Archive for June, 2009
Bulldoze the Ghost ‘Burbs, Return Them to Nature
OPS: Gee, it’s so simple why didn’t we think about it before? We’ll just bulldoze the ghettos and…… oh, wait…. So, let’s see… the Tax payers will (acquire the land) pay for the industrial (in some cases, super-fund type) cleanup – maybe return the land to nature (for a while) then the transnationals can buy the land back after it’s been ‘laundered’. Hmmmmm.
Intriguing Plan in Michael Moore’s Home Town: Bulldoze the Ghost ‘Burbs, Return Them to Nature
Concept of razing post-industrial “rust belt” empty neighborhoods draws interest in Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other cities.
The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, Michigan, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.
Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 percent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
The radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.
Mr Kildee said he will concentrate on 50 cities, identified in a recent study by the Brookings Institution, an influential Washington think-tank, as potentially needing to shrink substantially to cope with their declining fortunes.
Has the Election Been Stolen in Iran?
Has the Election Been Stolen in Iran?
If it is true that Ahmadinejad’s victory is fraudulent, it’ll be a dream come true for those pushing a more confrontational approach with Iran.
It is certainly not unprecedented for Western observers to miscalculate the outcome of an election in a country where pre-election polls are not as rigorous as Western countries, particularly when there is a clear bias towards a particular candidate. At the same time, the predictions of knowledgeable Iranian observers from various countries and from across the political spectrum were nearly unanimous in the belief that the leading challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would defeat incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decisively in yesterday’s presidential election, certainly in the runoff if not in the first round. This also appeared to be the assumption among independent observers in Iran itself.
So overwhelming were the signs of imminent Ahmadinejad defeat and so massive was the margin of his alleged victory, the only reasonable assumption was that there has been fraud on a massive scale. What polls did exist showed Mousavi leading by a clear majority and Ahmadinejad well under 40%, a margin roughly similar to what most analysts had suggested based on anecdotal evidence. Instead, the official results show Ahmadinejad winning by an overwhelming 63% of the vote.
via Has the Election Been Stolen in Iran? | World | AlterNet.
Secret papers ‘show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests’
Secret papers ‘show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests’ - – The Independent 
Documents seen by The IoS support claims energy giant enlisted help of country’s military government
Serious questions over Shell Oil’s alleged involvement in human rights abuses in Nigeria emerged last night after confidential internal documents and court statements revealed how the energy giant enlisted the help of the country’s brutal former military government to deal with protesters.
The documents, seen by the IoS, support allegations that Shell helped to provide Nigerian police and military with logistical support, and aided security sweeps of the oil-rich Niger Delta. Earlier this month Shell agreed to pay $15.5m (£9.6m) in a “humanitarian settlement” on the eve of a highly embarrassing US lawsuit.
One of the allegations was that Shell was complicit in the regime’s execution of civilians. The Anglo-Dutch firm denies any wrongdoing and said it settled to help “reconciliation”. But the documents contain detailed allegations of the extent to which Shell is said to have co-opted the Nigerian military to protect its interests.
via Secret papers ‘show how Shell targeted Nigeria oil protests’ – Americas, World – The Independent.
Senators held stock in bailed-out banks
Senators held stock in bailed-out banks - TheHill.com
Senators who oversee the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package held stocks in many of the banks bailed out towards the end of last year, according to financial disclosure reports released Friday.
According to the reports detailing senators’ finances in 2008, nearly half of the members of the Senate Banking Committee had holdings in financial institutions that have taken funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The panel has jurisdiction over the bailout fund and other relief efforts directed by federal regulators to save the nation’s financial system.
For example, Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), a Banking panel member, has assets in several banks that have taken bailout funds. Along with Goldman Sachs, the senator has several assets in Bank of America funds, worth at least $115,00. Bank of America has received $45 billion in government funds.
Another Democrat invested in bailed-out institutions is Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.). Schumer has assets valued between $15,001 and $50,000 in Morgan Stanley and $1,001 to $15,000 in Citibank, according to his financial disclosure report. Morgan Stanley received $10 billion in TARP money while Citigroup was given $25 billion from the program. Schumer’s assets in the two banks were savings accounts, however, not stock.
via TheHill.com – Senators held stock in bailed-out banks.
Blowing with the vomit-inducing wind
Blowing with the vomit-inducing wind
p m carpenter’s commentary:
This morning the Politico reports that although Sen. Mary Landrieu, conservative Democrat from a hurricane-ravaged hell, “signed a letter in November affirming support for a public [health] insurance option,” she now says, through a spokesman, that she didn’t “necessarily look at it word for word.”
No, she only “skimmed” the November, full-campaign-mode letter to Health Care for America Now, and, thinking that by and large it looked OK, she signed it, thereby “agree[ing] to back its principles, ‘including the right to keep your current insurance, choose another private plan or to join a public health insurance plan.’ ”
Now comes “clarification.” This Thursday Sen. Landrieu “seemed to contradict the pledge when she told reporters that she doesn’t support the public option.” Yet seemingly, there’s no seeming to it. She either supports it or she doesn’t, and her latest, quite unambiguously, is that she doesn’t.
via p m carpenter’s commentary: Blowing with the vomit-inducing wind.
The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers
The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers – NYTimes.com
Frank Rich
WHEN a Fox News anchor, reacting to his own network’s surging e-mail traffic, warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.
The anchor was Shepard Smith, speaking after Wednesday’s mayhem at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Unlike the bloviators at his network and elsewhere on cable, Smith is famous for his highly caffeinated news-reading, not any political agenda. But very occasionally — notably during Hurricane Katrina — he hits the Howard Beale mad-as-hell wall. Joining those at Fox who routinely disregard the network’s “We report, you decide” mantra, he both reported and decided, loudly.
What he reported was this: his e-mail from viewers had “become more and more frightening” in recent months, dating back to the election season. From Wednesday alone, he “could read a hundred” messages spewing “hate that’s not based in fact,” much of it about Barack Obama and some of it sharing the museum gunman’s canard that the president was not a naturally born citizen. These are Americans “out there in a scary place,” Smith said.
via Op-Ed Columnist – The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers – NYTimes.com.
UnitedHealth pay for senior management raising eyebrows
OPS: He made more than $1.5 Billion over 14 years…… That’s about $57,000 per hour. How many people had to be denied treatment and care in order to cover this?
UnitedHealth pay for senior management raising eyebrows
CEO William McGuire has accumulated options presently worth more than $1.5 billion (3 years ago)
There has already been much speculation about the multi-million dollar compensation of UnitedHealth Company CEO, William McGuire. The concern is underlined by rising consumer and business premiums and increasingly limited coverage for health insurance. Now, reports of very high compensation and millions of dollars in stock options for the Insurance company?s Board of Directors are raising more eyebrows.
A former University of Saint Thomas business professor calls corporate board membership a “part-time” job. “They’re not entitled to excessively high compensation for what they do,” scoffs Fred Zimmerman.
Zimmerman has served or is serving on more than a dozen Boards of Directors himself. “You know, a few thousand shares a year, you know, that’s maybe about par for a New York Stock Exchange type company, but tens of thousands, that’s inappropriate.”
More alarming to Zimmerman is a practice of allowing senior management and possibly board members to ‘back date’ the stock options. “I have never, ever heard of anyone being able to pick the date for an option to be granted.”
via kare11.com | Twin Cities, MN | UnitedHealth pay for senior management raising eyebrows.
Hell Care: Health Care from Hell
Hell Care: Health Care from Hell - by James Dunham 
The insurance industry has a vested interest in your death.
Sadly, about 100% of all Republican Congressmen and Senators really don’t care about people dying. They don’t care about Americans getting killed in Iraq. They don’t care about Americans losing their jobs. And they certainly don’t care about 70 million Americans with no health care and tens of millions more who are going bankrupt trying to pay their premiums and medical expenses. The GOP is a lost cause.
Republicans, backed by the insurance and drug industries will fight tooth and nail to kill any type of Government Medicare type universal plan available to all who want it. The insurance and drug industries will pump billions into TV commercials, radio ads, and print advertisements to scare the hell out of ill informed and ordinary Americans.
They’ll tell us it’s Communism, Socialism, Marxism, and that’s its un-American. They’ll try to claim that Canadians have to wait years to get a doctor’s appointment and that medical care in Europe is grossly inferior compared to the great United States of America. They’ll tell us we will have to go to a big, old, ugly bureaucratic Government building and sit in hard plastic chairs for weeks to just see a doctor. They’ll tell us that the Government is going to tell us what doctor or hospital we can go to, and what treatment they can give us.
They’re going to lie through their teeth. The “big lie” will be told over and over and over and over.
via OpEdNews » Hell Care: Health Care from Hell.
The Rise of Single-Payer Health Care
The Rise of Single-Payer Health Care
by David Swanson
Health care reform plans are being drafted and passed around on both sides of Capitol Hill, but the plan with the greatest number of Congress members behind it was first introduced as a bill six years ago. With two new co-sponsors having just signed on, Congressman John Conyers’s single-payer health care plan, HR 676, now has 80 Congress members supporting it.
A House committee held a hearing on single-payer health coverage on Wednesday, and a Senate committee included single payer in a hearing on Thursday. Many opponents of single payer, including President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, say it would be the ideal solution if it were possible.
A single-payer or “Medicare for all” system that eliminates for-profit health insurance and simply pays for everyone’s treatment by private doctors and hospitals of their choosing is also the only solution consistently favored by a majority of Americans in polls. The proposal, already in place in most of the world’s wealthy nations, is raised at every health care town-hall forum that Congress members or President Obama speak at, including the one Obama held on Thursday in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
via t r u t h o u t | The Rise of Single-Payer Health Care.
A Feast of Unrepentant Wingnuts
A Feast of Unrepentant Wingnuts
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
Egalitarian societies are more productive than societies in which a mere one percent owns more than some 90 percent of the rest of the population. Since 1980, US productivity declined with the dollar in a race to the bottom. The results may be seen quantified at the CIA’s ‘World Fact Book’ where the US is at the bottom of a list of nations with the world’s largest negative current account balance. It is not coincidental that America became the world’s largest net debtor nation as it joined the ranks of the most inequitable.
American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. The scope of their triumph is breathtaking. Over the course of the last three decades, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago–that cutting taxes for the very rich is the best response to any and every economic circumstance or that it is perfectly appropriate to turn the most rapacious and self-interested elements of the business lobby into essentially an arm of the federal government–are now so pervasive, they barely attract any notice.
The result has been a slow motion disaster. Income inequality has approached levels normally associated with Third World oligarchies, not healthy Western democracies. The federal government has grown so encrusted with business lobbyists that it can no longer meet the great public challenges of our time. Not even many conservative voters or intellectuals find the result congenial. Government is no smaller–it is simply more debt-ridden and more beholden to wealthy elites.
via The Existentialist Cowboy: A Feast of Unrepentant Wingnuts.
“Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we’re there to serve. “
“Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we’re there to serve. ”
These words were written in 2004. I see the same things happening now that have happened the last few years in our party. It angers me and it saddens me. Those who spoke truth are seldom heard, and those who push a rather pandering sort of middle ground get all the attention.
In recent years the Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we’re there to serve. We let our connection to our base atrophy and have forgotten, as they say in politics, who brought us to the dance. In service to a falsely named “centrism,” we’ve sidestepped every major request from labor unions, especially on including worker protections in our free-trade agreements.
The Democrats, by using appeasement as a political strategy, have solidified the Republican hold on power. Harry Truman once said: “When the voters are given the choice between voting for a Republican or a Democrat who acts like a Republican, they’ll vote for the Republican every time.”
US Nuclear Industry Tries to Hijack Obama’s Climate Change Bill
US Nuclear Industry Tries to Hijack Obama’s Climate Change Bill | CommonDreams.org
Republicans seek federal financing for 100 new reactors despite huge capital costs and unsolved problems of storing waste
by Suzanne Goldenberg
America’s nuclear industry and its supporters in Congress have moved to hijack Barack Obama’s agenda for greening the economy by producing a rival plan to build 100 new reactors in 20 years, and staking a claim for the money to come from a proposed clean energy development bank.
Republicans in the House of Representatives produced a spoiler version of the Democrats’ climate change bill this week, calling for a doubling of the number of nuclear reactors in the US by 2030. The 152-page Republican bill contains just one reference to climate change, and proposes easing controls for new nuclear plants.
In the Senate, Republican leaders, including the former presidential candidate John McCain, also called this week for loan guarantees for building new reactors to rise from $18.5bn (£11.2bn) to $38bn. Other Republicans have called on the administration to underwrite the $122bn start-up costs of 19 nuclear reactors, whose applications are now under review by the department of energy.
via US Nuclear Industry Tries to Hijack Obama’s Climate Change Bill | CommonDreams.org.
Clean Coal Knee-Capping: Secretary Chu Makes $1 Billion Down Payment For More Dirty Coal
Clean Coal Knee-Capping: Secretary Chu Makes $1 Billion Down Payment For More Dirty Coal | CommonDreams.org
On the heels of a major Wall Street Journal report that we are reaching “peak coal,” and revelations that the Bush administration buried a 2002 report on the cancer risks associated with coal ash, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu made a $1.073 billion down payment today on the construction of FutureGen, “the first commercial scale, fully integrated, carbon capture and sequestration project in the country in Mattoon, Illinois.”
Chu’s buy-in into “clean coal,” a phrase that young liberal Democrat Francis Peabody first used back in the 1890s to peddle his brand of “smoke-free” clean coal in Chicago, places him in the company of FutureGen Alliance promoters like Peabody Energy, whose first quarter 2009 profits “only tripled” this spring–Peabody celebrated an 8-fold increase in profits in the last quarter of 2008.
A lot of hot air has been emitted on the dangerous oxymoron of “clean coal,” but the truth remains that with carbon capture and storage technology still in the experimental phase, Secretary Chu still does not know whether FutureGen’s attempt to capture those CO2 emissions and bury them into the earth will be economically feasible, safe (in terms of leaks or accidents or earthquakes) or possible within the next decade.
‘A Perfect Storm for Disaster’ Brewing With Washington’s ‘Unprecedented’ Shadow Army
‘A Perfect Storm for Disaster’ Brewing With Washington’s ‘Unprecedented’ Shadow Army | CommonDreams.org
by Jeremy Scahill
I’ve been reading through the hot-off-the-presses, exciting 100+ page report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting: “At What Cost? Contingency Contracting In Iraq and Afghanistan.” There have been several good pieces that covered the Congressional hearings related to this report, so I thought I would just post some of the more important excerpts from the report. One general note: The Commission, which was created due to the diligent efforts of Senators Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill, has been doing some incredibly important work digging deep into the corruption, waste, abuse, fraud, etc of the US war contracting system. The statute that created the commission “requires the Commission to assess a number of factors related to wartime contracting, including the extent of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of wartime contracts. The Commission has the authority to hold hearings and to refer to the Attorney General any violation or potential violation of law it identifies in carrying out its duties.”
While the new report reveals some critical details about issues of waste and abuse, the general tone is very pro-contractor, which is not surprising. However, I find it disturbing that one of the members of the Commission, Dov Zakheim, is, according to his Commission bio, a current vice-president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a major defense, homeland security and intelligence contractor with a direct stake in US policy on contractors.
Booze is now majority owned by The Carlyle Group, which has deep political connections. In an Op-ed in The Washington Post last year, Zakheim campaigned against “More regulations and bureaucratic restrictions on contractors” and advocated for “a larger, more diversified base of prime contractors and suppliers.” Zakheim, who was a foreign policy advisor to Bush and part of the circle of the Vulcans, is now a key member of the primary body that is responsible for investigating the industry and making formal recommendations on US policy. While the Commission is made up of appointees from both political parties, (Zakheim was appointed by President Bush) Zakheim’s corporate stake on these matters should be cause for a review of his position on the Commission.
Lawmakers Reveal Health-Care Investments
Lawmakers Reveal Health-Care Investments | CommonDreams.org
Key Players Have Stakes in Industry
Almost 30 key lawmakers helping draft landmark health-care legislation have financial holdings in the industry, totaling nearly $11 million worth of personal investments in a sector that could be dramatically reshaped by this summer’s debate.
The list of members who have personal investments in the corporations that will be affected by the legislation — which President Obama has called this year’s highest domestic priority — includes Congress’s most powerful leaders and a bipartisan collection of lawmakers in key committee posts. Their total health-care holdings could be worth $27 million, because congressional financial disclosure forms released yesterday require reporting of only broad ranges of holdings rather than precise values of assets.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), for instance, has at least $50,000 invested in a health-care index, and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a senior member of the health committee, has between $254,000 and $560,000 worth of stock holdings in major health-care companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck.
via Lawmakers Reveal Health-Care Investments | CommonDreams.org.
NIGHTMARE – animated Job Loss Map
Share This INFORMATION!!!
This is stunning visual proof of just how serious our unemployment and economic situation we’re currently facing. Do not let anyone tell you it’s getting better….
via YouTube – NIGHTMARE – Job Loss Map – LOOK @ our Unemployment Crisis Explode!!!.
Unemployment Crisis Exploding
OPS: The problem is thateven a great site like EIC gets this wrong by using the ‘happy’ number. Unemployment is closer to 20% than it is to 9.4%. – Here’s a better analysis
Unemployment Crisis Exploding
Unemployment rose to a 26-year high of 9.4 percent in May. We’re still a very, very long way from recovery.
Economists, pundits and politicians have all cheered the fact that the rate of job growth has slowed recently, but as the above video illustrates, we are far from out of the woods yet.
Unemployment rose to a 26-year high of 9.4 percent in May, up from 8.9 percent in April. If those numbers included part-time workers and discouraged workers that have given up on looking for jobs, the unemployment rate would be 16.4 percent.
Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the economy has shed 6.5 million jobs, putting the total number of unemployed Americans at approximately 14.5 million.
Unfortunately, this is a trend that is likely to continue. The unemployment rate will almost certainly rise to double-digit territory and millions of Americans will continue to lose their jobs before the recession is over.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Economic Boom Excludes U.S.
Economic Boom Excludes U.S.
By the time that recovery comes, if it ever does, we may have been left behind by those who planned ahead and adapted to the real global economy.
A recent column by Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria discusses the recovering economies of the world. However, they are not the economic champions like Japan, the United States and Europe. The nations recovering and growing in our global economy are China, Brazil, and India. These nations are able to manipulate trade agreements and use their cheap labor and abundant resources to guarantee massive growth.
Meanwhile, the United States is being almost completely left out. Our recession in 2008 has turned into what could easily be called a depression in 2009. Unemployment is growing at an alarming rate, and our economy has become even more dependent on stocks and energy companies than it was a year ago. As China, India, Brazil and others create diverse manufacturing bases and work hard to regulate trade surpluses, the U.S. has sat idle.
We have watched as outsourcing continues unabated to send jobs and production overseas, and the countries soaking up this outsourcing – China, India, and Brazil – are reaping the benefits.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Roubini Says Dollar’s Reserve Status May Be Up
OPS: If true, WE are screwed!
Roubini Says Dollar’s Reserve Status May Be Up
Roubini has been classified as a “doomsayer” by some of his academic peers, but his bold and grim predictions have largely come true
According to NYU professor Nouriel Roubini, the dollar may soon lose its status as the world’s single reserve currency. He believes that it will be replaced by either a basket of global currencies, or a complementary unified reserve currency.
Roubini has been classified as a “doomsayer” by some of his academic peers, but his bold and grim predictions have largely come true. He was one of the first academics to call out the housing bubble, which resulted in the catastrophic downturn in the financial infrastructure of the United States. He has also championed balancing trade to avoid the constant annual deficits that drain this nation. Now, when Dr. Roubini predicts a downturn, people listen.
Most of this argument has been championed by the economic leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China among others. These nations have discussed either dropping their holdings of U.S. dollars before they devalue, or beginning to trade in domestic currencies instead of using the American reserve.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Beige Book Reveals Few Signs of Recovery
Beige Book Reveals Few Signs of Recovery
The American economy is in need of much improvement before anyone can legitimately claim to have “recovered” from the economic downturn.
Eight times each year the Federal Reserve releases its Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, also known as the Beige Book. The Beige Book for May revealed that the economy is certainly not getting better.
The Federal Reserve System is broken up into12 districts, and each compiles its own data for an overall review. The overall data from those districts from April to May indicates that economic conditions got worse nearly across the board.
In the last fiscal quarter of 2008 the economy overall declined by a staggering 6.3 percent. The decline in the first quarter of 2009 shows an additional 5.7 percent contraction. This is technically a slight improvement; but the economy did not get better, it just got worse at a slower rate.
The Federal Reserve’s review has data on manufacturing, consumer spending, nonfinancial services, employment, and many other economic indicators. Nearly all of these indicators trended downward in the latest calculations, similar to their review released just last month.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Computer ‘raid’ in Vernon leaves factory workers devastated
OPS: That’s 200 Americans that should have been working there.
Computer ‘raid’ in Vernon leaves factory workers devastated – Los Angeles Times
Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in the L.A. area, terminates more than 200 employees after an IRS audit finds that they had provided ‘invalid or fraudulent’ Social Security numbers.
No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without severance pay or medical insurance. It wasn’t a hot tip or an undercover informant that helped seal their fates, but a computer check of Social Security numbers.
via Computer ‘raid’ in Vernon leaves factory workers devastated – Los Angeles Times.
Six Flags declares bankruptcy –
Six Flags declares bankruptcy
NEW YORK — The amusement park company Six Flags says it has filed for bankruptcy.
The New York-based operator of 20 theme parks in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, including Six Flags Great America in north suburban Gurnee, said Saturday that the filing in a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware is part of its plan to reorganize and shed $1.8 billion worth of debt.
Company CEO Mark Shapiro said the move won’t affect the day-to-day operations of the parks.
Six Flags said it actually had a great year in 2008. It saw 25 million visitors and posted record revenues.
However, it said it needed to do something about its crushing debt load.
An earlier plan to work out an out-of-court deal with creditors wasn’t successful.
via Six Flags declares bankruptcy – Chicago Breaking News.
Pentagon Cyber Command seen as threat to civil liberties
Pentagon Cyber Command seen as threat to civil liberties
The Obama administration’s plan to create a Pentagon Cyber Command to conduct both defensive and offensive cyberwarfare is arousing concern about potential threats to privacy and civil liberties.
A new report in the New York Times warns that even though President Obama has promised that protections will be built into the cyberdefense strategy, such protections will be difficult to implement in practice.
“Much of the new military command’s work is expected to be carried out by the National Security Agency, whose role in intercepting the domestic end of international calls and e-mail messages after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, under secret orders issued by the Bush administration, has already generated intense controversy,” the Times explains. “There is simply no way, the officials say, to effectively conduct computer operations without entering networks inside the United States, where the military is prohibited from operating, or traveling electronic paths through countries that are not themselves American targets.”
via Raw Story » Pentagon Cyber Command seen as threat to civil liberties.
Author: Fitzgerald libel threat aimed at censoring key 9/11 tale
Author: Fitzgerald libel threat aimed at censoring key 9/11 tale
Powerful prosecutor’s efforts to suppress book virtually guarantees elevated sales
Peter Lance should be thanking Patrick Fitzgerald right now, even as the attorney’s checks are being signed.
If it were not for the U.S. Attorney who famously prosecuted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former Vice President’s Chief of Staff, the re-release of Lance’s stunning tale of mishandled espionage leading up to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, might be overlooked.
The former ABC News investigative reporter’s book Triple Cross hit relatively few shelves in 2006 as a hardcover and left retail quietly, almost completely ignored. Now, with its paperback release looming, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is threatening to sue over material which he calls “defamatory” and “easily proven to be objectively false,” some of which touches on little known information relating to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Because of the threat, the reissue of Triple Cross received attention from The Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, among others.
“That’s the lesson of censorship,” chided Lance, speaking to RAW STORY.
The dark plots of Ali Mohamed
via Raw Story » Author: Fitzgerald libel threat aimed at censoring key 9/11 tale.
Lieberman Says He’s ‘Pleasantly Encouraged’ By Obama, But Disagrees With His Middle East And Health Care Agenda
OPS: Red Flag!
Lieberman Says He’s ‘Pleasantly Encouraged’ By Obama, But Disagrees With His Middle East And Health Care Agenda
In an interview with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) — who campaigned hard against President Obama during the 2008 election and supported his Republican challenger John McCain — said that he’s impressed with how Obama is handling the job.
“Put me down now as pleasantly encouraged by the first five months,” Lieberman said. “He has been strong, particularly on foreign policy. I think President Obama is off to a very, very good start in a very difficult time in our nation’s history.” Lieberman lauded Obama’s recent Cairo speech to the Muslim world, saying it was a “significant step overall. … My guess is he opened some minds in the Muslim world.”
Despite the laudatory comments of Obama’s foreign policy vision, Lieberman offered criticism of the president’s efforts to urge Israel to stop its settlement activities. “I thought the focus on the President’s direct call in that speech in Cairo for the Israelis to freeze all settlement activity — including the ‘natural growth‘ of settlements that everybody agrees are no longer settlements — …that was risky in the sense that it may lead listeners to believe that the main reason there is not an Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is the Israeli settlement policy,” he said:
HUNT: Do you disagree then with the President and Secretary Clinton that there ought to be a freeze — no growth in those settlements now?
LIEBERMAN: I do. I disagree.
Watch it:
Tom Tancredo talking with Ed Schultz on Healthcare:
OPS: Isn’t that exactly the point !?
from Ed Schultz TV show 6/8/09Tom Tancredo arguing with Ed on Healthcare:
~~~
Four Reasons Why the Public Health Care Option is Irrefutable
OPS: There is a 5th point he left out. The Government doesn’t pay obscene salaries and bonus’s. Like United Health CEO William McGuire. They have paid him more than $1.5 billion in compensation. How many people were denied coverage in order to cover this?
Four Reasons Why the Public Health Care Option is Irrefutable
I’m not a healthcare wonk. Of course, I want the 46 million uninsured Americans to get coverage, but they have not been my primary concern in healthcare reform (even though I have been among the uninsured many times in my life). I have to admit I’m being a bit selfish here because I mainly want to have less expensive health insurance that still gives me decent coverage.
Why? Because these healthcare costs are killing us. It significantly impacts our family’s life. We’re just like everyone else, getting crushed under these bills. And what drives me crazy is that after paying more than any other country in the world, we get the 37th best coverage. That’s unacceptable. We need to change this system.
This is why I’m in favor of the public option. I need lower bills. Republicans are saying that the public option is unacceptable because it will be too cheap and too efficient, so private companies cannot keep up with it. Great!
Frankly, I don’t give a damn what happens to private insurance companies, I just want less expensive coverage that does the same job (or better). And that’s what the Republicans are telling me is going to happen.
Mitch McConnell literally said this weekend on Fox, “The private insurance people will not be able to compete with a government option.” Doesn’t this prove that the private insurance companies will not be able to do as good a job as the government? Then step aside, Butch.
via The Young Turks: Four Reasons Why the Public Health Care Option is Irrefutable.
The Financial Crisis Presents a Huge Opportunity for Change — We Can’t Let Obama Blow It
Naomi Klein: The Financial Crisis Presents a Huge Opportunity for Change — We Can’t Let Obama Blow It
By Naomi Klein,
There is nothing undemocratic about pushing through a set of radical policies that will actually solve the crisis.
The above is the text of Naomi Klein’s speech to the Momentum Plenary at the America’s Future Now conference in Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity.
[The previous speech by activist Gabriela Sanchez] made me think of this idea of whether we should have Obama’s back, or whether we should be pushing him further. You know Bob says both, and I think that’s a good answer, but I also want to say something else, which is, Rahm Emanuel has Barack Obama’s back. He is a great politician, Obama. He’s doing fine and has people like Gabriela Sanchez and the people who work with her, who need us to have their back. It’s a basic principle. A solidarity.
The president of the most powerful country in the world is doing all right. But there are a lot of people in this country who are not doing all right, and we need to rediscover these basic principles of solidarity in this moment more than any other.
There’s another reason for having Obama’s back when he gets criticized, which is the corporate media in this country is insane. This city is crazy; I don’t know if you know this. So he gets attacked for all kinds of things — everything — including many, many things that are not at all progressive.
Conspiracy as Prophecy
Conspiracy as Prophecy
What is New World Order conspiracy theory and how is it spreading through our society?
A few weeks ago I spoke at an event sponsored by one of the local chapters of the American Jewish Committee and emphasized the growing dangers of New World Order Conspiracy theories. Included in my presentation were video clips and examples of the rapid mainstreaming of this conspiracy storyline. However, my presentation was not focused on white supremacist groups but Christian Zionist leaders who freely and openly disseminate this paranoid conspiracy to millions worldwide in the guise of end times prophecy.
The press is focusing on the manifestations of hatred by white supremacist groups as opposed to the narrative through which they teach their hateful obsession with Jews. This “New World Order” narrative, as well as the process through which this narrative is transmitted to others, is an important part of understanding the growing epidemic of paranoid conspiracy theories. The narrative is not just about indulging in hatred of “the other” but a cohesive storyline about the battle between good and evil in society. This narrative can be disseminated in religious or secular versions, and can be told in an anti-Semitic or “philo-Semitic” millennial frame. But the basic storyline of world control by an interconnected and demonic cabal remains the same. Understanding this narrative can help to explain a question that numerous commentators posed this week, as they wondered why the election of our first African American president could bring about an increase in anti-Semitic violence.
This is not an attempt to compare Christian Zionists to white supremacists, but to address a question brought to the attention of the public through recent shootings by paranoid conspiracy believers. What is New World Order conspiracy and how is this conspiracy theory growing so rapidly in our society? Even with the internet, white supremacists have a limited audience due to their overt hatemongering. James von Brunn’s writing, for example, could only appeal to someone who is already an overt anti-Semite and racist. So, how does this New World Order narrative reached a much larger audience? Is this nation filled with latent anti-Semites?
I do not believe that. I think that millions of the people exposed to this New World Order conspiracy are well intentioned and are being drawn into this paranoid conspiracy in the name of defending all that is holy and good from an attack by demonic forces. This is why it is so important to look at the parallels of the New World Order conspiracy theory narrative and not just its current manifestations. This includes looking at the remarkable similarities between the New World Order conspiracy of white supremacist groups and that of Christian Zionist end times prophecy, however unpopular this may be. And we need to look now, while well intentioned Americans can learn where this conspiracy originated and where it leads. It is too late to pretend that it is only flourishing with white supremacists.
via Talk To Action | Conspiracy as Prophecy.
Obama Administration Seeks To Keep Torture Victims From Having Day In Court
American Civil Liberties Union :
Obama Administration Seeks To Keep Torture Victims From Having Day In Court (6/12/2009)
Justice Department Asks Court For Rehearing In Extraordinary Rendition Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
NEW YORK – The Justice Department today argued that the victims of the “extraordinary rendition” program should not have their day in court, asking a federal appeals court to block a landmark case the court had earlier ruled could go forward. In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., for its role in the Bush administration’s unlawful “extraordinary rendition” program could proceed, but today the government asked the appeals court’s full panel of judges to rehear that decision.
“The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions,” said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the case for the plaintiffs. “The CIA’s rendition and torture program is not a ‘state secret;’ it’s an international scandal. If the Obama administration has its way, no torture victim will ever have his day in court, and future administrations will be free to pursue torture policies without any fear of liability.”
In April, the appeals court reversed a lower court dismissal of the lawsuit, brought on behalf of five men who were kidnapped, forcibly disappeared and secretly transferred to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture. The Bush administration had intervened, improperly asserting the “state secrets” privilege to have the case thrown out. The appeals court ruled, as the ACLU has argued, that the government must invoke the “state secrets” privilege with respect to specific evidence, not to dismiss the entire suit.
“The extraordinary rendition program is well known throughout the world. The only place it hasn’t been discussed is where it most cries out for examination – in a U.S. court of law,” said Steven Watt, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. “Attempts to keep this case from moving forward fly in the face of Obama’s promise to reaffirm our commitment to domestic and international human rights law and restore an America we can be proud of. Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court.”
US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive
OPS: Social Engineering with a D9 Cat? New Orleans on this list too? So if you bulldoze the poor parts of the cities you get the 1930′s style Grapes of Wrath forced migrations? To where?
US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive - Telegraph
Dozens of US cities may have entire neighbourhoods bulldozed as part of drastic “shrink to survive” proposals being considered by the Obama administration to tackle economic decline.
The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.
Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.
he radical experiment is the brainchild of Dan Kildee, treasurer of Genesee County, which includes Flint.
Having outlined his strategy to Barack Obama during the election campaign, Mr Kildee has now been approached by the US government and a group of charities who want him to apply what he has learnt to the rest of the country.
via US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive – Telegraph.
Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic
OPS: Isn’t this how the Andromeda Strain got started?
Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic
PhDs have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem, and this 16-year-old finds the answer.
via Boy discovers microbe that eats plastic | MNN – Mother Nature Network.
Meet the ‘Experts’ Shaping New Social Studies Curriculum in Texas
Meet the ‘Experts’ Shaping New Social Studies Curriculum in Texas
We are delighted to welcome Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network back for another eye opening guest post about the role of the Religious Right in Texas public education. — FC
Rumors began circulating earlier this spring that the faction of social conservatives controlling the Texas State Board of Education was moving to pack a key “expert” review panel for the social studies curriculum revision with like-minded ideologues (as reported in previous posts here and at TFNInsider). At last, the names of all the “expert” panelists are finally public. As with the panel of science “experts” the board appointed last year (a list that included several “intelligent design” proponents affiliated with the Discovery Institute), it appears that the social studies panel will be evenly split between mainstream academics and ideologues who advocate a “Christian nation” agenda.
The three mainstream academics on the panel are Jesus Francisco de la Teja of Texas State University, Jim Kracht of Texas A&M, and Lybeth Hodges of Texas Woman’s University. The three ideologues aligned with the board’s religious right faction are David Barton, the Rev. Peter Marshall, and Daniel Dreisbach.
Even a casual look at the vita for each of these “experts” makes clear grossly unequal qualifications. That examination also reveals the agenda of the board’s Christian right faction: use the social studies curriculum to promote a political argument against separation of church and state.
So let’s look at each of the so-called “experts” who will guide the revision of social studies standards for an entire generation of children in Texas public schools.
via Talk To Action | Meet the ‘Experts’ Shaping New Social Studies Curriculum in Texas.
Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim – Americas, World
Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim - The Independent
Church excommunicates mother and doctors – but not accused rapist
Declaring that “life must always be protected”, a senior Vatican cleric has defended the Catholic Church’s decision to excommunicate the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old rape victim who had a life-saving abortion in Brazil.
Cardinal Giovanni Batista Re, who heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told reporters that although the girl fell pregnant after apparently being abused by her stepfather, her twins had, “the right to live, and could not be eliminated”.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, the cardinal added: “It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons. Life must always be protected.”
via Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim – Americas, World – The Independent.
The Current Battle Against State Secrets Privilege
The Current Battle Against State Secrets Privilege – by Sibel Edmonds
‘Sanitization’ is Not the Answer
During the past few months I have been actively following the latest activity on the state secrets privilege (SSP). First, I was pleasantly surprised to see that this issue of extreme importance to our civil liberties and constitutional rights was finally getting long-over-due and deserved attention from the media. After all, the memories of fighting SSP in the federal courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, holding press conferences together with the ACLU to bring needed media attention to this draconian abuse, making the rounds in Congress to have them address this ‘privilege’ through legislation to restrict its misuse and abuse, are still fresh and vivid for me.
Then I started detecting some troubling common trends showing up in media reports and subsequently in discussions and statements within Congress. The most suspicious of these came in the form of sanitizing major SSP abuse cases from reports put forth by both the mainstream media and some in alternative publications. The first invocation of the SSP by the Bush Administration was in my case. Back then, if you had done a Google search on ‘state secrets privilege’ you would have come up with only ‘7’ results; three of them repeats. After successfully getting away with SSP invocation in my case, the administration opened the flood gates for others. Now I invite you to search all the archived news reports on SSP in the last year or so. As you will see, in every single report in which the abuses of SSP and its history are cited, you will not find this first case; my case. Further, if you were to look for other major abuses of SSP, such as the Barlow Case, you will find none. The valid cases cited are mainly limited to:
via Dissident Voice : The Current Battle Against State Secrets Privilege.
Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer can be sued over torture
OPS: Well, Boo Hoo Yoo
Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer can be sued over torture
A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White’s decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees.
“Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct,” White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla’s lawsuit against Yoo.
If Padilla, now serving a 17-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, can prove his allegations, he can show that Yoo “set in motion a series of events that resulted in the deprivation of Padilla’s constitutional rights,” White said.
White, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, noted that Padilla’s lawsuit accuses Yoo of helping to design administration policy on detention and torture, and then crafting legal opinions to justify it – stepping outside the usual role of a lawyer.
via Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer can be sued over torture.
Kucinich Grills Ken Lewis on Fed Emails – And makes him Squirm
OPS: This is a fun video!
Former Bank of America CEO, Ken Lewis, testified June 11, 2009 to congress about the BOAs merger with Merrill Lynch. During the hearing Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, challenged Lewis to be more forthcoming about his dealings with the Federal Reserve during the merger. Specifically Kucinich cited emails from Fed officials saying Lewis had asked government officials to provide a letter saying that they had in fact ordered Lewis to merge with the struggling financial firm, Merrill Lynch, because Lewis feared lawsuits from company shareholders if the merger led to company losses. Lewis said he did not recall asking for such a letter. After the hearing Kucinich told reporters that Lewis testimony could put the former CEO in legal jeopardy.
YouTube – Kucinich Grills Ken Lewis on Fed Emails.
Obama wants new cuts in federal health spending
OPS: Obama knows full well that voluntary changes are bullshit. He also knows that the real cost savings is via Single Payer. This is nothing but smokescreen. Profits before people. Status quo before sound business practices. The health care industry join forces to trample any and all proposals that cause them to restructure.
Obama wants new cuts in federal health spending
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is seeking to help pay for his health care plan by sharply reducing the government’s medical spending, mainly by trimming payments to prescription drugmakers, hospitals and other care providers.
His ambitions are thick but the details thin; the president and his aides said specific ways for achieving the cuts will be decided later. The negotiations could trigger fierce political battles between powerful industries trying to protect their profits.
Overhauling the nation’s health care system is one of Obama’s biggest ambitions, and lawmakers are working on a variety of plans. A top goal is to reduce costs in the government’s largest medical programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which cover millions of elderly and low-income Americans and involve thousands of doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions.
In his weekly Internet and radio address Saturday, Obama proposed cutting $313 billion from the programs over 10 years. That’s in addition to the $635 billion “down payment” in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system that he announced earlier.
via Obama wants new cuts in federal health spending – Yahoo! News.
Peru: Massive protests against García government over Amazon massacre
Peru: Massive protests against García government over Amazon massacre
A wave of mass demonstrations and marches swept across the whole of Peru Thursday in popular repudiation of the government’s massacre of Amazon Indians last week.
Indigenous people from the Amazon region, miners, Andean peasants, urban workers, including major contingents of teachers, construction workers and other sectors, were joined by university and high school students in what constituted the largest action yet against discredited three-year-old government of APRA party President Alan García.
The protests were met with police violence in various cities, including the capital of Lima.
The day of mass action expressed the outrage of masses of Peruvians over the García government’s ordering of a violent police attack June 5 against Amazon Indians who had been blockading the Fernando Belaúnde Terry highway near the northern city of Bagua. The violence left scores of people dead and hundreds wounded.
via Peru: Massive protests against García government over Amazon massacre.
The Truth About Health Care Reform
The Truth About Health Care Reform
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”
We want health care equality. We also want our health care to be more affordable and better quality. To achieve all of that, we will need to reform our current system by retooling the methods of financing. By changing the way that health care is paid for, single payer health care can eradicate the disparities and inequalities while simultaneously improving quality of care for everyone. This increase in quality will also cost less. I’m eager to talk to you about how this can only be accomplished with single payer.But before I do, let me clarify something very important. Single payer health care is very different from socialized medicine. The two are just not the same. Single payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.
Are you (at least a little) confused by the many different health care reform proposals you are hearing about in the news? If so, let’s sort it out together. Follow me!
via The Truth About Health Care Reform (Everyday Citizen).
Disappearing Disability Insurance Fails Family
Disappearing Disability Insurance Fails Family
There’s no question that Jay Thompson is disabled.
Three years, at age 44, he developed ALS — Lou Gehrig’s disease. Now he lays immobilized in a hospital bed.
So the question is: What happened to his disability insurance?
“We believed that it would take care of him,” said his wife Theresa.
Jay worked 26 years for AT&T, where he had a company policy for long term disability. When he literally started falling down on the job, AT&T put him on disability and helped him work out a financial plan to pay the bills and care for his wife and four daughters. Jay says that plan combined disability payments with money from his pension fund.
“For the first several months, no problem, we were receiving the checks,” Theresa said.
Until a notice arrived.
“I got the letter while he was in the hospital,” recalled Theresa, who has to speak for both of them since Jay lost his speech. “He had an infection and a fever.”
The letter said Jay’s disability payments would drop from $3000 a month to zero. Why? AT&T claimed Jay wasn’t eligible for disability payments because he was getting too much money from his pension — something his wife says the couple couldn’t understand.
“So I called them, like this, very upset,” said Theresa, starting to cry. “I said please don’t do this right now.”
But that wasn’t all.
via Disappearing Disability Insurance Fails Family – cbs5.com.
US cuts aid to Nicaragua
US cuts aid to Nicaragua
The United States on Wednesday canceled more than $60 million in assistance to Nicaragua, citing concerns about democracy, rule of law and a free market economy in the Latin American nation now led by a former Marxist guerrilla leader.
The board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. taxpayer-funded operation set up by former President George W. Bush to fight poverty in developing nations, said it had cut $62 million from a $175 million program for Nicaragua because of problems in recent elections.
“This decision is made with deep disappointment, as our partnership with Nicaragua has yielded tremendous progress over the past years in reducing poverty through innovative economic growth projects,” said Rodney Bent, the corporation’s chief executive.
IRS: Company cell phone + personal calls = more taxes for you
IRS: Company cell phone + personal calls = more taxes for you
Make any personal calls on that company cell phone? That’s a “fringe benefit” of your job, according to a 20-year-old law, and the IRS is looking to collect.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the IRS wants to step up enforcement of the 1989 law, which holds that employees who make personal calls on a company cell phone are getting a “fringe benefit” from their employers—a benefit that should count as taxable income.
The law has been “long ignored” by employees and employers alike, according to the Journal, namely because most companies don’t have the time or the inclination to tabulate exactly how many minutes you’re on the phone with clients versus how often you’re gabbing with friends and family.
But now, the IRS is floating a couple of proposals to make compliance easier—for employers, anyway. One would be to simply treat 25 percent of your company cell phone bill as a “fringe”—and therefore taxable—benefit, the Journal reports. Or, an employer could use “statistical sampling” to guesstimate how many of your cell minutes are work-related and which aren’t.
OK, but what if you swear on a stack of bibles that you rarely, if ever, use your company phone for personal calls? That’s fine, the IRS says—but you’ll have to produce separate work and personal cell phone bills to prove it.
via IRS: Company cell phone + personal calls = more taxes for you : Ben Patterson : Yahoo! Tech.
Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.
Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.
Joe and I have been trying since last night to get a copy of the government’s brief just filed in this case. This is not the GLAD case that we’ve written about previously, it’s another in California.
We just got the brief from reader Lavi Soloway. It’s pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush’s top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn’t just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn’t motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn’t be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn’t discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can’t).
He actually argued that the courts shouldn’t consider Loving v. Virginia, the miscegenation case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban interracial marriages, when looking at gay civil rights cases. He told the court, in essence, that blacks deserve more civil rights than gays, that our civil rights are not on the same level.
El Pollo Loco has a beef with KFC’s grilled chicken
El Pollo Loco has a beef with KFC’s grilled chicken – Los Angeles Times
The Costa Mesa-based restaurant chain says competitor KFC uses beef products in the marinade for its grilled chicken, and plans to play up that fact in a new advertising campaign.
Here’s the beef: It’s in KFC chicken.
The marinade on the chain’s new grilled chicken contains beef powder and rendered beef fat. And competitor El Pollo Loco wants you to know every finger-licking detail.
In one television commercial, Carley stands in a cow pasture and talks about a “fun fact” concerning KFC’s grilled chicken, then discloses the beef ingredients.
KFC pitches “a new secret blend of herbs and spices” when it talks about its recently introduced grilled chicken. To learn what’s in that secret blend, you have to turn to Page 14 of a 37-page ingredient document posted by KFC on its website.
That disclosure is “more than adequate,” said Rick Maynard, spokesman of the Louisville, Ky., chain, which has 5,200 restaurants nationally.
via El Pollo Loco has a beef with KFC’s grilled chicken – Los Angeles Times.
Key health care senators have industry ties
Key health care senators have industry ties
WASHINGTON – Influential senators working to overhaul the nation’s health care system have investments and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, the lawmaker in charge of writing the Senate’s bill, sits on the boards of four health care companies.
Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin, in addition to Dodd, and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatch, financial reports showed Friday. .
Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of the Connecticut Democrat, is on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals.
Dodd is filling in for ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will soon start work on a health care bill.
Other publicly available documents show Mrs. Dodd last year was one of the most highly compensated non-employee members of the Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. board, on which she has served since 2004. She earned $32,000 in fees and $109,587 in stock option awards last year, according to the company’s SEC filings.
via Key health care senators have industry ties – Yahoo! News.
Sarah Palin Is the One Who Is Subjecting Her Children to Public Scrutiny, Not David Letterman
OPS: Looking like like the Reich is actually going to try and bring down Letterman. Should be interesting
Sarah Palin Is the One Who Is Subjecting Her Children to Public Scrutiny, Not David Letterman
The Palin theory that Willow could not be mistaken for Bristol might be disproved when you see their family Christmas photo from 2007.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Chad Rubel
If you don’t think Sarah Palin is dangerous — and chances are, you are already do — what she and her husband Todd pulled off this week is just the latest chapter in “Which Palin family member will be sacrificed to make Sarah Palin look like a martyr.”
She got a significant percentage of the population to think David Letterman was actually making a sex joke about a 14-year-old girl and got Letterman to apologize profusely for something he never did.
Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News put it best when talking to Keith Olbermann last night on “Countdown.”
“David Letterman did not drag the 14-year-old daughter into this. The Palins dragged the 14-year-old daughter into it. And it was absolutely egregious. And they obviously hunger for this kind of melodrama.”
Just about anybody — literally — understood that when Letterman made the jokes about Alex Rodriguez and Eliot Spitzer, he was talking about Bristol, not Willow. If by some chance you believe Willow was the target, the jokes don’t make sense, and Rodriguez and Spitzer would have excellent libel suits ready and willing to file against the late-night comedian.
But we haven’t heard from the Yankees 3rd baseman or the former New York governor. Why? Because they know who the joke was about, and it wasn’t about a 14-year-old girl.
SF To Impose Fines For Wasted Food Scraps
San Francisco Wasted Food Fines: Waste Not, Want Not
OPS: Food Police?
SAN FRANCISCO — Trash collectors in San Francisco will soon be doing more than just gathering garbage: They’ll be keeping an eye out for people who toss food scraps out with their rubbish.
San Francisco this week passed a mandatory composting law that is believed to be the strictest such ordinance in the nation. Residents will be required to have three color-coded trash bins, including one for recycling, one for trash and a new one for compost _ everything from banana peels to coffee grounds.
The law makes San Francisco the leader yet again in environmentally friendly measures, following up on other green initiatives such as banning plastic bags at supermarkets.
Food scraps sent to a landfill decompose fast and turn into methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas. Under the new system, collected scraps will be turned into compost that helps area farms and vineyards flourish. The city eventually wants to eliminate waste at landfills by 2020.
via San Francisco Wasted Food Fines: Waste Not, Want Not.
Will Big Ag plow under Waxman-Markey?
Will Big Ag plow under Waxman-Markey?
As the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill moves forward in the House, Big Ag interest groups are circling their plows and sharpening their pitchforks. Some of the largest corporations in the agribusiness sector—including the GMO-and-herbicide giant Monsanto—are pushing to control how agriculture would fit into the bill’s cap-and-trade scheme.
The main agent for their will is House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who has launched a veritable jihad to make sure the historic climate legislation hews to the interests of “production” (i.e., industrial) agriculture. Via Farm Policy blog, here’s an MP3 clip of Peterson’s latest harumphing on Waxman-Markey, in an interview with a radio program called Agritalk, which is sponsored by Monsanto, Syngenta, and Archer Daniels Midland.
Peterson has vowed to line up 35 to 40 Democratic representatives from ag-heavy states to vote against the bill on the House floor if his agenda isn’t accepted—giving him something close to de facto veto power. In the AgriTalk segment, Peterson says, “I don’t think it [Waxman-Markey] has the votes” to prevail on the House floor. Translation: If I don’t get what I want, I’m squashing it.
via Will Big Ag plow under Waxman-Markey? | Grist.
Ditch ‘warming’ and start talking ‘deteriorating atmosphere,’ PR firm says | Grist
Ditch ‘warming’ and start talking ‘deteriorating atmosphere,’ PR firm says
The non-profit PR shop ecoAmerica finally released the findings of its public opinion research today, bringing a trove of information about how on-the-fence Americans respond to different messages about climate change and energy.
The firm conducted an impressive amount of research in February through March—focus groups, a phone survey, an online survey—all focused on finding better talking points for wooing folks who are undecided about this whole global warming/clean energy/green jobs business.
This was the report whose summary was accidently sent to a bunch of media outlets after a White House briefing from ecoAmerica in April, leading to a not-very-flattering story in the New York Times. The story suggested it’s cynical to try to sell the climate crisis the way you’d sell toothpaste, and it’s true that the report wholeheartedly embraces a public-relations way of looking at things:
via Ditch ‘warming’ and start talking ‘deteriorating atmosphere,’ PR firm says | Grist.
Soros: Ban Credit Default Swaps
Soros slams ‘instruments of destruction’
The billionaire investor tells a banking conference that credit default swaps should not be traded at all.
BEIJING (Reuters) — Credit default swaps are “instruments of destruction” that should be outlawed, billionaire investor George Soros said on Friday.
Soros said the asymmetry of risk and reward embedded in CDS exerted so much downward pressure on the bonds underlying the contracts that companies and financial institutions could be brought to their knees.
“Some derivatives ought not to be allowed to be traded at all. I have in mind credit default swaps. The more I’ve heard about them, the more I’ve realized they’re truly toxic,” he told a banking conference.
“CDS are instruments of destruction which ought to be outlawed,” Soros told a meeting of the Institute of International Finance, many of whose member banks and financial institutions are active participants in the huge CDS market.
via Ban CDS as “instruments of destruction” – Soros – Jun. 12, 2009.
Will torture probe target Bush officials? Top Dem says ’stand by’
Will torture probe target Bush officials? Top Dem says ’stand by’
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on MSNBC that while the Senate has indeed been examining finer details of CIA torture authorized by the Bush administration, “chain of command” issues are still to come.
“So, I guess, stand by,” he told Rachel Maddow on Thursday night.
“We know [the intelligence committee is getting] a comprehensive look at what happened to those high-value detainees,” said Maddow. “Does it only look at what the CIA did, or will it look at the chain of command? Whether or not instruction came from the White House, the Office of the Vice President [...] ?”
“We’re not at the stage yet in the investigation, where those chain of command issues are yet raised,” he said. “I hope, very much, that it will [be]. I believe [evidence] implicates chain of command issues and I think that that’s a critical question.”
“But, it’s not what the intelligence committee is looking at right now?” Maddow queried. “And, we should not expect that, that will be in the intelligence committee’s report when it comes out in six months or so?”
via Raw Story » Will torture probe target Bush officials? Top Dem says ’stand by’.
Powell Memo:
OPS: Here is a major reason why we are so far down this Rabbit hole
The Powell Memo
(also known as the Powell Manifesto)
Powell Memo published August 23, 1971
This page and our introduction were published April 3, 2004
Introduction
In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”
Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.
via Powell Memo: Text and Analysis.
Baucus: We Might Replace The Public Health Insurance Option With A Co-op
OPS: ANY BS to kill Single Payer 
Baucus: We Might Replace The Public Health Insurance Option With A Co-op
On Tuesday, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) floated the idea of replacing a public health insurance option with consumer-owned health cooperatives that would “be subject to the same standards [as private plans],” and now Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has indicated that he is “inclined toward a co-op”:
“I am inclined, and I think the committee is inclined, toward a co-op,” Mr. Baucus said.“It’s not going to be public, we won’t call it public, but it will be tough enough to keep insurance companies’ feet to the fire,” Mr. Baucus said of the co-op.
Conrad’s proposal would establish regional or state-based entities that, upon enrolling enough individuals, would either self-insure or contract out to a third-party administrator. In this sense, a co-op would act like just another non-profit health insurance plan and would have no ability to improve health quality by championing payment innovations or other delivery system reforms.
via Wonk Room » Baucus: We Might Replace The Public Health Insurance Option With A Co-op.
Angered By His Holocaust Museum Shooting Coverage, The Far Right Goes After Shepard Smith
OPS: Proving once again that teh Rabid Right is willing to eat it’s young
Angered By His Holocaust Museum Shooting Coverage, The Far Right Goes After Shepard Smith
On Wednesday, Fox News’ Shepard Smith responded to the tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum by a white supremacist by saying that it was time to re-think the Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism that conservatives disparaged. “The right went absolutely bonkers!” said Smith, adding that the report was a “warning to us all” and that DHS was “warning us for a reason.”
Later in the day, Smith said that the e-mail he’s been receiving from viewers has become “more and more frightening.” “It’s been happening over the last few months,” said Smith. “There are people now who are way out there on a limb.” Watch it:
Boehner: Republicans ‘took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney.’
Boehner: Republicans ‘took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney.’
In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) pinned the blame for his party’s current failures on the Bush presidency:
“We’re digging ourselves out of a deep hole,” he admitted. “We took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney, the Iraq War, and by sacrificing fiscal responsibility to hold power.”
Boehner has only to blame to himself. He voted to authorize use of military force against Iraq, and voted against a House-approved Iraq withdrawal in 2007. He also voted for the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which were largely responsible for turning our nation’s surplus into a massive deficit. As Boehner himself said in 2006, “I think that Republicans ought to stand up and support George W. Bush for the job that he’s done.” (HT: Political Wire)
via Think Progress » Boehner: Republicans ‘took it in the shorts with Bush-Cheney.’.
Oil and Indians Don’t Mix
Oil and Indians Don’t Mix
by Greg Palast
There’s an easy way to find oil. Go to some remote and gorgeous natural sanctuary, say Alaska or the Amazon, find some Indians, then drill down under them.
If the indigenous folk complain, well, just shoo-them away. Shoo-ing methods include: bulldozers, bullets, crooked politicians and fake land sales.
But be aware. Lately the Natives are shoo-ing back. Last week, indigenous Peruvians seized an oil pumping station, grabbed the nine policemen guarding it and, say reports, executed them. This followed the government’s murder of more than a dozen rainforest residents who had protested the seizure of their property for oil drilling.
Again and again I see it in my line of work of investigating fraud. Here are a few pit-stops on the oily trail of tears:
In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly’s oil tank in Oklahoma. Here’s the weird part. Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.
Stanlee Ann wasn’t Koch’s only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation
where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.
via Greg Palast » Oil and Indians Don’t Mix.
Judge Finds It Legal for Police to Taser Suspect to Get DNA Sample
Judge Finds It Legal for Police to Taser Suspect to Get DNA Sample
LOCKPORT, N.Y. (CN) – It’s legal for police to zap a suspect with a Taser to get a DNA sample, as long as it’s not done “maliciously, or to an excessive extent, or with resulting injury,” a Niagara County judge has ruled in what appears to be the first case of its kind.
New York Supreme Court Judge Sara Sperrazza ruled it was not unconstitutional for Niagara Falls police to shock Ryan Smith with a 50,000-volt “drive stun” to get a DNA sample that allegedly links him to two crimes. She denied Smith’s request to have the evidence thrown out.
One month before he was Tasered, Smith provided a DNA sample, taken with a swab of the cheek, without protest. It was sent to the wrong lab and opened, compromising the sample. When officers ordered him to give another one, he refused.
Prosecutors asked Sperrazza for another court order, which she signed.
Smith, 21, of Niagara Falls, was not represented by an attorney at the time, which meant he had to be personally made aware of the order, according to his lawyer Patrick Balkin. Balkin he said his client already had given police several samples.
Smith was grabbed on the street by two detectives and brought to police headquarters.
Lilly Sold Drug for Dementia Knowing It Didn’t Help, Files Show
Lilly Sold Drug for Dementia Knowing It Didn’t Help, Files Show
June 12 (Bloomberg) — Eli Lilly & Co. urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for elderly patients with dementia, an unapproved use for the antipsychotic, even though the drugmaker had evidence the medicine didn’t work for such patients, according to unsealed internal company documents.
In 1999, four years after Lilly sent study results to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing Zyprexa didn’t alleviate dementia symptoms in older patients, it began marketing the drug to those very people, according to documents unsealed in insurer suits against the company for overpayment.
Regulators required Lilly and other antipsychotic drug- makers in April 2005 to warn that the products posed an increased risk to elderly patients with dementia. The documents show the health dangers in marketing a drug for an unapproved use, called off-label promotion, said Sidney Wolfe, head of the health research group at Public Citizen in Washington.
“By definition, off-label means there is no clear evidence that the benefits of a drug outweigh the risks,” Wolfe said. “The reason why off-label promotion is illegal is that you can greatly magnify the number of people who will be harmed.”
via Lilly Sold Drug for Dementia Knowing It Didn’t Help, Files Show – Bloomberg.com.
Coal Ash Spills Too Dangerous To Reveal To Public, Says DHS (VIDEO)
Coal Ash Spills Too Dangerous To Reveal To Public, Says DHS (VIDEO)
Just how bad has the coal ash situation gotten in the United States? So bad that the Department of Homeland Security has told Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that her committee can’t publicly disclose the location of coal ash dumps across the country.
The pollution is so toxic, so dangerous, that an enemy of the United States — or a storm or some other disrupting event — could easily cause them to spill out and lay waste to any area nearby.
There are 44 sites deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency to be high hazard, but Boxer said she isn’t allowed to talk about them other than to senators in the states affected. “There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff,” she said.
“Homeland Security and the Army Corps [of Engineers] have decided in the interests of national security they can’t make these sites known,” she said.
There are several hundred coal ash piles across the nation, she said, all of them unregulated.
“If these coal ash piles were to fail they’d pose a threat to the people nearby,” she said. While keeping it from the public, DHS is alerting first responders as to the location of the piles.
via Coal Ash Spills Too Dangerous To Reveal To Public, Says DHS (VIDEO).
Conyers Rips Rangel, Waxman for Backing Off Single Payer
Conyers Rips Rangel, Waxman for Backing Off Single Payer | CommonDreams.org
John Conyers (D-Michigan) was not happy last night with his colleagues Charles Rangel (D-New York) and Henry Waxman (D-California).
Conyers is sponsor of the single payer bill (HR 676) in the House.
The bill has 79 co-sponsors.
Rangel and Waxman were co-sponsors last year.
But they are not co-sponsors this year.
Rangel, Waxman and George Miller (D-California) each chair committees that will be hearing health care reform proposals.
Only Miller is cooperating with Conyers – remaining a co-sponsor of HR 676 and holding hearings.
In fact, Miller’s committee today held the first ever Congressional hearing on HR 676.
Conyers spoke last night on Capitol Hill at a dinner in honor of outgoing Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.
via Conyers Rips Rangel, Waxman for Backing Off Single Payer | CommonDreams.org.
The Financial Meltdown: “We will never know the true inside story of what really went on”
The Financial Meltdown: “We will never know the true inside story of what really went on”
On Friday, we had the latest edition of the FDIC “Friday Night Financial Follies” as regulators on Friday shut down Bank of Lincolnwood, a small bank in Illinois, marking the 37th failure this year of a federally insured bank. More are expected to succumb amid the pressures of the weak economy and mounting loan defaults.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the failed bank, based in Lincolnwood, Ill., which had about $214 million in assets and $202 million in deposits as of May 26.
All of Bank of Lincolnwood’s deposits will be assumed by Republic Bank of Chicago, based in Oak Brook, Ill., which also agreed to buy about $162 million of the bank’s assets; the FDIC will retain the rest for eventual sale. Bank of Lincolnwood’s two offices will reopen on Saturday as branches of Republic Bank of Chicago.
The FDIC estimates that the cost to the deposit insurance fund from the failure of Bank of Lincolnwood will be $83 million.
In a step that would substantially increase the price tag for Bernard L. Madoff’s long-running Ponzi scheme, lawyers for a group of his victims are asking a federal bankruptcy judge to reject the way their losses in the fraud are being calculated.
The customers insist that, by law, they should be given credit for the full value of the securities shown on the last account statements they received before Madoff’s arrest in mid-December, even though the statements were bogus and none of the trades were ever made. According to court filings, those account balances add up to more than $64 billion.
After months of private negotiations and Internet arguments, lawyers for these customers formally put the issue before the federal bankruptcy court in New York in a lawsuit filed late Friday evening, less than a month before the deadline for filing claims for compensation.
The approach they seek would produce a significantly higher tally of cash losses than the formula being used by the court-appointed trustee overseeing the claims process for the Securities Investor Protection Corp., a government-chartered agency financed by the brokerage industry.
via The Financial Meltdown: “We will never know the true inside story of what really went on”.
Enough with the Obamathon
Enough with the Obamathon – - Los Angeles Times
By Bill Maher
The president is on TV more than the ShamWow guy, but I want to see a little more action.
President Obama should just join the cast of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!” It’s not that farfetched; he’s been on everything else.
I’m still a fan, but there’s a fine line between being transparent and being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there’s Obama. He’s getting a puppy! He’s eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He’s taking the wife to Broadway and Paris — this is the best season of “The Bachelor” yet!
I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I caught myself saying to a friend, “Don’t tell me if he’s fixed the economy yet, I’m Tivo-ing it.”
Remember during the campaign when John McCain attacked Obama for acting like a celebrity and we all laughed at the grumpy old shellshocked fool? Well, it turns out he was right. Sorry, senator. I’m sending a nice gift basket of high-fiber muffins your way.
via Enough with the Obamathon – Los Angeles Times.
The healthcare industry isn’t going to play nice
The healthcare industry isn’t going to play nice - Salon News
The GOP and the medical establishment begin to push back on the public option, so Obama returns to the stump.
Barack Obama and his aides learned a simple lesson last year, in the seemingly endless 2008 presidential race: The guy is a very good campaigner. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that they sent him away from Washington on Thursday, out to the heartland of Wisconsin, to keep building support for reforming the healthcare system — and to tamp down the emerging resistance from the healthcare industry and the right.
Obama’s town hall looked like a political rally all the way, right down to the huge American flag draped behind him; just like last year, Obama interrupted himself to acknowledge people in the audience who waved at him, and just like last year, he charmed the crowd. “Do you need me to write a note?” he asked a man who told him he had brought his daughter, skipping her last day of school to attend the event. The president wrote it out while the man spoke, walking down from the stage to deliver it.
The president used the same campaign-style shtick to push his economic stimulus plan into law earlier this year. But as Congress gets ready to write sweeping healthcare legislation, it’s not clear whether this sales pitch will have the same outcome as the presidential campaign. Obama may have gotten big healthcare industry players to agree to talk about reforms, but now that things are actually moving, they’re not playing along as nicely as the White House hoped they would. “Remember how [healthcare interest groups] all wanted a seat at the table?” one consultant working on the issue said. “Well, now they’re all throwing their food.”
via The healthcare industry isn’t going to play nice | Salon News.
The Human Tracking Microchip
The Human Tracking Microchip
Saudi files for ‘killer’ tracking chip patent
A Saudi Arabian inventor has filed for a patent on a potentially lethal science fiction-style human tracking microchip, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) told The Local on Friday.
But the macabre innovation that enables remote killing will likely be denied copyright protection.
“While the application is still pending further paperwork on his part, the invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law – which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals,” spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told The Local from Munich.
The patent application – entitled “Implantation of electronic chips in the human body for the purposes of determining its geographical location” – was filed on October 30, 2007, but was only published until last week, or 18 months after submission as required by German law, she said.
“In recent times the number of people sought by security forces has increased,” the Jeddah-based inventor wrote in his summary.
The tiny electronic device, dubbed the “Killer Chip” by Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger, would be suited for tracking fugitives from justice, terrorists, illegal immigrants, criminals, political opponents, defectors, domestic help, and Saudi Arabians who don’t return home from pilgrimages.
“I apply for these reasons and for reasons of state security and the security of citizens,” the statement reads.
via The Human Tracking Microchip.
Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long-term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food
Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long-term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food
‘A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.’ – Ted Turner to Audubon Magazine, 1996
In an April 18th 2009 article on the development of GM-Food for the African continent, ‘Strange Fruit: Could genetically modified foods offer a solution to the world’s food crisis? the author mentions that the Rockefeller Foundation has recently set out to fund the process of ‘biofortified rice’ for third world nations, invented by a Swiss scientist named Ingo Potrykus.
In 2000 a Swiss scientist named Ingo Potrykus modified rice, adding a bacterial gene and two genes from the daffodil, to add Vitamin A to rice. His plan was to find an easy way of countering the vitamin deficiency which causes blindness in around half a million people, mainly children, every year. Half of them die within 12 months of going blind and others die of diseases such as malaria because the deficiency affects their immune system. Professor Potrykus called his invention Golden Rice.’
But there’s nothing recent about the Rockefeller Foundation’s involvement in the research and development of genetically enhanced rice, as we learn from a November 14, 2000 publication by the Rockefeller Foundation in which the director of Food Security of the Rockefeller Foundation Gary H. Toenniessen states that in the early 1990′s the Swiss scientist along with a colleague:
“…approached the Foundation. Dr. Ingo Potrykus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich was a specialist in plant genetic transformation and his lab was one of the first to genetically engineer rice. (…) These two scientists proposed to genetically engineer `rice with daffodil genes to produce nutritionally significant levels of beta-carotene in the rice endosperm. At a foundation-sponsored workshop, other scientists agreed that this task was difficult but achievable, and the effort was funded.’
Ten years later, it seems, the experiments had proven a great success. In a keynote speech by Rockefeller Foundation’s president Judith Rodin on October 17 2008, the speaker points out that the research concerning genetically engineered rice has been underway for at least 65 years- and all this time received the generous support of the Foundation’s deep pockets. Rodin explains:
via Beyond Golden Rice: The Rockefeller Foundation’s long-term agenda behind Genetically Modified Food.
Iran poll turnout ‘unprecedented’
Iran poll turnout ‘unprecedented’ - FT.com /
Some voting for first time in 30 years
Huge numbers of Iranians went to the polls to vote in hotly-contested presidential elections on Friday, with officials saying the turnout was “unprecedented”.
People gathered outside polling stations even before they opened at 8am, with long queues forming at mosques and schools across the country throughout the morning. Even in the affluent suburbs of northern Tehran, where people do not traditionally vote in great numbers, hundreds of people were still lining up to vote at 1pm.
Some people said they were voting for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the firebrand president who remains popular among Iran’s poor and in the provinces, is facing tough competition from Mir-Hossein Moussavi, a moderate who served as prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
via FT.com / In depth – Iran poll turnout ‘unprecedented’.
Undiscovered African Rainforest ‘Discovered On Google Earth’ (VIDEO)
OPS: of course it all over for this area now….poachers, Oil Companies, Mining companies…..
Mount Mabu: Undiscovered African Rainforest ‘Discovered On Google Earth’ (VIDEO)
Scientists are hailing the discovery of a patch of rainforest in northern Mozambique as one of the most significant finds in years.
via Mount Mabu: Undiscovered African Rainforest ‘Discovered On Google Earth’ (VIDEO).
Nuclear disaster averted by dirty laundry
OPS: So it was just another case of dumb luck – this time.
Nuclear disaster averted by dirty laundry - Telegraph
A radioactive leak that could have caused Britain’s worst nuclear disaster was only averted when a worker in an adjoining room spotted water as he sorted laundry, according to a newly-obtained official report.
More than 40,000 gallons of radioactive water leaked into the open when a 15ft crack appeared in a pipe leading to a cooling pond in the Sizewell A reactor in January 2007.
If the worker had not spotted it, the pool, which contained 5,000 spent uranium fuel rods, could have run dry, causing the rods to ignite which would have sparked a supercharged radioactive fire, it was claimed.
via Nuclear disaster averted by dirty laundry – Telegraph.
Obama Reasserts Support For Public Plan While AMA Backtracks On Opposition
Obama Reasserts Support For Public Plan While AMA Backtracks On Opposition
Speaking at a town hall in Green Bay Wisconsin, President Barack Obama addressed head on what is the hot debate of the day: whether a health reform overhaul should include a public option for health insurance.
“I also strongly believe that one of the options in the exchange should be a public insurance option,” Obama declared, in what was one of his most forceful statements of support since the health care debate began. “And the reason is not because we want a government takeover of health care. I’ve already said, if you’ve got a private plan that works for you, that’s great. But we want some competition. If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and it will help keep their prices down.”
The remarks came just several hours after the American Medical Association said it would oppose a public option for coverage. But in a reflection of just how delicate this debate has become, the 250,000 member physician group largely backtracked from its opposition later in the day.
via Obama Reasserts Support For Public Plan While AMA Backtracks On Opposition.
Senators who opposed tobacco bill received top dollar from industry
Senators who opposed tobacco bill received top dollar from industry | McClatchy
WASHINGTON — Among the 17 senators who voted against allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco are some of the top recipients of campaign contributions from the tobacco industry, which has donated millions of dollars to lawmakers in the past several campaign cycles.
Over the course of his nearly quarter-century Senate career, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who hails from the tobacco-rich state of Kentucky, has received $419,025 from the tobacco industry, more than any other member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that analyzes the influence of money on politics and policy.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr, who led the opposition to the bill, is the second highest recipient and netted $359,100 from tobacco-related political action committees and individual contributions. His state is the nation’s largest tobacco grower and is home to R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s second largest tobacco manufacturing company, which contributed $196,850 to Burr’s campaigns.
via Senators who opposed tobacco bill received top dollar from industry | McClatchy.
| Candidate | Amount |
|---|---|
| McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) | $419,025 |
| Burr, Richard (R-NC) | $359,100 |
| Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA) | $228,700 |
| Cantor, Eric (R-VA) | $221,340 |
| Whitfield, Ed (R-KY) | $218,935 |
| Allen, George (R-VA) | $217,600 |
| Dodd, Chris (D-CT) | $202,849 |
| Bunning, Jim (R-KY) | $194,166 |
| Rangel, Charles B (D-NY) | $193,878 |
| Lewis, Ron (R-KY) | $191,950 |
| Bliley, Thomas J Jr (R-VA) | $190,365 |
| Gordon, Bart (D-TN) | $188,200 |
| Hayes, Robin (R-NC) | $184,724 |
| Helms, Jesse (R-NC) | $180,230 |
| Boehner, John (R-OH) | $175,959 |
| Faircloth, Lauch (R-NC) | $173,069 |
| Etheridge, Bob (D-NC) | $171,000 |
| Jones, Walter B Jr (R-NC) | $170,900 |
| Boucher, Rick (D-VA) | $164,600 |
| Burns, Conrad (R-MT) | $162,700 |
Obama Gives Up on Resettling Cleared Guantanamo Detainees in U.S., Officials Say
Obama Bows on Settling Detainees - washingtonpost.com
Administration Gives Up on Bringing Cleared Inmates to U.S., Officials Say
The Obama administration has all but abandoned plans to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States, administration officials said yesterday, a decision that reflects bipartisan congressional opposition to admitting such prisoners but complicates efforts to persuade European allies to accept them.
Four Uighur detainees, Chinese Muslims who were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for more than seven years, arrived early yesterday in Bermuda, where they will become foreign guest workers. An administration official said the United States is engaged in negotiations with other countries, including Palau, an island nation in the western Pacific, to find places for the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo.
Iran extends poll hours due to high turnout in presidential vote
Iran extends poll hours due to high turnout in presidential vote
The FINANCIAL — According to RIA Novosti, the Iranian Election Commission has decided to keep polls open for an additional two hours on June 12 due to the high turnout in presidential elections.
The polls were due to close at 18:00 local time (13:30 GMT) and lines were reported early on as Iranians chose between hard-line incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leading challenger, reformist former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi
via The FINANCIAL – Iran extends poll hours due to high turnout in presidential vote.
Dr. Chris McCoy: Dear AMA: I Quit!
Dear AMA: I Quit!
By Dr. Chris McCoy
Policy Chair for the National Physicians Alliance
Dear American Medical Association,
I recently had the opportunity to read your response to the Senate Finance Committee proposal [pdf] for health care reform, and it is clear to me that I cannot remain a member in your organization. Please remove my name from your membership rolls, effective immediately.
In reading the response, I was frustrated and disheartened by the fact that you couldn’t get through the second paragraph before bringing up the issue of physician reimbursement. This merely highlights how the AMA represents a physician-centered and self-interested perspective rather than honoring the altruistic nature of my profession. As a physician, I advocate first for what is best for my patients and believe that as a physician, as long as I continue to maintain the trust and integrity of the profession, I will earn the respect of my community. The appropriate financial compensation for my endeavors will follow in kind.
via Dr. Chris McCoy: Dear AMA: I Quit!.
2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy
OPS: Lots of possibilities here. This is one worth watching. One question: who’s dumping US Bonds?
2 Japanese carrying $134 bil worth of U.S. bonds detained in Italy
Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.
According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds.
US retail sales up for first time in 3 months
US retail sales up for first time in 3 months
People shop at the Pier 17 mall at South Street Seaport on April 16, 2009 in New York City. US retail sales have risen for the first time in three months, fueled mostly by higher gasoline prices, the government said amid signs a prolonged recession is easing.
US retail sales rose in May, for the first time in three months, fueled mostly by higher gasoline prices, the government said Thursday amid signs a prolonged recession is easing.
The Commerce Department said sales edged up 0.5 percent in line with expectations, from a revised declines of 0.2 percent in April and 1.2 percent the previous month.
The monthly retail sales data highlight the direction of a key motor of the world’s largest economy, consumer spending, which normally drives two-thirds of output.
Gasoline sales, which rose 3.6 percent, helped boost the April retail numbers. Excluding this component, retail sales were up 0.2 percent.
via AFP » US retail sales up for first time in 3 months.
‘Sickening’ torture report to be published Friday
More ’sickening’ truths about torture soon to be revealed
A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.
According to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government’s own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as ’sickening,’ apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) recently warned in a speech on the floor of the Senate that almost everything we think we know about the Bush administration’s torture program is wrong.
via Raw Story » More ’sickening’ truths about torture soon to be revealed.
What are the most dangerous search terms on the Internet?
What are the most dangerous search terms on the Internet?
If you like to search for “music lyrics” or “free” things, you are engaging in risky cyber behavior. And “free music downloads” puts 20 percent of Web surfers in harm’s way of malicious software, known as “malware.”
A new research report by U.S.-based antivirus software company McAfee has identified the most dangerous Internet search words that place users on pages with a higher likelihood of cyber attacks.
The study examined 2,600 popular keywords on five major search engines — Google, Yahoo, Live, AOL and Ask — and analyzed 413,000 Web pages.
“Just in the past year, we’ve seen a pretty dramatic shift in what we call malware,” David DeWalt, president and CEO of McAfee, told Richard Quest for CNN International’s “Quest Means Business.” 
Watch Quest interview with McAfee boss »
“It went from a hacker in a basement, to organized cybercrime to now, literally, terrorism and other forms of organized geopolitical attacks,” he said.
Categories that had the highest risk of run-ins with malware: screen savers, free games, work from home, Olympics, videos, celebrities, music and news.
via What are the most dangerous search terms on the Internet? – CNN.com.
World Bank sees steeper global economy contraction
World Bank sees steeper global economy contraction | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The global economy will contract in 2009 much more sharply than thought three months ago, underscoring the need to mobilize resources to help poor nations, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Thursday.
Speaking before a weekend meeting in Italy of finance ministers from the Group of Eight major industrial nations, Zoellick said indications were that the world economy would shrink by nearly 3 percent, worse than the previous estimate of 1.75 percent made in March.
Zoellick’s remarks came as a G8 source told Reuters that the International Monetary Fund had raised its 2010 global growth estimate to 2.4 percent from 1.9 percent and confirmed its 2009 forecast for a 1.3 percent contraction made in April.
The IMF will publicly release new projections on July 7.
“I personally believe you might be able to see some aspects of recovery in 2009 and 2010, but from a policy point of view, that isn’t the core question because we have a large degree of uncertainty,” Zoellick told reporters.
via World Bank sees steeper global economy contraction | Reuters.
US House to debate Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ bill
OPS: The little Troll gets things right once in a while.
US House to debate Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ bill
After months of activism and lobbying by Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters, House Resolution 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, will move out of committee to be debated by the full House of Representatives.
In a show of cross-party unity, Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich became the bill’s 218th co-sponsor, pushing it over the threshold for debate in Congress.
The bill, which achieved its 222nd co-sponsorship on Thursday, has been in consideration by the House Financial Services Committee since Feb. 26.
Congressman Kucinich, along with Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), announced Tuesday that the House Financial Services Committee will subpoena the Federal Reserve to ascertain the details of the Fed’s agreements with Bank of America in the institution’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
via Raw Story » US House to debate Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ bill.
US Chamber of Commerce pushes to end ‘Buy American’ rules
US Chamber of Commerce pushes to end ‘Buy American’ rules
The United States Chamber of Commerce asked the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on Thursday to allow greater freedom in the spending of stimulus dollars.
Specifically, the Chamber, traditionally an advocate of big business and Republican economic policies, cautioned that requiring taxpayer dollars to be spent on American goods threatens the loss of billions of dollars.
“U.S. businesses and local governments are quickly waking up to the reality that Buy American restrictions are likely to cause them substantial harm, particularly if countries such as Canada retaliate with protectionism of their own, said Myron Brilliant, the chamber’s senior vice-president of international,” in a report by Canada’s Globe and Mail.
“We could be at risk for billions of dollars and we’re very concerned about those numbers,” Brilliant was quoted saying
via Raw Story » US Chamber of Commerce pushes to end ‘Buy American’ rules.
Home Prices Far From Hitting Bottom
Home Prices Far From Hitting Bottom
Shiller believes that home prices will continue to decline well beyond 2010 because the real estate market is much more fickle than other sectors of the economy.
While the rest of the economy appears to have hit bottom, the real estate market could suffer for years to come, according to Robert J. Shiller, professor of economics and finance at Yale and co-founder and chief economist of MacroMarkets LLC.
Shiller, who predicted the collapse of the housing market and invented a prominent home price index which is named after him, wrote in The New York Times on Saturday that home prices could continue falling well into 2011 and beyond.
“Home prices in the United States have been falling for nearly three years, and the decline may well continue for some time,” he writes.
The federal government has predicted that home prices will continue to decline through 2010. In fact, the stress tests conducted by the Treasury Department assumed that home prices would fall anywhere from 41 to 48 percent from 2006 to 2010.
Shiller, on the other hand, believes that home prices will continue to decline well beyond 2010 for numerous reasons, but mainly because the real estate market is much more fickle than other sectors of the economy.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Stimulus Funds Retraining Workers Displaced by Outsourcing
Stimulus Funds Retraining Workers Displaced by Outsourcing
The federal government announced that it was releasing $450 million to assist workers who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing or trade.
On Wednesday, the federal government announced that it was releasing $450 million to assist workers who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing or trade as part of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the $787 billion stimulus package. The Labor Department announced the release of an additional $450 million to state Trade Adjustment Assistance programs. That increases the total from $220 million to $575 million.
“Workers around the nation continue to see their jobs disappear as a direct result of increased imports and competitive trade,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis.
Indeed the trade policy of the United States has decimated America’s manufacturing base. From 1993 to 2007, the U.S. went from 16.8 million manufacturing jobs to 13.9 million, and most of those losses can be attributed directly to NAFTA. The World Trade Organization has been just as disastrous for American workers. Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, America has lost 2.3 million jobs. Those Americans lucky enough to stay employed witnessed their annual earnings fall by an average of $1,400.
The value added tax has also put America behind the eight-ball in trade. Currently 150 nations utilize the VAT, although it should be deemed illegal by the WTO because it creates an uneven playing field in the area of trade. In 2006, VAT nations collected rebates totaling $218.2 billion while the U.S. was forced to pay $122.4 billion in taxes due to the VAT. Each year the VAT imposes a roughly $290 billion burden on U.S. goods exported and another $85 billion on services. This encourages outsourcing as American companies move offshore in order to circumvent the VAT and reap the same benefits as the companies producing in those nations.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Biggest Problem Facing the U.S. Today
The Biggest Problem Facing the U.S. Today
Our national debt has grown over 1000 percent since President Reagan’s inauguration, and there is no end in sight.
The United States is being consumed by debt at every level. Even with marginally increased savings the American people are still swamped by personal and consumer debt. The government – federal, state, and local – spends more than it can afford and looks to China, Japan and Europe to cover the difference.
There are no sustainable spending solutions alive in Congress or the White House today. Even with the most optimistic growth prospects the debt problem in this country continues to worsen. The United States already carries a national debt burden in excess of $11.4 trillion. The president’s federal budget projection shows the debt increasing to almost $16 trillion by the end of his first term in office. Should he be re-elected for a second term, the national debt could top $20 trillion by 2016.
This is the biggest problem facing the United States today. The national debt – and the federal deficits which have created it – is the compounded result of over spending, over importing, outsourcing, unemployment, and tax reductions over the past 30 years. Our national debt has grown over 1000 percent since President Reagan’s inauguration, and there is no end in sight.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Michigan’s Future in Clean Energy
Michigan’s Future in Clean Energy
While Michigan has been losing jobs in most other sectors, it has actually been creating jobs in the clean energy sector over the past decade.
All hope may not be lost for Michigan’s beleaguered economy just yet. A newly released report finds that while the state has been losing jobs in most other sectors, it has actually been creating jobs in the clean energy sector over the past decade.
The Pew Charitable Trusts found that while Michigan had lost a total of 3.6 percent of the jobs in the state from 1998 to 2007, at the same time it grew the clean energy economy by 10.7 percent.
Overall, the study found that Michigan ranked 10th in the total number of “green jobs’ in the nation with 22,674 green jobs as of 2007.
“Michigan is a leader in today’s clean energy economy,” Kil Huhcq-kyung, the report’s lead researcher, said, according to The Detroit Free Press.
Michigan is in dire need of a more diverse economy – one that does not rely almost wholly on just one industry. As the auto industry has taken a nosedive over the past year, it has dragged the entire state economy down with it. With a current unemployment rate of 12.7 percent, Michigan’s economy is suffering the worst of all 50 states.
The hope on the horizon, however, may not lie in a Big Three comeback, but rather a heavy investment in a clean energy economy.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
NAFTA Suits Threatening U.S. Sovereignty
NAFTA Suits Threatening U.S. Sovereignty
One of the largest problems facing U.S. trade policy is the fact that we make our laws subject to foreign challenge
According to Eyes on Trade, the online forum of advocacy group Public Citizen, a NAFTA tribunal just dismissed one of several cases against U.S. companies. This particular case involved Glamis Gold Inc.’s challenges of mining regulations and restrictions in California.
The Glamis case was full of holes, but there are still several other suits against the United States which have yet to be determined. Four pending cases against the U.S. comprise roughly $6 billion in penalties which, if the tribunal finds in their favor, will have to be paid for by American taxpayers.
The Glamis claim boiled down to a foreign company suing the state of California for making it abide by environmental, labor, and safety regulations. These hurt Glamis’ bottom line and the company sued in order to change policies to something more favorable and profitable. The company wanted California taxpayers to repay the profits they lost abiding by these regulations – roughly $50 million.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
We Don’t Have to Wait for Obama to Make Sure Everyone Has Better Health Care
We Don’t Have to Wait for Obama to Make Sure Everyone Has Better Health Care
By David Sirota,
Taking steps to realistic health care reform begins at the state level.
Colorado’s Bill Ritter is a typical swing-state governor in these most atypical times: overly cautious, predictably equivocal — you know the type. Upon getting himself elected in 2006, the Democrat promised to pass legislation that “provides every Coloradan with access to some basic form of health insurance and health care by 2010.”
One year later, with America gorging on a presidential hoopla, Ritter backed off the pledge because, the Denver Post reported, he believes America should wait for President Obama to act.
The White House worship that led this politician to renege on a concrete promise is an all-too-common, pass-the-buck cop-out in a nation whose federalist system imagined states as “laboratories of democracy.” Why hold state elections if state lawmakers are just going to wait for Washington to hand down federal panaceas?
via We Don’t Have to Wait for Obama to Make Sure Everyone Has Better Health Care | Politics | AlterNet.
Goodbye to Cheap Oil
It’s Official — The Era of Cheap Oil Is Over
Energy Department Changes Tune on Peak Oil
Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO) — a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation. For those with the background to interpret its key statistical findings, the release of the IEO can provide a unique opportunity to gauge important shifts in global energy trends, much as reports of routine Communist Party functions in the party journal Pravda once provided America’s Kremlin watchers with insights into changes in the Soviet Union’s top leadership circle.
As it happens, the recent release of the 2009 IEO has provided energy watchers with a feast of significant revelations. By far the most significant disclosure: the IEO predicts a sharp drop in projected future world oil output (compared to previous expectations) and a corresponding increase in reliance on what are called “unconventional fuels” — oil sands, ultra-deep oil, shale oil, and biofuels
via TomDispatch.
15 Shocking Tales of How Sex Laws Are Screwing the American People
15 Shocking Tales of How Sex Laws Are Screwing the American People
In the land of the free, the freedom to express your sexuality can land you in prison.
The older I get, the luckier I feel not to have been busted for breaking a sex law. It’s not that I have been doing anything particularly scandalous. Public sex sure isn’t my thing, and I’m not in the habit of spamming my friends and colleagues with XXX emails. But in a world where a teen can get arrested for texting a boyfriend her own nudie shots, I don’t want to take anything for granted.
Really though, my clean record probably has as much to do with where I’ve lived, as with what I’ve done. Growing up in Canada, meant that I didn’t worry about the legal ramifications of losing my virginity to my high school boyfriend. Had I spent those angst-ridden years in Texas, or even Maine, I could have been charged with the crime of underage sex.
Similarly, accompanying a terrified 16-year-old to a New York City clinic for an abortion a few years back could have been illegal if I had done the same thing in many of the 34 states with parental consent and notification laws for this procedure.
Hey Progressives: Why Don’t you Care About the “Drug War” Like You Care About Other Issues?
Hey Progressives: Why Don’t you Care About the “Drug War” Like You Care About Other Issues?
If the 500,000 nonviolent drug offenders in jail had white faces, would society allow it?
The following is the text of Drug Policy Alliance Director Ethan Nadelmann’s speech to the Momentum Plenary at the America’s Future Now conference in Washington. It has been edited for length and clarity.
The issue of over-incarceration and the overuse of the criminal justice system in America strike me as one of the most horrific violations of human rights in the United States today.
What I’m also struck by is the extent to which our American exceptionalism in this regard is unknown to so many who should know.
I’m going to throw some numbers at you:
* We have increased the number of people behind bars from roughly 500,000 people in 1980 to 2.3 million today.
* In the U.S., we have less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.
* We rank first in the world in the per capita incarceration of our fellow citizens. First in the world — We are No. 1.
Keep in mind, we are not so different as people sometimes think when it comes to crime, and even drug use: Our rates of crime, apart from homicide, are not that different from other industrialized nations, and our rates of illicit drug use are somewhat higher, but not dramatically higher than these other countries.
The Terrorist Threat: Right-Wing Radicals and the Eliminationist Mindset
The Terrorist Threat: Right-Wing Radicals and the Eliminationist Mindset
Understanding the dangerous worldview that led to the murder of an innocent doctor and an attack at the Holocaust Museum.
In April, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report (PDF) warning that the shifting political climate and tanking economy was spurring a resurgence of violent right-wing extremism (known as “terrorism” when applied to those holding other political views) in the United States.
At the time, a number of right-wing commentators lambasted the report as a politically motivated attack on mainstream conservatism rather than what it was: an early warning on the dangers posed by a violent, fringe minority within their movement. Under pressure from GOP lawmakers, Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano apologized for the report.
But in the short weeks since, the department’s warnings have proved prescient. An abortion provider who had been a frequent target of Fox News’ bloviator Bill O’Reilly was gunned down during a church service in Kansas; a mentally disturbed man who believed the “tea-bagging” movement’s contention that the Obama administration is destroying the American economy — and who reportedly owned a number of firearms — withdrew $85,000 from his bank account, said he was part of a plot to assassinate the president and disappeared (he was later captured in Las Vegas); and this week, a white supremacist who was deeply steeped in far-right conspiracism entered the U.S. Holocaust Museum and opened fire, killing a guard before being shot and wounded by security personnel.
via The Terrorist Threat: Right-Wing Radicals and the Eliminationist Mindset | Politics | AlterNet.
Brazil joins Russia, China in eyeing IMF bonds
Brazil joins Russia, China in eyeing IMF bonds – Forbes.com
SAO PAULO — Brazil is looking to buy $10 billion in IMF bonds, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said on Wednesday, joining China and Russia in seeking to use the new instruments to diversify dollar-heavy currency reserves.
“This support is important to help end the international financial crisis,” Mantega said, adding that a trade surplus and $204 billion in reserves has positioned Brazil to help the International Monetary Fund boost lending to other emerging economies
Chinese officials have also expressed interest in buying as much as $50 billion in IMF bonds, while a Russian central bank official on Wednesday said his bank would reduce U.S. Treasury holdings to invest in the IMF notes instead. Russia now holds about $120 billion, or 30 percent, of its hard currency reserves in U.S. Treasuries and said it would redirect up to $10 billion to the IMF.
India also plans to buy some of the notes, although it has not yet said how much it will spend, Mantega said, according to the state-run Agencia Brasil news agency.
via Brazil joins Russia, China in eyeing IMF bonds – Forbes.com.
Pelosi: Health Care Reform Can’t Pass Without Public Option
Pelosi: Health Care Reform Can’t Pass Without Public Option
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the Huffington Post Thursday that a health care overhaul that did not include a public option wouldn’t make it through the House because it “wouldn’t have the votes.”
At a press conference earlier in the morning, Pelosi had been asked if including a public plan that would compete with private insurance was “essential” to health care reform.
“Can you have effective health care reform without a public option?” a reporter asked.
The goal, she responded, was affordability and accessibility. “If you have another way to do that, put it on the table. And that’s where we are. Everything should be on the table,” she said.
The open-ended answer led some reporters after the press conference to wonder if she was backing off her statement to MSNBC Wednesday that a bill without a public option wouldn’t get out of the House.
Not at all, she said. Asked by HuffPost if she would allow a reform package without a public option out of the House, she responded: “It’s not a question of allow. It wouldn’t have the votes.”
via Pelosi: Health Care Reform Can’t Pass Without Public Option.
Project EXPOSE MSM Report 2
Project EXPOSE MSM Report 2
Major DEA Scandal & Time Magazine
As noted in the announcement, 123 Real Change invites all members of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, other active (covert or overt) government whistleblowers, and reporters, to publish their experiences in regard to their own first-hand dealings with the media, where their legit disclosures were either intentionally censored/blacked out, tainted, or otherwise met with a betrayal of trust.
This second project report is based on the first-hand documented experience of Mr. Sandalio Gonzalez, retired Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Special Agent in Charge. Time Magazine reporters Tim Burger and Tim Padgett had an opportunity to speak at length with Mr. Gonzalez and several other veteran DEA agents with direct knowledge of a major corruption case involving several DEA agents on drug traffickers’ payrolls in Colombia. The involved corrupt US officers were also directly involved in helping Colombia’s paramilitary death squads launder drug proceeds. Further presented was the documented cover up of this major scandal by the DEA and DOJ IG offices. Despite corroboration by a number of other sources, including several veteran DEA agents and other government officials with first-hand knowledge of the case, and documented evidence disclosed and provided, and despite being given an ‘exclusive’ to the story as insisted on by them, Time Magazine never published the story, and no reasons were ever provided.
via 123 Real Change: Project EXPOSE MSM Report 2.
Sebelius Sez: There are Health Disparities
Sebelius Sez: There are Health Disparities | Future Majority
Secretary of Health and Human Services and former Kansas
Governor Kathleen Sebelius announced the release of a new report this week about overall health disparities in the United States.
“A Case for Closing the Gap highlights some of the glaring disparities that exist in the current health system. Under the status quo:
- Forty-eight percent of all African Americans adults suffer from a chronic disease compared to 39 percent of the general population.
- Eight percent of white Americans develop diabetes while 15 percent of African Americans, 14 percent of Hispanics, and 18 percent of American Indians develop diabetes.
- Hispanics were one-third less likely to be counseled on obesity than were whites — only 44 percent of Hispanics received counseling.
- African Americans are 15 percent more likely to be obese than whites.”
via Sebelius Sez: There are Health Disparities | Future Majority.
The Big Hate
The Big Hate - NYTimes.com
Paul Krugman
Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
via Op-Ed Columnist – The Big Hate – NYTimes.com.
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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. 
