Archive for October, 2009
Franken Schools Right-Wing Analyst On Medical Bankruptcies In Countries With Universal Care: ‘It’s Zero’
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “Medical Debt: Can Bankruptcy Reform Facilitate a Fresh Start.” The hearing examined medical bankruptcies in America, and witnesses included CAP fellow Elizabeth Edwards and Kerry Burns, a Rhode Island mother who was forced into “financial ruin” by her late son’s medical bills.
One of the highlights of the hearing was when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) questioned Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth about medical bankruptcies. Franken asked Furchtgott-Roth — who claimed that moving towards a European-style system of universal health care would increase bankruptcies — about how many medical bankruptcies there were in countries that have universal health care, like Switzerland and France. Furchtgott-Rott repeatedly told Franken that she didn’t “have that number,” and Franken informed her that the number was actually zero:
EPI Releases Job Creation Proposal
The EPI released a policy proposal Tuesday centered around a job creation tax credit that the left-leaning think tank claims would create millions of jobs over the next two years at a relatively low cost.
The Economic Policy Institute on Tuesday released a policy proposal centered around a job creation tax credit that the left-leaning think tank claims would create millions of jobs over the next two years at a relatively low cost.
Authored by labor market experts Timothy J. Bartik of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and John H. Bishop of Cornell University, the proposal calls for employers to receive a 15 percent tax credit of expanded payroll costs subject to Social Security taxes in 2010 followed by a 10 percent tax credit in 2011.
Providing monetary incentives for businesses to hire workers will create five million jobs over the next two years, three million in 2010 and another two million in 2011, according to the report.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Productivity Figures Greatly Exaggerated
In reality, much of the recent productivity improvement reported by American corporations stems from shifting work abroad, often to low-wage nations.
Productivity may have increased on average 2.2 percent per year in the non-farm business sector over the last 20 years, a cumulative increase of 56 percent, yet these numbers are not what they seem. Productivity figures like these are misleading and incomplete. In theory productivity increases should generate higher paying jobs and a lower cost of living as technology, capital, and process improvements are employed to make labor more efficient. But this applies only if the work is done in American factories by American workers. In reality, much of the recent productivity improvement reported by American corporations stems from shifting work abroad, often to low-wage nations. Intuitively, if a corporation fires most of its workers at home and outsources most of its manufacturing, it can dramatically increase its reported output per American worker. The downside is that it has done so at the expense of American jobs. Thus the American economy as a whole is not better off and probably on balance is considerably worse off. This applies in spades where corporations transfer vital American production secrets abroad, thus helping other nations boost their worker productivity on America’s dime.
That official productivity figures greatly exaggerate the rate of true productivity improvement is surely obvious from the fact that over the past 20 years, both hourly and weekly average earnings have experienced essentially zero real growth after accounting for inflation.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Pat Buchanan Advises White People Violently Defy the Obama Administration
He did it.
Pat Buchanan has written an article so racist in tone, so devoid of reason and so fundamentally ignorant of the state of the union that it might very well be remembered as height of the radical conservative movement’s paranoid hysteria over the election of Barack Obama. Those mesmerized by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will surely find Buchanan’s article intoxicating. It is, perhaps, the movement’s magnum opus.
Buchanan’s article, “Traditional Americans are Losing Their Nation” has perfectly captured the conservative mentality. Namely, that everything wrong with the country is the doing of minorities, progressives and liberal ignorance of middle America.
The piece begins by describing a brand new inter-conservative organization called “Oath Keepers”. Think of Oath Keepers as Tea Party activists with a penchant for violence. Buchanan describes the Oath Keepers movement in this way:
Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey.
“The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here,” says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. “My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can’t do it without them.
“We say if the American people decide it’s time for a revolution, we’ll fight with you.”
In short, Oath Keepers are radical conservatives willing to violently oppose the government. Who would join such a group? Buchanan sheds light on this as well:
Full Story: Intershame.com – on Pat Buchanan.
Behind the dollar’s dog days
Dr. Peter Morici -
Currency manipulation is one of the most virulent forms of protectionism.
Dr. Peter Morici: Transcript of interview that first appeared in BusinessWeek on the weakness of the US dollar.
Maria Bartiromo talks to outspoken University of Maryland economist Peter Morici
The continuing weakness of the dollar has led to what The Washington Post has called “a growing international chorus” to push aside the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. The Post quoted a recent speech by World Bank President Robert Zoellick in which the former U.S. Trade Representative said: “The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency.” To better understand the dollar’s dilemma, I talked with Professor Peter Morici of the University of Maryland, a former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
MARIA BARTIROMO
Should the dollar be replaced as the world’s reserve currency?
PETER MORICI
We don’t have an official reserve currency. The reason people hold dollars, first, is habit. The second is that the dollar has historically been well-managed, until now. What is creating fear about the dollar are the huge deficits. So while China complains that the dollar shouldn’t be the global reserve currency, it’s really part of the problem.
In an op-ed piece for the Baltimore Sun, you said China and other countries have gamed the global currency system to their competitive advantage. How have they done that?
Full Story: Dr. Peter Morici: Behind the dollar’s dog days.
China’s Extensive Buying Spree
China has been purchasing goods, services, facilities, and raw materials around the world for the better part of a decade. As the nation began to swell with foreign capital it began to look for places to invest the cash.
China began by taking the money it derived from trade surpluses – primarily against the United States – and investing in it foreign currencies – primarily the American dollar. Now, with the U.S. financial situation presenting a less interesting investment, China is focusing more of its attention to resources.
Aside from the dozens of companies being purchased through foreign M&A deals, the Chinese government is pouring money into purchases of raw materials. With a growing population, booming industrial capacity, and a burgeoning consumer market to support, Beijing knows that its needs are rapidly increasing. As a result, China has been active from the Middle East to South America purchasing oil fields, refineries, mines, and all manners of assets.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Latest bank fee is for paying off credit card on time every month
You floss regularly, yield to oncoming traffic and use your credit cards judiciously, dutifully paying off your balance every month.
You may believe that your exemplary behavior shields you from unexpected credit card fees. Sadly, that is no longer the case.
Starting next year, Bank of America will charge a small number of customers an annual fee, ranging from $29 to $99. The bank has characterized the fee as experimental. But card holders who have never carried a balance or paid late fees could be among those affected.
Full Story: Latest bank fee is for paying off credit card on time every month – USATODAY.com.
Colorado newspaper hiring marijuana critic
The store has a television lounge and a pool table, and snacks and acupuncture are free for customers who drop up to $130 an ounce on 16 varieties of marijuana. But a reviewer of the business warns the decor looks a little cliche, what with the Grateful Dead posters on the wall and the Mexican-blanket tablecloths.
The medical marijuana review business is booming as states like Colorado and California have seen an explosion in the number of pot shops.
A Denver alternative newspaper recently posted an ad for what some consider the sweetest job in journalism — a reviewer of the state’s marijuana dispensaries and their products.
Medical marijuana users can also look to dozens of review Web sites, even mainstream rating sites such as Yelp or Citysearch, to find their high. At least five iPhone applications allow weed fans to find the closest place to legally buy bud in the 14 states that allow some sort of medical marijuana.
Full Story: The Associated Press: Colorado newspaper hiring marijuana critic.
CBO finds Dem bill with public option reduces deficit
A preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office projects that the House Democrats’ health care plan that includes a public option would cost $871 billion over 10 years, according to two Democratic sources.
CBO also found that the Democrats’ bill reduces the deficit in the first 10 years.
This new CBO estimate, which aides caution is not final, is significantly less than the $1.1 trillion price tag of the original House bill that passed out of three committees this summer. More importantly, it comes under the $900 billion cap set by President Obama in his joint address to Congress last month.
CBO analyzed what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls a “more robust” public option — one that ties reimbursement rates for doctors to current Medicare rates, plus a 5 percent increase.
At a meeting with House Democrats on Tuesday night, Pelosi did not release CBO’s preliminary numbers, but told members that CBO told leaders the House bill would cost well below $900 billion. Aides say final CBO numbers could be released on Wednesday.
Full Story: CBO finds Dem bill with public option reduces deficit – CNN.com.
OPS: HR676: Medicare for all would reduce the deficit even more – and proved better coverage
Goldman Sachs’s Griffiths Says Pay ‘Inequality’ Helps Everyone
A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy.
“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” [Lord] Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The panel’s discussion topic was, “What is the price of morality in the marketplace?”
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., based in New York, set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier and enough to pay each worker $527,192 for the period. The amount set aside this year is just shy of the all-time high $16.9 billion allocated in the first three quarters of 2007. Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally in New York declined to comment.
Full Story: Goldman Sachs’s Griffiths Says Pay ‘Inequality’ Helps Everyone – Bloomberg.com.
Wells Fargo reports record profits
West Coast banking giant rakes in $3.2 billion in the latest quarter, nearly double what it made just a year ago.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Wells Fargo reported record profits of $3.2 billion, the company said Wednesday, nearly doubling the amount of money it made just a year ago.
Despite facing an ongoing recession and rising loan losses, the San Francisco-based bank said its third-quarter results were lifted by strong performances in its mortgage lending business and other divisions.
“Third quarter results again illustrated the company’s ability to profitably grow, even through the downward cycle despite elevated credit losses,” said Howard Atkins, Wells Fargo’s chief financial officer in a statement.
Full Story: Wells Fargo reports record profits – Oct. 21, 2009.
MoveOn pushes Dems to join White House in icing Fox News
Joining recent condemnations by the Obama White House, Democratic political action group MoveOn.org is urging its network to petition Democrats in congress against appearing on Fox News at all until the start of next year.
“Democrats often appear on FOX in hopes of reaching out to conservative viewers. But FOX cuts off their mic, distorts what they say, or runs biased headlines at the bottom of the screen,” the group said in a recent mass e-mail. “In the end, Democrats always lose on FOX.”
The e-mail references a New York Times article in claiming that President Obama will not be appearing on Fox News until 2010.
Full Story: MoveOn pushes Dems to join White House in icing Fox News | Raw Story.
Following Kerpen’s Lead Again, Beck Claims That Net Neutrality Is An Attack On Freedom Of Speech
In September, ThinkProgress dissected how Glenn Beck’s successful character assassination campaign against former White House environmental adviser Van Jones was fueled by Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen, who had taken credit for notifying Beck of some of Jones’ past comments. On his Fox News show yesterday, Beck followed Kerpen’s lead once again, this time in an assault on net neutrality.
In a segment featuring Kerpen last night, Beck warned his audience that the Obama administration “just might be trying to take over the media.” “This is a big week, isn’t it, for freedom of speech?” Beck asked Kerpen, who said that it was because “the FCC on Thursday is going to decide what the future of the Internet looks like”:
KERPEN: It is a very big week because the FCC on Thursday is going to decide what the future of the Internet looks like, if it looks much like the past 10 years where you have private competition and pretty much people can do what they want on the Internet or whether we have a much, much heavier government hand. And they’re going to take the first step on that Thursday.
Full Story: Think Progress » Following Kerpen’s Lead Again, Beck Claims That Net Neutrality Is An Attack On Freedom Of Speech.
OPS: Always diametrically opposed to reality – always.
Pennsylvania state lawmaker: Veterans who support climate change legislation are ‘traitors.’
Daryl Metcalfe A coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, under the name Operation Free, is on a 21-state bus tour to alert the public about the dangers of global warming and its threat to national security. Upon hearing about the group’s visit to Pennsylvania, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) blasted the veterans as “traitors” and compared them to Benedict Arnold:
“As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!” Mr. Metcalfe’s email reads. “Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!”
Rep. Metcalfe, who served in the U.S. Army from 1980-84, today defended the remarks, saying that “if the type of policies that an individual promotes undermines the Constitution and the law of the land in our country, then they are not patriots.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Pennsylvania state lawmaker: Veterans who support climate change legislation are ‘traitors.’.
OPS: Traitors to the Reich maybe, but hero’s to the American People
Media Enabled Bush 1′s Savage Attacks on Maddow and Olbermann, Yet Continue to Ignore Bush Family’s Sordid Past
George HW Bush gets a free pass for attacks without evidence, meanwhile his CIA ties remain largely ignored and his son’s lies about Iraq remain unprosecuted.
The other day, George H.W. Bush fired a salvo against mean media liberals who savaged his son. Soon, brickbats were flying to and fro about who said what about whom. But this mini-controversy is nothing more than a distraction from the real story: even the most animated of Bush critics on television have not gotten around to acknowledging the full, unspeakably dark nature of the Bush enterprise. Bush41, it turns out, has nothing at all to complain about.
The kerfuffle began last Friday, when CBS ran a story on its website about George H.W. Bush criticizing MSNBC hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow for edgy rhetoric and name-calling, in which he then … called them names — specifically, “sick puppies.”
“The way they treat my son and anyone who’s opposed to their point of view is just horrible,” Mr. Bush said. “When our son was president they just hammered him mercilessly and I think obscenely a lot of the time and now it’s moved to a new president,” he added.
OPS: Let’s talk about his father being part of a failed Nazi Coup attempt against FDR. Let’s talk about his father bankrolling Hitler…
The Untouchables: Right-Wingers Put Themselves in an Uncompromising ‘World Apart’
A report issued Friday by Democracy Corps shows that the most conservative Republicans consider themselves part of an underdog minority.
Commentators, including writers from Blog for Our Future’s Sara Robinson and author Neal Gabler, have observed a resurgent brand of conservatism that has taken on the characteristics of religious zealotry. It is a brand of conservatism that cannot be negotiated with because its adherents see themselves as the bearers of the one true faith and as victims of a host of apostate “others” who they feel must not be appeased through compromise.
Elements of that brand of conservatism can be seen in a report issued Friday by Democracy Corps based on interviews with groups of conservatives and moderates in Cleveland, Ohio.
“The self-identifying conservative Republicans who make up the base of the Republican Party stand a world apart from the rest of America,” the report says, not because they stand in fervent ideological disagreement with President Obama and the mainstream of the Democratic Party but because they “identify themselves as part of a ‘mocked’ minority with a set of shared beliefs and knowledge, and commitment to oppose Obama that sets them apart from the majority in the country.”
Among the characteristics of what the report calls “a world apart”:
Full Story: The Untouchables: Right-Wingers Put Themselves in an Uncompromising ‘World Apart’ | Politics | AlterNet.
The Battle Against Letting Wall Street Continue to Make a Killing on Derivatives
Protections for consumers and Wall Street’s skullduggery are at stake in an obscure series of hearings going on in Congress right now.
Early in the morning, outside the House Financial Services Committee hearing room in the Rayburn office building last week, there were scruffy ex-homeless and other low-income folks, wearing their dreadlocks or sloppy jeans, mixed in with the pinstriped reps for the financial industry.
They all seemed to be lining up to see what $223 million in financial lobbying in the first six months of this year could buy in thwarting real reform on Capitol Hill. And they were hoping to get the few dozen of the public seats available inside the room, for a critical 10 a.m. hearing marking up a bill that was supposed to regulate the now-private market in complex “derivatives.”
Those derivatives are nominally worth at least $450 trillion worldwide, with $555 billion in credit at risk in the U.S. banking industry. (Derivatives are forms of insurance or bets on underlying assets, such as now-toxic subprime mortgages, supposedly designed to manage risk.) No wonder Warren Buffett called them “financial weapons of mass destruction.”
Healthcare bills lack protections against treatment denials, experts say
Nataline (17) died in 2007 when insurance giant Cigna Corp. refused to cover a liver transplant.
Measures pending in Congress push insurers to keep down costs and cover all regardless of health. That leaves the firms with a big cost-containment tool: refusing requests to cover treatments.
Despite growing frustration with the way health insurers deny medical treatments, major healthcare bills pending in Congress would give patients little new power to challenge those sometimes life-and-death decisions.
“Right now, the deck is stacked against patients,” said Bryan Liang, director of the Institute of Health Law Studies at California Western Law School in San Diego. “Healthcare reform is not going to change the ball game.”
Yet a patient’s ability to fight insurers’ coverage decisions could be more important than ever because Congress, in promoting cost containment and price competition, may actually add to the pressure on insurers to deny requests for treatment.
Full Story: Healthcare bills lack protections against treatment denials, experts say — latimes.com.
Basic Medicare Premium to Rise 15% Next Year
The basic Medicare premium will shoot up next year by 15 percent, to $110.50 a month, federal officials said Monday.
The increase means that monthly premiums would top $100 for the first time, a stark indication of the rise in medical costs that is driving the debate in Congress about a broad overhaul of the health care system.
About 12 million people, or 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, will have to pay higher premiums or have the additional amounts paid on their behalf. The other 73 percent will be shielded from the increase because, under federal law, their Medicare premiums cannot go up more than the increase in their Social Security benefits, and Social Security officials announced last week that there would be no increase in benefits in 2010 because inflation had been extremely low.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, urged the Senate to approve a bill, already passed by the House, to block the scheduled increase in Medicare premiums.
Full Story: Basic Medicare Premium to Rise 15% Next Year – NYTimes.com.
Pelosi Prepares To Move Ahead With Robust Public Option
A preliminary analysis from CBO may have sealed the deal. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing to move ahead with a “robust” public option–one that reimburses hospitals and providers at Medicare rates, plus five percent–in the House’s health care bill. She is briefing her caucus about the plan’s savings tonight, and, pending the approval of a sufficient majority of members, will adopt the measure as part of the complete reform package.
The analysis finds the reconstituted House proposal to be deficit neutral, and require less than $900 billion (reportedly around $870 billion) in new spending, over ten years.
The bill remains nominally more expensive than the Senate Finance Committee proposal, but would cover 96 percent of all Americans, providing greater bang for each federal dollar spent. And, aides note, the bill that comes to the floor of the Senate will be a hybrid of the Finance and more expensive HELP Committee bills, so the price is expected to rise.
Full Story: Pelosi Prepares To Move Ahead With Robust Public Option | TPMDC.
OPS: We’ll see……
Admiral: I can empty Guantánamo camps in 10 days
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and clear all 221 war-on-terror captives off this remote base “with 10 days notice,” the prison camps commander said Tuesday.
Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman told The Miami Herald and Fox News in an interview that his 2,100-member team of guards and other support staff can meet President Barack Obama’s Jan. 22 closure deadline right through the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the controversial prison camps.
“If they say on Jan. 12, ‘Move them out,’ we can meet the deadline,” he said, “given the proper amount of logistical support.”
Full Story: Admiral: I can empty Guantánamo camps in 10 days – Guantánamo – MiamiHerald.com.
Interior Dept. to investigate Bush administration’s oil shale deals
The Interior Department announced Tuesday it would open an investigation into whether the previous administration “set favorable conditions” to encourage oil-shale development in the Midwest.
The forthcoming review arrives to the satisfaction of local watchdogs and environmental groups, who have long questioned why President George W. Bush just five days before exiting office added a number of acres to its standing oil-shale leases and negotiated lower royalty rates without first notifying the public.
“Taxpayers deserve answers to serious questions about why these lease addenda were granted at the eleventh hour, under what circumstances, and at what potential expense to the federal treasury,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar explained in a statement Tuesday.
Full Story: Interior Dept. to investigate Bush administration’s oil shale deals – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
Is music addictive?
Research entitled “The Rewarding Aspects of Music Listening Are Related to Degree of Emotional Arousal” published on October 16, 2009 has connected the “feeling” people experience listening to music with the dopamine response system in the brain.
The researchers found that the physiological and psychological response to music was very similar to that in cocaine addiction and may be mediated by the same parts of the brain and the same chemistries.
From the time that the first caveman beat a hollow log with two sticks and observed the response of his tribal group, musicians have intuitively known the power that music has to manipulate other people. Beethoven and Lady Ga Ga are equally emotional manipulators. This statement does not imply a direct understanding of the psychology or chemistry on the part of the “artist.” The multiple rearrangement of music prior to performance for small audiences in the past and today is the perfecting ground that produces the needed emotional response that guides the listener to buy that music.
Full Story: Is music addictive?.
Kucinich: Why We Desperately Need Health Care for All – Now
Dear Friends,
More about why we desperately need health care for all:
This past weekend I visited a festival at a church in a working class area of my district. These events are opportunities for people from the community to gather, to eat ethnic foods, listen to music and enjoy each other’s company; before the brisk, brooding Cleveland winter begins to set in. When I walked through the doors, I felt as though I had stepped back in time, to when I was a child growing up in the inner city of Cleveland where I witnessed people struggling every day to make ends meet. From this early experience I have learned to recognize poverty, the clothes it wears and the physical appearance it presents.
What I saw in the church were humble people whose shoes were well worn and whose clothes were in need of repair. I also saw people struggling with various stages of ill health, with obvious physical difficulties. I know what poverty feels like and I felt it here and I was surprised. What made this visit memorable was that it occurred in a suburban community which had formerly been known for its solid middle class housing.
Meanwhile about 400 miles away, in Washington, DC, the insurance companies have wielded enormous influence to knock a public option out of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill and we still struggle to keep the public option alive in the House. A decision is due soon from the full Senate. Will they actually pass a bill which requires that Americans buy private insurance? The House continues to try to determine the shape and content of our legislation.
The political system is failing the American people. Money for Wall Street, not for Main Street. Money for War, not for Peace. Money to move jobs out of America, not to create new jobs here. Money for insurance companies, but what about the people?
While 47 million uninsured wait for an answer, and another 50 million underinsured stand by, Americans are losing their jobs, their homes, their health care, their retirement security. How long can people wait for help?
I am asking you to continue to join me in the push to have a state single payer amendment in the health care bill. Whatever passes the Congress will be insufficient to meet the broad based health care needs of the American people, which is why it is important to give the states the option to move toward single payer. Call your representative now and demand that the Kucinich state single payer amendment remain in the bill.
In my community, and many others across our nation, the level of human suffering from an economy “gone bad” is rising to shocking levels. A recent US Census report states that in this decade the number of northeastern Ohioans who live fractionally above the poverty line has risen 10% – to a quarter of a million people.
But I do not see cold statistics. I see real people. I see the poverty lining their faces. I see their eyes asking: Why?
Sincerely,
Dennis
Full Story: kucinich.us – Home.
Citi closing Mastercards without warning
People across country reporting their cards linked to gas companies denied
Shannon Burdette tried to pay with her Shell Mastercard after filling up her gas tank this weekend but found the card rejected.
Confused, she called the customer service line on the back of the card, issued by Citibank, and was told the account was closed because of something that appeared on her credit report. But when the Sykesville, Md., resident got a copy of her credit report online, the only negative thing she saw was “closed at credit grantor’s request” on the Shell MasterCard account.
“They said there was a routine review,” said Burdette, who maintained that she and her husband, Brian, used the card regularly and always paid the bill on time.
Full Story: Citi closing Mastercards without warning – Consumer news- msnbc.com.
Mohawk Paper Quits Chamber Of Commerce
New York-based Mohawk Fine Paper is the latest company to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce citing opposition to the business association’s climate change policies.
George F. Milner, Mohawk’s Senior VP for Energy, Environmental and Government Affairs, said in a press release that the Chamber should “look beyond ideological divisions” to shape its policy stances.
“We believe that our continued membership in an organization that vigorously opposes sensible climate change policies is detrimental to our position as a business leader with a strong record in the areas of environmental innovation and climate protection,” Milner said.
Full Story: Mohawk Paper Quits Chamber Of Commerce.
OPS: Good for Mohawk. Another one slips through fascist fingers
Hill Aides: More Senators Would Back Public Plan If Obama Pushed Harder
There is a growing sense on Capitol Hill that the White House’s refusal to weigh in more forcefully in the health care debate could come at the cost of a public option for insurance coverage.
Democratic aides said that a “handful” of senators who are skeptical of a public plan likely could be persuaded if not to support it then at least to oppose a Republican filibuster, if the administration were to apply a bit more pressure — or even guidance.
“There is a clear sense that it would be helpful,” said one senior Democratic aide. “Throughout this entire debate the White House line has been ‘We will weigh in when it is necessary’…. Well now we need 60 votes. So if it’s not necessary now, then when will it be?”
“I think folks in general in Congress were looking to the president to clearly define his feeling on the issue,” another aide said. “And I don’t think he has done that on the public option from the get-go… With a lot of senators nervous because of elections or other political dynamics, it would be helpful for the president to send a strong signal that this is what he wants in the final bill.”
Full Story: Hill Aides: More Senators Would Back Public Plan If Obama Pushed Harder.
Homeless Evicted From California Tent City
As part of its Bearing Witness 2.0 project, the Huffington Post is rounding up a few of the best local stories of the day.
In Visalia, Calif., hundreds of homeless people will be pushed out of a tent city by the local government in November, reports Valeria Gibbons of the Visalia Times-Delta. The encampment, which is home to about 200 people, has no water or garbage pickup, and only makeshift sanitation. In response to the planned eviction, local charity organizations and relief agencies are offering free clothing, food, and beds. The eviction notices were served Oct 16th, largely because of complaints from nearby homeowners.
Two years ago only a few dozen tents stood on the north side of the St. Johns River, but now, after the foreclosure crisis and vanishing jobs, there are hundreds. Tent cities themselves have been around for a long time, but the struggling economy has made some larger and more visible. Some residents, like Tiffany Segura, moved to the camp over the summer after being evicted from their homes. Now, only a few months later, they are being evicted again.
Full Story: Homeless Evicted From California Tent City.
The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale
It has been a particularly bad month for the pharmaceutical industrial complex in its ongoing litigations in American courts. Among the main pharmaceutical headlines, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked to amyltrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease; following a $1.4 billion fine in promoting one of its blockbuster drugs Zyprexa off-label, deceptive correspondence was uncovered by Eli Lilly gaming the system again by promoting another one of its drugs, Cymbalta, off-label for fibromyalgia; AstraZeneca was fined $160 million for scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined $215 million for ripping off Alabama; Glaxo lost a Pennsylvania trial for failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects; and Pfizer scored a record-breaking fine of $2.3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years: Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica. These kinds of charges, among the many others, have become a habit for drug makers for the past dozen years.
When we speak of the pharmaceutical industry complex, it does not refer solely to private drug manufacturers. The complex, like a Matrix that holds captive the health of the nation in medical slavery by its own design and manipulation, is a consortium, a spiders’ web woven with financial attachments throughout the medical profession. In addition to the pharmaceutical and medical device firms, this complex includes every government health agency—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and or course the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—as well as drug lobbying firms now employing a large number of former Congresspersons, insurance and HMO companies, all of the leading professional medical associations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the majority of medical schools and their research departments who are heavily funded by drug money, many of the most prestigious medical journals, and ultimately all of this filtering downward to the physicians who diagnose our illnesses and prescribe our medications and treatments.
Full Story: The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale | The Smirking Chimp.
Lou Dobbs Describes Meatless Mondays In Schools As “A Political Storm In The Making”
On Monday night, Lou Dobbs did a segment on how “Meatless Monday” is being adopted by the Baltimore city school district in an effort to cut costs and get children to eat healthier food. The segment showed schoolchildren eating vegetarian chili and grilled cheese sandwiches, and CNN reported that they found no parents who objected to the policy.
The news network also noted opposition to the one-day-a-week of vegetarian food by the American Meat Institute — a trade group that represents meat processors and packers with obvious financial interests in meat consumption. Without pointing out factors that helped fuel the initiative, such as childhood obesity and a national school budget crisis, CNN reported that the AMI is concerned that “students are being served up an unhealthy dose of indoctrination.” The institute’s Janet Reilly claims the policy was depriving students and parents of “choice.”
After watching the segment, Dobbs described this as “a real political storm in the making.” Um. Really?
Full Story: Lou Dobbs Describes Meatless Mondays In Schools As “A Political Storm In The Making”.
OPS: Lou has always been a rightwinger but he hasn’t always been insane. When did Lou lose it?
Sugar cereals are ‘Smart Choices’? FDA not so sure
Ever wondered how that “Smart Choices” sticker wound up on the front of Froot Loops or Cocoa Puffs?
Well, federal health officials are having similar thoughts, and they’re warning food manufacturers.
The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that nutritional logos from food manufacturers may be misleading consumers about the actual health benefits of cereal, crackers and other processed foods. The agency sent a letter to companies saying it will begin cracking down on inaccurate food labeling. The FDA did not name specific products or give a timeline for enforcement.
U.S. manufacturers, including Kellogg, Kraft Foods and General Mills, rolled out their so-called Smart Choices program last year, amid growing concern about obesity rates. The green labels appear on the front of foods that meet certain standards for calories per serving and fat content.
Full Story: Sugar cereals are ‘Smart Choices’? FDA not so sure – Yahoo! News.
Depleted Uranium: The Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke
by Dave Lindorff
The horrors of the US Agent Orange defoliation campaign in Vietnam, about which I wrote on Oct. 15, could ultimately be dwarfed by the horrors caused by the depleted uranium weapons which the US began using in the 1991 Gulf War (300 tons), and which it has used much more extensively–and in more urban, populated areas–in the Iraq War and the now intensifying Afghanistan War.
Depleted uranium, despite its rather benign-sounding name, is not depleted of radioactivity or toxicity. The term “depleted” refers only to its being depleted of the U-235 isotope needed for fission reactions in nuclear reactors. The nuclear waste material from nuclear power plants, DU as it is known, is what is removed from the power plants’ spent fuel rods and is essentially composed of the uranium isotope U-238 as well as U-236 (a product of nuclear reactor fission, not found in nature), as well as other trace radioactive elements. Once simply a nuisance for the industry, that still has no permanent way to dispose of the dangerous stuff, it turns out to be an ideal metal for a number of weapons uses, and has been capitalized on by the Pentagon. 1.7 times heavier than lead, and much harder than steel, and with the added property of burning at a super-hot temperature, DU has proven to be an ideal penetrator for warheads that need to pierce thick armor or dense concrete bunkers made of reinforced concrete and steel. Once through the defenses, it burns at a temperature that incinerates anyone inside (which is why we see the carbonized bodies of bodies in the wreckage of Iraqi tanks hit by US fire). Accordingly it has found its way into 30 mm machine gun ammunition, especially that used by the A-10 Warthog ground-attack fighter planes used extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan (as well as Kosovo). It is also the warhead of choice for Abrams tanks and is also reportedly used in GBU-28 and the later GBU-37 bunker buster bombs, each of which can have 1-2 tons of the stuff in its warhead. DU is also used as ballast in cruise missiles, and this burns up when a missile detonates its conventional explosive. Some cruise missiles are also designed to hit hardened targets and reportedly feature DU warheads, as does the AGM-130 air-to-ground missile, which carries a one-ton penetrating warhead. In addition, depleted uranium is used in large quantities in the armor of tanks and other equipment. This material becomes a toxic source of CU pollution when these vehicles are attacked and burned.
Full Story: Depleted Uranium: The Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan Are No Joke | The Smirking Chimp.
Chronic illnesses more often undiscovered, undertreated in uninsured
Uninsured people are also more likely to have undiagnosed and undertreated medical conditions, according to a new study comparing chronic illnesses among Americans with and without health coverage. The results offer possible clues to a recently reported higher death rate among people who lack insurance.
Researchers from Cambridge Health Alliance and Boston Medical Center tracked diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol in a national survey of more than 15,000 working-age adults. Based on questionnaires, medical exams, and lab test results, they found that about half of uninsured people who had diabetes or high cholesterol were unaware of it, compared with just under one-quarter of insured people who did not know they had these conditions. High blood pressure, however, was undiagnosed in about a quarter of both uninsured and insured people.
Once diagnosed, hypertension was poorly controlled in 58 percent of uninsured people and 51 percent of those with insurance. The treatment gap was larger for high cholesterol: 77 percent of uninsured versus 60 percent of insured people had inadequately treated levels.
Full Story: Chronic illnesses more often undiscovered, undertreated in uninsured – White Coat Notes – Boston.com.
U.S. Army had no mandatory policies for handling suicidal soldiers in Iraq | Raw Story
U.S. Army commanders in Iraq had an advisory suicide prevention plan, but no mandatory steps to follow when dealing with at-risk soldiers like the one accused of killing five troops at a military mental health clinic last May, according to a review of military procedures.
Sgt. John Russell is accused of shooting and killing five soldiers after an altercation at a counseling center located on a U.S. base in Iraq five months ago.
According to the Associated Press, the report found that no Army publication provides step-by-step details to a unit on how to implement a suicide watch and that security at the Combat Stress Clinic at Camp Liberty was “inadequate.”
Full Story: U.S. Army had no mandatory policies for handling suicidal soldiers in Iraq | Raw Story.
British Army ‘hijacked by racist, far right extremists’
The letter — signed by four military heavyweights including General Sir Mike Jackson and General Sir Richard Richard Dannatt — is aimed at the British National Party, which has used military symbols and pictures of Winston Churchill in recent election campaigns.
The letter states: “We call on all those who seek to hijack the good name of Britain’s military for their own advantage to cease and desist.
“The values of these extremists — many of whom are essentially racist — are fun
Full Story: British Army ‘hijacked by racist, far right extremists’ | Raw Story.
Right Wing Activist Launches College Social Networking Site To ‘Smash Left-Wing Scum’ On Campus
Campus Progress reports that Morton Blackwell, founder of the right-wing young adult organization, the Leadership Institute (LI), has launched a new social-networking site for young conservatives called CampusReform. The purpose of the site is to expose “bias” in universities “completely dominated by the left” and give students a forum to report and organize against professors perceived as abusive leftists. Blackwell described the motivation behind his ambitous project to the American Prospect:
“I have had a long-term awareness of how the campuses have become left-wing indoctrination centers, and many, many students can go their entire college educations and never see any representations of conservative principles on their campuses — but they see innumerable amounts of propaganda both in campus curriculum and with speakers and in campus newspapers. It has always bugged me that conservatives have not done likewise.”
Full Story: Think Progress » Right Wing Activist Launches College Social Networking Site To ‘Smash Left-Wing Scum’ On Campus.
Gingrich Calls On The Country To ‘Rise Up’ To ‘Repeal’ Health Care Reform If It Passes
Last night on Fox News, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich joined some of his colleagues on the fringe right and urged the GOP to make repealing health reform the “number one” campaign issue in 2010 and 2012:
GINGRICH: Let me make a straightforward promise. These bills can’t be implemented before 2013. If they pass a bill which is a disaster the number one campaign issue in 2010 and 2012 is going to be repeal the bill.
We repealed the catastrophic health legislation that was a disaster. We can repeal this monstrosity. If they’re determined to put something bad in the country, the country can rise up, defeat the people who do it and repeal it.
Watch it
Full Story: Think Progress » Gingrich Calls On The Country To ‘Rise Up’ To ‘Repeal’ Health Care Reform If It Passes.
GOP Rep. from district where civil rights workers were lynched talks about shooting ‘tree-hugging Democrats.’
In a new interview with Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS), Politico asks the congressman what the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus does. Harper’s response:
We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.
Harper represents Mississippi’s 3rd congressional district, which contains Neshoba County — the place of one of the most infamous race-related crimes in American history. In 1964, white supremacists lynched three civil rights workers. In recent months, sportsmen around the country have been joining up with “tree-hugging” liberals on climate legislation. In April, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus and other sportsmen’s and environmental groups “called for Congress to pass global warming legislation that includes increased funding for natural resource protection.”
Bernie Kerik JAILED After Judge Revokes Bail In Corruption Trial
A federal judge on Tuesday revoked bail for former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and sent him to jail to await a corruption trial scheduled to start next week.
Calling Kerik “a toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance,” Judge Stephen Robinson said he was revoking the $500,000 bail because Kerik disclosed sealed case information to the trustee of his legal defense fund.
The trustee shared some of the secret information with the Washington Times, which didn’t publish it. The judge said he did not believe Kerik’s claim that the trustee had been hired as a lawyer and was therefore allowed to see the information.
Full Story: Bernie Kerik JAILED After Judge Revokes Bail In Corruption Trial.
Jerry Brown, California AG, Sues Bank For “Unconscionable Fraud”
Citing “unconscionable fraud,” California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced a major lawsuit today against State Street Bank and Trust. Brown seeks to recover more than $200 million from the Boston-based bank.
(SCROLL DOWN FOR TO READ THE PRESS RELEASE AND COMPLAINT.)
According to the complaint, State Street overcharged California’s largest pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, for the execution of foreign currency trades. From the press release:
“Over a period of eight years, State Street bankers committed unconscionable fraud by misappropriating millions of dollars that rightfully belonged to California’s public pension funds,” Brown said. “This is just the latest example of how clever financial traders violate laws and rip off the public trust.”
Full Story: State Street Sued: Jerry Brown, California AG, Sues Bank For “Unconscionable Fraud”.
The Ten Most Egregious Fox News Distortions (VIDEO)
Fox News has defended itself against administration criticism by saying the White House has confused its pundit shows with its news programs. But the network constantly, misleadingly disparages Obama and his administration in its supposedly straight reporting. Here are the ten of the worst examples; there are many more.
Full Story: The Ten Most Egregious Fox News Distortions (VIDEO).
New Poll Reveals 56% of Republicans Support a Form of Public Option: Clearly, Congressional Republicans Are in Denial | BuzzFlash.org
If anything demonstrates the mainstream media’s capability to ignore pertinent information and instead regurgitate conventional political wisdom, it’s the reporting on opinion polls.
A Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday was widely reported as evidence that support for the public option has returned. Though it’s only 5 percent higher than it was at what the Post calls its “summertime lows” of 52 percent this summer, the Post declared that support has “rebounded.” Ah, what a difference a few percentage points make.
But what I found truly amazing was that a certain type of public option had the support of more than three-fourths of respondents. Even more shocking was that 56 percent of Republicans support this type of public option. More than half of self-identified Republicans, of the party that brought deathers and tenthers to this debate, support the public option? How could this be? The Washington Post explains:
If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation.
The Urgent Need to Demilitarize the National Security State
The national security policy inherited by President Barack Obama has been increasingly militarized over the past two decades despite the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the demise of the Warsaw Pact, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war.
The president has addressed the problem incrementally, reducing growth in spending in his first defense budget, establishing a timeline for withdrawal of American military forces in Iraq, returning to arms control negotiations with Russia and supporting international diplomacy in dealing with such problems as Iran’s nuclear program.
At the same time, however, President Obama has appointed too many retired general officers to sensitive national security positions; provided too much support for new weapons, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems; and continued support for Georgian and Ukrainian membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Urgent Need to Demilitarize the National Security State.
A Censored Headline and Why It Matters:
German High Court Outlaws Electronic Voting
A German high court found that electronic voting was unacceptable and anti democratic — and, as Michael Collins demonstrates, America’s corporate-controlled media decided it didn’t pass the “newsworthy” test. Welcome to the nexus of privatized elections and censored news.
Washington, DC (DailyCensored.Com) — The justices above are clearly the most rational group of high level functionaries in the industrialized world. They did what no other court would do in Europe or the United States. They effectively outlawed electronic voting. On March 3, 2009, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared that the electronic voting machines used in the 2005 Bundestag elections for the German national parliament were outside of the bounds of the German Constitution.
They reasoned that electronic voting is not verifiable because citizen votes are counted in secret. It is obscured a technology inaccessible to all but a very few initiates. Most importantly, the German high court noted, electronic voting machines don’t allow citizens to “reliably examine, when the vote is cast, whether the vote has been recorded in an unadulterated manner” Mar. 3, 2009.
Full Story: American Politics Journal – A Censored Headline and Why It Matters: German High Court Outlaws Electronic Voting.
Underweight Girl Denied Insurance Coverage
A 2-year old Colorado girl has been denied coverage because she doesn’t weigh enough, KMGH-TV in Denver reported.
Aislin Bates weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces at birth. She now tips the scale at 22 pounds.”She’s perfectly healthy, yet she has become a statistic,” said Aislin’s mother, Rachel Bates. “There’s no reason for her to be a statistic as a non-insured person.”When Aislin’s father, Rob, worked for another company, Aislin was covered under the company’s group health insurance plan.
Now that Rob is working on his own, he’s had to get new insurance. The company, United Healthcard’s Golden Rule, sent the family a letter, which says, in part, “We are unable to provide coverage for Aislin because her height and weight do not meet our company standards.
Full Story: Underweight Girl Denied Insurance Coverage – Health News Story – WMTW Portland.
Signs of the US dollar’s demise
An article by veteran Middle East journalist Robert Fisk in the British Independent on October 6, entitled “The demise of the dollar”, is credited with adding to the recent weakness of the US dollar and the rise of gold prices.
The exclusive report revealed that finance ministers and central bankers from the Gulf States, China, Russia, Japan and France had held a series of secret meetings to plan an end to the use of the US dollar for oil trading by 2018. The replacement would be a basket of currencies, including the euro, the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, gold and possibly a new currency issued by the Gulf Cooperation Council.
If true, such a move would be an economic and political bombshell. An end to the use of the US dollar for trading in such a vital commodity as oil would be a further blow to its pivotal role since the end of World War II as the world’s reserve currency. With no obvious solid replacement, the demise of the dollar would be a recipe for the emergence of antagonistic currency and trade blocs. For the US, it would end its ability to readily fund its huge debts by selling bonds denominated in the world’s reserve currency.
Full Story: Signs of the US dollar’s demise.
Chamber Of Commerce Spends $34 Million On Lobbying In Three Months
The US Chamber of Commerce reported that it spent a mind-boggling $34.7 million lobbying Congress in the third quarter of 2009 — far surpassing the $10 million it spent in the first quarter and the $7.4 million spent in the second.
The National Journal reports that the Chamber’s aggressive lobbying efforts have placed it firmly in opposition to the Obama administration’s first-year priorities. The business association earned the top spot on the Journal’s “Top Health Care Players” list for the first half of the year and has stirred up controversy amongst its own membership due to its strict stance against climate change legislation.
Politico reports that the Chamber’s numbers are greater than the sum of the next 18 highest filers so far, including the Chamber’s separate Institute for Legal Reform, which combined to spend $30.9 million.
From Politico:
Full Story: Chamber Of Commerce Spends $34 Million On Lobbying In Three Months.
Fewer People Identify As Republicans Than Ever Before In Post Poll
Reporting on the new ABC/Washington Post poll has mostly focused on support for a public health care option. But the poll also shows that, while Republicans have succeeded in stonewalling Democratic initiatives in Congress, they have not managed to rebuild their party.
Only 20 percent of respondents identified themselves as Republicans — the lowest number since the paper starting asking the question in 1983.
“These numbers, coming roughly one year before the 2010 midterm elections, show that any celebration on the GOP’s behalf is premature as the party has yet to convince most voters that it can be a viable alternative to Democratic control in Washington today,” wrote Chris Cillizza.
Full Story: Fewer People Identify As Republicans Than Ever Before In Post Poll.
OPS: Which proves that Democrats are afraid to Lead
At rescued banks, perks keep rolling
Bosses benefit after bailout Fringe compensation rose 4 percent last year
- Even as the nation’s biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.
The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.
Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.
Full Story: At rescued banks, perks keep rolling – washingtonpost.com.
Obama’s EPA cracks down, orders more tests for BP refinery
In last months of Bush’s administration, agency approved project to upgrade and expand northwest Indiana BP site, one of the largest polluters in the Chicago area
The Obama administration is cracking down on BP as the oil company overhauls its massive refinery in northwest Indiana, one of the largest sources of air pollution in the Chicago area.
In response to a petition from environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday ordered Indiana regulators to revamp a new operating permit for the Midwest’s biggest refinery. The groups, along with elected officials in Illinois, contend Indiana had allowed the oil giant to avoid stringent requirements under the federal Clean Air Act.
Tougher pollution limits could help relieve problems with lung-damaging soot and smog in the metropolitan area that stretches around the tip of Lake Michigan.
Full Story: Obama’s EPA cracks down, orders more tests for BP refinery — chicagotribune.com.
Ending death penalty could save US millions: study
“It is doubtful in today’s economic climate that any legislature would introduce the death penalty if faced with the reality that each execution would cost taxpayers 25 million dollars, or that the state might spend more than 100 million dollars over several years and produce few or no executions,” argued Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report’s author.
“Surely there are more pressing needs deserving funding,” he wrote, noting that execution was rated among the least effective crime deterrents.
In just one death penalty trial “the state may pay one million dollars more than for a non-death penalty trial. But only one in every three capital trials may result in a death sentence, so the true cost of that death sentence is three million dollars,” the study’s author said.
Full Story: AFP: Ending death penalty could save US millions: study.
That sound you hear is the social fabric about to snap
Michael Lind – Salon
The real unemployment rate is almost 20 percent. Here’s what the federal government can do about the jobs crisis
According to official statistics, the unemployment rate in the United States is now 9.8 percent. But those statistics understate the severity of the jobs crisis. The official statistics do not include the 875,000 Americans who have given up looking for work, even though they want jobs. When these “marginally attached” workers and part-time workers are added to the officially unemployed, the result, according to another, broader governement measure of unemployment known as “U-6,” is shocking. The United States has an unemployment rate of 17 percent.
And even this may understate the depth of the problem. By adding the 3.4 million Americans who want a job but have not looked for one in over a year, businessman, philanthropist and Obama advisor Leo Hindery Jr. infers an actual unemployment rate of 18.8 percent. In other words, nearly one in five Americans is unemployed or underemployed.
The sound you hear is the sound of the social fabric in America rotting and beginning to snap. Thanks to the unemployment insurance system adopted during the New Deal years, and thanks in part to the stimulus that the Obama administration and Congress passed earlier in the year, we do not have hordes of out-of-work Americans standing in line at soup kitchens and riding the rails from town to town. Even so, the invisible decay of America’s social order is just as real as the highly visible decay of abandoned McMansions in new developments that are turning into ghost towns across the continent.
Full Story: That sound you hear is the social fabric about to snap | Salon.
Bernanke warns on imbalance risks
OPS: In his continuing effort to get Americans to drink his Jonestown kool-aid Rev. Bernanke argues for status quo – drink baby drink.
US and Asia must not return to old habits
Ben Bernanke said on Monday that it was “extraordinarily urgent” that the US and Asia adopt policies that prevent a revival of global economic imbalances as the financial crisis ebbs.
The Federal Reserve chairman warned that global imbalances – the big gaps between national saving, consumption and investment rates reflected in large trade deficits and surpluses – had helped cause the crisis and needed to be corrected.
Full Story: FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – Bernanke warns on imbalance risks.
Concession raises hopes for climate deal
Rich nations set to modify demands ahead of Copenhagen
Developed countries are preparing to relent on their demand that developing countries agree to long-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in a concession that could form the basis of a global deal on climate change.
The demand was one of five key elements rich countries wanted for a deal at the international climate change summit in Copenhagen in December. But major emerging economies, led by China and India, refused to sign up to it, worrying it could be used to force large and so far unquantified emission cuts on them in the future.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic are now softening their call for a global target of halving emissions by 2050, in an attempt to build a consensus around a less ambitious deal in Copenhagen.
Full Story: FT.com / Global Economy – Concession raises hopes for climate deal.
US housing starts growth slows
Producer prices fall on slumping energy
New residential construction continued to climb in the US last month, but the increase was smaller than expected as the looming expiration of the first-time homebuyer tax credit has cast a cloud over the market.
Separately on Tuesday the labour department said that wholesale prices fell in September, pulled back by a slump in energy prices.
Full Story: FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – US housing starts growth slows.
Caterpillar plans for quick economic rebound
Manufacturing bellwether beats analysts’ estimates
Caterpillar, the world’s biggest maker of earth-moving equipment and heavy-duty engines, gave an upbeat view of the global economy on Tuesday, saying conditions were improving throughout the world and revealing that it was now planning for a quick rebound, as it raised its outlook for this year and issued a bullish forecast for next year.
The manufacturer is widely seen as a bellwether of the US and global industrial economy. It was one of the first big US companies to warn, back in 2007, that the US was entering a serious economic downturn.
Full Story: FT.com / Industrials – Caterpillar plans for quick economic rebound.
Karzai forced to accept new Afghan poll
Second round run-off scheduled for November 7
Hamid Karzai, the Afghanistan president, on Tuesday bowed to international pressure and agreed to a run-off presidential election against challenger Abdullah Abdullah.
The announcement came in a press conference where Mr Karzai, flanked by US Senator John Kerry, said the run-off was both “legal and constitutional”.
It came less than 24 hours after a UN-backed electoral body – which had been investigating fraud allegations that followed the August 20 election – said that Mr Karzai had failed to secure enough votes for an outright victory.
Full Story: FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Karzai forced to accept new Afghan poll.
PM warns of climate ‘catastrophe’
The UK faces a “catastrophe” of floods, droughts and killer heatwaves if world leaders fail to agree a deal on climate change, the prime minister has warned.
Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the “impasse”.
He told the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, there was “no plan B”.
World delegations meet in Copenhagen in December for talks on a new treaty.
Full Story: BBC NEWS | UK | PM warns of climate ‘catastrophe’.
Shell wins federal approval to drill for oil off Alaska coast
The Interior Department has given Shell approval to drill oil exploration wells in two leaseholds in the Beaufort Sea, which could lead to the first drilling in more than a decade in this area off the north coast of Alaska.
Shell Alaska general manager Pete Slaiby hailed the decision as “another positive step towards the ultimate goal of drilling in 2010.”
But environmental groups criticized the move. “There is no safe way to drill in the Beaufort Sea,” said Athan Manuel, director of lands protection at the Sierra Club. “Cleaning up an oil spill in the Arctic’s broken sea ice is next to impossible, and where there is drilling, there are oil spills.” He said a spill could threaten polar bears and bowhead whales.
The two leases were obtained by Shell in 2005 and 2007. The sales are not affected by a recent court decision that sent the current leasing program back to the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service for additional analysis.
Full Story: Shell wins federal approval to drill for oil off Alaska coast.
High jobless rates could be the new normal
Industries that previously jump started employment aren’t able to this time
Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.
That could add up to a “new normal” of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.
The words “it’s different this time” are always suspect. But economists and policy makers say the job-creating dynamics of previous recoveries can’t be counted on now.
Full Story: High jobless rates could be the new normal – Stocks & economy- msnbc.com.
Wall Street 40% Bonus Rise Feeds Spending on $43 Steak, Co-ops
A 40 percent jump in Wall Street bonuses this year may bring relief to New York City and Albany as the state and its biggest metropolis struggle with a combined $14 billion in budget deficits this fiscal year and next.
New York investment houses will dole out $26 billion in bonus checks by the end of March, said Alan Johnson, president of compensation consultant Johnson Associates Inc. The money will probably boost sales of multimillion-dollar co-op apartments and generate extra income-tax revenue for state and city governments.
“I don’t think this is going to make everybody think, ‘Oh, good times are here again,’ but it may ease things a bit,” said Lawrence White, professor of economics at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.
Full Story: Wall Street 40% Bonus Rise Feeds Spending on $43 Steak, Co-ops – Bloomberg.com.
One in six Americans in poverty, new study finds
The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.
A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government’s official figure.
The disparity occurs because of differing formulas the Census Bureau and the National Academy of Science use for calculating the poverty rate. The NAS formula shows the poverty rate to be at 15.8 percent, or nearly 1 in 6 Americans, according to calculations released this week. That’s higher than the 13.2 percent, or 39.8 million, figure made available recently under the original government formula.
Full Story: One in six Americans in poverty, new study finds | Raw Story.
How now, DOW? The true meaning of DOW 10,000 – again.
Let’s not celebrate the DOW returning, yet again, to its 15-year average, let’s focus on how to reform the real economy.
Some sobbering observations about the DOW
First of all, we first crossed the DOW 10,000 mark 10 1/2 years ago. At that time, unemployment was a little over 4%, we had a budget surplus and less than half the national debt. We were involved in NO wars, and the military was being slowly downsized (one major reason for the surplus). We had just realized the twin boons brought about by
A. The fall of Communism and the opening up of world markets. Who would have thought in 1990 that Red China would become a major capitalist market with its own vibrant stock market?
B. A computer and then an Internet revolution.
There were other reasons, some not so benign for the boom, which I’ll get to in a moment.
It’s a bit hard to get excited to see the DOW return to its 15-year average, especially after we had two 50% crashes in the last ten years (if you average the three major indexes). The Nasdaq has never recovered beyond 50% of its old 2000 high since falling more than 70% in 2000-2003. People nowadays tend to say the Nasdaq is not as important as the DOW and the S&P, but in the 90s, it was the hot new tech-laden index and the index of the New Paradigm that was going to make us all rich – without working. Yet, even now, it is still off some 60% from its 10-year ago high.
Needless to say, stock markets are not supposed to work this way. In retrospect, the late 90s boom should never have happened either. People like to blame the speculative Tech bubble, and that was certainly a major factor, but at least as big a factor was the massive frenzy caused by deregulation, including the near fatal repeal of Glass-Stegall, which had kept the gambling Investment Banks separate from Commercial Banking since the Great Depression. Freed-up financial institutions went wild, speculating with depositor’s money and record amounts of leverage. Where staid, safe commercial banks had never been able to invest beyond a 10:1 loan (and ONLY loan) to asset ratio, suddenly they were able to create all sorts of fancy derivatives and increase their leverage to 40:1, than to 100:1 and even beyond (no one really knows the value of the underlying instruments of the $600 Trillion derivative market).
Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: How now, DOW? The true meaning of DOW 10,000 – again..
Foreign Ownership of U.S. Industries
The United States now no longer controls many of its domestic industries.
The United States now no longer controls many of its domestic industries. Over the last 10 years alone foreigners have spent $1.2 trillion to acquire more than 8,000 key US companies. As of 2002, foreigners owned fully 20 percent of American manufacturing. In many high-tech and defense-related industries, the proportion is far higher. Such US industries as mining, cement, publishing, engine and power transmission equipment, rubber and plastics, and sound recording and motion pictures are now largely foreign owned. Even in industries like pharmaceuticals, chemicals, industrial machinery, transportation equipment, electronics, metal industries, and coal and petroleum industries, foreign ownership has recently become very high.
Increasingly therefore profits and technological secrets in such industries accrue to foreign owners. Moreover many of the key jobs (in research and development, for instance) go to foreign workers, while the profits that accrue to foreign holding companies boost the tax revenues of foreign governments. We are no longer capable of producing many critical components needed in our high-tech and defense industries.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Big Banks Post Record Profits and Pay Out Obscene Bonuses
Danny Schechter, || What should We The People do: Stand up or roll over?
On February 1, 1960, four students sat down at a lunch counter at the former Woolworth’s store in Greensboro North Carolina.
4 students! Just four!
They were protesting racial segregation. They were denied, service, harassed and arrested.
Greensboro was and still is a backwater, yet their courage and
commitment sparked and helped drive a national movement that would, within a few years, transform this country.
Martin Luther King may have had the dream but they had a scheme—a way of getting attention, a way of showing that if you want to make change, you have to be willing to act.
Few of us remember their names. I knew one, Joseph McNeil, because he went to my high school in the Bronx before heading to AT&T, a traditionally black college, later famous as the school at which Jesse Jackson played football.
“Shockingly Higher” Health Care Costs
Cash strapped consumers may soon be forced to foot a much larger portion of their health care bills.
Cash strapped consumers may soon be forced to foot a much larger portion of their health care bills as employers shift more of the burden onto workers in a effort to cut costs, according to CNNMoney.com.
Consumers can expect “shockingly higher costs” in the form of premiums, deductibles and employee contributions, the report says.
“The headline is greater cost sharing,” Tom Billet, senior consultant with human resources consultancy Watson Wyatt, told CNNMoney.com. “That means higher [employee] contributions, higher deductibles, or both.”
Not only are employers looking to save money by shifting more of the health care costs to employees, but they are also hoping to create awareness among employees of the true costs in an effort to push them toward using care more judiciously.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Fifth Column
In globalization you can’t produce for a profit in the United States. The president and Congress conspire with the bailout and bonus crowd as a Fifth Column in the trade war.
In the Spanish Civil War of 1936, there developed within the ranks of the Spanish forces troops favorable to the enemy – and this enemy within was called a Fifth Column. Unfortunately, in the trade war today there is a Fifth Column leading the American forces.
After World War II, Japan started today’s trade war by closing its domestic market, subsidizing its manufacturing, and selling its exports at cost or below, making up the profit in the closed market. As Governor of South Carolina in 1960, I was drafted in this trade war by America’s textile industry. They asked me to testify before the old Tariff Commission to tell how Japanese textile imports were being sold at less than cost, damaging U.S. production and costing jobs. Later, in 1968, the Senate adopted my textile amendment to a trade bill which was blocked by President Lyndon Johnson when the bill was returned to the House of Representatives. Corporate America was working on me to protect their investment and jobs. Then under presidents Carter, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, my bills to protect American textile jobs passed both Houses of Congress only to be vetoed by each President, espousing “free trade.” While Japan was not practicing “free trade,” U.S. presidents permitted violations of trade agreements in their zeal to conquer communism with capitalism in the Cold War that was going on at the same time as the trade war.
I’ll never forget the lawyers for the Zenith dumping case against Japan telling me how industry had spent $3 million in almost three years to finally win before the United States Supreme Court only to have the judgment set aside by President Reagan. Under law, a president can set aside the judgment for national security purposes. Reagan’s Cabinet met around the Cabinet table waiting for President Reagan and had voted unanimously to uphold the Supreme Court judgment. President Reagan rushed in late saying Nakasone held him up on the phone. The President said: “He’s in trouble at home and we’re going to have to set aside the Zenith judgment.” After this, Corporate America, realizing they could get no relief in Congress, began off-shoring.
Full Story: Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Will Today’s U.S.-Armed Ally Be Tomorrow’s Enemy?
Who’s Next? – Lessons from the Long War and a Blowback World
By Tom Engelhardt
Is it too early — or already too late — to begin drawing lessons from “the Long War”? That phrase, coined in 2002 and, by 2005, being championed by Centcom Commander General John Abizaid, was meant to be a catchier name for George W. Bush’s “Global War on Terror.” That was back in the days when inside-the-Beltway types were still dreaming about a global Pax Americana and its domestic partner, a Pax Republicana, and imagining that both, once firmly established, might last forever.
“The Long War” merely exchanged the shock-’n'-awe geographical breadth of the President Bush’s chosen moniker (“global”) for a shock-’n'-awe time span. Our all-out, no-holds-barred struggle against evil-doers would be nothing short of generational as well as planetary. From Abizaid’s point of view, perhaps a little in-office surgical operation on the nomenclature of Bush’s war was, in any case, in order at a time when the Iraq War was going disastrously badly and the Afghan one was starting to look more than a little peaked as well. It was like saying: Forget that “mission accomplished” sprint to victory in 2003 and keep your eyes on the prize. We’re in it for the long slog.
When Bush officials and Pentagon brass used “the long war” — a phrase that never gained much traction outside administration circles and admiring think tanks — they were (being Americans) predicting the future, not commenting on the past. In their view, the fight against the Islamist terrorists and assorted bad guys who wanted to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and truly bloody the American nose would be decades long.
Full Story: Tomgram: Will Today’s U.S.-Armed Ally Be Tomorrow’s Enemy?.
Infant Formula Companies Claim They Can Make Babies ‘Smarter’ — Quite Dangerous Hype
Companies have fortified their products with synthetic versions of certain fatty acids associated with brain development. But evidence shows it may be making children sick.
If you believed a certain baby formula would make your child smarter, would you buy it?
Infant formula manufacturers are banking that you would. That’s why, since 2002, several companies have fortified their products with synthetic versions of DHA and ARA, long-chain fatty acids that occur naturally in breast milk and have been associated with brain development.
The oils are produced by Martek Biosciences Corp. from lab-grown algae and fungus and extracted with hexane, according to the company’s patent application. Hexane is a neurotoxin.
A growing number of parents and medical professional believe these additives are causing severe reactions in some babies, and it has been repeatedly shown that taking affected babies off DHA/ARA formula makes the problems go away almost immediately. The FDA has received hundreds of letters to this effect by upset parents, even as products containing the additives are being marketed as better than breast milk.
Full Story: Infant Formula Companies Claim They Can Make Babies ‘Smarter’ — Quite Dangerous Hype | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.
Bill Moyers Journal with Mark Danner
Stripping Bare the Body
Bill Moyers: How Can the U.S. Be an Empire and a Democracy at the Same Time?
An interview with Mark Danner, whose new book, Stripping Bare the Body, explores the strange notion of a democratic empire and the wars it wages.
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
President Obama has been holding one meeting after another trying to decide whether to escalate the war in Afghanistan. He would do well to hold off another discussion until he has sent everyone home for the weekend to read this new book with the provocative title, STRIPPING BARE THE BODY, and a cover that holds the eye like a magnet.
The subject is politics, violence, and war, and running through it is an old truth often forgot: you start a war knowing what you are fighting, but in the end you find yourself fighting for things you had never thought of.
In the meantime, you make decisions that inflict on people in far-off places suffering you never imagined.
That’s but one stark truth you will find in these pages. The wars we fight, and the violence that feeds them, reveal like nothing else the hidden structures of power in Washington: the personal rivalries, the in-fighting and deal-making, the ambitions that decide our policies and often our fate. STRIPPING BARE THE BODY, you will discover, is a moral history of American power over the past quarter century.
Its author is Mark Danner, who throughout those 25 years reported from more mean places in the world than any journalist I know — Iraq, the Balkans, Haiti, and Washington, among them. Despite more than one close brush with death, he keeps going back. He writes for some of our leading magazines and has produced a series of acclaimed books, winning awards left and right as well as receiving the MacArthur Fellowship. All the while Mark Danner has been teaching journalism and foreign affairs at both the University of California, Berkeley, and Bard College in upstate New York. He’s been at this table before, and it’s good to welcome you back.
Full Story: Bill Moyers Journal . Transcripts | PBS.
Meet the Senators in the Creepy Right-Wing Cult Trying to Defeat Health Care Reform
Meet the Senators in the Creepy Right-Wing Cult Trying to Defeat Health Care Reform
The Family has spent decades consolidating power within the GOP and may have come to dominate the party even among those who do not belong to the cult.
In the heat of summer, a din of voices arose from the U.S. Senate in opposition to the health care reform legislation that was taking shape in both houses of Congress. Overlooked in media coverage of the health care brouhaha is the membership of many of the senators who most vociferously oppose the legislation in the right-wing religious cult known as The Family.
With the Senate Finance Committee’s passage last Tuesday of its version of health care legislation, expect the debate to flare again as the bill moves to the Senate floor. The Family’s point men — “key men” in the cult’s theological lexicon — will likely try once again to defeat reform in the service of their Supply-Side Jesus.
You could chalk it up to nothing more than pure partisanship, this obstructionism on the part of these Republicans. Or you could say that the ideology-cum-theology of The Family, which has spent decades consolidating power within the GOP, has at last come to dominate the party even among those who do not belong to the cult.
Full Story: Meet the Senators in the Creepy Right-Wing Cult Trying to Defeat Health Care Reform | Politics | AlterNet.
U.S. foreign policy fails due to lack of understanding history and geography
Ryan Crocker has been weaving in and out of foreign territories for the last two decades. Before becoming U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 2007, he served as the International Affairs Advisor at the National War College, where he joined the faculty in 2003. Prior to that, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from August 2001 to May 2003, and served previously as Ambassador to Syria (1998-2001), Ambassador to Kuwait (1994-1997) and Ambassador to Lebanon (1990-1993). Since joining the Foreign Service in 1971, he also has had assignments in Iran, Qatar, Iraq and Egypt, as well as Washington. He was assigned to the American Embassy in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the bombings of the embassy and the Marine barracks in 1983. (see his bio on the US State Department website).
Last week, Mr. Crocker addressed an audience at the Harvard Kennedy School and indicated that our failure to understanding a region in its historical and geographical context is impacting our foreign policy in a negative manner.
Full Story: U.S. foreign policy fails due to lack of understanding history and geography.
The Glenn Beck chart
By Media Matters
Glenn Beck’s affinity for chalkboard diagrams charting out the frequently illusory “connections” in the growing liberal conspiracy to undermine America is well-documented. In that spirit, Media Matters for America has explored Beck’s links to the extremist, unhinged, and sometimes paranoid people and groups that inhabit the world of right-wing political activism and laid them out in a Beck-style chart, but with two key differences: these connections actually exist, and they were spell-checked.
Legend
1. GLENN BECK W. CLEON SKOUSEN: As documented by Salon’s Alexander Zaitchik, W. Cleon Skousen, a right-wing activist and conspiracy theorist, is “Beck’s favorite writer and the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement, ‘The 5,000 Year Leap.’ A once-famous anti-communist ‘historian,’ Skousen was too extreme even for the conservative activists of the Goldwater era, but Glenn Beck has now rescued him from the remainder pile of history, and introduced him to a receptive new audience.” Beck frequently touts Skousen’s work on his television and radio programs and wrote a foreword for the 30th anniversary edition of The 5000 Year Leap, which he promotes on his website.
2. GLENN BECK THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY: Beck interviewed Sam Antonio, a national spokesman for the John Birch Society, on the July 25, 2007, edition of his now-defunct CNN Headline News program. Leading off the interview, Beck said to Antonio: “I have to tell you, when I was growing up, the John Birch Society, I thought they were a bunch of nuts, however, you guys are starting to make more and more sense to me.” Beck was discussing with Antonio the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an economic and security initiative of the United States, Canada, and Mexico that the John Birch Society believes is a vehicle “to stealthily merge the three North American nations.”
Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: The Glenn Beck chart.
Safety Nets for the Rich
The headlines that ran side by side on the front page of Saturday’s New York Times summed up, inadvertently, the terrible fix that we’ve allowed our country to fall into.
The lead headline, in the upper right-hand corner, said: “U.S. Deficit Rises to $1.4 Trillion; Biggest Since ’45.”
The headline next to it said: “Bailout Helps Revive Banks, And Bonuses.”
We’ve spent the last few decades shoveling money at the rich like there was no tomorrow. We abandoned the poor, put an economic stranglehold on the middle class and all but bankrupted the federal government — while giving the banks and megacorporations and the rest of the swells at the top of the economic pyramid just about everything they’ve wanted.
Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Safety Nets for the Rich – NYTimes.com.
Skype and Job Interviews: Webcam Meetings on the Rise
Get ready for a closeup: your next job interview might be on webcam. Looking to save time and money, companies are turning to video-chat software as a cheap, low-hassle way to vet job candidates. That means a growing number of people looking for work are meeting their prospective new bosses not at the office but in the comfort of their own home.
Naturally, the transition from in-person to online isn’t without its hiccups. Fuzzy transmissions, dropped calls (especially on wireless networks) and unusual disruptions are all par for the course. Tip No. 1: Get your dog out of barking range before you start the interview. (We’ll return to the pointers in a bit.) (See pictures of the history of the cell phone.)
What’s the draw? Largely money. Last year, as executives at online retailer Zappos.com looked to cut expenses, they noticed how much the firm spent on travel. In HR alone, it easily cost $1,000 a pop to fly out job candidates and put them up for the night. The firm had used Skype internally, so about six months ago, recruiters started trying it for interviews.
Full Story: Skype and Job Interviews: Webcam Meetings on the Rise – TIME.
Gallup poll finds record support for legalizing marijuana
New data from U.S. polling firm Gallup shows nearly half of Americans — a record number — are in support of legalizing and taxing marijuana for recreational use by adults.
The poll clearly illustrates a generational and political divide on the issue, with 78 percent of self-described liberals saying they would like to see the drug legalized and 72 percent of self-described conservatives being opposed. Gallup also found that 50 percent of Americans under 50-years-old are in favor of legalization, but just 28 percent of seniors agree.
Perhaps the most important demographic to advocates of legalization are the moderate voters, among whom 51 percent now support ending prohibition
Full Story: Gallup poll finds record support for legalizing marijuana | Raw Story.
Court: Smokers may sue for payment on lung cancer screenings
Cigarette maker Philip Morris may now be sued by long term smokers who have not yet developed lung cancer, a Massachusetts court ruled Monday.
The Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous ruling gives a go-ahead to a group lawsuit in the state that seeks to force Philip Morris into paying for smokers’ medical screening for lung cancer.
The “[court] said that Massachusetts law has an antiquated definition of negligence that must be updated,” The Boston Globe reported. “Historically, plaintiffs had to show explicit injury — such as a broken leg — before the other party can be ordered to pay for diagnostic tests. Writing for the court, Justice Francis X. Spina said that legal thinking had to change.”
Full Story: Court: Smokers may sue for payment on lung cancer screenings | Raw Story.
US scientist charged with attempted spying for Israel
A top American scientist who once worked for the Pentagon and the US space agency NASA was arrested Monday and charged with attempted spying for Israel
, the Department of Justice said.
Stewart David Nozette, 52, developed an experiment that fueled the discovery of water on the south pole of the moon, and previously held special security clearance at the Department of Energy on atomic materials, the DOJ said.
He is charged with “attempted espionage for knowingly and willfully attempting to communicate, deliver, and transmit classified information relating to the national defense of the United States to an individual that Nozette believed to be an Israeli intelligence officer,” the DOJ said.
Full Story: The Raw Story | US scientist charged with attempted spying for Israel.
Climate Spoof Forces Chamber To Decry ‘Public Relations Hoaxes’
Reuters: Chamber of Commerce backs climate change billThis morning, activists from the Yes Men troupe claiming to represent the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced the organization was reversing its years of opposition to any climate bill before Congress, saying in jest that the “Kerry-Boxer Bill is a good start to a strong climate bill.” CNBC and the Fox Business Network cited the many companies who have quit the Chamber as a reason for the fictional about-face.
The Chamber of Commerce quickly tried to quash the reports that it had reversed its “Scopes monkey trial” stance. Chamber of Commerce official Eric Wohlschlegel broke into the press conference held by the Yes Men at the National Press Club, shouting, “This guy is a fake!” After a “mild shoving match at the podium,” Wohlschegel told reporters, “It is a very sad day.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce official Thomas J. Collamore decried “public relations hoaxes” and called for “law enforcement authorities to investigate this event”:
Public relations hoaxes undermine the genuine effort to find solutions on the challenge of climate change. These irresponsible tactics are a foolish distraction from the serious effort by our nation to reduce greenhouse gases.
Full Story: Think Progress » Climate Spoof Forces Chamber To Decry ‘Public Relations Hoaxes’.
Conservative Health Care Attack Group Hires Industry Lobbyist To Coordinate Strategy On Killing Reform
Today, CNN obtained a memo from Conservatives for Patients’ Rights (CPR) sent to tea party organizations and conservative think tanks urging a coordinated approach to attacking health reform. The memo argues that a synchronized messaging strategy will help “to deliver a decisive ‘knock out’ punch” to health care legislation. CPR was started this year by health clinic and hospital executive Rick Scott, who helps to self-fund advertisements dishonestly smearing health reform. Although Scott has focused his attention on killing the public option, he has never acknowledged working directly with the health insurance industry.
However, yesterday CPR filed its third quarter lobbying disclosures with the U.S. Senate, revealing that the Swift-Boat style attack group has contracted veteran health insurance lobbyist Brian McManus. McManus, while at the same time advising CPR, is currently the Director of Federal Affairs at the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI), a private health insurance trade group advocating Health Savings Accounts. So while CPR has paid McManus at least $60,000, he continues to also collect an income from a private insurer-backed group.
Howard Dean Urges Dems to Stay Strong in Fight for Health Care Reform
“This is your president. Barack Obama is your generation’s JFK,” Dean said. “Don’t blow it.”
Dean told the young voters who helped elect Barack Obama never to take a vacation from politics.
The more Democrats in the U.S. Senate compromise with Republicans on health care reform, the less effective it will be, Howard Dean said on Oct. 15 at Fordham.
Dean, the former governor of Vermont and chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2003-2009, added that a failed reform effort would create problems for Democrats in upcoming elections.
“We will lose our majority in the House if we don’t deliver health care reform … and that’s a promise,” Dean said in a speech to about 200 students on the Rose Hill campus.
“We must not allow sophisticated political maneuvering for the purpose of neutering Barack Obama’s presidency to take over the health care debate, and that is exactly what’s going on.”
Full Story: Howard Dean Urges Dems to Stay Strong in Fight for Health Care Reform.
Fed chairman calls for US to cut deficit
Remarks by Ben Bernanke come days after US government reported a $1.42tn deficit for the year
Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, today called for the United States to whittle down its record-high budget deficits and for countries like China to get their consumers to spend more, moves that would help combat skewed global trade and investment flows that contributed to the financial crisis.
Bernanke’s remarks to a Fed conference in Santa Barbara, California comes just days after the federal government on Friday reported a $1.42tn deficit for 2009 budget year that ended on 30 September. The previous year’s deficit was $459bn.
The Fed chief’s comments were aimed at reducing global imbalances, and echo pledges made by leaders of the Group of 20 nations at their summit in Pittsburgh last month.
Full Story: Fed chairman calls for US to cut deficit | Business | guardian.co.uk.
OPS: Fine. Let’s start by ending Iraq and Afghanistan Occupations
Hersh: Military waging war with White House
The U.S. military is not just fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s most renowned investigative journalist says.
The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have [President] Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium on Tuesday night. “They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it’s true and we all know it.”
In a speech on Obama’s foreign policy, Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war, said many military leaders want Obama to fail.
“A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.
Full Story: The Herald-Sun – Hersh Military waging war with White House.
Most support public option for health insurance, poll finds
CLEAR MAJORITY NOW BACKS PLAN
Americans still divided on overall packages
Americans remain sharply divided about the overall packages moving closer to votes in Congress and President Obama’s leadership on the issue, reflecting the partisan battle that has raged for months over the administration’s top legislative priority. But sizable majorities back two key and controversial provisions: both the so-called public option and a new mandate that would require all Americans to carry health insurance.
Independents and senior citizens, two groups crucial to the debate, have warmed to the idea of a public option, and are particularly supportive if it would be administered by the states and limited to those without access to affordable private coverage.
Full Story: Most support public option for health insurance, poll finds – washingtonpost.com.
McChrystal Mistakenly Reveals Secret CIA Report
In his widely reported London speech earlier this month, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, described how people constantly offer him ideas for fixing that country’s problems. One of the more unusual recommendations, he suggested, came from a paper that advocated using a “plan called ‘Chaosistan.’ ” McChrystal said it advised letting Afghanistan become a “Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from outside,” but there was no further explanation of its origins.
When journalists from NEWSWEEK and other media outlets asked McChrystal’s entourage about where the paper came from, they were directed to an obscure Web posting—an October 1998 speech headlined “What is Chaostan [sic]?” delivered by investment adviser Richard Maybury at a New Orleans conference for gold enthusiasts. Maybury predicted that 24 wars in “Chaostan”—a vast region stretching from Poland to North Africa to China, Vietnam, and Indonesia—would eventually merge into World War III. From an investor’s point of view, Maybury wrote, this will be “great for weapons stocks and security–equipment stocks…and non-Chaostan oil investments.” Was this really what McChrystal was referring to?
Full Story: McChrystal Mistakenly Reveals Secret CIA Report – Declassified Blog – Newsweek.com.
GOPers: DeMint Like A Jew “Watching Our Nation’s Pennies”
South Carolina County Republican Party chairmen stepped up to rebut criticism of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) in a newspaper editorial Sunday. But their defense of the senator might be overshadowed by their use of an anti-Semitic stereotype to praise him.
After a Democratic state senator wrote in The State that DeMint didn’t bring enough money back home, Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer responded that he was just looking after the nation’s pennies — like a Jew would.
“There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves,” Ulmer and Merwin wrote in a joint letter published by The Times and Democrat. “By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation’s pennies and trying to preserve our country’s wealth and our economy’s viability to give all an opportunity to succeed.”
Full Story: GOPers: DeMint Like A Jew “Watching Our Nation’s Pennies”.
Man Joins Army To Pay For Wife’s Chemo
Bill Caudle, 39, enlisted in the Army so that he could get health insurance help pay for his wife’s ovarian cancer treatment, reports Mark Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Bill was laid off from his job at a plastics company in March, where he had worked for 20 years, and searched for a new job for a few months before signing up so that his wife and high school sweetheart, Michelle, would be guaranteed chemotherapy. On their own, the Caudles’ insurance cost them $1,370 each month, which they could not afford on Michelle’s part-time salary at a fast food restaurant.
The four-year commitment means Bill will miss all of his youngest daughter’s four years of high school. Chelsea, the daughter, cried when her mother told her. Bill left for processing and basic training October 6. The next day, once he was officially processed, his Army health coverage started.
(The Huffington Post previously reported a similar story about a woman named Rebecca Johnston who joined the military for health and education benefits for her family.)
Full Story: Man Joins Army To Pay For Wife’s Chemo.
Fix ‘Meet The Press’, Hire Rachel Maddow
Let’s be honest, “Meet The Press” has been lost since Tim Russert’s passing. What used to be Sunday morning’s hardest-hitting, most compelling politics show has become a little soggy. David Gregory was a safe choice to replace Russert; he’s got credibility as a reporter, a bit of sense of humor, heck, he’s even pretty good-looking. And he’s made the show just that: safe. He doesn’t have fire. He doesn’t have Russert’s dogged determination, his inability to let an issue go before he gets to the truth. And “Meet The Press” isn’t the same without it.
It’s nothing personal against Gregory, he does a respectable job. But Tim Russert’s shoes were ridiculously hard to fill, and most anyone would’ve been a let down. Which is why it’s time for MTP to make another change. It’s not about the guy who replaces the legend, it’s about the guy who replaces the guy who replaces the legend. He (or she) is the one that really has a shot. A chance to step out of the shadow, to be their own host, to make the show in their image, not as a reflection of the great one who came before them. And that person is Rachel Maddow.
If you’re familiar with her work on MSNBC, then you know what I’m talking about. If you’re not, watch the following. It’s Maddow’s interview with Tim Phillips, the President of “American’s for Prosperity” a Republican activist organization.
Full Story: Brian Donovan – NewsCast Aside – Fix ‘Meet The Press’, Hire Rachel Maddow – True/Slant.
New York Times to cut 100 jobs
Newspaper will slash 8% of its newsroom staff by the end of 2009, asking staff to volunteer for buyouts before layoffs become necessary.
The New York Times on Monday announced plans to cut 100 jobs from its newsroom, about 8% of its news staff, by the end of the year.
The newspaper will offer buyouts to staff who voluntarily leave the company, and it will lay off others if there are not enough volunteers, Executive Editor Bill Keller said in an e-mail to his staff. Employees will have 45 days to apply for a buyout.
The paper also slashed 100 journalism positions in early 2008, the first mass newsroom layoff in the company’s history. The Times has since made other, much deeper cuts throughout the company. In addition, employees were asked to take a 5% pay cut for most of 2009.
Full Story: New York Times to cut 100 jobs – Oct. 19, 2009.
Bean Amendment Beaten Back (For Now), A Blow To Wall Street
In a major defeat for Wall Street banks, Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) has decided to withdraw an amendment that divided Democrats as they seek to impose stricter regulations on the financial industry.
A keystone Democratic reform would create a federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency, but would allow states to pass more aggressive regulations. Wall Street banks have been fighting to include “federal preemption” in the legislation, meaning that state regulations could be no tougher than the federal guidelines. Consumer advocates said they’d rather have no bill than one with preemption because the banks could either capture the federal regulator or a new administration could strip its teeth out.
“That was the biggest dispute among the Democrats within the committee,” Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) told HuffPost. Miller is a champion of the CFPA within the House Financial Services Committee.
Heather Booth, director of the pro-financial-regulation coalition Americans for Financial Reform, told HuffPost that Bean’s amendment was considered the biggest threat to the CFPA.
Full Story: Bean Amendment Beaten Back (For Now), A Blow To Wall Street.
OPS: Here’s another republican-lite “democrat” that needs to be replaced ASAP
The Real Hoax Is Health Care
by Laura Flanders -
An attention grab that held millions of Americans transfixed. A story that seemed to be about life in the balance. It dominated the airwaves, the social networks, held Americans in its clutch. And then it turned out to have been nothing but a hoax. A play for attention that distracted the entire country.
Now that the Balloon Boy’s story is blown, can we call out the health care hoax?
The anti-health care lobby is taking all our attention hostage. And a nation’s hopes (and votes) for quality health care are floating away, leaving real lives in real danger.
If you’re angry and feel played by the Heene family of Colorado, you’d better be furious at the private insurers.
If you want Richard Heene and his wife to be jailed and their kids taken into protective care – you better be fighting for all Americans to be taken out of the custody of abusive wealth-insurance companies.
Full Story: The Real Hoax Is Health Care | CommonDreams.org.
Embrace the dollar’s downfall
Dean Baker
Banks might suffer if China stopped buying US debt, but the US economy as a whole would be much better off
Most of the economists and pundits who could not see an $8tn housing bubble are telling us that the United States desperately needs the Chinese government to keep buying its debt. This crew of failed analysts argues that without the support of the Chinese government, interest rates in the US will rise, choking off the recovery. In reality, the decision by China to stop buying US government debt might not harm the economy’s recovery, but it could be devastating to the recovery efforts at Citigroup and other basket-case banks.
The basic logic is simple. China’s central bank has been buying up huge amounts of dollar-based assets for the last decade. Their purchases include short- and long-term government debt, mortgage-backed securities and, to a lesser extent, private assets.
The Chinese central bank’s purchases have two effects. First, they help to keep interest rates low. This supports economic growth by keeping down the interest rates on mortgages, car loans and other borrowing that boosts demand.
Full Story: Embrace the dollar’s downfall | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
The Democrats Don’t Need to Move Right
Post-Bush Stress Disorder – Democrats have too many hang-ups
Johnathon Alter
In “The Godfather,” Sonny talks about going “to the mattresses,” meaning war with rival Mafia families. Now President Obama and the Democrats are holing up together on their Posturepedics as they work out battle plans on health care, banking reform, and Afghanistan. The question is whether they’ll be daring soldiers of the future or content to fight the last war.
That war, when Republicans controlled at least one branch of government, created a mindset where many moderate Democrats now constantly fear giving the other side ammunition. There’s some logic in this. Overreaching is always a danger in politics, and House Democrats in particular are to the left of the country as a whole. Appeasing powerful health-care interests, as the White House did early on, was a smart move. By delaying a climactic battle, Obama built momentum for a bill. The same sequencing was true for banks and the U.S. military in Afghanistan. The bleeding had to stop before their treatment could be properly managed. (Click here to follow Jonathan Alter.)
But Democrats are now at risk of post-Bush stress disorder (PBSD), a trauma that can cripple their efforts to adjust to everyday life in a new era. Their longtime enemy—potent Republicans—is gone, a mere memory of pain. But Republican ways of thinking have infected the minds of too many Democrats. More than a few have fallen into the GOP habit of selling out to corporate interests (the $1.5 million that health-related lobbies contributed to Max Baucus in 2007–08 goes a long way in Montana), pandering to banks, and reflexively assuming that just because the Pentagon recommends escalation in Afghanistan, it must be necessary. These habits will have to be broken if the Democrats are to stay in power.
Full Story: Alter: The Democrats Don’t Need to Move Right | Newsweek Voices – Jonathan Alter | Newsweek.com.
National Academy blockbuster: Coal’s huge hidden costs
National Academy of Sciences Report:
More than $62 billion a year in “external damages” — premature deaths from air pollution.
Coal industry lobbyists and coal-state politicians like to remind us that coal is a relatively cheap source of energy.
But in a major new report out today, the National Academy of Sciences details some of the huge “hidden costs” of coal: More than $62 billion a year in “external damages” — that is, premature deaths from air pollution.
A National Academy news release is available here and the report itself here.
Those coal costs are part of the $120 billion in “hidden costs” that the academy’s National Research Council documented in its report, “Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use.”
What are they talking about? The press release explains:
Requested by Congress, the report assesses what economists call external effects caused by various energy sources over their entire life cycle — for example, not only the pollution generated when gasoline is used to run a car but also the pollution created by extracting and refining oil and transporting fuel to gas stations. Because these effects are not reflected in energy prices, government, businesses and consumers may not realize the full impact of their choices. When such market failures occur, a case can be made for government interventions — such as regulations, taxes or tradable permits — to address these external costs, the report says.
Full Story: Blogs @ The Charleston Gazette – » National Academy blockbuster: Coal’s huge hidden costs.
Too Integral to Fail: Why Community Banks and Small Businesses Should Be Getting More Attention than Goldman and Morgan
As the U.S. stock market opened this week, investors were treated to plummeting prices due to poorly-performing regional banks. While the “too big to fail” banks are trying to decide how massive their bonus checks should be and how best to avoid new regulations from the federal government, the banks that share property with the rest of us on Main Street, USA are suffering.
And just as the foreclosure of your neighbor’s house brings down the value of your own, the devaluation of your local bank makes recovery on your particular Main Street more difficult.
But if you watched any financial news this weekend, it was probably more big bank bashing than proposals to help ease the local lending crunch. While the outrage at the banks fighting hard against common-sense reforms and consumer protection, it’s tempting to slap the ungrateful brats down. The temptation was not lost on the Obama Administration; seniors aides to the president flooded the Sunday talk shows with condemnations of the industry’s recent obstinance.
But, if there’s anything in the financial world more unpopular than big banks among the average American right now, it’s the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), better known as the bank bailout.
Diversionary Tactics Aside, The Tapes Make Clear Rush Limbaugh Is A Racist
David Sirota
“Numerous sportswriters, CNN, MSNBC, among others, falsely attributed to me statements I had never made. Their sources, as best I can tell, were Wikipedia and each other…I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things.” – Rush Limbaugh, 10/17/09
Forget the double standard of Rush Limbaugh, a free marketeer, now decrying as outrageous the NFL corporation’s logical business decision to protect its brand from his taint. In all the hullaballoo about whether or not the NFL should have allowed Limbaugh to invest in the St. Louis Rams, the most telling narrative is the radio host’s victimization narrative.
In the Sunday Wall Street Journal (and on his radio show), Limbaugh insists that there is no concrete proof that he uttered two quotes about race – one trumpeting Martin Luther King’s assassin, another trumpeting the virtues of slavery – that a book attributed to him and that the media then echoed. Limbaugh is correct – there is no proof, and Nate Silver is also correct in suggesting that anyone who has publicly attributed those to him should correct their mistake (BTW – I corrected the recordabout 5 minutes after I made the mistake on my radio show on Thursday).
Full Story: Diversionary Tactics Aside, The Tapes Make Clear Rush Limbaugh Is A Racist | The Smirking Chimp.
Spitzer On Breaking Up Big Banks: White House Just Doesn’t Get it (VIDEO)
Former governor of New York, and attorney general, Eliot Spitzer criticized the White House this morning for being “the only institution that doesn’t get” the continuing danger of having massive banks that are ‘too big to fail.’
Alan Greenspan is now saying break up the institutions… Volcker in his testimony a few weeks ago said we should not be insuring these big institutions to do proprietary trading. A bank has to be a bank… The White House seems to be the only institution that doesn’t get this. You still have Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and maybe Ben Bernanke out there saying let’s keep the status quo.
Spitzer was joined on the panel by Rob Johnson, a former Soros fund manager as well as the former chief economist for the Senate Banking Committee during the Savings & Loan crisis. The panel discussion ranged from reforming the banks to public outrage that firms like Goldman Sachs are back to making enormous profits that are only possible because of earlier, large infusions of public money that staved off disaster.
Full Story: Spitzer On Breaking Up Big Banks: White House Just Doesn’t Get it (VIDEO).
Michael Moore: How ‘Banksters’ Bleed America
by Len Hart,
I have stats that prove just one percent of the US population owns more than 95 percent of the rest of us combined. We are supposed to believe that’s just an accident! It was, in fact, a deliberate transfer of wealth to those who benefit from US largesse to the US wealthy, members of the Military/Industrial complex, and, as Michael Moore dramatically demonstrates –a gang of ‘banksters’ who may have manufactured the recent ‘financial crisis’!
Certainly –at the end of this ‘crisis’, only the ‘banksters’ will have benefited. Some already have! Everyone else wil be poorer if not poverty stricken. Bluntly –I am not all that excited about the restoration of the ‘economic health’ of the parasites who have leached upon the labors of those who create real wealth: workers!
It was written recently that Wall Street types were ‘mocking’ us, ‘us’ being the people of the US. Well, of course, Wall St mocks us. They’re alright! They made out like the bandits they are in fact. Write this down: 1) Rich folk, bankers and elites LOVE recessions; they start them by ‘taking their profits’ i.e, dumping their holdings and depressing markets. 2) They short sell all the way down. 3) Then, they pick up the bargains when you are forced to sell or have already declared bankrupcy.
The banksters can do this because they control the markets.
Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Michael Moore: How ‘Banksters’ Bleed America.
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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. 
