Short History of International Currencies
Source is a pfd.
A Short History of International Currencies by Christopher Weber
The US Dollar Loses 92% of its Value Since 1971. The US dollar has been depreciating for generations. Seventy years ago it was first devalued from $20.67 a gold ounce to $35. Then 35 years ago the devaluation started gaining strength. The dollar has lost over 90% of its gold value since August 15, 1971. More to the point of lessons for today, once again the world’s currency has been devalued for decades. And once again, Asia is its most important trading partner. What if, once again, Asia stops accepting the world’s currency? History never repeats itself exactly, but if you are looking for signposts to the future, then the day when India, China and the rest of Asia that is still tied to the US dollar slip off the peg, will be a very important one. Asia, particularly, is now facing the fact that they are holding a depreciating currency for nearly all of their currency reserves and they are moving to diversify. As I write this, it has just been announced that the central bank of South Korea will diversify its reserves out of the US dollar, at least to some extent. Note: It appears (imho) that Nixon made some additional treaties with China that had to do with our currency.
via A Short History of International Currencies by Christopher Weber
Obama’s Insurance Stories: “For-Profit Health Care Killed My Wife”
Obama’s Insurance Stories: “For-Profit Health Care Killed My Wife”
People across the United States are sharing their personal stories with Barack Obama’s repurposed campaign arm, Organizing For America, to tell the world about the failures of the U.S. health care system. Some people say they would almost rather die than deal with it.
Joan in Washington, D.C. wrote that she fears she and her husband will be homeless if he can’t find a job, and that she is “uninsurable” because of cancer.
“Maybe I should wish for the cancer to kill me sooner — it might be a better option,” Joan wrote. “I am terrified.”
Jackie in Logan, N.D., wrote that she cried when she was hospitalized in January out of fear for the bills — even though she has health insurance.
“I told my husband that perhaps I should just go home and wait to die,” Jackie wrote, “as it would be cheaper to be cremated, than to have to exist dealing with the debt of surviving.”
Brad of Granite City, IL, wrote that “I may die any day because Health Insurance isn’t available to me.”
“For profit healthcare killed my wife,” wrote John of Nashville, Tenn.
via Obama’s Insurance Stories: “For-Profit Health Care Killed My Wife”.
Sebelius Indicates Willingness To Compromise On Public Plan, Offers Support For Co-Op Proposal
OPS: All Republicans, and many “Democrats” are working hard to sell us out. Here’s a case in point
Sebelius Indicates Willingness To Compromise On Public Plan, Offers Support For Co-Op Proposal
In an emailed statement to Bloomberg News, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she’s open to the idea of dropping a public health insurance option in favor of a medical-insurance cooperative. “You could theoretically design a co-op plan that had the same attributes as a public plan,” Sebelius said.
The leading co-op proposal in the Senate, offered by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), does not share the attributes of a public plan. Instead, Conrad’s proposal would create multiple state or regional non-profits as a competitor to the private insurance market. As Howard Dean has said of this plan: “The co-ops are too small to compete with the big, private insurance companies. They will kill the co-ops completely by undercutting them, using their financial clout to do it.”
Bloomberg’s Al Hunt asked Sebelius, “[If] you’re willing to compromise on your notion of a public plan…what’s non-negotiable?” Sebelius responded that the final bill has to “have a comprehensive approach that lowers costs. That’s non-negotiable.” She added reform also “needs to provide coverage for everyone.” Watch it:
After Campaigning For Climate Change Legislation, McCain Now Derides It As ‘Cap-And-Tax’
OPS: somebody get the drool bucket for Grampy
After Campaigning For Climate Change Legislation, McCain Now Derides It As ‘Cap-And-Tax’
mccain_energyOn Friday, the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act which, among other things, would institute a cap-and-trade system to curb U.S. carbon emissions that contribute to man-made climate change. The Senate is set to consider the legislation in the fall, but a number of Republican senators have declared the legislation dead on arrival. In an interview this morning with conservative talker Mike Broomhead on Pheonix, AZ’s Newstalk 550 KFYI, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) echoed their sentiments. He smeared the ACES legislation as a “cap-and-tax” program motivated by the Obama administration’s desire to pay for things like “banks and the world’s largest insurance company”
Could Census fear-mongering cost Bachmann her seat?
OPS: Let’s hope something does. After all, the got Capone on Tax evasion…
Could Census fear-mongering cost Bachmann her seat?
While noting that “conspiracy theories have been a constant in Rep. Michele Bachmann’s political career since she first ran for the Stillwater school board in the late 1990s,” the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune’s editorial page called into question the collateral damage that could stem from Bachmann’s irrational 2010 Census fear-mongering. The Star-Tribune points out that not only is Bachmann “a politician interested more in being the face of the fringe element than solving the real-life problems of her north-suburban district,” but that “she may be setting in motion events that could substantially hurt her home state and potentially cost her the office she occupies.” The Star-Tribune writes
via Think Progress » Could Census fear-mongering cost Bachmann her seat?.
US city car park floors collapse
US city car park floors collapse - BBC NEWS
A section of a car park has reportedly collapsed near the centre of Atlanta city in the US state of Georgia.
TV footage showed that part of at least one floor had fallen onto the level below, crushing vehicles.
Witnesses told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper that four floors of the deck had collapsed, but that the overall structure remained.
Fire crews are at the scene, near the Georgia Institute of Technology campus. It is not known if anyone was hurt.
‘Boom’
Bobby Stewart, of the Atlanta Fire Department, told the Associated Press news agency there were no immediate reports of injuries.
via BBC NEWS | Americas | US city car park floors collapse.
Hey Joe! The REAL Reason?
Lieberman
Hey Joe, why do you really oppose the public option for health care?
You SAID it’s because ‘there’s plenty of competition in the private insurance market.”
But that’s not true at all
YouTube – Hey Joe! The REAL Reason?.
Shell’s Climate Crimes Exposed
Shell’s Climate Crimes Exposed - | CommonDreams.org
Friends of The Earth
New report from environmental groups exposes Shell’s anti-climate lobbying activities
WASHINGTON – June 29 – Friends of the Earth and Oil Change International released a report today detailing oil giant Shell’s colossal contribution to global climate change and its continued investment in carbon-intensive fossil fuels.
The report also reveals new internal documents that show that Shell knew of the environmental dangers of gas flaring in Nigeria more than fifteen years ago, but chose not to stop for purely financial reasons.
“Shell greenwashes itself as a sustainable company when in reality it is the dirtiest oil producer of all,” said Ben Schreiber of Friends of the Earth. “As evidenced by Shell’s lobbying activities on the flawed climate bill that passed the House last Friday, the company has been instrumental in weakening climate legislation while claiming to care about the environment.”
via Shell’s Climate Crimes Exposed | CommonDreams.org.
The Chicago Model of Militarizing Schools
The Chicago Model of Militarizing Schools
For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago’s Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term “occupation” because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA’s opening.
Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA “disenrolls” students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.
This phenomenon is not restricted to Senn. Chicago has more military academies and more students in JROTC than any other city in the US. As the tentacles of school militarization reach beyond Chicago, the process used in this city seems to serve as a model of expansion. There was a Marine Academy planned for Georgia’s Dekalb County, which includes 10 percent of Atlanta. Fortunately, due to protest, the school has been postponed until 2010. Despite it being postponed, it is still useful to analyze the rhetoric used to rationalize the Marine Academy. Many of the lies and excuses used to justify school militarization in Chicago and Georgia may well be used in other cities as militarism grows.
Not for Recruiting?
A favorite lie used to defend the expansion of military academies is that they are not used to recruit for the military.
via t r u t h o u t | The Chicago Model of Militarizing Schools.
The Holes in Obama’s Financial Regulation Plan
The Holes in Obama’s Financial Regulation Plan
By RALPH NADER
It’s good that Barack Obama is an agile basketball player because on financial regulatory reform he?s having to straddle an ever-widening chasm between his words and his deeds.
Obama said: “Millions of Americans who have worked hard and behaved responsibility have seen their life dreams eroded by the irresponsibility of others and by the failure of their government to provide adequate oversight. Our entire economy has been undermined by that failure.”
“Over the past two decades, we have seen, time and again, cycles of precipitous booms and busts. In each case, millions of people have had their lives profoundly disrupted by developments in the financial system, most severely in our recent crisis.”
Strong words, even though he didn’t include “corporate crime, fraud and abuse” to replace the euphemism “irresponsibility.” One would think that his 88 page reform proposal to Congress would be up to his words. Instead he provides Washington aspirins for Wall Street brain cancer.
The anemic nature of these reforms ostensibly designed to prevent or deter another big bust on Wall Street and its hostage grip on the nation’s savings and investments immediately drew the ire of well-regarded business columnists.
via Ralph Nader: The Holes in Obama’s Financial Regulation Plan.
Cheney Worried That Iraq Withdrawal Will ‘Waste’ The Sacrifice By U.S. Troops
Cheney Worried That Iraq Withdrawal Will ‘Waste’ The Sacrifice By U.S. Troops 
Dick Cheney Tomorrow is the deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq, a date Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is calling a “great victory.” But in a new interview with Washington Times radio, Vice President Cheney was still pushing the U.S. to stay in Iraq, saying that withdrawal would “waste” the sacrifice of U.S. troops:
Mr. Cheney told The Washington Times’ America’s Morning News radio show that he is a strong believer in Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and that the general is doing what needs to be done.
“But what he says concerns me: That there is still a continuing problem. One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks.
“I hope Iraqis can deal with it. At some point they have to stand on their own. But I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.“
via Think Progress » Cheney Worried That Iraq Withdrawal Will ‘Waste’ The Sacrifice By U.S. Troops.
A New Era in Trade
A New Era in Trade
The TRADE Act would completely overhaul America’s trade policy and could force the Obama administration to renegotiate current “free trade” agreements.
Over 100 House members, unhappy with America’s failed trade policies, are taking matters into their own hands in the form of the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment Act (TRADE), which has the potential to completely reshape how Washington conducts business with regard to trade.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Michael Michaud (D-ME), chairman of the House Trade Working Group, would completely overhaul America’s trade policy and could force the Obama administration to renegotiate current “free trade” agreements such as the flawed North American Free Trade Agreement.
“We all know that we live in a globalized world. But we need to ensure trade is fair for our workers and the economy. The TRADE Act shows what we are for in future trade agreements – and paves the way on how to fix our existing agreements,” Michaud said in a press release.
The bill would require the Government Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive review of America’s major trade pacts including NAFTA, the World Trade Organization and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. That review must be conducted before Congress would be allowed to analyze any new or pending trade pacts.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Establishment view of Obama’s civil liberties record
Establishment view of Obama’s civil liberties record – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
One of the most cherished weapons for dismissing political arguments without having to engage them is to claim they come from “the Far Left” or are confined to “liberal ideologues.” For years, that was what was said about withdrawing from Iraq even as majorities of Americans supported that position, and it is how the political and media establishment now demonize the call for investigations into Bush/Cheney crimes, despite large percentages and diverse ideological support for those views . Exactly the same tactic is used to dismiss those who criticize Obama for adopting Bush policies in the areas of civil liberties and secrecy: only people from the Far Left fringe or civil liberties extremists would equate Obama and Bush when it comes to such matters.
From today’s Op-Ed page of The Washington Post — the ultimate establishment organ — one finds this observation about Obama’s use of the state secrets privilege from a Post Editorial:
The second Bush administration took the state secrets doctrine to new heights by arguing that an entire case should be dismissed — sometimes at its earliest stages — if it could touch on any information that could conceivably have national security ramifications. The Justice Department under President George W. Bush used this approach to try to quash litigation involving, among other things, domestic surveillance and extraordinary rendition (the forced transfer of detainees to countries where they may be tortured).
via Establishment view of Obama’s civil liberties record – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Democrats to Progressives: we’re just not that into you
Democrats to Progressives: we’re just not that into you – Scholars and Rogues »
A modest proposal, perhaps.
It’s been entertaining watching American public “discourse” since the election. (I use that word in its broadest, most ridiculous sense, since nothing that hinges so completely on self-absorption, rank ignorance and pathological dishonesty can be accurately characterized by such a noble word. But indulge me. I’ve been working on my irony lately.)
On the one hand you have conservatives fainting dead away that we’re now in the clutches of a “socialist” president. Never mind that these folks wouldn’t know a real socialist if he was gnawing their balls off. Never mind that most of these folks think “socialist” is the French word for Negro. Never mind that Obama demonstrably is to socialism what Joe the Plumber is to brie-sucking Northeastern intellectualism. As arch-conservative TV pundit Stephen Colbert says, “this is a fact-free zone.”
On the other you have the righteous outrage of the progressosphere, which feels six different kinds of betrayed by a president who promised them the moon and stars and has now left them to what looks like at least a four-year walk of shame. If I might borrow from an old fraternity joke, imagine the following scene from the Oval Office:
via Scholars and Rogues » Democrats to Progressives: we’re just not that into you.
Obama, They Want You to Fail
OPS: Obama is doing incredible exercises in contortion to work with people that have declared, CLEARLY, that they are actively working to make him fail. It’s suicidal. It’s time to forget bipartisanship and get the job he was elected to do – done.
Obama, They Want You to Fail
By Robert Parry
After last year’s elections, a Democratic operative told me that if the Democrats got to 59 seats in the Senate, it would be easy to peel off one or two Republicans to pass key legislation like serious health care reform. I was left wondering what political planet he’d been living on for the past three decades.
For almost as long as I’ve been in Washington (I arrived for the Associated Press in 1977) it has worked the other way. Even when the Republicans appear to be on the defensive and outnumbered, they band together and vote as a bloc, while Democrats bend over backwards to be “bipartisan.”
This dynamic has continued into Barack Obama’s presidency as he and the Democrats have watered down their proposals with the hope of winning over a few Republican votes so they can claim they achieved some bipartisanship, even if it means passing bills that are half-hearted half-measures.
That process dominated the debate over the $787 billion stimulus bill that the Democrats diluted with Republican tax cuts and shrank in size despite warnings from top economists that the package would fall far short of the needed boost in jobs, a bleak prediction that now appears to be coming true as unemployment climbs toward 10 percent.
via Consortiumnews.com.
Removing Obstacles to Generic Drug Competition
Removing Obstacles to Generic Drug Competition 
A Critical Priority for Health Care Reform
Thirty years ago former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger explained that “Congress designed the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 as a ‘consumer welfare prescription,’” to help average Americans benefit from the fruits of market-based competition by limiting monopolies and cartels in the U.S. economy. U.S. antitrust laws such as the Sherman Act and subsequent laws indeed assure that competition is the lodestar of the marketplace and that consumers receive the full benefits of competition in lower prices and better services.
One of the sectors in which antitrust enforcement is crucial is in the pharmaceutical industry, which accounts for an increasingly large part of our overall healthcare expenditures. Fortunately, during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, both state and federal antitrust enforcers, bolstered by private actions, began to approach pharmaceutical competition concerns in a disciplined fashion, bringing cases that clarified the law and stopped conduct that denied consumers the benefits of lower priced generic drugs. Despite these increased efforts, however, there are numerous forms of anticompetitive conduct that continue in pharmaceutical markets because of the ability of companies to manipulate the regulatory process and some misguided decisions of the courts.
Stopping these types of anticompetitive conduct could not be a greater priority for the Obama administration’s antitrust enforcers. With more than $60 billion in drugs scheduled to go “off patent” during the remainder of the President’s first term, stopping anticompetitive conduct in the pharmaceutical industry is crucial to controlling health care costs. If antitrust is a “consumer welfare prescription,” then our health care system is certainly in need of a prescription for an added dose of enforcement in pharmaceutical markets.
via Removing Obstacles to Generic Drug Competition.
Health Care Reform
Health Care Reform
Center for American Progress
Two health care reports on modernizing the health care system and payment reform.
The Two Trillion Dollar Solution by Melinda Beeuwkes Buntin and David Cutler
Payment Reform to Improve Care by Ellen-Marie Whelan and Judy Feder
via Center for American Progress.
Pastor Asks God to Smite President Obama
OPS: There are clear laws against this. Will they be enforced?
Pastor Asks God to Smite President Obama | Southern Poverty Law Center
As if President Obama doesn’t have enough to deal with – what with civil unrest in Iran, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and economic malaise at home – now he’s also got a Southern Baptist minister praying for his death.
The Rev. Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., told Fox News Radio earlier this month that he was practicing “imprecatory prayer” – a divine curse – that would bring about Obama’s death.
“So you’re praying for his death?” asked the show’s host, Alan Colmes.
“Yes.”
“So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?”
“Yes.”
The pugnacious pastor later elaborated: “If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct.”
via Pastor Asks God to Smite President Obama | Hatewatch | Southern Poverty Law Center.
Secret celebrity guest
OPS: Isn’t the Air Force supposed to be fighting for Freedom of Speech?
Secret celebrity guest
Christopher Hitchens shares his godless views with Air Force cadets, even if he can’t appear on campus
A dozen Air Force Academy cadets listen silently as Christopher Hitchens, the internationally known writer, pundit and atheist, starts speaking Monday evening.
Hitchens mentions a just-publicized video of the United States military’s top chaplain in Afghanistan advising soldiers in Bagram on how to convert Muslims to Christianity, explaining it’s their duty to “hunt people for Jesus.”
“Good people are going to get killed because of this stupidity,” Hitchens predicts in crisp, Oxford-inflected English.
His words hang in the air for only a moment. Then an Old Chicago waitress breaks in with her own dilemma: She has two Dr Peppers on her tray but can’t remember which is the Diet.
“I forgot which is which,” she says with a giggle.
via Secret celebrity guest | Local News | Colorado Springs Independent.
Beware God’s messenger in the fancy suit when you pray
Beware God’s messenger in the fancy suit when you pray – The Anchorage Daily News,
The cultural battle raging in Anchorage over inclusion of gay, lesbian, and transgender Alaskans into the municipal code’s non-discrimination ordinance exposes a doctrinal ambiguity in a branch of the religious right that exposes its followers to manipulation.
First, let me explain who in the religious right I am talking about. I am not talking about fiscally or otherwise conservative Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, or Catholics who have a well-thought-out stand on economic or social issues. For the same reason I am not talking about most Mormons, Jews, and probably no Unitarian Universalists. I am not talking about Pentecostals who have a window into the realm of the spirit. And I do not mean fundamentalist Christians in Atco trailer churches who seek a little grace to help get through a difficult life in hopes of better times in the next.
I am talking about fundamentalist mega-churches that have sprung up in the past decades from Dallas, to Orange County, to North Carolina, to Anchorage. Led by Armani-wearing, sports car driving, fifty-dollar haircut, celebrity pastors, their church services are one part entertainment, one part politics, and one part religion all blended together.
via Beware God’s messenger in the fancy suit when you pray: Alan Boraas | adn.com.
Arizona moves to allow concealed guns in bars
OPS: Bartenders will be forced to keep sawed-off shotguns behind the bar again. Just another example of how the Reich wants to take us back to the 1800′s, Robber Barons, Monopolies, High Noon on main street…..
Arizona moves to allow concealed guns in bars
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press Writer – Sun Jun 28, 12:26 pm ET
PHOENIX – There was a time in the Wild West that cowboys had to check their guns before they could pull up a bar stool for a drink — rules that protected against the saloon gunfights that came to define the frontier era in places like Arizona.
But a bill moving through the Arizona Legislature has some bar owners fearful that the state is turning back the clock to the Old West. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow anyone with a concealed-weapons permit to bring a handgun into bars and restaurants serving alcohol.
The bill gives bars discretion to keep gun-toting patrons out, and anyone with a weapon would not be allowed to drink. But the bill has angered bar owners who believe booze and guns are a recipe for disaster.
“This might be one of the stupidest things that I have heard of,” said Mike Nelson, who owns Pomeroy’s bar in Phoenix and plans to post a sign on his front door outlawing guns in his bar as soon as possible. “Can you think of a single reason guns and alcohol should be intertwined?”
via Arizona moves to allow concealed guns in bars – Yahoo! News.
Time to End False Bipartisanship
Time to End False Bipartisanship
Katrina vanden Heuvel - The Nation
God I hope David Broder is wrong. “The President has told visitors,” the Washington Post columnist wrote last week, “that he would rather have 70 votes in the Senate for a bill that gives him 85 percent of what he wants rather than a 100 percent satisfactory bill that passes 52-48.” The good news is that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is now talking about how bipartisanship may need to be redefined downward if the Democrats are going to pass meaningful healthcare reform. In a meeting with journalists last week, Emanuel proposed that health-care legislation could be bipartisan without Republican votes. “There will be ideas from both parties, and individuals from both parties, in the final product,” he said. “Whether the Republicans decide to vote for things they promoted will be up to them.” ( David Axelrod seconded the emotion in his appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”)
The trick now is to ensure that “centrist” Democrats (who, as Paul Krugman notes, “are in fact way out in right field”) pay more attention to the broad majority favoring a strong public option than to the wads of dough lavished on them by big Pharma and insurance lobbyists. As Joe Conason put it in his invaluable New York Observer column, “If Congress fails to enact healthcare reform this year—or it enacts a sham reform designed to bail out corporate medicine while excluding the ‘public option’—then the public will rightly blame Democrats, who have no excuse for failure except their own cowardice and corruption.” Blame could well be registered in ugly midterm election results in 2010.
It’s time to part ways with obstructionist Republicans and pass a strong healthcare bill with a majority vote, which is possible if efforts cease to get a handful of Republicans to cross over. Redefining bipartisanship at a time when the GOP has become a male, pale and stale party committed to deficit demagoguery and fearmongering is the common sense and, I’d even argue, pragmatic course. Instead of wasting time on recalcitrant GOP holdouts, do what Drew Westen, author of the terrific book “The Political Brain,” advises to pass meaningful healthcare change: “Focus on principles, tell compelling stories, move people emotionally and send clear messages.”
via Time to End False Bipartisanship.
For modest earners, relief repaying student loans
For modest earners, relief repaying student loans
NEW YORK – Repaying a student loan could soon be a little less painful.
Starting this week, anyone with a federal student loan can apply for a program, run by the Department of Education, that caps monthly payments based on income, and forgives remaining balances after 25 years. Those choosing to work in public service could have their loans forgiven after just 10 years.
Eligibility for income-based repayment (IBR) is determined by a person’s income and loan size. A calculator at http://www.ibrinfo.org can help borrowers determine their eligibility for the plan, which becomes available Wednesday.
“It’s a way to borrow for college without going to the poor house,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, a California-based nonprofit that runs the Project on Student Debt.
The program stems from the Education Department’s College Cost Reduction and Access Act, signed in 2007, which authorized the creation of a new income-based repayment plan for both Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) and Direct Loan borrowers on all Stafford and graduate PLUS loans.
via For modest earners, relief repaying student loans – Yahoo! News.
Swiss Banks Shun Americans as U.S. Compels Disclosure
Swiss Banks Shun Americans as U.S. Compels Disclosure – Bloomberg.com
Swiss banks are shutting the accounts of Americans as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service accelerates the hunt for tax dodgers.
UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG, the country’s biggest banks, have told Americans to move their money into specially created units registered in the U.S., or lose their accounts. Smaller private banks such as Geneva-based Mirabaud & Cie. are closing all accounts held by U.S. taxpayers.
While the banks declined to say how many people are affected, more than 5 million Americans live abroad, including about 30,000 in Switzerland, according to estimates from American Citizens Abroad in Geneva. Swiss banks must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide services for those customers.
“My bank doesn’t want to do that, so we wouldn’t accept an investment account for a U.S. person,” said Pierre Mirabaud, chairman of Mirabaud & Cie. and the Swiss Bankers Association, during a lunch at the American International Club of Geneva.
via Swiss Banks Shun Americans as U.S. Compels Disclosure (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado
It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado - NYTimes.com
Just 75 miles west of here, in Utah, collecting rainwater from the roof is still illegal unless the roof owner also owns water rights on the ground; the same rigid rules, with a few local exceptions, also apply in Washington State. Meanwhile, 20 miles south of here, in New Mexico, rainwater catchment, as the collecting is called, is mandatory for new dwellings in some places like Santa Fe.
DURANGO, Colo. — For the first time since territorial days, rain will be free for the catching here, as more and more thirsty states part ways with one of the most entrenched codes of the West.
Precipitation, every last drop or flake, was assigned ownership from the moment it fell in many Western states, making scofflaws of people who scooped rainfall from their own gutters. In some instances, the rights to that water were assigned a century or more ago.
Now two new laws in Colorado will allow many people to collect rainwater legally. The laws are the latest crack in the rainwater edifice, as other states, driven by population growth, drought, or declining groundwater in their aquifers, have already opened the skies or begun actively encouraging people to collect.
via It’s Now Legal to Catch a Raindrop in Colorado – NYTimes.com.
Loophole Helps GE Benefit From Bank Rescue Program
How a Loophole Benefits GE in Bank Rescue - washingtonpost.com
Industrial Giant Becomes Top Recipient in Debt-Guarantee Program
General Electric, the world’s largest industrial company, has quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key rescue programs for banks.
At the same time, GE has avoided many of the restrictions facing other financial giants getting help from the government.
The company did not initially qualify for the program, under which the government sought to unfreeze credit markets by guaranteeing debt sold by banking firms. But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.
As a result, GE has joined major banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. Public records show that GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, has issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the program, which is known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, or TLGP. The government’s actions have been “powerful and helpful” to the company, GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt acknowledged in December.
via Loophole Helps GE Benefit From Bank Rescue Program – washingtonpost.com.
Study: 15% of teens think they’re going to die young
Study: 15% of teens think they’re going to die young
A surprising number of teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think they’re going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests.
The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior because they think they’re invulnerable to harm. Instead, a sizable number of teens may take chances “because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake,” said study author Dr. Iris Borowsky, a researcher at the University of Minnesota.
That behavior threatens to turn their fatalism into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Over seven years, kids who thought they would die early were seven time more likely than optimistic kids to be subsequently diagnosed with AIDS. They also were more likely to attempt suicide and get in fights resulting in serious injuries.
via . Chicago Sun-Times
America’s Future
OPS: Video at link
America’s Future - Craig Harrington with Eamonn Fingleton -
In this interview Fingleton discusses how the present collapse of the American financial, consumer, and employment markets reflect on our near and long-term prospects. The future – in his eyes – is bleak, and the day of reckoning is rapidly approaching.
Editor’s note: The following is the first interview in a six part series with economist Eamonn Fingleton. Tune in daily this week to watch all six groundbreaking interviews.
In the above interview Fingleton discusses how the present collapse of the American financial, consumer, and employment markets reflect on our near and long-term prospects. The future – in his eyes – is bleak, and the day of reckoning is rapidly approaching.
The United States still has a nominal lead in terms of the sheer size of its economy. However, in terms of the actual scope and stability of our economy, the U.S. was surpassed by growing economies in Western Europe and East Asia long ago. As the United States become more leveraged and unstable, other countries became secure and diversified. The current state of the American economy is living proof of this fact.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Chamber Of Commerce: We Only Like Voting When It Suits Our Purposes
OPS: and their purposes are support of trans-national corporations over everything else.
Chamber Of Commerce: We Only Like Voting When It Suits Our Purposes
Last week, the Chamber of Commerce announced that it will “vigorously oppose” a new consumer protection agency proposed as part of the Obama administration’s regulatory reform package. But that’s evidently not the only way in which the Chamber is out to influence the debate over the changes facing Wall Street.
Yesterday, the Chamber laid out its opposition to a change — backed by the administration and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) — that would allow shareholders to vote on their company’s executive compensation practices, so called “say on pay”:
Opponents of an effort to give shareholders greater rights are centering their attacks on organized labor, arguing that unions are pushing such proposals to bolster their ranks and boost their declining pension funds.
via Wonk Room » Chamber Of Commerce: We Only Like Voting When It Suits Our Purposes.
CD-ROM Converter Service Center HSI Doubles As The GOP’s Favorite ‘Academic Think Tank’
CD-ROM Converter Service Center HSI Doubles As The GOP’s Favorite ‘Academic Think Tank’
This morning on MSNBC, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) ripped into health reform, calling legislation to introduce the a public option “crazy talk.” “You’ve seen the cost,” Cantor said, “the latest estimate being discussed here on the House plan is three trillion dollars.”
Republicans are seizing upon a study produced by HSI Network LLC to claim reform will cost $3-3.5 trillion over the next ten years. They are taking to the floor, firing off press releases, and making nonstop television appearances, using the HSI figure to demonize health reform. But we’ve seen this dog-and-pony show before, when HSI played exactly the same role in 2008. They armed John McCain with friendly numbers for his health plan, while tearing into Barack Obama’s plan.
This is how it worked: Stephen Parente, one of the owners of HSI, was tapped by McCain policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin to formulate the McCain health plan. Then over the course of the summer, Parente and his colleague at HSI Roger Feldman, who is a former Bush economist, were quoted in various friendly media outlets praising the McCain plan without noting that they had authored the plan they were analyzing:
via Wonk Room » CD-ROM Converter Service Center HSI Doubles As The GOP’s Favorite ‘Academic Think Tank’.
GAO Recommends Raising Gas Tax, Starting Congestion And Pollution Pricing
GAO Recommends Raising Gas Tax, Starting Congestion And
Pollution Pricing
road-workToday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood officially revealed how much money the administration thinks it needs to infuse into the Highway Trust Fund (HTF). Over the next 18 months, the Fund will run about $20 billion short, with $5-7 billion of that needed before October 1. “There are a lot of people putting their heads together right now on how to get $20 billion and how to pay for it,” LaHood said.
It’s great that the administration is trying to come up with a creative solution to the immediate problem. Letting projects funded by the Trust (which are separate from those funded by the economic recovery package) would be a blast of anti-stimulus right when we don’t need one. But as I’ve noted before, we’re going to have to keep coming up with creative ways to keep the fund solvent unless we change the way in which it raises revenue. But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s the Government Accountability Office (GAO), in a report sent to Congress today:
While infusing more money into the HTF would help keep the Highway Account solvent, such action would not ensure the long-term sustainability of the HTF nor address the need for improved performance of our nation’s surface transportation programs. We have previously reported that current surface transportation programs—authorized in SAFETEA-LU—do not effectively address the transportation challenges the nation faces. As a result, we have called for a fundamental reexamination of the nation’s surface transportation programs
The problem here is that the HTF is overwhelmingly funded by gas taxes, of which we keep collecting less and less.
via Wonk Room » GAO Recommends Raising Gas Tax, Starting Congestion And Pollution Pricing.
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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. 
