Archive for November, 2009
Robert Rubin: The Man at the Nexus of Big Business and Big Government
For anyone who thinks that big Wall Street and Big Government aren’t joined at the hip, promoting policies and laws that keep each other fat and happy often at the expense of the American taxpayer, consider the career of Robert Rubin.
Rubin, of course, is largely gone from the public scene after spending 10 disastrous years as a board member and senior executive at Citigroup, the banking giant that epitomizes all that is wrong with American finance, and before that, a largely successful run as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration, which he joined after running another controversial bank, Goldman Sachs. But his legacy looms large, mainly because I believe he was one of the reasons why the financial crisis occurred in the first place.
Citigroup, with nearly $1 trillion in customer deposits, is and always was Too Big To Fail, meaning that because of its size and scope, and the fact that it safe keeps FDIC insured customer deposits, the Federal government wouldn’t just let the bank implode as it did Lehman Brothers.
Full Story Charles Gasparino: Robert Rubin: The Man at the Nexus of Big Business and Big Government.
Charity Filing Provides a Glimpse of Goldman
The latest tax filing for Goldman Sachs’s foundation is as thick as a phone book. The list of trades is more than 200 pages, single spaced. Goldman, it seems, invests like no other, even for its own charity.
“I have never seen anything like it,” said Verne O. Sedlacek, president of Commonfund, when shown the 2007 filing, which was nearly three inches thick. He has a good overview from the Commonfund, which manages more than $25 billion for universities, foundations and other not-for-profit groups.
The 2008 tax filing for the Goldman Sachs Foundation, a copy of which was provided by the firm late Wednesday, provides a glimpse of the legendary trading that has helped put the firm on track for its best year ever. The foundation, whose returns do not appear outsized in recent years, has placed a lot of its money in hedge funds and trades heavily in futures contracts based on baskets of stocks, bonds and currencies.
Given the firm’s anticipated profits and supersize bonuses, which have touched off public furor, it is no surprise that Goldman said recently it would increase its charitable giving. It has set aside $200 million to nearly double the size of its main foundation.
Full Story Charity Filing Provides a Glimpse of Goldman – NYTimes.com.
Reflections on Glass-Steagall and Maniacal Deregulation
Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the passage of the repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act and related legislation. It is an anniversary worth noting for what it teaches us about forestalling financial crises, the consequences of maniacal deregulation, and the out-of-control political power of the megafinancial institutions.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall removed the legal prohibition on combinations between commercial banks on the one hand, and investment banks and other financial services companies on the other. Glass-Steagall’s strict rules originated in the U.S. government’s response to the Depression and reflected the learned experience of the severe dangers to consumers and the overall financial system of permitting giant financial institutions to combine commercial banking with other financial operations.
Glass-Steagall protected depositors and prevented the banking system from taking on too much risk by defining industry structure: Commercial banks could not maintain investment banking or insurance affiliates (nor affiliates in non-financial commercial activity).
Full Story Reflections on Glass-Steagall and Maniacal Deregulation | CommonDreams.org.
Cuba orders extreme measures to cut energy use
Cuba’s energy situation termed “critical”
- * Some factories, workshops to be closed through December
- * Most other economic activities to be reduced
HAVANA, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Cuba has ordered all state enterprises to adopt “extreme measures” to cut energy usage through the end of the year in hopes of avoiding the dreaded blackouts that plagued the country following the 1991 collapse of its then-top ally, the Soviet Union.
In documents seen by Reuters, government officials have been warned that the island is facing a “critical” energy shortage that requires the closing of non-essential factories and workshops and the shutting down of air conditioners and refrigerators not needed to preserve food and medicine.
Cuba has cut government spending and slashed imports after being hit hard by the global financial crisis and the cost of recovering from three hurricanes that struck last year.
“The energy situation we face is critical and if we do not adopt extreme measures we will have to revert to planned blackouts affecting the population,” said a recently circulated message from the Council of Ministers.
Full Story Reuters AlertNet – Cuba orders extreme measures to cut energy use.
At least 4,000 swine flu deaths reported in U.S.
CDC: ‘Many millions’ have been sickened since outbreak began in April
Federal health officials now say that 4,000 or more Americans likely have died from swine flu — about four times the estimate they’ve been using.
The new, higher figure was first reported by The New York Times. It includes deaths caused by complications related to swine flu, including pneumonia and bacterial infections.
Until now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
had conservatively put the U.S. swine flu death count at more than 1,000. Officials said this week they’re working on an even more accurate calculation.
Full Story At least 4,000 swine flu deaths reported in U.S. – Swine flu- msnbc.com.
Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum on same-sex marriage issue
Same-sex marriage bill, as written, called a threat to social service contracts
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
Full Story Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum on same-sex marriage issue.
OPS: It’s past time to revoke their tax exempt status.
U.S. Foreclosure Filings Surpass 300,000 for 8th Straight Month
U.S. foreclosure filings surpassed 300,000 for an eighth straight month as unemployment made it tougher for homeowners to pay their bills, RealtyTrac Inc. said.
A total of 332,292 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized by banks in October, up 19 percent from a year earlier, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac said today. One in every 385 households received a filing. The tally fell 3 percent from September, the third consecutive monthly decline.
“The foreclosure problem is still with us and will keep prices down,” Stephen Miller, chairman of the economics department at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said in an interview. “The real issue is we don’t know what inventory banks are holding that they have yet to put on the market.”
Full Story U.S. Foreclosure Filings Surpass 300,000 for 8th Straight Month – Bloomberg.com.
Comparing the U.S. to other Economies
Other countries like China, India, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, and France treat their export industries as national treasures, unlike the U.S.
Other countries are coming up quickly. Take Japan. Although the American press has reported that the Japanese economy is a perennial basket case, the reality is very different. In the 60 years since the end of World War II, Japan has leveraged its meager resources (it has virtually no minerals and boasts just 4 percent of our land area) to pass almost every other nation in industrial productivity. So successful has its strategy been that as of 2004 it earned a current account surplus of $172 billion. This was the highest of any nation in history and three times that of China! And it contrasted with a current account deficit in the United States of $668 billion.
Although it is sometimes reported that Japan’s national debt is very high, the true position is a lot less serious than it appears. This is partly because Japan’s government debt numbers include an enormous amount of double-counting. In any case virtually all Japanese government debt is funded by Japanese citizens (whereas foreigners hold 47 percent of US government bonds, they account for just 4 percent of Japanese government bonds). Basically the Japanese are borrowing from themselves. So long as the Japanese nation has plenty of savings to fund the government’s spending, there is no issue. In any case much of Japan’s national debt goes to fund not Japanese government spending but rather US government spending! This is reflected in the fact as of February 2006, the Japanese government boasted official foreign currency reserves of $833 billion. These reserves are invested largely in US government bonds. The real problem is not in Japan but in the United States.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Trade Distorting Practices Undermining U.S.
According to the CPA, foreign consumption taxes, or value-added taxes, and currency manipulation are the two most important trade barriers affecting U.S. exports.
In preparation for the office’s annual National Trade Estimate, the Coalition for a Prosperous America has filed an official comment with the office of the United States Trade Representative detailing how American competitors use foreign trade barriers to prevent American exports from entering their markets.
According to the CPA, foreign consumption taxes, or value-added taxes, and currency manipulation are the two most important trade barriers affecting U.S. exports.
Currently over 150 nations utilize the VAT. It works like an export subsidy for foreign exporters and an import tariff at the same time, which places the U.S. in a comparatively most uncompetitive situation due to the fact that we do not utilize the VAT or any other countervailing measures.
In 2006, VAT nations collected rebates totaling $218.2 billion while the U.S. was forced to pay $122.4 billion in taxes due to the VAT. Each year the VAT imposes a $290 billion burden on exported U.S. goods and another $85 billion on services. This encourages outsourcing as American companies move offshore in order to circumvent the VAT and reap the same benefits as the companies producing in those nations
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Quitting Meat Is a Process — Almost Impossible to Do All at Once
When it comes to meat, change is almost always cast as an absolute. You are a vegetarian or you are not. It’s a strange formulation, and it’s distracting.
Mark Twain said that quitting smoking is among the easiest things one can do; he did it all the time. I would add vegetarianism to the list of easy things. In high school I became a vegetarian more times than I can now remember, most often as an effort to claim some identity in a world of people whose identities seemed to come effortlessly. I wanted a slogan to distinguish my mom’s Volvo’s bumper, a bake sale cause to fill the self-conscious half hour of school break, an occasion to get closer to the breasts of activist women. (And of course I did also think it was wrong to harm animals and destroy the environment.) Which isn’t to say that I refrained from eating meat. Only that I refrained in public. Privately, the pendulum swung. Many dinners of those years began with my father asking, “Any dietary restrictions I need to know about tonight?”
I first became a vegetarian when I was nine, in response to an argument made by a radical babysitter. My great change — which lasted a couple of weeks — was based on the very simple instinct that it’s wrong to kill animals for food. I imagine most children have some version of this instinct at some point, and while it says nothing at all about the rightness or wrongness of meat, the overcoming of it can, itself, leave a mark. Parental explanations almost always come in the form of half-truths, glossings over, or worse — “Animals live long, happy lives in the sun, and when they one day die, they share their meat with us.” Kids are even better at recognizing such bullshit than adults, even if, because they need a stable world, they don’t pursue it. Whether or not something is learned about food, something is learned.
Full Story Quitting Meat Is a Process — Almost Impossible to Do All at Once | Food | AlterNet.
Drug Policy Alliance Conference Comes at a Crucial Moment for Drug Reform
More people than ever grasp the need to shift from criminalization to a public health model — the Drug Policy Alliance’s conference leads the way on this discussion.
Every day we read national headlines about the war on drugs. More and more elected officials are saying the war on drugs is not working and that we need to consider alternatives.
There are stories about states like California considering taxing and regulating marijuana. There is coverage about drug prohibition in Mexico leading to a war zone where thousands of people are being killed every year. There are front page stories about countries from Portugal to Argentina to Mexico decriminalizing small amounts of drugs because they realize that they can’t incarcerate their way out of addiction. It is one thing to read about it, but it is another to jump in and try to come up with solutions to the failed war on drugs.
From Nov. 12-14, a wide range of advocates, doctors, lawyers, activists, treatment providers, law enforcement, students, educators and formerly incarcerated people will converge for the biennial International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Albuquerque, where it was previously held in 2001. The conference returns to New Mexico because the state is a beacon of reform, recently passing innovative medical marijuana legislation and the nation’s first Good Samaritan law to prevent fatal overdoses.
Full Story Drug Policy Alliance Conference Comes at a Crucial Moment for Drug Reform | DrugReporter | AlterNet.
Relentless Pressure from Progressive Groups Pushes Hatemonger Lou Dobbs Out of CNN
Groups like BastaDobbs have done in Dobbs, who used his media platform to stir up racist, anti-immigrant hysteria for years.
After relentless pressure on CNN by progressive campaigns like BastaDobbs and DropDobbs.com, Lou Dobbs announced on his Wednesday show that he was leaving the network, effective immediately. “This will be my last broadcast here on CNN, where I’ve worked for most of the past 30 years,” he said.
Dobbs’ abrupt departure from the network is a major victory for the Latino advocacy groups demanding his resignation. For years, the talk show host has stirred up xenophobic, anti-immigrant hysteria and promoted an array of right-wing talking points, giving lie to CNN’s reputation for impartiality as well as comically belying his own claims of “independence.”
Some of Dobbs’ greatest hits: in 2005 the talk show host implied that Latino immigrants were spreading leprosy in the U.S. He falsely stated that illegal immigrants make up a third of the U.S. prison population. In a March 2009 radio broadcast, Dobbs declared, “Mexico has become our enemy.” Of Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Dobbs said “pure, pure, absolute pandering to the Hispanics … ”
Rachel Maddow: Corporations Are “Child Labor-Endorsing, Pro-Slavery Freaks” for Trying to Skirt Trade Laws
“How will the corporations save themselves from that onerous rule that you can‘t use slaves and prisoners and children to make your products”?
The following is excerpted from the Nov 10 Transcript of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.
Rachel Maddow: The new rules for Wall Street and the banks will also create a consumer financial protection agency. So in the same way that regulation keeps off the market things that, when used as directed, have a good chance of killing you, things like long darts, or cars with the fuel tank right next to the bumper.
A consumer financial protection agency would keep off the markets, say, really bad mortgages that, when used as directed, are likely to blow up in your face as well. Are these bills from Barney Frank and Chris Dodd the end-all, be-all for Wall Street rules? Will these prevent the shunting of all the financial risk on to the public while those doing the shunting never personally risk anything more than drowning in their own bonus money?
I don‘t know. Surely, these bills aren‘t perfect, but they are a start. And so, of course, the opposition is already lined up and ready to do anything they can to protect themselves and their profits and their profligate risk from any new constraints.
Here’s the Video:
How Catholic Bishops Threw the Health Care Debate into Turmoil with Anti-Abortion Maneuver
It was a bold power play — one that caught progressive members of the Democratic caucus off-guard, and one that has sown distrust and dissension among House Democrats.
With a major assist from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, two members of Congress — both members, as well, of a secretive, right-wing religious group — made it impossible for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to pass an historic health care reform bill without the attachment of anti-abortion amendment that, if signed into law, could set women’s rights back decades.
While few think the amendment’s draconian language will find its way into a final bill, its passage last weekend as part of the Affordable Health Care For Americans Act set the stage for a battle that could determine whether health care reform legislation ever makes it to the Senate floor for a vote.
Played, Betrayed, Health Care Delayed: House Passes Bailout For Private Insurance Companies.
Now we know what the Obama administration means by “health care reform”. They mean guranteeing the rights of insurance and drug companies to their profits. They mean making health insurance like car insurance, with everyone compelled by law to purchase it from a private vendor, except for the very poorest among us, who will be offered a “public option” so limited and expensive as to discredit the word “public” when used in assocation with health care at all.
There’s no polite way to put it. If you’re one of millions who voted Democrats into Congress and the White House last year to enact universal health care, you’ve been played and betrayed.
The legislation squeezed out by the House on Saturday was a giant step away from ensuring the kind of quality, affordable, everybody in, nobody out health care that polling shows most Americans favor. Apologists for the White House and its party of course insist that while imperfect, it’s a giant step forward, providing health insurance coverage to millions who didn’t have it before, and that in any case it was the best they could do under the political circumstances. It’s hard to see how anyone can believe this.
Instead of recognizing a human right to health care, the White House and congressional Democrats have enshrined into law a corporate right to profit on the delivery or the non-delivery of health care. Health insurance will be mandatory, like car insurance, and government subsidies will enable everyone to purchase the shoddy, deceptive and defective products of the private insurance industry, which already rakes off fully one out of every three health care dollars in tolls for nothing more than standing between patients and their health care.
Republicans Noticeably Absent From Hearing On Veteran Homelessness
Yesterday, the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development held a hearing on ending veterans’ homelessness, a growing problem, especially in the midst of the current recession. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there are over 131,000 veterans living on the streets.
The hearing was noticeably without its Republican members. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose state is home to the greatest number of homeless veterans, was justifiably absent as she was attending the memorial service at Fort Hood. However, some of the other Republicans on the subcommittee should have made time in their schedules for this critically important issue. David Vitter, the ranking member of the subcommittee, apparently had time for oysters but no time for veterans’ homelessness.
Full Story Republicans Noticeably Absent From Hearing On Veteran Homelessness | Media Matters Action Network.
Southern Republicans See Need For Federal Assistance
According to a new poll by Winthrop University, Southerners overwhelmingly support government programs to create jobs and assist cash-strapped states. With the unemployment rate at 10.2%, the highest rate since April 1983, Southerners, like all Americans, see the economy as their main worry. Southern Democrats strongly favor government-backed initiatives to spur economic growth, with 94.5% favoring such actions. Interestingly, 53.4% of Southern Republicans also support such actions.
The poll was conducted from October 24 through November 7, 2009 and questioned 866 respondents in 11 Southern states. The data has a margin of error of 3.33%.
Full Story Southern Republicans See Need For Federal Assistance | Media Matters Action Network.
‘Immortal’ jellyfish swarming across the world
An ‘immortal’ jellyfish is swarming through the world’s oceans, according to scientists.
The Turritopsis Nutricula is able to revert back to a juvenile form once it mates after becoming sexually mature.
Marine biologists say the jellyfish numbers are rocketing because they need not die.
Dr Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute said: “We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion.”
The jellyfish are originally from the Caribbean but have spread all over the world.
Turritopsis Nutricula is technically known as a hydrozoan and is the only known animal that is capable of reverting completely to its younger self.
It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation.
Scientists believe the cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it potentially immortal.
Full Story ‘Immortal’ jellyfish swarming across the world – Telegraph.
Researchers Explore Growing Ocean Garbage Patches
ABOARD THE ALGUITA, 1,000 miles northeast of Hawaii — In this remote patch of the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of 
miles from any national boundary, the detritus of human life is collecting in a swirling current so large that it defies precise measurement.
Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.
Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.
Full Story Researchers Explore Growing Ocean Garbage Patches – NYTimes.com.
AP sources: Reid eyes payroll tax hike on wealthy – Yahoo! Finance
Majority Leader Harry Reid is considering a plan for higher payroll taxes on the upper-income earners to help finance health care legislation he intends to introduce in the Senate in the next several days, numerous Democratic officials said Wednesday.
These officials said one of the options Reid has had under review would raise the payroll tax that goes to Medicare, but only on income above $250,000 a year. Current law sets the tax at 1.45 percent of income, an amount matched by employers.
It was not known how large an increase Reid, D-Nev., was considering, or whether it would also apply to a company’s portion of the tax. President Barack Obama has said he will not raise taxes on wage earners making less than $250,000.
The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to disclose details of private deliberations.
Full Story AP sources: Reid eyes payroll tax hike on wealthy – Yahoo! Finance.
Barrick shuts hedge book as world gold supply runs out – Telegraph
Global gold production is in terminal decline despite record prices and Herculean efforts by mining companies to discover fresh sources of ore in remote spots, according to the world’s top producer Barrick Gold.
Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.
“There is a strong case to be made that we are already at ‘peak gold’,” he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC’s annual gold conference in London.
“Production peaked around 2000 and it has been in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore,” he said.
Ore grades have fallen from around 12 grams per tonne in 1950 to nearer 3 grams in the US, Canada, and Australia. South Africa’s output has halved since peaking in 1970.
Full Story Barrick shuts hedge book as world gold supply runs out – Telegraph.
Vatican Holds Conference on Extraterrestrial Life
Though it may seem an unlikely location to happen upon a conference on astrobiology, the Vatican recently held a “study week” of over 30 astronomers, biologists, geologists and religious leaders to discuss the question of the existence of extraterrestrials. This follows the statement made last year by the Pope’s chief astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, that the existence of extraterrestrials does not preclude a belief in God, and that it’s a question to be explored by the Catholic Church. The event, put on by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, took place at the Casina Pio IV on the Vatican grounds from November 6-11.
The conference was meant to focus on the scientific perspective on the subject of the existence of extraterrestrial life, and pulled in perspectives from atheist scientists and Catholic leaders alike. It was split into eight different segments, starting with a topics about life here on Earth such as the origins of life, the Earth’s habitability through time, and the environment and genomes. Then the detection of life elsewhere, search strategies for extrasolar planets, the formation and properties of extrasolar planets was discussed, culminating in the last segment, intelligence elsewhere and ‘shadow life’ – life with a biochemistry completely different than that found on Earth.
Speakers at the event included notable physicist Paul Davies and Jill C. Tarter, the Director of the Center for SETI Research. Numerous astrobiologists and astronomers researching extrasolar planets also were in attendance to give lectures. The whole series of speech abstracts and a list of participants is available in a brochure on the Vatican site, here.
Full Story Vatican Holds Conference on Extraterrestrial Life | Universe Today.
OPS: E.T. – Phone Rome !
Scahill: Obama may be afraid of Blackwater
Despite news reports that the security contractor formerly known as Blackwater has seen its contracts dry up and its influence wane, the company continues to do brisk business in Iraq and Afghanistan — and the Obama administration may be too afraid of the firm to do anything about it, says investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill.
“You know who’s guarding Hillary Clinton in Afghanistan right now? Blackwater,” Scahill told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday night. “You know who guards members of Congress? Blackwater. They have half a billion dollars in contracts in Afghanistan right now. CIA, State Department, Defense Department. Why is President Obama keeping these guys on the payroll? There has never been a company in recent history that made the case that corporations are corrupt, evil organizations [better] than Blackwater.”
Scahill was on The Rachel Maddow Show discussing the New York Times’ revelation that senior Blackwater executives allegedly arranged for bribes of up to $1 million for Iraqi politicians in a bid to retain its contracts and silence criticism of the company in the wake of the Nissour Square massacre in 2007, in which 17 Iraqi civilians died after Blackwater guards opened fire.
Full Story Scahill: Obama may be afraid of Blackwater | Raw Story.
Official: Obama rejects ALL current Afghanistan war options
President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That push follows strong reservations about a possible troop buildup expressed by the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official. In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.
But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama’s thinking.
Full Story Official: Obama won’t take any current war options – Yahoo! News.
Lindsey Graham Censured By SC County GOP For Working With Democrats On Climate Bill
Republican leaders in a South Carolina county have censured their own U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham for working with Democrats on a climate bill and other legislation.
The Republican has often worked with Democrats in Congress, but Charleston County Chairwoman Lin Bennett says his work on climate legislation is the last straw.
The party resolution passed Monday says Graham has weakened the Republican brand. Bennett expects a similar resolution to be introduced at the state GOP convention next year.
Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop says Graham is looking for a way forward on energy legislation.
Full Story Lindsey Graham Censured By SC County GOP For Working With Democrats On Climate Bill.
Karl Eikenberry Dissents On Afghan Troop Increase
Ahead of today’s meeting of Obama’s national security team to discuss Afghan war strategy, Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and a member of the war council, sent a pair of classified cables to Washington expressing deep reservations about the possibility of sending more U.S. troops to the country, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Eikenberry’s concerns about the deployment of more troops centered around Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s unwillingness to clamp down on rampant corruption throughout the country, a situation that has helped the Taliban re-establish itself there, the Post states. Eikenberry’s memos were skeptical of plans to send more troops until Karzai’s government steps up its efforts to root out corruption.
But Karzai”s corruption is not the only thing keeping the Taliban in business, according to an explosive new story by reporter Aram Roston for The Nation, which alleges that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military funds are making their way to Afghan insurgents, including the Taliban. Roston reports thatthat the U.S. is paying off insurgents to persuade them from attacking U.S. supply lines.
Full Story Karl Eikenberry Dissents On Afghan Troop Increase.
White House Thinks Trigger More Progressive Than Opt-Out
According to NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker, some in the White House — and on Capitol Hill — think a ‘triggered’ public option is preferable to an opt-out plan, regardless of political realities.
“There is a view I have been hearing from the White House, and people on the Hill as well, that actually the compromise that Olympia Snowe favors, which is the trigger, is actually more robust — to use the progressive term — than the opt-out,” Whitaker told David Shuster on MSNBC Wednesday afternoon. “What I’m hearing from some top aides working on health care in the White House is that they actually think ultimately the trigger may be more effective in driving prices down and creating competition and they were actually surprised when Olympia Snowe started to propose it.”
The White House pushed for the Senate to choose a triggered public option, which would only come into effect if the insurance industry failed to meet certain benchmarks. Public option advocates saw the compromise as basically no public option at all. At the time, it seemed the Obama administration was merely bending to political realities. Now, they apparently think the trigger is better policy, whether or not it increases the health care bill’s chances at passing the Senate.
Full Story White House Thinks Trigger More Progressive Than Opt-Out: Mark Whitaker.
10 States Face Looming Budget Disasters: Pew Report
In Arizona, the budget has grown so gloomy that lawmakers are considering mortgaging Capitol buildings. In Michigan, state officials dealing with the nation’s highest unemployment rate are slashing spending on schools and health care.
Drastic financial remedies are no longer limited to California, where a historic budget crisis earlier this year grew so bad that state agencies issued IOUs to pay bills.
A study released Wednesday warned that at least nine other big states are also barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services.
The report by the Pew Center on the States found that Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin are also at grave risk. Double-digit budget gaps, rising unemployment, high foreclosure rates and built-in budget constraints are the key reasons.
Full Story 10 States Face Looming Budget Disasters: Pew Report.
Obama To Give Interview To Fox News
President Obama will give an interview to Fox News’ Major Garrett, Drudge reports.
The interview will take place in China next week and comes just one day after it was reported that Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn — the so-called general in the administration’s war against Fox News — will be stepping down.
The Obama administration’s battle against Fox News has been two-pronged: members of the administration have characterized Fox News as not a legitimate news network while also regularly denying the network interviews with key figures. When Obama did the Sunday morning talk show rounds, for instance, he skipped out on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace.
Full Story Obama To Give Interview To Fox News.
Lou Dobbs QUITS CNN (Video)
Longtime CNN host Lou Dobbs shocked his viewers Wednesday by announcing that he would be leaving the network effective immediately.
The daily host of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” addressed his viewers after giving the day’s headlines and told them Wednesday’s show would be his final time in the anchor chair.
“This will be my last broadcast,” he said.
He said CNN had allowed him to be released from his contract early and that he was considering a number of options for the next stage in his career.
“I will let you know when I set my course,” he said. He said he wanted to “contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day.”
Full Story Lou Dobbs QUITS CNN (Video).
Real Recovery Is Easy to Spell: J-O-B-S
Jim Hightower >>
The recession is over! The economy is growing! The Dow Jones is above 10,000! Bankers are pocketing profits and fat bonuses! Happy days are here again!
Unless, of course, you’re just a regular working stiff struggling with falling income and rising unemployment — and sensing that your family’s grip on middle-class life is steadily slipping away. Welcome to America’s tinkle-down economy.
The latest job numbers mock the smiley-faced claims of economists and polticos that the Great Recession is over:
- # 10.2 percent of America’s workforce is officially unemployed — nearly 16 million people.
- # Another 15 million people are either so discouraged by their fruitless job search that they’ve quit looking, or they’ve had to settle for part-time jobs when they want and need full-time employment. Add the discouraged and underemployed to the number of the officially unemployed, and the percentage of our people who can’t find the work they need rises to 17.5 percent — one out of every six workers.
- # More than a third of the officially unemployed have been jobless for more than half a year — a new record for long-term joblessness.
- # Nearly 15 percent of the unemployed have college degrees, and many more of the college-educated are underemployed.
- # October was the 22nd straight month that the U.S. economy lost jobs — the longest streak since 1939. About 7.3 million jobs have been eliminated since December 2007, when the recession began. In this same time span, 2.8 million new workers have come into the job market, meaning our economy is now 10.1 million jobs short of the number needed just to get back to even.
- # While average wages have risen slightly in the past year, average weekly pay has stagnated because workers have had their hours cut.
Full Story t r u t h o u t | Jim Hightower | Real Recovery Is Easy to Spell: J-O-B-S.
Wall Street Banks Tricking Little Guys Into Lobbying for Them
Wall Street titans, recognizing that they have something of a credibility problem when it comes to opposing regulatory reform, are enlisting more sympathetic, everyday folks to lobby on their behalf on Capitol Hill.
Bankers, brokers and swaps dealers have been browbeating their clients — farmers, fuel companies, airlines, municipal power companies — who are the “end users” of financial derivatives: Lobby Congress against reform of the derivatives market, the bankers say, or the cost of your derivative deals will skyrocket.
“There are many end users who just don’t understand the issue, so they’re heavily influenced by anybody who does,” said Jim Collura of the New England Fuel Institute.
“Many of these guys are influenced by one or both of the following: It’s either someone from the financial community whom they’ve known or respected. It may be their broker, their financial adviser, their swap dealer, whoever. Or they’re a member of a trade group and they’re getting hammered constantly with: ‘You’re going to be put out of business; you’re not going to be able to hedge; you’re not going to be competitive anymore’ — including some of my members,” Collura said.
Full Story Wall Street Banks Tricking Little Guys Into Lobbying for Them.
Extremist conservatives: the ugly Americans
Extremist conservatives run on fear. Fear of all kinds of things. And Republicans and those who try to manipulate them know it and use it to exploit that fear and ignorance for their own political ends.
As was apparent during the town hall meetings and the tea party protests, the most recent of which was the anti-healthcare reform protest in Washington, it is always the people who talk loudest, make the biggest show, and are the most aggressive who do it out of the most fear.
They show off guns at town hall meetings, carry Hitler signs and swastikas and talk big (as long as they are in a crowd) because, too afraid to look at their own failures and inadequacies, and the failures they supported, and dissatsified with their own lives, they look for scapegoats and prop themselves up with the fiction that THEY are the true Americans and its THEIR values that are true American values. Which of course is not only untrue, the opposite, as history has shown repeatedly, is true.
Full Story Extremist conservatives: the ugly Americans.
3 Reasons This Rally Is Doomed
“Markets have gone up too much, too soon, too fast.”
–Nouriel Roubini
Prof. Roubini, known for having predicted the economic crisis, proclaims he’s cautious in the near term because of a weak economic recovery. George Magnus, economic advisor at UBS, agrees, saying, “This recovery is entirely dependent on the unprecedented largesse of governments and central banks … the recovery is built on very short-term foundations.”
This doubt about the economy is all well and good, but one only needs to look at the recent stock market recovery to find some seriously optimistic expectations.
We must be dreaming
Since the March lows, the MSCI World Index (ACWI) has climbed by 74% and the S&P 500 has jumped 59%. Healthy companies like FedEx (NYSE: FDX) and Walgreen (NYSE: WAG) have rebounded more than 85% over the same time period, and bedridden stocks like AIG have been able to secure whopping 500% gains. Bulls are pointing to a fast, V-shaped recovery that will mirror the quickness of our slide into recession. Could a full recovery really be this immediate?
There goes the alarm
The short answer is no — this can’t be as prompt a recovery as some believe. Here are three reasons why I believe this rally is a castle made of sand.
Full Story 3 Reasons This Rally Is Doomed.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: Our Employees Are Among The Most Productive In The World
For those concerned about how Goldman Sachs is set to bring in record-breaking profits while the broader economy remains downright stalled, there is one simple explanation: Goldman employees are just more productive than you.
In another comment that will likely provoke even more Goldman Sachs outrage, CEO Lloyd Blankfein appeared at a industry conference on Tuesday and defended his company’s performance, reports the Financial Times. Blankfein’s words come on the heels of his recent claim that Goldman Sachs is doing “God’s work.”
Here’s the FT:
“I often hear references to higher compensation at Goldman,” said Mr Blankfein. “What people fail to mention is that net income generated per head is a multiple of our peer average. The people of Goldman Sachs are among the most productive in the world.”
Full Story Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: Our Employees Are Among The Most Productive In The World.
Avoiding Factory Farm Foods: An Eater’s Guide
Most people share at least the following traits: they want to be healthy; they like animals; and they value clean air and water. Yet relatively few Americans connect those concerns with their food. As more people start making the link (especially if they’ve seen graphic video footage of industrial animal operations), many decide it’s time to stop eating foods from factory farms. This is a guide for doing just that.
I’ve been a vegetarian for more than twenty years. Unlike the fits and starts described in Jonathan Safran Foer’s autobiographical book Eating Animals, the day I decided to quit eating meat was the last time I ever did. I remember that dinner well. It was my mother’s tuna fish casserole, and actually quite tasty. But while I chose to stop eating meat, I never adopted the view that it was morally wrong, and, consequently, didn’t become one of those vegetarians who spends her spare time plumbing the depths of meat industry literature looking for bits of information to shock my friends and family into giving up meat.
Nine years ago, I had just started working as an environmental lawyer for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. when he approached me about leading a national campaign to reform the livestock and poultry sector. He said that industrialized animal production had become one of the nation’s worst polluters of water and air, and he wanted to aggressively attack the problem.
Full Story Nicolette Hahn Niman: Avoiding Factory Farm Foods: An Eater’s Guide.
John Conyers Tells Obama: ‘Start Knocking Heads’
Earlier this week, Michigan Representative John Conyers told reporters that he’d like President Obama to start fashioning himself after a different model of politician if he wants to get health care reform passed:
“The president could take a few pages from Lyndon Johnson’s book… and start knocking heads together,” said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Conyers, who spoke to reporters in Detroit, first came to Congress in 1965, the year Medicare and the Voting Rights Act both passed under the strong hand of Johnson, by then the president. Obama was not yet 4 years old.
Full Story John Conyers Tells Obama: ‘Start Knocking Heads’.
Washington Times Beefs Up Security As Internal Turmoil Continues
Things are getting downright weird over at the Washington Times, where an ongoing executive shake-up has seen publisher Tom McDevitt, chief finance officer Keith Cooperrider and chairman Doug Joo leave their jobs, and mounting speculation that executive editor John Solomon — who was brought on in 2008 to lend a new sheen of credibility to the frantic, scare-quotey newspaper — is poised to quit as well.
Now, Ben Frumin at Talking Points Memo says armed guards are popping up all over the newsroom, as the paper prepares for the Rapture, or something:
TPM hears from current staffers in the newsroom there has been an increased security presence at the newspaper in recent days. On Sunday, when three executives were fired, armed guards were brought up to the third floor where management works, according to three newsroom sources.
Full Story Washington Times Beefs Up Security As Internal Turmoil Continues.
Chris Dodd On “Morning Meeting”: We Have Financial Regulations From ‘The 19th Century’
Calling our current financial regulatory regime “more an accident than anything else,” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) appeared on Dylan Ratigan’s Morning Meeting to discuss the sweeping reform bill he unveiled yesterday.
Dodd’s bill has been called far more aggressive than the financial reform bill being weighed in the House of Representatives. Under the proposed measure, the Federal Reserve would be stripped of much of its power and in its place will be a new regulatory council to oversee systemic risks to the economy. The bill, Ratigan said, has several promising components, including crackdowns on derivatives, increasing capital requirements for banks and a clause that would allow the government to clawback pay from execs at publicly traded companies.
Here’s Dodd:
“We have an architecture of federal regulatory structure — some of it dates to the 19th century… It’s just so outdated. It’s a hodgepodge. It’s an accident more than anything else… If there’s any silver lining in the last several years of this very dark cloud in our economy it is that I think we got a chance to do what you very effectively described as [something], bold.”
Full Story Chris Dodd On “Morning Meeting”: We Have Financial Regulations From ‘The 19th Century’.
How Credit Raters Fended Off Oversight From Congress And The SEC
Editor’s Note: This is the second of three articles by the Investigative Fund on the credit rating companies. Read the first article here.
When the nation’s top credit rating companies came under attack in Washington in recent years, Charles E. Schumer often emerged as their strongest ally.
As recently as 2006, the senior senator from New York questioned whether new oversight legislation was necessary given that the companies, “located in the great city of New York,” were already “making good-faith efforts to improve the transparency of their ratings.” At a Senate hearing that spring, he encouraged the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission not to ignore the raters’ central argument against government interference – that their ratings of bonds are just opinions, protected by the First Amendment.
But a year later, as the nation reeled from an economic meltdown, the Democratic senator changed his mind. He lashed out at the companies for awarding top grades to bonds comprised of high-risk mortgages. When the bonds defaulted, investors lost billions.
Full Story How Credit Raters Fended Off Oversight From Congress And The SEC.
Paid Leave Bill ‘Necessary’ In Light Of H1N1 Flu Pandemic
The Obama administration has endorsed legislation to mandate paid time off for millions of American workers, particularly to come to the aid of those who fall ill from the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
“It’s common sense and good business sense – workers should be able to stay home if they are ill,” says Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris. “The Healthy Families Act offers a great opportunity to level the playing field for workers and gives them the ability to stay home if they are sick without fear of losing their jobs or being forced to work sick.”
Harris revealed the administration’s support for the measure in testimony Tuesday before a Senate subcommittee. The Healthy Families Act was introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) earlier this year before his death this summer, and would require employers with 15 or more workers to provide seven days of paid sick leave annually for their own medical needs or to care for a family member.
Full Story On The Hill: Paid Leave Bill ‘Necessary’ In Light Of H1N1 Flu Pandemic.
Most Americans oppose Afghanistan troop boost: poll
Most Americans oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan, as President Barack Obama nears a decision on whether to ramp up US engagement in the eight-year war, a poll suggested on Wednesday.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey said 56 percent of respondents were against deploying more boots on the ground, while 42 percent support sending a larger US troop contingent.
Overall, 40 percent of those surveyed expressed support for the conflict, with 58 percent opposed.
The poll was released hours before Obama was meeting with his national security team and top military brass to sift through four strategic options on the future US approach in Afghanistan.
General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has requested 40,000 more US troops to root out Taliban insurgents and their Al-Qaeda allies from the war-torn country.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey was conducted by telephone October 30-November 1. Its sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.
Full Story Most Americans oppose Afghanistan troop boost: poll – Yahoo! News.
Restore Democracy: Abolish the Electoral College
Len Hart,
If the ‘President’ is elected to represent the people of the United states, then he/she should be elected directly by the people. The Electoral College, in which electors represent states –not people –must be abolished and the ‘office’ of President elected directly. The voice of the people needs no proxy. The voice of the people must be be heard directly, loudly and often.
Fears that the ‘college’ might elect a minority President are not merely speculative should the nation be so deeply divided that three or more candidates split the electoral votes among them –no one getting a necessary majority. Precisely that happened in 1824, attempted in 1948 and again in 1968.
There are but two resolutions should it happen again:
* either one candidate could throw his electoral votes to the support of another before the meeting of the Electors, or
* the U.S. House of Representatives would select the president in accordance with the 12th Amendment.
The people are without a voice. There is no office nor branch of government that bears the responsibility of representing the voice of the people. There is the increasing danger that the current system may be ‘gamed’ and its flaws exploited.
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: Restore Democracy: Abolish the Electoral College.
Mormon Church Backs Gay Rights Bill
Salt Lake City First in Utah to Ban Bias Based on Sexual Preference
The Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake City laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
The Utah-based church’s support ahead of Tuesday night’s vote came despite its steadfast opposition to gay marriage, reflected in the high-profile role it played last year in California’s ballot measure that barred such unions.
“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.
Full Story Mormon Church Backs Gay Rights Bill – CBS News.
W.Va. pols vow to speak in single, pro-coal voice
An array of West Virginia’s top political leaders stood shoulder-to-shoulder Tuesday with executives from the state’s top coal producers, vowing to form a united front in the face of what they call mixed signals and heavy-handedness from federal mining regulators.
Gov. Joe Manchin arranged the summit, attracting U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Reps. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., and aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.
The group of several dozen, which also included many of the state Legislature’s top leaders, met behind closed doors for nearly two hours in a temporary banquet hall erected just outside the governor’s mansion. Manchin and a number of the attendees later spoke to reporters at the nearby state Capitol.
“We heard a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, a lot of anger as to how to proceed,” said Rahall, who represents the state’s coal-rich south. “Certainly, the lack of a definitive plan of action by our federal agencies has caused this frustration.”
Full Story W.Va. pols vow to speak in single, pro-coal voice – Salon.com.
Clyburn thinks Stupak clause will be removed from healthcare bill
The healthcare reform bill approved by the House will likely see its abortion amendment stripped, the House’s third-ranking Democrat said Tuesday.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said he believes that the amendment restricting federal funding for abortion will eventually be removed during conference with the Senate’s bill.
“I think that’s what’s gonna happen,” Clyburn said during an appearance on MSNBC when asked if Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) amendment would be removed.
Clyburn said that many other House Democrats supported the having a vote on the amendment in the House, with the expectation that it would eventually be removed.
“I agree that the language approved by the House is unacceptable,” Clyburn explained. “We were doing what was necessary to do to put the bill on the floor in about 12 hours.”
Full Story Clyburn thinks Stupak clause will be removed from healthcare bill – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.
The Controlled Demolitions of 911
by Len Hart,
Only a controlled demolition looks like a controlled demolition. And WTC 7 looks like a controlled demolition because it was ‘pulled’ just as Silverstein himself said it was. And if it was ‘pullled’, it had to have been ‘prepped’, that is, explosives planted and wired perhaps two weeks or more in advance of the so-called ‘terrorist attack’.
There is –in fact –not a shred of evidence to support the ludicrous THEORY that it fell as a result of dinky, piddly random fires that might have been pissed out!
For those who are not yet ready to make the commitment to obtain and read a book on 9/11, but who wish to learn more, a ten-minute solution is available. It only takes a few minutes to view video on the Internet of the collapse of Building 7, the 47 story skyscraper located immediately north of the WTC complex about 300 feet from the North Tower. Viewers will note the almost vertical collapse of the building. Only controlled demolitions have achieved vertical collapses of upright steel structures.
After viewing the video, many will agree with Dan Rather who said on CBS News that very evening that the collapse of Building 7 was “reminiscent of those pictures we’ve all seen too much on television before when a building was destroyed by well placed dynamite to knock it down.”
–Ronald Bleier, WTC Building 7 – The 911 Smoking Gun?
Full Story The Existentialist Cowboy: The Controlled Demolitions of 911.
Derivatives Just “A Sophisticated Form Of Gambling,” U.S. Senators Say; Propose Bill Allowing State Gambling Laws To Apply
In describing the complex and little-understood world of derivatives trading as “a sophisticated form of gambling,” three U.S. Senators proposed legislation that would enable state gambling regulators and attorneys general to examine the practice.
Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sent out a press release on Tuesday, describing the need for more oversight of the market in derivatives, which are contracts that can act as insurance against a future event, or as just a simple bet.
“The derivatives market has done so much damage to our economy and is nothing more than a very high-stakes casino – except that casinos have to abide by regulations,” wrote Cantwell. “Even in Las Vegas at the Blackjack tables, both the House and the player have to have capital behind their bets. But we allow Wall Street to continue to operate in the dark…”
Pharma Deal With White House on Course to Net Industry Billions
The deal struck between the pharmaceutical lobby, the White House and Senate Democrats has drastically improved Big Pharma’s expected profits, a private industry report finds.
IMS Health, a company that supplies the pharmaceutical companies with sales data, predicts that new health reform legislation — combined with a projected upswing in the economy — will result in a net gain of more than $137 billion in total market sales over the next four years. The new assessment was contained in document obtained by the Huffington Post.
Back in March, that same firm projected a compound annual growth rate of -0.1 percent in the period of 2008 through 2013. In October, with the general outlines of health care reform clearly in place, it revised that number to a positive 3.5 percent for over the same period.
What happened in those seven months? The economy started looking up, for one, as did the overall prospects of health care reform. But the industry also won a major lobbying victory.
Full Story Pharma Deal With White House on Course to Net Industry Billions.
Obama helping lobbyists weaken offshore tax crackdown Dems passed in 2002 over GOP opposition
David Sirota
One of the few – and I sincerely stress the word “few” – concrete legislative successes progressives notched in the Republican Congress under President George W. Bush came on the evening of July 26th, 2002, when they humiliated the House into passing a bill sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) banning federal contracts from going to companies that engage in tax “inversions.” These are the schemes whereby a corporation that is based in the United States buy a P.O. box in Bermuda and use it to legally avoid paying American taxes.
The bill, reported Congressional Quarterly at the time, “was expected to fail [but] when the 15-minute voting clock ran out, DeLauro’s amendment was five votes ahead.” Ultimately, industry-owned Republican legislators who had tried to vote down the measure realized they weren’t going to be able to stop it, and “after a nod from Republican leadership, more than 100 Republicans recast their votes to give DeLauro an avalanche victory.” Having witnessed this firsthand on the floor of the House, I can tell you it was indeed a sight to see.
And yet in the now-Democratic Congress seven years later, with deficits exploding and the government clearly needing to strengthen any and all incentives for corporations to pay their taxes, I was more than disheartened to read this story in the Hill newspaper this week:
Multinational corporations are fighting to preserve language in a spending bill that would weaken a ban on federal contracts.
The provision, inserted in the Senate version of the bill at the request of the Obama administration, would weaken a ban on federal contracts for inverted companies…
Before the ban began in 2002, four of the 100 largest federal contractors were inverted, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
In 2001, those four companies received $2.7 billion in federal contracts, but they have unable to win the contracts since the ban was put into place.
Full Story Open Left:: Obama helping lobbyists weaken offshore tax crackdown Dems passed in 2002 over GOP opposition.
Major Hasan and The Legacy of George W Bush
by Thom Hartmann
If Bill Clinton – or, presumably, Al Gore (or even Ralph Nader) – had been President in 2001, the Ft. Hood massacre almost certainly wouldn’t have happened. Because George W. Bush was president, it did. Here’s why it’s Bush’s fault:
One of the first lessons aspiring novelists and screenwriters learn is that the goodness of a hero is defined by a single quality – the evil of his opponent. From Superman’s Lex Luthor to Batman’s Joker to Indiana Jones’ Nazis to Luke Skywalker’s Darth Vader, for a hero to be perceived as larger than life, he must have a larger than life enemy.
If Frodo in “Lord of the Rings,” for example, hadn’t been forced to do battle with the supernatural powers of the Ring and its minions, his story would have merely been a boring travelogue. But with an army of supernaturally brilliant, evil, and powerful opponents, Frodo had the opportunity to display his extraordinary inner courage and resourcefulness, qualities he didn’t even realize he had until they were called forth by the peril of an awesome evil.
This is a lesson that was not lost on Karl Rove and George W. Bush. If they could recast George as the opponent of a power as great as the Ring, then the rather ordinary Dubya could become the extraordinary SuperGeorge, rising from his facileness to prevail over supernatural powers of evil.
Bill Clinton had a similar chance, but passed on it for the good of America and the world.
Full Story Major Hasan and The Legacy of George W Bush | CommonDreams.org.
How to pass healthcare reform
Garrison Keillor
The way to fight Republicans is to make them think you like them. It’ll scare them into passing the thing
There are some things we will never understand. Death, for one. I overheard a woman in the drugstore say, “He went into the hospital yesterday and he was eating his supper and then he fell asleep and then he died. I don’t get it.” She didn’t seem grief-stricken, just uncomprehending. (Why did it have to happen now?) The paranoia that has seized the Republican Party is beyond my understanding. So is the physics of cord entanglement: how two power cords set separately in a briefcase become so complexly intertwined in only a few hours. And why do you find the rudest people in first class? Passengers in steerage accept their misery with stoical grace, while the privileged sit in luxury in a cold rage.
And then there is Washington. I maintain that Congress would do better work if it moved to Buffalo, N.Y., and the Honorables had to experience blizzards and snow shoveling and cold weather, which stimulate intelligence — SAT scores rise as you approach the Canadian border. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution says that Congress could not convene in Buffalo.
The Founding Fathers intended the Senate to be a fount of wisdom flowing, but when you consider Saxby Chambliss and Jim Bunning, John Ensign, Jim DeMint, James Inhofe, who look as if they’ve been banged on the head too many times, and the moon-faced Mitch McConnell, your faith in democracy is challenged severely. Any legislative body in which 41 senators from rural states that together represent 10 percent of the population can filibuster you to death is going to be flat-footed, on the verge of paralysis, no matter what. Any time 10 percent of the people can stop 90 percent, it’s like driving a bus with a brake pedal for each passenger. That’s why Congress has a public approval rating of 25 percent.
Full Story Healthcare Reform – Salon.com.
Drug ‘shrinks lung cancer tumour’
Scientists have identified a drug which may offer hope to patients with a particularly lethal form of lung cancer.
The drug eliminated small cell lung cancer tumours in 50% of mice, and blocked the cells’ ability to resist standard chemotherapy treatment.
The Imperial College London team now hope to test it in patients with an inoperable form of the disease.
Their study appears in the journal Cancer Research.
Full Story BBC NEWS | Health | Drug ‘shrinks lung cancer tumour’.
El Salvador facing food shortage
About 10,000 people in El Salvador are in need of food aid after devastating floods washed away crops.
Three days of national mourning are being held following the deaths of at least 140 people in the floods.
Thousands are living in shelters as a result of the disaster and large parts of the country are without electricity and clean water.
The areas around the capital, San Salvador, and the central province of San Vicente were hit hardest.
President Mauricio Funes has declared a national emergency.
At least 49 of the dead are believed to be children.
Full Story BBC NEWS | Americas | El Salvador facing food shortage.
High BPA levels linked to male sexual problems
Exposure to high levels of a controversial chemical found in thousands of everyday plastic products appears to cause erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in men, according to a new study published Wednesday.
The study, funded by the federal government and published in the journal Human Reproduction, is the first to examine the impact of bisphenol A, or BPA, on the reproductive systems of human males. Previous studies have involved mice or rats.
The research comes as government agencies debate the safety of BPA, a compound that is found in thousands of consumer products ranging from dental sealants to canned food linings and that is so ubiquitous it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the U.S. population.
Researchers focused on 634 male workers at four factories in China who were exposed to elevated levels of BPA. They followed the men over five years and compared their sexual health with that of male workers in other Chinese factories where BPA was not present.
The men handling BPA were four times as likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction and seven times as likely to have difficulty with ejaculation, said De-Kun Li, a scientist at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, which conducted the study with funds from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Full Story High BPA levels linked to male sexual problems.
Abortion amendment to halt health reform?
Nov. 10: Morning Meetings Dylan Ratigan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America Nancy Keenan and Family Research Councils Cathy Ruse discuss how the controversial abortion amendment may stop the health reform bill in its tracks.
Full Story YouTube – Abortion amendment to halt health reform?.
Aardonyx celestae: New Dinosaur Species Discovered
Scientists say they’ve discovered a new dinosaur species in South Africa that may help explain how the creatures evolved into the largest animals on land.
Paleontologist Adam Yates from the University of the Witwatersrand presented an incomplete skeleton of the Aardonyx celestae at a news conference Wednesday.
The findings of Yates and his team have been published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B.
The species was a plant-eater dating back about 200 million years to the early Jurassic period. The dinosaur walked on its hind legs but could drop to all fours and stood nearly 6 feet (about 1.7 meters) high at the hip.
Full Story Aardonyx celestae: New Dinosaur Species Discovered.
Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger (VIDEO)
The tea party protests continued last week, as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann held an anti-health-care-reform rally on the steps of the Capitol. While she estimated that 20,000-45,000 people attended the event, the Washington Post reported it was actually more like 10,000.
Still, that is a sizable number of Americans exercising their right to free speech and assembly, and that warrants news coverage. But Sean Hannity and his team did more than cover the event. They not only inflated the number in attendance with their words, but actually used footage from a heavily-attended protest this summer to make this health care rally appear more popular. Hannity even pointed out that this was a huge crowd for a Thursday, when the protest footage they used was from a Saturday.
Jon Stewart and his team caught this discrepancy and ran with it, pointing out neither the color of the leaves nor sky in the tacked-on video matched that of the actual footage. They went on to mock Fox by adding more video to the interview, this time from Woodstock and the movie “300.”
Full Story Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger (VIDEO).
OPS: Capitol Hill police told NBC’s Luke Russert that the crowd was about 4,000.
Military sees increase in wounded in Afghanistan
Far from winding down, the numbers of wounded U.S. soldiers coming home have continued to swell. The problem is especially acute among those who fought in Afghanistan, where nearly four times as many troops were injured in October as a year ago.
Amputations, burns, brain injuries and shrapnel wounds proliferate in Afghanistan, due mostly to crude, increasingly potent improvised bombs targeting U.S. forces. Others are hit by snipers’ bullets or mortar rounds.
With Veterans Day on Wednesday, wounded veterans from the recent conflicts consider the toll of these injuries, and the rough road ahead for the injured. Of particular concern are the so-called hidden wounds, traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder that can have side effects such as irritability and depression.
Full Story Military sees increase in wounded in Afghanistan.
Employment Bill Called ‘Corporate Giveaway’
Bill Allocates Five Times More for Corporate Tax Perks Than Unemployment Insurance Benefits
Last week, as House Democrats took to the floor with near-unanimous praise for legislation to help the unemployed and stimulate the fragile economy, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) offered a wildly different message.
“This bill,” he said, “represents a textbook example of how not to deal with the economic challenges that our country faces.”
The Texas Democrat wasn’t talking about the extension of unemployment benefits at the heart of the bill, but an amendment providing the nation’s businesses — even the largest corporations — with tens-of-billions of dollars in tax rebates to stem recent losses. That provision, Doggett claimed, is less an economic stimulant than it is “a corporate giveaway” at the expense of taxpayers. It didn’t help the congressman’s mood that the Democrats’ bill allocates more than four times the funding to the business tax than it does to extending unemployment insurance.
“Today’s bill allocates $2 billion to the winner and $10 billion to the loser,” he said.
Indeed, although the jobless benefits are the centerpiece of the Democrats’ bill, they represent a mere $2.4 billion of the spending, according to the Congressional Budget Office — or just 10 percent of the $24 billion proposal. Nearly half of the money — $10.4 billion — will go toward the so-called loss carry-back extension, which will allow businesses, both large and small, to apply any losses suffered in 2008 and 2009 to income made in the previous five years, three years longer than current law allows. The result will be tax refunds topping $33 billion next year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Full Story Employment Bill Called ‘Corporate Giveaway’ « The Washington Independent.
Eight charged in US in global credit card fraud ring
A grand jury in the southeastern state of Atlanta indicted eight people Tuesday in a credit card fraud ring that stole nine million dollars in 280 cities around the world, the Justice Department said.
Five of the indicted are Estonians. One of them, the suspected mastermind of the scheme, is in prison in Estonia awaiting extradition to the United States, the department said.
One is Russian and another is Moldovan; the nationality of the eighth has not been disclosed.
The indictment says that the suspects, aged from 20-33, are suspected of hacking the codes of debit cards used by some employers to pay employees’ salaries.
Full Story Eight charged in US in global credit card fraud ring – Yahoo! Canada News.
Massive blackout leaves Brazil on edge
A massive blackout plunged tens of millions in Brazil’s largest cities into darkness, sparking major disruptions, fears of crime and energy supply concerns Wednesday for the newly named Olympic hosts.
The outage across much of southern Brazil started at 10:15 pm Tuesday (0015 GMT) and lasted some four hours. Neighboring Paraguay also suffered a 30-minute nationwide blackout.
It originated at the Itaipu hydroelectric plant that straddles the border between Brazil and Paraguay, supplying both with much of their energy needs.
Police in Sao Paulo and Rio, recently named as the host of the 2016 Olympics, feared an opportunistic crime wave and accidents because of non-functioning traffic lights.
Officials called up off-duty officers and urged the public to stay off the streets.
The metro system in Sao Paulo and Rio suddenly halted, stranding many passengers between underground stations.
Full Story Massive blackout leaves Brazil on edge – Yahoo! News.
Nunn indicted on murder charge
A Fayette County grand jury indicted former state Rep. Steve Nunn on Tuesday for allegedly killing former fiancée Amanda Ross.
The grand jury also indicted Nunn for allegedly violating a domestic violence order of protection that Ross had received against Nunn in March. The indictment notes the violation is considered an “aggravating circumstance,” which allows Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson to seek the death penalty if he chooses.
After the indictment, Larson declined to say whether he would seek the death penalty. “We will speak through our pleadings in this case,” Larson said, referring to the court documents he will file.
Full Story Nunn indicted on murder charge – Latest News – Kentucky.com.
Sen. Sanders: If Lieberman filibusters health reform, force it through
Facing the threat of a filibuster by Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CN) over the public option remaining in Democrats’ health reform bill, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) does not seem gravely concerned.
Should Lieberman try to prevent the bill from coming to a vote, “there are other ways that we have to proceed,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday. “I would strongly support those other ways.”
Sanders was referring to budget reconciliation, a bureaucratic tactic that has been used repeatedly to push through Congress controversial measures that could not acquire a super-majority of 60 or more votes. Under reconciliation, a measure only needs a simple majority of 50 votes to pass.
Sixty U.S. Senators currently caucus with Democrats.
Full Story Sen. Sanders: If Lieberman filibusters health reform, force it through | Raw Story.
The Next Economic Superpower
In the wake of the financial crisis, the European Union is in a unique position to challenge U.S. supremacy around the world, especially economically.
While some have already proclaimed the 21st Century to be the Asian century, the swift rise of the European Union could complicate matters, leaving the once-dysfunctional economic and political union to compete with the U.S. as the world’s foremost superpower, according to Newsweek’s Stefon Theil.
The EU’s meteoric rise over the past few decades has been remarkable, as nation’s have put aside centuries-old differences and through cohesion and compromise they have been able to achieve a great deal when they find a common purpose.
In the wake of the financial crisis, however, the EU is in a unique position to challenge U.S. supremacy around the world, especially economically, according to Theil.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Selling Out America
America was built by putting this country first. Millions of people sacrificed to create a powerful sovereign nation for the benefit of a hardworking and enterprising society. Imagine how this country would have turned out if in the early days our founding fathers had sold our domestic defense companies to the British government? No doubt the British would have paid handsomely for such national treasures. Today, no one intervenes even where the sale of a company can be expected to undermine our long-term defense. We can hardly blame the directors of companies for selling out. It is hardly the role of the corporation to set policies for the nation – this should be the role of the government.
Full Story Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Generation Recession
These are not happy days for America’s young and striving, Lizzy Ratner found. Young people have lost 2.5 million jobs to the crisis, making them the hardest-hit age group. If you’re 18 to 35 years old, The Nation wants to know: how has the recession impacted you? Share your story in the form provided here.
When David Thyme was an even younger man than he is today, his fantasies of early adulthood did not include a 9:30 pm curfew and a bed in Covenant House, a shelter for homeless youth. Then again, they also didn’t include a recession so severe that his financially strapped father would ask him to help with rent–or that when he couldn’t find an entry-level job to do so, his father would ask him to leave home. “He was like, Son, you got to do what you got to do. I can’t have you in my house,” recalled the thin-faced 18-year-old from the Bronx.
Shawn Bolden, an earnest 23-year-old from Harlem, also nursed a different vision of his youthful years. A graduate of Monroe College with a degree in criminal justice, he imagined dedicating his days to nurturing the minds of the next generation of neglected students, doing his part to solder shut the school-to-prison pipeline. But since losing his job teaching arts and college prep at a local nonprofit in June, he’s been struggling to find his way back into the classroom, all the while worrying about feeding his newborn daughter.
Full Story Generation Recession.
Afghanistan’s Sham Army
American military commanders measure progress by the swelling size of the Afghan army, although the force is said to be poorly trained, sympathetic to the Taliban and the scourge of local populations.
Chris Hedges
Success in Afghanistan is measured in Washington by the ability to create an indigenous army that will battle the Taliban, provide security and stability for Afghan civilians and remain loyal to the puppet government of Hamid Karzai. A similar task eluded the Red Army, although the Soviets spent a decade attempting to pacify the country. It eluded the British a century earlier. And the United States, too, will fail.
American military advisers who work with the Afghan National Army, or ANA, speak of poorly trained and unmotivated Afghan soldiers who have little stomach for military discipline and even less for fighting. They describe many ANA units as being filled with brigands who terrorize local populations, exacting payments and engaging in intimidation, rape and theft. They contend that the ANA is riddled with Taliban sympathizers. And when there are combined American and Afghan operations against the Taliban insurgents, ANA soldiers are fickle and unreliable combatants, the U.S. advisers say.
American military commanders in Afghanistan, rather than pump out statistics about enemy body counts, measure progress by the swelling size of the ANA. The bigger the ANA, the better we are supposedly doing. The pressure on trainers to increase the numbers of the ANA means that training and vetting of incoming Afghan recruits is nearly nonexistent.
Full Story Truthdig – Reports – Afghanistan’s Sham Army.
Feds Wanted Private Data on All Visitors to Liberal News Site
Watchdog slams ‘bogus’ Justice Dept. demand for news site’s visitor logs
Right-wing commentators point a finger at Obama, draw parallel to White House-Fox News battle
A Justice Department subpoena requesting all available information on all visitors to an independent news site is raising serious privacy concerns, and questions about how much information the US government is storing about its citizens’ news reading habits.
Privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation has released an extensive report on a “bogus” attempt by a US attorney in Indiana to get Indymedia.us, an independent left-leaning news site, to hand over all the data it had about all the users who visited the site on a particular day.
Further adding to civil libertarians’ and privacy watchdogs’ concerns is the fact that the Justice Department ordered Indymedia to keep silent about the request.
“This overbroad demand for internet records not only violated federal privacy law but also violated [Indymedia's] First Amendment rights, by ordering [it] not to disclose the existence of the subpoena without a US attorney’s permission,” the EFF’s Kevin Bankston wrote.
Full Story Watchdog slams ‘bogus’ Justice Dept. demand for news site’s visitor logs | Raw Story.
Why Are We Locking Up Traumatized Veterans for Their Addictions Instead of Offering Them Treatment?
This Veterans Day, let’s get past the bunting and ribbons and look at our returning troops’ real needs.
A new report by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) exposes practices and policies that for decades have unjustly resulted in large numbers of psychically injured and addicted veterans landing in the nation’s prisons and jails.
The report reflects a year’s worth of outreach to veterans and veterans’ advocates across the country, and a distillation of their most creative, innovative and optimistic responses to the problem.
Gen. Steven Xenakis, MD, Special Advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Warrior and Family Support, brought a message of official support to a teleconference announcing the release of the report:
The GOP’s looming (media) civil war
Media Matters for America >>
It’s not easy to flip a congressional district that’s been Republican since the late 1800s, but after being willingly hijacked by the right-wing media — after getting steamrolled by Fox News’ embrace of third-party candidate Doug Hoffman — Republicans managed to hand Upstate New York’s 23rd District to Democrats last week. And they did it just in time for the newly elected Democrat to help (barely) push health care reform through the House of Representatives during Saturday night’s historic vote.
Doug Hoffman was, first and foremost, a media candidate (a media creation), which means we are entering a very new and different realm in American politics. We’re entering a sort of Fox News Era where media outlets — where alleged news organizations — essentially co-sponsor political campaigns. We’ve moved well beyond the time when Fox News, for instance, leaned right and gave conservative candidates more air-time and tossed them lots of softball questions. We’re now watching unfold a political reality where Fox News literally selects candidates and then markets them through Election Day.
There’s a reason Hoffman described Glenn Beck as his “mentor” and pledged his “sacred honor” to uphold the “9 Principles and 12 Values” of Beck’s 9/12 Project. There’s a reason Sean Hannity wanted to “declare” Hoffman the election winner, and why Fox News’ on-screen graphic read “Conservative Revolution?” when Hoffman was being interviewed (i.e. prematurely crowned) by Hannity on the eve of Election Day.
Hoffman’s outsider bid, originally opposed by the Republican Party, was a media production, plain and simple, which means his loss was a media loss, as well.
Full Story The GOP’s looming (media) civil war | Media Matters for America.
Ugly Truth: Most U.S. Kids Sentenced to Die In Prison Are Black
This is the second in a two-part series on juvenile life without parole. Read Part One here.
On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases that could have major implications for the way juvenile offenders are treated in our criminal justice system. Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida both involve men who are serving life without the possibility of parole for crimes they were convicted of as teenagers — crimes in which no one was killed.
Joe Sullivan was only 13 years old when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 72-year-old woman in her Pensacola, Fla., home, hours after he and a group of older teenagers robbed her house. Sullivan, who reportedly suffers from mental disabilities, insisted that, while he participated in the robbery, he did not commit the rape. But his co-defendants, 15-year-old Michael Gulley and 17-year-old Nathan McCants, 17 pinned the crime on him. Both were tried as juveniles; Sullivan was tried as an adult.
Sullivan is African American, a fact that was stressed repeatedly at trial. The victim, Lena Bruner, testified that her assailant was “a colored boy” with “kinky hair” — “he was quite black, and he was small,” she said. Bruner admitted that she “did not see him full in the face,” but she remembered him saying, “If you can’t identify me, I may not have to kill you.”
Full Story Ugly Truth: Most U.S. Kids Sentenced to Die In Prison Are Black | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.
Bank Failure Friday Fells a ‘Healthy Bank’ Bailout Recipient
San Francisco-based United Commercial Bank [1] has become the first recipient of TARP bailout money to be shut down by the FDIC. Last year, regulators approved a $299 million [2] taxpayer-funded injection into the bank. That money, which was supposed to go to only “healthy banks,” is now gone. The FDIC estimates United Commercial’s failure will cost the agency’s deposit fund about $1.4 billion.
Our resident TARPologist, Paul Kiel, reported a few weeks ago [3] that United Commercial Bank and three other supposedly “healthy banks” were in deep trouble. On Nov. 1, CIT, another of the four, filed for bankruptcy protection. The collapse cost taxpayers $2.33 [4] billion in TARP money invested in CIT.
United Commercial was one of five bank failures Friday, following bank closings earlier in the day in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri. The number of bank failures for the year now stands at 120. It’s the most failures since 1992, when the FDIC closed down 181 banks. The total cost of the other four bank failures to the deposit fund was an estimated $132.7 million. (See ProPublica’s complete list of bank failures this year [5].)
Full Story Bank Failure Friday Fells a ‘Healthy Bank’ Bailout Recipient – ProPublica.
Peace Activist Confronts Netanhayu on War Crimes During Plenary of United Jewish Federations
Peace Activist Confronts Netanhayu on War Crimes During Plenary of United Jewish Federations
WASHINGTON – November 9 – At the Annual Conference of the United Jewish Federations in Washington, DC, during the plenary session today, November 9, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, CODEPINK peace activist Midge Potts stood up with a banner that said “End the Siege of Gaza” and shouted “Stop the blockade of Gaza, Shame on you, Netanyahu.” She was dragged out of the meeting by security guards.
“When I heard that Netanyahu was speaking in Washington DC, I felt compelled to do something,” said Potts, a Navy veteran, resident of Springfield, Missouri and candidate for U.S. Senate. “Netanyahu’s Washington visit comes just after our Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution rejecting the Goldstone report, a UN report that aimed to hold Israel accountability for its actions during the 22-day invasion of Gaza that left over 1,400 dead. As an American whose government is giving free rein to Israel’s war crimes and is paying—through our taxes—for the bombs and bullets that are killing Palestinians, I had to stand up. I hope my symbolic action will show the people of Palestine that there are many Americans who believe in human rights for all and are determined to change our government’s policy to reflect these values.”
During his talk, PM Netanyahu lauded the Israeli Defense Forces, saying the Israeli army was “as moral as any army on earth” and thanked both President Obama and the U.S. Congress for rejecting the Goldstone report. “It is appalling to us, as peace activists, that Israel committed such atrocities against the people of Gaza and that the U.S. Government is trying to cover up those crimes. As defenders of human rights, we must stand up and demand accountability.”
As part of CODEPINK’s commitment to human rights, it is working with a broad coalition to organize, in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, a massive march on December 31 from inside Gaza to the Israeli border. The March calls on Israel to lift the inhumane siege that is keeping 1.5 million people imprisoned. Already, participants have signed up from 32 countries. They include writers (U.S. Alice Walker), actors (Syrian Duraid Lahham), members of Parliament (from France to the Philippines), diplomats (from Japan to the Netherlands), as well as doctors, lawyers, professors and students.
For more information see www.gazafreedommarch.org .
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CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities. CODEPINK rejects foreign policies based on domination and aggression, and instead calls for policies based on diplomacy, compassion and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.
AP-GfK Poll: A grouchy public sticking with Obama
President Barack Obama still has the public approval of a majority of Americans, but he finds himself governing an increasingly pessimistic country.
This comes at a time when he is trying to revive a struggling economy, weighing more troops for the 8-year-old Afghanistan war, muscling a health care reform overhaul through Congress and hoping to push through other ambitious measures like legislation focused on climate change.
The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Americans grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, continuing the slippage that has occurred since Obama took office.
People were more pessimistic about the direction of the country than in October. They disapproved of Obama’s handling of the economy a bit more than before. And, perhaps most striking for the commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last month. Overall, there’s a malaise about the state of the nation.
Full Story AP-GfK Poll: A grouchy public sticking with Obama – Yahoo! News.
Elkhart Coroner Blames High Suicide Rate On Recession
In Elkhart, Ind., coroner John White has linked the rising suicide rate to the continuing economic recession, reports MSNBC’s JoNel Aleccia. As many as 24 people have killed themselves this year in the Northern Indiana region, and over a quarter of them can be directly tied to recent job loss or financial hardship. Elkhart has suffered more than any other county with more than 25,000 residents, according to a stress map from the Associated Press released in May.
One woman shot herself in the head the day after her car had been repossessed, her home already on the brink of foreclosure. “This was a vivacious, very strong woman, and she was taken to her knees because of money,” said her daughter.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the recession has caused higher suicide rates nationwide, but a data lag prevents full analysis — the most recent national data only go up to 2006.
Full Story Elkhart Coroner Blames High Suicide Rate On Recession.
Fannie and Freddie Fire Their Own Inspector General
There is no independent auditor overseeing the federal agency responsible for some $6 trillion in home mortgages, because the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the agency’s inspector general didn’t have authority to operate, according to internal memos obtained by the Huffington Post.
The ruling came in response to a request from the Federal Housing Finance Agency itself — which means that a federal agency essentially succeeded in getting rid of its own inspector general.
The FHFA is home to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks, which are jointly responsible for purchasing or guaranteeing more than 80 percent of new mortgages issued since the middle of 2008, according to FHFA numbers.
In September, the Department of Justice ruled that FHFA Inspector General Ed Kelley did not have authority to investigate wrongdoing or other abuses related to the agency, according to an internal DOJ Office of Legal Counsel memo signed by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daniel Koffsky.
Full Story Fannie and Freddie Fire Their Own Inspector General.
Blackwater Attempted to Bribe Iraqi Officials
Jeremy Scahill
In the aftermath of the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad by operatives working for Blackwater, top company officials including then-president Gary Jackson “authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support,” according to the New York Times. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and more than 20 others wounded in the shooting, prompting the Iraqi government to announce it would ban the company from Iraq with officials vowing to prosecute the shooters. Blackwater, however, remains in Iraq to this day.
According to the Times, “Four former Blackwater executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then the company president, had approved the bribes, and the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where Blackwater maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients.” The Times notes that the bribes “would have been illegal:”
[A] federal grand jury in North Carolina, where Blackwater has its headquarters, has been conducting a lengthy investigation into the company. One of the former executives said that he has told federal prosecutors there about the plan to pay Iraqi officials to drop their inquiries into the Nisour Square incident. If Blackwater followed through, the company or its officials could face charges of obstruction of justice, and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans bribes to foreign officials.
Full Story Blackwater Attempted to Bribe Iraqi Officials.
Why Lieberman Blocks a Public Option
By Robert Parry
With the health-reform bill’s “public option” truly reduced to the “sliver” that President Barack Obama once called it – and indeed having become a feature that mostly benefits the insurance industry – the next question must be: why is it still being opposed by industry defenders like Sen. Joe Lieberman?
As the health bill has moved through Congress, the public option has been whittled down from an expansive alternative that might have enticed 119 million Americans to sign up, according to an industry-backed study, to a tiny remnant that the Congressional Budget Office believes will attract only six million customers, including many sick people whom private insurers don’t want anyway.
Put crudely, the public option in its current form would vacuum up the chronically ill and thus spare the insurance industry not only the expense of paying for their care but also the administrative costs of figuring out new creative ways to deny these sick people medical coverage.
According to the CBO, the planned “insurance exchanges” thus would give private insurers an estimated 24 million new – and relatively healthy – customers, many with government subsidies that would go directly into the coffers of the insurance industry. Without the public option, the industry might get six million more customers but they would include lots of sick people.
That means the current legislation with a weak public option is a win-win-win for the insurance industry.
Its most lucrative market – large employers providing group benefits for employees – would be protected from competition from the public option; the surviving public option for individuals and small businesses would be barred from achieving savings by tying payments to Medicare rates; and the public option thus would get stuck charging higher premiums than private insurers because it would end up with the sickest part of the population, the CBO says.
So, from the perspective of an insurance executive, what’s not to like?
Full Story Consortiumnews.com.
Robert F Kennedy Jr Shocking Vaccine Cover Up
Two Part Video
Robert F Kennedy Jr Shocking Vaccine Cover Up Part1.
Part 2
Afghanistan – where will they get the troops?
Thom Hartmann w/ Dahr Jamail
YouTube – Afghanistan – where will they get the troops? w/ Dahr Jamail.
Abortion amendment to halt health reform?
Nov. 10: Morning Meetings Dylan Ratigan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America Nancy Keenan and Family Research Councils Cathy Ruse discuss how the controversial abortion amendment may stop the health reform bill in its tracks.
Full Story YouTube – Abortion amendment to halt health reform?.
AMA Calls for Review of Medical Marijuana’s Legal Status
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 10, 2009 10:47 AM |
CONTACT: Marijuana Policy Project Bruce Mirken, Director of Communications BMirken@mpp.org, 415-585-6404 |
AMA Calls for Review of Medical Marijuana’s Legal Status
New Policy Marks Historic Shift From Prior Stance
HOUSTON – November 10 – In a move considered historic by supporters of medical marijuana, the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates today adopted a new policy position calling for the review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug in the federal Controlled Substances Act. The old language in Policy H-95.952 had previously recommended that “marijuana be retained in Schedule I,” which groups marijuana with drugs such as heroin, LSD and PCP that are deemed to have no accepted medical uses and to be unsafe for use even under medical supervision.
The revised policy, adopted today, states, “Our AMA urges that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.” It goes on to explain that this position should not be construed as an endorsement of state medical marijuana programs.
“This shift, coming from what has historically been America’s most cautious and conservative major medical organization, is historic,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, who attended the AMA meeting. “Marijuana’s Schedule I status is not just scientifically untenable, given the wealth of recent data showing it to be both safe and effective for chronic pain and other conditions, but it’s been a major obstacle to needed research.”
Drugs listed in Schedule II, for which medical use is permitted with strict controls, include cocaine, morphine and methamphetamine. A pill containing THC, the component responsible for marijuana’s “high,” is classed in Schedule III, whose looser requirements allow phoned-in prescriptions.
Full Story AMA Calls for Review of Medical Marijuana’s Legal Status | CommonDreams.org.
Protesters Return To Lieberman’s D.C. Office, Six Arrested
Protesters returned to the office of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Tuesday, staging a theatrical demonstration and urging the senator to stop taking money from health insurance corporations. Six demonstrators were arrested after spreading fake dollar bills throughout the building showing Lieberman’s face and the words “Insurance Money Kills Democracy.”
Lieberman has stated that he would help to filibuster any bill that included a government-run public option.
About a dozen demonstrators came to the Senate’s Hart office building in the morning and asked Lieberman’s aides to bring him out to pledge to stop accepting campaign contributions from insurance companies. Lieberman had left his office a matter of minutes before the protesters arrived, on his way to a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing.
After being denied a meeting with the senator, one protester pulled out a cardboard cutout of Lieberman’s face and marched throughout the building, pretending to return insurance company contributions. She scattered fake money in the hallways and into the building’s large foyer. “I’ve had a change of heart,” she yelled, “Senator Lieberman’s giving the money back; he doesn’t need it anymore!”
Full Story Protesters Return To Lieberman’s D.C. Office, Six Arrested.
On Bush’s Watch, U.S. Suffered Its “Electronic Pearl Harbor”
Sunday’s 60 Minutes featured a pretty terrifying report on the potential threat the United States faces from cyberterrorism. It’s territory that the show has mined before.
As Steve Kroft pointed out at the outset of the report, the show had “less than a decade ago” gone to the Pentagon to learn more about how computers could be used by hackers “as a weapon.” “Much of it was still theory,” Kroft related, “But we were told that before too long, it might be possible for a hacker with a computer to disable critical infrastructure in a major city, and disrupt essential services, to steal millions of dollars from banks all over the world, infiltrate defense systems, extort millions from public companies, even sabotage our weapons systems.”
Eep! Sounds like someone better get on that, before something terrible happens! Except guess what, something terrible already did. “Plus a lot that we don’t even know about,” Kroft said. Great.
Enter Jim Lewis, who directs the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who says that the United States experienced its “electronic Pearl Harbor” in 2007:
Full Story On Bush’s Watch, U.S. Suffered Its “Electronic Pearl Harbor”.
NEW YORK POST LAWSUIT: Shocking Allegations Made By Fired Employee Sandra Guzman
The New York Post editor fired after speaking out against a cartoon depicting the author of the president’s stimulus package as a dead chimpanzee has sued the paper. And as part of her complaint, Sandra Guzman levels some remarkable, embarrassing, and potentially damaging allegations.
Guzman has filed a complaint against News Corporation, the New York Post and the paper’s editor in chief Col Allan in the Southern District Court of New York, alleging harassment as well as “unlawful employment practices and retaliation.”
As part of the 38-page complaint, Guzman paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjected to misogynistic behavior. She says that hiring practices at the paper — as well as her firing — were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit.
And she recounts the paper’s D.C. bureau chief stating that the publication’s goal was to “destroy [President] Barack Obama.”
Full Story NEW YORK POST LAWSUIT: Shocking Allegations Made By Fired Employee Sandra Guzman.
Rep. Kilroy: GOP Shouting Down Democratic Women Was A ‘Sexist’ Attempt To Put Us ‘In Our Place’
Rep. Kilroy: GOP Shouting Down Democratic Women Was A ‘Sexist’ Attempt To Put Us ‘In Our Place’
Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) On Saturday, several Republican went wild and shouted down members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus on the House floor. As each woman stepped up to the microphone to give a brief statement about how the House health care legislation would benefit women, Republicans — led by Rep. Tom Price (GA) — repeatedly talked over them, screamed, and shouted screeds like “I object, I object, I object, I object, I object.”
Yesterday, ThinkProgress interviewed Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (OH), one of the Democratic women who faced this treatment. Kilroy said unequivocally that the GOP’s actions were “sexist” and it would be “nice” if they apologized. She pointed to recent GOP comments about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — that it’s time to “put her in her place” — and said that’s exactly what Price and the other Republicans were doing on Saturday:
KILROY: [T]hree male members of Congress got up and started shouting down — trying to shout down the Democratic women. I thought it was loud, I thought it was rude, I thought it was disrespectful, and I thought it was sexist. [...]
Well, when you engage in loud, rude, and boorish behavior, my mother would have said they should apologize. I don’t expect an apology, but that would be nice to have that. But you know, you’re seeing this sexist behavior going on.
Hume Corrects O’Reilly’s False Claim That ‘Folks Don’t Want’ The Public Option: It’s Actually ‘Kind Of Popular’
Last night on Fox News, host Bill O’Reilly and analyst Brit Hume discussed the prospects for the Senate passing a health care reform bill. After struggling with the terminology for the “public option,” O’Reilly ultimately concluded that “all the polls say” that “the folks don’t want it.”
Hume, a regular Fox News misinformer, surprisingly corrected O’Reilly, noting that Americans actually support the public option:
O’REILLY: They call it, you know, the public sector. What is the –
HUME: Public option, you mean?
O’REILLY: Public option, whatever. The folks don’t want it. … But it looks to me like they have maybe 55 votes to pass it. And that means they could be filibustered and never come up for a vote.
HUME: That’s what it looks like right now. The public option, actually some polls show that the public option standing by itself is not at all unpopular, but it is kind of popular. But that depends on how the poll question is raised. … We don’t need to go into all that right now.
Watch it:
Study: 2,200 Vets Died Last Year Because They Lacked Health Insurance
Obama 2008On the eve of Veterans Day, a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School has released a study finding that an estimated 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they did not have health insurance. That “translates to six preventable deaths per day” and more than twice the number killed in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.
Being uninsured raises a person’s odds of dying prematurely by 40 percent. The researchers found that 1.46 million veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 lacked insurance in 2008. While most veterans are eligible to receive excellent care from the Veterans Administration, those who were not injured in combat and whose income is above a certain threshold are often ineligible. Others are assigned low priorities, providing them with less consistent and more expensive access to care:
“Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people – too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School. [...]
Full Story Think Progress » Study: 2,200 Vets Died Last Year Because They Lacked Health Insurance.
Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief’s goal was ‘to destroy’ Obama
The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports today that a fired New York Post employee, Sandra Guzman, has filed a complaint against the Post, the paper’s parent company News Corp., and Post editor-in-chief Col Allan “alleging harassment as well as ‘unlawful employment practices and retaliation.’” Stein reports that Guzman “paints the Post newsroom as a male-dominated frat house and Allan in particular as sexist, offensive and domineering. Guzman alleges that she and others were routinely subjected to misogynistic behavior.” But in addition to horrible workplace conditions, the Post’s news division is operating with a clear partisan bias, according to Guzman. She said the Post’s Washington D.C. bureau chief vowed to bring down President Obama:
She says that hiring practices at the paper — as well as her firing — were driven by racial prejudices rather than merit.
Full Story Think Progress » Lawsuit alleges that New York Post DC bureau chief’s goal was ‘to destroy’ Obama.
Cost of extra year’s climate inaction $500 billion
The world will have to spend an extra $500 billion to cut carbon emissions for each year it delays implementing a major assault on global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.
At United Nations climate talks in Barcelona last week negotiators from developed countries said the world would need an extra six to 12 months to agree a legally binding, global deal to cut carbon emissions beyond a planned December deadline.
The IEA, energy adviser to 28 industrialized countries, said the world must act urgently to put greenhouse gases on a track to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.
Full Story Cost of extra year’s climate inaction $500 billion: IEA | Green Business | Reuters.
ACLU Report Calls For Stronger U.S. Privacy Oversight Institutions
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Group Calls on Obama To Fill Liberties Oversight Board
WASHINGTON – November 10 -
The American Civil Liberties Union today released a new report recommending steps Congress should take to create the vigorous privacy oversight institutions that are desperately needed in the United States to counterbalance the rush of new technologies and expanding government powers, and called for the Obama administration to move quickly to fill the seats on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB).
“The United States needs stronger privacy institutions to protect us at a time when new technology and new government powers are threatening our privacy in truly unprecedented ways,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The history of abuse during the civil rights era, the Cold War and, of course, during the Bush administration, underlines the need for a vigorous system of checks and balances as envisioned by our nation’s founders. The Obama administration and the 111th Congress have the opportunity to enter a new era of accountability and ensure that these abuses don’t happen on their watch.”
The ACLU report, Enforcing Privacy, is a blueprint for the creation of an American equivalent to something nearly every industrialized nation other than the United States has: a privacy commissioner charged with protecting citizens’ privacy from the government and private sector. Based on interviews with a wide range of experts on government and privacy, including privacy officers in other countries, it makes two primary recommendations to Congress. First, the report recommends building on the existing – but never filled – PCLOB by expanding its scope and powers to turn it into a full-fledged public-sector privacy oversight body. Second, the ACLU calls for an augmentation of the powers of the Federal Trade Commission to make it a full-fledged private-sector privacy regulator.
Full Story ACLU Report Calls For Stronger U.S. Privacy Oversight Institutions | CommonDreams.org.
How to Raise $140 Billion a Year From Wall Street Banks
By DEAN BAKER
It’s Time for a Financial Transaction Tax
The deficit hawk crew, famous for missing the $8 trillion housing bubble that wrecked the economy, is now on the warpath pressing the case for a big new national sales tax. They claim that the country badly needs additional revenue to address projected budget shortfalls.
While we may need additional revenue at some point, it makes far more sense to impose a financial transactions tax (FTT), which would primarily hit the Wall Street banks that gave us this disaster, than to tax the consumption of ordinary working families. We can raise large amounts of money by taxing the speculation of the Wall Street high-flyers while barely affecting the sort of financial dealings that most of us do in our daily lives.
The logic of an FTT is simple. It would impose a modest fee on trades of stocks, futures, credit default swaps, and other financial instruments. The United Kingdom currently puts a 0.25 percent tax on the sale or purchase of shares of stock. This has very little impact on people who buy stock with the intent of holding it for a long period of time.
For example, if someone buys $10,000 of stock, they will pay $25 in tax at the time of purchase. If they sell the stock ten years later for $20,000 then they will have to pay $50 in tax. The total tax would be equivalent to an increase of 0.8 percentage points in the capital gains tax.
Full Story Dean Baker: How to Raise $140 Billion a Year From Wall Street Banks.
Reaction to Fort Hood–Stupidity Beyond Belief
Richard C. Cook »
Note: I wrote this article Monday night and feel mine was a normal human response to a horrendous event. Already, however, anomalies with the official story are coming out. How many shooters were there? How could a lone gunman have such a free hand in attacking a huge facility full of combat veterans? Was Hasan “set-up” to take the blame? We may never know. My intuition tells me it was the act of a man who felt trapped within the system.
The United States military is engaged in the conquest of the world. This is not a secret. The strategy has been spelled out repeatedly by official Defense Department policy statements (”full-spectrum dominance”), think-tank studies (PNAC), and official government action by the president and Congress (the biggest war budget in human history).
It’s what led to the Reagan Doctrine which was the practice of picking off one small nation at a time. It’s what led George H.W. Bush to invade Panama and Iraq and the Clinton administration to destroy Yugoslavia. 9/11, whoever did it, followed by the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, was a convenient springboard for the current phase involving Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Next up: Obama’s impending assault on Iran, whether done with U.S. forces or Israeli proxies. The showdown with Russia and China is clearly on the agenda, subject to intense planning by thousands of uniformed and civilian analysts who earn a lot of taxpayer money.
Ft. Hood, Texas, is a place where men and women in uniform get ready to deploy in order to carry out all these plots and schemes. Some of those deployed are killed and never return. Some come back alive, then kill other people or themselves. Who can blame them for serving? They too need to earn enough for themselves and their families to eat. And jobs now are sparse. It’s what’s assuring the military meets its recruitment quotas.
Full Story Richard C. Cook » Blog Archive » Reaction to Fort Hood–Stupidity Beyond Belief.
Japan plans solar power station in space
Japan’s space agency is planning to construct a solar power station in space and use it to beam energy down to Earth using lasers.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) hopes that the ambitious plans will help ease the country’s energy problems as well as providing a solution for global warming.
A select group of companies and researchers have been given the task of designing and building the Space Solar Power System (SSPS).
The plan is to create a miles-wide array of photovoltaic panels, like the solar panels used on Earth, and place it in a geostationary orbit.
Solar rays are at least five times as powerful in space as they are at ground level, allowing the huge panels to gather vast quantities of energy.
A report by researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said: “Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming.
“The sun’s rays abound in space.”
Full Story Japan plans solar power station in space – Telegraph.
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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. 
