Archive for July, 2009
Obama Administration Proposes Tougher Clean Air Standards
Obama Administration Proposes Tougher Clean Air Standards
WASHINGTON — (AP) _ The Obama administration is proposing to strengthen a key air pollution health standard.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Monday it wants to tighten the requirement for the level of nitrogen dioxide concentration in the air.
Nitrogen dioxide is released from motor vehicles, coal burning power plants and factories. It can cause respiratory problems and is of special danger to children and people suffering from asthma. The federal healthy air standard for nitrogen oxide has not been changed in 35 years.
via Obama Administration Proposes Tougher Clean Air Standards.
Democrats Caution: Franken Won’t Drastically Change Political Realities
OPS: Dems, peeing in the ol Easter Basket already
Democrats Caution: Franken Won’t Drastically Change Political Realities
Moments after former Sen. Norm Coleman conceded the drawn-out Minnesota Senate election to Al Franken, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that that he would sign the election certificate. In a matter of minutes, the eight-month-long recount process had come to a close.
All was well within the Democratic Party, which had finally received that elusive 60th caucus member. The Republican filibuster would be no longer be a threat.
Or maybe not.
Franken is expected to come to Washington after the July 4th recess. But not everyone is convinced that his presence will make a huge political difference. The reality, which few in the Democratic Party are willing to talk about openly, is that there are really only 58 caucusing members. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, has been out for nearly all of the current Congress on medical leave. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, while released from the hospital on Tuesday morning, continues to face health issues of his own. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats like Mary Landrieu, D-La, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., have made it almost a point of pride in not allowing their votes to be taken for granted. And on specific issues, the party has proven strikingly allergic to philosophical unison.
via Democrats Caution: Franken Won’t Drastically Change Political Realities.
America’s Fattest States: Mississippi Still Tops List, But Alabama Closes In
America’s Fattest States: Mississippi Still Tops List, But Alabama Closes In 
WASHINGTON — Mississippi’s still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.
It’s time for the nation’s annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there’s little good news. Obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year and didn’t decline anywhere, says a new report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
And while the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds _ the oldest boomers _ than among today’s 65-and-beyond.
That translates into a coming jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.
via America’s Fattest States: Mississippi Still Tops List, But Alabama Closes In.
Krugman: U.S. Headed for ‘Jobless’ Recovery
OPS: Point being that there is no recovery without jobs. Jobless Recovery = Fraud
Krugman: U.S. Headed for ‘Jobless’ Recovery
Nobel-Prize winning economist Paul Krugman said the nation is on course for a “prolonged jobless” economic recovery unless the Obama administration steps in with a second round of government stimulus money.
“The fact of the matter is that the unemployment rate is much worse than the administration contemplated or that most people expected,” Krugman told ABC News. “So the economy is much weaker than we thought it’d be, meaning, in fact, it could use more stimulus.”
Krugman: ‘I’m Trying to Move the Debate’
Criticizing the president’s policies are nothing new for Krugman, 56, a frequent Roundtable guest and contributor on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
The Princeton University economist and New York Times columnist has become one of the leading voices of the left critiquing the Obama administration’s handling of the economy, the financial industry bailout, health care reform and climate change.
via Krugman: U.S. Headed for ‘Jobless’ Recovery – ABC News.
Bernie Sanders Demands Democrats Commit To Stopping Health Care Filibuster
Bernie Sanders Demands Democrats Commit To Stopping Health Care Filibuster
One of the Senate’s most vocal progressives is demanding that the Democratic Party commit to voting against filibustering health care legislation now that, with the impending arrival of Al Franken, the party has 60 caucusing members.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called on the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress to ensure that party members agree unanimously to support cloture on legislation that would revamp the nation’s health care system. Democratic senators on the fence, he added, could still oppose the bill. But at the very least they should be required to let the legislation come to an up-or-down vote.
“I think that with Al Franken coming on board, you have effectively 60 Democrats in the caucus, 58 and two Independents,” Sanders said in an interview with the Huffington Post. “I think the strategy should be to say, it doesn’t take 60 votes to pass a piece of legislation. It takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster. I think the strategy should be that every Democrat, no matter whether or not they ultimately end up voting for the final bill, is to say we are going to vote together to stop a Republican filibuster. And if somebody who votes for that ends up saying, ‘I’m not gonna vote for this bill, it’s too radical, blah, blah, blah, that’s fine.’”
via Bernie Sanders Demands Democrats Commit To Stopping Health Care Filibuster.
Scientist Who Laid Ground Work for Nobel Prize Drives a Bus, Can’t get a Job
Scientist Who Laid Ground Work for Nobel Prize Drives a Bus, Can’t get a Job | The Economic Populist
He was laid off from his job at NASA, and couldn’t find another job as a scientist. In order to support his family, he took a job driving a courtesy van at a Toyota dealership in Huntsville for $10 per hour
From a local story I’ve heard way too many times, this scientist isolated the gene which caused Jellyfish to glow in the dark.
His grants ran out and he handed over his research to 3 scientists who won the Nobel prize. The prize winners acknowledged they could not have won without his original research.
There are multiple things wrong with this story, the first being that this scientist is driving a bus. The second is why were his grants cut for this raw research and the 3rd is why was he not included in the Nobel Prize winners?
via Scientist Who Laid Ground Work for Nobel Prize Drives a Bus, Can’t get a Job | The Economic Populist.
Pending home sales up 4th straight month in May
Pending home sales up 4th straight month in May
Pending home sales rise for 4th straight month in May as low prices boost activity
Pending home sales rose in May for the fourth straight month, spurred by low prices and a first-time homebuyers tax credit, fresh evidence that the housing sector may be recovering.
The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales increased by 0.1 percent in May to 90.7. Analysts expected no change, according to Thomson Reuters.
While the increase was small, it followed a 7.1 percent jump in the index in April.
“The pronounced increase in April and the fact that May sustained this rise does indicate that actual existing home sales are poised to rise in the coming month or two,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist for economic forecasting firm MFR Inc., in a note to clients.
via Pending home sales up 4th straight month in May – Yahoo! Finance.
Feds may take possession of some California parks, if they close
Feds may take possession of some California parks, if they close - – San Jose Mercury News
The federal government is threatening to take possession of several of California’s most prominent state parks — including Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, the top of Mount Diablo and four miles of beaches at Fort Ord Dunes near Monterey — if Sacramento lawmakers close them to balance the budget.
That’s the message from the National Park Service, which also has told Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that California will be blocked from receiving future money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the leading federal source of funding for parks, if it closes state parks now.
The warnings came in a letter dated June 8 and obtained Tuesday by the Mercury News from Jon Jarvis, the Pacific regional director of the National Park Service, to Schwarzenegger.
In May, the governor proposed closing 220 state parks to save an estimated $143 million. The state is facing is $24 billion deficit.
via Feds may take possession of some California parks, if they close – San Jose Mercury News.
Lieberman On Health Reform
The U.S. senator from Connecticut discusses the public option and the pending health care reform bill
YouTube – Lieberman On Health Reform.
Jobless rates rise in all 372 US metro areas
Jobless rates rise in all 372 US metro areas
Jobless rates rise in all US metro areas in May
Unemployment rates rose in all the largest U.S. metropolitan areas for the fifth straight month in May.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that jobless rates in May rose from a year earlier in all 372 metropolitan area it tracks.
The unemployment rate in Kokomo, Ind., jumped to 18.8 percent, up 11.7 percentage points from a year ago, the largest increase of all metro areas. The second-highest increase occurred in Indiana’s Elkhart-Goshen, where the rate rose to 17.5 percent. That’s up 11.4 percentage points from a year earlier.
Both parts of Indiana have been slammed by layoffs in transportation equipment manufacturing.
via Raw Story » Jobless rates rise in all 372 US metro areas.
Siegelman alleges witness, jury tampering, asks for new trial
Siegelman alleges witness, jury tampering, asks for new trial
Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has asked for a new trial, citing new evidence of witness and jury tampering in his 2006 bribery and corruption case, which he says robbed him of his right to a fair trial.
In a filing (PDF) to a federal court in Alabama, Siegelman’s lawyers say that “because of prosecutorial misconduct in this case, including improper contacts with jurors, improper … communication with the court, and improper conduct in preparing government witnesses to testify at trial … Siegelman was deprived of his Fifth Amendment right to a fair trial and his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury.
“There is troubling evidence that there were improper communications between jurors and the Government during and after trial, none of which were reported to either the Court or the defense,” the filing says.
via Raw Story » Siegelman alleges witness, jury tampering, asks for new trial.
Police raid of Dem candidate’s fundraiser under review
Police raid of Dem candidate’s fundraiser under review
A police raid of a Democratic congressional candidate’s backyard fundraiser has become the subject of a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department investigation, the department said on Monday according to an area report.
The fundraiser was for Francine Busby, a Democrat who is running against incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray of California’s 50th congressional district. The fundraiser was being held in the backyard of a suburban home in Cardiff, which apparently riled a neighbor who reportedly shouted profanity at the group. Then, around 9:30 p.m., two-year veteran Deputy Marshall Abbott showed up, seemingly in response to a noise complaint from the heckler.
By the time it was over, several of Busby’s supporters had been pepper sprayed and the party’s hostess, Shari Barman, was arrested for resisting and obstructing a peace officer.
via Raw Story » Police raid of Dem candidate’s fundraiser under review.
UBS must release names of suspected tax cheats, Justice Department says
OPS: wonder if any fat-cats have started downloading in the drawers yet?
UBS must release names of suspected tax cheats, Justice Department says
MIAMI – Swiss bank UBS AG “systematically and deliberately” violated U.S. law by dispatching private bankers to recruit wealthy Americans interested in evading taxes and must be forced to reveal the identities of 52,000 of those clients, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday.
The filing, which comes amid several published reports that the case may be near settlement, urges U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold to hold UBS accountable for conducting years of illegal business on U.S. soil – business that earned the bank more than $100 million in fees but cost the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.
“It is time for UBS to face the consequences that it has brought upon itself,” said Justice Department tax attorney Stuart Gibson in the 55-page filing. “The United States has proven its case for enforcement.”
Gold has set a hearing on whether to enforce what are known as “John Doe summonses” used by the Internal Revenue Service to seek information about U.S. taxpayers. U.S. and Swiss newspapers have reported a settlement is likely before that hearing, but Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller declined comment.
via UBS must release names of suspected tax cheats, Justice Department says.
Judge overturns Bush administration logging rule
Judge overturns Bush administration logging rule
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday struck down the Bush administration’s change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.
“I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush’s assault on our public forests,” said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule.
At stake was a provision of the National Forest Management Act that required maintaining viable populations of species that indicate the health of an ecosystem, such as the spotted owl. The Bush administration changed the rule last year so it required a framework of protection, rather than maintaining viable populations of wildlife.
via The Associated Press: Judge overturns Bush administration logging rule.
Calif. Democrat Henry Waxman hospitalized
Calif. Democrat Henry Waxman hospitalized
WASHINGTON – A powerful House committee chairman with a central role in President Barack Obama‘s global warming and health care legislation has been hospitalized.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., was not feeling well Tuesday and was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for “routine testing,” spokeswoman Karen Lightfoot said Wednesday.
She said that Waxman, 69, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is “feeling much better now.” She said his office had no further details to release.
Waxman just finished steering the climate change legislation through a close House vote and has been gearing up to tackle health care later this summer.
via Calif. Democrat Henry Waxman hospitalized – Yahoo! News.
Palin ally compares McCain campaign chief to Tony Soprano
OPS: Ah, more trouble in Fascist Paradise
Palin ally compares McCain campaign chief to Tony Soprano
Let the backstabbing begin.
In a particularly visceral public exchange, the editor of the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard Bill Kristol and an ally of Gov. Sarah Palin opened fire on Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) former campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, accusing him of being behind anonymous attacks on Palin in the latest issue of Vanity Fair.
The piece quotes a McCain friend as referring to Palin as the “Little Shop of Horrors.”
Kristol was particularly inflamed by a passage in the Vanity Fair piece which said “some top aides” worried about the Alaska governor’s “mental state” — “In fact, one aide who raised this possibility in the course of trashing Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign was Steve Schmidt,” Kristol wrote.
via Raw Story » Palin ally compares McCain campaign chief to Tony Soprano.
Bloggers don’t go to jail, Murdoch CEO laments
Bloggers don’t go to jail, Murdoch CEO laments - Raw Story »
Tabloids are king and blogs are “barely discernible from massive ignorance,” according to John Hartigan, chief executive for News Limited, a cog in the Rupert Murdoch empire responsible for the publication of more than fifty newspapers in Australia.
Earlier today, Hartigan “told the National Press Club in Canberra that the newspaper business had to adapt, but would survive.”
“I’m here to celebrate the future of journalism, not to consign it to an analogue archive,” he said.
But Hartigan seems to believe that online journalism is not part of that future.
via Raw Story » Bloggers don’t go to jail, Murdoch CEO laments.
US private sector sheds 473,000 jobs
US private sector sheds 473,000 jobs - FT.com
ADP says job losses to continue
By Alan Rappeport
US companies cut nearly a half million jobs last month as the recession continued to cut into the labour market in spite of other recent signs of hope in the economy.
Private companies cut 473,000 jobs from their payrolls in June, according to a survey by ADP employer services on Wednesday. The figure was slightly lower than the revised 485,000 jobs slashed in May, but was worse than economists expected and raised fears that the unemployment rate would continue to climb.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
US consumer confidence drops in June – Jun-30
Romer upbeat on US economy – Jun-28
US incomes surge as stimulus kicks in – Jun-26
In depth: US downturn – Apr-15
Although the monthly figure remains grim it was the lowest total since last October and marks an improvement from the more severe job losses earlier in the year. ADP noted that monthly job losses in the second quarter averaged 492,000, down from 691,000 in the first quarter.
via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – US private sector sheds 473,000 jobs.
Emergence of Influenza A (H1N1) Viruses
Historical Perspective — Emergence of Influenza A (H1N1) Viruses
New England Journal of Medicine
Shanta M. Zimmer, M.D., and Donald S. Burke, M.D.
On April 17, 2009, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed two cases of swine influenza in children living in neighboring counties in California.1 Here we take a perspective from systems biology to review the series of evolutionary and epidemiologic events, starting in 1918, that led to the emergence of the current swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) strain (S-OIV), which is widely known as swine flu. This article is one of two historical articles on influenza A (H1N1) viruses in this issue of the Journal.2 Our review focuses on the key steps that characterize this viral evolution (Figure 1).
Emergence of a Virus
Simultaneous Appearance in Humans and Swine (1918)
Before 1918, influenza in humans was well known, but the disease had never been described in pigs.3 For pig farmers in Iowa, everything changed after the Cedar Rapids Swine Show, which was held from September 30 to October 5 of that year.4 Just as the 1918 pandemic spread the human influenza A (H1N1) virus worldwide and killed 40 million to 50 million people, herds of swine were hit with a respiratory illness that closely resembled the clinical syndrome affecting humans. Similarities in the clinical presentations and pathologic features of influenza in humans and swine suggested that pandemic human influenza in 1918 was actually adapted to the pig, and the search for the causative agent began.5,6
via NEJM — Historical Perspective — Emergence of Influenza A (H1N1) Viruses.
American Jobs in a Global Economy
OPS: The American People have been sold out by Conservative Corporations, Politicians, Media and a Fascist Sociopathic ideology designed to take advantage of the weak-minded.
American Jobs in a Global Economy
America is not the powerhouse it used to be, and we need to get used to that fact.
Editor’s note: The following article originally appeared on OpEdNews.org and may not reflect the views or opinions of EconomyInCrisis.org. Feedback is welcome.
“We very much want to work with others to make sure that we have … as pro-American a tax system for corporations as we possibly can …” Lawrence Summers
The Administration is struggling to fund its spending spree in ways that would nominally be consistent with the President’s campaign promises. The Obama budget proposed to inflict two substantial tax increases on U.S. corporations with global operations. One would make it more expensive to bring cash from those operations into the U.S. The other would make it expensive (on average 30% more expensive) to pay Americans, rather than citizens of any other country, to perform headquarters administrative jobs such as accounting, IT, or HR. These proposals were supposedly aimed at fulfilling the promise to “end tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas”. While they hurt companies with global operations, it is hard to see how they would do anything other than reduce U.S. jobs.
The President’s problem here, as in other areas, is that in his effort to produce campaign one-liners he misstated the underlying problem. America does not provide tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. It provides a tax penalty for locating jobs here. That’s a different problem, and it has a different cure.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
U.S. private firms shed jobs in June, more to come
U.S. private firms shed jobs in June, more to come | Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. private sector job cuts fell in June to their lowest in eight months, but they still came in more than expected and the economy may be on track to lose another one million workers by year-end.
Private employers cut 473,000 jobs in June, down from 485,000 in May, according to a report by ADP Employer Services published on Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had expected 393,000 private-sector job cuts in June.
Though June’s loss was the smallest ADP had reported since October 2008, the surprisingly large number of cuts dealt a setback to those expecting the U.S. economy to recover soon.
“The data surprises me a little bit in that the consensus out there seems to be that business is improving and that the economy has hit bottom,” said Mark Bonhard, investment advisor at Dawson Wealth Management in Cleveland, Ohio.
“This definitely is not good news.”
via U.S. private firms shed jobs in June, more to come | U.S. | Reuters.
ITC Recommends Imposing Tariffs on Chinese Tires
ITC Recommends Imposing Tariffs on Chinese Tires
Yesterday, the U.S. International Trade Commission unanimously voted to recommend that President Barack Obama impose tariffs on Chinese imports for a period of three years.
Yesterday, the U.S. International Trade Commission unanimously voted to recommend that President Barack Obama impose tariffs on Chinese imports for a period of three years to redress the unfair trade practices that Chinese manufacturers have used to severely hurt the U.S. industry.
Earlier this month, the ITC ruled that the import of Chinese tires is adversely affecting the domestic industry, after a complaint was filed by the United Steelworkers Union.
The USW complaint alleged that China, through currency manipulation, illegal subsidies and other illegal trade practices, has damaged the domestic tire industry by dumping vast amounts of low-priced tires into the American market.
According to the USW, from 2004 to 2008, Chinese tire imports increased 215 percent by volume and 295 percent by value. Over that same time, domestic production has fallen 25 percent.
By 2008, Chinese tire manufacturers imported 46 million tires worth approximately $1.7 billion.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
White House Reaches Compromise on Protection for Biotech Drugs
White House Reaches Compromise on Protection for Biotech Drugs
The White House “has made clear that the president does not support the lengthy monopoly periods sought by the drug
Last week, the White House struck a deal with two powerful House Democrats to protect the biogeneric drug industry from competition from generic drug makers for the next seven years.
“Innovation is driven by appropriate competition, and the administration’s policy will spur that competition,” said the letter from Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag and Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the Office of Health Reform.
The deal clears the way for a bill to pass the House. Originally there was an impasse between two California Democrats.
Henry Waxman, the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee wished to provide just five years of protection to the industry. His colleague, Anna Eshoo, wrote competing legislation that would provide the industry with protection for 12 years -which is what the industry wanted.
The White House’s intervention in the matter could clear the way for a passage of a compromise bill sometime this year. However, the biotech industry does not seem quite ready to give up the fight. It is their contention that allowing open competition could stifle the necessary investments for innovation in medicines.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Family and the American Economy
Family and the American Economy
Over the past decade our education system has fallen from the world’s most accomplished to one of mediocrity.
Editor’s note: The following is the third interview in a six part series with economist Eamonn Fingleton. Tune in daily this week to watch all six groundbreaking interviews.
The importance of a sound education and strong family safety-net is often underestimated in the United States. Over the past decade our education system has fallen from the world’s most accomplished to one of mediocrity. According to Fingleton, at the same time, our family network has become more fragmented.
He believes that the strict individualism of Americans may play a part in undermining our economic and social infrastructure. American families tend to be much more dispersed than families in other countries, and the two-parent structure is more likely to be broken by divorce. This breaks up the economic safety-net available to individuals, and also undermines the first-hand education provided by family networks.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
GOP Operative Schmidt Blasts Bill Kristol: ‘He’s In The Business Of Ad Hominem Insults And Criticism’
GOP Operative Schmidt Blasts Bill Kristol: ‘He’s In The Business Of Ad Hominem Insults And Criticism’
Yesterday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol — a long-time aggressive public advocate of Sarah Palin — took great exception to a new article in Vanity Fair by Todd Purdum which quoted McCain campaign officials disparaging Palin’s performance as a vice presidential candidate.
Kristol fingered one particular McCain official for blame: chief strategist Steve Schmidt. Kristol claimed that Schmidt trashed “Palin’s mental state to others in the McCain-Palin campaign.” And now Schmidt is firing back by unloading some very candid rhetorical bombs against Kristol. Politico’s Jonathan Martin reports:
Joe the Plumber won’t run for office:
Joe the Plumber won’t run for office: “You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, ‘No.’”
Last year at the height of his “fame,” Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — aka “Joe the Plumber” — said that he was considering a run for public office. “I’d be up for it,” he said. Excited fans even set up a “Draft Joe the Plumber” site. But in a new interview with WorldNetDaily, Wurzelbacher said that he now isn’t planning to run because God doesn’t want him to:
Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, “I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, ‘No.’
No Time to Think
No Time to Think – OnTheCommons.org »
Digital media are overwhelming our consciousness and eclipsing our capacity for reflection.
One of the more pernicious enclosures of the commons is the enclosure of time and consciousness. It’s pernicious because it is so subtle and rarely discerned. When commercial values such as productivity and efficiency become so pervasive and internalized, they crowd out other ways of being. Our very sense of humanity — full-bodied, spontaneous, spiritual — leaches away.
All of this was brought home clearly in a provocative lecture that I attended yesterday evening. It was called “No Time to Think,” by David M. Levy, a professor at the Information School at the University of Washington. Levy gave a chilling historical overview of how American society has become enslaved to an ethic of “more-better-faster” and is losing touch with the capacity for reflection and intuitive thinking. In an overweening commitment to constant doing and making, analyzing and thinking (which, let us note, are important human activities), we can too easily close off access to an entire realm of consciousness that is at least as important, our capacity for reflection.
via OnTheCommons.org » No Time to Think.
Hey Progressives, Join Forces to Fight the Health Insurance Industry!
Hey Progressives, Join Forces to Fight the Health Insurance Industry!
By Karen Dolan, Institute for Policy Studies.
Single-payer and public option advocates are fighting each other. We must remember that we’re on the same side.
“A ‘Public Plan’ is a sell-out, crafted to appease Big Pharma.”
“’Single Payer’ is politically impossible, and advocacy of it only weakens our one chance at real reform.”
As our country once again tries to fix our unsustainable for-profit health care system, conflicting messages threaten to derail the whole process. Progressive advocates, progressive members of Congress, and health care providers need to provide a roadmap through the maze of conflicting perceptions.
Progressives have at least two remedies to the healthcare crisis:
The Military Invades U.S. Schools: How Military Academies Are Being Used to Destroy Public Education
The Military Invades U.S. Schools: How Military Academies Are Being Used to Destroy Public Education
In Chicago, there’s a push to replace public schools with military academies. This model may soon spread to the rest of the country.
For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago’s Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term “occupation” because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA’s opening.
Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA “disenrolls” students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.
Madoff: Fall Guy or First of Many?
Madoff: Fall Guy or First of Many? | OurFuture.org
Congressional Commission on financial fraud has the ability to put hundreds of Madoffs in jail and lead the way for real bank reform.
Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison for one of the biggest
But there is no closure here. We can’t let Madoff’s sentence distract us from the underlying problems.
This isn’t just about Madoff. This is about the system in which Madoff’s scam took place. This is about systemic fraud and malpractice, the cultural trade of due diligence for easy profit. It’s about conflicts of interest where companies paid ratings agencies for their ratings. It’s about ideological blinders that let regulators and the Federal Reserve look the other way while banks turned into betting parlors.
So Madoff got 150 years for breaking into the bank. Fine.
But what about the guard who was asleep out front? What about the clerk who forgot to lock the door? What about the $300 billion that Citigroup walked out with from one vault, and the $200 billion that AIG took from another? Does anybody know where that money went or what we got for it? Don’t they get in trouble too? Did you know that, or do you know why, Goldman Sachs is paying its biggest bonus payouts in its 140 year history?
via Madoff: Fall Guy or First of Many? | OurFuture.org.
Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan
Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan – WSJ.com
Without the government as competition, the private sector has little incentive to improve.
By ROBERT B. REICH
Why has health-care reform stalled in Congress? Democrats, after all, control both Houses, and President Obama, whose popularity remains high, has made universal health care his No. 1 priority. What’s more, an overwhelming majority of the public wants it. In the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 76% of respondents said it was important that Americans have a choice between a public and private health-insurance plan. In last week’s New York Times/CBSNews poll, 85% said they wanted major health-care reforms.
So why the stall? Mainly because Congress can’t decide how to pay for it. The hardest blow came last week when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the trial-balloon bill emerging from the Senate Health Committee would cost a whopping $1 trillion over 10 years and would cover only a fraction of Americans currently without health care. According to the CBO, another tentative bill, this one coming out of the Senate Finance Committee, would cost even more — $1.6 trillion.
That spells political trouble. Republicans who never batted an eye over George W. Bush’s wild spending habits have become born-again fiscal hawks. Blue Dog Democrats are nervous about mounting deficits. Even the president admits that the flow of red ink in future budgets keeps him up at night.
via Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan – WSJ.com.
In Our Marriage Madness, Are We Waving Goodbye to Reality?
In Our Marriage Madness, Are We Waving Goodbye to Reality?
The more evidence shoved in our faces that marriage just doesn’t work as well as we want, the more we bury our heads in the fantasy.
In between the political blow-ups caused by the adulteries of Senator John Ensign and Gov. Mark Sanford, darkly comic writer Sandra Tsing Loh, who has never been one to hide her personal life, wrote a sad, witty piece about the impending end of her 20-year marriage. Why are Tsing Loh and her husband calling it quits? Tsing Loh cheated on her husband, an event that apparently instigated their divorce. Someone should tell former White House press secretary Dana Perino, whose recent statements about electing women to politics included her musings about why women don’t stray. We’ll have to consider that hypothesis a dud, unless someone wants to challenge Tsing Loh’s gender.
Tsing Loh took the opportunity of her divorce to dump all over the very existence of marriage, and got exactly the sort of reaction you get when you tip over a sacred cow: defensive. Extremely angry and defensive. Tsing Loh’s entire body of work was practically called into question, she was called selfish (by people no doubt hoping that adequate lack of selfishness on their part would permanently shield them from the pain of falling out of love), and she was even called a drag. “Defensive” might seem like too harsh a word, but come on, calling Tsing Loh “a drag” is classic grasping behavior. Tsing Loh might be a lot of things, but as her long and storied career shows, “a drag” is not one of those things.
But that’s what you get for dissing marriage, even after an endless stream of prominent adulteries rocking the very unsexy world of politics, even when marriages still have a one in two chance of failing, and even in a society so shot through with divorce that the most surefire way to start a flamewar on the internet is to write a post about child support or visitation. The more evidence shoved in our faces that marriage just doesn’t work as well as we want, the more we bury our heads in the fantasy of marriage. Or, as Tsing Loh says:
via In Our Marriage Madness, Are We Waving Goodbye to Reality? | RHRealityCheck.org.
‘I Quit the Evangelical Movement in Disgust’: Former Evangelist Fears Right-Wing Lunacy Will Lead to More Murder
‘I Quit the Evangelical Movement in Disgust’: Former Evangelist Fears Right-Wing Lunacy Will Lead to More Murder
Conservative pundits and GOP lawmakers must try to cure the sickness of their right-wing followers — before it explodes again. Or don’t they care?
What are the Republicans in Congress and the other “respectable” leaders on the far right — from Focus on the Family’s James Dobson to Rush Limbaugh, from Laura Ingraham to the leaders of the NRA — doing to stop the right-wing domestic wave of terrorism exploding in the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s election? I ask this as a former evangelical right-wing and “pro-life” leader who quit the right and the Republicans in disgust over their extremism.
In the wake of the election of our first black president, we’ve seen rage — an abortion doctor gunned down; three police officers in Pittsburgh shot by a man who feared “they” would take his guns; and a black security guard at the National Holocaust Museum slain.
The FBI just arrested a well-known white supremacist and the host of an Internet talk show and Web site for saying that three judges should be killed. (Hal Turner, was arrested in North Bergen, N.J., and accused of posting statements on his Web site calling for the killing of three federal appeals court judges in Chicago who recently ruled on a gun-rights case.)
Losing Your Job Means Less Income — And Less Life
Pink Slips and Poor Health: The Toxicity of Job Insecurity
Studies show that the current economic climate may be eroding months or even years from the lives of those on the bleeding edge of insecurity.
When you lose your job, with no prospect of finding another one quickly, you give up a lot more than income. You are deprived of a sense of security, a source of self-esteem, a certain status in the community. And, according to recent research, you also lose something even more precious: a year or more of your life.
That’s the conclusion of two prominent economists, Daniel Sullivan of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Till von Wachter of Columbia University. Matching death records with employment and earnings data of Pennsylvania workers from the 1970s and ’80s, they found mortality rates for high-seniority male workers spike sharply in the year following an involuntary job loss, and they remain surprisingly high two decades later.
via Health Articles | Losing Your Job Means Less Income — And Less Life | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.
Roberts Shifts Court to Right, With Help From Kennedy
Roberts Shifts Court to Right, With Help From Kennedy – NYTimes.com
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. emerged as a canny strategist at the Supreme Court this term, laying the groundwork for bold changes that could take the court to the right even as the recent elections moved the nation to the left.
The court took mainly incremental steps in major cases concerning voting rights, employment discrimination, criminal procedure and campaign finance. But the chief justice’s fingerprints were on all of them, and he left clues that the court is only one decision away from fundamental change in many areas of the law.
Whether he will succeed depends on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court’s swing vote. And there is reason to think that the chief justice has found a reliable ally when it counts.
via News Analysis – Roberts Shifts Court to Right, With Help From Kennedy – NYTimes.com.
Agriculture seen as a key to passing climate-energy bill in the Senate
Agriculture seen as a key to passing climate-energy bill in the Senate
Agriculture will be a big factor determining whether a climate bill similar to Waxman-Markey can make it through the Senate, said Eric Carlson, president of Carbonfund.org in Silver Spring, Md.
“Agriculture was a late comer to Waxman-Markey and needs more attention,” said Carlson, emphasizing that passing the legislation in the Senate will require a lot of work, but is not impossible. He hopes that the Senate version of the bill remains focused on reducing carbon dioxide and will not get watered down.
A last-minute concession Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif) made to agricultural interests was crucial in paving way to the Waxman-Markey bill’s passage in the House last week. Waxman agreed to change the bill so that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will oversee the carbon-offset program for farmers.
The cap-and-trade provision may need some improvements. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) said on Twitter, “I hope we can fix cap-and-trade so it doesn’t unfairly punish businesses in coal dependent states like Missouri.” She has called her constituents’ reaction to a climate-energy bill, “the definition of the word polarized.”
via Agriculture seen as a key to passing climate-energy bill in the Senate.
Senator Claire McCaskill tweets to weaken ACES
OPS: ““Centrist” Democrats are not Democrats. They are Republicans, too cowardly to admit it.
Senator Claire McCaskill tweets to weaken ACES - Scholars and Rogues
Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri is calling for a further weakening of the American Climate and Energy Security Act (ACES) that passed out of the House last week. Of course, that’s not what she calls it. Sen. McCaskill twittered last week:
I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn’t unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri. (emphasis mine)
I can’t help but wonder what happened to the Senator who dared mention that oil prices shouldn’t be allowed to fall too far at the Rocky Mountain Roundtable, Session 2, Part 3, during the DNC:
There’s a certain reality here that it is important that we don’t get gas too cheap again, and I certainly agree with what [Randy Udall] said. We will never see the days of… when people are pumping $1, $1.50 gas again. And that may not be an all bad thing because it will motivate the politics on this issue to the forefront so we have a sense of urgency.
Lest you think I’m casting dispersions here, not only was I one of only a few obvious press in attendance, but here’s the audio in question. I apologize for the audio quality – I’m hardly a professional sound person.
via Scholars and Rogues » Senator Claire McCaskill tweets to weaken ACES.
Citi raises rates on millions of credit cards: report
Citi raises rates on millions of credit cards: report
Reuters) – Citigroup Inc has increased interest rates on up to 15 million U.S. credit card accounts just months before curbs on such rises come into effect, the Financial Times reported citing people close to the situation.
Citigroup had upped rates on 13 million to 15 million credit cards it co-brands with retailers such as Sears, the paper said.
In a statement, Citigroup said “We have adjusted pricing and card terms for some customers as part of our regular account reviews. This is an ongoing process to ensure we offer terms, interest rates, credit lines and products based on individual needs and risk profiles.”
“These changes also reflect the dramatically higher cost of doing business in our industry as we work to preserve the broad availability of credit,” Citigroup told the paper.
Citigroup could not be immediately reached for a comment by Reuters.
via Citi raises rates on millions of credit cards: report – Yahoo! News.
UPDATED: The WSJ’s deafening silence over the Mark Sanford scandal
The WSJ’s deafening silence over the Mark Sanford scandal – Media Matters for America
Otherwise known as Day Five of the WSJ Hypocrisy Watch.
It’s been five days since the conservative Republican governor with national electoral aspirations announced his extramarital affair, and it’s been that long since we learned the conservative Republican governor used taxpayer money to visit his girlfriend.
It’s been five days since questions about whether Sanford should be impeached were raised, and a few days since a South Caroline Republican announced he’d go all the way to the Justice Department if need be in order to investigate Sanford’s behavior.
And yet….the WSJ editorial page which crusaded for the Clinton impeachment and which crusaded that every possible type of criminal prosecutions be launched against Clinton has remained stone-cold silent. The Sanford debacle is of no interest to the very serious writers at the WSJ.
via UPDATED: The WSJ’s deafening silence over the Mark Sanford scandal | Media Matters for America.
Family and the American Economy
Family and the American Economy
Editor’s note: The following is the third interview in a six part series with economist Eamonn Fingleton. Tune in daily this week to watch all six groundbreaking interviews.
The importance of a sound education and strong family safety-net is often underestimated in the United States. Over the past decade our education system has fallen from the world’s most accomplished to one of mediocrity. According to Fingleton, at the same time, our family network has become more fragmented.
He believes that the strict individualism of Americans may play a part in undermining our economic and social infrastructure. American families tend to be much more dispersed than families in other countries, and the two-parent structure is more likely to be broken by divorce. This breaks up the economic safety-net available to individuals, and also undermines the first-hand education provided by family networks.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
