Archive for July, 2009
Attorney General May Probe Bush Torture Policy
Obama doesn’t want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway. Newsweek.com
It’s the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he’d stood on the roof of the White House alongside the president of the United States, leaning over a railing to watch fireworks burst over the Mall, the monuments to Lincoln and Washington aglow at either end. “I was so struck by the fact that for the first time in history an African-American was presiding over this celebration of what our nation is all about,” he says. Now, sitting at his kitchen table in jeans and a gray polo shirt, as his 11-year-old son, Buddy, dashes in and out of the room, Holder is reflecting on his own role. He doesn’t dwell on the fact that he’s the country’s first black attorney general. He is focused instead on the tension that the best of his predecessors have confronted: how does one faithfully serve both the law and the president?
Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent. Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. “You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation’s laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort,” Holder says. “But the reality of being A.G. is that I’m also part of the president’s team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values.”
via Attorney General May Probe Bush Torture Policy | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com.
Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers
Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers - FT.com
Summers On Recession: “I Don’t Think The Worst Is Over”
Larry Summers, director of the US president’s National Economic Council, usually eats at his White House desk or sitting around a nearby table with other members of the economic team. But today, for Lunch with the FT, Summers’ aides have persuaded him to walk down the stairs to the Ward Room, a windowless alcove near the White House mess. The dark-wood panelling and nautically themed paintings are meant to evoke a naval officer’s dining room but these grace notes are muted by the plastic cutlery, paper plates and drinks sipped straight from their plastic bottles.
As he flips open a plastic box of Caesar salad with grilled chicken and unscrews the cap of a bottle of Diet Coke, Summers makes small talk – his son’s killer swing on the golf course, his own weekend tennis plans. But Summers – whom I first met as an undergraduate 20 years ago when I dropped into his office at Harvard to ask about the economic advice he was giving to the leaders of what was then the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania – is not known for his casual conversation.
via FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT – Lunch with the FT: Larry Summers.
Inspectors General Confirm Bush Admin Carried Out Massive Illegal Surveillance, More Than Previously Known
Inspectors General Confirm Bush Admin Carried Out Massive Illegal Surveillance, More Than Previously Known
addingtonA congressionally-mandated report by Inspectors General of five separate intelligence agencies confirms that the Bush administration carried out “unprecedented,” massive surveillance activities beyond the warrantless wirteapping program that had previously been revealed. The Bush administration authorized the program without fully notifying Congress:
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., told The Associated Press she was shocked to learn of the existence of other classified programs beyond the warrantless wiretapping.
Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales made a terse reference to other classified programs in an August 2007 letter to Congress. But Harman said that when she had asked Gonzales two years earlier if the government was conducting any other undisclosed intelligence activities, he denied it.
“He looked me in the eye and said ‘no,’” she said Friday.
Bill Moyers Journal – Healthcare Reform – 7.10.09
Video and Transcript
Healthcare Reform
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
The biggest medical drama on our TV screens this summer is not reruns of “House” or “Grey’s Anatomy.” It’s a high stakes, life and death spectacle inside and outside the halls of Congress, as lawmakers attempt open heart surgery on that most fragile and stubborn of patients — health care reform.
On a bright summer day, these thousands of people have traveled to Washington from all around the country. They’re here in good spirits, on a serious mission.
CROWD: Senators and Congress people around this land, it’s time you listened to our demands. Hear our voice, we want choice, we’ve come here today to make lots of noise! We want…we want health care! We want…we want health care! We want it now!
Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS.
U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report
U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report – NYTimes.com
While the Bush administration had defended its program of wiretapping without warrants as a vital tool that saved lives, a new government review released Friday said the program’s effectiveness in fighting terrorism was unclear.
The report, mandated by Congress last year and produced by the inspectors general of five federal agencies, found that other intelligence tools used in assessing security threats posed by terrorists provided more timely and detailed information.
Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists, the report said.
via U.S. Wiretapping of Limited Value, Officials Report – NYTimes.com.
Call to Action for Young Progressives
Call to Action for Young Progressives
“This isn’t a wait until we grow up kind of thing. Our country needs our leadership now.”
On July 8, I had the privilege of attending the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington DC. Together with 1,000 young progressives from across the country, I listened to speeches made by some of our nation’s most inspiring leaders and participated in discussions about my generation’s role in our country’s most progressive battles.
Without a doubt, there are two issues that dominated nearly every conversation – climate change and healthcare. For the millennial generation, these issues are very real. We are, or know someone who is, uninsured. We know that the effects of climate change will begin during our lifetime if we don’t act now. We are ready to get involved and our country’s new leadership is ready for us to play a vital role.
As someone with a vested interest in the ongoing fight to pass a comprehensive climate change bill, I was particularly inspired by Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy and Special Advisor on Green Jobs to the White House, and Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi. Both gave significant credit to young people for the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the House and called for our continued action in the Senate debate.
via Call to Action for Young Progressives | Future Majority.
‘Eliminate private health insurance’ says former NEJM editor
‘Eliminate private health insurance’ says former NEJM editor
A senior physician-academician and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine says none of the leading health care reform proposals being considered by Congress address the underlying cause of the health care crisis: out-of-control costs.
Dr. Arnold Relman, author of A Second Opinion: Rescuing America’s Health Care, has outlined the problem and offered solutions from his catbird seat as physician, Harvard medical school professor and journal editor. Rehlman was a guest on NPR’s July 10 Science Friday program. He said none of the leading proposals for health care reform, including President Obama’s “public option” plan, address the underlying problem of spiraling costs due to a system devoted to profits.
He said if the Obama plan passes “we’ll spend billions and billions more covering people that are currently underinsured,” adding that extending health care is a good thing. “But it will break the bank.”
Rehlman’s recommendations for fixing the health care system are to:
- Eliminate incentives for overpricing and under providing of care.
- Make the entire health care system non-profit.
- Eliminate insurance companies, the “middlemen” of health care.
- Have physicians and other clinical staff work in multi-specialty health centers and be paid a salary by a government single-payer government.
He also spells out how to pay for a reformed health care system. Eliminating private, for-profit insurance would reduce health care costs by 40 percent. Eliminating unnecessary tests and treatments would reduce costs by about 33 percent. Bundling those savings along with the 10 to 15 percent allowed as tax deductions for employers providing health care to workers and placing them into a central non-profit system would achieve health care for all, he said.
via Flesh and Stone – ‘Eliminate private health insurance’ says former NEJM editor.
Ensign’s “C Street House” Owned By Group Touting Plans For Christian World Control
Ensign’s “C Street House” Owned By Group Touting Plans For Christian World Control
In video, organization behind C Street House details plan for control of seven key sectors of society.
Video at Link
Most recently covered by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (1, 2), Washington D.C.’s ”C Street House” has over the past two weeks become the center of a media firestorm. Along with GOP Senator Tom Coburn, sex-scandal embroiled GOP leaders Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford have been tied to the row house, assessed to be worth 1.84 million dollars, which is registered as a church and provides Washington politicians with substantially lower than market rate rent. Coburn and Ensign have lived at the C Street house, while Sanford has participated in its Bible study group.
According to the Washington Post the house is owned by Youth With a Mission D.C. Youth With a Mission is one of the most extensive Christian fundamentalist para-church organizations on Earth, and YWAM founder leader Loren Cunningham has publicly outlined a vision for Christian world-control.
In a 2008 promotional video, “Reclaiming 7 Mountains of Culture”, Loren Cunningham describes a vision he shared along with the late Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer, in which Christian fundamentalists could achieve world domination by taking over key sectors of society such as business, government, media, and education.
Francis Schaeffer is widely credited as one of the most influential theologians of the 20th Century Christian right. Among the myriad ministries of Bill Bright’s behemoth Campus Crusade For Christ is the Washington D.C. ministry Christian Embassy that targets Pentagon leaders for evangelizing.
via Talk To Action | Ensign’s “C Street House” Owned By Group Touting Plans For Christian World Control.
Ellison takes on public option on House floor
Reporter Ellison? Rep takes on public option on House floor
Rep. Keith Ellison offered a unique strategy on the health reform debate on the public option: he took his video camera to the House floor to discuss the issue. Long a supporter of single-payer health care, Ellison has been outspoken about his support for a public option to the health reform bill. And now, he’s gotten his colleagues to speak out as well:
Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions
On Wednesday, I reported how Retired Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, the former Judge Advocate General of the US Navy from 1997 to 2000, had delivered compelling testimony to a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on “legal issues regarding military commissions and the trial of detainees for violations of the law of war,” explaining why the only valid forum for trials of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay is the U.S. federal court system.
The lucidity and directness of Hutson’s testimony was in marked contrast to the amendments to the existing Military Commission system — and terrifying asides about the use of “preventive detention” — that were proposed by Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s General Counsel, and David Kris, the Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s National Security Division, in response to legislation already prepared by the Committee, which, it seems, will be presented to the Senate in the imminent future, even though it still allows (subject to certain restrictions) the use of information — I hesitate to use the word “evidence” — obtained through coercion, and other information that is nothing more than hearsay.
The day after Hutson delivered his testimony, the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on “Legal Issues Surrounding the Military Commissions System,” in which Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld of the U.S. Reserves, a former prosecutor in the Military Commissions, delivered what should, I believe, be the final word on the unsuitability of Military Commissions as a valid trial system (PDF).
via Andy Worthington: Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions.
Bombshell: Cheney Ordered Information About CIA Programming Withheld from Congress
Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project - NYTimes.com
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.
Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.
via Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project – NYTimes.com.
Regulating Oil Markets
Regulating Oil Markets
After enduring nearly two years of fluctuations in global oil markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now considering placing regulations on speculation in this vitally important sector.
After enduring nearly two years of fluctuations in global oil markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now considering placing regulations on speculation in this vitally important sector. Speculative trading has been a poster-child of the corruption of America’s financial system, and a move to curb such practices would be a paradigm changing shift at the CFTC.
Chairman Gary Gensler has not officially made any decision about a policy shift, but a written statement provided by the CFTC makes clear allusions to the possibility. Gensler said that it is his “firm belief” that his agency must use all of its authority to “ensure market integrity.” With Americans so dependent on oil “market integrity,” this means keeping prices from soaring to the heights of last summer.
The problem with Mr. Gensler’s proposal is that it does not address the fundamental instability of oil markets in general. Obviously it is economically and financially preferable to spend less on oil, but we should truly adopt is a policy that rids the U.S. of its oil addiction altogether. The CFTC is in no position to create this new mandate, but Gensler’s directives come from the White House – and President Obama is in just such a position.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Tiny Troubles : How Nanoparticles Are Changing Everything From Our Sunscreen to Our Supplements
Nobody Knows What Nanoparticles Do — Yet They Are in Your Food, Cosmetics, and Toys. Not even the world’s leading nanoscientists know what nanoparticles do inside the body or the environment
Tiny Troubles : How Nanoparticles Are Changing Everything From Our Sunscreen to Our Supplements
It’s a beautiful summer day. You pull on your stain-resistant cargo shorts and odor-resistant hiking socks, gulp down an energy-boosting supplement, slather yourself with sunscreen and head out for a ramble in the woods. Are you poisoning yourself? When you get home, you jump in the shower and toss your clothes in the wash. Are you poisoning the environment? Maybe. Your sunscreen, energy drink and high-tech clothing may be among the 800-plus consumer products made with nanomaterials: those manufactured at the scale of atoms and molecules. Sunscreen that turns clear on the skin contains titanium dioxide, an ordinary UV-blocker in extraordinarily small particles. Odor-eating socks are made with atoms of germ-killing silver. Supplement makers boast of amazing health effects from swallowing nanosolutions that are completely untested for effectiveness or safety. And that stain-repellant clothing? The manufacturer won’t even tell you what nanomaterials are in it.
The problem is not just that you, the consumer, don’t know what’s in the products you use. The much bigger problem is that at the nanoscale, common substances behave in uncommon ways. And nobody—not even the world’s leading nanoscientists—knows what nanoparticles do inside the body or in the environment.
The Fed Under Fire
The Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful and secretive institutions in Washington, long considered beyond the reach of lawmakers. But now, as details emerge of how the Fed secretly doled out more than a trillion dollars during the financial crisis, a rare bipartisan movement in Congress demands that the Fed be held accountable.
The Right-Wing Prescription for Economic Recovery: Lionize the Rich and Demonize the Poor
The Right-Wing Prescription for Economic Recovery: Lionize the Rich and Demonize the Poor
Wing-nut commentary about the crisis blames the victims. As if things weren’t already bad enough.
As if the fact of the world financial meltdown – which, one is told, is the worst since the Great Depression — isn’t dreary enough, the steady stream of right-wing commentary about the crisis makes matters worse in the salt-in-the-wound sense that it, typically, blames the victims, lionizes the villains, attempts to deflect blame from the criminals and proffers that the greed that totally poisoned the system in the first place is in fact the answer to all our problems.
Take, for instance, Ross Douthat, a young conservative pundit whose white, privileged, Harvard-educated, East Coast Money pedigree makes him uniquely qualified to lecture the lower classes on how to behave. He advises the mopey, repressed, upper-middle “creative” class to swing, baby. But he tells the irresponsible rabble of the lower orders, on the other hand, to chill:
Our meritocrats [sic] could stand to leaven their careerism with a little more romantic excess. (Though such excess is more appropriate in the young, it should be emphasized, than in middle-aged essayists and parents.) But most Americans, particularly those of modest means, would benefit from greater caution and stability in their romantic entanglements.
What Makes Religion a Force for Good or Evil?
What Makes Religion a Force for Good or Evil?
By Terrence McNally and Robert Wright,
Christianity, Judaism and Islam are both peaceful and violent. Robert Wright discusses what circumstances bring out the best and worst in religion.
Is religion a force for good or ill?
This question has been more energetically debated over the last few years, globally, due to the West’s confrontation with radical Islam, and in the U.S., to the political emergence and activism of evangelical Christians. This was brought to a head with the misadventures of George W. Bush, from Teri Shiavo to Bagdhad.
Robert Wright takes on big questions, and he’s taken this one on in his new book, The Evolution of God. He follows the changing moods of God as reflected in ancient Scripture, to see what circumstances brought out the best and worst in religions.
According to Wright, “The moral of the story is simple: When people see their interests threatened by another group, this perception brings out the most belligerent parts of their religion. Such circumstances are good news for violent extremists and bad news for moderates. What Obama is trying to do — make Palestinians feel less threatened, and make Muslims generally feel more respected — may now, as it did in ancient times, bring out the tolerant side of a religion.”
Wright is a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and founder and editor of bloggingheads.tv. His books include: Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information; The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life; and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
via What Makes Religion a Force for Good or Evil? | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.
Canadians favour their health care to U.S. system: poll
Canadians favour their health care to U.S. system: poll
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Canadians think their American neighbours would be wise to look north as they grapple with a massive health-care overhaul.
That’s the conclusion drawn from a new poll published as Capitol Hill legislators debate a plan to cover nearly all Americans with government-run health insurance.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests 82 per cent of Canadians believe our system is better than U.S. health care.
The Canadian health-care system has been in the spotlight for weeks at congressional hearings, where it has alternately been characterized as the gold standard and a rusty system plagued with problems and delays.
By the end of the month, the House of Representatives hopes to vote on a health reform plan, and U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants legislation by October.
via CTV.ca | Canadians favour their health care to U.S. system: poll.
America’s Aryan Nation is Not Just a Bunch of Skinheads; It’s Self-Appointed “Chosen by God” Senators, Members of “The Family”
America’s Aryan Nation is Not Just a Bunch of Skinheads; It’s Self-Appointed “Chosen by God” Senators, Members of “The Family”
BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG by mark karlin
Since Senator Ensign’s unrelenting affair with a woman on one of his staffs married to a man on another of his staffs became public, much attention has been drawn to the Skull and Bones like secret society of self-appointed “Christian Super Men” who are part of the Ubermensch “Family.”
Ensign may eventually face legal charges for financial transactions related to his affair — as well as sexual harassment charges — but in his “C Street Family” sanctuary, he is a welcome man. Even Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who believes that doctors who perform abortions should be executed and lesbianism is rampantly “afflicting” grammar school girls, “allegedly” counseled Ensign on how to cover up his prolonged and unrepentant sexual dalliance that was virtually incestuous. Coburn too, is a member and resident of “The Family” home, which is religiously incorporated, near Capitol Hill.
Of course, Mark Sanford is a regular guest at “The Family” residence and “worship” center when in D.C., seeking guidance on how to be a “King David” (as he recently called himself) who was allowed his sins because he, “The Family” members believe, has been chosen by God, in the name of Christ, to lead the ignorant masses.
The members and residents at the “C Street Family” home and spiritual warrior center forgive each other all sins, because they believe themselves supermen. They are the Leopold and Loebs of modern evangelical fanaticism, which absolves individuals who believe that they have been absolved by God from responsibility for their behavior.
Is market fundamentalism, like the zombie banks it protects, too big to fail?
Is market fundamentalism, like the zombie banks it protects, too big to fail?
he problem with the misconceived bank bailouts is this: Obama has used too much political capital, satisfying the economic interests of finance capitalism via his banking bailouts. With this misdirected move, he has discredited the notion of fiscal policy achieving anything positive, given that the bailouts have not served their intended effect of “unblocking” credit.
As we’ve indicated over and over again, fiscal and monetary authorities around the world continue to proceed from a flawed paradigm. They keep thinking that if they provide “liquidity” to banks, the banks will go out and lend. They don’t seem to understand that credit is not a “flow” but a two-way contract between lender and borrower: You have to improve incomes first before you can improve credit conditions. Rising incomes create improved credit worthiness and ultimately improving asset values. As a result of the embrace of this flawed paradigm. we continue to witness the spectacle of the world’s leading central bankers – Jean-Claude Trichet of the ECB, Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve, and Mervyn King of the Bank of England – all making extremely unhelpful, and highly politicised remarks about the “unsustainability” of their respective governments’ fiscal expenditures, despite the fact this is the only thing likely to improve aggregate demand and incomes.
via Is market fundamentalism, like the zombie banks it protects, too big to fail? » New Deal 2.0.
Obama Extends Cheney’s Secret Service Protection –
Obama Extends Cheney’s Secret Service Protection (usnews.com)
There appears no end in sight for when Dick Cheney, a rare former vice president with Secret Service protection, will lose his security detail. Whispers has learned that the political battler’s Secret Service protection has been extended, though there were no details on the length. We don’t know why President Obama OK’d the extension, which must be approved by the commander in chief because former veeps typically don’t get any Secret Service security after leaving office. But indications are that the threats against Cheney, who’s working on his biography at his homes in Virginia and Maryland, haven’t lessened since his term expired.
via Obama Extends Cheney’s Secret Service Protection – Washington Whispers (usnews.com).
GOP Rep. Introduces Bill To Deny U.S. Funding For Nobel Winning IPCC Because Of Its ‘Junk Science’
GOP Rep. Introduces Bill To Deny U.S. Funding For Nobel Winning IPCC Because Of Its ‘Junk Science’
blaine-luetkemeyer-webRep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) this week introduced a bill purporting to “save taxpayers $12.5 million this year and millions more in the future by prohibiting the United States from contributing to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is fraught with waste and is engaged in dubious science.” In a press release, Luetkemeyer explained his move:
We all know that the UN is incompetent when it comes to spending money, and that is why American taxpayers should not be forking over millions more to one of its organizations that not only is in need of significant reform but is engaged in dubious scientific quests. Folks in Missouri and across the country are tired of this never ending government spending spree, and my goal is to deliver some of our people’s hard-earned money back into their pocketbooks instead of spending it on international junk science.
David Brooks: A Republican senator put ‘his hand on my inner thigh’ for a ‘whole’ dinner party.
David Brooks: A Republican senator put ‘his hand on my inner thigh’ for a ‘whole’ dinner party.
Earlier this week, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about how “the dignity code” has been “completely obliterated” in Washington, DC. Discussing the concept on MSNBC today, Brooks recalled how he “sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time”:
BROOKS: You know, all three of us spend a lot of time covering politicians and I don’t know about you guys, but in my view, they’re all emotional freaks of one sort or another. They’re guaranteed to invade your personal space, touch you. I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here.
HARWOOD: What?
BROOKS: I can only imagine what happens to you guys.
O’DONNELL: Sorry, who was that?
BROOKS: I’m not telling you, I’m not telling you.
Brooks said that he has “spoken to a lot of young women who are Senate staffers and they’ll have these middle age guys who are sort of in the middle of a mid-life crisis. Emotionally needy, they don’t know how to do it and sort of like these St. Bernards drooling everywhere.” Watch it:
Presidential Surveillance Program: Spying Went Beyond Warrantless Wiretapping
Presidential Surveillance Program: Spying Went Beyond Warrantless Wiretapping
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program.
It’s unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday.
President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities _ which have yet to become public _ even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the “President’s Surveillance Program.”
The report describes the program as unprecedented and raises questions about the legal grounding used for its creation. It also says the intelligence agencies’ continued retention and use of the information collected under the program should be carefully monitored.
via Presidential Surveillance Program: Spying Went Beyond Warrantless Wiretapping.
Seeing Obama as Norwegians See Him
Seeing Obama as Norwegians See Him | CommonDreams.org
by George Lakey
I just returned from a research trip to Norway where the people I interviewed often brought up the topic of our new President. The first was Kristin Clemet, the director of a conservative think tank. “This spring on a delegation to Washington I was struck again,” she said, “by how different the political spectrum is in Norway from your country. Here, Obama would be on the right wing.” I checked her view with others — academics, politicians, activists all over the Norwegian spectrum — and all but one agreed. In Norwegian terms, our President’s positions are very conservative.
When Norway hit a major financial crisis in the early ’90s (from a real estate bubble and speculating banks), the Norwegians decided against bail-outs. Three of the biggest banks were simply taken by the government, their senior management fired, their stockholders sent packing. The government nursed the seized banks back to health over time while the economy made a quick recovery. The other troubled banks were left to declare bankruptcy or find new capital. Norway’s action sent a clear message to the banks: mismanagement and greed don’t pay. The result is that today its own financial sector is clean and only needs to deal with the impact of other countries’ disasters. Norway’s strategy was very far from Obama’s bank-friendly game plan.
via Seeing Obama as Norwegians See Him | CommonDreams.org.
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby’s Tactics
Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby’s Tactics
The Ultimate Irony
By WENDELL POTTER
At first look, one might not think that the health insurance industry has much in common with the tobacco industry. After all, one sells a product that kills people and the other sells a product nominally aimed at putting people back together. But when it comes to deceitful public relations techniques, the health insurance industry has been learning well from Big Tobacco, which employed a panoply of shady but highly successful public relations tactics to fend off changes to its business for generations.
One of the things I said in my testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on June 24 is that the health insurance industry engages in duplicitous public relations campaigns to influence public opinion and the debate on health care reform. By that I mean there are campaigns they want you to you know about, and those they don’t.
When you hear insurance company executives talk about how much they support health care reform and can be counted on by the President and Congress to be there for them, that’s the campaign they want you to be aware of. I call it their PR charm offensive.
via Wendell Potter: Health Care Industry Adopts Tobacco Lobby’s Tactics.
Racist Extremists Infiltrating US Military
Racist Extremists Infiltrating US Military – Political Affairs Magazine -
In a strongly worded letter to members of Congress, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) founder Morris Dees expressed serious concerns about growing signs that members of neo-Nazi groups are infiltrating the US military. According to the SPLC website, Dees asked Congress to take steps “to ensure that the armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists.”
According to SPLC, recent scrutiny of a neo-Nazi website operated by the National Socialist Movement revealed “dozens of personal profiles … where individuals listed ‘military’ as their occupation.” Further, FBI and Department of Homeland Security reports, published within the past year, suggest the likely infiltration by extremists is a serious problem.
In his letter, Dees wrote, “Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces.”
Dees urged quick action. “Because the presence of extremists in the armed forces is a serious threat to the safety of the American public, we believe Congressional action is warranted,” he wrote.
The “overwhelming majority of US servicemembers reject extremism and are dedicated to serving and protecting the highest ideals of our country,” Dees continued. “[W]e owe it to our courageous men and women in uniform, and the American public, to remain vigilant to ensure that the ranks are as free of extremists as possible.”
via Political Affairs Magazine – Racist Extremists Infiltrating US Military.
Monsanto’s man Taylor returns to FDA in food-czar role
Monsanto’s man Taylor returns to FDA in food-czar role
n a Tuesday afternoon press release, the FDA announced that Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto executive, had joined the agency as “senior advisor to the commissioner.” If the title is vague, the portfolio (pasted from the press release) is substantial—a kind of food czar of the Food and Drug Administration:
- Assess current food program challenges and opportunities
- Identify capacity needs and regulatory priorities
- Develop plans for allocating fiscal year 2010 resources
- Develop the FDA’s budget request for fiscal year 2011
- Plan implementation of new food safety legislation
Taylor’s new position isn’t his first in government. He’s a veteran apparatchik who has made an art of the role-swapping dance between the food industry and the agencies that regulate it. (The FDA’s press release highlights his government service while delicately omitting his Monsanto daliances.) In her 2002 book Food Politics, the nutritionist and food-industry critic Marion Nestle describes him like this (quote courtesy of La Vida Locavore):
via Monsanto’s man Taylor returns to FDA in food-czar role | Grist.
New Bank Scam: Buy Discount TARP Warrants
New Bank Scam: Buy Discount TARP Warrants – | Dollars & Sense
The federal panel investigating the TARP bank bailout has announced that nearly a dozen banks have been buying back government-issued warrants at a steep discount from their face value. Banks that received emergency government funding were required to give the government warrants to purchase the company’s stock at a certain price in the future. The banks are now buying back these warrants at only two-thirds of their face value. So far, the transactions have resulted in a loss of $10 million in revenue to taxpayers.
Some on the panel are considering a proposal to mandate the sale of the warrants on the open market to maximize the benefit to taxpayers.
via Dollars & Sense blog: New Bank Scam: Buy Discount TARP Warrants | Dollars & Sense.
Leveling the Playing Field
Leveling the Playing Field
Instilling our own VAT system would be a simple and effective method for raising revenue domestically to keep our indebted government operational and lower our dependence on foreign funding.
The United States has mulled over the idea of organizing its own value-added tax structure to counteract those being used in other nations around the world. Right now a domestic consumption tax like the VAT is still a long way from being organized.
A domestic consumption tax has been discussed by major media for well over a decade. In May 1993 Fortune magazine ran an article in which the author talked about how the VAT discussion in America was heating up. This assumption could not have been more wrong. Every time the value-added tax is discussed in the U.S. it is quickly squashed by “free trade” proponents in the government. They cling to the idea that instituting a domestic VAT will harm consumers and encourage a trade war.
In reality, the VAT is the most popular tax scheme on earth. Value-added consumption taxes are used by most countries around the world including Canada, China, and Mexico. When every country in the world has a VAT, and the United States is unprotected by a similar system of its own, international trade swings toward imbalance.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Citing ‘national security’ concerns, prison officials ban Obama’s books.
Citing ‘national security’ concerns, prison officials ban Obama’s books.
Federal prison officials have banned an inmate from reading President Obama’s books, claiming that the books contain sensitive national security information which must be kept secret:
The federal government’s most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material “potentially detrimental to national security” and rejected an inmate’s request to read them. . . .
Prison officials cite specific pages – but not specific passages – in the books that they deem objectionable. They include one page in Obama’s 1995 book, “Dreams from My Father,” and 22 separate pages in his policy-oriented 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope.” It was not immediately obvious what passages might have been deemed problematic, though nearly half of the pages cited are in a chapter devoted to foreign affairs.
via Think Progress » Citing ‘national security’ concerns, prison officials ban Obama’s books..
Sanchez Breaks From ‘Blue Dog Coalition,’ Endorses Public Plan
Sanchez Breaks From ‘Blue Dog Coalition,’ Endorses Public Plan
House Democratic leaders were planning to unveil a final health care reform bill today, but on the eve of the announcement, a group of “Blue Dog Democrats” released a list of demands that have forced the leadership to wait until next week as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer attempt to broker a compromise.
In a letter to Speaker Pelosi, the conservative “Blue Dog” members claimed that they are concerned about the cost of the health care bill:
Paying for care reform must start with finding savings within the current delivery system and maximizing the value of our health care dollar before we ask the public to pay more. […]
The discussion draft fails to include adequate structural changes that will succeed in lowering costs and increasing value.
via Think Progress » Sanchez Breaks From ‘Blue Dog Coalition,’ Endorses Public Plan.
“Bernanke Threatens The Congress” We will cause an Economic Collapse if you audit the Fed!
YouTube – “Bernanke Threatens The Congress” We will cause an Economic Collapse if you audit the Fed!.
Rep. Duncan questioned Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday about what his opinion of a majority in Congress who have co-sponsored Ron Pauls bill to audit the Federal Reserve.
Bernanke clearly regarded the bills intent as hostile to the institution he represents:
“My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of the programs and the details of the programs but making judgments about our policy decisions would effectively be a takeover of policy by the Congress and a repudiation of the Federal Reserve would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the Dollar and our national economic situation.”
The brunt of Bernankes statement is as crystal clear as a threat from a common street thug back off from the Fed, or the economy gets it.
The chairman clearly implies that any attempt to restore monetary powers constitutionally granted to the Congress would be seen as a “takeover” and that the defensive and “repudiated” Fed would respond destructively.
Of course Congress constitutional power over money is in the U.S. Constitution:
The Congress shall have power To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; Bernankes open use of financial terrorism in the face of Congress blatant Constitutional authority is absurd and despicable.
China attacks dollar’s dominance
China attacks dollar’s dominance – FT.com
China has launched its highest-profile criticism of the dominant role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency at a meeting of the world’s biggest economies.
Dai Bingguo, Chinese state councillor, raised the issue on Thursday when he joined the leaders of four other emerging economies for talks with the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised nations – including US President Barack Obama – in the earthquake-damaged Italian town of L’Aquila.
The remarks, in front of Mr Obama, caused concern among western leaders, some of whom fear that even discussion of long-term currency issues could unsettle markets and undercut economic recovery.
Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, said he did not remember Mr Dai making the remarks. But he said the focus should be on moving the world out of recession.
“We don’t want to give the impression that big change is around the corner and the present arrangements will be destabilised,” said Mr Brown.
via FT.com / MARKETS / Currencies – China attacks dollar’s dominance.
Only Six Percent Of Scientists Are Republicans: Pew Poll
Only Six Percent Of Scientists Are Republicans: Pew Poll
A new study by the Pew Research Center finds that the GOP is alienating scientists to a startling degree.
Only six percent of America’s scientists identify themselves as Republicans; fifty-five percent call themselves Democrats. By comparison, 23 percent of the overall public considers itself Republican, while 35 percent say they’re Democrats.
The ideological discrepancies were similar. Nine percent of scientists said they were “conservative” while 66 percent described themselves as either “liberal” or “very liberal.” The corresponding figures for the general public were 37 and 25 percent.
Among the general public, moderates and independents ranked higher than any party or ideology. But among scientists, there were considerably more Democrats (55%) than independents (32%) and Republicans (6%) put together. There were also more liberals (66%) than moderates (35%) and conservatives (9%) combined.
via Only Six Percent Of Scientists Are Republicans: Pew Poll.
New Science Oriented Radio Show Aims at Working-class Audience
New Science Oriented Radio Show Aims at Working-class Audience - Political Affairs Magazine
Are you a Discovery channel junky? If so, a new radio show hosted by renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson will hit the spot. Tyson has teamed up with Comedy Central’s Lynn Koplitz for a new science-based radio talk show called Star Talk.
During a recent telephone interview, Tyson said the show blends comedy, talk and great interviews with all kinds of people, from scientists and artists to TV celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Bill Nye.
“The goal is to convince people that science is all around us,” Tyson said. “Science doesn’t have to be as though you’re taking medicine; you can have fun with it.”
Tyson said that he thinks his show will appeal most to the kind of working-class people he meets everyday who recognize him from the TV programs he has hosted or appeared on. “They’re discovery channel junkies, and they still want to learn. Maybe they didn’t get a chance to go to college, but they remained intellectually curious all their lives,” he said.
“I see this show as science for the common man. Science for people who never imagined they could have liked science at all,” he added.
Essentially, the radio show will feature Dr. Tyson discussing some important scientific discovery or issue, and Koplitz “will riff on it.” For example, Tyson asked, what would happen to you if you fell into a black hole?
via Political Affairs Magazine – New Science Oriented Radio Show Aims at Working-class Audience.
Blunt: The ‘Government Should Have Never’ Started Medicare And Medicaid
Blunt: The ‘Government Should Have Never’ Started Medicare And Medicaid
On the conservative Missouri radio station Eagle 93.9 yesterday, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) was asked to describe “the proper role for government” in America’s health care system. “Well, you could certainly argue that government should have never gotten into the health care business,” responded Blunt.
Blunt then listed off Medicaid and Medicare as examples of how government got into “the health care business in a big way”:
HOST MIKE FERGUSON: What is the proper role of government, and what are the potential impacts of the direction that we’re going right now?
BLUNT: Well, you could certainly argue that government should have never have gotten in the health care business, and that might have been the best argument of all, to figure out how people could have had more access to a competitive marketplace.
Government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare, and later with Medicaid, and government already distorts the marketplace.
Listen here:
via Think Progress » Blunt: The ‘Government Should Have Never’ Started Medicare And Medicaid.
The Man Who Crashed the World
The Man Who Crashed the World | vanityfair.com
Almost a year after A.I.G.’s collapse, despite a tidal wave of outrage, there still has been no clear explanation of what toppled the insurance giant. The author decides to ask the people involved—the silent, shell-shocked traders of the A.I.G. Financial Products unit—and finds that the story may have a villain, whose reign of terror over 400 employees brought the company, the U.S. economy, and the global financial system to their knees.
Six months ago, I received an odd phone call from a man named Jake DeSantis at A.I.G. Financial Products—the infamous unit of the doomed insurance company, staffed by expensively educated, highly paid traders, whose financial ineptitude is widely suspected of costing the U.S. taxpayer $182.5 billion and counting. At the time A.I.G. F.P.’s losses were reported, it became known that a handful of traders in this curious unit had sold trillions of dollars of credit-default swaps (essentially unregulated insurance policies) on piles of U.S. subprime mortgages, but its employees hadn’t yet become the leading examples of Wall Street greed. And so this was before Jake DeSantis and his colleagues found themselves suburban-Connecticut outcasts, before their first death threats, before the House of Representatives passed a bill because of them (taxing 90 percent of their large bonuses), before New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo announced he was going after their paychecks, and before Iowa senator Charles Grassley said that A.I.G.’s leaders should follow the Japanese example and “either do one of two things, resign or go commit suicide.”
via Michael Lewis on A.I.G. | vanityfair.com.
When Will The Recovery Begin? Never
When Will The Recovery Begin? Never | CommonDreams.org
by Robert Reich
The so-called “green shoots” of recovery are turning brown in the scorching summer sun. In fact, the whole debate about when and how a recovery will begin is wrongly framed. On one side are the V-shapers who look back at prior recessions and conclude that the faster an economy drops, the faster it gets back on track. And because this economy fell off a cliff late last fall, they expect it to roar to life early next year. Hence the V shape.
Unfortunately, V-shapers are looking back at the wrong recessions. Focus on those that started with the bursting of a giant speculative bubble and you see slow recoveries. The reason is asset values at bottom are so low that investor confidence returns only gradually.
That’s where the more sober U-shapers come in. They predict a more gradual recovery, as investors slowly tiptoe back into the market.
Personally, I don’t buy into either camp. In a recession this deep, recovery doesn’t depend on investors. It depends on consumers who, after all, are 70 percent of the U.S. economy. And this time consumers got really whacked. Until consumers start spending again, you can forget any recovery, V or U shaped.
via When Will The Recovery Begin? Never | CommonDreams.org.
Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public
Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public | CommonDreams.org
When it comes to climate change, the teaching of evolution and the state of the nation’s research enterprise, there is a large gap between what scientists think and the views of ordinary Americans, a new survey has found.
On the whole, scientists believe American research leads the world. But only 17 percent of the public agrees, and the proportion who name scientific advances as among the United States’ most important achievements has fallen to 27 percent from nearly 50 percent in 1999, the survey found.
And while almost all of the scientists surveyed accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming, general public is far less sure.
via Survey Shows Gap Between Scientists and the Public | CommonDreams.org.
Obama Campaign Vow of Public Debate on Health Care Fading
Obama Campaign Vow of Public Debate on Health Care Fading | CommonDreams.org
WASHINGTON – Campaigning for president, Barack Obama said repeatedly that any overhaul of the health care system should be negotiated publicly and televised for all to see. Throughout this year’s negotiations, however, the big deals have been struck in secret.
With tax increases and limits on what’s covered among the possible ways of offsetting perhaps $1 trillion over a decade in expenses, neither the administration nor Congress is willing to give up its right to do the most sensitive talking in private, as it’s always been done.
“It’s unrealistic to think every aspect of the negotiations is going to be public,” said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, traveling with Obama in L’Aquila, Italy, said Thursday that “this president has demonstrated more transparency than any president.” He said that Obama had participated in multiple town-hall meetings with doctors, nurses and providers to discuss revamping health care.
via Obama Campaign Vow of Public Debate on Health Care Fading | CommonDreams.org.
IT Job Stats: Grim, But Some Hopeful Signs
OPS: The less bad is the new good?
IT Job Stats: Grim, But Some Hopeful Signs – — InformationWeek
Fewer jobs were lost in bellwether IT job segments in June than in May.
IT employment did not escape unscathed the latest U.S. employment numbers for June.Overall national employment reached 9.5% and nearly 470,000 jobs were lost — but there was some encouraging news in the numbers for IT workers, according to an analysis released Wednesday by Foote Partners.
The IT workforce research firm noted that 1,800 fewer jobs were lost in bellwether IT job segments in June than in May, and one segment — data processing/hosting/related services — added 600 jobs after four consecutive months of job losses in the category.”But I think the more positive story, and also the better indicator of overall performance in the IT workforce,” said CEO David Foote, “is instead demand trends for specific categories of IT skills. The recession has had minimal impact on demand for IT skills in the areas such as architecture, business process, security, communications, e-commerce, and several ERP and infrastructure specializations.”
via IT Job Stats: Grim, But Some Hopeful Signs — IT Jobs — InformationWeek.
Republicans Try To Lower Subsidies For Health Insurance
OPS: …while working for more tax brakes for the rich
YouTube – Republicans Try To Lower Subsidies For Health Insurance.
Are we addicted to war – is there no hope for peace?
Thom Hartmann and Michael Scheuer
YouTube – Thom asks Michael Scheuer Are we addicted to war – is there no hope for peace?.
Hemingway revealed as failed KGB spy
Hemingway revealed as failed KGB spy | | guardian.co.uk
Notes from Stalin-era intelligence archives show ‘agent Argo’ as a willing recruit in 1941
Up till now, this has been a notably cheerful year for admirers of Ernest Hemingway – a surprisingly diverse set of people who range from Michael Palin to Elmore Leonard. Almost every month has brought good news: a planned Hemingway biopic; a new, improved version of his memoir, A Moveable Feast; the opening of a digital archive of papers found in his Cuban home; progress on a movie of Islands in the Stream.
Last week, however, saw the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Yale University Press), which reveals the Nobel prize-winning novelist was for a while on the KGB’s list of its agents in America. Co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, the book is based on notes that Vassiliev, a former KGB officer, made when he was given access in the 90s to Stalin-era intelligence archives in Moscow.
Its section on the author’s secret life as a “dilettante spy” draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name “Argo”, and “repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us” when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to “give us any political information” and was never “verified in practical work”, so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade. Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?
via Hemingway revealed as failed KGB spy | Books | guardian.co.uk.
Warren Buffett’s Recession Investment Tips (VIDEO)
Warren Buffett’s Recession Investment Tips (VIDEO)
In an interview this week with Good Morning America Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said that Americans had been on “a binge” prior to the recession. The Oracle of Omaha also gave some broad, but characteristically wise, advice for investing in this new era.
For one, Buffett said, debt can be a killer:
“The U.S. public as a whole has gotten into problems from leverage, financial institutions have gotten into problems through leverage,” he said. “A long, long time ago a friend said to me about leverage, ‘If you’re smart you don’t need it, and if you’re dumb, you got no business using it.’”
For more of Warren Buffett’s investment tips, WATCH:
via Warren Buffett’s Recession Investment Tips (VIDEO).
Progressive Caucus Axes Executive Director
Progressive Caucus Axes Executive Director - Roll Call
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has fired Bill Goold, its executive director, leaving the House Democrats’ liberal wing without a staff-level chief as they head into a critical legislative fight on health care.
Goold’s termination was effective immediately. The reasons behind the dismissal are not yet clear. “He’s no longer with the caucus,” CPC spokesman Carl Rauscher said. “It’s a personnel matter and we can’t really discuss personnel matters.” He said the search to replace him is already under way.
“Because of the confidentiality that has to be extended to Bill and to the members of the caucus, it’s difficult, if not impossible to talk about it,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a co-chairman of the progressives. “The situation could’ve called for better timing, but the situation was such that something had to be done immediately.”
Goold joined the coalition in May 2005 as its first senior-level staffer. He was charged with honing the group’s message and marshaling the clout of its membership, which, now at 77, is the largest in the House.
via Progressive Caucus Axes Executive Director – Roll Call.
Swim club accused of discrimination sics cops on media
Swim club accused of discrimination sics cops on media
A swimming club in suburban Philadelphia called the police on a Fox television crew attempting to report on allegations the club had rejected inner-city children because of the color of their skin.
More than 60 children enrolled in day-care in the basement of a Northeast Philadelphia elementary school were told to pack up and not return, after the Valley Swim Club in Montgomery County accused them of changing the “complexion” and “atmosphere” of the club.
Most of the children enrolled in the day care are black or Hispanic.
When Fox’s Philadelphia affiliate showed up at the club, “we were ordered off, we were told it’s a private club and we’re not welcome,” Fox reporter Claudia Gomez said.
The Valley Club’s president, John Duesler, said in a statement: “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club.”
One day-care attendee told the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia that he had overheard parents at the club complaining about the new children’s race.
via Raw Story » Swim club accused of discrimination sics cops on media.
Rising ocean temperatures near worst-case predictions
Rising ocean temperatures near worst-case predictions
The ocean is warming about 50 per cent faster than reported two years ago, according to an update of the latest climate science.
A report compiling research presented at a science congress in Copenhagen in March says recent observations are near the worst-case predictions of the 2007 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In the case of sea-level rise, it is happening at an even greater rate than projected – largely due to rising ocean temperatures causing thermal expansion of seawater.
Released last night at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, the report says ocean temperatures are a better indicator of global warming than air temperature as the ocean stores more heat and responds more slowly to change.
Report co-author Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, said the top 700 metres of the ocean had warmed by about 0.1 degrees over the past half-century.
via Rising ocean temperatures near worst-case predictions.
One in three breast cancers ‘harmless’
One in three breast cancers ‘harmless – The Scotsman
The study, which analysed data from the UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden and Norway, suggests some women undergo unnecessary treatment for cancers that are unlikely to kill them or spread. But campaigners have urged women to continue to go for screening, as research showed it saved many lives every year.
In Scotland, women are invited for a mammogram to check their breasts every three years between the ages of 50 and 70. In the latest study, researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark pointed out that some breast cancers could grow so slowly that the patient died of other causes first, or the cancer might stay dormant or regress.
via One in three breast cancers ‘harmless – The Scotsman.
Tremors near San Andreas earthquake fault signal increased stress
Tremors near San Andreas earthquake fault signal increased stress - San Jose Mercury News
Scientists have detected an increase in mysterious underground tremors along a stretch of the San Andreas fault, signaling stress that could boost the likelihood of a major earthquake.
Seismic tools buried in deep holes near the town of Parkfield, 175 miles south of San Jose, have found that the number of tremors along the fault has increased up to 80 percent over four years, according to University of California-Berkeley seismologist Robert Nadeau and graduate student Aurélie Guilhem.
The study, published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, offers no precise forecast of a rupture along this restless region. But it may bring scientists one step closer toward the long-sought goal of predicting potentially devastating quakes. The same pressure that stimulates tremors may also stimulate quakes.
via Tremors near San Andreas earthquake fault signal increased stress – San Jose Mercury News.
Ban on tobacco urged in military
Ban on tobacco urged in military 
Pentagon health experts are urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property, a change that could dramatically alter a culture intertwined with smoking. - USATODAY.com
Jack Smith, head of the Pentagon’s office of clinical and program policy, says he will recommend that Gates adopt proposals by a federal study that cites rising tobacco use and higher costs for the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs as reasons for the ban.
The study by the Institute of Medicine, requested by the VA and Pentagon, calls for a phased-in ban over a period of years, perhaps up to 20. “We’ll certainly be taking that recommendation forward,” Smith says.
A tobacco ban would confront a military culture, the report says, in which “the image of the battle-weary soldier in fatigues and helmet, fighting for his country, has frequently included his lit cigarette.”
Also, the report said, troops worn out by repeated deployments often rely on cigarettes as a “stress reliever.” The study found that tobacco use in the military increased after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.
via Ban on tobacco urged in military – USATODAY.com.
Active duty Army suicide rate on record-setting pace
Active duty Army suicide rate on record-setting pace
Suicides in the US Army are on the rise with 88 suspected cases in the first six months of the year, compared to 67 in the same period in 2008, according to Pentagon figures issued.
The latest figures confirmed warnings from top US military officers that the number of suicides among active-duty soldiers this year was on track to surpass a record level set in 2008.
Last year 128 soldiers took their lives, up from 115 in 2007, amid increasing strain on Army troops serving repeated combat tours.
The 2008 suicide rate among active duty soldiers rose to 20.2 per 100,000, surpassing a demographically adjusted national suicide rate of 19.5 per 100,000 in 2005, the latest year on record.
Of the 88 reported suicides this year, 54 have been confirmed and 34 are pending investigation, the Defense Department said in a statement.
In about 90 percent of previous cases, suspected suicides have been confirmed, officials say.
via Raw Story » Active duty Army suicide rate on record-setting pace.
NY Times: Stimulus Money Misallocated
NY Times: Stimulus Money Misallocated
An analysis by The Times found that, of the 5,274 transportation projects approved, the spending is disproportionately going to rural areas
The bad news for the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package continued to mount today as The New York Times has a front page story about the misallocation of transportation funds thus far.
Given that two-thirds of the nation’s population lives in urban areas, it would stand to reason then that roughly two-thirds of the stimulus funds set aside for transportation projects should be directed to those population centers. Yet, according to The Times, less than half of the stimulus money for transportation projects approved thus far have gone to America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas.
An analysis by The Times found that, of the 5,274 transportation projects approved, the spending is disproportionately going to rural areas. In all, $26.6 billion was set aside for transportation projects. Of that, $16.4 billion has been allocated, but less than half went to the areas with the most traffic, economic activity and aging infrastructure.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Debt Changing World Order
Debt Changing World Order
Long-standing global economic powers have found themselves ridden with debt obligations beyond their wildest imaginations and it is possible that the G8 will quickly become irrelevant in the future.
Long-standing global economic powers have found themselves ridden with debt obligations beyond their wildest imaginations. Nations in Western Europe have fiscal problems which will require some degree of scrutiny for years to come, but no nation is so adversely affected by its debt than the United States.
Upstart nations like China, which have little unfunded debt, are no longer willing to follow the discourse of countries carrying trillions of dollars in liabilities. With more than $11.5 trillion in unfunded national debt, much of it foreign financed, the United States shoulders the world’s largest burden.
According to Bloomberg, the G8 summit in Italy – scheduled for July 8-10, 2009 – will be the site where much of the old structure is altered. The article states that the International Monetary Fund expects advanced economies to be buried under debts that exceed 100 percent of the value of their economy within the next five years. Meanwhile, emerging economies will carry a debt which is, by proportion, more than three times smaller.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said that the G8 will invite India, China, Mexico and other burgeoning countries, but they will only be given a periphery role. Within a few years time, these roles may be reversed, and the G8 will be on the outside looking in.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
America’s View on Manufacturing
America’s View on Manufacturing
A new poll released jointly by Deloitte LLP and the Manufacturing Institute shows that Americans have a dim view of the future of manufacturing in this country.
According to a new poll released jointly by Deloitte LLP and the Manufacturing Institute, the vast majority of Americans recognize the importance of manufacturing to the nation’s economy. However, the poll also shows a clear generational divide on the issue and not a lot of optimism for the future of manufacturing in this country.
The poll found that 71 percent of Americans believe that developing a strong manufacturing base should be a national priority while only 20 percent disagree with that statement. Those surveyed also believe strongly that America’s manufacturing base is important to the nation’s standard of living, with 81 percent of respondents agreeing with that statement.
Nearly 70 percent of respondents said that having a strong manufacturing base is vital to national security. Nearly 60 percent of respondents also said that they believe American manufacturers can compete in the global marketplace. However, a full one-third of respondents disagree. Respondents also overwhelmingly said that America needs to take a more strategic approach to developing its manufacturing base, with 77 percent agreeing with that statement.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Waves of job losses sap U.S. states’ budgets
Waves of job losses sap U.S. states’ budgets | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Already sapped by a long U.S. recession, states’ budgets will likely shrivel even more as waves of Americans lose their jobs, and the damage done to public services such as education could last for years.
Looking at the U.S. unemployment rate, which stands at 9.5 percent and is projected to rise above 10 percent, National Governors Association Executive Director Raymond Scheppach said states’ economic conditions are going to “get worse in about 10 months, and it’ll stay bad for a while.”
During any recession, problems caused by job declines appear in states’ budgets late in the downturn and are hard to eliminate. Unemployment injures the budgets so badly that economists use jobless rates instead of production and growth to measure the depth of states’ recessions.
“People become unemployed and they first look around for another job for a while and only after a number of months of not getting a job … try to get on the Medicaid rolls,” Scheppach said, adding that the healthcare program for the poor, which is jointly administered by states and the federal government, makes up 22 percent of the average state budget.
That pushes the amounts states spend on the program up just as their income tax receipts drop.
via Waves of job losses sap U.S. states’ budgets | U.S. | Reuters.
The Cost of Fixing the U.S.
The Cost of Fixing the U.S.
Fixing America will be costly. Unless the stimulus starts flowing soon, and starts flowing into projects that are actually useful, the entire episode will appear to be nothing more than a waste of time.
The original $787 billion economic stimulus package passed through Congress despite being shrouded by controversy and political infighting. Somehow the United States government managed to put together and agree upon a piece of legislation which no one could agree on.
Now, not surprisingly, the stimulus package is back in the headlines. Republicans and Democrats are looking for something new and different as economic indicators continue to get worse and the ineffectiveness of the first package becomes apparent. Either way we need to change the way the money is being appropriated, or we need to rewrite the bill altogether.
Vice-President Joe Biden, on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” acknowledged that the Obama team misread the severity of America’s economic turmoil. He also acknowledged the fact that the stimulus is not stimulating the way it should. The Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated national unemployment at 9.5 percent in June 2009.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Rep. Keith Ellison interviews his colleagues about need for a public plan.
Rep. Keith Ellison interviews his colleagues about need for a public plan.
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) has posted a YouTube video that shows him interviewing many of his progressive House colleagues about the need for including a public health insurance option as part of comprehensive health reform. In the video, Ellison states, “I am a dedicated advocate of a public option…but I’m not the only one.” He then talks to Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), John Lewis (D-GA), Lois Capps (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA). As OpenLeft’s Adam Green writes, “These progressives seem to have their heart in [this fight]. And having a visual representation of that sends an important signal that needs sending.” Watch it:
via Think Progress » Rep. Keith Ellison interviews his colleagues about need for a public plan..
Hundreds of Thousands of Workers Will Lose Unemployment Benefits Soon
Hundreds of Thousands of Workers Will Lose Unemployment Benefits Soon
Workers laid off early in the downturn are soon to be left without the basic sustenance of an unemployment check.
WASHINGTON — When a virulent disease is ravaging you like a cancer, you don’t want a cacophony of voices promoting different or contradictory cures. Yet that is what we’re starting to hear about the economic crisis, not only from a politically divided — and pretty scared — capital, but from within the Obama administration itself. In just the past few days, Vice President Joe Biden has said the young administration misread the depth of the recession — an honest account, since most private economists did as well. Laura Tyson, an outside economic adviser to the White House, said it’s wise to start preparing another stimulus package.
Then President Barack Obama made everything perfectly muddy when he said in an ABC News interview that the seriousness of the downturn and how to attack it is “something we wrestle with constantly.” Yet in the next breath, he expressed concern about the burgeoning deficit. But if anyone’s looking for some clear voices, there are 650,000 of them just waiting to be heard. That is roughly the number of long-term unemployed who will begin losing their jobless benefits in September, according to the National Employment Law Project. Remember, the recession didn’t start last fall when the government bailed out AIG and the financial system froze. It began in December 2007 — and 6.5 million jobs have been lost since then. Depending on which state and the sort of triggers that apply to benefits, hundreds of thousands of workers laid off early in the downturn are soon to be left without the basic sustenance of an unemployment check.
Hedge Fund Would Rather Shut Down a Plant Than Pay Its Workers a Fair Wage
Hedge Fund Would Rather Shut Down a Plant Than Pay Its Workers a Fair Wage
The hedge fund “thought they could refuse to bargain with us … break the law, tear up our contract … and break the union.”
Every morning at 6 a.m, starting in August 2008, a group of striking workers came to stand outside the Stella D’Oro cookie and biscuit factory in the Bronx, N.Y. They were fighting for what they saw as their right to a fair contract, and the middle-class way of life they spent decades building with their loyal work.
For many workers facing trouble paying their mortgages, sending their kids to college or even going out for a meal, remaining on strike was not easy.
Elizabeth Francisco told the Bronx Times Reporter during a recent rainy day on the picket line: “It’s hard. When my daughter asks, ‘Mommy, I want to eat dinner outside,’ I have no money. Out here [on the picket line], I’m depressed.”
It was especially rough when some of the 50 or so low-paid replacement workers, or “scabs,” came out for their lunch break and literally waved their paychecks in the faces of these strikers who have been subsisting on little more than unemployment benefits and a $105-a-week union stipend.
Does a Senior Obama Official Have Unseemly Ties to Notorious Human Rights Abuser Chevron?
Does a Senior Obama Official Have Unseemly Ties to Notorious Human Rights Abuser Chevron?
By Jeremy Scahill
The story of this slick oil company’s romance with the government has recently taken a crude twist.
It is well known that under the Bush administration oil corporations were basically given a spare set of keys to the White House. Dick Cheney and the Bush family had ties to big oil as deep as an offshore drilling operation. Among those in bed with big oil was Bush’s National Security Adviser/Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In 1993, after Rice helped Chevron negotiate deals in former Soviet Republics, the company named a 129,000-ton supertanker after her: the SS Condoleezza Rice. Rice, who had long served as a director on Chevron’s board when Bush took power in 2000, resigned from that position just six days before she was named to Bush’s cabinet. The tanker, however, still bore her name for months while she worked in the White House. Only after a ruckus raised by human rights activists and others over Chevron’s human rights abuses did Rice’s office suggest that the company rename the tanker, which Chevron quietly did.
Among the abuses in which Chevron was implicated at the time was the May 1998 killing of indigenous residents of Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta. In response to a nonviolent protest on one of its oil platforms, Chevron provided company helicopters to the notorious Nigerian Mobile Police, known as the “Kill ‘n Go,” who then used the helicopters to conduct a deadly attack on nonviolent protesters. Chevron’s own head of security rode along with the thugs as they opened fire on the Delta residents and Chevron paid the soldiers who carried out the attack. (Despite overwhelming evidence of Chevron’s complicity, late last year a jury in San Francisco cleared the company of responsibility. The case is currently on appeal.)
Big Bankers Mounting Sneak Attack on Consumers
Big Bankers Mounting Sneak Attack on Consumers
By Jim Hightower,
The largest banking chains are going out of their way to stiff us
Have you received your thank-you note? I’m still waiting for mine.
More than a year into the Wall Street bailout, I’ve yet to get any sort of “thank you” from even a single one of the big banks that you and I propped up with $12 trillion in direct giveaways, indirect giveaways, government guarantees and sweetheart loans. You’d think their mommas would’ve taught them better. But I’ve begun to think that waiting on a simple gesture of banker gratitude is like waiting on Donald Trump to have a good hair day — ain’t gonna happen.
Far from showing appreciation, the largest banking chains are now going out of their way to stiff us. Instead of nice notes, they are quietly slipping new gotchas into our monthly credit card bills and bank statements. In June, for example, Bank of America abruptly raised its fee for a basic checking account by 50 percent. Citibank jacked up the interest rate on some of its cards to 29.99 percent. And JPMorgan Chase more than doubled the required minimum payment on its cards.
Across the board, fees have skyrocketed to their highest levels on record, including assessments for such common occurrences as overdrafts (as high as $39), stop-payment actions ($39 — double what it was 10 years ago), balance transfers (up more than 50 percent in the past year) and ATM use (nearly doubled in 10 years).
via Big Bankers Mounting Sneak Attack on Consumers | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.
China makes its move as U.S. falls back in Latin America
China makes its move as U.S. falls back in Latin America | McClatchy
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — All but invisible in Latin America a decade ago, China now is building cars in Uruguay, donating a soccer stadium to Costa Rica and lending $10 billion to Brazil’s biggest oil company.
It’s supplanted the United States to become the biggest trading partner with Brazil, South America’s biggest economy.
China has moved aggressively to fill a vacuum left by the United States in recent years, as the U.S. focused on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global economic crisis sapped its economy.
“China is rising while the U.S. is declining in Latin America,” Riordan Roett, a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University, said by telephone while visiting Sao Paulo. “China is all over this region. They are following a state-driven policy to expand their peaceful presence.”
China is beefing up its embassies throughout Latin America, opening Confucian centers to expand Chinese culture, sending high-level trade delegations throughout the region and opening the door for ordinary Chinese to visit Machu Picchu, Rio and other tourism hot spots.
via China makes its move as U.S. falls back in Latin America | McClatchy.
Kohn warns Congress on meddling in Fed’s affairs
OPS: Round ‘em up in one day and hold them incommunicado. Don’t give them a chance to do any further damage. It’s time to start using the word: Treason - and acting on that
Kohn warns Congress on meddling in Fed’s affairs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve on Thursday launched a robust defense of its independence and warned that efforts in Congress to put monetary policy under political sway would hurt the economy.
Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said opening up some of the U.S. central bank’s most sensitive decisions to political scrutiny could result in higher long-term interest rates and hurt the United States’ credit rating.
Testifying before a congressional panel, Kohn sought to beat back a proposed bill that would open the U.S. central bank’s policy decisions to audits by a federal watchdog agency. More than half of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed as co-sponsors of the measure.
“Any substantial erosion of the Federal Reserve’s monetary independence likely would lead to higher long-term interest rates as investors begin to fear future inflation,” Kohn told a House subcommittee.
via Kohn warns Congress on meddling in Fed’s affairs – Yahoo! News.
State Department Denies Israel Settlements ‘Deal’
State Department Denies Israel Settlements ‘Deal’
Israeli Paper Claims US Approved 2,500 Housing Units in Settlements
Following repeated reports that the US was in talks to find “common ground” with the Israeli government on the question of settlement growth, Israeli newspaper Maariv announced today that the United States had endorsed the continued expansion of the settlements, giving the green light to 2,500 housing units currently planned.
The State Department denied the report, claiming that the US position has not changed. Spokesman Ian Kelly said “you know what our position is regarding settlements.” President Obama has demanded that the Israeli government halt all construction in the West Bank.
via State Department Denies Israel Settlements ‘Deal’ — News from Antiwar.com.
3M chemicals found in residents’ blood
3M chemicals found in residents’ blood
Chemical levels in 196 adults are higher than national averages, but officials said their disease risk isn’t greater.
Toxic compounds have lingered and accumulated in the blood of east-metro residents who drank water tainted with 3M chemicals, a new state study shows.
State health officials said it’s unclear what the long-term health effects of those substances might be because studies have been limited and difficult to interpret.
But the analysis of blood samples from 196 adults in Lake Elmo, Cottage Grove and Oakdale found that levels of three toxic compounds were above the national average — twice the average for one chemical and four times for another.
Still, health officials downplayed any need for concern at this point.
via 3M chemicals found in residents’ blood.
Public Option Enemy No. 1
Public Option Enemy No. 1 | Mother Jones
Rick Scott ran a hospital company guilty of epic fraud. Now he wants to tell you how to fix the health care system.
via Public Option Enemy No. 1 | Mother Jones.
No One Could Have Planted Bombs in the World Trade Center Without Being Detected, Could They?
No One Could Have Planted Bombs in the World Trade Center Without Being Detected, Could They?
As Raw Story notes:
A Government Accountability Office investigator smuggled live bomb components into a federal building in just 27 seconds, then assembled a bomb in a restroom and ventured throughout the building without being detected, a leaked tape revealed Wednesday.
In addition, congressional investigators were able to penetrate every single federal building they probed without any difficulty — 10 in all.
And see this.
Indeed, as I wrote in 2005, there is substantial additional evidence that bombs could have been planted in the World Trade Center without anyone knowing:
- Bomb-sniffing dogs were inexplicably removed from the Twin Towers five days before 9-11
- The Twin Towers had been evacuated a number of times in the weeks preceding 9/11
- Workers in the Twin Towers observed heavy work taking place on supposedly empty floors in the weeks before 9-11; supposedly, the work took place on floors the elevators would not stop on without a special access key (toward the end of the video).
- There was a power down in the Twin Towers on the weekend before 9/11, security cameras were shut down, and many workers ran around busily doing things unobserved.
- Bombs could have been placed during renovation of the elevators in the Twin Towers.
- And — as an interesting coincidence — a Bush-linked company ran security at the trade centers, thus giving it free reign to the buildings
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN: HOW THE STATE CAN BEAT ITS BUDGET WOES
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: HOW THE STATE CAN BEAT ITS BUDGET WOES
Ellen Brown
“As goes California,” says the adage, “so goes the nation.” All eyes are therefore on the Golden State as it attempts to solve its $26 billion budget deficit. The world’s eighth largest economy is not going quietly into that pit of debt and devastation that has devoured Third World countries whole. The State’s voters have drawn a line in the sand against further tax hikes, while Democratic leaders have drawn a line at further cuts in services or selloff of public assets. State legislators are deadlocked, caught between the rock of tax ceilings and the hard place of debt limits.
“Expect the best and accept nothing less,” says another adage that typifies the attitude sometimes called “California dreaming.” You create your own reality. Instead of trying to prop up an old model that has failed, you can dream up a new one. If anyone can come up with an original solution to the problem, Californians should be able to. But what? While waiting for developments, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has started paying the State’s bills with IOUs (“I Owe You”s evidencing debt, technically called “registered warrants”).
Hmm . . . Pay the bills with IOUs. Not a bad idea! That was, in fact, the original innovation that got the American colonists out of their financial straits back in the 18th century, when they lacked the silver and gold used in the Old World for conducting trade. Money, after all, was just a medium of exchange, an acknowledgment of goods and services delivered or a debt owed. The notion that the government could pay in paper receipts was first hit on by the governor of the province of Massachusetts in 1691, when he needed money to fund a local war. The use of a paper currency had been suggested in an anonymous British pamphlet in 1650, but the proposal was modeled on the receipts issued by London goldsmiths and silversmiths for the precious metals left in their vaults for safekeeping. The problem for the colonies was that they were short of silver and gold. The Massachusetts Assembly therefore proposed a different kind of paper money, a “bill of credit” representing the government’s “bond” or IOU. The paper money of Massachusetts was backed only by the “full faith and credit” of the government.
Ellen Brown
via Web of Debt – CALIFORNIA DREAMIN: HOW THE STATE CAN BEAT ITS BUDGET WOES.
The Stimulus Trap
The Stimulus Trap - NYTimes.com
Paul Krugman
As soon as the Obama administration-in-waiting announced its stimulus plan — this was before Inauguration Day — some of us worried that the plan would prove inadequate. And we also worried that it might be hard, as a political matter, to come back for another round.
Unfortunately, those worries have proved justified. The bad employment report for June made it clear that the stimulus was, indeed, too small. But it also damaged the credibility of the administration’s economic stewardship. There’s now a real risk that President Obama will find himself caught in a political-economic trap.
I’ll talk about that trap, and how he can escape it, in a moment. First, however, let me step back and ask how concerned citizens should be reacting to the disappointing economic news. Should we be patient and give the Obama plan time to work? Should we call for bigger, bolder actions? Or should we declare the plan a failure and demand that the administration call the whole thing off?
Before you answer, consider what happens in normal times.
via Op-Ed Columnist – The Stimulus Trap – NYTimes.com.
Some Chinese drywall may be tainted with radioactive materials
OPS: We started hearing about tainted Chinese drywall at least a year ago. It’s still coming in – and being used. …. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business
Some Chinese drywall may be tainted with radioactive materials - – MiamiHerald.com
Some Chinese companies may have made drywall with a radioactive substance banned in the United States.
Some Chinese-made drywall imported into the United States contained radioactive material, news reports suggest, but state and federal tests so far haven’t detected it.
Copies of customs reports obtained by The Los Angeles Times show drywall made with a radioactive waste product was shipped to the states in 2006 by at least four Chinese manufacturers and trading firms.
The substance, called phosphogypsum, has been banned from use in nearly all products made in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency since 1989.
The EPA says that phosphogypsum, a fertilizer byproduct, contains uranium and radium.
Radium decays to form radon, a cancer-causing, radioactive gas. A geoscientist interviewed by The Times said the material can cause corrosion.
Chinese drywall is being blamed for making newer homes smell like chemicals or sulfur, corroding air conditioner coils, blackening jewelry and other metals and causing breathing problems, nosebleeds and headaches for residents.
But the limited number of tests performed on drywall so far don’t show that the product contains any radioactive material.
via Some Chinese drywall may be tainted with radioactive materials – Business – MiamiHerald.com.
Growing numbers of poor people swamp legal aid offices
Growing numbers of poor people swamp legal aid offices | McClatchy
WASHINGTON — After years of funding shortfalls, legal aid societies across the country are being overwhelmed by growing numbers of poor and unemployed Americans who face eviction, foreclosure, bankruptcy and other legal problems tied to the recession.
The crush of new clients comes as the cash-strapped agencies cut staff and services.
The nonprofit Legal Services Corp., which funds more than 900 legal-aid offices nationwide, says that the number of people who qualify for assistance has jumped by about 11 million since 2007, because of the recession. Roughly 51 million people are now eligible for assistance — individuals and families who earn less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level, now set at $27,564 a year for a family of four.
The federal government budgeted an 11 percent increase in funding for legal aid this year. That increase, however, is more than offset by the growing demand for services and a recession-driven decline in state funding, charitable gifts and grants, which together traditionally make up half of legal service funding.
via Growing numbers of poor people swamp legal aid offices | McClatchy.
The Organic Monopoly and the Myth of ‘Natural’ Foods: How Industry Giants Are Undermining the Organic Movement
The Organic Monopoly and the Myth of ‘Natural’ Foods: How Industry Giants Are Undermining the Organic Movement | CommonDreams.org
by Ronnie Cummins
The Organic Alternative: A Matter of Survival
After four decades of hard work, the organic community has built up a $25 billion “certified organic” food, farming, and green products sector. This consumer-driven movement, under steady attack by the biotech and Big Food lobby, with little or no help from government, has managed to create a healthy and sustainable alternative to America’s disastrous, chemical and energy-intensive system of industrial agriculture. Conscious of the health hazards of Big Food Inc., and the mortal threat of climate change and Peak Oil, a critical mass of organic consumers are now demanding food and other products that are certified organic, as well as locally or regionally produced, minimally processed, and packaged.
The Organic Alternative, in turn, is bolstered by an additional $50 billion in annual spending by consumers on products marketed as “natural,” or “sustainable.” This rapidly expanding organic/green products sector–organic (4% of total retail sales) and natural (8%)–now constitutes more than 12% of total retail grocery sales, with an annual growth rate of 10-15%. Even taking into account what appears to be a permanent economic recession and a lower rate of growth than that seen over the past 20 years, the organic and natural market will likely constitute 31-56% of grocery sales in 2020. If the Organic Alternative continues to grow, and if consumers demand that all so-called “natural” products move in a genuine, third party-certified “transition to organic” direction, the U.S. will be well on its way to solving three of the nation’s most pressing problems: climate change, deteriorating public health, and Peak Oil.
REALITY-BASED Community
Those of us in the REALITY-BASED Community cannot afford to forget THIS:
“….The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Without a Doubt – By RON SUSKIND – - October 17, 2004
http://www.cs.umass.edu/~immerman/play/opinion05/WithoutADoubt.html
AIG Seeks Federal Blessing for Another Round of Bonuses
This Has Got to Stop. If Obama Doesn’t Chuck His Goldman Sachs Advisers and Start Taking Back Our Financial System from the River Boat Gamblers of Wall Street, He is Going to Face a Left/Right Populist Revolt: “American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor.” – BF
AIG Seeks Clearance For More Bonuses - - washingtonpost.com
$2.4 Million in Executive Payments Due Next Week
American International Group is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor.
The troubled insurance giant has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage.
The request puts the administration’s new compensation czar on the spot by seeking his opinion about bonuses that were promised long before he took his post.
via AIG Seeks Federal Blessing for Another Round of Bonuses – washingtonpost.com.
Cookie Dough Loaded With Three Kinds of E. Coli; Investigators Stumped
cookie dough made by Nestle.
Exclusive: Cookie Dough Loaded With Three Kinds of E. Coli
Investigators Stumped About Tainted Nestle Cookie Dough
Investigators have linked at least three different kinds of E. coli to Nestle’s cookie dough but remain stumped about how the bacteria got into the product, ABC News has learned.
New Tires Made of Oil from Orange Peels
New Tires Made of Oil from Orange Peels
Tire manufacturer Yokohama is now selling a model made with 80 percent non-petroleum material, substituting orange oil as the primary ingredient to make vulcanized rubber.
The new tire is called the Super E-spec™ and has already received the Popular Mechanics Editor’s Choice Award in 2008. Yokohama will initially market the tire for hybrid car models such as the Toyota Prius.
“The eco-focused dB Super E-spec mixes sustainable orange oil and natural rubber to drastically cut the use of petroleum, without compromising performance,” Yokohama vice president of sales Dan King said. “It also helps consumers save money at the gas pump by improving fuel efficiency via a 20-percent reduction in rolling resistance.”
Orange oil is considered sustainable because it is produced from a renewable resource. The same philosophy of reducing petroleum use is utilized in producing plastics from corn starch or vegetable oil.
via New Tires Made of Oil from Orange Peels – Earth911.com.
LAPD’s public database omits nearly 40% of this year’s crimes
LAPD’s public database omits nearly 40% of this year’s crimes - Los Angeles Times
The map, touted as a way for residents to monitor the safety of their neighborhoods, doesn’t include about 19,000 serious crimes reported in other LAPD data. Officials say they’re looking into it.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s online crime map intended for public use has failed to include nearly 40% of serious crimes reported in the city, a Times analysis has found.
The omissions, which date back at least six months, include thousands of crimes known to LAPD officials and are included in their official crime statistics.
via LAPD’s public database omits nearly 40% of this year’s crimes – Los Angeles Times.
‘Evangelistic’ scientist tapped to lead National Institute of Health
OPS: BO hires another Fascist wingnut
‘Evangelistic’ scientist tapped to lead National Institute of Health
Believes New Testament consists of ‘first hand accounts’
The scientist chosen by President Barack Obama to lead the National Institute of Health has a controversial history of mixing politics with faith.
Dr. Francis Collins was a leading pioneer in human genome research and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2007. He led the government’s successful efforts to decode the human genome.
Obama nominated Collins to lead the NIH on Wednesday.
But his history of mixing God and science has left some on the left with a sour taste in their mouth.
The New York Times notes that many object to his “very public embrace of religion.”
“He wrote a book called ‘The Language of God,’ and he has given many talks and interviews in which he described his conversion to Christianity as a 27-year-old medical student,” the Times article continues. “Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins’s evangelism.”
via Raw Story » ‘Evangelistic’ scientist tapped to lead National Institute of Health.
Senator won’t deny urging fellow Republican to pay woman he had affair with
OPS: Bribes
Senator won’t deny urging fellow Republican to pay woman he had affair with
Updates at bottom: Ensign’s parents paid $96,000 ‘gift’ to Hamptons; Coburn says Ensign mistress’ husband spreading ‘untruths’ and claims convos with Ensign were ‘privileged communications’
Conservative Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) purportedly urged Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) to pay off a mistress with whom he admitted having an affair — and wouldn’t deny urging payments to the woman and her husband when asked about the charge.
Ensign admitted having an affair last month, saying he “violated the vows” of his marriage and adding, “It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life. If there was ever anything in my life that I could take back, this would be it.”
Apparently Oklahoma’s Republican senator urged just that.
via Raw Story » Senator won’t deny urging fellow Republican to pay woman he had affair with.
Are Our Markets Being Manipulated by ‘Rogues’ or Firms?
Are Our Markets Being Manipulated by ‘Rogues’ or Firms? | CommonDreams.org
There’s New Evidence to Suggest That Crime in the Financial Markets Is Rife
by Danny Schechter
Everyone has heard of the Wikipedia but not everyone knows about the Investopedia, a Forbes website, that monitors finance for market players. One of the issues it is concerned about is market manipulation, actions by rogue and not so rogue players who, working alone or together, unduly influence the way our supposed “free” markets function.
It is a fascinating source of information for the uninitiated who hear the daily reports on the ups and downs of the Dow and believe that somehow it is all part of the natural order of the universe.
It isn’t.
Thanks to an even more informative web site, Gamingthemarket.com, we learn that in fact markets are subject to, prone to, and characterized by all sorts of manipulative practices. Here’s one you may not have heard of.
via Are Our Markets Being Manipulated by ‘Rogues’ or Firms? | CommonDreams.org.
True unemployment rate already at 20%
OPS: It’s actually well over 28% depending on which State you’re in.
True unemployment rate already at 20% - msm.com
Really, how hard is it to find a job? Was June’s horrid numbers, in which 467,000 people lost their jobs compared to 345,000 in May, a one-time fluke? Or does it mean that all those Wall Street economists who believe the economic recovery is starting are dead wrong?
Not to scare you, but the situation is actually worse than it seems. Over the years, the government has changed the way it counts the unemployed. An example of this is the criticized Birth-Death Model which was added in 2000. The model is designed to account for the birth and death of businesses and the resultant lag in survey data. Unfortunately, the model doesn’t work that well during economic contractions (like we have now) and consistently overstates the number of jobs being created each month.
John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics specializes in removing these questionable tweaks to the government’s statistical data to better align current numbers with the methodology used to gather historical data. After reviewing the data, Williams believes that “the June jobs loss likely exceeded 700,000.” David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff notes that the fall in the number of hours worked in June (to a record low of 33 per week) is equivalent to a loss of more than 800,000 jobs.
via True unemployment rate already at 20% – Top Stocks Blog – MSN Money.
CIA: We Lied to Congress
CIA: We Lied to Congress - The Nation
John Nichols
In May, at a point when congressional Republicans and their amen corner in the media were attempting to defend the Bush-Cheney administration’s torture regime, their primary defense was: Pelosi knew.
The spin held that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had in 2002 been secretly briefed about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects.
Pelosi said the Central Intelligence Agency had failed to inform her about the character and extent of the harsh interrogations.
Pelosi accused the CIA of “misleading the Congress of the United States.”
Republican senators screamed.
Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary-maker Michael Moore calls new film Capitalism: A Love Story
Michael Moore calls new film Capitalism: A Love Story
The latest film from the Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine director tackles the global economic recession in the format of a lush Hollywood romance
Michael Moore‘s new documentary comes billed as a tale of forbidden passion, charting a wild romance that flourished for decades before coming to a crashing, calamitous end in the autumn of 2007. It’s title? Capitalism: A Love Story.
The film reportedly sets itself up as a spoof of the grand Hollywood romance, using the genre’s hallmarks to examine the causes of the global economic recession. “It will be the perfect date movie,” Moore said in a statement. “It’s got it all – lust, passion, romance and 14,000 jobs being eliminated every day. It’s a forbidden love, one that dare not speak its name. Heck, let’s just say it: it’s capitalism.”
Backed by Overture Films, Capitalism: A Love Story is set for a US release on 2 October, a year and a day after the Senate approved its controversial $700bn (£432bn) bank bailout. The date also marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Moore’s debut film, Roger and Me, which lambasted the actions of General Motors in the director’s home town of Flint, Michigan.
Fructose Metabolism By The Brain Increases Food Intake And Obesity, Review Suggests
Fructose Metabolism By The Brain Increases Food Intake And Obesity, Review Suggests
M. Daniel Lane and colleagues at Johns Hopkins have built on the suggested link between the consumption of fructose and increased food intake, which may contribute to a high incidence of obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.
Over the past four decades life-styles have gravitated toward the excessive consumption of ‘high energy’ foods and sedentary behavior that has resulted in a high incidence of obesity and its pathological consequences. This scenario has led to the increased occurrence of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. At present, approximately thirty percent of adult Americans can be classified as obese. Moreover, these changes now extend into the younger age group.
M. Daniel Lane and co-workers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have now pulled together work, largely in their laboratory (many papers beginning in 2000), dealing with the role of malonyl-CoA in the signaling system in the brain (specifically the hypothalamus) that has inputs into the higher brain centers that determine feeding behavior, most notably appetite. Two papers in the journal PNAS in 2007 and 2008 showed that glucose and fructose act quite differently in the brain (hypothalamus) – glucose decreasing food intake and fructose increasing food intake. Both of these sugars signal in the brain through the malonyl-CoA signaling pathway and have inverse effects on food intake.
via Fructose Metabolism By The Brain Increases Food Intake And Obesity, Review Suggests.
One Protein Mediates Damage From High-fructose Diet
One protein mediates damage from high-fructose diet / Science News
Sweet reversal: Harmful effects of fructose traced to one protein in a study of mice
Knocking out a liver protein in mice can reverse the damaging effects of a super-sweet diet. Diets loaded with high-fructose corn syrup wreak havoc on metabolic processes, but how fructose does its damage has been a mystery. The new study, appearing in the March 4 Cell Metabolism, identifies a possible culprit, a protein in the liver called PGC-1 beta.
The new research is “putting together things that we know and making a link,” comments Carlos Hernandez of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The paper highlights the importance of PGC-1 beta in the whole process, says Hernandez, who wrote a commentary in the same issue of Cell Metabolism on the new research.
Over the past decade, high-fructose corn syrup has made its way into Western diets through soda and processed foods in ever-increasing amounts. Diets high in fructose are linked to a slew of metabolic disorders, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, high blood levels of triglycerides, and insulin resistance, which is tied to type 2 diabetes, says study coauthor Yoshio Nagai, a physiologist at Yale University School of Medicine. “Many people think fat is the enemy, but they don’t care about sweeteners.”
via One Protein Mediates Damage From High-fructose Diet / Science News.
El Nino Conditions Return to Affect Weather
El Nino Conditions Return to Affect Weather
El Nino is back.
Government scientists said Thursday that the periodic warming of water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which can affect weather around the world, has returned.
The Pacific had been in what is called a neutral state, but forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the sea surface temperature climbed to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal along a narrow band in the eastern equatorial Pacific in June.
In addition, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said temperatures in other tropical regions are also above normal, with warmer than usual readings as much as 975 feet below the ocean surface.
via El Nino Conditions Return to Affect Weather.
Australians Ban Bottled Water
Australians Ban Bottled Water
SYDNEY — Residents of a rural Australian town hoping to protect the earth and their wallets have voted to ban the sale of bottled water, the first community in the country _ and possibly the world _ to take such a drastic step in the growing backlash against the industry.
Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia’s beverage industry in one day: Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.
“I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something,” said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the “Bundy on Tap” campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Sydney. “It’s time for people to realize they’re being conned by the bottled water industry.”
via Australians Ban Bottled Water.
Geithner’s Dirty Little Secret
Geithner’s Dirty Little Secret
By F. William Engdahl
US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has unveiled his long-awaited plan to put the US banking system back in order. In doing so, he has refused to tell the ‘dirty little secret’ of the present financial crisis. By refusing to do so, he is trying to save de facto bankrupt US banks that threaten to bring the entire global system down in a new more devastating phase of wealth destruction.
The Geithner Plan, his so-called Public-Private Partnership Investment Program or PPPIP, as we have noted previously
(In German: Obamas Rettungsplan für die Banken: keine Lösung, sondern legaler Diebstahl), is designed not to restore a healthy lending system which would funnel credit to business and consumers. Rather it is yet another intricate scheme to pour even more hundreds of billions directly to the leading banks and Wall Street firms responsible for the current mess in world credit markets without demanding they change their business model. Yet, one might say, won’t this eventually help the problem by getting the banks back to health?
Not the way the Obama Administration is proceeding. In defending his plan on US TV recently, Geithner, a protégé of Henry Kissinger who previously was President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, argued that his intent was ‘not to sustain weak banks at the expense of strong.’ Yet this is precisely what the PPPIP does. The weak banks are the five largest banks in the system.
via Geithner Secret.
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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. 
