Archive for November, 2009
1 in 6 Americans goes hungry
Government report shows 15% of Americans had trouble putting food on the table — a record high.
The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday.
The Department of Agriculture report, which has been released annually since 1995, said the number of Americans that were hungry rose to 14.6%. In 2007, 13 million households or 11.1% of Americans had trouble getting enough food.
The one-year jump is all the more significant, given the number of hungry Americans had never been higher than 11.9% since these surveys began.
Of the near-15% of the nation that couldn’t secure enough food last year, the USDA said one-third of them had “very low food security,” meaning they reduced the amount that they ate or disrupted their eating patterns during the year. That group made up 5.7% of all U.S. households, which was also a record high.
via 15% of Americans have trouble putting food on table – Nov. 16, 2009.
Ten-year-old refuses to recite pledge until gays allowed to marry
Ten-year-old Will Phillips may have just become the new cause célèbre of the gay rights movement.
It all started when he refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in a West Fork, Arkansas elementary school.
Speaking to CNN’s John Roberts on Monday, Will said he remained seated four straight days while his classmates repeated the words, “with liberty and justice for all.”
“I was analyzing the meanings of it, because I want to be a lawyer,” he said. “… There isn’t really liberty and justice for all. There’s … Gays and lesbians can’t marry. There’s still a lot of racism and sexism in the world. Yeah.”
Eventually, the substitute teacher started giving Will “grief” over his refusal to repeat the words. “What did you say to that teacher?” Roberts asked.
via Ten-year-old refuses to recite pledge until gays allowed to marry | Raw Story.
Obama lawyers to Democrat alleging political prosecution: Go back to jail
.Go back to jail.
That’s the message from Obama administration lawyers to former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, whose case became a cause célèbre among Bush administration critics as ground zero of alleged political prosecutions.
The seeming disconnect between Obama’s team and numerous Democrats — including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr., who’s investigated Siegelman’s case — may be because President George W. Bush’s US Attorney in Alabama is still in office. Democrats still haven’t settled on a replacement, some eleven months after Obama’s inauguration.
In advice to the Supreme Court made public early this week, Obama’s Justice Department stood firmly behind the position of Bush US Attorneys who won Siegelman’s conviction on bribery charges in 2006. The two US Attorneys connected to the case were Bush appointees — whose numerous conflicts of interest were documented in the Raw Story series, “ The Permanent Republican Majority,” which received a nomination for best investigative reporting by the Online News Association in 2008.
Swiss to divulge details of US tax cheats
US clients of UBS with more than 250,000 Swiss francs (165,641 euros, 248,040 dollars) in assets could have their details turned over to US tax authorities if there is proof of fraud, Swiss authorities said on Tuesday.
For those who have simply not disclosed their accounts, their records would only be provided to US tax authorities if the account held more than one million francs at any time between 2001 and 2008, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said here.
In addition, Switzerland may also provide details on undeclared accounts that generated more than 100,000 francs every year over a period of three years, it added, publishing details of a deal between Washington and Bern.
UBS, and the US and Swiss governments, in August signed agreements ending months of diplomatically sensitive negotiations over a massive US probe of taxpayers with secret accounts at the world's largest wealth manager.
Under the out-of-court settlement for a lawsuit, UBS agreed to disclose up to 4,450 names of American clients to US tax authorities.
via Swiss to divulge details of US tax cheats – Yahoo! News.
Why Won’t Obama Give You a Job?
Working Americans continue to suffer from the worst financial crash since the Great Depression, and Washington has so far offered up only band-aids to help them out — extended unemployment benefits, small stimulus checks and deeply flawed mortgage relief programs that have done little to stem the tide of foreclosures.
The stimulus plan passed earlier this year appears to have been too modest in scope, as many economists warned at the time. While it helped halt the economy’s free-fall collapse, unemployment still topped 10.2 percent last week, and analysts warn us that “bleak data point to a stark future for job seekers and employers.”
But while caution’s prevailed in Washington when it comes to bailing out “Main Street,” Wall Street’s enjoyed a degree of socialism that would make Hugo Chavez blush. The Obama administration has essentially continued Bush’s policy of loading up dump trucks with tax dollars at the Treasury and dropping them on the banks with little oversight and next to no strings attached.
via Why Won’t Obama Give You a Job? | Politics | AlterNet.
Most want rich taxed to pay for healthcare: poll
When it comes to paying for a health care overhaul, Americans see just one way to go: Tax the rich.
That finding from a new Associated Press poll will be welcome news for House Democrats, who proposed doing just that in their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system, which passed earlier this month and would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.
The poll found participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress, including taxing insurers on high-value coverage packages derided by President Barack Obama and Democrats as “Cadillac plans.”
That approach is being weighed in the Senate. It is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help reduce the nation's health expenditures, but it has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.
Lawmakers also are looking at levying new taxes on insurance companies, drug companies and medical device makers. But the only approach that got majority support in the AP poll was a tax on upper-income Americans.
via Most want rich taxed to pay for healthcare: poll | Raw Story.
A New Report Reveals that GM Seeds Encourage Pesticides Use, Contribute to Growth of Superweeds
A new report out today, Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years [pdf] authored by Dr. Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at The Organic Center, reveals that the use of genetically modified (GM) corn, soy and cotton crops has increased the amount of pesticides used in the past 13 years by 318 million pounds.
This information comes to light as the industry struggles to position itself as providing environmental benefit through use of bt technology — insecticide producing seeds — savings from which are diminished in light of a six times greater herbicide usage.
Farmers have become increasingly critical of both GM seed as it goes up in price, and herbicides like Roundup, also known as glyphosate, as ‘superweeds‘ become prevalent in treated fields. The growth of pigweed, which can quickly reach widths of 6 inches at the stalk, and other invasive, glyphosate-resistant species increases farmers reliance on more high-risk herbicides, including 2,4-D, dicamba and paraquat, and has resulted in a return to hand harvesting and even abandoning of fields.
The Last Climate change catastrophe took just months
Six months is all it took to flip Europe’s climate from warm and sunny into the last ice age, researchers have found.
They have discovered that the northern hemisphere was plunged into a big freeze 12,800 years ago by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream that allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.
Previous research had suggested the change might have taken place over a longer period — perhaps about 10 years.
The new description, reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of past climate changes yet attempted.
“It would have been very sudden for those alive at the time,” said William Patterson, a geological sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who carried out the research. “It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months.”
His findings, published at a recent conference, reinforce a series of studies suggesting that the earth’s climate is highly unstable and can flip between warm and cold very rapidly with the right trigger.
Most such research is based on analysing cores drilled from ice or from the sediment found at the bottom of oceans or lakes. In such cores the ice or sediment is found in layers whose composition shows what the climate was like at the time they were laid down.
Ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice cap have already shown that the big freeze of 12,800 years ago — known as the Younger Dryas mini-ice age — happened fast but lacked the detail to pin it down precisely.
Patterson, however, obtained mud deposits from Lough Monreagh, a lake in western Ireland, a region he says has “the best mud in the world in scientific terms”.
via Climate change catastrophe took just months – Times Online.
Taking Cues From Germany
There is a growing consensus among economists, that the answer to recovery is a more Euro-centric jobs policy that focuses on employment growth rather than GDP growth.
With unemployment rising to a 26-year high of 10.2 percent despite positive gross domestic product growth in the third quarter, President Barack Obama last week announced plans to hold a White House forum on job creation next month.
The summit is designed to bring together small-business leaders, members of corporate America, economists, union leaders and financial experts to hash out ideas on how to create jobs and bring the unemployment rate down.
There is a growing consensus among economists, on both the left and right, that the answer is a more Euro-centric jobs policy that focuses on employment growth rather than GDP growth.
In recent days, economists ranging from Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, Mark Zandi and Kevin Hasset have all endorsed the idea of implementing a German-style work-share program.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Net Worth Among American Households
The gains made in net worth among American households mask a truly alarming shift over the past 20 years.
The gains made in net worth among American households mask a truly alarming shift over the past 20 years. At the core, American household liabilities have risen from 16 percent of net worth to 23 percent, while the personal savings rate has gone from 10.8 percent of disposable personal income to minus 0.4 percent. A dramatic wealth shift from productive assets into nonproductive assets like residential real estate has taken place. Prices for residential real estate are now clearly in a bubble phase, given that, as measured by the Federal Reserve, they are running at 1.6 times replacement cost (versus 1.3 times 20 years ago). The house price boom has been made possible by ever more profligate mortgage lending, as is reflected in the fact that the average equity that American householders have in their homes has fallen from 69 percent 20 years ago to 56 percent today. Household wealth in a nutshell has shifted from productive assets to highly illiquid unproductive ones, namely houses heavily encumbered by debt. We are much more financially vulnerable today than we have been for many years and much of our apparent wealth exists only on paper.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Stocks Set to Slide, Bernanke Sees Weak Economy
Analysts with CNNMoney.com expect a decline during the morning, but it should not dampen the overall rally.
Markets continued to rally for consecutive sessions yesterday. The Dow Jones is up more than 200 points this week following a 1.33 percent gain on Monday (136.49 points). The S&P500 had the strongest session of the day rising 1.45 percent (15.82 points), followed closely by the NASDAQ which jumped 1.38 percent (29.97 points).
Analysts with CNNMoney.com expect a decline during the morning, but it should not dampen the overall rally. Markets are on the way up yet again, but some indicators are not trending in the right direction.
According to Bloomberg News, U.S. industrial production rose just 0.1 percent in October 2009 following an increase of 0.6 percent in September. The October numbers are lower than many analysts had expected, and the slight increase overshadows a decline in manufacturing production – industrial numbers are a combination of manufacturing and utility output.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Analysts with CNNMoney.com expect a decline during the morning, but it should not dampen the overall rally.
Analysts with CNNMoney.com expect a decline during the morning, but it should not dampen the overall rally.
Markets continued to rally for consecutive sessions yesterday. The Dow Jones is up more than 200 points this week following a 1.33 percent gain on Monday (136.49 points). The S&P500 had the strongest session of the day rising 1.45 percent (15.82 points), followed closely by the NASDAQ which jumped 1.38 percent (29.97 points).
Analysts with CNNMoney.com expect a decline during the morning, but it should not dampen the overall rally. Markets are on the way up yet again, but some indicators are not trending in the right direction.
According to Bloomberg News, U.S. industrial production rose just 0.1 percent in October 2009 following an increase of 0.6 percent in September. The October numbers are lower than many analysts had expected, and the slight increase overshadows a decline in manufacturing production – industrial numbers are a combination of manufacturing and utility output.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Consequences Of Importing More Than We Can Pay For
The U.S. is losing $725 Billion per year to foreign countries through trade losses. This money does not come back to buy our goods and services.
Here are some sobering facts
The U.S. is losing $725 Billion per year to foreign countries through trade losses. This money does not come back to buy our goods and services. It comes back to the U.S. in three other ways:
1. Foreign countries are bankrolling the U.S. Government – with levels as high as 53% of US Treasury debt held in foreign hands
2. Foreign countries are using the rest of this money to buy out our core industries and companies (more than16,000 U.S. wealth producing companies in last 30 years)
3. Many American industries are now controlled by non-US companies (e.g. Book publishing 63% foreign owned, Sound Recording industries 97%, Motion pictures 75%, Cement Industry 62%)
Here is the result
Foreign lenders are effectively propping up the U.S. Government, lowering U.S. interest rates, and consumer spending. If foreign countries were to stop extending this easy credit to the U.S., imported goods would cost much more and the government would have to raise interest rates in order to attract lenders for U.S. Treasury debt. We naively assume faith in the perpetuity of U.S. superpower status. No “superpower” in history has ever produced so little of what it consumes for so long while taking on such overwhelming debt.
Why is this a ris
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Trade Enforcement Priorities Act of 2009
Through currency manipulation, dumping, illegal subsides, and other illegal trade practices, foreign competitors have put U.S. manufacturers at a severe competitive disadvantage.
Two lawmakers hailing from the Rust Belt, a region that has been devastated by free trade agreements, have introduced legislation that would reinstate a decades-old law forcing the U.S. Trade Representative to identify and investigate trade practices that harm American workers and businesses.
Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) earlier this month introduced the Trade Enforcement Priorities Act of 2009, which they say will revitalize America’s manufacturing base, and also create much-needed jobs.
“We know our workforce can compete with anyone if we have a level playing field. Unfortunately, other countries have put our manufacturers and businesses at a competitive disadvantage through unfair trade practices,” Stabenow said in a press release.
The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI), Carl Levin (D-MI), Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA).
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Hoffman ‘Un-Concedes’ The NY-23 Election After Prodding From His ‘Mentor’ Glenn Beck
Doug Hoffman On Nov. 3, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman conceded the special election in New York’s 23rd district after finding out that he was losing considerably to Democrat Bill Owens, who has already been sworn in and cast an important vote for health care reform. However, “a standard process of correcting human errors in election night spreadsheets” has narrowed Owens’ lead over Hoffman from more than 5,000 votes to about 3,000, and the New York Board of Elections is counting around 10,000 absentee ballots.
A Hoffman win is still a longshot, but on Glenn Beck’s radio show today, he said he was feeling hopeful. He even told Beck that he was un-conceding the race:
BECK: Alright, so let me ask you two questions. Are you currently bowing to me at the waist? (LAUGHTER) Have you bowed, or will you bow, to anyone, at the waist? No? Okay, good. Second question for you, are you officially un-conceding at this moment?
HOFFMAN: Yes, if I knew this information at the election night, I would not have conceded.
BECK: So are you un-conceding?
HOFFMAN: If that’s possible, yes.
BECK: If the President can bow to an emperor and nobody says anything, yeah, I think you can unconcede.
Listen here:
OPS: They’re going to pull a Pawlenty
Sarah Palin Rejects GOP Senate Candidate Mark Kirk’s Plea For An Endorsement
Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), a candidate for Senate in 2010, wrote a memo to Sarah Palin requesting that she endorse him during her visit to Chicago for the Oprah Winfrey Show. The Post noted that “Palin’s endorsement [of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman] helped force state Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava (R) from the race” in the NY-23 special election, and that Kirk’s memo is “tangible evidence of the power of Palin’s endorsement in a Republican primary.”
The memo is also tangible evidence of Kirk’s willingness to dramatically switch positions in order to gain political power. Last year, Kirk panned Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) selection of Palin as his running mate, telling the Chicago Tribune, “I would have picked someone different.” Asked about Palin’s qualifications for office, Kirk said, “Quite frankly, I don’t know.”
However, it appears that Palin has rejected Kirk’s request for an endorsement. Recently, Kirk told ThinkProgress that he had been expecting her endorsement once she visited Chicago:
TP: How about Sarah Palin? How close are you to getting her endorsement?
KIRK: We sent a memo detailing the race, and she’ll be coming in to Chicago shortly.
Watch it:
via Think Progress » Sarah Palin Rejects GOP Senate Candidate Mark Kirk’s Plea For An Endorsement.
OPS: Kirk – going for the Irrational vote in Illinois.
Pawlenty Completes Science-Denying Metamorphosis, Now Refutes That Human Activity Causes Climate Change
Speaking to the Economist recently, Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) told reporters that he questions the science underpinning climate change. Pawlenty explained that while the earth might be warming, it is unclear “to what extent that is the result of natural causes.” As ThinkProgress has noted, Pawlenty has veered sharply to the right to appease a right-wing, tea party base. Although the tea party movement demands strict adherence to far right positions, as a Democracy Corps study shows, much of the movement sees political issues through a prism that is simply divorced from reality.
In appeasing the tea party base, Pawlenty not only dismisses the stark reality that human-caused carbon emissions are the largest contributor to climate change, but he also sacrifices his own credibility. Over the course of the last three years, Pawlenty has gone from an outspoken proponent of clean energy to a Glenn Beck pandering climate change denier:
U.S.: Army Underreporting Suicides, Says GI Advocacy Group
According to a soldiers’ advocacy group at Fort Hood, the U.S. base where an army psychiatrist has been charged with killing 13 people and wounding 30 in a Nov. 5 rampage, the official suicide figures provided by the Army are “definitely” too low.
Chuck Luther served 12 years in the military and is a veteran of two deployments to Iraq, where he was a reconnaissance scout in the 1st Cavalry Division. The former sergeant was based at Fort Hood, where he lives today.
“I see the ugly,” Luther told IPS. “I see soldiers beating their wives and trying to kill themselves all the time, and most folks don’t want to look at this, including the military.”
Luther, who in 2007 became the founder and director of the Soldier’s Advocacy Group of Disposable Warriors, knows about these types of internal problems in the military because he has been through many of them himself.
Luther told IPS that he believes the real number of soldiers at Fort Hood committing suicide is being dramatically underreported by the military.
“There are suicides of active-duty troops occurring regularly both on and off base,” Luther said. “One of them I knew personally since I served with him in Iraq and he was one of my soldiers, and they still have him listed as under investigation for suicide.”
via U.S.: Army Underreporting Suicides, Says GI Advocacy Group – IPS ipsnews.net.
The Pledge of Allegiance is un-American
Shouldn’t the government pledge allegiance to the people rather than the other way around?
On Monday, Oct. 5, at an elementary school in Washington County, Ark., Will Phillips, a precocious 10-year-old who had been promoted from third to fifth grade, refused to join his class in standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. His parents have gay friends, and Will claimed that the denial of gay marriage means that the U.S. lacks “liberty and justice for all.” After refusing to recite the pledge for several days, the boy was sent to the principal’s office when he told his teacher, “With all due respect, ma’am, you can go jump off a bridge,” a sentiment shared by many 10-year-olds who are not political activists.
Flaps over the Pledge of Allegiance occur with dreary regularity. In 2000 Michael Newdow, an atheist and the parent of a child in California’s public schools, filed a lawsuit claiming that the pledge was unconstitutional because of its inclusion of the phrase “under God.” He won in federal circuit court, but in 2004 the Supreme Court chickened out and, to avoid addressing the issue, tossed out the case on the argument that as a noncustodial parent he did not have standing to sue. Newdow is a party in a subsequent case that is working its way through the courts. Back in 1940, the Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah’s Witnesses could be forced to recite the pledge, and then, in 1943, in the midst of a war against totalitarian states, the court reversed its earlier opinion.
Individuals like Phillips and Newdow who publicly challenge the Pledge of Allegiance can expect to provoke not only harassment by their neighbors but also cyclones of bloviation emanating from elected leaders who, unwilling to fix healthcare or pay for infrastructure, always have time to defend the pledge or the flag. In response to the Newdow case, 150 members of Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol to recite the pledge, stressing “under God.” To show its understanding of the phrase “liberty and justice for all,” the Republican-controlled House in 2004 passed a law stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction in cases involving the pledge; the bill died in the Senate, proving that the system of checks and balances sometimes succeeds in its intended function of thwarting mob rule.
via The Pledge of Allegiance is un-American – Salon.com.
OPS: New pledge to begin every daily session of either house and every private meeting etc:
“I pledge allegiance to The Constitution of the United States of America, and to the American People for whom it stands…….”
Our Evita
Eugene Robinson on Sarah Palin as our rogue Evita
No force on Earth can stop Sarah Palin from becoming our very own “lite” version of Eva Perón — a glamorous and tragic legend, minus the tragedy. Eventually, some clever composer will write a blockbuster musical about her life and times. Stage directions will include: “SARAH fires gun. MOOSE dies.”
It’s futile to try to ignore Palin, however noble the effort may be. She’s a phenomenon, and it hardly matters that so many people believe she augurs the final dissolution of American politics into a big, frothy bowl of mush. The republic will survive even her.
Anyway, she’s unlikely ever to become — shudder — commander in chief. A new Post-ABC News poll shows that 60 percent of Americans believe Palin is not qualified to be president, and 53 percent “definitely” would not vote for her.
You do have to wonder about the 37 percent who’d think about it, though. And as for the 9 percent who definitely would vote for Palin, that’s enough people to qualify as a movement — the equivalent of Evita’s fervid descamisados, or “shirtless ones,” who entrusted her with their hopes and dreams.
via Eugene Robinson – Eugene Robinson on Sarah Palin as our rogue Evita – washingtonpost.com.
Applying the ACORN Standard to Republicans
I’ve been kind of scared off this topic, because when the Tea Party folks talk about ACORN, they pronounce it AAACORRRNN, as if their head is going to spin around backwards like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. So you don’t dare ask what is really so awful about ACORN.
My general impression of them locally was that they were annoying. A few years ago they collected funds by having kids stand out on traffic islands begging for change. I hate that. They haven’t done that for a long time, and now the traffic islands are owned by Teen Challenge, which helps troubled youth by putting them out on the streets to beg.
I never thought of ACORN as particularly well-organized, but they seem to have done an effective job nationally with voter registration. I think this is why they drew fire from the right. They have their own internal problems, serious embezzlement and nepotism. It may be that after a full investigation it will be found that they should not receive any more federal funds. But they have a right to an investigation. Conviction without a trial is not a good standard to apply to anyone. What if we applied the ACORN standard to the Republican National Committee? We’d be claiming that they were wasting their donor’s money on inept mailings that only put the GOP up for ridicule, like in today’s ProJo…
via Applying the ACORN Standard to Republicans « Kmareka.com.
The Choice Ahead: Entrenched Fossil Fuel Dependence Or Climate Change Management
By Emily Spence
According to Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist Linda Bilmes, the Iraq War cost three trillion dollars. While much of the money used to conduct the war was borrowed (most notably from Chinese institutions), ultimately American taxpayers will be responsible for many years to come for footing the bill, including the high interest payments on the funds loaned. This is because the federal budget, especially between the military and big business bailout costs, far exceeded the annual and shrinking amount taken in by taxes.
Was it worth it? The answer partly depends on whether one works for or has holdings in one of the oil companies that made out well in the aftermath.
The final major prize in the war, southern Iraq’s giant Rumaila oil field, was finally awarded on November third with mixed results from an American standpoint. This is because the only successful bidders for it were BP and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the second organization, it can be assumed, will primarily support Asian interests over ones favoring Western nations.
via The Choice Ahead: Entrenched Fossil Fuel Dependence Or Climate Change Management By Emily Spence.
Afghan Escalation Would Make One-Year Pentagon Budget Almost As Big as Entire 10-Year Health Bill
In pitting the 10-year cost of Democrats health care bill against the 10-year projected cost of the bloated Pentagon budget, my newspaper column last week made a simple comparison rarely ever made in politics today – a comparison that might provide citizens with much needed context, but a comparison that is ignored.
Is the comparison’s omission deliberate? It’s hard to say, but when you read this typical New York Times piece, it’s hard to argue that it isn’t being irresponsibly ignored:
While President Obama’s decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan is primarily a military one, it also has substantial budget implications that are adding pressure to limit the commitment, senior administration officials say…
Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant.
So even if Mr. Obama opts for a lower troop commitment, Afghanistan’s new costs could wash out the projected $26 billion expected to be saved in 2010 from withdrawing troops from Iraq. And the overall military budget could rise to as much as $734 billion, or 10 percent more than the peak of $667 billion under the Bush administration.
Kudos, of course, to the Times for even reporting on the unfathomably large costs of intensifying militarism and adventurism. But as you’ll see in the story, there’s no attempt to put the costs into any context – specifically, there’s no mention that an escalation in Afghanistan would mean outlays for the one-year Pentagon budget is approaching the total outlays of the entire 10-year health care bill.
Can you swallow this?
Video: Privatization of basic utilities like water can devastate poor communities. Without access to affordable and clean drinking water, diseases like cholera can spread and infect hundreds of thousands of people
OPS: This is one Ritchie Daley should see before he thinks about selling off Chicago’s water System
via YouTube – Can you swallow this?.
ABC News Exclusive: Obama Administration Slashed 60,000 Jobs From Recent Stimulus Report
The Obama administration, under fire for inflating job growth from the $787 billion stimulus plan, slashed over 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on the program because the reporting outlets had submitted “unrealistic data,” according to a document obtained by ABC News.
The Obama administration, under fire for inflating job growth from the $787 billion stimulus plan, slashed over 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on the program because the reporting outlets had submitted “unrealistic data,” according to a document obtained by ABC News.
The Office of Management and Budget document shows that before an Oct. 30 progress report on the program the administration asked the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to remove information from 12 stimulus recipients that contained “unrealistic data,” including “unrealistic job data.” (Read the document here.)
One recipient – Talladega County of Alabama – claimed that 5,000 jobs had been saved or created from only $42,000 in stimulus funds.
via ABC News Exclusive: Obama Administration Slashed 60,000 Jobs From Recent Stimulus Report – ABC News.
CNN paid Lou Dobbs $8 million to quit.
Although Lou Dobbs has been saying that his departure from CNN was an “amicable parting on the best of terms,” the New York Post reports that CNN wanted him gone so badly that it gave him an $8 million severance package. Dobbs “had a year and a half to go on his $12 million contract.” He’ll be appearing on Fox News tonight to talk with Bill O’Reilly, who has called the former CNN host a “stand-up guy.”
via Think Progress » CNN paid Lou Dobbs $8 million to quit..
Retired Military Chaplains Announce Support For Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Military veterans call for the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't TellLast week, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) revealed the legislative timeline for a repeal of the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. “Military issues are always done as part of the overall authorization bill,” Frank told the Advocate. “’Don’t ask, don’t tell’ was always going to be part of the military authorization.”
Now, the movement to repeal the ban on gay men and women from serving openly in the military has gained even more momentum. Three former military chaplains are announcing today that they support a full repeal of the DADT. In a Q&A released by VoteVets, the three men, Charles D. Camp, Chaplain (Colonel), USA (Ret.), John F. Gundlach, CAPT, CHC, USN (Ret.), and Jerry Rhyne, Chaplain (Colonel), USAF (Ret.), also addressed implementation concerns regarding a repeal:
What would be the impact of changing the current law on unit cohesion and morale?
The 2009 Joint Forces Quarterly article states clearly, “After a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.” A 1993 RAND Corp. report concludes the same, as do several other military-commissioned reports. In addition, 68 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan troops said, according to a 2006 Zogby poll, they either knew for certain (23%) or suspected (45%) there were gays in their own unit. That means there are tens of thousands of known gay service members currently working and fighting alongside their straight peers, and there is no demonstrable negative impact on unit morale, cohesion or combat readiness. In fact, 73% of troops in the poll said they were “comfortable” in the presence of gay peers. [...]
via Think Progress » Retired Military Chaplains Announce Support For Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
As Conservatives Fear-Monger Over Gitmo Closure, Illinois Town Says It Would Welcome Detainees
As part of the new administration’s efforts to shut down the “lawless enclave” at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, there is discussion of possibly moving detainees from the island prison to be incarcerated stateside (just like many other terrorism suspects). One possible site being considered to house these detainees is the mostly-empty Thomson Correctional Center in the rural town of Thomson, Illinois.
The right has exploited this possible move by fear-mongering to score political points. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) started circulating a letter among state officials telling President Obama, “If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization.” Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) claimed that moving detainees to Thomson would make the city a “target for future terrorist activity.”
One group of people, however, that is not afraid of bringing detainees to Thomson is the residents of the city themselves. As the Chicago Tribune reports, a transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Thomson Correctional Center would be “greeted warmly” by the city’s residents, who would welcome the jobs created by such a move:
OPS: For those that aren’t aware – This area of Illinois is a bastion of right wing teabaggers
16 Deaths Per Day
Pass this on to friends and family to help protect America's workers.
Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United States because of reckless negligence on the part of their employers. Under existing laws, these employers get a slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile, workers who blow the whistle face threats and retaliation at the workplace.
via YouTube – 16 Deaths Per Day.
Leonid Meteor Shower 2009: When And How To Watch (PHOTOS)
The Leonid meteor shower, one of the most stunning annual meteor showers, will peak early Tuesday morning, November 17, 2009.
We've got everything you need to know on when and how to catch the 2009 Leonid meteor shower, as well as pictures below!
NASA is predicting “20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia.”
If you want to catch the Leonid meteor shower, the best place to see it is in Asia, but viewers throughout North America should get a peek at the “star” performance.
SPACE.com's recommendation:
The trick for all observers is to head outside in the wee hours of the morning – between 1 a.m. and dawn – regardless where you live.
SPACE also notes,
In the United States and Canada, eastern observers will be particularly well-positioned for maximum activity, expected sometime between 3:30 and 5:30 a.m. EST, when the radiant of the Leonid shower will be well up in the dark southeastern sky.
Luckily, the new moon is on November 16, 2009, so the skies “will be dark for catching the fainter meteor streaks.”
The Leonid meteors — dubbed “cosmic garbage” — are created by minute dust particles shed by the comet Tempel-Tuttle:
The Leonids are known to be made up of cosmic litter from a small — 2.2 mile — dusty comet discovered by two astronomers in the late 19th century and christened Tempel-Tuttle.
via Leonid Meteor Shower 2009: When And How To Watch (PHOTOS).
Ralph Nader: “Only the Super Rich Can Save Us” – C-SPAN Video Library
Ralph Nader talked about his novel “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” (Seven Stories Press; September 22, 2009). In his book he speculates on what could happen if America's wealthiest individuals decided to work for the collective good. Mr. Nader, a consumer activist, had previously campaigned to be the president of the United States as the Green Party nominee and as an independent. This event of the 26th Miami Book Fair International took place Sunday, November 15, 2009, 10:00 a.m., in the Chapman Conference Center of Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus. Included in program ID 289996-1.
50 mins.
via ["Only the Super Rich Can Save Us"] – C-SPAN Video Library.
Poverty, Global Trade Justice, and the Roots of Terrorism
John Perkins :: Excerpt from Hoodwinked,
To combat terrorism, we should address the root causes of poverty, says former “economic hit man” John Perkins.
Navy Seal snipers rescued an American cargo ship captain unharmed and killed three Somali pirates in a daring operation in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, ending a five-day standoff between United States naval forces and a small band of brigands in a covered orange lifeboat off the Horn of Africa.
The New York Times published that article in April 2009. The very words “pirates,” “daring operation,” “standoff,” and “brigands” were typical of the U.S. media; they made it sound as though white-hated cowboys had ridden to the rescue of a town besieged by Billy the Kid and his gang. Having lived in that part of the world as an economic hit man, I knew there was another side to what had happened. I wondered why no one was asking about the causes of piracy.
I recalled my visits with the Bugi people when I was sent to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in the early 1970s. The Bugi had been infamous pirates since the time of the East India companies in the 1600s and 1700s. Their ferocity inspired returning European sailors to discipline their disobedient children with threats that “the bugiman will get you.” In the 1970s, we feared that they would attack our oil tankers as they passed through the vital Strait of Malacca.
I sat with one of their elders on the Sulawesi shore one afternoon. We watched his people build a sailing galleon, known as a prahu, much as they had for centuries. Like a gigantic beached whale, it was high and dry, propped upright by rows of gnarled stakes that resembled roots sprouting from its hull. Dozens of men hustled about it, working with adzes, hatchets, and hand drills. I expressed the concerns of my government to him, intimating that we would retaliate if the oil lanes were threatened.
Farmers Not Invited to Food Summit?
World farmers are not part of the official delegations at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food summit on food security that opened here Monday. But they came anyhow to express their views, since, they say, it is their communities that are most impacted by the food crisis.
Small-scale producers from the Amazonian rainforest, from Africa, the Pacific islands and the Himalayas gathered in Rome for the Peoples’ Food Sovereignty Forum (Nov. 13-17), held in parallel to the FAO meetings, to discuss the serious effects of the crisis in their communities.
Small farmers and other small food producers number more than 1.5 billion in the world, the civil society forum estimates. “They produce more than 75 percent of the world’s food needs through peasant agriculture and small scale livestock production, and with artisanal fishing,” organisers say.
According to the FAO, the number of hungry people rose this year to 1.02 billion people, as a result of the global economic crisis, high food and fuel prices, drought and conflict.
“The amount of hungry people announced by the FAO includes, for the vast majority, those who produce food,” Antonio Onorati, of the International Civil Society Planning Committee (IPC), told IPS. “And this represents the most incredible aspect of hunger.”
Indigenous knowledge and practices have the potential to improve local and global food security, farmers’ organisations say, but they still struggle to be recognised.
via DEVELOPMENT: Farmers Not Invited to Food Summit? – IPS ipsnews.net.
Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan
This week begins with a significant new straw in the political wind for President Obama to consider. The California Democratic Party has just sent him a formal and clear message: Stop making war in Afghanistan.
Overwhelmingly approved on Sunday by the California Democratic Party's 300-member statewide executive board, the resolution is titled “End the U.S. Occupation and Air War in Afghanistan.”
The resolution supports “a timetable for withdrawal of our military personnel” and calls for “an end to the use of mercenary contractors as well as an end to air strikes that cause heavy civilian casualties.” Advocating multiparty talks inside Afghanistan, the resolution also urges Obama “to oversee a redirection of our funding and resources to include an increase in humanitarian and developmental aid.”
While Obama weighs Afghanistan policy options, the California Democratic Party's adoption of the resolution is the most tangible indicator yet that escalation of the U.S. war effort can only fuel opposition within the president's own party — opposition that has already begun to erode his political base.
via Biggest State Party to Obama: Get Out of Afghanistan | CommonDreams.org.
Leasing water system could be a risky move for Chicago
Mayor Richard Daley could learn from other cities' experiences
Mayor Richard Daley says any part of city government is up for grabs if the price is right.
But if he is tempted to dangle Chicago’s vast water system as his next lease deal, he might want to first consult Atlanta, which is still smarting from a botched experiment with privatizing a big-city water supply.
Or the mayor could look someplace closer to home, like Bolingbrook, one of dozens of suburbs and downstate communities furious about steep rate increases imposed by a private water operator.
Daley is searching for more jackpots as his administration draws heavily on the money it reaped from leasing parking meters and the Chicago Skyway to ease the city through the recession. The mayor recently told the Tribune editorial board that he has met with consultants who outlined new privatization deals, but he would not provide details.
via Leasing water system could be a risky move for Chicago — chicagotribune.com.
U.S. “would veto” Palestinian state move: Senators
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The United States would veto a Palestinian declaration of statehood in the United Nations Security Council, U.S. senators visiting Israel said Monday.
They said the threat by Palestinian officials to take the issue to a United Nations resolution was a waste of time and would go nowhere. They urged Arab states to stop it. “It would be D.O.A. – dead on arrival,” Democratic Party Senator Ted Kaufman (DE) told a news conference in Jerusalem. “It’s a waste of time.”
Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), an independent, said “an essentially unilateral” declaration of statehood was the one thing that would not move the stalled peace process forward.
“I hope and presume that the United States would veto such a move if it ever came to the Security Council,” Lieberman said. The only way to end the Middle East conflict was an agreement reached through bilateral negotiations, he added.
The Palestinians should “give the new government of Israel an opportunity at the negotiating table,” he said.
via U.S. “would veto” Palestinian state move: Senators | TPM News Pages.
It’s not Congress. It’s legalized corruption. Time to end it.
Former Rep. William J. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, is off to prison. In August, a jury told him that bribery, racketeering and money laundering were not acceptable behaviors for anyone, let alone a member of Congress.
As a felon, Jefferson has had equally despicable company: Rep. Andrew J. Hinshaw, R-Calif. (accepting a bribe); Rep. Charles Diggs Jr., D-Mich. (payroll kickback scheme); Rep. Michael Myers, D-Pa. (accepting bribes from FBI agents impersonating Arab businessmen); Reps. John Murphy, D-N.Y., Frank Thompson, D-N.J., John Jenrette, D-S.C., and Raymond Lederer, D-Pa. (Arab businessmen bribery scandal, a.k.a. Abscam).
And Rep. Mario Biaggi, D-N.Y. (extorting money from a defense contractor); Rep. Mel Reynolds, D-Ill. (sex with underage campaign worker, bank fraud); Rep. Walter Tucker III, D-Calif. (accepting and demanding bribes); Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill. (felony mail fraud); Rep. James A. Trafficant, D-Ohio (bribery, conspiracy and racketeering); Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (accepting bribes from defense contractors) and Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio (Abramoff scandal). I’m sure readers can name more.
via Scholars and Rogues » It’s not Congress. It’s legalized corruption. Time to end it..
Bankers’ ‘ludicrous’ contracts will be torn up
OPS: Why can’t we be as smart?
CITY regulators are to be given new powers to tear up bankers’ contracts if they include excessive pay and bonus deals that might threaten the stability of the financial system.
The measures come in a Financial Services Bill that is to be the centrepiece of Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech, which Gordon Brown said would deliver “a transformation of the way the financial sector is policed”.
However, the Conservatives dismissed the proposal as “headline-chasing” and said it would do nothing to prevent multi-billion-pound bonus payments in the City this Christmas.
And the British Bankers’ Association said that any legislation should not be designed in a way that might drive financial institutions away from the UK.
via Bankers’ ‘ludicrous’ contracts will be torn up – Scotsman.com.
The Oil Situation Is Really Bad
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill — the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill — you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes
—Morpheus, from the movie The Matrix
On the eve of the International Energy Agency’s release of its annual World Energy Outlook (WEO), a whistleblower at the IEA claims the agency “has been deliberately underplaying a looming [oil] shortage for fear of triggering panic buying” in the world markets. As the young fan said to “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, who was wrongly convicted of helping to throw the 1919 World Series, but knew the fix was in, say it ain’t so, Joe.
Ah, but apparently it is so. Another dose of disillusionment for the naive. A second Guardian informant went so far as to say the situation is really bad—
The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.
The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organization’s latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies…
A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organization was that it was “imperative not to anger the Americans” but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. “We have [already] entered the ‘peak oil’ zone. I think that the situation is really bad,” he added.
via The Oil Situation Is Really Bad | Energy Bulletin.
The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses
Nouriel Roubini –
Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.
While losing 200,000 jobs per month is better than the 700,000 jobs lost in January, current job losses still average more than the per month rate of 150,000 during the last recession.
Also, remember: The last recession ended in November 2001, but job losses continued for more than a year and half until June of 2003; ditto for the 1990-91 recession.
So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. In other words, if you are unemployed and looking for work and just waiting for the economy to turn the corner, you had better hunker down. All the economic numbers suggest this will take a while. The jobs just are not coming back.
There's really just one hope for our leaders to turn things around: a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers. Helping the unemployed just by extending unemployment benefits is necessary not sufficient; it leads to persistent unemployment rather than job creation.
via RGE – The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses.
Ban links climate and food security
UN secretary-general warns rapid action needed
The world cannot achieve food security without tackling global warming, the secretary general of the United Nations said on Monday, emphasising the links between the World Food Summit in Rome and the Copenhagen summit next month.
The warning by Ban Ki-Moon comes as Barack Obama conceded on Sunday that next month’s Copenhagen summit would not produce a legally binding agreement to tackle global warming, but left the door open to a substantive deal.
“There can not be food security without climate security,” Mr Ban said in Rome during the opening of the fourth World Food Summit organized by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation on the back of last year’s food crisis.
via FT.com / Global Economy – Ban links climate and food security.
US retail sales rise 1.4% in October
US retail sales rebounded in October as demand for cars continued to climb even after the expiration of government-sponsored incentives, the commerce department said on Monday.
Sales rose by 1.4 per cent to $347.5bn, beating economists’ expectations. This marked a sharp turnaround from September when retail sales fell at the fastest rate this year. September retail sales, however, faced a deep downward revision, from a previously estimated 1.5 per cent drop to a fall of 2.3 per cent.
Alan Ruskin, a strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital, said the data indicated that consumer spending would rise by 1 per cent from the third to the fourth quarter, with US gross domestic product expanding at an annualised rate of 3 per cent. Economists have been keeping a close watch on retail sales as a sign of how consumers will react after stimulus measures subside.
via FT.com / US / Economy & Fed – US retail sales rise 1.4% in October.
Dollar relapse pushes gold to new peak
The price of gold hit another record on Monday as the dollar resumed its downward trend, helping a number of stock markets to claim fresh highs for 2009.
Asian and European bourses started the week in generally fine fettle and Wall Street joined the trend, with the S&P 500 claiming another peak for the year. Later it was up 1.2 per cent at 1,106.5.
Stronger-than-forecast US retail sales numbers for October added to the optimistic mood, though traders will have a wary eye on a speech later by Ben Bernanke, lest the Fed chairman gives any clues about his monetary exit strategy.
via FT.com / FT’s rolling global market overview – Dollar relapse pushes gold to new peak.
GM to begin repaying government loans
General Motors said on Monday it had cash reserves of more than $42bn at the end of September, allowing it to start repaying loans to the US and Canadian governments next month.
Giving the first snapshot of its financial performance since emerging from a court-supervised restructuring on July 10, the Detroit carmaker reported a $1.15bn after-tax loss for the 83 days to September 30.
It reported a positive operating cash flow of $3.3bn, but cautioned that this would not be repeated in the fourth quarter and that its cash reserves would be “materially lower” at the end of the year.
via FT.com / Companies / Automobiles – GM to begin repaying government loans.
CIT’s bankruptcy raises new questions about bailout
With CIT in bankruptcy, U.S. is faulted for investing in weakened companies
A year ago, the financial system was tottering and government officials arranged a $2.3 billion emergency cash infusion into CIT Group, a troubled lender to small businesses.
Today, CIT is in bankruptcy court, and the taxpayers’ investment is on the brink of being wiped out. It would be the largest loss so far from the government’s massive rescue of the financial system, but it isn’t likely to be the last.
Officials poured about $700 billion into investments in scores of companies, from giants such as the automaker General Motors and the insurer American International Group to smaller regional banks. Of them, 46 had missed required dividend payments to the government as of the end of September, according to the inspector general overseeing the program.
via CIT’s bankruptcy raises new questions about bailout – washingtonpost.com.
British scientists testing Ukrainian ‘super flu’ that has killed 189 people
British scientists are examining the strain of swine flu behind a deadly Ukrainian outbreak to see if the virus has mutated.
A total of 189 people have died and more than one million have been infected in the country.
Some doctors have likened the symptoms to those seen in many of the victims of the Spanish flu which caused millions of deaths world-wide after the World War One.
An unnamed doctor in western Ukraine told of the alarming effects of the virus.
He said: 'We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal.
via British scientists testing Ukrainian ‘super flu’ that has killed 189 people | Mail Online.
FBI Arrests Bernie Madoff Computer Programmers
Two computer programers have been arrested by the FBI for allegedly cooking the books for Wall Street conman Bernard Madoff.
Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, who worked for Madoff from 1990 and 1991 respectively, were arrested at their homes on Friday.
They have been charged with conspiracy and falsifying accounts, the federal prosecutor's office in New York said.
O'Hara, 46, and Perez, 43, are accused with being core players in a scheme that defrauded thousands of investors, fooled federal regulators, and illicitly earned Madoff billions of dollars.
“Jerome O'Hara and George Perez allegedly helped construct Bernie Madoff's house of cards,” said US Lawyer Preet Bharara.
via FBI Arrests Bernie Madoff Computer Programmers | Jerome O’Hara | George Perez.
Alaska fights to reverse polar bear listing
Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell says he has the best interest of polar bears at heart, but he doesn't intend to let the federal government's expanded protection for bears get in the way of the state's continued prosperity.
Like his predecessor, Sarah Palin, the governor is suing the federal government to overturn the listing of the iconic symbol of the Arctic as a threatened species, a move made last year that he believes could threaten Alaska's lifeblood: petroleum development.
“Currently some are attempting to improperly use the Endangered Species Act to shut down resource development,” Parnell says. “I'm not going to let this happen on my watch.”
As Alaska North Slope wells dry up, the state is turning to potential offshore discoveries to refill the trans-Alaska pipeline and ensure the long-term prospects of a $26 billion proposed natural gas pipeline. Protections for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act could thwart that, Parnell says, adding that they're not needed.
via AP News | AccessNorthGa.com.
GOP Bill Would Allow “Mentally Incapacitated” Vets to Buy Guns
Mother Jones –
Major Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood Army base, has been described by former colleagues as “psychotic.” As more details emerge about Hasan's troubled state, gun safety advocates are launching fresh attacks on a Senate bill they say would make it easier for mentally unstable veterans to buy firearms.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says his “Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act” will protect veterans' gun rights. But the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence calls it a “dangerous” proposal that could allow “over 100,000 mentally incapacitated or incompetent persons” to buy guns—people who would previously have been barred from doing so by the Veterans Administration (VA).
With debate over Fort Hood still raging on cable news, one might think that Burr might try to quietly shelve the measure, whose co-sponsors include Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.). Instead, Burr fired back at the Brady Campaign in an interview with Fox News, accusing its president, Paul Helmke, of using the tragedy to “exploit the senseless murder of American soldiers in the quest to secure personal triumph.”
Responding to Burr Thursday in an open letter, Helmke wrote, “it is hardly 'exploitative' to have an honest debate” about the proposal, which would cancel out key provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and override standards used by the VA for nearly four decades.
via Senate Bill Would Allow “Mentally Incapacitated” Vets to Buy Guns | Mother Jones.
Mystery of world’s worst mass poisoning solved, but problem remains
Researchers have pinpointed the source of what is probably the worst mass poisoning in history, according to a study published Sunday.
For nearly three decades scientists have struggled to figure out exactly how arsenic was getting into the drinking water of millions of people in rural Bangladesh.
The culprit, says the new study, are tens of thousands of man-made ponds excavated to provide soil for flood protection.
An estimated two million people in Bangladesh suffer from arsenic poisoning, and health experts suspect the toxic, metal-like element has caused — and will continue to cause — many deaths as well.
Symptoms include violent stomach pains and vomiting, diarrhoea, convulsions and cramps. A large dose can kill outright, while chronic ingestion of small doses has been linked to a large range of cancers.
via Mystery of world’s worst mass poisoning solved, but problem remains | Raw Story.
Rove Attacks Obama For Bowing: He Should Do What All Presidents Have Done And ‘Not Bow To Monarchies’
This morning on Fox & Friends, former Bush adviser Karl Rove appeared on the program to bash President Obama for paying a respectful bow before the Japanese Emperor. Leading into the segment, co-host Steve Doocy claimed that there is a “long-standing precedent going back to the founding” of the U.S. that “American presidents don’t bow to anybody.” Doocy might want to do some research on President Eisenhower.
Calling the bow “inappropriate,” Rove wondered, “what’s that all about?” He added that Obama “simply can’t get it right” and that the bow is part of Obama’s “world-wide apology tour.” Rove concluded his assault with this final jab:
I think it’s best if American presidents do what they have always done — which is to stand for our small “r” republican values and do not bow to monarchies.
Watch it:
Why We Need Bees and More People Becoming Organic Beekeepers
Bees teach us how to live our life in a way that by taking what we need from the world around us, we leave the world better than we found it.
Beekeeping is rising in popularity — from urban rooftops to backyard hives, the world is abuzz with interest in homemade honey. And who better to comment on the nature of bees than the former president of the Vermont Beekeepers Association, Ross Conrad. He’s led bee-related presentations and taught organic beekeeping workshops and classes throughout North America for many years, and Conrad’s small beekeeping business supplies friends, neighbors, and local stores with honey and candles among other bee related products, not to mention provides bees for Vermont apple pollination in spring. I talked to Conrad about organic beekeeping, the state of pollination, and tips for aspiring bee farmers.
Makenna Goodman: Your book, Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture, offers up a program of natural beehive management, and an alternative to conventional chemical-based approaches. So — why organic beekeeping?
Ross Conrad: History has shown us that the industrialized “economy of scale” approach does not work when applied to agriculture because we are dealing with living biological systems, not an inert assembly line food production system where the economy of scale approach can be applied across the board. One of the biggest issues is the large number of chemical contaminants that are being found in beeswax and pollen, often at very high concentrations. Toxic chemical contamination has been implicated in Colony Collapse and the reality is that there is no effective regulation of chemicals in Western society. Let me tell you why:
via Why We Need Bees and More People Becoming Organic Beekeepers | Environment | AlterNet.
Obama’s Strongest Supporters Suffering the Most in Recession, While Elites Thrive
By Bob Herbert,
The young, the black and the poor are among those who are being hammered unmercifully in this long and cruel economic downturn that the financial elites are telling us is over.
President Obama’s strongest supporters during the presidential campaign were the young, the black and the poor — and they are among those who are being hammered unmercifully in this long and cruel economic downturn that the financial elites are telling us is over.
If the elites are correct, if the Great Recession really is over, then these core supporters of the president are being left far, far behind — as are blue-collar workers of every ethnic and political persuasion. Nobody wants to talk seriously about class in America, but the elites are smiling and perusing their stock portfolios while the checklist of Americans locked in depressionlike circumstances just grows and grows: construction and manufacturing workers, young men without college degrees (especially young black and Hispanic men), teenagers, and those who were already poor when the recession began.
The economic environment for all of these groups is an absolute and utter disaster.
via Obama’s Strongest Supporters Suffering the Most in Recession, While Elites Thrive | | AlterNet.
America Is One Big Clunker and No Amount of Cash Will Buy Us a New One
By James Howard Kunstler, .
We continue to be childishly delusional about our dark economic and environmental prospects. Unfortunately, reality isn't amenable to lies and spin.
In The Long Emergency (2005, Atlantic Monthly Press), I said that we ought to expect the federal government to become increasingly impotent and ineffectual — that this would be a hallmark of the times. In fact, I said that any enterprise organized at the colossal scale would function poorly in years ahead, whether it was a government, a state university, a national chain retail company, or a giant midwestern farm. It is characteristic of the compressive contraction our society faces that giant hypercomplex systems will wobble and fail. We should expect this.
It’s tragic that the avatar of hopefulness himself, Barack Obama, stepped into his role at exactly the moment when this set of conditions was getting traction. It is sure to get worse, and there are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there who will be suffering terrible losses and real pain in daily life. Societies don’t do well when the public falls into the broad despair that is the opposite of hope. That’s when the long knives and the tribal animosities come out and things get smashed.
Within the context of conventional party politics — the kind that has been baseline “normal” in the USA for a long time — we see this playing out in two factions that are increasingly out-of-touch with reality. The Obama government has made itself hostage to a toxic form of pretense and lying. In order to sustain the wish for “hope” — if not hope itself — the President and his White House advisors along with his cabinet appointments, are pretending that the historical forces of compressive contraction are not underway. They’re flat-out lying about the employment figures issued in the government’s name. They’re willfully ignoring the comprehensive bankruptcy gripping government at all levels. They refuse to bring the law to bear against “the malefactors of great wealth.” They appear to not understand the epochal energy scarcity problem the whole world faces, or its implications for industrial economies. Most of all, they persist in promoting the lie that this economy can return to the prior state of reckless debt accumulation (a.k.a “consumerism”) that has made us so ridiculous and unhealthy.
via America Is One Big Clunker and No Amount of Cash Will Buy Us a New One | Environment | AlterNet.
Catholic Bishops Put Sex Obsession Ahead of Mission to the Sick and the Poor
First they threatened to take down health-care reform over abortion coverage. Now they're threatening services to the sick and poor of Washington, D.C., over same-sex marriage.
They lead a church that claims to stand on the side of the sick and the poor, the meek who shall inherit the earth. But in the course of a single week, the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed themselves willing to see health-care denied to millions of uninsured Americans, and to yank the social-service rug out from under the feet of tens of thousands of urban poor in the nation’s capital — all to serve the bishops’ obsession with the sex lives and reproductive organs of others.
The church’s week of shame began with the bishops’ role in creating the monster that is the Stupak amendment to the health-care reform bill passed last weekend by the House of Representatives, when the bishops refused to bless a compromise made between pro-choice and anti-abortion Democrats in the language of the bill. (Without the bishops’ blessing, anti-choice Democrats vowed to vote against the bill, so Speaker Nancy Pelosi was strong-armed into allowing Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., to bring an anti-choice amendment to the floor.) Finishing off the week with a brutal bang, the church threatened to sever its social service contracts with the District of Columbia if the city council of Washington, D.C., passes a measure legalizing same-sex marriage — a move that would throw services to 68,000 of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens of the nation’s capital into chaos.
This week in the life of the church, says Frances Kissling, the long-time Catholic feminist activist and current visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, demonstrated the church’s “willingness to just be a bully.” (Full disclosure: I worked for Kissling in 1998, during her 30-year tenure at the helm of Catholics for Choice.)
Sarah Palin Rules the GOP — And She Will Destroy It
Max Blumenthal
How Palin Became a Rogue
It can't get better than this, can it? A first printing of 1.5 million copies sent out into an otherwise dead book market. Possibly as much as $7 million dollars going to the author, who already has interviews lined up with Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. A bus tour of the “real America” that manages to avoid such Sodom and Gomorrah-like Democratic hotspots as Los Angeles and New York. Even a collection of critical essays about the author appearing at the same moment — with her photo on a similarly designed cover, and just two letters in the title reversed, clearly meant to confuse her fans. Then, there's even the parody coloring book. It's a “perfect storm for publishers,” says the book editor for the Christian Science Monitor — and if that's the last time the phrase “perfect storm” is used for this media extravaganza, TomDispatch will eat its baseball cap.
Yes, of course, what else could I be talking about but Going Rogue, Sarah Palin's as-told-to “memoir” — and its critical doppelganger, Going Rouge (put together by two Nation magazine editors). I wonder, by the way, if, in the uproar to follow, anyone will comment on the strangeness of Palin's book title. True, late last October, with the presidential election fast approaching, an unnamed aide to candidate McCain accused his vice-presidential partner of “going rogue.” At the time, an “associate” of hers responded to the charge by claiming she was “simply trying to 'bust free' of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged [campaign] roll-out.” A year later, however, she's evidently ready to make that angry intra-campaign charge proudly her own.
Still, here's the thing that's so odd: since the fall of the Soviet Union, the word “rogue,” as in “rogue state,” has been associated with only one thing in the U.S.: enemy nations supposedly eager to enter the nuclear proliferation sweepstakes — in particular, the crew that our previous president lumped together as the “axis of evil.” We're talking about Iran, North Korea, Saddam Hussein's Iraq — and now, evidently, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
via Tomgram: Max Blumenthal, How Palin Became a Rogue.
Gates Invokes New Authority to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos
Blood on the floor and walls of a cell at Abu Ghraib. Defense Secretary Robert Gates invoked his new authority to block images like these from being released under the Freedom of Information Act. (Photo: Wikicommons)
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has blocked the release of photographs depicting US soldiers abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, invoking new powers just granted to him by Congress that allows him to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and keep the images under wraps on national security grounds.
In a brief filed with the US Supreme Court late Friday, Department of Defense General Counsel Jeh Johnson, and Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said Gates “personally exercised his certification authority” on Friday to withhold the photos and “determined that public disclosure of these photographs would endanger citizens of the United States, members of the United States Armed Forces, or employees of the United States Government deployed outside the United States.”
“Based on that determination, the Secretary has concluded that the photographs are ‘protected documents’” and are “exempt from mandatory disclosure under FOIA,” the government's brief states.
via t r u t h o u t | Gates Invokes New Authority to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos.
U.S., Russia agree on dissatisfaction with Iran
Obama meets with Medvedev at the APEC summit in Singapore, with both saying Iran has limited time to accept a proposal to outsource enrichment. Obama then moves on to Shanghai
Reporting from Singapore, Shanghai and Beirut – Presenting a united front on Iran’s nuclear energy program, President Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev warned Sunday that they were losing patience with Tehran and wouldn’t wait much longer for it to accept a proposal to resolve the dispute.
After an hourlong meeting in Singapore on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the two leaders expressed dissatisfaction with Iran’s response to a proposal to ship its enriched uranium abroad to be refined further for use in an Iranian reactor to produce medical isotopes. In Geneva last month, Iran agreed to the deal in principle, but Western officials said Iranian leaders have since put up obstacles.
“Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran appears to have been unable to say yes to what everyone acknowledges is a creative and constructive approach,” Obama said after meeting with Medvedev. Obama called the offer to Iran a fair one.
via U.S., Russia agree on dissatisfaction with Iran — latimes.com.
Drug Makers Raising Prices Before Reform
Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.
In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.
The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.
Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.
“When we have major legislation anticipated, we see a run-up in price increases,” says Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota. He has analyzed drug pricing for AARP, the advocacy group for seniors that supports the House health care legislation that the drug industry opposes.
via Drug Makers Raising Prices Before Reform – NYTimes.com.
World Out of Balance
International travel by world leaders is mainly about making symbolic gestures. Nobody expects President Obama to come back from China with major new agreements, on economic policy or anything else.
But let’s hope that when the cameras aren’t rolling Mr. Obama and his hosts engage in some frank talk about currency policy. For the problem of international trade imbalances is about to get substantially worse. And there’s a potentially ugly confrontation looming unless China mends its ways.
Some background: Most of the world’s major currencies “float” against one another. That is, their relative values move up or down depending on market forces. That doesn’t necessarily mean that governments pursue pure hands-off policies: countries sometimes limit capital outflows when there’s a run on their currency (as Iceland did last year) or take steps to discourage hot-money inflows when they fear that speculators love their economies not wisely but too well (which is what Brazil is doing right now). But these days most nations try to keep the value of their currency in line with long-term economic fundamentals.
China is the great exception. Despite huge trade surpluses and the desire of many investors to buy into this fast-growing economy — forces that should have strengthened the renminbi, China’s currency — Chinese authorities have kept that currency persistently weak. They’ve done this mainly by trading renminbi for dollars, which they have accumulated in vast quantities.
via Op-Ed Columnist – World Out of Balance – NYTimes.com.
Dr. No and the Wounded Veterans
Editorial – NY Times
A creative plan to help wounded veterans and their exhausted families adapt to the strain of long-term home care is on the brink of bipartisan approval — but for the familiar obstructionism of Senator Tom Coburn. This is one of the most deplorable displays by the lawmaker-physician, an Oklahoma Republican who relishes playing the self-styled budget hawk by putting attention-grabbing holds on crucial legislation.
The urgently needed legislation consolidates more than a dozen improvements in veterans’ health care — most notably a new assistance program for family members who wind up providing lifelong home nursing to severely disabled veterans. These vital caregivers — who sacrifice careers and put huge strains on their own mental health — assume an obligation “that ultimately belongs to the government,” Senator Daniel Akaka, the bill’s chief sponsor, properly notes.
The measure also expands benefits for women veterans who suffered sexual trauma on duty, extends veterans’ care in rural areas, tightens quality control at V.A. hospitals, and ensures that catastrophically disabled veterans will not be charged for emergency services in community hospitals.
The omnibus legislation drew unanimous committee approval. But Senator Coburn objected to quick floor passage, demanding that the five-year, $3.7 billion cost be offset with immediate budget cuts. The senator’s argument rings hollow in the face of veterans’ suffering and the world of deficit budgeting brought on by his party’s tax cuts and zealous war investments.
via Editorial – Dr. No and the Wounded Veterans – NYTimes.com.
Camp Lejeune whistle-blower fired
A psychiatrist who tried to prevent Fort Hood-style violence among Marines about to “lose it” instead loses his job
Last April, two Marines at Camp Lejeune predicted to a psychiatrist that some Marine back from war was going to “lose it.” Concerned, the psychiatrist asked what that meant. One of the Marines responded, “One of these guys is liable to come back with a loaded weapon and open fire.”
They weren’t talking about Marines suffering from a tangle of mental and religious angst, like news reports suggest haunted the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The risk they reported at Camp Lejeune was broader and systemic. Upon returning home, troops suffering mental health problems were getting dumped into an overwhelmed healthcare system that responded ineptly to their crises, the men reported, and they also faced harassment from Marine Corps superiors ignorant of the severity of their problems and disdainful of those who sought psychiatric help.
via Fort Hood Shooting – Salon.com.
Palestinian push for an independent state causes Israeli alarm
Netanyahu to denounce Prime Minister’s drive to sidestep Israel and secure support from UN Security Council
Palestinian leaders from President Mahmoud Abbas down have alarmed Israeli ministers by swinging their weight behind a planned effort to secure UN backing for a unilaterally declared independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.
In an innovative strategy which would not depend on the success of currently stalled negotiations with Israel, the leaders are preparing a push to secure formal UN Security Council support for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as a crucial first step towards the formation of a state.
Although there is no fixed timetable,
Shining Light on Roots of Terrorism
Ray McGovern
Media commentary on the upcoming 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has raised concern that state secrets may be divulged, including details about how the Bush administration used torture to extract evidence about al-Qaeda.
“I think that we’re going to shine a light on something that a lot of people don’t want to look at” is how American Civil Liberties Union attorney Denney LeBoeuf put it, according to The New York Times on Saturday.
No problem, says Attorney General Eric Holder, who claims to have “great confidence” that other evidence – apart from what may have been gleaned from the 183 times Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded, for example – will suffice to convict him.
Maybe so, But what the Fawning Corporate Media (or FCM) have so far neglected is the likelihood that the testimony will be so public that they will have to break their studied silence about why Sheikh Mohammed and his associates say they orchestrated the attacks of 9/11.
via Consortiumnews.com.
The new farm owners
Corporate investors lead the rush for control over overseas farmland
With all the talk about “food security,” and distorted media statements like “South Korea leases half of Madagascar’s land,”1 it may not be evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today’s global land grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the same as those of governments.
| “This is going to be a private initiative.”
– Amin Abaza, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture, explaining Egyptian farmland acquisitions in other African nations, on World Food Day 2009 |
Take one example. In August 2009, the government of Mauritius, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, got a long-term lease for 20,000 ha of good farmland in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market. This is outsourced food production, no question. But it is not the government of Mauritius, on behalf of the Mauritian people, that is going to farm that land and ship the rice back home. Instead, the Mauritian Minister of Agro Industry immediately sub-leased the land to two corporations, one from Singapore (which is anxious to develop the market for its proprietary hybrid rice seeds in Africa) and one from Swaziland (which specialises in cattle production, but is also involved in biofuels in southern Africa).2 This is typical. And it means that we should not be blinded by the involvement of states. Because at the end of the day, what the corporations want will be decisive. And they have a war chest of legal, financial and political tools to assist them.
via GRAIN | “Against the grain” | 2009 | The new farm owners.
On Abortion, Hypocrisy Reigns Among Blue Dogs, Republicans and Christians
David Lindorff
The ongoing absolutism in Congress in trying to prevent women–or at least poor women–from obtaining abortions is one of the more shameful spectacles in America.
The sanctimonious Blue Dog Democrats and the Republicans, who almost unanimously opposed any right to abortion, present two basic arguments. One is that abortion is murder, and therefore must be illegal, or, in more nuanced form, they say that they or their constituents oppose abortion and therefore it is wrong to have their tax money paying for the procedure.
Of course, for most of those who argue that abortion is murder, there is a towering hypocrisy in the fact that with rare exceptions, those who argue this view also support capital punishment, which is also murder. Furthermore, given the ueber-conservative political stance of most such people, they also tend to unquestioningly support America's wars on Third World peoples–wars which inevitably lead to the mass slaughter of innocent men, women and children–support the use of lethal American weapons, from nuclear bombs to anti-personnel fragmentation shells and bombs to depleted uranium shells and mines, which kill adults and children, soldiers and civilians indiscriminately, and support cuts in social services that leave American kids hungry, malnourished and without needed medical care, which leads to many untimely deaths. But even for those people–some liberal Catholics, for example–who may be consistent in their opposition to state-sponsored murder and killing, there is an unwillingness to address the central problem with opposing abortion: namely that women will get abortions whether they are legal or not, the only difference being that one way, they are likely to die or be seriously injured in the process, while the other way, the process can be done safely.
via On Abortion, Hypocrisy Reigns Among Blue Dogs, Republicans and Christians | The Smirking Chimp.
Pot Might Ease PTSD: Study
Synthetic marijuana reduced post-traumatic stress disorder in rats
Marijuana may help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a new study.
PTSD affects 10 to 30 percent of people who experience a traumatic event, such as a car accident or terror attack. These people continue to suffer stress symptoms
for months and even years after the incident.
Israeli researchers conducted a series of experiments in which rats were subjected to stressful experiences, such as receiving electric shocks. The study found that the rats’ stress levels could be reduced by giving them a synthetic form of marijuana that has properties similar to that of the natural plant.
Further investigation revealed that the synthetic marijuana prevents increased release of a stress hormone the body releases in response to traumatic situations.
“The results of our research should encourage psychiatric investigation into the use of cannabinoids in post-traumatic stress patients,” wrote study author Dr. Irit Akirav of the department of psychology at the University of Haifa.
The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
via Pot Might Ease PTSD: Study – MSN Health & Fitness – Addiction|Quit Smoking.
OPS: From the Department of “No Shit Sherlock”
Some Fear Bush Administration Could Become Target in 9/11 Trial
Some critics say a civilian trial — instead of a military tribunal — for self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies.
The Obama administration, in deciding to try alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a New York courtroom, has said it is setting its sights on convictions, but some critics say a civilian trial — instead of a military tribunal — could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies.
One of those five defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been at the center of the debate over those Bush-era polices, in particular the harsh interrogation techniques used on Mohammed and others in an effort to obtain information on Al Qaeda and any additional attacks.
“The government is going to try to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed on trial. Defense lawyers will try and put the government on trial,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News.
The Justice Department says in a 2005 memo that CIA interrogators subjected Mohammed 183 times to waterboarding, a near-drowning technique described by Obama officials as illegal torture. But others disagree with Obama, most notably former Vice President Dick Cheney, who argues that the techniques used have kept the country safe from another attack.
Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, announced in the summer that he would investigate whether CIA officers should be prosecuted for their interrogations, setting off intense debate over the prospect of prosecuting officials from the previous administration.
But on Friday, in announcing a civilian trial for Mohammed and four other detainees, Holder dismissed questions about whether politics was a factor in the decision.
via Some Fear Bush Administration Could Become Target in 9/11 Trial – FOXNews.com.
OPS: “some” fear. LOL
Oh….Would that it were…..! They will make sure this dosen’t happen, even if it means letting the defendants go. The Oligarchy WILL protect its own.
FAA and NORAD Changed Records to Accord with Cheney Lies
A senior Counsel for the 9/11 Commission, John Farmer, has written a book exposing the degree to which our response to 9/11 was disorganized and outdated–geared to respond to an attack from Russia rather than from terrorists. Most significantly, Farmer reveals that FAA and NORAD altered their chronologies of the day only after a briefing at the White House.
Perhaps nothing perturbs Farmer more than the contention that high-ranking officials responded quickly and effectively to the revelation that Qaeda attacks were taking place. Nothing, Farmer indicates, could be further from the truth: President George W. Bush and other officials were mostly irrelevant during the hijackings; instead, it was the ground-level commanders who made operational decisions in an ad hoc fashion.
[snip]
Yet both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before it could hit Washington. Planes were never in place to intercept it. By the time the Northeast Air Defense Sector had been informed of the hijacking, United 93 had already crashed. Farmer scrutinizes F.A.A. and Norad records to provide irrefragable evidence that a day after a Sept. 17 White House briefing, both agencies suddenly altered their chronologies to produce a coherent timeline and story that “fit together nicely with the account provided publicly by Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney.”
We’ve know for a long time that the FAA records, in particular, were politicized. Given already documented proof that Cheney lied to hide the fact that he violated the chain of command on 9/11 it’s not surprising that that politicization served Dick Cheney’s false narrative of leadership.
But we can add this book to the long list of proof that Cheney’s a big liar trying to hide his own incompetence.
via Emptywheel » FAA and NORAD Changed Records to Accord with Cheney Lies.
Seymour Hersh On Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal
Recorded November 12, 2009 from NPR a (National Public Radio) “Fresh Air”.
Pakistan has an estimated 80 to 100 nuclear warheads. How secure are they? What are the chances they could fall into the hands of the extremists currently challenging Pakistani authorities?
In an article for the November 16 edition of The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh investigative journalist (1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting) writes about Pakistans nuclear arsenal and what Pakistan and the U.S. are doing to keep it safe from extremists.
Hersh’s article is called Defending the Arsenal: In an Unstable Pakistan, Can Nuclear Warheads Be Kept Safe? He is a regular contributor to the magazine on matters of security and the military.
via YouTube – Seymour Hersh On Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal (1/5).
Parts 2,3,4 & 5 of this interview on YouTube here.
Full interview in one piece on NPR here.
A Big Tax Refund for Home Builders Hidden In New Law
Home Builders (You Heard That Right) Get a Gift
ON Nov. 6, President Obama signed the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 into law, extending unemployment benefits by 20 weeks and renewing the first-time homebuyer tax credit until next April.
But tucked inside the law was another prize: a tax break that lets big companies offset losses incurred in 2008 and 2009 against profits booked as far back as 2004. The tax cuts will generate corporate refunds or relief worth about $33 billion, according to an administration estimate.
Before the bill became law, the so-called look-back on losses was limited to small businesses and could be used to counterbalance just two years of profits. Now the profit offset goes back five years, and the law allows big companies to take advantage of it, too. The only companies that can’t participate are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and any institution that took money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Among the biggest beneficiaries are home builders, analysts say. Once again, at the front of the government assistance line, stand some of the very companies that contributed mightily to the credit crisis by building and financing too many homes.
via Fair Game – A Big Tax Refund for Home Builders – NYTimes.com.
McConnell: GOP Will Delay Health Care At Least Six More Weeks
If there was any doubt that Senate Republicans are eager to drag their heels when it comes to health care reform, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) removed it on Sunday.
The Kentucky Republican, during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” demanded that the Senate take, at the very least, six weeks to deliberate legislation once it is sent to the floor for amendments.
“There will be a lot of amendments over a lot of weeks. The Senate is not the House, you saw in the House there was three votes and it was over in one day,” McConnell warned. “This will be on the floor for quite a long time.”
Warning that health care reform “cuts Medicare rates, raises taxes and raises insurance premiums,” McConnell also insisted that Majority Leader Harry Reid had kept the legislation secret from his colleagues.
via McConnell: GOP Will Delay Health Care At Least Six More Weeks.
OPS: One American dies every 12 minutes due directly to lack of Health care. That’s 504 more American that will die directly due to Republican and Blue Dog Democrat defence of Corporate Profit. What will you do if one of these dead is your Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, Child….
What You Don’t Know About Osteoporosis
This time we’ll look at one of the most controversial and misunderstood treatments for osteoporosis — hormone replacement therapy. We’ll also answer the question as to whether being obese can actually reduce your risk of osteoporosis.
Bioidentical Hormones for Women
Prior to the publication of the Womens Health Initiative (WHI) study, hormone replacement therapy was the first choice in preventing and reversing osteoporosis. After WHI the bisphosphonates became number one (such as Fosamax, Boniva, Actonel and for those with bone cancers, Zometa). And this is for good reason. These drugs are effective in reducing risks of fracture in well conducted studies.
But long term studies of bisphosphonates have also revealed side-effects which, though only occurring in a small minority of patients, can be serious. These include jaw bone deterioration and ulceration of the esophagus. One comprehensive long term study of over 12,000 women with osteoporosis also showed it would be necessary to treat approximately 66 women to prevent one fracture (1).
Other, though possibly less effective, medications are also available for use if the bisphosphonates are unsuccessful.
But what about hormones? Why did they fall out of favor when they consistently helped prevent fractures?
via Joseph Sciabbarrasi, M.D.: What You Don’t Know About Osteoporosis.
![20091111edhan-b[1]__1258139790_7579](http://www.onepennysheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/20091111edhan-b1__1258139790_7579.jpg "20091111edhan-b[1]__1258139790_7579")
WFP asks billion people for 1 euro to beat hunger
WFP launches Internet appeal to beat funding shortfall
- * Record 1 billion people face hunger
- * Ask 1 billion in rich nations for 1 euro each
By Daniel Flynn
ROME, Nov 14 (Reuters) – The World Food Programme, facing a major funding shortfall as donor governments are hit by the financial crisis, is appealing directly to one billion individuals to give small amounts of cash to beat hunger.
Josette Sheeran, head of the U.N. food aid body, said the aim of the Internet appeal, launched on Saturday, was to get people in wealthy nations to give just 1 euro ($1.50) a week, which would be enough to end hunger for another billion people in the developing world.
It is the first time the WFP, which is mainly funded by national governments, has launched such an appeal.
“We now have hunger galloping ahead — over a billion people now for the first time in history — and because of the financial pressure on governments we think it's really important now to call on the citizens of the world to help solve this problem directly,” Sheeran told Reuters in an interview.
Speaking ahead of a World Food Summit which starts on Monday in Rome, Sheeran said the WFP was on track to raise only around half the $6.7 billion it had targeted for this year, with most of it coming from national governments.
via INTERVIEW-WFP asks billion people for 1 euro to beat hunger | Reuters.
“SNL” Skewers Lou Dobbs After Host Quits CNN
“Saturday Night Live” went after Lou Dobbs this week, claiming he retired from CNN because he thinks the “C” stands for the Spanish word “si.” Dobbs, played by Darrell Hammond, went on to refer to his replacement, John King, as “Juan” King–a man he says may have paid for his dapper appearance with drug money.
“SNL” Skewers Lou Dobbs After Host Quits CNN (VIDEO).
Feds Shut 3 Banks in Florida, Calif
Regulators shut down two banks in Florida and one in California on Friday, boosting to 123 the number of U.S. bank failures this year as loan defaults rise in the worst financial climate in decades.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Orion Bank, based in Naples, Fla., with about $2.7 billion in assets and $2.1 billion in deposits, and Sarasota-based Century Bank, with $728 million in assets and $631 million in deposits.
Pacific Coast National Bank in San Clemente, Calif. was also shut down. It had $134.4 million in assets and $130.9 million in deposits.
IberiaBank, based in Lafayette, La., agreed to assume all of Orion Bank's deposits and $2.4 billion of its assets, as well as Century Bank's deposits and $706 million of its assets.
The FDIC will retain the rest for eventual sale.
In addition, the FDIC and IberiaBank agreed to share losses on roughly $1.9 billion of Orion Bank's loans and other assets, and on about $656 million of Century Bank's.
via Feds Shut 3 Banks in Florida, Calif. – CBS News.
OPS: History will call this era: The Great Consolidation
Cryptographic voting debuts
A new system for ensuring accurate election tallies, which MIT researchers helped to develop, passed its first real-world test last Tuesday.
Last week, in Takoma Park, Md., a new cryptographic voting system that could ensure accurate vote counts was used for the first time in a real election. MIT’s Ron Rivest, the Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, helped develop the system and says he’s quite pleased with how the technology worked. Takoma Park’s city clerk, Jessie Carpenter, agrees that the trial “went very well.”
To minimize the disruption of existing voting procedures, the system, called Scantegrity II, was designed to work with ordinary optical-scan voting technology. Optical-scan voting — which has become the dominant technology in the United States since the 2000 presidential election — usually requires the voter to fill in bubbles printed on a ballot next to candidates’ names. With Scantegrity II, the voter instead uses a special pen to expose a code printed inside the bubble in invisible ink. Thereafter, the ballot is fed into an ordinary optical reader, which simply determines which bubbles have been darkened.
Any voter who’d later like to confirm her vote can simply jot down the code that’s in the exposed bubble, along with the ballot’s serial number, and take that information home. (In the Takoma Park election, voters could record their codes on cards stacked in the voting booths, which were printed with the names of the contested offices — mayor and city councilor.) The voter can then look up that serial number on the election commission’s website and confirm that it’s correlated with the code inside the bubble she marked. Although on the website, the code is never associated with the candidate’s name, Scantegrity ensures that if just 2 percent of voters confirm their codes, it’s statistically almost impossible for vote tampering to go undetected.
via Cryptographic voting debuts.
Survey: Bullies prey on autistic kids
A shocking new online survey has found that nearly 90 percent of autistic children in the Bay State have been targeted by bullying so violent and ruthless that a state lawmaker says teachers and school systems must be held accountable.
The survey conducted by the Massachusetts Advocates for Children includes painful testimony from parents of autistic children who felt so tortured they stayed home from school for extended periods and even considered suicide.
“We were frankly shocked by the magnitude of the problem,” said attorney Julia Landau, director of the Autism Special Education Legal Support Center at MAC. “It took our breath away.”
via Survey: Bullies prey on autistic kids – BostonHerald.com.
Federal prosecutors oppose former Gov. Don Siegelman’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court does not need to hear the appeal of former Gov. Don Siegelman because prosecutors adequately proved at trial that he exchanged an official act for a political donation, according to written arguments filed late Friday by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Siegelman and co-defendant HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy in August asked the justices to take up their case because they believe it raises broader legal questions about how much evidence is needed to prove bribery.
They argue that the donations Scrushy made to Siegelman's lottery fund and Siegelman's subsequent appointment of Scrushy to a state health board were normal political transactions, not criminal. And they contend that government prosecutors never proved there was an explicit agreement to exchange the appointment for the $500,000 in donations..
OPS: Siegelman looks more and more like a Political prisoner every day. The Questions is, why is the Obama Administration continuing this?
Illinois prison top contender to house Gitmo detainees, official says
A prison in northern Illinois is the leading contender to house some detainees transferred from the federal facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two Obama administration officials told CNN Saturday.
Officials from the department of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security and federal Bureau of Prisons will be will be visiting the maximum-security Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles west of Chicago, on Monday, the officials said.
Earlier Saturday, a statement from Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's office said senior Obama administration officials would be visiting the Thomson prison to see whether the “virtually vacant, state of the art facility” could be of use to the Bureau of Prisons.
The statement didn't mention the space possibly being utilized for Guantanamo detainees, but said that overcrowding is a “serious issue and one of the reasons why the Bureau of Prisons is interested in viewing Thomson Correction Center.”
via Illinois prison top contender to house Gitmo detainees, official says – CNN.com.
Govt: Medicare paid $47 billion in suspect claims
The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.
Excerpts of a new federal report, obtained by The Associated Press, show a dramatic increase in improper payments in the $440 billion Medicare program that has been cited by government auditors as a high risk for fraud and waste for 20 years.
It's not clear whether Medicare fraud is actually worsening. Much of the increase in the last year is attributed to a change in the Health and Human Services Department's methodology that imposes stricter documentation requirements and includes more improper payments — part of a data-collection effort being ordered government-wide by President Barack Obama this coming week to promote “honest budgeting” and accurate statistics.
via Govt: Medicare paid $47 billion in suspect claims – Yahoo! News.
France, Brazil unveil policy for climate conference
France and Brazil adopted a common policy Saturday ahead of key UN global warming talks and vowed to launch a worldwide push to convince other powers to back their “climate bible”.
A joint text was unveiled after talks between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, which gave an outline of an agreement they want at the December 7-18 Copenhagen summit.
“We are making public… a French-Brazilian text because Brazil and France, we want Copenhagen to be a success, not a cut-price agreement,” Sarkozy told reporters in Paris.
“We are fighting for the world to live up to its historic responsibility,” the president added.
Lula hailed the text a “climate bible” and a “historic document”.
The text stresses the final objective of a “global reduction of at least 50 percent by 2050 compared with 1990″ of damaging greenhouse gases worldwide.
For developed countries there must also be “ambitious objectives for reduction in the medium-term,” the text said.
Developing countries must also contribute to efforts to cut harmful emissions but in a “fair, global and robust framework” which should include “new and substantial financial support” for the poorest.
via France, Brazil unveil policy for climate conference: Sarkozy – Yahoo! News.
OPS: The US is being left in the dust on all fronts, except in Terrorizing other Nations.
Obama Ignores Trade with Japan
While President Obama stressed that the two economic superpowers “have been and will continue to be equal partners,” the reality is far different.
Barack Obama made his maiden voyage to Japan as President of the United States this week, where he and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama discussed a raft of issues including nuclear proliferation, the war in Afghanistan, and tensions with North Korea.
“Throughout my trip and throughout my presidency, I intend to make clear that the United States is a Pacific nation, and we will be deepening our engagement in this part of the world. As I said to Prime Minister Hatoyama, the United States will strengthen our alliances, build new partnerships, and we will be part of multilateral efforts and regional institutions that advance regional security and prosperity,” Obama said at a joint press conference, according to the Associated Press.
One topic, however, that did not appear to be broached was the issue of trade.
While President Obama stressed that the two economic superpowers “have been and will continue to be equal partners,” the reality is far different.
From 2000 to 2008, Japan has held nearly a $700 billion trade surplus with the U.S. Last year alone, the U.S. held a $74 billion trade deficit with Japan.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The End of American Community
Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy –
In his essay on Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar”, W.H. Auden observed that theatrical directors throughout the 30's found it quite natural to make of Caesar a great fascist dictator –more like Mussolini than Hitler. The conspirators, he says, were “liberals”. Up to date analogies are irresistible.
There was a very brief period of time not so long ago, before Iraq fell into utter chaos, that it could be said that George W. Bush had “…crossed the Rubicon”. There are, however, even better analogies to be made. I am still surprise that the GOP 'released' the White House so willingly, it seems in retrospect. Still cynical, I am inclined to believe that the world left Obama in Bush's wake is now so precariously perched, so involved in economic disaster that it is hoped Obama will take the blame for the mess that was left him.
In 1947, Auden would say of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that it had “great relevance to our time”. Auden believed that Julius Caesar was about a society, the society of ancient Rome, on the very edge of doom. Auden did not believe that to be true of Western Civilization in 1947. But –is it true of the US, Britain, and Western Civilization today? Are we perched on the edge of doom?
Historically, of course, Octavian would “ride the storm” to prevail at Actium, and, assuming the title “Augustus” would give to Rome another 400 years. The prospects thus were not nearly so gloomy as those we face today.
via The Existentialist Cowboy: The End of American Community.
Creating Terrorism
Sen. Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings –
After eight years of war, we’re losing – only to have turned Afghanistan and Pakistan into terroristic turmoil.
Barack Obama has done a lot of contentious things since becoming president. But getting Bob Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense is one thing that has received universal acclaim. Gates’ reaction over the weekend to withdraw from Afghanistan shows the best of our leadership has yet to understand the cause of terrorism against the United States. Quoting from The New York Times: “Mr. Gates said that imposing timelines and exit strategies at this point ‘would all be a strategic mistake. The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States.’ He argued that if the leadership of the Taliban and Al Qaeda could brag to the world that the United States was driven from the region, it ‘would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, Al Qaeda recruitment, operations, fund-raising and so on.’” “Brag to the world” – that’s what the terrorists have been doing! Energizing extremist movement, Al Qaeda recruitment? What in the world does the Secretary and his generals think we’ve been doing? On 9/11, Afghanistan and the Swat Valley in Pakistan were in peace. We ran Osama bin Laden into the Swat Valley and now have ended up shooting lethal missiles from drones into the Valley, killing civilians, turning a peaceful valley into chaos, and causing two million refugees. Refugee camps are hotbeds for energizing militancy, insurgency, and Al Qaeda. How do the Secretary and generals think one creates a terrorist? Exactly the way my friend, Vice President Biden, suggests. Stay off-shore and lob artillery into the Valley or with drones lob missiles into supposedly militants’ homes. You hit a home in my neighborhood and you’ve got a militant. I’ve become a believer in Osama – a terrorist. Osama said the U. S. was engaged in a Crusade against Islam. Now, the U. S. deployed in Kuwait, having invaded Iraq, invading Afghanistan, and invading Pakistan, I’m a believer. Here I am peacefully reading my Koran and missiles from the United States hit my neighbor. You’ve got a militant. Come hell or high water I’m going to get you one way or the other. Yes, even learn to fly – and kill myself to destroy your World Trade Towers.
Now the Secretary of State says our mission is to make sure Al Qaeda can’t train in Afghanistan and become a threat to the security of the United States. Remember, on 9/11 the then Secretary of State reported that Al Qaeda was in forty-five countries, including the United States, but not in Iraq. The headlines blare that an Afghan immigrant, planning to blow up New York, has now been captured. Actually, the “Afghan immigrant” is a United States Citizen that trained in Pakistan. The Secretary’s mission could be spread to forty-five countries, including the United States.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
How the U.S. Press Helped Destroy the Auto Industry
For decades East Asian competition has played a controversial role in the decline of the American car industry.
The following article is an excerpt from the May 16-30 issue of CounterPunch.
For decades East Asian competition has played a controversial role in the decline of the American car industry. Both Japan and Korea have long been accused of unfair trade and closed markets. For their part Japanese and Korean officials have argued that their markets are open and that an incompetent and heedless Detroit doesn't make the sort of cars their consumers want.
In all the charges and countercharges, little of the remarkable truth of Detroit's trade problems has come out. To see how well — or rather how badly — you understand the background, try this quiz:
1. What was the Detroit companies' share of the Japanese market in 1930? (a) About 90 per cent. (b) About 20 per cent. (c) Less than 4 per cent.
2. How many models do the Detroit corporations currently make with the steering wheel on the right (the standard configuration for Japan)? (a) More than 40. (b) 12. (c) 3.
3. What was the combined share of all foreign makers – American, European, and Japanese – in the Korean car market in the last decade? (a) Less than 2 per cent. (b) Around 15 per cent. (c) More than 70 per cent.
The correct answer in each case is (a).
If you flunked, don't feel bad. Just cancel your newspaper subscription.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
America is Now a Defeated and Conquered Nation
The United States has no economic independence to speak of, it was undermined by the international web of economic liberalization.
Thomas Heffner, with video by Craig Harrington
The United States is in open competition with the same countries from which we buy our goods and finance our government. These countries supply our consumption while simultaneously competing fiercely against our companies in international markets. Nations like India, Japan and China, along with trade blocs like the European Union, rail against “protectionism” in the U.S. because they do not want to have their unfettered access to our market tampered with.
The United States is told that it must oblige to its commitment to “free trade,” not because it is in our best interest but because it is in our foreign creditors best interest. They want the current system to continue unimpeded. Foreign exporters finance our government so the U.S. can continue functioning, and then they make all of their money back through the goods we buy from them. The U.S. government then pays back its finance charges and over time foreign financiers virtually double their investments. The United States is told that it must keep up its end of the “free trade” bargain. Meanwhile other countries skirt the rules, using hostile practices to put our companies out of business and capture sectors of the market.
Other countries limit and restrict the amount of American-made goods flowing into their markets. The United States puts up no such regulations, and is thus flooded with foreign-made goods. The WTO, NAFTA, and other “free trade” agreements favor the producers in this equation, and the United States is not one of them. We are told by these international trade regimes that we cannot and should not protect our own economy. The U.S. must instead open itself up to all foreign interests.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
National Security Letters, the Deceitful Media & the Convergence of Interests
Sibel Edmonds
This week we interviewed Mark Klein, the AT&T whistleblower; the interview should be posted in 3 or 4 weeks. I know you’re going to find it interesting and enlightening. Speaking of AT&T, check out our contributor Ishmael’s informative interview with Jeff Farias here.
I have a few noteworthy tidbits below. Don’t pay attention to their publication dates, since the issues, these cases and reports, are ‘timeless’ in nature.
Another Police State Government Villains & an Irate Minority Fighter Story
This week the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a privacy watchdog organization, released a comprehensive and eye-opening report on a bogus subpoena issued by a US attorney in Indiana to force Indymedia.us , an independent alternative news site to hand over all the data containing about their users who visited the site on a particular day. Not only that, consistent with other National Security Letters practices, the Justice Department issued gag order to prevent the site from speaking about the subpoena:
The report describes how, earlier this year, U.S. attorneys issued a federal grand jury subpoena to Indymedia.us administrator Kristina Clair demanding “all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us” for a particular date, potentially identifying every person who visited any news story on the Indymedia site. As the report explains, this overbroad demand for internet records not only violated federal privacy law but also violated Clair’s First Amendment rights, by ordering her not to disclose the existence of the subpoena without a U.S. attorney’s permission.
Because Indymedia follows EFF’s Best Practices for Online Service Providers and does not keep historical IP logs, there was no information for Indymedia to hand over, and the government withdrew the subpoena. However, as the report describes, that wasn’t the end of the tale: Ms. Clair wanted EFF to be able to tell the story of the subpoena and shine a light on the government’s illegal demand, yet the subpoena ordered silence. Under pressure from EFF, the government admitted that the subpoena’s gag order had no legal basis, and ultimately chose not to go to court to try to force Ms. Clair’s silence despite earlier threats to do so.
via Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post | Home of the Irate Minority.
The Missing Link From Killeen to Kabul
Frank Rich
THE dead at Fort Hood had not even been laid to rest when their massacre became yet another political battle cry for the self-proclaimed patriots of the American right.
Their verdict was unambiguous: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born psychiatrist of Palestinian parentage who sent e-mail to a radical imam, was a terrorist. And he did not act alone. His co-conspirators included our military brass, the Defense Department, the F.B.I., the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and, of course, the liberal media and the Obama administration. All these institutions had failed to heed the warning signs raised by Hasan’s behavior and activities because they are blinded by political correctness toward Muslims, too eager to portray criminals as sympathetic victims of social injustice, and too cowardly to call out evil when it strikes 42 innocents in cold blood.
The invective aimed at these heinous P.C. pantywaists nearly matched that aimed at Hasan. Joe Lieberman announced hearings to investigate the Army for its dereliction of duty on homeland security. Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, vowed to unmask cover-ups in the White House and at the C.I.A. The Weekly Standard blog published a broadside damning the F.B.I. for neglecting the “broader terrorist plot” of which Hasan was only one of the connected dots. Jerome Corsi, the major-domo of the successful Swift-boating of John Kerry, unearthed what he said was proof that Hasan had advised President Obama during the transition.
via Op-Ed Columnist – The Missing Link From Killeen to Kabul – NYTimes.com.
Russia ready for Iran sanctions
Moscow – Russia is ready to support sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, the daily Kommersant said on Saturday citing sources in the administration of President Dmitry Medvedev.
“Recently our sources in the presidential administration are saying more often” that Moscow is “100% ready” to support sanctions against Iran, the newspaper wrote.
The international community has been ratcheting up pressure on Iran as the country ponders a UN-brokered proposal that could help remove tensions over its nuclear programme.
According to the newspaper, “the last word on the eventual adoption of sanctions rests with the Russian and American presidents”, Mevedev and Barack Obama, who were set to meet on Sunday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore.
via Russia ready for Iran sanctions: News24: World: News.
In House, Many Spoke With One Voice – Lobbyists’
GOP admits that Foreign Corporations are writing US Laws and telling them what to say
From the Lobbyists pen to their lips. Government by and for Corporations
In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.
The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.
Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists.
via In House, Many Spoke With One Voice – Lobbyists’ – NYTimes.com.
Record deficit is nothing compared to the surplus Bush blew
Everyone is concerned about the deficit. Not the least of which is the Chinese who are the largest foreign holder of US Treasury securities. The worry is, with rising deficits, foreigners will cut back on the purchase of Treasury debt.
The deficit for October alone was $176 billion, $26 billion higher than the $150 billion economists expected. And the deficit for the year ending in September 2009 was $1.42 trillion. That’s right. Trillion. Which was 989 billion more than the record deficit Bush ran up for 2008.
But while the tea party hypocrites and conservatives with their Hitler signs and swastikas protest , and squeal over the deficit, here is something they can remember. When conservative George W. Bush came into office, liberal Democrat Bill Clinton left the country with a $5.5 trillion budget surplus.
That’s right. Surplus. That was a result of Clinton’s budgets and his tax polices. That was enough money to have wiped out the entire 2009 deficit, pay the $2 trillion for Bush’s Iraq war (which Bush and the Republicans refused to pay for), pay the entire cost of the health care reform and still have $1.1 trillion left over. Let the conservatives wave their Hitler signs over that.
Full Story Record deficit is nothing compared to the surplus Bush blew.
Immigrant Bill Is Back on Table
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called Friday for Congress to consider an overhaul of immigration law early next year, a move that could rekindle a divisive debate during an election year.
Ms. Napolitano said the immigration landscape has changed sharply since 2007, when attempts at a comprehensive overhaul failed because many members of Congress lacked confidence in the government’s ability to enforce existing laws, she said. Immigration overhauls backed by the Bush administration and some congressional leaders from both parties foundered in part because critics portrayed them as rewarding illegal immigrants with “amnesty” for violating U.S. law.
Since then, government statistics show a 23% drop in the number of illegal immigrants caught trying to enter the U.S. in the past year, and a 67% decline since 2000, a trend Ms. Napolitano attributed to the weak economy and stronger enforcement. The government has also stepped up efforts to audit employers’ compliance with immigration laws, she said.
“These are major differences that should change the immigration conversation,” said Ms. Napolitano. Without congressional action, “what I fear is we will see another wave of illegal immigration” when the economy improves, she said. “When Congress is ready to act, we will be ready to support them.”
Full Story Immigrant Bill Is Back on Table – WSJ.com.
Economic Death Squad Analysis: Goldman Sachs’ $2.5 Trillion Global Oil Scam
$2.5 Trillion – That’s the size of of the global oil scam.
It’s a number so large that, to put it in perspective, we will now begin measuring the damage done to the global economy in “Madoff Units” ($50Bn rip-offs). That’s right – $2.5Tn is 50 TIMES the amount of money that Bernie Madoff scammed from investors in his lifetime, yet it is also LESS than the MONTHLY EXCESS price the global population is being manipulated into paying for a barrel of oil.
Where is the outrage? Where are the investigations?
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BP, TOT, Shell, DB and Societe General founded the Intercontinental Exchange in 2000. ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace. It is outside the US and operates free from the constraints of US laws. The exchange was set up to facilitate ”dark pool” trading in the commodities markets. Billions of dollars are being placed on oil futures contracts at the ICE and the beauty of this scam is that they NEVER take delivery, per se. They just ratchet up the price with leveraged speculation using your TARP money. This year alone they ratcheted up the global cost of oil from $40 to $80 per barrel.
A Congressional investigation into energy trading in 2003 discovered that ICE was being used to facilitate “round-trip” trades. Round-trip” trades occur when one firm sells energy to another and then the second firm simultaneously sells the same amount of energy back to the first company at exactly the same price. No commodity ever changes hands. But when done on an exchange, these transactions send a price signal to the market and they artificially boost revenue for the company. This is nothing more than a massive fraud, pure and simple.
“Traders of the the ICE core membership (GS, MS, BP, DB, RDS.A, GLE & TOT) wouldn’t really have to put much money at risk by their standards in order to move or support the global market price via the BFOE market. Indeed the evolution of the Brent market has been a response to declining production and the fact that traders could not resist manipulating the market by buying up contracts and “squeezing” those who had sold oil they did not have. The fewer cargoes produced, the easier the underlying market is to manipulate.” – Chris Cook, Former Director of the International Petroleum Exchange, which was bought by ICE.
Full Story Economic Death Squad Analysis: Goldman Sachs’ $2.5 Trillion Global Oil Scam
AFP: Three Americans killed in Afghanistan
Three Americans including two members of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan have been killed by homemade bombs, the military said Saturday.
The other casualty was a civilian worker, it said without giving further detail.
One of the soldiers died in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in southern Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.
“In a separate incident an ISAF service member and a civilian contractor, both from the United States, died in an IED strike in eastern Afghanistan,” the statement said, without elaborating.
Friday’s casualties bring to 470 the number of foreign soldiers killed in Afghanistan since the start of the year. More than half the dead are Americans.
IEDs are the number one killer of international troops, who are battling a Taliban insurgency at its worst since US-led troops overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001.
US President Barack Obama on Friday promised a decision soon on whether to send thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, where they would join more than 100,000 foreign soldiers already in the country.
Full Story AFP: Three Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Va. Rep. Tom Perriello, On Health Care Vote: ‘He Didn’t Come To Congress To Get Re-Elected’
OH NOES! What is Representative Tom Perriello (D-Va.) doing, allowing his spokesperson to say stuff like this, in the wake of his vote for the House health care reform bill:
Perriello spokeswoman Jessica Barba said Perriello met with and respected those who oppose the health care bill but ultimately made the decision he deemed best for his district. Perriello’s 5th District stretches from Charlottesville to Danville.
“A lot of the political pundits and all the conventional wisdom is saying that this is going to cost him the election next year,” she said. “He didn’t come to Congress to get re-elected.”
Full Story Va. Rep. Tom Perriello, On Health Care Vote: ‘He Didn’t Come To Congress To Get Re-Elected’ [UPDATE].
Health Industry Winning Round On Privacy Of Digital Health Records
Lobbyists for the health industry are close to a victory over consumer groups in a dispute about when patients should be told their digital medical records have been lost, stolen or mishandled.
The tug-of-war over a little-known federal privacy rule–which has drawn in Congress, regulators and an array of interest groups–highlights the behind-the-scenes activity touched off by the government’s effort to spend some $45 billion in economic stimulus funds to push medical data online. Federal regulators are working against tight deadlines to write all kinds of rules governing the digital system, one that the Obama administration hopes most health care providers will adopt in the next five years.
As with many Washington initiatives, the way the rules are written may have more of an effect on consumers than the original law passed by Congress.
One of the most contentious questions so far is when–and how–health care providers will have to notify patients if their privacy is breached.
Full Story Health Industry Winning Round On Privacy Of Digital Health Records.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
