Archive for November, 2009
Just When You Thought It Was Safe: 3 Potential Obstacles to Health-Care Reform
Harry Reid may have gotten the Senate to move his health-care bill forward, but a handful of conservative Democrats could still keep the bill from getting a final vote.
It was high drama for a Saturday in the U.S. Capitol Building — at least what counts for high drama in the Senate. Would Majority Leader Harry Reid be able to deliver every single senator in his caucus for a vote that would allow his historic health-care bill to move to the floor for debate? In the end, Reid won that victory, with caveats from a handful of reluctant senators. Hundreds of millions in Medicaid funds were handed to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., for the very poorest of her state’s poor in exchange for her vote (a move Capitol Hill staffers dubbed the “Louisiana Purchase”).
The fate of national health-care reform rests on Reid’s ability to repeat his 60-vote feat in order to close debate and bring the bill to a final vote, and there’s no guarantee that he can. In fact, it’s looking a little dicey. But even among veteran Congress-watchers, there’s no consensus on whether or not Reid will succeed in the end. To do so, the majority leader will need to negotiate three points of contention.
Full Story Just When You Thought It Was Safe: 3 Potential Obstacles to Health-Care Reform | Politics | AlterNet.
The “Drug War” is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will
Jim Hightower –
The war on marijuana is insane; our officials keep sacrificing tax dollars, lives, civil liberties, and their own credibility in this misguided and losing effort.
You might remember Robert McNamara’s stunning mea culpa, delivered a quarter century after his Vietnam War policies sent some 50,000 Americans (and even more horrendous numbers of Vietnamese) to their deaths in that disastrous war. In his 1995 memoir, the man who had been a cold, calculating secretary of defense for both Kennedy and Johnson belatedly confessed that he and other top officials had long known that the war was an unwinnable, ideologically driven mistake. “We were wrong,” he wrote, almost tearfully begging in print for public forgiveness. “We were terribly wrong.”
Yes, they were, and so are today’s leaders (from the White House to nearly all local governments), who are keeping us mired in the longest, most costly, and most futile war in U.S. history: the drug war. As one adamant opponent of this ongoing madness put it, “I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the War on Drugs is a failure. Americans are paying too high a price in lives and liberty for a failing War on Drugs, about which our leaders have lost all sense of proportion.”
That was no ex-hippie stoner expressing himself through a haze of herbal smoke. It was America’s “Uncle Walter,” the journalistic icon Walter Cronkite, calling earlier this year for a new truthfulness and sanity in American drug policy.
Full Story Hightower Lowdown | The “Drug War” is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will.
The Phantom Menace
Paul Krugman –
A funny thing happened on the way to a new New Deal. A year ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the reigning doctrine in Washington appears to be “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
What happened? To be sure, “centrists” in the Senate have hobbled efforts to rescue the economy. But the evidence suggests that in addition to facing political opposition, President Obama and his inner circle have been intimidated by scare stories from Wall Street.
Consider the contrast between what Mr. Obama’s advisers were saying on the eve of his inauguration, and what he himself is saying now.
In December 2008 Lawrence Summers, soon to become the administration’s highest-ranking economist, called for decisive action. “Many experts,” he warned, “believe that unemployment could reach 10 percent by the end of next year.” In the face of that prospect, he continued, “doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much.”
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – The Phantom Menace – NYTimes.com.
Refuse Allegiance to Coal
Chris Hedges
There are some 614 coal-fired power plants in the United States, and it is up to us to shut them down. No one in the White House will do it. No one in Congress will do it. And no one at the coming U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen will do it. We will build local movements to carry out acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to halt the burning of coal, or the polar ice caps will continue to dissolve, the Greenland ice sheet will disappear, the glaciers in the Alps, the Himalayas and Tibet will melt, and widespread droughts, rising sea levels and temperatures, acute food shortages, disease and gigantic mass migrations will envelop the globe. We are killing the ecosystem on which human life depends. One of the major polluters is coal, which supplies about half of the country’s electricity. NASA’s James Hansen has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million CO2—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity. We are currently at 390 parts per million carbon dioxide.
“The world political system is not about to keel over and give us a treaty that will get us to 350 parts per million anytime soon, or in fact do anything of great note,” the writer and environmental activist Bill McKibben told me when I met him in New York City. The author of “The End of Nature” and “Deep Economy” said: “The news that the Obama administration had punted on the Copenhagen talks is discouraging. The good news, to the extent that there is any, is that we finally have the beginning of a real global movement about climate change.”
Full Story Truthdig – Reports – Refuse Allegiance to Coal.
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Len Hart, –
Albert Einstein said: “the men who possess real power in this country have no intention of ending the cold war.” It is one of the most incredible ‘coincidences’ in history that as the Berlin Wall fell and communism ceased to be the global threat we had been told it was, a new ‘bogey man’ would arise, as if on cue, to take its place. World terrorism’, like a good steward, is now on the job, keeping the crooks on K-street and the Pentagon in firm control of one of the largest, most dangerous empires since Rome.
Like the U.S. today, the Roman economy was ‘militarized’, the empire over-extended, the battles fought by mercenaries. The currency might get you into the Coliseum for the ‘games’ but little else. Thus –bread and circuses were popular. When the Praetorian Guard auctioned the Roman Empire to Didius Julianus the sale was completed in Greek Drachmas –not worthless Roman Sesterces.
Some two decades ago, it was decided by the global financial elites that the framework for the global economy shall consist of:
1) A global derivative-based financial system, controlled by the US Federal Reserve Bank and its associate global banks in the developed countries.
2) The re-location from the West to the East in the production of goods, principally to China and India to “feed” the developed economies.
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.
The real reason Obama is not making much progress
Johann Hari:
Before you can appeal to America’s voters you have to appeal to the corporations
Almost a year after Barack Obama ascended to the White House, many of his supporters are bemused. His healthcare bill is a hefty improvement but it still won’t provide coverage for all Americans, and may not provide a public alternative to the over-charging insurance companies – if it passes at all. His environmental team is vandalizing the vital Copenhagen conference by saying the US – the single biggest emitter of warming gases – will not sign up to any legally binding restrictions there. He has placed the deregulation-fanatics who caused the New Depression, like Lawrence Summers, in charge of the recovery. Despite the real improvements on Bush – such as the end of torture, the resumption of stem-cell research, and opposition to the coup in Honduras – many people are asking: why he is delivering so little, so slowly?
A pair of seemingly small stories about the forces warping American politics can help us to answer this question. At first glance, they will seem like preposterous caricatures, but the facts are plain. The institutions that are blocking progress on all these issues – Republicans in the Senate, and the mighty corporate lobbying machine that bankrolls both parties – have rallied over the past few months to defend two causes with very little popular support in the United States: rape and slavery. No, really. If we begin to explain how this came to pass, then we might see why the American political system is malfunctioning so badly, even after a landslide victory for change.
Let’s start with rape. This story begins in Iraq in 2003. The private military contractors sent by the Bush administration to guard the oil pipelines didn’t want to get bogged down in expensive legal cases if anything went wrong. When it came to Iraqis, the Bush team simply exempted them from all Iraqi law, in a move so sweeping one Senator called it “a license to kill”. But what about if their employees attacked each other, or other Americans? The private companies insisted all their employees sign contracts saying that, whatever happens to them, they will settle it in in-house, through “arbitration”. Why? While representing the company at a real legal trial costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, an arbitration panel costs a few thousand. It saves cash.
Full Story Johann Hari: The real reason Obama is not making much progress – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent.
Hostility between British and American military leaders revealed
The deep hostility of Britain’s senior military commanders in Iraq towards their American allies has been revealed in classified Government documents leaked to the Daily Telegraph.
In the papers, the British chief of staff in Iraq, Colonel J.K.Tanner, described his US military counterparts as “a group of Martians” for whom “dialogue is alien,” saying: “Despite our so-called ‘special relationship,’ I reckon we were treated no differently to the Portuguese.”
Col Tanner’s boss, the top British commander in the country, Major General Andrew Stewart, told how he spent “a significant amount of my time” “evading” and “refusing” orders from his US superiors.
Full Story Hostility between British and American military leaders revealed – Telegraph.
Probability 15 JFK witnesses die UNNATURALLY within one year
This is an analysis to compute the probability of at least 15 witnesses dying UNNATURAL deaths within one year of the JFK assassination. The deaths were a combination of homicides, suicides, accidents and undetermined origin.
It's all in the numbers. Take the tinfoil hats off, put your thinking caps on..
Assuming there were 1000 witnesses, the probability that at least 15 would die UNNATURAL deaths in the year following the assassination is:
1 out of 21,230 trillion
This result is the same order of magnitude of a famous prior, though slightly different, study: An actuary engaged by the London Times in 1963 computed the probability that 18 material witnesses would die (of any cause) within 3 years of the assassination as: 1 out of 100,000 trillion.
Full Story Progressive Independent – Viewing message.
Renters becoming latest victims as foreclosure crisis widens
Multifamily defaults rising Some tenants left in dilapidated buildings
A new wave of foreclosures stands to hurt people who may have never taken out a mortgage: renters. In cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where many investors are carrying upside-down mortgages on large rental buildings, some tenants are watching their homes fall apart along with the financing.
Janeia Sandiford, a 24-year-old GED student in New York, has two young children and a deteriorating apartment. When a leak over Sandiford’s bathroom and kitchen caused the ceiling to flake off and then cave in, nobody came to fix it for a year, she said. She lacked heat most of last winter, and she has duct-taped her loose-fitting windows in place to cut down on drafts.
“I’m really worried about the kids,” she said.
The real estate investment company Ocelot Capital Group bought the building where Sandiford lives and about two dozen others in the Bronx in 2006 and 2007. As the new owners struggled to keep up with payments, 10 of the buildings appeared on the city’s list of most dilapidated rental properties in 2007 and 2008. Last winter, as Ocelot defaulted on its loans amid the deepening financial crisis, the buildings plummeted further into decline. Together, they racked up thousands of Code C violations –the most serious kind — from housing inspectors.
Full Story Renters becoming latest victims as foreclosure crisis widens – washingtonpost.com.
Newspaper Circulation May Be Worse Than It Looks
While U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers at a staggering rate, a few dailies stand out because their circulation is rising. But they aren’t necessarily selling more copies.
Here’s why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer.
These looser standards are especially helpful to a newspaper if it sells an “electronic edition.” That can include a subscriber-only Web site, such as what The Wall Street Journal has, or it can be a digital replica of a newspaper’s printed product. Several dozen publications, including USA Today, sell access to these daily “e-editions” that show how the news was laid out in print.
Under the new auditing standards, if a newspaper sells a “bundled” subscription to both the print and electronic editions, the publication is often allowed to count that subscriber twice.
Full Story Newspaper Circulation May Be Worse Than It Looks.
Analysis: Fed Under Fire As Public Anger Mounts
Suddenly the Federal Reserve is everybody’s punching bag.
Strip the Fed of its bank regulation powers, some in Congress are demanding. Get probing audits of its behind-the-scenes operations, others say.
The chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is always fair game for criticism and second-guessing, usually over interest rate actions. But this year the criticism is much broader as Congress responds to widespread public anger that the Fed bailed out Wall Street but not ordinary Americans, and with unemployment in double digits.
Former Fed Chairman William McChesney Martin Jr. famously said that the central bank’s job was to yank away the punchbowl just when everybody is starting to party. And while Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has signaled the Fed will keep interest rates low for now, a round of higher rates inevitably will come.
Full Story Analysis: Fed Under Fire As Public Anger Mounts.
Bernie Sanders Pushes Back On Public Option
While conservative members of the Democratic caucus threaten to block passage of health care reform if it includes a public health insurance option, a growing chorus of liberal lawmakers are making similar threats if the bill doesn’t have one.
Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement on Sunday that the bill must have a strong public option to win his vote.
“I strongly suspect that there are a number of senators, including myself, who would not support final passage without a strong public option,” he said. Not supporting final passage, however, is different than vowing to filibuster it and prevent it from even getting to a vote on final passage, as independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is now doing, hoping to strip the public option.
But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said on Saturday night that if the bill bends toward the conservatives, “You’ll lose people on the left.”
One of those could be Roland Burris (D-Ill.), who said Saturday he’d oppose any bill without a public option. “I won’t vote for it,” he said.
Full Story Bernie Sanders Pushes Back On Public Option.
Report: Ill. prison deal could create 3,000 jobs
A deal to house Guantanamo Bay detainees at a northwestern Illinois prison could bring nearly 3,000 jobs to the area, a White House analysis says.
Residents from the seven-county area surrounding the Thomson, Ill, prison would be “excellent candidates” for up to 1,400 of the jobs generated in the deal's first year, according to the report by the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
The report comes as officials from the federal Bureau of Prisons and the Illinois Department of Corrections toured the facility Saturday, along with Democratic lawmakers from Illinois and Iowa.
“It's a great gathering from both sides of the river, Illinois and Iowa, folks who understand how desperately we need jobs in this area,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. “There are too many people out of work, there are businesses closing down because people are out of work. They need paychecks.”
Full Story Post-Gazette.com.
World’s largest ice sheet melting faster than expected
Scientists believe that Antarctica could lose more ice than Greenland within a few years. Photograph: Momatiuk-Eastcott/Corbis
East Antarctic sheet shedding 57bn tonnes of ice a year and contributing to sea level rises, according to Nasa aerial survey
The world’s largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than scientists expected.The East Antarctic ice sheet, which makes up three-quarters of the continent’s 14,000 sq km, is losing around 57bn tonnes of ice a year into surrounding waters, according to a satellite survey of the region.
Scientists had thought the ice sheet was reasonably stable, but measurements taken from Nasa‘s gravity recovery and climate experiment (Grace) show that it started to lose ice steadily from 2006.
The measurements suggest the polar continent could soon contribute more to global sea level rises than Greenland, which is shedding more than 250bn tonnes of ice a year, adding 0.7mm to annual sea level rises.
Satellite data from the whole of Antarctica show the region is now losing around 190bn tonnes of ice a year. Uncertainties in the measurements mean the true ice loss could be between 113bn and 267bn tonnes.
Full Story World’s largest ice sheet melting faster than expected | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Rep. Hinojosa drops support of bank overdraft legislation
Dems’ overdraft reforms may stall
A senior lawmaker last week dropped his support for legislation limiting bank overdraft fees, saying the Federal Reserve has taken a better approach to the issue.
Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas) took his name off the co-sponsors list for the bank overdraft bill backed by Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. The legislation is seen as a key part of the Democrats’ effort to reform the financial sector in the wake of Wall Street’s meltdown last year.
A spokeswoman for Hinojosa said he dropped his support for the bill because of the Fed’s recent action on overdraft fees.
Full Story Rep. Hinojosa drops support of bank overdraft legislation – TheHill.com.
Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government
More Than $1.6 TRILLION Is Due By March 31 –
The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.
But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.
Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.
Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.
Full Story Payback Time – Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government – NYTimes.com.
Sixty-five leaders to attend climate summit
Raises stakes on a deal being reached at Copenhagen meeting
At least 65 world leaders have agreed to attend the Copenhagen summit on climate change in December, raising the stakes on a deal being reached and lending “critical mass” to the meeting, according to senior officials.
The Danish government announced this weekend that leaders of most of the world’s biggest economies were planning to attend, including the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Indonesia. In total, 180 nations are expected at Copenhagen.
The talks aimed originally to bring together environment ministers, but as the deadline has begun to loom without agreement on important issues, the Danish government has stepped up efforts to bring in heads of state and government for the final day of the conference, on December 18.
Full Story FT.com / In depth – Sixty-five leaders to attend climate summit.
Bets rise on rich country bond defaults
Activity in sovereign CDS linked to US and UK doubles
The mounting level of debt in the industrialised world is prompting a growing number of investors to use the derivatives market to bet on the chance of rich governments defaulting on bonds.
Public debt and CDS volumesThe volume of activity in sovereign credit default swaps – which measure the cost to insure against bond defaults – linked to the US, UK and Japan have doubled in the past year because of concerns about their public finances.
CDS volumes for Italy, which has one of the highest debt burdens of the developed economies, are now the highest for an individual country, according to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation.
In contrast, the outstanding volume of CDS linked to emerging nations such as Russia, Brazil, Ukraine and Indonesia have been flat or fallen in the past 12 months as investors have become less interested in trading the risks of those countries.
Full Story FT.com / Capital Markets – Bets rise on rich country bond defaults.
Europe looks to lead green revolution
Focus to switch to renewables
Leading European industrialists believe the future of manufacturing on the continent will increasingly revolve around green products, often backed by government subsidies.
Although Europe already has a leading position in wind and solar power, thanks to government help, chief executives from across the region have told the Financial Times they expect this to extend into other areas.
Peter Löscher, head of Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering group, which is targeting €25bn ($37bn) of green sales by 2011, said: “The green revolution has started and by 2020 green technology will have surpassed the car industry as well as the engineering sector in Germany.
Full Story FT.com / Energy – Europe looks to lead green revolution.
Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact
Companies look to join forces and freeze out Google
Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry.
The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.
However, the Financial Times has learned that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.
Full Story FT.com / Media – Microsoft and News Corp eye web pact.
Thousands Demand Closure of Fort Benning’s School of the Americas
This weekend, thousands of people gathered at the gates of Ft. Benning to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the killings of 14-year-old Celia Ramos, her mother Elba Ramos and the six Jesuit priests with whom she worked at the Central American University in San Salvador.
Nearly 5,000 people are gathered in the pouring rain according to Larry White, a protester who spoke to Truthout. Earlier in the day, following a rally featuring a performance by the Indigo Girls, activists participated in the yearly “presente march,” ending at Ft. Benning. During the march, activists carried crosses with the names of the victims of brutal repression in Central America. According to White, 50 of the marchers left the permitted route and are being threatened with arrest.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Thousands Demand Closure of Fort Benning’s School of the Americas.
Secret report: Blair misled public throughout 2002
Tony Blair covered up British military plans for a full Iraq invasion throughout 2002, claiming at the time that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change.” This and many other damning details are revealed in hundreds of pages of secret government reports obtained by The Sunday Telegraph.
Full transcripts include classified interviews with frustrated British Army commanders and Whitehall officials. Commanders wrote dozens of “post-operational reports” and the Army compiled two “overall lessons learnt” papers.
According to The Telegraph, the leaked report condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians. Coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation.
Blair’s lies to Parliament and the public, widespread problems with the Army’s supply chain and radio systems, and poor planning for “once Baghdad had fallen” are now confirmed in the public eye.
Full Story Secret report: Blair misled public throughout 2002 | Raw Story.
Nuclear radiation leaking at Three Mile Island
A radiation leak at Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in US history, has sent home about 150 workers, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported Sunday.
“They had an airborne radiological contamination alarm,” NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci told AFP. “They evaluated all the workers, a handful of workers — I don’t have a precise number — had contamination. They since have been decontaminated,” she said.
About 150 people work in the building where the leak occurred.
Screnci said what she called a “leak… happened at 4:00 pm Saturday (2100 GMT) and they resumed work in the contaminated building” near Middletown, Pennsylvania.
“There was no impact on public health safety and it does not appear to have an impact on the workers,” she said adding that “this kind of incident occurs once in a while.”
Full Story Nuclear radiation leaking at Three Mile Island | Raw Story.
Would-be Mexican president accuses ‘mafia’ of usurping government
Thousands of Mexicans rallied to show support for “shadow president” Manuel Lopez Obrador — who believes his country’s top job was stolen from him in 2006 — at the mid-point of his would-be presidential term.
A 56-year-old leftist former Mexico City mayor, Lopez Obrador’s hopes of leading this country of about 106 million were dashed (but not for long) when official results showed he lost the 2006 race by just some 230,000 votes.
He charges that a careful recount of the vote was carefully avoided by those who had the authority to duly pursue one.
Poised to emerge as a potential alternative to the conservative PAN party of President Felipe Calderon in 2012, Lopez Obrador has pushed on, day after day, insisting that he is, in fact, Mexico’s legitimate president.
He works out of an elegant office in an old mansion in Mexico City, in front of a portrait in which he is pictured wearing the presidential sash.
Full Story Would-be Mexican president accuses ‘mafia’ of usurping government | Raw Story.
Two Dozen Bankrollers-Turned-Ambassadors Bundled At Least $10 Million For Barack Obama
Like Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him, President Barack Obama continues to reward donors, fund-raisers and other loyalists with plum diplomatic posts.
Obama has now elevated 24 of his high-profile fund-raisers to diplomatic posts with the rank of ambassador following Monday's nomination of civic leader and campaign money bundler Beatrice Wilkinson Welters to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
By the Center for Responsive Politics' count, Obama has now nominated 99 people to represent the United States as ambassadors. These include ambassadors to foreign countries and more obscure top diplomats representing the nation to international organizations or championing issues such as war crimes prosecution, counterterrorism and AIDS.
The two-dozen bundlers elevated by Obama to serve in these diplomatic posts raised a minimum of $10.9 million for Obama's committees, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.
Since the Obama campaign only released information about its bundlers in broad ranges, this figure could be thousands, even millions, of dollars higher. The sum includes not only the dollar amount raised for Obama's 2008 presidential campaign committee, which you may view on OpenSecrets.org here, but also the amount bundled for his presidential inauguration committee, per the records maintained by Public Citizen.
Extinctions, Over-Population and the Profit Paradigm
Human activities are blamed for what may be Earth’s greatest extinction spasm. Of the five categories of these activities, global elites address purported over-population. Earth has between 12 and 18 billion arable acres. There are less than 7 billion people, each of whom requires a little over an acre to eat well. In seeking to protect the biosphere, elites focus on human population while ignoring their own environmentally destructive actions.
“Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?” Mathew 7:3
Mass Extinction Events
In 1992, Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson published The Diversity of Life. That was my first exposure to any chronicle of mass extinctions on Planet Earth. The book rocked my world, changed my consciousness and inspired me to finish college. The most shocking statistic in Diversity is the estimation that three species an hour are going extinct, and that was written 17 years ago. In a 2007 TED Talk, Wilson projects that Earth will lose half of all species by 2100.
Seven out of ten biologists believe that human activity is the cause of this latest – and greatest – extinction spasm. Wilson uses the acronym, HIPPO, to categorize these causes:
H – Habitat destruction, including climate change from greenhouse gases
I – Invasive species (thru global trade)
P – Pollution
P – Human population expansion
O – Over-harvesting (hunting and fishing)
Full Story Extinctions, Over-Population and the Profit Paradigm « COTO Report.
Political Malpractice
Brutal Class Warfare Disguised as Health Care ‘Reform’
It could have been the opening sketch for Saturday Night Live; all it needed was the “Live, from New York” tagline. But it was coming live from Washington, not New York, and the joke, brothers and sisters, was on you.
It has been called the most significant reform of health care since the adoption of Medicare in 1965, and the culmination of almost a century of struggle by progressives, liberals and social reformers.
Yes, there has been a lot of hype and hyperbole about the passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act by the House of Representatives late on Saturday night.
But far from being the single-greatest piece of social reform in decades, this bill, now sitting in the Senate awaiting debate, is a slickly-packaged act of brutal class warfare.
The bill seeks to make it possible for every person to have access to health care. It bans the ability of health insurance companies to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and it prevents them from using other legal tricks to deny people coverage.
What it does not do is prevent the insurance capitalists from using the oldest and most common trick in the book for denying care and coverage: pricing it out of range.
Full Story Political Malpractice.
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
By David DeGraw,
Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far?
Editor’s note: The following is an edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, “The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society.”
The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.
1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the middle class and poor much harder than the top 1 percent, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.
2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and just surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the government bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Bloomberg reported: “Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.
3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth
Full Story 15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet.
Third day of fee protests at California universities
Los Angeles, California (CNN) — Demonstrators entered their third day of a building takeover at UC Santa Cruz on Saturday in protest of a tuition increase, an undertaking that a school spokesman called futile.
The occupation of Kerr Hall is just one of several demonstrations across University of California campuses this week after the regent’s board approved a 32 percent increase in tuition Thursday.
University officials said the $505 million to be raised by the tuition increases is needed to prevent even deeper cuts than those already made due to California’s persistent financial crisis.
Protesting students said the increase will hurt working and middle-class students who benefit from state-funded education.
On the Santa Cruz campus, where building occupations began last week with a library sit-in, about 100 students staged a sit-in in the second-floor lobby of Kerr Hall soon after hearing that the tuition increase had been approved, according to UC Santa Cruz Provost David Kliger.
Full Story Third day of fee protests at California universities – CNN.com.
400-pound car bomb fails to detonate in Belfast
Northern Ireland’s police commander says Irish Republican Army dissidents left a 400-pound (180-kilogram) car bomb outside the police-reform headquarters in Belfast but the homemade device failed to detonate.
Chief Constable Matt Baggott said Sunday that the abortive attack on the Northern Ireland Policing Board represented an attack on the province’s entire peace process.
The explosives-laden car caught on fire but didn’t explode and caused no damage to the building, where a joint Catholic-Protestant panel oversees police operations.
Also Sunday, detectives arrested three suspected IRA dissidents on suspicion of involvement in a gun attack on a police patrol in the Northern Ireland border village of Garrison. Baggott said police returned fire, but nobody was hit.
Full Story The Associated Press: 400-pound car bomb fails to detonate in Belfast.
Glenn Beck’s Alternate History of the Statue of Liberty
Glenn Beck rally: The Villages retirement community in Florida, November 21, 2009 Glenn Beck describes an alternative vision of the history of creation of the Statue of Liberty
Full Story YouTube – Glenn Beck’s Alternate History of the Statue of Liberty.
Reid signals public option may be weakened
In a press conference after the Democrats successfully rounded up enough votes to break a Republican filibuster preventing debate on the party's healthcare overhaul proposal Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) signaled that members of his caucus are planning to water down the public insurance option originally proposed.
The so-called public option would create a government-run competitor to private insurers in some areas.
Responding to reporters' questions, Reid said: “I welcome [Sen.] Schumer, Landrieu and Carper’s work to get a public option acceptable to all Democrats.”
Firedoglake's David Dayen transcribed some of Reid's remarks after the Senate voted to begin debate on the healthcare bill.
Q: [Sens.] Lincoln (D-AR) and Lieberman (I-CT) don’t want a public option, what are you going to do?
Full Story Reid signals public option may be weakened | Raw Story.
OPS: You’re a coward Harry – Of course it will be weakened
A Peruvian Black Market in Human Fat?
Medical Experts Dispute Lima Police Claims That Gang Murdered Victims, Drained Fat From Bodies to Sell to Cosmetic Makers
A medical expert at Peru’s Medical College said on Friday that he found it highly unlikely that a gang of murderers could have been exporting their victims’ body fat for thousands of dollars, as was alleged by police.
Julio Castro, Dean of Peru’s Medical College in the capital Lima, said it was currently easy to obtain human fat through plastic surgery procedures such as liposuction, so he could not understand why anyone would be prepared to pay exorbitant prices.
“It doesn’t make sense that the (body) fat would be sold at prices of US$15,000 dollars a liter,” said Castro.
“Hundreds of liters of human fat are obtained every day at cosmetic clinics, and disposed of,” he added.
Full Story A Peruvian Black Market in Human Fat? – CBS News.
Lebanese general tells people, military to prepare for Israeli attack
Lebanese General Jean Kahwaj has ordered his troops on high alert, cautioning soldiers on the border region to prepare for an attack from Israel, according to published reports.
The comments first appeared in London-based Arabic language newspaper Alquds Alarabi, according to the Jerusalem Post.
“In a statement published in honor of Lebanon's Independence Day, the general said soldiers should prepare 'to handle what the Israeli enemy is scheming against the homeland, and to continue the battle against its violations – in the air, water, and land – with all the tools at our disposal,'” Ynet noted.
“Last week, a military court in Lebanon sentenced a Lebanese soldier and his wife to death, after the couple were found guilty of spying for Israel, Israel Radio reported,” the Post added. “The court also sentenced the defendant's sister and her husband, who are reportedly living in Israel, to death.”
Ynet continued: “IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi recently warned the Knesset that Hezbollah is currently armed with thousands of missiles, some of which could reach the southern city of Dimona.”
Full Story Lebanese general tells people, military to prepare for Israeli attack | Raw Story.
Senate bill includes the Botox tax
Senate bill includes the Botox tax
The bill levies a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery. The provision raises $5 billion and was needed to make the numbers work, according to a Democratic Senate aide.
The Finance Committee considered the tax but dismissed it, in part because it was a public relations battle that senators were not willing to wage
Read the provision after the jump. Page 2045
SEC. 9017. EXCISE TAX ON ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
(a) IN GENERAL.-Subtitle D of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended by this Act, is amended by adding at the end the following new chapter:
”CHAPTER 49-ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES ”Sec. 5000B. Imposition of tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures.
”SEC. 5000B. IMPOSITION OF TAX ON ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
”(a) IN GENERAL.-There is hereby imposed on any cosmetic surgery and medical procedure a tax equal to 5 percent of the amount paid for such procedure (determined without regard to this section), whether paid by insurance or otherwise.
Full Story Senate bill includes the Botox tax – Live Pulse – POLITICO.com.
Fighting Hunger in a Land of Plenty
Food Banks Are Busier Than Ever, as a Bountiful Harvest of Donations Goes to the Urgent Need of Helping Those Without
It has been a good year for food in America: A record soybean harvest, the second highest corn harvest ever, potatoes and apples . . . all up.
Good news for bad times. Because America is, more than ever, the land of the hungry.
Last week, the government said 49 million Americans are unsure of where their next meal is coming from. That is almost one in six . . . and 17 million of those are kids.
It’s a HUGE problem being met with a huge response.
We visited a warehouse run by Feeding America.
“This is BIG,” said Peterson, “but you have big all over the country?”
“If you think in terms of the top 10 metropolitan cities in the U.S., we have a food bank like this in all of those,” said feeding America’s CEO Vicki Escarra.
It runs out of a Chicago skyscraper, not a church basement, and its reach is nationwide.
“If you were to look at the fact that our network will deliver close to 3 billion pounds of food this year, you know, we are one of the largest grocery stores in the country,” Escarra said.
Full Story Fighting Hunger in a Land of Plenty – CBS Sunday Morning – CBS News.
Woman loses health insurance for smiling on Facebook
Facebook can be a double-edged sword, a Canadian woman learned when an insurance company cut her health benefits, claiming she was healthy after seeing pictures of her smiling in bikini at the beach.
Nathalie Blanchard, 29, took long-term sick leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, more than a year ago for severe depression. She was receiving monthly benefits from her insurance company, Manulife.
When Blanchard called Manulife to inquire why the payments dried up, the insurance company said that “I’m available to work, because of Facebook,” she told CBC television.
She said that Manulife cited several pictures Blanchard had posted on her social networking website page, including some showing her enjoying herself during a male strip-tease show at a Chippendales bar, celebrating her birthday and bathing in the sun.
Based on these postings, the firm claimed Blanchard was no longer depressed.
Full Story Woman loses health insurance for smiling on Facebook | Raw Story.
Clinton says he couldn’t attend health clinic because of Olbermann
Keith Olbermann is ruining America.
Or so suggested ex-president Bill Clinton, who told a blogger this week that he couldn’t attend a free medical clinic being paid for in part by supporters of the MSNBC television host because he had “politicized” the event.
Writes Firedoglake’s David Dayen:
Bill Clinton told FDL’s Eve Gittelson that it would be problematic for him to attend a free medical clinic being held in Little Rock, Arkansas [held Saturday] because MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had “politicized” the event.” He indicated that some were turning the event into a primary kickoff against Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
Eve ran into Clinton Thursday in the gift shop of the Clinton Library. She’s in Arkansas covering the Keith Olbermann’s free clinic event, organized by the National Association of Free Clinics. The former President is in town for the 5th anniversary of the Clinton Library.
Full Story Clinton says he couldn’t attend health clinic because of Olbermann | Raw Story.
OPS: Bill Clinton sold us all out to Corporations: NAFTA, GAT, WTO, Signing Glass-Steagle, Telecommunications Act. Fuck Bill Clinton and the intern he rode in on. Keith Olbermann is an American Patriot. Clinton is a Corporate Whore. Let’s hope Keith RIPS Clinton a new one on Monday
Don’t Confuse Real Healing With Suppression Of The Disease
Anyone who has taken a painkiller certainly knows that there is a big difference between temporary relief and real healing. Even though a person who takes a painkiller may not consciously feel pain, it is widely understood that this relief does not necessarily mean that a “cure” or a “healing” has occurred.
And yet, it is surprising how many people think that various conventional drugs have performed some type of miracle just because they provided short-term relief of pain or discomfort. Little do many people know that when a drug “works,” this may be the “bad news.” It may be that the drug works by suppressing the disease, thereby creating a much more serious physical and/or mental disease.
Although antibiotics and select other drugs may be an exception to this general observation, getting rid of an infection will not influence the immune factors that led the person to be susceptible to infection in the first place, and in fact, antibiotics are known to disrupt one’s inner ecology, disturb assimilation of nutrients, and even tend to make the person more susceptible to new infection (a future blog will deal more directly with this issue).
Full Story Dana Ullman: Don’t Confuse Real Healing With Suppression Of The Disease.
Coburn: No Negotiation Over Ensign Affair
“I Didn’t Help Negotiate Ensign Affair Pay-Off”
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., told me flatly that he did not offer to broker a million-dollar deal between his Senate colleague, John Ensign, R-Nev., and the family of Ensign’s mistress.
Doug Hampton, the husband of a staffer with whom Ensign had an affair, makes the explosive allegation in an interview with “Nightline’s” Cynthia McFadden that will air on Monday.
Here’s what Hampton told McFadden:
HAMPTON: Tom Coburn said, “What I would do, Doug, if I were you, is I would have them buy your home, give you a million bucks so you can start over, and that is what I am willing to help you negotiate.”
McFADDEN: And, what happened?
HAMPTON: John said: “No can do, not going to happen.”
Full Story Coburn: No Negotiation Over Ensign Affair – George’s Bottom Line.
U.S. Enlists Allies in New Surge
Americans Seek Up to 7,000 Extra NATO Troops for Ramp-Up in Afghanistan
The Obama administration is in advanced talks with its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies for a coordinated rollout of a new Afghan war strategy, which U.S. officials hope will include a commitment by European allies to send several thousand additional troops.
U.S. and European estimates of the new troops they may get from NATO allies vary from 3,000 to 7,000. Those would complement the additional U.S. forces Mr. Obama is considering; those options range from 10,000 to 40,000, but U.S. officials have said a combination of combat troops and training forces totaling 35,000 has gained the most momentum.
Arrangements haven’t been finalized, but coordinated announcements of new troops could come as soon as the week of Nov. 30. They are likely to include an address by the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, shortly after President Barack Obama unveils his strategy.
Full Story U.S. Enlists Allies in New Surge – WSJ.com.
1,500 Uninsured Arkansans Line Up For A Free Health Care Clinic
One out of every five people in Arkansas lacks health insurance coverage. However, today over 1,500 uninsured Arkansans received health care at a free clinic hosted by Communities Are Responding Everyday (CARE) at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock, which was made possible in part because of calls for donations by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. A wide variety of medical services, including physicals and screenings for such conditions as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, were provided at the clinic.
The Arkansas Times spoke both to volunteers and people waiting to receive care. Several of the volunteers expressed their enthusiasm to help their fellow community members, while at the same time feeling “ashamed” to be in a country where health care is still a privilege:
MAN: Well I came to get health. I do have diabetes and I haven’t been able to get healthcare since I lost my last job. And I am a student so it’s been a little difficult to get a full time job where I can get benefits. [...] I haven’t seen a doctor probably in three or four years. [...] I thank all of the volunteers.
WOMAN: I got laid off in 2008 and since I haven’t had insurance [...]
MAN: I don’t make really enough money to pay bills and have healthcare also. This is a good opportunity for me. And I haven’t really had a check up or anything in more years than I’d like to admit. [...] I’m really thankful.
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » 1,500 Uninsured Arkansans Line Up For A Free Health Care Clinic.
Sen. Lamar Alexander Repeatedly Calls Medicaid A ‘Medical Ghetto’
Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) railed against Medicaid, the health insurance program funded by both the federal and state governments for low-income Americans, by calling it a “medical ghetto” and blasting Democrats for proposing to expand the program:
– “We’ve heard eloquent statements about how moving 15 million low-income Americans into a program called Medicaid, which is a medical ghetto, is not health care reform.”
– “The governor of Tennessee, who is a Democratic governor, has estimated that the cost to our state of this bill — of moving 15 million Americans into this medical ghetto — is about $800 million over five years.”
– “Or arrogant in its dumping of 15 million low-income Americans into a medical ghetto called Medicaid that none of us, or any of our families, would ever want to be a part of for our health care.”
Watch it:
Full Story Think Progress » Sen. Lamar Alexander Repeatedly Calls Medicaid A ‘Medical Ghetto’.
Historic health care legislation moves forward for debate in the Senate.
The Senate voted along party lines tonight to avoid a GOP filibuster and move forward with debate on historic health care legislation. The final vote was 60-39, with Ohio Republican George Voinovich not voting. The AP reports that the “spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.” Full debate will begin after Thanksgiving.
Senate vote
Immediately after the vote, the White House put out a statement saying, “The President is gratified that the Senate has acted to begin consideration of health insurance reform legislation.” RNC Chairman Michael Steele complained that “a number of moderate Democrats sacrificed their principles to give Harry Reid a victory that brings America dangerously closer to having a government-run health care system.” Igor Volsky has been following tonight’s debate over on the Wonk Room.
Update On Wednesday, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported that Voinovich had planned on missing tonight's vote:
If the first procedural vote is delayed until Saturday, Voinovich won't be around Washington to participate. He's got an anniversary to observe — his 30th since being elected Cleveland's mayor in 1979 — and he's going to spend it with his old team. It's not that Voinovich's vote won't matter, but he's in the “no” column already, and Reid needs 60 “yes” votes just to move to the next procedure.
Full Story Think Progress » Historic health care legislation moves forward for debate in the Senate..
Glenn Beck Has A ‘Plan’ To Sell Books With March On Washington On The Anniversary Of MLK Speech
Glenn Beck Has A ‘Plan’ To Sell Books With March On Washington On The Anniversary Of MLK Speech
Yesterday, while promoting his latest book at “a festive campaign-style rally” in The Villages in Florida, Fox News host Glenn Beck announced that he was crafting “a 100 year plan” that will be “radical” and will “restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting.” In his speech, which Media Matters captured on video, Beck told his followers, “we need to start thinking like the Chinese“:
BECK: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years and I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about 100 years ago, beginning in the progressive movement. And they thought, “you know what, if we just do this and this and this and this, over time if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia.” Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100 year plan for America. A 100 year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.
Watch it:
Chris Wallace selectively quotes CBO analysis to suggest Senate health bill increases costs.
Chris Wallace selectively quotes CBO analysis to suggest Senate health bill increases costs.
This morning on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace selectively quoted the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the merged Senate legislation to suggest that the Senate health legislation would increase government outlays on health care over 20 years and bend the cost-cure upward:
WALLACE: According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period and the government-run health insurance plan would typically have premiums that were somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plan. So here’s the question. The Democratic plan by the CBO’s own scoring fails to bend the famous health care cost curve at all over the course of these 10 years, and could you name a single Congress that has ever cut Medicare by half a trillion dollars as this legislation would?
Watch it
Church bars Kennedy as war between church and state escalates over health bill
The Catholic Church, which heavily influenced and even authored language of the anti-abortion language in the health care bill in the House, in clear violation of the constitution, has escalated its war over the separation of church and state by barring Rep. Patrick Kennedy fromreceiving communion by Catholic Bishop of Rhode Island Thomas Tobin.
Tobin’s barring of Kennedy was the result of Kennedy’s criticism of the church for threatening to oppose health care reform unless it contained tighter restrictions on abortion.
The action by Tobin further re-enforces the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson and the Founders who wrote the establishment clause to insure that religious organizations were unable to have any official influence over the affairs of state. They specifically wanted to insure that the United States would never have anything like the Church of England which Jefferson specifically and the Founders generally wanted to keep out of the affairs of government because of their low opinion of the church.
It was Jefferson in his letters that specifically wrote that the establishment clause was designed to “build a wall” between the church and the government.
With Tobin denying Kennedy communion for his opposition to the church’s stance, it reveals the power the church is willing to use against members of its own congregation, especially those in goverment, to try and break down the wall erected by the constitution.
Full Story Church bars Kennedy as war between church and state escalates over health bill.
OPS: It’s time to revoke the 501C3 of the Catholic Church
This climate email-hacking episode is generating more heat than light
Another skirmish has broken out in the long-running battle between climate scientists and so-called sceptics, and this one is likely to lead to more public confusion
Another skirmish has broken out in the long-running battle between climate scientists and so-called sceptics, with the hacking of email messages between some of the world’s leading researchers on global temperature trends. But as usually happens in the blogosphere, this episode is generating more heat than light and is likely to lead to more public confusion over the causes of climate change.
For the past few years, a small group of climate change ‘sceptics’ have been poring over scientific journal papers that report historical trends in temperatures from around the world, as recorded by directly by thermometers and other instruments, and by ‘proxies’, such as tree rings. Their primary objective has been to seek out evidence that global warming has been invented by climate researchers who fake their data.
Among their main targets have been papers published by research teams led by Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University and Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia, and particularly those featuring the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, showing that average temperature in the northern hemisphere was relatively stable and constant for most of the last couple of millennia, but rose dramatically upwards in the last 100 years. This graph appeared prominently in the landmark Third Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, which concluded that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”.
Empire Building: US builds up its bases in oil-rich South America
US air force officers and Congressmen tour the Palanquero base in Puerto Salgar, Colombia, in August. The base is expected to host US air force counter-narcotics missions under the new bilateral dealFrom the Caribbean to Brazil, political opposition to US plans for 'full-spectrum operations' is escalating rapidlyThe United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development – and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it – is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.
The new US push is part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington’s political and economic tutelage. President Rafael Correa, for instance, has refused to prolong the US armed presence in Ecuador, and US forces have to quit their base at the port of Manta by the end of next month.
So Washington turned to Colombia, which has not gone down well in the region. The country has received military aid worth $4.6bn (£2.8bn) from the US since 2000, despite its poor human rights record. Colombian forces regularly kill the country’s indigenous people and other civilians, and last year raided the territory of its southern neighbour, Ecuador, causing at least 17 deaths.
Full Story US builds up its bases in oil-rich South America – Americas, World – The Independent.
POGO’s Request for Transparency to Revolving Door Database Denied
WASHINGTON – November 20 – Earlier this year, POGO urged the Obama administration to make a legislatively-mandated DoD revolving door database public. We also submitted a public comment urging government officials to do the same. Yesterday, DoD finalized that rule, but denied POGO’s request for public access.
In their explanation, DoD seemed to pass the buck over to over to Congress:
One source submitted comments on the interim rule. That source supported the rule and its objectives, but recommended that the central database/repository for retention of written ethics opinions, required by section 847(b), be made publicly available. DoD has not adopted this recommendation, as section 847 does not authorize access to the database by the general public.
The only problem with this reasoning is that Congress did not expressly deny public access to data — the law merely states that DoD create an ethics opinion database.
POGO wonders what the harm is in seeing a list of former government officials who are now working for defense contractors. We have campaign finance and lobbying disclosure – why not expose those circulating between the public and private sectors who might be a driving force behind government decisions and policies?
Full Story POGO’s Request for Transparency to Revolving Door Database Denied | CommonDreams.org.
Sober Up
Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, with video by Craig Harrington
Globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production looking for a country cheaper to produce.
Editor’s Note: Look what America has done to itself – the following article explains why our jobs have hemorrhaged. This article originally ran in 2008.
The following article was contributed by Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings, author of Making Government Work, and may not reflect the views or opinions of EconomyInCrisis.org. Feedback is welcome.
Few people realize that for the past fifty years the policy of the United States government has been to get rid of jobs.
Beginning with the Marshall Plan after World War II the government sent money, equipment and expertise to revive the economies of Europe and the Pacific Rim. In doing so, the U. S. called for open markets and “free trade.” Europe responded, but Japan never opened its market. Instead, Japan started a trade war for market share by closing its domestic market, subsidizing and selling its exports at cost, and making up the profit in the closed market. It worked. Today, Toyota is #1, while Ford, GM and Chrysler struggle. We have yet to force Japan to open its market. We in Congress tried, but numerous attempts to open Japan’s market and enforce our trade agreements were thwarted by the White House or vetoed by the president. Our attempts were all led by Corporate America to protect their investment and jobs in country. With the advent of NAFTA with Mexico and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, Corporate America gave up and joined production in China, India and Mexico. Jobs hemorrhaged. Two years ago Alan Blinder, the Princeton economist, estimated that the nation would lose thirty to forty million jobs in ten years to offshoring. The economy boat has sprung leaks from derivatives and credit default swaps. With stimulus, we bail as fast as we can to stop the leaks, but do nothing to plug the hole in the hull ripped by offshoring. Stimulation can be a total success and we’ll still loss more jobs than are created.
Fifty years ago, as Governor of South Carolina, I worked with the textile industry to save its jobs. Testifying before the old Tariff Commission, Tom Dewey representing Japan ran me around the room with calls for “free trade.” When we lost, I went to President John Kennedy, who promulgated his seven-point program to save textiles. But it wasn’t long before Japan was back at its tricks in trade, joined by Korea and China. China opened its market for foreign production in exchange for technology, but limited imports to things China didn’t produce. China’s control of its labor, safety, and currency and its failure to control the environment changed David Ricardo’s “comparative advantage” in international trade from productivity to government. Corporate America could compete with any company in the world, but not with any country. Globalization is nothing more than a trade war with production looking for a country cheaper to produce. What we have now is a trade war, without guns.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Japanese Miracle
Japan provides many fine examples of what a country can do if it is intelligently governed.
The tiny island nation of Japan provides many fine examples of what a country can do if it is not bogged down in futile wars and is intelligently governed. Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and China have copied Japan’s model and have become extremely successful.
The U.S. is a great country with enormous potential. However, mismanagement and poor economic decisions, have squandered the power and wealth that previous generations worked so hard to create. To put this in perspective, this is how the U.S. compares with a country as small as Japan:
• Japan only has 4 percent of our land mass (smaller than California) and is 90 percent mountainous and infertile.
• Japan has minimal natural resources – no oil, no coal, no iron ore, not even timber, just fish!
• To manufacture a product, Japan must import all of its required resources. Even after these expenses, they have a huge annual balance of trade surplus with the U.S. and has also accumulate one-third of the world's savings recorded in previous years.
• Few Americans realize that Japan generates on par or higher average wage rates than the U.S.
• The average Japanese family has a consistent yearly savings while the average American does not have any savings.
• Japan had a record $236 billion current account surplus (trade plus interest income and other receipts) with the rest of the world in 2007 – while the US had a record $731 billion balance trade deficit to the rest of the world during that same period.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
A Hopeless Situation
There will be no true recovery until the U.S. restores what has been lost to it over decades of degradation.
Despite a recent decline in stock prices, American markets are still in the midst of a rally which has lasted several months. The financial markets are not completely repaired from their collapse over the past two years, but a strong July has carried over into an impressive August and spurred many to believe that “recovery” is right around the corner.
There is one major problem with the idea that this economic decline is somehow flattening out or getting better. The United States still faces huge obstacles to its recovery that it has completely ignored.
The U.S. faces massive problems with its annual trade deficit and growing unemployment. Even with government stimulus programs, the economy continues to shed jobs. In July 247,000 more jobs were lost. This addition brings the total jobless rate since the recession began to roughly 7.5 milli
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
EPA: Uranium From Polluted British Petroleum Mine Found In Nevada Water Wells
Peggy Pauly lives in a robin-egg blue, two-story house not far from acres of onion fields that make the northern Nevada air smell sweet at harvest time.
But she can look through the window from her kitchen table, just past her backyard with its swingset and pet llama, and see an ominous sign on a neighboring fence: “Danger: Uranium Mine.”
For almost a decade, people who make their homes in this rural community in the Mason Valley 65 miles southeast of Reno have blamed that enormous abandoned mine for the high levels of uranium in their water wells.
They say they have been met by a stone wall from state regulators, local politicians and the huge oil company that inherited the toxic site – BP PLC. Those interests have insisted uranium naturally occurs in the region’s soil and there’s no way to prove that a half-century of processing metals at the former Anaconda pit mine is responsible for the contamination.
That has changed. A new wave of testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found that 79 percent of the wells tested north of the World War II-era copper mine have dangerous levels of uranium or arsenic or both that make the water unsafe to drink.
Full Story EPA: Uranium From Polluted British Petroleum Mine Found In Nevada Water Wells.
OPS: BP is destroying Lake Michigan also – with refinery waste
Is Rahm Emanuel Karl Rove’s retarded cousin?
I would submit that he is equally amoral as Karl Rove but less competent.
Rove at least seemed to have a coherent plan to keep his guy in office: smear and fear. Smear your critics, make the public and legislators fear terrorists and crossing Bush. While the corruption and incompetence of the Bushies at actually governing or conducting a war led to their eventual train wreck, Rove's smoke and mirrors were enough to get Bush into his second term.
By contrast, whatever political advice Rahm Emanuel is giving Obama seems solely designed to appeal to corporate patrons with little thought to how it will play with average Americans, particularly, no thought to how the public will react if the final form of health insurance reform is perceived as a gift to insurance companies instead of helping the rest of us.
It is really dishonest to say they are ''moderate'' or ''pragmatic'' when in reality, they are serving their corporate donors and future corporate employers rather than the wishes of their constituents.
Full Story Professor Smartass: Is Rahm Emanuel Karl Rove’s retarded cousin?.
How the Media’s Proud Know-Nothingism Helped Create the American Idiocracy
David Sirota
The term “idiocracy” means a nation run by idiots – and the term idiot is defined as “an utterly foolish or senseless person” and/or a “person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old.” There are many reasons to conclude that America has become a full-fledged Idiocracy – bad decisions after bad decisions after bad decisions really have suggested that the last decade has seen the ascension of utterly foolish, senseless people of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation.
And yet, as I show in my newspaper column out today, if there was still any shred of doubt that we had avoided becoming an Idiocracy, it was only fully snuffed out in the last week by David Broder and Jackson Diehl – two of the alleged “deans” of the Washington media intelligentsia.
Here is Broder attacking President Obama for taking the time to carefully consider whether to send an additional 40,000 American troops into an increasingly Vietnam-like Afghanistan quagmire:
The more President Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees…The urgent necessity is to make a decision — whether or not it is right.
That was followed by Diehl who made much the same argument in a subsequent column.
Full Story How the Media’s Proud Know-Nothingism Helped Create the American Idiocracy | The Smirking Chimp.
The Pit Bull in the China Shop
Frank Rich
AT last the American right and left have one issue they unequivocally agree on: You don’t actually have to read Sarah Palin’s book to have an opinion about it. Last Sunday Liz Cheney praised “Going Rogue” as “well-written” on Fox News even though, by her own account, she had sampled only “parts” of it. On Tuesday, Ana Marie Cox, a correspondent for Air America, belittled the book in The Washington Post while confessing that she couldn’t claim to have “completely” read it.
“Going Rogue” will hardly be the first best seller embraced by millions for talismanic rather than literary ends. And I am not recommending that others follow my example and slog through its 400-plus pages, especially since its supposed revelations have been picked through 24/7 for a week. But sometimes I wonder if anyone has read all of what Palin would call the “dang” thing. Some of the book’s most illuminating tics have been mentioned barely — if at all — by either its fans or foes. Palin is far and away the most important brand in American politics after Barack Obama, and attention must be paid. Those who wishfully think her 15 minutes are up are deluding themselves.
The book’s biggest surprise is Palin’s wide-eyed infatuation with show-business celebrities. You get nearly as much face time with Tina Fey and the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in “Going Rogue” as you do with John McCain. We learn how happy Palin was to receive calls from Bono and Warren Beatty “to share ideas and insights.” We wade through star-struck lists of campaign cameos by Robert Duvall, Jon Voight (who “blew us away”), Naomi Judd, Gary Sinise and Kelsey Grammer, among many others. Then there are the acknowledgments at the book’s end, where Palin reveals that her intimacy with media stars is such that she can air-kiss them on a first-name basis, from Greta to Laura to Rush.
Full Story Op-Ed Columnist – The Pit Bull in the China Shop – NYTimes.com.
Palin Confuses Iraq And Iran In Hannity Interview (VIDEO)
Sarah Palin picked celebrity interviewers and right-wing pundits for her book promotion tour, probably to avoid embarrassments like last year’s Katie Couric interview.
But even a friendly interview can be treacherous. In a sit-down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Wednesday night, the former Alaska governor confused Iraq and Iran several times.
Asked about how to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, Palin responded by suggesting we get tough with Iraq.
“We have allies who are as concerned about Ahmadinejad’s actions as we are,” she said. “Cutting off the imports into Iraq, of their refined petroleum products. They’re reliant … on those imports. We have some control over there. And some of the beneficial international monetary deals that Iraq benefits from, we can start implementing some sanctions there and start really shaking things up and telling Ahmadinejad, nobody is going to stand for this.”
Watch: :
Full Story Palin Confuses Iraq And Iran In Hannity Interview (VIDEO).
Report says nuclear plants are poisoning our water
Radioactive pollution double a decade ago, says Sierra Club
Nuclear facilities and power plants are contaminating local Canadian food and water with radioactive waste that increases risks of cancer and birth defects, says a new report to be released today.
The report, Tritium on Tap, produced by the Sierra Club of Canada, warned that radioactive emissions from various nuclear plants across the country have more than doubled over the past decade. The figures were based on statistics compiled by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission which measured pollution coming from the plants.
Although Canadian guidelines have suggested that the existing levels of tritium in the water are safe, the report cites recent peer-reviewed studies, including a recent review by the UK’s Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters, that suggest the opposite.
“Once in our body, tritium enters our DNA, fat, proteins and carbohydrates — and that is where it does its damage from close range,” said the Sierra Club report. “It is a carcinogen and causes birth defects.”
Full Story Report says nuclear plants are poisoning our water.
Moyers Message to Obama: Study History or Repeat its Mistakes
by Danny Schechter –
How LBJ Was Sucked Into Escalation In Vietnam And Why Its Happening Again
Elders are considered wisdom keepers in most of the world’s cultures, perhaps just not our own. They are repositories of important lessons, keepers of the collective memory, and as such, usually revered. In our own midst, in our own time, one man deserves all praises due for the role he’s chosen to play as the sage of the electronic stage, as our educator in chief, as the voice of the national conscience, as the best journalist on television.
His name is Bill Moyers and he proved again on Friday night why he is such a giant and national treasure.
On the very day that the world’s media honored one of their richest and most powerful TV brands, Queen Oprah, who announced “the show was my life” but that she was stepping down two years hence, Bill Moyers delivered one of the most important programs of his career in an effort to call our young President to account, to prevent another similar tragedy in the making. As she reveled in the headlines as a a celebrity goddess, he went back to work.
Alas, like Oprah, Moyers will also be stepping down next year, not in 2011. Who got all the media attention? Ms. O, not Mr. M!
Full Story Moyers Message to Obama: Study History or Repeat its Mistakes | CommonDreams.org.
Coal-Fueled Chamber Of Commerce Demands Lawmakers Defeat Health Reform In Order To ‘Stop’ Clean Energy Bill
Corporate front groups and large business trade associations are funneling their resources into defeating health reform. Even though health reform will lower costs for small businesses and boost worker productivity economy-wide, it appears that corporate entities influenced by major polluters are hoping that the defeat of health care legislation will slow President Obama’s agenda and derail their true enemy: clean energy reform.
The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, which is largely backed by the coal industry, candidly revealed this strategy in a letter released today to Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Robert Byrd (D-WV). The Chamber of Commerce demanded that the senators use “their clout and seniority” to obstruct the health reform debate until cap and trade legislation is taken off the table and the EPA is barred from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant. As Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette noted, Rockefeller has already rejected a similar proposal of blocking health reform unless the EPA stops reviewing mountaintop removal permits. The coal lobby has also pressured West Virginia state legislators to pass resolutions opposing clean energy reform.
The coal industry’s selfish push to block health reform displays how little it cares about West Virginia and the communities where coal is burned for energy. Not only do 19 percent of West Virginians lack health insurance, but coal is literally killing people:
Skeptics claim stolen emails prove global warming a hoax
Although arguments continue as to how much of recent climate change is natural and how much is man-made, only a few diehard skeptics doubt that the warming of the last few decades is real. Now, however, those skeptics can barely contain their glee at the release of a cache of stolen emails that they believe prove global warming is nothing but a colossal hoax.
“If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW,” one of these skeptics blogged on Friday. “The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. … This scandal could well be ‘the greatest in modern science’.”
According to a more sober account of the theft offered by the Guardian, the stolen files “were first uploaded on to a Russian server, before being widely mirrored across the internet. The emails were accompanied by the anonymous statement: ‘We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps. We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.’
…snip…
Perhaps the final word on the matter has already been offered by a spokesperson for Greenpeace, who told the Guardian, “If you looked through any organisation’s emails from the last 10 years you’d find something that would raise a few eyebrows. Contrary to what the sceptics claim, the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, Nasa and the world’s leading atmospheric scientists are not the agents of a clandestine global movement against the truth. This stuff might drive some web traffic, but so does David Icke.”
Full Story Skeptics claim stolen emails prove global warming a hoax | Raw Story.
Scientific Link to Autism Identified
During its research into the application of neuroscience in business, a New Jersey based think tank, The Center for Modeling Optimal Outcomes®, LLC (The Center) made an inadvertent and amazing discovery.
The Center examined the neuroscientific dynamics of logic and emotion in decision making while researching neuroscience in business. They found unique corollary relationships between various brain chemicals (neurohormones, neurotransmitters, etc.). This apparent pattern led to a new path of research for the team outside of business. By looking at extensive scientific literature they discovered a cascade of hormones that emanate from the brain (hypothalamus). This same pattern of correlations was again apparent throughout the cascade. The group added a research biologist and started to test the pattern on genes (proteins). It remained consistent. The Center then called upon advisors from chemistry and physics to see if the pattern would apply in physical sciences.
To the amazement of the group, it became apparent that this pattern of corollary relationships could be applied to scientific processes for maintaining equilibrium (homeostatic relationships) throughout all of science; from subatomic particles to chemistry as well as between biological substances.
While the entire scientific community knows that homeostasis exists, this tacit knowledge has not been converted into a step-by-step, replicable model. The Center identified precisely such an explicit process.
Challenged by several of The Center’s advisors, members of the team decided to test the efficacy of the model to determine if the disruptions that cause autism could be identified.
Full Story Scientific Link to Autism Identified.
Ninth Circuit Judge’s Order: DOMA unconstitutional
Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the Ninth Circuit in an order Wednesday seems to have declared the half of DOMA that declares that a same-sex marriage cannot be a marriage under federal law or for purposes of granting federal benefits unconstitutional, a violation of the equal protection component of the due process guarantee of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
I T had a diary on this order yesterday, but I don’t think it made it clear enough what the sweeping implications of this order are.
Read I T’s diary for the background of the order (or an article like this one in the L.A. Times, Judge orders compensation for gay couple who were denied healthcare, other benefits), but I here point out two passages from Reinhardt’s order that seem to me to declare that half of DOMA is unconstitutional.
First, there is this footnote 5 on page 10 of the order:
Full Story Daily Kos: State of the Nation.
Elizabeth Warren not sure the White House “gets it”
On Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan, Elizabeth Warren, head of the Congressional Oversight Panel reviewing TARP, shares her frustration with the gap between what TARP was supposed to be–a help for the American taxpayer–and what it has become: a swinging door of cash for the banksters. And now the bankers want TARP extended.
Copyright MSNBC 2009
Tim Geithner bailout stimulus Wall Street Goldman Sachs JP Morgan AIG dollar usdx Fed Federal Reserve fraud task force Is Wall Street making a comeback? hearing small business small businesses
Full Story YouTube – Elizabeth Warren not sure the White House “gets it”.
OPS: They get it – they just hope we don’t
Bill Moyers Retiring From Weekly Television
Bill Moyers is leaving weekly television.
The New York Times’ Elizabeth Jensen reports that the PBS newscaster is retiring from his Friday night program, “Bill Moyers Journal,” on April 30, 2010.
“Bill Moyers Journal” launched in April 2007.
Jensen reports that it was Moyers’ intention to retire at Christmas this year, but PBS asked him to stay on through April to help raise funds.
“I am 75 years old,” Moyers told Jensen. “I feel it’s time.”
Full Story Bill Moyers Retiring From Weekly Television.
OPS: This is a huge loss. All the best to you Mr. Moyers.
Unemployment By State In October (MAP)
Unemployment rates are up from this time last year in all 50 states, but recently the situation improved somewhat — employment increased in 28 states from September to October, the government announced on Friday.
In six states, there were statistically significant gains — including Michigan, which still has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 15.1 percent (down from 15.3 percent in September).
The overall picture is still bad — here’s a chart from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics with the breakdown:
Full Story Unemployment By State In October (MAP).
OPS: They still sem to be using the U3 figures rather than the more accurate, and depressing, U6. Click here for more details
New Consensus Views Stimulus as Worthy Step
Now that unemployment has topped 10 percent, some liberal-leaning economists see confirmation of their warnings that the $787 billion stimulus package President Obama signed into law last February was way too small. The economy needs a second big infusion, they say.
No, some conservative-leaning economists counter, we were right: The package has been wasteful, ineffectual and even harmful to the extent that it adds to the nation’s debt and crowds out private-sector borrowing.
These long-running arguments have flared now that the White House and Congressional leaders are talking about a new “jobs bill.” But with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working.
Full Story New Consensus Views Stimulus as Worthy Step – NYTimes.com.
Sen. Wyden wins big healthcare concession
Victory For Health Care Choice: Senate Bill Will Let People Leave Their Employers’ Plan For Better Option
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) have taken a long stride toward locking down the support of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
The three senators announced an agreement Friday on an amendment that would allow many more people who get health insurance at work to opt out and instead purchase coverage on the new health insurance exchanges the bill would create.
More important to the debate on the healthcare reform bill that would kick after Thanksgiving — presuming Senate Democrats unite to clear a procedural vote Saturday evening — is that the deal could quiet Wyden’s frequent complaints that the bill as introduced would do too little to offer consumers more health insurance plans from which to choose or to create a more competitive insurance marketplace that would drive down healthcare costs.
Full Story Sen. Wyden wins big healthcare concession – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
911 Trial coming to NY – Republicans Poop Their Pants
This seems to be one of those issues where we find the Party of Tea being against something only because President Obama is for it.
Rudy Giuliani makes it clear in this Daily Show video that in 2006 he was all for trying terrorists in New York City, gracefully speaking up for our country, our effective legal system and it being the ethical, moral and right thing to do. Three years later a full 180 that trying terrorists within our failed legal system is beyond abhorrent. What happened?
Right-wing lunatics Grover Norquist and Bob Barr have spoken UP FOR the civilian NYC trial, the Republican Mayor of NY is for it while the Democratic Governor is against it. The 911 families are split and Democratic MSNBC host Chris Mathews is against it.
This goes beyond partisan politics into the realm of irrational fear. That these terrorists are going to escape or be let go is beyond absurd. New York City is already the number one target of terrorists so it being any more so is just hand wringing silliness. Allowing the men to address their accusers in public and be given the legal rights the world expects from America is what we stand for.
Rep. Jackie Speier’s Tough Bank Amendment Passes With Room Nearly Empty
Don’t sleep on Jackie Speier. The freshman Democrat from California came into the House Financial Services Committee room Thursday ready to fight for her long-shot amendment to limit the leverage ratio for big banks.
“I expected a roll call vote,” said Speier, fresh off a star turn on the Colbert Report.
Lobbyists and committee staffers expected that the amendment — which would mandate that banks essentially could not lend out or invest more than 12 dollars for every dollar they keep in reserve -- would only get a roll call and that it’d be soundly defeated, bounced by a coalition of Republicans and bank-friendly Democrats, who call themselves “New Democrats.”
Instead, there were barely any lawmakers in their seats when her amendment came up during an all-day debate on comprehensive financial regulatory reform.
One of the two or three Republicans in the room asked for a roll call, but then quickly reconsidered and withdrew the request.
It passed by a unanimous voice vote.
Full Story Rep. Jackie Speier’s Tough Bank Amendment Passes With Room Nearly Empty.
Creating the Jobs America Needs
While financial markets believe the great recession is over, millions of Americans continue to struggle.
While financial markets believe the great recession is over, millions of Americans continue to struggle. Unemployment is 10.2 percent and the more inclusive measure, underemployment, is at17.5 percent. America’s jobs crisis is both a short-term and long-term challenge
A combination of circumstances brought us to this point. There’s been a long-termdecline in manufacturing jobs, which were replaced by employment in service industries: fathers who worked on Detroit’s assembly lines making buses saw their jobs disappear and their sons and daughters employed driving buses. The US shifted from producing goods to providing services.
At the same time, we became more consumption oriented and less inclined to save. There was a fundamental shift in our values: Americans increasingly took a short-term perspective, went into debt to finance their lifestyle, and placed primacy on self-interest rather than the common good.
Full Story OpEdNews – Article: Creating the Jobs America Needs.
Congress Urged to Take Tougher Stance on China
If China is allowed to continue amassing huge amounts of U.S. wealth, China will simply pour it back into the American economy, creating more bubbles that could burst and lead to economic calamity.
Massive trade imbalances caused by the mercantilist practices of the Chinese government were a major factor in the worldwide economic crisis, according to the new report conducted by a bipartisan commission.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission found in its seventh annual report that if the Chinese government stays on the same path that it is currently on economically, huge imbalances will grow even large and put the worldwide economy in danger of suffering an even deeper and broader meltdown.
“If China continues to pursue huge trade and investment surpluses and to accumulate vast financial claims, it will hinder the necessary global economic adjustment, create excess manufacturing capacity and lay the groundwork for the next financial crisis,” the bipartisan commission said in its annual report to the U.S. Congress.
According to the report, the U.S. must pressure China to reform through the World Trade Organization. However, the U.S. must use other means to force China to comply with trade agreements and international standards, including existing U.S. trade laws and regulations.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Angry supporters boo Palin for leaving in the middle of her book signing: ‘Quittin’ on the job!’
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin was in Indiana yesterday for a book-signing at a Borders store. One thousand lucky fans with wristbands to meet Palin stood in the rain all day waiting for her to arrive. However, Palin quit the event before she had the chance to sign all the books, leaving 100 supporters out in the cold:
“I’m very disappointed. I think it was very rude. She could have at least apologized, and she didn’t even do that,” said Teresa Hedrick. [...]
“We bought two books from Borders to have our receipt and our wristband to get it signed tonight,” said one woman. “My books are going back to Borders tomorrow.”
“We gave up our entire workday, stayed in the cold. My kids were crying,” said one man. “They went home with my wife. She was out here in the freezing cold all day. I feel like I don’t want to support Sarah.“
People who didn’t get to meet Palin “went home only with a piece of paper with Palin’s signature.” Video from the event shows angry wristband-holders loudly booing Palin and yelling, “Sign our books!” and “Quittin’ on the job!” Watch it:
GOP Lawmakers Complain About Revised Mammogram Guidelines While Opposing Requirements For More Tests
GOP Lawmakers Complain About Revised Mammogram Guidelines While Opposing Requirements For More Tests
On Wednesday, a group of women GOP lawmakers held a press conference to denounce a new recommendation by the federal Preventive Services Task Force that women receive mammograms less frequently. “This is how rationing begins,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). “This is the little toe in the edge of the water.”
“Women in particular may lose a great deal of clout in decision making,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). “We don’t know how far government will go in this bureaucracy,” she added, noting that they “want to empower women” and “want to have all the data on the table so individuals can make the best decision they can.”
On MSNBC this afternoon, Dr. Nancy Snyderman took Blackburn to task for getting the “public health message lost in the politics.” “Now, there’s nothing that came out of this panel recommending rationing,” said Snyderman. “Just a prudent use of screening tests.” When Blackburn tried to claim that the guidelines meant “bureaucrats deciding what they’re going to allow,” Snyderman pointed out that Blackburn was acting as a “bureaucrat” standing between patients and “the best possible evidence”:
New Birther Billboard In Colorado Features Picture Of Obama And Asks ‘President Or Jihad?’
Today, a new birther billboard went up above Wolf Automotive off I-70 in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. The sign has a picture of President Obama wearing a turban, asking, “President or Jihad?” and exhorting, “Wake up America! Remember Fort Hood”:
ThinkProgress spoke with Phil Wolf, the owner of the car dealership. He said that the billboard is his personal project because he believes the American people have a right to know the facts about the president:
I’m probably like a lot of other people that have asked the question, I want to know who our president is. And to date, I don’t think I know, I don’t think a lot of people know, I don’t think it’s ever been asked — answered. [...]
When this Fort Hood massacre occurred, and I saw the response of our Commander in Chief to this unbelievable, politically correct, nonsense — to me it was just enough. And I wanted to bring a little bit more attention to this thing, because to me it just wasn’t getting addressed.
Full Story Think Progress » New Birther Billboard In Colorado Features Picture Of Obama And Asks ‘President Or Jihad?’.
Why Is Congress Demonizing an Investigation of Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza? | World | AlterNet
By Bill Moyers
Goldston’s investigation is essential to the peace process in Israel and Palestine — and the Congress is trying to demonize it.
Recognition of human rights expert Richard
Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript of Bill Moyers’ must-read interview with Richard Goldstone, who accused both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas of war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during Israel’s invasion of Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 in his report submitted to the UN’s Human Rights Council. The Council offically endorsed the findings of the report. Early this November the House of Representatives voted 344 to 36, to condemn Goldstone’s report. As Human Rights Watch researcher Fred Abrahams writes, “The 179 Democrats and 165 Republicans who voted yea are helping to shield those responsible on both sides.”
Bill Moyers: There could not have been a more thankless job in the world this year than investigating allegations of war crimes between Israelis and Palestinians. You’re about to meet the man who shouldered that task after others had turned it down. And sure enough, he is at the center now of a raging controversy.
Judge Richard Goldstone was born and raised in South Africa, where he came to prominence investigating the vicious behavior of white security forces during apartheid.
In 1994, the UN named him to lead its investigation of war crimes in what was once Yugoslavia, including ethnic cleansing, the deadliest violence in Europe since the Second World War. That same year he was asked to prosecute genocide in Rwanda, where almost a million people were slaughtered. Goldstone went on to uncover Nazi war criminals hiding in Argentina, and to lead an independent inquiry into war crimes in Kosovo.
Full Story Why Is Congress Demonizing an Investigation of Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza? | World | AlterNet.
The War on Soy: Why the ‘Miracle Food’ May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare
Vegetarians aren’t the only ones who should be concerned; there’s soy in just about everything you eat these days — including hamburgers, mac ‘n cheese and salad dressing.
These days, you can get soy versions of just about any meat — from hot dogs to buffalo wings. If you’re lactose-intolerant you can still enjoy soy ice-cream and soy milk on your cereal. If you’re out for a hike and need a quick boost of energy, you can nibble on soy candy bars.
Soy is a lucrative industry. According to Soyfoods Association of North America, from 1992 to 2008, sales of soy foods have increased from $300 million to $4 billion. From sales numbers to medical endorsements, it would seem that soy has reached a kind of miracle food status.
In 2000 the American Heart Association gave soy the thumbs up and the FDA proclaimed: “Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease.” Over the course of the last decade medical professionals have touted its benefits in fighting not just cardiovascular disease, but cancers, osteoporosis and diabetes.
But soy’s glory days may be coming to an end. New research is questioning its health benefits and even pointing out some potential risks. Although definitive evidence may be many years down the road, the American Heart Association has quietly withdrawn its support. And some groups are waging an all-out war, warning that soy can lead to certain kinds of cancers, lowered testosterone levels, and early-onset puberty in girls.
Full Story The War on Soy: Why the ‘Miracle Food’ May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare | Water | AlterNet.
How we discovered Verizon’s Spamdetector could be twisted into a disguise for censorship!
Sibel Edmond
A kind of “No Fly” list for emails
We had just emailed the link to our interview discussing the ‘real’ history of Afghanistan on Sibel Edmond’s boilingfrogspost. As soon as it was emailed a Verizon response spit back immediately with a notice declaring the email we had just sent was spam. When the culprit turned out to be our friend Sibel’s website we called Verizon to clear up the problem. This was clearly not spam and should be easily reinstated, we thought. While a very chatty employee attempted and failed to fix our problem, we innocently asked how can we get this address back in business. That is when the real fun began. According to the laws of Verizon Central, once you’ve been labeled spam, there is only one course of action and it goes like this:
1. Verizon uses an unnamed third party who decides what is spam.
2. This unnamed third party also reviews complaints like ours.
3. We were told to send the “offending” email to spamdetector.update@verizon.net.
4. The unnamed third party would make a secret decision within 24 hours.
5. If the unnamed third party decides it is spam, regardless of our complaint we will not hear back.
That’s it. There is no recourse to challenge the decision. There isn’t even a confirmation that the email we sent to this third party was received at all. Of course, after 24 hours we still couldn’t send out an email containing the link.
Then it dawned on us, the Verizon employee’s automoton behavior was reminiscent of a 2004 Hollywood comedy titled, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galexy. The film’s plot involves a race of Vogons who run the Vogon homeworld planet just the way Verizon Central is run.
Full Story Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority.
What Palin’s “Jewish people will be flocking to Israel” statement really means
Stumping for her new autobiography, Sarah Palin has made a round of interviews with high profile media figures such as Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. In the Walters interview Palin justified her support for expansion of Jewish settler enclaves on Israel's West Bank with a strange prediction. Walters asked, “Now let's talk about some issues – the Middle East. The Obama Administration does not want Israel to build any more settlements on what they consider Palestinian territory. What is your view on this ?” Palin responded, “I disagree with the Obama Administration on that. I believe that, um, the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.”
Why might Palin's prediction come to pass ? In the 1920's and 1930's, rising anti-Semitism was propelled, in part, by conspiracy theories alleging that Jewish bankers such as the Rothschild banking family controlled both the German and world economies through the manipulation of global money markets. Leaders in Sarah Palin's religious tendency have for years been promoting extremely similar conspiracy theories. Some of these allege that the Rothschild banking family heads an international conspiracy that dominates much of the world economy and controls the U.S.economy through the Federal Reserve.
In the 1980's and 1990's that conspiracy theory was folded into a apocalyptic meta-conspiracy narrative claiming that Jews and “Illuminati” controlled, or were close to controlling, the US government and were plotting to implement a “New World Order.” The narrative went on to claim that the Jewish/Illuminati conspiracy was imminently ready to call up hundreds of thousands of foreign troops hidden on US army bases and in National Parks, who would round up patriotic Christians and pack them into trains which would bring them to internment camps where, in some versions of the narratives, those Christians would be slaughtered via machine guns, guillotines, ovens, or poison gas.
Full Story Talk To Action | What Palin’s “Jewish people will be flocking to Israel” statement really means.
NEW CONFLICT IN JFK CASE: KENNEDY AND FORD FAMILIES TRYING TO KEEP IT BURIED
Book Publisher to File Federal Suit For Release of Secret JFK Assassination File
Washington DC, November 2009–During the week that marks the anniversary of the JFK assassination, presidential historian and publisher of presidential memoirs announced (at a national press conference held in Washington DC on Monday, Nov 16th) that he will file a lawsuit against the federal government calling for the release of the remaining secret documents relating to the death of President John F. Kennedy.
Tim Miller, president of publishing company FlatSigned Press, had the privilege of being authorized to produce the final memoirs of the late President Gerald R. Ford—the last surviving member of the Warren Commission, which was assembled by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the JFK Assassination. Ford always stated publicly that he stood behind the findings of the Warren Commission even after other members of the same commission admitted that they believed the report was flawed and did not give the whole truth. Additionally, President Johnson, Nixon and even the US Congress have stated that it was flawed and that the US Congress believed there was a conspiracy.
In this final book, a collector’s book hand-signed by former President Ford with only 3000 copies ever printed, Ford either deliberately or accidentally included hidden clues or conflicts with the official Warren Commission Report including confirming the role of at least one CIA employee in hiding and destroying information regarding the assassination even though the Warren Commission reported that the CIA did NOT destroy anything.
Shortly after the release of Ford's final book entitled, President John F. Kennedy: Assassination Report of the Warren Commission, this historical collector’s book became extremely controversial; Ford had three years to correct his words and the official record before his death, yet he instead gifted over 100 copies of the book to his close friends and family including Vice President Dick Cheney.
After President Ford died on December 26, 2007, Miller received an unsolicited email from a retired anchorman requesting a face-to-face meeting. During that meeting, Miller was told that the Kennedy family did NOT want the files opened and asked that Miller stop pushing the issue, which rang of an attempted cover-up even after 45 years.
The new information had left both the Ford family and Kennedy families feeling uncomfortable and now, along with the help of a Michigan newspaper, they are casting doubt on Ford’s book. Additionally, in that news story, the Ford family references the book and says it is in the hands of their lawyers and implied and/or are threatening to sue Miller and his company for fabricating the whole thing; even though Miller, his staff and the staff of President Ford spent countless hours working with the late President Ford on the book.
Mr. Miller has a written contract, which is signed by Ford, Miller and a third-party witness, Penny Circle, who at the time was President Ford's Chief of Staff and is now Chief of Staff for Mrs. Ford. In addition, each of the 3000 books include an original photograph of President Ford signing the special, signed page and Penny Circle is pictured in each of these original photographs.
“I was not a believer in conspiracy theories until I began working with Ford and his staff on his final book, said Miller. “As I began reading what President Ford had written, flaws and carefully worded statements seem to jump out at me that supported facts, which had been presented by many others surrounding the JFK assassination,” adds Miller.
Because this is the first anniversary of the assassination since the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy, whom Miller believes has quietly blocked the release of the file, he believes this is the year to push for the release of the documents. During Mr. Miller’s press conference, he shared revealing information from the book, from his personal conversations with the late President Ford as well as the important information that Ford demanded be cut from the unpublished manuscript immediately prior to going to print. He also proved the legitimacy of the book by sharing copies of his signed contract with Ford. Then he announced his recent filing of a FOIA request demanding the release of the JFK Assassination Files from the CIA in addition to his plans to file a lawsuit against the federal government. Miller also discussed how he sees the releasing of the JFK files as a great way for Obama, within his first official year of presidency, to deliver on his promise of a new era of an “open government.”
Full Story NEW HISTORIC CONFLICT IN JFK CASE.
Black Caucus Stalls Finance Overhaul
In one of the clearest examples of how the weak economy is overtaking Obama administration priorities, the Congressional Black Caucus forced the House to shelve its revamp of financial-sector regulation for two weeks.
According to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), members of the caucus revolted on the grounds that their constituencies weren’t allowed sufficient participation in Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. programs, such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program or FDIC oversight of failed bank assets.
They also complained more broadly that the administration wasn’t doing enough to create jobs for low-income people or preserve minority-owned institutions such as radio stations, lending companies and jobs programs, a person familiar with the issue said.
There are 10 members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Mr. Frank’s committee, and their promised bloc vote against the bill could have torpedoed it.
Full Story Black Caucus Stalls Finance Overhaul – WSJ.com.
Vietnam Vet Stages Hunger Strike in Front of White House to Raise Awareness About PTSD
Since Veterans Day, Thomas E. Mahany, a 62-year-old Vietnam War veteran, has been on a hunger strike in front of the White House to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder and protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mahany recently wrote a letter to President Obama calling on him to “withdraw our military men and women from the Middle East now.” He said he plans to only drink water “until specific action is taken by your administration and our military to stem the tragic and ever-increasing rise in the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)” that has seen a meteoric rise over the years among those serving in the military.
Earlier this week, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, told reporters that suicides among veterans and active-duty soldiers have already reached a record high this year and show no signs of abating.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Vietnam Vet Stages Hunger Strike in Front of White House to Raise Awareness About PTSD.
Give churches a choice: give up tax exempt status or give up lobbying
For far too long many religious groups, most recently and most visibly the Catholic Church, have tried to have it both ways. They avail themselves of the constitutional separation of church and state to avoid paying taxes on their secular investments, and then violate the separation of church and state by maintaining a strong lobbying group in Washington to influence legislation.
Recently it became known that the Catholic Conference of Bishops was instrumental in authoring the anti-abortion amendment attachd the to House health care bill, a clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. And its a perfect example of a religious institution trying to have it both ways.
Financially, the church for years has operated like a huge multinational corporation with extensive real estate holdings, stock holdings and other secular investments generating huge income streams for which they pay no taxes. Exempting religious organizations from taxes on contributions and donations is one thing. Exempting them from capital gains taxes on secular stock investments is another. But the church as do other religious institutions, claim tax exempt status based on the doctrine behind the First Amendment establishment clause.
Full Story Give churches a choice: give up tax exempt status or give up lobbying.
Out-of-Control Rick Perry Overrides Rare Clemency Vote, Executes Man Who Killed No One
The TX Board of Pardons voted to spare the life of Robert Lee Thompson, who took part in a robbery that led to a murder. The killer is serving life. Perry chose to kill him anyway.
Rick Perry is out of control.
Even as the controversy over his execution of an innocent man goes unresolved, last night the Texas Governor rejected a rare clemency recommendation from the state Board of Pardons and Paroles for a man facing execution for a murder he did not commit.
Robert Lee Thompson was an accomplice in a violent convenience store robbery in Houston in 1996, when his co-conspirator fatally shot the sales clerk, a man named Mansoor Bhai Rahim Mohammed. Thompson himself fired shots that wounded Mohammed, but it was his partner, Sammy Butler, who pulled the trigger that would leave him dead. Butler was tried and sentenced to life. A different jury found Thompson guilty and sentenced him to death.
Thompson was sentenced under Texas’s Law of Parties, a cynical legal statute that allows multiple parties to be found guilty of the same crime, even if they did not directly participate in it. Similar to other felony murder statutes, Texas’s law states that “if, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it.”
America’s failed model for the world
Europeans keep asking me, has America lost its mind? From healthcare to its economy, the US is looking merely average
Europeans are shaking their heads over their American friends again. Whether talking to people in the street, in the cafés or to journalists or political leaders, everyone here asks me the same question: Has America lost its mind? Town halls filled with angry citizens, shouting at their elected leaders, some of them armed with guns and threatening signs? Besides the media spectacle of these neo-1776 revolutionaries, what is doubly perplexing to Europeans is the focus of the protests: healthcare.
What’s strange to a European is that everyone here already has healthcare. The place that Donald Rumsdfeld once sneeringly called “old Europe” long ago solved this dilemma, producing quality healthcare for a fraction of the price that Americans pay. Many Europeans are astonished when they find out that 47 million Americans – larger than the populations of most European nations – don’t have any healthcare at all except a hospital emergency room.
Contrary to stereotype, most of Europe doesn’t use single payer, with France, Germany and others having evolved a “third way” that combines individual choice with private, nonprofit insurance companies and Medicare-like cost controls. Even countries like Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia, with per capita incomes only a fraction of that in the United States, have healthcare for all their people. Europeans simply don’t understand how a wealthy United States could remain the last advanced nation that does not have universal healthcare.
Full Story America’s failed model for the world | Steven Hill | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
Thom confronts Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas on the Christian bootcamp
“Spiritual Warfare” for Teenagers?
Thom Hartmann
Is health care for women under attack?
Women pay approximately 48% more for health care than do men in the United States. Even after paying high health care premiums to health insurance companies, women are sometimes denied coverage of pregnancy and childbirth care because it is deemed a pre-existing condition.
In the latest form of the health care reform bill, Bart Stupak, (D), MI., proposed an amendment that would exclude abortion care and treatment from health insurance for women, not just government funded health care such as Medicare or a public option but by any private health care insurance company as well. The Stupak amendment passed and if it isn’t cut from the bill, women will find themselves with few choices.
While the latest version of the health care bill promises to prohibit the practice used by private health insurers of charging women up to 48% more in health care premiums than their male counterparts, the Stupak amendment eliminates rights that women currently have to buy insurance coverage that would provide abortion services. It isn’t a fair tradeoff; women will have to give up certain rights to finally gain equal footing with men on the cost of health insurance premiums.
Coming just days after the Stupak amendment was voted on and passed, a private sector task force commissioned by the Health and Human Services division of the U.S. government announced that it would recommend that physicians forego advising female patients under the age of 50 to have annual screening for breast cancer. The U.S. Preventative Service Task Force (USPSTF) panel of 16 included three private health insurance company representatives but no oncologists. The panel measured some number models and came up with the recommendation, ostensibly because of a higher number of ‘false positives’ among women under 50, causing anxiety and sometimes, unnecessary followups and testing.
Full Story Is health care for women under attack?.
Three patients with drug-resistant H1N1 died
North Carolina public health officials said Friday that three of four patients at Duke University Hospital with a drug-resistant form of the H1N1 flu virus have died.
The adult patients, treated in an isolated unit of the hospital over the last six weeks, tested positive for a mutation of the virus that was resistant to the drug Tamiflu, one of two medicines that help against H1N1.
Health officials said the cases were rare and that the patients were very ill with underlying compromised immune systems and multiple other complex medical conditions. It is not clear whether their deaths were related to the flu infections.
Full Story Three patients with drug-resistant H1N1 died :: WRAL.com.
SC lawmakers to take up impeachment of governor
South Carolina lawmakers plan to formally consider impeaching Gov. Mark Sanford for the first time next week, the chairman of the committee beginning that work said Friday.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Harrison told The Associated Press he is appointing an ad-hoc committee of four Republicans and three Democrats who will begin meeting Tuesday. He said he expects to have a resolution to impeach ready before Christmas for the full Judiciary Committee to consider.
Sanford spokesman Ben Fox declined to comment.
Sanford attorney Butch Bowers said his firm is representing Sanford in the impeachment hearing and “we look forward to cooperating with the House throughout this process.”
Sanford, a Republican, left the state for five days in June to rendezvous with his Argentine lover. Since he returned and tearfully confessed the affair, he has faced questions about his travel and whether he should be removed from office for misconduct. He has resisted calls to resign.
The meeting is to take up the issue at the heart of an impeachment resolution that four Republicans filed this week. It says Sanford left no one in charge of the state, a dereliction of duty, while he “directed members of his staff in a manner that caused them to deceive and mislead the public officials” about where he was. His staff told reporters he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Full Story AP News : LimaOhio.com.
Biodiversity loss is Earth’s ‘immense and hidden’ tragedy, Darwin’s ‘natural heir’ warns
Problem of biodiversity loss has been ‘eased off centre stage’ by focus on climate change, according to Prof Edward Wilson, the ecologist described as ‘Darwin’s natural heir’
The diversity of life on Earth is undergoing an “immense and hidden” tragedy that requires the scale of global response now being deployed to tackle climate change, according to one of the world’s most eminent biologists.
Prof Edward Wilson, an ecologist who has been described as “Darwin’s natural heir” and hailed by novelist Ian McEwan as an “intellectual hero” and “inspirational” writer, told the Guardian that the threat was so grave he is pushing for the creation of an international body of experts modelled on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC, which is credited with convincing world leaders that the threat from climate change is real, includes about 2,500 scientific expert reviewers from more than 130 countries and was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2007 along with Al Gore. Wilson’s proposed organisation – which he names the Barometer of Life – would report to governments on the threats posed to species around the world.
John McCain Could Lose Senate Primary To Tea Party Supporter
Rasmussen announced a new poll on Friday showing Senator John McCain may be in trouble at home where a polarized electorate has him facing constant criticism from both the left and the right.
The poll shows McCain tied with former Congressman and current talk radio host J.D. Hayworth in a hypothetical Republican primary. Hayworth, who has become an outspoken local hero among immigration-control activists, lost his House seat to Rep. Harry Mitchell (D) in 2006. Since then, Hayworth has promoted the Tea Parties on his radio show and has spoken at Tea Party events, including the April 15 rally in Phoenix. Hayworth has expressed interest in running but has been tight-lipped on whether or not he intends to actually file as a candidate against McCain.
Rasmussen has McCain at 45% and Hayworth at 43% (4% margin of error). Although McCain's loudest opponents from the right usually cite immigration as the key issue, Minutmen founder Chris Simcox only reached 4% in the poll. According to the poll, Hayworth is more popular overall among the GOP, especially among the younger GOP sect. McCain fares better with females and moderate Republicans.
Full Story Dawn Teo: John McCain Could Lose Senate Primary To Tea Party Supporter.
CREW Files FEC Complaint Over Landrieu’s $23,500 ‘Donation’ To The U.S. Treasury
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commision over a mysterious $25,300 “donation” to the U.S. Treasury by Senator Mary Landrieu’s campaign committee. The Louisiana Democrat’s campaign made no announcement when it donated the funds in August 2008.
“We all know politicians don’t give up campaign contributions — much less $25,000 — without a very good reason,” said CREW executive director Melanie Sloan in a statement. “It appears Sen. Landrieu’s reason may have been to avoid a scandal or, even worse, a federal investigation into some of her contributions.”
Marc Elias, a lawyer for Landrieu’s campaign, wrote in an e-mail to the Huffington Post: “This is a silly complaint. Unfortunately FEC rules don’t prevent frivolous complaints; nonetheless, it will ultimately be dismissed.”
Full Story CREW Files FEC Complaint Over Landrieu’s $23,500 ‘Donation’ To The U.S. Treasury.
Small Town To Liz Cheney: We Want Gitmo Detainees, Not Your Fearmongering
Officials in a small Michigan town featured in a new video about Guantanamo by Liz Cheney’s national security group want her to know that they’re not falling for her “fearmongering” — and tell us they want Gitmo detainees in their town.
Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, has released a short documentary starring several residents of little Standish, Michigan, slamming the Obama administration over a proposal to transfer some Guantanamo detainees to the town’s maximum security facility, one of several facilities being discussed.
The vid, which is below, ominously warns that unnamed “politicians” want Gitmo detainees placed in their “small farm town,” without saying who the politicians are or whether they’re Federal or local. A resident says those politicans “aren’t listening to us little people in Standish.”
But Standish’s City Manager tells us that local leaders and residents want the facility, and dismissed Cheney’s efforts as “fearmongering.”
Full Story Small Town To Liz Cheney: We Want Gitmo Detainees, Not Your Fearmongering | The Plum Line.
U.S. losing its lead in space, experts warn Congress
America’s once clear dominance in space is eroding as other nations, including China, Iran and North Korea, step up their activities, a panel of experts told the House subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics Thursday.
“Others are catching up fast,” said Marty Hauser, vice president for Washington operations at the Space Foundation, an advocacy organization headquarters in Colorado Springs. “Of particular note over the past decade is the emergence of China’s human spaceflight capabilities.”
Russia now leads the world in space launches. China recently became the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to send its own astronauts out for a spacewalk.
Full Story U.S. losing its lead in space, experts warn Congress | McClatchy.
The “Double Dip Economic Depression”
by Danny Schechter -
Why the President Warns of a Deeper Drop, Not a Recovery
When I was a kid, a “double dip” was an ice cream cone with two scoops. Yummy,
Today, the same expression is being used to warn us that the recession we are still struggling with could, and is supposedly posed for recovery could fall even deeper into another dip. That d word seems to be a substitute for another—a depression.
What’s going wrong? Isn’t the stock market sailing high? Hasn’t GM managed to cut its losses to only a billion? Isn’t Goldman Sachs setting aside “ a half a billion dollars to help small business and show how sorry it is for its role in the financial meltdown? (That pay out is over ten years—just 2.6% of its bonus pile, but who’s counting. A half a billion still sounds like real money.
To hear Joe Bidden tell Jon Stewart how many jobs were created or saved, you would almost think it’s all under control. That’s what they want is to believe: we are on the way back, baby because the big dicks are swinging on Wall Street again.
And yet, when you read between the lines and figure out how to decode the lies and cheerleading, another picture emerges.
A Double Dip is not that remote.
There are Structural problems like a growing wall of debt that try as you might cannot all be blamed on The Democrats if you are of the other persuasion or on the Repugs if you stand with the Donkeys.
Full Story The “Double Dip Economic Depression”.
New Missouri billboard tells Americans to ‘prepare for war’ against the government.
New Missouri billboard tells Americans to ‘prepare for war’ against the government.
Fired Up! Missouri points out that the Lafayette County Republican Central Committee is highlighting a new billboard in the state with steps for a “citizens guide to revolution of a corrupt government“:
Missouri GOP Billboard
This billboard replaces one that warned that the socialist “Obama-Nation” is “coming for you.” It’s unclear who the owner of the billboard is, but the first one was the work of a “Missouri businessman.” (HT: Oliver Willis)
Full Story Think Progress » New Missouri billboard tells Americans to ‘prepare for war’ against the government..
Martin Wolf – FT – Tax the windfall banking bonuses
Windfall taxes are a ghastly idea. They are a sop to prejudice, a burden on risk-taking and a form of arbitrary confiscation. No sensible person should support them. So why do I now find the idea of a windfall tax on banks so appealing? Well, this time, it really does look different.
First, all the institutions making exceptional profits do so because they are beneficiaries of unlimited state insurance for themselves and their counterparties. As Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England argues, the state has “become the last resort financier of the banks”.* In the UK, total support amounted to a staggering 74 per cent of gross domestic product. These must be the largest business subsidies ever.
Second, the profits being made today are in large part the fruit of the free money provided by the central bank, an arm of the state. The state is giving the surviving banks a licence to print money.
Full Story FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf – Tax the windfall banking bonuses.
-
Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
-
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
