Archive for October, 2009
Florida Cereal Stealer Gets 15 Years in Prison
A Florida man gets 15 years in prison for stealing a $4.99 box of Lucky Charms
Here’s an example where the punishment doesn’t quite seem to fit the crime.
A Florida man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Monday for stealing a $4.99 box of Lucky Charms and a $1.59 can of evaporated milk. Remember, we said he was a cereal stealer, not a serial killer.
Last time we checked, those pots of gold and blue diamonds were made of marshmallows, not real jewels. It’s not like he kidnapped or killed the creepy little leprechaun.
The judge threw the book at Mark Anthony Griffin because he was a “prison releasee reoffender,” a weird way of saying he had been in jail before. The Lakeland Ledger reports Griffin was convicted in 2007 of burglary and grand theft.
Full Story: Florida Cereal Stealer Gets 15 Years in Prison | NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
AP Poll: Obama’s job approval rises to 56%
President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are starting to rise after declining ever since his inauguration, new poll figures show as the country’s mood begins to brighten. But concerns about the economy, health care and war persist, and support for the war in Afghanistan is falling.
An Associated Press-GfK poll says 56 percent of those surveyed in the past week approve of Obama’s job performance, up from 50 percent in September. It’s the first time since he took office in January that his rating has gone up.
People also feel better about his handling of the economy and his proposed health care overhaul.
But not about the war.
Support for the war in Afghanistan has declined, the poll said Tuesday. And approval of Obama’s handling of it is holding steady — in contrast to his gains in other areas — as he considers a big troop increase there. Poll respondents narrowly oppose the increase.
Overall, 39 percent said they disapproved of Obama’s performance in office, down from 49 percent last month.
Full Story: The Associated Press: AP Poll: Obama’s job approval rises amid concerns.
Obama White House can’t find – or won’t release – millions of Bush emails
President Barack Obama has a problem.
In February, the Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, tried to kill a lawsuit that sought to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails in a stunning reversal of Obama’s rhetoric about Bush secrecy on the campaign trail.
Two advocacy groups had sued the Executive Office of the President, including one of the groups that helped derail former House Speaker Tom DeLay. They said that large amounts of White House e-mail documenting Bush’s eight years in office were missing, and that the government needed to undertake an extensive recovery effort. The emails were seen as crucial as the “deleted” days include ones in the run up to the Iraq war and the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.
In March, the groups suspended their lawsuit, noting that the Obama team was willing to negotiate a settlement. Since then, little progress has been made.
Full Story: Obama White House can’t find – or won’t release – millions of Bush emails | Raw Story.
Overdraft Fees Exploding
Banks and credit unions collected nearly $24 billion in overdraft fees last year, an increase of 35 percent from just two years earlier, according to a new study by the Center for Responsible lending.
The explosion in overdraft charges has drained the wallet of as many as 51 million Americans whose accounts become overdrawn annually. It is particularly harmful to financially vulnerable families already hit hard by the recession.
“Banks and credit unions have become so sophisticated in driving up overdrafts that Americans now pay more in overdraft fees every year than they do for books, cereal, or fresh vegetables,” said CRL senior researcher Leslie Parrish. “These billions of dollars drained from consumers each year represent lost opportunities for families to save for a rainy day or buy necessary goods and services that could help spark the economy.”
Full Story: Overdraft Fees Exploding.
Bachmann’s agenda: ‘After we defund the left, we pass repealer bill after repealer bill after repealer bill.’
At a briefing with conservative bloggers held at the Heritage Foundation today, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) articulated “the way forward for conservatives.” Bachmann’s strategy consisted of defeating Democrats in 2010, defunding the left and passing a series of “repealer” bills:
BACHMANN: We have to defund the left. And this is great. Gallup came out with a poll, I think last week or the week before, that said the American people believe that Congress wastes 50 percent — 50 cents or 50 percent of every dollar it spends. God love the American people. They get it. They understand the truth that actually there’s huge waste. So we defund that but then the third thing that we do, which you’re getting into with economic development, is we have to after we defund the left, we pass repealer bill after repealer bill after repealler bill. Because there’s a huge machinery that’s been built up in this town. And we have to just repeal it. And we have to campaign on that to the American people. That is a hugely winning message right now with the American people.
Watch it:
Republican Bait-and-Switch On The Individual Mandate
In recent days, GOP leaders have focused their crosshairs on the individual mandate, a key component of an effective health care reform bill. FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey (R-TX) attacked the mandate as a “healthcare industry boondoggle”, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) called the mandate a “stunning assault on liberty,” and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) delayed the committee mark-up by questioning the mandate’s constitutionality.
Most notably, Sen. Chuck Grassley has suddenly become an opponent of the mandate:
HEMMER: Now as I understand it, you want stronger language preventing federal funds from going to abortion. You want stronger language to make sure illegal immigrants are not covered. If you got those two big points, would you go for it?
GRASSLEY: No, there are other points as well, but let me mention other points that you didn’t mention. And one would be the individual mandate, which for the first time would have a federal penalty against people who don’t have health insurance. I could do that through re-insurance and risk pools, to make sure we get more people insured in a voluntary way and I’m very reluctant to go along with an individual mandate.
Full Story: Think Progress » Republican Bait-and-Switch On The Individual Mandate.
Bachmann: I’m comfortable with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck being the voices of the GOP.
Tonight on CNN’s Larry King Live, a panel that included Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) discussed the impact and influence of the 24-hour cable news chatter. Bachmann once again demonstrated her true love for Fox News, arguing that Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are gaining audiences because “people go where they think they’re going to hear the truth.” King then pressed Bachmann on whether she wants those right-wing pundits to be the “voice of the Republican Party”:
KING: Would you want the Limbaugh, that crowd — would you want them to be your voice as the Republican Party stands in this country?
BACHMANN: Well remember it’s who the American people are referring to Larry. And the American people are looking to voices like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck –
KING: I just told you — it’s 2 percent of America. It’s 2 percent!
BACHMANN: If you look for a critical mass, that’s the movement, that’s the direction that the critical mass is going. And the American people are very smart people.
Watch it:
Full Story: Think Progress » Bachmann: I’m comfortable with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck being the voices of the GOP..
Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties
When foreign policy is well-reasoned, we see attention given to humanitarian issues like housing, jobs, health care and education. When that policy consists of applying a military solution to a political problem, however, we see death, destruction, and suffering. Director Robert Greenwald witnessed the latter during his recent trip to Afghanistan–the devastating consequences of U.S. airstrikes on thousands of innocent civilians.
The footage you are about to see is poignant, heart-wrenching, and often a direct result of U.S. foreign policy.
We must help the refugees whose lives have been shattered by U.S. foreign policy and military attacks. Support the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an organization dedicated to helping women and children, human rights issues, and social justice. Then, become a Peacemaker. Receive up-to-the-minute information through our new mobile alert system whenever there are Afghan civilian casualties from this war, and take immediate action by calling Congress.
http://rethinkafghanistan.com/
Full Story: YouTube – Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties.
Obama and Afghanistan: You Can’t Handle the Truth?
How I Caught Obama’s Team Trapping Themselves into a Corner on Their Afghanistan Spin . The White House Press Corps jumped on Robert Gibbs when they saw the glaring contradiction of demanding a corruption free government and not withdrawing from Afghanistan.
David Corn, | Mother Jones
The Obama White House keeps running smack into fundamental and inconvenient contradictions concerning its tough slog in Afghanistan. Most recently, on Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declared that pulling out of Afghanistan is “not a decision that’s on the table” for President Obama. Yet a few days earlier, he had said that the Obama administration can only succeed in Afghanistan if it has a partner there that “is free of corruption and transparent.” That description certainly does not fit the Kabul government—not even close. So how can the Obama administration hold on to both of these notions: that it will stick with this war and that it cannot triumph if the Afghan government and its security forces are not effective, competent and honest?
Looking for an answer to this critical question, I asked Gibbs about the apparent conflict between these two ideas at Monday’s press briefing. Here’s the exchange:
Full Story: Obama and Afghanistan: You Can’t Handle the Truth? | Mother Jones.
We Interact with 100,000+ Chemicals, and the Dangers Are Barely Understood
Our regulatory system works according to a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ logic, where new chemicals are available and safe, until the day we realize they aren’t.
Last month, the Chemical Abstract Service, an agency that registers every new chemical as it is invented or discovered, assigned a registry number to the 50 millionth chemical. It’s a landmark to be sure, but not one we’re likely to look back on fondly.
The Chemical Abstract Service began to register chemicals in 1956, and it took 33 years to register the first 10 million new chemicals.
They identified these chemicals primarily from research papers accumulated from worldwide sources. But the last 10 million chemicals were registered in nine months at the rate of 25 per minute!
Full Story: We Interact with 100,000+ Chemicals, and the Dangers Are Barely Understood | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
The urban farmer
Most urban farmers confine their agricultural efforts to vegetables, fruit, and the occasional egg-laying chicken. But on her small plot in Oakland, California, Novella Carpenter has raised bees, goats, rabbits, geese, and turkey, among other fauna.
A graduate of the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied with Michael Pollan, Carpenter now writes about urban farming and sustainable-food production for various publications, including her blog, Ghost Town Farm. Her memoir, Farm City, is due out this summer from Penguin Press.
Why did you want to start a farm in the city, rather than moving to a rural area?
I think people have a lot of nostalgia and yearning for these pastoral places, but my parents did that — they were back-to-the-land hippies in the 1970s — and it quickly became clear to me that city people moving to the country is kind of a horrible idea. They don’t usually have any skills, for one.
I grew up in Idaho till age six, then moved to Shelton, Washington, which had a population of only 7,000. It was isolated. So when people tell me they’re planning to move to the country, I say, “You’re going to have great food, but you’re not going to have anyone to share it with.”
Full Story: Novella Carpenter — The urban farmer :: by Twilight Greenaway :: Culinate.
Why It’s a Good Idea for the Well-Off to Share Their Health Care with the Rest of Us
Nearly half of Americans have little access to health care, while the rest are overmedicated, overtested or kept alive against their wishes. Could rationing be the answer?
In the din of voices arrayed against health care reform, one word has come to symbolize the presumed evil of the reformers’ plans: rationing.
Falling for the argument framed by their adversaries, advocates of health care reform have pooh-poohed the claim rather than address the truth that, in certain circumstances, “rationing” at the end of life is a good thing, preventing endless suffering endured by patients with terminal conditions who are subjected to treatments they never wanted in the first place.
Americans lucky enough to have good health insurance are overtested, overmedicated and overtreated. Republicans have tried to tie overtreatment to malpractice reform, suggesting that doctors today practice “defensive medicine” in order to prevent lawsuits. The Republicans’ only solution to the problem of excessive spending is to limit malpractice lawsuits, but this ignores the medical industry’s primary motivation: revenue.
Full Story: Why It’s a Good Idea for the Well-Off to Share Their Health Care with the Rest of Us | Politics | AlterNet.
Michael Moore’s Problems Are Our Fault
Matt Taibbi - True Slant
That quote is the unintentionally revealing tip of an ego iceberg lying below Moore’s public persona of Mr. Aw-Shucks Everyman. Moore clearly sees himself as a liberal Atlas, shrugging under the weight of a ungrateful world. Yet, for all his self-regard and all the attention his work gets, Moore has really only made two films worth watching in his twenty year career: Roger and Me and Bowling for Columbine.via Joseph Childers – Ephemera Etcetera – Liberals to Moore: ‘Thanks, but we got this’ – True/Slant.
The reaction to Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, reinforces a suspicion I started having a few years back: that most of us Americans are much better at being movie and TV critics than we are at being political organizers. When we come out of a film like this, we find ourselves focusing on the flaws in Moore’s moviemaking and not on the film’s content, which just happens to be the reality of our own day-to-day political existences.
We’re not thinking about how to fix our lives, in other words, but how to fix the movie about our lives.
Now, I agree with most of the criticisms of Moore’s new movie. One of my editors at Rolling Stone put it best: “I just wish I could edit him a little.” Moore’s bizarre decision to inject himself into the movie at odd (and sometimes crucial) junctures undermines his ability to be an effective propagandist.
Full Story: Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – Michael Moore’s Problems Are Our Fault – True/Slant.
The Economic Revolution Is Already Happening — It’s Just Not on Wall St.
Thousands of alternatives to the punishing corporate model have sprouted up across the US, building up an alternative economy as Wall St. crumbles
America is in the midst of a new revolution. But this revolution is quiet, incremental, nonviolent and traveling beneath the mainstream media’s radar.
The new American revolution challenges the current notions of dog-eat-dog capitalism — through the building of a parallel economic system that shares, co-operates, empowers and benefits fellow workers and community members.
Over the past few decades, thousands of alternatives to the standard, top-down corporate model have sprouted up — worker-owned companies and co-operatives, neighborhood corporations and trusts, community-owned technology centers and municipally owned enterprises.
In fact, today, involvement in these alternative models of business outnumber union membership as the means by which private-sector workers and community members are taking their economics into their own hands. The story is revealed in the 4-year-old book, America Beyond Capitalism, written by University of Maryland political science professor Gar Alperovitz.
Full Story: The Economic Revolution Is Already Happening — It’s Just Not on Wall St. | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.
Writers Fear U.S. is Self-Segregating
Authors of two recent books, “Whitopia” and “The Big Sort,” see Americans as disuniting based on politics, race and culture.
In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where 95 percent of the population is white, Rich Benjamin saw more Confederate flags than black people. Not that Benjamin was looking for suggestions of racism, but in his forthcoming book, Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America (Hyperion, Oct. 6), he was trying to discover why some of the fastest-growing areas in America are also the most Caucasian.
“There’s a long-term harm when Americans accept balkanization as a way of life,” says Benjamin, who is an African American. “Segregation can appear to allay social tensions, but it worsens them in the long run. Optimal democracies require more than voting; they require social integration and involvement.”
Benjamin defines Whitopias as towns that are much whiter than the nation as a whole, which means they are more than 75 percent Caucasian. He looked at areas with a population growth of more than 6 percent since 2000, in which the growth was 90 percent white. Then he set out to Forsyth County, Ga., (98,000 people, 684 of them black), St. George, Utah, Coeur d’Alene and other vanilla outposts to find out why folks were moving there.
Full Story: Culture & Society Articles | Writers Fear U.S. is Self-Segregating | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.
Jail terms for faith healing pair
A US couple who prayed rather than seeking medical attention for their dying daughter have been sentenced to six months in jail.
Dale and Leilani Neumann, of Wisconsin, could have received up to 25 years in prison over the 2008 death of Madeline Neumann, who was known as Kara.
The 11-year-old died of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes.
Judge Vincent Howard ordered the couple to serve one month in jail each year for the next six years.
Full Story: BBC NEWS | Americas | Jail terms for faith healing pair.
Docs as Props – Healthcare-NOW!
In the Rose Garden this morning, President Obama met with a group of doctors.
From all fifty states.
Banned from the meeting were doctors from Physicians for a National Health Program — representing more than 17,000 docs who support a single payer health care system.
Those doctors were not invited to attend.
They asked to be admitted.
And were denied.
Video at link
Instead, a small group of these single payer docs circled the White House in protest
And then joined a group of anti-war demonstrators at the front of the White House.
They want Congress to start from scratch.
Dr. Paul Hochfeld led a group of these doctors on a cross-country 22-day, 27-town whistle-stop tour for single payer.
This morning, Hochfeld, an emergency room physician from Corvallis, Oregon, insisted on being admitted to the Rose Garden event.
And amazingly he was allowed in — even though his name was not on the list of doctors to be admitted.
But afterward, Hochfeld said it was a mere “photoshoot.”
Full Story: Docs as Props – Healthcare-NOW!.
500,000 Troops for Pashtunistan?
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, talks of winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. He sees the need to get beyond standard military thinking and understand the political, religious, social and economic context. He also knows that kicking down doors, destroying homes and killing civilians turns the Afghans against us and creates more insurgents than we could ever kill.
“If the people are against us, we cannot be successful,” McChrystal told CBS’s “60 Minutes.” “If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can’t be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically.”
In his report to President Obama and in endless interviews, the four-star general talks about persuading the Afghans, protecting them and making them secure from the Taliban. “Our every action must help secure, mobilize and support the Afghan people and their government to defeat the insurgency and establish effective governance.”
How to “establish effective government” in a country that has never known one, McChrystal does not say. Nor does he tell us how he would do it with an Afghan leadership made up of war lords, drug barons and a president – Hamid Karzai – who won re-election by creating hundreds of phony polling stations and stuffing ballot boxes in wholesale fashion.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | 500,000 Troops for Pashtunistan?.
Short-Selling Vs. Naked Short-Selling: An Explanation
Matt Taibbi: Rolling Stone - Videos at link
In “Wall Street’s Naked Swindle” in Rolling Stone’s new issue, Matt Taibbi examines how a scheme to flood the market with counterfeit stocks helped kill Bears Stearns and Lehman Brothers — and the feds have yet to bust the culprits. The scheme that helped do in two of the five major investment banks in the U.S. is known as naked short-selling — the sale of shares you don’t have or won’t deliver. Normal short-selling, however, is legal and good for the market: it lets investors bet against companies that they believe will decrease in value.
To help explain his story, Taibbi heads to the white board and breaks down the differences between the two: click above to watch him explain short-selling (our buyer: Wilford Brimley, broker: Count Chocula, short-seller: Hervé Villechaize), and below for a discussion of its evil twin, naked short-selling. — Rolling Stone
In “Wall Street’s Naked Swindle” in Rolling Stone’s new issue, Matt Taibbi examines how a scheme to flood the market with counterfeit stocks helped kill Bears Stearns and Lehman Brothers — and the feds have yet to bust the culprits. The scheme that helped do in two of the five major investment banks in the U.S. is known as naked short-selling — the sale of shares you don’t have or won’t deliver. Normal short-selling, however, is legal and good for the market: it lets investors bet against companies that they believe will decrease in value.
Full Story: Matt Taibbi: Taibblog : Rolling Stone.
Presidential Powers During Cybersecurity Emergencies
FindLaw columnist Eric Sinrod writes regularly in this section on legal developments surrounding technology and the internet.
Our nation can be threatened not only by physical attacks on terra firma, but also in Cyberspace. Indeed, Cyber attacks could threaten all sorts of mission critical systems.
For this reason, aides to Senator Jay Rockefeller reportedly have been working recently on a revised draft Senate bill that would give the President broad powers in the event of a Cybersecurity emergency, and that apparently would go so far as allowing the President to temporarily seize control over computer networks in the private sector.
This power is akin to the power President Bush exerted when he grounded commercial aircraft in the wake of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, according to a reported Senate source.
The revised draft Senate bill calls on the President, within 180 days of enactment, to develop and implement a comprehensive national Cybersecurity strategy. This strategy is to provide a “long-term vision of the Nation’s Cybersecurity future” and a plan that “encompasses all aspects of national security,” which would include private sector involvement.
Full Story: Presidential Powers During Cybersecurity Emergencies – Eric Sinrod – Technologist.
Court Documents Reveal Existence of New Torture Tapes
On Monday, a federal court ordered the government to turn over a videotape of the brutal interrogation of a Guantanamo detainee to the prisoner’s lawyers.
t r u t h o u t | A federal court judge on Monday revealed that the brutal interrogation of an alleged “war on terror” detainee imprisoned at Guantanamo for more than seven years was videotaped and she ordered the government to turn over the materials to the prisoner’s lawyers.
Mohammed al-Qahtani was someone Bush administration officials had referred to as the “20th hijacker” of the 9/11 attacks. The government claimed the Saudi man intended to take part in 9/11, but he was denied entry into the United States by an immigration official a month before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Court Documents Reveal Existence of New Torture Tapes.
The F Word: Will Gas Drilling Destroy NYC’s Drinking Water?
Laura Flanders » The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s long awaited plan for drilling in the Marcellus Shale was just released. The Shale, which stretches from Ohio to New York is believed to be the country’s largest remaining reservoir of natural gas. Drilling has begun in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and there have already been reports of contaminated wells. A recent EPA report also found evidence of toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing in wells drilled in Wyoming.
So what did the DEC SAY?
Well, not so fast. The natural gas industry, with Halliburton leading the charge, has skirted the Clean Water Act for years. They’re not about to give up now. Capitalizing on fears of global warming and the growing disdain for fossil fuels, they’re pushing gas drilling as a clean, green alternative. And their message seems to be swaying Washington. The new climate bill introduced last week by Sen. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer includes incentives for natural gas.
Full Story: GRITtv with Laura Flanders » The F Word: Will Gas Drilling Destroy NYC’s Drinking Water?.
Light zaps antibiotic resistant bacteria
Cristian A. Strassert and Luisa De Cola of the University of Munster (Germany) have developed a photodynamic method to deal with antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Nanoparticles made of a special porous material (zeolite L) are modified so they have a coating of amino groups. This coating causes the particle to preferentially bond to bacteria cell surfaces through electrostatic and hydrogen bonding. A green fluorescent dye in the pores of the zeolite L makes the bacteria fluoresce in a specific wavelength of fluorescent light.
Photosensitizers are also associated with the zeolite L and coating. When irradiated by a selected
wavelength of light, the photosensitizers absorb the energy and transfer that energy to oxygen molecules in the nearby space. The oxygen is excited into the singlet state and causes bacteria cell destruction through reaction with the singlet oxygen. Normally no singlet oxygen would be present to react.
Singlet oxygen is represented by the symbol 1O2*. There are two electrons in a pair of non bonding orbitals.
Full Story: Light zaps antibiotic resistant bacteria.
Court upholds $2M award to Wal-Mart pharmacist
A former pharmacist at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed she was fired after asking to be paid the same as her male colleagues is entitled to $2 million in damages awarded by a jury, the state’s highest court ruled Monday.
Cynthia Haddad was fired in 2004 after working more than 10 years for Wal-Mart, seven of them at a store in Pittsfield.
Wal-Mart claimed she was fired because she left the pharmacy unattended and allowed a technician to use her computer security code to issue prescriptions during her absence.
Haddad, however, claimed in a discrimination lawsuit that she was fired because she complained about being paid less than her male counterparts, including a bonus given to pharmacy managers. The company paid the bonus, then fired her two weeks later.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Court upholds $2M award to Wal-Mart pharmacist.
Apartment Glut Expands
Vacancy Rate Rises to 7.8% as Unemployment Dents Demand; Monthly Rents Slip
Apartment vacancies hit their highest point since 1986, surging in cities from Raleigh, N.C., to Tacoma, Wash., as rising unemployment continued to chip away at demand during the traditionally strong summer rental months
The U.S. vacancy rate reached 7.8%, a 23-year high, according to Reis Inc., a New York real-estate research firm that tracks vacancies and rents in the top 79 U.S. markets. The rate is expected to climb further in the fall and winter, when rental demand is weaker, pushing vacancies to the highest levels since Reis began its count in 1980.
Meanwhile, the air leaving the market is driving rents down, most sharply in markets that had been chugging along until a year ago, when unemployment accelerated, including Tacoma; San Jose, Calif.; and Orange County, Calif.
Full Story: Apartment Glut Expands – WSJ.com.
Study: Bush administration blocked efforts to prevent housing crisis
Raw Story – Federal regulators in the Bush administration blocked attempts by state governments to prevent predatory lending practices that resulted in the financial crisis now stalking the American economy, a new study from the University of North Carolina says.
In 2004, the Office of the Currency Comptroller, an obscure regulatory agency tasked with ensuring the fiscal soundness of America’s banks, invoked an 1863 law to give itself the power to override state laws against predatory lending. The OCC told states they could not enforce predatory-lending laws, and all banks would be subject only to less-strict federal laws.
Now, a research paper (PDF) from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center for Community Capital shows that those anti-predatory lending laws had actually worked. States that had stricter regulations on issuing mortgages were found to have fewer foreclosures.
“We believe that these findings are remarkable, since they suggest an important and yet unexplored link between [anti-predatory lending laws] and foreclosures,” the study’s authors state.
The study may be the first scientific evidence to back up claims made by many critics that the Bush administration and earlier administrations allowed last year’s financial crisis to happen by not enforcing common-sense regulations on lenders.
Full Story: Study: Bush administration blocked efforts to prevent housing crisis | Raw Story.
William Black: Geithner “A Disaster,” Has Been “Wrong About Everything In His Career”
Former federal banking regulator William Black, who certainly hasn’t stepped back from his disdain for the Obama administration’s financial regulatory team, has once again singled out Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for particular opprobrium in an interview with Newsweek.
Black, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is perhaps best known for his work during the savings and loan crisis of the 1990s. Black points out that investigations into the S&L crisis resulted in over 1,000 convictions, while the current financial crisis — which is much larger in scope — has yet to yield a single conviction. (We’re not counting Bernie Madoff or Marc Dreier)
Here’s Black:
“Some of the things Bernanke did were very bad, but he is in sharp contrast to Geithner who has been wrong about everything in his career. When Geithner was once answering a question in response to Ron Paul, he said, ‘I’ve never been a regulator.’ He was then the President of the New York Federal Reserve, and he purports that he was never a regulator? That is a demonstration of what is wrong with the Federal Reserve banks if the head of the unit doesn’t think he’s a regulator. He’s a disaster.”
Full Story: William Black: Geithner “A Disaster,” Has Been “Wrong About Everything In His Career”.
The Most Dangerous Foods (PHOTOS)
Leafy greens, such as spinach and lettuce, are the riskiest food in the United States, according to a study released Tuesday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
Three hundred and sixty-three outbreaks and 13,568 illnesses were attributed to leafy greens in the last 20 years. Eggs rank as the second riskiest food, with 352 outbreaks involving 11,163 reported cases of illness. Tuna, oysters, potatoes, cheese, ice cream, tomatoes, sprouts, and berries round out the top ten. the group’s study cites E. Coli, Salmonella, Norovirus and other potentially deadly pathogens as the top culprits of foodborne illnesses in the United States.
Various industries criticized the study’s findings due to their association with foods cited in the top ten list. In response to one of the study’s more surprising findings–that ice cream is in danger of transmitting Salmonella–the National Milk Producers Federation released a statement accusing the study of basing its findings on outdated information. “Cheese and ice cream products are among the safest, most stringently regulated foods in this country,” the federation wrote in a press release.
Full Story: The Most Dangerous Foods (PHOTOS).
Inhofe Falsely Claims Reconciliation Never Used For ‘A Major Tax Bill’
During an appearance on conservative talker Steve Malzberg’s radio show yesterday, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist continued his effort to walk back his claim that if he were still in the Senate, he “would end up voting” for President Obama’s health care reform.
Malzberg asked Frist whether Democrats would “ram this through using reconciliation.” After reiterating his belief that it would be “legal” for the legislation to be passed that way, Frist argued against using the process because it would further the divide in Congress. Frist acknowledged, however, that he had used it during the Bush years:
FRIST: Six years ago, six years ago — so what is this reconciliation? Well, you’ve used it, Frist, before…I’ve used reconciliation. … It’s budgetary stuff. And so I did use it for tax cuts and all. For substantive policy issues, it is never used. It is never used because it means basically we’re going to exclude half the American people.
Full Story: Think Progress » Inhofe Falsely Claims Reconciliation Never Used For ‘A Major Tax Bill’.
OPS: In some circles this used to be called LYING.
Fox’s Shep Smith Takes Down Fox News Talking Point On Public Option: ‘It’s Not A Government Takeover!’
“Why would we not want a public option?” Shep Smith asked Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), kicking off a tense and lively exchange this afternoon on Fox News. When Barrasso quickly launched into his Frank Luntz-inspired GOP talking points, calling it a “government take-over of health care,” Smith — who’s been known to go off the Fox News reservation from time to time — pushed back:
SMITH: It’s not a government take over, Senator! That’s not fair and we both know it. It’s not a government takeover because what it would be is a government option if you have insurance now and you like it you can keep it. … That’s not a government take over if we’re being fair is it Senator?
Barrasso struggled to muster a response. “Well compare it to Medicare, which we know right now is going bankrupt,” he said. Later, Smith engaged in fierce advocacy in favor of the public option:
Dem Rep: Treat Felonious Corporations At Least as Harshly as ACORN (Which Committed No Felonies)
The BRAD BLOG - Mind you, I’m unfamiliar with any actual felonies that ACORN has actually committed. But Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) is proposing that corporations found guilty of having committed a felony be ineligible for government contracts for 5 years and that corporate felons should be disallowed from making political donations for the same amount of time.
Sounds good to me. After all, both House of Congress idiotically voted overwhelmingly to deprive ACORN — again, a community organization that committed no crime, and that comprises, in fact, American heroes — from receiving federal funding (via a likely unconstitutional bill, btw). So shouldn’t a similar measure be taken to protect the American tax-payer from corporations that have actually been found guilty of things like fraud, murder, prostitution, etc? Corporations that receive more money from American tax-payers in a day than ACORN has in its lifetime? Corporations like Exxon-Mobil, Pfizer, Halliburton, Blackwater, Lockheed-Martin, and hundreds of others?
Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : Dem Rep: Treat Felonious Corporations At Least as Harshly as ACORN (Which Committed No Felonies).
North Korea says ready to return to nuclear talks
North Korea on Tuesday signaled it could return to nuclear disarmament talks it had declared dead six months ago, but a report it was near restoring its atomic plant underlined the secretive state would keep the stakes high.
Leader Kim Jong-il told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on a rare visit to Pyongyang that he first wanted talks with the United States. The North sees such talks as key to ending its status as a global pariah that it argues gives it no choice but to have a nuclear arsenal.
“The hostile relations between the DPRK (North Korea) and the United States should be converted into peaceful ties through the bilateral talks without fail,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted Kim as saying.
“We expressed our readiness to hold multilateral talks, depending on the outcome of the DPRK-U.S. talks. The six-party talks are also included in the multilateral talks.”
Full Story: North Korea says ready to return to nuclear talks – Yahoo! News.
The joint Post/Obama defense of the Patriot Act and FISA
– Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
The Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut today produces an extreme piece of government-serving, stenographic “journalism,” publishing a dubious administration press release masquerading as a lengthy news article on Obama’s approach to Terrorism and civil liberties. The Post depicts Obama as heavily and heroically engaged in disrupting the alleged Najibullah Zazi domestic terrorist plot and — repeatedly highlighting that success — claims “the White House has been charting a delicate course as it attempts to turn the page on Bush-era anti-terrorism policies,” whereby “the Obama administration is increasingly confident that it has struck a balance between protecting civil liberties, honoring international law and safeguarding the country.” Here are all of Kornblut’s cited sources for the article — every last one of them — in the order she cites them:
Obama aides pointed . . . administration officials said . . . a senior administration official said . . . officials said . . . a senior administration official said . . . senior Obama officials stressed . . . a senior administration official said . . . aides said . . . officials said . . . one senior administration official said. . . . one senior official said. . . . The official said . . . a senior administration official said . . . a senior administration official said . . . administration officials said . . . . a senior official said.
Not a single named person is cited, and there’s not a syllable of quoted dissent in any of it. Virtually every sentence in the long article does nothing but praise Obama and depict him as stalwartly safeguarding America’s civil liberties (unlike Bush did) even as he protects us from the dangerous Terrorists, so why is anonymity needed for that? It’s nothing more than what Robert Gibbs is eager to say every day. Nor is there a hint of who these officials are, what the basis is of their knowledge, or why The Post granted anonymity, all of which are flagrant violations of the Post’s own so-called “anonymity rules,” which its own Ombudsman — just six weeks ago — complained are “routinely ignored”:
Full Story: The joint Post/Obama defense of the Patriot Act and FISA – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
National Lawyers Guild and Other Human Rights Groups Issue Open Letter to Eric Holder
National Lawyers Guild
New York — Seventeen human rights and civil rights organizations and 45 prominent lawyers and civic leaders have sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder last week urging him to appoint a special independent prosecutor to investigate and prosecute Bush officials and lawyers involved in setting illegal interrogation policies.
Holder had expanded the mandate of Justice Department lawyer John Durham to include a preliminary investigation but limited Durham’s focus to a handful of interrogators who exceeded the limits set by the “torture memos.”
The groups and individuals stressed that the special prosecutor should come from outside the Department of Justice and not limit the investigation to low-level operatives, but “should investigate and prosecute all those who ordered, approved, justified, abetted or carried out the torture and abuse.”
The letter cites “political pressure” which has “led to [Holder's] office taking too narrow an approach to the investigation.”
Full Story: National Lawyers Guild and Other Human Rights Groups Issue Open Letter to Eric Holder | BuzzFlash.org.
The Oligarchy and the Titanic Syndrome
“The Titanic Syndrome,” the film by Nicolas Hulot and Jean-Albert Lièvre, which will be out on [French] screens October 7, will upset people. This environmental documentary shows almost no nature: Breaking with the postcard aesthetic customary in the genre, the film confronts the hard reality of poverty and injustice. It attempts, uneasily, to say that the vertiginous deterioration of the biosphere is the result of a social order become insane, one which makes the weak, the poor and the exploited bear its consequences.
The film repeats that the key to escaping this sort of destructive logic is in the reduction of rich countries’ material consumption. Let us bet that this discourse, harsher than that of “little gestures for the planet,” will garner a mixed reception. And should Nicolas Hulot begin to upset people?
The strength of his persona is to remain popular by going right to the tip of what French society – or more precisely, the media system that provides access to French society – agrees to hear at any given moment.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Oligarchy and the Titanic Syndrome.
Tell the White House: Fire Rove’s Prosecutors!
For eight long years, the Bush-Cheney Administration politicized the Department of Justice and pursued politically-motivated prosecutions all across the country.
It infused the Justice Department with Rove-anointed, Bush-appointed officials who put politics ahead of the law — including many of the 93 U.S. Attorneys — like Leura Canary, the wife of Karl Rove’s best friend and business partner who said he got Rove to get the DOJ to come after me.
When President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder took office, we expected real change. That means ending the Bush-Rove politically motivated prosecutions with no basis in fact and restoring the integrity of the Department of Justice.
Still, after seven months, only a handful of the hundreds of Bush-Rove DOJ appointees have been replaced. That’s unacceptable. It’s time to clean house of all the Bush-Rove appointees in the Justice Department, including all 93 U.S. Attorneys, and ensure justice for all.
Please email White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett below: Urge President Obama to do the right thing and Fire Rove’s Prosecutors!
Full Story: Support Governor Don Siegelman : Learn, Give, Act.
Meeting the Climate Challenge
Core Elements of an Effective Response to Climate Change
Download the full report (pdf)
Achievable gains in energy efficiency, renewable energy, forest conservation, and sustainable land use worldwide could achieve up to 75 percent of needed global emissions reductions in 2020 at a net savings of $14 billion. These actions, along with additional investments in climate adaptation, would deliver a wide range of economic, security, and environmental benefits in developed and developing countries. Greater international support for these core elements would make an immediate contribution to solving the climate problem and help to achieve a new international climate agreement.
Negotiations toward a new global agreement on climate change have entered a critical stage. Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change will gather in Copenhagen in December to seek agreement on a new international regime to take effect after the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends in 2012. Leaders at this summer’s G-8 Summit agreed that global average temperature should rise by no more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and that global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced 50 percent by 2050 to accomplish this goal.1 Nearly 100 world leaders joined the U.N. Secretary-General for a Summit on Climate Change in September to underscore the urgency of completing a new agreement. CEOs of private sector companies and nongovernmental organizations from around the world joined this call for action.
Full Story: Meeting the Climate Challenge.
MSNBCs Dylan Ratigan: Conservatives Don’t Care If Half the Country Dies in Order to Take Down Obama
MSNBCs Contessa Brewer complained, “Can you imagine this that some people actually went as far as to cheer?” This led Ratigan to froth, “Sure. I mean, there are people that are actually trying to derail health care in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies. So, of course, they don’t care about Chicagos Olympics. Are you kidding me?”
Full Story: YouTube – MSNBCs Dylan Ratigan: Conservatives Don’t Care If Half the Country Dies in Order to Take Down Obama.
Texas Lawmakers Who Voted Against The Recovery Act Now Beg For Stimulus Funds For NASA
Texas Lawmakers Who Voted Against The Recovery Act Now Beg For Stimulus Funds For NASA
Cornyn and Hutchison Every single Republican in the House voted against the $819 billion Recovery Act in January. Among the Republican senators who voted against the stimulus were Texas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. Both of them complained that they wanted to see more tax cuts rather than government spending.
But now, both Hutchison and Cornyn are pressuring the Obama administration to give Texas $3 billion in stimulus funds. The co-signers on the letter are a bipartisan group of the Texas delegation in the House, including 19 Republicans, all of whom also voted against the funds for which they’re now begging. The letter was drafted and circulated by GOP Rep. Pete Olson. From the letter:
Therefore, to ensure the U.S. maintains its leadership in human space exploration, we respectfully ask that you include in your promised amended budget request for NASA’s Exploration Systems a request to Congress to reallocate the necessary funds for NASA from the funds that we anticipate will remain available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). As of last month, less than 15 percent of ARRA funds had been expended.
Full Story: Think Progress » Texas Lawmakers Who Voted Against The Recovery Act Now Beg For Stimulus Funds For NASA.
Nobel Prize Winner Elizabeth Blackburn Was An Outspoken Opponent Of Bush’s Politicization Of Science
Yesterday, three American scientists — Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak — were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contributions to the study of cell biology in a way that positively impacts our understanding of cancer and aging.
One of the stories not being covered about the Nobel winners is that one of them, Australian-American researcher Elizabeth Blackburn, played a “brave role” in exposing the Bush administration’s anti-science policies, particularly with respect to blocking embryonic stem cell research.
Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack, Blackburn was appointed a member of the “President’s Council of Bioethics,” the body charged with “advising the President on ethical issues related to advances in biomedical science and technology.” “Like everyone during that time, I wanted to do something, anything,” she told the press.
Full Story: Think Progress » Nobel Prize Winner Elizabeth Blackburn Was An Outspoken Opponent Of Bush’s Politicization Of Science.
Australian Racing Fans Limited To “Only” 24 Beers A Day (PHOTOS)
Australian police are gearing up for an annual crackdown on motor-racing fans – limiting race-goers to 24 cans of beer a day.
The BBC reported that police at the Bathurst 1000, a 1,000km (621 mile) race with V8 engine cars, would restrict fans to drinking one “slab” (24 cans) of beer a day.
Wine drinkers, the BBC noted, were not exempt, and were only allowed four liters a day.
Below are some of the more alcohol soaked images of previous years at the Bathurst 1000.
Full Story: Australian Racing Fans Limited To “Only” 24 Beers A Day (PHOTOS).
19 more advertisers ditch Glenn Beck
Great news today in our campaign against Glenn Beck. We’re announcing that nineteen more of Beck’s advertisers have stopped supporting his show. That number includes two British companies who just announced that they’ve pulled their ads from the UK broadcast of Beck’s show after hearing from customers.
Two companies–Waitrose (the British supermarket chain) and Metropolitan Talent Management–pulled their ads not only from Beck’s show, but from Fox News in general.
Over 280,000 of us have now called on advertisers to stop supporting Beck’s show. We are keeping Beck isolated and making sure that he continues to be a financial liability for Fox. Eventually, Fox will have to explain why they are continuing to give Beck’s race-baiting and fear-mongering a platform even as it hurts their bottom line.
Full Story: James Rucker: 19 more advertisers ditch Glenn Beck.
NASA To Bomb The Moon (PHOTOS)
NASA is launching a dramatic mission to bomb the moon.
The LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite) mission will send a missile traveling at twice the speed of a bullet to blast a hole in the lunar surface near the moon’s South pole.
Scientists expect the impact of the Centaur rocket to be powerful enough to eject a huge plume of debris from the moon. The moon dust should even be large enough to be seen from earth through telescopes 10-to-12 inches and larger, says NASA.
So what’s our beef with the moon?
The bombing isn’t an act of hostility: it’s all part of our search for water in space.
Full Story: NASA To Bomb The Moon (PHOTOS).
The Real Misery Index: Unemployment Increases The Hardship
The rise in unemployment continues to prolong the hardship for millions of Americans, according to the latest update of the Huffington Post’s Real Misery Index.
The index rose to 32.2 in August 2009, after peaking at 29.2 in July, largely due to the increase in the U6 unemployment rate, which tracks part-time workers looking for full-time employment and those who’ve given up looking for work. The index would be even higher if it weren’t for a slight rebound in housing prices.
Rising unemployment — and the accompanying increase in the number of Americans who have been out of work for more than 6 months (5.4 million as of September) — threatens to diminish the chances of a speedy recovery.
Full Story: The Real Misery Index: Unemployment Increases The Hardship.
Bernie Sanders Applies “ACORN Standard” to Defense Contractors
Now that the U.S. House and Senate have established an “ACORN Standard” for policing federal expenditures — if even a few employees of an organization that feeds at the public trough stand accused of engaging in activities that appear to be inappropriate, then federal funding must be yanked – it would be nice to think that Congress has given itself permission to go after the seriously sleazy players who make it their business to rob American taxpayers.
We’re still in “wait-and-see” mode on that one.
But what should by now be clear to anyone who is interested in dealing with government waste is that cracking down on community organizers who try to help poor people find housing and register voters in historically-disenfranchised communities was a cheap distraction. No one with wealth or power was confronted. No policies were changed. No societal challenges were addressed.
Full Story: Bernie Sanders Applies “ACORN Standard” to Defense Contractors.
PETITION ESTABLISHING HEALTH CARE AS A CIVIL RIGHT
Whereas, Universal Health Care was proposed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1912; and
Whereas today, nearly 100 years later, 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are
underinsured bringing great social and economic harm to the American family; and
Whereas, HR 676, authored by Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich provides for Medicare for
All, a universal, single payer, not-for-profit health care system which means the end of premiums,
copays and deductibles; and
Whereas we are already paying for a universal standard of care but are not getting it because one of every three
dollars in the health care system goes to the activities of the for-profit insurance system; and
Whereas HR676 firmly establishes health care as a Civil Right, consistent with the Preamble to the
Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution which defines a
purpose of government “to promote the General Welfare,” now therefore,
….snip……
INSTRUCTIONS FOR CIRCULATORS OF HEALTH CARE FOR ALL PETITIONS
1. Please observe each person placing their signature on the petition.
2. Signatures must be in cursive handwriting and each person who signs the petition must also
print their name, their e‐mail address, the street address at which he/she resides, their City,
State, Zip.
3. The date of the signing must be provided, including the year.
4. The circulator, rather than the signer, may fill in all information other than the signature on the
petition.
5. When done circulating a petition, the circulator should fill in his/her name, e‐mail address
street address on the petition.
6. The petitions should be sent to:
Congressman Kucinich
Health Care for All
P.O. Box 110475
Cleveland, OH 44111.
If you have any questions, please e‐mail healthcareforall@kucinich.us
7. Petitions will be separated by Congressional District and delivered personally to your
Congressional Representative by Congressman Kucinich.
Please know that your effort now will impact the future health care of all Americans in years to come.
Thank You!
Dennis
health_care_for_all_petition.pdf (application/pdf Object).
SEIU’s Data Footprint In 2008 – Why SEIU is a target of the Right
Part two in a three-part series of posts: The 2008 Data Wars, Re-examined. Yesterday: Data suggests that Democratic microtargeting efforts were successful. Late yesterday: Catalist’s after action report, posted in full. Today: what the SEIU learned from its data-crunching.
– The Atlantic - For several cycles now, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been among the most active progressive groups in the liberal firmament, spending in excess of $80 million to influence the 2008 election alone. According to an analysis of their efforts, the SEIU was in regular contact with more than 4.5 million voters in ten battleground states, including more than 1.2 million in Virginia alone.
For the first time, thanks to the data crunched by Catalist and the Analyst Institute, we can now figure out what, besides money, distinguishes SEIU’s efforts from others.
Primarily, the data shows that 64% of all SEIU voter contact work was focused on live telephone calls to prospective voters and 24% on neighborhood canvasses. Both percentages are much higher than the average for all progressive groups, which tended to use less personal forms of contact, like automatic “robocalls” and direct mail pieces. But SEIU, able to pay for hundreds of its members to work full-time, largely eschewed mail and robocalls.
Full Story: SEIU’s Data Footprint In 2008 – The Atlantic Politics Channel.
Howard Dean: Why Books Are Still Central to Our Political Culture
The re-emergence of Sarah Palin as a successful author should come as no surprise to anyone who recognizes the salience of books in public life. Her decision to write a book and her pre-pub sales demonstrate once more how books confer status in American political culture.
Palin’s supporters (and those who may be purchasing her book, Going Rogue, in bulk) may or may not realize that by vaulting her to the top of the bestseller lists, they will validate her both personally and ideologically. Like many other books across the political spectrum, her book represents the latest episode in publishing as political and ideological warfare.
Full Story: Howard Dean: Why Books Are Still Central to Our Political Culture.
The bear market rally will soon be over
There is only one place to be and that is in gold and silver related assets.
by Bob Chapman
The bear market rally will soon be over. It rallied 1,300 Dow points that it should have. All the back up data as to why this is in process was included in the last issue. The rally induced many investors to stay long and they did recoup as much as 80% of their losses in some instances. Now it is time to exit and move into gold and silver shares. Probably the biggest key is that gold recently spent two weeks above $1,000 and we believe gold is prepared for a breakout that will take its price anywhere from $1,200 to $1,700 an ounce. Gold’s long-term reverse head and shoulders pattern, one of the most powerful patterns in charting is in a breakout mode.
Yields on some short-term bills are so low we do not understand why anyone would buy them. Could Weimarization be just around the corner? The reality of investment today is that there is only one place to be and that is in gold and silver related assets.
We have abnormally high bond and stock markets that are headed toward serious trouble. In addition, Americans are looking at weaker residential and commercial real estate prices, higher taxes and inflation, more quantitative easing and government crowding out commercial borrowers, due to the Treasury’s constantly growing thirst for cash to keep the economy and the government from collapsing. They will also be an endless demand for cash to bail out banks, Wall Street, insurance companies and the chosen among American corporations. What else would you expect with a government that is growing four times faster than the economy? Over the next three and a half years the size of government will double. There will be millions more parasites to feed off the carcass of government. Throw in buckets of corruption and you have a failed government and a failed system.
Full Story: The bear market rally will soon be over.
Obama Efforts to Placate Right Wing Backfire
What President Obama has gotten for his troubles “to placate the right wing” is “bailed out banks that wouldn’t lend, huge bonuses paid to Wall Streeters, tens, scores or more thousands of people losing their homes, an ever bigger, ever more disastrous war, and solid, rocklike Republican opposition on health care,” essayist Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, writes.
“It is possible that the brilliant fellow who is President cannot grasp that there are people in this world with whom one cannot ‘make nice’ because they will screw you ever time, so you are better off hammering them and pleasing those who are on your side and will assist you instead of fruitlessly trying to placate and/or obtain the help of those who will never help you?” Velvel asks.
“With regard to multi billion dollar bailouts of guilty banks, failure to assist innocent people who were bamboozled into subprime mortgages by Wall Street, increasing the size of the war in Afghanistan instead of withdrawing from that Godforsaken war, prosecution for torture, health care, and who knows how many other disasters, Obama has tried to make nice to the right wing in hopes that the right wingers will help him. No soap, Barack,” Velvel writes.
Full Story: Obama Efforts to Placate Right Wing Backfire.
Restoring a Viable System of Bank Credit
Bernanke Rolls Snake-eyes
by Mike Whitney
Fed chief Ben Bernanke is in a bit of a bind. He’s being asked to restore a system for credit expansion which collapsed more than two years ago and has shown no sign of life ever since. During the boom years, securitization accounted for more than 40 percent of the credit flowing into the economy. No more. When two Bear Stearns hedge funds defaulted in July 2007, the system crashed as investors of all stripes backed away from complex, illiquid assets. The Fed’s TALF lending facility–which provides up to 94% government funding for investors who are willing to purchase bundled debt for credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and student loans–was intended to breathe new life into securitization, but has fallen woefully short of its original objectives. It pretty much fizzled on the launching pad. Even the shrewdest hedge fund sharpie couldn’t figure out how to make money on (what amounts to) fetid assets.
Ironically, the Fed’s original plan for the TALF would have involved a $20 billion loan from the Treasury levered 10 to 1 to provide up to $200 billion in funding support for applicants. In other words, the Fed was planning to borrow money, to lend to people (Investment banks and hedge funds) who were borrowing money to lend to people who were borrowing money. (consumer credit cards, mortgages, car loans etc) Read that sentence again to fully appreciate how utterly fouled up the credit system really is. The Fed and Treasury are like private equity hucksters overseeing an inherently corrupt and immoral system. Michael Moore is right.
Fortunately, Bernanke’s plan to rebuild securitization has no chance of succeeding. The system can’t be restored because it required conditions which no longer exist; a strong currency, mega-surplus capital, and credulous investors who were unaware of the implicit risks of illiquid assets. Today, the dollar is wobbly, money is tight, and the pool of dupes ready to be fleeced has been greatly reduced. The notion that Wall Street can better perform the tasks traditionally left to highly-regulated banks, has also been called into question….and rightly so. Unfortunately, the largest banks in the country–which have transformed themselves into investment casinos–don’t have the ability to return to the more conservative model of long-term lending to qualified applicants. They are stuck in a post-Glass Steagall mold, incapable of turning a profit on conventional loans to consumers and businesses. There’s a glaring need for some opportunistic entrepreneur (Warren Buffet?) to step into the breach and create a bank where depositors feel comfortable leaving their life savings knowing their bank is at least a notch-or-two above a Monte Carlo roulette table.
Full Story: Restoring a Viable System of Bank Credit.
3 More Americans Win Nobels
Trio made breakthroughs in fiber optics and invented technology critical to digital cameras
Three American scientists have won Nobel Prizes in physics for breakthroughs that helped connect the world through fiber optic networks and for creating the technology that makes digital photography possible, The Associated Press reported.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prestigious honor, which includes a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) prize, to Charles K. Kao for his work on light transmission in fiber optics. Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith also got the nod for inventing an imaging semiconductor circuit known as the CCD sensor that is used in digital cameras, according to the AP.
All are American citizens. Kao was born in Shanghai and also holds British citizenship, while Boyle has dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship.
On Monday, three Americans won Nobels in medicine.
Full Story: 3 More Americans Win Nobels | NBC Bay Area.
D.C. Council to Introduce Bill Allowing Same-Sex Marriage
Measure Is Expected to Pass Congress, but Its Viability May Depend on Tilt of Future Chambers
Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill said it appears unlikely that Congress will block a bill to be introduced Tuesday that would allow same-sex marriages in the District.
D.C. Council leaders have vowed to expedite the bill and said they hope to put it to a final vote before Christmas. But even if same-sex couples start marrying next year, the long-term survival of the practice would be in doubt for years, depending on the makeup of the House and Senate, congressional officials said.
“I hate to say this, but I think this is going to be rough sledding,” said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.). “I don’t think [conservatives] are going to give us a pass. . . . I don’t think we can always escape this issue coming to the floor.”
Full Story: D.C. Council to Introduce Bill Allowing Same-Sex Marriage – washingtonpost.com.
Pro-Single Payer Doctors Protest at the White House
On Monday, Oct. 5, 2009, physicians supporting a Single Payer Healthcare system protested outside the White House. Meanwhile, at the Rose Garden, located on the White House grounds, President Barack Obama was hosting a meeting with an estimated 50 doctors. They are supposedly advocates for his “Pubic Option” healthcare reform bill. Only one Single Payer doctor was invited to the Rose Garden session. Sharing their views on this video about this evolving situation are: Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Andy Coates and Dr. Mike Huntington. For background on this matter, check out:
Full Story: YouTube – Pro-Single Payer Doctors Protest at the White House.
Max Keiser: Dollar to be buried way before 2018
World’s major powers including China and Russia don’t want to ‘finance’ American military adventures anymore. That’s the view of Max Keiser, finance critic and former stockbroker. He says China and Russia are interested in collapsing the US economy by rejecting the dollar.
Full Story: YouTube – Max Keiser: Dollar to be buried way before 2018.
John Ensign – Worried
Health Care for America Now (HCAN) the nations largest health care campaign launched a new television ad in Nevada today aimed at Republican Senator John Ensign. Senator Ensign is a member of the Senate Finance Committee which is voting on health care reform legislation this week. The Senator has already voted down two amendments that would give everyone the choice of a strong national public health insurance option proof he is siding with the private health insurance industry instead of the people of Nevada.
Full Story: YouTube – John Ensign – Worried.
Lobbyists Stew After Being Bounced From Boards
CQ Politics |A tide of anger and dismay is rippling down K Street as the Obama administration implements a new policy limiting the roles of lobbyists on federal advisory committees.
The policy change, described by the White House as the next step in President Barack Obama ’s drive to limit influence-peddling in Washington, could affect hundreds of lobbyists who serve on the panels, which were created by Congress in the 1970s to provide private-sector advice to the government.
By removing a key point of access to the administration, many lobbyists will be less useful to their clients, who will be forced to appoint others to take up the slack. And the information about federal government intentions gleaned from committee meetings will now be unavailable to many lobbyists as they strategize on how to work various issues.
Full Story: CQ Politics | Lobbyists Stew After Being Bounced From Boards.
Italy’s top court weighs Berlusconi’s immunity
Ruling to determine whether law breaches constitution
FT.com / Italy’s constitutional court on Tuesday morning opened deliberations to decide whether Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, should continue to enjoy immunity from prosecution under a law passed last year by parliament.
The court – which could come to a decision within the day, or defer its ruling until next week – is to to determine whether the act breaches an article of the constitution making all citizens equal before the law.
Full Story: FT.com / Europe – Italy’s top court weighs Berlusconi’s immunity.
Commodity prices fuel Wall Street rally
Mining and energy companies gain momentum
FT.com / US stocks climbed higher on Tuesday after rising commodity prices and deal activity added to optimism from the previous session’s rally.
Global markets also rose after Australia became the first G20 nation to raise interest rates since the onset of the financial crisis, raising hopes of economic recovery.
Full Story: FT.com / Markets / US – Commodity prices fuel Wall Street rally.
Gold price reaches record high
Gold reached a record $1,043.45, racing past its previous peak of $1,030.80 set last March when Bear Stearns, the US investment bank ran into trouble.
The catalyst was a report in The Independent newspaper in London that Gulf Arab states, along with China, Russia, Japan and France, had held secret meetings to consider using a basket of currencies to trade oil instead of the US dollar.
Full Story: FT.com / Commodities – Gold price reaches record high.
With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an Onslaught of Wastewater
Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S. Steel and Allegheny Energy used to power their plants contained so much salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery [1]. Nearby residents saw something odd, too. Dishwashers were malfunctioning, and plates were coming out with spots that couldn’t easily be rinsed off.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection soon identified the likely cause [2] and came up with a quick fix. The Monongahela, a drinking water source for 350,000 people, had apparently been contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state’s growing natural gas industry. So the DEP reduced the amount of drilling wastewater that was being discharged into the river and unlocked dams upstream to dilute the contamination.
But questions raised by the incident on the Monongahela haven’t gone away.
Full Story: With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an Onslaught of Wastewater – ProPublica.
Obama Puts Government On Greenhouse-Gas Diet
President Barack Obama is putting the federal government on a greenhouse-gas diet.
In an executive order signed Monday, Obama directed all agencies to set the first-ever targets for reducing climate-altering pollution from government buildings, fleets and federal workers’ commutes.
The agencies will have 90 days to tell the White House how much they plan to measure and reduce greenhouse gases from buildings and vehicles by 2020. Targets for employees’ commutes and travel will be due June 2010.
Full Story: Obama Puts Government On Greenhouse-Gas Diet.
Health Insurance Companies Want Severe Penalties For People Who Do Not Buy Coverage
The health insurance industry doesn’t want Congress to let you off easy if you decide to ignore a proposed requirement that all Americans must have coverage.
Determined to get as many people as possible covered, lawmakers first proposed fines of as much as $3,800 per family for health insurance scofflaws. But they have been steadily scaling back the penalties, with the Senate Finance Committee last week dropping them to $1,500 maximum per family in their version of a health care bill. The committee also phased the penalties in over five years with no fines at all in the first year and eliminated all criminal and most civil punishments for failure to pay.
The industry — counting on millions of more Americans buying insurance — says the penalties are now so weak they practically beg to be ignored. The result, the companies warn, is that people would wait until they get sick to buy coverage. That would raise premiums for everyone else, since Congress’ health care overhaul would also require insurers to take all applicants.
Full Story: Health Insurance Companies Want Severe Penalties For People Who Do Not Buy Coverage.
Shroud Of Turin Reproduced; Italian Group Says Relic Is Man-Made, Fake
Scientists have reproduced the Shroud of Turin — revered as the cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb — and say the experiment proves the relic was man-made, a group of Italian debunkers claimed Monday.
See the original Shroud of Turin compared to the one created by scientists.
The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping out of nailed hands and feet, and believers say Christ’s image was recorded on the linen fibers at the time of his resurrection.
Scientists have reproduced the shroud using materials and methods that were available in the 14th century, the Italian Committee for Checking Claims on the Paranormal said.
Full Story: Shroud Of Turin Reproduced; Italian Group Says Relic Is Man-Made, Fake.
Defense Secretary Wants War Advice to Obama Kept Private
Admonition Follows Comments on War By U.S. Commander
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates cautioned military and civilian leaders Monday against publicly airing their advice to President Obama on Afghanistan, just days after the top U.S. general in that country criticized proposals being advocated by some in the White House.
“In this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations — civilians and military alike — provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately,” Gates said in a speech at the annual meeting of the Association of the U.S. Army.
The Army’s top general immediately echoed Gates’s remarks, which seemed designed to rein in dissent within the ranks.
Full Story: Defense Secretary Wants War Advice to Obama Kept Private – washingtonpost.com.
Chicago Sun-Times Sale Deadline Passes Without New Buyers
No one else stepped forward with a bid for the bankrupt Chicago Sun-Times before a Monday evening deadline, leaving just one offer for the storied newspaper that’s rapidly running out of the cash it needs to stay in business.
The standing offer for the parent company, the Sun-Times Media Group Inc., is from hometown investor Jim Tyree, who has insisted that workers agree to concessions before he’ll seal the deal that could be the paper’s last chance of survival.
Tyree has said he will walk away if all of the more than dozen unions at the newspaper do not accept concessions, including locking in 15 percent pay cuts that were meant to be temporary.
In a brief memo Monday evening, Sun-Times Media Group Chairman Jeremy Halbreich informed company employees that no other potential buyers came forward. He said he hopes a Delaware bankruptcy court can now approve a sale to Tyree on Thursday.
Full Story: Chicago Sun-Times Sale Deadline Passes Without New Buyers.
NYR: Who’s In Big Brother’s Database?
The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency
On a remote edge of Utah’s dry and arid high desert, where temperatures often zoom past 100 degrees, hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances are preparing to build what may become America’s equivalent of Jorge Luis Borges’s “Library of Babel,” a place where the collection of information is both infinite and at the same time monstrous, where the entire world’s knowledge is stored, but not a single word is understood. At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the US Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined.
Unlike Borges’s “labyrinth of letters,” this library expects few visitors. It’s being built by the ultra-secret National Security Agency — which is primarily responsible for “signals intelligence,” the collection and analysis of various forms of communication — to house trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: Web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital “pocket litter.” Lacking adequate space and power at its city-sized Fort Meade, Maryland, headquarters, the NSA is also completing work on another data archive, this one in San Antonio, Texas, which will be nearly the size of the Alamodome.
Full Story: NYR: Who’s In Big Brother’s Database?.
CNN Fact Checks SNL Sketch Detailing Obama’s Failures (VIDEO)
Saturday Night Live hit President Obama last weekend with a tough sketch portraying him as a president who has yet to accomplish any major initiatives. CNN had one of their reporters fact check the sketch, interviewing Bill Adair, the editor of Politifact.com, a non-partisan fact checking website that rates the statements of elected officials.
Adair found that SNL missed the mark on a few of the failed initiatives on their checklist, including Afghanistan and health care. He did, however, say SNL was correct in their judgment of failure on closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Adair concludes that this sketch won’t have anywhere near the power to shape public opinion as the one in which Tina Fey skewered would-be vice president Sarah Palin.
WATCH:
Full Story: CNN Fact Checks SNL Sketch Detailing Obama’s Failures (VIDEO).
‘Mad Docs’ crash White House party
President Barack Obama assembled more than 100 doctors outside the White House on Monday morning to enlist the medical profession’s backing for his proposed health care reforms.
But at least one attending physician was there to express a dissenting opinion.
Dr. Paul Hochfeld crashed the Rose Garden party in hopes of bending the president’s ear. The Corvallis emergency room physician has spent most of the past month on a national tour with an Oregon group called the Mad As Hell Doctors to promote single-payer medical coverage.
If he thought he might win a personal audience with the president, he was disappointed.
“It wasn’t really a meeting,” Hochfeld said in a phone interview afterward. “It was a photo op for the president to show he had the support of all those physicians.”
Full Story: ‘Mad Docs’ crash White House party.
As Job Loss Rises, Obama Aides Act to Fix Safety Net
With unemployment expected to rise well into next year even as the economy slowly recovers, the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Congress are discussing extending several safety net programs as well as proposing new tax incentives for businesses to renew hiring.
President Obama’s economic team discussed a wide range of ideas at a meeting on Monday, following his Saturday radio address in which he said it would “explore additional options to promote job creation.” But officials emphasized that a decision was still far off and that in any event the effort would not add up to a second economic stimulus package, only an extension of the first.
“We’re thinking through all additional potential strategies for accelerating job creation,” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod.
The latest deliberations, and Mr. Obama’s added phrase in Saturday’s radio address, occurred against a backdrop of worsening joblessness. While some economists and policy makers say the recession is easing, a report on Friday showed unemployment in September inched up to 9.8 percent, a 26-year high.
Full Story: As Job Loss Rises, Obama Aides Act to Fix Safety Net – NYTimes.com.
Israeli, US army chiefs hold secret talks on Iran
Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and his American counterpart Admiral Mike Mullen have held secret talks in France with a special focus on Iran.
The two officials, who met in the northern French region of Normandy on Sunday, also discussed the Middle East, reports say.
Ashkenazi also discussed the developments in Iran with French Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Jean-Louis Georgelin.
The meeting comes ahead of the US and Israel’s largest military drill, which is scheduled for later this month. The maneuver is planned to simulate missile strikes on Israel.
Full Story: Israeli, US army chiefs hold secret talks on Iran.
Oil states say no talks on replacing dollar
Reuters – Big oil producing nations denied a British newspaper report on Tuesday that Gulf Arab states were in secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the U.S. dollar with a basket of currencies in trading oil.
The dollar eased in response to the report, which was written by The Independent’s Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk and cited unidentified sources in Gulf Arab states and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong.
It said the proposal was for trade in crude oil to move over nine years to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Full Story: Oil states say no talks on replacing dollar | Reuters.
OPS: ….I have this bridge you might be interested in…..
Exclusive: FBI drags feet on releasing 1,000 pages on late Sen. Helms
The Federal Bureau of Investigation may have more than 1,000 pages in its files on the late Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, but federal officials haven’t released a single document more than a year after a San Francisco blogger filed Freedom of Information Act requests.
San Francisco-based blogger and gay rights activist Michael Petrelis sent the FBI a Freedom of Information Act request for information on Helms shortly after the senator’s July 4th, 2008 death. The FBI restricts third-party access to information about individuals while they are still alive, but makes it possible for people to request copies of someone else’s FBI files after they have passed away.
The FBI’s records management division staff sent Petrelis a letter in October 2008, informing him they’d located 1,082 pages that may mention Helms, but that it could cost Petrelis $98.20 to get copies of all the documents. The first 100 pages of FBI records requests are provided for free, but people are charged for copies beyond 100 pages. Petrelis agreed to pay the fee, but nearly a year later has yet to receive a document.
Full Story: Exclusive: FBI drags feet on releasing 1,000 pages on late Sen. Helms | Raw Story.
Bachmann says Pelosi will beat Democrats to death to pass health reform | Raw Story
Conservative Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is at it again.
In a Fox News radio interview Monday, when asked whether the House Democratic leadership would give members of their party “Christmas tree ornaments” in an effort to effectively bribe members to vote for healthcare reform, Bachmann said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) could resort to violence.
“She’ll either beat them to death, bludgeon them do death…or she’ll try to buy them off,” Bachmann quipped.
Audio of the exchange appears below.
Full Story: Congresswoman says Pelosi will beat Democrats to death to pass health reform | Raw Story.
‘Red flags’ cause Mt. officials to nix ‘American Police Force’ deal
Montana jail plan on hold after revelations about lead figure’s past
Plans for a California company to take over this city’s empty jail were put on hold Monday, following last week’s revelations that the company’s lead figure has a criminal history.
The decision came as Hardin’s leaders announced the resignation of both the attorney and the economic development official who helped craft the jail deal for the city. Also Monday, a security industry veteran whose name was linked to the project denied involvement.
Officials in Hardin, a small city of 4,500 just outside the Crow Indian Reservation, had tried in vain for two years to fill the 464-bed jail.
Last month, deliverance finally appeared at hand when the city struck an agreement with Mike Hilton and his newly minted Santa Ana, Calif.-company, American Police Force.
Full Story: The Raw Story » ‘Red flags’ cause Mt. officials to nix ‘American Police Force’ deal.
In just one hour, Sotomayor asked more questions than Thomas has in years.
In just one hour, Sotomayor asked more questions than Thomas has in years.
Clarence Thomas Yesterday was Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s first day on the bench, where she took an active role in oral arguments. Sotomayor “displayed no reticence on the first day of her first term on the court; in the two cases on the docket, she asked as many questions and made as many comments as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.,” reported the Washington Post. “The only sign of her newness was that she at times forgot to turn on her microphone before posing a question.” McClatchy also observed that in just an hour, she actually asked “more questions than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years.” Thomas has gone three years straight without posing a question during oral arguments.
Full Story: Think Progress » In just one hour, Sotomayor asked more questions than Thomas has in years..
Bailout Inspector: U.S. Lost Credibility
The federal government misled the American people and undermined support for the TARP when it handed out billions to the nation’s nine largest banks under false pretenses.
The federal government misled the American people and undermined support for the Troubled Assets Relief Program when it handed out billions to the nation’s nine largest banks under false pretenses, according to a new report issued Monday.
Neil M. Barofsky, the special inspector general for the government’s $700 billion bailout program, found that the Treasury department wrongly told the American people that the first round of money was going to healthy banking institutions.
On Oct. 14 of last year, announcing that the nation’s nine largest banks would be receiving $125 billion in taxpayer funds to stabilize the financial markets and spur lending, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that the institutions receiving the money were in good shape financially.
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson on Oct. 14 said, “These are healthy institutions, and they have taken this step for the good of the U.S. economy. As these healthy institutions increase their capital base, they will be able to increase their funding to U.S. consumers and businesses.”
The report, however, found otherwise. Citigroup and Bank of America, two recipients of the first round of bailout money, later required a second infusion of cash to save them.
“Senior government officials had affirmative concerns at the time the nine institutions were selected about the health of at least some of those institutions,” the report said. “The Federal Reserve had concerns over the financial condition of several of these institutions individually and for all of them collectively absent some governmental action. And former Secretary Paulson noted concerns about the outright failure of one of the institutions.”
The report goes on to conclude that misleading statements by government officials could seriously undermine support and the credibility of the federal government’s economic recovery effort.
“Statements that are less than careful or forthright – like those made in this case – may ultimately undermine the public’s understanding and support,” the report said. “This loss of public support could damage the government’s credibility and have long-term unintended consequences that actually hamper the government’s ability to respond to crises.”
Treasury officials, however, disagree with Barofsky’s assesement, arguing that it was the action of the Treasury Department that prevented the financial system from melting down completely.
“We believe the most important lesson from this history is that quick, forceful action prevented a catastrophic meltdown of the system,” Assistant Treasury Secretary Herbert Allison Jr., who now heads the bailout program for the government, said in a statement.
The report concluded by warning that misleading statements not only have the ability to undermine the American public’s support in government programs such as TARP, but the entire government as a whole.
“Ultimately, the lesson is straightforward: accuracy and transparency will enhance the credibility of Government programs like TARP and restore taxpayer confidence in the policy makers who manage them,” the report said. “Inaccurate statements, on the other hand, could have unintended long-term consequences that could damage the trust that the American people have in their government.”
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Will Obama Have Veto Courage?
Joel S. Hirschhorn
Odds are pretty good that after some tortuous meetings and awful compromises by House and Senate bigwigs whatever health reform law is passed by Congress will not be close to what most thoughtful people want. Especially not what progressives and liberals wanted from a Democrat controlled Congress. Will President Obama act with integrity?
Whatever goes to President Obama for his signature will probably do very little to curb the countless excesses by the health insurance industry and, therefore, do next to nothing to curb personal and national health spending. It will almost certainly impose some new taxes that ultimately will impact a large fraction of the population, possibly by taxing health insurance benefits or through higher insurance premiums and/or copayments and deductibles, or even worse coverage. Even if there is some type of government option, which does not now seem likely, it would likely be constructed so cleverly that few would take advantage of it.
This and more deceptive actions will result because of the huge amount of money spent by the health insurance industry and its allies on both lobbying and countless ways of funneling money to members of Congress.
This much is now obvious. Even many Democrats, especially in the Senate, have been thoroughly corrupted by health industry money. Brain dead and callous Republicans, of course, have behaved as badly as they possibly could to protect their industry friends.
So it comes down to this: Considering his lackluster behavior during the reform debate, if the long awaited but disastrous health reform law reaches the White House will President Obama have the courage to veto it? Will his thirst for health care reform and unbounded desire for accomplishing what others have failed to do overwhelm the inescapable truth that next to meaningless reform is worse than no reform? Will he be brave enough to tell not just the millions that supported him to begin with but the whole population that Congress failed to do what justice demanded? Will he have the moral determination to tell the truth that corruption of Congress by industry wrecked the democratic process and failed to give Americans what they sorely need?
At this point I am betting that Obama will not have the courage to do any of this. No, I think Obama will behave like all the other lying politicians and claim victory and find all kinds of ways to eloquently describe how the stinking congressional action moves the nation in the right direction. He will look right into the camera and tell his fellow Americans that he has not given up the fight for all necessary health care reforms, but right now this is the best and most that can be done.
If my prediction is correct, then I can only hope that many, many Americans will see the ugly, disappointing truth and become committed to not reelect Obama to a second term, especially progressives and liberals and especially those that know in their hearts that real health care reform would have produced a single payer government insurance plan open to all Americans, like Medicare for everyone.
There should be a limit to what compromises are embraced when it comes to something as deeply personal and critical as health care. Health care reform really should be seen as the ultimate test for President Obama and whether he gives us the change we have been waiting for and what millions believed he would deliver. If genuine health care reform is not produced by Congress, then it should become crystal clear to even the most distracted, devoted and dumb Americans that our democracy is definitely delusional. That’s what President Obama should think about. A corporate-owned democracy is no democracy at all.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Stocks Set to Rebound
The pre-market report on Wall Street predicts markets to bounce back from their losses Friday and finish in the black to start the week.
The pre-market report on Wall Street predicts markets to bounce back from their losses Friday and finish in the black to start the week. CNNMoney.com predicts that strong futures movement will push investment. Global investment exchanges suffered along with the U.S. last week, but they recovered a bit throughout the day today.
However, after a rough end to last week all investors are considerably further behind now than they were just a few days ago. The NASDAQ and S&P were the biggest losers on Friday, dropping 0.46 and 0.45 percent respectively, and the Dow lost 0.23 percent on its own. This came after huge losses on Wednesday and Thursday.
According to economist and professor Nouriel Roubini, the financial rebound was too soon, too much, and too fast to be sustainable. In an interview in Istanbul, reported by Bloomberg News Professor Roubini discussed the artificially inflated market and the possibility of a seismic correction of the markets. He does not expect share values to plummet as they did a year ago, but he does expect stocks to drop as the long-term recovery proves to be more difficult.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Examining the Trade Deficit
A nation with a large trade deficit is not that different from a person spending above his means.
The trade deficit represents the cost of living beyond our means. A nation with a large trade deficit is not that different from a person spending above his means. If you have had a successful career but suddenly lose your job, you still have a lot of credit available to you on your credit cards. Thus you can continue to enjoy a fine lifestyle for some time after your income stops. But if you do not find a new job in the end you will hit your credit limit and life will then change dramatically. This is not the equivalent of an individual having a perennial “trade deficit” with their local grocer while maintaining a surplus with their other employment and income accounts. The true analog would be as noted – an unemployed individual continuing to spend freely sustained temporarily with nothing but credit based on past worth.
Just as a person cannot continue running up credit forever, no nation can either. The key difference between a nation and a person is that a nation can print money and thus can delay the day of reckoning. Eventually, however, other countries will tire of accepting mere pieces of paper in exchange for their goods.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
How to Create 7 Million New Jobs
The toughest economic problem that the Obama administration faces is figuring out how to create enough new jobs for America’s 27 million unemployed workers.
The toughest economic problem that the Obama administration faces is figuring out how to create enough new jobs for America’s 27 million unemployed workers.
A jump-start to solving this problem would be to make a massive national investment in the repair, rehabilitation and expansion of America’s public infrastructure – the facilities that provide safety, fire protection, communications, transportation, water and sewage treatment and other basic services in all American communities.
Because the U.S. has significantly under-invested in such domestic civil works for 30 years, most of the facilities are wearing out faster than they are being repaired or replaced. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the U.S. now has a backlog of more than $2.2 trillion in infrastructure investment that it needs to make between 2009 and 2013 just to maintain present levels of service, let alone provide for the future requirements of a growing nation.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Student Sex Column Movement
The 1996 launch of “Sex on Tuesday” at the University of California, Berkeley–birthplace of the 1960s national student activist movement–triggered the campus newspaper sex column phenomenon.
Within a few years, the sex column had spread to campuses across the country, becoming the “most publicized, electrifying, and divisive phenomena in student journalism,” in the words of Dan Reimold, leading expert on the student newspaper sex column.
Reimold estimates that “during any given semester more than 200 sex and dating columns are being published in U.S. student newspapers, magazines, and online outlets…. What’s most important here is perspective. In the mid-nineties, the number of student sex columns: zero.” In addition to increasing student readership, the proliferation of student sex columns has drawn national attention, like a 2002 New York Times profile of student journalism’s most famous sex columnist, Yale’s Natalie Krinsky, whose most popular “Sex and the (Elm) City” articles drew hundreds of thousands of hits.
Full Story: The Student Sex Column Movement.
Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties
Brave New Films
When foreign policy is well-reasoned, we see attention given to humanitarian issues like housing, jobs, health care and education. When that policy consists of applying a military solution to a political problem, however, we see death, destruction, and suffering. Director Robert Greenwald witnessed the latter during his recent trip to Afghanistan–the devastating consequences of U.S. airstrikes on thousands of innocent civilians.
The footage you are about to see is poignant, heart-wrenching, and often a direct result of U.S. foreign policy.
We must help the refugees whose lives have been shattered by U.S. foreign policy and military attacks. Support the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an organization dedicated to helping women and children, human rights issues, and social justice. Then, become a Peacemaker. Receive up-to-the-minute information through our new mobile alert system whenever there are Afghan civilian casualties from this war, and take immediate action by calling Congress.
Full Story: YouTube – Rethink Afghanistan (Part 4): Civilian Casualties.
What Recession? As the Economy Crashed Around Them, 400 Richest Americans Lined Their Pockets with $30 Billion
Their combined wealth is more than enough to insure the uninsured for the next twenty years or more.
It’s great to know that during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes, actually increased by $30 billion. Well golly, that’s only a 2 percent increase, much less than the double digit returns the wealthy had grown accustomed to. But a 2 percent increase is a whole lot more than losing 40 percent of your 401k. And $30 billion is enough to provide 500,000 school teacher jobs at $60k per year.
Collectively, those 400 have $1.57 trillion in wealth. It’s hard to get your mind around a number like that. The way I do it is to imagine that we were still living during the great radical Eisenhower era of the 1950s when marginal income tax rates hit 91 percent. Taxes were high back in the 1950s because people understood that constraining wild extremes of wealth would make our country stronger and prevent another depression. (Well, what did those old fogies know?)
Had we kept those high progressive taxes in place, instead of removing them, especially during the Reagan era, the Forbes 400 might each be worth “only” $100 million instead of $3.9 billion each. So let’s imagine that the rest of their wealth, about $1.53 trillion, were available for the public good.
What does $1.53 trillion buy?
Supreme Court — A Term Fraught With Peril
Conservative Majority in Supreme Court Threatens Our Politics and Most Basic Freedoms. The conservative majority has immediately begun stripping women’s reproductive freedom, entrenching public school segregation, and undermining equal work pay.
Today (Oct 5) marks the beginning of a new Supreme Court term, a session that will marked by high-profile cases that the Court’s conservative majority could use to reshape the law. In its first full term together, the Roberts Court’s conservative bloc immediately began cutting back on women’s reproductive freedom, entrenching public school segregation, and undermining equal pay in the workforce, among other things, prompting retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to comment that she fears that some of her decisions “are being dismantled” by the current, more conservative-leaning court. “If you think you’ve been helpful, and then it’s dismantled, you think, ‘Oh, dear,’” she said. “But life goes on. It’s not always positive.” Yet while the conservative justices are perfectly willing to thumb their noses at precedent, they occasionally restrain themselves from politically-charged rulings likely to inspire a congressional backlash. Last term, for example, the Court pleasantly surprised the civil rights community by resisting the temptation to eviscerate two landmark prohibitions on race discrimination. This term, the Court has already agreed to hear more potentially-earthshaking cases than it has in years; the only question is how aggressive the Court will be in pushing its right-wing agenda.
PLAYING TO THE BASE: No one was more excited about President Bush’s appointees to the Supreme Court than the right-wing “Justice Sunday” crowd, which crowed that by confirming Bush’s judges, conservatives could “bring the rule and reign of the Cross to America and we can change America on our watch.” This term, the conservative majority Bush built has plenty of opportunities to reward these supporters. The most famous case on the Court’s docket is McDonald v. City of Chicago, which could overrule a 123 year-old rule holding that the states are free to regulate firearms. Conservatives, however, have far more than guns at stake this term. In United States v. Comstock, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will have their first opportunity to weigh in on the scope of Congress’ power to enact laws that substantially affect interstate commerce. Should the Court roll back Congress’ power, they would delight “tenthers” enraptured by the notion that every law conservatives disagree with somehow violates Congress’ constitutional authority. Additionally, in a case called Salazar v. Buono, the Court could tear down the wall of separation between church and state. For years, O’Connor was the key fifth vote upholding the Constitution’s ban on government endorsements of religion, and Alito is widely expected to provide the final vote to allow this ban to be whittled away into near non-existence.
Full Story: Supreme Court — A Term Fraught With Peril.
September Job Loss Worse Than Expected — Does The Government Need To Do More?
Today’s jobs report was worse than many analysts anticipated, with the unemployment rate rising a bit, to 9.8 percent, and employers shedding 263,000 jobs in September. The broader U6 measure of underemployment is now at 17 percent. Not surprisingly, manufacturing and construction were the hardest hit sectors (with 53,000 government jobs also going up in smoke). While a far cry from the 700,000 jobs that were being lost each month at the beginning of the year, as Bloomberg reported, these numbers are “calling into question the sustainability of the economic recovery.”
jobs
One of the biggest problems is the amount of time that active job-searchers are staying unemployed. Planet Money noted that, “as of September, job searchers could expect to spend 26.2 weeks on the hunt — the longest average on record since the BLS started keep records back in 1948.” That amount of time will discourage many a job-seeker, keeping underemployment high.
Full Story: Wonk Room » September Job Loss Worse Than Expected — Does The Government Need To Do More?.
Bobby Jindal Puts His Foot Down, Declares Health Debate ‘Over,’ Offers Ideas Already In The Bill
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) reprised his uncanny talent for the clunky retort yesterday and declared that the health care debate was “over.” “Believe the polls, the town halls, the voters,” Jindal wrote in an editorial in the Washington Post. Americans don’t want a ‘government takeover of health care’ — his term for the Democratic plan to give Americans the choice of public option, which 77 percent of Americans supported in August. “The people do not want Republicans to offer their own thousand-page plan to overhaul health care” either. “[A]nd that is not what the nation needs.” It’s Jindal’s “10 ideas to increase the affordability and quality of health care” that “the people” desire.
But Max Baucus has beat Jindal to the punch. As Professor Timothy Stoltzfus Jost points out, many of these are already part of the Senate Finance Committee’s reform bill, which Jindal mistook for “$900 billion in new spending”:
Full Story: Wonk Room » Bobby Jindal Puts His Foot Down, Declares Health Debate ‘Over,’ Offers Ideas Already In The Bill.
The Fight for the Public Option Hits Home Stretch — Is Obama Hiding?
Pressure from progressives led the White House back to the public option. But will it be in name only?
For months, as Congress has debated health-care reform, President Barack Obama’s tepid rhetoric about the importance — but not the necessity — of a public health-care plan has caused anxiety among progressives. Indeed, even in his health-care speech last month before a joint session of Congress, Obama seemed less than committed to a fight-to-the-finish on behalf of the public option.
Then the left got serious. Groups like Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched television ads targeting senators — including Democrats — who stand in the way of the public option. Progressives began raising campaign funds for pro-public option legislators, and the Accountability Now PAC promised primary challenges to those who fell out of step with progressive priorities like a public health insurance plan.
Full Story: The Fight for the Public Option Hits Home Stretch — Is Obama Hiding? | Politics | AlterNet.
The Card Game – Prepaid, but Not Prepared for Debit Card Fees
Buying a prepaid debit card these days is just about as easy as picking up a bottle of shampoo or a candy bar. Walk into a Wal-Mart or almost any major drugstore, and rows of plastic worth $25, $100 and even $500 beckon from kiosks alongside prepaid phone cards and gift cards for retailers.
“No Credit Check. Safer Than Cash. No Bank Account Needed,” says the Green Dot Visa Prepaid Card: Just pay at the register and the card is ready for A.T.M. withdrawals, store purchases and online shopping.
For many people who do not have bank accounts, or cannot get a credit card, the appeal is irresistible, making the reloadable cards among the consumer banking industry’s fastest-growing products. But their convenience comes with a catch: fees, often hidden in the fine print.
Full Story: The Card Game – Prepaid, but Not Prepared for Debit Card Fees – NYTimes.com.
Does Obama Get It?
Bob Herbert
The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging.
The Beltway crowd and the Einsteins of high finance who never saw this economic collapse coming are now telling us with their usual breezy arrogance that the Great Recession is probably over. Their focus, of course, is on data, abstractions like the gross domestic product, not the continued suffering of living, breathing human beings struggling with the nightmare of joblessness.
Even Mr. Obama, in an interview with The Times, gave short shrift to the idea of an additional economic stimulus package, telling John Harwood a few weeks ago that the economy had likely turned a corner. “As you know,” the president said, “jobs tend to be a lagging indicator; they come last.”
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Does Obama Get It? – NYTimes.com.
From One House To Another: Dems Warn Honduran Lawmakers Not To Heed GOP
On The Hill: – A group of six senior House Democrats have penned an open letter to members of the Congress in Honduras, urging President Manuel Zelaya be restored to office and rebutting apparent Republican statements to the contrary.
The letter signed by Reps. James McGovern and Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts, Sam Farr and Xavier Becerra of California, Gregory Meeks of Florida, and Janice Schakowsky of Illinois, was sent to Honduras as four Republican members of Congress visited interim Honduran President Roberto Micheletti and communicated their support for the coup, according to an organization that released the letter.
The elected leader of Honduras, Zelaya was deposed in a June 28 coup. Zelaya has since returned to Honduras but is isolated in Brazil’s embassy there.
Full Story: On The Hill: From One House To Another: Dems Warn Honduran Lawmakers Not To Heed GOP.
Ask Howard Dean: Health Care Reform
Gov. Howard Dean responds to healthcare reform questions submitted by Progressive Book Club readers and members. (Friday, September 25, 2009)
Gov. Howard Dean responds to healthcare reform questions submitted by Progressive Book Club readers and members
Full Story: YouTube – Ask Howard Dean: Health Care Reform (Part 1 of 2).
Ask Howard Dean: Health Care Reform (Part 2 of 2)
U.S. Losing Ground on Preventable Deaths
Despite High Medical Spending, Results Trail Other Wealthy Countries
As Congress presses forward with landmark legislation to revamp the nation’s health-care system, lawmakers are grappling with a troubling question:
Are Americans dying too soon? The answer is yes. When it comes to “preventable deaths” — an array of illnesses and injuries that should not kill at an early age — the United States trails other industrialized nations and has been falling further behind over the past decade.
Although the United States now spends $2.4 trillion a year on medical care — vastly more per capita than comparable countries — the nation ranks near the bottom on premature deaths caused by illnesses such as diabetes, epilepsy, stroke, influenza, ulcers and pneumonia, according to research by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund published in the journal Health Affairs.
Full Story: U.S. Losing Ground on Preventable Deaths – washingtonpost.com.
America is suffering a permanent destruction of jobs.
JPMorgan Chase’s Chief Economist Bruce Kasman told Bloomberg:
[We've had a] permanent destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs in industries from housing to finance.
The chief economists for Wells Fargo Securities, John Silvia, says:
Companies “really have diminished their willingness to hire labor for any production level,” Silvia said. “It’s really a strategic change,” where companies will be keeping fewer employees for any particular level of sales, in good times and bad, he said.
And David Rosenberg writes:
The number of people not on temporary layoff surged 220,000 in August and the level continues to reach new highs, now at 8.1 million. This accounts for 53.9% of the unemployed — again a record high — and this is a proxy for permanent job loss, in other words, these jobs are not coming back. Against that backdrop, the number of people who have been looking for a job for at least six months with no success rose a further half-percent in August, to stand at 5 million — the long-term unemployed now represent a record 33% of the total pool of joblessness
FBI Veteran Executive Calls For Special Counsel Investigation, Prosecutions in Sibel Edmonds Case
The BRAD BLOG : – FBI Veteran Executive Calls For Special Counsel Investigation, Prosecutions in Sibel Edmonds Case
Details panic inside the Bureau, executive effort to ‘keep this whole thing quiet’ when matter first came to light in 2002
Further confirms FBI translator/whistleblower’s allegations, credibility…
An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the allegations of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. John M. Cole, who now works as an intelligence contractor for the Air Force, made his comments during an audio interview released late last week with radio journalist Peter B. Collins.
He also offered a detailed insiders look at the concerns among high-level officials inside the Bureau as Edmonds disturbing allegations began coming to light back in 2002, before they would be quashed for seven long years by the Bush Administration’s unprecedented use of the so-called “State Secrets Privilege” to gag her.
Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : FBI Veteran Executive Calls For Special Counsel Investigation, Prosecutions in Sibel Edmonds Case.
O’Connor takes ’subtle shot’ at Roberts-led Supreme Court
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor says her rulings on the nation’s highest court are being “dismantled” by a more right-leaning court.
Speaking at the College of William and Mary’s annual Supreme Court Preview, the former justice told her audience that she’s “disappointed” with the direction the court has taken.
O’Connor was considered to be a centrist on the court. She was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 as the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court bench. O’Connor retired in 2006, and President George W. Bush replaced her with Justice Samuel Alito, who is considered to be more conservative in his rulings.
Full Story: O’Connor takes ’subtle shot’ at Roberts-led Supreme Court | Raw Story.
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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. 
