Archive for October, 2009
Why is the USDA continuing loans for new factory farms?
I am a card carrying member of the Land Stewardship Project. For those of you who are unfamiliar with LSP, it is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1982 whose stated purpose is to promote sustainable agriculture, develop sustainable communities and foster an ethic of farmland stewardship.
This morning, I received an email from them alerting me to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency policy of continuing to provide loans to build new specialized hog and poultry facilities at a time when overproduction in these agricultural sectors is leading to depressed prices, contract cancellations, abusive contract terms and increased corporate consolidation of the hog and poultry industries. This policy is a reversal of a directive issued on January 8, 1999, that suspended all direct and guaranteed loan financing for the construction of such facilities. The reasoning behind the suspension was the concern that FSA loans of this type could exacerbate the crisis of oversupply and depressed prices that were already affecting the hog industry. Shortly after assuming office in 2001, the Bush Administration re-instituted the loans, and so far the Obama Administration has continued to support this policy.
LSP’s position on this is clear and unequivocal. They believe that the USDA is siding with so called “mega-operations” at the expense of existing hog and poultry contract growers and independent hog farmers by issuing these loans. In short, they claim that these loans provide public financing for speculators whose strategy it is to expand in order to seize greater market share when prices are low while existing hog and poultry producers are being forced to reduce production in order to cut their losses in an effort to correct the market by bringing the supply more in line with current demand. They insist that these loans favor corporate-backed farming over small family farms. They further contend that this is bad public policy that puts taxpayers’ money at risk. Why, they ask, are we increasing production at a time when overproduction is creating a crisis for America’s farmers? It’s a good question and one that begs to be answered.
Full Story Why is the USDA continuing loans for new factory farms? | StarTribune.com.
OPS: Why is the FDA in the business of making loans? It’s a bank?
Chris Matthews: Conservatives Say “Stop Blaming Bush”
But the facts are the facts
YouTube – Chris Matthews: Conservatives Say “Stop Blaming Bush”.
Breckenridge Pushes To Legalize Marijuana
Voters in this Rocky Mountain resort town will decide next week whether to legalize pot for all adults at a time when the movement to allow medical marijuana is gaining steam around the country.
A measure before Breckenridge voters in Tuesday’s municipal election would legalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana along with bongs, pipes and other pot paraphernalia. Supporters of the measure say it would inch the whole state closer to full legalization.
Other cities around the country have taken similar action in recent years, including a measure in Denver that decriminalized possession.
Full Story Breckenridge Pushes To Legalize Marijuana.
Lawrence O’Donnell Slams Liz Cheney For Criticizing Obama’s Trip To Honor Fallen Soldiers (VIDEO)
On “Countdown” Friday night, host Lawrence O’Donnell called out Liz Cheney for criticizing President Obama’s visit to Dover Air Force Base to honor the returning war dead. Cheney, speaking on Fox News Radio’s “John Gibson Show” Thursday, suggested that Obama had made the visit simply for the publicity. Regarding her appearance on the radio show, O’Donnell noted, “she wasn’t going to let the facts get in her way.”
As O’Donnell reminded viewers, President Bush and Vice President Cheney never went to Dover Air Force Base to honor fallen soldiers returning home while they were in office. O’Donnell then addressed Liz Cheney directly:
Democrats strip single-payer healthcare proposal from health overhaul
A government-run healthcare program may become an “option” for those who don’t have employer-sponsored healthcare coverage, but a government-run healthcare system will not.
House Democratic leaders quietly stripped a single-payer provision from the House version of the healthcare overhaul Thursday. The measure would have allowed states to set up their own state-run healthcare systems, where local governments would have become de facto health insurers for residents.
A Democratic aide told Roll Call that there was “consensus” to remove the provision, which was proposed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and inserted by a majority vote in the House Education and Labor Committee.
Full Story Democrats strip single-payer healthcare proposal from health overhaul | Raw Story.
White House, senators agree on media shield law
The White House and key senators have reached a compromise on a shield law to protect journalists who refuse to reveal their sources, but they limited its application in cases involving national security and federal criminal prosecutions.
Negotiations involving Senate sponsors of the legislation, the Justice Department, the White House and media organizations over the past month resulted in compromises on all sides.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the measure who led the negotiations, said in a statement Friday that the new version “preserves a strong protection for reporters interested in protecting their sources, while also making sure that the government can still do the job of protecting its citizens.”
Full Story White House, senators agree on media shield law – washingtonpost.com.
Bill Moyers Journal: Glenn Greenwald
WEB EXCLUSIVE:
Acclaimed blogger Glenn Greenwald, recipient of the Park Center for Independent Media Izzy Award, spoke with Bill Moyers this week for the special web-exclusive conversation below.
Full Story Bill Moyers Journal: WEB EXCLUSIVE: Glenn Greenwald.
1,000 U.S. troops wounded in Afghanistan in past 3 months
Three-month total in Afghanistan surpasses 1,000
More than 1,000 American troops have been wounded in battle over the past three months in Afghanistan, accounting for one-fourth of those injured in combat since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The dramatic increase in amputees and other seriously injured service members comes as October marks the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Expanded military operations, a near-doubling of the number of troops since the beginning of the year and a Taliban offensive that has included a proliferation of roadside bombings have led to the great increase in casualties. U.S. troops in Afghanistan are suffering wounds at a higher rate than those who were serving in Iraq when violence spiraled during the military “surge” two years ago. In mid-2007, 600 U.S. troops were wounded in Iraq each month out of about 150,000 troops deployed there. In Afghanistan, about 68,000 troops are currently installed, with about 350 wounded each month recently.
Full Story 1,000 U.S. troops wounded in Afghanistan in past 3 months – washingtonpost.com.
BREAKING: Scozzafava suspends NY 23 campaign
Republican Dede Scozzafava has suspended her bid in next Tuesday’s NY 23 special election, a huge development that dramatically shakes up the race. She did not endorse either of her two opponents — Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman or Democrat Bill Owens.
The decision to suspend her campaign is a boost for Hoffman, who already had the support of 50 percent of GOP voters, according to a newly-released Siena poll, and is now well-positioned to win over the 25 percent of Republicans who had been sticking with Scozzafava.
Scozzafava has “probably made her last campaign appearance between now and Election Day,” spokesman Matt Burns told POLITICO. “She’s releasing her support to the two other candidates.”
“I had a discussion with her last night, and we made the decision after I spoke with her. We talked about it, what this came down to was spending. It came down to the ability to defend herself from the get-go. And that’s the reality. She was unable to define herself where the people didn’t know her.”
Full Story BREAKING: Scozzafava suspends NY 23 campaign – The Scorecard – POLITICO.com.
Limbaugh falsely implies Bush visited Dover to honor soldiers
Dissecting President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Dover, where he saluted America’s war dead on camera, right-wing radio personality Rush Limbaugh echoed the words of Elizabeth Cheney, falsely implying that President George W. Bush had done the same, but without the cameras.
“I don’t know why he went to Dover,” Cheney said during a Fox News radio interview on Thursday. “I think that it is clearly important for a commander in chief, whenever he can in whatever way possible, to pay tribute to our fallen soldiers, our fallen military folks. But I think, you know, what President Bush used to do is to do it without the cameras. And, um, I don’t understand, sort-of showing up with the White House press pool, with photographers, and asking family members if you can take pictures. That’s really hard for me to get my head around.”
“President Bush used to do it!” said Limbaugh, as though to imply that the former president would visit Dover to honor the war dead, much as President Obama did earlier this week. “Boy, we didn’t know it! She just told us something we didn’t know. Bush used to do it, but there were no cameras. He did it privately with the families.”
Full Story Limbaugh falsely implies Bush visited Dover to honor soldiers | Raw Story.
Afghan challenger threatens to quit run-off unless demands are met
Abdullah Abdullah was poised on Saturday to quit Afghanistan’s run-off presidential election unless incumbent Hamid Karzai has a last minute change of heart and bows to a series of demands from his rival.
Officials in Abdullah’s campaign team said the former foreign minister would announce he was pulling out of the November 7 contest on Sunday in the absence of any U-turn by Karzai on measures to combat fraud.
“If by the end of today we do not receive a positive response to our conditions from the government, then Dr. Abdullah himself will announce his reaction to it tomorrow,” Sayed Aqa Fazel Sancharaki, a spokesman for Abdullah’s campaign, told AFP.
Abdullah is due to make his announcement at an address in Kabul at 9:30 am (0500 GMT) on Sunday, which the media have been invited to attend.
Following widespread fraud in the August first round, Abdullah has demanded Karzai sack the head of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and suspend four ministers who campaigned for the incumbent.
Full Story Afghan challenger threatens to quit run-off unless demands are met | Raw Story.
Lieberman in 1994: Filibuster is ‘unfair’ and it isn’t ‘right’ to use it to obstruct major legislation.
In recent days, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has raised the ire of health care advocates by threatening to filibuster Senate health care legislation unless the public option is removed from it, a move that was a boon to the stock prices of major health insurance companies. Lieberman was singing a different tune in 1994, however. At that time Lieberman, a freshman senator, was working with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to introduce legislation that would drastically weaken the power of the filiibuster. HuffPost’s Sam Stein recalls that the Connecticut senator said it was “unfair” to use the filibuster to threaten major legislation and argued it isn’t “right” to use it to obstruct progress:
“The whole process of individual senators being able to hold up legislation, which in a sense is an extension of the filibuster because the hold has been understood in one way to be a threat to filibuster — it’s just unfair.”
Rep. Markey Warns About Right-Wing Misinformation: Net Neutrality May Be The Next ‘Death Panels’
Last week, the Federal Communications Commission voted to move forward with regulations to preserve the open architecture of the Internet. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is trying to make our current system’s “net neutrality” official by ensuring that broadband providers “cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications” and are “transparent about their network management practices.” That same day, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced legislation to block the FCC, inexplicably arguing that preserving net neutrality would be a “government takeover of the Internet.”
Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) held a conference call with bloggers to discuss net neutrality. He and Rep. Anna Eschoo (D-CA) have introduced legislation — which currently has seven co-sponsors — to “establish overarching national broadband policy and ensures an open and consumer oriented Internet.” Markey stressed the importance of fighting “misinformation,” invoking death panels and the other red herrings the right wing slung into this summer’s health care debate:
As you all know, a lot is being written and said about what open Internet requirements would mean for broadband investment innovation and consumers. [...]
Gorbachev: Bush once told me that ‘blockheads and dummies’ were supporting the ‘extreme’ Reagan.
During a recent interview with The Nation editors Katrina vanden Heuvel and her husband Stephan Cohen, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev credited President Reagan for helping end the Cold War, but he argued that instituting democratic reforms in his country was the true catalyst. “Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended,” he said. Gorbachev later described a private conversation he had with then Vice President Bush about Reagan:
By the way, in 1987, after my first visit to the United States, Vice President Bush accompanied me to the airport, and told me: “Reagan is a conservative. An extreme conservative. All the blockheads and dummies are for him, and when he says that something is necessary, they trust him. But if some Democrat had proposed what Reagan did, with you, they might not have trusted him.”
When asked what lessons he learned “that President Obama should heed in making his decisions about Afghanistan,” Gorbachev – who ended the Soviet Union’s 10 year war there in 1989 — replied, “One was that problems there could not be solved with the use of force. Such attempts inside someone else’s country end badly.”
America’s Edge is Slipping Away
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As our job market no longer caters to Americans, American university science and engineering programs are growing more dependent on foreign born talent.
For the last five decades the U.S.’ global dominance in large part depended on its ability to develop new technologies and industries faster than any other country. America’s scientific prowess and technological entrepreneurship ensured economic prosperity. However, the technological edge that enabled America to invent the semiconductor, the personal computer and the Internet, is slipping through our grasps.
In order to see this progression, all you have to do is open up an Apple iPhone. While the firm that sells the device is American, the components inside are almost entirely Asian. The screen is from Japan, the flash memory is from South Korea and it was assembled in China.
While research and development in America and Europe grew 1-2 percent between 2001 and 2006, in China it ballooned 23 percent. China is slated to pass Japan in total research spending, emerging from almost nothing a mere decade ago.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
No treats for the wicked as Vatican takes stand against Halloween
THE Catholic Church has swung its crook at celebrants of Halloween, warning parents to forbid children to dress up as ghosts and ghouls, and dismissing the celebrations as a pagan night of “terror, fear and death”.
In an effort to take a sharp pin to the ballooning success of Halloween, which has spread from America to Italy in recent years, the Vatican has issued a stern warning through the pages of its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, with an article headlined “Halloween’s Dangerous Messages”.
What millions around the world consider a harmless tradition bound by unconvincing costumes and mountains of teeth-rotting sweets is, according to the Catholic Church, riddled with a dark undercurrent of occultism and is “absolutely anti-Christian”.
Full Story No treats for the wicked as Vatican takes stand against Halloween – Scotsman.com.
But he hasn’t taken a stand against murder by un-maned Drone in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Torture?
Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, the World’s Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative
The United Steelworkers (USW) and MONDRAGON Internacional, S.A. today announced a framework agreement for collaboration in establishing MONDRAGON cooperatives in the manufacturing sector within the United States and Canada. The USW and MONDRAGON will work to establish manufacturing cooperatives that adapt collective bargaining principles to the MONDRAGON worker ownership model of “one worker, one vote.”
“We see today’s agreement as a historic first step towards making union co-ops a viable business model that can create good jobs, empower workers, and support communities in the United States and Canada,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollowing out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants. We need a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities.”
Full Story Steelworkers Form Collaboration with MONDRAGON, the World’s Largest Worker-Owned Cooperative « Talking Union.
106 bank failures in 2009 – so far
Banks in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin, were shuttered, costing the FDIC an estimated $356.6 million.
The tally of bank failures easily broke past the No. 100 milestone on Friday night, with regulators announcing the year’s 106th closure.
That’s more than four times the number that were closed in 2008, and the highest total since 1992, when 181 banks failed.
Earlier on Friday evening the dubious honor of the 100th failure went to Partners Bank, of Naples, Fla., which had $65.5 million in assets, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The 101st failure was American United Bank, of Lawrenceville, Ga., which had $111 million in assets.
Full Story 106 bank failures in 2009 – Oct. 23, 2009.
Failed: California National Bank
Regulators took over the California National Bank. The taken over bank by regulators was the fourth largest in the history of banking of U.S.A. The bank has 68 branches and all of these now will be opened on Monday as branches of U.S bank, the company which has taken over the California National Bank is expanding rapidly in Southern California.
California National Bank has most of its branches in Los Angles and Orange Counties. The bank was a unit of FBOP, and failure of FBOP’s banks can be attributed to the fact that like many other banks it had invested heavy with giant mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. With $7.8 billion in assets and $6.2 billion in deposits, the bank failed to acquire the essential amount from the $700-billion financial bailout fund of Treasury Department.
The last nail in the coffin was the failure of FBOP to obtain $7.5 million from the private investors. Despite the fact that it was working on the plan to get money from the private investors, it was unable to provide an acceptable proposal to the regulators on Friday, the day of expiry of time specified to raise capital.
Full Story California National Bank.
Now and for the Long Run
The government, like households, should hunker down, stop spending where it can, and plug the hole of offshoring jobs in the ship of state.
Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, with video by Craig Harrington
Editor’s Note: The following article was contributed by Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, author of Making Government Work.
The United States has always paid for its wars. For 200 years we paid for the Revolution, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, even LBJ’s Great Society, and had yet to reach a national debt of $1 trillion – until 1982. In the past eight years our government has borrowed, spent, and added $5 trillion to the national debt.
The Congressional Budget Office reported that in the first four years of the Bush term deficits were caused by: 48 percent tax cuts, 37 percent wars, and 15 percent increased spending. We kept the government on steroids during the Bush years and household debt of $7 trillion joined the binge. By the time Obama took office, the Federal Reserve had injected another $2 trillion worth of steroids. With $14 trillion in stimulation, we were losing jobs like gangbusters. Stimulation was not working. Last year we stimulated exactly $1 trillion, $35 billion, and lost jobs. According to the Secretary of the Treasury, we have a deficit or “stimulated the economy” $960 billion this fiscal year (3/16/09) and are still losing jobs. On Sunday, Ben Bernanke on Sixty Minutes said he saw light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the year. So any more stimulation is politically out of the question. The government, like households, should hunker down, stop spending where it can, and plug the hole of offshoring jobs in the ship of state.
The need to act now and for the long haul is to dismiss Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. What have they done right? They should be replaced by Paul Volcker and Jared Bernstein. Plug the hole of offshoring and raise revenues for the government we provide by:
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Chevron Employs Felon and Drug-Trafficker to Derail Trial to Escape Enviro Crimes
It appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods — and people — that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.
To defend itself in a major environmental lawsuit in Ecuador, it appears that American oil giant Chevron is employing methods — and people — that are as dirty as the toxic waste pits it left scattered across the rainforest floor.
In early September, I wrote here about a dramatic last-ditch attempt by Chevron to monkey-wrench legal proceedings in Ecuador over massive oil contamination in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron is facing up to $27 billion dollars in damages to clean up what has become known as the ‘Amazon Chernobyl,’ where tens of thousands of indigenous people and campesinos suffer an epidemic of cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, and other ailments.
On August 31, just weeks before a final judgment had been expected in the case, Chevron posted on YouTube what at first appeared to be a ‘smoking gun’ spy video, which Chevron said showed the judge in the case ensnared in a bribery scandal.
Except, as I wrote before, it didn’t:
Full Story Chevron Employs Felon and Drug-Trafficker to Derail Trial to Escape Enviro Crimes | Take Action | AlterNet.
The Obstacles to Real Health-Care Reform – Mark Schmitt
How a series of roadblocks and compromises shaped the health-care debate — and why the battle doesn’t end when Obama signs a bill.
American presidents have tried seven times to bring us into the community of nations that provide health care to all citizens. Seven times the effort failed. More accurately, it was blocked. In the 1940s, the anti-reform movement was led by doctors, through the American Medical Association. In the 1990s, it was led by the insurance and small-business lobbies.
This time everything has been different. The town hall meetings and right-wing distortions of this summer drew attention away from a far more significant fact: Most of the traditional enemies of reform have been quiet, absent, or divided. Many — including the conservative American Medical Association — are almost supportive of reform. Large and small businesses understand that reducing their health-care costs and making them predictable will be good for their bottom line, and the chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Bruce Josten, has said, “The reality with the business community is that we want reform.” Even the National Federation of Independent Business, which took the lead in opposing reform in the Clinton years, now participates in some pro-reform coalitions. And while insurance companies have much to lose from legislation that includes a public option and tight regulations, many large insurers know that they can survive and thrive when every American purchases insurance.
Full Story The Obstacles to Real Health-Care Reform | The American Prospect.
Oscar-winning director: why I’m leaving Scientology
Haggis fires parting shot at ‘hate-filled and bigoted’ church
Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning film-maker, has resigned from the Church of Scientology in an explosive letter that damns what he calls the organisation’s “hate-filled” and “bigoted” opposition to gay marriage.
Haggis, who wrote Crash, Million Dollar Baby, and the last two James Bond films also registered his anger at the church’s alleged “disconnection” policy, complaining that it encouraged his wife to live estranged from her parents.
His letter was sent to Scientology’s official spokesman, Tommy Davis, in August. But it leaked to the Hollywood press this weekend, bringing further tricky publicity to the already-embattled organisation.
Full Story Oscar-winning director: why I’m leaving Scientology – News, Films – The Independent.
Oscar-winning director: why I’m leaving Scientology – News, Films – The Independent
Haggis fires parting shot at 'hate-filled and bigoted' church
Full Story Oscar-winning director: why I’m leaving Scientology – News, Films – The Independent.
There Is a Way to Help Avoid Heart Disease and Diabetes: You Are What You Eat!
A plant-based diet is both preventative and healing, whereas a diet high in animal protein is destructive to our health.
“If the truth be known coronary artery disease is a toothless paper tiger that need never, ever exist and if it does exist it need never, ever progress.”
So says Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, who was a researcher and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic for over 35 years. In 1991, Dr. Esselstyn served as the president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, and organized the 1st National Conference on the Elimination and Prevention of Heart Disease. In 2005, he became the 1st recipient of the Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine. Dr. Esselstyn is also an Olympic gold medalist in rowing, and he was awarded the Bronze Star as an army surgeon in Vietnam.
In this series of interviews I’ve conducted with extraordinary nutritional researchers and medical doctors, I’ve sought to understand the link between diet and the most common and dreaded diseases that are prevalent in our culture. What I’m hearing over and over is that a plant-based diet is both preventative and healing, whereas a diet high in animal protein is destructive to our health – this is the case with cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
The great news is that there is very real hope in shifting the course of our health. What is becoming very apparent through various peer reviewed studies is that by changing our diet – eliminating that which causes havoc in the body (animal protein) and adding in plant based proteins and eating lots of vegetables, legumes, beans, and whole grains, we can not only prevent disease, but also heal from it once it is already in motion. Following is a fascinating conversation I had on diet and heart health.
16-Year Old Got Life Without Parole for Killing Her Abusive Pimp — Should Teens Be Condemned to Die in Jail?
This article is the first in a two-part series about juveniles and harsh sentencing.
Sara Kruzan was 11 years old, a middle school student from Riverside, Calif., when she met a man — he called himself GG — who was almost three times her age. GG took her under his wing; he would buy her gifts, take her and her friends rollerskating. “He was like a father figure,” she recalls.
Despite suffering severe bouts of depression as a child, until then, Kruzan was a good student, an “overachiever” in her words. But her mother was abusive and addicted to drugs; as for her father, she had only met him a couple of times. So, more and more, GG filled in.
“GG was there — sometimes,” she said. “He would talk to me and take me out and give me all these lavish gifts and do all these things for me …” Before long, he started talking to her about sex, giving her his expert advice on what men were really like and telling her that she didn’t “need to give it up for free.”
‘Tea Party Express II: Rise of the Tea Bags’
A short film in two parts by Brad Friedman…
So we went out to Griffith Park out here in L.A. on Sunday to check out the kick-off day for the new “Tea Party Express II” national tour. Thought we might meet some interesting people and file a quick video report. Met a lot of interesting people, and so ended up making a short film of sorts. Enjoy. Spread the word. Go tell the story (“both sides”)…
Part 1
Part 2
Full Story The BRAD BLOG : ‘Tea Party Express II: Rise of the Tea Bags’.
Tax Cheats in Mexico Find U.S. Banks a Safe Haven
Washington has spent much of this year showing how tough it is on tax cheats. The Justice Department triumphantly declared in August that it had reached a settlement with Swiss banking giant UBS for it to turn over the names of approximately 4,450 American account holders suspected by the IRS of evading taxes. This week, the IRS revealed the formation of a special task force to go after wealthy tax dodgers, and members of Congress introduced a bill to force foreign firms doing business in the U.S. to disclose all its U.S. clients with accounts overseas.
But for all the bluster about cracking down on Americans who hide money overseas, the U.S. turns a virtual blind eye to foreign tax cheats who are parking money in the U.S. banking system. In particular, the U.S. effectively serves the role of Switzerland for Mexico, which suffers from rampant tax evasion — rates go as high as 70% among professionals and small businesses, and 40% among larger businesses. Much of the estimated $42 billion a year of illicit funds flowing out of Mexico each year (not including drug cartel money) ends up in U.S. banks, according to Global Financial Integrity, an advocacy group in Washington. Soon after the Obama Administration took office, Mexico sent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner a letter complaining about the de facto secrecy U.S. banks offer Mexicans holding accounts by not reporting to anyone the names or interest income paid on those deposits. “The exchange of information on interest paid by banks will certainly provide us with a powerful tool to detect, prevent and control tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing, drug trafficking and organized crime,” said the Feb. 9 letter from Mexican Finance Secretary Agustin Carstens, who also noted that the two countries do not have a “solid and reliable mechanism to verify actual residence of the foreign depositors.”
Full Story Tax Cheats in Mexico Find U.S. Banks a Safe Haven – TIME.
Pakistanis to Clinton: War on terror is not our war
After three days of encounters with America-bashing Pakistanis — who rejected her contention that the U.S. and Pakistan face a common enemy — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday that “we’re not getting through.”
Prominent women and tribesmen from the North West Frontier Province delivered the same hostile message that she’d heard the two preceding days from students and journalists: Pakistanis aren’t ready to endorse American friendship despite an eight-year-old anti-terrorism alliance between the countries and a multi-billion-dollar new U.S. aid package.
Clinton put her case directly to the public Friday in televised appearances in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, fielding angry questions about the alleged activities of U.S. contractor Blackwater in Pakistan, the tough conditions that came with a $1.5 billion-a-year American aid package and alleged U.S. favoritism toward Pakistan’s archenemy, India.
Full Story Pakistanis to Clinton: War on terror is not our war | McClatchy.
Snowe Will Not Offer Trigger Amendment
The AP is reporting that Olympia Snowe (R-ME) does not plan to offer a public option trigger amendment, because it does not have the votes to pass. With Snowe planning to vote against Reid’s bill, it would be ideal if we can remove some of the other terrible compromises that were added to win her support.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, has been the leading proponent of the “trigger” approach but she told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that she didn’t plan to offer it as an amendment because it didn’t have the votes to prevail. Snowe is the only Republican in Congress to have supported Democrats’ health care legislation, voting “yes” in the Finance Committee. But she said Friday she couldn’t support Reid’s current version.
Full Story FDL Action » Snowe Will Not Offer Trigger Amendment.
Iraq Embassy Scandal Expands: Contractor May Have to Repay $130 Million
A new State Department audit zeroes in on a politically-connected Kuwaiti company over shoddy work in constructing the world’s largest embassy
By Jeremy Scahill
The extent of the massive waste and abuse surrounding the construction of the monstrous US embassy in Baghdad continues to expand. The State Department has just released another audit of the embassy’s construction and suggests that the Kuwaiti contractor hired by the Bush administration to do most of the construction work may have to repay more than $130 million to US taxpayers as a result of construction deficiencies, incomplete and undocumented design work, inadequate quality control and interest on unauthorized payments.
First a bit of background:
The Baghdad embassy—the largest of any nation on planet earth and ten times bigger than any other US embassy—is striking evidence indicating a continued US presence in the country for many years to come. The structure cost more than $700 million and is the size of 80 football fields. It is bigger than the Vatican, six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York and is about two thirds the size of the National Mall in Washington. It has space for 1,000 employees who are guarded by scores of paramilitary mercenary forces. In other words it is the perfect structure for a nation that claims to be leaving Iraq very soon.
The embassy is more like a fortress and hardly sends a message of warm diplomacy. “What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it’s blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?” said Edward Peck, the former US ambassador to Iraq when the embassy was first being constructed.
Full Story RebelReports – Iraq Embassy Scandal Expands: Contractor May Have to Repay $130 Million.
Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone: expert
The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday.
Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.
But David Barber, Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate.
“We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere,” he said in a presentation in Parliament. The little that remains is jammed up against Canada’s Arctic archipelago, far from potential shipping routes.
Full Story Multiyear Arctic ice is effectively gone: expert | Science | Reuters.
When the Changes Come, Where Will All the People Go?
The International Organization for Migration , or IOM, in 2008 suggested that, by 2050, between 25 million and 1 billion people would be removed from their homes and lands by climate change.
refugee We’ve begun to hide this apocalyptic vision of the future by calling it “eco-migration”, but in fact migration implies willing movement, as among groups who habitually move around within national borders (or even outside) to follow large herds of animals from which they get meat or milk.
Other habitual migrations include indigenous tribal hunter-gatherers like the Pila Nguru of Australia, for example, as well as certain Arctic peoples and the Bushmen of South Africa. For these people, the custom since the beginning of time has been to search out wild, native food crops and/or wild animals for meat.
Unintentional moves as a result of climate change (i.e., droughts, floods and rising oceans) are never voluntary, and some of this displacement is temporary, as people move away from flooded homes and fields to wait until the water recedes, and then return to rebuild (often, to wait for the next deluge).
Full Story When the Changes Come, Where Will All the People Go? | Use Celsias.co.nz – reduce global °Celsius.
Fed to Banks With Major Commercial Real Estate Loan Exposure: Bang You Are Dead
The Fed has just released a statement on commercial loan workouts. There can be more than one interpretation to what the Fed is up to here, but the confusion will spook markets even more so than they are now. Here’s the full statement:
Release Date: October 30, 2009
For immediate release
The Federal Reserve on Friday adopted a policy statement supporting prudent commercial real estate (CRE) loan workouts. This policy statement, adopted by each of the financial regulators,1 provides guidance for examiners, and for financial institutions that are working with CRE borrowers who are experiencing diminished operating cash flows, depreciated collateral values, or prolonged delays in selling or renting commercial properties. The financial regulators recognize that prudent loan workouts are often in the best interest of both financial institutions and borrowers, particularly during difficult economic conditions. This policy statement details risk-management practices for loan workouts that support prudent and pragmatic credit and business decision making within the framework of financial accuracy, transparency, and timely loss recognition.
Financial institutions that implement prudent loan workout arrangements after performing comprehensive reviews of borrowers’ financial conditions will not be subject to criticism for engaging in these efforts, even if the restructured loans have weaknesses that result in adverse credit classifications. In addition, performing loans, including those renewed or restructured on reasonable modified terms, made to creditworthy borrowers, will not be subject to adverse classification solely because the value of the underlying collateral declined.
The policy statement includes examples of CRE loan workouts. The examples, provided for illustrative purposes only, reflect examiners’ analytical processes for credit classifications and assessments of institutions’ accounting and reporting treatments for restructured loans. The policy statement reiterates existing guidance that examiners are expected to take a balanced approach in assessing institutions’ risk-management practices for loan workout activities.
Full Story EconomicPolicyJournal.com: Fed to Banks With Major Commercial Real Estate Loan Exposure: Bang You Are Dead.
Unlearning the CIA
The Education of Bob Baer
Unlearning the CIA
By CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM
When I first met ex-CIA officer Bob Baer in Washington DC, I thought, The guy looks nothing like George Clooney. But Clooney, who won an Academy Award playing Baer in the film Syriana, had in fact captured something about the posture, the pathos, the weariness of a CIA man who spends too many years getting filthy in the field – in the peculiar mire of the Middle East, no less – risking his life and being ignored for it. Clooney in the film cycles among the suits at Langley, the cubicled bureaucracy, looking somewhat like the only sane man in a mental ward.
So it was with Bob Baer in DC – unfamiliar ground, “a city of crazies,” he said. He was heading back home, out west, to the little mountain village of Silverton, and when I met him there a few months later, he took me on the big tour. Silverton is a mining outpost turned tourist stop, but it still resonates with the dissident manners of men who dig silver out of the ground looking for paydirt and don’t like the authorities interfering. The town is accessed by high passes where tractor trailers regularly fall off the cliffs in winter, and it has only one paved road, Main Street, and it has a church with upside-down crosses. Several residents – so Baer assured me – are licensed to own fully-automatic machineguns. “It’s to shoot at the black helicopters,” he laughed but didn’t seem to be joking. The locals tell me the place has a tendency to welcome “people who messed up in some other life and come here to be nobody.” I think Bob Baer came here partly because the CIA claimed he messed up. Maybe he did. Depends on who you talk to in this business, which is as it should be among professional liars.
Because maybe it was the Agency that messed up – this seems to be a CIA habit, the kind of habit that fails to see Al Qaeda on the horizon, that gets the country mired in Iraq, that makes you wonder, as a tax-paying citizen, whether the agency in its current incarnation has a reason for being other than to squander your money. It’s something the citizens in Silverton might grouse about.
Full Story Christopher Ketcham: Unlearning the CIA.
Ford workers speak out against concessions contract
WSWS reporters speak to Ford workers during the contract vote at UAW Local 600 in Dearborn, Michigan.
YouTube – Ford workers speak out against concessions contract.
How Foreign Lobbies and Elites ‘Bought’ the US
by Len Hart -
FASCISM is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political policy defined by a corporatist economic ideology enforced by a dictatorial regime which, in turn, is supported by a symbiotic business/corporate community.
In pre-war Germany, Hitler held a meeting with his corporate backers. He cut them all a ‘deal’ and, in turn, was rewarded with their enduring support and they by his LUCRATIVE DEFENSE CONTRACTS. It was I.G. Farben which manufactured Zyklon ‘B’ used to murder Jews, gypsies and non-Nazis in concentration camps.
In the US just one percent of the nation’s population has benefited from GOP (right wing) tax cuts. I have charged that the ‘tax cuts’ are, rather, an elaborate money laundering scheme in which the ‘ruling elite’ is paid a return on its investment, that is, the purchase of the US government by way of its pimps on K-Street.
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: How Foreign Lobbies and Elites ‘Bought’ the US.
David Korten: Path to a Peace Economy
I start with a basic truth. A persistent pattern of violence against people, community, and nature is inherent in the institutional structure of our existing economy.
———————
David Korten presented the following speech on October 19, 2009 during a keynote lecture at the Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, California.
My subject tonight is the Path to a Peace Economy, based on ideas elaborated in my most recent book, Agenda for a New Economy, and the New Economy issue of YES! Magazine.
I start with a basic truth. A persistent pattern of violence against people, community, and nature is inherent in the institutional structure of our existing economy.
You don’t treat a cancer with Band-Aids, and we can’t resolve our current economic crisis with marginal regulatory adjustments. It is time to rethink and restructure.
Systemic Failure
Our economic institutions have been designed by Wall Street interests to secure personal economic and political power in the hands of members of a small ruling elite. They do it well. Unfortunately, it is the wrong purpose. We need a top to bottom redesign to put in place the institutions of a new economic system, a New Peace Economy, designed to share power and resources in a world that works for all.
So how bad is the failure of our current system? It is public knowledge. A brief review, however, is in order.
Economic Collapse
The Wall Street financial collapse has stripped tens of millions of previously middle class Americans of their jobs, homes, and retirement assets and plunged them into poverty and despair. The federal government and the Federal Reserve have responded by pouring trillions of dollars into the Wall Street financial institutions that created the crisis with minimal conditions and oversight, all in the hope that some of this money would trickle down as loans to the productive economy. The recipient financial institutions used the money instead to fund acquisitions that make “too big to fail” banks even bigger, pay dividends to shareholders who by market rules should have been wiped out in bankruptcy proceedings, award obscene bonuses to criminally culpable executives, and launch new predatory financial scams that create new systemic risks.
Wall Street says we have now weathered the crisis, which basically means the profits and bonuses of its most rapacious financial institutions have been restored. The jobs, homes, and retirement assets of ordinary Americans have not. To the contrary, job losses, bankruptcies, and housing foreclosures continue.
Social Collapse
This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. In the absence of progressive tax and public service policies, the institutions of the old economy create an ever-growing wealth gap between the profligate few and the desperate many. This obscene injustice is tearing apart the social fabric of family and community essential to a healthy society. The resulting fear, insecurity, and sense of injustice fuel the forces of violence as expressed in terrorism, genocide, political deadlock, and high rates of crime, incarceration, and suicide. All are both consequences and indicators of a failed economic system.
Environmental Collapse
Now we come to the system’s ultimate failure: environmental collapse. The rules and institutions of the Old Economy drive endless growth in wasteful and destructive forms of material consumption that deplete soil and water, disrupt climate patterns, and convert Earth’s natural capital into toxic garbage, thus reducing Earth’s capacity to support life, creating massive human displacement, and intensifying a violent competition for Earth’s remaining resources that finds expression in bloated military budgets and wars of occupation.
Start with virtually any dysfunction or injustice in our society and it traces back to a failed economic system. Follow the money, and it leads ultimately to Wall Street.
A Failed Experiment
For some thirty years, we have been engaged as a nation and as a species in a social engineering experiment to test the claims of an extremist economic ideology known as market fundamentalism.
Ideology of the Sociopath
You’ve heard the sermon preached by its most fanatic true believers:
“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.”
-Mayer Amschel Rothschild,
founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty.
There is no public interest—only an aggregation of private interests, which are best served when we each pursue our individual greed in a marketplace unfettered by rules and other forms of government interference. Public assets must be privatized to increase their productivity and efficiency by selling them to the highest bidder. The faster we consume, the faster the economy grows and the wealthier we become as a rising tide lifts all boats.
Inequality is essential to social order and prosperity. It provides us with wealthy investors able to bear the risks of investing in the creation of jobs and a working class motivated by economic insecurity to work hard at those jobs at a globally competitive wage. There is no alternative. If a few get rich, instead of condemning them out of envy—which is a mortal sin—celebrate their good fortune, because as the rich get richer, wealth trickles down and we all get richer. In America, anyone can succeed who applies himself. Failure is a sign of a flawed character.
Is this story familiar? It is no mystery why this economic theology leads to ruthless competition, obscene accumulation, and reckless consumption that destroys the environment and tears apart the social fabric. It embodies the moral philosophy of the sociopath.
It is now time to acknowledge the lessons of this disastrous experiment. Markets do have an essential role in a healthy economy, but market extremism does not. It turns out that markets do need rules, there is an essential role for government, we all have more when resources are shared, and Jesus and the other great religious teachers were right. We are members of a community and we all do better when we care for one another and act with mindful consideration of the needs of others.
Wall Street as Operating System
The institutions of the economy determine how, as a society, we allocate whatever resources are available to us. In an earlier time, we organized ourselves into clans and tribes in which we cared for one another and allocated resources to secure the well-being of all. Resource allocation decisions were local and relationships were mediated by bonds of mutual caring and security. Money in the earliest human societies was unknown.
In our current society, most relationships on which we depend for the basics of survival, including food, water, shelter, and health care, are mediated by money. This gives enormous power to those who control the creation and allocation of money. In our country, that would be Wall Street.
To use a computer analogy, the Wall Street financial system has become the operating system of the economy and the society. The values and priorities of Wall Street thus become the defining values and priorities of the larger society. Wall Street has one value—money—and one goal: to maximize financial returns to those who control the money system. Social or environmental consequences find no place in Wall Street decision making.
A Choice-Making Species
In a few minutes, I will take up the question of how we can change this. In the meantime, I want to put our situation in its deeper historical, evolutionary, and spiritual context.
For the past 5,000 years, we humans have been living in a cultural trance of our own making that alienates us from the land, our true nature, and our place in the cosmos.
So who are we humans? From where did we come? And for what purpose? Here is how I understand the big story based on the data of science, the wisdom of indigenous peoples, and the teachings of Jesus and other mystics.
more………………..
Full Story David Korten :: Path to a Peace Economy :: Speech to the Economics of Peace Conference.
Noam Chomsky warns against rise of extremists using poverty to attract support
Far-right political groups could use rising poverty to attract support for their extremist policies, leading international commentator Noam Chomsky warned today.
Professor Chomsky met students ahead of giving the annual Amnesty International lecture as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s University.
He warned that in the US right-wing voices are trying to tap-in to grievances and he urged communities around the world to mobilise against poverty and inequality in their society as a safeguard against extremism.
“In the US, inequality has soared to unprecedented heights,” he said.
“There is now a mass of people with real grievances, who want answers but are not receiving them.
CREW LAWSUIT RESULTS IN RELEASE OF NOTES OF CHENEY’S FBI INTERVIEW IN WILSON LEAK CASE
Today, after successfully winning a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, under court order, CREW received documents related to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with the FBI in the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA identity. The transcript reveals that Mr. Cheney – generally credited with razor sharp intellect and recall – demonstrated an astonishing inability to recollect even simple facts much less the numerous conversations others have testified to regarding his involvement in the administration’s efforts to discredit former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Mr. Cheney’s memory frequently failed to improve, even when confronted with his own hand-written notes. The transcript does indicate however, that Mr. Cheney held Mr. Wilson in low regard and called the CIA’s decision to send Mr. Wilson to Niger “amateur-hour.”
Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said, “For years the American people have wondered what role Vice President Cheney played in outing former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. While we may never know the whole story, with the release of these documents we are one step closer.” Sloan continued, “In his closing statement at Scooter Libby’s trial, Special Counsel Fitzgerald said a cloud remained over the vice-president. Mr. Cheney’s near total amnesia regarding his role in this monumental Washington scandal – resulting in the conviction of his top aide – shows why.”
A Major Setback On The Public Option
Last night in Quick Hits, art3 alerted the Open Left community to the ugly repercussions of the defeat of the Medicare +5% public option. Now, it appears quite possible that even if the negotiated rates public option passes as a part of the final health care bill, it will not cost any less than private health insurance plans. From the CBO analysis of the House bill (page six, PDF):
Roughly one-fifth of the people purchasing coverage through the exchanges would enroll in the public plan, meaning that total enrollment in that plan would be about 6 million.
That estimate of enrollment reflects CBO’s assessment that a public plan paying negotiated rates would attract a broad network of providers but would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges. The rates the public plan pays to providers would, on average, probably be comparable to the rates paid by private insurers participating in the exchanges. The public plan would have lower administrative costs than those private plans but would probably engage in less management of utilization by its enrollees and attract a less healthy pool of enrollees. (The effects of that “adverse selection” on the public plan’s premiums would be only partially offset by the “risk adjustment” procedures that would apply to all plans operating in the exchanges.)
Ouch. That is pretty awful. In plain English, it means that the public health insurance option won’t cost less than private health insurance options because, on average, the people purchasing it will be sicker and less well-off. So, even though it will save on administrative costs, its risk pool will force it to charge rates very similar, and possibly even higher, than private insurance companies.
After such a loss of momentum, at this point the public option campaign is just about getting a legislative architecture in place that will allow the public option to be improved later on with only 50 votes in the Senate. Unfortunately, however, any such improvement will be dicey, given that we apparently lack simple majorities for a stronger public option in both the House and Senate. So, in addition to still struggling just to get the public option in place, we are going to have to struggle down the road to get a better group of people elected to both the House and the Senate.
Full Story Open Left:: A Major Setback On The Public Option.
Wilbur Ross Sees ‘Huge’ Commercial Real Estate Crash
Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a “huge crash in commercial real estate.”
“All of the components of real estate value are going in the wrong direction simultaneously,” said Ross, one of nine money managers participating in a government program to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. “Occupancy rates are going down. Rent rates are going down and the capitalization rate — the return that investors are demanding to buy a property — are going up.”
U.S. commercial property sales are forecast to fall to the lowest in almost two decades as the industry endures its worst slump since the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s, according to property research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. The Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices already have fallen almost 41 percent since October 2007, Moody’s Investors Service said Oct. 19.
Billionaire George Soros, speaking today at a lecture organized by the Central European University in Budapest, said a “bloodletting” may be coming for leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate.
Full Story Wilbur Ross Sees ‘Huge’ Commercial Real Estate Crash (Update3) – Bloomberg.com.
Nine Senate Democrats press Reid to expand public health insurance choice – TheHill.com
Nine Democratic senators from across the party’s ideological spectrum are pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to make the government-run health insurance option available to workers with employer-based coverage.
But Reid is facing conflicting pressure from labor unions that strongly oppose the idea.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is the lead sponsor of the proposal to let workers with employer-based coverage sign up for a public option or other health plans that would be made available on insurance exchanges. These exchanges are designed to serve as clearinghouses for various health plans, but only Americans who do not receive health benefits from their employers would be eligible.
“We are concerned that under current proposals too many Americans will not be able to purchase insurance in the exchanges,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Oct. 30.
Full Story Nine Senate Democrats press Reid to expand public health insurance choice – TheHill.com.
We Can’t Reform Health Care without Reforming Food
If and when health care reform finally passes, we will have successfully ameliorated only half of the crisis. The treatment half. The next step has to be focused upon doing something about the poisoned filth we’ve collectively nicknamed “food.” Without any real changes in how our food is produced, the health care system will continue to bloat and fall apart. Not unlike the insides of an average American body.
Corporate agribusiness has invested nearly $1.2 billion (and growing) on lobbyists — more money than even the defense lobby. Naturally, much of this lobbying has been aimed at deregulating how food is processed and manufactured, as well as how corporate agribusinesses raise and process livestock. It’s an industry that’s entangled in everything from Big Tobacco to human trafficking and illegal immigration.
Most recently, and speaking of poisoned filth, you may have watched as Rick Berman was eviscerated by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC a few weeks ago. In case you missed it, Berman’s Center for Consumer Freedom is financed by corporate agribusiness, among others, and tasked with deceiving the public about everything from high fructose corn syrup to transfat, mercury levels in fish, obesity issues, food labels, and tobacco laws. CCF is all about confusing the public by muddying scientific fact and skewing the debate onto ridiculous tangents to the point where it’s difficult to tell the difference between what’s healthy and what’s crap. It’s Glenn Beck’s rodeo clown strategy applied to food.
Full Story Bob Cesca: We Can’t Reform Health Care without Reforming Food.
Our Third-World Economy and the Happy Talk Propagandists
David Lindorff
If you listen to the happy-talk folks at Treasury and the Fed, and on the tube, you’d think things had finally turned a corner. The economy grew at a 3.5% annualized rate in the third quarter ended September 30. “The Economy is Back in Gear” shouted the headline on an article by CNN senior writer Chris Isadore. “The recession ended unofficially in September,” said a reporter on NPR.
There was some mention of the fact that earlier in the week there were reports that consumer confidence had fallen, foretelling a sluggish Christmas retail season, and that new home sales slipped an unanticipatedly high 3.6% in September, when analysts had been expecting a rise in sales. Meanwhile, new unemployment claims filed during the third week of October jumped to 531,000, well above the predicted 520,000, indicating that the official unemployment rate is likely to top 10% in the next Department of Labor report due out in early November. As well, fully one-third of the nation’s homeowners were now said to be “underwater,” meaning that their outstanding mortgage balances are greater than the current value of their homes. Not surprisingly, foreclosures are continuing to surge.
How to explain this seeming oxymoronic situation? Well, that positive economic growth figure, which comes on the heels of a 6.4% decline in GDP in the first quarter and a .7% decline in the second quarter, is, according to government analysts, actually largely the result of two government stimulus programs—the “cash for clunkers” program that induced people to rush out and buy a new car (usually a much smaller, cheaper and, for the car makers, less profitable one than they had been buying in prior years), and the $8,000 new home tax credit, which led a lot of people to rush out and buy a first home.
Full Story Our Third-World Economy and the Happy Talk Propagandists | This Can’t Be Happening!.
CBN Scrubs “Witch Candy” Blog Post
The Christian Broadcasting Network has caved in to scoffers and mockers and scrubbed a blog post which explained the dangers of Halloween – specifically, that “most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches”, and that this is a time of “sex with demons” and “rape and molestation of adults, children and babies”, among much else.
The post was by Kimberly Daniels and taken from Charisma magazine, although much of the skeptical reaction has been at the expense of CBN’s president, Pat Robertson. Regarding Halloween as demonic is common among Charismatic and neo-Pentecostal churches (and Evangelicals in general are not very keen on the celebration), and it is no surprise to read that she has links with C. Peter Wagner. It is interesting, though, to see elements of conspiracy theory, harking back to do the debunked “Satanic panics” of the 1980s.
Daniels has her own ministry, Kimberly Daniels Ministry International, where there is a profile. We are told:
Full Story Talk To Action | CBN Scrubs “Witch Candy” Blog Post.
Cluster bomb trade funded by world’s biggest banks
HSBC earned more than £650m in fees from work for Textron, US manufacturer of cluster weapons
The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world’s biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn (£12.5bn) to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them.
HSBC, led by ordained Anglican priest Stephen Green, has profited more than any other institution from companies that manufacture cluster bombs. The British bank, based at Canary Wharf, has earned a total of £657.3m in fees arranging bonds and share offerings for Textron, which makes cluster munitions described by the US company as “leaving a clean battlefield”.
Campaigners maintain the deadly weapons can explode years after combat, killing or maiming innocent people.
Full Story Cluster bomb trade funded by world’s biggest banks | Business | guardian.co.uk.
Australians could be banned from living on the coast
Australians could be banned from living on the coast under a radical environmental plan to protect the population from rising sea levels.
The National Sea Change Taskforce, a parliamentary committee, spent 18 months examining the effect that changing climate could have on coastal Australia and concluded that urgent action was needed to safeguard the coast from seas that are expected to rise more than 31 inches this century.
Among the panel’s recommendations were forced evacuations from coastal areas and a ban on new homes in regions considered to be at risk from flooding and rising seas.
Full Story Australians could be banned from living on the coast – Telegraph.
An Object Lesson in Governmental Failure: Derivatives reform
By Ken Silverstein, — Harper’s Magazine
If you want to understand why Congress seems completely incapable of checking the power of Wall Street, look back to a hearing on the Hill last October 7, and the subsequent events surrounding it. On that day, the House Financial Services Committee hosted a panel on reform of the market for derivatives, the financial instrument which played such a notable role in the country’s economic meltdown.
Everyone rational knows that there is an enormous need to seriously reform the derivatives market, but the committee, headed by Congressman Barney Frank (D-Wall Street), invited a panel of eight guests who were distinguished by their uniformly pro-industry positions. They included Jon Hixson of Cargill, James Hill of Morgan Stanley (on behalf of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association), Stuart Kaswell of the Managed Funds Association (which, through one of its lobbyists, has delivered significant “bundled” donations to Frank) and Christopher Ferreri of the Wholesale Markets Brokers Association.
In response to complaints from Americans for Financial Reform, which represents hundreds of consumer groups and labor unions, the committee issued an invitation—the night before the hearing was held — to Rob Johnson of the Roosevelt Institute. For the committee, the last minute inclusion of Johnson — a former managing director at Bankers Trust Company and former economist at the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Budget Committee — apparently constituted sufficient balance.
Full Story An Object Lesson in Governmental Failure: Derivatives reform—By Ken Silverstein (Harper’s Magazine).
Democrats: Overdraft Fees Must Be Curtailed
Senior congressional Democrats say legislation is still needed to limit how lenders charge customers who overspend on their accounts, even though some big banks have already curbed high-fee overdraft programs.
Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, on Friday joined Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., in calling for legislation that would require banks to ask customers whether they want overdraft protection.
“Don’t do favors for people without asking them,” said Frank, D-Mass., at a hearing on a House overdraft bill introduced by New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney.
Most banks automatically allow customers to overdraft their accounts, then charge them $25 to $35 per infraction. Banks say that customers want the protection, rather than being denied a purchase at the cash register.
Full Story Democrats: Overdraft Fees Must Be Curtailed.
Seven members of House defense subcommittee scrutinized by ethics investigators – washingtonpost.com
Separate probes focus on ties to lobbying firm founded by Hill aide
Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide
The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign contributions from the firm and its clients. A document obtained by The Washington Post shows that the subcommittee members under scrutiny also include Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) , C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).
The document also indicates that the House ethics committee’s staff recently interviewed the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) about his allegation that a PMA lobbyist threatened him in 2007 when he resisted steering federal funds to a PMA client. The lobbyist told a Nunes staffer that if the lawmaker didn’t help, the defense contractor would move out of Nunes’s district and take dozens of jobs with him.
Full Story Seven members of House defense subcommittee scrutinized by ethics investigators – washingtonpost.com.
Dog Spends $62 While Owners Sleep (VIDEO)
A chewed remote control, a dog, and $62.50 less in the bank account. For Greg Stroke, this could only mean one thing: his dog had purchased 5,000 Xbox points — worth $62 — while he and his girlfriend were asleep. Stroke saved his credit card information on his remote control to make it easier to buy video games using Microsoft Xbox points — so easy, in fact, that a dog could do it. When the dog chewed the remote, the points were bought. “i just wish they’d make it a little harder to purchase points,” Stroke lamented.
Full Story Dog Spends $62 While Owners Sleep (VIDEO).
Government Pushes To Create A New Health Internet
Hoping to provide the backbone for a grand plan to put the nation’s medical records online, federal officials have been quietly retooling an obscure government data-sharing service into a robust new Health Internet.
The concept has drawn intense interest from technology firms, including Microsoft and Google, which are scrambling to find new–and profitable–uses for digital medical records and the cyber health-care services they are starting to spawn.
Aneesh Chopra, President Obama’s chief technology officer, and Todd Park, who holds a similar position with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, previewed the plan late last month to an enthusiastic audience of health information technology professionals in Boston.
Full Story Government Pushes To Create A New Health Internet.
An Imperial Strategy for a New World Order: The Origins of World War III
Introduction
In the face of total global economic collapse, the prospects of a massive international war are increasing. Historically, periods of imperial decline and economic crisis are marked by increased international violence and war. The decline of the great European empires was marked by World War I and World War II, with the Great Depression taking place in the intermediary period.
Currently, the world is witnessing the decline of the American empire, itself a product born out of World War II. As the post-war imperial hegemon, America ran the international monetary system and reigned as champion and arbitrator of the global political economy.
To manage the global political economy, the US has created the single largest and most powerful military force in world history. Constant control over the global economy requires constant military presence and action.
Now that both the American empire and global political economy are in decline and collapse, the prospect of a violent end to the American imperial age is drastically increasing.
This essay is broken into three separate parts. The first part covers US-NATO geopolitical strategy since the end of the Cold War, at the beginning of the New World Order, outlining the western imperial strategy that led to the war in Yugoslavia and the “War on Terror.” Part 2 analyzes the nature of “soft revolutions” or “colour revolutions” in US imperial strategy, focusing on establishing hegemony over Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Part 3 analyzes the nature of the imperial strategy to construct a New World Order, focusing on the increasing conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa; and the potential these conflicts have for starting a new world war with China and Russia.
Full Story An Imperial Strategy for a New World Order: The Origins of World War III.
Bunker fuel spills in San Francisco Bay
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Friday it was investigating an early morning spill of bunker fuel from either the tanker Dubai Star or a barge alongside it in San Francisco Bay.
Coast Guard spokesman Erick Swanson told the KRON television station the two vessels had been transferring fuel and the slick from the spill was estimated at 1 mile (1.6 km). Additional details were not immediately available.
A spokesman for Heidmar Inc, which operates the Dubai Star within a group of tankers, said the Norwalk, Connecticut-headquartered company was in the process of gathering details of the spill and was preparing a statement.
Full Story Bunker fuel spills in San Francisco Bay | Reuters.
Al-Qaeda Outwitted Bush, Neocons
By Robert Parry
As security worsens in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is clear that al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies outwitted President George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers by tying down U.S. forces in Iraq for five years while the Islamic militants rebuilt their forces for the war on their “central front.”
The growing U.S. casualty list in Afghanistan and the Taliban advances in nuclear-armed Pakistan also underscore the significance of a late 2005 message from a top al-Qaeda operative, known as Atiyah, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was then leading al-Qaeda’s faction in Iraq.
“Prolonging the war [in Iraq] is in our interest,” Atiyah said in a letter that upbraided Zarqawi for his reckless and hasty actions. Atiyah, who is believed to be a Libyan named Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, emphasized the need for Zarqawi to operate more deliberately in order to build political strength and drag out the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
[The Atiyah letter was discovered by the U.S. military after Zarqawi was killed by an airstrike in June 2006. To view the “prolonging the war” excerpt in a translation published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, click here. To read the entire letter, click here.]
Full Story Consortiumnews.com.
Physicians and supporters arrested at CareFirst health insurance office to call for real health care reform
Dr. Margaret Flowers and Charles Loubert, 81, will stay in jail until CEO of CareFirst meets to discuss redirecting lobbying funds to pay for patients care
Baltimore, MD – Two physicians and two supporters were arrested today at a sit-in at a Baltimore CareFirst health insurance office. The sit-in is part of a national groundswell of citizens and health care providers demonstrating for meaningful health care reform at insurance company offices.
Doctor Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician who has testified before Congress on the need for meaningful health care reform, was arrested and intends to stay in jail until the CEO of CareFirst has a public meeting with her. She is joined by Charles Loubert, 81, a Baltimore resident and former teacher who was also arrested, and who was denied health care several years ago by his insurer. Both Flowers and Loubert are refusing to give information to the Baltimore police that would lead to their release until Chet Burrell, the CEO of CareFirst, agrees to meet with them publicly to discuss CareFirst redirecting all funds that go to lobbying, advertising, or political contributions to pay for the care of clients who need it.
AFP: Lack of health care led to 17,000 US child deaths
Lack of adequate health care may have contributed to the deaths of some 17,000 US children over the past two decades, according to a study released by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
The research, to be published Friday in the Journal of Public Health, was compiled from more than 23 million hospital records from 37 states between 1988 and 2005.
The study concluded that children without health insurance are far more likely to succumb to their illnesses than those with medical coverage.
“If you are a child without insurance, if you’re seriously ill and end up in the hospital, you are 60 percent more likely to die than the sick child in the next town who has insurance,” said Fizan Abdullah, lead writer of the study and a pediatric surgeon at Hopkins.
With some seven million children in the United States currently uninsured, the problem needed addressing immediately, the report said.
“In a country as wealthy as ours, the need to provide health care to the millions of children who lack it is a moral, not an economic imperative,” said Peter Pronovost, director of critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins.
Full Story AFP: Lack of health care led to 17,000 US child deaths.
Democrats strip single-payer healthcare proposal from health overhaul
A government-run healthcare program may become an “option” for those who don’t have employer-sponsored healthcare coverage, but a government-run healthcare system will not.
House Democratic leaders quietly stripped a single-payer provision from the House version of the healthcare overhaul Thursday. The measure would have allowed states to set up their own state-run healthcare systems, where local governments would have become de facto health insurers for residents.
A Democratic aide told Roll Call that there was “consensus” to remove the provision, which was proposed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and inserted by a majority vote in the House Education and Labor Committee.
“The fact is, the majority of the Democratic Caucus agreed that the most effective way forward was through a competitive marketplace coupled with strong consumer protections and the choice of a public option,” Education and Labor Committee spokesman Aaron Albright remarked.
Full Story Democrats strip single-payer healthcare proposal from health overhaul | Raw Story.
Conservatives’ 25-year goal of ‘defunding the left’ revealed by ACORN controversy
When Michele Bachman crowed in September that the exposure of alleged illegal activity by the anti-poverty group ACORN was just the start of a campaign to “defund the left,” she may have revealed more about current Republican strategy than she intended.
“Defunding the left is going to be so easy,” Bachmann told the audience at a conservative conference, “and it’s going to solve so many of our problems.”
The Senate and House had just voted to cut off ACORN’s federal funding in what CBS/AP called “a GOP-led strike against the scandal-tainted community organizing group” that followed the release of video showing ACORN employees apparently endorsing illegal activities, The bills passed by lopsided majorities, with many Democrats joining Republicans, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told a news conference, “We have to have our own scrutiny of an organization with an allegation of this kind against it.”
The initial Congressional defunding of ACORN was scheduled to expire at the end of October, however, causing Bachman to warn a bloggers’ conference at the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, “This is the biggest trick or treat. On November 1 the prohibition will lift.”
Full Story Conservatives’ 25-year goal of ‘defunding the left’ revealed by ACORN controversy | Raw Story.
Chirac to stand trial on corruption charge
Mr Chirac, along with nine others, is accused of creating 21 fictitious municipal jobs for friends and political allies in the RPR party that fuelled his rise to power. Mr Chirac, 76, would be the first former head of state in France to stand trial.
Full Story FT.com / Europe – Chirac to stand trial on corruption charge.
Jane Hamsher: House Health Care Bill: A Death Sentence For My Fellow Breast Cancer Survivors
This is absolutely heartbreaking. We have, honest-to-God, been sold out.
Nancy Pelosi made a choice with regard to the lifesaving biologic drugs I took when I was in chemotherapy that will cost many of my fellow breast cancer survivors everything they own, and quite possibly their lives.
Jane goes on to describe the specific plights of a breast cancer survivor, a rheumatoid arthritis patient and a Crohn’s patient, who are required to pay exorbitant amounts for their biologic drugs to treat their conditions, at times reaching into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
Jane continues:
But thanks to Representatives Anna Eshoo and Joe Barton, there will be no generic versions of these drugs. At least not for 12 years, if the House health care bill announced today passes. And because of an “evergreening” clause that grants drug companies a continued monopoly if they make slight changes to the drug (like creating a once-a-day dose where the original product was three times per day), they will never become generics. Instead of the Waxman-Deal amendment that granted much more reasonable terms to biologic patent holders, Speaker Pelosi chose the Eshoo-Barton amendment. And we could all be paying for that choice for the rest of our lives.
Breast cancer boards are filled with women who have been turned down by their insurance companies for Herceptin because they only cover generic drugs, or because they only pay a portion of the $48,000 a year (or more) that the drug costs.
…..
This is deeply, deeply wrong. It’s immoral for Congress to give endless monopolies to pharmaceutical companies on these cutting edge drugs in this bill. If an AIDS vaccine is found, it too will be a biologic.
These drug manufacturers argue that the cost of developing biologics is so expensive that they need the extra patent time to recoup their investment, or they won’t have any incentive to develop them. Hogwash. A study done by Drs. Joe DiMasi and Hank Grabowski, who are funded by PhRMA, concluded that the cost for developing biologics is $1.3 billion, as opposed to $1.2 billion for conventional drugs.
And as for incentive for development? As bleicher of Blue Mass Group notes, granting endless monopolies for slight changes encourages companies NOT to innovate:
McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama?
By Scott Ritter
There is a curious phenomenon taking place in the American media at the moment: the lionization of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American military commander in Afghanistan. Although he has taken a few lumps for playing politics with the White House, McChrystal has generally been sold to the American public as a “Zen warrior,” a counterinsurgency genius who, if simply left to his own devices, will be able to radically transform the ongoing debacle that is Afghanistan into a noble victory that will rank as one of the greatest political and military triumphs of modern history. McChrystal’s resume and persona (a former commander of America’s special operations forces, a tireless athlete and a scholar) have been breathlessly celebrated in several interviews and articles. Reporters depict him as an ascetic soldier who spouts words of wisdom to rival Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Gen. McChrystal to “fix” the war in Afghanistan in the way that his boss, that earlier military prophet Gen. David Petraeus, “fixed” Iraq. Whether by accident or design, McChrystal’s mission became a cause célèbre of sorts for an American media starved for good news, even if entirely fabricated, coming out of Afghanistan. One must remember that the general has accomplished little of note during his short tenure to date as the military commander in Afghanistan. His entire reputation is built around the potential to turn things around in Afghanistan. And to do this, McChrystal has said he needs time, and 40,000-plus additional American troops. There are currently around 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s request would raise that number to around 110,000 troops – the same number as the Soviets had deployed in Afghanistan at the height of their failed military adventure some 20 years ago.
Full Story Truthdig – Reports – McChrystal Doesn’t Get It—Does Obama?.
Canada sets aside its boreal forest as giant carbon vault
By banning logging, mining and oil drilling in an area twice the size of California, Canada is ensuring its boreal forests continue to soak up carbon
In the far north latitudes, buried within a seemingly endless expanse of evergreen forests, the authorities in Canada are building up one of the world’s best natural defences against global warming.
In a series of initiatives, Canadian provincial governments and aboriginal leaders have set aside vast tracts of coniferous woods, wetlands, and peat. The conservation drive bans logging, mining, and oil drilling on some 250m acres – an area more than twice the size of California.
The sheer scale of the forest conservation drive is somewhat of an anomaly for Canada, whose government has been accused of sabotaging the global climate change talks by its development of the Alberta tar sands and its refusal to make deep cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions.
Last week, a former adviser to Barack Obama urged Canada to do more to keep up with America’s moves towards a cleaner energy economy.
Full Story Canada sets aside its boreal forest as giant carbon vault | Environment | The Guardian.
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder – Trailer
Famed Charles Manson prosecutor and three time #1 New York Times bestselling author Vincent Bugliosi stars in this most powerful, explosive, and thought-provoking documentary.
In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.
As a prosecutor who is dedicated to seeking justice, Bugliosi, in his inimitable style, delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines and instead based upon hard facts and pure objectivity.
A searing indictment of the President and his administration, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder also outlines a legally credible pathway to holding our highest government officials accountable for their actions, thereby creating a framework for future occupants of the oval office.
Vincent Bugliosi calls for the United States of America to return to the great nation it once was and can be again. He believes the first step to achieving this goal is to bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice.
Full Story YouTube – The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder – Trailer.
Pat Robertson on hate crimes bill: ‘The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians.’
Video:
Yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network, televangelist Pat Robertson aired a segment slamming President Obama for signing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. Extending hate crimes protection to the gay and transgendered community, Robertson argued, was a targeted attack on homophobic Christians like himself. Robertson said the new law is the latest example of a “noose” tightening around “the necks of Christians.” Later in the segment, he implied Democrats in Congress were “opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs”:
PAT ROBERTSON: The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something called the Hate crimes bill that President Obama said was a major victory for America. I’m not sure if America was the beneficiary. [...] We have voted into office a group of people who are opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs of our nation. And they hold to radical ideology, and they are beginning put people sharing their points of view into high office. And not only that, they not only have control of both houses of Congress.
Watch it:
Did Bush Era Mark the End of American Global Dominance?
Video: Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash discusses the period from 9/11 to the election of President Barack Obama, which he calls the “decade without a name.” Ash argues the period will be viewed as “the last decade in which the United States and the West as a whole was clearly setting the agenda of world politics.”
One of Britain’s most influential and admired commentators presents his latest volume of dispatches from a troubled world. Timothy Garton Ash witnessed the fall of Milosevic in Serbia, visited Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, watched the Orange revolution in Ukraine and talked to militant mullahs in Iran.
He discusses these pivotal moments from the past decade, and shares his critical reflections on the future of Europe, multiculturalism and terrorism.
Against every post-modernist in the world, Timothy Garton Ash maintains that there are facts, and that establishing them is both a political and a moral imperative – and an aesthetic one, too. – The RSA
Timothy Garton Ash is the author of nine books of political writing or “history of the present,” which have charted the transformation of Europe over the last thirty years. He is Professor of European Studies in the University of Oxford, Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
His essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books and he writes a weekly column in the Guardian which is widely syndicated in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Full Story YouTube – Did Bush Era Mark the End of American Global Dominance?.
New game lets players massacre civilians
A new video game allows players to pose as Russian ultranationalist terrorists and massacre civilians with assault weapons in an airport.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is set for release Nov. 10, in time for the American holiday shopping season. Its predecessor sold 14 million copies and earned myriad “game of the year” awards.
But the latest incarnation is drawing fire. The game allows players to pose as terrorists — and play in first-person view — engaging in violence against non-combat actors.
GameSpot said the scene where players shoot bystanders is “reminiscent of last year’s mass killings in Mumbai.”
Full Story New game lets players massacre civilians | Raw Story.
EU strikes climate funding deal
The EU has agreed a conditional deal on how to help other nations fight global warming, ahead of a key climate summit, but set no figure on what it would pay.
The EU agreed climate change would need 100bn euros ($148bn; £90bn) a year by 2020, and would pay its “fair share”, conditional on other nations.
UK PM Gordon Brown said the EU was leading the way with bold proposals.
Talks at the EU summit in Brussels had been deadlocked over how EU nations would share its costs.
A coalition of nine poorer EU nations had threatened to block a deal unless richer countries paid more.
Full Story BBC NEWS | Europe | EU strikes climate funding deal.
Harkin, Again, Hints At Consequences For Off-The-Reservation Chairmen
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)–chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee is rare among senior Senate Democrats. Whereas many in the party view seniority as akin to tenure, Harkin thinks it should come with responsibility. And when powerful chairmen stray, he doesn’t keep quiet.
“[Lieberman] still wants to be a part of the Democratic Party although he is a registered independent,” Harkin said. “He wants to caucus with us and, of course, he enjoys his chairmanship of the [Homeland Security] committee because of the indulgence of the Democratic Caucus. So, I’m sure all of those things will cross his mind before the final vote.”
Lieberman suggested this week that he’ll filibuster health care reform legislation if it includes a public option.
Full Story Harkin, Again, Hints At Consequences For Off-The-Reservation Chairmen | TPMDC.
Young Children Working in Blueberry Fields, Walmart Severs Ties to Large Grower
Children as Young as 5 and 6 Working in the Fields of Large Blueberry Grower; Walmart Severs Ties, Feds Levy Fines
Walmart has severed ties with one of the country’s major blueberry growers after an ABC News investigation found children, including one as young as five-years-old, working in its fields.
he children were discovered at the Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, in South Haven, Michigan, this summer by graduate school students working with ABC News as fellows with the Carnegie Corporation.
The full report on the investigation airs tonight on Nightline.
A five-year-old girl, named Suli, was seen lugging two heavy buckets of blueberries picked by her parents and brothers, aged seven and eight.
An 11-year-old boy in the Adkin fields told the Carnegie fellows he had been picking blueberries since the age of eight.
Full Story Young Children Working in Blueberry Fields, Walmart Severs Ties to Large Grower – ABC News.
Reid Punts On Insurance Industry Anti-Trust Exemption
Senate negotiators have decided not to include a provision revoking the insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption in the bill leadership sends to the floor, said two Democratic aides close to the merger talks. Instead, the measure will be offered as an amendment on the Senate floor.
The House health care bill, unveiled Thursday, includes a revocation of the exemption.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who makes the final decision on what goes into the bill, recently testified in favor of revoking the exemption.
Requiring insurers to follow anti-trust laws is broadly popular as a way to look tough battling the insurance industry. “I’m not here to defend the health insurance industry,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Tuesday, while explaining why he opposed a public health insurance option. “I’m open to supporting the removal of the antitrust exemption for the insurance industry. I’m prepared to support it. I don’t want to be cute with my words. I will support it if it comes up.”
Full Story Reid Punts On Insurance Industry Anti-Trust Exemption.
A New Wrinkle in the JFK Assassination Story
This month will mark the 46th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A recently declassified oral history by Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, President Kennedy’s military aide on the Dallas trip, sheds new light on the critical hours after the shooting. McHugh makes startling claims about Lyndon Johnson’s behavior in the wake of the assassination.
The interview with McHugh, originally conducted for the John F. Kennedy Library in 1978, remained closed for 31 years. It was finally declassified in the spring of 2009. I just happened to be working at the Kennedy Library on the day the interview was opened to the public and have used it for the first time in my new book, The Kennedy Assassination — 24 Hours After.
After being informed at Parkland Hospital that Kennedy was dead, Johnson raced back to Air Force One, where he waited for Mrs. Kennedy and the body of the slain president, and made preparations to take the Oath of Office. Back at the hospital, the Kennedy group loaded the body into a coffin, forced their way past a local justice of the peace, and hurried back to Love Field for the long ride back to Washington.
Full Story Steven M. Gillon: A New Wrinkle in the JFK Assassination Story.
Lieberman: I’ll Probably Back Some Republicans In 2010 (VIDEO)
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told ABC News on Friday that he would probably support some Republicans in the next election.
“I expect I will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the elections in 2010. I’m going to call them as I see them,” Lieberman told the network.
Distancing himself from “partisan, passionate, ideological” politicians on either side, he added, “Sometimes the better choice is somebody who’s not a Democrat.”
Watch:
Full Story Lieberman: I’ll Probably Back Some Republicans In 2010 (VIDEO).
OPS: When the hell are the Dems going to dump this rat bastard?
Remove him from all committees and anything else that give him power.
He’s not worth the time of day
Yet Another Public Option Poll Puts A Wavering Dem On The Spot
Yet another public opinion poll in a state with a conservative Democratic senator shows that the public option not only is widely popular among voters, but could become a potent issue in the upcoming congressional elections.
One day after releasing a Research 2000 survey of Indiana residents — in a study designed to get the attention of Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh — the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America is going public with the results from Arkansas, home state of Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Full Story Yet Another Public Option Poll Puts A Wavering Dem On The Spot.
Jon Stewart Takes On War Between Obama White House & Fox News (VIDEO)
Jon Stewart devoted half his show last night to the Fox News/Obama “war” sparked either by White House Communication Director Anita Dunn or the cable network’s constant attacks on the president, depending on how you see it. The former accused Fox of acting on behalf of the Republican party, the latter accused the president of being Stalin. Apples and oranges.
Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente struck back at the White House after Dunn’s remark saying, “It’s astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part.” (Full disclosure I worked for Clemente at ABC News.) Fox went on to define their news hours as 9a-4p & 6-8p, parameters which exclude Cavuto, O’Reilly, Fox & Friends crew, Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren, and Sean Hannity from the news category and leave a bunch of people you’ve never heard of.
Full Story Jon Stewart Takes On War Between Obama White House & Fox News (VIDEO).
The Full Story Of How Tim Geithner Secretly Bailed Out Wall Street And Screwed The Taxpayer Last Fall
When the historians finally finish sorting through the appalling decisions that have been made in the past two years, this one will probably be at the top of the heap.
Last fall, as AIG began to realize how screwed it was, it started negotiating with the counterparties to all the credit default swaps it had written. One of the AIG’s goals was to persuade these counterparties–including Goldman Sachs–to accept buyouts discounts of as much as $0.40 cents on the dollar.
These sorts of negotiations are exactly what should happen when a company gets in trouble. It goes to its creditors and says, look, we can’t pay you everything, so here’s your choice: Take something, or take your chances in banktuptcy court. (And, in this case, this wouldn’t have been much of a choice, given the standing of CDS holders in the liquidation line).
But then Tim Geithner, head of the New York Fed, stepped in.
A few weeks later, the counterparties–all of whom voluntarily did business with AIG and understood the risks–were bailed out at par: 100 cents on the dollar.
Thus began the most nauseating giveaway in the history of the country.
Bloomberg has the whole sickening story:
Full Story The Full Story Of How Tim Geithner Secretly Bailed Out Wall Street And Screwed The Taxpayer Last Fall.
FBI: gunshots hit US Rep. DeFazio’s office windows
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Three shots fired at a federal courthouse in Oregon late Wednesday or early Thursday hit windows in U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio’s office, while a fourth shot hit a wall above the office, the FBI said.
No one was in the second-floor office at the time, and the Democratic congressman’s staffers in Eugene found the damage when they arrived for work Thursday morning.
Investigators believe the shots were fired between 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7 a.m. Thursday, FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said, adding they’re not certain that DeFazio’s office was the intended target.
Full Story News from The Associated Press.
Senate Confirms Surgeon General
After much agitation earlier in the day, the Senate voted to confirm Dr. Regina Benjamin as the nation’s surgeon general on Thursday night amid a national emergency over the swine flu outbreak.
The Senate approved her on a voice vote. On Thursday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, had taken to the floor to complain that her nomination, along with others, had been held up. Republicans had stalled her confirmation over another issue, the so-called gag order imposed on insurance companies about whether they could inform Medicare beneficiaries about possible cuts to their benefits in the health care bills being negotiated in the House and Senate. The administration has since retreated on that issue.
Full Story Senate Confirms Surgeon General – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.
Leaked report reveals dozens of Congressmembers under investigation
Internal investigations into the conduct of several House members have been exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach of security involving the secretive process by which Congress polices lawmaker ethics.
Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — also known as the Ethics committee — shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday.
The panel announced that it was probing two California Democrats — Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson — even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers also identified in the leaked confidential committee memo may have committed no wrongdoing.
Full Story Leaked report reveals dozens of Congressmembers under investigation | Raw Story.
Problems with GDP as an Economic Barometer
Joseph Stiglitz, Video
While today’s GDP report touts recovery, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains why the GDP is not an accurate measure of economic performance or societal well-being.
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz explains why the GDP is not an accurate measure of economic performance or societal well-being. In the above video Stiglitz discusses the GDP’s flaws which include how the GDP is not indicative of the financial state of the typical citizen, why the GDP tells us nothing about a country’s economic sustainability, and how wealth leaving the country inflates the GDP since it is calculated into the equation.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Consumer Spending Falls 0.5 Percent in September
Consumer spending plunged in September by the largest amount in nine months, reflecting the end of the government’s Cash for Clunkers auto sales program. Incomes, the fuel for future spending, were flat.
While the government reported that the overall economy grew in the July-September period, signaling the end of the worst recession in seven decades, the weakness in spending and incomes as the quarter ended underscores the fragility of the recovery.
The Commerce Department said Friday that spending dropped 0.5 percent in September, matching economists’ expectations. Personal incomes were unchanged as workers contend with rising unemployment and a squeeze on wages.
Full Story Consumer Spending Falls 0.5 Percent in September – NYTimes.com.
The Root of America’s Distress
To renew America’s economy, the U.S. must stop rewarding overseas manufacturing and investment.
An economic downturn of today’s magnitude has been brewing for decades, and in 2008 the economic despair finally became palpable to American citizens. The United States must undergo a serious overhaul to uproot itself from the current economic meltdown. Our problems have to be addressed at the root, they cannot merely be covered up with increased stimulus spending.
To renew America’s economy, the U.S. must stop rewarding overseas manufacturing and investment. Currently our tax code is set up to reward American corporations that invest abroad and penalize those corporations that invest at home. When American corporations move overseas they are only taxed on the money that is brought back into the U.S. So American companies simply do not bring money back into the U.S. Instead they keep their overseas profits overseas and that money which could have been funneled into the American economy is instead absorbed by foreign economies. U.S. companies then parlay their earnings into building more factories and infrastructures in the countries they are inhabiting like China and India.
Due to our current tax codes it is more profitable for American companies to manufacture their goods elsewhere and ship them to the United States. The U.S. needs to adapt tax codes that provide tax breaks to those companies that keep American companies on U.S. soil and stop providing tax breaks to companies that move offshore.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
US: GDP figure masks deepening economic crisis
The Commerce Department on Thursday reported that the US gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.5 percent on an annualized basis in the third quarter (July through September), breaking a string of four consecutive quarters of negative growth.
President Barack Obama hailed the report as “welcome news” and “an affirmation that the recession is abating and the steps we’ve taken have made a difference.” Wall Street rallied on the report. The Dow gained 200 points, reversing a week of losses and nearing the 10,000 mark once again.
The reported increase in the growth rate topped most forecasts. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast 3.2 percent GDP growth for the quarter.
Many media outlets and economists were quick to declare that the GDP rise meant the recession which officially began in December of 2007 was over.
Full Story US: GDP figure masks deepening economic crisis.
Are You Ready for the Next Crisis?
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury
Evidence that the U.S. is a failed state is piling up faster than I can record it.
One conclusive hallmark of a failed state is that the crooks are inside the government, using government to protect and advance their private interests.
Another conclusive hallmark is rising income inequality, as the insiders manipulate economic policy for their enrichment at the expense of everyone else.
Income inequality in the U.S. is now the most extreme of all countries. The 2008 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report, “Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries,” concludes that the U.S. is the country with the highest inequality and poverty rate across the OECD and that, since 2000, nowhere has there been such a stark rise in income inequality as in the U.S.
The OECD finds that in the U.S. the distribution of wealth is even more unequal than the distribution of income.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Santorum On Resourcing Afghanistan War: ‘That Was Not Done By The Prior Administration’
Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama, saying he is “afraid to make a decision” on the war in Afghanistan and that he’s “dithering.” A number of conservatives, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and columnist George Will, disagreed with Cheney’s language. “I would never want to call my president ‘dithering,’” Hatch said.
But many on the right have failed to mention the more substantive point, namely that Cheney and the Bush administration itself “dithered” on Afghanistan and diverted valuable resources to invade Iraq. But last night on Fox News, former Republican senator Rick Santorum stepped up to the plate:
SANTORUM: My sense is that we have an obligation to support our generals in the field, to give them the resources they need to accomplish the mission. That was not done by the prior administration. Let’s be very clear about that. They put their own political imprint on the Afghan strategy.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Santorum On Resourcing Afghanistan War: ‘That Was Not Done By The Prior Administration’.
OPS: There are no limits to insanity’s desperation
It’s alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill
It’s alive. The Medicare end-of-life planning provision that 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said was tantamount to “death panels” for seniors is staying in the latest Democratic health care bill unveiled Thursday.
The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.
For years, federal laws and policies have encouraged Americans to think ahead about end-of-life decisions, and make their wishes known in advance through living wills and similar legal documents. But when House Democrats proposed this summer to pay doctors for end-of-life counseling, it touched off a wave of suspicion and anger.
Prominent Republicans singled it out as a glaring example o
Full Story It’s alive! End-of-life counseling in health bill – Yahoo! News.
The Moment’s “Why” Questions
David Sirota
This confounding moment in American history is raising a lot of important “why” questions for us all. Here’s a few that are particularly on my mind right now:
Why is the “sanctity of contracts” only an inviolable axiom when it comes to contracts that ensure Wall Street bonuses, but not union workers wages?
Why has almost nobody objected to the renomination of Ben Bernanke, the guy whose failure to better regulate banks helped destroy the economy?
Why is Rahm Emanuel so often billed as “tough” when he has spearheaded almost every single White House capitulation to corporate interests?
Why has almost nobody objected to the renomination of Ben Bernanke, the guy whose failure to better regulate banks helped destroy the economy?
Why is Rahm Emanuel so often billed as “tough” when he has spearheaded almost every single White House capitulation to corporate interests?
Why do some progressives seem to believe it is OK for progressives to criticize George W. Bush for taking a position, but not OK for progressives criticize Barack Obama for taking the same position?
Full Story The Moment’s “Why” Questions | The Smirking Chimp.
The Return of Howard Zinn, and Company
A packed house hears a left-wing critique of Obama
With the Tsai Performance Center filled to its 500-seat capacity, many in the audience remembered when that hall was named Hayden, the University was in turmoil, and Howard Zinn was both lightning rod and radical catalyst.
Much has changed. The Howard Zinn Lecture Series, kicking off Alumni Weekend on October 22, now celebrates Boston University’s distinguished professor emeritus of political science. As Virginia Sapiro, dean of Arts & Sciences, welcomed all and introduced three intriguing writers gathered around the man of the night, cordiality rather than conflict ruled.
“To have a kindly relationship between us and the BU administration,” said Zinn, his nod to Sapiro drawing swells of laughter, “well, we’re still trying to get used to it.”
Full Story The Return of Howard Zinn, and Company | BU Today.
CBO: Public option premiums higher than private plans
The public insurance option would typically charge higher premiums than private plans available in the exchange, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House bill.
That surprising conclusion raises doubts about Democratic promises that a government-run insurance plan would provide a lower-cost alternative to consumers. At the same time, it calls into question Republican charges that the plan amounts to government takeover of health insurance — because only 6 million people would enroll in the plan, according to the CBO.
Here’s the key passage from page 6:
Roughly one-fifth of the people purchasing coverage through the exchanges would enroll in the public plan, meaning that total enrollment in that plan would be about 6 million……..
Full Story CBO: Public option premiums higher than private plans – Live Pulse – POLITICO.com.
OPS: keep in mind that this is from POLITICO
The Defining Moment
Paul Krugman
O.K., folks, this is it. It’s the defining moment for health care reform.
Past efforts to give Americans what citizens of every other advanced nation already have — guaranteed access to essential care — have ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, usually dying in committee without ever making it to a vote.
But this time, broadly similar health-care bills have made it through multiple committees in both houses of Congress. And on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, unveiled the legislation that she will send to the House floor, where it will almost surely pass. It’s not a perfect bill, by a long shot, but it’s a much stronger bill than almost anyone expected to emerge even a few weeks ago. And it would lead to near-universal coverage.
As a result, everyone in the political class — by which I mean politicians, people in the news media, and so on, basically whoever is in a position to influence the final stage of this legislative marathon — now has to make a choice. The seemingly impossible dream of fundamental health reform is just a few steps away from becoming reality, and each player has to decide whether he or she is going to help it across the finish line or stand in its way.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – The Defining Moment – NYTimes.com.
Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President
A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office
The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Mr. Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Mr. Zelaya’s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed on Friday that Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti had approved what she called “an historic agreement.”
Full Story Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President – NYTimes.com.
Palin’s Pet Hoffman Has Taliban Ties
Laura Flanders
One week before Election Day, the special election to fill a vacant House seat in New York’s North Country is heating up. It’s a three-way split, pitting a Republican, a Democrat, and a Conservative against one another. It’s close.
And the conservative on the ticket has the kind of support the Democrat running against him must love.
Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman has already received the backing of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the anti-public-spending Club for Growth. On Monday he was endorsed by another beauty: Dana Rohrabacher, the senior Orange County (CA) Republican who began his career as a speechwriter for President Reagan. Said Rohrabacher “We don’t need Tweedle-Dum or Tweedle-Dee, we need Hoffman. He’s not afraid to stand up and speak the truth.”
Like Palin, Beck, Limbaugh et al, Rohrabacher’s of the belief that if Hoffman wins, it will send a message to the GOP establishment that they should run hardliners in 2010 and pitch to the Tea Party crowd on health care, government and everything else.
Full Story GRITtv with Laura Flanders » The F Word: Palin’s Pet Hoffman Has Taliban Ties.
Monsanto and Pioneer duke it out over biotech corn, farmers take the hit
There is an old African saying “Whether elephants make love or war, the grass suffers.” The two elephants in the agricultural seed business are now making real war, although they have been wary of each other for years. Monsanto, a relatively recent entry into the business, has become the “dominant male” in the battle after moving to acquire a large number of formerly independent seed companies. Pioneer, content for years to be the premiere corn breeder in the world, has found itself suddenly defending its turf and trying to find ways to move into the new biotech ball game. The Des Moines Register recently covered this ongoing saga.
Monsanto has long been targeted as a corporate villain. From dioxin-laced Agent Orange for Vietnam to the industrial chemical, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), Monsanto was known as producer of persistent, deadly chemicals. Lassotm, the alachlor-based pre-emergent grass herbicide with a long list of toxicity issues, was their first foray into agricultural chemicals.
Monsanto’s bottom line was being hurt by lawsuits and clean-up costs associated with dioxin and PCB pollution. Enter Roundup™ (glyphosate), launched in 1976. This is the chemical that made Monsanto the powerhouse it is today. Glyphosate is a broad spectrum nonspecific herbicide that has low acute toxicity and does not persist in the environment. It should be noted however that many questions remain regarding the long-term toxicity of glyphosate.
Full Story IATP | Think Forward.
Dennis Kucinich on The Ed Show: state-level single-payer provision stripped from health bill
To hell with Republicans. They are insane imperialist slogan-chanters. To hell with Democrats. They are insane bleeding-heart snobs. And the leaders of both parties care nothing about what really ails the American people.
They care about what their special interest cronies care about: how policy will affect Corporate America, and Wall St.
But President Obama was right about one thing. Change is coming, make no mistake. Maybe not the change he had envisioned low those many months ago, but change is definitely in the air.
America is waking up to the fact that their beloved two-party political system is a sham. And the leaders of both the fat elephants and the jack-asses have only themselves to blame. Over the past few decades both Republican and Democratic leaders have thoroughly abused the American people, both figuratively and literally. They’ve exploited our ignorance of policy details; of how Washington really works; and they’ve flourished during a time when the average American has lost their valuable “leisure time,” with longer work days for stagnating pay coupled with the mad scramble to provide for our families, and the inexplicable “need” to “consume” on the latest and greatest toys. This perversity of the American Dream has left us with the subsequent inability to concentrate fully on what exactly our leaders are doing to us.
In essence, our leaders are cutting us off at the knees while we desperately reach upward.
Full Story Dennis Kucinich on The Ed Show: state-level single-payer provision stripped from health bill.
Sanders to Push for Single-Payer Vote in Senate
MONTPELIER – U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders will likely make history this year when – for the first time ever – he brings a bill creating a national single-payer health care system to the floor of the Senate for a vote.
As a compromise on a public-option plan that would allow states to opt out gains steam in the U.S. Senate, Sanders, a Vermont independent, continues to focus his attention on a single-payer bill, although he acknowledges that there are not enough votes to pass it.
“That bill will lose,” Sanders said Wednesday morning during a telephone interview. “The question, however, will be how much support it will get.”
Introduced in the early spring, Sanders’ American Health Security Act of 2009 would eliminate the role of private insurance companies in health care and create a public fund that would insure all residents of the United States.
Full Story Sanders to Push for Single-Payer Vote in Senate | CommonDreams.org.
OPS: Thank You Senator Sanders!
Jon Stewart Takes On Media, Lieberman Over Public Option (VIDEO)
After much debate and speculation, after every cable news network declared it dead one point or another, Senator Harry Reid announced that a public option would be included in the Senate health care reform bill, allowing millions of Americans to purchase government-run insurance.
Despite the fact that support for a public option is at an all time high with nearly half of the country in favor of it, cable news reporters and politicians on both sides of the aisle continue to say that the Senate has caved to the “left wing” by including the public option. Joe Lieberman is so disgusted by the idea that he said he will join the Republicans if they filibuster the bill, denying the Dems the 60-vote super majority needed to quash a filibuster.
Jon Stewart took on both the media and Senator Lieberman last night saying, “You know what’s worse than being sick and not having health insurance? Having to sit through the Lieberman filibuster that kept it from you.”
Full Story Jon Stewart Takes On Media, Lieberman Over Public Option (VIDEO).
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
