Archive for October, 2009
Urgent lawsuit filed against FDA to halt swine flu vaccines; claims FDA violated federal law
(NaturalNews) Health freedom attorney Jim Turner is filing a lawsuit in Washington D.C. mid-day Friday in an urgent effort to halt the distribution of the swine flu vaccine in America. On behalf of plaintiffs Dr. Gary Null and other licensed health care workers of New York State, the lawsuit charges that the FDA violated the law in its hasty approval of four swine flu vaccines by failing to scientifically determine neither the safety nor efficacy of the vaccines.
“The suit will seek an injunction against the FDA from approving the vaccine,” attorney Jim Turner told NaturalNews on Thursday evening’s Natural News Talk Hour show. “And the core of the argument is that they have not done the proper safety and efficacy tests on the vaccine to allow it to be release at this time.”
The suit seeks to not only nullify the FDA’s unlawful “approval” of the four H1N1 influenza vaccines, but to also ask the court to issue an injunction that would halt any mandatory vaccination requirements.
“The FDA is required by law to establish that a vaccine is safe and effective before it can be given to the public,” said Turner. “We are arguing that they did not establish that the vaccine was effective, and did not establish that it was safe. They are trying to get it on the market by a waiver.”
On Afghanistan, We Need a Policy, Not a Macho Hissy-Fit
A small delegation from the women’s peace group CODEPINK spent last week in Kabul, on a kind of listening tour, to refine their understanding of what women in Afghanistan want to see from the US.
They’ve returned saying just what MADRE has been saying since 2001: that the US needs to withdraw its military from Afghanistan and do so in a way that addresses the needs of people there. For MADRE, US obligations stem from the fact that Afghanistan’s poverty, violence against women, and political corruption are, in part, results of US policy over the past 30 years.
So why is CODEPINK’s co-founder Medea Benjamin being raked over the coals for allegedly “defecting” from the peace movement? The catalyst was a snarky article in the Christian Science Monitor that characterized Medea as “disappointed” when some of the women she met with in Kabul didn’t support CODEPINK’s call for a US troop withdrawal. (Remind me again why all women are supposed to have the same political views?)
Full Story: On Afghanistan, We Need a Policy, Not a Macho Hissy-Fit | CommonDreams.org.
Frank Rich: Two Wrongs Make Another Fiasco
Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops from Afghanistan to Iraq …bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued.
Frank Rich
THOSE of us who love F. Scott Fitzgerald must acknowledge that he did get one big thing wrong. There are second acts in American lives. (Just ask Marion Barry, or William Shatner.) The real question is whether everyone deserves a second act. Perhaps the most surreal aspect of our great Afghanistan debate is the Beltway credence given to the ravings of the unrepentant blunderers who dug us into this hole in the first place.
Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops and treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — when there was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued. Now they have the nerve to imperiously and tardily demand that America increase its 68,000-strong presence in Afghanistan to clean up their mess — even though the number of Qaeda insurgents there has dwindled to fewer than 100, according to the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones.
But why let facts get in the way? Just as these hawks insisted that Iraq was “the central front in the war on terror” when the central front was Afghanistan, so they insist that Afghanistan is the central front now that it has migrated to Pakistan. When the day comes for them to anoint Pakistan as the central front, it will be proof positive that Al Qaeda has consolidated its hold on Somalia and Yemen.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Two Wrongs Make Another Fiasco – NYTimes.com.
Los Angeles DA: ‘About 100%’ of medical marijuana dispensaries are illegal
In spite of a law on California books for over a decade which allows the sale of medical cannabis to properly licensed patients, the district attorney in Los Angeles County is preparing an all-out legal assault against the “vast majority” of dispensaries.
“Hundreds of dispensaries operate under a 1996 voter initiative that allowed medical marijuana use, and a state law that allows for collective growing of marijuana,” NBC Los Angeles reported. “But based on a state Supreme Court decision last year, [LA County District Attorney Steve] Cooley has concluded that over-the-counter sales are illegal. Most if not all of the dispensaries in the state operate on that basis.”
“The vast, vast, vast majority, about 100%, of dispensaries in Los Angeles County and the city are operating illegally, they are dealing marijuana illegally, according to our theory,” Cooley said, according to The Los Angeles Times. “The time is right to deal with this problem.”
That “problem” — over the counter sales of marijuana to licensed patients — accounted for some $18 million in tax revenue for the state last year, reported The Christian Science-Monitor, during a time when California is facing the greatest budgetary challenges in its history.
Full Story: Los Angeles DA: ‘About 100%’ of medical marijuana dispensaries are illegal | Raw Story.
Al Qaeda in Afghanistan
On Friday President Obama said he was “surprised” to win the Nobel Peace Prize and doesn’t “view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments.”
Here’s hoping he will feel more worthy after announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan.
Wednesday marked the beginning of Year Nine of the war. In the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Vietnam vet who knows a thing or two about the costs and consequences of a quagmire, convened a hearing titled “Confronting Al Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan and Beyond.”
It was timely, considering the United States went to war with the express purpose of “disrupting, dismantling and defeating the terrorist organization that attacked us on September 11,” Kerry said. Timely too because the president now faces increasing pressure to double down on US military presence there, rather than seek alternatives to escalation, including a drawdown of US forces. Two of the witnesses, Robert Grenier and Dr. Marc Sageman–both of whom served in the CIA, as station chief in Pakistan and on the Afghan Task Force, respectively–concurred that escalation would only further spread anti-American sentiment among Afghans and other Muslims, and that nonmilitary initiatives to contain Al Qaeda and foster civic development in Afghanistan would prove far more effective.
Full Story: Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Future Phones: Japan’s Hottest High Tech Phones From CEATEC (PHOTOS, POLL)
In honor of the last day of CEATEC 2009, the cutting-edge consumer electronics show hosted in Japan, we’ve put together our favorite “future phones” from the event, an annual hotbed of ideas and innovation.
These phones take mobile communication to a whole new level: imagine a world where phones are made of recycled wood, receivers can channel sound through bone, and mobiles get charged with methanol. It’s all here.
Check them out below and vote on your favorites! For more CEATEC fun, see our favorite CEATEC robots here.
Full Story: Future Phones: Japan’s Hottest High Tech Phones From CEATEC (PHOTOS, POLL).
California’s Budget Suffers ‘Major Blow’ as Debt Sales Loom
- Bloomberg.com – California’s revenue collections trailed its forecasts by $1.1 billion during the first three months of the fiscal year, showing new deficits are emerging in the budget Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed July 28.
Revenue was 5.3 percent less than was assumed in the $85 billion annual budget during the three months ended Sept. 30. Income tax receipts led the shortfall, as unemploymentreached as high as 12.2 percent in August.
“Revenues more than $1 billion under estimates and recent adverse court rulings are dealing a major blow to a budget that is barely 10-weeks old,” Controller John Chiang said in a statement. “While there are encouraging signs that California’s economy is preparing for a comeback, the recession continues to drag state revenues down.”
The latest figures show that California is facing resurgent fiscal strains brought on by the U.S. recession. Since February, Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have cut $32 billion from spending, raised taxes by $12.5 billion and covered $6 billion more with accounting gimmicks and borrowing.
Full Story: California’s Budget Suffers ‘Major Blow’ as Debt Sales Loom – Bloomberg.com.
Lobbyists Fight Efforts to Save on Health Care
As the health care debate moves to the floor of Congress, most of the serious proposals to fulfill President Obama’s original vow to curb costs have fallen victim to organized interests and parochial politics.
And now the last two initiatives with real bite that are still on the table — a scaled-back “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health plans and a nonpartisan Medicare budget-cutting commission — are under furious assault.
Most economists’ favorite idea for slowing the growth of health care spending was ending the income tax exemption for employer-paid health insurance to make lower-cost plans more attractive. But that would hurt workers with big benefit plans, and a labor-union lobbying blitz helped kill that idea by the Fourth of July.
Full Story: Lobbyists Fight Efforts to Save on Health Care – NYTimes.com.
Wait for benefits is 3 years if health care passes
Sixty years is how long Democrats say they’ve been pushing for legislation that provides health care access for all Americans. They’ll have to wait another three if President Barack Obama gets a bill to sign this year.
Under the Democratic bills, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low- and middle-income households won’t start flowing until 2013 — after the next presidential election. But Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the overhaul kick in immediately.
The eat-your-vegetables-first approach is causing heartburn for some Democrats. Three years is a long time to wait for dessert, and opponents could capitalize on misgivings about the complex legislation to undo what would be a signature achievement for Obama.
Full Story: Wait for benefits is 3 years if health care passes – Yahoo! News.
OPS: Democratic extortion.
Vote Democratic in 2010 and 2012 or the Republicans will take away what ever the
meager turd of a public option happens to get passed
Gingrich gripes that Obama doesn’t have an ambassador to Brazil yet (because he’s being blocked by DeMint).
Earlier this month, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) attempted to block government funding for Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) trip to Honduras as retribution for DeMint’s obstruction of two of Obama’s diplomatic nominations, including Thomas A. Shannon Jr., the nominee to be ambassador to Brazil. But DeMint’s hold is being criticized by a major Republican. At Harvard on Thursday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich decried the lack of an ambassador to Brazil:
“If you want to live in the most productive, creative, and prosperous nation in the world, what is it you have to do?” Gingrich asked. “The answer is to reform litigation, regulation, taxation, health, education, and infrastructure.”
“Bureaucracies just don’t work,” he said. “When you build a bureaucracy, the bureaucracy ages, and the bureaucracy develops self-interest. We still don’t have an ambassador to Brazil, for example, eight months into the new administration.”
Energy Secretary Chu: ‘I Think It’s Wonderful’ That Companies Are Leaving The Chamber Over Its Denialism
Recently, there has been a “business backlash” against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its extreme global-warming denier views. Businesses, fed up with the Chamber’s resistance to taking any sort of action to curb carbon emissions, have been leaving the business federation one after another. In the past month alone, Pacific Gas & Energy, Exelon, Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Apple have left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its extreme views on climate change.
Yesterday, during a solar energy event at the National Mall, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked by a Reuters reporter what he thought about the exodus of businesses from the Chamber. He replied by telling the reporter that he thinks it’s “wonderful” that companies are leaving:
CHU: I think it’s wonderful. I think that companies like that, Exelon, for example, others are saying that we have to recognize reality. In order to position the odd states in an economically competitive place and also to make the world minimize the dangers of significant climate change for our children and grandchildren we’ve got to go in this direction. So they’re saying, we can’t be a party to foot-dragging, to denials to things of that nature.
Listen here:
On the government’s owners
Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
The most revealing political quote of the last year came, in my view, from the second-highest ranking Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, who told a local radio station in April: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” The best Congressional floor speech of the last year on the financial crisis was this extraordinarily piercing five-minute revelation from Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio on the Wall Street bailout and how the Congress is subservient to their dictates. And the single most insightful article on the financial crisis was written by former IMF Chief Economist and current MIT Professor Simon Johnson in the May, 2009 issue of The Atlantic, when he argued that “the finance industry has effectively captured our government” and detailed how the U.S. has become very similar to failed emerging-market nations in both its political and economic culture.
All of that came together last night on Bill Moyers’ Journal program, as Johnson and Kaptur together discussed the stranglehold which the financial industry exerts over the federal government and how that has produced a jobless recovery in which the only apparent beneficiaries are the bankers and other financial elites who caused the financial crisis in the first place. The discussion began with reference to this Associated Press article from last week, which examined Timothy Geithner’s calenders, obtained through a FOIA request. Those documents show that Geithner spends an amazing amount of time on the telephone with the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan: “Goldman, Citi and JPMorgan can get Geithner on the phone several times a day if necessary, giving them an unmatched opportunity to influence policy.” Other than the President, virtually everyone else — including leading members of Congress — are forced to leave messages. Kaptur and Johnson begin by discussing what that signifies in terms of the ongoing financial crisis and how government works.
Full Story: On the government’s owners – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Ten thousand unemployed apply for 90 jobs in Louisville, Kentucky
Reflecting the increasingly desperate economic situation faced by millions, this week 10,000 unemployed workers applied for 90 jobs at a Louisville, Kentucky, General Electric (GE) plant.
The enormous response came within the space of just three days. GE had announced its intentions to add a second shift to its plant manufacturing washing machines in Appliance Park last Friday and began accepting applications on Monday. An earlier announcement by the GE plant calling for 13 maintenance workers who would receive $23 per hour drew 700 applicants.
The GE jobs promised a mere $13 per hour, plus benefits including dental coverage and eye care. The same jobs had previously paid $19 per hour until the decision by the IUE-CWA Local 761 to accept concessions in May, which included cutting wages for new workers and future hires.
Full Story: Ten thousand unemployed apply for 90 jobs in Louisville, Kentucky.
Rethink Afghanistan: “Congressman Alan Grayson on Afghanistan”
Congressman Alan Grayson on Afghanistan October 6, 2009
YouTube – Rethink Afghanistan: “Congressman Alan Grayson on Afghanistan”.
In Washington, The Revolving Door Is Hazardous to Your Health
by Bill Moyers & Michael Winship
On Tuesday, October 13, the Senate Finance Committee finally is scheduled to vote on its version of health care insurance reform. And therein lies yet another story in the endless saga of money and politics.
In most polls, the majority of Americans favor a non-profit alternative — like Medicare — that would give the private health industry some competition. So if so many of us, including President Obama himself, want that public option, how come we’re not getting one?
Because the medicine that could cure our healthcare nightmare has been poisoned from Day One — fatally adulterated, thanks to the infamous, Washington revolving door. Movers and shakers rotate between government and the private sector at a speed so dizzying they forget for whom they’re supposed to be working.
If you’ve been watching the Senate Finance Committee’s markup sessions, maybe you’ve noticed a woman sitting behind Committee Chairman Max Baucus. Her name is Liz Fowler.
Fowler used to work for Wellpoint, the largest health insurer in the country. She was its vice president of public policy. Baucus’ office failed to mention this in the press release announcing her appointment as senior counsel in February 2008, even though it went on at length about her expertise in “health care policy.”
Full Story: In Washington, The Revolving Door Is Hazardous to Your Health | CommonDreams.org.
Health-Care Bill May Not Get Single GOP Vote in the House
The House is inching closer to voting on a comprehensive health-care bill, even as the chamber appears so divided that the measure may not attract a single Republican supporter.
The final vote, likely in late October, is impossible to predict, but lawmakers and aides from both parties said this week that there is a strong chance the GOP will be unanimous in its opposition. Such a result would mark the second time — the first came on the economic stimulus package in February — that the entire House minority rejected one of President Obama’s top domestic initiatives.
“We’re still hoping that some of them will come on board, but we see no sign of it,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), a member of the Democratic leadership.
…snip… said of the GOP. “I think they’ve placed themselves firmly on the side of the insurance industry and the status quo.”
Full Story: Health-Care Bill May Not Get Single GOP Vote in the House | CommonDreams.org.
OPS: SO?
Two die at US spiritual retreat
Two people have died and 19 others were taken to hospital after being overcome while in a sauna-like room at a spiritual retreat in Arizona.
Police said 64 people were inside a so-called “sweatbox” at the Angel Valley resort for up to two hours before many of them became ill.
The pair who died were a middle-aged man and woman, police said.
Investigators are speaking to staff and guests and carrying out toxicity tests in an effort to find out what happened.
The 70-acre retreat near the town of Sedona, about 115 miles (185km) north of Phoenix, offers holistic treatments and spiritual retreats in a natural setting, according to its website.
Reports said some of the sweatbox participants had paid up to $9,000 (£5,700) for their stay at the retreat.
Full Story: BBC NEWS | Americas | Two die at US spiritual retreat.
Rich Hondurans hired Colombian terrorists, UN says
Members of the AUC, classified as a terrorist organisation by the US, reportedly hired to offer protection for landowners
Honduran landowners have reportedly hired former Colombian paramilitaries as mercenaries to protect them against possible violence stemming from government tensions, a UN panel said today.
The UN working group on mercenaries said that it has received reports that some 40 former members of United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC. The US government classifies the AUC as a terrorist organisation.
They will protect properties and individuals “from further violence between supporters of the de facto government and those of the deposed President Manuel Zelaya,” it said.
Full Story: Landowners in Honduras hired Colombian paramilitaries, UN says | World news | guardian.co.uk.
OPS: Can’t happen here? Wanta Bet?
Anger as Iceland battles to recover
A year ago this week Iceland’s economy collapsed along with three of its biggest banks. Since then the country has been struggling to recover and there is still a long way to go.
The setting is a restaurant with a stunning view over Reykjavik’s harbour. But even in this idyllic location the effect of the recession – or “kreppan” as the Icelanders call it – is all too visible.
Blocking some of the view is the massive concert hall which was supposed to be a symbol of prosperity overlooking the Faxafloi bay. Its first concert was to take place in December this year but since Iceland’s economy collapsed, construction on the building has come to a halt.
Full Story: BBC NEWS | Europe | Anger as Iceland battles to recover.
OPS: Iceland took a total plunge into the ‘Free Market’ world of Reagonomics/Thatchernomics. They are paying a heavy price for it now
U.S. states suffer “unbelievable” revenue shortages
The U.S. economy may be creeping toward recovery after the worst slowdown since the Great Depression, but many states see no end in sight to their diving tax revenues.
Tax revenues used to pay teachers and fuel police cars continue to trail even the most pessimistic expectations, despite the cash from the economic stimulus plan pouring into state coffers.
“It’s crazy. It’s really just unbelievable,” said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, and called the states’ revenue situations “close to unprecedented.”
Most states had been pessimistic in forecasting their tax revenues for the 2010 fiscal year, Pattison said. So far, collections have fallen below even those low targets.
Lower tax revenues could lead to higher taxes or another sharp reduction in services if receipts do not show signs of improvement before year-end, as every state but Vermont is required by law to balance their budgets.
That could mean fewer teachers, early prisoner releases and fewer highway repairs as residents battle soaring unemployment.
Full Story: U.S. states suffer “unbelievable” revenue shortages – Yahoo! News.
Bomb kills 49 at Pakistani market
Officials believe the attack is the Taliban’s latest response to plans for a military offensive in mountain enclaves.
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan – A suicide car bomb tore through a bustling market in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, killing at least 49 people in what appeared to be the Pakistani Taliban’s latest broadside against a government that says it is preparing a significant military offensive against the militants.
The explosion, which also injured more than 100 people, occurred at the Khyber Bazaar in the capital of Pakistan’s violence-racked North-West Frontier Province.
Though there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, Pakistani officials said they believed it was the work of the Pakistani Taliban. The militant group has vowed to ratchet up suicide attacks in response to the Pakistani government’s preparations for an all-out offensive in South Waziristan, a primary base of operations for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Full Story: Bomb kills 49 at Pakistani market — latimes.com.
Porn company names Gingrich ‘Family Values Porn Fan of the Year, 2009.’
Newt Gingrich’s corporate-friendly advocacy group American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) has had a propensity for telling pornography companies that they have received an award and then subsequently retracting them. Recently, ASWF awarded The Lodge — a gentleman’s club in Dallas — with an Entrepreneur of the Year award but then rescinded that award. Also, Pink Visual — a porn DVD store in California — was informed by ASWF that it received the “tremendous honor” of being named a 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year. ASWF later claimed it “inadvertently” sent the letter to Pink Visual. Allison Vivas, the president of Pink Visual, turned the tables on Newt. She told Dave McKenna of the Washington City Paper that she created a fake award for Gingrich:
Full Story: Think Progress » Porn company names Gingrich ‘Family Values Porn Fan of the Year, 2009.’.
Rush Holt Wins Congressional Approval For Measure To Mandate Videorecording Of Interrogations
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed as part of the 2010 Defense Authorization conference report a new requirement that would mandate the videorecording of all interrogations of anyone in a Defense Department facility:
Congress is moving to require videotaping of interrogations of detainees held by the military, a step proponents say will prevent abuse and create a valuable intelligence record.
The provision, which the House passed on Thursday as part of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act conference report, would apply to interrogations of anyone held at a Defense Department facility. Because the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret overseas prisons have been closed, it would most likely cover terrorism suspects whether they were questioned by a military or a C.I.A. officer.
Full Story: Think Progress » Rush Holt Wins Congressional Approval For Measure To Mandate Videorecording Of Interrogations.
Here’s How to Stop Using Toilet Paper and Save Water, Trees and Energy
Making a roll of toilet paper uses 1.5 pounds of wood, 37 gallons of water and 1.3 KWh of electricity.
People find the idea of going without toilet paper a bit shocking, but lots of people around the world do it, and there are good technologies available now to replace your toilet or add on to it. It is cleaner and healthier, and counterintuitively, saves a lot of water. Making a roll of toilet paper uses 1.5 pounds of wood, 37 gallons of water and 1.3 KWh of electricity.
A lot of these bidet style toilets are expensive, as are may of the toilet seat add-ons. The Blue Bidet is only US$ 69, C$79 when I saw it at the local Home Show in Toronto.
Full Story: Here’s How to Stop Using Toilet Paper and Save Water, Trees and Energy | Water | AlterNet.
40,000 More U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Won’t Solve Its 40% Unemployment Rate
Afghan Parliament member Roshanak Wardak speaks out: Most of the women do not want more troops — they need support to sustain their lives.
Returning from my 10-day trip to Afghanistan, I pause. The United States has spent a quarter of a trillion dollars in eight years of military action: what have we achieved?
Most of the country is in worse condition, the bordering countries are less stable and death fills the air.
According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is ranked 181 out of 182 countries for human development indices. Life expectancy has fallen to 43 years since the U.S. invasion. Forty percent of the population is unemployed, and 42 percent live on less than $1 a day.
Full Story: 40,000 More U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Won’t Solve Its 40% Unemployment Rate | World | AlterNet.
Al Franken’s SUPPLY SIDE JESUS – video
Al Franken has gone out of his way to appear staid and … “senatorial” since his campaign to represent Minnesota in the upper house of the U.S. Congress, but we remember the days when Al Franken used his humor to make a point. In the video window to your right is an oldie — Al Franken’s animated comic strip, “Gospel of Supply-Side Jesus.” Enjoy!
YouTube – Al Franken’s SUPPLY SIDE JESUS: An animated comic strip..
Rachel Maddow Takes on the Man Doing Corporate Agribusiness’s Dirty Work (video)
Rachel Maddow continues her work pulling back the layers of American politics to expose underhanded and manipulative lobbying tactics to the public.
The other night Rachel Maddow interviewed the notorious corporate public relations hit man Rick Berman, best known for heading the Center for Consumer Freedom and for starting numerous websites that pose as fact havens while he is most likely being paid by the corporate interests pushing high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, tanning beds, tuna fish and more. Why don’t we know who is footing the bill? Because Berman orchestrates a cadre of non-profits to represent corporate political aims, and they do not have to reveal their donors. Maddow pointed this out at the top of the interview, and again after Berman was given the chance to correct the record and chose then to defend trans fats — leading Maddow to prod him to reveal to her audience at least the fact that someone was paying him to take sides on the issue. It’s worth watching, take a look here:
Full Story: Rachel Maddow Takes on the Man Doing Corporate Agribusiness’s Dirty Work | Environment | AlterNet.
Why Was a Lightweight Montana Senator on the Finance Committee Tasked to Take on Health Care Reform?
By Jim Hightower
Entrusting Baucus with the heavy job of shepherding health care reform through the upper chamber is like asking Tweety Bird to lift a bowling ball.
America’s shouting match over health care reform has turned completely goofy — and I’m not talking about confused seniors at teabag rallies getting red-faced with anger after being told by the right-wing scare machine that “government is trying to taker over Medicare.” No, I’m talking about our United States senators.
Take Max Baucus. Please! He’s the lightweight Montana Democrat to whom President Obama entrusted the heavy job of shepherding health care reform through the upper chamber. It was like asking Tweety Bird to lift a bowling ball.
Baucus is chairman of the finance committee. The what? Excuse me, but why wouldn’t the health committee be the appropriate venue for taking the lead on, you know, health reform? I mean, we don’t submit banking legislation to the health panel, so …
How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck
Some are familiar with Glenn Beck’s teary Mormon conversion story, but what many are not aware of is the extent to which Mormonism has given Beck key elements of his on-air personality and messaging—and how it may shape the future of American conservatism.
Glenn Beck leans forward on his elbows. His voice hushes. His eyes grow red at the corners. He presses his lips together and clears his throat. He cannot speak. The tears fall, and just for a moment the brashest voice in American conservatism today falls silent.
This is what happens when Beck tells the story of his 1999 conversion to Mormonism.
“I was friendless, working in the smallest radio market I had ever worked in… a hopeless alcoholic, abusing drugs every day,” Beck said in an interview taped last fall. “I was trying to find a job and nobody would hire me… couldn’t get an agent to represent me.”
That’s when Beck’s wife-to-be Tania suggested that the family go on a “church tour,” which finally led (after some prodding from Beck’s longtime on-air partner Pat Gray, a Mormon) to his local Mormon wardhouse. Six months later, the Beck family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Full Story: How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck | Religious Right | ReligionDispatches.
Fear of a Black President
The president reminds Glenn Beck, and those who identify with his neo-white nationalism, of the lie of their own professed superiority. The pride with which this segment of society has rallied the troops around its shared sense of whiteness reveals that their skin color is the one true object of pledged allegiance and determinant of professed patriotism.
…in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, “Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he’s white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives. —Rush Limbaugh,
Sept. 15, 2009
Ever the statesman, and often candid to a political fault, President Jimmy Carter asserted this week that much of the animosity directed toward President Barack Obama is “based on the fact that he is a black man.”
A lifelong Southerner, Carter acknowledged that the inclination of racism still exists, and that “it has bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country.”
Full Story: Fear of a Black President | Politics | ReligionDispatches.
Barbara Ehrenreich: The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
The author talks about how a plague of positive thinking is permeating our society, from medicine to business, and is even contributing to our financial crisis.
When Barbara Ehrenreich went to be treated for breast cancer, she was exhorted to think positively; and when she expressed feelings of fear and anger, she was chided for being negative.
Ehrenreich, the author of 16 books, including Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, which examine the blue- and white-collar job markets, took on what she sees as an epidemic of positive thinking in her new book: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.
Positive thinking is different, she says, from being cheerful or good-natured — it’s believing that the world is shaped by our wants and desires and that by focusing on the good, the bad ceases to exist.
The Prospect of Change in US Relations With Russia, Iran and Afghanistan Alarms the Washington Post
The Washington Post is running scared these days with its editorial writers having great difficulty coming to terms with the possibility of improved US relations with Russia and Iran. They also can’t understand why the Obama administration might decide that additional US military forces in Afghanistan will not solve the political and military problems there. There have been several editorials and op-eds this week that distort developments in each of these situations and predict failure for President Barack Obama. The fact that a “reset” button is needed and may offer the promise of success in our relations with Russia, Iran and even Afghanistan appears to be anathema to the Post.
These policy changes, moreover, presumably led to today’s news that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to gain international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” which must have these writers apoplectic. Only yesterday, Post op-ed writer David Ignatius termed the prospect of any change of policy in Afghanistan as “lawless,” and today Post op-ed writer Charles Krauthammer compared the president to a young Hamlet, who “frets, demurs, agonizes.”
President Obama’s most persistent critic at the Post has been Fred Hiatt, the editor of the editorial page. His column earlier this week perpetuated a number of distortions and errors on the topic of Russia. Hiatt does not comprehend that the Russians are concerned about possible nuclear weapons in Iran or that Russia has genuine concerns about nuclear proliferation. In fact, the Russians do share our concerns on these issues. In the 1960s, Moscow was the major driver for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), because it feared that the United States wanted to give West Germany a role in decision-making in the use of nuclear weapons. The Kremlin adhered carefully to the dictates of the NPT and, until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, carefully monitored the types of technology that were sent to foreign countries. When Moscow’s nonproliferation regime broke down in the chaos of the 1990s, during the erratic rule of President Boris Yeltsin, it was actually Vladimir Putin who stepped in and stopped the sale of sensitive technologies to third world countries. This is the same Vladimir Putin, who Hiatt believes will prevent President Dmitry Medvedev from controlling Moscow’s nuclear-technology complex; Hiatt believes that Moscow prefers trade with Iran over the prevention of nuclear weapons in Iran.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Prospect of Change in US Relations With Russia, Iran and Afghanistan Alarms the Washington Post.
Cartels Face an Economic Battle
U.S. Marijuana Growers Cutting Into Profits of Mexican Traffickers
Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.
Illicit pot production in the United States has been increasing steadily for decades. But recent changes in state laws that allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S. growers a competitive advantage, challenging the traditional dominance of the Mexican traffickers, who once made brands such as Acapulco Gold the standard for quality.
Almost all of the marijuana consumed in the multibillion-dollar U.S. market once came from Mexico or Colombia. Now as much as half is produced domestically, often by small-scale operators who painstakingly tend greenhouses and indoor gardens to produce the more potent, and expensive, product that consumers now demand, according to authorities and marijuana dealers on both sides of the border.
Full Story: Cartels Face an Economic Battle – washingtonpost.com.
Rich Countries Set to Condemn Billions to Grim Future
Climate negotiations stuck: US becoming key obstacle on the road to Copenhagen
BANGKOK, Thailand – October 9 – The rift between rich and poor countries has intensified because rich countries have not put serious money on the table to help poor countries adapt to the escalating impacts of climate change and develop on a low carbon pathway, international aid agency Oxfam said on the last day of UN climate negotiations in Bangkok.
Oxfam senior climate adviser Antonio Hill said a continued lack of political will from rich country leaders also meant there was no movement on the emissions reduction targets that would help safeguard billions of the world’s poorest from death and suffering.
“The millions of people facing greater floods, droughts and failed harvest after failed harvest will be the real losers if the US, Canada, EU, Japan and Australia continue as blockers to the UN negotiations,” Mr. Hill said.
He said the US in particular was becoming the biggest obstacle to a fair and safe global climate deal in Copenhagen.
“The US has been silent on the scale of finance it will commit to, and has yet to adopt an ambitious emissions reduction target by 2020, giving negotiators none of the political clout necessary to unblock negotiations in make-or-break areas.”
Full Story: Rich Countries Set to Condemn Billions to Grim Future | CommonDreams.org.
CLIMATE CHANGE: Four Degrees of Devastation
The prospect of a four-degree Celsius rise in global average temperatures in 50 years is alarming – but not alarmist, climate scientists now believe.
Eighteen months ago, no one dared imagine humanity pushing the climate beyond an additional two degrees C of heating, but rising carbon emissions and inability to agree on cuts has meant science must now consider the previously unthinkable.
“Two degrees C is already gone as a target,” said Chris West of the University of Oxford’s UK Climate Impacts Programme.
“Four degrees C is definitely possible…This is the biggest challenge in our history,” West told participants at the “4 Degrees and Beyond, International Climate Science Conference” at the University of Oxford last week.
A four-degree C overall increase means a world where temperatures will be two degrees warmer in some places, 12 degrees and more in others, making them uninhabitable.
It is a world with a one- to two-metre sea level rise by 2100, leaving hundreds of millions homeless. This will head to 12 metres in the coming centuries as the Greenland and Western Antarctic ice sheets melt, according to papers presented at the conference in Oxford.
Full Story: CLIMATE CHANGE: Four Degrees of Devastation – IPS ipsnews.net.
Jindal Fires State Employee Day After She Criticized Him
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s fired a state worker one day after she publicly condemned his plans to privatize state services. He claimed she was terminated for poor performance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, years ago.
Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Chris Whittington has launched an investigation into the incident.
Melody Teague criticized Jindal during a forum held by the Commission for Streamlining Government. Soon after, the contract grants reviewer was told she was fired for her handling of the state’s disaster food stamps program four years ago, in the aftermath of Huricane Katrina.
Full Story: Jindal Fires State Employee Day After She Criticized Him.
Company run by ex-con drops Montana jail plan
An obscure California company run by an ex-convict with a history of fraud convictions is dropping its effort to take over a Montana jail — days after state officials launched an investigation and several key participants backed away from the proposal.
American Police Force spokeswoman Becky Shay said Friday the deal with Hardin had “gone sour” after media revelations about the past of company founder Michael Hilton, who has a history of fraud and theft going back at least two decades.
Hiltonsigned a contract in September to take over the jail and run local law enforcement, but it was never ratified.
Hilton acknowledged offering a job to the wife of the executive director of Two Rivers Authority, the city’s economic development arm. That official, Greg Smith, resigned Monday.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Company run by ex-con drops Montana jail plan.
Rep. Skelton To Rep. Akin: “Stick It Up Your Ass” (VIDEO)
Show me some civility, Republicans cried Friday after a Missouri congressman speaking on the House floor was caught on microphone apparently cussing out a fellow Missourian.
Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., had just finished addressing his Republican colleague Todd Akin Thursday.
Skelton then turned to the side and muttered “stick it up your ass.”
Full Story: Rep. Skelton To Rep. Akin: “Stick It Up Your Ass” (VIDEO).
OPS: It’s about damned time
Nobel Prize
Out of Line – Online Cartoons by Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe editorial cartoonist – Boston.com.
34 banks don’t pay their quarterly TARP dividends
In a sign that more banks are under great pressure from the recession, 34 financial institutions did not pay their quarterly dividends in August to the Treasury on funds obtained under the Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP). The number almost doubled from 19 in May when payments were last made, and also raised questions about Treasury’s judgment in approving these banks as “healthy,” a necessary step for them to get TARP funding.
“The banks are not paying their dividends because they are worried about preserving capital,” says Eric Fitzwater, associate director of research at SNL Financial.
The Treasury Department says it cannot force an institution to pay dividends. “For some banks, it may be prudent to exercise their right not to pay dividends in a particular month, and we respect their right to do so,” says Meg Reilly, a Treasury spokeswoman. “To draw any broader conclusions about the state of the banking sector from one month is highly premature and speculative.”
Full Story: 34 banks don’t pay their quarterly TARP dividends – USATODAY.com.
Mortgage Delinquencies: SEE Which Counties Have Been Hit the Hardest (MAP)
Where is the mortgage crisis wracking the most damage? These handy maps, courtesy of the New York Fed, track changes in mortgage delinquency rates by county.
You may not be surprised to see that mortgage delinquencies are getting worse over vast swaths of the country. But the year-over-year delinquency numbers — the first chart below — point to heavy concentration of late in the West, followed by a streak of improvements in the Midwest that trickle away as you head East. In almost all parts of California, Washington and Oregon, delinquencies are far worse than they were a year ago.
Disturbingly, there are only a handful of counties across the nation where mortgage delinquencies are actually improving over last year. (Kudos to Beaverhead, Montana and Red River, Texas!)
Full Story: Mortgage Delinquencies: SEE Which Counties Have Been Hit the Hardest (MAP).
Obama Slaps Congress, Lobbyists In Push For Consumer Protection Agency (VIDEO )
The White House on Friday renewed its push for a consumer financial protection agency with President Obama and a senior economic official warning Congress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s biggest business lobby, not to get in the way.
“…It has never been more important to have a watchdog function like the one we’ve proposed,” Obama said. “And yet, predictably, a lot of the banks and big financial firms don’t like the idea of a consumer agency very much. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending millions on an ad campaign to kill it.”
Referring to the messages in those ads, Obama said they’re “completely false.”
In a conference call with bloggers, Austan Goolsbee, a member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and the chief economist for the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, reiterated the anti-special interest line, but also added that lobbyists determined to kill or defang the new consumer-focused agency continue to hold great sway with members of Congress.
Full Story: Obama Slaps Congress, Lobbyists In Push For Consumer Protection Agency (VIDEO, REMARKS).
Citing ‘Fascism, Socialism, Obamaism,’ Republican Strategist Launches Impeachment Campaign
While the international community is heralding President Obama for his leadership, right-wing activists here in America are clamoring to impeach him. Republican operative Floyd Brown, “one of the nation’s dirtiest political strategists” and the architect of the racially-charged Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis, has launched a campaign to impeach Obama. Brown, who registered his impeachment website in August, worked closely with congressional Republicans to push a similar crusade against Clinton, starting in 1994. During the 2008 campaign, Floyd ran commercials claiming Obama is Muslim.
Rather than cite any specific crime, Brown is demanding Obama’s removal for pursuing progressive agenda items like health and clean energy reform. His website blares: “Are you willing to let [Obama] construct a totalitarian regime… fascism, socialism, Obamaism… take your pick?”
Brown, a proud “birther,” explained to radio host Alan Colmes yesterday that he is also outraged because he doesn’t believe Obama was born in America:
Full Story: Think Progress » Citing ‘Fascism, Socialism, Obamaism,’ Republican Strategist Launches Impeachment Campaign.
Byrd rips Massey Energy for refusing to fund a new school so students can move away from coal processing plant.
Don Blankenship The Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia sits just 300 feet from a Massey Energy coal silo and “downhill from a slurry impoundment.” Massey’s plans to build a second silo are facing “protests from environmentalists and some residents over the threat of flood and claims that children are exposed to coal dust, among other things,” especially because the company is refusing to build a new school, away from the toxic chemicals. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) is taking Massey to task for its “disregard for human life and safety“:
“Such arrogance suggests a blatant disregard for the impact of their mining practices on our communities, residents and particularly our children,” Byrd said in a statement. “These are children’s lives we are talking about.” [...]
Rep. Steve King: Matthew Shepard’s Sexual Orientation Had Nothing To Do With His Murder
Rep. Steve King Yesterday, the House voted “to expand the definition of violent federal hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation” by passing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
The right put its homophobia on full display in an attempt to kill the legislation, with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) saying that it would lead to Nazism, and the legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality.
Today in an interview with Radio America/WorldNetDaily, Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
– who has said that hate crimes legislation creates “sacred cows” and puts the “victimizer’s focus on someone else” — tried to argue that such a bill is unnecessary. His argument? Matthew Shepard himself wasn’t actually murdered because he was gay:
Full Story: Think Progress » Rep. Steve King: Matthew Shepard’s Sexual Orientation Had Nothing To Do With His Murder.
Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize — Yet
Robert Reich
President Obama’s only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That’s important, to be sure, but not nearly enough. The Prize is really more of Booby Prize for Obama’s predecessor. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not be receiving the Prize. He’s prizeworthy and praiseworthy only by comparison.
I’d rather Obama had won it after Congress agreed to substantial cuts in greenhouse gases comparable to what Europe is proposing, after he brought Palestinians and Israelis together to accept a two-state solution, after he got the United States out of Afghanistan and reduced the nuclear arm’s threat between Pakistan and India, or after he was well on the way to eliminating the world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. Any one of these would have been worthy of global praise. Perhaps the Nobel committee can give him half the prize now and withhold the other half until he accomplishes one or more of these crucial missions.
Giving the Peace Prize to the President before any of these goals has been attained only underscores the paradox of Obama at this early stage of his presidency. He has demonstrated mastery in both delivering powerful rhetoric and providing the nation and the world with fresh and important ways of understanding current challenges. But he has not yet delivered. To the contrary, he often seems to hold back from the fight — temporizing, delaying, or compromising so much that the rhetoric and insight he offers seem strangely disconnected from what he actually does. Yet there’s time. He may yet prove to be one of the best presidents this nation has ever had — worthy not only of the Peace Prize but of every global accolade he could possibly summon. Just not yet.
Full Story: Robert Reich’s Blog: Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize — Yet.
Airports May Screen Passengers For H1N1 Symptoms
With the holiday season just a few weeks away, health officials fear the swine flu will pick up right along with air travel.
New government guidelines are on their way, designed to help keep passengers healthy.
This flu season, airport staff across the nation won’t just be screening for security threats. The government says that people traveling internationally may be screened for the H1N1 virus as they leave or enter the U.S.
“It feels a little bit overboard,” Stanford, Conn. resident Derek Ferguson said.
Full Story: Airports May Screen Passengers For H1N1 Symptoms – wcbstv.com.
On Wall Street: Time to delay and pray
Loans that need refinancing are in trouble
Denial is a powerful psychological coping tool, used to push unpleasant realities to the back of the mind.
One difficulty in helping people struggling with debt payments is to get them to address the problem before it becomes too dire. Yet most people do not behave that way. Indeed, even the most financially literate people I know have, on occasion, thrown unpaid bills into the bin, in the irrational hope that the debt will disappear.
Full Story: FT.com / Markets / On Wall Street – On Wall Street: Time to delay and pray.
DNC says Republican critics aligning with terrorists
A Democratic National Committee spokesman said Friday the GOP has “thrown in its lot with the terrorists” in criticizing the president’s Nobel Peace Prize award.
“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.
“Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize – an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride – unless of course you are the Republican Party,” the statement also said. “The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It’s no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore – it’s an embarrassing label to claim.”
OPS: What else would you expect from the party of no?
Commercial Real Estate Collapse – Midtown Manhattan
From the October 6, 2009 PBS “News Hour.”
One sees this every day. Storefronts on Park Avenue South where overpriced restaurants sat two years ago sit empty with “For Rent” signs, something one never saw in such neighborhoods. Traditionally in NYC, property changes hands in private deals, never through the posting of rent signs. With 1% down payments, commercial real estate makes the subprime meltdown look outright responsible.
Full Story: YouTube – Commercial Real Estate Collapse – Midtown Manhattan.
Psychologists Conclude: the GOP is Nuts!
Len Hart
The GOP is not a political party; it’s a crime syndicate!
It is also described as an irrational, kooky cult that cannot deal with facts or logic but is freaked out by ‘scary images’, ‘boogiemen’ and vague or even non-existent threats like terrorists, commies, liberals or normal sex.
“Conservatives respond instinctually [sic], not rationally, to scary images, “facts,” and institutions. Whether this is innate and biological or cultural seems still up in the air. Democrats can’t win with logical arguments or even appeals to the innate rightness of concepts like “diversity” and “tolerance,” because those aren’t considered essentially good and important by the voters they’re trying to appeal to. This does suggest that an appeal to old New Deal institutional concepts like the Welfare State might actually be effective, if they’re wrapped in the flag and a sense of duty. Also scientists still consider the majority of Americans to be like a fascinating exotic backwards tribe and the fucking country is doomed.”
–Scientists Explain Why People Vote For Republicans
Much of this new research is consistent with Carl Jung’s ‘The Undiscovered Self” in which he said that about one third of any population is certifiably psychopathic.
Psychopaths are often defined by their ‘utter lack of empathy’, a phrase used by Dr. Gustav Gilbert who was given the task of keeping Nazi war criminals alive until they could be hanged.
Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Psychologists Conclude: the GOP is Nuts!.
Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize — Now Please Earn it!
Michael Moore
Dear President Obama,
How outstanding that you’ve been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements — you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you’ve eliminated that useless term “The War on Terror,” you’ve put an end to torture — these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.
But…
The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of what is quickly becoming your War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush’s Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That’s what a true man of peace would do.
There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do — capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.
Full Story: Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize — Now Please Earn it! | MichaelMoore.com.
Illinois High Court Lets Defendant Choose Jury Size
The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that if a criminal defendant wants a jury with fewer than 12 people and the judge allows it, a state prosecutor can’t stop it.
In a unanimous opinion, the court rejected DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett’s request for a writ of mandamus to force DuPage County Circuit Court Judge Peter Dockery to deny a request for a six-person jury made by defendant William Krolik, who is charged with attempted home invasion and armed robbery. The court said that it was an issue best left to the discretion of the trial judge and that the defendant has a right, under Illinois state law, to choose a smaller jury.
“The state has not established that the seating of a 12-person jury is simply a ministerial action allowing it absolute veto power to foreclose a defendant from requesting, and the circuit court from considering, the empaneling of a jury of a lesser number,” the Supreme Court said in its Oct. 8 opinion.
While some states have juries smaller than 12 people, it’s not common and it’s even rarer for a defendant to seek such a reduction, said Shari Seidman Diamond, a Northwestern University School of Law professor who researches jury issues. The issue typically comes up for appellate review when a defendant is trying to overturn a conviction by a jury of fewer than 12, she said.
Full Story: Law.com – Illinois High Court Lets Defendant Choose Jury Size.
Yes, You Can Oppose Obama’s Nobel Prize, Be Progressive, Disagree with GOP, and Not Be A Terrorist
David Sirota
A very quick post on the Obama Nobel Prize award after spending the morning in the virtual focus group known as talk radio in a major swing state. Some points we can – or at least should be able to – agree on:
- President Obama’s speeches on nuclear non-proliferation and on the need to do a better job on multilateral diplomacy were very important, as were his efforts to pursue a diplomatic track with Iran.
- Much of the world hated George W. Bush and likes Obama.
- Obama is the president of an administration that may have “inherited” two wars in the heart of the Muslim world, but is also continuing on its own to prosecute those wars. In fact, he’s considering massively escalating one of those wars.
Do these facts mean Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize award? My opinion is no.
I think you need to actually make peace (which requires lots of risks/courage/success) rather than simply talk about making peace (which requires far less risk/courage/success) – I think, for instance, that Chinese dissidents who have risked their lives taking on the most authoritarian government in the world are more deserving.
Full Story: Open Left:: Yes, You Can Oppose Obama’s Nobel Prize, Be Progressive, Disagree with GOP, and Not Be A Terrorist.
Watchdog: Obama’s mortgage relief efforts aren’t good enough
The Obama administration’s efforts to force the modifications of distressed mortgages, while laudable, is likely to fall far short because the foreclosure crisis has grown and threatens to dwarf government efforts to relieve it, a special congressional watchdog panel warned in a report released Friday.
The Congressional Oversight Panel, created to monitor how taxpayer bailout dollars are being spent, warned that the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, announced in February, seems sure to prove ineffective.
“Foreclosures continue every day as Treasury ramps up the program, with foreclosure starts outpacing new HAMP trial modifications at a rate of more than 2 to 1,” the report said.
Full Story: Watchdog: Obama’s mortgage relief efforts aren’t good enough | McClatchy.
Seeing Pink Elephants on Mackinac Island: GOP Allegedly Caters to Underage Students With Free Booze in Exchange for Support
The Michigan Democratic Party is all up in arms over reports of their rivals giving away alcohol to underage students in exchange for campaigning during a weekend conference on Mackinac Island. But let’s be real; how else did they pink elephantexpect the GOP to get gaggles of college kids to stump for their candidates?
The event occurred over the last weekend in September, just as a contentious budget battle raged in the state’s capital. At the time, Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer put out a video statement blasting the GOP’s choice to put on the conference when a budget needed passing in Lansing within a few days of that weekend:
While they’re partying on Mackinac Island this weekend, the fate of our school kids, our police and firefighters, our unemployed, our college students who are looking forward to the promised scholarship, is [all] hanging in the balance. But do the Republicans care about that?
Some black players won’t play for Rush Limbaugh if he buys Rams
Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has some Americans that love him and plenty that hate him. And the fact that he spouts such right-wing opinions doing his day job may hurt Limbaugh’s chances of getting some players if he manages to buy the St. Louis Rams, according to the New York Daily News.
New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka(notes) would love to play again under Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo, who was his defensive coordinator in New York, but Kiwanuka is saying that there is no way he would go play for St. Louis if Limbaugh takes over. New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott(notes) told the paper the same thing yesterday and it seems that it may be a general sentiment for a lot of black NFL players.
“All I know is from the last comment I heard, he said in (President) Obama’s America, white kids are getting beat up on the bus while black kids are chanting ‘right on,’” Kiwanuka told the paper. “He can do whatever he wants; it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play.”
Full Story: Some black players won’t play for Rush Limbaugh if he buys Rams – Sports Rumors – NFL – Yahoo! Sports.
After Words – After Words: Chris Hedges, “Empire of Illusion,” Interviewed by Ron Suskind – Book TV
After Words: Chris Hedges, “Empire of Illusion,” Interviewed by Ron Suskind
About the Program
Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges discusses his new book, “Empire of Illusion,” which describes what he considers to be the economic, political and moral collapse of American culture. He is interviewed by Pulitizer Prize-winning writer Ron Suskind.
About the Authors
Chris Hedges
Chris Hedges is a Senior Fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. A former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, he was part of the team that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of global terrorism. He also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Mr. Hedges is author of “Losing Moses on the Freeway” and “War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” the latter of which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School.
Full Story: After Words – After Words: Chris Hedges, “Empire of Illusion,” Interviewed by Ron Suskind – Book TV.
White House strips immigration policing powers from Arizona sheriff
Sheriff Joe Arpaio has previously been attacked by critics for racial profiling among illegal immigrants
A controversial Arizona sheriff known for taking a hard line against illegal immigrants has been stripped of some of his powers in what he described as a political move by the Obama administration.
Joe Arpaio, a gruff lawman who styles himself as America’s toughest sheriff, has won acclaim from US anti-immigrant forces for his relentless pursuit of mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants in Maricopa county, Arizona, a fast-growing county of 4 million people that is home to Phoenix, the nation’s fifth largest city.
Arpaio’s aggressive tactics include the jailing of illegal immigrants in tent cities surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of Arizona’s searingly hot summers, the reduction of meal costs to 20 cents per day, the use of pink jail clothing for men, and chain gangs for women inmates.
Full Story: White House strips immigration policing powers from Arizona sheriff | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Alan Grayson: “If the President has a BLT tomorrow, the Republicans will try to ban bacon.”
This is Alan Grayson discussing health care on the floor of the House on 10/8/09. He sends a message to Democrats: No one elected Olympia Snowe President of the United States. And he sends a message to Republicans: No one cares about your feelings.
69,000 Wild Horses To Be Saved From Slaughter
Ken Salazar Plans To Transfer Overpopulated Western Wild Horses To Sanctuaries In East
Thousands of mustangs that now roam the West would be moved to preserves in the Midwest and East under a new Interior Department plan to protect wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday the plan would not require killing any wild horses. Interior Department officials had warned in recent months that slaughtering some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control might be necessary to combat rising costs of maintaining them.
Nearly 37,000 wild horses and burros roam in Nevada, California, Wyoming and other Western states, and another 32,000 horses and burros are cared for in corrals and pastures in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
Salazar said the current program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment or taxpayers.
The wild horse program, run by the Bureau of Land Management, cost about $50 million this year, officials said, up from $36 million last year. Costs for the current program are expected to rise to at least $85 million by 2012.
Full Story: Ken Salazar Plans To Transfer Overpopulated Western Wild Horses To Sanctuaries In East.
Check Out This Amazing Carbon Calculator
Explore changes in carbon emissions from fossil fuels for G-20 countries, selected developing nations and others critical to the climate debate.
Full Story: The Climate Agenda on washingtonpost.com.
Some agencies set to implement lobbyist ban – TheHill.com
Several of the biggest departments in the federal government plan to adhere to the White House prohibition on lobbyists serving on their advisory boards and committees.
The Hill contacted all 20 Cabinet-level agencies to see if they intend to follow the guidance issued two weeks ago by the White House.
Twelve agencies returned messages before press time and all said they would adhere to the guidelines.
A spokesman for the Defense Department said that it plans to stick to the guidance but is reviewing how best to implement it for now.
“We fully intend to abide by the new White House guidance but are still in the process of evaluating it and assessing its impact,” said Geoff Morrell, press secretary for the Pentagon, in response to questions from The Hill.
Full Story: Some agencies set to implement lobbyist ban – TheHill.com.
Opt-Out Public Option Gains Steam Among Dems, But Questions Remain
Democratic senators were largely caught off-guard on Thursday as a compromise approach to health care reform — emerging seemingly without warning — began picking up praise from progressive and centrist lawmakers.
In the halls of Congress few had actually heard of or seen the proposal, which would establish a national public option for insurance coverage but grant a state government the right to exempt itself from the system. And, as such, there was a clear and sensible hesitancy to weigh in on the so-called “opt-out” approach.
But the early reviews were, nevertheless, politically promising. In a debate where proponents and opponents of expanding the government’s role in providing health care insurance coverage have failed to find middle ground, the newest compromise to the public option was — at the very least — intriguing to all.
“It’s worth looking at,” Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), told the Huffington Post. The Connecticut Independent, who is one of the foremost skeptics of the public option within the Democratic Caucus, was echoed by an equally-forceful public option naysayer: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) “Worth looking at,” said the Nebraska Democrat.
Full Story: Opt-Out Public Option Gains Steam Among Dems, But Questions Remain.
Derivatives Lobby Hooks Up With New Dems To Water Down Reform Bill
Bloomberg News reports Friday morning that the derivatives lobby has put a bug in the ear of the New Democrat Coalition.
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse lobbied New Dem Reps. Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.) and Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) “to expand the ways the legislation allows dealers and major investors to trade the contracts,” according to Bloomberg.
The result of the banks’ lobbying effort seems to be draft legislation that could actually exempt most financial firms from a wide swath of derivatives regulations. The discussion draft put forth by House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Bloomberg reported Thursday, would not regulate derivatives used by financial companies for the rather ambiguous purpose of “risk management.” (Check out HuffPost’s Jason Linkins’ take on the wild world of derivatives here.)
Full Story: Derivatives Lobby Hooks Up With New Dems To Water Down Reform Bill.
Blair snubbed for having ‘blood on his hands’
The ex-premier joined Queen Elizabeth II, Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, current Prime Minister Gordon Brown as well as soldiers and families at a service paying tribute to the 179 troops who died as a result of the 2003 war.
The snub came at a reception held after the memorial in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the archbishop of Canterbury criticised policymakers for failing to properly consider the human cost of the Iraq war.
Full Story: Blair snubbed for having ‘blood on his hands’ | Raw Story.
Expose of corruption on the faith-based initiative program
One of the main components of President Bush’s compassionate conservatism philosophy is his faith-based initiative program. It funnels federal tax dollars to local religious groups to help them provide services to the poor, to addicted persons and to others in need of support. While Bush was governor of Texas, he became convinced that churches could do a better job of providing such services than the government.
With the release of a major book and a detailed GAO study during the summer/fall of 2006, the Faith-based Initiative program may be doomed.
Insider’s book exposes corruption of Faith-based Initiative program:
According to AANEWS on 2006-OCT-17:
A disturbing report from the GAO and a scathing book penned by a former faith-based office staffer may signal the end for the controversial effort to fund religious charity with public money.
President Bush’s federal faith-based initiative could be in trouble following a critical government report and a new book hitting stores with charges that the White House manipulated religious conservatives for political gain.
Full Story: Expose of corruption on the faith-based initiative program.
Pot legalization gains momentum in California
Marijuana advocates are gathering signatures to get as many as three pot-legalization measures on the ballot in 2010 in California, setting up what could be a groundbreaking clash with the federal government over U.S. drug policy.
At least one poll shows voters would support lifting the pot prohibition, which would make the state of more than 38 million the first in the nation to legalize marijuana.
Such action would also send the state into a headlong conflict with the U.S. government while raising questions about how federal law enforcement could enforce its drug laws in the face of a massive government-sanctioned pot industry.
Full Story: Pot legalization gains momentum in California – Yahoo! News.
Health Insurance and Mortality in US Adults
Physicians for a National Health Program
The United States stands alone among industrialized nations in not providing health coverage to all of its citizens. Currently, 46 million Americans lack health coverage.1 Despite repeated attempts to expand health insurance, uninsurance remains commonplace among US adults.
Health insurance facilitates access to health care services and helps protect against the high costs of catastrophic illness. Relative to the uninsured, insured Americans are more likely to obtain recommended screening and care for chronic conditions2 and are less likely to suffer undiagnosed chronic conditions3 or to receive substandard medical care.4
Numerous investigators have found an association between uninsurance and death.5–14 The Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that 18314 Americans aged between 25 and 64 years die annually because of lack of health insurance, comparable to deaths because of diabetes, stroke, or homicide in 2001 among persons aged 25 to 64 years.4 The IOM estimate was largely based on a single study by Franks et al.5 However, these data are nowmore than 20 years old; both medical therapeutics and the demography of the uninsured have changed in the interim. We analyzed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III). NHANES III collected data on a representative sample of Americans, with vital status follow-up through 2000. Our objective was to evaluate the relationship between uninsurance and death.
health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf (application/pdf Object).
Maddow: GOP using ‘flawed’ poll to oppose health care reform
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow wondered on Tuesday why Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insist that health reform is not “what the America people actually want,” when “the polls, broadly speaking, are not really obviously on the Republican side.”
Maddow suggested that “the Republican leadership may have been watching a lot of Fox News lately” and pointed to a recent Fox poll which shows only 33% of Americans supporting the “current health reform plan” and 53% opposed.
Nate Silver of 538.com has noted that Fox polls on health care reform consistently show more negative sentiment than other polls do. He points out that in the latest poll, the health care question was preceded by a number of other questions that could have influenced the response, such as “Do you think President Obama apologizes too much to the rest of the world?” and “Do you think the size of the national debt is so large it is hurting the future of the country?”
Full Story: Maddow: GOP using ‘flawed’ poll to oppose health care reform | Raw Story.
Fla. appeals court chastises judge over compassion in foreclosure cases
MIAMI — A judge who routinely granted extensions in foreclosure cases for compassionate reasons has been chastised by a state appeals court, which said her rulings amounted to an abuse of discretion
The Third District Court of Appeal said “benevolence and compassion” were not legally sufficient grounds for Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr to allow a Miami couple an extra month to try and sell their home before a foreclosure sale.
The appeals judge’s called her decisions “an abuse of discretion in the most basic sense of that term.”
Schurr had granted the one-month extension in the case of Joseph and Blanca Doyle because, she explained in court, “I give extensions on these because I don’t want anybody to lose their house.”
Full Story: Fla. appeals court chastises judge over compassion in foreclosure cases | news-press.com | The News-Press.
In-Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year
Little Progress Seen Since 1999 IOM Report on Medical Errors
HealthGrades Honors 88 Hospitals Nationwide with Distinguished Hospital Award for Patient SafetyTM
Patient Safety Incidents In Hospitals Account for $6 Billion per Year in Extra Costs
Lakewood, Colo. (July 27, 2004) – An average of 195,000 people in the U.S. died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to a new study of 37 million patient records that was released today by HealthGrades, the healthcare quality company.
The HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals study is the first to look at the mortality and economic impact of medical errors and injuries that occurred during Medicare hospital admissions nationwide from 2000 to 2002. The HealthGrades study applied the mortality and economic impact models developed by Dr. Chunliu Zhan and Dr. Marlene R. Miller in a research study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in October of 2003. The Zhan and Miller study supported the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) 1999 report conclusion, which found that medical errors caused up to 98,000 deaths annually and should be considered a national epidemic.
The HealthGrades study finds nearly double the number of deaths from medical errors found by the 1999 IOM report “To Err is Human,” with an associated cost of more than $6 billion per year. Whereas the IOM study extrapolated national findings based on data from three states, and the Zhan and Miller study looked at 7.5 million patient records from 28 states over one year, HealthGrades looked at three years of Medicare data in all 50 states and D.C. This Medicare population represented approximately 45 percent of all hospital admissions (excluding obstetric patients) in the U.S. from 2000 to 2002.
Full Story: iatrogenic : Message: In-Hospital Deaths from Medical Errors at 195,000 per Year.
Drink Coasters Can Test for Date-Rape Drugs
Drink coasters at several North Texas bars can test for substances such as GHB and ketamine.
One of the coasters played a role in the arrest of a reserve Dallas police officer who is accused of spiking women’s drinks at a Greenville Avenue bar.
Police said a bartender at the Sugar Shack saw reserve Officer Brad Hellums put something in two women’s drinks. The bartender then went across the street to the Whiskey Bar to get one of the Drink Safe coasters, providing police with evidence, said bar manager Neil Ludwig, who runs several bars that use the coasters.
They can test a drink for substances such as GHB and ketamine, two popular “date-rape” drugs.
Full Story: Drink Coasters Can Test for Date-Rape Drugs | NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
The Falling Dollar and China’s Cries for a Global Currency
As the dollar falls against other major currencies, China and other emerging economic powers holding lots of dollars and U.S. securities are calling for an end to the dollar’s central status in global commerce.
As the dollar falls against the euro, yen and other major currencies, China and other emerging economic powers holding lots of dollars and U.S. securities are crying foul, and for an end to the dollar’s central status in global commerce.
If they are truly disgusted, they should look to themselves for answers.
Since the end of World War II, the dollar has largely replaced gold as the reserve asset central banks hold to back up national currencies. The supply of mineable gold is too limited, and efforts to back up currency with gold would result in chronic shortages of liquidity and global deflation.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Top Troop Request Exceeds 60,000
Commander Prefers 40,000 for Afghanistan, but His Report Gives Obama 3 Options
The request for troops sent to President Barack Obama by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan includes three different options, with the largest alternative including a request for more than 60,000 troops, according to a U.S. official familiar with the document.
Although the top option is more than the 40,000 soldiers previously understood to be the top troop total sought by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. officer in Kabul, 40,000 remains the primary choice of senior military brass, including Gen. McChrystal, the official said.
The details of the three scenarios were first reported by ABC News and confirmed by the U.S. official. The third option presented to Mr. Obama would be only a small increase that would keep U.S. forces largely at their year-end levels of 68,000 troops.
Full Story: Top Troop Request Exceeds 60,000 – WSJ.com.
Unsustainable Job Creation
Many new jobs are being created but what the media generally fail to report is that most new jobs are in non-tradable service industries.
Many new jobs are being created but what the media generally fail to report is that most new jobs are in non-tradable service industries or in government. Even when jobs are created in manufacturing, these tend to be in industries like building materials which do little exporting. Total manufacturing employment has plummeted to the levels of the 1950s. In any case, overall job creation is not keeping pace with the rise in our nation’s population.
The following few paragraphs detailing the true job picture come from Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.
Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The US economy came up more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. Over the past five years the US economy experienced a net job loss in goods producing activities. The entire job growth was in service-providing activities–primarily credit intermediation, health care and social assistance, waiters, waitresses and bartenders, and state and local government. US manufacturing lost 3 million jobs, almost 17 percent of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Telephone Company is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit
The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: the nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying.
Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens.
Full Story: Telephone Company is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit | Threat Level | Wired.com.
Gore Vidal: Obama ‘incompetent’ but GOP ‘like Hitler Youth’
Storied writer and historian Gore Vidal, in a lengthy interview published Wednesday by The Independent, had more than a few stones to throw at modern Americana.
Calling President Barack Obama “incompetent,” Vidal predicted he will lose his bid for reelection amid the “madhouse” that is present-day politics. As for the political opposition, the iconic intellectual said that Republicans are no longer a party, having morphed into a “mindset,” full of hate “like Hitler youth.”
Speaking with writer Johann Hari, Vidal addressed dozens of key moments in American history, from “unnecessary” foreign entanglements to the coming-soon collapse of U.S. empire in the barren sands of Afghanistan. He called the 2000 election “stolen” by the Bush administration, then added they were “probably” involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
Full Story: Gore Vidal: Obama ‘incompetent’ but GOP ‘like Hitler Youth’ | Raw Story.
Moving Beyond Free Trade
The official economic policy of the U.S. for the past two decades has been “free trade at all costs,” which has left workers in industrialized countries high and dry by profit seeking corporations.
The official economic policy of the United States for the past two decades has been “free trade at all costs.” The assumption being that “free trade” would lead to cheaper production, more consumption, and an overall increase in quality of life. Free trade has pushed production costs down, and it has increased the volume of trade and global consumption.
However, it has done very little to increase overall quality of life around the world. If anything, free trade has successfully lowered the quality of life of many individuals in developed and undeveloped nations alike. Through unfettered economic “liberalization” low-wage workers overseas have been exploited for their cheap labor, and workers in industrialized countries have been left high and dry by profit seeking corporations.
Aside from the devastating employment side-effects of free trade, there are also significant environmental problems to contend with. In their hunt for low cost production markets, multinationals are often drawn to nations that lack environmental protections. In fact, in some instances countries drop their regulations in order to attract investment – this is exemplified by the “Race to the Bottom” Theory.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Elephant in the Room: Manufacturing
If the readers of my recent book, “The Death of Management: Restoring Value to the U.S. Economy”, are representative of the general population’s sentiment regarding what’s happening with the U.S. economy, the country is fed up with a lack of a focus on the real problems that is needed to get our economy back on track. In November 2006, noted Harvard economist Michael Porter stated that, “we have to stop this notion of believing that manufacturing is essential,” but fell short of explaining how average Americans would earn their livings if they weren’t in the business of producing what we consume. Today, many of our corporate leaders, government policymakers, and other key experts have taken a step forward and may acknowledge the “elephant in the room,” but have yet to take any substantive action in dealing with the burning question of how Americans will earn a good living in this new hyper global economy. As one reader questioned in a review of my book as to why some leaders won’t respond to my message, “could it be that mainly, in their sphere of influence, it’s about them (the root cause problems), and they are too embarrassed to comment?”
General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt noted this summer that “we must make a serious commitment to (U.S.) manufacturing and exports…this is a national imperative.” This quote seems to be contradictory from what he said back in 2007 when GE’s stock price was $39 a share when he noted that his company had never been so independent of the U.S. economy, and even suggested how further steps of separation were inevitable. Today, with GE stock at $16 a share, is it any wonder that Immelt at least partially reversed his opinion on the matter of globalization? Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s chief economic advisor noted in 2008 that “the growth in the global economy encourages the development of stateless elites whose allegiance is to global economic success and their own prosperity rather than the interests of the nation where they are headquartered.” For certain, it is a positive signal when our private and public sector leaders begin to acknowledge the importance of industrial capabilities within the U.S. economy, but as my readers have passionately suggested, it doesn’t mean much until policies and initiatives are set forth to actually make it happen on our soil.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Unintended Consequences in Nuclear Pakistan
[Under Vice President Joe] Biden’s approach … American forces would concentrate on eliminating the Qaeda leadership, primarily in Pakistan, using Special Operations forces, Predator missile strikes and other surgical tactics.
—The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2009
Biden has argued against increasing the number of U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan. …
—The Washington Post, Oct. 2, 2009
Statesmen must be judged by the consequences of their actions. Whatever Nixon and Kissinger intended for Cambodia, their efforts created catastrophe.
—William Shawcross, “Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia” (2002), Page 396 (Emphasis added.)
“I think you’re closer to the World War II generals than you are to the Vietnam ones.” Dwight Eisenhower was the obvious model. “You may not realize it, but you have more influence than any other military leader in this country right now. More than the Joint Chiefs. You can make a case for you not staying, because there’s no job after this that will compare to it.” The implied suggestion was politics.
—Bob Woodward quoting Gen. Jack Keane mentoring his protégé, Gen. David Petraeus, in “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008” (2009) (Emphasis added.)
Full Story: Truthdig – Reports – Unintended Consequences in Nuclear Pakistan.
Justice officials won’t take oath before briefing
A House intelligence committee meeting was abruptly terminated when Justice Department officials refused to be sworn in before briefing the lawmakers.
The officials had been expected to brief the committee Wednesday on the department’s review of an internal CIA report on the 2001 shootdown of a plane over Peru that was carrying American missionaries. Two of the passengers were killed.
Officials are routinely sworn in before giving testimony at formal congressional hearings, but the meeting was billed as an informal briefing — which normally does not require taking an oath.
Full Story: Justice officials won’t take oath before briefing | Raw Story.
Study urges parents to give kids booze allowance
It said banning teenagers from drinking alcohol risked pushing them to buy cheap booze on the street and get into more trouble.
Health authorities have long sought to promote a more “continental” European attitude to drinking, as opposed to the heavy boozing which brings chaos to many town centres on weekend nights.
The result of the drinking culture was reflected in the new study’s findings: some 30 percent of teenagers surveyed said they have experienced violence while drunk, and 12.5 percent reported having had sexual encounters they regretted.
Full Story: Study urges parents to give kids booze allowance | Raw Story.
RedState’s Erick Erickson: Obama won because the Nobel Committee had ‘affirmative action quotas.’
Conservatives are already bemoaning the fact that President Obama won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, saying that he should turn it down because he doesn’t deserve it. “Obama isn’t the first American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he’s the first to win it without having accomplished anything,” writes John Miller at the National Review. RedState editor Erick Erickson went even further this morning, writing on Twitter that Obama won it because of affirmative action:
Full Story: Think Progress » RedState’s Erick Erickson: Obama won because the Nobel Committee had ‘affirmative action quotas.’.
Pawlenty: The ‘appropriate response’ to Obama winning the Nobel is to say ‘congratulations.’
Tim Pawlenty On his weekly radio show today, a caller asked Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) about his reaction to President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Pawlenty departed from his fellow Republicans and replied that the “appropriate response” is to say “congratulations” to Obama:
I would say regardless of the circumstances, congratulations to President Obama for winning the Nobel Prize. I know there will be some people who are saying “Was it based on good intentions and thoughts or is it going to be based on good results?” But I think the appropriate response is when anybody wins a Nobel Prize that is a very noteworthy development and designation and I think the appropriate response is to say “Congratulations.”
He later added that while concerns about the “process” process of how the award was given out are valid, he still thinks anyone who wins the Nobel Prize deserves commendation. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (R) also said that he thought it was “great” Obama won.
Full Story: Think Progress » Pawlenty: The ‘appropriate response’ to Obama winning the Nobel is to say ‘congratulations.’.
“Tired, Strained, Confused” — Why U.S. Troops Have Hit the Breaking Point in Afghanistan
“Tired, Strained, Confused” — Why U.S. Troops Have Hit the Breaking Point in Afghanistan
American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions in Afghanistan.
American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taliban.
Many feel that they are risking their lives — and that colleagues have died — for a futile mission and an Afghan population that does nothing to help them, the chaplains told The Times in their makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest of Kabul.
“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.
Full Story: “Tired, Strained, Confused” — Why U.S. Troops Have Hit the Breaking Point in Afghanistan | World | AlterNet.
Corporate Media Performing Miserably in Health Care Debate
If it bleeds, it leads. So what happens when demonstrators play nice?
No one packed heat, no one screamed at a member of Congress, no one called anybody a Nazi, no fistfights broke out. So—no story.
All that happened was that on Thursday, Oct. 1, a moving van pulled up in front of the largest house in a Main Line neighborhood just outside Philadelphia—the home of H. Edward Hanway, CEO of CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies—and eight demonstrators from Health Care for America Now (HCAN) got out. One was Stacie Ritter, a former CIGNA customer whose twin girls were afflicted with cancer at the age of four. Their treatment left permanent damage. CIGNA refused to pay for the human growth hormones that her doctor prescribed to help her daughters grow properly. When her husband was briefly unemployed, they were bankrupted.
No one was home at Hanway’s mansion. Ritter left a note to explain that the van symbolized a request: “Can I stay in your carriage house until we get back on our feet financially?”
Full Story: Corporate Media Performing Miserably in Health Care Debate | Politics | AlterNet.
Who Shredded Our Safety Net?
James Ridgeway | Mother Jones
LIKE MOST PEOPLE whose quality of life depends upon the fluctuations of an IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or other acronym-soup retirement account, I was born long before such things existed. It’s easy to forget, now that more than half of us have been made shareholders, that until well past the middle of the 20th century, most people had nothing to do with the stock market: Wall Street was for the wealthy and the reckless. It was a world most Americans didn’t understand and, after 1929, didn’t trust. Some lucky people had pensions, but few had the privilege of even thinking about retirement. They were too busy trying to survive the present—which in my childhood meant the Great Depression and then World War II.
I spent the war years in Washington, DC, where my father had a minor position in the Roosevelt administration. After school, my brother and I spent most of our time running around the streets, trying to get the air-raid wardens to give us a scrap of nylon parachute, or maybe even one of their cast-off World War I helmets, before the blackout drill began. One evening, my mother called us into the dining room and solemnly presented each of us with a $25 war bond. That was my first contact with the world of investment. Compared to a piece of parachute, it was a real downer.
Sixty-five years later it’s a downer still, as I contemplate my future at a time of deep recession with no pension and a depleted 401(k). And it occurs to me that the very notion of a comfortable, paid retirement may turn out to have been a temporary phenomenon, with a life span almost precisely the same as my own.
Full Story: Who Shredded Our Safety Net? | Mother Jones.
Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
US President Barack Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Committee said he won it for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.
The committee highlighted Mr Obama’s efforts to support international bodies and promote nuclear disarmament.
Mr Obama’s spokesman said the president was “humbled” to have won the prize. He said he woke Mr Obama up with the news early on Friday.
There were a record 205 nominations for this year’s peace prize. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Chinese dissident Hu Jia had been among the favourites.
Full Story: BBC NEWS | Europe | Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
OPS: Have to say that this award is a bit premature. He’s received the Prize for his rhetoric not for having accomplished anything in this arena. On the other hand – maybe this was preemptive on the part of the committee. It will be more difficult for him to escalate in Afghanistan now – maybe – hopefully…. aw, never mind. Agree that he has done some things for Peace that count – but for the Nobel? Maybe if he had already kept a couple of promises and pulled out of one of the theaters….
Top Tea Partier, Husband, Owed IRS Half A Million Dollars
A top activist with the anti-tax Tea Party movement has had a personal brush with federal tax collectors. Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder and national co-ordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, owed, with her husband, over half a million dollars to the IRS when the pair filed for bankruptcy last year, according to filings examined by TPMmuckraker.
The couple’s bankruptcy filing, made in August 2008 to the US Bankruptcy Court for Georgia’s Northern District, stated that Martin and her husband Lee Martin, of Woodstock, Georgia, owed the IRS $510,000, after making a payment of $16,640 that June. The couple also owed just over $71,000 to Ford Motor Credit, the automaker’s financing arm.
In an interview with TPMmuckraker, Jenny Beth Martin said her and her husband’s experience with bankruptcy helped lead them to oppose the Wall Street bailout.
Full Story: Top Tea Partier, Husband, Owed IRS Half A Million Dollars | TPMMuckraker.
The Uneducated American
Paul Krugman
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education.” In the 19th century, America led the way in universal basic education. Then, as other nations followed suit, the “high school revolution” of the early 20th century took us to a whole new level. And in the years after World War II, America established a commanding position in higher education.
But that was then. The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of public education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars. Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.
Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual — a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis — its effects exacerbated by the penny-wise, pound-foolish behavior that passes for “fiscal responsibility” in Washington — deals a severe blow to education across the board.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The Uneducated American – NYTimes.com.
Pollution as Another Form of Poverty
Another piece of land was denuded around here last month. It started early on a Monday morning. A group of men, armed with shovels and saws, aided by a yellow excavator, cleared eight acres by a road. They cut down neem trees, acacia trees, palmyras and a couple of thick jackfruit trees.
About 40 trees were felled. By the time they were done, the land was a tangle of branches and dead leaves. A few wizened stumps and roots were left behind, strewn around the upturned earth like corpses.
I went looking for the owners of the land. I met one of them, a 44-year-old man named K. Murugayian, on a hot Tuesday afternoon. He told me, in a slightly sheepish but deliberate way, about why the land had been cleared.
Full Story: Letter from India – Pollution as Another Form of Poverty – NYTimes.com.
Britain overtakes US as top financial centre
The United Kingdom has overtaken the United States to take the top spot in a ranking of the world’s leading financial centres.
The ranking, compiled by the World Economic Forum (WEF), places the UK at the top of a leader board of 55 of the world’s largest financially-focussed countries.
The US, which had previously held the top spot, slipped to third, behind second-placed Australia.
The poll will fuel the ongoing debate as to whether London or New York is the best place to do business for financial communities, amid recent reports that a growing number of hedge funds are moving to New York due to lighter regulation.
Full Story: Britain overtakes US as top financial centre – Telegraph.
Few Bush-era energy leases are valid, report finds
An Interior Department report called most of the parcels auctioned off during the Bush administration problematic. One included land within view of Arches National Park in Utah
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his agency will prevent further development on the problematic parcels on Utah’s public land.
Reporting from Denver – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday that only 17 of 77 oil and gas leases on Utah public lands that the Bush administration auctioned off in December were valid and that his agency would prevent development on the remaining parcels, at least in the near future.
Salazar spoke at a Washington news conference to announce the findings of a report he commissioned this year on the parcels, which became the subject of a fierce controversy during the waning days of George W. Bush’s presidency.
Environmentalists contended that the auction of drilling rights on 100,000 acres of federal land in southeastern Utah were a last-minute giveaway to the energy industry. The environmentalists won a restraining order from a federal judge halting the sales.
Salazar revoked most of the leases upon entering office and said his staff would study which were appropriate. On Thursday, he said the review found that few were.
Full Story: Few Bush-era energy leases are valid, report finds — latimes.com.
Army investigating 14 possible Sept. suicides
- Army Times – As many as 14 soldiers are believed to have killed themselves in September, three fewer than the month before, the Defense Department announced Thursday.
Of the 14 deaths, seven were active-duty soldiers. So far, one has been confirmed to be a suicide, and the other six remain under investigation.
The other seven deaths were among reserve component soldiers who were not on active duty at the time of their deaths. All the cases are still pending a determination.
Army officials have said that 90 percent of pending cases typically are ruled to be suicides.
In August, as many as 17 soldiers –— 11 of them active duty — were reported to have committed suicide. Since those numbers were first announced, four of the 11 active-duty deaths have been confirmed to be suicides.
Full Story: Army investigating 14 possible Sept. suicides – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.
The Zombie zeitgeist
David Sirota
What’s with all the zombies lately?
That could be a question about one of the hippest retro fads that pop culture has going these days. Inspired by horror genres of past, zombies have lurched back to pre-eminence in books like “World War Z,” video games like “Left 4 Dead” and blockbuster films like “Zombieland.” Even the highbrow producers at National Public Radio recently devoted a segment to a University of Ottawa study entitled “Mathematical Modeling of An Outbreak of Zombie Infection.” Indeed, the undead have become so popular, they’ve spurred “zombie walks” in cities and spawned Weird Al-ish parodies through Jane Austen knock-offs like “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” and bands such as the Zombeatles (with their hit “Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead”).
Frighteningly enough, though, that question about zombies could also be asked of America’s political culture.
It was only a year ago that “zombie” first entered the colloquial economic lexicon during the collapse of the financial institutions that were cannibalizing the economy. From a balance-sheet perspective, many of these firms were dead. But they were quickly reanimated as zombie banks with trillions of taxpayer dollars.
Like a typical zombie outbreak, the initial plague spread.
On Wall Street, we have zombie executives – those who destroyed the economy but nonetheless kept their same jobs and now continue paying themselves huge bonuses.
Full Story: Zombie zeitgeist.
Breathalyzer for drugs
Dr. Steven Bell of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University of Belfast in collaboration with colleagues from the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University and Forensic Science Northern Ireland have developed the technology to make drug breathalyzers possible. More importantly, the device can analyze chemicals on the person of suspected terrorists noninvasively as well as in packages and letters. Results are determined in matter of minutes.
Gel pads swipe the suspected individual or crime scene to collect the sample to be analyzed. The detection device uses Raman Spectroscopy. The sensitivity of the Raman spectrometer is increased by adding nanoscale silver particles to amplify the signal of the analyte or analytes.
Every chemical has a defined Raman signal or signals and a reference catalog of those spectra can be used for rapid comparison of a suspected analyte. Raman spectrometers have become smaller and cheaper with computerization.
Full Story: Breathalyzer for drugs.
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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. 
