Archive for September, 2009

91 former US attorneys general support Siegelman appeal

Ex-attorneys general support former Ala. governor 

91 former attorneys general support convicted Alabama governor, cite First Amendment issues

Ninety-one former attorneys general from U.S. states and territories asked the U.S. Supreme Court Friday to hear former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman’s appeal of his federal bribery conviction, claiming it raises important issues on political speech.

The bipartisan group filed a brief arguing that it wasn’t against the law for Siegelman to name former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy to a powerful hospital regulatory board after Scrushy arranged donations to Siegelman’s campaign for a state lottery.

Full Story: The Raw Story » 91 former US attorneys general support Siegelman appeal.

Energy Projects Lag In Stimulus Spending

President Obama has pledged to transform the nation’s energy policy and has made renewable energy a cornerstone of the $787 billion stimulus package, but so far the money for energy-related projects has been slow to leave Washington.

In February, Obama made a point of signing the stimulus package at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where he inspected its rooftop solar energy system and was introduced by the president of the company that installed the panels. Seven months later, the Energy Department is among the agencies with the slowest pace of stimulus spending.

Although energy officials have approved billions of dollars worth of stimulus proposals, the department’s records show that only a fraction of those funds have been disbursed — less than two percent of the total $36.7 billion in funds authorized to the department. By contrast, the Agriculture Department has spent about 15 percent of its stimulus funds and the Commerce Department about seven percent.

Matt Rogers, the senior advisor to Energy Secretary Steven Chu for the Recovery Act, said his agency has moved as quickly as possible while making sure the money is going to high-quality projects. “We are making very good progress,” he said. “Every week we continue to move more money out the door.”

Full Story: Energy Projects Lag In Stimulus Spending.

Scientists Draw Electricity from Trees

University of Washington scientists have discovered a new source of electricity: Trees.

In an experiment that will seem familiar to students of the potato, the scientists stuck one electrode into a bigleaf maple, and another in the ground, and saw that the tree generated a tiny stream of electricity — a few hundred millivolts. That’s not enough electricity to do much … but run a circuit and get published in the scientific journal Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Transactions on Nanotechnology.

(As of that potato, this experiment is different, the authors said: “The tree-power phenomenon is different from the popular potato or lemon experiment, in which two different metals react with the food to create an electric potential difference that causes a current to flow.” The tree experiment uses the same metal for both electrodes.)

Full Story: Scientists Draw Electricity from Trees.

Toxic Waters – Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost to Health

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.

In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.

“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks.

Full Story: Toxic Waters – Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost to Health – Series – NYTimes.com.

Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years – and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?

The last time we heard a squeak from him was on June 3 this year.

The world’s most notorious terrorist outsmarted America by releasing a menacing message as Air Force One touched down on Saudi Arabian soil at the start of Barack Obama’s first and much vaunted Middle East tour.

Even before the new President alighted at Riyadh airport to shake hands with Prince Abdullah, Bin Laden’s words were being aired on TV, radio and the internet across every continent.

It was yet another propaganda coup for the 52-year-old Al Qaeda leader. In the audiotape delivered to the Arab news network Al Jazeera, Bin Laden said that America and her Western allies were sowing seeds of hatred in the Muslim world and deserved dire consequences.

It was the kind of rant we have heard from him before, and the response from British and U.S. intelligence services was equally predictable.

They insisted that the details on the tape, of the President’s visit and other contemporary events, proved that the mastermind of 9/11, America’s worst ever terrorist atrocity, was still alive – and that the hunt for him must go on.

Full Story: Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years – and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror? | Mail Online.

After calling for an end to government health care, Rep. Price runs away when asked if that includes Medicare.

On Thursday, the National Republican Campaign Committee worked alongside the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) to host a small rally opposing President Obama and his health care reforms. Earlier in the day, ThinkProgress caught up with a spokesman for AAPS, who explained that the group opposes any government involvement in health care and supports privatizing Medicare. Similarly, at the rally, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) — a card carrying member of the AAPS — promised the audience that “we will not rest until we make certain that government-run health care is ended.” Asked by ThinkProgress to explain if his pronouncement included the government-run program of Medicare, Price evaded:

Q: You said on the stage that you wanted to end government healthcare, do you support privatizing Medicare?

PRICE: What government-run medicine does is forces other individuals besides themselves and their families making medical decisions. [...]

Q: You said on the stage that you want to get rid of government-run healthcare, what’s the difference between Medicare and the public option?

PRICE: No what I support is allowing patients to make independent medical decisions.

Q: So you support government health care when it’s Medicare.

PRICE: What I support is patients making independent medical decisions.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » After calling for an end to government health care, Rep. Price runs away when asked if that includes Medicare..

Jim ‘Waterloo’ DeMint: ‘If We Lose The Health Care Battle, I Think We’ve Lost It All’

Yesterday on Glenn Beck’s radio program, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) outlined the state of America under President Obama in apocalyptic terms, saying that health care was a must-win battle for Republicans, otherwise all would be lost. When Beck said that we are seeing “a fundamental transformation into a new system where the executive branch is almost if not all powerful,” DeMint replied:

DEMINT: We’re just, we’re coming down to a matter of days. If we lose the health care battle, I think we’ve lost it all. [...]

And that’s why I’ve said strong things like Waterloo and other things. This is, the nation has to focus on this because the czars and other things are secondary in a way if we lose health care, the president’s going to be so emboldened, we’re going to see so much more of the growth at the executive branch level that, I don’t think we’ll be able to stop it. But if we stop him on health care then I think we have the opportunity to maybe realign the whole political system in our country.

DeMint then said that he doesn’t “care which party it ends up being,” but quickly added, “I hope it’s the Republicans.” Listen here:

Full Story: Think Progress » Jim ‘Waterloo’ DeMint: ‘If We Lose The Health Care Battle, I Think We’ve Lost It All’.

Hidden costs emerge from the debris of Lehman crash

OPS: Here comes the ‘scope creep’ – get your wallet out.

FT.com   - Technology costs for derivatives underestimated

This time a year ago, many people were anxious, stressed and uncertain. The world’s most senior bankers, regulators and traders and legions of junior staff too were working around the clock amid a frantic effort to prevent Lehman Brothers going bankrupt.

A year later, the repercussions of Lehman’s demise – and the rescue of AIG a day later – continue to be felt, not least in the global efforts to tame the privately-traded derivatives markets, home to financial contracts with an estimated face value of roughly $600,000bn.

Full Story: FT.com / Markets / On Wall Street – Hidden costs emerge from the debris of Lehman crash.

Leader of Anti-Govt. Group Funding Glenn Beck’s 9/12 March Is a Christ-Denying Atheist

NARLO, the National Organization of Rural Landowners, a Bronze sponsor of the Tea Baggers’ “9/12″ march on Washington today, is, among other things, the producer of a not-ready-for-cable-access propaganda video titled, “The Coming Civil War.”

In the video, which was apparently written and narrated by Ron Ewart, the president of NARLO — and genuine Birther, Deather and Tenther — viewers are asked a series of questions so misleading and contrived that they would be laughable if there weren’t so many hapless fools out there who believe this sort of nonsense. Just try to count the false statements and flawed assumptions in this brief sampling:

How do you like paying for education, health care, housing and safety-net benefits for illegal aliens that are streaming into America by the millions? …

How do you like your tax dollars being used in foreign aid, that is given to dictators, despots and other cretins who use our money for their own enrichment and trickle only a few of our dollars to their “subjects?” …

Full Story: Pensito Review » Leader of Anti-Govt. Group Funding Glenn Beck’s 9/12 March Is a Christ-Denying Atheist.

Summers: Unemployment Will Remain “Unacceptably High”

OPS:  so what the hell are we supposed to do?  Or is it to remain ‘unexpectedly high’ just until the summer of 2012?

A top economic adviser to President Barack Obama on Friday acknowledged the risks of reining in too quickly the emergency programs put in place to battle the financial crisis.

“We will not make the mistake of prematurely declaring victory or prematurely withdrawing public support for the flow of credit,” said Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council.

Summers added that he wanted to avoid the mistakes Japan made in the 1990s and the United States in the late 1930s by pulling the plug on government support too soon.

Such a mistake “we must not make today,” he said in a session with reporters.

Doing so could short-circuit an economic recovery, freeze up lending, spook financial markets and send interest rates higher.

Full Story: Summers: Unemployment Will Remain “Unacceptably High”.

Obama Imposes Tariffs On Chinese Tires

OPS:  A step in the right direction

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday slapped punitive tariffs on all car and light truck tires entering the United States from China in a decision that could anger the strategically important Asian powerhouse but placate union supporters important to his health care push at home.

Obama had until Sept. 17 – next week – to accept, reject or modify a U.S. International Trade Commission ruling that a rising tide of Chinese tires into the U.S. hurts American producers. A powerful union, United Steelworkers, blames the increase for the loss of thousands of American jobs.

The federal trade panel recommended a 55 percent tariff in the first year, 45 percent in the second year and 35 percent in the third year. Obama settled on slightly lower penalties – an extra 35 percent in the first year, 30 percent in the second, and 25 percent in the third, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Full Story: Obama Imposes Tariffs On Chinese Tires.

Bill Maher Challenges Obama: “Stand Up For The 70 Percent Of Americans Who Aren’t Crazy” (VIDEO)

On “Real Time” Friday night, host Bill Maher closed his show with some sharp words for the Obama administration with regards to how they have responded to criticism from figures such as Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

Maher called the White House “cowards” for allowing Van Jones to resign following a series of right-wing attacks and for capitulating to those who complained about the nature of Obama’s back-to-school speech.

“The Democrats just never learn. Americans don’t really care which side of an issue you’re on as long as you don’t act like pussies,” Maher said.

Maher then criticized Obama for trying to win over those who vehemently disagree with him, insisting that the president should instead “stand up for the 70 percent of Americans who aren’t crazy.”

“When are we going to actually show up in all this,” Maher said.

Full Story: Bill Maher Challenges Obama: “Stand Up For The 70 Percent Of Americans Who Aren’t Crazy” (VIDEO).

Would you still sign the 9/11 Truth petition?

We ask signatories of the statement that helped drive Van Jones from office if they stand by it. Updated

By Vincent Rossmeier -  | Salon News

Thanks in large part to his association with the 9/11 Truth movement, Van Jones is no longer a member of the Obama White House. Jones resigned last week amid a swirl of controversy — prodded on largely by Fox News’ Glenn Beck — that included the former “green jobs” advisor’s signing of a petition put out by the 9/11 Truth movement urging a further investigation into the World Trade Center attacks. Most controversially, the petition wondered darkly that “unanswered questions … suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war,” before drifting into a list of wild and dubious speculation. (You can read the petition right here.)

Initially, Jones said that he hadn’t fully reviewed the statement before he signed. But that didn’t stop the onslaught of bad publicity that ultimately led to his exit.

The statement was released in October 2004 and has been signed by nearly 200 people, including many relatives of those who lost someone in the attacks. It called for an investigation into 9/11 but also directly questioned the government’s conclusions about the plane crashes.

Full Story: Would you still sign the 9/11 Truth petition? | Salon News.

Abramoff Associate Was a ‘Corrupter,’ Not a Lobbyist, Prosecutors Tell Jury

Federal prosecutors told jurors Friday that Kevin Ring, an associate of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s, lavished meals and tickets on lawmakers and public officials in the hopes of illegally influencing them.

“He was a lobbyist in name but a corruptor in reality,” said Nathaniel B. Edmonds, a Justice Department prosecutor. “Ring is the sugar daddy, giving out the goodies to public officials over and over again.”

Ring, 38, of Kensington, went on trial Friday in the District’s federal court on conspiracy, fraud and obstruction of justice charges tied to the Abramoff lobbying scandal. His attorneys say he did nothing wrong.

“He pushed the envelope where Congress purposefully left the lines blurry,” said his attorney, Andrew Wise. “Kevin Ring played by the rules of lobbying and government in a broken and sometimes ridiculous system.”

Full Story: Abramoff Associate Was a ‘Corrupter,’ Not a Lobbyist, Prosecutors Tell Jury – washingtonpost.com.

On The edge with Max Keiser – Gold maniuplation

YouTube – On The edge with Max Keiser/ 09/ 11 /2009/ P1.

Political Campaign Funding – A Democracy’s Dilemma

On 9.11.09  the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of the restrictions that have been placed on corporate money in politics. The ruling may be one of the Court’s most critical decisions in an age which has seen one Presidential campaign accumulate almost a billion dollars in contributions. When the constitutionality of any far reaching federal law is opposed, it is a matter of national relevance, however, when a law affecting the foundation of the Democracy is challenged, such event should be arousing everyone’s notice and should be at the forefront of all news media outlets.

The case in front of the Supreme Court, Citizens v. Federal Election Commission, revolves around a documentary called “Hillary: The Movie,” produced by Citizens United. Based on Hillary Clinton, the film was banned for violating the McCain-Feingold bill which requires disclosure on funding sources, and stipulates that neither corporate or union treasuries can finance any “ad” pro or con just before a primary.

The 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), also known as the McCain-Feingold bill, was the last major piece of legislation passed to control the source of financing for Federal political campaigns. The bill eliminated soft money donations to the national party committees, and restricted the funding of political pronouncements, ads, etc., by corporations, or organizations such as unions and non-profit organizations.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Political Campaign Funding – A Democracy’s Dilemma.

Money is the Cancer

Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings

Jobs, health care and the economy are all sacrificed for campaign contributions.

The President’s address to Congress on health care looked like a home run — until he got to costs – and then the ball hit the back fence and dropped into the field. Paying for reform by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in health care is the typical cop-out. I served on President Reagan’s Grace Commission to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in government. We saved a lot, but President Ronald Reagan added a trillion dollars to the national debt.

We submitted the solution of a value added tax to the administration weeks ago, but Axelrod still has the president campaigning for the money. All we have to do is eliminate the corporate income tax and replace it with a 5% value added tax. A 3% VAT replaces the revenues from corporate tax, 1% more pays $1.3 trillion for health care, and 1% more brings in enough revenue to start paying down the debt. With the average corporate tax at 27%, the 5% VAT cuts taxes by 22% for domestic sales and eliminates taxes for Corporate America’s exports. This immediately removes the 44% tax advantage to off-shore Corporate America’s production and jobs to China. China has a 17% VAT so that U. S. production pays an average of 27% corporate tax and, when its exports reach Hong Kong, China adds its 17% VAT – for a total of 44%.

Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

EXCLUSIVE: UnitedHealth Lobbyist Announces Pelosi Fundraiser As She Begins Backing Off Pub Option

by: David Sirota - OPENLEFT

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the first time yesterday suggested she may be backing off her support of the public option. According to CNN, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “said they would support any provision that increases competition and accessibility for health insurance – whether or not it is the public option favored by most Democrats.” When “asked if inclusion of a public option was a non-negotiable demand – as her previous statements had indicated Pelosi ruled out any non-negotiable positions,” according to CNN. This was also corroborated by the Associated Press, and by Pelosi’s own words, as quoted in those stories.

This announcement came just hours before Steve Elmendorf, a registered UnitedHealth lobbyist and the head of UnitedHealth’s lobbying firm Elmendorf Strategies, blasted this email invitation throughout Washington, D.C. I just happened to get my hands on a copy of the invitation from a source – check out this OpenLeft exclusive:

From: Steve Elmendorf [mailto:steve@elmendorfstrategies.com]

Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 8:31 AM

Subject: event with Speaker Pelosi at my home

You are cordially invited to a reception with

Speaker of the House

Nancy Pelosi

Thursday, September 24, 2009

6:30pm ~ 8:00pm

At the home of

Steve Elmendorf

2301 Connecticut Avenue, NW

Apt. 7B

Washington, D.C.

$5,000 PAC

$2,400 Individual

To RSVP or for additional information please contact

Carmela Clendening at (202) 485-3508 or clendening@dccc.org

Steve Elmendorf

ELMENDORF STRATEGIES

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS SOLUTIONS

900 7th Street NW Suite 750 Washington DC 20001

(202) 737-1655

Again, Elmendorf is a registered lobbyist for UnitedHealth, and his firm’s website brags about its work for UnitedHealth on its website (Elmendorf was also a chief of staff for Democratic Minority Leader Dick Gephardt).

Full Story: Open Left:: EXCLUSIVE: UnitedHealth Lobbyist Announces Pelosi Fundraiser As She Begins Backing Off Pub Option.

Justice Roberts Wants More Corporate Money In Politics

More important than Heath Care!

YouTube – Justice Roberts Wants More Corporate Money In Politics.

The Great Swine Flu Cover-Up

CIP Americas Program

Mexico has been considered the laboratory of globalization since it initiated the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. In April of 2009 a deadly virus germinated in that laboratory, finding ideal conditions to move quickly into a global pandemic.

The first outbreaks of the H1N1 virus, or “swine flu,” took place in a small town in the state of Veracruz. Carroll Farms, the massive industrial farm animal production facilities co-owned by Smithfield Foods and AHMSA of Mexico is located near La Gloria, in the municipality of Perote. A local boy, Edgar Hernandez, gained the dubious distinction of becoming the first confirmed case. After weeks of denying any connection between the farm and the illness, the state governor finally called for an independent investigation into possible linkages. That investigation has not been made public or even carried out so far as is known.

The governor’s announcement followed a long line of denials regarding the role of the hog farm—or hog farms in general—in the outbreak of the A/H1N1 virus in Mexico. Unusual respiratory diseases began showing up in communities surrounding the industrial feedlot in early March, with some indications dating back to January. Local health authorities attributed the outbreak to the open-pit lagoons of manure and biological wastes surrounding the farms.

Full Story: CIP Americas Program | The Great Swine Flu Cover-Up.

Rolling the Dice Again

by Ralph Nader

The Wall Street gang is at it again! It’s been one year since Wall Street’s collapse and bailout took trillions from taxpayers and the sinking economy. The speculative instruments that pulled down the economy were those super-risky sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations-you know-Las Vegas East, using other peoples’ savings.

As if to elaborate their gigantic con job, the investment banks, guaranteed by you the taxpayers, are now packaging life insurances policies in what sane, on the ground businesses would consider deranged exotic money plays.

Here is how the New York Times described the new securitization packages emerging from such corporate welfare goliaths as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and their eager rating agency, DBRS.

“The bankers plan to buy ‘life settlements,’ life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash–…depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to ‘securitize’ these policies…by packaging hundred or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell these bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

Full Story: Rolling the Dice Again | CommonDreams.org.

A triumph for man, a disaster for mankind

Two ships are finishing the first commercial navigation of the fabled North-east Passage. It is an epic moment – but also a vivid sign of climate change in the Arctic

It has been one of the elusive goals of seafaring nations almost since the beginnings of waterborne trade, but for nearly 500 years the idea has been dismissed as an impossible dream. Now, as a result of global warming, the dream is about to come true.

Within days, a journey that represents both a huge commercial boon and a dark milestone on the route to environmental catastrophe is expected to be completed for the first time. No commercial vessel has ever successfully travelled the North-east Passage, a fabled Arctic Sea route that links the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific far more directly than the usual southerly cargo route. Explorers throughout history have tried, and failed; some have died in the attempt.

But early next week the German-owned vessels, Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight, are scheduled to dock in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. It is the culmination of a two-month voyage from South Korea across the perilous waters of the Arctic, where an unprecedented ice-melt has at last made the previously impassable course a viable possibility.

Full Story: A triumph for man, a disaster for mankind – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

War Drums Begin Beating in Washington

WASHINGTON, 11 Sep (IPS) – As nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West continue to move slowly, U.S. President Barack Obama is coming under growing pressure from what appears to be a concerted lobbying and media campaign urging him to act more aggressively to stop Iran’s nuclear programme.

Obama has given Tehran an end-of-September deadline to respond substantively to his offer of diplomatic engagement. But already hawks in the U.S. – backed by hardline pro-Israel organisations – have pressed him to quickly impose “crippling” economic sanctions against Tehran, and some are arguing that he should make preparations for a military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The pressure campaign kicked off in earnest this week. On Thursday, hundreds of leaders and activists from the U.S. Jewish community descended on Washington to lobby for harsher sanctions, while widely-publicised media reports suggested that Iran is already nearing the verge of a nuclear capability.

Full Story: US-IRAN: War Drums Begin Beating in Washington.

I See Things You Don’t: I Have Syn

By T.L. Reid, The Tyee.

My brain gives colors to numbers, visual textures to words.

A few years ago, I made a private LiveJournal post to two friends with the following announcements:

1. I was falling out of love with our common fandom

2. My appendectomy scar still hurt, and

3. I had synaesthesia.

I’m not sure why I included the third point. I’d kept that information to myself for my entire life, but I suddenly felt like I needed to tell someone. I was expecting flak, comfort, and blank stares. I certainly wasn’t expecting the stunned response I got from Paula Lori. “Oh my god,” she wrote. “Me, too.”

Neuroscientists believe that everyone begins life with a touch of synaesthesia: the human mind starts out with multiple sensations traveling along the same pathways in the brain. In most people, these routes get pruned down as people grow up — different sensory pathways start to specialize in a single type of sensation. But for those of us with synaesthesia (which literally means “the joining of the senses”), a certain amount of crossover remains.

Full Story: I See Things You Don’t: I Have Syn | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

From the Marriage Sucks File: Scientists Say Sleeping Together Ruins Your Health

And we’re not talking about that kind of sleeping together. The couple that snoozes together, loses together. Or rather, the couple that sleeps together, doesn’t.

That’s the latest finding from British scientist Neil Stanley. While American science reporting tends to focus on banishing the endemic muffin top, our friends across the pond have a none-too-wee fixation with la difference. If it’s not a breakthrough study finding that those helpless men are distracted by breasts or are just distracted in general, it’s the juicy promise of death by nuptial that keeps the html dot uk flowing.

Marriage is depressing. Marriage is expensive. Marriage not only ruins your waking life, your night life and your sex life, it also ruins the part of your life you’re not even consciously participating in. Oh, for heaven’s sake, is there no rest for the wedded weary?

Full Story: From the Marriage Sucks File: Scientists Say Sleeping Together Ruins Your Health | EcoSalon.

Over 100 Million Americans Have Smoked Marijuana — And It’s Still Illegal?

By Paul Armentano, NORML.

41 percent of the U.S. population say they’ve tried cannabis at least once in their lives, 10 percent say they’ve used it in the last year.

he U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has once again released their annual survey on “drug use and health” — you know, the one where representatives of the federal government go door-to-door and ask Americans if they are presently breaking state and federal law by using illicit drugs. The same survey where respondents have historically under reported their usage of alcohol and tobacco — these two legal substances — by as much as 30 to 50 percent, and arguably under report their use of illicit substances by an even greater margin. The same survey that — despite these inherent limitations — “is the primary source of statistical information on the use of illegal drugs by the U.S. population.” Yeah, that one.

So what does the government’s latest round of ’statistical (though highly questionable) information’ tell us? Nothing we didn’t already know.

Despite 70+ years of criminal prohibition, marijuana still remains widely popular among Americans, with over 102 million Americans (41 percent of the U.S. population) having used it during their lifetimes, 26 million (10 percent) having used it in the past year, and over 15 million (6 percent) admitting that they use it regularly. (By contrast, fewer than 15 percent of adults have ever tried cocaine, the second most ‘popular’ illicit drug, and fewer than 2 percent have ever tried heroin — so much for that supposed ‘gateway effect.’) Predictably, all of the 2008 marijuana use figures are higher than those that were reported for the previous year — great work John Walters!

Full Story: Over 100 Million Americans Have Smoked Marijuana — And It’s Still Illegal? | DrugReporter | AlterNet.

5 Cures for the Unemployment Blues

By Arun Gupta, AlterNet

You can always learn to say “Would you like fries with that?” But who wants to eat made-in-a-factory E. coli burgers, much less sling them?

So you’re unemployed. Big fucking deal. There are 15 million in America just like you.

When you add in discouraged workers and the involuntarily underemployed (such as yours truly), the number of schlumps pounding the pavement or clacking the keyboard in search of enough dough to pay the bills and still enjoy a pint of beer is more than 26 million desperate jobseekers, or 16.8 percent of the workforce.

It’s an ugly economy out there. For those harboring fantasies of a replay of the revolutionary romanticism of the 1930s, forget about it. The country is teetering on the brink of a Depression, but there is nothing Great about it.

Read Full Story 5 Cures for the Unemployment Blues | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.

Pressed On FreedomWorks’ Connections To Tea Parties, Dick Armey Lashes Out At TP As ‘Juvenile Delinquents’

Think Progress »

On Thursday, Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks partnered with an anti-health reform group pushing to privatize Medicare to host a Republican rally outside the Capitol. Alongside speakers such as Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Armey proclaimed, “Give me liberty or give me death. Well, Barack Obama is trying to make good on that.”

Speaking to reporters and ThinkProgress after the rally, Armey pretended that the upcoming 9/12 anti-Obama march on D.C. was entirely “grassroots,” and that his corporate-backed group only provided “consulting.” In fact, most of the groups paying for the rally are front groups and phony think tanks fully-funded by big business to create an image of public and academic support for their special interest agenda. One of the most visible organizations mobilizing the protest this Saturday is the Tea Party Patriots group. As Talking Points Memo has reported, the Tea Party Patriots’ listserv is managed by FreedomWorks staffer Tom Gaitens. Not only is the list managed by FreedomWorks, but Armey’s staffers have final say on decisions such as the logo for the event this Saturday. Tea Party Patriots does not even hide its close affiliation with corporate front groups, since it lists FreedomWorks as a coalition partner. The Tea Party Patriots listserv was used to distribute the infamous memo from a Tea Party Patriots volunteer detailing how town hall attendees should “rattle” Democrats by interrupting their events with coordinated yelling and shrieks.

via Think Progress » Pressed On FreedomWorks’ Connections To Tea Parties, Dick Armey Lashes Out At TP As ‘Juvenile Delinquents’.

EPA Turns the Lights on Mountaintop Removal

- The Nation

The Environmental Protection Agency made good on its promise today to assert greater scrutiny and “use the best science and follow the letter of the law” with regard to controversial mountaintop removal mining permits in the Appalachian coalfields. In a highly anticipated announcement, the agency declared that all seventy-nine pending permits in four states would “likely cause water quality impacts” and sent them on for additional review under the Clean Water Act.

Does today’s big announcement end the practice of mountaintop removal–which has clear-cut more than 1.2 million acres of deciduous forests, employed billions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives to blow up 500 mountains, packed and sullied an estimated 2,000 miles of streams with mining waste, and left coalfield communities in economic ruin?

The short answer from the EPA: no.

But while the agency has gone out of its way to make clear that this announcement does not “constitute a change” in policy or usurp the Army Corps of Engineers’s authority over such permits, today’s news comes as a telling harbinger that the rule of science, law and interagency cooperation just might be returning to the Appalachian coalfields.

via EPA Turns the Lights on Mountaintop Removal.

Economic Crisis: One Year Later

by Sen. Bernie Sanders:

Americans have suffered for a year through the worst economic decline since the Great Depression. Millions of people have lost their jobs. We’re seeing people with very long-term unemployment. We are seeing older people who have lost their life’s savings and are now worried about how they are going to retire with dignity. We have seen people lose their homes, and we’ve seen people lose their pensions. We’ve seen, in many ways, the collapse of the American middle class.

What’s going on in Congress? I and some others have fought for an investigation to ask some simple questions: How did a handful of CEOs of major corporations precipitate this economic crisis? Who is accountable? Who should be going to jail? How do we make sure what happened in terms of the recklessness and irresponsibility on Wall Street doesn’t happen again? I wish that I could tell you that Congress is now doing that investigation. It is not.

We have got to understand what caused the problem in order to make the necessary reforms.

Here are three ideas I’m working on:

Cap Interest Rates First, if there is anything we learned from the credit card disaster, where millions of Americans were paying 25 percent or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards, it is that we have got to have a cap on interest rates in this country. We’ve got legislation to enact a national usury law. The maximum amount that credit card companies could charge would be 15 percent.

via Sen. Bernie Sanders: Economic Crisis: One Year Later.

Chasing the dragon, pt. 3

Part 3…God’s own medicine  - Scholars and Rogues »

The Obama administration rescinded the Bush administration’s quixotic order to eradicate poppy fields in Afghanistan. Judging by hectare cultivation numbers and harvest yields, the plan was either never fully implemented or failed miserably. At the very least, farmers in Afghanistan are no longer being punished for trying to make a living. Like Bush, the Obama administration wants to reform Afghan agriculture and move it away from poppy cultivation. Unfortunately, these plans are still “being finalized”. To understand the problems inherent in the administration’s plans and possible futures for Afghan agriculture we need to examine Afghanistan’s situation, the opium poppy, and the history of opium cultivation.

Papaver somniferum (the sleep bringing poppy) has a long history with humanity: seeds have been found in Neolithic burials and recorded use dates to c. 3500 BC in Mesopotamia. For most of those years it was not an evil scourge, but one of the most important plants in the human cornucopia. Gods were depicted wearing its flowers. It offered pain relief without equal in the ancient world, along with mystical visions. But its downside was noticed at least as early as Galen, who wrote that opium users developed a need for the substance and the negative effects of habituation.

As late as the U.S. Civil War, opium was hailed as “god’s own medicine”. God is, apparently, merciful as the plant is widely tolerant of temperate conditions; capable of withstanding drought later in its life cycle; and not particularly susceptible to pests and diseases. More importantly, gathering opium is a fairly simple, if laborious, process. After the flower petals fall, the seed pod is allowed to ripen for roughly two weeks. Then a series of shallow slashes or pin-pricks are made in the pod; latex seeps from these incisions and is scraped from the pod. Sun drying removes the water content, and the result is raw opium.

via Scholars and Rogues » Chasing the dragon, pt. 3.

People, Let’s Get Our Carbon Down

Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. & Bill McKibben – The Nation

Here’s a question whose answer might surprise you: what American songwriter penned the most-listened-to piece of environmental protest music of all time? Somebody with an acoustic guitar? John Denver?

The answer, almost certainly, is Marvin Gaye. “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)” appeared on What’s Going On, the album he released in May 1971, which went straight to the top of the charts, even though Motown boss Berry Gordy thought it was too political to sell. “I realized that I had to put my own fantasies behind me if I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people. I wanted them to take a look at what was happening in the world,” Gaye said later. The Vietnam War, protested in the album’s title song, was part of that story, and so was drug abuse–and so was “oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas,” and “radiation in the ground and in the sky,” and “fish full of mercury.”

via People, Let’s Get Our Carbon Down.

We must all be stewards of water

- The Ottawa Citizen

Simcoe County aquifer dispute underscores the need for a national water policy

A decisive victory has been won for water in Simcoe County, in a struggle that had been brewing for more than 20 years. Dump Site 41, the landfill that was to be built atop the Alliston aquifer this fall, points to major shortcomings in water governance at all levels of government in Canada.

Preliminary work on the dump site was approved in a very close vote in 2007 at Simcoe County council, despite much public opposition. Since then, the artesian spring just under the proposed landfill — declared by a University of Heidelberg study to contain among the purest water in the world — was de-watered to allow for construction.

The struggle to protect the watershed that serves several communities and wildlife in Ontario had grown to epic dimensions as national organizations and political figures joined First Nations communities, local farmers and residents to voice their opposition.

via We must all be stewards of water.

Gay Rights on the Double: Bill to Repeal DOMA to Hit Capitol Just as Same-Sex Marriage to Be OK’d in Capital

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White

This weekend, gay-rights activists in our nation’s capital may be toasting a double to some of their elected representatives. As federal lawmakers gear up to try to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act in Washington, local lawmakers in D.C. are counting the ayes ahead of a vote on same-sex marriage. Rep. Nadler w/ HRC on DOMA repeal

The Washington Post reports today that the D.C. City Council will likely pass the “Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009″ shortly, a bill which would allow same-sex marriage as well as the transfer of domestic partnerships to district-sanctioned marriage by 2011. The votes are there; in fact the bill main sponsor, Councilman David Catania, says it may pass unanimously.

But because of the unique way in which D.C.’s local legislation is subject to approval by federal legislators, the likelihood of legal gay marriage in the district for the long term is far from assured. Congress has recently reaffirmed their control over the city in a craven move attaching an unpopular anti-gun control measure to a bill which would grant D.C. a full vote in the House.

via Gay Rights on the Double: Bill to Repeal DOMA to Hit Capitol Just as Same-Sex Marriage to Be OK’d in Capital | BuzzFlash.org.

The extreme Republican Party

– The Boston Globe

BACK IN 1970 when Richard Nixon nominated a little-known district court judge named Harold Carswell for the Supreme Court and Carswell’s opponents branded him “mediocre,’’ Republican Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska famously rose to Carswell’s defense. Even if he were mediocre, Hruska said, “mediocre people are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?’’ With that ringing endorsement, Carswell’s appointment was soundly defeated by the Senate, but not even Hruska could have foreseen how his prescription would be adopted by our political system.

Let’s not mince words here: We now have an entire political party that is not only dedicated to the mediocre. It is dedicated to the nearly deranged.

We are long past the time when we can pretend there are two serious political parties in this country – one right of center and one left of center. That is the situation in virtually every other industrialized country. England has its Tories and Labor, France its Gaullists and its Socialists, Germany its Christian Democrats and its Social Democrats. These parties generally don’t agree on policy; they are, after all, political adversaries. But they are all serious, they all represent large constituencies and interests, and they all operate from a set of shared values, not least of which is that the other side is not treasonous or evil or ill-intentioned; it just has different prescriptions for solving problems. Typically, the differences between right and left in these countries are fairly small because in most democracies most people agree on the really big stuff. Even Tory leader David Cameron has vigorously defended England’s National Health Service.

via The extreme Republican Party – The Boston Globe.

A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall Street

NYTimes.com – One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the surprise is not how much has changed in the financial industry, but how little.

Backstopped by huge federal guarantees, the biggest banks have restructured only around the edges. Employment in the industry has fallen just 8 percent since last September. Only a handful of big hedge funds have closed. Pay is already returning to precrash levels, topped by the 30,000 employees of Goldman Sachs, who are on track to earn an average of $700,000 this year. Nor are major pay cuts likely, according to a report last week from J.P. Morgan Securities. Executives at most big banks have kept their jobs. Financial stocks have soared since their winter lows.

The Obama administration has proposed regulatory changes, but even their backers say they face a difficult road in Congress. For now, banks still sell and trade unregulated derivatives, despite their role in last fall’s chaos. Radical changes like pay caps or restrictions on bank size face overwhelming resistance. Even minor changes, like requiring banks to disclose more about the derivatives they own, are far from certain.

via A Year After a Cataclysm, Little Change on Wall Street – NYTimes.com.

Brain Washing

Today’s Best Cartoons.

Xcel reports radioactive release at Monticello plant

| StarTribune.com

In what federal nuclear regulators are calling a “non-emergency,” radioactivity has been released from Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear power plant.

Plant operators detected low levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, in a newly-dug monitoring well located near the plant’s reactor building, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The release was detected Thursday morning and reported to the NRC that afternoon.

via Xcel reports radioactive release at Monticello plant | StarTribune.com.

Insurance Stocks Rise After Obama Speech

Remember President Obama’s reference during his health care address to “Wall Street’s relentless profit expectations”? Well, those expectations were apparently met by that same address. Insurance company stocks got a boost from the speech, which foreshadowed the death of the public option and promised to deliver millions of currently “irresponsible” customers.

Speaking of the uninsured, at last count there were more than 46.3 million. —PS

Reuters:

Shares of U.S. health insurers climbed on Thursday after analysts saw no “game changers” from President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated speech on health reform.

Following the speech, analysts predicted any changes to the system would be moderate, with Obama backing many initiatives put forth earlier this week by a leading Senate committee. The possibility a threatening public health plan would be enacted also now seemed doubtful, analysts said.

via Truthdig – Ear to the Ground – Insurance Stocks Rise After Obama Speech.

Who took the picture of Joe Wilson? And how?

Psychology Today

So here’s what I don’t understand. If Joe Wilson’s outburst during Obama’s speech Wednesday night was truly “spontaneous,” as Wilson claims, and no one (including Wilson himself) could have anticipated it, how come there is a sharply focused and neatly centered picture of Wilson right at the moment he shouted “You lie!” when the outburst lasted less than a second? In the picture, Wilson’s mouth is still open, apparently in the middle of his shouting “lie.”

There are 535 members of Congress in attendance during the joint session, plus a few extras like Michelle Obama and Vicki Kennedy. Until last night, Wilson was just about the least well known member of Congress. Why did someone have a camera fixed and focused on him during Obama’s speech? The picture in question has been variously credited to “Getty Images,” “AFP” (Agence France-Presse) or “Chip Somodevilla.” None of them are local press in South Carolina, which might have had a reason to pay particular attention to their local Congressman during the speech. I doubt local press photographers are allowed in the joint session of Congress during a Presidential speech anyway.

via Who took the picture of Joe Wilson? And how? | Psychology Today.

Americans grow cannabis to beat the recession

Some people cancel holidays abroad, others stage yard sales or start shopping at low-cost supermarkets. To that list must now be added a new way to get through economic hard times: grow cannabis.

Law enforcers on the west coast of the US and in the middle states straddled by the foothills of the Appalachian mountains are reporting a common trend. It is boom time for marijuana cultivation, and much of the incentive they say is to beat the recession.

So far this year, police in parts of the country where cannabis is traditionally grown have chopped down plants with a street value of $12bn. The core growing area is in California, Washington and Oregon to the west, but the Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia are also witnessing an explosion.

via Americans grow cannabis to beat the recession | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Joe Wilson, You’re Wrong!

On the night after Rep. Joe Wilson shouted “You Lie” at President Obama during an address to Congress, Keith Olbermann devotes a “Special Comment” to the Congressman, and mocked his apology.

“You embarrassed your district, you embarrassed your nation… and you were wrong!”

Olbermann said “Wrong-Way Wilson” “made himself look like an uninformed eight-year-old screaming at an adult.”

He also comments on how “stupid” certain Republican talking heads have made the party look. “The tiem has come to rise up and take this country back, to again make it safe for people who actually completed the seventh grade.”

via YouTube – Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Joe Wilson, You’re Wrong!.

Bush official Bradley Schlozman Won’t Face Criminal Charges For Lying Under Oath

Attorney General Eric Holder has decided not to bring any criminal charges against a former Bush administration official who lawmakers said lied to them in sworn testimony.

An inspector general’s report found that Bradley Schlozman, the former head of the civil rights division, misled lawmakers in sworn testimony about whether he politicized hiring decisions.

At his February confirmation hearing, Holder pledged he would review that decision to prosescute Schlozman when he took over the department and promised to strengthen and rebuild the civil rights division.

Holder’s decision was revealed in a letter sent to lawmakers on Friday.

via Bradley Schlozman Won’t Face Criminal Charges For Lying Under Oath.

Monsanto, Dow Chemical Win Approval for Modified Corn

Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed producer, and partner Dow Chemical Co. won U.S. and Canadian approvals to sell genetically modified SmartStax corn seed that allows farmers to plant less land with conventional corn. Their shares rose in late trading.

The approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency permits most farmers in the two countries to reduce their so-called refuge of conventional corn to 5 percent of biotech acres, from 20 percent, St. Louis-based Monsanto and Midland, Michigan-based Monsanto said today in a statement. The companies expect as many as 4 million acres will be planted with the new seed next year.

“This is a big deal for Monsanto and Dow,” said Mark Gulley, a New York-based analyst for Soleil Securities. “They’re at least two years ahead of Pioneer,” the agriculture unit of Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont Co. The company is awaiting approval for its competing corn product, AcreMax, from U.S. regulators.

Monsanto and Dow added eight genes to SmartStax to protect against herbicides and bugs. The plant kills insects in multiple ways, reducing the odds that the bugs will develop resistance and allowing for a smaller refuge.

Monsanto rose $4.20, or 5.5 percent, to $80.76 at 6:04 p.m., after the close of regular New York Stock Exchange trading. Dow gained 38 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $18.19.

Distribution Channels

via Bloomberg Printer-Friendly Page.

Insiders sell like there’s no tomorrow

Corporate officers and directors were buying stock when the market hit bottom. What does it say that they’re selling now?

NEW YORK (Fortune) — Can hundreds of stock-selling insiders be wrong?

The stock market has mounted an historic rally since it hit a low in March. The S&P 500 is up 55%, as U.S. job losses have slowed and credit markets have stabilized.

But against that improving backdrop, one indicator has turned distinctly bearish: Corporate officers and directors have been selling shares at a pace last seen just before the onset of the subprime malaise two years ago.

While a wave of insider selling doesn’t necessarily foretell a stock market downturn, it suggests that those with the first read on business trends don’t believe current stock prices are justified by economic fundamentals.

via Insiders sell like there’s no tomorrow – Sep. 10, 2009.

House to formally admonish ‘you lie’ congressman over insult

House plans to admonish Rep. Wilson over insult

Democratic leaders are planning a House vote early next week on whether to admonish Republican Rep. Joe Wilson if he does not apologize on the House floor for yelling “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s health care address.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said Friday that party leaders decided they will likely move forward with a resolution of disapproval against Wilson if he doesn’t apologize to Congress.

Wilson told Obama he was sorry shortly after the incident on Wednesday, but has refused requests to apologize on the House floor. Wilson’s office says the congressman considers his initial apology sufficient. He has also been telling supporters he will continue to speak loudly about the issue and “not be muzzled.”

via The Raw Story » House to formally admonish ‘you lie’ congressman over insult.

Pawlenty May Invoke The 10th Amendment To Block Minnesotans From Receiving Federal Health Care

Yesterday in a conference call with right-wing activists, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) joined the tenther movement by questioning whether federal health care reform is constitutional. When a caller asked, “I want to know if any of the governors are willing to invoke the 10th Amendment if the health care bill is passed,” Pawlenty replied:

Depending on what the federal government comes out with here, asserting the 10th Amendment might be viable option, but we don’t know the details. As one of the other callers said, we can’t really even get the president to outline what he does or doesn’t support in any detail. So we’ll have to see. I’d say that’s a possibility.

You’re starting to see more governors, including me, and specifically Gov. Perry from Texas, and most Republican governors express concern around these issues and get more aggressive about asserting and bringing up the 10th Amendment. So I think we could see hopefully a resurgence of those claims and maybe even lawsuits if need be.

via Think Progress » Pawlenty May Invoke The 10th Amendment To Block Minnesotans From Receiving Federal Health Care.

Right-Wing Health Care Group Misled Canadian Interviewees Who Appeared In Anti-Reform Ads

Right-Wing Health Care Group Misled Canadian Interviewees Who Appeared In Anti-Reform Ads

Earlier this year, Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), an anti-health care reform group led by the disgraced former CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Rick Scott, began running a commercial attacking the Canadian health care system. The TV ad runs through “tragic stories” of Canadian citizens who it portrays as being against government-run health plans such as Canada’s Medicare system. Watch it:

Now, CTV British Columbia is reporting that CPR misled several of the interviewees who appeared in their ads. One of them, Charlie Wadge, feels that the ad unfairly portrayed Canada’s system as “barbaric“:

A B.C. man featured in a series of American conservative health care ads says the videos portray the Canadian medicare system as “barbaric” — and that goes too far. [...]

via Think Progress » Right-Wing Health Care Group Misled Canadian Interviewees Who Appeared In Anti-Reform Ads.

Lawmakers to introduce legislation next week repealing DOMA.

Lawmakers to introduce legislation next week repealing DOMA.

Next week, Democratic Reps. Jerrold Nadler (NY), Tammy Baldwin (WI), and Jared Polis (CO) will be introducinglegislation to repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which “defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman for purposes of all federal laws.” From their press release sent out today:

Next Tuesday, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) will introduce legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a law which discriminates against lawfully married same-sex couples.The legislators will be joined by married same-sex couples harmed by DOMA and many of the country’s premier LGBT and civil rights advocates in a press conference to announce the new bill, at 11:00am on Tuesday, September 15, 2009, at the House Triangle, near the southern steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

via Think Progress » Lawmakers to introduce legislation next week repealing DOMA..

We’ve Seen This Trigger Before

by David Sirota

After a summer of politics marked by esoteric phrases like “co-ops” and “insurance exchanges,” the newest kernel of ubiquitous arcana is the term “trigger mechanism.” This proposal, which is gaining momentum after President Obama’s speech to Congress, would have any national health legislation include provisions only allowing a government-run “public option” if certain future parameters are met. “It’s an obscure policy tool that isn’t even written,” reported the news service TalkingPointsMemo.com, “But somehow, a ‘trigger-mechanism’ is the talk of Washington right now. How did that happen?”

Such shock is widespread. Pundits, reporters and activists are stunned that an abstruse scheme to halt reform has become a focal point of the health care debate. Yet, considering recent history, the only surprise is that Washington waited so long to again force this legislative cyanide down America’s throat.

Recall that over the last decade, a maverick group of progressive and conservative lawmakers pushed bills to let Americans purchase cheaper, FDA-approved prescription drugs from other industrialized nations. It was (and is) a commonsense idea — other countries allow importation, and the practice helps lower health costs by permitting consumers to buy medicines at the lowest world market price, not just at an artificially inflated domestic premium.

via We’ve Seen This Trigger Before by David Sirota on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

A great nation deserves the truth: Krugman on the politics of the public option — and how it can prevent a backlash

I do wish someone at the White House (e.g., the President) would heed the advice of Paul Krugman every now and then. Today, he has an excellent post titled, Why the public option matters, which rebuts some of the arguments and excuses used against that proposal. It matters for several reasons, but, importantly, Krugman offers some sage advice on the political need for a public option:

Third — and this is where I am getting a very bad feeling about the idea of throwing in the towel on the public option — is the politics. Remember, to make reform work we have to have an individual mandate. And everything I see says that there will be a major backlash against the idea of forcing people to buy insurance from the existing companies. That backlash was part of what got Obama the nomination! Having the public option offers a defense against that backlash.

What worries me is not so much that the backlash would stop reform from passing, as that it would store up trouble for the not-too-distant future. Imagine that reform passes, but that premiums shoot up (or even keep rising at the rates of the past decade.) Then you could all too easily have many people blaming Obama et al for forcing them into this increasingly unaffordable system. A trigger might fix this — but the funny thing about such triggers is that they almost never get pulled

via AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth: Krugman on the politics of the public option — and how it can prevent a backlash.

9/11 widow: Do I really want the truth?

My husband jumped from the towers eight years ago. At least, that’s what I always thought happened

By Alissa Torres

Sept. 11, 2009 | For the past eight years, I’ve had a recurring dream about my husband, Eddie Torres. It starts the same way: We kiss, we murmur how much we miss each other, how much we love each other. “Why can’t we be together like this all the time?” I ask, but he says nothing. In his silence, my joy turns to anger, which turns to rage. “You’ve never even met our son!” I scream.

And then I wake up, and I remember the truth. The truth, kind of.

My husband died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, on his second day of work at the brokerage company Cantor Fitzgerald. I was pregnant with our son. In the days and months that followed, I worked tirelessly to find out the rest of what happened. My questions started small — Which tower? What floor? — and became thornier. Why did this happen? What was the government’s involvement? What were the last minutes of his life like?

via 9/11 widow: Do I really want the truth? | Salon Life.

Study of Bush’s psyche touches a nerve

Study Reveals Republicanism is a Mental Illness

The Guardian

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in “fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity”.

As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report’s four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them “preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality”.

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

via Study of Bush’s psyche touches a nerve | World news | The Guardian.

The Final Sprint for Health Care Has Now Begun, and Where the White House is Placing Its Bets

Robert Reich

The real political race for health care has just begun. The significance of the President’s speech to Washington insiders was its signal about where the White House is placing its bets and its support. More on this in a moment. First, let’s be clear about who’s racing and why. Think of the speech as the starting gate of a two-month sprint between two competitors — and they’re not Democrats and Republicans.

On one side are America’s biggest private insurers and Big Pharma. They’re drooling over the prospect of tens of millions more Americans buying insurance and drugs because the pending legislation will require them to, or require employers to cover them. The pending expansion of Medicaid will also be a bonanza. Amerigroup Corp., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and other companies that administer Medicaid are looking at 10 million more customers. Healthcare Inc.’s Medicaid enrollment is expected to jump by 43 percent, according to its CEO. WellPoint Inc., the largest U.S. insurer, is also looking at big gains.

But the big insurers hate the idea of a public option because it will squeeze their profits. A true public option will force private insurers to compete in markets where there’s now very little competition, and also have the bargaining power to force drug companies to offer lower prices. Big Pharma also wants to prevent Medicare and Medicaid from having the power to negotiate lower prices, for the same reason. Private insurers and Big Pharma would rather fudge the question of where the savings will come from or how all this will be paid for. They certainly don’t want to pay for wider coverage with a surtax on the rich, because, hey, their executives and shareholders are mainly rich.

via Robert Reich’s Blog: The Final Sprint for Health Care Has Now Begun, and Where the White House is Placing Its Bets.

Americans are getting poorer, and it’s going to get worse

WASHINGTON — The early impact of the worst recession since the 1930s pushed median incomes down, forced millions more people into poverty and left more Americans without health care in 2008, according to new annual survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Poor people, working people, blacks, Hispanics and children bore a disproportionate share of the hardship. The new figures, however, likely understate the severity of the economic downturn because a large portion of nation’s job losses and unemployment rate increases occurred after the Census survey data was collected in March as part of the annual Current Population Survey.

The poor performances of key economic and social indicators come as little surprise, since the recession officially began in December 2007 and continued to create economic carnage for 18 months before appearing to bottom out over the summer.

via Americans are getting poorer, and it’s going to get worse | McClatchy.

Buffett tells Dems rich need to pay more

Warren Buffett, the renowned investor and the world’s second richest man, told Senate Democrats that wealthy Americans need to pay higher taxes, giving Democrats something to mull as they address healthcare reform and soaring federal deficits.

Senate Democrats met with Buffett for more than an hour over lunch Thursday, peppering him with questions about the economy, said lawmakers in attendance.

“He said rich people are not paying enough taxes,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “It was interesting to see someone who is such an aggressive capitalist, who believes so much in our capitalist system, saying we’ve got the scales way too heavily toward people who are very, very wealthy.”

Buffett told lawmakers that because of the cuts to the capital gains tax passed under former President George W. Bush, he pays taxes at a lower rate than some of his company’s employees.

via Buffett tells Dems rich need to pay more – TheHill.com.

Drunk Driver Jailed For Life

SALABERRY-DE-VALLEYFIELD, Quebec (AP) — A Canadian man has been sentenced to life in prison for mowing down a woman in a wheel chair as he drove drunk. It was his 19th drunk driving conviction, the court said.

The life sentence handed down by a Quebec judge was the first for a drunk driving conviction in Canada’s history, according to Prosecutor Joey Davis.

Roger Walsh, 57, had pleaded guilty to killing Anee Khudaverdian, who was out with her dog on her 47th birthday last year. She was propelled into a ditch after being struck.

via Drunk Driver Jailed For Life – AskMen.com.

Opponent of ‘You Lie’ Rep. raises nearly $600,000 in a day

The opponent of GOP Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who yelled “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during his speech to Congress on healthcare, has raised more than $405,000 from online donors since Wednesday evening.

ActBlue, a liberal advocacy group, posted an appeal for Wilson opponent Rob Miller, a Democrat. Within hours, online donors flooded the site, leaving the Republican’s Democratic opponent flush with new campaign cash overnight.

By Thursday morning, a spokesman for ActBlue told RAW STORY that Miller has raised “north of $96,000″ since Wilson’s outburst Wednesday.

via The Raw Story » Opponent of ‘You Lie’ Rep. raises nearly $600,000 in a day.

Group: NYC initiative for new 9/11 investigation gets legal opening

Group says petition for ballot initiative carries signatures from over 80,000 New York City residents

New York City Coalition for Accountability Now, a group comprising 9/11 family members, first responders and survivors, said on Thursday that New York City attorneys have conceded that enough valid signatures have been collected for a 9/11 investigation ballot initiative to move forward.

However, while the group hailed the concession as “a big victory,” activists still have a steep hill to climb before New Yorkers will get to vote on probing the infamous attacks anew.

“In an earlier letter from the City Clerk dated July 24, 2009, the City had claimed only 26,003 signatures were valid, 3,997 short of the requisite 30,000,” the group noted in a media advisory. “The City’s concession that over 30,000 of the 52,000 signatures submitted were in fact valid paves the way for lawyers from both sides to argue the legality of petition.”

via Raw Story » Group: NYC initiative for new 9/11 investigation gets legal opening.

Gold regains $1,000 mark as dollar weakens

FT.com

US currency hits fresh one-year low

Gold regained the $1,000 an ounce mark on Friday as further weakness in the dollar boosted sentiment towards commodity markets.

Gold traded in a narrow range between a low of $995.20 and a high of $1,002.70 after ending trading in New York on Thursday at $995.50.

via FT.com / Commodities – Gold regains $1,000 mark as dollar weakens.

A New Model for U.S. Manufacturing

There are entire industries that have been decimated through the outsourcing of production to overseas operations.

What would have happened to the United States of America if it wasn’t for the vision of Alexander Hamilton? Back in the latter years of the 18th century following American independence, most politicians and even Adam Smith himself advised America away from developing a manufacturing economy. According to Smith, stopping the importation of European manufacturers would have obstructed instead of promoted growth in the United States.

Yet in 1791, Alexander Hamilton presented a “Plan for American Manufacturers” that argued in contrary to Adam Smith’s market economy thinking, and inquired to protect ‘industries in their infancy’ to establish true economic independence from England. For almost two hundred years, America’s industrial policy was based upon strength and the importance of manufacturing to the well-being of the U.S. economy. Yet who can argue that America’s independence in 1791 was being compromised by European imports, or even that our independence today is being threatened by our enormous dependence upon imports?

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

How to Lower the U.S. Deficit Without Killing Social Security

Workers are not so naive to think that the Bush/Obama bailouts — the fiscal crime of the century — will earn them “profits.” Just the opposite is the case.

When it was recently announced that the federal deficit was $2 trillion higher than previously estimated, corporate vultures — after years of high-altitude circling — began their descent.

The dying entity they’re after is the U.S. social safety net — Social Security, Medicare, etc. Years of waiting have finally paid off; the long awaited pretext for scavenging has arrived in the huge federal deficit.

via OpEdNews – Article: How to Lower the U.S. Deficit Without Killing Social Security.

Saving Capitalism: A Crumbling Nation

“This backbone – America’s public facilities – is wearing out faster than it is being repaired, rehabilitated, or replaced,” Pat Choate, economist and former vice presidential candidate, writes.

America as a nation is crumbling – literally. Many of the nation’s roads, bridges, schools and parks are in disrepair, threatening the government’s ability to deliver desperately needed public services and hampering economic recovery, economist and former vice presidential candidate Pat Choate writes in his new book, Saving Capitalism.

“This backbone – America’s public facilities – is wearing out faster than it is being repaired, rehabilitated, or replaced,” he writes. “More than a quarter of America’s bridges are unsafe, urban highways are congested, wastewater pollutes our streams, parks are in disrepair, hundreds of small dams are unsafe, and the U.S. Internet system is the slowest of any advanced nation. This decline in America’s infrastructure undermines all broader efforts to revitalize the economy. It threatens such basic public services as safety, fire protection, transportation, water, and sewage treatment in thousands of communities,” Choate writes.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Still Campaigning

President Obama’s principal experience in government is campaigning. But now as President, he’s got to govern.

Editor’s Note: The following article was contributed by Former Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, author of Making Government Work.

From time to time I am asked the difference between being a Governor and Senator. Senators and Congressmen are constant campaigners. Governors are doers. Coming to the Congress, Senators have taken a poll; they know the issues, and the first thing a pollster will tell you is don’t split or divide the voters. You’re trying to get the most votes possible so identify with the issue; make a favorable comment on both sides, and say you are “troubled” or “concerned” over the issue. The game of a Senator is “I introduced,” “I sponsored,” “I made a talk.” Identify early on with the policy or issue, never having any idea about implementing the policy. In short, the pollster will teach you not to lead. Only identify. And survival in the Congress will have you constantly campaigning for money and re-election.

As Governor, the crazy Legislature might give you what you propose, and then what are you going to do? How are you going to implement? How are you going to see it through, make it work? The first order of a Governor or President is to sit down and think it through. Assume the policy or program has passed Congress and now you’ve got to make it work. You begin to think how you can avoid trouble; smooth over troubling issues; beat the regular opposition; take care of the sore-heads in your own party, and head-count. If you don’t have a pretty good chance of enactment, you never propose. A president’s time is limited and he’s got no time like a member of Congress identifying or hit-and-run driving important needs. He has to lead for the real needs of the country. You’ll never find the real needs of the country in a poll because the pollster avoids asking questions — for example, about taxes. When has a pollster asked: “Do you believe that the government ought to pay for the government it provides?” You’ll never find a Marshall Plan in a poll. But the people will let you know.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Dirty coal group’s 14th forgery impersonated American veterans.

Congressional investigators have discovered that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s (ACCCE) astroturfing effort has impersonated American military veterans in a forged letter sent to Congress. Thirteen other forgeries purporting to be from organizations representing blacks, Hispanics, women and senior citizens. This latest letter, sent in June to influence a swing Democratic legislator on his vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, impersonates a local American Legion official in Rocky Mount, VA:

The letter, sent to the office of Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), asks Perriello to “make sure the Waxman-Markey bill includes provisions to promote American energy independence, while protecting already cash-strapped constituents from increases in electricity prices.” It concludes, “Thank you for listening to concerns of vets in your district.”

via Think Progress » Dirty coal group’s 14th forgery impersonated American veterans..

Right-wing group sponsoring Republican doctors rally supports privatizing Medicare.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right-wing group that filed an amicus brief supporting Rush Limbaugh in his fight to keep his medical records private amid charges of doctor-shopping to obtain pain medication, was present with a booth at the FreedomWorks rally on Capitol Hill today. AAPS is sponsoring another event this afternoon with Republican leaders, including Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA). ThinkProgress caught up with an AAPS staffer, who explained that the group not only opposes health reform, but also supports privatizing Medicare:

Q: So you prefer a privatization of Medicare?

AAPS: Of Medicare? [...] Yes. We don’t think it’s very efficient at all.

Watch it:

via Think Progress » Right-wing group sponsoring Republican doctors rally supports privatizing Medicare..

Michael Savage Has to Apologize to Brave New Films

The shock jock is not well known for expressing remorse.

Shock jock Michael Savage, who is not prone to public shows of remorse, has been forced to apologize to progressive video production company Brave New Films after a take-down notice his syndicator sent to YouTube in 2008 resulted in the removal of all BNF’s films from the site.

The company’s YouTube complaint specifically targeted a Brave New Films video called “Michael Savage Hates Muslims.” In the video a nice photo of Savage posing by the Golden Gate Bridge is overlaid with soundbites of the shock jock railing against Islam, Muslims and the Koran. “I can see what it says in their book of hate … make no mistake about it, the Koran is not a document of freedom. The Koran is a document of slavery and chattel!” screams Savage. Kind of hard to misrepresent his meaning.

On his site, Savage hosts a link to a legal defense fund, meant in part to combat alleged violations of his free speech. Yet Savage’s Oregon-based syndicator, The Original Talk Radio Network, Inc. (OTRN), sent a notice to YouTube claiming copyright infringement, even though as most people who know things about the law will tell you, brief soundbites compiled into a document of critique fall squarely within fair use laws.

via Michael Savage Has to Apologize to Brave New Films | PEEK | AlterNet.

How 9/11 Should Be Remembered: The Extraordinary Achievements of Ordinary People

After 9/11, saw amazing acts of courage by ordinary people, including assembled flotilla of boats evacuated 300,000 to 500,000 people from lower Manhattan.

Eight years ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. The al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers did not defeat New Yorkers. It destroyed the buildings, contaminated the region, killed thousands, and disrupted the global economy, but it most assuredly did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the very word “terrorism,” which suggests that they, or we, were all terrified. The distortion, even obliteration, of what actually happened was a necessary precursor to launching the obscene response that culminated in a war on Iraq, a war we lost (even if some of us don’t know that yet), and the loss of civil liberties and democratic principles that went with it.

Only We Can Terrorize Ourselves

For this eighth anniversary of that terrible day, the first post-Bush-era anniversary, let’s remember what actually happened:

When the planes became missiles and the towers became torches and then shards and clouds of dust, many were afraid, but few if any panicked, other than the President who was far away from danger. The military failed to respond promptly, even though the Pentagon itself was attacked, and the only direct resistance that day came from inside Flight 93, which went down in a field in Pennsylvania on its way to Washington.

via How 9/11 Should Be Remembered: The Extraordinary Achievements of Ordinary People | | AlterNet.

14 Things You Need to Know About Obama Heckler, Rep. Joe Wilson

He was mentored by notorious racist Strom Thurmond, he’s taken hundreds of thousands from the health industry, and “Joe” isn’t even his real name.

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson was pretty much a nobody until his outburst Wednesday during President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress and the American people on the subject of health care. Here are some things worth knowing about Mr. Wilson, including his most recent video appeal, at the end of this list, where he continues to characterize the Democrats’ health-care plans as “government-run,” saying he will not “be muzzled.”

1. Like his ideological counterpart known as Mr. The Plumber, his real name is not Joe. It’s Addison. His middle name is Graves. That makes him Addison Graves Wilson.

2. Wilson is a member of the organization, Sons of Confederate Veterans, reports Dave Niewert of

via 14 Things You Need to Know About Obama Heckler, Rep. Joe Wilson | | AlterNet.

CA Nurses Association: Reform without single payer ain’t gonna bring real reform

Spent some time with the politically powerful California Nurses Association as they staged a demonstration in front of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s house. More on that in a minute.

The nurses are a bit disappointed with President Obama. Why? They want a single payer system. Anything less, said CNA executive director Rose Ann DeMoro, isn’t going to bring real reform.

“The problem with other solutions like the public option is that they leave in place the real problem: The insurance companies,” DeMoro told us.

Also there was Beth Piknick, an RN who is president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association — located in a state that has a version of the public option. The problem with the public option, Piknick said, “is that it doesn’t address the access question. Some people still can’t afford health insurance.”

via SFGate: Politics Blog : CA Nurses Association: Reform without single payer ain’t gonna bring real reform.

Health Deals Anger Former Obama Staffers, Supporters

President Obama has said in recent weeks that he still supports a government-sponsored health insurance plan, or “public option,” but he has stopped short of calling it a necessary element of health care reform. For tens of thousands of his supporters, that is not good enough.

More than 70,000 former Obama campaign staffers, volunteers and donors have signed a petition, spearheaded by the liberal group the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, saying as much.

“We worked so hard for real change,” the petition reads. “President Obama, please demand a strong public health insurance option in your speech to Congress. Letting the insurance companies win would not be change we can believe in.”

via Health Deals Anger Former Obama Staffers, Supporters – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

Insurance Companies Can’t Be Held Accountable If They Can Dictate Legislation

Last night, President Obama said that he wants to hold insurance companies accountable:

Now, I have no interest in putting insurance companies out of business. They provide a legitimate service, and employ a lot of our friends and neighbors. I just want to hold them accountable.

And he told House Progressives that the public option was only one of many possible means to that end:

To my progressive friends, I would remind you that for decades, the driving idea behind reform has been to end insurance company abuses and make coverage affordable for those without it. The public option is only a means to that end – and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal.

In response, I submit the following: it is impossible for the federal government to hold insurance companies accountable if those insurance companies can dictate whatever types of legislation they want to Congress.

Private health insurance companies have made the public option just as much of a sticking point as House Progressives have. Whereas House Progressives have stated they will oppose any health care reform legislation without a “robust” public option, private health insurance companies have stated they will oppose any legislation that includes one.

via Open Left:: Insurance Companies Can’t Be Held Accountable If They Can Dictate Legislation.

Exclusive: The Informant Who Lived With The Hijackers

Newsweek.com

At first, FBI director Bob Mueller insisted there was nothing the bureau could have done to penetrate the 9-11 plot. That account has been modified over time–and now may change again. NEWSWEEK has learned that one of the bureau’s informants had a close relationship with two of the hijackers: he was their roommate.

The connection, just discovered by congressional investigators, has stunned some top counterterrorism officials and raised new concerns about the information-sharing among U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. The two hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, were hardly unknown to the intelligence community. The CIA was first alerted to them in January 2000, when the two Saudi nationals showed up at a Qaeda “summit” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. FBI officials have argued internally for months that if the CIA had more quickly passed along everything it knew about the two men, the bureau could have hunted them down more aggressively.

But both agencies can share in the blame. Upon leaving Malaysia, Almihdhar and Alhazmi went to San Diego, where they took flight-school lessons. In September 2000, the two moved into the home of a Muslim man who had befriended them at the local Islamic Center. The landlord regularly prayed with them and even helped one open a bank account. He was also, sources tell NEWSWEEK, a “tested” undercover “asset” who had been working closely with the FBI office in San Diego on terrorism cases related to Hamas. A senior law-enforcement official told NEWSWEEK the informant never provided the bureau with the names of his two houseguests from Saudi Arabia. Nor does the FBI have any reason to believe the informant was concealing their identities. (He could not be reached for comment.) But the FBI concedes that a San Diego case agent appears to have been at least aware that Saudi visitors were renting rooms in the informant’s house. (On one occasion, a source says, the case agent called up the informant and was told he couldn’t talk because “Khalid”–a reference to Almihdhar–was in the room.) I. C. Smith, a former top FBI counterintelligence official, says the case agent should have been keeping closer tabs on who his informant was fraternizing with–if only to seek out the houseguests as possible informants. “They should have been asking, ‘Who are these guys? What are they doing here?’ This strikes me as a lack of investigative curiosity.” About six weeks after moving into the house, Almihdhar left town, explaining to the landlord he was heading back to Saudi Arabia to see his daughter. Alhazmi moved out at the end of 2000.

via Exclusive: The Informant Who Lived With The Hijackers | Newsweek Scope | Newsweek.com.

Richard Clarke: “A Lot of the Cases After 9/11 Were Manufactured or Enormously Exaggerated and Were Announced with Great Trumpets by the” Government

Washington’s Blog.

What is the Main Cause of Residential Foreclosures?

Washington’s Blog.

How Youth are Dying

Happy way to start out a Friday… But there is a release of a new study backed by the WTO developed by an international group of experts in adolescent health that names the top ways in which young people across the world are dying. While the reasons, which I’ll get to in a moment, are bad enough the most staggering is the study shows that more than 2.5 million young people aged 10–24 years die worldwide each year primarily from preventable reasons.

Quick Facts

• Maternal conditions were a leading cause of female deaths at 15%
• The top ten causes of death in all 10-24 year olds, male and female combined, globally were

1. Road traffic accidents (10%);
2. Suicide (6.3%);
3. Violence (6%);
4. Lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia (5.9%);
5. Tuberculosis (5.5%);
6. AIDS (5.5%);
7. Drowning (4.1%);
8. Fire-related deaths (2.6%);
9. Meningitis (2%);
10. War (1.8%)

more…..

via How Youth are Dying | Future Majority.

Natural methods of removing heavy metals

Heavy Metal Discoveries

Two projects are currently underway that hope to use naturally occurring bacteria and plants to accomplish in situ remediation of heavy metal contaminated land and water. Particular emphasis is placed on clean up of abandoned uranium mines.

Judy Wall, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, in partnership with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., are looking at eventually using sulfate reducing bacteria to reduce toxic metals to inert substances. Wall and her colleagues are working with Desulfovibrio vulgaris bacterium.

Sulfate-reducing bacteria derive energy from sulfate, which is reduced to hydrogen sulfide, a particularly smelly and toxic gas. These bacteria are bio-corrosives that can reduce uranium to uranite. Uranite is insoluble. These little critters can do the same thing with cobalt, strontium, cesium, and plutonium.

via Heavy Metal Discoveries.

How Bush-Cheney policies killed 3000 people on 911

via How Bush-Cheney policies killed 3000 people on 911.

Exploiting 9/11, Glenn Beck, Extremists And Corporate-Backed Groups Plan Anti-Obama March

This Saturday, right-wing protesters will gather in Washington DC for a march to oppose health reform and President Obama. The event, scheduled intentionally on September 12 to coincide with the anniversary of the day following the September 11 terrorist attacks, was conceived largely by Fox News’ Glenn Beck. However, most of the day-to-day organizing has been orchestrated by a now familiar set of lobbyists and Republican operatives who helped plan anti-Obama “grassroots” tea party events since February. In addition, a set of far-right groups are supporting the event, bringing along their members to join in on the Obama-bashing.

In the past, Beck has said he “hates” the families of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Nonetheless, Beck hosted a special program earlier this year announcing his initiative called the “9/12 Project” — an effort to ostensibly recreate the patriotic unity after the September 11 attacks. But far from calls for common ground, Beck explained that the purpose was to demonize his political opponents, declaring that his movement would “surround them.” He has also implored listeners to attend the rally because they “may be the only thing that stands between freedom and slavery.” The 9/12 project website, owned by Beck’s media company Mercury Radio Arts, directs readers to Beck’s radio newsletter.

via Think Progress » Exploiting 9/11, Glenn Beck, Extremists And Corporate-Backed Groups Plan Anti-Obama March.

Mr. President, How DARE You Equate the “Moralists” of the Far Left with the “Wingnuts” of the Far Right? (BTW, Recovery Is More Than Geometric Balance)

So, just a reminder, Barack Obama was elected president by the Far Left that recognized that Hillary’s militarism was a betrayal so they turned to him and he embraced them … temporarily. Two of their mandates: end the war and humane and affordable healthcare.

Does Obama have a molecule of loyalty or even bottom line respect for those who afforded him the election? No. I read disdain. I read annoyance. And I wonder if it isn’t perversely greater than his emotional rejection of those coming after him with horrifying threats motivated by rancid racism.

He played “Lucy and the football” one more time with the progressives last night. “Public option is dead” was mentioned numerous times by those in praise or not of Obama’s speech. Not citizens, I don’t see them on corporate TV, unless they are shills. But pundits and actual government reps. And the “public option” will be dumped as being ineffectual and maybe even made into even more of a Trojan Horse for an excuse for dumping it later or if it makes it in, it clears over as an additional bonus bundle for the corporations.

It promises to be a 1000+ page bill, with all those corporate lawyers behind closed doors ensuring that their corporate employees will squeeze every last profit and opportunity to put their needs above a citizen taxpaying patient. Loopholes that most of us can’t fathom the dark futures for. Probably even a speed-reading, amorally-bribed Congress can’t either. But their job security is brighter thanks to their true constituency.

We are “constituents in name only” – a new coinage – CINOs. The real constituency of our President and our Congress is the 3% of the population that controls most of the money but is squeezing us for ever more.

This is David Michael Green’s take on all this:

via The Seminal » Mr. President, How DARE You Equate the “Moralists” of the Far Left with the “Wingnuts” of the Far Right? (BTW, Recovery Is More Than Geometric Balance).

What will make or break the United States of America is the truth about 911: Investigate the theories behind the conspiracies

What will make or break the United States of America is the truth about 911, not its monetary policy, its fiscal irresponsibility, its inability to liquidate bad assets, its lack of transparency, its corporate run mainstream media, or even its inadequate health care. The truth about what transpired on 11 September 2001 will decide the fate of the United States. Everything else is secondary.

* The Truth and Lies of 911

* Investigate the Theories Behind the Conspiracies

* Why the Truth of 911 Must be Revealed

The Truth and Lies of 911

On 911 the world changed. Not because the attacks on the United States were unique, since there have been many documented cases of false flag operations throughout history. The world changed because we forfeited the freedom of generations to come to obtain a delusional sense of security from an institution, an institution that has begun multiple wars of aggression on behalf of its citizens, incurring trillions of dollars of debt in the process.

This same institution was then allowed to investigate itself for its inability to protect its citizens from an attack that has been the catalyst for a tremendous amount of misery across the globe.

via Chycho.com – Analysis and discussion about the world we live in..

Michael Savage’s flagship station drops him.

OPS:  The Savage Weiner gets yanked!

Earlier today, the conservative blog Patriot Axom noted that far-right radio host Michael Savage has been taken “off the air” from his San Francisco-based flagship station, Talk 910 KNEW. Now, a representative from the station has issued a statement explaining why it will no longer air Savage’s show:

I’m going to answer the very first question many of you have.

“Why did you take Michael Savage off the air?”

Here’s your no-spin direct answer; we have decided to go in a different philosophical and ideological direction, featuring more contemporary content and more local information. The Savage Nation does not fit into that vision.

910 KNEW’s decision is the latest blow to Savage’s efforts to spread hate. Last winter, following a campaign by the Council On American-Islamic Relations and Brave New Films, numerous advertisers ended their relationship with Savage, including Geico, Union Bank of California, and ITT Technical Institute. Savage has in the past advocated killing 100 million Muslims, compared President Jimmy Carter to Hitler, and has said that the U.S. Senate is “more histrionic than ever” because of the addition of female senators.

via Think Progress » Michael Savage’s flagship station drops him..

US starts to unwind state bank support

- FT.com

$2,500bn guarantee to be allowed to lapse

The US is starting to pare back its emergency support for banks and financial markets, its Treasury secretary Tim Geithner declared on Thursday, taking the first step towards unwinding policies that have propped up America’s battered financial system.

Almost a year to the day since the collapse of Lehman Brothers triggered a panic that tipped the US and much of the world into recession, Mr Geithner said it was time to move from crisis response to recovery.

via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – US starts to unwind state bank support.

Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel’s Health Care Speech

by: David Sirota

Not to be too much of a downer, but I found Obama’s speech tonight a big O-bummer. Really, other than his very important reminder that “we’re all in this together,” it was disappointing (although that’s probably not the right word, because it implies I expected something more). And remember, while I have at times been critical of Obama, I’ve been very supportive of him on health care…up until tonight. Here’s a list of my basic problems:

David Sirota :: Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel’s Health Care Speech

- Why do Republican presidents and politicians never bash “The Right,” but President Obama uses a joint session speech to bash/call out “The Left?”

- Obama felt the need to tell the country that he’s devoted to making sure the wildly unpopular private insurance industry at the heart of the health care meltdown remains profitable. He also made sure to forget that Americans love Medicare and hate private insurance when he went out of his way to reiterate his support for “market” economics (shocker – this was the line both parties stood up and gave a thundering round of applause). Awesome.

via Open Left:: Reviewing President Rahm Emanuel’s Health Care Speech.

Massive Surveillance System in Pa. Town Raises Privacy Concerns

LANCASTER, Pa. — Horses drawing buggies regularly clop down the roads approaching Lancaster, a peaceful city in the heart of Amish country that had only three murders last year and relatively low crime.

But if the community sounds reminiscent of the past, it also has some distinctly modern technology: 165 surveillance cameras that will keep watch over thousands of residents around the clock.

When it is complete, the surveillance system will be bigger than those in large cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston. And the fact that it will be monitored by ordinary citizens has raised privacy concerns.

“They are using fear to sell the cameras as much as possible,” said Charlie Crystle, a member of a fledgling citizens group that opposes the cameras and is trying to raise public awareness about them. “There’s just a huge potential for personal and political abuse.”

via Massive Surveillance System in Pa. Town Raises Privacy Concerns | CommonDreams.org.

Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says

ECONOMY: Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says

By Haider Rizvi   IPS ipsnews.net

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 10 (IPS) – The current economic meltdown will continue for years if the world community does not take firm and coordinated action to regulate the flow of capital, say researchers who have just concluded a new study for the United Nations.

“There hasn’t been much achievement in regulating the financial markets,” says Heiner Flassbeck, one of the study’s authors associated with the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). “The world is still mired in deep economic crisis.”

The UNCTAD “Trade and Development Report” points out that despite a professed commitment to tackle the recession, many countries in the developed world have failed to rein in the financial industry’s indulgence in speculative investment.

According to the report, this crisis reflects the “predominance” of the financial markets over the real economy.

Flassbeck lashed out at governments of the most industrialised countries for not doing enough to rein in the powers of the financial industry, saying that they had let the financial sector continue to do “business as usua

via ECONOMY: Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says – IPS ipsnews.net.

David Swanson on Healthcare Reform and Democracy Reform 1

David Swanson discusses healthcare with crowd in Columbus, Ohio, on September 9, 2009, on tour with his book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.” Event organized by Connie Hammond, with help from Bob Fitrakis, and Areopagitica Bookstore. Video by Suzanne Patzer.

via YouTube – David Swanson on Healthcare Reform and Democracy Reform 1.

Census report: Number of uninsured Americans grows to 46.3 million.

A new Census report finds that, in 2008, the number of people without health insurance increased from from 45.7 million to 46.3 million (the number of uninsured has increased by 7.3 million since 2000). The report suggests that a weakened economy and rising health care costs are pushing more Americans towards so-called safety-net coverage. According to the data, “the percentage of people covered by government health insurance programs increased to 29.0 percent in 2008,” up from from 27.8 percent in 2007. The uninsured rate declined significantly for Americans under 18 and over 65 — the two groups who are eligible for government-sponsored coverage. The Wonk Room has more on the importance of public programs.

via Think Progress » Census report: Number of uninsured Americans grows to 46.3 million..

Daniel Collins: 9/11′s Dark Heritage

The September 11 commemorations have increasingly become a family affair. The rest of the country seems to have moved on, leaving New Yorkers to hold the ceremonies and revisit their memories.

Perhaps that’s inevitable. And on one count, it’s the way we ought to want it. The whole world was watching back in 2004 – that would be the year the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower was laid. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that the crowd will be smaller when we gather this year to admire the Rising Beyond Sidewalk Level of the Structure That Will Be the Freedom Tower Someday Or Maybe Not.

We’ve made few deadlines and kept precious few promises in the years since the World Trade Center fell.

via Daniel Collins: 9/11′s Dark Heritage.

Dodging Credit-Card Reform with new Fees

– BusinessWeek

New credit-card rules, designed to curb the industry’s abusive practices, went into effect a few weeks ago. But already lenders have found ways to get around the regulatory roadblocks—moves that may cost consumers in the end. Says Gwenn Bézard, head of research at consultant Aite Group: “The industry was against the spirit of the act.”

The reforms are sweeping. The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility & Disclosure Act of 2009 covers everything from billing to fees. The first wave of changes hit in late August, with another to follow early next year. For all their worries, credit-card companies may not see dramatic losses. In fact, the spate of interest rate hikes on credit cards, driven in part by the recession, may boost profits. Says Gene J. Truono, managing director at BDO Consulting: “Issuers always reinvent themselves.”

via Dodging Credit-Card Reform – BusinessWeek.

Federal Survey Finds 600 Coal Ash Sites In 35 States

WASHINGTON — (AP) The toxic leftovers from burning coal for power are sitting in nearly 600 sites in 35 states, according to a federal survey released Tuesday.

Spills have occurred at 34 of those sites over the last decade.

Many of the spills were minor compared with the disaster that occurred at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s power plant in Kingston, Tenn., in December. That spill, which flooded hundreds of acres of land, damaged homes and killed fish in nearby rivers, is not included in the data, although it triggered the EPA’s March request of 61 power companies for information on how they manage coal combustion waste.

The survey is the most comprehensive list to date of coal ash storage sites and includes information submitted by 219 facilities.

The EPA said Tuesday that to date it had not received any information or detected any issues at the 584 coal ash storage sites identified that required immediate action.

via Federal Survey Finds Coal Ash Sites In 35 States.

Poverty Rate Rises To 13.2 Percent, Number Of Uninsured Grows

Income fell, the poverty rate rose and the number of uninsured grew by more than half a million from 2007 to 2008, the government announced Thursday morning.

The poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2007 to 13.2 percent in 2008, the highest it’s been in 11 years, according to to the Census Bureau’s annual Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage report. In 2008, 39.8 million people were in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2007.

Real median household income fell 3.6 percent to $50,303 from $52,163, ending three years of growth. The decline is similar to those of the previous two recessions, though it’s unknown when the current one will end.

“Today’s data reflect what we knew to be true about the final year of the Bush administration: The typical American family lost ground, more Americans fell into poverty and fewer had private health insurance,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. “The numbers underscore two important points: One, there is an urgent need to pass health insurance reform to drive down costs for hard-pressed American families. And two, the Recovery Act was crucial for preventing a struggling economy from falling into depression.”

via Poverty Rate Rises To 13.2 Percent, Number Of Uninsured Grows.

Campaign finance hearing may have ramifications for corporate personhood

Scholars and Rogues »

According to Fortune Magazine, the largest American company in 2009 was Exxon Mobil Its total revenues were $442.85 billion. Second was Wal-Mart, with total revenues of $405.61 billion. Rounding out the top 10 were Chevron ($263.16 billion), ConocoPhillips ($230.76 billion), General Electric ($183.21 billion), General Motors ($148.98 billion), Ford Motor ($146.28 billion), AT&T ($124.03 billion), Hewlett-Packard ($118.36 billion), and Valero Energy ($118.30 billion).

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the 182 nations of the world had a combined GDP of nearly $60.9 trillion (or $60,900 billion) in 2008. But comparing the GDP data to the Fortune 500 data produces the table at right (click for the top 182 nations and corporations each, in order). If Exxon Mobil were a country, it would rank 25^th in the world, right between Norway and Austria. Wal-Mart would rank 27^th, sandwiched between Austria and Taiwan. Chevron would rank 28^th, ConocoPhillips 42^nd, GE 49^th, GM 59^th, Ford 60^th, and AT&T, H-P, and Valero would be ranked 64-66 respectively.

In fact, all of the Fortune 500 would rank above the 40 smallest national economies in the world. And the smallest company on Fortune’s list of the 1000 largest U.S. companies would be larger than the national economies of 28 entire countries. Exxon Mobil’s revenue is greater than the combined GDP of the 78 smallest countries (out of a total of 182) in the world.

via Scholars and Rogues » Campaign finance hearing may have ramifications for corporate personhood.

Obama Tepid on Public Option

By Matthew Rothschild | The Progressive

The sadness is that almost Obama’s entire speech could be read as a splendid brief for universal single-payer health care, or at least Medicare for all who want it.

But when Obama got down to specifics, he gave only tepid support to the public option.

He laid out clearly the problems with the current system, in economic but also—and especially—moral terms, but then stepped back from the fundamental changes that are necessary to meet that economic and moral crisis.

The speech was by turns thoughtful and impassioned, conciliatory and tough, dry and moving, ingenious and disingenuous, naïve and nobody’s fool.

via Obama Tepid on Public Option | The Progressive.

A Decade With No Income Gains

By David Leonhardt -  – NYTimes.com

The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago.

To me, that’s the big news from the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.

In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise. (The previous record was seven years, ending in 1985.) Other Census data suggest that it also never happened between the late 1940s and the late 1960s. So it doesn’t seem to have happened since at least the 1930s.

And the streak probably won’t end in 2009, either. Unemployment has been rising all year, which is a strong sign income will fall.

via A Decade With No Income Gains – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.

Nouriel Roubini’s Financial Times Interview: Double-Dip Recession Still A Risk

Are we in for a double-dip recession? Economist Nouriel Roubini, the president of RGE Monitor who’s often referred to as “Dr. Doom,” recently sat down with Martin Wolf of The Financial Times, and said that the world faces a “rising risk” of a double-dip recession.

Roubini’s increasingly vocal about the risk of a recession relapse in the past few weeks. Earlier this year, he warned of a “perfect storm of rising oil prices, rising taxes and rising nominal and real interest rates on the public debt of many advanced economies.”

In his interview with The Financial Times, Roubini was similarly pessimistic:

“I do agree with the consensus that we’ll have a couple of quarters of strong economic growth, the question is whether the medium-term growth is going to be V-shaped a return to potential or anemic growth below potential. My view of it is that it’s going to be anemic.”

Towards the end of next year, Roubini added, advanced economies could face a tough choice. Namely, if governments withdraw fiscal and monetary stimulus too early, the economy could fall back into another recession. On the other hand running up large deficits could lead to stagflation. To combat booming budget deficits, Roubini also called for world governments to commit to a “phase-in” tax increase that would be rolled out once the economy recovers.

Watch the entire interview with Nouriel Roubini at The Financial Times.

via Nouriel Roubini’s Financial Times Interview: Double-Dip Recession Still A Risk.

Return to Crisis Mode

Craig Harrington – economyincisis.org

John Williams believes that there is a major problem in the U.S. money supply regarding both availability and inflation.

John Williams, a private economist and producer of ShadowStats.com, releases regular alerts on issues of importance in the American economy. His alert from September 2, 2009 makes particular importance of the possibility of a return to crisis-mode in the financial system. Williams believes that there is a major problem in the U.S. money supply regarding both availability and inflation.

He also sees the reappointment of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke as a signal that the administration may be bracing for another collapse in the near future. On the campaign trail then Senator Obama often discussed the possibility of removing Bernanke in favor of someone else. At the time Ben Bernanke was seen as a continuation of the bad policies put in place by long-serving chairman Alan Greenspan.

Now however the Obama administration has tapped Bernanke to continue in his post at the Federal Reserve, which may indicate that the White House prefers stability in leadership during times of economic turmoil. Investment markets may be shaken by a major change at the Fed, and if such a change were to lead to another crisis, seasoned leadership would be preferable.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Saving Capitalism: The American Job Crisis

– Alexia Cameron economyincisis.org

Providing aid to the U.S. auto industry is a rescue, not a bailout.

With the onset of globalization, United States’ policy makers facilitated in the exodus of dozens of U.S. industries with the mantra that Americans no longer need to produce for themselves. Why manufacture our own products when foreign producers can provide us goods at a much lower cost? The answer to this question lies in the unemployment numbers: In May 2009 the real number of unemployed Americans was about 26 million workers after displaced workers and discouraged workers were added into the equation.

In his latest book, Saving Capitalism, Economist and former Vice Presidential candidate Pat Choate details how America can resuscitate its manufacturing base and revive American job prospects.

According to Choate, America’s auto industry is vital to America’s manufacturing base and employment. The automobile industry generates business for dozens of domestic supplier industries including steel, glass, plastics, tires, semiconductors, software and fabrics. In many nations auto production supports the entire manufacturing sector.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Greenspan: More Financial Crises are Inevitable

OPS:  Why isn’t Greenspan in jail yet? 

As economic growth resumes, so too will excessive risk-taking, which will eventually lead to another severe recession.

Another financial crisis is inevitable due to human nature that encourages risk-taking, former long-time Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in an interview with BBC News.

“That is the unquenchable capability of human beings when confronted with long periods of prosperity to presume that that will continue,” he said.

According to Greenspan, history has been marked by such events, and the future will be no different. As economic growth resumes, so too will excessive risk-taking, which will eventually lead to another severe recession.

“… human beings begin to take speculative excesses with the consequences that have dotted the history of the globe basically since the beginning of the 18th and 19th century,” he said.

Greenspan, it should be noted, has been blamed for the current economic crisis. As Fed Chairman, Greenspan oversaw and failed to regulate the housing and credit bubbles that eventually brought the American and world economy to its knees.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Pie in the Sky

| Washington Monthly   by Mariah Blake 

What happened when a billionaire pizza mogul tried to build an elite Catholic law school.

In the fall of 1998, Steve Safranek, a devout Catholic professor, found himself at a crossroads. For nearly a decade, he had been teaching at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, a small Catholic enclave in the heart of the rust belt, and, like many institutions in the region, it was undergoing wrenching change. Enrollment had taken such a tumble that administrators were considering cutting a third of the faculty, and there was growing anxiety among conservative professors, who felt the school was drifting from its traditional Catholic roots. The turmoil only deepened that September when a pro-choice Michigan Supreme Court justice was invited to give the oath at the annual Red Mass, a centuries-old ceremony where Catholic lawyers, judges, and politicians ask God’s blessing and guidance in their daily work. Some faculty and staff turned out with picket signs; others, like Safranek, simply chose not to attend. This touched off a bitter dispute with the administration.

Around this time, Safranek decided he would pray every day for fifty-four days straight to St. Thomas More, the Renaissance lawyer and statesman who coined the word “utopia.” As he recited his Hail Marys, an idea began to percolate: Why not start a new Catholic law school? A few weeks later, Safranek caught word that Tom Monaghan, the eccentric billionaire who founded Domino’s Pizza, had sold his business and was planning to devote his fortune to conservative Catholic causes. So he hashed out a proposal and got four other University of Detroit Mercy professors and an administrator to sign on. To show they were serious, each of them offered to chip in $20,000 and work for free for a year.

via Pie in the Sky by Mariah Blake | Washington Monthly.