Archive for November, 2009

FBI makes more arrests in Galleon case

Hedge fund criminal probe widens

The investigation into the alleged insider trading scheme involving billionaire Raj Rajaratnam escalated on Thursday with federal prosecutors filing criminal charges against 14 individuals, including attorneys and Wall Street professionals.

A press conference is expected to be held later on Thursday to detail the charges.

Last month, Mr Rajaratnam – the founder of Galleon hedge fund –and five other individuals were charged by federal prosecutors and the US Securities and Exchange Commission in relation to the alleged insider trading scheme that netted more than $20m.

Full Story FT.com / US / Society – FBI makes more arrests in Galleon case.

Scott Ritter on Afghanistan: Don’t Believe the Hype

Is the war in Afghanistan worth the sacrifice of even one American life? Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter says, “No! And to date no one has articulated anything that remotely resembles a cause worthy of the death of even one American—let alone the hundreds who have already lost their lives.”

Our podcast conversation with Scott Ritter was alarming, because it reminded me of his warnings before the Iraq war. He told me on the phone in March 2003 that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that we were going to war without cause. It was his tone and logic that I remember most about that day on the phone. I heard that tone again as we talked about the current conflict in Afghanistan.

“There is no sense of urgency [to go to war in Afghanistan] other than the political element,” he said to us. “Sure there’s urgency if you’re an American politician who has invested political capital into the notion of the urgency of bringing stability to Afghanistan. … We are allowing the battle in Afghanistan to be defined by a domestic American political imperative. There is no urgency in Afghanistan, there is urgency in Washington, D.C.” Ritter said.

“It’s high time we stopped talking about defeating the Taliban and started talking about working with the Taliban.” —James Harris

audio clip at link

Full Story Truthdig – Reports – Scott Ritter on Afghanistan: Don’t Believe the Hype.

The GOP’s Toxic Tea Party

By Joe Conason

When Newt Gingrich warned Republicans that they were making a grave “mistake” by driving out moderates and enforcing the angry orthodoxy of the far right, the sober tone of his remarks was stunning.

This is a politician who is no stranger himself to the wilder shores of extremism, a populist and a purist who rose to great power against the GOP establishment, and a demagogue whose lexicon lacerated the “Democrat Party” as decadent, elitist, unpatriotic and immoral.

In his day, Gingrich channeled the same phobias and fury as the “tea party” activists whose growing influence in Republican ranks seems to have shaken him so badly. Why is Newt scared now?

Despite his habitual ranting against the Eastern elites, the former House speaker is a professional historian and an intellectual with wide-ranging interests—making him a figure of potential suspicion to radio talkers without much formal education and the raving mobs that follow them.

Full Story Truthdig – Reports – The GOP’s Toxic Tea Party.

Congress giving homebuyers a $6,500 tax break

Buying a home is about to get cheaper for a whole new crop of homebuyers — $6,500 cheaper.

First-time homebuyers have been getting tax credits of up to $8,000 since January as part of the economic stimulus package enacted earlier this year. But with the program scheduled to expire at the end of November, the Senate voted Wednesday to extend and expand the tax credit to include many buyers who already own homes. The House could vote on the bill as early as Thursday.

Buyers who have owned their current homes at least five years would be eligible for tax credits of up to $6,500. First-time homebuyers — or anyone who hasn’t owned a home in the last three years — would still get up to $8,000. To qualify, buyers in both groups have to sign a purchase agreement by April 30, 2010, and close by June 30.

“This is probably the last extension,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., a former real estate executive who championed the credits.

Full Story The Associated Press: Congress giving homebuyers a $6,500 tax break.

CBO: Republican Health Insurance Reform Bill Insures Almost Nobody

Republican Health Insurance Reform Bill Insures Almost Nobody (CBO Report)

Earlier this week, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner made a prediction. The Republican health care plan, he said, “will cover millions more Americans” than the Democrats’ plan. Bold. But here’s what the experts say:

***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.

What else does CBO find?

Though some consumers would find their premiums reduced modestly, “in the large group market, which represents nearly 80 percent of total private premiums, the amendment would lower average insurance premiums in 2016 by zero to 3 percent compared with amounts under current law, according to CBO’s estimates. The figures are presented for 2016 as an illustrative example.”

The GOP bill does require less new government spending, but that’s what you get when you don’t insure anybody. And though it does reduce the deficit, it does so by billions less than the Democrats’ bill does.

Full Story CBO Report

Mexican Pot Gangs Infiltrate Indian Reservations in U.S.

Police Chief Carmen Smith says he knows three things about suspected drug trafficker Artemio Corona: He’s from Mexico, prefers a Glock .40-caliber handgun, and is quite possibly growing marijuana on the Indian reservation that Mr. Smith patrols.

Last year, Mr. Smith’s detectives identified Mr. Corona as the alleged mastermind behind several large marijuana plantations on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon. These “grows,” as police call them, had a harvest of 12,000 adult plants, with an estimated street value of $10 million. Five suspects were arrested and pleaded guilty to federal trafficking charges. But their alleged boss, Mr. Corona, who has not been indicted, remains a “person of interest” to federal authorities and hasn’t been found.

Cultivating marijuana in Indian country represents a new twist in the decades-old illicit drug trade between Mexico and the U.S., the world’s largest drug-consuming market. For decades, Mexican drug gangs grew marijuana in Mexico, smuggled it across the border, and sold it in the U.S. But in the past few years, they have done what any burgeoning business would do: move closer to their customers.

Full Story Mexican Pot Gangs Infiltrate Indian Reservations in U.S. – WSJ.com.

Lawrence O’Donnell, Anthony Weiner Rip Joe Wilson For “Idiotic” Health Care Proposal (VIDEO)

Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) had an epiphany about health care legislation while he attended a “luncheon” at “Enchilada’s Mexican restaurant” with some senior citizens on Hilton Head island. They helped him come to the conclusion that if the Democrats in the House are so enthusiastic about passing a public option, surely they would be rushing to join said plan. And they aren’t, so there must be something bad about it.

However, the Congressman does not quite have his facts straight, as “Countdown” guest host Lawrence O’Donnell and Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) both point out.

O’Donnell notes that members of Congress already have health care that is paid for by the government, and that the public option is for people lacking employer-provided health insurance. He then offered Congressman Wilson some advice: “It’s your staff’s job to talk you out of introducing idiotic amendments. Try talking to them once in awhile. If this happens again someone’s got to be fired, and we know it can’t be you, so give your staff fair warning.”

Weiner attributed the Wilson’s confusion to a bout of schizophrenia that is afflicting the GOP:

Full Story Lawrence O’Donnell, Anthony Weiner Rip Joe Wilson For “Idiotic” Health Care Proposal (VIDEO).

Rodell Vereen’s Sex With Horse Nets Him 3 Years Prison

A South Carolina man caught on video having sex with a horse was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison after pleading guilty for the second time in two years to abusing the creature.

Rodell Vereen was also ordered never to go near the stable where the horse’s owner caught him and held him for authorities at shotgun point over the summer. He apologized to the woman and to himself after admitting to buggery at the Horry County courthouse.

“I’m sorry about what I’ve done. I didn’t mean to do it. It’s my fault. I’m sorry for what I’ve done to myself,” Vereen said during Wednesday’s court hearing.

Full Story Rodell Vereen’s Sex With Horse Nets Him 3 Years Prison.

Chris Dodd’s New Legislation Would Strip Power From Fed, FDIC

Clash Looms on Banks

A key Senate lawmaker is readying legislation that would dramatically redraw how the financial system is regulated, setting the chamber on a collision course with both the House of Representatives and the Obama administration, which have championed markedly different approaches.

The bill, which is being readied by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), would strip almost all bank-supervision powers from the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. In their place, the bill would create a new agency in charge of supervising all banks and bank-holding companies, even the country’s largest and most complex institutions.

Mr. Dodd’s proposal also would create a powerful council of regulators, overseen by an independent White House appointee, charged with monitoring risks to the financial system.

Full Story Clash Looms on Banks – WSJ.com.

Exposed: The Worldwide Efforts Of The Global Energy Lobby To Kill Progress On Climate Change

Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen – Global Climate Change Lobby

How Industry Pressures and National Agendas Dim Prospects for a Climate Treaty

In the poor, but mineral-rich mountains of the eastern United States known as Appalachia, coal millionaire Don Blankenship hosts a rally for “Friends of America” to hear country music and “learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs.”

On the other side of the globe, with an eye on his venture in an Australian port town known both as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and a smokestack industry haven, aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska battles that nation’s program to address climate change as “destructive for jobs, destructive for new and existing investment.”

And in China, ambitious renewable electricity plans look like an important step toward tackling global warming, but progress lags due to built-in and deeply entrenched favoritism for cheaper fossil fuel. “There’s no need for anyone to get over-excited,” says Lu Qizhou, the government appointee who heads China’s big power industry group. Change from the coal-fired energy system will be slow and won’t outpace “the market’s ability to cope.”

Full Story Toward a Stalemate in Copenhagen – Global Climate Change Lobby.

Budget Monitor Says G.O.P. Bill Leaves Many Uninsured

The Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that an alternative health care bill put forward by House Republicans would have little impact in extending health benefits to the roughly 30 million uninsured Americans, but would reduce average insurance premium costs for people who have coverage.

The Republican bill, which has no chance of passage, would extend insurance coverage to about 3 million people by 2019, and would leave about 52 million people uninsured, the budget office said, meaning the proportion of non-elderly Americans with coverage would remain about the same as now, at roughly 83 percent.

The budget office has said that the Democrats’ health care proposal would extend coverage to 36 million people, meaning that 96 percent of legal residents would have health benefits. The Democrats’ bill would cost $1.1 trillion, with the costs more than covered by revenues from new taxes or cuts in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

Full Story Budget Monitor Says G.O.P. Bill Leaves Many Uninsured – Prescriptions Blog – NYTimes.com.

GOP Folds On Unemployment Benefits Fight: 14-Week Extension Passes

U.S. Senate finally passes unemployment extension bill

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday easily cleared the last procedural barrier standing in the way of passing legislation to extend unemployment insurance benefits as long as 20 weeks nationwide.

The count was 97 to one, with Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) the only lawmaker to oppose the measure.

The lopsided vote clears the way for final passage of the bill, which, without the consent of Republicans, could take place Thursday morning, at the earliest. There are murmurs on Capitol Hill, however, that an agreement on final passage might happen today.

The bill extends unemployment benefits by at least 14 weeks in all states, with an addition six weeks provided in the 27 states where unemployment rates have topped 8.5 percent. The benefits would not be retroactive, meaning that those whose benefits expired (or will expire) before the president signs the bill won’t be eligible for back-pay to fill the gap.

Full Story U.S. Senate finally passes unemployment extension bill « Michigan Messenger.

Global treaty could throw file-sharers off Internet after ‘three strikes’

File-sharers could be jailed under proposed ACTA provisions

Leaked details of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated in secret by most of the world’s largest economies suggest Internet file-sharers could be blocked from accessing the Internet if they are repeatedly accused of sharing copyrighted material, say media and digital-rights watchdogs.

And the worst-case scenario could see popular Web sites like YouTube and Flickr shut down because of a provision in the treaty that would force them to monitor everything uploaded to the site for copyright violations.

Internet law professor Michael Geist published details of “leaked” portions of the discussions on ACTA on his blog Tuesday, as a new round of ACTA negotiations began in Seoul, South Korea. The US, along with all the countries of the European Union as well as Japan, Canada, Australia and a handful of other countries, are involved in the negotiations.

Full Story Global treaty could throw file-sharers off Internet after ‘three strikes’ | Raw Story.

Michael Steele Takes On Palin, Limbaugh: ‘Your Opinion Really Doesn’t Matter Much’

RNC Chairman Michael Steele endorsed moderate Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R-NY) in the NY-23 special election before national conservative leaders — like Dick Armey, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin — forced Scozzafava out in favor of right-wing candidate Doug Hoffman. Following Hoffman’s defeat, Steele struck back at firebrands within his party, telling reporters earlier today that the opinion of conservative outsiders “really doesn’t matter much”:

STEELE: If you don’t live in the district, don’t vote there, your opinion really doesn’t matter much.

Later this afternoon, CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked Steele specifically about outsiders like Palin and Limbaugh, who loudly pushed the nominated Republican Scozzafava out of the race. Steele affirmed that he “hopes” those right-wing voices do not continue to meddle in Republican primaries:

BLITZER: Are you worried Mr. Chairman that Sarah Palin for example, or Rush Limbaugh or others in the conservative movement are going to go into some of these contests and go after the more moderate Republicans who might actually have a better chance at winning in the general election.

STEELE: Well, I hope not. [...] So I’m hoping not, and that’s not in their nature.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Michael Steele Takes On Palin, Limbaugh: ‘Your Opinion Really Doesn’t Matter Much’.

Why We Can’t Recover

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury

The United States is walking on quicksand. It is dependent on foreigners for the funding to conduct the day-to-day operations of its government.

The following article originally ran on January 6, 2009.

Editor’s Note: In the past we had booms and busts referred to as cycles, and we always managed to recover. In the good times we produced wealth and were able to earn enough to pay our bills. Today we are not generating earnings and we are not producing wealth. We are squandering our accumulated wealth and are forced to live on imports and ever increasing debt with no ability to ever pay it off. This is a formula for bankruptcy which is plaguing our banks, auto industry and now perhaps our country.

In the past recoveries were routine, because recessions were temporary restraints resulting from the Federal Reserve putting the brakes on an overheating economy. By restraining the supply of money and credit, the Fed caused inventory buildup, layoffs, and a halt to price rises and union wage demands. With the economy cooled by unemployment, the Fed would take off the brakes. Interest rates would decline, money would flow, consumer demand would rise and workers would be called back to the factories.

In those days when workers borrowed to spend, they were borrowing against rising real wages from rising productivity. In economic downturns, few workers actually lost their jobs. They were laid off from their jobs for temporary periods. Workers seldom lost their homes or cars, thanks to union funds and unemployment benefits.

Today the situation is different. In the 21st century real wages have not risen. Workers have spent more by accepting deteriorating household balance sheets. They have maxed out their credit cards and spent the equity in their homes. Imitators of the US government, American consumers borrow to pay their bills.

Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Is The Tea Party Over?

Mother Jones

The tea partiers are launching the revolution. This week. But will anyone actually show up?

On Sunday, Rep. Michele Bachmann challenged viewers of Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to join her last-ditch attempt to kill health care reform. The fiery Minnesota Republican plans to hold a press conference at “high noon” on Thursday. She urged Americans to flood the halls of Congress that day, find their elected officials, “look at the whites of their eyes and tell them, ‘don’t you dare take away my health care.’”

Since then, so-called tea party patriots have been burning up the Internets trying to rally supporters to attend Bachmann’s event. But so far, their efforts haven’t amounted to much. The official Tea Party Patriots website laments that Bachmann’s rally is being stymied by a “media blackout”—meaning that mainstream outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have ignored it.

The lack of media interest could stem from the tea partiers’ failure to mobilize as a genuine grassroots political force. In preparation for Bachmann’s press conference, the patriots devised a “three phase attack” on Congress called “Operation House Call.” The idea was for tea partiers to call, email, fax and visit key lawmakers, starting at 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon.

Full Story Is The Tea Party Over? | Mother Jones.

Air Force Vet Breaks Silence on What Hit Pentagon on 9-11

A veteran Air Force mechanic called to help clean up the Sept. 11, 2001 explosion at the Pentagon says the U.S. government’s blaming a plane for the damage makes no sense. The evidence was staged, he said.

He agreed to a face-to-face interview with AFP on condition he not be identified for obvious reasons: the Air Force would punish him severely (the same military harshness that gagged survivors of the 1967 USS Liberty attack for many years).

The airman, a tech sergeant, is richly experienced in hazardous waste cleanup, having been deployed twice to Afghanistan in the first Persian Gulf war under President Bush the Elder and, later, under George the Younger. He has 17 years of Air Force service.

The scene at the Pentagon “doesn’t look right,” the airman said. “There was only a piece of engine and sections of landing gear on the ground. It was like they were placed there. Where were the wings? Tail section? We expected to find a lot of debris but there was very little.”

There were “two massive engines” from planes that had, according to the government, penetrated the Pentagon “but the holes were too small” for that to be true, the airman said. The holes in the Pentagon were of the size made by Predators—the remote-controlled spy planes used in Iraq and Afghanistan—he said.

Full Story Air Force Vet Breaks Silence on What Hit Pentagon on 9-11 « Speak Truth 2 Power.

Pentagon Expected to Request More War Funding

The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.

The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month.

The military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not say how much additional money would be needed, but one figure in circulation within the Pentagon and among outside defense budget analysts is $50 billion.

Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House appropriations defense subcommittee, cited $40 billion last week as a hypothetical amount for the supplemental financing request. The number represented a standard calculation of $1 billion for every 1,000 troops deployed.

Full Story Pentagon Expected to Request More War Funding – NYTimes.com.

Researchers Study ‘Inferred Justification’ of False Beliefs

Researchers looking at al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein explore why it is that people often steadfastly believe something even when they’ve been shown it ain’t so.

President Obama has had a hard time dislodging misperceptions about his health care proposal — those stubborn beliefs that there are death panels and free care for illegal aliens that don’t actually exist in the legislation. Recent research about the way people defend their faith in false information, though, suggests calling out the inaccuracies may not be all that effective in converting the suspicious.

Sociologists at the University of North Carolina and Northwestern University examined an earlier case of deep commitment to the inaccurate: the belief, among many conservatives who voted for George W. Bush in 2004, that Saddam Hussein was at least partly responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

Of 49 people included in the study who believed in such a connection, only one shed the certainty when presented with prevailing evidence that it wasn’t true.

The rest came up with an array of justifications for ignoring, discounting or simply disagreeing with contrary evidence — even when it came from President Bush himself.

Full Story Culture & Society Articles | Researchers Study ‘Inferred Justification’ of False Beliefs | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.

Want to Save Our Economy from Almighty Greed? Here’s 10 Targets That Stand in the Way

If the economic crisis taught us anything, it’s that bringing to heel the whiz kids of finance is a top priority.

Let’s face it, financial regulation is boring and complicated. But if the economic crisis taught us anything, it’s that bringing Wall Street under control is one of the most critical domestic policies facing the country right now.

Here’s what you need to know, and who you need to watch, as Congress readies its banking overhaul.

1. A New Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Subprime mortgages. Abusive and arbitrary rate hikes on your credit card. Payday loans. If you’re wondering who lets banks get away with this crap, there are more people at it than you think. There are no less than four federal regulators responsible for overseeing consumer protection in finance, and all of them are terrible.

Regulators currently are responsible not only for keeping consumers safe from predation but for ensuring the “safety and soundness” of banks — that is, keeping banks from failing.

Full Story Want to Save Our Economy from Almighty Greed? Here’s 10 Targets That Stand in the Way | Politics | AlterNet.

The US War against Iraq: The Destruction of a Civilization

The US seven-year war and occupation of Iraq is driven by several major political forces and informed by a variety of imperial interests. However these interests do not in themselves explain the depth and scope of the sustained, massive and continuing destruction of an entire society and its reduction to a permanent state of war. The range of political forces contributing to the making of the war and the subsequent US occupation include the following (in order of importance):

The most important political force was also the least openly discussed. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC), which includes the prominent role of long-time, hard-line unconditional Jewish supporters of the State of Israel appointed to top positions in the Bush Pentagon (Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz ), key operative in the Office of the Vice President (Irving (Scooter) Libby), the Treasury Department (Stuart Levey), the National Security Council (Elliot Abrams) and a phalanx of consultants, Presidential speechwriters (David Frum), secondary officials and policy advisers to the State Department. These committed Zionists ‘insiders’ were buttressed by thousands of full-time Israel-First functionaries in the 51 major American Jewish organizations, which form the President of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO). They openly stated that their top priority was to advance Israel’s agenda, which, in this case, was a US war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, occupy the country, physically divide Iraq, destroy its military and industrial capability and impose a pro-Israel/pro-US puppet regime. If Iraq were ethnically cleansed and divided, as advocated by the ultra-right, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the ‘Liberal’ President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and militarist-Zionist, Leslie Gelb, there would be more than several ‘client regimes’.

Top Zionist policymakers who promoted the war did not initially directly pursue the policy of systematically destroying what, in effect, was the entire Iraqi civilization. But their support and design of an occupation policy included the total dismemberment of the Iraqi state apparatus and recruitment of Israeli advisers to provide their ‘expertise’ in interrogation techniques, repression of civilian resistance and counter-insurgency. Israeli expertise certainly played a role in fomenting the intra-Iraqi religious and ethnic strife, which Israel had mastered in Palestine. The Israeli ‘model’ of colonial war and occupation – the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – and the practice of ‘total destruction’ using sectarian, ethno-religious division was evident in the notorious massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, which took place under Israeli military supervision.

Full Story : Information Clearing House – ICH.

The myth of Fox News’ ratings spike

Fact: The breathless claim that Fox News’ ratings recently spiked thanks to the White House’s public critique is bogus hype — hype that Fox News and the Beltway press have relentlessly pushed.

It’s just not true.

No matter how many times reporters and pundits made the claim, a detailed analysis of Nielsen ratings numbers clearly indicates that in the two weeks after the White House in mid-October sparked a media controversy by claiming Rupert Murdoch’s channel was not a legitimate news organization, Fox News’ ratings did not soar or go “through the roof.” In fact, not only did Fox News’ overall ratings not soar, they experienced no significant increase at all. Instead, in the two weeks following the initial verbal jousts with the White House, Fox News’ total day ratings virtually flatlined.

Think about it. The unfolding controversy, which gobbled up untold hours and pages of news coverage as the Beltway press treated the dispute like a major news event (even though news consumers couldn’t care less), and the hubbub barely moved the ratings needle one inch in Fox News’ favor.

Another example of the Beltway press not letting the facts get in the way of a good story? It sure looks that way. In this case, we saw nearly universal agreement among media elites that the White House decision to publicly call out Fox News was monumentally dumb, thin-skinned, short-sighted, and uncivil. (Paging the etiquette police!)

Full Story The myth of Fox News’ ratings spike | The Smirking Chimp.

Grayson 1/3: America Would Mobilize Al Qaeda Attack Kill 44,789 Americans Why NOT FOR HEALTHCARE

November 4, 2009  Grayson (D-FL)

Part 2

Part 3

Full Story YouTube – Grayson 1/3: America Would Mobilize Al Qaeda Attack Kill 44,789 Americans Why NOT FOR HEALTHCARE.

Rachel Maddow-Dick Armey embraces town hall disrupter

Conservatives lie and people die. Conservatism is a cancer on this country.

YouTube – Rachel Maddow-Dick Armey embraces town hall disrupter.

Democracy and Capitalism Are NOT One and the Same

If Michael Moore had arrived on the film scene as a conservative Republican activist in 1989, he might be heralded by Fox News today as a major American hero, and he might even be able to get a fair review in the so-called “liberal” New York Times.

Unfortunately for him and his message, he started making movies during the late 1980s, when the presidencies of Republicans Ronald Reagan and then George Herbert Walker Bush made them the target of his outsourcing ire. Moore first became famous for his 1989 film “Roger and Me,” a documentary about what happened to his home town of Flint, Michigan, after General Motors closed its automobile factories and moved to Mexico, where workers made much less.

Since then, Moore has been known as a critic of the “neoliberal” view of globalization, according to Wikipedia, although that term goes right over the heads of most of the working people in the US who should be watching his movies and learning something from them. That is the sad state of political dialogue in the good old US of A.

I mean, here’s a regular Joe, who could be comfortable drinking a beer with George W. Bush, who should be fighting side by side with the conservatives who oppose the big government bailout of Wall Street banks.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Democracy and Capitalism Are NOT One and the Same.

Taiwan says China starts building first aircraft carrier

Taiwan said on Wednesday that China has started building its first aircraft carrier, a move analysts have said could raise military tensions in the region.

The head of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau told parliament construction of the carrier had begun, Lin Yu-fang, a legislator of the ruling Kuomintang party, told AFP.

However, the security chief, Tsai Teh-sheng said the carrier’s construction “has not been smooth” and that the Chinese navy may struggle to put it into service by 2012 unless it makes a manufacturing breakthrough soon.

“This is the result of an evaluation not only from (Taiwan’s) National Security Bureau…but also from the Chinese communists,” Tsai said, according to Lin.

Taiwanese military experts expect the People’s Liberation Army to take at least 10 years to have its first operating carrier group complete with carrier-based fighters and other warships.

“Once they complete the ambitious project, it will have a serious and far-fetched military impact on the region,” said Wung Ming-hsien, professor at Taipei’s Tamkang University.

“And by that time, the United States, Japan, and Taiwan will need to overhaul their military strategies.”

Full Story channelnewsasia.com – Taiwan says China starts building first aircraft carrier.

Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’

The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.

Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK’s ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

“I’m talking of people being raped with broken bottles,” he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. “I’m talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I’m talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on.”

Full Story Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’ | Raw Story.

Our Dwindling Email Privacy

Harpers –

What sort of privacy do you expect when you send an email? As Americans increasingly rely on the Internet for communication, Justice Department lawyers increasingly argue that Americans have no right to privacy there—notwithstanding repeated congressional efforts to bolster these rights. A recent case out of Oregon shows how the privacy expectation associated with emails and other Internet communications is being frittered away.

The government sought to subpoena the emails of a suspect in a criminal investigation. It issued a subpoena to Google, but it failed to give notice to the subscriber as the federal rules and statute would appear to require. The purpose of notice is fairly straightforward: it gives the subject the opportunity to contest the subpoena and puts him on notice of the government’s investigation. Implementing the protections of the Fourth Amendment, isn’t the subscriber entitled to notice? Not in the view of Judge Michael Mosman:

The Fourth Amendment protects our homes from unreasonable searches and seizures, requiring that, absent special circumstances, the government obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before entering. This is strong privacy protection for homes and the items within them in the physical world. When a person uses the Internet, however, the user’s actions are no longer in his or her physical home; in fact he or she is not truly acting in private space at all. The user is generally accessing the Internet with a network account and computer storage owned by an ISP like Comcast or NetZero. All materials stored online, whether they are e-mails or remotely stored documents, are physically stored on servers owned by an ISP. When we send an e-mail or instant message from the comfort of our own homes to a friend across town the message travels from our computer to computers owned by a third party, the ISP, before being delivered to the intended recipient. Thus, “private” information is actually being held by third-party private companies.

Full Story Our Dwindling Email Privacy—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine).

How Two Elections Changed America

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)

Two clandestine operations during hard-fought presidential elections of the past half century shaped the modern American political era, but they remain little known to the general public and mostly ignored by historians. One unfolded in the weeks before Election 1968 and the other over a full year before Election 1980.

Besides putting into power iconic Republican leaders, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, those two elections altered the nation’s course and went a long way toward defining the current personalities of America’s national parties, the anything-goes Republicans versus the ever-accommodating Democrats.

The two cases also demonstrated how Official Washington, including the national press corps, could be convinced to avert its eyes from strong evidence of these two historical crimes, Republican sabotage of both President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks in 1968 and President Jimmy Carter’s hostage negotiations with Iran in 1980.

It was easier for all involved to pretend that nothing happened, with the dirty secrets kept from the public for “the good for the country.”

Yet those two elections had monumental consequences. In 1968, by thwarting Johnson’s nearly completed peace deal, Nixon condemned the country to four bloody and divisive years, with more than 20,000 additional U.S. soldiers dying in Vietnam – along with millions of Indochinese – and a generational divide opening between parents and their children.

Full Story Consortiumnews.com.

THE GOP´s EFFORTS AGAINST HEALTH CARE REFORM IS MORE DESPARATE THAN IT APPEARS

A successful vote on the health care reform plan could  bring an end to the Republican Party.

A successful Congressional vote on the health care reform plan could theoretically bring an end to the Republican Party.

…Passing the Democrat´s health care reform could be a rebirth of a new, FDR type “NEW DEAL”

If you think that the Republican´s current push against the health care reform bill is only their fight for keeping all Americans from getting access to health care, you are seriously delusional.

Yes, the conservatives and the Republicans will say the plan goes too far and costs too much, even though it would actually lower our current health care costs. But the passage of the Democrat´s health care reform has many implications for the GOP beyond medical coverage for all.

You will notice for instance how the right-wing “talking heads” keep saying that a “public option” or a “single-payer health care plan” would be a move for America into pure “Socialized Medicine”.

First, the statement is totally incorrect. “Socialized Medicine” is when the hospitals and the doctors are all owned and managed by the government and all the employees work for the government. Yes, we do have socialistic medicine in America today and it is called the Veteran´s Administration (VA). The VA´s hospitals and the doctors are all part of the US government.

However, the “public option” within the current plan is not “Socialized Medicine”. The “public option” would still allow the participants to see their private doctors at private hospitals, just like Medicare, but the payment of the premiums and the payment of the medical bills would be to and from a government agency. And that´s all it is! If the plan is approved, it could be called “Socialized Insurance”, but not “Socialized Medicine”.

Full Story American Chronicle | THE GOP´s EFFORTS AGAINST HEALTH CARE REFORM IS MORE DESPARATE THAN IT APPEARS.

OPS: Senator Hatch confirmed this theory recently:
Why Hatch Is Really Blocking Health Reform: Americans Will Love The New System And Vote Democratic

Limbaugh blames Newt Gingrich for screwing up the NY special election.

Limbaugh blames Newt Gingrich for screwing up the NY special election.

Yesterday, Bill Owens scored an historic victory by becoming the first Democrat in more than a century to win a congressional election in upstate New York’s 23rd district. Owens’ victory was a defeat for many prominent leaders of the conservative movement, particularly Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. In the lead-up to the election, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had engaged in a public brouhaha with Beck over his support for Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman’s candidacy. Gingrich complained that Beck, Limbaugh, and company were pursuing “a very destructive model for the Republican Party,” and those concerns appear to have been vindicated by the outcome of Tuesday’s election. Nevertheless, Limbaugh is blaming Gingrich for the conservative’s defeat:

Here is — these are my thoughts on New York-23. … We cannot forget how this whole thing happened in the first place. There was not a primary. The right message here would indict the way party bosses, Republican Party bosses and these big thinkers like Newt screwed the whole thing up from the get go.

Listen here:

Full Story Think Progress » Limbaugh blames Newt Gingrich for screwing up the NY special election..

Kucinich: Our Last Chance on State Single Payer Option

Dear Friends,

Thank you for all of your efforts on behalf of the Kucinich Amendment for a state single payer option which would protect the right of states to pursue a single payer health care system.

Unfortunately, the House Leadership has rejected the many appeals on behalf of the amendment and will not reverse their decision which removed the amendment from the bill. Therefore, the Kucinich Amendment for a state single payer option will not be included in the Manager’s Amendment and is not in the bill which will come before the House soon.

The Kucinich amendment represents the most powerful challenge to the insurance companies’ control of our health care system. Even the possibility of a state single payer system will make the insurance companies think twice before they raise premiums. The higher the insurance premiums, the more vulnerable companies are to citizens’ efforts to create alternatives such as a single payer system. We should never be locked into higher and higher premiums!

I do not accept the decision to remove the amendment from the bill. Nor should you.

Full Story kucinich.us – Home.

House Panel Votes To Permanently Exempt Small Firms From Part Of Post-Enron Law

A House panel voted Wednesday to permanently exempt more than half of all publicly traded companies from a seven-year-old post-Enron measure designed to prevent fraud.

The vote came in the form of an amendment, offered by Reps. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) and John Adler (D-N.J.), to the Investor Protection Act of 2009, a bill otherwise intended to protect investors from fraud and manipulation.

The amendment permanently exempts companies with a market value less than $75 million from a requirement mandating that outside auditors assess a firm’s internal procedures to protect itself against fraud, waste and accounting errors. All publicly traded companies are required to comply, though smaller firms have been exempted for the last several years over cost concerns.

Smaller companies argue that the audits’ cost is too high, and that money could be better used elsewhere, like hiring more employees. Investor advocates say the audits are particularly needed for smaller companies because they’re more prone to fraud, due to the lack of oversight.

Full Story House Panel Votes To Permanently Exempt Small Firms From Part Of Post-Enron Law.

Who Deserves Wall Street Bonuses?

by Jim Hightower -

Wall Street bankers are really mad these days — in both senses of that word!

You’d think these whizzes of speculative finance would be ecstatically happy and filled with gratitude, not anger. After all, having crashed our economy, they were allowed to keep their cushy jobs, get bailed out with trillions of our tax dollars, and permitted to go right back to playing the same old casino games that had previously enriched them at our expense.

Once again, such powerhouse outfits as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are raking-in tons of money — and, as in the gilded days before Wall Street plunged Main Street into deep recession, bankers have promptly reverted to the selfish ethic of lavishing multimillion-dollar bonuses on themselves. Goldman, for example, has already set aside more than $16 billion to dole out as end-of-year bonuses for its bankers. That’s a pace of self-enrichment that will siphon off nearly half of all the money that Goldman takes in this year!

So, why are they mad? Because you and I are not showing them any love. Believe it or not, Wall Streeters actually expected that their return to grandiose banker bonuses would be greeted with huzzahs and “you the man” cheers from an admiring public, rather than another coast-to-coast explosion of anger.

Arrogance and avarice seems to be so hardwired into these people that they view outlandish paydays as proof of their business acumen, productivity and success. The richer you are, the more worthy you are, goes their thinking, so not only do they feel entitled to cash, but also to high-fives and hugs from the hoi polloi.

Full Story Who Deserves Wall Street Bonuses? by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-up

Optimism as a Public Health Problem

by Barbara Ehrenreich

If you can’t find any swine flu vaccine for your kids, it won’t be for a lack of positive thinking. In fact, the whole flu snafu is being blamed on “undue optimism” on the part of both the Obama administration and Big Pharma.

Optimism is supposed to be good for our health. According to the academic “positive psychologists,” as well as legions of unlicensed life coaches and inspirational speakers, optimism wards off common illnesses, contributes to recovery from cancer, and extends longevity. To its promoters, optimism is practically a miracle vaccine, so essential that we need to start inoculating Americans with it in the public schools — in the form of “optimism training.”

But optimism turns out to be less than salubrious when it comes to public health. In July, the federal government promised to have 160 million doses of H1N1 vaccine ready for distribution by the end of October. Instead, only 28 million doses are now ready to go, and optimism is the obvious culprit. “Road to Flu Vaccine Shortfall, Paved With Undue Optimism,” was the headline of a front page article in the October 26th New York Times. In the conventional spin, the vaccine shortage is now “threatening to undermine public confidence in government.” If the federal government couldn’t get this right, the pundits are already asking, how can we trust it with health reform?

But let’s stop a minute and also ask: Who really screwed up here — the government or private pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and three others that had agreed to manufacture and deliver the vaccine by late fall? Last spring and summer, those companies gleefully gobbled up $2 billion worth of government contracts for vaccine production, promising to have every American, or at least every American child and pregnant woman, supplied with vaccine before trick-or-treating season began.

Full Story The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-up | CommonDreams.org.

The Gullible Dittoheads

Did you hear about the guy who was driving his Winnebago, set the cruise control after getting on the freeway, then calmly left the driver’s seat to fix himself a cup of coffee? The RV crashed, so he sued Winnebago for not informing him in the owner’s manual that he wasn’t supposed to do this. He won $1.7 million and a new Winnebago.

Outrageous, isn’t it? Argues for tort reform, right?

Not really. You see, it isn’t true. Not the story, not the lawsuit, not the award.

Yet, even though it seems that those who might see such a thing in their inboxes might be a tad skeptical of its truthfulness (psst – some emails contain misleading information!), the story is swallowed whole by a certain class of people who might be said to be, um, gullible when it comes to the right-wing’s talking points and their accompanying agenda. That’s right: They are not aware that some things that their talk show hosts, politicians and various apologists say AREN’T TRUE!

The Winnebago story is just one example. It’s circulated every so often as part of the “Stella” awards, named after the woman who sued McDonald’s after burning herself with a McDonald’s coffee. These urban legends are meant to justify the urgency for tort reform, because you know, everyone’s getting rich by suing each other for no reason and the danged Democrat lawyers are getting all those legal fees!

Full Story The Gullible Dittoheads | CommonDreams.org.

Wall Street’s War Against the Real Economy & We, the People

At a meeting with bloggers before last week’s Building The New Economy conference, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka talked about how we have developed two economies, one real and one financial. As he said, originally the financial sector was designed to support the real economy by providing capital as needed for building manufacturing facilities, public infrastructure, etc. But in recent decades the power of Wall Street has twisted that relationship until the real economy now feeds the financial economy.

As I have been writing about, for decades the real economy has been “financialized” by the Wall Street types — sold off piece by piece providing short term profits for a very few. We lost more than 50,000 manufacturing facilities in just the last decade! If you sell your house you might have some cash in your own pocket for a while but your family doesn’t have a place to live and the present state of our economy demonstrates the long term cost of this kind of short-term thinking: a few Wall Street types have a bunch of cash and the rest of us don’t have an economy anymore.

As each factory closes and its jobs are eliminated the companies that supplied machines, parts and supplies also go away. The effect on those of us still employed (for now) has been profound as we work longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits with ever-higher stress levels. A few get ever richer, the rest of us have ever-lower standards of living and quality of life. And our country’s ability to bounce back becomes ever more compromised.

Full Story Seeing the Forest: Wall Street’s War Against the Real Economy & We, the People.

What Yesterday Says About Young Voters

UPDATE: There is a demographic breakdown of partisan vote in VA that shows that 18-29 year olds voted 51% for Deeds, 47% for McDonnell, and were 10% of the vote share in VA.

Watching election returns last night proved to be a very interesting evening. What became consistent was the impact of the lack of outreach on the youth segment of the electorate and the diminished rate of enthusiasm.

In Virginia

“Only 1,973,868 of a total 4,955,755 voters participated in the gubernatorial race — “a miniscule number when you consider there were 3.7 million voters in the 2008 election,” said Isaac Wood, assistant communications director at the University Center for Politics… He added that generally one-third of Virginia voters in presidential elections choose not to participate in gubernatorial elections, and that, as such, yesterday’s voter turnout was even lower than usual.”

One difference this year than in 2008 was young voters had a candidate at the top of the ticket who actively sought their vote. This isn’t generally the standard in other elections, despite our efforts to teach candidates otherwise. Outreach is so important, asking young people for their vote is key, and peer to peer outreach is a must. All of these things happened nation wide in 2008, in large part because the Obama campaign placed a high importance on getting out the vote for young people.

Full Story What Yesterday Says About Young Voters | Future Majority.

Most U.S. youths unfit to serve, data show

U.S. military-age youth are increasingly unfit to serve — mostly because they’re in such lousy shape.

According to the latest Pentagon figures, a full 35 percent, or more than one-third, of the roughly 31.2 million Americans aged 17 to 24 are unqualified for military service because of physical and medical issues. And, said Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accessions, “the major component of this is obesity. We have an obesity crisis in the country. There’s no question about it.”

The Pentagon draws its data from the Centers for Disease Control, which regularly tracks obesity. The steadily rising trend is not good news for military recruiters, despite their recent successes, nor for the overall health of the U.S. population.

In 1987, according to the CDC, a mere 6 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds, or about 1 out of 20, were obese. In 2008, 22 years later, 23 percent of that age group — almost 1 out of 4 — was considered to be obese.

Full Story Most U.S. youths unfit to serve, data show – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.

Coburn named as senator holding up vets bill

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.

Coburn’s staff did not respond to questions, but Senate aides said the first-term senator has expressed concern about creating new and unfunded benefits and wants the opportunity to amend the measure.

One of Coburn’s suggestions is to divert money from unspent economic and job stimulus programs to cover costs of new benefits for veterans and their families, according to sources who have discussed the issue with Coburn’s staff.

Full Story Coburn named as senator holding up vets bill – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.

Warning: Your brain is killing American capitalism

Deadly 800-year-old pandemic keeps repeating: ‘This time is different’

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Recovery? New bull market? Yes, yes, get your money out of the mattress, out of CDs and money markets. Buy stocks — emerging markets. Buy ETF hedge funds. Buy junk bonds, bailed-out banks. Buy. Get back in the market. Buy, buy, buy.

Warning: The investor’s brain is infected with a deadly disease. And like P.T. Barnum, Wall Street knows your brain’s a sucker just waiting for any excuse to get back to playing their game at their casino by their rules.

Yes, you have a disease. Not swine-flu pandemic, but even more toxic — to your financial health. Your brain’s infected with the 800-year-old “this time is different syndrome.” But unlike the swine flu, there’s no cure, no shot to protect you from a pandemic. You’re exposed.

Full Story Warning: Your brain is killing American capitalism Paul B. Farrell – MarketWatch.

How Big Banks Fleece You

While the government bails out big banks, the big banks squeeze the little guy. The Daily Beast’s Nomi Prins calculates how individual banking fees fund their risky activity.

Too big to fail means big enough to screw taxpayers twice.

That’s my conclusion after a few weeks of combing through FDIC databases, trying to calculate the price to consumers following the decade of bank consolidation—following the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act—that reached a government-sponsored peak during last fall’s economic crisis. As banks keep merging, so does their share of our deposits. In 1998, the five largest U.S. commercial banks held 19 percent of total domestic deposits. In 2004, they held 27 percent. And since the Federal Reserve brokered marriages of the largest banks last fall, it is now 40 percent.

Not only do big banks charge higher service fees for the luxury of taking your checking deposits and using them as capital for other ventures, but the interest they provide is comparatively abysmal.

Full Story How Big Banks Fleece You – Page 1 – The Daily Beast.

PERM Fake Job Ads defraud Americans to secure green cards fo

Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explains how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers. See what Bush and Congress really mean by a “shortage of skilled U.S. workers.” Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies are running fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week.

Full Story YouTube – PERM Fake Job Ads defraud Americans to secure green cards fo.

TYT Army: Join Us 11/5/09 For The Public Option!

We’re going to CNN headquarters in NY, LA and Atlanta on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 at 12pm local time* to show that there are people willing to stand up for the public option (Why CNN? See Cenk’s blog at the bottom of this post). Votes are coming up in the Senate and the House and the fate of healthcare reform hangs in the balance right now. If you want the public option, this is the time to fight! Here is the link to the Facebook Events where you can see who else is coming and coordinate in your area.

And here are the addresses of the three locations (*Note: 12pm local time is 12pm PST in LA and 12pm EST in ATL and NY):

CNN Los Angeles (Cenk, Ana and the rest of the Turks will be there!)
6430 W Sunset Blvd Ste 300
Los Angeles, CA 90028

CNN Atlanta
190 Marietta St, NW
Atlanta, GA 30303

CNN New York
10 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

For more details on the demonstrations including why CNN has been targeted, read Cenk’s blog. And be sure to invite your friends, family, classmates and coworkers to join you or take your place if you can’t make it!

YouTube – TYT Army: Join Us 11/5/09 For The Public Option!.

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.

The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.

A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region’s future.

The same rift activity is slowly parting the Red Sea, too.

Using newly gathered seismic data from 2005, researchers reconstructed the event to show the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today.

Full Story Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean | LiveScience.

Hillary Clinton: US Wants Israel To Stop Building West Bank Settlements ‘Forever’

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the U.S. stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted “forever.”

Still, she said an Israeli offer to restrain – but not halt – construction represents “positive movement forward” toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Clinton met for an hour with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a hastily arranged stopover in the Egyptian capital to soothe Arab concerns that Washington is backing off demands for an Israeli settlement halt. The fears were sparked on Saturday when Clinton, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at her side in Jerusalem, praised his government’s offer as unprecedented.

Full Story Hillary Clinton: US Wants Israel To Stop Building West Bank Settlements ‘Forever’.

When Banks Fail, So Do Those Promised CD Rates

Norma Jean Scott, a 63-year-old Alabama retiree, thought she was being prudent three years ago when she stashed her $100,000 retirement nest egg in a pair of certificates of deposit. Her bank, CapitalSouth, promised her 5.7 percent interest for five years.

“I thought that was in concrete,” she said, “and backed by my government.”

But then CapitalSouth collapsed and the government brokered a deal to sell its business to another institution — Louisiana-based IberiaBank.

The bank’s new owner promptly cut Scott’s interest rate – to 1.6 percent.

An astonished Scott received a letter from the FDIC, similar to thousands that quietly have been sent to customers of failed banks around the nation in recent months: “Your deposit agreement with the Failed Institution is no longer in force.”

Full Story When Banks Fail, So Do Those Promised CD Rates.

Michigan woman dies after Medicaid dental care is cut

An elderly Michigan woman died in October as the result of a severe dental infection after adult dental Medicaid benefits were cut in the state. Blanche D. LaVire, 76, had been diagnosed with abscesses earlier in the year and reportedly suffered from advanced periodontitis.

Because LaVire was mentally challenged, she required special treatment. Her condition was such that her doctors felt it would be unwise to undergo treatment in a dentist’s office. Advised to have the necessary procedure performed in a hospital, LaVire was then scheduled for an oral surgery near the end of June. The procedure was delayed when LaVire contracted pneumonia.

Once she had recovered from the pneumonia, doctors attempted to reschedule LaVire’s procedure, but discovered she was no longer covered by Medicaid. An executive order issued by Michigan’s Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm had taken effect on July 1 that dramatically cut adult dental Medicaid benefits. All oral health services were eliminated by the order, with the exception of emergency services.

Full Story Michigan woman dies after Medicaid dental care is cut.

Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus

Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer John Varley stood at the wooden lectern in St. Martin-in-the- Fields on London’s Trafalgar Square last night and told the packed pews of the church that “profit is not satanic.”

The 53-year-old head of Britain’s second-biggest bank said banks are the “backbone” of the economy. Rewarding high- performing bankers with more pay doesn’t conflict with Christian values, he said. Varley was paid 1.08 million pounds ($1.77 million) and no bonus in 2008.

“Talent is highly mobile,” Varley, a Catholic, said. “If we fail to pay or are constrained from paying competitive rates then that talent will move to another employer.”

“Is Christianity and banking compatible? Yes,” he said in an interview after the speech in the 283-year-old church. “And is Christianity and fair reward compatible? Yes.”

Full Story Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus – Bloomberg.com.

OPS:  being divorced from reality and any human traits, he ignores that it depends on how, and on what, the profit is being made.

Breckenridge, Colorado voters legalize marijuana, paraphernalia

Voters in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado legalized marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia by a nearly three-to-one margin on Tuesday.

It is the first municipality in the United States to allow paraphernalia, such as pipes, bongs and bubblers.

“[The measure] passed 73 percent to 27 percent,” ABC 7 News in Denver reported.

“‘This votes demonstrates that Breckenridge citizens overwhelmingly believe that adults should not be punished for making the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol,’ said Sean McAllister, a Breckenridge attorney who proposed the ordinance,” ABC continued.

“Possession remains illegal under state law, but Breckenridge Police Chief Rick Holman said his department will ‘still have the ability to exercise discretion,’” Colorado’s Summit Daily News added.

Full Story Breckenridge, Colorado voters legalize marijuana, paraphernalia | Raw Story.

Creigh Deeds Failed To Run As A Progressive

Republican Bob McDonnell won a “landslide” victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds in yesterday’s gubernatorial election in Virginia, sweeping the state by a whopping 18 points. Exit polls showed Democrats had “trouble getting their base to the polls.” One possible explanation: Deeds did not run as a progressive reformer.

McDonnell “spent much of the campaign trying to tie Deeds to cap-and-trade environmental legislation and pro-union legislation on Capitol Hill that is unpopular with many Virginia voters.” But rather than make the affirmative case for progressive policy reforms, Deeds responded by largely “distanc[ing] himself from Obama’s agenda, especially on health and energy policy.” Some key examples:

Full Story Think Progress » Creigh Deeds Failed To Run As A Progressive.

Establishing an Unshakable Economic Foundation

Creating new jobs requires new solutions.

Creating new jobs requires new solutions. The U.S. needs to adapt a manufacturing strategy and the Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Institute for America’s Future detail how to rebuild America’s middle class.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing and the Institute for America’s Future held a conference on Thursday, October 29, 2009 entitled “Making It in America: Building the New Economy.” Policy makes, labor leaders, economists and concerned citizens came together to discuss the building blocks of America’s future.

Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Lugar Paving Way for Job-killing FTA

Senate Resolution 311, introduced by Senator Dick Lugar, would direct U.S.T.R. Ron Kirk to negotiate a free trade agreement with the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN).

Legislation introduced last month in the U.S. Senate could pave the way for yet another job-killing free trade agreement.

Senate Resolution 311, introduced by Indiana Senator Dick Lugar, would direct U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to negotiate a free trade agreement with the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN).

“The United States should proceed to develop a comprehensive strategy toward engaging ASEAN in serious FTA discussions,” Lugar said in a press release.

While Lugar admitted that the negotiations would be difficult, he painted it as an economic imperative given the foothold America’s competitors are gaining in the region.

“While this endeavor will be complex and have possible challenges to negotiation given the varying levels of economic development and open markets among ASEAN countries, China, India, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea have already finalized FTAs with ASEAN and are sharpening a competitive edge over the U.S. in Southeast Asia,” Lugar said.

Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Manufacturing Jobs Continue to Decline

Most of the millions of manufacturing jobs lost during the recession will never return as companies find ways to continue increasing production with a scaled-down workforce.

Most of the millions of manufacturing jobs lost during the recession will never return as companies find ways to continue increasing production with a scaled-down workforce, according to the USA Today.

Over two million manufacturing jobs have been lost since the current recession began in December 2007. Pressure to cut costs in the midst of an economic crisis coupled with the need to meet the demands of competing in a globalized economy, has led to factories across the country to adopt leaner operations.

According to a study by RSM McGladrey, 61 percent of manufacturers said that they already have or were considering adopting cost-cutting measures in order to maintain profits. In most cases, those cost-cutting measures involve less human labor and more technology.

The trend is nothing new, however. Manufacturers have been scaling back on workforces while increasing production for decades.

Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

It’s Time to Rebuild Our Passenger Railroad System

Restoring the American railroad system is an excellent place to start recovering our sense of national purpose and faith in collective enterprise.

The following is from the foreword of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service by James McCommons (Chelsea Green, 2009).

The world economic fiasco, which I call “The Long Emergency,” may be speeding us into a future of permanent nostalgia in which anything that is not of the present time looks good.

I say this to avert any accusations that I am trafficking in sentimentality where the subject of railroads is concerned. For the moment, any suggestion that a railroad revival in America might be a good thing is generally greeted as laughable for reasons ranging from the incompetence of Amtrak, to the sprawling layout of our suburbs, to our immense investment in cars, trucks and highways — motoring culture now overshadowing all other aspects of our national identity.

This said, I will hazard to engage in a personal sentimental journey to the memory bank of my many adventures on trains, starting with the best: my yearly journey from New York City to summer camp in New Hampshire, which I repeated for several years beginning in 1959.

Full Story It’s Time to Rebuild Our Passenger Railroad System | | AlterNet.

The Execution of a Potentially Innocent Man Less Scandalous Than an Affair?

There’s something really rotten in the state of Texas.

It’s lucky for Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that he’s not suspected of doing something truly shocking, like having an affair. Instead, it merely seems that he’s helped cover up a homicide. Apparently that’s not enough to make much of a national splash.

Last month, The New Yorker published a remarkable piece by David Grann about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for a crime that all the evidence suggests he didn’t commit. In 1991, Willingham’s house caught on fire, burning his three daughters to death. Ill-trained investigators accused Willingham of arson. At his trial, a family therapist who had never met Willingham was called as an expert witness and suggested that Willingham’s heavy metal posters indicated that he might be a satanist.

Because Willingham couldn’t afford decent representation, it was many years before a friend of his managed to get qualified experts to take a look at the case. Grann described the investigation conducted by Gerald Hurst, one of the country’s most acclaimed fire investigators: “Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on ‘junk science.’” If Perry read the report, which was submitted just weeks before Willingham was executed, he didn’t act on it, refusing to grant a stay of execution.

Full Story The Execution of a Potentially Innocent Man Less Scandalous Than an Affair? | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.

Older Planes, Third World Standards a Lethal Mix

A new study calls for standardizing aircraft maintenance across the globe, but until then, says one co-author, the answer just might be yes.

In the first days after it fell into the Indian Ocean in late June, Yemenia Airways Flight 626 appeared to be a typical example of slack practices by airlines operated from Africa and the Middle East.

The flight started in Paris on a newer plane but switched to a 19-year-old Airbus A310-324 for the second leg of its journey from Sana’a, Yemen, to Moroni in the Comoros Islands, which the pilot approached in high winds. Out of 153 crew members and passengers only one survived, a teenager named Bahia Bakari, who floated until her rescue by clinging to debris. European officials talked of banning Yemenia after the crash, but the cause remains unknown — the flight’s black box hadn’t been recovered — and they backed away from the idea in mid-July.

The real problem exposed by the aftermath of Flight 626 — how to make sure old planes are fit to fly by standardizing worldwide aircraft maintenance — has opened a rift in civil aviation as wide as the wings of a 747.

Full Story Business & Economics Articles | Older Planes, Third World Standards a Lethal Mix | Miller-McCune Online Magazine.

Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Eating Animals’ Book Will Fundamentally Change the Way You Think About Food

“He is the Michael Pollan of a younger generation: grittier and more daring, more insightful and decisive.”

If ever there was a book that could profoundly affect our lives at the most fundamental level, this one is it. I loved Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels (Everything is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close); they were glorious to read and get lost in. But his new non-fiction kindles something more: it is somewhat of an awakening, and it just might tip us farther into what is being called the next great social movement of our time: eating consciously.

Eating Animals takes a bold and fresh approach to our most important relationship with the world around us — our food. The originality of the thinking and depth of research establishes Foer as a major player in the national discussion of the ethics of eating. He is the Michael Pollan of a younger generation: grittier and more daring, more insightful and decisive. And as we would expect from Foer, the stories he tells explode off the page and into our hearts.

Foer takes us alongside him as he bungles through undercover investigations and into the hidden world of today’s industrial farming. We find out that turkeys have been so genetically modified they are not capable of sexual reproduction. We learn that the chickens on American’s plates have been bred to grow so large so fast that their mere genetics destines them to suffering. We learn that “free range” means next to nothing and why it’s fish and chicken you want to most avoid.

Full Story Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Eating Animals’ Book Will Fundamentally Change the Way You Think About Food | Food | AlterNet.

Geithner “Burned Billions” Shafted Taxpayers on CIT Loan Prof. Bill Black Says

Another one of the nation’s largest lenders has filed for bankruptcy. On the brink for months, CIT filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday.

The prepackaged plan allows CIT to restructure its debt while trying to keep badly needed loans flowing to thousands of mid-sized and small businesses. The plan keeps CIT’s operations alive and makes it possible for the company to exit bankruptcy by year’s end.

But here’s the bad news: While senior debt holders will only lose 30% of their investment, we, the U.S. taxpayer, will lose the entire $2.3 billion we lent the company this summer.

William Black, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law is dumbfounded. “We put ourselves on the hook in a completely inept way where we lose first. We lose entirely as the taxpayers.”

Black, a former top federal banking regulator, blames Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for negotiating such a bad deal on behalf of the American public.

His argument goes as follows:

Full Story Geithner “Burned Billions” Shafted Taxpayers on CIT Loan Prof. Bill Black Says: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance.

We only have months, not years, to save civilisation from climate change

For those concerned about global warming, all eyes are on December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. The stakes could not be higher. Almost every new report shows that the climate is changing even faster than the most dire projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 report.

Yet from my vantage point, internationally negotiated climate agreements are fast becoming obsolete for two reasons. First, since no government wants to concede too much compared with other governments, the negotiated goals for cutting carbon emissions will almost certainly be minimalist, not remotely approaching the bold cuts that are needed.

And second, since it takes years to negotiate and ratify these agreements, we may simply run out of time. This is not to say that we should not participate in the negotiations and work hard to get the best possible result. But we should not rely on these agreements to save civilisation.

Full Story We only have months, not years, to save civilisation from climate change | Lester Brown | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Clive James isn’t a climate change sceptic, he’s a sucker – but this may be the reason

My fiercest opponents on global warming tend to be in their 60s and 70s. This offers a fascinating, if chilling, insight into human psychology

There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.

A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there is solid evidence that the world has been warming over the last few decades has fallen from 71% to 57% in just 18 months. Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe global warming has natural causes (44%) outnumber those who believe it is the result of human action (41%).

A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet pages proposing that man-made global warming is a hoax or a lie more than doubled last year. The Science Museum’s Prove it! exhibition asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they’ve seen the evidence and want governments to take action. As of yesterday afternoon, 1,006 people had endorsed it and 6,110 had rejected it. On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are currently ranked at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the global warming category. Never mind that they’ve been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?

Full Story Clive James isn’t a climate change sceptic, he’s a sucker – but this may be the reason | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

An unexpected bold proposal from Israeli MK Shaul Mofaz: an immediate Palestinian state

Most people outside of Israel don’t know much about MK member Shaul Mofaz, and it’s not surprising. He’s one of the few ‘non-European’ Jews in Israel to have become a Knesset member, and who dared to challenge former presidential candidate Tzipi Livni, and lost.

There is an entire dynamic, which is an undercurrent in Israeli society, that Jews from North Africa who emigrated to Israel are grossly misrepresented in government, policy making, negotiations with friends and foes alike. However, here is a perfect example of how ‘Arab Jews’ can play a pivotal role in the peace making process with the Palestinians.

According to a report in Israel’s daily ‘Ma’ariv’, as reported by the Mideast Peace Pulse, Mofaz is putting forth the idea of the immediate formation of a Palestinian state which would require the demolition of Israeli settlements which translates into displacing some 70,000 people. Those settlers would be compensated as described below:

Full Story An unexpected bold proposal from Israeli MK Shaul Mofaz: an immediate Palestinian state.

Why Democrats Must Change or Perish

by Len Hart,

The GOP is a disciplined monolith. Even when the GOP screws up and runs an idiot like George W. Bush or John McCain, there is the danger that he will win because, on election day, the GOP will close ranks, hold their noses and vote the party line. Liberal Democrats for whom Clinton or Obama are too conservative will pout and stay home. Worse –conservative Democrats will join the evil minions and vote for a Bush Jr or a John McCain.

The Democratic party, meanwhile, doesn’t have the luxury of settling for a ‘base hit’ in a game in which there are only home runs. For the Democrats, that is! The GOP has the luxury of just putting a man on base! Democrats don’t have the luxury of nominating anything less than a JFK or an FDR.

The left wing world wide is a disorganized amalgam of differing opinions, sitting ducks for a disciplined, Nazi-like top down party like the GOP where issues are not derived from the people but from focus groups, consultants and think tanks who literally manufacture issues based upon how well they ‘test’. What really hurts is that for their talk about ‘the base’, the GOP owes its allegiance to the richest one percent of the US population, a moneyed segment that plays and wins because it writes the rules.

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Why Democrats Must Change or Perish.

Maine voters reject gay-marriage law

Maine voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in New England, the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.

Gay marriage has now lost in every single state – 31 in all – in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine – known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate – and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.

With 87 percent of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the votes.

“The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation,” declared Frank Schubert, chief organizer for the winning side.

Full Story Maine voters reject gay-marriage law.

Evolution essential knowledge for medical students

Evolution essential knowledge for medical students

Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, former Director of The University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute, is one of a number of eminent international medical scientists and educators calling for evolutionary biology to be a core subject in medical schools.

The recommendation, published in the latest issue of the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows from the Academy’s Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on ‘‘Evolution in Health and Medicine’’ held in April 2009 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.

NY-23 has elected nothing but Republicans since 1865. This is a massive blow to the blowhards. By the law of unintended consequences, their campaign of purity lost them an historic seat.

Full Story Scoop: Evolution essential knowledge for medical students.

NY 23 election results – Bill Owens beats Doug Hoffman, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh

The Right Wingnuts led by Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Malkin lost their self-selected signpost election the 23rd Congressional District in New York. The ultra-conservative Republican candidate Doug Hoffman conceded to Democrat Bill Owens just about a half-hour ago.

Owens gained 49 percent of the vote, versus 46 percent for Hoffman, and six percent for Dede Scozzafava, who’s name was still on the ballot, even though she dropped out of the race.

That the 23-rd District of New York is Democratic country* [error! see note below] didn’t seem to phase these Couch Potato Conservatives.

This race saw the original Republican challenger Dede Scozzafava back out of the race under extreme pressure from within her own party and the Right Wingnut fringe. They – led by media pundits Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Malkin – hand picked Doug Hoffman as the man who would save them. With their withering communications drumbeat, Hoffman rose from nowhere in the polls to the point of being considered the front runner before tonight’s election.

What hurt Hoffman? Theatrics aside, he was new to the area. On Topix, one commenter wrote:

Full Story City Brights: Zennie Abraham : NY 23 election results – Bill Owens beats Doug Hoffman, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

OPS:
There is a huge *error in this reporting – here’s the correction:
NY-23 has elected nothing but Republicans since 1865.
This is a massive blow to the blowhards.
By the law of unintended consequences, their campaign of purity lost them an historic seat.

Medical Marijuana Expansion Approved by Wide Margin

Medical marijuana has been legal in Maine for a decade now. But on Election Day, voters overwhelmingly decided that patients should have easier access to the drug. Preliminary poll results showed nearly 60 percent of voters approved a ballot initiative that makes Maine only the fifth state to allow dispensaries.

Well-managed, well-run and do it the proper way, it’ll be fine,” says Portland resident Bill Higgins. Higgins is a 50-year-old engineer who voted “yes” on Question 5. He says marijuana has helped sick relatives.

Now, he and his friends are considering setting up a non-profit dispensary that he says will give patients a safe place to seek pot without stigma. “Basically it was a criminal aspect — you have your mother dying of cancer and you have to go buy it from a drug dealer. With this new law when it goes into effect, I think the regulation will be there, the I think police will have oversight, the cities will have an input as to where these things are located by zoning and things like that.”

The ballot initiative also broadens the type of conditions that can be legally treated with marijuana. Hepatitis C and Alzheimers’ are among the illnesses that would be added to a list that already includes AIDS and cancer.

Jonathan Leavitt leads Maine Citizens for Patients Rights, which spearheaded the Question 5 campaign. He says a growing body of scientific studies shows the health benefits of marijuana. “And I think that the next thing that happens is a culture quickly realizes the validity of this plant and figures out a way how to have a healthy relationship with it.”

Full Story Medical Marijuana Expansion Approved by Wide Margin.

Buffett’s big bet: $34B on 2nd-largest railroad

The biggest name in investing is making what he calls an “all-in wager” on the U.S. economy – $34 billion to own a railroad that hauls everything from corn to cars across the country.

The acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the nation’s second-largest railroad, would be the biggest ever for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment company.

It’s a natural fit for the Oracle of Omaha, a city with a special place in railroad history. It was the starting point for the westward push of the transcontinental railroad. Today, Omaha is the headquarters of Union Pacific, and BNSF trains rumble through every day.

In a statement, Buffett, whose investing decisions are carefully scrutinized by the world of finance, voiced confidence in the railroad industry.

“Most important of all, however, it’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States. I love these bets,” he said Tuesday.

Full Story Business & Technology | Buffett’s big bet: $34B on 2nd-largest railroad | Seattle Times Newspaper.

US House condemns Goldstone report

The US House of Representatives has condemned the UN Goldstone report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in its 22-day war against the Palestinians in Gaza.

By a vote of 344 to 36, the members of the lower house of Congress approved a non-binding resolution that calls the report “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.”

The harshly worded resolution calls on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration” of the critical report.

South African judge Richard Goldstone recently challenged the United States to justify its objections over his report about the December 27-January 18 Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,400 Palestinians, with many of the victims women and children.

Goldstone recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the Hague-based International Criminal Court if the sides involved in the Gaza war failed to conduct credible investigations within six months.

Even Amnesty International has called for an independent investigation into Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip ahead of a UN General Assembly meeting on the Goldstone report.

Full Story US House condemns Goldstone report.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the list of  those owned and not owned by AIPAC

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 838

John Dean: Cheney may have given false statements to FBI

There is “a lot of evidence” that Vice President Dick Cheney gave false statements to the FBI during its investigation of the Valerie Plame leak affair, says former White House attorney John Dean.

Dean told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that Cheney attained “something of a record” by refusing to answer or claiming to not recall the answer to 72 questions posed by the FBI during a May, 2004, interview.

“If you’ll recall, former Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman did 150 ‘I don’t recalls’ during his three days before the Senate Watergate committee,” Dean said. “This is 72 in less than three hours, that’s right up there.”

The comparison is striking, because Haldeman served 18 months in prison for conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal.

Full Story John Dean: Cheney may have given false statements to FBI | Raw Story.

Louisiana justice who refused marriage license to interracial couple resigns.

Louisiana justice who refused marriage license to interracial couple resigns.

Last month, Louisiana justice of the peace Keith Bardwell stirred controversy when he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple because he believes that such marriages don’t usually last very long. “I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves,” Bardwell said. Now, the Louisiana secretary of state’s office says that Bardwell has resigned:

A Louisiana justice of the peace who drew criticism for refusing to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple has resigned, the secretary of state’s office said Tuesday.

Keith Bardwell, a justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, was widely criticized after he refused to grant a marriage license to Beth McKay and Terence McKay, an interracial couple who ultimately got a marriage license from another justice of the peace in the same parish.

The McKays hired an attorney and protested the justice’s actions.

Full Story Think Progress » Louisiana justice who refused marriage license to interracial couple resigns..

Why and to what end in Afghanistan

Ralph Nader

Matthew P. Hoh, a former U.S. combat marine captain and Department of Defense civilian in Iraq starting in 2004 and until September a political officer in the Foreign Service stationed in Afghanistan is giving some consternation to President Obama’s advisors as the Commander in Chief considers sending more soldiers to that war-torn country next to Pakistan.

Mr. Hoh wrote a letter of resignation to the State Department in September. His four page letter frames his doubts about what he said is the “why and to what end” behind “the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. He notes that like the Soviets’ nine year occupation, “we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.”

Mr. Hoh focuses on the giant Pashtun society composed of 42 million people and moves to his conclusions. Read his words:

“The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

Full Story Why and to what end in Afghanistan – The Nader Page.

Bankruptcy Filings to Match Divorce Filings in 2009: 1.5 Million. 35.8 Million Americans on Food Stamps – 11 Percent of the Population. The 5 Indicators of the Misery Index.

It is a sobering fact that in 2009, there will be as many people filing for bankruptcy as those filing for a divorce. We are on track to seeing an average of nearly 5,900 bankruptcy filings a day for 2009. While some people use the stock market as their barometer of economic recovery, there are a few other “misery” indicators that show things are still bad for millions of Americans and counter the recovery talks. If you want to track a broader recovery, I would recommend people examine the five indicators of the misery index. Food stamps, bankruptcies, long-term unemployed, foreclosures, and credit card defaults are probably your best gauges to the real economic recovery.

The problem we currently face is even after the global economy was brought to its knees by the current Wall Street banking structure, things still haven’t changed at the core of their mission. The same banks are back taking inordinate amounts of risk with the now explicit backing of the U.S. Taxpayer. It is no surprise then that our U.S. dollar has been pummeled by the policies of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

Let us examine each component of the misery index.

Full Story Bankruptcy Filings to Match Divorce Filings in 2009: 1.5 Million. 35.8 Million Americans on Food Stamps – 11 Percent of the Population. The 5 Indicators of the Misery Index..

Reid changes tune on passing health care before 2010

US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seems to have picked a strange day to hint that the all-important health care bill might be delayed. The bad news for Democrats comes on election day, as Republicans bank on potentially winning three key races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Meanwhile, the pushback will undoubtedly have an effect on the 2010 elections.

“U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wouldn’t commit to passing an overhaul of the U.S. health- care system this year, saying the chamber will take the time it needs to produce ‘quality legislation,’” Bloomberg news reports.

“We’re not going to be bound by any timelines,” Reid told reporters in Washington today after a closed-door meeting of all Senate Democrats.

With just weeks left to complete congressional work for the year, the timetable threatens to push consideration of health-care legislation into 2010, when all House seats and 38 of the Senate’s 100 seats are on the ballot.

Full Story Reid changes tune on passing health care before 2010 | Raw Story.

OPS:  Putting a gun to our heads Harry?
Blackmail?

Armey Meets With Author Of Town Hall Harassment Strategy Memo To Plan Purge Of Moderates From GOP

In late July, ThinkProgress first reported on a memo detailing how conservative activists can successfully disrupt Democratic health care town halls. The memo, authored by a Tea Party Patriots volunteer named Bob MacGuffie, was distributed on a listserv controlled by FreedomWorks — the corporate front group run by Dick Armey that is dedicated to organizing tea parties and other anti-Obama efforts around the country. A member of the listserv, Jenny Beth Martin, blasted out the memo on June 13th, declaring, “We here in CT have developed a strategy for holding our elected officials accountable. We show up en mass at the ‘town hall’ meetings they have!” The tactics included:

– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

Full Story Think Progress » Armey Meets With Author Of Town Hall Harassment Strategy Memo To Plan Purge Of Moderates From GOP.

GOP health bill: Insurers can ignore ‘all of the consumer protection laws’ and ‘restrictions on rate changes.’

GOP health bill: Insurers can ignore ‘all of the consumer protection laws’ and ‘restrictions on rate changes.’

The new GOP health care plan expands “coverage” and “choice” by permitting health insurers to sell policies across state lines. Under the Republican proposal, the insurer can choose a ‘primary state’ “whose covered laws shall govern the health insurance issuer” and can change states “upon renewal of the policy.” Page 129 requires a “health insurance issuer” to “provide the following notice” informing consumers in so-called ’secondary states’ that the policy is “not subject to all of the consumer protection laws or restrictions on rate changes of the state.” Here is the notice, as it is described in the legislation:

The GOP is conceding the progressive argument. Specifically, it is admitting that insurance companies would have little incentive to continue doing business under certain state rules which “require that companies issue coverage to all new customers and not set higher rates for people who are already sick.” Instead, companies could chose a state with scarce regulations and sell policies that don’t provide mental health parity, cancer screenings, or abide by regulations that limit the rates that can be charged to higher-cost consumers. This way, plans can attract the healthiest applicants and detract the sick.

Full Story Think Progress » GOP health bill: Insurers can ignore ‘all of the consumer protection laws’ and ‘restrictions on rate changes.’.

OPS: republicans in Washington are degenerate, brain damaged and sociopathic.
They are a clear and present danger to democracy and the future of this Nation

FCC Fine Print Could Undermine an Open Internet

Buried in the fine print of the FCC’s proposed Net Neutrality rules is a potential loophole that if left open would undermine the future of Internet freedom.

So says a group of prominent law professors who on Monday told the FCC that its proposed rules don’t sufficiently define what the agency means by its use of the terms “non-discrimination” and “reasonable network management.”

The professors — all longtime champions of an open Internet – submitted a letter to the agency “to flag what we believe are two ambiguities in the Notice that we hope can be addressed early to provide a clearer foundation for comments.”

“This is a historic rule and this letter was in the spirit of looking at other FCCs and creating a stronger rule that sets a policy that lasts longer as opposed to something that is highly dependent on the whims of a commission in power,” Columbia law professor and Free Press board chair Tim Wu told the Washington Post after submitting the letter.

Full Story FCC Fine Print Could Undermine an Open Internet | Save the Internet.

Panama denies agreement with U.S. on military bases

Panama’s Vice President and Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Varela denied on Monday his country had reached agreement with the United States on the creation of four aerial-maritime bases in the Panamanian coasts.

Varela made the denial in response to President of Peace and Justice Services Julio Yao’s criticism of President Ricardo Martinelli’s foreign policy and the alleged prospective establishment of aerial-maritime bases to combat drug, weapons and people trafficking.

The Panamanian opposition has claimed that these bases would be controlled by the United States. However, the Panamanian government denied those allegations, saying that those facilities will be under Panamanian control.

Full Story Panama denies agreement with U.S. on military bases_English_Xinhua.

Global warming could create 150 million ‘climate refugees’ by 2050

Environmental Justice Foundation report says 10% of the global population is at risk of forced displacement due to climate change

Global warming will force up to 150 million “climate refugees” to move to other countries in the next 40 years, a new report from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) warns.

In 2008 alone, more than 20 million people were displaced by climate-related natural disasters, including 800,000 people by cyclone Nargis in Asia, and almost 80,000 by heavy floods and rains in Brazil, the NGO said.

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, who presented testimony to the EJF, said people in his country did not want to “trade a paradise for a climate refugee camp”. He warned rich countries taking part in UN climate talks this week in Barcelona “not to be stupid” in negotiating a climate treaty in Copenhagen this December.

Full Story Global warming could create 150 million ‘climate refugees’ by 2050 | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Is H1B Policy to Blame for Shortage of U.S.-born Technology Graduates?

In a recent blog, I speculated on the reasons for the seeming lack of interest in computer science and engineering careers among our budding college graduates. I noted that many of the Millennial generation seem bored with the technology on which they were weaned, while others are too busy dreaming of becoming the next superstar (sports, entertainment) thanks to the well-meaning—but ultimately damaging—lie that “You can be anything you want to be.”

One reader, however, took me to task for not mentioning what he believes is the real reason behind the lack of enthusiasm for technology among recent graduates. This reader pointed out that thanks to H1B, visas issued by the federal government, low-paid foreign IT workers are flooding the U.S. market and companies are snapping them up rather than pay more for homegrown workers. As a result, potential graduates see little future in an IT career—at least in the United States.

Full Story Is H1B Policy to Blame for Shortage of U.S.-born Technology Graduates?.

Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the America

November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia

School of the Americas Watch – FOR IMMED1IATE RELEASE

Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the America; November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia

WASHINGTON – November 3 – The military coup led by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) has on Latin America. Torture survivors and human rights activists from across the Americas, including Bertha Oliva, the founder of the Committee of the Family Members of the Disappeared (COFADEH) from Honduras and human rights defenders from Colombia will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to participate in the mobilization.

* The SOA graduate-led military coup in Honduras and the increasing U.S. military involvement in Colombia put a renewed focus on the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC) and the policies it represents.

* Thousands from across the Americas will converge on November 20-22 at Fort Benning, GA for a vigil and civil disobedience actions to speak out against the SOA/ WHINSEC and to demand a change in U.S. foreign policy.

* The vigil will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1989 SOA graduate-led Jesuit massacre in San Salvador, and the many other thousands of victims of SOA/ WHINSEC violence.

The campaign to close the SOA/ WHINSEC is in a crucial phase right now. Despite promising comments from President Obama during his 2008 election campaign, the SOA/ WHINSEC is still in operation, the U.S. is poring millions into failing “military solutions” to combat the drug problems in Mexico and the Pentagon is moving forward with plans to use seven Colombian military bases in Colombia for offensive U.S. military operations.

“It is up to us to hold those responsible accountable and to push for to closing of the School of the Americas and a change in US foreign policy” said Father Roy Bourgeois, the founder of SOA Watch. “Too many have died and continue to suffer at the hands of graduates of this notorious institute.”

In the fall of 2009, opponents of the SOA/ WHINSEC achieved a victory when a joint House and Senate conference committee agreed to include language in the FY 2010 Defense Authorization bill that requires the Pentagon to release names of the graduates of the SOA/ WHINSEC to the public. The Pentagon had classified the names after the continued involvement of SOA/ WHINSEC attendees in human rights abuses became public.

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SOA Watch is an independent organization that seeks to close the US Army School of the Americas, under whatever name it is called, through vigils and fasts, demonstrations and nonviolent protest, as well as media and legislative work.

Full Story Mass Mobilization to Shut Down the School of the America; November 20-22, 2009, Fort Benning, Georgia | CommonDreams.org.

Kucinich: Protect Rights of Consumers Free From Economic Death Threat of Ins Cos!

YouTube – Kucinich: Protect Rights of Consumers Free From Economic Death Threat of Ins Cos!.

Germany’s Merkel urges binding U.N. climate deal

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged quick agreement on a binding U.N. climate pact on Tuesday even as boycotts held back both U.S. and U.N. work on the deal.

Merkel, making the first address by a German leader to a joint session of the U.S. Congress since Konrad Adenauer in 1957, said there was “no time to lose” on a pact meant to be agreed in Copenhagen at a U.N. conference on December 7-18.

“We need an agreement on one objective — global warming must not exceed two degrees Celsius,” she said. “To achieve this, we need the readiness of all countries to accept internationally binding obligations,” she said.

But work toward a new deal ran into obstacles in the U.S. Senate and at U.N. negotiations November 2-6 in Barcelona, Spain, the last session before Copenhagen.

Full Story Germany’s Merkel urges binding U.N. climate deal | Green Business | Reuters.

Democrats’ healthcare bill would pay for ‘prayer’ treatment

What do Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) have in common?

A soft spot for Christian Scientists.

The three senators have quietly inserted a provision into the Democrats’ healthcare overhaul that would allow the Christian Science church to receive remuneration from the federal government for prayer treatments as medical expenses.

Why are liberal Democrats teaming up with a conservative senator for a provision that would normally be the bane of the Senate’s liberal elite? Because the headquarters of the Christian Science church is in Boston.

Full Story Democrats’ healthcare bill would pay for ‘prayer’ treatment | Raw Story.

Is This as Good as It Gets From Obama?

Bill Maher:

Yeah, I’m disappointed, too. I thought we were sweeping into power; I thought change meant Change. I believed all that talk about another First 100 Days, a la Roosevelt. Well, that didn’t happen. The question is, is this as good as it gets from Obama, or is he pacing himself? He may have a four and eight-year plan and they included a first year of just gettin’ to know you and not gonna rock the boat too much. Well, Mission Accomplished on that.

It’s still too early to lose hope in a guy as smart and talented as Barack Obama. But I would counsel him to remember: If you’re going undercover to infiltrate how Washington works, so you become one of them for a while, to gain their confidence, well, it can be just like all those movies where a cop goes deep, deep, DEEP undercover with drug people and — fuck, he’s a drug addict, too!

Logic tells me that really smart guys like Obama and Rahm Emanuel know better what they’re doing than I do. They certainly know things I don’t know. I think we have the same general goals and beliefs. And this is what they do for a living — I wouldn’t even try it. But I will never stop having this doubt: that maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of the historic election, and acted like it was an emergency moment — which it was — they could have gotten some big victories right up front, and there really could have been an historic “first hundred days” for this administration and the country. Instead of what happened, which is the Obamas got a dog. It could have worked — the country had given its endorsement to “…and now for something completely different.” There might have been a way to knock the Republicans back on their heels right away, with the argument that “The American people demanded we make these changes, and you are unpatriotic to stand in their way.”

Full Story Bill Maher: Is This as Good as It Gets From Obama?.

The Medicare-for-All Moment

by Robert Weissman –

There is only one solution to the twin problems of escalating health care costs and the epidemic of the uninsured: a Medicare-for-All, single payer system.

Unfortunately, the healthcare debate on Capitol Hill has evolved without serious consideration of the Medicare-for-All single payer health proposal. There are many reasons for this, but one is that many who actually support Medicare-for-All have claimed that the proposal is “not feasible.”

With the House leadership having settled on a single proposal, now is the time to set aside worries about feasibility. The House process is resolved. Members of Congress should have the opportunity to vote on the merits, up-or-down, on a Medicare-for-All single payer health proposal.

Whether they will have this chance is in the hands of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and likely to be decided today. Contact her right away to urge that the House be permitted to vote on a Medicare-for-All single payer health proposal. Call (202) 225-0100 or (as a second best alternative, submit comments on the Speaker’s web page: .

Full Story The Medicare-for-All Moment | CommonDreams.org.

UN Assembly Draft Urges Action on Gaza ‘War Crimes’

Arab U.N. delegates circulated a draft resolution on Monday that would require Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to bring a U.N. report alleging war crimes in the Gaza Strip before the Security Council.

A special meeting of the 192-nation assembly on Wednesday will debate the U.N. report on the December-January war in the Gaza Strip and vote on the draft resolution.

That report accused Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants of war crimes and was prepared by a U.N. fact-finding commission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

The Arab draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, says the assembly “requests the Secretary-General to transmit the report … to the Security Council.” It also urges Israel and the Palestinians to comply with the report’s recommendations for launching investigations into allegations of war crimes.

The draft also tells Ban to report back to the assembly within three months on implementation of the resolution.

Full Story UN Assembly Draft Urges Action on Gaza ‘War Crimes’ | CommonDreams.org.

Is the GOP a Nazi Party?

by Len Hart, -

It was James Whitcomb Riley, a Hoosier, and not a Texan, who is credited with having said: “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.” A thing or a party is what it does. This simple epistemological principles applies to everything from sub-atomic particles to mega-galaxies on the very edge of the universe and everything in between to include ‘political parties’.

Merely putting a name on something does not explain it. Putting the label ‘Nazi’ on the US GOP does not explain either GOPPS or Nazis; it just helps us sort them out.

The wake of WWII left many declaring that it must never happen again. If ‘it’ was to be prevented, however, it was clear that ‘it’ must be explained. The origins of WWII, however, could not be understood without first understanding a ‘Nazi’ mentality that provided it fertile soil and nurtured its growing roots. The Nazi weed grows and is cultivated in the US by bigots, authoritarians, and corporatists i.e, fascists.

Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Is the GOP a Nazi Party?.

Breaking up the banks is hard to do

Dean Baker

Remember US banks that were ‘too big to fail’? If Congress gets its way, they will be bigger and less accountable than ever

Those who like banks that are too big to fail will love the latest financial reform proposals circulating in the US Congress. The bill put forward by Barney Frank, the chairman of the House finance committee, does little to change the current structure of the financial system.

The “too-big-to-fail” banks will be left in place, even bigger and less accountable than before. There will be nothing done to separate commercial and investment banking, so giants like Goldman Sachs will be free to speculate with money guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The main difference is that the Federal Reserve Board will be granted even more power than it has now. And, we will tell the Fed to be smarter in the future, so that it doesn’t make the same stupid mistakes that gave us the current crisis.

While we all want a smarter Fed, it is not clear that the bill before Congress will get us one, even though it will definitely give us a more powerful Fed. The new Fed will be able to decide which financial firms need to be put through a bankruptcy-like resolution process, paid for with a virtually unlimited amount of taxpayer dollars.

Full Story Breaking up the banks is hard to do | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Are Your Food Allergies Making You Fat?

Your digestive system may be making you fat. It’s hard to believe – but very true!

Today, I’m going to explain the bugs in your digestive tract, why they upset your gut’s immune system, and how they just might be behind those extra pounds.

I have observed this phenomenon in hundreds of patients. Recently, remarkable new research has confirmed this phenomenon. I have developed very effective treatments for it, based on understanding the way in which all the body’s systems — the gut, the immune system, detoxification system, hormones and more — are connected.

There’s powerful evidence that addressing these key causes of weight gain and illness can help you shed pounds.

Full Story Mark Hyman, MD: Are Your Food Allergies Making You Fat?.

FTC Takes on Freecreditreport.com

If you watch television, chances are you’ve seen the jingles where the young guy sings a campy song about his troubles with identity theft, in a bid to pitch a site called freecreditreport.com.

Well, now the Federal Trade Commission is getting in on the act, running a series of hilarious public service announcements to point out that such services often are not free at all, and instead pointing consumers to annualcreditreport.com, a site mandated by Uncle Sam and probably the only place online consumers can truly go to get a free copy of their credit reports from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus.

Here’s my favorite annualcreditreport.com PSA from the FTC:

Full Story Security Fix – FTC Takes on Freecreditreport.com.

Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army Is Strained – 16 in October

Sixteen American soldiers killed themselves in October in the U.S. and on duty overseas, an unusually high monthly toll that is fueling concerns about the mental health of the nation’s military personnel after more than eight years of continuous warfare.

The Army’s top generals worry that surging tens of thousands more troops into Afghanistan could increase the strain felt by many military personnel after years of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The October suicide figures mean that at least 134 active-duty soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year, putting the Army on pace to break last year’s record of 140 active-duty suicides. The number of Army suicides has risen 37% since 2006, and last year, the suicide rate surpassed that of the U.S. population for the first time.

Full Story Suicide Toll Fuels Worry That Army Is Strained – WSJ.com.

Leadership, Lieberman Deny He Has Dropped His Filibuster Threat

Democratic leadership and Senator Joseph Lieberman’s office are both denying a report that the Connecticut Independent had pledged that he would not obstruct the passage of health care reform by backing a Republican-led filibuster.

“The Leader is speaking with Sen. Lieberman and all members of his caucus,” a leadership aide told the Huffington Post. “To say that there is some ‘understanding’ about votes at the end of this process is preposterous.”

“If you believe this story is true, you will also believe that I am replacing A-Rod in game six of the series,” Lieberman’s spokesman, Marshall Wittman told ABC’s Jon Karl.

Full Story Leadership, Lieberman Deny He Has Dropped His Filibuster Threat.

White House Quietly Working To Weaken Investor Protection

The White House is quietly working to undercut a key post-Enron reform, significantly weakening protection for everyday investors and threatening the administration’s image as a champion for financial regulatory reform.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democratic members of the House Financial Services Committee that he supports amending the Investor Protection Act of 2009 — a bill designed to beef up protection for investors — in order to exempt small businesses from a requirement in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that mandates audits of internal controls. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted in 2002 in the wake of accounting scandals at Enron and Worldcom that rocked investors and damaged confidence in the markets.

“This has enormous significance to individual investors,” former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt told the Huffington Post. “This is something the Republicans could never have accomplished, and what a bitter irony it is that the Democrats…are emasculating the best piece of legislation of the past 20 years.”

Full Story White House Quietly Working To Weaken Investor Protection.

The Kennedy Asssassination: New Details about the Transfer of Power

Exactly when did doctors give up their efforts to save Kennedy’s life? And when did Lyndon Johnson learn that JFK was dead? These are the central questions that need to be addressed in understanding the transfer of power on November 22, 1963. The questions may be obvious; the answers are not.

The Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy was shot at 12:30 pm. He was declared dead at 1:00 pm, and Johnson was informed at 1:20 pm. Most authors writing about the assassination, even those who question the conclusions of the Warren Commission, have accepted this timeline.

New documents recently opened to the public call into question key parts of this timeline. The first piece of evidence is a long memorandum prepared by Parkland hospital administrator Jack Price, who was standing outside Trauma Room #1 as President Kennedy was wheeled in on a stretcher. Price gave the memorandum, which outlined his actions over the next few hours, to author William Manchester. Last year, Manchester’s children granted me access to their father’s rich collection of materials housed at Wesleyan University for my new book, The Kennedy Assassination – 24 Hours After.

Full Story Steven M. Gillon: The Kennedy Asssassination: New Details about the Transfer of Power.

States Weigh Fraud Suits Against Banks

Newly empowered by the Supreme Court, the attorneys general of several states hit hard by the housing collapse are exploring consumer fraud suits against major mortgage lenders.

Frustrated by the banks’ inability or unwillingness to stop an avalanche of foreclosures, the states are considering lawsuits over the creation and marketing of millions of bad loans as well as the dismal pace of mortgage modifications.

Such cases would have been impossible until recently, because federal regulators had exclusive oversight of national banks. But a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in June allowed the states to exercise their own supervision, giving them significant leverage.

Full Story States Weigh Fraud Suits Against Banks – NYTimes.com.

Tests Find Wide Range of Bisphenol A in Canned Soups, Juice, and More

Consumer Reports’ latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods tested contain measurable levels of Bisphenol A (BPA). The results are reported in the December 2009 issue and also available online. BPA, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because it has been linked to a wide array of health effects including reproductive abnormalities, heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. I’ve reported on BPA over at Civil Eats here, here, and here.

Federal guidelines currently put the daily upper limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight. But that level is based on a handful of experiments done in the 1980s rather than hundreds of more recent animal and laboratory studies indicating that serious health risks could result from much lower doses of BPA. Several animal studies show adverse effects, such as abnormal reproductive development, at exposures of 2.4 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day, a dose that could be reached by a child eating one or a few servings daily or an adult daily diet that includes multiple servings of canned foods containing BPA levels comparable to some of the foods Consumer Reports tested.

Full Story Naomi Starkman: Tests Find Wide Range of Bisphenol A in Canned Soups, Juice, and More.

Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America’s secret theocrats

By Jeff Sharlet

And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
—Matthew 10:36

This is how they pray: a dozen clear-eyed, smooth-skinned “brothers” gathered together in a huddle, arms crossing arms over shoulders like the weave of a cable, leaning in on one another and swaying like the long grass up the hill from the house they share. The house is a handsome, gray, two-story colonial that smells of new carpet and Pine-Sol and aftershave; the men who live there call it Ivanwald. At the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, quiet but for the buzz of lawn mowers and kids playing foxes-and-hounds in the park across the road, Ivanwald sits as one house among many, clustered together like mushrooms, all devoted, like these men, to the service of Jesus Christ. The men tend every tulip in the cul-de-sac, trim every magnolia, seal every driveway smooth and black as boot leather. And they pray, assembled at the dining table or on their lawn or in the hallway or in the bunk room or on the basketball court, each man’s head bowed in humility and swollen with pride (secretly, he thinks) at being counted among such a fine corps for Christ, among men to whom he will open his heart and whom he will remember when he returns to the world not born-again but remade, no longer an individual but part of the Lord’s revolution, his will transformed into a weapon for what the young men call “spiritual war.”

“Jeff, will you lead us in prayer?”

Surely, brother. It is April 2002, and I have lived with these men for weeks now, not as a Christian—a term they deride as too narrow for the world they are building in Christ’s honor—but as a “believer.” I have shared the brothers’ meals and their work and their games. I have been numbered among them and have been given a part in their ministry. I have wrestled with them and showered with them and listened to their stories: I know which man resents his father’s fortune and which man succumbed to the flesh of a woman not once but twice and which man dances so well he is afraid of being taken for a fag. I know what it means to be a “brother,” which is to say that I know what it means to be a soldier in the army of God.

“Heavenly Father,” I begin. Then, “O Lord,” but I worry that this doesn’t sound intimate enough. I settle on, “Dear Jesus.” “Dear Jesus, just, please, Jesus, let us fight for Your name.”

Full Story Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America’s secret theocrats—By Jeff Sharlet (Harper’s Magazine).

 Bonaparte Blair & Co    

November 02, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — Gordon brown urged European Socialist leaders last week to appoint Tony Blair as the European President. “Get real”, he told them, “This is a unique opportunity to get a strong progressive politician to be the president.”

Brown is obviously correct, nothing could be more refreshing, innovative ‘real’ and ‘progressive’ than assigning the job to a man who has more blood on his hands than any other person in Europe. It may also be right to argue that there is just one living person on this planet with more blood on his hands than Blair. That man dwells in Texas, his name is George and actually unlike our Bonaparte figure, he keeps relatively quiet. Unlike George, our Boney is craving for recognition, he cannot live without a crown or an official title. Someone should remind Boney that he already made it into history, he can really take a break. With more than one million fatalities in Iraq, he is not far behind Hitler and Stalin.

Murderers are, no doubt, a unique bunch of people, some criminologists insists that they are no less than psychopaths for psychopaths are people who disregard ethical principles. Psychopaths also lack any sense of conscience or compassion. Mass murderers are even more special, for they manage to evade, not just a couple of eyes, but rather very many. They even mange to turn deaf to public criticism and resentment towards their acts. Our Boney, is extraordinary by every possible means. Not only does he dismiss the pain he brought on millions, not only did he fail to show regret, he actually constantly demands our recognition of his imaginary greatness. He seems to lack any awareness or self-consciousness whatsoever.

While the majority of Europeans would prefer to see Boney schlepped to The Hague, face justice and hopefully locked up for life, he himself must be convinced that he possesses the necessary qualities for the European Presidency. From a united European perspective he was a light disaster. He managed to keep Britain out of the Euro, he also didn’t follow the Schengen open borders agreement. From a British perspective Boney was a total disaster. Together with his ‘best Treasurer ever’ he succeeded in ruining the Britain economy. He smashed the last pockets of British industry to infinitesimal pieces and on top of all that, he has managed to get all of us implicated in a war crime of a colossal magnitude. This was probably enough to make European leaders think again, They have now decided to restrain Boney’s self centric enthusiasm and relentless will to power..

Full Story Bonaparte Blair & Co       : Information Clearing House -  ICH.

Why Hatch Is Really Blocking Health Reform: Americans Will Love The New System And Vote Democratic

In a new interview with CNS News, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) repeated his concern that requiring Americans to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. Hatch offered typical run-of-the-mill conservative arguments about “socialized medicine.” But at one point, he let it slip that the real reason he is trying to stop health care reform is that the American public might really like it and therefore vote for Democrats:

HATCH: That’s their goal. Move people into government that way. Do it in increments. They’ve actually said it. They’ve said it out loud.

Q: This is a step-by-step approach —

HATCH: A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you’re going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody’s going to say, “All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party.”

Q: They’ll have reduced the American people to dependency on the federal government.

HATCH: Yeah, you got that right. That’s their goal. That’s what keeps Democrats in power.

Watch it

Full Story Think Progress » Why Hatch Is Really Blocking Health Reform: Americans Will Love The New System And Vote Democratic.

OPS: They are willing to kill and bankrupt and generally destroy as many Americans as it takes, for power.