Archive for September, 2009
Grayson stands by criticism of Republican plan: ‘I would like to apologize to the dead.’
Think Progress » Yesterday, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) said the Republican health care plan is “don’t get sick,” and if you do get sick, “die quickly.” After offering those facetious and sadly accurate remarks, Grayson came under criticism from Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), who demanded that Grayson apologize on the House floor. Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Grayson said, “Yes, it was tongue-in-cheek. I’m surprised I have to explain that, but that’s the way it goes these days.” He added that he’s “not taking any of it back” and will “stand by what I said.” When asked if he would apologize, Grayson offered this response:
grayson“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I would like to apologize to the dead.”
Citing a statistic that 44,789 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance, Grayson said, “That is more than ten times the number of Americans who died in the war in Iraq, it’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died on 9/11. …It happens every year.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Grayson stands by criticism of Republican plan: ‘I would like to apologize to the dead.’.
Media coverage of fallen troops’ returning caskets has all but disappeared?
Cafferty File:
It’s been almost six months since the Obama administration lifted the ban on media coverage of the returning caskets of war dead… and the press mostly seems to have lost interest.
“The Examiner” reports how back in April, media outlets rushed to cover the first arrival of a fallen U.S. serviceman… 35 members of the press were at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
For the next returning casket — 17 media outlets showed up… that soon dropped to a dozen. The numbers kept shrinking until this month when only one news outlet was on hand to document the return of a casket bearing the body of a fallen Marine. That was the Associated Press.
In fact, the A-P has made it a point to be there at every arrival of a military casket where the family has granted permission — which is more than half of the time. The AP says it’s their responsibility to cover these returns:
“It’s our belief that this is important, that surely somewhere there is a paper, an audience, a readership, a family and a community for whom this homecoming is indeed news.
Granholm to state employees: ‘You are temporarily laid off effective 12:01 a.m. on October 1, 2009′
Michigan Messenger » LANSING — Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm ratcheted up the pressure on the Michigan Legislature this afternoon by informing state employees they were temporarily laid off effective at midnight Oct. 1.
The entire text of the notice follows:
In a letter or through a posting dated September 15, 2009, you were provided notice that in the event there is no approved spending plan for state government in place on October 1 you would be temporarily laid off.
Because the Michigan Legislature has failed as of 2 p.m. today to meet its constitutional responsibility to enact a balanced budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2009, that notice remains in effect. You are temporarily laid off effective 12:01 a.m. on October 1, 2009, until a spending plan is in place or you are otherwise notified.
A bill authorizing the continued expenditure of state funds has been approved by both the Michigan House of Representatives and Michigan Senate but has not been given immediate effect by the Senate. If and when the Senate gives immediate effect to this continuation budget and the bill is signed into law by the governor, the Executive Office will notify news organizations and post a notice on www.michigan.gov. You are directed to monitor those reports for updated information, because in the event of action by the Michigan Senate or other action to authorize expenditures for Fiscal Year 2010, you will be expected to report to work for the balance of your shift or for your next scheduled shift as appropriate.
I know these have been difficult times for you and all of us who serve the public in state government. We appreciate your patience and continued service to the citizens of Michigan.
Democrats crafting bill to shield big banks from tougher state laws
OPS: more and more Democrats that will have to be replaced in 2010
Raw Story – Moderate House Democrats are drafting a proposal that would continue to shield big banks from potentially tougher state regulations of credit cards, mortgages and savings accounts.
The plan would differ from President Barack Obama’s proposal to give states a role in regulating large financial institutions that operate nation-wide. The lawmakers say it would be more practical and less expensive not to force the banks to comply with 50 different regulatory regimes.
But their proposal, spearheaded by Illinois Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean and discussed at a hearing Wednesday, isn’t sitting well with consumer advocates who say banks shouldn’t be allowed to skirt state regulations if the restrictions don’t suit them.
Full Story: Democrats crafting bill to shield big banks from tougher state laws | Raw Story.
Supreme Court could throw out handgun laws
Raw Story – The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.
The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.
The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.
Full Story: Supreme Court could throw out handgun laws | Raw Story.
ACLU: FBI ‘manipulating’ debate on Patriot Act reform
| Raw Story – The FBI is abusing the powers given to it under the Patriot Act in a way that is stifling the current debate about reforming that law, says the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The FBI continues to use the gag order provision of the Patriot Act’s national security letter (NSL) statute to suppress key information about the agency’s misuse of NSLs,” the group said in a statement released Wednesday.
National security letters (NSLs), created under the Patriot Act security bill that was passed in the aftermath of 9/11, allow the FBI to demand sensitive information about users of facilities like libraries and Internet service providers, and then bar those organizations from revealing that the order was ever given.
Full Story: ACLU: FBI ‘manipulating’ debate on Patriot Act reform | Raw Story.
Nike flees US Chamber of Commerce over climate debate
OPS: That’s 3!
Raw Story – Athletic footwear maker Nike has resigned from its position on the board of the US Chamber of Commerce, the latest sign that a major rift has formed within the US’s preeminent business group over climate change legislation expected this fall.
According to The Hill, the Oregon-based shoe maker cited “differences with the business group on climate change” as the reason for its departure from the board. The company will remain a member of the chamber.
Nike is the latest and most high-profile company to publicly distance itself from the Chamber of Commerce, which has taken an active stance against proposed climate-change legislation.
Last week, two major utilities, the Public Service Company of New Mexico and California’s Pacific Gas and Electric, left the chamber. PG&E said it was leaving be
Full Story: Nike flees US Chamber of Commerce over climate debate | Raw Story.
Poll Shows Public Wants Medicare for All
| Black Agenda Report - President Obama attempts to depict proponents of Medicare for all as lefty health care “extremists.” But that’s precisely the kind of “robust” public plan favored by two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent poll. Obama is to the Right of the people, and the GOP is off the map.
Poll Shows Public Wants Medicare for All
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“Most people favor a public option that is a lot more “robust” than anything the Congress is offering.”
Despite the infamous Max Baucus Senate committee’s long-anticipated rejection of even a fig leaf of a public health care “option,” public opinion remains remarkably firm in support of allowing everyone access to a comprehensive government health plan. A New York Times/CBS News survey last week provided the best polling evidence in recent months that most people favor a public option that is a lot more “robust” than anything the Congress is offering, aside from straight-up single payer.
The poll once again confirms that something very much like single payer remains an idea whose time has come. After all these month’s of the Obama Administration’s attempts to shrivel into near nothingness the very concept of health care “reform,” and despite the mad howlings of Republicans about the evils of “socialized medicine,” two-thirds of the American people still support a Medicare-like government health care plan. Unlike some recent surveys, the language of the pollsters’ question was straightforward and unambiguous:
Full Story: Poll Shows Public Wants Medicare for All | Black Agenda Report.
Mad as Hell Doctors Signal New Era of Healthcare Activism | CommonDreams.org
Single-Payer, Yes, Public Option, No
by Mark Harris
“I am not the first person to take up the cause of health care but I am determined to be the last,” President Obama declared to great applause in his recent speech before Congress.”
It was a stirring moment, but in the end perhaps just one more ephemeral moment on the stage of what passes now for political drama in the United States. Whatever results from the final health care legislation passed by Congress, we can be sure it will not come close to solving the health care crisis. The cause of health care, post-Obama, will go on.
That’s the message of the “Mad as Hell Doctors” for single-payer, an intrepid troop of Oregon physicians now on a three-week national road tour fueled by a Winnebago and the energy of boisterous supporters at every stop. They’re on their way to Washington, D.C. where they’ll rally on Sept. 30 and ask to meet with the President to discuss the merits of single-payer.
Full Story: Mad as Hell Doctors Signal New Era of Healthcare Activism | CommonDreams.org.
Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’ – Times Online
The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it
A conversation with Gore Vidal unfolds at his pace. He answers questions imperiously, occasionally playfully, with a piercing, lethal dryness. He is 83 and in a wheelchair (a result of hypothermia suffered in the war, his left knee is made of titanium). But he can walk (“Of course I can”) and after a recent performance of Mother Courage at London’s National Theatre he stood to deliver an anti-war speech to the audience.
How was his friend Fiona Shaw in the title role? “Very good.” Where did they meet? Silence. The US? “Well, it wasn’t Russia.” What’s he writing at the moment? “It’s a little boring to talk about. Most writers seem to do little else but talk about themselves and their work, in majestic terms.” He means self-glorifying? “You’ve stumbled on the phrase,” he says, regally enough. “Continue to use it.”
Vidal is sitting in the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair, where he has been coming to stay for 60 years. He is wearing a brown suit jacket, brown jumper, tracksuit bottoms; his white hair twirled into a Tintin-esque quiff and with his hooded eyes, delicate yet craggy features and arch expression, he looks like Quentin Crisp, but accessorised with a low, lugubrious growl rather than camp lisp.
Full Story: Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’ – Times Online.
Apple Tablet Could Redefine Books, Newspapers (RENDERINGS)
Apple is rumored to launch its highly-anticipated touchscreen Tablet by early 2010 and new information suggests the gadget could revolutionize print publishing by bringing book, newspaper, and magazine content onto the high-tech reader.
If Apple succeeds, the Tablet could essentially function as an iPod for text: a “print player” that displays textbooks, magazines, newspapers, and more (and which would pose a significant competitive threat to Amazon).
Apple has been negotiating with major print media companies to acquire content for the new device, Gizmodo reports, including the New York Times, McGraw Hill, and Oberlin Press. In addition, Apple seems to be working to beef up print content on its iTunes store.
Gizmodo says:
Full Story: Apple Tablet Could Redefine Books, Newspapers (RENDERINGS).
Germans Are World’s Worst Lovers, Americans Are 5th Worst: Poll
A poll of 15,000 women that rated the world’s best and worst lovers found that German men topped the worst list because they were deemed “too smelly,” the Telegraph reported.
The Germans were followed closely by the English, who were considered “too lazy,” while the Swedes, who came in third, were accused of being “too quick to finish.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Latin countries topped the “best lover” list, with Spain at number one, followed by Brazil, Italy and France, reported the Daily Mail.
The poll was carried out by www.OnePoll.com and asked women from 20 countries to rate men from different countries based on their ability in bed. The women also had to provide an explanation for their answers, the Telegraph reported.
Full Story: Germans Are World’s Worst Lovers, Americans Are 5th Worst: Poll.
Chronic Illness-What Works? Understanding Metabolic Detoxification
Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D:
Just because a healthcare concept is not new does not mean it should be overlooked as potentially important in improving health and reducing the burden of chronic disease. Today’s post is Part Two in a series called “Chronic Illness: What Works,” and I base my observations and recommendations on my 30+ years as a nutritional biochemist and healthcare advocate. In Part One of this series I discussed the Four R Program. Today I will focus on a therapy called “Metabolic Detoxification.”
Years ago, the term “detoxification” was often only applied to a program for those with a drug or alcohol abuse issue, but today there are much broader and more significant applications of this concept in health care. What are the summary guidelines of a well-designed program that differentiates a “fad” detoxification program from a properly managed and professionally supervised metabolic detoxification program. From my experience, the characteristics of a safe metabolic detoxification program should include the following:
Full Story: Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D: Chronic Illness-What Works? Understanding Metabolic Detoxification.
Alan Grayson: Republicans Are “Knuckle-Dragging Neanderthals” On Health Reform (VIDEO)
Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson (FL) escalated his battle with Republicans over comments he made Tuesday on the House floor.
Rep. Grayson said that the GOP’s health care plan is for people to not get sick, and if they do, then to “die quickly.”
Grayson has refused to apologize for his comments (although he took to the House floor to apologize to the dead who have passed for lacking health insurance), and he again blasted Republicans tonight on CNN’s “The Situation Room” for blocking health care reform.
Grayson insisted that it’s the GOP who needs to apologize to America, and he called Republicans “knuckle-dragging neanderthals.”
WATCH:
Full Story: Alan Grayson: Republicans Are “Knuckle-Dragging Neanderthals” On Health Reform (VIDEO).
Exclusive: Comcast in Talks to Buy NBC-Universal from General Electric
Comcast, the nation’s leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, is in talks to buy the entertainment giant NBC-Universal from General Electric, according to knowledgeable individuals.
Deal points were hammered out at a meeting among bankers for both sides in New York on Tuesday, executives familiar with the meeting said.
Two individuals informed about the meeting said that a deal had already been completed at a purchase price of $35 billion.
Full Story: Exclusive: Comcast in Talks to Buy NBC-Universal from General Electric (updated) | The Wrap.
Penske Saturn Deal Falls Apart: GM To Shut Down Brand
General Motors Co. said Wednesday it would shut down its Saturn brand after an agreement with Penske Automotive Group Inc. to acquire it fell apart.
Penske, citing concerns of whether it could continue to supply vehicles after a manufacturing contract with GM ran out, ended talks with GM Wednesday to acquire the brand.
GM CEO Fritz Henderson said in statement that Saturn and its dealership network will be phased out.
“This is very disappointing news and comes after months of hard work by hundreds of dedicated employees and Saturn retailers who tried to make the new Saturn a reality,” Henderson said in a written statement. “PAG’s announcement explained that their decision was not based on interactions with GM or Saturn retailers.”
In a statement, the Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based auto retailer says an agreement with another manufacturer to continue producing Saturn vehicles after GM stopped making them fell through, leading Penske to terminate talks with GM.
Full Story: Penske Saturn Deal Falls Apart: GM To Shut Down Brand.
Ken Lewis Retiring: Bank Of America CEO To Step Down By End Of 2009
Ken Lewis, the embattled CEO of Bank of America Corp., is leaving the company, succumbing to nearly a year of strife that followed his company’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co.
The bank, the nation’s largest by assets, said Wednesday that Lewis, 62, decided on his own to leave and would retire as CEO and also leave the company’s board by the end of the year. The company did not announce a successor, saying one would be selected by the time Lewis steps down Dec. 31.
The fact that no succession plan was announced indicated that the Bank of America board did not expect Lewis’ decision at this time. Nonetheless, the news, coming after shareholders had stripped Lewis of his chairman’s title earlier this year, wasn’t surprising because of the intense pressure he came under after the Merrill Lynch deal, including criticism about billions of dollars in bonuses given to Merrill Lynch employees.
Lewis had said he would stay on as CEO until after the company’s financial problems were resolved, a process expected to take several years.
Full Story: Ken Lewis Retiring: Bank Of America CEO To Step Down By End Of 2009.
National Review’s John Derbyshire: Women Should Not Have The Right To Vote
OPS: We call on all good Republican women to do the “right thing”, tear up their voter registration cards and pledge to not vote from now on.
Think Progress » John Derbyshire, a British-American conservative author and columnist for the National Review, has written a new book titled We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. The book contains a section called “The Case Against Female Suffrage.” Yesterday on his radio show, Alan Colmes asked Derbyshire to articulate his argument.
“What is the case against female suffrage?” Colmes asked. “The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left,” Derbyshire responded nonsensically. “They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.”
Colmes then pressed Derbyshire on whether women should have the right to vote. “Ah…” Derbyshire sighed, attempting to dodge the question initially. “I’m not putting forward a political program here,” he said. But then Derbyshire slowly began to open up:
Full Story: Think Progress » National Review’s John Derbyshire: Women Should Not Have The Right To Vote.
EPA announces plan to regulate industrial global warming pollution.
Think Progress » Appearing at a climate summit in Los Angeles today, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will announce the administration’s plan to regulate industrial global warming pollution, with or without the support of Congress. Today’s proposed rule limits regulation to large greenhouse gas polluters, from coal-fired power plants and oil refiners to methane-emitting landfills. The details of today’s proposed rule are explained further in the Wonk Room.
Full Story: Think Progress » EPA announces plan to regulate industrial global warming pollution..
Foreclosure Rate Rises 17 Percent
– washingtonpost.com - The number of homes lost to foreclosures rose about 17 percent in the second quarter of this year despite the launch of an extensive government program aimed at helping borrowers save their home, according to government data released Wednesday.
Completed foreclosures reached 106,007 during the second quarter, compared with 90,696 during the first three months of the year, according to the report by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates banks. Their quarterly report examines 64 percent of outstanding mortgages in the country.
The increase was primarily the result of various government and industry foreclosure moratoriums, the report said.
Full Story: Foreclosure Rate Rises 17 Percent – washingtonpost.com.
Fmr. UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Warns Against “Politically Motivated Hype” on Iran Nuke Program
Democracy NOW!
Transcript, Audio, Video, MP3 Download
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins us to discuss what he calls “politically motivated hype” over Iran’s nuclear program. The Obama administration has warned of sanctions unless Iran allows inspections of a newly disclosed nuclear site. Iran insists the site has been used for peaceful purposes. The row comes just after Iran’s test-firing of medium- and long-range missiles and before Iranian officials are due to hold talks with the US and five other nations in Geneva. [includes rush transcript]
Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998. He is author of Iraq Confidential and Target Iran and the forthcoming Dangerous Ground: America’s Failed Arms Control Policy from FDR to Obama. His latest article in the UK Guardian newspaper is Keeping Iran Honest.
Full Story: Fmr. UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Warns Against “Politically Motivated Hype” on Iran Nuke Program.
Questions for conservative-land
Scholars and Rogues » Yesterday, a regular commenter wrote, “I don’t understand why everyone in liberal-land is still so fixated on Bush.” I think it’s a fair question and i’m willing to take a stab at it. Liberal-land is still so fixated on Bush because Americans don’t unite around positive things; we run on fear and loathing. The continued fixation on Bush is, to some degree, a closing of ranks in liberal-land. The denizens of liberal-land also like to believe that Bush corrupted or destroyed whatever wholesomeness was left in America. He did his part, no doubt…a bang up job really, but he didn’t start the process nor did it begin to end when he left office. Liberal-land would generally prefer to ignore its own leadership’s role in the hollowing out of America. And, you know, everybody loves a villain. Just like conservative-land is busy demonizing Obama for all sorts of sins, real and imagined.
Since we’re asking rhetorical questions of ill-defined groups of people, i have a few for conservative-land…
Full Story: Scholars and Rogues » Questions for conservative-land.
RNC Tied To Website That Promoted Military Coup Against Obama
OPS: This is TREASON. Prosecute now! You MUST set an example or this will get worse.
Media Matters Action Network – Yesterday, Newsmax columnist John L. Perry brought up the possibility of a military coup against President Obama. Most chilling, perhaps, was the fact that Perry seemed to offer tepid support for the idea. “A coup is not an ideal option,” he acknowledged, “but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.”
There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic. [...]
Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”
Newsmax eventually unpublished the column, but only after receiving several reader complaints. Additionally, a spokeswoman for Newsmax tried to downplay the website’s relationship with Perry.
Full Story: RNC Tied To Website That Promoted Military Coup Against Obama | Media Matters Action Network.
Whole Green Catalog: 1000 Best Things for You and the Earth (Paperback)
Remember the Whole Earth Catalog?
Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
Project Censored - Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.
ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.
Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored 2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are directly US perpetrated.
Full Story: #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation | Project Censored.
InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
Project Censored - More than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect and provide information on fellow Americans. In return, members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public, and at times before elected officials. “There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate Total Information Awareness program (TIPS), turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” according to an ACLU report titled “The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.”
InfraGard, with members from 350 companies of the Fortune 500, started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats. “Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.
FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard . . . from our perspective, that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”
Full Story: # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business | Project Censored.
Liberals count Dem votes for public option
- TheHill.com - House liberals, challenged by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to prove they can pass their preferred public option, are surveying the rest of the Democratic caucus Wednesday.
In doing so, they may settle the key question facing House Democrats — whether there are enough votes within the Democratic caucus to pass any sort of plan.
The “whip count,” started last night, seeks to prove that there are a majority 218 votes in the House for what liberals call a “robust public option.” Robust generally means that providers’ compensation would be tied to Medicare rates.
We’re asking everybody,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-chairwoman Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).
Full Story: Liberals count Dem votes for public option – TheHill.com.
Health Care for Congress, Low Cost Clinic for Capitol Hill Lawmakers
Little Known Office on Capitol Hill Provides Quality Medical Care for Low Price
- EXCLUSIVE – ABC News - This fall while members of Congress toil in the U.S. Capitol, working to decide how or even whether to reform the country’s health care system, one floor below them an elaborate Navy medical clinic — described by those who have seen it as something akin to a modern community hospital — will be standing by, on-call and ready to provide Congress with some of the country’s best and most efficient government-run health care.
Formally called the Office of the Attending Physician, the clinic — and at least six satellite offices — bills its mission as one of emergency preparedness and public health. Each day, it stands ready to handle medical emergencies, biological attacks and the occasional fainting tourist visiting Capitol Hill.
Full Story: Health Care for Congress, Low Cost Clinic for Capitol Hill Lawmakers – EXCLUSIVE – ABC News.
Obama to announce $5 billion in research grants
CNN - President Barack Obama, in an effort to stimulate the economy and support critical research, will announce $5 billion dollars in grants when he visits the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday, according to an administration official.
The money comes from Recovery Act funds and is aimed at supporting “12,000 critical research projects — and tens of thousands of jobs associated with them, ranging from teachers and lab technicians to database managers and scientists,” the official wrote in an e-mail.
Obama, who will be joined by Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other top medical experts, will tour a lab before speaking at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland.
Obama Drafts Health Care Fallback Plan
- Roll Call – The White House has been secretly drafting its own health care legislation that it may unveil at some point during the debate if officials believe it would help secure passage of a bill, according to sources familiar with the effort.
Sources differed on how far the process has gotten, with some saying a bill is basically finished and others saying they are aware only of a partially completed effort. White House officials, though they know their preferences, also appear to be constructing different options that could be thrown together depending on how the legislation is shaping up in Congress.
But all sources knowledgeable about the effort agreed the measure includes significant detail and possibly even some legislative language that could ensure the bill is ready to go the moment it is needed.
“They are getting ready for a backup,” said one veteran observer of health care debates who was knowledgeable about the effort. “It will be parachuted in if necessary.”
The White House measure appears designed to entice moderate Democrats and perhaps even Republicans into supporting a health care overhaul if legislative efforts in Congress fail or if they move too far to the left. Sources said one possibility would be to invoke the measure if the Senate cannot rally 60 votes to break a filibuster. Another option may be to present details of what the White House wants during a conference between the House and the Senate.
But the White House effort may never see the light of day.
Full Story: Obama Drafts Health Care Fallback Plan – Roll Call.
Dr. Quentin Young, Mad as Hell Doctors Chicago
Dr. Quentin Young speaks at the Mad as Hell Doctors rally, September 26, 2009, Chicago.
Full Story: YouTube – Dr. Quentin Young, Mad as Hell Doctors Chicago.
Michael Moore’s Message to Barack Obama and Blue Dog Democrats
‘The Pre-Existing Condition Was Rape’
Michael Moore addresses press on Barack Obama and Blue Dog Democrats’ approach to health care reform at Public Citizen headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009.
Full Story: YouTube – Michael Moore’s Message to Barack Obama and Blue Dog Democrats.
Panel Votes To Restore Abstinence-Only Education Money
OPS: It’s been proven to have been a failure. What’s behind this?
A Senate committee voted Tuesday night to restore $50 million a year in federal funding for abstinence-only education that President Barack Obama has pushed to eliminate.
The 12-11 vote by the Senate Finance Committee came over objections from its chairman, Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana.
Two Democrats – Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas – joined all 10 committee Republicans in voting “yes” on the measure by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.
The measure would still have to pass the full House and Senate. Hatch said abstinence education had been shown to work, though Baucus disagreed. Obama had proposed in his 2010 budget to direct money spent on abstinence-only education to broader teen pregnancy-reduction programs
Full Story: Panel Votes To Restore Abstinence-Only Education Money.
Supreme Court To Take On Chicago Handgun Ban
The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners.
The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in Chicago and some suburbs immediately following the high court’s decision in June 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in the District of Columbia, a federal enclave.
The new case tests whether last year’s ruling applies as well to local and state laws.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld ordinances barring the ownership of handguns in most cases in Chicago and suburban Oak Park, Ill.
Full Story: Supreme Court To Take On Chicago Handgun Ban.
Stephen Colbert Takes Aim At Relationship Between Legislators, Health Care Lobbyists (VIDEO)
OPS: IF you missed it last night. here’s another chance. It’s a good one!
video at link
On last night’s The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert took aim at the way the health care reform bill has been impacted by lobbyists — which is to say that lobbyists are dominating the decision-making process of legislators, because those legislators want to take their money and get re-elected, circle of life et cetera.
Colbert cited Pat Roberts, who sued for further decision-making delays, saying, “The thing I’m trying to point out, is that we would have at least 72 hours for the people that the providers have hired to keep up with all of the legislation that we pass around here, and the regulations that we pass around here, to say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. have you considered this?’” Colbert accurately translated this from the original obfuscation into English: “See, all he wants is some time for health care lobbyists to change the bill.”
Full Story: Stephen Colbert Takes Aim At Relationship Between Legislators, Health Care Lobbyists (VIDEO).
Michael Moore Mocks “Whiny” Democrats: At Least GOP Has Courage Of Its Convictions (VIDEO)
Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore mocked “whiny” Democrats for not having the spine or courage to fight Republicans for a public option on health care. Mimicking a whiny voice for Democrats, Moore said he “admired” Republicans because at least they had “the courage of their convictions”:
I can’t stand listening to whiny Democrats say, ‘we shouldn’t even do it because it won’t pass anyways.’ That’s not how the Republicans think. You know, you’ve got to admire Republicans. They have the courage of their convictions. They put it right out there. When they want to do something, they do it. They don’t go, ‘oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if we should invade Iraq. People might not like that.’ They don’t care. They just do it. What is wrong with our side of the aisle? Where is the spine, where is the courage? ‘They might filibuster.’ Really? Let them filibuster. I’d like to see that.
Calling support for the public option “absolutely make or break,” Moore warned Democrats that he would help efforts to oust from office any who backed away from supporting real reform:
Full Story: Michael Moore Mocks “Whiny” Democrats: At Least GOP Has Courage Of Its Convictions (VIDEO).
Alan Grayson on the GOP Health Care Plan: “Don’t Get Sick! And if You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly!”‘
This is Rep. Alan Grayson discussing the GOP plan for health care. Part one, don’t get sick. Part two, if you do get sick… Part three, die quickly.
Full Story: YouTube – Alan Grayson on the GOP Health Care Plan: “Don’t Get Sick! And if You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly!”‘.
Jon Stewart Schools Sean Hannity About History, The Food Chain (VIDEO)
There are so many complex problems facing Americans these days that we should all be thankful to Sean Hannity for boiling them down to their simplest, if nonsensical, forms. Love farmers? Kill fish. Love farmers? Hate president. What could be easier?
Among many other causes Hannity has taken up since Obama took office, Sean is deeply upset that the White House is ignoring his call to wipe out a species of fish by raising water levels in order to combat a drought hurting farmers. When challenged by a representative of the Federation of Fisherman, who warned that killing these fish will in turn destroy the salmon population, Hannity’s crowd booed. Good thing he had comedian Paul Rodriguez at his side to lend an air of credibility to the broadcast.
Full Story: Jon Stewart Schools Sean Hannity About History, The Food Chain (VIDEO).
Death toll mounts in South Pacific tsunami
Death toll mounts in South Pacific tsunami
FT.com – Foreign governments pledged assistance to South Pacific communities devastated by a powerful dawn earthquake that triggered a deadly tsunami that is expected to claim more than 100 lives.
Parts of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga were hit hardest with entire villages and holiday resorts wiped out and thousands of people displaced. The natural disaster is one of the worst in the cyclone-prone tiny nations of the South Pacific in decades.
Full Story: FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Death toll mounts in South Pacific tsunami.
Pollster under fire for ’08 surveys
- POLITICO.com – The polling community is abuzz after the American Association for Public Opinion Research, a trade group for pollsters, issued a rare statement last week rebuking a well-known Atlanta-based polling operation.
The pollster, Strategic Vision, has surveyed numerous political races in the past, often in lightly polled states, and its polls have been widely reported by the media. This year alone, the firm has publicly released polls in Florida, Georgia and New Jersey, looking at various statewide races and assessing the job approval ratings of President Barack Obama and a handful of senators and governors.
AAPOR’s reprimand isn’t related to any of those polls but, rather, to Strategic Vision’s 2008 presidential primary surveys. The trade association sought to review the findings of 21 pollsters who conducted pre-2008 primary surveys in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Wisconsin and California as part of a far-reaching examination sparked by the unexpected outcome in the New Hampshire primary — where many pollsters predicted a Barack Obama victory in a state that Hillary Clinton ultimately won.
Full Story: Pollster under fire for ’08 surveys – Erika Lovley – POLITICO.com.
Voter group challenges Diebold voting machine sale
OPS: Dusting off the Sherman Anti-Trust laws? About damned time.
Excite News – A voter advocacy organization asked the U.S. Justice Department Tuesday to undo the sale by Diebold Inc. of its voting machine business, saying the transaction promotes a monopoly.
Voter Action, based in Washington, D.C., said in a letter to the department’s antitrust division that the transaction is a grab for market share. The sale creates monopoly power in violation of federal antitrust laws, the group said.
Diebold said in early September it would sell its Allen, Texas-based subsidiary Premier Election Solutions Inc. to its bigger competitor, Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb., for $5 million plus payments representing 70 percent of collections of the unit’s accounts receivable as of Aug. 31.
“The ES&S/Premier acquisition is absolutely unique in its potential for disturbing U.S. election processes and results,” Voter Action said.
Full Story: Excite News – Voter group challenges Diebold voting machine sale.
Which Senate Democrats Would Join With A GOP Filibuster on a Public Option?
Chuck Schumer and Max Baucus just said that there were not 60 votes for the public option in the Senate.
The Public Option doesn’t need 60 votes. It needs 51. That is, unless the GOP filibusters it. What Baucus and Schumer are saying — explicitly — is that there are Democrats who would support a GOP filibuster to keep the public option from having an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. They are saying that there are Democrats who would vote with the GOP to block a vote on something that the President says he supports — a public option.
That is a very serious charge. It’s tantamount to party treason. Schumer and Baucus need to say who these members are immediately.
Full Story: Campaign Silo » Which Senate Democrats Would Join With A GOP Filibuster on a Public Option?.
GOP councilor would rather abolish police force than see it unionize
Raw Story – A conservative politician in Georgia is telling his hometown police force to stop looking for the union label, or find new jobs.
Erick Erickson, the managing editor of RedState.com and a city councilor in Macon, Georgia, has called for the abolition of Macon’s police force if it votes to unionize.
The Macon Telegraph reported on Monday that some 130 police officers on the city’s municipal force want to unionize because of “officers bearing the burden of rising insurance costs, a loss of incentive pay and the city not having a pay scale.”
“I’m thinking I’ll have the City Attorney draft me legislation to dissolve the police department and contract with the Sheriff to provide public safety services,” Erickson wrote on the blog Peach Pundit.
Full Story: GOP councilor would rather abolish police force than see it unionize | Raw Story.
Judge: Santeria Priest Can Sacrifice Goats
| NBC Dallas-Fort Worth – A federal judge has barred Euless from enforcing a rule to prevent a Santeria priest from sacrificing animals in his home.
In a final judgment this month, U.S. District Judge John McBryde of Fort Worth also ordered Euless to pay for the costs incurred by Santeria priest Jose Merced.
His attorney, Eric Rassbach, said Tuesday the ruling means Merced can resume priest ordination ceremonies involving animal sacrifice.
Merced’s suit accused Euless of violating his religious rights. The city argued the sacrifices jeopardized public health and violated its slaughterhouse and animal cruelty ordinances.
Full Story: Judge to Euless: Santeria Priest Can Sacrifice Goats | NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
‘Froot’ Is Not Fruit, San Francisco Lawsuit Alleges
- San Francisco News – According to Toucan Sam, avian mascot of Kellogg’s Froot Loops cereal, “Follow my nose! It always knows! The flavor of froot! Wherever it grows!”
According to disgruntled consumer Roy Werbel, however, Sam’s olfactory quest misleads consumers into mistaking junk food for naturally grown produce. Werbel recently filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court alleging that he bought and ate boxes of Froot Loops based on his mistaken belief the cereal contained fruit.
Kellogg’s intentionally deceived consumers into buying Froot Loops by misleadingly using the word “froot” in the title, Werbel alledges. He demands unspecified punitive and actual damages, to be paid to all consumers who have mistakenly bought Froot Loops cereal. Had Werbel known that “Froot Loops contained no fruit, he would not have purchased it,” his suit alleges.
Full Story: ‘Froot’ Is Not Fruit, San Francisco Lawsuit Alleges – San Francisco News – The Snitch.
5,800 died in U.S. due to distracted driving in 2008
(Reuters) – More than 5,800 people were killed and 515,000 injured in U.S. car crashes last year tied to distracted driving, according to data released on Wednesday.
The figures, culled from police reports, were released at the start of a government conference on cell phone use, texting and other distractions behind the wheel led by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The data was significant but may not show the full problem since identifying distraction as a cause of crashes, especially in fatal accidents, can be difficult, Transportation Department officials and safety experts said.
Full Story: 5,800 died in U.S. due to distracted driving in 2008 | Reuters.
Analysis finds holes in US Iran story: US may have pretended to know about facility
OPS: So Obama was playing Poker rather than chess ?
| Raw Story - The story line that dominated media coverage of the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility last week was the official assertion that U.S. intelligence had caught Iran trying to conceal a “secret” nuclear facility.
But an analysis of the transcript of that briefing by senior administration officials that was the sole basis for the news stories and other evidence reveals damaging admissions, conflicts with the facts and unanswered questions that undermine its credibility.
Iran’s notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the second enrichment facility in a letter on Sep. 21 was buried deep in most of the news stories and explained as a response to being detected by U.S. intelligence. In reporting the story in that way, journalists were relying entirely on the testimony of “senior administration officials” who briefed them at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh Friday.
Full Story: Analysis finds holes in US Iran story: US may have pretended to know about facility | Raw Story.
Americans willing to fund healthcare reform-poll
(Reuters) – Most Americans would pay higher taxes to fund healthcare reforms that provide the best quality of care, but only a minority expects Washington to deliver it, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
The telephone survey of 3,003 U.S. adults conducted by Thomson Reuters found 63 percent willing to pay for healthcare reform, though most also said they are happy with their own doctors, insurance plans and out-of-pocket costs.
However, only 35 percent of those surveyed said President Barack Obama’s reform agenda and the debate in Congress will lead to better health service, while 41 percent said they would expect it to lead to lower costs.
“There’s skepticism that the government can deliver value,” said Gary Pickens, chief research officer for Thomson Reuters’ healthcare and science research business. Thomson Reuters is the parent company of global news agency Reuters.
Full Story: Americans willing to fund healthcare reform-poll | Special Coverage | Reuters.
Reports: Mysterious, unregistered security firm policing Montana town
The Raw Story » A mysterious, reportedly unregistered and almost entirely unknown private security firm by the name “American Police Force” is causing a stir in a small Montana town for apparently impersonating local police.
According to a local media report, APF representatives were recently seen in the tiny town of Hardin, Montana, driving black SUV’s with a peculiar logo and, inexplicably, “City of Hardin Police Department” stamped on the door.
However, Hardin does not have a police force.
The town instead contracts with the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Department for patrols, according to KULR 8 in Billings, Montana.
According to the news agency, APF was never given permission to assume policing duties. Instead, the firm — which the Associated Press reported to be unregistered in government databases — gained its contract with the town on the promise of bringing inmates to an unpopulated prison complex.
An image on KULR’s Web site shows the insignia on the APF vehicles, which has caused some concern on the Internet as being of conspiratorial origin.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Reports: Mysterious, unregistered security firm policing Montana town.
US secretly tried to make deals with Goldman Sachs in wake of financial crisis
BREAKING 10:08 AM ET: Vanity Fair will report in the next issue of the magazine that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — a former head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs — tried to orchestrate secretive deals in the midst of the financial crisis — but got blowback from prominent investor Warren Buffett. The following press release was obtained by Raw Story.
NEW YORK, N.Y.—The government secretly tried to orchestrate a deal involving Goldman Sachs in the week following Lehman Brothers’ collapse and considered using the Federal Reserve to help support such a transaction, Andrew Ross Sorkin reports in the new issue of Vanity Fair.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, Sorkin reports that the deal, which was nearly consummated, would have merged Goldman Sachs and Wachovia. Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary and former C.E.O. of Goldman, was deeply involved in the process, contacting both Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s current C.E.O., and a Wachovia board member, and strongly urged both to consider it. Wachovia’s C.E.O., Robert Steel, was a former vice-chairman at Goldman Sachs and Paulson’s former number two at the Treasury Department.
Full Story: US secretly tried to make deals with Goldman Sachs in wake of financial crisis | Raw Story.
Judge weighs whether cows enjoyed ’suckling’ cop’s member
Raw Story – A Pennsylvania judge pondered a very unusual question during a ruling issued Monday: When a former police officer stuck his male member in the mouths of five baby cows, did they enjoy “suckling” it, or were they merely “puzzled”?
“During a bizarre hearing there yesterday, a Superior Court judge dismissed animal-cruelty charges against a Moorestown police officer accused of sticking his penis into the mouths of five calves in rural Southampton in 2006, claiming a grand jury couldn’t infer whether the cows had been ‘tormented’ or ‘puzzled’ by the situation or even irritated that they’d been duped out of a meal,” reported Jason Nark with the Philadelphia Daily News.
Weighing the case, Judge James J. Morley reportedly asked: “If the cow had the cognitive ability to form thought and speak, would it say, ‘Where’s the milk? I’m not getting any milk’?”
Full Story: Judge weighs whether cows enjoyed ’suckling’ cop’s member | Raw Story.
Chamber of Commerce Losing Members
Several major partners of the United States Chamber of Commerce are now threatening to withdraw from the organization unless it officially recognizes the problem presented by proliferating a carbon-based economy
Craig Harrington – economyincisis.org – The United States Chamber of Commerce is under fire from several of its own members regarding the organization’s stance on human-induced climate change. Several major partners of the USCC are now threatening to withdraw from the organization unless it officially recognizes the problem presented by proliferating a carbon-based economy.
According to The New York Times, utility company Exelon is the latest firm to threaten leaving. Exelon is pursuing this move because, as CEO John Rowe states “the carbon-based free lunch is over.”
Momentum has been building for some time as more and more members of the business community acknowledge the serious threat of climate change. Thus far the government has been slow to pick up on the threat, and any goals – ranging from emission standards to alternative energy production – are far below any impact level.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Globalism vs. Americanism
Patrick Buchanan -economyincisis.org - Down at the Chinese outlet store in Albany known as Wal-Mart, Chinese tires have so successfully undercut U.S.-made tires that the Cooper Tire factory in that south Georgia town had to shut down.
Twenty-one hundred Georgians lost their jobs.
The tale of Cooper Tire and what it portends is told in last week’s Washington Post by Peter Whoriskey.
How could tires made on the other side of the world, then shipped to Albany, be sold for less than tires made in Albany?
Here’s how.
At Cooper Tire, the wages were $18 to $21 per hour. In China, they are a fraction of that. The Albany factory is subject to U.S. health-and-safety, wage-and-hour and civil rights laws from which Chinese plants are exempt. Environmental standards had to be met at Cooper Tire or the plant would have been closed. Chinese factories are notorious polluters.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Gibbs reacts to Steele’s Olympics criticism: ‘Who’s he rooting for?’
Think Progress » As ThinkProgress reported earlier today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele held a conference call to criticize President Obama’s Copenhagen trip later this week, where he will make a pitch for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics. “If the priority is the Olympics in seven years, okay, then tell the nation that’s the priority and that’s what we should be focused on because we’ll create jobs then and we won’t worry about it between now and 2016,” Steele said. Today in the White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained that Obama wanted to “talk directly with voting members of the IOC and make the strong case for the American side.” Asked about Steele’s criticism, Gibbs took a jab at the RNC Chairman:
QUESTION: Your response to Chairman Steele’s criticism about the President going to Copenhagen?
GIBBS: Who’s he rooting for? (Laughter.) Is he hoping to hop a plane to Brazil and catch the Olympics in Rio? (Laughter.) Maybe it’s Madrid.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Gibbs reacts to Steele’s Olympics criticism: ‘Who’s he rooting for?’.
Newsmax removes column that called for military coup to resolve the ‘Obama problem.’
OPS: The fact that they posted in the first place should be enough to prosecute the owners, editors and author
Think Progress » In a column published on the right-wing site Newsmax yesterday, John L. Perry writes that a military coup against President Obama is possible. Newsmax appears to have taken down the column from its website this morning. Media Matters has archived it, however:
obamamilitaryThere is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic. [...]
Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”
In his Washington Post column, former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson acknowledges that “military leaders seem impressed” with President Obama’s decision-making process. “Obama’s engaged, deliberate style has fans in the military,” he writes.
Update Media Matters notes that Perry’s rhetoric is simply a continuation of “a trend of increasingly violent and revolutionary rhetoric advanced by conservative media figures.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Newsmax removes column that called for military coup to resolve the ‘Obama problem.’.
Wash. Times and Fox News now unleashing mobs on private citizens (including kids)
| Media Matters for America – Last week, a Washington Times blogger posted a call to arms, beseeching readers to help the newspaper dig up more information regarding a long list of arts organization representatives who took part in a conference call with the White House on August 10. The call was part of a National Endowment for the Arts initiative, and it’s a conference call that was secretly taped and has been wildly overhyped in conservative media circles as some sort of linchpin in a larger criminal enterprise being run out of the White House to politicize the arts. (There’s no evidence the August 10 conference call broke any laws.)
Still, the Times was asking for help. It wanted readers to search through a spreadsheet it posted that included names of the arts representatives who participated in the NEA conference call. The Times wanted readers to snoop around online — doing some crowdsourcing — and find out everything they could about the arts reps.
In theory, of course, online dirt-digging and sleuthing makes perfect sense and represents a new era of participatory journalism embraced by the Internet. Josh Marshall and his reporting team at Talking Points Memo, for instance, famously used crowdsourcing to track policy positions of members of Congress during the debate over Social Security in 2005. Readers also chipped in and helped rifle through thousands of pages of memos that the Bush White House dumped at a time when the U.S. attorney scandal was widening. Thanks to Marshall’s readers, TPM was able to tease out all sorts of interesting news leads.
Full Story: Wash. Times and Fox News now unleashing mobs on private citizens (including kids) | Media Matters for America.
Why Are We Lying to Ourselves About Our Catastrophic Economic Meltdown?
Sorry, it’s not over yet. This downturn will be severe and long-lasting, and profoundly re-shape our lives, culture, society and the world.
Over the last year, the world has received a crash course in real-world capitalism as the follies of Wall Street nearly torpedoed the global economy, which had to be rescued by a trillion-dollar government handout.
Economics, the study of systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services, touches virtually facet of our lives from work, recreation and home life to entertainment, culture and social relations.
While there is a wealth of information and some excellent reporters in the business press, the mainstream media has botched virtually every major economic story over the last decade. It helped inflate the Internet bubble. It worshiped at the shrine of the free market and Alan Greenspan. It ignored the evidence of the housing bubble. It was missing in action on the commodities bubble. It celebrated billionaires and speculators even as they manufactured financial weapons of mass destruction. It only sporadically reports on the myriad ways Wall Street games the financial system.
Full Story: Why Are We Lying to Ourselves About Our Catastrophic Economic Meltdown? | PEEK | AlterNet.
Imagine No Religion? Atheist Movement Gains Momentum
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is using quotes from famous atheists to spread the message in its national billboard campaign.
By Tana Ganeva, AlterNet. – This month, San Francisco’s public transit system was enlisted in the battle against organized religion.
A publicity campaign by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to fighting for the separation of church and state, covered the sides and interiors of 75 city buses with the anti-religion quips of assorted atheist wordsmiths.
Here’s Mark Twain: “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
Clarence Darrow: “I don‘t believe in God, because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.”
Richard Dawkins: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.”
Full Story: Imagine No Religion? Atheist Movement Gains Momentum | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.
Americans Are Still Buying Gas-Guzzlers, But Here Are 7 Signs That the Market for Green Transport Is Exploding
More and more Americans are finding other ways to get around in greener fashion, from Smart Cars to Vespas.
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Americans get a lot of flack for their big cars. And often for good reason.
After sales figures for the first half of 2009 came in, it’s looking like Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks are set to make their 28th year at the top of the charts, with nearly 180,000 sold in the first two quarters.
With gas mileage near the bottom of the heap — 15 miles per gallon in the city and around 20 on the highway — the trucks are icons of America’s suicidal obsession with gas guzzlers.
And suicidal it is. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, since the early ’90s there has been a 20 percent increase in CO2 pollution from SUVs and pickups, which aren’t required by federal law to meet the same fuel-efficiency standards as cars.
Not only are Americans’ vehicles less efficient, but we own more of them and drive them more often than other countries. The U.K.’s Guardian reported in 2006:
NewsMax Columnist Calls for US Banana Republic
Now we’ve heard it all, a man on the extemist right wing calling for a Banana Republic coup to get rid of Barack Obama. John Perry says the military is bound to defend the constitution, but forgets that the constitution has no provisions for military government. Is he suffering from dementia, or just a Republican Pundit gone Wild?
All Spin Zone » With a military coup in Honduras fresh on his mind, NewsMax columnist John L. Perry is suggesting the military in the USA perform a coup to take down Barack Obama. Right Wing whackjobbery proves its crazy bona fides once again. From NewsMax, that insane “news” source, Perry describes a “civil” military coup:
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.
Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”
In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.
I love that last line. It wouldn’t be the right wing crazies that brought about such a coup, but the voters acting in a democracy would be the ones to blame. Perhaps Perry would also advocate an Iran-style crackdown of the protests that would follow his prescription, or would he go for a full-blown Tianamen Square-style “democracy?”
Full Story: All Spin Zone » NewsMax Columnist Calls for US Banana Republic.
American Police Force Corporation Takes Over Small Town Police Force and Prisoner-Less Jail
HARDIN, Mont. (CBS/AP) This is the strange story of how American Police Force, a little known company which claims to specialize in training military and security forces overseas, has seemingly taken control of a $27 million, never-used jail, and a rural Montana town’s nonexistent police force.
After arriving in this tiny city with three Mercedes SUVs marked with the logo of a police department that has never existed, representatives of the obscure California security company said preparations were under way to take over Hardin’s jail, which has no prisoners.
Significant obstacles remain – including a lack of any contracts to acquire prisoners from other jails or other states.
And on Friday came the revelation the company’s operating agreement for the facility has yet to be validated – two weeks after city leaders first unveiled what they said was a signed agreement.
Full Story: American Police Force Corporation Takes Over Small Town Police Force and Prisoner-Less Jail – Crimesider – CBS News.
APF (American Police Force Corporation) In Hardin
KULR-8 TELEVISION – Billings, Montana – American Police Force officials showed up in Mercedes SUV’s that had “Hardin Police” stenciled on the vehicles. The twist, the city of Hardin doesn’t have a police department.
Two Rivers Authority officials say having APF patrol the streets was never part of their agenda. “I have no idea. I really don’t because that’s not been a part of any of the discussions we’ve had with any of them,” said Two Rivers Authority’s Al Peterson.
As it stands now the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Department is contracted to patrol the city and APF has no jurisdiction. If that was changed Peterson says it would have to go through the city council.
As for the jail contract with APF, both sides are yet to agree to a deal as bondholders rejected it again on Thursday morning. “It’s a complicated issue there are a lot of tax laws to work through we were hoping to get it by Tuesday night now we’re hoping to get it by Friday night,” said Peterson.
Full Story: APF In Hardin | KULR-8 TELEVISION – Billings, Montana | Local Top Stories.
For G-20, Pittsburgh became a police state
Massive force routed cherished constitutional values.
By Steve Hallock | Philadelphia Inquirer | The world economy may or may not have emerged stronger from last week’s G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. And the first non-capital city to host the summit enjoyed the public-relations boon of showcasing its Phoenix-like rise from the ashes of the steel industry. But the Constitution took a hit.
Government officials decided a massive, preemptive police presence was necessary to avoid the raucous demonstrations that marred past economic summits. They established a virtual police state that quickly extinguished any spark of dissent, and a federal court ruling gave them free rein to do so.
To begin with, there was an oxymoronic requirement that groups get permits to march and demonstrate during the summit. Requiring citizens to obtain permission to gather, let alone speak, violates the spirit of the First Amendment.
Full Story: For G-20, Pittsburgh became a police state | Philadelphia Inquirer | 09/30/2009.
Is Mandatory Health Insurance Constitutional?
- CBS News - In the last few days, a new argument has emerged in the debate over Democratic health care proposals: Are they constitutional? More precisely, can the federal government force Americans to buy health insurance?
“Mandatory Insurance Is Unconstitutional” is the unapologetic title of an op-ed last week in the Wall Street Journal by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, Justice Department attorneys during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Investor’s Business Daily wonders: “Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the government can force people to buy health insurance?” So does an opinion article in the Christian Science Monitor, a discussion on the O’Reilly Factor, and commentary by Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano.
For their part, defenders of mandatory insurance haven’t engaged very much, in part because courts tend to be so reluctant to strike down federal laws in the first place. Precious few laws are ever erased from the books by the stroke of a judge’s pen; lawyers use terms like the “presumption of constitutionality” and “judicial deference to the legislature” to explain this reticence. (See our CBS Evening News coverage of mandated health insurance, and a FAQ on the topic.)
Full Story: Is Mandatory Health Insurance Constitutional? – Taking Liberties – CBS News.
Is Tamiflu breeding the next flu epidemic?
Tamiflu, (oseltamivir phosphate), is a popular and effective influenza drug.
The major metabolite of Tamiflu is oseltamivir carboxylate (OC).
The normal routine in sewage treatment plants (STP) cannot remove OC from water. The OC is returned to rivers after treatment.
Birds consume the OC in the water. The reaction of flu in the birds with the OC in the water can
produce a mutation of the flu that is Tamiflu resistant. People then get the resistant flu from contact with birds.
Tamiflus use can breed a new and more deadly flu that could grow to epidemic proportions in the future.
Researchers published these findings in the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives” (EHP) after studying the 2008 to 2009 flu season in Kyoto, Japan.
Full Story: Is Tamiflu breeding the next flu epidemic?.
Why the right wing hates and wants to smash ACORN
The Free Press - -The level of the current right wing frenzy against the Association of Communities Organizing for Reform Now (ACORN) can only be understood within the dynamics of President Barack Obama’s 2008 election and John Kerry’s “official” loss in 2004.
ACORN, more than any other political organization, was responsible for Obama’s victory. ACORN in Ohio, and in key swing states, did what the Democratic Party used to do, but now seems incapable of doing – registering large numbers of low income and working class voters.
Instead of going after the real whores at Chase, CitiBank, and assorted other financial institutions that pimped our system and our people, undercover right wing videographers went for a target that fit their pre-fabricated agenda – a fake Daddy Mac and whore trying to open up a brothel with an ACORN member’s advice. Of course any ACORN people involved in illegal practices should be investigated, as should anyone in the elite financial community and anyone out there misusing federal Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) money.
Full Story: The Free Press — Independent News Media – Bob Fitrakis.
Rick Scott profits off the uninsured
A leading foe of healthcare reform owns a chain of clinics aimed at people who would benefit from a public option
Editor’s note: Research support was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.
| Salon News - For months now multimillionaire healthcare entrepreneur Rick Scott has been at the center of the aggressive campaign to derail healthcare reform in Washington, D.C. Reprising the role he played nearly 20 years ago, when as the head of a national hospital chain he helped kill Clintoncare, the former hospital-chain executive founded the group Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, raising $20 million to fight Obamacare, including $5 million of his own money. The tall, lean Scott, whose shiny bald head swivels in exasperation at the idea of government involvement in healthcare, even stars in its nationwide ad campaign comparing Democratic proposals to socialized medicine. Through this group, he has fomented the conservative strategy to disrupt town hall-style healthcare meetings around the country by shouting down elected officials. (CPR sent schedules of the meetings to so-called Tea Party activists.) He can justifiably claim some of the credit for the Senate Finance Committee’s two votes Tuesday against a public option. But in Rick Scott the right has found a frontman whose baggage threatens to overwhelm his message.
A linchpin of Scott’s 2009 campaign has been the use of anecdotes from abroad — horror stories from Britain and Canada meant to illustrate how government-controlled healthcare systems “clearly kill people” by controlling their access to care, as he told Fox’s Sean Hannity in June. He even funded a documentary titled “Faces of Government Healthcare” cataloging the horror stories of British and Canadian patients who were purportedly denied medical attention for life-threatening illnesses until it was too late.
Full Story: Rick Scott profits off the uninsured | Salon News.
81% of Democrats Support Public Option but 19 Million Health Care Dollars Support Five Democrats Who Voted Against It
OPS: In any other sector this would be called Bribery, and would be illegal
Yesterday, five Democratic United States Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), Bill Nelson (D-Fla) and Tom Carper (D-Del) voted against the a proposal to put a government administered public option in the health reform bill that will come out of the Senate Finance Committee.
Are these senators accurately voting for the will of their constituents?
When the American public was asked if they favored of oppsed a government administered public health care option, this is what they said:
Americans support the notion of a government administered health insurance plan by a margin of 65% to 26%. According to the same poll, people who identify themselves as Democrats favor the public option by a margin of 81% to 12%. That’s nearly 7 to 1 in favor of, yet the representatives of the Democrat party in the Senate Finance Committee only voted for the public option at a ratio of 8 to 5. Perhaps the most interesting number revealed by this poll is that Republican voters favor the public option 47% to 42%.
So why can’t the people’s representatives in Washington get behind the public option? Specifically, why can’t these five Democrats get behind it when 81% of people in their party want the option. The answer I’d like to hear is that less than 50% of the voters they represent back home oppose the public option so they’re voting on behalf of their constituents, however, the numbers we see in the NYT/CBS poll make that extremely unlikely. So if that’s not the reason, what is? One likely answer is money. Look at the amount of money the health industry has pumped into these five Democrat’s coffers:
Max Baucus got $7,734,102, Blanche Lincoln received $4,190,592, Ken Conrad took in $3,287,891, Bill Nelson was given $2,414,895 and Tom Carper accepted $1,592,380 from health industry interests.
Full Story: Intershame.com – on Max Baucus D Mont Kent Conrad D ND Blanche Lincoln D Ark Bill Nelson D Fla and Tom Carper D Del.
Harkin Guarantees A Public Option
Discouraged on the public option being voted down today by the scum-sucking, insurance industry-loving weasels on the Senate Finance Committee? Don’t be, says Tom Harkin:
video at link
HARKIN: I believe that when we merge these two bills, we will have a public option in there that we will take to the floor of the Senate and we’re going to pass it.
SCHULTZ: Well, okay, so despite what happened in the Senate Finance Committee today, you think you’ve got the votes to get a public option coming out of the Senate? Cause I’m not so worried about the House anymore and I think the American people, I mean, this is gonna be reported, all the talking heads are gonna say, “Hey, public option is dead.” I need to have some confidence tonight with you, Senator Harkin, that you think you can get these votes out of the Senate.
HARKIN: Well here’s one thing I will guarantee you, Ed, and I will tell you again as I’ve told you before — we will have a bill on the President’s desk before Christmas and it will have a public option.
SCHULTZ: Well that’s what the American people want to hear. Now …
HARKIN: I know it and most of the doctors want it, 73% of the doctors polled want a public option, uh, sixty-some percent of the American people want a public option and the vast majority of Democrats, over fifty in the United States Senate, also want a public option.
SCHULTZ: Okay now, are you going to have to go reconciliation? You’re not going to get sixty at this point are you?
HARKIN: Well, I wouldn’t give up on that yet. I still think that we can get sixty votes to bring the bill on the floor of the Senate. And then we’ll have amendments and then we’ll have, probably have to have a cloture on the bill to bring it to a close. Now that will be the tough vote. I still believe that we can get the sixty votes for that.
SCHULTZ: Okay, what about …
HARKIN: But if we don’t, Ed, if we don’t, we’re going to go to reconciliation. As I said to you, and as I say to the American people, we will have this bill on the President’s desk by Christmas, one way or the other.
Full Story: Daily Kos: Harkin Guarantees A Public Option.
U.S. economic crisis was long time in the making
| McClatchy – Americans have always assumed that financial crises happen in basket-case countries, not here. So how then did the U.S. follow the lead of Argentina, Mexico and Thailand by plunging into this one?
Economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff answer that question in a provocative new book, “This Time Is Different.”
The authors, both former top economists at the International Monetary Fund who’re now teaching, respectively, at the University of Maryland and Harvard University, offer examples of mistakes made repeatedly over “eight centuries of financial folly.”
In the preface, they offer a crystal-clear analysis of why we are where we are
Full Story: Authors: U.S. economic crisis was long time in the making | McClatchy.
Ensign On Why Gun Deaths Shouldn’t Be Factored Into Survival Rates: ‘We Like Our Guns In The United States’
OPS: in the alternate Universe on the other side of the looking glass, this is considered brilliant thinking….and rational.
Think Progress » Today in the Senate Finance Committee markup of health care legislation, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) tried to make the case that the U.S. system is the best in the world and bristled at data that the country lags in halting preventable deaths compared to other industrialized nations. Ensign argued that those comparisons are unfair because they include deaths from auto accidents and gun violence, which are unique “cultural factors”:
ENSIGN: When you take into account cultural factors — the fact that we drive cars a lot more than any other country; we are much more mobile.
If you take out accidental deaths due to car accidents, and you take out gun deaths — because we like our guns in the United States and there are a lot more gun deaths in the United States — you take out those two things, you adjust those, and we actually better in terms of survival rates.
Watch it:
Chamber Of Commerce Rewrites History: ‘We’ve Never Questioned The Science Behind Global Warming’
OPS: Once you’ve sold your soul, what’s a few lies?
Think Progress » Energy companies are abandoning the sinking ship of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in droves over its opposition to clean energy action, whether by the EPA or by Congress.
Under pressure, Chamber president Tom Donohue today claimed the Chamber “continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.” And spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel recently argued that the Chamber respects the science of climate change:
We’ve never questioned the science behind global warming.
This is a blatant falsehood, by any definition. Just last month, the Chamber’s Senior Vice President William Kovacs called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to put “the science of climate change on trial.” The Chamber, dominated by pollution-industry skeptics such as Don Blankenship, Harry Alford, and Fred Palmer, has questioned climate science since at least 1992:
2008: Chamber President Tom Donohue Says ‘Scientific Inquiry’ Into Climate Change ‘Should Continue’ Because Of ‘Cooling Trend.’ [U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 3/4/08]
2001: Chamber Claims Global Warming ‘About One Percent From Human Activity,’ Says ‘Things Just Change.’ [CNNFN, 7/16/01]
1992: Chamber Sponsors Global Warming Denier Pat Michaels To ‘Refute The Global Warming Warnings.’ [Chicago Sun-Times, 5/13/92]
In addition to being the Chamber of Commerce president, Tom Donohue works for Union Pacific, a company opposed to climate regulation.
Full Story: Think Progress » Chamber Of Commerce Rewrites History: ‘We’ve Never Questioned The Science Behind Global Warming’.
Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention’
OPS: Reich wing NEWSMAX. They are doing everything they can to light the fuse
There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.
America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:
# Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”
# Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
# They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.
# They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.
# They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.
# They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America’s troop strength is allowed to sag.
# They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.
# They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.
So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?
Full Story: Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention’.
Toyota, Lexus Mat Recall: 3.8 Million Vehicles Recalled Over Floor Mats
Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it will recall 3.8 million vehicles in the United States, the company’s largest-ever U.S. recall, to address problems with a removable floor mat that could cause accelerators to get stuck and lead to a crash. The recall will involve popular models such as the Toyota Camry, the top-selling passenger car in America, and the Toyota Prius, the best-selling gas-electric hybrid.
Toyota said it was still working with officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to find a remedy to fix the problem and said owners could be notified about the recall as early as next week. Toyota spokesman Irv Miller said until the company finds a fix, owners should take out the removable floor mat on the driver’s side and not replace it.
Full Story: Toyota, Lexus Mat Recall: 3.8 Million Vehicles Recalled Over Floor Mats.
Middle-Class Family Living In Storage Unit After Losing Jobs
As part of the Huffington Post’s efforts to bear witness to the effects of the current economic environment on ordinary Americans, we’re rounding up some of the most compelling stories reported by local news organizations around the country.
Bridget and Ed Robertson were a normal a middle-class couple from greater Phoenix, Arizona. Then, within just weeks of each other they were both laid off from jobs they’d had for years. Neither could get anything new despite hundreds of applications. They couldn’t make their car payments or pay their rent. Soon, they found themselves homeless.
The Robertsons and their daughter, Sarah, were forced to move into a 12- by 25-foot storage unit supplied by a local community service organization, Save the Family Arizona, which kept them from going on the street. To make matters worse, Ed had a stroke in January, flooding the family with debt, and Bridget’s father passed away recently, compounding the Robertsons’ stress and anxiety.
Full Story: Middle-Class Family Living In Storage Unit After Losing Jobs.
The Presidency Problem: High Crimes
If staging coups, waging secret wars, suspending civil liberties, or torturing people were merely aberrations pursued by a handful of zealots, Congress could simply punish the offenders and get back to “business as usual.” But the obvious, and yet unspoken, truth is that destabilizing other governments, unnecessary (and sometimes covert) wars, and abuses of power – at home and abroad – are standard tactics of the modern presidency.
After first denying such “initiatives,” the Reagan and Bush II administrations turned ultimately to a more credible (though not more creditable) response: they had decided that the pres idency isn’t bound by the normal rule of law, especially congressionally-imposed limits, when pursuing its “higher” goals. The defense was both the “necessity” of combating evil (aka communism and more recently terrorism) by any means, and the inviolability of presidential authority in most matters of foreign policy and anything defined as a question of “national security.”
Yet, the real culprits weren’t Reagan or Bush, although they clearly encouraged a “survival of the fittest” approach to governance. Even in the wake of scandals, no one charged that the president personally ordered torture or collaboration with arms dealers and drug merchants. On the other hand, neither did anyone deny that this has happened regularly in the past. At the root, the problem isn’t a particular group of conspirators but rather an executive structure that supports and condones wanton disregard for the sovereignty of nations and rights of individuals.
The continuing transfer of power to the executive branch is a largely untold story of the last half century, abetted by the cult of commander-in-chief authority, a global network of military outposts, a vast intelligence apparatus, the withholding of information on spurious grounds, and a permanent state of emergency. The process continues in the Obama administration. As John Podesta, Obama’s transition chief, explained shortly after the 2008 election, “There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we’ll see the president do that.” This time around, conservatives are worried and most liberals cheer him on.
Full Story: The Presidency Problem: High Crimes.
Bush Torture Indictment 2.0
Following a joint blogosphere drafting effort, here’s a revised draft indictment of Bush for torture. As before, this does not attempt to include the vast majority of Bush’s crimes or any of Bush’s worst crimes. Nor does it attempt to indict the vast majority of those probably guilty of conspiracy to torture. This is just Bush and just torture.
United States of America, Plaintiff v. George W. Bush, Defendant
18 U.S.C. Section 2340A - 18 U.S.C. Section 2441
INDICTMENT – THE GRAND JURY CHARGES:
Introductory Allegations:
At times relevant to this Indictment:
1. The primary law of the United States Federal Government was set forth in the U.S. Constitution (“Constitution”), which provides that the Executive Power of the United States is vested in the President, who is also the Commander in Chief of the Armed Services.
2. Defendant GEORGE W. BUSH (“BUSH”) served as President of the United States from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. BUSH took a constitutionally mandated oath to faithfully execute the Office of President and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. BUSH is also constitutionally obligated to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
3. As Chief Executive, BUSH exercised authority, direction, and control over the entire Executive Branch, which includes the White House, the Office of the Vice President, the Departments of State, Defense, and others, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Full Story: Bush Torture Indictment 2.0.
Is Gold a Reasonable Investment?
This essay rounds up arguments for gold as a reasonable investment.
Commentators such as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Byron King argue that China’s hunger for gold will put a floor on gold prices.
Specifically, they argue that China will “buy the dips” in gold prices, effectively putting a minimum on how low gold prices can go.
Inflation
It is conventional wisdom that gold is a hedge against inflation.
For example, noted inflationist John Williams advises buying gold.
Axel Merk argues that gold is a better buy than TIPS as an inflation bet.
And Taleb advised buying gold in May, since currencies including the dollar and euro face pressures.
Deflation
If gold does well during times of inflation, it makes sense that it would perform poorly during deflationary periods.
But Examiner.com points out that such an assumption is probably untrue.
Specifically, as Examiner.com writes:
Eric Sprott – who manages $4.5 billion in assets, and correctly predicted in March of 2008 a “systemic financial meltdown” – says:
“I believe no matter what environment you’re in – deflation or inflation – people will run to gold,” Sprott said. “Gold is proving exactly what we all would have expected, that in almost any environment, it’s a go-to asset.”
And investment analyst and financial writer Yves Smith argues that gold does well during both periods of deflation and high inflation. She argues:
Full Story: Is Gold a Reasonable Investment?.
Americans threatened with jail time, huge fines for refusing to buy health insurance
OPS: At this point the “Public Option” is an amorphous label. By thsi time it gets to a vote-able bill it could meant anything. Therefore it’s a Judas Goat. Be careful what you wish for. Medicare for all is the only solution
NaturalNews – There’s a popular video circulating on the ‘net right now about how to escape handcuffs without using a key. Americans are watching the video to bone up on essential skills that will soon be needed for health care reform, it seems, since the new laws that are about to be put in place call for Americans to be arrested and thrown in jail if they refuse to buy health insurance.
This has now been confirmed by Tom Barthold, the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, in a hand-written note to a Republican Senator (http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0…). And it’s not merely about jail time; it’s also about the $25,000 fine that could be levied by the IRS against individuals who refuse to buy health insurance.
That this is even being considered just boggles the mind. If a person is too broke to afford health insurance right now, how are they supposed to be able to buy it after paying a $25,000 fine and spending a year in prison?
WWIII Population Wars: A 12-bomb equation
Can Gates’ Billionaires Club stop these inevitable self-destruct triggers?
Paul B. Farrell – (MarketWatch) — So what’s the biggest time-bomb for Obama, America, capitalism, the world? No, not global warming. Not poverty. Not even peak oil. What is the absolute biggest, one like the trigger mechanism on a nuclear bomb, one that’ll throw a wrench in global economic growth, ending capitalism, even destroying modern civilization?
The one that — if not solved soon — renders all efforts to solve all the other problems in the world, irrelevant, futile and virtually impossible?
News flash: the “Billionaires Club” knows: Bill Gates called billionaire philanthropists to a super-secret meeting in Manhattan last May. Included: Buffett, Rockefeller, Soros, Bloomberg, Turner, Oprah and others meeting at the “home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and president of the private Rockefeller University, in Manhattan,” reports John Harlow in the London TimesOnline. During an afternoon session each was “given 15 minutes to present their favorite cause. Over dinner they discussed how they might settle on an ‘umbrella cause’ that could harness their interests.”
The world’s biggest time-bomb? Overpopulation, say the billionaires.
And yet, global governments with their $50 trillion GDP, aren’t even trying to solve the world’s overpopulation problem. G-20 leaders ignore it. So by 2050 the Earth’s population will explode by almost 50%, from 6.6 billion today to 9.3 billion says the United Nations.
Full Story: Paul B. Farrell: WWIII Population Wars: A 12-bomb equation – MarketWatch.
How To Brainwash A Nation
This amazing interview was done back in 1985 with a former KGB agent who was trained in subversion techniques. He explains the 4 basic steps to socially engineering entire generations into thinking and behaving the way those in power want them to. It’s shocking because our nation has been transformed in the exact same way, and followed the exact same steps.
Please join the campaign to end this insanity at The Kick Them All Out Project
Full Story: YouTube – How To Brainwash A Nation.
CREW FILES BAR COMPLAINT AGAINST SEN. VITTER
Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a bar complaint with the Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel against Senator David Vitter (R-LA) for violating Louisiana’s rules of professional conduct for lawyers.
In 2007, it was revealed that Sen. Vitter’s telephone number was included in the so-called “D.C. Madam,” Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s, list of client telephone numbers. The senator confirmed he had sought Ms. Palfrey’s services, saying in a statement, “this was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible.” Two other women also alleged Sen. Vitter had engaged the services of prostitutes. Jeanette Maier, the “Canal Street Madam,” claimed Sen. Vitter visited the New Orleans brothel several times in the mid-1990s. In addition, a woman who worked as a prostitute under the name of Wendy Cortez said Sen. Vitter was a regular client of hers between July and November 1999.
Under D.C. and Louisiana law, it is a crime to solicit for prostitution. CREW filed a complaint against Sen. Vitter with the Senate Ethics Committee, which dismissed the matter without action in September 2008.
Full Story: CREW FILES BAR COMPLAINT AGAINST SEN. VITTER | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but “we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon.”
« Climate Progress – Finally, some of the top climate modelers in the world have done a “plausible worst case scenario,” as Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, put it today in a terrific and terrifying talk (audio here, PPT here).
No, I’m not taking about a simple analysis of what happens if the nation and the world just keep on our current emissions path. We’ve known that end-of-century catastrophe for a while (see “M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F“). I’m talking about running a high emissions scenario (i.e. business as usual) in one of the few global climate models capable of analyzing strong carbon cycle feedbacks. This is what you get [temperature in degrees Celsius, multiple by 1.8 for Fahrenheit]:
Canada far outranks U.S. in healthcare report card
CTV News | Canada outshines the United States in health outcomes but is well behind global leaders like Japan in the overall health of its population, a report from the Conference Board of Canada contends.
The annual report card ranks Canada 10th out of 16 developed countries, with a “B” grade.
The United States was the worst performer, placing 16th and earning a “D” grade. Japan was once again the top-ranking country. Switzerland, Italy, and Norway also earned “A” grades.
“Canada’s middle-of-the-road ranking overall –a solid ‘B’– would surprise most Canadians who are immensely proud of their health-care system,” the report reads, noting Canadians’ universal access to health-care services, highly skilled health-care professionals, and internationally recognized health-care and research institutions.
But our health system also has challenges, says the report, including long wait times for some diagnostics and treatments, and limited availability of health information systems.
Full Story: CTV News | Canada far outranks U.S. in healthcare report card.
U.S. firms oppose rules to curb short selling
(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Vanguard Group Inc are among U.S. companies opposed to rules proposed by U.S. regulators to limit short selling, according to letters filed by the companies.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had asked for comments on a proposal to reinstate the “uptick” rule, under which investors can short a stock only after it had moved higher.
In a short sale, an investor sells borrowed stock in anticipation of a price decline that will allow him to repurchase the shares at a lower price.
Some lawmakers and financial industry executives say short selling has worsened the financial crisis and driven down share prices.
Full Story: U.S. firms oppose rules to curb short selling | Reuters.
An Inside Look at How Goldman Sachs Lobbies the Senate
Matt Taibbi
– True/Slant - The SEC is holding a public round table Tuesday to explore several issues around securities lending, which has expanded into a big moneymaker for Wall Street firms and pension funds. Regulation hasn’t kept pace, some industry participants contend.Securities lending is central to the practice of short selling, in which investors borrow shares and sell them in a bet that the price will decline. Short sellers later hope to buy back the shares at a lower price and return them to the securities lender, booking a profit. Lending and borrowing also help market makers keep stock trading functioning smoothly.
via SEC Weighs New Rules for Lending of Securities – WSJ.com.
Later on this week I have a story coming out in Rolling Stone that looks at the history of the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses. The story ends up being more about naked short-selling and the role it played in those incidents than I had originally planned — when I first started looking at the story months ago, I had some other issues in mind, but it turns out that there’s no way to talk about Bear and Lehman without going into the weeds of naked short-selling, and to do that takes up a lot of magazine inches. So among other things, this issue takes up a lot of space in the upcoming story.
Naked short-selling is a kind of counterfeiting scheme in which short-sellers sell shares of stock they either don’t have or won’t deliver to the buyer. The piece gets into all of this, so I won’t repeat the full description in this space now. But as this week goes on I’m going to be putting up on this site information I had to leave out of the magazine article, as well as some more timely material that I’m only just getting now.
Full Story: Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – An Inside Look at How Goldman Sachs Lobbies the Senate – True/Slant.
Senior official in Bush domestic propaganda program remains Obama’s Pentagon spokesman
Raw Story – A key senior figure in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program, which used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage, remains in his same position today as a chief Obama Defense Department spokesman and the agency’s head of all media operations.
In an examination of Pentagon documents the New York Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request — which reporter David Barstow leveraged for his April 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose on the program – Raw Story has found that Bryan Whitman surfaces in over 500 emails and transcripts, revealing the deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations was both one of the program’s senior participants and an active member.
Whitman’s conspicuous presence in these records is notwithstanding thousands of documented communications the Bush Pentagon released but for which names were redacted and an untold number the prior administration successfully withheld after its two-year legal battle with the Times.
Full Story: Senior official in Bush domestic propaganda program remains Obama’s Pentagon spokesman | Raw Story.
Vision Cheetah Zero Emissions H2 PHEV Supercar to Rollout in 2010
| Hydrogen Cars and Vehicles - Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that the details are sketchy on this one. But, on the Vision Motor Corp. website there is a cool little hotrod that caught my eye. This little hotrod is called the Vision Cheetah.
Now, what makes the Vision Cheetah so special? According to their website, “Vision is also in prototype development of the Cheetah, which is intended to be the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell / plug-in electric-powered supercar, featuring: zero emissions, accelerating 0 to 60 MPH faster than production Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches and the battery powered Tesla.”
Now, I’ve pointed out a few hydrogen fuel cell plug-in hybrid vehicles in the past such as the Ford Flexible Series Edge and the VW Space Up Blue, but these are no speed burners. Recently I had talked about the Buckeye Bullet 2 and the Jesse James Streamliner, which are both speed burners, but are not street legal and are not plug-in hybrids.
The Vision Cheetah is unique in that when the production model comes out it will be classified as a zero emission supercar with 0 – 60 mph acceleration of around 2.9 seconds. The Vision Cheetah will also contain 10,000 psi carbon composite hydrogen tanks with an estimated range of 350+ miles.
Full Story: Vision Cheetah Zero Emissions H2 PHEV Supercar to Rollout in 2010 | Hydrogen Cars and Vehicles.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky: ‘There Will Be A Public Option In The Bill,’ Will Be Added In Conference
Wonk Room » J“At the end of the day, there will be a public option in the bill,” Rep
(D-IL) told reporters at an early morning briefing hosted by the Democratic Women’s Working Group and attended by The Wonk Room. Schakowsky predicted that the House would pass a public option and integrate the provision into the the final bill during conference. “I see momentum building,” she said.
Schakowsky pointed to a recent poll commissioned by Health Care for America Now of 91 conservative House swing districts — including many Blue Dog and rural ones — “which concluded that the public option has solid majority support among those voters.” According to the poll, “including a public option is essential to implementing an individual mandate. Voters also already prefer the implementation of a public option, and do not see a need for a trigger.” Greg Sargent has the details:
Full Story: Wonk Room » Rep. Jan Schakowsky: ‘There Will Be A Public Option In The Bill,’ Will Be Added In Conference.
Scientists: Political ‘Reality’ Will Lead To Climate Catastrophe
Wonk Room » Global temperature projections“Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world’s leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago.” This analysis was conducted by the Climate Interactive project, led by climate scientist Dr. Robert Corell, the chair of the Heinz Center’s Climate Action Initiative. The researchers fed the possible commitments by the world’s nations for the global climate deal to be negotiated this December in Copenhagen, Denmark into a dynamic model that projects how the climate will respond:
We collected emissions reductions proposals in the public domain up until September, 2009 – and found that even if these were fully implemented they would be far from sufficient to meet the goal of stabilizing atmospheric CO2 levels at or below 350 ppm, reaching instead about 716 ppm CO2 and 944 CO2e by 2100. These proposals would not be sufficient to limit warming to 2°C over pre-industrial temperatures, creating instead approximately 3.5°C of temperature increase by 2100.
Full Story: Wonk Room » Scientists: Political ‘Reality’ Will Lead To Climate Catastrophe.
The Consequences Of A Strike On Iran
Wonk Room » During the 2008 presidential campaign, one of Sen. John “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain’s favorite bons mots was that “There is only one thing worse than military action [against Iran], and that is a nuclear armed Iran.” As with so much else that McCain said during that campaign, it’s really not clear that this is actually true, but its tone of belligerence posing as analysis was very much in keeping with the sort of “tough and stupid” foreign policy that Fareed Zakaria refers to in his op-ed this morning. (”Tough and stupid” was, I believe, one of the taglines originally considered for The Weekly Standard.)
For all the conservative bluster being leveled at Obama’s engagement policy, you’d think that we hadn’t actually just come off of eight years wherein their ideas were tried and shown to be a complete failure, but of course we have. The administration of George W. Bush, especially its first four years, was about as pure an application of hard line conservative foreign policy principles as one could ever hope for, and it was a disaster. It resulted in an Iran that was far more dominated by hardliners, far less inclined to compromise, in a far more secure and influential position in the region, and much closer to a nuclear weapons capability.
Full Story: Wonk Room » The Consequences Of A Strike On Iran.
Bingaman Rejects Appeasement: Don’t Add Polluter Subsidies To Clean-Energy Legislation
Wonk Room » Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the influential chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, opposes efforts to add coal and nuclear subsidies to win votes for climate legislation. In an interview with Grist, Bingaman disagreed with Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) strategy to make the Senate version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act “more attractive to Republicans and conservative Democrats” by “including greater funding for coal and nuclear energy,” saying that instead climate leaders should put forward “a proposal people are confident will work“:
Frankly I don’t believe that gaining support of conservative Democrats depends upon putting more money into nuclear and coal power…. I think what’s really needed to get conservative Democrats supporting cap and trade legislation is to be able to put forward a proposal that people are confident will work and that people are confident will not impose an undue burden on rate payers or on our overall economy.
Watch it:
Full Story: Wonk Room » Bingaman Rejects Appeasement: Don’t Add Polluter Subsidies To Clean-Energy Legislation.
Wall Street Banks Enlist Big Business In Fight Against Derivatives Regulation
Wonk Room » National Journal noted over the weekend that a new coalition of business groups — which includes the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — is starting to criticize the Obama administration’s plans to regulate the vast, unregulated derivatives market, “much to the relief of several big Wall Street banks that had been waging a lonely and uphill lobbying effort.”
The group is calling itself the Coalition of Derivatives End Users, and Wall Street derivatives dealers reportedly “appreciate all the help they can get from corporate end users to ease new curbs.” “End users are very important,” one banking lobbyist said, “because they have the most credibility.”
There are, of course, absolutely legitimate reasons to use derivatives to hedge against fluctuations in various markets. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the world of derivatives is almost exclusively dominated by a few big Wall Street banks, who are dealing in derivatives as an end, not a means. In fact, 97 percent of the derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks are in the hands of just five banking behemoths — JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — who are not using them the way an airline does.
Full Story: Wonk Room » Wall Street Banks Enlist Big Business In Fight Against Derivatives Regulation.
Right-wing icon Schlafly: Feminism is ‘the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today.’
Think Progress » Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-Equal Rights Amendment activist who heads the Eagle Forum, hosted the right-wing conference How To Take Back America last weekend. Several GOP members of Congress attended the conference, and each paid their respects to Schlafly for her leadership in the conservative movement. Schlafly delivered several speeches and led a discussion advocating traditional roles for women as well as warning about the dangers of feminism and blasting single mothers:
I submit to you that the feminist movement is the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today. [...] My analysis is that the gays are about 5% of the attack on marriage in this country, and the feminists are about 95%. [...] I’m talking about drugs, sex, illegitimacy, drop outs, poor grades, run away, suicide, you name it, every social ill comes out of the fatherless home.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Right-wing icon Schlafly: Feminism is ‘the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today.’.
Harkin says Senate has the votes to pass a health care bill with a public option.
Think Progress » As it reconvenes its health care mark up today, the Senate Finance Committee is set to debate three versions of a public option that could be inserted into the committee’s bill. At the same time, a top Senate Democrat said today that he has the votes to pass a bill that includes a government plan through the entire Senate. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who recently took over as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told Bill Press that Democrats “comfortably” have the votes for a public option:
“I have polled senators, and the vast majority of Democrats — maybe approaching 50 — support a public option,” Harkin said told the liberal Bill Press Radio Show. “So why shouldn’t we have a public option? We have the votes.”
“I believe we’ll have the 60 votes, now that we have the new senator from Massachusetts, to at least get it on the Senate floor,” Harkin later added. “But once we cross that hurdle, we only need 51 votes for the public option. And I believe there are, comfortably, 51 votes for a public option.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Harkin says Senate has the votes to pass a health care bill with a public option..
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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
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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. 
