Archive for December, 2009

Stimulus spending and lost hope

American workers face a jobless recovery and more stimulus spending won’t fix what’s broke.

Unemployment fell to 10 percent in November, but progress was achieved only because 291,000 more adults did not look for work and were not counted in the monthly tally of jobless Americans.

Though job losses were trimmed, the footprint of the $789 billion dollar stimulus package was not to be found. Construction, despite an uptick in housing starts, shed 27,000 jobs, and governments added a paltry 7,000 new workers.

Only $100 billion of the stimulus was earmarked for infrastructure and the federal bureaucracy is slow about spending it. Much of the rest of the money went to tax cuts used to pay down credit card debt, payoffs for congressional constituents, like summer grants for professors, and to shore up state and local budgets, where officials shortened furloughs but did not add workers.

Full Story Stimulus spending and lost hope | statesmanjournal.com | Statesman Journal.

China vs. U.S.: economic power vs. military might; which will prevail?

Two world powers, with two distinctly different political philosophies, proceed in world affairs on strikingly different courses. China has chosen to flex its economic muscle while America’s strategy is based on using military might in pursuing its agenda.

On the surface the relationship between the U.S. and China, its designated manufacturer, seems to be going quite well but beneath the surface there is a fierce rivalry that is growing in intensity. The Chinese government is quite clever and also very patient. For the time being it is quite content to just continue to be our prime supplier of products and our favored source for borrowed funds. It knows very well that America is its cash cow, at least for the time being. But we better think again if we believe that it does not have an alternate long-term strategy to fall back on when and if their cash cow defaults on its debts.

The U.S. and China, with their huge economies, are totally dependent upon a steady, guaranteed supply of petroleum into the future. While supplies of oil have been very plentiful for many decades, that situation is beginning to rapidly change. Our very painful experience with $147 per barrel of oil in 2008 may have dissipated for now but experts predict that, in the not too distant future, the world will experience huge escalations in prices as supply will not be able to keep up with demand.

Full Story OpEdNews – Article: China vs. U.S.: economic power vs. military might; which will prevail?.

The Unreal and the Real Economy – Part I

The crisis has crippled the real economy. Its shock and severity has profoundly changed the attitudes of consumers, businesses and the American public in general.

Total financial collapse has been averted. The nation, we are told, is in recovery. Washington has undertaken to manage the real estate and credit bubbles. Normal economic times, indeed prosperity, will return in a few years. Or will it?

Without a self-sustaining cycle of consumer and business spending and income increases, growth is not possible. Capital spending relative to the GDP is at its lowest in 40 years. New home construction is at its lowest proportion of the GDP since 1960. As of mid-year 2009, residential and property values had fallen $ 8 trillion or nearly 20 percent. At that point, American households had lost $12 trillion, or 19 percent, of their wealth. Bank loans to consumers and businesses have fallen sharply. Now U.S. banks and private equity groups face new debt shocks as they dismantle the huge credit boom of the early 2000s. The exposure of banks in commercial real estate loans exceeds $1 trillion and the commercial real estate sector is currently in freefall. Financial firms are far from finished in their ferocious process of deleveraging. The market for structured financial instruments has collapsed.

The worst economic collapse since the 1930s has inflicted lasting damage to the nation’s financial infrastructure. The crisis has crippled the real economy. Its shock and severity has profoundly changed the attitudes of consumers, businesses and the American public in general. They will spend less, cut costs and reduce hiring. Massive real estate and credit crises have led to a massive fiscal crisis. The deficit in 2009, the biggest in 60 years, reached $1.4 trillion – 11.2 percent of the GDP.

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

Senate Dems Ditch the Public Option

John Nichols. The Nation

When President Obama spoke to members of Congress the other day about the need to enact health-care reform he conveniently forgot to mention the public option.

Senate Democrats got the message.

Their negotiators struck a tentative agreement Tuesday night to eliminate the “public option” — the controversial but necessary plan to set up government-run insurance program to provide competition (and an incentive to hold down costs) for private insurers.

The negotiators tried to ease the blow to the hopes of progressive reformers by agreeing to an initiative that would create a number of national insurance policies that would be developed by the federal Office of Personnel Management, which oversees health policies for federal workers, but administered by private firms.

If the private firms fail to do an adequate job, the Senate bill calls for establishment of a genuine public option.

Full Story Senate Dems Ditch the Public Option.

Pentagon’s Advice to Traumatized Veterans: Think Happy Thoughts!

Hey, all you quitters and whiners: If it’s bad and it hurts, you have to try harder, have faith, and above all, think positive!

Tired of hearing about all those military suicides? It just keeps getting worse and no one seems to have a clue how to stop the horror.  Are you feeling news fatigue coming on, with compassion exhaustion and depression close behind? Want to change the channel, scroll down, turn the page?

That, says Martin Seligman, is because you, like too many American soldiers, are leading with negativity.  You could  instead be using “learned optimism” to dispute your catastrophic interpretation of the events that trouble your soul, the source of your PTSD.

It’s really quite simple. “The idea here is to give people a new vocabulary,” Seligman says.

Seligman chairs the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and he has managed to convince Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen “that it (is) possible to teach soldiers how to properly respond to distress, and help them emerge emotionally stronger” (italics mine).

Full Story Pentagon’s Advice to Traumatized Veterans: Think Happy Thoughts! | World | AlterNet.

Countdown: Bush administration gets away with torture

Turley:    ….It’s an international Disgrace…

… The President has gotten on a plane this evening to go to Norway to accept the Nobel Prize while his Justice Department has effectively gutted a major part of Nuremberg…..

…Obama has turned back the clock to before 1945 (the WWII trials at the Hague) …

Countdown:Bush administration gets away with torture.

Chomsky: More to fear from US, Israel than Iran

Top American academic Noam Chomsky says that the general public should fear more from the US and Israel than Iran.

During a lecture entitled “Obama, the Middle East and the Prospects of Peace” delivered at Boston University on Tuesday, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor stressed that Iran is acting within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“All states [must] resolve their conflicts within the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he said.

“Who was that resolution directed at? Nothing in the resolution relates to Iran. Iran is not threatening the use of force, and as far as anyone knows, they are staying within the bounds of the treaty,” Chomsky added.

He said people may have more to fear from the two countries that the American public would not typically associate with terrorism.

“The resolution is actually directed at the two states that consistently and regularly do resort to force and the threat of force, namely the United States and Israel,” he said.

“Those are the countries that carry out aggression regularly and repeatedly, that invade other countries, occupy other countries, invoke terror and violence and they're unique in that respect,” Chomsky added.

He stated that the US government and its media have propagated exaggerated reports about Iran's nuclear program.

“There has been a massive propaganda campaign that demonizes Iran, that portrays it as a major threat to world peace that has been going on for the past three years,” Chomsky said.

Full Story Chomsky: More to fear from US, Israel than Iran.

Public Option Sens New Rally Cry: Drug Reimportation

Amid signs a public option will be dropped from the Senate healthcare reform plan, several of its key supporters in the chamber have moved on to back another aspect of reform: the cheap reimportation of medication.

Several Democratic senators who have been the vanguard of the fight for the public option are now supporting an amendment to allow importation of FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada and Europe.

The amendment has built-in safeguards to ensure that the drugs are safe for consumers, supporters say. For example, the drugs must be manufactured in a plant inspected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and include a “chain of custody” so they can be traced back to the plant. The legislation also includes measures to prevent the drug industry from circumventing the law, senators say. Individuals would also be able to have the medicines shipped directly to their houses via the Internet or mail-order from Canadian pharmacies registered with the FDA.

Full Story On The Hill: Public Option Sens New Rally Cry: Drug Reimportation.

Jews Against Zionism

Stephen Lendman –

They’re numerous, outspoken, and range from secular to orthodox to one group calling itself “True Torah Jews Against Zionism.”

They believe that “traditional” Jews don’t support Zionism, an ideology they call “contrary to Jewish law and beliefs and the teachings of the Holy Torah.” They say Zionism:

– advocates “a political and military end to the Jewish exile;”

– fosters “pseudo-Judaism” based on secular nationalism;

– coercively seeks “armed materialism” in place of “a Divine and Torah centered understanding;”

– endangers all Jews worldwide;

– wants to disassociate Jews and traditional Judaism from ideological Zionism; and

– calls Israel a “Zionist State,” not a Jewish one.

Full Story SteveLendmanBlog: Jews Against Zionism.

On The Hill: $3 Billion Emergency Mortgage Assistance Plan Close To House Passage

A $3 billion emergency mortgage assistance program for unemployed homeowners –- authored by Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) and based on a successful Pennsylvania program that Fattah helped create as a young state legislator -– could soon be approved by the House of Representatives.

“There’s broad agreement that a major threat to homeowners today is loss of their homes because of unemployment and job distress through no fault of their own,” Fattah says. “Our program is a game changer, especially for struggling homeowners in our cities and rural areas and for minorities. It will provide $3 billion in TARP funds for mortgage payments that will keep these families in their homes.

H.R. 3766 proposes to use unspent TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds to provide relief for distressed homeowners who are unable to meet their mortgage obligations due to financial hardship, as well as providing assistance to renters seeking affordable housing.

Full Story On The Hill: $3 Billion Emergency Mortgage Assistance Plan Close To House Passage.

Murdoch Makes Oil Deal, Derides Copenhagen Climate Talks: Could There Be a Connection?

A BuzzFlash reader kindly pointed out a suspicious sequence of events. Shortly after News Corp. signed a new deal with Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal for a stake in the prince’s media group, Rotana, Fox News and other Murdoch media arms began working diligently to discredit any attempt to take climate talks seriously at Copenhagen.

Murdoch's connection to Al-Walid dates back far longer than the new media deal, but the two have not always seen things the same way. Prince Al-Walid happens to own a 5.7% share in News Corp. and has previously claimed responsibility in altering media coverage on Fox to curb anti-Islam sentiments. However, in 2001, Fox analysts heavily criticized Prince Al-Walid and described him as “a bad guy” for comments he made suggesting the U.S. policy in the Middle East may have helped precipitate the 9/11 attacks. Fox's Bill Sammon went on to criticize the $10 million Al-Walid attempted to donate for 9/11 disaster relief as “blood money” that Rudy Giuliani rightfully spurned.

Eight years later, that purveyor of “blood money” owns a stake in the company besides hailing from the biggest oil-producing nation in the world. Rather than continue the old attacks against Prince Al-Walid, Fox and the rest of News Corp. diverted its attention toward heating up the scandal on its self-created story of “Climate-gate.” Fox successfully runs the story despite glaring lapses in fact, and now the competition feels the need to cover the story, as well.

Full Story Murdoch Makes Oil Deal, Derides Copenhagen Climate Talks: Could There Be a Connection? | BuzzFlash.org.

Bernie Sanders: Ben Bernanke must go

Ben Bernanke has been an abysmal failure as chairman of the US Federal Reserve. I’m voting against his reappointment

I will not vote to confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve and have placed a hold on his nomination in the US Senate.

Last year, the American people overwhelmingly voted for a change in our national priorities and for a new direction on the economy. After eight long years of trickle-down economics that benefitted millionaires and billionaires while leaving the middle class behind, Americans demanded a change that would put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few.

What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy.

Before Ben Bernanke became the Fed chairman in 2006, he headed the council of economic advisers for President Bush – one of the most right-wing presidents in American history. He also sat on the Fed board of governors from 2002 to 2005. Perhaps more than anyone else, Bernanke was in a position to diagnose the impending economic disaster and take steps to stop it. Tragically, not only did he fail to prevent the economic collapse that we have experienced, he did not even warn the American people that it was coming until it was too late. Equally distressing, his actions since the crisis began may leave taxpayers holding the bag for an even bigger bailout in the future.

Full Story Ben Bernanke must go | Bernie Sanders | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Spill is one of worst on the North Slope: Prudhoe Bay Spill

BP officials believe ice plugs caused pressure that resulted in breach

Officials have found a 24-inch jagged rupture in a pipeline that began pouring oil and water Nov. 29, creating one of the biggest North Slope crude oil spills ever.

The on-scene coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Tom DeRuyter, said Tuesday that the breach on the bottom of the pipe was the biggest he had ever seen and indicative of the incredible pressure the pipeline was under when it split.

Workers located the source of the leak Monday after cleanup crews hauled away spilled crude and contaminated snow and ice that had been obscuring the area.

Officials say massive ice plugs had formed inside the pipe, which caused BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. to stop operating it a few weeks ago. Pressure then built up until the pipeline ruptured, according to BP.

Full Story Spill is one of worst on the North Slope: Prudhoe Bay Spill | adn.com.

Roche’s Tamiflu Not Proven to Cut Flu Complications, Study Says

Roche Holding AG’s antiviral drug Tamiflu may not prevent complications from influenza in healthy adults, according to a review by an independent research group that reversed its previous findings that the medicine warded off pneumonia and other deadly conditions linked to the disease.

The pill has been the mainstay of treatment for pandemic swine flu, which has killed nearly 9,000 people since it emerged in April, according to the World Health Organization. Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, defended the benefits of the drug, which it expects to generate 2.7 billion francs ($2.64 billion) in sales this year.

An analysis of 20 studies by the Cochrane Collaboration showed Tamiflu offered mild benefits for healthy adults and found no clear evidence it prevented lower respiratory tract infections or complications of influenza, according to the group. The review, published in the British Medical Journal and broadcast yesterday on the U.K.’s Channel 4 News, showed the drug eased and shortened symptoms if taken quickly.

Full Story Roche’s Tamiflu Not Proven to Cut Flu Complications, Study Says – Bloomberg.com.

Obama’s “We Got No Money” Rap

Why It Augurs a Sinister Banksters’ End Game

By MIKE WHITNEY

There’s no fixed number of greenbacks in a vault at the Treasury that limit how much the federal government can spend. Since the US pays its debts in its own currency–it can print as many dollars as it pleases. Of course, if boosting the money supply triggers inflation, the Fed has to withdraw liquidity and raise interest rates. But that’s not the problem at present. The problem is how to zap the economy back to life. The problem is how to get 16 million people out of unemployment lines and back to work. That’s the real challenge. The problem is political not economic. Obama is surrounded by industry reps who are trying to scare him about the size of the deficits. But deficits aren’t the problem; unemployment is. Once people get back to work and build their savings, their creditworthiness will improve, and the next economic expansion will begin. When more people are paying into the system, the deficits will come down. But the deficits won’t come down if tens of millions of people are still on the sidelines and forced to cut their spending. Judging by last Thursday’s speech at the “Jobs Summit”, Obama still doesn’t grasp this:

“But I want to be clear,” Obama boomed. “While I believe that government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth, ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector. We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created as a consequence of the crisis. It is only when the private sector starts to reinvest again, only when our businesses start hiring again and people start spending again and families start seeing improvement in their own lives again that we’re going to have the kind of economy that we want. That’s the measure of a real economic recovery.”

This is nonsense. When Obama says “We don’t have enough public dollars to fill the hole of private dollars that was created by the crisis.” He’s just flat wrong. As Marshall Auerback pointed out on this site yesterday, the government can print as much money as it wants; it’s not “revenue constrained”. What keeps the Fed from printing its way out of every jam, is the fear of inflation. But, consider this: inflation fears never stopped Fed chair Ben Bernanke from hosing down the entire financial system with $11.4 trillion, did it? Also, the Fed never hesitated to bulk up excess reserves at the banks by $1 trillion so bankers could shove it into high-risk assets and make windfall profits for themselves while the real economy drifted into coma. The only time the Fed’s “inflation alarm” goes off is when there’s the remote chance that someone on the low end of the economic food-chain might benefit from a government jobs program. Then the trumpets blare, the lights blink red, and Bernanke scuttles up to Capital Hill with dire warnings of impending doom. It’s all politics. Bernanke’s world view is shaped by institutional bias, the same as Summers and Geithner. Obama has aligned himself with this swarm of rogues.

Full Story Mike Whitney: Obama’s “We Got No Money” Rap.

The Real Chicago Way

A privatization scheme that’s a loser for taxpayers.

When the entertainers of the right aren’t declaring their disgust with President Obama for groveling before foreign potentates, they’re pretending to fear him as a left-wing thug, an exemplar of what they call “the Chicago way.” As imagined by the right, the men in the West Wing are like a demonic cross between the antiwar demonstrators who gathered in Grant Park in 1968 and the Chicago cops who cracked their hippie skulls. Tremble, men of commerce, before this infernal combination.

Myths like this are fun to invent. The problem, as ever, is reality.

Consider one of the actual news stories to emerge from Chicago of late: The city’s decision to privatize its parking meters. Thanks to a deal finalized in 2008, Chicago’s parking meters will be operated for the next 75 years by a group of investors put together by Morgan Stanley, including the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi.

Full Story Thomas Frank: The Real Chicago Way – WSJ.com.

OPS: Privatization of the Commons is ALWAYS a loser for the taxpayers

People Speak tells extraordinary works of “ordinary people”

For many people, history class was a lesson in keeping one's eyes open. Or as writer Anthony Arnove puts it: “It was rote recitation of facts, military battles, great people elevated in society… It had nothing to do with me and my experience.”

He is among a group of people hoping to change that. Arnove, partnering with famed historian and author Howard Zinn, are behind “The People Speak,” a documentary which depicts pivotal moments in American history from ordinary people. Bringing it to life are a host of noted musicians and actors, including Viggo Mortensen, Bruce Springsteen, Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei and Matt Damon, one of the producers of the film.

“The People Speak,” which airs Sunday night on The History Channel, was based on Zinn’s books, “A People’s History of the United States” and “Voices of a People’s History of the United States,” the latter co-written with Arnove.

Full Story People Speak tells extraordinary works of “ordinary people”  | ajc.com.

Republicans Oppose Strengthening ‘Extremely Important’ Program They’ve Vowed To ‘Protect’

Throughout the Senate health care debate, Republicans have accused Democrats of raiding Medicare to “establish a new entitlement” and reducing “the benefits our seniors depend on.” Republican senators introduced at least five different amendments to “protect Medicare” and its beneficiaries from health care reform and unanimously voted for an amendment to ensure that seniors will continue to receive all of the guaranteed Medicare benefits “that they rely on“:

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID): “The Gregg amendment simply says let’s create a lock-box for Medicare, the same kind of lock-box we need for Social Security to prevent Congress from continuing to raid Social Security. And let’s put into place to assure that all of these great statements on the floor about how we want to protect and preserve Medicare are enforced. ”

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): “There is only one way to protect Medicare and that is to support the McCain amendment.”

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R-UT): “Everyone knows Medicare is extremely important to the 43 million seniors and disabled Americans covered by the Medicare program. Throughout my Senate service I have fought to preserve Medicare for both beneficiary and providers.”

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Republicans Oppose Strengthening ‘Extremely Important’ Program They’ve Vowed To ‘Protect’.

Britain Unveils Whopping Tax On Bank Bonuses; U.S. Windfall Tax Proposal Going Nowhere

British bankers are going bonkers today after the UK government announced that it wouldn’t stand idly by as they showered themselves with obscene bonuses made possible by last year’s massive infusion of government money.

Alistair Darling, the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer — sort of like a Treasury Secretary, but with more pluck — announced today that he will impose an immediate, one-time 50-percent tax on bonuses of more than 25,000 pounds (about $40,800). That’s on top of regular income taxes.

The New York Times calls it “the most direct attack on bonuses anywhere in the world.”

Across the pond, however — where the Wall Street titans whose companies were saved from dissolution by an infusion of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are about to reward themselves with a good chunk of that money in the form of year-end bonuses — no such action is in the offing.

Full Story Britain Unveils Whopping Tax On Bank Bonuses; U.S. Windfall Tax Proposal Going Nowhere.

Gore Tackles Palin, Fights Back On ClimateGate: ‘What In The Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?’ (VIDEO)

As world leaders convene in Copenhagen for the global climate conference, Former Vice President Al Gore has been making the interview rounds pushing back on “ClimateGate” and promoting his new book , Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.

In a wide-ranging interview with Slate, Gore talks about environmental policy, why the Copenhagen meeting matters, and the hacked climate science emails. The emails, Gore stresses, were “taken wildly out of context” and the uproar surrounding them is “sound and fury signifying nothing.”

His frustration with the hacked-email fallout is palpable. “The basic facts are incontrovertible. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!–physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn’t trap heat anymore?” Gore asked, and pressed his point harder: “And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?

Full Story Gore Tackles Palin, Fights Back On ClimateGate: ‘What In The Hell Do They Think Is Causing It?’ (VIDEO).

Kucinich Circulating Privileged Resolutions to End Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Following a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement:

“Today, I will begin circulating two privileged resolutions which will trigger debate and votes on a timely withdrawal of U.S troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States makes it Congress’ responsibility to determine whether or not we go to war or stay at war. Consistent with Article 1, Section 8, the privileged resolutions will invoke the War Powers Act of 1973. I ask for your support of these resolutions, which will be introduced in the House in January.

“Yesterday, with the US Secretary of Defense at his side, the President of Afghanistan declared that his country’s security forces will need financial and training assistance from the United States for the next 15-20 years.

“We cannot afford these wars. We cannot afford the loss of lives. We cannot afford the cost to taxpayers. We cannot afford to fail to exercise our constitutional right to end the wars.

Full Story Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Gretchen Carlson’s Advice For Obama: Just Lie And Say You Don’t Look At Polls — Like Bush Did

A new Gallup poll came out this week showing that President Obama’s approval rating had dropped to 47 percent. In response on Monday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed the finding and its “meaninglessness.” “I tell you, if I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I’d visit my doctor,” Gibbs said. “If you look back, I think five days ago, there was an 11-point spread, now there’s a 1-point spread. I mean, I’m sure a 6-year-old with a crayon could do something not unlike that.”

Fox and Friends brought on former Bush adviser Karl Rove this morning to attack Gibbs and tout the poll number. Instead of his usual whiteboard, Rove had crayon-drawings of Gibbs. Host Steve Doocy mocked Gibbs for pretending to ignore polls, and Rove advised Gibbs to explain to the public that although the public may now hate what the President is doing, they’ll appreciate it later. Host Gretchen Carlson then chimed in with her own advice: Obama should imitate Bush:

CARLSON: Karl, he should have done what your former boss did, George W. Bush — where he said he didn’t look at the polls. And, whether or not that was true, at least he said that from the beginning, and that was the end of the story with regard to polls.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Gretchen Carlson’s Advice For Obama: Just Lie And Say You Don’t Look At Polls — Like Bush Did.

The Hidden Food Line

In July, Eunice Sierra, a cancer survivor, started trying to get food stamps renewed for her daughter, a 20-year-old single mother with schizophrenia.

Repeatedly, they trudged down to the state Health and Human Services offices at 404 Brady Boulevard in San Antonio. Nearly every day for two months, they joined the early morning line of 100 or so people, many desperate. Each time, they left empty-handed. The most common answer: Their caseworker had “left for the day” by the time their turn came, she said.

The degrading experience drove Sierra to volunteer for The Advocates Social Services in San Antonio, where she helps others battle the bureaucracy for benefits. As she relayed the story, rage and sadness poured from her.

“I’m sorry I’m crying. It just makes me so angry, because these people’s kids are the ones who suffer. And the adults sometimes go without eating for days so they can feed their kids first,” she said. “I don’t know what these state representatives think, that these people are supposed to survive on bread and water. Or air.”

Full Story The Hidden Food Line | The Texas Tribune.

Rep. Rohrabacher on Copenhagen: ‘This is about global government. … We must fight the globalist clique!’

Rep. Rohrabacher on Copenhagen: ‘This is about global government. … We must fight the globalist clique!’

Last night, House members took to the floor to call attention to the threat of catastrophic climate change. However, a group of right-wing congressmen stormed the floor in response and delivered speeches denying the existence of global warming, attacking the science as phony, and heralding a set of hacked e-mails as their proof. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) — who believes that if global warming exists, it has been caused by “dinosauer flatulence” — provided the most comical attack. Rohrbacher called upon Americans to get “angry” and “fight the globalist clique” of “globalists” and “radical environmentalists” who are trying to “shackle generations of Americans”:

ROHRBACHER: Copenhagen may well lay the foundations for the future that the globalists who are pushing this agenda envision for us. [...] What the Copenhagen crowd would mandate and can be traced back to the same alliance between our own radical environmentalists and the global elite. [...] This is about centralizing power into the hands of global government, that’s what Kyoto and Copenhagen are all about, that’s what the globalist alliance is all about. [...]

We must fight the globalist clique that is trying to shackle generations of Americans. … Members of Congress need to hear from angry constituents, and I predict they will.

Watch a compilation:

Full Story Think Progress » Rep. Rohrabacher on Copenhagen: ‘This is about global government. … We must fight the globalist clique!’.

OPS: If this hypocritical turd was actually worried about World Government he would have been against WTO

FDA opposes Senate drug importation amendment offered to healthcare bill

A proposal to enable the importation of cheaper prescription drugs could endanger the U.S. medicine supply and would be difficult to implement, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday

These criticisms from Margaret Hamburg, President Barack Obama’s FDA commissioner, could prove damaging to an effort by a broad coalition to enact the longstanding goal of easing consumers’ access to prescription drugs from countries such as Canada, where the prices are generally lower than in the United States.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) introduced his amendment to the healthcare bill on Tuesday with the support of 19 other senators, including four Republicans, setting up a vote Wednesday.

“U.S. consumers are charged the highest prices in the world for FDA-approved prescription drugs, and that’s just not fair,” Dorgan said in a statement.

Full Story FDA opposes Senate drug importation amendment offered to healthcare bill – TheHill.com.

Health care stocks rise after Dems drop public option

From Reuters:

Shares of U.S. health insurers rose on Wednesday after efforts to overhaul the health system moved away from creating a government-run insurance plan long viewed as damaging to the industry.

However, gains may have been held back as analysts said new measures that would expand the Medicare government plan to younger adults and require insurers to spend a certain amount of premiums on medical costs presented new potential risks.

Senate Democratic healthcare negotiators agreed late on Tuesday to replace a government insurance option with a scaled-back non-profit plan.

The S&P Managed Healthcare index (^GSPHMO – News) of larger U.S. health insurers rose 1.3 percent, compared to a 0.6 percent drop for the broader S&P 500 index (^SPX – News). UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH – News) increased 1.7 percent, Aetna Inc (NYSE:AET – News) rose 1.3 percent and Humana Inc (NYSE:HUM – News) climbed 1.1 percent.

Full Story Health care stocks rise after Dems drop public option | Raw Story.

Howard Dean: Senate health compromise ‘a positive step forward’

After a day of wrangling and heated negotiations in the Senate over health care reform, one of the most trusted progressive voices in the nation championed the latest compromise reached by Democrats.

“I judge all these plans by whether they move things forward or move things backward,” Dean said on the CBS Early Show Wednesday. “This moves things forward.”

The talks considerably weakened — if not eliminated — the much-discussed public insurance option, instead opting to increase coverage by expanding Medicare, a government-run single-payer program.

“Medicare is a very, very effective program,” he said. “Everybody over 65 is in it, it works very well.”

Though Dean has been a vocal champion of the public option, he reaffirmed that progressive goals of lowering costs and covering more people can be achieved in different ways.

Full Story Howard Dean: Senate health compromise ‘a positive step forward’ | Raw Story.

50,000 Climate Change Protestors March In London For COP15

More than 50,000 people flood the streets of London, calling on world leaders to deliver climate justice at the forthcoming Copenhagen climate summit.

Full Story YouTube – The Wave, London, 5 December 2009.

End the Fed? Or End the Market Economy?

Shamus Cooke  –

When Republican Congressman Ron Paul recently introduced legislation to audit the Federal Reserve, diverse sections of the political spectrum applauded. And rightfully so. The Fed’s role in the still-developing bank bailouts is one of utter secrecy; the total cost of which — as estimated by the bailout’s Special Inspector General, Neil Barofsky — could cost taxpayers $23.7 trillion. The fact that legislation needed to be introduced to raise the question of the whereabouts of these funds points to a larger breakdown in U.S. democracy.

Ron Paul’s legislative maneuver is consistent with his larger political philosophy, which he attributes to the Austrian school of economics. Central to this economic outlook is a focus on monetary policy, and the blaming of central banks for much of our economic troubles. Paul’s popularity has increased exponentially, rising in consequence to the bank bailouts and the Federal Reserve’s role in the Great Recession. The title of his recent book, End the Fed, was also used as the slogan of protests held around the country — many organized by Ron Paul supporters — outside of central banks.

As elite-controlled as the Federal Reserve system is, it’s “ending” cannot be the final goal of a progressive political movement. Larger social/economic forces must be considered too — and be dealt with.

For instance, a cursory glance at the history of the Federal Reserve shows its inadequacy as a goal for any social movement. After Andrew Jackson abolished the U.S. Central Bank in 1833, the market-economy [capitalism] continued to evolve; small companies out-competed and incorporated others, continued growing, and soon morphed into the giant corporations that we know today — driving down wages, boosting profits, and increasing social inequality.

Full Story End the Fed? Or End the Market Economy?.

Michael Steele ducks a debate with Donny Deutsch: ‘Whatever, whatever. Next question.’

Speaking on the Senate floor earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the GOP obstruction to health care reform reminds him of similar obstruction that played out during the civil rights debate. The GOP has used Reid’s comments to manufacture a faux media controversy. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mike Brzezinski called Reid’s remarks “unfortunate.” Her guest, RNC Chairman Michael Steele, said Reid needs to “check himself” and ripped him for being “out of touch,” “clueless,” and “ignorant.” But when MSNBC’s Donny Duetsch challenged Steele to defend his criticisms, Steele offered this weak and childish response:

DEUTSCH: I’m still trying to understand why the analogies he’s made are wrong. Obviously, the issue here is that any great change throughout history has the naysayers saying “it’s not time, it’s not time.” So why was that an irrelevant analogy?

STEELE: I won’t even dignify that with a response.

DEUTSCH: What do you mean, dignify? It’s a question, it’s a genuine question.

STEELE: Next question.

DEUTSCH: It’s a genuine question.

Full Story Think Progress » Michael Steele ducks a debate with Donny Deutsch: ‘Whatever, whatever. Next question.’.

Washington Post Promotes Palin’s Denialist Op-Ed By Putting Science In Scare Quotes

Washington Post puts science in scare quotes.As The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder notes, “Once again, the Washington Post has given Sarah Palin the chance to harness herself to the political story of the hour” by publishing her op-ed today urging President Obama to boycott the Copenhagen climate change conference because of the exaggerated controversy over the “Climategate” hacked e-mails. On its homepage, the Post promotes Palin’s op-ed, which is largely a redux of one of her Facebook posts, by putting science in scare quotes.

Palin claims that the e-mails stolen from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia show that “leading climate ‘experts’ deliberately destroyed records” and “manipulated data to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperatures.” Climate Progress’ Joe Romm points out that the e-mails “don’t reveal that” while Tim Limbert notes that a Washington Post story linked in Palin’s op-ed undermines her assertion of “manipulated data.”

Full Story Think Progress » Washington Post Promotes Palin’s Denialist Op-Ed By Putting Science In Scare Quotes.

AFL-CIO: Young People Hit Hard by Recession

Liz Shuler, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, has got a great post up on HuffPo. As a national AFL-CIO officer, she’s traveled across the country talking to workers and advocating on their behalf. One thing she has found – young people (she specifically mentions those between 18 and 34) are being hit the hardest by the economic downturn. She has some really interesting statistics:

* One in three young workers is worried about being able to find a job–let alone a full-time job with benefits.

* Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside–that is 22 percentage points worse than it was 10 years ago.

* Nearly half worry about having more debt than they can handle.

* One in three still lives at home with parents.

To me, those are some pretty insane stats. ONE in every THREE young workers still lives at home? Only 31 percent make enough to cover their bills and still save? Wow…The report these statistics are taken from is called Young Workers: A Lost Decade and it's really a good read.

Full Story AFL-CIO: Young People Hit Hard by Recession | Future Majority.

Japan GDP revised heavily downward

Annualised 1.3% growth hits fragile recovery

Official estimates of Japan’s growth between July and September were revised down heavily on Wednesday, suggesting the country’s recovery is more fragile than previously thought.

Growth on the previous quarter was revised down from 1.2 per cent to 0.3 per cent. At an annualised rate the revision was from 4.8 per cent to 1.3 per cent.

Full Story FT.com / Asia-Pacific – Japan GDP revised heavily downward.

Banks in UK hit by 50% tax on bonus payouts

Move will affect 20,000 bankers

Banks will be hit by a 50 per cent tax on bonus payouts, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, said in his pre-Budget report, in a move that will inflame bankers but is likely to be welcomed by the general public.

The first £25,000 of bonuses will be exempt from the tax.

The Treasury estimates that the move – which comes into immediate effect and runs until April 5 next year – will affect 20,000 bankers. Lord Myners, the City minister, recently estimated that 5,000 bankers earn more than £1m in bonuses.

Full Story FT.com / UK – Banks in UK hit by 50% tax on bonus payouts.

Greece and Dubai fears weigh on markets

Weak Japanese economic data combined with continued concerns about debt-laden Greece and Dubai to keep global bourses in cautious mood on Wednesday.

Not even a pull back in the dollar, following Tuesday’s rally, could fully salve investors’ anxiety – though it did help most European stocks curtail an early decline and allowed gold to reverse some of its recent slide.

The Athens stock market fell another 3.6 per cent and Greek government bonds tumbled as traders’ fears about the country’s fiscal position persisted following Fitch’s downgrade of Greece’s sovereign debt on Tuesday.

Full Story FT.com / FT’s rolling global market overview – Greece and Dubai fears weigh on markets.

Diagnosis and Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency Seminar

Vitamin D Action – Seminar – November 2009

Implicit evidence that 10,000 IU/day of vitamin D is safe, because it matches the potential effect of UV light exposure.

Introduction to Vitamin D
by Reinhold Vieth Ph.D.

What’s a Vitamin D Deficiency?
by Robert P. Heaney, M.D.

Viewing Breast Cancer as a Deficiency Disease
by Cedric F. Garland, Dr.P.H.

MOre……

Full Story GrassrootsHealth | Vitamin D Action – Seminar – November 2009.

Despite record drought, Australian farmers refuse to buy into climate change – washingtonpost.com

A lingering pool of disbelief

Before climate change strangled his lemon trees, Hermann Markovsky would drift off to sleep to the murmur of black swans in a lagoon beside his citrus farm.

The lagoon has dried up and the swans are gone. Gone, too, after a decade of the worst drought on record, is Markovsky’s right to pump irrigation water from the Murray, Australia’s largest river. Once called the Mighty Murray, it is now too sickly to flow to the sea, nor can it fill the irrigation pipes that sustain the country’s agricultural heartland.

“We are finished,” said Markovsky, who grew lemons and oranges here for nearly half a century until November, when a bulldozer put his withered trees out of their misery.

Full Story Despite record drought, Australian farmers refuse to buy into climate change – washingtonpost.com.

Antidepressants linked to major personality changes

A study finds steep drops in neuroticism and increases in extroversion among patients taking Paxil. Such traits had been believed to shift very little over a lifetime.

Antidepressant medications taken by roughly 7% of American adults cause profound personality changes in many patients with depression, far beyond simply lifting the veil of sadness, a study has found.

Researchers saw strong drops in neuroticism and increases in extroversion in patients taking antidepressants, two of five traits thought to define personality and shape a person’s day-to-day thoughts and behavior. The findings are striking, researchers said, because psychologists have long thought that such fundamental traits are moorings of an adult’s personality that shift very little over a lifetime.

The medications would seem to relieve depression by chemically altering brain processes that spawn negative thoughts rather than just alleviating symptoms associated with a depressed state, said Northwestern University psychologist Tony Z. Tang, the lead author of the study.

Full Story Antidepressants linked to major personality changes — latimes.com.

Broadcom co-founder testifies he didn’t know backdating stock options was improper

Henry Samueli, a defense witness in the fraud trial of a former executive, said that if the firm’s lawyers had told him that changing dates on stock awards was illegal, he would remember.

Henry Samueli, who co-founded Broadcom Corp. in a friend’s garage and helped grow it into a leading microchip designer, took the witness stand Tuesday with an equally challenging task at hand: defending the company’s backdating of stock options to a federal jury in Orange County.

Samueli was called as a defense witness in the trial of Broadcom’s former chief financial officer, William J. Ruehle, who faces 14 counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the stock option scandal. Ruehle has pleaded not guilty.

Federal prosecutors contend that Ruehle, Samueli and company co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III backdated stock options to make them more valuable to employees, concealing $2.2 billion in compensation from the company’s shareholders.

Full Story Broadcom co-founder testifies he didn’t know backdating stock options was improper — latimes.com.

Year-End Audit Finds TARP Program Effective

The independent panel that oversees the government’s financial bailout program concluded in a year-end review that, despite flaws and lingering problems, the program “can be credited with stopping an economic panic.”

The Congressional Oversight Panel, which issued the report, was created in October 2008 by the same law that established the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The panel has often been critical of the Treasury Department’s management of the bailout operation, especially at its start in the Bush administration but also under the Obama administration.

In the latest monthly report released on Wednesday, the panel again criticized the Treasury Department under Secretary Timothy F. Geithner for “failure to articulate clear goals or to provide specific measures of success for the program” as it has morphed over time from rescuing financial institutions to propping up securitization markets, auto manufacturers and home mortgages in danger of default. The panel also described the program’s foreclosure mitigation efforts as inadequate.

Full Story Year-End Audit Finds TARP Program Effective – NYTimes.com.

Doctors query ability of Tamiflu to stop severe illness

Review published in British Medical Journal accuses flu drug manufacturer Roche of withholding evidence from trials

Roche, the manufacturer of Tamiflu, has made it impossible for scientists to assess how well the anti-flu drug stockpiled around the globe works by withholding the evidence the company has gained from trials, doctors alleged today .

A major review of what data there is in the public domain has found no evidence Tamiflu can prevent healthy people with flu from suffering complications such as pneumonia.

Tamiflu may shorten the bout of illness by a day or so, the investigators say, but it is impossible to know whether it prevents severe disease because the published data is insufficient. Roche has failed to make some of the studies carried out on the drug publicly available, the scientists say.

Full Story Doctors query ability of Tamiflu to stop severe illness | World news | The Guardian.

Keith Olbermann and professor talk TARP

08 December, 2009 MSNBC

Full Story YouTube – Keith Olbermann and professor talk TARP.

Bye, Bye, Public Option?

Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, 12-8-2009

Busy Congress likely to defer action on Obama job proposals

Health care and other issues keep Congress busy

The packed congressional schedule means action on the bulk of President Obama’s job-creation proposals might be deferred to 2010, as the House and Senate race to complete a host of key bills by year’s end.

Funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the federal government’s ability to borrow money, and several expiring laws and tax breaks depend on Congress completing complicated legislative maneuvers in the next three weeks. The jobs bill also hangs in the balance as leaders weigh how quickly they can deliver a measure to the White House after Obama’s call Tuesday for a comprehensive package. House leaders are debating whether they can push a jobs bill through this month, while the Senate is more likely to tackle the subject in January.

“We need to do the jobs bill right,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday. “We need to do it soon, but doing it in the next 10 days is not necessarily essential if we do it . . . within the next 30 to 40 days.”

Full Story Busy Congress likely to defer action on Obama job proposals – washingtonpost.com.

Calls Mount For Resignation Of Canadian Defense Minister Over Afghan Prisoner Torture | AHN

Calls continued to mount across Canada for the resignation of Defense Minister Peter MacKay over his poor handling of the torture and abuse cases against Afghan prisoners captured by Canadian military troops.

Aside from the political opposition – spearheaded by the New Democratic Party – which called for the booting of MacKay, 23 former ambassadors urged Ottawa to remove the defense secretary from his post because of his alleged knowledge about the torture which took place in 2006, but MacKay did not stop the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities.

Diplomat Richard Colvin – who used to be assigned in Afghanistan and was transferred to Washington – had previously told a House of Commons committee that Canadian officials were warned of the tortures, but did not act on it. MacKay said Colvin’s testimony was hearsay.

Full Story Calls Mount For Resignation Of Canadian Defense Minister Over Afghan Prisoner Torture | AHN.

Nelson Abortion Amendment Fails

The Senate just voted to table Sen. Ben Nelson’s abortion amendment to the health care bill, effectively killing it and forcing Nelson’s hand on his threat to filibuster the bill if the restrictions on abortion coverage were not included.

The problem is Nelson holds all the cards. So assuming Nelson is unyielding on his filibuster threat, which seems like a reasonable assumption at this point, that means the Democrats need a GOP senator to get to 60. The most likely GOPer to defect is Olympia Snowe, but she comes with pretty high price: no public option for sure. She’s cool to even the latest compromise that would remove public option in exchange for expanding Medicare. Brian Beutler elaborates on this dynamic here.

Late Update: Interestingly, Nelson was conciliatory after the vote, declining to reiterate his filibuster threat. Could it be that Nelson much prefers being “in play”?

Full Story Nelson Abortion Amendment Fails | Talking Points Memo.

Ed Schultz Takes On Jonathan Alter Over Health Bill, Public Option (VIDEO)

The Ed Show’s Ed Schultz took on President Obama Tuesday for not showing support for the public option. Schultz pointed to an email sent out by Organizing for America, asking supporters of health care reform to send money. The email, like the president’s speech to Senators on Sunday, did not mention the public option. Schultz accused Obama of allowing a handful of Democrats to shape health care reform and permitting a “watered down, whatever-the-hell-it-is public option” to move forward.

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter stepped forward to defend the president and the health care bill. Alter argued that Schultz was misrepresenting the totality of the billl, telling Schultz that, “You have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.”

Alter accused Schultz of making it sound like the whole bill was the public option and argued that the bill offers tremendous reforms like “ending discrimination against sick people…insuring more than 30 million additional Americans… all kinds of preventative care.”

Schultz took issue with Alter’s claim that the bill was being misrepresented. “This is nothing but a handout to the insurance industry,” Shultz said. “What you’ve got is tax dollars that are gonna be subsidizing lower income people, they’re gonna be mandated to go over to the insurance industry and purchase insurance… If there’s gonna be 40 million new customers… why in the heck wouldn’t they take that on?”

WATCH:

Full Story Ed Schultz Takes On Jonathan Alter Over Health Bill, Public Option (VIDEO).

Does Death Exist? New Theory Says ‘No’

Many of us fear death. We believe in death because we have been told we will die. We associate ourselves with the body, and we know that bodies die. But a new scientific theory suggests that death is not the terminal event we think.

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). A new scientific theory – called biocentrism – refines these ideas. There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling – the ‘Who am I?’- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn’t go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?

Consider an experiment that was recently published in the journal Science showing that scientists could retroactively change something that had happened in the past. Particles had to decide how to behave when they hit a beam splitter. Later on, the experimenter could turn a second switch on or off. It turns out that what the observer decided at that point, determined what the particle did in the past. Regardless of the choice you, the observer, make, it is you who will experience the outcomes that will result. The linkages between these various histories and universes transcend our ordinary classical ideas of space and time. Think of the 20-watts of energy as simply holo-projecting either this or that result onto a screen. Whether you turn the second beam splitter on or off, it’s still the same battery or agent responsible for the projection.

Full Story Robert Lanza, M.D.: Does Death Exist? New Theory Says ‘No’.

Coakley Wins Democratic Race For Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat

The relatively quiet campaign to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy’s Senate seat was matched by equally light turnout Tuesday as voters picked two state politicians to face off in next month’s general election.

Attorney General Martha Coakley won a four-way race for the Democratic nomination, while state Sen. Scott Brown bested a perennial candidate to win the Republican nomination.

Coakley’s win was her first step toward becoming the first female senator from Massachusetts, a state otherwise known for its liberal political tradition.

Full Story Coakley Wins Democratic Race For Ted Kennedy’s Senate Seat.

Jon Stewart Calls Out Gretchen Carlson For “Dumbing Herself Down” (VIDEO)

Jon Stewart went after “Fox & Friends” host Gretchen Carlson last night. Saying she plays the “troubled mom, just trying to make sense of this modern country,” Stewart explained Carlson seems to be dumbing herself down in order to connect with an audience that sees intellect as an elitist flaw.

After showing clips of Carlson talking about Googling the words “ignoramus” and “czar,” Stewart was flabbergasted:

How do you get a job on television if you appear to be one of those people who need to pin their address to their coat so a stranger can help them find their way home?

Determined to get to the bottom of it, Stewart conducted a Google search of his own. According to his findings, this “troubled mom” is a graduate of Stanford and a classically trained violinist. With this in mind, Stewart challenged Carlson: “I don’t want to have to turn you on tomorrow to see you’re actually surprised that the Interior Secretary is in charge of the outside stuff.”

WATCH:

Full Story Jon Stewart Calls Out Gretchen Carlson For “Dumbing Herself Down” (VIDEO).

OPS:  Point is,  she’s playing to her audience. The FOX staff cannot allow themselves to look smarter than their audience.  So how smart does FOX think its viewer are?  Obviously they assume their viewers are idiots. And it works.

Paul Volcker: ‘Wake up, gentlemen’

World’s top bankers warned by former Fed chairman Volcker

One of the most senior figures in the financial world surprised a conference of high-level bankers yesterday when he criticised them for failing to grasp the magnitude of the financial crisis and belittled their suggested reforms.

Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, berated the bankers for their failure to acknowledge a problem with personal rewards and questioned their claims for financial innovation.

On the subject of pay, he said: “Has there been one financial leader to say this is really excessive? Wake up, gentlemen. Your response, I can only say, has been inadequate.”

As bankers demanded that new regulation should not stifle innovation, a clearly irritated Mr Volcker said that the biggest innovation in the industry over the past 20 years had been the cash machine. He went on to attack the rise of complex products such as credit default swaps (CDS).

“I wish someone would give me one shred of neutral evidence that financial innovation has led to economic growth — one shred of evidence,” said Mr Volcker, who ran the Fed from 1979 to 1987 and is now chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Full Story ‘Wake up, gentlemen’, world’s top bankers warned by former Fed chairman Volcker – Times Online.

Bailout Watchdog: Obama Foreclosure Plan Inadequate, New Direction Needed

Add Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor-turned-crusader for Main Street and the middle class, to the growing list of experts calling for the Obama administration to scrap its failed foreclosure-prevention plan in favor of one that would actually help troubled homeowners keep their homes.

The Congressional Oversight Panel that Warren heads issued a new report Wednesday, concluding that the government's $700 billion bailout program did in fact help stabilize the financial system — but has largely failed to boost lending or prevent foreclosures.

In a conference call with reporters Tuesday night, Warren spelled out just how dramatically the administration signature foreclosure effort, called the Home Affordable Modification Program, has fallen short:

Full Story Bailout Watchdog: Obama Foreclosure Plan Inadequate, New Direction Needed.

UN: Human role in climate change not in doubt

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday that emails leaked from a British university have done nothing to undermine the United Nations’ view that climate change is accelerating due to humans.

“Nothing that has come out in the public as a result of the recent email hackings has cast doubt on the basic scientific message on climate change and that message is quite clear — that climate change is happening much, much faster than we realized and we human beings are the primary cause,” he said. (Editing by Eric Beech)

Full Story Reuters AlertNet – Human role in climate change not in doubt-UN’s Ban.

Human rights group: Brazil police murdered over 11,000 in just six years | Raw Story

Police in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have killed more than 11,000 people in the past six years, many execution-style, according to a report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch.

Few of the officers have been charged in the extrajudicial killings, which are often labeled in police reports as the deaths of suspects who resisted arrest, the report said.

The 122-page declaration echoes a 2008 United Nations’ finding that police throughout Brazil were responsible for a “significant portion” of 48,000 slayings the year before.

“Extrajudicial killing of criminal suspects is not the answer to violent crime,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The residents of Rio and Sao Paulo need more effective policing, not more violence from the police.”

Isabel Figueiredo, Brazil’s coordinator-general of human rights and public safety, acknowledged that police violence is a widespread problem and “it concerns the federal government a great deal.”

Full Story Human rights group: Brazil police murdered over 11,000 in just six years | Raw Story.

Home lost nearly a half trillion in value in 2009

Residential real estate owners suffered through another down year, but losses were much lower than in 2008.

American homeowners will have lost nearly $500 billion in home value by year’s end.

Still, that’s a big improvement over 2008, when values fell by $3.6 trillion, according to a report released Wednesday by real estate Web site Zillow, which provides online appraisals for tens of millions of properties nationwide.

“Home values stabilized significantly during the second half of 2009, with the total dollar value of U.S. homes increasing since June,” said Zillow’s chief economist, Stan Humphries, in a prepared statement. “Most housing markets across the country had a good summer, spurred largely by the government’s tax credits for homebuyers combined with very low mortgage rates.”

Full Story Home lost nearly a half trillion in value in 2009 – Dec. 9, 2009.

It’s official: Democrats drop opt-out public option

After days of secret talks, Senate Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday night to drop a government-run insurance option from sweeping health care legislation, several officials said, a concession to party moderates whose votes are critical to passage of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

In its place, officials said Democrats had tentatively settled on a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, the emerging agreement calls for Medicare to be opened to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the 65-and-over population.

At a hastily called evening news conference in the Capitol, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined to provide details of what he described as a “broad agreement” between liberals and moderates on an issue that has plagued Democrats’ efforts to pass health care legislation from the outset.

With it, he added, the end is in sight for passage of the legislation that Congress has labored over for months.

The officials who described the details of the closed-door negotiations did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Full Story It’s official: Democrats drop opt-out public option | Raw Story.

Empire at Risk

The nation which survived the Cold War and rallied after 9/11 may have its global power greatly eradicated by this fiscal crisis – the resulting tailspin may be one from which we never truly recover.

Economic historian Niall Ferguson, writing for Newsweek, believes that the United States may be entering an unprecedented period in its history. After successfully surviving the best that the 20th century had to throw at it, it may be undone from within by its own largesse and mismanagement.

The nation which survived the Cold War and rallied after 9/11 may have its global power greatly eradicated by this fiscal crisis.

During the past generation, the U.S. has built itself up as the preeminent world power. In terms of military, economic, and diplomatic power the U.S. reigned supreme. Now however, those positions are being challenged from within.

The U.S. still has the world’s most powerful and advanced military, but its economy and its diplomatic leverage have been seriously challenged. In the next two decades or more the rapid and consistent economic growth witnessed in China will likely result in that country catching and surpassing the size and wealth of the U.S.

After spending nearly a century at the top of the economic hierarchy, the U.S. will find itself in the shadow of another for the first time in recent memory. As America’s share of the global economy dwindles, so too will its political leverage.

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

Trickle-Up Economics

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

In a failed state, the government’s priorities are totally separate from those of the people. The U.S. can’t afford health care, but it can afford multimillion-dollar bonuses for banksters who wrecked the economy.

Goldman Sachs senior executives are arming themselves with New York gun permits, according to Alice Schroeder on Bloomberg.com. The banksters “are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.”

One can understand why the banksters are worried. The company, now known as Gold Sachs, has a large responsibility for the financial crisis and the fraudulent “securities” that wrecked the world economy and Americans’ pensions. A former Gold Sachs CEO had control of the U.S. Treasury during the Bush regime, from which he diverted $750 billion to bail out the banks, thus supplying them with free capital. Gold Sachs made $27,000 million during the first three quarters of 2009 and is paying out massive bonuses, leaving the busted taxpayers with the debt and interest charges.

Little wonder the U.S. can’t afford health care for the uninsured and unemployed. It is far more important to finance multimillion-dollar bonuses for investment bankers. I mean, what would we do without capitalism?

Of course, it is not really capitalism. It is an oligarchy or a financial plutocracy.

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

The Public Option That Isn’t Public At All

James Ridgeway,  Mother Jones  —

As I predicted some time ago, the interminable smoke and mirrors game going on in Congress will most likely end with the adoption a “public option” that isn’t public at all. In fact, it resembles the plan first proposed by the Heritage Foundation, premier architects of conservative policy, back in the 1980s under Reagan. Then, as now, the scheme essentially imitates the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, which gives people a choice of various private insurance company plans, sanctioned by an independent authorizing board. There is nothing really public about this program. In fact, it keeps access to health care firmly within the grip of the private insurance industry. And it isn’t cheap either: Some federal employees have opted out because they can’t afford their share of the costs.

This is the Democrats’ idea of a “compromise”–not with the Republicans, but with the so-called moderates within their own party. A group of ten Democratic senators (ten liberal, ten not) huddled over the weekend to work out plan that could get through the Senate, and President Obama paid a “rare Sunday trip” to Capitol Hill to drum up party unity on the issue. What came out of all this is a public option so weak that it seems more like a last-ditch piece of political face-saving than a genuine effort to improve access to health care. Here is how the Washington Post on Tuesday described the deal:

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said the idea is on the table as part of an emerging compromise under which liberals would back away from their demand for a new government health insurance plan to compete with private carriers. Instead of a so-called public plan, the compromise envisions private insurers operating under the auspices of the government agency that now manages the federal employee health plan–the same one that covers members of Congress.

Full Story The Public Option That Isn’t Public At All | Mother Jones.

The Religious Right’s Potty Paranoia

Mother Jones –

Why social conservatives are freaking out over a proposed law to protect gay rights in the workplace.

The next big culture war battle is about to be waged in an unlikely place: the restroom. After many years, Congress may finally have the votes to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The measure, which the Obama administration views as key to advancing gay rights, would ban workplace discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people. But Christian right groups are fighting the legislation—on the grounds that it would force businesses to allow transgendered and “transitioning” men and women to use opposite-sex restrooms or face lawsuits from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The Traditional Values Coalition, a major foe of ENDA, has written a lengthy report on the potential dangers of the legislation, and the bathroom crisis is high on the list. As proof of the coming bathroom integration, it cites a Seattle incident in which two women who were taking male hormones were thrown out of a men’s room at the Washington convention center. The women were staging a “pee-in” as part of a Gender Odyssey Conference, but TVC sees “she-men” invading the hallowed confines of men’s restrooms everywhere should ENDA pass.

In talking points issued to ENDA opponents, Liberty Counsel, the conservative public interest firm associated with Jerry Falwell‘s Liberty University, warns:

ENDA mandates that employers give access to shared facilities, such as restrooms and other similar facilities for those who are of the same sex, but have an opposite gender identity (i.e. a male identifying as female), or of those who have notified their employer of an ongoing gender transition (i.e. a male transitioning to a female). Those employees would be allowed to share restrooms and other similar facilities with members of the opposite sex.

Full Story The Religious Right’s Potty Paranoia | Mother Jones.

Radical Right — The Billionaires Behind The Hate

Meet the Billionaire Brothers Funding the Right-Wing War on Obama. They’re the 9th richest people in America and they’re pushing hard to upend President Obama’s progressive agenda.

Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch are the wealthiest, and perhaps most effective, opponents of President Obama’s progressive agenda. They have been looming in the background of every major domestic policy dispute this year. Ranked as the 9th richest men in America, the Koch brothers sit at the helm of Koch Industries, a massive privately owned conglomerate of manufacturing, oil, gas, and timber interests. They are best known for their wealth, as well as for their generous contributions to the arts, cancer research, and the Smithsonian Institute. But David and Charles are also responsible for a vicious attack campaign aimed directly at obstructing and killing progressive reform. Over the years, millions of dollars in Koch money has flowed to various right-wing think tanks, front groups, and publications. At the dawn of the Obama presidency, Koch groups quickly maneuvered to try to stop his first piece of signature legislation: the stimulus. The Koch-funded group “No Stimulus” launched television and radio ads deriding the recovery package as simply “pork” spending. The Cato Institute — founded by Charles — as well as other Koch-funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, produced a blizzard of reports distorting the stimulus and calling for a return to Bush-style tax cuts to combat the recession. As their fronts were battling the stimulus, David’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent the opening months of the Obama presidency placing calls and helping to organize the very first “tea party” protests. AFP, founded in 1984 by David and managed day to day by the astroturf lobbyist Tim Phillips, has spent much of the year mobilizing “tea party” opposition to health reform, clean energy legislation, and financial regulations.

Full Story Radical Right — The Billionaires Behind The Hate.

Af-Pak War Racket: The Obama Illusion Comes Crashing Down

Obama Far Outdoes Bush in Escalating War — The Numbers Will Surprise You.

The economic elite have escalated their attack on the U.S. public by surging military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As Obama announced plans for escalating the war effort, it has become clear that the Obama Illusion has taken yet another horrifying turn. Before explaining how the Af-Pak surge is a direct attack on the US public, let’s peer through the illusion and look at the reality of the situation.

Now that the much despised George W. Bush is out of the way and a more popular figurehead is doing PR for Dick Cheney’s right-hand military leader Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is leading his second AF-Pak surge now, and with long time Bush family confidant Robert Gates still running the Defense Department, the masters of war have never had it so good.

Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate, has proven to be a perfect decoy for the military industrial complex. Consider all the opposition and bad press Bush received when he announced the surge in Iraq. Then consider this:

Full Story Af-Pak War Racket: The Obama Illusion Comes Crashing Down | Amped Status.

Has the GOP Collapse Begun? Hypothetical “Tea Party” Outpolls Republicans

Something is afoot among the conservative base — voting Republican doesn’t seem to cut it anymore, and incumbents are getting nervous.

Establishment Republicans, take notice. The Tea Party is about to steal your thunder.

According to a poll by Rasmussen Reports, likely voters in the 2010 congressional elections would rather cast a ballot for a candidate bearing the Tea Party brand than one on the Republican line.

In a national survey of likely voters, Rasmussen asked respondents to choose their favored political party for the congressional contests in what pollsters call a generic ballot. In a three-way contest, Democrats fared best, with 36 percent, while a hypothetical Tea Party came in second at 23 percent, and Republicans pulled up the rear with 18 percent. But there is one wrinkle in the Tea Party triumph scenario: There is no political party called the Tea Party, which might lead one to question whether Rasmussen is stirring the simmering pot of  Republican Party politics.

Full Story Has the GOP Collapse Begun? Hypothetical “Tea Party” Outpolls Republicans | Politics | AlterNet.

More Easy Money for Wall Street

Billions More in Easy Money for Wall Street — Are We Too Ignorant About Finance to Stop It?.  A permanent security blanket for big boys of finance will further inflame public opinion. Only the public isn’t likely to know.

William Greider —

The sale pitch for financial-reform legislation pending in the House claims it would put an stop to “too big to fail” bailouts for the leading banks. The reality is the opposite. The federal government would instead be granted unlimited authority to spend whatever it takes to prop up the big boys when they get in trouble. Only in the next crisis, Congress won’t have to be asked for the money. The financial rescues will be funded by the secretive Federal Reserve, not the Treasury, with money the Fed itself creates.

And the emergency lending could be pumped into any financial institution in trouble–not just behemoth commercial banks but investment houses like Goldman Sachs, insurance companies, hedge funds or any other pools of private capital whose failure regulators believe would threaten the system.

This sounds nutty and it is. A permanent security blanket for big boys of finance will further inflame public opinion. Only the public isn’t likely to know. The crucial terms for Fed financing are set by an innocuous-sounding amendment offered by Representative Brad Miller of North Carolina. Any financial holding company designated as a “systemic risk” and subject to stricter regulatory standards “shall have the same access to the discount window lending of an appropriate Federal Reserve Bank as is available to a member bank of each Federal Reserve bank.”

Full Story More Easy Money for Wall Street.

Homeland Security Embarks on Big Brother Programs to Read Our Minds and Emotions

Half-baked Homeland Security is spending millions to develop sensors capable of detecting a person’s level of  ‘malintent’ as a counter terrorism tool.

In the sci-fi thriller Minority Report, Tom Cruise plays a D.C. police detective, circa 2054, in the department of “pre-crime,” an experimental law enforcement unit whose mission — to hunt down criminals before they strike — relies on the psychic visions of mutant “pre-cogs” (short for precognition) who can see the future. It may be futuristic Hollywood fantasy, but the underlying premise — that we can predict (if not see) a person’s sinister plans before they follow through — is already here.

This past February, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded a one-year, $2.6 million grant to the Cambridge, MA.-based Charles Stark Draper Laboratory to develop computerized sensors capable of detecting a person’s level of “malintent” — or intention to do harm. It’s only the most recent of numerous contracts awarded to Draper and assorted research outfits by the U.S. government over the past few years under the auspices of a project called “Future Attribute Screening Technologies,” or FAST. It’s the next wave of behavior surveillance from DHS and taxpayers have paid some $20 million on it so far.

Conceived as a cutting-edge counter-terrorism tool, the FAST program will ostensibly detect subjects’ bad intentions by monitoring their physiological characteristics, particularly those associated with fear and anxiety. It’s part of a broader “initiative to develop innovative, non-invasive technologies to screen people at security checkpoints,” according to DHS.

Full Story Homeland Security Embarks on Big Brother Programs to Read Our Minds and Emotions | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet.

Obama Admits We Can’t Have Guns and Butter — Then Chooses Guns

David Sirota:

During the Vietnam War, it became clear that America could not afford to simultaneously wage war on poverty and wage war in Vietnam. We could not have guns and butter at the same time, as Martin Luther King so eloquently noted in his 1967 speech at Riverside Church:

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

The same is true of the Afghanistan War, which will now cost at least $100 billion a year, thanks to President Obama's massive escalation. That's more than the same annual outlay for the universal health care bills being considered in Congress. And you don't have to trust me to know that that kind of Afghanistan outlay means we can't have guns and butter at the same time – trust President Obama himself:

Full Story David Sirota: Obama Admits We Can’t Have Guns and Butter — Then Chooses Guns.

Yahoo Sells All Its Users Private Email Contents to U.S. Agencies for Small Price

Yahoo isn’t happy that a detailed menu of the spying services it provides to “law enforcement” and spy agencies has leaked onto the web.

After earlier reports this week that Yahoo had blocked an FOIA Freedom of Information release of its “law enforcement and intelligence price list”, someone helpfully provided a copy of the Yahoo company’s spying guide to the whistleblower web site Cryptome.org.

The 17-page guide, which Yahoo has tried to suppress via legal letters to the Cryptome.org site run by freedom of information champion John Young, describes Yahoo’s policies on keeping the data of Yahoo Email and Yahoo Groups users, as well as the surveillance and spying capabilities it can give to the U.S. government and its agencies

Full Story Yahoo Sells All Its Users Private Email Contents to U.S. Agencies for Small Price.

Dems agree to drop gov’t-run insurance option

Democratic senators say they have a tentative deal to drop a government-run insurance option from health care legislation. No further details were immediately available.

But liberals and moderates have been discussing an alternative, including a private insurance arrangement to be supervised by the federal agency that oversees the system through which lawmakers purchase coverage. Additionally, talks centered on opening up Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, a significant expansion of the large government health care program that currently serves the over-65 population.

Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa told reporters he didn’t like the agreement but would support it to the hilt in an attempt to pass health care legislation.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Abortion opponents failed to inject tougher restrictions into sweeping Senate health care legislation Tuesday, and Democratic leaders labored to make sure fallout from the controversy wouldn’t hinder the drive to pass President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The 54-45 vote over abortion took place as Democrats, in daylong private talks in the Capitol, appeared ready to scuttle plans for a government-run insurance option that liberals have long sought.

Full Story The Associated Press: Dems agree to drop gov’t-run insurance option.

Navy Vet Turned Down For Early Screenings, Now Has Stage 4 Cancer

Navy veteran David Cohen knew he had a history of colon cancer in his family, but his repeated requests for early cancer screenings were turned down by his local VA hospital, CNN reports.

Now, Cohen is facing his worst fears: a diagnosis of stage four colorectal cancer and a prognosis of 26 months left to live.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Full Story Navy Vet Turned Down For Early Screenings, Now Has Stage 4 Cancer.

Bionic Fingers: ProDigits Offers Hope To The Disabled (VIDEO)

Touch Bionics is offering hope to the disabled with an extraordinary new product called ProDigits. It’s the world’s first powered bionic fingers and the range of motion and complexity of grip that it offers people with missing fingers is sure to change lives. The product is expensive, from $57,000 to $73,000, but surely worth it when you consider it offers someone back his hand.

Wired has more details:

To power ProDigits, either myoelectric sensors that register muscle signals from the residual finger or palm, or a pressure sensitive switch input in the form of a touch pad can be used. It also has a feature that allows the device to detect when it has closed around an object.

More here. Watch a demonstration of ProDigits below.

WATCH:

Full Story Bionic Fingers: ProDigits Offers Hope To The Disabled (VIDEO).

Heads Of Financial Crisis Commission Call Wall Street Bonuses Unjustifiable, Vow To Investigate (EXCLUSIVE)

The chair and vice chair of the federal commission charged with investigating the causes of the financial crisis had harsh words on Tuesday for the Wall Street banks that are preparing to grant their executives enormous bonuses. And they said that the huge profits some banks have made as a direct result of a massive infusion of taxpayer funds are going to be part of the panel’s investigation.

“This dichotomy of record profits and bonuses on Wall Street while you have real unemployment of 15 percent-plus in this country is very striking,” Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Chairman Phil Angelides said during a visit to The Huffington Post’s Washington bureau. “Our primary mission is not to re-litigate TARP, but I do think in examining the crisis it’s legitimate to look at where things stand today, and we’re going to do that.”

Angelides, a Democrat and former California state treasurer, and the commission’s vice chair, former longtime Republican Congressman Bill Thomas, said the commission will produce a report on the causes of the crisis by next December.

Full Story Heads Of Financial Crisis Commission Call Wall Street Bonuses Unjustifiable, Vow To Investigate (EXCLUSIVE).

For the feds, some Wall Street firms are too big — to punish

Forget too big to fail. In the eyes of federal regulators, many Wall Street firms are too big to punish.

During the past three years, some of the nation’s largest financial firms have been accused by the government of cheating or misleading clients and ripping off tens of thousands of consumers of their investments.

Despite these findings, these financial giants got, sometimes repeatedly, special exemptions from the Securities and Exchange Commission that have saved them from a regulatory death penalty that could have decimated their lucrative mutual fund businesses.

Full Story For the feds, some Wall Street firms are too big — to punish | McClatchy.

Breakthrough: Health Care Talks Advance In Senate

Senate negotiators emerged from a full day of meetings Tuesday saying they had made genuine progress toward a deal on health care reform.

They declined to outline the specifics of the agreement, but said that the measures they had been discussing will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office for cost estimates. Once the estimates are returned, the final deal will be put together.

“We have made a lot of progress. There’s a lot of agreement. We have decided to take the next step and that is to ask the CBO to score what we’ve been discussing,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), one of five conservative Democrats negotiating with five liberals.

Full Story Breakthrough: Health Care Talks Advance In Senate.

The Consequences Of Global Warming — From A To Z

The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson is in Copenhagen to cover the global warming treaty negotiations. He will be filing daily dispatches. In this post, he underscores the urgent need for action that confronts the international negotiators as they begin their discussions.

Global temperature anomaly, 2006

As the nations of the world gather in Copenhagen, the Wonk Room has prepared this alphabetical journey of the impacts of climate change around the globe.

East Antarctica, long stable, is now losing ice.

Bolivia needs $1 billion over the next seven years to build reservoirs, as the glaciers that hold the nation’s water supply are shrinking rapidly.

Leatherback sea turtles that spawn on the beaches of Costa Rica are threatened with extinction by warmer temperatures and rising seas.

Denmark joined United States, Norway, Canada, and Russia in identifying climate change as “the most important long-term threat” to future existence of polar bears.

more……

Full Story Think Progress » The Consequences Of Global Warming — From A To Z.

The end of the Washington Times and Rev. Moon’s right-wing charity

You’d think that somebody with a direct line to the Almighty, and tapped by Jesus to save mankind on Earth, would be able to come up with a better business plan for running a daily newspaper. But, alas, after nearly three decades of unrelenting financial losses, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a federal tax cheat, accused cult leader, and founder of the Unification Church, has decided to pull out. Actually, according to news reports, it’s more like Moon’s U.S. college-educated sons, as part of an internal family power struggle, have decided to finally cut off the endless stream of Asian church cash that’s kept the Times afloat.

With the announcement that 40 percent of the Times’ staff is getting pink-slipped, and that the daily’s no longer even going to bother with traditional who/what/where/when/why reporting, instead publishing an opinion-heavy publication that will be free of charge at a diminished number of local outlets, Times owners look like they’re angling to be a Weekly Standard wannabe, churning out lots of predictable GOP Noise Machine opinion prattle. (Paging Andrew Breirtbart!) What is clear is that the daily’s days as a functioning newspaper are now over.

R.I.P. The Washington Times.

At this time of reflection, it’s worth pondering two rather astonishing facets about the Times and its bizarre life and looming death. The first is the deep irony of how the Times, a clarion voice

Full Story The end of the Washington Times and Rev. Moon’s right-wing charity | The Smirking Chimp.

Inhofe’s Hoax: Senator Distorts Meteorological Study To Show Support For His Global Warming Denial

Inhofe’s Hoax: Senator Distorts Meteorological Study To Show Support For His Global Warming Denial

Appearing on CNN’s American Morning today to discuss the Copenhagen climate change conference, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attempted to defend his theory that the illegally-hacked emails of climate researchers prove that global warming is a “hoax.” Inhofe, who will lead a “truth squad” of global warming deniers to the conference, told host Kiran Chetry that people “all over the world” agree with him about the “climategate” emails.

Inhofe cited two newspapers and a group of meteorologists who are “changing their position” on the science of global warming:

INHOFE: Hey, Kiran, if it was just me saying it’d be one thing, but all over the world they’re talking about this. And just this morning the meteorologists — one of the groups — has said that they’re changing their position. Listen, the UK Telegraph — this is worst scientific scandal of our generation. The Guardian, this is an activist paper, saying pretending this isn’t a real scandal isn’t going to make it go away.

Watch it:

Full Story Think Progress » Inhofe’s Hoax: Senator Distorts Meteorological Study To Show Support For His Global Warming Denial.

Sen. McConnell Flips, Now Hits Dems For Expanding Medicare

Yesterday, Politico’s Glenn Thrush described Republican frustration over the ineffectiveness of political attacks that claim Democrats will cut seniors’ Medicare.

Thrush wrote:

One GOP staffer, in a moment of candor, attributed the problem to the GOP’s longtime resistance to Medicare — starting with Ronald Reagan’s pronouncement that the highly-popular senior citizen health care program would lead America to socialism.

“For us talking about Medicare in 2009 is about as credible as the Democrats talking about homeland security and national defense in 2001,” the person lamented. “We may be right on the merits but we just don’t have the credibility.”

It seems that Thrush was on to something.

On December 6th, a press release from the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attacked Democrats for “cutting Medicare.”

Full Story Sen. McConnell Flips, Now Hits Dems For Expanding Medicare | Media Matters Action Network.

Why Are We Sending Thousands of Military Personnel to Guam?

Why are we sending thousands of military personnel to Guam? Next on “NOW.” Over the next five years, as many as 30,000 service members and their families will descend on the small island of Guam, nearly tripling its presence there. It’s part of a larger agreement that the US signed with Japan to realign American forces in the Pacific. But how will this multibillion-dollar move impact the lives and lifestyle of Guam’s nearly 180,000 residents? On Friday, December 11, at 8:30 PM (check local listings), “NOW” on PBS travels to the US territory of Guam to find out whether their environment and infrastructure can support such a large and quick infusion of people, and why the buildup is vital to our national security.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | Why Are We Sending Thousands of Military Personnel to Guam?.

The Reason for 15 Million Unemployed: Poor Thinking at the Top

Dean Baker –

The United States has more than 15 million people unemployed. This is not their fault. It is the fault of really bad policy decisions by people who get paid more than almost all of the unemployed ever did or ever will. The failure of economic policymakers to recognize and attack an $8 trillion housing bubble led to the downturn. The continuing failure of economic policymakers to think creatively is why 15 million people remain unemployed.

The basic problem of unemployment is in fact a very simple one; we don’t have enough demand in the economy. The collapse of bubbles in both residential and nonresidential construction led to a falloff in annual construction of close to $700 billion. The disappearance of more than $6 trillion in housing bubble wealth has forced consumers to pare consumption by approximately $500 billion a year. This creates a total shortfall in annual demand of $1.2 trillion.

In the face of inadequate demand, people lose their jobs. There is not enough demand for houses, cars, restaurant meals and thousands of other goods and services to keep everyone employed.

Full Story t r u t h o u t | The Reason for 15 Million Unemployed: Poor Thinking at the Top.

The truth about Republicans

by..George Carlin

Full Story YouTube – The truth about Republicans by..George Carlin.

White House wants suit against Yoo dismissed

The Obama administration has asked an appeals court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing former Bush administration attorney John Yoo of authorizing the torture of a terrorism suspect, saying federal law does not allow damage claims against lawyers who advise the president on national security issues.

Such lawsuits ask courts to second-guess presidential decisions and pose “the risk of deterring full and frank advice regarding the military’s detention and treatment of those determined to be enemies during an armed conflict,” Justice Department lawyers said Thursday in arguments to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Other sanctions are available for government lawyers who commit misconduct, the department said. It noted that its Office of Professional Responsibility has been investigating Yoo’s advice to former President George W. Bush since 2004 and has the power to recommend professional discipline or even criminal prosecution.

The office has not made its conclusions public. However, The Chronicle and other media reported in May that the office will recommend that Yoo be referred to the bar association for possible discipline, but that he not be prosecuted.

Full Story White House wants suit against Yoo dismissed.

Blame Bernanke

Dean Baker  –

The Fed chairman Ben Bernanke could have acted to burst America's housing bubble – and yet he did nothing

As the senate debates Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke‘s reappointment, it is striking how the media views blaming Bernanke for the Great Recession as being out of bounds. Of course Bernake bears much of the blame for America’s economic collapse.

He was either in, or next to, the driver’s seat for the last seven years. Bernanke was a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve since the summer of 2002. He served a six-month stint as head of President Bush’s council of economic advisors beginning in the summer of 2005 and then went back to chair the Fed in February 2006.

This crisis is not a weather disaster like Hurricane Katrina; it is a man-made disaster that was brought about by seriously misguided economic policy. And, after Alan Greenspan, Bernanke was better positioned than any other person in the country to prevent this disaster.

Full Story Blame Bernanke | Dean Baker | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak

Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN’s negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

Full Story Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Great Video Debunking the Stolen Climate Email Controversy

Watch this video and tell me how anyone can still think the stolen climate change email controversy is anything more than manufactured by the right-wing media echo machine and their fossil fuel friends in the free market think tanks:

Full Story Kevin Grandia: Great Video Debunking the Stolen Climate Email Controversy.

Water Is The New Oil

What’s More Important Than Oil?

That’s the question I first asked myself which led me to write “Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization” (Harper Collins January 2010). I had read Dan Yergin’s wonderful history of oil, “The Prize”, and began contemplating what other natural resource might be shaping our destiny as profoundly. The obvious answer arrived like a slap in the forehead, a Bill Clinton “It’s the economy, stupid!” moment–WATER.

Water is visibly showing through as a root cause of nearly every headline issue transforming the world order and planetary environment: Freshwater scarcity is a key reason why 3.5 billion people are projected to live in countries that cannot feed themselves by 2025. Earth’s freshwater ecosystems are critically depleted and being used unsustainably, reported the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, for today’s 6.5 billion population much less for the 9 billion we’ll be by 2050. Extreme droughts, floods, melting glaciers and other water cycle-related effects of global warming are why there’ll likely be 150 million global climate refugees within a decade. Diplomats warn that 21st century conflicts will be fought over water as they were for oil in the 20th.

While many scholars highlighted the central importance of water in relation to their own main fields of study, no one had ever pulled it all together into a comprehensive narrative of water’s role in world history. I thus set out to discover water’s main history lessons, then apply them to help illuminate the stakes and challenges of our new era of scarcity.

Full Story Steven Solomon: Water Is The New Oil.

The Five Best New Search Tools — And How To Use Them (PHOTOS)

It Google’s 2009 Search Event in Mountain View, California, the search giant unveiled a whole new host of terrific new search tools.

But what are they? How do you use them — and why should you? What’s the appeal?

Here’s our guide to five terrific new search features from Google that will change the way you hunt down information, communicate, and interact with your surroundings.

From visual search, to instant translation, you won’t want to miss out on these.

See them in the slideshow below, and vote for your favorite!

Full Story New Google Features: The Five Best New Search Tools — And How To Use Them (PHOTOS).

Pay Czar Caves On AIG Pay, Lifts $500,000 Salary Limit

Just one day after five execs reportedly threatened to jump ship over government-mandated pay cuts, Obama’s “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg is lifting a ban on salaries of over $500,000 per year at the bailed-out insurer AIG.

To put it bluntly, the threats worked.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a group of AIG executives vowed to resign if their pay was cut substantially by Feinberg. (Two of them later retracted the vows.) Today, Bloomberg points to what seems to be an enormous concession by Feinberg. Despite missed dividend payments to the government and nearly $200 billion in taxpayer support, some AIG employees will now be allowed to earn salaries of more than $500,000:

“It’s the equivalent of saying, ‘We’re going home and we’re taking our toys with us,” Frank Glassner, CEO of Veritas Executive Compensation Consultants LLC, said yesterday in an interview. By paying more in salary, AIG is “increasing what may be considered guaranteed pay by bulking up salary.”

Full Story Pay Czar Caves On AIG Pay, Lifts $500,000 Salary Limit.

Knesset passes biometric database bill

Two-year trial period to test database before it becomes mandatory for all Israeli citizens

The Knesset on Monday adopted a bill establishing a biometric database in Israel, which will eventually lead to the replacement of regular identification with electronic IDs. Forty Mks supported the bill, 11 opposed it, and three abstained.

In addition to identification cards and passports, the database will also be designed to hold the fingerprints and visual scans of every citizen of Israel.

Full Story Knesset passes biometric database bill – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Insurance industry insider: ‘We win’

Insurance industry insider: ‘We win’

With the Senate shifting sharply away from a “pure public option,” an insurance industry insider who has been deeply involved in the health care fight emails to declare victory.

“We WIN,” the insider writes. “Administered by private insu

Full Story Insurance industry insider: ‘We win’ – Ben Smith – POLITICO.com.

More Americans believe in angels than humans’ role in global warming | Raw Story

More Americans believe in guardian angels than humans’ role in global warming, according to recent polls.

A Pew poll released late last month found that just 36 percent of Americans believe humans are responsible for accelerating global climate change, which scientists say mushroomed after the industrial revolution due to humans’ dependence on carbon-based fuels.

Carbon dioxide, which is produced by the combustion of oil, coal and other fuels, was ruled a “dangerous” threat to public health by the Environmental Protection Agency Monday. It increases the propensity of the earth’s atmosphere to retain heat.

Full Story More Americans believe in angels than humans’ role in global warming | Raw Story.

Howard Dean Pushes Medicare Buy-In Proposal: It ‘Must Be Available To Americans From Day One’

The Senate is considering expanding the Medicare program to Americans under 65 years of age alongside a public option compromise that would allow the Office of Personnel Management to regulate competition among private nonprofit insurers. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean “injected the buy-in concept back into the negotiations two weeks ago,” Politico reports. And “the turning point in the debate occurred over the past few weeks, as some progressives began to question whether the public option had been watered down too much for it to even be effective. Dean called Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to suggest that they revisit the Medicare buy-in proposal, which he pushed during his 2004 campaign.”

In a statement issued to ThinkProgress, Howard Dean — a longtime proponent of the public health insurance option and co-author of Howard Dean’s Prescription For Health Care Reform — explains why he supports expanding the Medicare program:

Proponents of the public option should be happy to hear that the Senate is considering a provision that would allow Americans to buy into the existing Medicare program. Throughout this debate, advocates of a strong public option have had to repeatedly compromise with lawmakers who continue to protect large for-profit corporations and ignore the well being of their constituents. Allowing younger Americans to buy into Medicare represents the best and possibly final opportunity to truly reform the health care system as a whole.

Full Story Think Progress » Howard Dean Pushes Medicare Buy-In Proposal: It ‘Must Be Available To Americans From Day One’.

Fox Lies Again: poll numbers to claim 120 percent of the public believes scientists falsify global warming data.

Fox fudges poll numbers to claim 120 percent of the public believes scientists falsify global warming data.

Last week, Fox and Friends showed a Rasmussen poll graphic revealing that a whopping 120 percent of the American public believes scientists may be falsifying research to support their own theories on global warming:

Media Matters explains Fox’s fuzzy math:

Well, here’s the Rasmussen poll Fox & Friends cited. They asked respondents: “In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?” According to the poll, 35 percent thought it very likely, 24 percent somewhat likely, 21 percent not very likely, and 5 percent not likely at all (15 percent weren’t sure).

Fox News’ graphics department added together the “very likely” and “somewhat likely” numbers to reach 59 percent, and called that new group “somewhat likely.” Then, for some reason, they threw in the 35 percent “very likely” as their own group, even though they already added that number to the “somewhat likely” percentage. Then they mashed together the “not very likely” and “not likely at all” groups, and threw the 15 percent who were unsure into the waste bin. Voila — 120 percent.

Full Story Think Progress » Fox fudges poll numbers to claim 120 percent of the public believes scientists falsify global warming data..

Watered-down ‘public plan’ emerges in Senate

“It’s one of those kind of things in the middle that doesn’t make everybody very happy but that’s our compromise,” said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a participant in the compromise talks. “It’s something I’m going to probably have to live with.”

Latest compromise bears little resemblance to liberals' original vision

They may still call it a “public plan,” but private insurers — not the government — would offer coverage under a compromise Democrats are considering to win Senate passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

The latest idea bears little resemblance to the original vision outlined by liberals, and embraced by Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign. That called for the government to sell insurance to workers and their families in competition with industry giants like UnitedHealthcare.

But instead of Medicare-for-the-masses, it would be Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser Permanente, albeit with a government seal of approval from the department that handles the health plan for federal employees, including members of Congress. The Office of Personnel Management — OPM — would become an instantly recognizable federal acronym, like FDA and CDC.

Full Story Watered-down ‘public plan’ emerges in Senate – Capitol Hill- msnbc.com.

New Childish Republican Obstruction Tactic: Refusing To Use Their Assigned Cards In Order To Delay Votes

New Childish Republican Obstruction Tactic: Refusing To Use Their Assigned Cards In Order To Delay Votes

In September, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) had noticed Republicans House lawmakers intentionally forgetting or losing their voting cards in order to delay votes. Starting late in the summer, Grayson said he saw 60-70 GOP congressmen engaging in this tactic:

GRAYSON: They’d all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other’s shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That’s how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They’re simply obstructionists and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Yesterday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) delivered an address on unprecedented minority obstruction of reform. ThinkProgress spoke to him afterwards, and the Majority Leader confirmed that even the House parliamentarian had criticized Republicans for this very tactic. Hoyer admonished what he called “such a transparent effort at solely delay”:

Full Story Think Progress » New Childish Republican Obstruction Tactic: Refusing To Use Their Assigned Cards In Order To Delay Votes.

Fitch strips Greece of A-grade credit rating

Spreads between Greek and German government bonds widen

Greece saw its credit ratings downgraded on Tuesday because of the poor state of the country’s public finances.

Fitch Ratings cut Greece’s credit ratings to BBB plus with a negative outlook, a day after rival ratings agency Standard & Poor’s threatened Athens with a downgrade.

Full Story FT.com / Europe – Fitch strips Greece of A-grade credit rating.

Dodge Challenger Beats Toyota Prius in Consumer Reports!

Best and worst in new car owner satisfaction

Our readers love sporty cars, hybrids, and ones that are out of the mainstream. That’s the message from our most recent Annual Auto Survey, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.

This year, the Dodge Challenger, a throwback, V8-powered muscle car, beat out the longstanding Toyota Prius hybrid as the most satisfying car among our readers. Ninety-two percent of Challenger owners said they would definitely buy another one given the same opportunity. That doesn’t mean hybrids have fallen far from grace, however. The second most satisfying car, with 91 percent of respondents saying they would definitely buy another, was the Ford Fusion Hybrid. More sports cars and hybrids round out the top group: the Chevrolet Corvette, Porsche 911, Toyota Prius, and all-wheel drive Acura TL.

Several other fuel-efficient small cars also earned outstanding satisfaction Ratings from their owners: The Volkswagen Jetta TDI (turbodiesel) sedan placed tenth in our rankings, the TDI wagon 13th, Honda Fit 21st, and the Mini Cooper hatchback 22nd.

Full Story Best and worst in new car owner satisfaction: Car owner, auto shopping.

Economic Rave: Jesus on Being Rich

I haven’t read it yet but in his new book Ralph Nader makes real life people like Yoko Ono and Warren Buffett spend their capital on righteous action such as rebuilding after Katrina (something our government has apparently been totally incapable of doing), and thus save the world. Whether or not the super rich have anything like this in mind, it is becoming increasingly clear that in our current circumstances the rich have a very special role to play.

To encourage you super rich humans among us, to not just think about capital creation but about saving the world, I would like to help set some things straight that were said some time in the past by you know who.

Recently someone told me: “water is the currency of nature”. Maybe we can extend that thought somehow: “Currency (money) is the water of human society…..it needs to flow”. When money accumulates in the hands of a few masters, way beyond their ability to consume it or use it productively (like a good Calvinist capitalist would), it gets stale and stagnant and finally toxic. It is at that point of unreality, that investments in paper derivatives upon paper derivatives start sounding like a rational investment…a good idea…. Because so many really rich talk themselves and each other into this delusional condition of market hypnosis, similar to a ponzi scheme, for awhile it seems to work flawlessly. Until the house of cards came tumbling down.

Full Story OpEdNews – Article: Economic Rave: Jesus on Being Rich.

Coffee May Lower Risk of Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Drinking regular or decaffeinated coffee is associated with a reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer, new research suggests.

“Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in prostate cancer,” said Kathryn M. Wilson, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory in Boston.

She and her colleagues found that men who drank the most coffee had a 59% decreased risk of either lethal or advanced prostate cancer compared with men who drank no coffee. The magnitude of risk reduction was more pronounced in men who never smoked; in this group, the biggest coffee consumers had an 89% decreased risk compared with men who did not drink coffee.

Dr. Wilson, who presented study findings at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference in Houston, said caffeine is not the key factor in this association.

Full Story Coffee May Lower Risk of Aggressive Prostate Cancer – Renal and Urology News.

FDA Investigates Radiation Overdoses At Hospitals, Over 260 Patients Affected

Federal health regulators are investigating reports of dangerous radiation levels at two more California hospitals, following earlier unsafe medical scans at a Los Angeles facility.

The Food and Drug Administration is probing the use of CT scans at Glendale Adventist Medical Center and Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. The brain scans are used to diagnose strokes.

FDA officials told reporters Monday that they are investigating at least 10 reports of excessive radiation at Glendale Adventist and an unspecified number of problems at St. Joseph.

A spokeswoman for Glendale Adventist said the problems, first disclosed last month, were related to a specialty scan that involves three different techniques.

Full Story FDA Investigates Radiation Overdoses At Hospitals, Over 260 Patients Affected.

Anatomy Of A Failed Foreclosure Program

Just how badly is President Obama’s $75 billion foreclosure program working out? Consider these newly-released numbers: Out of every 100 homeowners who came to JPMorgan Chase for help under the program, just 15 have or will likely receive a permanent payment reduction.

What happened to the other 85? For every 100 trial plans initiated from April through September 2009 under the Home Affordable Modification Program:

* 29 borrowers did not make all required payments under their trial plan;

* 20 borrowers did not submit all documents required for underwriting;

* 31 borrowers submitted all required documents but the documents did not meet HAMP underwriting standards, due to such things as missing signatures or nonstandard formats;

* 4 borrowers were or are likely to be rejected for undisclosed reasons;

* 1 borrower will not or is not likely to get their payment lowered.

The data comes from the prepared remarks bank officials plan to make Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee. The testimony was posted Monday on the committee’s website.

Full Story Anatomy Of A Failed Foreclosure Program.