Archive for September, 2009
Crowds At Town Hall Meetings Begin Pushing Back Against Right-Wing Scare Tactics On Health Care
Think Progress » Over the summer, the loudest voices at town hall meetings belonged to people who opposed health care reform — and they were often pushed to speak out by lobbyist-run organizations. Instead of honest debates on the issues surrounding health care policy, there was a spectacle of irresponsible lies, shouting, and even reports of violence, creating a narrative that the public opposes substantive health care reform put forth by President Obama and congressional Democrats.
The majority of Americans who do favor health reform are beginning to push back. With the media’s attention back on Congress in Washington, many far right protesters have lost interest in showing up and making a spectacle. The people left are those who are actually engaged in the health care debate, and they’re sick of partisan antics.
At a town hall meeting in Virginia yesterday, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) faced constituents who were upset that Republicans haven’t put out any real health care proposals:
Full Story: Think Progress » Crowds At Town Hall Meetings Begin Pushing Back Against Right-Wing Scare Tactics On Health Care.
Obama the impotent
The disappointment with Barack Obama is tangible – on climate change and financial reform Europe leads while the US lags
| Steven Hill – guardian.co.uk - Much hope has been invested in Barack Obama‘s ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talkshows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week.
Besides the ongoing battle over healthcare, this week sees two showdowns between Europe and the US that will reveal further slippage in American global leadership. The first showdown comes today at a UN special session on climate change in New York City; the second will come at the end of the week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, where America and Europe will butt heads over financial system reforms designed to ensure that the AIGs of the world can never again cause an economic collapse.
Full Story: Obama the impotent | Steven Hill | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Texas History Lessons to Drop Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong
All Spin Zone » The state Board of Education in Texas has come out with its new educational standards, and this time they rain teh stupid on sixth graders. They’ve decided to take some names out of the texbook, including Mother Teresa and Neil Armstrong. Evidently they aren’t evangelical enough.
By: Steven Reynolds
The new Texas schoolbooks are here! The new Texas schoolbooks are here!
We can’t help but be reminded of Steve Martin in The Jerk, all excited because the new phone books are here. Every once in a while news comes from Texas that the new textbooks are being planned and some new desecration to fact has been perpetrated. Usually this means creationism is being snuck into the texts, or the Texas powers that be have found a way to teach Christianity in public schools, and that’s the case this time with new guidelines for sixth graders that they learn the differences between a whole host of religious traditions. That’s what we’ve come to expect from Texas. But this time the school districts have struck a few names of people sixth graders don’t need to know about. From the Houston Chronicle:
Full Story: All Spin Zone » Texas History Lessons to Drop Mother Teresa, Neil Armstrong.
Exclusive: Cover Story on Edmonds ‘Outs’ Video-taped, ‘Blackmailed’ Dem Congresswoman; Alleges State Dept. Mole at NYTimes; MUCH MORE…
‘American Conservative’ mag’s description of interview with previously-gagged FBI whistleblower as ‘explosive’ may prove to be a gross understatement
Blackmail, bribery, infiltration, theft, and sale of nuke secrets by Turkey, Israel explained in clearer detail than ever before…
The BRAD BLOG : [Update 9/22/09: The American Conservative story is now posted. As well, the office of the Congresswoman named for the first time in the report has offered a vehement denial of the allegations to The BRAD BLOG. We'll have that complete statement shortly.]
On Friday, we reported on the coming exclusive American Conservative cover story interview with formerly-gagged FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by quoting the magazine’s own teaser description of the piece as “explosive.” Over the weekend, we received an embargoed look at the final version of the AmCon interview by former CIA officer Phil Giraldi, and yes, “explosive” may be a vast understatement. At least if the U.S. corporate media bother to notice it this time.
Judge orders Obama administration to relist Yellowstone grizzly bears
| Idaho Statesman - Grizzly bears in eastern Idaho were returned to federal protection under the Endangered Species Act by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy.
The ruling reverses a decision made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 that transferred control of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem from the federal government to the states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Molloy said the conservation strategy on which the Fish and Wildlife Service based its delisting, was not enforceable and did not meet the requirement of the act to ensure rules were in place to protect bears after delisting.
“Because the service admits that the conservation strategy is unenforceable, the strategy was not properly considered in the service’s evaluation of existing regulatory mechanisms,” Molloy wrote.
Molloy also said the service did not adequately consider the impacts of global warming and other factors on whitebark pine nuts, a key grizzly bear food source.
Full Story: Judge orders Obama administration to relist Yellowstone grizzly bears | News Updates | Idaho Statesman.
Arianna Huffington: Barack Obama Must See Michael Moore’s New Movie (and So Must You)!
Michael Moore has proven again and again that he has a remarkable feel for where the zeitgeist is heading. He’s like a zeitgeist divining rod.
Roger and Me was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the auto-industry. Fahrenheit 9/11 was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the house of cards the Bush administration used to lead us to war in Iraq. Sicko was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the US health care system. And now, with his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, he is riding the wave of the collapse of trust in our country’s financial system.
The film, which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, and all across the country on October 2nd, is a withering indictment of the current economic order, covering everything from Wall Street’s casino mentality to for-profit prisons, from Goldman Sachs’ sway in Washington to the poverty-level pay of many airline pilots, from the tidal wave of foreclosures to the tragic consequences of runaway greed.
Full Story: Arianna Huffington: Barack Obama Must See Michael Moore’s New Movie (and So Must You)!.
GAO audit: Schools slow to get alerts about tainted food
- USATODAY.com - Federal agencies that supply food for 31 million schoolchildren fail to ensure that tainted products are pulled quickly from cafeterias, a federal audit obtained by USA TODAY finds.
The delays raise the risk of children being sickened by contaminated food, according to the audit by Congress’ Government Accountability Office.
In recent recalls, including one this year in which salmonella-infected peanut butter sickened almost 700 people, the government failed to disseminate “timely and complete notification about suspect food products provided to schools through the federal commodities program,” the audit says.
Such alerts sometimes took more than a week to reach schools, “during which time (schools) unknowingly served affected products.”
Full Story: GAO audit: Schools slow to get alerts about tainted food – USATODAY.com.
Why the Dow is Hitting 10,000 Even When Consumers Can’t Buy And Business Cries “Socialism”
Robert Reich
So how can the Dow Jones Industrial Average be flirting with 10,000 when consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut way back on buying because they have no money? Jobs continue to disappear. One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they’re worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save.
Even more curious, how can the Dow be so far up when every business and Wall Street executive I come across tells me government is crushing the economy with its huge deficits, and its supposed “takeover” of health care, autos, housing, energy, and finance? Their anguished cries of “socialism” are almost drowning out all their cheering over the surging Dow.
The explanation is simple. The great consumer retreat from the market is being offset by government’s advance into the market. Consumer debt is way down from its peak in 2006; government debt is way up. Consumer spending is down, government spending is up. Why have new housing starts begun? Because the Fed is buying up Fannie and Freddie’s paper, and government-owned Fannie and Freddie are now just about the only mortgage games remaining in play.
Full Story: Robert Reich’s Blog: Why the Dow is Hitting 10,000 Even When Consumers Can’t Buy And Business Cries “Socialism”.
Journos Losing Jobs at Three Times Rate of Average Workers
CHICAGO Since the financial meltdown began a year ago, journalism jobs have gone away at almost three times the rate jobs have disappeared in the general economy, according to a report by Unity: Journalists of Color.
Unity’s 2009 Layoff Tracker Report shows an average 22% increase from month to month in journalism jobs lost from September 2008 through August 2009. The general economy lost jobs at an average monthly pace of about 8% during that time, according to Unity.
For journalism jobs, there were big monthly increases in job losses from the month before at periods coinciding with the close of a quarterly financial reporting periods.
News media, including newspapers, broadcast and digital, have shed 35,885 jobs since Sept. 15, 2008, according to Unity’s tracking report. The great majority of jobs lost — 24,511 — were in newspaper and other print journalism, Unity said.
Full Story: Journos Losing Jobs at Three Times Rate of Average Workers.
Oxygen isotope proxy errors corrected in Greenland ice cores
An unexplained error in the an ice core proxy has cast doubt upon the accuracy of Greenland ice cores. A letter in Nature not only fixes the error, but also shows the Greenland ice sheet melts in response to warming far faster than previously thought.
Scholars and Rogues » Scientists, mariners, and weather hobbyists started directly measuring temperature with thermometers globally in the late 1800s. When modern climatologists want temperature data farther back in time than those first global measurements, they have to use things called “proxies.” A proxy for temperature is something that, when calibrated properly, indirectly measures temperature. The most common proxies that are used as temperature stand-ins tend to be tree rings, the amount of an oxygen isotope in ice cores, and coral growth rings.
There are a couple of problems with proxies, however. The first problem is that scientists have to develop an appropriate and accurate calibration method to convert the width of a tree ring to an average annual or summer temperature. The second problem is that a given proxy may well be influenced by other factors beyond temperature, and so calibrating the proxy becomes a difficult and potentially error-prone process. For example, tree rings are a proxy for both temperature and moisture, and so any climatologist who wants to extract just the temperature information needs to discover a way to independently estimate the effect of moisture changes on the tree ring before the effect of temperature on the tree ring can be accurately determined.
A new study published September 17th as a letter in the journal Nature describes a new method to compensate for proxy changes due to elevation in the Greenland ice sheet (GIS) during the Holocene (the present geologic epoch, starting about 12,000 years ago)
Full Story: Scholars and Rogues » Oxygen isotope proxy errors corrected in Greenland ice cores.
US leading economic index up for fifth month in a row
The Raw Story | - The index of US leading economic indicators rose 0.6 percent in August, marking a fifth consecutive increase and offering more signs of economic recovery, the Conference Board said Monday.
The business research firm said its forward-looking index of economic conditions in the coming months extended its gains after a revised 0.9 percent increase in July and a 0.8 percent jump in June.
“Since reaching a peak in July 2007, the (leading index) fell for 20 months — the longest downtrend since the mid 1970s — but it has been rising since April and its gains have become very widespread,” says Ataman Ozyildirim, economist at The Conference Board.
“The six-month growth rate of the (index) continues to accelerate.”
Other indexes in the research firm’s survey appeared to steady. The coincident index of current activity was unchanged in August, after a 0.1 percent rise in July.
Full Story: The Raw Story | US leading economic index up for fifth month in a row.
Bank of America Misses Congressional Deadline
NYTimes.com - Bank of America did not meet a noon deadline on Monday to submit documents and other possible evidence in the Congressional investigation of the bank’s takeover of Merrill Lynch, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said.
The committee’s chairman, Representative Edolphus Towns of New York, is deciding whether to issue a subpoena to force compliance, but first he plans to meet with the bank’s chief strategy and marketing officer, Anne Finucane, on Tuesday.
Mr. Towns indicated that he planned to tell Ms. Finucane that the bank must comply with the request, and if it does not, a subpoena may be forthcoming.
“Whether it is through future hearings, a subpoena, or both, the committee will obtain this information,” Mr. Towns said in a statement.
Full Story: Bank of America Misses Congressional Deadline – DealBook Blog – NYTimes.com.
Biden on 2010: If GOP Succeeds, It’s ‘The End of the Road for What Barack and I Are Trying to Do’
OPS: So far this has been the continuation of the Bush Administration. Here we have a preemptive strike in the Democrats attempt to stampede supporters once again. The GOP Boogieman. So far the Dems have done little to prove that there is any difference between them and the Republicans.
Vice President Joe Biden said today that if Democrats were to lose 35 House seats they currently hold in traditionally Republican districts, it would mean doomsday for President Obama’s agenda.
Biden said Republicans are pinning their political strategy on flipping these seats.
“If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do,” the vice president said at a fundraiser for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) today in Greenville, Delaware.
Republicans need to pick up 40 seats next November to take back control of the House.
There are 49 seats currently held by Democrats in districts that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) won in last year’s presidential election.
Full Story: Biden on 2010: If GOP Succeeds, It’s ‘The End of the Road for What Barack and I Are Trying to Do’ – Political Punch.
Senate bill seeks to strip Fed of some oversight powers
Senate bill could weaken the Fed
Consensus in Senate builds to weaken Federal Reserve by stripping it of bank oversight
| Raw Story - Consensus is building in the Senate for legislation that would significantly weaken the Federal Reserve by stripping its power to oversee banks and hand that job to a single federal bank regulator.
The proposal by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd to merge federal prudential oversight into a single regulator differs from a plan by President Barack Obama. But Democratic aides say the proposal is gaining traction among Dodd’s colleagues who think the Fed didn’t do enough to prevent the current market crisis.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Senate bill seeks to strip Fed of some oversight powers.
Government watchdog: AIG must repay taxpayers $121 billion
The Raw Story » US insurance giant AIG, partly nationalized a year ago to avert a collapse authorities said would destabilize the global financial system, needs to repay nearly 121 billion dollars in taxpayer aid, an official report said Monday.
The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the ultimate success of AIG’s restructuring and repayment efforts remains uncertain,” in a report on the 700-billion-dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The GAO said that American International Group, which received by far the biggest federal bailout, had shown some progress in its ability to repay the federal assistance.
But that “improvement in the stability of AIG’s business depends on the long-term health of the company, market conditions, and continued government support,” the report said.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Government watchdog: AIG must repay taxpayers $121 billion.
Is Fox News memo pushing journalistic ’standards’ a joke?
The Raw Story » After years of angling to be the GOP’s favorite broadcast outlet, one Fox News executive now thinks that it is “useful” to remind staff to avoid bias.
“At news events, we’re supposed to function as dispassionate observers, not active participants,” writes Bill Sammon, Fox News Vice President of News and the network’s Washington editor. “We are there to chronicle the news, not create it.”
The letter, obtained by Mediaite, appears to be in response to a recent incident in which a Fox News producer was caught on video coaching a crowd of “tea party” protesters in D.C., signaling them to cheer when the cameras were rolling.
“We do not cheerlead for one cause or another,” Sammon claimed. “We do not rile up a crowd. If a crowd happens to be boisterous when we show it on TV, so be it. If it happens to be quiet, that’s fine, too.”
Just over four years ago, The New York Times published an article which carried the results of several media studies. It found:
Fox’s political orientation is clearly to the right of the rest of the media. Research has found, for example, that Fox News is much more likely than other news shows to cite conservative think tanks and less likely to cite liberal ones.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Is Fox News memo pushing journalistic ’standards’ a joke?.
Obama Defends Baucus Bill
9/21/09 – Yesterday, President Obama appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows, fielding questions that predominantly focused on health care, the war in Afghanistan, and race. Obama defended the Senate Finance Committee’s America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 from bipartisan criticism, insisting that “it provides health insurance to people who don’t have it at affordable prices.” “I’d like to make sure that we’ve got that affordability really buttoned down, because I think that’s one of the most important things, is that if we’re offering people health insurance and we’re saying that people have to get health insurance if it’s affordable, we’ve got to make sure it’s affordable,” Obama said, replying to Democrats who are hoping to boost the bill’s affordability measures during this week’s upcoming committee mark-up process. Throughout the interviews, Obama defended the committee’s decision to tax insurers that provide so-called “Cadillac health plans,” the individual requirement to purchase health care coverage, and the bill’s verification requirements to prevent undocumented workers from purchasing health coverage.
Full Story: Health Care — Obama Defends Baucus Bill.
Meet the Afghan Army Is It a Figment of Washington’s Imagination?
There’s Virtually Zero Percent Chance of There Ever Being a Real Afghan Army — So What’s the Pentagon Talking About? In Washington, calls are growing for Obama to training more Afghan troops and police rather than sending in more American troops. But this is pure fantasy.
Ann Jones, Tomdispatch.com. – The big Afghanistan debate in Washington is not over whether more troops are needed, but just who they should be: Americans or Afghans — Us or Them. Having just spent time in Afghanistan seeing how things stand, I wouldn’t bet on Them.
Frankly, I wouldn’t bet on Us either. In eight years, American troops have worn out their welcome. Their very presence now incites opposition, but that’s another story. It’s Them — the Afghans — I want to talk about.
Afghans are Afghans. They have their own history, their own culture, their own habitual ways of thinking and behaving, all complicated by a modern experience of decades of war, displacement, abject poverty, and incessant meddling by foreign governments near and far — of which the United States has been the most powerful and persistent. Afghans do not think or act like Americans. Yet Americans in power refuse to grasp that inconvenient point.
Full Story: Tomgram: Ann Jones, Us or Them in Afghanistan?.
Globalization Goes Bankrupt
With Global Capitalism Exposed as a Sham, All the Global Elite Have Left Is Pure Force. Delegates from the world’s wealthiest nations gather this week for G-20, walled off from protesters by a National Guard combat battalion recently returned from Iraq.
By Chris Hedges – Truthdig
The rage of the disposed is fracturing the country, dividing it into camps that are unmoored from the political mainstream. Movements are building on the ends of the political spectrum that have lost faith in the mechanisms of democratic change. You can’t blame them. But unless we on the left move quickly, this rage will be captured by a virulent and racist right wing, one that seeks a disturbing proto-fascism.
Every day counts. Every deferral of protest hurts. We should, if we have the time and the ability, make our way to Pittsburgh for the meeting of the G-20 this week rather than do what the power elite is hoping we will do—stay home. Complacency comes at a horrible price.
“The leaders of the G-20 are meeting to try and salvage their power and money after everything that has gone wrong,” said Benedicto Martinez Orozco, co-president of the Mexican Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT), who is in Pittsburgh for the protests. “This is what this meeting is about.”
Full Story: Truthdig – Reports – Globalization Goes Bankrupt.
NZ Confirms SAS Sent to Afghanistan
New Zealand has confirmed it has sent SAS troops into Afghanistan, the first time elite NZ troops have served in the country since 2006.
NZ Prime Minister John Key announced Monday that 71 New Zealand Special Air Service (SAS) troops have already arrived in the war-torn country, the first stage of three rotations of SAS troops during the next 18 months.
Mr Key, who is to meet NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss Afghanistan later this week, said the assignment was dangerous and told the NZ people to prepare for possible casualties.
He confirmed that the elite troops were being deployed to support the current Afghan government which has been accused of widespread voter fraud in recent elections, adding there was little choice.
“Yes, we are supporting that administration,” he told reporters.
Full Story: NZ Confirms SAS Sent to Afghanistan | theangle.org.
Landmark Decision: Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for the Banks
by Ellen Brown
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.
Eliminating the “Straw Man” Shielding Lenders and Investors from Liability
The development of “electronic” mortgages managed by MERS went hand in hand with the “securitization” of mortgage loans – chopping them into pieces and selling them off to investors. In the heyday of mortgage securitizations, before investors got wise to their risks, lenders would slice up loans, bundle them into “financial products” called “collateralized debt obligations” (CDOs), ostensibly insure them against default by wrapping them in derivatives called “credit default swaps,” and sell them to pension funds, municipal funds, foreign investment funds, and so forth. There were many secured parties, and the pieces kept changing hands; but MERS supposedly kept track of all these changes electronically. MERS would register and record mortgage loans in its name, and it would bring foreclosure actions in its name. MERS not only facilitated the rapid turnover of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, but it has served as a sort of “corporate shield” that protects investors from claims by borrowers concerning predatory lending practices. California attorney Timothy McCandless describes the problem like this:
“[MERS] has reduced transparency in the mortgage market in two ways. First, consumers and their counsel can no longer turn to the public recording systems to learn the identity of the holder of their note. Today, county recording systems are increasingly full of one meaningless name, MERS, repeated over and over again. But more importantly, all across the country, MERS now brings foreclosure proceedings in its own name – even though it is not the financial party in interest. This is problematic because MERS is not prepared for or equipped to provide responses to consumers’ discovery requests with respect to predatory lending claims and defenses. In effect, the securitization conduit attempts to use a faceless and seemingly innocent proxy with no knowledge of predatory origination or servicing behavior to do the dirty work of seizing the consumer’s home. . . . So imposing is this opaque corporate wall, that in a “vast” number of foreclosures, MERS actually succeeds in foreclosing without producing the original note – the legal sine qua non of foreclosure – much less documentation that could support predatory lending defenses.”
Full Story: Landmark Decision: Massive Relief for Homeowners and Trouble for the Banks.
Siegelman Blasts DoJ and Judge In ‘Final’ Reply Seeking Hearing
Facing a sentence of 20 additional years in prison recommended by Bush Justice Department holdovers, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman finally took off the gloves Sept. 21 against his prosecutors and the judge — and, for once, skipped any mention of Karl Rove.
Citing new evidence since his 2006 convictions, Siegelman’s nine-page filing called for a hearing with cross-examination, plus a new trial and new judge.
The arguments responded to a government filing on Aug. 28 that no new evidence has arisen since Siegelman’s 2006 corruption convictions to justify a hearing or other relief.
More generally, Siegelman’s prosecution remains the dramatic centerpiece of still-unsolved allegations that the Bush administration mounted a nationwide effort to change the country’s political leadership by hundreds of disputed prosecutions of Democratic office-holders, candidates and contributors. Siegelman’s case is key because no other has produced so many whistleblowers and investigative reporters alleging scandals. But so far no watchdog institutions have put any of the alleged miscreants under oath for public cross-examination.
Full Story: Andrew Kreig: Siegelman Blasts DoJ and Judge In ‘Final’ Reply Seeking Hearing.
Does Anyone in the Healthcare Debate Really Care About Health?
The healthcare doled out via insurance companies (when they actually even provide coverage) and governments alike is arcane, ineffective, and, at times, brutal. While there is a place for the Western medical model in certain cases, there is absolutely no need for a “pills and surgery” approach to healing in the vast majority of situations.
by Randall Amster | CommonDreams.org
In all of the invectives thrown around during the healthcare dialogue, amidst the shouting of the neo-Brown Shirts and among the talking heads speaking out of both sides of their mouths, something fundamental to the entire issue has somehow been omitted. Lurking just beneath the subterranean rhetorical level of Death Panels and in the myopic fine print of congressional bills, there’s an unquestioned assumption at the core that takes healthcare as we practice it here in the U.S. as a good thing, something of which we need more and for more people. Basically, the debate is about who will provide this “good,” at what cost, and to whom — but no one questions the nature of the thing in the first place.
The problem with healthcare in America, so the reasoning goes, is that not everyone has it and the price of it is skyrocketing in a manner that, if left unchecked, will someday soon break the bank (or at least what’s left of the bank). And there’s a truth in these points: healthcare ought to be a basic human right, it shouldn’t be costly to attain, and its maldistribution leads to grave societal injustices. Yet this leaves unaddressed the nature and quality of care, shifting the debate to mere quantity and distribution instead. Simply put, is more of a bad thing somehow to be taken as a good thing? It reminds me of the old joke about the restaurant that serves awful food and, alas, in such small portions.
Let me be unequivocal here for clarity’s sake. The healthcare doled out via insurance companies (when they actually even provide coverage) and governments alike is arcane, ineffective, and, at times, brutal. While there is a place for the Western medical model in certain cases, there is absolutely no need for a “pills and surgery” approach to healing in the vast majority of situations. We don’t need more healthcare of this sort in the U.S. — we need less. We shouldn’t be left to advocate for a more equitable distribution of an inherently flawed product, but instead ought to be calling for its retrenchment. We cannot let ourselves be consumed by a debate over whether a “misery machine” should be expanded publicly or privately, when it really should be dismantled altogether.
Full Story: Does Anyone in the Healthcare Debate Really Care About Health? | CommonDreams.org.
NYTimes Editorial – The Rights of Corporations
The Rights of Corporations
The question at the heart of one of the biggest Supreme Court cases this year is simple: What constitutional rights should corporations have? To us, as well as many legal scholars, former justices and, indeed, drafters of the Constitution, the answer is that their rights should be quite limited — far less than those of people.
This Supreme Court, the John Roberts court, seems to be having trouble with that. It has been on a campaign to increase corporations’ legal rights — based on the conviction of some conservative justices that businesses are, at least legally, not much different than people.
Now the court is considering what should be a fairly narrow campaign finance case, involving whether Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, had the right to air a slashing movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic primary season. There is a real danger that the case will expand corporations’ rights in ways that would undermine the election system.
The legal doctrine underlying this debate is known as “corporate personhood.”
Full Story: Editorial – The Rights of Corporations – NYTimes.com.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski proposes amendment to cripple EPA power to curb global warming.
Think Progress » Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) “wants to put the brakes on the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb climate change” by barring the EPA from “spending any funds on regulating carbon dioxide pollution from power plants, manufacturers, and other major emissions sources.” Murkowski has proposed an amendment to the Interior appropriations bill (H.R. 2996) under consideration this week by the U.S. Senate to prevent the EPA from regulating global warming pollution from stationary sources:
Effective during the 1-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act, none of the funds made available for the Environmental Protection Agency under this Act may be expended to regulate or control carbon dioxide from any sources other than a mobile source as described in section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act or to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act except for purposes of section 10 202(a) of that Act.
Full Story: Think Progress » Sen. Lisa Murkowski proposes amendment to cripple EPA power to curb global warming..
Analyses: Heart attack rates fall 17% after smoking bans enacted
- USATODAY.com - Community smoking bans have an immediate and dramatic effect on reducing heart attacks, according to two new analyses of laws in the USA, Canada and Europe.
Two separate analyses released Monday each found that heart attack rates fall 17% within a year after smoking bans take effect. One analysis, which included 13 studies, appears in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. A second analysis, which considered 11 studies, appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Cigarette smoke can trigger a heart attack in people with underlying heart disease by causing clots or spasms in the blood vessels, says David Goff, a spokesman for the American Heart Association who wasn’t involved in either study.
Full Story: Analyses: Heart attack rates fall 17% after smoking bans enacted – USATODAY.com.
Democratic fundraiser indicted in NY
The Associated Press: - Federal prosecutors have charged a wealthy fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top Democrats in an alleged $292 million Ponzi scheme that spanned more than a decade, saying he used some of the proceeds to support election campaigns.
In an indictment returned Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Hassan Nemazee is charged with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“For more than 10 years, Hassan Nemazee projected the illusion of wealth, stealing more than $290 million so that he could lead a lavish lifestyle and play the part of heavyweight political fundraiser,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. “Today’s indictment exposes the sheer brazenness of Nemazee’s schemes and marks the end of his decade of deception.”
He used some of the proceeds of the fraud to make donations to the election campaigns of federal, state and local candidates as well as to political action committees and charities, prosecutors said. They didn’t name the candidates or groups.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Democratic fundraiser indicted in NY.
Police: ACORN worker in video reported couple
The Associated Press: — Police say a worker with the activist group ACORN who was caught on video giving advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute had reported the incident to authorities.
National City police said Monday that Juan Carlos Vera contacted his cousin, a police detective, to get advice on what to with information on possible human smuggling.
Vera was secretly filmed on Aug. 18 as part of a young couple’s high-profile expose.
Police say he contacted law enforcement two days later. The detective consulted another police official who served on a federal human smuggling task force, who said he needed more details.
The ACORN employee responded several days later and explained that the information he received was not true and he had been duped.
Vera was fired on Thursday.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Police: ACORN worker in video reported couple.
States Can Sue Utilities Over Emissions, Panel Rules
– NYTimes.com - A two-judge panel of a federal appeals court has ruled that big power companies can be sued by states and land trusts for emitting carbon dioxide. The decision, issued Monday, overturns a 2005 District Court decision that the question was political, not judicial.
A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled that eight states — California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin — as well as New York City and three land trusts could proceed with a suit against American Electric Power, Southern Corporation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy and Cinergy Corporation, all large coal-burning utilities.
The case, brought in 2004, said the defendants were creating a “public nuisance” and sought reductions in emissions that scientists say are changing the climate. The states cited studies from the United Nations and the National Academy of Sciences that predicted damage and said in fact that their environments had already been damaged. The land trusts said that an increase in sea level would inundate their properties, among other problems.
Full Story: States Can Sue Utilities Over Emissions, Panel Rules – NYTimes.com.
Redstone may have to testify over Rather suit
CBS loses bid to dismiss Dan Rather lawsuit
A New York judge on Monday said he will let 86-year-old Viacom Inc Chairman Sumner Redstone be questioned over former TV news anchor Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit against CBS Corp.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman also set a December 22 hearing in the case, in which Rather claims he was fired over a controversial election-year report on former President George W. Bush’s Vietnam War-era military service.
CBS is trying to get Rather’s lawsuit dismissed, but said it was not moving for dismissal at Monday’s hearing. Gammerman said he could not dismiss the case while also allowing further depositions.
“Let’s get this case moving,” Gammerman said. “I would really like to get this case ready for trial.”
Full Story: Redstone may have to testify over Rather suit – Yahoo! News.
HHS Investigates Medicare Providers’ Massive Misinformation Campaign
Today, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department took its first steps toward cracking down on misinformation disseminated by Medicare providers.
During the recent health care reform hullabaloo, “Keep Government Out of Medicare” became a rallying call for some and a joke for others. As it became clear that tens of thousands of senior citizens across the country held irrational beliefs about the government’s role in their health care, we asked, where is all the misinformation coming from? The answer: Medicare Advantage providers have been deliberately misinforming Medicare recipients about health insurance reform.
Last week, I reported that Las Vegas members of Humana Medicare plans had received a mass mailing from Humana (see the complete mailer and envelope) claiming that Congress and the President are considering proposals to cut “important benefits and services” of Medicare. That mailer actually went out to Humana plan members nationwide. Today, the Health and Human Services’s (HHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to Humana demanding that Humana cease “immediately all such mailings to Medicare plan members and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.”
Full Story: Dawn Teo: HHS Investigates Medicare Providers’ Massive Misinformation Campaign.
Frank Bites Back, Demands Retraction Of Blue Dog Comments In Politico
Backers of President Obama’s cornerstone financial regulatory reform proposal pushed back Monday against the Blue Dog Coalition, which is promoting a counter-proposal to the Consumer Financial Protection Agency in the House Financial Services Committee.
The proposal, being championed by Blue Dog Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) and reported in Monday’s Politico, would create a “council” consisting of regulatory agencies that would make suggestions to Congress regarding what abusive practices might need to be curtailed. Minnick told Politico that Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was open to it.
“As soon as I saw the story, I called Minnick and said, ‘You’ve really gotta retract it,’” Frank told HuffPost, saying he was “absolutely opposed” to the proposal and told Minnick as much when they spoke about it last week. A Minnick spokesman didn’t return a call.
Full Story: Frank Bites Back, Demands Retraction Of Blue Dog Comments In Politico.
Looking to Healthy Banks to Lend to the F.D.I.C.
- NYTimes.com - Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks.
The plan, strongly supported by bankers and their lobbyists, would be a major reversal of fortune.
A hallmark of the financial crisis has been the decision by successive administrations over the last year to lend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to large and small banks.
“It’s a nice irony,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting company. “Like so much of this crisis, this is an issue that involves the least worst options.”
Full Story: Looking to Healthy Banks to Lend to the F.D.I.C. – NYTimes.com.
The Return of McCarthyism
A juxtaposition of the past and current use of McCarthyism.
Full Story: YouTube – The Return of McCarthyism.
Break up America’s banks
The populist anger about Obama’s bank bailouts transcends politics. We need a banking system accountable to the public
Dean Baker
guardian.co.uk- The large number of people who protested against Barack Obama‘s healthcare plan in Washington last week drew an enormous amount of media attention. Clearly some of the leaders are certifiably crazy, questioning whether Obama is an American and likening him to Hitler. But many of the protesters had reasonable concerns about how the plan would affect the quality of care that they and their loved ones receive.
It was also striking how often the protesters complained about a government that was out of control and not responsive to ordinary people. One of the items that often came up in the interviews reported in the media was the bank bailout. Clearly this is an enduring and deeply felt cause of resentment.
It would be very hard to tell these people that their concerns on this topic are misplaced. At a time when tens of millions of people are facing unemployment or underemployment, when millions are at immediate risk of losing their homes, the banks seem to be doing better than ever. Goldman Sachs used its government-guaranteed loans to make risky bets that paid off big time. It now plans to distribute $9bn in bonuses to its executives and top traders at the end of the year. Why shouldn’t the protesters be absolutely furious about an administration that used taxpayer dollars to make some of the richest people in the country even richer?
Full Story: Break up America’s banks | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
AT&T wants you to pay extra to fix their failures
AT&T’s network is basically a huge failure. And if you want to fix their incompetence in your area, you’ll need to pay an additional $20 a month for a 3G MicroCell. I call BS.
Danny touched on this earlier, but the logic here is blowing my mind. How little regard for your customers do you have to have to offer a product that fixes your own product for an additional fee every month? Seriously, somebody explain to me how this is going to fly.
Leaks point to the MicroCell costing $20 a month to people who want to fix the dead spot in their apartment by running their phone through the internet. Let’s break this down.
Full Story: WTF: AT&T wants you to pay extra to fix their failures | INDenverTimes.
US extends tax amnesty deadline for offshore accounts
The Raw Story |US authorities Monday extended by some three weeks a tax amnesty deadline for holders of undisclosed offshore bank accounts, citing an influx of people facing “logistical” issues coming forward.
The Internal Revenue Service said the deadline, which had been set for Wednesday, was extended to October 15, but indicated there would be no further postponements.
“IRS officials decided to extend this deadline after receiving repeated requests from tax practitioners and attorneys around the country following an influx of taxpayer requests,” the tax agency said in a statement.
“By extending the deadline for a short period of time, the IRS is providing relief for those taxpayers who had intended to come forward prior to the deadline, but faced logistical and administrative challenges in meeting it.”
Full Story: The Raw Story | US extends tax amnesty deadline for offshore accounts.
Birther lawyer in hot water after accusing judge of treason
OPS: Gee, being in a court of law is a little different than being on Faux Noise, huh?
The Raw Story » Orly Taitz, the lawyer heading up the “birther” movement trying to prove President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, has suffered severe setbacks in recent days to her strategy of litigating Obama’s provenance in federal courtrooms.
A federal court judge in Georgia has given Taitz two weeks to present an argument why he shouldn’t fine her $10,000 for pursuing what he called a “frivolous” lawsuit on behalf of an army captain who questioned Obama’s place of birth.
And to add to the complications, the army captain has now distanced herself from her lawyer, asking the judge to withdraw a motion of appeal Taitz had filed on her behalf and declaring she plans to file a complaint against Taitz with the California State Bar.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Birther lawyer in hot water after accusing judge of treason.
Federal Reserve rejects request for public review
The Raw Story » The institution which creates and oversees America’s currency wants to keep a “low profile,” according to a published report on Monday, and may willing to dodge the U.S. Treasury in order to do so.
According to Bloomberg News, the Federal Reserve Bank will not submit to a voluntary public study of its internal structure and methods of governance, as it was requested to do so by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Geithner is the former New York Federal Reserve Bank chairman. The review he requested is part of President Barack Obama’s financial regulatory reforms, which he proposed in mid-June. Part of those reforms would have studied the Fed’s “ability to accomplish its existing and proposed functions” — a proposal the bank’s board of governors appears to have flatly rejected.
“The agency also said that while the report requested by Secretary Geithner and his department has not yet been scrapped, no work has been done on the project, which is due Oct 1,” noted Reuters.
“The institution is trying to keep a low profile,” Vincent Reinhart, a former Fed monetary policy director, told Bloomberg. “To publish a report now invites comment on that report.”
And comments are the last thing the Fed wants right now.
Full Story: The Raw Story » Federal Reserve rejects request for public review.
GOP Senator’s aide: Tell little boys that porn will make them gay
OPS: The bottomless depths of republican stupidity
The Raw Story » Michael Schwartz, chief of staff to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), has an interesting theory: If you tell little boys that looking at pornography will make them gay, maybe they won’t want a copy of Playboy.
Schwartz attempted to explain this claim during a pep talk on “the new masculinity” at the Values Voter Conference last week, reported ThinkProgress. During his presentation, Schwartz asserted that all the pre-adolescent boys he has been associated with “speak badly” about homosexuality, which he implied to be somehow positive.
He added that a friend of his once claimed that all pornography is homosexual, because it turns one’s sexual urges “inwards.”
Here’s an excerpt from The Washington Independent:
“Pornography is a blight… It is a disaster. It is one of those silent diseases in our society that we haven’t been able to overcome very well. Now, I may be getting politically incorrect here. And it’s been a few years, but not that many, since I was closely associated with pre-adolescent boys, boys around 10 years of age. But it is my observation that boys of that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it.”
Full Story: The Raw Story » GOP Senator’s aide: Tell little boys that porn will make them gay.
Poll: 92 percent of Iowans say legalizing same-sex marriage has had no impact on their lives.
Think Progress » Poll: 92 percent of Iowans say legalizing same-sex marriage has had no impact on their lives.
One of the most common arguments advocates use against marriage equality is that it will threaten the institution of traditional marriage. In April, Iowa’s Supreme Court unanimously overturned a 10-year-old ban on same-sex marriage, which the far right decried as an undemocratic decision anathema to the views held by the majority of America. But a new Des Moines Register poll finds that despite the histrionics from conservatives, 92 percent of Iowans “say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.” The poll also shows that residents are evenly split in their views toward same-sex marriage.
Full Story: Think Progress » Poll: 92 percent of Iowans say legalizing same-sex marriage has had no impact on their lives..
Lindsey Graham: Obama is not ‘a socialist,’ he’s ‘an American liberal.’
On Meet The Press yesterday, host David Gregory repeatedly pressed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) on whether he believed “the President is a socialist.” After trying to dodge the question, Boehner eventually blurted out, “No!” On the same day, another prominent Republican also pushed back against the ridiculous claims of socialism being forwarded by people like RNC Chairman Michael Steele. In an interview with The Greenville News yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he “would say no” if someone asked him if Obama was a socialist:
Graham was quick to debunk accusations from some people that Obama is a socialist and not a U.S. citizen.
He saw the question coming a few words into it and responded: “If you asked me if the president of the United States is a socialist, I would say no. I think he’s an American liberal, that’s what I think he is. You know, Ted Kennedy was an American liberal, but we found ways to work together.” [...]
“I am not going to give into sentiments that I think degrade the office of the president and that degrade the debate and the culture of our country,” he said. “So if you come up to me calling the president a socialist, a Muslim, you’re talking to the wrong guy.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Lindsey Graham: Obama is not ‘a socialist,’ he’s ‘an American liberal.’.
Despite Beck’s anti-federal spending rhetoric, he initially supported Bush’s $700 billion bailout.
Think Progress » Much of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s appeal is his populist, anti-government rhetoric, which gained extra traction during the federal government’s financial bailouts. “Wall Street owns our government,” Beck declared in July. “Our government and these gigantic corporations have merged.” A couple of weeks later, he “mockingly replaced the stars on the American flag with the logos of corporate giants like G.E., General Motors, Wal-Mart and Citigroup.” But the blog Another War of Jenkins’ Ear points out that Beck — while appearing on CNN Headline News — actually voiced his support for President Bush’s $700 billion bailout:
But these are anything but normal times. I thought about it an awful lot this weekend, and while it takes everything in me to say this, I think the bailout is the right thing do.
The “REAL STORY” is the $700 billion that you’re hearing about now is not only, I believe, necessary, it is also not nearly enough, and all of the weasels in Washington know it.
Full Story: Think Progress » Despite Beck’s anti-federal spending rhetoric, he initially supported Bush’s $700 billion bailout..
Rhode Island GOP assemblyman quits party following embarrassment of Wilson’s ‘you lie’ screed.
Think Progress » – Ivan Marte, the ex-chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly, has announced that he’s quitting the Republican Party because he was embarrassed by Rep. Joe Wilson’s “you lie” outburst at President Obama:
“I do not want to continue being a member of a party in which the members of the party express themselves in that way,” said Marte, 59, of Cranston. In a phone interview, he called Wilson’s behavior “shameful” and “uncivilized.”
But Marte said Wilson’s outburst was the last straw in a series of disappointments that led him to break with his party.
In a letter to GOP chairman Giovanni Cicione, Marte wrote, “I do hope that my resignation served as a sign, that the Republican Party in this Nation need to reevaluate their position” on reaching out to minority groups.
Full Story: Think Progress » Rhode Island GOP assemblyman quits party following embarrassment of Wilson’s ‘you lie’ screed..
Hatch Amendment Raises Excise Tax Threshold “For Any State With A Name That Begins With The Letter ‘U’”
Think Progress » Members of the Senate Finance committee have submitted 534 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT) health care mark. Democrats introduced several amendments, including provisions re-instating the public insurance option, striking the network of consumer-driven cooperatives, expanding Medicare to Americans aged 54 to 65, and improving affordability standards.
And while Republicans have proposed several compromise amendments, most of their provisions seek to delay the mark-up process and undermine the bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for instance, introduced an amendment (Hatch F7) to “add transition relief for the excise tax on high cost insurance plans for any State with a name the begins with the letter ‘U.’” The amendment would increase the threshold at which high-cost insurance plans could be taxed.
Below are some of the other superfluous amendments introduced by Republicans:
Conyers Begins Investigation of Bank Industry’s Failure to Help Families Avoid Foreclosure
On The Hill: – The powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as other Democrats on the panel, have begun looking into why the Obama adminisatration’s program isn’t helping more homeowners avoid foreclosure. The Judiciary probe may yield further action to assist homeowners, including allowing judges to mandate mortgage modifications, if necessary.
The administration earlier this year launched an initiative, called the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), designed to help homeowners who are struggling with paying their mortgage prevent their homes from falling into foreclosure. Foreclosure rates have soared nationwide for more than a year, as the subprime mortgage bubble burst.
The national foreclosure crisis has driven much of the ongoing financial downtown and deep recession.
Full Story: On The Hill: Conyers Begins Investigation of Bank Industry’s Failure to Help Families Avoid Foreclosure.
Legalizing Marijuana in California
Of late, some influential people are trying to legalize marijuana in California. If you feel that the purpose behind such an impending act is to allow people of the entire state to get a high, you are absolutely wrong. The objective behind this move is to address the budget woes of the State of California.
To begin with, the amount of marijuana that is grown in California is more than any other state in the US (worth almost $14 billion each year). However, the harvest, sale and possession of marijuana in California are still not legal. Financial experts feel that being the biggest crash crop of the State that is operating completely outside the law, it would be prudent to legalize it, which in turn would help the cash-strapped State of California to reap the financial windfall. Reeling under the effects of the biggest state budget deficit of over $26 billion, California will be able to fill the state coffers even if tax on a fraction of pot sales are collected by the local or state governments.
Tom Ammiano – the Democratic state assemblyman, even introduced legislation that would have allowed California to control the trading of marijuana and collect tax from its sale. It was estimated that had this bill been passed, the State of California would have been able to add almost $1.3 billion every year as additional revenue. In spite of his bill being shelved this session, Ammiano is upbeat and plans to introduce a revised version of the bill early next year.
Full Story: Campaigns That Matter – Legalizing Marijuana in California.
80% of the U.S. DISAPPROVES of the GOP (except for the South)
The Washington Monthly – A REGIONAL PARTY…. I was looking over the new results from the weekly Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos. Most of the results are about what we’ve come to expect — President Obama’s ratings are more favorable than unfavorable (55% to 38%); neither congressional caucus is popular, though Dems are more than twice as popular as Republicans (39% to 18%), and the Democratic Party has a 41% favorable rating to the GOP’s 23%.
But I also like looking at these numbers when broken down by region. I put together this chart, for example, showing Republican Party favorability in the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. While about a fourth of the country overall has a positive impression of the GOP, it’s hard not to notice that the party’s strength seems to rest in one specific part of the country.
In case anyone’s having trouble reading the visual, the Republican Party’s favorability is very weak in Northeast (7% to 87%), and only marginally better in the Midwest (13% to 78%) and West (14% to 75%). In the South, however, 50% have a favorable opinion of the GOP, and only 37% have an unfavorable view.
Full Story: The Washington Monthly.
Land Art Generator Initiative
The goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is to design and construct Land Art / Environmental Art installations in the United Arab Emirates that have the added benefit of large scale clean energy generation. Each sculpture will continuously distribute clean energy into the electrical grid with each land art sculpture having the potential to provide power to up to 50,000 homes in the UAE.
Land Art is an art movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. We have taken the liberty of including within the definition, work that could also be classified as Environmental Installation Art, which exists in a large natural space but does not necessarily use the immediate natural materials as the exclusive medium for the art.
Art has the proven ability to create movements and stimulate creative dialogue. The artist community has long taken a critical approach to the problems of energy use and production, which has helped to open the public eye to the severity of the problems facing us. The time is now for artists to go further and take an active role in solving the problem through their own work. The Land Art Generator Initiative will provide artists with a forum within which to accomplish this important evolution. Combined with the resultant public capital generated by the publicity that art can generate, this unique project will mark a major contribution towards addressing perhaps the most significant challenge that the world confronts in the 21st century.
Full Story: Land Art Generator Initiative.
Banks’ Overdraft Fees Under Fire in Congress
- washingtonpost.com – A backlash is brewing on Capitol Hill against banks that charge large fees for overdrafts without asking or telling customers, the latest sign that the financial crisis is shifting the balance of power from banks toward borrowers.
Banks struggling to survive have become increasingly reliant on the fees, which could total $38.5 billion this year.
But congressional Democrats, who pushed through new restrictions on credit cards this spring, now are promising a crackdown on overdraft fees, using words like “criminal” and “rip-off” to describe the practice of letting people overspend and then charging them fees without warning. Most overdrafts are now incurred on debit card transactions.
Full Story: Banks’ Overdraft Fees Under Fire in Congress – washingtonpost.com.
FCC to unveil open Internet plan
The top U.S. communications regulator plans to unveil proposals Monday for ensuring Web traffic is not slowed or blocked based on its content, sources familiar with the contents of the speech said on Friday.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce plans to ask his fellow commissioners to adopt as a rule net neutrality and four existing principles on Internet access issued by the agency in 2005, one of the sources said.
Net neutrality pits open Internet companies like Google Inc against broadband service providers like AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Comcast Corp, which oppose new rules governing network management.
Full Story: FCC to unveil open Internet plan | Technology | Reuters.
Why haven’t any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer? | McClatchy
| McClatchy – More than a year into the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression, millions of Americans have seen their home values and retirement savings plunge and their jobs evaporate.
What they haven’t seen are any Wall Street tycoons forced to swap their multi-million dollar jobs and custom-made suits for dishwashing and prison stripes.
There are plenty of civil and class-action lawsuits from aggrieved investors angered by the losses in their mortgage bonds, hedge funds or pensions. Regulators have stepped up their vigilance after the fact. But to date, no captain of finance tied to the crisis has walked the plank.
Full Story: Why haven’t any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer? | McClatchy.
Blue Dog Democrats eye new financial reform
- POLITICO.com – Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats — uneasy with a key element of President Barack Obama’s plan to regulate Wall Street — are rallying around an alternative proposal that scraps the consumer financial protection agency the president has been pushing.
Rep. Walt Minnick, a freshman Democrat from Idaho, has floated the new plan. Instead of creating a new federal agency to protect consumers from predatory financial firms and shoddy products, Minnick’s plan would have existing state and federal regulators work together in a “consumer financial protection council.”
“We’re trying to come up with something that will achieve the objectives of what the White House is asking us to do without creating a new stand-alone federal regulator,” Minnick told POLITICO.
Full Story: Blue Dog Democrats eye new financial reform – Victoria McGrane – POLITICO.com.
House Moves To Extend Unemployment Benefits
Despite predictions the Great Recession is running out of steam, the House is taking up emergency legislation this week to help the millions of Americans who see no immediate end to their economic miseries.
A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.
The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February.
Full Story: House Moves To Extend Unemployment Benefits.
Moody’s Does Not Expect Housing To Return To Pre-Bust Levels Before 2020
| zero hedge – Troubled rating agency Moody’s, in its most recent Resi Landscape publication, has provided some very brutal projections for the housing market turnaround, which, if true, will promptly make any V-shaped recovery conversation moot. And for all homeowners who are holding on to underwater mortgages hoping for a quick bubble #2 inspired turnaround, you may want to reevaluate: quote Moody’s “It will take more than a decade to completely recover from the 40% peak-to-trough decline in national home prices.”
From the report:
Even under strong economic and demographic conditions, the demand for homes will increase moderately relative to both, with sales per households lower during the recovery period than the during the first half of this decade. The pace of new and existing single-family home sales will increase to 6.2 million per annum by 2012, well shy of the 7.5 million units sold at the peak in 2005. Similarly, homebuilding will rebound, but a lingering overhang of inventories, combined with consolidation in the industry and caution on the part of both homebuilders and lenders to builders, will keep the pace of construction from reaching the peak it achieved at the end of 2006 of over 2 million units. The overhang of inventories from the earlier construction boom will be drawn down by the end of 2011, bringing the supply and demand for homes in balance.
Full Story: Moody’s Does Not Expect Housing To Return To Pre-Bust Levels Before 2020 | zero hedge.
Scientists make paralyzed rats run again
Raw Story » Paralyzed rats whose spinal cords had been severed from their brains were made to run again using a technique that scientists say can work for people, according to a study released Sunday.
Consistent electrical stimulation and drugs enabled the rats to walk on their hind legs on a treadmill — bearing the full weight of the body — within a week of being paralyzed.
With the addition of physical therapy, the rodents were able after several weeks to walk and run without stumbling for up to 30 minutes, reported the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Full Story: Raw Story » Scientists make paralyzed rats run again.
New Trojan virus poses online banking threat
- Times Online – Cyber criminals have created a highly sophisticated Trojan virus that steals online banking log-in details from infected computers.
The Clampi virus, which is spreading rapidly across hundreds of thousands of computers in Britain and the United States, infects computers when users visit websites that host a malicious code.
Once on the computer, the virus sits unnoticed until the user logs on to bank, credit card or other financial websites. It then captures log-in and password information and sends it to a server run by the attackers. They can then tell the compromised computer to send money to accounts that they control, or they can buy goods with the stolen credit card details.
Full Story: New Trojan virus poses online banking threat – Times Online.
$30 billion home loan time bomb set for 2010
Thousands of Bay Area homes have a ticking time bomb embedded in their mortgage. The homes were purchased with loans known as option ARMs, short for adjustable rate mortgages.
Next year, many option ARM payments will begin to readjust, slamming borrowers with dramatically higher monthly mortgage bills. Analysts say that could unleash the next big wave of foreclosures – and home-loan data show that the risky loans were heavily used in the Bay Area.
From 2004 to 2008, “one in five people who took out a mortgage loan (for both purchases and refinancing) in the San Francisco metropolitan region (San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo counties) got an option ARM,” said Bob Visini, senior director of marketing in San Francisco at First American CoreLogic, a mortgage research firm. “That’s more than twice the national average.
“People think option ARMs (will be) a national crisis,” he said. “That’s not really true. It’s just in higher-cost areas like California where you see their prevalence.”
Full Story: $30 billion home loan time bomb set for 2010.
Obama sticks to his guns on CIA torture probe
Raw Story » Saying that “no one is above the law,” President Barack Obama is defending Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to launch an investigation into CIA torture practices under the Bush administration.
“I have said consistently that I want to look forward and not backward when it comes to some of the problems that occurred under the previous administration, or when it came to interrogations,” Obama told CBS’s Bob Schieffer. “I don’t want witch hunts taking place. I’ve also said though that the Attorney General has a job to uphold the law.”
The president said he has “the utmost respect for the CIA,” but that the attorney general has “got to make [a] judgment in terms of what has occurred. My understanding is it’s not a criminal investigation at this point.”
Full Story: Raw Story » Obama sticks to his guns on CIA torture probe.
Carter: US might have been involved in 2002 Chavez coup
The Raw Story | The United States knew about an abortive coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002, and may even have taken part, former US president Jimmy Carter has told a Colombian newspaper.
“I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved,” Carter said in an interview with El Tiempo published Sunday.
The former US leader said it is understandable that Chavez continues to blame the United States for the failed overthrow attempt.
The Venezuelan president, considered a bulwark of leftism in Latin America, was overthrown by a civilian-military junta for about 48 hours in April 2002, before returning to power.
Full Story: The Raw Story | US might have been involved in 2002 Chavez coup: Carter.
80% of the U.S. DISAPPROVES of the GOP (except for the South)
A REGIONAL PARTY…. I was looking over the new results from the weekly Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos. Most of the results are about what we’ve come to expect — President Obama’s ratings are more favorable than unfavorable (55% to 38%); neither congressional caucus is popular, though Dems are more than twice as popular as Republicans (39% to 18%), and the Democratic Party has a 41% favorable rating to the GOP’s 23%.
But I also like looking at these numbers when broken down by region. I put together this chart, for example, showing Republican Party favorability in the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. While about a fourth of the country overall has a positive impression of the GOP, it’s hard not to notice that the party’s strength seems to rest in one specific part of the country.
In case anyone’s having trouble reading the visual, the Republican Party’s favorability is very weak in Northeast (7% to 87%), and only marginally better in the Midwest (13% to 78%) and West (14% to 75%). In the South, however, 50% have a favorable opinion of the GOP, and only 37% have an unfavorable view.
Full Story: The Washington Monthly.
‘Project Indect’: An A.I. public surveillance to police all of Europe
Raw Story » The European Union is spending tens of millions of euros on an artificial intelligence system known as “Project Indect,” which would draw from multiple data sources, namely public surveillance cameras, in order to detect “threats” and recognize “abnormal behavior” across the whole continent.
According to the project’s Web site, once completed, Project Indect would even be able to track vehicles as a type of support network for EU police officers.
Perhaps more chilling, the project promises “continuous monitoring” of “web sites, discussion forums, usenet groups, file servers, p2p networks [and] individual computer systems”.
Indect, research for which began in 2009, was the subject of a Sunday morning Telegraph report that has attracted significant attention on the Internet, but none from mainstream media.
The project’s critics are making an increasingly common obvious literary reference, calling Indect “Orwellian” in nature.
Full Story: Raw Story » ‘Project Indect’: An A.I. to police all of Europe.
Backed Into A Corner, Boehner Admits That Obama Is Not A Socialist
OPS: ..must have been painful for him
Think Progress » RNC Chairman Michael Steele recently sent out a fundraising letter saying that President Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are attempting a “socialist power grab.” Today on NBC’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory pressed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) on whether such language was appropriate. Boehner tried to dodge the question, insisting that “you can call it whatever you want,” but the fact is that Obama’s the one scaring the American public. Gregory continued to ask whether Boehner believes Obama is a socialist, to which he finally admitted he doesn’t:
GREGORY: Do you really think the President is a socialist?
BOEHNER: Listen, when you begin to look at how much they want to grow government, you can call it whatever you want, but the fact is —
GREGORY: What do you call it though?
BOEHNER: This is unsustainable. We’re broke.
GREGORY: That’s fine. Do you think the President is a socialist?
BOEHNER: No!
GREGORY: Okay. Because the head of the Republican Party is calling him that.
BOEHNER: Listen, I didn’t call him that, and I’m not going to call him that.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Backed Into A Corner, Boehner Admits That Obama Is Not A Socialist.
Obama on the public option: ‘I absolutely do not believe that it’s dead.’
Think Progress » – Public Option In recent weeks, lawmakers opposed to passing a public option have been insisting that it is “dead” and Democratic leaders need to move forward without it. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) has said that the “public doesn’t support it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has suggested that we “throw it in the garbage can,” and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) has said that Obama “should take it off the table.” But today in an interview with Univision’s Al Punto — the first time a U.S. president has appeared on the show — Obama said that such declarations are premature:
“I absolutely do not believe that it’s dead,” Obama told Univision. “I think that it’s something that we can still include as part of a comprehensive reform effort.”
That defense may mark one of the most significant reactions Obama has had to date to the health bill unveiled by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) this week, which eschews the public option in favor of nonprofit healthcare cooperatives.
Full Story: Think Progress » Obama on the public option: ‘I absolutely do not believe that it’s dead.’.
Why Is Big Pharma Trying to Tell You How to Have Sex?
Female sexual dysfunction was wholly created by drug companies hoping to make even bigger money off women than they have off men.Sexual Healing – Carnal Knowledge
JoAnn Wypijewski - In the beginning there was sex. And sex begat skill, and skill (or its absence) begat judgment, and judgment begat insecurity, and insecurity begat doctors’ visits, which begat treatments, which have flourished into a multibillion-dollar industry, so that sex between men and women is today almost inconceivable without the shadow of disorder, dysfunction, the “little blue pill” or myriad other medical interventions designed to bring sex back to some longed-for beginning: a state of certified healthfulness, the illusion of normal.
Sex has been missing from the healthcare debate. A shame, because sexual health, and disputes over its meaning, reveals most nakedly the problem at the core of a medical system that requires profit, huge profit, hence sickness, or people who can come to believe they are sick or deformed or lacking and therefore in need of a pill, a procedure or device. Case in point: female sexual dysfunction (FSD), said to afflict great numbers of women–43 percent according to some, 70 percent according to others, an “epidemic” in the heterosexual bedroom according to Oprah. Ka-ching!
More on that in a moment, but first a bit about FSD’s precursor, hysteria, and the rustic science of bringing women off.
Full Story: Sexual Healing.
FCC to Take on Telecoms in Fight for the Future of the Internet
Art Brodsky, Public Knowledge. – It looks like the battle for net neutrality is finally gaining some momentum. This will be the biggest telecom fight in more than a decade.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski didn’t mention Net Neutrality when he went before a House subcommittee on Thursday (Sept. 17). The subject will be front and center on Monday (Sept. 21) when Genachowski is expected to give a speech announcing the Commission will vote in October to start a Net Neutrality rulemaking.
Combined with the announcement at the hearing from House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) that he supports Net Neutrality and will support the Net Neutrality legislation proposed by Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), it looks as if the issue which many people waited for a while to take off is finally gaining some momentum.
This will be the largest telecom fight in 14 years, and one well worth fighting. The Internet was created at a time when it was against the law for telephone companies to play favorites with the traffic that went over its network. Now, there are cable and wireless networks, along with the telephone company broadband platform that all have some piece of connections to the Internet, and no legal protections apply to any of it.
Full Story: FCC to Take on Telecoms in Fight for the Future of the Internet | Media and Technology | AlterNet.
The Bill O’Reilly Speech Bill O’Reilly Didn’t Want You To Hear
Adele Stan, AlterNet - At the Values Voter Summit, Bill O’Reilly locked the media out of his appearance before the religious right. Here’s what he didn’t want you to hear.
When Bill O’Reilly stepped up to receive his Media Courage Award from Family Research Council Action on Friday night, he had no intention of facing the media. In fact, as I reported, he shut us out.
Perhaps the host of FOX NewsChannel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” didn’t what to be seen accepting that award from FRCA’s Tony Perkins, given the latter’s sketchy background on matters of race. (Perkins spoke before the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens in 2001, and I saw him deliver a racially charged speech to the 2007 Reclaiming America for Christ conference in Coral Gables, Fla.)
It’s more likely, however, that he wanted to deprive his arch-rival, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, of a video clip that would have been great fodder for Olbermann’s ongoing war on all things O’Reilly.
Full Story: The Bill O’Reilly Speech Bill O’Reilly Didn’t Want You To Hear | PEEK | AlterNet.
Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity?
The ugly side of Evangelical Christianity is very much to blame for the anti-Obama hyperventilating. 
By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet. – Former president Jimmy Carter went on the record to point out that he believes that racism is at the heart of the great deal of the extreme animosity being leveled at President Obama (NBC News September 15). Carter identified himself as a Southerner with an insider’s understanding. There’s something he didn’t mention however: the special culpability of his own religion — Evangelical Christianity — for the anti-Obama hyperventilating and furious reaction to our first black president. And that reaction has less to do with race and more to do with the ugliest side of religion.
The fact is that if you’re going to blame one group above all others for the willful ignorance and continuing ugliness of the response to President Obama the best candidate would be the evangelical/fundamentalist community. The angry part of the South Carter spoke of is racist because it’s dominated by a certain type of “Christian” culture.
Since Carter is also an evangelical Christian (as well as a Southerner) he would have done well to use his evangelical insider status to point to not just racism but to scream bloody murder about a bigger problem today: the hijacking of Christianity as the source of the hate and anger directed against all things “other” by a vocal (and health care lobby-organized and funded) angry minority of voters who are poisoning the American body.
Full Story: Right-Wing Hatemongering Fueled by Christianity? | | AlterNet.
Bill Moyers: Conservative Radicals and the Politics of Vengeance
Video & transcript at link
Digging deep into the roots and evolution of the American conservative movement, Sam Tanenhaus talks with Bill Moyers about why he believes that conservatism is dead and how it might yet come back to life. Tanenhaus is the editor of both THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW and the Week in Review section of the TIMES.
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL. And to an exploration of what’s happening with two powerful movements in American life: unions on the Left, and conservatives on the Right.
CROWD: You work for us! You work for us!
BILL MOYERS: Conservatives were out in force in Washington over the weekend. They had come to express their opposition to big government, to taxes and wasteful spending, and health care reform they fear would lead to a nightmare of bureaucracy. Max Blumenthal, author of REPUBLICAN GOMORRAH waded into their midst to sample opinions.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: So you’re saying if the government eliminates Social Security and Medicare then you’ll get out of the program?
WOMAN: No, I said if they get out of my life.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Out of your Social Security and-
WOMAN: No, out of everything.
BILL MOYERS: But they had also come to deplore and denounce President Obama- in their minds a tyrant akin to Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein.
MAN: I’m afraid he’s going to do what Hitler could never do and that’s destroy the United States of America.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And what’s the Obama revolution, what’s going to happen?
MAN:Similar to Germany, like what Hitler did. He took over the auto industry, did he not? He took over the banking, did he not? And Hitler had his own personal secret service police, Acorn is an extension of that.
BILL MOYERS: They had found a new hero in Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican whose shout heard ’round the world was now the rallying cry of the weekend.
CROWD: You lie! You lie!
BILL MOYERS: Glenn Beck, their favorite pundit, had promoted this march and was reveling in its success.
GLENN BECK: This is a collection of Americans who but want both parties to stop with the corruption, stop with the spending and start listening to the people. Fox’s Griff Jenkins is there now in Washington D.C., hey Griff.
GRIFF JENKINS:Glenn its unbelievable, thousands and thousands of people, look at this crowd right there. Do you guys have something you want to say to Glenn Beck?
BILL MOYERS: Watching those protestors you would have to say there’s a lot of fight left on the Right, and you wouldn’t be wrong. This rising tide of populist resistance to Obama, the anger over the massive government bailout of Wall Street and big failed corporations, have raised Republican hopes for a comeback And it has Democrats scratching their head wondering how to respond.
So what do we make of this new book titled THE DEATH OF CONSERVATISM? Has the author Sam Tanenhaus spent his time and considerable talent on a premature obituary?
Sam Tanenhaus edits two of the most influential sections of the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES – the Book Review and the Week in Review. He’s has had a long fascination with conservatives and conservative ideas. He wrote this acclaimed biography of Whittaker Chambers, the journalist who spied for the Russians before he became fiercely anti-communist and a hero to conservatives. Now Tanenhaus is working on a biography of the conservative icon William F. Buckley JR.
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL, Sam Tanenhaus.
Full Story: Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS.
Renewable Energy: The Key To More Jobs And Less Dependence On Oil
– Energy Idealist - Ever have a dream of how somethings could become if we were only to put our mind towards making it happen? I am an energy idealist; I believe some of the most magnificent things are yet to happen. I dream of a world powered by renewable, sustainable and green energy systems that harness the energy that is so freely available all around us.
These systems, once put into place, would help our nation and the world. Renewable energy systems would need to have an entire infrastructure put into place. Professionals from all walks of life would be called upon to contribute to and be a part of this sustainable energy infrastructure.
Example: A company has just transformed thousands of acres of desolate land in a high-wind area into a wind turbine farm. An entire army of people will be needed to build, maintain, and troubleshoot this wind farm infrastructure. This would be an ongoing effort; Once the wind-farm is in place, it will need to be maintained just as any other infrastructure would.
Now magnify this nationwide and across multiple disciplines of renewable energy: Solar installations, wind farms, geothermal infrastructure, biomass and biofuels infrastructural, tidal energy infrastructure. These sustainable energy centers would not run by themselves; Trained personnel from many different walks of life will be needed to make everything go. Millions of jobs can be created, adding new found life into this nation’s economy – An economy that would now powered by green energy. Along with these millions of jobs, billions of megawatts of energy would be generated, lessening our dependence on foreign oil and improving our livelihoods here at home.
Full Story: Renewable Energy: The Key To More Jobs And Less Dependence On Oil – Energy Idealist.
Health reform’s ‘gang of 6′ reaps political cash
The bipartisan “gang of six” senators who helped craft the health care reform bill going before a key Senate committee Tuesday represent less than 3 percent of the U.S. population – but they hold a lot of power at a crucial policy-shaping moment in Congress.
That’s why, analysts say, health care industry lobbyists have showered them with more campaign cash on average than other senators this year, in an attempt to influence the outcome.
Three Republican and three Democratic senators in the group, all of them members of the Senate Finance Committee, received an average of $74,600 from health industry lobbyists, according to The Chronicle’s analysis of records through June.
Full Story: Health reform’s ‘gang of 6′ reaps political cash.
Outsourcing Hotel Housekeepers Creates a Real Mess
t r u t h o u t – Recently, housekeepers at three Hyatt hotels in Boston thought they were training new workers for vacationing staff.
Managers asked the housekeepers to do this, and why not? They were experts at cleaning up the messes of strangers. So they taught the new workers everything they know.
Unfortunately, the housekeepers didn’t know they were taking a high road thick with weeds.
On Aug. 31, about 100 housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Boston, Hyatt Regency Cambridge and Hyatt Harborside at Logan International Airport learned they had just lost their jobs to those trainees, who were replacement workers from a Georgia company called Hospitality Staffing Solutions.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Outsourcing Hotel Housekeepers Creates a Real Mess.
Report: ‘Death panels’ author worked with big tobacco to scuttle health reform
Raw Story » The person credited with inventing the “death panels” claim about health care reform worked with tobacco giant Phillip Morris to railroad health care reform in the Clinton administration, Rolling Stone magazine reports.
In an article in the magazine’s October 1 issue, not yet available online, writer Tim Dickinson reveals that Phillip Morris “worked off-the-record with … writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means,” Rolling Stone reports.
McCaughey, a conservative columnist and former deputy governor of New York, penned a 1994 article in The New Republic that was credited with helping to kill the Clinton-era health reforms. As RS noted, the magazine later retracted the story. And The Atlantic magazine ran a story in 1995, entitled “A Triumph of Misinformation,” debunking McCaughey’s arguments at TNR.
Full Story: Raw Story » Report: ‘Death panels’ author worked with big tobacco to scuttle health reform.
Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal
- The Guardian – Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country’s arsenal, the Guardian can reveal.
‘A multilateral process in which weapons states agree to radical disarmament’: Julian Borger Link to this audio (at link)
Obama has rejected the Pentagon’s first draft of the “nuclear posture review” as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether, according to European officials.
Those options include:
• Reconfiguring the US nuclear force to allow for an arsenal measured in hundreds rather than thousands of deployed strategic warheads.
• Redrafting nuclear doctrine to narrow the range of conditions under which the US would use nuclear weapons.
• Exploring ways of guaranteeing the future reliability of nuclear weapons without testing or producing a new generation of warheads.
Full Story: Barack Obama ready to slash US nuclear arsenal | World news | The Guardian.
Corrupt U.S. Health Care System Far More Deadly Than Previously Realized
At current rates, 540,000 Americans will die over the next 12 years simply because they can’t afford insurance.
The BRAD BLOG : Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning
You must be the change you wish to see in the world — Mahatma Gandhi
In “ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription” I noted that it was virtually impossible to mount an honest defense of the current U.S. health care system. Doing so would amount to suggesting that the obscene wealth of a few health care insurance company CEOs and their Wall Street investors has a greater social value than the lives of 18,000 of our fellow citizens whom the current system annually sentences to death simply because they are too poor to purchase insurance coverage.
Today, as I mulled over the legislative obscenity that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and a former vice president of WellPoint spent months preparing — an insurance carrier wish-list that contains no public option, no means for controlling costs or abuse; a measure that does not merely protect but expands the already obscene wealth of the few by mandating that every citizen purchase insurance, with massive subsidies flowing into carrier coffers — I learned that I was wrong…
The 18,000 figure I relied upon was based on a now outdated 2002 study performed by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine. Today, there is a new Harvard University study which has been released by the American Journal of Public Health. Our corrupt and dysfunctional system does not sentence a mere 18,000 Americans to death each year because they can’t afford coverage. Our system kills close to 45,000 each year due to lack of coverage — 45,000 in addition to the still uncounted numbers who die when carriers refuse to authorize vital procedures.
Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : Corrupt U.S. Health Care System Far More Deadly Than Previously Realized.
Grassroots Efforts by United Steelworkers Help Keep Jobs in the U.S.
Forward Kansas. :: - Back in April of 2009, the United Steelworkers of America filed a Section 421 trade case with the U.S. International Trade Commission noting how imports of tires for passenger vehicles and light trucks have surged in recent years disrupting the market here in America. From 2004 to 2009, 4,400 tire manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S with an additional 2,400 jobs lost and two plant closings just this year. American made tires accounted for 63% of the U.S. Market in 2004 and dropped to below 50% in 2008. During that time, Chinese imports went from being 5% of the market to 17%. Unfair trade of this magnitude should have been prohibited pursuant to US law and China’s agreement upon entry into the World Trade Organization.
Craig Gunther :: Grassroots Efforts by United Steelworkers Help Keep Jobs in the U.S.
To explain what a Section 421 trade case is, here’s the policy background:
In 2000, Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974 was in incorporated into the US-China Relations Act. This action gave China permanent normal trade relations and was instrumental in their becoming part of the WTO. What Section 421 spells out is protection for US workers and manufactures from sudden increases in Chinese imports which would disrupt our domestic market. Under this law, the US International Trade Commission, which consists of six members, decides whether or not a Chinese import is disruptive to or has the potential of disrupting the US market. To start this process, a petition is filed with the USITC, then they conduct an investigation, hold public hearings and, finally, vote on the matter. They send their recommendation to the President of the United States who imposes corrective measures.
Full Story: Forward Kansas. :: Grassroots Efforts by United Steelworkers Help Keep Jobs in the U.S..
Reform or Bust
Paul Krugman
– NYTimes.com – In the grim period that followed Lehman’s failure, it seemed inconceivable that bankers would, just a few months later, be going right back to the practices that brought the world’s financial system to the edge of collapse. At the very least, one might have thought, they would show some restraint for fear of creating a public backlash
But now that we’ve stepped back a few paces from the brink — thanks, let’s not forget, to immense, taxpayer-financed rescue packages — the financial sector is rapidly returning to business as usual. Even as the rest of the nation continues to suffer from rising unemployment and severe hardship, Wall Street paychecks are heading back to pre-crisis levels. And the industry is deploying its political clout to block even the most minimal reforms.
The good news is that senior officials in the Obama administration and at the Federal Reserve seem to be losing patience with the industry’s selfishness. The bad news is that it’s not clear whether President Obama himself is ready, even now, to take on the bankers.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Reform or Bust – NYTimes.com.
Condoms can prevent prostate cancer
Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found a high correlation between the common sexually transmitted infection, Trichomonas vaginalis, and the risk of advanced and lethal prostate cancer.
Trichomonas vaginalis may be the source of prostate inflammation that plays a major role in the development and progression of prostate cancer. Trichomonas vaginalis is non viral, infects 174 million people a year, and produces no symptoms in men.
The study compares 673 blood samples of men who developed prostate cancer with 673 blood samples of men who did not develop prostate cancer. The samples were taken ten years prior to development of prostate cancer in any of the participants.
Trichomonas vaginalis infection increased the chances of having prostate cancer by two and increased the chances of death by three times.
Full Story: Condoms can prevent prostate cancer.
Unhealthy US Diets Prompt More Calls for Reform
CommonDreams.org – The American way of eating is under attack, which could expose the food industry to new junk food taxes, but it’s unlikely major reforms are in the offing to quickly alter U.S. food policies.
The increasingly unhealthy American diet has contributed to epidemics of obesity and diabetes. The government and the insurance industry, which pay the cost of treatment, may form an unlikely alliance to demand the food industry play a bigger part in getting Americans on a healthier footing.
Food activist Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food,” has called America’s dietary habits the “elephant in the room” in the debate over healthcare.
“But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet,” Pollan argued in a recent New York Times opinion piece.
Full Story: Unhealthy US Diets Prompt More Calls for Reform | CommonDreams.org.
A Looming Battle Over the Patriot Act
- NYTimes.com – As Congress prepares to consider extending crucial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, civil liberties groups and some Democratic lawmakers are gearing up to press for sweeping changes to surveillance laws.
Both the House and the Senate are set to hold their first committee hearings this week on whether to reauthorize three sections of the Patriot Act that expire at the end of this year. The provisions expanded the power of the F.B.I. to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls in the course of a counterterrorism investigation.
Laying down a marker ahead of those hearings, a group of senators who support greater privacy protections filed a bill on Thursday that would impose new safeguards on the Patriot Act while tightening restrictions on other surveillance policies. The measure is co-sponsored by nine Democrats and an independent.
Full Story: A Looming Battle Over the Patriot Act – NYTimes.com.
Switzerland set for flood of UBS appeals
Challenges loom over agreement to hand confidential client information to US tax officals
The Swiss government’s admission on Thursday that hundreds of UBS account holders suspected of evading US taxes were likely to challenge the agreement was unwelcome news for UBS, which has sought to draw a line under the dispute
Full Story: FT.com / Companies / Banks – Switzerland set for flood of UBS appeals.
Former M Stanley banker jailed for 7 years
HK judge hands record sentence for insider dealing
FT.com – A Hong Kong judge on Friday handed down a record seven-year prison sentence for insider dealing in the territory, capping the high-profile prosecution of a former Morgan Stanley investment banker with close connections to executives at China’s largest state investment group.
Du Jun was convicted last week for trading on information gleaned while advising Citic Resources, an arm of the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, on financing related to an oilfield acquisition in central Asia.
Full Story: FT.com / Companies / Banks – Former M Stanley banker jailed for 7 years.
Carlyle invests in Chinese milk powder maker
Rising foreign involvement in scandal-hit sector
FT.com / - Carlyle Group, the US private equity fund, on Sunday unveiled a substantial strategic investment in one of China’s leading milk powder producers, underscoring rising foreign involvement in the sector.
The fund has taken a 17.3 per cent stake in Yashili, a family-owned company based in the southern province of Guangdong, which specialises in infant formula milk and is a top three national producer.
Further financial details were not disclosed. The investment was made through Carlyle Asia Partners, a fund which typically spends between $100m and $200m on individual deals.
The investment comes as China seeks to modernise a fragmented diary-related industry whose reputation was badly dented following last year’s melamine scandal.
Full Story: FT.com / Companies / Food & Beverage – Carlyle invests in Chinese milk powder maker.
Obama to meet Netanyahu and Abbas
Plans to restart peace talks
FT.com - US President Barack Obama will hold a joint meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday to try to restart peace talks between the two sides, the White House said.
The meeting – the first between the three men – will be held in New York, where the UN General Assembly takes place next week.
Mr Obama will meet with each leader separately before convening a joint session with them, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in the statement, released on Saturday.
Full Story: FT.com / Middle East – Obama to meet Netanyahu and Abbas.
UN plans ‘shock therapy’ for world leaders on environment
Pared-down summit will force heads of rich states to listen to those of third world in hope of kickstarting radical action
– The Observer – The United Nations is planning a form of diplomatic shock therapy for world leaders this week in the hope of injecting badly needed urgency into negotiations for a climate change treaty that, it is now widely acknowledged, are dangerously adrift.
UN chief Ban Ki-Moon and negotiators say that unless they can convert world leaders into committed advocates of radical action, it will be very hard to reach a credible and enforceable agreement to avoid the most devastating consequences of climate change.
As the digital counter ticking off the hours to the Copenhagen summit – which had been supposed to seal the deal on climate change – hit 77 days today, progress at the UN summit in New York is seen as vital. Nearly 100 heads of state and government are to attend the summit, for which a pared-down format has been devised.
Full Story: Climate change: UN plans ‘shock therapy’ for world leaders on environment | Environment | The Observer.
Leading Senator Pushes New Plan to Oversee Banks
- NYTimes.com – — The senior Senate Democrat shepherding legislation to overhaul the nation’s financial system is planning to propose the merger of four bank agencies into one super-regulator, an idea that is significantly different from what President Obama envisions.
The legislation being prepared by Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, who heads the Senate Banking Committee, would also differ from the Obama plan by diminishing the role of the Federal Reserve as a systemwide overseer.
Mr. Dodd’s plan is intended to be the starting point for the Senate as it redraws the financial landscape in response to the market crisis.
For consumers, banks and the markets, Mr. Dodd’s bill is expected to take on the same central role in the debate as Senator Max Baucus’s recent bill is to remaking the health care system.
“We clearly need to put in place an architecture that restores confidence and makes people feel that when they engage in financial activities, from making a bank deposit to buying insurance or investing in stock, that they can have confidence in the system,” Mr. Dodd said in an interview on Friday. “On the other side of this, I don’t want to strangle business.”
Full Story: Leading Senator Pushes New Plan to Oversee Banks – NYTimes.com.
OPS: Unfortunately, here are Dodd’s top 5 contributors by industry. Still trust this?
| Industry | Total | Indivs | PACs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Securities & Investment | $3,765,474 | $3,586,774 | $178,700 |
| Lawyers/Law Firms | $1,673,971 | $1,552,546 | $121,425 |
| Insurance | $1,223,506 | $875,700 | $347,806 |
| Real Estate | $1,139,331 | $989,113 | $150,218 |
| Commercial Banks | $763,744 | $653,744 | $110,000 |
Hormone therapy nearly doubles risk of death from lung cancer, study says
— latimes.com --The link to lung cancer in women raises the question of whether hormone replacement therapy ‘has any role in medicine today,’ one expert says.
Hormone replacement therapy, already linked to increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease and stroke, nearly doubles a woman’s risk of dying from lung cancer, researchers reported Saturday in a finding that may be the final blow for a therapy that is already in rapidly declining use.
The findings “seriously question whether hormone-replacement therapy has any role in medicine today,” Dr. Apar Kishor Ganti of the University of Nebraska Medical Center wrote in an editorial accompanying the online publication of the report in the medical journal Lancet.
The link to lung cancer “is yet another reason to not use hormone replacement therapy if it can be avoided,” said Dr. Mark Faries, director of translational tumor immunology at the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, who was not involved in the research. “It raises the bar for deciding to do HRT.”
Full Story: Hormone therapy nearly doubles risk of death from lung cancer, study says — latimes.com.
Andy Richter Crushes CNN’s Wolf Blitzer In Celebrity Jeopardy
OPS: This is what watching CNN can do to you……
Hey, Wolf Blitzer! Know what the situation is, in your Situation Room? Looks to me like the situation is that Andy Richter controls the universe. At least as far as “Celebrity Jeopardy” goes!
Tonight’s episode of Jeopardy kicked off a year-long “Celebrity Jeopardy” contest in which twenty-seven former contestants vie for a one-million-dollar kitty, to be donated to the charity of their choice. The Tonight Show’s Andy Richter went up against CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Desperate Housewives’ Dana Delany.
How did this end up?
Full Story: Andy Richter Crushes CNN’s Wolf Blitzer In Celebrity Jeopardy.
Maher Rips Baucus Bill: “I’m Going To Start Going To Town Halls And Screaming Now” (VIDEO)
Bill Maher opened his show Friday night with a blistering monologue that took aim at the health care bill Senator Max Baucus released this week.
“It’s everything you could want in a reform bill, you know, except reform,” Maher said. “It is a watered-down, ineffectual blow job to the health insurance industry.”
Maher then went on to joke that he was so frustrated by what was in the bill that he was going to start going to “town halls and screaming now.”
Full Story: Maher Rips Baucus Bill: “I’m Going To Start Going To Town Halls And Screaming Now” (VIDEO).
Papers Show Insurers Limited Coverage for Acne, Pregnancy
Pregnancy…and, Intention to ADOPT!
- washingtonpost.com – A proposal to make preexisting health conditions irrelevant in the sale of insurance policies could help not just the seriously ill but also people who might consider themselves healthy, documents released Friday by a California-based advocacy group illustrate.
Health insurers have issued guidelines saying they could deny coverage to people suffering from such conditions as acne, hemorrhoids and bunions.
One big insurer refused to issue individual policies to police officers and firefighters, along with people in other hazardous occupations.
Some treated pregnancy or the intention to adopt as a reason for rejection.
Full Story: Papers Show Insurers Limited Coverage for Acne, Pregnancy – washingtonpost.com.
Unidentified Creature: Panama Teens Discover Alien-Like Animal (VIDEO)
Four teenagers in Panama claim they encountered a creature that was photographed, dead on a rock.
It appears to have an animal-like head, but a strange body with skinny, human like arms. Some say it’s an alien while others say it’s an animal that’s never been seen before.
The teens said, the creature was alive when they found it and it started coming after them, so they threw rocks and sticks at it, killing it.
Zoologists in Panama said they’re not sure what it is, but it appears to be a dead fetus of some kind.
Full Story: Unidentified Creature: Panama Teens Discover Alien-Like Animal (VIDEO).
Joe Wilson Election: Chances Damaged By Outburst
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Rep. Joe Wilson may have shouted his way into the toughest election fight of his life.
Just ask former Sen. George Allen of Virginia, a conservative darling who suffered a surprise defeat in 2006 after calling an Indian-American campaign worker “macaca” – an ethnic slur in some countries. Or Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, who was tossed out of office the same year after striking a police officer who tried to make her show identification before entering the Capitol complex.
Voters often frown on rude conduct, and Democrats would like nothing more to have Wilson’s scalp in 2010 – not just to win another seat, but to hold up the victory as evidence that even the conservative South rejects the town-hall style vitriol that President Barack Obama is facing.
Full Story: Joe Wilson Election: Chances Damaged By Outburst.
Report: GOP Leadership Worried About Damage To GOP’s Reputation From Bachmann
OPS: Too Late! 
| TPMDC - The Politico reports that House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) are worried about the potential damage to the party’s reputation from a certain back-bencher: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
This paragraph is buried deep within their latest piece on Boehner’s efforts to keep up with the GOP base:
Sources say they [Boehner and Cantor] have been especially wary of the possible damage inflicted on the party’s reputation by bomb-throwing Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who last fall called for an investigation into whether members of Congress are “pro-America or anti-America.”
Full Story: Report: GOP Leadership Worried About Damage To GOP’s Reputation From Bachmann | TPMDC.
Vacated Mercury Mines Taint Calif. Waters
| CommonDreams.org – NEW IDRIA, Calif. – Abandoned mercury mines throughout central California’s rugged coastal mountains are polluting the state’s major waterways, rendering fish unsafe to eat and risking the health of at least 100,000 impoverished people.
But an Associated Press investigation found that the federal government has tried to clean up fewer than a dozen of the hundreds of mines – and most cleanups have failed to stem the contamination.
Although the mining ceased decades ago, records and interviews show the vast majority of sites have not even been studied to assess the pollution, let alone been touched.
Full Story: Vacated Mercury Mines Taint Calif. Waters | CommonDreams.org.
Some Law Enforcement Support Decriminalization of Drugs
-ABC News – Every 18 seconds, an American is busted for drug possession, according to Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) crime statistics released Monday.
The new statistics point to a continued emphasis on drug interdiction — otherwise known as the “war on drugs” — that more and more law enforcement officers are now questioning.
While many experts hold the anti-drug campaign to be the key reason for the decline in the crime rate in the US, especially violent crime, since the 1990s, these police officers, as well as current and retired judges and prosecutors see, instead, thousands of American lives ruined for small drug infractions in a costly and possibly unwinnable “war.”
Full Story: Some Law Enforcement Support Decriminalization of Drugs – ABC News.
Forty percent of U.S. junk bonds to default by 2013: BofA
(Reuters) – About 40 percent of all U.S. junk bonds outstanding in late 2008 will likely default by 2013 as government aid measures end and a wall of corporate debt comes due, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said on Thursday.
By contrast, the cumulative five-year default rate was about 30 percent in the last two default cycles, Bank of America said in a report.
The worst recession since the 1930s has already pushed defaults to double-digit rates. According to Standard & Poor’s, the default rate rose to 10.4 percent in August from less than 1 percent in 2007 as the recession and credit crunch left companies unable to pay off debt.
Deleveraging by consumers and financial institutions and fiscal problems at federal and state governments will slow the economic recovery, keeping defaults high, Bank of America said. Failure of the “shadow banking system” to reinvent itself will also contribute to high defaults, it said, referring to hedge funds and other non-bank institutions that fueled the last credit boom.
Full Story: Forty percent of U.S. junk bonds to default by 2013: BofA | Reuters.
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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. 
