Archive for November, 2009
I’m doing ‘God’s work’. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs
Number 85 Broad Street, a dull, rust-coloured office block in lower Manhattan, doesn’t look like a place to stop and stare, and that’s just the way the people who work there like it. The men and women who arrive in the watery dawn sunshine, dressed in Wall Street black, clutching black briefcases and BlackBerrys, are very, very private. They walk quickly from their black Lincoln town cars to the lobby, past, well, nothing, really. There’s no name plate on the building, no sign on the front desk and the armed policeman stationed outside isn’t saying who works there. There’s a good reason for the secrecy. Number 85 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004, is where the money is. All of it.
It’s the site of the best cash-making machine that global capitalism has ever produced, and, some say, a political force more powerful than governments. The people who work behind the brass-trim glass doors make more money than some countries do. They are the rainmakers’ rainmakers, the biggest swinging dicks in the financial jungle. Their assets 
total $1 trillion, their annual revenues run into the tens of billions, and their profits are in the billions, which they distribute liberally among themselves. Average pay this recessionary year for the 30,000 staff is expected to be a record $700,000. Top earners will get tens of millions, several hundred thousand times more than a cleaner at the firm. When they have finished getting “filthy rich by 40″, as the company saying goes, these alpha dogs don’t put their feet up. They parachute into some of the most senior political posts in the US and beyond, prompting accusations that they “rule the world”. Number 85 Broad Street is the home of Goldman Sachs.
The world’s most successful investment bank likes to hide behind the tidal wave of money that it generates and sends crashing over Manhattan, the City of London and most of the world’s other financial capitals. But now the dark knights of banking are being forced, blinking, into the cold light of day. The public, politicians and the press blame bankers’ reckless trading for the credit crunch and, as the most successful bank still standing, Goldman is their prime target. Here, politicians and commentators compete to denounce Goldman in ever more robust terms — “robber barons”, “economic vandals”, “vulture capitalists”. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, contrasts the bank’s recent record results — profits of $3.2 billion in the last quarter alone — and its planned bumper bonus payments with what has happened to ordinary people’s jobs and incomes in 2009.
Full Story I’m doing ‘God’s work’. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs – Times Online.
“I Object”: Tom Price Tries To Shut Down Democratic Congresswomen (VIDEO)
On Saturday morning, a group of House Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia) — attempted to stop the Democratic Women’s Caucus from making their arguments about how the health bill would benefit women by screaming over them.
Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) only had time to say “Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to–,” before Price shouted “I object.” The presiding chair, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) made gestures to maintain control, declaring that “the request is not yet before the House” and that Price was “out of order,” to little effect. Capps attempted to go on, but Price continued shouting “I object! I object! I object!”
Full Story “I Object”: Tom Price Tries To Shut Down Democratic Congresswomen (VIDEO).
DEMS: WE HAVE THE VOTES… HEALTH CARE WILL PASS TONIGHT
House Health Care Vote:
After months of debate, the House of Representatives is set to vote on major health care reform legislation today. Keep updating this page for breaking news updates, read the overview AP coverage HERE, and follow live streaming video of the fierce House debate and Twitter updates HERE.
Democratic aides: We’ve got the votes. “Today we will pass the Affordable Health Care for America Act,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the House floor Saturday evening. Politico is reporting that Democrats have at least the 218 votes needed to pass the bill. Four Democratic aides tell HuffPost the same thing.
Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), declined to confirm the number.
The news that Pelosi has the votes can have unpredictable effects on undecided members. Some members, seeing the bill passing, may want to pile on and get on the side of history. Others react by thinking that they can now oppose it, look tough at home, but not jeopardize passage. Toward that end, watch for a handful of no votes to dribble out from Dems over the next hour or so.
Full Story House Health Care Vote: Breaking Updates.
GOP Gone Wild: Unruly Republicans Silence Women Lawmakers With Screams, Shouts, And Delay Tactics
GOP Gone Wild: Unruly Republicans Silence Women Lawmakers With Screams, Shouts, And Delay Tactics
This morning, the House began consideration of the rule for debate of the House health care bill. As the Democratic Women’s Caucus took to the microphone on the House floor to offer their arguments for how the bill would benefit women, House Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) — repeatedly talked over, screamed, and shouted objections. “I object, I object, I object, I object, I object,” Price interjected as Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) tried to hold the floor.
In an effort to delay and derail the proceedings, the Republicans continually talked over the Democratic women for half an hour. They sought to prevent the debate by calling for unnecessary “parliamentary inquiries” and requests for “expanding the debate” by an hour.
After being repeatedly interrupted by Republican shouts, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) observed:
Do I not have the right to be able to continue my sentence without objections that are trying to censor my remarks here on the floor that I have a right to make as a member of this House?
Watch a compilation:
TN GOP Fights Against Rule of Law, Paper Ballots
Court rejects Republican attempt to avoid statutory requirement for verifiable elections results in 2010…
In 2008, election integrity advocates in Tennessee won a hard and long-fought victory as the state legislature finally passed, on a bi-partisan basis, the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) requiring the state’s wholly unverifiable touch-screen voting machines to be replaced with precinct-based optical-scan paper balloting in time for the crucial 2010 general election.
But in November of 2008, as the state was still using its completely faith-based electronic voting systems, it somehow managed to buck the national trend as the only state in the nation to see legislative gains for the Republican Party which managed to win a majority in the statehouse in the bargain. Ever since, the GOP majority, along with the Republican Secretary of State and Election Director, have been fighting against implementation of that paper ballot law.
A move in the legislature to delay the law until 2012 was narrowly defeated — by a single vote — earlier this year, but the state’s Republican apparatchik have continued attempts to forestall following the rule of law.
Full Story The BRAD BLOG.
DOJ probes Diebold sale
Justice Department Probing Diebold Sale, timing of sale is also of interest…
Brad Friedman reports “Your Election Night 2009 ‘Hiccups’ ‘Glitches’ ‘Snags’ and ‘Snafus’ Report”..Today’s voting news report covers election problems in California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia…
Bay County Florida resolves to ask lawmakers for money for voting machines for disabled while SoS sits on HAVA funds….Virginia’s Elections Are UNCONSTITUTIONAL?!?! Internet voting whack-a-mole in Port Hope, Ontario….
…Election method flux: Aspen Colorado voters voted to reconsider instant runoff by very slim margin, St Paul MN voters voted to adopt instant runoff voting but opponents have filed election complaints, Lowell MA voted not to adopt proportional voting, and Pierce County Washington overwhelmingly voted to repeal instant runoff voting…
All of that and more in today’s Voting News below and lots more tomorrow I promise…
Full Story Scoop: Voting News: DOJ probes Diebold sale.
Quotes: Truman
Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican,
people will vote for the real Republican all the time
Want Obama To Be Bolder? Take To The Streets!
Arianna Huffington and Drew Westen earlier this week posted persuasive arguments that Barack Obama, as president, should govern the way he campaigned for the job: Fired up, with an unswerving focus on changing the status quo and standing up for the people against the vested interests that thrive on politics as usual. Compared to Obama the campaigner, Obama the president has been remarkably timid and conciliatory.
One theory is that what we’re seeing is Obama’s background as a community organizer coming to the foreground. And as many critics have pointed out, with plenty of justification, the community organizer tendency to seek consensus can look pretty darn naïve and ineffective when one of the parties simply has no interest in compromise — and indeed sees obstruction as its primary goal.
But there’s another part of the community organizing analogy that’s been widely overlooked.
Community organizers take strength from the community.
Full Story Want Obama To Be Bolder? Take To The Streets!.
Globalization : We are what we trade (and how we trade it)
International trade affects our healthcare, the economy and the environment — in other words, everything
By David Sirota
Trade and globalization — when not referencing blockbuster sports transactions or raucous street protests, debates over these abstract terms can give Ambien and Jack Daniel’s a run for their money as a cure for insomnia. Of course, that’s the problem — the rules governing what we buy and sell are now playing such a decisive role in almost every major policy that we’re falling asleep at our peril.
Most are familiar with trade and globalization, if at all, through the prism of heavy manufacturing in the so-called old economy. We know, for instance, how NAFTA-style pacts helped destroy our factory job base. The economics were unabashed and straightforward: By eliminating the tariffs we charged for goods made in countries with negligible wage and human rights laws, Washington removed disincentives for mass offshoring. With “free trade,” our government effectively encouraged corporations to transfer production facilities abroad so as to cut costs via the cheap labor, slave working conditions and rampant union busting that flourishes in the developing world.
No surprise — two decades into this allegedly glorious “free trade” era, an ever-bigger swath of Flyover America looks just the way flicks like “Roger and Me” predicted: rusted, abandoned, boarded up and/or otherwise resembling a nuclear test site. Even less shocking, that apocalyptic reality has been largely ignored by a political and media establishment that believes economic emergencies are only those that threaten Wall Street bankers. Indeed, if the Beltway chattering class has paid attention to trade reform at all, it has portrayed the cause as a boring “special interest” crusade of supposedly selfish unionists and crazed anarchists.
Full Story Globalization – Salon.com.
OAS secretary general issues statement on the situation in Honduras
WASHINGTON, USA — The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, on Friday deplored the disruption to the process of implementation of the Agreement reached in Tegucigalpa on October 30.
“The measures approved in the Agreement are clear and were signed by the parties of their own free will. I hope they will be met without further subterfuges to reestablish democracy, institutional legitimacy and peace among Hondurans,” Insulza stated.
The Secretary General declared that the OAS will continue in all of its efforts to move forward the process of dialogue and urged President José Manuel Zelaya and Roberto Micheletti to reach an agreement in the formation of a Government of Unity and National Reconciliation that should, naturally, be presided by he who legitimately holds the office of President of the Honduran nation.
Full Story Caribbean Net News: OAS secretary general issues statement on the situation in Honduras.
Crunch Time for Planet Earth
It’s crunch time for Planet Earth.
The climate change negotiations in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit seem to be deadlocked.
“America indicated yesterday that a legally binding agreement was probably impossible, and acceptance is growing among both rich and poor countries that no binding deal will be reached in Copenhagen next month, and that talks could drag well into 2010 or beyond,” The Guardian reports.
The problem is that the West and developing countries are at loggerheads over who needs to make big emission cuts at this stage, and whether there should be a large compensatory fund for poorer nations to help with a transition to green technologies.
The stance of the developing world makes a lot of sense. After all, as Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, enlightened me, the rise in world temperatures is almost all the rich nations’ fault, since it’s due to combined greenhouse gas emissions since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
Full Story Crunch Time for Planet Earth | The Progressive.
2-Big bank break-up idea gains ground in Congress
* Independent Senator Sanders introduces break-up bill- * Legislation also under consideration in House
- * Sanders would give Treasury 90 days to identify firms (Adds Kanjorski, Frank, Miller comments, background, byline)
WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) – An independent U.S. senator on Friday introduced a bill that would give the government the power to identify and break up financial firms that are “too big to fail,” an idea that is catching on.
“If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” said Senator Bernie Sanders in a statement.
“We should break them up so they are no longer in a position to bring down the entire economy,” he said.
Sanders is an independent outside the U.S. political mainstream. But he is not the only one looking at break-ups.
Representative Paul Kanjorski, the Democratic chairman of the capital markets subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives, is working on a break-up power amendment.
Full Story UPDATE 2-Big bank break-up idea gains ground in Congress | Reuters.
Calif. power company seeks higher rates for energy efficient customers
Think it’s keen to be green? Not if you’re California’s Pacific Gas & Electric, according to a recent report.
Utility provider PG&E, in documents filed with the state, is seeking a five percent rate increase for its most energy-efficient customers. The increase is reportedly so the company can give it’s highest-volume customers a price break.
“[The] company, with profits up 4.6 percent in the third quarter of this year, said they’re just trying to be fair,” California blog Mission Local noted.
“It’s necessary to avoid the continued shifting of costs associated with utility services to a limited set of residential customers,” PG&E spokesperson told blogger Heather Duthie.
Full Story Calif. power company seeks higher rates for energy efficient customers | Raw Story.
Stress Beyond Belief
Bob Herbert, NYTimes OpEd
The authorities will deal with Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is accused of bringing the nightmare of mass murder into the sanctuary of a military base on American soil. But the rest of us need to look very closely at the stress beyond belief that is being endured by so many other men and women in the armed forces — men and women who are serving gallantly and with dignity, who have not taken out their frustrations on one another, and who deserve better from the broader society.
Simply stated, we cannot continue sending service members into combat for three tours, four tours, five tours and more without paying a horrendous price in terms of the psychological well-being of the troops and their families, and the overall readiness of the armed forces to protect the nation.
The breakdowns are already occurring and will only get worse as the months and years pass and we remain engaged in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of this is the military’s fault. There have not been nearly enough people willing to serve in the all-volunteer armed forces to properly staff two wars that have already gone on for the better part of a decade.
I spent some time on the West Coast recently interviewing doctors and researchers studying the enormous problem of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with some form of mental health disorder, most commonly depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. The caseloads are off the charts, and very often the P.T.S.D. or depression (or both) are accompanied by substance abuse, problems with anger management, domestic violence and family breakdown.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Stress Beyond Belief – NYTimes.com.
Germans press for removal of US nuclear weapons in Europe
Pressure is growing within Nato for the removal of the remaining US nuclear weapons on European soil, and for a new doctrine for the alliance that would depend less on nuclear deterrence.
The initiative is being driven by the new German government coalition, which has called for the removal of American nuclear weapons on its territory as part of a Nato strategic rethink.
The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, the driving force behind the new policy, raised the issue during talks in Washington today with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
Earlier this week, Westerwelle assured the Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, that Germany would consult its allies on the removal of the estimated 20 nuclear weapons left on its soil.
Full Story Germans press for removal of US nuclear weapons in Europe | World news | The Guardian.
Additional Info and source for the above map: http://www.nti.org/db/disarmament/country_nato.html
Noam Chomsky: ‘US foreign policy is straight out of the mafia’
Noam Chomsky is the west’s most prominent critic of US imperialism, yet he is rarely interviewed in the mainstream media. Seumas Milne meets him
Noam Chomsky is the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar. A philosopher of language and political campaigner of towering academic reputation, who as good as invented modern linguistics, he is entertained by presidents, addresses the UN general assembly and commands a mass international audience. When he spoke in London last week, thousands of young people battled for tickets to attend his lectures, followed live on the internet across the globe, as the 80-year-old American linguist fielded questions from as far away as besieged Gaza.
But the bulk of the mainstream western media doesn’t seem to have noticed. His books sell in their hundreds of thousands, he is mobbed by students as a celebrity, but he is rarely reported or interviewed in the US outside radical journals and websites. The explanation, of course, isn’t hard to find. Chomsky is America’s most prominent critic of the US imperial role in the world, which he has used his erudition and standing to expose and excoriate since Vietnam.
Like the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, who spoke out against western-backed wars until his death at the age of 97, Chomsky has lent his academic prestige to a relentless campaign against his own country’s barbarities abroad – though in contrast to the aristocratic Russell, Chomsky is the child of working class Jewish refugees from Tsarist pogroms. Not surprisingly, he has been repaid with either denunciation or, far more typically, silence. Whereas a much slighter figure such as the Atlanticist French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy is lionised at home and abroad, Chomsky and his genuine popularity are ignored.
Full Story Noam Chomsky: ‘US foreign policy is straight out of the mafia’ | World news | The Guardian.
Chickenhawk Tancredo storms off set after Markos confronts him on veterans health care – Daily Kos TV (beta)
Markos Moutlitsas bitch slaps an Ex-GOP Congressman for not serving in Vietnam. Poor Tom Tancredo, the truth hurts!
Corporate Agribusiness Divides Farmers
Why is conventional agriculture so wound up? Are they afraid of organic agriculture? What’s all the fuss about? After all, a recent study by the Lieberman Research Group showed that organic food sales account for only 3.5% of all food product sales in the US.
A September 2009 Prairie Farmer article titled, “Here Is What’s Not Sustainable” leads me to believe that the author, a spokesperson for conventional agriculture, dislikes and even fears organic farming and its supporters.
The author admits to feeling self-satisfaction in knowing that organic farmers are suffering in a falling economy, I doubt many people share her sentiments. Farmers generally have the attitude that “we are all in this together”, no matter what farming practices we use.
Full Story Corporate Agribusiness Divides Farmers | CommonDreams.org.
Badge Man photo reveals JFK shooter on Grassy Knoll
Since 1963 the percentage of US citizens who believe there was a conspiracy to kill President John Kennedy has steadily risen to include three fourths of the population. That’s a staggering number; it’s hard to get 75% of the population to agree on anything. So the contentious issue is no longer whether or not there was a conspiracy but involves more specific details regarding who carried it out and who covered it up. The Parkland Hospital doctors who treated JFK all said the head shot came from the front right, which would be in the vicinity of the Grassy Knoll. The Warren Commission said Oswald did all of the shooting from the Book Depository behind Kennedy.
A piece of evidence surfaced in the 1980s that provides strong primary evidence of a shot from Kennedy’s right front. I refer to the enhanced photographic blowup that’s come to be known as “Badge Man.” The image derives from the famous Mary Moorman photo, a black and white picture taken by Ms. Moorman at the moment of the head shot. She was standing across the street from the motorcade facing the Grassy Knoll, where numerous witnesses heard shots and saw smoke immediately after the shooting.
The Badge Man image was first spotted by a researcher named Gary Mack, who thought he saw a face behind the fence but wasn’t sure. Keep in mind that the section in question is only about a quarter inch square. He consulted photographic expert and JFK researcher Jack White who blew up and eventually colorized the image which not only revealed someone dressed as a cop but another guy dressed in a hard hat. The image reveals someone in a police uniform wearing goggles and a badge. The hairline and forehead are clear and there appears to be a muzzle flash.
Full Story Badge Man photo reveals JFK shooter on Grassy Knoll.
Civil unrest has a role in stopping climate change, says Gore
Ahead of Copenhagen summit, former US vice-president says ‘non-violent lawbreaking’ is legitimate in persuading governments to cut emissions
Al Gore has sought to inject fresh momentum into the Copenhagen build-up, saying he is certain Barack Obama will attend and predicting a rise in civil disobedience against fossil-fuel polluters unless drastic action is taken over global warming.
Amid increasing incidents of climate protesters disrupting the operations of fossil-fuel industries and airports in Britain and elsewhere, Gore suggests the scale of the emergency means non-violent lawbreaking is justified. “Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play,” he says. “And I expect that it will increase, no question about it.”
In his only UK newspaper interview to mark the publication of his new book, entitled Our Choice, Gore says it is crucial for Obama to attend Copenhagen in person, adding: “I feel certain that he will.”
Full Story Civil unrest has a role in stopping climate change, says Gore | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Healthcare and Unemployment
Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) -
Medicare For All is the real deal right now, the key to unlocking a better life for millions in the near future, a concrete focus of the civil and human rights movements of our time.”
BRUCE DIXON – Dixon is managing editor of Black Agenda Report, which is one of the groups organizing the “Black is Back” gathering Saturday in D.C.
He recently wrote the piece “If Democrats Don’t Pass Health Insurance Reform This Year, What Do We Lose? And What Do We Gain?” The article states: “In the year since the last election the president has made concession after concession to drug and insurance companies, to private health care providers and their lobbyists. The White House, establishment Democrats and their echo chambers in the corporate media and even on the Internet have worked hard to suppress voices advocating the simple, practical and elegant solution of single-payer Medicare For All, which is still favored in polls by a substantial majority of Americans.” See polling results here.
Dixon adds: “As is highlighted today with the rising unemployment numbers, the principal fact of economic life in America these days is profound insecurity. Tens of millions cannot find work, and tens of millions more who have found it live with the everyday question of what will happen if one of them gets sick or injured. …
“Medicare For All, single payer will enable the working poor to make a stand where they are, and lift themselves out of poverty by organizing for and demanding a greater share of the wealth they produce every day. By removing the dread of financial ruin due to illness or injury, single payer will enable working people to fight for their own collective economic uplift. That’s why the struggle for guaranteed and universal single payer, Medicare For All is the real deal right now, the key to unlocking a better life for millions in the near future, a concrete focus of the civil and human rights movements of our time.”
Full Story Healthcare and Unemployment — Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA).
Troops On Tv: Is Fox News Working For Israel Against America?
Fox News is using retired military officers surrounded by uniformed active duty troops in an attempt to derail debate on disengagement in Afghanistan. After 8 years, the US is heading the same way Russia did, the more troops we send, the more die. Absolutely nothing has been accomplished in 8 years in Afghanistan other than to start a major war in Pakistan too. I understand Fox News. They are controlled by the powerful Israeli spokeman, Rupert Murdoch. Israel wants this war to go on forever. Though Murdoch now is an American citizen, it doesn’t seem to have “taken.”
What is good for Israel isn’t always good for the US. Active duty military who try to make their own foreign policy are not just total morons but are in violation of a number of laws. They are technically at war with the United States of America. If it is necessary for veterans to take up weapons to fight against members of our military who are part of an insurrection run by a foreign power, tell me where to sign up.
To the former officers, always quick to take a payoff from a defense contractor or the Bush Pentagon as a “pundit,” reading from whatever script Karl Rove has written for the day, you dishonor yourselves, your oath and the United States. The oath I remember was:
Full Story Troops On Tv: Is Fox News Working For Israel Against America?.
Goldman gets vaccine, public is sick over it
Commentary: Vaccine flap adds fuel to public outrage
(MarketWatch) — Some big Wall Street banks are girding against the swine flu, but a flap over how the firms got the vaccine will make them miserable.
The public is outraged about reports that Citi ,Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley along with other big New York employers, received hundreds, even thousands, of H1N1 vaccine doses before hospitals and other healthcare providers, many of which have run out of the precious drug. See full story.
A spokeswoman for New York City’s Department of Health said firms like Goldman are important outlets for reaching at-risk adults.
Clearly someone from the health department should visit a hospital or doctor’s office. They might discover that those are also excellent places to reach sick people or those at-risk.
Full Story Goldman gets vaccine, public is sick over it MarketWatch First Take – MarketWatch.
Prospect of More U.S. Troops Worries Afghan Public
As Americans, including President Obama’s top advisers, tensely debate whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, Afghans themselves are having a similar discussion and voicing serious doubts.
In bazaars and university corridors across the country, eight years of war have left people exhausted and impatient. They are increasingly skeptical that the Taliban can be defeated. Nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents. If more American forces do arrive, many here say, they should come to train Afghans to take over the fight, so the foreigners can leave.
“What have the Americans done in eight years?” asked Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, a market town about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. “Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?”
Full Story Prospect of More U.S. Troops Worries Afghan Public – NYTimes.com.
Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed
Matt Taibbi
“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”
via Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus – Bloomberg.com.
I didn’t believe this story was true at first — thought it had to be a spoof. But it turns out to be true. The great banks of the world have gone on a p.r. counteroffensive in Europe, and are sending spokescrooks in shiny suits into churches to persuade the masses that Christ would have approved of the latest round of obscene bonuses.
Goldman Sachs international adviser Brian Griffiths explains it this way: that Christ’s famous injunction to love others as one would love oneself actually means that one should love oneself as one would love oneself. This seemingly baffling outburst by a Goldman executive in what appears to have been a prepared speech — someone actually wrote this, and thought about it, before saying it out loud — gets even weirder when one tries to figure out what could possibly have motivated this person, and by extension his employer Goldman Sachs, to make such statements in such a place as St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Full Story Matt Taibbi – Taibblog – Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed – True/Slant.
Federal Judge Rejects Tobacco Companies’ Effort to Block Key Provisions of New Law
A federal judge in Kentucky has rejected a motion by tobacco companies to block key provisions of the new law giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate tobacco products. Specifically, the decision strongly supports the government’s authority to prevent the industry from making health claims about its products without FDA approval, according to an anti-smoking advocacy organization.
At issue are provisions contained within the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which President Obama signed into law in June. The landmark legislation gave the federal government sweeping new authority to control tobacco products.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing $96 billion in health care costs annually. The FDA established its Center for Tobacco Products to oversee enforcement of the law. Just this week, the FDA particularly warned cigarette makers about provisions within the law that ban cigarettes that contain certain flavors.
Full Story On The Hill: Federal Judge Rejects Tobacco Companies’ Effort to Block Key Provisions of New Law.
November 06, 2009 C-SPAN Obama Administration Accelerating Review of Ways to Boost Jobs
President Barack Obama’s administration is accelerating plans to boost job growth, including more spending on infrastructure and business tax cuts, after the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent last month.
Obama and his advisers will within a matter of weeks review ideas for adding to the $787 billion stimulus passed earlier this year, an administration official said. Previously the president’s aides said they wanted to wait for the full impact of the earlier stimulus before taking additional action.
“My economic team is looking at ideas such as additional investments in our aging roads and bridges, incentives to encourage families and businesses to make buildings more energy efficient,” additional tax cuts to spur hiring, and more steps to ease the flow of credit to small business, Obama said today at the White House following the Labor Department report.
Full Story Obama Administration Accelerating Review of Ways to Boost Jobs – Bloomberg.com.
Mandatory sex lessons for every 15-year-old
Sex education is to be made compulsory for all pupils, prompting fury from faith groups which said that the move would contravene the right for children to be educated in accordance with their parents’ beliefs.
All 15-year-olds must receive at least one year of sex and relationship lessons, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said yesterday. Those whose religious or moral values prevent them from attending will be classed as truants and may be punished by the school. Until now parents could opt out of lessons about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and homosexuality until their children were 19.
Roman Catholic and Muslim groups said they would strongly oppose the move. Shahid Akmal, chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain’s education board, said he would challenge the laws, which he called an imposition. “It is always better for the parents to talk to children about sex rather than the school over which the parents have no control,” he said.
The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales said it was “disappointed” that the “blanket right to withdrawal” had been removed.
Full Story Mandatory sex lessons for every 15-year-old – Times Online.
Consumer debt drops for record 8th straight month
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Outstanding consumer debt fell at a 7.2% annual rate in September, the eighth consecutive decline, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. Consumer credit fell by $14.8 billion to $2.46 trillion in September, down 4.7% compared with a year ago. Outstanding credit can fall if consumers pay off balances, or if lenders write off bad loans. The decline in September was led by another huge drop in revolving debt, such as credit cards, which fell $9.9 billion to $889 billion, or a 13.3% annual rate. Nonrevolving debt — such as auto loans, student loans and other personal loans — fell $4.9 billion to $1.57 trillion, or a 3.7% annual rate.
Full Story Consumer debt drops for record 8th straight month – MarketWatch.
Ex-Blue Cross spokesman says health insurance ‘worst product in American history’
Ex-Blue Cross spokesman: ‘We lie’ >>>
Teaming with the liberal Brave New Films, a former Blue Cross pitchman is now pitching against Blue Cross.
Andy Cobb, who once tried to sell Floridians on a Blue Cross health insurance plan, says he’s fed up with the industry.
“I was a spokesman for BlueCross and Blueshield of Florida,” Cobb says. “Call me a spokesjerk. People who make money for buying things you don’t need. And we’re telling you lies.”
“They, by which I mean I, make money by standing in the way of reform,” Cobb says in the ad, which appears as a spoof of something like a freecreditreport.com ad. “It’s time for change.”
“That’s why I’m calling on leaders from the spokesjerk industry,” Cobb continues. “The freecreditreport.com guy. The Shamwow dude. And Senator Bill Nelson, recipient of big money from insurance companies — to lead us. To walk away from their cash cows and tell American people the truth.
Full Story Ex-Blue Cross spokesman says health insurance ‘worst product in American history’ | Raw Story.
Revealed: Reuters paid for links on Drudge Report
Bizarre Love Triangle: Breitbart, Reuters, and the Drudge Report
For years, Andrew Breitbart, second-in-command at the Drudge Report, labored in the shadows cast by his boss’s legendary fedora. Now, he’s known as a major media player in his own right, the architect of a burgeoning conservative news network that’s far more ambitious than anything his boss has ever attempted. In 2005, he created Breitbart.com, a streamlined news portal that carries the latest articles from the Associated Press, UPI, and other major newswires. In 2008, he created Big Hollywood, a group blog that counters liberal bias emanating from a dangerous fifth column of Malibu gasbags, statist puppets, and singing schoolchildren. In 2009, he introduced Big Government, a group blog that counters the liberal bias emanating from liberals. And perhaps just in case it turns out prime numbers emanate liberal bias too, he’s even registered Big23.com.
Breitbart has a reputation for ideological transparency. “At no point have I attempted to hide my political leanings as I have endeavored to create Big Hollywood and Big Government. There is a need for a checks and balance against the New York Times and the rest of the supposedly neutral traditional press,” he exclaimed at Big Hollywood. In an interview with the Financial Times, he reiterated his commitment to openness. “I make no bones about coming from an ideological and partisan point of view. But at least I’m honest about it.”
But he’s not just outspoken. Taunting his own nipples on Red Eye, trash-talking Upton Sinclair at a Tea Party rally, he’s entertainingly outspoken. Catch him in an especially playful mood, and he practically pukes candor. “This is the Abu Ghraib of Abu Ghraib,” he exclaimed to the Washington Independent about his ACORN video series. “Abu Ghraibs for everyone! NEA Abu Ghraib! White House Abu Ghraib! ACORN Abu Ghraib! Journalism Abu Ghraib! You’ve all been exposed, you corrupt bastards.”
Full Story soundbitten.
Paul Craig Roberts: The Evil Empire
The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people
Republic of Fools – The Evil Empire
The US government is now so totally under the thumbs of organized interest groups that “our” government can no longer respond to the concerns of the American people who elect the president and the members of the House and Senate. Voters will vent their frustrations over their impotence on the president, which implies a future of one-term presidents. Soon our presidents will be as ineffective as Roman emperors in the final days of that empire.
Obama is already set on the course to a one-term presidency. He promised change, but has delivered none. His health care bill is held hostage by the private insurance companies seeking greater profits. The most likely outcome will be cuts in Medicare and Medicaid in order to help fund wars that enrich the military/security complex and the many companies created by privatizing services that the military once provided for itself at far lower costs. It would be interesting to know the percentage of the $700+ billion “defense” spending that goes to private companies. In American “capitalism,” an amazing amount of taxpayers’ earnings go to private firms via the government. Yet, Republicans scream about “socializing” health care.
Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations.
Obama inherited an excellent opportunity to bring US soldiers home from the Bush regime’s illegal wars of aggression. In its final days, the Bush regime realized that it could “win” in Iraq by putting the Sunni insurgents on the US military payroll. Once Bush had 80,000 insurgents collecting US military pay, violence, although still high, dropped in half. All Obama had to do was to declare victory and bring our boys home, thanking Bush for winning the war. It would have shut up the Republicans.
Full Story Paul Craig Roberts: The Evil Empire.
A New Perspective on the Abortion Debate
Whether or not abortion is legal in a country or not, the number of women who have abortions is not affected. Translation: criminalizing abortion doesn’t work.
I came across an interesting study in regards to abortion. It was commissioned by the UN, so I would say it is a reliable study from a credible international organization.
It says that regardless of whether abortion is legal or not, abortion rates are essentially the exact same all across the board. I will repeat, whether or not abortion is legal in a country or not, the number of women who have abortions is not affected. Translation: criminalizing abortion doesn’t work.
And what does criminalizing abortion do? It kills the women who are trying to have them, because they then seek back-street abortions.
What has lowered abortion rates? Over time, countries that provide sex education and cheap access to birth control see a steady decline in abortion rates.
Think none of this is relevant to Canada since abortion is legal here? A private member’s bill called The Unborn Victims of Crime Act (C-484), introduced by Conservative MP Ken Epp (Edmonton Sherwood Park) last fall, passed Second Reading in Parliament on March 5, 2008. Though it was intended to allow additional charges for violent crimes committed against women who were pregnant, it would have given fetuses person-hood status, which conflicts with the Criminal Code. Stephen Harper also supposedly told Conservative Party members that he would seek to criminalize abortion if it wouldn’t hurt them politically. Consider – the Conservatives are currently polling in majority territory. If the conservative party had a majority, they could certainly pull it off, especially considering there are a significant number of Liberal MP’s who have a pro-life stance.
Creationist B.S. Exposed
Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
Richard Dawkins was recently issued a challenge –disprove creation in one sentence. I can do that myself. Here it is: If we can see Andromeda –some 2.5 MILLION years distant from earth –then creationism is false!
Andromeda can be seen even with the naked eye; in any case, it takes light from Andromeda some 2.5 MILLION light years to get here and be seen. That we can see these objects with or without telescopes UTTERLY DISPROVES creationism and a ‘young Earth’ or young universe.
I chose Andromeda because it is accessible, close enough to be seen with a good pair of binoculars, perhaps, even, with the naked eye. Deep space images from the Hubble much more dramatic. Galaxies some 17 BILLION light years distant are proof that the Universe is considerably older than Sarah Palin’s idiotic concept that homo sapien co-existed with dinosaurs a mere 6000 years ago.
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Creationist B.S. Exposed.
Report: 237 millionaires in Congress
Talk about bad timing.
As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.
Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.
CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), worth about $244.7 million; Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), worth about $214.5 million; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), worth about $209.7 million; and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), worth about $208.8 million.
All told, at least seven lawmakers have net worths greater than $100 million, according to the Center’s 2008 figures.
Full Story Report: 237 millionaires in Congress – Erika Lovley – POLITICO.com.
Civil War In Corporate America: Banks Battling The Chamber On Accounting Rules
Amid the ongoing financial regulation overhaul, the banking industry is hoping to pull off a quiet power grab that has eluded its grasp since the Great Depression, by stripping the independence of the board that sets financial accounting standards.
The move could effectively let banks set their own accounting standards in rough economic times.
Astonishingly, at a time when the public is crying out for greater regulation to limit excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, the banks are trying to get Congress to agree that the next time there’s a big downturn, they should have the ability to alter their accounting standards — essentially, fudge the numbers — so that the public and investors won’t be able to tell how insolvent they really are. By ignoring their declining asset values, they can avoid the standard requirement of raising more capital.
The mechanism is contained in an amendment set to be introduced in mid-November by Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) that would move final authority over the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from the Securities and Exchange Commission to a new body, a so-called “oversight” board, that would include the officials charged with managing systemic risks to the financial markets.
Full Story Civil War In Corporate America: Banks Battling The Chamber On Accounting Rules.
Government health care rescues protesters at anti-government health care rally.
Thousands of protesters came to Capitol Hill yesterday for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) protest against health care reform, capping months of fear-mongering about the dangers of so-called “socialized” medicine. However, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank notes that at one point, one of the protesters had a heart attack. Luckily, federally-employed medical personnel were able to quickly attend to him — even though they were part of government-run health care, which is supposedly quite dangerous:
More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician’s office — an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care — rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.
This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. “Join us in defeating Pelosi care!” he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher.
Full Story Think Progress » Government health care rescues protesters at anti-government health care rally..
GOP Health Plan Would Allow For ‘Sweatshop Insurance’
Under the Republican health care alternative filed in the House, young and healthy individuals can purchase policies from insurers that don’t abide by local benefit or rate standards. The Republican bill allows the health insurer to choose a “primary state” “whose covered laws shall govern the health insurance issuer” and sell policies to people in other states without adhering “to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes of the state.”
Over at MYDD, Bruce Webb calls the provision, “Sweatshop Insurance.” This bill goes far beyond merely “stripping states of power over insurance rates and conditions,” he notes. It “explicitly expands the definition of ‘State’ to include not just D.C. and Puerto Rico, which makes some sense in context, but adds BY NAME the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Jack Abramoff’s favorite client-the Northern Marianas home of the ‘Made in the USA’ Chinese-owned close to slave labor sweatshops.” From pages 121-122 of the bill:
virmar122
In 2001, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands famously hired corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff to enlist his support in stopping “legislation aimed at cracking down on sweatshops and sex shops in the American territory.”
Full Story Think Progress » GOP Health Plan Would Allow For ‘Sweatshop Insurance’.
Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces
A series of internal government reviews have presented the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy — to speed up their training and send many more Afghans to the fight.
As President Obama considers his top commander’s call to rapidly double Afghanistan’s security forces, the internal reviews, written by officials directly involved in the training program or charged with keeping it on track, describe an overstretched enterprise struggling to nurse along the poorly led, largely illiterate and often corrupt Afghan forces.
In September, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, recommended increasing the Afghan Army as quickly as possible — to 134,000 in a year from the current force of more than 90,000, instead of taking two years, and perhaps eventually to 240,000. He would also expand the police force to 160,000. The acceleration is vital to General McChrystal’s overall counterinsurgency plan, which also calls for more American troops but seeks more protection against the Taliban for the Afghan population than the Pentagon could ever supply.
Full Story Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces – NYTimes.com.
Drug War Madness: Grassley’s Gag Rule
Rolling Stone :
Sen. Jim Webb (D-Virginia) has bravely proposed legislation to create a Blue Ribbon commission to conduct an 18-month, “top-to-bottom” review of America’s criminal justice system with the goal of bringing U.S. incarceration rates in line with the rest of the civilized world.
The commission is to make sweeping recommendations for reform, and is tasked in particular with developing proposals to “restructure our approach to drug policy.”
Enter unreconstructed drug warrior Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has released the text of an amendment that would ensure the commission not reach any conclusions that threaten 40 years of failure. The commission would be prohibited, thanks to Grassley, from examining any “policies that favor decriminalization of violations of the Controlled Substances Act or the legalization of any controlled substances.”
Below, the text of Grassley’s gag rule:
AMENDMENT intended to be proposed by Mr. GRASSLEY
Full Story Drug War Madness: Grassley’s Gag Rule : Rolling Stone : National Affairs Daily.
REP. WEINER WITHDRAWS SINGLE PAYER AMENDMENT FROM CURRENT HEALTH CARE DEBATE
Washington, DC – Today, Representative Anthony Weiner (D – Brooklyn and Queens), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, released the following statement on his decision to withdraw his single payer amendment to H.R. 3962, the House health care reform bill:
“I have decided not to offer a single payer alternative to the health reform bill at this time. Given how fluid the negotiations are on the final push to get comprehensive health care reform that covers millions of Americans and contains costs through a public option, I became concerned that my amendment might undermine that important goal.”
“I am going to continue to press the case for health care reform in every venue I can. And I also will continue to press for a smarter, less-expensive, more-comprehensive alternative to the employer-based health insurance system we have today.”
“I’ve discussed the issue with Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Waxman, and agree with them that the health reform bill is so close it deserves every chance to gain a majority.”
Full Story Anthony Weiner – New York’s 9th District.
Thom HartmannIs it time for Big Government?
Thom Hartman
Yes – it’s time!
YouTube – Is it time for Big Government?.
Exclusive: Sanders Tackles Too Big To Fail In Two Pages
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced new legislation on Friday that should, he claims, solve the phenomenon of massive and failing financial institutions holding the nation’s economy captive.
It’s all of two pages long.
The Vermont Democrat-Socialist unveiled the “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act” — which he billed as a succinct remedy for tackling financial risk and avoiding a repeat of the taxpayer-funded bailouts that occurred just one year ago.
The act is straightforward. It would require that 90 days after its passage, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner “submit to Congress a list of all commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that the Secretary believes are too big to fail.”
Subsequently, one year after the law is enacted, the Treasury Secretary would be required to “break up entities included on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.”
Full Story Exclusive: Sanders Tackles Too Big To Fail In Two Pages.
UN endorses Gaza war crimes report
The United Nations General Assembly has voted in favour of resolution endorsing a UN-sponsored report into war crimes committed during Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Goldstone report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, was endorsed by the assembly on Thursday by a margin of 114 to 18, after two days of debate.
Forty-four member-nations abstained from voting.
The report, which was compiled by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, had already been endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, which sponsored the fact-finding commission.
Full Story Al Jazeera English – Americas – UN endorses Gaza war crimes report.
Co-Authors Question Stand Alone Vote on National Single Payer
by Dennis Kucinich & John Conyers
Dear Friends,
We thank you for your continued devotion to the cause of health care for All Americans. We have worked together for many years to write, promote and campaign for HR676, a single payer, not for profit health care system. Your work, in communities across America, has been instrumental in helping at least ten states create single payer movements, with many more states to come.
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a single payer bill. As the two principal co-authors of the Conyers single payer bill, we want to offer a strong note of caution about tomorrow’s vote.
The bill presented tomorrow will not be HR676. While we are happy to relinquish authorship of a single payer bill to any member who can do better, we do not want a weak bill brought forward in a hostile climate to unwittingly accomplish what would be interpreted as a defeat for single payer.
Full Story Co-Authors Question Stand Alone Vote on National Single Payer | CommonDreams.org.
Credit card firms hurry to raise rates
Credit card companies are rushing to increase interest rates to historic highs of more than 30 percent, cut credit limits, and add new fees, even for customers who pay their bills on time.
Lenders are making the moves in advance of tougher federal regulations for credit cards scheduled to take effect on Feb. 22. The new rules will limit how companies can modify credit card agreements, specifically prohibiting them from retroactively raising interest rates and fees on existing balances.
US Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Financial Services Committee and is a leader in the effort to revamp credit card policies, said banks have “abused’’ the nine-month period granted them to re-tool their practices.
“I didn’t think they would be as blatant as they were about doing this,’’ he said. “There’s no justification for raising rates retroactively. This is really just a way for them to make more money.’’
Full Story Credit card firms hurry to raise rates – The Boston Globe.
How the Iraq War Destroyed the US Economy
Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
Wars reduce the GDP, destroy jobs, reduce productivity, and increase the trade deficit! If wars are ‘bad’ for the economy, then how are they sold so easily? The quick response: they are sold with focus group tested bullshit!
There’s a ‘living’ in killing, we are told! There is a more opulent living in the commission mass murder which requires the construction of tanks, smart bombs, and fighter jets –the MIC, in other words. But that’s all just snake oil for idiots and Republicans!
That wars are good for the economy is just a bald-faced lie cooked up by the defense lobby for whom killing IS a living but only for the shrinking one percent who benefit: the Military/Industrial complex, truly MURDER INC. Fact is war is most often disastrous for the economy.
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: How the Iraq War Destroyed the US Economy.
Google Dashboard: Find Out What Google Knows About You HERE (VIDEO)
Google is offering a new privacy control that will make it easier for people to see some of the information being collected about them.
The “Dashboard” feature unveiled Thursday pulls together all the data that pour into Google’s computers whenever Web surfers log in to one of the company’ services.
That includes summaries of an individual’s e-mail, search requests and viewing habits on Google’s video site, YouTube. Before, a user would have to check multiple places for all that.
The snapshot doesn’t include any activity that occurs when a person isn’t logged into a Google service.
Dashboard represents Google Inc.’s latest step to give its users more control over their personal information and appease privacy watchdogs.
Full Story Google Dashboard: Find Out What Google Knows About You HERE (VIDEO).
Bye Bye Bernie
Bernie Kerik’s guilty plea was a tragedy for the former police commissioner and his family. Kerik has been destroyed as a public figure for some time now, and there’s a temptation to just let the man go off to the slammer in peace.
But there is still the matter of Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani is still a public figure, one who is currently flirting with the idea of a gubernatorial run. And the finale of the Kerik story is an important reminder that in the annals of major American politicians who pick dreadful top aides, Rudy is right up there with Warren Harding.
Giuliani’s first police commissioner was William Bratton, who was a stunning success at the job, a fact that actually seemed to alienate the mayor. The fact that Giuliani got rid of Bratton — who later went on to run the LAPD — was one of the first definitive signs that Rudy’s ideal underlings were men who were way, way under.
Full Story Dan Collins: Bye Bye Bernie.
Obama Faces His Anzio
Paul Krugman
Remember those Republican boasts that they would turn health care into President Obama’s Waterloo? Well, exit polls suggest that to the extent that health care was an issue in Tuesday’s elections, it worked in Democrats’ favor. But while health care won’t be Mr. Obama’s Waterloo, economic policy is starting to look like his Anzio.
True, the elections weren’t a referendum on Mr. Obama. Most voters focused on local issues — and those who did focus on national issues tended, if anything, to go Democratic. In New Jersey, voters who considered health care the top issue went for Gov. Jon Corzine by a 4-to-1 margin; Chris Christie won voters who were concerned about property taxes and corruption.
Yet there was a national element to the election. Voters across America are in a bad mood, largely because of the still-grim economic situation. And when voters are feeling bad, they turn on whomever currently holds office. Even Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, saw his supposedly easy reelection turn into a tight race.
And challengers did well even if they had no coherent alternative to offer. Mr. Christie never explained how he can reduce property taxes given New Jersey’s dire fiscal straits — but voters were nonetheless willing to take a flier.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – Obama Faces His Anzio – NYTimes.com.
House Health Bill: Obama Making Personal Appeal To Dems Saturday
House Democrats are scrambling to secure enough support to pass President Barack Obama’s historic health overhaul initiative, working to soothe last-minute concerns from rank-and-file Democrats ahead of a make-or-break vote.
Voting is set for Saturday on the 10-year, $1.2 trillion legislation that embraces Obama’s goals of extending health coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and putting tough new restrictions on insurance companies.
Obama was set to make a personal appeal to the Democratic rank and file in a visit Friday to Capitol Hill. That was called off late Thursday after the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, and rescheduled for Saturday.
Full Story House Health Bill: Obama Making Personal Appeal To Dems Saturday.
10 Years Ago Today, Congress Allowed For “Too Big To Fail”
On the 10th anniversary of Congress voting to repeal the law that had long separated Main Street commercial banking from Wall Street investment banking, current members of the body are talking about ways to potentially bring it back.
A return to the Depression-era law — known as Glass-Steagall — is now being seriously discussed. Some leading economists and financial thinkers point to its repeal as a precipitator of the current crisis, because it enabled banks to become “too big to fail.”
Consider some of the action on Capitol Hill:
* Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) wants to give federal regulators the power to force big banks to divest themselves of either their commercial or investment arms if they pose a threat to the financial system. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) reportedly supports the idea.
Full Story 10 Years Ago Today, Congress Allowed For “Too Big To Fail”.
TARP on Steroids (video)
The House Financial Services Committee held a Systemic Regulation, Prudential Matters, Resolution Authority and Securitization hearing last Thursday.
California Congressman Brad Sherman speaks against TARP and its permanent, unlimited bailout authority:
Video at link
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Friday’s Job’s Report: Unemployment Bumps past 10 Percent?
The economy continues to bleed jobs, even as GDP rebounds. Employment may be a lagging indicator, but job losses should have abated by now even if a lot of new jobs are not being added.
Coming off a deep recession, GDP growth should have been much stronger than the 3.5 percent recorded in the third quarter. A poorly conceived and badly executed stimulus package and the failure to correct structural problems that caused the Great Recession are holding down growth. Consequently, the economy is not creating jobs, and certainly not creating good paying, full-time jobs with benefits.
Friday, the Labor Department will report employment data for October. In September, the economy lost 263,000 jobs, and the consensus forecast is for another 175,000 jobs lost in October.
Full Story Friday’s Job’s Report: Unemployment Bumps 10 Percent?.
Harley May Outsource Jobs to India
Iconic American motorcycle maker Harley Davidson may be succumbing to the pressure to outsource production to India.
It survived the Great Depression, intense competition from Japanese rivals and negative media depictions of its customers, but now iconic American motorcycle maker Harley Davidson may be succumbing to the pressure to outsource production to low-wage nations.
Last week the company announced that it would be outsourcing hundreds of non-core jobs from a Pennsylvania plant, including sub-assembly, chrome-plating and stamping of parts. Plans have not yet been finalized, and the company has said that those jobs may very well remain in America.
However, on the heels of the company’s late August announcement that it would expand into the Indian market by 2010, the news is certainly not encouraging.
“Given the rapid development of India’s economy and physical infrastructure, this is exactly the right time to bring the world’s greatest motorcycles to one of the world’s largest motorcycling nations,” said Mark Levatich, Harley’s chief operating officer, in a statement.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Boeing, Airbus Battling Takes Bizarre Turn
Awarding the contract to Airbus will kill thousands of American jobs and pave the way for the company to gain a foothold in America much the same way Toyota and other foreign automakers have.
The contentious battle to win a $35 billion contract to replace the U.S. Air Force’s aging fleet of air refueling tankers took another bizarre turn last week as Airbus officials accused the Pentagon of providing their main competitor, Boeing, with information putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
Officials from French-based aircraft maker Airbus contend that Pentagon officials provided Boeing with pricing information on a contract Airbus had previously won, but was later withdrawn after a complaint was filed by Airbus.
“Of course it’s convenient for Boeing (…) to have the breakdown of our cost and price. And we could find (it) convenient for us to have the same as a reciprocity,” chief executive Louis Gallois said, according to AFP.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
OPS: part of our suicidal race to the bottom
Some Realities of Today’s World
While we talk about free markets and government non-interference, other nations are busy subsidizing and building up key sectors of their economies and, in this process, destroying key sectors of ours.
Too often I am reluctant to read a newspaper or see the news. After all, this is my country, and it is painful for me to see it, day after day, struggling with chains of its own devising and suffering from self-inflicted wounds.
Too many of us still interpret the world through the twin lenses of free trade and total government non-interference. Too many of us regard having any government policy in industry as gratuitous interference with the natural and beneficial functioning of the free market system.
I am a graduate of that school of thought myself. I have felt the entrepreneurial spirit, the free dom of being able to act and fol low one’s dreams rather than being bound in bundles of gov ernment red tape. I understand this very well, and I wish that we lived in a more perfect world so that nothing more than that was needed. But we don’t.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
US prosecutors charge 14 in insider trading probe
Prosecutors in New York charged 14 people Thursday in a widening probe apparently linked to what was allegedly the largest hedge-fund insider trading scheme ever on Wall Street.
The office of Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said 14 people, “including attorneys and Wall Street professionals” were charged “for their alleged involvement in insider trading that netted 20 million dollars.”
The central figure among those charged was Zvi Goffer, who worked for the hedge fund Galleon Management LP and set up the hedge fund Incremental Capital.
He is alleged to have played a key role in the ring in which he “paid sources for inside information” about companies, including news of mergers and acquisitions, then made deals on the stock market.
Others charged Thursday with insider trading include current and former employees at Galleon, Ropes and Gray law firm, and Incremental Capital.
The criminal complaint said that evidence had been gathered using telephone wiretaps and informants. It also said that Goffer issued participants in the alleged ring with prepaid cellphones which were meant to make detection of the scheme harder.
Galleon Management LP was shut down last month after Sri Lankan founder Raj Rajaratnam was indicted in the alleged scheme. Rajaratnam faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly using insider information from heavyweight companies including Google, IBM, Hilton and Moody’s.
Full Story US prosecutors charge 14 in insider trading probe – Yahoo! News UK.
Top Bailout Recipients Spent $71 Million On Lobbying In Year Since Bailout
Twenty-five top recipients of government bailout funds spent more than $71 million on lobbying in the year since they were rescued, an extensive review of federal lobbying records by the Huffington Post reveals.
A year after taxpayers forked over $700 billion to help rescue the biggest names in banking, insurance and the automotive industry, those same institutions are using portions of the cash to influence legislation with a direct impact on taxpayers.
In all, during the last quarter of 2008 and the first three quarters of 2009, those 25 institutions spent $71,199,000 on lobbying. The list includes General Motors ($11.95 million), Citigroup ($8.915 million), Bank of America ($6.427 million), J.P. Morgan Chase ($7.735 million), Goldman Sachs ($4.38 million) and AIG ($3.47 million). Some of these companies have paid federal money back. Not all of the top bailout recipients, meanwhile, spent money on lobbying.
Full Story Top Bailout Recipients Spent $71 Million On Lobbying In Year Since Bailout.
GOP is ‘disintegrating,’ Grayson says
The GOP will soon disappear as a party, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) claimed last night.
Speaking to HLN’s Joy Behar, Grayson said the battle between moderates and conservative Republicans will send the party off a cliff.
“I think we’re witnessing the disintegration of a major political party,” Grayson said. “Something that happens only about once a century.”
Grayson pointed to the showdown in NY-23 as evidence that “the tea baggers are no longer obeying the corporate pay masters.”
Full Story GOP is ‘disintegrating,’ Grayson says – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
OPS: Grayson is hopefully correct, but he needs to include much of the Democratic Party who are going down the same corporate toilet
No global climate change treaty likely for up to a year, negotiators admit
World’s key industrialised nations say they have abandoned hope of legally binding deal at Copenhagen summit
A global treaty to fight climate change will be postponed by at least six months and possibly a year or more, senior negotiators and politicians conceded today.
In a day of gloomy statements, the world’s key industrialised nations said they had abandoned hope of a legally binding treaty at the Copenhagen summit next month and had begun to plan only for a meeting of world leaders.
The stark statements follow weeks of pessimism and represent a significant downgrading of the summit’s goal.
In London, Ed Miliband, the UK climate change secretary, became the first British politician to acknowledge publicly that Copenhagen would produce no legal climate change treaty.
Speaking in the House of Commons, he said: “The UN negotiations are moving too slowly and not going well.” He went on to describe a “history of mistrust” between developed and developing nations with negotiators “stuck in entrenched positions”, an impasse that prompted African nations to stage a walkout at the negotiations this week.
Full Story No global climate change treaty likely for up to a year, negotiators admit | Environment | The Guardian.
Dominican Republic town blames U.S. firm for birth defects
A small Dominican Republic town plagued by birth defects wants to know if a U.S. power company is to blame.
ARROYO BARRIL, Dominican Republic — Maximiliano Calcaño is 2 and was born with no arms.
“When I was pregnant, I was dizzy, vomiting and could barely walk,” said Maximiliano’s mother, Anajai Calcaño, 20. “My tooth cracked and fell out. Then my baby was born like that, without arms. Nothing like that had ever happened here before.”
By “before,” Calcaño means before a U.S. power company’s coal ash arrived at a nearby port, sitting there for more than two years.
She lives in a small wooden house with no indoor plumbing in a rural village in northern Dominican Republic, not far from where coal ash generated by Virginia-based AES Corp. wound up at the edge of the sea. More than 50,000 tons of coal ash laden with heavy metals was left at a port abutting local homes for years while the company, politicians, prosecutors, environmental activists and bureaucrats argued — and residents got sick.
Full Story Dominican Republic town blames U.S. firm for birth defects – Front Page – MiamiHerald.com.
Pentagon pursuing new investigation into Bush propaganda program
The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General is conducting a new investigation into a covert Bush administration Defense Department program that used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage.
Last May, the Inspector General’s office rescinded and repudiated a prior internal investigation’s report on the retired military analyst program, which had been issued by the Bush administration, because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” Yet in recent interviews with Raw Story, Pentagon officials who took part in the program were still defending it by referencing this invalidated report.
Gary Comerford, Inspector General spokesman for the Defense Department, told Raw Story last week that his office is conducting an investigation into the retired military analyst program and confirmed that the investigation began during the summer.
Asked when his office expects to conclude the investigation, Comerford said, “As a matter of policy we do not set deadlines since any number of variables or factors could result in a delay.”
Full Story Pentagon pursuing new investigation into Bush propaganda program | Raw Story.
Wall Street firms getting H1N1 vaccine ‘ahead of hospitals’ and ahead of Children
Wall St swine flu vaccinations spark uproar
News that US swine flu vaccines, meant to be prioritized for the nation’s most vulnerable, are being distributed to Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs, have sparked uproar.
The New York Department of Health said Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have applied for supplies of the H1N1 vaccine and are eligible because they are large employers with in-house clinics.
With H1N1 vaccines often scarce and populist anger already raging at Wall Street for last year’s financial meltdown, the news triggered furor.
Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer for the largest US healthcare union, the SEIU, said it was “obscene” that powerful and wealthy private organizations got vaccines when “at-risk Americans are either waiting in line for hours or getting turned away.”
“Last time I checked, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not prioritized Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and other Wall Street executives over the rest of America,” Burger said.
Full Story Wall St swine flu vaccinations spark uproar – Yahoo! News.
Unemployment leaps to 10.2%; Worse than expected
The unemployment rate in the U.S. soared to a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October and employers cut more jobs than forecast, underscoring why Federal Reserve policy makers say interest rates will remain low until the labor market recovers.
OPS: Note: Unemployment is somewhere north of 17.5% click here for more
Payrolls fell by 190,000 workers last month, compared with a 175,000 drop anticipated by the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The jobless rate gained from 9.8 percent in September and exceeded 10 percent for the first time since 1983.
Companies such as Johnson & Johnson are cutting staff on concern the emerging recovery will be cut short as American consumers retrench. Fed policy makers this week said the economy will probably “remain weak for a time” and reiterated a pledge to keep borrowing costs low for an “extended period.”
Full Story Unemployment leaps to 10.2%; Worse than expected | Raw Story.
Astroturf In Action: Right-Wing Billionaire David Koch Pays For 40 Buses To Haul In Protesters
Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the corporate front group founded in the 1980s by Koch Industries billionaire David Koch, worked closely with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to orchestrate the anti-health reform rally today. As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, AFP has been encouraging right-wing activists to board their buses — free of charge — to attend the rally. While AFP does not disclose all of its corporate donors, foundations controlled by David and Charles Koch provide millions in yearly funding, and David continues to chair the AFP foundation and preside over AFP’s annual convention.
ThinkProgress found at least a dozen AFP staffers standing at their designated bus drop off point near the Capitol, handing out signs, directions, talking points, petitions, and donuts to protesters. Many of the people who work at AFP are longtime Republican operatives, like Ben Marchi, the AFP Virginia director who previously worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee and for Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX). Victor Zapanta produced this video report of AFP staffers talking about their exploits at the rally today:
AFP STAFFERS: We have 25 buses just from Pennsylvania, New Jersey we probably have 5 or 6 from Maryland.
AFP STAFFERS: We have about 40 buses coming.
Watch it:
G. Gordon Liddy’s producer claims around ‘a million’ attended the GOP’s anti-health care reform rally.
Capitol Hill police told NBC’s Luke Russert that the crowd was about 4,000.
After the 9/12 march on Washington, conservatives falsely claimed that over a million people attended, when in reality the closest thing to an official count — numbers given by the Washington DC Fire Department to ABCNews.com — placed the crowd at “approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people.” Though today’s anti-health care reform rally has been much more sparsely attended, that hasn’t stopped conservatives from inflating the numbers again. On G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show today, producer Franklin Raff, who was on the ground at the rally, told guest host Joseph Farah that the crowd is “just as big or bigger than” the 9/12 rally, which Raff estimated “at about a million.” Listen here:
Capitol Hill police told NBC’s Luke Russert that the crowd was about 4,000. At around 2 PM eastern time, Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) posted an aerial picture of the crowd on her TwitPic page, clearly showing a crowd far, far smaller than “a million”:
Coburn places hold on veterans benefits bill.
One of the Senate’s most vociferous opponents of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has been Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who called the stimulus “the worst act of generational theft in our nation’s history.” Today, The Marine Corp Times revealed exactly how far Coburn was willing to go to undermine ARRA. It turns out Coburn has been the senator who has placed holds on several veterans benefits bills because he wanted to divert money from unspent ARRA funds on them:
Thirteen major military and veterans groups have joined forces to try to force one senator — Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — to release a hold that he has placed on a major veterans benefits bill.
Coburn has been identified by Senate aides as the lawmaker preventing consideration of S 1963, the Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009, by using an informal but legal practice of putting a hold on a bill. [...]
Full Story Think Progress » Coburn places hold on veterans benefits bill..
‘Let’s Learn About Coal’: Industry Front Group Distributes Coloring Book On The ‘Advantages’ Of Coal
Friends of Coal (FOC) is a front group created by the West Virginia Coal Association. Its mission is to “inform and educate West Virginia citizens about the coal industry” and “provide a united voice” for the industry. To make dirty coal seem appealing, FOC has sponsored or initiated license plates, football games, basketball practices, plane jumps, fishing events, and scholarships.
FOC is now selling coal to children. ThinkProgress obtained the “Let’s Learn About Coal” coloring book, which asks children to unscramble statements about the “advantages” of coal, such as “Than coal other cheaper is fuels” (”Coal is cheaper than other fuels”). Kids also learn that coal is “important” and “provides jobs for lots of people!”:
Ft. Hood murder suspect alive and in stable condition.
At a press conference moments ago, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of the Army’s III Corps and Fort Hood, revealed that contrary to initial media reports, the suspected shooter in the Ft. Hood murders is not dead. The suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is reportedly “in stable condition” and his death is “not imminent.” The female first responder who shot Hasan is also alive. Cone further reported that, while he’s not ruling out terrorism as possible motive for the shootings, the “evidence does not suggest” it was an act of terrorism.
Update Thirteen individuals have died, and 30 were wounded. Two of the victims were civilians; the rest were military. (Subsequent media reports say only one of the dead was a civilian.) He did not offer any comments about Maj. Hasan during the briefing, only stating that he has had “no personal background with him.” While he confirmed that other suspects were taken into custody, Cone said that evidence indicates “it was a single shooter” who was carrying at least one semi-automatic weapon. Tomorrow, Ft. Hood will observe a day of mourning.
Full Story Think Progress » Ft. Hood murder suspect alive and in stable condition..
The law loves American Christianity
At first glance, I thought this story was good news: Oklahoma is going to build a Christian prison! About time, I thought, I can think of a few Christians who deserve a few years for faith-abuse. But no…it’s a prison to be administered by Christians to give Christian criminals special privileges. Not quite as appropriate, but more in line with what we’ve gotten used to from our dominant faith tradition.
We’re getting more of the same from Congress, too. Religion is being given permission to intrude on science once again, with the sanctimonious Orrin Hatch (abetted by a pair of Democrats, Kerry and Kennedy) sponsoring a provision in the mangled health care football to allow prayer to count as medicine. It’s specifically a sop to Christian Science, that nonsensical superstition that believes that medicine is a betrayal of faith and that wants to charge sick people money to pray over them…and also get reimbursement from the government. Let the Christian Scientists get a foot in the door and official recognition of mumbling to Jesus as a billable service, and you know the Scientologists and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Amish and Mormons and, of course, the Catholics will be surging through to take advantage of the opportunities.
I may just have to convert to Catholicism under this bill so I can charge the US and my insurance provider to cover my near-sightedness treatments at Lourdes. And the French Riviera.
You laugh. But look at the absurdity of existing loopholes.
Full Story The law loves American Christianity : Pharyngula.
Was I hired to stand in the way of health care reform?
Hi, I’m Andy and I did all the damage I could being a spokesjerk for Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Now it’s time to move on to the next hugely irresponsible, profit-driven monopoly.
Full Story YouTube – Was I hired to stand in the way of health care reform?.
1929 and 2009: A public job program is the answer
Eighty years ago this week, the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression. We need to apply the lessons from that era to our own to relieve the needless suffering of the Great Recession.
In just two days, between Oct. 28 and 29, 1929, the stock market plummeted by 25 percent. Between September and November of that year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 40 percent of its value. By July of 1932, the Dow had lost nearly 90 percent of its value.
By then the Great Depression was raging, with unemployment rates rising to 25 percent.
To combat unemployment and alleviate poverty, the federal government engaged in a massive public works and jobs program through the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
Private markets weren’t about to create jobs, and the public sector became the employer of last resort. The job creation from the WPA provided survival and sustenance for millions of American families. Where is the contemporary WPA?
Full Story 1929 and 2009: A public job program is the answer | The Progressive.
Thousands of Right-Wingers Rally at Capitol to Hear Lies About Health-Care Reform, Courtesy of Bachmann and GOP Leaders
Days before a health bill is expected to pass the House, Republicans rallied their flock with the help of FOX News, Michele Bachmann and leading conservative groups.
Thousands of right-wingers rallied yesterday on the lawn on the U.S. Capitol building to hear a parade of Republican lawmakers warn them of an alleged threat to their freedom embedded in the secret channels of the health-care reform bill unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lawmakers expect to vote on the bill this Saturday.
Congressional star power was provided on the podium by the likes of Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who called for the rally from the hallowed platform of Sean Hannity’s FOX News program. Other big names on the Capitol podium included House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; Joe “You Lie” Wilson, R-S.C., (who got a huge ovation from the crowd) and Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., who promised that he was doing all he could to ensure that “not one Republican” votes for the health-care reform bill.
Focusing on Ft. Hood Killer’s Beliefs Are an Easy Out to Avoid the Deeper Reasons for the Massacre
It’s hard to pinpoint what’s the most shocking thing about Major Malik Nadal Hasan’s shooting rampage in Fort Hood, Texas. I’ll start with this: there’s nothing all that ground-breaking about it. Happens all the time, it’s just that we’re a nation of amnesiacs who forget all the unpleasantries, and refuse to learn the valuable lessons.
For starters, Fort Hood is located in Killeen, Texas — where one of the deadliest rampage shootings in American history took place in 1991, when an unemployed ex-Navy enlistee, George Hennard Jr., crashed his pickup into a popular cafeteria, pulled out two handguns (Hasan also used two handguns), and murdered 23 people before taking his own life. The day before the massacre, Hennard was eating a hamburger in a local restaurant watching the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings and, according to the manager, “When an interview with Anita Hill came on, he just went off. He started screaming, ‘You dumb bitch! You bastards opened the door for all the women!’”
So yesterday’s Fort Hood shooting isn’t the worst or most deranged mass-killing in Killeen’s history — not by a longshot. The mainstream media is enabling the screaming about the Muslim traitors in our midst, but Hasan killed far fewer Americans than the white, racist George Hennard. And they were bested by the federal government in nearby Waco Texas, in 1993, when federal forces slaughtered some 75 men, women and children in the Branch Davidian compound.
TALIBAN = 9/11?? Afghanistan by Hypnosis
Greg Palast »
On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis’ attack, America invaded … Afghanistan. Like, HUH?
And here we go again. New York Times headline last Friday: “Pakistani Army, In Its Campaign In Taliban Stronghold, Finds A Hint Of 9/11.”
Google it and you’ll find the Times report repeated and amplified 5,785 times more.
Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.
Your eyelids are getting heavy. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.
It’s the latest hit from the same crew that brought you Saddam = 9/11 and its twin chant, Saddam = WMD, Dick Cheney’s chimerical tropes which the New York Times’ Judith Miller happily channeled to the paper’s front page.
And they’re at it again.
Full Story Greg Palast » TALIBAN = 9/11??Afghanistan by Hypnosis.
Half of US kids depend on food stamps during childhood: study
Nearly half of all US children, including an overwhelming majority of black children, will eat meals at some point during their childhood paid for by food stamps, an indicator of poverty, a study showed Monday.
“If you get food stamps, you are by definition in poverty and your household doesn’t have many assets,” said Mark Rank, a co-author of the study with Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University.
“The fact that half of American children at some time during their childhood find themselves in this position really ought to be a wake-up call to America,” he told AFP.
The study found that 49.2 percent of all American children will at some point live in a home that receives food stamps.
Among black children and children living in single-parent households, the percentage is much higher: around 90 percent live in homes that receive food stamps at one stage or another.
And nearly all black children in single parent homes where the head of household has less than a high school education live in financial and food insecurity during part of their childhood, the study says.
Full Story AFP: Half of US kids depend on food stamps during childhood: study.
America the Betrayed
Richard C. Cook »
If you want to get an idea of what America once was like, read the poems of Walt Whitman. Whitman was born on Long Island in 1819 and grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His family was poor, but even though he left school at the age of 11 he gave himself an education by reading and working in the printing shop of a newspaper until he gradually became a published writer. He worked as a teacher and news reporter and owned his own newspaper by the age of 20.
In 1848 Whitman was a delegate to the founding convention of the Free Soil Party. During the Civil War he worked as a nurse in Union military hospitals and held several government jobs, including interviewing Confederate prisoners for pardons. Some of his greatest poems came from his war experiences, including his famous elegy upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, “Oh Captain! My Captain!” His great collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, was self-published. He died a national hero in 1892 in Camden, New Jersey, where thousands of people came to pay their respects.
Whitman has always been viewed as a poet of the people, in contrast to the pretentious dandies from academia who have controlled official American culture for much of our history. He wrote of workmen, farmers, sailors, soldiers, lovers, criminals, and prostitutes.
In the text of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, he wrote of himself as, “Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest.” He had discovered a great secret, one that is known to everyone who is young at heart: that the free individual, always potentially a “kosmos,” stands at a much higher level in the scale of creation than any man-made collective.
Full Story Richard C. Cook » Blog Archive » America the Betrayed.
The Soldiers From Standard Oil
ROTC, Harvard and American Foreign Policy
By BRIAN GALLAGHER
In a glowing and laudatory report on college students who join the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at nearby schools while enrolled at prestigious universities from whence ROTC was banned in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the New York Times has eased the way for colleges such as Harvard to ditch their ROTC ban and become in practice, not just in theory, fully supportive of the US government’s militarized foreign policy.
The New York Times (The ROTC Dilemma) presents us with the travails of Harvard undergrads who have to rise at 4:45am and shave then drive or jog across the beloved and revered (no matter how compromised) River Charles in order to reach Boston University, where, “under a system developed by the military that allows host universities to serve nearby campuses”(NYT 10/26/09), they may be trained as officers ready to serve the interests of their country’s leadership. The car used for this daily trip costs between $250 to $300 a month to maintain, the Times also lets us know, as if the civilians of Cambridge and Boston get a discount.
“It’s worse at Yale,” laments the Times’ author, Michael Winerip, who reports that there anyone wanting to be in ROTC must endure a 90 minute drive to UConn and request class notes from a friend. Winerip notes that this June, only 8 ROTC members will graduate while a half century ago, in 1959, 121 seniors were commissioned as officers.
Full Story Brian Gallagher: The Soldiers From Standard Oil.
House Resolution Designates Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism
House Resolution Designates Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism – by Stephen Lendman
At a time of growing US poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair, imperial wars without end, and the Obama administration even worse than its predecessor, Venezuela:
- – is a model participatory democracy;
- – holds free, fair and open elections;
- – respects the rule of law, civil liberties, and human rights;
- – doesn’t intimidate its neighbors;
- – uses its resources responsibly for the people;
- – provides essential social services for the needy;
- – champions judicial fairness and the rule of law;
- – has a model free and open media;
- – wages no foreign wars;
- – doesn’t torture or imprison its adversaries;
- – conducts effective operations to halt illicit drugs trafficking;
- – promotes global peace, solidarity, equality and social justice; and
- – its only threat is its good example that shames its northern neighbor.
In contrast, America:
- – is a serial belligerent and world class bully;
- – spends more on militarism than the rest of the world combined at a time it has no enemies;
- – backs the world’s worst dictators and faux democrats like Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe, a man closely linked to the country’s paramilitary death squads and drug cartels; and
- – through the CIA, has actively engaged in global drugs trafficking since the agency’s 1947 founding; it profits hugely from its dealings with local traffickers; so do major US banks and other powerful business and financial interests.
- In addition, Washington
- – serves the rich at the public’s expense;
- – tolerates corruption at the highest levels;
- – subverts democracy through electoral fraud;
- – has a closed, corrupted dominant media system serving the powerful, not the greater good;
- – incarcerates hundreds of political prisoners;
- – uses torture as official policy; and
- – wages state-sponsored terrorism and global wars.
So consider the hypocrisy. On October 27, Rep. Connie Mack (Rep. FL) introduced HR 872: Calling for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism for its support of Iran, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP). Its sole co-sponsor was Rep. Ron Klein (Dem. FL).
Full Story SteveLendmanBlog: House Resolution Designates Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism.
Note: The Author H.R.872 as the Resolution in question. Actually, it is H.Res.872 and can be found here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.res.00872:
Army: Suspect said `Allahu Akbar!’ before shooting
The base commander at Fort Hood says soldiers who witnessed a shooting rampage that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire at the Texas post.
Lt. Gen. Robert Cone told NBC’s “Today” show on Friday that suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment, which is Arabic for “God is great!” before the rampage Thursday that also left 30 people wounded.
Military officials say they are still piecing together what may have pushed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist trained to help soldiers in distress, to turn on his comrades.
Cone says Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk.
Hasan was shot four times during the rampage. Cone says he is hospitalized in stable condition and that military officials will interrogate him as soon as possible.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below
Full Story Army: Suspect said `Allahu Akbar!’ before shooting – Yahoo! News.
The Next Phase of Health Care Apartheid
Norm Soloman
In Washington, “health care reform” has degenerated into a sick joke.
At this point, only spinners who’ve succumbed to their own vertigo could use the word “robust” to describe the public option in the health care bill that the House Democratic leadership has sent to the floor.
“A main argument was that a public plan would save people money,” The New York Times has noted. But the insurance industry – claiming to want a level playing field – has gotten the Obama administration to bulldoze the plan. “After House Democratic leaders unveiled their health care bill [on October 29], the Congressional Budget Office said the public plan would cost more than private plans and only 6 million people would sign up.”
At its best, “the public option” was a weak remedy for the disastrous ailments of the health care system in the United States. But whatever virtues the public option may have offered were stripped from the bill en route to the House floor.
What remains is a Rube Goldberg contraption that will launch this country into a new phase of health care apartheid.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | The Next Phase of Health Care Apartheid.
CIT Bankruptcy: Taxpayers Stiffed on Company’s Bailout Billions While Execs Reap Bonuses
If people were pissed off about AIG’s temporary decline and permanent bonuses, CIT’s bankruptcy ought to enrage them.
The giant lender to businesses is heading for a quick in-and-out in bankruptcy court, and when it emerges, taxpayers will be the ones who have gotten the ol’ in-out: CIT won’t have to repay its $2.33 billion TARP bailout.
CIT’s been in deep trouble for way more than a year. Meanwhile, some of its execs have reaped special bonuses. Its H.R. director, Jim Duffy, has received a $450,000 cash bonus for what the company called his “exceptional performance.” What did he do? “Mr. Duffy’s achievements in 2008 include the design and implementation of a process to reduce our total headcount by 22% … along with the successful deployment of talent and development programs targeted at retaining CIT’s key talent,” according to CIT’s proxy filing last April. That message to taxpayers was approved by CEO Jeff Peek.
That was the same month that Peek’s wife, Liz Peek (a former journalist), wrote an anonymous, weepy tell-all for Portfolio about the sad plight of TARP wives. And that was the same month that Portfolio itself went out of business.
Full Story OpEdNews – Article: CIT Bankruptcy: Taxpayers Stiffed on Company’s Bailout Billions While Execs Reap Bonuses.
Why Republicans are either lying or dumb
There was another tea party protest rally in Washington to demonstrate against the House health care bill which will be put to a vote over the weekend.
The Republicans, led by John Boehner, spent the day making speeches about the proposed health care bill, all of it based on what Republicans say will be the results if the bill is passed. ( one of the featured speakers was Jon Voight. When actors speak out on behalf of liberal causes like Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, Republicansmock them as “just” actors and who cares what they think? Obviously, sticking to their credo of being The National Hypocrite Party the same doesn’t apply if its an actor is supporting their agenda)
Boehner used the usual Republican talking point that the public option would lead to a government take over of health care. But there is nothing in the bill that suggests it will lead to a government take over. In fact if they were paying attention they would know that many Democrats who support universal healthcare feel that this bill doesn’t go far enough in that direction. And the Republicans know it. So what they are telling us is onlywhat they think will happen as if its an actual fact. And since everything Republicans have told us would happen over the last 15 years has proved to be the opposite of what actually happened, are they lying or are they just dumb? One thing we do know –. they are always wrong.
The favorite mantra, especially of the tea party protestors is that the public option will add to the deficit. And they whine that the country couldn’t afford it. For these people the country could afford $1 billion a day in Iraq for the last eight years — that’s $ 2 1/2 trillion since Bush invaded. But we cant afford health care reform.
Full Story Why Republicans are either lying or dumb.
Nine Arrested Protesting Lieberman’s Healthcare Stance
Nine protesters were arrested Thursday in a demonstration at the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to demand that he pledge to stop accepting from the health insurance industry.
Lieberman, who last week said he would join a GOP filibuster of any health care bill with a government-run public option, has accepted about $1.5 million from health professionals and insurance agencies since 2003, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Twenty protesters, including four students from the University of Connecticut, marched into the senator’s office in the morning and demanded to speak with him. Aides denied their request, offering constituents a closed-door meeting with two legislative aides, which was rejected. Nine protesters then staged a sit-in, saying they would not leave the office until they could have a discussion with the senator in person.
Full Story Nine Arrested Protesting Lieberman’s Healthcare Stance.
Wall Street’s Naked Swindle (video)
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Outside of the financial sector, its hard to find regular people who fully understand what derivatives, synthetics, and stock swaps really are. Because of this, financial firms on Wall Street were able to operate in their own little world of fraudulent financial instruments without any oversight or regulation. But like most things, their era of unprecedented profits and greed was too good to last, and the entire fake economy that they’d built amongst themselves came crashing down. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talks about how a few large banks managed to tank our economy with Matt Taibbi, political correspondent for Rolling Stone Magazine.
Part 1
Part 2
Part3
Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading
An FoE report says ‘cap and trade’ carbon markets have done little to reduce emissions but have been plagued by corruption and inefficiency
The world’s carbon trading markets growing complexity threatens another “sub-prime” style financial crisis that could again destabilise the global economy, campaigners warn today.
In a new report, Friends of the Earth says that to date “cap and trade” carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions but have been plagued by inefficiency and corruption that render them unfit for purpose.
As the world heads towards the Copenhagen climate summit, Britain and other developed countries want to see carbon trading expanded worldwide. The carbon market, mainly based in Europe, was worth $126bn in 2008 and is predicted to mushroom to $3.1tn by 2020 if a global carbon market takes off.
Full Story Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading | Environment | The Guardian.
Coke to Bring You Advice About Health and Soft Drinks
Family doctors group loses members over Coke deal
CHICAGO – Advice about soft drinks and health from one of the nation’s largest doctors groups will soon be brought to you by Coke.
The American Academy of Family Physicians has prompted outcry and lost members over its new six-figure alliance with the Coca-Cola Co. The deal will fund educational materials about soft drinks for the academy’s consumer health and wellness Web site, http://www.FamilyDoctor.org.
Full Story Coke to Bring You Advice About Health and Soft Drinks | CommonDreams.org.
A Global Elite and New World Order – A Global Elite Has Control
A Global Elite Has the Desire to Rip Down the Governments That Are in Place.
A global elite is in place, and that global elite has been around since the beginning of the United States, with the desire to take over the world by taking out the borders that currently separate the countries.
To the elite, the borders restrict some of the revenue streams they could have otherwise.
Borders limit the power the elite can have, as of right now there are many different governments to deal with.
A more efficient way to rule, in the minds of the elite, is to create a New World Order and then transfer the power into the hands of one government, which would be controlled by the global elite. The global elite has one thing in mind and that is wealth, which means they will not let anything, including borders get in their way when they want to attain it.
Often times, people wonder how someone becomes a global elite member, and in order to understand that, you need to step back through history.
Full Story A Global Elite and New World Order – A Global Elite Has Control | Truth-It.
Despotism & Democracy
Producer: Encyclopaedia Britannica Films – 1946
Measures how a society ranks on a spectrum stretching from democracy to despotism. Explains how societies and nations can be measured by the degree that power is concentrated and respect for the individual is restricted. Where does your community, state and nation stand on these scales?
Full Story YouTube – Despotism & Democracy.
Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How?
Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened.
But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week, data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear.
“The old view is that cancer is a linear process,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. “A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously.”
So, Dr. Kramer said, the image was “an arrow that moved in one direction.” But now, he added, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers require more than mutations to progress. They need the cooperation of surrounding cells and even, he said, “the whole organism, the person,” whose immune system or hormone levels, for example, can squelch or fuel a tumor.
Cancer, Dr. Kramer said, is a dynamic process.
Full Story Cancers Can Vanish Without Treatment, but How? – NYTimes.com.
CBO Says GOP Health Care ‘Alternative’ Leaves 52 Million Uninsured By 2019
Last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the House Republican alternative health care bill. While the CBO determined the GOP bill’s 10 year price tag to be $61 billion — far less that the Democrats’ proposal — the score also found that the their bill would have little effect on nearly 46 million uninsured Americans:
By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share. CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the amendment’s insurance coverage provisions would increase deficits by $8 billion over the 2010–2019 period.
The CBO found that the Democrats’ bill, however, would cover 36 million more Americans and “reduce the number of nonelderly Americans without coverage to around 18 million over the next decade.” Yet, just before the CBO scored the GOP bill, a spokesperson for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) falsely claimed their alternative “will cover millions more Americans” than the Democrats’ bill.
Full Story Think Progress » CBO Says GOP Health Care ‘Alternative’ Leaves 52 Million Uninsured By 2019.
Fed spells out stance on rates
Levels close to zero seen for 6 months -
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday signalled that it still expected to keep interest rates near zero for at least six months, but for the first time identified factors that could lead to earlier rate rises.
In a shift foreshadowed in the Financial Times, the US central bank tweaked guidance in its policy statement that had been unchanged since March, edging away from a simple forecast that it expects to keep rates at “exceptionally low levels” for an “extended period” – commonly understood to mean at least six months.
Full Story FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – Fed spells out stance on rates.
OPS: This is a private corporation, freely giving away OUR tax dollars, to themselves and their friends, at almost no interest so they can loan it back to us at outrageous rates.
China faces export inquiry
WTO move part of global action on trade policies –
The US, European Union and Mexico have asked for a World Trade Organisation dispute panel to investigate Chinese restrictions on exports of specialised raw materials used in industry, the latest indication that the global slowdown is leading to greater international action against China’s trade policies.
The request to the WTO claims that China’s restraints on exports of bauxite, magnesium and other raw materials, which are used to make steel, aluminium and some chemicals, is driving up the price of those end products.
Full Story FT.com / China / Economy & Trade – China faces export inquiry.
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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. 
