Archive for July, 2009
War Without Purpose
War Without Purpose 
By Chris Hedges
Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals. Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq.
The cost of the Afghanistan war is rising. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded. July has been the deadliest month in the war for NATO combatants, with at least 50 troops, including 26 Americans, killed. Roadside bomb attacks on coalition forces are swelling the number of wounded and killed. In June, the tally of incidents involving roadside bombs, also called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hit 736, a record for the fourth straight month; the number had risen from 361 in March to 407 in April and to 465 in May. The decision by President Barack Obama to send 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan has increased our presence to 57,000 American troops. The total is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009. It will only mean more death, expanded fighting and greater futility.
via Truthdig – Reports – War Without Purpose.
Israel Rejects U.S. Call to Hold Off on Development
Israel Rejects U.S. Call to Hold Off on Development - NYTimes.com
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Sunday an American call to hold off on a planned Jewish housing development in East Jerusalem, saying Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed city could not be challenged.
Mr. Netanyahu issued the statement because State Department officials had raised concerns over the project with Israel’s new ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, during discussions last week on a range of issues. The American officials suggested that going ahead with the development now would cause problems in negotiations toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I would like to re-emphasize that united Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Our sovereignty over it cannot be challenged; this means — inter alia — that residents of Jerusalem may purchase apartments in all parts of the city.”
via Israel Rejects U.S. Call to Hold Off on Development – NYTimes.com.
IRS Gets Tougher on Offshore Tax Evaders
IRS Gets Tougher on Offshore Tax Evaders – - WSJ.com
The Internal Revenue Service has stepped up scrutiny of offshore accounts and foreign income, an enforcement campaign that could sweep up tens of thousands of taxpayers.
The push to recover some of the billions of dollars lost each year to offshore tax evasion goes far beyond the government’s high-profile effort to force Swiss bank UBS AG to release the names of 52,000 American account holders in order to nab tax evaders.
The IRS is using a once-obscure tax form called the Foreign Bank Account Report, or FBAR, to force taxpayers to provide information on income they earn or bank accounts …
via IRS Gets Tougher on Offshore Tax Evaders – WSJ.com.
Sen. Gregg: Force the poor to buy health insurance
Sen. Gregg: Force the poor to buy health insurance
New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who was almost President Obama’s commerce secretary, thinks he has a solution to America’s healthcare crisis. Watch him explain the plan below:
This video is from Fox News Sunday, published to YouTube on Sunday, July 19, 2009.
If you didn’t catch that, here’s what the senator just proposed:
Force the poor into buying “high-deductible” policies. But don’t call them poor. Call them “illegal” or “young people” with wonky spending priorities.
Throw in a subsidy of unknown value to somehow “incentivize” folks who have not seen a doctor in years to suddenly vanish a valuable several hundred dollars from their monthly income for individual or family plans.
Don’t mention any way to “incentivize” insurance companies to cover the “uninsurable” due to pre-existing conditions or chronic illnesses, of whom there are many. In fact, ignore them. They’re not much concern at the ballot box.
via The Raw Story » Sen. Gregg: Force the poor to buy health insurance.
Krugman: White House treatment of Stiglitz reveals lack of respect for ‘progressive-economist wing.’
Krugman: White House treatment of Stiglitz re veals lack of respect for ‘progressive-economist wing.’
Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh reports that progressive economist Joseph Stiglitz, “the man who predicted the global financial meltdown,” is not getting his due respect from the Obama administration. Hirsh writes that the Nobel Prize-winning economist has “heard barely a word from the White House.” For his part, Stiglitz has been critical of the Obama administration:
stigStiglitz had been hammering at Obama’s economic team for its handling of the financial crisis. He wrote that the stimulus program was too small to be effective—a criticism that has since swelled into a chorus, though Obama says he’s not adding more money. Stiglitz also had called the administration’s bailout plan a giveaway to Wall Street, an “ersatz capitalism” that would save the banks’ investors and creditors and screw the taxpayers. [...]
Despite the Obama team’s occasional efforts to reach out to him, Stiglitz remains deeply unhappy about the administration’s approach to the financial crisis. Rather than breaking up or restructuring the big banks that failed, “the Obama administration has actually expanded the notion of ‘too big to fail,’” he says.
The ‘No-Sneeze’ list: Fit-to-Fly certificate required by airlines over swine flu
The ‘No-Sneeze’ list: Fit-to-Fly certificate required by airlines over swine flu –LRP
Airlines to stop suspected swine flu victims from flying –Airlines offer guidance to check-in staff to help them prevent customers boarding flights if they appear to have the virus 19 Jul 2009 Passengers with swine flu will be stopped from boarding flights, two major airlines confirmed today, as the Department of Health warned tourists who contract the illness abroad not to travel home until their symptoms have gone. Both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic said they had provided check-in staff and cabin crew with guidance on how to act if they believe a passenger is unwell. Medical advice would be taken to assess the condition of passengers exhibiting symptoms, including having a headache, sore throat, runny nose, and aching muscles. Virgin Atlantic said those suffering from the condition would be prevented from flying until they could provide a fit-to-fly certificate from their doctor or a hospital.
via Citizens For Legitimate Government.
Social Security Executives Cost Taxpayers $700,000 for Lavish Phoenix Conference
Social Security Execs Boogie Down at Lavish Phoenix Conference – ABC News
SSA Says $700,000 Event Was Necessary to Reduce Stress Caused by Death Threats
Claiming they needed to learn how to reduce stress because of a growing number of death threats being made against them, nearly 700 executives from the Social Security Administration (SSA) gathered for a lavish three-day conference in Phoenix, AZ last week, costing taxpayers about $700,000.
“We received threats against our employees by people who are in the American public,” said SSA Regional Commissioner for San Francisco Peter Spencer in defense of the conference. He said “there is a tremendous amount of stress involved in the job that we do.”
via Social Security Executives Cost Taxpayers $700,000 for Lavish Phoenix Conference – ABC News.
Palin Signs Alaska Sovereignty Resolution
Palin Signs Alaska Sovereignty Resolution | Tenth Amendment Center
On Friday, July 10th, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin signed House Joint Resolution 27 (HJR27), sponsored by State Rep. Mike Kelly. The resolution “claims sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.”
The House passed the resolution by a vote of 37-0 (3 not voting) and the Senate passed it by a vote of 40-0.
Six other states have had both houses of their legislature pass similar resolutions – Tennessee, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma and Louisiana – Alaska joins Tennessee as the second to have such a resolution signed by the Governor.
A GROWING MOVEMENT
Passage of this resolution appears to be part of what is now a growing state-level resistance to the federal government on various levels. Similar 10th Amendment resolutions have been introduced in 37 states around the country, and various states are considering single-issue legislation in direct contravention to federal laws.
via Palin Signs Alaska Sovereignty Resolution | Tenth Amendment Center.
A Challenge to Climate Change Skeptics
A Challenge to Climate Change Skeptics by Nate Silver
John Hinderaker at the popular conservative blog PowerLine 
reports that it’s been cold, cold, cold in his home town of Minneapolis, Minnesota, going to far as to compare it with “The Year Without a Summer”, 1816, when global temperatures were abnormally low as a result of the eruption of Mount Tambora:
I don’t think things are quite so bad this year, but if something doesn’t change pretty soon 2009 may go down in history, in some parts of the U.S. at least, as another year with barely any summer. Here in Minnesota and across the Midwest, temperatures are abnormally cold. I don’t know whether the phenomenon is world-wide–data that will answer this question have probably not been assembled, and may not be honestly reported–but the current low level of solar activity suggests that the cooling trend could indeed be universal.
Indeed, it’s been pretty cool in Minneapolis for the past couple of days; the temperature hasn’t hit 70 since midday Thursday. But has it been an unusually cool summer? No, not really. Since summer began on June 21st, high temperatures there have been above average 15 times and below average 13 times. The average high temperature there since summer began this year has been 82.4 degrees. The average historic high temperature over the same period is … 82.4 degrees. It’s been a completely typical summer in Minneapolis, although with one rather hot period in late June and one rather cool one now. (Note: actual high temperatures can be found here and historical averages can be found here.)
Selective memory is a powerful thing. I’m not particularly certain when pointing out the fact that it might be cool or rainy in your hometown one afternoon became subject for worthwhile blog material, but you have started to see this all the time on certain conservative blogs, probably led by the example of Matt Drudge.
via FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: A Challenge to Climate Change Skeptics.
Democracy hangs by a thread in Honduras -
OPS: Yeah – here too.
Democracy hangs by a thread in Honduras – The Independent
The right-wing coup d’état is faltering, but its supporters have powerful friends in Washington. Hugh O’Shaughnessy reports
The international group of right-wingers who staged the coup d’état against the democratic government of Honduras on 28 June are watching their plot fast unravel.
There is stiffening international opposition to their protégé, Roberto Micheletti, who, in his capacity as President of Congress, ordered President Manuel Zelaya to be expelled from the country by plane in his pyjamas.
Mr Zelaya gave negotiators meeting in Costa Rica until midnight yesterday to restore him to office, threatening to secretly return to Honduras and attempt to retake power on his own if no agreement is reached. At a news conference at the Honduran embassy in Nicaragua, he said: “I am going back to Honduras, but I am not going to give you the date, hour or place, or say if I’m going to enter through land, air or sea.” But indications last night suggested the interim government would call his bluff.
via Democracy hangs by a thread in Honduras – Americas, World – The Independent.
Florida fundraising shows Democratic threat to GOP rule
Florida fundraising shows Democratic threat to GOP rule | McClatchy
TALLAHASSEE &mash; Republicans, beware.
For the first time since the GOP won control of Florida’s government in the mid 1990s, the Democratic Party and its leading candidate for governor together raised more money than their Republican counterparts at the start of a gubernatorial election season.
Alex Sink, the state’s Democratic Chief Financial Officer, raised almost $1.3 million to Attorney General Bill McCollum’s $1.04 million, since April 1. The Democratic Party raised nearly $2 million, while the Republican Party of Florida raised almost $1.2 million.
First, blame the bad economy for the turn of fortunes.
Many big-donor Republicans tend to hail from the development and finance industries, which are crashing. Democrats rely more on lawyers, unions and small donors who haven’t been as devastated by the housing industry meltdown.
Republican Gov. Charlie Crist’s success in financing his U.S. Senate race may also be hurting McCollum’s 2010 fundraising. Crist has leveraged the power of his office and personality to raise a record-setting $4.3 million.
via Florida fundraising shows Democratic threat to GOP rule | McClatchy.
The ONE Reason WE should NOT Torture
Bowe Bergdahl: Soldier Captured In Afghanistan Identified As 23-Year-Old Idahoan
via Bowe Bergdahl: Soldier Captured In Afghanistan Identified As 23-Year-Old Idahoan.
A Future of Clean Energy
A Future of Clean Energy
After just passing the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 219-212 the newly minted Waxman-Markey Clean Energy and Security Act could possibly be a landmark piece of legislation for the United States.
After just passing the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 219-212 the newly minted Waxman-Markey Clean Energy and Security Act could possibly be a landmark piece of legislation for the United States.
The intent of the bill is to increase protections for American workers via a “climate context” border tax provision. The provision would place a tariff on goods produced in countries that do not uphold the same environmental, health and safety regulations as the United States.
The White House is currently not keen on the idea of a border tax provision, as it would make the Obama team seem like they are instigating trade agitation. However, the truth of the matter is that American workers are already forced to compete against depressed foreign wages.
American factories should not be equally penalized for spending money on necessary environmental and safety precautions that other nations lack. The Waxman-Markey bill would level the field by making these goods more expensive, rewarding American producers and workers for abiding by U.S. laws.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Policy Paralysis: The Boiled Frog
Policy Paralysis: The Boiled Frog
On issues of the economy and the environment, Krugman says, the United States is cooked.
EconomyinCrisis.org has mentioned on many occasions that the United States seems to be developing a “frog syndrome.” We are placed in a pot which is slowly raised to a boil, and we unknowingly continue swimming happily around as if nothing is wrong. Before we know it, we are cooked.
That was the premise of economist and columnist Paul Krugman’s recent piece in The New York Times. On issues of the economy and the environment, Krugman says, the United States is cooked.
When the Obama administration came into office it did so amid a stock market collapse and economic free fall which was fresh in the minds of every American. It was the primary reason that the former Senator from Illinois was elected in the first place. Now, after passing a stimulus bill and seeing the stock markets level off, the crisis is largely forgotten.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Goldman Executive Named as Obama Adviser
OPS: We’re in too deep now and still falling. I can’t see light from the other end of the rabbit hole any longer.
Goldman Executive Named as Obama Adviser – NYTimes.com
President Obama said Friday he would nominate Robert Hormats, a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, to a top economic position at the State Department. Mr. Hormats, 66, will be under secretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs. He was deputy trade representative from 1979 through 1981 and held other posts at the State Department throughout his career. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, said in a speech on Wednesday that she hoped to make economic policy and trade a larger part of United States diplomacy.
via Business Briefing – People – Goldman Executive Named as Obama Adviser – NYTimes.com.
California sprouts marijuana ‘green rush’
California sprouts marijuana ‘green rush’
SAN FRANCISCO — A drug deal plays out, California-style:
A conservatively dressed courier drives a company-leased Smart Car to an apartment on a weekday afternoon. Erick Alvaro hands over a white paper bag to his 58-year-old customer, who inspects the bag to ensure that everything he ordered over the phone is there.
An eighth-ounce of organic marijuana buds for treating his seasonal allergies? Check. An eighth of a different pot strain for insomnia? Check. THC-infused lozenges and tea bags? Check and check, with a free herb-laced cookie thrown in as a thank-you gift.
It’s a $102 credit card transaction carried out with the practiced efficiency of a home-delivered pizza — and with just about as much legal scrutiny.
More and more, having premium pot delivered to your door in California is not a crime. It is a legitimate business.
Marijuana has transformed California. Since the state became the first to legalize the drug for medicinal use, the weed the federal government puts in the same category as heroin and cocaine has become a major economic force.
No longer relegated to the underground, pot in California these days props up local economies, mints millionaires and feeds a thriving industry of startups designed to grow, market and distribute the drug.
via The Associated Press: California sprouts marijuana ‘green rush’.
President Carter: Many Children Were Tortured Under Bush
President Carter: Many Children Were Tortured Under Bush
“You have the power to hold your leaders accountable.” – President Obama, Ghana, July 14, 2009 [OPS: Not if the current Prez is covering for the previous one.]
While congress says it is gearing up to investigate what is old news, that CIA and Special Ops forces are killing Al Qaeda leaders, a decision of far different gravity is being contemplated by Attorney General Eric Holder. The new insistence of Congress on its oversight role, conspicuously absent throughout 8 years of Bush, is suddenly rearing its head in the form of questioning a policy which has been in place with no controversy for years. The U.S. has been hunting and killing Al Qaeda leaders outside of official war zones since 2004, when the New York Times reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had signed an order authorizing Special Forces to kill Al Qaeda where they found them.
*
As recently as September 2008 CBS reported that Special Forces struck Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.
The decision faced by Holder, whether or not to appoint a Special Prosecutor on torture, is of a different gravity altogether. A weight of evidence keeps building which indicates torture was employed on innocent men, that it didn’t work, and that it didn’t prevent any attacks. And it gets worse. Bush’s own FBI Director Robert Mueller recently confirmed to the New York Times what he told Vanity Fair a year ago, that “to [his] knowledge” torture didn’t prevent a single attack. Former Legendary CIA Director William Colby has said that torture is “ineffective.”
via Daily Kos: State of the Nation.
A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates
A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates | CommonDreams.org
Canada did not establish its national health care program with a bold, immediate political move by the federal government.
The initial progress came at the provincial level, led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation’s Tommy Douglas when he served from 1941 to 1960 premier of Saskatchewan. The universal, publicly-funded “single-payer” health care system that Douglas and his socialist allies developed in Saskatchewan proved to be so successful and so popular that it was eventually adopted by other provinces and, ultimately, by Canada’s federal government.
For his efforts, Douglas would be hailed in a national survey as “The Greatest Canadian” of all time. But Douglas’ regional initiative also offers a lesson for Americans.
Those of us who know that the only real cure for what ails the U.S. health care system is a universal public plan that provides health care for all Americans while controlling costs recognize the frustrating reality that there are many economic and political barriers to the federal action that would create a single-payer system. This makes clearing the way experimentation at the state level all the more important.
via A Real Win for Single-Payer Advocates | CommonDreams.org.
Celebrating Cronkite While Ignoring What He Did
Celebrating Cronkite While Ignoring What He Did | CommonDreams.org
by Glenn Greenwald
“The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .
“For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past” — Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.
“I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you’re a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn’t do our job. I respectfully disagree. It’s not our role” — David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.
via Celebrating Cronkite While Ignoring What He Did | CommonDreams.org.
Universal Health Care Closer Than a Moon Shot for US
Universal Health Care Coser Than a Moon Shot for US | CommonDreams.org
Here’s a good way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing: Exceed that achievement with one of greater value. Going to Mars would be nice. Getting universal health care would be cheaper. It would do more good to millions of people than expeditions to outer worlds to pick up rocks and plant flags. It should also be easier. Yet we put a man on the moon within eight years of setting the goal but haven’t managed to bring about a civilized health system in six decades of trying. Maybe 2009 will be different. To the nation’s credit, health reform is holding its own against other circuses (Michael Jackson, Sonya Sotomayor, moonshot nostalgia), though it remains a Bataan march through the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good: I’d say odds are 60-40 (a familiar number these days) that reform will make it through Congress this year. Detractors don’t have Hillary Clinton to kick around like they did in 1994. Democrats have been clever to keep their proposals unimaginative. They pander to private insurers by sticking with the majority of the present system. They lean on employers to pick up a modestly larger tab either by covering more employees or contributing a minute percentage of operating costs to a federal insurance fund that will. The cost of the program, $1 trillion over 10 years, is still cheaper than fighting useless wars and possibly less deadly (insurgents having nothing on private insurers and hospital infections).
via Universal Health Care Coser Than a Moon Shot for US | CommonDreams.org.
Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens
Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens - ABC News
Trend Threatens to Reverse Years of Positive Change, CDC Researchers Say
Birth rates among U.S. teens increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991 to 2005, according to a new U.S. government study.
It found that previously improving trends in teens’ and young adults’ sexual and reproductive health have flattened or may be worsening in some cases.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers analyzed national data from 2002-2007. Among their findings:
via Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens – ABC News.
Air Force Plans for All-Drone Future
OPS: It’s going to make starting wars and keeping an Empire a lot easier – isn’t it?
Air Force Plans for All-Drone Future | CommonDreams.org
Is the day of the hot-shot fighter jock nearly done?
An Air Force study, released without much fanfare on Wednesday, suggests that tomorrow’s dogfighers might not have pilots in the cockpit. The Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Plan. which sketches out possible drone development through the year 2047, comes with plenty of qualifiers. But it envisions a radical future. In an acronym-dense 82 pages, the Air Force explains how ever-larger and more sophisticated flying robots could eventually replace every type of manned aircraft in its inventory — everything from speedy, air-to-air fighters to lumbering bombers and tankers.
Emphasis on “might” and “could.” While revealing how robots can equal the capabilities of traditional planes, the Air Force is careful to emphasize that an all-bot air fleet is not inevitable. Rather, drones will represent “alternatives” to manned planes, in pretty much every mission category.
via Air Force Plans for All-Drone Future | CommonDreams.org.
Bush’s Key Men Face Grilling on Torture and Death Squads
Bush’s Key Men Face Grilling on Torture and Death Squads | CommonDreams.org
Former vice-president Dick Cheney could be forced to testify to Congress over allegations that a secret hit squad was set up on his orders, as Democrats press for inquiries into the conduct of the ‘war on terror’.
America is bracing itself for a series of investigations that could see top officials from the administration of President George W Bush hauled in front of Congress, grilled by a special prosecutor and possibly facing criminal charges.
Several investigations will now cast a spotlight on Bush-era torture policy and a secret CIA assassination program, examining the role played by big names such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney and the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld
via Bush’s Key Men Face Grilling on Torture and Death Squads | CommonDreams.org.
Bank ‘walkaways’ from foreclosed homes are a growing, troubling trend
Bank ‘walkaways’ from foreclosed homes are a growing, troubling trend - cleveland.com
John Kuntz/The Plain DealerA pair of boarded up windows are overgrown with vines on a foreclosed home on the city’s East Side. Banks are backing away from properties they have foreclosed on creating a new set of issues for neighborhoods.
Renetta Atterberry thought she had lost her East 102nd Street house. So she was shocked to learn in January — five years after her mortgage company filed for foreclosure — that it was still in her name.
Worse, the long-vacant rental home had been vandalized and she faced a raft of housing code violations. Since then, she has been saddled with debts of about $12,000 to pay for demolition and back taxes.
“I thought I had nothing else to do with that home,” said Atterberry. “I was so embarrassed and humiliated by this.”
Her mortgage company didn’t buy the house and never took it to sheriff’s sale to see if somebody else would, leaving Atterberry the legal owner, responsible for upkeep and taxes.
These so-called “bank walkaways” are another troubling development in the foreclosure crisis, particularly in cities like Cleveland with weaker housing markets, say housing advocates and government officials.
Lenders or mortgage companies decide they don’t want homes they have already foreclosed on, sometimes because the value has plummeted or they believe the homes could become costly liabilities if they are socked with housing code violations.
via Bank ‘walkaways’ from foreclosed homes are a growing, troubling trend – cleveland.com.
Microchips in ID cards raise privacy fears
OPS: No Shit.
Microchips in ID cards raise privacy fears - Abilene Reporter-News
Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he’d bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.
It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker’s gold.
Zipping past Fisherman’s Wharf, his scanner downloaded to his laptop the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians’ electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he’d “skimmed” four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.
Increasingly, government officials are promoting the chipping of identity documents as a 21st century application of technology that will help speed border crossings, safeguard credentials against counterfeiters and keep terrorists from sneaking into the country.
via Microchips in ID cards raise privacy fears : Nation & World : Abilene Reporter-News.
Obama Campaign Arm Doubles Down, Targets House Dems On Health Care
OPS: It’s about damned time
Obama Campaign Arm Doubles Down, Targets House Dems On Health Care
Ignoring criticism – namely from Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid – that intra-party targeting was ineffective, Barack Obama’s campaign arm is expanding its health care ad buy into the districts of key conservative House Democrats.
Late Friday night Organizing for America and the Democratic National Committee announced the expansion of the “It’s Time” ad purchase, which uses personal stories of health care struggles to drive home the need for reform. The initial purchase was on national cable and in eight states with critical Democratic and moderate Republican Senators.
Now the scope of the campaign is expanding. The ad will appear in the media markets that overlap with the congressional districts of 15 members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Eleven of those districts belong to Democrats, including Rep. Zack Space (Ohio), Rep. John Barrow (Georgia), Rep. Jay Inslee (Washington), Rep. Mike Ross (Arkansas), Rep. Bart Gordon (Tennessee), Rep. Baron Hill (Indiana), Rep. Charlie Melancon (Louisiana), Rep. Mike Doyle (Pennsylvania), Rep. Jim Matheson (Utah), Rep. Bart Stupak (Michigan),
via Obama Campaign Arm Doubles Down, Targets House Dems On Health Care.
Child labour used in cosmetics industry
Child labour used in cosmetics industry – Times Online
Deep in the jungle of Jharkhand state in eastern India, at the end of a rutted track passable only by motorbike, a six-year-old girl named Sonia sat in the scorching midday sun, sifting jagged stones in an open-cast mine in the hope of earning enough money for a meal.
Sonia was halfway through her working day and she was already exhausted and dishevelled. Her hair was matted and her pretty flower-patterned dress spoilt by dust.
She barely had enough energy to glance at her eight-year-old cousin Guri, toiling intently beside her as they searched the stones for pieces of mica, a shiny material whose many uses include putting the sparkle into make-up.
If the girls spotted enough mica, they might earn 63p each for a 12-hour day. If they found none, they would probably go hungry.
via Child labour used in cosmetics industry – Times Online.
Amazon erases Orwell from Kindle
Amazon Kindle users surprised by ‘Big Brother’ move – guardian.co.uk
Owners of Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader have received a nasty surprise, after discovering that copies of books by George Orwell had been deleted from their gadgets without their knowledge.
The books – downloaded from Amazon.com by American Kindle users – were remotely deleted after what the US company now says was a rights issue regarding the publisher, MobileReference.com.
“These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books,” spokesman Drew Herdener told the Guardian. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers.”
Amazon refunded the cost of the books, but told affected customers they could no longer read the books and that the titles were “no longer available for purchase”.
via Amazon Kindle users surprised by ‘Big Brother’ move | Technology | guardian.co.uk.
Detroit family dead after ‘glitch’ led to power shut-off
Detroit family dead after ‘glitch’ led to power shut-off
Falling behind in your bills can be deadly, as the tragic story of a Detroit family shows.
A 46-year-old father and this three children are dead from carbon monoxide poisoning after their local energy company cut off their power, prompting the family to use a generator that poisoned them with carbon monoxide.
And the family’s power company says a bureaucratic “glitch” caused them to shut the power off when it shouldn’t have been.
Vaughn Reed, 46, and his three children, Markeisha, 17, DeMarco, 12, and DeMarte, six, died in the early morning hours of Friday from carbon monoxide emitted by a generator in the basement of the family’s two-story home on Detroit’s west side.
via Raw Story » Detroit family dead after ‘glitch’ led to power shut-off.
Exxon faces $1 billion fine for sabotaging Texas oil wells
Exxon faces $1 billion fine for sabotaging Texas oil wells
ExxonMobil’s sabotage of some 100 Texas oil wells in the past 17 years — going so far as to plug up some wells with explosives — means the world’s largest oil company could be liable for penalties of up to $1 billion, the Texas General Land Office says.
Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the state’s land office, released a report earlier this week asking the Texas Railroad Commission — which regulates the state’s oil industry — to investigate “ExxonMobil’s intentional sabotage of oil wells in Refugio County as well as the company’s fraudulent reports covering up the damage.”
“Exxon committed irrefutable, intentional and flagrant violations of state rules regulating the oilfield,” Patterson said in a statement (PDF).
The allegations stem from a lease the company signed with a Texas family, the O’Connors, back in the 1950s to exploit oil fields on the family’s land. When the relationship “went sour,” Patterson states, the energy giant had the oil wells plugged up in such a way that no one else could use them.
Patterson says the company’s reports on the sealing of the oil wells was “fraudule
via Raw Story » Exxon faces $1 billion fine for sabotaging Texas oil wells.
Homeless get paid to stand in line for DC lobbyists
Homeless get paid to stand in line for DC lobbyists
The homeless are taking to the halls of congress, waiting in line for public hearings — up to 30 hours of waiting — for valuable face time with congressional representatives and senators. Often with only 10 seats available to the public, the homeless are getting those spots, shutting all others out.
It might be good for our representatives to hear from this segment of the population, their concerns about issues from affordable housing, employment, and health care to name but a few. However, it’s not the voices of the homeless population the politicians on the Hill will be hearing from, it’s the lobbyists who are paying the them to sit in line and guarantee those few precious public seats.
CNN reports that some homeless praise the practice, as payment varies between $11 an hour and $35 an hour, money that can help them afford to get off the streets or at least boost their spirits by making them feel they are making a valuable contribution to our political discourse. However, there are critics of the practice who see it as lobbyists buying seats at the public hearings, and in 2007, Senator Claire McCaskill introduced legislation in an attempt to ban the practice of line-standing.
via The Raw Story » Homeless get paid to stand in line for DC lobbyists.
Orszag: Some who are advocating delay on health care are just trying to kill it.
OPS: Only “SOME” ?
Orszag: Some who are advocating delay on health care are just trying to kill it.
Late this week, a group of Blue Dog Democrats in the House and six “centrist” Democrats urged their leadership to delay action on health care reform. The White House has been insisting that Congress send him health care legislation by August, a deadline that seems to be fading. CNN’s John King asked White House budget director Peter Orszag about these developments:
ORSZAG: We have to remember: there are some who are advocating delay simply because they don’t have anything to put on the table. The typical Washington bureaucratic game of — ‘if you don’t have a better alternative, just delay in the hope that that kills something’ is partly what’s playing out here.
Orszag clarified that he wasn’t speaking about Blue Dog members or other “members of Congress and Senators who are actually actively participating in the debate.” But, he cautioned, “there are those who are advocating delay just as a desperation move to try to kill this.” Watch it:
via Think Progress » Orszag: Some who are advocating delay on health care are just trying to kill it..
Britain’s dirty little secret as a dumper of toxic waste
Britain’s dirty little secret as a dumper of toxic waste – Times Online
Britain was accused yesterday of dumping toxic household and industrial waste in developing countries on two continents in breach of an international convention.
The Government last night was considering tightening the enforcement of rules after the discovery of hazardous medical and electrical waste in Brazil and Ghana.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, ordered an investigation into two British companies linked to 90 shipping containers containing 1,400 tonnes of waste. They included syringes, condoms and nappies. The companies that received the waste — sent from Felixstowe to three Brazilian ports — said that they had been expecting recyclable plastic.
In a separate case, the Ministry of Defence was unable to explain how one of its computers was found by The Times on a notorious dump on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana. Children as young as 5 extract scrap metal from electrical items there and are exposed to potentially lethal chemicals.
via Britain’s dirty little secret as a dumper of toxic waste – Times Online.
GOP leader: Health care overhaul too drastic
OPS: Perhaps for the Sociopathic, Corrupt and Greedy. But NOT for Americans.
GOP leader: Health care overhaul too drastic
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top Republican says the U.S. has the best health care in the world and the system doesn’t need to be scrapped.
Sen. Mitch McConnell says the Democrats’ approach ignores what’s right with the U.S. system. He says cost and access are challenges, but not enough to justify a complete overhaul.
The Kentucky Republican says the system isn’t the most efficient way to provide care for millions of Americans. He says President Barack Obama’s plan would be the same as government takeover — and that would lead to worse care.
McConnell appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
via The Associated Press: GOP leader: Health care overhaul too drastic.
Moving Targets
OPS: Don’t you have to wonder if people like Bush/Cheney could keep themselves from turning an apparatus like this on Americans as well?
Moving Targets: Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?
by Seymour M. Hersh
Editor’s Note
We bring to the attention of our readers this article by Seymour Hersh published in December 2003, which outlines the assassination policy of the Bush administration directed against the military and civilian Iraqi elites.
This policy was not limited to the Baathist political and military leadership. It also consisted in the assassination of intellectuals, scientists and professionals. The ultimate objective is to destroy the Iraqi nation.
There is evidence, according to Hersh, that Israeli intelligence officers were involved in the training of their US counterparts as well as in the manhunts, with Israeli commandos operating inside Iraq.
This article sheds light on a particular feature of the Bush-Cheney assassination rings, which are now the object of debate in the US. The assassination rings are part of a broad foreign policy agenda.. Are they still in operation inside Iraq? – Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 18, 2009 [emphasis added]
The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. In interviews over the past month, American officials and former officials said that the main target was a hard-core group of Baathists who are believed to be behind much of the underground insurgency against the soldiers of the United States and its allies. A new Special Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary operatives, with many additional personnel ordered to report by January. Its highest priority is the neutralization of the Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.
The revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls “Manhunts”—a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications. Rumsfeld has had to change much of the Pentagon’s leadership to get his way. “Knocking off two regimes allows us to do extraordinary things,” a Pentagon adviser told me, referring to Afghanistan and Iraq.
One step the Pentagon took was to seek active and secret help in the war against the Iraqi insurgency from Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq. Israeli commandos are expected to serve as ad-hoc advisers—again, in secret—when full-field operations begin. (Neither the Pentagon nor Israeli diplomats would comment. “No one wants to talk about this,” an Israeli official told me. “It’s incendiary. Both governments have decided at the highest level that it is in their interests to keep a low profile on U.S.-Israeli coöperation” on Iraq.) The critical issue, American and Israeli officials agree, is intelligence. There is much debate about whether targeting a large number of individuals is a practical—or politically effective—way to bring about stability in Iraq, especially given the frequent failure of American forces to obtain consistent and reliable information there.
via Moving Targets.
Matt Taibbi Probes Role of Investment Giant in US Financial Meltdown
Democracy NOW! – Free: Video - Audio – MP3 Download – Transcript
As Goldman Sachs Posts Record Profits, Matt Taibbi Probes Role of Investment Giant in US Financial Meltdown
Goldman Sachs, the nation’s most powerful financial company, has reported the richest quarterly profit in its 140-year history: $3.44 billion between April and June. Goldman’s record profits come just one month after it repaid $10 billion of TARP money to the US Treasury, freeing itself from restrictions on year-end bonuses. We speak to Matt Taibbi, whose new Rolling Stone article argues that “Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression.” [includes rush transcript]
Congress Woman Introduces Bill to Ban All Credit Default Swaps
As Waters said:
Preventing all credit-default swaps is essential to bringing stability to the market and preventing a similar crisis in the future.
Many top experts – including nobel prize winning economists and numerous other well-known PhD economists – agree.
Indeed, just today, Credit Sights published a report documenting – as I have previously pointed out – that CDS drive companies into bankruptcy.
But aren’t Obama’s new regulation of CDS good enough?
I have repeatedly argued that they aren’t.
But don’t listen to me. Satyajit Das is one of the world’s top credit default swap experts. Yves Smith says of Das:
Satyajit Das is a hard core derivatives expert, having worked with them in enough markets and enough vantage points to be very well versed . . .
This is Das’ area, and if he says it’s an issue, it is …
Drug Makers Score Early Wins as Plan Takes Shape
Drug Makers Score Early Wins as Plan Takes Shape – WSJ.com
WASHINGTON — The pharmaceuticals industry, which President Barack Obama promised to “take on” during his campaign, is winning most of what it wants in the health-care overhaul.
The final contours of the legislation are far from settled, but the industry, led by a onetime powerful congressman, has notched a string of victories.
Legislation expected soon in the powerful Senate Finance Committee will leave out cost-cutting steps as part of an agreement with the industry and the White House, according to Congressional aides, industry lobbyists and others involved in the talks.
via Drug Makers Score Early Wins as Plan Takes Shape – WSJ.com.
Schakowsky: CIA Investigation Will Go Deeper Than Cheney’s Program
Schakowsky: CIA Investigation Will Go Deeper Than Cheney’s Program
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, told the Huffington Post that the 9/11 secret counterterror program that is being characterized as “non-operational” was much more than it’s being made out to be.
The House intelligence committee’s investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency, announced on Friday by Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), will include probes by subcommittee chairs to penetrate deeper into CIA behavior.
Schakowsky’s subcommittee has been given the green light to investigate its legality and is already preparing a major document request.
“The program has been mischaracterized, in my view, as something that’s barely come off the drawing board and that, you know, it was a little bit of planning, a little bit of training,” Schakowsky said. “I don’t know a whole lot more about it, and that’s why we want to do an investigation, other than to say: It was more.”
The secret program was started shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. When he learned about it last week, CIA Director Leon Panetta killed the program almost immediately and briefed Congress the next day, explaining that the CIA had failed to inform Congress of its existence.
The investigation will go beyond the program Schakowsky refers to, about which Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly ordered the CIA not to inform Congress.
“The investigation is going to focus, in the full committee, on the business of proper notification of the committee — not just of this particular program but of so many others where the Congress has not been adequately notified,” said Schakowsky. “We want to answer questions about what was the process for deciding to begin this program, what was the exact nature of it, how far did it get in terms of implementation, how’d it change over the eight years of the program, who was involved within the intelligence community and outside the intelligence community, that kind of very important information.”
via Schakowsky: CIA Investigation Will Go Deeper Than Cheney’s Program.
Why Washington Ignores an Economic Prophet
OPS: People like Stiglitz, expose the ‘man behind the curtain’, and point out that the Emperor is naked are dangerous to the Power Elite and therefore must be (at Least) marginalized. We are in deeper trouble than most Americans understand, or will allow themselves to.
The Most Misunderstood Man in America | Newsweek.com
Joseph Stiglitz predicted the global financial meltdown. So why can’t he get any respect here at home?
Anya Stiglitz was in the middle of a Pilates class in Central Park on an April morning when her cell phone rang. Glancing down, she saw “202″ pop up—no number attached—and knew it was the White House. An aide to Larry Summers was on the line, looking for her husband, the Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Anya said she’d pass on the message to Joe—then went back to work on her abs. No big deal, she thought. People often call her when they want to talk to Joe, because even though he’s spent four decades figuring out how the global economy works, he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of voice mail. “He doesn’t listen to his messages, so if you want to talk to him, keep calling,” Anya says on his cell-phone recording.
Anya figured Summers, Obama’s chief economic adviser, was probably just calling to gripe about Joe’s latest op-ed in The New York Times. Joe Stiglitz and Larry Summers, two towering intellects with egos to match, are not each other’s favorite economist. “They respect each other, but they hate each other like poison,” says Bruce Greenwald, Stiglitz’s friend and academic collaborator at Columbia. (“I’ve got huge admiration for Joe as an economic thinker,” Summers told NEWSWEEK.) Stiglitz had been hammering at Obama’s economic team for its handling of the financial crisis. He wrote that the stimulus program was too small to be effective—a criticism that has since swelled into a chorus, though Obama says he’s not adding more money. Stiglitz also had called the administration’s bailout plan a giveaway to Wall Street, an “ersatz capitalism” that would save the banks’ investors and creditors and screw the taxpayers. “I thought, Larry—he’s just going to yell at Joe,” Anya recalls.
via Why Washington Ignores an Economic Prophet | Newsweek Business | Newsweek.com.
Rolling Stone writer called ‘anti-Semitic’ for simply following the money
Rolling Stone writer called ‘anti-Semitic’ for simply following the money
Popular Rolling Stone contributor, writer and blogger Matt Taibbi claims that he was sent e-mails which attacked him and accused him of anti-Semitism for exposing the investment bank giant Goldman’s Sachs and their shady financial dealings over the years. Taibbi goes into great detail in his seven page essay Inside The Great American Bubble Machine on events relating to such market manipulations as the Great Depression, the commodities bubble, the housing bubble and even the upcoming green/environment bubble, and has fingered Goldman Sachs as playing a leading role in each catastrophe. More important than the various scams that have played out, much to the detriment of the average American, Taibbi exposes the reloving door tradition of the private sector employee of Wall Street into high level, unelected positions in the US government.
For that blistering expose alone, Taibbi expected that he would receive reprisals from the Wall Street types looking to rebuke his charges, but never did he imagine that he would be charged with anti-Semitism for his article. Taibbi writes:
It’s been interesting, to say the least, watching the public reaction to my Rolling Stone piece last week. I of course expected that some kind of highly unpleasant response would come my way from Goldman and its allies in the press, but I admit to being surprised a little by the form this response took.
The most ludicrous of these, and the one that surprised me the most, is the accusation that my article was anti-Semitic propaganda. The first letter I got on this score I actually mistook for a joke sent to me by one of my friends. Then I got another one which I quickly realized was not a joke at all. “Isn’t it convenient,” it read, “that an Arab-American writer for Rolling Stone looks at Wall Street and picks the most prototypically Jewish firm around to demonize.”
The last time I heard something similar was a few years ago, when Debbie Schlussel, a severely dimwitted Detroit-based right-wing pundit, railed against my supposed Arabness after I wrote an article about the Lebanese population in Dearborn, Michigan. I wrote to her to let her know that I’m actually Irish and Filipino, and not at all an Arab, but never got a response. This time the charge is a little different, as several writers complained that my article was “a rehash of every classic anti-Jewish conspiracy theory” and “a pale copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
For one thing, while Goldman’s founders a gazillion years ago were apparently Jewish, I seriously doubt that religion plays any role at all in the makeup of the modern Goldman. I don’t have any way of knowing this, but I would be shocked if it weren’t true that a majority of Goldman’s current employees were not Jewish. And whatever the reality is, I don’t care; it’s not a concern of mine and we didn’t make it a concern in the article.
via Rolling Stone writer called ‘anti-Semitic’ for simply following the money « Under The Radar Media.
CIT crisis threatens wave of business failures and layoffs
CIT crisis threatens wave of business failures and layoffs
The Obama administration has refused to provide government backing for outstanding debt or other emergency aid to CIT, a New York-based bank that finances nearly one million small and midsize companies in the US.
The collapse of CIT’s efforts to secure government relief on Wednesday has left the 101-year-old bank teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and threatens a cut-off of funding to retailers and suppliers. That could result in a wave of bankruptcies and closures, leading to tens of thousands of layoffs.
The administration’s decision to deny aid to CIT stands in sharp contrast to its policy of providing unlimited bailouts to major banks that cater to large corporations and big investors. It is of a piece with its decision to drive General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy in order to impose tens of thousands of layoffs and slash the wages and benefits of auto workers, its opposition to bailing out auto dealerships slated for closure, and its rejection of any federal aid to California or other states facing fiscal insolvency.
It is also in line with the administration’s policy of allowing weaker and smaller financial institutions to fail in order to effect a further consolidation of the banking system in the hands of a few giant Wall Street firms.
via CIT crisis threatens wave of business failures and layoffs.
What kind of health care do lawmakers and Obama get?
What kind of health care do lawmakers and Obama get? – – MiamiHerald.com
WASHINGTON — Throughout last year’s presidential campaign and this year’s debate over fixing the nation’s health care system, lawmakers have delivered the same refrain: that the American people deserve the same kind of health care that members of Congress get.
In reality, the 435 members of the House of Representatives, the 100 members of the Senate and President Barack Obama get a pretty sweet deal, better than most Americans.
“Do they have better health care? A little, anyway,” said Steve Ellis, the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group. “They do get some things that other people don’t: access to doctors, military medical facilities.”
Obama and members of Congress are among the more than 8 million federal employees, retirees and dependents who get their insurance through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the largest employer-sponsored health insurance program in the country.
Because of its size, the program offers federal workers dozens of health plans to choose from, instead of the two or three that corporations and businesses typically offer their workers.
via What kind of health care do lawmakers and Obama get? – Politics AP – MiamiHerald.com.
The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt
OPS: The problem was that he let them walk – scott free when he should have had them all shot for Treason. Had he done that, neither of the Bush’s would have ever been President
The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt | CommonDreams.org
by Robert Naiman
What a dark day for American democracy it was – February 5, 1937, the day they arrested President Roosevelt.
The pretext for this assault on democracy was President Roosevelt’s proposal of the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937, which would have allowed President Roosevelt to appoint more members to the Supreme Court, which had blocked New Deal measures President Roosevelt had introduced to try to bring America out of the Great Depression. Supporters of the New Deal were particularly galled by the Supreme Court’s decision the previous year throwing out New York’s minimum wage law.
But some of President Roosevelt’s opponents in Congress (including many conservative Democrats), the Supreme Court, and the military claimed the proposed bill was an assault on the Constitution – even though the Constitution doesn’t say how many Supreme Court justices there should be, and Congress had changed the number of Supreme Court Justices many times in the past – and that Roosevelt’s move was a dangerous power grab. So dangerous, in fact, that Roosevelt’s proposal could not even be considered in Congress. Roosevelt’s opponents claimed that he had violated the Constitution by even suggesting the idea, and had to be removed from office immediately; that Roosevelt and his supporters were such a threat to the established order that due process had to be dispensed with — if Roosevelt were put in prison, maybe there would be riots.
Therefore, on the morning of February 5, soldiers under the command of General Smedley Butler arrested President Roosevelt and deported him to Canada, still in his pajamas.
via The Day They Arrested President Roosevelt | CommonDreams.org.
Oysters for Health Care
Oysters for Health Care | CommonDreams.org
by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
This is a story of health care and two Americans; a tale of two citizens, if you will.
This week, Regina Benjamin was nominated by President Obama as our next surgeon general, charged with educating Americans on medical issues and overseeing the United States Public Health Service. She was the first African American woman to head a state medical society, a member of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association and last year was named the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius award.
But more important, she’s a country doctor, a family physician along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, serving the poor and uninsured — white, black and Asian. After Hurricane Katrina destroyed her clinic — the second time a hurricane had done so — she mortgaged her own home to rebuild it. The day it was to reopen, a fire burned the clinic to the ground. Moving to a trailer, Dr. Benjamin and her staff never missed a day of work.
Stan Wright, the tobacco-chewing mayor of Bayou La Batre, the small shrimp-fishing community in which Dr. Benjamin practices, told National Public Radio, “She’ll do whatever she’s gotta do to make sure everyone’s taken care of.”
via Oysters for Health Care | CommonDreams.org.
Report: ‘No geographical limitations’ on CIA assassination program
OPS: OK to operate within the US
Report: ‘No geographical limitations’ on CIA assassination program
The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret assassination squad was allowed to operate anywhere in the world, including the United States, according to a Thursday report in The Washington Post.
“The plan to deploy small teams of assassins grew out of the CIA’s early efforts to battle al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” the paper reported. “A secret document known as a ‘presidential finding’ was signed by President George W. Bush that same month, granting the agency broad authority to use deadly force against bin Laden as well as other senior members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”
Reporter Joby Warrick added: “The finding imposed no geographical limitations on the agency’s actions, and intelligence officials have said that they were not obliged to notify Congress of each operation envisaged under the directive.”
via Raw Story » Report: ‘No geographical limitations’ on CIA assassination program.
Acquittal for PA man who brought gun to Obama rally
Acquittal for PA man who brought gun to Obama rally
A judge and jury in Beaver County, Pennsylvania ruled Friday that a man who brought a holstered handgun to an Obama for President rally last year is not guilty of any crimes.
John Noble, who was also carrying a Christian Bible at the rally, made an Internet post prior to the rally saying he would “test what would happen.” The judge called his actions “foolish,” but not criminal.
From KDKA CBS2 in Pennsylvania:
Though he had proper permits to carry the firearm, a trooper arrested him for disrupting a public gathering.
John NobleWhile jurors could not reach a verdict in the case last night – asking the judge to go home because they were “frazzled,” they found Noble not guilty of the third degree misdemeanor for disrupting a public gathering shortly before noon.
Noble said he was “elated” with the verdicts.
Noble allegedly brought the gun to the rally as a rhetorical challenge to President Obama’s campaign statement that some voters can become bitter after their towns are decimated by job losses, driving them to “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment.”
By avoiding the third degree misdemeanor charge, Noble dodges a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.
via The Raw Story » Acquittal for PA man who brought gun to Obama rally.
House Intel Committee to probe CIA hit squad program
House Intel Committee to probe CIA hit squad program
U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) said on Friday afternoon that the panel will investigate the CIA’s hit squad program to determine whether the agency’s nondisclosure to Congress was a violation of law.
“After careful consideration and consultation with the Ranking Minority Member and other members of the Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will conduct an investigation into possible violations of federal law, including the National Security Act of 1947,” Reyes said in a prepared statement.
He added: “This investigation will focus on the core issue of how the congressional intelligence committees and Congress are kept fully and currently informed. To this end, the investigation will examine several issues, including the program discussed during Director Panetta’s June 24th notification and whether there was any past decision or direction to withhold information from the Committee.”
via Raw Story » House Intel Committee to probe CIA hit squad program.
GOP Rep. Admits That Health Insurance Companies Control The Market And Dictate Medical Decisions
GOP Rep. Admits That Health Insurance Companies Control The Market And Dictate Medical Decisions
Today on C-Span’s Washington Journal, a caller told a story of how he was forced to see numerous doctors at different hospitals in the area in where he lives, some as far as 100 miles away, to get a diagnosis. The caller then faulted health insurance companies for preventing the practice of having “diagnostic tests done under one roof.” “So in essence,” the caller noted, “the insurance companies are the ones controlling what tests you can get, when you get them, how you get them and if they’re accepted or not.”
In a remarkable moment of candor, C-Span’s guest — Republican Congressman Tim Murphy (PA) — agreed:
MURPHY: Yeah and that brings up the point here that with regard to one of our big frustrations with insurance companies is they control the market place, they control what’s done, a lot of times doctors not making the decisions here. And you recognize the frustration.
Watch it:
Steele’s Fuzzy Math: Obama Administration Created $10 Trillion National Deficit
Steele’s Fuzzy Math: Obama Administration Created $10 Trillion National Deficit
Earlier today on Fox News, RNC Chairman Michael Steele was asked whether Republicans would borrow from President Clinton’s famous catch-phrase during the 1992 campaign, “it’s the economy stupid,” in the run-up to the 2010 election. Steele proceeded to launch into a rambling answer that used fuzzy math to assert that, in only six months, President Obama has added “10 trillion dollars” to the national deficit, while President Bush is to blame for only “a trillion”:
STEELE: They love going back to George Bush and his deficit that was inherited. Great. I’ll take George Bush’s deficit right now of a trillion dollars over the 10 trillion dollars that this administration has created in just six months.
Watch it: video at link
Steele is clearly confusing the difference between our national debt, which stands at roughly $11.4 trillion, and this year’s budget deficit, which just exceeded $1 trillion.
via Think Progress » Steele’s Fuzzy Math: Obama Administration Created $10 Trillion National Deficit.
DeMint’s discourse: Government is fascist, says he will ‘break’ Obama and cause the Senate ‘pain.’
TP: This isn’t the first time DeMint has used this incorrect analogy
DeMint’s discourse: Government is fascist, says he will ‘break’ Obama and cause the Senate ‘pain.’
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is ratcheting up his anti-Obama rhetoric. On a call with right-wing activists yesterday afternoon, he proudly proclaimed that he aims to “break” the President by defeating health reform. He also said recently that he prefers to cause “pain” to his fellow legislators rather than working on reform. And while promoting his new book on the G. Gordon Liddy show yesterday, DeMint agreed with Gordon — who ironically has a history of expressing sympathetic views to Nazis — that Obama has created a government like that under Hitler:
LIDDY: But there’s something else that I remember because I’m a lot older than you are and it’s called national socialism and that’s where the government allows private people to continue to own industrial capacity and what have you but tells them what they may — must do with it. You know, you will make Messerschmidts, etc. That was national socialism. That seems to me the way we’re going.
DEMINT: You’re right we’ve got national socialism, national paternalism and our form of socialism seems more benign than the classical form that we noted in Europe.
Listen here:
A Return to Profitability
A Return to Profitability
It should be no surprise that Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are turning such profits, they were arguably the strongest diversified financial firms in the business before the collapse.
On July 14 Goldman Sachs reported astronomical second-quarter earnings in excess of $3.4 billion. On July 16 JPMorgan Chase also reported amazing second-quarter earnings of $2.7 billion. These are record-breaking profits for firms which just over a year ago were said to be near collapse.
With financial markets in a relative calm and futures trading looking comparatively bright to its position just months ago, more big banks are likely to start turning profits in coming months. JPMorgan Chase has done so well that it has repaid in full the $25 billion in lending it received from the government.
However, things may not be as cheerful as they seem. First of all, it should be no surprise that Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are turning such profits, they were arguably the strongest diversified financial firms in the business before the collapse. Smaller and less protected companies like Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Stearns were crushed; but Wall Street’s true powers weathered the storm.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Economy is Worse than it Appears
Economy Worse than it Appears
In essence, this downturn has destroyed all of the growth built up since the Dot.com Bubble in 2000 and 2001.
There is a lot of misguided hope in the United States that our economic freefall is coming to an end. Many people are cheering for a recovery when all they are really witnessing is a slight slowing of decline. Most major economic indicators are still pointing in the wrong direction.
Furthermore, according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, the economy may be in even worse shape than some naysayers have predicted. Every American is well aware of the rampant job loss in the United States. In June the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employment fell by an additional 467,000, bringing recession-driven unemployment to a total of 7.2 million since December 2007.
However, that statistic is not even the worst indicator of our economic decline. Columnist Mortimer Zuckerman predicts that the unemployment numbers for June will be adjusted up 40-50 percent in coming months when government auditors re-assess their numbers. That would place June employment in the range of 600,000 or more. Such a rise would mean this economy is back to the breakneck collapse of a few months ago.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
How Dennis Kucinich May Save the Health Reform Battle
How Dennis Kucinich May Save the Health Reform Battle
A proposal by Kucinich that would allow states to create their own single-payer systems is gaining steam in Congress.
No time today for a lengthy analysis of the Tri-Committee health bill. My quick-and-dirty take is this. Those who think the bill is a wonderful progressive victory with a robust public option are wrong, and, on the flip side, the charge that it’s a “bailout for the insurance industry” is totally divorced from what the bill would actually do if passed.
It is the most progressive, comprehensive and significant health care legislation to come down the pike since Medicare was passed in 1965. If it were enacted as written, it’d go a long way to solving a lot of our problems (but by no means all) and wouldn’t break the bank in the process.
But it also fails some of the basic criteria that most progressives have long said is a red-line that can’t be crossed. First and foremost, it doesn’t have a public option that can compete with private insurers and result in significant cost savings.
via How Dennis Kucinich May Save the Health Reform Battle | Politics | AlterNet.
The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits
The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits
Matt Taibbi
Equity underwriting boomed during the period as dozens of banks raised money to strengthen capital and repay Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. The business reported record revenue of $736 million.via Article – WSJ.com.
So what’s wrong with Goldman posting $3.44 billion in second-quarter profits, what’s wrong with the company so far earmarking $11.4 billion in compensation for its employees? What’s wrong is that this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy.
Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet would explode if we didn’t fork over a gazillion dollars to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state crutches and safety nets quietly ushered in later on was that Wall Street, once rescued, would pump money back into the economy, create jobs, and initiate a widespread recovery. This, we were told, was the reason we needed to pilfer massive amounts of middle-class tax revenue and hand it over to the same guys who had just blown up the financial world. We’d save their asses, they’d save ours. That was the deal.
via Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits – True/Slant.
Look Out, Are You About to Join the White Underclass?
Look Out, Are You About to Join the White Underclass?
“We’re starting to hear a little discussion about the white underclass… Mainly because so many middle class folks are terrified of falling into it.”
“White underclass” is a term I’ve used often in my writing, and most American readers seem to know what I mean. They’ve got eyes and live in the same nation I do. But in a sudden burst of journalistic responsibility, I decided that if I am going to throw around the word underclass, then I should offer some clearer, perhaps more scientific definition.
So I started writing this with a pile of published research papers before me. Now they are in the trash can by my side. Looking down on them, I can see the gobbledygook titles, the stuff of which government policy and political platforms are made. They run together in slurry of the language of our society’s commissars: Concerning-Prevalence-Growth-and-Dynamics-Concentrated Urban Poverty Areas- block-level vs. tract-level segregation-800-tract-tables-urban abstracts-Defining-and-Measuring-the-Underclass-from-The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management-statistical-summary-of…
Traded away for a make-believe economy, the real US economy is dead
Traded away for a make-believe economy, the real US economy is dead
By Paul Craig Roberts
There is no economy left to recover. The US manufacturing economy was lost to offshoring and free trade ideology. It was replaced by a mythical “New Economy.”
The “New Economy” was based on services. Its artificial life was fed by the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates, which produced a real estate bubble, and by “free market” financial deregulation, which unleashed financial gangsters to new heights of debt leverage and fraudulent financial products.
The real economy was traded away for a make-believe economy. When the make-believe economy collapsed, Americans’ wealth in their real estate, pensions, and savings collapsed dramatically while their jobs disappeared.
The debt economy caused Americans to leverage their assets. They refinanced their homes and spent the equity. They maxed out numerous credit cards. They worked as many jobs as they could find. Debt expansion and multiple family incomes kept the economy going.
And now suddenly Americans can’t borrow in order to spend. They are over their heads in debt. Jobs are disappearing. America’s consumer economy, approximately 70 percent of GDP, is dead. Those Americans who still have jobs are saving against the prospect of job loss. Millions are homeless. Some have moved in with family and friends; others are living in tent cities.
Meanwhile the US government’s budget deficit has jumped from $455 billion in 2008 to $2,000 billion this year, with another $2,000 billion on the books for 2010. And President Obama has intensified America’s expensive war of aggression in Afghanistan and initiated a new war in Pakistan.
There is no way for these deficits to be financed except by printing money or by further collapse in stock markets that would drive people out of equity into bonds.
via Traded away for a make-believe economy, the real US economy is dead.
DNA Not The Same In Every Cell Of Body: Major Genetic Differences Between Blood And Tissue Cells Revealed
OPS: Science just got flipped on it’s head
DNA Not The Same In Every Cell Of Body: Major Genetic Differences Between Blood And Tissue Cells Revealed
ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. Their results appear in the July issue of the journal Human Mutation.
his discovery may undercut the rationale behind numerous large-scale genetic studies conducted over the last 15 years, studies which were supposed to isolate the causes of scores of human diseases.
Except for cancer, samples of diseased tissue are difficult or even impossible to take from living patients. Thus, the vast majority of genetic samples used in large-scale studies come in the form of blood. However, if it turns out that blood and tissue cells do not match genetically, these ambitious and expensive genome-wide association studies may prove to have been essentially flawed from the outset.
Scientific Inquiry concludes: Inhofe List “Not credible …”
Scientific Inquiry concludes: Inhofe List “Not credible …”
Senator James Inhofe (R-Exxon) has misused the power of his chairmanship and, now, Ranking Minority status on the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee to expend taxpayer resources on distorting, misleading, and outright deceiving when it comes to scientific issues, most notably in relation to questions of Global Warming.
One of the most infamous examples of this are the various incarnations of a “report” cobbling together statements from scientists that supposedly dissent from the scientific consensus on humanity’s role in driving accelerating global warming. This is a quite favorite ‘denier’ citation, the supposed 400 or 600 or 700 (depending on which version) number of scientists who have, supposedly, gone on record against the Theory of Global Warming. And, they like to cite this as from the “Senate Environment and Public Works Committee”, without mentioning that this is a Minority Report from global-warming denier, fossil fool James Inhofe’s staff.
Well, today the Center for Inquiry (CFI), “an organization committed to defending scientific integrity,
has today dealt a body blow to global warming skeptics by releasing findings exposing the lack of credibility of dissenting scientists challenging man-made global warming
CFI’s Office of Public Policy undertook an assessment of the 687 people listed as “dissenting scientists” in the January 2009 version of the ‘Inhofe list’. Their conclusions:
* Slightly fewer than 10 percent could be identified as climate scientists.
* Approximately 15 percent published in the recognizable refereed literature on subjects related to climate science.
* Approximately 80 percent clearly had no refereed publication record on climate science at all.
* Approximately 4 percent appeared to favor the current IPCC-2007 consensus and should not have been on the list.
via Scientific Inquiry concludes: Inhofe List “Not credible …”.
Navajos Mark 30th Anniversary of Uranium Spill
Navajos Mark 30th Anniversary of Uranium Spill
CHURCH ROCK, N.M. (AP) — The leader of the Navajo Nation marked the 30th anniversary of a massive uranium tailings spill by reaffirming the tribe’s ban on future uranium mining.
Speaking in Navajo and English, President Joe Shirley Jr. addressed about 100 people who made a seven-mile walk Thursday to the site of the July 16, 1979 spill and to the land of Navajo ranchers who live near another contaminated site.
What Shirley called “the largest peacetime accidental release of radioactive contaminated materials in the history of the United States” occurred when 94 million gallons of acidic water poured into the north fork of the Rio Puerco after an earthen uranium tailings dam failed.
Within days, contaminated tailings liquid was found 50 miles downstream in Arizona.
via Navajos Mark 30th Anniversary of Uranium Spill | NAZ Today.
Wunder bar! Swiss stumble on low-calorie, no-melt chocolate
Wunder bar! Swiss stumble on low-calorie, no-melt chocolate | | The Guardian
We have been indulging in it in various forms for at least 3,000 years, arguing over its influence on everything from our sexual appetites to our waistlines.
But now scientists for the world’s largest chocolatier believe they have stumbled on the holy grail of chocolate: a recipe that is both melt-resistant and low-calorie.
Vulcano is the internal code name for the new product by the Swiss chocolate manufacturer Barry Callebaut. Developed in a laboratory under top-secret conditions by an international team of food engineers, it not only has 90% fewer calories than the average chocolate product, it is also heat-resistant to temperatures of up to 55C (131F). Most chocolate starts to melt at 30 degrees.
The company aims to target calorie-conscious European and US markets as well as emerging markets in Asia and Africa where local temperatures have hindered the spread of chocolate.
“It’s called Vulcano because it can be eaten when it’s hot, and its airy and full of bubbles, like volcanic rock,” said Gaby Tschofen, a spokeswoman for Barry Callebaut, which annually makes 1.1m tonnes of cocoa and chocolate-based products for customers around the world, including Cadburys and Nestlé.
via Wunder bar! Swiss stumble on low-calorie, no-melt chocolate | Life and style | The Guardian.
The Sinister Purpose Behind Bush Administration Lawlessness
The Sinister Purpose Behind Bush Administration Lawlessness
The seeming irrationality behind the George W. Bush administration’s “against the grain” (and the law) policies on torture, warrantless domestic surveillance, and now notification of Congress about CIA covert operations was not irrational at all.
Most experts say that torture is counterproductive because the subject will tell the interrogator what he or she wants to hear to stop the pain and because many military people say that it merely revs up the opposition, gives them no incentive to surrender, and gives them every incentive to torture U.S. military personnel. Yet in the face of this mountain of authoritative opinion and the policy’s clear violation of international law and a U.S. criminal statute against torture, the Bush administration gleefully did it anyway.
The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) clearly prohibited surveillance in the United States without a court-approved warrant and explicitly stated that it was the only law governing that practice. The Bush administration, in the wake of 9/11, made no effort to get a likely willing Congress to change the already flexible law. After all, if surveillance had been urgently needed to stop a terrorist attack, the secret and pro-security court could have issued the warrant after the fact. But the Bush administration strangely chose to flagrantly violate the law and Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to conduct domestic warrantless searches anyway.
Most recently, it has been revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney told the CIA to violate a law requiring prompt disclosure of even anticipated covert operations. The red herring that Republicans are now trying to stand by in defense of the uncharacteristically silent Cheney — that the executive branch must guard intelligence sources and methods — could apply to a particular assassination attempt but not the existence of the entire program over a seven-year period. Amazingly, Vice President Cheney — not even the president — decided to knowingly and affirmatively disregard the law.
via The Sinister Purpose Behind Bush Administration Lawlessness by Ivan Eland — Antiwar.com.
Conyers Rallies Activists for Single-Payer Health Care
OPS: Well, he made a lot of noise about Impeachment too, and never produced anything except false expectations.
Conyers Rallies Activists for Single-Payer Health Care – : Indybay
Congressmember John Conyers (D-MI) came to San Diego Sunday, July 12 to speak at the World Beat Center in Balboa Park and rally activists to fight for single-payer health care. This article presents his talk about the merits of single-payer, the need to recruit activists to demand it and arrange for them to meet their Congressional representatives, and his plan for action on how to get single-payer “on the table” before a Congress and an administration that so far haven’t been willing to pursue health “reform” that challenges the private health insurance companies. The article also discusses and quotes from former Cigna P.R. person Wendell Potter’s appearance on the July 10 “Bill Moyers’ Journal” discussing the insurance industry’s battle against single-payer or ANY public option for health care coverage.
via Conyers Rallies Activists for Single-Payer Health Care : Indybay.
Five Republican judges switch to Democratic Party, including four from Jefferson County
OPS: Don’t trust them.
Five Republican judges switch to Democratic Party, including four from Jefferson County
MONTGOMERY — Five Republican judges in Alabama have switched to the Democratic Party.
The executive committee of the Alabama Democratic Party voted Friday in Montgomery to accept four Jefferson County judges and one Montgomery County judge into the party so they can run as Democrats in 2010.
The Jefferson County party switchers are Circuit Judges Dan King and Virginia Vinson and District Judges Eric Fancher and Sheldon Watkins. The party switcher from Montgomery County is Circuit Judge William Shashy.
The executive board also voted to accept former Republican state Rep. Johnny Ford of Tuskegee into the party. That will allow Ford to run for a state Senate seat next year as a Democrat.
Nurses Assn. Praises House Vote to Permit State Single-Payer Laws
Nurses Assn. Praises House Vote to Permit State Single-Payer Laws
The nation’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses is hailing passage of a key amendment in the House Education and Labor Committee to the national healthcare reform bill this morning that would enable individual states to go a step farther and adopt single-payer style reforms.
Introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the amendment would remove potential legal impediments for states to pass single-payer bills by waiving federal exemptions that apply to employer-sponsored health plans, according to a statement from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
The amendment passed on a bi-partisan vote of 25-19, with the support of both progressive, single-payer Democrats and many Republicans who endorsed the ability of individual states to pass their own versions of health care reform, the nurses group says.
via On The Hill: Nurses Assn. Praises House Vote to Permit State Single-Payer Laws.
The growth of the human population is bad
The growth of the human population is bad
Growth is bad. You rarely hear that statement in any context in America these days. But it is true. Americans have been brainwashed into believing that all growth, unless it pertains to cancer, is unquestionably a good thing. But let’s think about that. Would we want the world population to grow until people were standing shoulder to shoulder on all of the Earth’s land? No, right? OK, that means we recognize that population growth must stop at some point, and not just slow down, either. So we’re not debating whether population growth has to come to a complete halt, we’re only talking about when.
Note that though the well meaning Al Gore thinks that global warming is the big thing to worry about, he has completely neglected the root cause. It doesn’t even matter if humans are responsible for global warming. They so clearly are the cause of so much other trouble, and it’s because there are too many people. All the world leaders are concerned about how to feed, clothe, and supply water and energy to the growing multitudes. Sophisticated agricultural, water desalination, and purification, and energy production methods are being researched and developed. But all this effort will prove futile if world population continues to grow. We live on a finite planet. Growth will simply overwhelm the attempted remedies.
via William Ladd: The growth of the human population is bad.
Sex on C Street: GOP Rep Slept With Mistress in Christianist Enclave
Sex on C Street: GOP Rep Slept With Mistress in Christianist Enclave
The latest bombshell about the congressional Christianists’ residence and meeting house on Washington’s C Street comes from a lawsuit released yesterday in which the soon-to-be ex-wife of former Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) charges Pickering’s alleged longtime mistress with alienation of affection.
In the suit, Leisha Pickering accuses Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd of — among other things — having sex with Chip Pickering at the C Street house — which is listed in tax records as a church — while he was serving in Congress:
via Pensito Review » Sex on C Street: GOP Rep Slept With Mistress in Christianist Enclave.
Fifty thousand General Motors retirees face destruction of benefits
OPS: Of course they do. That’s part of what Corporate Bankruptcy is for.
Fifty thousand General Motors retirees face destruction of benefits
Interview with a former New Jersey auto worker
The bankruptcy of General Motors, and the organization of a “new” auto company in its place, is being carried out at the expense of tens of thousands of active and retired auto workers, along with dealerships, other small businesses, and entire communities.
It is a ruthless Wall Street operation, presided over by the Obama administration, that will benefit only the corporate elite. Characteristically, a White House statement July 15 declared that it “strongly opposes” a measure in Congress pressing GM and Chrysler to restore the several thousand dealerships closed by the auto companies’ bankruptcies.
via Fifty thousand General Motors retirees face destruction of benefits.
China Guarding Energy Industry
China Guarding Energy Industry
Through protectionist measures, the Chinese government is making it nearly impossible for foreign competitors to gain any market share in the Asian nation.
While American policymakers seek to reform the nation’s outdated energy policies and put the U.S. into a position to lead the world in renewable energy production, the Chinese government is feverishly seeking to take that title from the U.S. In China the government is effectively erecting the necessary protectionist measure to foster the growth of its renewable energy sector, according to The New York Times.
Through protectionist measures, the Chinese government is making it nearly impossible for foreign competitors to gain any market share in the Asian nation. China is the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels, yet 95 percent of its output is exported.
The Chinese government recently built its first solar powered plant. In that instance, to keep foreign competitors out, the government required that 80 percent of the materials used in the construction of the plant be Chinese-made.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Financial Titans Post Profits; GE Falls Short
Financial Titans Post Profits; GE Falls Short
Rounding out a week of impressive second-quarter earnings reports from major financial titans Bank of America and Citigroup each posted huge profits.
After seeing surges of 3 percent or more on Wednesday, the DJIA, NASDAQ, and S&P500 cooled off during Thursday trading. Each was up roughly 1 percent in daily trading, and markets are fulfilling the expert expectations of a “lackluster” opening session. Each of the three major stock markets was slightly down in the first hour of trading.
Oil futures on the American market were over $62 per barrel by the end of the day yesterday and have traveled over FuelGaugeReport.com. National gasoline averages are down nearly $0.19 in the past month.
The battered U.S. dollar experienced little change on international markets. Those currencies which are typically strong against the dollar remained so, and those which are typically undervalued lost points on the margins.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Conservatives say Texas social studies classes give too much credit to civil rights leaders
Conservatives say Texas social studies classes give too much credit to civil rights leaders | Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Civil rights leaders César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall – whose names appear on schools, libraries, streets and parks across the U.S. – are given too much attention in Texas social studies classes, conservatives advising the state on curriculum standards say.
“To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin” – as in the current standards – “is ludicrous,” wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks. David Barton, president of Aledo-based WallBuilders, said in his review that Chávez, a Hispanic labor leader, “lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others.”
Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is “not a strong enough example” of such a figure.
Big Pharma Bribes Doctors to Hook Your Kids on Drugs
Big Pharma Bribes Doctors to Hook Your Kids on Drugs
Americans must start to question the legitimacy of the exploitative pharmaceutical-industrial complex and the predatory people atop them
“The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
The wave of evil washes not only the financial-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, the energy-industrial complex, and predatory executives at AIG, Citibank, Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, Enron, and Exxon. The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession, whose all-star opportunist team is captained by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, the high-profile doctor most responsible for the explosion of kids on psychiatric drugs, first for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and then for bipolar disorder.
In 2008, Biederman was nailed by Congressional investigators for taking $1.6 million from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 and failing to report most of this loot to his university, a major conflict of interest in violation of the rules. In a February 26, 2009 deposition given by Biederman to several states attorneys (who were claiming that makers of antipsychotic drugs defrauded state Medicaid programs by improperly marketing their medicines), Biederman was asked what rank he held at Harvard.
“Full professor,” Biederman answered.
via Big Pharma Bribes Doctors to Hook Your Kids on Drugs | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
Tales of How Big Corporations Are Screwing Americans Over
Tales of How Big Corporations Are Screwing Americans Over
Stagnant wages, sexual harassment, worsening benefits, horrible treatment: just a few of the problems faced by American workers in all industries.
The silver lining — if there is one — in this horrible [financial] crisis is that for years, the country just wasn’t paying attention to how the typical worker was doing,” declares New York Times labor and workplace correspondent Steven Greenhouse.
“There was so much focus on the wizards of Wall Street and the brilliant entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, but very, very little attention paid to how the average worker was doing. I think the recession has gotten the nation to realize that things are really bad for millions and millions of average workers.”
Greenhouse has described that pinch in The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, his chronicle of everything that’s wrong with the modern U.S. workplace: “stagnant wages, worsening benefits, horrible treatment,” as he put it in an interview with Miller-McCune.com.
Dismantling the Temple
Dismantling the Temple
A Dark Hole of Democracy: How the Fed Prints Money Out of Thin Air
By William Greider
The financial crisis has propelled the Federal Reserve into an excruciating political dilemma. The Fed is at the zenith of its influence, using its extraordinary powers to rescue the economy. Yet the extreme irregularity of its behavior is producing a legitimacy crisis for the central bank. The remote technocrats at the Fed who decide money and credit policy for the nation are deliberately opaque and little understood by most Americans. For the first time in generations, they are now threatened with popular rebellion.
During the past year, the Fed has flooded the streets with money–distributing trillions of dollars to banks, financial markets and commercial interests–in an attempt to revive the credit system and get the economy growing again. As a result, the awesome authority of this cloistered institution is visible to many ordinary Americans for the first time. People and politicians are shocked and confused, and also angered, by what they see. They are beginning to ask some hard questions for which Federal Reserve governors do not have satisfactory answers.
Where did the central bank get all the money it is handing out? Basically, the Fed printed it, out of thin air. That is what central banks do. Who told the Fed governors they could do this? Nobody, really–not Congress or the president. The Federal Reserve Board, alone among government agencies, does not submit its budgets to Congress for authorization and appropriation. It raises its own money, sets its own priorities.
Exclusive: Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M
Exclusive: Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M
via Exclusive: Conservative group offers to sell endorsement for $2M – Mike Allen – POLITICO.com.
What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC?
What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC? | Media Matters for America
In the weeks since President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, one question has consumed the news media, particularly conservatives in the media: Imagine what would happen if a white man had said the reverse of Sotomayor’s famous (and famously distorted) “wise Latina” comment. Media commentators have insisted that such a white man would be denounced as a racist and run out of town on a rail.
That’s nonsense. First of all, Sotomayor’s actual comments were far more innocuous than the media’s portrayal of them would suggest; she was merely noting the importance of judicial diversity in cases involving discrimination, a sentiment that is consistent with statements by numerous prominent conservatives. Second, as Reason magazine’s Julian Sanchez has noted, “[I]t would be weird for a white man to say it because it’s probably not true that the experience of growing up as a white male in the United States specifically enhances one’s understanding of what it means to be a disfavored minority.”
Finally, the media debate over Sotomayor has provided a depressing reminder of what does happen to prominent white men who make racist, sexist, and homophobic comments: MSNBC, among others, puts them on payroll and trots them out to opine on matters of race and gender.
via What would Pat Buchanan have to say to get himself fired from MSNBC? | Media Matters for America.
Federal Reserve Cannot Account for $9 Trillion
Federal Reserve Cannot Account for $9 Trillion | The Beacon
By David Theroux
Momentum is building with 179 co-sponsors for Congressman Ron Paul’s bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to audit the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009) not just because of the growing unrest over the Fed’s gigantic and reckless expansion of trillions of dollars in credit during the past eight months but because of the increasing awareness that the Fed itself is unable to account for where this money has gone. According to a report from Bloomberg News on February 9th:
The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.
The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. . . .
Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed. . . .
Bloomberg requested details of Fed lending under the Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral.
At a hearing in early May, Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman was asked by Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) to account for the $9 trillion in off-balance sheet transactions ($30,000 for each man, woman and child in the U.S.) plus a $1 trillion expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet since last September. Her answer is that no one at the Fed knows or is keeping track of where the money has gone.
via Federal Reserve Cannot Account for $9 Trillion | The Beacon.
House Lets States Do Single-Payer Healthcare
House Lets States Do Single-Payer Healthcare
By David Swanson
On Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. ET in the House Committee on Education and Labor, the committee members voted 25 to 19 to pass Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s amendment to the healthcare reform bill. This amendment, if it survives the full House, the Senate, the conference, and the President, will not alter the federal legislation except to allow states to create single-payer healthcare systems if they choose to. If this change to the bill makes news, it will pass the Senate, because there is no legitimate argument against it, and the support for it is bipartisan.
davidswanson :: House Lets States Do Single-Payer Healthcare
The committee members voted in order of seniority through all the Democrats and then the Republicans, returning to allow those who passed or were not present on the first round or the second round to cast their vote. No members switched their votes from yes to no or vice versa, during the voting, but several passed and then voted after hearing their colleagues vote. In the final count, 25 voted Yes, 19 No, 2 left their vote as “Pass,” and 3 were not there or did not respond at all.
On the first go round, these Democrats voted Yes: Woolsey, Kucinich, Holt, Grijalva, Loebsack, and Fudge. Not nearly enough, but then came the Republicans, not a single one of whom has supported single-payer healthcare, but many of whom apparently respect states’ rights: Kline, Petri, McKeon, Souder, Ehlers, Biggert, Platts, Wilson, McMorris Rogers, Price, and Guthrie. That gave us 17 votes going into round two. Among Democrats, we then picked up Payne, Scott, Shea Porter, and Polis. Among Republicans, Hoekstra and Castle joined in. We had 23 votes moving into round three. Two more Democrats, Tierney and Tonko, brought the total to 25.
via Open Left:: House Lets States Do Single-Payer Healthcare.
The Coming End of the Culture Wars
The Coming End of the Culture Wars
The term “culture wars” dates back to a 1991 book by academic James Davison Hunter who argued that cultural issues touching on family and religious values, feminism, gay rights, race, guns, and abortion had redefined American politics. Going forward, bitter conflicts around these issues would be the fulcrum of politics in a polarized nation, he theorized.
It did look like he might have a point for a while. Conservatives especially seemed happy to take a culture wars approach, reasoning that political debate around these issues would both mobilize their base and make it more difficult for progressives to benefit from their edge on domestic policy issues such as the economy and health care. This approach played an important role in conservative gains during the early part of the Clinton administration and in the impeachment drama of the late 1990s, which undercut progressive legislative strategies. And the culture wars certainly contributed to conservative George W. Bush’s presidential victories in 2000 and 2004.
Yet these issues have lately been conspicuous by their absence. Looking back on Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008, culture wars issues not only had a very low profile in the campaign, but where conservatives did attempt to raise them, these issues did them little good. Indeed, conservatives were probably more hurt than helped by such attempts—witness the effect of the Sarah Palin nomination.
via The Coming End of the Culture Wars.
The Joy of Sachs
The Joy of Sachs – NYTimes.com
Paul Krugman
The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits — and it’s preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?
First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.
Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have not gone away.
Third, it shows that by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.
Let’s start by talking about how Goldman makes money.
via Op-Ed Columnist – The Joy of Sachs – NYTimes.com.
If at First You Don’t Secede, Try, Try Again
If at First You Don’t Secede, Try, Try Again
Governor Rick Perry keeps threatening to lead Texas into seceding from the union. For goodness sake, go already.
A few years back, a friend was telling me about trying to explain the word “chauvinism” to her young children. They were on vacation in Texas at the time. The next day, she pointed out an area which turned out to be over the border in Mexico. A local overheard her. “No, ma’am,” he corrected and pointed to the proper side of the dividing line, “This is Texas. God’s Country.”
My friend turned to her kids and said, “That is chauvinism.”
Little did she know that the Texan meant it literally.
Last week, Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) appointed creationist Gail Lowe to head the state’s Board of Education. Subsequent recommendations to remove such bothersome things as facts from K-12 curriculum, while adding religious doctrine, means the old joke, “Bored of Education,” has staged a comeback.
Mind you, I understand why religion is important to people. It serves a deep place in the heart, in the home, in houses of worship, in how we live our lives. Where it serves no place, of course, is in public education. It’s like adding soap into clam chowder. It might keep your hands clean, but makes a really bad soup.
via Robert J. Elisberg: If at First You Don’t Secede, Try, Try Again.
Citigroup Posts $4.28 Billion Profit on Smith Barney
Citigroup Posts $4.28 Billion Profit on Smith Barney - Bloomberg.com
July 17 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc. posted a $4.28 billion profit, buoyed by gains from selling control of its Smith Barney brokerage and beating analysts’ estimates as the bank shed assets to compensate for loan losses.
Second-quarter earnings were 49 cents a share, compared with a loss of $2.5 billion, or 55 cents, a year earlier, New York-based Citigroup said today in a statement. Excluding the Smith Barney gain of $6.7 billion, Citigroup had an operating loss of about 27 cents a share. That was better than the 33-cent average loss estimate of 12 analysts in a Bloomberg survey.
Consumer and business loan delinquencies kept rising, giving Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit little relief from the financial crisis that forced him to take a $45 billion government bailout and unload some of his biggest units. The bank, once the nation’s largest by assets, now ranks third after Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
via Citigroup Posts $4.28 Billion Profit on Smith Barney (Update1) – Bloomberg.com.
Democrats Cut Labor Provision Unions Sought
Democrats Drop Key Part of Bill to Assist Unions – NYTimes.com
A half-dozen senators friendly to labor have decided to drop a central provision of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers.
The so-called card-check provision — which senators decided to scrap to help secure a filibuster-proof 60 votes — would have required employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted a union. Currently, employers can insist on a secret-ballot election, a higher hurdle for unions.
The abandonment of card check was another example of the power of moderate Democrats to constrain their party’s more liberal legislative efforts. Though the Democrats have a 60-40 vote advantage in the Senate, and President Obama supports the measure, several moderate Democrats opposed the card-check provision as undemocratic.
In its place, several Senate and labor officials said, the revised bill would require shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections.
via Democrats Cut Labor Provision Unions Sought – NYTimes.com.
URGENT ACTION REQUEST: Healthcare
OPS: This was an email just receive from Kucinich. Posted here due to the urgency. Don’t know if it’s on his website yet or not.
URGENT ACTION REQUEST: Healthcare
Dear Friends,
It is 6.30 am on Friday and we have just finished a 20 hour marathon committee markup of the health care bill, HR3200, during which I offered the amendment to enable states to pursue single payer health care plans.
A recorded vote on my amendment will occur in the Labor and Education committee sometime between 9:15 am and 10:00 am EST.
Your help is needed urgently. Please call committee members now and ask for their vote for the Kucinich Amendment.
Thank you,
Dennis
Democrats
George Miller, Chairman (CA-07)
Dale E. Kildee (MI-05)
Donald M. Payne (NJ-10)
Robert E. Andrews (NJ-01)
Robert C. Scott (VA-03)
Lynn C. Woolsey (CA-06)
Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15)
Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04)
John F. Tierney (MA-06)
Dennis J. Kucinich (OH-10)
David Wu (OR-01)
Rush D. Holt (NJ-12)
Susan A. Davis (CA-53)
Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Timothy H. Bishop (NY-01)
Joe Sestak (PA-07)
Dave Loebsack (IA-02)
Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
Jason Altmire (PA-04)
Phil Hare (IL-17)
Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Joe Courtney (CT-02)
Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01)
Marcia Fudge (OH-11)
Jared Polis (CO-2)
Paul Tonko (NY-21)
Pedro Pierluisi (PR)
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Northern Mariana Islands)
Dina Titus (NV-3)
Vacancy
Republicans
John Kline, Ranking Member (MN-02)
Thomas E. Petri (WI-06)
Howard “Buck” McKeon (CA-25)
Peter Hoekstra (MI-02)
Michael N. Castle (DE-At Large)
Mark E. Souder (IN-03)
Vernon J. Ehlers (MI-03)
Judy Biggert (IL-13)
Todd Russell Platts (PA-19)
Joe Wilson (SC-02)
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05)
Tom Price (GA-06)
Rob Bishop (UT-01)
Brett Guthrie (KY-2)
Bill Cassidy (LA-6)
Tom McClintock (CA-4)
Duncan D. Hunter (CA-52)
Phil Roe (TN-1)
Glenn “GT” Thompson (PA-05)
Single-payer health care has better record
Single-payer health care has better record - Salt Lake Tribune
I have just returned from attending the 10th Congress of the National Patient Advocate Foundation as the Utah policy liaison. I visited the office of each member of Utah’s congressional delegation and spent time with Rep. Rob Bishop and Sen. Bob Bennett. The purpose of the congress, with representatives from 46 states, was to lobby for health care reform.
Because of that trip, I was particularly sensitive to Dr. Charles Stewart’s “Sesame Street” op-ed in the July 5 issue of The Salt Lake Tribune and would like to present some counterarguments.
We currently have three single-payer systems operating in this country: Medicare, Veterans Administration and the military Tri-Care. All of them operate on approximately one-third the administrative costs of private insurers — probably because of the lack of excessive executive salaries paid by the insurance companies.
The VA, unlike Medicare, which is restricted by law, negotiates drug prices and its prices are significantly lower. Furthermore, prescription costs are cut even further by the practice of prescribing double strength pills in many cases and furnishing the patient with a pill splitter so the prescription is effectively doubled with only a minimal cost increase.
Stewart claims that Part D of Medicare is coming in under projected costs. He fails to mention that pharmaceutical companies, which as an industry has one of the highest profit margins, raised drug prices on the order of 10 percent immediately after the passage of the Medicare Reform Act.
via Single-payer health care has better record – Salt Lake Tribune.
Single-payer insurance is the way to go for ailing health care system
Single-payer insurance is the way to go for ailing health care system - – Kingsport Times
By Robert Funke, M.D.
It has been nearly 50 years since the U.S. government implemented significant health care reform, providing insurance for all Americans over 65 through Medicare. Doctors were apprehensive toward government sponsored health insurance.
The AMA, which at the time still included a majority of U.S. physicians, led the opposition to Medicare, but did not prevail. Thank goodness. Currently, health care is treated as a privilege for the wealthy, those employed by the state or a large business, and for those over 65. Leaving everyone else uninsured is not just morally wrong, it is economically wrong. Over half of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills, and many of those bankrupted had insurance, but were underinsured with large deductibles or limited benefits.
In recent surveys, two-thirds of Americans have favored universal coverage. The dissenting third probably fears the cost of covering the 50 million uninsured. But as it is, the U.S. spends far more on health care than anyone in the world. We just don’t get much for our money.
via Single-payer insurance is the way to go for ailing health care system – Kingsport Times-News Online.
Graham: Republicans select political appointees on the basis of race.
Graham: Republicans select political appointees on the basis of race.
Capping off a day of unusual candor, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) explained to right-wing affirmative action opponent Linda Chavez, a witness at today’s Sotomayor confirmation hearings, that Republicans routinely make hiring decisions on the basis of race. According to Graham, “politics is politics in the sense that I know that Republicans sit down and think, ‘ok, we’ve got some power now. Let’s make sure that we let the whole country know the Republican party is not just a party of short white guys.’” And then, in a comment perhaps reflecting why Graham is supporting Sotomayor, he added:
What I want to tell the country is that Republicans very much do sit down and think about political picks and appointments in a political sense to try to show that we’re a party that looks at all Americans and wants to give an opportunity. And that’s just life. And that’s not a bad thing.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Graham: Republicans select political appointees on the basis of race..
Bachmann Misreads House Health Bill To Claim ‘Whatever Health Care You Have Now’ Will Be Gone In 5 Years
OPS: She didn’t misread anything – she’s a paid whore liar 
Bachmann Misreads House Health Bill To Claim ‘Whatever Health Care You Have Now’ Will Be Gone In 5 Years
bachmann-glasses.jpgOn Tuesday, three separate House committees — Ways and Means Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, Education and Labor Committee — released a single health care reform bill, the American Affordable Healthy Choices Act. An analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found that the legislation would cost $1 trillion over 10 years and cover 94 percent of Americans (97% if you don’t count undocumented immigrants).
On Dennis Miller’s radio show today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attacked the bill, claiming that it plainly stated that Americans would be forced out of their current health care plans “within five years”:
BACHMANN: Well, what does that mean? That means that politicians are going to substitute their choice for your doctor’s choice for you. That’s exactly what this bill does. Here’s the other thing about that bill. It’s a monstrosity. I have the bill printed out on my desk, it’s over 1,000 pages long. On the 16th page, it says whatever health care you have now, it’s going to be gone within five years. So your current health care plan, you’re not going to have in five years. What you’re going to have is a government plan and a federal bureau is going to decide what you get or if you get anything at all.
Listen here:
Tracking the influence of Frank Luntz’ obstructionist health care memo.
Tracking the influence of Frank Luntz’ obstructionist health care memo.
In early May, conservative word guru Frank Luntz authored a messaging memo defining the Republican rhetoric on health care reform. In order to obstruct reform, Luntz offered a set of poll-tested words that he said “should be used by everyone.” Some of those words were “rationing,” “doctor-patient,” “takeover” and “bureaucrats.” Using the Capitol Words search engine, the Sunlight Foundation’s Paul Blumenthal has found that Republicans are following Luntz’ advice:
Over the past month, as the health care debate has really gotten off the ground, the use of these words in the Congressional Record has skyrocketed. See the numbers below:
“Rationing” goes from 18 uses in May to 90 uses in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word “rationing” in the Capitol Words database.
“Doctor-patient” goes from 6 uses in May to 20 in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word “doctor-patient” in the Capitol Words database.
“Takeover” goes from 13 uses in May to 106 in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word “takeover” in the Capitol Words database.
“Bureaucrats” goes from 53 uses in May to 78 uses in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word “bureaucrats” in the Capitol Words database.
via Think Progress » Tracking the influence of Frank Luntz’ obstructionist health care memo..
Blue Dogs threatening to quash health bill over surtax voted for Bush tax cuts.
Blue Dogs threatening to quash health bill over surtax voted for Bush tax cuts.
Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) — along with six other members of the Blue Dog coalition on the House Energy and Commerce Committee — are threatening to vote down the House’s health care legislation in committee. Ross reportedly objects to the surtax included in the bill, saying “I don’t like the idea of raising taxes in the worst economic crisis since World War II.” However, the Blue Dogs concerned about the surtax voted for some of the budget busting Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that constituted a huge gift to the very wealthiest Americans. Of the seven Blue Dogs on from Energy and Commerce who are complaining, four were around to vote on Bush’s tax cuts. Here’s how they voted:
Member 2001 2003
Rep. Mike Ross (AR) Yes No
Rep. Bart Gordon (TN) Yes No
Rep. Jim Matheson (UT) Yes Yes
Rep. Baron Hill (IN) No No
via Think Progress » Blue Dogs threatening to quash health bill over surtax voted for Bush tax cuts..
Goldman and JPMorgan — The Two Winners When The Rest of America is Losing
Goldman and JPMorgan — The Two Winners When The Rest of America is Losing
Robert Reich
Besides Goldman Sachs, the Street’s other surviving behemoth is JPMorgan. Today it posted second-quarter earnings up a stunning 36 percent from the first quarter, to $2.7 billion.
The resurgence of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs gives both banks more financial clout than any other players on the Street — allowing both firms to lure talent from everywhere else on the Street with multi-million pay packages, giving both firms enough economic power to charge clients whopping fees, and bestowing on both firms even more political heft in Washington.
Where are the antitrusters when we need them? Alternatively, why isn’t the government charging Goldman and JPMorgan a large insurance fee for classifying both firms as “too big to fail” and therefore automatically bailed out if the risks they take turn sour? Instead, we’ve ended up with two giants that now have most of the casino to themselves, are playing with poker chips backed by taxpayers, and have a big say in what the rules of the game are to be.
via Robert Reich’s Blog: Goldman and JPMorgan — The Two Winners When The Rest of America is Losing.
Baxter Vaccine ‘Oddities’
Baxter Vaccine ‘Oddities’
Baxter Files Swine Flu Vaccine Patent a Year Ahead of Outbreak –US20090060950A1 to Baxter International filed 28th August 2008 By Lara 10 Jul 2009 Baxter Vaccine Patent Application US 2009/0060950 A1 –’In particular preferred embodiments the composition or vaccine comprises more than one antigen…..such as influenza A and influenza B in particular selected from of one or more of the human H1N1, H2N2, H3N2, H5N1, H7N7, H1N2, H9N2, H7N2, H7N3, H10N7 subtypes, of the pig flu H1N1, H1N2, H3N1 and H3N2 subtypes, of the dog or horse flu H7N7, H3N8 subtypes or of the avian H5N1, H7N2, H1N7, H7N3, H13N6, H5N9, H11N6, H3N8, H9N2, H5N2, H4N8, H10N7, H2N2, H8N4, H14N5, H6N5, H12N5 subtypes.’
Baxter can take no more H1N1 flu vaccine orders 16 Jul 2009 While at least 50 governments have placed orders or are negotiating with drug companies for supplies of flu vaccine against the [their] fast spreading H1N1 strain, the lone U.S.-based maker has already taken on as much as it can handle. Baxter International Inc said on Thursday it has taken orders from five countries, including Britain, Ireland and New Zealand, for a total of 80 million doses of H1N1 vaccine and will not take any more.
‘Clearly we believe this demand has the potential to translate into a significant opportunity.’ Baxter 2Q Profit Up 7.9%; Full-Year Guidance Raised 16 Jul 2009 Baxter International Inc. posted a stronger-than-expected 7.9% rise in second-quarter profit with help from improved margins and product sales that continued to avoid any hits from the economic downturn. The medical-products maker boosted its 2009 earnings guidance while saying the increase doesn’t reflect at this point any contribution from making a vaccine for the H1N1 flu strain. Baxter reported a second-quarter profit of $587 million, or 96 cents a share, up from $544 million, or 85 cents a share, a year earlier.
via Citizens For Legitimate Government.
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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. 
