Archive for June, 2009
Krauthammer: Fox News has ‘created an alternate reality’ for its viewers.
OPS: Ain’t that the truth. He finally tells the truth about something
Krauthammer: Fox News has ‘created an alternate reality’ for its viewers.
Yesterday, Charles Krauthammer accepted the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, an annual award given by News Corporation. In his acceptance speech, Krauthammer lauded Fox News channel, which he said has “done a great service to the American polity” and for “single-handedly breaking up the intellectual and ideological monopoly that for decades exerted hegemony (to use a favorite lefty cliché) over the broadcast media.” But his praise took a strange turn when he extolled the “genius” of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes for creating an “alternate reality” for its viewers:
KRAUTHAMMER: What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality.
A few years ago, I was on a radio show with a well-known political reporter who lamented the loss of a pristine past in which the whole country could agree on what the facts were, even if they disagreed on how to interpret and act upon them. All that was gone now. The country had become so fractured we couldn’t even agree on what reality was. What she meant was that the day in which the front page of The New York Times was given scriptural authority everywhere was gone, shattered by the rise of Fox News.
via Think Progress » Krauthammer: Fox News has ‘created an alternate reality’ for its viewers..
In An Attempt To Criticize Health Reform, Coburn Smears Veteran Health Care As ‘Untenable To Most Americans’
In An Attempt To Criticize Health Reform, Coburn Smears Veteran Health Care As ‘Untenable To Most Americans’
This morning on C-Span, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) laid out his criticism of the proposed public insurance option in Obama’s health reform plan. Like other opponents of reform, Coburn repeated the empty Frank Luntz-engineered talking points that claim “bureaucrats” will be making health decisions. In doing so, Coburn derided the Veterans Health Administration, a program that boasts bipartisan support and has provided American veterans with some of the best health care in the world:
COBURN: If you look at VA even though VA is improving, it’s still not up to the level of health care in the rest of the country. The idea that a bureaucrat somewhere will make decisions about health care and coverage I think is untenable to most Americans. […] Why be critical of a government run plan, insurance plan? And I’m not alone on this, the fact is, is the government hasn’t proven itself responsible in any health care program that is run so far.
Watch it:
Wall Street and the Third World
Wall Street’s Toxic Message | vanityfair.com
How Wall Street Ruined The Reputation Of American-Style Capitalism
When the current crisis is over, the reputation of American-style capitalism will have taken a beating—not least because of the gap between what Washington practices and what it preaches. Disillusioned developing nations may well turn their backs on the free market, warns Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, posing new threats to global stability and U.S. security.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz
Every crisis comes to an end—and, bleak as things seem now, the current economic crisis too shall pass. But no crisis, especially one of this severity, recedes without leaving a legacy. And among this one’s legacies will be a worldwide battle over ideas—over what kind of economic system is likely to deliver the greatest benefit to the most people. Nowhere is that battle raging more hotly than in the Third World, among the 80 percent of the world’s population that lives in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, 1.4 billion of whom subsist on less than $1.25 a day. In America, calling someone a socialist may be nothing more than a cheap shot. In much of the world, however, the battle between capitalism and socialism—or at least something that many Americans would label as socialism—still rages. While there may be no winners in the current economic crisis, there are losers, and among the big losers is support for American-style capitalism. This has consequences we’ll be living with for a long time to come.
via Wall Street and the Third World | vanityfair.com.
Whitacre, New GM Chairman: “I Don’t Know Anything About Cars”
OPS: Perfect. Damnit, I should have applied.
Whitacre, New GM Chairman: “I Don’t Know Anything About Cars”
No car experience is necessary to take a top spot at the bankrupt icon of Detroit’s automobile industry.
Believe it or not, the newly appointed chairman of GM, Edward Whitacre, Jr., has zero experience with cars — and he’s okay with that. According to Bloomberg:
“I don’t know anything about cars,” Whitacre, 67, said yesterday in an interview after his appointment. “A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I’m not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.”
Business principles may be universal, but it must come as a shock for some to hear that a key figure in charge of building the new GM is vowing to “learn about cars.” GM and Detroit have long been criticized for being out of touch with the latest in automobile design, and for failing to anticipate industry trends.
via Whitacre, New GM Chairman: “I Don’t Know Anything About Cars”.
Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans
Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans | McClatchy
WASHINGTON — In Washington state, oysters in some areas haven’t reproduced for four years, and preliminary evidence suggests that the increasing acidity of the ocean could be the cause. In the Gulf of Mexico, falling oxygen levels in the water have forced shrimp to migrate elsewhere.
Though two marine-derived drugs, one for treating cancer and the other for pain control, are on the market and 25 others are under development, the fungus growing on seaweed, bacteria in deep sea mud and sea fans that could produce life-saving medicines are under assault from changing the ocean conditions.
Researchers, scientists and Jacques Cousteau’s granddaughter painted a bleak picture Tuesday of the future of oceans and the “blue economy” of the nation’s coastal states.
via Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans | McClatchy.
Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations
Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations
The militarization of public health. The plan is without precedent and even defies recommended public health advice
At least three US federal laws should concern all Americans and suggest what may be coming – mandatory vaccinations for hyped, non-existant threats, like H1N1 (Swine Flu). Vaccines and drugs like Tamiflu endanger human health but are hugely profitable to drug company manufacturers.
The Project BioShield Act of 2004 (S. 15) became law on July 21, 2004 “to provide protections and countermeasures against chemical, radiological, or nuclear agents that may be used in a terrorist attack against the United States by giving the National Institutes of Health contracting flexibility, infrastructure improvements, and expediting the scientific peer review process, and streamlining the Food and Drug Administration approval process of countermeasures.”
In other words, the FDA may now recklessly approve inadequately tested, potentially dangerous vaccines and other drugs if ever the Secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS) or Defense (DOD) declare a national emergency, whether or not one exists and regardless of whether treatments available are safe and effective. Around $6 billion or more will be spent to develop, produce, and stockpile vaccines and other drugs to counteract claimed bioterror agents.
The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act slipped under the radar when George Bush signed it into law as part of the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2863). It lets the HHS Secretary declare any disease an epidemic or national emergency requiring mandatory vaccinations. Nothing in the Act lists criteria that warrant a threat. Also potential penalties aren’t specified for those who balk, but very likely they’d include quarantine and possible fines.
The HHS web site also says the Secretary may “issue a declaration….that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency….”
The industry-run US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notoriously rushes inadequately tested drugs to market, putting their efficacy and safety into question, and turning those who use them into lab rats. It includes everyone if a mass vaccination is ordered on the mere claim of a public emergency – no proof required.
via Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations.
Illinois Town Sued, Accused of Lying About Carcinogen-Filled Town Water
Illinois Town Sued, Accused of Lying About Carcinogen-Filled Town Water | CommonDreams.org
Illinois Sues Crestwood Over Contaminated Well
Already facing a federal criminal investigation, Crestwood Mayor Robert Stranczek and his father were sued in state court today and accused of repeatedly lying about their secret use of a community well contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals.
The civil lawsuit filed by Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan alleges the Stranczeks and their top water official collectively lied more than 120 times about Crestwood’s polluted well, which they continued to use routinely even after the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency told the village in 1986 that it was contaminated with a chemical related to a dry cleaning solvent.
Madigan’s 58-page complaint provides more details about actions first publicly revealed by the Tribune in April.
via Illinois Town Sued, Accused of Lying About Carcinogen-Filled Town Water | CommonDreams.org.
The IMF Accountability Moment
The IMF Accountability Moment | CommonDreams.org
The Obama administration’s budgetary Machiavellianism has backfired.
by Robert Weissman
Seeking to avoid a direct up-or-down vote on a proposal to send $108 billion to the International Monetary Fund, the administration, at the last moment, had the money stuck into a supplemental appropriations bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That maneuver turned out to be too clever by a turn.
Republicans in the House of Representatives — opposed to the process by which the IMF money was added, frustrated with the IMF unaccountability and critical of international institutions in general — have announced they will oppose the appropriations bill.
Meanwhile, 51 antiwar Democrats in the House voted against the appropriations bill when it was first under consideration, and 41 Democrats (overlapping substantially but not entirely with the 51 antiwar Democrats) have raised concerns about funding the IMF without attaching meaningful conditions.
via The IMF Accountability Moment | CommonDreams.org.
WHO on verge of declaring H1N1 flu pandemic
WHO on verge of declaring H1N1 flu pandemic
GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) is on the verge of declaring the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, but wants to ensure countries are well prepared to prevent a panic, its top flu expert said on Tuesday.
Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general, voiced concern at the sustained spread of the new H1N1 strain — including more than 1,000 cases in Australia — following major outbreaks in North America, where it emerged in April.
Confirmed community spread in a second region beyond North America would trigger moving to phase 6 — signifying a full-blown pandemic — from the current phase 5 on the WHO’s 6-level pandemic alert scale.
“The situation has really evolved a lot over the past several days. We are getting really very close to knowing that we are in a pandemic situation, or I think, declaring that we are in a pandemic situation,” Fukuda told a teleconference.
Fukuda said a move to phase 6 would reflect the geographic spread of the new disease.
via WHO on verge of declaring H1N1 flu pandemic – Yahoo! News.
Michael Savage Appeals UK Ban
American radio host Michael Savage, who has been banned from entering Britain by former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, has now written to the Prime Minister asking for the decision to be overturned.
YouTube – Michael Savage Appeals UK Ban.
Dennis Kucinich: Who Are These People?
C-SPAN – 9 June 2009: Rep. Dennis Kucinich speaks on the floor of the house.
YouTube – Dennis Kucinich: Who Are These People?.
It’s good our administration is reaching out to the muslim world. It’s bad to spend another $100 billion to keep wars going which will kill innocent muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s good we try to create an incentive for people to buy efficient cars. It’s bad that the car vouchers will not be expressly for the purpose of purchase of cars made in American. It’s even worse that we tie such an incentive to a war funding bill. Cash for clunkers and bunkers in the same bill. Cash for more war… Meanwhile back in the U.S. of A., factories and auto dealers are closing, people are losing their businesses, their jobs, their homes, their health care, their investments, their retirement security. Who are these people who keep coming up with these innovative ideas to keep wars going and to move jobs out of America. Who are these people?”
Reichwing Reaction to Sotomayor
OPS: The American/Constitution/Freedom hating Reichwing is reporting in, as promised. This list will be updated as the flak comes in.
The Anatomy of a Smear
61 entries
Tancredo: Sotomayor ‘Appears To Be A Racist’
Romney: Sotomayor nomination ’troubling’
Nobel Winner Krugman Says Weakness May Persist for ‘Long Time’
OPS: it will persist until the “Beast” is raving insane and malleable from weakness
Nobel Winner Krugman Says Weakness May Persist for ‘Long Time’ – Bloomberg.com
June 9 (Bloomberg) — Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said damage from the U.S. recession may persist “for a very long time,” with no clear engine for renewed growth.
“I’m really quite scared that we could muddle along,” Krugman said in a lecture today at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “I really do see the possibility of a global version of the Japanese ‘lost decade’ without the prospect of an export-led recovery. This could be unpleasant for a very long time.”
U.S. stocks erased a decline yesterday after Krugman said the economy will probably emerge from the recession by September. Recent reports showing smaller declines in housing and manufacturing and fewer job losses have reinforced forecasts that the slump may end this year.
“The ‘oh-my-God-the-world-is-ending’” phase of the economic downturn is over, and financial markets are “stabilizing,” Krugman said today. Still, “the employment situation is continuing to look bad and will probably get worse,” he said.
Krugman said he has “no idea” what will power the U.S. out of recession. The U.S. fiscal stimulus package, while not “trivial,” isn’t large enough to fuel sustained growth. Also, with the global economy in the doldrums, the U.S. can’t rely on a revival from a surge in exports, he said.
via Nobel Winner Krugman Says Weakness May Persist for ‘Long Time’ – Bloomberg.com.
Barney Frank endorses outing anti-gay politicians
Barney Frank endorses outing anti-gay politicians
Frank: If Brady’s wife owned an Uzi…
The full GQ INTERVIEW is available here.
Gay politicians who keep their sexuality secret but lobby against gay rights should be outed, House Banking Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) said explicitly in an interview with GQ published Monday.
Asked about a new documentary, Outrage, which focuses on the media’s complicity in protecting the privacy of the sexual orientation of anti-gay politicians, Frank likened outing anti-gay politicians to outing gun ownership of a landmark anti-gun advocate.
“The way I put it is, there’s a right to privacy but not to hypocrisy,” Frank tells the GQ interviewer. “Sarah Brady—you know who she is?
“Yeah, James Brady’s wife,” GQ’s Lisa DePaulo replies.
via Raw Story » Barney Frank endorses outing anti-gay politicians.
UK cop accuses colleagues of waterboarding pot suspects
UK cop accuses colleagues of waterboarding pot suspects
Six members of London’s metropolitan police force are the focus of a criminal investigation after a corruption probe revealed allegations by a serving officer that detectives waterboarded suspects allegedly caught with a “large amount” of marijuana.
“The officers under investigation were among 10 based in Enfield, north London, who were suspended in February in one of the worst allegations of corruption to hit the Metropolitan police in recent years,” reported The Telegraph.
“The part of the inquiry focusing on alleged police brutality has been taken over by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC),” reported the Times Online. “It is examining the conduct of six officers connected to drug raids in November in which four men and a woman were arrested in Enfield and Tottenham.
The British publication added: “Police said they found a large amount of cannabis and the suspects were charged with importation of a class C drug. The case was abandoned four months later when the Crown Prosecution Service said ‘it would not have been in the public interest to proceed.’ It is understood that the trial, by revealing the torture claims, would have compromised the criminal investigation into the six officers.”
via Raw Story » UK cop accuses colleagues of waterboarding pot suspects.
Feingold warns Obama risks ‘future Guantanamos’
Democrat warns Obama risks ‘future Guantanamos’
US President Barack Obama risks creating “future Guantanamos” by continuing his predecessor’s policy of indefinitely holding Al-Qaeda suspects, a prominent Democrat warned on Tuesday.
Senator Russ Feingold said he was “troubled” by Obama’s policies, warning the practice of holding some suspected terrorists indefinitely risked being “effectively enshrined as acceptable in our system of justice.”
Feingold warned the current administration risked mimicking the policies of the Bush administration, which “claimed the right” to detain anyone, anywhere, he said.
During a major security speech at the National Archives in May, Obama acknowledged for the first time that a legal framework could be established to hold the most dangerous US detainees indefinitely without trial.
via The Raw Story | Democrat warns Obama risks ‘future Guantanamos’.
RI Senate overwhelmingly backs medical marijuana stores
RI Senate overwhelmingly backs medical marijuana stores
Whether the Republican Governor of Rhode Island likes it or not, medical marijuana patients in his state will likely soon be able to purchase their medicine from retail shops that specialize in cannabis and cannabis-infused medicinal products.
Tuesday night, the Rhode Island State Senate approved the legislation by a vote of 30 – 2. Rhode Island has already approved medical marijuana and has licensed about 680 patients, according to local news station WPRI, but never actually legalized the plant’s sale.
“State lawmakers approved the use of medical marijuana in 2006, however they never legalized the sale of the drug. Under the current bill, Rhode Island would be the third state in the country and the first on the East Coast to approve marijuana dispensaries for medical patients,” the station reported.
State Senator Rhode Perry (D-Providence), who sponsored the bill, told WPRI: “Sick patients and their caregivers shouldn’t have to risk their safety and deal with criminals to get the relief they need. Rhode Island was compassionate enough a few years ago to recognize the benefit of marijuana for those who are suffering, and I’m proud that we’re now taking the next logical and necessary step and recognizing that patients need a safe, legal means to get it.”
via Raw Story » RI Senate overwhelmingly backs medical marijuana stores.
Obama Appointing Executive Compensation Czar
Obama Appointing Executive Compensation Czar
The Obama administration may announce as early as this week the creation of a new official charged with overseeing the compensation of bailed out banks and other companies.
The Obama administration may announce as early as this week the creation of a new official charged with overseeing the compensation of bailed out banks and other companies, according to The New York Times.
Kenneth Feinberg, will become the nation’s very first executive compensation czar, overseeing the salaries and bonuses of any companies that have received more than one federal lifeline.
Those companies that have been bailed out more than one time will be required to submit any changes in executive compensation to Feinberg who will be working out of the Treasury Department.
Those companies will include Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors and its financing arm GMAC.
The move is likely in response to the fury that arose recently over the compensation paid out to AIG executives. The insurance giant has received a total of $180 billion in bailout money and recently paid out $165 million in bonuses.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
We Can’t Recover Through Wishful Thinking
We Can’t Recover Through Wishful Thinking
Despite trumpeting an end to the recession sometime in 2010, there are still no signs that this timetable is accurate.
The stock markets are growing again and oil prices have recovered from their lows of last year. There is even a widespread, though misguided, belief that job losses in the United States are “slowing” as the economy turns toward recovery.
Dean Baker, writing for the Guardian, argues that all of this is no more than wishful thinking. The government and major media outlets want the American people to think that the economy is recovering. The American people want to think that all of the spending and all of the political infighting is worth it. The corporations want everyone to start spending again, so the credit markets will unfreeze and our intricately connected finance and consumer-based economy can restart itself.
The problem is that unemployment is still growing by leaps and bounds, the economy is shrinking, and the rising price of oil – while good for stocks – is bad for Americans whose income has decreased steadily all year. After a year of tumult and change, we could find ourselves in no better position this summer than we were in last summer, when the shocking degree of collapse was just coming into focus.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Trade War Wages On
The Trade War Wages On
Americans need to come to terms with the fact that “free trade” does not exist in the real world.
Around the world nations are raising tariffs, constructing import tax schemes, and altering the structure of their value-added tax systems in order to protect their domestic economies. The media and the government in the United States have derided “protectionism” at home, claiming that it could instigate a global trade war, but they completely ignore the fact that other countries are practicing protectionism as we speak.
Since the economic downturn got into full swing the United States has become even more committed to opening its borders to unfettered trade. No country in the world is more committed to “free trade” than the U.S., yet trade barriers continue to go up.
Obviously so-called U.S. protectionism, exemplified by the “Buy American” clause, is not an agitator in any global trade war. That war is raging already, with or without U.S. actions.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Lieberman-Graham torture photo ban will be added to ‘every piece of legislation that comes down the pike.’
OPS: …the quid pro quo for BO ?
Lieberman-Graham torture photo ban will be added to ‘every piece of legislation that comes down the pike.’
Yesterday, Jane Hamsher reported that the detainee photo amendment sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was stripped from the war supplemental in committee. The amendment would have allowed the Obama administration to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained” after 9/11 by U.S. forces. This afternoon, Graham and Lieberman held a press conference to register their objections to dropping the measure and announce that they had “added our original legislation as an amendment to the FDA regulation of tobacco bill that’s on the floor right now”:
Palin: The less money Alaska has, the better.
OPS: Not planning for running for Gov again – is she….?
Palin: The less money Alaska has, the better.
During a recent interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) once again criticized President Obama for “spreading the wealth” while at the same time boasting that Alaska spreads its own wealth. “We have a share of our oil resource revenue goes back to the people who own the resources. Imagine that,” she said. But somewhat shockingly, later in the interview (and in a part that did not air on Hannity’s program last night) Palin actually said that she would rather have Alaska pull in less money in oil revenues that more:
HANNITY: The price of oil is going up again. It’s not quite at $140 a barrel, but it’s certainly on its way up to $70 and $80.
PALIN: Yeah, well and I thank God it’s not at $140. You know people say, “Hey, Alaska! Eight-five percent of your state budget is based on the price of a barrel of oil. Aren’t you glad the price is going up?” I say, “No!” The fewer dollars that the state of Alaska government has, the fewer dollars we spend. And that’s good for our families and for the private sector.
Watch it
via Think Progress » Palin: The less money Alaska has, the better..
Debt Collector Harassment: Coming to a Library Near You
Debt Collector Harassment: Coming to a Library Near You
A bizarre story from the burgeoning debt collection industry.
Since last November, the Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca, N.Y. has received a “cease and desist” order from an attorney general or a lawyer in some faraway state every few days. All the letters said basically same thing: Stop your harassment.
“It just became overwhelming,” library director Janet Steiner told the Huffington Post. “I have no idea why they chose us.”
Apparently a debt collector had been giving the library’s address to people from whom it was aggressively trying to recover debt, and those people were handing the address over to their lawyers and local prosecutors.
O’Reilly and Fox News will have more right-wing vigilantism to explain
Right-Wing Violence Will Continue, And Fox News Will Have to Answer For It . Agitators like O’Reilly and Beck traffic in incendiary rhetoric and it’s pretty obvious where it’s leading to.
O’Reilly and Fox News will have more right-wing vigilantism to explain | Media Matters for America
If Fox News is going to continue to traffic in hateful rhetoric, then folks at Fox News, as well as their apologists in the GOP Noise Machine, are going to have to come up with better talking points to spin away the atmosphere of vigilantism fomented by their words and actions.
They need a better line of defense because the one they trotted out in the wake of the right-wing assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was wholly unconvincing.
It was just as feeble as the defense Fox News’ Glenn Beck tried to employ in May to distance himself from the accused right-wing cop killer in Pittsburgh who seemed to mimic Beck’s language about how President Obama was coming to take away everyone’s guns.
via O’Reilly and Fox News will have more right-wing vigilantism to explain | Media Matters for America.
WSJ publishes op-ed falsely equating “ObamaCare” with Canadian “single-payer” system
WSJ publishes op-ed falsely equating “ObamaCare” with Canadian “single-payer” system - | Media Matters for America
A Wall Street Journal op-ed by David Gratzer falsely equated “a new public insurance program” supported by “Congressional Democrats” to the Canadian “single-payer” system. In fact, President Obama has explicitly rejected a Canadian-style system and supports a “public plan” option alongside private insurance plans.
In a June 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed, headlined “Canada’s ObamaCare Precedent,” Dr. David Gratzer, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, falsely equated “a new public insurance program” that “Congressional Democrats will soon put forward” to the Canadian “single-payer” system, which he suggested was “government health care” that is neither “compassionate” nor “equitable.” In fact, President Obama and key congressional Democrats — such as Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Ted Kennedy and House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman — have stated that they support the creation of a federally funded “public plan” as one of many insurance options available in the health care market, not as the sole option, as in “single-payer” systems such as Canada. Moreover, Obama has explicitly rejected a Canadian-style system.
AlterNet Takes on Shock Jock Michael Savage and Gets Threatened With a Lawsuit
AlterNet Takes on Shock Jock Michael Savage and Gets Threatened With a Lawsuit
When we helped publicize the link between bilious talk show host Michael Savage and Rockstar energy drink, we got a letter from their lawyers.
Michael Savage, right-wing crusader against gays, immigrants, Muslims, Barack Obama, Britain, women, (and possibly puppies), may have found a new object for his wrath: groups that have the temerity to publicize the vicious talk-show host’s connection to Rockstar energy drink — and to call for a boycott by consumers opposed to Savage’s hatemongering.
As part of AlterNet‘s 10 Hottest Campaigns section, we published a piece alerting readers to a boycott against the Rockstar products. The campaign, launched by Charles C.C. Tsai on Facebook, brought attention to the connection between Savage and the energy drink company. Tsai’s page pointed out that Savage’s son, Russell Weiner, is the founder and CEO of Rockstar. Savage’s wife serves as director of energy drink company, and Savage Productions shares an address with Rockstar(!).
via AlterNet Takes on Shock Jock Michael Savage and Gets Threatened With a Lawsuit | | AlterNet.
Progressives Have a Chance to Dominate American Politics for the Next 40 Years
OPS; HOW? BO is not a Progressive. He has so far ignored the Progressives that helped him win. There are as many Republicans on the Left side of the Aisle as the right side calling themselves Blue Dog and DLC. But this story is a nice fantasy anyway.
Progressives Have a Chance to Dominate American Politics for the Next 40 Years
The tides of history and demographics, and the way the world works are on our side.
The following is a transcript of Campaign for America’s future fellow Sara Robinson’s speech to the America’s Future Now! conference panel, “Kick Them When They Are Down? How the Right Plans to Come Back and What Can Be Done About It.” It has been edited for clarity.
I’m going to offer a couple of reason why the long-term prospects for the progressive movement are actually pretty good. I think in the long term, the spirit of the country is with us, and there’s a couple of reasons for that. Then I want to get into three core strategies that I think we need to focus on to make the most of the opportunity.
So, I want to say flat out that I think that the progressive movement has real potential to be a lot longer and a lot stronger than most people think. And I’ll flat out say — if we play our cards right, we progressives have the potential to dominate American politics for the next 40 years. We have a huge opening here.
via Progressives Have a Chance to Dominate American Politics for the Next 40 Years | Politics | AlterNet.
Quote for the Day
“If you want to be the slaves of banks
and pay the cost of your own slavery,
then let the banks create money…”
Josiah Stamp, Governor of the Bank of England 1920
A banker speaks – Josiah Stamp on the evils of banking
House committee subpoenas Federal Reserve
OPS: The damage is done. This should have been done a year ago. So what is this? Political Theater.
House committee subpoenas Federal Reserve
The congressional panel investigating what happened to all that bank bailout money has issued a subpoena to the Federal Reserve, asking them to hand over all documents relating to the takeover of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America.
On January 1, BofA finalized its purchase of Merrill Lynch for just over $29.1 billion. That made the bank eligible for an additional $20 billion in federal rescue money, bringing BofA’s total to some $45 billion. Now, Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Edolphus Towns (D-NY) want to know exactly what the banks and the Federal Reserve agreed to when they arranged the deal last year.
Full text of the press release from Kucinich’s office:
via The Raw Story » House committee subpoenas Federal Reserve.
France flight 447: Collateral Damage?
Collateral Damage?
by Mike Malloy
More bodies were pulled from the mid-Atlantic over the weekend near what is presumed to be the crash site of Air France flight 447.As reported in today’s New York Times:
But the answer to why the Airbus 330 jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic eight days ago remained elusive as an armada of French and Brazilian ships and planes continued to scour the ocean for debris and the flight data and cockpit voice recorders lying perhaps miles below the surface.
Nearly all the effort to determine the cause of the crash is being focused on air speed, the performance of the “Pitot tube,” the humidity level of the atmosphere through which the plane was attempting to fly, turbulence, all of which are questions that cannot be answered without the data collected in the on-board flight recorder now lying, it is presumed, in 10,000+ feet of water.
But, what if the plane had been blown out of the sky? What if a bomb had been placed in the luggage compartment in those last moments before departure?
via OpEdNews » Collateral Damage?.
Obama’s Era of Openness Is Closed
Obama’s Era of Openness Is Closed
By Robert Parry
An “era” used to last, but not so much anymore. We’ve already heard GOP Chairman Michael Steele proclaim that “the era of apologizing for Republican mistakes” was over (when many of us didn’t know it had begun), and now it appears that Barack Obama’s era of openness has closed, too.
That era began on the new President’s first working day in office when he rescinded some of George W. Bush’s imperial edicts granting himself and his family – along with other former presidents and vice presidents – broad control over historical records.
On Jan. 21, President Obama spoke eloquently about “a new era of open government,” declaring that “a democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency.”
Regarding whether to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act, he added, “In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.”
via Consortiumnews.com.
California contemplates ultimate reform – no welfare
OPS: The sociopaths are going to win in Cal. Parts of LA and San Diego will start to look like Bombay. Norquest and the GOP clench there wretched fists and say: YES!
California contemplates ultimate reform – no welfare
Could California become the first state in the nation to do away with welfare?
That doomsday scenario is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with a staggering $24.3 billion budget deficit.
County welfare directors are “in shock” at the very idea of getting rid of CalWORKs, which has been widely viewed as one of the most successful social programs in the state’s history, said Bruce Wagstaff, director of the Department of Human Assistance in Sacramento.
“It’s difficult to come up with the right adjective to react to this,” Wagstaff said. “It would be devastating to the people we serve.”
via California contemplates ultimate reform – no welfare | McClatchy.
Kennedy health plan includes long-term care
Kennedy health plan includes long-term care
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans would be able to buy long-term care insurance from the government for $65 a month under a provision tucked into sweeping health care legislation that senators will begin considering next week.
The 651-page bill, released Tuesday by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would revamp the way health insurance works. Insurance companies would face a slew of new government rules, dealing with everything from guaranteed coverage for people with health problems to possible limitations on profits. Taxpayers, employers and individuals would share in the cost of expanding coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured Americans.
Release of the bill by Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Democrats came as lawmakers at both ends of the Capitol accelerated their drive to enact health care legislation. House Democratic leaders also outlined a proposal, but offered only limited details.
Both plans omitted specifics on how to cover the costs, which could exceed $1 trillion over 10 years. Given the uncertainty as well as the political sensitivity over raising taxes or cutting Medicare, Senate Republicans prodded Democrats to fill in the blanks before the scheduled beginning of committee work next week.
via The Associated Press: Kennedy health plan includes long-term care.
Turning Point?
Turning Point? | CommonDreams.org
by Noam Chomsky
The Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas meetings in May, followed by Obama’s speech in Cairo, have been widely interpreted as a turning point in US Middle East policy, leading to consternation in some quarters, exuberance in others. Fairly typical is Middle East analyst Dan Fromkin of the Washington Post, who sees “signs Obama will promote a new regional peace initiative for the Middle East, much like the one championed by Jordan’s King Abdullah… [and also] the first distinct signs that Obama is willing to play hardball with Israel.” (WP, May 29). A closer look, however, suggests considerable caution.
King Abdullah insists that “There is no change to the Arab Peace Initiative, and there is no need to amend it. Any talk about amending it, is baseless” (AFP, May 16). Abbas, regularly described as the president of the Palestinian Authority (his term expired in January), firmly agrees. The Arab Peace Initiative reiterates the long-standing international consensus that Israel must withdraw to the international border, perhaps with “minor and mutual adjustments,” to adopt official US terminology before it departed sharply from world opinion in 1971, endorsing Israel’s rejection of peace with Egypt in favor of settlement expansion (in the northeast Sinai). Furthermore, the consensus calls for a Palestinian state to be established in Gaza and the West Bank after Israel’s withdrawal. The Arab Initiative adds that the Arab states should then normalize relations with Israel.
The Initiative was later adopted by the Organization of Islamic States, including Iran (Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz, June 1).
via Turning Point? | CommonDreams.org.
Judge lets Chrysler sever ties with 789 dealers
Judge lets Chrysler sever ties with 789 dealers
NEW YORK – A bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved Chrysler’s plan to terminate 789 of its dealer franchises, while the automaker’s plan to partner with Italy’s Fiat hinged on action by the Supreme Court and both automakers warned that the deal could fall apart if it’s not completed soon.
U.S. Judge Arthur Gonzalez’s order says the franchises, which represent about 25 percent of the company’s dealer base, can no longer act as authorized Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealers, effective immediately. A written ruling explaining the decision was expected to be filed later.
The sale of Chrysler’s assets to Fiat Group SpA had been expected to close more than a week ago, but Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s decision to delay the sale now threatens to derail Chrysler’s restructuring plans.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court Tuesday afternoon, Chrysler and Fiat warned that the deal will terminate if it does not close by June 15. While a new agreement could be negotiated, there’s no guarantee that one will be reached or that Chrysler will be able to be jump-start its operations after the deadline, they said.
via Judge lets Chrysler sever ties with 789 dealers – Yahoo! News.
House passes cash for clunkers to boost new car sales
House OKs $4 billion ‘cash for clunkers’
Full House votes on a bill to subsidize new car sales for consumers who turn in gas guzzlers. Status of proposal in Senate is unclear.
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — The House on Tuesday waded deeper into the rescue of the troubled auto industry when it passed a $4 billion plan to subsidize new cars sales for consumers who scrap old ones.
By a vote of 298-119, the House approved the “cash for clunkers” program.
The measure would give consumers vouchers worth as much as $4,500 to turn in gas guzzlers and buy new cars that are more fuel efficient.
The legislation now goes to the Senate. President Obama has said he supports such a measure.
The House bill would go into effect within 30 days of enactment but it is not retroactive for new purchases made earlier this year.
via House passes cash for clunkers to boost new car sales – Jun. 9, 2009.
Hawaii archives holds mystery Lincoln document
Hawaii archives holds mystery Lincoln document 
HONOLULU – Documents bearing signatures of U.S. presidents have turned up in a lot of unexpected places: Attics, libraries, even thrift stores.
But how did an innocuous Civil War-era memo bearing Abraham Lincoln’s signature end up in the state archives of Hawaii, which was still a kingdom at the time? State researchers are trying to find out.
The memo dated Sept. 22, 1862, orders the secretary of state at the time to affix the U.S. seal to a separate piece of paper, a proclamation dated the same day.
That proclamation was the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s official warning to rebellious Southern states to return to the Union within three months or face military emancipation of their slaves.
Hawaii records indicate they’ve had the memo — but not the proclamation — for at least 74 years.
“We knew we had it,” said Luella Kurkjian, chief of the archives’ historical records branch. “Quite frankly, we didn’t know what it was. There was no documentation with it.”
Hawaii’s archives also contain one letter each from Lincoln to King Kamehameha IV and to his brother, King Kamehameha V, and a note from Lincoln appointing a new U.S. consul, Alfred Caldwell, to the Kingdom of Hawaii.
via Hawaii archives holds mystery Lincoln document – Yahoo! News.
BREAKING NEWS: BIG BREAKTHROUGHS FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE
BREAKING NEWS: BIG BREAKTHROUGHS FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE
Less than a month after 13 single payer advocates were arrested protesting the exclusion of single payer, it is at the table in both Houses, making progress while the multi-payer pro-insurance reform is faltering.
When we started our campaign one month ago to put single payer national health insurance on the table, we were ignored.
When we stood up and demanded that single payer be part of the debate, we were arrested.
Today, single payer is breaking through, while the multi-payer pro-health insurance reform is faltering.
Here’s the news, single payer national health insurance will be at the table in the Senate with a witness participating in a hearing this Thursday. And, on Wednesday a hearing is being held on single payer in the House of Representatives.
via OpEdNews » BREAKING NEWS: BIG BREAKTHROUGHS FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE.
Countdown-Dr. Howard Dean: chances, benefits of public health care option
“…Bipartisanship not worth it if we get a crummy bill….”
YouTube – Countdown-Dr. Howard Dean: chances, benefits of public health care option.
Canadian Healthcare A Nightmare?
I asked Canadians if they’d trade their Healthcare System for the one we use in the USA, and here’s what they had to say . . .
via YouTube – Canadian Healthcare A Nightmare?.
How Will a New Tobacco Law, Nicotine Lollipops, and E-Cigarettes Impact America’s Most Dangerous Addiction?
How Will a New Tobacco Law, Nicotine Lollipops, and E-Cigarettes Impact America’s Most Dangerous Addiction?
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Christine Bowman
“Everybody else’s tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes … is toasted.” — Don Draper, ad agency executive character in Fox Network’s drama, “Mad Men”
A bill placing tobacco products under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration won a cloture vote in the Senate Monday and could be voted on by the full Senate very shortly. A House version of the Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act already has passed by a vote of 298-112, and President Obama supports the measure. Democratic leaders supporting the bill are optimistic. As Jack Reed (D,RI) said, “Passing this bill will help reduce health care costs, prevent young people from smoking, and create a healthier future for our nation.”
How will the new law change the lives of individual smokers and the nation’s health overall, once enacted, and is it a big deal? Although riddled with compromises, it will give the FDA some control over marketing and merchandising, hopefully thereby reducing teen smoking — a growth area, for the tobacco industry. The proposed law allows for limits on some but not all of the more than 4,000 toxins and 60 carcinogens in tobacco smoke. It lets the FDA require lower nicotine levels, but does not let the agency mandate elimination of nicotine.
As Senator John Cornyn (R,TX) said in an interview with Politico:
USGS: We’re Not The ‘Saudi Arabia Of Coal’
USGS: We’re Not The ‘Saudi Arabia Of Coal’
The claim made by politicians from George Allen to Barack Obama that the United States is the “Saudi Arabia of coal” is based on a “wildly overconfident” estimate of the nation’s recoverable coal reserves. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Energy Information Administration estimate that the United States has a 240-year supply of coal uses a baseline established in 1974, now grossly out of date. Last year, he “U.S. Geological Survey completed an extensive analysis of Wyoming’s Gillette coal field,” which supplies one-third of the nation’s coal, “and determined that less than 6% of the coal in its biggest beds could be mined profitably, even at prices higher than today’s”:
“We really can’t say we’re the Saudi Arabia of coal anymore,” says Brenda Pierce, head of the USGS team that conducted the study. No one says the U.S. is facing a coal shortage. But the emerging ranks of “peak coal” theorists argue that current production levels may be unsustainable and, if anything, create a false sense of security.
The “Saudi Arabia of coal” slogan emerged during the oil shocks of the 1970s, when the coal industry and politicians promoted the use of the Nazi-era technology of turning coal into a gasoline substitute:
via Wonk Room » USGS: We’re Not The ‘Saudi Arabia Of Coal’.
White House had long planned GM and Chrysler bankruptcies
White House had long planned GM and Chrysler bankruptcies
by Jerry White
While the Obama administration publicly claimed it was seeking to avoid bankruptcy filings by Chrysler and General Motors, behind the scenes the White House was determined to throw the two Detroit automakers into the bankruptcy courts.
Documents filed with the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York make it clear that Obama’s Auto Task Force—headed by millionaire private equity manager Steven Rattner—had decided as early as Inauguration Day that a court-ordered restructuring of GM and Chrysler was needed.
The administration saw this as the most effective means for the companies to jettison unprofitable factories, brands and dealerships, gut the jobs and living standards of current auto workers and escape obligations owed to hundreds of thousands of retirees.
In the aftermath of the two bankruptcy declarations, both GM and Chrysler have announced nearly two dozen plant closings, massive layoffs and the elimination of more than 3,000 car dealerships.
Under the terms of Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, the two automakers’ most profitable assets are being sold to “new” auto companies. This legal fiction will allow them to sidestep state laws protecting dealerships from the violation of franchise agreements and other legal liabilities, including court cases involving unsafe vehicle claims and asbestos exposure. These liabilities, along with other assets deemed to be unprofitable will languish in the courts for years until they are wound down and liquidated.
In the case of GM, the US Treasury will take a controlling share of the new company in exchange for nearly $50 billion in public assets. President Obama has made it clear the government will not interfere with the prerogatives and interests of private investors and will leave it to a corporate board, made up of proven cost-cutters, to return the company to profitability.
“The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder,” Obama said last week, “In short, our goal is to get GM back on its feet, take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly.”
via White House had long planned GM and Chrysler bankruptcies.
Good Policy Vs. Bipartisanship In Health Care Reform
Good Policy Vs. Bipartisanship In Health Care Reform
The Hill’s J. Taylor Rushing quotes Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) as rejecting the notion that bipartisanship always leads to better policy. If we believe that a public health care plan will reduce health care costs, then we should include it in health reform, whether the Republicans like it or not:
“If we have a few people who just want to block it, but we have a majority of the Senate that wants this bill, we can do it,” Harkin said. “We just can’t have a majority of the Senate, and a substantial number of Republicans, support something that one or two people want to stop.” Harkin said Republicans are simply pushing the “government-run” phrase on the advice of pollsters, suggesting that the party cares more about politics than policy. “But the polls really show the American people want a public plan, overwhelmingly,” Harkin said Monday while promoting draft legislation that the committee began circulating earlier this month that includes the public option.
Indeed, just yesterday, the Republican senators of the Senate Finance Committee — save Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — penned a letter rejecting a public health insurance option. “Washington-run programs undermine market-based completion through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchases,” the senators wrote. “Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition.”
via Wonk Room » Good Policy Vs. Bipartisanship In Health Care Reform.
Brookings: Fears That Cap And Trade Will Hurt Farmers Are Baseless
Brookings: Fears That Cap And Trade Will Hurt Farmers Are Baseless
A new economic study reveals that concerns a cap on global warming pollution could hurt American agriculture are unfounded. As the Waxman-Markey green economy legislation (H.R. 2454) moves toward passage in the House of Representatives, the farm lobby and rural officials have questioned the bill’s costs to farmers. Last week, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), the ranking member of the House Committee on Agriculture, cried that farmers are “a prime target for a national energy tax“:
From higher energy costs to lost jobs to higher food prices, cap-and-trade promises to cap our incomes, our livelihoods, and our standard of living, while it trades away American jobs and opportunities. . . . Whether it’s the fuel in the tractor, the fertilizer for the crops or the delivery of food to the grocery store, agriculture uses a great deal of energy throughout production. On average, 65 percent of farmers’ variable input costs are fuel, electricity, fertilizer, and chemicals. Even a small increase in the operating costs for our producers will hurt American agriculture.
Yesterday, the Brookings Institute released the topline results of an economic analysis of cap-and-trade systems, with sectoral impacts. This study models the worst-case economic scenario for cap-and-trade programs, modeling the impact of an inflexible system that does not include offsets, incentives for renewable energy development, or other cost-control measures. Even without the inclusion of an offset program to allow the agriculture sector to benefit from carbon market, their analysis found the impact on agriculture to be minimal:
via Wonk Room » Brookings: Fears That Cap And Trade Will Hurt Farmers Are Baseless.
Paul Ryan Wants Large Insurers And Hospital System To Continue Setting Health Prices
OPS: Proving that Republicans are in fact, insane
Paul Ryan Wants Large Insurers And Hospital System To Continue Setting Health Prices
This afternoon, in response to my question about the public option on POLITICO’s The Arena, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) closed the door to compromising on the public health option:
Rep. Ryan — are you open to considering any kind of compromise on the public health care plan? Would you be open to modeling the open on state-based employee plans? And why can’t we design a level playing field but also allow the new public option to use its inherent advantages to get better rates? Isn’t that what WalMart does today?
12:20
Paul Ryan: I am not open to creating any policy architecture which puts the gov’t in the position of competing with the private sector. The deck will always be stacked, and can never be ‘fair’ competition. If the goal is a truly level playing field, than it should be done through the non-profit sector, not the government.
Ryan supports competition with a non-profit because such an entity would not be able to use Medicare rates or Medicare’s leverage to secure lower prices. Currently, “insurer and hospital markets are increasingly dominated by large insurers and provider systems.” Private insurers rarely negotiate with dominant hospital systems and typically pass on the higher costs to beneficiaries in the form of higher premiums. In fact, non-profit insurers (like the Blue Crosses) and non-profit hospitals have done little to lower health care spending.
via Wonk Room » Paul Ryan Wants Large Insurers And Hospital System To Continue Setting Health Prices.
Von Spakovsky: Still Fabricating Facts, Still Suppressing Votes
Von Spakovsky: Still Fabricating Facts, Still Suppressing Votes
Further demonstrating that no conservative can be so disgraced that they cannot later be published in the Wall Street Journal, Bush-era vote suppression guru Hans von Spakovsky has an op-ed in today’s WSJ claiming that the Justice Department has “spent the last several months misinterpreting key voting rights laws for nakedly political reasons”:
Exhibit A: Justice’s inexplicable dismissal of a civil lawsuit for voter intimidation against the New Black Panther Party. The Black Panthers weren’t content to endorse Barack Obama. They sent their members to the polls last November to “patrol election sites.” Fox News aired a video of two Black Panthers in military-style uniforms in a Philadelphia precinct. One of them was carrying a nightstick. . . .
Exhibit B: Justice recently stopped Georgia from implementing a key provision of the Help America Vote Act. Passed in 2002, the act requires states to verify the accuracy of information voters provide on their registration forms by comparing it with state driver’s license and Social Security records — a sensible requirement.
Both of Spakovsky’s exhibits have no basis in reality. Although his tale of Black Panthers patrolling polling sites sure sounds intimidating, the real facts are nothing like von Spakovsky claims.
via Think Progress » Von Spakovsky: Still Fabricating Facts, Still Suppressing Votes.
McConnell ‘really enjoyed’ Voight’s speech that claimed Obama might allow ‘a new Holocaust.’
McConnell ‘really enjoyed’ Voight’s speech that claimed Obama might allow ‘a new Holocaust.’
In a speech at the Republican Senate-House fundraising dinner last night, actor Jon Voight criticized President Obama at length, calling him a “false prophet” who causing “oppression” in America. But Voight saved his harshest attack on Obama for issues relating to Israel’s security. After claiming that the “only agenda” of all the Palestinian people is “to wipe Israel off the Earth,” Voight complained about Obama’s approach to Iran. “Are we supposed to be sitting and waiting, watching for the possibility of a new Holocaust?” Watch it:
Gutting the Health Care Plan: The Scorpion and the Congress
Gutting the Health Care Plan: The Scorpion and the Congress
by Paul Rogat Loeb
Will serious health reform meet the fate of the scorpion and the turtle? In that fable, the scorpion pleads with the turtle to carry him across a river. The turtle resists, fearing the scorpion’s sting, but the scorpion reassures him that he’d do nothing so foolish, since both would drown if he did. Finally the turtle agrees. Halfway across, the scorpion betrays his promise with a lethal sting. As the turtle begins to drown, he asks why he took both their lives. “It’s just who I am,” the scorpion replies.
I fear we’re about to get stung again. When people look back at the failure of the Clinton-era health care initiative, they point, accurately, to an opaque process that produced a baroque Rube Goldberg mess that satisfied no one. That happened even before the insurance industry went on the attack with their Harry and Louise ads. But another missing element parallels our current challenge-appeasement of the insurance companies as the plan’s centerpiece, and the inevitability that these same interests will betray us again.
The Clintons assumed the insurance companies were too powerful to confront, so the plan had to go along with them. But once they assumed any bill had to get the companies’ approval, no plan could work, because it had to build in ways for the companies to maintain their profit margins and the immensely wasteful overhead they spend on advertising, processing claims, and turning down as many sick people as they can. Their approach also creates corollary wastes, like the third of the expenses of the average medical office that go toward dealing with insurance company paperwork.
via Gutting the Health Care Plan: The Scorpion and the Congress | CommonDreams.org.
Break the banks, for the good of the people
Break the banks, for the good of the people
Joseph Stiglitz
Bailing out the big US banks has done nothing to improve them, writes Joseph Stiglitz.
WITH all the talk of “green shoots” of economic recovery, America’s banks are resisting efforts to regulate them. While politicians talk about their commitment to regulatory reform to prevent a recurrence of the crisis, this is one area where the devil really is in the details — and the banks will muster what muscle they have left to ensure that they have ample room to continue as they have in the past.
The old system worked well for the banks so why should they embrace change? Indeed, the efforts to rescue them devoted such little thought to the kind of post-crisis financial system we want, that we will end up with a banking system that is less competitive, with the large banks that were “too big to fail” even larger.
It has long been recognised that the US banks that are too big to fail are also too big to be managed. That is one reason the performance of several has been so dismal. When they fail, the Government engineers a financial restructuring and provides deposit insurance, gaining a stake in their future. Officials know that if they wait too long, zombie or near-zombie banks — which have little or no net worth, but are treated as if they were viable institutions — are likely to “gamble on resurrection”. If they take big bets and win, they walk away with the proceeds, if they fail, the Government picks up the tab.
via Break the banks, for the good of the people.
A warning for Democrats?
A warning for Democrats? | Salon
The right just won all across Europe, thanks to nationalism, populism and recession. It could happen here too.
| The populist backlash that many have predicted would follow the crash of 2008 is here. Well, not here, exactly. Over there, in Europe.
In the June 7 elections to the European Parliament, center-left social democrats were devastated, while far-right nationalist and populist candidates made big gains. The center-left fell from 217 seats to 159, while the center-right coalition remained the largest bloc with 267 seats.
The biggest story involves the gains by a variety of extreme-right parties, many of which combine populist nationalism with hostility to immigration for ethnic or economic reasons. The far-right British National Party (BNP), whose leader Nick Griffin claims that “indigenous” white Britons are “second-class citizens” in their own homeland, won a seat in the European Parliament for the first time. Other nationalist, anti-immigrant parties picked up seats in Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Romania and Greece.
via A warning for Democrats? | Salon.
Congress Could Investigate War Fraud With a Mirror
Congress Could Investigate War Fraud With a Mirror | AfterDowningStreet.org
By David Swanson
The greatest war fraud is the funding of war by individuals who claim to oppose it and who vote against funding it whenever a bill is guaranteed to pass. On May 14, 2009, 60 congress members voted against $85 billion to continue the war in Iraq and escalate the war in Afghanistan, plus $12 billion more to buy the Pentagon airplanes it doesn’t want and related extravagances. Of those 60, 51 were Democrats. Some of them made beautiful and principled statements about their No votes.
The Senate passed the bill as well, but added in the loaning to Europe of $100 billion through the IMF with no oversight, apparently in order to bail out European bankers in a manner similar to the Wall Street bankster bailout approved of by approximately 16 Americans and a couple of dogs. (The Senate also added a ban on releasing photos of U.S. torture, but that is apparently being stripped out in conference committee.)
So, the question in the House ought to be how many MORE than 51 Democrats will now oppose the modified bill. It’s not as if any of those 51 can imagine their constituents now approving of the thing. Nor do those 51 have campaign “contributors” pushing them to fund the IMF. Nor is the corporate media demanding it of them. And yet, very few of those 51 (I only know for certain of Dennis Kucinich and Maxine Waters) have committed to voting No on the war money now that the torture photo ban has been removed. And even with the IMF funding in there, it is not at all clear that many Democrats will vote No. Those who do may be members who voted Yes last time around, who support war money but oppose IMF funding. The corrupting factor, the reason many of the 51 are beginning to look like frauds, is party control. Rather than representing their constituents, Democrats are being asked to represent Nancy Pelosi. Because Republicans are expected to vote against the bill now, Pelosi actually needs most of the Democrats to pass it. So, the time for pretending to oppose wars is over.
via Congress Could Investigate War Fraud With a Mirror | AfterDowningStreet.org.
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 - | Project Censored
- #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
- # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
- # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
- # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
- # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
- # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
- # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
- # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
- #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
- # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
- # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
- # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
- # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
- # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
- # 15 Worldwide Slavery
- # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
- # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
- # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
- # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
- # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
- # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
- # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
- # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
- # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
- # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer
via Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 | Project Censored.
Lieberman, Graham Threaten to Shut Down Senate
Lieberman, Graham Threaten to Shut Down Senate
Roll Call Staff
Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened to hold up any and all legislation in the Senate until Congress passes its legislation to prohibit the release of photos showing detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We’re not going to do any more business in the Senate,” Graham said. “Nothing’s going forward until we get this right.”
Both Senators said they were alarmed that a House-Senate conference committee on the supplemental war spending bill appears poised to eliminate language — inserted by the two Senators — that would block public disclosure of detainee abuse photos. The $90-billion-plus bill has been held up, in part, because House Democratic leaders have said they do not have the votes to pass it with the detainee photo provision included, because many liberal lawmakers have balked at the language.
If the provision is eliminated, Lieberman and Graham said they would vote against the supplemental and any attempts to bring debate on the measure to a close. Graham predicted that most, if not all, of the 40 Senate Republicans would do the same, and Lieberman said he would be reaching out to Democrats on the issue as well. That could be enough to filibuster the supplemental measure on the Senate floor, because 60 votes are needed to end debate on a bill.
Both men said the release of more photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and at prisons in Afghanistan would only inflame tensions in the Middle East and further serve as a recruiting tool for al-Qaida.
via Lieberman, Graham Threaten to Shut Down Senate – Roll Call.
‘US protectionist move may lead to countermove by India’-
OPS: Screw ‘em
‘US protectionist move may lead to countermove by India’
“This war could get started off. If there is any protectionist move in the US, it could lead to India coming out with counter protectionist measure,” NASSCOM President Som Mittal told reporters here.
“So, for us, it’s important that we are sensitive during this period,” he said.
Mittal said no US lawmaker would oppose any legislation aimed at saving American jobs.
He, however, also said that “there are enough people within the system” in the US and the UK who believe that once any protectionist measure is taken, “it does not stop there”.
via ‘US protectionist move may lead to countermove by India’- ITeS-Infotech-The Economic Times.
Sen. Specter posts on Twitter that he hearts Joe Sestak, then immediately deletes it.
Sen. Specter posts on Twitter that he hearts Joe Sestak, then immediately deletes it.
Sen. Arlen Specter’s official Twitter page had a post up yesterday at 4:42pm ET using the heart symbol — <3 — to express his affection for his Democratic primary challenger:
The Tweet was deleted after just a few minutes, but it can still be accessed via Tweleted. The next tweet from Sen. Specter simply noted that he, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Mike Doyle (R-PA) spoke at a labor rally in Pittsburgh. ThinkProgress contacted Specter’s Senate office about the deletion, but a spokesperson said that the campaign was responsible for the Twitter page. We have not yet received a response from the campaign staff.
Frank Gaffney claims Obama ‘may actually still be’ a Muslim.
Frank Gaffney claims Obama ‘may actually still be’ a Muslim.
frankgaffneywebToday in his Washington Times column, right-wing commentator Frank Gaffney reviews President Obama’s speech at Cairo University last week and thinks he has stumbled onto something, that “there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.” The evidence? “Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to ‘the Holy Koran,’” he “established his firsthand knowledge of Islam,” and he uttered the phrase “peace be upon them” when referring to Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. And according to Gaffney, “no believing Christian” would ever make such a statement because “for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God.” Gaffney also throws in a Munich analogy:
via Think Progress » Frank Gaffney claims Obama ‘may actually still be’ a Muslim..
Cantor Falsely Claims There Are No ‘Judicial Precedents’ For The Prosecution Of Suspected Terrorists On U.S. Soil
Cantor Falsely Claims There Are No ‘Judicial Precedents’ For The Prosecution Of Suspected Terrorists On U.S. Soil
Today, Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Ghailani was transferred to New York to face trial for the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Discussing his case last month, President Obama said that, “after over a decade, it is time to finally see that justice is served, and that is what we intend to do.” Attorney General Eric Holder has noted that the Justice Department “has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system.”
The right wing, however, has seized the opportunity to launch baseless, fearmongering attacks, with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) leading the way:
This is the first step in the Democrats’ plan to import terrorists into America. Without a plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the Administration has made the decision to begin transferring these terrorists into the United States…Do they plan to give them the same legal rights as the American people?
Similarly, on MSNBC today, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) said that the transfer was “counterintuitive” because there are “no judicial precedents for the conviction of someone like this”:
CANTOR: Well, you know, Norah, it’s just counterintuitive. Why in the world would somebody be so focused on the rights of a terrorist instead of keeping Americans safe? There are so many unanswered questions about bringing these detainees on to U.S. soil. We have no judicial precedents for the conviction of someone like this. It is just wrong for us to be bringing these detainees here given the current situation and the unanswered questions. We ought to be putting the safety of American citizens first.
Watch it:
China Has No Intention of Dumping Dollar: Minister
OPS: not yet anyway – this is a loaded gun at our collective head
China Has No Intention of Dumping Dollar: Minister
China, the world’s largest holder of official foreign exchange reserves, has no intention of abandoning the U.S. dollar, Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a news briefing on President Hu Jintao’s forthcoming trip to Russia, where he will attend an inaugural summit of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — in Yekaterinburg on June 16.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and others have said the meeting would discuss the search for alternatives to the dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency.
But, asked about the issue, He said: “Nobody is talking about dumping the dollar. I don’t think this is realistic.”
via China Has No Intention of Dumping Dollar: Minister – China * Asia * News * Story – CNBC.com.
It’s time for a second American revolution in the spirit of perestroika
It’s time for a second American revolution in the spirit of perestroika
by Mikhail Gorbachev
Years ago, as the Cold War was coming to an end, I said to my fellow leaders around the globe: the world is on the cusp of great events, and in the face of new challenges all of us will have to change, you as well as we. For the most part, the reaction was polite but sceptical silence.
In recent years, I have often told listeners that I feel Americans need their own change – a perestroika, not like the one in my country, but an American perestroika – and the reaction has been markedly different. Halls filled with thousands of people have responded with applause.
Some have reacted with understanding. Others have objected, sometimes sarcastically, suggesting that I want the United States to experience upheaval, just like the former Soviet Union. In my country, particularly caustic reactions have come from the opponents of perestroika, people with short memories and a deficit of conscience.
via Mikhail Gorbachev.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Nurses Union Leader Rose Ann DeMoro Urge Obama to Embrace Single-Payer Healthcare System
Democracy NOW! – Transcript, Video, Mp3 download
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Nurses Union Leader Rose Ann DeMoro Urge Obama to Embrace Single-Payer Healthcare System
Health-capitol-web
President Obama is expected to host a group of Democratic Congress members at the White House later today. The meeting comes one week after Obama said he would consider supporting a mandate-based approach to healthcare and the creation of a public insurance option.
Far right makes inroads based on rising insecurity
Far right makes inroads based on rising insecurity
The far right made gains in the elections, with voters in Italy, the UK, Hungary and the Netherlands, among others, supporting candidates who espoused explicitly anti-immigrant, antiIslamic and hardline nationalist platforms.
Italy’s Northern League, stridently anti-foreigner, more than doubled its share of the vote to 10.2 per cent and won eight seats. In Hungary, the Jobbik party, with its anti-gypsy platform, won three seats. In the Netherlands, the Freedom party of Geert Wilders, the maverick politician who has become the face of anti-Islamic sentiment across Europe, won four seats.
In the UK, the antiIslamic British National party won its first two European parliament seats because of widespread disaffection with the Labour party among white voters in the north.
via FT.com / UK – Far right makes inroads based on rising insecurity.
Obama’s timid liberalism
Obama’s timid liberalism
Once, even Republican presidents like Eisenhower and Nixon believed in the public sector. Now, during a national crisis, a Democrat opts for inadequate, neoliberal, private-sector remedies. What happened?
March 6, 2009 | Barack Obama’s bold, ambitious budget plan proves that he is the true heir of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Consider Obama’s Rooseveltian energy plan. In 1939, President Roosevelt decided to mobilize Americans to create a new source of energy: atomic power. Although he was urged to focus on government-funded R&D, FDR chose a different route. He wisely encouraged private capital to invest in atomic energy research by a variety of tax incentives. To make atomic power investment more palatable to private capital, FDR boldly chose to make all other forms of energy in the U.S. uneconomical, by slapping high taxes on kerosene and coal. With the money from the new federal Kerosene Cap and Trade system, President Roosevelt and Congress funded a small-scale federal research program, in the hope of attracting much greater private investment …
Wait. What’s that you say? FDR didn’t do that? He poured federal money into the all-public Manhattan Project and created the first atomic bomb in a couple of years? He didn’t tax kerosene to make it uneconomical and to encourage private investment in atomic power?
Oh. OK. Never mind.
via Obama’s timid liberalism | Salon.
Paul Hawken’s 2009 Commencement Address
Commencement: Healing or Stealing? | | University of Portland
The unforgettable Commencement Address 2009.
By Paul Hawken
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.
Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.
There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.
When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.
via Paul Hawken’s 2009 Commencement Address | Commencement | University of Portland.
U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags
OPS; well, that’s what the Plastic bag loby gets fro not coming up with more bribes
U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags | McClatchy
WASHINGTON — Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations’ top environmental official said Monday.
Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year, most used to handle produce and groceries, go unrecycled. They were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts at the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, a marine environmental group.
“Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. His office advises U.N. member states on environmental policies.
Steiner’s declaration accompanied a UNEP report that identifies plastic as the most pervasive form of ocean litter. According to the report, “Plastic, the most prevalent component of marine debris, poses hazards because it persists so long in the ocean, degrading into tinier and tinier bits that can be consumed by the smallest marine life at the base of the food web.”
via U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags | McClatchy.
Facing budget crisis, Schwarzenegger cuts California contracts, textbooks
OPS: There should be a surcharge tax on anyone making over $3 mil/yr to pay for this.
Facing budget crisis, Schwarzenegger cuts California contracts, textbooks — Raw Story »
The Golden State isn’t so golden right now.
Facing a budget shortfall of some $24.3 billion, California’s political class is digging deep to close it. The latest round of cuts, announced Monday by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are projected to save $1.3 billion, but sacrifice all vendor contracts signed by state agencies since March 1.
The sweeping measure leaves exempt any ongoing application of bond or stimulus funds, but applies across the board to everything else, including school books, which will be replaced next school-year with digital texts.
“Last year California spent $350m on textbooks and can no longer afford it,” noted the BBC.
The state, with 11 percent of its workforce unemployed, must close the budget gap or face running out of money in July.
via Raw Story » Facing budget crisis, Schwarzenegger cuts California contracts, textbooks.
10 Banks Allowed to Repay $68B in Bailout Money
10 Banks Allowed to Repay $68B in Bailout Money – washingtonpost.com
Ten of the nation’s largest banks will be allowed to repay $68 billion in federal aid received at the height of the financial crisis, the Treasury Department announced this morning.
The government did not name the banks, but the list includes J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Capital One Financial of McLean, according to the companies and other sources.
The banks could begin to return the money later this week, marking an important milestone in the government’s efforts to stabilize the financial industry.
The list of banks was longer than many financial analysts had expected. It includes all eight banks that received a clean bill of health last month after the government’s stress tests, plus Morgan Stanley, which was required to strengthen its capital reserves after the stress test, and Northern Trust, which was not subjected to a test. The remaining banks on the list are American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, BB&T, State Street and U.S. Bancorp, according to the companies and other sources familiar with the matter.
via 10 Banks Allowed to Repay $68B in Bailout Money – washingtonpost.com.
Judge denies ACLU request to reveal US role in torture of American citizen
Judge denies ACLU request to reveal US role in torture of American citizen
A federal court judge in Washington, D.C. denied on Thursday a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to reveal alleged U.S. government involvement in the torture of Naji Hamdan, an American citizen.
Hamdan, a 42-year-old Muslim, father and small business owner from California, was arrested by United Arab Emirates authorities in August, 2008 and tortured repeatedly. During the abuse, he says, a man who spoke perfect English was present, ever threatening him to comply with his interrogators.
“In his ruling from the bench, U.S. District Judge James Robertson left the door open for the ACLU to bring new a new legal argument in the case, but said that the ACLU had not demonstrated he had sufficient legal authority to involve himself in the case [...]” noted ABC News. “Hamdan was detained for months by UAE officials before the government there charged him with three terror-related crimes.”
The network continued: “Robertson also said that the evidence the ACLU cited to argue that U.S. government officials may have been involved in Hamdan’s detention was based largely on ‘hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay,’ and on Hamdan’s own allegations, which he called ’self-serving.’”
“His imprisonment appears to have been done at the request of the U.S. government, and his interrogation, which included severe torture, appears to have been done with participation of U.S. federal officials,” insists the ACLU. “If the U.S. government requested or participated in his detention and torture in the U.A.E., the United States government has violated this U.S. citizen’s most fundamental rights.”
via Raw Story » Judge denies ACLU request to reveal US role in torture of American citizen.
NY tabloid calls turncoat Dems ‘revolting’
Revealed: NY senate coup leaders who quit Dems include alleged slasher, accused scammer
NY tabloid calls turncoat Dems ‘revolting’ - The Raw Story »
Even the conservative-leaning New York Post didn’t sugarcoat the backgrounds of the two Democratic New York state senators who changed parties Monday night and helped the GOP return to power.
The headline for the Post’s story, Turncoats are revolting, wasn’t just referring to the mini-revolution.
“Meet the two Democratic turncoats who handed control of the state Senate back to the Republicans: One’s been charged with slashing his girlfriend, while the other is being probed in a funding scam,” Carl Campanile begins his story.
Pedro Espada Jr., who represents The Bronx but actually lives in tony Mamaroneck — is a serial party-switcher who’s implicated in state-funding shenanigans involving his nonprofit health-care company.
Hiram Monserrate of Queens was indicted for allegedly slashing his girlfriend in the face with a broken glass.
Espada has a long history of being a renegade and displaying party disloyalty. Three workers at a firm he runs, the Soundview Health Care Network, pleaded guilty in 2005 to diverting $30,000 from programs for family care and AIDS treatment to his political campaign. He was not charged.
Earlier, Espada was caught red-handed attempting to steer $745,000 in grants to his outfit.
via The Raw Story » NY tabloid calls turncoat Dems ‘revolting’.
Fleischer: Gingrich Is ‘Fabulous’ Dinner Entertainment, But Won’t Be ‘The Next Nominee’ Of The GOP
OPS: Sorry Newt.
Fleischer: Gingrich Is ‘Fabulous’ Dinner Entertainment, But Won’t Be ‘The Next Nominee’ Of The GOP
After much controversy, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich finally spoke yesterday at the big annual GOP congressional fundraising dinner. Although fellow Republicans often call him “the man of ideas,” his speech last night focused more on attacks of President Obama rather than new policies and visions.
Even though Obama is just five months into his presidency, Gingrich said that the President’s plan to fix the economy has “already failed.” He also peddled Frank Luntz’s misleading talking points on health care, saying, “No government bureaucrat has the right to take from you the rights that God gave you, and rationing under health care is inevitably limiting your life at the whim of a bureaucrat and at the manipulation of a politician.”
Additionally, Gingrich used his speech to again mock Obama’s recent speech in Egypt, saying — to loud applause — that he resented the President’s diplomatic outreach to the rest of the world:
Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world! I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous. There is no world sovereignty. There is no world system of law. There is, in fact, no circumstance under which I would like to be a citizen of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Cuba or Russia. I am a citizen of the United States of America, and the rest of this speech is about the United States of America!
Watch it:
Elected Officials Selling out America: Jeff Flake
Elected Officials Selling out America: Jeff Flake
Rep. Jeff Flake is considered one of the most consistent “free traders” out of the 435 members of the House of Representatives
Editor’s Note: The following article is another installment in an expository series which outlines important issues facing the U.S. economy and reveals your elected officials voting records. Please write to your elected officials and demand that they represent their constituents, instead of succumbing to the whims of big business.
In the eyes of the Cato Institute, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) can do no wrong. By their account, since entering Congress in 2001, Flake has been the most reliable “free trader” in the lower body.
The conservative think-tank found that in the 108th Congress, “The most consistent free traders were Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Michael Castle (R-DE), Susan Davis (D-CA), Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), Jim Ramstad (R-MN), Christopher Shays (R-CT), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).”
In fact, over the course of his career, Flake has voted to tear down trade barriers or against erecting new barriers 98 percent of the time. He has also voted against each and every subsidy he has been given the opportunity to vote on.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Restoring Confidence in Americans is not the Issue
Restoring Confidence in Americans is not the Issue
To truly fix the system, Obama must get to the root of the problems facing the economy.
President Barack Obama has been vigorously trying to restore confidence in the battered American economy. Obama has tried to revive the financial markets, unfreeze credit and encourage consumers to spend again. However, according to Sandy Lewis and William Cohan, writing in The New York Times, the president is doing nothing more than putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.
“Mr. Obama thinks that the way to revive the economy is to restore confidence in it,” Lewis and Cohan write. “If the mood is right, the capital will flow. But this belief is dangerously misguided. We are sympathetic to the extraordinary challenge the president faces, but if we’ve learned anything at all two years into the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes, it is that a capital-markets system this dependent on public confidence is a shockingly inadequate foundation upon which to rest our economy.”
According to Lewis and Cohan, there are still huge flaws in the financial system and Obama is simply propping up that broken system for a future generation to deal with. To truly fix the system, Obama must get to the root of the problems facing the economy.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Economic Principals and National Wealth
Economic Principals and National Wealth
Do U.S. farms, factories, and mines manufacture, grow or mine enough products to maintain us? NO! Could They? YES!
Economic Principles: Economics, the trade deficit, the government spending deficit, jobs for Americans, and the buying power of the dollar are all interrelated and very important. These subjects need to be understood by the general public. Economics is interlocked with understandable cause and effect principals of various economic action options.
National Wealth: Economic value is created only when you grow something in the earth, extract something from the earth, or make (manufacture or construct) something that is consumable (or useful). Transportation/distribution/warehousing/tax/sales/delivery/packaging costs are added to the value (cost) of the product that was initially created by these basic creative efforts.
Industrious nations like China grow wealthy and secure by making enough products to support their needs on their farms, factories and mines. They earn additional currency by creating additional wealth through exporting the products that they manufactured. The health of every other business depends upon these productive industries.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
America Must Adopt an Industrial Policy
America Must Adopt an Industrial Policy
The U.S. is hamstrung from developing a fully functioning industrial policy because of the current trade regime which may deem those actions illegal.
The U.S. has been sorely lacking an industrial policy. While competitors in China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan have used public-private partnerships to build up industries that are now world leaders, and in many cases passing their American counterparts, the U.S. has largely stuck to a free market economic approach that has not served the nation well.
It is due time to develop and implement a comprehensive industrial policy that allows America to rebuild and reenergize its manufacturing base. However, as Kevin Gallagher of The Manchester Guardian points out, it may be too late to do so.
“In order to recover from the crisis and address global imbalances the U.S. needs to start producing again, rather than go back to credit-fueled consumption binges,” he writes. “What’s more, U.S. production and consumption will have to be a lot more environmentally friendly.”
Yet, the U.S. is hamstrung from developing a fully functioning industrial policy because of the current trade regime which may deem those actions illegal.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Aerospace Industry Flying Way of Detroit
OPS: The Auto and Aerospace Industries are a matter of National Security. We cannot defend ourselves without these.
Aerospace Industry Flying Way of Detroit
According to the International Trade Commission, the U.S. aerospace industry ran its first trade deficit in history.
The collapse of America’s auto industry is unmistakable. General Motors and Chrysler are in bankruptcy, which Ford has thus far avoided, and each of the Big Three has been forced to make massive cutbacks to their payroll. Workers have been terminated, factories shut down, and supply chains immobilized by slipping demand in the U.S. market.
But the auto industry is not the only manufacturing sector taking a turn for the worse. American aircraft makers and industry leaders are also taking huge hits and watching profits dwindle. According to the International Trade Commission, the U.S. aerospace industry ran its first trade deficit in history. In the fourth fiscal quarter of last year the American aircraft industry ran a robust $11.4 billion surplus. This year, it ran a $5.15 billion deficit.
The aerospace and auto manufacturing industries have long been considered the backbone of America’s blue collar workforce. They employ hundreds of thousands of Americans both directly and indirectly, but over time their market share has dwindled due to unfettered overseas competition. When the financial markets collapsed last spring the orders which had been slowing were grinding to a halt.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
O’Reilly defends torture: ‘Look, if it were illegal, Bush and Cheney would have been arrested.’
OPS: … with the cowards on the Democratic side? Please….
O’Reilly defends torture: ‘Look, if it were illegal, Bush and Cheney would have been arrested.’
Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly has always been one of the most outspoken defenders of torture, declaring there’s “certainly no proof” that “mistreatment” ever happened at Guantanamo, and insisting it’s “just bull” to say it’s ineffective to “dunk [someone] into water.” Trying to link abortion (which is legal) and torture (which is not) in an argument with Juan Williams last night, O’Reilly insisted that torture must not be illegal since Bush or Cheney were never arrested:
WILLIAMS: Well, let me just say on the second point about Guantanamo Bay, Bill, that when you think about torture, torture is illegal. It’s illegal on the Geneva Convention. It’s illegal under U.S. law. So torture is illegal. [...]
O’REILLY: Juan, you’re hiding behind semantics and meaning, Juan, rather than getting to the crux of the matter. Look, if it were illegal, Bush and Cheney would have been arrested. You’re sitting authorities, the attorney general ruled waterboarding was not torture. It was legal. Rare occasion it was used.
Watch it:
Governor Sees High-Tech Future for NY Economy
OPS: It won’t mean anything unless all of this stuff is manufactured in THIS country
Governor Sees High-Tech Future for NY Economy
NEW YORK CITY-In an effort to create new jobs, New York Gov. David Paterson said Monday that the state would set aside $100 million for new “Innovation Economy Matching Grants” meant to drive federal stimulus dollars towards New York State research facilities and institutions. But, despite broad pronouncements and a pummeled financial services industry, questions remain on how best to incubate and diversify new economic engines in a city where the cost of doing business remains so high.
Speaking to an audience at the New York Academy of Sciences at 7 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, Paterson noted that the average salary of an individual working in the “innovation economy” is over double the salary in the “non-innovation economy,” adding later in a release that those jobs produce a “higher multiplier effect.” In other words, for every one created in this sector, 3.5 jobs get created overall.
“It is our responsibility to act, and to act with the interests of future generations in mind,” the governor said Monday. “We are a state rich in resources, the most impressive of which is our human capital.” Pointing out worldwide economic trends, Paterson said “a new economy is emerging: an economy based on knowledge, technology and innovation.”
via Governor Sees High-Tech Future for NY Economy.
Gimme That Old-Time Religion
Gimme That Old-Time Religion – by: William Rivers Pitt,
George W. Bush left office with a public approval rating under 30 percent. Less than 30 percent of Americans currently describe themselves as Republicans. The amalgam of evangelical Christians, hardcore gun-rights fanatics, anti-tax, anti-immigrant and anti-choice voters who make up the base of the Republican Party amount to less than 30 percent of the overall electorate.
These numbers reflect the present state of affairs for the GOP: they are a party controlled by their base, the same group of Americans whose support for Bush never wavered, and who still call themselves Republican despite the serial debacles of the last decade. These are the voters who listen to Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity and Beck, who watch Fox News to the exclusion of every other network, who think evolution is a fraud because dinosaurs are not mentioned in the Bible, and who believe President Obama is a secret Islamic terrorist communist Jew with a bum birth certificate.
via t r u t h o u t | Gimme That Old-Time Religion.
600,000 Seniors About To Lose Their Homes
OPS: remember the recorded phone conversations with the ENRON guys? They moved from ENRON to Wall Street – bet me.
600,000 Seniors About To Lose Their Homes -Moneynews -
More than 600,000 seniors are delinquent in their mortgage payments or already in foreclosure, USA Today reports.
Unlike younger people, many are on fixed incomes and lack the money or job opportunities to catch up on payments when they fall behind.
“I’ve got a lot of seniors who have just been nailed,” mortgage specialist Dean Wegner told the newspaper.
“They’re upside down (owing more on their mortgage than their homes are worth), they can’t refinance and they’re on a fixed income.”
Conventional wisdom holds that most seniors have paid off their mortgages or have significant equity in their homes. But the reality is, hundreds of thousands of older homeowners are suffering in the housing crisis.
A recent report from AARP showed that 25.5 million seniors ages 50 and older have a mortgage — and that older Americans with subprime first mortgages are nearly 17 times more likely to be in foreclosure than Americans of the same age with prime loans.
via Moneynews – 600,000 Seniors About To Lose Their Homes.
Dark Ages 2.0
Dark Ages 2.0 – Washington’s Blog:
I have previously written that we risk the danger of slipping back into the dark ages.
I quoted a leading economist who said that the powers-that-be are:
Trying to … roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards, it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite.
Foreign Policy magazine has just run an article entitled “The Next Big Thing: Neomedievalism”, arguing that the power of nations is declining, and being replaced by corporations, wealthy individuals, the sovereign wealth funds of monarchs, and city-regions.
And it turns out that the Iraq war really is a crusade (see this and this), and that the biggest supporters of torture are churchgoers.
And – addressing Obama’s proposed plan to put the 9/11 suspects to death without trial based upon their supposed “confessions”, Michael Rivero links to the text of the Magna Carta, and then writes:
“[Quoting the Magna Carta:] In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.”
Webmaster’s Commentary:
In convicting and executing prisoners solely on the basis of confessions extracted under torture, the United States Government has dragged us all back to the Middle Ages.
When will the burning of the Heretics commence, I wonder?
via Washington’s Blog: Dark Ages 2.0.
China airs fears on US debt, dollar: lawmaker
China airs fears on US debt, dollar: lawmaker
Senior Chinese leaders have privately voiced fear over the soaring US budget deficit and are increasingly looking to diversify from the dollar, a Republican congressman said.”We heard across the board — in private — substantial, continuing and rising concern,” Representative Mark Kirk said after a trip to China that included talks with government officials and central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan.
It’s clear that China would like to diversify from its dollar investments,” the lawmaker said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank.
Kirk’s assessment differed with that of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who said last week on a separate visit that Chinese leaders had expressed “justifiable confidence” on the future of the recession-hit US economy.
Kirk traveled with Representative Rick Larsen, a member of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, who also painted a less gloomy picture of Chinese officials’ views.
via China airs fears on US debt, dollar: lawmaker.
Israel ministry wages settlement war against U.S.
Israel ministry wages settlement war against U.S.
Haaretz
Interior Minister Eli Yishai has begun to make good on a pledge to exploit all the resources of his ministry, “its branches and its influences over local government” to expand settlements in the territories.
Yishai, who is also chairman of Shas, made the promise last Thursday to the heads of the Yesha Council of settlements. His party is concerned by the freeze on construction that has been in effect since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office, which Yishai said is “drying out” the settlements.
Haaretz has learned that Yishai has instructed officials at the Interior Ministry to come up with ways to help the settlers, by allowing continued construction within the major West Bank settlement blocs where building has stopped as a result of American pressure.
Yishai wants to include additional built-up areas within the city limits of towns in the major settlement blocs, effectively expanding those cities’ boundaries. Adjustment of the city limits, which is within the purview of the Interior Ministry, can mean the addition of several square kilometers to a locale’s jurisdiction – or the subtraction of said amount of land.
via Israel ministry wages settlement war against U.S. – Haaretz – Israel News.
Health Care Reform in the House – Committees & Contacts
Health Care Reform in the House – Committees & Contacts
For several months the apparent public action has been in the Senate, first mostly with the Finance Committee (Baucus) and more recenlty, finally in the Health Committee (Kennedy, with Dodd and Harkin).
Late last week the House became more publicly active wiht Majority Leader Steny Hoyer having a publicized meeting with the leadership of the the three committees (and their subcommittees working to develop health care reform legislation in the House – Energy and Commerce Committee (Henry Waxman; Frank Pallone), Ways and Means (Charles Rangel & Pete Stark), and Education and Labor Committee (George Miller & Robert Andrews).
There is a House Health Care Reform Clearinghouse, being sponsored out of the Majority Leader’s website.
And this Wednesday June 10 there will hearings devoted to single payer with PNHP leaders among those testifying, being held by the Education and Labor Committee.
It is past time to make our voice heard in the House!
Therefore: I have taken the liberty to pull together contact information for all the members of the sub-committees below:
via Health Care Reform in the House – Committees & Contacts | ePluribus Media.
U.S. House health bill to include government plan
OPS: The Devil is always in the details – we’ll see what comes out the other end.
U.S. House health bill to include government plan | | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are preparing to unveil a proposal for a sweeping healthcare overhaul that includes a new public insurance plan and would require individuals and businesses to obtain coverage, lawmakers said on Monday.
Similar to legislation being developed in the Senate, the House bill would establish an insurance exchange to help people without employer-sponsored insurance find medical coverage. A new government insurance program would be one of the options available, lawmakers said.
“The exchange will be the vehicle in which we would have the public option, and people can go there to go shopping to determine whether you want a private plan or a public plan,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel told reporters.
The bill also embraces extensive insurance market reforms that would bar insurers from denying coverage to people because of medical history. The House bill also calls for a mandate for individuals and businesses to obtain insurance.
via U.S. House health bill to include government plan | Politics | Reuters.
U.S. war funding bill brims with unrelated extras
U.S. war funding bill brims with unrelated extras | | Reuters
WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) – A $100 billion bill to fund U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is rapidly accumulating extra items such as money for military aircraft the Pentagon doesn’t want and possibly a scheme to jump-start sagging auto sales.
The cars and planes are not directly linked to the U.S. war effort. But they are typical of Congress’ penchant for loading bills with unrelated spending in hopes the funds will sail through on the strength of the main legislation.
President Barack Obama originally sought $83.4 billion for the two wars and more foreign aid for countries like Pakistan.
But then he too sought more — $4 billion extra to combat H1N1 swine flu and $5 billion to back credit lines to the International Monetary Fund, which is trying to help developing countries weather the global economic downturn.
via U.S. war funding bill brims with unrelated extras | U.S. | Reuters.
Private insurance companies push for ‘individual mandate’
OPS: will a Mandatory system be Constitutional?
Private insurance companies push for ‘individual mandate’
As momentum gains for reforms, insurers hope to turn it to their advantage by supporting a proposal that everyone buy coverage. It would be a boost for the industry, which has seen enrollment decline.
Some may find it hard to believe that the U.S. health insurance industry supports making major changes to the nation’s healthcare system.
The industry, after all, scuttled President Clinton’s healthcare overhaul bid with ads featuring “Harry and Louise” fretting about change.
But this time, it turns out, the health insurance industry has good reason to support at least some change: It needs it.
Private health insurance faces a bleak future if the proposal they champion most vigorously — a requirement that everyone buy medical coverage — is not adopted.
via Private insurance companies push for ‘individual mandate’ – Los Angeles Times.
Fighting Militarism’s Toxic Legacy
Fighting Militarism’s Toxic Legacy | The Progressive
One of the most pernicious effects of the U.S. government’s commitment to militarism is a toxic landscape. Current legislation pending in the House, H.R. 672, the Military Environmental Responsibility Act, would force the military to comply with environmental and public safety laws.
“The Department of Defense and Department of Energy have not been held to the same environmental standards as everyone else, and as a result the military continues to be the nation’s biggest polluter,” says Laura Olah, executive director of Citizens for Safe Water Around Badger (CSWAB).
Olah knows a lot about military pollution. She and her neighbors in rural Wisconsin discovered their drinking water wells were polluted with high levels of carcinogenic solvents. Fifty years of weapons manufacturing from the nearby Badger Army Ammunitions Plant had poisoned groundwater, contaminating wells more than a mile away.
via Fighting Militarism’s Toxic Legacy | The Progressive.
You Know More than You Think
You Know More than You Think – : Scientific American
How to tap the wisdom of the crowd in your head
There is an old saying that two heads are better than one. This saying received empirical support in social psychology in the 1920s, when a series of studies showed that groups were more accurate than their individual members. In an early demonstration of the phenomenon, for example, Columbia University’s Hazel Knight asked students to estimate the temperature in a classroom. When the estimates were averaged together, the resulting group answer was more accurate than the estimate of a typical member.
Early authors found this surprising and attributed it to some mysterious group property. Eventually, however, it was recognized as a product of statistics: Using a large sample of imperfect estimates tends to cancel out extreme errors and converge on the truth. Subsequent research in forecasting demonstrated the power of averaging compared to more sophisticated statistical methods of combination. The power and simplicity of averaging was summed up in the title of James Surowiecki’s 2004 best-selling book, “The Wisdom of Crowds.”
In a fascinating new article in Psychological Science, Stefan Herzog and Ralph Hertwig turned the old aphorism on its head: One head can be nearly as good as two. Herzog and Hertwig had participants make estimates about quantitative values they did not know with certainty—specifically, dates in history. They then had participants make second estimates. Could this “crowd in the mind” help improve judgments? The answer is yes, and the literature on the wisdom of crowds helps us understand why.
via You Know More than You Think: Scientific American.
Fact or Fiction? You Must Drink 8 Glasses of Water Daily
Fact or Fiction? You Must Drink 8 Glasses of Water Daily -: Scientific American
Do healthy people really need liquids even when they are not thirsty?
Virtually every health-conscious person can quote the recommendation: Drink at least eight eight-ounce glasses of water per day. Other beverages—coffee, tea, soda, beer, even orange juice—don’t count. Watermelon? Not a chance.
There’s no denying that water is good for you, but does everyone really need to drink 64 ounces or more every day? According to Heinz Valtin, a retired professor of physiology from Dartmouth Medical School who specialized in kidney research and spent 45 years studying the biological system that keeps the water in our bodies in balance, the answer is no.
Valtin says that for people who have specific health concerns, such as kidney stones or a tendency to develop urinary tract infections, drinking lots of water can be beneficial. But after an extensive search in 2002 for the origins of what is commonly referred to as the “8 x 8″ guideline and a review of associated health claims, he reports finding no scientific evidence supporting the notion that healthy individuals need to consume large quantities of water. In 2008 Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb reviewed the evidence for the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. They came to a similar conclusion: “There is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water.”
via Fact or Fiction? You Must Drink 8 Glasses of Water Daily: Scientific American.
Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say
Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say
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Health and life insurance companies in the US and abroad have nearly $4.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks, according to Harvard doctors.
“It’s the combined taxidermist and veterinarian approach: either way you get your dog back,” says David Himmelstein, an internist at the Harvard Medical School and co-author of a letter published in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The largest tobacco investor on the list, the 160-year old Prudential company with branches in the US and the UK, has more than $1.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks. The runner-up was Toronto-based Sun Life Financial, which apparently holds over $1 billion in Philip Morris (Altria) and other tobacco stocks. In total, seven companies that sell life, health, disability, or long-term care insurance, have major holdings in tobacco stock.
via Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say : Scientific American Blog.
9,000-year-old brew hitting the shelves this summer
9,000-year-old brew hitting the shelves this summer
This summer, how would you like to lean back in your lawn chair and toss back a brew made from what may be the world’s oldest recipe for beer? Called Chateau Jiahu, this blend of rice, honey and fruit was intoxicating Chinese villagers 9,000 years ago—long before grape wine had its start in Mesopotamia.
University of Pennsylvania molecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern first described the beverage in 2005 in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences based on chemical traces from pottery in the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Northern China. Soon after, McGovern called on Sam Calagione at the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Del., to do the ancient recipe justice. Later this month, you can give it a try when a new batch hits shelves across the country. The Beer Babe blog was impressed, writing that it is “very smooth,” and “not overly sweet.”
But that’s not the only strange brew Dogfish is shipping out this summer. Next week, the brewery will be bottling up the first large batch of Sah’tea for the general public—a modern update on a ninth-century Finnish beverage. In the fall, The New Yorker documented the intricate research and preparation that went into making the beer, which was first offered on tap at the brewery in May. In short, brewmasters carmelize wort on white hot river rocks, ferment it with German Weizen yeast, then toss on Finnish berries and a blend
of spices to jazz up this rye-based beverage. Reviewers at the BeerAdvocate universally praised Sah’tea, comparing it to a fruity hefeweizen. One user munched on calamari as he downed a pint and described the combo as “a near euphoric experience.”
via 9,000-year-old brew hitting the shelves this summer: Scientific American Blog.
Wind Energizer Donut for More Efficient Turbines
Wind Energizer Donut for More Efficient Turbines
We all know about the impending future of the fossil fuels. Ultimately we will be forced to look for alternative energy fuels. Those countries who have resources and infrastructure are taking up these challenges very intelligently. Scientists and researchers know that existing alternative sources of energy can’t take up the challenges created by total exhaustion of fossil fuel. So they are continuously trying to better the existing technologies of the sources of alternative fuels. This time Leviathan Energy presents a technology for new and existing wind farms to produce more energy from a relatively small investment, a solution every manufacturer worth his/her salt wants i.e. more by investing less!
Leviathan Energy has taken the help of aerodynamics model, and has devised a unique passive structure in the existing form. That model is useful for any wind turbine and any manufacturer can incorporate this passive structure into his wind turbine. Leviathan Energy has paid attention to the surrounding wind flow for amplifying the power output. They have developed a specially designed plastic and metal skirt structure that ushers the adjoining wind flow into the crucial areas of the blades. This plastic and metal skirt structure is draped around the base of the wind turbine. This will help in directing air flow to the critical areas of the blades. In short Leviathan Energy has developed a doughnut-shaped device, which you can install at the base of a wind turbine and when you position it appropriately, it will drive air up to the propellers and increases their rate of spin.
Some of the advantages of the wind energizer are as follows:
- A smart adjustment like this will ensure increase in power output by the wind turbine by at least 15-30%, while at lower wind speeds (0-6 meters per second), it is able to hit gains of up to 150%.
- This adjustment will also lessen the wear and tear and ensure a longer life span for the turbines. How? It will happen because of the regulating effect of the ring-shaped collar by controlling the flow of air over the blades.
- A remarkable cut in the speed of the blades will be guaranteed.
- A small investment will be required per turbine and the return on investment (ROI) for the wind energizer might be in four or five years.
via Wind Energizer Donut for More Efficient Turbines.
Leading historians on whether fascism is on the march again
Is fascism on the march again? | The Guardian
Does the election of two BNP MEPs and the success of the far right elsewhere in Europe mean we are facing the threat of fascism? Or is this just a protest vote that will quickly fade? Leading historians give their verdicts
Author of The Third Reich, A New History
We should be wary about the rise of the far right but not panicky. Even though I write commentary pieces for the Daily Mail, I am not given to hysteria. I don’t like all these stupid historical analogies – this is not a re-run of the 1930s. In some ways, history can box you in and limit your options. We live in a very different world, and these parties organise themselves in a very different way. Hitler didn’t Twitter.
Conditions in Europe are very different now from those that prevailed in the 1930s. We haven’t had a catastrophic European war, with resentments about how that ended. We should also be cautious about saying that an economic recession inevitably leads to the rise of the far right. The fascists came to power in Italy long before the Depression. There is no automatic link. In Germany, most of the unemployed voted for the communists.
It is too early to say whether the rightwing parties that did well in the European election will have any historical significance, or whether they will offer a Europe-wide threat to mainstream politics. Although I suspect they may be better co-ordinated than leftwing parties, they are all subtly different. We should also be aware that rightwing parties can evolve. It is odd that the evolution of communist parties into Eurocommunist parties was recognised, but these rightwing parties are seen as mysteriously static and rooted in the 1930s. You just have to look at the BNP to see how it is trying to adapt its approach to changed circumstances, ramping up its hostility to the EU while playing down other aspects of its policy.
via Leading historians on whether fascism is on the march again | Politics | The Guardian.
Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege
Sen. Bernie Sanders:
Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege
Let’s be clear. Our health care system is disintegrating. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance and even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. At a time when 60 million people, including many with insurance, do not have access to a medical home, more than 18,000 Americans die every year from preventable illnesses because they do not get to the doctor when they should. This is six times the number who died at the tragedy of 9/11 – but this occurs every year.
In the midst of this horrendous lack of coverage, the U.S. spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation – and health care costs continue to soar. At $2.4 trillion dollars, and 18 percent of our GDP, the skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is unsustainable both from a personal and macro-economic perspective.
At the individual level, the average American spends about $7,900 per year on health care. Despite that huge outlay, a recent study found that medical problems contributed to 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007. From a business perspective, General Motors spends more on health care per automobile than on steel while small business owners are forced to divert hard-earned profits into health coverage for their employees – rather than new business investments. And, because of rising costs, many businesses are cutting back drastically on their level of health care coverage or are doing away with it entirely.
via Sen. Bernie Sanders: Health Care Is a Right, Not a Privilege.
Bill gives FDA controls over tobacco advances
Bill gives FDA controls over tobacco advances
The Associated Press:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A key Senate vote Monday put Congress in sight of fulfilling a decade-old quest to put the content and marketing of tobacco products under the control of the federal government.
The legislation would for the first time give the Food and Drug Administration legal authority to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products. The 61-30 Senate vote to move forward on the bill sets up possible passage of the measure this week. Sixty votes were needed to keep the bill on track.
The House has already passed a similar bill and resolution of minor differences would send it to President Barack Obama, who supports it.
The Senate action was critical because, under Senate rules, it ended the possibility of senators offering amendments, some highly controversial, that are not relevant to the FDA regulation issue.
Among the proposals senators had hoped to attach to the bill were a North Korea sanctions bill, a “cash for clunkers” bill providing government vouchers for people trading in old cars for more fuel-efficient models and a prescription drug importation bill.
via The Associated Press: Bill gives FDA controls over tobacco advances.
Breaking: Lieberman-Graham Dropped From Supplemental
Breaking: Lieberman-Graham Dropped From Supplemental Firedoglake »
According to sources on the Hill, the Lieberman-Graham detainee photo suppression amendment is out of the conference report of the supplemental.
For everyone who made phone calls — pat yourself on the back.
Let us all now sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Joe Lieberman throwing a tantrum.
If you decided you wanted to celebrate by donating to the Marcy Wheeler fund, — well, I could think of worse things.
via Firedoglake » Breaking: Lieberman-Graham Dropped From Supplemental.
White House plan to create 600K jobs in 100 days won’t help tech
White House plan to create 600K jobs in 100 days won’t help tech
Tech layoffs will continue through year-end, survey says
Computerworld – The real impact of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package on shrinking IT employment remains in the future, despite President Obama’s plan, announced today, to expedite hiring of some 600,000 people over the next 100 days. Many of the jobs in this summer boost will be aimed at the construction and education fields and at young people.
Meanwhile, the forecast for the next six months is for more tech sector layoffs, according to a new survey.
Of the 1,900 technology recruiters and hiring managers queried about the tech labor market by jobs board Dice.com, 43% believe that layoffs are either “likely” or “very likely” over the next six months. The semi-annual survey also found that companies are giving themselves more time to vet candidates, extending the hiring process.
via White House plan to create 600K jobs in 100 days won’t help tech.
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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. 
