Archive for September, 2009
Study details mainstream media’s biased reporting on ACORN
Institute for Southern Studies - ACORN, a community-based advocacy group for low- and moderate-income families, has been in the news in recent weeks thanks to an undercover video in which two employees in the organization’s Baltimore office appear to offer unethical advice on home loans, tax evasion and disguising identities of underaged sex workers to two conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. The organization has fired the workers and hired a former Massachusetts attorney general to conduct an internal review. It’s also suing the filmmakers for illegal taping under Maryland law.
The media scrutiny of the 500,000-member group continues today, with reports that a leading Senate Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa, has called on the Internal Revenue Service to look at how ACORN has transferred charitable and government funds meant for the poor to political and profit-making arms of the group. Those transactions occurred before a change in the group’s leadership last year.
This is not the first time ACORN has found itself in the media spotlight: The organization first became a high-profile story during last year’s presidential campaign when Republican candidates and other conservatives attacked the group and tried to link it to Barack Obama, with GOP presidential candidate John McCain charging hyperbollically in an October debate that the group was “maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
Now a new study documents serious problems with the way major media outlets have handled the ACORN story.
Full Story: ISS – Study details mainstream media’s biased reporting on ACORN.
Hyatt to Rehire Laid Off Boston Workers
| Workers Independent News - Days after Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick threatened a boycott against Hyatt hotels the company issued a statement Friday saying 100 laid off workers would be offered new full time jobs. The new jobs will be provided until the end of 2010 and be through contractor United Services Company. The contractor will match the previous rates the workers received as Hyatt employees. According to the company the jobs were cut to address falling revenues.
Full Story: Hyatt to Rehire Laid Off Boston Workers | Workers Independent News.
Citi sues Morgan Stanley over CDS, claims $245 million
(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc (C.N) sued Morgan Stanley (MS.N) on Friday for breach of contract, saying the Wall Street firm owed it $245.4 million for protection it bought on a loan.
Citibank bought a credit default swap (CDS) from Morgan Stanley & Co International in 2006 on a $366 million revolving credit facility it provided to an issuer of collateralized debt obligations (CDO), according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The swap obliged Morgan Stanley to pay Citibank the money as a result of a payment default on the credit facility to the CDO, known as Capmark VI, it said in the complaint.
Liquidating the CDO collateral did not cover the entire amount, and Citibank said it exercised its right under the CDS to have Morgan Stanley make up for the shortfall, but it refused, according to the complaint.
Full Story: Citi sues Morgan Stanley over CDS, claims $245 million | Reuters.
Judge Rules That Grady Memorial Hospital Can Close Dialysis Unit – NYTimes.com
ATLANTA — Uninsured dialysis patients who could be cut off from their life-sustaining care lost a court challenge on Friday when a judge ruled that Grady Memorial Hospital could close its outpatient dialysis clinic. But the hospital gave the patients a temporary reprieve
Ruling largely on technical grounds, a state court judge dissolved the restraining order that prevented last weekend’s scheduled closing of the clinic at Grady, the Atlanta region’s safety net hospital. The hospital, which is deeply in debt, quickly announced it would close the clinic within a week. It agreed, however, to pay for up to three months of dialysis at private clinics for the 51 patients who will be dislocated.
Grady will continue to assist the indigent patients, many of them illegal immigrants, in seeking care in their home countries or in other states where they may qualify for emergency Medicaid coverage.
Full Story: Judge Rules That Grady Memorial Hospital Can Close Dialysis Unit – NYTimes.com.
Raising Steaks – Publisher Judith Jones’ Passion For Grass-Fed Cows
- NYTimes.com - In 1950, the editor Judith Jones rescued Anne Frank’s diary from the reject pile. Ten years later, she championed a cookbook no other publisher would touch and named it “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” the first of many seminal culinary titles that she shepherded. At 85, she still works as a senior editor and vice president of Knopf. But every girl needs a hobby. So three years ago, she started raising cattle.
Now when her writers visit her summer home in northern Vermont to test recipes, they can cook with Bryn Teg farm’s grass-fed beef.
“The only time I had a little twinge was the other day and the cows licked our hands,” Jones said, recounting when she was hosting the food writer Joan Nathan, who was there to work on her next Jewish cookbook. “You get that rough texture of the tongue. And the next day, we were peeling it off!” she said with a shuddering laugh. The brisket proved less troubling.
Full Story: Food – Raising Steaks – NYTimes.com.
Who Is Bankrolling the League of American Voters?
| Center for Media and Democracy - Standing in a medical exam room, a neurosurgeon in a white lab coat stares solemnly into the camera and warns that President Obama’s health care plan ‘will hurt our seniors’ and ‘end Medicare as we know it.’ … How this ad came to be produced and distributed provides a case study in modern American political advocacy. It shows how a quickly assembled group with uncertain origins and funding can make a mark on one of the most contentious public policy debates in memory. The group that says it paid for the campaign — the League of American Voters — incorporated less than two weeks before the ad was released online. The League’s executive director, its only employee, declined to identify its founders or donors but claims that in less than two months of existence it has built a membership of 16,000 and raised about $1.7 million in donations. … Interviews and a review of public records show that a wide-ranging group of people coalesced to launch the League or its ad campaign: Dick Morris, a former aide to President Bill Clinton and one of the nation’s more flamboyant political operatives; a one-time West Virginia political candidate ([Bob Adams); a New York City public relations executive with ties to health care groups (Alexandra Preate]; a New York rabbi; a filmmaker best known for an ad questioning the patriotism of Vietnam War veteran and then-Georgia senator Max Cleland (Rick Wilson); and a Florida doctor who once settled a state medical board allegation that he had operated on the wrong site during a spinal procedure.”
Full Story: Who Is Bankrolling the League of American Voters? | Center for Media and Democracy.
Crazy Census Conspiracies: Vote For The Most Insane
The suspicious death of a Census worker in Kentucky has led to increased focus on whether anti-Census conspiracies that have floated since the beginning of the Obama administration could lead to violence.
Some of these paranoid conspiracies been endorsed by Republican officials or prominent media figures; others only percolate on the internet. See a full overview here — and vote for which ones are merely dubious and which ones are truly insane.
Full Story: Crazy Census Conspiracies: Vote For The Most Insane.
Property In Landmark Eminent Domain Supreme Court Case Never Used
NEW LONDON, Conn. — Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters have replaced the knot of aging homes at the site of the nation’s most notorious eminent domain project.
There are a few signs of life: Feral cats glare at visitors from a miniature jungle of Queen Anne’s lace, thistle and goldenrod. Gulls swoop between the lot’s towering trees and the adjacent sewage treatment plant.
But what of the promised building boom that was supposed to come wrapped and ribboned with up to 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues? They are noticeably missing.
Full Story: Property In Landmark Eminent Domain Supreme Court Case Never Used.
Chicago Cab Vomit Fee Would Be First Of Its Kind
Chicago could become the first major city in the country with a puking ordinance if cab drivers get their way.
Chicago taxi drivers proposed a package of fee and fare hikes Thursday designed to offset their plunging income during the recession. Among the more controversial revenue-boosting ideas brought to the City Council is charging customers $50 for vomiting in cabs.
If enacted, Chicago would become one of America’s least friendly cities for drunks and people who eat bad shellfish. Customers who barf in cabs in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston or San Francisco may face the driver’s wrath, but they won’t see any additional charges.
“No, we do not have a puking fee,” Boston Police spokesman Joe Zanoli told the Huffington Post. “To my knowledge it’s free to puke in a cab.”
Full Story: Chicago Cab Vomit Fee Would Be First Of Its Kind.
Krugman: “I Was Kind Of Hoping Obama Might Be FDR, But Maybe Not” (VIDEO)
On “Real Time with Bill Maher” Friday night, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said that while the American dream is not totally dead, it is “dying pretty fast,” particularly when it comes to social mobility. Krugman made this statement during a lengthy discussion with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and host Bill Maher about the troubled state of the American economy and where we are in terms of reforming the system.
Both Krugman and Spitzer expressed optimism that America could right itself in the coming years if the correct steps were taken, but they were also highly critical of the degree of inequality that has become a part of American life and the lack of reform that has so far taken place.
“On bad mornings I wake up and think that we are turning into a Latin American country,” Krugman said. “But on good mornings I think, well this is America, we have always in the past managed to turn ourselves around, and there is an FDR just around the corner if we could only find him. I was kind of hoping Obama might be FDR, but maybe not. ”
WATCH:
Full Story: Krugman: “I Was Kind Of Hoping Obama Might Be FDR, But Maybe Not” (VIDEO).
Dennis Kucinich: The Public Option is Dead, Long Live the Public Option
Michael Tedesco – As I eluded to in this post on Tuesday, I participated in a conference call between the Canadian membership of Democrats Abroad and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich on the topic of health care reform. The reason for my participation is simple. I am an American citizen working for an American corporation but living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
When I was offered the opportunity to relocate from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Vancouver, British Columbia I did as any other person would do, I consulted my wife and together we listed out all of the pro’s, con’s, opportunities and risks surrounding this potential move. Uprooting a young family is not something that should be taken lightly no matter how lucrative the opportunity may seem. In the end, one of the items that helped tip the scales in favor of relocation was Canada’s single payer health care system.
Now, I can already hear the angry mobs amassing at the comment section ready to shout their uninformed drivel about how awful the Canadian health care system is, how people are dying in the street waiting for services, and how such a horrific socialist system would never work in the U.S. To that let me just say one thing. Bullshit.
Full Story: Dennis Kucinich: The Public Option is Dead, Long Live the Public Option : Comments from Left Field.
Edmonds to Rep.: Let’s pursue facts
Edmonds Issues Formal Response to Schakowsky’s Denial of Lesbian Affair with Turkish Operative
The BRAD BLOG : Formerly-gagged FBI translator/whistleblower invites Congresswoman to ‘pursue facts’ of the case, use her position as member of House Intel Committee to find the truth about allegations of bribery, blackmail, nuclear espionage
UPDATED: Schakowsky’s office replies to Edmonds letter/invitation…
As she had promised on Tuesday night, former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has responded to a parting shot taken at her by Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s office, concerning Edmonds’ allegations that she overheard details of a blackmail scheme directly involving the 9th-district Illinois’ 9th-District U.S. Congresswoman, while working on the FBI counterintelligence division’s investigation into the Turkish lobby following the 9/11 attacks.
She has now issued a formal letter to the Congresswoman, asking her to join in her “Pursuit of the Facts,” in her role as a member of the U.S. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The letter is posted in full below.
Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : Edmonds Issues Formal Response to Schakowsky’s Denial of Lesbian Affair with Turkish Operative.
AT&T looks to flip net rules debate on Google
* AT&T says Google’s Voice enjoys unfair advantage
* Google says its Voice app is online service
* FCC examining AT&T letter (Adds USTelecom statement in paragraph 13, updates stock prices)
By John Poirier and Sinead Carew
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Sept 25 (Reuters) – AT&T Inc (T.N) said any new “net neutrality” rules imposed by U.S. regulators need to apply to Web companies like Google Inc (GOOG.O) as much as to phone companies to ensure a level playing field.
Full Story: UPDATE 2-AT&T looks to flip net rules debate on Google | Reuters.
US Navy looks at letting women serve on submarines
The Raw Story | – The US Navy secretary said on Friday women deserve a chance to serve on submarines, promising to move “aggressively” to change the rules that ban females on subs.
American women can work on the Navy’s fleet of warships and fly fighter jets but nuclear-powered submarines remain off limits.
“This is something the CNO (chief of naval operations) and I have been working on since I came into office,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the service’s top civilian, said in a statement.
Full Story: The Raw Story | US Navy looks at letting women serve on submarines.
Environmentalists target plush toilet paper
The soft variety’s lack of recycled material is a sore spot for environmental groups. But some changes are occurring in the industry.
Elmwood Park, N.J. – There is a battle for America’s behinds.
-- latimes.com – It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for “soft” (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three ply and three adjective).
It’s a menace, environmental groups say — and a dark-comedy example of American excess.
The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. Environmentalists want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.
It has been slow going. Big toilet-paper makers say that they’ve taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they’re selling it.
Full Story: Environmentalists target plush toilet paper — latimes.com.
TSA, GOP Rep. square off in airport over body scanners
A Republican congressman who recently had an unpleasant run-in with the Transportation Security Administration in a Utah airport is denying allegations that he acted out over being ushered into a line for a full body scanning machine.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), a longtime opponent of the security technology witch effectively performs a strip search on its subjects, told a Salt Lake City NBC affiliate that a TSA agent claimed to know “exactly” who he is, causing the congressman to wonder if the whole incident was direct harassment.
He added that while the body scanner is optional, agents tried to force him through it.
“They did not make it optional; and when I told them I didn’t want to do it, they started treating me as though I was some sort of criminal or something, giving me the third degree,” he told KSL NBC 5.
Full Story: TSA, GOP Rep. square off in airport over body scanners | Raw Story.
Are Republicans Autistic?
by Caroline Arnold | CommonDreams.org – It inspires conviction, faithfulness, right-thinking and devotion to duty – as well as bigotry, self-righteousness, fanaticism and mulishness. It nourished the atrocities of the Inquisition and directed the persecution of Galileo. It propels persons to hoard religious hatred toward others who are mutually hateful. It seduces heroes and martyrs onto the shadowy altars of glory, serving eternal principles that are quickly forgotten. It motivated the execution of innocent persons as witches and it continues to condemn innocent defendants and to liberate guilty miscreants. It incites nations to squander their resources, dissipating their prospects on crusades, blood feuds, and holy wars. And it sustains revered institutions that degrade and threaten humanity, even to foreshadowing the extinction of the species.
“Autistic Certainty” Donald E. Watson, 1993
Radio personality Jack Rice leapt into the news this weekend by asking if Republicans were autistic. The metaphor is crude, and largely undeserved, but merits further exploration.
The word autism was first used in 1911 to describe human behaviors so self-centered as to suggest failure to process the realities of the outside world in language, and an inability to relate to other humans. In the 1940s symptoms were defined further as social withdrawal, difficulty in communicating, extreme self-absorption, and repetitive or stereotyped behaviors.
Full Story: Are Republicans Autistic? | CommonDreams.org.
Civil liberties groups: Police overreacted at G-20
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Police used all the nonlethal tools at their disposal to thwart protesters at the Group of 20 summit this week, firing bean bags, hurling canisters of smoke and pepper spray, using flash-bang grenades and batons and deploying a high-tech sound-blasting device meant to push back crowds.
It was all a bit much for civil liberties groups and protesters.
They decried what they called a heavy-handed and unwarranted police response, saying riot officers focused on largely peaceful, if unsanctioned, demonstrations when they should have been paying more attention to small groups of vandals that smashed windows of city businesses.
“It’s not just intimidation, it’s disruption and in some cases outright prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out,” said Witold “Vic” Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “In a week when we need freedom of speech more than ever, free speech died in Pittsburgh this week.”
He added that “the deployment of police seems to be more geared toward suppressing lawful demonstrations than actually preventing crime.”
Full Story: My Way News – Civil liberties groups: Police overreacted at G-20.
Is Copenhagen Dead?
Obama Adviser Signals White House Giving Up on Climate Change Treaty
Is Copenhagen Dead? - by David Corn, | Mother Jones -
Is the Obama administration giving up on reaching a comprehensive international climate change agreement this year? A statement released on Friday by John Podesta, who headed Barack Obama’s presidential transition, is a big hint that the White House is looking to dramatically downplay expectations.
In the statement, Podesta, the head of the Center for American Progress, and Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, declare, “The world’s leading economic powers remain inactive in preventing an increase in the serious impacts of climate change.” The pair do not explicitly criticize the United States and the Obama administration. But their statement suggests that the Obama administration has not succeeded in leading the major global powers toward effective action:
While current impacts of climate change may not have reached alarming proportions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that will happen soon enough if we do not take early action. What is causing increasing concern, as the December UN climate summit in Copenhagen draws ever nearer, is the continuing deadlock in political action to deal with this challenge.
Full Story: Is Copenhagen Dead? | Mother Jones.
Reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol
And this jumped out at me:
Doubleday edition, Chapter 87, page 327
“From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics – the name Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind has managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus”.
Full Story: Baldwin Park Democrat: Reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.
You can’t build and destroy in Afghanistan at the same time.
When will we ever learn that you can’t build and destroy in Afghanistan at the same time.
Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings - economyincisis.org
Editor’s Note: The following article was contributed by Former Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, author of Making Government Work.
During the war in Vietnam, Peter, Paul and Mary sang a song that asked the question: “When will they ever learn?” Going to Vietnam in 1966, I was briefed by Cy Vance, Deputy Secretary of Defense. Vance cautioned that General Westmoreland would be asking for more troops. We were trying to secure Vietnam, a country of 16 million, with 535,000 troops and, sure enough, the first thing General Westmoreland asked for was 35,000 more troops. With 35,000 more troops, Westmoreland said, we’ll have “Operation Meatgrinder” and bring this war to an end. The strategy in Vietnam was to build and destroy — never securing the country. And the measure of success was body count. Westmoreland was proud that we were killing 10 to 1 – ten Vietnamese killed to one GI lost. We ended up with about 600,000 troops in Vietnam.
Now in Afghanistan, we’re trying to secure a country of 31 million with 64,500 troops – and think that 40,000 more will do the job. It’s the same strategy of build and destroy and body count, with GIs expendable. After eight years, we’re now going to be more careful to kill less civilians. In short, GIs are expendable so long as we kill less civilians. When will we ever learn that a majority of a country will sacrifice for a government over democracy. Take a trip to Hanoi. The people are happy. You can walk around the streets at night with no concern for safety – something you can’t do in Washington, D.C. And when will we ever learn that you can’t build and destroy at the same time. It’s a flawed strategy. You must totally secure the place – “own it” as we said in World War II – before you do anything; or today hold elections. After eight years the Afghan election is a fraud.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Raging Trade War
As Fingleton points out, building protections into your economy cannot instigate a trade war if the war is already raging.
Craig Harrington with Eamonn Fingleton – economyincisis.org
Editor’s note: This series originally ran in June. The following is the second interview in a six part series with economist Eamonn Fingleton. Tune in daily this week to watch all six groundbreaking interviews.
Much has been said and written about the seemingly contradictory ideas of “free trade” and “protectionism” since the modest economic downturn sped into a full-blown collapse. One of the most important points to take away is the misconception that the world is unilaterally accepting of “free trade” and open markets, and that any “protectionist” strategies provoke economic retribution.
As Fingleton points out, building protections into your economy cannot instigate a trade war if the war is already raging. More importantly, building protections into the American economy does not change the fact that the United States is still the largest consumer market in the world. Many in government, on both sides of the political aisle, have said that we must avoid a trade war. What they should be doing is combating the one we are already engaged in and buffering American consumers from economic hostilities abroad.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Michael Moore on Good Morning America
“Michael Moore’s provocative new film ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ — it is a fierce attack on our economic system at a time when many Americans are wondering what what wrong on Wall Street and why our economy was nearly brought to the brink of collapse last year. Many critics are calling the documentary Moore’s best ever and he says it’s the film he’s been waiting to make for 20 years.” — Good Morning America host, Chris Cuomo, September 23rd, 2009
Full Story: YouTube – Michael Moore on Good Morning America.
Coca-Cola’s Lies About Sustainability Have Gone Too Far
They’ve gone from greenwashing to outright lying.
In 2007, facing growing opposition to its water management practices, particularly in India, Coca-Cola’s CEO, Neville Isdell came up with a brilliant idea. The Coca-Cola company, he announced, will become water neutral, replenishing every drop of water they use, and therefore, as the suggestion went, Coca-Cola would have no impact of water resources around the world.
Voila! Problem solved, a company using 300 billion liters of water annually would have no impact on water resources. Sustainability doesn’t get any better than that. The only problem was that Coca-Cola knew that water neutrality was impossible to achieve.
In a concept paper on water neutrality that Coca-Cola developed with others, it clearly stated that, “In a strict sense, the term ‘water neutral’ is troublesome and even may be misleading. It is often possible to reduce a water footprint, but it is generally impossible to bring it down to zero.”
Full Story: Coca-Cola’s Lies About Sustainability Have Gone Too Far | Water | AlterNet.
Israel’s Fear of Jewish Girls Dating Arabs; Team of Psychologists to “Rescue” Women
Youth counselors and psychologists are going after young Jewish women who are dating Arab men to “rescue” them.
By Jonathan Cook, AlterNet. – A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counselors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and “rescue” them.
The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate — and little discussed — initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.
In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls.
Full Story: Israel’s Fear of Jewish Girls Dating Arabs; Team of Psychologists to “Rescue” Women | World | AlterNet.
5 Ways the Government Used Our Money to Save Big Banks and Screw Us
The government hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about how it has made buckets of money available to the banking sector. But here’s what really happened.
By Nomi Prins and Christopher Hayes, The Nation.
Meet the Hazzards
As we mark the end of the first year of the financial bailout, the public seems to regard the government’s actions with a toxic combination of rage and confusion. People are pissed off but too bewildered to know what to do with that anger. The confusion isn’t an accident. The government hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about how it’s made buckets of money available to the banking sector. When it does disclose some information–such as in July’s SIGTARP report from the Treasury or the Federal Reserve’s weekly balance sheet–it’s in the form of intimidating descriptions, accounting mumbo jumbo and technical reports that do little to illuminate just what the hell is going on.
What’s worse, banks and the establishment press have portrayed TARP as the sum of the banking industry’s federal subsidies. An August 30 New York Times article, “As Banks Repay Bailout Money, U.S. Sees a Profit,” gives the impression that taxpayers should be happy to have made $4 billion on the deal, as if our checks were in the mail. But when the government became Wall Street’s bank, it wasn’t just $700 billion of TARP money that flew north to Wall Street. TARP was but a small fraction (roughly 4 percent) of the full $17.5 trillion bailout and subsidization of the financial sector. [See Meet the Hazzards.
The Green, Clean Art of Keeping Our “Rear Ends” Hygienic: What Are We Afraid Of? | Health and Wellness | AlterNet
So, do you ever feel … not so fresh?
By Liz Langley, AlterNet. - This question is traditionally asked by young women of their mom’s on boats in douche ads, but this one is directed at everybody and the answer is probably “Yes.”
Whether it’s from being hermetically sealed in pantyhose all day, from sweating inside wooly winter wear or dripping with summer heat, feeling no-so-fresh is easier than the acres of body care products in the store would suggest.
And the fact is that most Americans aren’t as clean as they imagine themselves to be. We pay catlike attention to grooming, and yet all that Purell-ing sort of fades at the thought that we’re walking around with our nether regions shmeared with — there’s no nice way to say it — poop.
So, how can this be if Americans use about 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper a year?
Full Story: The Green, Clean Art of Keeping Our “Rear Ends” Hygienic: What Are We Afraid Of? | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
The Few, The Proud, The Damaged
One Marine’s struggle to expose the toxicity of the Camp Lejeune Marine base.
- Salem-News.Com – CNN and other media groups published a story yesterday about a Camp Lejeune Marine who survived breast cancer. The story shows progress in the mainstream media towards addressing this serious issue affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Jim Fontella of Michigan is one of 22 male breast cancer survivors from Lejeune, says fellow survivor Mike Partain , who was raised in a Marine Corps family.
As we have reported many times in the past, the Camp Lejeune Marine base in North Carolina is heavily contaminated with PCE (tetrachloroethylene) and TCE (trichloroethylene) as well as other cancer causing agents. Jerry Ensminger’s was a Marine at Lejeune who lost his daughter to cancer. Once he connected her death to the base pollution, he became a one man force strictly and utterly determined to get to the bottom of the base’s toxicity issues. (see: Male Breast Cancer: a Hard Bullet to Dodge for Marines at Camp LejeuneTim King Salem-News.com)
Letters went out to Marines and former Marines a couple of years ago, indicating the government’s understanding of the magnitude of the issue.
Full Story: The Few, The Proud, The Damaged – Salem-News.Com.
Pentagon Taking Over U.S. Foreign Policy
The Pentagon has virtually replaced the State Department in making U.S. foreign policy, The Nation magazine charges.
“Quietly, gradually–and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ–the Pentagon has all but eclipsed the State Department at the center of US foreign policy-making,” reporter Stephen Glain writes in the Sept. 28 issue.
In addition to new weapons and war fighters, the Pentagon’s budget “now underwrites a cluster of special funds from which it can train and equip foreign armies–often in the service of repressive regimes–as well as engage in aid development projects in pursuit of its own tactical ends.”
Although these programs technically require State Department approval and are subject to Congressional review, Glain writes, “legislative oversight and interagency coordination is spotty at best.”
Full Story: Pentagon Taking Over U.S. Foreign Policy | The Smirking Chimp.
Blue Dog Leader Works With Theocratic “Mafia” Opposed to Health Care Reform
Blue Dog Democrats in Congress played a “magnificent” role in blocking health care reform during the Clinton administration and now, under the “courageous” and “smart” leadership of House Pro-Life Caucus leader and Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, and with the support and prayers of Republicans categorically opposed to the Democratic Party’s health care reform effort, the Blue Dogs may be able to do it again.
That’s what Stupak’s caucus co-chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) told his audience at a “townhall” panel event last Friday at the Family Research Council Action’s Washington DC 2009 Values Voter Summit [see video, below]. Another Republican at the event, Tom Price (R-GA), suggested that lockstep GOP opposition to health care reform affords the Blue Dogs “an opportunity to show some backbone” and “stand up to their leadership to say ‘no more will we allow this travesty to go on.’”
Besides leading anti-abortion Democrats in the House, Stupak is a longtime member of the mainly-Republican radical free-market, union-busting theocratic Washington fundamentalist group known as “The Family,” which runs the “C Street House” registered as a church where Bart Stupak has enjoyed Christian fellowship and cheap rent for years. Stupak’s former “C Street” housemate Senator James DeMint (R-S. Carolina) has vowed to make the fight against health care reform President Barack Obama’s “Waterloo”.
Full Story: Bruce Wilson: Blue Dog Leader Works With Theocratic “Mafia” Opposed to Health Care Reform.
TARP Inspector: Financial System May Now Be In A “Far More Dangerous Place” (VIDEO)
Neil Barofsky is the man who tracks the historic bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. The 39-year-old special inspector general monitors a dozen separate bailout-related programs that now account for nearly $3 trillion in financial commitments. A former federal prosecutor, Barofsky has subpoena power and has launched about three dozen investigations since being named to the post in December 2008. In an audit released in July, Barofsky made clear that he was intent on demanding transparency from all quarters — including the U.S. Treasury. His next audit is due in October. During an interview with the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, Barofsky made some striking observations. Among them were:
1. He found hundreds of banks capable of tracking their use of the TARP money – despite claims by the U.S. Treasury that the task was impossible.
2. If the purpose of the TARP rescue was to increase lending, it has failed.
3. The U.S. financial system, now dependent on bigger and fewer banks, is shakier than ever.
WATCH the Huffington Post Investigative Fund’s interview:
Full Story: Neil Barofsky, TARP Inspector: Financial System May Now Be In A “Far More Dangerous Place” (VIDEO).
G-20 Protestor Kidnapped By Men in Military Garb – Video
OPS Note: out of date camouflage …no insignias, boots aren’t issued, no handcuffs, off on a minor road… local Militia? Blackwater? Special unit? Fake?
There must be some explanation, but will we ever hear it? Who was he and why was he snatched off the street?
~~~~~~
The “Group of 20″ is meeting today and tomorrow in Pittsburgh. People have been demonstrating to counter the G20, a group of the richest, most powerful people from the richest, most powerful countries who make decisions which impact all of us. The past few times they have met they decided to bail out big banks, including the biggest, baddest bank of them all, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which does nothing to help people. In addition, G20-style globalization policies have harmed the environment and threatened democracy everywhere.
Demonstrators went on the march through Pittsburgh without a permit, and police tactics effectively split up the group after about 45 minutes of marching. In the end only about 26 arrests were made.
Demonstrators are expected to march again tomorrow for a permitted and family-friendly rally and march, endorsed by many large organizations, which will start at Craft and Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh at 11:30 AM. Bring kids and pets
Full Story: YouTube – Arrest at G20 Demonstrations, September 24, 2009.
Fortress Pittsburgh
The Nation – Since midnight Wednesday, automobiles have been prevented from entering Pittsburgh’s downtown business district. The only vehicles one can find downtown are ominous-looking unmarked black sedans with DC plates, silver minivans with uniformed officers inside and marked police cars. Pedestrians and cyclists can enter downtown through three checkpoints, presided over by National Guard soldiers–usually lingering around dark green Humvees–and out-of-town police officers.
Concrete barriers line the sidewalks; and, surrounding the Convention Center, where the G-20 meetings are taking place, tall steel fencing has been erected behind which semi-trailers are lined front to back.
And then there are the police–lots of police: county sheriffs, local cops, state troopers, National Guard soldiers and men in dark suits who drive those ominous sedans. Police from Chicago guarded several checkpoints I visited.
Full Story: Fortress Pittsburgh.
More Monsanto men joining Obama administration
Beachy joining Obama administration
– St. Louis Business Journal: – President Barack Obama has appointed Dr. Roger Beachy, founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, to serve as the first director of a new federal agriculture agency.
Beachy will join the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency, on Oct. 5. The new agency will award competitive grants to fund research and technological innovations aimed at making agriculture more productive, environmentally sustainable and economically viable.
NIFA will replace the USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service and significantly expand its research grants program. CSREES awards between $160 million to $200 million a year, but Beachy said he and others are pushing to expand the grants program under NIFA to $700 million over the next three to four years. NIFA will have a budget of $1.3 billion and 300 employees.
Full Story: Beachy joining Obama administration – St. Louis Business Journal:.
National Lawyers Guild: Cops Run Wild in Pittsburgh
OPS: There is a long history of this in our country. Lets not forget that the official “Walker Report” on the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago concluded that it was the Police that rioted in Grant Park that night – not the demonstrators.
OpEdNews - Pittsburgh–National Lawyers Guild members witnessed first-hand yesterday the unwarranted display and use of force by police in residential neighborhoods, often far from any protest activity.
Police deployed chemical irritants, including CS gas, and long-range acoustic devices (LRAD) in residential neighborhoods on narrow streets where families and small children were exposed. Scores of riot police formed barricades at many intersections throughout neighborhoods miles away from the downtown area and the David Lawrence Convention Center. Outside the Courtyard Marriott in Shadyside, police deployed smoke bombs in the absence of protest activity, forcing bystanders and hotel residents to flee the area.
Later, while some protests were ending, riot-clad officers surrounded an area at the University of Pittsburgh, creating an ominous spectacle that some described as akin to Kent State. Guild legal observers witnessed police chasing and arresting many uninvolved students.
Among other questionable tactics, officers from dozens of law enforcement agencies lacked easily-identifiable badges, impeding citizens’ ability to register complaints.
Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: National Lawyers Guild: Cops Run Wild in Pittsburgh.
Time Magazine — Outrageous Distortions!
This is what Time Magazine pulled from the Huffington Post article about Ron and me.
‘The only thing that happens is a check mark in a box in a courthouse.’
MARY MCCURNIN, a Rancho Cordova, Calif., woman, on her decision to file for a divorce in order to reap financial benefits. By getting the divorce, McCurnin, who is happily married to husband Ron Bednar, becomes eligible to receive the Social Security payments owed to her deceased first husband
They will be hearing from me!!!!!!! Fuckery. God damn it. Nothing about our four illnesses. Nothing about our loses due to those illnesses. Just me wanting money.
For those of you who do not know, my husband and I had two major illnesses each that lead to our filing for bankruptcy which ruined our credit which decreased our chances of employment. So we decided that we would get divorced so I could receive social security widow’s benefits from my first husband.
Shit. I can hardly speak/write.
[Adding the CBS video from June 5 - *They* got the story right, talking about the illnesses. --egr]
Full Story: The Seminal » Time Magazine — Outrageous Distortions!.
New Developments in Honduras–Same Old Bad Media
FAIR - Ousted President Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras, though not to office. Unfortunately, press accounts still manage to mangle the story behind his ouster, relying on those who supported the coup to explain what happened. In today’s New York Times (9/22/09):
At the time of his removal, Mr. Zelaya was planning a nonbinding referendum that his opponents said would have been the first step toward allowing him to run for another term in office, which is forbidden under the Honduran constitution. Mr. Zelaya has denied any attempt to run for re-election.
An Associated Press report appearing in today’s USA Today (9/22/09) was much worse:
The legislature ousted Zelaya after he formed an alliance with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and tried to alter the nation’s constitution. Zelaya was arrested on orders of the Supreme Court on charges of treason for ignoring court orders against holding a referendum to extend his term. The Honduran Constitution forbids a president from trying to obtain another term in office.
This is inaccurate, not to mention strange (ousted for a Chavez “alliance”?). As economist Mark Weisbrot put it shortly after the coup (7/8/09), these pro-coup arguments makes no sense–and the media should say so. By the way, the example he cites is also from the New York Times….
Unfortunately much of the major media’s reporting has aided this effort by reporting such statements as “Critics feared he intended to extend his rule past January, when he would have been required to step down.”
Full Story: FAIR Blog » Blog Archive » New Developments in Honduras–Same Old Bad Media.
Country club etiquette trumps legislative results
- OregonLive.com – The recent headlines about President Obama working to crush primary campaigns against Democratic incumbents would be great fodder for a canned column looking at hypocrisy.
Yes, it would be easy to read about the president trying to clear the Empire State’s primary field for appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and then pen a screed wondering how that squares with Obama promising to avoid “be(ing) the kingmaker” in local elections.
With the White House citing genteel deference to incumbents as justification for its efforts to stop a Democratic primary against Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, it would be a cinch to write an essay noting that Obama might never have become a successful politician had he not first taken on incumbents in 1996 and 2000.
Watching Obama help newly appointed Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., attempt to thwart a primary challenge from former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, I might have a grand time simply railing on a president who never would have reached national prominence had he not run against machine-backed puppets in a Senate primary. Indeed, this Colorado example is a replica of that now-famous Illinois contest in 2004. Bennet, like one of Obama’s toughest opponents back then, is a millionaire who has never run for public office. And like 2004, that millionaire is being propped up by the establishment against an Obama — esque state legislator who has oodles of experience and grassroots support. The hypocrisy, of course, is that Obama is now backing the tycoon instead of his former self.
Full Story: Country club etiquette trumps legislative results | The Stump – - OregonLive.com.
The Truth About Death Panels
Political Affairs Magazine – The American Right-Wing’s long history of fear mongering has achieved new lows during the current debate on health care reform. By now most Americans have heard the phrase “death panel” as an all-purpose pejorative against the idea of a public health plan. On August 7th, the ubiquitous Sarah Palin introduced the term in a post on her Facebook page:
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his Bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of Productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
The phrase soon caught on and became a staple on Fox News and other mainstream media outlets. Recognizing its effectiveness as propaganda, Republicans like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley brought the idea of death panels closer to home when he railed against “a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on Grandma.” While Obama and other Democrats offered reasonable explanations of their plan’s provisions to offer “end of life planning counseling sessions with a health care practitioner,” the idea of bureaucratic death panels continues to resonate with the public, and with good reason.Perhaps people sense what a recent study by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CAN/NNOC) confirms.
Sarah Palin is right. Bureaucratic death panels really do exist.
But while Palin’s goal was to conjure fear of a federally funded Grim Reaper, the real threat comes from corporate bureaucrats making life and death decisions driven by the insurance industry’s bottom line.
Consider them For-Profit Death Panels.
Full Story: Political Affairs Magazine – The Truth About Death Panels.
The Biggest Government Bailout Is Yet To Come
- Slate- – | The Big Money - “If you’ve got me,” Lois Lane once asked Superman as he flew to her rescue, “Who’s got you?” We could point that same perplexed question at the U.S. government and its ranks of overwhelmed financial agencies, which are now in bigger danger than the nation’s banks ever were.
It’s no surprise that the $19 trillion stimulus spending spree would take a toll. While Wall Street is enjoying a giant, inexplicable bull-market rally on the back of seemingly infinite government support, the paint is chipping on the old house down in D.C. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are scaling back emergency lending programs like a fashionista returning expensive dresses before the credit-card bill comes due. The official gloss for the government’s stimulus scale-down is that good times are coming again and we don’t need to keep supporting banks, money-market funds, and private equity firms with expensive programs. Geithner soothed that we are “back from the brink,” and Bernanke declared that the “recession is over.” But the bigger reason the Obama administration is pulling the baby bottle away from corporate America is that the overextended federal government is now starting the slow and ugly business of bailing itself out.
You can already see the signs of bailout strain on federal agencies. The Federal Housing Administration, which insures lenders writing new mortgages, is running low on cash and is below its congressionally mandated reserves. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is funded by bank fees and has been dolloping out money to failing banks, has also dipped below its legal reserves. The FDIC may actually need those banks to turn around and save it, and could even tap a Treasury bailout despite a year of protestations about its financial health. Geithner said he would slash the government’s plan to buy toxic assets from banks by two-thirds, to a mere $30 billion from $100 billion. Meanwhile, Geithner is preparing to beg Congress for an increase on the debt ceiling—a limit on federal borrowing already set at $12 trillion—which we could hit as early as mid-October because we’re spending so much on stimulus plans. That’s quite a sketchy bill of health for a system that’s allegedly “back from the brink.”
Full Story: The Biggest Government Bailout Is Yet To Come | The Big Money.
Rep. Grayson Calls For ‘Corporate Death Penalty On Contractors’ Who Rip Off Government
When the House of Representatives went after federal funding for the community-organizing group ACORN last week, the bill as written also affected “any organization” that had been involved in a wide range of fraudulent activity and other bad behavior.
On Friday, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) inserted into the “legislative history” language spelling out that including all fraudulent organizations was, in fact, the intent of the Congress.
Meanwhile, he has been asking citizens to suggest specific companies which would be targeted by the anti-fraud language and provide evidence for the claim. The list has grown several pages long. The names of those organizations will be submitted into the congressional record next week.
Full Story: Rep. Grayson Calls For ‘Corporate Death Penalty On Contractors’ Who Rip Off Government.
EPA gets OK to move Treece, Kansas residents from polluted town
| McClatchy - Residents of Treece moved a step closer to being moved out of their lead-polluted town Thursday when the U.S. Senate approved an amendment to allow the Environmental Protection Agency to buy out and shut down the community.
The amendment was attached to the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act by Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, both R-Kan., and James Inhofe, R-Okla.
The bill passed the Senate on Thursday evening.
The Treece amendment “represents one of the rare instances of true bipartisan support,” Roberts said.
Full Story: EPA gets OK to move Treece, Kansas residents from polluted town | McClatchy.
Senator Sanders Unfiltered: US Congress Bought & Paid For?
YouTube – Senator Sanders Unfiltered: US Congress Bought & Paid For?.
For Democrats, the Cracks in a United Front on Health Care
- NYTimes.com – Over four days and three late nights of meetings, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have largely stood up to Republicans’ attacks on a proposal to overhaul the health care system.
But behind the scenes and away from the C-Span cameras, their united front has given way to intraparty tensions, not just in the committee but in Congress generally.
Those cracks will become more evident next week when the Finance Committee tries to finish its work and liberals press to change a bill that is too conservative for their liking. In the main event, they will propose a public option to compete against private insurers in new exchanges where uninsured individuals and small businesses would be able to shop for coverage.
The liberals do not expect to win in the moderate-to-conservative-leaning committee. But Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said, “That’s just the first battle of a war, and the least friendly battlefield.”
Full Story: Congressional Memo – For Democrats, the Cracks in a United Front on Health Care – NYTimes.com.
World consumption plunges planet into ‘ecological debt’, says leading thinktank
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The Guardian - Consumption exceeds Earth’s annual ‘biocapacity’ today amid warnings of dependence on overseas food and energy Rich consumers a re still voraciously gobbling up the world’s resources, despite the worst recession in a generation, with their appetite pushing the planet into “ecological debt” from today , according to a report by think-tank the new economics foundation.
This “ecological debt day” marks the point in the year when consumption around the world exceeds the Earth’s annual “biocapacity” — so for the remainder of the year, we will be eating into environmental resources that will not be replaced, according to nef’s calculations.
Andrew Simms, nef’s director, said the deep recession had delayed this “ecological debt day” by only 24 hours compared with last year, when it fell on 24 September. He warned that as G20 leaders gather in Pittsburgh to discuss global finance, there is a risk that the world economy will be kick-started again, without learning the lessons of the “consumption explosion”.
Full Story: World consumption plunges planet into ‘ecological debt’, says leading thinktank | Environment | The Guardian.
Senators to Square off on Public Insurance Plan
| CommonDreams.org— Advocates for a public insurance plan — the idea that has generated the most passion in the high-decibel health care debate — are pressing for a crucial test vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Chuck Schumer of New York said Thursday they want a full debate on whether the government should create a health plan to compete with private insurers and sign up middle-class workers and their families. Up to now, the government has covered the elderly and the poor.
Rockefeller and Schumer had hoped their moment would come Friday, but with the committee moving slowly through hundreds of amendments to the sweeping legislation, the public plan debate was pushed off until next week.
The public option continues to enjoy broad support in opinion polls. But Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., pointedly omitted it from the far-reaching proposal he put before the panel this week, saying he doesn’t think it can pass the Senate.
Full Story: Senators to Square off on Public Insurance Plan | CommonDreams.org.
Kyl Asserts ‘I Don’t Need Maternity Care’ In My Health Policy; Stabenow Shoots Back ‘Your Mom Probably Did’
Think Progress » Today, the Senate Finance Committee debated Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendment to prohibit the federal government from “defining the health care benefits offered through private insurance.” Kyl tried to make his case by citing the unnecessary expense of maternity care. He was quickly smacked down by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI):
KYL: I don’t need maternity care, and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.
STABENOW: If I could just interject once with my colleague — I think your mom probably did. (LAUGHTER)
KYL: Over 60 years ago my mom did. (LAUGHTER) You notice I wasn’t too specific with regard to that.
Watch it:
Inhofe on why global warming isn’t real: ‘God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles.’
Think Progress » - On C-Span’s Washington Journal this week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the godfather of global warming deniers, said that he will travel to the climate change summit in Copenhagen this fall to present “another view.” “I think somebody has to be there — a one-man truth squad,” he said. Throughout the program, Inhofe went through his tattered global warming denier claims: that climate change is a “hoax,” that CO2 is not a pollutant, and — latching on to the latest false right-wing talking point — that clean energy legislation will cost American families $1,700 a year. At the end of the interview, Inhofe explained what guides his views:
CALLER: Yes, I agree with the Senator on what he says about the climate change. I believe that the world is just changing like it usually does. [...]
INHOFE: I think he’s right. I think what he’s saying is God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles. … I really believe that a lot of people are in denial who want to hang their hat on the fact, that they believe is a fact, that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, are causing global warming. The science really isn’t there.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Inhofe on why global warming isn’t real: ‘God’s still up there. We’re going through these cycles.’.
Insurer Denies Woman’s Claim: She Should Have Known That Her Bleeding Breast Was Not An ‘Emergency’
Think Progress » - One of the worst abuses of private insurance companies is the practice of using spurious reasons to deny claims. In April, Rosalinda Miran-Ramirez awoke and found her shirt soaked in blood. Realizing that her “her left breast [was] bleeding from the nipple,” she rushed to the emergency room.
Today, CBS-5 reports that this San Francisco Department of Public Health employee has had her claim denied because her insurance company, Blue Shield of California, didn’t consider her situation to be an “emergency.” Even though her doctor told her it was likely a tumor, Blue Shield said that Miran-Ramirez should have known it wasn’t:
But Miran-Ramirez said the real shock came when her insurance company, Blue Shield of California HMO, which had initially approved the claim for the emergency room visit, reversed course and sent her a new bill three months later requiring her to pay the total charges for that visit: $2,791.00.
Why? Documents from Blue Shield indicate the company had reviewed the case and determined Miran-Ramirez “reasonably should have known that an emergency did not exist.”
“I am like how can they say that it was not an emergency? Like, my breast was bleeding! I am not a clinical person but if your breast is bleeding, for me that’s an emergency,” she said. [...]
So she appealed. And she was denied again. This time Blue Shield told her she hadn’t been in “any acute distress.”
Watch CBS-5’s report:
Full Story: Think Progress » Insurer Denies Woman’s Claim: She Should Have Known That Her Bleeding Breast Was Not An ‘Emergency’.
New tests find unsafe levels of toxic PCBs in 2 local rivers
PilotOnline.com – State investigators are using a new, more precise method for studying toxic PCBs this year in the Elizabeth and James rivers. And so far, the findings are not pretty.
In water samples, the new tests reveal excessively high levels of PCBs – polychlorinated biphenyls, a group of chemicals suspected of causing cancer in humans and animals – throughout much of the Elizabeth and portions of the James, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said Thursday.
Investigators earlier this year also found abnormally high levels of PCBs in parts of the Roanoke River in the western part of the state, but not as high as here.
The latest results, officials say, offer a clearer picture of how PCBs are contaminating rivers – mostly by washing off lands and waste sites, often during rain storms, and creating toxic conditions that violate state water standards.
Full Story: New tests find unsafe levels of toxic PCBs in 2 local rivers | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com.
Man sues BofA for 1,784 billion, trillion dollars
(Reuters) – Dalton Chiscolm is unhappy about Bank of America’s customer service — really, really unhappy.
Chiscolm in August sued the largest U.S. bank and its board, demanding that “1,784 billion, trillion dollars” be deposited into his account the next day. He also demanded an additional $200,164,000, court papers show.
Attempts to reach Chiscolm were unsuccessful. A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment.
“Incomprehensible,” U.S. District Judge Denny Chin said in a brief order released Thursday in Manhattan federal court.
Full Story: Man sues BofA for 1,784 billion, trillion dollars | U.S. | Reuters.
Naomi Klein Interviews Michael Moore
America’s Teacher
Naomi Klein
On September 17, in the midst of the publicity blitz for his cinematic takedown of the capitalist order, Moore talked with Nation columnist Naomi Klein by phone about the film, the roots of our economic crisis and the promise and peril of the present political moment. To listen to a podcast of the full conversation, click here. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation.- -The Editors
Naomi Klein: So, the film is wonderful. Congratulations. It is, as many people have already heard, an unapologetic call for a revolt against capitalist madness. But the week it premiered, a very different kind of revolt was in the news: the so-called tea parties, seemingly a passionate defense of capitalism and against social programs.
Meanwhile, we are not seeing too many signs of the hordes storming Wall Street. Personally, I’m hoping that your film is going to be the wake-up call and the catalyst for all of that changing. But I’m just wondering how you’re coping with this odd turn of events, these revolts for capitalism led by Glenn Beck.
Full Story: America’s Teacher.
Blackwater Offers Training to ‘Faith Based Organizations’
By Jeremy Scahill
In its ever-evolving re-branding campaign, Blackwater has created a new alter-ego for part of the company’s business. Meet the “Personal Security Awareness” program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince’s Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados. On its website, which was registered on February 20, 2009 and went live recently, the “program” is described as “a multi-phase course which is designed to assist Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and Commercial Businesses by providing individual personal awareness and driver training for their personnel when deployed to unfamiliar environments.” It adds: “Greystone recognizes the importance of “preparation by doing” and looks forward to you joining us for this exciting training!”
Blackwater, of course, works for such organizations as the International Republican Institute, but “Faith Based Organizations?” Are they serious? I’m sure there are just scores of Islamic aid groups just lining up to take courses from Blackwater, Xe, US Training Center, Greystone, Personal Security Awareness. Moreover, any legitimate “faith based organization” that wants harmony with other faiths would be insane to work with this company. One of the courses offered is described as teaching “persons traveling to foreign environments how to remain safe during their travels in a vehicle.” This truly is surreal. What would seem more appropriate would be a company offering courses on how to “remain safe” in a vehicle when going anywhere near Blackwater forces. Remember how those unarmed Iraqi civilians were blown up in their car by Blackwater operatives at Nisour Square? Or the Afghan civilians allegedly killed in their car by Blackwater operatives in Afghanistan in May?
Also, lets remember that Blackwater—headed by a man described in a sworn statement by a former employee as “view[ing] himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe”— is itself a twisted faith-based organization—and a very violent one at that.
Full Story: RebelReports – Blackwater Offers Training to ‘Faith Based Organizations’.
Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power
by G. William Domhoff - This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.
Some of the information might be a surprise to many people. The most amazing numbers on income inequality come last, showing the change in the ratio of the average CEO’s paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years.
First, though, some definitions. Generally speaking, wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts. However, for purposes of studying the wealth distribution, economists define wealth in terms of marketable assets, such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, leaving aside consumer durables like cars and household items because they are not as readily converted into cash and are more valuable to their owners for use purposes than they are for resale (see Wolff, 2004, p. 4, for a full discussion of these issues). Once the value of all marketable assets is determined, then all debts, such as home mortgages and credit card debts, are subtracted, which yields a person’s net worth. In addition, economists use the concept of financial wealth, which is defined as net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing. As Wolff (2004, p. 5) explains, “Financial wealth is a more ‘liquid’ concept than marketable wealth, since one’s home is difficult to convert into cash in the short term. It thus reflects the resources that may be immediately available for consumption or various forms of investments.”
We also need to distinguish wealth from income. Income is what people earn from wages, dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own. In theory, those who own a great deal of wealth may or may not have high incomes, depending on the returns they receive from their wealth, but in reality those at the very top of the wealth distribution usually have the most income.
Full Story: Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power.
Blue Dog Opposition To Public Option Fades In Whip Count
Blocking a public health insurance option is a relatively low priority for conservative Blue Dog Democrats, according to an ongoing survey of its members. The fading House opposition could clear the way for the public option to move through the chamber.
The Blue Dogs have been surveying their membership over the last several days; coalition co-chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) has been collecting the responses. She listed the four top priorities that have emerged: Keeping the cost under $900 billion, not moving at a faster pace than the Senate, getting a 20-year cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office and addressing regional disparities in Medicare reimbursement rates.
So, the Huffington Post asked, the public option is not a top priority?
“Right, the group is somewhat split,” she said.
Full Story: Blue Dog Opposition To Public Option Fades In Whip Count.
G20 Protesters Ordered To Stop March By Pittsburgh Police
Police are throwing canisters spewing smoke after ordering several hundred protesters to stop their march in opposition of the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.
The march does not have a city permit and police have declared it an unlawful assembly. They played an announcement over a loudspeaker telling people to leave or face arrest or “other police action.”
Several hundred protesters, many advocating against capitalism, had been trying to march toward the site of the summit.
The group broke into smaller groups after being confronted by police. One group was seen pushing a trash bin down a street.
Full Story: G20 Protesters Ordered To Stop March By Pittsburgh Police.
Banks fight to kill proposed consumer protection agency
| McClatchy— If you doubt that U.S. banks long to return to the days of impotent regulation, you need only look at one of the financial sector’s top legislative priorities: killing a proposed new agency that would be dedicated solely to protecting consumers’ financial interests.
The Obama administration is asking Congress to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to regulate consumer financial products ranging from credit cards to mortgages, and to simplify disclosure about them all.
Though virtually every cause of the nation’s recent financial crisis was rooted in weak consumer protection, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is leading the fight against the proposed agency on grounds that it would make credit less available and more costly. The American Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the Financial Services Roundtable also oppose the measure.
Full Story: Banks fight to kill proposed consumer protection agency | McClatchy.
Bolton: Obama should have condemned Palestinian rocket attacks — but he did.
Think Progress » – In his speech to the United Nations yesterday, President Obama said that “more progress is needed” in working towards “a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world.” As part of his message, Obama said “we continue to call on Palestinians to end incitement against Israel.” On Fox News today, former UN ambassador John Bolton mocked Obama’s “incitement” line, saying “it’s not incitement the Israelis are worried about, it’s rocket attacks.” Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Bolton: Obama should have condemned Palestinian rocket attacks — but he did..
After being chastized by Cantor’s ‘PR flack,’ Ed Schultz challenges the congressman to a one-hour debate.
Think Progress » At a forum this past Monday, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) fielded questions from his constituents about health care reform. As ThinkProgress first reported, Cantor told a woman whose relative was diagnosed with cancer and could not get care to get “an existing government program” or turn to charity. Today, radio and television host Ed Schultz told listeners that after featuring video of the incident on his show, he received an e-mail from a “PR flack” in Cantor’s office chiding him for going after the congressman. In response, Schultz asked his listeners today to e-mail Cantor’s office and ask him to come on his show, offering him the whole hour to debate him on health care:
SCHULTZ: Call Cantor’s office or e-mail him and ask him if he’ll go head-to-head with me for a full hour on the Ed show. A full hour. I’ll give him a full hour! To explain what the Republican plan is or is she just left to die? [...]
Come on, Cantor. Don’t hide behind your press secretary. Let’s get it on.
Listen here:
Scandal exposer calls on Congress to defund Blackwater
The Raw Story » The House and Senate voted to end funding for ACORN in the wake of a video sting. Now some are asking why the same treatment isn’t being given to corrupt defense contractors.
Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim noted that attempts to defund ACORN were worded so broadly that it could do the same for defense contractors charged with fraud.
“The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day during the war in Iraq,” Rep. Alan Grayson told Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. Halliburton is alleged to have misused millions of dollars in over-charges for food and services in Iraq.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Scandal exposer calls on Congress to defund Blackwater.
Fox News altered ‘Obama praise’ story to exclude ‘death threats’
The Raw Story »In a story about a group of elementary school kids who sang the praises of President Barack Obama for a Black History Month event, Fox News appears to have removed key information regarding the fallout triggered by intense right-wing media coverage.
The story, titled “Elementary School Students Taught to Sing Praises of President Obama” (live link | screenshot), opens with these three paragraphs:
The superintendent of a New Jersey school where students were videotaped being taught to sing the praises of President Obama issued a statement Thursday saying the taping was unauthorized, but failed to address whether the the lesson — taught durnig [sic] Black History Month — was approved.
A YouTube video shows nearly 20 young children being led in a song overflowing with campaign slogans and praise for “Barack Hussein Obama,” repeatedly chanting the president’s name and celebrating his accomplishments, including his “great plans” to “make this country’s economy No. 1 again.”
The video has set off families in Burlington, N.J., who say that politics shouldn’t be forced on young students.
The credited author on that URL is “FoxNews.com,” although a tag under the text reads, “FOX News’ Michael Sorrentino contributed to this report.”
But, that’s not how it read when we first saw it.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Fox News altered ‘Obama praise’ story to exclude ‘death threats’.
Wolf Blitzer gets ’schooled’ in journalism by Michael Moore
| Raw Story - Michael Moore appeared on CNN Thursday evening with Wolf Blitzer to discuss his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. This is Moore’s first interview with Blitzer since his film Sicko was released, and as Moore puts it, they had a ‘YouTube moment.’ Moore slammed Blitzer and CNN for mistatements about universal health care and his film Sicko during that interview in 2007 when Blitzer attempted to debunk facts presented in the film with ‘facts’ from CNN’s medical expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Moore debunked Gupta’s facts in detail on his own web site, and later went head to head with the doctor on the Larry King Show.
Well, they had another YouTube moment last night.
Blitzer begins by pointing out that there are people who don’t like Michael Moore.
“Let’s talk about…most people who are going to see this movie who don’t like you are going to say, ‘you know what, Michael Moore has done pretty well in this free-market, capitalist system—you’ve become a fairly rich guy yourself.’ ” states Blitzer.
Full Story: Wolf Blitzer gets ’schooled’ in journalism by Michael Moore | Raw Story.
Global warming is speeding up, scientists reveal
Earth’s temperature is likely to jump nearly 6 degrees between now and the end of the century even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update.
Scientists looked at emission plans from 192 nations and calculated what would happen to global warming. The projections take into account 80 percent pollution cuts from the U.S. and Europe by 2050, which are not sure things.
The U.S. figure is based on a bill that passed the House of Representatives but is running into resistance in the Senate, where debate has been delayed by health care reform efforts.
Carbon dioxide, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, is the main cause of global warming, trapping the sun’s energy in the atmosphere. The world’s average temperature has already risen 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius) since the 19th century.
Full Story: Global warming is speeding up, scientists reveal | Raw Story.
AT&T-iPhone calling woes on redial
- CNET News – When I sat down to write an article about the unreliable cell reception my iPhone gets on Monday, I knew I wasn’t alone in my frustration. Friends and acquaintances often joke that the iPhone is a cool computer but a lousy phone.
But judging from the response I received from the “AT&T takes the phone out of iPhone” story published on Tuesday, I definitely struck a nerve with a lot of iPhone users, not just in San Francisco but around the country. The overwhelming majority of them reported similar problems of frequent and consistent dropped calls and garbled conversations, and even delays with voice messages and voice mail being inaccessible.
Within one work day the article generated more than 300 comments and 150 e-mails, more feedback volume than any story I’ve written before. I spent much of the day reading them and doing some additional reporting and I’ve come to some basic understandings that I’d like to share:
This is not a San Francisco-only problem
I neglected to mention in the original story that I never, repeat never get reliable reception on my iPhone in either of my parents’ homes in Phoenix. Fortunately the weather is usually pleasant and I can easily step outside to talk.
Full Story: AT&T-iPhone calling woes on redial | InSecurity Complex – CNET News.
The Crime Scene They Call “Health Care”
The Crime Scene They Call “Health Care”
Why Your Doctor May Have PTSD
By PAUL SIMPSON, M.D.
I keep hearing that our healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed. I disagree. We don’t have a broken healthcare system because the arrangement we have for healthcare in this country does not satisfy the definition of the word “system.” A system is, according to the dictionary, “a set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole.” Although healthcare entities in this country may interact and are in some ways interdependent, they can in no way be credited with functioning as an integrated whole.
I’m sure you’ve seen news clips of angry people shouting at their Senators and representatives and even carrying guns to President Obama’s town hall meetings on health care reform. I’ve read that these people aren’t really angry over health care, but are, instead, mad about the economic collapse, the financial bailouts, or the fact that a black man has become President. But I believe they have every right to be angry about the worsening national disgrace that masquerades as our healthcare system.
Medicine in America used to be a calling. It has been transformed into a $2.3 trillion per year industry. The individuals and institutions that provide medical care have now become little more than profit centers for this industry. Money has become more important than people’s lives. Profit-seeking has risen to the level of predation. With profit as the main driver of activity in medicine, patients have become consumers (witness the 1990s effort from within the industry to get doctors and nurses to call those they care for “clients” instead of “patients). These customers have come to view health care as a commodity they are purchasing. They are paying top dollar for this commodity, and as good consumers, they expect to get top value for the price they pay. They are tremendously disappointed and angry about the shoddy product they have purchased. Buyer’s remorse has set in.
Full Story: Paul Simpson, M.D.: Why Your Doctor May Have PTSD.
Obama’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator Nominee a Pesticide Pusher
The industrial agriculture complex has been doing back flips for the last few weeks, first because of the ascendance of Blanche Lincoln (ConservaDem-AR) to the high throne of the Senate Agriculture Committee, where she promises to pinch climate legislation (or at the very least shove it aside until next year) and push a southern Big Ag agenda in the Senate for rice and cotton interests. Now, the White House has announced Islam A. Siddiqui, current Vice President for Science and Regulatory Affairs at CropLife America (you will remember the organization as the one that sent the First Lady a letter admonishing her for not using pesticides on the White House garden) as nominee for Chief Agricultural Negotiator, who works through the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to promote our crops and ag products abroad.
Why does it matter if the Vice President from the trade association representing pesticides and other agricultural chemicals takes over the Office of Agricultural Affairs at the USTR? Well, because that office, according to the USTR website “has overall responsibility for negotiations and policy coordination regarding agriculture.” That means he would oversee the office dedicated to:
Full Story: Civil Eats » Blog Archive » Obama’s Chief Agricultural Negotiator Nominee a Pesticide Pusher.
Senate Poised to Give Blank Check to Energy Projects
| Union of Concerned Scientists
This fall the Senate is expected take up a climate and energy bill that would establish a new agency within the Department of Energy to administer federal loan guarantees for private “clean” energy projects. The bill, the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 (S.1462), was passed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June.
The proposed new agency, the Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA), would offer a range of financing options, including direct loans, letters of credit, loan guarantees and insurance for energy production, transmission and storage projects that emphasize so-called “breakthrough” technologies to reduce global warming emissions and energy consumption. Renewable energy, advanced nuclear, and coal carbon capture and storage projects all would qualify for assistance.
On the face of it, a federal “clean energy bank” sounds like a good idea. In fact, the House included a provision for CEDA in the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill it passed in June. But experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) took a close look at the Senate’s proposal and found a number of serious pitfalls that the House’s version avoided. For example, the Senate’s proposal would permit potentially unlimited loan guarantees to a wide range of costly energy technologies without the benefit of congressional oversight through the appropriations process. As drafted, it also would not restrict the amount of financial support that could go to the most costly, most risky, and least sustainable energy technologies. Finally, it would do nothing to prioritize the most cost-effective, environmentally sound technologies to address global warming. These deficiencies would put U.S. taxpayers at risk for loan defaults.
Full Story: Senate Poised to Give Blank Check to Energy Projects | Union of Concerned Scientists.
For Mexico and Canada, the ‘War on Terror’ is Over
Editor’s Note: This week marks the eighth anniversary of the United States declaring a global “war on terror.” For Mexico and Canada, that war is over writes NAM contributor Louis Nevaer. His new book, “Managing Hispanic and Latino Employees,” will be published in December 2009.
MEXICO CITY– On the eighth anniversary of the United States declaring a global “war on terror” this September, America’s continental neighbors – Mexico and Canada – have had enough.
When President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, the nation – and much of the world – was still in disbelief that Islamic terrorists had successfully carried out the greatest attack on U.S. soil since Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor.
That night Bush rallied the nation to support a “war on terror” that was “global” in nature, and which would lead to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We will direct every resource at our command — every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence and every necessary weapon of war — to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network,” Bush declared.
Full Story: For Mexico and Canada, the ‘War on Terror’ is Over – NAM.
The Day Single Payer Was Removed Indelicately From the Table (Video) and Landes’ “Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing” Warning
- The Seminal » – FLD - Senator Baucus during his May 8, 2009 Senate Hearing on Health Care Reform calls for “More Police” as single payer advocates are escorted out of the room, yet soon after his crony-CEOs of the health care industry get the mike and plenty of air time. Please watch:
The health care reform discussions have never honored the true meaning of “round table” in considering the sanest, most humane and affordable, health care reform proposals. The Single Payer Medicare-for-All Plan is a structure with boundaries from the get-go. This structure is clear and simple and, again, a structure, so it can’t by eroded by corporate-political cronyism and semantic gymnastics (i.e., what happens to words such as “robust” or even “the public plan” itself, “the” … as if there is or was ever a stable version).
Matt Taibbi describes the May 8th hearing for us in his widespread article Sick and Wrong:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong
“… It was Baucus’ own committee that held the first round-table discussions on reform. In three days of hearings last May, he invited no fewer than 41 people to speak. The list featured all the usual industry hacks, including big insurers like America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Blue Cross and Aetna. It’s worth noting that several of the organizations invited — including AHIP and Amgen — employ several former Baucus staffers as lobbyists, including two of his ex-chiefs of staff.
Classified McChrystal Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan
OPS: 500,000 more troops would simply mark “the end of the beginning”
Congress Should Hold Hearings on Alternatives to Major Escalation
Embedded in General Stanley McChrystal’s classified assessment of the war in Afghanistan is his conclusion that a successful counterinsurgency strategy will require 500,000 troops over five years.
This bombshell was dropped by NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday:
The numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops – boots on the ground – and five years to do the job. No one expects that the Afghan Army could step up to that. Are we gonna put even half that of U.S. troops there, and NATO forces? No way. [Morning Joe, September 23, 2009]
Full Story: Tom Andrews: Classified McChrystal Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan.
The Mystique of ‘Free-Market Guy’ Obama
by Jeff Cohen, | CommonDreams.org
No matter what the facts are, some liberal activists and leaders persist in seeing President Obama as a principled progressive reformer who lives and breathes the campaign rhetoric about “change you can believe in.”
When he compromises, it’s not Obama’s fault – it’s the opposition. Retreat is never a sell-out but a shrewd tactic, part of some secret long-range strategy for triumphant reform.
He’s been in the White House eight months. It’s time for activists take a harder look at Obama. And a more assertive posture toward him.
Because if Obama believes it’s okay to pass healthcare “reform” that subsidizes insurance firms without a robust public option and he dispatches still more troops to Afghanistan, it could demobilize progressive activists while emboldening the Teabag & Beck crowd to bring the GOP back from the dead in low-turnout congressional elections next year. That would be a rerun of the 1994 rightwing triumph brought on by President Clinton’s weakness (e.g. healthcare reform) and corporatism (e.g. the business-friendly NAFTA).
Full Story: The Mystique of ‘Free-Market Guy’ Obama | CommonDreams.org.
Outfoxing the 9/11 Coverup
– Salem-News.Com - When 9/11 Commission Chief Counsel, John Farmer, released his book, The Ground Truth, debunking his own 9/11 commission report and was supported by Chairman Thomas Kean and commission member Senator Bob Kerrey with no dissent, the cover story of 9/11 died.
This leaves us with these inescapable facts:
* We no longer have an official answer to questions about 9/11.
* Perjured testimony and falsified information given to the original commission is a criminal act and demands a Grand Jury investigation and Special Prosecutor.
* Hundreds of respected leaders of the military, law enforcement, intelligence and scientific communities question the credibility of an investigation now proven beyond a doubt a conspiracy in itself.
* The institutions of government, including all 3 branches, Executive, Judicial and Legislative have combined in an unexplainable way in their failure to respond to circumstances that legally require action.
* The press has continued a pattern of distortion of facts, suppression of news and has engaged in a systematic campaign of deception.
Years have passed and soon 10,000 Americans will have died. Taking into account the epidemic of veterans suicides, we may have already passed that figure now. The cascade of events, financial collapse, government spying, oil price fixing, massive military corruption and a dozen more issues as serious have been able to move beyond our ability of everyday citizens to influence.
In fact, the most corrupt and debased groups involved in the 9/11 coverup are being actively recruited by the press as a patriotic resistance.
Full Story: Outfoxing the 9/11 Coverup – Salem-News.Com.
Olmert goes on trial for corruption Friday
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert goes on trial in Jerusalem on Friday, battling the corruption allegations that forced him to resign last year .
He is charged with taking cash payments from a U.S. businessman, advancing the interests of clients of a former law partner and double-billing Israeli charities for overseas travel expenses during fund-raising trips.
The 64-year-old politician, a former mayor of Jerusalem who underwent treatment a few months ago for prostate cancer, denies any wrongdoing.
Full Story: Olmert goes on trial for corruption Friday | International | Reuters.
Interim Kennedy Replacement Has Deep Corporate Connections
Board member for insurance corporation, lobbyist for pharma, founder of the hideous buy-partisan “Commission on Presidential Debates” to replace the old non-partisan debate format…just one more reason for the for-profiteers to celebrate.
— Sunlight Foundation – Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is set to name former Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk, 71, the interim senator to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Kirk, a close Kennedy confidante, was the choice of the late Sen. Kennedy’s close family.
Kirk would come into office at an important moment as the Senate prepares to vote on vast legislation to reform health care and regulate the financial sector. Kirk’s current and previous employment may not make him look like the best choice for this moment. Kirk is the CEO and Chairman of Kirk & Associates, a business consulting company, and sits on the board of both an insurance company, The Hartford Financial Group, and a timber and real estate company, Rayonier, Inc. Kirk also previously worked as a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company, Aventis.
The Hartford Financial Group (known as The Hartford) stands out particularly among all of the Kirk’s connections as the firm’s clout fell dramatically after the September 2008 financial collapse. In November 2008, the firm received $3.4 billion in TARP aid from the Treasury Department. The firm has been downgraded by analysts multiple times this year.
Full Story: Interim Kennedy Replacement Has Deep Corporate Connections — Sunlight Foundation Blog.
Drug Store Chain Releases Some Details About Its Transaction With Rep. Mike Ross
On The Hill: – The drug chain that bought a pharmacy from Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., in 2007 has released a two-page summary (PDF) of the transaction, revealing for the first time the exact amount that Ross and his wife, Holly, received — $1,254,420.10.
Previously, public documents had only provided a range: $1 million to $1.67 million.
Ross asked USA Drug to release the information in response to a story published Tuesday by ProPublica and Politico that raised questions about the real estate portion of the sale. Ross declined to be interviewed for that story.
“This should certainly clear up any misunderstanding the press may have about our transaction,” Joe Courtright, president and CEO of USA Drug, wrote in the two-page summary of the business arrangement, which was published on a business Web site.
Full Story: On The Hill: Drug Store Chain Releases Some Details About Its Transaction With Rep. Mike Ross.
Revealed: the hidden army in UK prisons
More veterans in justice system than soldiers serving in Afghanistan – study
| The Guardian - The number of former servicemen in prison or on probation or parole is now more than double the total British deployment in Afghanistan, according to a new survey. An estimated 20,000 veterans are in the criminal justice system, with 8,500 behind bars, almost one in 10 of the prison population.
The proportion of those in prison who are veterans has risen by more than 30% in the last five years.
The study by the probation officers’ union Napo uncovers the hidden cost of recent conflicts. The snapshot survey of 90 probation case histories of convicted veterans shows a majority with chronic alcohol or drug problems, and nearly half suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression as a result of their wartime experiences on active service.
Full Story: Revealed: the hidden army in UK prisons | UK news | The Guardian.
Ahmadinejad UN Speech VIDEO: France Leads Walkout Of Delegations
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a fiery speech at the UN today, prompting France to lead a walkout of several delegations:
Delegations from Argentina, Australia, Britain, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand and the United States left the room as Ahmadinejad began to rail against Israel, a European source said.
Full Story: Ahmadinejad UN Speech VIDEO: France Leads Walkout Of Delegations.
It’s Easy Being Green
Paul Krugman, – NYTimes.com
So, have you enjoyed the debate over health care reform? Have you been impressed by the civility of the discussion and the intellectual honesty of reform opponents?
If so, you’ll love the next big debate: the fight over climate change.
The House has already passed a fairly strong cap-and-trade climate bill, the Waxman-Markey act, which if it becomes law would eventually lead to sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But on climate change, as on health care, the sticking point will be the Senate. And the usual suspects are doing their best to prevent action.
Some of them still claim that there’s no such thing as global warming, or at least that the evidence isn’t yet conclusive. But that argument is wearing thin — as thin as the Arctic pack ice, which has now diminished to the point that shipping companies are opening up new routes through the formerly impassable seas north of Siberia.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – It’s Easy Being Green – NYTimes.com.
US, UK and France tell Iran to open nuke site
President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain demanded Friday that Iran fully disclose its nuclear ambitions “or be held accountable” to an impatient world community. They threatened new sanctions after the disclosure of a secret Iranian nuclear facility.
“Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follows,” Obama said in the opening moments of the G-20 economic summit.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Iran has until December to comply or face sanctions. “This is for peace and stability,” the French leader said. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accused Iran of “serial deception.”
Full Story: US, UK and France tell Iran to open nuke site – Yahoo! News.
Laser satellite records ice loss
BBC NEWS – Greenland and parts of Antarctica are losing large volumes of ice to the oceans as their glaciers get thinner, a Nasa satellite has revealed.
Many glaciers have increased their flow rates in recent years, and the Icesat mission now allows scientists to measure their thickness in detail.
A UK team studying the data told the journal Nature that the findings had implications for future sea-level rise.
A full melt of the Greenland ice would push sea level up by about 7m (20ft).
Full Story: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Laser satellite records ice loss.
The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11,
From Mark Crispin Miller:
Hang onto your hats:
John Farmer, Dean of the Law School at Rutgers University and former Attorney General of New Jersey, was legal counsel to the 9/11 Commission, and in charge of drafting its report.
And now, having read through lots of further evidence, he’s come to the conclusion that the official version of the story is almost entirely untrue, based on false testimony by the WhiteHouse, CIA, FBI and NORAD.
His new book, The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11, makes this case with loads of documentary evidence–and his colleagues on the commission are on board, as the article below makes clear.
So are John Farmer and those other members of that very commission all “conspiracy theorists”?
“At some level of government,” says Dean Farmer, “at some point in time, a decision was made not to tell the truth about the national response to the attacks on the morning of 9/11. We owe the truth to the families of the victims of 9/11. We owe it to the American public as well, because only by understanding what has gone wrong in the past can we assure our nation’s safety in the future.”
Here’s the press release re: Farmer’s book from Rutgers University:
BuzzFlash Review: The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11 (Hardcover).
A Cure For Cancer? Eating A Plant-Based Diet
I have been working closely recently with a few extraordinary nutritional researchers, and I find that the information they have compiled is quite eye opening. Interestingly, what these highly esteemed doctors are saying is just beginning to be understood and accepted, perhaps because what they are saying does not conveniently fit in with or support the multi-billion dollar food industries that profit from our “not knowing”. One thing is for sure: we are getting sicker and more obese than our health care system can handle, and the conventional methods of dealing with disease often have harmful side effects and are ineffective for some patients.
As it is now, one out of every two of us will get cancer or heart disease and die from it – an ugly and painful death as anyone who has witnessed it can attest. And starting in the year 2000, one out of every three children who are born after that year will develop diabetes–a disease that for most sufferers (those with Type 2 diabetes) is largely preventable with lifestyle changes. This is a rapidly emerging crisis, the seriousness of which I’m not sure we have yet recognized. The good news is, the means to prevent and heal disease seems to be right in front of us; it’s in our food. Quite frankly, our food choices can either kill us – which mounting studies say that they are, or they can lift us right out of the disease process and into soaring health.
Full Story: Kathy Freston: A Cure For Cancer? Eating A Plant-Based Diet.
A $4 billion bailout for the Postal Service?
POLITICO.com- The House voted Thursday to freeze Medicare Part B premiums for most elderly next year, even as Democrats moved to exempt the Postal Service from having to make $4 billion in payments due next week to cover retirement health benefits for its employees.
The back-to-back actions reflect a flurry of last minute multi-billion-dollar fixes, often without warning, as the government approaches the new fiscal year beginning next Thursday, Oct. 1.
Democrats hope the Medicare premium freeze, which sailed through on a 406-18 vote, will defuse what would otherwise be an October surprise for health care reform — threatened cuts in Social Security checks for millions of elderly. In the case of the Postal Service, the action closely tracks a House bill approved Sept. 15 but would allow proponents to get past the Senate now without the threat of amendments.
Full Story: A $4 billion bailout for the Postal Service? – David Rogers – POLITICO.com.
Waking up to discover the mortgage market was a giant criminal enterprise
Matt Taibbi
- True/Slant – A landmark ruling in a recent Kansas Supreme Court case may have given millions of distressed homeowners the legal wedge they need to avoid foreclosure. In Landmark National Bank v. Kesler, 2009 Kan. LEXIS 834, the Kansas Supreme Court held that a nominee company called MERS has no right or standing to bring an action for foreclosure. MERS is an acronym for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, a private company that registers mortgages electronically and tracks changes in ownership. The significance of the holding is that if MERS has no standing to foreclose, then nobody has standing to foreclose – on 60 million mortgages. That is the number of American mortgages currently reported to be held by MERS. Over half of all new U.S. residential mortgage loans are registered with MERS and recorded in its name. Holdings of the Kansas Supreme Court are not binding on the rest of the country, but they are dicta of which other courts take note; and the reasoning behind the decision is sound.
via Landmark Decision: Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for the Banks.
This is a potentially gigantic story. It seems that a court has ruled that about half of the mortgage market has been run as a criminal enterprise for years, which would invalidate any potential forelosure proceedings for about, oh, 60 million mortgages. The court ruled that the electronic transfer system used by the private company MERS — a clearing system for mortgages, similar to a depository, that is used for about half the mortgage market — is fundamentally unreliable, and any mortgage sold and/or transferred through MERS can’t be foreclosed upon, at least not in Kansas.
Coincidentally I’d been working on something related to this all day yesterday. All over the country, lawyers are contesting foreclosures because of similar chain-of-custody issues. I have some material about this coming out in my next Rolling Stone story, so I can’t get into this too much, but suffice to say the lenders and the banks were extremely sloppy about their paperwork (at best — there is a fraud angle as well) and jammed up the system with missing and/or mismarked mortgage notes. Since a sale isn’t legal unless there’s full transfer of the physical note, a lot of the sales of mortgage-backed securities were not entirely legal, since the actual notes were often not transferred.
Full Story: Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – Waking up to discover the mortgage market was a giant criminal enterprise – True/Slant.
Medical miscalculation creates doctor shortage
OPS: There is a Doctor shortage because the AMA limits the number of people ALLOWED into Medical School
USATODAY.com – Retired fisherman Billy Bodiford was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October. The doctor who found the cancer is the only urologist available in Taylor County, Fla. (pop. 19,200) — and he visits just one day a month.
The doctor sent Bodiford from his hometown of Perry to Tallahassee 50 miles away for surgery. “You can’t get the type of operation I needed in my town,” says Bodiford, 68, who was hospitalized for six days in December and is feeling better.
Bodiford experienced what many Americans may soon face: a shortage of physicians that makes it hard to find convenient, quality health care. The shortage will worsen as 79 million baby boomers reach retirement age and demand more medical care unless the nation starts producing more doctors, according to several new studies.
Full Story: USATODAY.com – Medical miscalculation creates doctor shortage.
Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely
The Raw Story » President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges.
The move, which was controversial when the idea was first floated in The Washington Post in May, has sparked serious concern among civil liberties advocates. Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold “combatants” without habeas corpus — a legal term literally meaning “you shall have the body” — which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect’s detention.
Obama’s decision was buried on page A 23 of The New York Times’ New York edition on Thursday. It didn’t appear on that page in the national edition. (Meanwhile, the front page was graced with the story, “Richest Russian’s Newest Toy: An N.B.A. Team.”)
Full Story: The Raw Story » Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely.
Banks Take Over the G20, and Their Own Bailout
It’s not like citizens of Pittsburgh are going to be invited to any of these meetings.
| The Progressive - At the G20 meeting this week in Pittsburgh, world leaders will take up financial regulation that might stave off future meltdowns, such as the crisis that hit when some of the world’s largest banks found they couldn’t back up their risky bets.
The world’s finance ministers and central bankers have agreed to impose limits on bonuses and increase capital requirements on the banks, the Wall Street Journal reports, making sure they have the assets to cover their debts. It sounds like a good idea.
But wait a minute, why the G20? The most undemocratic forum in the world economy?
Full Story: Banks Take Over the G20, and Their Own Bailout | The Progressive.
DoJ official finds it ‘surreal’ to have to respond to Franken’s concerns about Patriot Act.
DoJ official finds it ‘surreal’ to have to respond to Franken’s concerns about Patriot Act.
Think Progress » Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act. Committee member Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) used his question-and-answer period to investigate the provision that authorizes “roving wiretaps,” expressing concern that the law does not require federal authorities to identify the target with specificity before proceeding with surveillance. Franken then read the Fourth Amendment to one of the panelists, Assistant Attorney General David Kris, emphasizing that, “no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” “That’s pretty explicit language,” noted Franken, asking Kris how the “roving wiretap” provision meets that constitutional requirement. The Washington Independent’s Daphne Eviatar reports what happened next:
Kris looked flustered and mumbled that “this is surreal,” apparently referring to having to respond to Franken’s question. “I would defer to the other branch of government,” he said, referring to the courts, prompting Franken to interject: “I know what that is.”
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » DoJ official finds it ‘surreal’ to have to respond to Franken’s concerns about Patriot Act..
Kent Conrad claims U.S. doesn’t need a public option because France doesn’t have one.
Think Progress » Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) has been one of the fiercest opponents of including a new public plan in health care reform legislation, even going so far as to say that it’s a “wasted effort” to even try to get one. At a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee this past Tuesday, Conrad made a curious argument against the public option — he cited the French health care system as an example of why we don’t need one:
Let me just conclude for my progressive friends who believe that the only answer to getting costs under control and having universal coverage is by a government-run program. I urge my colleagues to read the book by T.R. Reid, “The Healing of America.”
I had the chance to read it this weekend. He looks at the health-care systems around the world. And what he found is in many countries they have universal coverage. They contain costs effectively. They have high-quality outcomes, in fact higher than ours. They’re not government-run systems in Germany, in Japan, in Switzerland, in France, in Belgium — all of them contain costs, have universal coverage, have very high quality care and yet are not government-run systems.
Full Story: Think Progress » Kent Conrad claims U.S. doesn’t need a public option because France doesn’t have one..
Former Insurance Executive: Lobbyists Make Empty Promises For Reform, Instead Trust CEOs Under Oath
NOTE: This is the fourth installment of our series — Meet Your Insurance Company Executive: An Interview with Wendell Potter.
Think Progress » Last week, ThinkProgress spoke with Wendell Potter, a former VP of communications at health insurance giant CIGNA, about how insurance companies deceive the public with vague promises of “being at the table” for reform. Earlier this year, Karen Ignagni, the chief lobbyist and leader for AHIP, the trade group representing the health insurance industry, came to the White House and pledged to President Obama, “You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass healthcare reform this year.” This trope, repeated by other representatives for the insurance industry, achieved the goal of persuading many that this year would be “different” for reform and that insurers would not torpedo legislation like in previous efforts. But as Potter notes, lobbyists and public relations professionals like Ignagni can make broad promises without ever being accountable. Individual insurance companies are not on board with what Ignagni is selling:
– AHIP says the industry will end the immoral practice of rescinding coverage of sick customers. But when asked this summer — under oath — by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) if they would “commit” to stopping this practice, executives from UnitedHealth Group, Assurant, and WellPoint all refused.
Full Story: Think Progress » Former Insurance Executive: Lobbyists Make Empty Promises For Reform, Instead Trust CEOs Under Oath.
Break Up the Giant, Insolvent Banks Using America’s 100-Year Old Anti-Trust Laws
by Washington’s Blog
I have previously pointed out that we can (and should) break up the giant, insolvent banks under a number of different laws.
Indeed, the government could break up the “systemically dangerous institutions” under 100-year old antitrust laws.
The Sherman Act
The two primary U.S. antitrust laws are the Sherman and the Clayton Acts. I’ll give a very brief overview of the two acts.
The Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. Sections 1-7) – enacted in 1890 – makes trusts and cartels illegal.
Section 1 of the Sherman Act is basically violated if there is:
- An agreement
- which unreasonably restrains competition
- and which affects interstate commerce.
Section 2 of the Sherman Act is basically violated if there is:
- The possession of monopoly power in the relevant market and
- the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.
The Clayton Act
The Clayton Act (15 U.S.C. Sections 12-27 and 29 U.S.C. Sections 52-53) – passed in 1914 – makes it illegal to use price discrimination, exclusive dealings, “tying”, mergers and acquisitions which substantially lessen competition, or to perform certain other anti-competitive acts.
Have the Giant Banks Violated the Anti-Trust Laws?
The big banks have gotten bigger and bigger.
Full Story: Break Up the Giant, Insolvent Banks Using America’s 100-Year Old Anti-Trust Laws.
Economic Duplicity: Recession and Record Profits
The Real Estate Bubble is Not Over
by Rev. Richard Skaff
In December 14, 2008, in his interview on the CBS sixty minutes show, Whitney Tilson an investment fund manager predicted that the subprime collapse was only half way of the total real estate bubble, and that the second half will begin take place around 2010 and will continue until about the year 2013. Tilson also discussed the two fancy Wall Street terms for bad mortgages namely Alt-A (Alternative-A paper) and option arms mortgages. These loans lured borrowers with teaser rates that will begin to reset this year.
Tilson has also predicted that seventy percent of these loans will eventually default, based on existing evidence of pre-reset default rates [1].
A mortgage reset is when the homeowner who bought a house with a low “teaser rate” and planned to refinance as soon as the house price went up suddenly gets a new payment that is usually far higher. Often, homeowners can’t afford these resets.
The first wave of resets, as we recall was subprime. As this chart from Whitney Tilson shows, that’s basically done with: [2].
Full Story: Economic Duplicity: Recession and Record Profits.
Citigroup Locations To Be Cut, Most Lending Will Limited To Wealthy Customers
Citigroup, which has received $45 billion in TARP funds — in addition to billions in government asset guarantees — has come up with a brash tax-payer funded restructuring plan: cut U.S. locations and limit most lending to only the wealthy.
As AP reported morning Citigroup is reportedly planning to reduce its “retail footprint to just six major metropolitan areas and limit most lending to wealthy customers.”
For now, anyway, hopes that the U.S. taxpayer’s investment in Citigroup would actually boost lending, seem to be rather unlikely.
Here’s more from the AP:
Full Story: Citigroup Locations To Be Cut, Most Lending Will Limited To Wealthy Customers.
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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. 
