Archive for September, 2009
Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless
OPS: That would make the unemployment rate far above the ‘official’ 9.7% wouldn’t it? They are lying. The actual unemployment rate is much higher
Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless
On this Labor Day weekend, many Californians find themselves more in need of work than a holiday.
A report released Sunday says two of five working-age Californians do not have a job, underscoring the challenges in one of the toughest job markets in decades. A new study has found that the last time employment levels among this group were this low was February 1977.
via Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless.
As ‘Rescissions’ Spawn Outrage, Health Insurers Cite Fraud Control
When Your Insurer Says You’re No Longer Covered
Insurance Companies are the Ones with the Death Panels, Canceling Policies to Save Hundreds of Billions When People are Sick And Coming Up With Lame Excuses for Greed
Firms Defend ‘Rescissions’ as Fraud Control
LOS ANGELES — The untimely disappearance of Sally Marrari’s medical coverage goes a long way toward explaining why insurance companies are cast as the villain in the health-care reform drama.
“They said I never mentioned I had a back problem,” said Marrari, 52, whose coverage with Blue Cross was abruptly canceled in 2006 after a thyroid disorder, fluid in the heart and lupus were diagnosed. That left the Los Angeles woman with $25,000 in medical bills and the stigma of the company’s claim that she had committed fraud by not listing on a health questionnaire “preexisting conditions” Marrari said she did not know she had.
By the time she filed a lawsuit in 2008, she also got a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and her debts had swelled beyond $200,000. She was able to see a specialist by trading office visits for work on the doctor’s 1969 Porsche at the garage she owns with her husband.
via As ‘Rescissions’ Spawn Outrage, Health Insurers Cite Fraud Control – washingtonpost.com.
Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen
Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen
Jane Hamsher: “If there is going to be a serious progressive movement in this country capable of standing up for health care against an industry that spends $1.4 million a day on lobbying, we can’t just look to the members of the Progressive Caucus and say “hey, you, get something done.” They need cover. They need to know that they will be supported. And people like Van Jones who have given their lives to causes we say we value like prison reform and environmental advocacy need to know that they will be defended, and not handed over to Glenn Beck as an acceptable casualty in the battle for K-Street dollars.”
I first met Van Jones when he was honored last year by the Campaign for America’s Future at their gala dinner. He was being swarmed by all of the liberal institutional elite, who just could not be more full of praise for the impressive environmental leader and prison reform organizer. Everybody wanted Van Jones on their board. Everyone wanted him at their fundraisers. Everyone wanted a piece of his formidable limelight.
Now he’s been thrown under the bus by the White House for signing his name to a petition expressing something that 35% of all Democrats believed as of 2007 — that George Bush knew in advance about the attacks of 9/11. Well, that and calling Republicans “assholes.” I’m pretty sure that if you search through the histories of every single liberal leader at the CAF dinner that night, they have publicly said that and worse.
via Campaign Silo » Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen.
E-mail passwords easy prey for hackers
E-mail passwords easy prey for hackers – - UPI.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) — There’s not much authorities can do to prevent hackers from determining computer users’ e-mail passwords, U.S. experts say.
Hacker services, usually based overseas, openly advertise that for as little as $100, they can find out what someone’s e-mail password is and provide it to buyers, who can then use it to monitor the private communications of estranged spouses, family members or whomever they choose, the Washington Post reported Monday.
Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University and a former trial attorney in the Justice Department’s computer crime section, told the Post that while U.S. law prohibits hacking into e-mail, it’s only a misdemeanor without further criminal activity. And as such, it is a low priority item for the FBI.
via E-mail passwords easy prey for hackers – UPI.com.
Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us
Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us - Truthdig – Reports -
By Chris Hedges
Our most potent political weapon is food. If we take back our agriculture, if we buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of corporations that control a food system as fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse as our financial system. If we continue to allow corporations to determine what we eat, as well as how food is harvested and distributed, then we will become captive to rising prices and shortages and increasingly dependent on cheap, mass-produced food filled with sugar and fat. Food, along with energy, will be the most pressing issue of our age. And if we do not build alternative food networks soon, the social and political ramifications of shortages and hunger will be devastating.
The effects of climate change, especially with widespread droughts in Australia, Africa, California and the Midwest, coupled with the rising cost of fossil fuels, have already blighted the environments of millions. The poor can often no longer afford a balanced diet. Global food prices increased an average of 43 percent since 2007, according to the International Monetary Fund. These increases have been horrific for the approximately 1 billion people—one-sixth of the world’s population—who subsist on less than $1 per day. And 162 million of these people survive on less than 50 cents per day. The global poor spend as much as 60 percent of their income on food, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.
via Truthdig – Reports – Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us.
Daily Kos: Send Me Everything You Can Find About Glenn Beck
Send Me Everything You Can Find About Glenn Beck
by Keith Olbermann
Digg this! Share this on Twitter – Send Me Everything You Can Find About Glenn BeckTweet this submit to reddit Share This
I don’t know why I’ve got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck, Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.
No, even now, I refuse to go all caps.
No, sending me links to the last two Countdowns with my own de-constructions of his biblical vision quality Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Zimbalist art at Rockefeller Center (where, curiously, he works, Comrade) doesn’t count. Nor does sending me links to specious inappropriate point-underscoring prove-you’re-innocent made-up rumors.
* Keith Olbermann’s diary :: ::
*
Tuesday we will expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enablers, Ailes (even though Ailes’ power was desperately undercut when he failed to pull off his phony “truce” push).
This becomes necessary after this in order to prove various cliches about goose and gander, and to remind everybody to walk softly and carry a big popsicle, and most particularly to save this nation from the Oligarhy of The Stupid.
I keep wondering if somewhere somebody named Ollie Garhey thinks he’s in charge now. Or, even more entertainingly and societally satisfying, if somebody named Ali Garhi does.
Despite the worn-out snark above, I am in earnest here.
via Daily Kos: Send Me Everything You Can Find About Glenn Beck.
Obama to have ‘real hard time’ with liberals if he drops public option
Obama to have ‘real hard time’ with liberals if he drops public option - By Michael O’Brien – The Hill’s Blog
President Obama will encounter difficulties wrangling together liberal members of his own party on issues if he abandons the public option, one Democratic congresswoman warned Sunday.
“He’s going to have a real hard time with us,” Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said during an interview on MSNBC when asked if Democrats would “abandon” him.
Clarke said she expects the president to flex some political muscle Wednesday night during a speech to a joint session of Congress, where he’s expected to detail his priorities for healthcare reform.
There have been varying signs about where, if at all, Obama will come down on the public (or “government-run”) option, as liberal Democrats have expressed growing dissatisfaction about the president’s handling of healthcare.
Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On
Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On - – NYTimes.com
They were left out of the latest unemployment rate, as they are every month: millions of hidden casualties of the Great Recession who are not counted in the rate because they have stopped looking for work.
But that does not mean these discouraged Americans do not want to be employed. As interviews with several of them demonstrate, many desperately long for a job, but their inability to find one has made them perhaps the ultimate embodiment of pessimism as this recession wears on.
Some have halted their job searches out of sheer frustration. Others have decided it makes more sense to become stay-at-home fathers or mothers, or to go back to school, until the job market improves. Still others have chosen to retire for now and have begun collecting Social Security or disability benefits, for which claims have surged.
Rick Alexander, a master carpenter in Florida who has given up searching after months of effort, said the disappointment eventually became unbearable.
via Out of Work, and Too Down to Search On – NYTimes.com.
Greenwash: Monsanto? Sustainable? Water bully, I’d say …
Monsanto? Sustainable? Water bully, I’d say … – | | guardian.co.uk
The maligned GM-crops agricultural giant may try to portray a green image, but its ‘water-efficient maize’ simply doesn’t wash in Molokai
The agricultural giant Monsanto may well still be the world’s most hated company. The company that brought the world Agent Orange, the defoliant of choice in the Vietnam War, followed up a decade ago with a strident push to flood the world with genetically modified crops. It alienated millions – and even its friends and rivals among GM supporters blamed Monsanto’s belligerence for putting back the cause by many years. But I’m going to ignore GMs and talk about water. And belligerence.
In part, no doubt, to help salvage its GM-tarnished reputation, Monsanto now makes great play of its efforts to help engineer a second green revolution built around “sustainability”.
Sustainability is a much-abused term and it infiltrates almost every corner of the company’s website. But to be fair they do try and define what the word means for its business. The company promises that its “sustainable yield initiative” will “reduce by one-third per unit produced the aggregate amount of key resources such as land, water and energy, required to grow crops by 2030.”
Lost world of fanged frogs and giant rats discovered in Papua New Guinea
Lost world of fanged frogs and giant rats discovered in Papua New Guinea - The Guardian
In pictures: Lost land of the volcano
A lost world populated by fanged frogs, grunting fish and tiny bear-like creatures has been discovered in a remote volcanic crater on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea.
‘A giant woolly rat never before seen by science’
A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.
The discoveries are being seen as fresh evidence of the richness of the world’s rainforests and the explorers hope their finds will add weight to calls for international action to prevent the demise of similar ecosystems. They said Papua New Guinea’s rainforest is currently being destroyed at the rate of 3.5% a year.
A Surge in Homeless Children Tests School Aid Programs
Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools - - NYTimes.com
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C’s she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel.
Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.
The instability can be ruinous to schooling, educators say, adding multiple moves and lost class time to the inherent distress of homelessness. And so in accord with federal law, the Buncombe County district, where Charity attends, provides special bus service to shelters, motels, doubled-up houses, trailer parks and RV campgrounds to help children stay in their familiar schools as the families move about
via A Surge in Homeless Children Tests School Aid Programs – NYTimes.com.
Natural Gas Hits a Roadblock in the Energy Bill – The Coal Lobby
Natural Gas Hits a Roadblock in New Energy Bill – - NYTimes.com
The natural gas industry has enjoyed something of a winning streak in recent years. It found gigantic new reserves, low prices are encouraging utilities to substitute gas for coal, and cities are switching to buses fueled by natural gas.
But its luck has run out in Washington, where the industry is having trouble making its case to Congress as it writes an energy bill to tackle global warming.
For all its pronouncements that gas could be used to replace aging, inefficient coal-fired power plants — and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the process — lawmakers from coal-producing states appear committed to keeping coal as the nation’s primary producer of power.
via Natural Gas Hits a Roadblock in the Energy Bill – NYTimes.com.
Pace of Change Under Obama Frustrates Unions
OPS: …many of the rest of us too.
Pace of Change Under Obama Frustrates Unions – - NYTimes.com 
WASHINGTON — For eight years under George W. Bush, union officials barely set foot inside the White House. But 10 days after President Obama took office, the nation’s most powerful labor leaders mingled in the Blue Room, moments after the new president, a man they helped put there, signed a string of executive orders undoing Mr. Bush’s policies.
The mood was euphoric. “He walked in with the biggest smile,” James P. Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said of Mr. Obama, “saying, ‘Welcome back to your White House.’ ”
Today that euphoria is giving way to a mixture of frustration and unease, as union leaders are growing concerned that the Obama White House has not delivered as much as they had expected. Some criticize him for not pushing hard enough or moving fast enough on their issues, while others blame the deep recession and Republican opposition for his failure to do more.
via Pace of Change Under Obama Frustrates Unions – NYTimes.com.
Why Positive Thinking Just Doesn’t Work
Why Positive Thinking Just Doesn’t Work - Russell Bishop:
Six weeks ago, I started a series on aspiring to an inspired life with an article suggesting there may be more to life than your ‘to do’ list. Last week, I posed the question, “Are You Doomed By Your Circumstances?”
This one article seems to have pinched a nerve in a number of people. Actually, several nerves. In fact, over the past year or so, these pinched nerves have erupted in various forms, revealing a pattern of complaint. Some of the complaints come from obviously caring and well intentioned people, some from people in apparently difficult or even desperate conditions, and some from the usual group who seem bent on shooting down anything positive or uplifting.
A sampling of common complaints:
• Positive thinking doesn’t work
• Some circumstances are beyond repair
• Not everyone can succeed in life or reach the top
Not Everyone is Going to Make it to the Top
Before diving in too deep, I want to underscore that my work always emphasizes awareness and choice: what are you aware of experiencing, what would you prefer to experience, and what choices can you make that will help you make some kind of movement toward what you want? Distinguishing between material world success (things) and the deeper, more meaningful levels (enriching experiences) characterizes my work and the focus of these articles.
via Russell Bishop: Why Positive Thinking Just Doesn’t Work.
Labor Day by the numbers
Labor Day by the numbers
By Anna Turner
Note that all numbers are current as of September 4, 2009.
TOTAL JOBS LOST DURING THE RECESSION: 6.9 MILLION
• New jobs needed per month to keep up with population growth: 127,000
• Jobs lost in August 2009: 216,000
• Jobs needed to regain pre-recession unemployment levels: 9.4 million
• Manufacturing jobs lost since the start of the recession: 2.0 million (14.6% of sector’s jobs)
• Construction jobs lost in the recession: 1.4 million (19%, nearly one in five construction jobs)
• Mass layoffs (50 or more people by a single employer) in July 2009: 2,157; jobs lost: 206,791
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 9.7%
• Number unemployed: 14.9 million (up from 7.5 million in December 2007)
• Underemployment rate: 16.8%; Share of workers un- or underemployed: roughly 1 in 6
• Under- and unemployed, marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers: 26.4 million
• Unemployment rate, ages 16 to 24: 18.2%
• Male unemployment: 10.9%; female unemployment: 8.2%
• White unemployment: 8.9%; black unemployment: 15.1%; Hispanic unemployment: 13%
• Unemployment rate, young college graduates: 5.9% (2nd worst on record); Worst recorded unemployment rate for young college graduates: 6.2% (1983)
• Traditional ratio of young college grads’ unemployment to overall rate: 50%; Current ratio: 70%
• Portion of unemployed who have been jobless more than six months: one third
• Average weekly unemployment benefit in July (including additional $25 per week from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act): $332
STATES WITH DOUBLE-DIGIT UNEMPLOYMENT IN JULY, 2009: 16; WHEN THIS LAST HAPPENED: 1983
• Highest unemployment rate: Michigan, 15.0%; lowest: North Dakota, 4.2%
• When California’s Hispanic unemployment surpassed black unemployment: 2nd quarter, 2009
• Projected African American unemployment for Michigan, 2nd quarter of 2010: 24.9%
INCREASE IN AVERAGE U.S. WORKER’S PRODUCTIVITY, 2000-07: 19.2%
• Decrease in all prime-aged worker’s real median weekly wages, 2000-2007: $1; Decrease for African Americans: $3
• Annual growth rate of private-sector workers’ wages, last three months: 2.6%
• Annual growth of wages in managerial, professional, and related occupations, 2009, 2nd quarter: 0%
• Annual growth rate of real (inflation-adjusted), average, hourly wages since June 2000: 0.70%*
• Ratio of average CEO’s pay to typical worker’s pay in 1979: 27 to 1; Ratio in 2007: 275 to 1
more……….
NBC explores ‘toxic town’; residents paid to pack and leave
Video at link
NBC explores ‘toxic town’; residents paid to pack and leave - The Raw Story »
Picher, Oklahoma. Twenty-five years from now, few will even remember it existed.
Surrounded on all sides by toxic mining gravel, its residents plagued by cancer and birth defects, the very ground that once supported busy roads crumbling under-foot, the U.S. government four years ago began buying residents out of their homes, if only they’d go elsewhere.
Soon, the town’s electricity will be disconnected, leaving a mere few stragglers behind in what was once a picture of the American dream.
NBC correspondent Janet Shamlain visited recently and explored the town, taking time to speak with one of its final holdouts.
The story is a tragic example of how a lack of care for one’s environment can literally destroy a place and the lives of many who inhabit it.
via The Raw Story » NBC explores ‘toxic town’; residents paid to pack and leave.
Scientists hail breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research
Scientists hail breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research - The Raw Story |
Scientists working in seven countries announced on Sunday they had uncovered variants of three genes which play a role in Alzheimer’s, a discovery that should throw open many new avenues for tackling this tragic, mind-killing disease.
The biggest cause of dementia, Alzheimer’s has a strong heritability — nearly one in four cases are believed to have a genetic cause — but precisely which genes are to blame and how their fiendish mechanism works remain elusive.
So far, three culprit genes have been found in “familial” Alzheimer’s, a rare, early-onset form in which the disease shows up before the age of 60. This type accounts for less than three percent of all cases.
via The Raw Story | Scientists hail breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research.
Obama to name ex-banker to manufacturing post
OPS: Mr President, You can’t get there from here. A Where are the Progressive appointments. By what definition is this Change?
Obama to name ex-banker to manufacturing post – The Raw Story |
President Barack Obama has named an ex-investment banker who has helped drive the turnaround in the US auto sector as his top advisor on manufacturing, the White House said.
Ron Bloom will serve as senior counselor for manufacturing policy and “provide leadership on policy development and strategic planning for the president’s agenda to revitalize the manufacturing sector,” the White House said in a statement.
Bloom will also continue in his capacity as part of the auto industry task force that has overseen US government aid to the auto sector, which is contingent on a long-term viability plan for the troubled manufacturers.
He was named senior advisor to the Treasury Secretary on the president’s auto task force in February.
via The Raw Story | Obama to name ex-banker to manufacturing post.
Profiteers Return to Financial Sector
Profiteers Return to Financial Sector - Craig Harrington economyincisis.org
During the market crash in 2007 and 2008 many of the people who made tens of millions or more in personal wealth were paraded in front of the media and rightly accosted for their unnecessary risks and bad advice.
Executives from bailed out banks were brought into the halls of Congress and admonished by politicians from both sides – Senator Chuck Grassley infamously told executives at AIG that they might be better off dead.
While few agree with the intensity of the Senator’s comments, most Americans were simply put off by what they saw as a market gone wrong. Individuals garnered millions of dollars in personal wealth, corporations grossed billions of dollars in revenue, and after the gains were destroyed during the collapse of share prices those at the top held on to everything.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Facts, and Understanding, are Often in Conflict
Facts, and Understanding, are Often in Conflict -
Living in a Culture of Delusion leads To Denial, Ignorance and Worse.
Danny Schechter - economyincisis.org
What do we have a right to know? In this web-based age, where we can Google almost everything, you would think we would be better informed than we are.
We have Freedom of Information laws and a president who has promised transparency, offering some details on what he’s doing on an easy to access Web site.
Yet, there is much more that we still don’t know, and maybe never will.
At long last, a report on CIA abuse of detainees came out, but years after the fact, and in a heavily “redacted” form—i.e censored. Already the prosecutor chosen to prosecute says there’s not enough information there to do so. Duh?
The president’s “Pay Czar” is afraid to release what he’s found out about corporate compensation for fear it might lead, heaven forbid, to naming “targets of populist anger.”
Reuters reports, “Kenneth Feinberg has said he is uncertain how much information will be made public. Privacy laws and fears that highly compensated executives will become targets for populist anger argue for limiting such disclosure.
Feinberg, speaking on Martha’s Vineyard on August 16 in his only public remarks since becoming President Obama’s point-man on executive pay, called the issue of disclosure “a serious problem.”
“There is a tension between not wanting to put on the front page of every newspaper in the country the specific compensation packages of these individuals … versus the public’s right to know,” he said.
What are they afraid of? Apparently, embarrassing protest. Here’s the worry cited: an earlier disclosure sparked criticism of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “and prompted left-leaning groups to organize bus tours to visit the homes of AIG employees.”
OMG, Oh no!
Sometimes the scales of justice tip in the public’s direction. A judge is ordering the Federal Reserve Bank to reveal information it has insisted on keeping secret. That’s a good thing.
Bloomberg reports,’“Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska rejected the central bank’s argument that the records aren’t covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers’ competitive positions. The collateral lists “are central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” according to the lawsuit that led to yesterday’s ruling.’ No doubt the Bank will appeal!
The absence of information, pervasive media misinformation and the spin control exercised by powerful lobbies influences what people know, think, and think about. Or, more likely, don’t think about!
It gets even worse when people cling to beliefs even when they are not true, as if there is a need to believe, facts be damned.
James Howard Kuntsler has been tracking the financial decline.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Giuliani: Without tort reform, health care can only save money by ‘pulling the plug on grandma.’
Giuliani: Without tort reform, health care can only save money by ‘pulling the plug on grandma.’ – Think Progress »
Last month, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani endorsed former Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s ridiculous claims about “death panels” in health care reform, saying that “whether they will do that or not I don’t know. … People assume these death panels will be created.” On NBC’s Meet The Press today, Giuliani continued to give credence to the idea, saying that because Democratic health care reform proposals don’t include medical malpractice reform or “interstate purchase of insurance,” it became “impossible for most Republicans to figure out how you’re going to save the money other than pulling the plug on grandma.” Watch it:
Labor Day: A Holiday for Us
Labor Day: A Holiday for Us – By Will Durst, AlterNet.
Labor day is a tribute not to fancy movie stars or stodgy founding fathers or rich and bloated athletes, but us.
Labor Day. The Rodney Dangerfield of holidays. Nobody knows why it’s treated like the runt of the celebration litter. Maybe it has to something to do with our biological clocks being stuck on elementary school time. Deep down in our bones, we’re anticipating the first Monday of September pounding the final nail into the coffin of our vacation signaling a return to whatever scholastic institution we’ve been consigned to that semester. Making it as endearing as thunderheads on a picnic morning.
Labor Day. The last plastic souvenir sports bottle of lemonade on the dying coals of summer. The beginning of the end of the bright light and harbinger of the darkness. Swimming pools close. Ice cream trucks tie up their bells and convoy back into hibernation, And Dad suffers his last second degree hissing bubble burn from the BBQ grill for at least nine months. The dividing line between baseball’s endgame and football’s chrysalis from two- a- day drills into hardcore Bowl envy. The solstice is dead. Long live the autumnal equinox.
Labor Day. As a kid, I was too busy recoiling from the looming specter of the end of my freedom to pay much attention to the meaning or even the name of the holiday. One 24 hour period carved into the almanac to honor the American worker. Seems a bit of an archaic sentiment these days. A gesture almost as empty as the candy counter at a Cineplex after a Labor Day weekend Harry Potter festival, especially what with lean and mean being all the rage. And trust me, there is a lot of rage out there.
via Labor Day: A Holiday for Us | | AlterNet.
Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It
Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It
By Ari LeVaux, AlterNet.
A mutant protein linked to major diseases has invaded the world’s dairy supply, including, most likely, the jug of milk in your fridge.
A mutant protein has invaded the world’s dairy supply, including, most likely, the milk in your fridge.
The protein, called A1 beta-casein, is well known in the scientific community. While most dairy companies, trade groups and government agencies consider it harmless, a growing body of research implicates A1 beta-casein in diabetes, heart disease, autism and schizophrenia.
The original mutation occurred several thousand years ago, causing cow zero and its offspring to produce milk in which the amino acid histidine occupies the 67th position of the beta-casein protein found in milk solids.
The amino acid proline occupies that position in the nonmutant, original form of the A2 protein. Today, the average vessel of milk contains milk from many cows, with a mixture of both A1 and A2 beta-casein.
via Milk May Endanger Your Health, and the Dairy Industry Knows It | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
Video: White House Honcho Mealy-Mouthed on Public Option: Axelrod on Meet the Press
Video: White House Honcho Mealy-Mouthed on Public Option: Axelrod on Meet the Press – By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet. 
In his Meet the Press appearance, presidential adviser David Axelrod refuses to say if Obama will trade away the public heath care plan.
Just days before President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a major prime-time speech on health care reform, David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, seemed to signal a willingness on the president’s part to drop the public plan from legislation under discussion in Congress, in order to get a bill.
Yet even as Axelrod did so, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs indicated that the president would use the speech to make a case for including a publicly funded insurance option in any health care reform.
Axelrod downplayed the significance of a public health reform plan in his appearance this Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, hosted by David Gregory. (Full transcript here; video and more from Axelrod’s exchange with Gregory on the public option at the end of this story.)
An Army of Home-Schooled “Christian Soldiers” On a Mission to “Take Back America for God”
An Army of Home-Schooled “Christian Soldiers” On a Mission to “Take Back America for God”
By Robert Kunzman, Beacon Press.
Take a glimpse into the little-known world of conservative Christian homeschooling.
Reprinted from Write These Laws On Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling by Robert Kunzman. Copyright © 2009 by Robert Kunzman. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.
Generation Joshua and HSLDA
“A Few Good Soldiers”
“America is in a culture war. A few good soldiers can make a difference. Equip yourself and come join the battle!” So proclaimed the founders of Generation Joshua, a civics program from the Home School Legal Defense Association begun in 2003. “Our goal is to ignite a vision in young people to help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundation,” its leaders explained. “We provide students with hands-on opportunities to implement that vision.” As I began my homeschooling research six years ago, the birth of Generation Joshua caught my attention. Here was a civics education program aimed at homeschoolers, one that clearly sought to help nurture in students an idea and practice of citizenship informed and energized by their deep religious convictions. Perhaps the homeschooler president of Michael Farris’s dream would emerge from such an education.
Designed primarily for high-school-aged students, Generation Joshua combines online components with periodic opportunities for face-to-face interaction and real-world political engagement. The online elements of the program include extensive civics coursework, adult-moderated “chats” about current events, and thousands of bulletin-board forums where students can post entries on topics ranging from immigration reform and international relations to popular movies and rules for courtship.
Girls Gone Wild vs. Virgins Till Marriage: Why Is Sexual Life in America So Schizoid?
Girls Gone Wild vs. Virgins Till Marriage: Why Is Sexual Life in America So Schizoid?
By Lara Riscol, McGraw-Hill. - AlterNet
America, “Land of the Free”, continues to swing between smut and sanctimony.
The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Human Sexuality, published by McGraw-Hill.
“You would watch the girls give each other oral sex, do themselves with dildos, place cigars in their vaginas and rectums, suck on each others’ breasts, and lick freshly poured beer off of one another’s vulvas while their legs were tucked behind their necks.” Often one fellow would get to have sex with one of the three performers directly before leering and cheering men.
No, this is not another spring break outrage making the latest round on cable news, but business as usual back in the good ol’ days when live sex shows were easier to find than now. And I don’t mean the 50s glory days of traditional values when “Ozzie and Harriet” reigned and the U.S. teen pregnancy rate hit an historic high, but in the prostitution heyday of the 1800s when feminists and medical experts warned against women riding bicycles lest the seat stir “libidinousness and immorality.”
Other Economists in the Room
Other Economists in the Room - Jane Smiley:
Well, I read every word of Paul Krugman’s article about the failure of Economics as a discipline and of economists as a group, and I don’t disagree with any of it, but he is missing out on some big issues that also need to be discussed and understood before we actually know what is going on in our world.
- English majors understand human nature better than economists do. If, as Krugman said, “homo economicus” is perfectly rational, where did the folks who came up with this simplistic idea go to college, and didn’t they read, say, Shakespeare, Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Dickens, Trollope, Proust, Zola, or even Freud? To suppose at this late date that people are rational in anything, but especially in consideration of their own self-interest, is to be painfully, gaspingly ignorant. The works of all of these writers are full of characters who act irrationally — who are greedy and cruel and selfish and angry when it would be far more pleasant and healthy to be a “rational actor.” Emile Zola, in particular, anatomized our current era of irrational economic misery between 1871 and 1893, in his Rougon-Maquart series. In “The Kill” and “The Belly of Paris,” he wrote about wretched excess. In “The Ladies’ Paradise,” he wrote about Amazon.com driving independent booksellers out of business. In “Money,” he wrote about financial speculation. In “The Debacle,” he wrote about the stupid wars we get ourselves into. Go read one — you will be amazed that plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose, no matter how economists feel that they are reinventing the world.
- Is human nature basically good or evil? No economist can embark upon his
via Jane Smiley: Other Economists in the Room.
Jeremy Scahill: Rep. Mike Pence, Who Led Witch Hunt Against Van Jones, Took $1000s From Extremist Erik Prince
Video at link
Jeremy Scahill: Rep. Mike Pence, Who Led Witch Hunt Against Van Jones, Took $1000s From Extremist Erik Prince
Rep. Mike Pence has been on the forefront of pushing this Van Jones scandal created by Glenn Beck (good to see he gets his walking papers from such an impeccable source, isn’t it?), calling for his resignation and saying that Jones’ “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this Administration or the public debate.”
But as Jeremy Scahill points out, Pence isn’t bothered by the extremist views of Erik Prince of Blackwater/Xe, who has contributed thousands of dollars to Pence:
On Friday, Pence, who describes himself as “Christian, Conservative, Republican, in that order,” said Jones’s “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.” Beyond the obvious here (the hate-filled rhetoric we see every day from racist, right-wing wackos, including those in public office), it is an interesting comment considering that Pence is an extremist right-wing evangelical Christian who has taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Blackwater’s owner, Erik Prince. Prince has also donated to Pence’s Political Action Committee “Principles Exalt a Nation.” In December 2007, three months after Blackwater operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, Pence and his Republican Study Committee, which serves “the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda in the House of Representatives,” organized a gathering to welcome Prince to Washington. “Not only has Mr. Prince personally been targeted by partisan warfare repeatedly over the past months, but the use of contracting throughout the government has been under attack by this Congress,” Pence’s committee’s statement said. Should Pence resign for cavorting with and accepting campaign cash from a man who allegedly “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe,” in the words of a former employee?
I think it’s time for the majority party to start acting like one. If Republican-controlled Congress could set aside time to debate condemning MoveOn.org for their Gen. “Betray Us” ad, then the Democratic-controlled Congress ought to be making sure that the double standard of IOKIYAR no longer stands.
Officials Pressing for Legislation That Would Keep Terror Watch-List Data Secret
Administration Seeks to Keep Terror Watch-List Data Secret – By Ellen Nakashima - – washingtonpost.com 
The Obama administration wants to maintain the secrecy of terrorist watch-list information it routinely shares with federal, state and local agencies, a move that rights groups say would make it difficult for people who have been improperly included on such lists to challenge the government.
Intelligence officials in the administration are pressing for legislation that would exempt “terrorist identity information” from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Such information — which includes names, aliases, fingerprints and other biometric identifiers — is widely shared with law enforcement agencies and intelligence “fusion centers,” which combine state and federal counterterrorism resources.
Still, some officials say public disclosure of watch-list data risks alerting terrorism suspects that they are being tracked and may help them evade surveillance
Even Babies Discriminate: A NurtureShock Excerpt.
See Baby Discriminate - | | Newsweek.com
Kids as young as 6 months judge others based on skin color. What’s a parent to do?
At the Children’s Research Lab at the University of Texas, a database is kept on thousands of families in the Austin area who have volunteered to be available for scholarly research. In 2006 Birgitte Vittrup recruited from the database about a hundred families, all of whom were Caucasian with a child 5 to 7 years old.
The goal of Vittrup’s study was to learn if typical children’s videos with multicultural storylines have any beneficial effect on children’s racial attitudes. Her first step was to give the children a Racial Attitude Measure, which asked such questions as:
via Even Babies Discriminate: A NurtureShock Excerpt. | Newsweek Life | Newsweek.com.
Russia oil production overtakes Saudi Arabia
Russia oil production overtakes Saudi Arabia
by Andrew Osborn – Global Research,
Russia is extracting more oil than Saudi Arabia, making it the biggest producer of “black gold” in the world, figures show.
The statistics, from the oil cartel OPEC, reflect a trend that has seen the Russians periodically surpass the Saudis as the world’s biggest oil producers on and off since 2002.
These latest figures are being hailed in Russia as evidence that such periodic production spikes are not one-offs though and that Moscow really does have a right to lay claim to the No 1 spot.
According to OPEC, Russia extracted 9.236 million barrels of oil a day in June, 46,000 more than Saudi Arabia.
The statistics also showed that Russian production in the first half of this year increased to 235.8 million tons, a year-on-year improvement of 2.3 per cent.
Traditionally, Saudi Arabia has been regarded as the world’s undisputed primary source of oil and Russia has had to settle for second place.
But in recent years Russia has renationalised and modernised much of its industry and that policy now appears to be paying off.
Even Russian analysts concede that Moscow’s cause is helped by the fact that Saudi Arabia is subject to Opec output restrictions.
The Saudis are famous for their ability to access spare capacity and raise production at short notice and if they really wanted to reassert their leadership role the feeling is they could do so easily.
via Russia oil production overtakes Saudi Arabia.
Pictures of dying marine bring war home to America
Pictures of dying marine bring war home to America – | | The Observer
Angry debate in US as agency releases picture of dying marine in Afghanistan
It is a graphic image of the harsh realities of war: the fatally wounded young marine lying crumpled in the mud, his vulnerable face turned to the camera. And it is one the US defence secretary would rather you did not see.
Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, pictured being tended by comrades in southern Afghanistan, died of his injuries soon after. Now the release of this record of the 21-year-old’s last moments has divided America, prompting furious debate over the sanitisation of war at a critical time for the military offensive.
The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, condemned the decision by the news agency Associated Press to publish. “I cannot imagine the pain and suffering Lance Corporal Bernard’s death has caused his family. Why your organisation would purposefully defy the family’s wishes, knowing full well that it will lead to yet more anguish, is beyond me.
“Your lack of compassion and common sense in choosing to put this image of their maimed and stricken child on the front page of multiple American newspapers is appalling.”
via Pictures of dying marine bring war home to America | World news | The Observer.
Union Label Week Kicks Off on Labor Day
Union Label Week Kicks Off on Labor Day – AFL-CIO NOW BLOG |
With the nation’s unemployment rate at the highest level in more than 25 years and U.S. manufacturing jobs especially hard hit, it is more important than ever for consumers to buy union-made products.
The AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department (UL&STD) is launching its annual Union Label Week, beginning Labor Day through Sept. 12 to remind people that union-made goods are high in quality and help support middle-class communities.
UL&STD President Richard Kline says buying union-made goods helps the entire country.
“Many Americans are hurting in this economy. That’s why it’s more important than ever to support union families by looking for union goods and services. By doing so, you can ensure that the hard-earned money you spend will reward employers who act with integrity, not runaway manufacturers and offshore employers.
via AFL-CIO NOW BLOG | Union Label Week Kicks Off on Labor Day.
Global warming threatens Earth with wave of natural disasters
Climate change: melting ice will trigger wave of natural disasters - | | The Observer
Scientists at a London conference next week will warn of earthquakes, avalanches and volcanic eruptions as the atmosphere heats up and geology is altered. Even Britain could face being struck by tsunamis
Scientists are to outline dramatic evidence that global warming threatens the planet in a new and unexpected way – by triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches and volcanic eruptions.
Reports by international groups of researchers – to be presented at a London conference next week – will show that climate change, caused by rising outputs of carbon dioxide from vehicles, factories and power stations, will not only affect the atmosphere and the sea but will alter the geology of the Earth.
Melting glaciers will set off avalanches, floods and mud flows in the Alps and other mountain ranges; torrential rainfall in the UK is likely to cause widespread erosion; while disappearing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets threaten to let loose underwater landslides, triggering tsunamis that could even strike the seas around Britain.
At the same time the disappearance of ice caps will change the pressures acting on the Earth’s crust and set off volcanic eruptions across the globe. Life on Earth faces a warm future – and a fiery one.
via Global warming threatens Earth with wave of natural disasters | Environment | The Observer.
Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows
Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows - – NYTimes.com
Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.
The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.
Italy was a distant second, with $3.7 billion in worldwide weapons sales in 2008, while Russia was third with $3.5 billion in arms sales last year — down considerably from the $10.8 billion in weapons deals signed by Moscow in 2007.
via Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows – NYTimes.com.
Crucial questions on Afghanistan war
Crucial questions on Afghanistan war
by Free Press Editorial
Many of your elected employees (e.g., Pres. Obama, U.S. Senators, and U.S. Representatives) are conducting so-called alleged “town hall” style meetings with their employers (otherwise known as voters) during the fully paid vacations you have provided for them in August and September.
Given that more members of the U.S. Armed Forces died in Afghanistan in July and August 2009 than in any other two month period since the U.S. successfully removed the then current government from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 almost eight years ago, you may wish to ask these questions in person or send them to each of your elected employees and ask for answers.
What military threat does Afghanistan currently pose to the United States?
Given that the purpose for the invasion of Afghanistan was fully accomplished in 2001, why are U.S. troops in Afghanistan today?
via The Free Press — Independent News Media – International Issues.
DIEBOLD FINDS ELECTION DIVISION BUYER; ES&S TO CONTROL MOST U.S. ELECTIONS
OPS: Keep in mind that the principals of both companies are brothers.
DIEBOLD FINDS ELECTION DIVISION BUYER; ES&S TO CONTROL MOST U.S. ELECTIONS – The BRAD BLOG :
Bargain-basement sale price; Anti-trust complaints to be filed; Dreadful history of failure by both companies
Merger causes concern among Election Integrity experts…
The world’s largest corporate e-voting supplier is about to become even larger. Today, TX-based Premier Election Solutions, the beleaguered and oft-failed voting division of OH-based parent company Diebold, Inc., announced they have been purchased by oft-failed e-voting goliath Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S). The move, if allowed to stand, would “consolidate most U.S. voting under one privately held manufacturer,” according to one election watchdog who has announced plans to file an anti-trust complaint concerning the sale with the Department of Justice.
Diebold, facing lost money, lost reputation, lost votes and multiple legal battles, has been trying to unload its election division for several years. Having failed at first, the company created an “independent” entity, Premier — same pig, damned near same lipstick — in hopes of regaining money and reputation, if not votes. That failed too.
But somehow, as reported today, Diebold was able to convince Nebraska-based ES&S, the nation’s largest election company and supplier of 100% unverifiable voting systems, to agree to the purchase.
via The BRAD BLOG : DIEBOLD FINDS ELECTION DIVISION BUYER; ES&S TO CONTROL MOST U.S. ELECTIONS.
Former president of Brazil says hardline war on drugs ‘has failed’
Former president of Brazil says hardline war on drugs ‘has failed’ – | | The Observer
Fernando Henrique Cardoso urges global decriminalisation of cannabis use
The war on drugs has failed and should make way for a global shift towards decriminalising cannabis use and promoting harm reduction, says the former president of Brazil, writing today in the Observer. Fernando Henrique Cardoso argues that the hardline approach has brought “disastrous” consequences for Latin America, which has been the frontline in the war on drug cultivation for decades, while failing to change the continent’s position as the largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana.
His intervention, which will reignite growing debate in Europe about how to tackle drugs, was welcomed yesterday by campaigners for drug law reform who increasingly see the impact on developing countries where drugs are produced as critical to the argument.
“After decades of overflights, interdictions, spraying and raids on jungle drug factories, Latin America remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana,” Cardoso writes. “It is producing more and more opium and heroin. It is developing the capacity to mass produce synthetic drugs. Continuing the drugs war with more of the same is ludicrous.”
via Former president of Brazil says hardline war on drugs ‘has failed’ | World news | The Observer.
Taliban’s bombs came from US, not Iran
Taliban’s bombs came from US, not Iran - Asia Times Online ::
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – In support of the official United States assertion that Iran is arming its sworn enemy, the Taliban, the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Dennis Blair, has cited a statement by a Taliban commander last year attributing military success against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces to Iranian military assistance.
But the Taliban commander’s claim is contradicted by evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban themselves that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the United States to the jihadi movement against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The Taliban claim was cited by the ODNI in written responses to
questions for the record from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence following testimony by Blair before the committee on February 12, 2009. The responses were released to the Federation of American Scientists under the Freedom of Information Act on July 30.
via Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.
Unhappy Labor Day
Unhappy Labor Day
Harold Meyerson – - washingtonpost.com
Labor Day 2009 is a terrible time to be an American worker.
Official unemployment hovers just under 10 percent, its highest level since the early 1980s. Add in the partly employed and those who have given up on hunting for jobs because there are so few jobs to be had, and the unemployed and underemployed total 16.8 percent of the labor force — one out of six American workers.
The problems facing workers predate, and are more profound than, the recession, as three important surveys released last week show. Young workers are unemployed in record numbers — 25 percent of teenagers, or about 1.6 million, are without work, the highest since 1948, when tracking data by age began. But the lot of employed workers under age 35 is dismal, too, as a survey conducted by Peter Hart Research for the AFL-CIO makes clear. Thirty-one percent are uninsured — up from 24 percent a decade ago. Just 31 percent say that they make enough money to put some aside, down from 52 percent in 1999. With private-sector unionization at a mere 8 percent, and with Chinese competition dragging down wages and benefits across the United States, the living standards of non-professional young Americans are spiraling lower.
via Harold Meyerson – Unhappy Labor Day – washingtonpost.com.
Florida’s new senator is facing scrutiny for dealings
Florida’s new senator is facing scrutiny for dealings – - – MiamiHerald.com
TALLAHASSEE — When Gov. Charlie Crist anointed George LeMieux as Florida’s new U.S. senator, he did more than hand his closest adviser the plum job of a lifetime.
With a hug and a handshake, Crist transformed LeMieux from a little-known insider (“George LeWho?” one paper asked) to a major political figure, suddenly thrust into a spotlight that’s illuminating how his public service brought him private profit.
Amid charges of political cronyism and claims he was picked to be the governor’s proxy in Washington, there is renewed scrutiny of LeMieux’s dealings and those of his law firm, Gunster Yoakley & Stewart, on multiple fronts:
o The law firm, chaired by LeMieux, helped foreign workers get visas last fall to help build a high-rise hotel and condos in Miami, depriving dozens of Florida workers of jobs at a time of rising unemployment. CBS4 News in Miami first reported the law firm’s efforts, which included persuading the U.S. State Department that the Mexican workers had special skills that Americans didn’t. In a statement, the firm said LeMieux had no involvement in any immigration matters.
via Florida’s new senator is facing scrutiny for dealings – Political Currents – MiamiHerald.com.
Workers find Bay Bridge crack; Shutdown could last
Workers find Bay Bridge crack; Shutdown could last - | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle
Crews working on a seismic retrofit of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Saturday found what authorities called a “significant crack” in the eastern span that could keep the California landmark closed beyond a planned holiday weekend shutdown.
During an inspection, workers discovered a problem with a steel link that helps hold up the bridge’s eastern portion, senior bridge engineer Ken Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle. The link — part of a network of eight similar pieces — is about two inches thick and was cracked halfway through.
“The crack is significant enough to have closed the bridge on its own,” Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said at a news conference Saturday night. “We have to make this repair before we reopen the bridge.”
Ney added “it’s very possible that this could prevent us from opening Tuesday morning,” when the work week resumes and the bridge had been set to reopen.
via Workers find Bay Bridge crack; Shutdown could last | National news | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
“Republican Gomorrah (1\3): Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party”
“Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party”
In a Democracy Now! exclusive, award-winning journalist, Max Blumenthal, joins us for the first extended interview about his debut book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party. The book traces the rise of the radical right in the U.S. and how it used the concept of personal crisis to grow as a movement and eventually capture control of the GOP to transform it from the party of Dwight Eisenhower to the party of Sarah Palin.
via YouTube – DN! “Republican Gomorrah (1\3): Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party”.
Glenn Beck Gets First Scalp: Van Jones Resigns
Glenn Beck Gets First Scalp: Van Jones Resigns
Glenn Beck has his first scalp. Van Jones, under fire from the extremist television show host for his background in radical activism, has resigned from the administration.
Jones was Special Adviser for Green Jobs at the Council on Environmental Quality – the so-called ‘Green Jobs’ Czar. Jones’ 2008 book, The Green Collar Economy, was a New York Times best-seller. Beck is a talk show host for Fox News.
Jones never denied his past affiliation with the radical left. In the ’90s, he was involved with the group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which sympathized with Maoist-inspired peasant movements throughout the world and was organized to protest police brutality.
via Glenn Beck Gets First Scalp: Van Jones Resigns.
Michael Moore Premieres In Venice To Great Reviews
Michael Moore Premieres In Venice To Great Reviews
VENICE, Italy — Michael Moore says his film “Capitalism: A Love Story” is dedicated to “good people … who’ve had their lives ruined” by the quest for profit.
Moore’s latest film features many whose lives have been shattered by a corporate environment where the drive for profit is a priority over the workers’ best interest.
The director premieres the film Sunday in his first appearance at the Venice Film Festival.
The movie won was warmly received at a press showing Saturday evening and won positive reviews.
via Michael Moore Premieres In Venice To Great Reviews.
Why Current Thinking About Autism Is Completely Wrong
Why Current Thinking About Autism Is Completely Wrong -
“Autism is caused by poor mothering.” That was the belief of the medical community until the late 1960s.
“Autism is a genetic brain disorder.” That is what most people — and most of the medical community — believe today.
I’m here to tell you that neither one of these statements is true.
Think about it. Rates of autism have skyrocketed over the years, from an estimated 1 child in 3,000 to just 1 in 150 kids today. Sure, wider criteria for diagnosis and better detection might explain some of it — but not an increase of this magnitude.
The real reason we are seeing increasing rates of autism is simply this: Autism is a systemic body disorder that affects the brain. A toxic environment triggers certain genes in people susceptible to this condition. And research supports this position.
via Mark Hyman, MD: Why Current Thinking About Autism Is Completely Wrong.
Great White Sharks Tagged For First Time Off Massachusetts
Great White Sharks Tagged For First Time Off Massachusetts 
BOSTON — Massachusetts officials are using high-tech tags to track the movements of two great white sharks near Cape Cod – the first time the fearsome fish have ever been tagged in the Atlantic Ocean.
The electronic tag uses satellite technology to record the travels of the sharks, allowing scientists to better understand their migratory patterns.
The sharks were spotted Saturday by scientists investigating sightings off Monomoy Island in Chatham. Officials say a harpooner tagged them with help from a state shark expert.
Sharks are common in Cape waters during summer, though great white sharks are relatively rare around New England.
State officials have warned area swimmers to be on the lookout for sharks this weekend, and state environmental police are patrolling the area as a precaution.
via Great White Sharks Tagged For First Time Off Massachusetts.
Bill Moyers: “We Should Be Treating Health As A Condition, Not A Commodity”
Bill Moyers: “We Should Be Treating Health As A Condition, Not A Commodity”
On Friday’s episode of Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers succinctly described the current state of the health care debate: “here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction.”
After some words about the armed protesters at Town Hall events, Moyers turned to Obama’s role in the debate:
Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.
No one’s ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying “pretty please” to the guys trying to cut your throat.
“Let’s get on with it, Mr. President,” Moyers said, and added a few moments later: “I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.”
via Bill Moyers: “We Should Be Treating Health As A Condition, Not A Commodity”.
Gibbs: Obama Will Make The Case For Public Option On Wednesday
White House shifts on public health care option
WASHINGTON – White House officials are saying a government health insurance option is negotiable. That’s a sign of a potential compromise on an issue that President Barack Obama‘s liberal supporters consider do-or-die.
Obama is preparing for a Wednesday night speech to Congress as he hopes to salvage his top domestic priority.
On the Sunday talk shows, political adviser David Axelrod said a public plan is not the core issue in the health care debate. And when White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was asked if Obama would veto a bill that didn’t include the public option, he sidestepped that question.
Axelrod spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and Gibbs appeared on ABC’s “This Week.”
via White House shifts on public health care option – Yahoo! News.
US families turn to food stamps as wages drop
US families turn to food stamps as wages drop - FT.com
The number of working Americans turning to free government food stamps has surged as their hours and wages erode, in a stark sign that the recession is inflicting pain on the employed as well as the newly jobless.
While the increase in take-up is often attributed to the sharp rise in unemployment – which on Friday hit 9.7 per cent – the Financial Times has learnt that some 40 per cent of the families now on food stamps have “earned income”, up from 25 per cent two years ago.
via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – US families turn to food stamps as wages drop.
Inside Sarah’s Church
Inside Sarah’s Church – - - The Daily Beast
by Max Blumenthal
In an excerpt from his new book Republican Gomorrah, Max Blumenthal examines the radical beliefs about witchcraft and the “serpent seed” that propelled Sarah Palin into politics.
Prior to her nomination for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin listed her home phone number in Alaska’s Yellow Pages. She was known to spend hours in her local Wal-mart chatting with constituents. When I traveled to Alaska’s Mat-Su Valley, nearly every politically active resident I spoke to had met the governor on at least one occasion. But many of Palin’s acquaintances, admirers and critics alike, described her in a dramatically different light from that in which she presented herself to the American public.
“Oh father, use her to turn this nation around,” Bishop Muthee shouted, his left palm on Sarah Palin’s head, “so that the curse can be broken.”
via Inside Sarah’s Church – Page 1 – The Daily Beast.
Using reason and facts, Franken beats back teabaggers
OPS: Years of standup are great training for learning how to handle a crowd. Maybe Franken should be teaching classes to the other Dems
Using reason and facts, Franken beats back teabaggers – The Raw Story »
Perhaps the Democrats should appoint Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota as their point man for health care reform.
At the Minnesota State Fair last week, the comedic writer-turned-politician stood his ground against a group of anti-tax, anti-health reform Tea Party conservatives in much the same way that a TV personality wouldn’t — with facts, reasonable arguments and a willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints.
Video of Franken’s tete-a-tete with reform opponents has been making its way on the Internet, and late last week, made its way to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, where guest host Ana Marie Cox ironically told the senator that he simply won’t get media attention by encouraging rational debate.
“Senator Franken, I know you’re new to this, but honestly, if you want to get lots of natural attention, you should call on some of your old skills, from your former career,” Cox, who founded the Wonkette blog, said. “If you want make the newsmedia cover your health care discussion, you need to make it entertaining.”
via The Raw Story » Using reason and facts, Franken beats back teabaggers.
Rep. Posey: I’m For Gov’t-Insured Health Care For Myself And The Elderly, But Against Public Option
Rep. Posey: I’m For Gov’t-Insured Health Care For Myself And The Elderly, But Against Public Option - Think Progress »
EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the past month, ThinkProgress has traveled to town hall events across the country to report what we’re seeing on the ground. This is our eighth eyewitness report.
This past Wednesday, ThinkProgress attended a health care town hall forum held by Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) in Melbourne, FL. During the event, Posey expressed his opposition to a public option. On the day of the town hall, the lead editorial in the local newspaper — The Florida Today — noted that Posey receives excellent health care as a member of Congress:
Keep in mind Posey received free health care premiums courtesy of taxpayers during his many years in the Florida Legislature. And that taxpayers pay up to 70 percent of Congress members’ premiums. In the real world, more Americans are losing health care and dying for lack of it every day.
During the question-and-answer session, an attendee ask Posey, “Why should taxpayers pay for your insurance when you clearly make enough money to pay for it on your own?” After reading the question aloud, Posey quipped, “One of the perks of the job I guess!” A member of the audience yelled out, “You’re welcome!” Posey concluded by saying that he “needed to get a more detailed breakdown to better answer the question.”
Exclusive: Grassley Attends Secret Miami Fundraiser And Touts Opposition To Obama Health Care Plan
Exclusive: Grassley Attends Secret Miami Fundraiser And Touts Opposition To Obama Health Care Plan – Think Progress » 
The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein reported recently that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is up for reelection in 2010, sent a fundraising letter asking donors to give him money to help him “defeat ‘Obama-care.’” Grassley is currently locked in negotiations with a small group of Senate Finance Committee members, reportedly working on a possible bipartisan health care proposal.
grassleyiaAs we previously reported, ThinkProgress attended a closed-door health care town hall forum in Hialeah, FL, this past Tuesday, where Sens. Mel Martinez (R-FL), John McCain (R-AZ), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) discussed their opposition to Obama’s health reform plan. After the event, the three senators took a trip across town to the ritzy Biltmore hotel in Miami where they attended a fundraising reception sponsored by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Sen. Ben Nelson Expresses Support For Public Plan ‘Trigger’
OPS: The Democrats are proving that there is no difference between them and the wingnuts. The time is ripe for a third party
Sen. Ben Nelson Expresses Support For Public Plan ‘Trigger’ – Think Progress »
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) has long opposed a public health insurance option. In May, he expressed concern that “the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans.” A Nelson spokesman even suggested that the senator would be “building a coalition opposed to the public plan.” And this past week, Nelson said health care reform “implodes” if a public option is included.
But this morning on CNN, Nelson moderated his stance ever-so-slightly. He indicated to host John King that he would support a so-called “trigger” (which would establish a public plan after a certain period of time if the private market fails to control costs):
Well I think he [Obama] has to say that if there’s going to be a public option, it has to be subject to a trigger. In other words, if somehow the private market doesn’t respond the way that it’s supposed to, then it would trigger a public option or a government-run option. But only as a fail-safe backstop to the process.
When I say trigger, out here in Nebraska and the midwest, I don’t mean a hair-trigger. I mean a true trigger — one that would only apply if there isn’t the kind of competition in the business that we believe there would be.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Sen. Ben Nelson Expresses Support For Public Plan ‘Trigger’.
Predicting Worse Ahead from America’s Economic Crisis
Predicting Worse Ahead from America’s Economic Crisis – OpEdNews: Stephen Lendman
The U.S. economy has reached its debt limit and is entering its insolvency phase. We are not in a cycle but at the end of an era.
Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881 – 1973) said:
“There is no means of avoiding a final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”
Under Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and successive US Treasury Secretaries, America chose the latter path and now faces the consequences of their reckless, criminal behavior.
In early 2009, economist Michael Hudson said:
The (US) economy has reached its debt limit and is entering its insolvency phase. We are not in a cycle but (at) the end of an era. The old world of debt pyramiding to a fraudulent degree cannot be restored,” only delayed to postpone a painful day of reckoning.
Economist Hyman Minsky (1919 – 1996) described a “Ponzi finance” system during prolonged expansions and economic booms. Speculative excesses create bubbles, triggering structural instability, then asset valuation collapse that turns euphoria to revulsion and market crashes.
via OpEdNews – Article: Predicting Worse Ahead from America’s Economic Crisis.
Stop Corporate Lobbying With Taxpayer Money
OPS: how about simply stopping Corporate Lobbying as well as Foreign Government lobbying
Stop Corporate Lobbying With Taxpayer Money – By Dave Johnson
Why are recipients of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) – better known as the Banking Bailout – allowed to continue to lobby? Taxpayer dollars should not be used to influence our government. We, the People should be telling them what to do, not the other way around.
TARP recipients spent $114 million on lobbying last year as the financial crisis emerged. In just the last quarter of the year eighteen bailout recipients spent $14.8 million to influence the government, as the TARP funds were distributed.
The lobbying has paid off. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, “The companies’ political activities have, in part, yielded them $295.2 billion from TARP, an extraordinary return of 258,449 percent.”
via OpEdNews – Article: Stop Corporate Lobbying With Taxpayer Money.
Profiteers Return to Financial Sector
Profiteers Return to Financial Sector - Craig Harrington – economyincisis.org 
After a financial tempest which should have taught this country, a lesson we may be doomed to repeat the same failures.
During the market crash in 2007 and 2008 many of the people who made tens of millions or more in personal wealth were paraded in front of the media and rightly accosted for their unnecessary risks and bad advice.
Executives from bailed out banks were brought into the halls of Congress and admonished by politicians from both sides – Senator Chuck Grassley infamously told executives at AIG that they might be better off dead.
While few agree with the intensity of the Senator’s comments, most Americans were simply put off by what they saw as a market gone wrong. Individuals garnered millions of dollars in personal wealth, corporations grossed billions of dollars in revenue, and after the gains were destroyed during the collapse of share prices those at the top held on to everything.
Workers were laid-off, corporations were bailed out, and executives got off without a hitch.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance
OPS: Now they are going to do to Life Insurance what they did to Banks and mortgages and the Dumbocrats are allowing – even helping it.
Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance - – - NYTimes.com
After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.
via Back to Business – Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance – Series – NYTimes.com.
Confronting Russia? U.S. Marines In The Caucasus
Confronting Russia? U.S. Marines In The Caucasus
by Rick Rozoff
On August 21 the chief of the U.S. Marine Corps, General James Conway, arrived in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to begin the training of his host country’s military for deployment to the Afghan war theater under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
“During the meeting the sides discussed a broad spectrum of Georgian-U.S bilateral relations and the situation in Georgia’s occupied territory.” [1] Occupied territory(ies) meant Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now independent nations with Russian troops stationed in both.
Conway met with Georgian Defense Minister Davit (Vasil) Sikharulidze, who on the same day gave an interview to the Associated Press in which he said that the training provided by the U.S. Marine Corps could be employed, in addition to counterinsurgency operations in South Asia, in his country’s “very difficult security environment.”
Associated Press reported that “Asked if he was referring to the possibility of another war with Russia, he said, ‘In general, yes.’”
The Georgian defense chief added, “This experience will be important for the Georgian armed forces itself — for the level of training.” [2]
Sikharulidze was forced to retract his comments within hours of their utterance, and not because they weren’t true but because they were all too accurate. The Pentagon was not eager to have this cat be let out of the bag.
Three days later American military instructors arrived in Georgia on the heels of the visit of Marine Commandant Conway, whose previous campaigns included the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the first assault on Fallujah in that nation in 2004.
via Confronting Russia? U.S. Marines In The Caucasus.
Hillary movie puts campaign finance limits at risk
Hillary movie puts campaign finance limits at risk
The Supreme Court appears poised to wipe away limits on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions in time for next year’s congressional elections in a case that began as a dispute over a movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The justices return to the bench Sept. 9 — nearly a month early — to consider whether to overrule two earlier decisions that restrict how and when corporations and unions can take part in federal campaigns. Laws that impose similar limits in 24 states also are threatened.
The court first heard arguments in March in the case of whether “Hillary: The Movie,” a scathingly critical look at Clinton’s presidential ambitions, could be regulated as a campaign ad. The emphasis has shifted away from the 90-minute film.
Now the justices could decide whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending. Restrictions on corporations have been around for more than 100 years; limits on unions date from the 1940s.
via Hillary movie puts campaign finance limits at risk.
Study: climate views of U.S. break down into six broad categories
Last week, the Yale Project on Climate Change and the George – Scholars and Rogues »
Mason University Center for Climate Change Communications released their 2009 “Six America’s” study. The study finds that the U.S. population can be broadly broken up into six different categories that the study’s authors name as follows: Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive. Here’s how the Executive Summary describes each of the six groups:
The Alarmed (18%) are fully convinced of the reality and seriousness of climate change and are already taking individual, consumer, and political action to address it. The Concerned (33%) – the largest of the six Americas – are also convinced that global warming is happening and a serious problem, but have not yet engaged the issue personally. Three other Americas – the Cautious (19%), the Disengaged (12%) and the Doubtful (11%) – represent different stages of understanding and acceptance of the problem, and none are actively involved. The final America – the Dismissive (7%) – are very sure it is not happening and are actively involved as opponents of a national effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The survey made a number of interesting findings:
* Large majorities of all six groups are skeptical of humanity’s ability to address climate disruption (Figure 13).
* The Dismissive are as certain that climate disruption isn’t even happening as the Alarmed are certain that climate disruption is happening. (Figure 5).
* Both the Alarmed and the Dismissive are very confident that they know what’s really going on with climate (Figure 7).
* Four of the six groups (Alarmed, Concerned, Caution, and Disengaged) all at least “somewhat support” carbon dioxide (CO2) regulations (Figure 19).
* Only the Dismissive group actually opposes increased fuel efficiency standards, and even then just barely (Figure 20).
* All six groups at least “somewhat support” rebates for solar power installation and/or fuel efficient vehicles (Figure 21).
* There is limited support for carbon capitalism, aka cap and trade, across all groups (Figure 22).
* While the Alarmed and Concerned are largely Democrats, and the Doubtful and Dismissive are largely Republicans, iindependents are split nearly equally across all six groups (Figure 29).
* All the groups are neutral to trusting of scientists as good sources of information about climate disruption, and all the groups are neutral to distrustful of the media as good sources of information (Figures 35 and 36 respectively).
* Catholics trend slightly toward being Alarmed, Protestants trend slightly toward being Doubtful, Mormons toward being Dismissive, Jews toward being Alarmed, “other Christians” toward being Dismissive, and all other religious groups (non-religious, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and non-Christians) toward being Alarmed (Table 23).
* The Dismissive have the highest number of self-identified “evangelical” or “born-again” Christians of any group (Figure 33).
* The Dismissive listen to the radio the most, get the most information from the Web, read newspapers the least, and watch the least television of all the six groups (Table 27).
* The Dismissive listen to the least “apolitical” news and have the most politically-biased news consumption of all the gruops. The Concerned (not the Alarmed) are the group that trend opposite of the Dismissive. Furthermore, the Dismissive are the most polarized in their news habits – all of the other five groups consume more varied news (NPR, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox) than the Dismissive, which get their news almost exclusively from a few sources (Fox, for example). The Alarmed consume the widest variety of news sources (Table 28).
via Scholars and Rogues » Study: climate views of U.S. break down into six broad categories.
EPA’s Failure to Publicize Drinking Water Data Prompts Rethinking in Agency, Congress
EPA’s Failure to Publicize Drinking Water Data Prompts Rethinking in Agency, Congress - by Danielle Ivory – | The Huffington Post Investigative Fund
There is some evidence that Congress — and the Environmental Protection Agency — are rethinking their policies on a commonly used weed-killer after disclosures that the EPA failed to notify the public about high levels of the herbicide in drinking water.
As the Investigative Fund revealed last week, the herbicide atrazine has been found at levels above the federal safety limit in drinking water in at least four states. The chemical has been studied for its potential link to breast cancer, prostate cancer, and birth defects, and the EPA considers it to be a potential endocrine disruptor. It is banned in the European Union.
The Natural Resources Defense Council published a report on atrazine levels last week, and the New York Times weighed in with an article on growing questions about the herbicide’s health effects.
The Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee has asked the EPA for a comprehensive briefing next week on the agency’s failure to publicize results of tests that showed high levels of atrazine. The committee also is asking the EPA to develop a specific plan for reporting this data to the public in the future.
How the US Became a Vassal State of China
How the US Became a Vassal State of China
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
China owns the United States –or, at least, holds a ‘mortgage’. China props up the dollar just enough to ensure that its excess production can be dumped here by way of its US retail outlet –Wal-Mart! The value of the US dollar is almost entirely dependent on China. When it ceases to be advantageous for China to prop up the dollar, the dollar will collapse. The decline and fall of the American empire is a sorry saga. It is the story of betrayals of this nation by the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan , Bush Sr., the Shrub, and many lesser known ‘agents’ of the increasingly tiny cadre of ruling elites. It is the story of how GOP administrations paid off its elite base with tax cuts which has had, in fact, the effects of impoverishing the poor, enriching the rich, exporting the US manufacturing base, and exporting the jobs that it had supported. There are many versions of the ‘supply side’ story, but the most famous one involved a napkin and a Pizza Hut. While Ronald Reagan still occupied the White House, an alleged “economist” is said to have drawn a fictitious curve on a napkin. As a result, millions lost their jobs, tent cities sprang up across the country, the nation plunged into a great recession –the deepest, most severe, the longest since Herbert Hoover’s “Great Depression! I saw some of those ‘tent cities’ in ‘boomtown’ Houston. I was inspired to publish an essay in a local magazine. My essay was entitled: “What happened?” In a word, the bulls had gone bear if not ‘bare’; the captains of capital cashed out at the top and left many another holding real estate that was declining rapidly in values. The least fortunate were those whose interest in Real Estate was simply that of keeping a roof over the heads of family members. Many of these folk lost their homes and moved into the ‘tent city’.
via The Existentialist Cowboy: How the US Became a Vassal State of China.
White House seeks to quell row over ‘green jobs’ advisor
White House seeks to quell row over ‘green jobs’ advisor – The Raw Story |
The White House on Friday sought to deflect criticism of a special adviser who reportedly holds controversial views on the role of the George W. Bush administration in the attacks of September 11, 2001.
President Barack Obama’s green jobs adviser Van Jones “continues to work in the administration,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Friday, attempting to halt days of withering attacks from conservative television and radio stations.
Fox News reported that Jones signed a 2004 petition urging an investigation into “evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.”
via The Raw Story | White House seeks to quell row over ‘green jobs’ advisor.
Former assistant dean at Pat Robertson’s Regent Univ and his wife plead guilty to child sex abuse
Former assistant dean at Pat Robertson’s Regent Univ and his wife plead guilty to child sex abuse – by: Pam Spaulding
It’s getting to be a broken record, isn’t it? Yet another member of the pious set proves the far-right judgmental conservative set is populated with a boatload of deviants. In a Virginia Beach Circuit Courtroom in separate hearings, Stephen Lee McPherson, 40, and Melina Ann McPherson, 37 pled guity of taking indecent liberties with a minor — not one incident, mind you, but several between 1996 and 2000 involving three sisters. It occurred while the McPhersons were house parents at Hope Haven Children’s Home. It makes you sick.
Haven is a Christian-based shelter run by Union Mission Ministries, which was directed by Stephen McPherson’s grandfather, the late Rev. Ted Bashford.
Court records show Stephen McPherson repeatedly molested two of the sisters under his supervision and manipulated them by citing Bible verses that he said justified the abuse. Melina McPherson engaged in sexual acts with the third sister, cited Bible verses to justify her actions and told the victim that “they had a special relationship,” according to court records.
Stephen McPherson already is serving time on related sex abuse charges. He pleaded guilty in January to sexually abusing the two girls in Chesapeake. The McPhersons moved to Chesapeake in 2000 and took the three sisters there after adopting them, records show.
He was ordered to serve 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to forcible sodomy and object sexual penetration charges.
Stephen will serve 3 years. It’s not clear how long Melina McPherson will serve. She agreed to serve 40 days in exchange for the guilty plea (the couple has two young kids at home; I don’t even want to know what’s going on under their roof – she shouldn’t be near ANY kids), but the judge has not said yet whether he would accept it.
White House Overwhelmed with Requests for Obama to Meet with “Mad as Hell Doctors” about Single Payer
White House Overwhelmed with Requests for Obama to Meet with “Mad as Hell Doctors” about Single Payer - – Healthcare-NOW!
The “Mad As Hell Doctors” from Oregon are making themselves heard at the Obama Administration with an email campaign that threatened to shut down the White House inbox.
The road-tripping, physician-activists from Oregon known as the “Mad As Hell Doctors” received a pressing call from the White House this week to demand they remove a letter on their website requesting a meeting with President Obama to discuss “the moral, social and fiscal imperative” of a single payer health care system. The reason for the call: too many emails from supporters have overwhelmed the White House inbox.
Adam Klugman, National Creative Director for the Mad As Hell Doctors campaign and the person who received the call, puts it this way. “Chris Whitty from the White House Office of Scheduling called me and said that he has been ‘besieged with emails’ from within the millions of single payer supporters in this country who feel that Congress and the President have completely turned their back on them. It told him that it’s not our campaign that’s applying pressure. It’s the people. I also told him that we’d be glad to take the letter down, just as soon as the President agrees to meet with us.”
Editorial: What is Obama flap teaching our kids? | StarTribune.com
Editorial: What is Obama flap teaching our kids?
Lessons are rooted in extreme partisanship, lack of respect for office.
The president of the United States would like to address the nation’s schoolchildren next week on the importance of education. Seems straightforward. Why would any parent, teacher or school administrator not welcome a pep talk from the president? It would seem especially fitting in an era of tight school resources, rising dropout rates and a more competitive global economy. This president’s unique ability to inspire young people and students of color ought to make his message all the more valuable.
But just seven months into the Obama presidency, nothing is simple. The political lesson some seem intent on teaching our kids today is rooted in what appears to be a growing lack of respect for the office of the president. How very sad.
It ought to give Americans pause about the toll of excessive partisanship when the president is faulted for planning to urge the nation’s schoolchildren to learn their lessons. On Tuesday, the first day of school for many Americans, the president’s brief address should be a valuable reminder that students serve their country as well as themselves when they succeed academically. That message deserves a top-level spokesman.
via Editorial: What is Obama flap teaching our kids? | StarTribune.com.
GOP Pusher of Obama School Indoctrination Lie Also Pushes Republican Views at School Kids
GOP Pusher of Obama School Indoctrination Lie Also Pushes Republican Views at School Kids
Conservative talk-show host and former Republican member of Congress Joe Scarborough labeled Greer’s comments “insane talk.”
Jon Ponder – Pensito Review »
It’s one thing to lie but quite another when the man who falsely accuses the president of the United States of seeking to indoctrinate school kids into liberal politics is known back home as a indoctrinator of school kids into the GOP.
hat’s exactly the situation we have with Jim Greer, the chairman of the Florida GOP, according to Scott Maxwell, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel:
There once was a political operative who loved to tell crowds he had a simple way of explaining to children the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
“Republicans get up and go to work,” he would tell his son. “Democrats get up and go down to the mailbox to get their checks.”
This man not only talked to his son about Republican values, he went into public-school classrooms and talked about them as well.
That man is Jim Greer — the same Jim Greer who, as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, just threw a nationwide hissy fit, claiming that the classroom is no place for politics and Barack Obama’s “indoctrination.”
Power, illusion & America’s last taboo
Power, illusion & America’s last taboo - ITV – John Pilger -
Two years ago, at Socialism in Chicago, I spoke about an “invisible government”, a term used by Edward Bernays, one of the founders of modern propaganda. It was Bernays who, in the 1920s, invented “public relations” as a euphemism for propaganda. Deploying the ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays campaigned on behalf of the tobacco industry for American women to take up smoking as an act of feminist liberation; he called cigarettes “torches of freedom”.
The invisible government that Bernays had in mind brought together the power of all media - PR, the press, broadcasting, advertising. It was the power of form: of branding and image-making over substance and truth - and I would like to talk today about this invisible government’s most recent achievement: the rise of Barack Obama and the silencing of the left.
First, I would like to go back some 40 years to a sultry day in Vietnam.
I was a young war correspondent who had just arrived in a village called Tuylon. My assignment was to write about a company of US Marines who had been sent to this village to win hearts and minds.
via ITV – John Pilger – Power, illusion & America’s last taboo.
Health Care “Reform” that Will Enrich For-Profit Insurance Companies and Big Pharma is What the WH is Fighting For Now
Health Care “Reform” that Will Enrich For-Profit Insurance Companies and Big Pharma is What the WH is Fighting For Now
BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG – By Mark Karlin
Okay, we’ve heard enough.
Just yesterday, the White House reluctantly released a partial log of who has visited with Obama’s staff on so-called “healthcare reform” and it reads like a who’s who of Big Pharma and health insurance lobbyists.
Let’s stop the pretense of Obama making some bold move here.
Remember Medicare Part “D”? That was when Bush stuffed money in the pockets of Big Pharma by getting more prescription coverage for seniors, but only because the government was prohibited from negotiating or setting prices for the medications. In short, Big Pharma dictated the bill and has made billions of dollars and contributed to the Medicare shortfall at an an exorbitant rate. Medicare Part “D” helped seniors, but its real purpose was to loot the public treasury in order to fatten the profits of Big Pharma.
Now in that bill was a so-called “trigger” that if Big Pharma charged “too much” then a public option would trigger in on pharmaceuticals. But Big Pharma wrote the target for the trigger so high in the bill, which the Republicans championed, that the trigger has never been reached.
Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama
Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama – Truthdig -
By Chris Hedges
The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems.
The sad reality is that all the well-meaning groups and individuals who challenge our permanent war economy and the doctrine of pre-emptive war, who care about sustainable energy, fight for civil liberties and want corporate malfeasance to end, were once again suckered by the Democratic Party. They were had. It is not a new story. The Democrats have been doing this to us since Bill Clinton. It is the same old merry-go-round, only with Obama branding. And if we have not learned by now that the system is broken, that as citizens we do not matter to our political elite, that we live in a corporate state where our welfare and our interests are irrelevant, we are in serious trouble. Our last hope is to step outside of the two-party system and build movements that defy the Democrats and the Republicans. If we fail to do this, we will continue to undergo a corporate coup d’etat in slow motion that will end in feudalism.
We owe Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and the Green Party an apology. They were right. If a few million of us had had the temerity to stand behind our ideals rather than our illusions and the empty slogans peddled by the Obama campaign, we would have a platform. We forgot that social reform never comes from accommodating the power structure but from frightening it. The Liberty Party, which fought slavery, the suffragists who battled for women’s rights, the labor movement, and the civil rights movement knew that the question was not how do we get good people to rule—those attracted to power tend to be venal mediocrities—but how do we limit the damage the powerful do to us. These mass movements were the engines for social reform, the correctives to our democracy and the true protectors of the rights of citizens. We have surrendered this power. It is vital to reclaim it. Where is the foreclosure movement? Where is the robust universal health care or anti-war movement? Where is the militant movement for sustainable energy?
via Truthdig – Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama.
Should We Throw Out H-1B Visas and Start Over?
OPS: Yup!
Should We Throw Out H-1B Visas and Start Over? - | | ITBusinessEdge.com
Want to generate a string of impassioned — and not always logical — comments on your blog? Then write about H-1B visas, which allow companies to hire skilled workers from other countries. They’ve long been popular among technology companies like Microsoft and Intel, which insist they have trouble finding enough employees with the right skills in the U.S. For proof, we have this post from Ralph DeFrangesco that mentioned H-1Bs and had attracted 28 comments at last count, a good number of them containing personal insults aimed at other commenters.
I’ve seen this on many of my own posts. I’ve tried my best to present a balanced view by acknowledging that while there is a need for such visas, the current system for supplying them is open to abuse. That’s my problem, I guess. I’ve never thought it makes sense to take an all-or-nothing approach to H-1Bs, but that’s seemingly what a lot of people would like to see.
With all of the rancor, and increasing political pressure on H-1Bs, it’s not surprising that India’s National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is asking the U.S. Congress to consider creating a new category of “service” visa that would allow companies to send workers to the U.S. for short periods but, unlike the H-1B, would not lead to immigration status or permanent residency.
via Should We Throw Out H-1B Visas and Start Over? | Blogs | ITBusinessEdge.com.
Five more banks fail in first week of September
Five more banks fail — 89 so far in 2009
Regulators close banks in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.
- Five small regional banks were closed by regulators on Friday evening, pushing 2009′s tally so far to 89 institutions. Of the five failures, two were in Illinois, and there was one each in Arizona, Iowa and Missouri.
Customers of the banks, however, are protected. The Federal Deposit Insurance Company, which has insured bank deposits since the Great Depression, covers each customer account up to $250,000.
In Illinois, Platinum Community Bank, in Rolling Meadows, and InBank, in Oak Forest, were the latest institutions to be cosed by regulators. This makes for a total of 15 failed Illinois banks this year. The last one to go under was Mutual Bank, in Harvey, on July 31, 2009.
via Five more banks fail in first week of September – Sep. 4, 2009.
A.F.L.-C.I.O. Chief Would Back Union Bill Without Card Check
OPS: yup. This is why Unions have been declining since Reagan – no guts.
Union Head Would Back Bill Without Card Check - - NYTimes.com
The A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s president has signaled a significant shift to try to move a long-stalled pro-union bill, saying he would support a change that calls for speedy unionization elections, a provision that would replace the much-attacked card-check provision.
In an interview, John J. Sweeney, the federation’s president, said he would accept a fast election campaign instead of card check because it would meet his goal of minimizing management interference during organizing drives.
Mr. Sweeney said he “could live with” fast or snap elections “as long as there is a fair process that protects workers against anti-union intimidation by employers and eliminates the threats to workers.”
The move away from card check would be a victory for the business community. Randel Johnson, senior vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the United States Chamber of Commerce, nonetheless criticized the proposal for elections after a short campaign.
via A.F.L.-C.I.O. Chief Would Back Union Bill Without Card Check – NYTimes.com.
James Carville To Obama: Stop Giving Consideration To Right Wing Nutjobs!
“You Cannot Run A Country Based On Birthers & Creationists!”
YouTube – James Carville To Obama: Stop Giving Consideration To Right Wing Nutjobs!.
OPS: add… or conservative ideologies.
Bill Moyers on Health Care
“No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.”
YouTube – BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Bill Moyers on Health Care | PBS.
NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills up to 90
NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills up to 90 - | CommonDreams.org – by Douglas Birch
KABUL – A NATO jet blasted two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, setting off a huge fireball Friday that killed up to 90 people, Afghan officials said.
The NATO command said a “large number of insurgents” were killed or injured in the pre-dawn attack near the village of Omar Khel in Kunduz province. An Afghan police officer said the 90 dead included about 40 civilians who were siphoning fuel from the trucks.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
The top NATO commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has ordered curbs on airstrikes after a strong backlash among Afghans against the high number of civilians killed in such military operations.
via NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills up to 90 | CommonDreams.org.
Arctic summers are hottest for 2,000 years, say scientists
Global warming has made Arctic summers hottest for 2,000 years – | guardian.co.uk
The Arctic has warmed as a result of climate change, despite the Earth being farther from the sun during summer months
Warming as a result of increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has overwhelmed a millennia-long cycle of natural cooling in the Arctic, raising temperatures in the region to their highest for at least 2,000 years, according to a report.
The Arctic began to cool several thousand years ago as changes in the planet’s orbit increased the distance between the sun and the Earth and reduced the amount of sunlight reaching high northern latitudes during the summer.
But despite the Earth being farther from the sun during the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice, the Arctic summer is now 1.2C warmer than it was in 1900.
via Arctic summers are hottest for 2,000 years, say scientists | Science | guardian.co.uk.
A national movement of foodies, farmers, parents and educators is pushing for better school food
A national movement of foodies, farmers, parents and educators is pushing for better school food – - San Jose Mercury News
There’s unusual lunchtime chatter at ACE Charter School in East San Jose: Students are actually raving about lunch. School lunch. And so are some teachers.
Just ask Arallana Sanchez, 11, in between her munches on a chicken barbecue sandwich and sips of organic, hormone-free milk. “At my old school everyone always drank chocolate milk because the regular milk tasted like it had expired.”
Serving healthful meals at school is tougher than ever — most campuses don’t even have kitchens anymore. And the federal government’s low reimbursement rate — $2.68 for each poor child who qualifies for free lunch — makes it tough to buy high-quality produce. As school budgets get squeezed, many districts are going with the vendors offering the best bargain, not the best food.
But now a national push is under way to improve students’ midday meal.
2,000 sick with swine flu at Washington State University — home game with Stanford still on
2,000 sick with swine flu at Washington State University — home game with Stanford still on - – San Jose Mercury News
PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University officials say more than 2,000 students have been sickened by swine flu during the first two weeks of classes on the Pullman campus.
But Saturday’s football game between Stanford and Washington State will go on as scheduled.
School officials say there have been no deaths and no students have required hospitalization.
Dr. Dennis Garcia says most students suffer three to five days of discomfort. The school is handing out free flu kits including a thermometer, painkillers, throat lozenges, sport drinks, hand sanitizer and tissues.
Could Texas’ Gingrich-Based High School History Curriculum Go National?
OPS: This is a serious threat to Democracy and the future of this Nation. It needs to be stopped -now.
Could Texas’ Gingrich-Based High School History Curriculum Go National? - | TPMMuckraker
While Republicans are busy gnashing their teeth over President Obama’s imminent indoctrination of the nation’s schoolchildren, there’s an education story bubbling up in Texas that could have considerably more far-reaching consequences.
The GOP-controlled State Board of Education is working on a new set of statewide textbook standards for, among other subjects, U.S. History Studies Since Reconstruction. And it turns out what the board decides may end up having implications far beyond the Lone Star State.
The first draft of the standards, released at the end of July, is a doozy. It lays out a kind of Human Events version of U.S. history.
via Could Texas’ Gingrich-Based High School History Curriculum Go National? | TPMMuckraker.
Job market unlikely to recover until 2014
Job market unlikely to recover until 2014 - msnbc.com
About 14.9 million people are out of work and looking for employment
New unemployment data show why it will take years for the labor market to recover from one of its fastest and deepest declines since World War II, even if an economic recovery is around the corner.
The Department of Labor report released Friday showed job cuts in August were lower than they’ve been in recent months. But a deeper look at the data shows why it will take millions of new jobs to dig American workers out of this recession’s deep pit.
Unemployment for teenagers stands at nearly 26 percent. More than 758,000 workers are so discouraged they quit looking for jobs altogether, by far the biggest such number since the Department of Labor started tracking it in 1994. Damage continues to mount in the manufacturing, financial and construction sectors.
via Job market unlikely to recover until 2014 – Stocks & economy- msnbc.com.
Students Borrowing at Unprecedented Rates
OPS: Remember when a college educations in many States was free, and in most states you could put yourself through college with a minimum wage job? That was all before Reaganomics and Republican control.
Students Borrowing at Unprecedented Rates - Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
Over the course of the past school year, federal student loan disbursements have climbed 25 percent to $75.1 billion per year, shattering the previous record of a 17 percent rise.
With credit tight, tuitions rising rapidly and little to no job prospects, students are graduating from college with more debt burden than ever before, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Over the course of the past school year, federal student loan disbursements have climbed 25 percent to $75.1 billion per year, shattering the previous record of a 17 percent rise in the 1993-1994 school year.
“Loans have gone from being the exception to being the norm for most students,” Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officer, told The Wall Street Journal.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Psychology of the Right-Wing’s Anti-Government ‘Death-Panel’
OPS: We are seeing the logical result of 30 years of Reaganomics and ‘programming’ by a well financed, focused, rightwing anti-American machine.
The Psychology of the Right-Wing’s Anti-Government ‘Death-Panel’ Delusions - By Michael Bader, AlterNet.
Calling people brainwashed, racist or stupid feels good but doesn’t really explain the heart of their irrational fear and hatred of government.
A lot of heavyweight thinkers have offered explanations of the irrationality of modern political behavior — you know, behavior like Medicare recipients at town halls screaming about the evils of government-run health care, or otherwise-reasonable people likening President Barack Obama’s plan to Nazi eugenics.
George Lakoff theorizes that conservatives interpret reality through metaphors and meta-narratives modeled after authoritarian family structures.
Drew Westen argues that they interpret facts according to emotional investments in conclusions they already hold, bypassing cortical centers of reason altogether.
These and other analyses are powerful and helpful. But they aren’t satisfying to me because they aren’t specific enough to account for both the passionate urgency and self-destructiveness of the right-wing rejection of a program that will obviously benefit them.
via The Psychology of the Right-Wing’s Anti-Government ‘Death-Panel’ Delusions | Politics | AlterNet.
‘American Casino’: How Our Nation’s Financial Sector Became a Massive and Unregulated Gambling Operation
‘American Casino’: How Our Nation’s Financial Sector Became a Massive and Unregulated Gambling Operation – By Joshua Holland, AlterNet.
An incredibly powerful new documentary finally lets those who’ve lived it tell the story — from the “creative” financiers to the home buyers duped by brokers.
The producers of the new documentary, American Casino, don’t tell you about the causes of the economic meltdown that’s caused so much pain around the world.
They don’t tell you how Wall Street, having lobbied furiously to free itself from public-interest regulation, created a furious demand for mortgage-backed junk, which they had laundered into supposedly solid investments with an assist from friendly — read “bought off” — ratings agencies. They don’t discuss how unscrupulous lenders hawked an array of gimmicky mortgage products to people who weren’t qualified to take them out in order to skim off a fat stream of fees.
They let those who lived it tell the story — from the “creative” financiers who built the house of cards, to the brokers who pushed their products, and finally, to the people living on “Main Street” USA, whose dreams of homeownership were effectively turned into weapons of mass destruction and detonated in the centers of the global economy.
Why Honor Organized Labor?
Why Honor Organized Labor?
The Struggle is About Everyone
By JIM GOODMAN
Labor Day, to most people, is little more than the end of summer. Labor Day commemorates the labor union movement, the demand for an eight hour work day, better working conditions, fair wages and an end to child labor.
In 1894 Labor Day became a federal holiday celebrated as a “workingman’s holiday” on the first Monday of September honoring the contributions of working men and women to America.
While labor unions were organizing in the 1870′s, small farmers, through the Grange Movement were trying to break the power of the railroads, the meat packers and the grain milling interests. Mary Elizabeth Lease urged the farmers to “raise less corn and more hell”, but farmers could never unite as the labor unions had.
In the mid-1960′s, farm worker organizers Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta formed the United Farm Workers (UFW). When the UFW’s table grape boycott brought the plight of the farm workers onto the national stage, Dolores Huerta connected the feminist movement and gender rights with the farm worker movement. And why not? Women worked the fields along side the men.
via Jim Goodman: Why Honor Organized Labor?.
Political Manipulation of the Threat Level: Is Ridge’s Charge a Federal Crime?
Political Manipulation of the Threat Level: Is Ridge’s Charge a Federal Crime?
By JOHN W. DEAN
Early buzz on a new book by former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, The Test of Our Times, has attracted serious attention, and for good reason. Initially, it looked like a former Bush Administration cabinet member was about to come clean. Now, it is not clear exactly what Ridge is doing. Let me explain.
On August 20, 2009, I appeared on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” The show had obtained an exclusive early copy of Ridge’s book, and I was surprised to learn of its content. Tom Ridge was confirming what many Bush Administration watchers (including myself) had long suspected: that color-coded terror alerts had been issued in 2003 and 2004 to frighten voters into supporting the reelection of President Bush over his Democratic opponent, Senator John Kerry. This was a disturbing charge, and perhaps even one describing potentially criminal conduct.
Ridge’s Charge of Political Pressure Influencing Terror Alerts
Paraphrasing and quoting from Ridge’s book, Keith Olbermann reported that “[o]n Friday, October 29th, 2004, four days before the vote, Osama bin Laden released a new videotape, you’ll remember. Mr. Ridge did not think that warranted a change in the terror alert status. He [writes in the new book], ‘At this point, there was nothing to indicate a specific threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm.’”
via Political Manipulation of the Threat Level: Is Ridge’s Charge a Federal Crime?.
Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire
Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire – By Mark Ames, AlterNet.
Obama is doubling down in Afghanistan with more troops deployed now than the Soviets ever had, at a time when public support for it is sinking like a rock.
America now has more military personnel in Afghanistan than the Red Army had at the peak of the Soviet invasion and occupation of that country. According to a Congressional Research Service report, as of March of this year, the U.S. had 52,000 uniformed personnel and another 68,000 contractors in Afghanistan — a number that has likely grown given the blank check President Obama has written for what’s now being called “Obama’s War.”
That makes 120,000 American military personnel fighting in Afghanistan, a figure higher than the Soviet peak troop figure of 115,000 during their catastrophic 9-year war. Just this week, General McChrystal, whom Obama appointed to command American forces in Afghanistan, is talking ofsending tens of thousands more American troops. At the height of the Soviet occupation,Western intelligence experts estimated that the Soviets had 115,000 troops in Afghanistan — but like America, the more troops and the longer the Soviets stayed, the more doomed their military mission became.
We’re also heading into the same casualty trap as the Soviets did. This summer has been the deadliest in the eight-year war for American troops. While the number of uniformed Americans killed in combat in Afghanistan may seem comparatively low — just over 800, most of those since 2007 — the Soviets also suffered relatively light casualties. Between December 1979 and February 1989, just 13,000 Soviets were killed in Afghanistan, a seemingly paltry figure when you compare it to the 20 million Soviets killed in World War Two, and the millions upon millions who died in the Civil War and Stalin’s Terror. Unlike America, Russians have a reputation for tolerating appalling casualty figures — and yet the war in Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Empire. Which only proves that crude number comparisons explain nothing at all in warfare today, particularly when that war is an occupation of an alien environment like Afghanistan.
via Obama Is Leading the U.S. Into a Hellish Quagmire | World | AlterNet.
The Real News About Jobs and Wages — An Ode to Labor Day
The Real News About Jobs and Wages — An Ode to Labor Day
Robert Reich
Why aren’t we hearing more about the worst job and wage situation since the Great Depression?
The latest employment figures (released this morning) show job losses continuing to grow. According to the payroll survey, job losses are increasing more slowly than in previous months. According to the household survey, they’re accelerating — from 9.4 percent of the workforce in July to 9.7 percent in August. Bottom line: almost one out of six Americans who need a full-time job either can’t find one or is working part-time. Meanwhile, wage growth among people who have jobs has just about stopped. The Economic Policy Institute reports that between 2006 and 2008, wages grew at an annualized rate of 4.0%; by contrast, over the past three months annual wage growth has plummeted to just 0.7%. At the same time, furloughs — requiring workers to take unpaid vacations — are on the rise: recent surveys show 17% of companies imposing them. More than 20% of companies have suspended their contributions to 401(k)s and similar pension plans.
So why isn’t the media screaming? Partly because these job and wage losses are not, for the most part, falling on the segment of our population most visible to the media. They’re falling overwhelmingly on the middle class and the poor. Unemployment among those who have been in the top 10 percent of earnings is closer to 5 percent, and their earnings continue to climb — although, to be sure, much more slowly than before the meltdown. It’s much the same with health-care and pension benefits. Among people under 65 who are in the bottom 20% of incomes, only 21.9% have employer-sponsored health insurance — if they have a job at all. Half of all people nearing retirement age have a 401(k) balance of less than $40,000.
via Robert Reich’s Blog: The Real News About Jobs and Wages — An Ode to Labor Day.
Candidate Tweets the Republican View on Obama School Speech: ‘Hell Yes, We’re Using a Double Standard’
Candidate Tweets the Republican View on Obama School Speech: ‘Hell Yes, We’re Using a Double Standard’ - Pensito Review »
The other Republican running for the same Senate seat as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is as rightwing as they come. But don’t take my word for it, take his. Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio tweeted the following message: “I have no problem with President giving political speech to kids……..if his name is REAGAN!”
In a personality contest with Crist, I would vote for Rubio hands-down. There’s just something about being what you are that Crist will never understand or approach. And even if Rubio is to the right of the gipper himself, at least he’s got a sense of humor. At least, I think he’s being ironic here…
Big banks grow more powerful under Obama
Big banks grow more powerful under Obama
The Washington Post carried an article last week outlining the immense consolidation that has taken place in the US banking system as a result of the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations in response to the financial crisis.
The article, entitled “Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger,” reports how the largest banks have consolidated control over a greater share of financial markets and are using their monopolistic position to increase their profits by raising fees and interest on consumers and small businesses.
“The oligopoly has tightened,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com, who is quoted in the Post article. “There’s been a significant consolidation among the big banks, and it’s kind of hollowing out the banking system,” he added.
via Big banks grow more powerful under Obama.
Embassy Guards in Kabul Are Fired
Embassy Guards in Kabul Are Fired - - NYTimes.com 
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Eight civilian security guards at the United States Embassy in Afghanistan were fired and two resigned following accusations of lewd behavior and sexual misconduct at their living quarters.
The Kabul senior management team of ArmorGroup North America, the private contractor that provides guards for the State Department, was also “being replaced immediately,” the embassy said Friday in a statement.
The fired guards, who left Afghanistan on Friday, all appeared in photographs that depicted guards and supervisors in various stages of nudity at parties where alcohol flowed, the embassy said. Their names and nationalities were not released; nearly two-thirds of the 450 embassy guards are Gurkhas from Nepal and northern India.
The State Department spokesman, Ian C. Kelly, said in Washington that the government had made it clear to ArmorGroup that the guards in the photographs must go. He also said that the State Department had insisted that Armor Group replace its management team on the ground.
via Embassy Guards in Kabul Are Fired – NYTimes.com.
Kucinich renews call for Afghan withdrawal after botched airstrike
Kucinich renews call for Afghan withdrawal after botched airstrike – Raw Story » 
In a Friday press release, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) condemned a NATO airstrike which killed 95 people, including much of the population of a small Afghan village, and renewed his call for the United States to withdraw its forces from both Afghanistan and Iraq.
“News reports covering today’s attack by the U.S. command southwest of Kunduz province show that the good intentions of NATO forces in Afghanistan are not sufficient,” Kucinich stated. “If we want to avoid killing innocent civilians, we must end the war.”
The incident occurred after Taliban fighters hijacked two oil tankers and drove them to a village under their control, where they became stuck in the mud. The local villagers then emerged to try to siphon off the fuel. Meanwhile, the hijacking was reported to German troops, who called for an airstrike. The fireball when the trucks were hit killed or badly burned many of the villagers along with some Taliban.
According to the independent, “Western forces were engulfed in bitter controversy yesterday” as the extent of the carnage became apparent. “Nato initially insisted that all the dead were Taliban insurgents. Later, after angry protests from local residents and officials, they acknowledged there had been civilian deaths.”
via Raw Story » Kucinich renews call for Afghan withdrawal after botched airstrike.
U.S. DOL – The History of Labor Day
The History of Labor Day
For other Labor Day information, visit our Labor Day 2009 page.
Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
Founder of Labor Day
More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.
Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.
The First Labor Day
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.
In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.
Labor Day Legislation
Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.
A Nationwide Holiday
The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.
The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.
via U.S. DOL – The History of Labor Day.
Court Says 9/11 Witnesses Can Sue Ashcroft
Court Says 9/11 Witnesses Can Sue Ashcroft – - - KIRO Seattle
Former Student Filed Lawsuit Claiming Civil Rights Were Violated
A federal appeals court has ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft may be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In a harshly worded ruling handed down Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the government’s use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 “repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history.”
The court found that a man who was detained as a witness in a federal terrorism case can sue Ashcroft for allegedly violating his constitutional rights. Abdullah Al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen and former University of Idaho student, filed the lawsuit in 2005, claiming his civil rights were violated when he was detained as a material witness for two weeks after 9/11.
Al-Kidd said the investigation and detention not only caused him to lose a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia, but cost him employment opportunities.
via Court Says 9/11 Witnesses Can Sue Ashcroft – Politics News Story – KIRO Seattle.
Treasury Nominee Owes at Least $10.5 Million for Investments
Treasury Nominee Owes at Least $10.5 Million for Investments - – Bloomberg.com
– Jeffrey Goldstein, the private- equity executive nominated to be Treasury undersecretary, is obligated to pay at least $10.5 million to several investment partnerships, according to an ethics filing.
Goldstein has pledged $5 million to $25 million each for two funds run by his former firm, Hellman & Friedman LLC, and $500,000 to $1 million in another of its partnerships, according to the form, which only included ranges for the values. The money must be paid when requested by the fund manager, Goldstein wrote in the disclosure to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
Goldstein’s finances illustrate some of the potential obstacles Wall Street executives encounter when they agree to work for the government. Without a complete severing of ties, he may need to recuse himself from policies affecting private equity, said Kenneth Gross, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
via Treasury Nominee Owes at Least $10.5 Million for Investments – Bloomberg.com.
Madoff Report Indicted Entire Regulatory System
The SEC’s Long Tide of Surrender - - Michael Hirsh | Newsweek.com
An entire regulatory system was indicted by the Madoff report.
CNN reported Thursday afternoon that the White House is quietly working to draft health care legislation after allowing Congress to work on its own for months.
Sources told the network that the administration could deliver its legislation to Capitol Hill sometime after the President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday.
Obama also held a conference call with progressive Democrats, who came away from the meeting with the impression that the public option was still in play.
Rep. Lynne Woolsey (D-Calif.), one of the leading voices of the Progressive Caucus, just released a statement on the call with Obama, saying they were confident Obama was still on their side.
via Madoff Report Indicted Entire Regulatory System | Newsweek Voices – Michael Hirsh | Newsweek.com.
White House Drafting Health Care Bill
White House Drafting Health Care Bill: CNN
CNN reported Thursday afternoon that the White House is quietly working to draft health care legislation after allowing Congress to work on its own for months.
Sources told the network that the administration could deliver its legislation to Capitol Hill sometime after the President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday.
Obama also held a conference call with progressive Democrats, who came away from the meeting with the impression that the public option was still in play.
Rep. Lynne Woolsey (D-Calif.), one of the leading voices of the Progressive Caucus, just released a statement on the call with Obama, saying they were confident Obama was still on their side.
via White House Drafting Health Care Bill: CNN.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
