Archive for June, 2009
Citi ordered to suspend Japan units
Citi ordered to suspend Japan units – FT.com
Regulator faults internal controls
Japan’s financial regulator has ordered Citigroup to halt some of its businesses for a month and fundamentally improve its internal controls, after finding that the US group failed to implement sufficient measures aimed at preventing suspicious transactions, including money laundering.
This is the Financial Services Agency’s second penalty against the US bank in the past five years.
via FT.com / Companies / Banks – Citi ordered to suspend Japan units.
Cancer Risk In Alabama: EPA Reports Causes
Two counties in Alabama make the top 20 list on EPA’s cancer potentila list. There are reasons supplied by the Alabama government. They caused it.
EPA rating Alabama
Jefferson County is number eighteen and Tuscaloosa County is number twelve on the EPA’s new cancer risk from dirty air list.
While politicians and Wayne Studyvin, director of environmental health for the Jefferson County
Department of Health, downplay these findings as a minimal risk there are other causes involved.
The state has allowed companies to exceed their pollution permits by two percent a year.
A federal court has found the practice to be an “illegal, unilateral modification of state regulations.”
Birmingham was the fifth most polluted city in 2008.
Children in Birmingham have a much higher rate of asthma due to particulate content of the air. This is also known as soot.
via EPA rating Alabama.
Remind me: Which political party is “decadent” and “sick”?
“If they looked honestly at themselves, religious conservatives might notice that they are morally lax, socially permissive and casually tolerant of moral deviancy — just like the liberals they despise.”
Remind me: Which political party is “decadent” and “sick”?
Mark Sanford’s zipper problem is yet more proof that Republican conservatives are just liberals in right-wing drag
By Joe Conason
Whenever the latest Republican politician is caught with his zipper undone, a predictable moment of introspection on the right inevitably ensues. Pundits, bloggers and perplexed citizens ruminate over the lessons they have learned, again and again, about human frailty, false piety and the temptations of flesh and power. They express concern for the damaged family and lament the fall of yet another promising young hypocrite. They resolve to restore the purity of their movement and always remember to remind us that this is all Bill Clinton’s fault. What they never do is face up to an increasingly embarrassing fact about themselves and their leaders.
They’re really just liberals in right-wing drag.
via Remind me: Which political party is “decadent” and “sick”? | Salon.
“What Can I Do?”
“What Can I Do?”
Robert Reich
Someone recently approached me at the cheese counter of a local supermarket, asking “what can I do?” At first I thought the person was seeking advice about a choice of cheese. But I soon realized the question was larger than that. It was: what can I do about the way things are going in Washington?
People who voted for Barack Obama tend to fall into one of two camps: Trusters, who believe he’s a good man with the right values and he’s doing everything he can; and cynics, who have become disillusioned with his bailouts of Wall Street, flimsy proposals for taming the Street, willingness to give away 85 percent of cap-and-trade pollution permits, seeming reversals on eavesdropping and torture, and squishiness on a public option for health care.
In my view, both positions are wrong. A new president — even one as talented and well-motivated as Obama — can’t get a thing done in Washington unless the public is actively behind him. As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, “Maam, I want to do those things, but you must make me.”
via Robert Reich’s Blog: “What Can I Do?”.
It’s Time to Ban an Arsenic Compound From Chicken Feed
A Deadly Ingredient in a Chicken Dinner – washingtonpost.com
Most people don’t know that the chicken they eat is laced with arsenic. The ice water or coffee they enjoy with their chicken may also be infused with arsenic. If they live on or near a farm, the air they breathe may be infected with arsenic dust as well.
Why do our chicken, our water and our air contain arsenic? Because in the United States, most major poultry producers add an arsenic compound known as roxarsone to their chicken feed. Inorganic arsenic is a Class A carcinogen that has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and declines in brain function. Recent scientific findings show that most Americans are routinely exposed to between three and 11 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended safety limit.
The poultry industry has been using the feed additive roxarsone — purportedly to fight parasites and increase growth in chickens — since the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 1944. Turns out that the arsenic additive promotes the growth of blood vessels in chicken, which makes the meat appear pinker and more attractive in its plastic wrap at the grocery store, but does little else. The arsenic additive does the same in human cells, fueling a growth process known as angiogenesis, a critical first step in many human diseases such as cancer.
via Douglas Gansler – It’s Time to Ban an Arsenic Compound From Chicken Feed – washingtonpost.com.
New cancer treatment shows ‘great promise’
New cancer treatment shows ‘great promise’ - FT.com
A new way of treating cancer has shown “great promise” in its first clinical trial at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.
Researchers gave olaparib, a drug being developed by AstraZeneca with the UK Institute for Cancer Research, to 60 patients with advanced breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. All had mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes associated with inherited forms of these cancers.
“This drug showed very impressive results in shrinking patients’ tumours,” said Dr Johann de Bono of the ICR. “It is giving patients who have already tried many conventional treatments long periods of remission, free from the symptoms of cancer or major side-effects.”
via FT.com / Technology / Science – New cancer treatment shows ‘great promise’.
Members of U.S. House Financial Services Committee snapped up or dumped bank stocks as bottom fell out of market
Members of U.S. House Financial Services Committee snapped up or dumped bank stocks as bottom fell out of market
WASHINGTON — As financial markets tumbled and the government worked to stave off panic by pumping billions of dollars into banks last fall, several members of Congress who oversee the banking industry were grabbing up or dumping bank stocks.
Anticipating bargains or profits or just trying to unload before the bottom fell out, these members of the House Financial Services Committee or brokers on their behalf were buying and selling stocks including Bank of America and Citigroup — some of the very corporations their committee would later rap for greed, a Plain Dealer examination of congressional stock market transactions shows.
Financial disclosure records show that some of these Financial Services Committee members, including Ohio Rep. Charlie Wilson, made bank stock trades on the same day the banks were getting a government bailout from a program Congress approved. The transactions may not have been illegal or against congressional rules, but securities attorneys and congressional watchdog groups say they raise flags about the appearance of conflicts of interest.
Capitalism, IMF and World Bank under fire at U.N.
Capitalism, IMF and World Bank under fire at U.N.
* Reforming groups insufficient, Ecuador president says
* Draft finance reform proposals to be adopted on Friday (Adds quotes from economist Stiglitz)
By Walter Brandimarte
UNITED NATIONS, June 25 (Reuters) – Ecuador’s left-wing President Rafael Correa blamed capitalism on Thursday for the global financial crisis, suggesting at a U.N. conference that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank be abolished.
Criticism of the IMF and other so-called Bretton Woods institutions established during World War Two has become a running theme at a three-day meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on the crisis.
“Patching up the Bretton Woods system, which we do not control, makes no sense for (developing) countries,” Correa said in a speech on the second day of the conference.
Reforming the IMF and World Bank “would be an insufficient stopgap solution,” he said, adding that “we are faced with a crisis unlike those (previously) provoked by capitalism.”
via UPDATE 1-Capitalism, IMF and World Bank under fire at U.N. | Markets | Bonds News | Reuters.
D.C.’s Metro Rail Crash and America’s Aging Transit System
The Metro Crash: A Nation’s Aging Transit System - TIME 
Investigators are still sorting through the wreckage of Monday’s crash of two Metro rail cars in Washington, D.C., the deadliest in the system’s 33-year history, which killed nine people and injured scores of others. Federal officials said on Tuesday that the train that rear-ended another was an older model that lacked equipment that might have helped avert the collision and, according to the Washington Post, had been overdue for needed brake work.
The D.C. Metro is hardly the only one in the U.S. with an aging fleet. Public-transit advocates in many major cities face a similar problem: an aging, underfunded transit system struggling to safely ferry ever larger numbers of riders. “This does draw attention to the fact that we need to invest a lot more in our transit system,” says Deron Lovass, the federal transportation director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Our highway system is world class, but we’ve neglected public transit along the same way.” (See pictures of Washington, D.C.)
This spring the Federal Transit Administration gave marginal or poor ratings to more than a third of the equipment of the largest rail transit agencies in the U.S. To replace the nation’s elderly equipment and finish station rehabilitations, it would cost roughly $50 billion; keeping the updated system in good repair afterward would run nearly $6 billion a year. (Read: “U.S. Stimulus Puts Bullet Trains on the Fast Track.”)
via D.C.’s Metro Rail Crash and America’s Aging Transit System – TIME.
Michigan Braces for a Surge in Welfare Applications
Michigan Braces for a Surge in Welfare Applications – WSJ.com
Strict System Installed in 1990s Has Kept the State’s Caseloads Down, but Exhaustion of Jobless Benefits Will Pose a Test Soon
Michigan’s generous jobless benefits and strict eligibility rules have kept the welfare rolls down despite the state’s 14.1% unemployment rate, the highest in the country. But a surge in jobless workers reaching the time limit for unemployment benefits in coming months could change that.
A major test for the state’s welfare system could come by January, when nearly one in seven unemployed workers will have exhausted their jobless benefits, unless the laws change, said Norm Isotalo, a spokesman for Michigan’s unemployment-insurance agency. Many of the more than 680,000 unemployed workers in the state are collecting jobless benefits, which last for as long as 79 weeks.
Other states with high unemployment, such as Florida and Oregon, have already seen significant increases in welfare caseloads.
“We’re expecting a huge influx of applications in the next few months,” said Barbara Anders, the director of adult and family services at the Michigan Department of Human Services. About 100,000 people’s jobless benefits will expire by January. Officials hope for funding to add staff to handle the influx, and the state Senate appropriations committee has approved hiring 200 more staffers.
via Michigan Braces for a Surge in Welfare Applications – WSJ.com.
Chinese Hypocrisy
Chinese Hypocrisy
The “free trade” lobby was led by China, and played an instrumental part in turning the “buy American” provisions into nothing more than loophole-ridden shells of legislation.
The recent decision by trade and economic officials in Beijing to adopt “buy China” policies for government procurements caused a stir in the U.S. The “free trade” lobby was led by China, and played an instrumental part in turning the “buy American” provisions into nothing more than loophole-ridden shells of legislation. After railing against U.S. policies that it perceived to be “protectionist,” the Chinese government enacted the exact some policies in its own domestic market.
Unfortunately for the U.S., we cannot exact the same influence over Chinese domestic policy that it can over us – this is because the Chinese government funds our debt and keeps the American government operational.
The New York Times ran an article on June 23 detailing the protectionist strategies of China. United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk has joined forces with the European Union to decry China’s protectionist strategies; but even if the World Trade Organization rules in favor of the U.S. case, China will do what it always does and ignore the recommendations.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
U.S. Needs to Get its Fiscal House in Order
U.S. Needs to Get its Fiscal House in Order
If the U.S. fails to effectively tackle its mounting debt, America’s triple-A credit rating could be downgraded in the near future.
America’s illustrious triple-A credit rating remains safe for now, according to Moody’s Investor Service. However, if the U.S. government fails to effectively tackle its mounting debt, that credit rating could be downgraded in the near future.
Moody’s described the U.S. government triple-A credit rating as stable, meaning that it will remain as such for the next 18 months.
The credit rating agency also warned, however, that two different scenarios could imperil the nation’s sterling credit rating: America’s inability to effectively tackle its debt problem and the possibility that the dollar is challenged as the main currency reserve.
“That will happen for two reasons. Either our assumptions in terms of debt reversibility prove to be wrong. That is, in fact the U.S. government is unable to bring public debt back to a downward trajectory,” Pierre Cailleteau, team managing director of Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group, said at a media briefing, according to Reuters.
The U.S. debt is currently above $11 trillion and will only rise in the years to come as the government pays for expensive bailouts, stimulus packages, a proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system and other domestic initiatives as well as two wars on foreign soil.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Buffett: U.S. Economy Still in Shambles
Buffett: U.S. Economy Still in Shambles
“We have had no bounce in the economy,” Buffett said. “There are a lot of excesses to be wrung out, and that process is still under way, and it looks to me it will be under way for quite a while.”
| | Published 06/25/09 |
In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC, the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, praised the Obama administration’s economic recovery efforts, cautioned that the economy still has a long way to go to recover and warned that future inflation is a serious concern.
“We have had no bounce in the economy,” Buffett said on CNBC television in New York. “There are a lot of excesses to be wrung out, and that process is still under way, and it looks to me it will be under way for quite a while.”
In fact, he described the economy as “still in shambles,” but heaped praise on the Obama administration for its actions in stemming a total economic collapse. The actions taken by the current and former administrations may seem to be overreaching, but were absolutely necessary, according to Buffett.
He also emphasized that, while he has yet to see any so-called “green shoots” in the economy, the recovery efforts could take a long time before they have any tangible impact.
“They’re doing things, but they take a while to have an effect,” Buffett said. “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
New Washing Machine Uses Only 1 Cup of Water
New Washing Machine Uses Only 1 Cup of Water
An environmentally friendly washing machine developed in Britain that uses only one cup of water to clean clothes could be on sale next year.
The appliance, which could save billions of litres of water a year, has been developed at the University of Leeds.
It uses less than 10 percent of the water of conventional machines and 30 percent less energy by replacing most of the water with thousands of tiny reusable plastic beads to attract and absorb dirt under humid conditions.
Only a small amount of water and detergent is needed to dampen the clothes, loosen stains and create the water vapour that allows the beads to work. After the cycle is finished, the beads fall through a mesh in the machine’s drum and can be re-used up to a hundred times.
Xeros has signed a deal with GreenEarth Cleaning, an environmentally friendly dry-cleaning business, to sell the technology across North America.
via New Washing Machine Uses Only 1 Cup of Water | Water | AlterNet.
Will the ‘Dollar Wars’ Kill What’s Left of the American Dream?
Will the ‘Dollar Wars’ Kill What’s Left of the American Dream?
Countries yoked to America’s currency, and therefore its cratering empire, want to kick the dollar to the curb. And that’s bad news for the U.S.
Here’s a terrible joke: An elderly man walks into a bar and says, “I got good news and I got bad news.”
“What’s the good news?” the bartender asks.
“I stayed out of the stock market, so my retirement dollars are safe.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“They’re dollars.”
OK, I said it was a terrible joke. But that may be what the dollar is becoming, now that the critical mass of wartime spending, rampant consumption, hyper-real finance and environmental collapse has hit the fan.
The hangover from the last three presidential terms, but especially the last two, has taken the American economy down the rabbit hole, with the international monetary system begging for mercy while hitched to its off-the-ralls crazy train. But the ride has stopped, and some countries yoked to America’s currency, and therefore its cratering empire, don’t want to get back on.
Broken Health Care: What It Really Costs Us
Broken Health Care: What It Really Costs Us | OurFuture.org
Sara Robinson
Sometimes, when you’re up to your chin in alligators, it’s hard to focus on the fact that there’s a big, broad, alligator-free world waiting somewhere out there, beyond the edge of the swamp.
In this case, it’s hard for most Americans to even imagine that nobody in the rest of the developed world lives this way. We’ve been living inside the restrictions and making the trade-offs required to hang onto our all-important health care coverage for so long that we don’t even realize that we’re cutting those deals, or what we’re giving up, or how thoroughly those choices have come to dominate and limit our lives.
If you’re an American under 40, you can’t remember a time that the health care system didn’t work this way—or that keeping coverage wasn’t a dominant factor in making your life choices. If you’re older than that, the memory of another, happier era beyond the swamp is dim, and fading fast.
This was one of the things that struck me hardest when I arrived in Canada five years ago. The swamp-blindness was so dark and deep that it took a while to adjust to a world without alligators. It’s almost impossible to describe to folks back home how different life is when health insurance simply doesn’t factor at all into how you choose to live your life. There’s almost no language for it. Rather than even attempt it, I sometimes just ask my American friends and relatives to open up their imaginations, and answer the question for themselves:
- How would your life be different if you never had to worry about getting, keeping, or affording health care again?
- What other choices might you have made?
- Where else would you be right now?
- How would it change your plans for the future?
via Broken Health Care: What It Really Costs Us | OurFuture.org.
Paramilitary Thug With Long History With Top U.S. Democrats Arrested for ‘War Crimes’
Paramilitary Thug With Long History With Top U.S. Democrats Arrested for ‘War Crimes’
Agim Ceku commanded “ethnic cleansing” operations in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, then headed an organization labeled “terrorist” by a senior US official. But top Dems made him their man in Kosovo.
By Jeremy Scahill
UPDATE: After international intervention, Ceku was reportedly ordered released on Thursday.
A US-trained paramilitary figure from the Balkans with a lengthy history with leading Clinton-era Democrats, including some now in the Obama administration, has been arrested in Europe on an Interpol warrant for war crimes. Agim Ceku, an Albanian from Kosovo, is a former Croatian Army General who was trained by the private US security firm Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) during the Clinton Administration. Ceku, backed by the US, would go on to become the “prime minister” of Kosovo despite the fact that he was responsible for some of the worst acts of “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and was the leader of a paramilitary organization with drug trade ties, which Clinton’s top envoy to Kosovo called a “terrorist” organization.
Ceku was detained in Bulgaria on the basis of an Interpol warrant issued by Serbia as he crossed the border from Macedonia on Tuesday. Serbia demanded his extradition on war crimes charges stemming from his role as the military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1999. Ceku is a shadowy figure with a violent—some say genocidal—record in his leadership capacity in both the Croatian military in the 1990s and as commander of the KLA. At the same time, this is a man who was embraced and promoted by powerful Democrats after and during his brutal activities. In the 1990s, Ceku had private meetings with now-Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Carl Levin, and Obama’s current coordinator of Afghanistan/Pakistan policy Richard Holbrooke. Ceku drank whiskey with Madeleine Albright’s deputy Jamie Rubin, with whom he developed a close relationship, and was praised by Gen. Wesley Clark as “one of the more reasonable people in that region.”
via RebelReports – Paramilitary Thug With Long History With Top U.S. Democrats Arrested for ‘War Crimes’.
Obama gets billions for ‘pandemic’ Swine Flu
Obama gets billions for ‘pandemic’ Swine Flu
by F. William Engdahl
Buried amid news stories about World Breastfeeding Week, World Suicide Prevention Day and World Rabies Day, the WHO has a small item giving the latest supposed count of ‘laboratory confirmed H1N1 cases. It is something on the order of 55,000 persons worldwide since this April at a factory pig farm in Veracruz Mexico a small child got ill and the world was told of a deadly new ‘Swine Flu’ that was allegedly spreading from pig to person. Yet the US Government is gearing up as if it ere preparing for the new outbreak of the dreaded 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic. The reality does not support the government response. Is something else going on?
Although neither the WHO nor the US Government’s Centers for Disease Control nor the Robert Koch Institute nor the Pasteur Institute nor any government or private agency in the world has yet to scientifically isolate, to photograph with means of electron microscopy and to list the chemical characteristics of the ‘novel H1N1 Influenza A virus’ as it is now officially called, the WHO has seen fit to declare a global “Pandemic Alert” Phase 6 alarm.
WHO sounds the Pandemic Gong
What is conveniently obscured in most all media accounts of the WHO is the definition of their ‘pandemic’ declaration. A look at the official definition reveals that it relates merely to the number of countries in a given WHO region reporting cases of a given disease. Specifically, Phase 5, just below Pandemic is defined as ‘sustained community level outbreaks in two or more countries in one WHO region. Phase 6 includes the Phase 5 conditions plus ‘sustained outbreaks in at least one other country in another WHO region.’
In her June 11 statement declaring, almost triumphantly, that WHO criteria had been met to declare an official Phase 6 ‘pandemic,’ meaning they claim to have found the symptoms in a specific number of countries, WHO’s Director-General, Harvard-trained Dr Margaret Chan declared, ‘On present evidence, the overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a rapid and full recovery, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment.’ She then added, ‘Worldwide, the number of deaths is small…we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe or fatal infections.’ Oh? That’s interesting. Then why the alarm? Mutations? Of what?
via Obama gets billions for ‘pandemic’ Swine Flu.
False Health-Scare Ad on CNN
False Health-Scare Ad on CNN
By Robert Parry
A right-wing group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is airing a political attack ad against the idea of a public option for health insurance by turning upside down an analysis showing that 119 million Americans would jump from their private health insurer to a government plan if one existed.
According to that analysis, 119 million Americans – roughly two-thirds of those now on private plans – would defect to a public option if they had a choice. But the right-wing group, in airing its ad on CNN, presents that number as a case of denying those Americans the choice of staying on their private plans.
“Experts say a government plan could result in 119 million Americans coming off their existing coverage,” a woman’s voice intones over the image of a Wall Street Journal article. “They’d end up on a government-run plan.”
However, those 119 million Americas would be “coming off their existing coverage,” according to the analysis, because many would choose a public health option over their existing private plan. In other words, what the CPR group wants to do is to deny those 119 million Americans the choice that many of them want.
via Consortiumnews.com.
Not Enough Audacity
Not Enough Audacity - NYTimes.com
Paul Krugman
When it comes to domestic policy, there are two Barack Obamas.
On one side there’s Barack the Policy Wonk, whose command of the issues — and ability to explain those issues in plain English — is a joy to behold.
But on the other side there’s Barack the Post-Partisan, who searches for common ground where none exists, and whose negotiations with himself lead to policies that are far too weak.
Both Baracks were on display in the president’s press conference earlier this week. First, Mr. Obama offered a crystal-clear explanation of the case for health care reform, and especially of the case for a public option competing with private insurers. “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal,” he asked, “then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”
But when asked whether the public option was non-negotiable he waffled, declaring that there are no “lines in the sand.” That evening, Rahm Emanuel met with Democratic senators and told them — well, it’s not clear what he said. Initial reports had him declaring willingness to abandon the public option, but Senator Kent Conrad’s staff later denied that. Still, the impression everyone got was of a White House all too eager to make concessions.
via Op-Ed Columnist – Not Enough Audacity – NYTimes.com.
Jim Gibbons (Gov. R-NV) Asks Judge To Seal Phone Records From Cocktail Waitress He’s Accused Of Assaulting
Jim Gibbons Asks Judge To Seal Phone Records From Cocktail Waitress He’s Accused Of Assaulting
LAS VEGAS — Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked a federal judge to shield his phone records from a former cocktail waitress who accuses him of accosting her outside a Las Vegas restaurant in 2006.
Gibbons’ lawyers contend in documents filed this week that releasing the records to Chrissy Mazzeo’s lawyer would violate Gibbons’ privacy and an earlier court order limiting evidence collection in Mazzeo’s federal lawsuit against the governor.
Mazzeo lawyer Robert Kossack said Thursday he wants to know who Gibbons talked with after he encountered his client in a parking garage outside the restaurant.
“You use the phone records to get names of people he may have talked to and get relevant information about the state tort claim,” Kossack said. “For all I know, he called a friend and confessed.”
via Jim Gibbons Asks Judge To Seal Phone Records From Cocktail Waitress He’s Accused Of Assaulting.
Kerry Pushes For Public Option Trigger In Closed-Door Meeting
OPS: A Trigger, 10 years from now… MAYBE?! WTF! Status quo? John Kerry is still selling us out. Once again this Judas Goat shows what really happened in 2004 – he sold out. And is still selling out. People of Massachusetts – Dump this bastard.
Kerry Pushes For Public Option Trigger In Closed-Door Meeting
In a closed-door meeting of Senate Finance Committee Democratic members and their staff Wednesday evening, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) suggested that if the committee bill didn’t have enough votes for a public option it include a ten-year delay between passage of health care reform and the implementation of a public option that Americans could buy into, according to two Democratic aides.
Under the plan floated by Kerry, a public health care option would only be triggered by private insurance companies failing to meet certain criteria after ten years. Known as the “trigger” in legislative lingo, the idea is vociferously opposed by health care advocates who consider it the death of reform.
Reform advocates say that the system is already broken and that there’s no need to wait any longer, also warning that the insurance industry might be able to game the criteria and prevent the public plan trigger from ever being pulled.
One source familiar with Kerry’s unexpected suggestion said that the idea seemed to have little impact on the meeting and that the senators quickly moved on.
Kerry has expressed his strong personal support for a public option without a trigger that would be available immediately.
via Kerry Pushes For Public Option Trigger In Closed-Door Meeting.
Politicians’ Scandals Elevate the Profile of a Spiritual Haven on C Street SE
The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name - washingtonpost.com
The Sanford and Ensign Scandals Open a Door On Previously Secretive ‘C Street’ Spiritual Haven
Nothing hints at its secrets.
It blends into the streetscape, tucked behind the Library of Congress, a few steps from the Cannon House Office Building, a few more steps to the Capitol. This is just the way its residents want it to be. Almost invisible.
But through one week’s events, this stately old pad — a pile of sturdy brick that once housed a convent — has become the very nexus of American scandal, a curious marker in the gallery of capital shame. Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s disgraced Republican governor and a former congressman, looked here for answers — for support, for the word of God — as his marriage crumbled over his affair with an Argentine woman. John Ensign, the senator from Nevada who just seven days earlier also was forced to admit a career-shattering affair, lives there.
“C Street,” Sanford said Wednesday during his diffuse, cryptic, utterly arresting confessional news conference, is where congressmen faced “hard questions.”
via Politicians’ Scandals Elevate the Profile of a Spiritual Haven on C Street SE – washingtonpost.com.
Specter backs public option on health care
OPS: Running Scared
Specter backs public option on health care
Sen. Arlen Specter told a boisterous crowd of union activists today that he backs a public health insurance option as part of the health care overhaul Congress is debating.
“I know you are very interested in the public component and I think Senator Schumer has the right idea about having a public component,” Specter said at a rally held at the Capitol City Brewery near Union Station.
The shift — Specter opposed a public option only months ago — comes as Specter faces a potential primary opponent next spring in U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak and as a new poll shows his favorability rating at a 17-year low.
Here are all of his remarks, as provided by his staff…
I compliment you on your tenacity and your determination and your passion. I agree with you that health care is a right.
I am sorry to be a little late but President Obama scheduled a meeting at the White House on immigration and it ran a little long. But I’m glad to see you here, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to speak to you.
We are working hard on health care reform legislation. President Obama has established a summit and invited me to attend. And I do believe that there will be health care legislation. I know you are very interested in the public component and I think Senator Schumer has the right idea about having a public component which is to have a level playing field with the private sector, but the public component can be in place.
via Mcall.com: Pennsylvania Ave. Blog.
Minnesota union files unfair labor practice charges against Walmart
Minnesota union files unfair labor practice charges against Walmart
ST. PAUL – United Food & Commercial Workers Local 789 filed charges against Walmart Wednesday, alleging the world’s largest retailer violated the National Labor Relations Act by engaging in unfair labor practices at its St. Paul store.
Workers at the Midway store and many other locations in Minnesota and other states are engaged in a union organizing campaign.
The complaint, filed with the National Labor Relations Board, states that on or about June 11 and following, employer representatives conducted captive audience meetings with workers. They claimed they could easily acquire a list of authorization card signers at any time and that union supporters would not continue to be employed by Walmart, the complaint says.
On or about June 11 and following, assistant store managers interrogated employees regarding their union support and whether or not they had signed a card. Also during that time, store managers from other Wal-Mart locations interrogated employees regarding their union support and whether or not they had signed a card, the complaint alleges.
via Welcome to Workday Minnesota, your leading source for labor news!.
Bad Database Overcharges Patients Billions
Database Takes Patients for Billions, Study Finds - NYTimes.com
Congressional investigators said Wednesday that two-thirds of the nation’s health insurance industry used a faulty database that overcharged patients for seeing doctors outside their insurance network, costing them billions of dollars in inflated bills.
The flawed database was operated by Ingenix, a subsidiary of the health insurer UnitedHealth Group, which agreed in January to pay $350 million to settle allegations that it deliberately kept rates low to underpay doctors, driving up expenses for patients.
UnitedHealth has admitted no wrongdoing in its handling of Ingenix, though it agreed to close the database and help pay for a new one operated by a nonprofit group.
An investigation by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, shows that nearly 20 regional and national insurers also used Ingenix data.
A continuing investigation by the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, previously focused on the use of Ingenix data by only a handful of top insurers, including Aetna, Wellpoint and Cigna. About a dozen insurers, including UnitedHealth, have reached settlements with Mr. Cuomo.
via Bad Database Overcharges Patients Billions – NYTimes.com.
At Press Conference, Obama Retreats on Health Care, Economy
OPS: “What is he waiting for?” An excuse.
At Press Conference, Obama Retreats on Health Care, Economy | The Progressive
Two things bother me about Obama’s press conference performance on Tuesday.
And they concern two big issues: health care and the economy.
He’s backsliding on both.
On health care, he was pressed by reporters who followed up on each others’ questions—a good, new journalistic skill that evidently fell from the sky after Bush left office.
What they were pressing him on was whether his public option for health care was non-negotiable.
After hedging, he basically said no. “We have not drawn lines in the sand,” he said, “other than that reform has to control costs and that it has to provide relief to people who don’t have health insurance or are underinsured.”
What a concession! A public plan is the best way to provide that relief, and 72 percent of the public says it wants a public option. But Obama seems prepared to sell them down the river.
On the economy, when asked directly whether he thinks we “need a second stimulus package” since unemployment is likely to top 10 percent soon, he said, nonchalantly, “Well, not yet.”
What’s he waiting for?
via At Press Conference, Obama Retreats on Health Care, Economy | The Progressive.
Should Congress regulate your Internet service plan?
Internet providers who charge customers by how much they use would have to justify their prices to federal regulators under a bill introduced last week.
Do you think federal regulators should review Internet pricing plans?
Media Matters Responds To Michael Savage Threats, Cyberstalking (VIDEO)
Media Matters Responds To Michael Savage Threats, Cyberstalking (VIDEO)
Yesterday, I mentioned that talk radio host Michael Savage had decided to engage in a tidy bit of web-stalking of his critics at Media Matters, threatening to put up the pictures and “pertinent information” of the organization’s employees. That seemed to be an odd thing to do! Given the fact that Media Matters has been driving an argument of late, the premise of which was that right-wing media hosts had been trafficking in a sort of speech intended to incite violence and intimidation. It’s sort of a bad move for Savage to step up and help prove their point. But that’s what he’s done, for reasons beyond understanding!
Anyway, the media watchdog has responded with one of their patented mash-up videos, intercutting an appearance Savage made on CNN with statements he’s made on his own show. The juxtaposition is pretty striking! On CNN, Savage makes a labored attempt to come across as a perfectly normal guy whose church teachings forbid homosexuality and whose opinions on illegal immigration are in sync with mainstream America. But then, the next minute, on his own show, he’s freaking out about “puffy-faced” men kissing. Oh, and he seems awfully threatened about multiculturalism, for some reason, shrieking about burning the Mexican flag.
Anyway, Media Matters doesn’t seem too intimidated by this guy and given the fact that he doesn’t seem to have any courageous convictions, it’s pretty easy to see why.
[WATCH]
via Media Matters Responds To Michael Savage Threats, Cyberstalking (VIDEO).
Code Pink publishes ‘how-to guide’ for arresting Bush-era ‘war criminals’
Code Pink publishes ‘how-to guide’ for arresting Bush-era ‘war criminals’
CODE PINK Women for Peace, the activist group so often seen in the background of hearings on Capitol Hill holding signs or striking the ire of many a senator, is stepping out on a limb and encouraging its members, or anyone so inclined, to stage citizens arrests of Bush administration members.
In a “how-to guide” publicized in a mass e-mail on Thursday, the group cheered that “We’ve got cuffs and we aren’t afraid to use them!”
The citizens’ arrest, whether actually attempted or merely symbolic, is a long favored protest tactic of the group. In the past, CODE PINK activists have attempted citizens arrests of Karl Rove, political adviser to the former president, along with former Secretary of Defense Karl Rove.
Watch:
via Raw Story » Code Pink publishes ‘how-to guide’ for arresting Bush-era ‘war criminals’.
Republican SC lawmaker: GOP needs to ‘lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness.’
OPS: Ahhhh the sweet smell of Stinking Rot in the morning…
Republican SC lawmaker: GOP needs to ‘lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness.’
Bob Inglis Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) was one of President Clinton’s harshest critics in the 1990s, an “impeachment ‘manager’ who attacked the moral failings of the president.” However, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Inglis says that while he has since recognized that nobody’s perfect, his party is still clinging to its “self-righteousness”:
But with his governor now felled by similar temptations, Inglis sees an opening for the Republican Party, a chance to “lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness” and “to understand we are all in need of some grace.”
This is not “Bob Inglis 1.0,” the one that was a “self-righteous” expletive, he said in an interview with Washington Wire today. [...]
Indeed, Sanford’s political fall could be a saving grace for what remains of his governorship, Inglis suggested. “This may be an opportunity to extend a little grace to other people, to realize that maybe it’s not 100% this way or that way,” Inglis said.
via Think Progress » Republican SC lawmaker: GOP needs to ‘lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness.’.
Chemicals in Shampoos and Toys ‘Could Lead to Low Birth Weight’
Chemicals in Shampoos and Toys ‘Could Lead to Low Birth Weight’ | CommonDreams.org
Chemicals widely used in shampoos, toys, hairspray and cosmetics could harm the growth of unborn babies, a new study suggests.
LONDON – Scientists found that the compounds were linked to a low birth weight, which can increase the chance that a child will die in the first few weeks of life and lead to long-term health problems such as heart disease
Researchers believe that exposure to the chemicals in the womb could inhibit the children’s growth.
Previous studies have shown that the chemicals, called Phthalates, can have other effects on the human body, including reduced fertility in men.
The new study analysed blood and other samples taken from 201 newborns, 88 of whom were born weighing less than 2,500g (5.5lb).
Researchers found that more than seven in 10 of the babies had significant levels of the chemicals in their bodies.
Those with a low birth weight had, on average, around 30 per cent higher levels of phthalates than the other children, the findings, published in the Journal Of Paediatrics show.
Dr. Renshan Ge, from Fudan University and Second Military Medical University in Shanghai, said: “The results showed that phthalate exposure was ubiquitous in these newborns, and that prenatal phthalate exposure might be an environmental risk factor for low birth weight in infants.”
via Chemicals in Shampoos and Toys ‘Could Lead to Low Birth Weight’ | CommonDreams.org.
Proponents Say Single-Payer Health Coverage is Optimal Rx
Proponents Say Single-Payer Health Coverage is Optimal Rx | CommonDreams.org
San Joaquin, Calif., group wants guaranteed care
STOCKTON – They don’t consider it socialized medicine. They call it civilized medicine.
Their latest rallying cry is single payer, and they’re in a pitched battle against private health insurers, the industry’s legion of lobbyists and the political establishment they support.
To some members of Single Payer San Joaquin – the home-grown, grass-roots group of activists pushing for passage of state (Senate Bill 810) and federal (House of Representatives 676) legislation that would implement publicly financed health insurance for everyone – it’s an all-out moral war in which the very health of the nation is at stake.
Here’s what some of the members of Single Payer San Joaquin have to say about why they are so passionate for their cause:
» Paula LeVeck: “Essentially, we are the only nation that does not guarantee public health care. I don’t think there is anything more important than providing health care for human beings.”
» Cynie Downs: “I resent when I call my doctor’s office to make an appointment and they ask who my insurance company is before they ask who I am. We’re at the mercy of those corporations.”
via Proponents Say Single-Payer Health Coverage is Optimal Rx | CommonDreams.org.
Friends of the Earth Goes it Alone: Urges ‘No’ on Climate Bill
Friends of the Earth Goes it Alone: Urges ‘No’ on Climate Bill
The House climate bill took another hit this week as Rep. Henry Waxman made further concessions, this time to farm-state Democrats, to ensure the bill’s safe passage on Friday. Even weakened, though, the bill continued to draw support from most of the big environmental organizations.
Except for Friends of the Earth. The organization is going it alone with an ad campaign and request to its members to demand better legislation from Congress. FOE President Brent Blackwelder is publicly urging Congress to either substantially strengthen the bill or vote no.
“Corporate polluters including Shell and Duke Energy helped write this bill, and the result is that we’re left with legislation that fails to come anywhere close to solving the climate crisis,” Blackwelder wrote.
“Worse, the bill eliminates preexisting EPA authority to address global warming-that means it’s actually a step backward.
via Friends of the Earth Goes it Alone: Urges ‘No’ on Climate Bill | CommonDreams.org.
$500M in Labor Department Grants Available for Green Job Training Programs
$500M in Labor Department Grants Available for Green Job Training Programs
OAKLAND, Calif. — Grant competitions opened today for $500 million in Recovery Act funds for training programs that will help retool the U.S. workforce for a clean energy economy.
Speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis announced the availability of grants in five broad program areas that will prepare people for jobs in energy efficiency or renewable energy industries.
About $150 million in grants are earmarked for green job training programs that provide “pathways out of poverty,” and a portion of some $290 million in grants will go toward efforts to retrain workers from the hard-hit auto industry.
“These grants are an essential first step towards not just building America’s clean energy economy, but making sure that every community gets to enjoy the benefits of that economy,” Green For All CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins said in a statement provided to GreenBiz.com.
“Thanks to Secretary Solis, this money will ensure that the people who most need these jobs have a chance to earn them — low-income people, people of color, the unemployed, and those without much formal education.”
via $500M in Labor Department Grants Available for Green Job Training Programs | GreenBiz.com.
Baucus Trims Health Care Bill Down To $1 Trillion
Baucus Trims Health Care Bill Down To $1 Trillion
Senator Max Baucus, one of the key players in crafting health care reform, broke some big news on Thursday, when he announced that the Senate Finance Committee he chairs could get a bill done for under $1 trillion.
“We are much closer on the scores for a health care reform package than were at this point last week,” he said, according to remarks passed along by his staff. “We have options the Congressional Budget Office tells us would cost under $1 trillion and be fully paid for. Based on these developments, I’m even more confident in our ability to move forward. And as I’ve said before, we will not put out a mark until we are sure we have it right. I’ll continue to work with Senator [Chuck] Grassley and members on both sides of aisle to turn these options into a package that can pass the Senate and become law this year.”
The details of the Montana Democrat’s cuts and proposals have yet to be fully fleshed out, though they likely involve drops in the percentage to which the bill would expand coverage and additional tax increases. An aide on the Finance Committee said that members would be working through the details during the afternoon.
via Baucus Trims Health Care Bill Down To $1 Trillion.
Bachmann’s Latest Irrational Fear About The Census: It Was Used To Intern The Japanese
Bachmann’s Latest Irrational Fear About The Census: It Was Used To Intern The Japanese
Last week, Rep. Michele “I’m not a kook” Bachmann (R-MN) boasted about breaking the law in refusing to complete the 2010 Census. The Census is the perfect boogeyman for Bachmann in that it unites her conspiracy theories about the Obama administration with her monomaniacal determination to crush the community organizing group ACORN, which may participate in collecting Census data.
On Fox News this morning, Bachmann repeated her determination to break the law. She also suggested that the Obama administration could use the Census data for nefarious purposes — including the imprisonment of Americans in concentration camps:
BACHMANN: If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the census bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations, at the request of President Roosevelt, and that’s how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps. I’m not saying that’s what the Administration is planning to do. But I am saying that private, personal information that was given to the census bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up.
Watch it:
No health reform without a public option, Lee vows
No health reform without a public option, Lee vows – - San Jose Mercury News
OAKLAND — Progressives must keep demanding a single-payer health care system to ensure that the reform package Congress eventually votes upon at least has a robust public option, Rep. Barbara Lee told local health care and community leaders Monday.
About 250 people attended the national heath care plan discussion that Lee, D-Oakland, hosted in the Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church on West MacArthur Blvd. Joining Lee on the dais were several Bay Area health policy experts, most of whom extolled a single-payer plan — in which one source of money, most likely the government, pays all health care providers — but acknowledged that’s essentially a political impossibility.
But they said pushing for a single-payer plan will build support for the proposal unveiled last week by the Democratic chairman of the Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees, which at least includes a public alternative to private insurance.
“At no point can we be silent,” Lee told the crowd, adding President Barack Obama wants “a democratic movement of people” to push for the best possible plan under the political circumstances. “Health care should not be driven by a profit motive. I don’t believe it should be an industry — I believe it’s a human right.”
via No health reform without a public option, Lee vows – San Jose Mercury News.
Wendell Potter: The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform
A Former Insurance Industry Insider Tells All
The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform
By WENDELL POTTER
I’m the former insurance industry insider now speaking out about how big for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors, and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the health care reform legislation members of Congress are now writing.
Although by most measures I had a great career in the insurance industry (four years at Humana and nearly 15 at CIGNA), in recent years I had grown increasingly uncomfortable serving as one of the industry’s top PR executives. In addition to my responsibilities at CIGNA, which included serving as the company’s chief spokesman to the media on all corporate and financial matters, I also served on a lot of trade association committees and industry-financed coalitions, many of which were essentially front groups for insurers. So I was in a unique position to see not only how Wall Street analysts and investors influence decisions insurance company executives make but also how the industry has carried out behind-the-scenes PR and lobbying campaigns to kill or weaken any health care reform efforts that threatened insurers’ profitability.
I also have seen how the industry’s practices — especially those of the for-profit insurers that are under constant pressure from Wall Street to meet their profit expectations — have contributed to the tragedy of nearly 50 million people being uninsured as well as to the growing number of Americans who, because insurers now require them to pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before their coverage kicks in — are underinsured. An estimated 25 million of us now fall into that category.
What I saw happening over the past few years was a steady movement away from the concept of insurance and toward “individual responsibility,” a term used a lot by insurers and their ideological allies. This is playing out as a continuous shifting of the financial burden of health care costs away from insurers and employers and onto the backs of individuals. As a result, more and more sick people are not going to the doctor or picking up their prescriptions because of costs. If they are unfortunate enough to become seriously ill or injured, many people enrolled in these plans find themselves on the hook for such high medical bills that they are losing their homes to foreclosure or being forced into bankruptcy.
As an industry spokesman, I was expected to put a positive spin on this trend that the industry created and euphemistically refers to as “consumerism” and to promote so-called “consumer-driven” health plans. I ultimately reached the point of feeling like a huckster.
via Wendell Potter: The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform.
OECD Health Data 2008: Statistics and Indicators for 30 Countries
OECD Health Data 2008: Statistics and Indicators for 30 Countries 
The 2009 edition of OECD Health Data will be released on June 30th.
Released – December 10, 2008: OECD Health Data 2008 Second Internet update
Go to the OECD Health Data Update page to download the file and access the data updates.
OECD Health Data 2008, released on 26 June 2008, offers the most comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health and health systems across OECD countries. It is an essential tool for health researchers and policy advisors in governments, the private sector and the academic community, to carry out comparative analyses and draw lessons from international comparisons of diverse health care systems.
- What is OECD Health Data 2008
Description, list of indicators, access to the Sources and Methods, User’s Guide to download. - How to obtain OECD Health Data 2008
How to order, prices, and a trial version to download, along with information on the different versions of the database (Online and CD-ROMs). - Briefing notes for all 30 OECD Member countries
- New: Frequently Requested Data
A selection of key indicators from OECD Health Data 2008, December 08, organised by main themes.
SUMMARY – 3 pages- pdf
via OECD Health Data 2008: Statistics and Indicators for 30 Countries.
A Genetic Link Between Anorexia and Autism?
A Genetic Link Between Anorexia and Autism? – TIME
At the Eating Disorders Unit at the Maudsley Hospital in London, anorexia is not seen as a social disorder — or even primarily a psychological one. While most American treatment providers blame perfection-seeking parents and the media’s idealization of hollow-cheeked actresses for eating disorders (among other dysfunctional behaviors), researchers at Maudsley believe the root cause has little to do with social pressure. Rather, they think anorexia is better explained by heredity — perhaps by some of the same genes associated with autism.
The London researchers have been studying the commonalities between these two conditions for several years. On the surface, they appear entirely different — in autism, patients have difficulty connecting with people in the outside world, while in anorexia, sufferers seem consumed by other people’s perceptions — but Maudsley researchers point out that the salient characteristics of each illness are similar. (See six tips for traveling with an autistic child.)
For example, both anorexic and autistic patients have a tendency to behave obsessively and suffer from rigid ways of thinking. Tic disorders, which commonly affect people with autism, are found in 27% of people with severe anorexia. And in both conditions, patients have difficulty with “set-shifting,” or changing course mentally.
via A Genetic Link Between Anorexia and Autism? – TIME.
The Great White Shark’s Criminal Mind –
The Great White Shark’s Criminal Mind 
Science News
According to a new study to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Zoology, great white sharks appear to have a “serial killer” hunting strategy as they stalk their victims while skulking in the distance, rather than at random as was previously believed.
Predatory behavior is one of the most intriguing interactions seen in nature, with sharks being one of the most ferocious and violent on Earth.
Until recently, the predation of sharks has been difficult to observe and therefore greatly mysterious. Now, researchers from the United States and Canada are using geographic profiling in order to follow the predatory interactions between white sharks and fur seals in South Africa.
Geographic profiling is a method of investigating criminals that analyzes the locations in a connected series of crimes to determine where the offender most likely resides.
via The Great White Shark’s Criminal Mind – Science News – redOrbit.
Stunning pictures of ‘hole in the clouds’ as astronauts witness volcano eruption from the International Space Station
Stunning pictures of the volcano that blew a hole in the sky as astronauts witness eruption from International Space Station
Framed by a circle of clouds, this is a stunning illustration of Nature’s powerful force.
A plume of smoke, ash and steam soars five miles into the sky from an erupting volcano.
The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific.
Cosmetic surgeries: What children will do to look ‘normal’
Cosmetic surgeries: What children will do to look ‘normal’ – USATODAY.com
According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 160,283 children 18 and under had cosmetic interventions in 2008. The figure was even higher in 2007, tallying 205,119, but industry experts say a slowing economy probably forced the numbers down in 2008. In 2000, the number was just 145,094.
Those under 18 who opt for such procedures are not only children with cleft palates or disfiguring birthmarks. Some children are having more controversial procedures, such as “Asian eye” surgery to widen the appearance of eyes in people of Asian descent. But for the most part, these are otherwise healthy kids looking to improve an awkward but functional feature, such as a large nose or small breasts, says Donn Chatham, a plastic surgeon in Louisville and president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
“The kids I see, their desire is almost uniformly to be normal, non-deviant. Kids don’t want to stand out in a negative way,” says Gerald Pitman, a plastic surgeon in New York City.
via Cosmetic surgeries: What children will do to look ‘normal’ – USATODAY.com.
SCOTUS rules strip search is unconstitutional, but school officials immune from accountability.
SCOTUS rules strip search is unconstitutional, but school officials immune from accountability.
In an 8-1 decision today, the Supreme Court held that school officials violated the Constitution’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures when they strip searched a 13 year-old honor student because they falsely suspected her of bringing ibuprofen to school. Ibuprofen is the same drug used in the painkiller Advil. The Court reasoned that, because there was no evidence that a commonly-used painkiller presented a danger to the student body, and because there was no evidence that the honor student was concealing drugs in her underwear, the school overreacted by strip searching the student. Although this decision puts school officials on notice that they cannot behave in such a manner in the future, the Court also held that the school officials in this case could not be held accountable for their actions because of a doctrine known as “qualified immunity” (which says that government officials are immune from liability when they violate the Constitution in novel ways that previously haven’t been addressed by the courts). Of the Court’s nine Justices, only Clarence Thomas believed that the strip search in this case did not violate the Constitution.
Removing Obstacles to Generic Drug Competition
Removing Obstacles to Generic Drug Competition
A Critical Priority for Health Care Reform
Thirty years ago former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger explained that “Congress designed the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 as a ‘consumer welfare prescription,’” to help average Americans benefit from the fruits of market-based competition by limiting monopolies and cartels in the U.S. economy. U.S. antitrust laws such as the Sherman Act and subsequent laws indeed assure that competition is the lodestar of the marketplace and that consumers receive the full benefits of competition in lower prices and better services.
One of the sectors in which antitrust enforcement is crucial is in the pharmaceutical industry, which accounts for an increasingly large part of our overall healthcare expenditures. Fortunately, during both the Clinton and Bush administrations, both state and federal antitrust enforcers, bolstered by private actions, began to approach pharmaceutical competition concerns in a disciplined fashion, bringing cases that clarified the law and stopped conduct that denied consumers the benefits of lower priced generic drugs. Despite these increased efforts, however, there are numerous forms of anticompetitive conduct that continue in pharmaceutical markets because of the ability of companies to manipulate the regulatory process and some misguided decisions of the courts.
Stopping these types of anticompetitive conduct could not be a greater priority for the Obama administration’s antitrust enforcers. With more than $60 billion in drugs scheduled to go “off patent” during the remainder of the President’s first term, stopping anticompetitive conduct in the pharmaceutical industry is crucial to controlling health care costs. If antitrust is a “consumer welfare prescription,” then our health care system is certainly in need of a prescription for an added dose of enforcement in pharmaceutical markets.
via Removing Obstacles to Generic Drug Competition.
Former Insurance Executive Blows Whistle on ‘Wall Street-Run Healthcare,’ Only 4 Senators Out of 25 Show Up to Listen
Former Insurance Executive Blows Whistle on ‘Wall Street-Run Healthcare,’ Only 4 Senators Out of 25 Show Up to Listen
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White
For a hearing headlined by a whistle-blowing former insurance company executive on a topic which is consuming nearly the entirety of Congress these days, the hearing on “Consumer Choices and Transparency in the Health Insurance Industry” at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation sure was sparsely attended.
Only Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Mike Johanns (R-NE) participated in the full committee hearing this afternoon.
Full-Spectrum Idiocy: GOP and Chavez on Iran
Full-Spectrum Idiocy: GOP and Chavez on Iran | CommonDreams.org
by Norman Solomon
When approaching Iran, the Republican Party line and the Hugo Chavez line are running in opposite directions — but parallel. The leadership of GOP reaction and the leadership of Bolivarian revolution have bought into the convenient delusion that long-suffering Iranian people require assistance from the U.S. government to resist the regime in Tehran.
Inside Iran, advocates for reform and human rights have long pleaded for the U.S. government to keep out of Iranian affairs. After the CIA organized the coup that overthrew Iran’s democracy in 1953, Washington kept the Shah in power for a quarter century. When I was in Tehran four years ago, during the election that made Mahmoud Ahmadinejad president, what human rights activists most wanted President Bush to do was shut up.
But Bush played to the same kind of peanut gallery that is now applauding the likes of Sen. John McCain. The Bush White House denigrated the 2005 election just before the balloting began — to the delight of the hardest-line Iranian fundamentalists. The ultra-righteous Bush rhetoric gave a significant boost to Ahmadinejad’s campaign.
via Full-Spectrum Idiocy: GOP and Chavez on Iran | CommonDreams.org.
The New Economy Won’t Be Like the Last One
The New Economy Won’t Be Like the Last One -| CommonDreams.org by Sarah van Gelder
Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration, the economy is a long ways from recovery. The speculative system that created the mess remains intact, and foreclosures and unemployment continue to rise. But at the same time, a new economy is taking form. It’s built on a recognition that the only thing too big to fail is the Earth itself. It is designed to build sustainable wealth for families, communities, and ecosystems, and it’s our best chance to improve prospects for future generations, instead of leaving them with ever-growing debt, conflict, and environmental destruction.
Politicians, pundits, and financiers defend deepening our national debt to bail out the institutions of a failed Wall Street system. But this system, built on speculation and the rule of money, is undermining the health of the planet and the well-being of all but the wealthiest few.
It’s time to let it go.
The new economy is built on new forms of money, and on democratic finance and business. In the summer 2009 issue of YES!, we report on worker-owned cooperatives that distribute the benefits of hard work to employee-owners who call the shots in democratic workplaces. These co-ops spend locally and are rooted locally, so they are long-term boons to their local economies. And they don’t close down in favor of sweat shops in low-wage regions.
via The New Economy Won’t Be Like the Last One | CommonDreams.org.
Cap-and-Trade Does More Harm than Good
Cap-and-Trade Does More Harm than Good | CommonDreams.org
Bill offers incentives for businesses that pollute. Carbon fees or taxation would be better for the economy and the Earthl
We would support legislation in Congress to address climate change if it were capable of accomplishing that goal. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions of its proponents, the bill known as Waxman-Markey would disable our ability to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions for at least a decade, hugely increasing the risk of irreversible climate calamity.
We are speaking as individuals based on our more than 20 years of experience as public-sector environmental-enforcement attorneys, including extensive experience in California with the sort of cap-and-trade program now being proposed in Washington. But don’t take our word for it; look at the record.
Cap-and-trade programs have often failed. For example, a Los Angeles cap-and-trade program designed to reduce ground-level ozone ended up issuing permits for more pollution than was actually being emitted. It took more than five years for the “cap” to be ratcheted below pollution levels, whereupon the price of permits skyrocketed and utilities threatened rolling blackouts. Cap-and-trade had produced little besides delay.
via Cap-and-Trade Does More Harm than Good | CommonDreams.org.
Friends of the Earth Score Energy Bill as “Step Backward”
Friends of the Earth Score Energy Bill as “Step Backward”
The League of Conservation Voters has thrown down the gauntlet in its campaign to win support for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) when it could see a U.S. House vote as soon as Friday.
The politically-potent organization, that has made its endorsement something akin to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for candidates seeking to position themselves as environmentally sensitive, announced Tuesday that it would not support the reelection of any House member who opposes the measure that it says “has the potential to transform America by creating clean energy jobs, improving our national security, and protecting our planet from global warming pollution.”
In a letter to House members, LCV President Gene Karpinski wrote, “The stakes could not be higher; a safer, healthier planet and a new energy economy hang in the balance, and it’s imperative that members of Congress be on the right side of history.”
That makes it sound as if, for environmentalists, the choice to back this bill is a no-brainer.
It’s not.
There is a significant divide within the environmental community over the measure that is being backed by the Obama administration and House Democratic leaders.
via Friends of the Earth Score Energy Bill as “Step Backward”.
Obama: From Fair Trade to Free Trade?
Obama: From Fair Trade to Free Trade? - Laura Flanders »
As a primary candidate, Barack Obama posited himself as the Fair Trade candidate in opposition to Hillary Clinton whose support of NAFTA during her husband’s administration was seen as a liability. But as soon as Hillary was out of the picture Obama began to backpedal on trade telling Fortune magazine that his anti-NAFTA stance was “overheated and amplified.” Now that he’s in the White House, what do we know about his trade policies?
Lori Wallach, Executive Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Jose Schiffino, Chair of the Fair Trade Committee of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), Ana Maria Quispe, a human rights activist from Peru, and Christy Thornton, Executive Director of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) on Obama and free trade.
via GRITtv with Laura Flanders » Obama: From Fair Trade to Free Trade?.
In Nixon tapes, Billy Graham refers to ‘synagogue of Satan’
In Nixon tapes, Billy Graham refers to ‘synagogue of Satan’ – - USATODAY.com
A 1973 conversation between President Nixon and evangelist Billy Graham about Jews, laden with critical references including a Biblical verse on the “synagogue of Satan,” has put the aging, frail Graham back in unwelcome headlines.
The conversation is part of newly-released secretly recorded tapes from the Nixon presidency, from the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., and the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif. A sampling of more than 150 hours of tape recordings and 30,000 pages of documents from two months in 1973 were made public Tuesday (download at Nixon.archives.gov/National Archives), culled from 4,000 hours of taped meetings and phone calls in a two-year period.
An earlier release of tapes in 2002 shocked fans of Graham, who is heard agreeing with Nixon as the president rails against liberal Jews’ political activism and media clout. Graham tells Nixon how Jews befriend him but adds, “They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.”
via In Nixon tapes, Billy Graham refers to ‘synagogue of Satan’ – USATODAY.com.
Majority of Poll Respondents Say U.S. Should Limit Greenhouse Gases
Limits on Emissions Have Wide Support - washingtonpost.com
Three-quarters of Americans think the federal government should regulate the release into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and factories to reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with substantial majority support from Democrats, Republicans and independents.
But fewer Americans — 52 percent — support a cap-and-trade approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions similar to the one the House may vote on as early as tomorrow. That is slightly less support than cap and trade enjoyed in a late July 2008 poll. Forty-two percent of those surveyed this month oppose such a program.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey showed that support slipped slightly when people were asked whether they would be willing to pay higher prices in general or higher electricity bills in exchange for significant decreases in greenhouse gases. Although 62 percent of those surveyed said they would support regulation even if it raised the price of purchases and 56 percent would back cap and trade if it resulted in a $10 increase in utility costs, 44 percent said they would back a cap-and-trade system if it boosted monthly electricity bills by $25.
via Majority of Poll Respondents Say U.S. Should Limit Greenhouse Gases – washingtonpost.com.
Senate Panel Hears of ‘A Raw Deal’ Consumers Get From Health Insurers
Senate Panel Hears of Health Insurers’ Wrongs - washingtonpost.com
Ex-Insider Testifies to ‘Fear Tactics’
Health insurers have forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid, according to a report released yesterday by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.
The report was part of a multi-pronged assault on the credibility of private insurers by Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). It came at a time when Rockefeller, President Obama and others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health-care reform legislation. Health insurers are doing everything they can to block the public option.
via Senate Panel Hears of ÂRaw Deal’ Consumers Get From Health Insurers – washingtonpost.com.
New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly To 627K
New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly To 627K, 6.7M Still Unemployed
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people filing new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week, and the total unemployment benefit rolls rose to more than 6.7 million.
The Labor Department data released Thursday show jobs remain scarce even as the economy shows some signs of recovering from the longest recession since World War II.
The department said initial claims for jobless benefits rose last week by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 627,000. Economists expected a drop to 600,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
Several states reported more claims than expected from teachers, cafeteria workers and other school employees, a department analyst said.
The number of people continuing to receive unemployment insurance rose by 29,000 to 6.74 million, slightly above analysts’ estimates of 6.7 million.
The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, was largely unchanged, at 616,750.
Economists expect the number of initial unemployment insurance claims, which reflects the level of layoffs, to slowly decline over the coming months as the economy bottoms out.
Still, claims remain far above levels associated with a healthy economy. A year ago they were 392,000.
via New Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly To 627K, 6.7M Still Unemployed.
Obama Hosts ABC News At The White House For Health Care Forum (VIDEO)
Obama Hosts ABC News At The White House For Health Care Forum (VIDEO)
President Obama struggled to explain today whether his health care reform proposals would force normal Americans to make sacrifices that wealthier, more powerful people — like the president himself — wouldn’t face.
The probing questions came from two skeptical neurologists during ABC News’ special on health care reform, “Questions for the President: Prescription for America,” anchored from the White House by Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson.
Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.
Read the full story here.
-OR-
Watch the ABC-anchored forum with Obama at the White House below.
via Obama Hosts ABC News At The White House For Health Care Forum (VIDEO).
Telescope finds space blobs are pubescent galaxies
Telescope finds space blobs are pubescent galaxies
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mysterious space blobs aren’t infant galaxies as astronomers once thought. Scientists say they mostly consist of galaxies going through puberty, all hot and bothered. A new study using NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other space and ground telescopes comes up with an explanation for these high-energy glowing blobs that have been observed for about a decade.
Astronomers looked at 29 of these gaseous blobs in one distant area of the universe, dating back to more than 11 billion years ago.
One theory was that they were young galaxies cooling off. But the new research says they are hot and chaotic with gas halos, growing supermassive black holes and about to stabilize. The blobs are the adolescent galaxies and the hydrogen gas, leftover from their creation.
via News from The Associated Press.
Without balanced budget, California to pay in IOUs
Without balanced budget, California to pay in IOUs
California state controller John Chiang warned Wednesday that if legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fail to come up with a budget-balancing package in the next week, he would begin paying California’s bills with IOUs on July 2.
The controller’s warning came as legislators began what many on both sides of the aisle acknowledged was a rhetorical song-and-dance over closing a $24 billion deficit that stretches over the fiscal year that ends Tuesday and the one that begins Wednesday.
Republicans in both houses were rejecting a Democratic bill that contained $11 billion in spending cuts — the first of a 20-bill package aimed at reducing the deficit.
via Without balanced budget, California to pay in IOUs | McClatchy.
Exorcism left dead boy on a cross
Exorcism left dead boy on a cross
From correspondents in Cayenne, French Guiana
A FRENCH Guiana court has jailed four church members for up to 12 years for the exorcism of an epileptic teenager who was found dead attached to a cross.
The members of the Celestial Church of Christ were jailed yesterday for terms of three to 12 years for “wilful violence that caused death” for 15-year-old Roger Bosse in 2005 in the south American territory.
The court heard that the mother of the boy, who suffered from mental illness, had brought him to the church for help and was told he was possessed by the devil.
The church members beat the boy repeatedly over a three-day period with reeds and belts and attached him to a cross for the last two days, the position in which he died.
A post-mortem examination showed that he had probably died from suffocation.
The Celestial Church of Christ was founded in the west African state of Benin in 1947 and claims millions of adherents worldwide.
via Exorcism left dead boy on a cross | World Breaking News | News.com.au.
Bush Administration may have leaked wiretap details to get Republican reelected
Bush Administration may have leaked wiretap details to get Republican reelected
The Bush Administration may have purposely leaked details regarding the wiretap of a Republican congressman in an effort to ensure his reelection, a report published late Wednesday revealed.
The allegation — regarding the wiretap of Arizona congressman Rick Renzi (R-AZ) — comes from disgruntled “career law enforcement officials.” It posits that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or his subordinates may have leaked details regarding a corruption probe into Renzi to scuttle concerns that the probe was serious, and ensure the embattled congressman’s reelection. The leak also tipped the congressman off to the investigation.
The story was reported by veteran investigative journalist Murray Waas.
“This previously unreported episode,” Waas writes, “constitutes the first evidence that a political-corruption investigation was stymied for political reasons during the Bush administration.”
via Raw Story » Bush Administration may have leaked wiretap details to get Republican reelected.
Opium-eating wallabies get high, make crop circles
Opium-eating wallabies get high, make crop circles
SYDNEY (AFP) – Wallabies are getting “as high as a kite” on opium in Australian poppy fields and flattening crops as they hop round in circles, according to a report.
The marsupials, which look like small kangaroos, have been getting into medical opium crops in the southern island state of Tasmania and chewing on the plant’s intoxicating heads, state officials said.
“We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” state attorney-general Lara Giddings told a parliamentary estimates hearing.
“Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high,” local media reported Ms Giddings as saying.
Tasmania is the world’s largest producer of legally-grown opium for the pharmaceutical market, with about 500 farms supplying approximately 50 percent of the raw material for morphine and other opiate drugs.
Livestock and other animals, such as deer and sheep, which eat the plants had also been seen acting “weird,” industry spokesman Rick Rockliff said.
via Raw Story » Opium-eating wallabies get high, make crop circles.
Credit crunch takes toll on super-rich
OPS: poor babies
Credit crunch takes toll on super-rich - FT.com
Number with $30m to invest falls 25%
The ranks of the world’s super-rich have been shredded by the credit crunch, undermining the theory that the wealthy are better at holding on to their money.
The global population of “ultra high net worth individuals” – defined as those with at least $30m (€22m) to invest – shrank by nearly 25 per cent in 2008 to 78,000, according to the latest World Wealth Report produced by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. The collective net wealth of these super-rich slumped by 24 per cent after a year of bank crises, government bail-outs and stock market routs.
High net worth individuals – worth $1m, excluding their homes – fared poorly as well but not quite as severely, suffering a 19.5 per cent decline in their wealth. The population of these individuals fell by 15 per cent.
via FT.com / Global Economy – Credit crunch takes toll on super-rich.
Fed faces cover-up claim on BofA merger
Fed faces cover-up claim on BofA merger - FT.com
Republican Congressman accuses Bernanke
A Republican congressman on Wednesday accused the Federal Reserve of a “cover-up” over the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch takeover, raising the stakes ahead of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s appearance on Thursday before a House subcommittee investigating the deal.
Darrell Issa, the senior Republican on the subcommittee, said the Fed “engaged in a cover-up and deliberately hid concerns and pertinent details regarding the merger from other federal regulatory agencies”.
Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, dismissed Mr Issa’s concerns, but signalled he would attack the Fed’s handling of the BofA-Merrill deal on different lines.
A Republican memorandum cites excerpts from e-mails written by Fed officials in which they appear to suggest they did not share complete information about ongoing discussions with BofA with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the OCC, BofA’s regulator.
via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – Fed faces cover-up claim on BofA merger.
Jobless figures rattle Wall Street
Jobless figures rattle Wall Street - FT.com /
First quarter GDP revised to 5.5 per cent
US stocks looked set to fall on Thursday morning, on a day when the country’s economy was shown to have contracted more than 5 per cent in the first three months of the year.
Final GDP figures came in a little better than thought, but investors focused on the fact that more people claimed jobless benefits last week compared with the previous one. The number continuing to claim such benefits also rose, knocking confidence after that figure fell last week.
Less than an hour before the open, futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index were 4.6 points lower at 893.4. Those for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 40 points to 8,216 and those for the Nasdaq Composite index gave up 7.8 points to 1,439.5. All were lower than fair-value levels, which take into account dividends, interest rates and time to expiration on the contract.
via FT.com / Markets – Jobless figures rattle Wall Street.
Our Alt. Energy Future
Our Alt. Energy Future
Feed-in tariffs offer generous government incentives for alternative energy and are already utilized in Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Turkey and South Korea.
A feed-in tariff (FiT) is a government incentive for alternative energy. For the past few years the primary means of using the FiT was through government subsidies to solar panels for individual consumers. The program in Germany is extensive and popular. The federal government there grants subsidized loans to individuals who install otherwise expensive panels on their rooftops.
According to CleanTechnica.com, Gainesville, Florida and several other communities around the country are also organizing their own FiT programs. These programs follow the German model, allowing solar panel owners to generate their own power and perhaps sell excess power back into the grid.
These programs are not sustainable for every citizen because the government must carry a sunk cost; but the benefits outweigh the negatives. A solar power initiative would help build a high-tech industry in the United States for the design, distribution, installation, and upkeep of solar arrays. It would decrease the amount of pollution put out by coal-fired power plants, and could eventually give back to the community by providing profits for individuals who agree to install the panels. It would also prove that the discussions about energy have become tangible dedication.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Bankrupt GM Begins Slashing Jobs
The General Motors flameout has been a disaster for blue collar Americans working on assembly lines. Out of 123,000 GM workers left in North America, 20,000 are scheduled to lose their jobs.
Meanwhile, the Auto Task Force appointed by President Obama to oversee the process is led by Wall Street financiers focused on a single goal — turning a profit and getting stock prices to rise. It’s an approach that has some people worried.
YouTube – Bankrupt GM Begins Slashing Jobs.
Big Business Is Aiding the Internet Crackdown in Iran and China — Will the Technology Be Used on Americans Next?
Big Business Is Aiding the Internet Crackdown in Iran and China — Will the Technology Be Used on Americans Next?
By Amy Goodman,
No legislation in the U.S. prevents the government from employing technology that monitors everything that goes through the Internet.
Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them.
A Wall Street Journal report this week claimed that the “Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world’s most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale.” The article named Nokia Siemens Networks as the provider of equipment capable of “deep packet inspection.” DPI, according to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, “enables Internet Service Providers to intercept virtually all of their customers’ Internet activity, including Web surfing data, e-mail and peer-to-peer downloads.”
Nokia Siemens has refuted the allegation, saying in a press release that the company “has provided Lawful Intercept capability solely for the monitoring of local voice calls in Iran.” It is this issue, of what is legal, that must be addressed. “Lawful intercept” means that people can be monitored, located and censored. Global standards need to be adopted that protect the freedom to communicate, to dissent.
Why You May Be Stuck Holding the Bill for the Largest Taxpayer Rip Off
Why You May Be Stuck Holding the Bill for the Largest Taxpayer Rip Off
By Dean Baker,
The health care industry is getting money out of our pockets because their friends in Congress have made sure the money flows from us to them.
This is the time when the excrement starts hitting the fan. The lobbyists are in overdrive, rounding up members of Congress just like the cowboys of the Old West would bring in the herd.
The industry groups will also have their friends in the news media working overtime hyping any possible obstacle to health care reform. And they are filling the airwaves with scary ads, warning that people will never be able to see a doctor again if meaningful health care reform passes.
Since there are trillions of dollars at stake, the effort is understandable. The basic story is simple. The insurance, pharmaceutical and medical supply industries, along with the hospitals and the American Medical Association, have rigged the deck so that they get rich at the public’s expense. They have structured our health care system so that we pay more than twice as much per person as people in other wealthy countries, even though we get worse care by many measures.
The bloat in the health care sector is projected to grow rapidly over the next decade as health care consumes an ever larger share of the economy. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reports that just the increase in health care spending share of the economy over the next decade will cost us $4.3 trillion. That is equal to a health care tax of $57,000 for an average family of four.
WHY SUPPORT CORPORATIONS THAT DON’T SUPPORT US?
WHY SUPPORT CORPORATIONS THAT DON’T SUPPORT US?
by Jim Hightower – Listen to this Commentary at link
Yes, our overall economy is a wreck – but you’ll be glad to know that one business sector is booming: outsourcing American jobs to India.
It almost makes you burst with patriotic pride, doesn’t it? Even as unemployment nears 10 percent across our country, more and more U.S. corporations are literally cutting out on America’s middle class, eliminating employees here as they shift their operations and jobs to low-wage workers 8,000 miles away.
Some in Washington talk about measures to keep good jobs in the USA, but greedheaded corporate executives lobby furiously to prevent any action. “Anything that stops the globalization activity,” declares David Cote, CEO of Honeywell, “will be harmful.”
Oh? To whom? Perhaps to him, but not to Honeywell’s American workers, who’re suffering from Honeywell’s pell mell pursuit of globalization. Cote has been closing plants here and eliminating hundreds of jobs at the same time he is investing $50 million to build a new R&D center in India that will hire 3,000 people.
via Jim Hightower | WHY SUPPORT CORPORATIONS THAT DON’T SUPPORT US?.
Everyone hates corporate healthcare– now, public demand could really change it
Insurance giants panic at the prospect of competition
Jim Hightower
Everyone hates corporate healthcare– now, public demand could really change it
Now is the time for boldness! Instead, we’re getting Baucusness. Sen. Max Baucus, that is–Montana Democrat, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and frequent spear-carrier for the corporate agenda. He has now been tapped to handle Obama’s promised rewrite of America’s warped, ineffective, and exorbitantly expensive health-care system.
This should be a dream job for the Democratic leadership. Consumers despise today’s corporatized medical structure. So do doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers. So do businesses that provide health-care coverage for their employees. The insurance-company-dominated system is so unpopular that swine flu enjoys a higher public-approval rating! A Pew Research Center poll taken in March 2009 shows that the American people don’t merely want the current system fixed, they want it overhauled–76% say it must either be “fundamentally changed” or “completely rebuilt.”
What an opportune moment this is for Obama to do something BIG for America–a rare, Rooseveltian moment in which the president and Congress have the chance (and duty) to rise above business as usual, to respond for once to the people’s interest, to create a universal public service that would actually move our society a couple of strides closer to America’s egalitarian ideals of fairness, justice, and opportunity for all.
via Hightower Lowdown | Everyone hates corporate healthcare– now, public demand could really change it.
WALL STREET IS ROBBING US AT THE GAS PUMP
WALL STREET IS ROBBING US AT THE GAS PUMP
by Jim Hightower – Listen to this Commentary at link
Like a 4th of July bottle rocket, our gasoline prices are shooting upward. However, tongue-clucking market analysts tell us there’s nothing we can do about it, for it’s simply the law of supply and demand in action – so suck it up, and pay up.
Supply and demand? The supply of crude oil has risen to its highest level in nearly two decades, even while the demand for gasoline is down dramatically, having fallen to a 10-year low. Supply up, demand down. That’s a classic market formula for cheaper prices at the pump – yet they’ve risen by some 60 cents a gallon in the past two months alone.
We’re being had by some brand-name dealers. Not Exxon, Chevron, etcetera – but such names as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other Wall Street dealers who place unregulated, speculative bets on the future price of oil. Sound vaguely familiar? Yes, this is the same so-called “dark market” of derivatives and swaps that led to the sub-prime mortgage crash, which then brought down Wall Street and crushed our economy. And, yes, these are the same banksters you and I are bailing out with trillions of our tax dollars.
via Jim Hightower | WALL STREET IS ROBBING US AT THE GAS PUMP.
Food Inc: Michael Pollan and Friends Reveal the Food Industry’s Darkest Secrets
Food Inc: Michael Pollan and Friends Reveal the Food Industry’s Darkest Secrets
It turns out that figuring out the most simple thing — like what’s on your dinner plate, and where it came from — is actually a pretty subversive act.
That’s what director Robert Kenner found out while spending six years putting together the amazing new documentary, Food Inc., which features prominent food writers Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation).
Warning: Food Inc. is not for the faint of heart. While its focus is not on the gory images of slaughterhouse floors and filthy feedlots, what it does show about the journey of our food from “farm” to plate is not pretty.
The story’s main narrative chronicles the consolidation of our vast food industry into the hands of a few powerful corporations that have worked to limit the public’s understanding of where its food comes from, what’s in it and how safe it may be.
LARRY CRAIG: I DID NOT MEET GOVERNOR SANFORD IN BUENOS AIRES
LARRY CRAIG: I DID NOT MEET GOVERNOR SANFORD IN BUENOS AIRES
“I am not his Maria.”
Satire by R J Shulman
COLUMBIA, South Carolina – (PTSD News) – Idaho Senator Larry Craig is denying rumors that he was the object of Governor Mark Sanford’s affections in Argentina. The South Carolina governor admitted today that he has had a yearlong affair with a woman in Argentina. South Carolina’s largest newspaper, The State, published alleged e-mail exchanges between Governor Sanford and the woman named Maria. “I love my wife, I am not gay, and I abhor the bathrooms at that Buenos Aires Airport,” Craig told reporters in Boise today after the news broke that he may be romantically involved with Sanford. “While I sometimes I go by the name of Maria,” Craig said. “I am not his Maria.”
Governor Sanford admitted in a news conference that he had escaped to Argentina to participate in an extramarital affair over Father’s Day weekend, abandoning his wife and four children. “I thought it was strange that Sanford admitted an affair with a mysterious woman so quickly,” said political analyst Frank Billious, “the fact that this so-called woman has not surfaced adds to the suspicion that Sanford has not come clean. Now, if he claimed he went to Argentina to meet with some old Nazis who had escaped there from Germany, I would believe that of a Republican — but not that he was meeting a woman.”
The Post Times Sun Dispatch has obtained flight records from Aerolineas Argentinas and discovered that a Maria L. Craig flew from Minneapolis to Buenos Aires on the same day Governor Sanford left South Carolina for South America. Adding to the rumor that Craig is involved with Sanford is the word of Raul Talamante, a washroom attendant at the Buenos Aires Airport who claims to have seen Craig and Sanford emerge from a bathroom stall. “There was some mighty tapping going on in there,” Talamante said, “I thought the pipes were going to explode.”
via Citizens For Legitimate Government.
Former CIGNA Exec Has Stinging Words For Health Insurers
Former CIGNA Exec Has Stinging Words For Health Insurers – Courant.com
A former media relations executive from CIGNA turned dramatically against health insurers at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, calling the industry an “untrustworthy” partner for its customers and “duplicitous” in blocking meaningful health care reform.
“They confuse their customers and dump the sick — all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors,” said Wendell Potter, who retired as CIGNA’s vice president of corporate communications last year. He spent nearly 15 years at the company and four years at Humana.
He spoke at a Washington hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation along with others who lambasted health insurers for making their policies and claim-paying methods hard to understand.
Potter urged health care reform that includes a public health plan to compete with private insurers, and told senators the industry is using the kind of fear tactics that they employed to sink reform during the Clinton administration.
He said he was not speaking out because of any grudge against CIGNA. The company treated him well with “lots of bonuses” over the years and persuaded him to stay longer than he’d planned, he said.
via Former CIGNA Exec Has Stinging Words For Health Insurers – Courant.com.
PersonalFinance: Don’t wait for Congress, be your own regulator
PersonalFinance: Don’t wait for Congress, be your own regulator
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s plan to create a federal agency to protect consumers from tricky or hazardous financial products may never make it through the Congress, if the bankers have their say.
Financial services companies are coming up with cash nobody knew they had to fight the proposal, which would put hidden credit card fees on a par with faulty bike helmets and flammable pajamas.
Consumer advocates are asking Congress to create such an agency, which would focus on financial products like checking accounts and mortgages, regardless of what kind of financial company was issuing them.
Currently, different federal agencies oversee different kinds of banks, and their rulings on bank products can differ from agency to agency and bank to bank. The proposed new agency would review credit cards, insurance products, bank accounts and other financial tools for their clarity and safety.
via PersonalFinance: Don’t wait for Congress, be your own regulator | Special Coverage | Reuters.
Hate Talkers United: Sean Hannity’s Past Relationship with Neo-Nazi, Anti-Semite and Now Arrested Hal Turner
Hate Talkers United: Sean Hannity’s Past Relationship with Neo-Nazi, Anti-Semite and Now Arrested Hal Turner
A BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG By Mark Karlin
Ah yes, another hate talker is accused of plotting violence, this time against federal judges:
A blogger and Internet radio host from New Jersey was arrested Wednesday by the FBI on charges he threatened to kill three federal appellate judges in Chicago.
The federal charges, filed in Chicago, alleged white supremacist Hal Turner called for the judges’ murders after they affirmed on June 2 a lower court decision to dismiss challenges to Chicago’s ban on handguns.
Turner is no stranger to law enforcement. Just this month, he was charged in Connecticut with making threats against legislators.
He came to attention of authorities in Chicago after the killings of the husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow in 2005.
Turner posted the work addresses of appeals court judges who had ruled against white supremacist Matthew Hale in a civil case presided over by Lefkow.
Sometime back, journalist Max Blumenthal (who was at one time a night editor for BuzzFlash) exposed the past relationship of Sean Hannity with Hal Turner. Blumenthal described Hannity as virtually a mentor to Turner, and Turner claimed that Hannity was pretty much his soul mate in outlook, but implied that Hannity had to tone it down because of his high media profile.
GE to bring research center, 1,200 jobs to metro Detroit
GE to bring research center, 1,200 jobs to metro Detroit
General Electric Corp. plans to announce Friday that it will open a research and development center in metro Detroit with at least 1,200 new jobs to explore clean technology.
GE Chairman and Chief Executive Jeffrey R. Immelt will address the Detroit Economic Club on Friday, and a spokesman for Immelt said the speech would contain “some news” and that there would also be an announcement that same day.
Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said she had no comment today.
One person familiar with some of GE’s discussions said the new center would be based in Wayne County and would involve research into clean technology.
Immelt will address the Economic Club at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham. The title of his speech is “Winning in a Reset World.”
In promotional material, the Economic Club said that Immelt’s speech “explains that we can’t just ‘ride this one out’ and assume better times are waiting. Instead, leaders need to reset the American economy to win.”
via GE to bring research center, 1,200 jobs to metro Detroit | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press.
Apparent Gay Exorcism in Conn. Church Causes Outrage
Apparent Gay Exorcism in Conn. Church Causes Outrage – Los Angeles Times
The video, which was posted on YouTube, features church elders from the Manifested Glory Ministries Church in Bridgeport performing the exorcism on the boy who is said to be 16-years-old.
The teenager is seen rolling around on the ground, moaning and screaming – at one point he even vomits.
Although it was never confirmed to be a gay exorcism, repeated references to the subject’s sexual orientation suggests it was.
“Right now in the name of Jesus, I call the homosexuality, right now in the name of Jesus,” a church elder is heard screaming to the teen.
via Apparent Gay Exorcism in Conn. Church Causes Outrage – Los Angeles Times.
How Insurance Companies Hurt Policyholders
Health Insurance Insider: ‘They Dump the Sick’
Retired Health Insurance Executive Blows the Whistle on His Former Industry
Frustrated Americans have long complained that their insurance companies valued the all-mighty buck over their health care. Today, a retired insurance executive confirmed their suspicions, arguing that the industry that once employed him regularly rips off its policyholders.
“[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors,” former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said during a hearing on health insurance today before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations.”
“They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment,” Potter said. “…(D)umping a small number of enrollees can have a big effect on the bottom line.”
Small businesses, in particular, he said, have had trouble maintaining their employee health insurance coverage, he said.
via How Insurance Companies Hurt Policyholders – ABC News.
Obama’s July 4 Invites To Iranian Diplomats Rescinded
Obama’s July 4 Invites To Iranian Diplomats Rescinded
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has rescinded an offer for Iranian envoys to attend U.S. embassy Fourth of July parties as the violent crackdown in Tehran continues.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday notified diplomats and other department employees overseas that her earlier invitations had been withdrawn.
“Unfortunately, circumstances have changed and participation by Iranian diplomats would not be appropriate in light of the unjust actions that the president and I have condemned,” she said in her message sent overseas. “For invitations which have been extended, posts should make clear that Iranian participation is no longer appropriate in the current circumstances. For invitations which have not been extended, no further action is needed.”
via Obama’s July 4 Invites To Iranian Diplomats Rescinded.
Lawyer: Spanish prosecution of Bush lawyers will proceed
Lawyer: Spanish prosecution of Bush lawyers will proceed
The Spanish lawyer working to indict six former Bush administration attorneys for their roles in the US’s torture program says the case will go ahead in Spanish courts.
Gonzalo Boyé, a private lawyer in Spain, is working to indict the so-called “Bush Six” lawyers who gave the Bush administration its rationale for carrying out the systematic torture of terrorist suspects. The six are John Yoo, author of the “torture memos,” Douglas Feith, then a deputy defense secretary, Pentagon lawyer William Haynes II, former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee, and David Addington, a former chief of staff to then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
A recent decision by Spain’s parliament to re-work its “universal jurisdiction” rules (which allow human-rights crimes anywhere in the world to be prosecuted in Spanish courts) won’t stop the prosecution of six Bush administration lawyers, Boyé told Mother Jones magazine in an interview.
via Raw Story » Lawyer: Spanish prosecution of Bush lawyers will proceed.
FBI Arrests White Supremacist Blogger Hal Turner For Threatening To Kill Federal Judges
FBI Arrests White Supremacist Blogger Hal Turner For Threatening To Kill Federal Judges
Today, FBI agents went to the New Jersey home of white supremacist blogger/radio host Hal Turner and arrested him “on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb,” according to a statement released by the Justice Department. A summary of Turner’s dangerous tirade against the judges:
Internet postings on June 2 and 3 proclaimed “outrage” over the June 2, 2009, handgun decision by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further stating, among other things: “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed.” The postings included photographs, phone numbers, work address and room numbers of these judges, along with a photo of the building in which they work and a map of its location.
Turner’s posts also “referred to the murder of the mother and husband of Chicago-based federal Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow in February 2005,” saying, “Apparently, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court didn’t get the hint after those killings. It appears another lesson is needed.” In the Justice Department statement, U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald — who announced the charges — said, “We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period.”
Sunspots Don’t Cause Global Warming
Sunspots Don’t Cause Global Warming
Dear EarthTalk: Don’t some scientists point to sunspots and solar wind as having more impact on climate change than human industrial activity? — David Noss, California, MD
Sunspots are storms on the sun’s surface that are marked by intense magnetic activity and play host to solar flares and hot gassy ejections from the sun’s corona. Scientists believe that the number of spots on the sun cycles over time, reaching a peak—the so-called Solar Maximum—every 11 years or so. Some studies indicate that sunspot activity overall has doubled in the last century. The apparent result down here on Earth is that the sun glows brighter by about 0.1 percent now than it did 100 years ago.
Solar wind, according to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, consists of magnetized plasma flares and in some cases is linked to sunspots. It emanates from the sun and influences galactic rays that may in turn affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth, such as cloud cover. But scientists are the first to admit that they have a lot to learn about phenomena like sunspots and solar wind, some of which is visible to humans on Earth in the form of Aurora Borealis and other far flung interplanetary light shows.
Some skeptics of human-induced climate change blame global warming on natural variations in the sun’s output due to sunspots and/or solar wind. They say it’s no coincidence that an increase in sunspot activity and a run-up of global temperatures on Earth are happening concurrently, and view regulation of carbon emissions as folly with negative ramifications for our economy and tried-and-true energy infrastructure.
“[V]ariations in solar energy output have far more effect on Earth’s climate than soccer moms driving SUVs,” Southwestern Law School professor Joerg Knipprath, writes in his ‘Token Conservative’ blog. “A rational thinker would understand that, especially if he or she has some understanding of the limits of human influence. But the global warming boosters have this unbounded hubris that it is humans who control nature, and that human activity can terminally despoil the planet as well as cause its salvation.”
via Political Affairs Magazine – Sunspots Don’t Cause Global Warming.
Consumer watchdog idea hit as Congress eyes reform
Consumer watchdog idea hit as Congress eyes reform
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans lined up with the banking industry on Wednesday in attacking a Democratic proposal for a new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Agency at a congressional hearing focused on a key component of the Obama administration’s broad plan for financial regulation reform.
As Congress intensified its scrutiny of the Obama plan, Republican members of the House Financial Services Committee questioned the idea of splitting consumer protection from government oversight of the banking business’ health.
“The wisdom of bifurcating consumer protection and safety and soundness regulation as is done in the administration’s proposal is questionable,” said Representative Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House committee.
via Consumer watchdog idea hit as Congress eyes reform | Politics | Reuters.
Grassley: In Order For Health Care To Be ‘Bipartisan, ‘We Need To Make Sure There Is No Public Option’
OPS: Miserable Fascist Sociopath
Grassley: In Order For Health Care To Be ‘Bipartisan, ‘We Need To Make Sure There Is No Public Option’
On MSNBC this morning, Norah O’Donnell asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, “what needs to be in” a health care reform bill “for it to be bipartisan.” After saying it needs to be paid for, Grassley declared, “We need to make sure that there’s no public option.” When O’Donnell double-checked that Grassley was saying that a public option was a dealbreaker for Republicans, he replied, “Absolutely.” Watch it:
By claiming that a public option would destroy bipartisanship, Grassley is ignoring the preferences of a strong majority of Americans. Earlier this week, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that a public health insurance option (which would lower costs and improve quality) is supported by 72 percent of Americans, including 50 percent of Republicans.
Boehner’s PAC spent over $30,000 on a Florida golf outing with lobbyists.
Boehner’s PAC spent over $30,000 on a Florida golf outing with lobbyists.
John Boehner takes a swing on the linksHouse Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), an avid lover of golf, has repeatedly used the golf course for fundraising purposes. Unlike the imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who famously used golf as “bait…to lure Republican politicians into his realm,” Boehner has repeatedly used golf as a means of giving lobbyists some face-time with him while raising money for House Republicans in the process. The Washington Post’s Mary Ann Akers reports today that Boehner’s PAC, Freedom Project, “spent a total of $31,474.11 on a golf fundraiser for friends, lobbyists and anyone else who wanted intimate tee time with the House’s top Republican” at the Ritz Carlton in Naples, FL last February, raising nearly a quarter million dollars for GOP candidates.
via Think Progress » Boehner’s PAC spent over $30,000 on a Florida golf outing with lobbyists..
Family Research Council removes Sanford’s picture from Values Voters Summit website.
Family Research Council removes Sanford’s picture from Values Voters Summit website.
Previously, the website for the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit 2009 featured a picture of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, advertising that he was a potential speaker. But Pam Spaulding points out that following Sanford’s announcement of an affair, his picture was quickly removed from the website.
Before:
After:
OMB advises veto of defense authorization if it contains F-22 funding.
OMB advises veto of defense authorization if it contains F-22 funding.
Last week, the House Armed Services Committee reinstated funding for the F-22, over the objections of the Pentagon and the White House, by eliminating funding for nuclear waste cleanup. (Rep. Barney Frank [D-MA] has introduced an amendment eliminating the money for the F-22.) Today, the Office of Management and Budget issued a Statement of Administrative Policy recommending a veto if the bill contains the F-22 funding:
F-22 Advance Procurement: The Administration strongly objects to the provisions in the bill authorizing $369 million in advanced procurement funds for F-22s in FY 2011. The collective judgment of the Service Chiefs and Secretaries of the military departments suggests that a final program of record of 187 F-22s is sufficient to meet operational requirements. If the final bill presented to the President contains this provision, the President’s senior advisors would recommend a veto.
This afternoon on MSNBC, VoteVets Chairman Jon Soltz debated Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), who proclaimed, “We absolutely need 381 of these planes, and not 187.” Soltz called the claim “ridiculous,” and argued that military funds should be spent on troops on the ground:
It’s about how we spend our money. The Congressman cares about the Lockheed Martin stock price, and I care about the men and women who fight on the ground. And this weapon system does nothing for us.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » OMB advises veto of defense authorization if it contains F-22 funding..
What Bush Told Blair Could End the Wars
What Bush Told Blair Could End the Wars
By David Swanson | AfterDowningStreet.org
In May 2005 we launched AfterDowningStreet.org to publicize the Downing Street Minutes. By June we’d had great, if fleeting, success. During the following months and years, mountains of new memos and statements emerged on the Iraq War lies, many of them more damaging than the Downing Street documents. But increasingly nobody cared, because evidence of crimes was less interesting once Congress had dropped the pretense that it might take action. The single most powerful, and yet largely ignored, document yet to emerge, might, now in 2009, finally, produce results. And, of course, it is our friends over in England who are, as always, two steps ahead of us.
This document, or rather, reports of it, emerged in February 2006. We labeled it the White House Memo and began promoting awareness of it. We did not get far with the US corporate media. This is the same document that Vincent Bugliosi refers to as “the Manning Memo” in his book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”. Bugliosi rightly makes it central to his case. Part of the conversation recorded in the memo is recreated in Crawford, Texas, rather than the White House, in Oliver Stone’s 2008 film “W.”
The memo was first mentioned in Philippe Sands’ 2005 book “Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules.” And it was Sands, an attorney from England, who publicized the memo in February 2006. Now the British media is questioning whether the British government’s upcoming review of the Iraq War lies will include such damning pieces of evidence as the White House Memo. And Philippe Sands is advocating for its inclusion. Peace groups led by the Stop the War Coalition in England are planning a rally at Parliament on Wednesday to demand that the governmental inquiry be public. Secrecy, after all, is what allowed the war in the first place.
via What Bush Told Blair Could End the Wars | AfterDowningStreet.org.
Diversity of Mars captured by world’s most powerful camera on Nasa probe
Diversity of Mars captured by world’s most powerful camera on Nasa probe
The diversity of the landscape of Mars, complete with huge sand dunes, melting ice caps, gullies and craters, has been captured in new pictures from the world’s most powerful camera.
Located on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a Nasa probe launched in 2005, the HiRise camera has already taken detailed images of the outlines of ancient extraterrestrial seas and rivers – the first unambiguous evidence that shorelines once existed on the Red Planet.
The camera has also witnessed the moment when the warmth of the Martian spring forced puffs of dust through the thin polar caps of dry ice – solid carbon dioxide – to form “starburst” patterns on the surface of the planet.
via Diversity of Mars captured by world’s most powerful camera on Nasa probe – Telegraph.
Obama’s Emerging Legacy: Wars, Bankers and For-Profit Healthcare
Obama’s Emerging Legacy: Wars, Bankers and For-Profit Healthcare
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Obama’s Emerging Legacy: Wars, Bankers and For-Profit Healthcare
via Obama’s Emerging Legacy: Wars, Bankers and For-Profit Healthcare | Black Agenda Report.
Robust Health Care Reform is the Moment of Truth for Obama and the Democrats
OPS: Will Obama and the Democrats confirm that there really is no difference between them and the Republicans, and that the US has devolved into a Fascist State, or, will they prove otherwise?
Robust Health Care Reform is the Moment of Truth for Obama and the Democrats
Fellow Americans, and fellow Democrats and Obama supporters, we are at a moment of truth, a pivotal turning point — in the form of what happens in the next days and weeks with robust, universal health reform. A fork in the road socially, economically — and politically. It could go either way depending on Obama and the Democratic officeholders many of us worked so hard to elect. They have the power to act, but will they use it — or lose it?
If at this remarkable juncture Obama and the Democrats cannot enact a robust health care reform — with a strong nationwide public option, cost controls, and nearly universal coverage — I would not want to be in charge of fundraising and mobilization for them in the 2010 and 2012 elections! Most of us who supported them last time will of course not vote for a Republican.. But if Obama and the Democrats cannot act now on a once in a half century challenge and opportunity, they are not worthy of extra energy. And those of us who wrote big checks last time will tell the Democrats — especially in the Senate — to hold pharmaceutical fundraisers instead.
Key leaps forward for U.S. public social provision — Social Security, Medicare, etc. — have NEVER happened through “bipartisan” compromises and they always happen in close votes. They have always sqweaked through after gargantuan effort, strong presidential pressure, and refusal to allow eviscerating compromises. Think of Social Security if the Clark amendment — allowing corporate opt-out — had passed in 1935. We would not have it. And conservatives and the medical and insurance establishments cried “socialism” in 1965, too. We would not have Medicare if we had listened.
via Robust Health Care Reform is the Moment of Truth for Obama and the Democrats | TPMCafe.
Fox News Identifies Sanford As A Democrat
When does an embattled Republican suddenly become an embattled Democrat? When Fox News is covering him, of course.
The network known for its conservative leaning ran footage of Mark Sanford admitting to an extramarital affair on Wednesday with a Chyron identifying the South Carolina Republican — near tears — as a D, for Democrat.
Media Matters has the screen grab on its site and notes that Fox News later changed Sanford’s party affiliation to Republican.
But it’s also worth adding that this is not the first time the network has misidentified a GOPer in the midst of acknowledging misconduct. When former congressman Mark Foley admitted to having problems with alcoholism — after reports that he had behaved inappropriately with congressional pages — Fox News also identified him as a Democrat.
via Fox News Identifies Sanford As A Democrat.
Ayn Rand, Greenspan, and the Keep Your Head Tax
Ayn Rand, Greenspan, and the Keep Your Head Tax
by William Moldestad Jr.
Ayn Rand’s theories about selfishness have had an impact on our society. There’s some really bright people that are just enthralled with Ayn’s ideas, such as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and the intellectual conservatives. To them, Ayn’s ideas represent pure capitalism. Was Ayn right about society and its obligations? Was she right about no regulation being the best regulation? In the interests of keeping this short, I will be concise. Ayn Rand was wrong about a lot of things. And as a result, our society is getting a lot of things wrong.
For Ayn, selfishness meant that you should be self respecting, self reliant, … take care of yourself. And the way you take care of yourself is: you don’t sacrifice yourself to anybody else, but you don’t expect them to help you either. And it’s all because, that’s in your self interest. Ayn loved capitalism because it’s trade, and the market decides the value of the item you’re offering for trade.
The market decides. And you decide the value of benefits people are offering you for what you’re willing to trade in return. She loved capitalism because that’s what it’s based on: market. We’ve seen when capitalism is unregulated it runs into problems because the people making decisions are greedy. Self-interest run amok. Consider Alan Greenspan, he’s a disciple of Rand, what he found out was—wow!—the market doesn’t regulate itself.
via OpEdNews » Ayn Rand, Greenspan, and the Keep Your Head Tax.
Obama’s Financial Reform Proposal: A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control
Obama’s Financial Reform Proposal: A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control – by Stephen Lendman
When politicians plan reform, it’s wise to be skeptical and hold on to your wallets. So fixing the economy by bailing out Wall Street is wrecking it, and Obama’s proposed health care reform taxes more, provides less, places profits above human need, avoids the most vital solutions, and leaves a broken system in place.
Now there’s “Financial Regulatory Reform, A New Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation” – announced June 17 with Obama saying he’ll send Congress a plan to create new government agencies, give the private banking cartel Federal Reserve more power, and address five major problems needing regulatory and legislative measures to fix.
Addressing business executives in the White House East Room, he said:
“A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street” with no mention that months of it worsened on his watch. “A regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a 20th century economic crisis – the Great Depression – was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a 21st century global economy.” In fact, 30 years of deregulation since the late 1970s, not technology, caused speculative excesses, market bubbles, and inevitable collapses that always follow.
Of course, these problems are endemic under a system that’s crisis-prone, unstable, anarchic, ungovernable, and self-destructive through repeated cycles of booms creating bubbles, then busts, followed by recessions or depressions with today’s collapse grave enough for Michel Chossudovky to call it “far more serious than the Great Depression (because all) major sectors of the global economy are affected.”
Proposed Financial Reforms
An 89-page Treasury Department pdf is available online for those inclined to read it. Along with an introduction and summary of recommendations, its five major objectives are to:
I. “Promote Robust Supervision and Regulation of Financial Markets
II. Establish Comprehensive Regulation of Financial Markets
III. Protect Consumers and Investors from Financial Abuse
IV. Provide the Government with the Tools it Needs to Manage Financial Crises (and)
V. Raise International Regulatory Standards and Improve International Cooperation”
via Obama’s Financial Reform Proposal: A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control.
The “War” on Drugs
The “War” on Drugs | CommonDreams.org
Among the key findings of a new UN world report on drugs: a drop in opium and cocaine production; a rise in synthetics and the potency of cannabis; the need to focus on drug treatment not incarceration, and traffickers not users; and the alarming rise of drug-related crime, as evidenced in the chart above. Still, it says legalization would be “an historic mistake.”
The report’s conclusions were challenged by Transform, a British drugs charity with special consultative status with the UN.
“Despite the ongoing attempts to put a positive spin on the data there is no hiding from the reality that the era of global drug prohibition, enshrined in the three UN drug conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988), has witnessed a consistent escalation in harms associated with illicit drug production, supply and use,” said Danny Kushlick, head of policy at Transform.
via The “War” on Drugs | CommonDreams.org.
COOL Deadline Approaching
COOL Deadline Approaching
You can help ensure that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative vigorously defends America’s right to require country-of-origin labeling on food products.
As the Mexican and Canadian governments prepare to challenge a U.S. law at the World Trade Organization requiring country-of-origin labeling on certain food products, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is asking for input from citizens.
Both of America’s North American neighbors are claiming that the labeling requirements are unfair trade barriers that impose increased costs on their food exports. Their complaints have the potential to derail the law less than a year after it went into effect.
A sense of urgency to implement country-of-origin labeling on food products arose after a recent string of food scares in the United States. In 2006 and 2007 thousands of cats and dogs died after consuming poisoned pet food imported from China that had been contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine. More recently, salmonella-tainted peppers from Mexico left many consumers ill. And more than 20 countries and markets have banned or recalled milk products from China because of melamine contamination.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Elected Officials Selling out America: David Dreier
Elected Officials Selling out America: David Dreier
Rep. David Dreier has been one of the most consistently reliable votes for policies that have decimated America’s economy.
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.
Swept into Congress on the coattails of Ronald Reagan in the Republican Revolution of 1980, Rep. David Dreier has been one of the most consistently reliable votes for job-killing “free trade” agreements and other policies that have decimated America’s economy.
Not only does Dreier believe that “free trade” is economically beneficial to the U.S., he also touts the democratizing effects of trade.
“Trade is more than an economic boon,” his Congressional Web site states. “Reaffirming our role as a global leader, American support for trade is support for freedom. Creating opportunity for entrepreneurs and encouraging the free flow of information, free trade is distinctly democratic and does much to further the creation of free and open societies.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
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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. 
